Global Research

This article was originally published on March 15, 2016.

Razor-wire fences, detention centres, xenophobic rhetoric and political disarray; nothing illustrates the tendency of governments to aggressively pursue nationalistic interests more starkly than their inhumane response to refugees fleeing conflict and war. With record numbers of asylum seekers predicted to reach Europe this year and a morally acceptable humanitarian response nowhere in sight, the immediate problem is more apparent than ever: the abject failure of the international community to share the responsibility, burden and resources needed to safeguard the basic rights of asylum seekers in accordance with international law.  

Of immediate concern across the European Union, however, is the mounting pressure that policymakers are under from the far-right and anti-immigration groups, whose influence is skewing the public debate on the divisive issue of how governments should deal with refugees and immigrants. With racial intolerance steadily growing among citizens, the traditionally liberal attitude of European states is fast diminishing and governments are increasingly adopting a cynical interpretation of international refugee law that lacks any sense of justice or compassion.

The 1951 Refugee Convention, which was implemented in response to Europe’s last major refugee crisis during World War II, states that governments need only safeguard the human rights of asylum seekers when they are inside their territory. In violation of the spirit of this landmark human rights legislation, the response from most European governments has been to prevent rather than facilitate the arrival of refugees in order to minimise their legal responsibility towards them. In order to achieve their aim, the EU has even gone so far as making a flawed and legally questionable deal with President Erdogan to intercept migrant families crossing the Aegean Sea and return them to Turkey against their will.

Instead of providing ‘safe and legal routes’ to refugees, a growing number of countries on the migration path from Greece to Western Europe are adopting the Donald Trump solution of building walls, militarising boarders and constructing barbed wire barriers to stop people entering their country. Undocumented refugees (a majority of them women and children) who are trying to pass through Europe’s no-longer borderless Schengen area are at times subjected to humiliation and violence or are detained in rudimentary camps with minimal access to the essentials they need to survive. Unable to travel to their desired destination, tens of thousands of refugees have been bottlenecked in Greece which has become a warehouse for abandoned souls in a country on the brink of its own humanitarian crisis.

Ostensibly, the extreme reaction of many EU member states to those risking their lives to escape armed conflict is tantamount to officially sanctioned racial discrimination. Unsurprisingly, this unwarranted government response has been welcomed by nationalist parties who are now polling favourably among voters in the UK, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Denmark and Poland. The same is true in Hungary, where the government has even agreed Nazi-era demands to confiscate cash and jewellery from refugees to fund their anti-humanitarian efforts.

There can be little doubt that the European response to refugees has been discriminatory, morally objectionable and politically dangerous. It’s also self-defeating since curtailing civil liberties and discarding long-held social values has the potential to destabilise Europe far more than simply providing the assistance guaranteed to refugees under the UN convention. Albeit unwittingly, the reactionary attitude of governments also plays directly into the hands of Islamic State and other jihadi groups whose broader intentions include inciting Islamophobia, provoking instability and conflict within western countries, and recruiting support for terrorism in the Middle East and across Europe.

Dispelling nationalist myths of the far-right

With the public increasingly divided about how governments should respond to the influx of people escaping violent conflict, it’s crucial that the pervasive myths peddled by right-wing extremists are exposed for what they are: bigotry, hyperbole and outright lies designed to exacerbate fear and discord within society.

Forced migration is a global phenomenon and, compared with other continents, Europe is not being subjected to the ‘invasion of refugees’ widely portrayed in the mainstream media. Of the world’s 60 million refugees, nine out of ten are not seeking asylum in the EU, and the vast majority remain displaced within their own countries. Most of those that do settle in Europe will return to their country of origin when they are no longer at risk (as happened at the end of the Balkan Wars of the 1990s when 70% of refugees who had fled to Germany returned to Serbia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, Kosovo, Albania and Slovenia).

The real emergency is taking place outside of Europe, where there is a desperate need for more assistance from the international community. For example, Turkey is now home to over 3 million refugees; Jordan hosts 2.7 million refugees – a staggering 41 percent of its population; and Lebanon has 1.5 million Syrian refugees who make up a third of its population. Unsurprisingly, social and economic systems are under severe strain in these and the other countries that host the majority of global refugees – especially since they are mainly based in developing countries with soaring unemployment rates, inadequate welfare systems and high levels of social unrest. In stark comparison (and with the notable exception of Germany), the 28 relatively prosperous EU member states have collectively pledged to resettle a mere 160,000 of the one million refugees that entered Europe in 2015. Not only does this amount to less than 0.25% of their combined population, governments have only relocated a few hundred have so far.

The spurious claim that there are insufficient resources available to share with those seeking asylum in the EU or that asylum seekers will ‘take our homes, our jobs and our welfare services’ is little more than a justification for racial discrimination. Aside from the overriding moral and legal obligation for states to provide emergency assistance to anyone fleeing war or persecution, the economic rationale for resettling asylum seekers throughout Europe (and globally) is sound: in countries experiencing declining birth rates and ageing populations – as is the case across the EU as a whole – migration levels need to be significantly increased in order to continue financing systems of state welfare.

The facts are incontrovertible: evidence from OECD countries demonstrates that immigrant households contribute $2,800 more to the economy in taxes alone than they receive in public provision. In the UK, non-European immigrants contributed £5 billion ($7.15 billion) in taxes between 2000 and 2011. They are also less likely to receive state benefits than the rest of the population, more likely to start businesses, and less likely to commit serious crimes than natives. Overall, economists at the European Commission calculate that the influx of people from conflict zones will have a positive effect on employment rates and long-term public finances in the most affected countries.

A common agenda to end austerity

If migrant families contribute significantly to society and many European countries with low birth rates actually need them in greater numbers, why are governments and a growing sector of the population so reluctant to honour international commitments and assist refugees in need? The widely held belief that public resources are too scarce to share with asylum seekers is most likely born of fear and insecurity in an age of economic austerity, when many European citizens are struggling to make ends meet.

Just as the number of people forcibly displaced from developing countries begins to surge, economic conditions in most European countries have made it politically unfeasible to provide incoming refugees with shelter and basic welfare. Voluntary and compulsory austerity measures adopted by governments after spending trillions of dollars bailing out the banks in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis have resulted in deep spending cuts to essential public services such as healthcare, education and pensions schemes. The resulting economic crisis has led to rising unemployment, social discontent, growing levels of inequality and public services that are being stretched to breaking point.

The same neoliberal ideology that underpins austerity in Europe is also responsible for creating widespread economic insecurity across the Global South and facilitating an exodus of so-called ‘economic migrants’, many of who are also making their way to Europe. Economic austerity has been central to the ‘development’ policies foisted onto low-income countries for decades by the IMF and World Bank in exchange for loans and international aid. They constitute a modern form of economic colonialism that in many cases has decimated essential public services, thwarted poverty reduction programmes and increased the likelihood of social unrest, sectarian violence and civil war. By prioritising international loan repayments over the basic welfare of citizens, these neoliberal policies are directly responsible for creating a steady flow of ‘refugees from globalisation’ who are in search of basic economic security in an increasingly unequal world.

Instead of pointing the finger of blame at governments for mismanaging the economy, public anger across Europe is being wrongly directed at a far easier target: refugees from foreign lands who have become society’s collective scapegoats at a time of grinding austerity. It’s high time that people in both ‘rich’ and ‘poor’ countries recognise that their hardship stems from a parallel set of neoliberal policies that have prioritised market forces above social needs. By emphasising this mutual cause and promoting solidarity between people and nations, citizens can begin overturning prejudiced attitudes and supporting progressive agendas geared towards safeguarding the common good of all humanity.

From a culture of war to conflict resolution

It’s also clear that any significant change in the substance and direction of economic policy must go hand-in-hand with a dramatic shift away from aggressive foreign policy agendas that are overtly based on securing national interests at all costs – such as appropriating the planet’s increasingly scarce natural resources. Indeed, it will remain impossible to address the root causes of the refugee crisis until the UK, US, France and other NATO countries fully accept that their misguided foreign policies are largely responsible for the current predicament.

Not only are many western powers responsible for selling arms to abusive regimes in the Middle East, their wider foreign policy objectives and military ambitions have displaced large swathes of the world’s population, particularly as a consequence of the illegal occupation of Iraq, the war in Afghanistan and the ill-conceived invasion of Libya. The connection between the military interventions of recent years, the perpetuation of terrorism and the plight of refugees across the Middle East and North Africa has been succinctly explained by Professor Noam Chomsky:

“the US-UK invasion of Iraq … dealt a nearly lethal blow to a country that had already been devastated by a massive military attack twenty years earlier followed by virtually genocidal US-UK sanctions. The invasion displaced millions of people, many of whom fled and were absorbed in the neighboring countries, poor countries that are left to deal somehow with the detritus of our crimes. One outgrowth of the invasion is the ISIS/Daesh monstrosity, which is contributing to the horrifying Syrian catastrophe. Again, the neighboring countries have been absorbing the flow of refugees. The second sledgehammer blow destroyed Libya, now a chaos of warring groups, an ISIS base, a rich source of jihadis and weapons from West Africa to the Middle East, and a funnel for flow of refugees from Africa.”

After this series of blundered invasions by the US and NATO forces, which continue to destabilise an entire region, one might think that militarily powerful nations would finally accept the need for a very different foreign policy framework. No longer can governments ignore the imperative to engender trust between nations and replace the prevailing culture of war with one of peace and nonviolent means of conflict resolution. In the immediate future, the priority for states must be to deescalate emerging cold war tensions and diffuse what is essentially a proxy war in the Middle East being played out in Syria. Yet this remains a huge challenge at a time when military intervention is still favoured over compromise and diplomacy, even when common sense and experience tells us that this outdated approach only exacerbates violent conflict and causes further geopolitical instability.

Sharing the burden, responsibility and resources

Given the deplorably inadequate response from most EU governments to the global exodus of refugees thus far, the stage is set for a rapid escalation of the crisis in 2016 and beyond. Some ten million refugees are expected to make their way to Europe in 2016 alone, and this figure is likely to rise substantially with population growth in developing countries over the coming decades. But it’s climate change that will bring the real emergency, with far higher migration levels accompanied by floods, droughts and sudden hikes in global food prices.

Although largely overlooked by politicians and the mainstream media, the number of people fleeing conflict is already dwarfed by ‘environmental refugees’ displaced by severe ecological conditions – whose numbers could rise to 200 million by 2050. It’s clear that unless nations collectively pursue a radically different approach to managing forced displacement, international discord and social tensions will continue to mount and millions of additional refugees will be condemned to oversized and inhumane camps on the outer edges of civilisation.

The fundamentals of an effective and morally acceptable response to the crisis are already articulated in the Refugee Convention, which sets out the core responsibilities that states have towards those seeking asylum – even though governments have interpreted the treaty erroneously and failed to implement it effectively. In the short term, it’s evident that governments must mobilise the resources needed to provide urgent humanitarian assistance to those escaping war, regardless of where in the world they have been displaced. Like the Marshall Plan that was initiated after the Second World War, a globally coordinated emergency response to the refugee crisis will require a significant redistribution of finance from the world’s richest countries to those most in need – which should be provided on the basis of ‘enlightened self-interest’ if not from a genuine sense of compassion and altruism.

Immediate humanitarian interventions would have to be accompanied by a new and more effective system for administrating the protection of refugees in a way that is commensurate with international refugee law. In simple terms, such a mechanism could be coordinated by a reformed and revitalised UN Refugee Agency (the UNHCR) which would ensure that both the responsibility and resources needed to protect refugees is shared fairly among nations. A mechanism for sharing global responsibility would also mean that states only provide assistance in accordance with their individual capacity and circumstances, which would prevent less developed nations from shouldering the greatest burden of refugees as is currently the case.

Even though the UN’s refugee convention has already been agreed by 145 nations, policymakers in the EU seem incapable and unwilling to demonstrate any real leadership in tackling this or indeed any other pressing transnational issue. Not only does the resulting refugee fiasco demonstrate the extent to which self-interest dominates the political status quo across the European Union, it confirms the suspicion that the union as a whole is increasingly devoid of social conscience and in urgent need of reform.

Thankfully, ordinary citizens are leading the way on this critical issue and putting elected representatives to shame by providing urgent support to refugee families in immediate need of help. In their thousands, volunteers stationed along Europe’s boarders have been welcoming asylum seekers by providing much needed food, shelter and clothing, and have even provided search and rescue services for those who have risked their lives being trafficked into Europe in rubber dinghies. Nowhere is this spirit of compassion and generosity more apparent than on Lesbos and other Geek islands, where residents have been collectively nominated for the 2016 Nobel Peace Prize for their humanitarian efforts.

The selfless actions of these dedicated volunteers should remind the world that people have a responsibility and a natural inclination to serve one another in times of need – regardless of differences in race, religion and nationality. Instead of building militarised borders and ignoring popular calls for a just and humanitarian response to the refugee crisis, governments should take the lead from these people of goodwill and prioritise the needs of the world’s most vulnerable above all other concerns. For European leaders and policymakers in all countries, it’s this instinctively humane response to the refugee crisis – which is based firmly on the principle of sharing – that holds the key to addressing the whole spectrum of interconnected social, economic and environmental challenges in the critical period ahead.

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Featured image is from TruePublica.

August 8th 2018 will mark forty years since the MOVE 9 have been unjustly imprisoned for a crime the entire world knows they did not commit. From the day they were arrested on August 8th 1978, during their trial, the day after they were each sentenced to 30-100 years, during the ten years of the parole process, and the 40 years of being unjustly imprisoned move has always maintained their innocence and their innocence has always shown during this whole forty year period. The reason that they have remained in prison all these years is the same reason why they went to prison in the first place because they are committed MOVE members.

On March 13th 1998 Merle Africa died in Pennsylvania prisons under mysterious circumstances after being unjustly jailed for twenty years. On January 10th 2015 Phil Africa died under mysterious circumstances in Pennsylvania prisons after spending 30 plus years unjustly jailed. Rather than grant parole or release move this system and its officials will rather see MOVE die in prison. While Pennsylvania makes strides in repairing the issue of mass incarceration one of the biggest taints in Pennsylvania’s history of mass incarceration and injustice has not been repaired and that is the issue of the MOVE 9 as it relates to their release from imprisonment.

The parole board has pushed the issue of remorse being shown but the question that we want to ask is has the parole board shown any remorse to the children and grandchildren of the MOVE 9? The fact that several of the MOVE 9 have grandchildren some even great grandchildren that they have only been with on a prison visit is heart wrenching. Where is the remorse from the parole board over the fact that children were torn from their parents arms forty years ago and forced to have a relationship with their parents only through phone calls, letters, and occasional visits which may have lasted only three hours.

On August 5th 2018 we are asking people to join us for an afternoon of resistance for the MOVE 9. First at 10:00am join us for running down the walls a 5k run organized for the MOVE 9 by our brothers and sisters from the Philadelphia anarchist black cross that will take place at Fairmount Park. To register for the run, click here.

Then at 3:00pm join us at the mastery shoemaker high school located 5301 Media Street for an afternoon panel on MOVE that will feature Ramona Africa, Pam Africa, Professor Walter Palmer, Karen Falcon and others.

Then later that evening at the same venue we will be holding our framed in America concert as acts are still being confirmed so far we have the Raw Life Crew, Dell P, Seraiah Nicole and Eli Capella, Jasiri X and A Surprise Headliner. We look forward to seeing everyone on August 5th. Also at this time we are still encouraging people to sign our petition aimed at the United States Justice Department, click here.

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Featured image is from The Good Men Project.

In 2008, Harvard professors Cass Sunstein and Adrian Vermeule proposed that the government should engage in “cognitive infiltration” of citizen groups that seek the truth about 9/11. The proposal was that government operatives, whether anonymous or otherwise, should infiltrate and disrupt the groups. They wrote,

“Government agents (and their allies) might enter chat rooms, online social networks, or even real-space groups and attempt to undermine percolating conspiracy theories by raising doubts about their factual premises, causal logic or implications for political action. “

The following year, this anti-Constitutional stance was rewarded when Sunstein was made director of the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs. Members of the 9/11 Truth Movement responded with detailed criticism.

Of course, the idea of infiltrating a grassroots action group, to disrupt and defame its members, was not new. The FBI program called COINTELPRO was a widely reported example after it was revealed in the early 1970s to have infiltrated citizen groups seeking civil rights and peace. After being revealed, COINTELPRO techniques continued at the FBI and elsewhere in government.

Since 9/11, journalists have noted that government infiltration of political groups is no longer a rare exception but is the norm. The goals of such infiltration are to destabilize and prevent citizen dissent by creating a negative public image for the target group and conflict within the group. Infiltration is easy when it comes to a grassroots movement like 9/11 Truth. That is, you cannot just claim to be a 9/11 Commission member or an employee of a government agency but anyone can say they are a truth seeker. The beauty of this for government operatives is that they can control both sides of the conversation.

To make a significant impact, however, an infiltrator needs to quickly move into a position as a leading voice for the movement. One way in which this was done, even before Sunstein’s proposal, was through a social variant of the physical principle called the “gravitational assist.” The physical principle leverages the movement and gravitational pull of a moon or planet to slingshot a spacecraft into a higher velocity trajectory by moving the path of the spacecraft near the larger body. The social variant is when a brief association with a leading voice in a group lends someone credibility that they would otherwise not have.

Examples of the gravitational assist occurred when physicist Steven Jones made news in September 2005 for challenging the official account of the World Trade Center destruction. People wanted their photo taken with him and he was invited to speak at many events. Soon afterward, Jim Fetzer, previously unknown to 9/11 investigators, dramatically announced that he and Jones were starting a new “scholars” group to challenge the official account of 9/11. That association led to Fetzer discrediting Jones and others through association with absurd concepts like Star Wars beams and holograms at the WTC.

It was later learned that Fetzer was an expert on the use of disinformation yet he and his colleagues Morgan Reynolds and Judy Woods went on to link 9/11 questioning with many preposterous ideas. They created nonsensical hypotheses and promoted them through mass emails targeting media representatives and others in order to present the 9/11 Truth Movement as a ludicrous spectacle.

When recently asked to help reveal more of what happened during that time, it occurred to me that people could benefit from learning the general techniques used to disrupt grassroots movements. Examined more closely, the techniques used by infiltrators or disruptors can be seen as expressions of commonly known rules of debate. Specifically, the rules are reflected in philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer’s sarcastic publication, The Art of Being Right: 38 Ways to Win an Argument. Here are a few examples of how these techniques were used to disrupt 9/11 questioning.

“The Extension” takes a proposal beyond its intended limits so that the extended proposal can be refuted and thereby make the original statement sound weaker. A 9/11 example took the question about whether an aircraft had actually hit the Pentagon and extended it to all other aspects of 9/11. Therefore if there was no plane at the Pentagon then there were no planes at all, and no alleged hijackers, and so on.

“The Homonymy” is a misuse of a proposition through use of similar words. The government agency NIST utilized this method effectively by replacing words in its reports with weaker homonyms, making it easier for the unprecedented destruction of the WTC to sound more plausible. Therefore fireproofing became “insulation” and joists became “trusses.”

Using the “Postulate What Has to Be Proved” rule, 9/11 disruptors presented and then destroyed their own straw man arguments. That is, they first framed the questions in simplified, diverting ways and then refuted those “straw man” frames. This was the go to technique of the “debunkers” at Popular Mechanics.

The method of “Make Your Opponent Angry” was frequently used. Through the years, infiltrators often resorted to baseless accusations, threats, and absurd insinuations. Luckily, this could be easily spotted.

In the “Agree to Reject the Counter-Proposition” technique, the disruptor frames the issue as two very distinct options. This is the “split screen” method that FOX News used so well over may years to move national discussions toward extreme views. With 9/11, it was again most well demonstrated by arguments over the Pentagon in which everyone was either a “planer” or a “no-planer.” All other questioning about the Pentagon event was forsaken as a result of this mindless dichotomy.

Using “Arguments Ad Hominem,” Schopenhauer described how the opponent could be shown to be inconsistent and therefore untrustworthy. With 9/11 questioning, disruptors often attacked the person (ad hominem) rather than the argument itself.

Fetzer helped the government deflect questions by using the “Make Him Exaggerate His Statement” technique in which “when you refute this exaggerated form of it, you look as though you had also refuted his original statement.” In the short time that he was in the 9/11 limelight, Fetzer would begin every interview with the claim that my former company UL had “certified the steel used in the World Trade center to 2000 degrees for six hours.” Despite being an incorrect exaggeration, Fetzer continued to use it even after that fact was made clear to him. Ultimately this allowed the government agency NIST to refute Fetzer’s exaggerated claim, quoting it word for word, rather than address true questions about UL’s certification of the WTC steel components.

In the “Find One Instance to the Contrary” method, the disruptor simply finds one example of when a proposition was not met. For example, a disruptor would argue that because the WTC towers were destroyed from the top down, they could not be demolitions because all demolitions occur from the bottom up. This was the argument from “skeptic” Michael Shermer when I debated him on Air America radio in 2007. In order to support his contention, Shermer casually claimed to have watched thousands of demolition videos during the 2-minute radio break. Unfortunately for him, a top-down demolition was posted on a leading 9/11 truth website which I referred to at the time.

With the “Put His Thesis into Some Odious Category” technique, 9/11 questioning was frequently conflated with positions that were seen as hateful or stupid. This led to some members of the media lumping “truthers” in with “birthers,” holocaust deniers, and those who question the moon landings.

In retrospect, it is comforting to know that so much effort at disruption was needed to prevent 9/11 questions from taking over the national discussion. It means that many people were informed to some degree and that citizen groups working for the truth were seen as a threat to a corrupt system. Many people are now aware that terrorism events are not as simple as the government and mainstream media portray them.

People need to be able to recognize infiltration of grassroots movements because the system will not change on its own. It’s likely that only a catastrophic and catalyzing realization on the part of a large segment of society will lead to any real change and recognizing the techniques of disruption could help achieve that realization.

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This article was originally published on Dig Within.

Featured image is from The Greanville Post.

Last week, rallies in support of Julian Assange were held around the world. We participated in two #AssangeUnity events seeking to #FreeAssange in Washington, DC.

This is the beginning of a new phase of the campaign to stop the persecution of Julian Assange and allow him to leave the Ecuadorian Embassy in London without the threat of being arrested in the UK or facing prosecution by the United States.

On April 10 2017 people gathered outside the Ecuadorian Embassy in London to celebrate the 11th Birthday of WikiLeaks. From Wise-Up Action: A Solidarity Network for Manning and Assange.

The Assange Case is a Linchpin For Freedom of the Press and Freedom of Information in the 21st Century

The threat of prosecution against Julian Assange for his work as editor-in-chief of WikiLeaks will be a key to defining what Freedom of the Press means in the 21st Century. Should people be allowed to know the truth if their government is corrupt, violating the law or committing war crimes? Democracy cannot exist when people are misled by a concentrated corporate media that puts forth a narrative on behalf of the government and big business.

This is not the first time that prosecution of a journalist will define Freedom of the Press. Indeed, the roots of Freedom of the Press in the United States go back to the prosecution of John Peter Zenger, a publisher who was accused of libel in 1734 for publishing articles critical of the British royal governor, William Cosby. Zenger was held in prison for eight months awaiting trial. In the trial, his defense took its case directly to the jury.

For five hundred years, Britan had made it illegal to publish “any slanderous News” that may cause “discord” between the king and his people. Zenger’s defense argued that he had published the truth about Cosby and therefore did not commit a crime. His lawyer “argued that telling the truth did not cause governments to fall. Rather, he argued, ‘abuse of power’ caused governments to fall.” The jury heard the argument, recessed and in ten minutes returned with a not guilty verdict.

The same issue is presented by Julian Assange — publishing the truth is not a crime. Wikileaks, with  Assange as its editor and publisher, redefined reporting in the 21st Century by giving people the ability to be whistleblowers to reveal the abuses of government and big business. People anonymously send documents to Wikileaks via the Internet and then after reviewing and authenticating them, Wikileaks publishes them.  The documents sometimes reveal serious crimes, which has resulted in Assange being threatened with a secret indictment for espionage that could keep him incarcerated for the rest of his life.

This puts the Assange case at the forefront of 21st Century journalism as he is democratizing the media by giving people the power to know the truth not reported, or falsely reported, by the corporate media. Breaking elite control over the media narrative is a serious threat to their power because information is power. And, with the internet and the ability of every person to act as a media outlet through social and independent media, control of the narrative is moving toward the people.

WikiLeaks is filling a void with trust in the corporate media at record lows. A recent Gallup Poll found only 32% trust the media. There has been a significant drop in newspaper circulation and revenue, an ongoing decline since 1980. Also, fewer people rely on television for news.

In this environment, the internet-based news is becoming more dominant and WikiLeaks is a particular threat to media monopolization by the elites. Research is showing that independent and social media are having an impact on people’s opinions.

The threats to Julian Assange are occurring when dissent is under attack, particularly media dissent; the FBI has a task force to monitor social media. The attack on net neutrality, Google using algorithms to prevent searches for alternative media and Facebook controlling the what people see are all part of the attack on the democratized media..

The Astounding Impact of WikiLeaks’ Reporting

The list of WikiLeaks’ revelations has become astounding. The release of emails from Hillary Clinton, her presidential campaign, and the Democratic National Committee had a major impact on the election. People saw the truth of Clinton’s connections to Wall Street, her two-faced politics of having a public view and a private view as well as the DNC’s efforts to undermine the campaign of Sen. Bernie Sanders. People saw the truth and the truth hurt Hillary Clinton and the Democrats.

Among the most famous documents published were those provided by Chelsea Manning on Iraq, Afghanistan, the Guantanamo Prison and the US State Department. The Collateral Murder video among the Manning Iraq war documents shows US soldiers in an Apache helicopter gunning down a group of innocent men, including two Reuters employees, a photojournalist, and his driver, killing 16 and wounding two children. Millions have viewed the video showing that when a van pulled up to evacuate the wounded, the soldiers again opened fire. A soldier says, “Oh yeah, look at those dead bastards.”

Another massive leak came from Edward Snowden, the NSA whistleblower who exposed massive NSA spying in the United States and around the world. This was followed by Vault 7, a series of leaks on the Central Intelligence Agency’s activities, and Vault 8, which included source code on CIA malware activities.

WikiLeaks has also published documents on other countries, e.g. WikiLeaks published a series of documents on Russian spying.  WikiLeaks has been credited by many with helping to spark the Tunisian Revolution which led to the Arab Spring, e.g., showing the widespread corruption of the 23-year rule of the Ben Ali. Foreign Policy reported that “the candor of the cables released by WikiLeaks did more for Arab democracy than decades of backstage U.S. diplomacy.” WikiLeaks’ publications provided democracy activists in Egypt with information needed to spark protests and provided background that explained the Egyptian uprising. Traditional media publications like the New York Times relied on WikiLeaks to analyze the causes of the uprising.

WikiLeaks informed the Bahrain public about their government’s cozy relationship with the US, describing a $5 billion joint-venture with Occidental Petroleum and $300 million in U.S. military sales and how the U.S. Navy is the foundation of Bahrain’s national security.

John Pilger describes WikiLeaks’ documents, writing,

“No investigative journalism in my lifetime can equal the importance of what WikiLeaks has done in calling rapacious power to account.”

Free Assange rally at the White House, June 19, 2018. From Gateway Pundit.

Assange Character Assassination And Embassy Imprisonment

Julian Assange made powerful enemies in governments around the world, corporate media, and big business because he burst false narratives with the truth. As a result, governments fought back, including the United States,  Great Britain, and Sweden, which has led to Assange being trapped in the embassy of Ecuador in London for six years.

The root of the incarceration were allegations in Sweden. Sweden’s charges against Assange were initially dropped by the chief prosecutor,  two weeks later they found a prosecutor to pursue a rape investigation. One of the women had CIA connections and bragged about her relationship with Assange in tweets she tried to erase. She even published a 7-step program for legal revenge against lovers. The actions of the women do not seem to show rape or any kind of abuse. One woman held a party with him after the encounter and another went out to eat with him.  In November 2016, Assange was interviewed by Swedish prosecutors for four hours at the Ecuadorian embassy. In December 2016, Assange published tweets showing his innocence and the sex was consensual. Without making a statement on Assange’s guilt, the Swedish investigators dropped the charges in May 2017. The statute of limitations for Swedish charges will be up in 2020.

As John Pilger pointed out,

“Katrin Axelsson and Lisa Longstaff of Women Against Rape summed it up when they wrote, ‘The allegations against [Assange] are a smokescreen behind which a number of governments are trying to clamp down on WikiLeaks for having audaciously revealed to the public their secret planning of wars and occupations with their attendant rape, murder, and destruction… The authorities care so little about violence against women that they manipulate rape allegations at will.’”

Assange is still trapped in the embassy as he would be arrested for violating his bail six years ago. But, the real threat to Assange is the possibility of a secret indictment against him in the United States for espionage. US and British officials have refused to tell Assange’s lawyers whether there was a sealed indictment or a sealed extradition order against him. Former CIA Director, now Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo has described WikiLeaks as a non-state hostile intelligence service and described his actions as not protected by the First Amendment. In April 2017, CNN reported,

“US authorities have prepared charges to seek the arrest of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.”

The Obama Justice Department determined it would be difficult to bring charges against Assange because WikiLeaks wasn’t alone in publishing documents stolen by Manning but the Trump DOJ believes he could be charged as an accomplice with Edward Snowden.

When the president campaigned, Trump said he loved WikiLeaks and regularly touted their disclosures. But, in April 2017, Attorney General Jeff Sessions said that Assange’s arrest is a “priority.”

Time To Stop The Persecution Of Julian Assange

The smearing of Assange sought to discredit him and undermine the important journalism of WikiLeaks. Caitlin Johnstone writes that they smear him because “they can kill all sympathy for him and his outlet, it’s as good for their agendas as actually killing him.”

Even with this character assassination many people still support Assange. This was seen during the #Unity4J online vigil, which saw the participation of activists, journalists, whistleblowers andn filmmakers calling for the end of Assange’s solitary confinement and his release. This was followed a week later by 20 protests around the world calling for Assange’s release.

Julian Assange has opened journalism’s democracy door; the power to report is being redistributed, government employees and corporate whistleblowers have been empowered and greater transparency is becoming a reality. The people of the United States should demand that Assange not face prosecution and embrace a 21st Century democratized media that provides greater transparency and accurate information about what government and business interests are doing. Prosecuting a news organization for publishing the truth, should be rejected and Assange should be freed.

You can support Julian Assange by spreading the word in your communities about what is happening to him and why. You can also show support for him on social media. We will continue to let you know when there are actions planned. And you can support the WikiLeaks Legal Defense Fund, run by the Courage Foundation*, at IAmWikiLeaks.org.

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Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers are co-directors of Popular Resistance where this article was originally published. Kevin is on the advisory board of the Courage Foundation.

In February, 2015, Israeli Prime Minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, called for the mass emigration of French Jews, and their assets, to Israel.  This was rejected outright by both Jewish and non-Jewish European leaders as a politically-motivated speech designed to bolster his personal rating with his electorate at home. 

The French Prime Minister, Manuel Valls, regretted Netanyahu’s call, noting that the Israeli prime minister was “in the midst of a general election campaign”, whilst the President of France, François Hollande, insisted that no one should believe tha“Jews no longer have a place in Europe.  Jews have their place in Europe and, in particular, in France,” he said.

The German chancellor, Angela Merkel, said

“We are glad and thankful that there is Jewish life in Germany again, and we would like to continue living well together with the Jews who are in Germany today.”

There was also considerable disquiet among British Jewry who saw in Netanyahu’s call to emigrate to Israel, a direct threat to Jewish life in the United Kingdom and a destabilising and dangerous election ploy.

In fact, Netanyahu’s political career is close to its nadir as he awaits a police decision whether he should be prosecuted on charges of bribery and corruption.  His wife has already been indicted for fraud. More importantly, however, is the Likud Party agenda for a Greater Israel, for which Netanyahu is, and has been for a decade or more, the chief protagonist.  This agenda calls for the forced transfer of millions of indigenous Arabs to adjacent states and is the primary cause of increasing antisemitism in Europe and around the world, including on campuses throughout the United States.

Of course, the more that antisemitism increases, the greater will be the fear of racial violence and the consequent decision by some Jews to abandon the countries of their birth in order to emigrate to the Middle East in the mistaken belief that they will be safer there than in Europe or America.  This is, of course, nonsense as Israel is arguably the most dangerous place for anyone to live.   But Likud propaganda is a potent force that misleads both Jews and non-Jews alike.

It is expected the Netanyahu will very soon be replaced but the damage he has inflicted on both Israel itself and the Diaspora, has been considerable.  By his perverse and inflammatory attitude in encouraging further illegal settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, he has put back the peace agenda by at least ten years.

That there will eventually be an independent Palestinian state with the repatriation of all 600,000 illegal settlers back to Israel, is without any doubt but Netanyahu’s role in the killings and deaths on both sides, will not be forgotten.

In the next days, as Prince William goes to bed in the King David Hotel in Jerusalem, he would do well to remember that it was Netanyahu’s party’s forerunner organisation, the Irgun Zvai Leumi (IZL) terrorists that carried out the bombing attack on the very Hotel in which he will now sleep, in 1946, with the killing of 91 people including many British military and civilian lives.

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

The current US President, Donald Trump, claimed on June 18th, that Germany’s leadership, and the leadership in other EU nations, caused the refugee-crisis that Europe is facing:  

“The people of Germany are turning against their leadership as migration is rocking the already tenuous Berlin coalition. Crime in Germany is way up. Big mistake made all over Europe in allowing millions of people in who have so strongly and violently changed their culture!”

The US Government is clearly lying about this. The US Government itself caused this crisis that Europeans are struggling to deal with. Would the crisis even exist, at all, if the US had not invaded and tried to overthrow (and in some instances actually overthrown) the governments in Libya, Syria, and elsewhere — the places from which these refugees are escaping?

The US Government, and a few of its allies in Europe (the ones who actually therefore really do share in some of the authentic blame for this crisis) caused this war and government-overthrow, etc., but Germany’s Government wasn’t among them, nor were many of the others in Europe.

If the US Government had not led these invasions, probably not even France would have participated in any of them. The US Government, alone, is responsible for having caused these refugees. The US Government itself created this enormous burden to Europe, and yet refuses to accept these refugees that it itself had produced, by its having invaded and bombed to overthrow (among others) Libya’s Government, and then Syria’s Government, and by its aiding Al Qaeda in organizing and leading and arming, jihadists from all over the world to come to Syria to overthrow Syria’s Government and to replace it with one that would be selected by the US regime’s key Middle Eastern ally, the Saud family, who own Saudi Arabia, including its Government, and who are determined to take over Syria.

Trump blames Angela Merkel for — in essence — having been an ally of the US regime, a regime of aggression which goes back decades, and which Trump himself now is leading, instead of his ending, and of his restoring democracy to the United States, and, finally, thus, his restoring freedom (from America), and peace, to other nations, in Europe, and elsewhere (such as in Syria, Yemen, etc.). He blames Merkel, not himself and his predecessor — not the people who actually caused these refugees.

Hypocrisy purer than that which Trump there expressed, cannot be imagined, and this hypocrisy comes from Trump now, no longer from Obama, who, in fact, caused the problem.

As the 2016 study, “An Overview of the Middle East Immigrants in the EU: Origin, Status Quo and Challenges” states in its Abstract:

“EU has the most inhabited immigrant population; it has up to a population of 56 million foreign-born people. And due to the perennial war and chaos in the Middle East, the amount of relocated population in the region, especially the number of refugees, ranks the No.1 all over the world. … There are a large number of refugees and asylum seekers heading to EU countries; it can be divided into four stages. Since the Arab Spring, especially after the outbreak of the civil war in Syria in 2011, and the rise of the “Islamic State” in 2013, the whole EU area have experienced the biggest wave of refugees since World War II.”

All of these invasions have been, and are, invasions of countries where the US regime demands regime-change.

In order to understand the deeper source of this problem, one must understand, first, the US regime’s continuing obsession to conquer Russia after its communism and Warsaw Pact military alliance, had ended (click onto that link to see the documentation); and, second, one needs to understand the US regime’s consequent and consistent aim after the supposed end of the Cold War, to take over control of Russia’s allied countries, including not only those within the Soviet Union and its military Warsaw Pact, but also within the Middle East, especially Syria and Iran, and even countries such as Libya, where the leader was nominally Sunni but nonetheless friendly toward Russia.

(The link there provides documentation not only of what’s said here, but it also documents that the alliance between the two aristocracies, of the US and of Saudi Arabia, is essential to the US aristocracy’s Middle-Eastern objective; and Israel’s aristocracy serves as an essential agent of the Sauds in this crucial regard, because the Sauds rely heavily upon the Israeli regime to do its lobbying in Washington.

In other words: America’s consistent objective is to isolate Russia so as for the US regime to emerge ultimately in a position to take over Russia itself. That’s the deeper source of Europe’s refugee-crisis.)

Back at the start of the promised post-Cold-War period, in 1990, the US regime, under its then-President, George Herbert Walker Bush, privately and repeatedly agreed with the USSR regime, under its then-President Mikhail Gorbachev, to end the Cold War — agreed that NATO would not expand “one inch to the east” — that there would be no expansion of the US military alliance against the USSR (soon to become against Russia alone).

The US regime’s promise was that NATO would not take in and add to NATO’s membership, any of the countries that then were either in the USSR’s military alliance the Warsaw Pact (Albania, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland, and Romania) or in USSR itself other than Russia (Armenia, Azerbaijan, Byelorussia, Estonia, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kirghizia, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldavia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Ukraine, and Uzbekistan), except for the eastern part of Germany. The US regime simply lied. But the Russian Government followed through on all of its commitments. Russia was now trapped, by Gorbachev’s having trusted liars, whose actual goal turned out to be world-conquest — not peace.

Currently, the membership of NATO includes all of the former Warsaw Pact nations, and now the US regime aims to bring in also to “NATO membership: Bosnia and Herzegovina, Georgia, the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia¹ and Ukraine.” Georgia and Ukraine are the first parts of the former USSR republics — not merely parts of the Warsaw Pact but parts now of the USSR itself — to join the anti-Russian military alliance, if either of them gets allowed in. The very possibility of this happening, goes beyond anything that the naive, trusting, Mikhail Gorbachev, would ever have imagined. He hadn’t the slightest idea of how evil was (and still is) America’s Deep State (that which controls America). But now we all know. History is clear and unambiguous on the matter.

The NATO mouthpiece, Brookings Institution, headlined on 15 November 2001, “NATO Enlargement: Moving Forward; Expanding the Alliance and Completing Europe’s Integration” and pretended that this expansion is being done in order to help Europeans, instead of to conquer Russia.

Ukraine has the longest of all European borders with Russia and so has been America’s top target to seize. But before seizing it, the US had tried in 2008 to turn Georgia against Russia, and the Georgian Mikheil Saakashvili was a key US agent in that effort. Saakashvili subsequently became involved in the violent coup that overthrew Ukraine’s Government in February 2014.

Saakashvili organized the Georgian contingent of the snipers that were sent to Ukraine to shoot into the crowds on the Maidan Square and kill both police and demonstrators there, in such a way so that the bullets would seem to have come from the police (Berkut) and/or other forces of Ukraine’s democratically elected Government. (Click on this link to see two of the Georgian snipers casually describing their participation in the coup, and referring tangentially to former Georgian President Saakashvili’s role in it. Here is a more comprehensive video compilation describing and showing the coup itself. As I have pointed out, the testimony of these two Georgian snipers is entirely consistent with what the investigation by the EU’s Foreign Ministry had found out on 26 February 2014 about the snipers, that “they were the same snipers, killing people from both sides” and that these snipers were “from the new coalition government” instead of from the government that was being overthrown — that it was a coup, no ‘revolution’ such as Obama’s people claimed, and Trump’s people now assert.) The US regime has agents in all regions of the former Russia-affiliated bloc — not only in Western Europe.

Obama’s coup to grab Ukraine away from its previous neutrality and to make it immediately a neo-Nazi rabidly anti-Russian country, has destroyed Ukraine — not only from the standpoint of the EU, but (and click on the link if you don’t already know this) from the standpoint of the Ukrainian people themselves. Who wouldn’t want to leave there?

Europe has refugees from the Ukrainian operation too, not only (though mainly) from the Middle Eastern ones.

Europe’s enemy isn’t Russia’s aristocracy, but America’s aristocracy. It’s the billionaires who control America’s international corporations — not the billionaires who control Russia’s international corporations — it is specifically America’s billionaires; it is the people who control the US Government; these, and no Russians at all, are the actual decision-makers, who are behind bringing down Europe. In order for Europe to win, Europeans must know whom their real enemies are. The root of the problem is in the US, Europe’s now fake ‘ally’. Today’s America isn’t the America of the Marshall Plan. The US Government has since been taken over by gangsters. And they want to take over the world. Europe’s refugee-crisis is simply one of the consequences.

In fact, Obama had started, by no later than 2011, to plan these regime-change operations, in Libya, Syria, and Ukraine. But, in any case, none of the regime-change operations that caused the current unprecedented flood of refugees into Europe started because of what Europe’s leaders did (other than their cooperating with the US regime). Today’s American Government is Europe’s enemy, no friend at all, to the peoples of Europe. Trump’s blaming this crisis on Europe’s leaders isn’t just a lie; it is a slanderous one.

And this fact is separate from Trump’s similar slanderous lie against the refugees themselves. On May 8^th, Germany’s Die Welt newspaper had headlined “Number of crimes falls to lowest level since 1992” and reported that Germany’s Interior Minister, Horst Seehofer, announced the 2017 national crime statistics, and he said, “Germany has become safer,” the safest in the last 30 years. Seehofer happens to be a member of Chancellor Merkel’s Administration who is angling to replace her as Chancellor by appealing to the strong anti-immigrant portion of their own conservative party, but even he had to admit, essentially, that the anti-immigrant slur that Trump subsequently made on June 18^th is a bald lie; it’s even the exact opposite of the truth. Trump’s tweeted comment then was a lying slander not only against Merkel and other European leaders, but also against the refugees that the US regime itself had produced. How depraved is that? How depraved is Trump?

The refugee crisis isn’t due to the refugees themselves; and it’s not due to Europe’s leaders; it is due to the almost constantly lying US regime — the people who actually control America’s Government and America’s international corporations.

On June 21^st, Manlio Dinucci at Global Research headlined “The Circuit of Death in the ‘Enlarged Mediterranean’” and he opened by saying,

“The politico-media projectors, focussed as they are on the migratory flow from South to North across the Mediterranean, are leaving other Mediterranean flows in the dark – those moving from North to South, comprised of military forces and weapons.”

But the world’s biggest international seller of weapons is the US, not the EU; so, his placing the main focus on European billionaires was wrong. The main culprits are on Trump’s own side of the Atlantic, and this is what is being ignored, on both sides of the Atlantic. The real problem isn’t across the Mediterranean; it is across the Atlantic. That’s where Europe’s enemy is.

On 7 August 2015, I headlined “The US Is Destroying Europe” and reported that:

“In Libya, Syria, Ukraine, and other countries at the periphery or edges of Europe, US President Barack Obama has been pursuing a policy of destabilization, and even of bombings and other military assistance, that drives millions of refugees out of those peripheral areas and into Europe, thereby adding fuel to the far-rightwing fires of anti-immigrant rejectionism, and of resultant political destabilization, throughout Europe, not only on its peripheries, but even as far away as in northern Europe.”

