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During the past three days, the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) and its allies entered up to 40 villages and settlements in the southern provinces of Quneitra and Daraa after militants, mostly members of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (formerly Jabhat al-Nusra, the Syrian branch of al-Qaeda) and the Free Syrian Army (FSA) had surrendered in the area.

A few batches of radical militants and their families, consisting of dozens of buses, already left southern Syria towards the militant-held part of Idlib province. Militants also handed over more than 10 battle tanks to the SAA. On July 23, militants continued surrendering weapons to government forces and leaving towards Idlib.

Israel transported several hundred of the White Helmets and their families from the southwestern part of Syria to Jordan overnight July 21, the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) reported saying this move was “a humanitarian effort” at the request of the US and European countries.

According to Jordan’s official Petra state media outlet, the number of evacuated persons included 800 White Helmets members and their families.

The IDF claimed Israel engaged in the “out of the ordinary” move due to the “immediate risk” to the lives of the civilians from the ongoing military operation in the area.

The White Helmets is an infamous Western-backed organization, which according to Syrian, Russian and Iranian governments as well as to independent researchers, has been involved in staging chemical attacks and other propaganda operations in order to assist the US-led block in its attempts to overthrow the Assad government. The organization operates only within the militant-held area, in a close cooperation with Hayat Tahrir al-Sham.

One of the most prominent cases of the White Helmets operations is the Douma chemical incident on April 7, 2018, which was used by the US, France and the UK to justify a massive missile strike on Syria on April 14.

According to Syrian experts, the key goal of the evacuation of the White Helmets members is to not allow forces of the Syrian-Russian-Iranian alliance to question members of the organization over its activities coordinated with Western intelligences.

The repeatedly declared Israeli “noninvolvement” in the conflict continued on July 22 when four senior FSA commanders in southern Syria run away to Israel. Syrian opposition activists identified them as “Moaz Nassar,” the leader of the Golan Knights Brigade, “Ahmed al-Nahs,” a commander in the Saif al-Sham Brigades, “Alaa al-Halaki,” the leader of the al-Ababil Army and “Abu Rateb Nassar,” a commander in the Golan Knights Brigade.

Over the past few years, these armed groups have been repeatedly accused by the Damascus government of cooperating with the Israeli military and intelligence. Their evacuation is another sign that Israel and its allies are attempting to hide some of their operations in the war-torn country.

Russian forces intercepted at least two armed UAVs over the Khmeimim Air Base on July 20 and 21. Drones were launched by militants from the so-called de-escalation zone area, which includes Idlib and northern Latakia.

The continued attacks by militants on the Russian facilities in Syria are only nearing the Russian-backed SAA advance to put an end to this attacks and the presence of terrorists excluded from the ceasefire, like Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, in the area.

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ISBN Number: 978-0-9737147-8-4

Year: 2016

Pages: 240

Author: Tim Anderson

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The Dirty War on Syria 

by Professor Tim Anderson

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“Big Brother does not watch us, by his choice. We watch him, by ours…. When a population becomes distracted by trivia, when cultural life is redefined as a perpetual round of entertainments, when serious public conversation becomes a form of baby-talk, when, in short, a people become an audience, and their public business a vaudeville act, then a nation finds itself at risk; culture-death is a clear possibility.”— Professor Neil Postman

Americans have a voracious appetite for TV entertainment, and the Trump reality show—guest starring outraged Democrats, power-hungry Republicans, and a hodgepodge of other special interest groups with dubious motives—feeds that appetite for titillating, soap opera drama.

After all, who needs the insults, narcissism and power plays that are hallmarks of reality shows when you can have all that and more delivered up by the likes of Donald Trump and his cohorts?

Trump is inclined to denounce any news agencies and reports that paint him in a less than favorable light as “fake news,” which leaves only the Fox News channel to carry the president’s torch for media integrity.

Yet as John Lennon reminds us, “nothing is real,” especially not in the world of politics.

In other words, it’s all fake, i.e. manufactured, i.e. manipulated to distort reality.

Much like the fabricated universe in Peter Weir’s 1998 film The Truman Show, in which a man’s life is the basis for an elaborately staged television show aimed at selling products and procuring ratings, the political scene in the United States has devolved over the years into a carefully calibrated exercise in how to manipulate, polarize, propagandize and control a population.

Likewise, “The Trump Show” keeps the citizenry distracted, diverted and divided.

This is the magic of the reality TV programming that passes for politics today.

As long as we are distracted, entertained, occasionally outraged, always polarized but largely uninvolved and content to remain in the viewer’s seat, we’ll never manage to present a unified front against tyranny (or government corruption and ineptitude) in any form.

The more that is beamed at us, the more inclined we are to settle back in our comfy recliners and become passive viewers rather than active participants as unsettling, frightening events unfold.

Reality and fiction merge as everything around us becomes entertainment fodder.

We don’t even have to change the channel when the subject matter becomes too monotonous. That’s taken care of for us by the programmers (the corporate media).

“Living is easy with eyes closed,” says Lennon, and that’s exactly what reality TV that masquerades as American politics programs the citizenry to do: navigate the world with their eyes shut.

As long as we’re viewers, we’ll never be doers.

Studies suggest that the more reality TV people watch—and I would posit that it’s all reality TV, entertainment news included—the more difficult it becomes to distinguishbetween what is real and what is carefully crafted farce.

“We the people” are watching a lot of TV.

On average, Americans spend five hours a day watching television. By the time we reach age 65, we’re watching more than 50 hours of television a week, and that number increases as we get older. And reality TV programming consistently captures the largest percentage of TV watchers every season by an almost 2-1 ratio.

This doesn’t bode well for a citizenry able to sift through masterfully-produced propaganda in order to think critically about the issues of the day, whether it’s fake news peddled by government agencies or foreign entities.

Those who watch reality shows tend to view what they see as the “norm.” Thus, those who watch shows characterized by lying, aggression and meanness not only come to see such behavior as acceptable and entertaining but also mimic the medium.

This holds true whether the reality programming is about the antics of celebrities in the White House, in the board room, or in the bedroom.

It’s a phenomenon called “humilitainment.”

A term coined by media scholars Brad Waite and Sara Booker, “humilitainment” refers to the tendency for viewers to take pleasure in someone else’s humiliation, suffering and pain.

“Humilitainment” largely explains not only why American TV watchers are so fixated on reality TV programming but how American citizens, largely insulated from what is really happening in the world around them by layers of technology, entertainment, and other distractions, are being programmed to accept the brutality, surveillance and dehumanizing treatment of the American police state as things happening to other people.

The ramifications for the future of civic engagement, political discourse and self-government are incredibly depressing and demoralizing.

This not only explains how a candidate like Donald Trump with a reputation for being rude, egotistical and narcissistic could get elected, but it also says a lot about how a politician like Barack Obama—whose tenure in the White House was characterized by drone killings, a weakening of the Constitution at the expense of Americans’ civil liberties, and an expansion of the police state—could be hailed as “one of the greatest presidents of all times.”

This is what happens when an entire nation—bombarded by reality TV programming, government propaganda and entertainment news—becomes systematically desensitized and acclimated to the trappings of a government that operates by fiat and speaks in a language of force.

Ultimately, the reality shows, the entertainment news, the surveillance society, the militarized police, and the political spectacles have one common objective: to keep us divided, distracted, imprisoned, and incapable of taking an active role in the business of self-government.

Look behind the political spectacles, the reality TV theatrics, the sleight-of-hand distractions and diversions, and the stomach-churning, nail-biting drama, and you will find there is a method to the madness.

We have become guinea pigs in a ruthlessly calculated, carefully orchestrated, chillingly cold-blooded experiment in how to control a population and advance a political agenda without much opposition from the citizenry.

This is mind-control in its most sinister form.

How do you change the way people think? You start by changing the words they use.

In totalitarian regimes—a.k.a. police states—where conformity and compliance are enforced at the end of a loaded gun, the government dictates what words can and cannot be used.

In countries where the police state hides behind a benevolent mask and disguises itself as tolerance, the citizens censor themselves, policing their words and thoughts to conform to the dictates of the mass mind.

Even when the motives behind this rigidly calibrated reorientation of societal language appear well-intentioned—discouraging racism, condemning violence, denouncing discrimination and hatred—inevitably, the end result is the same: intolerance, indoctrination, infantilism, the chilling of free speech and the demonizing of viewpoints that run counter to the cultural elite.

Donald Trump is no exception to this Orwellian manipulation of language for dubious ends: labelling something as “fake news” is a masterful way of dismissing truth that may run counter to the ruling power’s own narrative.

As George Orwell recognized,

“In times of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.”

Orwell understood only too well the power of language to manipulate the masses. In Orwell’s 1984, Big Brother does away with all undesirable and unnecessary words and meanings, even going so far as to routinely rewrite history and punish “thoughtcrimes.” In this dystopian vision of the future, the Thought Police serve as the eyes and ears of Big Brother, while the Ministry of Peace deals with war and defense, the Ministry of Plenty deals with economic affairs (rationing and starvation), the Ministry of Love deals with law and order (torture and brainwashing), and the Ministry of Truth deals with news, entertainment, education and art (propaganda). The mottos of Oceania: WAR IS PEACE, FREEDOM IS SLAVERY, and IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH.

Orwell’s Big Brother relied on Newspeak to eliminate undesirable words, strip such words as remained of unorthodox meanings and make independent, non-government-approved thought altogether unnecessary.

Where we stand now is at the juncture of Oldspeak (where words have meanings, and ideas can be dangerous) and Newspeak (where only that which is “safe” and “accepted” by the majority is permitted).

Truth is often lost when we fail to distinguish between opinion and fact, and that is the danger we now face as a society. Anyone who relies exclusively on television/cable news hosts and political commentators for actual knowledge of the world is making a serious mistake.

Unfortunately, since Americans have by and large become non-readers, television has become their prime source of so-called “news.” This reliance on TV news has given rise to such popular news personalities who draw in vast audiences that virtually hang on their every word.

In our media age, these are the new powers-that-be.

Yet while these personalities often dispense the news like preachers used to dispense religion, with power and certainty, they are little more than conduits for propaganda and advertisements delivered in the guise of entertainment and news.

Given the preponderance of news-as-entertainment programming, it’s no wonder that viewers have largely lost the ability to think critically and analytically and differentiate between truth and propaganda, especially when delivered by way of fake news criers and politicians.

While television news cannot—and should not—be completely avoided, the following suggestions will help you better understand the nature of TV news.

1. TV news is not what happened. Rather, it is what someone thinks is worth reporting. Although there are still some good TV journalists, the old art of investigative reporting has largely been lost. While viewers are often inclined to take what is reported by television “news” hosts at face value, it is your responsibility to judge and analyze what is reported.

2. TV news is entertainment. There is a reason why the programs you watch are called news “shows.” It’s a signal that the so-called news is being delivered as a form of entertainment.

“In the case of most news shows,” write Neil Postman and Steve Powers in their insightful book, How to Watch TV News (1992), “the package includes attractive anchors, an exciting musical theme, comic relief, stories placed to hold the audience, the creation of the illusion of intimacy, and so on.”

Of course, the point of all this glitz and glamour is to keep you glued to the set so that a product can be sold to you. (Even the TV news hosts get in on the action by peddling their own products, everything from their latest books to mugs and bathrobes.) Although the news items spoon-fed to you may have some value, they are primarily a commodity to gather an audience, which will in turn be sold to advertisers.

3. Never underestimate the power of commercials, especially to news audiences. In an average household, the television set is on over seven hours a day. Most people, believing themselves to be in control of their media consumption, are not really bothered by this. But TV is a two-way attack: it not only delivers programming to your home, it also delivers you (the consumer) to a sponsor.

People who watch the news tend to be more attentive, educated and have more money to spend. They are, thus, a prime market for advertisers. And sponsors spend millions on well-produced commercials. Such commercials are often longer in length than most news stories and cost more to produce than the news stories themselves. Moreover, the content of many commercials, which often contradicts the messages of the news stories, cannot be ignored. Most commercials are aimed at prurient interests in advocating sex, overindulgence, drugs, etc., which has a demoralizing effect on viewers, especially children.

4. It is vitally important to learn about the economic and political interests of those who own the “corporate” media. There are few independent news sources anymore. The major news outlets are owned by corporate empires. Moreover, even those “fake” news outlets denounced by Trump are enjoying significant sales and ratings boosts as a result of Trump’s so-called war on the media. Indeed, as one trade journal reports, “Trump, of course, has become the greatest source of lead generation the American press has ever seen.” In other words, to a dying news industry, the Trump presidency has been great for business.

5. Pay special attention to the language of newscasts. Because film footage and other visual imagery are so engaging on TV news shows, viewers are apt to allow language—what the reporter is saying about the images—to go unexamined. A TV news host’s language frames the pictures, and, therefore, the meaning we derive from the picture is often determined by the host’s commentary. TV by its very nature manipulates viewers. One must never forget that every television minute has been edited. The viewer does not see the actual event but the edited form of the event. For example, presenting a one- to two-minute segment from a two-hour political speech and having a TV talk show host critique may be disingenuous, but such edited footage is a regular staple on news shows. Add to that the fact that the reporters editing the film have a subjective view—sometimes determined by their corporate bosses—that enters in.

6. Reduce by at least one-half the amount of TV news you watch. TV news generally consists of “bad” news—wars, torture, murders, scandals and so forth. It cannot possibly do you any harm to excuse yourself each week from much of the mayhem projected at you on the news. Do not form your concept of reality based on television. TV news, it must be remembered, does not reflect normal everyday life. Studies indicate that a heavy viewing of TV news makes people think the world is much more dangerous than it actually is.

7. One of the reasons many people are addicted to watching TV news is that they feel they must have an opinion on almost everything, which gives the illusion of participation in American life. But an “opinion” is all that we can gain from TV news because it only presents the most rudimentary and fragmented information on anything. Thus, on most issues we don’t really know much about what is actually going on. And, of course, we are expected to take what the TV news host says on an issue as gospel truth. But isn’t it better to think for yourself? Add to this that we need to realize that we often don’t have enough information from the “news” source to form a true opinion. How can that be done? Study a broad variety of sources, carefully analyze issues in order to be better informed, and question everything.

The bottom line is simply this: Americans should beware of letting others—whether they be television news hosts, political commentators or media corporations—do their thinking for them.

As I make clear in my book A Government of Wolves: The Emerging American Police State, a populace that cannot think for themselves is a populace with its backs to the walls: mute in the face of elected officials who refuse to represent us, helpless in the face of police brutality, powerless in the face of militarized tactics and technology that treat us like enemy combatants on a battlefield, and naked in the face of government surveillance that sees and hears all.

It’s time to change the channel, tune out the reality TV show, and push back against the real menace of the police state. If not, if we continue to sit back and lose ourselves in political programming, we will remain a captive audience to a farce that grows more absurd by the minute.

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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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Israeli troops, with the backing of Washington and other major NATO powers, carried out an operation over the weekend to evacuate some 800 operatives of the so-called White Helmets organization from southern Syria, where government forces have staged a major offensive to retake areas previously held by Western-backed Islamist militias.

The White Helmets, ostensibly a civil defense group dedicated to rescuing civilians caught in the fighting in Syria, has been heavily funded by the US and European powers. It has operated solely in areas controlled by the so-called rebels, who are armed and funded by the US and its NATO allies, together with Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu commented on the operation Sunday, stating:

“Several days ago President Trump contacted me, as did Canadian Prime Minister Trudeau and others, and requested that we assist in evacuating hundreds of White Helmets from Syria. These are people who have saved lives and whose lives were in danger.”

The Israel Defense Forces reportedly opened up border crossings in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights and provided a heavily armed escort for the White Helmets, who were loaded on buses and taken to Jordan. The IDF issued a statement describing its actions as “an exceptional humanitarian gesture.”

The Jordanian Foreign Ministry acknowledged in a press release the role played by Amman in the operation in allowing the US-backed operatives to pass through its territory.

“The [Jordanian] government allowed the UN to organize passage of about 800 Syrian citizens through Jordan for their naturalization in Western states after the three Western states, namely the United Kingdom, Germany and Canada, proposed in writing… to undertake their resettlement for a certain period of time due to the threat to their lives.”

British Foreign Minister Jeremy Hunt said on Sunday that the UK had to evacuate the White Helmets to ensure their “immediate protection.”

CNN reported last week that the evacuation of some 1,000 White Helmets and their families from Syria had been discussed during the recent NATO summit in response to the advances made by Syrian government forces.

Canadian Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland said that she had “called for global leadership to support and help these heroes” during a meeting of foreign ministers at the NATO summit in Brussels a week ago.

Both the Israeli and Jordanian governments, while joining in the rescue of the White Helmets, have sealed their borders to the tens of thousands of refugees fleeing the fighting in Syria’s Daraa and Quneitra provinces. Israel has allowed in no refugees since the war for regime change was initiated in Syria seven years ago. It has, however, provided arms, supplies and medical care to Islamist “rebels” fighting the Syrian government.

This weekend’s extraordinary operation, transferring Syrians across Israel into Jordan for resettlement in Europe and Canada, was not a “humanitarian” intervention, but rather the salvaging of individuals who have served as assets in the Western-backed campaign to topple the government of President Bashar al-Assad and replace it with a pliant stooge regime.

The White Helmets were created in 2013 principally by the US and UK governments, with additional funding from the German, Dutch and Danish governments. The principal figure involved in the group’s founding was the former British army officer and MI6 agent James Le Mesurier, who went on to work as a mercenary for Gulf oil monarchies in conjunction with a company linked to the infamous former US military contractor, Blackwater.

Le Mesurier trained Syrians in Turkey and then sent them back into Syria to function as a logistical support and propaganda arm of the Western-backed “rebels.”

Operating principally in zones controlled by the Al Nusra Front, the Syrian affiliate of Al Qaeda, and its allies, the White Helmets filmed staged rescues in areas hit by bombs dropped by government and Russian warplanes, passing on the videos to the Western corporate media, which aired them without any questions.

The group has been accused of fabricating both attacks and rescues, most infamously in the case of an alleged gas attack in the city of Douma on April 7. While film of the “attack’s” supposed aftermath was broadcast in the US and throughout Europe, residents and doctors at the facility where the White Helmets filmed themselves yelling “gas” and hosing down children with water came forward to say that there had been no attack.

The patent aim of the fabricated incident, as with similar cases previously, was to provoke a US-NATO intervention. The US, the UK and France responded by launching more than 100 missiles on multiple targets in Syria a week later.

Representatives of the White Helmets have been among the most vocal in calling on the US and its allies to impose a “no-fly zone” in Syria, a tactic that would require a massive military occupation of the country and that would heighten the danger of a military confrontation between the world’s two major nuclear powers, the US and Russia.

Videos have surfaced showing members of the White Helmets carrying weapons with Al Nusra forces and participating in atrocities against Syrian government troops.

The White Helmets have enjoyed massive funding. Much of the money has been channeled through private contractors working for the US and British governments.

The US funds have flowed through Chemonics, a Washington, D.C.-based contractor that has also been active in Afghanistan and Libya. USAID awarded the company $128.5 million in January 2013 to support “a peaceful transition to a democratic and stable Syria.” It is estimated that at least $32 million of this money had been funneled into the White Helmets.

Mayday Rescue, a UK-based company, has funneled tens of millions more to the “civil defense” group.

Germany, Canada, and the UK have all reportedly agreed to accept the White Helmets members as refugees, while closing the door to other Syrians fleeing the war.

Washington, however, has made no such offer. While pouring tens of millions of dollars into the organization, it barred its chief, Raed Saleh, from entering the country when he flew to Washington in April 2016 to receive an award for his contributions to “humanitarian relief.” The State Department explained that he had been sent back to Turkey because of suspected “extremist connections.”

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Looks like Trump is running amok with his “trading policies”. Not only has he upset the European Union – which doesn’t deserve any better, frankly, for having been and still being submissive vassals against the will of by now 90% of Europeans; but he has also managed to get China into a fury. Well, for China it is really not that important, because China has plenty of other markets, including basically all of Asia and probably increasingly also Europe, as Europe increasingly feel the need for detaching from the US.

What is striking, though, is that even at the outset of the G20 Summit now ongoing in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Trumps Ministers have made it clear that unless Europe cancels all subsidies – referring primarily to agricultural subsidies – and eliminates the newly imposed retaliatory import duties, new trade deals are not going to be discussed. Never mind that the US has the world’s highest farm subsidies.

From afar this looks like the most wicket and non-sensical trade war the US via Trump, is waging against the rest of the world – à la “Make America Great Again”. Will it work? Maybe. One can never predict dynamics, especially not in a neoliberal western world that is used to live on linearism, which by definition is always wrong. Knowingly and deliberately the west and it’s financial key institutions, IMF, World Bank, FED, European Central Bank – trick the public at large into believing their statistics and predictions – which, if one goes back in history, have always been off, way off.

All life is dynamic. But to understand this it takes independent thinking – which the west has long given up, unfortunately. So, in response to the latest Trump-promoted trade fiasco at the G20 in Argentina, the IMF is up in arms, saying this might lower world GDP by at least 0.5%. – Even if true, so what?

In reality, there is a totally different scenario that nobody dares talk about. Namely, what renewed local production and monetary sovereignty can bring to the world economy; precisely what Mr. Trump says he wants to propagate for the US of A – local production for local markets and for trade with countries that respect mutual benefits. The latter is of course a question not easily achieved by any trade deal with the US. But the former is an enormous economic power keg. The stimulation of local economies through internal credit, is the most commanding means to boost local employment and GDP.

Then there is the sanctions game. It’s getting ever more aggressive. New sanctions on Russia, new sanctions on Venezuela – and new heavy-heavy sanctions on Iran. And the European puppets still follow suit, although they are the ones that most suffer from US sanctions imposed on others, especially because out of ‘stupidity’ or fear, they cannot let go of the destructive empire, hobbling away on its last breath. Or is it perhaps, that those fake leaders of the Brussels construct are bought? – Yes, I mean bought with money or with favors? – It’s not out of this world, since those of the European Commission who call the shots are not elected, thus, responsible to no one.

Take the case of Iran, Trump and his peons, Bolton and Pompeo, have threatened every oil company around the globe with heavy sanctions if they keep buying hydrocarbons from Iran beyond November 2018. Particularly concerned are the European Petrol giants, like Total, ENI, Repsol and others. – As a consequence, they have canceled their literally of billions of euros worth of contracts with Iran to protect themselves – and, of course, their shareholders. Just recently I talked to a high executive from Total. He said, we have no choice, as we cannot trust our people in Brussels to shield us from Washington’s sanctions. So, we have to look elsewhere to fulfill our contractual obligations vis-à-vis our clients. But, he added, we did not buy the American fracking stuff; we are negotiating with Russia. – There you go.

The European market for Iran’s hydrocarbon is estimated at about 20% of Iran’s total production. An amount, easily taken over by China and others which are too big (and too bold) to be sanctioned by the empire. Some may actually resell Iranian hydrocarbons through their backdoor to the otherwise sanctioned European oil corporations.

Iran has another strong weapon which they already made clear, they will use, if the US attempts seriously to block anyone from buying Iranian oil and gas. Iran can block the Gulf of Hormuz, where daily about 30% of all hydrocarbon used by the world is being shipped, including about half to the United states. This might increase the price of petrol exponentially and ruining many countries’ economies. However, higher prices would also benefit Russia, China and Venezuela, precisely the countries that Washington wants to punish.

Would such a move by Iran provoke a direct US aggression? – One never knows with the war profiteers of the US. What’s for sure, such an intervention would not pass without a commensurate response from China and Russia.

On the other side of the scenario – imagine – countries mired in this global mess, made in the US of A, start looking for their own internal interests again, seeking their own sovereignty, independence from the globalist dependency. They are embarking on economic policies furthering self-sufficiency, self-reliance; first foodwise, then focusing on their scientific research to build their own cutting-edge technology industrial parks. A vivid example is Russia. Since sanctions were imposed, Russia has moved from a totally import-dependent country since the collapse of the Soviet Union, to a food and industry self-sufficient nation. According to Mr. Putin, the sanctions were the best thing that happened to Russia since the fall of the Soviet Union. Russia has been the world’s largest wheat exporter for the last two years.

Europeans have started quietly to reorient their business activities towards the east. Europeans may finally have noticed – not the elitist puppets from Brussels, but Big Business and the public at large – that the transatlantic partner cannot be trusted, nor their self-imposed EU central administration of Brussels. They are seeking their own ways, each one of these nations are seeking gradually to detach from the fangs of Washington, eventually detaching from the dollar dominion, because they notice businesswise the dollar-based economy is a losing proposition.  

There is BREXIT, the most open move away from the ‘freedom limiting’ European dictate which is nothing else but a carbon copy of the economic dictate of the dollar, as practiced in the United States and everywhere the dollar is still the main international contract and reserve currency. 

The Five Star Movement in Italy was created on similar premises – breaking out from Brussels, from the Euro-policy handcuffs. In a first attempt towards sidelining the Euro, they received a spanking from the euro-friendly Italian President, Sergio Mattarella, when he refused to accept the 5-Stars coalition partner’s, Lega Norte, proposed Eurosceptic Minister of Finance, Paolo Savona, who called Italy’s entry into the eurozone a “historic mistake”. This thrive by Italy to regain monetary sovereignty has by no means ended. To the contrary, it has taken strength and more determination. Germany moves in the same direction – quietly opening doors to Moscow and Beijing. 

Unfortunately, these moves have little to do with a new more human and peace-loving consciousness, but rather with business interests. But perhaps conscious awareness – the reconnecting with the original spark of a humanity solidified in solidarity is a step-by-step process.

What if, considering the motion towards peoples’ new self-determination, Trump’s amok run, his jumping from chaos to more chaos, to the sanction game no end – punishing, or threatening friends and foes alike, will lead to a genuine de-globalization of the world? – If this were to happen then, we the 90% of the globe’s population, should be very grateful to Mr. Trump who has shown and created the path to enlightening – the enlightening of de-globalization.

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Peter Koenig is an economist and geopolitical analyst. He is also a water resources and environmental specialist. He worked for over 30 years with the World Bank and the World Health Organization around the world in the fields of environment and water. He lectures at universities in the US, Europe and South America. He writes regularly for Global Research; ICH; RT; Sputnik; PressTV; The 21^st Century; TeleSUR; The Vineyard of The Saker Blog; and other internet sites. He is the author of Implosion – An Economic Thriller about War, Environmental Destruction and Corporate Greed – fiction based on facts and on 30 years of World Bank experience around the globe. He is also a co-author of The World Order and Revolution! – Essays from the Resistance. 

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Featured image: The Aboghlou women’s cooperative meets outside in Ourika Valley, Morocco. (Source: author)

The Middle East and North Africa (MENA) has the lowest female employment rate of anywhere in the world. Though most countries in the MENA region, including Libya and Iran, have seen gradually increasing rates of working women, Morocco’s female labor force participation (FLFP) rate has actually decreased since 1999, now sitting at 26 percent, according to Brookings. This decline not only contradicts global and regional trends, but also comes despite significant efforts both by the Moroccan government and NGOs to increase women’s education, in hopes of improving their employment opportunities. The World Bank estimates that higher FLFP rates could result in a 25 percent average increase in household income, something which would dramatically improve the lives of men, women, and youth in the region.

Women’s education programs are excellent endeavors that change lives and promote equality, especially considering the high illiteracy rates of rural women. However, education alone is not the solution to low FLFP. In Morocco, according to the World Bank, women comprise 47 percent of the population holding a tertiary degree of some kind, and yet the vast majority remain marginalized from the workforce. Similar statistics showing high education and low employment for women are prevalent throughout the MENA region. The issue is not unemployment for women, but complete inactivity in the workforce. Morocco World News reports that over 70 percent of Moroccan women have simply left the workforce; they are neither employed nor searching for work, though one third of these women possess degrees that would qualify them for well-paying jobs.

In a Brookings survey, urban women aged 15 to 29, who were either in school or recently graduated, were asked if they were working or planning to work upon graduation. The vast majority of respondents said no, and were asked for their reasoning: 45 percent listed family opposition, while 30 percent said they were too busy with responsibilities at home. Though lack of education is certainly a problem in Morocco, particularly among rural women, it is clear that it is not the only barrier to female employment.

Neither is legal restriction; though the MENA region does have the highest number of constraints on women in the world – making it difficult for women to attain the social, political, and economic agency necessary to participate in the workforce – Morocco is somewhat of an exception. In 2004, Morocco enacted a progressive reform to its code of family law (Moudawana) to promote equality in the rights of women and men.

In the case of Morocco specifically, advocates of higher FLFP do not need to push for legal reform, but for the active enforcement of existing laws. The Moudawana reform set the stage for women’s economic participation; however, the vast majority of rural women remain unaware of their rights and, therefore, unable to exercise them. The formal law is in place, but it is not being applied effectively. There is not widespread respect of these rights because very few people are familiar with them. Efforts to increase awareness of Moudawana would help remove the implicit biases and barriers continuing to prevent Moroccan women from working.

Since young women listed family opposition and responsibilities at home as their two main reasons for not entering the workforce, governments and NGOs need to design programs that address these issues specifically. In Morocco and the MENA, there is a desperate need for women’s empowerment. Women need self-confidence and the ability to advocate for their ambitions, otherwise they will continue to be consigned to the domestic sphere. The duties of childcare, cooking, and cleaning are placed almost solely on women, making it difficult for them to work outside the home. Incentive programs for employers to provide services that ease the domestic burden on women, such as free daycare centers, paid maternity leave, etc., would significantly help women enter the workforce. Additionally, more focus should be given to the creation of women’s cooperatives, especially in rural regions. Cooperatives allow women to collectively manage their businesses, which means they set their own schedules, and are thus in a better position to accommodate both household and work responsibilities.

Existing strategies to increase women’s presence in the workforce are not working.  Since 2016, the High Atlas Foundation has been conducting a women’s empowerment program in Morocco that integrates Moudawana with a self-discovery process, bringing women together to unlock their socioeconomic potential. Often, this program (developed in conjunction with the Empowerment Institute) results in the creation of cooperatives, where rural women pool their resources and talent to start their own entreprises. If sustainable change is to occur, governments and NGOs need to take a participatory approach that focuses on the self-identified obstacles and needs of women.

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Katherine O’Neill is studying International Relations at Claremont McKenna College; she is interning with the High Atlas Foundation for the summer.

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As the summer moves on, the world is literally burning under intense heat due to ever worsening climate change, mainly as a result of government impotence under corporate sway. Areas near Tokyo have just experienced a record temperature of 106 degrees Fahrenheit (41.1 Celsius), with beleaguered residents fleeing to avoid the sun. Across Japan, this unprecedented heat wave has already killed dozens of people.

Nor are the searing temperatures being restricted to southerly climes. In northern Siberia, temperatures of over 91 degrees Fahrenheit (33 Celsius) were recorded on 5 July. The heat wave in sections of Siberia’s far north, more than double the normal temperatures expected, has astonished meteorologists. It also raises dire concerns that billions of tons of carbon dioxide and methane, for centuries locked in frozen permafrost, will be released into the atmosphere and thereby further accelerate climate change. This is a major concern for scientists who note with growing alarm the unchecked temperatures even within the Arctic circle.

In other northerly landmasses – Canada for example – scores of people are estimated to have died this month, with the huge province of Quebec experiencing particularly severe heat. Montreal, the most populous municipality in Quebec, endured record breaking temperatures early this month of almost 98 degrees Fahrenheit (36.6 Celsius).

Scandinavia is also undergoing blinding heat, with parts of Sweden, Norway and Finland recording temperatures almost twice the average; slightly above or below 90 degrees Fahrenheit, breaking previous records. Last week, in the urban area of Bardufoss in Norway’s far north, a record was compiled of 92.3 degrees Fahrenheit (33.5 Celsius). For weeks Sweden has been been battling dozens of forest fires, which have destroyed about two million square meters of woodland – with almost $70 million worth of damage inflicted.

While these temperatures have been broadly reported over the previous weeks, the root causes are almost invariably overlooked or downplayed. Since records began in the mid-19th century, 17 of the hottest 18 years have occurred since 2000. Unless government policies drastically alter, this trend will continue as the years advance.

Oil price decreases in recent times have been widely heralded by the corporate press in the West. It represents another surreal moment in human history. In reality, the media has been lauding the impending destruction of the planet along with that of their children and grandchildren’s futures. Jubilant headlines regarding falling oil prices have long been declaring under such lines that,

“It gives consumers more money and cuts manufacturing costs”, when instead they should read, “Let’s accelerate the destruction of the human species and incinerate the earth”.

The price of oil in the US market is too low, and should instead be placed at a higher cost as it is in Europe. The higher price discourages the continuing use of fossil fuels, which is wiping out the environment, and a driving factor behind planet-altering climate change. Should the dependence on non-renewable resources like oil continue, it will prove another significant blow to the globe.

With not a reference of the threat to the earth, economic policy analyst Stephen Moore, a regular contributor to the Wall Street Journal and other publications, wrote in late 2016 that,

“The greatest stimulus to the US economy in the past two years has been the steep decline in oil prices… Think about the boon to American consumers… The blessings of low oil prices are doubly felt in the US because we still import hundreds of billions of oil a year. The big losers from low energy prices are Iran, Saudi Arabia, Russia, ISIS and OPEC. Couldn’t happen to a nicer group of people”.

Unmentioned by Moore is that Saudi Arabia has been a major US ally for the past 75 years, continuing with enormous support under president Donald Trump. Indeed Moore himself, a Republican Party member, acted as a key economic adviser to Trump’s presidential campaign. Perhaps it is little wonder that Trump subsequently pulled his country out of the Paris Climate Agreement, another blow to the planet.

With regard coal, a lethal and increasingly defunct fossil fuel, Trump has said in the preceding months,

“We have ended the war on American energy – and we have ended the war on beautiful, clean coal”.

On a separate occasion Trump said that,

“Hillary Clinton wants to put all the miners out of business. There is a thing called clean coal. Coal will last for 1,000 years in this country”.

Should current policies persist, there may not be a United States as we know it in 100 years, let alone a thousand years. After all, burning of coal is the largest contributor to human-engineered carbon dioxide entering the atmosphere; humans’ use of coal has long been a key factor in the ongoing warming of the planet.

It is a strange spectacle witnessing policies being continued that are pushing the human race closer to the cliff’s edge. In Bangladesh, a small country in southern Asia, scientists forecast that up to 25 million of its people will be forced to flee within the next generation. This is due to rising sea levels as a result of melting ice sheets and glaciers, along with other severe weather events. Migrant crises in which tens of millions are expected to depart will be far more serious than the exodus of recent years, which was primarily as a result of people fleeing wars waged or supported by Western governments.

Bangladesh’s chief climatologist Atiq Rahman believes that,

“These migrants should have the right to move to countries from which all these greenhouse gases are coming. Millions should be able to go to the United States”.

Indeed, over nine million Bangladeshis have already left their homeland, departing because of worsening climate change allied to the country’s dismal poverty.

Across the world temperatures are already becoming increasingly intolerable, mostly affecting the poor. In Iraq, the thermometer is this week set to read 120 degrees Fahrenheit (49 Celsius), having previously reached a staggering 129 degrees Fahrenheit (54 Celsius) in the Iraqi city of Basra in 2016. With temperatures to continue breaking records as the years go by, states like Iraq who have suffered so much will become desolate, uninhabitable places.

As the Himalayan glaciers melt, clean water for many in southern Asia is becoming a rarer commodity. This is already a major issue in India, a nuclear weapon state, with tens of millions of the country’s inhabitants having no access to clean drinking water.

Elsewhere, even small and seemingly insignificant countries like Ireland are now bearing a serious global responsibility. Ireland – a rich nation dogged by inequality – has long held company with the worst climate culprits in Europe, and in 2018 has the second worst climate change record among EU states (Poland is last). It is a remarkable fact that Ireland, with a population well under 10 million, produces more carbon emissions than over 5% of the global human population.

John Sweeney, Ireland’s leading climate scientist, writes that

“when it comes to getting our own greenhouse gas emissions in order, it is among the worst laggards in the developed world. We emit more greenhouse gases than the poorest 400 million people on the planet. Almost unique in the EU, Ireland is failing to meet its obligations and is increasing its greenhouse gas emissions”.

Such is the price that countries pay for surrendering to corporate power, as compromised governments act with ongoing impotence.

The general populations of the rich states mostly responsible for unbridled climate change are largely unaware of how serious the problem is. Much of this is due to the gross underreporting of this earth-defining issue. The business-run media, acting under the Orwellian title of “the Free Press”, are irrevocably chained to powerful vested interest groups, as are their governments above them.

The corporate grip upon media would undoubtedly start slipping were serious reporting of climate change (and nuclear weapons) to be undertaken. Instead, as the world burns, the press is largely focused on such issues as “Russian meddling in the US election” – a subject which must have people collapsing in laughter and bewilderment in Latin America, Asia and so on, regions all too familiar with what American interference in domestic affairs truly entails.

In Europe, the unending Brexit negotiations have been regular front page news for about two years. Meanwhile, the far more important topic of climate change either goes unreported, or relegated deep into the inside pages. As a result of their inaction, the mainstream media are contributing to the growing threats facing the earth.

In the US, over half of Americans do not believe “global warming will pose a threat in their lifetime”, according to a Gallup poll from March this year. Yet the reality is that climate change is already posing a serious threat to the American mainland, as seen by the increasingly destructive droughts in California and Nevada – and elsewhere by massive hurricanes battering America in recent years, like Harvey, Sandy and Katrina, inflicting tens of billions of dollars worth of damage.

