Global Research

Every Trump voter is effectively “standing at the border, like Nazis, going ‘you here, you here,'” MSNBC guest Danny Deutsch declared on Friday. Former CIA Director Michael Hayden also compared the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown with Nazi concentration camps. The media is showcasing the anguish of parents and children forcibly separated at the southwestern border.

Eighteen years ago, the media had a mirror-image reaction to perhaps the most famous immigration raid in American history. Though some critics back then complained of Gestapo-like federal raid, much of the media downplayed or whitewashed the alleged brutality.

On April 22, 2000, 130 federal agents conducted a pre-dawn raid in Miami’s Little Havana section to seize Elian Gonzalez, a six-year-old Cuban boy. The raid shattered doors, broke a bed, roughed up Cuban-Americans, and left two NBC cameramen on the ground, writhing in pain from stomach-kicks or rifle-butts to the head. The raid seemed to go off without a hitch until a photo surfaced taken by Associated Press stringer Alan Diaz showing a Border Patrol agent pointing his submachine gun toward the terrified boy being held by the fisherman who rescued him six months earlier from the Atlantic Ocean.

Source: Mises Wire

After being told by her doctor that genetically engineered (GE) food and pesticides could be responsible for her son’s food allergies, Ekaterina Yakovleva set out to investigate. Her quest for answers was captured by the Russian Times in the featured film, “The Peril on Your Plate: Genetic Engineering and Chemical Agriculture.”

The film shows Yakovleva and her team traveling the world to meet “the people who lift the lid on the perils of GMOs and the chemicals used in the industry,” as well as proponents of GMOs who argue that genetic engineering is a “high-tech” solution to feeding the world’s growing population. Advocates for genetic engineering tell Yakovleva that the technology is beneficial to farmers in that it increases resistance to pests and disease, as well as produces higher yields. But Yakovleva isn’t convinced.

She learns nothing could be further from the truth after witnessing the devastation caused by mass farmer suicides in India as a result of the failure of Monsanto’s Bt cotton.

Yakovleva visits the U.K. where she meets Lady Margaret, Countess of Mar, a member of the House of Lords and a former farmer who suffered from chemical use, and then to the U.S. where she meets with Zen Honeycutt of Moms Across America about the link between GMOs, pesticides and chronic disease in humans.

What Is Genetic Engineering?

In order to better understand genetic engineering and its impact on human health, Yakovleva starts to research the technique and how it’s used. She learns that genetic engineering enables DNA to be transferred not only between different kinds of plants, but even between different kingdoms, meaning scientists can take DNA from an insect or animal and insert it into the genome of a plant.

Many GMO proponents claim that genetic engineering is just an extension of natural breeding methods, and just as safe. Nothing could be further from the truth — on both counts. Genetic engineering is radically different from conventional breeding techniques used to improve a crop. For starters, it’s a laboratory-based technique allowing scientists to create a food that could never be created by nature.

Claire Robinson, editor of GM Watch and coauthor of the book, “GMO Myths and Truths: A Citizen’s Guide to the Evidence on the Safety and Efficacy of Genetically Modified Foods and Crops,” says:

US Leads World in GM Crop Production

Yakovleva learns that an estimated 190 million hectares (469.5 acres) of GE crops¹ — an area three times the size of France — are cultivated in 28 countries worldwide.² The U.S. leads the world in GM crop production, growing about 40 percent,³ while Brazil grows 27 percent and Argentina 13 percent. Canada and India each grow 6 percent.⁴ GE crops currently in production include squash/pumpkin, alfalfa, sugar beet, potato, papaya, rapeseed oil, corn, soy and cotton.

Monsanto, soon to forgo its name and merge with Bayer, controls a vast majority of GE crops including 80 percent of GE corn and 93 percent of GE soy in the U.S. The first GE crop to hit the market was tobacco. It was genetically modified in 1983 to be resistant to an antibiotic.⁵ It was later altered for other reasons, including to remove a gene that turns nicotine into a carcinogen in tobacco leaves,⁶and to increase the amount of nicotine in cigarettes.⁷

The first genetically engineered food crop was the Flavr Savr tomato, produced by Calgene, a California-based company later bought by Monsanto. The tomato was genetically modified to stay riper longer by inhibiting a gene responsible for producing a protein that makes a tomato soften.⁸ Calgene is reported to have been transparent in its marketing of the tomato, clearly labeling the product and adding an 800 number for people with questions. Monsanto later removed the Flavr Savr tomato from store shelves.

A Growing List of Countries Say No to GMOs

The film highlights regions that are completely GMO-free, including Romania, which stopped cultivating GE crops despite being the first country in geographical Europe to introduce them.⁹ Portugal and Spain have reduced the amount of areas under GE crop cultivation,¹⁰while a number have enacted a total ban including France, Germany, Austria, Poland, Greece, Switzerland, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales.

Russia forbids GE crop cultivation,¹¹ but does not prevent GMOs from entering the country’s food chain, according to the film. Yakovleva travels to the Agrarian University in Moscow to meet GMO proponent Arkady Zlochevsky, chairman of the Russian Grain Union. She confronts him about the human health effects of eating GE foods.

“There is absolutely no risk to the human body associated with eating GM foods compared to traditional equivalents, not a single one,” he says, adding that GMOs are “high-tech” and have “significant advantages.”

He even went so far as to say that glyphosate, the key active ingredient in Monsanto’s Roundup weedkiller, is safer than 100 percent manure.

Glyphosate Doubles as Herbicide and Suicide Poison in India

Unconvinced, Yakovleva travels to India where glyphosate doubles as a lethal human poison. The Punjab region, formally known as the bread basket of India, is now known for colossal suicides among farmers, particularly young farmers between the ages of 20 and 35.

Yakovleva meets with families of farmers who committed suicide. She learns that thousands of farmers have taken their own lives after agriculture corporations granted them loans they could never repay to purchase seeds and pesticides that ultimately failed to provide the profits that were promised.

Inderjit Singh Jaijee, chairman of Punjab’s Baba Nanak Educational Society, says farmers who commit suicide often take drugs, drink alcohol or even take a swig of glyphosate to muster up the courage to go through with it. Singh Jaijee, who is on a mission to raise awareness about the serious issue of suicides in Punjab, says that young farmers are more susceptible because they don’t yet have the experience older people do to survive.

Thousands of Indian Farmers Commit Suicide Over Faulty GE Crops

The amount of suicides in the Punjab region is so massive that some people are making a profit removing dead bodies from a local canal. Ashu Malik, an underwater diver, uses surveillance cameras to monitor the canal for floating bodies. If a body is not claimed, it’s placed back into the water, he says. Ending up in the canal as a result of suicide is so common in this region that families built a house on the canal’s shoreline for them to stay in while they search for their loved ones who are missing.

The exact number of suicides occurring annually in the Punjab region remains unknown. One estimation found the annual suicide rate to be about 2,200. However, Singh Jaijee’s research estimates it to be closer to 4,000 suicides per year, while farmer organizations estimate up to 6,000. Shocked by what’s become a normality for agricultural communities in India, Yakovleva interviews agricultural scientist Kiran Kumar Vissa to learn more about Monsanto’s Bt cotton, the crop responsible for placing so many farmers into debt.

Monsanto’s Bt cotton was marketed as a solution to the challenges faced by cotton farmers, many of whom were in crisis; however, it ended up causing farmers more problems. There are many places where Bt cotton is not suitable for cultivation, including dry, nonirrigated areas, explains Vissa. The packaging says that Bt cotton is suitable for both irrigated and nonirrigated conditions, but it’s not true, says Vissa, adding, that it’s deceptive to farmers.

Big Ag Uses Images of Rich, American Farmers to Sell GMOs Abroad

Next, Yakovleva meets with renowned scholar and environmental activist Vandana Shiva, who blames the mass suicides solely on the corporations that sell the seeds and chemicals. Monsanto spends huge amounts of money on advertising. Between the fiscal years 2011 to 2017, Monsanto spent more than $500 million on advertising worldwide.¹²

Shiva explains that seed and chemical agents show farmers in India images of American farmers with big tractors and promise them that if they just take this seed, which they can pay for later, they will be rich. But what they don’t tell the farmer is that they can’t save the seed and that it might fail because the seeds aren’t meant for dry, nonirrigated areas, says Shiva.

So, the farmer takes it on credit, not having a good understanding of the costs involved, and the seed fails, Vandana explains, adding that in two years’ time the agents who sold the seed and pesticide return and repossess the farmer’s land because he could not pay his loan. Shiva tells Yakovleva that she has personally spoken to widows whose farmer husbands committed suicide and when she asked what their debt was, they showed her packages of Monsanto’s Bt cotton seed.

Are Farmers Risking Their Health by Using Chemicals?

Yakovleva’s investigation proceeds to the U.K. where she meets with Lady Margaret, Countess of Mar, a member of the House of Lords and a former farmer who suffered from chemical use.

While serving organic tea and pudding, Lady Margaret says she had to give up farming after she was exposed to harmful chemicals while dipping sheep. The sheep dip contained organophosphates, the same class of chemicals to which glyphosate belongs. The chemicals are used as both flame retardants and pesticides. According to National Geographic:

“Organophosphates attack the nervous system in the same way as nerve agents like sarin … [and] are so toxic to humans that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has taken steps to limit their availability to the public.”¹³

Within weeks of being exposed, Lady Margaret says she began to suffer from intense fatigue and neurological problems. She even felt suicidal. At one point, she was forced to rely on an oxygen tank for up to 16 hours a day. Lady Margaret was ill for three years before doctors diagnosed her with organophosphate poisoning.

Most of Americans Have Glyphosate in Their Bodies

Humans are increasingly testing positive for residues of glyphosate.¹⁴ In tests conducted by a University of California San Francisco lab, 93 percent of the participants tested positive for glyphosate residues.¹⁵ In the European Union, when 48 members of Parliament volunteered for glyphosate testing, everyone one of them tested positive.¹⁶ Humans are exposed to glyphosate via the food they eat, the air they breathe, the water they drink and the lawns, gardens, parks and other environments they frequent.

What impact is this having on human health? To find out, Yakovleva and her team head to the U.S. to meet with Honeycutt, who blames chemicals in our food for the rise in chronic disease. A number of chronic diseases have been linked to pesticides, including autism, cancer, food allergies, endocrine disruption, diabetes and Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s disease.¹⁷

One in 4 females over the age of 30 now has a gluten intolerance, says Honeycutt; however, she believes it’s not gluten that’s the problem, but the glyphosate that’s applied to wheat as a drying agent prior to harvest.

“It’s destroying their gut lining. They can’t process it and then the body acknowledges it as a gluten intolerance,” says Honeycutt, adding that food today not only has more chemicals, but is also less nutritious. Chemical-intensive agriculture has depleted our soils of essential nutrients and has drawn out vitamins and minerals that make our food healthy, she adds.

Long-Term Safety Studies Are Sorely Lacking

Yakovleva and her team reached out to Monsanto regarding the public health concerns tied to its Roundup weed killer, but the company refused to comment, instead directing them to its website which, of course, states that all of their products are safe and environmentally friendly. The deceptive GMO talking points Yakovleva received from the seed and chemical industry failed to convince her that GE crops are safe for human consumption, as there’s no real evidence to support this claim.

While few in number, longer-term animal feeding studies have been published over the past several years showing there’s definite cause for concern. Liver and kidney toxicity and immune reactions tend to be the most prevalent. Digestive system, inflammation and fertility problems have also been seen. A major part of the problem is that safety studies conducted for regulatory purposes to gain market approval for a GE product are too short to show the damage that could occur from life-long consumption of the GE food.

Some independent studies looking at lifetime consumption of GMOs have found rather dramatic health effects, whereas the safety studies used to promote GE foods as safe have all been short-term. There seems to be an agreement among biotech scientists to not test GE foods longer than 90 days in rats, which is only about seven to nine years in human terms. That’s nothing when you consider the average human life span is somewhere in the 70s, and the current generation is fed GMO food from Day 1.

How to Protect Yourself From Toxic Agriculture

The biotech giants have deep pocketbooks and political influence and are fighting to maintain their position of dominance. At the end of the day, we must shatter Monsanto’s grip on the agricultural sector. There is no way to recall GMOs once they have been released into the environment. The stakes could not be higher. Will you continue supporting the corrupt, toxic and unsustainable food system that Monsanto and its industry allies are working so hard to protect?

For more and more people, the answer is no. Consumers are rejecting genetically engineered and pesticide-laden foods. Another positive trend is that there has been strong growth in the global organic and grass-fed sectors. This just proves one thing: We can make a difference if we steadily work toward the same goal.

One of the best things you can do is to buy your foods from a local farmer who runs a small business and uses diverse methods that promote regenerative agriculture. You can also join a community-supported agriculture (CSA) program, where you can buy a “share” of the vegetables produced by the farm, so that you get a regular supply of fresh food.

I believe that joining a CSA is a powerful investment not only in your own health, but in that of your local community and economy as well. In addition, you should also adopt preventive strategies that can help reduce the toxic chemical pollution that assaults your body. I recommend visiting these trustworthy sites for non-GMO food resources in your country as well:

Monsanto and its allies want you to think that they control everything, but they are on the wrong side of history. It’s you, the informed and empowered, who hold the future in your hands. Let’s all work together to topple the biotech industry’s house of cards. Remember — it all starts with shopping smart and making the best food purchases for you and your family.

Biotech Companies Are Gaining Power by Taking Over the Government

Monsanto and their industry allies will not willingly surrender their stranglehold on the food supply. They must be resisted and rolled back at every turn. There is no doubt in my mind that GMOs and the chemical-intensive agricultural model of which they are part and parcel, pose a serious threat to the environment and our health. Yet, government agencies not only turn a blind eye to the damage they are inflicting on the planet, but actively work to further the interests of the biotech giants.

This is not surprising. It is well-known that there is a revolving door between regulatory agencies and private corporations. This has allowed companies such as Monsanto to manipulate science, defang regulations and even control the free press, all from their commanding position within the halls of government.

Consider for a moment that on paper, the U.S. may have the strictest safety regulations in the world governing new food additives, but has repeatedly allowed GMOs and their accompanying pesticides such as Roundup to circumvent these laws.

In fact, the only legal basis for allowing GE foods to be marketed in the U.S. is the FDA’s tenuous claim that these foods are inherently safe, a claim which is demonstrably false. Documents released as a result of a lawsuit against the FDA reveal that the agency’s own scientists warned their superiors about the detrimental risks of GE foods. But their warnings fell on deaf ears.

Don’t Be Duped by Industry Shills!

In a further effort to deceive the public, Monsanto and its cohorts spoon-feed scientists, academics and journalists a diet of questionable studies that depict them in a positive light. By hiring “third-party experts,” biotech companies are able to take information of dubious validity, and present it as independent and authoritative.

Industry front groups also abound. The Genetic Literacy Project and the American Council for Science and Health are both Monsanto-funded. Even WebMD, a website that is often presented as a trustworthy source of “independent and objective” health information, is heavily reliant on advertising dollars. It is no coincidence that they promote corporate-backed health strategies and products.

There’s No Better Time to Act Than NOW — Here’s What You Can Do

The biotech giants have deep pocketbooks and political influence, and are fighting to maintain their position of dominance. It is only because of educated consumers and groups like the Organic Consumers Association (OCA) that their failed GMO experiment is on the ropes. We thank all of the donors who helped OCA achieve their fundraising goal. I made a commitment to triple match all donations to OCA during awareness week. It is with great pleasure to present a check to this fantastic organization for $250,000.

At the end of the day, we must shatter Monsanto’s grip on the agricultural sector. There is no way to recall GMOs once they have been released into the environment. The stakes could not be higher. Will you continue supporting the corrupt, toxic and unsustainable food system that Monsanto and its industry allies are working so hard to protect?

For more and more people, the answer is no. Consumers are rejecting genetically engineered and pesticide laden foods. Another positive trend is that there has been strong growth in the global organic and grass fed sectors. This just proves one thing: We can make a difference if we steadily work toward the same goal.

One of the best things you can do is to buy your foods from a local farmer who runs a small business and uses diverse methods that promote regenerative agriculture. You can also join a community-supported agriculture (CSA) program, where you can buy a “share” of the vegetables produced by the farm, so that you get a regular supply of fresh food. I believe that joining a CSA is a powerful investment not only in your own health, but in that of your local community and economy as well.

In addition, you should also adopt preventive strategies that can help reduce the toxic chemical pollution that assaults your body. I recommend visiting these trustworthy sites for non-GMO food resources in your country as well:

Monsanto and its allies want you to think that they control everything, but they are on the wrong side of history. It’s you, the informed and empowered, who hold the future in your hands. Let’s all work together to topple the biotech industry’s house of cards. Remember — it all starts with shopping smart and making the best food purchases for you and your family.

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Featured image is from the author.

The only new part of the ongoing Trump Administration economic warfare, a calculated assault on friend and foe alike from Russia to China to Iran to Venezuela and the EU, via so-called tariff war, is a President who uses Tweets as a weapon to throw opponents off balance. Since at least the beginning of the 1970’s Washington has deployed similar tactics of economic blackmail and destabilization to force what has become a global domination not of US manufactured goods, but rather of the dollar as a world reserve currency. For almost five decades, since August 15, 1971, Washington and Wall Street have used their dominant position to force inflated paper dollars on the world, cause financial bubbles and subsequently debt buildup to impossible levels, then collapse.

The most essential point to understand about the so-called Trump “trade wars” is that they are not at all about trade or correcting trade or currency imbalances with America’s export partners. That world was largely left behind in 1971 by Nixon and the advisers.

The US economy since 1971 has been turned into a financial revenue source, in effect turning the United States from a nation primarily producing industrial goods to one in which the sole aim of all investment is to make money from money. Companies such as General Motors which at the end of the 1960’s was the largest maker of cars and trucks in the world, the heart of the American economy, got lured into speculation using its GMAC auto loan financial arm to make bets in the world economic casino, bets which went badly wrong when the US real estate bubble burst in March 2007 and GM was nationalized while the Wall Street mega banks were bailed out by taxpayers and the Fed.

The process, which I describe in detail in my book Gods of Money, took place over decades. By 2000, Wall Street banks and investment funds essentially dominated the entirety of the US economy. Manufacturing jobs had been pushed offshore, “outsourced,” not by Chinese or German or other “greedy thieves” as charged, but by pressure from those same Wall Street banks that since the 1980’s had driven corporations to focus only on the value of their stock shares and not on the soundness of their products. Leveraged Buyouts, Shareholder Value became bywords. Corporate heads perished if Wall Street banks did not approve their financial profit returns. What that has left today is a United States that is primarily a services economy, a debt-bloated consumer economy and no longer a great industrial leader. The so-called upper 1% of US oligarchs are demanding similar tribute from the rest of the world to sustain the unsustainable. The Trump trade and economic war is a desperation ploy to try to repeat half a century later what worked in the 1970’s.

‘Second American Revolution’

The economically destructive transformation in America’s once great industrial economy had its roots in the transformations of the 1970’s. The post 1930’s domination of Keynesian economics which argued that deficit spending by the state could mitigate the negative effects of recessions or depressions, gave way to what John D. Rockefeller III in a book titled The Second American Revolution, argued should be a regime of deregulation, privatization of state enterprises such as electric utilities, water systems and highways. At the same time the free market Mt. Pelerin ideologues around University of Chicago economist Milton Friedman, were promoted by Wall Street and the US financial establishment around Rockefeller. Friedman became the guru of free market economics, advising both Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher during the 1980’s. His free market dogma became entrenched at the International Monetary Fund and was used to argue economic shock therapy and deregulation across Latin America and in the former communist economies of the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe.

The key event as regards today’s Washington tariff and economic warfare goes back to the events around the August 15, 1971 decision by President Nixon to unilaterally decouple gold from the US dollar.

Nixon’s Trade War Game

The decision by president Nixon in August 1971, to decouple the dollar from redemption into US gold, was only a crucial part of what became a far larger transformation, one which created the gigantic global debt overhang today of an estimated 233 trillion dollars. Much of that debt is denominated in dollars and held by central banks such as China or Japan or the EU states.

Well before summer of 1971 the US Administration had given the green light to Congress to pass punitive de facto trade restrictions on its major trade partners, Japan and the European allies of the European Economic Community (EEC), most especially Germany and France. Towards the end of the 1960’s the economies of Japan and the EEC had significantly emerged from the destruction of the war with an economy rebuilt on the then-state-of-the-art industrial technology. American steel mills and car factories by comparison were products of the wartime and immediate postwar investments. German and French exports were in demand not only in the USA.

The result was that those economies began to accumulate relatively huge amounts of dollars in their central bank accounts, some $61 billion of dollar debts held abroad by 1971. Under the 1944 treaty obligations of the United States at any time the central banks could demand US gold from the Federal Reserve for those dollars. The Federal Reserve official gold stock had plunged from $25 billion to only $12 billion at the beginning of 1971, and the trend was snowballing as more central banks worried about the value of their inflated dollars. Washington and Wall Street were viewing the gold exchange clause of Bretton Woods as an albatross that could dramatically cut the global power of America.

Gold and dollars

The gold decoupling was preceded by essentially Washington blackmail using a new Congressional law imposing import quotas initially on textiles and shoes from Europe and elsewhere. The threat was made to extend the quotas to European cars and other products.

In 1970 US trade politics were in effect similar to those of the Trump Administration almost half a century later. In May 1970 US Treasury Secretary David Kennedy threatened that if US trade partners did not take steps to allow the US to raise exports, the Congress would take steps to restrict imports into the United States. “Is it not the surplus countries that have a special responsibility to take positive action towards their elimination?,” Kennedy asked, knowing well that a major reason for trade imbalances were the fact that US corporations were buying up European and Asian companies forcing a balance of payments surplus in those countries, and that US exports were no longer as competitive against European and Japanese products.

Washington used a policy of what the Europeans termed “benign neglect” to let private capital to flow freely into especially Germany, to disrupt currency relations among the EEC. German dollar surpluses soared. Rather than devalue the vastly inflated dollar, a move which could have boosted US exports and eased the crisis, Washington demanded that the EEC countries, above all Germany, revalue upward their currencies, making their exports uncompetitive at a vulnerable time. In the case of Japan, Washington demanded that they revalue the Yen by perhaps 20% or face a tariff restricting certain categories of Japanese exports to the United States.

Nixon Secretary of Commerce, Maurice Stans, set an aggressive line against Europe. He declared,

“in many respects we have been Uncle Sucker to the rest of the world.”

US economist Michael Hudson characterized it:

“The United States had thrown down the gauntlet to Europe and Asia: Either submit, or retaliate under conditions where the appropriate tactical maxim is ‘Don’t hit the leader unless you can kill him.’”

Instead they cratered and obeyed. The US trade bill was a declaration that the USA and only the USA was exempt, as the dominant world power, from GATT or from any legal agreements it had with other partners.

At that point led by France, the EEC central banks–except for Germany where Washington put enormous pressure on Bundesbank President Karl Blessing–began to resume gold redemptions for their dollar surpluses. When German officials suggested already in 1966 that they were considering redeeming their rising dollar surpluses for US gold, Washington threatened the Bundesbank chief Karl Blessing to withdraw US troops from Germany, were Germany to no longer “support” the dollar.

To remove the threat of any further allied gold redemptions, on August 15, 1971 Richard Nixon, flanked by then Treasury Assistant Secretary Paul Volcker, a former executive of Rockefeller’s Chase Bank, announced the permanent closing of the Fed Gold Discount window. At the same time Nixon imposed a 10% import tariff on most US imports as a blackmail lever to force the EEC and Japan to accept unlimited dollars no longer backed by gold, dollars whose paper nominal value has inflated at a staggering rate. Even using the US government inflation measure what a US citizen could buy in 1970 for $385 in terms of food, clothing and other necessities, a person would need $2,529 today. That is a direct consequence of the Nixon gold decoupling.

In a stroke of the pen, Nixon and Wall Street had removed the threat of a gold cap on foreign dollar debts. The debts soared and Washington and Wall Street today have a dollarized world trade system where US Treasury sanctions are becoming commonplace as weapons of war to force friend and foe alike to join lock step behind Washington demands. Is China ready to challenge that dollar system with much of its high-tech production still dependent on US chips and processors and other sophisticated technologies? That dependency is what Xo Jinping’s Made in China 2025 economic strategy aims to eliminate. Similarly, EU corporations with major sales in the US are leery to risk secondary sanctions for continuing trade in oil and other investments with Iran.

Today a US President Trump tweets threats against Germany or China for being “currency manipulators” without basis in fact and demands NATO allies vastly increase their defense spending for the privilege of being under the military domination of the Pentagon. The style has changed in US economic blackmail since the 1970’s, but not the content.

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The International Institute for Strategic Studies’s (IISS) annual Shangri-La Dialogue brings together diplomats, ministers, and representatives from around the world to discuss Asian security.

Researchers at Western think tanks including from the IISS itself have been promoting this year’s forum as an opportunity to sell Washington’s re-branded “Indo-Pacific” strategy and the continued primacy of the US and its “rules-based international order” across the region.

IISS researcher Lynn Kuok in her piece, “Shangri-La Dialogue: Negotiating the Indo-Pacific security landscape,” would also attempt to spin America’s strategy as anything but “anti-China.”

Yet US Defense Secretary James Mattis’ remarks at the forum opened almost immediately by referencing the 2018 National Defense Strategy (.pdf) in which China is described as:

…a strategic competitor using predatory economics to intimidate its neighbors while militarizing features in the South China Sea.

Mattis would draw heavily from the NDS document throughout his opening remarks and repeatedly during the following question and answer session.

Uncertainties, Contradictions and Struggle

The July 1 national election in Mexico is likely to be a watershed in Mexican history. The splintering of the three old parties, their unprincipled tactical electoral alliances across party boundaries, the rapid movement of key party figures from one party to another, have made understanding the labyrinth of Mexican elections even more complex and confusing than ever.

The possibilities of a victory by Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO), under the rubric of his Morena party, is strongly opposed by most of big business, and needs to be seen in the context of Mexico’s long-term crises-ridden transition toward a not-at-all clear destiny. The destiny promoted by Mexican, Canadian and U.S. big business and political elites has been that of continental integration within the framework of NAFTA, as part of a neoliberal domestic transformation; a decimation of labour and social rights within Mexico and an extensive market-led regime of accumulation (appropriation of the commons – oil, minerals, land, and public goods); all legitimated by electoral pluralism safely contained within the bounds of the neoliberal project. This continentalist and globalist perspective is under stress in the U.S. from the hard right nationalist politics of President Donald Trump. although big business in all three countries remains firmly committed to it.

The election is taking place in the context of this set of interrelated crises that is both contributing to the support of an outsider and will also contribute mightily to the dilemmas and challenges that his government would face, if elected. They include a deep fiscal crisis of the state, an economy in long-term crisis, a deeply corrupt state apparatus, and continuing wars within the state-drug cartels complex. They are further confounded by the xenophobic assault on Mexican immigrants by the U.S. government; the possible crisis from U.S. imposed tariffs, potential problems stemming from the renegotiation of NAFTA; and an unpredictable and racist U.S. President. But it is the deep fiscal crisis that will shape the immediate dilemmas and underlying contradictions and ambiguities in the AMLO program and within his diverse set of allies and base of support. All these dilemmas and contradictions would come to the fore in the event of an AMLO victory which itself would greatly raise popular hopes and expectations.

Elections and the Discontents of the Popular Sectors

The rapacious neoliberal transition has generated significant and ongoing opposition from popular sectors in Mexico through strong, though fragmented, protest movements (e.g., local communities, both indigenous and non-indigenous, against mining and capitalist mega-projects, teachers against big business promoted transformation of education). The massive discontent against ongoing corruption, endless human rights violations, growing inequality, and the destruction of public services has also expressed itself electorally.

Almost every six years since 1988, the national elections have been the venue for popular expression of discontent, an expression that has been perceived by big business and the political elites as a threat to the neoliberal project. National elections provide a moment in which popular discontent, generally fragmented, can find a unifying direction and hope, albeit that common thrust can remain plebiscitarian in the absence of the development of popular organization and empowerment from below that go beyond the discrete moment of voting. Nevertheless, Mexican and continental big business and political elites have felt threatened by the prospect of a President from outside the bounds of their shared project. This was expressed in the presidential electoral frauds of 1988 and 2006 and the immense corruption of the 2012 election, the last two both involving successful attempts to block AMLO, the current front runner, from ascending to the Presidency.

A key aspect of the old system of Bonapartist domination was that the capitalist class was kept at a distance from direct political power even as political elites trickled or stormed into the capitalist class through cronyism and corruption. This system – which lasted over 70 years – was anchored in a post-revolution policy of state-guided capitalist development and the subordinate integration of the working class, peasants and middle sectors in the historic bloc and ruling party. This integration was organizational and rhetorical and included material concessions to strategic sectors. As well, the government systematically sustained the hopes for access to the material gains of inclusion of those still on the outside.

The “democratic transition,” pushed for by the ‘middle-classes’ and popular forces was hijacked by big Mexican capital whose wealth and power had grown during the period of statist development. They were happy with the subsidies and protection that the state provided but unhappy with the degree of autonomy of the government, a degree of autonomy demonstrated by the sudden bank nationalizations in 1982 that shocked sectors of business.

The capitalist class did gain more direct domination of the government in fusion with the elites of the two old parties, the PRI and the PAN, but failed to establish a legitimated system of contained electoral competition. The neoliberal assault on the national patrimony and the socio-economic rights of the population created great discontent that expressed itself not only in direct actions but also in electoral support for resurgent “revolutionary nationalism” (a Mexican expression of left populism). The promise that competitive elections and a new economic direction would usher in a new day of better jobs, respect for human rights, and decrease of corruption, was belied by the consequences and practices of the new regime of neoliberal accumulation, continental integration, and competitive but shared government (co-gobierno) between the two old parties. The discontent generated by the consequences of neoliberalism threatened to spill over the boundaries of the acceptable neoliberal electoral competition.¹

Local resistance to neoliberalism could be repressed or contained but electoral challenges at the national level were threatening to this new system of bounded multi-party competition. The unpopular consequences of neoliberalism led to the powerful resurfacing of “revolutionary nationalism,” the previously official and still strong popular tradition deriving from the Mexican Revolution (1910-1920). When sectors of the ruling party split in 1987-1988 and competed electorally against the ruling party, it gave an electoral channel to this widespread discontent.

The discontent generated by the consequences of neoliberalism threatened to spill over the boundaries of the acceptable neoliberal electoral competition. The government had to rely on fraud to win the Presidency in 1988 for Carlos Salinas (PRI—Institutional Revolutionary Party) and in 2006 for Felipe Calderón (PAN—Party of National Action) And under both the recent PRI presidencies (1988- 1994, 1994- 2000, 2012-2018) and the PAN presidencies (2000-2006; 2006-2012), state violence and human rights violations have grown dramatically, policing has been militarized, corruption continued on a giant scale, and popular discontent was increasingly quelled by force. These conditions, along with the fierce bitterness of disputes within and between the major parties, have discredited them enormously and have led to the massive lead in polls by Andrés Manuel López Obrador.

In 2000, the hope that the end of one-party rule would open the door to democratic reform and social justice led many people to cast a strategic vote for the right-wing PAN and Vicente Fox for President. This brought one-party rule at the national level to an end. But the PAN, the party of big business and the church hierarchy, continued to push full-speed ahead on the neoliberal assault in alliance with the PRI, the old ruling party and later with the support of the PRD (Party of the Democratic Revolution), which had started as a genuinely oppositional and anti-neoliberal party when it formed in 1988. The victories of the precursor to the PRD in the presidential elections of 1988 and the PRD in 2006 were denied through fraud, fraud legitimated by the efforts of the PRIAN (PRI-PAN alliance) in order to keep Mexico firmly on the path of neoliberalism. Over time, the PRD leadership, some of it coming from schisms within the PRI, fell into the temptations of corruption and electoral opportunism and were coopted by the PRIAN. All three parties signed the Pacto por México (Pact for Mexico) with President Enrique Peña Nieto (PRI), in support of the consolidation of the neoliberal transformation of Mexico on December 2, 2012, one day after his inauguration.

