Global Research

The modern detainee in a political sense has to be understood in the abstract.  Those who take to feats of hacking, publishing and articulating positions on the issue of institutional secrets have become something of a species, not as rare as they once more, but no less remarkable for that fact.  And what a hounded species at that. 

Across the globe prisons are now peopled by traditional, and in some instances unconventional journalists, who have found themselves in the possession of classified material.  In one specific instance, Julian Assange of WikiLeaks stands tall, albeit in limited space, within the Ecuadorean embassy in London.

Unlawful imprisonment and arbitrary detention are treated by black letter lawyers with a crystal clarity that would disturb novelists and lay people; lawyers, in turn, are sometimes disturbed by the inventive ways a novelist, or litterateur type, might interpret detention.  The case of Assange, shacked and hemmed in a small space at the mercy of his hosts who did grant him asylum, then citizenship, has never been an easy one to explain to either.  Ever murky, and ever nebulous, his background and circumstances inspires polarity rather than accord.

What matters on the record is that Assange has been deemed by the United Nations Working Group in Arbitrary Detention to be living under conditions that amount to arbitrary detention.  He is not, as the then foreign secretary of the UK, Philip Hammond claimed in 2016, “a fugitive from justice, voluntarily hiding in the Ecuadorean embassy.”  To claim such volition is tantamount to telling a person overlooking the precipice that he has a choice on whether to step out and encounter it.

The whole issue with his existence revolves, with no small amount of precariousness, on his political publishing activity.  He is no mere ordinary fugitive, but a muckracker extraordinaire who must tolerate the hospitality of another state even as he breathes air into a moribund fourth estate.  He is the helmsman of a publishing outfit that has blended the nature of journalism with the biting effect of politics, and duly condemned for doing so.

Given such behaviour, it was bound to irk those who have been good enough to accept his tenancy. The tenancy of the political asylum seeker is ever finite, vulnerable to mutability and abridgment.  Assange’s Ecuadorean hosts have made no secret that they would rather wish him to keep quiet in his not so gilded cage, restraining himself from what they consider undue meddling.  To do so entails targeting his lifeblood: communications through the Internet itself, and those treasured discussions he shares with visitors of various standings in the order of celebrity.

On March 27, his hosts decided to cut off internet access to the WikiLeaks publisher-in-chief. Jamming devices were also put in place in case Assange got any other ideas.  Till that point, Assange had been busy defending Catalan separatist politician Carles Puigdemont against Germany’s detention of him, in the process decrying the European Arrest Warrant, while also questioning the decisions made by several European states to expel Russian diplomats in the wake of the poisoning of double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter.  It was just that sort of business that irked the new guard in Ecuador, keen on reining in such enthusiastic interventions.

What seems to be at play here is a breaking of spirit, a battle of attrition that may well push Assange into the arms of the British authorities who insist that he will be prosecuted for violating his bail conditions the moment he steps out of the embassy.  This, notwithstanding that the original violation touched upon extradition matters to Sweden that have run their course.

Former Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa had denounced his country’s recent treatment of Assange.  In May, Correa told The Intercept how preventing Assange from receiving visitors at the embassy constituted a form of torture. Ecuador was no longer maintaining “normal sovereign relations with the American government – just submission.”

Times, and the fashion, has certainly changed at the London embassy.  Current President Lenín Moreno announced in May that his country had “recently signed an agreement focused on security cooperation [with the US] which implies sharing information, intelligence topics and experiences in the fight against illegal drug trafficking and fighting transnational organized crime.” Tectonic plates, and alliances, are shifting, and activist publishers are not de rigueur.

The recent round of lamentations reflect upon the complicity and collusion not just amongst the authorities but within a defanged media establishment keen to make Assange disappear. “This quest to silence free speech and neuter a free press,” suggests Teodrose Fikre, “is a bipartisan campaign and a bilateral initiative.”

There has been little or no uproar in media circles over the 6-year period of Assange’s Ecuadorean stay, surmises Paul Craig Roberts, because the media itself has changed.  The doddering Gray Lady (The New York Times for others), had greyed so significantly under the Bush administration it had lost its teeth, “allowing Bush to be re-elected without controversy and allowing the government time to legalize the spying on an ex post facto basis.”