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Shane Quinn obtained an honors journalism degree. He is interested in writing primarily on foreign affairs, having been inspired by authors like Noam Chomsky. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

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Putin dropped a bomb in the recent Trump/Putin meeting in Helsinki, Finland. Putin charged that an investment fund manager named Bill Browder (a British citizen) took $1.5 billion out of Russia and that he (and others) made the money illegally. On top of that, Putin charged that some U.S. Intelligence Officers helped guide “$400 million as a contribution to the campaign (2016) of Hillary Clinton.” Putin suggested Russian authorities want a deal to talk to Browder. Trump has turned down Putin, but shouldn’t the U.S. ask some questions? Don’t expect the disinformation scam that is the mainstream media (MSM) to ask the hard questions because FOX and MSNBC would only get Browder’s reaction to Trump turning down the Putin request. NOBODY would ask about the $400 million that Putin says was sent via U.S. Intel Officers to the Clinton Campaign. Not asking that question of Browder, when you have him on camera for an interview, is too stupid to be stupid.

The Deep State and their MSM partners are going hysterical because of the meeting with Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin. They are calling Trump a traitor, but they know it’s a fake and phony charge. The real reason for the hysteria is they know that the Deep State is in deep trouble, and they are trying anything they can to discredit him and cast doubt. Trump is not afraid and has announced another meeting with Putin. The Deep State wanted war between the U.S. and Russia, and it looks like peace is breaking out instead. The Deep State, MSM, Democrats and RINO’s are panicked that Russia and America are working together against the New World Order and the Deep State.

Warren Buffett’s bank, Wells Fargo, is in trouble again for ripping off its customers. Why do they keep doing this sort of thing? Could it be the bank needs money anyway it can get it?

Join Greg Hunter as he gives his analysis on the week’s top stories in the Weekly News Wrap-Up.

(This report talks about how the MSM is ignoring a $400 million Putin bomb he dropped on Clinton, the Deep State’s panicked reaction to the Trump/Putin meeting in Finland and more warning signs of trouble for Wells Fargo.)

Update After the Wrap-Up

The plot thickens.  Now, I find that the Russia News Agency TASS has made a correction in the $400 million number Putin used in the Helsinki press conference.    TASS (Russian state sponsored news) has corrected the number to $400 thousand sent to the DNC and Clinton campaign.  I find it hard to believe that Putting had this big of a miss.

It is still illegal for U.S. intel Officers to “guide” money to Clinton campaign and DNC from a foreign national (Browder).  Why aren’t the MSM press talking about this?????

Financial and gold expert Egon von Greyerz will be the guest on the Early Sunday Release. He will talk about the record breaking global financial risk and how it is being ignored.

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Nations rely on taxes – the people pay all the bills. For long-term projects a nation has choices. For example, a government can print money, or print bonds and sell them. At one time savings bonds were a great source of money for governments. Bonds were sold to the people and repaid to the people, with interest. The government could also print bonds, then sell them to a publicly-owned national bank, with the interest repaid to the people through the national bank. The worst option for governments is to print bonds, and sell them to the private banks, with banks getting the interest.

Prior to the 1970’s, if the U.S. or Canadian governments had significant projects to fund, they paid for it from their own resources. If they wanted a new battleship or new bridge, they simply paid for it. The money could be raised from money on hand, or from newly printed money, or borrowed from the federal bank, then repaid with interest to the government. After the mid-1970’s, money for new projects was obtained by selling bonds to banks, which would be repaid with interest. The change was that simple.

The charts below show the result of that change: the United States chart is on the left[1] and Canada on the right[2]. The obvious features are the similarity of the start dates and the similarity of the steep rise in debt.

In both charts national debt from about 1900 is all but flat through the 1940’s, 1950’s, 1960’s, and stays more or less flat until the mid-1970’s. Flat for thirty years, then it soars. The decades when debt did not increase include the 1930’s stimulus spending to end the depression, the huge expenses of the Second World War in the 1940’s and the Korean War in the 1950’s.

Between the years 1954-1960, Canada and the United States built the St. Lawrence Seaway, an expensive undertaking that allowed ships from the Atlantic Ocean to sail inland through the Great Lakes to Chicago and Minnesota. To accomplish this, fifteen locks had to be built to lift ocean ships almost six hundred feet above sea level. Bridges had to be raised, canals deepened and one town moved. When it was completed prairie grain, coal and iron could be shipped directly to Europe. Hydroelectric power was a spin-off that added another $600 million to the cost and rapidly paid for itself.

The total cost was huge for the time: C$470 million ($336.2 million from Canada) which was eventually to be paid for by tolls. By 1978 the Canadian portion had been paid, and in 1986 the U.S. eliminated tolls on their portion. The Canadian government lent the seaway corporation the money repaid as shares (equity). There was no surge in national debt.

In 1969 the U.S. embarked on a program to put a man on the moon, which cost about $25 billion. The U.S. also had the costs of the 19-year Vietnam War from 1956-1975, which cost about $111 billion. Both occurred without a spike in debt. But in the mid 1970’s, with no similar huge expenses, for no apparent reason, debt began to soar.

None of these costly items created debt to compare with whatever occurred in the 1970’s.

A standard rule in finance is to pay for things over the useful life of the project. As I mentioned earlier, paying for a house over twenty or thirty years makes sense for young people. If a business buys a machine to use for ten years, paying for it over more than ten years would be foolish. For projects that will last decades, like harbors or museums or bridges, interest can be amortized over those longer periods, but cost because of interest, soars enormously. Soaring debt in the mid-1970’s was a direct result from governments financing everything by borrowing and paying interest to the banks.

Governments did not have to do that then, and do not have to do that now. Governments are assumed to be the source of money: the US Constitution gives the government the right to ‘coin’ money. It can lend money and can charge interest, but if it lends it to itself, the interest is to be paid to itself.

In the U.S. the escalating national debt has increasingly put pressure on the social contract. For example, social security has moved from being something natural, decent and fair that we once could afford, to an ‘entitlement’ program we cannot now afford. The national debt Is used to threaten health care, Old Age Security, education and all social programs, which have all been redefined as ‘expensive and unaffordable’ in our wealthier modern world. It makes no sense to me.

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Notes

[1] http://www.brillig.com/debt_clock/faq.html

[2] http://sceo.archives.math.ca/edu/edu04/edu04_0171d-eng.htm

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The wing of the Democratic Party that looks for the dollars instead of the votes is called “The Third Way” and it presents itself as representing the supposedly vast political center, nothing “extremist” or “marginal.” But didn’t liberal Republicanism go out when Nelson Rockefeller did? Conservative Democrats are like liberal Republicans — they attract flies and billionaires, but not many votes. And didn’t the Rockefeller drug laws fill our prisons with millions of pathetic drug-users and small drug-dealers but not with the kingpins in either the narcotics business or the bankster rackets (such as had crashed the economy in 2008 — and the Third Way Democrat who had been the exceptional politician and liar that was so slick he actually did attract many votes, President Barack Obama, told the banksters privately, on 27 March 2009, “I’m not out there to go after you. I’m protecting you.” And, he did keep his promise to them, though not to his voters.)

They’re at it, yet again. On July 22nd, NBC News’s Alex Seitz-Wald headlined “Sanders’ wing of the party terrifies moderate Dems. Here’s how they plan to stop it.” And he described what was publicly available from the 3-day private meeting in Columbus Ohio of The Third Way, July 18-20, the planning conference between the Party’s chiefs and its billionaires. Evidently, they hate Bernie Sanders and are already scheming and spending in order to block him, now a second time, from obtaining the Party’s Presidential nomination. “Anxiety has largely been kept to a whisper among the party’s moderates and big donors, with some of the major fundraisers pressing operatives on what can be done to stop the Vermonter if he runs for the White House again.” This passage in Seitz-Wald’s article was especially striking to me:

The gathering here was … an effort to offer an attractive alternative to the rising Sanders-style populist left in the upcoming presidential race. Where progressives see a rare opportunity to capitalize on an energized Democratic base, moderates see a better chance to win over Republicans turned off by Trump.

The fact that a billionaire real estate developer, Winston Fisher, cohosted the event and addressed attendees twice, underscored that this group is not interested in the class warfare vilifying the “millionaires and billionaires” found in Sanders’ stump speech.

“You’re not going to make me hate somebody just because they’re rich. I want to be rich!” Rep. Tim Ryan, D-Ohio, a potential presidential candidate, said Friday to laughs.

I would reply to congressman Ryan’s remark: If you want to be rich, then get the hell out of politics! Don’t run for President! I don’t want you there! And that’s no joke!

Anyone who doesn’t recognize that an inevitable trade-off exists between serving the public and serving oneself, is a libertarian — an Ayn Rander, in fact — and there aren’t many of those in the Democratic Party, but plenty of them are in the Republican Party.

Just as a clergyman in some faiths is supposed to take a vow of chastity, and in some faiths also to take a vow of poverty, in order to serve “the calling” instead of oneself, anyone who enters ‘public service’ and who aspires to “be rich” is inevitably inviting corruption — not prepared to do war against it. That kind of politician is a Manchurian candidate, like Obama perhaps, but certainly not what this or any country needs, in any case. Voters like that can be won only by means of deceit, which is the way that politicians like that do win.

No decent political leader enters or stays in politics in order to “be rich,” because no political leader can be decent who isn’t in it as a calling, to public service, and as a repudiation, of any self-service in politics.

Republican Party voters invite corrupt government, because their Party’s ideology is committed to it (“Freedom [for the rich]!”); but the only Democratic Party voters who at all tolerate corrupt politicians (such as Governor Andrew Cuomo in New York State) are actually Republican Democrats — people who are confused enough so as not really to care much about what they believe; whatever their garbage happens to be, they believe in it and don’t want to know differently than it.

The Third Way is hoping that there are enough of such ‘Democrats’ so that they can, yet again, end up with a Third Way Democrat being offered to that Party’s voters in 2020, just like happened in 2016. They want another Barack Obama. There aren’t any more of those (unless, perhaps, Michelle Obama enters the contest). But, even if there were: How many Democrats would fall for that scam, yet again — after the disaster of 2016?

Maybe the Third Way is right, and there’s a sucker born every minute. But if that’s what the Democratic Party is going to rely upon, then America’s stunningly low voter-participation rate is set to plunge even lower, because even more voters than before will either be leaving the Presidential line blank, or even perhaps voting for the Republican candidate (as some felt driven to do in 2016).

The Third Way is the way to the death of democracy, if it’s not already dead. It is no answer to anything, except to the desires of billionaires — both Republican and Democratic.

The center of American politics isn’t the center of America’s aristocracy. The goal of groups such as The Third Way is to fool the American public to equate the two. The result of such groups is the contempt that America’s public have for America’s Government. But, pushed too far, mass disillusionment becomes revolution. Is that what America’s billionaires are willing to risk? They might get it.

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Investigative historian Eric Zuesse is the author, most recently, of  They’re Not Even Close: The Democratic vs. Republican Economic Records, 1910-2010, and of  CHRIST’S VENTRILOQUISTS: The Event that Created Christianity. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

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This short communiqué is to my friends who are trapped in hating Donald Trump so much that any “alternative fact” (as long as it is against President Trump) is virtue to them. They are not realizing that the feud among the 1%, regardless of their Party affiliation is a family feud. The extreme right wing politicians and billionaires run both the Democratic and Republican parties. Their arguments are not about our state of healthcare, education or jobs. 

Friends who are dissatisfied with the current political situation (instead of organizing against the reactionary policies of the current administration or question the congress for approving the Tax Cut for the rich) are competing in posting the Democratic Party hysteria against Russia on the social media. They are distracted by the false narrative that “American Democracy” is under “attack” by one man in Russia, President Putin who has Mr. Trump in his “pocket”.

Those who believe such an absurd storyline rely on the U.S. Intelligence agencies reports and findings! These are the same agencies that informed Americans that Saddam Hussein had Weapons of Mass Destruction. They are the same people who justified war against Iraq in 2003 which opened the gates of hell in that region for decades. Now, after they had succeeded in blowing up people and countries in the Middle East on false information, the ladies and gentlemen of the U.S. intelligence agencies have found a new bogeyman to scare the American people. This is just another DISTRACTION, period.

The fascistic minded President of the U.S. is not in anybody’s pocket. As a matter of fact, today it is the political pocket pickers in Washington who are robbing the American working people and holding us as hostages. When was the last time that you saw the White House or Congress address the working people’s real needs and problems? Some friends are mesmerized by the nastiness of the 1% cultural values. However exposing Mr. Trump sexual affair with a “Porn Star” will not help the American people’s struggle for the Minimum Wage or Protecting Environment, Immigration and so on. This is just another DISTRACTION.

Under bright light, President Trump and his opponents play out their childish, embarrassing show against each other in front of the corrupt media, while in the shadow of DISTRACTION they are limiting our FREEDOM OF SPEECH and taking away our democratic rights. Both parties are afraid of the energy and determination of workers, farmers, women and youth which eventually could challenge the entire existing miserable system. Historically, they are well aware of the potential of revolt by people who are organized and conscious. The ladies and gentlemen in charge of the U.S. foreign and domestic policy are incapable of solving our social or political problems; the only thing they are good at is to create decoys and DISTRACTION. The gossip shows on the corporate media are blindfolding us to see the slaughters in Gaza or Yemen or the devastating consequences of the Trump administration Trade War drive against the EU and China¹ on American farmers and workers.

Independent and democratic minded people SHOULD NOT take any side between the different factions of the 1%. We should not allow the 1% use us as their pawns to propagate their hate and disunity among people.

The White House and Congress are obsolete. Independent and democratic minded people should UNITE, ORGANIZE and seek a new operating system – a system that puts people’s need over profit.

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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.

Note

1. www.globalresearch.ca/imagine-what-would-happen-if-china-decided-to-impose-economic-sanctions-on-the-usa-2/5598941

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Featured image: President Donald J. Trump and President Vladimir Putin of the Russian Federation | July 16, 2018 (Official White House Photo by Shealah Craighead)

It’s been nearly a week since Trump sold America’s birthright to Comrade Putin, making the once-great United States a Russian colony as payment for a dozen Russian hackers’ efforts in winning him the presidency. Six days we have had nothing to eat but borscht and sadness, while our former president, clad in nothing but a spiked collar and chaps, is paraded around on a leash from press conference to press conference, barking like a dog.

That was the story in the establishment media, at least, which offered the American people five days of unprecedented hysteria, flinging around terms like “treason” as they frantically tortured their thesauruses to the brink of death trying to impress upon the people the urgency of the situation. After flogging the “treason” narrative to within an inch of its life, with nothing to show for it but strained vocal cords and declining ratings, they abruptly switched gears, returning to the well-worn territory of what Hillary Clinton used to call “bimbo eruptions” – a recording from Trump’s lawyer involving payments to a Playboy Playmate to keep quiet about her past assignations with the commander-in-chief.

The Helsinki hysteria shone a spotlight on the utter impotence of the establishment media and their Deep State controllers to make their delusions reality. Never before has there been such a gaping chasm visible between the media’s “truth” and the facts on the ground. Pundits compared the summit to Pearl Harbor and 9/11, with some even reaching for the brass ring of the Holocaust by likening it to Kristallnacht, while polls revealed the American people really didn’t care. 

Worse, it laid bare the collusion between the media and their Deep State handlers – the central dissemination point for the headlines, down to the same phrases, that led to every outlet claiming Trump had “thrown the Intelligence Community under the bus” by refusing to embrace the Russia-hacked-our-democracy narrative during his press conference with Putin. Leaving aside the sudden ubiquity of “Intelligence Community” in our national discourse – as if this network of spies and murderous thugs is Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood – no one seriously believes every pundit came up with “throws under the bus” as the proper way of describing that press conference.

The same central control was apparent in the unanimous condemnations of Putin – that he murders journalists, breaks international agreements, uses banned chemical weapons, kills women and children in Syria, and, of course, meddles in elections. For every single establishment pundit to exhibit such a breathtaking lack of insight into their own government’s misdeeds is highly unlikely. Many of these same talking heads remarked in horror on Sinclair Broadcasting’s Orwellian “prepared statement” issuing forth from the mouths of hundreds of stations’ anchors at once. Et tu, Anderson Cooper?

The media frenzy was geared toward sparking a popular revolt, with tensions already running high from the previous media frenzy about family separation at the border (though only one MSNBC segment seemed to recall that they should still care about that, and belatedly included some footage of kids behind a fence wrapped in Mylar blankets). Rachel Maddow, armed with the crocodile tears that served her so well during the family-separation fracas, exhorted her faithful cultists to do something. Meanwhile, national-security neanderthal John Brennan all but called for a coup, condemning the president for the unspeakable “high crimes and misdemeanors” of seeking to improve relations with the world’s second-largest nuclear power. He called on Pompeo and Bolton, the two biggest warmongers in a Trump administration bristling with warmongers, to resign in protest. This would have been a grand slam for world peace, but alas, it was not to be. Even those two realize what a has-been Brennan is. 

Congress wasted no time jumping on the Treason bandwagon, led by Chuck Schumer conjuring the spectre of the KGB, Marco Rubio as neocon point-man (one imagines Barbara Bush rolling in her grave at his usurpation of Jeb’s rightful role) proposing locked-and-loaded sanctions in case of future “meddling,” and John McCain, still desperate to take the rest of the world with him before he finally kicks a long-overdue bucket, condemning the “disgraceful” display of two heads of state trying to come to an agreement about matters of mutual interest. The Pentagon has invested a lot of time and money in positioning Russia as Public Enemy #1, and for Trump to put his foot in it by making nice with Putin might diminish the size of their weapons contracts – or the willingness of the American people to tolerate more than half of every tax dollar disappearing down an unaccountable hole. Peace? Eh, who needs it. Cash, motherfucker.

Trump’s grip on his long-elusive spine was only temporary, and he held another press conference upon returning home to reiterate his trust in the intelligence agencies that have made no secret of their utter loathing for him since day one. When the lights went out at the climactic moment, it became clear for anyone who still hadn’t gotten the message who was running the show here (and Trump, to his credit, actually joked about it). The Intelligence Community believes it is God, and it hath smote Trump good. Smelling blood in the water, the media redoubled their shrieking for several days, and…crickets. On to the Playmates. 

Sacha Baron Cohen’s latest series, “Who is America,” targeted Ted Koppel for one segment. Koppel cut the interview short after smelling a rat and expressed his high-minded concern that Cohen’s antics would hurt Americans’ trust in reporters. But after a week of the entire media establishment screaming that the sky is falling while the heavens remain firmly in place, Cohen is clearly the least of their problems. At least he’s funny. 

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Helen Buyniski is a journalist and photographer based in New York City. She covers politics, sociology, and other anthropological/cultural phenomena. Helen has a BA in Journalism from New School University and also studied at Columbia University and New York University. Find more of her work at http://www.helenofdestroy.com and http://medium.com/@helen.buyniski.

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The Mueller special counsel investigation was launched to probe charges that the key FBI officials developing evidence in the case thought were baseless.  That’s a bombshell accusation that appears to have been confirmed by former FBI lawyer Lisa Page, according to John Solomon.  It tends to confirm the suspicion that the Mueller probe is a cover-up operation to obscure the criminal use of counterintelligence capabilities to spy on a rival presidential campaign and then sabotage the presidency that resulted.

Earlier reports indicated that Page has been answering questions from the House Judiciary Committee quite frankly and may even have cut a deal selling out her ex-lover Peter Strzok over their professional misbehavior (and quite possibly worse) in targeting the campaign and presidency of Donald Trump with the intelligence-gathering tools of the FBI.

Last night, John Solomon of The Hill revealed that he has obtained information from sources who heard Page’s testimony in two days of sworn depositions behind closed doors that she offered a bombshell confirmation of the meaning of one of the most enigmatic text messages that the public has seen (keep in mind that there are many yet to be released).

Writing in The Hill, Solomon explains:

 [T]here are just five words, among the thousands of suggestive texts Page and Strzok exchanged, that you should read.

That passage was transmitted on May 19, 2017.  “There’s no big there there,” Strzok texted.

The date of the text long has intrigued investigators: It is two days after Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein named special counsel Robert Mueller to oversee an investigation into alleged collusion between Trump and the Russia campaign.

Since the text was turned over to Congress, investigators wondered whether it referred to the evidence against the Trump campaign.

This month, they finally got the chance to ask. Strzok declined to say – but Page, during a closed-door interview with lawmakers, confirmed in the most pained and contorted way that the message in fact referred to the quality of the Russia case, according to multiple eyewitnesses.

The admission is deeply consequential.  It means Rosenstein unleashed the most awesome powers of a special counsel to investigate an allegation that the key FBI officials, driving the investigation for 10 months beforehand, did not think was “there.”

The truth behind the Mueller probe is looking uglier and uglier.  Pursuing bogus accusations without foundation is the very definition of a witch hunt – President Trump’s term for Mueller’s team of Hillary-supporters.

We don’t know anything at all about the activities of Utah U.S. attorney Peter Huber, who is investigating the potential abuse of U.S. intelligence apparatus for political purposes.  That is the proper procedure for grand jury probes.  But if Lisa Page is honestly answering questions under oath for a congressional committee, she probably is doing so in grand jury sessions, if summoned.

The glacial pace of this probe is frustrating for Trump-supporters.  But doing it right and observing the ethical and legal constraints takes time and does not generate leaks.  Nevertheless, I am deeply encouraged by this leak to Solomon, as it seems to indicate that the truth will come out.

Appearing on Hannity last night, Solomon elaborated: watch video here.

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Private citizen Trump was a geopolitical know-nothing. As president, he only knows what’s fed him by hard-right regime handlers and advisers, congressional leaders, and Fox News – his favorite source for (dis)information.

Pre-election and now, he knows little or nothing about Iran other than what he’s told, including by Netanyahu, wanting regime change. 

He’s ignorant about a nation dedicated to protecting and preserving its sovereign independence, deploring nuclear weapons, wanting them eliminated, advocating world peace and stability, and opposing US imperial rampaging.

Trump’s regime change plot against the Islamic Republic perhaps began straightaway after assuming office.

Demonizing a nation and its leadership as an existential threat precedes all US wars and color revolutions for regime change – supported by media scoundrels instead of responsibly denouncing the scheme.

Trump’s campaign against Iran began with hostile rhetoric. In March 2016, ahead of announcing his candidacy for president in June, he said his “number-one priority (was) to dismantle the disastrous (nuclear) deal with Iran.”

He lied saying Obama negotiated the deal “from desperation.” He lied claiming “we’re giving them billions of dollars in this deal, which we shouldn’t have given them. We should have kept the money.”

He lied saying when JCPOA provisions sunset, “Iran will have an industrial-size military nuclear capability ready to go.” He lied claiming the deal lets Iran go nuclear.

In Riyadh last year, he recited a litany of Big Lies about Iran, falsely claiming its leadership “funds arms and trains terrorists, militias, and other extremist groups that spread destruction and chaos across the region,” adding:

“For decades, Iran has fueled the fires of sectarian conflict and terror. It is a government that speaks openly of mass murder, vowing the destruction of Israel, death to America, and ruin for many leaders and nations in this very room.”

All of the above and other hostile comments on Iran are polar opposite hard truths about the country and its leadership.

Trump regime destabilization tactics followed hostile rhetoric toward the Islamic Republic. In January, 2018, made in the USA and Israel protests erupted in Tehran and other Iranian cities.

They didn’t happen spontaneously. They were manufactured needing leadership. Color revolutions are a US specialty, numerous ones staged earlier.

Some succeeded. Others failed, including the 2009 green revolution attempt for regime change in Iran.

Staged protests in the country last January followed a Trump/Netanyahu agreement to confront Iran’s leadership, wanting pro-Western puppet rule replacing it – what color revolution attempts are all about.

Last January’s plot fizzled in days. In June, staged protests erupted again – much weaker than earlier. At the time, Pompeo tweeted:

“#Iran’s corrupt regime is wasting the country’s resources on Assad, Hizbollah, Hamas & Houthis, while Iranians struggle.”

“It should surprise no one #IranProtests continue. People are tired of the corruption, injustice & incompetence of their leaders. The world hears their voice.”

Failure of the Obama regime to deliver on JCPOA promises contributed to Iran’s economic woes, exacerbated under Trump’s hardline agenda toward the Islamic Republic, aiming for regime change.

National Iranian American Council founder president Trita Parsi called John Bolton’s appointment as national security advisor “a declaration of war (on) Iran.”

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo called for imposing “the strongest sanctions in history” on the country if it fails to comply with outrageous US demands no responsible leadership anywhere would accept.

Trump’s May 2018 JCPOA pullout appeared part of a regime change plot against the country.

Nuclear related sanctions will be reimposed on August 4. Other JCPOA-related sanctions will be reimposed on November 6 – targeting Tehran’s energy sector, petroleum related products, and central bank transactions.

The Trump regime’s plot aims to isolate Iran politically and economically, notably attempting to block its oil sales, access to hard currencies and foreign investments, along with imposing harsh sanctions and overall financial hardships on the country – part of a regime change plot.

A State Department announcement said

“Pompeo will deliver remarks at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and Center for Public Affairs in Simi Valley, California, on Sunday, July 22…”

His “remarks on ‘Supporting Iranian Voices’ will be delivered as part of a visit with members of the Iranian-American community in the United States.”

His address launches another Trump regime campaign to stoke unrest in Iran, aiming to topple its government.

According to National Iranian American Council research director Reza Marashi, Pompeo’s Sunday address has nothing to do with promoting democracy in in the country, everything to do with wanting pro-Western puppet rule replacing its sovereign independence.

The plot is familiar. It played out many times before. Iran is resilient. It withstood nearly 40 years of US efforts to topple its government.

A US/Israeli joint working group was formed to encourage destabilizing protests in Iran, a likely softening up process for tougher regime change tactics to follow.

A so-called “white paper” circulated among Trump’s National Security Council officials. It reportedly discusses a strategy for toppling Islamic Republic governance – aiming for driving “a deeper wedge between the Iranian people and the ruling” authorities.

Earlier regime change plots failed. Iran’s leadership knows what it’s up against. On Sunday, President Hassan Rouhani slammed US plotters, saying:

“The Americans should learn very well that peace with Iran is the mother of all peace and war with Iran is the mother of all wars,” adding:

“Iran’s strategic depth reaches the (Indian) subcontinent to the east, and the Mediterranean to the west, the Red Sea to the south, and the Caucasus to the north.”

“We rooted Daesh out and saved the people in the region. We take pride in ourselves.”

He praised Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) for protecting the country against enemy plots.

Iran is a formidable adversary if attacked. Another US color revolution attempt won’t like fare better than earlier ones.

War if launched by the Trump regime, perhaps with Israeli involvement, would be disastrous for the region.

Rouhani warned Trump, saying

“(w)e will not accept threats. (They’ll bring us closer. Don’t twist the lion’s tail. You will regret it.”

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

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The last few days have been truly amazing. I didn’t even write an article yesterday; I’ve just been staring transfixed by my social media feeds watching liberal Americans completely lose their minds. I can’t look away. It’s like watching a slow motion train wreck, and everyone on the train is being really homophobic.

I’ve been writing about Russiagate since it started, and I can honestly say this is the worst it’s ever been, by far. The most hysterical, the most shrill, the most emotional, the most cartoonishly over-the-top and hyperbolic. The fact that Trump met with Putin in private and then publicly expressed doubt about the establishment Russia narrative has sent some political factions of America into an emotional state that is indistinguishable from what you’d expect if Russia had bombed New York City. This despite the fact that the establishment Russia narrative consists of no actual, visible events whatsoever. It is made of pure narrative.

I don’t think the US media has ever been nuttier than they are right now. It would be comical if it wasn’t so dangerous. They are harming the national psyche in a profound way

— Michael Tracey (@mtracey) July 18, 2018

I don’t even know where to start. Everyone has been completely mad across the entire spectrum of what passes for America’s political “left” today, from the usual suspects like Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi and their indistinguishable Never-Trump Republican allies, all the way to supposedly progressive commentators like Cenk Uygur and Shaun King. Comparing this pure narrative non-event to Pearl Harbor is now commonplace and mainstream. I just watched a United States Senator named Richard Blumenthal stare right into the camera refer to the hypothetical possibility of future Russian cyber intrusions as “this 9/11 moment.”

“We are in a 9/11 national emergency because our country is under attack, literally,” Blumenthal told CNN while demanding a record of Trump’s meeting with Putin at the Helsinki summit. “That attack is ongoing and pervasive, verified by objective and verifiable evidence. Those words are, again, from the director of National Security. And this 9/11 moment demands that we do come together.”

Nothing about the establishment Russia narrative is in any way verifiable, and the only thing it has in common with 9/11 is the media coverage and widespread emotional response.

September 11 had actual video footage of falling towers. You could go visit New York City, look at the spot where those towers used to be, and see them not being there anymore. You could learn the names of the people who died and visit their graves and talk to their family members. Exactly how it happened is a matter of some debate in many circles, but there is no question that it happened. There was an actual event that did happen in the real world, completely independent of any stories people tell about that event.

Russiagate is like 9/11, but with none of those things. It’s like if 9/11 had all the same widespread emotional responses, all the same nonstop mass media coverage, all the same punditry screaming war, war, war, except no actual event occurred. The towers were still there, everyone was still alive, and nothing actually happened apart from the narrative and the emotional responses to that narrative.

Russiagate is 9/11 minus 9/11.

This is what I’m talking about when I say that whoever controls the narrative controls the world. Whoever controls the stories that westerners are telling each other has the power to advance concrete agendas which reshape global geopolitics without any actual thing even happening. Simply by getting a few hand-picked intelligence agents to say something happened in a relatively confident way, you can get the entire media and political body advancing that narrative as unquestionable fact, and from there advance sanctions, new military operations, a far more aggressive Nuclear Posture Review, the casting out of diplomats, the arming of Ukraine, and ultimately shove Russia further and further off the world stage.

As we discussed last time, the current administration has actually been far more aggressive against Russia than the previous administration was, and has worked against Russian interests to a far greater extent. If they wanted to, the international alliance of plutocrats and intelligence/defense agencies could just as easily use their near-total control of the narrative to advance the story that Trump is a dangerous Russia hawk who is imperiling the entire world by inflicting insane escalations against a nuclear superpower. They could elicit the exact same panicked emotional response that they are eliciting right now using the exact same media and the exact same factual situation. They wouldn’t have to change a single thing except where they place their emphasis in telling the story. The known facts would all remain exactly as they are; all that would have to change is the narrative.

Public support for Russiagate depends on the fact that most people don’t recognize how pervasively their day-to-day experience is dominated by narrative. If you are intellectually honest with yourself, you will acknowledge that you think about Russia a lot more now than you did in 2015. Russia hasn’t changed any since 2015; all that has changed is the narrative that is being told about it. And yet now the mass media and a huge chunk of rank-and-file America now view it as a major threat and think about it constantly. All they had to do was talk about Russia constantly in a fearful and urgent way, and now US liberals are convinced that Vladimir Putin is an omnipotent world-dominating supervillain who has infiltrated the highest levels of the US government.

If humanity is to pull up and away from its current path toward either ecological disaster, nuclear armageddon or Orwellian dystopia, we are necessarily going to have to change our relationship with narrative. As long as the way we think, vote and organize can be controlled by the mere verbiage of the servants of power, our species will never be able to begin operating in a sane and wholesome way. If all it takes to make us act against our own interest is a few establishment lackeys speaking a few words in a confident tone of voice, if mere authoritative language can hypnotize us like a sorcerer casting spells, we are doomed to slavery and destruction.

So stop staring transfixed by the narratives, and begin looking at the behavior and motives of the people advancing them instead. Stop staring at the movie screen they’re constantly drawing your attention to, turn around in your theater seat, and look at the people who are running the projector. The way out of this mess is to begin ignoring the stories we’re being hypnotized with and start critically examining the people who are conducting the hypnosis. Ignore the stories and stare with piercing eyes at the storytellers. The difference between the official narrative and the actual reality of this world is the difference between fiction and fact. Evolve beyond.

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Caitlin Johnstone is a rogue journalist. Bogan socialist. Anarcho-psychonaut. Guerilla poet. Utopia prepper.

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Featured image: President Donald J. Trump and President Vladimir Putin of the Russian Federation hold a joint press conference | July 16, 2018 (Official White House Photo by Andrea Hanks)

Comedy?  Disaster?  Mental disorder?  Hearing loss?

Even days after President Donald Trump’s bizarre appearance in Helsinki alongside a cool, composed President Vladimir Putin, it’s hard to tell what happened.  But it certainly was entertaining.

In case anyone in the universe missed this event, let me recap.  Trump met in private with Putin, which drove bureaucrats on both sides crazy.  So far, Trump won’t reveal most of what was said between the two leaders.

But after the presidential meeting, Trump replied to reporter’s questions by saying he believed Russia had no role in attempts to bug the Democratic Party during the election.  Outrage erupted across the US.  ‘Trump trusts the Russians more than his own intelligence agencies’ went up the howl.  Trump is a traitor, charged certain of the wilder Democrats and neocon Republicans.  Few Americans wanted to hear the truth.

In fact, so intense was the outrage at home that Trump had to backtrack and claim he had misspoken.  Yes, he admitted, the Russians had meddled in the US election.  But then he seemed to back away again from this claim.

The whole thing was black comedy.  Maybe it was due to Trump’s poor hearing or to jet lag and travel fatigue.

Hillary Clinton did not lose the election due to Russian conniving.  She lost it because so many Americans disliked and mistrusted her.  When the truth about her rigging of the Democratic primary emerged, she deftly diverted attention by claiming the Russians had rigged the election.  What chutzpah (nerve).

Yet many Americans swallowed this canard.  If Russia’s GRU military intelligence was really involved in the run-up to the election, as US intelligence reportedly claimed, it’s alleged buying of social media amounted to peanuts and hardly swung the election.

Back in the 1940’s, GRU managed to penetrate and influence Roosevelt’s White House.  Now that’s real espionage.  Not some junior officers and 20-somethings on a laptop in Moscow.

Besides, compared to US meddling in foreign politics, whatever the Ruskis did in the US was small potatoes.  Prying into US political and military secrets is precisely what Russian intelligence was supposed to do.  Particularly when the US Democratic Party was pushing a highly aggressive policy towards Russia that might lead to war.

For the US to accuse Russia of meddling is the ultimate pot calling the kettle black. The neocon former US Assistant Secretary of State, Victoria Nuland, admitted her organization had spent $5 billion to overthrow Ukraine’s pro-Russian government.  US undercover political and financial operations have recently been active in Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Yemen, Somalia, Uganda, Ethiopia, Egypt and Sudan, to name but a few nations.

Democrats and Republican neocons are in full-throat hysteria over an alleged Russian threat – Russia, whose total military budget is smaller than Trump’s recent Pentagon budget increase this year.

What we have been seeing is the fascinating spectacle of America’s war party and neocons clamoring to oust President Trump.  Included in their ranks are most of the US media, led by the NY Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal and TV’s war parties, CNN and NBC.

It’s also clear that Trump’s most ardent foes are the big US intelligence agencies whose mammoth $78 billion combined budget exceeds total Russian military spending.  The bloated US intelligence industry fears that Trump may slash its budgets, power and perks.

The uproar over Putin has revealed just how fanatic and far to the right were the heads of the US national security state operating under the sugarcoating of the Obama administration.  Straight out of the wonderful film, ‘Dr. Strangelove.’  We now see them on CNN, snarling away at President Trump.

Speaking of far right generals, one is also reminded of the brilliant film, `Seven Days in May,’ in which a cabal of generals tries to overthrow the president because of a peace deal he made with Moscow.  Could there be a real plot against the president?  Watching US TV one might think so.

Now, completing the childish ‘Reds Under Our Beds’ hysteria comes the final touch, the evil Russian temptress-spy who managed to infiltrate the National Prayer Breakfast, of all silly things.  This dangerous Jezebel is now in the hands of the FBI.  If this is the best KGB or GRU can come up with they need urgent help from Congolese intelligence.

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The Israeli Knesset voted 62 to 55 early today, Thursday, 19 July 2018, to approve the Jewish Nation-State Basic Law that constitutionally enshrines the identity of the State of Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people.

This law guarantees the ethnic-religious character of Israel as exclusively Jewish and entrenches the privileges enjoyed by Jewish citizens, while simultaneously anchoring discrimination against Palestinian citizens and legitimizing exclusion, racism, and systemic inequality.

The Jewish Nation-State Basic Law is the “law of laws” capable of overriding any ordinary legislation.

The law will apply to areas known as the “Green Line”, where nearly twenty percent of the population are Palestinian citizens of Israel, as well as to territories occupied in 1967 such as Jerusalem and the Golan Heights, which were annexed to the territory of the State of Israel by law. This annexation is considered illegal under international law.

Adalah General Director Hassan Jabareen responded to the Israeli parliament’s vote to approve the Nation-State Law:

“The Jewish Nation-State Law features key elements of apartheid, which is not only immoral but also absolutely prohibited under international law. The new law constitutionally enshrines the identity of Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people only – despite the 1.5 million Palestinian citizens of the state and residents of East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights – and guarantees the exclusive ethnic-religious character of Israel as Jewish. By defining sovereignty and democratic self-rule as belonging solely to the Jewish people – wherever they live around the world –  Israel has made discrimination a constitutional value and has professed its commitment to favoring Jewish supremacy as the bedrock of its institutions.”

The Nation-State Basic Law declares that Israel is a Jewish state – only. The law provides that,

“The Land of Israel is the historical homeland of the Jewish people, in which the State of Israel was established” and that “the State of Israel is the nation-state of the Jewish people”.

The “people” here are not limited to “Israeli Jews” nor is it defined in terms of the “state of all citizens”, but rather it includes the “Jewish people” wherever they are in the world. Palestinian citizens of Israel, who compromise 20% of the population, are totally excluded.