It’s continuing under Trump.

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

Featured image is from SCF.

As the European Union imposed tariffs on €2.8 billion worth of American products yesterday, in retaliation for US tariffs on steel and aluminium, President Trump again threatened to escalate the trans-Atlantic trade war.

Trump fired off a tweet on Friday morning declaring that if the EU did not remove existing tariffs on US auto exports, “we will be placing a 20 percent tariff on all of their cars coming into the US.”

The EU has announced a two-phase response to the US steel and aluminium measures. According to a list submitted to the World Trade Organisation, a 25 percent tariff on a range of products, from peanut butter and bourbon to Harley-Davidson motorcyles, takes effect immediately. Tariffs on a further €3.6 billion worth of US goods will be imposed after three years or earlier if the WTO rules in the EU’s favour.

Speaking on the imposition of the EU measures, European Trade Commissioner Cecilia Malmström said:

“We did not want to be in this position. However, the unilateral and unjustified decision of the US to impose steel and aluminium tariffs on the EU means that we are left with no other choice.”

She said:

“Rules of international trade, which we have developed hand in hand with our American partners, cannot be violated without a reaction from our side.”

The US measures were imposed under section 232 of the 1962 Trade Expansion Act invoking “national security” as their rationale. As the European measures went into effect, Canada is set to impose tariffs next month while Mexico had already done so, as both countries, like the EU, failed to secure a carve-out from the US measures.

Trump’s latest threat to extend tariff measures on autos, using the same “national security” provision as was employed in the case of steel and aluminium, would provoke a much bigger conflict, especially with Germany.

The US imported almost 1.3 million vehicles from the EU last year with the three big Germany companies, BMW, Daimler and Volkswagen exporting 726,300 of these.

The Wall Street Journal noted that the latest Trump tariff tweet underscored

“the importance he is placing on a probe his administration launched last month into whether big tariffs could be imposed on vehicle imports in the name of national security.”

Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, whose department is overseeing the investigation, told a Senate committee meeting this week that no decision had been made as yet as to whether to recommend tariffs, He indicated that the probe was expected to be completed by early August.

When he announced the investigation back in May, Ross placed heavy emphasis on national security, saying that for “decades” there was “evidence suggesting that imports from abroad have eroded our domestic auto industry. Economic security is military security. And without economic security, you cannot have military security.”

Trump is clearly looking to press ahead as his latest tweet indicates. It followed his address to a “Make America Great Again” rally in Minnesota earlier this week, in which he denounced the EU for saying “we’re going to sell you millions of cars, by the way, you’re not going to sell us any.”

The EU has declined to comment on the latest Trump threat with one official telling the Wall Street Journal:

“Everything that we have to say on that subject has already [been] expressed … at various occasions over the last weeks.”

When the US Commerce Department investigation into the auto industry was announced last month, EU spokesman Margaritis Schinas said there was no justification for the tariffs on steel and aluminium, adding that “invoking national security would be even more far-fetched in the case of the car industry.” Industry spokesmen also warned that if tariffs were invoked they would lead to a disruption of the global car industry.

The US trade war against China and the threat of auto tariffs has already made an impact on the German car industry. This week Daimler, the maker of Mercedes cars, issued a profit warning on the impact of the growing trade war. It said it now expected that profit figures for 2018 would be “slightly below” the level of last year, after earlier predicting a rise.

It stated that the imposition of tariffs on US car exports to China, the major export market for its US plants, was the “decisive factor” in the profit downgrade.

“Fewer than expected SUV sales and higher than expected costs … must be assumed because of increased import tariffs for US sales into the Chinese market,” the company said.

The escalation of a US trade war is starting to cause concerns in international financial circles. This week saw the Trump administration threaten to impose tariffs on up to $400 billion of Chinese goods on top of the tariffs on $50 billion worth of high-tech products to come into effect next month

While it was not the central item on the agenda, trade war and its dangers were the subject of comment and warnings at the annual meeting of central bankers convened by the European Central Bank (ECB) in Sintra, Portugal, this week.

“Changes in trade policy could cause us to have to question the outlook, the chairman of the US Federal Reserve Jerome Powell said during a panel discussion. “For the first time, we’re hearing about decisions to postpone investment, postpone hiring.”

ECB president Mario Draghi said it was still too early to measure the economic impact, but he was concerned about the erosion of confidence among businesses.

It was not time yet to see what impact the trade conflicts could have on central bank monetary policy, he stated, but “there’s no ground to be optimistic on that.”

The lesson to be learned from history was that the consequences of trade conflicts and protection were “all very negative” and the spread of disputes was undermining “the multilateral framework that all of us have grown up with,” Draghi said.

The governor of the Bank of Japan, Haruhiko Kuroda, warned that the impact of the trade war could disrupt the economic network across East Asia that supplies China.

“I really hope that this escalation could be rescinded, and a normal trading relationship between the US and China would prevail. This is a matter of great concern for Japan,” he said.

The sharpest warning came from the governor of the Reserve Bank of Australia Philip Lowe. He said while tariffs alone would not derail global growth, they could spark market volatility and lead to the postponement of business decisions.

“It wouldn’t take that much for financial markets to combine with businesses that are waiting to turn this into a big global event. I hope it has a low probability, but I’m very disturbed at what is happening.”

Lowe said there was no country that had become wealthier and boosted productivity growth by building walls.

“I view what’s happening as incredibly worrying.”

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Featured image is from Foreign Policy.

When Albert Einstein was asked how it felt to be the “smartest person alive”, Einstein replied:

“I don’t know, you’ll have to ask Nikola Tesla.”

Certain scholars question the validity of this exchange, largely because Tesla…well, in 1934, on his 79th birthday, Tesla called Einstein’s Relativity Theory “…a beggar wrapped in purple whom ignorant people take for a king.”

Other Tesla quotes amid his public disagreement with Einstein, regarding Relativity Theory:

— “…a mass of error and deceptive ideas violently opposed to the teachings of great men of science of the past and even to common sense…the theory wraps all these errors and fallacies and clothes them in magnificent mathematical garb which fascinates, dazzles and makes people blind to the underlying errors. Its exponents are very brilliant men, but they are metaphysicists rather than scientists.”

— “Not a single one of the relativity propositions has been proved.” (NYT, 7/11/1935, p. 23).

Einstein was obviously smarter than any of us; his “I don’t know, you’ll have to ask Nikola Tesla” is certainly proof both subtle and profound.

Perhaps it all depends on the definition of, “smart”?

Reverence of Einstein, historically and publicly seems rather full-scope. His eminence has been welded into the public mind by those who control the public mind, the Power Status Quo (PSQ).

Tesla is exactly the opposite; evidence remains overwhelming. Try to find people today with any understanding of Nikola Tesla—I did just that, yesterday, at Spokane’s Northtown Mall. I approached people seeming approachable with a simple question:

“What does the name ‘Tesla’ mean to you?”

Interacting only with people without a phone in hand, I was, eventually, able to find 66 people with their hands (and minds?) unencumbered. Two trends emerged; for people under thirty, not a single one deviated from the: “…electric cars, battery fires, autopilot crashes” PSQ narratives.

However, I was able to find 3 people that replied: “Nikola Tesla”. All middle-aged vintage.

Yes, five percent were actually aware of, perhaps, humanity’s most important person, Nikola Tesla.

Sure, a tiny random sample. But success of the PSQ’s operation to excise Nikola Tesla from the public mind was clearly suggested. Reminiscent of Pink Floyd’s immortal song, Brain Damage (from Dark Side of the Moon).

So why has the man Einstein declared the smartest person alive so attacked by the PSQ—virtually to the cusp of being an unperson?

One thing right up front exemplifying Tesla’s clash with the PSQ was his often repeated:

“Science is but a perversion of itself unless it has as its ultimate goal the betterment of humanity.”

Meanwhile, the PSQ remains obsessed with their: “Arrested human development.”

Please consider this quote from William Casey, CIA Director 1981-1987:

“We’ll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false.”

Of course from the PSQ there is rhetoric regarding authenticity of Casey’s trumpeting of truth. However, virtually all evidence/truth of our current mire confirms Casey’s trumpet.

Perhaps this letter signed by Einstein characterizes what the PSQ would rather hear:

Albert Einstein
Old Grove Rd.
Nassau Point

Peconic, Long Island

August 2nd, 1939

F.D. Roosevelt,
President of the United States,
White House
Washington, D.C.

Sir:

Some recent work by E. Fermi and L. Szilard, which has been communicated to me in manuscript, leads me to expect that the element uranium may be turned into a new and important source of energy in the immediate future. Certain aspects of the situation which has arisen seem to call for watchfulness and, if necessary, quick action on the part of the Administration. I believe therefore that it is my duty to bring to your attention the following facts and recommendations:

In the course of the last four months it has been made probable—through the work of Joliot in France as well as Fermi and Szilard in America—that it may become possible to set up a nuclear chain reaction in a large mass of uranium by which vast amounts of power and large quantities of new radium-like elements would be generated. Now it appears almost certain that this could be achieved in the immediate future.

This phenomenon would also lead to the construction of bombs, and it is conceivable—though much less certain—that extremely powerful bombs of a new type may thus be constructed. A single bomb of this type, carried by boat and exploded in a port, might very well destroy the whole port together with some of the surrounding territory. However, such bombs might very well prove to be too heavy for transportation by air.

The United States has only very poor ores of uranium in moderate quantities. There is some good ore in Canada and the former Czechoslovakia, while the most important source of uranium is Belgian Congo.

In view of this situation you may think it desirable to have some permanent contact maintained between the Administration and the group of physicists working on chain reactions in America. One possible way of achieving this might be for you to entrust with this task a person who has your confidence and who could perhaps serve in an inofficial capacity. His task might comprise the following:

a) to approach Government Departments, keep them informed of the further development, and put forward recommendations for Government action, giving particular attention to the problem of securing a supply of uranium ore for the United States.

b) to speed up the experimental work, which is at present being carried on within the limits of the budgets of University laboratories, by providing funds, if such funds be required, through his contacts with private persons who are willing to make contributions for this cause, and perhaps also by obtaining the co-operation of industrial laboratories which have the necessary equipment.

I understand that Germany has actually stopped the sale of uranium from the Czechoslovakian mines which she has taken over. That she should have taken such early action might perhaps be understood on the ground that the son of the German Under-Secretary of State, von Weizsäcker, is attached to the Kaiser-Wilhelm-Institut in Berlin where some of the American work on uranium is now being repeated.

Yours very truly,

Albert Einstein

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Einstein himself must have lost some PSQ favor with such later public declarations:

“I do not know with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.”

And:

“Nuclear power is one hell of a way to boil water.”

Tesla’s elegant quote about his suppression by the PSQ:

“I am unwilling to accord to some small-minded and jealous individuals the satisfaction of having thwarted my efforts. These men are to me nothing more than microbes of a nasty disease.”

In Part Two:

— “…nasty disease” autopsy

— Tesla’s gifts to humanity—selectively suppressed or embraced

— Is another Tesla possible?

— “…wheelwork of nature”, and PSQ power—both illuminated by Nikola Tesla

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Rand Clifford lives in Spokane, Washington. His novels, CASTLING, TIMING, and Priest Lake Cathedral are published by StarChief Press. Contact for Rand Clifford: [email protected]

Featured image is from Humans Are Free.

Trump’s views depend on what day he’s expressing them – saying one thing, then another, reversing himself time and again – proving nothing his says is credible, a leader never to be trusted, especially on vital issues.

In mid-June, he declared North Korea is “no longer a nuclear threat” after summit talks with Kim Jong-un.

After returning to Washington, he tweeted:

“Just landed – a long trip, but everybody can now feel much safer than the day I took office.”

“There is no longer a Nuclear Threat from North Korea. Meeting with Kim Jong-un was an interesting and very positive experience. North Korea has great potential for the future!”

He suspended military exercises with South Korea – a hollow gesture, a decision to be reversed any time for any reason. War games are more about saber-rattling with China in mind than the DPRK, neither country threatening any others.

The threat of nuclear war on the Korean peninsula eased for the moment but didn’t end. Summit talks in Singapore didn’t end 70 years of militant US hostility toward Pyongyang, merely cooled them temporarily.

Denuclearizing the peninsula won’t happen as long as iron-clad US guarantees for DPRK security remain unattainable.

Trump’s pledge otherwise isn’t worth the paper it’s written on, betrayal sure to come, similar to reneging on the JCPOA, an international agreement, unanimously approved by the Security Council, making it binding international law.

It didn’t matter. Trump pulled out anyway based on fabricated reasons, wanting to please Israel, and longstanding US plans for regime change in Iran.

Washington is hostile to all sovereign independent states, North Korea no exception – a nation the Truman regime raped and destroyed, falsely blaming the DPRK for his high crime of naked aggression.

Deplorable US policy under 13 US administrations kept Pyongyang marginalized and isolated throughout its entire history. It was included in Bush/Cheney’s deplorable “axis of evil,” threatened with destruction by Trump earlier.

It’s just a matter of time before US hostility toward Pyongyang rears its ugly head again.

Did it already begin? Days after summit talks with Kim, Trump’s rhetoric switched from rocket man to high praise for North Korea’s leader.

On Friday, he reverted to longstanding hostility, saying the DPRK still poses an “extraordinary threat” to America – a bald-faced lie. More on this below.

The reverse has been true throughout North Korean history, why it sought nuclear weapons and long-range ballistic missiles – because of genuinely feared US aggression.

The lesson of Truman’s war remains embedded in the national consciousness forever. Preemptive US aggression remains an ominous possibility – solely because of DPRK sovereign independence, not for any threat it imposes.

North Korea wants peace and stability on the peninsula, its sovereignty respected, unacceptable sanctions lifted, a formal end to the 1950s war, and iron-clad security guarantees.

Chances of Washington obliging are virtually nil. Enemies are needed to justify its unjustifiable militarism, its empire of bases, countless trillions of dollars spent waging endless wars against invented adversaries.

Peace and stability defeat its agenda. Permanent wars and chaos serve it.

On Friday, Trump extended a decade-long executive order, declaring a “national emergency” over a nonexistent DPRK nuclear threat.

It reauthorized hostile US policies against the country, notably leaving harsh sanctions in place, stating “the existence and risk of proliferation of weapons-usable fissile material,” along with North Korean policies and actions constitutes “an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security, foreign policy, and economy of the United States” – a bald-faced lie.

Yet it proves US hostility toward the country remains unchanged, a virtually certain insurmountable obstacle to overcome, the DPRK remaining in Washington’s crosshairs for an indefinite time to come.

The notion of Washington turning a page in relations with North Korea, or any other sovereign independent country not subservient to its interests, is equating fantasy with reality.

It never happened before in the post-WW II era. It won’t happen now with North Korea, nor with other countries on Washington’s target list for regime change.

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

In a detailed discussion about the current state of affairs in Gaza as well as what the future could hold, author and scholar Norman Finkelstein tells Chris Hedges that nonviolent mass resistance in Gaza “can’t succeed without our support.”

The “On Contact” episode begins with a list of statistics about Gaza, including frightening rates of youth unemployment, suicide and prostitution, as well as water contamination and other conditions created by Israeli attacks on the region, all of which paint a tragic picture of “the world’s largest concentration camp.”

The two then talk about Finkelstein’s recent book, “Gaza: An Inquest Into Its Martyrdom,” which Hedges says is “the most important book I’ve read on Gaza, [and which] implodes Israeli propaganda and Israeli lies.”

Watch the full conversation between the two Middle East experts in the video below.

This article was originally published on March 1, 2016.

The US-led petrodollar era is being surpassed by a multipolar oil age in the Middle East. The transition is permeated by fundamental change and financial speculation that is penalizing the roles of the US and China in the region.

As producers have scrambled to gain market share from competitors, prices remain more than 70% down from summer 2014. Recently, oil ministers from Saudi Arabia, Russia, Venezuela and Qatar announced an agreement to freeze their oil output levels if other major producers will follow suit. In the near-term, that is not likely.

The current status quo heralds more economic, market and military volatility in the world’s most explosive region.

Eclipse of US-Saudi partnership        

After the 1945 Yalta Conference, which effectively divided Europe, the ailing President Franklin D. Roosevelt rushed to USS Quincy where he met Saudi Arabia’s King Ibn Saud. Bypassing the Brits who had been courting the Saudis for oil, FDR and Saud agreed to a secret deal, which required Washington to provide Saudi Arabia military security in exchange for secure access to supplies of oil.

Despite periodic pressures, the deal survived for quarter of a century, even the 1971 “Nixon Shock,” including the unilateral cancellation of the US dollar convertibility to gold. To deter the marginalization of US dollar in the oil trade, Nixon negotiated another deal, which ensured that Saudi Arabia would denominate all future oil sales in dollars, in exchange for US arms and protection.

As other OPEC countries agreed to similar deals, global demand for US dollars – the so-called « petrodollars » – soared, even though the relative share of the US in the world economy continued to decline. The shrewd move relied on Gulf economies’ leverage to sustain an economically vulnerable American empire.

The US-Saudi strategic partnership has weathered seven decades of multiple regional wars. Today, Saudi Arabia’s military expenditures account for more than 10% of its GDP, which makes it the world’s fourth largest military spender. In relative terms, that’s three times as much as the US and five times as much as China; the world’s two largest military powers.

Along with Washington, the Saudi rearmament has greatly benefited Pentagon’s defense contractors, while boosting the country’s confidence to stand on its own. Indeed, Saudi Arabia’s old days of conservative caution may be history.

Amid a contested succession, Riyadh is taking debt to sustain its generous welfare policies and playing an increasingly assertive role in the region, directly in the Yemen war and indirectly in Syria.

From OPEC to China and emerging economies  

The Washington-Riyadh partnership was first shaken in October 1973 following the Yom Kippur War and the ensuing oil embargo by the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC). After two oil crises and a global economic recession, three decades of rapid postwar growth in the West ended with a crash.

By the mid-80s, oil prices declined by more than a half, but mainly after the development of major non-OPEC oil fields in Siberia, Alaska, North Sea and the Gulf of Mexico. Even Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait, September 11, 2001, and US invasion of Iraq in 2003 had fairly short-term impacts on oil prices, as long as Saudi Arabia and the rest of OPEC ensured adequate oil supplies in the world markets.

When prices began to soar once again, they were fueled by China and large emerging economies. Additional fluctuations were attributed to post-Iraq War instability, insurgencies, US occupation of Iraq, and financial bubbles in the West.

After the global crisis, crude Brent prices did return to almost $130 by early 2011, thanks to stimulus packages, recovery policies and non-traditional monetary policies in the ailing West. Meanwhile, China overtook the US as the world’s biggest oil importer. That period came to an end in 2014, with lingering recovery in the US, secular stagnation in Europe and Japan, and China’s growth deceleration.

As the Fed began to pave way for rate hikes, the value of the dollar started to climb. Since oil markets remain dollar-denominated, oil prices began to decline accordingly. That divided the OPEC. For more than a year, major oil exporters have debated production cuts, which have been resisted by Saudi Arabia – even though more cheap oil could cause OPEC’s revenue to halve to $550 billion.

Why protracted ultra-low oil prices?  

In the advanced West, the primary reason for the low prices is often attributed to China’s deceleration. And yet, while China’s growth has slowed, its per capita incomes are increasing, which is reflected by the growth of oil imports.

Another scapegoat has been Iran and its re-entry into the oil market. Yet, it’s nuclear sanctions were lifted months after the oil prices had plunged and stabilized at below $30. Indeed, if the oil price collapse is attributed to excessive production, the spotlight should be on the largest producers, the US (13.7 millions of barrels per day) and Saudi Arabia (11.9m), not China (4.6m) or Iran (3.4m).

In the final analysis, Saudi Arabia does not want to give market share to US shale producers, while low prices are harming even more Iran (which Riyadh sees as its regional rival) and Russia (which is fighting the Syrian opposition and jihadists, which Riyadh supports). Indeed, both Riyadh and Washington have geopolitical incentives to use low prices against Russia and Iran.

What complicates the projection of oil prices is that they are constrained by financial intermediaries. The oil market is subject to speculation and abrupt price movements that are reminiscent of those in summer 2008, when Goldman Sachs predicted that prices would exceed $200 by the year-end, even though they collapsed to $32 in December. Yet, the projection paid off handsomely to those financial intermediaries that shorted the market with leveraged derivatives in oil futures.

So what’s the parallel today?

Two years ago, major oil producers (e.g., ExxonMobil, Chevron and Shell) began to let go of their shale leases. Unlike big oil, shale is still dominated by aggressive but mid-size companies. As banks have predicted ultra-low prices at the $20 range, they have reportedly lent billions of dollars to shale players. Now, the more the prices decline, the more shale players will suffer defaults, which allow big banks to gain greater share of their ownership.

In the U.S., Wall Street banks’ huge involvements with commodities, including oil and gas, as well as the associated moral hazards and market manipulation became public with the US Senate Subcommittee bipartisan report (November 2014) in which Senators Carl Levin and John McCain concluded that

“Wall Street banks have acquired staggeringly large positions and executed massive trades in oil, metal, and other physical commodities.”

Financial volatility and wealth transfers

Recently, the Middle East has witnessed several disruptive scenarios, including the Saudi Defense Minister’s decision to execute Shi’ite religious leader Sheikh Nimr al-Nirm; the escalation of the proxy war in Syria; the fallout between Russia and Turkey, a NATO member; to mention a few.

These disruptive moments do not just create and destroy economic fortunes. They herald shifts in the region’s geopolitics. They also allow financial players to make bets in shadows, behind market noise. The stakes are huge. The transfer of oil wealth is moving an estimated $3 trillion a year from oil producers (in emerging economies) to oil-importing nations (in advanced economies).

In brief, disruptive price plunges have harmed industry giants, while serving certain geopolitical interests. Meanwhile, financial intermediaries stand to benefit ever more, at the expense of consumer welfare. That does not bode well to either the US or China. Financial intermediaries are a different story.

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This is the revised version of a commentary published by China-US Focus on Feb 29, 2016.

Dr Steinbock is the founder of Difference Group and has served as Research Director at the India, China and America Institute (USA) and Visiting Fellow at the Shanghai Institutes for International Studies (China) and the EU Centre (Singapore). For more, see www.differencegroup.net.

In an interview with the Guardian published on June 19, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg made a desperate appeal for the bloc’s unity before the upcoming summit in July. The transatlantic bond and political cohesion must be preserved at any cost and it is essential that any potential diplomatic bust-up be avoided. There’s a good reason he made such a statement at this particular moment — the US and its European allies are divided over trade, climate change, the Iran nuclear agreement, military spending, security priorities (including differing attitudes toward Russia), relations with Turkey (a NATO member), and a lot of other things. Frederick Kempe, the president and chief executive officer of the Atlantic Council, a prestigious think tank that drafts recommendations for the US government, warned about a “potential transatlantic train wreck of American making.”

Last year, US President Trump brought the issue of burden-sharing into the open, by berating his European allies for failing to spend enough on defense. The rift was apparent. This time, this controversial issue is expected to dominate the agenda. Some of the more contentious topics (the elephants in the room) are being kept off the program but they will certainly cloud the atmosphere of the meeting. The US ambassador to NATO, Kay Bailey Hutchison, has warned that the spending issue will remain a sore point for President Trump. German Chancellor Angela Merkel has already said her country will miss the target deadline, thus making the possibility of an open US-German clash at the summit very real.

If the planned Trump-Putin summit takes place prior to or immediately after the NATO meeting, it will be another blow to the West’s unity after the scandalous G7 event. National security adviser John Bolton will travel to Moscow next week, after stops in London and Rome, to prepare for the much-anticipated event. Just imagine the setback this will be to British PM Theresa May’s efforts to isolate Russia internationally over the Salisbury nerve-agent attack! Actually, the very announcement on June 21 of Mr. Bolton’s visit to Moscow has been a serious blow to the UK government, as it was delivered right before Mr. Trump’s working visit to that country on July 13. And there’s more. President Trump publicly taunted German Chancellor Angela Merkel on June 19 over migration, a vital security problem for Europe, but which has no direct impact on the United States. Today the West’s unity looks more like a thing of the past. Not since the 1956 Suez Crisis have divisions within the North Atlantic Alliance been so deep.

The idea is to set these differences aside at the summit and to show unity by approving the main proposals on the agenda, such as a new plan to improve rapid-response capability by deploying 30 troop battalions, 30 squadrons of aircraft, and 30 warships within 30 days. The naval presence in the Mediterranean Sea and the joint training in Iraq are also issues that will be subject to discussion. All these steps are to be taken while decision-making is being streamlined, deployment flexibility is being enhanced, and the rules of engagement are being made more robust.

But whatever is decided and signed will not eliminate the root of the problem. Looking at the world while wearing his “America First” glasses, Donald Trump sees Europe as a competitor that needs to be weakened in order to make the US stronger. And exacerbating differences and divisions inside the blocs, be they the EU or NATO, is the way to do it.

With Brussels in revolt against Washington, Poland and the Baltic States may become the core of another 100% pro-American alliance to protect US interests in Europe. The EU-Poland rift is growing, which increases the possibility of a Polexit while the majority of European states are trying to fend off US domination. The UK finds itself increasingly neglected in Europe and more deeply interested in closer interaction with the US. Ukraine, Georgia, and Moldova appear to be fascinated by anything the US does and are ready to do whatever it says. A special relationship between the US, Sweden, and Finland is obviously being shaped. France has become an American ally, joining Washington in the conflicts in the Middle East while vigorously opposing the US policy of trade wars.

The European political landscape is shifting. America is not the only problem Brussels faces. The EU rift over migration has exacerbated to the point that an emergency summit is being planned for June 24, just five days before the “big” summit on June 28-29, which will also include a discussion of that problem. The German coalition government has barely survived the crisis over migrants and appears to be on its last legs. Building refugee camps in North Africa and strengthening the Frontex border agency is a matter of survival for Europe and a problem the US does not care about. The West is deeply divided. Everyone is operating with their own agenda.

The only way to preserve at least the pretense of unity is to find a common enemy, a peril that is jeopardizing the security of all. Those who are striving to save NATO and the EU from collapse are clutching at that straw, which is Russia, an imaginary bogeyman that poses a nonexistent threat. Indeed, escalation is the best way to preserve this eroded unity. But Moscow is an important player that others can to turn to and side with on the world chessboard. For instance, there is a wide disparity between the attitude toward Russia held in the UK vs. in Italy. Turkey is a good example of a NATO member that is able to protect its national interests thanks to Russia’s support.

This isn’t just about Donald Trump and his political views. The essence of the problem is the emergence of the fault lines that run too deep to make the idea of a united West anything but a pipe dream. NATO and the EU have forgotten about their standards. They have been expanding too fast, trying to bring together nations at different levels of development and, correspondingly, with different interests to pursue. Those organizations have grown too large to be able to boast of their unity on all major issues. Having achieved a certain level of expansion, they have begun a transformation into amalgams of groups united by regional or other interests that are challenging the central leaderships.

Growing too fast and too large is not always a good thing. Expansion does not always make alliances stronger. The empire of Alexander the Great did not last long after his death. The last thing the West needs under the current circumstances is a confrontation with Russia. It has enough grievances to grapple with.

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Alex Gorka is a defense and diplomatic analyst.

Featured image is from the author.

The Russian military officially entered the southwest Syria offensive this evening, a source told Al-Masdar from the Dara’a Governorate. 

The Russian Aerospace Forces unleashed a massive assault over northeastern Dara’a, tonight, targeting several areas controlled by the jihadist rebels.

According to a military source in the government stronghold of Izra’a, the Russian Aerospace Forces launched over 20 airstrikes across northeastern Dara’a tonight.

The source told Al-Masdar that the Russian Aerospace Forces specifically launched airstrikes over the towns of Masikah, Aeeb, and Busra Al-Harir.

The added that the majority of the airstrikes were launched on the jihadist stronghold of Busra Al-Harir, which is located directly east of Izra’a.

This attack by the Russian Aerospace Forces comes just 48 hours after the U.S. State Department issued a stern warning to both the Russian and Syrian governments about escalating their offensive in southwest Syria.

Court documents made public in Virginia and Texas give a glimpse of the systematic brutality being meted out to immigrant children in both public and private jails. Children are strapped down, hooded and beaten, or drugged by force, as part of the everyday procedure in what can only be called the American Gulag.

An Associated Press report published Thursday gave details of the abuses committed last year against young Latino migrants at the Shenandoah Valley Juvenile Center near Staunton, Virginia. Lawyers for the teenage victims sued the prison—a state facility run by a consortium of seven towns and cities in the Shenandoah Valley—and a court hearing is set for July.

According to a half-dozen sworn statements, given by the victims in Spanish and then translated for filing with the federal court for the Western District of Virginia, children as young as 14 were beaten while handcuffed, tied down to chairs while stripped naked and hooded, and held for long periods in solitary confinement, sometimes naked and cold.

All these are forms of torture practiced at Guantanamo Bay and at CIA torture prisons around the world. These techniques have been transferred back into the United States and unleashed on immigrant children, who have been demonized by the Trump administration.

The lawsuit filed by the nonprofit Washington Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs declares that young Latino immigrants held at Shenandoah “are subjected to unconstitutional conditions that shock the conscience, including violence by staff, abusive and excessive use of seclusion and restraints, and the denial of necessary mental health care.” As a result of “malicious and sadistic applications of force,” the youth have “sustained significant injuries, both physical and psychological.”

A Honduran youth sent to Shenandoah when he was 15 said in his statement,

“Whenever they used to restrain me and put me in the chair, they would handcuff me… [They] strapped me down all the way, from your feet all the way to your chest, you couldn’t really move… They have total control over you. They also put a bag over your head. It has little holes; you can see through it. But you feel suffocated with the bag on.”

A 15-year-old from Mexico who spent nine months at Shenandoah described similar treatment.

“They handcuffed me and put a white bag of some kind over my head,” he said, according to his sworn statement. “They took off all of my clothes and put me into a restraint chair, where they attached my hands and feet to the chair. They also put a strap across my chest. They left me naked and attached to that chair for two and a half days, including at night.”

A 14-year-old Guatemalan youth reported frequent imprisonment in his tiny cell for up to 23 hours a day, as well as long periods of physical restraint.

“When they couldn’t get one of the kids to calm down, the guards would put us in a chair—a safety chair, I don’t know what they call it—but they would just put us in there all day,” he said in his sworn statement. “This happened to me, and I saw it happen to others, too. It was excessive.”

A 17-year-old who fled Mexico to escape an abusive father and drug cartel violence was arrested at the US border and passed through several detention centers before arriving at Shenandoah, one of three facilities in the United States with contracts from the Office of Refugee Resettlement, part of the Department of Health and Human Services, to provide “secure facilities” for young immigrants. The boy was frequently shackled, usually with cloth bindings, and reported at least one violent strip search and several beatings. He was driven to attempt suicide several times.

Other allegations include that the Latino youth received worse food and facilities than local juvenile prisoners, mostly white, and that meals were frequently cold and inadequate, leaving the children hungry.

The AP interviewed an unnamed child development specialist who had worked with teens at Shenandoah.

“The majority of the kids we worked with when we went to visit them were emotionally and verbally abused. I had a kid whose foot was broken by a guard,” she said. “They would get put in isolation for months for things like picking up a pencil when a guard had said not to move. Some of them started hearing voices that were telling them to hurt people or hurt themselves, and I knew when they had gotten to Shenandoah they were not having any violent thoughts.”

Because the children held at Shenandoah were unaccompanied minors, rather than separated from their families, there were some suggestions in the media that they had gang connections that somehow justified the brutal treatment. But according to the AP report, a program director at the facility said the youth had been screened for gang connections and were actually suffering from mental health issues resulting from trauma in their home countries.

The acts of torture involved multiple guards at the facility, which was run by a regional board but under the ultimate control of the state government, headed throughout this period by Democratic Governor Terry McAuliffe. The new governor, Democrat Ralph Northam, who took office January 1, ordered a state investigation into the claims of abuse, but only after the AP report became public Thursday.

Even younger children were targeted for abuse at a Texas facility operated under contract with the Office of Refugee Resettlement, according to a report published by the Center for Investigative Reporting and the Texas Tribune Tuesday. The allegations were further detailed in a court suit filed by the Center for Human Rights & Constitutional Law.

The lawsuit charges that the Shiloh Treatment Center in Manvel, Texas administered psychotropic drugs to immigrant children, who in some cases were separated from their parents at the border. Neither the children, some as young as nine years old, nor the parents gave consent to the treatment, and in some cases, children were forcibly drugged as they fought and screamed.

One report reads:

“Some children held at Shiloh reported being given up to nine different pills in the morning and six in the evening, including antipsychotic drugs, antidepressants, Parkinson’s disease medication and seizure medications. They were told they would remain detained if they refused drugs, the lawsuit said. Children also said that after taking the drugs, they experienced side effects that rendered them fatigued and incapable of walking.”

The lawsuit charges:

“ORR routinely administers children psychotropic drugs without lawful authorization… When youth object to taking such medications, ORR compels them. ORR neither requires nor asks for a parent’s consent before medicating a child, nor does it seek lawful authority to consent in parents’ stead. Instead, ORR or facility staff sign ‘consent’ forms anointing themselves with ‘authority’ to administer psychotropic drugs to confined children.”

The seven pills named in the court filings—clonazepam, duloxetine, guanfacine, Geodon, olanzapine, Latuda and divalproex—are medications used to control depression, anxiety, attention deficit disorder, bipolar disorder, mood disorders, schizophrenia and seizures. This treatment amounted to applying “chemical straitjackets” to subdue the children, rather than meeting medical needs, the lawsuit charges.

According to the investigative reporting, the ORR paid $3.4 billion to private organizations to hold immigrant children, and nearly half of this, $1.5 billion, went to 13 companies that had been accused of hundreds of serious violations of their responsibility to provide care. These included failure to obtain medical treatment for accidents or illness, “inappropriate contact” between children and staff (apparently of a sexual nature), and neglect.

These reports of horrific treatment of innocent children do not just expose the savagery and sadism of individual guards, administrators and other officials, or the greed of corporate bosses seeking to join in the orgy of profiteering from federal contracts for the detention and abuse of immigrants. What is revealed above all is the criminal character of the American political elite, both Democrats and Republicans, who have deliberately encouraged an atmosphere of brutality and terror as their preferred method of “deterring” immigrants from crossing the US-Mexico border. The responsibility, moreover, rests not just with the sociopathic bully in the White House today, but also with his Democratic predecessor, responsible for more deportations than any previous president.

Obama’s Department of Homeland Security chief Jeh Johnson declared that the jailing of Central American refugees seeking asylum, and the separation of parents and children, would have a positive effect in reducing the sudden influx of refugees in 2014. It was Terry McAuliffe, the longtime crony of Hillary Clinton, who presided over the torture of immigrant teenagers at Shenandoah from 2014 to 2017.

The shift from Obama to Trump has not fundamentally changed the policy of the US ruling class towards immigrants, which has always been of an anti-democratic and brutal character. But in the hands of Trump and his fascistic aide Stephen Miller, the brutality has become more systematic, and it is accompanied by a campaign aimed at whipping up anti-immigrant racism and hysteria over the purported danger that the United States will be “overrun,” as Trump claimed in his speech Wednesday night to a rally in Minnesota.

According to a report in the Wall Street Journal Thursday, the Trump administration awarded multiple contracts involving tens of millions of dollars earlier this year to build detention facilities for children. This confirms that the mass separation of children from their parents, which followed the announcement of the “zero tolerance” policy by Attorney General Jeff Sessions, was not an unexpected byproduct of the new policy, but was planned and deliberate. It is a premeditated crime, the state kidnapping of more than 2,400 children, for which Trump, Sessions, Stephen Miller, Kirstjen Nielsen and other top officials should be prosecuted and jailed.

Far from abandoning this policy—as media reports on the executive order issued by Trump Wednesday suggested—the White House is preparing to accelerate the mass detention of immigrants, including children. A Pentagon spokesman said Thursday that military bases in Texas and Arkansas had been reviewed as possible locations for housing as many as 20,000 immigrant children, double the number currently in custody.

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Featured image is from Countercurrents.

Featured image: Maj. Gen. Igor Kirillov, the chief of the Russian military’s radiation, chemical and biological protection unit (file photo)

Russia says the United States and its allies have relied on fabricated evidence to accuse the Syrian government of conducting chemical attacks against civilians.

“The US, Britain, France and their allies have misled international community … relying on fabrications to accuse Syria of violating the chemical weapons ban with Russian assistance,” said Maj. Gen. Igor Kirillov, the chief of the Russian military’s radiation, chemical and biological protection unit, at a briefing in the capital Moscow on Friday.

He also accused the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) of violating the Chemical Weapons Convention, saying

“the remote nature of investigations as well as the collection, analysis and use of the documents obtained without specialists’ trips to the alleged sites of chemical weapons use is in direct contradiction to the convention’s provisions.”

Back in April, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov also criticized the OPCW’s previous investigations conducted from long distance on alleged chemical attacks in Syria.

In the course of the liberation operation in Eastern Ghouta, which began in February, Moscow has repeatedly warned that different factions of militant outfits in the region could stage gas attacks in a bid to frame the Syrian government.

The suspected chemical weapons attack, however, hit the town of Douma in the Eastern Ghouta region in the suburban area near Damascus on April 7, reportedly killing at least 60 people and wounding more than 1,000 others.

Western countries swiftly blamed the incident on the Syrian government. Damascus rejected the accusations as “chemical fabrications” made by the terrorists themselves in a bid to halt pro-government forces’ advances.

The alleged use of chemical weapons in Douma, however, triggered a missile strike by the US, Britain and France that Russia has denounced as a violation of international law.

Elsewhere in his remarks, Kirillov said the so-called civil defense group White Helmets had doctored samples and used explosive devices to make craters that looked like those left by bombs.

He added that in the images presented by them, they worked at the site of the alleged use of sarin without protective gear, which would have been impossible if the nerve agent had indeed been used there.

Kirillov also lambasted the OPCW for turning a blind eye to the discovery of a militant-run lab and its stockpiles in Eastern Ghouta that contained over 40 metric tons of chlorine and other toxic chemicals.

Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova, who spoke at the same briefing, said the chemical lab featured components made in Western Europe.

“We are ready to show evidence that the equipment was taken by terrorists and militants from Western Europe,” she said.

The Syrian government surrendered its stockpiles of chemical weapons in 2014 to a joint mission led by the UN and the OPCW, which oversaw the destruction of the weaponry. However, Western governments and their allies have never stopped pointing the finger at Damascus whenever an apparent chemical attack has taken place.

In April 2017, a suspected sarin gas attack hit the town of Khan Shaykhun in the northwestern Syrian province of Idlib, taking at least 80 lives. Accusing Damascus, the US then launched several dozen Tomahawk cruise missiles at a Syrian air base, taking the lives of about 20 people including both Syrian soldiers and civilians.

ISIS remains a threat in eastern Syria. It holds a stretch of land on the eastern bank of the Euphrates which the US has appropriated for itself and the Kurdish-dominated SDF coalition yet refuses to clear. The group also has numerous hiding places in the desert to the west of river which due to its vastness and lack of infrastructure is difficult to control.

June 8-10 ISIS fighters came out of these desert bases in a raiding counter-offensive. In the surprise attack it was able to take over part of the outskirts of the city of Abu Kamal which lies on the Syrian side of the border with Iraq, but were then forced to fall back.

Involved in repelling the ISIS were not just the Syrian army and local tribes organized in the NDF militia units, but also volunteer Iraqi militias of Kata’ib Hezbollah. Since this week this Syrian-Iraqi coalition has a new enemy.

On the night from June 17 to 18 air strikes hit Syrian military bases at Abu Kamal. They killed 22 Kata’ib Hezbollah fighters and an unknown number of Syrians. The Syrians first accused the Americans of hitting them — this was logical since the US hit the Syrian army in eastern Syria four times in May-June 2017, twice in February 2018, and again in April 2018. However Americans denied carrying out any such strikes, and Pentagon denials of this type are credible, as they did not deny any of the previous ones.

So what the heck was going on? This was cleared up when the wrongly accused Americans let it be known who had actually carried out the strikes — Israel:

A US official said on Monday Washington suspects that Israel is behind the air raid that killed dozens of pro-Syrian government fighters in Deir Ezzor province.

“We have reasons to believe that it was an Israeli strike,” the official told AFP on condition of anonymity following the Sunday night raid on Al-Hari, a town controlled by regional militias fighting alongside the Syrian government.

Damascus had accused Washington of being behind the attack; the US military denied any involvement. Iraq’s paramilitary group the Popular Mobilisation Units, which said it lost 22 fighters in the raid, backed the Syrian government’s claim that US aircraft carried out the strike.

“At 22:00 last night a US plane hit a fixed headquarters of the Popular Mobilisation Units’ 45th and 46th brigades defending the border strip with Syria, using two guided missiles which led to the martyrdom of 22 fighters,” the Iran-backed paramilitary group said in a statement.

It demanded an explanation from the United States.

An Iraqi military statement later said no Popular Mobilisation Forces or other Iraqi troops tasked with securing the Iraqi-Syrian border had been hit by the air strike, and it had taken place inside Syria.

“No member of the US-led coalition carried out strikes near Albu Kamal,” Major Josh Jacques, a US Central Command spokesman, told Reuters.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the strike was one of the deadliest on forces allied with Syria’s government. According to the Observatory, 52 fighters were killed in the attack.

The attack took place in al-Hari, southeast of the town of Albu Kamal, state news agency SANA said, citing a military source.

It is perhaps notable the Americans were not willing to bear the heat for something they hadn’t done and outed Israel. It may be an indication they are not too crazy about Israel actions here.

Israel demands that Lebanese Hezbollah and phantom Iranian forces (Iran only has individual advisers in Syria, not whole combat units) not be allowed to set up base within 40 miles of Syria’s Golan Heights it has occupied since 1967. The US strongly supports the Israel in this demand and even Russia is not entirely unsympathetic.

Yet here Israel flew more than 500 kilometers to the entire different side of Syria to hit Iraqi Hezbollah and the Syrian military engaged in very real battles against ISIS. It made itself into an air force for ISIS, and for what? That seems totally unclear.

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Featured image is from the author.

Embattled former Malaysian prime minister Najib Razak was the main loser in last month’s election upset that returned Mahathir Mohamad to power as his country’s anti-corruption crusader. Yet, Mr. Razak is not the only one who may be paying the price for allegedly non-transparent and unaccountable governance.

So is Saudi Arabia with a Saudi company having played a key role in the 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) scandal in which Mr. Razak is suspected to have overseen the siphoning off of at least US$4.5 billion and the Saudi government seemingly having gone out of its way to provide him political cover.

While attention has focussed largely on the re-opening of the investigation of Mr. Razak and his wife, Rosmah Mansor, both of whom have been banned from travel abroad and have seen their homes raided by law enforcement, Saudi Arabia has not escaped policymakers’ consideration. Mr. Razak has denied all allegations of wrongdoing.

The geopolitical fallout of the scandal is becoming increasingly evident. Defence Minister Mohamad Sabu suggested this week that Malaysia was re-evaluating the presence of Malaysian troops in Saudi Arabia, dispatched to the kingdom as part of the 41-nation, Saudi-sponsored Islamic Military Counter Terrorism Coalition (IMCTC).