Both President Donald J. Trump and Russia provide the current twin pillars of journalistic escapism and paranoia.  Be it Democrat or Republican in the US, the WikiLeaks figure remains very wanted personifying the bridge that links current political behemoths.  For the veteran Australian journalist John Pilger,

“The fakery of Russia-gate, the collusion of a corrupt media and the shame of a legal system that pursues truth-tellers have not been able to hold back the raw truth of WikiLeaks revelations.”

Such rawness persists, as does the near fanatical attempt to break the will of a man who has every entitlement to feel that he is losing his mind.

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Dr. Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge.  He lectures at RMIT University, Melbourne. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research and Asia-Pacific Research. Email: [email protected]

Nobel Peace Laureate Mairead Maguire called on UK government to free Julian Assange and end their cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment which amounts to torture, as defined by international law. She said,

“I know of no other country where an asylee  is held with no sunlight, no exercise, no visitors, no computer, no phone calls, yet all this is happening in the heart of London at the Ecuadorian Embassy to an innocent man, Julian Assange, now in his 8th year of illegal and  arbitrary detention by the United Kingdom government. “

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We are here this evening to stand in solidarity with our friend Julian Assange, Editor in Chief, of WikiLeaks. Because of WikiLeaks reporting of acts during US/NATO’s illegal wars against Afghanistan, Iraq, etc., and its highlighting of corruption by USA/CIA and corporate power, and continuing his fight in disclosing the links between the great private corporations and government agencies, Julian Assange has been threatened by high profile USA citizens, and a Grand Jury has been set up in American to try Julian Assange and WikiLeaks, for their publications.

For this, he is being persecuted and deprived of his right to liberty, human rights, etc. Six years ago Julian Assange, aware of these extradition plans of America,  sought asylum in the  Ecuadorian Embassy,  in London, where he remains today. (He is now in his 8th year of Arbitrary Detention in the U.K.) Although Mr. Assange’s conditions were already harsh, having no sunlight or outdoor exercise since June 2012, his situation has gotten worse since March 2018 when the Ecuadorian Government (after a visit by UK/USA officials to Ecuador) imposed conditions that are like indefinite confinement.

He is prevented from having visitors, receiving telephone calls, no internet, emails, or other electronic communications. He is unable to speak to his lawyers except in person and his   physical health, according to doctors, continues to deteriorate. Julian Assange is unable to walk outside the Ecuadorian embassy, as he has been told by UK government, he will be arrested by the British Metropolitan Police. He has asked UK Gov. to give assurances he will not be   handed over to American Security for extradition to America, to face a grand Jury, where he could be tortured and face life imprisonment, but UK government, refuse to give him assurance of this. A UN working group on Arbitrary detention has deemed this an arbitrary deprivation of his liberty and a grave human rights abuse which should be ended immediately, and for which, according to this UN Group on Arbitrary detention, he ought to be compensated by Britain and Sweden.

We should all be  deeply concerned at attacks by Governments, on ’truth’ tellers and ‚’whistle-blowers’ as this is a  danger posed to our democracy, security and good Governance when ‚whistle-blowers’ are thus persecuted. These matters of removal of basic rights of speech, information, liberty, persecution and silencing of journalists, etc., are of fundamental importance to all of us who believe in a free and democratic society.

We have a duty to ensure Mr. Assange, an Australian citizen, is treated no less favourably than UK citizens detained for similar ofences. British citizens enjoy the protection of the UK Human Rights Act l998 and the European Convention on Human Rights which guarantee their right to freedom of expression. This right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, received and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers’ and to do so, without interference by public authority’; He also has a right to be presumed innocent; and a right to the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health.