The Nation-State Basic Law, which has constitutional status, is anti-democratic: The law negates the main purpose behind the introduction of a democratic constitution according to which residents living in a given territory are equal citizens and constitute the sovereign.

The Basic Law provides that self-determination will be exclusive to Jews. The law stands to justify the difference between the realization of basic rights between Jews and non-Jews as a legitimate distinction and not as an invalid discrimination.

The Nation-State Basic Law establishes discrimination as a constitutional value: It determines the national interest in accordance with the collective Zionist interests, which serve to justify the exclusion of the rights of the Arab population. Despite the bi-national reality, the law promotes exclusive, ethnic discrimination. National projects that seek to Judaize spaces, encourage Jewish settlement, and create demographic balances become worthy causes that justify discrimination against Arabs on the level of individual and collective rights.

Oppression and control are expressed in two main aspects of the law: First, the law imposes a constitutional identity on the Arabs without their consent. Second, the law creates a situation in which the Arabs participate, under coercion, in promoting the discrimination against them. While they bear equal tax obligations as citizens/residents, the Basic Law’s alignment of national interests with the exclusive interests of the Jewish population, results in forcing the Arab population to contribute, subsidize and promote those national projects that negate their identity and status.

What is new in the Basic Law that differs from existing practice? The policy of discrimination and oppression against Palestinians has existed since 1948, according to principles based on the supremacy of the Jewish population that support the Judaization of the space and the demographic dilution of the Palestinian population. However, there is a difference between racism and racist practices and this new Basic Law that requires, as a constitutional mandate, racist acts.

The Nation-State Law violates absolute prohibitions under international law: The Basic Law suspends the two systems of law that are perceived as legitimate under international law:. The first system is the state’s domestic legal system, which should be based on equality before the law and the rule of law. The second system is that of international humanitarian law (IHL), which is applicable to an occupied territory.

A colonial regime is expressed in this Basic Law by the imposition of a constitutional identity of Jewish ethnic supremacy and control, without consent and cooperation, which denies the connection between the Palestinian natives (citizens and residents) with their homeland. This colonial regime is the kind that falls within the bounds of absolute prohibitions under the International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid (“the Apartheid Convention”), which proclaims practices of apartheid, including legislation, as a crime against humanity.

The Nation-State Basic Law is illegitimate. It seeks to maintain a regime in which one ethnic-national group controls an indigenous-national group living in the same territory while advancing ethnic superiority by promoting racist policies in the most basic aspects of life.

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Featured image is from silkroadgazette.com.

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Everyone knows U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East has more to do with destabilization than diplomacy. Whether arming terror states like Israel and Saudi Arabia or flattening entire countries like Libya and Iraq, American intervention is pretty much always a humanitarian disaster. At times, this policy has even included arming ISIS — the very terror group Washington claims to oppose.

The reason for this help is that ISIS assists U.S. foreign policy goals. It is no secret that the U.S. has tried to overthrow the democratically elected Syrian government for years. To further their goals, the U.S. regime has more or less aligned with just about every terrorist group short of ISIS publicly, including Jahbat al-Nusra.

Yet at times this alliance has extended past terror groups fighting under the Free Syrian Army banner. In many situations, the U.S. has seemingly supported ISIS. Whether these instances are mere coincidence or represent a pattern of support is up to you to decide. Below are five strongest instances of the U.S. helping ISIS and other terrorist groups.

1. Fighting as ISIS’s Air Force

There are several instances of the United States providing air support to terrorist groups like ISIS but none quite as obvious — and dire — as Deir Ez Zor in 2016.

In September 2016, the humanitarian situation in the Syrian city of Deir Ez Zor was dire: the largest city in eastern Syria was completely besieged by ISIS fighters. Syrian civilians and soldiers alike were completely dependent upon airlifted supplies to survive. Then, on September 17, U.S. warplanes led British, Danish, and Australian jets on a series of airstrikes against the city’s defenders, the Syrian Arab Army. The air raids lasted about an hour and decimated crucial Syrian Army positions on the mountains that overlook Deir Ez Zor airport. Syrian President Bashar al-Assad said the airstrikes killed at least sixty-two Syrian soldiers and injured over 100 more.

Immediately following the airstrikes, ISIS fighters attacked the weakened Syrian troops defending the critical mountains. ISIS ultimately overran positions on the mountains threatening both the airbase and the cities roughly 200,000 residents. These particular airstrikes occurred during a ceasefire between “rebel” and Syrian Arab Army forces. After the strikes, the ceasefire quickly fell apart.

While the U.S. claims the airstrikes were intended to strike ISIS fighters, Russia and Syria see the situation differently. Vitaly Churkin, Russia’s U.N. ambassador said “It is highly suspicious that the US chose to conduct this particular air strike at this time,” adding that the strikes killing Syrian soldiers did not look like a mistake. Syrian President Bashar Assad went so far as to say that the U.S. airstrikes intentionally targeted the Syrian Army.

2. Granting Safe Passage to ISIS through a Secret Deal

Speaking of ISIS’s siege of Deir Ez-Zor, ISIS fighters were again bolstered there by the now infamous “Raqqa Deal:” a secret agreement between the U.S.-backed Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and ISIS.

Encircled ISIS fighters were transported via trucks through SDF territory to other parts of the country — including Deir Ez-Zor. ISIS fighters left the area with their weapons and “families” including captured sex slaves and children.

While the U.S. and Kurds intended to keep the deal secret for obvious reasons, news quickly broke when disgruntled truck drivers talked to the press. Since they were hired under false pretenses, the truck drivers were quite surprised to discover that their cargo included heavily armed terrorists laden with suicide belts.

According to the U.S. coalition, the SDF granted safe passage out of Raqqa to only 250 ISIS terrorists but this number is more likely than not a boldface lie. Talal Silo, a former commander in the Syrian Democratic Forces, says roughly 4,000 ISIS fighters were bussed out of the city with their families and weapons. Silo also claims that U.S. officials made the decision in consultation with the SDF — contradicting the U.S. narrative that local SDF commanders forced it upon the U.S.

3. Supplying Sophisticated Anti-tank Weapons to Terrorist Groups

Of all the weapons in ISIS’s arsenal, perhaps none are more devastating than U.S.-made TOW launchers. These laser-guided anti-tank missiles make it extremely difficult to secure terrorist-controlled areas because they partially negate the big advantage that tanks and armored vehicles provide forces fighting underequipped terrorists. In 2015, an ISIS propaganda video even featured one such TOW launcher destroying a modern Russian Tank.

According to a 2014 Washington Post article, the U.S. provided many of these launchers to the self-described “moderate” rebel groups like Harakat Hazm (or Movement of Steadfastness) which later joined hardline extremist Levant Front. In the case of Harakat Hazm, the group joined the extremist Levant Front just a year after receiving the U.S. TOW launchers. The Levant Front is a broad coalition consisting not of ISIS fighters per se, but still containing fighters under the banner of numerous terrorist organizations within its ranks.

4. (Likely) Arming Terrorists with Surface-to-Air Weapons

One of the most devastating weapons available to ISIS and ISIS adjacent forces are MANPADS: shoulder fired anti-aircraft rocket launchers.

Ample video evidence displays fighters of every rebel group from ISIS to al-Qaeda in Syria using such weapons to devastating effect. One video even shows ISIS fighters with U.S.-made Javelin rocket launchers. While it is possible these weapons were simply captured, some evidence points to the weapons being supplied by the U.S.

Many foreign policy experts suggest that the U.S. and its allies have quietly supplied these devastating anti-aircraft weapons to Syrian “rebels.” Such an operation would be relatively easy to cover up as the U.S. has a large amount of Soviet made MANPADS looted from Iraq and Libya.

Fueling suspicions even more, in 2016, the U.S. Congress granted the president legal authority to supply these devastating weapons to “moderate” Syrian rebels. Seeing as how “moderate” rebels has previously included groups such as al-Nusra and al- Qaeda, this new legal authority represents a major escalation.

Since the bill passed, there has been two high profile cases of jihadist forces using MANPADS to shoot down fighter jets.  RT and other non-western news sources have suggested that the MANPADS used in the attacks originated from the U.S. although it’s impossible to determine the weapons’ origins from mere terrorist propaganda videos. Very convenient plausible deniability.

5. Using Turkey and Saudi Arabia as Proxies to Funnel Support to ISIS

Perhaps the largest and most obscure way that the U.S. helps ISIS and other terror groups is through middlemen like Turkey and Saudi Arabia. The U.S. gives extensive military, intelligence and financial aid to these regimes that then funnel those resources towered ISIS.

During the early days of the ISIS’s rise, Turkey’s open border policy was instrumental to foreign terrorists flooding into Iraq and Syria. In fact, Turkey’s involvement with ISIS runs so deep that in 2016 David Phillips, an ex-State Department and Columbia University researcher, published a comprehensive study on Turkey’s support for ISIS.

The study found evidence of Turkey providing military equipment, transport and logistical assistance, training, medical care to ISIS fighters. But that’s not all. The study determined that Turkey supports ISIS financially through purchasing oil and assisting ISIS recruitment. The report also said Turkish forces fight alongside ISIS fighters (specifically referring to the Battle for Kobani). Phillips attributes all this to the idea that Turkey and ISIS share a common worldview.

Saudi Arabia — another U.S. ally — covertly supports ISIS while publicly opposing the terror group. According to a report by the British government, Saudi Arabia supplied ISIS with major financing. London attempted to bury the report because of the embarrassment it could cause the U.K. government.

Even the neoconservative Brookings Institute admits that “Saudi Arabia’s contribution to Islamist extremism has far outstripped Iran’s.” Hillary Clinton, one of Saudi Arabia’s staunchest supporters in the U.S., has privately admitted that Riyadh supports ISIS.

In a 2014 email published by WikiLeaks, Clinton wrote that 

“While this military/para-military operation is moving forward [in Syria], 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 ISIL [Isis] and other radical Sunni groups in the region.”

Clinton of course, was an outspoken advocate of arming “moderate” Syrian rebels.

Conclusion

Whether the Gulf of Tonkin, Iraq’s WMD’s, or simple coups, secret operations that destroy entire countries for U.S. interests are as American as apple pie.

Trying to piece together the definitive actions of a government so apt at lying and deception is difficult. But what we do know doesn’t paint a good picture of the U.S. in Syria. No matter how you spin it, the U.S. and its allies are relentlessly employing terrorists to serve America’s own selfish interests.

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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Hal Brands – the Henry Kissinger Distinguished Professor at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies and a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments – pines of waning American hegemony in his op-ed in Bloomberg titled, “America’s New World Order Is Officially Dead.”

The sub-headline would further elaborate, “China and Russia have fully derailed the post-Cold War movement toward U.S.-led global integration.”

And while Brands blames Russia and China for America’s decline – it should be noted that the “US-led global integration” Brands and others within the halls of corporate-financier funded policy think tanks promote, was little more than modern day empire.

Post-Cold War, the United States abused and squandered its monopoly over military and economic power. It led serial wars of aggression across the globe, destroying entire regions of the planet. It proved that whatever the rhetoric was used to sell its unipolar world order to rest of the world, it was in practice an order that ultimately served Wall Street and Washington at the expense of everyone else on the planet.

Russia and China’s vision of a multipolar world order is not predicated on institutions the world must surrender its sovereignty, trust, and future to. It is an order built on a much more realist balance of power – where national sovereignty holds primacy and a balance of economic and military power defines and protects the boundaries of international norms. This is in stark contrast to America’s vision in which an easily co-opted and manipulated UN made it easy for the largest, most powerful nations to sidestep national sovereignty and even international law, and expand wealth and power through sanctions, invasions, perpetual military occupations, and the creation of subordinate client states.

An Order Built on Betrayal and Brutality 

The international order Brands mourns began with the immediate betrayal of Western promises not to expand its NATO military alliance eastward toward Russia’s borders. At the time of the Soviet Union’s collapse, a buffer zone existed between Russia’s borders and NATO member states – many of these states choosing to benefit from the best of both Eastern and Western relations.

Today, NATO sits on Russia’s borders, particularly in the Baltic states where US troops train just shy of the Russian border – in Lithuania which surrounds Russia’s Kaliningrad oblast, and in Ukraine where US and NATO members have installed a regime in power dependent on literal Neo-Nazi militants and their respective political wings.

It is also an international order which saw in Russia’s moment of weakness, an opportunity to impose its order by force on former Soviet client states. This not only included NATO’s process of expansion in Eastern Europe through sanctions, subversion, and all out war, but also in the Middle East and Central Asia.

It would be US Army General Wesley Clark who best summarized US foreign policy in the proper, realist context it was actually executed in.

In a 2007 Flora TV talk titled, “A Time to Lead,” General Clark would reveal this post-Cold War agenda by relating a conversation he had as early as 1991 with then US Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, Paul Wolfowitz, by stating (emphasis added):

I said Mr. Secretary you must be pretty happy with the performance of the troops in Desert Storm. And he said, well yeah, he said but but not really, he said because the truth is we should have gotten rid of Saddam Hussein and we didn’t. And this was just after the Shia uprising in March of 91′ which we had provoked and then we kept our troops on the side lines and didn’t intervene. And he said, but one thing we did learn, he said, we learned that we can use our military in the region in the Middle East and the Soviets wont stop us. He said, and we have got about five or ten years to clean up those all Soviet client regimes; Syria, Iran, Iraq, – before the next great super power comes on to challenge us. 

And of course, that is precisely what the US embarked upon doing. General Clark would also mention a later conversation he had at the Pentagon, regarding how the US planned to use the attacks on September 11, 2001 as a pretext to expand from military operations in Afghanistan and accelerate this process to invade and overthrow the governments of at least seven other nations.

General Clark would state (emphasis added):

 I came back to the Pentagon about six weeks later, I saw the same officer, I said why why haven’t we attacked Iraq? We are sill going to attack Iraq, he said, oh sir he says, its worse than that. He said he pulled up a piece of paper of his desk, he said, I just got this memo from the Secretary of Defense’s office, it says we are going to attack and destroy the governments in in seven countries in five years. We are going to start with Iraq and then we are going to move to Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Iran seven seven countries in five years.

While all of these nations were part of a singular, cynical, hegemonic agenda, each nation has been targeted and attacked under false pretenses ranging from false accusations regarding “weapons of mass destruction,” to the use of the “responsibility to protect” (R2P) – leveraging “human rights” as a pretext to intervene in wars of Washington’s own engineering.

American post-Cold War foreign policy is an expression of modern day hegemony. The US has placed its armies on Russia’s borders in Eastern Europe, ravaged the Middle East, and has attempted to encircle China through meddling and a military presence extending from Afghanistan in Central Asia to South Korea and Japan in far East Asia. It was a race against the proverbial clock to achieve global conquest before competitors – enabled by economic strength and improving technology – could reestablish and protect the notion of national sovereignty.

Everywhere in between, the US has used economic pressure, political subversion, military threats, and even covert terrorism as means to coerce and co-opt sovereign governments and overwrite the independent institutions of targeted nations that refuse to subordinate themselves to both Washington and Wall Street directly, and who refused to play an obedient role in America’s “international order.”

It is in reality everything policy wonks like Brands warn us Russia and China will do now that America’s global power grab has failed.

American Exceptionalism is its Own Worst Enemy 

Throughout America’s post-Cold War attempt to establish itself as sole hegemon, it has repeatedly subordinated national sovereignty to what it calls “international laws and norms.” These laws and norms are expressed through the United Nations, a supposed international organization that in reality is little more than the sum of its parts. The United States is the most powerful economic and military power in the United Nations, thus commands the greatest ability to bend this organization to its will.

In each instance of military aggression and political subversion the United States has engaged in, the notion of national sovereignty has been sidestepped by US claims of its own exceptionalism. This is most apparent when examining the US National Endowment for Democracy, engaged in an industrialized process of political meddling and election rigging operating in virtually every nation on Earth. It creates and supports pro-Washington and Wall Street opposition groups in their bid to both create parallel institutions in their respective nations, and eventually displace or overthrow existing, sovereign and independent institutions and governments when the opportunity presents itself.

Nations like Russia and China have highlighted and condemned this – facing significant inroads made by NED within their respective borders. Russia and China lack anything resembling NED in both scope or scale.

American exceptionalism comes into play when considering recent US accusations against Russia and China of interfering in America’s own internal political affairs. Claims of hacking e-mail servers and posting messages on social media pale in comparison to entire media organizations created and operated in both Russia and China by the US government either under the auspices of the US State Department’s Voice of America and the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) or more clandestinely through NED funding, often not disclosed on NED recipient websites posing as “independent media platforms.”

The NED also stands up entire opposition groups who organize and execute physical protests in the streets of targeted nations. In Thailand for example, US, British and European embassy staff can be seen often accompanying US-funded agitators to police stations to face sedition charges – a clear threat to the Thai government that it must suffer sedition, or suffer greater penalties still. One could only imagine if the “meddling” the US accused Russia or China of even remotely approached such levels.

But because America sees itself as “exceptional” – it’s meddling and interference is “acceptable” – whereas any nation attempting to so much as defend against US influence and interference is “unacceptable” – saying nothing of attempts by other nations to seek equal but opposing influence within the US itself.

American exceptionalism thus is but a poorly disguised synonym for hypocrisy. An international order built on hypocrisy benefits only those who lead it. Virtually any alternative would appear more palatable, dooming any such order to inevitable failure.

Even America’s own allies and partners may realize this. In the long run what the United States has attempted to create is unsustainable and as it begins to crumble, Washington and Wall Street are already shifting the weight of its collapsing order onto its allies and partners first, before bearing any of the consequences itself.

Unipolar vs Multipolar 

Russia and China’s multipolar world is one in which national sovereignty holds primacy. Resisting attempts by the US to impose itself on Russia and China and nations in their peripheries have defined what Brands in his Bloomberg op-ed claims was America’s post-Cold War attempt to “integrate” the world – not any sort of ideological struggle between liberalism and authoritarianism.

Brands in his Bloomberg op-ed claims of Russia that:

…China and Russia were indeed moving inexorably toward Western-style economic and political liberalism. Russian reform ground to a halt in the late 1990s, amid economic crisis and political chaos. Over the next 15 years, Vladimir Putin gradually re-established a governing model of increasingly undisguised political authoritarianism and ever-closer collusion between the state and major business interests.

And of China, Brands claims:

China, for its part, has been happy to reap the benefits of inclusion in the global economy, even as it has increasingly sought to dominate its maritime periphery, coerce and intimidate neighbors from Vietnam to Japan, and weaken U.S. alliances in the Asia-Pacific.

Brands uses “moving toward Western-style economic and political liberalism” as a euphemism for domination by Western institutions and the corporate-financier interests that control them. He does however obliquely admit both Russia and China’s policies reflect a response to NATO’s expansion toward Russia’s borders and the extensive US military presence in Asia Pacific – thousands of miles from America’s own shores.

He claims:

The trouble here was that Russia and China were never willing fully to embrace the U.S.-led liberal order, which emphasized liberal ideas that were bound to seem threatening to dictatorial regimes — not to mention the expansion of NATO into Moscow’s former sphere of influence and the persistence of U.S. alliances and military forces all along China’s East Asia periphery. And so, as Beijing and Moscow obtained, or regained, the power to contest that order, they increasingly did so.

One must wonder though, what sort of “liberal ideas” are actually expressed by NATO’s aggressive eastward expansion or America’s military occupation of Asia Pacific. It is oblique admissions like this that reveal just what Brands and others mean by “Western-style liberalism.”

Brands claims that Russia has “sought to revise the post-Cold War settlement in Europe by force and intimidation” citing Moscow’s tensions with Georgia and Ukraine as examples. However, it was NATO’s violation of this settlement and the inroads it made in both nations through coercion and political subversion, that prompted Moscow’s reaction in the first place.

Brands inadvertently reveals that US-led “global integration” was little more than American hegemony, pursued through transparently hypocritical and lopsided policies that only ever could have elicited resistance from not only larger players like Russia and China, but also every other nation in between – including Washington’s own allies.

And Brands admits this as his op-ed neared its conclusion. He claims (emphasis added):

…the U.S. needs to become both tougher and less ambitious in its approach to great-power relations and the international system. Less ambitious in the sense that it needs to set aside the notion that the liberal order will become truly global or encompass all the major powers anytime soon. And tougher in the sense of understanding that more strenuous efforts will be required to defend the existing order against the challenges that revisionist powers represent.

By “revisionists” Brands is referring to nations that refuse to subordinate themselves to “US-led global integration.” It is interesting to note that while the US seems to view Russia and China’s refusal to subordinate themselves to a US-led international order, the US itself refuses to participate in a multipolar alternative even as an equal.

Brands concludes by prescribing a series of US actions to help cling to what remains of its global hegemony, claiming (emphasis added):

This will require taking difficult but necessary steps, such as making the military investments needed to shore up U.S. power and deterrence in Eastern Europe and the Western Pacific, and developing capabilities needed to oppose Chinese coercion and Russian political subversion of their neighbors. It will require rallying old and new partners against the threat posed by Russian and Chinese expansionism. Above all, it will mean accepting that great-power relations are entering a period of greater danger and tension, and that a willingness to accept greater costs and risks will be the price of meeting the revisionist challenge and preserving American interests.

What Brands refers to as “Russian and Chinese expansionism” is in reality simply Russia and China reclaiming territory and spheres of influence they possessed both before the post-Cold War period, or before Western colonialism. This includes territory and spheres of influence in which populations speak Russian or Chinese, are within geographical proximity of Russia and China’s borders, and at one time actually existed within their borders.

Thus, Brands’ prescription is merely for the self-preservation of Washington and Wall Street’s own expansionism – expansionism that in no rational way can be justified by either geographical proximity or historical and cultural claims. The notion of the United States investing in the defense of Taiwan – for instance – thousands of miles from American shores, speaking Mandarin and populated by ethnic Chinese – is another transparent example of American exceptionalism and hypocrisy.

Might Makes Right No Longer Fun When Washington is No Longer Mightiest  

While Brands hides behind phrases like “Western liberalism,” he and others within the halls of corporate-financier funded policy think tanks are in fact describing a world order built on “might makes right.” This is what allows the US to encroach on Russia’s borders, but prevents Russia from defending itself and its allies. This is what makes US fleets plying the waters of the South China Sea “right” and China building up its own military presence along its own shores, “wrong.”

But as technology and economics shift the balance of power, enabling not only Russia and China to emerge out from under the shadow of decades of American global primacy – but other nations across the developing world as well – Washington is finding that it is no longer the “mightiest.” The prescription of Brands and others to invest more militarily and continue coercing nations whenever and wherever Washington can, is really just a prescription to go kicking and screaming from its failed “global integration.”

Sound leadership grounded in reason would invest instead in preparing the United States to play an equal partner to the emerging multipolar world – to play a constructive role in establishing a sustainable balance of power and enabling nations to stand on their own economically and militarily to prevent the temptation of any nation, including the US, Russia, and China – from the coercive, manipulative, subversive, and destructive policies that have defined the failed “post-Cold War  movement toward US-led global integration.”In terms of international laws and norms, the US can set an example that will benefit it in the long run – by reducing its overseas military presence and eliminating its foreign interventions and interference by dissolving organizations like NED and reforming USAID to carry out disaster relief operations only. Thus when the US seeks to criticize “Russian and Chinese expansionism,” it can do so with legitimacy instead of as the unprecedented hypocrite it currently represents upon the global stage today.

*

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.

All images in this article are from the author.

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Most Americans are ill-informed, dis-informed, and uninformed easy marks to be fooled time and again – no matter how many previous times they were duped.

They’re victims of falsified state narratives and scoundrel media propaganda repeating it, along with what the late Gore Vidal and Studs Terkel called the United States of amnesia, real information on vital issues passing through their minds like water through a sieve – understanding something today, erased from their memory later on.

Polls when conducted well can be revealing. Key is choosing a well-defined universe, using a statistically accurate methodology, wording questions properly for clear understanding, asking them in the right order, and taking great pains to avoid bias.

So-called man-on-the-street interviews used by some news organizations are worthless and deceptive because proper methodology isn’t used. Comments by individuals briefly interviewed signify nothing but their views, unrelated to the general consensus.

Gallup, Inc. has been conducting public opinion polls since 1935, currently operating in America and abroad in many countries.

Days before Putin/Trump summit talks, Gallup polling revealed 40% of Republicans view Russia as a US ally or friendly – compared to 22% in 2014 during Obama’s tenure.

Only 25% of Dems hold the same positive view – compared to 28% in 2014. Among all Americans, 31% say Russia is an ally or friendly to the US.

Gallup: “Overall, 6% of Republicans now describe Russia as a US ally, 34% as friendly but not an ally, 38% as unfriendly and 20% as an enemy.”

“Among Democrats, 8% say Russia is an ally, 17% say it is friendly, 33% unfriendly, and 42% describe it as an enemy.”

Overall in 2014, 26% of Americans said Russia is an ally or friendly to the US.

Throughout its post-Soviet history since December 1991, the Russian Federation never attacked another country or threatened belligerent confrontation against anyone – actions America does repeatedly, currently at war in multiple theaters against invented enemies.

Russia champions world peace and stability. America is perpetually at war at home and abroad, peace and stability considered anathema notions.

A post-Helsinki CBS News poll showed only 32% of Americans approve how Trump handled summit talks with Putin, despite knowing little or nothing about what was discussed or agreed on – other than what’s fed them by media scoundrels hostile to both leaders.

Over two-thirds of Americans polled (70%) believe falsified US intelligence claims that Russia interfered in the nation’s political process – despite not a shred of evidence proving it.

Most Americans feel Trump is too friendly toward Russia, getting along with the country considered a negative, not a positive based on this data.

Nearly four in 10 Americans feel less confident about Trump standing up for US interests, largely reflecting the view of Dems. Republicans are more confident or feel about the same as pre-summit.

Overall, Republicans are more positive about Russia than Dems. Over 60% of Americans fear Russian interference in upcoming November midterm elections, despite no evidence suggesting it.

Americans are mixed on how Washington should engage with Russia. Slightly more than 50% favor pressure over dialogue and cooperation.

Americans are influenced by their sources of information. Most are brainwashed to believe utter rubbish they’re fed by scoundrel media print and electronic media.

Opinion polls consistently show it. An uninformed electorate is easily manipulated to believe most anything they’re fed repeatedly – no matter how egregiously untrue.

*

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

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Featured image: Nicaraguans celebrate 39th Anniversary of the 1979Nicaraguan Revolution in Managua, July 2018. Source Redvolution.

Author’s Note: Before the update on Nicaragua, I an providing two recent interviews that provide a context for what is happening in Nicaragua.

First, is an interview I did with Lee Camp, the lead writer, and host of Redacted Tonight, “US Pushing for Regime Change in Nicaragua,” where we discuss the economic and political situation in Nicaragua as well as who is behind the coup and the government response. This interview discusses the issues raised in an article by me and Nils McCune, “Correcting The Record: What Is Really Happening In Nicaragua.”

On Clearing The FOG radio and podcast, Margaret Flowers and I interviewed Stephen Sefton, who lives in Nicaragua and is a founder of Tortilla con Sal. He names the names behind the violence and describes what is happening in Nicaragua.

Lessons Learned From The Failed Violent Coup In Nicaragua And Next Steps

The violent coup in Nicaragua has failed. This does not mean the United States and oligarchs are giving up, but this phase of their effort to remove the government did not succeed.  The coup exposed the alliances who are working with the United States to put in place a neoliberal government that is controlled by the United States and serves the interests of the wealthy. People celebrated the failure of the coup but realize work needs to be done to protect the gains of the Sandinista revolution.

People Celebrate Revolution, Call For Peace, Show Support for Government

The people of Nicaragua showed their support for the democratically-elected government of Daniel Ortega with a massive outpouring in Managua in a celebration of the 39th anniversary of the Sandinista Revolution. In addition to the mass protest in Managua, various cities had their own, in some cases very sizeable ones.

People have wanted peace to return to Nicaragua. They have also wanted the roadblocks removed, which have resulted in closed businesses, job loss and loss of mobility. Roadblocks have been removed, even in the opposition stronghold of Masaya. There were two opposition deaths and one police officer killed in the removal. There was also an earlier death of a policeman in Masaya, captured when he was off-duty, tortured and burnt to death. This brings the total of police killed since April up to at least 21 with hundreds injured. With the opening of the main road on the east side of Masaya, all Nicaragua’s main routes are open to traffic and buses etc are operating normally.

At the rally, President Ortega called on the people of Nicaragua to defend peace and reinstate the unity that existed in the nation before the violent opposition protests. He described how the violent coup attempted to destabilize the country and ended the peace that has existed through the eleven years of his time in office. He said,

“Peace must be defended every day to avoid situations like these being repeated.”

He also criticized the Catholic Bishops for their role in the failed violent coup. Ortega described the Episcopal Conference of Nicaragua as “coup leaders” for collaborating with the opposition during the protests. Not only did the Catholic leadership side with the opposition during the national dialogue, but priests were involved in kidnapping and torture. Pope Francis has a lot of work to do to rein in the Catholic Church in Nicaragua. If their role in these violent protests and opposition to an economy for the people is not stopped, this will become a scandal for the Catholic Church.

Other Latin American leaders spoke out against involvement in the coup. Bolivian President Evo Morales condemned US “interference” in Nicaragua, denouncing the “criminal strategies” used against the government of Daniel Ortega. Morales accused the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), and the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) of “openly supporting violence” in Nicaragua. Also at the celebration were the foreign ministers of Cuba and Venezuela, Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla, and Jorge Arreza, all supporting Nicaragua over the violent coup of the United States and oligarchs.

The United States is Escalating Economic War and Support for Opposition

The United States is not giving up. Also on the anniversary of the revolution, the NICA Act, designed to escalate the economic war against Nicaragua, was introduced in the Senate. It has already been passed by the US House of Representatives. The Senate bill, called the Nicaragua Human Rights and Anti-corruption Act of 2018, imposes sanctions, calls for early elections and escalates US intelligence involvement in Nicaragua. It is a law that ensures continued US efforts to remove the democratically-elected government.

At the same time, USAID announced an additional $1.5 million for Nicaragua to build opposition to the government. This will fund the NGOs that participated in the protests, human rights groups that falsely reported the situation, media to produce the regime change narrative and other support for the opposition.

The coordination between Nicaraguan opposition and the United States was shown by Max Blumenthal’s attempted visit to an organization that funnels USAID and NED money to the opposition. He visited the Managua offices of the Institute of Strategic Studies and Public Policies (IEEPP in Spanish), but it was closed because its director, Felix Maradiaga, who was at the heart of the violent unrest, was in Washington, DC seeking more funding from USAID.

Tried to visit the Managua offices of IEEPP, a main channel for US National Endowment for Democracy/USAID money to the opposition. It was closed bc its director, Felix Maradiaga, who was at the heart of the violent unrest, was back in Washington to ask USAID for more money. pic.twitter.com/kLeIzsMoNc

— Max Blumenthal (@MaxBlumenthal) July 20, 2018

On July 18, the US-dominated OAS passed a resolution concerning “The Situation in Nicaragua.” An earlier effort to endorse a report of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) was so biased that it failed. The report ignored the opposition’s widespread violence or inaccurately attributed it to the government.  It also failed to recognize government actions in self-defense. The resolution approving the IACHR report was supported by only ten out of 34 countries.

The resolution, which was finally passed by the OAS, condemned violence on all sides and urged Nicaragua to pursue all options including the national dialogue to seek peace begun by Ortega. On the issue of elections, the resolution urged Nicaragua “to support an electoral calendar jointly agreed to in the context of the National Dialogue process.” Only this mainly symbolic resolution could pass muster in the OAS, despite US domination.

What Happened and What Was Learned

In our article “Correcting the Record: What Is Really Happening In Nicaragua,” Nils McCune and I describe what was behind the violent coup attempt. We reported that there was a lot of misinformation on what was occurring in Nicaragua, indeed the false narrative of regime change was part of the tactics of the failed coup. Perhaps most importantly we described the alignment of forces behind the coup.

The coup was a class war turned upside down. The Ortega government includes none of the oligarchic families, a first in the history of Nicaragua. He has put in place a bottom-up economy that has lifted people out of poverty, provided access to health care and education, given micro-loans to entrepreneurs and small businesses and created an economy energized by public spending. Ortega expanded coverage of the social security system; as a result, a new formula was required to ensure fiscal stability.

Ortega made a counter-proposal to the IMF/business proposal, which would cut social security and raise the retirement age. He proposed no cuts to social security and increasing employer contributions by 3.5% to pension and health funds, while only slightly increasing worker contributions by 0.75% and shifting 5% of pensioners’ cash transfer into their healthcare fund.  These reforms were the trigger as it was the business lobby who called for the protests.

The forces aligned with the violent coup included the oligarchs, big business interests, foreign investors (e.g. Colombian financiers), the US-funded NGO’s and the Catholic Church, a long-term ally of the wealthy. Also involved was the Movement for Renovation of Sandinismo (MRS), a tiny Sandinista offshoot party, of former Sandanistas who left the party when Ortega lost an election in 1990 who are aligned with the US State Department.

Regarding students, there were already student protests around university elections, and these were redirected by the violent coup effort and supported by a small minority of students from private universities, the April 19th Movement. Some of these students had been brought to the US by the Freedom House, which has long ties to the CIA and met with far-right interventionist members of the US Congress, including Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Sen. Marco Rubio, and Sen. Ted Cruz.

These groups acted in opposition to the bulk of Nicaraguan society and showed their true colors. This includes:

• Being tied to and subservient to the US government.
• Being led by oligarchs and big business interests that are out of power and cannot win elections.
• Using violence as a strategy of creating chaos and trapping the government into responding with violence to restore order.
• Spreading false propaganda through oligarch-controlled media, often funded by NED, as well as highly-manipulated social media echoed by western media, especially The New York Times, The Guardian, Washington Post and cable TV news outlets.

No doubt more will come out about this in the future as the coup is researched and analyzed. As the facts become clear, the opposition will lose more political power and be even less likely to win elections. The blockades of roads with violence undermined the economy and had a negative impact on the poor and working class. If it becomes evident that this was a strategy of the opposition, they will lose power. NGO’s that are funded by the US and run by members of the MRS will be noted for their dishonest narrative and will be seen as an arm of the United States and not trusted by the people of Nicaragua. Media outside of Nicaragua will come to understand that human rights groups and NGOs are not reliable sources of information but need to be questioned. They need to be pushed to break their ties with the United States.

This does not mean all is well on the Sandinista side of the alliance of forces. The coup is an opportunity for self-reflection and self-criticism that is already happening, as seen in this list of 20 results from the coup, which begins with “A more consolidated and United FSLN.” In addition, the Action Group of the Solidarity with Nicaragua Campaign put forward seven propositions to unify around. The protest took advantage of challenges the Nicaraguan government faces in continuing to lift up the poor and economically insecure. It shows their need to build their capacity to quickly let the public know their side of the story. And, it shows the need for planning for a post-Ortega Sandinista government, as the president is in his third term.

The anniversary of the revolution was a good beginning at strengthening the unity of the Sandinista movement and celebration of the defeat of the coup, but there will be challenges ahead. Nicaragua is a poor country that needs foreign investment. If the United States escalates the economic war, which seems to be the intent, it will make it challenging to continue the social and economic programs that are lifting up the poor. Nicaragua had relied on investment from Venezuela, but it is also in the midst of an economic war, which along with the low oil prices has created economic challenges for them. Nicaragua has begun to build economic relationships with China, Russia, Iran and other countries; these will likely need to expand.

The misinformation was deep and widespread. Inside Nicaragua, there were stories of students being killed that never happened but that escalated the protests. The opposition claimed to be nonviolent when their strategy was to use violence to force regime change while the government quartered the National Police. False news and videos of attacks on neighborhoods and universities never stopped being manufactured.  One example, students calling for help and claiming they were under attack, was later exposed in a video showing the students practicing the false social media narrative.

Peace and justice activists in the United States and western nations have learned they need to be much more careful believing reports on what is occurring in Nicaragua. The US-funding of NGOs involved in women’s issues, environmental protection and human rights in Nicaragua make them questionable sources of information for justice advocates. In addition, US-funded regime change efforts are getting more sophisticated at social media; and thus, care must be taken as social media has it is abused by regime change advocates. We must look to other sources that have shown the ability to report accurately e.g., Tortilla con Sal, Telesur, Redvolucion.  Peace and justice advocates must be grounded in anti-imperialism and nonintervention by the United States.

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Kevin Zeese is director of Popular Resistance where this article was originally published.

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It is represented globally by a political pressure group, the international Israel Lobby that exerts an undue influence over not only the US Congress but also the British Parliament and other national legislative assemblies: an influence that threatens democratic government. 

It has persuaded, through the use of financial inducements, 600,000 of its own citizens to leave their homes in Israel to illegally settle on Palestinian land in the Occupied West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Syrian Golan Heights in direct violation of U.N. Security Council Resolution 2334 which states unequivocally that ‘Israel’s Settlements Have No Legal Validity and Constitute a Flagrant Violation of International Law’.

It is the only United Nations state whose establishment was facilitated by UN Resolution in 1947/8, but which today rejects the authority of the very same international body that gave it self-determination.

It is the only undeclared and uninspected nuclear weaponised state anywhere in the world. It has an underground arsenal estimated to contain of up to 400 warheads that also arm a fleet of cruise missile -equipped submarines assumed to be covertly patrolling both the Mediterranean and the Gulf.

It has recently passed restrictive legislation that serves to designate 20% of its entire population who are Israeli Arabs, as second class citizens with their national language no longer officially recognised, thereby turning itself into the only neo-colonial, apartheid-style state of the 21st century.