AMLO and the Politics of Morena

Andrés Manuel López Obrador, the PRD candidate for President in 2006 and 2012, broke with the PRD and formed a new movement, Morena, the National Regeneration Movement, which later became a political party. It has recruited local, regional and national candidates of many persuasions and past party affiliations. He is a candidate of a coalition, including a small left party and a small right-wing evangelical party. Morena has encouraged many adhesions from different parties so that many of its candidates at local, state, and national level do not come from or share the politics of Morena – which itself already had an inner diversity but a narrower inner diversity. It’s not only the proposed cabinet that is multi-class, multi-party and politically diverse but candidates at all levels. Though an AMLO victory might not immediately give Morena a Congressional majority, it is very likely that there will be enough defections from the other parties to eventually form a majority, given the movement of bloc of delegates between parties that often occurs in Mexico. But, as with the proposed cabinet, it will be a de facto multi-party majority, not held together by any ideological glue or political consensus but by political or instrumental loyalty to the President. All three old major parties are in crisis with bitter internal disputes, splits, and significant migration of leaders and base to Morena, especially as its victory has come to seem more and more likely. This has made the victory of Morena even more likely and the meaning of that victory even more ambiguous.

The discontent that has fuelled the rise in popularity of AMLO has roots in the multiple crises of Mexico. But the crisis that has received little discussion from any of the candidates as well as by the supporters and opponents of AMLO is the fiscal crisis of the Mexican state. It is the elephant in the room. Its consequences have been crucial in generating support for Obrador and its harsh reality will exacerbate the contradictions in his rhetoric and program of “primero los pobres” (the poor first), rhetoric and proposals not accompanied with a proposal to raise taxes or challenge the power of capital. Should he win, he will soon face the reality of these contradictions even if capital does not deliberately seek to sabotage his regime, which it very well may. He will face tough choices that will challenge his ability to hold together his left-center-right multi-class coalition. His promise of “republican austerity,” i.e., cutting excessive salaries, benefits and corruption at the top to pay for redistributive programs for the poor, even should it be carried out effectively, will not get rid of the elephant in the room.

Mexico’s financial balance sheets have deteriorated sharply since the start of the global financial crisis of 2008 leading to a deep fiscal crisis of the Mexican state. The crisis has four major sources. Oil revenues of the state company fell from 8.9% of GDP in 2012 to only 3.8% in 2018. Secondly, there was a massive increase in public debt used by successive governments to offset deficits in order to maintain economic growth in an adverse global environment. Between 2008 and 2018, the weight of the debt in relation to GDP doubled as the accumulated public debt grew from 21% of GDP in 2008 to 45.4% of GDP in 2018. With the increase of the interest rates in the international debt markets, the debt service will absorb 600 billion pesos in 2018, 20% more than that allotted for health, education and poverty reduction in the federal budget. In just one year, from 2017 to 2018, the cost of servicing the debt increased by 24%. The third source of the crisis is the lack of funds for the pension liabilities of the federal government, which would require 2% of GDP to comply with the obligations contracted by the Mexican government in previous years. Finally, the revenue gains made by the fiscal reforms in the first three years of the Peña Nieto presidency, which raised tax revenues from 8.3 to 13.5% of GDP, have since failed to increase government revenues further.

This fiscal crisis, along with the privatization policies of neoliberalism, has had harsh consequences for most Mexicans. The availability and quality of already very poor public services have declined sharply along with the decline of revenues. It has fuelled the rise of support for Obrador as his attack on corruption has resonated with large sectors of the population that already believed that corrupt politicians and public officials are the cause of such great poverty and poor public services in a country with so much natural wealth. Corruption on small and massive scales is an endemic problem and serious drain on public resources. But it is only part of the problem and an attack on it, by itself, will not solve the fiscal crisis nor the various problems flowing from the weakening of the national government by neoliberal policies of the devolution of powers to lower levels of government and the creation of fiefdoms controlled by warlords (drug gangs in alliance with different levels of the state).

AMLO, who comes out of the more nationalist and populist wing of the PRI has never been anti-capitalist but anti-neoliberal. His rhetoric is a populist not a class or anti-capitalist rhetoric. He talks of the struggle of the people against a small elite that he calls the “mafia of power” (corrupt politicians and the super-rich), rhetoric that led to a war of words with the super-rich that ended, if not in peace, in a truce after he met with the Consejo Mexicano de Negocios (CMN – Mexican Business Council), the peak of the peak of Mexican capitalist power. The CMN, a group of around 60 of Mexico’s super-rich, is a smaller and even more elite group than the Business Roundtable in the U.S. or the Business Council of Canada with whom they often work in favor of NAFTA and neoliberalism.

In hopes of winning the election, he has softened his critique of neoliberalism both rhetorically and practically. He has named representatives of big business to the key economic portfolios in his proposed cabinet. He has persistently attempted to reassure business and the U.S. that he is not anti-business, that property rights will be respected and that there will be no nationalizations. He says he will propose an “Alliance for Progress” for Mexico, Canada, the U.S., and Central America, strategically choosing the language of John F. Kennedy’s counter-insurgency plan to stop insurgencies stimulated by the Cuban example.

Even so, his obvious sympathy for the plight of the poor and oppressed, his slogan of primero los pobres, his tough rhetoric on the mafia of power, his promise of democratic labour reform, and his commitment to reverse the neoliberal educational reforms, have led both Mexican and foreign big business to continue to distrust him. They appear to have accepted that their attempts to vilify and defeat him appear to have failed this time. The private media giants, such as Television Azteca and Televisa, which either ignored or completely vilified him in 2006 and 2012, gave a great amount of coverage to his massive closing campaign rally while giving little coverage to the much smaller rallies of his two main opponents.

Should he win, these divergent and contradictory commitments will need to be carried out in the context of the deep fiscal crisis of the state and of the continuing set of crises mentioned above, crises that may accelerate with the fear of big business, corrupt politicians, military and police officials, fear that AMLO will move against their power and privileges after his victory. His promises to root out corruption are threatening both to government officials and capitalists deeply embedded in practices of crony capitalism and kleptocracy. His promises and rhetoric of favoring the poor leave business very uneasy even as he seeks to reassure them with soothing rhetoric and pro-business cabinet appointments. Business understands – and hopefully they are right – that he may be letting the genie of hope and rising expectations out of the bag. Thus, while some sectors of capital see him as a hope for a new stability, larger and more powerful sectors continue to see him as a dangerous prophet.

A Political Opening of Uncertainties, Contradictions and Struggle

The Obrador movement is many things at once. It is a home to many leftists and grass roots activists. And it is a new home for politicos of all three decaying parties to continue their careers and influence. It is a threat to established interests which will seek to contain, channel or defeat it. But it is also an expression of an insurgency from below, an insurgency that has been, for the moment, channelled into the electoral path but continues to also live outside electoralism. The insurgency is real, powerful, rooted in the rebellious traditions of Mexican popular culture, and the deeply oppressive conditions suffered by most of the Mexican population.

A victory of AMLO would open a new moment in Mexican history but the character of that moment is not clear. It will be determined in a complex process involving the Obrador presidency, big business, and grass roots movements of workers, peasants, and students. AMLO, in the Bonapartist tradition of Mexican revolutionary nationalism, will seek to manage the class conflicts in the “national interest.” The maintenance of such a cross-class equilibrium will, of course, be extremely difficult given the very limited means of maneuver of the state because of the fiscal crisis and the presence of another elephant, always present in the room of Mexican sovereignty, the United States. The U.S. state and capital will play a major role in trying to contain popular movements and any leftward direction of the Mexican government. And the current erratic and racist U.S. President may continue to make interventions that both heighten instability and have unpredictable consequences in the Mexican situation.

An AMLO government would open up significant possibilities for the growth of unions and popular struggles by ending the extreme repressiveness of the national government, something that would not happen should either of the other two major candidates win. At the same time, his strategy of reassuring capital will lead to not just tough but impossible dilemmas for him. He is likely to try to manage the explosive contradictions within his alliance by attempting to keep a lid on demands from below, demands that surely will grow with the hopes encouraged by his victory.

While business always has great levers of power in a capitalist society to pressure and channel governments and to make the rest of the population pay for their profits and misdeeds, workers, peasants and the poor only have power if they are organized collectively and have strategies of solidarity and transformation. It is essential to build independent workers’ and popular movements and as well as a Left independent of AMLO if these divergencies and contradictions are not to be resolved on the backs of workers, peasants, and the poor. The attainment of that self-organization would have to be achieved despite the power of capital to divide and despite the plebiscitarian tendencies of AMLO himself. Workers, peasants, the poor, and the Left need to seize the possibilities that an AMLO victory would create. But they need to do so without illusions of beneficence from above and with readiness to fight independently alongside the new government or against it, depending on the issues and the circumstances.

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The Military Industrial Empire has succeeded, ever since WW2. Our education system has incrementally been ‘dumbed down’ over these past decades. Our mainstream media is now a colorful prism of those terrible times during the Nazi and Stalinist eras. The use of ‘fake news’ then and now is the vogue. Truth has become hostage along with our cherished flag. Too many lies and disinformation have built this ‘House of Cards’ that the empire’s masters operate within. Yet, the mere handful of we truth seekers and truth tellers keep on ‘ keeping on’ despite the major obstacles in our way.

This writer’s baby boomer generation remembers well the ‘so called’  Vietnam War. It was never really a war between us and the Commies. No, it was a civil war that our empire decided to enter into, at such a great cost of both lives and national treasure. Too many of my fellow citizens either responded to the spin and hype, or simply couldn’t give a shit. The latter group  were spectators to the demise of our moral compass , along with the demise of 50k + US military and millions of Vietnamese. Years later, once again the ‘Trumpet to War’ blew and many of my fellow citizens placed their yellow ribbons and flags out to signal their approval of Bush Sr.’s war on Iraq. Equally once again many of our populace remained spectators to the annihilation of that nation. Then we had 9/11, in reality a most mysterious event that the ’embedded media’ ran with, hook, line and sinker. Too many unanswered questions that only the ‘ dumbed down’ could ignore. This of course blended right into the Bush/Cheney’s cabal’s illegal and immoral invasion of another sovereign nation… which America never recovered from, fiscally, morally and politically. Too many of my fellow citizens once again bought into the lies and propaganda that still (sadly) drips out of that puss filled wound today.

Our nation is more than just being divided between the phony Two Party / One Party cartoon. It is more than just being divided between racial lines too. No, it is once again being divided between three camps: The dumbed down ‘true believers’, the spectators and the pragmatists. The first category fits well into what Herman Goering said about the manipulation of the masses:

“Naturally the common people don’t want war: Neither in Russia, nor in England, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, IT IS THE LEADERS of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is TELL THEM THEY ARE BEING ATTACKED, and denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. IT WORKS THE SAME IN ANY COUNTRY.”

So, the first category mentioned, the ‘true believers’, bought into the scam that Goebbels and company created so (sadly) brilliantly. Now we come to the 2nd grouping, the ‘spectators’. Many of them did not really buy into the Nazi rhetoric, but, as with most folks who disregard all politics, they just stood on the sidelines. As Hitler’s movement gained steam in the mid to late 20s, these folks were ‘too busy’ with their own lives to focus on things of national importance. They watched as the Third Reich took power. Finally, we had the ‘pragmatists’ who saw the terrible actions and rhetoric of the Nazis, and were quite chilled by it all. First and foremost, however, they believed in the Weimar Republic’s democratic process, and figured that just maybe the Storm Troopers were not quite as dangerous as the equally insurgent Red Guard. After all, the German power structure and the media outlets it controlled both hated and feared the recent ‘Soviet miracle’, and: Mega propaganda does work. Of course, the height of pragmatism was when the center, center right and Social Democrat big wigs allowed Hitler into their living room of power, by the famous ‘Chancellor gamble’ . You know, keep Hitler on a lease by surrounding him with those of their own persuasions in the cabinet and …. yeah right!  Remember: A pragmatist is the guy who asks for blindfold while facing the firing squad.

When the Trump gang took power, many hard working Americans who were fed up with the power structure followed his banner: Drain the swamp! He took office and began to place every super rich advocate of this Military Industrial Empire into his cabinet. While doing this, Trump (probably his handlers) continually played the anti immigrant and anti Muslim jihadist cards to rally his base. His promises were all hollow, and will continue to be so, when it comes to easing the strain on working stiffs… who sadly make up the overwhelming majority of his base. When all those fools out there lose their pensions and see benefits cut (if they have any- most of them are in non union jobs with no protections) and rents skyrocketing along with property taxes… the next hero may well be even more fascist than Trump.

The only hope for our nation, and that of all the industrialized world, is Socialism. So long as the lemmings out there think that Noblesse Oblige is the best way to run governments, we will be forever stuck in the hornet’s nest.

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Philip A Farruggio is a son and grandson of Brooklyn, NYC longshoremen. He has been a free lance columnist since 2001, with over 300 of his work posted on sites like Consortium News, Information Clearing House, Global Research, Nation of Change, World News Trust, Op Ed News, Dissident Voice, Counterpunch, Activist Post, Sleuth Journal, Truthout and many others. His blog can be read in full on World News Trust., whereupon he writes a great deal on the need to cut military spending drastically and send the savings back to save our cities. Philip has a internet interview show, ‘It’s the Empire… Stupid’ with producer Chuck Gregory, and can be reached at [email protected].

Big Brother Watch has been investigating the collection of sensitive personal data by HM Revenue and Customs. Their investigation revealed that HMRC has taken 5.1 million taxpayers’ biometric voiceprints without their consent.

What is a ‘Voice ID’?

Voice ID technology is a form of biometric identification and authentication, as sensitive as a fingerprint. Voice recognition technology is used to extract and analyse unique voice patterns and rhythms to identify a person using just their voice, checking over 100 behavioural and physical vocal traits including the size and shape of your mouth, how fast you talk and how you emphasise words.

Biometric voice ID is not the same as Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR), which automatically identifies words spoken and is not necessarily unique to each person. A biometric voice ID is a voiceprint that is unique to each individual.

HMRC’s mass collection of Voice IDs

Since January 2017, HMRC has been taking voice recordings from those who call the tax credits and self-assessment helplines to create a voiceprint that will be used to identify callers in the future.

HMRC deceptively promotes voice ID as an optional high-tech system to improve customer service, stating:

“HMRC will be encouraging customers who call to take advantage of the Voice ID service, but they can choose to opt-out and continue to use HMRC’s services in the usual way if they prefer.”[1]

Our investigation finds this statement to be misleading.

Upon calling HMRC’s self-assessment helpline we were met with an automated system. After the account verification questions, the system demanded that we create a voice ID by repeating the phrase “my voice is my password”.

Far from ‘encouraging’ customers, HMRC offers no choice but to do as the automated system instructs and create a biometric voice ID for a Government database.

In our investigation, we found that the only way to avoid creating a voice ID is to say “no” to the system – three times – before the system resolves to create your voice ID “next time”.

System: Finally what’s your date of birth?

Caller: *DOB provided*

System: Thank you. For some calls we are introducing a quicker and more secure way for you to identify yourself. You can skip these security questions in the future by using your voice to confirm who you are. Voice ID uses the sound and rhythm of your voice to identify a numerical pattern.  This pattern is unique to you in the same way your fingerprint is. It works if you have an accent or are unwell. For example, you can still use Voice ID if you have a cold. It is the fastest and most secure way for us to know it is really you we are talking to. It’s easy to setup. You’ll be asked to repeat the sentence ‘My voice is my password’ multiple times. I’ll need you to say exactly those words. It takes about a minute. So, please say ‘My voice is my password’.

Caller: No

System: Sorry, it’s important you repeat exactly [emphasis in recording] the same phrase. Please say ‘My voice is my password’

Caller: No

System: Sorry, it’s important you repeat exactly [emphasis in recording] the same phrase. Please say ‘My voice is my password’

Caller: No

System: Sorry, I wasn’t able to create a Voice ID for you. This is often because of background noise or a bad connection. Don’t worry – next time we’re able to offer you Voice ID, we’ll try again. Please hold on a moment and I’ll transfer you to one of our advisors.

For quality and security this call might be recorded. We may need to ask you additional security questions before being able to help you.

Your rights under data protection law

The EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), incorporated in UK law through the Data Protection Act 2018, prohibits the processing of biometric data for the purpose of uniquely identifying a person, unless the there is a lawful basis under Article 6.

However, because voiceprints are such sensitive data – and voice IDs are not necessary for dealing with tax issues – HMRC must also request the explicit consent of each taxpayer to enrol them in the scheme, as required by Article 9 of GDPR.

However, HMRC has in fact railroaded taxpayers into this unprecedented ID scheme.

On our analysis, that means HMRC must now delete this giant biometric database.

We have registered a formal complaint with the ICO, which is now investigating.

Consent

“Consent means offering individuals real choice and control. Genuine consent should put individuals in charge, build trust and engagement, and enhance your reputation.”[2]

Explicit consent must come from a very clear and specific statement of consent. This means offering citizens real informed choice and control. Genuine consent should empower the individual so that they feel fully informed and engaged in the decision making process.

Consent must be explicit with a positive opt-in. Explicit consent requires a very clear and specific statement of consent, naming any third party data controllers who will also rely on the consent. Blanket consent is not enough.

Your right to erasure

Individuals have the right to have their personal data erased if their data has been processed unlawfully. We believe it is very likely to apply in relation to HMRC’s voice ID scheme, as the Government department failed to obtain the consent of those enrolled.

All voiceprints processed without the explicit consent of the individual should be erased. Moreover, this erasure must be a secure and complete removal from HMRC’s system and any other third party – such as other Government departments – the IDs have been shared with.

Even if an individual consents to data collection, they have the right to withdraw their consent at any time and request that their data is securely erased.

Why is it so hard to securely delete a voice ID?

Our investigation found that HMRC does not have an accessible process to delete voice IDs. Whilst you can, at great lengths, unselect the use of voice ID as a security check, your voiceprint may not be deleted from Government databases.

We sent HMRC a Freedom of Information request, asking how an individual could securely delete their voice ID and use the usual method to access the helpline. Disturbingly, HMRC refused to answer our question under FOIA Exemption s31 (1) (a) – prejudice to the prevention or detection of crime.

This suggests that taxpayers’ voiceprints are being used in ways we do not know about.

The Freedom of Information Requests

5.1 million voice IDs – HMRC FOI Response 30.4.18

Refusing transparency – HMRC FOI Response 5.4.18

Big Brother Watch tries to delete a voice ID: transcript of our call to HMRC

At the beginning of the call, when the automated system asked our reason for calling, it did not recognise ‘removal of Voice ID’ as a valid call reason. Instead we followed the route of ‘something else’ and waited an agonising 15 minutes to be connected.

(Connected at 15:05)

Adviser: Good afternoon, you’re speaking to **** today. How can I help you?

Caller: I would like to remove my Voice ID from your system.

Adviser: That’s a good question. It’s a very good question. I’ll just see if there’s a way we can do that for you. Are you okay to just hold the line there?

Caller: Yeh, sure.

(Connected at 25:20)

Adviser: Hello I’m sorry for keeping you there. Thank you for waiting. Right there should be a way to get this done. When you made this call, did you get any options about opting in or opting out at all?

Caller: Opting in to using my voice as a password?

Adviser: Yes

Caller: No, I haven’t had any options on this call and when I signed up there was no suggestion that there was another way of doing it (verifying security).

Adviser: Okay if I could just confirm your [security details].

Caller: *Gives all security details*

Adviser: Thank you. Okay. So we should have a means by which we can remove this. Lets have a look here. (Pause). I take it you are already registered for the Voice ID service.

Caller: Yes that’s correct, I did it a couple of months ago.

Adviser: Right, here we go. One second there. I won’t keep you a moment. (Pause) Right that’s done for you so you’re now out of the Voice ID system.

Caller: Okay. So am I right in saying that it will be removed from any other systems it’s on across the Government that it may have been passed on to.

Adviser: Erm. That’s a good question. Let’s have a look here.

Caller: Does that suggest that there is a chance that it has already been passed on?

Adviser: (No initial response) One second. I don’t know whether it’s… let’s have a look here. So it’s available to tax credits, self-assessments, pay as you earn, child benefits and National Insurance.

Caller: Okay

Adviser: So once you’ve opted out of one you would effectively opt out of all of them.

Caller: Okay. So would my voice have been deleted from the system?

Adviser: I don’t know if it’s deleted but you’re out of the system so it won’t use your voice as a means to get through to the call any further. But whether it’s deleted or not, I don’t know.

Caller: Okay. So would it be possible for you to make sure it is deleted?

Adviser: It’s not something that I would be able to do.

Caller: Okay. Is there any way you could find out how the process of getting it deleted is done?

Adviser: Is there a particular concern that you have *Name*?

Caller: It was just a concern about my individual biometric data really and how it’s held and how it may be passed on to other government bodies. To do with GDPR and stuff like that.

Adviser: Right, one second. Okay are you alright to hold the line again?

Caller: Yeh, sure.

(Connected at 35:40)

Adviser: Thanks for waiting. Right in order to look at getting that deleted altogether the way to do that would be to make what’s referred to as a subject access request, which you can do online. There’s a form you can fill in there if you have a look at gov.uk and search for HMRC Subject Access Request.

Caller: HMRC Subject Access Request?

Adviser: Yes. There’s an online form that you can fill in and send in to us.

Caller: Okay and then once I do that it will be removed from all systems and databases that it might be held on?

Adviser: As far as I’m aware yes.

Caller: Okay. It’s just a general concern because I didn’t consent to having my voice on a database when the Voice ID was taken and I’d just like to make sure its removed from any Government system and couldn’t then be passed on.

Adviser: I’m with you, I’m with you. Yep so that would be the way to do it.

Caller: Through the website?

Adviser: Through the website yes.

Caller: Okay. Well thank you very much

Adviser: That’s okay, thanks for your call.

*

Featured image is from TruePublica.

The Syrian Arab Army (SAA), the Tiger Forces and their allies have continued their successful operation against Hayat Tahrir al-Sham and the Free Syrian Army (FSA) in the province of Daraa. They have liberated the town of al-Hirak, the villages of Rakham, al-Surah and Alma as well as the 49 Air Defense Brigade and some nearby points.

Additionally, government forces liberated Sad Ibta, Tell Hamad and the 271st Brigade north of the city of Daraa.

A humanitarian corridor allowing civilians to withdraw from the combat area was also opened near the town of Da’il.

All signals show that the SAA is set to continue its military operation in southern Syria in a full force.

On June 28, the SAA and its allies repelled an ISIS attack on their positions southwest of the border town of al-Bukamal. According to the SAA General Command, many ISIS fighters died and a vehicle was destroyed in the clashes.

On June 27, the Syrian military claimed that it had cleared 5,200km2 of the Deir Ezzor desert of ISIS cells. However, establishing securing along the entire border will require further efforts.

13 planes, 14 helicopters and 1,140 personnel have been withdrawn from Syria over the past few days, Russian President Vladimir Putin told the alumni of military academies at a reception on June 28 adding that the pullout of Russian forces from Syria began in December 2017.

Putin’s statement followed reports that some Russian Ka-52 attacks helicopters and their crews have withdrawn from Syria.

However, the withdrawal of some aircraft does not sign that Russia is going to cease support and assistance to the Syrian military on the ground and in the air. As it has already been before, this is just a sign of a new phase, likely with some additional focus on diplomatic efforts, of the Russian participation in the conflict.

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An explosive report by investigative journalist John Solomon on the opinion page of Monday’s edition of The Hill sheds a bright light on how Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA) and then-FBI Director James Comey collaborated to prevent WikiLeaks editor Julian Assange from discussing “technical evidence ruling out certain parties [read Russia]” in the controversial leak of Democratic Party emails to WikiLeaks during the 2016 election.

A deal that was being discussed last year between Assange and U.S. government officials would have given Assange “limited immunity” to allow him to leave the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, where he has been exiled for six years. In exchange, Assange would agree to limit through redactions “some classified CIA information he might release in the future,” according to Solomon, who cited “interviews and a trove of internal DOJ documents turned over to Senate investigators.” Solomon even provided a copy of the draft immunity deal with Assange.

But Comey’s intervention to stop the negotiations with Assange ultimately ruined the deal, Solomon says, quoting “multiple sources.” With the prospective agreement thrown into serious doubt, Assange “unleashed a series of leaks that U.S. officials say damaged their cyber warfare capabilities for a long time to come.” These were the Vault 7 releases, which led then CIA Director Mike Pompeo to call WikiLeaks “a hostile intelligence service.”

Solomon’s report provides reasons why Official Washington has now put so much pressure on Ecuador to keep Assange incommunicado in its embassy in London.

The report does not say what led Comey to intervene to ruin the talks with Assange. But it came after Assange had offered to  “provide technical evidence and discussion regarding who did not engage in the DNC releases,” Solomon quotes WikiLeaks’ intermediary with the government as saying.  It would be a safe assumption that Assange was offering to prove that Russia was not WikiLeaks’ source of the DNC emails.

If that was the reason Comey and Warner ruined the talks, as is likely, it would reveal a cynical decision to put U.S. intelligence agents and highly sophisticated cybertools at risk, rather than allow Assange to at least attempt to prove that Russia was not behind the DNC leak.

The greater risk to Warner and Comey apparently would have been if Assange provided evidence that Russia played no role in the 2016 leaks of DNC documents.

Missteps and Stand Down

In mid-February 2017, in a remarkable display of naiveté, Adam Waldman, Assange’s pro bono attorney who acted as the intermediary in the talks, asked Warner if the Senate Intelligence Committee staff would like any contact with Assange to ask about Russia or other issues. Waldman was apparently oblivious to Sen. Warner’s stoking of Russia-gate.

Warner contacted Comey and, invoking his name, instructed Waldman to “stand down and end the discussions with Assange,” Waldman told Solomon.  The “stand down” instruction “did happen,” according to another of Solomon’s sources with good access to Warner.  However, Waldman’s counterpart attorney David Laufman, an accomplished federal prosecutor picked by the Justice Departent to work the government side of the CIA-Assange fledgling deal, told Waldman, “That’s B.S.  You’re not standing down, and neither am I.”

But the damage had been done.  When word of the original stand-down order reached WikiLeaks, trust evaporated, putting an end to two months of what Waldman called “constructive, principled discussions that included the Department of Justice.”

The two sides had come within inches of sealing the deal.  Writing to Laufman on March 28, 2017, Waldman gave him Assange’s offer to discuss “risk mitigation approaches relating to CIA documents in WikiLeaks’ possession or control, such as the redaction of Agency personnel in hostile jurisdictions,” in return for “an acceptable immunity and safe passage agreement.”

On March 31, 2017, though, WikiLeaks released the most damaging disclosure up to that point from what it called “Vault 7” — a treasure trove of CIA cybertools leaked from CIA files.  This disclosure featured the tool “Marble Framework,” which enabled the CIA to hack into computers, disguise who hacked in, and falsely attribute the hack to someone else by leaving so-called tell-tale signs — like Cyrillic, for example. The CIA documents also showed that the “Marble” tool had been employed in 2016.

Misfeasance or Malfeasance

Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity, which includes among our members two former Technical Directors of the National Security Agency, has repeatedly called attention to its conclusion that the DNC emails were leaked — not “hacked” by Russia or anyone else (and, later, our suspicion that someone may have been playing Marbles, so to speak).

In fact, VIPS and independent forensic investigators, have performed what former FBI Director Comey — at first inexplicably, now not so inexplicably — failed to do when the so-called “Russian hack” of the DNC was first reported. In July 2017 VIPS published its key findings with supporting data.

Two month later, VIPS published the results of follow-up experiments conducted to test the conclusions reached in July.

Why did then FBI Director Comey fail to insist on getting direct access to the DNC computers in order to follow best-practice forensics to discover who intruded into the DNC computers?  (Recall, at the time Sen. John McCain and others were calling the “Russian hack” no less than an “act of war.”)  A 7th grader can now figure that out.

Asked on January 10, 2017 by Senate Intelligence Committee chair Richard Burr (R-NC) whether direct access to the servers and devices would have helped the FBI in their investigation, Comey replied:  “Our forensics folks would always prefer to get access to the original device or server that’s involved, so it’s the best evidence.”

At that point, Burr and Warner let Comey down easy. Hence, it should come as no surprise that, according to one of John Solomon’s sources, Sen. Warner (who is co-chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee) kept Sen. Burr apprised of his intervention into the negotiation with Assange, leading to its collapse.

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Ray McGovern works with Tell the Word, a publishing arm of the ecumenical Church of the Saviour in inner-city Washington.  He was an Army Infantry/Intelligence officer and then a CIA analyst for a total of 30 years and prepared and briefed, one-on-one, the President’s Daily Brief from 1981 to 1985.

Even I was taken aback by the sheer scale of British active involvement in extraordinary rendition revealed by yesterday’s report of the parliamentary Intelligence and Security Committee. Dominic Grieve and the committee deserve congratulations for their honesty, integrity and above all persistence. It is plain from the report that 10 Downing Street did everything possible to handicap the work of the committee. Most crucially they were allowed only to interview extremely senior civil servants and not allowed to interview those actively engaged in the torture and rendition programme.

Theresa May specifically and deliberately ruled out the Committee from questioning any official who might be placed at risk of criminal proceedings – see para 11 of the report. The determination of the government to protect those who were complicit in torture tells us much more about their future intentions than any fake apology.

In fact it is impossible to read paras 9 to 14 without being astonished at the sheer audacity of Theresa May’s attempts to obstruct the inquiry. They were allowed to interview only 4 out of 23 requested witnesses, and those were not allowed “to talk about the specifics of the operations in which they were involved nor fill in any gaps in the timeline”. If the UK had a genuinely free media, this executive obstruction of the Inquiry would be the lead story. Instead it is not mentioned in any corporate or state media, despite the committee report containing a firm protest:

It is worth reflecting that the Tory government has acted time and time again to protect New Labour’s Tony Blair, David Miliband, Jack Straw and Gordon Brown from any punishment for their complicity in torture, and indeed to limit the information on it available to the public. The truth is that the Tories and New Labour (which includes the vast majority of current Labour MPs) are all a part of the same elite interest group, and when under pressure they stick together as a class against the people.

Despite being hamstrung by government, the Committee managed through exhaustive research of classified documents to pull together evidence of British involvement in extraordinary rendition and mistreatment of detainees on a massive scale. The Committee found 596 individual documented incidents of the security services obtaining “intelligence” from detainee interrogations involving torture or severe mistreatment, ranging from 2 incidents of direct involvement, “13 to 15” of actually being in the room, through those where the US or other authorities admitted to the torture, to those where the detainee told the officer they had been tortured. They found three instances where the UK had paid for rendition flights.

My own evidence to the Committee focused on the over-arching policy framework, and specifically the fact that Jack Straw and Richard Dearlove had agreed a deliberate and considered policy of obtaining intelligence through torture. The report includes disappointingly little of my evidence, as the Committee has taken a very narrow view of its remit to oversee the intelligence agencies. This is the only part of my evidence included:

130. This was not unique to the Agencies. Their sponsoring Departments appear to have adopted the same approach. We heard evidence from a former FCO official, Craig Murray, who suggested that “there was a deliberate policy of not committing the discussion on receipt of intelligence through torture to paper in the Foreign Office”.
In July 2004, when he was Ambassador to Tashkent, he raised concerns about the use of Uzbek intelligence derived from torture in a formal exchange of telegrams with the FCO. Mr Murray drew our attention to FCO documents from the same time, which we have seen, one of which referred to “meetings to look at conditions of receipt of intelligence as a general issue”. He told us that the meetings “specifically discuss[ed] the receipt of intelligence under torture from Uzbekistan” and “were absolutely key to the formation of policy on extraordinary rendition and intelligence”.
Mr Murray told us that, when he had given evidence to the Foreign Affairs Select Committee about this, they sought the documents from the FCO which replied that the “meetings were informal meetings and were not minuted ”. He went on to say:

“the idea that you have regular meetings convened at director level, convened by the Director of Security and Intelligence, where you are discussing the receipt of intelligence from torture, and you do not minute those meetings is an impossibility, unless an actual decision or instruction not to minute the meetings has been given.… Were it not for me and my bloody-mindedness, … you would never know those meetings had happened. Nobody would ever know those meetings had happened.”