We have all a responsibility as Governments and as concerned Citizens to ensure that Mr. Assange’s treatment by UK Authorities accords to these standards. As Julian Assange is an Australian Citizen and they have a responsibility to see their Citizens are protected and Rights upheld, we call upon the Australian Government to work for Julian’s Freedom and safe return to Australia.   Also we call upon the UK Government to do the utmost to restore Julian Assange’s human rights and the free and lawful operation of WikiLeaks.  Specifically, we ask UK government to:

1. Ensure Julian Assange is guaranteed full and timely access to all necessary medical and dental care;
2. Request and defend his right to receive information and impart information freely without interference by any public authority;
3. Defend Mr. Assange at home and abroad and object to threats levelled against Mr. Assange by high-profile US citizens and others;
4. Strongly oppose and refuse, any application to have Mr. Assange extradited to the United States where it is unlikely he would receive a fair trial;
5. Facilitate the exercise of his right to freedom of movement in an expedient manner;
6. Compensate him for his arbitrary detention (also the Swedish government should compensate him for his arbitrary detention).

I would like to make a special appeal to the American President Donald Trump and his Government, to close down this Grand Jury which has been established to try Julian Assange and WikiLeaks based on their publications, and confirm the US Government will not extradite him to America, but recognize that he too, (as any American Citizen, ) has a right to have his rights protected under law.

This impasse could be resolved through Mediation between Ecuadorian Embassy and the UK Government. A text which includes a confirmation that Julian Assange will not be extradited to America and his Civil and Political Rights will be upheld by all Parties, would mean Freedom for Julian Assange. The case of Julian Assange and WikiLeaks is deeply important to not only journalists, media, etc., but is of fundamental importance to a free and democratic society for us all.

We owe Julian Assange our deepest thanks for his courage and being prepared to tell the truth even at risk of his own liberty and life. We can all, especially the media, and Governments, refuse to  be silent in face of such injustice and persecution of a man whose only crime was telling the truth to stop the wars and save lives. We can refuse to be silent and thus complicit in the face of injustice and work together until Julian Assange can return in safety and freedom to be with his family in Australia, or whatever country he chooses as a free citizen of the world.

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Mairead Corrigan Maguire, co-founder of Peace People, is a member of the TRANSCEND Network for Peace Development Environment. She won the 1976 Nobel Peace Prize for her work for peace in Northern Ireland. Her book The Vision of Peace (edited by John Dear, with a foreword by Desmond Tutu and a preface by the Dalai Lama) is available from www.wipfandstock.com. She lives in Belfast, Northern Ireland. See: www.peacepeople.com.

On June 25th, U.S.-aided fighters in southern Syria were fleeing from the Syrian Government’s Army, southward toward U.S.-allied Israeli-controlled areas in the Golan Heights and toward America’s ally Jordan; and, according to the AP’s news-report, “The majority of these rebels in southern Syria were U.S- and Jordan backed, although some local al-Qaida-linked militants still operate there.” The U.S. has relied heavily upon Al Qaeda in southern Syria, to lead the jihadist groups against Syria’s Government, ever since 2012.

The expectation when Donald Trump came into the U.S. White House had been that his predecessor’s war to conquer Syria or at least to seize territory there, would end. But Trump instead continues that invasion and occupation of Syria, and he even does so under the very same excuse that Obama had used, which is the ‘humanitarian’ one, of protecting people against Syria’s Government and against ISIS, which is one of the dozens of fundamentalist-Sunni ‘rebel’ groups of jihadists (ISIS and Al Qaeda being only the most famous ones) who have been brought in from all over the world and financed mainly by the Sauds, and armed and advised mainly by the Americans. They’ve been fighting to overthrow Syria’s Government. The rulers of the U.S., who bombed Iraq and Libya to hell and have done the same to Syria and now also to Yemen, say that their motivation is ‘humanitarian’. Even George W. Bush did, when he invaded and occupied Iraq in 2003 (but he mainly gave the reason, “Saddam’s WMD,” which didn’t any longer even exist). Somehow, most Americans think that this Government in Washington represents them; but I am an American and I don’t think that the U.S. Government represents the American people. It certainly doesn’t represent us in Syria.

However, perhaps now, the actual end of the invasion of Syria is, at last, in sight. The commentator “bernhard,” who blogs on geostrategy at his “Moon of Alabama” site, headlined on June 22nd, “Syria – Damascus And Its Allies Prepare To Remove U.S. Forces From Al-Tanf”, and he (or she) explained the reasons why the U.S. invaders are now clearly in an untenable military-strategic position in the Syrian war. Basically, it’s because, as he(she) states at the end, “The al-Tanf position [U.S. military base in Syria] is indefensible against any larger force. The U.S. forces there can still move out without a fight. If they do not leave voluntarily, force will be used to remove them.” On the other hand, a year ago, on 29 June 2017, he/she had headlined “U.S. Retreats From Al-Tanf – Gives Up on Occupying South East Syria”, and that turned out to have been at least a year premature.