“The ATM (Malaysian Armed Forces) presence in Saudi Arabia has indirectly mired Malaysia in the Middle East conflict… The government will make a decision on the matter in the near future after a re-evaluation has been completed,” said Mr. Sabu, who is known for his critical view of Saudi Arabia.

In a commentary published late last year that suggests a potential Malaysian re-alignment of its Middle Eastern relationships, Mr. Sabu noted that Saudi wrath has been directed “oddly, (at) Turkey, Qatar, and Iran…three countries that have undertaken some modicum of political and economic reforms. Instead of encouraging all sides to work together, Saudi Arabia has gone on an offensive in Yemen, too. Therein the danger posed to Malaysia: if Malaysia is too close to Saudi Arabia, Putrajaya would be asked to choose a side.”

Putrajaya, a city south of Kuala Lumpur, is home to the prime minister’s residence.

Mr. Sabu went on to say that

“Malaysia should not be too close to a country whose internal politics are getting toxic… For the lack of a better word, Saudi Arabia is a cesspool of constant rivalry among the princes. By this token, it is also a vortex that could suck any country into its black hole if one is not careful. Indeed, Saudi Arabia is governed by hyper-orthodox Salafi or Wahhabi ideology, where Islam is taken in a literal form. Yet true Islam requires understanding Islam, not merely in its Quranic form, but Quranic spirit.”

Since coming to office, Mr. Sabu has said that he was also reviewing plans for a Saudi-funded anti-terrorism centre, the King Salman Centre for International Peace (KSCIP), which was allocated 16 hectares of land in Putrajaya by the Razak government. Mr. Sabu was echoing statements by Mr. Mahathir before the election.

Compounding potential strains in relations with Saudi Arabia, Seri Mohd Shukri Abdull, Mr. Mahathir’s newly appointed anti-corruption czar, who resigned from the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) in 2016 as a result of pressure to drop plans to indict Mr. Razak, noted that

“we have had difficulties dealing with Arab countries (such as)…Saudi Arabia…”

The investigation is likely to revisit 1MDB relationship’s with Saudi energy company PetroSaudi International Ltd, owned by Saudi businessman Tarek Essam Ahmad Obaid as well as prominent members of the kingdom’s ruling family who allegedly funded Mr. Razak.

It will not have been lost on Saudi Arabia that Mr. Mahathir met with former PetroSaudi executive and whistle blower Xavier Andre Justo less than two weeks after his election victory.

A three-part BBC documentary, The House of Saud: A Family at War, suggested that Mr. Razak had worked with Prince Turki bin Abdullah, the son of former Saudi King Abdullah, to syphon off funds from 1MDB.

Saudi foreign minister Adel al-Jubeir came to Mr. Razak’s rescue in 2016 by declaring that US$681 million transferred into the prime minister’s personal bank account was a “genuine donation with nothing expected in return.”

The Malaysian election as well as seeming Saudi complicity in the corruption scandal that toppled Mr. Razak has global implications, particularly for the United States and China, global powers who see support of autocratic and/or corrupt regimes as the best guarantee to maintain stability.

It is a lesson that initially was apparent in the 2011 popular Arab revolts that toppled the leaders of Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and Yemen.

The rollback of the achievements of most of those revolts backed by autocratic leaders in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates bent on reshaping the Middle East and North Africa in their mould has contributed to the mayhem, violence and brutal repression engulfing the region.

In addition, autocratic rule has failed to squash widespread economic and social discontent. Middle Eastern states, including Algeria, Morocco, Egypt, Lebanon Iran, and most recently Jordan have witnessed  protests against rising prices, cuts in public spending and corruption.

“The public dissatisfaction, bubbling up in several countries, is a reminder that even more urgent action is needed,” warned Christine Lagarde, the managing director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

Elections, if held at all, more often than not fail to serve as a corrective in the Middle East and North Africa because they are engineered rather than a free and fair reflection of popular will. Elections in countries like Iraq and Lebanon serve as exceptions that confirm the rule while Iran represents a hybrid.

As a result, street protests, militancy and violence are often the only options available to those seeking change.

Against that backdrop, Malaysia stands out as an example of change that does not jeopardize stability.

It is but the latest example of Southeast Asian nations having led the way in producing relatively peaceful political transitions starting with the 1986 popular revolt in the Philippines, the 1998 toppling of Suharto in Indonesia, and Myanmar’s 2010 transition away from military dictatorship.

This is true even if Southeast Asia also demonstrates that political transition is a decades-long process that marches to the tune of Vladimir Lenin’s principle of two steps forward, one step backwards as it witnesses a backslide with the rise in the Philippines of President Rodrigo Duterte’s authoritarianism, stepped up jihadist activity, the 2014 military coup in Thailand, increasingly autocratic rule in Cambodia, the rise of conservatism and intolerance in Indonesia, and the plight of the Rohingya in Myanmar.

If anything, Malaysia constitutes an anti-dote.

“Malaysia’s institutions proved more resilient…and descent into authoritarianism has been averted – offering a lesson not only to aspiring dictators, but to those in the United Stateswho argue that propping up corrupt leaders is in U.S. interests,” said Alex Helan, a security and anti-corruption consultant.

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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

In times of war, correspondents are routinely ‘embedded’ with fighting forces in order to be able to document the latest battles up close. Since last week, America’s most respected journalists are being denied access to the ‘holding centers’ where young Latino children are being detained after being separated from parents trying to enter the US to escape poverty and gang violence.

Thus far, not one journalist either on CNN or on MSNBC, the two major national channels, have dared to denounce this government censorship, which flies in the face of one of America’s ‘most cherished values’. The closest any journalist has come to denouncing the situation has been to claim that ‘this is a national security issue’: drug dealers and child traffickers may be slipping into the country pretending to be asylum seekers. (‘National Security’ is a term that few dare to challenge, whatever the rationale…)

The frustration and apparent helplessness of legislators in the face of this highly visible problem illustrates the limits of ‘democracy’. The corridors of Capitol Hill are shown filled with demonstrators trying to convince representatives of the need to move expeditiously, as recordings of crying children are played in the background. The President trades accusations of immobilism with Congress and each congressional party accuses the other of being at the origin of some obscure legislation that supposedly dictates the abhorrent policies being followed.

Bills being mooted face two hurdles: being allowed by the leader of the House of Representatives into the floor to be discussed and voted upon, and in the affirmative, garnering enough Democratic and Republican votes to be passed, given the priorities of the two different parties, while the President refuses to act unilaterally. Action has been taken only by a few governors, who have announced with fanfare that they will not send any of their National Guard troops to assist with the complex situation at the border. However, the effect of their righteous revolt will be minimal, given the extreme militarization of local police forces across the country, as immigration activists demonstrate against the extreme heat of the Texas desert where tent cities remindful of those in which Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio gleefully held local prisoners until he was convicted (then pardoned by President Trump).

Psychiatrists and psychologists warn that as the children subjected to traumatic separations from their parents grow into adolescence, the community will bear the costs of their PTSD. In vain: Stephen Miller, the chilling young presidential advisor intent on preserving the United States as a White City Upon a Hill looking down at the brown people it has subjected for three centuries, whispers to the President that he can — and must — do this.

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Deena Stryker is an international expert, author and journalist that has been at the forefront of international politics for over thirty years, exlusively for the online journal “New Eastern Outlook”.

Featured image is from the author.

Last week’s Economist Magazine won the day with the best-ever headline about the Trump-Kim Jong-un summit: `Kim Jong Won!’ 

That said it all.   Just out of hospital, I was in no shape to compete with the great Economist or its very witty headline writers. But after watching a week of post Singapore summit between Great White Father Trump and delinquent Kim Jong-un I must totally agree with the Economist.

What was billed as a second-coming extravaganza between the two leaders – who have been trading insults of ‘little rocket man’ and ‘dotard’ (someone who is senile) turned out to be a very expensive photo op for both publicity seekers that made much noise but produced very little – at least so far.  It seemed as if two schoolyard bullies had been forced by the principal to shake hands.

Beyond gestures, North Korea’s leader certainly came out ahead.  His objective – and those of his family predecessors for the past 60 years – was to normalize relations with the US, start trade, and end US efforts to overthrow the Marxist government in Pyongyang.

Trump’s objectives, at least initially, were to crush North Korea and the threats it could pose to the United States and its regional allies Japan and South Korea. Trump sought to set up Kim as a bogeyman, and himself as America’s savior.  Trump knew perfectly well that he could not destroy all of North Korea’s deeply buried nuclear-armed missiles, and, in spite of his huffing and puffing, had no stomach for an invasion of North Korea that could cost the US an estimated 250,000 casualties.

So Trump’s solution was more show-biz.  A much ballyhooed flight to Singapore, backslapping a delighted Kim, and a love-fest between the two chunky leaders was sold to Americans as the dawn of peace.  America’s media was quick to retail the story and burnish Trump’s credentials among the seriously credulous.  No more hiding under your school desks or in dank basements.  As Trump grandly proclaimed, Americans no longer have to fear North Korea and can sleep peacefully at night!

Why?  Korea still has all of its medium and long-ranged missiles and an estimated 40 or more nuclear warheads.  The North is developing submarines that can launch nuclear-armed missiles from underwater off America’s coasts.  For Kim, these weapons are purely defensive, designed to prevent a US attack on his nation.   But he is now a full-fledged member of the nuclear club.

Equally important, North Korea still has an estimated 14,000 170mm guns and hundreds of 300mm long-ranged rocket launchers emplaced in caves just north of the Demilitarized Zone between the two Koreas.  They threaten almost all of South Korea’s capital Seoul north of the Han River and some US military bases and key airfields, notably Osan.

This is a very real threat – one that is largely immune to attack from the air. I have seen these emplacements from the northern edge of the DMZ.  Kim’s big guns hold Seoul’s millions of inhabitants hostage.

There is no mention of this artillery threat in the final communiqué issued by Trump and Kim in Singapore.  But it was agreed to temporarily stop the highly provocative US/South Korean war games simulating an invasion of the North, a key demand by Kim.  This column has been calling for their end for a decade.  North Korea will seemingly halt its missile tests.

This is not the ‘denuclearization’ of North Korea that has been bandied about.  There may be a few gestures of disarmament but Kim must know that his nukes are his means of survival.  In case Kim didn’t remember the dire fate of Iraq, Libya, and Syria, Trump’s new national security advisor John Bolton, a fanatic’s fanatic, cheerfully recalled the doom of Libya’s murdered Col. Khadaffi.

The Singapore summit was also a huge humiliation for America’s allies Japan and South Korea.  In Asia, preserving ‘face’ is essential.

Trump completely ignored America’s two old allies after his meeting with Kim – who routinely blasts Japan and South Korea as ‘America’s stooges.’  Instead, Trump sent his beginner Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to explain what happened in Singapore, inflicting a deep loss of face on Tokyo and Seoul.  This was a terrible insult and could spark decisions by at least Japan to proceed ahead with its covert nuclear program.  Japan can deploy nuclear weapons in 3-6 months; South Korea is not far behind.

The United States and North Korea are now on a more civilized level of behavior.  But nothing basic has been resolved.  Maybe Trump has some more concessions up his sleeve, like cutting the number of US troops in the South.  But Korea is now on the back burner as Trump wages trade wars around the globe.

Watch the video below to understand the “artificial economy”.

This was originally published on May 8, 2015.

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There are few bipartisan projects in Congress these days, but Republicans and Democrats have no trouble joining together to feed more money into the Pentagon’s gaping maw.

By a vote of 85-10 on Thursday morning, the Senate approved the annual National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA)—technically known as the “John S. McCain National Defense Authorization Act” because you wouldn’t vote against something named after an American hero, right? It serves as the budget for the U.S. military, which this year is receiving $716 billion, an increase of $82 billion from last year. That increase was agreed upon in March as part of an overall two-year budget deal that smashed Obama-era spending caps and boosts military spending by $165 over the next two years.

It’s not just that military spending crosses party lines, but that it smooths over nearly every political division in Washington today. Democrats have shown virtually no interest in Trump’s major policy priorities, but only seven Democrats plus Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who caucuses with Democrats, voted against Trump’s new nukes. Sens. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) and Mike Lee (R-Utah) were the only Republicans to vote against the NDAA. An attempt by Sander, Lee, and some other senators to include an amendment prohibiting the Pentagon from continuing to participate in an unauthorized war in Yemen was defeated.

The spending increase will allow the Pentagon to buy more fighter jets, to create “cyberwarfare units,” and to develop new, smaller nuclear weapons. There is, however, no Space Force. The extra $82 billion will “bring us back to a position of primacy,” Defense Secretary James Mattis said in February.

To put the Pentagon’s $82 billion funding increase in perspective, consider that Russia’s entire military budget totals only $61 billion. China, which boast the next most expensive military in the world after the United States, plans to spend about $175 billion this year.

Maybe the problem isn’t how much funding the military receives, but how the money it already gets is spent. Unfortunately, we don’t know much about that because the Pentagon has still not been subjected to a full scale audit, despite the fact that all federal agencies and departments were ordered to undergo mandatory audits in 1990. A preliminary audit of one office within the Pentagon found more than $800 million could not be located. Auditors said the Pentagon’s Defense Logistics Agency (DLA)—described as “the military’s Walmart” because it’s responsible for processing supplies and equipment—has financial management “so weak that its leaders and oversight bodies have no reliable way to track the huge sums it’s responsible for.”

Whether it’s investing in bomb-sniffing elephants, paying $8,000 for something that should cost $50, or the famous $640 toilet seat, there’s no shortage of absurd waste in the Pentagon. A Reuters probe in 2013 found “$8.5 trillion in taxpayer money doled out to the Pentagon since 1996 … has never been accounted for. That sum exceeds the value of China’s economic output [for 2012].”

“To give the Defense Department more money without making sure the waste is addressed is foolish and strategically unwise,” Bonnie Kristian, a fellow at Defense Priorities, wrote for Reason earlier this year.

But Congress and the White House have no such qualms about handing the Pentagon more money to burn.

The Western world never ceases to speak of its “democratic values.” In Western political theory, the way democracy works is by free speech and a free press. By speaking out, citizens and media keep the government accountable.

This liberal tradition means that there are no words or terms that cannot be used because some designated “victim group” can claim to feel offended. The inroads into free speech made by political correctness, now institutionalized in universities and the public school system, in the presstitute media, in American corporations such as Google, and in the enculturated habits of Americans, demonstrate a decline in the status of free speech. Governments have also made inroads, with the “war on terror” becoming a justification for warrantless spying, mass surveillance, and a clampdown on dissent.

The free press has declined even more dramatically than free speech. The NY Times of the Pentagon Papers disappeared during George W. Bush’s first term when the newspaper sat on the story that the Bush regime was spying without warrants. The NY Times sat on the story for a year, allowing Bush to be reelected without controversy and allowing the government time to legalize the spying on an ex post facto basis.

Today the media are a propaganda ministry engaged in the demonization of Russia and Trump and justifying the war crimes of Washington and its vassal states.

This is why there is no media uproar over the 6-year incarceration of Julian Assange in the Ecuadorian embassy in London.

Wikileaks is a news organization and has not done anything that a free press has not always done. Julian Assange is a citizen of Australia and Ecuador. He is not an American and thus cannot be guilty of treason. Yet Washington is believed to have used a grand jury to concoct such a case against him.

The new president of Ecuador is not the strong and good man than his predecessor was. Under Washington’s pressure Moreno is making life in the Ecuadorian embassy as unbearable as possible for Assange in an effort to force him out into British hands. Responding to Washington’s pressure, the British government will not honor his asylum, which prevents Assange from being able to leave the embassy.

There is no presence of “democratic values” in this affair. It is a repeat of the Soviet Union’s treatment of Cardinal Mindszenty, only it is Washington, not Moscow, who is stamping on the face of freedom. (See this.)

The Australian government, also in deference to Washington, has done nothing to help Assange. Australia, like every other vassal state, puts Washington’s interest ahead of both law and the interest of citizens.

This week there were protests in Australia in support of Assange. However, Western governments are now so far removed from citizens who are today little more than subjects that it is unlikely that anything short of revolution can restore accountability to governments in the West.

“Western democracy” has become an oxymoron. This article by Mike Head shows the disdain that the Western elites have for free speech, freedom of the press, truth, and the rights of citizens.

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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.

First video below is a 20 minute interview David DeGraw had with Lee Camp.

They discussed the latest news on the unaccounted for $21 Trillion and the insanity of dropping 121 bombs a day by the US.

Scroll down for the abridged version.

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Source: Redacted Tonight

Second video below is an abridged version of the discussion.

Source: Changemaker Media

In the aftermath of the Supreme Court’s decision in Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission, several commentators wrote about the Court’s reasoning in that case and its possible implications for President Trump’s Muslim Ban—the legality of which is set to be decided in the upcoming days.

In Masterpiece, the Court focused on statements by members of the Colorado Civil Rights Commission, finding that they displayed “some elements of a clear and impermissible hostility” toward Jack Phillips’ religious beliefs. Even though the Court recognized that those statements could be subject to multiple interpretations, it nonetheless invalidated the Commission’s finding that Phillips discriminated against David Mullins and Charlie Craig in refusing to bake them a wedding cake. As Justice Kennedy explained in the Court’s majority opinion, the First Amendment’s religion clauses prohibit even “subtle departures from neutrality.”

Throughout the plethora of litigation that has been filed against the Muslim Ban over the past sixteen months—including Hawaii v. Trump, which is currently pending before the Supreme Court—the Department of Justice has worked hard to keep the legal focus away from Donald Trump’s statements, tweets, and other commentary about Muslims and Islam. But those words matter, and, in fact, the analysis in Masterpiece suggests that they could be pivotal to the final outcome of the case. That is why yesterday, Muslim Advocates released a new issue brief and fact sheet, both of which documenthow Donald Trump’s history of explicit, unambiguous, and unrepentant anti-Muslim bigotry is long and uninterrupted, beginning in his days as a celebrity businessman and continuing through his tenure in the Oval Office.

Trump has never been bashful about his anti-Muslim animus. In 2011, for example, he gave an interview to the Christian Broadcasting Network’s The Brody File where he recounted a conversation about Islam that he once had with former Fox News host Bill O’Reilly. According to Trump, O’Reilly asked him during their discussion if there was “a Muslim problem,” to which Trump responded, “absolutely, yes,” before stating his belief that the Koran “teaches some very negative vibe.”

These sentiments went on to occupy a central role in Trump’s successful presidential campaign, during which he declared his conviction that “Islam hates us” and that Muslims harbor an “unbelievable hatred.” These views also manifested themselves as policy stances throughout his presidential bid—for example, Trump’s support for a national Muslim registry, his calls for the surveillance and closure of American mosques, and, of course, his proposal for a “total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States.” In light of all this, it requires little imagination to understand Trump’s intention when, during the signing ceremony for Muslim Ban 1.0 in January 2017, he read aloud the order’s title, “Protecting the Nation from Foreign Terrorist Entry into the United States,” and remarked: “we all know what that means.”

Some of the aforementioned statements have been the subject of frequent discussion throughout the Muslim Ban litigation, but, as highlighted in our issue brief, they only represent a small slice of Trump’s record of anti-Muslim comments and remarks. For instance, he has also frequently played a central role in creating and promoting inflammatory anti-Muslim conspiracy theories and propaganda. In 2015, for example, he repeatedly claimed—despite being disproven almost immediately—that he had watched Muslims in Jersey City, New Jersey celebrate as the World Trade Center collapsed on September 11, 2001. In August 2017, several months after assuming the Presidency, Trump made a series of statements on Twitter in response to a terror attack that had taken place in Spain that revealed a deeply disturbing hostility toward Muslims and Islam. As our issue brief describes:

In one of those statements, the President implored the public to “Study what General Pershing of the United States did to terrorists when caught. There was no more Radical Islamic Terror for 35 years!” With this tweet, President Trump revived a long-debunked myth claiming U.S. Army General John J. Pershing, who served for several years as the military governor of a province in the southern Philippines following the American invasion and occupation of the archipelago around the turn of the 19^th century, once subdued a Muslim insurgency in the region by executing scores of prisoners using bullets dipped in pigs’ blood…The use of pigs and pork products in attempts to intimidate Muslims across the United States is well-documented, and the President’s celebration of such an expression of anti-Muslim hate is direct evidence of the religious animus he harbors against Muslims.

In October 2017, President Trump again sought to inflame anti-Muslim sentiment by claiming on Twitter that a “Just out report” found that the year-over-year crime rate in the United Kingdom had risen by 13% “amid [the] spread of Radical Islamic terror.” However, the bulletin released by the British Office for National Statistics, to which Trump appeared to be referring, contained no such finding—in fact, the bulletin did not even break terrorism out as a subcategory of the crimes it was tracking and reporting on. Just over a month later, President Trump used his Twitter account to repost three anti-Muslim propaganda videos that originated in the feed of Jayda Fransen, a leader within an extreme far-right British nationalist group known as Britain First.  (In 2016, Fransen was found guilty of religiously aggravated assault after an incident in which she accosted and harassed a Muslim woman in a London park.)

Donald Trump’s long-standing attachment to and use of the term “radical Islamic terrorism” further underscores his blatant hostility towards Muslims. For years—even before he assumed public office—Trump was adamant that American political leaders use the terminology, often casting it as a necessary component of any strategy to defeat terrorism. Yet his own usage of the term reflects that Trump is less concerned with national security and more interested in using the term to reinforce a false synonymy between “Islam” and “terrorism.” Indeed, Trump has regularly coupled the term with calls for discriminatory policies and/or incendiary language targeted at Muslims. Since becoming President, he has increased his usage of the term, employing it in public himself on more than two dozen occasions since his inauguration.

Although there may be some distinctions between the Commissioner’s statements at issue in Masterpiece and Trump’s record of anti-Muslim bigotry, in Masterpiece the Supreme Court embraced a very expansive view of the kinds of language that should be understood as expressing hostility toward religion. When that standard is applied to Trump’s long record of unequivocal and unapologetic anti-Muslim statements, it is almost impossible not to conclude that just he has demonstrated “clear and impermissible hostility” that simply cannot be reconciled with the Constitution’s mandates of religious freedom and government neutrality.

“I got what I asked for—the first two symbols that were waiting to meet me were precisely the two most revolting objects on earth: a church and a prison.”—Paul Nizan, Aden Arabie

The American prison and criminal justice system is a collective nightmare that in and of itself makes a mockery of US government claims to be intervening on behalf of “democratic rights” or “human rights” anywhere on the planet.

According to the Prison Policy Initiative in 2017:

“The American criminal justice system holds more than 2.3 million people in 1,719 state prisons, 102 federal prisons, 901 juvenile correctional facilities, 3,163 local jails, and 76 Indian Country jails as well as in military prisons, immigration detention facilities, civil commitment centers, and prisons in the U.S. territories.”

The US has the highest incarceration rate in the world—with less than 5 percent of the global population, it holds approximately 22 percent of the world’s prisoners. Its incarceration rate is some three and a half times the European one.

This situation rightly alarms and outrages great numbers of people, including artists who want to expose this reality to the wider public. The US penal system is so inhuman that Matthew Cooke’s documentary, Survivors Guide to Prison, takes the form of bleakly ironic advice to those who get entangled in the prison web, with semi-serious pointers as to how to survive it. Along these lines, the film is divided into segments such as “How to handle an out-of-control police officer,” “How to handle an interrogation,” and “How to survive county jail,” the latter apparently being some of the very worst of the worst.

Narrated by Cooke and actress Susan Sarandon, the movie also features a host of other celebrities including actors Danny Trejo, Danny Glover, Cynthia Nixon and Patricia Arquette, and music producer Quincy Jones. It dramatically opens with a number of the luminaries expounding on the present state of affairs.

Danny Trejo: “This country is home to the largest prison population in the world.”

Matthew Cooke: “We put more people in prison than in China and in Russia.”

Patricia Arquette:“One third of all females incarcerated globally are locked up here.”

Danny Trejo:“Thirteen million Americans are arrested every year.”

Matthew Cooke: “Put that in perspective— imagine all of Los Angeles and all of New York City arrested every year. … With record poverty, drug use and countless non-violent social issues left to our police officers to solve—guns,Tasers, hand cuffs—we have a national crisis on our hands…But how many Americans are so dangerous that they need to be locked up in a cage?”

Danny Trejo: “Citizens, the media, independents are all barred from recording or documenting anything that’s going on inside prisons .”

Survivors Guide to Prison focuses in particular on the cases of Reggie Cole and Bruce Lisker, whose stories are told in fragments throughout the film. Both were innocent men who spent decades behind bars.

Cole, an African American, was 16 when he was arrested in 1994 and subsequently convicted of murder, largely based on the false testimony of an alleged eyewitness. An endearing man, Cole coined the word “petranoid,” i.e., being petrified and paranoid simultaneously, to describe his own condition. Cole was exonerated and eventually released in May 2010.

Image on the right: Publicity for Survivors Guide to Prison

Lisker, who is white, was 17 when he was arrested, tried and convicted for the March 1984 murder of his own mother. He served more than 26 years of a 16-years-to-life sentence in California prisons, including San Quentin, and was released in 2009. The Cole and Lisker stories are heartbreaking. Both point to the role of the police and prosecution as systematic organizers of frame-ups.

Prosecutorial immunity (the Supreme Court-enshrined legal protection prosecutors have in initiating a prosecution and presenting the government’s case, no matter how false and malicious the case proves to be) is another gem of the American legal system, incentivizing the obtaining of convictions at any cost.

Justin Brooks of the California Innocence Project notes that

“It’s a joke the resources prosecutors have over defense attorneys. Prosecutors have the police force as investigators.”

Prosecutors have a higher than 90 percent conviction rate.

Cooke’s movie also points out that an estimated 50 percent of those incarcerated have some kind of mental health problem, in part the product of the closure of state psychiatric hospitals and other austerity measures. “Who are the crazy ones?” ask the filmmakers.

On the other hand, the prison system is a cash cow for a layer of businessmen and women: for example, companies that charge prisoners for making phone calls (at exorbitant rates) alone rake in $2 billion annually. The bail bond industry is another $2 billion racket.

But there’s a special place in Hades for those who run the forced labor institutions known as private prisons. Over 1 million people work for—literally—pennies in prisons that subcontract to Fortune 500 companies, such as Chevron, Bank of America and AT&T, along with the military. Private prisons are paid billions by the federal and state governments to stockpile prisoners and it is in their interest to fill the beds or claim they are filled. One half of detained immigrants are being held in private prisons for indefinite periods of time—often years, with no right to legal representation or medical care.

Survivors Guide acknowledges that “if you’re rich and guilty you have a much better chance than if you’re poor and innocent.”

Survivors Guide to Prison

Perhaps not as astonishing as it may seem, journalist Shane Bauer, who was detained for two years in Iran between 2009 and 2011, tells the camera:

“Conditions are worse in California prisons then they are in Iran… the average time spent in prisons is more here than in Iran.”

Importantly, the filmmakers insist that the precept of “innocent until proven guilty” is “a shield against witch hunts,” a fact denied or dismissed by the reactionary #MeToo zealots.

Survivors Guide to Prison sheds an informed and heartfelt light on an unspeakable social atrocity. In an interview, director Cooke asserts that

“I thought it was important to have a black man, a white man, a brown man and women. Every color. I’m trying to show that this affects everybody.”

The documentary is assertive, affecting and straightforward in regard to the material it presents. But as is the case with almost every film that emerges from the left-liberal milieu (Michelle Alexander, an identity politics academic, is one of the commentators in the movie, which also thanks Bernie Sanders in its credits), its overall perspective is its very weakest element.

Does anyone seriously believe that the horrific conditions described in Survivors Guide to Prison are going to be altered by a little good-Samaritan tinkering? The brutality of the prison system mirrors the harshness of social relations in American capitalism, in particular, the extremely advanced, and ever worsening, state of social inequality to which the filmmakers allude in passing.

Millions suffering in prison and a handful gorging themselves are two details of the same vile picture, a picture with unmistakably revolutionary implications.

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All images in this article are from the author.

On May 13, 1985, after complaints from neighbors, as well as indictments of numerous MOVE members for crimes including parole violation, contempt of court, illegal possession of firearms, and making terrorist threats, the Philadelphia Police Department attempted to clear MOVE Headquarters at 6221 Osage Avenue and arrest the indicted MOVE members. This led to an armed standoff with police. The police lobbed tear gas canisters at the building. MOVE members fired at the police, and the police returned fire with semiautomatic weapons.

A Pennsylvania State Police helicopter then dropped two one-pound bombs made of FBI-supplied water gel explosive, a dynamite substitute, targeting a fortified, bunker-like cubicle on the roof of the house. The resulting fire ignited a massive blaze that eventually destroyed approximately 60 houses nearby.

Eleven people, including John Africa, five other adults and five children, died in the resulting fire. Ramona Africa, one of the two survivors, claimed that police fired at those trying to escape the burning house, while the police stated that MOVE members had been firing at police.

As newly published images, videos, and audio provided brief and “horrifying” glimpses inside America’s child detention facilities in the midst of President Donald Trump‘s massive attack on immigrant families, all 49 members of the Senate Democratic Caucus on Monday united behind a bill that would end the White House’s family separation policy immediately—putting pressure on Republicans who claim to oppose the cruel practice to act on their words.

“The images and stories coming from the detention centers near the border are both heartbreaking and infuriating,” CREDO campaign manager Nicole Regalado said in a statement on Monday. “Republicans in Congress have the power to put a stop to Trump’s cruel family separation policy today. Democrats have coalesced around legislation that would immediately halt this barbaric practice. All we need now is for a handful of Republicans to find their conscience and stand up to the Trump regime.”

The aggressive push for lawmakers to use their power to put an end to Trump’s family separation practice—which, according to government data, has ripped nearly 2,000 children from their parents in just six weeks—came as ProPublica added to the newly unveiled series of photos and videos by publishing an audio recording from inside a U.S. Customs and Border Protection facility, which captured the “desperate sobbing of 10 Central American children” after they were separated from their parents.

“Well, we have an orchestra here,” a border patrol agent joked in response to the crying children. “What’s missing is a conductor.”

Listen to the recording:

Earlier on Monday, Border Patrol released video footage that depicted what Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) described as the “unabashed cruelty” of the Trump administration’s family separation policy.

Watch:

BREAKING: The U.S. government released horrifying footage of a child detention center in Texas. Together, we must defeat this inhumane and un-American action. pic.twitter.com/NGUyhQJ6TB

— Bernie Sanders (@SenSanders) June 18, 2018

While several White House officials have openly stated that the family separation policy was a deliberate decision and not a requirement under existing laws, Trump continued during a meeting on Monday to falsely claim that children are being ripped from their parents’ arms because of “horrible laws” and blamed Democrats for “obstructing.”

With the president and his top advisers doubling down on their deeply unpopular family separation practice, Regalado argued that it is now completely up to so-called “moderate” Republicans who have raised alarm about the policy—including Sens. Susan Collins (R-Maine), Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.), and Ben Sasse (R-Neb.)—to stop their meaningless grandstanding and start acting.

“Trump intentionally manufactured this humanitarian crisis in a craven attempt to gain leverage in a legislative fight,” Regaldo said. “Strongly worded statements and tweets are insufficient. Congressional Republicans must use the power of their votes to stop Trump’s inhumane assault on human rights.”

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

Featured image is from the U.S. Customs and Border Patrol.

On 13 May 1985, Philadelphia police bombed the Move compound, killing 11 people, including five children, and destroying an entire neighborhood. 

As the DNC wraps up in Philadelphia, the Guardian takes a look at this largely forgotten event in the context of current national debates on race, policing and politics in America.

The reports from Syria indicate that Washington still intends to provide extensive military support, as well as other types of assistance, to the terrorist groups that yet remain in the southern part of that country, apparently wanting to use them to pursue the same goal the US was after seven years ago: to slow down the process of reaching a political settlement and to overthrow the legitimate government in that Arab country, bringing in a puppet regime of its own.

Detachments of terrorist gangs from the Islamic State pseudo-caliphate make up one armed component within the machinery of this “war by proxy” that the United States is actively utilizing this time around. Those detachments are the successors to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, as well as the armed faction known as Jabhat al-Nusra (the “Front of Support”), whose combined membership has at times totaled as many as several tens of thousands of militants who subsequently carved out a niche for themselves in the former de-escalation zones of Eastern Ghouta and Homs.

To encourage armed opposition to the regime of the legitimately elected president of the Syrian Arab Republic, Bashar al-Assad, the Americans have made extensive use of the “terrorist enclave” that was created by US troops near the settlement of al-Tanf in southern Syria, where American instructors train terrorist units from the factions listed above and then send them deeper into Syrian territory. The US is also actively utilizing the local airspace, where the Pentagon has arbitrarily, i.e., without approval from Damascus, proclaimed a “no-fly zone” for a 50 km. radius.

In total, US armed forces and special ops have established 19 military bases and garrisons on Syrian territory, violating the sovereignty and territorial integrity of this country that is a full member of the United Nations, in addition to their 22 military bases in neighboring countries, set up in order to ensure that those strongholds get an uninterrupted supply of weapons and ammunition, fuels and lubricants, food, etc.

It is particularly noteworthy that Washington’s direct military, technical, logistical, and administrative support for hardcore terrorist gangs in the southwestern de-escalation zone, which is located on Syrian soil, is clearly in conflict with the agreement that was reached in regard to the status and modus operandi of that zone. It is worth pointing out that representatives from Jordan and the US took part in drafting that agreement, which was updated in July of last year. What’s more, as guarantor nations, those two countries committed themselves not only to ensuring that the armed anti-Syrian groups abide by the ceasefire, but also to continuing the fight against the terrorists who are still located inside the southwestern de-escalation zone.

It is very unfortunate that for the past two years Israel has joined the US to violate this agreement, by continually supplying the armed anti-Syrian terrorist gangs that have been operating in this zone, providing them with everything they need to conduct combat operations on Syria’s tortured soil, as well as even now continuing to ensure that “humanitarian convoys” of some sort regularly make it into the regions controlled by the Syrian Free Army, which is also waging an unending war against the Syrian people.

It is quite obvious that even back when the southwestern de-escalation zone was first being established, the United States was planning to make use of the armed gangs they had cultivated on Syrian territory, to be used as an additional force for launching attacks on Damascus, which sits fewer than 100 kilometers from the borders of this cooling-off zone.

Free Syrian Army fighters

According data from different sources, about 55% of the territory of what used to be the southwestern de-escalation zone has already fallen under the control of the Islamic State pseudo-caliphate and Jabhat al-Nusra, and their armed detachments of more than 5,000 militants are desperately trying to hold on to it.

While crudely meddling in Syria’s internal affairs, Washington has even had the gall to claim that the United States would not allow the Syrian military to enter the de-escalation zone in order to establish order and stability there and to protect the civilian population that has already suffered for so many years at the hands of the members of the “terrorist international.”

Apparently Washington wants to hold on to any means of coercive leverage it can use to influence the military and political environment in Syria, with the help of armed terrorist brigades that have been outlawed not only in the Syrian Arab Republic, but in many other countries as well. In other words, the current American administration, led by Donald Trump is flagrantly and knowingly breaking the promises he himself made during his 2016 election campaign not to interfere in the internal affairs of other states and not to overthrow foreign leaders.

In order to protect the civilian population in southwestern Syria from terrorist gangs, Damascus has every right to use all means necessary, in keeping with the UN Charter.

*

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.

All images in this article are from the author.

A draft memo leaked to Time magazine Friday reveals preparations by the United States Navy to build sprawling internment camps to house over 120,000 undocumented immigrants. Massive camps housing nearly 50,000 each are being proposed in Northern and Southern California, close to the country’s largest immigration populations, with an initial 25,000 to be housed on military bases in Alabama.

The capacity of the new facilities would match the total number of Japanese and Japanese-Americans detained during World War Two. This follows a separate Department of Defense announcement Thursday that the military will erect detention camps on four Army bases in Texas and Arkansas that will hold another 20,000 migrant children.

The establishment of military prison camps on American soil marks an ominous milestone in US history. These are being erected to detain not only immigrants, but also striking workers, protesters against police violence, and all who resist conditions of deepening exploitation, war and dictatorship. This police state policy is aimed at the entire working class.

Indicative of the complicity of the corporate media in these dictatorial moves, neither NBC, ABC nor CBS mentioned the proposal for the Navy to set up concentration camps on their Friday evening news broadcasts.

The internal memo details plans to construct “temporary and austere” tent camps to house 25,000 undocumented migrants immediately, with massive facilities to come later. Under the proposal, 25,000 beds would be built within weeks at two Navy airfields near Mobile, Alabama—Navy Outlying Field Wolf in Orange Beach and Navy Outlying Field Silverhill—at an estimated cost of $233 million for six months of operation.

Navy officials suggest a timeline of 60 days to complete the first stage of tent construction, which would hold 5,000 detainees. After that, capacity could be expanded at a rate of 10,000 beds per month.

The document also proposes construction of two internment camps in California that would each house up to 47,000 detained immigrants. One would be located on the former site of Naval Weapons Station Concord, near San Francisco, and the other would be built at Camp Pendleton, the nation’s largest Marine Corps base on the coast of California between San Diego and Los Angeles.

The memo also calls for further study of a proposal to detain an unspecified number of undocumented workers at the Marine Corps Air Station outside of Yuma, Arizona.

The document, drafted by Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Energy, Installations and Environment Phyllis Bayer for signature by Secretary of the Navy Richard Spencer, was circulated in anticipation of the influx of detained migrant families under the Trump administration’s “zero-tolerance” policy.

Under this policy, announced in April, all undocumented migrants captured by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) will be detained and tried for the so-called crime of “illegal entry.”

These revelations underscore the fact that Trump’s reversal on separating families does not signify a shift away from his drive to criminalize immigrants and arrest, detain and deport them in the hundreds of thousands. The executive order Trump signed Wednesday calls for indefinite detention of immigrants, including children.

The release of detailed plans for the construction of military detention centers throughout the western and southern states, with the capacity to detain massive numbers of undocumented workers fleeing the violence and economic devastation that American imperialism has produced in Central America, represents a new stage in the ruling class’s turn toward authoritarian rule.

This confirms the warnings made by the World Socialist Web Site at the time of the 9/11 attacks and launching of the “war on terror” that the concentration camp at Guantanamo was a prelude to similar facilities and mass repression within the borders of the United States itself.

Such plans have ample precedent in the recent history of the United States. At the height of the 1986-1987 Iran-Contra affair, which was itself an illegal and unconstitutional conspiracy of the Reagan White House and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), a secret plan, known as Operation Rex 84, was exposed. Rex 84 was a program to suspend the Constitution, declare martial law, establish a parallel government comprised of military-intelligence officials, and round up political opponents in the event of a US war on Nicaragua.

At a July 13, 1987 hearing of a joint congressional committee investigating the Iran-Contra affair, Texas Democratic Congressman Jack Brooks sought to question Oliver North, who was at the center of the conspiracy, about Rex 84, which North had been involved in drafting. The exchange that followed is a telling illustration of the Democratic Party’s role in covering up the secret preparations of the US government and its military-intelligence apparatus for mass repression and dictatorship.

BROOKS: Colonel North, in your work at the NSC [National Security Council], were you not assigned, at one time, to work on plans for the continuity of government in the event of a major disaster?

BRENDAN V. SULLIVAN, counsel for Colonel North: Mr. Chairman?

SENATOR DANIEL K. INOUYE, Democrat of Hawaii: I believe that question touches upon a highly sensitive and classified area, so may I request that you not touch upon that.

BROOKS: I was particularly concerned, Mr. Chairman, because I read in Miami papers, and several others, that there had been a plan developed, by that same agency, a contingency plan in the event of emergency, that would suspend the American Constitution. And I was deeply concerned about it and wondered if that was the area in which he had worked. I believe that it was and I wanted to get his confirmation.

INOUYE: May I most respectfully request that that matter not be touched upon, at this stage. If we wish to get into this, I’m certain arrangements can be made for an executive session.

The administration’s escalation of repression against immigrant workers in recent days has been accompanied by a series of fascistic rants by Trump seeking to whip up the most backward and reactionary social and political layers in order to justify even broader attacks on democratic rights.

At a Wednesday rally in Minnesota, Trump blustered that the United States faced being “overrun” by immigrants and that his administration was “sending them the hell back.”

In a Friday morning tweet, Trump wrote:

“We must maintain a Strong Southern Border. We cannot allow our Country to be overrun by illegal immigrants as the Democrats tell their phony stories of sadness and grief, hoping it will help them in the elections.”

The Democrats have offered no opposition to the construction of military prison camps for immigrant families. On the contrary, they have consistently supported raising funding for “border security” and increasing the number of ICE and CBP agents, while peddling the false and reactionary narrative that immigrant workers endanger the jobs and depress the wages of the native-born work force.

Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer noted the report of the plan to detain 20,000 immigrants on Army bases, but merely expressed concerns over whether the plan was “feasible”. On Twitter Thursday, Schumer denounced the notion that Democrats were for open borders.

“The bipartisan immigration bill I authored had $40 billion for border security,” he boasted.

At a press conference Thursday, Democratic House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi declared,

“The Democrats have taken full responsibility for securing our borders. We know that is a responsibility that we have.”

The pro-war, anti-immigrant Democratic Party will do nothing to stop the establishment of military prison camps and the imposition of police state conditions in the US. That task falls to the working class, which must mobilize to demand the abolition of ICE and CBP, the liberation of all imprisoned immigrants, and the right of all workers to live and work with full citizenship rights in the country of their choice.

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Featured image is from the author.

“If you can call the Prime Minister or the Industry Minister up and say, ‘I’d like to see you tomorrow,’ and boom it happens, that’s just as good, if not better than donating a million dollars to a campaign with the implied understanding that its going to buy something.” – Morgan Duchesney (from this week’s interview.)

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We often hear about the American Deep State or secret government, undermining the will of the electorate and influencing policy in ways that favour for-profit interests.

We rarely hear about a Canadian Deep State. Are there power players driving the decision-making in Ottawa behind the scenes?

There are policies where there is virtually no difference regardless of the party in power.

Both Liberals and Conservatives support NAFTA. Both advocate for Canadian involvement in NATO and ‘humanitarian interventions.’ Both scorn Russia for its perceived wrongdoings. Both champion pipelines carrying oil from the Alberta tar sands to markets abroad.

One possible explanation for this harmonization might rest in the influence of permanent systemic fixtures and players whose influence dominates policy discussion.

This week’s installment of the Global Research News Hour tries to move beyond the personalities and the partisan rhetoric and catch a glimpse of the true power brokers within Canadian society.

Our first guest Morgan Duchesney shares his research into a group formerly known as the Canadian Council of Chief Executives. It represents major business interests, largely branch plants of US corporations. They first came to prominence in the 1980s in the context of the debate over the Canada-US Free Trade Agreement. Just as a union empowers its component members, this entity speaking for a united business lobby has enjoyed exceptional influence over governments for decades. Duchesney, author of “The Canadian Council of Chief Executives: Northern Oligarchy” shares his research in the first half hour.

Our second guest, Yves Engler, addresses the militaristic course embraced by the Canadian government. While acknowledging the influence of the United States, there is also a group called the Canadian Global Affairs Institute (CGAI) which has had role to play in propagandizing governments and the public in matters of foreign affairs.