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

Jack Straw to this day denies knowledge and involvement and famously told Parliament that the whole story about rendition and torture was a “conspiracy theory”.

Unless we all start to believe in conspiracy theories and that the officials are lying, that I am lying, that behind this there is some kind of secret state which is in league with some dark forces in the United States, and also let me say, we believe that Secretary Rice is lying, there simply is no truth in the claims that the United Kingdom has been involved in rendition full stop, because we have not been, and so what on earth a judicial inquiry would start to do I have no idea. I do not think it would be justified.”

In fact I strongly recommend you to read the whole Hansard transcript, from Q21 to Q51, in which Jack Straw carries out the most sustained bravura performance of lying to parliament in modern history. The ISC report makes plain he was repeatedly involved in direct authorisations of rendition operations, while denying to parliament the very existence of such operations.

For over a decade now the British government, be it Red Tory or Blue Tory, has been refusing calls for a proper public inquiry into its collusion with torture. The ISC report was meant to stand in place of such an Inquiry, but all it has done is reveal that there is a huge amount of complicity in torture, much more than we had realised, which the ISC itself states it was precluded from properly investigating because of government restrictions on its operations. It also concluded in a separate report on current issues, that it is unable to state categorically that these practices have stopped.

The Blair and Brown governments were deeply immersed in torture, a practice that increased hatred of the UK in the Muslim world and thus increased the threat of terrorism. Their ministers repeatedly lied about it, including to parliament. The British state has since repeatedly acted to ensure impunity for those involved, from Blair and Straw down to individual security service officers, who are not to be held responsible for their criminal complicity. This impunity of agents of the state is a complete guarantee that these evil practices will continue.

A few days ago, the inhabitants of Deir Nizam village, north of Ramallah, were shocked when they heard the news that one of the children of the village, Hassan al-Tamimi, 17, had lost his sight in Israeli jails as a result of deliberate medical negligence.

Al-Tamimi’s mother said that her son since childhood has been suffering from kidney and liver problems due to a major disturbance in protein absorption and he constantly needs a special diet and treatment program.

On 17th June, the Israeli occupation authorities decided to release al-Tamimi after his health deteriorated and he lost his sight, provided that his trial sessions continue as planned.

Mahmoud al-Tamimi, a relative of Hassan al-Tamimi, said that Hassan, who is one of the most loved boys in his village, used to play football before his detention, adding that the village residents were shocked by the news that he lost his sight.

“The Israeli occupation, which kills and imprisons children, does more than that,” he continued.

Medical negligence

The lawyer at the Palestinian Prisoner Society Ahmad Safiyya said that the administration of the Israeli hospital Shaare Zedek decided to discharge Hassan al-Tamimi, and he is supposed to be transferred later to Palestine Medical Complex in Ramallah to complete his treatment.

Safiyya explained that this decision came despite the fact that Hassan needs a very special treatment program, especially after he lost his sight as a result of the deliberate medical negligence he was subjected to by the Israel Prison Service.

Evasion of responsibility

According to the Palestinian Prisoner Society, since he was arrested on 7th April, al-Tamimi has not been provided with the necessary drugs and food. He was transferred from Ofer jail to Shaare Zedek hospital after his health deteriorated on 27th May.

When al-Tamimi was admitted to the hospital, the Israel Prison Service informed his lawyer that it decided to release him but his trial sessions will be held as scheduled.

For its part, the Palestinian Prisoner Society said that this decision is an attempt to evade responsibility for the crime committed against al-Tamimi.

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Featured image is from PIC.

The House Committee on Foreign Affairs unanimously passed a measure on Thursday that would give the Trump administration power to decide how to punish U.S. companies that engage in or promote boycotts of Israel — including through criminal penalties.

The committee passed an amendment by voice vote from Rep. Ed Royce, R-Calif., that largely replaced the text of a bill called the Israel Anti-Boycott Act. When the original legislation was first introduced last year, it drew outrage from activists, and the American Civil Liberties Union warned that by threatening to impose steep criminal penalties on boycott activists engaged with international bodies’ boycotts, the bill was unconstitutional.

After the uproar, the initial bill, which was supported by the influential America Israel Public Affairs Committee, lost momentum. But Royce’s effort to move his version out of the Foreign Affairs Committee is part of a push to reinvigorate Capitol Hill’s efforts to use statutory means to clamp down on the growing movement to boycott, divest from, and sanction the Jewish state for human rights violations against the Palestinians.

Pro-Palestinian activists said Royce’s amendment, despite being an apparent attempt to work around civil liberties concerns, could be the most dangerous version of the bill yet, because it delegates the lawmaking power to the Trump administration.

“This is another blatant attempt to criminalize Americans’ right to boycott and potentially even more dangerous than previous attempts to do so,” Josh Ruebner, policy director for the U.S. Campaign for Palestinian Rights, told The Intercept by email. “Given the Trump administration’s track record on trampling civil liberties through executive action and its pledge to crack down on boycotts for Palestinian rights, this would be an especially egregious derogation of power.”

Royce’s amendment rewrites the bill to direct the administration to issue regulations that prohibit U.S. companies from involvement with the BDS movement, as it is known. The bill covers those companies that attempt to “comply with, further, or support” United Nations or European Union calls for a boycott of Israel, including merely by “furnishing information” about them.

The Royce amendment does not specify the penalties that should be incorporated into the regulations, but it requires them to be “consistent with the enforcement practices” of the 1979 Export Administration Act — which allows for a range of civil and criminal penalties topping out at a maximum of $1 million fine and 20 years in prison.

Rep. Brad Sherman, D-Calif., the Democratic sponsor of the bill in the House, told the committee during Thursday’s mark-up hearing that the authors had addressed First Amendment concerns and that the bill was only aimed at preventing U.S. companies from being “pressured” by the U.N.’s nonbinding resolutions.

“I’m pleased to be the lead Democrat on this bill,” said Sherman. “Let me make it clear: Nothing in this bill says that any domestic organization can’t protest Israel or boycott its products or those of any other ally of the United States. It simply says that we will not allow American citizens to be pressured into that.”

Committee members nonetheless made clear that the bill was aimed at diminishing the influence of the BDS movement, a top priority of Israel’s right-wing government and its American supporters.

“The BDS movement encourages economic warfare against Israel – our strongest ally in the Middle East – and demonizing Israel harms the world’s only Jewish state,” said Rep. Lois Frankel, D-Fla. “It also creates a roadblock on the path to peace.”

The 1979 Export Administration Act was originally passed in response to the Arab League Boycott of Israel. In the 1970s, countries in the regional Arab League alliance trid to force U.S. companies to boycott Israel as a precondition for doing business in the Middle East and North Africa. In response, Congress passed the export law to forbid companies from boycotting allied nations at another country’s request. That gave U.S. businesses legal cover to refuse foreign demands to boycott Israel and most of the Arab League countries caved on their demands.

The Israel Anti-Boycott Act aimed to expand the Export Administration Act to prohibit U.S. companies from complying with voluntary requests from the U.N. to boycott Israel for political reasons, spurring the ACLU to quickly come out in opposition.

“Whereas the EAA was meant to protect U.S. companies from these compulsory boycotts, the Israel Anti-Boycott Act seeks to dictate the political activities Americans can and can’t engage in,” wrote ACLU attorney Brian Hauss at the time.

In response to criticism from the ACLU and Palestinian rights activists, Sen. Ben Cardin, D-Md., a stalwart ally of pro-Israel groups, introduced a compromise version of the bill that clarified that U.S. persons would not be imprisoned for boycotting Israel. The Royce amendment approved on Thursday in the House contains no such language.

None of the versions of the bill include a distinction between Israel’s 1948 armistice line and Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories, which are considered illegitimate enterprises by virtually every government in the world, including the U.S. Even some liberal, pro-Israel groups in the U.S. engage in boycotts of the Israeli settlements on the grounds that settlements damage the prospects of the moribund peace process with the Palestinians. The absence of the distinction in the anti-boycott legislation would mean that companies who engage in or promote U.N. and EU calls for boycotts of the settlements could face sanction.

In the past four decades, U.S. courts have consistently upheld boycotts as a protected method of political expression and, in January, a federal judge issued an injunction forcing Kansas to stop enforcing its anti-Israel boycott law.

Despite the precedents, activists say that these laws divert time, attention, and energy to fighting for freedom of expression, rather than the causes they support.

“Even though they lose in court over and over again, there is a benefit for pro-Israel partisans to bring bills like this,” said Max Geller, an organizer with the Palestinian Solidarity Committee in New Orleans. “They force activists to talk about their First Amendment rights, and not the human rights violations they’re protesting.”

The Israel Anti-Boycott Act is part of a much wider attempt to push back on boycott activism in the United States.

According to the ACLU, 24 states have passed laws aimed at punishing the boycott movement, and more than 100 bills have been considered by state and local legislatures across the country. These bills come against a backdrop of consistent harassment and censorship on college campuses — the group Palestine Legal documented more than 200 instances last year of universities attempting to suppress Palestinian rights activism.

“Our elected officials need to start listening and responding to the growing movement for Palestinian rights here in the U.S.,” said Rahul Saksena, legislative counsel for Palestine Legal, “instead of enacting unconstitutional laws aimed at silencing that movement.”

As part of a tour of several Latin American countries, US Vice President Mike Pence visited Brazil on Tuesday and Wednesday seeking “stronger action” against Venezuela. However, in bilateral meetings with de facto President Michel Temer and other Brazilian officials, Pence encountered resistance to his call for further sanctions against Caracas.

“The US has a very strong position, which does not exactly match ours,” explained Brazil’s Foreign Minister Aloysio Nunes. “For us, the topic of Venezuela is placed where it should be, which is in the OAS [Organization of American States]. Brazil does not accept sanctions. We are against unilateral decisions.”

Since the controversial 2016 ouster of leftist President Dilma Rousseff, Brazil has supported the efforts of the US and other regional right-wing governments to isolate the Maduro government in Caracas. The South American giant is believed to have played a key role in expelling Venezuela from Mercosur and signed the Lima Group’s statement criticizing Venezuela’s May 20 elections. However, the Temer administration does not appear poised to follow Washington, Brussels, and Ottawa in adopting unilateral sanctions.

According to the Brazilian constitution, such punitive measures must be multilateral and follow the lead of the UN Security Council.

The Trump administration has since taking office imposed round after round of individual and economic sanctions on Venezuela. Canada and the European Union have followed suit with their own measures targeting top Caracas officials.

But sanctions were not the only point of tension between Pence and his Brazilian hosts.

During the meeting, acting President Temer made clear that the separation of parents from children among Brazilian immigrant families to the US was an “extremely sensitive” issue in his country. Images of caged children, the result of Trump’s “zero tolerance” immigration policy, have sent shock waves throughout Latin America.

Nonetheless, Pence tried to assuage concerns over the immigration controversy.

“We are working to reunite families, including Brazilian families. We will continue to work closely with [the Brazilian] government so that that happens.”

Additionally, the conservative hardliner vice president spoke of the ”strategic partnership“ between the two countries and pledged a million more dollars of aid for Brazil to address what he calls the “crisis” of Venezuelan migration.

Despite the apparent friction, relations between Washington and Brazilia are the closest in decades. Last November, Brazil hosted the armed forces of the US and over a dozen other nations in military exercises along its shared border with Colombia and Peru, just a little over 630 kilometers south of Venezuela.

Meanwhile from Caracas, Venezuelan Foreign Affairs Minister Jorge Arreaza responded forcefully to Pence’s statements against his government.

Vaya ironía e hipocresía que @VP Pence , cuyo gobierno racista separa familias y enjaula niñ@s inocentes, pretenda inmiscuirse en los asuntos de nuestra región. Venezuela y Brasil repudian la presencia de semejante violador de derechos humanos de inmigrantes latinoamericanos

— Jorge Arreaza M (@jaarreaza) June 26, 2018

“What an irony and hypocrisy that Vice President Pence, whose racist government separates families and cages innocent children, intends to interfere in the affairs of our region,” Arreaza said via Twitter, adding, “Venezuela and Brazil reject the presence of such a violator of Latin American immigrants’ human rights.”

Pence’s next stop is Ecuador before proceeding to Guatemala and then other Central American countries.

The meeting that the Deep State strived to make impossible with fabricated “Russiagate” assertions and an orchestrated “investigation” by Mueller has now been set in place by no less that Deep State neocon operative John Bolton. Patrick Lang explains how this came about. See this.

Many see benefits from the Putin/Trump meeting. For example: see this.

Putin himself sees benefits in the meeting as does Trump. Putin sees hope of improving relations between the two governments. Of course, the “strained relations” are entirely due to Washington, which has demonized both Russia and Putin with false accusations and hostile acts such as illegal sanctions. It was miscalculation for Washington to expect Russia to give up its Black Sea naval base to Washington’s coup in Ukraine.

What can an agreement be based on? Bolton’s position has been opposed to making any agreement with Russia or cooperating with Russia in any way. From the neoconservative standpoint, Russia is in the way of US world hegemony. As the neoconservative foreign policy doctrine states, it is a principle US goal to prevent the rise of any country that could serve as a check on American unilateralism. Russia is a challenge to the American World Order because Russia stands in the way of the American unipolar world.

A successful summit will require Trump to reject this neoconservative doctrine. If Trump can pull this off with Bolton sitting by him, Trump’s critics will look very silly. Do Bolton and the Deep State have a way of baking failure into the summit that will ensure the continuation of Russia’s enemy status, thereby sustaining the enormous budget and power of the US military/security complex? Is Trump a superman who can overcome this powerful vested interest about which President Eisenhower warned Americans in 1961? How much stronger is this complex more than half a century later after being nourished by decades of Cold War and War on Terror?

Assad and no doubt Iran are convinced that negotiations with Washington are a waste of time. Assad has concluded that

“the problem with US presidents is that they are hostage to lobbyists. They can tell you what you want to hear, but they do the opposite. That’s the problem, and it’s getting worse and worse. Trump is a stark example. That’s why when talking to the Americans, discussing something with them does not settle anything. There will not be any results. It’s a simple waste of time.”

Assad’s view has the evidence on its side. One of Trump’s first actions was to unilaterally pull out of the multi-nation Iran nuclear agreement. There is no evidence that supports the hopeful Russian view.

It would be an interesting exercise to list all the agreements Washington has made over the course of US history and to calculate the percentage that Washington kept. If Putin doesn’t want to be taken for a ride, he should contemplate the words of Chief Joseph of the Nez Perce summing up his negotiations with Washington:

“I have heard talk and talk, but nothing is done. I am tired of talk that comes to nothing. It makes my heart sick when I remember all the good words and broken promises.”

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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.

The Trump administration is preparing itself to present “the deal of the century” to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Trump emissaries Jared Kushner (Trump’s son-in-law) and Jason Greenblatt (one of Trump’s former business lawyers) recently visited the region and held high-level meetings in Israel, Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and the Emirates. The one place of significance not visited was of course Palestine. Since Trump announced and then implemented the moving of the US Embassy to Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, the Palestinians have cut all official ties with the US Administration.

The Trump Administration responded in kind by freezing all financial aid to Palestine and by continuing to develop the “peace proposal deal” without consultations with the Palestinian leadership. The Trump Administration has also publically announced that they will present their peace plan “above the heads” of the Palestinian leadership directly to the Palestinian people. Jared Kushner pushed that point when he gave an exclusive interview to the privately owned Palestinian newspaper coming out of Jerusalem “Al Quds”.

Trump’s emissaries have reportedly been told all around the region what Jordan King Abdallah II told directly to President Trump in his White House meeting this week, that a peace deal without a sovereign independent Palestinian state based on the June 4, 1967 borders; without East Jerusalem as the capital of Palestine; and without some acceptable framework for dealing with Palestinian refugees; there would be no deal at all. Leaks about the content of the Trump proposal which include a Palestinian state on only a small part of the West Bank, a Palestinian capital in the Jerusalem suburb of Abu Deis, and not East Jerusalem, with no removal of any Israeli settlements, with Israeli security control over the Palestinian state and the Jordan valley and with nothing whatsoever for Palestinian refugees is dead on arrival. This is the opinion of not only the Palestinian people and their leadership. Trump’s proposal, which falls outside of international legitimacy and accepted principles for Israeli Palestinian peace, is acceptable to only one party in the world – that is the Government of Israel under Benjamin Netanyahu.

Some Palestinians have argued, even publically with op-ed pieces in some local newspapers that the Palestinians should accept whatever Trump is prepared to offer but not as a peace and end of conflict deal. They argue that with the increasing moves by Israeli politicians to advance Israeli annexation of large chunks of the West Bank and the failure of internal Palestinian reconciliation further entrenching the division between the West Bank and Gaza, Palestinians must increase their hold and control on whatever pieces of territory and authorities that Israel is prepared to withdraw from and transfer to the Palestinian Authority.

Furthermore, there are calls from some of the Likud politicians who hold the most right-wing positions with Netanyahu’s party and apparently have a lot of influence over him to exploit the Palestinian rejection of the Trump proposal to shut down the Palestinian Authority and to remove it from power. These politicians suggest that Israel could more easily deal with local Palestinian leaders in some form of antiquated tribal rule. These plans are right out of the rules book of the 1970s when Israel tried to replace the legitimacy of the Palestinian Liberation Organization with local tribal leaders called “The Village Leagues”. That plan was a miserable failure then as it would be today as well.

Trump may believe that the deal for Israeli-Palestinian peace is like a real estate negotiation for the purchase of hotel complex in a high-risk neighborhood where he can put “take it or leave it” terms on the table. These seem to be the terms that Trump understands. It is doubtful that Netanyahu functions in the same strategically limited assessment and analysis. Netanyahu’s strategic assessment and analysis weakness is mainly informed by his belief that he can successfully steer Israel’s course through the stormy waters of the region while always blaming others for the failure of reaching agreements. But Netanyahu’s continued policies of entrenching Israeli control over the Palestinians, expanding Israeli settlements in the occupied territories, isolating Gaza to the brink of disaster and trying to focus all international attention on Iran will successfully remove the two states solution forever and leave Israel as a non-democratic binational state. Eventually the Israeli public will wake up and understand that they have been living in a false reality with a very false sense of security.

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Dr. Gershon Baskin is an Israeli veteran peace activist, analyst, negotiator and author.

Featured image is from the author.

NATO outpost in the Caucasus?

Georgia’s pro-Western course is in many respects a left-over from the 1990s, when alignment with the West and membership in its institutions was actively promoted as a cure-all for every problem ailing the country. Georgia’s leaders continue to place their hopes in their country’s eventual admission into NATO, and are doing a great deal to convince the rest of the alliance of the need to admit their country. These efforts include hosting NATO exercises and sending troops to virtually every NATO mission worldwide, most notably the 850 Georgian troops currently in Afghanistan, a continent larger than most actual NATO members are maintaining. Their activities appear to be limited to manning security checkpoints, a task that would otherwise be outsourced to private contractors or even local Afghan forces, and which requires 100% US logistical support in any event, given that Georgia has minimal force-projection capabilities.

Caucasus “Cordon Sanitaire”

From the US perspective, Georgia and Azerbaijan still are the focus of its efforts in the region, given that, in combination, they represent an anti-Russian barrier separating it from the Middle East. Moreover, they are a bridge between the Caspian Sea basin and the West essential to implementing the US strategy of prying Russia out of European energy markets and replacing Russian exports by US one or exports from US client states in the region. These efforts resemble similar ones being pursued in Europe, where the US is attempting to cobble together a variety of regional institutions uniting Scandinavian countries and the countries of Eastern Europe including the Baltic States, Poland, Ukraine, Romania, Croatia, and others in order to weaken the EU and isolate it geographically and economically from Russia and, by extension, also China to ensure the remaining “rump EU” becomes a US economic vassal in addition to already being a military protectorate.

And, as in the case of Eastern Europe where the US is using all available levers of power up to and including threats to sanction European firms participating in North Stream 2 project, energy also plays a role in the US Caucasus strategy. The Trans-Anatolian Pipeline (TANAP) intended to carry natural gas to Europe is one of the key US-supported projects in that area. However, when the TANAP pipeline was inaugurated in the Turkish city of Eskisehir, only the country’s ambassador to Turkey appeared to represent Georgia, a relatively modest showing considering the importance of the project. This relatively low-key treatment of TANAP by Georgia naturally led to speculation that the country’s political elite is if not in crisis, then at least in a state of active debate over its future.

A Victim of MAGA?

That relations with Russia are close to the top of Georgia’s policy priorities is suggested by President Margelashvili’s suggestion to create a contact group for the purpose of establishing a Georgia-Russia dialogue. Russia has made several such suggestions in the past in order to address both bilateral and regional issues. However, Georgia has not reciprocated Moscow’s overtures, preferring instead to focus on solidifying its ties to the West. So what had prompted the recent suggestions of a thaw in relations with Russia?

There are several factors are dividing Georgian elites on foreign policy. One of them is, obviously, Ukraine, another member state of the now-defunct Eastern Partnership which was created to draw post-Soviet states away from Russia and toward the West, to the point of integrating them into both NATO and the EU. Ukraine’s post-Maidan catastrophe which wrecked Ukraine’s economy and brought a bizarre coalition of extreme nationalists and cleptocrats into power, all with Western support, damaged the West’s image in Georgia. It does not help that the country’s own pro-Western leaders like Mikhail Saakashvili who incidentally also made quite a name for himself in Ukraine have had at best a middling success at eradicating corruption and promoting economic growth.

But the final straw factor is the Trump Administration’s revised approach to foreign policy. Given that the US has a $20+ trillion national debt, growing at a rate of about $1 trillion per year which coincidentally happens to be the approximate annual cost of US national security policy, the Trump Administration desires to “optimize” US foreign policy by eliminating liabilities and promoting assets. In practical terms it means expecting US allies to become a net contributor of funds to the US economy by purchasing US weapons, energy, and other products. Trump’s repeated hectoring of NATO member states to compel them to raise own defense spending—and “Buy American”—combined with opposition to North Stream 2 encapsulates this administration’s priorities nicely. Trump’s efforts have already had the effect of encouraging Western European NATO members to discuss further integration and even the development of a European rapid response force independent of NATO—and therefore of the US. For a poor country like Georgia it means, occasional sweeteners like the Javelin missiles notwithstanding, that it might become a bargaining chip to be discarded in exchange for some yet-unknown arrangement with Russia, but ultimately also to cut US costs associated with maintaining Georgia as an ally. Unlike Ukraine, whose leadership succeeded in burning most bridges to Russia, Georgia has considerably more room to maneuver.

A country on the brink

The prospect of a thaw in Russia-Georgia relations was quickly followed by street demonstrations, giving rise to speculatio these events might be related. After all, the Maidan followed President Yanukovych’s decision to shelve EU Association in favor of closer Eurasian economic integration. Mikheil Saakashvili, expelled from Ukraine by Poroshenko, still has many friends in Washington and nurtures ambitions to return to power in Tbilisi. And the onset of the demonstrations in Tbilisi was eerily similar to the onset of the Maidan, namely the killing of a 16-year-old high school student by the police in the aftermath of an after-school knife fight. The father’s demand for his son’s killing to be investigated openly and honestly served as the rallying cry for the opposition parties.

The ensuing comparatively peaceful demonstrations and transportation strike had the effect, possibly in combination with behind-the-scenes US pressure, of ousting the otherwise successful Prime Minister Kvirikashvili whose accomplishments included increasing economic growth to 6.5% in part by improving relations with Russia and signing a free trade agreement with China, both no-no’s from the US perspective.

The new, “temporary” Georgian government was approved by the parliament on 20 June 2018, with Prime Minister Mamuka Bakhtadze, the former Finance Minister, at the helm. While there are new ministers at Finance, Economic Development, and Foreign Affairs, the  key posts of Defense and Internal Affairs are filled by their previous occupants. Defense Minister Levan Izoria, in particular, has been a major promoter of NATO membership, and his retention is a sign Georgia has received the warning and will not attempt independent policy initiatives undermining US goals in the region. Izoria quickly reaffirmed Georgia’s commitment to NATO and is now seeking another token of its support, this time in the form of Stinger man-portable SAMs.

Therefore in the end Georgia received a “soft Maidan” in the form of a promise of austerity policies and continued Western integration. Margelashvili, confronted with the prospect of a major domestic conflict, decided not to press the issue and opted against changing Georgia’s course out of fear of sharing his Ukrainian predecessor’s fate. It is yet another demonstration that the post-Soviet republics which have chosen the course toward Western integration have done so at the cost of their own sovereignty. In the longer term, however, it’s unlikely Georgia will be able to sustain its course. Certainly the Bakhtadze government is giving little cause for optimism, given its stated  commitment to fiscal austerity which is incompatible with its other stated commitment of reducing rampant unemployment. Bakhtadze himself enjoys little popularity in Georgia and his name is associated with a number of managerial failures, including during his term as the director of Georgia Railroads. Moreover Georgia’s economy will soon have to cope with the effects of quantitative tightening by both the US Federal Reserve and the European Central Bank which will increase Georgia’s costs of international borrowing and sovereign debt servicing.

But ultimately the nascent Georgia-Russia “thaw” was nipped in the bud only because Washington was not ready for it yet. The conflicts in the Caucasus, Ukraine, Syria, and elsewhere can only be resolved by Russia and the US at the highest levels. Since these meetings have not taken place yet, and therefore the conflicts continue.

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Featured image is from the author.

National outrage over President Trump’s policy of separating immigrant children from their parents as a way to deter illegal immigration into the United States has forced the president to abandon the policy. The outrage came from all sides of the political spectrum, especially from the left, and from the mainstream media.

Trump’s policy is obviously cruel and brutal, given that it uses children as pawns to achieve a political end. No matter how much psychological damage is inflicted on children owing to the fear that comes with forced separation, the idea is that such emotional damage is worth it given the aim of preventing or discouraging illegal immigration to the United States.

What’s strange, however, is that while there has been mass outrage over Trump’s separation policy, there is virtually no outrage over the U.S. government’s policy of killing children as a way to achieve the political goal of regime change in foreign countries.

Consider, for example, the brutal system of U.S. sanctions on Iraq, which the Clinton administration enforced during the 1990s. Year after year, it contributed to the deaths of tens of thousands of Iraqi children, especially since the sanctions prevented Iraq from repairing the water-and-sewage treatment plants that the Pentagon had intentionally bombed during the Persian Gulf War.

What was the attitude of liberals and Democrats back then? They couldn’t care less. In fact, the position of the Clinton administration was summed up by the official U.S. government spokesperson to the United Nations, Madeleine Albright, who was serving as U.S. Ambassador to the UN. When Sixty Minutes asked Albright whether the deaths of half-a-million Iraqi children from the sanctions were worth it, she responded that while the issue was a difficult one, yes, the deaths of those children were worth it.

What was “it”? Regime change, a political goal by the U.S. government wished to oust the Saddam Hussein regime from power and replace it with another pro-U.S. regime. (The Saddam Hussein regime and the U.S. government had been partners and allies during the 1980s when the U.S. government was helping Iraq wage war against Iran.) By killing children and others, the hope was that Saddam would abdicate, or that he would fall into line and comply with U.S. orders, or that there would be a violent revolution entailing massive death and destruction, or that there would be a military coup that would bring a pro-U.S. military dictator into power.

What was the response of the liberal-Democratic segment of society and of the U.S. mainstream media to the mass killing of those Iraqi children? Silence or, even worse, support! There was certainly nothing like the outrage being expressed against Trump’s separation policy, which causes one to wonder whether the reaction against Trump might be motivated by politics rather than by moral values. In other words, if it were Obama or Clinton doing what Trump is doing, would the response be different among progressives and the mainstream media?

Even when three high UN officials, Hans von Sponeck, Jutta Purghart, and Denis Haliday, resigned their posts out of a crisis of conscience over the deaths of Iraqi children that the Clinton administration was inflicting with its system of sanctions, that didn’t provoke any sympathetic reaction among liberals, progressives, or the U.S. mainstream press. When U.S. officials mocked and ridiculed the three of them, the American left and the U.S. mainstream press remained nonplussed.

A real-life hero in the Iraq sanctions saga was an American man named Bert Sacks. He decided to violate the sanctions by taking medicines into Iraq. U.S. officials went after him with a vengeance that bordered on the pathological and that gave new meaning to the term “banality of evil.” With the exception of newspapers in Seattle, where Sacks was from, most leftists and most mainstream newspapers failed to come to Sacks’ defense. To Sacks’s everlasting credit, he fought the Treasury Department’s $10,000 fine (plus another $6,000 in penalties) for around a decade, refusing to pay it and finally winning.

For that matter, consider the current brutal U.S. sanctions against North Korea, one of the most impoverished Third World countries in the world, one in which hundreds of thousands of people have died of starvation as a result of North Korea’s socialist economic system.

The U.S. sanctions are intended to make the starvation even worse. The U.S. government’s hope is that the sanctions will kill even more people and thereby accelerate the chances of regime change or a change in behavior among North Korea’s communist regime.

Ordinarily, the most vulnerable people in an impoverished society are the very young and the very old. Thus, they run the risk of bearing the brunt of sanctions, either from malnutrition or illness.

What is the reaction of the American left, the right, and the mainstream media when U.S. sanctions kill more North Koreans, including children and seniors? They love it! That exult that the sanctions are starting to “bite” and call for even more stringent sanctions to increase the killing even more. In the minds, the bigger the “bite,” the better the chances of causing North Korea to fall into line or of bringing regime change to the country.

Same for Cuba, where U.S. officials have brought untold economic suffering to the Cuban people, on top of the economic suffering that already experience of Cuba’s socialist economic system. Again, the aim is either regime change or regime conformance with U.S. directives. While there is a smattering of support for lifting the decades-old, Cold War-era embargo  among the left, there is certainly no moral outrage within the left and the mainstream media, as there is with Trump’s separation policy.

It’s refreshing to see moral outrage over Trump’s policy of separating immigrant children from their parents. If only there was similar outage over the U.S. government’s policy of killing children and others with sanctions.

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

In the Gospels, the disciples of Jesus complain about folks who bring their kids with them to receive his blessings. But Jesus is not somebody who shuns the company of children. In response to his followers’ disapproval, he says, perhaps with the snap of indignation in his voice,

“Suffer the little children and don’t stop them from coming to me. For the kingdom of Heaven was made for such as these.” (Or words to that effect.)

Thank God people here and around the world are righteously outraged by the Trump Administration’s most recent descent into fascistic horror—separating children from their parents at the US-Mexican border and dispatching them to detention centers with no assurance they will ever be reunited with their families. A perfect example of cruel and unusual punishment for the sin of seeking asylum from the very violence and chaos the US had no small role in instigating in Central American countries.

I don’t know which is worse: ripping apart immigrant families and imprisoning even little children or enabling the Saudi-led coalition to attack and possibly destroy Yemen’s sole remaining lifeline—the port of Hodeidah—despite the imminent threat of starvation hanging over the heads of Yemen’s civilian population. The children as in most conflict zones bear the brunt of suffering in this three-year-old war between Yemen’s Houthi rebels (officially known as Ansar Allah) on the one hand, and the coalition and Yemeni government on the other. As anyone following this story is aware, we are providing intelligence and targeting logistics, and mid-air refueling of Saudi and United Arab Emirates fighter jets. For good measure, the Trump Administration in April authorized the sale of 1.3 billon dollars worth of weaponry to Saudi Arabia in order to “improve Saudi Arabia’s capability to meet current and future threats and provide greater security for its border regions and critical infrastructure,” according to Pentagon officials. The weapons include “100 155 mm M109 Howitzers, 180 .50-caliber M2 heavy machine guns, eight Advanced Field Artillery Tactical Data Systems. …” Between 2011 and 2015, Saudi Arabia purchased 9.5% of US arms exports.

