Global Research

Introduction

For decades and longer, the United States and Europe lectured and encouraged countries in Latin America, Africa and Asia to welcome and accept foreign investment as the virtuous path to modernization, growth and prosperity.

With few notable exceptions western leaders and academics promoted unlimited flows of capital (and the outflows of profits). No section of the targeted economies was off-limits – agriculture, mining, manufacturers, utilities, transport and communication were to be ‘modernized’ through US and European ownership and control.

Third World leaders, whether generals, bankers or landowners who abided by the ‘open markets’ doctrine and ‘invited’ foreign ownership, were praised, whether they were dictators or elected by hook or crook. Nationalism and nationalists were condemned as restricting the wheels of progress and blocking the March of History.

To be fair, the western regimes encouraged all countries to open their doors to capital flows – but of course only the imperial countries had the capital, technology and political power to do so.

Economists preached the doctrine of specialization in ‘comparative advantage’: the West to invest, profit and dominate markets and the South to accept low wages, junior partnerships and dependent industries.
This system worked very well for the West as long as they were the dominant power and shaped the markets, flows of capital and the terms of exchange.

Nationalist leaders were condemned, sanctioned, ousted and demonized throughout the time of Anglo-American ascendancy.

Through time and efforts, Third World countries followed another path – through revolutions or reforms, through state direction and national entrepreneurs, they invested, innovated, borrowed and transformed their economies. Over time, some like China, began to successfully compete with Western powers for markets, minerals and technology.

Role Reversal: Imperial Washington Denounces China for Colonizing the Economy

As the US Empire failed to out- compete China, not only in overseas markets, but in sectors of the domestic economy, local manufacturers relocated to China and Mexico or went bankrupt or merged or were acquired by foreign capital – notably China.

Nationalism replaced neo-liberalism and globalism among sectors of the ruling class especially among political ideologies grouped around President Trump.

The nationalists forged a national pluto- populist alliance, linking Wall Street, backward sectors of the capitalist class with displaced and under and unemployed workers under the umbrella of ‘protectionist rhetoric’: massive business tax cuts and tariffs, quotas and taxes on European, Asian and North American competitors. Gone were Washington lectures on free markets and the virtues of globalization and multi-lateral trade agreements.

The new protectionism echoed the rhetoric of 18th and 19th century America and the Great Depresion era Smoot- Hawley tariff. Earlier the US claimed tariffs were necessary to protect and foster so-called ‘infant’ industries; twenty-first century protectionism claims it is to protect ‘national security’ from cross oceanic rival (China) and cross border (Canada, Mexico)—- mortal military threats………..

President Trump adopted the ideology of Third World national liberation governments to undermine its— imperial competitors. Washington,s ersatz ‘nationalist’ empire builders were abated by their media allies, who spilled tons of ink attacking ‘imperial’ China’s overseas investments as ‘plundering’ Africa, Latin America and Asia.

Washington projected an image of the US surrounded by enemies everywhere, who were ‘taking advantage’ of their privileged position in order to exploit a ‘weak America’.

President Trump reverted the nationalist slogans of Third World liberation into imperialist calls to “Make Americas Empire Strong”

Third World nationalism is an ideology to create domestic markets and industries in largely agro-mineral economies, through public-private investment and state ownership, oversight, regulation and subsidies.

Nationalism of declining empires is the ideology of authoritarian militarists and fascist regimes which no longer can compete in the market place.

Imperial countries in decline have several options.

1. They can adapt to the new realities by upgrading their economies , reducing overseas military commitments, reallocating budgets and investments and educating their labor force to productive activity.
2. They can form partnerships with emerging competitors via power sharing, innovations, joint ventures and multi-lateral trade agreements.
3. They can engage in trade wars, overseas military conquests or encircle emerging rivals through sanctions, tariffs and protectionist fiats.

Nostalgia for the past ‘glory’ of unipolarity , economic supremacy and unquestioned ideological superiority, is a formula for losing wars and a Hobbesian world of all against the predator.

Conclusion

In the beginning a nationalist-populist revival can stimulate growth as rivals will appease the aggressor; the imperial classes will prosper through lower taxes; the ‘deplorables’ may glory in the rhetoric of nationalism and expectation of ‘great thing are coming’.

But tax gains mean bigger debts; appeaser nations in the face of permanent losses of vital exports will retaliate .. and succumb to the protectionist contagion. Imperial globalists will turn into nationalists.
Nationalist will replace impotent neo-liberal social democrats. Workers will turn to nationalists to recover their lost workplace and neighborhood solidarity; nationalists will exploit downward mobility and appeal to images of past prosperity.

National plutocrats will turn to authoritarians who speak to popular grievances in order to deflect class antagonism.Nationalists will gain a popular audience in the face of a left that avoids , dismisses or rejects the shared values of local communities. Liberal and progressive support of overseas wars which increase the flow of immigrants , alienates the working and middle class taxpayers

The declining empire will not die early.

The nationalist revival can revive imperial ‘last hurrah! The fear and loathing of being colonized is the driving force for the new imperial revival.The lies and hypocrisy accompanying the older imperial claims of conquest in the name of ‘defending western values’ no long works.

A consequential opposition can only emerge if it links class and nationalist appeals to community values and social solidarity.

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This article was first published on GR on July 9, 2018

On Tuesday, July 3, President Hassan Rouhani implicitly threatened to close the strategic Strait of Hormuz and prevent countries from exporting their oil through it if Iran was not allowed to sell its own oil due to US sanctions. Shortly after, the Islamic Republic’s military officials explicitly supported this threat.

“The Americans have claimed they want to completely stop Iran’s oil exports,” Rouhani said at a news conference during his visit to Switzerland. “They don’t understand the meaning of this statement, because [there is no sense] in Iranian oil not being exported, while the [rest of the] region’s oil is exported.”

Though Rouhani refused to clarify his statement when asked about it afterward, the comments were seen as a threat to close the Strait of Hormuz, the gateway for about 25 percent of the world’s total oil exports and for more than 40 percent of the world’s seaborne crude.

“I Kiss Your Hands”

On July 4, General Ghasem Soleimani, commander of Iran’s expeditionary Quds Force, praised Rouhani for his stance.

“I kiss your hand for expressing such wise and timely comments, and I am at your service to implement any policy that serves the Islamic Republic,” he said in a letter to the president.

And Esmail Kowsari, another senior commander of the Revolutionary Guards, was even more explicit.

“If they want to stop Iranian oil exports, we will not allow any oil shipment to pass through the Strait of Hormuz,” he was quoted as saying.

In response to these implicit and explicit threats, Captain Bill Urban, a spokesman for the US military’s Central Command, told the Associated Press on July 4 that the US Navy and regional allies “stand ready to ensure the freedom of navigation and the free flow of commerce wherever international law allows.”

Such threats by Iran are not unprecedented. Whenever tensions with the US have increased, Iranian officials have threatened to close the Strait of Hormuz. It happened prior to nuclear-related sanctions being imposed on Iranian oil, but the dispute was later resolved when the nuclear agreement, officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), was signed.

At that time, General Hassan Firouzabadi, then the Chief of Staff for the Iranian Armed Forces, put forward the possibility of closing the strait and said that the decision rested with the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei as the commander-in-chief. This was during the administration of US President Barack Obama. Now that President Trump has withdrawn the US from the JCPOA and is about to re-impose sanctions on Iranian oil, Islamic Republic officials are renewing their threats — albeit in a milder tone.

The Strait of Hormuz is an international waterway, with Iran on its north and Oman to its south. At its narrowest point,  it is only 50 kilometers wide.

An Illegal Act

If Iran is serious about closing the strait, is the move legal under international law? The simple answer to this question is no.

Based on the international laws of the sea or the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea [PDF], Hormuz is an “international strait” because it is the only gateway between the Persian Gulf and the open sea. In all such straits, all ships have the right of transit and the countries adjacent to the strait must not deny this right of transit and must inform all relevant officials about any danger that might threaten the vessels or planes that travel through the strait. Under international laws and conventions, the right of transit cannot be suspended.

Iranian parliament has not approved the 1982 UN convention, but the Iranian government has signed it and so is thus committed to avoid any action that would violate the convention. However, at the time that Iran signed the convention it announced that it would only recognize the “right of transit passage” for countries that had also joined the convention.

Since the 1980-1998 war between Iran and Iraq, when military clashes occurred in the Persian Gulf and free navigation in the area was threatened, the US Navy has deployed its forces in the Persian Gulf to protect shipping.

Conflicting Interpretations

The United States is not a signatory to the UN convention, and, based on what the government of Iran declared at the time of signing it, Iran does not recognize the “right of transit passage” for the US. However, the US has a different interpretation of the convention and says that the right is now part of the “common law” of international navigation and all countries, including Iran, must abide by it.

From Iran’s viewpoint, the United States benefits from the rights declared in the UN convention without being a member and without having to observe the obligations of its member states. These different interpretations are one of the underlying reasons for recurring tensions in the Persian Gulf between Iran and the United States and their respective navies.

The US insists that its navy is in the Persian Gulf to guarantee freedom of shipping. Even though it has been 30 years since the Iran-Iraq War ended and during these years no hostilities of any significance have occurred in these waters, the US has kept its presence in the Persian Gulf to ward off threats, including threats to close the Strait of Hormuz.

Shipping in the Strait of Hormuz is regulated by the International Maritime Organization (IMO), a UN specialized agency. According to the rules set by the agency, when entering the Persian Gulf, ships must do so by sailing in through the north, meaning through Iranian waters. When leaving the Persian Gulf, they must go through the southern waters next to Oman. In crossing the strait, even submarines are not required to surface to display their flags.

The countries adjacent to a strait must take all actions necessary to facilitate shipping, including navigation services and signals for guiding ships. Of course, they can recoup the expenses through duties. In the case of the Strait of Hormuz, Iran and Oman can set rules for the safety of shipping, fishing and other such activities and declare them publicly, but these rules and regulations cannot violate the “right of transit passage” or discriminate against ships of any country.

So, based on international law, Iran cannot block access to the Persian Gulf through the Strait of Hormuz and suspend or close down the freedom of commerce in those waters.

However, these regulations refer to times of peace. During times of war, other regulations come into effect. If either Iran or Oman is engaged in a war, they have the right to control traffic through the strait and inspect commercial vessels — but even then they cannot block the strait or suspend the “right of transit passage.”

Intentional blocking of the Strait of Hormuz and preventing ships from crossing through it is a serious measure with potential consequences. At its most serious, it could signal the start of armed hostilities in the Persian Gulf.

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Featured image is from the author.

Former FBI Director Robert Mueller has been in the news lately due to his inquiry into Russian alleged interference in the 2016 U.S. elections.

After a 12-year stint leading the Bureau, the longest ever since J. Edgar Hoover, Mueller is now seen by many as an honest man serving the interest of the American public. However, that perception cannot be defended once one knows about Mueller’s past.

What some people don’t know about Mueller is that he has a long history of leading government investigations that were diversions or cover-ups. These include the investigation into the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103, the investigation into the terrorist financing Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI), and the FBI investigations into the crimes of September 11^th, 2001. Today the public is beginning to realize that Mueller’s investigation into Russian alleged collusion with the Trump campaign is a similar diversion.

Mueller’s talents were noticed early in his career at the Justice Department. As a U.S. Attorney in Boston during the mid-80s, he helped falsely convict four men for murders they didn’t commit in order to protect a powerful FBI informant—mobster James “Whitey” Bulger.” According to the Boston Globe,

“Mueller was also in that position while Whitey Bulger was helping the FBI cart off his criminal competitors even as he buried bodies in shallow graves along the Neponset.”

Mueller was then appointed as chief investigator of the 1988 bombing of Pan Am 103 in Scotland. The account Mueller produced was a flimsy story that accused a Libyan named Megrahi of coordinating placement of a suitcase bomb that allegedly traveled unaccompanied through several airports to find its way to the doomed flight. Despite Mueller’s persistent defense of this unbelievable tale, Megrahi was released from prison in 2009 and died three years later in Libya.

With the Pan Am 103 case, Mueller was covering up facts related to some of the of victims of the bombing—a group of U.S. intelligence specialists led by Major Charles McKee of the Defense Intelligence Agency. McKee had gone to Beirut to find and rescue hostages and, while there, learned about CIA involvement in a drug smuggling operation run through an agency project called COREA. As TIME magazine reported, the likely explanation for the bombing, supported by independent intelligence experts, was that U.S. operatives “targeted Flight 103 in order to kill the hostage-rescue team.” This would prevent disclosure of what McKee’s team had learned. That theory was also supported by the fact that the CIA showed up immediately at the scene of the crash, took McKee’s briefcase, and returned it empty.

Mueller’s diversions led to his leadership of the Criminal Division at the U.S. Department of Justice, putting him in charge of investigations regarding BCCI. When Mueller started in that role, members of Congress and the media were already critical of the government’s approach to the BCCI affair. Mueller came into the picture telling the Washington Post that there was an “appearance of, one, foot-dragging; two, perhaps a cover-up.” Later he denied the cover-up claim and the suggestion that the CIA may have collaborated with BCCI operatives.

But again, Mueller was simply brought in to accomplish the cover-up. The facts were that BCCI was used by the CIA to operate outside of the rule of law through funding of terrorists and other criminal operatives. The bank network was at the root of some of the greatest crimes against the public in the last 50 years, including the Savings & Loan scandal, the Iran-Contra affair, and the creation of the al-Qaeda terrorist network.

Mueller was instrumental in obstructing the BCCI investigation led by Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau. During this time, Justice Department prosecutors were instructed not to cooperate with Morgenthau. Describing Mueller’s obstruction of Morgenthau, the Wall Street Journal reported that,

“documents were withheld, and attempts were made to block other federal agencies from cooperating.”

Describing Mueller’s role in the BCCI cover-up more clearly, reporter Chris Floyd wrote:

“When a few prosecutors finally began targeting BCCI’s operations in the late Eighties, President George Herbert Walker Bush boldly moved in with a federal probe directed by Justice Department investigator Robert Mueller. The U.S. Senate later found that the probe had been unaccountably ‘botched’–witnesses went missing, CIA records got ‘lost,’… Lower-ranking prosecutors told of heavy pressure from on high to ‘lay off.’ Most of the big BCCI players went unpunished or, like [Khalib bin] Mahfouz, got off with wrist-slap fines and sanctions. Mueller, of course, wound up as head of the FBI, appointed to the post in July 2001–by George W. Bush.”

Yes, in the summer of 2001, when the new Bush Administration suspected it would soon need a cover-up, Mueller was brought in for the job. Although suspect Louis Freeh was FBI Director in the lead-up to the crimes, Mueller knew enough to keep things under wraps. He also had some interesting ties to other 9/11 suspects like Rudy Giuliani, whose career paralleled Mueller’s closely during the Reagan and first Bush administrations.

Under Mueller, the FBI began the whitewash of 9/11 immediately. Mueller himself lied repeatedly in the direct aftermath with respect to FBI knowledge of the accused hijackers. He claimed that the alleged hijackers left no paper trail, and suggested that they exercised “extraordinary secrecy” and “discipline never broke down.” In fact, “ring leader” Mohamed Atta went to great lengths to draw attention to himself prior to the attacks. Moreover, the evidence the accused men supposedly left behind was obvious and implausibly convenient for the FBI.

Meanwhile, Mueller’s FBI immediately seized control of the investigations at the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and in Shanksville, PA where United Flight 93 was destroyed. Under Mueller, leaders of the Bureau went on to arrest and intimidate witnesses, destroy or withhold evidence, and prevent any independent investigation. With Mueller in the lead, the FBI failed to cooperate with the government investigations into 9/11 and failed miserably to perform basic investigatory tasks. Instead, Mueller celebrated some of the most egregious pre-9/11 failures of the FBI by giving those involved promotions, awards, and cash bonuses.

As FBI whistleblower Coleen Rowley later wrote with regard to 9/11,

“Robert Mueller (and James Comey as deputy attorney general) presided over a cover-up.”

Kristen Breitweiser, one of the four 9/11 widows known as the “Jersey Girls,” stated something similar:

“Mueller and other FBI officials had purposely tried to keep any incriminating information specifically surrounding the Saudis out of the Inquiry’s investigative hands. To repeat, there was a concerted effort by the FBI and the Bush Administration to keep incriminating Saudi evidence out of the Inquiry’s investigation.”

Supporting Breitweiser’s claims, public watchdog agency Judicial Watch emphasized Mueller’s role in the cover-up.

“Though the recently filed court documents reveal Mueller received a briefing about the Sarasota Saudi investigation, the FBI continued to publicly deny it existed and it appears that the lies were approved by Mueller.”

Mueller’s FBI went on to “botch” the investigation into the October 2001 anthrax attacks. As expected, the result was a long series of inexplicable diversions that led nowhere. The anthrax attacks occurred at a time when Mueller himself was warning Americans that another 9/11 could occur at any time (despite his lack of interest in the first one). They also provided the emotional impetus for Americans and Congress to accept the Patriot Act, which had been written prior to 9/11. Exactly why Mueller’s expertise was needed is not yet known but examining the evidence suggests that the anthrax attackers were the same people who planned 9/11.

With knowledge of Mueller’s past, people can see that he is not in the news today to reveal important information about Russia and the Trump Administration. To the contrary, Mueller is in the news to divert attention away from important information and, most likely, to prevent the Trump Administration from being scrutinized in any real way.

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This article was originally published on Dig Within.

This article was first published by Global Research on January 31, 2007.

“On the Holy day of Eid, the world watched in horror at the barbaric lynching of President Saddam Hussein of Iraq, allegedly for crimes against humanity. This public murder was sanctioned by the War Criminals, President Bush and Prime Minister Blair.

The entire trial process was a mockery of justice, no less a Kangaroo Court. Defence counsels were brutally murdered, witnesses threatened and judges removed for being impartial and replaced by puppet judges. Yet, we are told that Iraq was invaded to promote democracy, freedom and justice.”

Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohamad,  Prime Minister of Malaysia, 30 December 2006

The barbaric lynching of Saddam Hussein, the former president of Iraq, was a choreographed event, a carefully staged U.S. sponsored PSYOP, with a view to triggering social divisions and fomenting sectarian violence within Iraq and the broader Middle East.

In its coverage of the execution, the international media, in a highly convoluted fashion, combined the transcript of Saddam Hussein’s execution with “recollections” of so-called witness statements.

Moreover, the transcripts were often presented to readers without context or explanation. More generally, the translations from the Arabic were the object of manipulation and media distortion.

The execution of the Iraqi leader was carefully timed to occur during a sensitive time for Muslims. The execution fell during Eid ul-Adha, a holy day for Muslims. The date of the execution is perhaps one of the most compromising signals that the execution was indeed a psychological operation (PSYOP) launched by the United States.

The execution date was deliberately chosen during a sacred period for Muslims to exploit a divide between Shiite and Sunni. This sacred day was marked on Saturday, December 30, 2007 by Sunni Muslims in Iraq and was observed a day later on Sunday, December 31, 2007 by Iraq’s Shiites.

This is a strategic difference in dates that the execution of Saddam Hussein sought to expose and exploit to create sedition and division between Iraqis and Muslims. The day of the execution was deliberately chosen by its U.S. sponsors to occur on Saturday, December 30, 2006, the day that Sunni Muslims observed Eid ul-Adha.

The execution took place on December 30, with a view to enraging Sunni Muslims against Shiite Muslims in Iraq and the Middle East. Concurrently, both the media and official U.S. statements pointed to the Shiite Muslims (and the so-called “Shiite government”) as being responsible for the execution.

Aside from the religious context, the execution was also illegal under the Iraqi legal code and constitution. This has been articulated by Rizgar Mohammad Amin, an Iraqi Kurd and one of the former judges in the questionable trial of Saddam Hussein.

The execution was carried out, as a psychological weapon, to usher in sectarian violence and division throughout the Middle East. The timing also coincided with several announcements and news reports of war plans by the United States and Israel in regards to Syria and Iran.

It is no coincidence that shortly after the execution the U.S. President identified Syria and Iran as the enemies of Iraq and raided an Iranian Consulate in Iraqi Kurdistan.

The media disinformation campaign pertaining to the execution was coordinated with the instruments of war propaganda emanating from the Pentagon and U.S. intelligence.

In the immediate wake of the execution, the global networks of the corporate media went into full gear to propagate the misinformation that the Pentagon wanted to convey to the general public.

The translated transcripts of Saddam Hussein’s last words, which had been scrupulously manipulated and distorted, were fed into the global news chain.

Presented below is the Global Research translation from the Arabic original audio-video believed to have been recorded on a cell phone. Also presented for purposes of comparison are several other “translations” from the same Arabic original.

Transcript: Our translation from the Arabic original

Background voices, which are very hard to hear, are having a conversation in the background and someone calls someone else in the execution chamber by “Ali” or is looking for “Ali.”

Saddam Hussein: “I testify that Mohammed is the Messenger of God.”

Saddam Hussein: “Oh God.” [saying this in preparation, as is Middle Eastern custom, as the noose is put around his neck]

One voice leads customary Muslim prayer (called a salvat): “May God’s blessings be upon Mohammed and his companions/household [family].”

All Voices, including Saddam Hussein, repeat the customary prayer: “May God’s blessings be upon Mohammed and his companions/household [family].”

A group of voices: “Moqtada…Moqtada …Moqtada.” [Meaning the young Shiite cleric Moqtada Al-Sadr] …

Saddam with amusement: “Moqtada…Moqtada! Do you consider this bravery?” [This can also be translated as meaning “Is this your manhood?”]

Several individuals say several times: “To Hell [hell-fire]!” [This can be translated as “Go to Hell!”]

Saddam Hussein mockingly replies/asks: “To the hell that is Iraq!?”

Others voices: “Long live Mohammed Baqir Al-Sadr.”

Single Voice: “Please do not [stop]. The man is being executed. Please no, please stop.”

Saddam Hussein starts recitation of final Muslim prayers: “I bear witness that there is no god but God and I testify that Mohammed is the Messenger of God. I bear witness that there is no god but God and I testify that Mohammed…” [Saddam Hussein is suddenly interrupted without finishing his prayer with the opening of the trap door.]

Several Voices: “The tyrant [dictator] has collapsed!”

Other voices: “May God’s blessings be upon Mohammed and his household (family).”

Single Voice: “Let him hang for eight minutes.”

Many conversations continue in the background about Saddam Hussein.

Note on the Original Video

The Global Research translation is based on an Arabic video. The release of this video was in all likelihood part of the U.S. sponsored intelligence operation. The video was allegedly taken from a cell phone camera belonging to one of the executioners. Viewer discretion is advised; the video is gruesome and upsetting in nature and does not resemble a state-run execution. To view click here

Corporate Media Translations

Below are several transcripts of translations. Some of these transcripts demonstrate a major deviation from the original (Arabic) word by word dialogue. A look at the CNN or BBC versions of the video clearly reveals a deliberate attempt to distort Saddam Hussein’s statements and portray the Shiite Muslims of Iraq as those behind the Iraqi leaders hanging in Baghdad.

The corporate media’s translations add or interject what was reportedly said by Saddam Hussein to what was recorded.

Fox News

The Fox News transcript fails to even give a glimpse of Saddam Hussein’s last words. It only gives an ominously detailed translation of the start of the video. One should ask is there a reason why the full transcript was not given and why this partial transcript was portrayed as the transcript of the execution in its entirety.

Fox News Transcript

A new videotape surfaced Monday on the Web appearing to show the body of former Iraqi strongman Saddam Hussein after he was hanged on Dec. 30, 2006. This is the translation of the audio conversation on that 27-second video among individuals with access to the body and someone apparently using a cell phone camera:

(Inaudible)— Abu Ali

Hurry up! Hurry up!

— Hurry up!

(Inaudible)

— Let’s go my friend…Come on man!

I’ll fix it up for you.

— I am coming. I am coming.

— Just a moment, one moment

— I am coming. I am coming.

— Abu Ali, Abu Ali… You take care of this.

— Ok let’s go, let’s go

— Come on my friend! Come on my friend!

Ok, I am coming. I am coming.

BBC Transcript

The BBC’s transcript fails also to give a glimpse of Saddam Hussein’s last words, besides painting the executioners as savage Shiites. Nor does the BBC report acknowledge Washington’s role in ordering this execution.

Moreover, Saddam Hussein’s last words about Iraq being turned into a living Hell are conveniently omitted. The BBC transcript also uses phrases that portray the executioners as Shiites. This is done by the chosen reference in the phrase referring to Prophet Mohammed’s family and the statement “And may God hasten their appearance and curse their enemies,” which is a reference to Imam Mahdi, a Muslim figure, that Shiite Muslims’ distinctly place special emphasis on in regards to most Sunni Muslims.

British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) Transcript

Translation of Arabic subtitles accompanying the latest execution footage as broadcast on al-Jazeera TV station:

[Saddam] Oh God.

[Voices] May God’s blessings be upon Muhammad and his household.

[Voices] And may God hasten their appearance and curse their enemies.

[Voices] Moqtada [Al-Sadr]…Moqtada…Moqtada.

[Saddam] Do you consider this bravery?

[Voice] Long live Muhammad Baqir al-Sadr.

[Voice] To hell.

[Voice] Please do not. The man is being executed. Please no, I beg you to stop.

[Saddam] There is no God but Allah and I testify that Muhammad is the messenger of God. There is no God but Allah and I testify that Muhammad…

At this point the video stops and the sound of the trapdoors opening is heard in the background.

The Independent (U.K.)

The Independent, a British daily, that gives a fairly progressive view on international events seems to have also carried a version of the translation of the transcript of the execution of Saddam Hussein that has omitted Saddam Hussein’s last words indicating that Iraq has been turned into a “Hell on earth.”

The Independent (U.K.) Transcript: Dictator’s last words

Saddam: “Oh God.”

Voices: “May God’s blessings be upon Mohamed and his household. And may God hasten their appearance and curse their enemies.”

Voices: “Moqtada [al-Sadr] … Moqtada … Moqtada.”

Saddam: “Do you consider this bravery?”

Voice: “Long live Muhammad Baqir al-Sadr.”

Voice: “To hell.”

Voice: “Please do not. The man is being executed. Please no, I beg you to stop.”

Saddam: “There is no God but Allah and I testify that Mohamed is the messenger of God. There is no God but Allah and I testify that Mohamed…”

Analysis and Implications

Internationally and especially in the Arab World and the Middle East, the barbaric lynching was casually presented as a Shiite Muslim initiative, when in fact the Anglo-American occupation forces were in control of every phase of this gruesome venture.

Ironically, the individuals and leaders who played a major role in ordering the lynching of Saddam Hussein are now saying quite emphatically that they were opposed to his execution. Prime Minister Tony Blair is reported to have stated that “the manner in which former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein was executed was ‘completely wrong.’”

Meanwhile, the dictators and autocratic leaders of the Arab World have also jumped aboard in expressing their opposition to Saddam Hussein’s lynching.

Criticism expressed by the House of Saud in Saudi Arabia, the Hashemite family in Jordan, and President Mubarak of Egypt, amongst others, constitutes an empty form of posturing geared towards raising their popularity amongst their own citizens.

The Role of the Iraqi Puppet Government

In these various reports, there has been a deliberate and calculated attempt to place the responsibility for the execution of Saddam Hussein squarely on the shoulders of the so-called “Iraqi government,” without acknowledging that this government cannot act without the consent of the United States. The Iraqi government, which is best described as a U.S.-controlled puppet regime, is invariably portrayed in press reports as a “Shiite Muslim government” or a “Shiite Muslim-dominated government.” This is also an integral part of the U.S. PSYOP designed to break down solidarity between Shiite Muslims and Sunni Muslims against the Anglo-American invaders and occupiers.

The present Iraqi “government” is an appendix of the U.S. Occupation administration and gets it orders from Washington and London. It is neither Shiite Muslim in character nor is it a real government. With regards to its powerless composition, it is almost evenly divided between Iraqi Kurds, Shiite Arabs, and Sunni (Sunnite) Arabs.

To expose the manufactured portrayal of power in Iraq, one should look back at the composition of Iraqi government institutions during the era of Saddam Hussein. Prior to the 2003 invasion of Iraq, Shiite Arabs had a greater representation than Sunni Arabs within the civilian bureaucracy as well as within the security and military apparatus, largely because of the demographic realities of Iraq.

But this fact has long been forgotten. Nothing has changed in regards to the composition of the bureaucracy, administrative bodies, security forces, and military apparatus of Iraq. Prior to the Anglo-American invasion of Iraq, about 60% of the Iraqi military were Shiite Arabs. This 60% fought against neighbouring Iran which is a predominantly Shiite Muslim nation.

In reality, the real divisions in the Middle East are not based on or around religious, sectarian, and ethnic considerations, but on those nations and forces, which either oppose or support the Anglo-American agenda in the Middle East.

The media focus on sectarian divisions is intended to divert the attention of public opinion from the fact that the U.S. and its Coalition partners are the root cause of anarchy and violence, resulting in countless deaths and atrocities in Iraq.

Saddam Hussein’s Last Moments

In his last moments, the words of Saddam Hussein were very compelling. When he was told to “go to Hell” by his executioners, the Iraqi leader replied, “[You mean] to the hell that is Iraq!?”

Who turned Iraq into a living Hell? Who is to be blamed? These words were so powerful that several major media outlets conveniently omitted them from their translations, including the BBC and CNN. Any meaningful revelation or coverage of the correct final statements of Saddam Hussein could have severe and negative implications for the Anglo-American military roadmap in the Middle East. “To the hell that is Iraq!?” could become a powerful political slogan, serving to rally public opinion throughout the Muslim World against America’s imperial ambitions.

The Iraqi leader’s final words carry great weight because they describe the situation created in Iraq under military occupation. This final statement could also have political ramifications in the U.S. and Britain, as public opinion becomes increasingly aware that these last words, “the living Hell,” describes what Iraq has been turned into, under U.S. and British military occupation.

The late Saddam Hussein’s words could have strong implications for rallying resistance in the Arab World against the U.S.-U.K. occupation of Iraq. In this regard, the Arab mainstream media has played a calculated role in furthering the Anglo-American military agenda by shifting the blame for Saddam Hussein’s execution onto the Shiite Iraqis.
Outside the Arab World, if allowed to be heard freely and unadulterated, Saddam Hussein’s last words (“To the hell that is Iraq!?”), which describe the realities of an occupied country, could potentially backlash on the legitimacy of the U.S. administration and its indefectible British ally.

The mainstream sources, which reported his statement conveyed the impression, through a highly distorted and convoluted analysis, that Saddam Hussein was blaming the Shiite Arabs and the “Shiite dominated Iraqi government” for destroying Iraq. But nothing could be further from the truth. The evidence amply confirms that since the early days of the occupation of Iraq the United States and Britain have not only created a situation of insecurity, but have also been involved in covert acts of violence, including random massacres and suicide attacks directed against civilians.

This deliberate media portrayal of an emerging “Shiite ascension” in Iraq and the Middle East is part of a multifaceted strategy geared towards creating tensions within the predominately Muslim populations of the Middle East. It is a typical “divide and conquer” strategy, which is supported by the long tentacles of the intelligence apparatus of the United States. The hidden agenda is to trigger “civil war” and to redraw the map of the Middle East. The ultimate objective is the domination of the Middle East by the United States, Britain and their coalition partners, including Israel and proxy Arab leaders. The active collaboration of the frontline Arab governments, which have military cooperation agreements with NATO and the U.S., are also tied into this agenda.

Divisions and animosity within their respective populations is what has allowed these pro-U.S. Arab authoritarian figureheads, which increasingly act as proxies, to remain in power.

Since the Anglo-American sponsored Israeli siege of Lebanon, the coalition building phase of the military roadmap has been launch. The United States has been constructing the “Coalition of the Moderate,” which includes Israel, Saudi Arabia, Mahmoud Abbas, the Lebanese government, Egypt, the U.A.E., Turkey, and Jordan. While this has been going on there is a continuous attempt to build public consensus in support of dividing Iraq and military strikes against Syria and Iran. The media in North America, Europe, and the Arab World have played an important role in demonizing the Syrians and the Iranians.

As the United States gears up for the next stage of the Middle East war, the drive to divide the populations of the region now encompasses a broad area extending from Lebanon and Palestine to the Persian Gulf.

The life of Saddam Hussein was used by the United States as firewood to further fuel discord and division in Iraq and the Middle East before the next phase of its military roadmap, which is directed against Iran and Syria.

Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya is a writer based in Ottawa specializing in Middle Eastern affairs. He is a Research Associate of the Center for Research on Globalization (CRG). 

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Long before Donald Trump’s malignant narcissism plunged the United States and the world into a hall of mirrors, thought leaders like Christopher Lasch warned about an emerging psychic assault on humanity and a breakdown of culture. 

Most of the population had been reduced to incompetence by professional elites, Lasch charged in a controversial book, The Culture of Narcissism, while the family was simultaneously being undermined by advanced capitalism. The personality itself was under attack, he argued, by bureaucracy, a therapeutic culture, and “the domination of our whole experience by fabricated images.”

As Michiko Kakutani explains in a new book, The Death of Truth: Notes on Falsehood in the Age of Trump, Lasch was ahead of his time in defining narcissism as a “defensive reaction to social change and instability.” A cynical “ethic of self-preservation and psychic survival” afflicted the nation, Lasch believed. It was the symptom of a country grappling with defeat in Vietnam, growing pessimism, a media culture centered on fame and celebrity, and “centrifugal forces that were shrinking the role families played in the transmission of culture.”

In 1979, shortly before Lasch helped President Jimmy Carter write his memorable, televised “malaise” speech (Carter didn’t actually use the word), I taped and published an interview with the historian about his analysis of contemporary society. “It’s almost as if we can’t experience things directly anymore,” he explained, more than a decade before the Internet went public.

“Something only becomes real when it’s recorded in the form of a photographic image, a recording of the human voice, or whatever. The result is that our whole perception is colored, and I think it has a mirror-like effect. People find it difficult to establish a sense of self unless it’s reflected back in the reaction of others or in the form of images.”

In The Culture of Narcissism, Lasch had extended the word’s definition to include “dependence on the vicarious warmth provided by others combined with a fear of dependence, a sense of inner emptiness, boundless repressed rage, and unsatisfied oral cravings.” He also added secondary traits like “pseudo self-insight, calculated seductiveness, nervous self-deprecating humor… intense fear of old age and death, altered sense of time, fascination with celebrity, fear of competition, decline of play spirit, deteriorating relations between men and women.”

Even more disturbing, he asserted that the narcissistic personality was ideally suited for positions of power, a callous, superficial climber who sells him or herself to win at any price.

Today, all of this rings like a prediction about the shape of political leaders to come.

Since Lasch also argued that capitalism was part of the problem, specifically by turning the selling of oneself into a form of work, I asked him to explain. “Capitalism take bureaucratic form,” he said. “Advancement and success depends upon the ability to project one’s personality and to project a winning image, rather than competence in any given job. Your own personality becomes the principal resource to be marketed.” Almost 40 years on, this sounds very much like the Trump-ist mindset.

Mass media were largely responsible, Lasch said, since they create both a sense of “chronic tension” and a “cynical detachment” from reality. And it wasn’t just the advertisements. “By treating everything as parody, a lot of TV shows reflect the same distancing techniques,” he explained. “Everything is a put-on, a take-off. And nothing is to be taken altogether seriously. We now have a whole genre that parodies other popular forms, creating a kind of endless hall of mirrors effect. It becomes very difficult to distinguish reality from images. Finally, the distinction collapses altogether.”

Somewhat depressed by this diagnosis, I tried to refocus on the bright side by asking about the difference between the debilitating detachment he had described and a more healthy skepticism.

“A person could even experience both reactions at different times,” Lasch replied. “This raises a very important political question too, because the thrust of institutions might have a very healthy political effect in reducing people’s dependence on big organizations, making people more willing to solve their own problems. But, on the other hand, it has so far expressed itself as a crippling cynicism in the whole political process: no change is possible at all, and all politicians are corrupt.”

Worse yet, he asserted that the modern American family promoted the development of narcissistic people. Many mothers are no longer confident of their ability to raise children, he said, and many fathers no longer have work that provides an example to follow. “The atrophy of older traditions of self-help has eroded everyday competence in one area after another and has made the individual dependent on the state, the corporation, and other bureaucracies. Narcissism represents the psychological dimension of this dependence.”

Popular culture feeds as a parasite on the narcissist’s primitive fantasies, Lasch continued. It encourages delusions of omnipotence while at the same time affirming feelings of dependence and blocking the expression of strong emotion. The bland and empty disco-supermarket-mall-mellow facade of mass existence can be overwhelming. Yet within people there was also enormous anger for which bureaucratic society provided few outlets.

Lasch was expressing harsh and then-contrarian views, some that liberals, conservatives, and even radicals hesitated to embrace at the time. For example, he believed that American society was fast approaching a point of moral dissolution, but charged that both the “welfare state” and permissiveness were among the causes of the impending collapse. At the same time, he saw hope in the potential for resistance among working people who retained religious, family, and neighborhood roots.

One of his targets was the “awareness” movement. In that regard, when I asked what Lasch thought about Erhard Seminars Training (Est), an extension of the human potential movement, he offered that it did have some appeal as an “antidote” to narcissism. Yet his reason was chilling. “It entails a certain amount of arbitrary discipline, a kind of submission to authority that you find in some religious cults, too,” he said. “People who lack meaning and structure are likely to turn to some sort of authoritarian solution.”

In view of this, I wondered where he thought the necessary vision for change would come from. “There is more resistance among people who really don’t have much stake in the present economic system, people who are victimized by it,” he replied. “Their working environment is not invaded by bureaucracy in the same way. And the second thing is that they have some cultural resources, like religion, that help to counteract this. Of course, all these things are often sneered at as evidence of the backward mentality of American workers. We’re going to have to view that in a much more positive light.

“One of the problems I see is an erosion of any sense of moral responsibility. That’s closely linked to the loss of competence. And religion is one impulse that helps to keep alive the sense that people are responsible for what they do. It represents a sort of moral realism that is very important now.”

But the family, church, neighborhoods and institutions were all under assault, Lasch warned. And, although somewhat skeptical about what he viewed as a gradual shift toward state socialism, he acknowledged that “the state is going to have to play a larger role,” particularly in areas like energy and resource allocation.

On the other hand, he also foresaw a risk that turned out to be all too real: that an expansion of the state’s role, combined with exploitation of reactionary tendencies in the family and church, could spark the authoritarian surge he feared.

Originally published on gregguma.blogspot.com

Feature image: Cover graphic from Vermont Vanguard Press, June 12, 1979, with Publisher Steve Brown as model.

The rate of global species extinction is today roughly what it was 66 million years ago, after an asteroid six to nine miles across careered into south-eastern Mexico, quickly wiping out the dinosaurs and much else. The force of the asteroid, which struck the planet at the end of the Cretaceous period, was over a billion times stronger than the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945.

Now, the human species is approaching the destructive equivalent of this asteroid. Due to expanding human activity, scientists estimate that each day extinction is being inflicted upon 150 to 200 species of plant, insect, bird and mammal.

The earth has indeed not witnessed the current level of extermination in over 65 million years, when 75% or more of all species were wiped out. Except for adaptable creatures such as leatherback sea turtles, crocodiles and sharks, no animal weighing more than 25 kilograms (55 lbs) survived the asteroid’s legacy. Its collision resulted in the global extinction phenomenon of “impact winter” whereby, upon hitting Mexico, enormous volumes of sulfur, ash and dust rose into the stratosphere, spreading globally and blocking out most sunlight. It is a similar consequence expected to that of nuclear war, something humans have been very fortunate to avoid so far.

Unfortunately, the “dinosaur asteroid” struck a vulnerable area, the shallow waters of Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula, which greatly exacerbated its impact. Global temperatures decreased by as much as 47 degrees Fahrenheit (26 Celsius) which halted photosynthesis, the critical process that all plants and other organisms such as plankton depend on. It was a death knell for species across the spectrum. Even the seemingly invulnerable apex predator Tyrannosaurus rex – which was present in what is today the western United States – was doomed within years because of the disappearance of its plant-eating prey, including the Triceratops.

It is revealing that the human race is now rivaling this onslaught. By doing so, humans are placing themselves at peril as they eliminate the environment upon which they rely on to survive. Much of the blame for the increasingly harmful effects can be laid at the door of the world’s rich states, many of which are located in the West such as the US, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Switzerland, Germany, Belgium, etc.

The human assaults upon the earth have sharply risen in intensity over the past 40 years – as the deadly era of corporate neoliberalism, aided by compromised governments and media, pushes countless species over the edge. The wealthy nations most responsible for the crisis have wrought a new geological age upon the globe, the Anthropocene, which can be traced to the Industrial Revolution beginning in Great Britain in 1760.

The Anthropocene is the era in which humans are overwhelmingly impacting the climate and environment. The most serious outcome of this global assault is climate change, which is rapidly worsening while reducing to derision conservative and pseudo-scientific forecasts. Should current government policies continue, it bodes ill for the condition of the world by the year 2100. Based on current trends a recent study from the medical journal, Lancet Planetary Health, reveals that 80 years from now 150,000 people in Europe are expected to perish annually due to heat waves.

Despite the threats, in which climate change and nuclear weapons cast a shadow over everything, there is barely a word of warning coming from establishment circles. For many months, front page news has been focused on the nonsense of “Russian meddling” in the US election and “Brexit negotiations” – while subjects that define the earth go unmentioned or cast to the shadows.

Over the previous four decades governments, mainstream media and television networks have surrendered to the growing power of financial institutions – whereby the public has little input in the information they receive. One need only open a major newspaper today to find 20-page supplements dedicated to business or property, while a fraction of that is afforded to world news events.

The situation is further exacerbated by the ongoing decline of intellectual culture in the West. Influenced by abundant commercial propaganda, large sections of first world populations have been diverted towards superficial consumerism, distracted by the latest technology and other fabricated wants. Traditional, and important activities, such as the reading of books and other literature has become a rarer sight. In March 2018, it was reported that one in four Americans had not read a single book within the past year. This has been a continuing trend across the West and is already having serious implications, leading to the “decline of the public intellectual”.

Meanwhile, also high on the rich list of culpable states are the oil nations of Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates, all backed by the West despite having dire human rights records. In one of the great ironies, should the reliance on lethal fossil fuels like oil continue, states like Saudi Arabia and Qatar will become desolate wastelands in years to come. Its citizens are already suffering unduly from the very substance their countries’ elites have grown affluent on.

Saudi Arabia, the world’s largest exporter of oil, is forecast to expect a three to five degree Celsius rise in temperature by the end of this century, making an already sweltering country virtually uninhabitable for humans and much else. Last summer in Saudi Arabia, record temperatures of 127 degrees Fahrenheit (53 Celsius) were recorded in central and eastern parts of the country.

All of the above states have grown rich by their continued plundering of natural resources, therefore increasing the responsibility they now bear to the planet. In another great irony, leading the way in protecting the world are the so-called “primitive” indigenous populations, who seek to preserve habitats by keeping fossil fuels like oil in the ground, where it belongs, and protecting rainforests.

For the past five centuries, the Anglo-Saxon and other European races have exploited continents such as Africa and the Americas, acquiring riches at the expense of others. Today, one can witness the horrendous behavior of the far-right Italian government – which refuses to accept migrants from African countries that Benito Mussolini invaded in the 1930s and 1940s, such as Tunisia, Egypt and Ethiopia. Following Fascist Italy’s attack on Ethiopia in 1935, Mussolini’s forces killed tens of thousands of its inhabitants, yet an Ethiopian immigrant is now barred entry to Italy.

In the US, Donald Trump’s administration is rejecting people fleeing from Central America – migrants departing countries such as El Salvador and Guatemala, which have not recovered from the Ronald Reagan-backed invasions of the 1980s. Nor are many from Honduras now allowed citizenship in America. This despite a 2009 US-supported coup which helped turn Honduras into one of the poorest and most violent countries in the world. Hondurans are also suffering due to worsening climate change, despite hardly contributing to the problem; the US is further accountable as it produces the second highest greenhouse gas emissions on earth.

Ireland, a crucial ally and outpost of American corporate power, has also become a major culprit in regard to climate change – having long had among the worst climate records on the European continent. With a population well below 10 million, Ireland emits more carbon emissions than 400 million of the planet’s poorest inhabitants, which is over 5% of the entire human population. The disreputable behavior of Irish governments, in their attempts to shift climate responsibility onto others, has largely been shielded from public eyes by establishment centers.