Our final guest speaks more to the structure of financial power when he evokes the role played by Canada’s pension funds in fostering a shift toward privatization in infrastructure spending. Kevin Skerrett mines two decades of research and offers some clues as to the effect an reach of Canadian pension investment both within and beyond the country.

Morgan Duchesney is an Ottawa based freelance writer and martial arts instructor. His articles appear on the site honeybadgerpress.ca. He is also a frequent contributor to the Victoria Standard.

Yves Engler is a Montreal based political activist and writer specializing in dissident perspectives on Canadian foreign policy. He has been referred to as Canada’s Noam Chomsky, and has authored close to a dozen books over the last decade including his 2016 book A Propaganda System – How Canada’s Government, Corporations, Media and Academia Sell War and Exploitation (published by Fernwood).

Kevin Skerrett is a research officer with the Canadian Union of Public Employees, and co-editor of The Contradictions of Pension Fund Capitalism published by Cornell Press.

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The Global Research News Hour airs every Friday at 1pm CT on CKUW 95.9FM in Winnipeg. The programme is also podcast at globalresearch.ca . Excerpts of the show have begun airing on Rabble Radio and appear as podcasts at rabble.ca.

Community Radio Stations carrying the Global Research News Hour:

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It is also available on 93.9 FM cable in the communities of SFU, Burnaby, New Westminister, Coquitlam, Port Coquitlam, Port Moody, Surrey and Delta, in British Columbia, Canada. – Tune in  at its new time – Wednesdays at 4pm PT.

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The following article first published by Global Research in 2005 provides an incisive  historical perspective, with foresight

Sometime in August [2005], Israel will configure its 38-years illegal military occupation of the Gaza Strip by unilaterally ‘disengaging’ from the territory and evacuating the Jewish settlers there. No one knows for sure if it really will happen. The Palestinian territory will continue to be under Israel’s brutal occupation. Israel’s ‘disengagement’ plan is nothing but an Israeli PR over-sold by Western media as the brutality of the Occupation continues unhindered, and Israel will continue to guard the world’s largest open-air prison.

Gaza is the most densely populated territory on earth, where 1.4 million defenceless Palestinians huddle together in an area of about 360 square km. Gaza forms the westernmost portion of original Palestine, having land borders with Egypt on the south-west and today’s Israel on the northern and eastern borders. The territory is bounded by the Mediterranean Sea on the west.

Furthermore, the overcrowded territory has no significance to Israel and has always been considered as a burden. By ‘disengaging’ from Gaza and evacuating the Jewish settlers there, Sharon will concentrate on the annexation of important Palestinian lands in the West Bank and Jerusalem.

It is revealed recently that the Israeli Army (IA) is building a high tech complex to surround the coastal territory with the world most impenetrable barrier. The barrier will include fences with electronic sensors, watchtowers mounted with remote control machineguns, and hundreds of videos and night vision cameras. The complex includes new army bases and 22-foot concrete walls around nearby Israeli settlements. Watchtowers armed with remote-controlled machine guns are to be built every 1.2 miles. Remote-controlled, unmanned vehicles will begin patrolling the area soon after the completion of the barrier. The barrier will run about 35 miles and will cost about $220 million. The barrier will be completed by mid-2006. Thus, Israel will symbolically relinquish its control of Palestinian lives to remote-controlled aliens. Freedom of movement will disappear completely from the life of Palestinians.

Since the creation of Israel in 1948 by Western powers in Palestine, Israel has been financed and encouraged by the same powers to expand by way of dispossessing the Palestinians with vicious form of terrorism. The US and Britain (Israel main backers) are said to be thrilled by Israel’s ‘disengagement’ plan, the brainchild of the criminal Ariel Sharon. The purpose of the ‘disengagement’ plan is to:

(1) remove the Palestinians as a negotiation partners in any peaceful and just settlement;

(2) provide Israel with a cover-up to steal more Palestinian land and built more illegal Jewish settlements in the West Bank and Jerusalem;

(3) provide Ariel Sharon with US money to continue the dispossession of Palestinians;

(4) allow Israel to continue the construction of the Apartheid Wall – declared illegal by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) – in the West Bank and Jerusalem;

(5) prevent the establishment of a viable Palestinian state; and (6) enhance Israel’s image in the US and Western capitals as a “peace-loving” people and provide the necessary publicity and sympathy for its violent and illegal Jewish settlers.

To dramatise the situation and gain sympathy for Israel’s policy and the Jewish settlers in particular, Israeli and world viewers are showing a rare sensitivity for human suffering of the oppressors playing the role of victims. “When tens of thousands of Palestinians were expelled from their homes, after their homes with all of their possessions, were crushed by Israel Army bulldozers”, wrote Israeli journalist Gideon Levy of Ha’aretz in Tel Aviv. Since 1967, the Israeli Army have demolished more than 12,000 Palestinian homes. “The hundreds of families whose homes were expropriated, the farmers dispossessed of their lands, the uprooted [olive and fruit] trees and the children who witnessed the brutality, [all] these were never given even a fraction of the media coverage the [illegal Jewish] settlers have received [in Israel and in the West]”, added Gideon Levy. Further, during the Palestinian Intifada of September 2000 to March 2004, the Israeli Army murdered 2,859, including 527, children (below 18 years) and 308 in cold-blooded extrajudicial killings.

According to Sharon’s adviser, Dov Weisglass, Sharon decided to disengage from Gaza to consolidate the illegal settlements in the West Bank and, more importantly, to prevent any future negotiation with the Palestinians. The ‘engagement’ plan is the best pretext for the expropriation of about 58 per cent of Palestinian lands in the West Bank and Jerusalem, including all water aquifers and fertile land, to build more illegal settlement. A criminal policy of land theft supported and financed by the current US administration.

Meanwhile, the reality on the ground for Palestinians is that Israel’s policy of ethnic cleansing and Israel’s expansion will continue and no ‘disengagement’ plan will change its brutal Zionist policy. The policy is leaving Palestinian communities completely cut off from each other by a network of Jewish-only roads, Israeli military checkpoints, tunnels, and the Apartheid Wall. The Wall is “being built at high speed, deep inside Palestinian [occupied territories], while Israel’s main supporters looks away”, wrote Meron Rapoport, a journalist with Ha’aretz. The Bush-Blair war on Iraq couldn’t come at a better time for Israel. The new Palestine envisaged by Bush and Sharon will look like a collection of isolated ghettos dependent on the mercy of Israel’s terror.

The Wall is not only imprisoned the Palestinian people, but also expropriates their land and fractionates the entire Palestinian civil society. Israel claims that the Wall is built to protect Israel is a fabricated lie. Its true purpose is to expropriate Palestinian land and water sources, weaken Palestinian identity, and at the same time consolidate Jewish ethnicity over Palestine (Judaisation of Palestine). The aim is to create a ‘demographically pure Jewish state’. “[W]e are going to cleanse the whole area and do the work ourselves”, said Benjamin Netanyahu, America’s favourite terrorist and former Israel’s Prime Minister and Finance Minister.

It should be recognised the policy of ethnic cleansing, land expropriation, restrictions and violations of human rights of the Palestinians have the strong backing of the US administration, Britain and most Western governments. The creation of Palestinian ghettos has similarity with the myth of Western “multiculturalism”, where the “others” are isolated, dehumanised and subjugated to society’s wrath.

On 03 August 2005, the United Nations Human Rights Commission (UNHRC) argued that the Apartheid Wall is a violation of Israel’s human rights obligations. The Commission eight human rights experts who visited Israel to assess the impact of the Wall on Palestinian lives called on Israel to adhere to international law and “to stop construction of the wall”. UNHRC also urged Israel to pay compensation to Palestinians for damage caused by construction of the Apartheid Wall. The UNHRC said in a statement; “The wall violates important norms of international humanitarian law prohibiting the annexation of occupied territory, the establishment of settlements, and the confiscation of private land and the forcible transfer of people”. The statement also reminded all nations that “they are under an obligation not to recognize the illegal situation resulting from the construction of the wall and not to render aid or assistance in maintaining the situation”. In addition, the evacuation of 9,000 Jewish settlers from Gaza will turn Palestinian life in the West Bank “into hell”, said former Israel’s Education Minister, Shulamit Aloni. The US is said to pay about $2.2 billion for the cost of dismantling the settlements and the evacuation of the illegal settlers. The settlements were initially built with US money.

As for Palestinians living in Gaza, Israel will continue to control Gaza’s borders, coastline, airspace, telecommunications, water sources, and electricity supply. Egypt, which is well-known for its harsh treatment of Palestinians, may be given the role of Israeli enforcer on its border with Gaza. US-made F16 fighter planes and Apache helicopters will continue as often as possible to rain their deadly missiles and bombs on Palestinian population centres there. Palestinian identity will be further weakening – by Israel’s policy of fractionation –, and Palestinians in Gaza will be more isolated from not only the rest of the world, but also from the rest of Palestinians living in the West Bank and Jerusalem.

As Ur Shlonsky, a professor of Linguistics at Geneva University in Switzerland wrote, Israel’s aim is to “terrorise the civilian population, assuring maximal destruction of property and cultural resources”. At the same time, “the daily life of the Palestinians must be rendered unbearable: They should be locked up in cities and towns, prevented from exercising normal economic life, cut off from workplaces, schools and hospitals, This will encourage emigration and weaken the resistance to future expulsions” similar to that of 1948.

The ‘world community’ should be too familiar with Ariel Sharon genocidal policy not to abandon the Palestinian people to his “evil ideology” of destroying the Palestinian people as an independent political and social entity. Every nation in a civilised community has an obligation to reject Nazism, and support the Palestinian rights of return to their homeland and self-determination. To trust Ariel Sharon ‘disengagement’ plan is to be complicit in Sharon’s history of crimes against the Palestinian people.

Ghali Hassan lives in Perth, Western Australia.

First published by Global Research in 2014

The concept of a “Greater Israel” according to the founding father of Zionism Theodore Herzl, is a Jewish State stretching “’From the Brook of Egypt to the Euphrates.’

Rabbi Fischmann, of the Jewish Agency for Palestine, stated to the UN Special Committee on 9^th July 1947 that:

The Promised Land extends from the River of Egypt up to the Euphrates, it includes parts of Syria and Lebanon’”, wrote Michel Chossudovsky. (1)

Thus “from the Nile to the Euphrates.” Herzl’s detailed thesis was written in 1904.

Quoted in the same article is Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya on The Yinon Plan (1982) “ … a continuation of Britain’s colonial design in the Middle East”:

“(The Yinon plan) is an Israeli strategic plan to ensure Israeli regional superiority. It insists and stipulates that Israel must reconfigure its geo-political environment through the balkanization of the surrounding Arab states into smaller and weaker states.

“Israeli strategists viewed Iraq as their biggest strategic challenge from an Arab state. This is why Iraq was outlined as the centerpiece to the balkanization of the Middle East and the Arab World. In Iraq, on the basis of the concepts of the Yinon Plan, Israeli strategists have called for the division of Iraq into a Kurdish state and two Arab states, one for Shiite Muslims and the other for Sunni Muslims. The first step towards establishing this was a war between Iraq and Iran, which the Yinon Plan discusses.”

At the time Yinon wrote, the eight year, Western driven Iran-Iraq war was into its second year – with another six grinding years of loss, tragedy and heartbreak, valleys of widows, orphans, maimed, on both sides of their common border. The toll on life and health was compared to World War 1. Iraq of course, in an historic error, had virtually been fighting a proxy war for an American regime, even then obsessed with Islam, which, in Iran they had decided was the wrong sort of Islam. What the faith of a nation thousands of miles away had to do with Capitol Hill, remains a mystery.

The day after that devastating war ended, the US replaced Iraq over the then USSR as the country which was the biggest threat to America. A devastated, war torn nation of, at the time, just under seventeen million people. (2)

Then came the dispute with Kuwait over alleged oil theft and Dinar destabilizing with the then US Ambassador April Glaspie personally giving Saddam Hussein the green light to invade should he choose. The subsequent nation paralyzing UN embargo followed, then the 2003 decimation and occupation – another orchestrated downward spiral – and tragedy and now open talk of what has been planned for decades, the break up of Iraq.

Greater Israel” requires the breaking up of the existing Arab states into small states.

“Mission accomplished” for both the US with its long planned redrawing of the Middle East and North Africa – and Israel, through whose friendship with the Iraqi Kurdish autocracy, was set to become pretty well a partner in an autonomous, independent Iraqi Kurdistan. Dream come true, from “the Nile to the Euphrates”, the final fruition of near seventy years of manipulation and aggression for domination of the entire region.

The all is also the vision of the super hawk, dreamer of destruction of nations, Lt Colonel Ralph Peters since the early 1990s. Here is his 2006 version (3.) Peters is a man whose vision of eternal war is seemingly an eternal wet dream. Here, again, for anyone unaware of the Colonel, is a repeat of that dream (US Army War College Quarterly, Summer 1997):

“There will be no peace. At any given moment for the rest of our lifetimes, there will be multiple conflicts … around the globe. Violent conflict will dominate the headlines, but cultural and economic struggles will be steadier and ultimately more decisive. (US armed forces will keep) the world safe for our economy and open to our cultural assault. To those ends, we will do a fair amount of killing.

“We have entered an age of constant conflict.”

Peters would make some of history’s most megalomaniacal expansionists look like gift offering peaceniks. His cartographic monument to arrogance: “The New Map of the Middle East Project”, of geographical restructure in far away places of which he gave less than a damn, was published in the Armed Forces Journal in June 2006.\

 

It was surely no coincidence that on 1^st May 2006 Joe Biden, long time Member of the US Senate Committee on Foreign Relations – now US Vice President of course – and Leslie Gelb, President Emeritus of the Committee, joint authored a New York Times piece (4) urging the break up of Iraq, dividing the country on ethnic lines: “ … giving each ethno-religious group – Kurd, Sunni Arab and Shiite Arab …” their own ethnic and political ghettos. Ignorance on wide inter-marriage, inter-relations, until 2003, inter-communities at every level for millennia, mixed  neighbourhoods, shared celebrations, religious festivals, joys and heartaches, boggle the imagination. The deluded article is entitled: “Unity through autonomy in Iraq.” Think non-sequeta, think mixed marriages, does the husband live in a “Sunni” ghetto and the wife a “Shia” one, for example?

“The Kurdish, Sunni and Shiite regions would each be responsible for their own domestic laws, administration and internal security.” A “five point plan” of ghettoisation, destruction, delusion and wickedness, the US-Israeli game plan for Iraq, with the UK as ever, tagging along dreaming of days of empire when, with France, Iraq and the region’s borders were imperially tinkered with just short of a hundred years ago (5.)

Aside from the shaming arrogance and illegality of the plan, ignorance is total. Clearly there is no knowledge in the great annals of the US State Department, Department of Foreign Affairs or the CIA of Iraq’s religious and ethnic minorities, also co-existing for centuries: Christians, Mandaeans, Yazidis, Turkmen, Jews, Zoroastrians, Bahai, Kakai’s, Shabaks – and indeed those who regard themselves as non-religious.

By October 2007 Joe Biden had: “attempted to create a reality when an overwhelming majority of the US Senate voted for his non-binding Resolution to divide Iraq in to three parts … (with) the Washington Post reporting that the 75-23 Senate vote was a ‘significant milestone’ ” in the severing of Iraq in to three, wrote Tom Engelhardt (6.)

Engelhardt is seemingly the only eagle eye to have picked up that: “The (tripartite) structure is spelled out in Iraq’s Constitution, but Biden would initiate local and regional diplomatic efforts to hasten its evolution.”

The Constitution, written under US imposed “Viceroy” Paul Bremer, is of course, entirely invalid, since it is illegal to re-write a Constitution under an occupation.

“Only the Kurds, eager for an independent State, welcomed the plan.”

What, ponders Engelhardt, with forensic reality, would be the reaction if Iraq, or Iran for example: “passed a non-binding Resolution to divide the United States in to semi-autonomous bio-regions?”

He concludes that: “such acts would, of course, be considered not just outrageous and insulting, but quite mad.” In Iraq however: “at best it would put an American stamp of approval on the continuing ethnic cleansing of Iraq.”

However, the US Administration’s commitment is clear, Joe Biden, a self confessed Zionist, stated at the annual J Street Conference in September 2013: “If there were not an Israel, we would have to invent one to make sure our interests were preserved.” (7) Think oil, gas, strategic aims.

Biden assured his audience that: “America’s support for Israel is unshakable, period. Period, period.” (sic) He stressed a number of times the commitment that President Obama had to Israel. His own long and deep connections, he related, stretched back to a meeting with then Prime Minister Golda Meir when he was a freshman Senator and latterly his hours spent with Prime Minister Netanyahu. The latest meeting was in January this year when he travelled to Israel to pay his respects to the late Ariel Sharon and subsequently spent two hours alone in discussion with Netanyahu.

It is surely coincidence that subsequently the rhetoric for the division of Iraq accelerated. Israel has had “military, intelligence and business ties with the Kurds since the 1960s” viewing them as “a shared buffer between Arab adversaries.”

In June Netanyahu told Tel Aviv University’s INSS think tank: “We should … support the Kurdish aspiration for independence”, after “outlining what he described as the collapse of Iraq and other Middle East regions …”(8) Iraq’s internal affairs being none of Israel’s business obviously does not occur (apart from their outrageous historic aspirations for the region in spite of being the newly arriving regional guest.) The howls of Israeli fury when even basic human rights for Palestinians in their eroded and stolen lands are suggested for the last sixty six years, however, metaphorically deafen the world.

Of course Kurdistan has now laid claim to Kirkuk, with its vast oil deposits. The plan for the Northern Iraq-Haifa pipeline, an Israeli aspiration from the time of that country’s establishment can surely also not have been far from Netanyahu’s mind. An independent Kurdistan, which indeed it has enjoyed almost entirely within Iraq, since 1992 – and immediately betrayed the Iraqi State by inviting in Israel and the CIA – would herald the planned dismemberment of Iraq.

It is darkly ironic, that whether relating to the break up of their lands or ghettoisation of those of Iraqis and Palestinians, this mirrors the plan of Adolf Eichmann, the architect of ethnic cleansing, who, after the outbreak of Word War II “arranged for Jews to be concentrated into ghettos in major cities …” he also devised plans for Jewish “reservations.”

Additionally he was an architect of forcible expulsion, one of the charges brought against him after he was captured by Israel’s Mossad and Shin Bet in Argentina in 1960. He was tried in Israel, found guilty of war crimes and hanged in 1962. Ironically his pre-Nazi employment had been as an oil salesman (9.)

Can Israel and the “international community” really be planning to mirror Eichmann by repatriating and ethnic cleansing? Will nations never look in to history’s mirror?

Notes

1.      http://www.globalresearch.ca/greater-israel-the-zionist-plan-for-the-middle-east/5324815

2.      http://www.populstat.info/Asia/iraqc.htm

3.      http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-redrawing-of-the-map-of-the-middle-east-begins-with-destruction-of-iraq/5387928

4.      http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/01/opinion/01biden.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

5.      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sykes–Picot_Agreement

6.     http://www.alternet.org/story/64433/congress_wants_to_split_iraq_in_three_pieces,_but_who_asked_them

7.      http://www.politico.com/story/2013/09/joe-biden-israel-97586.html

8.      http://jordantimes.com/israels-netanyahu-calls-for-supporting-kurdish-independence

9.      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adolf_Eichmann

First published in June 2017

The refugee crisis in Europe, the largest seen since World War 2, is no accident.

Former U.S. State Department official J. Michael Springmann addresses this verboten subject in his just-released second book Goodbye Europe? Hello, Chaos?: Merkel’s Migrant Bomb. He argues that these refugees and migrants were deliberately created by the American Empire to be used as political weapons.

The misery of asylees, Springmann writes, is one of the planned outcomes of horrendous and unlawful military attacks on Syria and other countries. These are carried out in proxy wars by “the West,” including Israel. Springmann writes that Israel “is a terrorist entity” and “an ever helpful architect of chaos.”

Overall the design is to advance the interests of the American Empire. The resulting chaos is cold-blooded strategy. Springmann offers evidence that the Empire has greased the skids for the traumatized asylum seekers. For instance this technical but telling factoid:

CISCO’s Tactical Operations (TacOps) team supported by the volunteer Disaster Response Team (DRT) from the U.K. and Ireland, Google, and NetHope have installed Meraki-based Wi-Fi networks and device charging stations at more than 17 sites along the migration route in Southern and Central Europe. [my emphasis]

Springmann provides many other facts to buttress his contention that the “migrant millions” are human pawns. The reference to NetHope, by the way, is significant. NetHope and Mercy Corps “have backgrounds tied to the US government,” he writes. “NetHope is a shadowy organization headquartered in CIA-friendly Fairfax County, Virginia.” Springmann, who also has a background working for NGOs, names other suspect NGOs that play their role in the overall coerced migration. One of the motives is to destabilize Europe as an economic challenger to the U.S.A.

Verboten is the right word. Springmann speaks German, having spent five years in Stuttgart working for the State Department. He also worked for the department in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, where he saw close-up how the Empire recruits prospective terrorists, sends them to the U.S. for terror training and deploys them in proxy wars. That experience provided him with the damning fodder for his first book, Visas for Al Qaeda: CIA Handouts That Rocked the World, reviewed on this blog two years ago this month.

“At Jeddah,” Springmann wrote in Visas for Al Qaeda, “to the best of my knowledge, out of some twenty US citizens assigned to the consulate, only three people, including myself, worked for the Department of State. The rest were CIA or NSA officials or their spouses.”

Elsewhere in that book Springmann suggests that essentially the CIA runs the State Department, and that this is true of many other U.S. government departments and agencies as well.

In Goodbye, Europe? Springmann shows his grasp of how American military, economic, diplomatic, cultural, surveillance, technological, and vast “intelligence” resources comprise an integrated colossus using false flag ops, Trojan Horse fronts, incessant propaganda campaigns, and overt strong-arming. Repeatedly, Imperial Rome’s dictum, divide et impera, is a hallmark of the Empire’s depredations.

That is a big picture (not quite the big picture). Some of the fine-grained details are revealed in a Norwegian documentary, Recruiting for Jihad. It had its international premiere at Toronto’s Hot Docs festival in April-May. The producer had known the key recruiter featured from the time they were 10-year-olds playing soccer. The wheels within wheels involved in the recruitment schemes the producer uncovered can hardly be imagined. Intel agencies need and possess remarkable resources in micro-managing the recruitment, the terrorism, the false flag ops, and the evasion of discovery.

Springmann brings evidence to bear on his contention that German Chancellor Angela Merkel is a scheming author of unnecessary misfortunes in the form of the largest influx of migrants to any European country. At one point he holds her entirely to blame for this. (“It was Merkel and her government who invited all the feared Islamists into the country.”) Yet contradictorily Springmann overall lays the blame squarely on the American Empire.

That she’s such a baddie is also hard to square that with what is known about her overall. She’s earned the nickname “Chancellor of the World” and appears more dedicated to peace and understanding than most of her peers, by a long shot.

What Germany’s “V-men” do is likely not within her perfect control. The V-men come in for criticism by Springmann. The term comes from the German for a trusted person, Vertrauensmann. They’re really secret police. Hitler was recruited to be a “V” man while he was in the World War I postwar army.

The book is not without prosaic shortcomings. Apart from whether Merkel is as large a villain as Springmann suggests, there are some questionable alleged facts and insupportable generalizations.

Springmann includes a number of reports of alleged behaviours by migrants in Europe, from theft to sexual and other violent assaults, including rape and murder. His usual footnotes pointing to reliable sources dry up in regard to some of these reports. One example is a quote from the tabloid Bild that in 2015 “migrant misdeeds” in Germany numbered 208,344—or 23 crimes per hour. The paper said it got the number from a confidential police report that it was given exclusively. Worth noting is that the eminent German author Heinrich Boll wrote in an essay that what Bild does “isn’t cryptofascist anymore, not fascistoid, but naked fascism. Agitation, lies, dirt.” That is from a Wikipedia entry.

The emotional impact of most of these Bild reports leaves this reviewer with understandable skepticism. Are some of these examples of the very deceptions Springmann in other parts of the book decries? This reviewer encountered one of these fake reports in January 2016 and wrote a letter to the editor of The Globe and Mail about it, which was published. It read in part:

An exacerbating factor in the divide over refugees is the insertion of disinformation by the right into the situation. An example is cited in Der Spiegel on Jan. 5, headlined The Case of the Murdered     Goats: Exploring Germany’s Far-Right Rumour Mill.

Reporters investigated “outrage over an incident in the eastern German town of Lostau. Locals had accused refugees of plundering a petting zoo, slaughtering some goats and eating them around a campfire.”

The story, said the writers, “aimed directly at the heart of German animal lovers, taxpayers and immigration opponents. But there was just one problem: It wasn’t true.

It turns out that there hadn’t been a petting zoo in Lostau for years. And this was just one example among many.

Valuable as it is, this book also is in places a cautionary tale about making sweeping generalizations. One example must suffice. On page 181 we find this:

If people forget their history, reject their heritage, and dismiss their identity, then why object to aliens changing European culture?

The peoples of Europe understand this. Their leaders don’t. Those want to cobble together a new multicultural Europe, erasing the one that already exists. And, so far, the replacement doesn’t work and likely can’t be made to work—except in the minds of the globalists. The peo­ple vigorously oppose these government policies. They denounce their leaders’ abandoning constitutional obligations to defend their country’s borders, territorial integrity, and democracy.

The generalizations here include “peoples of Europe” who “understand this,” “replacement doesn’t work,” “the people vigorously oppose,” and “they denounce…” It’s reminiscent of Theresa May’s repeated contention that “the people of Britain voted for” Brexit when in fact the vote was close to 50-50.

These generalizations lead Springmann to make an assessment that was understandable even a few months ago, namely that (essentially right wing) nationalism remains in an upward trajectory.

But since he wrote that, Macron, ostensibly a centrist and probably a globalist, has risen fast in France. Springmann writes on page 184 that “the left’s policies are clearly bankrupt” and “the left has no plan” on page 185. Yet Jeremy Corbyn, very to the left, scored heavily against Theresa May with specific plans. UKIP is dead in the water, obtaining two per cent of the votes in the British election. The story of right wing populism is not paved with certainty, even if right wing populists are certain they’re right.

There are two lesser shortcomings. One is an occasional lack of copy editing. For instance, about half of page 19 is devoted to the arrest by North Rhine-Westphalia police of “five members of a ‘terrorist recruiting network.’” On page 177 the same half page of text is repeated almost word for word.

In his email to me to which the pdf file of his book was attached, Springmann offered this:

Easier to write than the first but much harder to edit. Could have spent more time on it but thought with European elections was so timely I needed to get it out.

Understandable. Today there’s justification for more “instant books” containing vital perspectives, which this one contains. But instantaneity carries prices. I think they’re worth paying. A second edition could solve a lot.

In other places Springmann repeats information, but he says he is doing so. And I’m with him on that. Repetition is a pillar of effective communication. This pillar should not be at the disposal of the merchants of lies only.

Another format flaw that could have been avoided with the aid of a competent editor is that some material is misplaced. The most obvious example is at the end, where the conclusions are offered but not really found. Instead, his important conclusions, referred to earlier in this review, are found in the body of the book. An interested reader will encounter them where they are.

These failings are more than counterbalanced by the damning evidence and the damning perspective Springmann brings to the table, based on his life experiences working within different sectors of the American Empire and his wide-ranging research. Four stars out of five.

***

Excerpt from the book:

They come from across the Middle East, South Asia, North Africa—floods of refugees seeking sanctuary in Europe. Most are men. Some are terrorists. And all represent an ethnopolitical nightmare for the European Union.

What drives these migrants? Why, instead of seeking out nations with common ethnic and religious ties, do they instead head north and west, where few speak their language or share a common culture?

In Goodbye, Europe! Hello, Chaos! Merkel’s Migrants, former diplomat J. Michael Springmann provides an in-depth analysis of the migrant flood, its causes, and what it means for Europe. Building on arguments put forward in his previous work, Visas for Al Qaeda: CIA Handouts That Rocked the World, the ex–State Department official and attorney reveals how US foreign policy created the crisis.

Destabilizing nations through invasion and espionage furthers US goals in the Middle East, he argues, creating migrant waves guided northward and westward to destabilize the European Union in general and Germany in particular. Germany’s own refugee program, designed to exploit migrants as cheap labor, made US intelligence efforts all the easier.

Springmann’s insider knowledge of US policy permeates this insightful, sometimes terrifying look at a world where migrants become weapons, nationalism is condemned, and civil liberties hang in the balance.

Title: Goodbye, Europe? Hello, Chaos?: Merkel’s Migrant Bomb

Author: J. Michael Springmann

Click here to order.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Featured image: Migrants in Germany (Source: Daily Stormer)

The very giants that bomb and reduce alleged enemy nations to rubble are unfortunately the major destinations for the refugees fleeing wars. With the facts behind global aggressions unfolding, the incursions and preemptive strikes under different pretexts are no longer deceptive to the understanding of global observers. Despite the mainstream media scrambles to conceal atrocities committed by warmongers, more protests and outcries are being staged in the corners of the world to criticize the multidimensional harms of the armed conflict.

No external interventionist holds the right to cause the peaceful inhabitants of a jurisdiction to displace, unless it comes forward with legitimate reasons. Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq’s Diaspora worldwide are struggling with the skepticism of the migrant host states over whether they “deserve admission into their societies or not”. By comparison, some European countries as well as Canada, which have no direct involvement in these wars, have welcomed by a far great proportion of the refugees than the US, the UK and France.

In the course of the recent exodus, Germany with 494,227 and Sweden with 111,216 Syrian refugees hit the highest of the list, according to Al-Jazeera. Germany, which is not firmly aligned with the US and the UK in their war of aggression directed against Syria and Iraq, tends to pay “the human price” of the war, whereas Sweden expresses distaste for these costly wars.

Over the past few years, the US has accepted only 18,000 Syrian refugees, less than half of Canada’s 40,000 admissions. In the wake of the deadly terrorist attacks in Paris in 2015, more than half of all US governors issued statements denying Syrian refugees to resettle in their state.

The US, the UK and France defied global pressures and struck Syria with missiles in mid-April in response to a false flag chemical attack. Yet, these three allies are refusing the influx of Syria refugees.

According to The Economist, in 2017 the US admitted 6,557 Syrian refugees, but the number has dropped dramatically in the current year as the US has accepted only 44 Syrian refugees, even as the US-led coalition’s airstrikes and ground raids by the remnants of ISIS still claim lives and spread terror.

Under the UK’s Syrian vulnerable persons resettlement scheme (VPRS) launched in 2014, only around 8,000 people have arrived in the UK by mid-2017. This number is far negligible to other European states’ absorptions as well as potato-small to mayhem created in Syria and elsewhere by the UK and allies.

France, literally third in line to the US-led coalition’s recent bombing of Syria, has received a total of 100,000 asylum applications in 2017, of which only 3,000 applications belonged to Syrian refugees. This week, France approved a tough immigration law that complicates the chance of success of the most vulnerable refugees from war-torn countries. This comes as French President Emmanuel Macron told Fox News TV in an interview on April 22 that France, the US and their allies should stay in Syria after the defeat of ISIS in order to build what he called a “new Syria”.

From 2013 to 2017, Muslims made up 41 per cent of admitted refugees in the US, but more than halfway through the current fiscal year, they now make up just 17 per cent. The declared reason for the decline in admissions is to protect national security through Trump’s  policy of “extreme vetting”.

Trump’s “Put America First” program allegedly seeks to protect American workers and industries. In January 26, 2018, Trump released an immigration plan that would offer a 12-year path to citizenship for 1.8 million immigrants who arrived in the country illegally as children.

Trump’s travel ban announced in January 2017 prohibited citizens of Iraq, Iran, Sudan, Somalia, Libya, Yemen and Syria from entering the US. In the middle of the same year, Trump’s travel ban added North Korea and Venezuela. Most of these countries are the victims of direct and indirect US-led interventions.

Last year, in the context of Trump’s ferocious immigration policies, the US announced that visa applicants from seven predominantly Muslim nations, in particular, and other nations, in general, will have to hand over their social media passwords to US embassies as part of their application.

John Kelly, the US Homeland Security Chief said the move was one of several steps aimed to vet immigrants coming to the US. He added that the intention would be to check the web use of US visa applicants to “see what they do on the internet”.

For a citizen of the nation victim of US led war, the reasons are obvious. The US resorts to checking personal accounts of applicants, who are suspected of  promoting or at least sharing anti-US posts.

More recently, the world woke up to the dismal news of censorship of Google as well as Facebook’s immoral act of stealing users’ account information to the benefits of global surveillance services. This together with the US visa applicant’s social media screening resonate an eye-opening message to the world followers of facts and truths to be wary of “every act you make”.

Why did the US travel ban not include Afghanistan?

Something which distinguishes Afghanistan from other states is the fact of “secured interests”. Afghanistan is marked as “occupied” which means that “mission is accomplished”.

Apart from the smooth processing of normal visas for Afghan applicants, the US has issued from 15,000 to 20,000 visas for Afghan translators/interpreters under its Special Immigrant Visa (SIV) program. Senator Jeanne Shaheen and Senator John McCain have spearheaded this campaign in the US Congress to approve more visas for Afghan applicants.

The UK and some other states with troops in Afghanistan have also launched parallel programs with limited visas.

As a grim fact, it has to be noted that a powerful state’s humanitarian policies towards a nation  heavily hinge upon its military interests there and the former doesn’t tend to act separately from the latter.

To be more precise, Syria or Yemen can enjoy a basket of benefits only when they submit to the diktats of those wage war. Otherwise, they will face a barrage of sanctions. Pakistan, as an example, is set to be placed on a Terror-Financing watch-list from June, simply as retribution for its heated ties with China, i.e. not the real issue of sponsoring terrorism for which it has frequently been rewarded by the US.

Ongoing Crisis of the US Dollar: Text of William Engdahl‘s incisive presentation at an international conference held in Feldkirch, Austria in September 2003. Tremendous foresight and analysis.
It’s accepted wisdom that the United States, despite recent problems, is still the strongest growth locomotive for the world economy, the pillar of the global system. What if we were to discover that, instead of being the pillar, that the United States was, in fact, the heart of a dysfunctional economic system, which is spreading instability, unemployment, and depression globally?

No other nation on earth comes near to the commanding US military superiority in smart bombs, military IT, or in sheer force capabilities. The US position in the world since 1945, and especially since 1971, has rested on two pillars, however: The superiority of the US military over all, and, the role of the dollar as world reserve currency. That dollar is the Achilles heel of American hegemony today.

In my view, the world has entered a new, highly dangerous phase since the collapse of the US stock market bubble in 2001. I am speaking about the unsustainable basis of the very Dollar System itself. What is that Dollar System?

How the Dollar System works

After 1945, the US emerged from war with the world’s gold reserves, the largest industrial base, and a surplus of dollars backed by gold. In the 1950’s into the 1960’s Cold War, the US could afford to be generous to key allies such as Germany and Japan, to allow the economies of Asia and Western Europe to flourish as a counter to communism. By opening the US to imports from Japan and West Germany, a stability was reached. More importantly, from pure US self-interest, a tight trade area was built which worked also to the advantage of the US.

That held until the late 1960’s, when the costly Vietnam war led to a drain of US gold reserves. By 1968 the drain had reached crisis levels, as foreign central banks holding dollars feared the US deficits would make their dollars worthless, and preferred real gold instead.

In August 1971, Nixon finally broke the Bretton Woods agreement, and refused to redeem dollars for gold. He had not enough gold to give. That turn opened a most remarkable phase of world economic history. After 1971 the dollar was fixed not to an ounce of gold, something measurable. It was fixed only to the printing press of the Treasury and Federal Reserve.

The dollar became a political currency—do you have “confidence” in the US as the defender of the Free World? At first Washington did not appreciate what a weapon it had created after it broke from gold. It acted out of necessity, as its gold reserves had got dangerously low. It used its role as the pillar of NATO and free world security to demand allies continue to accept its dollars as before.

Currencies floated up and down against the dollar. Financial markets were slowly deregulated. Controls were lifted. Offshore banking was allowed, with unregulated hedge funds and financial derivatives. All these changes originated from Washington, in coordination with New York banks.

The dollar debt paradox

What soon became clear to US Treasury and Federal Reserve circles after 1971, was that they could exert more global influence via debt, US Treasury debt, than they ever did by running trade surpluses. One man’s debt is the other’s credit. Because all key commodities, above all, oil, were traded globally in dollars, demand for dollars would continue, even if the US created more dollars than its own economy justified.

Soon, its trade partners held so many dollars that they feared to create a dollar crisis. Instead, they systematically inflated, and actually weakened their own economies to support the Dollar System, fearing a global collapse. The first shock came with the 1973 increase in oil by 400%. Germany, Japan and the world was devastated, unemployment soared. The dollar gained.

This Dollar System is the real source of a global inflation which we have witnessed in Europe and worldwide since 1971. In the years between 1945 and 1965, total supply of dollars grew a total of only some 55%. Those were the golden years of low inflation and stable growth. After Nixon’s break with gold, dollars expanded by more than 2,000% between 1970 and 2001!

The dollar is still the only global reserve currency. This means other central banks must hold dollars as reserve to guarantee against currency crises, to back their export trade, to finance oil imports and such. Today, some 67% of all central bank reserves are dollars. Gold is but a tiny share now, and Euros only about 15%. Until creation of the Euro, there was not even a theoretical rival to the dollar reserve currency role.

What is little understood, is how the role of US trade deficits and the Dollar System are connected. The United States has followed a deliberate policy of trade deficits and budget deficits for most of the past two decades, so-called benign neglect, in effect, to lock the rest of the world into dependence on a US money system. So long as the world accepts US dollars as money value, the US enjoys unique advantage as the sole printer of those dollars. The trick is to get the world to accept. The history of the past 30 years is about how this was done, using WTO, IMF, World Bank and George Soros to name a few.

What has evolved is a mechanism more effective than any the British Empire had with India and its colonies under the Gold Standard. So long as the US is the sole military superpower, the world will continue to accept inflated US dollars as payment for its goods. Developing countries like Argentina or Congo or Zambia are forced to get dollars to get the IMF seal of approval. Industrial trading nations are forced to earn dollars to defend their own currencies. The total effect of US financial and political and trade policy has been to maintain the unique role of the dollar in the world economy. It is no accident that the greatest financial center in the world is New York. It’s the core of the global Dollar System.

It works so: A German company, say BMW, gets dollars for its car sales in the USA. It turns the dollars over to the Bundesbank or ECB in exchange for Marks or Euros it can use.

The German central bank thus builds up its dollar currency reserves. Since the oil shocks of the 1970’s, the need to have dollars to import oil became national security policy for most countries, Germany included. Boosting dollar exports was a national goal. But since the Bundesbank no longer could get gold for their dollars, the issue became what to do with the mountain of dollars their trade earned. They decided to at least earn an interest rate by buying safe, secure US Treasury bonds. So long as the US had a large Budget deficit, there were plenty of bonds to buy.

Today, most foreign central banks hold US Treasury bonds or similar US government assets as their “currency reserves.” They in fact hold an estimated $1 trillion to $1.5 trillion of US Government debt. Here is the devil of the system. In effect, the US economy is addicted to foreign borrowing, like a drug addict. It is able to enjoy a far higher living standard than were it to have to use its own savings to finance its consumption. America lives off the borrowed money of the rest of the world in the Dollar System. In effect, the German workers at BMW build the cars and give it away to Americans for free, when the central bank uses the dollars to buy US bonds.

Today, the US trade deficit runs at an unbelievable $500 billion, and the dollar does not collapse. Why? In May and June alone, the Bank of China and Bank of Japan bought $100 billion of US Treasury and other government debt! Even when the value of those bonds was falling. They did it to save their exports by manipulating the Yen to dollar to prevent a rising yen.

Because the world payments system, and most importantly, the world capital markets—stocks, bonds, derivatives—are dollar markets, the dollar overwhelms all others. The European Central Bank could offer an alternative. So far it does not. It only reacts to a dollar world. German banks destroy the German economy as they rush to imitate US banks. The Dollar System is destroying the German industrial base. German national economic policy as well as Bundesbank and now ECB policy is oriented on the far smaller export sector, to maximize trade surplus dollars, or to the big banks, to attract as many dollars as possible.

China plays a key role today

The biggest dollar surplus country today is China. Globalization is in fact just a code word for dollarization. The Chinese Yuan is fixed to the dollar. The US is being flooded with cheap Chinese goods, often outsourced by US multinationals. China today has the largest trade surplus with the US, more than $100 billion a year. Japan is second with $70 billion. Canada with $48 bn, Mexico with $37 bn and Germany with $36 bn make the top 5 trade deficit countries, a total deficit of almost $300 billion of the colossal $480 deficit in 2002. This gives a clue to US foreign policy priorities.

What is perverse about this system is the fact that Washington has succeeded in getting foreign surplus countries to invest their own savings, to be a creditor to the US, buying Treasury bonds. Asian countries like Indonesia export capital to the US instead of the reverse!

The US Treasury and Greenspan are certain that its trade partners will be forced to always buy more US debt to prevent the global monetary system from collapsing, as nearly happened in 1998 with the Russia default and the LTCM hedge fund crisis.

Washington Treasury officials have learned to be masters at the psychology of “monetary chicken.” Treasury Secretary Snow used an implied threat of letting the dollar collapse, after the Iraq war, to warn Germany about the risk of trying to be too close to France with the Euro. Some weeks after the dollar had fallen sharply, and German export industry was screaming pain, Snow reversed his stand and the dollar stabilized. Now the dollar again rises as foreign money flows back in.

But debt must be repaid you say? Does it ever? The central banks just keep buying new debt, rolling the old debts over. The debts of the USA are the assets of the rest of the world, the basis of their credit systems!

The second key to the Dollar System deals with poorer debtor countries. Here the US influence is strategic in the key multilateral institutions of finance—World Bank and IMF, WTO. Entire countries like Argentina or Brazil or Indonesia are forced to devalue currencies relative to the dollar, privatize key state industries, cut subsidies, all to repay dollar debt, most often to private US banks. When they resist selling off their best assets, tehy are charged with being corrupt. The growth of offshore money centers in the Caribbean, a key part of the drug money cycle, is also a direct consequence of the decisions in Washington in the 1970’s and after, to deregulate financial markets and banks. As long as the dollar is the global currency, the US gains, or at least its big banks.

This is a kind of Dollar Imperialism more slick than anything the British Empire even dreamed of. It is a part of the current America “Empire” debate no one mentions. Instead of the US investing in colonies like England to earn profits on the trade, the money comes from the client states into the US economy. The problem is that Washington has allowed this perverse system to get out of all control to the point today it threatens to bring the entire world to the point of collapse. Had the US instead promoted long-term policy of investing in the economic growth and self-sufficiency of countries like Argentina or Congo, rather than bleeding them in repayment of unpayable dollar debts, the world would look far less unstable today.

The internal debt bomb in the USA

The question is if the Dollar System is reaching its real limits? The Dollar System for the past 30 years has been built on growing dollar debt. What if the rest of the world decides it no longer wants to give its savings to the US Treasury to finance its deficits or its wars? What if China decides that it should diversify its risk by buying Euro debt? Or Japan or Russia? That day may come sooner than we think.