What a bonanza of killing machines for Saudi Deputy Crown Prince and Defense Minister Mohammed bin Salman, who met with Trump during the former’s so-called “goodwill tour” of the US earlier this year. Never one to miss an opportunity to display his concern for American workers, Trump duly noted that “A lot of people are at work” thanks to Saudi Arabia’s purchase of “the finest military equipment anywhere in the world.” The “people” of course are the defense contractors who, as always, stand to reap enormous profits from the business of killing.

In Yemen the “business of killing” has been amped up by the influx of US weapons and US support of the Saudi onslaught. Though all sides in the conflict have committed war crimes and human rights violations, the US and its European allies, including Spain, Italy, France, and UK, are complicit in the continuation and intensification of the war. The bombing of civilian and military targets, and the Saudi-led coalition’s severe restrictions on the delivery of food, fuel, and medical supplies have resulted in inconceivable suffering for the Yemeni people. The UN calls it the worlds’ worst humanitarian crisis. And driving it are the geopolitical calculations of the world’s foremost superpower for whom safeguarding its relationship with Saudi Arabia trumps any humanitarian concerns. After all, Saudi Arabia may be the biggest and wealthiest funder of terrorist groups in the Middle East. But it’s also a major player in the politics of oil.

“Protecting Saudi Arabia and other Persian Gulf producers has been a cornerstone of U.S. foreign policy for decades,” according to the Council on Foreign Relations.

So the killing continues. And the children of Yemen, like the children of Iraq, Syria, and Afghanistan are paying the price of imperialist realpolitick, for which ethical, moral, or simple humanitarian considerations are more often considered obstacles to the application of force and military muscle to resolve international disputes. As a witness to the effects of sanctions on Iraq’s economy, I have seen the withered bodies of little children suffering from extreme malnutrition and water-borne diseases. Most of them had scant chance of surviving in hospitals that once possessed first-rate medical equipment and sufficient resources to deal with pediatric illness, including various forms of cancer. The fate of these children was the consequence of decisions made in Washington in its drive to force regime change in Iraq by depressing the country’s economy and causing a profound humanitarian crisis.

It appears that nothing has changed, at least in the manner in which the US wields power and enforces its own brand of political expedience absent any concern for commonly accepted standards of right and wrong. From the standpoint of Donald Trump and his toadies, it makes perfect sense to lock up little children after taking them away from their parents and to ignore or at least discount the generational trauma and suffering this policy is causing. In the same vein, providing logistical and diplomatic support for Saudi Arabia’s war against the Houthi fighters of Yemen (whom the Saudis consider proxies of its arch foe—Iran). And of course, to stem Iran’s growing influence in the Middle East, the people of Yemen are expendable in the eyes of the US, Britain, and other arms suppliers in Europe, and countries in the Gulf and Africa allied with Saudi Arabia.

When I look at photographs taken in Yemen’s hospitals of children suffering from malnutrition and what would normally be easily treatable diseases, my heart recoils. The sight of these emaciated children takes me back to pediatric wards in Iraq during the period of economic sanctions. This is what inhumanity looks like. This is what it means to deliberately prevent children from receiving all the blessings of life to which they are entitled simply by having been born. These children, whether the offspring of parents in Yemen or of parents from Central American countries, deserve to be embraced, to be loved, to be treated with all the compassion and kindness the human heart is capable of giving.

In Yemen, the statistics tell a heartbreaking story. A recent report from Oxfam International Yemen’s focuses on the humanitarian crisis caused by the ongoing conflict:

• More than 14,600 civilian deaths and injuries
• Over three million people internally displaced from the bombing and fighting
• Twenty-two million people (75% of the population) in need of emergency aid, “the greatest number in any country in the world.”
• Seventeen million people (60% of the population) facing food insecurity and malnutrition
• Eight million people on the brink of famine
• The “worst ever cholera outbreak” with more than 1 million cases and over 2,200 deaths from this epidemic

The fighting has “massively” disrupted Yemen’s food supply, of which 90% was imported even before the war began. Because of attacks on essential civilian infrastructure, the country is barely able to provide basic services like health care and a reliable supply of potable water, thanks in part to US support.

Since the implementation of Trump’s “zero tolerance” regarding immigrants and asylum seekers crossing our southern border with Mexico, a growing number of Americans have been moved to publicly protest this policy and to call for its repeal in the name of fairness, justice, and fundamental human decency. In a recent Tweet, Ralph Nader, a quintessential guiding light in matters concerning civic virtue, responds to former First Ladies’ criticism of “zero tolerance”:

Would be nice if Laura Bush and Michelle Obama had expressed similar heartfelt concern for the tens of thousands of children killed or seriously maimed by the wars of their husbands in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere.

Wouldn’t it also be nice if Laura and Michelle opened their hearts to the children of Yemen and called for an end to all arms sales to Saudi Arabia, a negotiated settlement to the conflict, and a trial by the International Criminal Court for the perpetrators of war crimes and crimes against humanity in Yemen. Personally, I don’t expect the spouses of lawbreakers like George Bush and Barack Obama to raise much of a stink about the crimes their husbands committed while in office. But I do hope that well-meaning American citizens, deeply disturbed by the unnecessary suffering inflicted on parents and children from Central America, begin to connect the dots. To my mind, the humanitarian crisis on our border with Mexico and the humanitarian crisis in Yemen may not be one in the same. But both are expressions of an identical absence of compassion and a willingness to deny the humanity of those deemed “different” for one reason or another.

Thinking about the history of this country, I imagine a long “trail of tears” beginning with our Puritan forebears and their wars against native people, extending through centuries of slavery, the American Indian wars of the 1800s, the forced displacement of Eastern Woodland Indians from their traditional homelands in the Southeast to the so-called “Indian Territory” west of the Mississippi, the Philippine-American war (1899-1902), the world wars of the 20th century right up to our present attacks against predominantly Muslim nations and the denial of human rights to the people seeking refuge in our country.

Suffer the little children. Let them live. Give them food, clothing, shelter. Give them love. Not bombs and bullets. Not the cruelty of sanctions. Not the grim prospect of war without end.

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License

George Capaccio is a writer and activist living in Arlington, MA. During the years of US- and UK-enforced sanctions against Iraq, he traveled there numerous times, bringing in banned items, befriending families in Baghdad, and deepening his understanding of how the sanctions were impacting civilians. His email is [email protected]. He welcomes comments and invites readers to visit his website: www.georgecapaccio.com

Featured image is from Julien Harneis / Flickr.

Senate Democrats joined Republicans this week to approve a massive expansion of the US military as demanded by President Donald Trump. Congressional action on the near-record Pentagon budget is taking place behind a veil of silence, with no public discussion and virtually no media coverage.

Even as the Trump administration steamrolls ahead with plans to gut social spending, winning a House vote Thursday to slash $23 billion from food stamp spending and advancing a scheme to consolidate the departments of Labor and Education in the name of “cutting costs”, both houses of Congress have approved a bill that expands military spending at the fastest rate since the highpoint of the war in Iraq.

The so-called “John S. McCain National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2019”, which passed the Senate 85-10 Monday after having been approved by the House of Representatives in May, allocates $716 billion for the Defense Department, an increase of $82 billion.

This increase alone is larger than the total budget of the Department of Education, approximately $70 billion. It is also larger than the annual military budget of Russia ($61 billion). The increase in Pentagon spending between 2017 and 2019, $165 billion, is larger than the entire defense budget of China.

When funding for the US intelligence agencies, the Department of Homeland Security, federal aid to local police and various “black” operations are factored in, the budget for the United States “total army” amounts to over a trillion dollars, a figure larger than the gross domestic product of Indonesia, a country with a population of 261 million.

Just over one third of the Pentagon’s annual budget, or $265 billion, could end world hunger, according to figures from the Stockholm Peace Institute. Another third, or $239 billion, would provide primary and early secondary education for the entire world population.

Instead, these vast sums are squandered on building and deploying the tools of mass murder.

The budget includes provisions for Trump’s unprecedented and undemocratic military parade, which will involve the deployment of US troops on American streets. The spending bill authorizes “any kind of motorized vehicle, aviation platform, munition, operational military unit or operational military platform” to roll down the streets of Washington at the president’s discretion.

It likewise authorizes the continued operation of the Guantanamo Bay prison camp by extending “prohibitions on transfers of detainees into the United States”.

Despite these provisions, which the Democrats claim to oppose, only seven out of 47 Democratic senators voted “nay”, ensuring passage by a lopsided margin.

The Democrats raised only one substantial criticism. They demanded more aggressive trade war measures against Chinese technology company ZTE and inserted a provision keeping in place penalties against the firm that Trump had sought to eliminate.

The budget provides President Trump and the military with funding for every single program on their bloated wish list:

The Navy: The budget includes provisions for the construction of ten new ships in 2019, including two new Virginia class nuclear attack submarines costing $2.7 billion apiece, three new Arleigh Burke destroyers, costing $1.8 billion apiece, and an additional Gerald R. Ford-class aircraft carrier at a cost of over $12 billion.

The Air Force: The budget includes $2.3 billion for the development of the B-21 raider, “the next generation long-range strike bomber”, as well as billions more for the expansion of the US fleet of B-52, B-1 and B-2 bombers.

Nuclear forces: By far the most radical aspect of the budget is its massive expansion of the US nuclear arsenal. It lifts a “15-year prohibition on developing and producing low-yield nuclear warheads” and provides for “developing and producing a low-yield warhead to be carried on a submarine-launched ballistic missile”, as well as a nuclear-capable air-launched cruise missile. The budget prohibits the Pentagon from “reducing the number of intercontinental ballistic missiles” and expands the production of “pits” for building new nuclear weapons.

There is virtually no public debate or oversight of the vast social resources devoted to the military. There is even less public control over or even knowledge of the deployment of US forces all over the world. One study released this week by the Intercept reported that the US military has carried out over 550 drone strikes in Libya alone, twice as many as previously believed.

According to Pentagon data analyzed by Truthdig, the American military has dropped one bomb every 12 minutes during Trump’s first year in office, a rate four times greater than under Obama and five times greater than under George W. Bush.

Away from the cameras, the United States is participating in the bloody Saudi-led onslaught against Yemen’s Red Sea port city of Hodeidah, an operation directly targeting the food and medical supply for Yemen’s starving and cholera-stricken population. The United Nations is warning that the operation could lead to a quarter million additional deaths.

Imperialist crimes of this magnitude cannot coexist with democratic forms of rule at home. To this end, the military is playing a leading role in Trump’s “zero tolerance” immigration policy, involving the mass round-up, imprisonment and torture of refugees, including children, thousands of whom have been separated from their families. On Friday, the Navy produced a plan to hold up to 120,000 people on military bases, setting a precedent for mass detention of the civilian population by the military.

Since the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the United States has been perpetually at war for 27 years. This period of unending warfare has been accompanied by the most sustained increase in social inequality in modern US history and an unrelenting and escalating attack on democratic rights, from the stolen election of 2000 to the Bush administration’s CIA torture program and the Bush-Obama regime of domestic spying, to the current drive by the government and major technology companies to censor the Internet.

With the recent National Defense Strategy’s declaration of a new era of “great power conflict”, the neo-colonial wars of the past quarter-century are metastasizing into the run-up to a new world war, posing the threat of nuclear annihilation. This is what the Pentagon budget is preparing for.

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Featured image is from Jared Rodriguez / Truthout.

The conference on The New World Order, A Recipe for War or Peace was held on March 9, 2015 at the Putrajaya International Convention Centre (PICC), Malaysia.

This event was organized by the Perdana Global Peace Foundation which is headed by the Prime Minister of Malaysia, Mahathir Mohamad.

Presentions by Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohamed, Thomas Barnett, Michel Chossudovsky, Chandra Muzaffar, Yoichi Sumachi

On May 30, US Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis announced that the Pacific Command was being renamed as the Indo-Pacific Command.

Thus the Pentagon’s largest (in a geographical sense) command has grown even more gigantic.

The new designation is being introduced gradually, seeing as not many announcements have been made about the command’s reorganization, but in recent months this term has been used more and more often. Even Mattis himself has made a few “slips of the tongue” in his speeches about the region.

But on May 21, Pentagon Spokesman Colonel Rob Manning mentioned the planned rebranding, claiming it being was done to better encapsulate the responsibilities the command currently has.

The US media that specialize in the military have dismissed the idea that this rebranding has anything to do with the need to contain China and Iran. Although China has a coastline on the Pacific, Iran borders the Indian Ocean. But the more centralized decision-making will make it possible to react more quickly to any potential challenges or threats. So the Pentagon believes. And they have already begun to gradually translate their intentions (by suggesting that China and Iran are potential enemies) into reality.

JOINT BASE PEARL HARBOR HICKAM (May 30, 2018)– Adm. Phil Davidson, commander of U.S. Pacific Command (USPACOM), is piped aboard during the USPACOM change of command ceremony. During the Ceremony, Davidson relieved Adm. Harry Harris as USPACOM commander. USPACOM is committed to enhancing stability in the Indo-Pacific region by promoting security cooperation, encouraging peaceful development, responding to contingencies, deterring aggression, and, when necessary, fighting to win.

On May 23, the Pentagon announced that China will no longer take part in the Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC) naval maneuvers that are held every other year in Hawaii under the direction of the US. The official excuse pointed to the exercises that the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) had conducted earlier in the South China Sea, during which China’s nuclear bombers landed on islands that are under dispute.

Although anti-Chinese sentiments are nothing unusual among the American establishment (as are anti-Iranian, anti-Korean, and anti-Russian attitudes), as can be seen by the most recent doctrines on national security, national defense, and the assessment of the country’s nuclear forces, this name change nevertheless reflects more profound shifts (or intentions).

A new name does not offer any advantages when it comes to equipment or military presence. Quite the contrary. Changing the symbols — from producing new shoulder sleeve insignia to replacing the signs that hang on doors — will in one way or another have an effect on expenditures that are unrelated to innovation or essential necessities. Rearranging the structure of the authority over organizational units within the military will also create additional bureaucratic headaches.

What is behind this decision, other than anti-Chinese and anti-Iranian rhetoric? The first thing that leaps to mind is the close cooperation seen today between the US and India in that region. And it’s true that Washington has recently been paying more attention to New Delhi, describing it as one of the future poles of regional security there, along with Japan, Australia, and other allies.

Days after US rename its Pacific Command as Indo-Pacific Command, PM Modi meets Mattis

India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi commented on the US command’s name change on June 3 at the Shangri-La Dialogue (SLD) conference in Singapore, noting that for India it seems quite natural to group the Indian and Pacific Oceans into a single geographical expanse.

At the same summit, the news was released that the US, Australia, Japan, and India, which have joined to form the “Quad” group, will now view those two oceans as a new strategic domain.

It is revealing that the joint American-Indian-Japanese Malabar naval exercises were held June 11-16 near the island of Guam. In an official statement, the US Navy claimed that the maneuvers were intended to emphasize war-fighting skills and to demonstrate maritime superiority and power projection. In view of the fact that Pakistan is rapidly emerging from the orbit of US influence, the Pentagon’s interest in India as a local base of operations is rapidly growing. And since India’s neighbors — Pakistan and China —themselves have certain territorial claims against that country (as it does against them), this factor is impacting the evolution of Indian-American relations.

The US concept of a free and open Indo-Pacific strategy (FOIP) serves as an umbrella concept masking deeper intervention in the guise of large-scale cooperation. This strategy is simultaneously intended to both replace the failed Trans-Pacific Partnership on trade that Donald Trump rejected, as well as to lure ASEAN members over to the US side, or at least to ease them away from China’s expanding influence.

But this is an on-the-spot approach, which suggests an attempt to develop a specific strategy. And deeper reasons also exist that have to do with the spinning of some kind of narrative based on a certain idea. The creation of imaginary images is an utterly intrinsic element of political geography (regardless of how well they actually mesh with reality), and those are then realized under a foreign policy agenda.

This would be a good time to bring up the term “Near East,” which is now a universal designation for the group of countries that lie between the Mediterranean Sea, the Red Sea, and the Arabian Sea. But from whose perspective is it Near? And from whose perspective is it East? From the EU states it lies more to the southeast, for East Africa — to the north, and for India and China — toward the West. We owe the origin of that term to the Anglo-Saxon school of political science, or more precisely, to a long list of British diplomats, historians, politicians, intellectuals, and scholars: Thomas Taylor Meadows, Sir Henry Rawlinson, Sir Austen Henry Layard, David George Hogarth, Sir Henry Norman, William Miller, and Arnold Toynbee.

Just like the term “Middle East,” this is the fruit of ruminating on the strategic communications of the British diplomat Thomas Edward Gordon and the American admiral Alfred Thayer Mahan, both of whom pointed out the connecting lines in the region. But those lines would hardly look so organic were it not for Great Britain’s colonial possessions — after all, they were the ones who needed a local administration, constant contact, control, and, if necessary, the use of military force there. Without the colonies, perhaps everything would be different and we would use the Arab self-designation of the Maghreb, the Mashriq, or other, more precise geographical terms, such as Western Asia.

It is the same situation with the term Indo-Pacific — here we see an easily discernible expansionist model, albeit one masked in the guise of cooperation.

Something similar has happened before. First of all, the concept of Atlanticism, which is understood to signify the unification of one part of ​the Old World with the US on the basis of a common history and shared values, ​​clearly demonstrates how intervention in European affairs can be justified — in the guise of rendering aid, offering protection from communism (the Cold War imperative), and creating a common system of security through NATO (what we do have is NATO as a punitive tool, but what we don’t have is a common security system, the evidence for which can be seen in the frequent terrorist attacks in Western Europe). Moreover, the emergence of the doctrine of Euro-Atlanticism as a byproduct of Atlanticism demonstrates how its clients are beginning to justify their positions independently, thus rejecting any potential criticism aimed at their patron.

The second example is the framework model for the Asia-Pacific region. Although the US has had direct access to the Pacific Ocean for several centuries, America has not historically had an authentic presence in Asia. The scholarly, political concept of the Asia-Pacific region emerged on the scene in order to create a mental association. Along with US military bases and partnership agreements, and despite Washington’s negative role in the region’s 20th-century history (the nuclear bombing of Japanese cities, its involvement in the Korean War, the provocation in the Gulf of Tonkin that was followed by attacks on Vietnam, the support for various anti-communist movements, and its subversive activities against a number of countries), the American presence in the Pacific region of Asia has been transformed into a stable narrative.

Now this region will become the Indo-Pacific. Although the US maritime presence is global, and every country in the world, in one way or another, falls under the responsibility of the various Pentagon commands, the official line justifying the US presence from the Horn of Africa to the Strait of Malacca will now be more assertive and direct. Unlike the actual history of that area that has been suffused with so many political, military, and strategic events, the Indo-Pacific expanse could become the subject of a long-view approach to historiography (a longue durée), to borrow the terminology of the French Annales School of historical writing. Perhaps US strategists even previously viewed it this way, but never spoke openly about it.

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Leonid Savin is a Geopolitical analyst, Chief editor of Geopolitica.ru, founder and chief editor of Journal of Eurasian Affairs; head of the administration of International Eurasian Movement.

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

The Crimean Tatar writer and artist Diana Kadi recently wrote an open letter to Angela Merkel:

“I am the author of a novel about the Crimea. Since an information war is being waged of such intensity that propaganda and lies have become the norm, I believe that it is important for me to set forth my views on the subject of the Crimea. Ukrainian politicians claim that Russia is the aggressor and that Crimean Tatars are oppressed, but that is simply untrue. My people have once again become an instrument of political manipulation. The alleged oppression of the Crimean Tatars is one of those all-purpose legends pulled out of the hat from time to time. I ask you to allow me to address the Bundestag in order to tell the truth about what is really going on in the Crimea.”

Unsurprisingly, Ms. Kadi’s eloquent appeal to the German chancellor was suppressed by the Western media and went unanswered by the addressee. Yet, in contrast to this genuine cultural leader of the Crimean Tatar community the leadership of the extremist “Crimean Tatar Medzlis” (quasi-religious organization in exile) has an excellent relationship with and unhindered access to the German political establishment. Extremist leaders Mustafa Dzemilev and Renat Chubarov have been in close contact for years with officials of the German Foreign Ministry and other government figures.

While strengthening its relationship with the Medzlis, Berlin is pointedly ignoring that organization’s involvement in and encouragement of violence and ethnic cleansing. (Chubarov recently made threatening noises against Crimea’s Russian inhabitants, “advising” them to leave voluntarily now, before their presence is terminated in less pleasant ways.) Chubarov has, nevertheless been received at the German Foreign Ministry as a legitimate interlocutor. German officials have no problem conversing with an individual whose passionate disdain for Crimea’s civilian population led him and his partisans in the Ukraine to organize a trade blockade of the peninsula and then publicly take the credit for the resulting burdensome shortages and higher prices. (The worse the better, seems to be the moto of these pro-Western freedom fighters.) Neither did German officials take notice of the role of these “activists” in the blowing up of Crimean electric relays, thus inflicting another undeserved hardship on the general population they allegedly seek to “liberate” from Russian oppression.

As for Diana Kadi and her aspirations to address the German parliament to articulate her vision of the Crimean situation, the chances for that happening indeed appear to be very slim.

The Medzlis, which at the moment seems to be such a political darling of the West (a status also enjoyed by the Albanian Kosovar UCK [KLA] terrorists), acts pursuant to the instructions of its foreign sponsors. The Medzlis leadership works closely with other Western mercenaries of a similar ilk, such as the infamous Turkish Gray Wolves and Hizb-ut-Tahrir. (The latter “benign” outfit is described in Wikipedia as “an international, pan-Islamist political organization, which describes its ideology as Islam, and its aim as the re-establishment of the Islamic Khilafah or Islamic state.”) In January 2018, these extremists hurled Molotov coctails at the residence of the Crimean Tatar mufti Emirali Ablaev who, evidently, does not share their religious ideology. 

Yet, their terrorist dossier nothwithstanding a representative of one of these groups appears more likely at this point than Ms. Kadi to be allowed to address the Bundestag.

The Crimean Tatars’ fate during most of the last century has been tragic. It is a regrettable fact that a misguided portion of their population gave a friendly reception to the Nazi invaders in 1941, and elements of their ethnic and religious leadership did discredit themselves by collaborating with the occupation. After the end of World War II, at Stalin’s orders, Crimean Tatars were deported from the peninsula to some of the remotest regions of the USSR. However, in April of 2014 the nearly as maligned Vladimir Putin reversed Stalin’s collective exile decree and rehabilitated all Crimean ethnic groups punished by deportation for wartime collaboration. At present there are about 260,000 Crimean Tatars inhabiting the Crimea. That is about 10% of the population.  

At the same time, Moscow is implementing policies designed to make the Crimean Tatars feel comfortable living on the peninsula. The Crimean Tatar language has official status, equal to Russian and Ukrainian. Crimean Tatars are represented in all the peninsula’s significant institutions such as vice-president of the government, deputy head of parliament, deputy minister of culture, and deputy head of government of the autonomoys city of Simferopol. They have their own television and radio stations, broadcasting in their language, in the Crimea.

The Russian Federation has formulated a Crimea development program which is designed to radically reconfigure the peninsula by 2020, investing in it huge development funds. About two-thirds of the Federation’s development capital is earmarked for the Crimea. The enormous progress being made at all levels directly benefits all inhabitants of the Crimea, including the Tatars.

The relaxed and optimistic mood the Crimean Tatars is reflected in the construction of a mosque which is slated to become their most important cultural center. It will be built in Simferopol and will feature four minarets, each about 50 meters in height.

Crimean Tatars spent years seeking permission from the former Ukrainian authorities to build this mosque, but to no avail. It is now being done, after reunification with Russia. Why are Western “friends” loath to talk about it?

The exiled, Western-financed Medzlis leadership is attempting to organize its own “volunteer battaglion” in the Herson district of southern Ukraine, which borders on the Crimea. It is highly unlikely (to quote Theresa May in reverse) that the inhabitants of the area, who suffered extreme hardship because of the terrorist-instigated blockade, will welcome their self-proclaimed Medzlis “liberators” with open arms. 

The Medzlis, of course, is just one segment of the “fifth column” whose activities are aimed against Russia. The idea behind activating this vicious outfit is precisely to use it as an asset to generate Iraq-style terrorist mayhem, leading to the loss of thousands of mainly Muslim lives and generating bitterness that might accrues to the political benefit of the instigators.

Their human rights cant aside, NATO countries are utilizing the Crimean Tatars (in exactly the same way as Albanians and Bosnian Muslims in the Balkans) as one of their instruments in the new cold war they are unleashing on Russia. The “human rights” of the Crimean Tatars are to them a matter of complete indifference, except insofar as they are deemed useful to undermine Russia. But fortunately, those within the Crimean Tatar community who are willing to play NATO’s game are but a small and largely isolated minority. To the infinite chagrin of their perfidious foreign masters, their bark is bigger than their bite, for the moment at least.

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Stephen Karganovic is President of the Srebrenica Historical Project.

Why are thousands of Central Americans fleeing violence and economic devastation and flocking to the United States? Because of the American dream? Because the streets are paved in gold?

If you’ve been following us over the past year, you know we keep it real.

U.S. multi-national corporations’ and finance capital’s penetration of nations and control of peoples have wreaked the economic distortions, social violence, austerity and lack of democracy that push and pull people to leave their countries in search of security, peace and material survival.

Yet these issues are presented as if they just descended from the heavens.

What we are seeing is the inevitable and predictable consequences of the policies of successive U.S. administrations over the last three decades—all with the understanding that the neoliberal agenda would require a wall be built on the U.S.-Mexico border.

NAFTA caused the first wave of migration, wherein millions of farmers were uprooted, thousands of women were forced into the slave conditions of the Maquiladoras and thousands of men sought sometimes dangerous work in the United States and Canada.

Members of the Black Alliance for Peace (BAP) understand the link between the U.S.-backed coup in Honduras during the Obama administration and the subsequent violence and social instability that compelled so many to make the long trek from that embattled nation.

And we don’t forget the irony that the one nation in Central America in which conditions didn’t force people to leave is Nicaragua, a state now engulfed in an intensifying social conflict that many suggest is being supported by elements of the U.S. state and its affiliated institutions.

Migration is a class issue and migrants have human rights that must be protected. They don’t lose their human rights just because they cross a border and are “undocumented.” Unfortunately, U.S. officials’ understanding of what constitutes human rights is incredibly narrow. The United States doesn’t respect the human rights of migrants because they don’t even recognize the human rights of their own citizens. This was reflected in the recently released United Nations report on growing U.S. poverty.

BAP National Organizer Ajamu Baraka writes that this narrow understanding of human rights ensures the United States will continue to violate human rights

Here is an analysis that makes the link between war, economic exploitation and migration.

And while people are outraged—as they should be—that families were being busted up and children were being taken away and objectively imprisoned, it is important to note this classist and racist assault is not anything new for Black people. This leads BAP Coordinating Committee member and Black Agenda Report Senior Editor Margaret Kimberley to ask why the public has no sympathy for Black people.

No compromise.

No retreat.

Scott Gilmore has an extensive resume working as a diplomat, having served as a political officer for Global Affairs Canada, for the United Nations’ Office of the National Security Advisor, and as the Deputy Director for Asia for Canada’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade.

A writer, Gilmore has been writing extensively about Trump’s efforts to kick off a global trade war.

Writing for McLean’s Magazine, Gilmore has written about the need to bypass normal diplomacy when dealing with Trump.

Earlier this month Gilmore reported that:

French President Emmanuel Macron, who entertained President Trump with pomp, circumstance, and backslaps could not prevent him from abandoning the Paris Agreement. Germany’s persuasive Chancellor Angela Merkel could not stop him from undermining NATO. And our own government’s exhaustive diplomatic campaign has failed to protect us from the punishing steel tariffs… For Canada and the western allies, diplomatic success in the era of Trump has only meant delaying the inevitable. Eventually, with the inexplicable exception of Russia, Trump punches everyone in the nose.

And just how does that work? Continuing, Gilmore explained:

[Trump] can be successfully engaged, and countries like Ukraine, China, and Qatar have demonstrated this. When they want something from the United States, they skip the State Department… [and] focus on what Trump wants on a personal level – to enrich his family. So Beijing granted Ivanka trademarks, Qatar invested in one of Jared’s office towers, and Ukraine, with Slavic candor, simply wired half a million dollars to the President’s personal lawyer Michael Cohen.

Gilmore expanded on that idea in a follow-up article, suggesting that the target countries of Trump’s nationalist trade tariffs fight back by going after Trump’s personal assets and those of his family members instead of imposing tariffs nationwide on American companies.

Until this President, every previous modern occupant of the White House divested their assets upon assuming office. This eliminated the possibility personal business interests might benefit from political decisions. Conversely, it prevented others from threatening the President by attacking those assets. Trump, by refusing to give up his businesses, and by flagrantly violating the emoluments clause, has inadvertently handed us the perfect stick.

I propose that instead of taxing the import of American serviettes, we tax Trump. In the spirit of the Magnitsky Act, Canada and the western allies come together to collectively pressure the only pain point that matters to this President: his family and their assets. This could take the form of special taxation on their current operations, freezing of assets, or even sanctions against senior staff. Canada could add a tax to Trump properties equal to any tariff unilaterally imposed by Washington.  The European Union could revoke any travel visas for senior staff in the Trump organization. And the United Kingdom could temporarily close his golf courses.

Gilmore calls for a coordinated Canadian boycott targeting Trump and his family members

Last week, Gilmore took his idea to the next level, publishing a call for fellow Canadians to join him in hitting Trump and his family where it hurts the most – in their pocketbooks, publishing a list of companies to boycott that are either owned by Trump and his family or ones that sell or otherwise promote Trump goods and services.

“Let’s hit him where it hurts, shall we?” he wrote in the subtitle of the article.

Gilmore prefaced his call-to-action, writing:

You all have your reasons. Some are furious about domestic policies that lock child asylum seekers in cages. For others, it’s a foreign policy that supports Russia and denigrates allies. Maybe it’s just the man himself, who boasts of assaulting women. Or, it might even be the tariffs, sparking unnecessary trade wars that are killing jobs in the U.S. and abroad. Whatever the reason, you’re reading this because you want to hit back and hurt Trump in the only place he cares about – his wallet.

Continuing, Gilmore reiterated his earlier argument that effectively pushing back against Trump requires going after his personal assets and those of his family members.

He explained to his fellow Canadians that “targeted sanctions” imposed by governments “take time.” However, “[you] can move much faster and are far stronger than you realize. Just ask Roseanne Barr, who recently lost her job just hours after individual consumers threatened the ABC network with a boycott. These same market forces can be applied to Trump.”

Gilmore’s article concluded with a list of companies to boycott, “compiled with the assistance of data collected by the Grab Your Wallet campaign.”

Concluding his instructions, Gilmore noted that “There are four different ways Canadians can use this list:”

1. “Start by simply boycotting these businesses.
2. “Contact the company to explain why you are boycotting.
3. “Use social media like Twitter and Facebook to address these companies in public.
4. “Send this list to your like-minded friends so they can do the same.”

And the best part is that you can take this advice yourself and use this list whether you are Canadian or from the United States or any other individual who opposes the Trump regime.

Why wait for the midterm elections? Here’s something you can do today to put pressure on Trump’s lawless regime.

Click here for Gilmore’s list and you can click here for the Grab Your Wallet campaign.

The United States has frozen aid funds to the Palestinian Authority on Tuesday morning, according to Israeli Walla news.

The Hebrew language news outlet reporter that the aid has been suspended under the “Taylor Force Law,” which was passed in March of this year, and will prevent the Palestinian Authority from paying monthly stipends to families of killed, wounded and imprisoned Palestinians.

A Palestinian official confirmed the report, saying the Trump administration had told the PA in mid-January 2018 that it was reexamining its West Bank and Gaza aid budget.

The Israeli television also said that the move comes two months after the US Congress passed the Taylor Force Law, which aims to force the Palestinian Authority to stop its policy of paying the stipends of Palestinian prisoners and the families of Palestinians killed after or during attacks they carried out.