The knowledgeable Middle-Eastern commentator, Abdel Bari Atwan, headlined, also on June 22nd, “Syria’s Southern Front: The army is determined to retake the area. Israel is determined to prevent it.” Atwan stated:

“More than 40,000 soldiers have been deployed [by Syria’s Government] in preparation for the southern offensive [by the U.S. and its allies], according to reliable sources, suggesting that a decisive showdown is imminent. It is doubtful that the Syrian army, feeling confident after the battle for Ghouta, would launch such an operation without a green light from its Russian ally, as has been the case in similar instances. This follows the dead-end reached in negotiations between Russia and the US aimed at achieving an acceptable settlement, due to the intransigence of the armed groups, their insistence on all their conditions being met and the support some receive from Israel. It is not in Israel’s interest for these groups to evacuate as their counterparts did in Eastern Ghouta and Aleppo and for the Syrian army to retake control.”

He seems to view Israel as leading the U.S. operation there. This is conceivably true, because everything that Trump has thus far done in the Middle East has served both Israel’s Government and Saudi Arabia’s Government, and both of those Governments have almost identical objectives there. Conceivably, those two Governments together determine what the U.S. Government’s policies in the Middle East will be. And Israel has taken the initiative in Syria, just as the Sauds have taken the initiative in Yemen. But both Israel and the Sauds as well as the U.S. regime want the Saud family to control Syria; in fact, at the U.N.’s peace-talks, in which the “High Negotiations Committee” negotiates against the Syrian Government, to replace Syria’s Government, the Saud family itself selects who will and who won’t be members of the High Negotiations Committee: the ‘Syrian opposition’ there represents actually the Saud family. (See more on that here.) So, actually, both Israel’s rulers and America’s rulers are the Saud family’s agents in Syria; they front for the Sauds, regarding Syria-policy.

Atwan concludes:

“Syria continues to defy those who have spent the past seven years conspiring against it. This time, eyes should be turned to its south, where new and shocking surprises may be in store for the Israelis and their allies.”

The U.S. military base at al-Tanf, in Syria on Jordan’s border, is America’s main training-base for the Saudi-allied ‘rebels’, and has been key to the fundamentalist-Sunni Arabic, outright jihadist, south-Syrian half, of America’s boots-on-the-ground effort, to seize Syria, or at least to seize territory (especially oil-producing territory, around Deir Ezzor) in Syria. For decades, the jihadists (supporters of the Sauds’ fundamentalist Sunni form of Islam) have been hoping to oust Syria’s ideologically non-sectarian, decidedly secular, Government, and replace it with a Sunni Sharia-law regime. Trump’s troops even have been secretly arming ISIS to overthrow the Government. That plan will be crashing down if these ‘rebels’ in Syria’s south fail.

Without this jihadist operation in Syria’s south, all that will remain of the U.S.-led invasion-occupation operation will be the northern part, which relies instead upon anti-(Syrian)-Government Kurds as the U.S. regime’s boots-on-the-ground proxy forces to seize the northern portion of Syrian territory. So, it’s the Sauds’ jihadists in the south, and the Americans’ Kurdish-independence fighters in the north — a pincer between the two, for the U.S. alliance to take all of Syria. But there is increasing doubt that the U.S. coalition will be able to seize and hold either portion, or, ultimately, any part, of Syria. 

In other words: if the southern invaders fail, then Syria’s oil-producing region, around the city of Deir Ezzor, now contested between these jihadists and Syria’s Government, will no longer be in play, and the only function which land-seizure by the U.S. would even possibly serve for the U.S. and its allies, would be for pipeline-construction, in order for oil and gas from Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and possibly other fundamentalist-Sunni-owned countries, to become pipelined through Syria into Europe, so as to replace Russia as the EU’s main energy-source. But Turkey’s Government won’t permit a Syrian Kurdistan, any more than Iraq had permitted success of the U.S. regime’s plan for an Iraqi Kurdistan (around Mosul). The big policy-difference between the Turkish Government and the American Government has long been over the U.S. aristocracy’s (along with Israel’s aristocracy’s) desire to use a Kurdistan so as to break up the non-Saudi Arabic countries (such as Syria) in order for Saudi oil and maybe Qatar’s (the Thani family’s) gas to increase market-share in Europe, so as to decrease Russia’s market-share there. 