In addition to colossal debts to the rest of the world, the US internal debt burdens have reached alarming levels in the past three decades, especially the past decade.

The total US debt—public and private—has more than doubled since 1995. It is now officially over $34 trillion. It was just over $16 trillion in 1995, and “only” $7 trillion in 1985. Most alarming it has grown faster than income to service it, or GDP.

Since the Asia crisis in 1998, the US debt situation has exploded. The heart of the debt explosion is in US private consumer debt. And the heart of consumer debt is the home mortgage debt growth, helped by two semi-government agencies—Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Since 2001 and the collapse of the stock market wealth, the Federal Reserve has cut interest rates 13 times to a 45 year low.

US Households took on new home mortgage debt in the first six months this year at an annual rate of $700 billion, double the debt growth in 2000. Total mortgage debt in the US totals just under $5 trillion, double the debt in 1996. It has grown far faster than personal income per capita. That is larger than the GDP of most nations.

The aim has been to inflate a housing speculation market in order to keep the economy rolling. The cost has been staggering new debt levels. Because it was created with record low interest rates, when rates again rise, millions of Americans will suddenly find the burden impossible, especially as unemployment rises. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac combined guarantee $3 trillion in US home mortgages. The US banking system holds much of their bonds. When the housing bubble collapses, a new banking crisis is pre-programmed as well, with JP Morgan/Chase, Wells Fargo and BankAmerica the worst.

The US economy has only managed to avoid a severe recession since the collapse of the stock market three years ago, by a record amount of consumer borrowing. “Shop until you drop” is a popular American expression. The Federal Reserve has pushed interest rates down to 1%, the lowest in 45 years. The aim is to keep the cost of the debt low such that families continue to borrow, in order to spend! Some 76% of the US economy GDP today is consumer spending. And most of that is tied to a record boom in home buying.

But the rate of new debt growth among families is rapidly reaching alarm levels, while the overall manufacturing economy continues to stagnate or decline. Today US factories only operate at 74% of capacity, near historic lows. With so much unused capacity, there is little chance companies will soon invest in new factories or jobs. They are going to China.

So Greenspan continues to rely on foreign money to prop up his consumer debt bubble, at low interest rates. Were foreign money to stop propping the US economy, now at some $2.5 billion daily, the Federal Reserve would be forced to raise its interest rates to make dollar investments more attractive. Higher rates would trigger a crisis in consumer debt, mortgage defaults, credit card and car loan failures. Higher rates would plunge the US economy into a depression. This may be about to happen, despite poor George Bush’s desires to get reelected.

There is a limit how much debt US families can pay to keep the economy afloat.

There is no US recovery, merely a debt spending boom based on this home buying explosion.

Total US household debt reached a high in June of $8.7 trillion, double that of 1994. Families are agreeing to longer debt payments for basics like homes or cars. The length of new car loans now averages 60.7 months, and the amount of car debt financed increased to $27,920, and the average new home costs $243,000.

With rapidly rising unemployment and a real economy that is not growing, at some point there will come a violent reality clash, as the market for home lending reaches its limit. At that point the danger is the consumer will stop buying, and the manufacturing economy will not be able to create new jobs and a real recovery. The jobs have gone to China!

We might already be at or very close to that point. In the past six weeks, US interest rates have risen sharply, as owners of US bonds have started to sell in panic levels, fearing the bonanza in real estate may be over, and trying to get out with some profit before bond prices collapse. The European Central Bank is advising member banks to not buy any more US Freddie Mac or government agency debts.

The problem is this process of creating debt, domestic and foreign, to keep the US economy going, has gathered so much momentum it risks destroying what remains of the US manufacturing and technology base. Henry Kissinger warned in a conference of Computer Associates in June, that the US risked destroying its own middle class, and its key strategic industries via outsourcing to China, India and other cheap areas. Today only 11% of the total workforce is in manufacturing. In 1970, it was 30%. Post-industrial America is a bubble economy about to pop.

Fed chief Greenspan even warned China about the rate of its trade increase with the US, pressuring China to upvalue the Renminbi to make its goods less competitive in dollar markets, and slow the job loss. But this is dangerous. China holds $340 billion in US Treasury bonds and other reserve assets. The US needs the Chinese dollar savings to finance its soaring deficits.

It is caught in its own web: American jobs, hi-tech jobs as well as factory jobs, are vanishing permanently as US factories source to China, India or other cheap areas. If Washington pressures China and others to cut back exports they risk to kill the goose that lays golden dollar eggs. Who will buy that growing Government dollar debt? Private bond traders are desperately trying to sell their US bonds. Germany can only buy so much dollar debt, also Japan.

The US waged war in Iraq not out of fundamental strength but fundamental weakness. It is economic weakness however, not military.

Oil and food, and money as strategic weapon

The fundamental reason for the Iraq war, beyond agendas of Richard Perle or other hawks, is hence, strategic in my view. US economic hegemony in this distorted Dollar System increasingly depends on a rising rate of support from the rest of the world to sustain US debt levels. Like the old Sorcerers’ Apprentice. But the point is past where this can be gotten easily. That is the real significance of the US shift to unilateralism and military threats as foreign policy. Europe can no longer be given a piece of the Third World debt pie as in the 1980’s. Japan has to cough up even more, as does China now.

Even ordinary Americans have to give up their pension promises. If the Dollar System is to remain hegemonic, it must find major new sources of support. That spells likely destabilization and wars for the rest of the world.

Could it be that in this context, some long-term thinkers in Washington and elsewhere have devised a strategy of establishing US military control of all strategic sources of oil for the one potential power rival, Eurasia, from Brussels to Berlin to Moscow and Beijing? The dollar vulnerability and debt problems are well known in leading policy circles.

As Henry Kissinger once noted, “Who controls the food supply controls the people; who controls the energy can control whole continents; who controls money can control the world.”

F. William Engdahl is a Global Research Contributing Editor and author of the book, ‘A Century of War: Anglo-American Oil Politics and the New World Order,’ Pluto Press Ltd. He is the the author of  ‘Seeds of Destruction: The Hidden Political Agenda Behind GMO’ (published by Global Research). He may be contacted through his website, www.engdahl.oilgeopolitics.net.

Of relevance to the current debate on the rights of children, Bie Kentane‘s presentation to a meeting at the United Nations, Palais des Nations, Geneva, March 15, 2013

For two decades, Iraqi children have been subjected to grave violations of human rights.Due to decades of war, foreign occupation and international sanctions, Iraq has turned into one of the worst places for children in the Middle East and North Africa with around 3.5 million living in poverty, 1.5 million under the age of five undernourished and 100 infants dying every day, (The UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF)(IRIN News, 2007).

This report will focus on the violations by the occupying forces and the Iraqi government of the Convention (IV) relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War, Geneva, 12 August 1949, (ICRC) and the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.

Before 1990s, Iraq’s education system statistically surpassed its neighbours in terms of access, literacy and gender equality. However, almost three decades of wars, cruel sanctions and humiliated blockade have pushed back those advances(Jinan Hatem Issa, 2010).

The youth component of the Iraqi population is the fastest growing in the nation. Iraq had an estimated 30,399,572 people in 2011 according to the CIA World Factbook. The median age was 20.9, and 38% of the country was 14 or younger. Both of those statistics made Iraq the second youngest country in the Middle East and North Africa. This important element is obviously not being invested in, which could have detrimental affects upon Iraq’s future. One of the major problems with the Iraqi bureaucracy for example is a lack of trained staff. If many Iraqis are failing to gain even a basic education, this issue will likely not be solved any time soon (Wing, 2012).

The destruction or closing of schools and universities, the displacement of the population and the fact that teachers are members of the professional class who were killed or forced to leave Iraq, resulted in loss of schooling for children and young people, and therefore loss of life opportunities. Many children were displaced during the occupation due to sectarian policies imposed by the occupiers, with no adequate facilities for their schooling. Loss of schooling is very hard to make up. Not only did the children and young people have their opportunities in later life reduced, but the community and ultimately the state also loses from inadequate education.

In the last several decades, Iraq went from one of the best education systems in the region to a mediocre one. Wars and sanctions devastated the government’s ability to take care of its children. Today the school system is failing to educate a large number of kids, because of a mix of untrained teachers, lack of schools, and out of date methods.

A poll done in September 2011 found that only 34% of Iraqis were satisfied with their local schools, down from 66% in February 2009 (Wing, 2012).

Early Childhood Development

Analysis of four domains (Learning, Social-Emotional, Physical, Literacy numeracy )  shows that 95 percent of children are on track in the physical domain , but less on track in learning (89 percent), socio-emotional (78 percent) domains and strikingly less in literacy-numeracy (18 percent) domain.

In the domain of literacy-numeracy and learning the higher score is associated with children living in richest households and with older children; social-emotional skills are higher among girls(UNICEF, MICS, 2011).

Enrollment

Only four percent of children aged 36-59 months are attending pre-school. Figures give five percent in urban areas, compared to one percent in rural areas and in poor households.

Children living in the poorest households have lower ECDI (66 percent compared with 81 percent of the richest households) (UNICEF, MICS, 2011).

Socio-economic status appears to have a positive correlation with school readiness – while the indicator is only tree percent among the poorest households, it increases to 11 percent among those children living in the richest households.(UNICEF, MICS, 2011).

Net primary school enrolment rate is estimated at 87 percent overall, 91 percent for boys and 82 percent for girls (UCPD, 2011-2014). This is far below Iraq’s 2015 national Millennium Development Goal target of 98 per cent.

Of children who are of primary school entry age 6 in Iraq, 84 percent are attending the first grade of primary school. Children’s participation in primary school is higher in urban areas than in rural areas. A positive correlation with mother’s education and socio-economic status is observed. The majority of the children are attending school (90%). However, 10 percent of the children are out of school when they are expected to be participating in school (UNICEF, MICS, 2011).

The net primary completion rate ^[1] is 44 percent. There is a higher net completion rate among children in urban areas (50%) than in rural areas (33 %). As mother’s education and wealth increases, the net completion also increases markedly.

Only about half of the children of secondary school age  are attending secondary school (49 percent).Of the remaining half some of them are either out of school or attending primary school.One in seven of the children of secondary school age are attending primary school when they should be attending secondary school while the remaining 38 percent are not attending school at all.

The results show clear association between mother’s education and household wealth on secondary school net attendance ratio.The ratio is 38 percent for children with uneducated mothers and increases to 73 percent for children whose mother’s education is secondary or higher.

Moreover, secondary school net attendance ratio increased from 25 percent at the poorest households to 75 percent at the richest household(UNICEF, MICS, 2011).

(UNICEF, MICS, 2011)

The net enrolment ratio in intermediate schools is significantly lower than that for primary education, estimated at 40.5 percent and with an even wider gender gap, as girls continue to face the above mentioned obstacles to continuing their education, and are more likely to pursue culturally encouraged and perceived alternatives such as marriage. The estimated net enrolment ratio for preparatory/upper secondary schools is 27 percent(UCPD, 2011-2014).

A survey by the Tamuz Organization for Social Development done in the first half of 2011 found that many schools were broke down, more than 20% of primary students, around four million children, drop out each year, and that up to 65% of children in southern Iraq don’t go to school.

The main causes of the drop in numbers were the wars and sanctions that beset Iraq from 1990 to the present (Wing, 2012).

 Among the 75 percent of the children 5-14 years  of age, attending school, 6 percent are also involved in child labour activities. On the other hand, out of the six percent of the children who are involved in child labour, the majority of them are also attending school (65 percent)(UNICEF, MICS, 2011).

 Girls’ Education

In Iraq, the impression was how proud people were of the fact that Iraq once had the best educational system in the Middle East, including for women(UNESCO, 2012).

In primary education girls account for 44.74% of the pupils. Some 75% of girls who start school have dropped out during, or at the end of, primary school and so do not go on to intermediate education. Many of them will have dropped out after grade 1(UNICEF, 2010).

Gender parity for primary school is 0.94, indicating that less girls attend primary school than boys. The indicator is even lower for secondary education which is 0.85.  The disadvantage of girls is clearly pronounced for background characteristics , like governorates, mother’s education and wealth index.

The highest differences in school attendance between boys and girls occur in rural areas.

It’s worth noticing that the secondary net attendance ratio for females (45 percent) is lower than for males (52 percent) (UNICEF, MICS, 2011).

In 2010, a UNICEF report described the learning environment in Iraq as influenced by poor safety, family poverty and a reluctance to allow adolescent girls to attend school. The report quoted female students referring to their schools as ‘unwelcoming, unpleasant, dirty, poorly maintained with filthy lavatories and no drinking water(Sponeck, 2011).

 The Quality of Educational Facilities

Poor school stock is having an increasingly negative impact on the quality of education and attendance rates. A 2004 Ministry of Health (MoH) report concluded that 80% of school buildings required significant reconstruction, over 1,000 required a total rebuild and a further 4,600 major repair (MoH 2004 ‘Health in Iraq’).

These figures were confirmed in 2007 by UNESCO and UNICEF who found that 70% of school buildings were suffering from war damage or neglect (cf. Relief-Web/UCHO 2008)(CARA, 2010).

According to UNICEF (2011), more than one in six schools have been vandalized, damaged or destroyed during the past years of violence, and there are severe shortfalls in facilities.

Today, there are not enough facilities to meet the population’s needs. There is a huge shortage of schools at the primary and high school levels, and overcrowding in the ones that do exist. In March 2012, the Education Minister Mohammed Tamim said that Iraq needed 12,000 new schools, and 600 added each year. Since 2003, only 2,600 new ones have been built however, and last year, the Ministry said it could only build 200 that year (Wing, 2012).

Iraqi schools were desperately overcrowded last year (2012). This autumn, the failure of a government reconstruction program has made matters worse.

In May 2012, construction firms paid by Iraq’s Education Ministry began tearing down hundreds of old school buildings across the country under contracts requiring the companies to build bigger schools. But the new schools have not been built , the ministry says it doesn’t have funds for new buildings. E.g. most Baghdad classrooms were designed for 25 to 30 students but now have more than 80,   some classrooms have up to 120 students.  Baghdad needs 3,000 new school buildings to accommodate the overflow(Synovitz, 2012).

Some schools in Iraq now are either built from mud[2], or the worst type of cement that might collapse at any time, or even tents. This type of schools can never produce a new educated generation, that’s why this is a serious issue and the government should take a fast, serious action about that(Waseem, 2012).

There’s no electricity  and no drinking water, there is the shortage of heaters and air-conditioners.It’s so hot in summer and so cold in winter, there are rodents and insects that handle the lessons, and are considered as a risk to the students, there’s no health services in those schools of any kind.

One of the worst results of those mud schools is that there are no paved streets, so, when it’s raining, the streets are all blocked.

Most schools lack drinking water, toilets or refuse bins – the lack of access to sanitary facilities places particular burdens on girls  (UNAMI HR, 2011).

Even the schools which were maintained after 2003 don’t have the safety conditions and specifications because of the corruption in the projects, many ceilings of those newly maintained schools fell down because of that problem. There are huge amounts of money spent on improving schools in Iraq, but corruption deals are always handling the implementation of those projects(Waseem, 2012).

Shortages of school buildings and classrooms have led to the running of two or three shifts in schools, allowing some pupils only a couple of hours’ daily contact with teachers, and negatively affecting their access to education.(UCPD, 2011-2014).

Moreover, repetition rates have been forcing students with as much as 6 years of age difference to remain in the same classroom and  in some areas there are not enough schools that can provide adequate instruction in the language required by displaced children from other areas, (for instance: Arabic-speaking children in Northern Iraq)(NGO coordination Iraq, 2010).

Thousands of children with disabilities remain without access to schools, and the children of internally displaced families face a lack of educational facilities (UNAMI HR, 2011).

In addition school buildings are often used for military purposes, in violation of The Hague IV Conventions on Laws and Customs of War on Land(Yale law school). “MNF-I, the Iraqi Army and Iraqi police units occupied more than 70 school buildings for military purposes in the Diyala governorate alone”, according to a UNESCO report in 2010(UNESCO , 2010).

The MRM recorded a number of incidents against education establishments and staff(UNAMI Human Rights Office/OHCHR, 2012).

The Iraqi education system has been struggling to overcome significant challenges fordecades. To ensure access to and quality of education, the education system requires thestrengthening of physical infrastructure, materials and professional educators at national,governorate and local levels(UCPD, 2011-2014).

 Security and Sectarianism

The UNESCO National Education Support Strategy released in 2008 estimated that 2 million children of primary school age did not attend school largely due to the security situation. While the situation has improved, children’s access to education remains compromised by the security situation. “Many threats against schools continue to come from(the so called) “ insurgent groups”  demanding a change in the curriculum or attempting to deny students from certain targeted groups access to education.The punishment for failing to comply with these demands is often violence”,(UNAMI HR, 2011).

Who are these “certain targeted groups”, and what does the report exactly mean by “insurgent groups”?

Sectarian policies of the Maliki government hamper the right to education of Iraqi children in predominantlysunni areas. Attacks on educational institutions by the Iraqi Army and government militias, to intimidate, frighten, kidnap, arrest and kill students occur on a regular basis. As a consequence school attendance has decreased dramatically.

Sectarianism also comes “through the back door”.It seems that the students in dominantly “Shia” provinces obtained much better results than those in provinces with a predominantly Sunni population.In 2009 protests broke out in three Sunni Muslim cities in which conspicuously low numbers of students passed their national exams, fuelling suspicions that Iraq’s Shiite Muslim-led government is discriminating against Sunnis and others(Issa, 2009).

The Educational Curriculum

The occupying forces changed the existing curricula , now the The Ministry of education is incapable of reforming the educational curriculum in an appropriate way due to the sectarianism of the Iraqi government, lack of capacity and experience. The whole national education system needs to be considerably strengthened at national, governorate and district levels to ensure access to quality education(NGO coordination Iraq, 2010).

An outdated curriculum is not  meeting current learning needs of students. The serious shortage of skilled educators and administrators as well as inefficiencies in the field of management and strategic planning further undermine the system’s capacity to produce educated Iraqis able to compete in the

labour market. Iraq is still far from achieving many of the international objectives in education(UCPD, 2011-2014).

The Education Minister said that the curriculum hasn’t changed much since the 1980s, 70% of teachers are not properly trained, the staff is underpaid, and there is low achievement amongst students and high illiteracy (Wing, 2012)

 Skills: Learning Difficulties

Evidence is increasing that it is likely that a large number of children in Iraq suffer from preventable learning difficulties related to lack of early stimulation and learning. This degree of language delay may result from widespread psychosocial consequences of war, including increased poverty and fearfulness. However, psychosocial difficulties and poverty, including, preoccupation with day-to- day survival, amongst adults prevent them from being able to talk to or stimulate their children in the normal way.

In addition to the difficulties caused by lack of stimulation, children’s cognitive development is also affected by poor nutrition (UNICEF, 2010).

According to a 2007 Oxfam report, some 92 per cent of Iraq’s children suffer from learning impediments (Sponeck, 2011).

The Iraqi school system is currently lacking a mental health philosophy, and Iraq teachers are not trained to identify children with learning and emotional problems.(Abdul Kareem Al-Obaidi, 2010)

Al- Azzawi indicated that almost 65% of teachers often use the physical punishment against students when they teach because of the aggressive nature of the children, since there is no other way to deal with such aggressiveness (so they claim)(Al-Sayer, 2012).

 Assassinations and Brain Drain

After 2003 another massive brain drain began when the lives of Iraqi academics were pervaded by a constant fear of being murdered.Assassinationsand death threats against educators drove many out of the country. According to the UN office for humanitarian affairs 180 teachers have been killed since 2006, up to 100 have been kidnapped and over 3,250 have fled the country(ICRC, 2007).

The International Medical Corps reported that populations of teachers in Baghdad have fallen by 80% and medical personnel seem to have left in disproportionate numbers(Azzaman, 2007). Roughly 40 per cent of Iraq’s middle class is believed to have fled by the end of 2006(Senanayake, 2006).This brain drain and the destruction of schools and educational system is part of the cultural cleansing of the Iraqi society and identity (AL-Azzawi, 2010). Iraq’s educated and professional class, including teachers, academics and health professionals in particular, fled in their thousands following the assassination of colleagues as part of a targeted campaign, with devastating effect.

473 university academics(Brussells Tribunal, 2013) have been killed and more than 2000 doctors, hundreds of lawyers and judges, 382 journalists/media workers(Brussells Tribunal, 2013) and thousands of professionals(Adriaensens, 2008). This, in addition to the outflow of professionals during the UN sanctions years has left Iraq with an enormous task to rebuild not just its educational and health infrastructure but its specialist human capital (CARA, 2010).

Article 39. Measures to promote physical and psychological recovery and social reintegration of a child victim.

Psychological problems

A report (1991)produced by a group of Harvard medical researchers concluded that the children of Iraq “were the most traumatized children of war ever described” and that “a majority of the children would suffer from severe psychological problems throughout their lives”. Children were the biggest sufferers during the long years of punitive economic sanctions imposed on Iraq after the first Gulf War (1990),(Cherian, 2012), (Lando, 2007).

Half of the, approximately 30 million, population of Iraq are children and adolescents . In recent decades, wars, international sanctions, internal unrest, and massive civilian displacements within and beyond  its borders have dominated the history of Iraq. Since the 2003 invasion of Iraq, hundreds of thousands of Iraqi citizens, including many children and youths, have died and thousands have suffered serious injuries. Kidnapping for ransom, loss of parents, and displacement have undermined the fundamental security of Iraqi children; impacting an estimated two million Iraqi child refugees. Malnutrition, deterioration of education, a high and increased rate of truancy, child labor, trafficking of children and involvement of children with militia and insurgency groups threatens the wellbeing of Iraqi children. Furthermore, religious and political persecutions accompany continuing civil disorder in Iraq (UNICEF, 2008),(Abdul Kareem Al-Obaidi, 2010).

 Children had been exposed to fighting in the streets, passing dead bodies on the way to school, seeing relatives and friends killed or severely injured, and other actions of war and occupation. They didn’t just see them once in a while – they saw these things a lot, for years and years.

Almost every child is growing up as a son or daughter to victims of severe human rights violations such as torture, rape or chemical attacks. Most of today’s parents have not had the possibility to mourn their losses and recover from their traumatic experiences due to a lack of rehabilitation services and social recognition. Children living in survivor families therefore frequently become victims of aggression, physical and emotional abuse and neglect-effects of intergenerational conflict and dysfunctional family structures produced by collective trauma. They are exposed to violence outside and inside their house.

As a consequence, they suffer from a wide range of behavioral disturbances and trauma-related stress reactions such as sleep disorders, agitated and hyperactive behavior, social withdrawal, depression, anxiety, as well as developmental and eating disorders. As children often have to support their traumatized parents in various ways, their own development in becoming productive members of society is inhibited. Horrible images of torn dead bodies scattered in streets and the scenes of their fathers or relatives being killed in front of their eyes will remain firm in the children’s minds for many years and will leave negative psychological stamps in their future behaviors(Dancewater, 2009).

Health Issues

Exposure to violence on a daily basis has affected their psychological development and behavior. 46.8% of the studied population of children face serious health issues such as psychological and mental disorders (Al-Azzawi, 2010).

Although the violence that followed the invasion of Iraq by multi-national forces in 2003 has ebbed and flowed, Iraq remains within the top five humanitarian emergencies in the world. Children continue to suffer from the psychological trauma of war and conflict, and access to education and development opportunities has been severely constrained(Save the children, 2012).

According to the UN World Health Organization (WHO), the fourth leading cause of morbidity among Iraqis older than five years is “mental disorders,” which ranked higher than infectious disease (WHO, 2005).

A study by the Iraqi Society of Psychiatrists in collaboration with the World Health Organization found that 70% of children (sample 10,000) in the Sha’ab section of North Baghdad is  suffering from trauma-related symptoms(Al-Daini, 2012).

In 2006 some studies on the prevalence of mental disorders of children were completed in Baghdad, Mosul, and Dohuk. In the first study it is found that, 47% of  primary school children  reported exposure to a major traumatic event during the previous 2 years, 14% had post-traumatic stress disorder( PTSD): boys 9%, girls 17% (Ali H Razokhi a, 2006).

In the second study in Mosul, adolescents were screened for mental disorders. 30% had symptoms of PTSD: boys 26%, girls 32%. There was a higher rate of PTSD in the older adolescents.  (92%) of the ill adolescents had not received any treatment(Ali H Razokhi a, 2006)^.

A study conducted at the child psychiatric department of the general pediatric hospital in Baghdad in 2005 found :  anxiety disorders (22%), behavioral problems (hyperkinetic and conduct disorders) (18%), non-organic enuresis (15%), stuttering (14%), epilepsy (10%) and depression (1.3%) (Al-Obaidi et al.).

Jones (2003) provided an account of children’s worries and fears facing daily hazards and discomforts in internally displaced persons (IDP) camps in the north of Iraq. Data from a cross-sectional study in the city of Mosul, in the northern part of Iraq, revealed that mental disorders were found among 37.4% of children and adolescent patients attending primary health care (PHC) facilities. The most common disorders included PTSD (10.5%), non-organic enuresis (6%), and separation anxiety disorder (4.3%). Depression was reported in only 1.5% cases. Additionally, there were 9.4% cases of comorbidity  (PTSD and depression).

In 2006 at Nassiriya, a city in southern Iraq, attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) was found among 15% of school children .This result was above the global prevalence rate for ADHD, which is 8-12% (Abdul Kareem Al-Obaidi, 2010).

Dr Maliki quotes Dr. Haithi Al Sady, the dean of the Psychological Research Center at Baghdad University, who has been studying the effects of PTSD in Iraqi children, that as many as 28% of Iraqi children could be affected.  If these calculations are correct it means that the number of Iraqi children suffering from PTSD could be as high as 3 million(Darylilbury, 2012).

Babylon Centre for Human Rights and Civil Development, which is one of the civil society organizations in Babylon Governorate revealed that the percentage of the violence against children in Iraq increased up to 60% after the 2003 war. Al-Azzawi said that after the questionnaire he had with some parents, 55% of them assured that they used violent ways with their children after 2003 because of the hard security situation, pressure and economic problems(Al-Sayer, 2012).

Facilities

Whereas such high figures of reported PTSD is concerning for the US military and the families of those serving, the fact remains that the military is aware of it and has a treatment and rehabilitation program in place for veterans of warfare.  Furthermore, these veterans of war are highly-trained, adult combat soldiers, who have elected to go to war and have been immersed in the conditioning necessary to prepare a combatant to kill other people.

But what about those who have also witnessed the horrors, but lack the ‘luxury’ of military training and trauma counseling? What about Iraqi and Afghanistan children, too young to process the moral complexities of modern warfare, and who have witnessed the killing, brutality and violence of armed conflict? Children of war left behind in Iraq have no support; plus they have added challenges. Many of them have lost their parents to war, and remain mired in poverty. Without any support or help, they often turn to drugs or alcohol, and develop violent behavior.

Dr Haider Maliki of the Central Pediatric Teaching Hospital in Baghdad  points out that culture also dictates that many families do not seek help fearing that to do so would bring humiliation or dishonor, “Especially in children, especially in the female, any psychological problem is a stigma.”(Darylilbury, 2012).

Currently, there are only two state psychiatric hospitals located in Baghdad, and 22 psychiatric units attached to general hospitals in governorates across Iraq. There are no separate inpatient mental health services for children and adolescents, and CAMH^[3] services are usually provided in outpatient mental clinics for the general population.

Psychiatric drugs  are almost exclusively the mode of therapeutic intervention. One small CAMH clinic was established in the Central Child Hospital in Baghdad after 2003, but with very limited resources. There are a number of institutes for children with special needs and residential houses for orphans. However, the lack of resources and staff training may undermine the provision of services in these institutions. Behavioural, play and other forms of psychotherapy are not routinely practised.

General psychiatrists and a small team of psychologists and social workers assist the Iraqi juvenile justice system. However, they have no specialised training in the treatment and rehabilitation of youthful offenders. There are no CAMH services in Iraqi schools (Abdul Kareem Al-Obaidi, 2010, pp. 40-51).

Human resources are another challenge facing the delivery of CAMH services in Iraq. Among the approximately 100 psychiatrists in Iraq, none of them are formally trained in CAMH. Other mental health, human resources include: only seven general practitioners practicing mental health; 145 psychiatric nurses; 16 psychologists; and 25 social workers (WHO, 2009), (Abdul Kareem Al-Obaidi, 2010).

For Iraq’s population of 30 million, there is a ratio of 1/150,000 compared to the desired 1/10,000 ratio in the US  (EPIC).

There are only three child psychiatrists in the whole country. The conflict has blighted a generation of Iraqi children(BBC News Middle east, 2012) .

The “relentless bloodshed and the lack of professional help will see Iraq’s children growing up either deeply scarred or so habituated to violence that they keep the pattern going as they enter adulthood”.

That is the human reality of what the Anglo-American invasion has done and continues to do(Dancewater, 2009).

Of all the statistics that describe the devastation wreaked upon Iraq by the illegal war, the figures describing the plight of Iraqi children are the most troubling and heart-wrenching.  These children will determine the future Iraq.  Their wellbeing, or lack of it, will  have impact on the lives of all Iraqis regardless their sect, religion, or ethnicity(Al-Daini, 2012).

Children with Disabilities^[4]

Iraq has a higher percentage of persons with disabilities than other countries – not only persons born with disabilities, but also those who suffered disabilities later on. Three wars in as many decades and terrorist attacks have cost a large number of people their limbs, eyesight, and various physical, intellectual and mental abilities that other people take for granted(Kobler, 2012).

Landmines and explosive remnants of war have a devastating impact on Iraq’s children with around 25 per cent of all victims being children under the age of 14 years (War victims monitor, 2011).

Causalities from failed cluster sub munitions rose between 1991 and 2007 from 5,500 to 80,000, 45.7% between the age of 15 and 29 years of age, and 23.9% were children under the age of 14. Both UNICEF and UNDP believe these figures are an underestimation (War victims monitor, 2011).

This last decade the Al Munthanna and Basra provinces of Iraq have challenged Angola for the highest proportion to total population of children amputees (Indymedia Australia, 2011).

Children are often more vulnerable to the dangers associated with approaching or disturbing landmines and UXOs.  24% of victims in the Kurdistan Region were under 14 years old.

Many children lose their limbs, sight, or hearing resulting in lifelong disability. Child victims are then often perceived as a burden to their families and are discriminated against by society, with limited or no future prospects for education. The country will not meet the 2018 deadline to clear all landmines and UXO (IRIN, 2012).

The Absence of Facilities for Children with Disabilities

The distance to school, the poor state of the buildings, the absence of basic facilities, unsympathetic teachers, and lack help in understanding lessons, family protectiveness and the attitudes of society are likely to be insurmountable blocks for girls with disabilities (UN Children’s fund, 2010).

Reliable data on services for children with disabilities in Iraqi is extremely limited. The UN sanction years led to a chronic lack of investment and by late 1991 all four specialised training institutions and national coordinating institutions^[5] were closed.

The chronic lack of educational and training materials and reduced educational capacity resulted in increased economic vulnerability of families with disabled children who presented an additional financial burden.

Many children living with disabilities live in rural or remote areas that seriously impact on their ability to access available services due to cost, lack of public transportation and lack of knowledge about available services. Families from remote and rural areas may never see healthcare professionals. Even if the services are available, the cost of medical care will be prohibitive to most families(CARA, 2010).

The ministry of Labor and Social Affairs (MoLSA) is responsible for institutional care and the provision of benefits. Although there is a Central Government allocated budget to cover food, transport and other Social Care Establishment facilities, staff lack training and the units require modern educational facilities. Over 200 social workers are available but their lack of experience makes them largely ineffective (CARA, 2010).

A degradation in essential services and poor medical treatment have further exacerbated the issue.

The plight of Iraqis with intellectual disabilities or mental illness is particularly acute. Their voices are seldom heard in Iraq, and there are very few services which cater to their particular needs. Their access to public services is at times severely restricted.

Iraq’s ratification on 23 January 2012 of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities reflected a recognition of the importance of protecting and promoting the rights of these Iraqi citizens.

However, legislation meant to ensure the implementation of the Convention is still pending, and further revisions must be made to bring it fully into line with the Convention(Kobler, 2012).

The wars Iraq has gone through in the last three decades have produced a nation of disabled people – six million out of a population of 30 million.

“People with disabilities caused by the three wars Iraq has suffered are estimated at more than 6 million,” according to RaadAbdulhusain who heads the rehabilitation of disabled people in the religious province of Najaf.

But the U.S. invasion led to horrendous suffering and casualties as it sparked a ruinous insurrection in which the mighty U.S. marines used disproportionate power to subdue major towns and cities, particularly in the central parts of the country.

The invasion fuelled a civil war in which different religious sects, particularly Muslim Shiites and Sunnis, raised their own militias to fight each other. Abdulhusain said there were 120,000 registered people with different disabilities only in the Province of Najaf. However, he said, the figure could be higher because there were no surveys and inventories of handicapped and disabled people in the country.

There are no government or private organizations or funds looking after the army of disabled Iraqis. (Al-Jaberi, 2012)

Persons with disabilities continue to suffer from discrimination in relation to healthcare, education, employment and economic opportunity. Iraq has a high proportion of persons disabled in the wars and violence that have characterized the country since the 1980s.

UNAMI is concerned about the absence of specialized educational and health institutions for persons with mental illness.(UNICEF, MICS, 2011)

Doctors insist that it’s the responsibility of the US to try undoing part of the damage it has caused. “The US government has spent billions on this war but none to revert the problems caused by its dangerous weapons,” fumes another doctor in Baghdad University. “I can say that those new-born are the result of the American disaster that befell our land.” (Association of Muslim Scholars in Iraq, 2009).

The figures on Iraqi orphans vary considerably but beyond any doubt the occupation of Iraq has created a generation of children who have to survive without father and/or mother.

The Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs estimates that around 4,5 million children are orphans. Nearly 70 percent of them lost their parents since the invasion and the ensuing violence. From the total number, around 600,000 children are living in the streets without a house or food to survive. Only 700 children are living in the 18 orphanages existing in the country, lacking their most essential needs(Global resaerch TV, 2011).

According to the NGO ‘Sponsor Iraqi Children Foundation’, approximately 1 in 6 Iraqi children under the age of 18 is an orphan. Many orphans beg on the streets or sell water to help poor widowed mothers or siblings. They are very vulnerable to arrest for begging as well as to recruitment or abuse by criminals, extremists and human traffickers (SICF, 2011).

According to the 2011 UNICEF survey, about five percent of children aged 0-17 years are orphans who have lost one or both parents, and about 2 percent are not living with a biological parent. Older age group has a higher percentage of orphans (in some governates 7 percent). Eight percent of children aged 10-14 have lost at least one parent, among those, 79 percent are currently attending school. Among the children age 10-14 who have lost no parent 83 percent are attending school(UNICEF, MICS, 2011).

“Unfortunately the budget allocated to projects that help street children and orphans is decreasing day in and day out,” notes an Iraqi Red Crescent employee. “Worse still, almost no NGO is dedicating itself to this group of kids who are subject to trafficking and sexual abuses in the streets.”(Reuters, 2011).

Beyond the individual tragedies, the sheer number of Iraqi orphans has created a social crisis in a country that has less than 200 social workers and psychiatrists put together, for a population of 30 million people. It has no child protection laws. Officials say that desperately needed welfare legislation has been held hostage to sectarian squabbling in parliament(Caroline Hawley, 2012).

MayadaHasan highlights the importance of providing orphans with safe places that offer them a sense of normalcy and protection against harm: “I visited a homeless shelter where I saw children being evicted to the street.” Iraqi law stipulates that orphanages and shelters must evict their residents once they turn 18. “These children have nowhere to go in one of the most dangerous cities in the world. Many of them do not have any skills. Some are forced to join organised crime or gangs. Some are killed, and some disappear without a trace.” According to Save the Children, children in Iraq suffer from psychological trauma of war and conflict, and have little access to education or other development opportunities(Reventlow, 2013).

Refugee Children

Article 22. Children have the right to special protection and help if they are refugees.

An estimated four million Iraqis, nearly 15% of the total population, have fled their homes; 50% of these refugees are children(Obaidi, 2010).

On average, 75 to 80 per cent of the displaced ^[6](UNAMI, 2010) persons in any crisis are women and children. The Iraqi Red Crescent Society estimates that more than 83 per cent of these in Iraq are women and children, and the majority of the children are under the age of 12.^[7]

UNHCR surveys in 2009 stated that 20% of Internally displaces persons (IDP) and 5% of returned refugees  reported children to be missing.  The total internally displaced population as of November 2009 was estimated up to  2.76 million  persons or 467.517 families. A simple calculation shows that more than 93,500 children of internally displaced families are missing(Adriaensens, Always someone’s mother or father, always someone’s child. The missing persons of Iraq.Retrieved from http://www.brussellstribunal.org/pdf/Disappearances_missing_persons_in_Iraq.pdf, 2011).

A study of Dr Souad Al Azzawi shows that in her study group 43.6% of the children’s families left Iraq, 12.8% were forced to leave their residential areas, 11.7% of the children in the studied group left the country. All this due to a lack of services, security, and law enforcement and because of the fear for their lives. So 75.5% of the children in the studied group were forced to migrate from their living areas in Iraq(Al-Azzawi, 2010).

The problems of children who were forced to migrate represent a real humanitarian issue because a large number of families had no shelter, no finances, no health care, no education, and no security of any kind (Al-Azzawi, 2010).

According to government figures, in 2011, 67,000 Iraqis in Syria returned to an Iraq which, while significantly safer than in 2006-7, is still one of the most dangerous places in the world.

Brookings Institution, calls their return “premature” and a survey by UNHCR just before the unrest in Syria started found that most refugees in Syria were still unwilling to return home permanently.

More than direct violence, refugees in Syria are at risk of re-traumatization, with 78 percent of refugees surveyed by UNHCR saying the current situation had had a negative impact on their mental and physical well-being, including nightmares and recollections of the past. The anxiety has led to an increase in domestic violence, Daubelcour said (IRIN, 23 April 2012 ).

The Iraqi mental health treatment has been disrupted and many Iraqi health and mental health professionals have been displaced mainly to countries nearby Iraq. The systems of care available to Iraqi refugees in host countries have been ill-prepared to provide even the basic level of coverage(Obaidi, 2010).

Looking to the future, there is considerable cause for concern in relation to the education of these Iraqi children. Many of the refugee parents, both fathers and mothers, have completed secondary and tertiary education themselves and have high ambitions for their offspring. But the destruction of the Iraqi education system prior to their flight from the country, coupled with the difficulties they now encounter in keeping their children in school, has created a risk that those young people will grow up without an education. In focus group discussions, many refugees referred to the fact that the future of an entire generation had been squandered, and that their children would struggle to cope, whether they were to go back to Iraq, to be resettled elsewhere or to remain in their country of asylum(UNCHR, 2009).

Despite the urgent needs for Iraq’s younger generation, UNHCR’s budget for Iraq will be reduced in 2013 (UNCHR Global Appeal, Jan 2013).

Since the 1990s, because of UN sanctions imposed on the Iraqi people, scores of young children walk between cars as traffic slows to sell simple items, or work in industrial jobs that require strong physical effort, like car maintenance or blacksmiths shops. The ages of most these children range between six to 15 years, and can be found in most parts of the country either working or, to a lesser extent, begging.

An official from the Social Welfare Commission and member of Salahaddin Provincial Council says there are many reasons behind the spread of child employment. Financial impoverishment that pushes parents to put their children to work, the loss of one of the parents, especially the father, failure of the children at school, especially in the primary stages, who then leave education, dropping out of schools because many people believe that those who own certificates of education have not found work. Hence they prefer that their children work and learn a profession early to guarantee their living in the future.”

This phenomenon is not new but it is increasing day after day because of the tragedies of war and the ravages of the country’s economic and security tensions. Despite the country’s abundant oil revenues and the lift of the economic embargo after the fall of the regime, child labour not only remains in Iraq but it continues to increase, some of the billions of the oil revenues should be invested in helping the children in the country(Al-Shalash, 2012) .

More than one third of the children at the age of 0-14 are working in order to make a living. Since there are lots of war orphans, many children have to earn money on their own and are as a result not able to attend school(The Republic of Iraq, 2012).

The UNICEF Iraq MICS4 survey estimates that about six percent of children aged 5-14 years are involved in child labour. Results show that child labour among children born to uneducated mothers is 9 percent , decreasing to five percent for children whose mothers have completed secondary education.

Two percent of these children age 12-14 participate in unpaid work for someone other than a household member, an equal percentage of children do household chores for 28 hours or more per week, while a higher percentage of children work for family business (12 percent).

A higher percentage of children work in rural areas (10 percent) compared to urban areas (5 percent).

Among the 75 percent of the children 5-14 years  of age, attending school, 6 percent are also involved in child labour activities. On the other hand, out of the six percent of the children who are involved in child labour, the majority of them are also attending school (65 percent)(UNICEF, MICS, 2011).

Child labour has increased with 15% of children under the age of 14 now working.  There are now between 1 and 3 million widows in Iraq, many struggling as heads of households and living in extreme poverty(Child victims of war, 2012).

Children are engaged in the worst forms of child labour in Iraq, many in street work and some in armed conflict. Children working on the streets may be exposed to multiple risks, including severe weather, vehicle accidents and criminal elements. Some children reportedly encounter these dangers while engaged in street commerce, shining shoes, washing cars and begging. In some regions of Iraq, children reportedly work in hot and polluted brickyards, making clay bricks. Children working in brickyards often lack protective gear and are exposed to contaminated gases released during production. Children reportedly work in dangerous conditions in automobile shops and on construction sites.

Although evidence is limited, there is information indicating that children in urban areas scavenge in dump yards to collect items that may later be sold. In addition to illness from exposure to toxic substances, children may experience physical hazards and psychological damage. Labourers in this sector also experience stigmatization, exploitation and harassment. It is also reported that children in Iraq work in dangerous activities in agriculture. Work in agriculture can involve using dangerous machinery and tools, carrying heavy loads and applying harmful pesticides. Research found no evidence of programs to eliminate the worst forms of child labour during the reporting period. (U.S. Department of Labor, 2011)

 According to recent studies on working children by civil society organizations, young children are at risk of not growing normally because their work is not suitable to their ages.

Faten al-Smurrai, a humanitarian activist and member of the Iraqi Family Organization, which specializes in women and children affairs, told AKnews:

“According to a study conducted by the organization and in collaboration with medical staff, most of the children who work in occupations that don’t fit their ages are at risk of facing atrophied growth at puberty, as well as physical illnesses and disabilities that increase with the passage of time.”

But the risks to children are not just limited to the physical, as Smurrai explains:

“The defect will not only be in the growth and exposition to diseases and disabilities, but the child will be raised in a state of violence and cruelty that creates abnormal people.” (Al-Shalash, 2012).

Many children are obliged to work to support their families. In Baghdad, community action groups are working with citizens to create awareness of and begin addressing the problem(IRD, 2012).

Drug Abuse

Article 33. Governments should use all means possible to protect children from the use of harmful drugs and from being used in the drug trade.