In the Palestinian society, the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) is responsible for providing financial assistance to families of those slain, injured, or imprisoned by Israeli forces.

Israeli news outlet Haaretz reported that, in January the US President Trump said that the U.S. may withhold future aid payments to the agency over what he called the Palestinians’ unwillingness to talk peace with Israel.

The U.S. pledged $370 million to the agency in 2016, a third of the agency’s budget, according to UNRWA’s website.

“The decision was made following a lengthy internal debate within the Trump administration. U.S. Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley pushed for a complete freeze of funding to UNRWA, unless the Palestinians commit to U.S.-mediated peace talks with Israel, while Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and other State Department officials warned that such a move would create a humanitarian crisis in Gaza, Jordan and the West Bank,” Haaretz added.

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Featured image is from Ma’an News Agency.

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – I had predicted after Trump’s announcement that he wanted to try to keep Muslims out of the United States that he might well have some success in that endeavor. Courts, as SCOTUS just showed once again, are reluctant to micro-manage the Executive on things like who can enter the country. Non-US citizens don’t have a constitutional right to visit the United States, so in principle the president can keep some persons out, especially if the State Department cooperates in declaring a security threat. In other words, Rudy Giuliani may be as loony as the Mad Hatter, but he knew exactly how to get Trump the racist Muslim ban he wanted and make it stick in the US system.

Ironically, the court decision came back the same days as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s upset win in the 114th Congressional district in New York. The 19th-century Protestant Know-Nothing conspiracy would have tried to exclude her from the US for being of Catholic heritage.

The travel ban upheld by a narrow majority on the Supreme Court causes untold heartache to Iranian-Americans, Yemeni-Americans, and other groups designated for exclusion. It also injures the First Amendment of the US constitution, which forbids the state to take a position on good and bad religion. It is a sad day that the full court did not agree with the Federal court in Hawaii, which made cogent arguments for the policy having originated in an intention to discriminate on the basis of religion, which is unconstitutional. It has nothing to do with security–the nationalities banned haven’t engaged in terrorism on US soil in this century. Most terrorism in the US is committed by white nationalists (many of whom support Trump).

US history is replete with racism as public policy. It has been more often our history than not, and the era since 1965 has been unusual inasmuch as there has been widespread public pushback against the use of race for policy purposes. Trump’s movement is an attempt to see whether that widespread US consensus of the past few decades can be reversed. Just as the Ku Klux Klan took over the Democratic Party in the 1920s, including the whole state of Indiana, so white nationalism has taken over the Republican Party today, including the GOP majority on SCOTUS.

As I have argued in the past, there have been at least 6 major times in American history when people were excluded on the basis of race or religion (religion is tied up with race in the racialist imaginary).

Here is my list, to which the Roberts court has just added our seventh:

1. Chinese Buddhists Both racism and religious bigotry built up toward Chinese-Americans brought in from 1849 to build the trans-American railroad. In 1882, Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act, the first time a whole people was excluded from the United States. In the prejudiced language of the day, that Chinese were Buddhists, Confucianists or Taoists, i.e. “pagans” or “heathens” from an Evangelical point of view, was one of the reasons they should be kept out of the country. The total exclusion lasted until 1943, when 100 Chinese a year began being admitted, which was not much different from total exclusion. In 1965 the Immigration Act ended racial and religious exclusions based on racism and religious fanaticism, including of Chinese. Chinese-Americans have made enormous contributions to the United States, despite the long decades during which they were excluded or disrespected.

2. Japanese Buddhists. In 1907-08, the US and Japan concluded a “gentlemen’s agreement” whereby Japan would limit the number of passports it issued to Japanese wanting to come to the United States. In turn, the city of San Francisco agreed to end the legal segregation of Japanese-Americans in that city (yes, they had their very own Jim Crow). Not satisfied with the agreement, in 1924 racist Congressmen ended Japanese immigration completely. This action angered Japan and set the two countries on a path of enmity.

3. Indian Hindus & Sikhs and other Asians. Not satisfied with measures against Buddhists, white Christians next went after Hindus and Sikhs. The 1917 Asiatic Barred Zone Act excluded from immigration everyone from the continent of Asia– it especially aimed at Indians, including especially Sikhs, but also Koreans, Vietnamese, Thai, Indonesians, etc. etc…mThe provision in the act barring “polygamists” was aimed at Muslims. Would-be Muslim immigrants were asked at their port of entry if they believed a man could have more than one wife, and if they said yes, were turned away.Japanese were not part of the act only because the Gentlemen’s Agreement already mostly excluded them. Filipinos were not excluded because the Philippines was then an American territory (i.e. colony).

4. Syrians-Lebanese. In the early 1920s, the Ku Klux Klan reappeared on the national stage and agitated against immigrants, Catholics, and Jews. The Klan infiltrated the Democratic Party and took it over, and won the whole state of Indiana. The racist 1924 Immigration act set country quotas based on the percentage of Americans from that country already present in 1890 . . . One consequence of basing the quotas on 1890 rather than, as was originally proposed, 1910, was that populations that came in big numbers during the Great Migration of 1880-1924 were often given low quotas. Populations that came in the eighteenth century or the mid-19th (e.g. in the latter case, Germans) had relatively large quotas. Syria-Lebanon (which were not separated until the French conquest of 1920) were given a quota of 100, even though tens of thousands of Lebanese came to the United States, 10% of them Muslim during the Great Migration. That community produced the great Lebanese-American writer and artist, Kahlil Gibran.

5. Other Middle Easterners, including Armenians. The 1924 Nazi-style quotas based on “race,” which mostly lasted until 1965, excluded most of the Middle East. The quota for Egypt? 100. Palestine? 100. Turkey? 100. Even the persecuted Armenians were given only 100 spaces annually. The racial hierarchies visible in the 1924 act fed into an increasing concern with eugenics, with fears of decadent races and a determination to strengthen the master race by forbidding intermarriage and even by experimenting on live human beings.

6. Jews. In the 1930s when it would have mattered, the US government excluded Jewish refugees from Nazi Germany from coming to America. I wrote elsewhere, “the US in the 1930s did betray its ideals as a refuge for people yearning to be free. The episode of the SS St Louis, a ship full of 900 Jewish refugees that got close enough to Miami to see its lights before being turned back to Europe, epitomized this failure. A third of the passengers were later murdered by the Nazis. One Jewish refugee the US did take in was Albert Einstein. How would we not have been better off if we’d had more like him?” Racists of that time argued that German Jews shouldn’t be admitted because Nazi agents might covertly exist among them . . .

The only way to undo Trump’s Muslim ban, and to begin to undo the untold damage he’s done to the country, is to organize and canvass and publish and elect the opposition in 2018 and 2020. The courts are not going to save us from Trumpism. The GOP Congress is not going to save us from Trumpism. Civility is not going to save us from Trumpism. We’re on our own, friends. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has shown the way.

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Featured image is from the author.

Over a decade ago, a disturbing trend among farmers in India captured headlines, as suicides among Indian farmers began to spiral out of control. Many of those farmers were indebted to giant agribusiness corporations like Monsanto, which – after gaining access to India’s seed sector in 1998 – enticed poor farmers to buy new “bioengineered” seeds every planting season along with the associated agro-chemicals required to grow them, promising bigger yields that would offset the costs.

When such benefits failed to materialize, many farmers – confronted with an ever-growing debt snowball – were faced with losing their land, leading many to take their lives by drinking the very same agro-chemicals that had helped trap them in debt. Though it has faded from the headlines, the crisis has continued unabated, with over 12,000 farmers in India still committing suicide every year.

While the crisis in India may seem a distant problem to many Americans, new reports have indicated that the U.S. is developing a farmer-suicide epidemic of its own.

A new report in CBS News notes that farmers in America now die at a rate higher than that of any other occupation and five times higher than that of the general population, even as the national suicide rate as a whole has jumped over the last few decades. As CBS notes, the increase in suicides mirrors a similar phenomenon in the 1980s, when U.S. farmers faced economic hardship related to debt, and suicides spiked.

Jennifer Fahy, communications director with Farm Aid, told CBS at the time that

“the farm crisis was so bad, there was a terrible outbreak of suicide and depression.”

Fahy now warns that the current situation is “actually worse.”

The newly reported increase in U.S. farmer suicides — much like the crisis for India’s farmers – is related to debt, specifically to global seed and agribusiness corporations that continue to raise prices as farmers’ incomes fall. Farm income has been dropping steadily since 2013, with the average this year set to be 35 percent less than it was five years ago. Meanwhile, farmers have seen a 300 percent price increase in recent years on products like seeds, fertilizer and agro-chemicals produced by giant agribusiness corporations like Monsanto, Cargill, Syngenta and others.

Many farmers in the U.S. are dependent on “bioengineered” seeds and their requisite chemicals, molded by decades of U.S. policy that pushed for farm consolidation and favored the adoption of these products. As a result, most American farmers have become dependent on these commodities and, because they must be purchased again every planting season, have been taking out loans just to be able to plant.

As Todd Eney, a fourth-generation farmer in central Montana, told Business Insider last month:

Our farm has been out here since 1935, and I’m 40 years old and I’ve watched a lot of small family farms in our area go under. They can’t compete because they can’t pay the price of input because of what these companies are wanting to charge for input now.”

The growing debt burden has been known for some time, with reports warning five years ago that U.S. farmers would be the next group to “be slammed by debt.” Yet now — in addition to the massive debt accumulated by many farmers — President Trump’s trade and tariff war, as well as the Federal Reserve’s raising of interest rates, have compounded to put even more financial pressure on the nation’s farmers.

Bayer-Monsanto merger leaves American farmers fearing worst is yet to come

Unfortunately, the situation for American farmers is soon likely to get much worse, thanks to the merger of agribusiness giants Monsanto and Bayer, which concluded earlier this month. The resulting mega-company now controls around a third of the U.S. seed and pesticide market and has inspired the other largest agribusinesses in the world to plan mergers, including Dow Chemical and DuPont. After the merger was announced, many farmers voiced their concerns that it would allow Bayer-Monsanto to consolidate even more of the seed market and use its privileged position to further increase prices.

Beyond an imminent jump in prices for farmers, the merger affects farmers in yet another way, as their products, time and again, have been shown to cause mass die-offs of farmers’ most important pollinator: bees. Many Bayer and Monsanto products have been found to harm bee populations, even in studies they themselves funded. As a result, over 340 native bee populations are facing extinction and over half of all bees in the U.S. are actively declining. With the bee population facing unprecedented die-offs, any worsening of their precarious situation will have a major impact on U.S. farms and, by extension, farmers.

With Bayer-Monsanto now the largest seed and agrochemical company in the world, its near monopoly on prices and its disregard for farmers and environmental health mean that the despair that has consumed India’s farmers will soon be planted in the United States.

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Whitney Webb is a staff writer for MintPress News and a contributor to Ben Swann’s Truth in Media. Her work has appeared on Global Research, the Ron Paul Institute and 21st Century Wire, among others. She has also made radio and TV appearances on RT and Sputnik. She currently lives with her family in southern Chile.

Syria will not allow Western investors to step into the rebuilding of war-damaged country as they only come to “take” from foreign economies, Syria’s Bashar Assad told Russian media, adding he will seek friendly aid instead.

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The United States has decided to no longer participate in the United Nations 47-member Human Rights Council (UNHRC). The number one reason cited by U.S. Ambassador Nikki Haley was that the council is unfairly critically focused on Israel. The United States had already left the U.N.’s cultural organization UNESCO last October, the last straw reportedly being when the organization named the city of Hebron on the West Bank a Palestinian World Heritage site, which Israel declared to be unacceptable. At that time, the number one reason cited by Haley for the withdrawal was that the organization was too critical of Israel.

Haley has also made a number of other comments relating to the United Nations and Israel. Immediately upon taking office she complained that “nowhere has the U.N.’s failure been more consistent and more outrageous than in its bias against our close ally Israel” and vowed that the “days of Israel bashing are over.” In February 2017, she blocked the appointment of former Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad to a diplomatic position at the United Nations because he is a Palestinian. In a congressional hearing she was asked about the decision:

“Is it this administration’s position that support for Israel and support for the appointment of a well-qualified individual of Palestinian nationality to an appointment at the U.N. are mutually exclusive?”

Haley responded yes, that the administration is “supporting Israel” by blocking every Palestinian.

There is clearly a disinclination on the part of the Trump Administration to support multinational bodies, evident in the rejection of climate, trade and non-proliferation agreements. Complete withdrawal from the United Nations is not unthinkable in the current climate, though the Democrats and some moderate Republicans would no doubt strongly resist such a move. In my opinion, the United Nations is a dystopian mess but it is better to have it than not as it provides a forum where nations that otherwise cannot meet are able too do so and discuss transnational issues. And it should be conceded that the U.N.’s inability to actually function is largely both structural and bureaucratic due to the veto power given to the Security Council’s five permanent members, a function that Nikki Haley has repeatedly used to stop resolutions that might be offensive to the United States or Israel.

Beyond that, Haley’s constant citation of concern for Israel gives strength to the suggestion that there is something unnatural about its bilateral “special” relationship with the United States. In the Middle East in particular, Israel would seem to be driving U.S. policy, particularly vis-à-vis Syria, Lebanon and Iran. Israel is intent on continuing political chaos in Syria lest there be a threat to its continued occupation of the Golan Heights and has warned about possible preemptive action in Lebanon to punish Hezbollah. It also wants the United States to deal decisively with Iran. By all accounts, those agendas are proceeding very well as Washington has been regularly threatening Iran and last week vowed to take military action if Damascus seeks to recover territory in the Syrian southwest that until recently was held by terrorists.

It is difficult to discern what the joint United States-Israeli strategy might be towards the United Nations and other international bodies. Neither has recognized the authority of the International Criminal Court in The Hague for fear that its own senior officials might be arrested and tried for war crimes. To be sure, both countries are protected against any serious challenges in the U.N. itself by the American veto power over the Security Council, which alone has the authority to mandate sanctions or peacekeeping operations.

But the U.S. withdrawal from U.N. agencies is, if anything, a sign of weakness rather than strength. If Washington were indeed confident in its own brand of international leadership it would welcome the opportunity to sit on panels and help shape the views of other countries with which it has a politically neutral or adversarial relationships. That it does not choose to do so suggests that there is an understanding that what Washington is selling no one is buying. The complete isolation of the United States at the United Nations and also elsewhere, to include G-7, was exhibited recently during June 1^st votes at the U.N. Security Council. A resolution sponsored by Kuwait seeking an inquiry into the Israeli killing of unarmed demonstrators in Gaza and a motion by Haley seeking to blame Hamas for the deaths both were voted on. Haley’s was the only vote against the former and the only vote in favor of the latter. She predictably commented afterwards that

“Further proof was not needed, but it is now completely clear that the U.N. is hopelessly biased against Israel.”

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Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is www.councilforthenationalinterest.org, address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is [email protected].

Dr. Giraldi is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is from the author.

The order reflects a window of justice, perhaps a pyrrhic triumph – way overshadowed by Trump regime, congressional hardliners, and Supreme Court harshness, hostile to unwanted aliens, uncaring about constitutionally guaranteed due process and equal protection rights – mandated for everyone in America, a tough challenge to overcome.

On Tuesday, California federal district court judge Dana Sabraw ruled against separating family members of unwanted immigrants.

He issued a preliminary injunction, ordering children under age-five reunited with parents within 14 days, all separated family members within 30 days.

The ruling followed the Supreme Court’s unconstitutional support for Trump’s travel ban. Sabraw also banned all future family separations affecting unwanted aliens, unless a parent is judged unfit or doesn’t want to be with his or her child.

He ordered the Trump regime to provide phone contact between parents and children within 10 days.

His ruling followed the ACLU’s class action lawsuit to end family separations and immediately reunite children with parents.

It accused the Trump regime of subjecting thousands of children to “irreparable trauma,” along with holding them as hostages, denying reunion with parents unless they voluntarily signed a deportation order.

The ACLU denounced the cruel and inhuman treatment of unwanted aliens and their children “to sabotage the legal claims of people seeking refuge.”

Republicans and undemocratic Dems don’t give a hoot about preserving and protecting the fundamental rights of US citizens.

Who can believe Speaker Paul Ryan saying GOP lawmakers “want to keep families together,” the party doing nothing to help them and alien minor “dreamers” with them controlling Congress.

A previous article discussed GOP anti-immigration reform legislation, leaving the issue festering unresolved.

Instead of protecting “dreamers” and ending family separations, it continues both unacceptable practices.

Trump and congressional hardliners are militantly hostile to unwanted aliens because of their race, ethnicity and/or religion. Unwelcome in America, they’re treated harshly to discourage others from coming.

Undemocratic Dems acted the same way during the neoliberal 90s and during Obama’s deplorable tenure.

Judge Sabraw in his ruling accused governance in Washington of a “chaotic” mess of its “own making,” adding:

US officials “measured and ordered governance, which is central to the concept of due process, is enshrined in our constitution.”

The Justice Department hasn’t commented on his ruling so. ACLU immigrants’ rights project deputy director Lee Gelernt argued the case.

His optimism may be overblown, saying

“(t)his ruling is an enormous victory for parents and children who thought they may never see each other again.”

“Tears will be flowing in detention centers across the country when the families learn they will be reunited.”

For how many affected families for how long remains unclear. The Trump regime appealed lower court rulings until it got the Supreme Court to uphold its travel ban.

Unwanted aliens have no friends in Washington among the leaders of both parties – beholden solely to wealth, power and privileged interests, no one else.

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

Syrian government forces have cleared over 5,200km2 of the Deir Ezzor desert of ISIS cells, the Syrian General Command said on June 27.

The Syrian Arab Army (SAA) and its allies launched a military operation in the area on June 20. The rapid progress in the desert can be explained by the lack of resistance from the ISIS cells, which had mostly withdrawn towards the Homs desert.

The SAA and the Tiger Forces liberated the villages of Mulayha al-Sharqiyah, Mulayha al-Gharbiyah, Nahitah and Samma al-Hneidat in the eastern part of Daraa province from Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (formerly Jabhat al-Nusra) and its allies and entered the village of al-Hirak.

According to reports, 450 members of the Free Syrian Army also surrendered to the SAA amid the government advance.

Meanwhile, the ISIS-affiliated Khalid ibn al-Walid Army and units of the US-backed FSA reached a ceasefire agreement in southern Syria, according to a report by the news outlet Nedaa Syria.

The ceasefire has not been officially announced, but no recent fighting between the sides has been reported. It is interesting to note that the agreement comes amid the ongoing SAA military operation in Daraa thus once again showing how so-called moderate opposition groups can reach an understanding with ISIS when necessary.

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Featured image: UK Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn visits Baqa’a, the largest Palestinian refugee camp in Jordan, on 23 June 2018 [File photo]

Israel is seeking with all its weight and supportive lobby to demonise Jeremy Corbyn. He is facing a campaign in Britain accusing him of anti-Semitism and arrows are being shot in his back from the right side of his party, the Labour Party, represented by the heirs and orphans of the former British Prime Minister Tony Blair and from circles loyal to Israel. These two groups are also targeting both the left wing trend he has adopted and his support for the rights of the Palestinian people.

Anti-Semitism and Palestinian advocacy are often confused deliberately in the ranks of the European left wing in general and in Britain in particular. Many people classify Corbyn as part of the radical left wing. He faced a so-called coup within the Labour Party, which he heads, after Britain voted to leave the European Union.

Jeremy Corbyn, born in 1949 in Chippenham, was elected to the British House of Commons in 1983 as an MP for London’s Islington North district. He was arrested in 1984 outside the South African embassy after violating a protest ban during Apartheid.

In 2015 he was elected to head the Labour Party, winning 59.9 per cent of the vote, reaching the minimum number of votes needed to win during the first round. He moved from the backbenches in the House of Commons, where he served 32 years, to the forefront of the party in a surprise move that still stuns many.

As soon as Corbyn’s victory was announced, the Israeli media fiercely attacked him, accusing him of being anti-Semitic and criticising him for not considering Hamas a terrorist organisation. They also criticised his promise to impose a ban on selling arms to Israel if he is elected prime minister.

Israel’s Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper noted Corbyn’s call for conducting international investigations to convict Israel of war crimes against humanity in the Gaza Strip and Lebanon, as well as his vow to issue an apology for his country’s participation in the Iraq war under Tony Blair’s leadership. He also said it was time for the Labour Party to apologise to the British people for dragging them into a war in Iraq based on a ploy and to the Iraqi people for the devastation caused. He also called for involving Hamas and Hezbollah in the peace negotiations in the Middle East.

The first decision made by Corbyn after his victory was announced was to participate in a protest supporting refugees organised by various organisations and movements. He called on the government to “open your hearts and open your minds and open your attitude towards supporting people who are desperate, who need somewhere safe to live, want to contribute to our society, and are human beings just like all of us”. He rejected harsh treatment of immigrants, saying they contributed to the development of Britain. He supported the reception of refugees and called on the government to help them, taking his cue from Germany.

Corbyn is considered a peace activist and a member of the Stop the War Coalition and the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament Campaign. He quoted senior military figures describing his country’s nuclear weapons as militarily useless.

In his speeches Corbyn focuses on his support towards the poor and the marginalised, supporting the country’s social welfare system, the party’s unity in the coming phase and his willingness to cooperate with everyone so that the party will once again lead be victorious in the elections.

The Labour Party saw a strong turnout in the run-up to the party’s presidential election, a move many attributed to the ability of Corbyn and his programme to attract various popular and youth segments of the party.

However, this did not prevent his opponents, even inside the party, from taking positions against him. Many analysts continued to ask questions regarding the party’s future in light of his unconventional new leadership and if he would be able to win in the general elections scheduled for 2020 and then form a government and govern the country. They raised questions of whether he would move strongly to the left, leaving the centre to the ruling conservatives to expand into, while the Labour Party moves back to the second or third level.

The party passed its first test after Corbyn’s victory in the form of the election of the party’s candidate, Muslim MP Sadiq Khan as Mayor of London, beating the Conservative Party’s Boris Johnson who won the position in 2008. However, Corbyn was accused of failing in the referendum conducted regarding Britain’s remainder in the European Union even though the Labour Party is considered to be among the most prominent supporters of Britain’s continued membership in the EU.

Some members of the party and others outside the party considered the result of the vote to be catastrophic for Labour. Internally, the voices opposed to Corbyn are leading a group considered by the British media to be an attempt at a coup.

Corbyn did not come from the traditional background of British politics, as he belongs to a family known for their human rights activism. Even growing up, he did not get involved in political work as much as he got involved in human rights activism. He is known for his adoption of the far-left ideology, which prompted him to dedicate his career to defending the working class and the rights of minorities and the marginalised in British society. Despite the fact that he is not financially or socially classified as working class, some in Britain call him a working class hero.

Corbyn has grown accustomed to going against the current, as after he graduated from secondary school he joined a local British newspaper and did not focus on his studies at university. He did not graduate from a prestigious British university like Oxford or Cambridge, but instead left university to volunteer in Jamaica for two years. He then started his career in human rights until he was voted in as an MP in 1984.

Before attending his first session he appeared before the House of Commons to respond to the criticism by other MPs because he did not wear a “proper suit” when he went to parliamentary meetings. He said he was wearing a jacket his mother sewed for him herself and there was no need to spend time and money on choosing his clothes and a proper suit because, as he said, the British parliament is not a club for elegant men, but a place where MPs represent their constituents – the British people.

The man who comes from outside the limelight and outside the Downing Street elites on the shoulders of the unionists and the supporters of the traditional left wing who are frustrated by the policies of Tony Blair and his successors, is preparing for Britain’s leadership while Teresa May, leader of the Conservative Party and the prime minister is preparing to leave 10 Downing Street.

In the event of May’s departure the British people will be faced with two non-traditional British politicians. The first is her rival in the party, Boris Johnson, who is a part of the right wing that leans towards extremism. He is known for his hostility towards Muslims and is very similar to US President Donald Trump and the leaders of the populist wave that have swept the world recently. The second is Jeremy Corbyn, leader of the Labour Party, who comes from outside the traditional elite, and who is well known to us in the Arab world as a friend and politician who is extraordinary, honest and courageous.

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This article first appeared in Arabic in Assabeel on 25 June 2018.

2018 is the 70th anniversary of the Nakba (Palestinian catastrophe) which started before the state of Israel was created and continues today.

In 1948, 1.4 million Palestinians lived in 1,300 Palestinian towns and villages all over historical Palestine. More than 800,000 of the population were driven out of their homeland to the West Bank and Gaza Strip, neighboring Arab countries, and other countries of the world. Zionists managed to take over the lands from 774 towns and villages and destroyed 531 Palestinian towns and villages between 1948 to 1950 In that period Zionist forces also committed more than 70 massacres in which more than 15 thousands Palestinians were killed…

Prof. Mazin Qumsiyeh, May 15, 2018

For more analysis consult Prof. Mazin Qumsiyeh’s chapter on “refugees”  in his 2004 book on “Sharing the Land of Canaan”.

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Notes from the Massoud Nayeri:

• This is the modified Nakba artwork which I designed in 2011 when the first massive Palestinians attempt to Return had started.
• The Key: symbol of returning home
• The combination of key and map: to show number 4 in 1948
• The shape of 8 (in 1948): This is to resemble Handala the famous and beloved character of the late Naji Al-Ali, Palestinian cartoonist.
• The red flame: to show that the flame of resistance and sacrifices of Palestinians is alive and burning.
• The word Nakba in English and Arabic.

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Dr. Mazin Qumsiyeh is Founder and Director of the Palestine Museum of Natural History.

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

Featured image is from the author.

It is very difficult to define political art. Views on what makes art political can range from the idea that all art is political (i.e. it either implicitly supports or explicitly opposes the status quo) to pointing out, for example, the obviously political murals on walls around Belfast. As a way of narrowing the former and broadening the latter I suggest here a view of political art that uses three categories: Portrayal, Promotion, or Projection.

Portrayal

In the first category ‘Portrayal’ covers art that says ‘this is what happens if, is happening now or happened in the past’. This kind of art describes events or situations that people find themselves in as a result of social or political structures. Any political perspective is implicit in the art but is also free-floating. For example, a painting of a white man whipping black slaves describes a particular situation where the black man may say, ‘Yes! That is how we are treated!’ yet the slave-owner may say, ‘Yes! That is the way to treat them!’ Thus both sides can see the confirmation of their point of view in the work of art.

For the slaves, the ultimate effect of such art may be positive or negative. In a positive sense it may create group awareness and solidarity, or, in a negative sense, it could also consolidate inertia, a feeling that nothing can be done to change the situation. The art styles or movements of Realism, Social Realism and Naturalism could fit into the category of ‘

Promotion

In the second category of ‘Promotion’ ways and means towards the resolution of the problem are presented. That is, a particular aspect of an event is highlighted over other aspects. This aspect would concentrate on the people or groups who are actively struggling to change the situation in which they find themselves.

Thus one view of an event, that which would encourage others or strengthen an activism already present, is promoted over images of the event that may have the opposite effect. In this case, the politics of representation takes precedence over the representation of politics.

Unlike ‘Portrayal’, this type of art is harder to manipulate from an opposing point of view. The politics is generally explicit and can have a positive inspirational effect. The art styles or movements of Socialist Realism and ‘Political Art’ (e.g. murals, banners, posters etc.) and Social Realism to a certain extent could fit into the category of ‘Promotion’.

Eviction Scene Henry Jones Thaddeus (1889) [source History Ireland]

[In this painting above the artist represents an eviction scene from inside the house as the occupants try to deal with the fire and defend themselves from the police. The ‘politics of representation’ may be seen here in the compositional dominance given to the defenders and the very small area given over to the intruding police. The type of view we are more familiar with is of the landlord, police and passive onlookers dominating the scene from outside the house – compare eviction scene below.]

Eviction in the West of Ireland Aloysius O’Kelly (1881) [source History Ireland]

Projection

In the third and last category ‘Projection’ refers to art that takes disparate elements and then recombines them to form a new image. It is an art which says ‘This is what could happen or could be if …’. Art styles or movements such as Surrealism, collage, utopian or visionary images would fit into this category. Such speculative art can have a positive effect of providing inspiration by suggesting ideas that are outside one’s usual ways of thinking, and can be implicitly or explicitly political.

For example, a picture showing the Rock of Cashel (ancient fortress in Co. Tipperary, Ireland) with a Japanese Shinkansen bullet train speeding by may be a jarring conjunction of images but suggests the possibility of a super fast transport system in Ireland. Therefore it has social and economic implications for the Irish State which in turn makes it implicitly political.

However, like in the first category Portrayal, opposing political viewpoints can claim this image for their vision of the future. The same scene would be explicitly political though, if, for example,  ‘Workers of the world unite’ was written on the side of the Shinkansen.

Thus it can be seen from the above categories that the representation of particular actions or the inclusion of particular types of text ties an image down to an explicitly political perspective. The past, present and future, with some overlapping, are also covered in this way of seeing or defining political art.

Caoimhghin Ó Croidheáin is a prominent Irish artist who has exhibited widely around Ireland. His work consists of drawings and paintings and features cityscapes of Dublin, images based on Irish history and other work with social/political themes (http://gaelart.net/). He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG). An earlier version of this article was published in 2010.

There is nothing about the U.S. Supreme Court’s 5-4 decision in Janus v. AFSCME to overturn 41 years of precedent and declare that agency fee/fair share is unconstitutional that surprised me. Watching the tendency of the conservative majority it would have been a miracle for them to have decided otherwise. Perhaps, if they had been true to their alleged conservative principles, they would have decided that the matter of whether public sector unions could negotiate agreements with governmental entities that provided for represented – though non-union – workers to pay their share for representation, was a matter for the states. But as we have seen over time, there are few principles that the Right-wing feels bound to respect.

Much will be written about the Janus v. AFSCME decision in the coming days and months by people far more learned than this writer. Nevertheless it felt important to make note of one critical issue: the matter at stake had nothing to do with the First Amendment.

Unions: Fairly and Equitably Represent All Workers

The Court majority suggests that agency fees paid by non-members challenges the freedom of speech of workers who choose not to join a labor union. As the Court minority points out, in their dissent, that is not the issue. Unions do not inhibit the freedom of speech of members or non-member agency fee payers. Labor unions do have a statutory right to fairly and equitably represent all workers in a given bargaining unit, i.e., within a particular jurisdiction where common interests have been identified. In fact, labor unions are, by law, the exclusive representatives of workers in a certified bargaining unit, i.e., there cannot be another union representing the same workers.

The matter before the Court really came down to whether workers who are represented by a union have an obligation to contribute toward the cost of representation. In any other institution the matter would be simple. If, for instance, you live in a town or city and you are required to pay taxes, you do so in order to cover the collective costs of that jurisdiction. Individuals cannot declare one day that as a result of differences with a government body that they should be able to avoid taxes. Yes, people have tried that route and there is not a good ending to that story.

In the case of labor unions, they have been granted by law the right and duty to represent workers in a given economic jurisdiction – a bargaining unit. Workers in the public sector are not obligated to join the union but the compromise that was established, and been in operation for 41 years in many states that permit public sector unionism, was that those who choose not to join contribute toward representation costs. Thus, an individual worker who decides not to join the union may, nevertheless, face an issue for which they need representation. Representation costs money. A case may go to arbitration, for instance, which can be very expensive. There may be issues that have to be litigated in court. Indeed, an issue may need to go to a legislative body. These steps can be very expensive. The Supreme Court majority knows this and, essentially, what they said today is that they do not give a damn.

The objective of the Court majority, along with their political allies, has always been the destruction of labor unions. Of course they will not confirm that, but their actions have been continuously telegraphed. Janus is a decision that aims to weaken the ability of public sector unions to represent their respective workforces. As the Supreme Court majority knows, from any assessment of “open shop” situations, when a union is compelled – at its own cost – to represent workers that they must represent by law, their resources are drained.

The moves toward “open shop,” that is, no forms of union security, have been underway for a long time. There have been, throughout the history of labor unions in the USA, periodic offensives by the employer class to either eliminate unions altogether or weaken them significantly. In the current moment, at the federal, state, county and municipal levels, public sector unions are perceived as an obstacle to the political Right and much of corporate America that seeks to eliminate the social safety net, privatize all that can be privatized, and weaken government to the point that its only relevance is in the realm of police, fire, prisons and, of course, the military.