However, some light has been cast on the dark workings of power by Ireland’s chief climatologist, John Sweeney, one of the few critical voices heard coming from the abyss of silence. Sweeney wrote recently that Irish government figures were “begging for concessions on every available front at EU negotiations for the period 2020-2030… The reason for this unseemly performance is that the people of Ireland have lost political control of climate change policy to powerful vested interest groups. Our negotiating position is determined not by the needs of our children and grandchildren, but by the short term needs of those who can exert most influence”.

Sweeney, emeritus professor of geography at Maynooth University, has accused the state’s politicians of “freeloading on the efforts of others”, calling Ireland “a delinquent country” for failing to reduce its carbon emissions which are actually rising. The pattern can be seen elsewhere. In the case of America, most senior Republican Party members deny that climate change is even occurring – while they pursue policies such as ongoing extraction of oil and coal that quickens the race to the precipice.

American politicians may ridicule climate change in public, with Trump himself describing it as “a hoax”, but whether they do so in private is another matter. There is ample evidence to suggest the American president believes that climate change is taking place. For instance, why was Trump so insistent that a large wall be built to protect his golf resort on the west coastline of Ireland? Because of deteriorating climate change, the area is clearly vulnerable to rising sea levels and worsening Atlantic storms, as Trump was very likely informed. His proposal for the 38,000 ton wall was approved last December despite serious environmental objections.

As can be seen again, the corporate ideology is based on attaining short-term profits (“jobs”) at whatever the cost, even if it results in unremitting harm to the planet.

The past few weeks have been busy with events that have had a powerful impact on the security of the world, and key roles in those incidents have been played by the US and directly by the US president. Those events were accompanied by rumors, gossip, analytical deliberations, and presumptions.  There were various expectations leading up to the NATO summit in Brussels and the meeting between presidents Putin and Trump in Helsinki. Their consequences generated a flood of declarations and discussions.  Let’s try to spotlight some of the most important moments from these events.

Take a tiny example from the July 11 Brussels Declaration on Transatlantic Security and Solidarity Issues, which states that NATO poses no threat to any country.  If that’s the case, then how should one interpret NATO’s bombing of Yugoslavia in 1999 and Operation Odyssey Dawn against Libya in 2011? Were the governments of these countries really not issued aggressive warnings? If NATO was not threatening the countries themselves, then it is obvious that those threats were being addressed to the nations, states, and governments, as was the case in the two instances cited. And a threat does not need to involve the use of force; just the demonstration of that force — or a declaration of intent (such as announcing the admission of Macedonia, Georgia, Moldova, and Serbia into NATO) — is enough for it to count as serious intimidation.

We all know about the aftermath of the NATO campaigns — Serbia is still experiencing problems with fragments of ammunition that contain depleted uranium, and the disintegration in Libya has released a flood of migrants, in which true refugees are mingled with radical extremists from not only that nation, but also from neighboring countries. This is because under Gaddafi, Libya acted as a deterrent that ensured not only the security of North Africa, but of several of the states listed below as well.  Oh, and speaking about security — in his concluding remarks, Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, stated “Our Alliance guarantees our security, our freedom, and the values ​​we share.” However, the many terrorist attacks that have occurred in Europe in recent years cast some doubt on that assertion. In addition to those attacks, there is also an inability to cope with natural disasters — as evidenced by the recent fires in Greece, which claimed many lives. An apologist for NATO might respond that that sort of thing is not a high priority for the alliance, but security in Europe as a whole is understood to very much consist of caring for and protecting its citizens, regardless of what threatens them — be that extremist groups or the power of nature.  But NATO would prefer to talk about the nonexistent, mythical threat emanating from Russia.

Yet the strangest thing was Stoltenberg’s statement: “Because NATO is good for Europe. And it is good for North America … In short, NATO is a force multiplier for the US.”

On one hand, this can be perceived as kissing up to the US — “please don’t abandon us, we will still serve you.” But on the other, it clearly shows how NATO is a tool for Washington’s policy. So then, what is the point of this force multiplier that is stationed in Europe?  Here you have an artifact left from the Cold War. Even though when it comes to technology, NATO can be a bit underwhelming (as was demonstrated by the latest NATO exercises, after which it was acknowledged that although in a hypothesized war with Russia, the NATO countries are destined for defeat because of logistical problems, bureaucratic management, the peculiarities of the structure of that alliance, and its methods of warfare), it is still trying to justify the reason for its existence. But the realities of life changed long ago.

NATO just can’t bear to let go of its favorite subject. Former Swedish Prime Minister and CIA agent Carl Bildt wrote in a July 21 article, titled “The End of NATO,” that

“[t]he problem is that while NATO’s military capacity is actually improving, its political decision-making capacity is deteriorating. Imagine what would happen if a NATO member state sounded the alarm about Russia launching a secretive Crimea-style military operation within its borders. Then, imagine that US intelligence agencies confirmed that an act of aggression was indeed underway, despite Putin’s denials.

“Finally, imagine how Trump might respond. Would he call Putin to ask what’s going on? And would Putin make another ‘incredible offer’ to help US investigators get to the bottom of things? Even more to the point: Would Trump quickly invoke the principle of collective defence under Article 5 of the NATO treaty? Or would he hesitate, question the intelligence, belittle US allies, and validate Putin’s denials?”

Like many Western politicians, Carl Bildt forgot to mention that a referendum was held in Crimea, during which the residents of the peninsula decided their own fate.

Then again, such public figures often have very predictable opinions, since they need to continue cultivating the role and status they assumed previously.

After the Helsinki meeting we saw an interesting reaction to Donald Trump’s behavior, which forced him to disavow his own words after his return to the United States.  This can be interpreted as not only a consequence of the pressure that he experienced from his opponents and the radicals in the Republican Party, but also the fruits of his own personal qualities, which include unpredictability, added to the ineptitude of the US president. If Donald Trump does not keep his word, this undermines confidence in him. And since he is the president of the United States, this undermines the credibility of the country and its people as a whole. Therefore, the aggressive attacks launched by the Democrats, although those were intended as a measure to discredit Donald Trump, will ultimately come back to haunt them, once they themselves end up being blamed for the deteriorating sympathies toward the Democrats and the US on the part of America’s allies and partners — not to mention its competitors.

The adjunct professor of political science at Wilkes University and author of several books on geopolitics, Francis P. Sempa, noted another twist to the meeting in Helsinki, which he simply called “the return of Nixonian geopolitics.” He writes that “[t]he United States should mix engagement and containment to maintain closer relations with Russia and China than either power has with the other. Yes, Putin is a ruthless dictator, but he is no more ruthless (and much less murderous) than Mao Zedong was when Nixon launched the opening to China. At the time of the opening to China, Nixon was criticized by both the Left and the Right for conducting amoral foreign policy.” Therefore Trump has to fix Bush’s and Obama’s mistakes, as a result of which Russia and China have built up and launched various initiatives, such as One Belt, One Road, and China has also become active in the South China Sea.  Although the Eurasian Economic Union is not explicitly mentioned, Francis P. Sempa clearly has it in mind. But Nixon had Kissinger, and Trump’s Pompeo hardly seems up to dealing with such a task.

A few of Donald Trump’s other recent tweets that have sparked a vigorous public outcry are worth noting. The first concerns Montenegro, which, in Trump’s opinion, is capable of triggering a Third World War, due to the aggressive nature of the Montenegrins.  And this again gave rise to speculation about the existence of NATO, the apportioning of the responsibility for defense within the alliance, and the percentage of GDP that should be allocated for defense. And his second tweet shifted the spotlight back toward Iran.

Did Trump listen carefully to the statements made by the leaders of the Islamic Republic of Iran?  Why are we not hearing indignation from him about the proclamations made by the Supreme Leader of Iran, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei?  He has far more harshly critical things to say about Washington, which in Iran is simply known as “The Great Satan.”

The promises made to Israel, the relocation of the embassy to Jerusalem, and the ties to the Israeli lobby through his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, all make it clear that there is a consistent policy behind his proclamations about Iran. So in this context, should they be taken seriously?  After all, Rouhani has never once threatened the US. Or did his statement about the possibility of resurrecting the Iranian nuclear program upset Trump that much?  But from a geopolitical perspective, Iran does not represent an existential threat to the US — that is evident from the glaringly obvious fact of geography and any comparison of the two nations’ military strength.

We haven’t heard so much about the threats from China and North Korea in the general buzz of information, but no one has forgotten about Russia.  The hackers in Moscow who have for so long been such a popular topic of conversation among the spokesmen for certain US political forces and media (although without any evidence that has ever been presented) are now again allegedly acting up like the hooligans they are — this time by hacking into the electrical grids. At the same time, serious debates are being conducted about the readiness of the voting systems and the various sectors of the US economy that are in any way tied to the Internet.  Everywhere the experts are claiming to be cash-strapped.  Such “coincidences” lead one to the obvious conclusions.

The president has criticized Federal Reserve policy for undermining his attempts to build the economy. The best way to make the central bank serve the needs of the economy is to make it a public utility.

For nearly half a century, presidents have refrained from criticizing the “independent” Federal Reserve; but that was before Donald Trump. In response to a question about Fed interest rate policy in a CNBC interview on July 19, 2018, he shocked commentators by stating,

“I’m not thrilled. Because we go up and every time you go up they want to raise rates again. . . . I am not happy about it. . . . I don’t like all of this work that we’re putting into the economy and then I see rates going up.”

He acknowledged the central bank’s independence, but the point was made: the Fed was hurting the economy with its “Quantitative Tightening” policies and needed to watch its step.

In commentary on CNBC.com, Richard Bove contended that the president was positioning himself to take control of the Federal Reserve. Bove said Trump will do it

“both because he can and because his broader policies argue that he should do so. . . . By raising interest rates and stopping the growth in the money supply [the Fed] stands in the way of further growth in the American economy.”

Bove noted that in the second quarter of 2018, the growth in the money supply (M2) was zero. Why? He blamed “the tightest monetary policy since Paul Volcker, whose policies in the mid-1980s led to back-to-back recessions.” The Fed has raised interest rates seven times, with five more scheduled, while it is shrinking its balance sheet by $40 billion per month, soon to be $50 billion per month.

How could the president take control? Bove explained:

The Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve is required to have seven members. It has three. Two of the current governors were put into their position by President Trump. Two more have been nominated by the president and are awaiting confirmation by the Senate. After these two are put on the Fed’s board, the president will then nominate two more to follow them. In essence, it is possible that six of the seven Board members will be put in place by Trump.

Those seven, along with five federal district bank presidents, compose the Federal Open Market Committee, which sets monetary policy; and one of those district bank presidents, Minnesota Fed head Neel Kashkari, is already arguing against further rate increases. Bove concluded:

The president can and will take control of the Fed. It may be recalled when the law was written creating the Federal Reserve the secretary of the Treasury was designated as the head of the Federal Reserve. We are going to return to that era.

Returning the Fed to Treasury control, however, means more than appointing new Board members. It means “nationalizing” the central bank, making it a public utility responsive to the needs of the public and the economy. And that means modifying the Federal Reserve Act to change the Fed’s mandate and tools.

The Controversial History of Central Bank Independence

Ever since the 1970s, the Fed and other central banks have insisted on their independence from political control. But according to Timothy Canova, Professor of Law and Public Finance at Nova Southeastern University, independence has really come to mean a central bank that has been captured by very large banking interests. It might be independent of oversight by politicians, but it is not a neutral arbiter. This has not always been the case. During the period coming out of the Great Depression, says Canova, the Fed as a practical matter was not independent but took its marching orders from the White House and the Treasury; and that period was the most successful in American economic history.

According to Bernard Lietaer, a former Belgian central banker who has written extensively on monetary innovation, the real job of central bankers today is to serve the banking system by keeping the debt machine going. He writes:

[W]e can produce more than enough food to feed everybody, and there is definitely enough work for everybody in the world, but there is clearly not enough money to pay for it all. The scarcity is in our national currencies. In fact, the job of central banks is to create and maintain that currency scarcity. The direct consequence is that we have to fight with each other in order to survive.

The rationale for central bank independence dates back to a bout in the 1970s of “stagflation” – rapidly rising prices along with stagnant productivity. The inflation surges were blamed on political pressure put on Fed Chairman Arthur Burns by the Nixon administration to follow easy-money policies. But the link between easy-money policies and inflation is not at all clear. The Japanese have had near-zero interest rates for two decades and cannot generate price inflation although they are trying to. An alternative explanation for the rising prices of the 1970s is that producers’ costs had gone up, largely from increased labor costs due to the strong bargaining power of unions and the skyrocketing cost of oil from an engineered 1973-74 oil crisis.

Fed policy nevertheless remains stuck on the “Quantity Theory of Money,” which says that increasing the money in the system will decrease the value of the currency, driving up prices. The theory omits the supply factor. As long as workers and materials are available, increasing “demand” (money) can generate the supply needed to meet that demand. Supply and demand increase together and prices remain stable. And while the speculative economy may be awash in money, today the local productive economy is suffering from a lack of demand. Consumers are short of funds and heavily in debt. Moreover, plenty of workers are available to generate the supply needed to meet any new demand (injection of money). According to John Williams at ShadowStats.com, the real unemployment figure as of April 2018, including long-term discouraged workers who were defined out of official existence in 1994, was 21.5 percent. Beyond that is the expanding labor potential of robots and computers. A vast workforce is thus available to fill the gap between supply and demand, allowing new money to be added to the productive economy.

But the Fed insists on “sterilizing” every purported effort to stimulate demand, by making sure the new money never gets into the real economy. The money produced through quantitative easing remains trapped on bank balance sheets, where the Fed pays interest on excess reserves, killing any incentive for the banks to lend even to other banks; and the central bank has now begun systematically returning even that money to its own balance sheet.

The High Price of Challenging the Fed

An article in The Economist on July 28, 2018, contends that Nixon was pressuring the Fed to make the economy look good for political purposes, and that Trump is following suit. But there is more to the Nixon story. In a 2010 book titled The American Caliphate,R. Duane Willing says the Nixon White House had quietly drafted and sponsored a Federal Charter Bill that would have changed U.S. financial history. Willing worked for the Federal Home Loan Bank Board during the Nixon era and was tasked with defining the system requirements that would make a central computerized checking account and loan system available to the new banking system. He writes:

Only John Kennedy and Abraham Lincoln and two other assassinated presidents, James Garfield and William McKinley, prior to Nixon, had actively contemplated changes of such magnitude in the U.S. financial system.

President Garfield observed that “whoever controls the volume of money in our country is absolute master of all industry and commerce . . . and when you realize that the entire money system is very easily controlled, one way or another by a few powerful men, you will not have to be told how periods of inflation and depression originate.”

. . . The hidden secret since the beginning of modern capitalism is that money is created and managed by bank control over checking accounts in the loan-making process.

Willing says Nixon was preparing the Federal Home Loan Bank Board to change the traditional role of American savings and loan associations, giving them money creation powers like the big Wall Street banks had, providing a full-service nationwide banking system. The national money supply would thus be regulated according to needs at the local level rather than dictated from the top by the central bank. The proposed legislation provided for a separate central bank to backstop local credit unions and a much greater degree of competition for a wide array of financial services.

But Nixon’s plan for national finance, along with his plan for healthcare and a guaranteed income, alarmed the Wall Street/Federal Reserve power block, which willing says was about to be challenged like never before. Nixon was obviously not blameless in the Watergate scandal, but Willing contends it was pushed by “the Wall Street Great Merchants as owners of the Senate,” who “were making certain that the money dreams of ‘Tricky Dick’ and his vision for the Republic protected with a network of converted Savings and Loan associations was doomed.”

An “Independent” Central Bank or a Public Central Bank?

Challenging the Fed is thus risky business, and the president should be given credit for taking it on. But if he is planning to change the makeup of the Federal Reserve Board, he needs to appoint people who understand that the way to jumpstart the economy is to inject new money directly into it, not keep the money “sterilized” in fake injections that trap it on bank balance sheets until it can be reeled back in by the central bank. Interesting proposals for how the Fed could inject new money into the economy include making direct loans for infrastructure (as the Chinese central bank is doing), making low- or no-interest loans to state and local governments for infrastructure, or refinancing the federal debt interest-free.

Better than changing who is at the helm of the central bank would be to change the rules governing it, something only Congress can do. Putting the needs of the American people first, as Trump promised in his campaign speeches, means making the Fed serve Main Street rather than Wall Street.

This article was first published by EllenBrown.com.

A previous version of this article was posted on Truthdig.com.

Ellen Brown is an attorney, chairman of the Public Banking Institute, and author of twelve books including Web of Debt and The Public Bank Solution. Her 300+ blog articles are posted at EllenBrown.com.

The statement made by the Israeli authorities that the Freedom Flotilla Coalition’s Al Awda boat was intercepted, boarded and redirected from Gaza, Palestine to Ashdod, Israel on 29 July without incident is false. According to first hand evidence that we have been given, the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) violently attacked our Norwegian flagged boat ‘Al Awda’ (The Return) as she was in international waters.

Prior to all of our electronic communications being cut to and from our boat, at least four warships had appeared. Following some unlawful radio directives to our captain and our insistence that we had a right of innocent passage in international waters, armed, masked soldiers boarded ‘Al Awda’ without permission. They assaulted several unarmed participants by hitting them and using tasers as some of our participants lawfully endeavoured to resist this attempted hijacking, drawing upon two days of non-violence training in Palermo. Other participants were also hit by soldiers in this anything but peaceful exercise by the IOF, for what may have been a range of ‘reasons’.

Three of the many people that Israeli soldiers assaulted were: Captain Herman Reksten, Mike Treen and Dr Swee Ang. All of these assaults, including the hitting of an unarmed slightly built, 69 year old female surgeon crosses a line which must be investigated and the criminals must be held accountable. We continue to try and gain evidence and will seek to ensure that justice prevails.

Two Israeli citizens (Yonatan Shapira and Zohar Chamberlain Regev) and two international Al Jazeera journalists have been released, but 18 of the participants have now spent their second night unlawfully detained in Givon Prison, Israel. To protest Israel’s illegal actions and their ongoing treatment, two participants have commenced a hunger strike.

We urge the Norwegian Government, along with the national governments of all of those who were subjected to these multiple breaches of international law to intervene and to demand the immediate, unconditional release of Al Awda and everything that was on board, including all of the participants and the medical aid that we were carrying to MyCare in Gaza for distribution.

We demand that the IOF does not engage in any similarly  unlawful and violent acts towards the yacht ‘Freedom’, the next of the Flotilla boats as she commences her approach to Gaza, Palestine via international waters.

#SOSjustfuture4Palestine

Do you wonder;

• Why is there so much national debt?

• Where has the middle class gone?

• Why do my kids have less opportunity than I did?

If so, this book by Gordon Bryant Brown is for you!

• 97% of money is created by the banks, not by governments.

• The Federal Reserve is a private bank controlled by private banks.

• Adam Smith did not say an invisible hand guides the markets.

• Government debt was static until the mid-1970’s and has soared since.

• Milton Friedman and Alan Greenspan both admitted to fundamental economic errors.

• About 1/3 of an average persons’ spending is goes to banks as interest.

• Corporations are using treaties to overrule nations and democracy.

• The TARP bank bailouts were the biggest theft in history.

The text below is an excerpt from Gordon Bryant Brown‘s recently released book entitled An Insider’s Memory, How Economics Changed to Work against Us

***

When elected world leaders meet to discuss trade, patents, banking, and other items from the corporate agenda, and important social issues like peace, security, survival, the environment and culture are ignored, it’s because corporations have overridden the role of government. That is the subject of this chapter, and it begins with thoughts from my favorite economist John Kenneth Galbraith. As decades passed, his writing ability never left him, but he became more forgiving. Perhaps it was his comfortable, tenured life as a Harvard professor, or perhaps it was just time that made him mellow. He published his last book,

The Economics of Innocent Fraud, in 2004, when he was 96. The Economist newspaper proclaimed,

“Galbraith returns to the battle lines”.

He returned, to the extent he was aware how the economy was changing, however, he didn’t, as he once did, point a finger.

To purchase Bryant Brown’s book click book cover (left )

Corporate fraud today is commonplace and Galbraith had warned us, decades ago, to be wary. The older and gentler Galbraith called apparent corporate fraud “innocent”! With what we have learned about Wall Street, he was too kind. Financial corruption has been self-serving, planned, devious and vicious.

Galbraith noted the way the term ‘capitalism’ had been replaced with the more innocuous-sounding ‘market system’, was fraudulent, weakening the image that capitalists/the wealthy, controlled the market. He claimed it was fraud to rely on the gross national product as a measure of progress, since it failed to account for education, literature and many other important parts of life. He believed it was fraud to retain the myth that shareholders controlled corporations when corporate bureaucracies had long since taken control. The justifications for huge corporate salaries he saw as fraud because no one is worth the money corporate leaders were paying themselves. And it was fraud the way the Federal Reserve pretended to manage the economy through interest rates. It’s easy to see that much of the fraud he mentions was, and remains, too self-serving to be innocent.

He died in 2006 at age 97. Fortunately, he had a son who picked up where his dad left off.

James K. Galbraith (1952)

American capitalism is neither benign competition, nor class struggle, nor an inclusive middle-class utopia. Instead, predation has become the dominant feature — a system wherein the rich have come to feast on decaying systems built for the middle class.[1]

James Galbraith is John Kenneth and Catherine’s youngest son, an economist at the University of Texas. The quote above is from his 2008 book, The Predator State. Like his father, he chooses his titles well. His father’s book, The New Industrial State, summarized in the title how industry was changing economics to put corporate needs ahead of the people’s. James warns in his title that it’s government, “the State”, that’s become a predator we need to fear. He explains that the state is now the servant of corporations. As a consequence, the corporate controlled state has become, “… a system wherein the rich have come to feast on decaying systems built for the middle class”. 69

One feature of capitalism, he explains, is how periods of economic stability create instability! The logic is simple. In good times, banks and others feel confident and lend (or borrow) money. As good times continue they take on projects of steadily increasing risk. With every increase in risk, the collapse gets closer. Instability is an inescapable component of uncontrolled free markets.

James got a bachelor’s degree at Harvard and then went to Yale for both a masters and Ph.D. in economics. In the mid-1970’s, he chose to then go to Cambridge in England, as his father had done, to do a year of postgrad work. After that, again as his father had done, he spent several years working in government as Executive Director of Congress’ Joint Economic Committee. One of his tasks was to prepare hearings on monetary policy. From there he went to teach at the University of Texas where he remains.

In 1979 the Federal Reserve tried to manage the economy with short-term monetary targets and the result was, as James called it, “a cascading disaster”, with interest rates soaring to 20%, and 11% unemployment, recession and many industries closures. The Fed policy also threw much of the Developing World into crisis, and Mexico faced default. (I recall not being able to afford a mortgage at the time. As those high rates spread to Canada as well, so did the recession!) That period is referred to as the Monetarist Recession of 1981-82 and illustrates how much the subject of economics matters. It also illustrated how much bad economics matters, and how wrong people can be.

In March, 2008 James Galbraith was invited to give the Milton Friedman Distinguished Lecture at Marietta College in Ohio. He began by stating he was there to, “… bury Friedman, not to praise him”[2], and this he proceeded to do. His lecture focused on the collapse of Monetarism, which occurred in August, 1982 when the Fed dumped the Friedman policy of monetary targeting.

It took twenty-two years for Friedman to admit that he had been wrong. Twenty years too late, in an apology as vague as Greenspan’s had been, Friedman explained, “… the use of the quantity of money as a target has not been a success. I’m not sure I would, as of today, push it as hard as I once did”. The word ‘sorry’ didn’t come up.

Monetarism may be dead, but it is not buried. When news of small changes in the bank lending rate are reported, it implies that it’s important: that’s a Monetarist assumption. We hear much about ‘staying the course’ and ‘being disciplined’ in the fight against inflation, although inflation has not been an issue for decades. There have been hundreds of anguished reports about the ‘struggling manufacturing sector’, but almost no reports explaining why this sector is struggling.

James Galbraith writes about the relationship between economic instability and the decline of the working class. The decline of the working class is the direct result of actions such as moving jobs offshore, which serve to concentrate wealth at the top. James Galbraith points out it doesn’t have to be that way. Countries such as Sweden have freedom and prosperity, combined with greater equality and more economic stability.

Instead, in America, the state became increasingly pitted against the people, with cutbacks in social services, pensions, job security and union rights. One of the first campaigns against the people was Nixon’s “War On Drugs”, in 1971. That was an attack on people that produced multiple effects. It disproportionately targeted blacks, resulting in the loss of their (usually Democratic) right to vote. It also led to an explosive growth of prisons, and expanded the role of the police. When the ‘war’ was declared there were about 400,000 people in American jails, which was about 100 per 100,000 people. The chart below shows the effect.

Forty years later, in 2011, there were 2.2 million people in jail, or 743 per 100,000 of population: five times the world average of about 150 per 100,000. Not only were there more prisoners per capita, people were kept in jail longer than in any other nation on earth. In the U.S. there are now more prisoners than farmers! About 10 percent of those prisoners are housed in institutions run for profit. These for-profit institutions have no incentive to rehabilitate — worse, they have incentive not to rehabilitate — keeping prisoners longer maximizes revenue. To insure and expand their profits the Corrections Corporation of America spends about $1 million dollars a year on lobbying Congress.

James Galbraith’s more recent book, The End of Normal,[3] is not an optimistic book. He writes that so many of the essential assumptions of economics have been altered that the system has no direction: nothing is normal. Changes have occurred to protect corporate-finance capitalism and military capitalism, while the people have become unprotected. His ideas are being ignored in America, while, at the same time, he has been asked for advice from abroad: the government of Greece asked for ways to recover from a near decade of bad policies which stole hope from the young and pensions from the old. (I’ll talk more about Greece in the next chapter.)

He anticipates, at best, slower growth, and recognizes that the ending of the American Era, which is underway both financially and militarily, should lead to less military spending and more social spending.

Bryant Brown is a business turn-around specialist with an interest in the bigger subject of economics.

He has also been a community organizer, worked for both multinationals and small co-ops, travelled much of the world and brings that experience together into a readable analysis of the economic world today.

Bryant Brown has been supportive of the Global Research Project from the very outset. 

Notes:

[1] James Galbraith http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2006/05/predator-state

[2] http://utip.gov.utexas.edu/papers/CollapseofMonetarismdelivered.pdf

[3] The End of Normal; The Great Crisis and the Future of Growth, 2014

Iranian military officials have warned of extracting “revenge from foreign intelligence services”, as Reuters reported that an aggressive campaign against Tehran has been launched by Washington. On Sunday, the Reuters news agency said that senior officials in the administration of US President Donald Trump had launched a concerted offensive “meant to foment unrest” in the Islamic Republic.

Citing information from “more than half a dozen current and former officials”, Reuters said that the US offensive is directly supported by President Trump’s Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and his National Security Adviser John Bolton. Both officials are known for their aggressive stance against the Iranian government.

The campaign, said Reuters, is meant to “work in concert” with President Trump’s push to “economically throttle Iran”. The US leader announced a series of economic sanctions on the Islamic Republic and has intensified his critical statements against Tehran after May of this year, when Washington pulled out of the Iran nuclear agreement.

Known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the international agreement was reached in 2015 between Iran and a group of nations known as the P5+1, namely the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council plus Germany. As part of the deal, Iran agreed to halt its nuclear weapons program in exchange for an end to economic sanctions by the West. But President Trump abandoned the agreement, saying it was a form of appeasing Tehran.

According to Reuters, Washington’s campaign involves the spreading of information that “paints Iranian leaders in a harsh light” and in some cases makes claims about Tehran that are “exaggerated”. For example, said Reuters, some social media posts by the US Department of State’s Farsi-language news service claim that Iran is close to al-Qaeda, despite the fact that Shiite Islam, which is Iran’s state religion, is viewed as a heresy by Sunni members of al-Qaeda. Other –perhaps more believable– accusations include claims that the leaders of Iran are wasting funds released by the JCPOA instead of using it for their people’s welfare, and that Tehran funds the Taliban in Afghanistan.

Meanwhile, a spokesman for the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), arguably the most powerful branch of the Iranian Armed Forces, issued a warning on Sunday against “foreign intelligence services”. The spokesman, Brigadier General Ramezan Sharif, said Iran would take revenge on foreign spy services “who try to disrupt the security of Iran’s borders”. He was referring to an armed attack that took place on Saturday in Iran’s northwestern Marivan region, near the Iran-Iraq border.

The attack concentrated on an Iranian military compound in the village of Dari and culminated with the bombing of an IRGC arms depot. According to Iranian media reports, the explosion killed 11 Iranian border guards. Reuters said it contacted the White House and the Department of State about the alleged campaign against Iran, but that both declined to comment.

Update: “The International Committee for Breaking the Siege of Gaza expressed its concern for the safety of the international solidarity activists who were on board the Gaza-bound Al-Awda (Return) boat which was boarded by the Israeli navy on Sunday.

Activist on board on the boat were reportedly assaulted by masked Israeli soldiers. They were then detained by the Israeli naval forces and held at Givon prison in Ashdod. Among those assaulted was 69-year-old British activist and orthopaedic consultant Dr. Swee Ang.”

Dr. Swee Ang (UK) Sailing on Al Awda, ‘The Return’ wrote this on why she joined:

When invited to come on board Al Awda, the Freedom Flotilla to Gaza, I knew I must join them. This summer marks the thirty-sixth year of my journey with the Palestinians. It began in 1982 when as an ignorant Pro-Israel Christian doctor I first stepped foot as a volunteer surgeon in Gaza Hospital in Beirut’s Sabra Shatila Palestinian refugee camp. There I fell in love passionately with a generous, kind, honest and gentle people – the Palestinians. They were forced out of Palestine in 1948 and found themselves, refugees. Despite the dispossession, persecution and injustice they remained human.

About 3 weeks after my arrival, more than three thousand of them were cruelly massacred. My heart was broken and trampled on, and would have remained dead and buried in the rubble of their bulldozed homes. But the survivors, even while burying their own loved ones, nurtured me back to life with their tears and love. The children filled with courage, hope and dignity inspired me and gave me the strength to walk on with them. “We are not afraid Doctor come with us”.

It is now 70 years since the Palestinian Nakba and Diaspora in 1948. When will their journey home begin? Today, six million Palestinians dispersed in various refugee camps are denied the right of return to their ancestral Palestine; the other six million lived under occupation in Gaza and West Bank. For twelve years, two million Palestinians have been imprisoned under a brutal land and sea military blockade in Gaza. During this time there were three major military assaults where Gaza was relentlessly bombed for weeks.

Recently, since 30 March 2018, unarmed Gaza demonstrators calling for the Right of Return are shot at with high-grade military assault rifles leaving more than 124 dead and 13,000 severely wounded with hundreds of amputees and potential amputees. The Flotilla brings hope to the besieged Palestinians. They are praying for us in their mosques and churches in the Gaza Strip. They know we are making this journey for them. Even if we are to be abducted, imprisoned and deported, may we remain faithful in solidarity and love for the people of Palestine and Gaza.

Dr Swee Ang, Consultant Orthopaedic Surgeon; author “From Beirut to Jerusalem.”

The U.S.-supported Saudi-led coalition in Yemen carried out multiple airstrike attacks across Yemen on Friday, Islam’s holy day. Although the raids were not absent of casualties, today’s airstrikes appeared to target vital civilian infrastructure rather than human life. The continual attacks on water wells and treatment facilities make it seem as though the U.S.-backed coalition is attempting to trigger another massive cholera epidemic.

Last year, over one million people contracted cholera in Yemen and over two thousand died.

U.S.-backed warplanes belonging to the Saudi coalition launched at least five airstrikes on the Sana’a International Airport. The attacks took place immediately following the departure of UN envoy, Martin Griffith. Griffith had just met with the leader of the Yemeni Ansarullah revolution, Abdulmalik Al-Houthi to discuss the conflict and humanitarian disaster.

The coalition against Yemen has hit Sana’a’s airport over 160 times since the war began despite the fact that the Saudi-imposed blockade forced the airport to shut down. Additional airstrikes on Friday targeted a farm, communication tower, and plastic factory.

Coalition planes also destroyed an important water project in Yemen’s Hodeidah province: one of Yemen’s poorest yet most populated epicenters as a major port city. The people of Hodediah temporarily lost access to water. The United Nations estimates that 8.6 million children lack access to clean water putting them at risk for deadly illnesses like cholera.

You Can Deprive People of Water, but Don’t You Dare Cost the UN Money

This is just the most recent U.S.-backed attack on a water supply in Yemen. Last week, coalition warplanes destroyed a major water project in Saada province which left over 10,000 people without access to clean water. The constant attacks on water systems have prompted condemnation from the United Nations — mostly because they’re the ones footing the bill.

UNICEF deplores in the strongest terms yet another attack on vital and lifesaving water systems in Yemen. A large water facility in Sa’ada, northwest of the country, came under attack this week. This is the third such attack on the same facility. More than half of the project is now damaged, cutting off 10,500 people from safe drinking water. Continuous attacks on water systems in Yemen are cutting off children and their families from water; increasing the likelihood of water-borne diseases spreading in the war-torn country. For families in Yemen, these crumbling basic services, are a matter of life and death.”

The UNICEF statement also mentions that two separate Saudi attacks on a water project in March cost the UN $20,000. Last week’s incident will cost the UN $300,000.

While these attacks on water supplies are certainly worthy of nothing but the strongest condemnation, the UN has failed to hold the United States, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates accountable in any practical manner thus far. (Likely due to blackmail and financial manipulation.)

Creating Another Cholera Epidemic

These attacks on water infrastructure come at a crucial time.

Yemen’s summer weather creates the perfect environment to contract cholera. The World Health Organization reported an estimated 3,000 suspected cholera cases in just the first week of July — the highest yet this year.

The UK-based group, Save the Children, warns that a U.S.-backed Saudi and Emirati advance on Hodeidah port could quickly exasperate the spread of cholera:

Yemen could be on the brink of a deadly new cholera epidemic that could affect thousands of people in the coming weeks unless urgent action is taken, Save the Children is warning. Save the Children is becoming increasingly concerned that Hodeidah city could be besieged as the Saudi- and Emirati-led coalition makes advances in northern Yemen and continues to consolidate gains around the south of the city. This could potentially cut off Hodeidah city, its port and its people from the rest of the country.”

In 2017, over one million Yemenis contracted cholera — an epidemic completely unprecedented in modern times. Cholera is a very preventable — yet very treatable — disease contracted by drinking unclean water.

It’s clear that these U.S.-backed attacks on water infrastructure are very deliberate. The cholera epidemic last year was not an accidental byproduct of the blockade and arbitrary airstrikes — it was an intended consequence.

This is part and parcel of the Saudi coalition’s strategy to beat Yemenis into submission as coalition troops fail on the ground. Disease and famine are two of Washington and Riyadh’s favorite weapons to use in Yemen for this purpose.

Feature Image:  A girl is treated for a suspected cholera infection at a hospital in Sanaa, Yemen. The World Health Organization says a rapidly spreading cholera outbreak in Yemen has already claimed thousands of lives. (AP/Hani Mohammed)

Two people from Al Awda (The Return) have been released, but most of the crew and participants are still in unlawful detention at Givon prison in Israel. We are still gravely concerned for their safety and well-being as we had no contact with most of them as of 14:00 CEST today. We continue to demand that our boat and the medical supplies on board reach their rightful recipients, Palestinian civil society in Gaza.

Although the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) claim that the capture of our vessel happened ‘without exceptional incident’, eye-witness Zohar Chamberlain Regev reports that at the time of boarding: “People on board were tasered and hit by masked IOF soldiers. We did not get our passports or belongings before we got off the boat. Do not believe reports of peaceful interception.” We urgently need to know the details of who was injured and how seriously, and what treatment they are receiving, if any. A military attack on a civilian vessel is a violent act and a violation of international law. Taking 22 people from international waters to a country which is not their destination constitutes an act of kidnapping, which is also unlawful under the international Convention of the Law of Sea.

From the time we lost contact around 13:15 local time on Sunday, we know that the IOF blocked all communication signals, including satellite phones. We are very concerned about this violation of journalists’ right to report freely and we remain gravely concerned about their ability to keep their professional equipment and their storage media. As Australian journalist Chris Graham recently observed “Bad things happen when good people stay silent, as history well records. But horrendous things happen when media are prevented from scrutinizing the actions of a state.”

Two of our participants who are Israeli citizens have been charged with attempting to enter Gaza and conspiracy to commit a crime, and were released on bail this morning. One of them, boat leader Zohar Chamberlain Regev, reports seeing blood on the deck of the Al Awda as the last participants were being dragged off the ship.

In comparison with the violence routinely directed at Palestinian civilians, including at fishers from Gaza, and the violent capture of Palestinian fishing boats, yesterday’s seizure and kidnapping may not be the most serious of Israeli crimes. What these violents acts have in common is that there is no accountability demanded by other governments and Israel continues to enjoy total impunity.

We call on national governments, civil society and international organizations to demand that Israeli authorities immediately release our boat so that we can deliver our much-needed medical supplies on Al Awda and the fishing boat itself to the rightful recipients in Gaza. Detailed specification of our exact cargo on board are available on request.

Israel’s capture of the lead boat in this Gaza-bound flotilla may seem like a predictable outcome to some, but that doesn’t make it any less violent nor any less illegal. Our second boat Freedom will follow Al Awda within a day or two, and the Freedom Flotilla will continue until the blockade ends and Palestinians of Gaza regain their full freedom of movement.

Details about detainees still in prison, including their last videos and personal statements, can be found on our website and Facebook pages:  www.facebook.com/FreedomFlotillaCoalition/

For more information, contact media spokespeople: https://jfp.freedomflotilla.org/media-room-2

Feature Image: Low resolution photo transmitted from the boat during final hours of navigation

The Turkish President’s proposal for including his country in BRICS sounds very promising but might end up being a challenge to implement, though one should ask if it ultimately matters whether it joins the bloc or not. 

The Turkish President sent tongues wagging all across the world last week when he proposed including his country in BRICS. Erdogan was invited to attend the organization’s 10^th summit in the South African city of Johannesburg as part of the BRICS+ initiative that seeks to broaden BRICS’ international partnerships with the most promising countries. Valdai Club expert and visionary thinker Yaroslav Lissovolik has written extensively about the various forms that this could take, but Turkey apparently wants to go one step further and join the bloc as an official member instead of cooperate with it in the BRICS+ capacity.

As expected, Erodgan’s idea has generated a lot of attention in the think tank and other policymaking spheres, and he himself said that the group’s five members reacted very positively to his suggestion. As with all major developments of this kind, arguments can be made in support of this initiative and against it, but unlike most binary choices, a third “middle ground” way is possible given the specific circumstances of what’s being proposed and the global context in which it’s occurring. This creative “solution” (if it can be called that) will be discussed at the end of this article, while the first two parts will deal with the three most important points in support of each possibility.

The most attractive appeal that BRICS membership appears to have for Turkey’s many worldwide proponents is that it would strongly symbolize the country’s strategic shift to the East, the importance of which can’t be understated during the current tensions that it’s experiencing with the West. In addition, Turkey would be the first Muslim-majority country to join the organization, and this carries with it an even deeper symbolism pertaining to the “brand’s” inclusiveness. It should go without saying that Turkey would also frame this as confirming its rising role in the international Islamic community. Lastly, BRICS membership would give the country access to its financial and other integrational resources.

On the other side of the coin, one could argue that BRICS is already overextended and under-integrated as it is, and that Turkey’s prospective membership might only contribute to these challenges and make them much more difficult to surmount. Another problem, pointed out by geopolitical expert Adam Garrie, is that India might not allow the bloc to expand because of its fear that neighboring rival Pakistan would naturally be included in this framework sometime in the future on the grounds that China’s top Silk Road project transits through its territory. Finally, the case can be made that Turkey’s dialogue partner status with the SCO and inclusion in the G20 make BRICS membership redundant to a large degree.

It’s precisely that redundancy, however, which forms the basis for the third-way “solution”, which is to reconceptualize BRICS as just another of several of multipolar organizations, all of which overlap in certain spheres. This allows one to appreciate the consultative security benefits that Turkey derives from its dialogue partner relationship with the SCO and the economic coordination that it’s already carrying out with its fellow G20 partners. Looked at in this way, BRICS doesn’t necessarily provide anything altogether different in a substantial sense from what Turkey is already receiving from other organizations, and it hasn’t been explained how full-scale membership would qualitatively differ from its BRICS+ arrangement with the group.

There are distinct soft power advantages that were mentioned earlier, but formally joining the bloc might overextend it and hamper its integrational efficiency, like was also argued. Instead, if BRICS is seen as part of the larger multipolar framework that also includes the SCO, G20, and the Silk Road – all of which Turkey is presently participating in to one extent or another – then the importance of formally joining that specific organization as one of its primary members wanes and is reframed in its proper perspective as providing more of a soft power boost than anything else. Furthermore, the possibility emerges for all of the aforesaid to gradually integrate with one another into a larger multipolar whole.

The membership overlap between the previously mentioned organizations, coupled with the existing cooperation between them on the bilateral and multilateral levels, testifies to the shift of global gravity from West to East and hints at the future creation of an alternative world order that “balances” and then eventually replaces the US-centric one inherited from the end of the Old Cold War. It’s this scenario that drives Turkey’s interest to join BRICS because its leadership believes the group to be one of the main forces reshaping the international order, and while true in many ways, it’s also somewhat of an exaggeration because of the bloc’s internal differences that have hitherto hindered its collective effectiveness.

It’s difficult to predict whether Turkey will ultimately be successful in joining BRICS as a full-fledged member or not, and as was written, there are convincing arguments one way or another for each scenario, but the point that shouldn’t be overlooked is that the issue is actually somewhat moot because the country is already a powerful force changing global affairs irrespective of this fact potentially being formalized through its admission to BRICS. The prevailing trend of multipolarity will continue to unfold independently of this possibility, and Turkey will still remain one of the handful of countries leading the way in pioneering the Silk Road Century and especially its Mideast component.

This article was first published by InfoRus

The fever-pitched aura around this year’s elections in Pakistan was for good reason: a palpable feeling of transition from the old to the new was in the air. Meanwhile, the Western mainstream (and alternative) media, as well as much of the native elite English media, advanced an atmosphere of hysteria and moral panic at what they called “Pakistan’s dirtiest elections” ever. 

We were told to believe that the Pakistani military, which undoubtedly has been involved in the political life throughout the country’s history, indeed directly ruling the country directly for half of its history, was the sole factor for which the corrupt and ruthless politicians of the two parties, who believe it is their birthright to play a game of musical chairs with each other, looting and plundering as much as possible before they are removed and get their next turn – were rejected in these elections. 

Pakistan-Tehreek-e-Insaaf (PTI), or the “Movement for Justice,” the political party of the iconic cricketer-turned politician Imran Khan, has swept this year’s national elections. They are the single largest political party in the country’s National Assembly, the unquestioned victor as the party that will continue to govern the province of KPK in the Northwest of the country (PTI governed the province for the past five years), and has even made inroads in Pakistan’s major city of Karachi, where they have displaced the once all-powerful Muttahida Quami Movement (MQM), which mafioso-style, with rampant intimidation, ransoms, and murders, ran the streets and political life of Kararchi since their inception in the 1980s. This of course was facilitated by a relatively popular demand that the Pakistani military come to the city and deploy rangers to ‘clean up’ the vigilantes of the MQM, and the bulging urban youth of Pakistan’s financial heartland voted en masse for PTI.

Imran Khan, who founded his PTI political party in 1996, had developed an impeccable reputation in both his leadership of Pakistan’s cricket victory in the World Cup of 1992 as well as his widely-respected social welfare activities in the country, including a cancer hospital for the poor in the name of his late mother. But Khan made a sharp turn in his life, and decided that to truly transform Pakistan, structurally and systemically so that the same rut does not keep reappearing with different (dynastic, feudal, or clan) names, political engagement was essential.