Many reports have indicated problems of drug and sexual abuse amongst children and adolescents in Iraq . However, it is difficult to know the real scope of this problem(Abdul Kareem Al-Obaidi, Child and adolescent mental health in Iraq: current situation and scope for promotion [of mental health policy?], 2010).

Nowadays in Iraq, many children do not go to school and don’t play in the streets but hide in corners to take drugs or to sell them. Experts say that many children, especially orphans, have fallen prey to drug abuse over the past few years. Prior to the 2003 US-led invasion, drug addiction among children was practically non-existent , according to Ameer Mohammad Bayat, a psychologist working with child addicts. In many cases children turn to drugs to ease the pain and sufferings inflicted by the war(Understanding Islam, 2008).

UNICEF reports have warned that drug addiction is becoming more than a phenomenon amongst Iraqi children. There has been a 30 per cent addiction increase among children since 2005 and a nearly 10% increase during the last year . But the problem goes far beyond addiction. Many children are trapped in a thriving drugs trade in “new Iraq”, (a local NGO tackling the issue in Baghdad).  Gangs usually target children who lost a beloved one or who are working in the streets. “The dealers offer job and relief, easily bringing drug dependence among those innocent kids^{(Understanding Islam, 2008)}.

Experts complain that the children drug plight is ignored by the government. “The problem is worsened as the government neglects the chaotic situation children are living in,” said Bayat, psychologist. He notes that the only help children get comes from independent aid agencies and volunteers, who usually face a tough, sometimes dangerous, mission. “Security issues make it harder for volunteers to reach dependent children and offer help, as armed drug dealers can anytime take revenge against aid agents who try take children off the streets.”(Understanding Islam, 2008)

Sexual Exploitation

Article 34. Governments should protect children from all forms of sexual exploitation and abuse.

The years of war and instability after the fall of Saddam Hussein’s regime in 2003 have provided abundant opportunities for criminal elements to prosper, including human traffickers. The country experienced a breakdown of law and order resulting in a rise in kidnapping and trafficking . War widows are rendered economically marginalized and vulnerable to exploitation (Abouzeid, 2009 (b)).

While sexual violence has accompanied warfare for millenniums and insecurity always provides opportunities for criminal elements to profit, what is happening in Iraq today reveals how far a once progressive country (relative to its neighbours) has regressed on the issue of women’s rights and how ferociously the seams of a traditional Arab society that values female virginity have been ripped apart. (Abouzeid, 2009).

A survey conducted by Women for Women International, an NGO, showed over 90% of Iraqi women were hopeful for their future in 2004 but by 2008 that number had decreased to 27% (Abouzeid, 2009 (b)).

Iraq at the moment  is a source and destination country for human-trafficking of men, women and children. Iraq has been host to an international presence from early 2003 to late 2011.

An overwhelming amount of evidence suggests that a link exists between trafficking and post-conflict regions according to the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).

Human rights groups, the International Organization of Migration (IOM), and agencies within the United Nations have reported that in and around these post-conflict regions, where there are typically long-term, international deployments there is also a documented rise in the number of trafficked women and girls. Trafficking, especially the enslavement of women and girls for forced prostitution follows market demand and, in post-conflict situations, that demand is often created by international peacekeepers(Lavender, 2012).

Almost one year after the so-called withdrawal of American military troops, the security situation in Baghdad has not improved. Families are living in fear because of a dramatic increase in the number of cases of child abduction.

These kidnappings have different aims. Some are meant to finance terrorist groups. But Iraqi children are also abducted for the very lucrative trafficking of human organs (Adriaensens, 2012).

Gruesome Facts regarding  Teenage Daughters

That underworld is ‘ a place where nefarious female pimps hold sway and where impoverished mothers sell their teenage daughters into a sex market that believes females who reach the age of 20 are too old to fetch a good price’ (Abouzeid, 2009).

One NGO reports that recruiters rape women and girls on film and blackmail them into prostitution or recruit them in prisons by posting bail and then forcing them into prostitution via debt bondage. Some women and children are pressured into prostitution by family members to escape desperate economic circumstances, to pay debts, or to resolve disputes between families.

NGOs report that these women are often prostituted in private residences, brothels, restaurants, and places of entertainment. Some Iraqi parents have reportedly collaborated with traffickers to leave children at the Iraqi side of the border with Syria with the expectation that traffickers will arrange forged documents for them to enter Syria and find employment in a nightclub. An Iraqi official revealed networks of women have been involved in the trafficking and sale of male and female children for the purposes of sexual exploitation(United States Department of State, 2012).

Violence used against prostituted women and girls is mainly targeted to the pregnant. Many reports state that they were aborted by kicks and beating. Women and girls who had an abortion were forced to work immediately. Some of the girls are victims of torture in case of gang- rape. Children of prostituted women are sold or raped by pedophile customers and are condemned to a vicious cycle of imprisonment because of  forced prostitution and thereafter driven back to prostitution. In a few cases some girls are even selling organs (Organization of Women’s Freedom in Iraq, 2010).

Crimes against Humanity: “How Much is a Child Worth ?”

In 2009, gangs operating within Iraq were offering between GBP 200 to 4,000 per child that were then sold internationally (Lavender, 2012).

Women between the ages of 15 to 22 years from Baghdad, Kirkuk, and Syria are sold to traffickers in Tikrit for the equivalent of $1,000-5,000 and then replaced or sold again every two or three months(United States Department of State, 2012).

The younger the girl, the more lucrative the profits—the highest demand is for girls under the age of 16. Traffickers reportedly sell girls as young as 11 and 12, for as much as $30,000, while older “used” girls and women can be bought for as little as $2,000. The traffickers are aided by sophisticated criminal networks that are able to forge documents and pay corrupt officials to remove impediments. In some cases, women and girls request to remain in detention centers even after a sentence is complete, fearful that their families will kill them (Human Rights Watch, 2010).

 Forced Marriage

Traffickers ferry their victims overseas illegally on forged passports or “legally” through forced marriages, sometimes abusing the Islamic tradition that allows a man to have four wives. A trafficker “will marry four, he will take them to Syria, it’s legal, and divorce them there, and he comes back and does it again. Similarly, the principle of temporary marriages, known as al-Mut’a in Shi’ite Islam and al-Misyar in Sunni Islam, has also been exploited to trade in women. The draft law does not address how victims are trafficked, avoiding the sensitive subject of the abuse of religious principles, but says it is an offense to transport people with the purpose of trading in them (Abouzeid, 2009 (b)).

Forced marriage of minors is a violation of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and forced marriage of minors constitutes a form of child abuse. Iraqi marriage law states that both parties must be over 18. However religious marriages are frequently granted to children. UNAMI has been asked to intervene in a number of cases of girls as young as 15 who have been taken, allegedly against their will, and subjected to forced marriages (UNAMI, 2012).

No Legal Recourse

Activists complain that corruption within the security forces is enabling traffickers to operate with impunity. Many traffickers have “very good ties with the police,” says Yanar Mohammed, who heads the Organization of Women’s Freedom in Iraq. Young women who have attempted to escape from brothels have sometimes been returned by police officers, she says. “It turns out the cops were loyal customers.” SaadFath Allah, director of the National Institute of Human Rights and the head of an inter-ministerial anti-trafficking committee, acknowledges that a law is only the first step. “We need to enhance the independence of the judiciary,” he says. “There are many criminals who have been released” (Abouzeid, 2009 (b)).

Numbers

Innocent girls who should still be enjoying childhood under the protection of their mothers were being incarcerated for the crime of prostitution, an ordeal in which they were modern-day slaves. The OWW reports  that minors girls among the prostituted females are up to 65%   (Organization of Women’s Freedom in Iraq, 2010).

Some Baghdad-based non-governmental organisations (NGOs) place the figure of human trafficking in the tens of thousands. According to the Organization of Women’s Freedom in Iraq, “an estimated 4,000 Iraqi women, one-fifth of whom are under 18, have disappeared in broad daylight since the 2003 invasion; many are believed to have been trafficked.”

An Integrated Regional Information Network (IRIN) article reported Iraqi officials and aid worker concerns over the alarming rate at which children were disappearing during the post-war chaos. Vice President of Iraqi Families Association (IFA), an NGO that registers cases of missing children, Omar Khalif, told IRIN that “as least five children are disappearing every week”. Further, the IFA has unconfirmed reports that suggest Iraqi children are being sold into European countries. Little was known of the buyers or of the ultimate purpose of the sale. One senior Iraqi police officer told the Guardian in 2009 that at least 15 Iraqi children were sold every month(Lavender, 2012).

Child Prostitution: Destination Countries

Destination countries were Syria, Jordan, Turkey, and European countries such as Switzerland, Ireland, UK, Portugal and Sweden (Lavender, 2012).

According to the Guardian, during negotiations with family members, the gang members prepared the paperwork, which included forging birth certificates, changing names and adding the child to the passport of the intermediary who is paid to take the child out of Iraq. Colonel FirazAbdallah, a member of the Iraqi police, indicated that gangs use intermediaries who pretend to work for non-governmental organisations. One trafficker told the Guardian that trafficking in Iraq was cheaper and easier than other countries given the willingness of underpaid government workers to help falsify documents for money. Abdallah stated that, “corruption in many departments of the government makes our job complicated because when those children come to the airport or the border, everything looks correct and it is hard for us to keep them inside the country without significant evidence that the child is being trafficked”  (Lavender, 2012).

The US State Department 2011 TIP report designates Iraq as a Tier 2 Watch List country. Iraq’s rating is due to the fact that the government did not fully comply with the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking. The government demonstrated poor law enforcement efforts addressing TIP. According to the “IOM 2011 Case Data on Human Trafficking: Global Figures and Trends”, the organisation assisted in 36 cases of human trafficking in Iraq and the IOM provided assistance to 65 cases in which Iraq was the destination country(Lavender, 2012).

When raising this issue with the British and U.S. authorities ,whose forces’ presence in Iraq were a contributing factor to the problem , ImanAbou-Atta, a clinical researcher also encountered resistance (Smith-Spark, 2011).

The government has done little to combat trafficking in girls and women: there have been no

successful prosecutions of criminals engaged in human trafficking, no comprehensive

program to tackle the problem, and negligible support for victims, as noted above(Human Rights Watch, 2010).

Women’s rights groups told Human Rights Watch that trafficked women (and victims of sexual violence) often find themselves in jail. The government provides no assistance to victims repatriated from abroad. Iraqi authorities prosecute and convict trafficking victims for unlawful acts committed as a result of being trafficked. Victims are also jailed for prostitution, while authorities ignore their abusers (Human Rights Watch, 2010).

Many children have been arrested by the Iraqi authorities on terrorism charges. More than 1,000 children were being held in Iraqi detention and reformatories at the end of 2008 and many of them may have been abused by security forces. Children are often held without proper care or legal representation. Because of the emphasis on confession in the Iraqi justice system, human rights groups are concerned about the level of intimidation or torture children are subjected to (Child victims of war, 2012) .

UNAMI has observed that children were frequently held in the same cells as adults, and where juvenile detention centres do exist, conditions were poor. During a visit to a juvenile detention facility in Kirkuk on 29 June, UNAMI noted that 22 children were crowded into two rooms, each with eight beds, without ventilation. None of the juvenile detainees had access to education. None of the prison staff had received training in dealing with juvenile offenders. On a subsequent visit in July, the management of the detention facility told UNAMI that they had repeatedly requested extra resources to improve conditions, but that these had not been forthcoming(UNAMI, 2011).

According to figures provided by the Ministry of Interior (MoI), Ministry of Defence (MoD), Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs (MoLSA), and the Ministry of Justice (MoJ), the total number of detainees, security internees and sentenced prisoners held by the Iraqi authorities -except for the KRG- remained steady: from 35,653 at the end of 2010 to 35,205 as of 31 December 2011. Of these 961 were women, and 1,345 were juveniles(UNAMI, 2011).

According to the MRM (The Monitoring and Reporting Mechanism) , the number of children detained under anti terrorism law is 322 (18 percent of the total number of children detained). However, this figure may not be comprehensive as it only reflects the numbers of children held in MoLSA run facilities, not those who may be detained in facilities run by the MoI and MoJ.

Children have also been victims of human rights abuses at the hands of the Iraqi justice system(UNAMI, 2012).

A number of accused or sentenced women with infant children suffer from having their children carry the burden of their punishment, watching their mothers and hearing stories that could make them ticking time bombs for unpromising future , as they are forced to live a life that can lead them to form  a wrong vision about life based on the reality of prison since they were born inside it, lacking any taste of freedom, as they were robbed of their freedom and humanity from an early age

(Hammurabi Human Rights Organization, 2012).

Since the invasion in 2003, the Anglo-American occupation forces and the Iraqi government grossly failed to fulfil their most basic duties towards the children of Iraq in accordance with the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), Resolution 25/ Session 44, November 1989.

Principles of the CRC emphasized the need to protect children’s rights’ to life and physical, mental, moral, and spiritual development in a safe environment.

Concluding Remarks

The Occupying powers bear full responsibility for the violations of these provisions and Conventions related to children. They should be held fully accountable for the harm they have inflicted upon the Iraqi children. They have deliberately changed the social fabric of the country, used ethnic cleansing to break up the unity of the country, destroyed water purification systems, health and educational facilities and indiscriminately bombed dense populated areas, leaving the children extremely vulnerable on all levels. Living in a country at war also causes mental disturbance to virtually all children, and acute anxiety and depression if not psychosis in a considerable number.

The Iraqi institutions and mechanisms that should ensure physical, social and legal protection for women, children and youth are dysfunctional and unreliable. As a result, the most vulnerable are exposed to exploitation and abuse, such as killing and maiming, kidnapping, gender based violence, human trafficking, recruitment and use by armed groups, child labour and deprivation of liberty (NGO coordination Iraq, 2010).

The international community and international Human Rights bodies also bear considerable responsibility for this alarming situation because they failed to adequately address the grave violations inflicted upon the young and vulnerable in the Iraqi society and failed to identify the real culprits.

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Lando, B. (2007, March 18). 4 Years Later: Dump Those Ungrateful, Vicious Iraqis. The Huffington Post. Retrieved from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/barry-lando/4-years-later-dump-those-_b_43718.html.

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Notes

By a narrow 213 – 211 margin, including all undemocratic Dems and 20 Republicans, House members passed a deplorable $867 billion farm bill – a measure only agribusiness, opponents of ecosanity, and anti-social justice advocates could love.

According to House Agriculture Committee chairman Rep. Mike Conway, a “razor-thin” margin was expected.

Senate members are expected to take up their version of the bill next week, a gentler measure, leaving food stamp benefits largely intact, compromise between the two bills likely coming. The current farm law expires on September 30.

House legislation flagrantly violates 8th Amendment protection against “cruel and unusual punishments,” depriving about two million needy Americans of food stamp eligibility by cutting over $20 billion from the program over the next decade.

Critics believe nearly 265,000 needly children could lose access to free school lunches under the House measure – for too many, their only daily hot meal.

More cuts are sure to come over the next 10 years, given a nation dedicated to force-fed neoliberal harshness, an agenda with bipartisan support.

Despite the close vote, the measure passed with no floor debate. It requires able-bodied adults aged 18-59 to work or participate in job training for 20 hours a week to qualify for food stamps, averaging around $450 a month for a family of four.

According to ranking Dem House Agriculture Committee member Rep. Collin Peterson, the bill fails to “do enough for the people it’s supposed to serve.”

“It still leaves farmers and ranchers vulnerable. It worsens hunger, and it fails rural communities.”

United Way Worldwide senior vice president Steve Taylor said

“(t)hey’re trying to find ways to cut back on people who have access to SNAP, and frankly they’re trying to do it by putting in new work requirements” – legislating harshness on needy people.

Environmentalists complained about new rules, undermining clean water standards.

A Sierra Club press release slammed what it called “a package that weakens the SNAP anti-hunger program and includes provisions undermining bedrock environmental safeguards for clean water, wildfire and forests.”

It rolls back Clean Water Act requirements, easing rules on pesticide use, along with provisions to enhance logging and mining in forests.

Lisa Arthur heads various Friends of the Earth initiatives, including its Health and Environment Program. She called the House bill “a massive handout to corporate agriculture…a disaster for people and the planet” – at the expense of ecosanity.

Center on Budget and Policy Priorities president Robert Greenstein blasted the House measure, saying it

“includes a sweeping proposal to impose harsh penalties on those who don’t prove within a limited time frame that they have worked or participated in work programs for enough hours each month or that they qualify for an exemption from the bill’s aggressive work requirements,” adding:

“Among those likely to lose food assistance are a considerable number of working people -including parents and older workers – who have low-wage jobs such as home health aides or cashiers and often face fluctuating hours and bouts of temporary unemployment that could put their SNAP benefits at risk.”

“In addition, substantial numbers of people with serious physical or mental health conditions, as well as many caregivers, may struggle either to meet the monthly work-hours requirement or to provide sufficient documentation to prove they qualify for an exemption -and, consequently, may be at risk of losing nutrition assistance.”

“While the requirements focus on adults, children, too, will be harmed, because when parents lose SNAP, there are fewer resources available for food for the family.”

“Going forward with policies that reduce food assistance to poor children flies in the face of research showing that SNAP not only reduces short-term hardship but has a positive effect on children’s long-term health and educational outcomes.”

U.S. policies are transforming America into a sinkhole of dystopian harshness, inequality and deprivation – serving privileged interests, egregiously harming the nation’s most vulnerable.

*

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

A great Israeli-German Jew passed away. Her death represents a significant loss to the Palestinian people’s struggle for justice, human rights, and self-determination. She and her late husband Mieciu, who died in 2015, stood for the other, the better Israel after they emigrated to Germany. They rejected colonialism, Israeli wars, Land theft, torture, apartheid, ethnocentric nationalism, chauvinism and countless violations of human rights and international law.

Felicia’s life and work were massively attacked both in Israel and in Germany because she campaigned for justice and equal rights and treatment for the Palestinian People. She was the first of her kind who defended so-called Palestinian “terrorists” in Israeli courts. She has had some successes, but before Israeli military courts, which are kangaroo courts in principle, she was unsuccessful. Such “defeats” can be considered successes for every honorable lawyer. Nor was she ever able to accept the racist-Zionist ideology that is so revered and defended in Israel and by Zionists in Germany.

Felicia’s commitment to justice and human rights has granted her several awards. In addition to the Alternative Nobel Prize, she was awarded the Federal Cross of Merit 1st class by the then German Federal President Horst Köhler. The ensuing smear and defamation campaign of the Zionist and pseudo-Jewish Israeli lobby is one of the worst ever initiated by the Zionist Lobby in Germany against a German-Jewish human rights lawyer. Some of these German and Israeli “men of honor” tried to force President Horst Köhler to revise his decision while threatening to return their Federal Cross of Merit. These extortion methods are today part of the standard repertoire of the Zionist Israeli lobby in the political opinion struggle in Germany.

Felicia Langer is highly respected and revered by the Palestinians like no other Israeli-German citizen. Only Yasser Arafat is more adored. Both the Palestinian Authority and the city of Tübingen, where she lived in exile,  should set up a memorial place for this great German-Israeli woman. Germany is rightly proud of its culture of remembrance, and Felicia Langer is an important one of them.

Until shortly before her death, we were in close telephone contact. The title of her last book came up during a telephone conversation. Felicia was also an excellent advisor before the publication of my book on the Human Rights of Palestinians when the international public was tranked of the so-called peace process, elaborated in 1993 by Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli diplomats in Oslo, and signed in the garden of the White House. The resulting reality could not have been crueler and more disastrous for the Palestinians. Felicia foresaw this.

Felicia Langer is one of the few outstanding Israeli-German personalities who have sacrificed themselves to the legitimate concerns of the Palestinian people to the last breath, and whose memory should remember by all three peoples. Their tireless commitment to Palestinian justice and human rights should always be considered an inspiration and a societal obligation to their political actions.

Felicia, Rest in Peace (R.I.P.)

*

Dr. Ludwig Watzal is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

An implicit coalition of corporate media, Democratic partisans and others loyal to the national security state are actively hostile to any agreement that would endanger the continuation of the 70-year-old Cold War between the United States and North Korea.

The hostility toward Donald Trump on the part of both corporate media (except for Fox News) and the Democratic Party establishment is obviously a factor in the negative response to the summit. Trump’s dysfunctional persona, extremist domestic strategy and attacks on the press had already created a hyper-adversarial political atmosphere that surrounds everything Trump says or does.

But media coverage of the Singapore summit shows that something much bigger and more sinister is now in play: a consensus among foreign policy and national security elites and their media allies that Trump’s pursuit of an agreement with Kim on denuclearization threatens to undo seventy years of U.S. military dominance in Northeast Asia.

Those elites are determined to resist the political-diplomatic thrust of the Trump administration in negotiating with Kim and have already begun to sound the alarm about the danger Trump poses to the U.S. power position. Not surprisingly Democrats in Congress are already aligning themselves with the national security elite on the issue.

The real concern of the opposition to Trump’s diplomacy, therefore, is no longer that he cannot succeed in getting an agreement with Kim on denuclearization but that he will succeed.

The elite media-security framing of the Trump-Kim summit in the initial week was to cast it as having failed to obtain anything concrete from Kim Jong-un, while giving up immensely valuable concessions to Kim. Almost without exception the line from journalists, pundits and national security elite alike compared the joint statement to the texts of previous agreements with North Korea and found that it was completely lacking in detail.

Ignoring Kim’s Concessions

Thus The Washington Post quoted a tweet by Richard Haas, chairman of the über-establishment Council on Foreign Relations, that the summit “changed nothing” but “makes it harder to keep sanctions in place, further reducing pressure on North Korea to reduce (much less give up) its nuclear weapons and missiles.”

The New York Times cited the criticism of former CIA official Bruce Klingner, now at the Heritage Foundation, that the joint statement failed to commit North Korea to do as much as promised in agreements negotiated in 1994 and 2005. And CNN reported that the Joint Declaration “did not appear to make any significant progress” in committing the North Koreans to complete denuclearization, citing the use of the word “reaffirmed” in the document, which it opined “highlighted the lack of fresh commitments.”

Those criticisms of the joint statement conveniently ignored the fact that Kim had already made the most significant concession he could have made in advance of detailed negotiations between the two states when he committed North Korea to ending the testing of both nuclear weapons and long-range missiles in April following meetings with then CIA Director Mike Pompeo earlier in the month. That commitment by Kim meant that North Korea was entering negotiations with the United States before it had achieved a credible threat to hit the United States with an ICBM armed with a nuclear weapon.

The fact that no mention of Kim’s centrally important concession can be found in any of the reports or commentaries on the summit underlines the scarcely hidden agenda at play. Mentioning that fact would have pointed to understandings that Pompeo had already reached with Kim and his envoy to Washington before the summit and were not reflected in the brief text. Pompeo actually confirmed this in remarks made in Detroit on June 18, which only Bloomberg news reported.

Furthermore, the trashing of the summit also employed the politically motivated trick of deliberately ignoring the vast difference between a joint statement of the first ever meeting between the two heads of state and past agreements on denuclearization reached after weeks or months of intensive negotiations.

What really alarmed and even outraged the media and their elite national security allies, however, was that Trump not only announced that he would suspend U.S.-South Korean joint exercises or “war games” as long as the North Koreans were negotiating in good faith on denuclearization, but even called the exercises “very provocative.”

One journalist and commentator after another, including CNN and the Times’ Nicholas Kristof, denounced that description as “adopting” his adversary’s “rhetoric” about the exercises. In a podcast with former National Security Council spokesperson Tommy Vietor, former NSC official Kelley Magsamen, now at the Democratic Party’s Center for American Progress, rather than acknowledging that a vital principle of diplomacy is to put oneself in the position of one’s opponent, charged that Trump had “internalized the language of our adversaries.”

The media and critics deploring Trump’s willingness to suspend the joint U.S.-South Korean war games have portrayed it as a betrayal of the security alliance with South Korea. But that claim merely dismisses the desires of South Korean President Moon and betrays ignorance of the history of U.S.-South Korean war games.

Been Called ‘Provocative’ Before

When Trump called the drills “provocative,” he was merely expressing the same view that some U.S. officials adopted as long ago as the mid-1980s. These officials also called the exercises “provocative,” according to a State Department official interviewed by historian Leon Sigal for his authoritative account of U.S. nuclear diplomacy with North Korea.

Donald Gregg, the U.S. Ambassador to South Korea from 1989 to 1993, observed in an interview with Sigal that the North Koreans mobilized their forces at great expense every time the drills, called “Team Spirit,” were held in the 1980s and early 1990s.

Former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, who was an Army general and chief of U.S. military intelligence in Korea in the early 1990s, later confirmed to Sigal that the North Koreans would “go nuts” during the annual Team Spirit exercises. Part of the reason for that extreme North Korean anxiety about the drills was that the United States routinely flew nuclear capable B-52s over South Korea as part of the exercises – a practice resumed in recent years after a long hiatus and no doubt reviving the trauma of the U.S. devastation of North Korea from 1950-53.

Ambassador Gregg had supported the idea of suspending the annual Team Spirit exercise in 1992 as part of a proposed effort to get North Korea to change its mind about wanting nuclear weapons. Furthermore the South Korean government itself formally announced in January 1992 that the Team Spirit exercises were being suspended in light of “progress” on North-South nuclear issues. Furthermore, the Clinton administration cancelled Team Spirit drills each year from 1994 to 1996 in an effort to demonstrate the U.S. seriousness in pursuing an agreement with North Korea for an end to its production of plutonium for nuclear weapons.

Trump leaving Singapore. (Official White House Photo by Joyce N. Boghosian)

The provocative character of the joint U.S.-South Korean military drills became even more pronounced after North Korea began testing nuclear weapons and then intercontinental ballistic missiles. In 2015, the U.S. and South Korea adopted a new war plan codenamed OPLAN 5015, which calls for surgical strikes on North Korea’s nuclear and missiles sites and command-and-control facilities, as well as “decapitation” raids targeting senior North Korean leaders, according to the South Korean Yonhap News Agency.

Although the U.S. Command in South Korea has always insisted that all joint exercises are defensive in nature, press reports said that the war plan, which could only be based on a first strike strategy, would be the basis of the publicly announced Ulchi Freedom Guardian war games scheduled for August 2017.

What the national security elite and their media allies are really upset about is the real possibility that Trump will succeed in negotiating a denuclearization deal with North Korea that includes a formal end to the Korean War.  That could complicate the Pentagon’s continuing strengthening of the U.S. military posture vis a vis China.

Fareed Zakaria, CNN’s establishment foreign policy pundit, recalled the Pentagon’s aim during the Clinton administration to maintain at least 100,000 U.S. troops in Northeast Asia, and worried that, if the U.S. military alliance with South Korea is deemphasized, the U.S. would “fall below that threshold.”

Ian Bremmer, the CBS News national security pundit, explained that Trump’s willingness to suspend military exercises means that “the United States is probably going to be a much more marginal player at the end of the day in this region.”

Magsamen suggested a similar concern about Trump weakening the alliance with South Korea in an interview with Vietor, commenting that

“a lot of us…see the North Korean challenge in a broader context vis a vis our adversaries, like China and Russia.”

These are early indications of a showdown between Trump and the elite alliance arrayed against him. Senate Democrats can be expected to push back against any agreement that portends possible withdrawal from South Korea, as indicated by the bill proposed by Senators Chris Murphy and Tammy Duckworth to forbid troops withdrawal without Pentagon approval.

If his opponents are dissatisfied with the agreement Trump negotiates, the Senate probably wouldn’t ratify a treaty to end the Korean War that Pyongyang would certainly demand. The most promising diplomatic development in East Asia in seven decades could thus be nullified by the shared interests of the loose coalition in preserving a status quo of tension and possible war.

*

Gareth Porter is an independent investigative journalist and winner of the 2012 Gellhorn Prize for journalism. He is the author of the newly published Manufactured Crisis: The Untold Story of the Iran Nuclear Scare.

Featured image is from the White House.

Featured image: Poor People’s Campaign of Michigan rally outside the Department of Treasury on June 11, 2018

Six weeks of rallies, mass demonstrations and civil disobedience concluded in Michigan on Monday June 18 when hundreds of participants in the Poor People’s Campaign (PPC) moved their events to the city of Detroit, the most populated municipality in the state.

This effort is part of a national mobilization to place emphasis on the plight of the growing numbers of impoverished people in the United States. 

Issues related to income inequality, environmental racism, state repression, union organizing among service employees, massive water shutoffs and contamination, the need for a moratorium on foreclosures and evictions, the struggle against imperialist war and militarism, among others, were the focus of discussions and protests. 

The first five weeks of the PPC of Michigan took place around the state capitol building in Lansing where a Republican right-wing dominated legislature and governor has enacted a myriad of reactionary laws which have overturned decades of guarantees for job security, pensions, organizing rights for unions, civil rights and local control of governments. Over the last decade, over 50 percent of the African American residents of the state have at some point lived under emergency management.

This emergency management system is designed to systematically disenfranchise municipalities with majority African American inhabitants. A bank-led executive is appointed with authority to essentially break contracts and overrule regulations adopted by the elected officials of the area.

Image on the right: Abayomi Azikiwe co-chairing a rally at the Poor People’s Campaign in Lansing, Michigan on June 11, 2018

Only the coercive payments on debt service, avaricious loans and bonds, which reinforce the capacity of finance capital to dictate the terms of urban life in the modern period, are the principal tasks of the emergency managers. These individuals had no experience whatsoever in administering public services and were beholden to no one except the multi-national corporations and banks.

Taking it to the Streets    

Perhaps the highlight of the PPC in Lansing was the character of the June 11 actions where members of D15, demanding a sharp hike in the minimum wage to $15 per hour, the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local One, Communications Workers of America (CWA), United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW), Lecturer’s Employee Organization (LEO), members of the UAW, joined with community activists from across Michigan for a rousing march and rally.

The June 11 action began with a lunch and pre-rally at a local area church. Participants then marched to the Department of Treasury building where another speak out was held. 

One of the speakers was Yvonne Jones of the Detroit Active and Retired Employees Association (DAREA), who represented the Moratorium NOW! Coalition in their effort to redirect hundreds of millions of dollars in Federal Hardest Hit Funds for the originally intended purpose of keeping working and poor people in homes. Lisa Franklin of Warrior on Wheels, a People Living with Disabilities advocacy group, drew attention to the failure of the state of Michigan and the U.S. to provide accessibility to all of its residents.

Other speaks were Aurora Harris of the LEO which has been in a protracted struggle for a contract providing a living wage and affordable healthcare benefits for University of Michigan at Dearborn instructors. Jennine Spencer, a homeowner and community organizer from the eastside of Detroit, briefly chronicled her ongoing efforts to maintain a home in light of exorbitant property tax rates and encroaching gentrification. 

The day of action ended after a one mile march to the headquarters of the Michigan State Housing Development Authority (MSHDA). Several demonstrators sat in outside the building while four members of the Moratorium NOW! Coalition went in to put forward the demand for the utilization of federal funds given to the state to save people’s homes. Several people were arrested and charged with blocking the entrance to the building. 

Over $300 million has been turned over to the Detroit Land Bank Authority (DLBA) which has used the funds to seize properties through the courts. Many of these homes have been razed as opposed to being rehabilitated for human habitation. 

The DLBA is the focus of an ongoing federal grand jury investigation for bid rigging involving demolition contracts. All the while the DLBA is continuing to operate in the same fashion totally disregarding the essential needs of the people of the city.

Officials from MSHDA maintained that they were legally unable to use the federal funds to save all homes that are facing the auction block. However, during the period of emergency management and bankruptcy in Detroit, the design for the funds was shifted dramatically towards what is called “blight removal.” Many in Detroit feel that this is just another manifestation of the forced ethnic cleansing of the more than 80 percent African American population. 

The last Michigan day of action was held in Detroit where hundreds took to the streets during business hours marching on the Detroit Water & Sewerage Department demanding an end to service terminations. Earlier in the year, the DWSD announced that 17,000 households and small businesses were in arrears and subject to shutoffs. 

After leaving the DWSD building, demonstrators walked to Campus Martius, the center of corporate control, and later occupied the area taking water out of the year-round running fountain (with 100 jets) in order to illustrate the waste of resources by the billionaires at the expense of the working class and poor. Later 23 people were arrested for blocking the entrance of Quicken and Loans headquarters owned by billionaire ruling class magnate of Detroit Dan Gilbert.  Later the Q-Line hybrid coaches were deliberately stalled by dozens of people going both north and south. 

Where Do We Go From Here?: Chaos or Community

This question was posed by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in his final book published in 1967. It was Dr. King and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) which proposed the PPC of 1968. 

Tragically Dr. King was struck down by an assassin’s bullet in Memphis on April 4, 1968 while he was in the city to support a sanitation workers’ strike which had paralyzed the municipality. Many believe that the highest echelons of the ruling class and the capitalist state were responsible for his death. 

Some five decades later the number of people living in poverty in the U.S. has actually increased although statistics indicate that the proportion of people living in immiserating circumstances has ostensibly been reduced. Nonetheless, the criteria for determining poverty require re-examination.  

Official figures indicate that the unemployment rate is at 3.8 percent. Yet the Labor Participate Rate (LPR) remains at only 62.7 percent of the eligible workforce. (Source)

According to an article published earlier this year in New York Magazine these statistics projecting the lowest official unemployment rate in more than a decade does not reflect the actual conditions facing working families. The writer Eric Levitz notes that households are swamped in debt with marginal prospects for significant income increases.

The reports emphasize that:

“Now, Deutsche Bank economist Torsten Slok has added two new, (profoundly) disconcerting data points to the pile: The percentage of families with more debt than savings is higher now than at any point since 1962, while the median American family’s net worth is lower than it’s been in nearly a quarter-century…. So, this is what a ‘good’ economy now looks like in the United States: shrinking household wealth; soaring middle-class debt; wage growth that can’t keep pace with the rising costs of housing, health care, and higher education; job growth concentrated in part-time positions; widespread retirement insecurity; and more wealth-less households than America has seen for 56 years.”

A panel discussion was held on June 21 during the Michigan Coalition for Human Rights (MCHR) Annual Meeting held in Oak Park, a suburb right outside Detroit. The three featured speakers were leaders within the PPC: Crystal Bernard, a youth organizer; Yexenia Vanegas, a Detroit school teacher; and Rev. Ed Rowe, Pastor Emeritus of Central United Methodist Church downtown. 

Rev. Edward Pinkney of Berrien County Michigan demonstrates alongside the Poor People’s Campaign in Detroit on June 18, 2018

The discussion centered on evaluating the success and weaknesses of the PPC in Michigan as well as nationally. All three panelists recognized the need to continue organizing around the major areas of concern within the PPC: environmental justice, racist repression, the elimination of poverty and gender oppression–demands which are often conveyed as requiring a “moral revival” in the U.S. 

Through interactions between the panelists and the audience it was suggested that the coalition built by the PPC in Michigan over the last few months consisting of fighting labor unions, housing activists, environmental justice organizations, those groups opposing imperialist war and militarism, cultural workers and progressive youth be strengthened and expanded. In addition, the civil disobedience activity which resulted in the arrests of approximately 100 people over a period of six weeks pre-figured the potential for larger efforts involving thousands and tens of thousands which could shutdown central cities at critical points of production, services and commerce.

Also the role of the corporate and government-controlled media outlets in their lack of coverage of the PPC reinforced existing notions of censorship and bias against those concerns impacting the working class and nationally oppressed. With specific reference to Detroit, Flint, Benton Harbor, Detroit, Highland Park and other cities, the existence of a movement aimed at addressing the plight of the poor contradicts the contrived narrative of the for-profit and purported publically-funded press agencies. 

This, of course, requires the development of deeper ties within distressed communities and population groups. Such an approach will ultimately lead to long-term solutions in the overall movements to transform the existing capitalist order towards full social equality, self-determination and economic justice.   

*

Abayomi Azikiwe is the editor of Pan-African News Wire. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

All images in this article are from the author. 

This past weekend, a taconite ship ran aground in Duluth Harbor, nearly crashing right into the Canal Park seawall. The name of this ill-fated ship? American Spirit.

The symbolism was hard to miss, for, the same week, the Lake Superior port city was to receive another patriotic vessel on an ill-plotted course through ever-shallower waters. Ostensibly in support of GOP congressional candidate Pete Stauber, Donald Trump will hold a campaign event in Duluth tonight. It is, in fact, an event in support of Donald Trump, who will happily tell everyone how great things are (very great!) and who they should thank (you get one guess).

Buffer the bluster. Here are a half-dozen reasons why Trump is more foe than friend to that region and its people.

Labor: Mines gave northern Minnesotans jobs, but it was unions that won wages to lift them out of poverty. The Trump administration is decidedly pro-CEO (see: his tax bill slashing the corporate income tax by 40 percent) and openly hostile to workers. In February 2017, Vice President Mike Pence met with Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker to plot taking union-killing “right-to-work” laws national. Last fall, Trump’s Department of Labor snuffed out a union-led board to advise the feds on necessary safety measures for workers in the field. Because in Trump’s America, the only thing that deserves safety is profit margins.

Environment: These days, the North Country’s outdoors employs far more people than its mines. Trump, the ultimate indoorsman, trusts scientific “input” from Fox News, the businessmen who golf his courses, and, as it turns out, from anyone who gives his daughter a house. After the election, the Chilean billionaire owner of Antofagasta mining group bought a $5.5 million house in Washington, D.C. and leased it to Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner. This spring, Trump’s Interior Department reinstated canceled leases for Twin Metals, Antofagasta’s proposed Minnesota copper-nickel mine. If acid backwash ruins the Boundary Waters, maybe Ivanka and Jared will show up with mops and sponges.

Canada: Our neighbors to the north stubbornly refuse to admit to a “trade deficit”… which Trump, in a private meeting with Republican donors, admitted he simply made up. (There’s actually a $2 billion surplus running the other way.) No matter; Trump wants to tax Canadian steel and aluminum and set off a tariff slap-fight. That’s especially bad news for Duluth, where about a third of port traffic is bound for Canada. Minnesota sends grain and taconite north, and in return, gets products Canada’s now threatening to tax right back. Among them: Canadian whiskey, including Fireball, Minnesota’s most-consumed hard liquor.

Steel: Trump’s trade war certainly looks like old-fashioned patriotic protectionism. (Though some of the steel we import from Canada comes from hundreds of millions’ worth of Minnesota iron exported to Canada; see how that works?) But be warned: The Trump Organization might not be first in line to buy American. Just a decade ago, Trump built a hotel in Las Vegas with Chinese steel, and outfitted another in Chicago with Chinese aluminum. The president’s cynical attempt to “save” American manufacturing is only necessary because financiers like him turned their backs on it to save money.

Opioid inaction: In St. Louis County, where the president’s visiting today, heroin and opioid overdose deaths more than doubled from 2011 to 2015, and most of the county’s 144 overdoses last year occurred in Duluth. Trump knows just what this crisis needs: a border wall, deportations, kicking people off Medicaid, and the death penalty for drug dealers, just a few of the ideas he floated in a rambling speech in March. Those, and “really great advertising,” which he swears would convince people never to try drugs in the first place. To Trump, addiction isn’t a public health crisis. It’s a marketing opportunity to prove “Just Say No” needed better posters.

The elite’s elite: Northern Minnesotans were supposed to like Trump because he shot them straight and wasn’t a “D.C. insider,” like Hillary Clinton. They got something different all right. Gone is the petty corruption inherent in bureaucracy. In its place is something humble, hard-working northern Minnesotans probably hate even more: Wall Street fat cats. His cabinet secretaries criss-cross the country in private jets and spend seven figures redecorating their offices. EPA Director Scott Pruitt hired his disgraced banker friend to turn “Superfund” environmental clean-up sites into a developers’ sweepstakes. Jared Kushner takes lunches with hedge fund billionaires, while Don Jr. and Ivanka strike business deals with China. Trump’s consumer “protection” board is standing up for payday lenders and Wall Street speculators. Meanwhile, the guy in charge keeps taking golf trips on the company credit card, only the “business” is the United States’ budget, and the golf course is usually one he owns.

Expect Trump to bring up any or all of the above topics in his speech in Duluth. And to lie about them, to brag about all he’s done, to tell these downtrodden people how lucky they are to have him. They need him as much as they need a ship stuck in the harbor.

The undersigned are appalled by the recent deaths in Gaza. At least 110 Palestinians have been killed and thousands injured by sniper fire and noxious gas used by the Israeli military. The recent violence takes place alongside ongoing land theft, destruction of olive groves, construction of Jewish-only roads, imprisonment without due process and a blockade of Gaza. During its 70-year history Israel has been as unjust towards Palestinians as the white-ruled apartheid state was to Black South Africans.

We are concerned that members of parliament would seek to strengthen relations with a country systematically violating Palestinian rights.

In particular, we are dismayed that NDP justice critic Murray Rankin and NDP defence critic Randall Garrison serve as executive members of the Canada-Israel Interparliamentary Group. NDP MPs Peter Julian and Gord Johns are also members of that organization. The Canada-Israel Interparliamentary Group promotes “greater friendship” between Canadian MPs and members of the Israeli Knesset and has organized events with other pro-Israel lobby organizations. 

It is wholly inconsistent with the avowed principles of the NDP for the party to be working for “greater friendship” with a country that is killing and maiming thousands of overwhelmingly non-violent protestors, many of them children, as well as journalists and doctors, while systematically violating international law and human rights standards with regard to all Palestinians. 

Accordingly, we call on NDP leader Jagmeet Singh, MPs Garrison, Rankin, Julian, and Johns, and the parliamentary caucus to immediately disassociate themselves from the Canada-Israel Interparliamentary Group. 