Consequently, (unless ‘bernhard’ turns out to be wrong about al-Tanf, that “Damascus And Its Allies Prepare To Remove U.S. Forces From Al-Tanf”), Donald Trump finally will have to do what he had always been promising to do: exit from Syria — let the Syrians control Syria. The long effort by the aristocracies of U.S., Saudi Arabia, and Israel — to supplant Russia and its allies, as suppliers of energy and of energy-related services (such as pipeline-construction) to and in the world’s largest energy-market, the EU — will have to be abandoned, at least until the CIA and other agencies of the U.S. aristocracy can come up with a different way to squeeze Russia out of the European market. (The U.S. already has been successful at reducing the effectiveness of Russia’s gas-pipelines into the EU through Ukraine.) It’s not necessarily the end for the American plan, however: a new opportunity (perhaps yet another ‘Arab Spring’) could emerge — they’ve been at this ever since the CIA’s second coup, which occurred in Syria in 1949, when they took over Syria but their barbarism caused Syria’s generals to restore in 1955 the democratically elected Syrian President, whom President Truman’s people had assisted some of Syria’s generals to overthrow in 1949. 

As soon as FDR died in 1945, the imperialist faction in the United States — which has controlled the Republican Party ever since 1865 — quickly came to control also the Democratic Party; so, now, both of America’s political Parties are determined that the U.S. aristocracy will control the entire world. World peace is the last thing they want, and if they win it, that would be only ‘peace’ by force — not democracy.

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

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

Michel Chossudovsky

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

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

Year: 2015

Pages: 240 Pages

List Price: $22.95

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On June 23, militants in 11 settlements in southern Syria surrendered to the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) and declared their readiness to fight ISIS and Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (formerly Jabhat al-Nusra), the Russian Defense Ministry said in a statement on June 24.

According to pro-government sources, about 900 members of the Free Syrian Army (FSA) joined the SAA.

On June 24, the  SAA and the Tiger Forces liberated the villages of Hawsh Hammad and Jaddel and entered the village of Busra al-Harir northeast of the city of Daraa. According to pro-militant sources, this advance was supported by the Russian Aerospace Forces.

On June 25, clashes in the area continued.

It is interesting to note that on June 23 the US Embassy in Amman released a statement saying that militants in southern Syria should not count on a US military intervention in the situation in the area when they make decisions influencing their future.

The statement comes amid reports that some FSA groups in the province of Daraa have resumed negotiations with the Syrian government and Russia on a reconciliation agreement that would allow Damascus to restore its control of the area by a peaceful solution.

On June 24, the SAA repelled an attack of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham near the village of Zlin in northern Hama. However, after the attack the situation in the area remained relatively calm.

Tensions between the Thuwar al-Raqqa Brigade and the rest of the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) have erupted in the city of Raqqah. The Thuwar al-Raqqa Brigade says that the SDF’s security forces, Asayish, have surrendered its HQs and have attacked some of its members.

The current situation in Raqqah is another result of the tensions growing between the Kurdish-dominated SDF and local Arab factions formally operating within the same group.

At the same time, the SDF has captured a large chunk of area near the border with Iraq reaching the Tell Safouk border crossing. Thus, the group achieved a key goal of its operation in southern al-Hasakah.

According to pro-Kurdish sources, now the group is going to focus on combating ISIS in the Euphrates Valley and in the area north of al-Bukamal.

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Make no mistake. Trump is a rogue actor serving his privileged class exclusively at the expense of most others, the nation’s least advantaged harmed most by his hostile agenda, besides unspeakable horrors inflicted on countless millions abroad.

Every popular promise he made was breached straightaway in office. Instead of draining the swamp, he filled it with a rogue’s gallery of warmongering neocons (including John Bolton), Wall Street predators, hawkish generals, and billionaires.