There is no other nation state with WMD that is so arrogantly dismissive of world opinion or the authority of the United Nations. That state is also an integral part of the bizarre Netanyahu-Trump alliance that is now repudiating international treaties on trade, peace and goodwill that have served the international community well for over 70 years.  God help us all.

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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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Long satisfied to attempt to dominate pan-Arab media and battle it out with Qatar’s state-owned Al Jazeera television network, Saudi Arabia has now set its hegemonic sights on influencing the media landscape of the non-Arabic speaking greater Middle East.

In the wake of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s concentration last year of control of Saudi-owned pan-Arab media in an anti-corruption power and asset grab, Saudi Research and Marketing Group (SRMG) this week announced a tie up with Britain’s Independent news website to launch services in Urdu, Turkish, Farsi and Arabic.

The announcement provided no details of the business model or whether and, if so, how the SRMG-owned, independent-branded websites would become commercially viable. That may not be an issue from the Independent’s perspective, given that the deal amounts to the British publication licensing its brand and content to a Saudi partner.

The bulk of the content of the new websites is slated to be produced by SRMG journalists in London, Islamabad, Istanbul and New York, with the Independent contributing only translated articles from its English-language website.

The sites, operated out of Riyadh and Dubai, would produce “highest-quality, free-thinking, independent news, insight and analysis on global affairs and local events,” the Independent said.

SRMG publishes the English-language Arab News and Arabic-language Ash-Sharq al-Awsat, newspapers operating within the constraints of tight Saudi censorship that do not challenge Saudi policies.

SRMG was chaired until he recently was appointed minister of culture by Prince Bader bin Abdullah bin Mohammed bin Farhan Al Saud. An unknown member of the Saudi ruling family, Prince Bader made headlines last year when he paid a record $450m for a Leonardo da Vinci painting of Jesus Christ, allegedly as a proxy bidder for Prince Mohammed.

Sultan Muhammad Abuljadayel, a Saudi banker with no track record in media acquisitions, last year bought a 30 percent stake in the Independent. An executive of NCB Capital, a subsidiary of government-controlled National Commercial Bank, Mr. Abuljadayel said at the time he was investing on his personal account.

A cache of Saudi diplomatic cables leaked in 2015 documented a pattern of Saudi chequebook diplomacy that aimed to buy positive coverage of the kingdom by European, Middle Eastern and African media who were encouraged to put “learned” Saudi guests on talk shows and counter “media hostile to the kingdom.”

Cables by the late Saudi foreign minister, Prince Saud al Faisal, suggested that Ash-Sharq Al-Awsat, and another Saudi-owned pan-Arab daily, Al Hayat, refrain from criticizing Lebanon and Russia.

Saudi funding ranged from the bailout of financially troubled media to donations, the purchase of thousands of subscriptions, and all-expenses paid trips to the kingdom. It was often driven by Saudi Arabia’s covert public diplomacy war with Iran.

Saudi Arabia’s near monopoly on staid pan-Arabic media was broken in 1996 with the launch of Al Jazeera and its free-wheeling, hard hitting reporting and talk shows. Al Jazeera’s disruption of conservative, Arab state broadcasting prompted Waleed bin Ibrahim Al Ibrahim, a brother in law of the late King Fahd, to launch Al Arabiya as an anti-dote.

The rise of Al Jazeera cemented a realization in the kingdom that it needed to expand from print media into broadcasting. The need for broadcasting was initially driven home six years earlier when Iraq invaded Kuwait. Saudi authorities banned Saudi media from reporting the invasion only to discover on the third day that Saudis were getting their news from foreign media outlets, among which CNN.

The Saudi-Qatari battle for control of the air waves escalated in the run-up to this year’s World Cup in Russia. With Al Jazeera and beIN, the network’s sports franchise, blocked in the kingdom as part of the 13-month-old Saudi-UAE-led economic and diplomatic boycott of Qatar, Saudi Arabia initially turning a blind eye to beOutQ, a bootlegging operation operating out of the kingdom that used a satellite that is co-owned by the Saudi government.

Threatened by FIFA with punitive action, Saudi Arabia began cracking down on beOutQ and said it welcomed legal action in the kingdom being initiated by the world soccer body. At the same time, Saudi Arabia explored ways to challenge beIN’s broadcasting rights.

The choice of languages for the Independent websites suggests that SRMG sees the deal as strengthening its brand while supporting the kingdom in its battles with Qatar and Iran and quest for regional hegemony.

The launch of a Farsi website targets the kingdom’s arch rival Iran. Leaving politics aside, Iranians, confronted with an economic crisis that is being exasperated by harsh US sanctions, are unlikely to subscribe or advertise on the website. The same is true for Saudi businesses in the absence of diplomatic relations and given Saudi backing for the sanctions.

The Independent’s Turkish website will have to compete in a heavily populated media landscape that has largely been muzzled by President Recep Tayeb Erdogan. The website’s significance lies in the fact that Turkey supports Qatar in the spat that pits the Gulf state against Saudi Arabia and its allies, maintains close ties to Iran, and challenges Saudi regional ambitions in Palestine as well as the Horn of Africa.

In many ways, Urdu-speaking Pakistan, one of the world’s most populous Muslim nations that borders on Iran, has long supported the kingdom militarily, and is home to the world’s largest Shia Muslim majority, could prove to be the most lucrative element of SRMG’s tie up with the Independent.

In contrast to Turkey, Saudi Arabia enjoys empathy in major segments of Pakistan’s population, hosts a sizeable Pakistani community, has strong support among the country’s religious scholars as well as ties to influential militants whom the military is seeking to ease into mainstream politics, and funds religious media outlets.

At the bottom line, the SRMG-Independent tie-up may be for the kingdom less about business and more about soft power.

“A channel is a very economical way to influence people. Bang for your buck, it’s much cheaper than guns. It is about controlling the discourse, and for Saudis about being in charge,” said Hugh Miles, author of Al-Jazeera: How Arab TV News Challenged the World. Mr. Miles’ analysis applies as much to broadcasting as it does to online media.

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This article was originally published on The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer.

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

Featured image is from the author.

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On July 1, 2018, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, known by his initials as AMLO, was elected President of Mexico by a sweeping margin. He won 53% of the votes. His closest rivals were Ricardo Anaya (of PAN) with 22% and José Antonio Meade (of PRI) with 16 percent. In addition, his party alliance, MORENA, won a majority of the seats in the legislature.

His victory has been compared to that of Lula in Brazil and that of Jeremy Corbyn in Great Britain. But Lula did not come near having a majority of the votes, and his broad party alliance included reactionary groups. Corbyn is still struggling to maintain control of the British Labour Party and, even if he succeeds, faces a difficult election.

AMLO by contrast has probably the largest margin of victory ever of any contender in a multiparty relatively honest election. He will have no trouble remaining in power in the single six-year term permitted by the Mexican constitution.

So, why only two cheers? A look at Mexico’s history will clarify my reserve. The so-called Mexican Revolution of 1910 overthrew an oppressive and very undemocratic regime, which is why it is seen as the beginning of the modern state in Mexico. It did not, however, result in relative peace and stability. Quite the contrary! The two decades after that saw constant violent struggles between various armed militias, none of which were able to prevail.

However, following the assassination of a major candidate for the presidency, a de facto arrangement was able to bring about a certain degree of stability and greatly reduce the violence. The party that guaranteed this relative stability went through name changes and eventually became called the Partido Revolucionario Institucional, or PRI.

The system PRI evolved was based on Mexico’s constitutional requirement of an election every six years on July 1. The incumbent could have only one term. His successor was chosen by a behind-the-scenes negotiation among PRI leaders. The actual election was in effect a formality. With the exception of one politically radical period from 1936 to 1942, the PRI system of arranged elections resulted in governments with highly corrupt elites and ones that had little to offer to the bottom third to half the population.

The PRI system eventually reached a point of high popular discontent. It led to the emergence of a major challenger in the end of the twentieth century called the Partido Acción Nacional (PAN). PAN was built on a Catholic base that was reacting to Mexico’s and PRI’s strong anticlerical program.

PAN won the election in 2000, thereby ending PRI’s monopoly of office. In addition to PRI and PAN there emerged also a social-democratic party called the Partido de la Revolución Democrática (PRD). Mexico had now become a country of competitive elections. How much difference did this make? Not all that much.

AMLO ran as the PRD candidate in 2012 but was cheated out of his majority. He fought hard against the “false” winner, but with little support from the PRD. AMLO now built his struggle for power out of a rejection of all three major parties.

Why wasn’t he similarly cheated in 2018? The 2012-2018 PRI government used extreme violence against the opposition. They shot and killed student protestors. This led to widespread uprisings from underneath that made it impossible for PRI to cheat the results once again.

AMLO put forth a truly left program. He ran on a platform of significant increase in material distribution to the very large poor[I1]  underclass. He called for the ending of the so-called pensiones[I2]  by means of which enormous sums were paid to ex-presidents. AMLO was advocating instead pensiones for the poor. This is where his program was similar to that of Lula with his Bolsa familiar and his Hambre cero. The difference is that AMLO cannot be ousted from power, as was Lula.

AMLO calls his proposal nini (neither nor). For those that are neither students nor workers, who constitute a very large group of young people. He calls for payments to them to survive while they obtain the skills through government programs that will make them employable.

The Latin American left has hailed AMLO’s election, seeing in his victory a possibility of re-igniting the so-called pink tide in Latin America that had had many reverses in the last decade. The United States is clearly worried and unhappy. Trump is already trying to co-opt AMLO.

I too hail AMLO’s victory. But I worry about the fact that, unlike Lula, he has shown little taste for becoming a Latin American and not merely a Mexican leader. He is in a very strong position in Mexico for the moment, but not one impervious to counter-pressures. He cannot really do it alone. He needs the Latin American left just as they need him. We shall have to see how he navigates negotiations over NAFTA.

Finally, just like all popular leaders who have fought hard and successfully to come to power, I wonder how much he reflects on the limitations of being a charismatic figure. Too much self-assurance has been the downfall of many a leftist populist leader. Nor has AMLO indicated much tolerance in the past for those who question the prudence of some of what he does.

So, two cheers yes – loud ones, with hope for the best.

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In my article “Was Reagan a Traitor Too?,” I detailed how three U.S. presidents since World War II have been vilified and condemned for befriending Russia, America’s World War II partner and ally: John Kennedy, Ronald Reagan, and now Donald Trump.

However, they are not the only presidents who have been targeted by the U.S. national-security state for daring to befriend Russia. There are at least three others.

One was Jacobo Arbenz, the president of Guatemala, who was elected by the people of that country in a fair and free election. Arbenz was a socialist. That was one strike against him in the eyes of the U.S. national-security establishment. But what really cost him his position as president of Guatemala was his willingness to have friendly relations with the Soviet Union, the group of communist-run countries of which Russia was the principal member.

The year was 1954, when the Cold War that the U.S. deep state had been waging against Russia and “godless communism” since the end of World War II was in full swing. Any foreign leader who befriended Russia or any other communist state was automatically deemed an official enemy of the United States by the Pentagon, the CIA, and other elements of the U.S. government and labeled a threat to U.S. “national security.”

The CIA was assigned the task of getting rid of Arbenz, in one way or another. In the preparations for the operation, the CIA came up with an assassination list that listed the Guatemalan officials who were to be murdered. Americans are still not permitted to see who was on the list, but it is a virtual certainty that Arbenz was at the top. After all, he was the president. He was the one befriending Russia. It would make sense that he would be first to be murdered.

Arbenz was lucky, however. Realizing that his days as the democratically elected president of Guatemala were numbered, he escaped the country and preserved his life. The U.S. national-security establishment replaced him with a brutal, rightwing military general, a man who U.S. officials considered to be a “patriot.”

Another target was Fidel Castro, the president of Cuba, who successfully ousted from power the Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista during the Cuban revolution in 1959. That was one strike against him because Batista was the U.S. government’s dictator in Cuba. Like Arbenz, Castro was a socialist. That was strike two. Strike three was the big one: Castro established friendly relations with Russia and the rest of the Soviet Union.

U.S. officials deemed Castro a threat to U.S. “national security” and targeted him for regime change. That is what the CIA’s paramilitary invasion at the Bay of Pigs in 1961 was all about. It’s what the CIA’s partnership with the Mafia was for — to develop ways to murder Castro. It’s what Operation Northwoods was all about. It was why the Pentagon and the CIA were exhorting President Kennedy to attack and invade Cuba during the Cuban Missile Crisis, notwithstanding the almost certain outcome of nuclear war with the Soviet Union. It is what the decades-long economic embargo against Cuba was all about.

It all came to naught. The U.S. deep state failed to oust Castro from power.

The third president was Salvador Allende, a Chilean physician who had been active in Chilean politics for a long time. In 1970 he won a plurality of votes in the national presidential election, notwithstanding the fact that the U.S. government had provided his opposition with millions of dollars in U.S. taxpayer money in the hopes of preventing Allende from winning. When the election was thrown into the Chilean parliament, U.S. officials then used U.S. taxpayer money in an attempt to bribe Chilean officials into voting against Allende.

All that U.S. meddling in Cuba’s presidential election came to naught. Allende won and was sworn into office as president.

Strike one was that Allende was a socialist. Strike two was his decision to befriend Cuba’s president Fidel Castro, even inviting him to visit Chile. Strike three was Allende’s decision to befriend Russia.

U.S. officials labeled Allende a threat to U.S. “national security.” The CIA was assigned the task of ousting him from power and replacing him with a pro-U.S. military general, just like what the CIA had done in Guatemala.

One big obstacle, however, was that the commanding general of the Chilean Armed Forces, Gen. Rene Schneider, said no to the U.S. demand for a coup. Schneider’s position was simple: the Chilean Constitution didn’t provide for a coup as a way to remove the nation’s democratically elected president. The only two methods to remove a president were impeachment and the next election, and impeachment had already failed.

That wasn’t the position of the Pentagon and the CIA. Their position was that the national-security establishment of a nation has the moral duty to remove a democratically elected president from office who is deemed to be a threat to “national security” (a position that has obvious ramifications in the assassination of President Kennedy).

U.S. officials conspired to kidnap and assassinate Schneider to remove him as an obstacle to the coup. The conspiracy was based in Washington, D.C., and Langley, Virginia. The CIA smuggled high-powered weapons into the country under diplomatic pouch and conspired with local thugs to kidnap Schneider. In the kidnapping attempt, Schneider, who was armed, fought back. The thugs shot him dead on the streets of Santiago. It was later determined that the CIA paid hush money to keep them quiet. When Schneider’s widow and children brought suit in U.S. federal court for the wrongful death of their husband and father, the federal judiciary summarily dismissed their suit.

With Schneider’s removal, U.S. officials convinced their counterparts in the Chilean national security establishment that they had the moral duty to remove their democratically elected president from office. On 9/11 in 1973, they did it. The national-security branch of the government attacked the executive branch with air force planes firing missiles at the president’s position in the national palace and with infantry troops surrounding him and shooting at him from the ground.

There has long been dispute over whether Allende was killed or committed suicide to avoid being taken prisoner and brutally tortured. In any event, he was soon dead and replaced by a brutal pro-U.S. military general, whose national-security state forces, with the full support of the U.S. national-security establishment, proceeded to round up, torture, disappear, rape, abuse, or execute tens of thousands of people who had supported their democratically elected socialist president.

Donald Trump should be counting his lucky stars. Being ousted from office by special counsel would really not be so bad given the other methods that the U.S. deep state has employed against presidents who have dared to befriend Russia.

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This article was originally published on The Future of Freedom Foundation.

Jacob G. Hornberger is founder and president of The Future of Freedom Foundation. He was born and raised in Laredo, Texas, and received his B.A. in economics from Virginia Military Institute and his law degree from the University of Texas. He was a trial attorney for twelve years in Texas. He also was an adjunct professor at the University of Dallas, where he taught law and economics. In 1987, Mr. Hornberger left the practice of law to become director of programs at the Foundation for Economic Education. He has advanced freedom and free markets on talk-radio stations all across the country as well as on Fox News’ Neil Cavuto and Greta van Susteren shows and he appeared as a regular commentator on Judge Andrew Napolitano’s show Freedom Watch. View these interviews at LewRockwell.com and from Full Context. Send him email.

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Israel Declares Itself Apartheid State, and Governments Must Hold It Accountable — Omar Barghouti

By Palestinian BDS National Committee, July 22, 2018

Palestinian members of the Israeli Knesset condemned the law, which enjoys constitutional power, as an “apartheid law.”

Adalah, a leading Palestinian human rights organization in Israel, describes how the law “affirms the principle of apartheid in housing, land and citizenship.” It concludes that “this law constitutionally sanctions institutionalized discrimination.”

U.S. Supreme Court Nominee Kavanaugh Scorns International Law and Loves Executive Power

By Prof. Marjorie Cohn, July 22, 2018

Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh has nothing but contempt for international law. But he has shown uncritical deference to executive power, particularly in the so-called war on terror cases.

Military, Deep State and the American Innocence

By Chris Kanthan, July 22, 2018

While many Americans consider it heretical to question the U.S. military, none other than a five-star military general and U.S. president did just that. In an extraordinary farewell speech in 1961, Eisenhower went on national TV and said, “we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.”

Video: “My Jerusalem”: Responding to the U.S. Embassy Announcement

By Michael Welch, July 22, 2018

Recognizing that the Middle East Peace Process, and the U.S. role in that process may have undergone a fundamental re-visioning, organizers in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada decided to stage a public discussion at the University of Winnipeg, entitled My Jerusalem: Responding to the U.S. Embassy Announcement. The aim was to examine some of the historical background of the Holy City, and its significance to representatives of the three major Abrahamic religions, Judaism, Islam and Christianity, which trace their spiritual lineage to this special place.

Trump, The Manchurian Candidate: “Conspiracy” to Destabilize the Trump Presidency

By Prof Michel Chossudovsky, July 22, 2018

In recent developments in the wake of the historic Trump-Putin Helsinki July 2018 summit, we have reached a new threshold. The “Impeachment” agenda seems to have been scrapped in favor of an “unconstitutional change in government”. A widely held consensus in establishment circles is unfolding, which is sustained by propaganda. Trump is now accused of treason including “high crimes and misdemeanors”.

Por onde começar a analisar a loucura dos media de referência em reacção à reunião Trump-Putín em Helsínquia? Ao concentrar-se na psicologia individual, a psicologia relegou o problema da insânia em massa, a qual agora subjugou o establishment dos Estados Unidos, seus mass media e a maior parte dos macacos de imitação europeus. Os indivíduos podem ser sãos, mas como uma manada eles estão prontos para saltar o abismo.

Durante os últimos dois anos, um grupo de poder específico tentou explicar a sua perda de poder – ou antes, a sua perda da presidência, pois ele ainda predomina no poder institucional – através da criação de um mito. Os media de referência são conhecidos pelo seu comportamento de manada e, neste caso, editores, comentadores, jornalistas apresentaram uma narrativa em que inicialmente eles próprios dificilmente poderiam acreditar.

Donald Trump terá sido eleito pela Rússia?

À primeira vista, isto é absurdo. Claro, os Estados Unidos podem forjar eleições fraudulentas nas Honduras, ou na Sérvia, ou mesmo na Ucrânia, mas os EUA são demasiado grande e complexo para deixar a escolha da Presidência a uma barragem de mensagens electrónicas totalmente não lidas pela maior parte dos eleitores. Se isto fosse assim, a Rússia não precisaria tentar “minar nossa democracia”. Isto significaria que a nossa democracia já estava minada, em cacos, morta. Um cadáver em pé pronto para ser derrubado por um tweet.

Mesmo se, como é alegado sem provas, um exército de bots russos (ainda mais vasto do que os notórios bots do exército israelense) estivesse a assediar os media sociais com as suas calúnias nefastas contra a pobre e inocente Hillary Clinton, isto poderia determinar uma eleição apenas num vácuo, sem outras influências no campo. Mas havia muitas outras coisas a acontecerem nas eleições de 2016, algumas a favor de Trump e outras de Hillary, e a própria Hillary marcou deu próprio objectivo crucial ao denegrir milhões de americanos como “deploráveis” porque eles não se ajustavam na política de identidade dos seus círculos eleitorais.

Os russos nada podiam fazer para dar apoio a Trump e não há nem um indício de prova de que o tenham tentado. Eles poderiam ter feito alguma coisa para prejudicar Hillary, porque havia muito ali: os emails do seu servidor privado; a fundação Clinton; o assassinato de Gaddafi; o pedido de uma zona de exclusão aérea na Síria … eles não precisavam inventar isto. Estava lá. O mesmo aconteceu com a promiscuidade do Comitê Nacional Democrata (CND), sobre o qual as acusações se concentram clintonitas, talvez para fazer com que todos esqueçam coisas muito piores.

Quando se chega a pensar nisto, o escândalo do CND centrou-se em Debbie Wasserman Schultz, não na própria Hillary. Berrar acerca de “russos a hackearem o CND” tem sido um diversionismo em relação a acusações muito mais séries contra Hillary Clinton. Apoiantes de Bernie Sanders não precisaram de tais revelações para deixarem de gostar de Clinton ou mesmo para descobrir que o CND estava a trabalhar contra Bernie. Isto sempre foi perfeitamente óbvio.

Assim, na pior das hipóteses, “os russos” são acusados de revelarem alguns factos menores referentes à campanha de Hillary Clinton. Grande coisa.

Mas isso é suficiente, depois de dois anos de falsificações, para remeter o establishment para um furor de acusações de “traição” quando Trump faz o que disse que faria quando estava em campanha, tentar normalizar relações com a Rússia.

Este berreiro vem não só do mainstream dos EUA como também das elites europeias as quais durante setenta anos foram domesticadas como caniches ou bassets obedientes do zoo americano, através da pressão intensa de “associações de cooperação” americanas transatlânticas. As ditas elites basearam suas carreiras na ilusão de partilhar o império mundial ao seguir os caprichos dos EUA no Médio Oriente e ao mudar a missão das suas forças armadas da defesa para unidades de intervenção externa da NATO sob o comando dos EUA. Não tendo pensado seriamente acerca das implicações disto durante meio século, elas entram em pânico à sugestão de serem deixadas por conta própria.

A elite ocidental agora sofre de demência auto-infligida.

Donald Trump não é particularmente articulado, navegando através da linguagem com um pequeno vocabulário repetitivo, mas o que ele disse na sua conferência de imprensa em Helsínquia foi honesto e mesmo corajoso. Tal como os cães ladram pelo seu sangue, ele muito correctamente recusou-se a endossar as “descobertas” das agências de inteligência dos EUA, catorze anos depois de as mesmas agências terem “descoberto” que o Iraque estava repleto de armas de destruição em massa. Como é que alguém no mundo poderia esperar qualquer outra coisa?

Mas para os media que se proclamam como referência, “a narrativa” na cimeira de Helsínquia, mesmo a única narrativa, foi a reacção de Trump às acusações forjadas de interferência russa em nossa democracia. Você foi ou não foi eleito graças a hackers russos? Tudo o que eles queriam era uma resposta sim ou não. A qual não poderia ser sim. Assim poderiam escrever suas notícias com antecedência.

Qualquer um que tenha frequentado os meios dos jornalistas mainstream, especialmente aqueles que cobrem os “grandes temas” nos assuntos internacionais, está consciente da sua obrigação de conformismo, com poucas excepções. Para conseguir o emprego, ele deve ter “fontes” importantes, o que significa porta-vozes governamentais desejosos de contar o que é “a narrativa”, muitas vezes sem serem identificados. Uma vez que eles sabem o que é “a narrativa”, estabelece-se a competição: competição no como contá-la. Isso leva a uma escalada da retórica, variações sobre o tema: “O presidente traiu nosso grande país entregando-o ao inimigo russo. Traição!”

Este coro enlouquecido sobre o “hacking russo” impediu mesmo os media mainstream de fazerem a sua tarefa. Até mesmo de mencionar, e muito menos analisar, qualquer das questões reais na cimeira. Para encontrar análises deve-se ir on line, longe das falsas notícias oficiais da reportagem dita independente. Exemplo: o sítio the Moon of Alabama apresenta uma interpretação inteligente da estratégia de Trump, a qual soa infinitamente mais plausível do que “a narrativa”. Em suma, Trump está a tentar cortejar a Rússia para afastá-la da China, numa versão invertida da estratégia de Kissinger de quarenta anos atrás de cortejar a China para afastá-la da Rússia, evitando assim uma aliança continental contra os Estados Unidos. Isto pode não funcionar porque os EUA se demonstraram tão inconfiáveis que os cautelosos russos provavelmente não abandonarão sua aliança com a China em troca de sombras. Mas isto faz perfeito sentido como uma explicação da política de Trump, ao contrário dos miar de gatos que temos ouvido de senadores e de apresentadores na CNN.

Tais pessoas parecem não ter ideia do que é diplomacia. Elas não podem conceber acordos que fossem benéficos para ambos os lados. Não, para elas tem de ser um jogo de soma zero, o vencedor fica com tudo. Se eles vencem, nós perdemos e vice-versa.

Elas também não têm ideia do dano para ambos os lados se não concordarem. Elas não têm projecto, nem estratégia. Apenas odeiam Trump.

Ele parece totalmente isolado e todas as manhãs vejo os noticiários para ver se já foi assassinado.

É inimaginável para quaisquer moralistas maniqueus que Putin também estar sob fogo internamente por deixar de repreender o presidente americano pelas violações dos EUA direitos humanos em Guantanamo; ataques de drones assassinos contra cidadãos indefesos por todo o Médio Oriente; pela destruição da Líbia em violação do mandato da ONU, pela interferência nas eleições de incontáveis países por “organizações não governamentais” financiadas pelo governo (a National Endowment of Democracy); pela espionagem electrónica à escala mundial; pelas invasões do Iraque e do Afeganistão, sem mencionar a maior populacional prisional do mundo e os massacres de crianças de escolas. Mas os diplomatas russos sabem como ser polidos.

Ainda assim, se Trump realmente fizer um “acordo”, poderá haver perdedores – não os EUA nem a Rússia, mas sim terceiros. Quando duas grandes potências chegam a um acordo, muitas vezes é a expensas de outrem. Os europeus ocidentais temem que sejam eles, mas tais temores são infundados. Tudo o que Putin quer é relações normais com o Ocidente, o que não é pedir muito.

Ao invés disso, o candidato número a pagar o preço são os palestinos, ou mesmo o Irão, de modos marginais. Na conferência de imprensa, indagado acerca de possíveis áreas de cooperação entre as duas potências nucleares, Trump sugeriu que os dois podiam concordar na ajuda a Israel:

“Ambos falamos com Bibi Netanyahu. Eles gostariam de fazer certas coisas em relação à Síria, tendo a ver com a segurança de Israel. Quanto a isso, gostaríamos absolutamente de trabalhar a fim de ajudar Israel. Israel estará a trabalhar connosco. Assim ambos os países trabalhariam em conjunto”.

Em termos políticos, Trump sabe onde reside o poder e está contando com a influência do lobby pré Israel, o qual reconhece a derrota na Síria e a crescente influência da Rússia, para salvá-lo dos imperialistas liberais – uma aposta ousada, mas ele não tem muita escolha.

Acerca de outro assunto, Trump disse que “nossos militares” entendem-se melhor com os russos “do que os nossos políticos”. Trata-se de outra aposta ousada, sobre o realismo militar que poderia de algum modo neutralizar o lobby no Congresso do complexo militar industrial por cada vez mais armas.

Em suma, a única probabilidade de finalizar a ameaça da guerra nuclear pode depender do apoio a Trump de Israel e do Pentágono!

Os histéricos globalistas neoliberais parecem ter descartado qualquer outra possibilidade – e talvez esta também.

“Diálogo construtivo entre os Estados Unidos e a Rússia adianta a oportunidade de abrir novas vias rumo à paz e à estabilidade no nosso mundo”, declarou Trump. “Eu antes assumiria um risco político em busca da paz do que arriscaria a paz em busca da política”, acrescentou.

Isso é mais do que os seus inimigos políticos podem reivindicar.

Donald Trump was Elected by Russia? Mass Dementia in the Western Establishment

Tradução : http://resistir.info/

Da mesma autora:

• The 2016 Elections: “The Bad Losers” and What They Fear LosingVer também o vídeo integral (46 minutos) da conferência de imprensa de Trump e Putin em Helsínquia:
  [*] Autora de Fools’ Crusade: Yugoslavia, NATO, and Western Delusions . Seu novo livro é Queen of Chaos: the Misadventures of Hillary Clinton . As memórias do pai de Diana Johnstone, Paul H. Johnstone, From MAD to Madness , foram publicadas pela Clarity Press com comentários seus.   [email protected] .

   

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On the world’s Grand Chessboard, the US is fighting for control and influence. And there are countries where its ambassadors are perceived more as imperial governors than simple channels of communication.

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For more than a fortnight the fires of fury have been stoked in the oil-rich and Shia-majority south of Iraq after the government was accused of doing nothing to alleviate a deepening unemployment crisis and to tackle rampant corruption.

The demonstrations began in Basra, before swiftly spreading to major population centres including Najaf and Amarah, and now discontent is stirring in the capital, Baghdad.

Baghdad’s Green Zone has been quick to promise more funding and investment in development of chronically underdeveloped cities, but this has done little to quell public anger. Iraqis have heard these promises countless times before, and with a water and energy crisis striking in the middle of scorching summer heat, people are less inclined to believe what their government says.

With Iran refusing to provide for Iraq’s electricity needs, Baghdad has now also turned to Saudi Arabia to see if its southern Arab neighbour can help alleviate the crises it faces.

Protesters killed

Demonstrations against chronic unemployment, corruption and Baghdad’s subservience to the agendas of foreign powers have entered their third week.

Iraqis in the Shia-dominated south – the heart of Iraq’s oil sector – are outraged at the political elite for failing to provide opportunities for citizens, particularly the youth. Youth unemployment currently stands at 18 percent, and has hit those with higher education degrees hardest.

About 60 percent of Iraqis are below the age of 24, and with such a high proportion of jobless youth, politicians have their work cut out to be able to convince young people that officials have a plan to ensure they have a future.

The situation is made even worse in southern industrial cities like Basra, where the petroleum industry is employing cheap foreign labour – despite laws stating that 50 percent of staff employed by companies enjoying the spoils of lucrative Iraqi oil contracts must be Iraqi.

Demonstrators have angrily lashed out at politicians they accuse of benefiting from kickbacks and corruption by allowing companies to hire cheaper labour and ignoring the domestic workforce. Protesters have even attempted to break into oil installations, according to Oil Minister Jabbar al-Luaibi, who last week said that foreign workers were being evacuated for their own safety.

The eruption of anger forced Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi to cut short his trip to the NATO summit in Brussels last week and head straight to Basra to try and calm public fury after security forces killed an unarmed demonstrator. Rather than prevent an escalation of the violence, and promising to hold violent Shia militias and unruly security forces to account, nine more Iraqis were killed by the start of the week, with more video footage emerging showing the lifeless bodies of victims of state and militia violence.

Demonstrators and their supporters on social media have accused Abadi of being incapable of controlling violent police, military and paramilitary units, including Iran-backed Shia militants in the Popular Mobilisation Forces (PMF) – a militant group that is now formally a part of the Iraqi armed forces. The PMF and its constituent militias often only follow the orders of their own local commanders, or Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), completely undermining the prime minister’s role as commander-in-chief.

#breaking : Protesters have attacked Dawa party office in Najaf, Dawa has been the party of the PM in Iraq for the last 12 years pic.twitter.com/Q5uuirfvog

— Steven nabil (@thestevennabil) July 13, 2018

Counter-terrorism forces used against ‘Baathist’ protesters

PMF militants, including the notoriously sectarian Asa’ib Ahl ul-Haq militia, the Harakat Hizballah al-Nujaba group, and Kata’ib Hizballah, have all taken part in violently suppressing protests. This follows the torching of the rulign Dawa Party’s offices and those of IRGC-linked militias by demonstrators in the first week of the protests.

Shia Arab protesters could be heard cursing various political parties and militant groups as “Iranians” and not Iraqis, and branding them “Safavids”, in reference to the Shia Persian empire who fought against the Ottoman Turks for control over Iraq for centuries.

The use of the term “Safavid” is more usually associated with Sunni groups who remain critical of the former Persian empire for their sectarian pogroms in Baghdad and other cities – so its use by Shia Iraqis is perhaps indicative of the scale and depth of the anger against Iranian interventionism in Iraq.

Open criticism against pro-Iran groups is rarely tolerated in Iraq, however, and Dawa Party officials have been quick to react, especially after protests spread to Baghdad, causing politicians and militia leaders to become jittery.

The New Arab’s Arabic language service reported that Saad al-Muttalibi, a Dawa Party official loyal to former Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, described the protesters as “little children” and claimed they were linked to the proscribed Baath Party of former dictator Saddam Hussein.

Muttalibi, who also serves on the Baghdad security council, said his party had information that demonstrators in the Shola district were attempting to “encourage acts of sabotage”, but had been thwarted by political parties and security forces, who arranged a brutal crackdown on dissent.

Activists in Baghdad say they organised demonstrations in solidarity with their countrymen in Basra, Najaf and other major cities, and because they shared the same grievances. Nevertheless, counter-terrorism forces have been deployed against them.

This is not the first time that Muttalibi has fuelled major controversy. In early 2017, during the battle for Mosul, Muttalibi openly admitted during an appearance on TRT World that his government was conducting executions without trial. When he was informed by another panellist that he was in fact admitting to war crimes, Muttalibi burst out in laughter.

Such disregard for international human rights law has likely encouraged an environment of impunity, as PMF militants and security forces abduct, torture and sometimes kill demonstrators.

Al Jazeera Arabic’s Iraq editor, Hamid Hadeed, reported that a young man, Mohammed al-Shakir, was kidnapped and murdered before being dumped on the streets of Najaf as a message to other protesters. The victim was a Shia activist killed by Shia militias.

Iraq turns to Saudi Arabia as Iran fails to cut electricity deal

In an attempt to quench the fires of public anger, Baghdad has attempted to negotiate with neighbouring Iran for an increase in the electricity supply to Iraq and to stabilise the grid. Although Iraq has enough natural resources to be completely energy independent, a cocktail of corruption, mismanagement and the effects of decades of war has left it reliant on neighbouring powers, particularly Tehran.

However, Iran has been unwilling to assist Iraq this time, as it grapples with its own domestic problems, cutbacks and the fallout of the imminent reinstatement of US sanctions. Tehran has even cut the electricity supply to Iraq which has made an already hot summer even hotter as Iraqis contend with record scorching temperatures.

With tempers already flaring, Abadi has sought alternative solutions, and has turned to Saudi Arabia instead, seeking Riyadh’s help to calm public anger.

A senior delegation travelled to Riyadh on Wednesday to tackle issues “led by the electricity and fuel problems”. The prime minister’s office also revealed that the country’s energy minister will be dispatched later this week to sign urgent energy agreements with the Sunni Arab monarchy.

While Iran’s intransigence has been seen as a sign of its displeasure at the outcome of the Iraqi elections held in May, this is perhaps an overly conspiratorial outlook that is not reflective of the reality faced by the Iranian regime. Iran has a plethora of unpaid debts as well as power and energy problems of its own – and with the United States decision to walk away from the nuclear deal earlier this year portending difficult times for Tehran.

This has caused Iran to pare back services that it views as non-essential to its aims, including power distribution to southern Iraq.

Iran’s decision may have unintended consequences, however, with Saudi Arabia being in a prime position to fill the void and show Iraqis that there is an alternative to reliance on Iran. Abadi may seek to balance both powers against one another to his benefit, but only if he manages to hold onto the premiership – which is far from certain, even though a new government has yet to be formed and is unlikely to appear in the near future.

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This statement was released today by the Palestinian Boycott National Committee. “Israel effectively declares itself an apartheid state. Palestinian Civil Society Reacts to Israel’s Jewish Nation-State Law.”​

Today, Israeli lawmakers gave their final approval to the “Basic Law: Israel as the Nation State of the Jewish People” bill that unambiguously defines Israel as a state that belongs exclusively to the “Jewish people.” This is despite the fact that one in five citizens of Israel is an indigenous, non-Jewish Palestinian.

Palestinian members of the Israeli Knesset condemned the law, which enjoys constitutional power, as an “apartheid law.”

Adalah, a leading Palestinian human rights organization in Israel, describes how the law “affirms the principle of apartheid in housing, land and citizenship.” It concludes that “this law constitutionally sanctions institutionalized discrimination.”

Najwan Berekda, a Palestinian citizen of Israel, reacted:

As a Palestinian citizen of this state, this bill entrenches my third-class citizenship on the land where generations of my family have lived since long before the state of Israel even existed.

The Jewish-Israeli majority is loudly reminding us indigenous Palestinian citizens of Israel that we are not welcome in our own ancestral homeland. My people have always suffered from legalized racism by the state of Israel and its institutions, but this law makes our apartheid reality the law of the land like never before.

As “non-Jews” we are already not allowed to buy or rent land on 93% of the area controlled by the Israeli state, and many of our communities are declared to be “unrecognized” and bulldozed out of existence by Israeli forces. I received a racially segregated and inferior education in a school system that conspicuously privileges Jewish-Israelis.

Israel is now stripping us of any semblance of equal rights based solely on our ethno-religious identity. It’s even demoting our language from one of the state’s two official languages.

Omar Barghouti from the Palestinian BDS National Committee (BNC) commented:

Israel has dozens of racist laws, including some which strikingly fit the UN definition of apartheid. But with the constitutional power of this Basic Law, Israel is effectively declaring itself an apartheid state and dropping its worn-out mask of democracy.