Though there are other smaller political parties, including provincial ones as well as a few national religious parties, the national civilian political life of the country has been dominated by two political parties: the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) of the Bhutto family, formed amidst the anti-military dictatorship mass popular movement in the late 1960s, on the one hand, and the Sharif family who effectively were created out of thin air by the rightwing Zia-ul-Huq military dictatorship – in order to have the Sharifs and their Pakistani Muslim League (PML) to counter and undermine the renewed anti-dictatorship opposition emerging from the PPP. 

After the death of Zia, Pakistani political life was effectively a duopoly with the PPP and the PML(N) taking turns in governing the country, with an interlude of another stint of military rule between 1999-2007 under Gen. Pervez Musharraf. The ostensible ‘governance’ of the country by the two parties was more akin to taking turns in engaging in gross corruption, plunder, and patronage to their sycophants. The health, education, and welfare of ordinary Pakistanis was not on the agenda of either of these parties. Though PPP was considered the ‘progressive/left’ party, and the PML(N) the ‘conservative/right,’ they effectively joined the international trend under this period of neoliberalism, of converging as an ‘extreme center,’ as Tariq Ali puts it – fundamentally no different in their social and economic policies, the only extremism demonstrated being that of servility to Washington, the IMF, the World Bank, and so on.

Pakistan’s transition to civilian democracy has always had major bumps here and there, and though the military shares its blame in its maneuvering and machinations in the country’s politics, the real curse has been that, since the Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto (who himself was by no means perfect, a megalomaniac, and in fact the first politician to begin to pander to the religious right, officially declaring the Ahmadiyya as non-Muslims and banning alcohol), Pakistani civilian ‘democrats’ have not really given Pakistanis a reason to bother whether they are ruled by the civilian plutocrats or the military. This is why there was absolute indifference to the military coup of General Pervez Musharraf in 1999, against the increasingly corrupt and authoritarian government of Nawaz Sharif.

But the past two decades, roughly paralleling the disastrous ‘Af-Pak’ theatre of the US ‘war on terror, political consciousness began to rise rapidly. This was also because, ironically, General Musharraf’s military regime actually permitted the explosion of media channels and widened ideological-theological diversity, under his semi-serious “enlightened moderation” project.

Imran Khan began really getting into the trenches of political activity in the movement against Musharraf’s dictatorship. That period, leading up till 2007, galvanized young people, lawyers, and ordinary Pakistanis in a profound way, creating a political consciousness that was neutralized and defanged during the entire neoliberal period. To bring about change, join (or even better, create your own) NGO – this was the rule of thumb for any Pakistani exhausted by her/his comprador class of incompetent and corrupt political ‘leaders.’ Before 2007, neoliberal ideology taught the world that politics is a messy business. The democratic civilian merry-go-round of the PPP/PML(N) of the 1990s achieved the goal of neoliberal ideology: de-politicization, atomization, and alienation of the population.

And since the shelf life of every military ruler of Pakistan never exceeding a decade, Musharraf was ousted in 2007, under a deal manufactured by Washington whereby the PPP’s longstanding leader, Benazir Bhutto, would be brought back to power. The tragic assassination of Benazir in Dec. 2007, of the ‘Daughter of the East’ (but to many, the ‘daughter of the West’), paved the way for her notoriously corrupt husband, Asif Ali Zardari, to take power on behalf of the PPP. The ‘progressive’ PPP has functioned as a family dynasty, with the daughter taking over and then, in her will, ‘bequeathing’ it to her husband and son.

Throughout Zardari’s reign from 2008-13, the country was again propelled in an sea of corruption combined with the most slavish servility to dictation from Washington. It was not difficult to understand why Zardari’s PPP got routed in the following national elections of 2013, bringing to power, once again, the same old face of Nawaz Sharif of the PML(N) as Prime Minister, and his brother Shehbaz Sharif as the Chief Minister of the Punjab, the largest and the most politically influential province in the country.

The Sharif brothers and their PML(N) political party have treated Punjab as their playground, where they will dominate not just the province, but the entire country. They could never fathom that any political force could arise to even remotely challenge their monopoly of political power in the province.

But as Khan did with Musharraf, and then with Zardari (as well as with the clownish head of semi-fascist MQM political party in Karachi – now decimated by the military’s intervention), he did with Nawaz Sharif. After the Panama Papers scandal that demonstrated that Nawaz Sharif had clearly been involved in massive corruption and money laundering, Khan would not leave the streets of Islamabad alone until the Supreme Court took notice of this. And when the Court did, it found Nawaz Sharif to be ‘unfit’ to be prime minister and called for the establishment of an anti-corruption court to fully investigate all charges of corruption. That court handed down its verdict weeks ago, a damning indictment of Nawaz Sharif and his daughter, Mariam Sharif, for not disclosing massive amounts of assets including prime property in London, and so on.

It is at this point, roughly around the 15^th of July, that things begin to feel like the…US elections of 2016. PML(N) is the natural heir of power of the Punjab, and of Pakistan, and was a creation of the much-hated ‘establishment,’ or the ‘deep state.’ The Sharif brothers had no problem in permitting the most violent and repugnant forces on the loose during the 1990s when it served them and their business empire’s purposes to do so.

But as we all know, Washington has been in search of ‘moderate Islam’ now for a while, and you know that the world has gone upside down when Nawaz Sharif is presented as the liberal reformer advancing fairness and justice in society. It’s a bit like his friend-backer in Riyadh, MBS as he is called. The PML(N)’s rule was equally marked by corruption, unnecessary building initiatives all at the expense of investing in the education, health and well-being of ordinary Pakistanis.

But the PML(N) and Nawaz Sharif, even sitting in jail, felt entitled to once again win big time and Sharif essentially portraying himself as a martyr for ‘democracy.’

Things didn’t exactly work out that way.

Love him or hate him, Imran Khan has been a persistent bull in attacking the political class of all of the major political parties, for their utter indifference to the plight of the poor and the bulk of the population. As he said in his initial victory speech, “I believe a society should be judged not by the lifestyle of its rich, but of its poor.” The first component of Khan’s ‘manifesto’ (if we can call it that) is to make Pakistan a “welfare state” that delivers social justice to its people, and not simply be a playground for the elite. This of course is anathema to neoliberalism and international finance capital, where countries of the global south are merely supposed to prostrate themselves and their resources for Western elites and their native ‘friends’ in these formerly colonized countries.

But the problem Pakistan had begun to face even before Khan’s victory, was something eerily similar to the Pakistan’s own version of “Russiagate/Russia-phobia” fixation. Just replace Putin with the military establishment, and all the chips fall into place. Trump won because of Putin, and Khan because of either direct or indirect military support. Just like the Democrats ignore the sheer political bankruptcy of a candidate like Hillary Clinton, the PML(N) could not fathom how it being the (elite, deeply exploitative) ‘sons of the soil’ of the powerful Punjab could be trounced so badly. Just blame the establishment, or Putin, or both!

The maddeningly hysterical reaction to Khan from the liberals (who overnight ALL became PML(N) supporters) demonstrated quite clearly, for a while now, how the purse strings of the civilian ‘democrats’ has been tied to their subservience to Washington, Riyadh, and even New Dehli.

It’s not emphasized enough, but Pakistan’s decision to refuse to participate in the criminal Saudi war on Yemen in 2015 was a turning point. It was the beginning of the process of deepening decolonization, since the Saudis, Americans, etc. have always expected Pakistan to dance to their tune.

It is Imran Khan’s consistent and principled position against Af-Pak theatre of the ‘war on terror,’ his constant emphasis on a political solution rather than a military one, that had the liberals mocking him as ‘Taliban Khan.’ It was a cheap shot, since the bulk of the population agreed with Khan that American drone strikes are illegal an immoral, that the occupation of Afghanistan will definitely generate a Pashtun resistance, and that if Pakistan gets involved, militarily, in this imperial enterprise, it will face disastrous consequences. He was proven correct, with the enormous increase in militancy and terrorism throughout the country. His legitimate critique of American imperial policy – that always expected the Pakistanis to act as its satraps from early on in the Cold War – made the unthinking liberal that he is ‘anti-American’ or ‘anti-Western,’ whatever that means.

There is a deep psycho-cultural schizophrenia amongst the secular moderns of Pakistan that believe the West can do no wrong, and that we must self-orientalize ourselves as lazy, corrupt, backward, unchanging and static. The livelihoods of the country’s comprador liberal class depends on regurgitating this imbecilic narrative, so they can position themselves as the ‘enlightened few’ among an ‘herd’ of backward fundamentalists.

From the native elite who despised Khan both for his emphasis on decades elite ravaging and plundering of the country at the expense of suffering majority, as well as from arch-rival India which saw Nawaz Sharif as merely a cog in their expanding role as a sub-imperialist power, someone who would toe their line reflexively on whatever issue it may be – the shock and hysteria to Khan’s astounding victory was understandable. Throughout this period, Khan has been absurdly compared to Narendra Modi and Donald Trump, two men whose campaigns were based almost entirely on the ugliest forms of racism, bigotry, and fear of the ‘others,’ both internal and external. This fictional fantasy of the liberal elite could only hold water because they bought the cool aid that Khan was some irrational hater of the West, of India, and was a bit too much of an affinity with religion for them to swallow.

All of their commentary in elite English media demonstrated was that their contempt for Khan was really a contempt for ordinary Pakistanis, whom they thought were sufficiently ignorant and ‘backward’ that they not could see that his agenda, what he stood for, was completely being distorted by a Westoxificated Pakistani elite that takes more pride in their American/British accents than whether the nation is tackling issues such as widespread malnutrition and fatally unsafe drinking water that is affecting tens of millions of Pakistanis, especially children.

The first dastardly attack, as mentioned above, was to ridicule the cricketer-turned-politician as ‘Taliban Khan’ merely because he took an anti-war position. Islamophobia runs so deep in the ‘enlightened’ liberals and progressives of Pakistan that they are more than willing to endorse indiscriminate bombardment (by the US or Pakistani military, doesn’t matter) against peoples and areas that just seem ‘too Muslim.’ Long beards and the rest of it, not exactly fitting the profile of the secular modern that they want to showcase to the world as the ‘other Pakistan.’ The Pakistani Westoxificated native elite’s profiling of their countrywomen and men seems to be taken straight from a Western government’s ‘Countering Violent Extremism’ (CVE) playbook – with its ridiculously racist presumptions around Muslims and ‘radicalization.’

In the same light, he’s constantly accused of pandering to the religious right and not doing enough to distance himself from some of these groups and parties. First, it must be emphasized how hypocritical this is to come especially from the PML(N), the Sharif brothers the protégés of the most reactionary Islamist military dictator in the country’s history, and who continued to patronize these assortment of fanatical, sectarian fundamentalists, especially in the Punjab. But indeed, both the PML(N) and the ‘progressive’ PPP have courted religious parties as coalition partners in virtually every term of theirs in office.

But Khan is now being singled out for not speaking loudly enough on one issue that was given prominence last year, i.e. the Blasphemy Law and the status of the finality of the Prophet Muhammad – a clear reference to the problematic claim of the Ahmadiyya Muslims that one other prophet, Ghulam Ahmad, was the final one.

None of these are the issues that Khan ever raised. He was concerned with holding the high and mighty accountable, trying to reduce the cancerous corruption in the country, offer some form of a ‘welfare’ state, and resist being a quisling state that is expected to follow orders from Wshington, or Riyadh. But they were thrust upon him. The liberal critics who say that he has not spoken strongly enough on these very sensitive religious issues in the country suffer from criminal historical amnesia that forgets that the most progressive national leader in the country’s history, Zufiqar Ali Bhutto, initiated this intertwining of (reactionary) religion and politics, with things getting far worse in the following decades. This is what has been bequeathed to Imran Khan (not by his own choice) by the PML(N) and the PPP, who were complicit even when there were military regimes in power, in facilitating the free reign given to these violent and sectarian outfits.

From the word go, Khan has emphasized Islam as a religion that demands social justice, and offers what the liberation theologians call ‘a preferential option for the poor.’ Time and time again he emphasizes how Islam can only be made relevant if it is able to empower and uplift the marginalized and downtrodden, and to speak truth to power.

But of course, the liberal mantra’s cunning implication that ‘Taliban Khan’s’ pandering to the religious right is because he wants a restoration of draconian forms of Islamic punishments like stoning and all sorts of medieval impositions – pandering precisely to the hegemonic, Islamophobic discourse in the West.

As of now, as Khan is trying to form a coalition to get a majority in Parliament, he is seeking out independent candidates and other smaller parties, and not the religious parties. And also, just by the way, neither the PPP nor the PML(N) ever formed a government without some religious party as its coalition partner. But were are supposed to conveniently forget all of this because, well, Imran Khan opposes the disastrous ‘war on terror’ and wants to advance a more reformist and redistributive platform in the country – all anathema to Pakistan’s Westoxicated elites.

But perhaps the most compelling reason why it’s not just the ‘usual suspects’ of Khan-haters in Pakistan and in India (it’s media reaction has been as if Pakistan has launched a nuclear bomb to hit Dehli), but also, and more importantly, the entire barrage of animus from Western media and the political establishment they echo. Part of it is that Khan has been so deeply critical of US-NATO policies with regard to the ‘Af-Pak’ theatre of the ‘war on terror.’ Despite the fact that he is been at pains to give interview after interview to all of the major Western news channels in explaining a rational position on the topic, the obsequiously imperial Washington Post had the temerity to call him a ‘Taliban sympathizer’ in their headline, and the ‘newspaper of record,’ the New York Times, had a similarly obnoxious, racist headline stating that a, “Nuclear-armed Islamic Republic Gets Unpredictable New Leader.”

The depth of the hypocrisy and outright lies (you would think the NYT would’ve learned it’s lesson by now) that these headlines reveal are staggering. Khan is automatically unpredictable and to be feared merely because of the fact he is Muslim and has offered a rational, principled critique of some of the policies of the United States, including drone attacks – and has explained his position clearly, generously in interview after interview, in more coherent English than Trump could do in a million years.

None of it mattered. The recycled script from post 9/11 doesn’t seem to go away: you’re either with us (and we mean COMPLETELY with us) or you’re against us. In that regard, Khan’s independence and assertion of Pakistani sovereignty becomes intolerable for the Western political and financial elite.

But there is also a larger story here that is perhaps the most important point to capture. Western hegemony is in severe crisis. Even more bluntly, ‘whiteness’ is in severe crisis. We see this in wars, refugee crises, and elections of sem-fascists within the West itself. The old liberal international order defined and shaped by the West is collapsing.

Khan’s victory is yet another clear symptom of this crisis, of a world re-orienting in myriad ways and a de-centering of the West. And though Pakistan’s native elite may deem their population as backward and stupid, the consciousness of the ordinary Pakistani has shifted dramatically over the past two decades.

They have obtained a political consciousness that recognized that justice, fairness, accountability, and transparency were not on the agenda of the civilian ‘democratic’ politicians for which they were required to fight and die against the ‘rogue,’ ‘evil’ military establishment. It is in that transformation the subjectivity of the ordinary Pakistani that Imran Khan and PTI could miraculously do so well in these elections, and break through a deeply entrenched, retrograde political system with its dynasties, clans, kinship networks and all.

But there is a second point that is often missed in these developments in Pakistan. From the 1970s, large numbers of Pakistani migrant workers went to the Gulf, especially Saudi Arabia and the UAE, to get their meager wages to send home as remittances. Exploited and treated like animals, they worked out of necessity. It was this period and the ensuing decades with Saudi oil money was hell-bent on convincing all of the world’s Muslims, including the migrant workers within the Gulf countries (who often comprised the majority of the populations), that Saudi Wahhabi Islam is the only ‘correct’ Islam. After, all the Saudi royal family considers itself as the ‘Guardian of the Two Holy Mosques’ – a position that normally would obtain a great deal of respect from the world’s Muslims.

This has shifted dramatically. The naked collaboration of the House of Saud with Zionism and Western hegemony in the region to annihilate any form of resistance in the region is now visible for all to see. The Saudis thought for the longest time that they could simply rely on the religious/sectarian ‘sunni vs. shia’ card to persuade the bulk of Muslims to give Saudi Arabia a free pass, since they housed the two holy mosques and claimed the purity of the original faith, its original followers, its regional language, customs, and so on. All else was ‘bidah’, or innovation to be condemned and disowned from the faith.

According to such theology, the substantial number of Shias (as well as Sufis, etc.) were to be targeted as heretics. But the theological impetus to wage war against others with different beliefs only went so far. It was the Iranian revolution of 1979 that sent shockwaves throughout the conservative Arab monarchies, led by Saudi Arabia. Since that time, the Saudis have attempted to camouflage political issues (their own retrograde version of Islam, treatment of foreign workers, and subservience to and collaboration with Zionism and Western hegemony) by false asserting that it’s a ‘sunni vs. shia’ problem, and the Iranians and Shias just want to gobble up the entire region. The House of Saud believes that only monarchs, dictators, and autocrats are permitted to rule the region, which is why they’ve even now declared mass Sunni political movements, ones they at once supported to undermine Arab nationalist sentiments, as ‘terrorist organizations’ – since individual totalitarian autocrats and regimes are much easier for Riyadh, Tel Aviv, and Washington to control.

One has to be living under a rock not to notice geopolitical catastrophes and transformations – certainly accelerated during this period of the ‘global war on terror.’ The US is undergoing, as Noam Chomsky puts it, a ‘wounded tiger’ syndrome – which can potentially be far more dangerous than healthy, ‘rational’ tiger. The American empire specifically, and Western hegemony generally, is coming to an end.

In light of the anxieties generated within a declining empire, there are factions of imperial elites that still believe the decline can be reversed by the gargantuan military muscle the US maintains, on which it outspends the next 9 countries combined. That has not seemed to have worked either, which is also why the House of Saud, under the reckless and criminal leadership of the new crown prince (Thomas Friedman’s buddy), Mohammad bin Salman, as well as Israel, have effectively also become ‘wounded tigers’ that cannot digest the setbacks they have suffered since the US invasion of Iraq in 2003, the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 2006, and the patently clear limits to American and Western military power when another ‘regime change’ operation has been under way in Syria.

Westoxificated Pakistani liberals, like their counterparts in the West who think Putin is responsible for everything from climate change to racist police brutality on the streets of America, also insist that simply the ‘establishment’ is the problem and source of all evil in the country. This is the peak of what Prof. Robert Jensen would call the period of the ‘delusional revolution,’ and liberals become just as myopic, and frankly politically illiterate, when they mimic the simplistic scapegoating explanations that are more often coming from the rightwing.

What has united the Westernized elites of Pakistan with their counterparts in the West is the absolute refusal, the vehement, childish denial, of a world order that is rapidly changing.

Whatever criticisms are made internally within Pakistan of Imran Khan and PTI, from its critical supporters and opponents alike, it is difficult to keep the population so utterly ignorant as to not see how their nation’s rulers have plundered the country and been quislings for whatever Western whim they were supposed to please, whether ‘jihadi Islam’ before, to ‘moderate Islam,; one that pacifies, polices and discipine Pakisttanis and Muslims as obedient subjects of Empie. Indeed, this policing of Muslim-ness is often outsourced to the local native elites themselves, who enthusiastically comply.

So Khan and the PTI may have a long way to go on vital issues of gender justice, socio-economic and redistributive justice, pluralism and inclusivity, as well as de-linking from Western-Zionist-Gulf policies that do the country no good, but incredible harm. And that is why, when Khan mentioned both China and Iran as countries to deepen and improve relations with, whatever vitriol from Western media existed before, just got a shot of steroids afterwards.

Pakistani liberals have failed to notice that not only are Pakistanis, especially the youth, more politically active and aware now about domestic issues, but also about regional and global geopolitics. They are not blind to the series of Western invasions, occupations, ‘regime change’ operations, drones, and threats if ‘Pakistan does not do more’ in basically assisting the US to conquer Afghanistan. And Pakistanis are also not blind to the fact that the US can no longer call the shots in Pakistan, and in many parts of the world (with obvious exceptions like Micronesia, Guam, etc.) the way that it could since World War II.

The negative Western reaction to where Pakistan has been ‘heading’ has of course been there for the past several years. The country is not helping quell the anti-occupation resistance in Afghanistan, and much more importantly (though not said too openly), its growing and deepening relationship with China – which one analyst has described as possibly the strongest bilateral relationship in the world.

And whatever happened with America’s obsession with terrorism and fighting a ‘war on terror.’ Well, the US position was made very clear where terrorism was not even mentioned in this year’s US National Defense Stategy document. All emphasis is on the emergence of potential and rising rivals, such as China and Russia. Perhaps this helps to explain why the US had no problem with jihadi fanatics fighting as its proxy forces in both Libya and most conspicuously in Syria – since apparently fighting some ‘war on terror’ is now considered antiquated and pales into the challenges posed by powers and movements which are most certainly re-orienting the world order.

All of this background information is important to understand the context of the phenomenal political rise of a character like Imran Khan in Pakistan. What Khan’s victory effectively represents is the breakdown of the myths that Pakistanis have been fed for decades: the US-Pakistan relationship is a mutually beneficial one, and equally importantly, that Saudi Arabia is the epitome of ‘true Islam’ and a genuine protector of Muslim interests. It is quite a delight now to see Pakistani migrant workers of the 1970s and 1980s, who initially were just indoctrinated into Wahhabi theology as the only religious orientation one can have, now saying quite openly how hypocritical, fraudulent, and politically reactionary the Saudi monarchy is, and that its claim to represent Islam is bogus and preposterous. This is relatively new, since the previous decades imposed a frightening silence on these Pakistanis who went to the Gulf to build their big buildings and shopping malls, meanwhile living in conditions described by human rights groups as ‘slave camps,’ even ‘concentration camps.’

And even though Pakistan’s native elite relentlessly try to bury an affinity with causes of the oppressed elsewhere, the population has never submitted to such chicanery. Pakistan may be the most pro-Palestinian country on the planet, and Imran Khan has forcefully articulated his anti-Zionist position on the issue since his political career began two decades ago. He has openly described in interviews, to the West or the East, that Palestinians suffer under an Israeli occupation that routinely engages in state terrorism, as he declared on the most recent Israeli butchery against the people of Gaza.

So when the NYT says that Khan is ‘unpredictable,’ with all of the negative connotations that evokes, perhaps we should try to understand where this unease is coming from. It is, on the surface, preposterous since there are few politicians on the planet who have articulated their political positions so lucidly and consistently.

The unease comes from what processes that the West has no control over, its provincialization and de-centering, and the coming end of Western hegemony and unipolarity. China is obviously the big, ‘threatening’ elephant in the room right now for planners in Washington, and Pakistan just happens to be its most strategic and formidable ally. Any future American military plans to use its encirclement of China to blockade the bulk of global trade, gas, and oil that runs through the Strait of Malacca and the South China Sea more generally, can eventually be circumvented, Beijing believes, by its China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) that gives its stupendous access to the warm waters of the Arabian Sea via the Pakistan port city of Gwadar. In addition, it is precisely the fact of these ubiquitous American ‘fleets’ that China has opted to invest so heavily in its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), to increase trade and interconnectivity across the Eurasian landmass all the way to Berlin – as a lucrative backup plan in case its maritime activity is disrupted.

The most perplexing part of the story of the rise of Imran Khan is that most of these developments are staring ordinary Pakistanis in the face, but a Westernized native lite remain oblivious to them. And this is why they didn’t know what hit them when Khan’s PTI won the largest number of seats in Parliament, since they are both cocooned from reality and so invested in a hegemonic Western project on which they and their goodies depend.

Hence, the victory of Imran Khan is a victory of the political AND, relatedly astute geopolitical consciousness of the Pakistani people. The frenzied reaction by Khan’s haters in Pakistan and India was expected, but virtually all of Western media’s virulence emanates from what Freud may have called the ‘unconscious’ – the inability to decolonize oneself sufficiently so that you understand how the peoples of the global South, of the non-Western world, have been trampled upon. It is an ‘unconscious’ that cannot fathom an Oxford English-speaking graduate that affirms his people,, their culture and desires improvements therein – and rather ‘ungrateful’ to the British who ‘educated’ him. “Education,” as Chomsky points out, “is a form of imposed obedience.” Khan must have missed class the day this truism was underscored.

Thanks to Edward Said, we know the entire enterprise of classical orientalism and its representations of the ‘East’ served more the function of a fictitious glorified version of itself and its past, of its Plato-NATO superior, rational historical sequence that produced good universals and the period of enlightenment. Similarly, I would argue that we are witnessing with the victory of this single individual and his party, with their warts and all, is both a conscious and unconscious recognition that things are shaking up in the world order the West was used to, and all of the bitterness and acrimony at Khan, just as the old Orientalists displayed toward their ‘backward’ subjects, is both the projection of their (unstated) increasing impotence in world affairs, as well the concomitant displacement of blame unto the unworthy native who cannot understand what should be axiomatic: The West can do no wrong, so just be grateful, and don’t be stupid enough to work with other non-Western ‘backward’ or ‘rogue’ states like China, Iran, Turkey, or Russia. And don’t forget neoliberalism, ‘our way,’ that tolerates none of this nonsense of welfarism that may actually help the impoverished and lower classes of your country. Learn from ‘us’: Do a Trump tax cut to make more millionaires into billionaires, and show utter disdain towards poor families and children.

Khan is not following that script. In a nutshell, from whatever angle you wan to look at it, his victory represents the intensification of imperial decline, since Pakistan was always expected to be a loyal client state of the US. So was Turkey. The problems with these countries now, like Iran,is not that human rights abuses are often inflicted by the state. This the pretext used to discipline countries who fall out of the orbit of US control. The non-Arab pillars of the Cold War American-Zionist architecture of control of the Arabs are seemingly slipping away. Iran did so in 1979, and has suffered the consequences for its disobedience – though ironically it is probably now as formidable a regional actor as it has ever been, largely due to the arrogance, incompetence, and butchery of American-Zionist-Saudi maneuvering in the region since 2003.

There was no logical or rational reason for the New York Times to label Imran Khan as “unpredictable,” as if he’s some Kim Jong-un, or going one notch higher on the level of unpredictably, Trump the con-man himself. But in fact that headline aptly captured the fundamental anxieties of an empire in decline, that knows precisely how predictable leaders, movements, and countries are – but despise it.

Liberals and others in the US have been obsessed with the Russiagate fixation at the expense of far more serous issues, the cascading crises afflicting humanity, as Prof. Robert Jensen puts it. They will be happy to know their Westoxificated counterparts in places like Pakistan also do their best to deflect attention away fro the fact that the country may be formally independent, but still needs to undergo an ongoing process of deepening decolonizing, of the minds, and of the hearts.

Muslims are not supposed to really have place in this Plato-NATO historical sequence other than perhaps just being postmen handing over what the philosophical manuscripts to the more learned Europeans who could carry that task forward. This is the Eurocentric world history that is taught in virtually every part of the world, including in Pakistan.

Whatever else Khan and PTI deliver, and it will require massive support and activism to actually live up to any broad notion of social justice and sovereignty, their victory represents a continuation of a process that was negated by colonialism: the writing of Muslims into a history, into a present, and into a future. Vulgar orientalism denied that, and decried Muslims’ stagnation – so that Muslims become a people without a history, and hence, irrelevant.

Prof. Salman Sayyid put it aptly when he stated that, “Muslims are too many to be ignored, but too weak to be ignored.” Things may change quickly on that front, not just in the world of Islamdom, but in the non-Western world more generally. 

American exceptionalism and Eurocentrism more broadly is the prism by which all of these developments in the global South are analyzed, and particularly so in the Muslim world because they are so many of them and they are totally globalized and transnational. To understand, but not to forgive, the pathetically malicious treatment Imran Khan is receiving before he has even formed a government, is the fact that one of our ‘Oxford boys’ is actually Asian and is putting a mirror to our faces that make us look quite ugly in our policies toward the non-white world.

The Western mainstream media’s bitterness at Khan’s victory, hence, should not be taken personally, It should in fact give us a clue to how panicky Western elites have become at developments all across Eurasia, from China, Russia, Iran, Turkey, and now…Pakistan.

Quelle
Il Manifesto (Italien)

La risposta bellica alla trattativa

Übersetzung : K. R.

Countries of the NATO military alliance have been ordered by President Trump to increase their spending on weapons, and the reasons for his insistence they do so are becoming clearer. It’s got nothing to do with any defence rationale, because, after all, the Secretary General of the US-NATO military alliance, Jens Stoltenberg, has admitted that “we don’t see any imminent threat against any NATO ally” and the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute recorded in its 2018 World Report that “at $66.3 billion, Russia’s military spending in 2017 was 20 per cent lower than in 2016.”

Even Radio Free Europe, the US government’s anti-Russia broadcaster, records that Russia has reduced its defence spending.

There is demonstrably no threat whatever to any NATO country by Russia, but this is considered irrelevant in the context of US arms’ sales, which are flourishing and being encouraged to increase and multiply.

On July 12, the second and final day of the recent US-NATO meeting, Reuters reported Trump as saying that “the United States makes by far the best military equipment in the world: the best jets, the best missiles, the best guns, the best everything.”  He went on “to list the top US arms makers, Lockheed Martin Corp, Boeing Co and Northrop Grumman Corp by name.”

On July 11 the Nasdaq Stock Exchange listed the stock price of Lockheed Martin at $305.68.  The day after Trump’s speech, it increased to $318.37.

On July 11 the Nasdaq Stock Exchange listed the stock price of Boeing at $340.50.  The day after Trump’s speech, it increased to $350.79.

On July 11 the New York Stock Exchange listed the stock price of Northrop Grumman (it doesn’t appear on Nasdaq) at $311.71.  The day after Trump’s speech, it increased to $321.73.

General Dynamics, another major US weapons producer, might not be too pleased, however, because its stock price rose only slightly, from $191.51 to $192.74.  Nor might Raytheon, the maker of the Patriot missile system which Washington is selling all over the world, because its stock went up by a modest five dollars, from $194.03 to $199.75.  Perhaps they will be named by Trump the next time he makes a speech telling his country’s bemused allies to buy US weapons.

Trump also declared that “We have many wealthy countries with us today [July 12 at the NATO Conference] but we have some that aren’t so wealthy and they did ask me if they could buy the military equipment, and could I help them out, and we will help them out a little bit,” which made it clear that poorer countries that want to buy American weapons will probably not have to put cash down for their purchases. So it wasn’t altogether surprising that the stock prices of the three arms manufacturers named by Trump all rose by over ten dollars.

To further boost this bonanza, the State Department did its best to make US arms sales even easier by enabling weapons manufacturers to avoid the well-constructed checks and balances that had been in place to ensure that at least a few legal, moral and economic constraints would be observed when various disreputable regimes queued up to buy American weapons.

But these regulations no longer apply, because on July 13 the State Department announced new measures to “fast-track government approval of proposals from defense and aerospace companies” which action was warmly welcomed by the President of the US Chamber of Commerce Defence and Aerospace Export Council, Keith Webster, who is “looking forward to continued collaboration with the White House on initiatives that further expand international opportunities for the defense and aerospace industries.”

There was yet more boosting by Lt-General Charles Hooper, Director of the Defense Security Cooperation Agency, who declared at the Farnborough International Air Show on July 18 that “Defense exports are good for our national security, they’re good for our foreign policy. And they’re good for our economic security.”  He then proposed that his agency cut the transportation fee charged to foreign military sales clients, which would be a major stimulant for sales of “the best jets, the best missiles, the best guns” so valued by Mr Trump. Obviously a devoted follower of his President, the General followed the Trump line with dedication by reminding the media that “as the administration and our leadership has said, economic security is national security.”  This man just might go places in Trump World.

But he won’t go as far as the arms manufacturers, whose future growth and profits are assured under Trump and the Washington Deep State, which is defined as “military, intelligence and government officials who try to secretly manipulate government policy.”  US weapons producers have realised, as said so presciently two thousand years ago by the Roman statesman, Cicero, that “the sinews of war are infinite money,” and their contentment will continue to grow in synchrony with their financial dividends.

Voice of America joined the chorus of reportage on July 12 and observed that “with Thursday’s renewed pledge by NATO countries to meet defense spending goals, some of the biggest beneficiaries could be US weapons manufacturers, which annually already export billions of dollars worth of arms across the globe.”

Within European NATO, the biggest spenders on US arms, thus far, are Poland, Romania, Britain and Greece, and the amounts involved are colossal.  Poland, whose economy is booming, has signed an agreement to buy Patriot missile systems for $4.75 billion, adding to the purchase of Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missiles for $200 million, Advanced Medium Range Air-to-Air Missiles, costing $250 million, and High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems for the same amount. Delivery of its 48 F-16 multi-role strike aircraft ($4.7 billion) began in 2006, and Warsaw has proved a loyal customer ever since.  Who knows what exotic new piece of US hardware will be ordered as a result of Mr Trump’s encouragement?

Romania, a country with only 750 kilometres of motorway (tiny Belgium has 1,700 km), has been seeking World Bank assistance for its road projects but is unlikely to benefit because it is so gravely corrupt. This has not stopped it purchasing US artillery rocket systems for $1.25 billion and Patriot missiles for a colossal $3.9 billion, following-on from construction in May 2016 of a US Aegis missile station, at Washington’s expense.  It forms part of the US-NATO encirclement of Russia, and its missiles are to be operational this year.

The message for European NATO is that the US is pulling out all stops to sell weapons, and that although, for example, “about 84% of the UK’s total arms imports come from the United States”, there is room for improvement.  Slovakia is buying $150 millions’ worth of helicopters and paying a satisfying $2.91 billion for F-16 fighters, but other NATO countries appear to have been less disposed to purchase more of “the best jets, the best missiles, the best guns” that Mr Trump has on offer.

The mine of NATO gold is there for exploitation, and following Trump’s enthusiastic encouragement of his arms’ manufacturers it seems that extraction will be effective. The US Military-Industrial Complex stands to gain handsomely from its President’s campaign to boost the quantities of weapons in the world.

ISIS members retreated from the town of Shajarah and the villages of As`arah and Ma`rabah east of the Golan Heights under pressure from Syrian government forces. Thus, the terrorist group remained in control of only 3 villages in the area.

According to pro-government sources, there are less than 200 ISIS members hiding in Kuwayyah, Beit Arah and Qusayr. With the liberation of these villages, the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) will be able to declare full control of the contact line with the Israeli-held area, and southern Syria in general.

The key problem of the advance in the Yarmouk valley is that an unknown number of ISIS fighters and ISIS-linked individuals are hiding among civilians in the recently liberated areas. Without additional security measures, these persons will be a source of constant threat of terrorist attacks.

The same problem is currently observed in eastern al-Suwayda where the SAA and security forces have failed to eliminate all ISIS cells thus facing repeated attacks. The most notable such incident took place on July 25 and resulted in the killing of at least 255 people and the injuring of about 180 others.

Civilians are leaving the militant-held part of Idlib province via a humanitarian corridor in the Abu al-Duhur settlement, Russia’s Center for the Reception, Allocation and Accommodation of Refugees said.

According to the head of the Center’s Aleppo Province Department Oleg Demyanenko, all the fleeing persons are checked via Syrian databases to see whether they have any problems with the law. They are also checked for weapons and explosives. Some people have reportedly tried to smuggle fire arms.

Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (formerly Jabhat al-Nusra, the Syrian branch of al-Qaeda) and other militant groups see the evacuation of civilians from the area under their control as a threat and a signal of the upcoming operation against them by the SAA.

The reason is that the evacuation of civilians is limiting the militants’ capabilities to use them as human shields.

The US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) have captured 3,400km2 from ISIS near the Syrian-Iraqi border in the framework of their operation against the terrorist group’s cells in eastern Deir Ezzor and southern al-Hasakah.

Currently, the SDF is in the final stage of its operation against ISIS in the border area, according to pro-Kurdish sources. According to the SDF’s statements, ISIS cells remain only in the area of Rawdhah and Barghuth swamps.

Excerpts from Andre Vltchek’s “Revolutionary Optimism, Western Nihilism”:

“How dreadfully depressing life has become in almost all of the Western cities! How awful and sad. It is not that these cities are not rich; they are. Of course things are deteriorating there, the infrastructure is crumbling and there are signs of social inequality, even misery, at every corner. But if compared to almost all other parts of the world, the wealth of the Western cities still appears to be shocking, almost grotesque.

The affluence does not guarantee contentment, happiness or optimism. Spend an entire day strolling through London or Paris, and pay close attention to people. You will repeatedly stumble over passive aggressive behavior, over frustration and desperate downcast glances, over omnipresent sadness.

In all those once great [imperialist] cities, what is missing is life. Euphoria, warmth, poetry and yes – love – are all in extremely short supply there.”

“For me personally there are not many significant things that I can do in Western cities. Periodically I come to sign one or two book contracts, to screen my films, or to speak briefly at some university, but I don’t see any point of doing much more. In the West, it is hard to find any meaningful struggle. Most struggles there are not internationalist; instead they are selfish, West-oriented in nature. Almost no true courage, no profound kindness, no passion, and no rebellion remain. On closer examination, there is actually no life there; no life as we human beings used to perceive it, and as we still understand it in many other parts of the world.

Nihilism rules. Was this mental state, this collective condition or illness something that has been inflicted on purpose by the regime? I don’t know. I cannot yet answer this question. But it is essential to ask, and to try to understand.

Whatever it is, it is extremely effective – negatively effective but effective nevertheless.”

“I know the world, from the ‘Southern Cone’ of South America, to Oceania, the Middle East, to the most god-forsaken corners of Africa and Asia. It is a truly tremendous world, full of beauty and diversity, and hope.

The more I see and know, the more I realize that I absolutely cannot exist without a struggle, without a good fight, without great passions and love, and without purpose; basically without all that the West is trying to reduce to nothing, to make irrelevant, obsolete and ridiculous.

My entire being is rebelling against the awful nihilism and dark pessimism that is being injected almost everywhere by Western culture. I’m violently allergic to it. I refuse to accept it. I refuse to succumb to it.”

“What is on the other side of the barricade?

I don’t want to glorify our revolutionary countries and movements.

I don’t even want to write that we are the “exact opposite” of that entire nightmare that has been created by the West. We are not. And we are far from being perfect.

But we are alive if not always well, we are standing, trying to advance this wonderful ‘project’ called humanity, attempting to save our planet from Western imperialism, its nihilist gloom, as well as absolute environmental disaster.

We are considering many different ways forward. We have never rejected socialism and Communism, and we are studying various moderate and controlled forms of capitalism. The advantages and disadvantages of the so-called ‘mixed economy’ are being discussed and evaluated.

We fight, but because we are much less brutal, orthodox and dogmatic than the West, we often lose, as we recently (and hopefully only temporarily) lost in Brazil and Argentina. We also win, again and again. As this book goes to print, we are celebrating in Ecuador and El Salvador.  

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Unlike in the West, in such places like China, Russia and Latin America, our debates about the political and economic future are vibrant, even stormy. Our art is engaged, helping to search for the best humanist concepts. Our thinkers are alert, compassionate and innovative, and our songs and poems are great, full of desire and fire, overflowing with love and longing.

Click Book Cover to order Andre Vltchek’s book 

Our countries do not steal from anyone; they don’t overthrow governments in the opposite parts of the world, they do not undertake massive military invasions. What we have is ours; it is what we have created, produced and sown with our own hands. It is not always much, but we are proud of it, because no one had to die for it, and no one had to be enslaved.

Our hearts are purer. They are not always absolutely pure, but purer than those in the West are. We do not abandon those whom we love, even if they fall, get injured, or cannot walk any longer. Our women do not abandon their men, especially those who are in the middle of fighting for a better world. Our men do not abandon their women, even when they are in deep pain or despair. We know whom and what we love, and we know whom and what we hate: in this we rarely get ‘confused’.

We are much simpler than those living in the West. In many ways, we are also much deeper.

We respect hard work, especially work that helps to improve the lives of millions, not just our own lives, or the lives of our families.

We try to keep our promises. We don’t always succeed in keeping them, as we are only humans, but we are trying, and most of the times we are managing to.

Things are not always exactly like this, but often they are. And when “things are like this”, it means that there is at least some hope and optimism and often even great joy.

Optimism is essential for any progress. No revolution could succeed without tremendous enthusiasm, as no love could. No revolution and no love could be built on depression, despair and defeatism.

Even in the middle of the ashes to which imperialism has reduced our world, a true revolutionary and a true poet can always at least find some hope. It will not be easy, not easy at all, but definitely not impossible. Nothing is ever lost in this life, for as long as our hearts are on the left and beating.”

My world view changed forever when, after 20 years in the Foreign Office, I saw colleagues I knew and liked go along with Britain’s complicity in the most terrible tortures, as detailed stunningly in the recent Parliamentary Intelligence and Security Committee Report. They also went along with keeping the policy secret, deliberately disregarding all normal record taking procedures, to the extent that the Committee noted:

131. We note that we have not seen the minutes of these meetings either: this causes us great concern. Policy discussions on such an important issue should have been minuted. We support Mr Murray’s own conclusion that were it not for his actions these matters may never have come to light.

The people doing these things were not ordinarily bad people; they were just trying to keep their jobs, comforting themselves with the thought that they were only civil servants obeying orders. Many were also actuated by the nasty “patriotism” that grips in time of war, as we invaded Iraq and Afghanistan. Almost nobody in the FCO stood up against the torture or against the illegal war – Elizabeth Wilmshurst, Carne Ross and I were the only ones to leave over it.

I then had the still more mortifying experience of the Foreign Office seeking to punish my dissent by bringing a series of accusations of gross misconduct – some of them criminal – against me. The people bringing the accusations knew full well they were false. The people investigating them knew they were false from about day 2. But I was put through a hellish six months of trial by media before being acquitted on all the original counts (found guilty of revealing the charges, whose existence was an official secret!). The people who did this to me were people I knew.

I had served as First Secretary in the British Embassy in Poland, and bumped up startlingly against the history of the Holocaust in that time, including through involvement with organising the commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. What had struck me most forcibly was the sheer scale of the Holocaust operation, the tens of thousands of people who had been complicit in administering it. I could never understand how that could happen – until I saw ordinary, decent people in the FCO facilitate extraordinary rendition and torture. Then I understood, for the first time, the banality of evil or, perhaps more precisely, the ubiquity of evil. Of course, I am not comparing the scale of what happened to the Holocaust – but evil can operate on different scales.

I believe I see it again today. I do not believe that the majority of journalists in the BBC, who pump out a continual stream of “Corbyn is an anti-semite” propaganda, believe in their hearts that Corbyn is a racist at all. They are just doing their job, which is to help the BBC avert the prospect of a radical government in the UK threatening the massive wealth share of the global elite. They would argue that they are just reporting what others say; but it is of course the selection of what they report and how they report it which reflect their agenda.

The truth, of which I am certain, is this. If there genuinely was the claimed existential threat to Jews in Britain, of the type which engulfed Europe’s Jews in the 1930’s, Jeremy Corbyn, Billy Bragg, Roger Waters and I may humbly add myself would be among the few who would die alongside them on the barricades, resisting. Yet these are today loudly called “anti-semites” for supporting the right to oppose the oppression of the Palestinians. The journalists currently promoting those accusations, if it came to the crunch, would be polishing state propaganda and the civil servants writing railway dockets. That is how it works. I have seen it. Close up.

Fifteen years ago, we were still in the early stages of the US invasion and occupation of Iraq, “the war that would change everything.” Looking at the Middle East today, I feel an overwhelming sadness as I consider the far-reaching and devastating impact that the Iraq war has had on my country and the region and its peoples.

Neoconservatives had been aggressively pushing the Bush administration to launch a war against Iraq beginning immediately after the horrific terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. They argued that America needed to forcefully respond to the attacks in order to demonstrate that we were not to be trifled with. A decisive show of strength, they claimed, was necessary to clearly establish America’s hegemony and to forestall any move toward multi-polarity in the post-Cold War era. 

It bears repeating that the war was based on lies, and by that I don’t mean the lies about Saddam’s nuclear program or his connection to the 9/11 terrorists. Rather the more insidious lies were: that the “war would be a ‘cake walk,’” that it wouldn’t require a significant troop commitment or expenditure of resources, that it would be over quickly, that we would be greeted as liberators, that democracy would take hold in Iraq, and that the entire Middle East would be transformed.

Fifteen years later, only one of these claims turned out to be true: the region would be transformed. But it was not the transformation envisioned by the neo-cons.