List of individuals and groups endorsing statement:

Roger Waters, co-founder Pink Floyd

Noam Chomsky, professor

Linda McQuaig, author, NDP candidate

Maher Arar, 2007 Time Magazine 100 most influential people in the world

Amir Khadir, Québec Solidaire, member National Assembly of Quebec

Sid Ryan, former president of the Ontario Federation of Labour, NDP member since 1981

Mike Palecek, President Canadian Union of Postal Workers

Chris Hedges, author

Steve Ashton, long-serving NDP member of the Manitoba legislature and cabinet minister

Monia Mazigh, academic, author and former NDP candidate

Jim Manly, former NDP MP 1980-88

Richard Falk, Professor of International Law, Emeritus, Princeton University

Norman Finkelstein, author

Antonia Zerbisias, CBC-TV and Toronto Star veteran journalist, NDP member

Medea Benjamin, co-founder CodePink

El Jones, activist, educator, journalist and poet

Gordon Laxer, Professor Emeritus University of Alberta, NDP member since 1963

Jean Swanson, author, Vancouver housing and poverty activist, NDP member

Murray Dobbin, journalist, broadcaster and author

Azeezah Kanji, (JD, LLM) legal analyst and writer

Stephen von Sychowski, President, Vancouver & District Labour Council

Mike Bocking, former Unifor Local 2000 president and federal NDP candidate in 2004, 2006 and 2008

Sheelah McLean, Co-founder of Idle No More, NDP member

Alain Deneault, author, Directeur de programme, Collège international de philosophie

Ramzy Baroud, editor Palestine Chronicle, author My Father Was a Freedom Fighter: Gaza’s Untold Story

Sana Hassainia, former NDP MP

Will Prosper, filmmaker and civil rights activist

Charles Demers, writer/comedian, NDP member

Rob Lyons, Former NDP Member of Saskatchewan Legislature (Regina Rosemont)

Saron Gebresellassi, Human Rights Lawyer and Activist

Clayton Thomas-Müller Stop-it-at-the-Source Campaigner – 350.org, NDP member Manitoba

Leon Rosselson, Songwriter & children’s author

Cy Gonick, former Manitoba NDP MLA and founding editor of Canadian Dimension

Propagandhi: Jord Samolesky, Chris Hannah, Todd Kowalski and Sulynn Hago

Andrea Harden, climate justice organizer and NDP member

Sam Gindin, Retired, Unifor Research Director and Retired, Packer Chair in Social Justice, York

Trevor Herriot, author and naturalist

Harsha Walia, activist and writer

Sandy Hudson, activist and writer

Ellen Woodsworth, writer, organizer and former Vancouver City councillor

Judi Rever, author

Candace Savage, author of two-dozen books, NDP member

Aziz Fall, president Centre Internationaliste Ryerson Fondation Aubin

Corey Balsam, National Coordinator, Independent Jewish Voices Canada

Gary Porter, FCPA, FCGA, CA, executive member Saanich Gulf Islands, NDP EDA

Sibel Epi Ataoğul, Labour and human rights lawyer and lecturer at the University of Montreal, founding member of the Association des juristes progressistes, former NDP member

Terry Engler, President I.L.W.U. Local 400

Hossein Fazeli, writter and film director, winner of 37 awards

Martin Duckworth, documentary film-maker, winner of le Prix du Québec 2015

Dara Culhane, Professor of Anthropology at Simon Fraser University, winner 2018 Weaver Tremblay award of the Canadian Association of Anthropology

Gary Kinsman, gay liberation and social justice activist, co-author of The Canadian War on Queers

Ernest Tate, former vice-president of CUPE, Local One

Jess MacKenzie, long time NDP activist

Herman Rosenfeld, retired Canadian Auto Workers national staff person, former NDP member

Mohammad Fadel, Associate Professor of Law University of Toronto Faculty of Law

Chris Huxley, Professor Emeritus, Trent University, long-time NDP member

Charlene Gannage, Associate Professor Emerita, University of Windsor, long-time NDP member

Samir Gandesha, Associate Prof and Director of the Institute for the Humanities, SFU

Reem Bahdi, Associate Professor of Law

Faisal Kutty, Lawyer and Professor of Law

Natalie Zemon Davis, Professor of History

Tyler Shipley, Professor of Culture, Society and Commerce, Humber College

Joseph G. Debanné, former Chair of the Middle East Discussion Group

Yavar Hameed, Human Rights Lawyer, Former NDP Member

Robert Massoud, Beit Zatoun

Faisal Bhabha, Associate Professor Osgoode Hall Law School, York University, NDP Member

Emily Carasco, Professor Emeritus

Martin Lukacs, writer

Jason Woods, Vice-President I.L.W.U. Local 400

Leslie Miller, retired Sociology professor  at the University of Calgary, NDP supporter

Suzanne Weiss, Palestinian rights activist and Holocaust survivor

John Riddell, author and editor, NDP member

John Orrett, President Thornhill NDP Federal Riding Association

Richard Fidler, writer, translator, Ontario Bar

Maria Páez Victor Chair, Canadian, Latin American and Caribbean Policy Centre

Marion Pollack, retired Canadian Union of Postal Workers representative, NDP donor

Marv Gandall, former journalist and trade unionist

Yves Engler, author, NDP member

Art Young, Palestine solidarity activist, Canadian political prisoner, Quebec 1970

Andrea Glickman, NDP member, Vancouver

Nick Fillmore, news editor and producer with the CBC for more than 20 years

Conrad Alexandrowicz, theatre artist, scholar, instructor at University of Victoria, NDP member

Nadia Abu-Zahra, Associate Professor, University of Ottawa, NDP donor and long-time member

David Rifat, Professor Emeritus, University of Toronto

Tim McCaskell, author, Queer Progress

Larry Hannant, writer, historian and NDP donor

Richard Sanders, researcher, writer, antiwar activist

Cara-Lee Malange, peace activist

Larry Wartels, born Jewish, NDP Member Victoria BC

Randy Janzen, College Instructor:  Peace and Justice Studies

Fred Jones, former president Dawson Teachers’ Union, NDP member

Ali Mallah, Federal NDP Candidate Election 2000, Former Vice President Ontario NDP

Grahame Russell, director Rights Action

Peter Eglin, Professor Emeritus of Sociology, Wilfrid Laurier University, long-time NDP member

Michael A. Lebowitz, Professor Emeritus of Economics, Simon Fraser University

Hassan Husseini, labour negotiator and activist, Member of Unifor and Labour for Palestine

John Price, Professor of History, University of Victoria, longtime NDP supporter

Greg AlboDepartment of Politics, York University, Centre for Social Justice

William S. Geimer, Professor of Law Emeritus, member of Vancouver Island Peace and Disarmament Network

Anthony Fenton, researcher PhD Candidate at York U

Arnold August, author

Steve Heeren, Professor, Convener, Palestine Study Group

Katherine Nastovski, Associate – Institute on Globalization and the Human Condition, McMaster University and Labour for Palestine

Evert Hoogers, Labour researcher, retired CUPW National Union Representative

David Bernans, union leader, NDP candidate and current NDP member

Eva Manly, retired filmmaker, activist, lifelong NDP, now Green

Robert Mahood, Family Physician, member of NDP Socialist Caucus

Kevin Neish, Mavi Marmara massacre survivor

Sid Shniad, Research Director, Telecommunications Workers Union (retired), Member, national steering committee, Independent Jewish Voices Canada

Ken Hiebert, Palestine solidarity activist and retired trade unionist

Chris Cook, Managing Editor and Broadcaster Pacific Free Press/Gorilla Radio

Howard Breen, Executive Director Urgent Climate and Ocean Rapid Response, Unifor 433

Tareq Ismael, professor

Kimball Cariou, editor of People’s Voice newspaper

Debbie Hubbard, Member of Amnesty International Kelowna, Palestine Study Group Vernon, NDP member

Mark Golden, professor emeritus of Classics, University of Winnipeg, longtime NDP donor and campaign worker

Kevin Skerrett, trade union researcher

Randy Caravaggio, Sculptor

Al Engler, retired trade unionist and long-time NDP member

Tsiporah Grignon, awakened citizen, Gabriola Island, BC

Mazin Qumsiyeh, director of the Palestine Museum of Natural History at the Palestine Institute of Biodiversity and Sustainability at Bethlehem University

Lia Tarachansky, Israeli-Canadian journalist and documentary filmmaker

Charlotte Kates, International Coordinator, Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network

Walid Chahal, Continuing Lecturer, Lakehead University; co-chair Diversity Thunder Bay, former NDP member

Phil Little, retired teacher from Ontario Ladysmith, B.C.

Taina Maki Chahal, Contract Lecturer, Lakehead University, former NDP member

Karen Rodman, Reverend, NDP member

Morgan McGuigan, ESL Teacher

Jean Rands, retired trade unionist and long-time NDP member
Joan Russow, Global Compliance Research Project

Laura Westra, Professor Emerita (Philosophy)

Jason Kunin, Toronto teacher and writer

Henry Evans-Tenbrinke, Human Rights, Labour and Pro Palestine activist

Julius Arscott Executive Board Member of OPSEU and member of NDP Socialist Caucus

Ken Stone, Hamilton Mountain NDP member for 35 years

Ian Angus, editor Climate & Capitalism

Erika Shaker, editor and researcher

Amy Miller, documentary filmmaker, NDP member

Alroy Fonseca, Federal NDP member

Bob Chandler, COPE 343 member, Toronto Danforth NDP member

Paul Tetrault, Cupe Staff Lawyer (retired), longtime NDP member

Eva Bartlett, activist and independent journalist who lived three years in Gaza

DimitriLascaris,lawyer, journalist and activist, NDP member

Kevin MacKay, author, professor at Mohawk College of Applied Arts and Technology, labour and co-op activist

Reuben Roth, Associate Professor, Labour Studies Program Laurentian University, NDP activist in Oshawa riding since 1984

Aminah Sheikh, union organizer, worked on numerous NDP campaigns

Eric Martin, professor of philosophy, Edouard-Montpetit CEGEP

Byron Rempel-Burkholder, member of Mennonite Church Manitoba working group on Palestine and Israel

Krishna Lalbiharie, Member Canada-Palestine Support Network, President St. Johns NDP Constituency (Manitoba)

Michael J. Carpenter, Postdoctoral fellow, University of Victoria

Mark Etkin, MD FRCPC

Ed Lehman, NDP member, Cupar, Saskatchewan

Bianca Mugyenyi, activist and author

Rana Bose, Engineer, author and playwright, NDP member NDG borough

Norman Nawrocki, Author, musician, actor, part-time faculty Concordia

Rachel Engler-Stringer, Associate Professor, Community Health and Epidemiology, University of Saskatchewan, NDP member

Joe Emersberger, Unifor member, writer

David Weller, retired teacher and IJV member

Eric Shragge, retired professor

Gary Engler retired union officer with Unifor Local 2000 in Vancouver, NDP member

Monira kitmitto, Canadian Palestinian activist and NDP member

David Kattenburg, science educator, web publisher and social activist

Stephen Ellis, lawyer and activist

Barry Weisleder, Chairperson NDP Socialist Caucus, delegate to most NDP federal and provincial conventions since 1971

David Heap,Associate Professor, UWO, human rights & peace advocate, NDP member

Avrum Rosner, Retired union president, son of Holocaust survivors, joined Manitoba NDP in 1969

Diane Field, PhD Candidate at University of Calgary

David Lethbridge, professor of psychology, retired

Ray Zimmermann mariner captain

Sharon Hazelwood: political musician, long-time NDP activist

Chris Black, lawyer, former NDP member

Hani A. Faris, Ph.D. Professor of Political science

Freda Knott, Raging Granny, NDP member, Independent Jewish Voices Victoria

Cory Greenlees, Victoria Peace Coalition

SL Rifat, Neuroepidemiologist

Geneviève Nevin, organizer Independent Jewish Voices Canada-Victoria, NDP activist and member

Gavin Fridell, Canada Research Chair in International Development, NDP member

Justin Podur, Associate Professor, York University

Rana Abdulla, CPA Palestinian Activist and fights for what’s right Human Rights Award Recipient 2014

Georgina Kirkman, member of Independent Jewish Voicesand Amnesty International, Victoria

Mostafa Henaway,organizer at Immigrant Workers Centre

Bruce Katz, organizer Palestinian and Jewish Unity, former NDP member

Malcolm Guy, filmmaker, Montréal

Jooneed Khan, writer, journalist, Human rights activist, former NDP member

Annette Lengyel, Human rights and social justice advocate, NDP member Calgary Nose Hill

Theresa Wolfwood, Barnard-Boecker Centre Foundation

Dan Freeman-Maloy, postdoctoral fellow, Université du Québec à Montréal

Sheryl Nestel, PhD, NDP member

Alan Sears, Professor, Ryerson University

David Camfield, labour activist and educator

Freda Guttman, Artist/Activist, member of Tadamon

Virginia Daniel, Victoria Raging Granny, CAIA member, NDP member

Judith Deutsch, psychoanalyst

Ron Dart, Department of Political Science/Philosophy/Religious Studies University of the Fraser Valley

Susan Clarke, non-partisan peace activist, Sooke BC

Kevin MacKay, former Campaigns Officer at Ontario Public Service Employees Union

Dru Oja Jay, co-founder of the Media Co-op, Friends of Public Services and Courage

Edwin E. Daniel, WWII veteran, scientist and peace activist

Antonio Artuso, activist, translator and interpreter – Communist Reconstruction Canada

Derrick O’Keefe, Vancouver-based organizer and editor with Ricochet Media

Henry Veltmeyer, professor Emeritus of Development Studies at Saint Mary’s University

Jerome Klassen, UMASS Boston, author of several books on Canadian foreign policy

Suha Jarrar, Policy Researcher at Al-Haq human rights organization in Ramallah, Palestine

Ismail Zayid M.D. President, Canada Palestine Association

William K. Carroll, Professor and Co-director of the Corporate Mapping Project Sociology Department University of Victoria

Mohammad Ali, the Socialist Vocalist, Artist

Yazan Khader, former member of Nova Scotia NDP Provincial Council

Andrew Mitrovica, writer and former executive assistant to NDP MPs Pauline Jewett and Simon de Jong

Groups:

Independent Jewish Voices Canada

Canada Palestine Support Network (CanPalNet)

Victoria Peace Coalition

NDP Socialist Caucus

Canadian BDS Coalition

Palestinian and Jewish Unity

Toronto BDS Action

United for Palestine Toronto/GTA

People For Peace London, Ontario

Socialist Action / Ligue pour l’Action socialiste

Palestine Solidarity Network – Edmonton

Coalition Against Israeli Apartheid Victoria

Mid-Islanders for Justice and Peace in the Middle East

Barnard-Boecker Centre Foundation

Canada Palestine Association

Canadian Peace Congress

Hundreds of thousands of unwanted immigrants, refugees and asylum seekers are arrested and detained under horrific conditions in America annually.

Trump escalated what he predecessors began. 

Mistreatment of unwanted aliens intensified after the Department of Homeland Security’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement arm (ICE) was established in 2003.

It conducts warrantless raids, targeting unwanted aliens for their nationality, ethnicity, race and/or religion – operating along America’s southern border, along with raiding neighborhoods, workplaces and other locations.

Operations are largely extrajudicial, targeted subjects confronted with shotguns and automatic weapons – terrorizing families, traumatizing children, pulling aliens from bed, rousting them from workplaces without explanation, horrifically treating them like criminals.

Unlawful warrantless searches and seizures are standard practice, homes stormed violently, many innocent victims harmed, constitutional protections violated.

US immigration courts hear dozens of cases simultaneously, ruling on them collectively, due process and judicial fairness denied.

Under Bush/Cheney and Obama, unwanted aliens were held under horrific conditions, with little access to legal council and no concern for their rights – in ICE processing centers, privately run facilities, and Intergovernmental Service Agreement Facilities – mostly state or county jails plus a small number in US Bureau of Prisons or other facilities.

According to the National Immigration Law Center (NILC)

“the nation’s immigrant detention system is broken to its core (and) reveals pervasive and extreme violations of the government’s own detention standards as well as fundamental violations of basic human rights and notions of dignity.”

Trump regime immigration policies exceed the harshness  of his predecessors.

On June 22, Time magazine reported a new horror story, saying

“(t)he US Navy is preparing plans to construct sprawling detention centers for tens of thousands of immigrants on remote bases in California, Alabama and Arizona, escalating the military’s task in implementing President Donald Trump’s ‘zero tolerance’ policy for people caught crossing the Southern border, according to a copy of a draft memo obtained by TIME.”

So-called detention centers for unwanted immigrants, refugees and asylum seekers are concentration camps by another name, detainees horrifically mistreated, children as brutally as adults.

America’s military is increasingly being used as an instrument of unwanted alien oppression – desperate people fleeing war zones or homeland repression treated like criminals.

The US navy intends building “temporary and austere” tent cities for around 120,000 unwanted aliens – in Alabama, California, Arizona, and elsewhere.

Trump’s new executive order calls for America’s war secretary to “take all legally available measures to provide (the Homeland Security secretary), upon request, any existing facilities available for the housing and care of alien families, and shall construct such facilities if necessary and consistent with law.”

“The Secretary, to the extent permitted by law, shall be responsible for reimbursement for the use of these facilities.”

The Pentagon is jointly involved with the HHS Office of Refugee Resettlement.

The Obama regime interned thousands of unwanted aliens under horrific conditions at military bases in California, Oklahoma and Texas.

Hardliners infesting the Trump regime apparently intend escalating what began years earlier.

ACLU attorney Carl Takei compared Trump’s internment camp policy to how Japanese American citizens were mistreated during WW II, calling the practice a “moral horror.”

He’s a Japanese American. His family members were incarcerated oppressively in a federal “internment camp” while his grandfather fought against Nazism in a US artillery unit in Europe, saying:

“(W)hile Kuichi (his grandfather) fought for the allies in Europe, my grandmother Bette waited for him in an American version of a concentration camp.”

Oppressive US history is again repeating!

*

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

Featured image is CC BY 2.0 / Kārlis Dambrāns / BMW i3 electric car.

In my recent report on the death toll in America’s post-9/11 wars, I estimated that about 2.4 million Iraqis have been killed as a result of the U.S. invasion and hostile military occupation of their country. But opinion polls in the United States and the United Kingdom have found that a majority of the public in both countries believe that no more than 10,000 Iraqis have been killed.

An important factor in the public’s failure to grasp the scale of the death toll in America’s post-9/11 wars is that the U.S. military has worked hard to convince the public that its weapons are now so “precise” that they can kill terrorists and other enemies without harming innocent civilians. A U.S. military spokesperson recently described the bombing of Raqqa in Syria as “one of the most precise air campaigns in military history,” even as journalists and human rights groups documented the total destruction of the city.

The dreadful paradox of “precision weapons” is that the more the media and the public are wrongly persuaded of the near-magical qualities of these weapons, the easier it is for U.S. military and civilian leaders to justify using them to destroy entire villages, towns and cities in country after country: Fallujah, Ramadi, and Mosul in Iraq; Sangin and Musa Qala in Afghanistan; Sirte in Libya; Kobane, and Raqqa in Syria.

An Imprecise History

The skillful use of disinformation about “precision” bombing has been essential to the development of aerial bombardment as a strategic weapon. In a World War II propaganda pamphlet titled the “Ultimate Weapon of Victory”, the US government hailed the B-17 bomber as “… the mightiest bomber ever built… equipped with the incredibly accurate Norden bomb sight, which hits a 25-foot circle from 20,000 feet.“

In reality, the U.K.’s 1941 Butt Report found that only five percent of British bombers were dropping their bombs within five miles of their targets, and that 49 percent of their bombs were falling in “open country.”

In the “Dehousing Paper,” the UK government’s chief scientific adviser argued that mass aerial bombardment of German cities to “dehouse” and break the morale of the civilian population would be more effective than “precision” bombing aimed at military targets. British leaders agreed, and adopted this new approach: “area” or “carpet” bombing, with the explicit strategic purpose of “dehousing” Germany’s civilian population.

The US soon adopted the same strategy against both Germany and Japan, and a US airman quoted in the postwar US Strategic Bombing Survey lampooned efforts at “precision” bombing as a “major assault on German agriculture.”

The destruction of North Korea by U.S.-led bombing and shelling in the Korean War was so total that US military leaders estimated that they’d killed20 percent of its population.

In the American bombing of Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia, the US dropped more bombs than all sides combined in the Second World War, with full scale use of horrific napalm and cluster bombs. The whole world recoiled from this mass slaughter, and even the US was chastened into scaling back its military ambitions for at least a decade.

The American War in Vietnam saw the introduction of the “laser-guided smart bomb,” but the Vietnamese soon learned that the smoke from a small fire or a burning tire was enough to confuse its guidance system.

“They’d go up, down, sideways, all over the place,” a GI told Douglas Valentine, the author of The Phoenix Program. “And people would smile and say, ‘There goes another smart bomb!’ So smart a gook with a match and an old tire can fuck it up.”

Kicking the Vietnam Syndrome

President Bush Senior hailed the First Gulf War as the moment that America “kicked the Vietnam syndrome once and for all.” Deceptive information about “precision” bombing played a critical role in revitalizing US militarism after defeat in Vietnam.

The US and its allies ruthlessly carpet-bombed Iraq, reducing it from what a UN report later called “a rather highly urbanized and mechanized society” to “a pre-industrial age nation.” But the Western media enthusiastically swallowed Pentagon briefings and broadcast round-the-clock bombsight footage of a handful of successful “precision” strikes as if they were representative of the entire campaign. Later reports revealed that only seven percent of the 88,500 tons of bombs and missiles devastating Iraq were “precision” weapons.

The US turned the bombing of Iraq into a marketing exercise for the US war industry, dispatching pilots and planes straight from Kuwait to the Paris Air Show. The next three years saw record US weapons exports, offsetting small reductions in US arms procurement after the end of the Cold War.

The myth of “precision” bombing that helped Bush and the Pentagon “kick the Vietnam syndrome” was so successful that it has become a template for the Pentagon’s management of news in subsequent US bombing campaigns. It also gave us the disturbing euphemism “collateral damage” to indicate civilians killed by errant bombs.

The grotesque idea that dropping tens of thousands of bombs and missiles on another country can fulfill the “responsibility to protect” its people, or serve as a “humanitarian intervention” to save people from a dictator, has become an unquestioned premise of America’s illegal and interventionist foreign policy. In reality, the intractable violence and chaos unleashed by U.S.-backed wars nearly always dwarfs the smaller-scale violence used to justify them.

‘Shock and Awe’

Image on the right: At the start of the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, President George W. Bush ordered the U.S. military to conduct a devastating aerial assault on Baghdad, known as “shock and awe.” (Source: Consortiumnews)

As the US and UK launched their “Shock and Awe” attack on Iraq in 2003, Rob Hewson, the editor of Jane’s Air-Launched Weapons, estimated about 20-25 percent of the US and UK’s “precision” weapons were missing their targets in Iraq, noting that this was a significant improvement over the 1999 bombing of Yugoslavia, when 30-40 percent were off-target. “There’s a significant gap between 100 percent and reality,” Hewson said. “And the more you drop, the greater your chances of a catastrophic failure.”

Since World War II, the US Air Force has loosened its definition of “accuracy” from 25 feet to 10 meters (39 feet), but that is still less than the blast radius of even its smallest 500 lb. bombs. So the impression that these weapons can be used to surgically “zap” a single house or small building in an urban area without inflicting casualties and deaths throughout the surrounding area is certainly contrived.

“Precision” weapons comprised about two thirds of the 29,200 weapons aimed at the armed forces, people and infrastructure of Iraq in 2003. But the combination of 10,000 “dumb” bombs and 4,000 to 5,000 “smart” bombs and missiles missing their targets meant that about half of “Shock and Awe’s” weapons were as indiscriminate as the carpet bombing of previous wars. Saudi Arabia and Turkey asked the US to stop firing cruise missiles through their territory after some went so far off-target that they struck their territory. Three also hit Iran.

“In a war that’s being fought for the benefit of the Iraqi people, you can’t afford to kill any of them,” a puzzled Hewson said. “But you can’t drop bombs and not kill people. There’s a real dichotomy in all of this.”

‘Precision’ Bombing Today

Since Barack Obama started the bombing of Iraq and Syria in 2014 more than 107,000 bombs and missiles have been launched. US officials claim only a few hundred civilians have been killed. The British government persists in the utterly fantastic claim that none of its 3,700 bombs have killed any civilians at all.

Former Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari, a Kurd from Mosul, told Patrick Cockburn of Britain’s Independent newspaper that he’d seen Kurdish military intelligence reports that US airstrikes and US, French and Iraqi artillery had killed at least 40,000 civilians in his hometown, with many more bodies still buried in the rubble. Almost a year later, this remains the only remotely realistic official estimate of the civilian death toll in Mosul. But no other mainstream Western media have followed up on it.

The reality of our wars is hidden in plain sight, in endless photos and videos of what the weapons our tax dollars pay for really do to people and their homes in America’s war zones. The Pentagon and the corporate media may suppress the evidence, but the mass death and destruction of aerial bombardment are real, as the millions of people living through it or reliving it in their nightmares know only too well.

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Nicolas J. S. Davies is the author of Blood On Our Hands: the American Invasion and Destruction of Iraq. He also wrote the chapter on “Obama at War” in Grading the 44th President: a Report Card on Barack Obama’s First Term as a Progressive Leader. An edited version of this originally appeared on Consortium News.

The world transformed and nobody in the West noticed. India and Pakistan have joined the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. The 17 year-old body since its founding on June 15, 2001 has quietly established itself as the main alliance and grouping of nations across Eurasia. Now it has expanded from six nations to eight, and the two new members are the giant nuclear-armed regional powers of South Asia, India, with a population of 1.324 billion and Pakistan, with 193.2 million people (both in 2016).

In other words, the combined population of the SCO powers or already well over 1.5 billion has virtually doubled at a single stroke.

The long-term global consequences of this development are enormous. It is likely to prove the single most important factor insuring peace and removing the threat of nuclear war over South Asia and from 20 percent of the human race. It now raises the total population of the world in the eight SCO nations to 40 percent, including one of the two most powerful thermonuclear armed nations (Russia) and three other nuclear powers (China, India and Pakistan).

This development is a diplomatic triumph especially for Moscow. Russia has been seeking for decades to ease its longtime close strategic ally India into the SCO umbrella. This vision was clearly articulated by one of Russia’s greatest strategic minds of the 20th century, former Premier and Foreign Minister Yevgeny Primakov, who died in 2015. In the past China quietly but steadfastly blocked the India’s accession, but with Pakistan, China’s ally joining at the same time, the influence of Beijing and Moscow is harmonized.

The move can only boost Russia’s already leading role in the diplomacy and national security of the Asian continent. For both Beijing and Delhi, the road for good relations with each other and the resolution of issues such as sharing the water resources of the Himalayas and investing in the economic development of Africa now runs through Moscow. President Vladimir Putin is ideally placed to be the regular interlocutor between the two giant nations of Asia.

The move also must be seen as a most significant reaction by India to the increasing volatility and unpredictability of the United States in the global arena. In Washington and Western Europe, it is fashionable and indeed reflexively inevitable that this is entirely blamed on President Donald Trump.

But in reality this alarming trend goes back at least to the bombing of Kosovo by the United States and its NATO allies in 1998, defying the lack of sanction in international law for any such action at the time because other key members of the United Nations Security Council opposed it.

Since then, under four successive presidents, the US appetite for unpredictable military interventions around the world – usually bungled and open-ended – has inflicted suffering and instability on a wide range of nations, primarily in the Middle East (Iraq, Syria, Libya and Yemen) but also in Eurasia (Ukraine) and South Asia (Afghanistan).

The accession of both India and Pakistan to the SCO is also a stunning repudiation of the United States.

The US has been Pakistan’s main strategic ally and protector over the past more than 70 years since it achieved independence (Dean Acheson, secretary of state through the 1949-53 Truman administration was notorious for his racist contempt for all Indians, as well as for his anti-Semitism and hatred of the Irish).

US-Pakistan relations have steadily deteriorated even since the United States charged into Afghanistan in November 2001, but through it all, US policymakers have always taken for granted that Islamabad at the end of the day would “stay on the reservation” and ultimately dance to their tune.

The United States has courted India for 17 years since President Bill Clinton’s state visit in 2000, which I covered in his press party. Current Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi addressed a Joint Session of Congress in 2016, the ultimate accolade of approval by the US political establishment for any foreign leader.

US policymakers and pundits have endlessly pontificated that India, as an English speaking democracy would become America‘s ideological and strategic partner in opposing the inevitable rise of China on the world stage. It turned out to be a fantasy.

During the era of the Cold War, the “loss” of any nation of the size and standing of India or Pakistan to a rival or just independent ideological camp and security grouping would have provoked waves of shock, hurt, rage and even openly expressed fear in the US media.

However, what we have seen following this latest epochal development is far more extraordinary. The decisions by Delhi and Islamabad have not been praised, condemned or even acknowledged in the mainstream of US political and strategic debate. They have just been entirely ignored. To see the leaders and opinion-shapers of a major superpower that still imagines it is the dominant hyper-power conduct its affairs in this way is potentially worrying and alarming.

The reality is that we live in a multipolar world – and that we have clearly done so at least since 2001. However, this obvious truth will continue to be denied in Washington, London and Paris in flat defiance of the abundantly clear facts.

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During his 24 years as a senior foreign correspondent for The Washington Times and United Press International, Martin Sieff reported from more than 70 nations and covered 12 wars. He has specialized in US and global economic issues.

Featured image is from the author.

Early in the morning of June 12, 2018, the world watched Kim Jong-un, supreme leader of North Korea and Donald Trump, president of the United States shaking hands in front of the main entrance of Hotel Capella in Singapore.

It was a hand-shake of the century. 

And the world was puzzled. 

After all, only a few months ago, they were exchanging not-so- friendly remarks on each other and, now, they shook hands as if they were friends who met again after long separation.

How is this possible? 

We must remember that the global cold war between the U.S.-led world and the Soviet-led part of the world lasted for forty years from 1950 to 1990, while the bilateral cold war between North Korea and the U.S.- South Korea alliance lasted already 28 years and may last longer. Why?

This paper argues that the duration of the cold war on the Korean peninsula could depend on two factors: the logical behaviour of the players and unexpected historical opportunities. 

Logical Behaviour of Pyongyang, Seoul and Washington

There are three players directly involved in the dynamics of the Korean nuclear crisis, namely North Korea, the U.S. and South Korea. 

The duration of the cold war depends on each player’s evaluation of the net benefits (benefit over cost) of the cold war. 

If the given player thinks that the cold war brings net benefit, it would want to prolong the cold war. On the other hand, if the cold war brings net loss, the player would try to end it. 

However, the actual duration of the cold war depends essentially on the net benefit of the dominating player. And the dominating player is obviously Washington, although the conservative government of South Korea has played the role of supporting Washington’s game.

So, I am saying that the cold war in the Korean peninsula which lasted 28 years is due to the fact it had been beneficial to Washington and the conservatives in South Korea.

This paper makes two arguments. 

First, the cold war lasted so long, because it has been beneficial to Washington and South Korean conservatives.  

Second, the success of the Singapore Agreement depends on how Washington and the South Korean conservatives evaluate the peace in the Korean peninsula in terms of cost-benefit deriving from the Agreement.

North Korea

As far as North Korea is concerned, the cold war has been a nightmare. More than 20 % of its population, all its factories, dwellings, roads, bridges and all other infrastructure facilities were destroyed by American B-29 bombers during the Korean war.(Professor Michel Chossudovsky: North Korea and Danger of Nuclear War. The Demilitarization of the Korean Peninsula, Toward Peace Agenda, Global Research, April 17, 2018)

During the global cold war period, 1950-1990, North Korea was under constant American nuclear threat, but during this period, it could rely on the Soviet Union for its security.

But, after the collapse of the Soviet Union in1989, Pyongyang stood alone to face the American nuclear attack threats supported by the South Korean army. This has forced North Korea to try to develop nuclear weapons to defend itself from the attack.

In the mean time, from 1990 to 2018, Pyongyang had to live under fear, insecurity and poverty because of annual U.S.-South Korean military exercises and, in particular, economic, financial and personal sanctions.

In short, the cold war, whether it was the global or bilateral, has been and is unbearable cost imposed on Pyongyang

If there were any benefits at all of the cold war for North Korea, they could be the strong social solidarity and lasting bond between the leader and the people, which resulted from the natural instinct of uniting to cope with the major common danger.

Thus, the cold war has been nothing but pure suffering and cost as far as North Korea is concerned.

In one word, because of this high cost, North Korea has been longing for dialogues and peace with Seoul-Washington; it has been dreaming for becoming a “normal nation” where the ordinary people can lead “normal life”..

North Korean efforts to find peace with Washington and Seoul produced the Frame Agreement in 1994 and the September 19 Agreement of 2005, but both ended up as being an illusion; Washington did not fully cooperate.

Having lost the chances of dialogue with Washington, Pyongyang has found it necessary to go for nuclear deterrent. 

North Korea has made clear that the development of nuclear program was for purely defensive purpose and not for offensive intention.

The dying message of Kim Il-sung, founder of North Korea, to his son, Kim Jong-il was to avoid nuclear program.

Kim Jong-il told Japanese Prime Minister Koizumi during a meeting in Pyongyang on May 22, 2004 that North Korea was forced to have nuclear weapons to defend against American threat.

“Nobody can keep silent, if threatened by someone with a stick. We come to have nuclear weapons for the sake of the right of existence. If our existence is secured, nuclear weapons will not be necessary any more”.

The North Korean foreign minister made the same statement on October 11, 2006, two days after Pyongyang’s first nuclear test.

“The nuclear test was entirely attributable to U.S. nuclear threat, sanctions and pressure. North Korea was compelled to substantially improve its possession of nuclear arms to protect its sovereignty”.

Kim Jong-un has been repeating the same appeal in his recent new-year speeches.

The Conservatives of South Korea

The bilateral cold war was very beneficial to the conservatives of South Korea

The conservatives ruled South Korea for 60years (1947-1987 and 2008-2017) out of its 70-year post-Pacific War era. (Professor Joseph H. Chung: Denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula: A Blessing for South Korean People, Global Research June 5, 2018)

The conservatives in South Korea benefited from the cold war in two main ways. 

First, they won major elections including presidential elections owing to the environment of fear of North Korean attacks often artificially fabricated for election purposes. In South Korea, this phenomenon is known as “the power of Northern Wind”. 

Second, the North-South friction created by the cold war has meant huge amounts of imports of American military equipment; Seoul spends lately almost US $10 billion a year. It is a well know fact that the transaction of military equipment can easily generate bribes, illegal kickbacks and other means of corruption because of the legal secrecy of military spending. 

The liberal progressive government of Moon Jae-in is now investigating so called the “Corruption of National Defence Industry” (bang-san-bi-ri)

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

As far as the conservatives of South Korea are concerned, the cold war has been very beneficial. Hence, they would not welcome the current peace process; it is possible that they would not welcome the Singapore Statement signed by Kim Jong-un and Donald Trump.

The U.S.

The bilateral cold war in the Korean peninsula has been even more beneficial to the U.S. than what it has been for the South Korean conservatives. 

The U.S. has been enjoying the following types of benefits: provision of means of China surveillance and containment strategy, sale of expensive American military equipment and even possible benefits coming from corruption related to the export of American weapons to South Korea. 

Washington keeps no less than 27,500 GIs in South Korea. Washington argues that it is necessary to deploy them in South Korea in order to protect South Korea from attacks from the North. 

True, this argument could have some sense during the global cold war, but since the 1990s, North Korea had neither the intention of making total war with the South nor the capacity to do so.

Besides, South Korea can protect itself from the North Korean aggression as long as Pyongyang does not use nuclear weapons. And Pyongyang would never use such dirty bombs, because if it does so, it will be its funeral.

Furthermore, we should remember one thing; South Korea spends each year no less than US $40 billion for national defence as against US $ 4 billion by North Korea. And, this gap has been cumulating for decades.

The more important reason for deploying the impressive number of American soldiers with awesome fire power in South Korea is the surveillance and the containment of China. 

One of the most persistent elements of Washington’s foreign policy has been the prevention of the emergence of countries capable of challenging the absolute supremacy of the U.S. 

Washington’s vision of world order has been always the uni-polar order; it has never accepted a multi-polar order. 

One thing certain is that the cold war in the Korean peninsula has provided important benefit of strengthening Washington’s capacity to prevent China from becoming equal to the U.S. This is, perhaps, the most important benefit as far as Uncle Sam is concerned.

The cold war in the Korean peninsula has surely provided good reasons to inflate the national defence budget of the U.S.

It is not easy to know how bad the corruption related to the transactions of weapons is in Washington, but, in the case of South Korea, it could generate billions of dollars through corrupted weapon transactions.

The corrupted money is shared by members of the oligarchy composed of politicians, financiers, military leaders, weapon producers and even research institutes

It is quite possible that a similar situation is found in the United States.

In short, the Korean cold war could has given triple benefits to Washington including the strategic means of anti-China policy, the expansion of the national defence budget and enrichment of the oligarchy.

On the other hand, the cold war involves some cost which Washington must pay; the cost includes the cost of keeping GIs in South Korea and that of annual joint military drills.

However, one thing certain is that the benefit which the U.S. gets from the Korean cold war must be greater than the cost, much greater, perhaps.

The implication is obvious; hardliners in Washington have no interest to end the cold war.

In fact, Washington’s North Korean policy has been one of maintaining the cold war. In other words, the logical North Korean policy of Washington would be one of intensifying the North-South tension.

Now, the North-South tension has been kept and intensified through the following means.

First, North Korea is demonized through various means including the accusation for the violation of human right, government’s failure of feeding its people, lack of freedom of speech and much publicized open execution of political dissidents. 

Second, annual Washington-Seoul joint military drills forced Pyongyang to arms itself; it is a sure way of aggravating the North-South friction and animosity

Third, the U.S. often cancelled agreements already signed with North Korea. 

This happened in 1994 and 2005. 

In 1994, the U.S. led-KEDO (Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization) failed to provide aid for the construction of Light Water reactors; the U.S. failed to supply promised oil in return of Pyongyang’s abandoning its nuclear programs. 

In 2005, alleged money laundry of US$25 million deposited by Pyongyang at the Banco Delta Asia in Macao was one of the excuses to kill the agreement of September 19 of 2005.

This tactic has gravely reduced Pyongyang’s trust in Washington’s integrity and North Korea felt the need to develop effective means to defend itself. 

Fourth, the series of UN sanctions, in addition to Washington’s own, against North Korea have been the most severe punishment of a sovereign people. 

In fact, it is hard to understand how North Korean people have survived under such suffering; it is a mystery.

These sanctions have dangerously intensified the cold war in the Korean peninsula.

Fifth, another regular menu of Washington’s anti-North Korea propaganda is the theory that North Korea is a threat to the U.S. and the East Asian region.

There is something wrong in this doctrine.

No country in the East Asia region has reported being threatened by North Korea. 

What is more important is that North Korea never says that it would attack the U.S. territory; it says that it would attack the U.S., if, only if the U.S. attacks North Korea first. 

In other words, it would be the American attack against North Korea that would make Pyongyang to attack the American territory. 

Thus, the real threat against the American territory comes from Washington not from Pyongyang.

Let us assume for the sake of argument that North Korea attacks the U.S. territory. 

But, let us be honest about it. The U.S. surely has the capacity to destroy Kim Jong-un’s ICBMs carrying nuclear warhead, before they hit the U.S. territory. 

If not, we have to ask what happened to US$700 billion allocated each tear to national defence. 

All these tactics and strategies have one objective; it is to perpetuate the cold war in the Korean peninsula so that the presence of U.S troops in South Korea can be justified and the oligarchy can continue to have their benefits.

The Kim-Trump Summit: Unexpected Historical Opportunities

The ultimate objective of this summit is to denuclearize the Korean peninsula and install lasting peace in the Korean peninsula.

But, this is against the traditional Washington’s North Korean policy!

If it is so, how does the Singapore summit become possible?

I think that the following factors are responsible for it.

First, for Washington, the value of U.S. friendly North Korea could be greater than hostile North Korea. Here, Trump might have thought that, as the Beijing-Washington rivalry is getting worse, Washington-friendly North Korea can be used as an element of the anti-China policy.

Second, Washington had been telling American people for so long about the danger of North Korea; the launching of Hwasung-15 on November 29, 2018 might have really scared them so much so that Trump had to do something; he had to choose between war and peace. Trump has wisely chosen peace, so it seems.

Third, the impeachment of Park Geun-hye and the birth of the liberal progressive government of Moon Jae-in in South Korea made it more difficult for the hawks in Washington to think of attacking Pyongyang. 

Moon said unequivocally that he would never tolerate another war in the Korean peninsula. U.S. attack of North Korea could mean the end of Seoul-Washington alliance and this would weaken the efficiency of Uncle Sam’s anti-China policy.

If Park Geun-hye were sitting in the Blue House at the time of the launching of Hwasung-15, Washington – Seoul could have made the Pyongyang’s nose bleed.

Fourth, three strong global leaders made simultaneous historic appearance. They are Kim Jong-un, Moon Jae-in and Donald Trump. These leaders have shared the same vision of peace for the Korean peninsula, may be, for different reasons

Fifth, the PyungChang Olympics and other events have provided a extraordinary diplomatic stages where the three leaders could play their given role.  

Let me say something about the character of the three leaders and their performance on the timely political and diplomatic stages.

Kim Jong-un was born into the royal family of Kim dynasty, but owing to his mother’s wisdom, he was educated as an ordinary child. During his stay in Swiss, he was presented as the son of a diplomat and treated as such. 

This has led him to see the world through the eyes of ordinary people and identify himself to the values cherished by the ordinary people including freedom, justice and equality. This might have led him to undertake the transformation of the North Korean society into a “normal society”. 

This is why he wanted to go from “Byungjin” (simultaneous development of nuclear defence and economic development) to the priority given to economic development.

It goes without saying that, to do so, North Korea must be open to the outside world and try dialogues with Washington.

Coming to Trump, he is very different from other American presidents. 

First, he is not a trained politician; he may have different perception of the success or the failure of government policies. He may value more visible and tangible benefits of American foreign policies rather than Washington’s international influence or prestige

It is possible that he has little political debt; he is relatively free to conceive and apply policies without being constrained by established vested interest groups.

This may have allowed him to envisage even foreign policy which is very different from previous ones.

Second, the success of denuclearization of the Korean peninsula may allow him to improve his image as bold American president.

Third, if the peace process is successful, he can be proud himself as being someone who has written the last pages of the cold war

Finally, he is a very autonomous man; he decides and he goes “My Way”. This might have allowed him to go against Bolton-Pence doctrine of Libya solution of Korean nuclear crisis.

Moon Jae-in is one of the rare breeds of South Korean politicians. 

He has been always a fighter for social justice; he has a very strong root in North Korea; he is one of the most convincing nationalist.

He believes that the reunification of the two Koreas is the unique way of ensuring the survival and sustained development of the Korean peninsula in the Sino-U.S. Thucydides trap. 

Above all, Kim Jong-un trusts Moon, who was the chief of cabinet for President Rho Moo-hyun‘s government during the period, 2003-2008. 

President Rho is the most popular South Korean political leader in North Korea.

It just happened that these three stars emerged almost simultaneously as key leaders who could play decisive role for the solution of the 28-year-old Korean cold war.

The PyungChang Olympics came and provided a political and diplomatic stage on which the three stars could play their respective role.

The performance of the three stars on the stage has produced the following results. 

First, Trump made it clear, through his vice-president, that a complete denuclearization is the ultimate bottom line of peace talk. 

This might have calmed the hardliners in the U.S. and American people.

Second, Kim Jong-un was successful in showing- through the remarkable performance of his singers and dancers- that North Koreans were not all demons; they were humans like all of us. 

This might have given the world the impression that one can have logical and sensible conversation with North Koreans.

Third, Moon Jae-in worked very hard to prove that he could speak both Pyongyang language and Washington language. 

This might have facilitated the Washington-Pyongyang dialogue.

Another event came along. 

On the 27th of April 2018, Kim and Moon shook hands; this handshake shook the world.

Kim’s trust in Moon would have made Kim to promise complete denuclearization of North Korea, of course, under some conditions.

One more event came along. On May 26, 2018, Moon Jae-in met with Kim Jong-un in Panmunjom to confirm once again Pyongyang’s commitment to complete denuclearization.

Moon might have told Trump, before the Singapore summit, about Kim’s firm commitment to complete denuclearization.

This could have led Trump to change his mind and go to Singapore. 

Remember that Trump cancelled the Singapore summit on June 24. 

Thus, the way to the Singapore summit was open.

So, Kim and Trump shook hands early in the morning of June 12, 2018 and, in the afternoon, the two signed a joint statement; Trump said the meeting was big success.  

And each of the three stars did get rewards.