From now on, it will not just be legal to racially discriminate against the indigenous Palestinian citizens of the state. It will be constitutionally mandated and required. This should stir people, institutions and governments to take effective action to hold Israel accountable.

Omar Barghouti concluded:

If ever there was a time for boycott, divestment and sanctions against Israel’s system of oppression, it is now. Israel’s official adoption of apartheid opens the door for the Palestinian people, Arab nations and our allies around the world to pressure the UN to activate its anti-apartheid laws and impose serious sanctions on Israel like those imposed on apartheid South Africa.

We shall double our efforts to further grow the BDS movement for Palestinian rights to hold Israel accountable for all its crimes against our people. No Israeli law will erase our right to self-determination in our homeland or the right of our refugees to return home. No Israeli far-right government, with all the blind support it receives from xenophobic and outright fascist forces in the United States and Europe, will ever extinguish our aspiration for freedom, justice and equality.

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On Thursday, the British media uncritically regurgitated Press Association reports that police had “identified the suspected perpetrators of the novichok” attacks in Salisbury.

In March, former Russian spy and British double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia were taken apparently gravely ill, allegedly poisoned with the nerve agent in Salisbury.

Both made a full recovery, but in June, Dawn Sturgess and her partner Charlie Rowley were struck down, supposedly by the same agent. Rowley lived in Salisbury and Sturgess in Amesbury, just eight miles north of Salisbury.

Sturgess died on July 8. An inquest into her death opened and was adjourned, also on Thursday, until January 2019.

According to the Press Association, an unnamed source with knowledge of the police investigation had reported,

“Investigators believe they have identified the attack … through CCTV and have cross-checked this with records of people who entered the country around that time. They (the investigators) are sure they (the suspects) are Russian.”

No evidence was released to back up the claims, which were not officially endorsed by police. Nonetheless, they were uncritically recycled and amplified by the press.

The Mail, for example, claimed officers believe that “a team of Russian assassins” were sent to the UK, and that the “kill team” was “recorded on CCTV as they carried out their mission.” The team had “up to six” members.

The Sun described the team as comprising variously “two Russians” and “several Russians” working “on behalf of the Kremlin. … They were thought to have left the UK for Russia the next morning [after the Skirpal poisoning] and are thought to be under the protection of President Vladimir Putin.”

It cited yet another unidentified “source” claiming that “facial recognition technology was used to identify the suspects,” and that the “pair’s departure was discussed in a coded Russian message to Moscow—intercepted by a British base in Cyprus.”

The reports follow comments in the New York Times earlier in the week by a Mark Galeotti, who was cited as an “expert on Russian intelligence” that “at the very least, they have grainy photographs from CCTV of the people they assume were involved.”

Why this information should only have just recently come to light, fully four months after the alleged fourth attack by “novichok,” was not explained.

Not a word emanating from the US and British authorities and media can be taken at face value. Yet again, none of the claims are substantiated or even make sense. Each new supposed disclosure only serves to contradict previous claims.

Sturgess and Rowley fell ill June 29 having apparently come into contact with a substance that caused them to suffer symptoms similar to those of Sergei and Yulia Skripal. Sturgess died some days later. Rowley is reported to have regained consciousness and has spoken to his brother.

No evidence has been presented publicly to allow independent verification of the claim that the pair fell ill due to exposure to the same substance as the Skripals. Neither has evidence been offered to suggest that either attack in fact involved the “novichok” nerve agent, allegedly one of the most dangerous ever manufactured.

However, if indeed the attack on Sturgess and Rowley was related in some, even accidental, way to the attack on the Skripals, it raises more questions than it answers.

Charlie Rowley told his brother that he had picked up a “perfume bottle” before falling ill. A small bottle was found in Rowley’s house, one of hundreds of items and vehicles seized and transported to the nearby British government chemical weapons research facility at Porton Down.

Rowley apparently stated that Sturgess sprayed some of the bottle’s contents on herself, believing it to be perfume. According to the Telegraph, investigators are now considering the possibility that the bottle was found by Sturgess and Rowley in a Salisbury park or around the city centre.

But in the case of the Skripals, the official narrative went through several mutations as to how the poison had been delivered—from involving flowers at a grave, a car’s air-conditioning system, food, items in Sergei Skripal’s house, before finally settling on a “gloopy” substance smeared on the door handle at Skripal’s house.

How it remained in place despite inclement weather and why the Skripals were able to go about their business apparently unaffected for hours before both falling ill simultaneously—despite the difference in age and weight—has never been explained.

Likewise, the gel-like substance as a means of infection has now become a spray perfume bottle. No evidence has been made available on the perfume bottle—the brand, possible date of purchase, possible vendors in the Salisbury area.

No explanation has been offered of why the attackers would discard the bottle in a public area. How it lay undiscovered for months, despite a virtual lockdown in the area, is similarly passed over in silence. Why, having lain around in all manner of weather for so long, it proved more potent the second time around—again nothing.

In a related absurdity, police only this week began a fingertip search of the Queen Elizabeth Gardens in Salisbury, which Rowley and Sturgess were known to have visited shortly before they fell ill. Queen Elizabeth Gardens is only five minutes’ walk from the park bench where the Skripals were found comatose months earlier.

The fact that this elementary search had not apparently been carried out after the Skripal attack, let alone the more recent poisoning, is consistent with the authorities seeking to prevent, rather than prosecute, a serious investigation of both attacks.

It cannot be ruled out that Sergei Skripal was indeed a target and his daughter, Sturgess and Rowley the unfortunate “collateral damage.” But the haste yet again to blame the Kremlin and Putin in particular only heightens the suspect character of the official narrative.

Both the bottle’s discovery and the apparent identification of Russian agents coincide with the explosion of the ferocious right-wing faction fight within the US into charges of treason against a sitting president, with all this entails.

Last Friday saw the announcement of a US grand jury indictment charging 12 Russians, alleged officers in the GRU, the intelligence arm of Russia’s military, with hacking and leaking Democratic Party emails during Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign. The charges were brought by special counsel Robert Mueller as part of his probe into Russian “meddling” in the US election.

The anti-Russian propaganda reached fever pitch with the meeting Monday between US President Donald Trump and Putin in Helsinki, that saw Trump denounced by sections of the military/intelligence apparatus and the Democratic Party as a “traitor” and Kremlin stooge.

At root, the raging disputes within the American ruling class revolve around foreign policy and the extent to which military efforts should be directed primarily against Russia.

It would be foolish to believe that sections of the British intelligence and political establishment do not have a dog in this fight.

In May, it was reported by former British diplomat Craig Murray that a D-notice (Defence and Security Media Advisory Notice) had been issued by the British government regarding the Skripal case.

He suggested this was to protect Pablo Miller, an associate of former British intelligence officer Christopher Steele. Miller, also a spy, had apparently been involved in recruiting Sergei Skripal as a double agent in the 1990s.

In 2016, Steele put together the notorious Trump-Russia dossier, commissioned by the Democratic Party in the US, alleging that the Putin regime had accumulated information on sexual misconduct by Trump for blackmail purposes. Steele was the subject of an earlier D-notice, which attempted, and failed, to hide his identity as the dossier’s author.

Murray speculated that Miller, a former spy, resident in Salisbury, and known to keep in contact with Skripal, could well have been involved, along with Skripal himself, with the deeply dubious Trump-Russia dossier.

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Featured image is from Tass.

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Thousands of leading scientists have urged their colleagues against helping governments create killer robots, making the movie The Terminator a reality.

2,400 scientists have pledged to block the development of lethal weaponry using Artificial Intelligence, The Guardian reported.

In other words, killer robots, that could eventually develop a mind of their own and take over the world. Scientists have vowed they will not support robots “that can identify and attack people without human oversight.”

Two leading experts backing the commitment, Demis Hassabis at Google DeepMind and Elon Musk at SpaceX, are among the more than 2,400 signatories whom have pledged to deter military firms and nations from building lethal autonomous weapon systems, referred to as Laws.

The move is the latest from concerned scientists and organizations about giving a machine the power to choose someone’s fate of life or death.

The pledge organized by The Future of Life Institute, calls on governments to agree on norms, laws, and regulations that stigmatize and effectively outlaw the development of killer robots.

The signatories of the pledge have stated they will “neither participate in nor support the development, manufacture, trade, or use of lethal autonomous weapons.” More than 150 AI-related firms and organizations added their names to the pledge that was announced at the International Joint Conference on AI in Stockholm.

Robots are beginning to take over every aspect of society.  They are also headed for retail businesses delivering freight and eliminating truckers.

But, can we really give robots the choice whether to kill or let a human being live?

In fact, it sounds quite dangerous allowing a freight truck to drive itself; if the sensors break down on a big rig truck going  60-70 MPH, that’s potentially 40 tons barreling down the highway unattended except by artificial intelligence.

As another example, imagine A.I. having to choose who to let live in a freak accident?

This may be why, as Activist Post reported back in March, Uber had to halt nationwide testing of its A.I. vehicles following the death of a pedestrian in Arizona. And that was a car actually attended by a human backup operator.

Automation clearly isn’t a foolproof technology, and it can also be exploited by hackers for malicious purposes that could even include programming a bot to kill an individual.

This comes after Google employees drafted their own demands and a petition against Google’s involvement with Project Maven, demanding the engagement end, as well as an agreement to never get involved with the military again.  That action caused Google to quit its drone program.

However, the agreement was already signed, so the company is locked in for another year until the contract runs out in March 2019. Google can then legally stop assisting the government with the advancement of artificial intelligence for use with its drones.

At least a dozen staff resigned over the issue.

A DoD statement from last July announced that Project Maven aimed to “deploy computer algorithms to war zones by year’s end.”

The military has also proposed a drone mothership in the sky like in the movie Captain America: The Winter Soldier, an absolutely scary concept at best.

The Tesla founder has previously said that artificial intelligence is potentially more dangerous than nuclear weapons.  That’s a shared thought with scientist Stephen Hawking, who also previously warned that “artificial intelligence could spell the end for the human race if we are not careful enough because they are too clever.”

This is the beginning of The Terminator movie, as even scientists agree that machines will begin to think for themselves in the near future and could be a threat to the human race.

With this pledge by at least 2,400 of the world’s brightest minds maybe we can stop a potential man-made threat to the human race.

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Aaron Kesel writes for Activist Post. Support us at Patreon. Follow us on Minds, Steemit, SoMee, BitChute, Facebook and Twitter. 

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Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh has nothing but contempt for international law. But he has shown uncritical deference to executive power, particularly in the so-called war on terror cases.

The two primary sources of international law are treaties and what’s known as “customary international law.” Ratified treaties are part of domestic US law under the supremacy clause of the Constitution, which says treaties “shall be the supreme law of the land.” Furthermore, it has long been established that customary international law, which arises from the consistent and general practice of nations, is part of US law.

Although he professes to interpret the Constitution as written by the founders, Kavanaugh has apparently overlooked the supremacy clause and simply scorns customary international law.

Jordan Paust, international law scholar and professor emeritus at University of Houston Law Center, told Truthout in an email,

“The unanimous views of the Founders, Framers, and Supreme Court Justice opinions is that the President and all members of the Executive Branch are bound by international law.”

Paust also referenced a 2016 article he wrote in the Houston Journal of International Law documenting this fact.

Kavanaugh, however, erroneously conflates international law with foreign law. The US agrees to the terms of treaties it ratifies. And in most instances, the United States can opt out of a customary international law norm if the US objected while the norm was being developed. Foreign law, on the other hand, is the law of other countries — such as French law, German law, etc.

In the 2016 case of Al Bahlul v. United States, a Guantánamo detainee argued that since “conspiracy” was not an offense under the international laws of war, he should not be tried for conspiracy before a military commission.

Kavanaugh’s concurrence in that case characterized al-Bahlul’s argument as “extraordinary” because “it would incorporate international law into the U.S. Constitution as a judicially enforceable constraint on Congress and the President.”

That would mean, Kavanaugh cynically wrote, that wartime decisions made by the president and Congress to try unlawful enemy combatants before military commissions “would be subject to the dictates of foreign nations and the international community, as embodied in international law.”

He added: “The federal courts are not roving enforcers of international law. And the federal courts are not empowered to smuggle international law into the U.S. Constitution and then wield it as a club against Congress and the President in wartime.”

Kavanaugh and the War on Terror

For 12 years, while serving as a judge on the DC Circuit Court of Appeals, Kavanaugh had the opportunity to rule on several cases stemming from the “war on terror.” In nearly all of them, he demonstrated nothing but disdain for international law and an uncritical deference to executive power.

During the Bush administration, the Supreme Court checked and balanced the executive branch in several war on terror cases. They included Rasul v. Bush (which established that federal courts have jurisdiction to hear Guantánamo detainees’ habeas corpus petitions); Hamdi v. Rumsfeld (which held that a US citizen held as an enemy combatant has due process rights to contest his or her detention); and Hamdan v. Rumsfeld (which concluded that Bush’s military commissions violated the Uniform Code of Military Justice and the Geneva Conventions).

In 2008, the high court ruled in Boumediene v. Bush that Guantánamo detainees held as enemy combatants have the right to file habeas corpus petitions in US federal courts to challenge their detention.

But in the wake of the Boumediene decision, Kavanaugh tried to neuter detainees’ habeas corpus rights in cases that came before him on the Court of Appeals, such as Omar v. McHugh and Uthman v. Obama.University of Texas law professor Stephen Vladeck noted in a 2011 articlethat since Boumediene was decided, commentators “have accused the D.C. Circuit in general — and some of its judges in particular — of actively subverting [Boumediene] by adopting holdings and reaching results that have both the intent and the effect of vitiating the … decision.”

“Prominent among those judges is Kavanaugh,” Edith Roberts wrote at SCOTUSblog.

In the 2010 case of Al-Bihani v. Obama, Kavanaugh ruled that the Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF), under which al-Bihani was held as an enemy combatant, should not be interpreted in light of the international laws of war.

Kavanaugh wrote,

“International-law norms that have not been incorporated into domestic U.S. law by the political branches are not judicially enforceable limits on the President’s authority under the AUMF.”

Paust noted in a law review article that Kavanaugh “embraced and basically relied merely on a radical ahistorical and ultimately anti-constitutional minority viewpoint” in that statement.

Kavanaugh “prefers a radical and dangerous view that ‘courts may not interfere with the President’s exercise of war powers based on international-law norms that the political branches have not seen fit to enact into domestic U.S. law,’” Paust wrote.

In fact, Kavanaugh twisted the law to reach what appear to be politically motivated results. Paust opined, “Bias is strikingly evident in [Kavanaugh’s] non-judicious use of the phrase ‘lurking international-law.’”

“This sardonic mischaracterization of law,” according to Paust, “is one that [Kavanaugh’s] former colleagues in the White House (for example, [Alberto] Gonzales, [George W.] Bush, [David] Addington, and [Dick] Cheney) might have appreciated during their infamous era of serial criminality orchestrated in the White House.” But, Paust added, “it is decidedly out of place in an impartial appellate chamber within the judicial system of the United States.”

Another example of Kavanaugh’s disrespect for international law and fondness for executive power is the 2009 case of Kiyemba v. Obama.Seventeen Uighur men found to be unlawfully detained at Guantánamo feared being returned to China in violation of the United Nations Convention Against Torture and a federal statute, given the likelihood that they would face torture upon their return. Kavanaugh took the position that courts must defer to the president’s determination of whether there is a likelihood of torture upon return. Most of the Uighurs were ultimately relocated to other countries, but many remain in detention.

A Dangerous Presumption

Kavanaugh’s deference to the president goes even further. In a 2014 law review article, he wrote that the take care clause of the Constitution requires the president to enforce the law, “at least unless the President deems the law unconstitutional, in which event the President can decline to follow the statute until a final court order says otherwise.” Kavanaugh would create a dangerous presumption in favor of a president who refuses to follow the law.

If confirmed to the Supreme Court, Kavanaugh will almost certainly defer to the president’s wartime decisions during the perpetual war on terror. He will likely extend that deference to Donald Trump’s immigration policies under the guise of “national security.” And Kavanaugh’s frightening theory will encourage the president to disobey any law he deems unconstitutional, including customary and treaty-based international law.

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Since July 26, 1947, the CIA has played a role in hundreds of assassinations, military coups, and rebellions around the globe, from Argentina to Zaire.

Despite its championing of freedom, the CIA’s true objective has always been imperialist in nature. Whether oil in Iran or bananas in Guatemala, the U.S. has a material interest in every country in whose affairs it has meddled.

In order to meet its goals, the CIA recruits influential, intellectual and charismatic personalities. The agency also resorts to threats, kidnapping, torture, enforced disappearances and assassinations. The organization incites violence, uprisings and military rebellion, and causes economic chaos and misery to the people through scarcity of basic foods and so on.

The CIA has been exposed on a number of occasions through documented evidence, leaks of information and whistleblowing by active and former agents.

1. 1954 in Guatemala

In 1944, the violent U.S.-backed dictatorship of Jorge Ubico was overthrown by a popular uprising. Ubico had merely served as a puppet of the United Fruit Company, which basically enslaved the population. It stripped campesinos and Indigenous people of their lands and forced them to work their own parcels and paid them crumbs. Those who dared to disobey were brutally punished by a police force working for the U.S. agricultural company.

The victory of the uprising brought peace to the country for 10 years, its culmination being the election in 1951 of progressive Jacobo Arbenz, who sought an agrarian reform.

In 1954, the CIA launched the code-named Operation PBSUCCESS. The country’s capital Guatemala City was bombed by U.S. warplanes. The young Ernesto “Che” Guevara was there and witnessed the invasion first hand.

Under a series of military rulers after the coup, Guatemala suffered three decades of brutal repression in which as many as 200,000 people died, many of them campesinos killed by security forces.

U.S.-backed and financed military tyrants of Guatemala 1954.

2. 1959 in Haiti

Haiti is as strategic to the United States as are the Dominican Republic and Cuba. But in Haiti, the story is different. In 1959, two years after coming to power, Francois Duvalier, with the help of the CIA, created a rural militia called the Tonton Macoute after a Haitian Creole bogeyman in response to discontent among the people to his developing dictatorial rule. The Macoute, which by 1961 was twice as big as the army, never developed into a real military force but was more than just a secret police, terrorizing those who opposed the U.S.-backed dictator.

Duvalier’s son, CIA-approved heir, Jean-Claude succeeded his father in 1971 and continued the repressive rule. During his presidency, until 1986, “prisons and torture centers claimed the lives of hundreds of victims. Arbitrary arrests, torture, deaths in custody, enforced disappearances and political killings were regularly reported,” according to Amnesty International.

U.S.-backed dictator Francois Duvalier.

3. 1964 in Brazil

Image on the right: Joao Goulart’s mistake was carving into U.S. companies’ profits for the good of his people.

The early 1960s were years of incredible transformation in Brazil. President Joao Goulart implemented his “Basic Reforms” plan, which aimed to combat adult illiteracy; control the transfer of profits by multinational companies with headquarters abroad by reforming tax laws; expropriate land and redistribute to the population.

In 1964 a military coup ousted Goulart. Lincoln Gordon served as U.S. ambassador, playing a major role in support of the opposition against the government of Goulart and during the coup. On March 27, 1964, he wrote a top secret cable to the U.S. government, urging it to support the coup of Humberto de Alencar Castello Branco with a “clandestine delivery of arms” and shipments of gas and oil, to possibly be supplemented by CIA covert operations.

4. 1969 in Uruguay

During the 1960s, revolutionary movements spread through Latin America. The United States saw influential socialist leaders emerge in this South American nation. For example, the urban revolutionary guerrilla group known as the Tupamaros. Jose “Pepe” Mujica was part of it and so was his wife Lucia Topolansky. Washington became obsessed with eliminating them, fearing the influence and power they were achieving.

Nelson Rockefeller went to Uruguay in 1969 on a Latin American tour commissioned by President Richard Nixon to observe first hand the growing anti-Yankee sentiment in the region. He returned to Washington to alert authorities that something needed to be done urgently. Of course, the CIA responded immediately.

They sent Dan Mitrione. In 1969, Mitrione moved to Uruguay to oversee the Office of Public Safety, under the guise of USAID. The OPS helped local police for many years in the 1960s, training them and providing weapons. Mitrione was reportedly the man who made torture routine, applying in his words, “the precise pain, in the precise place, in the precise amount, for the desired effect.”

In 1971, Juan Maria Bordaberry was elected president under the Colorado Party. He led a coup in June 1973, with the blessing of the CIA, and remained in power until 1976, when he, in turn, was overthrown by the military. Under Bordaberry and Operation Condor, hundreds of people were murdered, tortured, imprisoned, kidnapped and disappeared.

Pepe Mujica bravely fought off U.S. attempts to annihilate socialist leaders in Uruguay and survived.

5. 1971 in Bolivia

Image below: Two years after leading a guerrilla movement against the Bolivian oligarchy, Che Guevara was murdered.

In 1967, Che Guevara was murdered after having led a guerrilla war in Bolivia against the oligarchy. The CIA-backed mission to assassinate the revolutionary leader had international repercussions.

Meanwhile, in 1970, General Juan Jose Torres took power and implemented reforms to benefit workers and those living in poverty. Hope returned to Bolivia. After less than a year in power, Torres was overthrown in a bloody coup led by the Junta of Commanders of the Armed Forces. Despite massive resistance — both civilian and military — the conservative forces applied brutality without compunction. Banzer ruled the country for the next seven years, working within Operation Condor and the CIA to silence all dissent.

6. 1973 in Chile

Image on the right: Salvador Allende, another victim of the many covert coups carried out by the United States.

In Chile, the CIA used different tactics but the results were the same. The agency led a smear campaign against the government of Chile, as it is currently doing in Venezuela. They used national and international media to demonize socialist President Salvador Allende.

By causing scarcity through extortion, through torture, imprisonment, enforced disappearances and assassinations, the CIA and right-wing forces in the country attempted to destabilize the country especially after Allende nationalized natural resources. On Sep. 11, 1973, Gen. Augusto Pinochet led the military all the way to the presidential palace with the backing of the CIA, who provided him with all the necessary weapons and armored vehicles.

War planes dropped bombs on the palace. Before he died, Allende told his people,

“I will not give up! Placed in a historic transition, I will pay for the loyalty of the people with my life. And I tell you with certainty that the which we have planted in the good conscience of thousands and thousands of Chileans will not be shriveled forever. They are strong and they may be able to dominate us, but the social processes cannot be halted nor with crime nor by force.”

Pinochet ruled for 17 years, with the official victim toll at 40,018. These include detained and/or tortured; forcibly disappeared or executed; and kidnapped. Over 200,000 Chileans were forced into exile.

7. 1976 in Argentina

The Dirty War from 1976-1983 was marked by detention centers, torture centers, massacres, rape of women and children and disappearances. In total, 30,000 people are believed killed, with 13,000 disappeared.

A military junta overthrew President Isabel Peron in 1976 and soon after the new Foreign Minister Cesar Guzzetti told U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger that the military was aggressively cracking down on “the terrorists,” according to the New York Times.

Kissinger responded,

“If there are things that have to be done, you should do them quickly,” warning that the U.S. congress may cut off aid.

Thus the Argentine government was given a green light by the U.S. to continue its brutal attacks against leftist guerrillas, political dissidents and suspected opponents.

8. 1980 in El Salvador

There is compelling evidence to show that for over 30 years, members of the U.S. military and the CIA helped organize, train, and fund death squad activity in El Salvador.

Former Death Squad officer and Company Commander in the Salvadoran Army Ricardo Castro revealed that he held monthly briefings with Deputy CIA Chief of Station in El Salvador Frederic Brugger who had recruited him for intelligence work after meeting him at an interrogation class. Castro also claimed to have knowledge of the perpetration of large massacres of civilians by Army Department 5.

In 1980 and throughout the government’s war against the rebels in the FMLN, the CIA-backed death squads terrorized the Salvadoran people. Archbishop Oscar Arnulfo Romero, a believer in liberation theology, was murdered as he was officiating mass in 1980. When the U.S.-inspired civil war was over, at least 75,000 people were reported murdered and many thousands displaced.

Archbishop Oscar Arnulfo Romero was an exponent of liberation theology and paid for it with his life.

9. 1989 in Panama

On December 20, 1989, over 27,000 U.S. soldiers invaded Panama.

Under the name “Just Cause,” the operation left at least 3,000 dead in its wake, with many unidentified bodies burnt and piled up in the streets, according to many witnesses.

The military invasion, launched by President George H. W. Bush, came 10 years after the small country had finally gained its independence over its canal. Ten days after the invasion, the canal, which belonged to the United States until 1979, was finally due to return to partial Panamanian control in 1990, and fully in 2000. In order to try to maintain a government that supported U.S interests, and to maintain U.S. hegemony in the region, Washington had previously tried economic sanctions, and even a failed military coup attempt, before resorting to a full-scale invasion.

The fear that their authority over the canal could be transferred to a government that didn’t completely submit to U.S. interests prompted the United States to claim it would be “saving” the Panamanians from a suddenly “cruel dictator,” who was also a drug-trafficker — an activity that they were aware of but did not seem to mind while President Manuel Noriega was collaborating with the CIA, in Washington’s fight against the Nicaraguan Sandinistas for instance.

Until 1988, Washington even praised Noriega’s efforts against drug trafficking in the region on several occasions, even though the CIA kept a record of his involvement in criminal activities since 1972, as Noam Chomsky pointed out in his 1993 book, “What Uncle Sam really Wants.”

Until 1988, Washington even praised Noriega’s efforts against drug trafficking in the region on several occasions.

10. 1990 in Peru

Alberto Fujimori was elected president in 1990. He named Vladimiro Montesinos National Intelligence Service Director. Montesinos was at the center of a vast web of illegal activities, including embezzlement, graft, gunrunning, and drug trafficking. He was later tried, convicted and sentenced for numerous charges. Montesinos had strong connections with the CIA and was said to have received $10 million from the agency for his government’s anti-terrorist activities.

As early as 1997, the U.S. state department annual human rights report’s chapter about Peru described the massive power SIN had acquired under Montesinos’ direction and its use against domestic political opponents. Despite those concerns, arms sales to the Fujimori regime by the U.S. government and U.S.-licensed companies nearly quadrupled in 1998 to $4.42 million, compared to $1.17 million in 1997.

On 7 April 7, 2009, a three-judge panel convicted Fujimori on charges of human rights abuses, declaring that the “charges against him have been proven beyond all reasonable doubt.” The panel found him guilty of ordering the Grupo Colina death squad to commit the November 1991 Barrios Altos massacre and the July 1992 La Cantuta massacre, which resulted in the deaths of 25 people, among other crimes.

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All images in this article are from teleSUR.

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“Members of the Congressional Black Caucus prove themselves to be happy tools of the neoliberal war party.”

“Outraged by President Trump’s 2 hr meeting w/Putin, the man who orchestrated attacks on our democracy. Where do his loyalties lie?”– Barbara Lee

“Trump’s denial of the demonstrated fact that Russia attacked American democracy in 2016 is beyond disgraceful.”– James E. Clyburn

“Instead, he legitimized Putin and disrespected the clear findings of our law enforcement and intelligence officials here at home.”– Elijah Cummings

Black people should be first in line when it comes to casting doubt on the work of intelligence agencies and federal prosecutors. Members of the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) ought to uphold the proud tradition of defying corrupt law enforcement. Instead they prove themselves to be happy tools of the neoliberal war party, a bipartisan construct that includes the Democrats. They join with the rest of the democratic party in flogging the Russiagate story and hope that their constituents won’t ask them about anything else.

Robert Mueller is no different from his prosecutor colleagues across the country. They lie. They over charge and force innocent people to plead guilty. They “squeeze” defendants with threats of draconian sentences and get them to turn on other people or even to tell lies themselves.

Mueller’s indictments of Russian officials is akin to the shady doings that he and the rest of his profession always engage in. After more than one year of investigation Mueller succeeded only in proving that Paul Manafort is a crook and that Donald Trump, Jr. is stupid. The charges against Manafort and Trump attorney Michael Cohen have nothing to do with the Russian collusion story at all. The indictments make a political rather than a criminal case and are a weak effort to prove that the year-long charade was worth carrying out at all.

“After more than one year of investigation Mueller succeeded only in proving that Paul Manafort is a crook and that Donald Trump, Jr. is stupid.”

The allegations made in the indictment are a rehash of claims that the Russian government hacked Democratic National Committee emails and used Wikileaks to release them and discredit Hillary Clinton. The indictment relies on the word of the DNC’s CrowdStrike firm who self-diagnosed a Russian hack without corroboration from anyone else.

Russia does not extradite its citizens so the indicted individuals will never appear in an American courtroom. Of course the last thing Mueller wants is to provide evidence in court. The real purpose of the investigation has succeeded. The goal is to make excuses for the Democratic Party elite, explain away their failures which led to Donald Trump’s election, protect the real electoral colluders in U.S. intelligence agencies, and prevent any normalization of relations between the United States and Russia.

The timing of the indictments killed many birds with one stone. They were a last ditch effort to embarrass Vladimir Putin as the soccer world cup wound down in Moscow and had the added benefit of delegitimizing the Trump and Putin summit meeting in Helsinki, Finland.

“The indictments make a political rather than a criminal case and are a weak effort to prove that the year-long charade was worth carrying out at all.”

Mueller names 12 Russian nationals as military intelligence officers and also says that they conducted the hacking and leaking. He provides no evidence so the claims must be taken on blind faith, something that is never recommended where the feds are concerned.

And this is where the CBC groveling is so shameful. If there were any doubts before, it is now clear that they have thrown in their lot with our enemies. Hillary Clinton was the second Democrat to have a presidential election stolen by Republicans in less than 20 years. In 2000 republicans took eligible voters off the rolls to deny Al Gore a victory in the pivotal state of Florida. In 2016 various forms of voter suppression, and electronic vote theft denied Hillary Clinton enough votes in enough states to give Trump an electoral college victory. She also denied herself by depriving the get-out-the-vote campaign of much needed funds from her $1 billion war chest.

The CBC have said little about the real threats to what is left of democracy in this country. It is Republicans who routinely steal votes, not foreign governments. It was Hillary Clinton, the DNC, and CBC members themselves who chose not to address the needs of their constituents and hoped that she could somehow win by a slim margin. CBC members are among the culprits who brought the Trump presidential administration into being.

“It is Republicans who routinely steal votes, not foreign governments.”

No one in the rogues gallery has been called to account. The so-called resistance is a fraud, a means of stoking fear about Republican bogeyman instead of giving people the right to health care and jobs and housing and gaining electoral victory in the process. The Democrats still hope to win without giving the people what they want and need. Only the specter of Vladimir Putin is enough to get otherwise intelligent people to trust a party which stabs them in the back at every opportunity.

This columnist was in the process of writing this commentary when an email arrived from the NAACP. They were pleased to announce that Bill Clinton would speak at their annual convention now taking place in San Antonio, Texas. This is the same Bill Clinton who ended the right to public assistance and who put thousands more black people behind bars. Yet he is welcomed with open arms by the CBC and their ilk.

It will be interesting to see if Slick Willie will vilify Vladimir Putin too. That may be a bit difficult after earning a cool $500,000 to give a speech in Moscow. But he may do it after all. He is shameless and so are his friends among the black misleaders.

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Margaret Kimberley’s Freedom Rider column appears weekly in BAR, and is widely reprinted elsewhere. She maintains a frequently updated blog as well at http://freedomrider.blogspot.com . Ms. Kimberley lives in New York City, and can be reached via e-Mail at [email protected].

Featured image is from the author.

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A recently released animated video produced by the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) depicts the body as being resolutely involved in what the video describes as the “international fight against terrorism”. The irony, however, is that NATO has a history of perpetuating terror in order to achieve the objectives of its political masters.

How can one not react with cynicism to NATO’s claim to “fight terrorism everyday” when its actions in attacking Iraq in 2003 and Libya in 2011 have facilitated the creation and sustaining of Islamist terror organisations?

The occupation of post-war Iraq led to an insurgency by malcontents from the Sunni community, who felt deprived of the power and privileges they had held during the rule of Saddam Hussein’s Ba’athist Party. It is from the initial rebellion that the seeds of future Islamist terror groups such as al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) and the Islamic State (IS) were sown.

NATO’s strategic bombing of Libya’s infrastructure and its armed forces was done with the specific aim of overthrowing the secular government of Colonel Muammar Gaddafi. These actions were in support of a rebellion by Islamist groups, the most notable at the time being the al-Qaeda-affiliated Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG). In fact, it was revealed that British Special Forces trained these rebels and were embedded with their brigades.

The result was not only the entrenchment of Islamist-friendly militias in what had previously been hostile territory for such groups, but also that Libya became the repository of battle-hardened jihadis who transferred their expertise to Syria where NATO countries were also trying to engineer the overthrow of the secular government of Bashar al-Assad. What is more, sizeable quantities of the munitions depots of the fallen Libyan army have got into the hands of Islamist groups active in North Africa such as al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) and further south, in West Africa, where Boko Haram continues to wreak havoc in Nigeria and Cameroon.

NATO has not only created the conditions for terrorism to flourish, member states have actively utilised Islamist groups as proxies in pursuit of the geopolitical goals of the Western alliance. The aforementioned training of members of the LIFG by British Special Forces is not the only documented interaction between the armed forces of NATO members and Islamist groups. The Turkish High Command was involved in setting up training camps for rebels, and enabling their infiltration of Syria. In March 2013, the British Guardian newspaper reported that British, French and American military officers were giving rebels what it termed “logistical and other advice in some form”.

The truth is that NATO has a troubling historical connection to terrorism.

NATO, to this day, refuses to give a full or even partial disclosure of its role in managing the stay-behind networks in its member states, and the role they allegedly played in fomenting terror as a means of discrediting the political Left during the Cold War era. For instance, an Italian investigating judge named Felice Casson was able to link the bomb which exploded and killed three Carabinieri in Peteano in 1972 to military-grade munitions (C4), only available to NATO, discovered at an arms dump created for the Italian stay-behind.

The stay-behinds were groups of secret soldiers who were tasked with the role of fighting occupying troops of the Soviet Union and its Warsaw Pact allies in the event of an invasion of Western Europe. The networks were supervised by the Allied Clandestine Committee (ACC) of NATO’s Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe (SHAPE). In Italy, the secret army was known by the code-name ‘Gladio’.

It is widely believed in Italy that Gladio was used to facilitate many key terroristic outrages during the anni di piombo (Years of Lead), which lasted roughly from the late 1960s to the early 1980s. The idea was to forestall the coming to power of the Italian communists and other Leftists who were gaining a significant amount of electoral support. This, it was reckoned, could be achieved by putting in place a strategy of tension, that is, creating the conditions where terror outrages, carried out by state-aided neo-fascist groups, would be blamed on the Left, and the resultant high level of fear and outrage on the part of the population would lead to widespread calls for the firm rule of a Right-wing government.

This modus operandi as applied in the Peteano attack involved using Vincenzo Vinciguerra of the neo-fascist Ordine Nuovo to plant the bomb, and then calling on the services of Marco Morin, an explosives expert for the Italian police, who forged a report which asserted that the explosive was of a kind traditionally used by Brigate Rosse, Italy’s foremost Left-wing terror group. Morin, was also a member of Ordine Nuovo.

The true origin of the bomb used for the Peteano outrage, Judge Casson later discovered, was from a Gladio arms dump hidden beneath a cemetery near Verona. They were military grade C4 plastic explosives used by NATO.

It should also be noted that Gladio’s commander at the time of the incident, General Geraldo Serravalle, would later testify to an irregularity at another munitions dump near the city of Trieste. Gladio had logged seven containers of C4, but when the Carabinieri had stumbled upon a cache of weapons there in February 1972 -two months before the Peteano incident- there were just four containers left.

At the time of the Trieste discovery, the police had assumed that they had stumbled across an arms cache owned by a criminal syndicate. The connection to Gladio was not discovered until Casson’s investigation.

Vinciguerra himself explicitly linked NATO to many of the outrages perpetrated during the anni di piombo beginning with the bombing at Milan’s Piazza Fontana in 1969. In 1990, he issued the following statement to the Guardian newspaper:

The terrorist line was followed by camouflaged people, people belonging to the security apparatus, or those linked to the state apparatus through rapport or collaboration. I say that every single outrage that followed from 1969 fitted into a single, organised matrix… Avanguardia Nazionale, like Ordine Nuovo, were being mobilised into battle as part of an anti-communist strategy originating not with organisations deviant from the institutions of power, but from within the state itself, and specifically from within the ambit of the state’s relations within the Atlantic Alliance.

Although General Paolo Inzerilli, the head of Italy’s secret service would announce in the latter part of 1990 that Gladio had been disbanded, there is no evidence that this was ever done, or that it was simply transformed into a new model of Special Forces irregulars.

Meanwhile, the communist enemy has been replaced by an Islamic one, and it would not be unreasonable to consider whether Gladio-type units are active in fomenting outrages which give the politicians from NATO countries the excuse to sanction military interventions in Middle Eastern countries, as well to pass legislation of the sort that has been gradually eroding civil liberties since the beginning of the so-called ‘War on Terror’.

It is while bearing these historical and contemporary events in mind that one pauses to reflect on NATO’s fight against terrorism. Its motto, Animus in consulendo liber, Latin for “A mind unfettered in deliberation” could arguably be more fittingly expressed as “A mind unrestrained by diabolical conspiracies”.

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This article was originally published on Adeyinka Makinde’s blog.

Adeyinka Makinde is a writer based in London, England. His tweets can be read at @AdeyinkaMakinde

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On July 19, 2018, the Israeli parliament ratified into law an apartheid system that has long been a reality. “Israel as the Nation-State of the Jewish People” is the newly approved Basic Law in a country where such laws take the place of the constitution Israel has never had.