Again, it bears repeating just how devastating that war has been. The war itself exposed the deep fissures in Iraqi society, while the US occupation’s uninformed bungling only served to exacerbate these divides. With Iraq’s army and ministries dismantled, the country fell into chaos with competing sectarian militias unleashing a civil war. This resulted in the massive displacement of civilians—millions of whom became refugees or internally displaced—and the decimation of vulnerable religious minority communities. All of this occurred on Bush’s watch.

An additional tragic consequence of the war was the spread of extremism. Al-Qaeda, far from defeated, metastasized into newer and more deadly forms in Iraq, its immediate neighborhood, and countries beyond.

In this weakened and fractured Iraq, Iran found a foothold which it parlayed to its advantage. Today, Iran remains a major player in Iraq and not only there. Another unintended consequence of the war was the unleashing of Iran as a regional power.

Subdued, for a time, by its rival Iraq, Iran now felt empowered to extend itself beyond its borders. Preying on growing anti-American sentiment and sectarian tensions in other countries, “revolutionary Iran” was emboldened to meddle in regional affairs. This gave rise to the Arab Gulf states feeling the need to assert themselves against this growing and destabilizing Iranian threat.

The neocons’ war also emboldened Israel to more aggressively pursue its agenda to subdue the Palestinians and to expand its colonial enterprise.

The US, once seen as the dominant super power that had won the Cold War and built an international coalition to liberate Kuwait, now found itself bogged down in a war it could not win with its military weakened and demoralized by losses. The US also stood discredited in the Arab World as a result of its bloody failure and abhorrent behavior in Iraq and its stubborn refusal to confront its client/ally Israel.

The neoconservative’s blindness to Middle East realities did indeed give birth to a “New Middle East,” but it was exactly the opposite of the one they had imagined.

As the region descended into multiple new crises—with deadly wars in Syria and Yemen—the impact of the Iraq war became even more pronounced. Iran was a player in each of them. The Gulf states also became involved seeking ways to combat aggressive Iranian advances which challenged and threatened them. Al-Qaeda and its offshoots played an new and deadly role in Iraq and Syria. And new players like Russia and Turkey, each defending what they saw as their interests, also emerged as regional actors.

All the while, the US, weakened diplomatically and still licking its wounds from the war in Iraq, was too war weary and wary of becoming directly involved in new regional crises. Some blame the Obama administration for passivity. But this fails to recognize the reality that the post-Iraq, the US military cautioned against engagement in conflicts they could neither manage nor see how their entry, without a long-term commitment—in which they loathed to engage—could help bring about a resolution.

In this new chaotic multi-polar world, conflicts spin out of control, becoming more deadly and destabilizing as they grew. The Syrian conflict has taken the lives of a half-million while forcing over five million to become refugees. This has created new pressures in neighboring countries and unleashed an xenophobic tidal wave that is now challenging democracies in Eastern and Central Europe. And the battle in Yemen, which began as an effort to restore the legitimate government that had been overthrown by a rebel faction, has morphed into a draining regional conflict and a humanitarian disaster.

And so here we are fifteen years later, with the US reduced to playing a supporting role in a deadly conflict in Yemen and a backup role for minor players in Syria. The mono-polar world envisioned by the neo-conservatives has given way to a multi-polar region—with Iran, Russia, Turkey, the Gulf States, and the US all engaged, in varying degrees, in conflicts—all, seemingly, without end. This is the house that the Iraq War built.

At this point, one can only imagine what the Middle East would be like if fifteen years ago, we had not engaged in that foolish war. Iraqis might still be struggling against their dictator, but one million Iraqis would not have died and their society would not have been destroyed. Iran’s people would still be struggling against its regime, but Iran would be contained. And the US, its capacity for leadership and prestige still intact, would be in a position to play a far more constructive role in regional diplomacy and conflict resolution.

I write this not to “cry over spilt milk,” but as a cautionary note. Foolish wars have consequences with which we are forced to live. We need to learn from them in order to not be so foolish in the future.

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

Feature image: The destruction of the Great Mosque in Mosul (Wikimedia Commons)

It does little to allay the grief of relatives and friends, but the MH370 report on the doomed, and ever spectral Malaysian passenger liner merely added smidgens of further speculation.  The report from Malaysian authorities into the disappearance of the Boeing 777 on route to Beijing from Kuala Lumpur on March 8, 2014 will do little to contain the fever that accompanies such stories of disappearance, with MH370’s vanishing deemed by The Washington Post “the biggest airplane mystery since the disappearance of Amelia Earhart.”

The Post has a point, and Earhart’s vanishing, along with navigator Fred Noonan over the Pacific in July 1937 during an attempt to circumnavigate the globe did prompt a costly effort to rival that of the fruitless search for MH370: a sixteen day, Presidentially mandated scouring of an area the size of Texas comprising nine vessels, four thousand crewmen, sixty-six aircraft and a bill of $4 million.

Kok Soo Chon, head of the MH370 safety investigation team, told a news conference on Monday that his team was “unable to determine the real cause for disappearance of MH370.”  Such an answer would only be possible “if the wreckage is found”.  Nor could his team “determine with any certainty the reasons that the aircraft diverted from its filed flight plan route.”

The chief investigator did dangle a few theories: there might have been interference from any one of the 237 people on the plane with the pilots. “We cannot establish if there was third partly involvement but we also cannot exclude unlawful third party interference.”

As for the pilots themselves:  “We examined the pilot, the flight officer.  We are quite satisfied with their background, with their training, with their mental health, mental state.  We are not of the opinion that it could have been an event committed by the pilot.”

That said, there was an undeniable fact: “that there was an air turnback.  We cannot deny the fact that, as we have analysed, the systems were manually turned off with intent or otherwise.”  Tantalisingly, the motives are left to be pondered over, built upon and inflated.

Agency, in short, is everything; and speculation about how that agency manifested itself has been frenetic and rife. Pilots Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah and co-pilot Fariq Abdul Hamid have furnished investigators and conspiracy theorists over the years ample, if somewhat indigestible fodder.  The MH370 investigation team preferred a different diet of solids.  The rest have been left to fill in the blanks.

The captain had certainly done his bit to excite various opinions, with Malaysian police documents suggesting that he had been practising a “suicide route” on his home flight simulator.  But as ever, the police were simply patching together scenarios rather than accepting them.  The Australian was more brazen: Zaharie had hijacked the plane, locked the co-pilot out, depressurised the plane only to then re-pressurize it before landing gracefully upon the waters of the southern Indian Ocean then sinking it.

Such pictures of horrifying finality are always sealed by theories of the mandatory cover-up.  In Earhart’s case, one catchy, and very elastic version, is that US Secretary of the Navy James V. Forrestal felt disposed to conceal the destruction of Earhart’s Lockheed Electra 10E at Aslito Field on Saipan in 1944.  The aeronautical beast, so goes this theory, survived its occupants.  Destroying the beast would destroy speculation.

Forrestal’s diaries remain silent on the issue, but this did not discourage the idea that Japanese forces might have been responsible for doing away with the two flyers in an act of blood lust.  This, suggest Thomas E. Devine and Richard M. Daley in The Amelia Earhart Incident, could well have been a pre-war Japanese atrocity against Earhart and Noonan, who “conceivably flew hundreds of miles off course and might well have observed forbidden military preparations in the Japanese Mandates.”  Forrestal, being savvy to a post-war order where Japanese assistance would be needed to counter the communist menace, kept mum on the whole affair.

Those working for the Australian Transport Safety Bureau have been irritated with the cover-up narrative regarding MH370, breaking their silence this year.  “There’s no earthly reason,” claimed an agitated Peter Foley, “why someone in control of an aircraft would exhaust its fuel and then attempt to glide it when they have the option of ditching.”

The authorities, however, have not covered themselves in professional, well-regarded glory.  The Ministry of Transport did not see fit to have representatives to answer questions from family members.  The report is also silent on the foot-dragging.  It took hours before any interest was taken in pursuing the flight.  When a search did commence, eight days were wasted in a mistaken spot.  Then came 1,605 days of waiting for an unsatisfactory 449 page report.

Left with such questions, those seeking answers have filled the void of grief with legal actions and repeated promptings for clarification.  Voice 370, a group claiming to represent the victims’ relatives, is keen to identify “any possible falsification or elimination of records related to MH370 and its maintenance.” The legend, agonisingly unresolved, will only proliferate in form and versions, aided by Kok’s own observation this was not “the final report. It would be presumptuous of us to say it is.”

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

While current polls show waning support for the Mueller Russiagate investigation among a majority of American voters, that has not slowed the Democrats and their MSM/Intel cohorts from escalating their  ‘resistance’ campaign to unbelievable levels of exaggerated histrionics.   

Speaking with one voice since the 2016 election, those well-coordinated foaming-at-the-mouth attacks are not without impact on millions of Americans who long ago forgot the weapons of mass destruction lesson to think for themselves.  Many Americans continue to give away their power as engaged citizens, willing to mindlessly accept every accusation, every iota of insinuation,  that everything is black or white without confirming the facts for themselves. 

As one-dimensional thinkers with few sharp insights or intuitive awareness and blinded from the recognition that all is not as it appears to be, too many Americans, with a radically different view of reality, are easily egged on by the powerful MSM/DNC/Intel alliance.   As the establishment elites dominate the headlines, there are behind-the-scenes influential political entities at work here; those who benefit from a fragmented country and an alienated citizenry.

Many of those disaffected Americans, whether at home or in street demonstrations, have exhibited  a wide range of symptoms from a manic outrage, deep seated anger, uncontrollable hostility, clinical depression and despair followed by a hopelessness and bleak outlook for the future which has led them to embrace an abiding, unhealthy hatred.  It is the kind of hatred that fuels a deep-seated racism and has now targeted President Donald Trump with some of those Americans exhibiting severe symptoms of Trump Derangement Syndrome (TDS) 

What follows is a true story regarding one average American’s response to the 2016 election.  I personally know “Mary” who is a lifelong registered Democrat.  Immediately after the election, Mary’s Facebook postings were filled with irrational rants of the hair-on-fire variety.  After the initial shock of the Trump election, the MSM/DNC turned their efforts to stopping Trump from taking office which included intimidation of some Electoral College electors, lobbying for a decertification of the vote by Congress and generating a last-gasp challenge to the constitutionally mandated Electoral College.   And Mary’s Facebook postings followed their lead.

At that point, an impartial observer might have supposed that the Democrats would surrender with good grace and as much equanimity as could be mustered and invest some real energy into developing a solid legislative strategy to thwart Trump’s policies – but that’s where it all went wrong. 

It is curious to consider why the MSM/DNC/Intel elites appear to be more threatened by Trump’s anti-globalist, anti-interventionist campaign rhetoric than by the 2000 GW Bush ‘election’ which was clearly stolen from a docile Al Gore and yet stirred considerably less antagonism.   The Bush coup generated a stunning lack of the 2016 vitriol with an absence of widespread street protests, virtually no reaction from American campuses and no march on the Supreme Court.   Americans continued to go about their business with a blasé attitude.   By 2000, did anyone seriously expect the GW/Cheney team to represent a benign foreign policy?

Dissolution of the modern Democratic party can be traced to its acquiescence during the Reagan years; followed by dodging its responsibility to its rank and file as Clinton ‘reformed’ welfare, approved NAFTA’s job-destroying legacy, abandoned Federal oversight of the financial markets and opposed open borders.  None of this sparked public outrage. While Obama’s rock star status did nothing to improve the economic lives of the country’s middle class or minority communities, he can be credited with initiating war in four countries living in peace when he was elected in 2008:  Ukraine, Libya, Syria and Yemen.   Where were the socially-conscious, anti-war Democrats during the years leading up to 2016? 

Back to Mary’s story:  As it became clear that Trump would be inaugurated, Mary’s FB postings  shifted to a deeply-embedded loathing that appeared to fuel something more rabid than just a healthy venting in opposition to Trump policies.  Her emotional state deteriorated into a deep depression even as pursuit of healthful lifestyle changes did little to improve her condition.  Whenever a Russiagate tv news item triggered an uncontrollable rage, Mary’s husband would turn off the tv. 

In desperation, Mary sought professional psychiatric help but was unable to get an appointment within a month’s time after which she voluntarily checked herself into an over night psychiatric clinic.  That clinic recommended electro-shock therapy; after which Mary lost her short term memory.    Her future is uncertain. 

Initially thinking Mary’s story was a bizarre but unique aberration of TDS driven by a hate that was destroying her sanity, good judgment and mental health, I related her experience to a friend who, in turn, knew a woman with a similar yet less extreme story.   The condition of my friend’s friend, who was driven to incoherent fits of unrestrained animosity and who has been in psychotherapy, was having a detrimental effect on her husband’s health in response to the wife’s emotional roller coaster. 

With many of his personality flaws on public display, President Trump is not the most articulate public speaker and with a penchant for intemperate tweets lacking a filter for his verbal excesses, Trump is far from the ideal image of a US President.   

As the MSM and Democrats continue their irrational hypocrisy and irresponsible war-mongering, the distinction needs to be made that any citizen does not need to have concern for Trump but it is essential that all Americans have an unwavering concern for the First Amendment and the rule of law.    

While Mary and my friend’s friend may not see themselves as purveyors of hate, it makes no difference who the haters hate or why.  Hating for a “good cause” is still hating, with no justification  regardless of skin color, ethnicity, political beliefs or how someone wears their hair.   Burdened by a low vibration heart, all haters are disconnected from the universal intelligence that some call God and live in a world that does not exist.    

Those who have generated the 2016 hate campaign have contributed nothing to raise the spiritual vibration of the planet and only disgraced themselves by encouraging an amoral response from those too weak and servile to see truth.

Ultimately,  universal law will find justice from those accountable for the deterioration of civil discourse that now threatens the democratic foundation of our government and all that we once cherished as a country.

A recent report by the Koch Brothers-funded Mercatus Center at George Mason University found that moving to a National Improved Medicare for All single payer healthcare system would increase federal spending. They analyzed Senator Sanders’ Medicare for All Act and estimated it would increase annual federal spending by $32 trillion over ten years. Don’t let their attempt to weaken the strong support for single payer healthcare in the US fool you. Even though their report underestimates the savings, they admit that single payer would lower the total cost of health care.

Of course, a National Improved Medicare for All (NIMA) system would increase federal spending, but not by as much as they claim. NIMA would create a national health insurance, like most other wealthy countries have, funded only through taxes. This would replace our current complicated, privatized healthcare system, funded through a mix of premiums, out-of-pocket costs and taxes, which is the most expensive in the world. Countries that treat health care as a public good invest in a universal system because they know it improves the health of their people and is the most efficient.

The United States currently spends twice as much as the average wealthy nation, over $10,000 per person each year. Unlike other wealthy nations though, the US leaves tens of millions of people without coverage and tens of millions more with coverage but still unable to afford care. The US consistently ranks low in comparison to other countries on health outcomes. Life expectancy is declining in the US, now for two years in a row, the first time this has happened in over 50 years. Death rates for infants and mothers in the US are many times higher than in other wealthy countries.

A single payer healthcare system like NIMA would decrease administrative costs and the prices of goods, such as pharmaceuticals, and services dramatically. Rather than having hundreds of different healthcare plans, each with different rules, there is one comprehensive plan with one set of rules. It would relieve families, employers, health professionals and hospitals of the burden of navigating the current complex system. Everyone is in the system for life. If a person needs health care, they see a health professional of their choice, the health professional cares for the patient and submits a bill to the system, or they are paid a salary, and that’s it. Simple. Just as it is in most other industrialized countries.

The Mercatus Center study is flawed in serious ways. First, it analyzes the Senate bill, which was first introduced last September and has significant weaknesses. It would be better to examine the House bill, HR 676, which has been introduced every session since 2003 and is based on the Physicians’ Working Group Proposal by Physicians for a National Health Program, the leading experts on single payer health policy in the US (here is the updated proposal). Second, it grossly underestimates the savings of a single payer system and makes unrealistic assumptions about utilization of services.

There have been many studies over the past few decades on how much money a single payer system would save in the United States. In 1991, the General Accounting Office found “If the US were to shift to a system of universal coverage and a single payer, as in Canada, the savings in administrative costs [10 percent of health spending] would be more than enough to offset the expense of universal coverage.” Since that time, administrative costs have ballooned to one-third of our healthcare spending and the prices of pharmaceuticals have soared, so the savings would be greater.

In 1991 and 1993, multiple analyses by the Congressional Budget Office found that covering everyone under a single payer system might increase spending at the beginning, but it would be offset quickly by the savings. Since then, studies by non-governmental institutions, including one by Ken Thorpe who, since his alliance with Hillary Clinton, now claims the opposite, have all shown that compared to other reforms, NIMA is superior in savings and in the number of people and benefits that are covered.

It is important to distinguish between total healthcare spending and federal spending, the part the US government spends. Buried within the Mercatus Center study is a fact that the corporate media has missed. Although they estimate that federal spending would increase, because all health spending would become federal, they calculate that overall health spending would decrease by more than $2 trillion over ten years.

Single payer systems save money. The only system we can’t afford to maintain is the current one. Private health insurers are insatiable. The government subsidizes them by hundreds of billions of dollars a year, and still they raise premiums and out-of-pocket costs and ask for more. Pharmaceutical companies are increasing their prices by as much as they can get away with. A single payer system is the best way to put private insurers where they belong, on the margins of our healthcare system, and to control the pharmaceutical industry.

So, when you hear someone saying that NIMA would increase federal spending, tell them of course it does, that’s the point. Instead of paying premiums, deductibles and co-pays to a private insurer, we all contribute into a federal system that is there when we need it. But if they try to scare you with large numbers, tell them that single payer systems prove time and again they are the least expensive. If we want to talk about scary numbers, let’s look at how much the US spends on the military and have a conversation about priorities – ending lives or saving them.

Margaret Flowers, co-director of Popular Resistance, national coordinator of the Health Over Profit for Everyone campaign and co-chair of the Green Party US.

China Pakistan Economic Cooperation (CPEC)  and related projects are at the core of Pakistan’s future development, but it would be prudent for the country to sometimes be able to flexibly decouple itself from this initiative in order to appeal to other partners such as Russia who are reluctant to participate in CPEC for political reasons.

The Indian Challenge

CPEC is the lynchpin of China’s One Belt One Road (OBOR) global vision of Silk Road connectivity, and it’s accordingly the jugular vein of the emerging Multipolar World Order, to say nothing of Pakistan’s future development. This megaproject has the potential to span across the entire Eastern Hemisphere through various branch corridors, all of which are in one way or another connected to the South Asian state through which the original initiative passes. It can’t be overstated just how crucial of a component CPEC is to global geopolitics, and it’s with good reason that Islamabad decided to team up with Beijing to construct this game-changing series of roads, power plants, and other tangible investments. Pakistan’s future is intertwined with that of CPEC, which is why the latter has become the basis for the country’s international rebranding in the 21^stcentury.

The issue, however, is that CPEC’s soft power has almost been too successful for its own good because the project is inextricably connected with the idea of Pakistan functioning as a non-Malacca shortcut for other countries to trade with China. While the obvious implication is that Pakistan would naturally benefit from this transit relationship to what could become many billions of dollars of prospective trade and would eventually begin building its own value-added investments along this lucrative corridor, CPEC nevertheless by its very nature is about connecting other countries to China via Pakistan, which subconsciously frames the South Asian state’s importance to the casual entrepreneur as being primarily passive. In addition, the direct connection to China, while undoubtedly attractive for many countries, is also a political liability for those who want to retain their existing high-level relations with India.

America’s envisioned 100-year-long military-strategic partner and new “Lead From Behind” proxy is fiercely opposed to CPEC for many reasons, though its most loudly and publicly discussed one is that it passes through areas of Pakistan that India claims as its own per its maximalist approach to the Kashmir Conflict. India made it unequivocally clear that no government endeavoring to retain its privileged relations with what will soon become the world’s most populous country should dare to recognize CPEC or trade along its so-called “disputed” route in the Pakistani region of Gilgit-Baltistan. This dramatic de-facto “blackmailing” of certain countries actually isn’t all that applicable to the “Global South” states that already have much closer ties with China than India, but it’s understandably an issue for New Delhi’s Russian, Japanese, and American Great Power partners.

Russian, Japanese, And American Sensitivities

Russia’s Soviet-era relationship with India has fundamentally changed since the end of the Old Cold War and is now mostly transactional in nature, with Moscow unofficially depending more on New Delhi than the reverse because of the need that the Eurasian state has for the South Asian one’s multibillion-dollar arms and nuclear energy contracts that have become especially important in the era of the West’s anti-Russian sanctions. For this practical reason of self-interest, Russia is extremely reluctant to do anything that would signal its official approval of CPEC or interest in this project, though it should be noted that President Putin came as close as realistically possible to doing so during last year’s SCO Summitwhen he spoke about the need to combine the potential of this organization with OBOR. Even so, no Russian company has yet to join CPEC.

Japan has altogether different interests because it’s cooperating with India in the joint “Asia-Africa Growth Corridor” that it foresees as filling the “soft infrastructure” niche left by OBOR’s hyper-focus on “hard infrastructure” that seemingly neglects skills training, education, healthcare, and other such needs of China’s “Global South” partners. It has nothing in principle against investing in Pakistan, but it understandably doesn’t want to contribute to its Chinese rival’s project, hence why Japan hasn’t seriously considered the country as a viable investment destination. As for America, its government is quietly opposed to CPEC and is waging a Hybrid Waron it together with India in order to “contain China” and cut off its direct access to the Afro-Bengal Ocean, though US companies are still free to invest their much-needed capital and international management expertise in Pakistan if they were so inclined.

Pakistan’s priority is to attract as many stakeholders to its success as possible, to which end it’s wise to creatively craft non-CPEC marketing solutions that appeal to these three Great Powers’ political sensitivities in a bid to encourage their investments in the country. Russian, Japanese, and American economic involvement in this apolitical project might even serve to influence the policies of their respective governments and make the last-mentioned one more reluctant to destabilize it if its own companies and nationals could adversely be affected by this covert campaign. Pakistan has everything to gain by practicing a “two-track” marketing strategy whereby the main thrust of this initiative links the country’s future to CPEC while the supplementary one decouples it  from China and concentrates solely on bilateral investments that most immediately remain within the country.

The “Two-Track” Approach 

To explain, it’ll be practically impossible for any of Pakistan’s partners to avoid utilizing CPEC-connected infrastructure once this series of megaprojects is complete because of the roads that they’ll traverse and electricity they’ll consume while operating their businesses within the country, but the point to emphasize is that no country has a monopoly on infrastructure and that using it isn’t a political statement at all. For example, Pakistan could very easily rely on Indian-built “North-South Transport Corridor” infrastructure in Iran to one day trade with that country, Turkey, Azerbaijan, and even as far afield as Russia, so the same depoliticized logic can be applied to any of its partners that want to do the same in trading with or investing in Pakistan through CPEC’s facilitative infrastructure. This accordingly raises the question of what is and isn’t a CPEC investment.

The criteria will ultimately be up to the Pakistani authorities themselves to decide, but a general guideline could be that any economic activity inside the country that doesn’t produce something that eventually goes to China could be decoupled from the CPEC portfolio as a stand-alone bilateral project. This would even include the special economic zone (SEZ) in Gwadar, which could then be reconceived of as valuable real estate for countries such as Japan to use for building transshipment, production, and/or (re)assembly plants in the middle of Western European and East Asian maritime trade routes, or even for entrepreneurs in each Eurasian extremity to set up base in for facilitating trade with their “Global South” partners along the Afro-Bengal Rimland. When courting such partners, it’s actually advantageous to downplay the China factor so to assuage their political concerns vis-à-vis India.

Nevertheless, it’s very probable that the given company will eventually use its base of operations in Pakistan to trade with China seeing as how the People’s Republic is the Eastern Hemisphere’s economic center of gravity and too irresistible of a partner for anyone to refuse to deal with no matter the political sensitivities involved if they’ve already set up shop along CPEC. They’d then de-facto end up participating in CPEC even if their original investment wasn’t marketed as being part of this initiative, cleverly providing them with a plausible explanation that they could then rely on in response to Indian objections after they silently join this project with time. After all, India is so hungry for international investment that it probably won’t turn away any foreign company that’s active in Pakistan so long as they’re not openly (key word) involved in CPEC.

Concluding Thoughts

CPEC is the spinal cord of pan-hemispheric trade in the Eastern Hemisphere and especially the Afro-Bengal Region’s commerce with China, yet India is pressuring its main international partners to avoid participating in this project because of its exaggerated Kashmir-connected concerns. This won’t deter the many small- and medium-sized “Global South” states that already count China as their largest trading partner, but it’s unfortunately causing Russian, Japanese, and American companies to think twice about getting involved, though it’s precisely these countries that need to become stakeholders in CPEC’s success in order to diversify the project and ensure its long-term win-win viability. The more that Great Powers take an interest in profiting from Pakistan’s geo-economic potential, the more that this country and its eponymous connectivity corridor with China will fulfill their destinies as the 21^st century’s multipolar centerpieces.

The solution that Pakistan must seek is to tailor its marketing strategy towards these Indian-influenced countries and companies in such a way as to downplay the China factor and emphasize their state’s own stand-alone economic attractiveness, buffeted as it is by the facilitative support provided by Chinese road and energy investments through CPEC. There’s no such thing as a “Chinese highway” or “Chinese power plant” in Pakistan even though the country is constructing such infrastructure using Chinese loans, meaning that the services that foreign companies would be utilizing are officially Pakistani and not Chinese anyhow. By employing a “two-track” marketing strategy that promotes Pakistan’s more than 200 million people, upgraded infrastructure, and geostrategic location along the Afro-Bengal Rimland as separate from its attractiveness as a transit state to China, Islamabad might finally succeed in wooing Russian, Japanese, and possibly even American investors.

When they left prison on Sunday Ahed Tamimi and her mother Nariman received a hard-earned heros’ welcome from Palestinians and others opposed to Israel’s occupation and colonization of Palestinian lands seized in 1948 and enlarged by the Israeli army in 1967.

Ahed was 16 years old last December when an Israeli soldier shot her cousin in the face. The next day Israeli soldiers menacingly showed up at her house in the West Bank village of Nabi Saleh. What would you do?

Ahed slapped one of the armed-to-the-teeth soldiers. While some Israeli politicians said she should be put away for life and others demanded a sentence of at least ten years, the Israeli occupiers sentenced her to eight months for the slap seen around the world. She spent her 17th birthday in prison. Her mother Nariman filmed the incident and was thrown in jail too, this time for incitement. (It was not the activist Nariman’s first time in an Israeli prison.)

The Israeli authorities are so worried about the symbol for resistance that Ahed has become internationally that on Saturday, a day before her release, they arrested two Italian artists who had painted a large portrait of her on the separation wall near Bethlehem.

Most Americans — except for the relatively few who have spent more than a few days in Israeli-occupied territories — find it hard to understand why Palestinians like Nariman and Ahed “persist.” Most people in the U.S. are blissfully unaware of the history of Palestine and of the continuing injustices inflicted on its people today. The explanation for this lies largely in the way the U.S. mass media reports the story, almost entirely from the Israelis’ point of view.

Image: Ahed in Ofer military court in February in the West Bank village of Betunia.
(Photo: THOMAS COEX/AFP/Getty Images)

For those malnourished on Establishment media, here’s a bit of history, without which it is impossible to understand the anger and the courage-against-all-odds shown by those who continue to use what they have — even their open palms — to make clear that they will never acquiesce in Israeli occupation.

How a Homeland Gets Occupied

The Israeli attack starting the Six-Day War in early June 1967 fits snugly into the category of “war of aggression” as defined by the post-WWII Nuremberg Tribunal.  “Pre-emptive” attacks, when there is nothing to pre-empt, are now — post Iraq war — labeled more euphemistically as “wars of choice,” but that too fits the Nuremberg definition.

To begin to appreciate the injustices inflicted on millions of Palestinians, whose land Israel coveted for itself, one must un-learn the legend that in attacking its neighbors in 1967 Israel was acting in self-defense. None other than then-Prime Minister Menachem Begin (1977 – 83) undermined that piece of propaganda in a speech to the U.S. National Defense University on August 8, 1982.  (Apparently, even accomplished dissimulators get cocky on occasion and let the truth slip out.)  Here are Begin’s words:

“In June, 1967, we had a choice. The Egyptian Army concentrations in the Sinai approaches do not prove that [President Gamal Abdel)] Nasser was really about to attack us. We must be honest with ourselves. We decided to attack him. … The government decided unanimously: we will take the initiative and attack the enemy, drive him back, and thus assure the security of Israel and the future of the nation.”

Image: Bassem Tamimi and Ray McGovern in Nabi Saleh last year.

And now, a half-century after its successful six-day war of aggression with U.S. backing, Israel has been unlawfully colonizing the occupied territories, oppressing the Palestinians still living there, and thumbing its nose at UN Security Council Resolution 242. It was approved unanimously on Nov. 22, 1967, calling on Israel to withdraw from the lands it seized in June of that year. That was then.

And This is Now …

In February—March 2017, I was part of a a small Veterans For Peace delegation in Palestine. One of our last visits was to a village named Nabi Saleh, where Ahed’s father Bassem Tamimi, his wife Nariman, and Ahed’s three siblings live when they are not in prison. Her older brother is in prison now. After two weeks of experiencing what life is like for Palestinians under Israeli occupation in the West Bank, I had a chance to ask Bassem about the nonviolent, but frontal, resistance to Israeli occupation and colonization.

“Your sons have been beaten and badly wounded and one’s still in prison; your wife is in and out of prison: your brother-in-law was killed by a sniper bullet; you yourself have been tortured in prison; your house is on the list for demolition — why do you persist; why encourage such actions?” I asked.

“We have no alternative,” Bassem replied matter-of-factly, “it is our land and our life. I will not tell my children or my people to acquiesce in the Israeli occupation — ever.”

The following day we Veterans For Peace took part in a protest march to the separation Wall. Later, underneath the tear-gas and sheltered from the ensuing rifle fire, we watched the teens of Nabi Saleh dodge the Israeli soldiers chasing them through the village for two hours. When the Israeli soldiers, so heavily burdened with weaponry they could hardly run, finally went back behind their Wall, the young folk emerged shouting, “We won.” It was a privilege to be there to welcome them back to the Tamimi house and some relative peace and quiet.

Image: Ray McGovern with Ahed Tamimi and unnamed villager after teens in Nabi Saleh fought off Israeli soldiers.

Chris Smiley, our delegation videographer, created an excellent 38-minute documentary as part of a series on our experience in Nabi Saleh called: “One Day, One Village, One Family.”

The Palestinian Spirit is Universal

Ahed “Didn’t Get It From the Moon”. This is the expression my Irish grandmother would use to make it clear that tribute and praise should go to the seed-sowers as well as the protagonists themselves. Other traditions use some variant of: “The apple does not fall far from the tree.” Suffice it to say that, from what I was able to witness of the attitude and behavior of Ahed and her three brothers, they are clearly determined to honor the rich legacy of courage and Palestinian patriotism they inherit from Bassem and Nariman — and not only from them.

One might say that Ahed and her siblings are honor graduates of the Bassem/Nariman Folk School, just as Rosa Parks was a graduate of The Highlander Folk School. The common curriculum has to do with courageous persistence in the pursuit of justice. Moreover, our delegation was to discover that Rosa Parks is a revered figure in the Israeli Knesset — well, at least in the modest conference room allocated to Arab members.

Image: Hanging in meeting room of Arab members of the Knesset.

Hanging prominently on the main wall were pictures of Rosa Parks, as well as of Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.  And now I can hear Ahed Tamimi’s voice beneath that of Rosa Parks, who explained in 1992:

“I did not want to be mistreated … It was just time… there was opportunity for me to take a stand to express the way I felt about being treated in that manner. I had not planned to get arrested. … But when I had to face that decision, I didn’t hesitate to do so because I felt that we had endured that too long. The more we gave in, the more we complied with that kind of treatment, the more oppressive it became.”

Nonetheless, they persisted.

Welcome home, Ahed and Nariman.

Miko Peled, son of an Israeli general and critic of Israel’s Palestine policy, shot this video on Sunday and sent it to McGovern. 

Miko Video

Ray McGovern works with a publishing arm of the ecumenical Church of the Saviour in inner-city Washington.  A former Army officer and CIA analyst, he was a member of the Veterans For Peace delegation visiting Palestine in early 2017.

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The great 2017 GOP tax cut swindle reduced the nominal corporate rate from 35 – 21% – the lowest US percentage since 1940 at the onset of WW II.

Corporations in America don’t pay the nominal rate. Most pay little more than one-third that amount or less. Some corporate giants pay little or get rebates despite earning profits.

The corporate share of federal taxes has been falling for decades. They’ve paid no taxes on trillions of dollars stashed in offshore subsidiaries and tax havens, the precise number unknown because it’s not reported.

Wealthy individuals do the same thing to avoid taxes. Various other schemes are used by corporate predators and high-net worth individuals to pay minimum or no taxes.

The great GOP tax cut swindle made it easier for them to shift much of the tax burden from them to ordinary Americans struggling to get by.

Corporate tax cuts don’t create jobs or stimulate economic growth, as falsely touted. Corporate predators largely use their windfall for greater executive pay and bonuses, increased stock buybacks, along with extra funds for mergers and acquisitions, not pay raises or increased benefits for workers.

Tax cuts putting more money in the pockets of ordinary people are stimulative. When they have more money they spend it. Super-rich ones use tax windfalls for investments to gain greater wealth.

The Trump regime and GOP-controlled Congress took a giant step last year toward more greatly shifting the nation’s tax burden to ordinary Americans – accelerating the unprecedented transfer of wealth from them to corporate predators and high-net worth individuals.

Americans for Tax Fairness explained the following:

• Corporate tax revenues plummeted to the lowest amount in modern times.
• GDP growth since last year’s GOP tax cut heist “has been unremarkable…as measured by real GDP,” not inflated or manipulated numbers.
• Inflation-adjusted wage growth “stagnated” post-cuts.
• Low unemployment is pure fantasy, underemployment affecting most US workers unreported officially and by media  – my comments, not ATF’s.
• “No evidence of an investment boom since the tax cuts” exists.
• “Few employers have announced raises or one-time bonuses or new investments.”
• “Corporate tax cuts are going mostly to wealthy shareholders and CEOs through stock buybacks.”

In 2014, federal corporate tax revenues exceeded $450 billion. In 2018, they’re on track to be around $250 or less – while the federal deficit soars.

In the 1950s, about one-third of federal revenues came from corporate taxes. Before last year’s tax cut swindle, US corporations contributed only around 10% to federal tax collections. Now it’s little more than half that amout.

Economist Ludvig Weir believes corporations in many countries will avoid taxes entirely “in 10 to 20 years at (the current) rate” of reducing their tax burden – shifting it more greatly to ordinary people while cutting social spending en route to eliminating it altogether the way things are heading.

The Trump regime and GOP congressional leaders lied, claiming tax cuts would stimulate greater economic growth and jobs creation.

Increased annual federal deficits alone were achieved, along with accelerating the great wealth transfer heist from ordinary Americans to privileged ones – thirdworldizing the nation more than already.

*

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

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Oded Yinon, whose 1982 paper for Kivunim (Directions) entitled “A Strategy for Israel in the 1980s”, is often used as a reference point for evidence of an Israeli aim to balkanise the surrounding Arab and Muslim world into ethnic and sectarian mini-states, was recently interviewed. He discussed the notoriety of the document which came to a wider audience a few years later after it was translated into English by Israel Shahak.

But while Yinon down plays the specific application of his paper to actual geopolitical events, the ideas posited in his article have arguably formed an enduring central policy plank of the Zionist state; balkanisation having been a necessary condition first in creating the modern state of Israel, and thereafter as a means of ensuring its survival and maintaining its military dominance in the Middle East.

The theme of balkanisation has always formed an essential part of the rationale of Political Zionism. The refusal by Sultan Abdul Hamid II of Theodor Herzl’s offer of £150 million (sterling) as a down payment towards the Ottoman national debt in exchange for a charter enabling Zionist settlement in Palestine meant that the early leaders of Zionism would in due course redirect their efforts in seeking a means of creating a Jewish homeland in the Middle East.

A necessary precondition of this would be the dismantling of the Ottoman Empire, and a step towards favourably positioning Zionist aspirations in the event of the liquidation of that empire came with the agreement struck during the First World War between the Zionist movement and the British government. The Balfour Declaration and the implementation of the Sykes-Picot accord created the basis through which the goal of securing a future Jewish state within the territory designated as a British Mandate could be focused.

After the establishment of Israel in 1948, a national policy of weakening Arab and Muslim states, balkanising them, or keeping them under a neo-colonial state of affairs has persisted. The prevailing logic was and always has been that any stable, nationalist government in the Arab world poses an existential threat to Israel. For instance, David Ben-Gurion, Israel’s first prime minister, was vehemently against President Charles de Gaulle’s decision to grant Algeria independence.

Setting communities against each other with the aim of weakening ‘national spirit’ and balkanisation was at the heart of the policy of Ben-Gurion and Moshe Dayan when it came to Lebanon, Israel’s northern neighbour. As Moshe Sharett, an early Israeli prime minister recorded in his diaries, both men were keen to exploit the differences between the country’s Muslim and Maronite Christian population. They also desired the creation of a Christian state. In a letter written to Sharett in February 1954, Ben-Gurion stated the following:

Perhaps … now is the time to bring about the creation of a Christian state in our neighbourhood. Without our initiative and our vigorous aid this will not be done. It seems to me that this is the central duty, or at least one of the central duties, of our foreign policy … We must act in all possible ways to bring about radical change in Lebanon … The goal will not be reached without a restriction of Lebanon’s borders.

Ben-Gurion had wanted Israel’s northern border to extend to the River Litani. This was made clear through the plans submitted to the Versailles Peace Conference in 1919 by the representatives of the Zionist movement. The water resources provided by the Litani, the River Jordan, and the Golan Heights were considered to be essential prerequisites for the sustenance of the inhabitants of a future Jewish state.

For his part, Dayan, who served as army chief of staff during the 1950s, envisaged that Israel could groom a Christian military officer who would declare a Christian state in the southern part of Lebanon, out of which the region south of the River Litani would be ceded to Israel. This is evidenced by an entry into Sharett’s diary dated May 16th, 1955:

According to Dayan the only thing that is necessary is to find an officer, be he just a major. We should either conquer his heart or buy him with money, to make him agree to declare himself the saviour of the Maronite population. Then, the Israeli army will enter Lebanon, will occupy the necessary territory and will create a Christian regime which will ally itself with Israel. The territory from the Litani southward will be totally annexed to Israel.

Dayan’s hope for a surrogate militia would come to pass in the 1970s with the creation of the South Lebanon Army (SLA), which did the bidding of Israel in its battles with the Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO) and other sources of resistance to Israeli power. In 1979, the leader of the SLA, Major Saad Haddad, a renegade officer of the Lebanese Army and a true life incarnation of what Sharett referred to as the “puppet” desired by Dayan, would even proclaim an area controlled by his group as ‘Independent Free Lebanon’.

While the SLA is now defunct, the leaders of Israel continue to covet parts of south Lebanon. It remains an important factor behind Israel’s goal of destroying Hezbollah, the Lebanese Shia militia which forced the withdrawal of the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) from south Lebanon in 2000, and which repelled the IDF’s incursion into south Lebanon in 2006.

It is important to note that the intellectual, if not moral, justification for the balkanisation has come from many position papers produced by Israel-friendly (many would argue Israel-First) neoconservative think-tanks and other right-wing organisations, which have supported the idea of breaking up the Arab Muslim lands of the Middle East and North Africa. These include those disseminated by the Project for the New American Century (PNAC) and the Rand Corporation. A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm, a document prepared in 1996 by the Israeli-based Institute for Advanced Strategic and Political Studies, and presented to Binyamin Netanyahu during his first tenure as prime minister, called for Israel to “contain, destabilise, and roll back” a number of states including Syria and Iraq.

Allied to the intellectual justification is the use of military force to practically effect such balkanisation. This has come through using the United States, over which the the Israel lobby has continually had a decisive influence, as either the main protagonist in military actions such as the invasion of Iraq, or as the overseer of covert operations geared towards destabilisation as has been the case in the Syrian conflict.

In January 1998, members of PNAC wrote an open letter to President Bill Clinton urging him to remove “Saddam Hussein and his regime from power.” This forceful plea was followed by the passage in Congress in October that year of the Iraq Liberation Act which made it official US policy to overthrow Saddam Hussein. It was always understood that the termination of the rule of Saddam’s Baathist Party would run the risk of fracturing the Iraq state into three component parts as Yinon’s paper suggested: A Sunni, a Shia and a Kurdish mini-state.

Israeli politicians including serving prime ministers have at times openly petitioned US presidents to destroy Arab and Muslim countries perceived as threatening Israel’s security. For instance, in January 2003, when the invasion of Iraq was brewing, Ariel Sharon called on President George W. Bush to also “disarm Iran, Libya and Syria”. Also, Binyamin Netanyahu has since the 1990s been actively calling on the Americans to intervene in Iran, another state with a heterogenous mixture of cultures and religious sects, which is viewed as inherently vulnerable to efforts geared towards destabilisation and dismemberment.

Iran formed a central part of the ‘Bernard Lewis Project’, a proposal contrived by the neoconservative academic in 1979, which argued the efficacy behind the West pursuing a policy aimed at dividing the countries of the Middle East along ethnic and religious lines. By encouraging groups such as the Kurds, Lebanese Maronites, Azerbaijani Turks and others to seek autonomous rule, Lewis envisaged an ‘Arc of Crisis’ which would spill over into the Soviet Union. Lewis’ project encompassed the breaking up of Turkey and Arab states such as Iraq and Syria since the creation of a Greater Kurdistan would necessitate this.

The usefulness of Lewis’s worldview to the cause of Israel was explicitly acknowledged by Binyamin Netanyahu who, in eulogising Lewis when he died in May 2018, said that “we will be forever grateful for his robust defence of Israel.” Lewis, whose influence in the corridors of Washington has remained strong over the decades, supported the White House and Pentagon planners of the invasion of Iraq, a conflict which Netanyahu admitted in 2008 “benefited” Israel.

Oded Yinon unsurprisingly singles Lewis out for praise in his interview.

Lewis’s influence on US foreign policy was apparent in the doctrine of the ‘New Middle East’ unveiled by the then serving Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in July 2006. The aim of securing change through the fomenting of violence and disorder hinted at the ‘Arc of Crisis’ rationale posited in 1979, with the neutralising of the ‘Shia Crescent’, consisting of Iran, Syria and Lebanon’s Hezbollah being the centre of focus. The ultimate objective of balkanisation was alluded to in a map (see below) prepared by Lieutenant-Colonel Ralph Peters, a retired US Army officer which was published in the Armed Forces Journal in June 2006. It depicted a redrawn Middle East map which included a Kurdish state, the creation of which is a present priority for the state of Israel.

To the perpetual Israeli goals of weakening and destabilising Arab and Muslim states must be added the objective of acquiring more land for the state through territorial conquest, a notable example of which was the annexation of Syria’s Golan Heights in 1981 after it had been taken by the Israeli Defence Force during the war of 1967. The conflict of 1967 was a war of conquest prosecuted by right-wing ‘hawks’ who had seized control of prime minister Levi Eshkol’s cabinet with the aim of completing the task of acquiring land which had not been taken from the Arabs during the War of 1948. One of the most important aspects of this reach for ‘Greater Israel’, in which Israel conquered territory that tripled its size, was the desire to capture Jerusalem.

The war of 1948, while often posited in Zionist historiography as a defensive war, had been waged to seize as much land as could be taken in excess of what had been provided under the vitiated United Nations Partition Plan. An important part of that campaign was Plan Dalet, which sought to expel Arabs from key areas so as to ensure a Jewish majority in all territories which would be controlled by the nascent Jewish state.

That Israel at its inception was a belligerent power intent on extending its borders and its sphere of influence cannot be denied. Just ten days after the declaration of Israel’s independence, Ben-Gurion said the following at a meeting of the general staff of Haganah, the precursor of the IDF:

We must immediately destroy Ramie and Lod. … We must organise Eliyahu’s brigade to direct it against Jenin in preparation for the Jordan Valley … Maklef needs to receive reinforcements and his role is the conquest of southern Lebanon, with the aid of bombing Tyre, Sidon and Beirut. … Yigal Allon must attack in Syria from the east and from the north. … We must establish a Christian state whose southern border will be the Litani (River). We will forge an alliance with it. When we break the strength of the (Arab) Legion and bomb Amman we will eliminate Trans-Jordan too, and then Syria falls. And if Egypt still dares to fight, we will bomb Port Said, Alexandria and Cairo.