Fight or Die

Too many unions were in utter denial about the danger of the continuous “open shop” offensives. They assumed that this would not happen in either the public or private sector. In some of the worst cases they relied on agency fee payers rather than recruiting all agency fee payers into the unions as full members. The labor unions in the U.S. Postal Service have demonstrated that one can be successful in organizing in an open shop environment. Several of the bargaining councils in the American Federation of Government Employees have also demonstrated this.

Now the issue of the transformation of labor unions into militant, forward-thinking and social justice institutions has become an immediate challenge. For years most of the leadership of organized labor believed that union transformation could be punted or, at best, resolved through simply organizing more members. The Supreme Court’s majority has now demonstrated that we have only two choices: fight or die. And fighting means becoming organizations that are constantly speaking on behalf of workers, whether in our ranks or not, demonstrating each day that our movement is a movement grounded in the struggle for social and economic justice. Case in point: the teacher union insurgencies that we have seen over 2018.

Janus is not the end of the story. It is the end of a chapter.

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This article was originally published on billfletcherjr.com.

Bill Fletcher, Jr., co-founder of the Center for Labor Renewal, is a media columnist and long-time activist. He served as President of TransAfrica Forum and was formerly the Education Director and later Assistant to the President of the AFL-CIO.

Featured image is from The Bullet.

Angela Merkel’s continued position as chancellor now appears untenable as a result of two significant policy failures. 

1. Europe’s migration crisis in which Merkel played a pivotal role by admitting over one million refugees from Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan, in 2015, during her controversial open border migration policy, has caused a surge in support for Right-wing political parties throughout Europe. Although she has now belatedly admitted that Germany had insufficient border controls.

Her policy has caused outrage among many Europeans who fear an unacceptable reduction in job prospects and social services including education, medical and housing. Plus the real fear of an increase in urban crime in major city conurbations. This is a crisis that reflects the concern of Germany’s electorate over the impact of Merkel’s disastrous asylum strategy.

2. The second grave policy error was the unilateral decision to alter the balance of global power by supplying Israel with a fleet of German-built, Dolphin class submarines that she knew would be immediately retrofitted by the Netanyahu government with nuclear cruise missiles giving the Israeli state a second strike capability which Germany itself does not possess, thereby potentially endangering European/ NATO security.

For these reasons alone, Merkel is now past her ‘sell-by date’.  Germany needs a new chancellor with policies that will co-ordinate an acceptable EU solution for the movement of goods and people but one that would also preserve national identities and state security.   The EU is about to undergo significant change, and not only due to Brexit.

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

Global Research is independent in the true sense of the word. We don’t receive funding from war-makers and “banksters”, therefore our news is free of corporate agendas. This is only possible thanks to our readers who show their commitment to the truth by sending in donations, creating memberships and purchasing books from our online store in order to get in-depth information on today’s pressing issues.

To help us in continuing to deliver the “stories behind the stories”, please consider showing your support for Global Research. Empowerment now means peace for the future. We can do this together.

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Supreme Court Upholds Trump’s Travel Ban

By Stephen Lendman, June 27, 2018

His policy has nothing to do with protecting national security, nothing about screening out “radical Islamic terrorists” Washington created and supports – everything to do with hyping fear, justifying endless wars, keeping unwanted Muslims out of America, along with Venezuelan officials and North Koreans.

Anti-Muslim Bigotry Is Now US Law

By CJ Werleman, June 27, 2018

Another cause for genuine alarm is the fact that the Supreme Court vindicated Trump’s Muslim ban based on concerns for “national security”. You don’t need to be a historian to know that a great majority of the world’s worst atrocities have been carried out in the name of “national security”, including the Soviet purges, the Holocaust, the US Japanese civilian internment camps and the campaigns of ethnic cleansing taking place in Myanmar, Palestine, Syria and elsewhere today.

The Supreme Court Ignores the Reality of President Trump’s Discriminatory Muslim Ban

By Cody Wofsy, June 27, 2018

The Supreme Court today rejected the challenge to President Trump’s Muslim Ban. In its 5-to-4 decision, the court failed to make good on principles at the heart of our constitutional system — including the absolute prohibition on official disfavor of a particular religion. The fight against the ban will continue, but the court’s decision is devastating. History will not be kind to the court’s approval of an unfounded and blatantly anti-Muslim order.

A Children’s Gitmo on the Border

By Karen J. Greenberg, June 27, 2018

Just such separations, of course, became the well-publicized essence of the Trump administration’s “zero tolerance” policy at the border and, until the president’s executive order issued last week, the numbers of children affected were mounting exponentially — more than 2,000 of them in the previous six weeks, some still in diapers. (And keep in mind that there already were 11,000 migrant children in U.S. custody at that point.)

Why Do They Flee?

By William Blum, June 27, 2018

Those in the US generally opposed to immigration make it a point to declare or imply that the United States does not have any legal or moral obligation to take in these Latinos. This is not true. The United States does indeed have the obligation because many of the immigrants, in addition to fleeing from drug violence, are escaping an economic situation in their homeland directly made hopeless by American interventionist policy.

Immigration: Western Wars and Imperial Exploitation Uproot Millions

By Prof. James Petras, June 27, 2018

The US invasions and wars in Afghanistan and Iraq uprooted several million people, destroying their lives, families, livelihood, housing and communities and undermining there security.

As a result, most victims faced the choice of resistance or flight.  Millions chose to flee to the West since the NATO countries would not bomb their residence in the US or Europe.

Take off the “feel good” Alt-Media glasses and face the facts, sanctions are very successful in inflicting Hybrid War harm against victimized states, which is an “inconvenient reality” that Iran’s being reminded of right now.

Contrary to the “politically correct” Alt-Media dogma that sanctions “only make states stronger”, some of them are inevitably destabilized by this asymmetrical weapon whenever it takes on Hybrid War dimensions, as it currently is in Iran.

The Islamic Republic is being besieged from within due to the external encouragement of the time-tested tool of speculation as a means for influencing the country’s financial and currency markets, with the result being that economically driven protests are spreading throughout the country’s capital and into other cities as well. These aren’t the first such mass demonstrations this year because Iran earlier had to deal with large-scale protests over similar issues roughly six months ago, which were also sparked by civil society’s discontent and ended up being guided  by largely unseen foreign hands in the direction of destabilization, too.

The Spurious Kurdish Connection

The same phenomenon is repeating itself once again, albeit possibly with the intent of transforming the previous “test run” into the “real thing”, or in other words, seeing foreign state actors (mostly the US & Saudi Arabia) providing clandestine military support to urban and rural terrorist/”insurgent” forces in order to provoke a self-sustaining cycle of escalation that could be manipulated for geopolitical ends. Last winter’s unrest could in hindsight be seen as a probe for gauging the government’s response and testing the limits of what could “acceptably” be done before eliciting a reaction from the security forces. Armed with this contextual Color Revolution knowledge, they then proceeded to experiment with their modified techniques in Iranian Kurdistan, which has a militant history of preexisting identity discord and is therefore the most susceptible part of the country to Hybrid War.

The authorities cracked down on smuggling in this region in early spring, but this had the effect of prompting protests by the impoverished locals who complained that they couldn’t receive much-needed supplies at the prices that they had previously depended on. Moreover, the Kurdish population was already predisposed to more political assertiveness following the nationalist demonstration effect that they observed in neighboring Iraqi Kurdistan last fall after the region’s unsuccessful independence attempt. The cocktail of nationalist and economic concerns created fertile ground for demagogues to argue that the entire population should take to the street in order to resist the government’s anti-smuggling crackdown. Although disconnected from the current events in Tehran, the Mainstream Media narrative will predictably be that this new round of protests originated in Iranian Kurdistan and have since spread nationwide.

The “Zero Tolerance” Chain Reaction

The present events are driven more by speculation (whether unfounded or not) than anything else because many people are worried that Trump’s unilateral withdrawal from the 2015 nuclear deal, the reimposition of sanctions, and subsequent November deadline for the world to stop purchasing Iranian oil will totally wreck their economy and lead to a sharp decrease in living standards. After all, the US’ “zero tolerance” policy of refusing to issue any “secondary sanctions” waivers to China and India – Iran’s two largest energy partners – might lead to them curtailing their oil imports in order to avert a more pronounced trade war with America. Should this happen, then the US would succeed in Asia against Iran where it failed in Europe against Russia by significantly dipping into its opponent’s market share and therefore depriving it of much-needed cash revenue.

Making matters even more pronounced is that many Iranians, and particularly those in the urban areas such as Tehran, genuinely believed in the false hopes that the “reformist”-led Rouhani government encouraged in their hearts after the 2015 deal that convinced them that their personal futures would be brighter than ever before. Whether this was a deception all along or just a terrible and mismanaged policy to begin with, the fact of the matter is that many people feel deeply disappointed by what happened and might be less willing to passively accept a worsening of their living conditions no matter how much the government says that Trump is solely responsible for this. The knock-off effect of this speculation is that the value of the Iranian rial has plunged and everything is now naturally more expensive for everybody.

Screenshot from Reuters, June 25, 218

In response, the authorities banned the import of 1300 products in a bid to boost Iran’s “resistance economy” of “Make in Iran” import-substitution, though it may take an undetermined length of time for this policy to reap actual results in placating the anxious and protesting masses. In the meantime, a “window of opportunity” has opened up for external forces to exacerbate the economically driven internal unrest in an attempt to steer it towards a geopolitical direction. The government is well aware of this scheme and that’s why the Ayatollah decreed that “economic security” must be safeguarded at all costs in order to prevent this manufactured crisis’ exacerbation and the US’ resultant artificial recreation of the same series of events that led to the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

Recreating The Revolution

The Shah’s primary weakness wasn’t so much that he was an authoritarian ruler, but that he failed to improve the economy to the point where the majority of the population wouldn’t care about political issues because everything was comfortably taken care of for them. Economic protests eventually spiraled out of control after the state resorted to using its monopoly on violence against peaceful demonstrators, therefore triggering a self-sustaining escalation cycle that never abated no matter how hard the government tried. This quickly led to the Shah’s overthrow, which was soon thereafter taken advantage of by the Ayatollah in order to usher in an Islamic Republic on the backs of the many leftist protesters who made the revolution happen in the first place.

Adapting this model to the present day, the US is hoping that the state security forces either overreact to the economic protests (some degree of which are being directly and indirectly influenced from abroad) or are pressed into do so by the most unruly rioters’ provocations, which could then set into motion the “revolutionary” Hybrid War cycle that could see the Islamo-Marxist MEK terrorists becoming the vanguard force for destabilizing the Iranian state at the behest of its US and Saudi patrons. Accordingly, this could spark the series of cascading scenarios elaborated on by the author in his July 2016 analytical forecast about “The US-Saudi Plan To Prompt An Iranian Pullback From Syria” that include the foreign empowerment of ethno-regional terrorist/”insurgent” groups all around the Persians’ periphery.

The end goal of the ongoing Hybrid War on Iran is the same as it always has been, and that’s to advance the interconnected objectives of Regime Tweaking, Regime Change, and Regime Reboot (R-TCR). This phased progression of asymmetrical pressure first seeks to compel the targeted state, which in this case is Iran, into unilateral political concessions such as downscaling its physical and ideological presence in its Mideast “sphere of influence” in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, and Yemen before ultimately withdrawing just like the 1980s USSR did its Eastern European “sphere of influence” in the late 1980s. Should that be unsuccessful, then the next step is to try and overthrow the government prior to “rebooting” its entire state structure through “constitutional reform” that “Balkanizes” it into “Identity Federalized” components that can be more “easily managed” through classic divide-and-rule means.

The Way Forward 

Bearing this grand strategy in mind and the invaluable experiences that the US & its allies acquired over the past half a year through “test runs”, it should be anticipated that Iran’s adversaries are going to “twist the knife” through concerted economic (sanctions) and asymmetrical (terrorist) warfare measures in order to throw the Islamic Republic into Hybrid War chaos through the triggering of the self-sustaining cycle of escalation that was discussed earlier. Iran runs the very real risk of becoming embroiled in a serious conflict if it doesn’t regain control of the strategic dynamics at play, to which end it must take care not to overreact to provocations but should nevertheless demonstrate resolve when responding to them. Furthermore, the state must clearly explain to the people how it plans to implement its “resistance economy” and what “collective sacrifices” this entails.

Concurrent with this, an information campaign must be initiated whereby the state informs the people about the geopolitical motivations and practical mechanisms for externally exploiting their domestic economic situation, taking partial responsibility for some policy failings and prevailing naiveté in making the country more vulnerable to these asymmetrical attacks. It’s impractical at this point to blame everything solely on Trump – whether wholly justified in doing so or not – because it doesn’t change anything in tangible terms for the people who are suffering or stand to suffer the most, especially after their unrealistically high hopes from 2015 were dramatically dashed by the cold slap of unipolarity. It’s possible that the state might quietly make Russian-facilitated “compromises” in Syria in an effort to alleviate the heavy pressure being put on it, but even this wouldn’t likely be enough to earn much relief.

Therefore, the only sustainable solution is for Iran to unapologetically embrace the Golden Ring of Multipolar Great Powers by redirecting its strategic focus eastward in response to the multifaceted challenges facing it on the western front in the aforementioned domains of its Mideast “sphere of influence”. It’s not to say that Iran should “surrender” its hard-fought influence in these countries, but just that it needs to reconceptualize its role in Eurasia and urgently begin exploring real-sector economic opportunities in the supercontinent in order to “balance” its hitherto ideologically-driven foreign policy that has yet to yield the profits that its people need in order to withstand this latest Hybrid War siege. The context of this latest coordinated effort at regime change is vastly different than what Iran experienced in the 1980s given the changed international (New Cold War) and domestic (economic and demographic) conditions, which is why a radical policy readjustment might be necessary.

Concluding Thoughts

It’s no longer possible to downplay the economic unrest in Iran and completely attribute it to foreign forces because the highly publicized shutdown of the Tehran bazaar attests to the very real nature of what’s happening. There’s undoubtedly an external hand involved in manipulating the structural circumstances in which regular Iranians have found themselves, but observers can’t overlook the fact that well-intentioned people are nevertheless still participating in these events in spite of that as they protest their deteriorating living standards and desperately attempt to stave off what they’ve been speculatively led to believe will be their continued worsening in the future. Having learned from the two “test runs” that took place at the beginning of the year in urban locales across the country and then later on in rural Iranian Kurdistan, the US and its allies have acquired a keen sense of understanding over how they could guide developments in the direction of their grand strategic interests.

The danger is that massive apolitical protests by a majority of peaceful people will be hijacked by a few terrorist/”insurgent” provocateurs who try their utmost to trick the state into a militant overreaction that could inevitably lead to the loss of civilian life, after which the “Rules For Radicals” decontextualization and subsequent reframing of the situation as “unprovoked killings by the dictatorship’s security services” could fuel a self-sustaining cycle of violence. Building off of the intermittent disturbances in Iranian Kurdistan, the country’s enemies could then exploit this region as the epicenter of Hybrid War destabilization by encouraging the return of Kurdish jihadis and the MEK-facilitated arming of the “Kurdish Democratic Party of Iran” (whose leader just visited Washington). From there, it may be possible to spark other peripheral “insurgencies” that divert the attention of the security services and open the state up to an unexpected blow at either a predetermined moment or the “right opportunity”.

The end goal is to overthrow the mullah-managed republic and replace it with an “Identity Federation” that makes the “New Iran” incomparably easier to control through divide-and-rule means, though this won’t happen so long as the country continues to resist the Hybrid War against it. The security services have repeatedly proven their capability in handling all manner of threats, but the government must spearhead an economic solution for sustaining its military gains and ensuring the continued “compliance” of the population. The last thing that the state needs is countless well-intentioned citizens refusing to leave the streets and inadvertently being taken advantage of as “human shields” by provocateurs, which is why something must urgently be done to placate the restless people. Seeing as how Iran’s western-directed ideologically-driven foreign policy of the past decades hasn’t yielded any real economic results, it’s sensible to at least consider whether a pragmatic geostrategic redirection eastward towards the Golden Ring is long overdue.

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This article was originally published on Eurasia Future.

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

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Two international items in the news this week highlight, by its absence, an underlying feature of reporting events in ‘troubled’ areas of the world. That absence is simply the historical background of each event.

Canada in Mali

Canada is maintaining its superficial idealism of peacekeeping as it commits 250 military personnel to Mali, relying on “faith” (rather than respect), operating for “human rights” with an initial goal of “stability.” [1] In spite of a peace deal being signed by various groups five years ago a status quo of corruption, internal fighting, and crimes against citizens are ongoing. Well over one hundred UN “peacekeepers” have been killed in Mali since the beginning of the mission.

All that idealism and resolve on Canada’s part is well and good, but what is missing is the historical context within which Canada also participated. While the news and the political talk shows mention the disruption in Libya as playing a role in that situation, they do not mention Canada’s role in Libya.

Canada’s role in Libya was essentially war crimes against the country of Libya. Although authorized by the UNSC for countries to create a no fly zone in order to prevent a theorized genocide, the participating countries – essentially NATO with the full backing of the US and their then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton – went well beyond that. Even with the spurious rationale of the no fly zone and genocide, the mission’s real purpose was to dispose of the Libyan government of Gaddafi and prevent any Libyan government from establishing an independent position against the US. Along with that was stopping the idea of having an independent gold backed African currency, as well as stopping Chinese assistance within the oilfields of Libya.

A Canadian soldier looks on as the first Canadian troops arrive at a UN base in Gao, Mali, on Sunday, June 24, 2018. (Source: Sean Kilpatrick/CANADIAN PRESS)

Canada played a major role in criminally extending the no fly zone into an aerial combat mission to assist the “rebels” who were mainly comprised of fundamentalist religious fighters. In that role Canadian air forces attacked both regular Libyan army units as well as destroying much civilian infrastructure in Libya, essentially directly assisting the rebel ground forces. [2] When it was all over they pulled out, leaving behind a chaotic situation that spilled over into the Sahel region of Africa and thus the problems in Mali. By operating well beyond the “no fly zone” of the UNSC and with provisions of ground support for the “rebels” Canada was complicit of war crimes and crimes against humanity in Libya.

The Prime Minister at the time, Stephen Harper was so proud of our heroic flyboys that they were honoured with a state visit in Canada’s senate.

That context is omitted from current news broadcasts on the CBC. In effect, Canadian troops are operating in a war theatre they had a decisive role in creating several years previously, at the time operating under the auspices of the UN but in reality acting for the wishes of the US and its goal of maintaining/creating a global hegemony for its petro dollar reserve currency.

Refugees from Central America’s “northern triangle”

Canada’s CBC has been following events concerning asylum seekers and refugees entering the US along the border with Mexico. As with the reporting on Mali, the background context is missing. When discussing why the people are leaving their countries the accepted answer is because of poverty, crime, extortion, drugs, extrajudicial killings, corruption – essentially the whole load of bad news that accompanies failed states.

The CBC news reports identified the refugees as arriving from the Northern Triangle of Central America: the states of Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala. Yes, these countries have the crime and corruption and drugs that the natives are fleeing even by their own account. What isn’t discussed is how they became that way in the first place.

It is a long history, but essentially these countries are the quintessential ‘banana republics’. Early US entrepreneurs realized there was money to be made from banana plantations marketed to the US mainland. Backed by US military, US banks, and private police forces, the agencies of United Fruit (now Chiquita, also now with Dole) maintained large private reserves, commanding the majority of the local economic scene to the detriment of the indigenous people.

More recently, when these countries attempted to have even mildly socialist governments that maybe just hinted against US dominance, corruption, and hegemony, the US intervened either directly, covertly, or through bizarre schemes such as the Iran-Contra affair. The violence comes from this, but also importantly from the “School of the Americas”, now known as the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation. This “school” was a school that instructed special forces how to torture, intimidate, create rebellions, set up false flags, and simply kill the major participants within the opposition.

From covert operations, private militias, instructions in how to fight dirty and illegally, it is no wonder that armed gangs have formed, intent on securing their own part of the economy through intimidation (murder, torture, threats) and the sale of drugs. That the governments are corrupt is simply part and parcel of all the mayhem created by US intrusions into the area. They are failed states because the US deliberately ‘failed’ them in order to retain control of the overall setting.

It is no surprise that the first two CIA overthrows of governments involved the democratically elected governments of Jacobo Arbenz in Guatemala and Mohammad Mossadegh in Iran, the former for bananas, the latter for oil, both to save them from independence.

The real news for Canada

Canadians are receiving the real news, at least the minimum the establishment wishes to enlighten the public about. To have full news coverage would require the CBC to examine the “roots” of the problems mentioned (as stated by Justin Trudeau during his election campaign) and discuss the nature of US interventions and dominance for each region along with Canada’s subservient role in it all. Unfortunately Canada follows US foreign policy and the CBC is not as independent or as thorough with the news as they like to be perceived to be.

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Jim Miles is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

Notes

[1] Harjit Sajjan, Canada’s Minister of Defence. “Power and Politics”, CBC, 2018-06-25.

[2] Yves Engler. “Canada’s role in the “War” on Libya.”, Dissident Voice, August 28, 2015.

Iran’s Indian-back port of Chabahar, inaugurated months before the United States re-imposed sanctions on the Islamic republic, is where Asia and the Middle East’s multiple political conflicts and commercial rivalries collide.

Chabahar was destined to become a player in geopolitical and economic manoeuvring between China, India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Central Asian states even without the re-imposition of sanctions.

The sanctions have, however, significantly enhanced its importance as Iran struggles to offset the likely punishing impact of US efforts to force the Islamic republic to alter its foreign and defense policy and/or achieve a change of regime.

Iran sees the port together with the Indian-backed Chabahar Free Trade Zone, that hopes to host a steel mill and a petrochemical complex, as the motor of development of the Iranian section of the Makran coast. Iran’s province of Sistan and Balochistan shares the coast line with the Pakistani province of Balochistan, home to the Chinese-backed rival port of Gwadar.

Saudi Arabia sees the Pakistani region as a launching pad of a potential effort by the kingdom and/or the United States to destabilizing the Islamic republic by stirring unrest among its ethnic minorities, including the Baluch. Saudi Arabia has put the building blocks in place for possible covert action but has to date given no indication that it intends to act on proposals to support irredentist action.

A study written by Mohammed Hassan Husseinbor, an Iranian of Baloch origin, and published by the International Institute for Iranian Studies, formerly known as the Arabian Gulf Centre for Iranian Studies, a Saudi government-backed think tank, argued that Chabahar posed “a direct threat to the Arab Gulf states” that called for “immediate counter measures.”

Mr. Husseinbor said Chabahar would enable Iran to increase market share in India for its oil exports at the expense of Saudi Arabia, raise foreign investment in the Islamic republic, increase Iranian government revenues, and allow Iran to project power in the Gulf and the Indian Ocean.

Saudi Arabia, months before the US re-imposition of sanctions, already sought to thwart development of Chabahar by stopping South Korea’s POSCO Engineering & Construction from moving ahead with a $1.6 billion agreement with Iranian steelmaker Pars Kohan Diar Parsian Steel (PKP) to build a steel mill in Chabahar. Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund has a 38 percent stake in POSCO.

“This project mandatorily requires the decision of the board of directors. However, as relations between Iran and Saudi Arabia rapidly grew worse after a severance of diplomatic ties last year, outside directors in the board meeting are having negative stances on Iran projects, especially those requiring investment and JVC (joint venture company) establishment,” POSCO said in a letter to PKP.

POSCO said it had difficulty “convincing and reaching consent on the unfavourable opinion from the outside directors.”

The POSCO letter signalled that Chabahar’s success would depend on the political will of governments with India and Iran in the lead rather than on any hope to attract private sector investment.

Afghan President Ashraf Ghani, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani at the signing of the trilateral transit agreement between the three countries in May 2016. (Source: CC BY-SA 2.0)

India was earlier this month forced to drop a demand that the winner of a bid to manage the Chabahar port pay an upfront US$8.52 million premium.

“We were charging a premium from the successful bidder to meet our preliminary expenses. But the shortlisted bidders said that the project is of strategic importance and is not commercially viable,” said an Indian official.

Indian Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj insisted last month that her country would not bow to US pressure to adhere to the Trump administration’s sanctions.

“India follows only UN sanctions, and not unilateral sanctions by any country,” Ms. Swaraj said.

Beyond the port’s economic importance for Iran, it will also likely allow the Islamic republic to increase its influence in Afghanistan at a time that the United States and Saudi Arabia are stepping up economic cooperation with Kabul in a bid to isolate both Iran and the Taliban.

For its part, Afghanistan sees the port as a way to reduce its transport dependence on Pakistan with which it has strained relations.

Despite the US cloud hanging over it, Chabahar’s potential significance goes beyond whether it will contribute to the Iranian effort.

India hopes that its US$500 million investment in the port will offer it a gateway to Afghanistan and land-locked Central Asia that constitutes an alternative to infrastructure related to China’s Belt and Road initiative, including the $50 billion plus China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), and an anti-dote to Chinese investment in Indian Ocean ports.

If geopolitics did not already amount to a full plate, Chabahar is likely, together with a host of ports in Saudi Arabia, Abu Dhabi, Oman and Qatar, to challenge the longstanding dominance in the Indian Ocean of Dubai’s Jebel Ali port.

Commercial competition between ports has been reinforced by the Saudi-Iranian battle for regional hegemony as well as the Gulf spat between Qatar and a Saudi-United Arab Emirates-led alliance that a year ago imposed an economic and diplomatic boycott on the Gulf state and the war in Yemen.

As a result, commercial, military and geopolitical drivers for port investment in the region have blurred and expanded the multiples rivalries into the Horn of Africa with the UAE and others, including Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Qatar jockeying for position in Sudan, Somalia, Ethiopia, Yemen and Djibouti.

Said NATO Defence College analyst Eleonora Ardemagni:

“The political rift in the GCC (Gulf Cooperation Council) weakens economic integration prospects and as a consequence cooperation among commercial ports. The Qatari crisis opened a new chapter in intra-GCC relations marking the emergence of latent nationalism in the Arab Gulf region: the rising geopolitics of ports is going to further unveil this trend.”

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This article was also 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 by Alireza numberone/CC BY-SA 4.0.

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

We thank all the readers who have contributed to our work by making donations or becoming members.

If you have the means to make a small or substantial donation to contribute to our fight for truth, peace and justice around the world, your gesture would be much appreciated.

From the United States to Europe, the “migrant crisis” is causing bitter interior and international controversy about the policies which need to be adopted concerning the migrant flow. However, these movements are being represented by a cliché which is the opposite of reality – that of the “rich countries” obliged to suffer the growing migratory pressure of the “poor countries”. This misrepresentation hides its basic cause – the world economic system which enables a restricted minority to accumulate wealth at the expense of the growing majority, by impoverishing them and thus provoking forced emigration.

As concerns the migrant flow towards the United States, the case of Mexico is emblematic. Its agricultural production collapsed when, with the NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement), the USA and Canada flooded the Mexican market with low-cost agricultural products, thanks to their own public subsidies. Millions of agricultural workers found themselves without jobs, thereby increasing the work pool recruited by the “maquiladoras” – thousands of industrial establishments along the frontier, in Mexican territory, possessed or controlled, for the most part, by United States companies, where salaries are very low and trade union rights inexistent.

In a country where approximately half of the population lives in poverty, this situation has increased the mass of people who want to enter the United States. This is the origin of the Wall along the border with Mexico, which was begun by the Democrat President Clinton in 1994 when the NAFTA came into effect, pursued by the Republican Bush, reinforced by the Democrat Obama, the same wall that the Republican Trump now hopes to complete along all 3,000 kilometres of the border.

Concerning the migratory flow towards Europe, the case of Africa is emblematic. The continent is rich in raw materials – gold, platinum, diamonds, uranium, coltan (or tantalite), copper, oil, natural gas, precious woods, cocoa, coffee and many others.

These resources, once exploited by the old European colonialist system with slave-type methods, are today being exploited by European neo-colonialism in collaboration with the African elites in power, a low-cost local work force, and interior and international control of the market-place.

More than one hundred companies listed at the London Stock Exchange, British and others, exploit the mineral resources of 37 sub-Saharan African countries for a value of more than 1,000 billion dollars.

France controls the monetary system of 14 African ex-colonies via the CFA Franc (originally the acronym of the “Colonies Françaises d’Afrique”, now recycled as “Communauté Financière Africaine”). In order to conserve parity with the Euro, these 14 African countries are obliged to pay the French Treasury half of their monetary reserves.

The Libyan state, which sought to create an autonomous African currency, was demolished by the war of 2011. In the Ivory Coast (CFA region), French companies control the greater part of the commercialisation of cocoa, of which the country is the world’s top producer – the little producers are left with hardly 5% of the value of the end product, such that most of them live in poverty. These are only a few examples of the neo-colonial exploitation of the continent.

Africa, presented as being dependent on foreign aid, in fact pays foreign countries a net annual forfeit of about 58 billion dollars. The social consequences are devastating. In sub-Saharan Africa, where the population is greater than one billion souls, and is composed of 60% children and young people between the ages of 0 and 24 years old, about two thirds of the inhabitants live in poverty and amongst these, about 40% – which is to say 400 million – live in conditions of extreme poverty.

The “migrant crisis” is in reality the crisis of an unsustainable economic and social system.

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This article was originally published in Italian on Il Manifesto.

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

Injustice in America is deep-seated. It’s politicized – the poor, people of color, Muslims and others disadvantaged are denied constitutionally guaranteed due process and equal justice under law with disturbing regularity.

The world’s largest gulag prison system by far is testimony to a nation serving privileged interests over others, disdainful of the nation’s least advantaged, thousands incarcerated for political reasons.

America is the only nation sentencing children under age-18 to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole – an unconstitutional practice, banned under the 8th Amendment, prohibiting “cruel and unusual punishments,” yet over 2,100 juveniles are affected, never again to be free without a presidential pardon surely not coming.

At least nine states and the federal government imprisoned over 3,000 individuals to life without parole (LWOP), mostly for nonviolent drug offenses.

Over 80% of the sentences were mandatory, judges unable to offer leniency. The ACLU earlier said thousands in America got LWOP sentences for “possessing a bottle cap smeared with heroin residue,” shoplifting three belts, breaking into a parked car, or stealing a lunch bag – minor offenses and others like them, warranting no more than misdemeanor punishment.

US federal courts are stacked with right-wing extremists, including most Supreme Court Justices. Serving for life, they have enormous power for good or ill, too much of the latter, little of the former.

They’re supremely pro-business, ideologically conservative and reactionary. No one on today’s High Court approaches the stature of William Brennan, William Douglas, Thurgood Marshall or Louis Brandeis.

Five justices are Federalist Society (FS) members – Chief Justice John Roberts, Samuel Alito, Anthony Kennedy, Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch.

The organization supports rolling back civil liberties, imperial wars, free-wheeling laissez-faire capitalism and corporatism, along with ending New Deal/Great Society social programs.

It’s against reproductive choice, government regulations, labor rights, environmental protections, and justice for unwanted aliens.

Tuesday High Court ruling by five of its prominent members reflects FS sentiment, the Court upholding Trump’s travel ban, largely affecting majority Muslim nations.

Racist war in America on unwanted aliens way pre-dated Trump, a white supremacist Judeo-Christian state affording justice most often to wealth and powerful interests over others.

Muslims are discriminated against for their faith and ethnicity, Blacks and Latinos for their race and countries of origin.

Hostility toward unwanted aliens began with the 1790 Nationalization Act, foreign-born “free white persons (of) good moral character” alone wanted.

Unwanted at the time were free Blacks, Native Americans being exterminated to make way for white American development, and later Asians and Latinos for not being white enough.

The 1952 Immigration and Nationality (McCarran-Walter) Act (INA) did for the first time what no law before it allowed.

It made individuals of all races eligible for citizenship, strict quotas imposed to limit immigration from non-causasian countries.