His rage for endless wars of aggression is insatiable, terror-bombing one nation after another – at a pace far exceeding the Clintons, Bush/Cheney and Obama in munitions used, civilians in harm’s way massacred in cold blood by the thousands.

The media reporting nothing, suppressing his high crimes while bashing him in other ways.

He’s part of the dirty system in private and public life, as president presiding over fantasy democracy in America.

Things are far worse than ever since the neoliberal 90s, notably post-9/11. The mother of all false flags changed everything. The Trump regime exceeds the wickedness of his predecessors.

Criticizing his disgraceful mistreatment of unwanted alien children is one among a long list of policies showing indifference to equity and justice for all, along with the highest of high crimes against humanity at home and abroad.

Last week, Ralph Nader tweeted:

“Would be nice if Laura Bush and Michelle Obama had expressed similar heartfelt concern for the tens of thousands of children killed or seriously maimed by the wars of their husbands in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere” as they do for mistreated alien children unwanted in America.

Just societies and leadership would never tolerate outrageously separating children from parents, traumatizing kids, in some cases doing irreparable damage.

Yet it doesn’t rise to the level of naked aggression, mass slaughter and destruction, smashing nations to own them, wanting planet earth colonized, seeking New World Order societies comprised of rulers and serfs, no middle class, no democratic rights, no justice, perpetual wars and chaos instead, US-dominated NATO operating as a global killing machine – Orwell’s “vision of the future (with) a boot stamping on a human face forever,” a world unsafe and unfit to live in anywhere.

Trump’s “zero tolerance” extends far beyond his deplorable immigration policy. Far worse is his intolerance of democratic values, rule of law principles, peace and stability, along with fundamental human and civil rights – an agenda only a despot could love.

He’s indifferent to poverty, hunger, homelessness,  unemployment, underemployment.

He’s commander-in-chief of the nation’s military with his finger on the nuclear trigger he may be itching to squeeze – mindless of the horror of nuclear immolation.

He supports virtually every global tinpot despot allied with Washington’s imperial agenda, serving its interests, sovereign independent nations targeted for regime change by naked aggression, color revolutions or coup d’etats.

Instead of improved relations with Russia, they’re more dismal than ever.

Irreconcilable differences separate the geopolitical agendas of both countries, resolving them unattainable because bipartisan US hardliners want regime change, not mutual cooperation.

US policy toward Israel was always one-sided. Throughout its deplorable history, nothing was ever done by Washington to support and insure fundamental Palestinian rights, always treating them unfairly and unjustly – never holding the Jewish state accountable for its high crimes.

Trump elevated their mistreatment to a higher level, supporting apartheid ruthlessness, tacitly endorsing occupation harshness and unlimited settlement construction on stolen Palestinian land, opposing diaspora Palestinians’ legal right of return, wrongfully moving Washington’s embassy to Jerusalem, an international city not recognized as Israel’s capital by the UN and most nations.

At the same time, his regime endorses Israeli human rights abuses too egregious to ignore, wrongfully blaming Palestinians for Israeli crimes committed against them.

Trump’s great GOP tax cut heist benefitted corporate predators and high-net-worth households exclusively at the expense of social justice erosion to help pay for it.

His inaugural address promise “to rebuild our country and to restore its promise for all of our people” was a bald-faced lie, serving rich and powerful ones alone from day one in office.

He’s hostile to ecosanity, serving Big Oil and other cororate polluters, turning a blind eye to their worst offenses.

Straightaway in office, he proved he’s just another dirty politician, waging war OF terror, not on it, supporting ISIS and likeminded jihadists, not combatting them.

His America first agenda is all about bullying, pressuring and bribing other nations to bend to Washington’s will economically, politically, militarily and in trade relations.

It’s about enriching corporate predators and high-net-worth Americans more than already. It’s about serving privileged interests at the expense of others.

It’s about neocon extremists running things, federal courts stacked with hard-right ideologues serving their interests.

It’s about exploiting ordinary people over government serving everyone everywhere equitably. It’s about punishing anyone unwilling to go along with an agenda no one should accept.