While Yinon claims in the interview that Israel does not require more territory, which he links solely to the capacity it has of protecting its existing borders, this is contradicted by the creeping colonisation of the West Bank, considered in Zionist belief to be that part of the ‘Land of Israel’ known as Judea and Samaria. Arab settlements continue to be constricted into small, increasingly non-contiguous entities that many have referred to as akin to apartheid-era ‘Bantustans’. The stringent blockade of Gaza and the intermittent war and military strikes on the territory appear designed to make living conditions so unbearable and hopeless as to convince Gazans to pack their bags and migrate. And if acquiring neighbouring land is not explicitly mentioned, the quest to create additional territory by stealth through the creation of security ‘buffer zones’ on its borders with Syria and Lebanon is real enough.

But just how much more of the ‘Promised Land’ Israel would wish to acquire is an issue not openly discussed in contemporary times. Yinon smirked at the tendency of articles on his paper to reference a map of the Zionist ‘Land of Israel’ (see below) in its maximalist borders extending from the Nile Delta to the Euphrates River. Indeed, the claim that Israel continues to seek these borders is one which Zionists point to as a ‘conspiracy theory’.

Belief in Israel’s maximalist borders, which have a biblical origin, was taken up by many in the modern Zionist movement. It was explicitly referred to in the emblem of the Irgun terror group. However, since the creation of Israel, most hardline Zionists have been content to publically refer to securing what they term the sovereign right of the Jewish people to what was the western part of the British Mandate of Palestine, with the Palestinian Arabs entitled to the land east of the River Jordan, that is, the modern state of Jordan. However, until Israel formally declares where it considers its final borders to be, fears that it wishes to acquire more land will legitimately persist.

In the interview, Yinon claims that his plan has never really been implemented by any Israeli government, save for the adoption of some of his ideas by Israeli military intelligence (AMAN) during the present Syrian conflict. An obvious manifestation of this has been the medical and logistical support given by Israel’s military to jihadist militias fighting the Syrian Arab Army near the Golan Heights.

It is clear that the largely jihadist insurgency in Syria which aimed to bring down the secular-nationalist government of Hafez al-Assad has been overseen by the United States as a means of aiding Israel’s geopolitical goals. The objective of American-sponsored balkanisation was clear from a US Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) document which noted that a declaration of a Salafist principality in the eastern part of Syria would serve the interests of the internal and external opposition to the Assad government. With most of the jihadists defeated by the Syrian Arab Army in concert with Russia, Iran and Hezbollah, this goal has been continued by American and Israeli support for Kurdish militias in that part of Syria.

The deliberate and calculated intervention in the affairs of the Arab world is something which Yinon is content to admit is unnecessary given the artificiality of the states which are the product of imperial draughtsmen. That was the criticism levelled at his paper by Yehoshafat Harkabi, a former head of Israeli military intelligence, who questioned the wisdom of working towards the dissolution of such countries if the initial analysis is that they will eventually fall apart.

Moshe Sharett warned against Ben-Gurion and Dayan’s plan to “transform” Lebanon because of what he correctly claimed would be “an adventurous speculation upon the well-being and existence of others”. The corpses of the victims of attempts in recent times to reshape the Middle East testify for that.

Yinon’s claim that an application of the spirit of his strategy has been limited only to the conflict in Syria is patently wrong. The neoconservative-inspired wars waged by the United States on behalf of the state of Israel in Iraq, Libya, as well as the ongoing plans to destroy the Shia Crescent by attacking Iran provide contrary evidence.

The ‘Yinon Plan’ after all merely encapsulates Israeli policy of the past, the present and the future.

This article was first published on the author’s website

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Adeyinka Makinde is a writer based in London, England. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

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That’s what targeting him is all about, wanting truth-telling on vital issues suppressed. Permitting the falsified official narrative alone is where things are heading.

It’s how police states operate everywhere – tyranny over democratic governance, rule of law principles abandoned for total control.

Ending digital democracy and silencing Assange are steps toward enforcing totalitarian rule in America and other Western societies – fantasy democracies, not real ones, tyranny threatening their people, controlling the message in these states considered most important of all.

If Assange is forced out of asylum safe haven in Ecuador’s London embassy, arrest and detention by UK authorities ahead of unlawfully extraditing him to US gulag hell is virtually certain – leaving him vulnerable to the horrors committed against Chelsea Manning and thousands of other political prisoners in America.

Assange is a notable investigative journalist, a truth-teller on vital issues – not a hacker or perpetrator of other crimes.

Accusations against him by US officials are bald-faced lies. If extrajudicially extradited to their dirty hands, he’ll be harshly treated to discourage others from following in his footsteps.

Post-9/11, the right of free expression is threatened at a time when truth-telling and justifiable dissent are considered threats to national security.

Losing the right of free expression endangers all others. “We the people of the United States” means its privileged class exclusively. The constitutionally affirmed general welfare applies to them alone.

The American way is corrupted by predatory capitalism and corporate dominance – featuring militarism, belligerence, corporate handouts, and police state harshness on nonbelievers.

Global war OF terror, not on it, is waged on humanity. Media scoundrels cheerlead what demands condemnation.

America’s criminal class is bipartisan, harming ordinary people they’re sworn to serve and protect – instead serving Wall Street, war-profiteers, other corporate favorites, billionaires and millionaires, ordinary people harmed so privileged ones can benefit.

International law and constitutional rights no long matter. Supporting right over wrong is considered heresy.

What’s commonplace in dystopian societies arrived in America. Human and civil rights are eroding in plain sight.

The Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) earlier said

Washington “consistently (doesn’t) recognize the protections afforded by the US Constitution and international law, and in doing so, it has failed in its responsibility to maintain a democratic society that is both open to, and accountable to, the people.”

America’s global war OF terror breached First, Fourth, Fifth and Sixth Amendment freedoms.

America was never the land of the free and home of the brave from inception – far from it.

Post-9/11 tyranny ended fundamental freedoms, remaining ones likely headed toward elimination.

A climate of fear is perpetuated to justify unjustifiable US war on humanity at home and abroad. Speech, media and academic freedoms are threatened – hallmarks of tyranny.

It arrived in America, heading toward becoming full-blown – on the phony pretext of sacrificing freedoms for greater security, losing both in the process.

Threatening Julian Assange is a deplorable sign of the times – part of a campaign to silence truth-telling on vital issues altogether.

Interviewed on RT, former Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa said Assange’s days of asylum in London are numbered.

Current President Lenin Moreno transformed Ecuador into a US vassal state. Correa called him a “hypocrite,” conspiring with the Trump and Theresa May regimes against Assange’s international law affirmed right of asylum.

Handing him over to Britain for transfer to Washington will constitute a high crime against humanity – where things are likely heading, how all police states operate.

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

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Finally, a journalist for a mainstream UK media outlet is methodically tracking weapons shipment serial numbers and English-language paperwork recovered from al-Qaeda groups in Syria, and he’s literally showing up at arms factories and questioning arms dealers, including officials at the Saudi Embassy in London, asking: why are your weapons in the hands of terrorists? 

Veteran Middle East war correspondent Robert Fisk recently published a bombshell report entitled, I traced missile casings in Syria back to their original sellers, so it’s time for the west to reveal who they sell arms to. In it Fisk recalls a bit of detective sleuthing he’s lately been engaged in after stumbling upon a batch of missile casings and shipment paperwork last year hidden in what he describes as “the basement of a bombed-out Islamist base in eastern Aleppo” with the words “Hughes Aircraft Co/Guided Missile Surface Attack” emblazoned on the side of the spent tubes.

Of course, the Syrian government recaptured the area from Islamist insurgents including al-Nusra terrorists and their allies in December 2016, and has made rapid gains throughout the country’s east and south since; and Fisk has been trekking around the country to see what he can find.

His “detective story” as he calls it actually seems to solicit the help of the public, and begins as follows:

Readers, a small detective story. Note down this number: MFG BGM-71E-1B. And this number: STOCK NO 1410-01-300-0254. And this code: DAA A01 C-0292. I found all these numerals printed on the side of a spent missile casing lying in the basement of a bombed-out Islamist base in eastern Aleppo last year. At the top were the words “Hughes Aircraft Co”, founded in California back in the 1930s by the infamous Howard Hughes and sold in 1997 to Raytheon, the massive US defence contractor whose profits last year came to $23.35bn (£18bn). Shareholders include the Bank of America and Deutsche Bank. Raytheon’s Middle East offices can be found in Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Israel, Egypt, Turkey and Kuwait.

There were dozens of other used-up identical missile casings in the same underground room in the ruins of eastern Aleppo, with sequential codings; in other words, these anti-armour missiles – known in the trade as Tows, “Tube-launched, optically tracked and wire-guided missiles”…

A prior spent missile tube in Syria with “Hughes Aircraft Company” listed as manufacturer which surfaced in 2014 (not part of the same batch of weapons analyzed in Fisk’s report). Notice the attempt to scratch off the serial numbers. Via Armament Research Services

The past year especially has seen an uptick in such systematic attempts to trace foreign-supplied weapons on the Syrian battlefield, most of them recovered from internationally designated terrorists groups (even ISIS), back to their origination points. We’ve previously detailed a number of these reports, for example: Journalist Interrogated, Fired For Story Linking CIA And Syria Weapons Flights as well as Weapons Went From The CIA To ISIS In Less Than Two Months — the latter based on extensive arms tracking and field forensics research produced by Conflict Armament Research (CAR).

Robert Fisk, however, represents the rare instance of a prominent journalist on a lone mission to trace weapons serial numbers recovered from the foreign-backed Syrian insurgency back to their origins in the United States (worrisome for US intelligence and military leaders, as The Guardian has called him “one of the most famous journalists in the world” for his being unrelenting in his investigations).

Fisk continues by relating the moment he confronted a former Hughes Aircraft (now Raytheon) executive about finding their product in the hands of terrorists:

Some time ago, in the United States, I met an old Hughes Aircraft executive who laughed when I told him my story of finding his missiles in eastern Aleppo. When the company was sold, Hughes had been split up into eight components, he said. But assuredly, this batch of rockets had left from a US government base. Amateur sleuths may have already tracked down the first set of numbers above. The “01” in the stock number is a Nato coding for the US, and the BGM-71E is a Raytheon Systems Company product. There are videos of Islamist fighters using the BGM-71E-1B variety in Idlib province two years before I found the casings of other anti-tank missiles in neighbouring Aleppo. As for the code: DAA A01 C-0292, I am still trying to trace this number.

Fisk writes further that even if he doesn’t ultimately come up with the American base from which the missiles originated, as well as specific factory they were made, he knows one thing for sure, that both Hughes/Raytheon and the US government have erected a paper trail system designed to shield them from violating anti-terror laws.

He explains of this legal cover, “This missile will have been manufactured and sold by Hughes/Raytheon absolutely legally to a Nato, pro-Nato or “friendly” (i.e. pro-American) power (government, defence ministry, you name it), and there will exist for it an End User Certificate (EUC), a document of impeccable provenance which will be signed by the buyers – in this case by the chaps who purchased the Tow missiles in very large numbers – stating that they are the final recipients of the weapons.”

And yet there’s no actual way of knowing that the official “recipients” identified as the “end user” are in fact the end users, as Fisk’s investigation proves (for the fact that he found the missile batch in a former Nusra/ISIS/al-Qaeda stronghold).

How many of these advanced Raytheon-made weapons does al-Qaeda still have in its possession? Does anyone in Washington or London even care? 

He points out that “there is neither an obligation nor an investigative mechanism on the part of the arms manufacturers to ensure that their infinitely expensive products are not handed over by ‘the buyers’ to Isis, al-Nusra/al-Qaeda – which was clearly the case in Aleppo – or some other anti-Assad Islamist group in Syria branded by the US State Department itself as a ‘terrorist organisation'”. So much for US anti-terror material support laws huh?

Naturally, Fisk follows up with an appropriately sarcastic quip:

Of course, the weapons might have been sent (illegally under the terms of the unenforceable EUC) to a nice, cuddly, “moderate” militia like the now largely non-existent “Free Syrian Army”, many of whose weapons – generously donated by the west – have fallen into the hands of the “Bad Guys”; i.e. the folk who want to overthrow the Syrian regime (which would please the west) but who would like to set up an Islamist cult-dictatorship in its place (which would not please the west).

Indeed it confirms what former MI6 spy and British diplomat Alastair Crooke once stated — that the CIA knowingly established the basis of a “jihadi Wal-Mart” of sorts — to which ISIS had immediate and easy access. Crooke noted that the weapons program was set up with “plausible deniability” in mind, which would allow its American intelligence sponsors to be shielded from any potential future legal prosecution or public embarrassment.

Crooke noted in a 2015 BBC interview that, “The West does not actually hand the weapons to al-Qaida, let alone to ISIS…, but the system they’ve constructed leads precisely to that end.”

Fisk confirms this analysis when he concludes, Thus al-Nusra can be the recipients of missiles from our “friends” in the region – here, please forget the EUCs – or from those mythical “moderates” who in turn hand them over to Isis/al-Nusra, etc, for cash, favours, fear or fratricidal war and surrender.

And then he shreds both the weapons companies and Western governments that make it all happen, noting that though a certain weariness, banality and self-imposed ignorant laziness has generally set in when it comes to major media investigating these things, this continues to be a huge, scandalous story of epic dimensions that ought to demand exposing all involved.

Fisk rages:

Why don’t Nato track all these weapons as they leave Europe and America? Why don’t they expose the real end-users of these deadly shipments? The arms manufacturers I spoke to in the Balkans attested that Nato and the US are fully aware of the buyers of all their machine guns and mortars.

Why can’t the details of those glorious end user certificates be made public – as open and free for us to view as are the frightful weapons which the manufacturers are happy to boast in their catalogues.

Though dutifully ignored in the American mainstream press (and thus we feel it our duty to continue the coverage), Fisk is in the midst of a multi-part investigative series for his the Independent (UK) — recently tracking foreign supplied arms to the doorsteps of US-partnered suppliers in the Balkans, as well as the Saudi embassy in London, where he presented shipping and manufacturer’s paperwork proving that various medium weaponry went straight from European factories to terrorist group in Syria via the Saudis (including munitions factory workers’ eyewitness accounts of Saudi officials inspecting the facility).

The Independent has published over a dozen items of paperwork recovered from al-Nusra (Syrian al-Qaeda) positions in Aleppo. 

Predictably, Saudi officials denied the evidence, saying the Kingdom did not give “practical or other support to any terrorist organisation [including Nusrah and Isis] in Syria or any other country” and described the allegations raised by The Independent as “vague and unfounded”.

Fisk responds in his latest column:

These papers were not “vague” – nor was the memory of the Bosnian arms controller who said they went with the mortars to Saudi Arabia and whose shipment papers I found in Syria. Indeed, Ifet Krnjic, the man whose signature I found in eastern Aleppo, has as much right to have his word respected as that of the Saudi authorities. So what did Saudi Arabia’s military personnel – who were surely shown the documents – make of them? What does “unfounded” mean? Were the Saudis claiming by the use of this word that the documents were forgeries?

And Fisk answers his own question in concluding, “I bet they’re not,” explaining, “For I don’t think either Nato or the EU has the slightest interest in chasing the provenance of weapons in the hands of Islamist fighters in Syria or anywhere else in the Middle East – certainly not in the case of Damascus, where the west has just given up its attempt to unseat Assad.”

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We might also recall, lest it disappear down the collective public memory hole forever, that all the way back in 2013 when as all analysts agree the Obama White House came very close to launching an Iraq-style war of regime change against Damascus… guess who was a foremost media “expert” aggressively lobbying for regime change?

At that time Stephen Hadley, then a Raytheon director (since 2009) and former National Security Advisor to George W. Bush, made multiple appearances on FOX, CNN, MSNBC, and Bloomberg News during the height of the national debate over whether the US should go to war in Syria. In all of these appearances, as well as in an influential Washington Post op-ed piece, he argued for a U.S. missile strike on Damascus as a matter of national security.

In each case, Hadley was presented as an objective national security expert – it was only his role as former national security advisor that was revealed.

However, the meticulously researched Public Accountability Initiative media study of pro-war pundits that had undisclosed ties to the defense industry exposed him as not at all a “neutral expert” in this summary statement about Hadley’smultiple network TV appearances:

In each case, Hadley’s audience was not informed that he serves as a director of Raytheon, the weapons manufacturer that makes the Tomahawk cruise missiles that were widely cited as a weapon of choice in a potential strike against Syria. Hadley earns $128,500 in annual cash compensation from the company and chairs its public affairs committee. He also owns 11,477 shares of Raytheon stock, which traded at all-time highs during the Syria debate ($77.65 on August 23, making Hadley’s share’s worth $891,189). Despite this financial stake, Hadley was presented to his audience as an experienced, independent national security expert.

Sadly as the study confirmed across multiple networks, such an example as Hadley is still pretty much par for the course in terms of major “experts” who “independently” lobby for war on news talk panels.

Raytheon, the manufacturer of the BGM-71 TOW (Hughes was bought out by Raytheon in 1997), has been heavily invested in the course of the Syrian conflict from the beginning — the TOW missile system being the weapon of choice the CIA handed out to “rebels” for years as part of operation ‘Timber Sycamore’, and its Tomahawk cruise missile being what was used when President Trump ordered a massive single-night strike on Damascus in April of 2017 (about 59 were launched at an estimated over $1 million a pop).

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Google News indexed yesterday (July 28, 2018) a news report about the White Helmets rescued by Israel, and published in YnetNews. This publication is, according to Wikipedia, the “English-language Israeli news website of Yedioth Ahronoth, Israel’s most-read newspaper, and the Hebrew news portal, Ynet. So I understand it’s a main source used by Western mainstream media, and of course by OPCW, under the category they call “open sources”. As I have already commented in a report that made its way to the UN Security Council, these “open sources” have formed the backbone of the allegations of chemical attacks in Syria imputed to the government forces.

And Ynet was not the only news outlet that used the fake-rescuing photos signed “AFP” (French Press Agency”) to deceive about the White Helmets. A similar take, using the same image above, was used by Trendolizer:

Nevertheless, the Ynet article, titled “As some ‘White Helmets’ escaped Syria, most were left behind” contains an extensive pictorial showing the rescue work of the ‘White Helmets’, referred as to “a civilian rescue organization that works under bombardment to pull people from the rubble.” Of the nine photos in the pictorial, seven are credited to “AFP” press agency, one to “AP” (Associated Press), and one to Reuters.

In the pictures showed in the news article we see the Withe Helmets volunteers rescuing victims of attacks, some of them with bloody wounds or emergency paramedical aid worked on them.  Examples below:

Of course, any one with the idea of amplifying the picture above, could discover that the “patient” is another White Helmets operative. He sports the same uniform-trousers, and the tiny “White Helmets” symbol has not been Photoshop-erased from the right pocket.

We also see in the article a dramatic image of White Helmets rescuers extinguishing with bravery, a close distance, the fire exploding in a passenger bus – a rescue operation that, in the context given by the report, has been conducted “under bombardment” – meaning attacks presumably perpetrated by Syrian government forces or its allies.

The Facts

Most of the scenes depicted in the AFP photographic material showed in the commented article do not correspond to actual, true, rescue operations. Instead, those are scenes from a rehearsal conducted by the White Helmet in Marea, near Aleppo. It’s about a training and rehearsal for instance how to set ablaze passenger buses and then posing while extinguishing the fire caused by “the attack” of government forces.

In no place in the the article YnetNews article is explained the true origin of the scenes depicted in the photographs, all of them bearing the sign of reputed pres agencies, such as AFP.

Nevertheless, The Indicter had access to a video in which the scenes are described as “new White Helmets recruiters graduate…after taking part in training exercises”. And this footage is now uploaded by The Indicter Channel in You Tube. Click here or in the image below for the video:

The source of our footage is an uploaded material by Sharja24News. Facsimile here below, uploaded under the category “news and politics“:

A reflection at first sight is to realize that White Helmets are not any longer referred as “new volunteers”, but as “new recruits”. And it correctly given, because the White Helmets operatives receive a monthly salary –indexed as “month stipend” by Google.

So, the material distributed in those regards by the Western MSM –as in the article commented above– do not correspond to real scenes of rescuing by the White Helmets.

And the immediately concern that arises is how real could these other similar scenes distributed by countless press agencies and media outlets are. For example, this scene reported as “after an unknown explosion” – no more details given:

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Article edited by Dr. Lena Oske, MD, from The Indicter Editorial Board.

Prof. Marcello Ferrada de Noli is professor emeritus of epidemiology with research focus on Injury epidemiology, medicine doktor i psykiatri (PhD, Karolinska Institute), and formerly Research Fellow  at Harvard Medical School. He is the founder and chairman of Swedish Professors and Doctors for Human Rights and editor-in-chief of The Indicter. Also publisher of The Professors’ Blog, and CEO of Libertarian Books – Sweden. Author of “Sweden VS. Assange – Human Rights Issues.”

All images in this article are from The Indicter.

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Past summit locations suggest that the US could host the next summit between the Russian and American leaders. Such meetings have alternated between their two countries and some others. As I correctly surmised, the aftermath of the last Putin-Trump meeting in Helsinki, saw top heavy anti-Russian and anti-Putin theatrics, which stand in the way of improved relations. That mindset will be even more evident at a US hosted Putin-Trump summit, that (via media) was presented by the US president for this coming autumn.

It comes as no surprise that Trump has walked back his call to host that meeting. Since the announcement of that proposed summit, there’ve been a series of heavy handed measures taken against Putin and Russia by the US political establishment. From his vantage point, Putin has no good reason to encourage an ensuing freak show against his country and himself. Following the back and forth on a US based Putin-Trump summit, the Russian president has offered to host a meeting between him and his American counterpart.

Meantime, Trump’s excessively obnoxious (if not bigoted) UN ambassador Nikki Haley, carries on with singling out Russia as a country that the US can never be friends with – never minding that:

– Germany and Britain each fought two major wars against the US

– with Japan having carried out the surprise Pearl Harbor attack.

In contrast, US-Russian relations have had better instances throughout the course of history. All this gets downplayed by a US mass media, which continues to subconsciously influence many Americans to have a negatively misguided view about Russia. With other interests to consider, most Americans don’t go the extra yard to fully get hold of and ponder the counter views aired by such non-mainstream media sources like the Real News Network, where the likes of Michael Isikoff get challenged, much unlike his US mass media puff appearances.

Following the Trump proposed US venue for the next US-Russia summit, the heads of the US Senate and House of Representatives (both Republicans) went out of their way to say that Putin wouldn’t be welcome. For his part, Trump said that Russia will be pushing for the Democrats in the upcoming fall midterm election. Russia continues to be a convenient punching bag for the US political elites.

One of the absurdities involves the coverage of Putin’s proposal to cooperate with the Robert Mueller led FBI investigation on the supposed Russian meddling in the 2016 US presidential election. At the Helsinki press conference, Putin reasonably offered a reciprocal arrangement wherein US authorities could question the 12 indicted (by Mueller) Russians in Russia (Russian law prohibits that country from turning them over to a foreign country), with the Russian government having a similar arrangement with Michael McFaul and Bill Browder.

The US mass media coverage of Browder has been appallingly lame. Likewise, McFaul has inaccurately presented Putin’s proposal, with US mass media support. A July 19 aired CNN segment highlighted a McFaul tweet, saying that the Stalin era Soviet government had never attempted to arrest Americans – something that I later found to be untrue. The obvious intent of that communication was to cast the otherwise erroneous image of the Stalin era USSR with contemporary Russia.

Can anyone imagine the USSR of that period hosting a major event like the World Cup, with rave reviews from thousands of attending foreigners? Did Stalin, ever face the kind of live critical questioning which Putin has faced? As a follow-up to that rhetorical question, McFaul and the US mass media hosts who deal with him are regularly shielded from high profile constructive criticism, much unlike Putin.

Does McFaul have something to hide? The Russian government hasn’t indicted him, while indicating a willingness to question the Stanford academic in the US.

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Michael Averko is a New York based independent foreign policy analyst and media critic.

Featured image is from the author.

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The victory in Mexico’s presidential election of Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO), under the rubric of his relatively new ‘progressive’ Morena party, is both unsurprising and surprising.  It’s unsurprising because AMLO had a huge and increasing lead in the opinion polls leading up to polling day.  And Mexico’s 88m voters (out of 127m people) have now given him the biggest win in post-war election history, with over 53% of the vote.  The candidates of the establishment parties were way behind.  For the first time, the parties of the elite and the status quo were split over who should be their standard bearer.  And the sheer anger and frustration at the state of Mexico’s economy and daily life for average citizens has swept AMLO into office.

But the result is also surprising because the ruling classes’ immense power to ‘fix’ the election (as they have done in the previous ones), or to find a way to stop AMLO politically has failed.  Of course, the Mexican courts may attempt to overturn the result on alleged ‘irregularities’ but such is the size of AMLO’s victory, that such a trick will probably not succeed. AMLO’s party Morena has also gained a majority in the Mexican Congress and has won at least five of nine gubernatorial races, with the winners including Mexico City’s first elected female mayor, Claudia Sheinbaum.  But Morena is in alliance with a small extreme Christian fundamentalist party which may moderate what the new administration will do, particularly in social and ‘family’ matters.

AMLO has won because he campaigned on three key issues that enrage and engage Mexicans: rising pervasive and daily violence across the country; endemic corruption among politicians and officials; and high and rising inequality between rich and poor.

On average, someone was killed in Mexico every 15 minutes during the month of May, putting the country on track to surpass last year’s grim milestone of 29,168 killings.

Political killings have also shot up, with 130 politicians, including 48 candidates for office, murdered since the beginning of the electoral cycle in September, according to political consultancy Etellekt.

Behind this violence lies the battle of the drug cartels, organised crime and general criminality which is often settled by assassination.  The police are either lacking in personnel or backing from the government; or both are in the league with the criminals.

Corruption is integrally linked to the massive profits made from drug trafficking and production, and other criminal activity.  Politicians of the establishment parties were up to their neck in this.  Mexico’s global corruption ranking has never been higher.

The country has been rocked by a succession of eye-watering corruption scandals, including that of Javier Duarte, a PRI governor who went awol in a government helicopter in 2016 after being accused of corruption and whose wife recently turned up living in luxurious exile in one of London’s poshest boroughs.  The government of President Enrique Peña Nieto was riddled from practically the moment he took office. His wife purchased a bespoke home from a government contractor on favourable terms. Then there was the cover-up of the horrific disappearance of 43 teachers’ college students, the use of sophisticated spyware purchased by the government to monitor journalists and human rights lawyers, while top officials embezzled public funds to pay for party electoral campaigns.

AMLO has pledged to end corruption – but how this is to be done remains unclear.  AMLO says he will allow a recall of officials in office after two years (including the presidency) and he will sell the presidential plane and only live in modest premises.

AMLO says he will stand up for the poor (over 50m Mexicans are designated as such) first over the rich.  And that is the third issue that has led to his election victory.  Mexico is one of the most unequal societies in the world in the 21st century – surpassed only by post-apartheid South Africa.  Recently the US Brookings Institution adjusted the standard measure of inequality in a country, the Gini coefficient.  The nearer the Gini is to 1, the higher the level of inequality. On its new estimates, Mexico’s Gini coefficient for 2014 rises from an already high 0.49 to a mega 0.69, close to that of South Africa, the world’s most unequal country.

Behind the shocking story of violence, corruption and inequality lies the stagnant state of the Mexican economy.  It’s the 15th largest in the world as measured by GDP and the second largest in Latin America.  It is sufficiently advanced to be included in the top 30 OECD economies.  And yet it is in a sorry state.

The inequality is not just between rich and poor but also in the uneven development of the economy under capitalism.  Cumulative economic growth in the best-performing Mexican states reached 32% between 2007 and 2016, about double the average for Latin America.  But this is about four times the rate of growth in the low-performing states. Per capita output shows the same diverging path.

In Oaxaca and Chiapas, for example, about 70% of the population is in poverty and 23-28% in extreme poverty, according to data from the National Council for the evaluation of socio-political development (CONEVAL).

Contrary to the views of mainstream economics, the 1994 NAFTA trade deal with the US and Canada has not taken the Mexican economy forward.  Indeed, whereas the Mexican economy more than doubled to reach 16% of the US output in the 30 years to the mid-1980s, it has declined to 12% since then.

Mexico’s output per hour worked relative to that of the US is near its lowest level since 1950.

NAFTA, far from boosting Mexico’s economic performance, increased its dependence on US trade and investment, locked in the neo-liberal measures of the 1980s and increased the disparities between the faster-growing US border areas with their special economic zones and the poor southern rural regions.  And now US President Trump is insisting on renegotiating to make it even more favourable to the US!

Moreover, as the excellent report by the CEPR argues, If NAFTA had been successful in restoring Mexico’s pre-1980 growth rate, Mexico today would be a high income country, with income per person significantly higher than that of Portugal or Greece. It is unlikely that immigration reform would have become a major political issue in the United States, since relatively few Mexicans would seek to cross the border.

Mexico’s poverty rate of 55.1% in 2014 was higher than the poverty rate of 1994. As a result, there were about 20.5 million more Mexicans living below the poverty line as of 2014 (the latest data available) than in 1994.  Real wages have made little progress since 1994.  There was a fall in real wages of 21.2% from 1994–96, associated with the peso crisis and recession. Wages did not recover to their pre-crisis (1994) level until 2006, 11 years later. By 2014, they were only 4.1% above the 1994 level, and barely above their level of 1980. The minimum wage, adjusted for inflation, fared even worse. From 1994 to 2015, it fell by 19.3%.

As a result of low profitability and investment, along with the impact of the NAFTA deal, the Mexican economy has basically stagnated.  The reason lies with the failure of Mexico’s capitalist sector.  Yes, the ‘neo-liberal period’ since the early 1980s, presided over by successive establishment, pro-business Mexican governments, did stem the fall in the profitability of Mexican capital to some extent, but it failed to turn profitability up, as was achieved in most other capitalist economies.

Slow economic growth in the post global crash period has led to a crisis in public finances as the state had to pick up the bill from the private sector’s failure.  Between 2008 and 2018, public debt grew from 21% of GDP in 2008 to 45.4% of GDP in 2018. Servicing this debt now absorbs 20% more government revenue than that allotted for health, education and poverty reduction in the federal budget. This is the burden that AMLO will inherit.

The OECD, the main promoter of neoliberal measures in Mexico, claims that “growth is set to pick up, underpinned by private consumption and exports.”  But even the OECD reckons “uncertainty (with Trump) will continue to restrain private investment”. However, “private investment could accelerate if the NAFTA negotiations end favourably.”  And it continues to demand “structural reforms” (ie neoliberal measures of government spending cuts and privatisations) “to strengthen the rule of law and improve institutional quality.” (!).

Despite the OECD’s optimism, capitalist sector investment has stagnated or fallen since the end of the Great Recession.

And that is because the profitability of Mexican capital has not recovered since the Great Recession, at least according to the net rate of return on capital data offered by AMECO.  Indeed, profitability is still some 18% below the level of 2007 and 28% below the 1997 ‘neo-liberal’ peak.

AMLO’s programme is fundamentally Keynesian, using public investment to ‘prime the pump’ of private investment and claiming that money saved from reduced corruption will deliver the funding. But he is unwilling to reverse the part-privatisation of PEMEX, the state oil company or end the proposed new ‘nightmare’ Mexico City airport – only to consider ‘reviewing the contracts’. But how can AMLO turn things round on corruption, inequality and violence without control of the banks (mainly foreign), renationalisation of PEMEX and taking over the major multi-national operations within Mexico?

Donald Trump congratulated AMLO on his win.  But Mexico’s northern neighbour is now being run by a nationalist, imperialist crazy bent on launching a trade war with all and sundry.  Mexico is right in the front line of this whirlwind, with a capitalist economy that is struggling amid poverty, corruption and violence.  Nevertheless, with a huge and young population, oil and gas resources and modern industry in parts, Mexico is in a much better position to succeed than Venezuela and Cuba was.   AMLO does not take over the presidency for another five months (December).  He has major challenges ahead.

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Featured image is from FAIR.

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The United States government has never allowed independent governments in Latin America. Every time people elect a government that represents them instead of US economic interests, Washington overthrows the elected government. Marine General Smedley Butler told us this as have many others. There is no doubt about it.

Currently Washington is trying to overthrow the governments of Venezuela and Nicaragua and has bought off the Ecuadorian government with oil purchases and the usual personal bribes. Evo Morales’ government in Bolivia is also targeted by Washington. The Obama regime succeeded in removing the reform governments in Honduras, Argentina, and Brazil.

Reform governments in Latin America, except for Castro’s Cuba, always leave themselves set-up to be overthrown. They foolishly or impotently permit Washington’s agents, such as the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), the US Agency for International Development (USAID), and various so-called NGOs, whose purpose is to maintain Washington’s control and overthrow every government that escapes control, to organize and fund opposition groups and media that work hand-in-hand with Washington to reinstall a Washington-compliant government.

As Marx, Lenin, Mao, understood, you cannot overthrow an oppressor class if you leave them unmolested. Whether from weakness or stupidity, Latin American reform governments always leave the electorally defeated oppressor class and its economic and media power unmolested. When Washington reinstalls the oppressor class, the same tolerance is never shown to the overthrown reformers who usually pay with their lives.

All Latin American reform efforts have made the foolish mistake of leaving the oppressor class with their newspapers and their traitorous connections to Washington in place, including the government of President Ortega in Nicaragua. One would think that Ortega would know better. Washington has been trying to get rid of Ortega and the Sandinistas since the Reagan administration. His government has survived the latest Washington-led coup attempt, but Washington is pouring more money into the effort. Read Kevin Zeese’s report here.

Hugo Chavez made the same mistake in Venezuela, and his successor has repeated the mistake. The post-Castro Cuban government is now also falling into the trap of becoming an American vassal as it was under Fulgencio Batista.

The Monroe Doctrine has always been glorified in US textbooks as warning European colonialists away from Latin America. The Americans intended it for themselves and succeeded in keeping Latin America as a colony. The Organization of American States has always been in Washington’s pocket and remains there today. Latin America accepts its colonized existence and does not come to the aid of those democratic governments that Washington targets for overthrow. Latin America is impotent, because its leaders are paid off, blackmailed, or threatened by Washington.

Washington has pretended forever to be the great friend and protector of democracy, but every time an independent government comes into existence in Latin America, Washington overthrows it.

In 2015 President Barack Obama, America’s first Black President and “great friend of the oppressed,” citing “the unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States posed by Venezuela,” signed an executive order and imposed sanctions. Obama’s excuse was the Washington-incited violence that led to the arrest of some of those committing acts of violence. Washington quickly termed the criminals Washington had incited “political prisoners” and called for “dialogue” instead of “silencing critics with arrests.” Washington declared the arrests of those commiting acts of violence to be “human rights violations by the Venezuelan government.”

In other words, the Venezuelan government was violating Washington’s human rights to overthrow the Venezuelan government.

The presstitutes reported this with a straight face.

A government that has no shame whatsoever in telling the most transparent lies while actively trying to overthrow a democratically elected government is a government that deserves universal condemnation. Yet the world is too well paid off or scared to open its mouth.

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This article was originally published on Paul Craig Roberts Institute for Political Economy.

Dr. Paul Craig Roberts is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

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Featured image: Sarin gas victim in Syria, as reported in April 2017. (Ninian Reid / Flickr)

On the night of June 26, the White House Press Secretary released a statement, via Twitter, that, “the United States has identified potential preparations for another chemical weapons attack by the Assad regime that would likely result in the mass murder of civilians, including innocent children.”  The tweet went on to declare that, “the activities are similar to preparations the regime made before its April 4 chemical weapons attack,” before warning that if “Mr. Assad conducts another mass murder attack using chemical weapons, he and his military will pay a heavy price.”

A Pentagon spokesman backed up the White House tweet, stating that U.S. intelligence had observed “activity” at a Syrian air base that indicated “active preparation for chemical weapons use” was underway.  The air base in question, Shayrat, had been implicated by the United States as the origin of aircraft and munitions used in an alleged chemical weapons attack on the village of Khan Sheikhun on April 4.  The observed activity was at an aircraft hangar that had been struck by cruise missiles fired by U.S. Navy destroyers during a retaliatory strike on April 6.

The White House statement comes on the heels of the publication of an article by Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist Seymour Hersh in a German publication, Die Welt, which questions, among many things, the validity of the intelligence underpinning the allegations leveled at Syria regarding the events of April 4 in and around Khan Sheikhun. (In the interests of full disclosure, I had assisted Mr. Hersh in fact-checking certain aspects of his article; I was not a source of any information used in his piece.)  Not surprisingly, Mr. Hersh’s article has come under attack from many circles, the most vociferous of these being a UK-based citizen activist named Eliot Higgins who, through his Bellingcat blog, has been widely cited by media outlets in the U.S. and UK as a source of information implicating the Syrian government in that alleged April chemical attack on Khan Sheikhun.

Neither Hersh nor Higgins possesses definitive proof to bolster their respective positions; the latter draws upon assertions made by supposed eyewitnesses backed up with forensic testing of materials alleged to be sourced to the scene of the attack that indicate the presence of Sarin, a deadly nerve agent, while the former relies upon anonymous sources within the U.S. military and intelligence establishments who provide a counter narrative to the official U.S. government position. What is clear, however, is that both cannot be right—either the Syrian government conducted a chemical weapons attack on Khan Sheikhun, or it didn’t.  There is no middle ground.

The search for truth is as old as civilization. Philosophers throughout the ages have struggled with the difficulties of rationalizing the beginning of existence, and the relationships between the one and the many. Aristotle approached this challenge through what he called the development of potentiality to actuality, which examined truth in terms of the causes that act on things. This approach is as relevant today as it was two millennia prior, and its application to the problem of ascertaining fact from fiction regarding Khan Sheikhun goes far in helping unpack the White House statements regarding Syrian chemical preparations and the Hersh-Higgins debate.

Victims of the sarin attack in Khan Sheikhoun (Source: One News Page)

According to Aristotle, there were four causes that needed to be examined in the search for truth — material, efficient, formal and final. The material cause represents the element out of which an object is created. In terms of the present discussion, one could speak of the material cause in terms of the actual chemical weapon alleged to have been used at Khan Sheikhun. The odd thing about both the Khan Sheikhun attack and the current White House statements, however, is that no one has produced any physical evidence of there actually having been a chemical weapon, let alone what kind of weapon was allegedly employed. Like a prosecutor trying a murder case without producing the actual murder weapon, Syria’s accusers have assembled a case that is purely circumstantial — plenty of dead and dying victims, but nothing that links these victims to an actual physical object.

Human Rights Watch (HRW), drawing upon analysis of images brought to them by the volunteer rescue organization White Helmets, of fragments allegedly recovered from the scene of the attack, has claimed that the material cause of the Khan Sheikhun event is a Soviet-made KhAB-250 chemical bomb, purpose-built to deliver Sarin nerve agent. There are several issues with the HRW assessment. First and foremost, there is no independent verification that the objects in question are what HRW claims, or that they were even physically present at Khan Sheikhun, let alone deposited there as a result of an air attack by the Syrian government.  Moreover, the KhAB-250 bomb was never exported by either the Soviet or Russian governments, thereby making the provenance of any such ordinance in the Syrian inventory highly suspect.

Sarin is a non-persistent chemical agent whose military function is to inflict casualties through direct exposure. Any ordnance intended to deliver Sarin would, like the KhAB-250, be designed to disseminate the agent in aerosol form, fine droplets that would be breathed in by the victim, or coat the victim’s skin. In combat, the aircraft delivering Sarin munitions would be expected to minimize its exposure to hostile fire, flying low to the target at high speed. In order to have any semblance of military utility, weapons delivered in this fashion would require an inherent braking mechanism, such as deployable fins or a parachute, which would retard the speed of the weapon, allowing for a more concentrated application of the nerve agent on the intended target.

Chemical ordnance is not intended for precise strikes against point targets, but rather delivery of the agent to an area. For this reason, they are not dropped singly, but rather in large numbers. (The ab-250, for instance was designed to be delivered by a TU-22 bomber dropping 24 weapons on the same target.) The weapon itself is not complex—a steel bomb casing with a small high explosive tube—the burster charge—running down its middle, equipped with a nose fuse designed to detonate on contact with the ground or at a pre-determined altitude. Once detonated, the burster charge causes the casing to break apart, disseminating fine droplets of agent over the target. The resulting explosion is very low order, a pop more than a bang—virtually none of the actual weapon would be destroyed as a result, and its component parts, readily identifiable as such, would be deposited in the immediate environs. In short, if a KhAB-250, or any other air delivered chemical bomb, had been used at Khan Sheikhun, there would be significant physical evidence of that fact, including the totality of the bomb casing, the burster tube, the tail fin assembly, and parachute. The fact that none of this exists belies the notion that an air-delivered chemical bomb was employed by the Syrian government against Khan Sheikhun.

Continuing along the lines of Aristotle’s exploration of the relationship between the potential and actual, the efficient cause represents the means by which the object is created. In the context of Khan Shiekhun, the issue (i.e., object) isn’t the physical weapon itself, but rather its manifestation on the ground in terms of cause and effect. Nothing symbolized this more than the disturbing images that emerged in the aftermath of the alleged chemical attack of civilian victims, many of them women and children. (It was these images that spurred President Trump into ordering the cruise missile attack on Shayrat air base.) These images were produced by the White Helmet organization as a byproduct of the emergency response that transpired in and around Khan Sheikhun on April 4.  It is this response, therefore, than can be said to constitute the efficient cause in any examination of potential to actuality regarding the allegations of the use of chemical weapons by the Syrian government there.

The White Helmets came into existence in the aftermath of the unrest that erupted in Syria after the Arab Spring in 2012. They say they are neutral, but they have used their now-global platform as a humanitarian rescue unit to promote anti-regime themes and to encourage outside intervention to remove the regime of Bashar al-Assad. By White Helmet’s own admission, it is well-resourced, trained and funded by western NGOs and governments, including USAID (U.S. Agency for International Development), which funded the group $23 million as of 2016.

A UK-based company with strong links to the British Foreign Office, May Day Rescue, has largely managed the actual rescue aspects of the White Helmet’s work. Drawing on a budget of tens of millions of dollars donated by foreign governments, including the U.S. and UK, May Day Rescue oversees a comprehensive training program designed to bring graduates to the lowest standard—”light,” or Level One—for Urban Search and Rescue (USAR). Personnel and units trained to the “light” standard are able to conduct surface search and rescue operations—they are neither trained nor equipped to rescue entrapped victims. Teams trained to this standard are not qualified to perform operations in a hazardous environment (such as would exist in the presence of a nerve agent like Sarin).

The White Helmets have made their reputation through the dissemination of self-made videos ostensibly showing them in action inside Syria, rescuing civilians from bombed out structures, and providing life-saving emergency medical care. (It should be noted that the eponymously named Oscar-nominated documentary showing the White Helmets in action was filmed entirely by the White Helmets themselves, which raises a genuine question of journalistic ethics.) To the untrained eye, these videos are a dramatic representation of heroism in action. To the trained professional (I can offer my own experience as a Hazardous Materials Specialist with New York Task Force 2 USAR team), these videos represent de facto evidence of dangerous incompetence or, worse, fraud.

The bread and butter of the White Helmet’s self-made reputation is the rescue of a victim—usually a small child—from beneath a pile of rubble, usually heavy reinforced concrete.  First and foremost, as a “light” USAR team, the White Helmets are not trained or equipped to conduct rescues of entrapped victims. And yet the White helmet videos depict their rescue workers using excavation equipment and tools, such as pneumatic drills, to gain access to victims supposedly pinned under the weight of a collapsed building. The techniques used by the White Helmets are not only technically wrong, but dangerous to anyone who might actually be trapped—the introduction of excavators to move debris, or the haphazard drilling and hammering into concrete in the immediate vicinity of a trapped victim, would invariably lead to a shifting if the rubble pile, crushing the trapped victim to death. In my opinion, the videos are pure theater, either staged to impress an unwitting audience, or actually conducted with total disregard for the wellbeing of any real victims.