The “Nation-State” law had been under consideration for many years, but even many ardent Zionists had been opposed, not because they disagreed with its provisions but because it would remove all doubt worldwide about the apartheid character of the regime. For the same reason, many pro-Israel organizations and leaders in the United States spoke out against the law.

Apartheid is a crime against humanity under the International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid.

Total support from the Trump administration, including moving the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem, was the green light for many members of the parliament (Knesset) to vote for the bill now. At the same time, the massive military and economic support, and diplomatic protection extended by Washington have made Israeli leaders increasingly dismissive of criticism from other governments.

The vote for the law was 62-55, with most of the opposition – excepting 13 Palestinian Arab members – still motivated by fears of international reaction to openly proclaiming Israel to be a racist state.

Ahmed Tibi, one of the dissenting Palestinians legislators, called it “the official beginning of fascism and apartheid.”

An openly racist law

Point 1, “Basic Principles” states:

“A. The land of Israel is the historical homeland of the Jewish people, in which the State of Israel was established. B. The State of Israel is the national home of the Jewish people, in which it fulfills its natural, cultural, religious and historical right to self-determination. C. The right to exercise national self-determination in the State of Israel is unique to the Jewish people.”

It should be pointed out that the borders of the “land of Israel” are not defined, as they never have been since the formation of the state in 1948. This is not accidental. From the very beginning, the Israeli colonizers considered their original territory to be insufficient and temporary, and have waged several expansionist wars. Today, crossing into the West Bank one encounters no sign of a border.

Not mentioned here, nor anywhere in the law, are the Palestinian people, who comprised 92 percent of the population a century ago, and who were evicted en masse by means of terror in 1948-49.

The “right to exercise national self-determination . . . is unique to the Jewish people” explicitly denies any national rights to the Palestinians who make up 21 percent of the population inside the 1948 borders, and at least 50 percent of those living today in what was the British colony of Palestine.

One of the aims of making the right of self-determination “unique” to Jewish people is to foreclose such a right for the Palestinians in the case of Israeli annexation of the West Bank.

Not only are national rights denied to Palestinians in the law, but nowhere in the text are to be found the words “equality” or “equal rights.”

As this author wrote in an article on Liberation News in early June:

“On June 5, the leadership of the Knesset (parliament) voted not to allow even the discussion of a bill calling for equal rights and status for the ‘Arab and Jewish nationalities’ inside the 1948 borders of the Israeli state.”

The bill, titled, “State of All Its Citizens,” was introduced by three members of the Balad party, Jamal Zahalka, Haneen Zoabi and Jouma Azbarga.  Balad is one of the parties representing the approximately 1.5 million Palestinians living inside Israel.

Speaker of the parliament, Yuli-Yoel Edelstein, an immigrant to Israel from Ukraine, called the bill “absurd” and explained why the indigenous Palestinian population must not, from his point of view, be accorded equal rights:

“We cannot allow a proposal whose goal is to gnaw away at the foundations the State of Israel is built upon to be on the Knesset’s agenda.”

Most of Edelstein’s colleagues were in full agreement. Knesset Legal Adviser Eyad Yinon stated:

“As a matter of principle and in its details, it’s hard not to see this proposal as seeking to negate the State of Israel’s existence as a state of the Jewish people.”

The admission that a law calling for equal rights for all would “negate” or “gnaw away at the foundations” of Israel undercut the oft-repeated mantra that Israel is the “only democracy in the Middle East.” In fact, racism and exclusivism have always characterized Zionism, the ideological foundation upon which the state of Israel was constructed.

While the Balad bill would have been overwhelmingly defeated had it come to the Knesset floor, that was an eventuality that Israeli political leaders sought to head-off at all costs, given the embarrassing public relations consequences.

Time for renewed solidarity

In another attack on Palestinian rights, Point 3 of the “nation-state” law asserts that “The capital of the state Jerusalem, complete and united, is the capital of Israel.”

Point 4 states that Hebrew is the only state language and downgrades Arabic from an official state language to one with “special status,” meaning that it will not have to be available in state institutions.

Point 5 calls for the “In-gathering of the exiles (sic). The state will be open for Jewish immigration.” This is another blatant apartheid provision. The Israeli state continues to illegally deny the right of return to all Palestinian refugees.

Point 7 stipulates:

“The state views the development of Jewish settlement as a national value and will act to encourage and promote its establishment and consolidation.”

Again, it is important to point out that there are no geographical restrictions placed of such settlements. The settlements will be Jewish-only. They constitute an obvious violation of international law in addition to the fundamental right of Palestinians to their land.

In their towering arrogance, the rulers of Israel have exposed the profoundly racist character of their state and society. There can be no more credible denials. Now is the time for all people who believe in justice to join in solidarity with the heroic and long-suffering Palestinian people in their struggle for self-determination and liberation.

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This article was originally published on Answer Coalition.

Richard Becker is West Coast Coordinator of the ANSWER Coalition.

Featured image is from the author.

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Introduction

Freedom is Slavery: Destroying Nations in the Name of Democracy

In 1945, British writer and social critic George Orwell wrote a book titled 1984 on the theme of a fictional totalitarian society. The book, one of the most successful in publishing history, relates the aftermath of an atomic world war in which the world is partitioned into three states. One state, Oceania, whose capital is London, is ruled by an English Socialist Party that has total control over all its citizens, especially over their minds. The central mind-control program used to keep its citizens abject and obedient mind slaves was referred to as “doublethink.” In doublethink, subjects were submitted to two contradictory concepts, both of which they must accept as correct simultaneously, termed by psy-chologists “cognitive dissonance.” So, although Oceania is constantly at war, its citizens act as if there is peace too. The essence of the doublethink is summarized by Orwell at the beginning of the novel:

War is peace.
Freedom is slavery.
Ignorance is strength.1

In the following work I chronicle what, in truth, is an adaptation of Orwell’s doublethink which might be termed “democracy as cognitive dissonance.” It’s the chronicle of one of the most destructive and one of the most effective operations by the intelligence services of any modern state, including of that of Stalin’s Soviet Union or even Hitler’s Goebbels-steered Third Reich. It’s the chronicle of a vast project developed by US intelligence services over decades, going back to the May 1968 CIA student strikes that brought down French President Charles de Gaulle, a determined foe of American global domination.

To purchase F. William Engdahl’s book click the front cover (right)

The Cold War between the countries of NATO and those allied to the Soviet Union lasted nearly a half century. Finally, exhausted and economically in dire straits, the Soviet Union, under Mikhail Gorbachev, raised a white flag of surrender in November 1989, as Moscow let the Berlin Wall fall. The wall had become the symbol of what Winston Churchill, in his famous 1946 Fulton, Missouri–speech, called the Iron Curtain dividing the West–the “Free World” as Washington propaganda was fond of ever repeating–from the communist world dominated by Moscow.

Outside a small circle of US CIA, State Department, and Pentagon senior officials, together with their allies in select Washington think tanks, such as the American Enterprise Institute or the New York Council on Foreign Relations, what few realized was that Washington was about to unleash the most concerted effort at regime change across the former communist countries of Eastern Europe, Ukraine, and the newly formed Russian Federation itself. The rallying call was the “introduction of US-style democracy, freedom, human rights, a neo-liberal free market.” It was to become a tyranny and in some cases, such as Ukraine, it would be far worse than anything experienced under the Soviet regime.

The Washington regime-change operations came to be called “color revolutions” because of the distinct Madison Avenue color-logo themes each destabilization brought with it—the Orange Revolution in Ukraine, the Rose Revolution in Georgia, the Green Revolution in Iran, and so forth. Invariably, they targeted any significant nation that stood in the way of what David Rockefeller, in his Memoirs, referred to as a one-world government or Bill Clinton, in the 1990s, referred to by the innocent-sounding term but not-so-innocent process of corporate globalization.2

In truth, what those Washington color revolution regime-change inter-ventions represented was an attempt to replace former communist leaders with handpicked, Washington-corrupted political leaders who would be willing to sell their national crown jewels and their people to select Western financial predators, such as the billionaire speculator George Soros or Western bankers and multinational corporations.

The Aura of American Power

Ironically, the greatest challenge confronting Washington, the Pentagon, the CIA, and the powerful military–industrial and banking lobby groups, who control congressmen and presidents with their money, was the end of the active Cold War in late 1989. There was suddenly no “enemy” to justify continued vast US military spending or the existence of NATO.

James R. Schlesinger, former US defense secretary and later CIA director, described the dilemma:

“American policymakers should be quite clear in their own minds that the basis for determining US force structure and military expenditures in the future should not simply be the response to individual threats, but rather that which is needed to maintain the overall aura of American power.”3

At the end of the 1980s, the economy and financial system of the US was in the throes of its deepest crisis since the Great Depression. The larg-est banks of Wall Street—Citigroup, Bank of America, and others—were technically bankrupt. The deregulation of US Savings & Loan banks had led to a real estate speculation bubble that collapsed in the late 1980s, at the same time as a dramatic fall in world oil prices led to waves of bankruptcies across the US domestic oil industry.

To demand that US taxpayers continue to waste hundreds of billions of their tax dollars on high levels of defense spending for an enemy that could no longer be identified, rather than to create a “peace dividend” that would allow those billions to go to the renewal of America’s rapidly decaying economic infrastructure, was a challenge to the US military and intelligence establishment. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of State Colin Powell told Army Times in April 1991:

“Think hard about it, I’m running out of demons. I’m running out of villains. . . I’m down to Castro and Kim Il Sung.”4

That dilemma was soon to be resolved. Rather than solely relying on military overt force to advance its global agenda, Washington unveiled a dramatic new weapon: “fake democracy” nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) that would be used to covertly create pro-Washington regimes in strategic parts of the world after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Democratic freedom would be the banner, incredibly enough, to introduce a new tyranny: “free” markets in actual fact controlled by Wall Street and European global banks, as well as Western multinational corporations that would loot the vast state-owned resources of the collapsed communist world.

Weaponizing Human Rights

Instead of overt military confrontation, the 1990s, with the brutal exception of Washington’s war in Yugoslavia, were to see the major deployment of what was becoming a dramatically effective new weapon for US-steered, fake democracy regime changes around the world.

So-called “human rights” NGOs, such as Human Rights Watch financed by billionaire speculator George Soros, Freedom House, the International Republican Institute (IRI), Amnesty International USA, or the US govern-ment’s supposedly private National Endowment for Democracy (NED), were to become a primary Washington weapon for regime change to transform the newly independent states of formerly communist Eastern Europe and Russia as well. Later, Washington’s “fake democracy” color revolutions would be brought to China, Central Asia, and, most dramatically, to the oil-rich states of the Middle East as the so-called Arab Spring.

The goal was to turn the target countries into US economic satrapies, or vassal states, by way of a series of regime-change color revolutions. It took a while before the unsuspecting target nations realized what was being done to them and their economies in the name of US export of “democracy.”

The first successful fake democracy color revolution regime change was aimed at Slobodan Milošević, then president of what had become by 1999 former Yugoslavia—Serbia, Vojvodina, Kosovo, and Montenegro.

We begin our investigation with a description of the birth of the NGO in Washington that was created with little fanfare by President Reagan’s CIA Director Bill Casey and others in the early 1980s. It was called the NED or National Endowment for Democracy. That NED has played the central role in every Washington-backed regime destabilization aimed at governments pursuing policies not congruent with those of Washington’s post–Cold War new globalization order.

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F. William Engdahl is strategic risk consultant and lecturer, he holds a degree in politics from Princeton University and is a best-selling author on oil and geopolitics. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

Notes

1. George Orwell, 1984, cited in https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/g/georgeorwe141783.html

2. David Rockefeller, Memoirs, p. 405, http://opengov.ideascale.com/a/dtd/David-Rockefeller-s-book-Memoirs-admits-secretly-conspiring-for-a-NWO/4007-4049. The quote reads: “Some even believe we [Rockefeller family] are part of a secret cabal working against the best interests of the United States, characterizing my family and me as ‘internationalists’ and of conspiring with others around the world to build a more integrated global political and economic structure – One World, if you will. If that’s the charge, I stand guilty, and I am proud of it.”

3. Joe Stork, New Enemies for a New World Order, MER176, http://www.merip.org/mer/mer176/new-enemies-new-world-order?ip_login_no_cache=e4b-596febb56c8ddb4c739f2806fd833.

4. William W. Kaufmann and John D. Steinbruner, Decisions for Defense (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution, 1991), p. 45.

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The defense of non-ISIS militants in southern Syria has fully collapsed under pressure from the Syrian Arab Army (SAA), the Tiger Forces and their allies.

Government troops have liberated al-Shaikh Sa’d, Tell al-Bahsa, Tell Ashtara, Khirbat al-Tira, al-Sukariyah, Qrqus and Tell al-Jabiyah mostly taking control of these areas accepting surrender deals from members of the Free Syrian Army (FSA).

According to pro-government sources, members of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (formerly Jabhat al-Nusra, the Syrian branch of al-Qaeda) and the FSA have fully surrendered to the SAA and a radical part of them has accepted an evacuation agreement. Under the agreement, the militants will hand over all of their weapons to the SAA and get an open corridor to move to the militant- held areas in the provinces of Idlib and Aleppo.

Additionally, the militants will hand over two observation posts near the villages of Umm Batinah and Ruwayhibah, inside the demilitarized zone, to the United Nations Disengagement Observer Force, established by UN Security Council Resolution 350 on May 31, 1974 to separate Syrian and Israeli forces.

Despite this, units of the SAA and the Tiger Forces still have lots of work to secure the rest of the areas, which are still formally controlled by militants.

According an SAA source contacted by SouthFront, government forces and moderate members of the FSA are now actively coordinating their efforts over the developing reconciliation agreement. Their key concern is to prevent attempts by the ISIS-linked Khalid ibn al-Walid Army to use this situation to launch own advance expanding areas under the group’s control in southern Syria.

Meanwhile, in the province of Idlib, up to 6,500 civilians and members of the local National Defense Forces have been evacuated from the besieged government-held towns of al-Fu’ah and Kafriya. According to pro-government sources, at least 160 buses and 10 ambulances have been involved in this effort.

Under the same agreement, Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) is also set to release dozens of women and children who were captured by its fighters during Idlib offensive in 2015. Abdullah al-Hassan, a HTS official, told the HTS-linked news network Iba’a that in response the Damascus government will release more than 1,500 persons from its jails, including 41 HTS fighters

Al-Fu’ah and Kafriya are the core of a government-held, which has been under siege of HTS and its allies since March 28, 2015. Currently, the SAA has no free resources to carry out a needed large-scale military operation to link up this area with the government-controlled part of Aleppo province. Therefore, Damascus has used a recently opened opportunity to evacuate the besieged civilians and NDF members. The another side of the story is that this decision will de-facto transfer control of al-Fu’ah and Kafriya to HTS.

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All day today the presstitute at NPR went on and on about President Trump, using every kind of guest and issue to set him up for more criticism as an unfit occupant of the Oval Office, because, and only because, he threatens the massive budget of the military/security complex by attempting to normalize relations with Russia.  The NPR even got an ambassador from Montenegro on the telephone and made every effort to goad the ambassador into denouncing Trump for saying that Montenegro had strong and aggressive people capable of defending themselves and were not in need of sending the sons of American families to defend them.

Somehow this respectful compliment about the Montenegro people was supposed to be an insult. The ambassador refused to be put into opposition to Trump. NPR kept trying, but got nowhere.

 As a former Wall Street Journal editor I can say with complete confidence that NPR crossed every line between journalism and advocacy and no longer qualifies as a 501c3 tax-exempt public foundation.

The NPR assault on President Trummp was part of an orchestration.  The same story appeared in the Washington Post, long-believed to be a CIA asset.  Most likely, it has appeared throughtout the presstitute media.  

The ability of the military/security complex to control the explanations given to Americans, about which President Eisenhower warned Americans in 1961 to no effect, has produced an American population, a large percentage of which is brainwashed.  

For example, in Caitlin Johnstone’s column, linked below, Kurt Eichenwald, who says that the bottom line is that you either believe “our intelligence community,” which most definitely did not concluded what Eichenwald says they have concluded, “or you support Putin. You are either a patriot, a traitor or an idiot.”

Note that Eichenwald defines a patriot, as do the Democrats, many Republicans, the entirely of the US print and TV media and NPR, as a person who believes the self-serving lies issuing from the military/security complex in support of the $1,000 billion dollars annually taken from unmet US taxpayer needs to put in the pockets of the mega-rich for “defending” American from an orchestrated, but otherwise nonexistent, thrreat. If you don’t support this theft from the American people, you are, according to Eichenwald, “a traitor or an idiot.”

Caitlin Johnstone tells us how utterly stupid Americans are to fall for the line that it is treason to seek peaceful relations with a nuclear power that can destroy us.  This means that presidents John F. Kennedy, Richard Nixon, Jimmy Carter, and Ronald Reagan were treasonous.  This is the official position of the American presstitute media, the Democratic Party, and the military/security complex.  It is also the position of a fake entity that misrepresents itself as “the American left.”   

This utterly absurd position that to pursue peace is to commit treason is precisely the position that the corrupt American print and TV media and NPR represent.  It is the position of the Democratic Party.  It is the position of the Republians in Congress, such as the warmongers John McCain and Lindsey Graham who are owned by the military/security complex.

Every American who believes the line that reducing tensions with Russia is treasonous is preparing nuclear Armageddon for themselves, their friends and families, and for the entire world.

Caitlin tells it to you like it is, see this.

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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.

Featured image is from The Intercept.

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It is perhaps typical in a time where a star of the fleshy celluloid wonder Baywatch, should feature as a political voice.  Pamela Anderson’s views are treated with judicious seriousness – at least in some quarters.  Her association with Julian Assange has given needless room for columns on what, exactly, their relationship constitutes. 

Having such defenders as Anderson has added to his conspicuous support base, but it will not move those bureaucrats who are chewing pens in anticipation and pondering options as to how best to eject him from the Ecuadorean embassy (compound would be more fitting) in London.  Easily missed amidst the titter of celebrity gossip is the plight of an ailing Assange, who is facing the next critical stage of his stay at the Ecuadorean embassy.

Since the changing of the guard in Ecuador, President Lenín Moreno has shown a warmer feeling towards the United States, and a desire to raise the issue of Assange’s stay in the embassy with US Vice President Mike Pence with the urgency of man desiring to be rid of a problem.  The UK government has also been brought into the mix.  The forces against Assange are marshalling themselves with a renewed impatience.

A squeeze evidently designed to break the will of WikiLeaks’ publisher-in-chief was commenced in March, with a change of the embassy’s Wi-Fi password effectively blocking his use of the Internet.  Phone calls and visitations have also been curtailed.  The bill of Ecuadorean hospitality, if it can be termed that, also became a subject of discussion – some $5 million expended on security and Assange’s various activities.  Attitudes to a troublesome guest have hardened.

The press circuit has increasingly thickened in recent days with speculation about a round of high-tier discussions being conducted by Ecuador and the UK government on Assange.  The Ecuadorean paper El Comercio has remarked upon the talks.  It was a turn that was unsurprising, with Moreno unimpressed by Assange’s feats and credentials, the Australian being viewed back in January as an “inherited problem” who had created “more than a nuisance” for his government.

According to Glenn Greenwald, the report that those discussions did more than touch on the matter of handing Assange over to UK authorities “appears to be true”. This might trigger an indictment from US authorities and possible extradition proceedings, a point made acute by the promise of US Attorney-General Jeff Sessions back in April to “seek to put some people in jail”, with Assange’s “arrest” being a priority.  “Can’t wait to see,” quipped Greenwald, “how many fake press freedom defenders support that.”

RT’s editor-in-chief Margarita Simonyan smells that something nasty is brewing.

“My sources tell [Julian] Assange will be handed over to Britain in the coming weeks or even days.  Like never before, I wish my sources were wrong.”

That particular process, it would seem, is being headed by Sir Alan Duncan of the Foreign Office, the same individual who had an impulse back in March to call Assange that “miserable little worm” before fellow parliamentarians.

The line that Assange has been in arbitrary detention has never quite cut it in Duncan’s circles and he has been dangling a carrot with spectacular condescension.

“It is our wish,” he told Parliament last month, “that this can be brought to an end and we’d like to make the assurance that if [Assange] were to step out of the embassy, he would be treated humanely and properly and that the first priority would be to look after his health, which we think is deteriorating.”

Such comments are always rounded up by that fanciful notion that Assange is “in the embassy of his own choice”.  That line on inventive volition was reiterated by Britain’s new foreign secretary Jeremy Hunt, who issued a statement of praise for Britain as “a country of due process” keen to see that Assange “face justice for those [serious] charges”:

“At any time he wants to he is free to walk out onto the street of Knightsbridge and the British police will have a warm welcome for him.”

Such grotesquely insincere concerns about health, fashioned as a weapon and an incentive by Duncan, would be academic should Assange find himself on the dismal road to US custody, where promises of a firm and icy welcome have been made.  He would be merely nourished and fattened for a notoriously cruel prison system, analogous to the doctor healing a person on death row.

Anderson herself makes the relevant point about her urgent advocacy for Assange.

“My role is to let people know that he’s a human being and not just a robot or a computer, and that he’s really sacrificing a lot for all of us.  He hasn’t seen sunlight in six years.  His skin is transparent.”

In what is nothing less than a war about what we can see, know and interpret, those who wish to preserve the traditional models of power and the clandestine state remain adamant: Assange is a trouble maker who must disappear.

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

Wikileaks’ latest tweet has the potential to destroy the Democrat Party’s narrative the election of 2016 was corrupted by Russian election meddling. The news agency detailed the contents of the book “Shattered” — written by Jonathan Allen — and it makes some damning accusations.

The work details former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s presidential loss to billionaire Donald Trump. Allen, who was and is a correspondent for Bloomberg News, has also written extensively about Congress, national politics, and works as a political analyst on national television news programs.

Wikileaks uploaded a picture from a page of Allen’s new book which destroys the Russian hacking narrative immediately. Wikileaks tweeted,

“New book by ‘Shattered’ by Clinton insiders reveals that “blame Russia” plan was hatched “within twenty-four hours” of the election loss.”

The page uploaded by Wikileaks explains how the Clinton spin machine was set in motion in the minutes following her loss to Trump. Allegedly, John Podesta (Clinton’s campaign manager), collaborated with Robby Mook (fellow member of the Clinton campaign) to make the argument the election was rigged by the Russians — an argument which was put forward when it was revealed in early 2016 the Democratic National Committee’s emails had been hacked.

Building on that narrative, the Clinton camp reportedly put out the notion to members of the media the election was anything but fair. The suggestion was apparently made that “Russian hacking was the centerpiece of the argument.”

The page uploaded by Wikileaks explains how the Clinton spin machine was set in motion in the minutes following her loss to Trump. Allegedly, John Podesta (Clinton’s campaign manager), collaborated with Robby Mook (fellow member of the Clinton campaign) to make the argument the election was rigged by the Russians — an argument which was put forward when it was revealed in early 2016 the Democratic National Committee’s emails had been hacked.

Building on that narrative, the Clinton camp reportedly put out the notion to members of the media the election was anything but fair. The suggestion was apparently made that “Russian hacking was the centerpiece of the argument.”

The motivations for doing so are speculative at best. Was Clinton’s team preparing a comeback in 2020? Was the effort done to cast the shadow of doubt over a Trump presidency? Or was the plan to implicate the Russians a way to rile up voters in an effort to somehow win the presidency when the official electoral votes were cast for the newly elected Trump?

Allen seemed to know, and his sources seemed to indicate the Clinton camp was not at all willing to concede without first doing damage to a Trump presidency. Immediately following the election, riots took place in the streets of several metropolitan areas, including Washington, D.C.

Our very own Claire Bernish took to the streets to document the uprising. With Allen’s revelations and Wikileaks’ charge, those same riots and school walkouts now appear to be a direct result of the Clinton campaign’s spin tactics.

To this date, we’ve still yet to see a single shred of evidence that Russia hacked the US elections. In fact, the US is trying so hard to prove this nonexistent hacking they allegedly bribed a Russian man — offering him cash, citizenship, and an apartment — if he confessed to hacking Clinton’s emails on behalf of Donald Trump. He refused.

The effects of those tactics, as well as the reportedly invented story of Russian meddling, culminated this week with the firing of FBI Director James Comey. His firing took place just as investigations into Russian election meddling were ramping up.

It remains to be seen if Trump’s firing of Comey will quell the wildfire of controversy sparked by what appears to be one candidate’s incessant desire to paint her opponent as nothing more than a pawn of the Russians, and painting herself as a hapless victim.

While there are plenty of reasons to stand against Donald Trump — war, flip-flopping on promises, increasing the police state, etc. — Russian hacking is not one of them.

As late as the first week in May, Clinton was still blaming the Russians among other things. According to the Associated Press, Clinton blamed misogyny (hatred of women), James Comey and the FBI, Russian meddling in the election, and even herself for her loss. Now, it seems, there’s one less group to blame; The Russians.

If Allen is to be believed, it was all an apparent invention from her campaign team in an effort to control the narrative, and in some ways, control the man who beat her. The real question is who is behind these Deep State movements?

Who continues to control the mainstream media’s relentless claims the Russians are to blame for a Trump presidency? Again, our readers should be reminded that not one iota of evidence exists that seem to indicate the Russians were involved at all in U.S. presidential election of 2016. Yet we’ve been told over and over again from talking heads in Washington the Russians did it. There simply is no proof they even attempted to interfere with the U.S. election of 2016.

“But today, we finally acknowledge the obvious: that Jerusalem is Israel’s capital. This is nothing more or less than a recognition of reality. It is also the right thing to do. It’s something that has to be done.”  – U.S. President Donald Trump (December 6, 2017) [1]

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On December 6, 2017, U.S. President Donald Trump made the very controversial announcement that his administration was authorizing the moving of the US embassy to Jerusalem from its previous base in Tel Aviv. [2]

The announcement was the latest outrage generated by the divisive Head of State. Though welcomed by the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Palestinian leaders interpreted the move as a declaration of American abandoning any pretense of playing an honest broker role in settling the Middle East conflict. Protests would erupt in the Gaza strip. The U.N. General Assembly voted on December 21st to condemn US recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. In spite of U.S. efforts to bully member nations into compliance with their position, the final vote was 128 nations in favour and nine votes against with 35 abstentions. [3][4][5]

The U.S. position contributed to the recent spate of violence along the Gaza border which saw Israeli Defense forces firing on unarmed protesters, leaving over 140 Palestinians dead. [6]

Recognizing that the Middle East Peace Process, and the U.S. role in that process may have undergone a fundamental re-visioning, organizers in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada decided to stage a public discussion at the University of Winnipeg, entitled My Jerusalem: Responding to the U.S. Embassy Announcement. The aim was to examine some of the historical background of the Holy City, and its significance to representatives of the three major Abrahamic religions, Judaism, Islam and Christianity, which trace their spiritual lineage to this special place.

The discussion was held February 28th, 2018 at the U of W’s Eckhardt-Grammattee Hall. Sponsors included the Canadian Arab Association of Manitoba, Global College – University of Winnipeg, Independent Jewish Voices – Winnipeg, Mennonite Central Committee – Manitoba, Mennonite Church Manitoba Working Group on Palestine and Israel, Peace Alliance Winnipeg, United Church Conference of Manitoba and Northwestern Ontario, United Jewish Peoples Order – Winnipeg, and United Network for Justice & Peace in Palestine & Israel.

The evening featured a historical breakdown of the Jerusalem and its place in Palestine from pre-World War I to the present. Panelists Rabbi David Mivasair, Idris Elbakri, and Fadi Ennab spoke in turn. A Question and Answer engagement followed.

.

Video courtesy of Community video-grapher Paul S. Graham.

Esther Epp-Thiessen is the Public Engagement Coordinator for the Mennonite Central Committee Ottawa Advocacy Office. Esther is a longtime staffperson with Mennonite Central Committee, and has served with MCC in the Philippines and also in various parts of Canada. As the public engagement coordinator for MCC’s advocacy office she has helped to spearhead a campaign on Palestine and Israel called A Cry for Home. She is a trained historian and has written several books on themes in Mennonite history.

Rabbi David Mivasair is motivated by the Biblical command to “seek peace and pursue it” and lived in Jerusalem for four years. He is active with Independent Jewish Voices in Canada, sits on the Rabbinic council of Jewish voices for Peace in the US, and is Rabbi Emeritus of the Ahavat Olam Synagogue in Vancouver where he lives.

Idris Elbakri was born in the city of Jerusalem and spent his formative years there, he has lived in Winnipeg for nearly 13 years and been active in a number of community initiatives including grassroots efforts to welcome Syrian refugees.

Fadi Ennab is a lecturer and educator on migration and anti-oppression and is a Palestinian-Canadian from an Arab-Christian background born and raised in the Middle East.

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The Global Research News Hour airs every Friday at 1pm CT on CKUW 95.9FM in Winnipeg. The programme is also podcast at globalresearch.ca . Excerpts of the show have begun airing on Rabble Radio and appear as podcasts at rabble.ca.

Community Radio Stations carrying the Global Research News Hour:

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It is also available on 93.9 FM cable in the communities of SFU, Burnaby, New Westminister, Coquitlam, Port Coquitlam, Port Moody, Surrey and Delta, in British Columbia, Canada. – Tune in  at its new time – Wednesdays at 4pm PT.

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Radio Fanshawe: Fanshawe’s 106.9 The X (CIXX-FM) out of London, Ontario airs the Global Research News Hour Sundays at 6am with an encore at 4pm.

Los Angeles, California based Thepowerofvoices.com airs the Global Research News Hour every Monday from 6-7pm Pacific time. 

Notes:

1. https://www.vox.com/2017/12/6/16742640/trump-jerusalem-israel-speech-full-text
2. https://www.dw.com/en/us-recognizes-jerusalem-as-israels-capital/a-41683294
3. ibid
4. ibid
5. Harriett Alexander (December 21, 2017), ‘Donald Trump’s decision on Jerusalem condemned by UN general assembly despite US ‘bullying’ over vote of censure’, The Telegraph; https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/12/21/donald-trumps-decision-jerusalem-condemned-un-general-assembly/
6. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/04/gaza-protest-latest-updates-180406092506561.html

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In the hysterical wake of the Trump-Putin Summit in Helsinki, President Donald Trump was roundly criticised in the media for taking the side of a “hostile state” over his own intelligence agencies. The Guardian referred to Mueller as a “heroic marine” who Trump disbelieved in favour of a “Russian dictator”.

In the past, when Trump has criticised the FBI, CIA or NSA he has been accused of “undermining faith in our institutions”. He’s been blamed for a collapse of trust in the government. But was this trust ever earned?

At every corner, we are urged to simply believe what we are told. Whether it is about believing Porton Down and MI6 about “novichok”, or believing the White Helmets about Sarin, or believing the FBI about “collusion”, we are presented with no facts, just assertions from authority. Those who question those assertions are deemed “bots” at best or “traitors” at worst.

Well here, fellow traitors, are the Top Ten reasons to question anything and everything the CIA – or any intelligence agency – has ever told you.

That’s our list, and there’s really only one lesson you can take away from it:

These people, agencies and institutions deserve no trust, have earned no trust and have abused every micron of trust ever placed in them. To suggest we have a duty to believe them – or that they have ever done anything to serve the public good – is to live in a dream world.

This list is not a full catalogue of Deep State crimes, it would be 1000s of entries long if it were, but these ten are important. They’re important because they are admitted, proven and beyond debate. They are important because they show the many facets of dishonesty, hypocrisy and abuses of power that Intelligence agencies engage in, and they are important because they form the best riposte to the disingenuous clamour for “trust” in our “democratic institutions”.

Never trust the CIA, they have proved they don’t deserve it.

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For those of you who understand our world has gone nutty here’s a headline to cement your understanding. POLITICO Magazine exclaims – “The Will Die in Tallinn: Estonia Girds for War With Russia.” No, you are not dreaming, a so-called expert wrote a piece outlining the tiny Baltic nation’s plan to thwart a coming Russian invasion. Read on and cross your fingers in the hopes Putin does not have designs on Iowa.

Author Molly K. McKew decided to preview the coming Donald Trump meetup with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Helsinki with a nonsensical tale of an Estonian Special Forces chap to crystallize a blatant fearmongering lie. McKew and her colleagues at Robert Allbritton’s elitist/globalist magazine want the world to believe Russia has designs on Europe. Resuscitating the same old narrative from the Georgia War the west fueled in 2008 the first place, the lobbyist turned information warfare expert transforms herself into a NATO troll. Trolling Trump and Putin, tossing in some fancy military strategy terms, and digs up one Colonel Riho Uhtegi, who’s commander of the Estonian Special Operations Force, in order to strike fear into Putin and Russia! Yes, Estonia is fully prepared to go it alone against the Russian bear. Oh boy. Maybe you’ll want to read Dustin Giebel’s critique of the expert McKew here.

Her quizzing of the good colonel ends as an assessment of “new” capabilities powered by fantastical military rationalization. Colonel Uhtegi, in his posturing for POLITICO, compares Estonia’s situation in relation to the limited warfare Russia carried out in Georgia. These two geniuses leave out the fact that the Georgia War was a result of ill-advised actions by then-President George W. Bush. The NATO membership MAP Plan suggested by Bush forced Vladimir Putin’s hand. Anyway, the conversation in between the would-be cyberwarfare guru McKew and the unconventional (or crazy as hell) Estonian colonel reminds me of the disastrous (for Germany) Operation Bagration (1944) when Soviet forces sliced through Hitler’s main army group to take Poland in two weeks. These nincompoop analysts and military misfits assume Vladimir Putin will invade a NATO country with some kind of token asymmetrical warfare force. The pair go on to discuss a “hybrid conflict” arising out of an act of ultimate war in between Russia and the western alliance! These people are idiots, but let’s move on to bigger logic.Quasi-experts spitting out the globalist narrative always seem to ignore the biggest deterrents to a Putin invasion of Europe proper. Not to worry though, I shall explain briefly.

Russia has absolutely no interest in Europe other than tourism and natural gas sales. Of course, a preemptive invasion to create a “kill zone” should NATO advance is a real strategic probability. But in general, all Europe has to offer Putin and Russia are more mouths to feed. Let’s be clear on this. Russia holds all the natural resource cards. Russia has all the free land left. Russia has been on the defensive since FOREVER. Point two. Besides and Eiffel Tower and some ancient ruins to visit here or there, the Russians pretty much have everything Europeans do. Let’s move on to point two.

NATO experts and Washington think tanks continually mull over geo-strategic mumbo jumbo. Like attorneys create laws to ensure their own usefulness and longevity, war academics invent scenario after scenario in order to get their paychecks. You cannot find an assessment of the Georgia War, for instance, that tells you the real reason Russia did not take over in days. Yes, I know the reason, now get ready for it. Putin and Medvedev did not take over Georgia in days because they wanted to avoid collateral civilian deaths. The “hybrid conflict” in Georgia had two distinct limiting characteristics. First and foremost, Russians are Georgians and vice versa. Killing off their own people was not something Putin or Dmitry Medvedev wanted. Add to this limitation the fact the Russian military was still rebuilding after being decimated during the Yeltsin era and preventing collateral damage was nearly impossible if the Russians practiced the Georgia War in any way other than they did. End of story. Russia’s forces are now 100 times more effective, and the entirety of NATO has zero chance of containing them. Forget about Estonia being invaded though. Putin can visit the Christmas market in Tallinn whenever he feels like it. That is unless Estonian Nazis in the military are not put in power. In that case, Russia may have to spank a few Baltic butts.

To conclude, there’s really no danger of Russian bodies lining the blood-soaked streets of Tallinn. But the main reason this will not happen is not that Putin’s military could crush Estonian forces in a day or two. The biggest deterrent against Baltics-Russia crisis is the fact citizens in these countries harbor no hate for one another. The hate rhetoric you read about is manufactured by the NATO trolls and the western elitist media. How can I know this? Well, my good friends in Pskov, Russia drive to Riga or Tallinn unimpeded, and on a regular basis. Singing stars like Brussels’ own Laura Fabian and Russia’s now deceased legendary baritone Dmitri Hvorostovsky gave yearly concerts there. Normal human beings in these and other nations do not come and go each day envisioning global war and senseless bloodshed. Normal human beings have the job of living.

So, is it fair to claim that POLITICO analysts and Estonian warfighters are abnormal? Should we condemn the Washington think tanks for dreaming up our destruction? You’re damn right, they are abnormal, and they do want us all to die.

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Phil Butler is a policy investigator and analyst, a political scientist and expert on Eastern Europe, he’s an author of the recent bestseller “Putin’s Praetorians” and other books. He writes exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook.”

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Hamas is a legitimate political organization, not a terrorist group as falsely designed by Israel and Washington in deference to the Jewish state.

The shameful designation gives Israel an unjustifiable pretext to hold two million Gazans hostage under flagrantly unlawful land, sea and air blockade – an act of war by any standard.

Gaza’s Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades military wing is no match for the might of Israel’s IDF – nuclear armed and dangerous, along with powerful ground, sea and aerial weapons able to turn the Strip to rubble barely resisted.

The world community is a bystander in the face-off between Israel and all Palestinians – murdering, imprisoning, torturing, dispossessing, and otherwise brutalizing them with impunity.

What’s been ongoing for 70 years continues with no end of it in prospect because world leaders are indifferent about Palestinian rights, uncaring about their longstanding suffering – beholden to Israel no matter how egregious its actions.