The 1996 Immigrant Responsibility Act and Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act permit detention and deportation of unwanted aliens – without discretionary relief, restricting access to counsel, and banning appeals even for alleged minor offenses.

The laws deny unwanteds constitutionally guaranteed due process and equal justice under law.

Undemocratic Dems are as hostile to justice as Republicans. Tuesday’s High Court ruling, upholding Trump’s travel ban, shamefully endorsed injustice.

The history of Supreme Court rulings on race and other major issues is mixed, too often disturbing.

Marbury v. Madison (1803) established the principle of judicial supremacy, making the Court the final arbiter of what is or is not lawful.

The deplorable Dred Scott ruling (1857) denied Black slaves and their descendants constitutional protections, including the right to become citizens.

Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) affirmed segregation in public places.

Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad (1886), granted corporations personhood under the 14th Amendment with all accruing rights and privileges but none of the obligations – what I consider the High Court’s most egregious ruling in its history.

Korematsu v. United States (1944) was another deplorable one, ordering the internment of Japanese Americans threatening no one during WW II.

In Bush v. Gore (2000), majority right-wing justices overruled the popular vote, halted the Florida recount on spurious grounds, installing GW Bush as president – the first time in history that the Court reversed the outcome of a presidential election.

In Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission (2010), the Court ruled against government limits on corporate spending in elections, claiming a First Amendment right of “political speech.” Its ruling was equivalent to one vote per dollar.

In a dissenting vote on an earlier Court ruling, Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes once said “the Court has taken its task to be the constitutionalization of a totally immoral, rapacious, economic system instead of the promotion of justice, domestic tranquility, the general welfare, and the blessings of liberty.”

For every Brennan, T. Marshall and Douglas, dozens of John Jays (the first chief justice), Roger Taneys, Rehnquists, Burgers, Scalias, and majority justices on today’s High Court supported privilege over justice for all.

Upholding Trump’s unconstitutional travel ban is the latest example.

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

Social Collapse

The U.S. cannot and will not protect its citizens against attacks by violent armed assailants, especially as politicians are being bought off by gun manufacturers and the National Rifle Association.

The U.S. will not provide jobs or a living wage to a significant proportion of its population, especially youth and racial minorities.

The refusal of Congress to pass national single-payer health insurance is genocidal for the poor, the young, the elderly, and the underprivileged.

U.S. industry is poisoning the natural environment as the bee population is killed off by glyphosate and fungicides and the food supply is degraded with GMOs and GE foods.

Chronic disease is skyrocketing due to rising economic stress, unaffordable health care, and food supply degradation.

The pharmaceutical industry gets rich as it kills millions of people annually by facilitating misuse, overuse, and abuse of prescription medication.

The economy has become genocidal to the elderly by eliminating pensions for most and eroding the value of Social Security and other sources of fixed income.

Addiction to drugs and alcohol and an associated growth in crime is a major effect of the collapse of job and income security.

Life expectancy is less than that of many other developed countries and is falling.

Militarism and Foreign Policy

The U.S. military constantly wants more money to further its aims to conquer the globe while society at home disintegrates.

American weapons of mass destruction have the power to destroy all life on earth many times over, yet the military wants bigger and better weapons.

The military thrives on war and has no interest in promoting peace with other nations.

The military must always come up with new and more frightening enemies to justify its bloated budgets.

The “War on Terror” was an excuse for the U.S. military to engage in multiple wars of conquest.

The military is developing new secret weapons to wage war in space.

The elevated position of the military and its immunity from political control propagate the falsehood that force and violence are the legitimate way to solve problems.

Influence on Hollywood by the military exploits and glorifies violence and is a major propaganda tool.

Video games, supported by the military and corporate interests, teach young people that killing is fun.

The military cares nothing for the excessive national resources it consumes at the expense of socially beneficial uses.

The U.S. military is one of the world’s largest environmental polluters.

A major purpose of the military is to provide the muscle for stealing other nations’ resources.

The stealing of resources began with the assault by white Americans on Native Americans and the theft of their lands and continues today in Latin America, Africa, the Middle East, and around the world.

The U.S. military and police are conditioned to regard reformers and protesters as enemies of the state, not people exercising their rights.

War is being waged against Russia and other countries through economic sanctions and military threats without any constitutional declaration by Congress.

U.S. foreign and military policy is based on a gigantic lie—9/11.

Economics

The U.S. is an oligarchy where the economy, politics, and media are controlled by the rich.

Tax policies favor the rich over working people.

Working people are no longer readily allowed to organize through labor unions for fair wages and working conditions.

The minimum wage is too low for people to live on.

Wall Street creates and destroys businesses for the sake of financial profits regardless of the impact on individuals, families, and society.

The U.S. economy is not driven by honest business enterprise such as manufacturing but is kept afloat artificially by bank and government-created bubbles, including the debt-driven bubble of military spending.

The elimination of the gold standard in favor of bank-controlled fiat currency debased the national currency and has led to a half-century of inflation.

Panic has set in as other nations steer away from the use of inflated U.S. dollars in the petroleum markets and as a reserve currency.

Student, housing, and consumer debt are creating a society of debt-slaves.

People are being sent to jail for non-payment of debt. Some with out-of-control debt commit suicide.

The federal government’s national debt is a growing burden to society that can never be paid off. George W. Bush with his wars doubled the national debt in eight years. It doubled again during the Obama eight-year war period.

The lack of decent jobs drives huge numbers of people into cybercrime, drug dealing, prostitution, and other criminal pastimes simply as a mode of survival.

The court system unfairly targets the poor.

The Deep State and Government

Agencies of the Deep State, starting with the CIA, are instruments used by the oligarchy to control the government and society and ultimately take over the rest of the world.

Lying and concealment are a way of life for all levels of government, especially the Deep State.

The government has never come clean about crimes of the past committed by the Deep State, including 9/11 and the assassinations of JFK, RFK, and MLK.

The Deep State continues to engage in targeted assassinations against U.S. citizens and people of other nations.

The CIA and other agencies of the Deep State work in secrecy to undermine other nations abroad and eliminate honest dissent at home.

The Deep State seeks to maintain total electronic surveillance of all individuals.

The Deep State tries to overthrow any government abroad that undertakes to reform itself in the direction of greater fairness to its own population.

Secretive government vastly increased its powers by setting up the Department of Homeland Security and passing the Patriot Act after the false flag of 9/11.

One of the CIA’s major abuses is its self-admitted role in the international drug trade.

The Deep State, the media, and the military foment hatred of countries like Russia and China in order to conceal their own abuses and consolidate their power.

The Deep State controls government at all levels—federal, state, and local.

The government seeks to foster Nazi-like practices in raising a cult to worship the flag, and by promoting wars abroad and oppressive police practices at home.

The government has militarized local police forces in order to oppress the poor and racial minorities.

All levels of government, including the police, are corrupted by political contributions, payoffs, bribes, and special privileges.

The Media

The media destroy freedom of thought by using its powers, including those of advertising, to regiment, control, and censor public opinion.

Government uses the media to deliver its own constant propaganda messages.

The media spew forth hatred and lies through such outlets as Fox News.

The media are controlled by a handful of oligarchic interests that suppress honest news reporting while attacking independent journalism at every turn.

The corporate-orchestrated attack on net neutrality seeks to eliminate independent opinion on the internet as was done in the past on cable TV.

Major media outlets such as the New York Times, Washington Post, CNN, and the national TV broadcast networks are controlled by the oligarchy and Deep State which use them as propaganda organs for their pro-war, corporate agendas.

The media-driven lie of the U.S. as “the exceptional nation” is a particularly pernicious piece of propaganda that has been used to justify abuses inflicted on other countries.

Political Parties

The Republican Party, which at present controls the federal government along with a majority of state and local governments, has become a racist/genocidal cult funded by oligarchs.

The Republican Party and its base blame the victims of economic collapse for their inability to find jobs and earn a decent living.

The Republican Party could not exist as it does at present without the support of fundamentalist Christian churches that support war and racism.

The Democratic Party lost touch with its historic populist mission by being taken over by the pro-corporate Clinton wing in the 1990s.

The Democratic Party has been manipulating people by frantically pushing the myth that the Russians got Donald Trump elected president in 2016.

The Democratic Party, including its so-called progressive wing, is as pro-war and controlled by the Deep State as the Republican.

The U.S. electoral system prevents any effective third-party reform movement from arising.

No politician has a chance who wants fundamental reform such as reducing military spending, terminating the policy of endless wars, changing the monetary system, or basic economic fairness for all levels of society.

Social Life

The oligarchy, the media, the government, the political parties, and the Deep State all foster hatred and division among segments of society in order to preserve their rule.

Racism against people of color and other nationalities remains deeply lodged in the national psyche and is used by the oligarchy as a means of control.

The higher educational establishment is controlled by the corporate/military state and offers little or no resistance.

The nation’s churches have been co-opted or cowed into silence and likewise offer no meaningful alternatives.

The drift to create a totalitarian American police state is well-advanced.

Conclusion

Can the U.S. survive as a nation for another generation? It seems doubtful without a major reform movement dedicated to correcting ALL the above-mentioned abuses. But before the U.S. destroys the planet it may simply collapse from its internal failures or through its policies of endless war and the guilt this has produced.

Yet none of this report is to denigrate the millions of people in the U.S. and worldwide who are awake to the present peril and are praying and working for a better future.

At present a major war between the American empire and the Eurasian nations seems a real possibility, though it would be much better if the U.S., Russia, and China came together in a positive alliance.

Miracles do happen if, paradoxically, people work for them.

*

Paul Yesse is the pen-name of a former U.S. government analyst.

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Please support Global Research, please support getting the truth out.

Dos Estados Unidos à Europa, a “crise dos migrantes” suscita polémicas acesas, internas e internacionais, sobre a política a adoptar a respeito das correntes migratórias. No entanto, essas polémicas são representadas de acordo com um estereótipo que altera a realidade: o dos “países ricos” forçados a sofrer a crescente pressão migratória dos “países pobres”.

Esconde-se a causa de fundo: o sistema económico que, no mundo, permite que uma pequena minoria acumule riqueza à custa da crescente maioria, empobrecendo-a e provocando, assim, a emigração forçada.

A respeito dos fluxos migratórios para os Estados Unidos, o caso do México é exemplificador. A sua produção agrícola desabou quando, com o NAFTA (o acordo norte-americano  de comercio “livre”), os EUA e o Canadá inundaram o mercado mexicano com produtos agrícolas baratos graças aos seus subsídios estatais. Milhões de agricultores ficaram sem trabalho, avolumando a força de trabalho recrutada nas ‘maquiladoras’  : milhares de plantações industriais ao longo da fronteira no território mexicano, pertencentes ou controladas principalmente por empresas dos EUA, onde os salários são muito baixos e os direitos sindicais inexistentes. Num país onde cerca de metade da população vive na pobreza, a massa daqueles que procuram entrar nos Estados Unidos aumentou. Daí o Muro ao longo da fronteira com o México, iniciado pelo presidente democrata Clinton quando o NAFTA entrouem vigor em 1994, continuado pelo republicano Bush, fortalecido pelo democrata Obama, o mesmo muro que o republicano Trump completaria agora em todos os 3000 km de fronteira.

No que concerne os fluxos migratórios para a Europa, o caso da África é típico. Ela é rica em matérias-primas: ouro, platina, diamantes, urânio, coltan, cobre, petróleo, gás natural, madeira preciosa, cacau, café e muitas outras. Estes recursos, explorados pelo antigo colonialismo europeu com métodos de escravidão, são agora explorados pelo neocolonialismo europeu, fomentando elites africanas no poder,  mão-de-obra local de baixo custo e  controlo dos mercados internos e internacionais. Mais de cem empresas citadas na Bolsa de Valores de Londres, tanto no Reino Unido como noutros lugares, exploram em 37 países da África Subsaariana, recursos minerais num valor superior a 1 bilião de dólares.

A França controla o sistema monetário de 14 antigas colónias africanas através do Franco CFA (originalmente um acrónimo de “Colónias Francesas de África”, reciclado como “Comunidade Financeira Africana”): para manter a paridade com o euro, os 14 países africanos têm de pagar ao Tesouro Francês, metade das suas reservas cambiais. O Estado líbio, que queria criar uma moeda africana autónoma, foi demolido pela guerra, em 2011. Na Costa do Marfim (região CFA), as empresas francesas controlam a maior parte do marketing de cacau, do qual o país é o maior produtor mundial: os pequenos agricultores têm apenas 5% do valor do produto final, tanto que a maioria deles vive na pobreza. Estes são apenas alguns exemplos da exploração neocolonial do continente.

A África, apresentada como dependente de ajuda externa, fornece um pagamento líquido anual de cerca de 58 biliões de dólares ao exterior. As consequências sociais são devastadoras. Na África Subsaariana, cuja população ultrapassa um bilião de habitantes e 60% da mesma é composta  por crianças e jovens de 0 aos 24 anos, cerca de dois terços da população, vive na pobreza e, entre estes, cerca de 40% – isto é 400 milhões – vivem em condições de extrema pobreza.

A “crise dos migrantes” é, na realidade, a crise de um sistema económico e social insustentável.

Manlio Dinucci

il manifesto, 26 de Junho de 2018

Trump is militantly hostile to Muslims and nations targeted for regime change.

His policies speak for themselves, waging war on multiple Muslim-majority countries, banning entry to America from designated countries.

His policy has nothing to do with protecting national security, nothing about screening out “radical Islamic terrorists” Washington created and supports – everything to do with hyping fear, justifying endless wars, keeping unwanted Muslims out of America, along with Venezuelan officials and North Koreans.

His proposed great wall along America’s southern border targets unwanted Latinos the same way.

Christians and Jews are welcome, especially from favored nations. Treating them one way and Muslims another is flagrantly racist.

Refugees, asylum seekers, and others from the wrong countries are unwelcome in Trump’s America. Islamophobia is official regime policy. So is hate-mongering to justify unjustifiable policies.

The nation’s Supreme Court is stacked with right-wing extremists. On Tuesday, they upheld Trump’s travel ban, affecting five predominately Muslim countries, along with North Korea and targeted Venezuelans by a narrow 5 – 4 majority – wrongfully claiming

“the Government has set forth a sufficient national security justification to survive rational basis review.”

No such justification exists. Trump’s Muslim ban is an extension of his war on Islam, far exceeding his predecessors in terror-bombing ruthlessness.

His regime is responsible for dropping powerfully destructive bombs in targeted countries every 12 minutes since taking office, a breathtaking pace of mass slaughter and destruction – 44,000 bombs during his first year in office, civilians overwhelmingly harmed most.

Responding to Tuesday’s High Court ruling, the ACLU’s immigration rights project director Omar Jadwat minced no words saying:

“This ruling will go down in history as one of the Supreme Court’s great failures. It repeats the mistakes of the Korematsu decision, upholding Japanese-American imprisonment and swallows wholesale government lawyers’ flimsy national security excuse for the ban instead of taking seriously the president’s own explanation for his action.”

“It is ultimately the people of this country who will determine its character and future. The court failed today, and so the public is needed more than ever.”

“We must make it crystal clear to our elected representatives: If you are not taking actions to rescind and dismantle Trump’s Muslim ban, you are not upholding this country’s most basic principles of freedom and equality.”

The ACLU, National Immigration Law Center, International Refugee Assistance Project, along with other organizations and individuals others sued the Trump regime in federal court – on grounds of the First Amendment’s prohibition against “law(s) respecting an establishment of religion” and Fifth Amendment “due process of law” rights.

Last October, a federal district court in Maryland blocked Trump’s ban. So did a federal court in Hawaii a day earlier.

In February, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled against his travel ban, calling it “unconstitutionally tainted with animus toward Islam,” adding:

“On a fundamental level,” the ban “second-guesses our nation’s dedication to religious freedom and tolerance.”

Last December, the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals ruled against Trump’s ban, saying it exceeded his authority under the Immigration and Nationality Act.

The Supreme Court earlier let the ban stand while challenges worked their way through lower courts before issuing its own ruling on Tuesday.

It’s up to a future Congress to try overturning Trump’s ban with legislation passed in both houses by a two-thirds veto-proof majority – or after he leaves office by a simple majority if his successor opposes his action.

*

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

US and European media outlets reported anti-Chinese protests across Vietnam. Claims regarding numbers varied greatly from several hundred to others claiming several thousand. The Western media was particularly careful not to mention the names of any of the individuals or organisations leading the protests.

The South China Morning Post in its article titled, “Anti-China protests: dozens arrested as Vietnam patriotism spirals into unrest,” would claim:

People were angry at a draft law that would allow 99-year concessions in planned special economic zones, which some view as sweetheart deals for foreign and specifically Chinese firms.

Though the Post and others across the Western mainstream media claimed the protests were “peaceful,” they eventually spiralled out of control resulting in assaults on police and vandalism of public buildings.

The systematic omission of essential facts and intentional misrepresentation regarding the protests follows the same pattern observed regarding other US-European sponsored unrest around the globe.

Anti-Chinese Fervour is Pro-American, Not “Nationalist” 

The Post itself would claim the protests took on a “nationalist” tone, yet in the Post’s own article and without an explanation from the Post as to why, American flags could be clearly spotted among the mobs.

The few names that were mentioned by the US-European media included well-known so-called “pro-democracy” activists drawn from networks openly supported by Washington, London and Brussels.

This included Duong Dai Trieu Lam, mentioned by the Financial Times in its article, “Anti-Chinese protesters take to Vietnam’s streets.” He’s a member of the so-called Vietnamese Bloggers Network which routinely coordinates its anti-government activities with the support of Western embassies.

The network was founded by now-jailed opposition figure Nguyen Ngoc Nhu Quynh, also known as “Mother Mushroom.” A Newsweek article titled, “Who is Vietnam’s Mother Mushroom? Blogger Honored by Melania Trump Jailed for Ten Years,” would admit:

Quynh, a single mother of two, had given interviews to Voice of America and Radio Free Asia, her lawyer Vo An Don said. She founded a network of bloggers in her homeland and has written about deaths in police custody, environmental disasters and human rights. 

She received the Woman of Courage award at the U.S. State Department in March this year, presented by Melania Trump. Vietnam said the award “was not appropriate and of no benefit to the development of the relations between the two countries”, the Guardian reported.

Other US-European sponsored opposition figures include Nguyen Van Dai who heads the so-called “Brotherhood for Democracy,” another transparently US-funded and directed front aimed at pressuring, destabilising, co-opting and/or overthrowing Vietnam’s political order.

Nguyen Van Dai was recently released from prison and exiled from Vietnam.

His exile was not the first. There was also blogger Nguyen Hoang Hai, also known as Dieu Cay, who when exiled to the United States, was greeted by supporters waving the yellow and red-striped flag of the now defunct Republic of Vietnam (South Vietnam), the proxy state created by French colonialists and American invaders during the Vietnam War.

His return was covered by US State Department-funded and directed Radio Free Asia’s Vietnamese-language version.

Other pro-US/anti-Chinese opposition figures include Le Quoc Quan, who was in fact a US National Endowment for Democracy (NED) fellow. US Congress members and the NED itself wrote passionate pleas for Le Quoc Quan’s release from prison. The NED, in a post on their website titled, “NED Reagan-Fascell Fellow Le Quoc Quan Arrested after Return to Vietnam,” would claim (our emphasis):

The National Endowment for Democracy (NED) is greatly troubled by the arrest in Vietnam of Le Quoc Quan. Le Quoc Quan, a lawyer, has recently been in residence at NED on a congressionally-funded Reagan-Fascell Democracy Fellowship, pursuing independent research on the role of civil society in emerging democracies. He was arrested on March 8 in his hometown in Nghe An province, only 4 days after his return from Washington to Vietnam. At this time, Le Quoc Quan’s whereabouts are unknown, and there are no public charges against him. 

“It is a deep insult to the United States that the Vietnamese regime would harass someone in this way who has just participated in a citizen exchange program supported by the US Congress and Department of State,” said NED President Carl Gershman. “Le Quoc Quan is someone who is optimistic about the future of his country, who is most concerned about improving the lives of his fellow citizens, and who is nothing if not a Vietnamese patriot.”

Frontline Defenders, a front funded by Western governments and corporate foundations like George Soros’ Open Society, would mention Le Quoc Quan’s anti-Chinese activities, stating that:

As well as providing legal representation to those who are persecuted for claiming their rights, Le Quoc Quan runs a blog. In this blog he writes about various issues including civil rights, political pluralism and religious freedom. He has also participated in a number of protests against China’s territorial claims in the South China Sea.

It is clear that Vietnam’s so-called opposition is in no way “nationalist,” and merely opposes Chinese interests in Vietnam because Washington opposes them. By taking US and European funding and carrying out Western directives, they are actively undermining Vietnam’s sovereignty, not upholding it.

It is also clear why the US and European media omit mention of opposition leaders even when covering significant events like the recent anti-China street protests. Had the truth been told to international audiences, the opposition’s hypocrisy would be exposed and their legitimacy undermined.

American Meddling Endangers Vietnam and the Region 

At a time when the US and its European allies make accusations about supposed “Russian interference,” US and European-backed mobs take to the streets in nations like Vietnam, attempting to influence national policy and decision-making, while literally flying US flags.

For Hanoi, it must continue its balancing act between Beijing and Washington. But the sort of opposition Washington is cultivating in the streets of Vietnam appears to not only be overtly coercive, but clearly connected to unfinished business dating back to the US invasion and occupation of Vietnam. Hanoi and Beijing have faced off militarily as well, but the threat the US posed and still poses is not a matter of disputed borders between two nations, but Washington’s enduring desire to control all within Vietnam’s borders.

Vietnam is not the only nation facing growing US coercion in the form of US-funded and directed opposition movements. Cambodia and Thailand likewise face opposition parties entirely backed by the US and its European allies. US-backed opposition also just assumed power in Malaysia and a US-funded and directed opposition party has already seized power and ruled in Myanmar since 2016.

US efforts to undermine and overwrite national sovereignty across Southeast Asia includes regional synergies between opposition fronts in each respective nation. It would likely benefit targeted nations to likewise coordinate their activities in countering, diminishing or entirely uprooting foreign-funded and directed networks interfering in the region’s internal political affairs.

*

Joseph Thomas is chief editor of Thailand-based geopolitical journal, The New Atlas and contributor to the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”. 

All images in this article are from NEO.

The reported details of the forthcoming peace deal that’s expected to be signed shortly prove that the very concept of an independent South Sudan has failed.

South Sudan defied all expectations and surprised the world by agreeing to a peace deal for its five-year-long civil war during international talks in the neighboring Sudanese capital of Khartoum from whence the world’s newest country originally seceded in 2011. The personal intervention of Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir and his Ugandan counterpart Yoweri  Museveni – both of whom exert the most influence over their mutual neighbor – is considered to have been indispensable in getting South Sudanese President Salva Kiir and former Vice-President-turned-rebel Riek Machar to come together for a third time in trying to end their homeland’s seemingly intractable conflict.

Conflict Summary

The South Sudanese Civil War began as a political competition between these two strong personalities that quickly took on deadly ethnic dimensions as the country’s two largest ethnic groups began killing one another in a nationwide bloodletting that’s since claimed at least 50,000 lives and displaced 4 million, half of whom have fled abroad as refugees and overwhelmed the capacities of host states such as Uganda and Ethiopia. The second-mentioned state, despite being much larger and having a much longer history hosting refugees, has been especially destabilized by these “Weapons of Mass Migration” because of the fact that its sparsely populated border region of Gambella now has almost as many refugees as citizens.

This has exacerbated the preexisting conflict between highland Anuak and lowland Nuer, the latter of whom mostly live in South Sudan and form the core of Machar’s rebel forces, as Nuer refugees clashed with their ethnic kin’s rivals upon arrival in this Ethiopian region. The situation has since been contained by the authorities but the threat nevertheless remains, which is one of the reasons that aspiring hegemon Ethiopia continually took the lead in encouraging peace talks between South Sudan’s two warring factions. As it turned out, the many previous efforts at peace weren’t in vain since they laid the basis for the so-called “Framework Agreement” that the international press reported was agreed to by Kiir and Machar.

A Framework For Peace?

It still needs to be signed, and Machar said that he needs up to 48 hours to notify everyone on his side about its terms, but the deal is being portrayed by the world as the first real chance for peace since the conflict started half a decade ago. The “African News” online information outlet shared a tweeted picture of the Framework Agreement that enumerates its main points, which are as follows:

“* The areas agreed upon include a permanent ceasefire, grounding of all forces and the deployment of forces by regional body IGAD and the African Union to safeguard the ceasefire;

 * President Kiir and Dr Machar further agreed to have three capital cities; namely Juba, Wau and Malakal on temporary basis to host the three proposed vice-presidents;

 * According to the signed Framework Agreement, seen by the media, the two rivals agreed to allow the Khartoum government to secure the oil fields in South Sudan in coordination with the Juba administration, and to rehabilitate the wells to restore the previous levels of production;

 * They also declared to work together again for the third time after their long disagreement proved difficult for peace and stability.”

Judging from the above and presuming the veracity of the reported document, the Framework Agreement and attendant peace deal that it forms the basis of contradict the concept of an independent South Sudan and prove that this years-long American-“Israeli” geopolitical initiative has resolutely failed.

Africa’s Longest Civil War

As a brief backgrounder, South Sudan seceded from Sudan in 2011 after two back-to-back civil wars from 1955-1972 and 1983-2005 that many observers consider a single long-running conflict. Post-independence Sudan was the geographically largest state in Africa but was internally split from the get-go between northern Arab Muslims and southern English-speaking black Christians and Animists, generating tensions between the two identity-separate groups that were easily exploited by the country’s Ugandan & Ethiopian neighbors for regional geopolitical reasons but also the US & “Israel” due to Khartoum’s Cold War loyalties. It’s not to suggest that Arab Muslims and black Christians can’t peacefully coexist in the same country, but just that the colonial-era legacy of distrust between them made this very difficult.

This was naturally taken advantage of in sustaining the decades-long conflict that bled Sudan dry and contributed to its so-called “international isolation” at various periods of time, thus leading to South Sudan’s independence in 2011. That very idea, however, has since proven to have been a failure because of the inability of the world’s newest country to remain functional in spite of the enormous economic promise that it has by virtue of its copious oil resources. Khartoum warned about this many times in the past and has been vindicated in hindsight after the tragedy that has befallen the South Sudanese people following their independence. In fact, it’s becoming less and less accurate to even refer to this political entity as “independent” considering the terms of the Framework Agreement.

De-Sovereignizing South Sudan

To begin with, the first point of the Framework Agreement calls for the deployment of peacekeepers from the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) and the African Union to safeguard the permanent ceasefire, with this task likely being carried out mostly by Sudan and Uganda, which have the greatest influence in South Sudan and stake in its success, though it can also be expected that Ethiopia will likely play a notable role as well. The follow-up proposal for three separate national capitals will crystalize the country’s “Identity Federalism” by legalizing its “Balkanization”, which is exceptionally dangerous in the long-term given South Sudan’s pivotal location at the transregional space between North, East, and Central Africa that structurally reminds one of Afghanistan’s at the crossroads of Central, South, and West Asia.

It’s the third point, however, that does the most to de-sovereignize South Sudan and prove that its existence as an independent state has failed. Despite fighting for decades to secede from Sudan, South Sudan is now inviting its adversary’s military forces into the country to secure and rehabilitate its oil fields in a stunning strategic reversal that turns the most economically productive regions of the South into the “North’s” de-facto “protectorate”, exactly as Khartoum wanted. Some of the territory that its troops will be deployed to was previously disputed since the 2011 secession but will now come fully under the “North’s” influence in exchange for resurrecting the South’s energy industry and consequently assisting one of the world’s poorest countries with much-needed revenue generation.

Oil Makes The World Go Round

There’s little doubt that it was this dimension of the deal that incentivized Kiir and Machar to resolve their personal feud with one another and finally end the civil war. South Sudan’s conflict decimated its oil industry and was a lose-lose for both politicians and the country as a whole, with its people desperately in need of urgent relief from the fighting in order to begin the long overdue task of (re-)building their fledgling state. The only possible “compromise” that both leaders could apparently reach was to divide South Sudan into three sub-states with their own regional capitals, invite foreign forces to enforce this “Balkanization”, and sell out their sovereignty to Sudan so that the oil can start flowing again and “greasing everyone’s palms”.

There are also larger factors at play which may have led to the “international community” (i.e. the US-led West) putting enormous backroom pressure on Kiir and Machar to agree to this deal. The US expects that the forthcoming imposition of its “zero tolerance” stance towards Iranian oil imports (at pane of “secondary sanctions”) will give newfound energy allies Russia and Saudi Arabia larger market share in this industry and the possibility of “cornering it” through a de-facto “duopoly”, hence the need to get other sources of supply online as soon as possible. Although the “North” Sudanese transit state has become increasingly close to Russia and China, the South Sudanese producer is still an American-“Israeli” proxy which therefore enables the latter two to “balance” out the first-mentioned pair’s influence over this oil arrangement.

Concluding Thoughts

South Sudan can no longer be considered a functionally “independent” state following the reported terms of the Framework Agreement that both of its warring parties accepted in advance of the forthcoming peace deal for ending the country’s half-decade-long civil war. The desperate humanitarian situation in this landlocked state, coupled with the loss of revenue that both sides of the conflict experienced throughout the course of this fratricide, came together to force its most influential politicians to cede their sovereignty to the “North” Sudanese state that they had fought for almost half a century to separate from in exchange for much-needed oil money that could then be used to (re-)develop this “Balkanized” country at the strategic tri-regional crossroads of North, East, and Central Africa.

Khartoum’s commitment to this “win-win” agreement will see it establishing military control over the most oil-rich and partially disputed portions of its southern neighbor and former autonomous region, thereby doing away with the very concept of an “independent” South Sudan and turning it into a de-facto “protectorate” that it will basically rule as a condominium together with Uganda and Ethiopia through their own respective “spheres of influence”. So long as each of the stakeholders ensures that the ceasefire remains “permanent”, then the struggle will shift from ending the civil war to containing the “Balkanization” process that it unleashed by design, relying on concerted measures and close regional-local coordination to mitigate this geostrategic threat. Even so, South Sudan has proven itself to be full of surprises, and the worst might still be yet to come.

*

This article was originally published on Eurasia Future.

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

Someone finally asked Obama administration officials to own up to the rise of ISIS and arming jihadists in Syria. 

In a wide ranging interview titled “Confronting the Consequences of Obama’s Foreign Policy” The Intercept’s Mehdi Hasan put the question to Ben Rhodes, who served as longtime deputy national security adviser at the White House under Obama and is now promoting his newly published book, The World As It Is: Inside the Obama White House.

Rhodes has been described as being so trusted and close to Obama that he was “in the room” for almost every foreign policy decision of significance that Obama made during his eight years in office. While the Intercept interview is worth listening to in full, it’s the segment on Syria that caught our attention.

In spite of Rhodes trying to dance around the issue, he sheepishly answers in the affirmative when Mehdi Hasan asks the following question about supporting jihadists in Syria:

Did you intervene too much in Syria? Because the CIA spent hundreds of millions of dollars funding and arming anti-Assad rebels, a lot of those arms, as you know, ended up in the hands of jihadist groups, some even in the hands of ISIS.

Your critics would say you exacerbated that proxy war in Syria; you prolonged the conflict in Syria; you ended up bolstering jihadists.

Rhodes initially rambles about his book and “second guessing” Syria policy in avoidance of the question. But Hasan pulls him back with the following: “Oh, come on, but you were coordinating a lot of their arms.” 

The two spar over Hasan’s charge of “bolstering jihadists” in the following key section of the interview, at the end of which Rhodes reluctantly answers “yeah…” — but while trying to pass ultimate blame onto US allies Turkey, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia (similar to what Vice President Biden did in a 2014 speech):

MH: Oh, come on, but you were coordinating a lot of their arms. You know, the U.S. was heavily involved in that war with the Saudis and the Qataris and the Turks.

BR: Well, I was going to say: Turkey, Qatar, Saudi.