Likewise, the rescue of victims from a hazardous materials incident, especially one as dangerous as one involving a nerve agent as lethal as Sarin, is solely the purview of personnel and teams specifically equipped and trained for the task. “Light” USAR teams receive no hazardous materials training as part of their certification, and there is no evidence or even claim on the part of the White Helmets that they have undergone the kind of specialist training needed to effect a rescue in the case of an actual chemical weapons attack.

This reality comes through on the images provided by the White Helmets of their actions in and around Khan Sheikhun on April 4. From the haphazard use of personal protective equipment (either non-existent or employed in a manner that negates protection from potential exposure) to the handling of victims and so-called decontamination efforts, everything the White Helmets did was operationally wrong and would expose themselves and the victims they were ostensibly treating to even greater harm. As was the case with their “rescues” of victims in collapsed structures, I believe the rescue efforts of the White Helmets at Khan Sheikhun were a theatrical performance designed to impress the ignorant and ill-informed.

I’m not saying that nothing happened at Khan Sheikhun—obviously something did.  But the White Helmets exploited whatever occurred, over-dramatizing “rescues” and “decontamination” in staged theatrics that were captured on film and rapidly disseminated using social media in a manner designed to influence public opinion in the West.  We don’t see the actual rescue at the scene of the event—bodies pulled from their homes, lying in the streets. What we get is grand theater as bodies arrive at the field hospital, with lots of running to and fro and meaningless activity that would actually worsen the condition of the victims and contaminate the rescuers.

Through their actions, however, the White Helmets were able to breathe life into the overall narrative of a chemical weapons attack, distracting from the fact that no actual weapon existed and thus furthering the efficient cause by which the object—the non-existent chemical weapon—was created.

Having defined the creation of the object (the non-existent chemical weapon) and the means by which it was created (the flawed theatrics of the White Helmets), we move on to the third, or formal cause, which constitutes the expression of what the object is. In the case of Khan Sheikhun, this is best expressed by the results of forensic testing of samples allegedly taken from victims of the chemical attack, and from the scene of the attack itself. The organization responsible for overseeing this forensic testing was the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, or OPCW. Through its work, the OPCW has determined that the nerve agent Sarin, or a “Sarin-like substance,” was used at Khan Sheikhun, a result that would seemingly compensate for both the lack of a bomb and the amateurish theatrics of the rescuers.

The problem, however, is that the OPCW is in no position to make the claim it did. One of the essential aspects of the kind of forensic investigation carried out by organizations such as the OPCW—namely the application of scientific methods and techniques to the investigation of a crime—is the concept of “chain of custody” of any samples that are being evaluated. This requires a seamless transition from the collection of the samples in question, the process of which must be recorded and witnessed, the sealing of the samples, the documentation of the samples, the escorted transportation of the samples to the laboratory, the confirmation and breaking of the seals under supervision, and the subsequent processing of the samples, all under supervision of the OPCW. Anything less than this means the integrity of the sample has been compromised—in short, there is no sample.

The OPCW acknowledges that its personnel did not gain access to Khan Sheikhun at any time. However, the investigating team states that it used connections with “parties with knowledge of and connections to the area in question,” to gain access to samples that were collected by “non governmental organizations (NGOs)” which also provided representatives to be interviewed, and videos and images for the investigating team to review. The NGO used by the OPCW was none other than the White Helmets.

The process of taking samples from a contaminated area takes into consideration a number of factors designed to help create as broad and accurate a picture of the scene of the incident itself as well as protect the safety of the person taking the sample as well as the integrity of the crime scene itself (i.e., reduce contamination). There is no evidence that the White Helmets have received this kind of specialized training required for the taking of such samples. Moreover, the White Helmets are not an extension of the OPCW—under no circumstances could any samples taken by White Helmet personnel and subsequently turned over to the OPCW be considered viable in terms of chain of custody. This likewise holds true for any biomedical samples evaluated by the OPCW—all such samples were either taken from victims who had been transported to Turkish hospitals, or provided by non-OPCW personnel in violation of chain of custody.

Lastly, there is Aristotle’s final cause, which represents the end for which the object is—namely, what was the ultimate purpose of the chemical weapons attack on Khan Sheikhun. To answer this question, one must remain consistent with the framework of examination of potential to actuality applied herein. In this, we find a commonality between the four causes whose linkage cannot be ignored when assessing the truth of what happened at Khan Sheikhun, namely the presence of a single entity—the White Helmets.

There are two distinct narratives at play when it comes to what happened in Khan Sheikhun. One, put forward by the governments of the United States, Great Britain, France, and supported by the likes of Bellingcat and the White Helmets, is that the Syrian government conducted a chemical weapons attack using a single air-delivered bomb on a civilian target. The other, put forward by the governments of Russia and Syria, and sustained by the reporting of Seymour Hersh, is that the Syrian air force used conventional bombs to strike a military target, inadvertently releasing a toxic cloud from substances stored at that facility and killing or injuring civilians in Khan Sheikhun. There can be no doubt that the very survival of the White Helmets as an organization, and the cause they support (i.e., regime change in Syria), has been furthered by the narrative they have helped craft and sell about the events of April 4 in and around Khan Sheikhun. This is the living manifestation of Aristotle’s final cause, the end for which this entire lie has been constructed.

The lack of any meaningful fact-based information to back up the claims of the White Helmets and those who sustain them, like the U.S. government and Bellingcat, raises serious questions about the viability of the White House’s latest pronouncements on Syria and allegations that it was preparing for a second round of chemical attacks. If America has learned anything from its painful history with Iraq and the false allegations of continued possession of weapons of mass destruction on the part of the regime of Saddam Hussein, it is that to rush into military conflict in the Middle East based upon the unsustained allegations of an interested regional party (i.e., Ahmed Chalabi and the Iraqi National Congress) is a fool’s errand.

It is up to the discerning public to determine which narrative about the events in Syria today they will seek to embrace—one supported by a Pulitzer Prize winning investigative journalist who has made a career out of exposing inconvenient truths, from My Lai to Abu Ghraib and beyond, or one that collapses under Aristotle’s development of potentiality to actuality analysis, as the manufactured story line promoted by the White Helmets demonstratively does.

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Scott Ritter is a former Marine Corps intelligence officer who served in the former Soviet Union implementing arms control treaties, in the Persian Gulf during Operation Desert Storm, and in Iraq overseeing the disarmament of WMD.  He is the author of “Deal of the Century: How Iran Blocked the West’s Road to War” (Clarity Press, 2017).

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For a long time now, I have taken the view that Britain is well along the path to being ‘Americanised’ and Brexit was the last piece of a puzzle that was years in the planning. A cowardly David Cameron offered, under internal pressure, a referendum on EU membership to save him from defeat at the ballot box in May 2015 when dark money, secretive deals and power-players mobilised as one. Their highly illegal activities were unearthed by The Guardian, Observer, Independent, OpenDemocracy and now, even the Electoral Commission agree that democracy came second in the referendum.

The police are now investigating and MP’s look set to change laws. In the meantime, Britain surges towards a no-Brexit catastrophe driven by a hard right-wing faction who care little for liberal democracy, civil liberties, human rights, real capitalism or the principles of basic decency. In reality, Brexit signals the full Americanisation of Britain, which will be its last gasp as an international force on the world stage before sinking into obscurity having been pillaged by the corporations and individuals who funded it.

From The Brexit Syndicate comes the updated story of those involved, the people, the organisations and their motivations. Whether your a Brexiteer or Remainer, the evidence continues to mount that democracy was not the political tool used to reach the moment that changed the course of history for Great Britain.

The ‘Bad Boys of Brexit’ did not act alone. Behind them lies a murky network of powerful and secretive organisations –  a network we have called The Brexit Syndicate. Together these organisations are rewriting the rules of British democracy to suit themselves. Read on to find out how and join us in the battle for democracy, peace and prosperity.

Introducing the Brexit Syndicate:  

The slim majority that voted for Brexit in June 2016 came as a shock to the British political establishment, most of whom had complacently expected a victory for Remain. The Conservative and Labour parties were equally bemused and struggled to find a response that served their parties. The Prime Minister resigned, forcing the Conservatives to find a new leader and leaving the country without leadership. Meanwhile, Labour was engaged in their own internal battle over a leader who was not supported by the majority of his MPs.

While many of us were in shock and grief, those who had driven the campaign to leave the EU, many of whom had been planning this moment for 30 years, rapidly began organising to gain the maximum advantage for themselves and their causes. Following the central principle of disaster capitalism – ‘Never waste a good crisis’ – they began lobbying to install those who shared their extreme Brexit position into key positions of influence. And they began establishing and building organisations that would lobby government to ensure that Brexit was not wasted as an opportunity to push forward the next stage of the global reign of free markets.

From privatisation and co-option of national governments, they have moved on to writing the rules of global capitalism in favour of the 1%. In doing so, they plan to use trade treaties to eliminate the standards and protections politicians have fought for over the past four decades, subverting the democratic process to ensure it works for the few, rather than the many.

So what sort of future do they have in store for us all?

Recently, a memo was accidentally leaked on the website of one of the Brexit syndicate’s key organisations, the Initiative for Free Trade. It reveals the existence of self-styled ‘shadow trade talks’ where right-wing US campaign groups including the Heritage Foundation and the Cato Institute join hands with the Initiative for Free Trade to build a trans-Atlantic alliance that can make their long-cherished ambition of an economy free from political meddling a reality.

It is clear that Brexit has divided the country. In spite of rhetorical noises to the contrary, the Conservatives have decided to entrench these divisions by negotiating an extreme version of Brexit rather than seeking to consult widely to ensure a future for the UK outside the EU that the majority of people can support. In this project, they appear to have been captured by a number of extreme organisations who are exercising extraordinary influence over government policy to the exclusion of the majority of citizens and interest groups. This website reveals the story of these organisations and the ‘citizens of nowhere’ who are using them to manipulate our political system to their own advantage and to the detriment of the vast majority of UK citizens.

The combination of austerity and bureaucracy has left many British voters feeling oppressed and powerless. No wonder the slogan ‘Take Back Control’ was so appealing. But what is on offer here is a false freedom. Those who felt they had nothing to lose by voting for Brexit had taken for granted many of the freedoms our ancestors fought for and which are now under direct attack.

We should make clear our gratitude to the small but dedicated band of journalists and whistleblowers who have committed to exploring the power relationship behind the Brexit process, without whom we could not have gathered together the information we are sharing in this website. The leading light is, of course, Carole Cadwalladr, whose courage and tenacity was rewarded with the Orwell Prize. Chris Wylie and Shahmir Sanni have shown courage and true patriotism in sharing what they know to defend democracy and the rule of law in our country. We are aware how much we owe particularly to the Guardian and their journalists, including Juliette Garside and George Monbiot, and to the Financial Times. Adam Ramsay and Peter Geoghegan at openDemocracy have also done a great deal of painstaking and highly illuminating investigative spadework, as have Peter Jukes and the team at Byline.

We have structured this website around three areas that are essential for any democratic society but in which Brexit offers us anything but freedom.

• The Brexit Syndicate’s attack on Free Elections
• The Brexit Syndicate’s attack on Free Speech
• The Brexit Syndicate’s push for Free Trade.

To find out who is in the Brexit Syndicate, click on the links below or the thumbnails above to read about each organisation:

• European Research Group (ERG)
• The Bruges Group
• The Legatum Institute
• Economists for Free Trade
• Institute for Economic Affairs (IEA)
• Cobden Centre
• Initiative for Free Trade 
• New Direction – The Foundation for European Reform
• TaxPayers’ Alliance
• Social media used by the alt-right
• Cambridge Analytica
• AggregateIQ
• Palantir
• Breitbart
• The Murdoch Empire 
• The Daily Mail
• The Barclay Brothers
• BrexitCentral

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All images in this article are from TruePublica.

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The road to hell is paved with good intentions. 

1. Ethiopia Needs a Face-lift. The United States needs a more stable, militarily capable ally in the Horn of Africa.

Although it is not clear that President Donald Trump even knows where Ethiopia is on a map of Africa, or that it is in Africa – as it qualifies in his vulgar language as one of the world’s “shit hole’ countries – his administration, that is the Defense Department and what is left of the State Department – have been actively engaged in the American version of geo-political social engineering there. Why should he? After all there are no Trump Towers in Addis Ababa.

Still, no doubt, despite the president, his Administration is trying to reshape the Ethiopian political landscape in order to give it a new, more “democratic gloss” after 26 years of supporting what was one of Africa’s most repressive governments in exchange for its doing Washington’s dirty work in Ethiopia. If Ethiopia’s image to the world might be polished up, the underlying power relations of “the new Ethiopia” will remain unchanged.

Putting make up on the corpse that has been Ethiopia since 1991  means playing down Washington’s unflinching support for its dictatorship whose military and security forces it has financed, armed and trained. It means playing down such current embarrassments like the Obama Administration’s claim that the 2015 elections in which the ruling Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) won 100% of the vote was “democratic”, the U.S. creation and training of Ethiopian death squads, the Agazi units, etc.

There are a number of working models of what Washington hoped to accomplish in Ethiopia, among them Algeria, where the ruling military/security clique hides behind a facade of democracy with a powerless leader, in its case the moribund toothless president, Abdulaziz Bouteflika. As a part of Algeria’s own facelift – given the military/security cliques vicious war against its own people in the 1990s – in exchange for lending badly needed credibility to its own murderous reputation – the United States acquired a key security asset in North Africa. In fact, other than the fact that Algeria has oil and natural gas, Ethiopia coffee, the parallels between Algeria and Ethiopia couldn’t be greater – murderous, repressive governments intent on maintaining power at any cost and willing to use force against their own people, sizable militaries with close ties to the United States, impoverished populations that see virtually none of Algeria’s benefits from their countries’ growing wealth, much of which is squandered.

If Algeria’s image couldn’t be reshaped with a little help from its friends in Washington (and in its case, also France), why couldn’t Ethiopia’s?

The ruling coalition, which really isn’t a coalition but a dictatorship run these past 27 years by the Tigrayan-dominated EPRDF will remain ensconced in power. But after decades of corruption, fierce repression and pervasive nepotism (of placing Tigrayans in power in every key sector of the country’s government and economy) the EPRDF is badly in need a facelift, a new image, lest Ethiopia’s opposition forces that have been coalescing into more unified national movement for some time, sweep them from power as the Tunisians did Ben Ali in 2010-2011. And as with the Tunisian changes, the goal is that they will entail those changes necessary to maintain the status quo.

The Ethiopian government was fully aware:  a situation revealed by the fact that even before he was deposed, Prime Minister Hailimariam Desalegn had planned to institute the same limited reforms that his successor, Abiy Ahmed, instituted almost immediately after his appointment. Despite the fact that over the Desalegn years Ethiopia had experienced six years of double digit economic growth – at rate of from 9 to 12% – his reputation was tarnished by the severe repression meted out to one and all in the country, a country whose jails were filled with tens of thousands opposition figures, journalists, bloggers, frankly anyone who dared criticize “the iron fisted state.” The reform program might work, but Desalegn had to go.

Intense pressure from Washington for change began to take shape late in 2017. After nothing short of a media drought on Ethiopian government repression and human rights violations, concerned articles began to appear in U.S. and European media decrying these actions, about which, until then Washington had remained mum. The pressure was increased in early 2018 with the introduction of House Resolution 128, an extraordinary development if you think about it, as it was a damning indictment of the Ethiopian government’s human rights violations, and this being pushed by a Republican Party dominated U.S. House of Representatives.

One of its sponsor’s was U.S. Representative Mike Coffman of Colorado. As Alemayehu Mariam noted in an op-ed published in “The Hill,” the bill read like “an ultimatum” to the Ethiopian government: change or else. In an effort to accomplish the near impossible task of recasting his image from Iraq invasion ardent war-monger to African human rights advocate, and to the delight and gratitude of Colorado’s sizable Ethiopian Community – some 35,000 strong – Coffman is quoted as warning:

“For too long the United States has looked the other way on the human rights abuses of Ethiopia in favor of their security cooperation while Ethiopia is terrorizing its own people; and it is time the United States acknowledges the problems of Ethiopia to respect human rights and become a pluralistic democracy.”

Coffman is a conservative Republican who can be counted on to support increases in military spending, deep social spending cuts and for an overall aggressive U.S. foreign policy. But he was taking the lead, on challenging the human rights policy of a key U.S. ally – no the key U.S. ally in the Horn of Africa? Smart move, and consistent with U.S. hegemonic interests in that part of the world.

He is part of a coordinated effort of those who understand that unless the Ethiopian government changes its tune, becomes a bit less repressive at least temporarily, that it will be swept from power by popular acclaim as Ben Ali and Mubarak were in Tunisia and Egypt. Should such an event occur, and the stars were lining up that it might, U.S. East African policy would suffer the kind of set back that U.S. Middle Eastern geopolitics suffered when the Shah of Iran was swept from power in 1979.

Some kind of preemptive political action was in order, a small  change as symbolic but otherwise meaningless as possible was in order, but one that would capture the hearts and minds of Ethiopians at home and in the diaspora: dump one prime minister, replace him with a young Kennedy or Gorbachev replacement, make a few gestures to the population, heavy on symbol, light on substance. Exit Desalegn, enter Abiy Ahmed.

At least at the outset, it’s worked like a charm, both in Ethiopia where it appears already that the opposition has split over the new leadership – exactly what Washington intended.

2. The Geo-politics of Ethiopia’s “New Normal”

The changes in Ethiopia – the forced resignation of Hailemariam Desalegn as prime minister and his replacement by Abiy Ahmed – were in large measure forced on Ethiopia’s EPRDF ruling junta by a concerted campaign in the United States as an integral element of a broader campaign to reorganize the Horn of Africa in such a way as to strengthen the American hegemonic grip on the region that includes safeguarding the integrity of the current government, neutralizing the domestic opposition, reducing tensions with Eritrea.

Washington’s goals are several-fold.

• Give the United States and its allies full control of the Bab El Mandeb Straits which connect the Red Sea with the Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean beyond. The maritime route that passes through Bab El Mandeb is one of the world’s key choke points through which oil, natural gas pass through on their way up through the Suez Canal  to the Mediterranean and Southern Europe. It is also one of the key maritime routes for the burgeoning maritime trade between Europe and East Asia, especially but not only,  China.
• Among Washington’s allies, or one could say, partners are crime is crafting this regional landscape are Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Consolidating control over Bab El Mandeb explains one of the main reasons that Washington – be it the Obama or Trump Administrations – has supported the Saudi, UAE-led genocidal war against Yemen, being fought with U.S. arms, advisers and intelligence, while feigning that the Yemeni opposition is controlled by the Iranians, which it isn’t. The U.S. backed Saudi-UAE blockade and war against Yemen is the Arab version of the Israeli blockade of Gaza, just as heartless, vicious and cruel. If Yemen is brought to heel, than Washington, through its allies controls both sides of the straits.
• The United States sees the strengthening of what is essentially a U.S. led coalition that includes Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Ethiopia (with Israel playing a supporting role) as a way of checking or at least managing China’s growing considerable economic and commercial influence in the Horn of Africa. China has become one of Ethiopia’s major trading partners. U.S. strategists understand that there is no way that they can compete with China economically East Africa, but instead, through proxies (Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda) it hopes to manage Chinese strategic and political influence. In the same vein Washington hopes to restrict Iranian influence in the region, ie, through possible oil and natural gas sales.
• If Washington can strong-arm both Ethiopia and Eritrea into honoring the 2000 Algeria-negotiated “Algiers Agreement”, Ethiopia, Eritrea and the United States would benefit. Should such an arrangement succeed, political commentator Daniel Runde considers such a development “an enormous strategic win for the West.”  Such a breakthrough would lead to increase economic activity for both countries, provide Ethiopia with what it lost when Eritrea broke away from it: access to maritime ports. It could also result in the opening of a U.S. military base at Red Sea ports of Assab and Massawa.

The Ethiopian Connection

Where does Ethiopia fit into the greater scheme of things?

It is a key player (or could be) on the African side of the Red Sea and is a part of what has shaped up to be a U.S.-Saudi-UAE-Ethiopian joint effort which is already well coordinated. For example, although it is no secret, still, it is not generally publicized that the UAE has made an arrangement with Eritrea in which it is paying rent to Asmara to use its Red Sea port of Assab as a springboard for Saudi-UAE naval military operations against Yemen, just twenty miles across Bab el Mandeb. As in the U.S. orchestrated failed effort to bring down the Syrian Assad government and partition the country in which Saudi and UAE played key roles in recruiting, funding and arming mercenaries, in these same two retrograde – but oil and natural gas rich Arab nations – are strategic allies in Washington’s efforts to strengthen its strategic hold over the Horn of Africa.

Ethiopia has long been integral in U.S. plans to dominate Africa politically.

It’s strategic value can be measured in hard cash. Propping up one of the most repressive governments in Africa, the EPRDF ruling junta, the United States has proven more than generous. Ethiopia has received more U.S. aid than another sub-Saharan African country, some $5 billion between 2010 and 2016. In 2017, at the height of the Tigrayan-led repression of its domestic popular opponents, as a reward, it received an additional $933 million. Only Egypt,m as a result of the Camp David Accords, neutralizing its role as an Arab nationalist vanguard, received more. The lion’s share of this aid has been used to buy (surprise!) U.S. military equipment.

As a result of this militarily oriented foreign aid, Ethiopia today maintains a permanent military of 162,000 members; it is the largest and strongest military in East Africa. The Ethiopian armed forces includes an air force of 80 planes (of which 48 are attack or fighter jets), 33 helicopters (8 of which are attack helicopters), 800 tanks, 800 armored vehicles, 85 self-propelled artillery pieces, 700 towed artillery pieces and 183 rocket projectors. During the height of the Ethiopian-Eritrean War, the military was expanded to some 350,000, to be reduced shortly thereafter to its present strength.

The ethnic make up of the military has shifted from a largely Oromo-based officer corps – (which has been largely purged) to one in which Tigrayans dominate. An analysis done in 2011 and cited in Bronwyn Bruton’s recent article in Foreign Affairs.  He noted that while Tigrayans make up 6% of Ethiopia’s population, that 57 of 16 generals in mission critical positions” were ethnically Tigrayan.

In that demented language of the Congress and military contractors, U.S. investment in the Ethiopian military has “paid off.”

Ethiopia contributed some 4000 uniformed personnel to AMISOL, the African Union Mission to Somalia. Put another way, at U.S. beckoning, in late 2011, using Somali terrorism as a pretext, Ethiopia invaded Somalia. Between 2011-2016 a U.S. drone base was active in Ethiopia used primarily for bombing strikes in Somalia. It is the United States primarily that has trained the Ethiopian military as a whole and what is referred to as the Agazi Special Forces, whom the U.S. employed in Somali and who are have been responsible for many massacres of Ethiopian political opponents.

Expect no changes, none whatsoever in these strategic relations. However, should the new government’s more liberal face prove more enduring, at least on the surface, it could result in an increased flow of foreign investment from the West, that would counteract  Chinese investments that worry Washington. The new liberalism, shallow as it might be, has an even more important function. It has ignited a new spirit of hope for national unity among the peoples of Ethiopia. Already some expats are speaking of returning home, feeling safe enough in the new environment to contribute to the national well being.

Yet as I look at from afar, there is also a potentially explosive political cocktail in the making. Hope betrayed or unfulfilled can lead to dark passages. In the end, there are no messiahs, even when the intentions are honorable. Just ask Mikhael Gorbachev, the Tunisian and Egyptian protesters who brought down their tyrants … or for that matter, Barack Obama.

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This article was originally published on the author’s blog site: View from the Left Bank.

Prince taught at the Red Rocks Community College in Golden Colorado for 15 years, at Metro State College for 12 years. For the past 22 years, he has been with the University of Denver’s Graduate School of International Studies – now called the Korbel School of International Studies, where he taught full-time in their undergraduate International Studies Program, mostly courses on Global Political Economy. He retired in May, 2015.

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Despite attempts by the US and European media to depict the self-proclaimed Islamic State (IS) in cartoon villain terms, it was always clear to serious analysis that the terrorist organization’s fighters, weapons, supplies and money were entering Syria and the result of extensive outside support.

A look at any map of the Syrian conflict, regardless of its source over the past 7 years shows IS and other militant groups maintaining territory with corridors leading directly to the borders of Syria’s neighbors, particularly NATO-member Turkey and US allies Israel and Jordan.

There have been direct admissions from the US itself that it played a role in IS’ creation. A 2013 leaked US Defense Intelligence Agency memo (.pdf) would explicitly note that the US and its allies sought the creation of what it then called a “Salafist principality” in eastern Syria, precisely where IS would later establish itself.

There have also been direct admissions that US allies were funneling weapons and cash to IS and other designated foreign terrorist organizations. In a leaked e-mail sent by former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to lobbyist John Podesta, she would explicitly claim:

…we need to use our diplomatic and more traditional intelligence assets to bring pressure on the governments of Qatar and Saudi Arabia, which are providing clandestine financial and logistic support to [IS] and other radical Sunni groups in the region.

There have also been more indirect admissions, in which the US and European media have claimed that large amounts of US-provided arms and cash were “accidentally” falling into the hands of IS via supposedly “moderate rebels,” including when large numbers of these so-called moderate rebels would defect to IS.

A 2014 article in the Telegraph titled, “‘Moderate’ Syrian rebels defecting to ISIS, blaming lack of U.S. support and weapons,” would admit:

Western-backed “moderate” rebels fighting jihadists in Syria are refusing to do battle and even defecting for lack of weapons and other promised support, leaders said.

With them, they took US weapons including US-made TOW anti-tank missiles which eventually turned up in large numbers among IS terrorists. An earlier Telegraph article from 2012 would indirectly admit US weapons and cash were falling into Al Qaeda’s Al Nusra Front’s hands through similar “defections.”

Islamic State Drone Program Supplied via Turkey 

When IS began employing drones for surveillance, forward observation missions and even to deliver ordnance to targets, questions began being asked just how such a program could be developed by an organization ordinarily depicted by the US and European media as having simply sprung from Syrian and Iraqi sand dunes.

Among those asking these questions, and finding the answers, was the US Army’s Combating Terrorism Center at West Point. In its 2018 report titled, “The Islamic State and Drones: Supply, Scale, and Future Threats” (.pdf), it would note just how drones and other parts and equipment made it to the terrorist organization in Syria.

The report would note:

In October 2014 and December 2014, months after the Islamic State declared the creation of their caliphate in late June of that same year, Sujan – using the alias Peter Soren – purchased four antennas used for drones from Company 3 and a micro-turbine used in radio-controlled planes from Company 4. At Sujan’s request, these two companies shipped these items direct to Sanliurfa, Turkey – a town located an hour’s drive from the Syrian border town of Tal Abyad, which the Islamic State controlled, and around a two-and-half hour drive to the group’s headquarters in Raqqa, Syria.

The report would note that tens of thousands of dollars of drone parts were ordered and to be shipped to Sanliurfa, Turkey before being brought over the border into Syria and onward to IS territory.

It was through this process that IS was able to develop its drone program which the CTC report quotes one US general as claiming included up to as many as 70 drones in the air on certain days. The program would lead directly to several dozen deaths by weaponized drones and indirectly led to many more through their use as forward observers in guiding indirect weapon fire and guiding vehicle-borne improvised explosive devices (VBIED) toward targets.

While the report notes that some shipments were intercepted by the Turkish government, clearly many more made it through. While Western security agencies eventually liquidated those involved in the program in Syria and Iraq and overseas, this was done in late 2015, after Russia’s military intervention and when America’s “Salafist principality” finally faced real exposure and defeat.

The CTC report is another piece in a puzzle revealing who really drives global terrorism and why. That those behind the IS drone program procured components and entire drones through companies and fronts they operated directly at the heart of the Western surveillance state for an entire year before being stopped calls into question either the efficacy of US-European counter-terrorism measures, or the sincerity behind executing them.

Some may be tempted to chalk the creation of IS’ drone program up to incompetence on the part of Western security agencies. The fact remains nonetheless that once again US-European states provided procurement opportunities for IS programs while NATO-member Turkey served as a permissive logistical hub to deliver these supplies and weapons to neighboring Syria. Considering the nature of IS’ original inception and longevity, particularly in areas the US itself claims to be fighting it, it is difficult not to at least consider conspiracy, if not conclude as much.

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Ulson Gunnar is a New York-based geopolitical analyst and writer especially for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

Featured image is from the author.

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The establishment of a military force to go abroad and overthrow governments does not appear anywhere in the Constitution of the United States, nor does calling for destruction of countries that do not themselves threaten America appear anywhere in Article 2, which describes the responsibilities of the President. Indeed, both Presidents George Washington and John Quincy Adams warned against the danger represented by foreign entanglements, with Adams specifically addressing what we now call democracy promotion, warning that the United States “should not go abroad to slay dragons.”

Since the end of the Second World War, the United States has proven to be particularly prone to attacking other countries that have only limited capability to strike back. North Korea was the exception that proved the rule when the Chinese intervened to support its ally in 1950 to drive back and nearly destroy advancing U.S. forces. Otherwise, it has been a succession of Granada, Panama, Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia, Serbia, and Libya, none of which had the capability to hit back against the United States and the American people.

Iran just might prove to be a harder nut to crack. There has been a considerable escalation in tension between Washington and Tehran since the White House withdrew from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) in May. The JCPOA was intended to monitor Iran’s nuclear program to ensure that it would not be producing a nuclear weapon. Since that time, the U.S. and Israel have been threatening the Iranians and accusing them of both having a secret nuclear program and engaging in widespread regional aggression. In the latest incident, President Donald Trump tweeted in response to comments made on July 21st by Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, who had told a meeting of Iranian diplomats that war between America and Iran would be a misfortune for everyone, saying

“Mr. Trump, don’t play with the lion’s tail, this would only lead to regret. America should know that peace with Iran is the mother of all peace, and war with Iran is the mother of all wars.”

Trump responded in anger all in capital letters,

“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!”

Interventionist U.S. national security adviser John Bolton added fuel to the fire with a statement on the following day that

“President Trump told me that if Iran does anything at all to the negative, they will pay a price like few countries have ever paid before.”

President Trump’s warning that he would annihilate Iran missed the point that Rouhani was offering peace and urging that both sides work to avoid war. The Administration has already announced that it will reinstate existing sanctions on Iran and will likely add some new ones as well. After November 4th, Washington will sanction any country that buys oil from Iran, markedly increasing the misery level for the Iranian people and putting pressure on its government.

Iran, while recognizing the overwhelming imbalance in the forces available to the two sides, has not taken the threats from Washington and Tel Aviv lightly. Its Quds Revolutionary Guards Special Forces chief Major Generral Qassem Soleimani has now warned Trump that

“We are near you, where you can’t even imagine … Come. We are ready … If you begin the war, we will end the war. You know that this war will destroy all that you possess.”

Iran’s Guards commanders have in the past threatened to target and destroy U.S. military bases across the Middle East, and also target Israel, within minutes of being attacked. Military targets would be defended by both Israeli and U.S. counter-missile batteries but civilian targets would be vulnerable, particularly if Hezbollah, with an estimated 100,000 rockets of various types, joins in the fighting from Lebanon.

Washington argues that its pressure on Iran is intended to force its government to end its nuclear program as well as its support for militant groups in the Middle East, where Iran, so the claim goes, is engaged in proxy wars in both Yemen and Syria. The arguments are, however, largely fabrications as Iran has no nuclear weapons program and its engagement in Syria is by invitation of the legitimate government in Damascus while aid to Yemen’s Houthi’s is very limited. And there is no Iranian threat to the United States or to legitimate American interests.

Given the size of Iran, its large population, and clear intention to resist any U.S. attack, military action against the country, which many in Washington now see as inevitable, would be by missiles and bombs from the air and sea. But it would not be a cakewalk. In the past year, Iran has deployed the effective Russian made SA-20c SAM mobile air defense units as well as the S-300 VM missile system, which together have a range of more than 100 miles that could cover the entire Persian Gulf. Radar has also been upgraded. They are the centerpieces of an air defense system that could prove formidable against attacking U.S. aircraft and incoming missiles while ballistic missiles in large numbers in the Iranian arsenal could cause major damage to U.S. bases, Israel, the Gulf States and Saudi Arabia.

All of which means that Americans will die in a war with Iran, possibly in substantial numbers, and the threat by Iran to close the strategic Strait of Hormuz is no fantasy. It has threatened to do so if its own oil exports are blocked after November 4th, even if there is no war. And if there were war, even if subjected to sustained attack, Iran would be able to threaten ships trying to use the Strait with its numerous batteries of anti-ship missiles hidden along the country’s rough and mountainous coastline, to include the Russian made SS-N-22 Sunburn, which is the fastest and most effective ship killing missile in anyone’s arsenal. Fired in volleys, it would be able to overwhelm the defenses of U.S. warships, to include aircraft carriers, if they get too close. With the Strait closed in either scenario, oil prices would go up dramatically, damaging the economies of all the major industrialized nations, including the United States. A major war would also add trillions to the national debt.

Iran also has other resources to strike back, including cadres ready and able to carry out terror attacks in the United States and Western Europe. American tourists in Europe will be particularly vulnerable. The reality is that the United States has no motive to go to war with Iran based on its own national interests but seems to be prepared to do so anyway under pressure from Israel and Saudi Arabia. If it does do so, Iran will certainly lose, but the damage to the United States at every level might possibly be very high.

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This article was originally published on American Herald Tribune.

Philip M. Giraldi is a former CIA counter-terrorism specialist and military intelligence officer who served nineteen years overseas in Turkey, Italy, Germany, and Spain. He was the CIA Chief of Base for the Barcelona Olympics in 1992 and was one of the first Americans to enter Afghanistan in December 2001. Phil is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a Washington-based advocacy group that seeks to encourage and promote a U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East that is consistent with American values and interests. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is from the author.

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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Featured image: Al Awda with snow mountain Fjiords by Elizabeth Murray

A desperate SOS message was released by crew onboard a Norwegian-flagged flotilla that was intercepted by Israel on Sunday, as activists attempts to break a more than decade-long blockade of the Gaza Strip failed.

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Featured image: Ahed Tamimi and her father with South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa [File photo]

Palestinian teen activist Ahed Tamimi – who was released on Sunday from an Israeli prison after serving an eight-month sentence for slapping an Israeli soldier – will be invited to South Africa to receive a special award for her bravery, resistance and being a symbol of hope for millions reports the Afro-Palestine Newswire Service.

This is according to Zwelivelile “Mandla” Mandela, the chief of the Mvezo Traditional Council and the grandson of Nelson Mandela. In the centennial celebration of his grandfather’s birth, Mandela has promised Tamimi that he will “continue to support and rally others to join in the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign to isolate Apartheid Israel until Palestine is free.” Mandela saluted Tamimi as “a symbol of Palestinian resistance.”

Ahed Tamimi’s mother, Nariman, was also released on Sunday after being imprisoned on charges of incitement for sharing a live recording of her teenage daughter standing up to the fully-armed Israeli soldier in December.

Speaking immediately after her release from her home in the village of Nabi Saleh in the occupied West Bank, Ahed Tamimi said that while she was happy to be reunited with her family, she could not forget other young Palestinians who still languished in Israeli prisons – including her brother and two cousins.

Amnesty International has cautioned that Tamimi’s release must not obscure the Israeli military’s use of discriminatory policies to lock up Palestinian children.

“While Ahed’s freedom is welcome and long overdue, it must be followed by the release of the other Palestinian children unlawfully imprisoned by Israeli military courts,” said Saleh Higazi, head of Amnesty’s Jerusalem office.

According to the Addameer prisoner support group, of the approximately 5900 Palestinian political prisoners currently being held in Israeli jails, 291 were children.

The 17-year-old Ahed, who has since become a global icon of resistance, also relayed messages from Palestinian female political prisoners, calling on Palestinians to remain strong and united in their resistance to the Israeli occupation.

Image on the right: An Italian artist painted an image of Ahed Tamimi on the Separation Wall in occupied Bethlehem.

Hamas spokesperson, Husam Badran, said that Ahed and Nariman’s release was a “victory” and “an incentive for further efforts to expose the crimes of the Israeli Occupation and spread the legitimate Palestinian cause worldwide….We stress that we will continue taking the path of resistance until the freedom of all Palestinian detainees is achieved.”

In welcoming news of their release, Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) executive member, Hanan Ashrawi, stated that the arrest of Ahed and her mother “is further proof of the Israeli violations and crimes perpetrated against the unarmed children and women of Palestine.” Ashrawi pledged to “continue to pursue political and legal means to seek freedom and justice for all Palestinian prisoners, their families and loved ones.”

Tamimi and her mother were arrested by Israeli forces in December 2017 after a video went viral showing the young woman, then 16, hitting and slapping two armed Israeli soldiers outside her home in Nabi Saleh. At the time, the teen was reacting to news that her 15-year-old cousin, Mohammed, had been shot in the face by Israeli forces with a rubber-coated steel bullet earlier in the day, leaving him in critical condition.

The teen’s arrest drew international condemnation and put the spotlight on Israel’s arrest and imprisonment of Palestinians, especially Palestinian children.

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The world of the terrifying hypothetical is programmatically standard in the Trump White House.  Periods of tense calm are followed by careless flights of fury, digs and remonstrations.  Mortal enemies become amenable comrades; reliable allies turn into irresponsible skinflints who ought to fork our more for their defence. 

For all that swirling chaos, the one constant since the 2016 election campaign for President Donald Trump is the Iranian bogey, that defender of the Shiites, the theocratic Republic.  The fear of Iran’s aspirations is an endless quarry for domestic consumption, tied, as it were with propitiating the ever hungry Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

On July 23, Trump gave a Twitter offering to Iranian President Rouhani, written in all-caps promising singular, untold of consequences of suffering should Iran ever threaten the United States again.

  “We are no longer a country that will stand for your demented words of violence and death.  Be cautious!”

This shout of indignation was the less than measured response to remarks made by Rouhani to Iranian diplomats:

“America should know that peace with Iran is the mother of all peace and war with Iran is the mother of all wars.”

After the outburst came the milder reflection.  Before a convention in Kansas City, a cooling breeze was blowing.

“I withdrew the United States from the horrible one-sided Iran nuclear deal, and Iran is not the same country anymore,” came Trump’s explanation.  The United States was “ready to make a deal.”

This picture of dysfunctional play was further clouded by last week’s ominous revelations from Australia’s national broadcaster, the ABC.  The network had received some troubling titbits of information suggesting that the United States is intending to launch strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities next month. This has also prompted concerns about how broad the remit will be. Which allies will be called upon to be engaged in an endeavour that seems more than mildly suicidal?

One unnamed security source described in exasperating fashion by the ABC as “senior” suggests that Australia is supplying aspects of the skeletal outline for such a strike, specifically in the realm of identifying targets:

“Providing intelligence and understanding as to what is happening on the ground so that the Government and allied governments are fully informed to make decisions is different to active targeting.”

This willing source within the Turnbull government was adamant to draw distinctions between the actual strike itself (described as the “kinetic” mission), and sketching the picture itself. “Developing a picture is very different to actually participating in a strike.”

But Australia would be implicated in such a mission, should it ever get off the ground, given the role played by the misnamed joint-defence facility at Pine Gap, located in central Australia.  The virtually unknown Australian Geospatial-Intelligence Organisation would also do its bit.

As with any such reports emerging either within the White House, or from its imperial periphery, signals vary.  The US Defence Secretary John Mattis, just to make things a touch more interesting, described the reports as lacings of fantasy.

“I have no idea where the Australian news people got that information. I’m confident it is not something that’s being considered right now and I think it’s a complete, frankly, it’s fiction.”

The subsequent response from the Australian Prime Minister was an unsurprising, vassal phrased echo.

“President Trump has made his views very clear to the whole word, but this story,” noted Malcolm Turnbull, “has not benefited from any consultation with me, the Foreign Minister, the Defence Minister or the Chief of the Defence force”.

This, on paper, looks like a decidedly appropriate Trump formula: avoid consultation; it might just cloud your judgment.

The detail supplied to the ABC over the strike plans should not be sneezed at.  Given Trump’s belligerent inner circle (Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and National Security Advisor John Bolton) steaming with the anticipation of a first strike against irreverent states, and the promptings of Israel, the issue retains an air of solemn seriousness.  Even a more moderate Mattis is ever keen to run a grocer’s list of sins perpetrated by Teheran: bolstering Bashar al-Assad in Syria, “fomenting more violence” in Yemen, Iran as regional bully.

The prospect of strikes on Iranian facilities has been further complicated by public enunciations from Netanyahu reiterating the Begin Doctrine, stressing that,

“Israel will not allow regimes that seek our annihilation to acquire nuclear weapons”.

The danger here, as ever, is that Israel will go rogue and initiate such an attack, though the spread of Iran’s facilities complicates any such enterprise.

Clio is a cruelly dogged taskmaster and a refusal to listen to the echoes of warnings she inspires imperils states and their citizens.  Invading, interfering and altering the trajectory of development in the Middle East tends to have global repercussions.  Western states have shown a pigheadedly dangerous tendency to meddle and destroy. Death inevitably follows; vacuums are created.  These latest slivers of information from Canberra on US intentions is a salutary reminder that much has not changed.

*

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]

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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On the 14th of April 2018, as most are surely aware, the prime ministers of France and the UK assisted failed meatpacking-entrepreneur Donald Trump in violating all the most important international laws by attacking Syria in Damascus and Homs. For whatever reason, the US-led coalition thought it was a good idea to get revenge against Syria for an alleged gas-attack by blowing up any hypothetical evidence that might have proven the Syrian government was behind said gas-attack. The truth, it seems, was part of the price we pay for — well, no one can really be sure (since the evidence blew up) but dammit our freedom is safe and that’s what counts. The other part of the price is mostly really expensive bombs.

What Is the Price of Attacking Syria?

​Altogether, the Brits chipped in 8 stormshadow missiles, the French (not to be outdone) threw down 9 stormshadows plus 3 Missiles de Croisière Navals, and the US furnished 66 Tomahawk cruise missiles and 19 JASSM-ER (joint air to surface standoff missiles – extended range). The total price for all 105 bombs was a measly $177 million. And to get an idea of how staggeringly large $177 million is, think of it this way – if you filled every seat in the Fenway Park stadium, $177 million would be enough to hand out about $5000 cash to every person.

$1,048,030 × 8 Stormshadow missiles  

= $8,384,240

$1,048,030 × 9 Stormshadow missiles 

 = $9,432,270

$3,300,000 × 3 MdCN

 = $9,900,000

$1,869,000 × 66 Tomahawk cruise missiles  

= $123,354,000

$1,359,000 × 19 JASSM-ER  

= $25,821,000

$$\$8,384,240+\$9,432,270+\$9,900,000$$

$$+\$123,354,000+\$25,821,000$$

$$=$$$176,891,510 or about $177 million 

How Much Does a Tomahawk Cruise Missile Cost?

A look at the US Department of Defense’s 2017 budget request shows that each Tomahawk cruise missile costs a mere $1.869 million. According to its maker Raytheon, this hellish metal vulture “can circle for hours, shift course instantly on command and beam a picture of its target to controllers halfway around the world before striking with pinpoint accuracy.” Each time the US fires off one of these bad boys, imagine 60 full-time, living-wage jobs ripping through the air above a group of frightened Arab children…

2,087 hours per-year × $15 wage 

= $31,305

$1,869,000 ÷ $31,305 

= 59.7029 or about 60 full-time jobs per tomahawk cruise missile

Or, as an alternative, one might imagine a building in Damascus being leveled by a year’s worth of food for 1,242 of the poorest US-Americans (Avg. Yearly SNAP Benefits).

Avg. Yearly SNAP Benefits received: $1,504.8

$1,869,000 ÷ $1,504.8

 = 1,242.0255 or about 1,242 hungry US-Americans

How Much Does the JASSM-ER Cost?

While Lockheed-Martin’s joint air to surface standoff missile or JASSM may lack the Tomahawk’s added cultural-appropriation, they still get the job done (if that job is killing people) at a bargain price of $1.359 million. As Lockheed-Martin’s website says — “with superior performance and affordable price, JASSM offers the best value of any weapon in its class.” Using the same units of measurement above, each JASSM-ER is about enough to create 43 US-American jobs or to provide food for a year for 903 hungry people.