As long as the Jewish state has US support, it’s free to get away with mass murder and much more – Hamas, other Palestinian victims, and others cross-border falsely blamed for Israeli high crimes committed against them.

Kites, flaming or otherwise, do not justify Israeli war on two million trapped Gazans – virtually defenseless in the face of its might.

Is this where things are heading – Israel’s fourth preemptive war of aggression on the Strip in the last decade?

Supplemented by cross-border tank and artillery shelling, Israel terror-bombed dozens of Gazan sites on Friday – after days of hostilities launched earlier.

For the 17th consecutive Great March of Return Friday, Israel used excessive lethal force against peaceful demonstrators – including against women, children, journalists and paramedics aiding the wounded.

Israel considers defenseless civilians legitimate targets. Terror-bombing and otherwise brutalizing them is standard practice.

Do IDF soldiers, airmen, and naval personnel ever question their high crimes? Have they no shame, no sense of decency, no idea of the difference between right and wrong?

Do they simply follow orders blindly, ignoring the rule of law? For decades, they committed the most egregious of high crimes – naked aggression against targeted nations and Palestinians menacing no one.

As long as the Jewish state exists, regional and world peace are threatened.

Israel’s sordid history is blood-drenched, unmatched in modern times along with Washington’s war on humanity.

The late Edward Said once called conditions in Occupied Palestine “a disheartening bloody impasse.” The Territories are a virtual isolated prison, an entire population being suffocated into submission or out of existence.

Israeli viciousness is unrelenting, a nation transformed into a killing machine, Palestinians subjected to ruthless state terror.

Zionism’s final solution is eliminating Palestinians by slow-motion genocide.

Israel and its “Zionist agencies, forces and terrorist gangs ruthlessly (conduct) a systematic and comprehensive military, political, religious, economic, and cultural campaign with the intent to destroy in substantial part the national, ethnical, racial, and different religious group (Jews versus Muslims and Christians) constituting the Palestinian people,” Francis Boyle earlier explained, adding:

“This Zionist/Israeli campaign has consisted of killing members of the Palestinian people in violation of Genocide Convention Article II(a).”

It continues causing “serious bodily and mental harm to the Palestinian people in violation of Genocide Convention Article II(b).”

The Jewish state deliberately and maliciously “inflicts on the Palestinian people conditions of life calculated to bring about their physical destruction in substantial part in violation of Article II(c) of the Genocide Convention.”

Ilan Pappe explained

“(t)he  inhuman living conditions in (Gaza), the most dense area in the world, and one of the poorest human spaces in the northern hemisphere, disabl(ing) the people who live it to reconcile with the imprisonment Israel had imposed on them ever since 1967.”

The rest of Occupied Palestine fares little better, subjected to dozens of brutalizing community raids weekly, numerous arrests and detentions, an entire population held hostage to an occupying power treating them like subhumans.

William Cook’s book on “The Plight of the Palestinians: A Long History of Destruction” explains “methodical genocide in Palestine (since) the 1940s.”

James Petras earlier addressed “Israeli genocide and its willing accomplices” – Washington, complicit Western partners, rogue Arab regimes, and “major Zionist organizations.”

Richard Falk earlier asked is it an “irresponsible overstatement to associate the treatment of Palestinians with (Nazi Germany’s) collective atrocity? I think not,” he stressed.

Israeli Ziofascists threaten Gaza’s total destruction. Is Israeli naked aggression on the Strip coming?

Were days of terror-bombing, cross border shelling, and shooting peaceful Gazan demonstrators prelude to full-scale war?

On Saturday, hostilities stopped for now, an IDF statement saying “(a)t the end of an assessment by the southern command this morning, it was decided to maintain a full civilian routine in the communities close to the Gaza strip.”

Does it reflect a temporary calm before a full-scale storm? Israeli agreements are made to be breached.

It’s just a matter of time, maybe days, before Israel’s killing machine unleashes its venom again – maybe full-scale aggression on Gazans for the fourth time since December 2008.

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

Click image below to view Michel Chossudovsky’s video presentation under the auspices of The International Movement for a JUST World, JUST Malaysia

The evidence amply confirms that Malaysian Airlines MH17 was not brought down by a surface to air missile. It was brought down by a military aircraft. 

The U.S and its allies continue to accuse Russia and the Donbass separatists of having brought down the plane with a surface to air missile.

The Dutch investigation has been twisted. The families of the victims have been misled. 

“Machine Gun Like Holes”

The shrapnel marks should be distinguished from the small entry and exit holes “most likely that of a 30 millimeter caliber projectile” fired from a military aircraft. These holes could not have been caused by a missile explosion as hinted by the MSM and the “official” investigation.

While the MSN is saying that the “shrapnel like holes” can be caused by a missile, the OSCE has confirmed the existence of what it describes as “machine gun like holes”.

In this regard, the GSh-302 firing gun operated by an Su-25 is able to fire 3000 rpm which explains the numerous entry and exit holes.

Click image below to view Michel Chossudovsky’s presentation

According the DSB, Ukraine’s National Bureau of Air Accidents Investigation (NBAAI) requested the Netherlands to undertake the investigation on 23 July 2014.

The perforations were identified as the result of “high energy objects” from outside the aircraft.

The Dutch Safety Board dismissed from the outset an analysis of the machine gun-like holes, stating that these were the consequence of the explosion of the surface to air missile which was “spraying its fragments” towards the aircraft.

See below:

Screenshot from the video (below)

Simulation of the shrapnel which allegedly according to the DSB report created the perforations of the fuselage. 

They also casually denied the testimonies of witnesses (recorded by a BBC report, which was subsequently supressed) who saw a second aircraft. Nor do they mention the testimony of the Spanish air traffic controller.

The government of the Netherlands issued an official statement, without evidence:

‘The downing of flight MH17 caused unimaginable suffering,’ said Dutch foreign minister Stef Blok. ‘The government has always said that the truth surrounding the MH17 disaster had to be brought to light and that justice must be achieved for the victims and their next of kin. The Netherlands has the support of the international community in this respect. On the basis of the JIT’s conclusions, the Netherlands and Australia are now convinced that Russia is responsible for the deployment of the Buk installation that was used to down MH17. The government is now taking the next step by formally holding Russia accountable.’

Below is the video summary of the Dutch Safety Board Investigation, which excluded outright that the perforations of the fuselage could have been triggered by gun fire from an aircraft.

See also the report of the Spanish air traffic controller based at the Ukraine airport who reports the presence of another aircraft.

Spanish Air Controller @ Kiev Borispol Airport: Ukraine Military Shot Down Boeing MH#17

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Dana Milbank wrote it off as a victory of demographics, a minor, inconsequential point which left the “down-the-line liberal” Rep. Joe Crowley in its wake, a simple ploy that avoids any hard headed analysis of the Democrats themselves.  “The argument that there is a Democratic establishment resisting the progressive tide is a straw man.”

This was as one such reaction to the victory of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in the Congressional primary for New York’s 14^th District, secured against the secure middling Rep. Crowley, who had been fairly immune to challenges – three in all – the last being in 2004.  This fact tended to induce a certain failing not found in other seasoned politicians: an ultimately fatal vulnerability in campaigning.

The primary night debate between an ill-prepared Crowley and confident Ocasio-Cortez last month left the veteran exposed. Ocasio-Cortez, in contrast to her overly seasoned opponent, “presented,” in the words of Briahna Gray, “as a well-studied newcomer with natural talent: delivering a summary of her agenda in a manner which was confident and sharp, if not effortless.  The theme of her remarks was clear: ‘Not all Democrats are the same.’”

Fundamentally, and critically for the Democrats, the youthful usurper was pitching an angle neglected by the card carriers of orthodoxy in the party. “It’s not enough to fight Trump. We have to fight the issues that made his rise in the first place.”

All Crowley was effectively doing was using Trump as an alibi for was believed to be a certain victory: a vote for Crowley would have been a vote for an old, steady hand against the absurd.  In contrast Ocasio-Cortez was insisting on single-payer healthcare, invigorating the Democratic Socialist platform nationally, and abolishing the immigration enforcement agency.

The vanquishing of Bernie Sanders by a ruthless, and ill-sighted Clinton machine in 2016 left a testy vacuum that may well be finding some filling at long last.  Party, with its assembly of officials, does not come first. The movement does.  Hence the emergence, with some consequence, of the Democratic Socialists of America, which has also given a taster of how Sandersland, the sort despoiled by the Clinton apparatus, can be repositioned and reclaimed. In the Trump-era, the DSA has found itself with surging membership.  The party founded by Michael Harrington is thriving with resurgent intoxication.

As the DSA National Director Maria Svart explained to CNN,

“Democratic socialism speaks to people’s fears and anger and offers a positive vision. We remind people of the power of collective action and we help people overcome the isolation and loneliness that they experience and that sense of powerlessness.”

There is little doubt that the establishment is shaken.  Joe Lieberman seemed frightened.  Ocasio-Cortez “didn’t speak much about foreign policy during the primary, but when she did, it was from the DSA policy book – meaning support for socialist governments, even if they are dictatorial and corrupt (Venezuela), opposition to American leadership in the world, even to alleviated humanitarian disasters (Syria), and reflexive criticism of one of America’s great democratic allies (Israel).”

The other approach is somewhat more guileful, such as that of the Democratic governor of Rhode Island.  Gina Raimondo has been making an effort to capture a bit of the Ocasio-Cortez lustre in the hope that it will fireproof her against progressive contenders.  This has been noted as a fairly absurd proposition, given her Wall Street links.

Another angle is to simply avoid the issue altogether, or view it in tactical, localised terms.  Yes, goes E.J. Dionne Jr. in The Washington Post, the victory was impressive.  But in such roots was a basic traditionalism inherent in New York politics: “the transition of power from one ethnic group to another.” Seeing this “as a prelude to a radical takeover of the Democratic Party badly misreads what has been happening.”  No apparent “lurch”, merely a sprinkling of modest moderates getting their due in some bloodletting of the old guard.

For all that qualified dampening, the Ocasio-Cortez victory might well be catching.  Eoin Higgins of The Intercept detects one aspect of this trend, suggesting the  prospect of young women of colour in the offing on the broader US political stage.  Tahirah Amatul-Wadud is another such contender, vying for Massachusetts’s 1^st District.  Her intended opponent is the firmly ensconced Richard Neal.

This has all the makings of a New York re-run: confident upstart youth in a direct challenge with party plutocracy.  Neal’s problem is very much one of established, long-in-tooth politicians who have essentially treated Washington as a retirement village stacked with delightful, seemingly endless perks buttressed by the incurably seductive power of the establishment.

The local Weekend Gazette demonstrated this point in taking out a missing person’s ad: “Has anyone seen this man (yes, he’s our congressman).” The jibe was fittingly sharp: Neal had been near invisible, lost in the capital’s obscure undergrowth. “All we’re saying is this: Come to Williamsburg to meet the voters in a Town Hall and let’s have a conversation about issues that are important to rural voters.”

That’s the crucial, and perhaps fatal point of many such practitioners of party, as opposed to representative politics. If the victory of Ocasio-Cortez is anything to go by, such absentee, even petrified figures in Congress protected by the armour of their parties are viewing a possible, and healthy removal, from the scene of US politics. And just to add some ballast to that prospect some of Hillary Clinton’s former advisors, one of them Jake Sullivan, admit to a reality that is fast thumping on the doors of those in denial: That the centre of gravity in US politics “is moving, and this is a good thing.”

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

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On July 18, the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) said that their members, backed up by the US-led coalition, had captured 1,100km2, which included sixteen villages, from ISIS in the provinces of al-Hasakah and Deir Ezzor.

According to the SDF, four ISIS members were killed and four others were captured during the advance. One SDF member reportedly died. Additionally, the SDF captured a pickup truck, two heavy machine guns, a RPG-7 launcher, mines and ammunition. The provided numbers show that ISIS had shown almost no resistance to the advancing US-backed force.

A day earlier, on July 17, Ilham Ehmed, co-chairperson of the Syrian Democratic Council (SDC), a political wing of the SDF, announced that the SDC will open offices in the provinces of Hama, Homs, Latakia and in the capital of Damascus in the near future in a move allegedly aimed to propel negotiations between the SDF/SDC and the Damascus government.

The announcement came a day after a meeting between US President Donald Trump and Russian President Putin in Helsinki on July 16, during which the discussed the situation in Syria and other important topics.

Meanwhile, militants in the southern Syrian city of Daraa handed over another batch of weapons to the Syrian Arab Army. This batch included three T-55 battle tanks, two BMP-1 infantry fighting vehicles, four so-called “Hell canons”, several heavy machine guns and ammunition.

A reconciliation agreement in the area was reached on July 14 and the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) restored control of the city. Since then, militants have been surrendering their weapons there.

A local reconciliation deal was also reached in the town of Nawa, northeast of Daraa city. According to pro-government sources, units of the SAA have established control of key hills around the town by July 19 and militants have started preparing to hand over their weapons.

Earlier a series of firefights between the SAA and Hayat Tahrir al-Sham took place in Nawa. However, a more moderate part of militants was able to expel Hayat Tahrir al-Sham from the area.

Russia has established a center for receiving, relocating and accommodating refugees in Syria, the Russian Defense Ministry said in a statement on July 18. The center will monitor the return of displaced persons and Syrian refugees from foreign countries to their homes. It will also be involved in humanitarian aid deliveries and will assist the Syrian government in restoring healthcare and human services.

As the conflict in most of Syria comes to an end of its hot phase, humanitarian operations and the ability of the Damacsus government to restore a peaceful life across the country will become important factors impacting the prospects of a possible political solution of the entire conflict.

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From the 17 July 2018, the International Criminal Court (ICC) will be able to prosecute leaders responsible for waging aggressive war – with conditions. This is the fourth ‘core’ crime that the ICC has jurisdiction over and is the first time since the post-WWII trials in Nuremburg and Tokyo, that an international court will be able to hold leaders individually criminally responsible for waging aggressive war.

The crime was included in the ICC jurisdiction back in 1998 (when the court was established), but was suspended until its elements could be decided (in 2010) then ratified by at least 30 states (in 2016). To date, 35 states parties have ratified the new statute, including 14 NATO member states: Belgium, Croatia, Czech Republic, Estonia, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia, Slovenia and Spain. This means that over half of the NATO member states have not done so, including three states – France, the UK and USA – that also hold permanent seats at the UN Security Council. The UK and France, rather shockingly, appear to have done all they can to block the process on the grounds of seeking ‘greater clarity’. The United States has been a longstanding opponent of the court.

Acts of aggression are defined under the statute as: invading another state; bombing another state; blockading the ports or coastlines of another state; attacking the land, sea, or air forces, or marine or sea fleets of another state; violating a status of forces agreement; using armed bands, groups, irregulars or mercenaries against another state; allowing territory to be used by another state to perpetrate an act of aggression against a third state.

In light of the amount of space given to allegations of Russian acts of aggression in the recently concluded Brussels NATO Summit Declaration, the reticence among key alliance member states is all the more surprising and hypocritical. And NATO as an institution, through the Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, could have spoken in favour of the court but has failed to do so, no doubt a reflection of the divisions within the alliance on this issue.

Although ICC jurisdiction over aggression is now activated, its direct power of prosecution will only apply to nationals of the 35 states that have so far ratified the newly defined crime. In addition, the ICC Prosecutor must wait for a determination of the UN Security Council regarding an act of aggression. If the Security Council determines an act of aggression has taken place, the Prosecutor may proceed. Thus, as the human rights barrister, Geoffrey Robertson, argues,

“the superpower veto means that it will not be allowed to finger the collar of any politician or military leader who has acted in alliance with one of the security council’s ‘big five’”.

Nonetheless, this is a potentially powerful addition to the ICC’s jurisdiction. The need to hold to account those responsible for illegal acts of aggression remains one of the biggest challenges of our time. Consider Russia in Crimea, the US and UK in Iraq, Saudi Arabia in Yemen, etc. The capability to scrutinise illegal military interventions and, in some cases, prosecute those responsible for them, should help to move our system of international relations towards a stronger rules-based approach, rather than one based on military power.

And even with the right of veto, the new statute may act as a deterrent on coalition-type military interventions – as argued by Tom Dannenbaum. If, for example, a possible, proposed, or ongoing use of force by the United States would meet (even potentially) the criteria for a criminal aggression, this might deter foreign cooperation with the action, including among longstanding US NATO allies that have signed the statute. These include Germany (with its US military bases), Poland (a significant contributor to the 2003 invasion of Iraq) and Belgium (the home of NATO decision-making). The key question, from the US and these allies’ perspective, is: under what conditions would such leaders be criminally liable for cooperating in a US act of aggression?

In conclusion, while prosecution by the ICC for illegal war-mongering remains unlikely as of today, the addition of the crime of aggression to the court’s legal toolbox should be cause for optimism. Public pressure is now required to increase the number of signatory states to the statute, especially in those 15 NATO member states that shamefully remain outside of its jurisdiction.

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Following a request under the Freedom of Information Act submitted by Peace Now and the Movement for Freedom of Information (and after refusing to give the information and a two-and-a-half year delay), the Civil Administration’s response was received:

• 99.76% (about 674,459 dunams) of state land allocated for any use in the Occupied West Bank was allocated for the needs of Israeli settlements. The Palestinians were allocated, at most, only 0.24% (about 1,625 dunams).
• Some 80% of the allocations to Palestinians (1,299 dunams) were for the purpose of establishing settlements (669 dunams) and for the forced transfer of Bedouin communities (630 dunams). Only 326 dunams at most were allocated without strings for the benefit of Palestinians, and at least 121 of those dunams are currently in Area B under Palestinian control.
• Most of the allocations to the Palestinians (about 53%) were made prior to the 1995 Interim Agreement (the Oslo II Agreement, in which the West Bank was divided into Areas A, B and C, and transferred control over 40% of the West Bank to the Palestinian Authority).

Click here to read the report as a PDF.

The High Court of Justice is currently facing the issue of the evacuation of the Palestinian village of Al-Khan al-Ahmar, which the state wants to demolish and expel its residents to another area. The residents of the village are asking the High Court of Justice to stop the evacuation until the Civil Administration discusses the detailed construction plan they prepared for the village’s approval, which the state has refused to consider. The data revealed here about the state’s systematic abstention from allocating land for Palestinian use attests to the severe and structural discrimination that prevents the villagers from obtaining the land and from getting their village retroactively approved. The question of the legality of this discrimination will be hanging in the background of the upcoming High Court hearing.

Peace Now:

“The significance of the data is that the State of Israel, which has been in control of the West Bank for more than 50 years, allocates the land exclusively to Israelis, while allocating virtually no land for the unqualified benefit of the Palestinian population. Land is one of the most important public resources. Allocation of land for the use of only one population at the expense of another is one of the defining characteristics of apartheid. This is further proof that Israel’s continued control of the occupied territories over millions of Palestinian residents without rights and the establishment of hundreds of settlements on hundreds of thousands of dunams has no moral basis.”

Movement for Freedom of Information, Adv. Noa Shalit:

“The request for information was submitted to the Civil Administration in March 2016, and it took more than two years to obtain an answer that matched the requested information. In our eyes, the information received does not justify the continuation of the process and the foot-dragging by the Civil Administration, which for two years has tried to exhaust us and to prevent the publication of this critical information in order to bring it to the attention of the public.”

Background: “State Land” – Of Which State?

Land is one of the main and most precious public resources in every place and society. The division of this resource is key to development and growth, and the manner in which land resources are distributed is an expression of government policy with a decisive influence on the welfare of the residents.

The term “state land” is misleading because there is no “state” in the occupied territories, neither the State of Israel nor an independent State of Palestine. The more appropriate term is “public land”—lands that belong to the public.In independent countries, it is the state that manages public lands.

The state decides to whom to allot the land and assigns it in leases or for various uses. In the occupied territories, the person who manages the public lands is the Israeli military body, whose policy is dictated by the Israeli government, while the Palestinians have no assigned right to influence this policy.

Until the Interim Agreement in 1995 (Oslo II), the IDF was responsible for all residents of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, including the conduct of daily life in all towns and villages. But since then has been directly responsible for “only” 60% the West Bank (Area C) and indirectly on certain aspects in the rest of the West Bank, as well.

A. Allocation of State Land to Israelis Only

Before 1967, most of the area that the Civil Administration defines as state land was not considered public property. Over the years since then, Israel has declared close to one million dunams of “state land,” and has included almost all of these lands within the jurisdiction of the local settlement authorities. The Palestinians were therefore precluded from using this land even before the land was allocated for any use.

The military administration is obligated to take care of­ the protected residents of the occupied territory (in this case, the Palestinians). As the Supreme Court held: “The military government is not entitled to sell government property, and its legal status in that property is the same as that of a recipient of a benefit only.” This is both according to the provisions of international humanitarian law and Israeli administrative law (HCJ 393/82 Jam’iyat Iskan al-Malamun v. Commander of Israel Defense Forces [4], 785 (1983) 791).

As the Association for Civil Rights in Israel explains: Israel holds state land in an occupied territory as a trustee, and must do everything possible to preserve and develop it for the benefit of the local Palestinian population. The very use of state land for the purpose of building settlements and/or developing infrastructure and industrial zones not in favor of the Palestinian population constitutes a violation of international law. The fact that the activity of the Custodian of Government and Abandoned Property in the Civil Administration has been conducted for years without transparency and in violation of basic rules of proper administration is not coincidental. A situation in which no one knows how much state lands there is, how much was allocated and to whom makes for almost unlimited possibilities for manipulation.

Now it turns out that the overarching policy of Israeli governments throughout the years has been to allocate as much land as possible for Israeli settlement use, and not to allocate any land to the Palestinians who make up 88 percent of the West Bank population.

B. Inflated information given by the Civil Administration to the Court in 2013

In 2013, the Civil Administration gave Bimkom and the Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI) information on state land allocated to Palestinians in a petition filed under the Freedom of Information Act. The information provided at the time stated that the total amount of state land allocated to the Palestinians was 8,649 dunams, about 1.27% of the state land allocated in general.

Peace Now asked the Civil Administration for details on the purpose of these allocations, and in the Civil Administration’s response (obtained after two and a half years) it turned out that the figures given to Bimkom and ACRI in the court proceedings were misleading. In fact, only 1,625 dunams of state land were allocated to the Palestinians, not 8,649.

The difference between the data (about 7,000 dunams!) can be explained from the response of the Civil Administration to Peace Now: “A review of all the materials revealed that the data provided included all land allocations to the Palestinians, and not necessarily allocations of state lands.” In other words, the vast majority of the 8,649 dunams allocated to the Palestinians were not state lands, but private lands of Palestinians considered absentees, which were used extensively in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

In 1968, Israel began to establish settlements in the Jordan Valley on private Palestinian land, and in return gave the owners alternative lands, mainly those of other Palestinians considered absentee, or what were called “Badal” lands or “Tabdil”. As an aside, it should be noted that at the same time, the military administration had prepared a list of all the absentee landowners whose land was allocated to the Palestinians or the settlers (the “One Hundred List” – named after the number of people on the list) and determined that they would not be granted entry permits back into the West Bank.

Below is how the State Comptroller describes this in Report 56A on Land Administration by the Civil Administration, p. 194:

B. Allocation of Palestinian lands – In the late 1960s and 1970s, Palestinian land was allocated to Israeli communities in the Jordan Valley, through land swaps, in which Palestinians were granted alternative land owned by absentees, and by direct allocation of land belonging to absentees on the scale of thousands of dunams. These allocations, which were defined in the documents of the Legal Advisor to the Civil Administration as seemingly illegal, continued to be carried out by the Administration later. (Emphasis added).

C. List of State Land Allocated to the Palestinians – Response of the Civil Administration (CA):

To download the state’s response, click here.

D. Analysis of the Data

1968 – Allocation of land for the purpose of establishing settlements in the Jordan Valley (669 dunams) – Approximately 41% of the land on the list was allocated in 1968 in the Jordan Valley. In the years immediately following the 1967 war, Israel established many settlements in the Jordan Valley and took private land from Palestinians and in return gave the owners other lands. Supposedly, the 669 dunams allocated to the Palestinians in the Jordan Valley in 1968 were part of the “land swap” that Israel imposed on the landowners. It is possible that even the 50.2 dunams allocated to the residents of Jiftlik in 1972 were part of an exchange deal for the establishment of a settlement, but we have no information about this.

Allocations prior to the Oslo II Agreement – The Interim Agreement signed in September 1995 divided the West Bank into Areas A and B (40% of the West Bank) where civil control was handed over to the Palestinian Authority, and Area C (60% of the West Bank) where Israel is in charge of all civil and security control. Most of the land allocated to Palestinians (866 dunams, about 53 percent) was allocated before the Interim Agreement, when Israel directly administered all Palestinian towns and villages.

Despite the full Israeli responsibility, almost no public land has been allocated for Palestinian use: of the 866 dunams allocated before 1995, 669 dunams were allocated as aforesaid for the purpose of establishing the settlements; And of the remaining 197 dunams, at least 121 dunams are currently located in Area B, which is under Palestinian control anyway.

Allocations for the forced transfer of Bedouins – According to the data, nearly 40 percent (630 dunams) of the land allocated to the Palestinians was done for the purpose of “splinting” (Heb. kibua), or permanently resettling, the Rashaida tribe (270 dunams) and the Jahalin tribe (360 dunams). In the 1990s, when the government expanded the Ma’ale Adummim settlement, it sought to evict the Bedouin residents living there from the area designated for the settlement. The High Court did not allow the state to “throw” the Bedouin out of the land without allowing them alternative land, and the state decided to allocate to them land of several dozen dunams in al-Jabal, on the land of Abu Dis, adjacent to a huge garbage dump of Jerusalem and the surrounding area.

It should be noted that of the 630 dunams that were counted by the Civil Administration as lands that were “allocated” to the Palestinians, most of the land was not allocated in practice. The land in the Nu’ayman area that was designated for the Rashaida tribe was not allocated to it, and the plan to relocate it has not taken place so far. Of the land of al-Jabal, designated for the Jahalin tribe near the garbage dump, only parts of the 360 dunams were allocated to Bedouin families that were uprooted from their lands in the 1990’s. The rest of the land is planned to be given to the Bedouins of Khan al-Ahmar and other communities Israel wishes to evict.

2015 – Allocation of 54.5 dunams for agricultural cultivation – The allocation of 54.5 dunams for cultivation is likely the case of land used by Palestinians for decades, for both residential and agriculture purposes. Recently, the Civil Administration issued eviction orders against the landowners, and following appeals filed with the Appeals Committee, the Civil Administration decided to agree to allocate the land for Palestinian use. It should be noted that in practice, the allocation contracts were not signed with the state, since the Palestinian landowners refuse to pay the rent the state requests for what they perceive as their private land.

E. Attempts to Conceal Requested Information

In March 2009, Bimkom applied to the Civil Administration, in accordance with the Freedom of Information Act, to ascertain the amount of state lands allocated in Area C to Israelis and Palestinians. After no substantive response was given, Bimkom and the Association for Civil Rights in Israel filed an administrative petition against the Civil Administration demanding the receipt of the information.

The Administration’s response at the time was that the information was not in its hands, and that hundreds of hours of work were needed to prepare it. During the discussions it was evident that the Civil Administration, the body that is entrusted with land administration in the territories, had no precise information regarding the lands under its responsibility and had no idea about the state lands that it had transferred to the Settlement Division.

At the end of 2013, following the Court’s intervention, an official response was issued, which was full of inaccuracies, for it found that 8,649 dunams (1.27% of allocated state land) were allocated to the Palestinians while 674,459 dunams (98.73%) were allocated for Israeli settlement use. It should be noted that, as explained in the previous sections, it now appears that in practice only 1,625 dunams of state land were allocated to Palestinians, and that the data provided in the framework of the petition by Bimkom and the Association for Civil Rights included approximately 7,000 dunams of absentee property allocated to the Palestinians.

In March 2016, Peace Now asked the Civil Administration to provide explanations on state land allocated for Palestinian use – a list of the objectives for which the land was allocated. Eight months later, in November 2016, and following many reminders, the Civil Administration refused to provide the information, claiming that much work was required to examine thousands of allocation files.

In November 2017, the Movement for Freedom of Information filed a new application that significantly reduced the scope of work, to obtain representative examples of the allocation contracts. In this case, too, many reminders and complaints were sent to the Freedom of Information Unit in the Ministry of Justice, until a year and a half later, an answer was received (in part).

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All images, except the featured, in this article are from APN.

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In a massive attack on imperiled wildlife, the Trump administration announced a series of rollbacks today to the regulations implementing key provisions of the Endangered Species Act.

The three proposed rules from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and National Marine Fisheries Service would severely weaken protections for hundreds of endangered animals and plants across the country. They would also ensure that hundreds of imperiled species awaiting protection — like the monarch butterfly and the American wolverine — either never get safeguards or face additional, extinction-threatening delays.

One set of regulatory changes would weaken the consultation process designed to prevent harm to endangered animals and their habitats from federal agency activities.  A second set of changes would curtail the designation of critical habitat and weaken the listing process for imperiled species. A third regulation would gut nearly all protections for wildlife newly designated as “threatened” under the Act.

The proposals are part of a broader effort by Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke to undercut protections for wildlife and public lands.

“These proposals would slam a wrecking ball into the most crucial protections for our most endangered wildlife,” said Brett Hartl, government affairs director at the Center for Biological Diversity. “If these regulations had been in place in the 1970s, the bald eagle and the gray whale would be extinct today. If they’re finalized now, Zinke will go down in history as the extinction secretary.”

Under the proposal relating to federal consultations, impacts to critical habitat will be ignored unless they impact the entirety of an animal’s habitat — ignoring the fact that “death by a thousand cuts” is the most common way wildlife declines toward extinction.

The proposal will also prohibit designation of critical habitat for species threatened by climate change, even though in many cases these species are also threatened by habitat destruction and other factors. The proposal will also preclude designation of critical habitat for areas where species need to move to avoid climate threats.

“This proposal turns the extinction-prevention tool of the Endangered Species Act into a rubber stamp for powerful corporate interests,” said Hartl. “Allowing the federal government to turn a blind eye to climate change will be a death sentence for polar bears and hundreds of other animals and plants.”

The regulatory proposal addressing listing and critical habitat designations will gut wildlife agencies’ ability to designate critical habitat in unoccupied areas needed for recovery. Even though most endangered species currently occupy small fractions of their historic range, those areas would effectively be precluded from ever helping a species recover.

“Ordinary Americans understand that many species of wildlife have drastically declined in recent years, and that if we are going to save wildlife, we have to let them return to places they used to roam. Denying imperiled wild animals that ability means they have no future,” said Hartl.

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Featured image is from Radio Free.

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Featured image: A Bolshevik soldier shot dead by an American guard, 8 January 1919.

Amid the bi-partisan mania over the Trump-Putin Summit in Helsinki, fevered, anti-Russian rhetoric in the United States makes conceivable what until recently seemed inconcievable: that dangerous tensions between Russia and the U.S. could lead to military conflict. It has happened before.

In September 1959, during a brief thaw in the Cold War, Nikita Khrushchev made his famous visit to the United States. In Los Angeles, the Soviet leader was invited to a luncheon at Twentieth Century-Fox Studios in Hollywood and during a long and rambling exchange he had this to say:

“Your armed intervention in Russia was the most unpleasant thing that ever occurred in the relations between our two countries, for we had never waged war against America until then; our troops have never set foot on American soil, while your troops have set foot on Soviet soil.”

These remarks by Khrushchev were little noted in the U.S. press at the time – especially compared to his widely-reported complaint about not being allowed to visit Disneyland.  But even if Americans read about Khrushchev’s comments it is likely that few of them would have had any idea what the Soviet Premier was talking about.

But Soviet – and now Russian — memory is much more persistent.  The wounds of foreign invasions, from Napoleon to the Nazis, were still fresh in Russian public consciousness in 1959 — and even in Russia today — in a way most Americans could not imagine.  Among other things, that is why the Russians reacted with so much outrage to the expansion of NATO to its borders in the 1990’s, despite U.S. promises not to do so during the negotiations for the unification of Germany.

The U.S. invasion Khrushchev referred to took place a century ago, after the October Revolution and during the civil war that followed between Bolshevik and anti-Bolshevik forces, the Red Army against White Russians.  While the Germans and Austrians were occupying parts of Western and Southern Russia, the Allies launched their own armed interventions in the Russian North and the Far East in 1918.

The Allied nations, including Britain, France, Italy, Japan and the U.S., cited various justifications for sending their troops into Russia: to “rescue” the Czech Legion that had been recruited to fight against the Central Powers; to protect allied military stores and keep them out of the hands of the Germans; to preserve communications via the Trans-Siberian Railway; and possibly to re-open an Eastern Front in the war.  But the real goal – rarely admitted publicly at first—was to reverse the events of October and install a more “acceptable” Russian government. As Winston Churchill later put it, the aim was to “strangle the Bolshevik infant in its cradle.”

In addition to Siberia, the U.S. joined British and French troops to invade at Archangel, in the north of Russia, on September 4, 1918.

Source: Consortiumnews

In July 1918, U.S. President Woodrow Wilson had personally typed the “Aide Memoire” on American military action in Russia that was hand-delivered by the Secretary of War at the beginning of August to General William Graves, the designated commander of the U.S. troops en route to Siberia. Wilson’s document was curiously ambivalent and contradictory. It began by asserting that foreign interference in Russia’s internal affairs was “impermissible,” and eventually concluded that the dispatch of U.S. troops to Siberia was not to be considered a “military intervention.”

The Non-Intervention Intervention

But the American intervention began when U.S. soldiers disembarked at Vladivostok on August 16, 1918.  These were the 27th and 31st infantry regiments, regular army units that had been involved in pacification of U.S.-occupied Philippines.  Eventually there were to be about 8,000 U.S. troops in Siberia.

Judging from his memoires, General Graves was puzzled by how different things looked on the ground in Siberia than his vague instructions seemed to suggest.  For one thing, the Czechs hardly needed rescuing.  By the Summer of 1918 they had easily taken control of Vladivostok and a thousand miles of the Trans-Siberian Railway.

For the next year and a half, General Graves, by all appearances an honest and non-political professional soldier, struggled to understand and carry out his mandate in Siberia.  He seems to have driven the U.S. State Department and his fellow allied commanders to distraction by clinging stubbornly to a literal interpretation of Wilson’s Aide Memoire as mandating strict non-intervention in Russian affairs. The general seemed incapable of noticing the broad “wink” with which everyone else understood these instructions.

Graves strove to maintain “neutrality” among the various Russian factions battling for control of Siberia and to focus on his mission to guard the railroad and protect Allied military supplies.  But he was also indiscrete enough to report “White” atrocities as well as “Red” ones, to express his distaste for the various Japanese-supported warlords in Eastern Siberia and, later, to have a skeptical (and correct) assessment of the low popular support, incompetence and poor prospects of the anti-Bolshevik forces.

For his troubles, it was hinted, absurdly, that the General may have been a Bolshevik sympathizer, a charge that in part motivated the publication of his memoirs.

In the face of hectoring by State Department officials and other Allied commanders to be more active in support of the “right” people in Russia, Graves repeatedly inquired of his superiors in Washington whether his original instructions of political non-intervention were to be modified. No one, of course, was willing to put any different policy in writing and the general struggled to maintain his “neutrality.”

By the Spring and Summer of 1919, however, the U.S. had joined the other Allies in providing overt military support to “Supreme Leader,” Admiral Alexander Kolchak’s White regime, based in the Western Siberian city of Omsk.  At first this was carried out discretely through the Red Cross, but later it took the form of direct shipments of military supplies, including boxcars of rifles whose safe delivery Graves was directed to oversee.

Domestic Intervention 

But the prospects for a victory by Kolchak soon faded and the Whites in Siberia revealed themselves to be a lost cause.  The decision to remove the US troops was made late in 1919 and General Graves, with the last of his staff, departed from Vladivostok on 1 April 1920.

In all, 174 American soldiers were killed during the invasion of Russia. (The Soviet Union was formed on Dec. 28, 1922.)

Interestingly, pressure to withdraw the U.S. troops from Siberia came from fed-up soldiers and home-front opinion opposing the continued deployment of military units abroad long after the conclusion of the war in Europe. It is notable that during a Congressional debate on the Russian intervention one Senator read excerpts from the letters of American soldiers to support the case for bringing them home.

Then, as in later U.S. foreign interventions, the soldiers had a low opinion of the people they were supposed to be liberating.  One of them wrote home on July 28, 1919 from his base in Verkhne-Udinsk, now Ulan Ude, on the southern shore of Lake Baikal:

“Life in Siberia may sound exciting but it isn’t.  It’s all right for a few months but I’m ready to go home now. . .  You want to know how I like the people?  Well I’ll tell you, one couldn’t hardly call them people but they are some kind of animal.  They are the most ignorant things I ever saw.  Oh, I can get a word of their lingo if they aren’t sore when they talk.  They sure do rattle off their lingo when they get  sore. These people have only one ambition and that is to drink more vodka than the next person.”

Letter home from U.S. soldier during invasion of Russia (Source: Consortiumnews)

Outside of the State Department and some elite opinion, U.S. intervention had never been very popular.  By now it was widely understood, as one historian noted, that there may have been “many reasons why the doughboys came to Russia, but there was only one reason why they stayed: to intervene in a civil war to see who would govern the country.”

After 1920, the memory of “America’s Siberian Adventure,” as General Graves termed it, soon faded into obscurity.  The American public is notorious for its historic amnesia, even as similar military adventures were repeated again and again over the years since then.