Trump might have done something nobody has ever done. He may have closed the last pages of the cold war history. The world hopes so

He may get the Peace Nobel along with Kim Jong-un and Moon Jae-in; he may get even some good results at the mid-term election in coming November.

Kim Jong-un, became a respectable global leader; he made it sure that North Korea could become a peaceful country; the summit might have tightened his position as absolute leader in Pyongyang.

Above all, he has become a respectable and reliable global leader and diplomat partly owing to Trump’s very positive remarks about him.

As for Moon Jae-in, the Singapore drama made him a very tall man; he got precious praise from Bill Clinton, former president of the U.S., as respectable world leader (Yonhap News, June 8). 

He made both Kim and Trump to rely on him for honest and trustworthy communication between Pyongyang and Washington; this is vital for the successful denuclearization and the assurance of a bright future for the people living in north of the DMZ. 

He surely increased the probability of the reunification of Koreas.

Here we are. We are all excited about the outcome of the Singapore handshake. 

But will the peace process be successful?

Already, experts not only in the U.S. but also, especially, the conservative experts in South Korea are critical of the Kim-Trump summit in general and their joint statement, in particular. 

The most widespread beef is about the absence of CVID (complete verifiable irreversible denuclearization) in the joint statement. But this criticism is irresponsible. 

To begin with, this is a concept invented in the 1990s by a hardliner in Washington and has not been internationally accepted; it is just too abstract to apply. 

Now, the part “I” standing for “irreversible” could mean anything. The most troubling implication is the period of irreversibility. Is it for the life of the country? Would there be any sensible country which accepts such impossible condition?

Those who sell this idea of CVID could be those who are against denuclearization and peace in the Korean peninsula.

In other words, this is the argument of warmongering hardliners in Washington and some conservatives in Seoul; they seem to prefer the continuation of the cold war.

If “I” means that Kim Jing-un cannot come back to nuclear business which has been once abandoned, it could happen when the basic infrastructure of the whole nuclear program will be dismantled; at this point, it will be too costly to come back. 

This may be what Trump had in mind when he mentioned 20%; it may mean that when the 20% of the denuclearization process is attained, the “irreversibility” applies.

The third item of the Joint Statement says this.

“Reaffirming the April 27, 2018 Panmunjom Declaration, the DPRK commits to work toward complete denuclearization of the Korean peninsula”. 

Here, “Complete” can include both “V” and “I”. To complete denuclearization, one must go through verification (V) and once the process of denuclearization hits a certain level, it becomes just too costly to resume (I) the nuclear program.

So, what is relevant is CD (complete denuclearization) as mentioned in the Kim-Moon Joint Declaration-4.27.

In short, the Singapore Joint Statement has provided the workable general framework of the peace process.

It is possible that the joint statement is not perfect. But it has provided a framework wide enough to allow flexible and effective negotiations.

But, let us not forget one thing; it is the first get-together of two individuals representing two nations that have been enemies for seventy years.

The final success of the peace process depends essentially on the width and the depth of the coming negotiations and the timing of execution of the agreements.

Above all, the mutual trust is a must; both Pyongyang and Washington should believe what the other side says as facts, otherwise, agreements would become near impossible.

North Korea has already shown its commitment and sincere desire to realize denuclearization. 

Kim Jong-un has already dismantled the five nuclear test sites; he will soon dismantle some of missile launch site.

Washington has shown the first sign of its good will; it announced the suspension of the Unlchi-Freedom Guardian Joint military drill which had originally been scheduled for coming August.

All these happenings seem to suggest then that the peace process might go well, but there could be many hurdles to go over before peace smiles in the Korea peninsula and North Korea becomes a “normal country”.

To conclude, I may say this.

The Washington-Pyongyang Summit could have happened before, if the U.S wanted to do so. 

Now, the Singapore Summit could fail because of the deliberate and effective objections, intrigues and lies by the hardliners in Washington and elsewhere; in this case, we may need another Singapore Summit later

Professor Michel Chossudovsky warns about the possibility of failure of the peace process based on the Singapore summit agreements. (Aftermath of the Trump-Kim Summit, Unilateral, Denuclearization, Continued Military Threat, Economic Sanctions, Global Research, June 17, 2018)

What the world needs is to be vigilant and be united in its concerted efforts to end, once for all, the ugly cold war. 

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

Political analyst Mark Taliano says that there is no evidence of a chemical attack in Douma and the alleged gas attack was only a false flag operation by the White Helmets.

On June 21, the Iranian Navy dispatched two warships to the Gulf of Aden, where a fierce battle is ongoing between the Ansar Allah movement (also known as the Houthis) and the Saudi-led coalition for the port city of al-Hudaydah.

According to Iran’s Tasnim News Agency, Iran sent a helicopter-carrier and a naval destroyer. The deployment of Iranian warships in the area will likely further complicate relations between Riyadh and Teheran. However, two warships will not be enough to lift a naval blockade from al-Hudaydah.

Meanwhile, the Houthis repelled another attempt by the Saudi-led coalition and its proxies to capture the al-Hudaydah airport in western Yemen recapturing most of the positions, which they had lost previously.

A few dozens of Houthi fighters were killed or injured as result of attacks by the coalition and strikes by its air power. The coalition and its proxies lost at least 6 vehicles.

The Houthis are currently building fortifications south and east of al-Hudaydah. In turn, pro-Saudi and pro-UAE sources claim that the coalition is posed to capture the port city by any means. Massive strikes of the Saudi Air Force on targets inside the city signs that these claims are true.

Clashes also continued far south of al-Hudaydah, along supply lines of the coalition heading from southern Yemen. The Houthis carried out at least 5 hit and run attacks on the coalition’s supply lines over the past two days.

So far, the Houthis have been able to counter the coalition’s efforts to capture the al-Hudaydah airport and to isolate the city. However, they suffer from a lack military equipment and supplies. The situation remains tense.

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In early June, Google Cloud CEO Diane Greene announced at a meeting with employees that the company will not renew its contract with the Pentagon for Project Maven following its expiry in 2019. Under the program, which Google entered in September last year, the company has provided the military with artificial intelligence software to perform real-time analysis of drone surveillance footage. The technology allows the Pentagon to develop its illegal drone assassination program that has killed thousands across the Middle East and North Africa.

Yesterday’s announcement is a response to widespread and mounting opposition from Google employees and the public to its collaboration with the military. The program only came to light as a result of opposition by employees, of whom approximately 4,000 have signed an internal petition demanding that Google cancel the project contract and institute a formal policy against taking on future military work.

Around a dozen employees have also resigned in protest. A report published on Tuesday by the New York Times, based on interviews with current and former employees, claimed the program has “fractured Google’s workforce, fueled heated staff meetings and internal exchanges,” and “touched off an existential crisis.” Among the employees who have resigned, one engineer “petitioned to rename a conference room after Clara Immerwahr, a German chemist who killed herself in 1915 after protesting the use of science in warfare.”

The Huffington Post reported yesterday that there were discussions among employees this week for a physical demonstration. An engineer who was due to leave the company on Friday posted on its internal online forum—in a thread titled “Maven conscientious objectors” that includes hundreds of employees—describing Maven as “the greatest ethical crisis in technology of our generation,” and suggesting that employees go to an upcoming Google conference in July with the aim of “making some noise.”

In comments to the World Socialist Web Site, academics Lucy Suchman and Peter Asaro, two of the authors of a recent open letter signed by more than 1,000 academics demanding that Google end its participation in the illegal drone murder program, said they were “gratified to see Google take the decision not to renew its contract for Project Maven, and to make the decision public.” They demanded that Google take “a clear and consistent stand against the weaponization of its technologies.”

“I do think it’s significant, in other words, that there was sufficient resistance inside the company that Google has had to respond, and it’s posed a tangible obstacle to growing relations with the DoD,” said Dr. Suchman. “The fact that those who entered into this contract attempted to do so quietly, if not actually in secret, shows that they anticipated how contested it would be (and then of course went ahead with it anyway).”

While Google claims it will not renew the contract, it will be involved with the project for the rest of the year, and will continue to deepen its intimate collaboration with the Pentagon. The company will also keep bidding for other contracts with the military not directly involving the use of artificial intelligence. Dr. Suchman added,

“I suspect they’ll continue to look for ways of sustaining their Pentagon relations and spinning them as benign.”

It should be noted that Google’s previous statements in response to the revelations about Project Maven have been exposed as lies.

Internal emails between Google staff, portions of which were published by the New York Times, Gizmodo and the Intercept over the past three days, show that Google conspired to conceal its role in Project Maven from the beginning.

An email chain including Scott Frohman and Aileen Black—both defense and intelligence sales leads—as well as Dr Fei-Fei Li, the chief scientist for artificial intelligence at Google Cloud, discussed how the company should present the project publicly. Writing under the subject line “Communications/PR Request—Urgent,” Frohman asked for direction on the “burning question” of how the collaboration should be reported.

Li replied on September 24 that Google was “already battling privacy issues when it comes to AI [artificial intelligence] and data; I don’t know what would happen if the media starts picking up a theme that Google is secretly building AI weapons or AI technologies to enable weapons for the Defense industry”—i.e., precisely what Google is doing. Li said the issues would be “red meat” to the media.

Google eventually decided to silence reporting on the collaboration altogether. It also reached a non-disclosure agreement with the Pentagon, requiring that public communications first be approved by Google. Black also noted that the contract was “not direct with Google but through a partner,” ECS Federal, in order to conceal Google’s role.

Greene, who pledged yesterday not to renew the project, has also absurdly claimed that the program cannot be used for “lethal purposes.” This is directly contradicted by an email published yesterday by Gizmodo from Frohman, in which he calls Maven a “large government program that will result in improved safety for citizens and nations through faster identification of evils such as violent extreme activities and human rights abuses”—code words used by the Pentagon for activities justifying drone strikes.

Greene also previously claimed that the project was “small” and only worth $9 million. Another internal email from Aileen Black and published by the Intercept, however, shows the project was expected to grow rapidly, and “as the program grows expect spend is budgeted at 250 M per year.”

The real significance of Project Maven for Google is to secure a foothold into the tens of billions of dollars available in the arms race between the world’s major powers to incorporate Silicon Valley’s technology to develop next-generation weaponry, and to gain a competitive advantage against the other technology giants. The other bidders for the contract included Amazon and IBM.

All three companies, along with Microsoft, are competing to secure a $10 billion contract to build and administer Pentagon Cloud’s computing network. The network has been described by military officials as a “global fabric” for its warfighters. Every submarine, jetfighter, missile launch station and special operations soldier will be connected via computer systems that will be directly administered by one of the giant technology corporations.

The website Defense One reported that unlike Amazon and Microsoft, Google has “kept its own interest” in the contract “out of the press,” and the company has “even hidden the pursuit from its own workers.” Participating in Project Maven allowed Google to receive government clearance to host secure government data on its servers, and to compete for further cloud military projects in the future. Another internal email from Aileen Black called the clearance “priceless” for the company.

Google, along with the other technology giants, is intimately integrated into the US military and intelligence apparatus. Google representatives such as vice president Mike Medin and former Alphabet CEO Eric Schmidt sit on US military advisory boards and discuss the use of their technology for major wars and suppression of domestic political opposition. Google changed its search ranking algorithms in April last year to reduce traffic to and censor left-wing and anti-war websites, including the World Socialist Web Site.

Right outside of Agadez, Niger, in the scrublands of the Sahara, the U.S. airforce is building a massive 2,200-acre drone base, costing $110 million according to the Associated Press. The base should be completed in the next couple of month but as you can imagine, building an airfield in the desert tends to be very complicated. The project already is over $22 million budget and delayed by one year. The new drone base will [allegedly] be used to target extremists deep into West and North Africa, regions that are currently hard to reach with drones.

The Drone Base Will Provide a Stronger US Presence in a Region  

[Combating Extremism is the stated objective. Terrorism is the Justification  for the Militarization of Africa, GR Editor] 

Back in 2013, President Obama had ordered a drone base to be built in the capital of Niger, Niamey, but even than military officials already indicated that ideally, they wanted the drone operation to be based outside of Agadez. The NY Times reported moving the drone base to Agadez had two main advantages. First, it is better positioned to launch drone operation throughout the southern regions of the Sahara that are turning into an alleged “terrorist hotbed”. Second, the drone operations are better shielded from prying eyes in isolated Agadez than in Niamey. A third reason, not mentioned by the NYT might well be that with the fall of Libyan leader Gaddafi, Agadez has turned into the smuggling capital of Africa, according to Politico Europe.

In the NYT, P.W. Singer, a strategist, and drone specialist at New America in Washington said that:

“The base, and the more frequent flights that its opening will allow, will give us far more situational awareness and intelligence on a region that has been a hub of illicit and extremist activity, but it will also further involve us in yet more operations and fights that few Americans are even aware our military is in.”

The quote highlights the shadowy character of the American drone operations. Many of the drone bases are situated in remote areas with questionable authorities and very little oversight, such as Yemen, Somalia and now Niger.

Building the drone base has proven to be quite the challenge. Dust storms hamper the work as well as temperatures that frequently sore to over 100 degrees Fahrenheit, resulting in a lot of the work being done at night.

The drone base, costing $110 million, features a runway that is 6,800 feet long and 150 feet wide as it not only needs to accommodate drones such as the MQ-9 Reaper, but also the much heavier C-17 cargo planes.

The MQ-9 Reaper is one of the most advanced drones available to the U.S. Airforce. The unmanned aerial device is built by General Atomics and has a range of 1,150 miles. It is able to gather intelligence and provide strike support with an impressive array of weapons, such as the laser-guided GBU-12 Paveway II bomb, up to four Hellfire air-to-ground missiles, the AIM-9 Sidewinder and more.

In this video you can see three hangars being built, each of which can house one or more drones. Citing security reasons, military officials have declined to say how many drones will be stationed at the drone base, as reported by Military.com.

Some people question the effectiveness of drone airstrikes across the African continent. For instance, E.J. Hogendoorn, the International Crisis Group’s deputy Africa program director in Washington reportedly said:

“The deployment of armed drones is not going to make a strategic difference and may even increase local hostility to the U.S. and the central government in distant Niamey.”

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Haye Kesteloo is the Editor in Chief and Main Writer at DroneDJ, where he covers all drone related news and writes product reviews. He also contributes to the other sites in the 9to5Mac group such as; 9to5Mac, 9to5Google, 9to5Toys and Electrek. Haye can be reached at [email protected] or @hayekesteloo 

Featured image is a screenshot from a video from NYC via DroneDJ.

Both President Trump and former President Obama are commonly said in America’s ‘news’ media to be or to have been “ceding Syria to Russia” or “ceding Syria to Russia and Iran,” or similar allegations. They imply that ‘we’ own (or have some right to control) Syria.

That’s not only a lie; it is a very evil and harmful one, dangerously goading the US President to go even more against Russia (and Iran) (and, of course, against Syria) than has yet been done — but the ‘news’media don’t care about that evil, and that falsehood, and that dangerousness — they do it anyway, and none of them attacks the others for perpetrating this vicious war-mongering lie, that lying provocation to yet more and worse war than already exists there. And the fact that none is exposing the fraudulence of the others on this important matter, is a yet-bigger additional scandal, beyond and amplifying the media’s common lying itself. Because they all function here like a mob, goading to more and worse invasions, and doing it on the the basis of dangerous lies — that America, and not the Syrians themselves, own Syria.

These lies simply assume that America (probably referring to the US Government, but whatever) somehow “has” or else “had” Syria (so that America can now ‘cede’ it, to anyone); and this assumption (that the US somehow owns Syria) is not only an imperialistic one (which is bad, and wrong, in itself), but it reduces to nothingness the rights (in the minds of the American public) of the Syrian people, to control their own land. That lie is what America’s ‘news’ media won’t expose, but instead they all cooperate with it, when they’re not actually participating, themselves, in spreading these lies.

What they are doing is also to slur Russia, and to slur Iran, for having accepted the request from Syria’s Government, for assistance in protecting Syria’s Government, against the tens of thousands of jihadists who had been recruited throughout the world by the Saudi-American alliance, to overthrow and replace Syria’s Government, to replace it with one that would be appointed by the Saud family (’America’s ally’), the fundamentalist-Sunni royal family who (as the absolute monarchy there) do actually own Saudi Arabia — a monarchical dictatorship, which the US Government calls an ‘ally’.

The evilness of this imperialistic assumption, which is being constantly spread by the US-and-allied ‘news’media, is as bad as is its falseness, because “America” (however one wishes to use that term) never had, never possessed, any right whatsoever to control Syria. Of course, neither does Russia possess such a right, nor does Iran, but neither Russia nor Iran is asserting any such right; both instead are there to protect Syria’s national sovereignty, against the invaders (including the US, and the Sauds’ regime). But the US-and-allied ‘news’media don’t present it that way — the honest way — not at all. Such truths are instead suppressed.

I was immediately struck by this false and evil assumption that the US owns Syria, when reading the June 15th issue of The Week magazine. It contained, under its “Best Columns” section, a piece by Matthew Continetti (“Obama Too Good for America”), which says, among other falsehoods, “Obama was wrong about a lot of other things, too, like… ceding Syria to Russia.” That phrase, “ceding Syria to Russia” rose straight out from the page to me as being remarkable, stunning, and not only because it suggests that America owns that sovereign nation, Syria. I was especially struck by it because the CIA has several times attempted Syrian coups and once did briefly, in 1949, overthrow and replace Syria’s democratically elected President. But is that really something which today’s America’s ‘news’media should encourage the American public to be demanding today’s American politicians to be demanding from today’s American President? How bizarre, even evil, an idea is that? But it is so normal that it’s a fair indication of how evil and untrustworthy today’s American ‘news’media actually are. I just hadn’t noticed it before.

Publishing such a false and evil idea, without any accompanying commentary that truthfully presents its context and that doesn’t simply let the false and evil allegation stand unchallenged — that instead lets it be unchallenged both factually and morally — is not acceptable either factually or morally, but then I checked and found that it’s the almost universal norm, in today’s US ‘news’media. For examples:

On 17 April 2018, CBS News headlined “Lindsey Graham ‘unnerved’ after Syria briefing: ‘Everything in that briefing made me more worried’” and presented that US Senator saying, “It seems to me we are willing to give Syria to Assad, Russia, and Iran.” He was criticizing President Trump as being “all tweet and no action.” He wanted more war, and more threat of war. But when President Obama had repeatedly denied in public that only the Syrian people should have any say-so over whom Syria’s leaders ought to be, U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon repeatedly contradicted the US President’s viewpoint on this, and he said, “The future of Assad must be determined by the Syrian people.” If the American people have become so dismissive of international law as this, then is it because the US ‘news’media start with the ridiculously false presumption that “America” (whatever that refers to) is the arbiter of international law, and therefore has the right to dictate to the entire world what that law is, and what it means? Is America, as being the dictator over the whole planet, supposed to be something that Americans’ tax-dollars ought to be funding — that objective: global dictatorship? How does that viewpoint differ, then, from perpetual war for perpetual ‘peace’ — a dictum that’s enormously profitable for America’s big ‘Defense’ contractors, such as Lockheed Martin, but that impoverishes the general public, both in America, and especially in the countries (such as Syria) where ‘our’ Government drops bombs in order to enforce its own will and demand, that: “Assad must go!”

In fact, as any journalist who writes or speaks about the Syrian situation and who isn’t a complete ignoramus knows, Bashar al-Assad would easily win any free and fair Presidential election in Syria, against any contender. His public support, as shown not only in the 2014 Syrian Presidential election, but also in the many Western-sponsored opinion-polls in Syria (since the CIA is always eager to find potential candidates to support against him), show this.

On 17 December 2016, Eric Chenoweth, a typical neocon Democratic Party hack, headlined “Let Hamilton Speak: Recapturing American Democracy”, and he wrote:

“Trump’s statements and appointments make clear he intends to tilt American policy to serve Russian interests: ceding Syria to Russia by ending support to pro-Western rebels; possibly lifting economic sanctions and recognizing the annexation of Crimea; proposing an alliance with Russia in the war on terror while remaining uncommitted to the defense of NATO allies, in particular the Baltic countries vulnerable to Russian aggression. Restoring American Democracy When they meet on December 19, Republican Electors who reflect on their constitutional duty should not then affirm Trump’s election.”

Those “pro-Western rebels” in Syria were actually led by Al Qaeda’s Syrian branch. Without them, the US regime wouldn’t have had any “boots on the ground” forces to speak of there. In fact, the US regime has actually been fronting for the Saud family to take over control of Syria if and when Syria’s Government falls. The Saud family even selected the people who in the U.N. peace talks on Syria represent ‘the rebels’ — the Sauds, who have been Syria’s enemy ever since 1950, selected ‘Syria’s opposition’, who were now seeking to take over Syria if and when ‘America’s moderate rebels’ succeed. Both Al Qaeda and ISIS are actually fundamentalist-Sunnis, like the Saud family are, and Assad’s Government is resolutely non-sectarian. Assad himself is a non-Islamist Alawite Shiite secularist, which virtually all fundamentalist Sunnis (such as the Sauds are) are taught to despise and to hate — especially because he’s Shiite. The US regime knows that neither it, which is considered Christian, nor Israel, which is theocratically Jewish, could practically succeed at imposing rule in Syria, but that maybe the Sauds could — so, they are the actual leaders of the ‘pro-Western’ forces, seeking to replace Syria’s secularist Government. Overthrowing Syria’s Government would be their victory. It would be the Saud family’s victory. But this fact is kept a secret from the American public, by the US ‘news’media.

Back on 17 September 2016, shortly before the change in US Administrations, Obama bombed the Syrian Government’s garrison in Der Zor, or Deir Ezzor, which is the capital of Syria’s oil-producing region. He did it in order to enable ISIS forces, which surrounded the city, to rush in and conquer it. Obama did this only eight days after his Secretary of State, John Kerry, had conceded to the demand by Sergei Lavrov, Russia’s Foreign Minister, Russia’s demand that in a cease fire, Russia be allowed to continue bombing not only ISIS there, which Kerry agreed should continue to be bombed by both the US and Russia, but also Al Qaeda’s forces — which until 9 September 2016, Obama refused to allow to be bombed during a cease-fire. But, finally, after a year of deadlock between Russia and the United States on that crucial issue, Kerry and Lavrov both signed a cease-fire agreement, and it allowed both ISIS and Al Qaeda-led forces to continue being bombed. (Russia had been bombing both, ever since 30 September 2015, when Russia began its bombing campaign in Syria.) That cease-fire went into effect on September 12th. Then Obama, unannounced — and a great disappointment to his Secretary of State, who wasn’t informed of this in advance — broke the agreement, by bombing the Syrian outpost in Deir Ezzor — and that’s the moment when Vladimir Putin quit his efforts to get agreements from Obama, because Putin now recognized that Obama was totally untrustworthy.

Already by late September of 2015, even prior to Russia’s having been requested by President Assad to enter the war in order to speed up the defeat of what Washington still calls ‘the rebels’, it was clear that Washington (actually Riyadh) wasn’t going to take over Syria; and Americans were — and are — being taught by the ‘news’media, that this was because Obama was ‘weak’ and didn’t care enough about ‘human rights’ in Syria, and about ‘democracy’ in Syria. So, on 28 September 2015, Matt Purple at the libertarian “Rare Politics” site, headlined “Pentagon admits that the Syrian rebels it trained handed over weapons to al Qaeda”, and he wrote “Neoconservatives wail that President Obama is ceding Syria to Russia — but the reason the Russians are taking the lead is precisely because America has sidelined itself.” But the US regime hadn’t at all “sidelined itself”; it continued — and it continues to this day — its invasion and occupation of that land. Trump’s policy on Syria is basically a continuation of Obama’s — and it’s not at all “ceding Syria to Russia,” or “ceding Syria to Russia and Iran.”

Because of America’s ‘news’media, it still isn’t “ceding Syria to the Syrians” — as Ban ki-Moon and international law would. That wouldn’t be profitable for Lockheed Martin etc. (whose biggest customers other than the US Government are the Sauds, and Trump alone sold $400 billion of US weapons to them); so, it’s not done.

Syria’s sovereignty is utterly denied by the US regime, but if the US regime were to succeed, the big winners would actually be the Saud family.

Do the American people have sovereignty, over ‘their’ (our) Government? US ‘news’media effectively ban that question. Perhaps what controls the US Government is the Saudi-Israeli alliance: the Sauds have the money, and the Israelis have the lobbyists. Of course, the US ‘news’media are obsessed whether Russia controls the US Government. That diversionary tactic is extremely profitable to companies such as General Dynamics, and America’s other weapons-manufacturers, which thrive on wars — especially by selling to the Sauds, and to their allies (and, obviously, not at all to Russia).

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It doesn’t matter who works in the Oval Office, the U.S. Middle East policy hasn’t been changing for decades. Whether it is George Bush, Barak Obama or Donald Trump the key idea is the same – Iraq\Syria\Libya constitutes an imminent threat to the national interests of the USA.

This statement hasn’t appeared recently. In 2002, the Joint Resolution to authorize U.S. military actions against Iraq cited:

“Iraq continuing to possess and develop a significant chemical and biological weapons capability posed a threat to the national security of the United States.”

Before carrying out air strikes on Syria, 14 April, 2018, the White House used the same justifications. The American president acted within his legal authority as commander-in-chief “to protect vital national interests – stopping the spread of chemical weapons and preventing a humanitarian catastrophe.” However, if in 2002, the Iraq Resolution was passed by the U.S. Congress as public law No: 107-243, this time President Trump didn’t seek any authorization from other government institutions.

It is also worth noting that a month after the aggression against Syria the U.S. Justice Department said that President Trump’s missile strikes on Syria in April hadn’t required congressional approval in part because the hostilities had “not risen to the level of a war in the constitutional sense.”

It is quite evident that such a formulation sounds absolutely unacceptable.

“That’s nonsense,” the American senator Tim Kaine said. “Is there any doubt that America would view a foreign nation firing missiles at targets on American soil as an act of war?”

So what do we have in a result? The USA carried out missile strikes on Syria. Neither the International coalition nor the OPCW have provided any real evidence of chemical weapons use in Syria so far. Nothing can be said about “preventing a humanitarian catastrophe” either. Different terrorist organizations including ISIS commit crimes against civilians in Syria with a help of American weapon. That was revealed by a new report of Conflict Armament Research. The International coalition in its turn continues to bomb civilian areas in Syria making the humanitarian situation in the country even worse.

Donald Trump who repeatedly expresses sympathy for Syrian civilians in the lead-up to the military action looks very insincere considering the fact that Syrians are not allowed to enter the territory of the USA according the Executive Order 13769 often referred to as Muslim ban.

“If President Trump really cared about the Syrian people, America wouldn’t bomb them. We would rescue them,” Democratic senator Chris Murphy said in this regard.

All U.S. actions that aimed to settle down the Syrian crisis are absolutely irrelevant and not effective. Instead of supporting the legitimate government Washington backs terrorists and extremists. Instead of providing humanitarian help Americans carry out air strikes on civilians. Unfortunately, all promises to help and rescue Syria are far from real steps implemented by the USA.

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Featured image is from the author.

Russia is adroitly using the prospect of large-scale transnational energy investments in South Asia in order to acquire leverage for “balancing” the region and counteracting American influence there.

It was recently announced that Russia and Pakistan agreed to conduct a feasibility study for building a pipeline from Iran into the South Asian state, a proposal that was first officially brought up in connection with President Putin’s visit to Iran last November when Energy Minister Alexander Novak spoke about the possibility of his country constructing an Iran-Pakistan-India gas corridor. While details remain scant about the route that this envisioned project could take and whether it would be overland like the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) pipeline or underwater, the fact of the matter is that Russia is slowly but steadily making progress on advancing this idea through its recently agreed feasibility study with Pakistan.

This initiative is about more than just about raking in potential profits and deepening Russia’s non-Western economic partnerships, but is part and parcel of its larger policy of becoming the supreme “balancing” force in Afro-Eurasia, to which end Moscow has sought to enter into unprecedented rapprochements with non-traditional partners such as Pakistan. The importance of any transnational pipeline project between Russia and Pakistan is that it would give Moscow a significant physical stake in the South Asian region, which could then enable it to leverage this investment for “energy diplomacy” purposes in then assuming a larger role in maintaining the strategic “balance” between its traditional partners in India and its newfound ones in Pakistan.

The South Asian space has become unprecedentedly important over the past couple of years since China announced the creation of its game-changing China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) Silk Road centerpiece which aims to become Beijing’s first non-Malacca access route to the Indian Ocean. In response to what it considers to be an infringement of its territorial integrity via its maximalist approach to the Kashmir Conflict, India has decisively pivoted towards the US in order to “contain” China and – as it sees it – “restore the regional balance”. This has contributed to an uncomfortable state of affairs whereby Russia and India, long-standing historical partners, find themselves proceeding along opposite strategic trajectories vis-à-vis China and the US.

Taking matters even further, there have been serious concerns over the past few years that India and the US are coordinating a Hybrid War on CPEC via a multifaceted campaign of asymmetrical destabilization using a combination of militant proxies, information warfare, and border provocations in order to undermine China’s game-changing project for breaking out of the Malacca chokepoint and obtaining unrestricted access to the Indian Ocean. This has raised worries that South Asia is rapidly becoming a focal point in the New Cold War, made all the more dangerous by the fear that the US and China’s nuclear-equipped partners in India and Pakistan respectively could enter into a war by miscalculation.

What’s clearly needed in order to stabilize regional affairs is a neutral third-party “balancing” force capable of bringing all stakeholders together and reinforcing trust between them, ergo the role that Russia is poised to play through its prospective pipeline project with Pakistan. Although it’s still too early to attach any timeline to it, these plans call for Moscow to function as the irreplaceable entity connecting Iran, Pakistan, and India’s energy infrastructure, with the scenario conceivably existing for the Pakistani portion to be linked to the separate but related North-South gas pipeline that Russia also wants to build in Karachi in order to one day form the basis for an energy version of CPEC.

The prevailing idea at play here is that Russia’s “energy diplomacy” as practiced through the Iran-Pakistan-India (IPI) pipeline will enable Moscow to exert a restraining role over New Delhi in getting its decision makers to think twice about giving in to Washington’s suggestions that it intensify the Hybrid War on CPEC, seeing as how India’s own direct interests could be harmed by any resultant damage to the IPI pipeline that it would have a stake in keeping secure. The Russian-facilitated tightening of the complex interdependency between India and Pakistan would therefore have a positive peacemaking effect on the region and counteract the US’ divisive influence there.

It would be an exaggeration to say that this pipeline is a panacea for the many ailments plaguing the Indian-Pakistani relationship, and there’s still no deal to even build it in the first place since all that was agreed to was a feasibility study, but even this moderate development signifies Russia’s interest in maintaining a strategic balance between these two South Asian rivals so as to strengthen their intra-bloc collaboration via the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO). The end result that Russia is endeavoring to achieve is to leverage its “energy diplomacy” in such a way that it ensures the long-term stability of South Asia as the region progressively integrates into the emerging Multipolar World Order.

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This article was originally published on InfoRos.

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.

“I have friends who can’t leave their homes because they don’t have the means to travel. They are scared for their safety. They might be left in the crossfire without any water, food or way to escape.”

Quote from NRC’s Hodeidah Office Coordinator, Saleem Al-Shamiri, in Sana’a:

“Many people fled their homes in Hodeidah already. Sana’a and other cities are receiving many displaced. Water supplies have been cut off in some areas. Even families who refused to leave their house behind, have now been forced to flee because the fighting is closing in. Some of my friends arrived yesterday and today early morning. They are concerned for their future and worried they have lost their homes and income. How will they manage to rebuild their lives again?”

“I have friends who can’t leave their homes because they don’t have the means to travel. They are scared for their safety. They might be left in the crossfire without any water, food or way to escape. I am hoping the warring parties will allow safe routes out of the city as the fighting gets closer. People must be given a chance to save their own lives.”

Latest updates:

• As of Tuesday, fighting began to escalate again. Heavy fighting and airstrikes continue in southern districts of Hodeidah city, and there is a risk that some aid warehouse may become inaccessible, according to the UN.
• Two villages close to Hodeida Airport have been severely affected, and an estimated 1,000 people fleeing into Hodeidah city, and more expected. They are arriving to districts prone to cholera, raising concerns about their ability to access safe water as well as other assistance.
• A major concern is access both for civilians to flee fighting, and for humanitarians to reach Hodeidah with aid. The road from Sana’a is reportedly closed, leaving the only available route through Hajjah; this is currently open, but it is unclear how much longer it will remain so.
• As of 19 June, the water supply has been disrupted in several areas and people are reportedly relying on water from mosque wells. The sheer numbers mean that per capita water consumption is likely to be lower than the minimum necessary; and the risk of contamination remains high. Access to adequate and safe water is now a major concern, particularly in light of the ongoing cholera emergency.
• While vessels continue to berth and discharge at Hodeidah, overall numbers of vessels arriving at the port remain well below those during the same period in the previous two months. In particular, only four to five vessels have been at anchorage awaiting a berth compared to roughly four times as many in the same period in April or May.

Facts:

• Some 29.3 million people live in Yemen, and 3.3 million people live in Hodeidah governorate.
• About 2.7 million people need humanitarian assistance.
• Since 1 June, over 30,000 people have fled their homes in due to the current offensive, according to OCHA.
• Some 162,000 suspected cases of cholera have been identified in Hodeidah since April 2017, equating to 15 per cent of Yemen’s total cholera caseload.

America’s rage for global dominance is longstanding, aggressive wars and color revolutions its favored strategies.

Hawkish neocon surrounding Trump pose a greater threat to world peace and stability than their earlier counterparts, Iran a prime target for regime change, global war an ominous possibility.

Weeks earlier, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo threatened Iran with “the strongest sanctions in history” if it fails to comply with outrageous US demands – things Tehran won’t ever agree to, its sovereignty not for sale to Washington or anyone else.

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani blasted his ultimatums, telling Pompeo:

“Who are you to decide for Iran and the world?”

Iran’s Foreign Ministry called his demands “cheap, baseless, insulting and interventionist, a cowardly attempt to turn world public opinion against the Islamic Republic, adding:

His remarks “showed radical and hawkish currents in the US, neither know(ing) history, nor…learn(ing) lessons from it.”

The Trump regime “reneged on all its political, legal and international obligations, is not in a position to set conditions for a major country like Iran, which has made good on its commitments.”

The US “colonialist regime supports terrorism, especially state terrorism. Terror groups such Al-Qaeda, ISIS, the MKO, Jundallah and other Takfiriterrorist groups…survive with American taxpayers’ money and with the support of incompetent systems in the Middle East…”

On Thursday, Mehr News published a commentary by Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, blasting the Trump regime, saying regional security can’t be entrusted to its “dangerous” and “erratic behavior.”

He urged establishment of a regional “non-aggression” pact, Middle East nations dealing with their issues, solving their problems “without outside interference and patronage.”

He responded to Pompeo’s outrageous demands no sovereign independent state would accept, saying:

“Impulsive and illogical decisions and behavior of the US president…have already surfaced as the main feature of the decision-making process in Washington over the past 17 months” – endangering everyone everywhere.

The Trump regime “inflict(ed) considerable damage to multilateralism, and the prospects for resolving disputes through diplomacy.”

US withdrawal from the JCPOA flagrantly breached the letter and spirit of a binding international agreement, unanimously adopted by the Security Council – an unacceptable and unlawful action.

What took years to consummate, Trump may have destroyed with a stoke of his pen and outrageous malice against Islamic Republic sovereignty.

Zarif called Pompeo’s outlandish demands “insulting…threats against Iran in brazen contravention of international law, well-established international norms, and civilized behavior…(a) desperate” act by a hostile regime.

The international community rejects them, other than Israel, the Saudis, and a few other US client states.

Pompeo’s outlandish demands were made to be rejected, not accepted, things beyond the scope of the JCPOA.

Threatening the “strongest sanctions in history” if US demands aren’t met barely stopped short of declaring war – showing what Iran is up against in dealing with an extremist regime in Washington wanting its government toppled.

In response to outrageous Pompeo demands, Zarif listed his own, saying:

Washington must cease “inter(fering) in Iran’s domestic affairs” and respect its sovereign independence, in accordance with international law.

It “must abandon its policy of resorting to the threat or use of force,” flagrantly breaching the UN Charter and other international law.

It should “acknowledge its unwarranted and unlawful actions against the people of Iran over the past decades (and) take remedial measures to compensate the people of Iran for the damages incurred” – never again acting unlawfully against the Islamic Republic or any other nation.

It should release billions of dollars of unlawfully blocked Iranian assets.

It must halt its “persistent economic aggression” against the Islamic Republic, lift unjustifiable sanctions, and respect JCPOA provisions.

It must release Iranian and other political prisoners, detained under cruel and inhuman conditions, unjustifiably held on fabricated charges.

It should publicly admit wrongdoing for raping and destroying one nation after another, notably in the Middle East, Central, Northeast and Southeast Asia, as well as North Africa.

It should cease supporting ISIS and other terrorist groups, using them as imperial proxies.

It should stop arming and supporting aggressors like Israel, the Saudis and UAE.

It should direct its policies toward benefitting humanity instead of risking its destruction.

It should support efforts to make the Middle East nuclear free, compelling Israel to denuclearize – one of “the most warmongering regimes in our time.”

It should “compel” Israel to stop “gross violations of human rights” against Palestinians in Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

It should abandon its policy of using nuclear weapons preemptively on the phony pretext of protecting national security.

It should “once and for all commit” to fully observe and respect all international agreements.

Its foreign policy is contemptuous of international law, norms and standards, said Zarif. It opposes “the rules-based international order.”

It flagrantly violates pacta sunt servanda – the most basic principle of international, affirming that agreements must be kept.

It weakens international organizations by wanting dominance over them. Its destructive agenda “darken(s) the outlook for the international order,” Zarif stressed – calling America “a rogue state and an international outlaw,” adding:

Its unlawful actions prove it can never “be viewed or treated as a reliable party to…serious negotiations” on any issues.

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

When Harold Pinter got the Nobel Prize (2005), he described “a vast tapestry of lies upon which we feed”. He asked why “systematic brutality, widespread atrocities, ruthless suppression of independent thought” were well-known when they occurred in the Soviet Union. But the same events in the US, despite copious evidence, “never happened”.

It shouldn’t be a rhetorical question. The answer to Pinter’s question is known in countless cultures. It is not obscure. But it is not discussed much in the North.

John Pilger notes an “eerie silence” about Julian Assange. More than any investigative journalist of our time, Assange has exposed “the imperialism of liberal democracies: the commitment to endless warfare and the division and degradation of ‘unworthy’ lives: from Grenfell Tower to Gaza.”

And yet he’s been imprisoned for six years with no charges against him. There is no outcry.

The silence is eerie, but not surprising. Assange allows us to see with our own eyes the actions of US military in Iraq. We hear them laugh about the “dead bastards” on the ground, who were carrying cameras, not guns.

There are truths, which Wikileaks reveals, but there is also truth about truths. One truth is that empirical evidence, seen and believed, does not shake deep-seated expectations. When beliefs are well-established, presupposed in daily life, indeed, part of identity, evidence is explained away.

It’s how we reason. If I release an object that doesn’t fall, you don’t give up belief in gravity. If I show you a thousand times, you don’t waiver. You expect gravity. It is a presupposition of life and thought. If you questioned that belief, you’d have to rethink your relationship to the world. It’s a reason not to question it.

You see with your own eyes. You dismiss what you see. Or, you explain it away, rationally.

Marx studied how we reason. He knew it depends on expectations, which are ways of life, patterns of behaviour. His dialectical materialism is, among other things, a view about knowledge. Lenin emphasized it. José Martí thought the question so central that the manifesto of the Cuban Revolutionary Party, at the 1895 war of independence, says a goal of the revolution is the nature of ideas.[i]

The “nature of ideas” has consequences. One is that if you want to know the truth about imperialism, in a “vast tapestry of lies”, which we feed upon, as Pinter says, you give up expectations: about your country, your lifestyle, yourself.

They knew this in the US anti-war movement. There was a slogan: “There are no innocents”. It meant that if you were not actively opposing US power, you were supporting it: with your expectations, arising from behaviours, intellectual and social, day by day.

The documentaries are powerful. [ii]Students understood that when a society is built on lies, and those lies are expectations, from which you benefit, and in terms of which you understand yourself, you question your own thinking, necessarily and beneficially.

Mark Rudd says about the radical wing of the movement, “We understood the wrongness of our country’s direction. We understood correctly. But we had no way to act upon that understanding”.

It required profound transformation, not just of social structures but of ways of thinking. It meant transforming expectations, which is transforming people. It is why Martí called for a “revolution in thinking”, and why Raúl Roa, brilliant Cuban philosopher and diplomat, like Martí an anti-imperialist, said in 1953 that the world was passing through a crisis more serious than any in history.[iii]

He was referring to the consolidation of US power but in particular to the image it was based upon: of thinking. Roa traced the crisis to the so-called Renascence. It wasn’t a renascence, he argues. There was no rebirth of ancient humanism, with its emphasis on contemplation. It was a new view, ground work for capitalism.

Liberalism, libertarianism, anarchism found roots there: in the primacy of the individual, taking for granted expectations, rooted in practises, defining identity.  There were few dissenters then, Roa points out. And few in his time.

Isaac Deutscher tells of the peasant who by chance acquires a motor car and insists on harnessing his horse to it. [iv] Deutscher’s story aims, in part, to illustrate the challenge of Marx, philosophically. It is easy to talk about class struggle. And to some extent, it’s easy to talk about imperialism. But attached to easy individualism, in one mode or another, it is eventually useless.

Marx’s view was about the human condition. It wasn’t just his view. Ancient thinkers knew about expectations. They knew about mind/body connection. It was central to the Buddha’s teaching (although not necessarily to popular Buddhism) that unless you control your mind, you are controlled by it. You’re controlled by convention. You won’t be free. Worse, still, you won’t know it

According to Roa, the misnamed Renaissance gave rise to a plethora of ideologies advocating imprisonment. That’s at the personal level. But the primacy of individuals is the primacy of expectations, of social behaviors, that make certain truths irrelevant – the most urgent ones.

Wikileaks’ truths about 21^stcentury imperialism may be among them.

Roa’s Viento sur (Wind from the South) opens with an echo of Marx’s “A specter is haunting Europe”: “A wind blows in the south”, Roa writes. It is not the renaissance view, rejected hundreds of years ago by thoughtful anti-imperialists who wanted to know humanness. They rejected imperialism, including its lies about how to know it. The “wind” is all about that, as Martí called for it to be in 1895.

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This article was also published on CounterPunch.

Susan Babbitt is author of Humanism and Embodiment (Bloomsbury 2014).

Notes.

[i] “The Montecristi manifesto” In Esther Allen (Ed. and Trans.), José Martí: Selected writings (pp. 337– 45). New York, NY: Penguin Books. (Originally published 1895)

[ii] E.g Kitchel, Mark (Director) (1990), Berkeley in the Sixties;Sam Green and Bill Siegel, The Weather Underground(2002)

[iii] “Grandeza y servidumbre del humanismo”, Havana, 1953

[iv] Deutscher, Isaac, “On Socialist Man”  Marxism, Wars and Revolutions: Essays from Four Decades (London: Verso Press, 1984) 263 – 76.

Featured image is from thierry ehrmann | CC BY 2.0.