Total Cost of Trump’s Illegal Attack on Damascus

Adding the total cost for 19 JASSM-ER (“extended range”) to the 66 Tomahawk missiles Trump launched during his little terror-attack on Syria last weekend brings the total cost for US missiles to….

$25,821,000 + $123,354,000 

= $149,175,000

…about $149.2 million! Yay. For perspective, $149.2 million is equal to the yearly incomes of about 2,640 US-American households at the median. In a world that made sense, this $149.2 million might have funded coverage for 45,647 people as part of a universal healthcare program or employed 4,765 workers as part of a self-managed federal job guarantee.

Median Household Income: $56,516

$149,175,000 ÷ $56,516 

= 2639.5180 or about 2,640 US household-incomes

Avg. Per-Person Healthcare Spend in OECD Countries:

 $3,268

$149,175,000 ÷ $3,268 

= 4,5647.1848

or about 45,647 people with healthcare

2,087 hours × $15 wage 

= $31,305

$149,175,000 ÷ $31,305 

= 4,765.21322 or about 4,765 full-time, living wage jobs created

But all of this math is just a fun thought experiment. Public spending could — in theory, of course — create more jobs or ensure that people have access to healthcare or food, but then Raytheon’s stock prices would never have increased by 3.2% over the weekend. And besides, using public funds to promote the general welfare or public safety and happiness would be socialism. Where would that leave the shareholders? Think about it.

*

John Laurits is a poet, journalist, activist, and guerrilla educator residing in Oregon with a useless degree in eastern philosophy, along with the absurd debt which resulted from it and which is likely to follow him to his death.

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

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The case of Julian Assange’s asylum has reached a critical breaking point. After being arbitrarily detained in the Ecuadorian embassy for over six years despite two official rulings by the United Nations Human Rights Council that he should be released, and having had his communications cut off over two months ago, Glen Greenwald of The Intercept and RT editor-in-chief Margarita Simonyan both confirm from an anonymous source close to the campaign that Ecuador’s president Lenin Moreno is in close talks with UK government to evict him from the embassy despite his legal asylum claim. This comes not long after the recent ruling by the Inter-American Human Rights Court that clarified that those granted political asylum have the right by the governments that granted it to them to safe passage outside of the country, which in this case could apply to Julian either back to his home country of Australia, or anywhere else that has or will grant him asylum.

A doctor that has evaluated Julian’s health has reported it to be in ‘dangerous’ condition. It was also revealed on the #Unity4J livestream vigil that he is suffering from a bad root canal infection from a broken tooth caused by a piece of metal someone slipped into his food. The online vigils have served as a live public emergency meeting of journalists, activists, politicians, whistleblowers, and celebrities all joining in with their support for his freedom and release. They also have discussed ideas for solutions like writing the Nobel Peace committee in support of Julian, and using a mass movement of protesters to surround the embassy, bringing mass awareness to the campaign, and perhaps even being used to secure his safe transport into a more suitable location. After all, who could forget how the police in Iran walked away from the protesters putting flowers in their guns in 1979?

The torture of Julian Assange must end and it must end in his immediate freedom. The vilification of a publisher with an impeccable track record of never needing to retract anything legally leaked to his organization is the vilification of the free press itself. Prosecuting him would set a dangerous and insane precedent never before seen in America and would extend to even the likes of The New York Times & The Washington Post. Those who refuse to speak out against this are the ones who may ironically find themselves targeted next down this treacherously slippery slope of the erosion of freedoms and human rights we are seeing here and all over the world today. As we all know cutting the head off of the hydra does nothing to weaken it’s function. It goes on thriving as if nothing ever even happened. Wikileaks has and will continue to live on as an inspiring symbol of truth and integrity and as a viable channel for all those with classified information that reveals illegal activity and other forms of unjust atrocities.

Persecuting it’s editor has only seemed to strengthen the communities behind independent media publishing while it’s the main stream media who remains deafeningly silent in comparison and compliance. They think they can stop people from wanting and spreading the truth non-violently but as we have seen throughout history all those who have tried have failed. What Nelson Mandela, a political prisoner for over thirty years, was to the previous generation, Julian Assange is to ours. You can not exterminate the truth without exterminating yourself in the process. This is the fortune the United States intelligence agencies—who are justifiably neither—are unraveling for themselves as we speak. They’re angry and lashing out like a child or elder with dementia, making up vapid phrases like Secretary of the State Mike Pompeo’s “non-state hostile intelligence service” which serve as nothing but a smokescreen for their grand jury deliberately set up to indict Julian if the UK does indeed give him up for extradition.[1] Donald Trump spoke out in favor of Wikileaks multiple times during the 2016 presidential elections and it was only the day after this statement was made, when asked if Julian Assange should be issued an arrest warrant, he responded by saying it would be “OK by me.” Let’s look at some statistics:

“In the more than 162,500 cases prosecuted by U.S. attorneys from 2009 to 2010, grand juries voted not to return an indictment in only 11, according to data from the Bureau of Justice Statistics equivalent to one in 14,759 cases, or 0.0068 percent.” [2]

This is not justice. This is a last ditch effort by two compartmentalized and internally dichotomic governments in collapse to save their already scarred and tarnished faces. It’s a tragic and terrible masquerade that must end immediately.

It’s unclear what the exact outcome is going to be of the high level talks Moreno will have during his scheduled visit this week to the Global Disability Summit hosted by the UK government. A statement was released on Sunday July 22nd from Qutio stating: “The Ecuadorian State will only talk and promote understandings about Mr. Assange’s asylum, within the framework of international law, with the interested party’s lawyers and with the British government. At the moment, due to the complexity of the topic, a short or long term solution is not in sight.”  A sofa was seen this morning being removed from the embassy into a white van which lead some to speculate as to why. What is clear, however, is Donald Trump now has a history of pardoning people who have gone against the FBI and other government agencies. Take for example the recent pardons of Dwight and Steven Hammond, the Oregon ranchers who have been in standoffs with BLM and the FBI for decades and were imprisoned for arson on federal land.[3] Their story is not without controversy, in some ways like Julian Assange’s case has become over the years, and he just may be Donald Trump’s only hope for finally resolving the “Russiagate” narrative that has still yet to release any real evidence to support their slanderous and unsubstantiated scapegoating propaganda once and for all.

Host Sean Hannity [Fox News]: “Can you say to the American people unequivocally that you did not get this information about the DNC, John Podesta’s emails — can you tell the American people 1,000 percent you did not get it from Russia . . . “

Julian Assange: “Yes.”

Hannity: “. . . or anybody associated with Russia?”

Assange: “We — we can say and we have said repeatedly . . . “

Hannity: “Right.”

Assange: “. . . over the last two months, that our source is not the Russian government and it is not a state party.”

— exchange on “Hannity” on Fox News, Jan. 3, 2017 [4]

On the #Unity4J emergency public meeting that was broadcasted live last night the ex-CIA whistleblower Ray McGovern referred to what is known as ‘Russiagate’ as “FBI-Gate” and also mentioned his opinion that if Julian Assange and Wikileaks were active before 9/11—it never would have happened at all—citing frustrations from the FBI in Minnesota about one of the eventual hijackers attempting to learn how to fly planes without a care for how they took off or landed just days prior to the attack. “Before you know it they’re going to take another crack at the twin towers.” A supervisor said on 9/9. Ray went back and asked the supervisor and an agent responsible for leading the red team testing airports by bringing “bomb-like” substances onto planes and succeeded 9 times out of 10 and whose superiors in Washington were also not listening to: “If Wikileaks had been available back then, would you have gone to Julian Assange, to get this word out so Americans could know how dangerous this situation was? And they said yeah, yeah, it was that bad we could see it coming.”

Robert Mueller has alleged that Guccifer 2.0, who claims to have hacked the Democratic National Committee’s and leaked the e-mails, not only did it but is also a Russian operative, which directly contradicts Julian Assange’s and Kim Dotdom’s statements that the source of the DNC emails was neither Russian nor any state party.

So who are we going to believe here?

The FBI who routinely lies and covers up their own negligence in regards to following due diligence and has yet to release a single shred of evidence pertaining any of this to be true? Or the one man whose organization has never been wrong, and who many in our corrupt government intelligence asylums have voiced their murderous intentions for?

Donald Trump, as controversial as he may be, still tries to do the right thing he says. That is ultimately, if taking his words at face value of course, why he pardoned the Hammonds: “I was just trying to do the right thing.”  He said. Giving Julian Assange a full pardon from any of the false charges brought upon by the secretive Patriot Act trainwreck known as the FISA court and the rigged grand jury indictment is not only doing the right thing, but could end this entire charade once and for all. If this could be settled entirely within the UK courts without fear of extradition over the minor allegations he skipped bail to claim asylum—a potential three months maximum charge—or contempt of court which can be two years maximum which he has already served almost four times over—it could finally lead to immediately treating his ailing health and securing his much-deserved freedom once and for all.

*

Vember is a pen name.

Notes

[1] https://www.justice4assange.com/US-Extradition.html

[2] https://www.yahoo.com/news/ferguson-federal-grand-jury-indictment-statistics-history-134942645.html

[3] https://www.oregonlive.com/oregon-standoff/2018/07/oregon_ranchers_pardoned_by_tr.html

[4] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2017/01/05/julian-assanges-claim-that-there-was-no-russian-involvement-in-wikileaks-emails/?utm_term=.60a0e8c464f1

Impropriety among big-pharmaceutical corporations has ranged from multi-billion dollar bribery rackets, to marketing drugs to patients for uses they were never approved for by regulators, to covering up known dangerous side-effects of medications they produce and sell.

More recently, big-pharma has been embroiled in a series of price-gouging controversies over equipment and treatments. This includes the hijacking of and profiteering from a revolutionary new treatment called gene therapy.

Gene therapy, the process of re-engineering human cells to either include missing DNA to cure genetic conditions or to arm the immune system to seek and destroy disease, has been the latest hopeful technology scooped up and plundered by big-pharma.

Gene therapy promises a single shot cure to many of the diseases that have confounded humanity the most – everything from diabetes to cancer, to blindness, deafness, and even various effects of aging.

At least two treatments using gene therapy have been approved for European markets.

A third that has proven in clinical trials to provide permanent remission for leukemia patients who were unresponsive to chemotherapy, appears to be close to FDA approval.

The Literal Cure for Cancer, Dangled Over the Dying 

While the treatment – even under experimental conditions – costs approximately $20,000 to produce, pharmaceutical giant Novartis has swooped in and industry experts anticipate a markup leaving the price tag between $300,000-600,000.

The New York Times in a 2012 article titled, “In Girl’s Last Hope, Altered Immune Cells Beat Leukemia,” reported that (emphasis added):

Dr. June said that producing engineered T-cells costs about $20,000 per patient — far less than the cost of a bone-marrow transplant. Scaling up the procedure should make it even less expensive, he said, but he added, “Our costs do not include any profit margin, facility depreciation costs or other clinical care costs, and other research costs.”

More recently, in a July 2017 Washington Post article titled, “First gene therapy — ‘a true living drug’ — on the cusp of FDA approval,” its reported that:

Novartis has not disclosed the price for its therapy, but analysts are predicting $300,000 to $600,000 for a one-time infusion. Brad Loncar, whose investment fund focuses on companies that develop immunotherapy treatments, hopes the cost does not prompt a backlash. “CAR-T is not the EpiPen,” he said. “This is truly pushing the envelope and at the cutting edge of science.”

But it isn’t Novartis that’s “pushing the envelop,” or at “the cutting edge of science.” Charity-funded university researchers are.

Stealing From Charity 

The New York Times and the Washington Post both appear to give Novartis credit for this breakthrough in their article, with NYT claiming that the company invested some $20 million on a research center to bring the treatment to market. However, that appears not to be entirely true.

It was, in fact, the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society (LLS) that funded the initial work toward this breakthrough, beginning in the late 1990’s and committing some $21 million to the effort.

Novartis is indeed a partner of LLS, but according to LLS’ own annual reports (2016, PDF), it is listed under the second tier of donors – providing between $500,000-900,000 out of the total $35.6 million LLS received in direct gifts that year. In some years Novartis has donated even less.

LLS itself, in a 2014 press release, stated:

LLS has invested in the work of June and colleagues since 1998 and has committed to investing a total of $21 million through 2017 to get this first treatment to more patients. LLS first funded Grupp in 1992 through its career development program. LLS has also been funding another member of the team, David Porter, M.D. of University of Pennsylvania since 1994.

Elsewhere, LLS reports cite that this breakthrough in curing leukemia has “attracted” Novartis as a partner, never mentioning that Novartis is actually a long-term LLS partner.

In reality, it appears pharmaceutical corporations like Novartis are using charities like LLS to fund research and development that corporations themselves should be investing in. Instead, Novartis and others are poaching public and charity-funded research and breakthroughs, profiting from what is often decades of dedicated and difficult work.

Beyond LLS’ partners, it receives millions of dollars annually from other donors ranging from businesses unrelated to the pharmaceutical industry, to fundraising events held nationwide, to families and individuals who have experienced cancer either themselves or through a family member or friend.

The research and breakthroughs LLS funds belong to all of its donors. How the work it funded has ended up in the hands of a single corporation, facing a mark up of anywhere between 15-30 times its cost during experimental trials demands scrutiny and a detailed explanation.

Why Big-Pharma is Gouging Gene Therapy  

Gene therapy overall threatens the fundamental business model pharmaceutical giants are built on – that is to perpetually peddle medication that covers up the symptoms of disease rather than outright curing it.

It is a business practice that provides profits easily predicted quarter to quarter, with some medications leading to complications big-pharma also has a pill for. Something that treats a patient permanently with a single, inexpensive shot constitutes big-pharma’s worst nightmare.

MIT Technology Review in an article titled, “A First-of-a-Kind Gene Therapy Cure Has Struggled to Find a Market,” tells the tale of another pharmaceutical corporation – GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), of another revolutionary gene therapy it scooped up from research done by others, its $665,000 price tag, and why GSK – along with the rest of big-pharma – are disinterested in gene therapy.

The article notes:

[Alex] Pasteur [investor with F-Prime Capital Partners and interim CEO of Orchard Therapeutics] also says revenues for a rare-disease gene therapy might only ever add up to $100 million a year. Because GSK brings in $36 billion a year, Pasteur is not surprised the company is looking elsewhere for revenue. “These are pimples on the back of a whale,” he says. “But the assets could be very interesting for someone else.”

Indeed, a single shot that costs only a few thousand dollars and permanently cures people of virtually every human health infliction not only isn’t profitable, but will likely put these enormous, abusive monopolies out of business for good.

Obamacare vs Turmpcare: Nobody Cares, But Innovation Cures  

Education is the first step in combating the hijacking and burying of gene therapy and other innovations.

At a time when people arguing over Obamacare versus Trumpcare are realizing that no one actually cares about their health more than they themselves, innovation like gene therapy offers to make healthcare so affordable and effective, insurance schemes and government subsidies would be unnecessary.

But gene therapy will only gain traction if the wider public knows about it, including its implications for not only improving their own health, but improving the healthcare systems of their respective nations.

The public must also understand the true costs behind gene therapy and where money for research has come from – often from public funding or charity. This knowledge allows the public to call out pharmaceutical corporations attempting to seize credit and profits entirely for themselves.

While pharmaceutical corporations invest inordinate amounts of money attempting to convince the world that they are indispensable, university researchers funded by public money and charity prove they are more often than not setting breakthroughs back, not moving them forward.

If the good people involved in LLS are capable of raising the money to fund these breakthroughs, they are capable of creating a pharmaceutical trust that can bring these cures to market with greater transparency and oversight.

Healthcare debates focused purely on political solutions and debates are frustrating. Getting behind gene therapy and other tangible healthcare innovations is something people can better invest their time, money, energy, and attention into instead.

All images in this article are from the author.

President Donald Trump confirmed back in May that the U.S. will be pulling out of the Iran nuclear deal as well as reimposing a sanctions regime on Tehran.

This far-reaching decision by the White House was taken following Netanyahu’s staged presentation on Iran’s nuclear capabilities based on so-called “sound intelligence”. The accession of Mike Pompeo to the the State Department was also an important factor. His predecessor Rex Tillerson was known to be largely supportive of the US “remaining on board with the Iran JCPOA nuclear deal – along with other P5+1 countries Britain, China, France, Germany and Russia”. According to Stephen Lendman:

Replacing Tillerson with militantly anti-Iran hardliner Pompeo smooths things for Trump to pursue greater hostility toward the Islamic Republic with a key administration official on board with his reckless agenda.

Under the guidance of secretary of State Mike Pompeo and his new national security advisor  John Bolton, Trump’s decision points in the direction of military escalation. 

Already in December 2017, reports pointed to a so-called “secret plan” to destroy and destabilize Iran, the first step of which would be a color revolution. In this regard, Trump said he would relaunch the economic sanctions regime in mid-May “unless the European powers join Washington in unilaterally rewriting the civil nuclear agreement between Tehran and the world’s great powers.”

This not so secret plan to wage war on Iran has been on the drawing board of the Pentagon since the mid-nineties as outlined in my 2010 article below, written eight months prior to the onslaught of the US-NATO led proxy war directed against Syria in March 2011. 

It should be noted that there are significant divisions within the US-NATO-Israel coalition largely as a result of Turkey’s rapprochement with Russia and Iran. In turn Turkey is fighting US proxy forces in Northern Syria. Moreover, France has significant interests in Iran’s oil industry. 

While the present structure of military alliances (with Turkey sleeping with enemy) does not at this juncture favor the waging of a major military operation against Iran, there are unconfirmed reports that President Trump is currently envisaging a so-called preemptive attack against Iran’s nuclear facilities as early as next month.

US Defense Secretary James Mattis has casually dismissed the reports that the U.S. is contemplating military action against Iran.

Michel Chossudovsky, July 29, 2018

***

Global Warfare. Preparing for World War III? Targeting Iran

By Michel Chossudovsky

Global Research

August 1, 2010

Humanity is at a dangerous crossroads. War preparations to attack Iran are in “an advanced state of readiness”. Hi tech weapons systems including nuclear warheads are fully deployed.

This military adventure has been on the Pentagon’s drawing board since the mid-1990s. First Iraq, then Iran according to a declassified 1995 US Central Command document.

Escalation is part of the military agenda. While Iran [in 2010], is the next target together with Syria and Lebanon, this strategic military deployment also threatens North Korea, China and Russia.

Since 2005, the US and its allies, including America’s NATO partners and Israel, have been involved in the extensive deployment and stockpiling of advanced weapons systems. The air defense systems of the US, NATO member countries and Israel are fully integrated.

This is a coordinated endeavor of the Pentagon, NATO, Israel’s Defense Force (IDF), with the active military involvement of several non-NATO partner countries including the frontline Arab states (members of NATO’s Mediterranean Dialogue and the Istanbul Cooperation Initiative), Saudi Arabia, Japan, South Korea, India, Indonesia, Singapore, Australia, among others. (NATO consists of 28 NATO member states  Another 21 countries are members of the Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council (EAPC), The Mediterranean Dialogue and the Istanbul Cooperation Initiative include ten Arab countries plus Israel.)

The roles of Egypt, the Gulf states and Saudi Arabia (within the extended military alliance) is of particular relevance. Egypt controls the transit of war ships and oil tankers through the Suez Canal. Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States occupy the South Western coastlines of the Persian Gulf, the Straits of Hormuz and the Gulf of Oman. In early June [2010], “Egypt reportedly allowed one Israeli and eleven U.S. ships to pass through the Suez Canal in ….an apparent signal to Iran. … On June 12, regional press outlets reported that the Saudis had granted Israel the right to fly over its airspace…” (Muriel Mirak Weissbach,  Israel’s Insane War on Iran Must Be Prevented., Global Research, July 31, 2010)

In post 9/11 military doctrine, this massive deployment of military hardware has been defined as part of the so-called  “Global War on Terrorism”, targeting “non-State” terrorist organizations including al Qaeda and so-called “State sponsors of terrorism”,. including Iran, Syria, Lebanon, Sudan.

The setting up of new US military bases, the stockpiling of advanced weapons systems including tactical nuclear weapons, etc. were implemented as part of the pre-emptive defensive military doctrine under the umbrella of the “Global War on Terrorism”.

War and the Economic Crisis

The broader implications of a US-NATO Israel attack on Iran are far-reaching. The war and the economic crisis are intimately related. The war economy is financed by Wall Street, which stands as the creditor of the US administration. The US weapons producers are the recipients of the US Department of Defense multibillion dollar procurement contracts for advanced weapons systems. In turn, “the battle for oil” in the Middle East and Central Asia directly serves the interests of the Anglo-American oil giants.

The US and its allies are “beating the drums of war” at the height of a Worldwide economic depression, not to mention the most serious environmental catastrophe in World history. In a bitter twist, one of the major players (BP) on the Middle East Central Asia geopolitical chessboard, formerly known as the Anglo-Persian Oil Company, is the instigator of the ecological disaster in the Gulf of Mexico.

Media Disinformation

Public opinion, swayed by media hype is tacitly supportive, indifferent or ignorant as to the likely impacts of what is upheld as an ad hoc “punitive” operation directed against Iran’s nuclear facilities rather than an all out war. War preparations include the deployment of  US and Israeli produced nuclear weapons. In this context, the devastating consequences of a nuclear war are either trivialised or simply not mentioned.

The “real crisis” threatening humanity, according to the media and the governments, is not war but global warming. The media will fabricate a crisis where there is no crisis: “a global scare” — the H1N1 global pandemic– but nobody seems to fear a US sponsored nuclear war.

The war on Iran is presented to public opinion as an issue among others. It is not viewed as a threat to “Mother Earth” as in the case of global warming. It is not front-page news. The fact that an attack on Iran could lead to escalation and potentially unleash a “global war” is not a matter of concern.

The Cult of Killing and Destruction

The global killing machine is also sustained by an imbedded cult of killing and destruction which pervades Hollywood movies, not to mention the prime time war and crime TV series on network television. This cult of killing is endorsed by the CIA and the Pentagon which also support (finance) Hollywood productions as an instrument of war propaganda:

“Ex-CIA agent Bob Baer told us, “There’s a symbiosis between the CIA and Hollywood” and revealed that former CIA director George Tenet is currently, “out in Hollywood, talking to studios.” (Matthew Alford and Robbie Graham, Lights, Camera… Covert Action: The Deep Politics of Hollywood, Global Research, January 31, 2009).

The killing machine is deployed at a global level, within the framework of the unified combat command structure. It is routinely upheld by the institutions of government, the corporate media and the mandarins and intellectuals of the New World Order in Washington’s think tanks and strategic studies research institutes, as an unquestioned instrument of peace and global prosperity.

A culture of killing and violence has become imbedded in human consciousness.

War is broadly accepted as part of a societal process: The Homeland needs to be “defended” and protected.

“Legitimized violence” and extrajudicial killings directed against “terrorists” are upheld in western democracies, as necessary instruments of national security.

A “humanitarian war” is upheld by the so-called international community. It is not condemned as a criminal act. Its main architects are rewarded for their contributions to world peace.

With regard to Iran, what is unfolding is the outright legitimization of war in the name of an illusive notion of global security.

A “Pre-emptive” Aerial attack directed against Iran would lead to Escalation

At present [2010] there are three separate Middle East Central Asia war theaters: Iraq, Af-Pak, and Palestine.

Were Iran to be the object of a “pre-emptive” aerial attack by allied forces, the entire region, from the Eastern Mediterranean to China’s Western frontier with Afghanistan and Pakistan, would flare up, leading us potentially into a World War III scenario.

The war would also extend into Lebanon and Syria.

It is highly unlikely that the bombings, if they were to be implemented, would be circumscribed to Iran’s nuclear facilities as claimed by US-NATO official statements. What is more probable is an all out air attack on both military and civilian infrastructure, transport systems, factories, public buildings.

Iran, with an an estimated ten percent of global oil and gas reserves, ranks third after Saudi Arabia (25 %) and Iraq (11 %) in the size of its reserves. In comparison, the US possesses less than 2.8 % of global oil reserves. The oil reserves of the U.S. are estimated at less than 20 billion barrels. The broader region of the Middle East and Central Asia have oil reserves which are more than thirty times those of the U.S, representing more than 60% of the World’s total reserves. (See Eric Waddell, The Battle for Oil, Global Research, December 2004).

Of significance is the recent discovery in Iran of the second largest known reserves of natural gas at Soumar and Halgan estimated at 12.4 trillion cubic feet.

Targeting Iran consists not only in reclaiming Anglo-American control over Iran’s oil and gas economy, including pipeline routes, it also challenges the presence and influence of China and Russia in the region.

The planned attack on Iran is part of a coordinated global military road map. It is part of the Pentagon’s “long war”,  a profit driven war without borders, a project of World domination, a sequence of military operations.

US-NATO military planners have envisaged various scenarios of military escalation. They are also acutely aware of the geopolitical implications, namely that the war could extend beyond the Middle East Central Asia region. The economic impacts on the oil markets, etc. have also been analyzed.

While Iran, Syria and Lebanon are the immediate targets, China, Russia, North Korea, not to mention Venezuela and Cuba are also the object of US threats.

At stake is the structure of military alliances. US-NATO-Israel military deployments including military exercises and drills conducted on Russia and China’s immediate borders bear a direct relationship to the proposed war on Iran. These veiled threats, including their timing, constitute an obvious hint to the former powers of the Cold War era not to intervene in any way which could encroach upon a US-led attack on Iran.

Global Warfare

The medium term strategic objective is to target Iran and neutralize Iran’s allies, through gunboat diplomacy. The longer term military objective is to directly target China and Russia.

While Iran is the immediate target, military deployment is by no means limited to the Middle East and Central Asia. A global military agenda has been formulated.

The deployment of coalition troops and advanced weapons systems by the US, NATO and its partners is occurring simultaneously in all major regions of the World.

The recent actions of the US military off the coast of North Korea including the conduct of war games are part of a global design.

Directed primarily against Russia and China, US, NATO and allied military exercises, war drills, weapons deployments, etc. are being conducted simultaneously in major geopolitical hotspots.

-The Korean Peninsula, the Sea of Japan, the Taiwan Straits, the South China Sea threatening China.

-The deployment of Patriot missiles in Poland, the early warning center in the Czech republic threatening Russia.

-Naval deployments in Bulgaria, Romania on the Black Sea, threatening Russia.

– US and NATO troops deployments in Georgia.

– A formidable naval deployment in the Persian Gulf including Israeli submarines directed against Iran.

Concurrently the Eastern Mediterranean, the Black Sea, the Caribbean, Central America and the Andean region of South America are areas of ongoing militarization. In Latin America and the Caribbean, the threats are directed against Venezuela and Cuba.

US “Military Aid”

In turn, large scale weapons transfers have been undertaken under the banner of US “military aid” to selected countries, including a 5 billion dollar arms deal with India which is intended to build India’s capabilities directed against China. (Huge U.S.-India Arms Deal To Contain China, Global Times, July 13, 2010).

“[The] arms sales will improve ties between Washington and New Delhi, and, intentionally or not, will have the effect of containing China’s influence in the region.” quoted in Rick Rozoff, Confronting both China and Russia: U.S. Risks Military Clash With China In Yellow Sea, Global Research, July 16, 2010)

The US has military cooperation agreements with a number of South East Asian countries including Singapore, Vietnam and Indonesia, involving “military aid” as well as the participation in U.S.-led war games in the Pacific Rim (July -August 2010). These agreements are supportive of weapons deployments directed against The People’s Republic of China. (See Rick Rozoff, Confronting both China and Russia: U.S. Risks Military Clash With China In Yellow Sea, Global Research, July 16, 2010).

Similarly and more directly related to the planned attack on Iran, the US is arming the Gulf States (Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates) with land-based interceptor missiles, Patriot Advanced Capability-3 and Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) as well as sea-based Standard Missile-3 interceptors installed on Aegis class warships in the Persian Gulf. (See Rick Rozoff,  NATO’s Role In The Military Encirclement Of Iran, Global Research, February 10, 2010).

The Timetable of Military Stockpiling and Deployment

What is crucial in regards to US weapons transfers to partner countries and allies is the actual timing of delivery and deployment. The launch of a US sponsored military operation would normally occur once these weapons systems are in place, effectively deployed with the implementation of personnel training. (e.g India).

What we are dealing with is a carefully coordinated global military design controlled by the Pentagon, involving the combined armed forces of more than forty countries. This global multinational military deployment is by far the largest display of advanced weapons systems in World history.

In turn, the US and its allies have established new military bases in different parts of the world.  “The Surface of the Earth is Structured as a Wide Battlefield”. (See Jules Dufour, The Worldwide Network of US Military Bases , Global Research, July 1, 2007).

The Unified Command structure divided up into geographic Combatant Commands is predicated on a strategy of militarization at the global level. “The US Military has bases in 63 countries. Brand new military bases have been built since September 11, 2001 in seven countries. In total, there are 255,065 US military personnel deployed Worldwide.” (See Jules Dufour, The Worldwide Network of US Military Bases , Global Research, July 1, 2007

Source: DefenseLINK-Unified Command Plan

World War III Scenario

“The World Commanders’ Areas of Responsibility” (See Map above) defines the Pentagon’s global military design, which is one of World conquest.  This military deployment is occurring in several regions simultaneously under the coordination of the regional US Commands, involving the stockpiling of US made weapons systems by US forces and partner countries, some of which are former enemies, including Vietnam and Japan.

The present context is characterised by a global military build-up controlled by one World superpower, which is using its numerous allies to trigger regional wars.

In contrast, the Second World War was a conjunction of separate regional war theaters. Given the communications technologies and weapons systems of the 1940s, there was no strategic “real time” coordination in military actions between broad geographic regions

Global warfare is based on the coordinated deployment of a single dominant military power, which oversees the actions of its allies and partners.

With the exception of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Second World War was characterized by the use of conventional weapons. The planning of  a global war relies on the militarization of outer space. Were a war directed against iran to be launched, it would not only use nuclear weapons, the entire gamut of new advanced weapons systems, including electrometric weapons and environmental modification techniques (ENMOD) would be used.

The United Nations Security Council

The UN Security Council adopted in early June a fourth round of sweeping sanctions against The Islamic Republic of Iran, which included an expanded arms embargo as well “tougher financial controls”. In a bitter irony, this resolution was passed within days of the United Nations Secrity Council’s outright refusal to adopt a motion condemning Israel for its attack on the Gaza Freedom Flotilla in international waters.

Both China and Russia, pressured by the US, have endorsed the UNSC sanctions’ regime, to their own detriment. Their decision within the UNSC contributes to weakening their own military alliance, the Shanghai  Cooperation organization (SCO), in which Iran has observer status. The Security Council resolution freezes China and Russia’s respective bilateral military cooperation and trade agreements with Iran. It has serious repercussions on Iran’s air defense system which in part depends on Russian technology and expertise.

The Security Council resolution grants a de facto “green light” to wage a pre-emptive war against Iran.

The American Inquisition: Building a Political Consensus for War

In chorus, the Western media has branded Iran as a threat to global security in view of its alleged (non-existent) nuclear weapons program. Echoing official statements, the media is now demanding the implementation of punitive bombings directed against Iran so as to safeguard Israel’s security.

The Western media is beating the drums of war. The purpose is to tacitly instil, through repeated media reports, ad nauseam, within people’s inner consciousness, the notion that the Iranian threat is real and that the Islamic Republic should be “taken out”.

A consensus building process to wage war is similar to the Spanish inquisition. It requires and demands submission to the notion that war is a humanitarian endeavor.

Known and documented, the real threat to global security emanates from the US-NATO-Israel alliance, yet realities in an inquisitorial environment are turned upside down: the warmongers are committed to peace, the victims of war are presented as the protagonists of war. Whereas in 2006, almost two thirds of Americans were opposed to military action against Iran, a recent Reuter-Zogby February 2010 poll suggests that 56 % of Americans favor a US-NATO military action against Iran.

Building a political consensus which is based on an outright lie cannot, however, rely solely on the official position of those who are the source of the lie.

The antiwar movement in the US, which has in part been infiltrated and co-opted, has taken on a weak stance with regard to Iran. The antiwar movement is divided. The emphasis has been on wars which have already occurred (Afghanistan, Iraq) rather than forcefully opposing wars which are being prepared and which are currently on the Pentagon’s drawing board. Since the inauguration of the Obama administration, the antiwar movement has lost some of its impetus.

Moreover, those who  actively oppose the wars on Afghanistan and Iraq, do not necessarily oppose the conduct of “punitive bombings” directed Iran, nor do they categorize these bombings as an act of war, which could potentially be a prelude to World War III.

The scale of antiwar protest in relation to Iran has been minimal in comparison to the mass demonstrations which preceded the 2003 bombing and invasion of Iraq.

The real threat to global security emanates from the US-NATO-Israel alliance.

The Iran operation is not being opposed in the diplomatic arena by China and Russia; it has the support of the governments of the frontline Arab states which are integrated into the NATO sponsored Mediterranean dialogue. It also has the tacit support of Western public opinion.

We call upon people across the land, in America,  Western Europe, Israel, Turkey and around the world to rise up against this military project, against their governments which are supportive of military action against Iran, against the media which serves to camouflage the devastating implications of a war against Iran.

The military agenda support a profit driven destructive global economic system which impoverishes large sectors of the world population.

This war is sheer madness.

World War III is terminal. Albert Einstein understood the perils of nuclear war and the extinction of life on earth, which has already started with the radioactive contamination resulting from depleted uranium. “I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.”

The media, the intellectuals, the scientists and the politicians, in chorus, obfuscate the untold truth, namely that war using nuclear warheads destroys humanity, and that this complex process of gradual destruction has already commenced.

When the lie becomes the truth there is no turning backwards.

When war is upheld as a humanitarian endeavor, Justice and the entire international legal system are turned upside down: pacifism and the antiwar movement are criminalized. Opposing the war becomes a criminal act.

The Lie must be exposed for what it is and what it does.

It sanctions the indiscriminate killing of men, women and children.

It destroys families and people. It destroys the commitment of people towards their fellow human beings.

It prevents people from expressing their solidarity for those who suffer. It upholds war and the police state as the sole avenue.

It destroys both nationalism and internationalism.

Breaking the lie means breaking a criminal project of global destruction, in which the quest for profit is the overriding force.

This profit driven military agenda destroys human values and transforms people into unconscious zombies.

Let us reverse the tide.

Challenge the war criminals in high office and the powerful corporate lobby groups which support them.

Break the American inquisition.

Undermine the US-NATO-Israel military crusade.

Close down the weapons factories and the military bases.

Bring home the troops.

Members of the armed forces should disobey orders and refuse to participate in a criminal war.

Michel Chossudovsky is an award-winning author, Professor of Economics (Emeritus) at the University of Ottawa and Director of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG), Montreal. He is the author of The Globalization of Poverty and The New World Order (2003) and America’s “War on Terrorism” (2005). He is also a contributor to the Encyclopaedia Britannica. His writings have been published in more than twenty languages. he can be reached at the globalresearch.ca website

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First published on February 21, 2018

There is a party that, even if it does not appear, takes part in the Italian elections: the NATO Party. It is formed by a transversal majority, that explicitly or tacitly supports Italy’s membership of the Great Alliance under U.S. command.

This explains why, at the height of the electoral campaign, the main parties tacitly accepted the additional commitments undertaken by the government in the meeting of 29 Nato ministers of Defence (for Italy Roberta Pinotti), on 14-15 February in Brussels.

The ministers first participated in the Nato Nuclear Planning Group, chaired by the United States, whose decisions are always top secret.

Then the ministers met at the level of North Atlantic Council. Just two hours later, they announced important decisions (already taken elsewhere) to “modernise the NATO Command Structure, the backbone of our Alliance”.

A new Joint Force Command for the Atlantic will be set up, probably located in the United States, in order to “protect sea lines of communication between North America and Europe”. Thus they invented the scenario of Russian submarines that could sink merchant ships on transatlantic routes.

A new Command for logistics will be set up, probably located in Germany, to “improve the movement in Europe of troops and equipment essential to our collective defense”. Thus they invented the scenario of a NATO forced to defend itself from an aggressive Russia. On the contrary, it is NATO that aggressively deploys its military forces along the border with Russia. Additional land component commands will be established in Europe to “further improve coordination and rapid response for our forces”.

NATO will also set up a new Cyber ​​Operations Centre to “further strengthen our defenses”. It will be located at the headquarters of Mons (Belgium), headed by the Supreme Allied Commander in Europe, who always is a U.S. General appointed by the President of the United States.

The ministers confirmed their commitment to increase military spending. Over the last three years, the European allies and Canada ncreased it by a total of $ 46 billion, but it is just the beginning. The goal is that every member country reaches at least 2% of the GDP (the US spend 4%), so as to have “more cash and therefore more military capabilities”.

The European countries that have so far reached and exceeded this quota are: Greece (2.32%), Estonia, Great Britain, Romania, Poland. The military spending of the European Union must be complementary to that of NATO. This was reiterated in a meeting with the EU foreign representative Federica Mogherini

Minister Pinotti confirmed that “Italy, respecting U.S. demand, has begun to increase spending for Defence” and that “we will continue on this road that is a road of responsibility”.

The way is therefore traced. But this is not talked about in the electoral campaign. While on Italy’s membership of the European Union the main parties have different positions, on the belonging of Italy to NATO are practically unanimous. This distorts the whole scenario.

We cannot discuss about the European Union while ignoring that 21 out of the 27 EU countries (after Brexit), with about 90% of the population of the Union, are members of NATO under U.S. command.

We cannot ignore the political and military consequences – as well as the economic, social and cultural ramifications of the fact that NATO is turning Europe into a battlefield against Russia, depicted as a threatening enemy: the new “empire of evil” attacking “the greatest democracy in the world” from the inside with its army of trolls.

Article in italiano :

Ha già votato la Nato prima di noi

ilmanifesto.it, 20 February 2018

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Were one to read the Washington Post’s article on a Russian proposal regarding the questioning of suspects in various, ongoing US and Russia investigations, they would have imagined former US ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul was about to be shipped to a dungeon beneath the Kremlin for interrogation.

The Washington Post’s article, “Outrage erupts over Trump-Putin ‘conversation’ about letting Russia interrogate ex-U.S. diplomat Michael McFaul” fueled anti-Russian hysteria, claiming:

At this week’s summit in Helsinki, Russian President Vladimir Putin proposed what President Trump described as an “incredible offer” — the Kremlin would give special counsel Robert S. Mueller III access to interviews with Russians who were indicted after they allegedly hacked Democrats in 2016. In return, Russia would be allowed to question certain U.S. officials it suspects of interfering in Russian affairs.

One of those U.S. officials is a former U.S. ambassador to Moscow, Michael McFaul, a nemesis of the Kremlin because of his criticisms of Russia’s human rights record.

The Washington Post would compound confusion and hysteria by also claiming (emphasis added):

The willingness of the White House to contemplate handing over a former U.S. ambassador for interrogation by the Kremlin drew ire and astonishment from current and former U.S. officials. Such a proposition is unheard of. So is the notion that the president may think he has the legal authority to turn anyone over to a foreign power on his own.

In reality, the proposal never entailed the US or Russia handing anyone over for interrogation. Bloomberg in an article titled, “Trump ‘Looks Weak’ by Considering Putin’s Interrogation Idea, McFaul Says,” would more accurately summarize the deal, stating:

Putin proposed letting Russians observe interrogations of McFaul and other Americans. In exchange, U.S. Special Counsel Robert Mueller could send members of his team to watch Russian questioning of 12 Russian intelligence agents indicted by a U.S. grand jury last week in connection with hacking Democratic Party email accounts and disseminating those messages before the 2016 presidential election.

Americans of interest would be questioned in the United States, by Americans, merely with Russian representatives present, in exchange for American representatives travelling to Russia to watch a Russian interrogation of suspects relevant to ongoing US investigations.
Further evidence is the transcript of the actual statement by Russian President Vladimir Putin himself, posted by Politico, which states unequivocally (emphasis added):

We can actually permit representatives of the United States, including the members of this very commission headed by Mr. Mueller, we can let them into the country. They will be present at questioning. In this case, there’s another condition. This kind of effort should be mutual one. Then we would expect that the Americans would reciprocate. They would question officials, including the officers of law enforcement and intelligence services of the United States whom we believe — who have something to do with illegal actions on the territory of Russia. And we have to request the presence of our law enforcement.

Despite these facts, the hysteria has continued to spread in part due to a dishonest media eager to fan the flames of conflict with Russia and Western audiences eager to believe them.

Who is McFaul? And Why are Liberals Defending Him?

Americans convinced Russia interfered in American elections must then be acutely aware that meddling in another nation’s internal political affairs is unacceptable. Thus, McFaul’s role in doing precisely this before and during his appointment as US ambassador to Russia from 2012-2014 should elicit condemnation and outcries from these same Americans.

Instead, many Western liberals have leaped to McFaul’s defense.

The short answer as to why many in the West are defending McFaul is out of a reflexive response to their blind hatred of US President Donald Trump and Russia. McFaul has positioned himself both as a critic of President Trump and of Russia, fulfilling the only two prerequisites required to garner support among circles entertaining the current anti-Russia hysteria.

Yet McFaul represents special interests and activities that many Americans, left or right of the political spectrum, would find unacceptable – and perhaps especially for those outraged over alleged Russian meddling in American politics.

McFaul’s Role in Supporting Global Political Meddling  

Before McFaul served as US ambassador to Russia from 2012-2014 he served on the board of trustees of Freedom House (page 30, PDF).

Freedom House is a US government and corporate-financier funded front that imposes the interests of its sponsors on nations abroad under the guise of expanding “freedom and democracy around the world.” This process entails the creation and support of opposition groups to undermine and eventually either oust or overthrow targeted governments.

When McFaul served as trustee for Freedom House, its 2005 annual report indicated the US State Department and the US Agency for International Development (USAID) as sponsors. It also included Citigroup, Morgan Stanley, and pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly.

Additionally, Freedom House is a subsidiary of the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) which is chaired by a variety of career, pro-war Neoconservatives – Neoconservatives who promoted many of the Bush-era wars Western liberals opposed.

NED is also funded by the US government as well as corporations (page 126, PDF) including Goldman Sachs, convicted financial criminal George Soros’ Open Society, Coca-Cola, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, and the US Chamber of Commerce which itself serves as a collective lobbying front for some of the largest corporations in the US.

NED and subsidiaries like Freedom House use the pretext of “democracy promotion” to pressure and even overthrow governments around the world, making way for client regimes that will serve US corporations and their expansion around the globe. In other words, “democracy” is a principle the NED and its subsidiaries hide behind, not uphold with US client regimes often being more abusive and corrupt than the governments they replaced.

One would imagine someone like McFaul involved in aiding and abetting corporations in their meddling worldwide and their subsequent exploitation of nations they undermine and overthrow would be the last person Western liberals would rush to the defense of.

McFaul Minding US-Funded Agitators in Moscow 

McFaul’s role at Freedom House would become more “hands on” when he was nominated, then appointed US ambassador to Russia from 2012-2014. During his first year as ambassador, Russian opposition figures funded by the NED and its subsidiaries would report to the US embassy in Moscow to meet with McFaul.

Present at the 2012 US embassy meeting were regular mainstays of the Western-backed Russian opposition, including Boris Nemtsov, Yevgeniya Chirikova of the NED-funded “Strategy 31″ protests, Lev Ponomarev of the NED, Ford Foundation, Open Society, and USAID-funded Moscow Helsinki Group, and Liliya Shibanova of NED-funded GOLOS, an allegedly “independent” election monitoring group that serves as the primary source of accusations of voting fraud against President Putin’s United Russia party.

Today, many of these organizations have hidden their US funding and the US NED webpage disclosing its activities in Russia describes its current meddling in the most ambiguous terms possible. Despite this, there are still nearly 100 entries on the NED’s Russian webpage covering everything from meddling in the media, education, and the environment, to interfering in Russia’s legal system and Russian elections.

We could only imagine the condemnation, outcry, and demands for action should a front similar to NED be created by Russia to interfere likewise in all aspects of American socioeconomic and political affairs, especially considering how mere accusations of “meddling” entailing e-mail leaks and social media posts have tipped off sanctions, a multi-year investigation, and even talk of treason and war.