It seems that we may need to be reminded every generation or so of the perils of foreign military intervention and the simple truth asserted by General Graves:

“. . .there isn’t a nation on earth that would not resent foreigners sending troops into their country, for the purpose of putting this or that faction in charge.  The result is not only an injury to the prestige of the foreigner intervening, but is a great handicap to the faction the foreigner is trying to assist.”

General Graves was writing about Siberia in 1918, but it could just as well have been Vietnam in the 1960s or Afghanistan and Syria now. Or a warning today about 30,000 NATO troops on Russia’s borders.

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Jeff Klein is a retired local trade union president who writes frequently about international affairs and especially the Middle East.  The postcard and soldier’s letter are in his personal collection.

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Note from MEE: The following is a translation of the final version of the Basic Law: Israel as the Nation State of the Jewish People, as published on the Knesset website.

Basic Law: Israel as the Nation State of the Jewish People 

1. Basic principles

A. The land of Israel is the historical homeland of the Jewish people, in which the State of Israel was established.

B. The State of Israel is the national home of the Jewish people, in which it fulfills its natural, cultural, religious and historical right to self-determination.

C. The right to exercise national self-determination in the State of Israel is unique to the Jewish people.

2. The symbols of the state

A. The name of the state is “Israel.”

B. The state flag is white with two blue stripes near the edges and a blue Star of David in the centre.

C. The state emblem is a seven-branched menorah with olive leaves on both sides and the word “Israel” beneath it.

D. The state anthem is “Hatikvah.”

E. Details regarding state symbols will be determined by the law.

3. The capital of the state

Jerusalem, complete and united, is the capital of Israel.

4. Language

A. The state’s language is Hebrew.

B. The Arabic language has a special status in the state; Regulating the use of Arabic in state institutions or by them will be set in law.

C. This clause does not harm the status given to the Arabic language before this law came into effect.

5. Ingathering of the exiles

The state will be open for Jewish immigration and the ingathering of exiles

6. Connection to the Jewish people

A. The state will strive to ensure the safety of the members of the Jewish people in trouble or in captivity due to the fact of their Jewishness or their citizenship.

B. The state shall act within the Diaspora to strengthen the affinity between the state and members of the Jewish people.

C. The state shall act to preserve the cultural, historical and religious heritage of the Jewish people among Jews in the Diaspora.

7. Jewish settlement

A. The state views the development of Jewish settlement as a national value and will act to encourage and promote its establishment and consolidation.

8. Official calendar

The Hebrew calendar is the official calendar of the state and alongside it the Gregorian calendar will be used as an official calendar. Use of the Hebrew calendar and the Gregorian calendar will be determined by law.

9. Independence Day and memorial days

A. Independence Day is the official national holiday of the state.

B. Memorial Day for the Fallen in Israel’s Wars and Holocaust and Heroism Remembrance Day are official memorial days of the State.

10. Days of rest and Sabbath

The Sabbath and the festivals of Israel are the established days of rest in the state; Non-Jews have a right to maintain days of rest on their Sabbaths and festivals; Details of this issue will be determined by law.

11. Immutability

This Basic Law shall not be amended, unless by another Basic Law passed by a majority of Knesset members.

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President Bashar Assad is set to recover control of the Syrian frontier with the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights in a major victory over rebels who have agreed to surrender terms, sources on both sides said Thursday.

Backed by Russian air power and unopposed by Assad’s foreign adversaries, government forces have swept through southwestern Syria in the last month in one of the swiftest campaigns of the war, forcing surrender on massively outgunned rebels.

The campaign, which has already restored Assad’s control over a critical portion of the frontier with Jordan, marks another milestone in his efforts to recover control of the country fractured by more than seven years of conflict.

There was no government confirmation of the Qunaitra agreement. State media cited “reports” a deal had been reached. It was not clear when implementation would begin.

A copy of the agreement sent to Reuters by a rebel source said insurgents had negotiated the deal with Russia.

Echoing surrender terms imposed on rebels elsewhere, opposition fighters agreed to give up heavy and medium-sized weapons. Those wishing to stay in the area will “settle” their status with the state, meaning accepting a return of its rule.

Those who reject the deal will be given safe passage out to the opposition-held province of Idlib in the northwest, according to terms that were also reported by Hezbollah’s war media center. Iran-backed Hezbollah is fighting in Syria in support of Assad.

Once the southwestern campaign is finished, Assad’s focus will likely turn to the two remaining areas outside his grasp.

These are the rebel-held northwest, where the presence of Turkish forces will complicate any military campaign, and swathes of the northeast and east that are held by Kurdish-led militias, supported by some 2,000 U.S. troops on the ground.

As Damascus and its allies pursue military victory, there appears little chance of the kind of negotiated peace which Assad’s adversaries say is needed to stabilize the country and encourage millions of refugees to return.

The war is estimated to have killed hundreds of thousands of people, displacing 11 million and forcing some six million abroad as refugees.

A Reuters witness on the Israeli side of the Golan frontier said fighting continued in the area of Tel al-Haara, a strategically vital hilltop seized by government forces this week. The sound of planes could be heard as shelling continued.

The campaign near the Golan frontier has been particularly sensitive because of Israeli concerns. Israel has signaled it has no problem with Assad recovering the area as long his Iranian and Iran-backed allies were kept away from the frontier.

Israel has also said it would demand strict adherence to the 1974 disengagement deal with the Syrian army on the Golan, threatening a “harsh response” to any attempt by Syrian forces to deploy in that zone. The deal, concluded after the 1973 Mideast War, created a buffer zone patrolled by the U.N. Disengagement and Observer Force.

The report by the Hezbollah’s war media center said the surrender agreement stipulated “the return of the Syrian army, represented in the 90th and the 61st brigades, to the positions that it was in before 2011”.

Details of the deal sent by the rebel source included a provision that Russian military police would accompany the same two Syrian army brigades “to the ceasefire line and the demilitarized zone, according to the 1974 agreement”.

The provisions did not elaborate on any implications of the deployment of military units on the 1974 agreement.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, during a visit to Russia to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin this month, indicated his country did not object to Assad’s return to the Golan as long as Iranian force and Hezbollah stayed away.

In a briefing with Israeli reporters, he said Israel had not had a problem “with the Assad regime for 40 years”, noting that “not one bullet was fired on the Golan Heights” in that time.

Israeli media accounts of the meeting with Putin also quoted him as saying that the Russians had succeeded getting Iranian and Hezbollah forces to move dozens of kilometers away from the Golan frontier.

U.S. President Donald Trump said at a news conference with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday in Helsinki that both had agreed to work together to help ensure Israel’s security.

Putin, Assad’s most powerful ally, cited the need to restore the situation along the Golan borders to the state that prevailed before the outbreak of the Syrian crisis in 2011.

Israel has been pressing Russia to rein in Iranian and Iran-backed forces that have been fighting in support of Assad. Israel has stepped up attacks against what it describes as Iranian and Iran-backed targets in Syria this year.

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Analysis of figures released in response to Freedom of Information requests by Drone Wars UK indicate that the UK has spent £1.75bn on armed air missions against ISIS in Iraq and Syria since August 2014. It should be noted that the overall cost of UK military operations in Iraq and Syria will be much higher.

Strikingly, the data shows that at £268 million, the cost alone of the weapons fired over the last 3½ years is more than the total amount the UK has spent on humanitarian assistance in Iraq (£210 million) in the same time period.  The full cost of flying the UK’s armed aircraft (Tornado, Typhoon and Reaper) for more than 42,000 hours is almost £1.5 billion.

In statements on the costs of Operation Shader, ministers have given a figures for what they call ‘net additional costs’.  They argue that only fuel costs (at a flat rate of £5,000 per hour) should count towards the operational costs of flying the aircraft.  Defence analysts argue however that the full-cost, including crew, maintenance and capital costs should be included.   In his 2011 evidence to the Defence Select Committee after Operation Ellamy (Libya), expert defence analyst Francis Tusa wrote:

“the ‘fuel only’ costs … doesn’t come remotely close to the stated cost of operations… This would seem to show that ‘official figures’ are not a true and realistic calculation of the costs of operations.”

While these are huge figures, the UK’s 1,700 airstrikes are just a fraction of the enormous number of air strikes launched in in Iraq and Syria over the past 3½ years.  According to figures compiled by Airwars, the US-led Coalition as a whole have launched 29,000 air strikes using more than 105,000 bombs and missiles since 2014.  Extrapolating from UK figures, the financial cost of just the bombs and missiles used in Coalition airstrikes is around £8 billion ($10.5bn). As always in war time, someone is making a killing.

The Human Cost

But of course, it is not just the financial cost of war that is being hidden.  Civilian casualties are virtually invisible in mainstream reporting and the public consciousness.  While Airwars  has recorded over 6,000 civilian deaths from Coalition airstrikes in Iraq and Syria, the US only admits that around  841 civilians have been killed. The UK, publicly at least, continues to insist that there is no evidence any of its air strikes have killed or harmed civilians.

The remote nature of today’s wars means that the financial and human cost of aerial bombing becomes virtually invisible and therefore more difficult for us to comprehend. The danger is that without a proper grasp of the costs and consequences, there is less resolve to bring wars to an end as quickly as possible.  Perhaps that is why there has been silence in parliament about UK air strikes continuing in Syria, even though Iraq has declared victory over ISIS and secured its borders, the stated aim of the intervention in the first place.

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Sources

Weapons costs:  Number used: FoI responses.  Unit costs: Paveway IV; Hellfire; Brimstone; GBU-12; Storm Shadow. Enhanced Paveway II & III: estimated.

Flight costs:   Hours flown: FoI responses.   Tornado and Typhoon (figure include fuel, crew, maintenance and capital costs).  Reaper (* figure only includes  fuel and maintenance costs)

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Featured image: President Donald J. Trump and President Vladimir Putin of the Russian Federation | July 16, 2018 (Official White House Photo by Shealah Craighead)

“We need to talk about everything, from commerce to the military, missiles, nuclear, and China” – this was how President Trump began at the Helsinki Summit. “The time has come to talk in detail about our bilateral relationship and the international flashpoints”, emphasised Putin.

But it will not only be the two Presidents who will decide the future relationships between the United States and Russia.

It’s no coincidence that, at the very moment when the President of the United States was about to meet with the President of Russia, special prosecutor Robert Mueller III charged twelve Russians with having manipulated the US presidential elections by hacking into the data networks of the Democratic party in order to hinder candidate Hillary Clinton. The twelve Russians, accused of being agents of the military secret services (GRU), were officially defined as “conspirators”, and found guilty of “conspiracy to the detriment of the United States”.

Simultaneously, Daniel Coats, National Director of Intelligence and principal advisor to the President in these matters, accused Russia of working to “undermine our basic values and our democracy”. He then sounded the alarm about the “threat of cyber-attacks which have arrived at a critical point” similar to that which preceded 9/11, on behalf not only of Russia, “the most aggressive foreign agent”, but also China and Iran.

At the same time, in London, British “investigators” declared that the Russian military secret service GRU, which had sabotaged the Presidential elections in the USA, is the same service which poisoned ex-Russian agent, Sergueï Skripal and his daughter, who, inexplicably, survived contact with an extremely lethal gas.

The political objective of these “enquiries” is clear – to maintain that at the head of all these “conspirators” is Russian President Vladimir Putin, with whom President Donald Trump sat down at the negotiating table, despite vast bi-partisan opposition in the USA. After the “conspirators” had been charged, the Democrats asked Trump to cancel the meeting with Putin. Even though they failed, their pressure on the negotiations remains powerful.

What Putin tried to obtain from Trump is both simple and complex – to ease the tension between the two countries. To that purpose, he proposed to Trump, who accepted, to implement a joint enquiry into the “conspiracy”. We do not know how the discussions on the key questions will go – the status of Crimea, the condition of Syria, nuclear weapons and others. And we do not know what Trump will ask in return.

However, it is certain that any concession will be used to accuse him of conivence with the enemy. In opposition to the easing of tension with Russia are not only the Democrats (who, with a reversal of formal roles, are playing the “hawks”), but also many Republicans, among whom are several highly-important representatives of the Trump administration itself. It is the establishment, not only of the US, but also of Europe, whose powers and profits are directly linked to tension and war.

It will not be the words, but the facts, which will reveal whether the climate of détente of the Helsinki Summit will become reality – first of all with a de-escalation of NATO in Europe, in other words with the withdrawal of forces (including nuclear forces) of the USA and NATO presently deployed against Russia, and the blockage of NATO’s expansion to the East.

• Even if an agreement on these questions were reached between Putin and Trump, would the latter be able to implement it?
• Or will the real deciders be the powerful circles of the military-industrial complex?

One thing is certain – we in Italy and Europe can not remain the simple spectators of dealings which will define our future.

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This article was originally published on Il Manifesto.

Translator: Pete Kimberley

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

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The annual budget of the military/security complex is $1,000 billion.  This vast sum is drawn from US taxpayers who have many unmet needs.  To justify such an enormous budget a major enemy is required.  The military/security complex and the media and politicians that the complex owns have designated Russia to be that enemy.  The complex and its political and media agents will not permit Trump to normalize relations with Russia.  

To prevent President Trump from reducing the dangerous tensions between nuclear powers that Washington has created, the military/security complex orchestrated Russiagate, a proven hoax, but believed by many due to its endless repetition. The military/security complex orchestrated the false indictments of 12 Russians.  The military/security complex orchestrated the false arrest of Maria Butina, and so on and on.

The military/security complex acting through the politicians and presstitutes that it owns and controls has turned the normal everyday responsibility of the President—one acknowledged and acted upon by every previous president—to defuse tensions that could lead to nuclear war into a high crime.  President Trump is accused of treason for trying to make peace!

An unaware person might think that this is silly and laugh, but as Finian Cunningham shows, President Trump has been set-up as a treasonous enemy of America.  We are currently experiencing sedition at the highest levels as the military/security complex unfolds its coup against the elected president of the United States.  

In 1961 President Dwight Eisenhower warned Americans in his last public address that the military/industrial complex was a threat to American democracy.  Truer words were never spoken by an American president.  Shortly thereafter, the military/security complex assassinated President John F. Kennedy for working toward peace with Soviet leader Khruschev.  To get rid of President Nixon, who made too many arms control agreements with the Soviets and opened to China, the military/security complex used its asset, the Washington Post, to orchestrate the “Watergate crisis” that the military/security complex used to force Nixon’s resignation.  Now the military/security complex is openly inciting sedition against the President of the United States.  If this plot succeeds, which is the most likely case, America will be a complete dystopia and all independent voices will be shut down.  

Who can Trump rely on?  Not on his own political party. Not on his own government.  Not on the print and TV media or NPR.  Not on Europe.  Not on the Secret Service.  Not on the Pentagon. Not on the unaware American people.  Trump has only the “deplorables,” and they are unorganized and will experience retribution once Trump is removed.  

“Christianity gave Eros poison to drink; he did not die of it, certainly, but degenerated to Vice.” – Frederick Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil

“Ours is essentially a tragic age, so we refuse to take it tragically. The cataclysm has happened, we are among the ruins, we start to build up new little habitats, to have new little hopes. It is rather hard work: there is now no smooth road into the future: but we go round, or scramble over the obstacles. We’ve got to live, no matter how many skies have fallen.” – D. H. Lawrence, Lady Chatterley’s Lover

“The so-called consumer society and the politics of corporate capitalism have created a second nature of man which ties him libidinally and aggressively to the commodity form.  The need for possessing, consuming, handling and constantly renewing gadgets, devices, instruments, engines, offered to and imposed upon the people, for using these wares even at the danger of one’s own destruction, has become a ‘biological’ need.” – Herbert Marcuse, One Dimensional Man

There is a vast literature analyzing the political prophecy of George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four.  Big Brother, double-speak, telescreens, crimestop, etc. – all applied to our current political situation.  The language has become part of our popular lexicon, and as such, has become clichéd through overuse.  Blithe, habitual use of language robs it of its power to crack open the safe that hides the realities of life.

There is no doubt that Orwell wrote a brilliant political warning about the methods of totalitarian control.  But hidden at the heart of the book is another lesson lost on most readers and commentators.  Rats, torture, and Newspeak resonate with people fixated on political repression, which is a major concern, of course.  But so too is privacy and sexual passion in a country of group-think and group-do, where “Big Brother” poisons you in the crib and the entertainment culture then takes over to desexualize intimacy by selling it as another public commodity.  

The United States is a pornographic society.  By pornographic I do not just mean the omnipresent selling of exploitative sex through all media to titillate a voyeuristic public living in the unreality of screen “life” and screen sex through television, movies, and online obsessions.  I mean a commodified consciousness, where everyone and everything is part of a prostitution ring in the deepest sense of pornography’s meaning – for sale, bought.  And consumed by getting, spending, and selling.  Flicked into the net of Big Brother, whose job is make sure everything fundamentally human and physical is debased and mediated, people become consumers of the unreal and direct experience is discouraged.  The natural world becomes an object to be conquered and used.  Animals are produced in chemical factories to be slaughtered by the billions only to appear bloodless under plastic wrap in supermarket coolers.  The human body disappears into hypnotic spectral images. One’s sex becomes one’s gender as the words are transmogrified and as one looks in the mirror of the looking-glass self and wonders how to identify the one looking back.  Streaming life from Netflix or Facebook becomes life the movie.  The brilliant perverseness of the mediated reality of a screen society – what Guy Debord calls The Society of the Spectacle – is  that as it distances people from fundamental reality, it promotes that reality through its screen fantasies.  “Get away from it all and restore yourself at our spa in the rugged mountains where you can hike in pristine woods after yoga and a breakfast of locally sourced eggs and artisanally crafted bread.”  Such garbage would be funny if it weren’t so effective.  Debord writes,

The spectacle is not a collection of images, but a social relation among people, mediated by images….Where the real world changes into simple images, the simple images become real beings and effective motivations of hypnotic behavior.  

Thus sex with robots and marrying yourself are not aberrations but logical extensions of a society where solipsism meets machine in the America dream.

As this happens, words and language become corrupted by the same forces that Orwell called Big Brother, whose job is total propaganda and social control.  Just as physical reality now mimics screen reality and thus becomes chimerical, language, through which human beings uncover and articulate the truth of being, becomes more and more abstract.  People don’t die; they “pass on” or “pass away.”  Dying, like real sex, is too physical.  Wars of aggression don’t exist; they are “overseas contingency operations.”  Killing people with drones isn’t killing; it’s “neutralizing them.”  There are a “ton” of examples, but I am sure “you guys” don’t need me to list any more.  

Orwell called Big Brother’s language Newspeak, and Hemingway preceded him when he so famously wrote in disgust In a Farewell to Arms,

“I was always embarrassed by the words sacred, glorious, and sacrifice, and the expression in vain….Abstract words such as glory, honor, courage, or hallow were obscene…” 

This destruction of language has been going on for a long time, but it’s worth noting that from Hemingway’s WW I through Orwell’s WW II up until today’s endless U.S. wars against Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen, Syria, Libya, etc., there has been the parallel development of screen and media culture, beginning with silent movies through television and onto the total electronic media environment we now inhabit – the surround sound and image bubble of literal abstractions that inhabit us, mentally and physically.  In such a society, to feel what you really feel and not what, in Hemingway’s words, “you were supposed to feel, and had been taught to feel” has become extremely difficult.

Image below: Winston Smith and Julia hidden in the bushes, away from their reality (Source: Pinterest)

Language, as the Greeks told us, should open up a clearing for the truth (Greek aleitheia, unhiddenness) to emerge so we can grasp the essence of life.  And so it is ironically appropriate that Orwell’s Winston Smith discovers such essence, not in analyzing Crimestop, his tormenter O’Brien, or Doublethink, but “in a natural clearing, a tiny grass knoll surrounded by tall saplings that shut it in completely” where he secretly meets a young woman who had passed him a note saying she loved him.   Away from the prying eyes of Big Brother and his spies, amidst bluebells and a torrent of song from a thrush, they come together almost wordlessly. 

“Winston and Julia clung together, fascinated” as the thrush sang madly.  “The music went on and on, minute after minute, with astonishing variations, never once repeating itself, almost as if the bird were deliberately showing off its virtuosity…He stopped thinking and merely felt.” 

Here the secret lovers affirm their humanity, the truth of sexual intimacy that is the enemy of all abstractions used by the powerful to control and manipulate normal people and to convince them to participate in killing others.

  “Almost as swiftly as he had imagined it, she had torn her clothes off, and when she flung them aside it was with that same magnificent gesture by which a whole civilization seemed to be annihilated.” 

Reveling in love-making in a free space outside the Party’s control, they felt they had triumphed.

But as we learn in 1984 and should learn in the U.S.A. today, “seemed” is the key word.  Their triumph was temporary.  For sexual passion reveals truths that need to be confirmed in the mind.  In itself, sexual liberation can be easily manipulated, as it has been so effectively in the United States. “Repressive de-sublimation” Herbert Marcuse called it fifty years ago. You allow people to act out their sexual fantasies in commodified ways that can be controlled by the rulers, all the while ruling their minds and potential political rebelliousness. Sex becomes part of the service economy where people service each other while serving their masters.  Use pseudo-sex to sell them a way of life that traps them in an increasingly totalitarian social order that only seems free.  This has been accomplished primarily through screen culture and the concomitant confusion of sexual identity.  Perhaps you have noticed that over the past twenty-five years of growing social and political confusion, we have witnessed an exponential growth in “the electronic life,” the use of psychotropic drugs, and sexual disorientation.  This is no accident.  Wars have become as constant as Eros – the god of love, life, joy, and motion – has been divorced from sex as a stimulus and response release of tension in a “stressed” society.  Rollo May, the great American psychologist, grasped this:

Indeed, we have set sex over against eros, used sex precisely to avoid the anxiety-creating involvements of eros…We are in flight from eros and use sex as the vehicle for the flight…Eros [which includes, but is not limited to, passionate sex] is the center of vitality of a culture – its heart and soul.  And when release of tension takes the place of creative eros, the downfall of the civilization is assured.

Because Julia and Winston cannot permanently escape Oceania, but can only tryst, they succumb to Big Brother’s mind control and betray each other.  Their sexual affair can’t save them.   It is a moment of beauty and freedom in an impossible situation.  Of course the hermetically sealed world of 1984 is not the United States.  Orwell created a society in which escape was impossible. It is, after all, an admonitory novel – not the real world.  Things are more subtle here; we still have some wiggle room – some – although the underlying truth is the same: the U.S. oligarchy, like “The Party,” “seeks power entirely for its own sake” and “are not interested in the good of others,” all rhetoric to the contrary. Our problem is that too many believe the rhetoric, and those who say they don’t really do at the deepest level.  Fly the flag and play the national anthem and their hearts are aflutter with hope.  Recycle old bromides about the next election when your political enemies will be swept out of office and excitement builds as though you had met the love of your life and all was well with the world.

But understanding the history of public relations, advertising, propaganda, the CIA, the national security apparatus, technology, etc., makes it clear that such hope is baseless. For the propaganda in this country has penetrated far deeper than anyone can imagine, and it has primarily done this through advanced technology and the religion of technique – machines as pure abstractions – that has poisoned not just our minds, but the deepest wellsprings of the body’s truths and the erotic imagination that links us in love to all life on earth.  

In “Defence of Poetry,” Percy Bysshe Shelley writes:

The great secret of morals is love; or a going out of our nature, and an identification of ourselves with the beautiful which exists in thought, action, or person, not our own. A man, to be greatly good, must imagine intensely and comprehensively; he must put himself in the place of another and of many others; the pains and pleasure of his species must become his own. The great instrument of moral good is the imagination.                                                            

We are now faced with the question: Can we escape the forces of propaganda and mind control that run so very deep into American life?  If so, how?  Let’s imagine a way out.

Orwell makes it very clear that language is the key to mind control, as he delineates how Newspeak works. I think he is right.  And mind control also means the control of our bodies, Eros, our sex, our physical connections to all living beings and nature. Today the U.S. is reaching the point where “Oldspeak” – Standard English – has been replaced by Newspeak, and just “fragments of the literature of the past” survive here and there.  This is true for the schooled and unschooled.  In fact, those more trapped by the instrumental logic, disembodied data, and word games of the power elite are those who have gone through the most schooling, the indoctrination offered by the so-called “elite” universities. I suspect that more working-class and poor people still retain some sense of the old language and the fundamental meaning of words, since it is with their sweat and blood that they “earn their living.”  Many of the highly schooled  are children of the power elite or those groomed to serve them, who are invited to join in living the life of power and privilege if they swallow their consciences and deaden their imaginations to the suffering their “life-styles” and ideological choices inflict on the rest of the world.  In this world of The New York Times, Harvard, The New Yorker, Martha’s Vineyard, The Washington Post, Wall St., Goldman Sachs, the boardrooms of the ruling corporations, all the corporate media, etc., language has become debased beyond recognition.  Here, as Orwell said of Newspeak, “a heretical thought…should be literally unthinkable, at least as far as thought is dependent on words.  Its vocabulary was so constructed as to give exact and often very subtle expression to every meaning that a Party member could properly wish to express.”  The intelligently orthodox, he adds, must master the art of “doublethink” wherein they hold two contradictory ideas in their minds simultaneously, while accepting both of them.  This is the key trick of logic and language that allows the power elites and their lackeys in the U.S. today to master the art of self-deception and feel good about themselves as they plunder the world.  In this “Party” world, the demonization, degradation, and killing of others is an abstraction; their lives are spectral.  Orwell describes doublethink this way:

To tell deliberate lives while genuinely believing in them, to forget any fact that has become inconvenient, and then, when it becomes necessary again, to draw it back from oblivion for just so long as it is needed, to deny the existence of objective reality and all the while to take account of the reality one denies – all this is indispensably necessary.  Even in using the word doublethink it is necessary to exercise doublethink.  For by using the word one admits one is tampering with reality; by a fresh act of doublethink one erases this knowledge; and so on indefinitely, with the lie always one leap ahead of the truth.

It may sound silly to say, but language, as its etymology tells us, begins with the tongue (Latin, lingua).  And the tongue is a bell, tolling out its meaning.  Indeed, all language springs from the body – is body language. And when language becomes abstract and devoid of blood, it becomes etiolated and unable to convey the truth that is the mystical body of the world.  It becomes a viper’s tongue, dividing the “good” people from the “bad” so the good can eliminate the bad who have become abstractions.  

When Winston Smith and Julia hid in the arbor and for once felt free and alive as they fucked – despite its transitoriness – Orwell was suggesting something that his dystopian novel denies is possible: that we can escape our own 1984 in 2018 by returning to fundamentals. Whitman told us that if anything is sacred it is the human body, and he sung “the body electric.”  This is the task of artists: to sing the words that tell the truth the propagandists try to deny.

James Joyce writes in The Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man:

Welcome, oh life!  I go to encounter for the millionth time the reality of experience and to forge in the smithy of my soul the uncreated conscience of my race.  

Perhaps we should add: in the smithy of our souls and bodies.  His fellow Irishman, William Butler Yeats, brings us down to earth with the words:

Now that my ladder’s gone/I must lie down where all the ladders start/In the foul rag and bone shop of the heart.

“Yes I said yes I will Yes.”

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Edward Curtin is a writer whose work has appeared widely; he is a frequent contributor to Global Research. He teaches sociology at Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts. His website is http://edwardcurtin.com/.

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Where to begin to analyze the madness of mainstream media in reaction to the Trump-Putin meeting in Helsinki?  By focusing on the individual, psychology has neglected the problem of mass insanity, which has now overwhelmed the United States establishment, its mass media and most of its copycat European subsidiaries. The individuals may be sane, but as a herd they are ready to leap off the cliff.

For the past two years, a particular power group has sought to explain away its loss of power – or rather, its loss of the Presidency, as it still holds a predominance of institutional power – by creation of a myth.  Mainstream media is known for its herd behavior, and in this case the editors, commentators, journalists have talked themselves into a story that initially they themselves could hardly take seriously.

Donald Trump was elected by Russia?

On the face of it, this is preposterous.  Okay, the United States can manage to rig elections in Honduras, or Serbia, or even Ukraine, but the United States is a bit too big and complex to leave the choice of the Presidency to a barrage of electronic messages totally unread by most voters.  If this were so, Russia wouldn’t need to try to “undermine our democracy”.  It would mean that our democracy was already undermined, in tatters, dead.  A standing corpse ready to be knocked over by a tweet.

Even if, as is alleged without evidence, an army of Russian bots (even bigger than the notorious Israeli army of bots) was besieging social media with its nefarious slanders against poor innocent Hillary Clinton, this could determine an election only in a vacuum, with no other influences in the field.  But there was a lot of other stuff going on in the 2016 election, some for Trump and some for Hillary, and Hillary herself scored a crucial own goal by denigrating millions of Americans as “deplorables” because they didn’t fit into her identity politics constituencies.

The Russians could do nothing to build support for Trump, and there is not a hint of evidence that they tried.  They might have done something to harm Hillary, because there was so much there: the private server emails, the Clinton foundation, the murder of Moammer Gaddafi, the call for a no-fly zone in Syria … they didn’t have to invent it.  It was there.  So was the hanky panky at the Democratic National Committee, on which the Clintonite accusations focus, perhaps to cause everyone to forget much worse things.  

When you come to think of it, the DNC scandal focused on Debbie Wasserman Schultz, not on Hillary herself.  Screaming about “Russian hacking the DNC” has been a distraction from much more serious accusations against Hillary Clinton.  Bernie Sanders supporters didn’t need those “revelations” to make them stop loving Hillary or even to discover that the DNC was working against Bernie.  It was always perfectly obvious.

So at worst, “the Russians” are accused of revealing some relatively minor facts concerning the Hillary Clinton campaign.  Big deal.

But that is enough, after two years of fakery, to send the establishment into a frenzy of accusations of “treason” when Trump does what he said he would do while campaigning, try to normalize relations with Russia.

This screaming comes not only from the US mainstream, but also from that European elite which has been housebroken for seventy years as obedient poodles, dachshunds or corgis in the American menagerie, via intense vetting by US trans-Atlantic “cooperation” associations.  They have based their careers on the illusion of sharing the world empire by following U.S. whims in the Middle East and transforming the mission of their armed forces from defense into foreign intervention units of NATO under U.S. command.  Having not thought seriously about the implications of this for over half a century, they panic at the suggestion of being left to themselves. 

The Western elite is now suffering from self-inflicted dementia.

Donald Trump is not particularly articulate, navigating through the language with a small repetitive vocabulary, but what he said at his Helsinki press conference was honest and even brave.  As the hounds bay for his blood, he quite correctly refused to endorse the “findings” of US intelligence agencies, fourteen years after the same agencies “found” that Iraq was bursting with weapons of mass destruction.  How in the world could anyone expect anything else?

But for the mainstream media, “the story” at the Helsinki summit, even the only story, was Trump’s reaction to the, er, trumped up charges of Russian interference in our democracy.  Were you or were you not elected thanks to Russian hackers? All they wanted was a yes or no answer.  Which could not possibly be yes.  So they could write their reports in advance.

Anyone who has frequented mainstream journalists, especially those who cover the “big stories” on international affairs, is aware of their obligatory conformism, with few exceptions.  To get the job, one must have important “sources”, meaning government spokesmen who are willing to tell you what “the story” is, often without being identified.  Once they know what “the story” is, competition sets in: competition as to how to tell it. That leads to an escalation of rhetoric, variations on the theme: “The President has betrayed our great country to the Russian enemy. Treason!”

This demented chorus on “Russian hacking” prevented mainstream media from even doing their job. Not even mentioning, much less analyzing, any of the real issues at the summit.  To find analysis, one must go on line, away from the official fake news to independent reporting.  For example, “the Moon of Alabama” site offers an intelligent interpretation of the Trump strategy, which sounds infinitely more plausible than “the story”.  In short, Trump is trying to woo Russia away from China, in a reverse version of Kissinger’s strategy forty years ago to woo China away from Russia, thus avoiding a continental alliance against the United States.  This may not work because the United States has proven so untrustworthy that the cautious Russians are highly unlikely to abandon their alliance with China for shadows. But it makes perfect sense as an explanation of Trump’s policy, unlike the caterwauling we’ve been hearing from Senators and talking heads on CNN.

Those people seem to have no idea of what diplomacy is about.  They cannot conceive of agreements that would be beneficial to both sides.  No, it’s got to be a zero sum game, winner take all.  If they win, we lose, and vice versa.

They also have no idea of the harm to both sides if they do not agree.  They have no project, no strategy.  Just hate Trump.

He seems totally isolated, and every morning I look at the news to see if he has been assassinated yet.  

It is unimaginable for our Manichean moralists that Putin might also be under fire at home for failing to chide the American president for U.S. violations of human rights in Guantanamo, murderous drone strikes against defenseless citizens throughout the Middle East, the destruction of Libya in violation of the UN mandate, interference in the elections of countless countries by government-financed “non-governmental organizations” (the National Endowment of Democracy), worldwide electronic spying, invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan, not to mention the world’s greatest prison population and regular massacres of school children. But the diplomatic Russians know how to be polite.  

Still, if Trump actually makes a “deal”, there may be losers – neither the U.S. nor Russia but third parties.  When two great powers reach agreement, it is often at somebody else’s expense. The West Europeans are afraid it will be them, but such fears are groundless.  All Putin wants is normal relations with the West, which is not much to ask.

Rather, candidate number one for paying the price are the Palestinians, or even Iran, in marginal ways. At the press conference, asked about possible areas of cooperation between the two nuclear powers, Trump suggested that the two could agree on helping Israel:

“We both spoke with Bibi Netanyahu. They would like to do certain things with respect to Syria, having to do with the safety of Israel. In that respect, we absolutely would like to work in order to help Israel. Israel will be working with us. So both countries would work jointly.” 

In political terms, Trump knows where political power lies, and is counting on the influence of the pro-Israel lobby, which recognizes the defeat in Syria and the rising influence of Russia, to save him from the liberal imperialists – a daring bet, but he does not have much choice.  

On another subject, Trump said that “our militaries” get along with the Russians “better than our politicians”.  This is another daring bet, on military realism that could somehow neutralize military industrial congressional complex lobbying for more and more weapons.

In short, the only chance to end the nuclear war threat may depend on support for Trump from Israel and the Pentagon!

The hysterical neoliberal globalists seem to have ruled out any other possibility – and perhaps this one too.  

“Constructive dialogue between the United States and Russia forwards the opportunity to open new pathways toward peace and stability in our world” Trump declared “I would rather take a political risk in pursuit of peace than to risk peace in pursuit of politics.”

That is more than his political enemies can claim.

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Diana Johnstone is the author of Fools’ Crusade: Yugoslavia, NATO, and Western Delusions. Her new book is Queen of Chaos: the Misadventures of Hillary Clinton. The memoirs of Diana Johnstone’s father Paul H. Johnstone, From MAD to Madness, was published by Clarity Press, with her commentary. She is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG). She can be reached at [email protected].

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The Russian US Election Meddling Big Lie Won’t Die

By Stephen Lendman, July 19, 2018

The sole redeeming part of his agenda was wanting improved relations with Russia and Vladimir Putin personally – preferring peace over possible confrontation, wanting the threat of nuclear war defused.

Despite tweeting post-Helsinki that he and Putin “got along well which truly bothered many haters who wanted to see a boxing match,” his remarks on CBS News showed he’ll continue dirty US business as usual toward Russia.

Indictment of 12 Russians: Under the Shiny Wrapping, a Political Act

By Scott Ritter, July 19, 2018

With great fanfare, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein on Friday released a 29-page indictment, a byproduct of the ongoing investigation by special counsel Robert Mueller into Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election. Ostensibly, this indictment cemented the government’s case against the Russians and punched a hole in the arguments of those, like President Trump, who have been labeling Mueller’s investigation a “witch hunt.” This, of course, is precisely what Rosenstein and Mueller hoped to achieve through their carefully timed, and even more carefully scripted, indictment.

The Establishment Strikes Back

By Philip Giraldi, July 19, 2018

The Helsinki Summit between the two leaders was critically important to anyone interested in preserving the planet Earth as we know it and there was no reason at all to release a non-time sensitive document that was clearly intended to cast a shadow over the proceedings. In fact, the surfacing of the indictment might easily be explained as a deliberate attempt by a politicized Justice Department and Special Counsel Robert Mueller to torpedo President Trump over concerns that he might actually come to some understanding with Putin.

America Overrules Trump: No Peace with Russia

By Dr. Paul Craig Roberts, July 19, 2018

The Russians—especially the naive Atlanticist Integrationists—should take note of the extreme hostility, indeed, to the point of insanity, directed at the Helsinki meeting across the entirety of the American political, media, and intellectual scene.  Putin is incorrect that US-Russian relations are being held hostage to an internal US political struggle between the two parties.  The Republicans are just as insane and just as hostile to President Trump’s effort to improve American-Russian relations as the Democrats, as Donald Jeffries reminds us.

Under Massive Pressure, Trump Backpedals on Russia “Meddling”

By Andre Damon, July 18, 2018

Speaking at the White House Tuesday, US President Donald Trump attempted to walk back statements he made just 24 hours earlier at his summit in Helsinki, Finland with Russian President Vladimir Putin in which he questioned claims by US intelligence agencies that the Russian government “meddled” in the 2016 election.

Helsinki – Trump and Putin – a Showdown for Summer Doldrums or a Genuine Attempt Towards Peace?

By Peter Koenig, July 18, 2018

President Trump, opened the meeting by saying that up to now relations between the United States and Russia were bad, and confessing that the US was to blame for it. He wanted them to improve and hoped that this meeting – he indicated that others of similar nature may follow – may be a first step towards normalizing relations between the two atomic super-powers which together, he said, control 90% of the world’s nuclear destructive force. A timely admission, but ignoring the most dangerous and unpredictable atomic power, the rogue nation of Israel.