MH: You were in there as well.

BR: Yeah, but, the fact of the matter is that once it kind of devolved into kind of a sectarian-based civil war with different sides fighting for their perceived survival, I think we, the ability to bring that type of situation to close, and part of what I wrestled with in the book is the limits of our ability to pull a lever and make killing like that stop once it’s underway.

To our knowledge this is the only time a major media organization has directly asked a high ranking foreign policy adviser from the Obama administration to own up to the years long White House support to jihadists in Syria.

Though the interview was published Friday, its significance went without notice or comment in the mainstream media over the weekend (perhaps predictably). Instead, what did circulate was a Newsweek article mocking “conspiracy theories” surrounding the rapid rise of ISIS, including the following:

President Donald Trump has done little to dispel the myth of direct American support for ISIS since he took office. On the campaign trail in 2016, Trump claimed—without providing any evidence—that President Obama and then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton co-founded the group and that ISIS “honors” the former president.

Of course, the truth is a bit more nuanced than that, as Trump himself elsewhere seemed to acknowledge, and which ultimately led to the president reportedly shutting down the CIA’s covert Syrian regime change program in the summer of 2017 while complaining to aides about the shocking brutality of the CIA-trained “rebels”.

Meanwhile, mainstream media has been content to float the falsehood that President Obama’s legacy is that he “stayed out” of Syria, instead merely approving some negligible level of aid to so-called “moderate” rebels who were fighting both Assad and (supposedly) the Islamic State. Rhodes has himself in prior interviews attempted to portray Obama as wisely staying “on the sidelines” in Syria.

But as we’ve pointed out many times over the years, this narrative ignores and seeks to whitewash possibly the largest CIA covert program in history, started by Obama, which armed and funded a jihadist insurgency bent of overthrowing Assad to the tune of $1 billion a year (one-fifteenth of the CIA’s publicly known budget according to leaked Edward Snowden documents revealed by the Washington Post).

It also ignores the well established fact, documented in both US intelligence reports and authenticated battlefield footage, that ISIS and the Free Syrian Army (FSA) jointly fought under a single US-backed command structure during the early years of the war in Syria, even as late as throughout 2013 — something confirmed by University of Oklahoma professor Joshua Landis, widely considered to be the world’s foremost expert on Syria.

Important “Islamic State Leader Omar al-Shishani Fought Under U.S. Umbrella as Late as 2013” by @BradRHoff https://t.co/JQg5TwcLDp

— Joshua Landis (@joshua_landis) March 10, 2016

Syria experts, as well as a New York Times report which largely passed without notice, verified the below footage from 2013 showing then US Ambassador to Syria Robert Ford working closely with a “rebel” leader who exercised operational command over known ISIS terrorists (Ambassador Ford has since acknowledged the relationship to McClatchy News): 

This latest Ben Rhodes non-denial-cum-sheepish-affirmation on the Obama White House’s arming jihadists in Syria follows previous bombshell reporting by Mehdi Hasan from 2015.

As host of Al Jazeera’s Head to Head, Hasan asked the former head of Pentagon intelligence under Obama, General Michael Flynn, who is to blame for the rise of ISIS? (the August 2015 interview was significantly prior to Flynn joining Trump’s campaign).

Hasan presented Flynn with the 2012 Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) declassified memo revealing Washington support to al-Qaeda and ISIS terrorists in Syria in order to counter both Assad and Iran. Flynn affirmed Hasan’s charge that it was “a willful decision to support an insurgency that had Salafists, Al Qaeda and the Muslim Brotherhood…”. 

Soon after, The Intercept’s Glenn Greenwald appeared on Democracy Now to discuss the shocking contents of the Flynn interview:

It will be interesting to see years from now which “narrative” concerning Obama’s legacy in the Syrian conflict future historians choose to emphasize.

…Obama the president who “stayed out” and “on the sidelines” in Syria? …Or Obama the president whose decisions fueled the rise of the most brutal terrorist organization the world has ever seen?

* * *

Below is the relevant excerpt covering Syria from the 26-minute Intercept interview with Obama deputy national-security adviser Ben Rhodes [bold emphasis ours].

The audio is available here — Mehdi Hasan begins questioning Rhodes about Syria and ISIS at the 19-minute mark.

Mehdi Hasan: My guest today was at President Obama’s side every step of the way over the course of those two terms in office. Ben Rhodes joined the Obama election campaign in 2007 as a foreign-policy speechwriter, when he was just 29, and rose to become a deputy national-security adviser at the White House, who was so intellectually and ideologically close to his boss that he was often described as having a mind-meld with Obama.

Ben, who currently works at the Obama Foundation, has written a new book, “The World as It Is: A Memoir of the Obama White House.” And earlier this week I interviewed him about Obama’s rather contentious foreign policy record…

…

MH: But Ben, here’s what I don’t get, if you’re saying this about Afghanistan and prolonged conflict, all of which I don’t disagree with what you’re saying. How do you, then, explain Syria? Because you’ve been criticized a lot. I’ve been listening to your interviews on the book tour; you talk about in the book about how you were criticized for not doing enough on Syria. I remember being an event in D.C. a couple years ago where Syrian opposition members were berating you for not doing enough at an event, and you often were the public face who came out and defended Obama. I want to come to the other direction and say: Did you intervene too much in Syria? Because the CIA spent hundreds of millions of dollars funding and arming anti-Assad rebels, a lot of those arms, as you know, ended up in the hands of jihadist groups, some even in the hands of ISIS. Your critics would say you exacerbated that proxy war in Syria; you prolonged the conflict in Syria; you ended up bolstering jihadists.

Ben Rhodes: Well, what I try to do in the book is, you know, essentially raise — all the second guessing on Syria tends to be not what you expressed, Mehdi, but the notion that we should’ve taken military action.

MH: Yes.

BR: What I do in the book is I try to look back at 2011 and 2012, was there a diplomatic window that we missed or that we, in some ways, escalated its closure by pivoting to the call for Assad to go — which obviously I believe should happen, I believe Assad has been a terrible leader for Syria and has brutalized his people — but, you know, was there a diplomatic initiative that could have been taken to try to avert or at least minimize the extent of the civil war. Because, you know, what ended up happening essentially there is, you know, we were probably too optimistic that, you know, after Mubarak went and Ben Ali and eventually Saleh and Gaddafi, that you would have a situation where Assad would go. And, you know, not factoring in enough the assistance he was going to get from Russia and Iran, combined with his own nihilism, and how that could lead him to survive. So I do look back at that potentially missed diplomatic opportunity.

On the support of the opposition, you know, I don’t know that I would give us that much agency. There are a lot of people putting arms into Syria, funding all sorts of —

MH: Oh, come on, but you were coordinating a lot of their arms. You know, the U.S. was heavily involved in that war with the Saudis and the Qataris and the Turks.

BR: Well, I was going to say: Turkey, Qatar, Saudi.

MH: You were in there as well.

BR: Yeah, but, the fact of the matter is that once it kind of devolved into kind of a sectarian-based civil war with different sides fighting for their perceived survival, I think we, the ability to bring that type of situation to close, and part of what I wrestled with in the book is the limits of our ability to pull a lever and make killing like that stop once it’s underway.

So that’s why I still look to that initial opening window. I also describe, there was a slight absurdity in the fact that we were debating options to provide military support to the opposition at the same time that we were deciding to designate al-Nusra, a big chunk of that opposition, as a terrorist organization. So there was kind of a schizophrenia that’s inherent in a lot of U.S. foreign policy that came to a head in Syria.

MH: That’s a very good word, especially to describe Syria policy…

Note: Image captions are above the images.

1. The 2014 Mount Polley Environmental Disaster (British Columbia, Canada)

Aerial view of the outlet of tiny Hazeltine Creek (normally 6 feet wide) as it empties into Quesnel Lake (a once world-famous salmon fishery) at the head of the 600 mile-long Fraser River estuayr that is now contaminated with 2.5 billion gallons of toxic sulfide mine waste (including sulfuric acid) that was discharged in 2014. The brown color represents the trunks of the huge trees that were up-rooted during the deluge. The diameter of some of the trees measured half the width of the original creek.

The massive earthen dam at Mount Polley – post disaster – Imperial Metals is getting ready to re-start the mining. Alamy stock photo.

Before and after NASA satellite photos of Imperial Metals’ Mount Polley copper/gold sulfide mine disaster. Note the change in color of the three lakes in the photo, representing the toxic pollutants that had been stored in the tailings lagoon. Note the invisibility of Hazeltine Creek in the left photo and appreciate the fact that is is now visible from outer space. For a more thorough view of British Columbia’s worst environmental disaster, google “Images of the Mount Polley mine disaster”.

2. The Samarco Mine Disaster (Brazil)

Above are before and after photos of the Samarco iron mine disaster in Brazil (November 5, 2015). The project was a joint venture by Vale, a Brazilian mining company and BHP-Billiton (an English-Australian company). The top two images (looking downstream from the tailings pond area) are before and after shots of the little town that was wiped off the map because it was situated downstream from the two tailings pond dams that dissolved in sequential fashion and discharged their toxic contents into the Rio Doce river estuary (ironically “doce” is the Portuguese word for “sweet”). The two lower images are the before and after photos of the tailings ponds and the massive erosion that killed many humans and animals and most of the fish in the river all the way down to the Atlantic Ocean, 300 miles below.

A small downstream mining town destroyed in the disaster. All the miners lost their jobs.

The mouth of the Rio Doce at the site where it empties into the Atlantic Ocean

For many more images of the catastrophe, watch the slide show here.

3. The Bingham Canyon Mine (Utah)

The Bingham Canyon Mine in Utah is one of the largest open-pit mines in the world. It measures over 4 kilometers wide and 1,200 meters deep and is located about 30 kilometers southwest of Salt Lake City. It was operated by Kennecott Copper Company until Rio Tinto purchased Kennecott Utah Copper in 1989. NASA Satellite photo.

Open pit copper mine district near “Green” Valley, Arizona. Asarco and Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold are the extracting companies. Note the absence of trees or any other green vegetation in the following series of NASA satellite photos.

4. The Berkeley open pit mine SuperFund site (Butte, Montana)

The Atlantic Richfield Company (ARCO) had purchased the old Anaconda Copper Mining Company in 1977 and closed the Berkeley open pit mine in 1983, laying off 1,300 workers. The Berkeley Pit was located immediately adjacent to Butte, Montana. After the mine was shut down and the water pumps stopped, the mine began filling up with toxic water that today has a pH that is less than 2.5! The highly acidic water will be forever incompatible with normal life, specifically fish and fowl. The acid mine drainage has poisoned the ground water and aquifer and thus has made the water of Butte undrinkable. The Berkeley Pit, now an EPA SuperFund site, once yielded copper, gold and silver. The area was once nicknamed “The Richest Hill on Earth”. NASA satellite image.

5. The 2015 Gold King Mine tailings pond disaster (Colorado)

In 2015 the Gold King Mine tailings pond near Silverton, Colorado breached and spilled into the Animas River estuary. The area is now an EPA SuperFund site. 3 million gallons of orange wastewater breached an earthen dam and contaminated downstream water with mercury and arsenic. Mines in the area continue to drain thousands of gallons of heavy metal-contaminated water into the river every day.

6. The Escondida copper-gold-silver mine complex (Chile)

The Escondida copper-gold-silver mine complex in Chile’s Atacama desert. The Escondida produces more copper than any other mine in the world (1.483 million tons in 2007), amounting to 9.5% of world output and making it a major part of the Chilean economy. The mine is located 110 miles southeast of Chile’s port city of Antofagasta, which is the namesake of the copper mining company that is planning to mine for copper in northeast Minnesota’s water-rich Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness (BWCAW). All of Antofagasta’s copper mines in Chile are in arid, water-poor areas.

The Escondida mine tailings lagoon above – in Chile’s Atacama desert – is the world’s largest tailings pond. The tailings are intended to be held in perpetuity behind earthen retaining dams. The straight line at the left of the photo represents the tallest of the surrounding retaining walls, and is 0.6 miles long. NASA satellite photo.

7. Reserve Mining Company’s MilePost 7 tailings lagoons – Silver Bay MN

Until 1980, Reserve Mining Company reportedly dumped 47 tons of waste ore sludge into Superior every day.

In 1980, Reserve Mining Company belatedly began using its Milepost 7site  to “store” the tailings. The two “ponds” were located 7 miles inland from Silver Bay. As can be easily measured, the two tailings ponds are massive and together measure about 5 miles across at its greatest dimension. It is said that if the ponds suddenly breached the earthen dam walls and released their toxic contents in a heavy rain event, a wall of sludge 28 feet high would inundate the area all the way to Lake Superior, just as the Mount Polley Copper Mine tailings dam breach did in British Columbia in 2014 and the Samarco Iron mine did in Brazil in 2015.

Two views of the “delta” that formed at Silver Bay, Minnesota by Reserve Mining’s continuous discharging of taconite tailings directly into Lake Superior. The delta eventually extended 1/3 of a mile from the original shoreline. Reserve Mining attempted to do some remediation, as seen in the second photo that shows some vegetation growing, but the toxins in the underlying sludge will never be fully de-toxified.

The sulfide and precious metals mining process produces a toxic slurry of finely ground mine tailings, that inevitably contain undesirable toxic substances like arsenic, mercury, and other toxic sulfide minerals, which are poisonous to all living things. A major difference between taconite and copper/nickel/gold/sulfide mining is that the post-extraction waste volume for sulfide mining is 99+% and for taconite it is only 60%. 

When insoluble material such as mine tailings settle in a body of water, the process inevitably smothers lake and river bottoms where fish spawn and feed. Marine life dies or is disabled where acid mine waste pollutes the water. The offshore area from Reserve Mining Company’s permanently toxic tailings plume in Silver Bay, MN surely keeps Lake Superior fish from thriving in the area.

When any ore is refined for its minerals, a slurry of mud/rock sludge is left behind. In the case of copper mining the tailings byproduct represents over 99% of the total. What to do with tailings is one of the biggest unsolved issues in mining and is a secret that mining companies prefer that the public and its elected representatives not consider in their decisions about permitting mining upstream from the population

Of the 1,950 operating mines world-wide most dispose of their tailings in big open pits behind earthen dams that can be quite soluble in the case of unpredictable heavy rains and very unstable in the case of unpredictable earthquakes. In a handful of countries around the world, including Indonesia, Norway and Chile (the world’s leading producer of copper), the leftover sludge is dumped into the sea. As a matter of historical fact, what the rest of the world’s mining companies are doing to the planet’s oceans is exactly what Reserve Mining Company did to Minnesota’s precious, previously drinkable Lake Superior water at Silver Bay prior to Judge Miles Lord’s order to shut down the tailings dumping in the mid-1970s! Reserve Mining repeatedly refused to consider building or using the inland lagoon to “store” its taconite tailings until 1980.

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Dr Kohls is a retired physician from Duluth, MN, USA. He writes a weekly column for the Duluth Reader, the area’s alternative newsweekly magazine. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

His columns deal with the dangers of American fascism, corporatism, militarism, racism, malnutrition, Big Pharma’s psychiatric drugging and over-vaccination regimens, and other movements that threaten the environment, prosperity, democracy, civility and the health and longevity of the planet and the populace. Many of his columns are archived at

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

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

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

In 2015, then US presidential candidate Donald Trump called for a “total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States,” despite this violating a number of provisions of the US Constitution, including laws governing equal protection and the right to due process.

During his first month in office, Trump turned his discriminatory and hateful rhetoric into policy, signing an executive order that banned visitors from seven Muslim-majority countries, including Iraq, Iran, Syria, Yemen, Somalia, Libya and Sudan – despite the fact that nationals of these countries had not carried out any deadly attacks on US soil.

Naked discrimination

Federal judges across the country ruled the travel ban to be nothing more than a naked attempt to discriminate against Muslims. In a revised version, Iraq was dropped from the list, but in March 2017, a US court blocked the ban again.

“The illogic of the government’s contentions is palpable. The notion that one can demonstrate animus toward any group of people only by targeting all of them at once is fundamentally flawed,” stated US District Judge Derrick Watson.

The Trump administration eventually issued a third, slightly watered-down version of the ban, which the Supreme Court has now upheld in a 5-4 vote. By ruling in favour of the ban, the five conservative judges have defied not only lower court judges, but also a slew of constitutional scholars throughout the US.

Essentially, the five conservative judges have determined that it is totally fine to discriminate against Muslims, so long as your prejudice is disguised by also targeting Venezuelans and North Koreans, who were covered by the third version of the travel ban. Moreover, the 5-4 ruling grants the president unprecedented power to shape and reshape immigration laws in any way he deems fit, effectively giving the country yet another big shove towards authoritarian rule.

Codifying Islamophobia

Even worse, the ruling has institutionalised and codified Islamophobia into law for the first time in US history.

Even before today’s Supreme Court ruling, the Anne Frank Center for Mutual Respect, a US-based human rights group, warned of “alarming parallels” between Trump’s America and Hitler’s Germany, suggesting that Trump’s targeting of democratic institutions and minorities mirrored the years leading up to the Holocaust.

Another cause for genuine alarm is the fact that the Supreme Court vindicated Trump’s Muslim ban based on concerns for “national security”. You don’t need to be a historian to know that a great majority of the world’s worst atrocities have been carried out in the name of “national security”, including the Soviet purges, the Holocaust, the US Japanese civilian internment camps and the campaigns of ethnic cleansing taking place in Myanmar, Palestine, Syria and elsewhere today.

In her dissent, Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor slammed her five colleagues on the bench, writing:

“The United States of America is a nation built upon the promise of religious liberty … The court’s decision today fails to safeguard that fundamental principle. It leaves undisturbed a policy first advertised openly and unequivocally as a ‘total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States’ because the policy now masquerades behind a facade of national-security concerns.”

Moreover, the ban does nothing to address these so-called national security concerns, especially as many terrorist attacks carried out in the US today are perpetrated by white, right-wing, Christian men who identify and sympathise with Trump.

Rightwing extremism

A recent report published for Congress by the Government Accountability Office found that of the 85 deadly attacks by violent extremists since 9/11, far-right violent groups were responsible for 73 percent, while “radical Islamist” extremists were responsible for 27 percent – a margin of almost three to one.

Moreover, an analysis of every terrorist attack carried out on US soil during the past 20 years revealed that Trump’s Muslim ban would have saved zero lives over this timeframe. Yes, you read that right – zero.

Preventing terrorism was never the aim of this ban, however. It was always about rewarding the Islamophobia industry for its patronage of Trump’s presidential campaign, along with the slice of white America that hates anyone and everyone who doesn’t look or sound like them.

Welcome to these Islamophobic United States of America. Discriminating against Muslims is now the law.

*

CJ Werleman is an opinion writer for Salon, Alternet, and the author of Crucifying America and God Hates You. Hate Him Back. Follow him on Twitter: @cjwerleman

On June 13, 2018, the Washington Post published an original piece by Paul Sonne that describes America’s potential use of the low-yield nuclear warheads that are to be installed on the future US B-61-12 nuclear bombs, as well as on the ballistic missiles carried by the Trident II submarines in the form of W76-2 warheads, in accordance with Washington’s 2018 nuclear doctrine. The article claims that the introduction of low-yield warheads and the idea of their potential use is being justified by the Pentagon as necessary due to the fact that Russia is allegedly prepared to use similar warheads against NATO countries, based on that nation’s current nuclear doctrine and because a purported strategy of “escalate to de-escalate” has apparently been “approved” by Moscow.

It should be kept in mind that the Military Doctrine of the Russian Federation, which has sections covering the potential use of nuclear weapons, says nothing about the power of the nuclear weapons that might be utilized, nor is there any mention of warheads with either high or “low” yields in TNT equivalents. Those sections of the official doctrine do not even categorize Russian nuclear weapons into strategic vs. tactical varieties.

Only one term is specified in Russia’s military and strategic posture: “nuclear weapons.” And only two circumstances are listed as a basis for their potential use: the first — only in response to the use of nuclear or other weapons of mass destruction against the Russian Federation and/or its allies; and the second — in the event of aggression against Russia that employs conventional weapons to the point that “the very existence of the state is threatened.” In other words, only reciprocal actions are permitted in either case.

Nor does the Russian nuclear doctrine list the countries or alliances against which nuclear weapons can be used.

It seems odd that the US still does not understand the basic tenets of Russia’s nuclear posture. And it must be said that this is not the first time that Western analysts have taken such an unprofessional approach. This has become especially glaring in the run-up to the next NATO summit, which will take place July 11-12 in Brussels.

On the other hand, the newest US nuclear doctrine, which was approved last February, specifies 14 justifications for the use of nuclear weapons, including “low-yield” warheads, which is how US arms experts classify nuclear warheads of 5.0-6.5 kilotons and below. These are precisely the sea- and air-launched warheads the Pentagon intends to utilize in accordance with its new concept of “escalating to de-escalate.” Under that theory, low-yield nuclear warheads can be employed by US nuclear forces on an increasing scale in a variety of regional conflicts, with the aim of “de-escalating” them, which might be accomplished with the help of a nuclear first strike.

This practice could cause a chain reaction in the use of nuclear weapons, involving not only “low-yield” warheads, but also more powerful nuclear explosives.

The practice being described — the potential use of low-yield nuclear weapons, which is a real fixation for the current US administration and is being discussed with increasing frequency in the US — suggests that America’s military and political leaders are committed to dramatically lowering the minimum threshold for their use and expanding the list of acceptable reasons to utilize them under real-world conditions. The adage from the past that everyone could relate to — “A nuclear war cannot be unleashed, because there will be no winners” — is now absent from the political statements that are being heard. It is clear that forces have taken the upper hand on Capitol Hill that are still incapable of imagining the consequences of a nuclear Armageddon. Such a path, even if this scenario proves unlikely, will inevitably lead to a potential undermining of the already fragile non-proliferation regime and a breakdown in the negotiations on establishing control over nuclear facilities, which — and this is not news — very few countries are taking part in at the present time.

For all these reasons, a dangerous future practice like this needs to be reexamined by Washington, in the interests of preserving global stability. In order to achieve this goal, the strategic guidelines for inflicting a first “preemptive and preventive” nuclear strike, as well as the continuing premise of “unconditional offensive nuclear deterrence,” which have remained unchanged since 1945, must be completely eliminated from American nuclear strategies.

These are not ultimatums, as someone defending US nuclear policy has already tried to portray them. This is a completely natural, logical, and sensible step, which would no doubt be positively received all over the world.

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Vladimir Kozin, Ph.D., is an Expert Council member of the Russian Senate’ Foreign Relations Committee, Professor of the Academy of Military Science, former high-ranking diplomat, leading expert on disarmament and strategic stability issues.

“Disappointing is the word.  Empty is the other word.” – Mile Jedenak, Jun 26, 2018.

Australia was always the outsider in the tournament, and a loitering one at that.  Its fans, and loyal commentators, thought otherwise.  In Kazan, the journalists gave the impression that the so-called Socceroos were Lotharios to be admired, wonders to be embraced.  A story went around that Australia had become some substitute Netherlands side, a touch far fetched though enticingly sentimental.   

In Sochi, such sentimentality became hackneyed and wooden.  Australia needed to beat another unfancied side, Peru, and hope for a good French performance against the other group member Denmark, to have a chance to scrape into the last sixteen.  The exercise was ultimately an academic one: France failed to score against Denmark, as did Denmark against France.  Peru and Australia would be leaving the tournament. 

When it came to the group matches, there were chances, means, and hopes garlanded with prospect.  The Danes were struck by the fortitude of the Socceroos, both sides squaring the ledger after ninety minutes.  Such is the nature of football and its arithmetically perverted odds: it distorts to a charming degree and affords comfort in the most unlikely of cases.

The reality is all too clear: the Socceroos have been flat.  Be it in execution, delivery and generation, the team has been operating in discordant assembly, its barbs either hidden or totally absent.  The gloriously bearded captain Mile Jedinak may well have scored from his two penalty shots, but finding a goal from open play has been less likely than a koala sighting in Kazan.   

Much of the commentary around the match against Peru was based on the suspended meaningless of a moment. 

“Peru scored with their one and only shot of the half,” chirped a dissatisfied former Australian goal keeper, Mark Schwarzer.  The context and qualifier follows: “Socceroos have looked the more threatening and dangerous going forward.  I think we’re unlucky to be behind.” 

Luck remains the emptiest of alibis in football, but it is appealing as a refuge of last resort.   

The old tricks of the disgruntled show find their place: the performers who did well in a village styled pedestrianism but came up without the result; the injustice of the fine tuned shot (how dare they!) that penetrated and punctured all; and the sense of god awful luck; or its lack, if you are an Australian soccer tragedian.   

The broadcast had to emphasise failed potential, promise gone wrong.  Another smattering from the Optus Sport Twitter feed, of which there were many:

“Tom Rogic was almost unstoppable… until Pedro Gallese go in the way.” 

But the despoiler of the show was Andrew Carillo, who decided to shine when necessary.  In the second half, Paolo Geurrero added another punch to the misery. As the gradual unravelling of a team was taking place, the side punditry was warming up: Would Tim Cahill play?  Was he warming up? 

This is the soppy nature of World Cup feeling and Australians were feeling it in abundance. 

“A dagger in the Socceroos’ heart,” came another post on the Optus Sport Twitter feed, which is good to see, given that Optus proved fairly incapable of showing anything dagger related at all in broadcasting its complement of matches to Australian audiences.

In terms of football, Australia remains a country in cryogenic storage, archived in the pocket of potential, the slot of future expectation.  The same cannot be said about the women, who seem to have outdone their male counterparts by some stomping margin.  The World Game, as it has been marketed through sporting channels in the country, has yet to globally impose its omnipresent sense upon the populace.  There are still many competing codes.

In terms of team make-up, there is no excuse why this population located at the base of Asia should not muster something that moves, at the very least, into the elimination stage of the tournament.  Players such as the green but delightfully promising Daniel Arzani were kept back as delicate porcelain samples.  Tim Cahill, the terror of set pieces and some delicious moves in the previous World Cup, was treated as a worn talisman who might, given the right moment, have emerged from wheelchair royalty. Deployed all too late, his appearance against Peru seemed but a meek and ineffectual swansong. 

In a World Cup where goals have come with graceful ease and fluency, Australia has struggled with shots.  Build-ups did come, mounted with some grit and fortitude; there were even times in the drawn match against Denmark that suggested something of a blooding, a growing in confidence.  But other teams wised up to the glaring disability, leaving the Socceroos as mutes before a noisy and insistent chorus.   

“We played well,” came the redundant summation from former Socceroo John Aloisi, “we were the better team tonight.”  Cries were registered at the final whistle that the first goal from Peru was inflicted from an offside situation.  But what mattered was that Peru did score, which will be etched in sporting history.  Same with France in its narrow victory, helped by the freakish nature of providence itself.  In the context of tournament matches, that is all that matters. 

*

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]

Featured image: Girls and mothers, waiting for their duvets, in Kabul Photo credit: Dr. Hakim

Writing this week for the Chicago Tribune, Steve Chapman called a U.S. Government report on the war in Afghanistan “a chronicle of futility.” “The Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction” report says the U.S. spent large sums “in search of quick gains” in regional stabilization – but these instead “exacerbated conflicts, enabled corruption and bolstered support for insurgents.”

“In short,” says Chapman, the U.S. government “made things worse rather than better.”

Gains, meanwhile, have certainly been made by weapon manufacturers. On average, during Trump’s first year in office, the Pentagon dropped 121 bombs per day on Afghanistan. The total number of weapons – missiles, bombs – deployed in Afghanistan by manned and remotely piloted aircraft through May this year is estimated at 2,339.

War profiteers deliver hellish realities and futile prospects, but the Afghan Peace Volunteers have not given up on bettering their country. In recent visits to Kabul, we’ve listened as they consider the longer-term question of how peace can come to an economically devastated country where employment by various warlords, including the U.S. and Afghan militaries, is many families’ only way to put bread on the table. Hakim, who mentors the APVs, assures us that a lasting peace must involve the creation of jobs and incomes with a hope of sustaining community. Inspired by Mohandas Gandhi’s calls for self-sufficiency, and the example of his Pashtun ally, Badshah Khan, they resist war by fostering education and creating local cooperatives.

Miriam is a student in the APVs’ “Street Kids’ School,” which prepares child laborers to pursue schooling while helping their families stay afloat with monthly rations of rice and oil. Sitting with me in the garden of the APVs’ Borderfree Center, her widowed mother, Gul Bek told me of the hardships she faces as a single mother of five.

Each month, she struggles to pay for water, rent, food, and fuel. Some years ago, a company installed a water pipeline leading to her home, but every month a representative from the company comes to collect 700 – 800 Afghanis (about $10.00) in payment for the family’s water consumption. An impoverished household – even free of war’s ravages – can’t easily spare $10. She tries hard to conserve.

“But we must have water!” says Gul Bek. “We need it to clean, to cook, to do laundry.”

She knows how important hygiene is, but she doesn’t dare go over her budget for water. Gul Bek fears she might be evicted if she can’t manage rent. Would she then go to a refugee camp in Kabul? She shakes her head. I asked if the government helps at all.

“They know nothing about how we live,” she said. “At the beginning of Ramadan, we couldn’t even have bread. We had no flour.”

Her two eldest sons, age 19 and 14, are beginning to learn tailoring skills and they attend school part time. I asked if she ever considers allowing them to join the military or the police to earn something closer to a living wage. She was adamant. After working so hard to raise these sons, she doesn’t want to lose them. She won’t allow them to carry guns.

Visiting a refugee camp several days later, I could understand her horror of moving into a camp. The camps are overcrowded, muddy, and dangerously unsanitary. An elder from the camp, Haji Jool, was entrusted with the keys to a control room for a well that two NGOs recently installed. On that day, the valves weren’t functioning. 200 of the 700 families in the camp depend on that well for water. I looked at the worried faces of women who had been waiting, since early morning, to collect water. What would they do? Haji Jool told me that most of the families had come from rural areas. They fled their homes because of war or because they lacked water. Kabul’s battered infrastructure, in desperate need of U.S. reparations for fifteen years of war, simply can’t sustain people.

Our APV friends, recognizing the need to create jobs and incomes, have begun forging ahead with impressive work to establish cooperatives. In early June, they initiated a shoemaking cooperative, led by two young men, Hussein and Hosham, who’ve already been trained and have taught their skills to Noorullah. They named their store “Unique.” A carpentry co-op will soon be up and running.

The APV are grateful to the many internationals who, over the past six winters, have assisted their annual “Duvet Project” to bring much-needed blankets to Kabul residents lacking protection from harsh winter weather. The “Duvet Project” has donated winter blankets to some 9,000 destitute families in Kabul and has offered a winter income to as many as 360 seamstresses. Yet, the APV have grappled with a persistent plea from seamstresses who, while appreciative of the seasonal project, express their acute need for an income throughout the year.

This year, APV are forming a seamstresses’ cooperative which will manufacture clothing year-round for inexpensive local sale and will also distribute duvets.

The U.S. exerts massive power from the skies of Afghanistan, raining down hellfire in ever greater quantities. Its Security Zone and its military bases, within and near Kabul, help to drain the local water table faster than wells can be dug. It persistently causes hatred and harm. Meanwhile, it might sound like a cliché, but in imagining a better world our young friends are helping to build one. With sustainable projects to support the neediest, they embrace Gul Bek’s refusal to cooperate with war. Their simple, small actions do strengthen Kabul.  They give themselves over to compassion, to strengthening their neighbors. They plant the seeds that may or may not grow a forest there – they use, rather than wasting, what power they have. They aren’t rewarded with the titanic achievement of having shaped and ruined a country, but instead with purposeful intent to stop the vicious cycle of war and resist the cruel hierarchies attempting to prevail. We at Voices are grateful for the chance, with them, to reject despair. In supporting their projects, we can make reparations, however small, for the persistent futility of war.

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Kathy Kelly ([email protected]) co-coordinates Voices for Creative Nonviolence (www.vcnv.org). She visited Kabul in early June as a guest of the Afghan Peace Volunteers (ourjourneytosmile.com)

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