McFaul’s association with individuals and organizations funded by the government he represented is in reality the very sort of political meddling and interference many have accused Russia of since 2016. There support of someone actually involved in political meddling in Russia, further undermines their credibility and moral authority in regards to accusations against Russia.

Pavlovian Politics  

McFaul’s involvement in the recent Russian proposal was not – however – related to his role in political meddling in Russia, but instead his alleged involvement with convicted financial criminal William Browder.

While the Western media depicts both McFaul and Browder’s conflicts with the Russian government as a result of their supposed advocacy for “democracy” and “human rights,” McFaul was clearly hiding behind such principles to advance US corporate interests, while Browder was attempting to gain leverage regarding his criminal conviction.

Interestingly enough, George Soros – who has funded subversion in Russia alongside organizations like NED – also attempted to leverage the notion of human rights to sidestep his own criminal conviction in France for insider trading, even according to the New York Times.

This troubling trend of the Western public gravitating toward and supporting individuals like McFaul and Browder solely out of their perceived hatred for President Trump and Russia is pushing Western political discourse further from rational debate and deeper toward hysteria.

That powerful special interests can easily manipulate sections of the Western public to support virtually anyone or anything, including unsavory characters like McFaul and Browder or the notion of expanding NATO or continued war abroad in nations like Syria simply by invoking “Trump” or “Russia” represents a predictable but dangerous Pavlovian phenomenon likely to leave deep scars, permanently disfiguring American politics and society much in the way the so-called “War on Terror” has.

The increasing lack of political sophistication in America is a reflection of a much wider deterioration of American economic and geopolitical strength both at home and around the globe. While one would expect sound leadership to begin preparing America for an orderly transition from a once global hegemon to a constructive member of a more multipolar world order, history has proven the lack of grace that generally accompanies an empire’s decline.

*

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

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These are some of the latest results coming from YouGov about the state of politics in Britain. Public sentiment is driven by the biggest post-war decision the country has made – Brexit – and it is now going very, very badly indeed. Much worse than anticipated.

69% of Britons saying Brexit is going badly

With 69% of Britons believing that Brexit is going badly, and with the political class pointing fingers in all directions, who does the public think is at fault? Now a new YouGov study shows that the answer is very different depending on whether people voted Remain or Leave.

The largest figure of blame for Brexit going badly – is the government. Two thirds (68%) of those who think Brexit is currently going badly say that it is the government’s fault. This includes three quarters who voted Remain (77%) and 58% of Leave voters.

With lots of talk of preparing for a no-deal Brexit, the possibilities of the Tory party completely disintegrating in 2019 becomes ever-more real. The electorate is now becoming very nervous of what Brexit may bring, given that the Conservatives have no idea themselves

The EU referendum: two years on

Slightly more of the British public think that voting to leave the EU was wrong for Britain than think it was the right decision, and on most measures, more people expect it will have a negative than a positive impact.

Despite all this negativity, most people in June, two years after the referendum still thought that the government should go ahead with Brexit, and the overwhelming majority expect that Britain will – ultimately – end up leaving. That was, until Theresa May’s Chequers plan.

The Conservative Leave vote is fracturing

“it appears to be Conservative Leave voters who are moving away from Theresa May’s Conservative party. In the week following Chequers the number saying they would stick with the Conservative party has dropped by ten percentages, with just 64% saying they would now vote for them in a general election.”

Let’s not forget what that actually means. That fall in the electorate voting Tory would prove quite a drama because the fall of ten per cent – is a fall recorded just before the Chequers plan and just after – not the overall fall. This defection has led to the voting intention changing from Tory to Labour.

Voting Intention: Conservatives 36%, Labour 41% (16-17 July)

The latest YouGov/ Times voting intention survey sees the Conservatives on 36% (from 37% in our most recent survey) and Labour on 41% (from 39%). Elsewhere, Liberal Democrat voting intention stands at 9% (from 10%) while 14% would vote for other parties (unchanged).

What this means is that the electorate is losing confidence in the party driving Britain’s Brexit negotiations. This is demonstrated quite clearly as Theresa May’s overall standing collapses.

Theresa May’s favourability score plummets to new low

With the government still reeling in the aftermath of the Chequers Brexit plan and the resignations it precipitated, new YouGov favourability polling reveals that the Prime Minister’s popularity has hit an all-time low.

It should be noted that, as stated above, those turning against the Prime Minister appear to be Leave voters. The only truly amazing statistic about Theresa May is that at the summer recess – she’s still Prime Minister. And few would have bet on that at any odds just six months ago.

The Conservatives are suffering from the events following the Chequers Brexit plan

Having now outlined their most recent Brexit plan, voters are even less clear on where the Conservatives stand on Brexit than they were before. The proportion of people who think the Tories’ policy on Brexit is “very” or “fairly” clear has fallen from 26% in mid-June to 16% now, while the proportion who find it “fairly” or “completely” unclear has risen from 58% to 69%.

The way of interpreting this is quite clear. It’s a mess. We have a lot to be fearful of because of politicians.

What Now?

Jeremy Hunt’s appointment to foreign secretary and the four biggest positions at the head of the U.K. government — prime minister, chancellor, foreign secretary and home secretary — all filled by people who voted to remain in the EU but are now tasked with negotiating a path out.

The electorate don’t believe in their plans for Brexit – even though they agree Brexit should mean Brexit.

That means a battered Britain is in for a further period of instability and more confusion, as a government led by people who don’t believe in Brexit in the first place will now finalize a framework to present to the EU who won’t agree to it anyway.

A no-deal scenario is now a stronger possibility and even the terms of that have to be agreed between the EU and the U.K. by the deadline. This would actually be an economic calamity for both the UK and the EU.

Donald Tusk, president of the European Council, said: “Politicians come and go, but the problems they have created for the people remain. The mess caused by Brexit is the biggest problem in the history of EU-U.K. relations. And it is still very far from being solved.”

As our report – The real Brexit ‘dividend’ – “a decade of economic underperformance and political crisis” from the London School of economics emphasised, “barring a vote to remain in the European Union, Britain faces the prospect of a lost decade of economic underperformance, subdued wage growth and investment and, increasingly, political crisis.”

Truthfully, in a no-deal scenario, that forecast is optimistic. Brace yourselves. It’s time for a new way to manage Britain and it isn’t the way we have right now.

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In recent months Russia, as some claim, “strenuously prepared for Putin’s meeting with Trump”. What does this mean?

Firstly, in April the Central Bank of the Russian Federation dumped nearly a half of US Treasuries that it had on its balance, having reduced their stock from $96.2 billion to $48.7 billion.

In May the Central Bank continued to do this, having reduced the quantity of treasuries on its balance even more.

Certain news agencies only emphasised that Russia dropped out of the list of the largest holders of treasuries, having noted that this “is less than $30 billion”. They use students in these news agencies, and as a result such “news” appears.

Having read the full report of US Department of the Treasury, it is easy to see that the size of the Russian investments in treasuries was reduced to $14.9 billion.

I.e., more than sixfold in two months. But there still isn’t any data for June…

Secondly, some observers noticed that against this background the Central Bank of the Russian Federation continued to increase its gold reserves.

Since the Central Bank shows in its report the amount of gold in the dollar equivalent, we will have to convert it at the rate of the corresponding number.

• On April 1st 80482/1340 = 60,061 million ounces.
• On May 1st 81146/1315 = 61,707 million ounces.
• On June 1st 80511/1301 = 61,884 million ounces.

As we see, the amount of gold indeed steadily grows.

Some were stupid enough to be indignant because the Central Bank buys gold while it goes down in price. On the one hand, if it bought it at the top peak of the price, then it would be worse. On the other hand, it is possible to assume that in the near future certain events are expected that can significantly raise the price of gold.

If we work like system analysts, then we need to coordinate at least two more facts with the aforementioned.

Thirdly, the majority of Russian state corporations and a number of banks and companies with State capital switched (or are in the process of switching) to the Russian System for the transfer of financial messages of the Bank of Russia (SPFS), which actually means abandoning SWIFT.

Very recently, in June, “Gazprom Neft” also tested a transition to SPFS.

As was stated in the press release: “The use of a sole system that all Russian credit organisations are connected to instead of many local bank clients allows to considerably increase the speed, reliability, and security of carrying out financial operations and to optimise expenses”.

And fourthly, the head of “VTB” Andrey Kostin met with Putin the other day and presented to him a report on the activity of the bank. During the meeting Kostin, in particular, said two things:

“1. Since the beginning of this year, people seem to be less interested in making dollar deposits or taking out dollar loans, compared to ruble-denominated deposits and loans. We believe this to be an important step towards the de-dollarisation of the Russian finance sector.

2. VTB experts have drafted a package of proposals designed to further promote the ruble in international settlements and thus develop the Russian market for floating Eurobonds, shares and creating other derivatives that are now used only in the West. I think that we need to create our own financial tools. This would serve as an additional safeguard for the Russian financial sector against external shocks, and would give a new impetus to its development”.

As we can see, both State corporations, and State banks are actively preparing for the de-dollarisation of economy (or, if to be more exact, carrying it out with confidence) and possible problems from SWIFT, and also increase the self-sufficiency of all systems (communication, payment, and so on).

I think that if there is the desire, then it is possible to significantly add to the provided list of measures. Russia consistently and surely dumps the dollar (and, quite possibly, prepares for the “perfect storm” in the global economy that was predicted long ago), and today none of Trump’s words or actions can change these aspirations.

Because no Trump is able to stop the impending storm.

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Translated from the Russian original by Ollie Richardson & Angelina Siard.

English version first published by stalkerzone.org.

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‘Arab NATO’: Trump Pursuing Regional Alliance to Confront Iran

By The New Arab, July 29, 2018

Washington is trying to strengthen cooperation between the countries on various fronts including missile defence, military training and counter-terrorism, as well as boosting regional economic and diplomatic ties, four US and Arab officials told the news agency.

Defense Secretary Mattis Dismisses Report of US Military Action Against Iran as ‘Fiction’

By Press TV, July 28, 2018

He made the remarks on Friday a day after Australian outlet ABC News published an article, suggesting military action against the Islamic Republic was imminent as early as next month.

US Preparing to Bomb Iran’s Nuclear Capabilities as Soon as Next Month: Report

By Zero Hedge, July 28, 2018

As the White House convenes a policy meeting on Iran Thursday involving senior Pentagon officials and cabinet advisers under national security adviser John Bolton, and after a week of intense saber-rattling by President Donald Trump and his Iranian counterpart Hassan Rouhani, a new bombshell report [which remains to be fully corroborated M.Ch. GR] by Australia’s ABC says the White House is drawing up plans to strike Iran’s alleged nuclear facilities as early as next month.

Trump Regime Planning to Terror-Bomb Iran?

By Stephen Lendman, July 27, 2018

Attacking Iran would be madness, besides being another US-led high crime against peace. Much of the region would be jeopardized.

Iran can block or obstruct the key Strait of Hormuz maritime shipping route for Middle East oil producers – one of the world’s most strategically important choke points.

Iran: US Regime Change Project Is Immoral and Illegal

By David William Pear, July 27, 2018

Contemptuous of international law, the US makes no secret of its plots to overthrow the leaders of internationally recognized governments that reject the neoliberal New World Order.  Iran is at the top of the US enemies list. 

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“Behind the ostensible government sits enthroned an invisible government, owing no allegiance and acknowledging no responsibility to the people.” ― Theodore Roosevelt

There are those who would have you believe that President Trump is an unwitting victim of the Deep State.

And then there are those who insist that the Deep State is a figment of a conspiratorial mind.

Don’t believe it.

The Deep State—a.k.a. the police state, a.k.a. the military industrial complex, a.k.a. the surveillance state complex—does indeed exist and Trump, far from being its sworn enemy, is its latest tool.

When in doubt, follow the money trail.

It always points the way.

Every successive president starting with Franklin D. Roosevelt has been bought—lock, stock and barrel—and made to dance to the tune of the Deep State.

Even Dwight D. Eisenhower, the retired five-star Army general-turned-president who warned against the disastrous rise of misplaced power by the military industrial complex was complicit in contributing to the build-up of the military’s role in dictating national and international policy.

Enter Donald Trump, the candidate who swore to drain the swamp in Washington DC.

Instead of putting an end to the corruption, however, Trump has paved the way for lobbyists, corporations, the military industrial complex, and the rest of the Deep State (also referred to as “The 7th Floor Group”) to feast on the carcass of the dying American republic.

Apart from tweets that are little more than sound and fury, Trump is not a man who is raging against the machine.

He is too much a part of the machine.

Indeed, as Reuters reports, “[President] Trump has gone further than any of his predecessors to act as a salesman for the U.S. defense industry.”

Despite claims to the contrary, Trump is not advocating for peace with Russia, or North Korea or any other nation.

He is selling us out to the war hawks.

The latest squawk over Iran is just more of the same chest-thumping, sleight-of-hand intended to play into the hands of a salivating military industrial complex for whom war is merely a means to a larger profit margin.

The war hawks have no beef with Trump.

Why should they? He’s giving them exactly what they want.

With Trump’s blessing, the military’s budget—with its trillion dollar wars, its $125 billion in administrative waste, and its contractor-driven price gouging that hits the American taxpayer where it hurts the most—will continue to grow.

Borrowing a leaf from his buddies in China, Russia and North Korea, Trump is even planning a $12 million military parade on November 10 to showcase the nation’s military might.

Follow the money.

It always points the way.

The corporations are getting richer, average Americans are getting poorer, the military is getting more militaristic, America’s endless wars are getting more endless, and the prospect of peace grows ever dimmer.

This is exactly how you keep the Deep State in power.

We’ve been losing our freedoms so incrementally for so long—sold to us in the name of national security and global peace, maintained by way of martial law disguised as law and order, and enforced by a standing army of militarized police and a political elite determined to maintain their powers at all costs—that it’s hard to pinpoint exactly when it all started going downhill, but we’re certainly on that downward trajectory now, and things are moving fast.

The “government of the people, by the people, for the people” has perished.

In its place is a shadow government, a corporatized, militarized, entrenched bureaucracy that is fully operational and staffed by unelected officials who are, in essence, running the country and calling the shots in Washington DC, no matter who sits in the White House.

Mind you, by “government,” I’m not referring to the highly partisan, two-party bureaucracy of the Republicans and Democrats.

Rather, I’m referring to “government” with a capital “G,” the entrenched Deep State that is unaffected by elections, unaltered by populist movements, and has set itself beyond the reach of the law.

This is the hidden face of a government that has no respect for the freedom of its citizenry.

This shadow government, which “operates according to its own compass heading regardless of who is formally in power,” makes a mockery of elections and the entire concept of a representative government.

So how do you recognize the Deep State when it rears its ugly head?

It’s the militarized police, which have joined forces with state and federal law enforcement agencies in order to establish themselves as a standing army.

It’s the fusion centers and spy agencies that have created a surveillance state and turned all of us into suspects.

It’s the courthouses and prisons that have allowed corporate profits to take precedence over due process and justice.

It’s the military empire with its private contractors and defense industry that is bankrupting the nation.

It’s the private sector with its 854,000 contract personnel with top-secret clearances, “a number greater than that of top-secret-cleared civilian employees of the government.”

It’s what former congressional staffer Mike Lofgren refers to as “a hybrid of national security and law enforcement agencies”: the Department of Defense, the State Department, Homeland Security, the CIA, the Justice Department, the Treasury, the Executive Office of the President via the National Security Council, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, a handful of vital federal trial courts, and members of the defense and intelligence committees.

It’s every facet of a government that is no longer friendly to freedom and is working overtime to trample the Constitution underfoot and render the citizenry powerless in the face of the government’s power grabs, corruption and abusive tactics.

These are the key players that drive the shadow government.

This is the hidden face of the American police state.

Just consider some of the key programs and policies—manifestations of the police state complex—that continue to be advanced by the shadow government with the full support of its latest accomplice in the White House:

Domestic surveillance. The National Security Agency (NSA), with its $10.8 billion black ops annual budget, continues to spy on every person in the United States who uses a computer or phone. Yet the government does not operate alone. It cannot. It requires an accomplice. Thus, the increasingly complex security needs of our massive federal government, especially in the areas of defense, surveillance and data management, have been met within the corporate sector, which has shown itself to be a powerful ally that both depends on and feeds the growth of governmental bureaucracy. For instance, through its vast telecommunications network that crisscrosses the globe, AT&T provides the U.S. government with the complex infrastructure it needs for its mass surveillance programs.

On any given day, whether you’re walking through a store, driving your car, checking email, or talking to friends and family on the phone, you can be sure that some government agency, whether the NSA or some other entity, is listening in and tracking your behavior. Local police have been outfitted with a litany of surveillance gear, from license plate readers and cell phone tracking devices to biometric data recorders. Technology now makes it possible for the police to scan passersby in order to detect the contents of their pockets, purses, briefcases, etc. Full-body scanners, which perform virtual strip-searches of Americans traveling by plane, have gone mobile, with roving police vans that peer into vehicles and buildings alike—including homes. Coupled with the nation’s growing network of real-time surveillance cameras and facial recognition software, soon there really will be nowhere to run and nowhere to hide.

Global spying. The NSA’s massive surveillance network, what the Washington Post refers to as a $500 billion “espionage empire,” is still spanning the globe and targeting every single person on the planet who uses a phone or a computer. The NSA’s Echelon program intercepts and analyzes virtually every phone call, fax and email message sent anywhere in the world. In addition to carrying out domestic surveillance on peaceful political groups such as Amnesty International, Greenpeace and several religious groups, Echelon has also been a keystone in the government’s attempts at political and corporate espionage.

Roving TSA searches. The American taxpayer is still getting ripped off by government agencies in the dubious name of national security. One of the greatest culprits when it comes to swindling taxpayers has been the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), with its questionable deployment of and complete mismanagement of millions of dollars’ worth of airport full-body X-ray scanners, punitive patdowns by TSA agents and thefts of travelers’ valuables. Considered essential to national security, TSA programs will continue in airports and at transportation hubs around the country.

USA Patriot Act, NDAA. America’s so-called war on terror, which it has relentlessly pursued since 9/11, continues to chip away at our freedoms, unravel our Constitution and transform our nation into a battlefield, thanks in large part to such subversive legislation as the USA Patriot Act and National Defense Authorization Act. These laws completely circumvent the rule of law and the rights of American citizens. In so doing, they re-orient our legal landscape in such a way as to ensure that martial law, rather than the U.S. Constitution, is the map by which we navigate life in the United States. These laws will continue to be enforced no matter who gets elected.

Militarized police state. Thanks to federal grant programs allowing the Pentagon to transfer surplus military supplies and weapons to local law enforcement agencies without charge, police forces continue to be transformed from peace officers into heavily armed extensions of the military, complete with jackboots, helmets, shields, batons, pepper-spray, stun guns, assault rifles, body armor, miniature tanks and weaponized drones. Having been given the green light to probe, poke, pinch, taser, search, seize, strip and generally manhandle anyone they see fit in almost any circumstance, all with the general blessing of the courts, America’s law enforcement officials, no longer mere servants of the people entrusted with keeping the peace, continue to keep the masses corralled, controlled, and treated like suspects and enemies rather than citizens.

SWAT team raids. With more than 80,000 SWAT team raids carried out every year on unsuspecting Americans by local police for relatively routine police matters and federal agencies laying claim to their own law enforcement divisions, the incidence of botched raids and related casualties continues to rise. Nationwide, SWAT teams continue to be employed to address an astonishingly trivial array of criminal activity or mere community nuisances including angry dogs, domestic disputes, improper paperwork filed by an orchid farmer, and misdemeanor marijuana possession.

Domestic drones. The domestic use of drones has continued unabated. As mandated by Congress, there will be 30,000 drones crisscrossing the skies of America by 2020, all part of an industry that could be worth as much as $30 billion per year. These machines, which will be equipped with weapons, will be able to record all activities, using video feeds, heat sensors and radar. An Inspector General report revealed that the Dept. of Justice has already spent nearly $4 million on drones domestically, largely for use by the FBI, with grants for another $1.26 million so police departments and nonprofits can acquire their own drones.

School-to-prison pipeline. The paradigm of abject compliance to the state continues to be taught by example in the schools, through school lockdowns where police and drug-sniffing dogs enter the classroom, and zero tolerance policies that punish all offenses equally and result in young people being expelled for childish behavior. School districts continue to team up with law enforcement to create a “schoolhouse to jailhouse track” by imposing a “double dose” of punishment: suspension or expulsion from school, accompanied by an arrest by the police and a trip to juvenile court.

Overcriminalization. The government bureaucracy continues to churn out laws, statutes, codes and regulations that reinforce its powers and value systems and those of the police state and its corporate allies, rendering the rest of us petty criminals. The average American now unknowingly commits three felonies a day, thanks to this overabundance of vague laws that render otherwise innocent activity illegal. Consequently, small farmers who dare to make unpasteurized goat cheese and share it with members of their community continue to have their farms raided.

Privatized Prisons. States continue to outsource prisons to private corporations, resulting in a cash cow whereby mega-corporations imprison Americans in private prisons in order to make a profit. In exchange for corporations buying and managing public prisons across the country at a supposed savings to the states, the states have to agree to maintain a 90% occupancy rate in the privately run prisons for at least 20 years.

Endless wars. America’s expanding military empire is continuing to bleed the country dry at a rate of more than $15 billion a month (or $20 million an hour). The Pentagon spends more on war than all 50 states combined spend on health, education, welfare, and safety. Yet what most Americans fail to recognize is that these ongoing wars have little to do with keeping the country safe and everything to do with enriching the military industrial complex at taxpayer expense.

Are you getting the message yet?

The current president, much like the previous president and his predecessors, is little more than a figurehead, a puppet to entertain and distract the populace from what’s really going on.

As Lofgren reveals, this state within a state, “concealed behind the one that is visible at either end of Pennsylvania Avenue,” is a “hybrid entity of public and private institutions ruling the country according to consistent patterns in season and out, connected to, but only intermittently controlled by, the visible state whose leaders we choose.”

The Deep State not only holds the nation’s capital in thrall, but it also controls Wall Street (“which supplies the cash that keeps the political machine quiescent and operating as a diversionary marionette theater”) and Silicon Valley.

This is fascism in its most covert form, hiding behind public agencies and private companies to carry out its dirty deeds.

It is a marriage between government bureaucrats and corporate fat cats.

As Lofgren concludes:

[T]he Deep State is so heavily entrenched, so well protected by surveillance, firepower, money and its ability to co-opt resistance that it is almost impervious to change… If there is anything the Deep State requires it is silent, uninterrupted cash flow and the confidence that things will go on as they have in the past. It is even willing to tolerate a degree of gridlock: Partisan mud wrestling over cultural issues may be a useful distraction from its agenda.

So let’s have no more of this caterwauling about Trump being victimized by the Deep State.

There is no conspiracy to do away with Trump.

He is doing too good a job at sowing division, creating distractions that keep Americans oblivious to the government’s ongoing power grabs, and helping to advance the profit-driven agenda of the Deep State.

Trump is no victim.

If you want to talk about the true victims of the Deep State, let’s talk about the men and women and children being shot and killed and brutalized and spied on and muzzled and jailed and robbed at gunpoint and treated as if they have no rights.

Let’s talk about the sorry state of our freedoms, which have continued their downward trajectory with no let-up.

Let’s talk about the fact that constitutional ignorance, corruption, ineptitude and cruelty are not unique to the Trump Administration. They have been hallmarks of the American police state.

So the next time you find yourselves mesmerized by Donald Trump’s latest tweets or theatrics or drawn into a politicized debate over the machinations of Congress, the president or the judiciary, remember: as I make clear in my book A Government of Wolves: The Emerging American Police State, it’s all intended to distract you from the fact that you have no authority and no rights in the face of the shadow government no matter who is in office.

As long as government officials—elected and unelected alike—are allowed to operate beyond the reach of the Constitution, the courts and the citizenry, the threat to our freedoms remains undiminished.

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Constitutional attorney and author John W. Whitehead is founder and president of The Rutherford Institute. His new book Battlefield America: The War on the American People  (SelectBooks, 2015) is available online at www.amazon.com. Whitehead can be contacted at [email protected].

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According to the Israel Bureau of Statistics, the state has a population of 8.8 million of which 21% are non-Jewish.

That Arab population is now, tragically, an oppressed minority, the Israeli occupier having introduced racial laws to ensure that Palestinians are now 2nd class citizens in the land of their forefathers. It is a disaster for both Jews and Arabs in the Holy Land. And for democratic government.

It is also a tragic outcome for the United Nations that facilitated the establishment of the Jewish state in 1948. A state that now refuses to acknowledge the authority of the UN Security Council and insists on ignoring its own government’s deliberate violation of Resolution 2334 passed unanimously by the 14 Security Council members, with no dissensions, on 23 December 2016.

The state of Israel is an undeclared nuclear power that is currently inciting US President Donald Trump, to mobilise the United States Army to initiate an unprovoked attack upon the sovereign country of Iran in an attempt to make America’s vassal state of Israel the nuclear-armed, regional hegemon of the Middle East.

There should be no ambiguity about the dangers such an unprovoked attack would have upon the potential consequences of a nuclear conflict and the breakdown of global peace. Within the threat of an American-Israeli military strike against Iran, is the horrifying scenario of a nuclear desert extending from Tehran, through Jerusalem to Marseilles and Paris, with millions killed and/ or made fatally ill over a great swathe of the Middle East and Europe.

It is not a matter to be taken lightly, for appeasement of the appetite of an occupier is an error of great magnitude, as was proven by the action of Britain’s Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain in the Munich Agreement of 1938.

That brought us World War 2.

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

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Developments in London’s financial district help us understand the precise form that Brexit will take, argues Sarah Hall. She explains why London is distinct to the rest of the UK and writes that, as companies threaten to move to other European cities in anticipation of a ‘no deal’, the government’s decision making is still not reflecting the City’s strategic importance.

London, and its financial services sector in particular, provides vital insights into understanding England’s Brexit vote in June 2016. Economically, politically, culturally and socially, the capital’s 8.7 million residents are increasingly characterised by their distinctiveness as compared to those living elsewhere in the UK – a trend that has intensified following the financial crisis of 2007-8. For example, figures from the Office for National Statistics show that even after accounting for higher housing costs, gross disposable household income was highest in London in 2015 at £25,293 compared with £16,197 in the North East of England and £15,913 in Northern Ireland.

For the full data see here.

Meanwhile, the Centre for Cities revealed the extent to which the UK relies on tax receipts from the capital arguing that London generates 45% of the taxes generated in urban areas in 2014/15 equivalent to almost as much tax as the next 37 cities combined.

The distinctiveness of London in relation to the rest of the UK was also clearly demonstrated in the Brexit vote. London was one of a handful of predominately University cities to vote remain in the referendum in June 2016. This reflects the comparatively high levels of migration coupled with relatively strong economic growth enjoyed by Londoners. However, in contrast, the success of London relative to the rest of the UK was also important in driving the ultimately successful Leave vote. For authors such as Danny Dorling, this vote was driven by growing inequality following a prolonged period of austerity politics that have resulted in worsening health outcomes and declining living standards for many British citizens who wanted someone or something to blame.

In the two years since the vote, London’s distinctiveness has become increasingly significant in relation to the future development of the UK’s economy after Brexit. This stems from the fact that the economy relies on the service sector which makes up 79.6% of the UK’s GDP and is driven by financial services in London’s international financial district. Indeed, financial and related professional services – such as legal services and the insurance sector – which are overwhelmingly concentrated in London make up a significant part of this, accounting for 6.5% of UK economic output in 2017. However, the impacts of Brexit on the strategically important financial services sector are best characterised by profound uncertainty with potentially significant implications for the future trajectory of the UK economy.

There are two main causes of this uncertainty. Firstly, despite the rapidly approaching negotiation deadline, the precise nature of Brexit remains unknown. What is clear is that the financial services sector at the heart of London’s economy will not be given the special privileges that it has previously enjoyed in times of significant change. For instance, in the 1990s, the impact of joining the Euro on London’s financial district was singled out as a key criterion used in government decision making, reflecting the City’s strategic importance in the UK economy. Compare this with the 2017 New Industrial Strategy that makes very little mention of the financial services sector, viewing it far more as a way of facilitating growth in other economic sectors, particularly manufacturing.

The second uncertainty in understanding the impact of Brexit on the UK’s economy, and the role of London within this, lies in the relationship between the UK’s financial services sector and the international financial system. We now understand this relationship as highly complex and interwoven. This means that the impact of any Brexit deal on one particular part of London’s financial services ecosystem could have profound, but unpredictable, implications elsewhere in the system. As the Chairman of HSBC summarised to the Treasury Select Committee in 2017 “the ecosystem in London is a bit like a Jenga tower. We don’t know if you pull one small piece out, whether nothing happens of indeed if there is a more dramatic impact”.

These uncertainties have not been resolved in the keenly-awaited publication in July 2018 of the UK Government’s White Paper on ‘The Future relationship between the United Kingdom and the European Union’. On the critical issue of financial services, the White Paper recognises the interconnected nature of financial networks between the UK and the EU, but proposes a relatively unspecified “new economic and regulatory arrangement with the EU in financial services” that would “maintain the economic benefits of cross-border provision of the most important international financial services traded between the UK and the EU”.

Crucially, the Paper does not call for mutual recognition for financial services between the UK and the EU. Mutual recognition provides greater certainty than other trade options for the relationship of financial services in the EU and UK because it operates on the basis that products developed in one country can be sold across all EU member states. Reflecting his calls for a softer Brexit, the Chancellor of the Exchequer had been advocating for mutual recognition for the financial services sector following the Brexit vote, most recently at his annual Mansion House speech in June 2018.

In contrast, and reflecting the fact that the financial services sector will not be singled out for special treatment within the Brexit negotiations, the Paper argues for a broader form of equivalence between financial services in the UK and EU. Typically, equivalence creates more uncertainty in trade relations because decisions on equivalence are unilateral. In this scenario, each trading partner is able to make a decision (and withdraw this) as to whether regulations in the trading relationship are the same, thereby allowing goods and services to be traded between the two parties. In order to address this, the UK Government states in the White Paper that for financial services, it seeks to develop a “reciprocal recognition of equivalence” although the precise mechanisms through which this would be developed and implemented remain far less certain.

It is this ongoing uncertainty that could have a bigger part to play in shaping the UK-EU trade relationship in financial services post Brexit than policy and regulatory pronouncements. The pace of London’s financial markets move markedly faster than that of Brexit negotiations to date. The uncertainty surrounding Britain’s future relations with the EU is already leading to a growing sense amongst financial institutions that it is prudent to take action now in readiness for a ‘no deal’ in which agreement can’t be reached by the March 2019 deadline. For example, within hours of the White Paper’s publication, the Chief Executive of Lloyd’s of London argued that the uncertainty would lead to the firm going ahead and opening a planned subsidiary in Brussels. Part of this relocation activity is to act as a lobbying force, essentially sounding a warning shot to negotiators that if the financial services sector in London does not get the type of Brexit it wants, it will take action accordingly.

Whilst the precise implications of such actions remain unknown, both in terms of any deal ultimately struck and the trajectory of London’s international financial district, it makes it clear that understanding what is happening to the City will be vital in understanding the precise form that Brexit takes. Moreover, the uncertainty of the negotiations now extends beyond the nature of financial services relations between the UK and the EU to a wider questioning of the position of London’s financial services sector economically and politically within UK plc.

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Note: the above draws on the author’s co-authored work (with Professor Dariusz Wójcik) published in Geoforum.

Sarah Hall is Professor of Economic Geography at the University of Nottingham.

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Obviously any war rhetoric either by tweet or as an official statement only helps the warmongers and limits the forces who are diligently working toward peaceful solutions to resolve conflicts. However in the recent tweet duel between the U.S. and Iranian officials, all the tough talk like the comment from the Major General Qassem Soleimani as saying: “If you [U.S.] begin the war, we will end the war” looks juvenile and really meaningless.

The strange late night tweets from President Trump have been criticized and analyzed many times, so let’s see what Mr. Rouhani’s “Lion’s tail” remark means. President Hassan Rouhani in a televised speech at a gathering of Iranian diplomats in Tehran warned the United States not to “play with the lion’s tail” and concluded the conflict with Iran would be the “mother of all wars”. “Playing with the lion’s tail” actually is a story about collaboration and friendship between two separate entities! One might say it was a Freudian slip by Mr. Rouhani, since a section of the 1% in Iran has been seeking an “equal” relationship with the U.S. and the E.U.

What is actually the story behind “don’t play with the lion tail!”?

As story goes, one day a little mouse was playing with a lion’s tail while the lion was napping. Suddenly the lion wakes up, grabs the annoying little mouse and says “don’t play with the lion’s tail!”, you have been irritating me for a while and now I’m going to kill you. The little mouse (in fear of its life) begs for mercy and promises that he wouldn’t bother the lion anymore. The lion listens to the desperate plea of the regretful little mouse and decides to allow the mouse go free. A few days later, a skillful hunter captures the lion alive with a net trap. The lion unable to release himself from the net starts roaring loudly. The faithful mouse nearby hears the lion’s roar, rushes towards the sound and finds the lion in distress. The little mouse instantly starts chewing on the net until lion is able to escape from the hunter’s trap.

However considering the Iranian official’s spin on the “Lion’s Tail” message, the fact is that President Rouhani’s response to President Trump is not really wise or helpful. Iran’s classical revolution in 1979 (in which all layers in society participated and supported historical change) toppled the monarchy and Pahlavi Dynasty once and for all. Workers in cities and framers in rural area, women and youth joined forces and ended a corrupted ruling class. They opened the gate of freedom in hope for a new form of governance, a Democratic Republic. However the Islamic leadership of the late Ayatollah Khomeini was the only force who understood the nation’s demand and he was the only leader who declared that the “Monarchy (SHAH) Has To Go!” The Stalinist communist Party, the “Liberal” National fronts were too weak to even imagine of taking the leadership. Offshoot organizations of the major parties were running around, creating drama like a chicken without head. Meanwhile a new 1% in conjunction with the old wealth formed a new government: The Islamic Republic of Iran.

The new establishment in Tehran under the cover of the National Security, started arresting the Iranian intellectuals, artists, leaders and members of the independent parties and workers Union (Etehadieh). They were incarcerated in the harshest inhuman conditions in Evin, an infamous prison in Iran.

Source: author

The new government’s justification in banning the opposition’s voices was the unexpected Iraq war against Iran which was directed and supported by the U.S. and the European military powers. Soon Democracy, Freedom of Speech, the fruits of revolution were forbidden and taken away. However the 99% pushed their demands forward, making progress here and there. The 1% after the revolution rather to respond to the Iranian people domestic needs, aimed to become a military power player in the region. They thought this would be the only way that guarantees their power and keeps Iran secure and strong. Meddling in Iraq and Syria’s affairs was justified as a “defensive” strategy. The majority of the 99% in Iran, although sympathetic to their sisters and brothers’ dire situation in Iraq, Syria and most of all occupied Palestine were dissatisfied with the high cost of military operations while the corrupt officials and financiers were sucking dry the blood of hard working people.

The fact is that the “Lion’s Tail” message is not a message from the majority of the people in Iran. Iranian working families have enough problems of their own to become pawns in a war of empty words or destructive weapons! They decisively reject this notion that “If you begin the war, we will end the war”! It will be the young generation who must fight the next unnecessary war of old politicians and the youth in Iran (like any other country) are looking for a peaceful world. Beside, how can you put an end to a war against the most insane and powerful military on earth? The U.S. has been the only military power in the world that already has dropped atomic bombs on Japan to claim its victory in WWII as the Super Power. What the Iranian officials are really hoping is that if the U.S. starts a war against Iran, the Russian and Chinese miraculously will end it!

But the reality is the people in the U.S. and Iran are not in the mood for war! More than anything they want CHANGE. Today people are on street demanding a change to the miserable status quo. The massive participation of youth and women in the recent Pakistan Presidential Election is the most recent testimony to people’s desire for change. However, it is needless to say that the election of Mr. “Imran Khan” (a political character similar to Mr. Sanders in the U.S. or Mr. Corbyn in U.K.) will not be a decisive victory.

Peace activists around the world are not impressed by those who try to intimidate their opponents by tough talk or tweets about war. As singer David Byrne in his latest album “American Utopia” says:

There’s only one way to read a book
And there’s only one way to watch TV
Well there’s only one way to smell a flower
But there’s millions of ways to be free

Does Winter follow Spring
Like night follows day
Must a question have an answer
Can’t there be another way

There are “millions of ways to be free” and prosperous – choosing military confrontation as an option only take us to the world of darkness and destruction. We already have seen plenty of death and destruction in WWI, WWII, Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria and Yemen. There must be another way other than war to resolve the differences.

What would follow after the “Mother of All Wars” begins will be unimaginable. For sure, DEATH would be a blessing if a nuclear war is unleashed upon us.

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

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

Michel Chossudovsky

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

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

Year: 2015

Pages: 240 Pages

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“Think about what you will tell your grandchildren in many years from now and not about what your friends will say about you today. Refuse to take part in this ongoing war crime. Refuse to continue murdering people who are locked in the biggest prison in the world. I was once one of you and I know that among you there are some who can still think. Refuse to be the guards of the Gaza ghetto.”

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There’s a visible pattern amid the European media voicing ever increasing concern over malfunctions and all sorts of emergencies occurring lately at nuclear power plants.

A very real possibility of a second Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster occurring in Europe has recently been reported by Italian news service Gli Occhi Della Guerra. In particular, it reported that the authorities of Germany and the Netherlands made a decision to hand out to the population iodine tablets capable of reducing the effects of radiation poisoning in an the event of a grave nuclear emergency. This panic-provoking move was made by Berlin and Amsterdam reflecting their severe concern over the condition of two nuclear power plants: the Doel Nuclear Power Station and the Tihange Nuclear Power Station, which are technically located on the the territory of Belgium, but are really close the borders of the two above mentioned nations. The last time there was a major malfunction at the third reactor of Belgium’s most powerful nuclear power plant, Tihange, it was announced a couple of days ago by Le Soir. However, Doel is no less troublesome, as those two nuclear power stations were built back in the 70s and have been a major headache for nuclear scientists operating them ever since. It is no coincidence, therefore, that the decision to distribute anti-radiation pills in Aachen and The Hague came on the back of a number of scientific publications shedding light on the security conditions at the two of Belgium’s nuclear power stations. Basically speaking, both environmental groups and scientists tend to agree that they represent a time bomb ticking right in the heart of Europe.

However, this is hardly the only source of concern for the EU, as analysts from the British magazine Energy Research & Social Science say that Europe is about to face a nuclear incident much more devastating than the Chernobyl disaster, as on top of the poor state of the two Belgian nuclear power stations, there’s an 80% probability of a nuclear disaster occurring at one of Ukraine’s nuclear power plants before 2020. In the event of such a nuclear disaster, the European Union will be dealing with both the unimaginable environmental damage, but due to the introduction of a visa-free regime between the EU and Ukraine, a mass exodus from the contaminated region of Ukrainians to Western Europe.

Today, Ukraine has four nuclear power plants: Zaporizhzhya (the largest in Europe, with six reactors and a total electricity generation output of 6,000 MW), Rivne (four reactors with a total electricity generation output of 2,880 MW), Khmelnitskaya (two reactors with a total capacity of 2000 MW) and the South-Ukraine (three reactors and a total electricity generation output of 3000 MW). The fifth one, the infamous Chernobyl nuclear power station with four reactors was sealed off completely back in 2000.

Out of the 15 operational nuclear reactors in Ukraine, a total of 12 were introduced into service before 1990, with all of them sharing a maximum operational service life of 30 years. The fact that a total of 10 of these reactors have already exceeded their lifespans sends cold shivers down one’s spine. However, those reactors have been used to produce an ever increasing amount of electricity to meet Ukraine’s growing demand caused by a sharp decline in the number of operational thermal power plants that have no access to the coal produced in Donbass. This breakaway region has been on the defense ever since Kiev authorities launched military operations against its Russian-speaking population. Now those Soviet age reactors are being run into the ground so that they fulfill more than 60% of Ukraine’s total electricity needs, which leads to nuclear scientists operating them being forced to to the limits of these thoroughly worn-out nuclear facilities.

The situation is aggravated by political pressure applied by Washington on the current Kiev government, demanding them to find a quick substitute to the nuclear fuel produced by the Russian company TVEL. Therefore, time and time again reactors are loaded with fuel produced by the American-Japanese corporation Westinghouse Electric Company. It seems that Kiev and Washington are too willing to ignore the traumatizing experience of the Soviet era Czech Temelín Nuclear Power Station, which signed a deal with Westinghouse on the supply of its fuel as early as 1996. But the use of American fuel led to a series of major failures at the power station eventually resulting in severe structural damaged being inflicted upon its reactors. Nuclear scientists operating the Temelín station failed to address the problem, which led to the decision to break the deal with Westinghouse Electric Company after yet another major incident in 2007. Finally, the Czech Republic refused to purchase any other form of fuel other than fuel produced in Russia, resulting in the Temelín Nuclear Power Station being fueled by Russia once again since 2010.

However, Kiev’s authorities have gone so far in their Russophobic that they continue playing with fire, testing all sorts of substitutes to Russian fuel formulas produced in America since 2005. One can remember how a series of malfunctions at the South-Ukraine Nuclear Power Station back in 2013 resulted in a number of Ukrainian inspection organizations introducing a complete ban on the use of any form of American-produced nuclear fuel in Ukraine.

However the American sponsored coup d’etat in Kiev reopened the door for the use of American fuel in Ukraine, which has already resulted in a number of failures and emergency reactor shutdowns at various Ukrainian nuclear power plants.

To be more specific, since the 2014 coup, Zaporizhzhya NPP has already experienced a dozen emergency shutdowns. At South-Ukraine NPP, extensive use of American-produced fuel resulted in a 24 hours shutdown of the whole station back in 2016. As a result, only two out of six reactors at Zaporizhzhya NPP remain fully operational. The total amount of nuclear emergencies across Ukraine has increased by 400% since 2010. The Energy Research & Social Science report has repeatedly stressed that an abnormal level of emergency nuclear situations in Ukraine has been deliberately omitted in official international reports for a number of years, even though local media report them on a regular basis.

However, nobody seems to be concerned in Kiev. Last May, the official website of Ukraine’s Energoatom reported that a total of four reactors of the Zaporizhzhya NPP in Ukraine will only be fueled by products of Westinghouse Electric Company, with only two remaining reactors still being operated on Russian fuel. In addition to the use of sub-quality fuel, there’s yet another reason for the mounting incidents and risk at Ukrainian power plants and that is chronic under-funding of this sector, since there’s been not a single Euro invested in the sector since the collapse of the USSR.

Meanwhile, reactors that have worked longer than the planned 30-year service life must either be decommissioned or be modified for their service life to be extended. Both of these options are rather expensive for debt-ridden Kiev, yet the second option looks more favorable from its point of view. Ideally, these reactors have to undergo a major overhaul and modernization, but the estimated cost of such operations is estimated to reach as much as 150 million euros. But neither the state-run Energoatom nor Kiev itself has the resources to go down that route, so Kiev is arbitrarily prolonging the service life of all operational reactors.

Upon doing this it sends reports to neighboring countries and international organizations operating in the field of environmental protection. However, such actions simultaneously violate a total of two UN Conventions that require its signatories to obtain bilateral and international approvals before service life of a reactor is prolonged, but not the other way around. Those are the Convention on Environmental Impact Assessment and the Convention on Access to Information, Public Participation in Decision-making and Access to Justice in Environmental Matters.

As it’s been announced by Ukrainian PM Viktoriya Voytsitskaya, as the nuclear industry collapses in Ukraine, nuclear scientists are being laid off or quit work voluntarily to seek employment in other countries. Additionally, the total number of emergency situations at Ukrainian nuclear power plants in 2017 reached a total of 17 cases against 12 cases a year earlier.

All these facts show that Ukraine’s remaining nuclear power plants represent a real threat to the security of Europe, but against the backdrop of the current economic situation and political instability in Ukraine, there is no chance to reverse this negative trend. The question of how to address this situation effectively must be a topic of urgent negotiations between Ukraine and the authorities of leading EU states.

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Grete Mautner is an independent researcher and journalist from Germany, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook.” 

Featured image is from the author.