Trump’s National Security Strategy is a modern-day version of Hitler’s Mein Kampf, a manifesto for endless wars of aggression, his regime heading America closer to full-blown tyranny than already.

He disgraces the office he holds, doing it in record time compared to his predecessors. With two-and-half years before another presidential election, he’s free to rape, ravage, plunder and destroy much more than already.

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

For much of the year, independent media [including Global Research] has felt the sting of increased social media censorship, as the “revolving door” between U.S. intelligence agencies and social-media companies has manifested in a crackdown on news that challenges official government narratives.

With many notable independent news websites having shut down since then as a result, those that remain afloat are being censored like never before, with social media traffic from Facebook and Twitter completely cut off in some cases. Among such websites, social media censorship by the most popular social networks is now widely regarded to be the worst it has ever been – a chilling reality for any who seek fact-based perspectives on major world events that differ from those to be found on well-known corporate-media outlets that consistently toe the government line.

Last August, MintPress reported that a new Google algorithm targeting “fake news” had quashed traffic to many independent news and advocacy sites, with sites such as the American Civil Liberties Union, Democracy Now, and WikiLeaks, seeing their returns from Google searches experience massive drops. The World Socialist Website, one of the affected pages, reported a 67 percent decrease in Google returns while MintPress experienced an even larger decrease of 76 percent in Google search returns. The new algorithm targeted online publications on both sides of the political spectrum critical of U.S. imperialism, foreign wars, and other long-standing government policies.

Now, less than a year later, the situation has become even more dire. Several independent media pages have reported that their social media traffic has sharply declined since March and – in some cases – stopped almost entirely since June began. For instance, independent media website Antimedia – a page with over 2 million likes and follows – saw its traffic drop from around 150,000 page views per day earlier this month to around 12,000 as of this week. As a reference, this time last year Antimedia’s traffic stood at nearly 300,000 a day.

Other pages, particularly those that promote natural-health news along with political news, have seen their pages deleted without warning by Facebook as recently as earlier this week. One such page, Collectively Conscious, saw its Facebook page with over 900,000 likes and follows deleted without warning after Facebook said the page “violated its terms of use agreement” but did not state which terms had been violated. Other similar pages, such as Nikola Tesla and Earth We Are One, were likewise suddenly deleted without explanation.

Other pages, such as the Free Thought Project, have been flagged as “fake news” by Facebook “fact checking” partner organizations, like the Associated Press and Snopes. In one recent case, a story published by the Free Thought Project was flagged as “false” by the Associated Press. That story, which detailed the documented case of Senator Jeff Merkley (D-OR) being forcibly removed from a DHS migrant detention center that had once been a Walmart, was marked false because the Associated Press asserted that the article made the claim that Walmart was housing immigrants for DHS. However, the article does not make the claim, instead accurately noting that the facility used to be a Walmart.

In a troubling turn of events, pages that shared that very story are now being punished by Facebook for helping disseminate “false news.” The Mind Unleashed, which has 8.8 million likes and follows, was warned that it would have its reach reduced for this “offense,” and that the reduction in the page’s reach would only increase with the number of offenses after it shared the Free Thought Project story on the detention center.

At MintPress News, the story is similar. While the MintPress Facebook and Twitter pages remain up and no notices warning of their imminent deletion have yet been received, traffic from social media has reached an all-time low, as the site’s average traffic of around 70,000 unique visitors last January has now dropped to around 4,000 – a decrease of around 94 percent. On Tuesday, social media traffic to MintPress stopped entirely, as it did for several other independent media sites like Antimedia.

Broad-brush censorship: an overreaction on steroids

Given what has been experienced by several independent media sites in recent months, it seems that several known initiatives aimed at censoring content on social media have now taken full effect after being announced earlier this year.

Those initiatives — particularly those being implemented by Facebook, Twitter and Google — first came to light during a Senate hearing held earlier this year in January. During their testimony, representatives from Facebook detailed that it would employ a team of 20,000 new employees by the end of the year who would “assess potentially violating content” and “fake news” uploaded by the platform’s users. Monika Bickert, head of Global Policy Management at Facebook, told lawmakers at the time that “former intelligence and law-enforcement officials and prosecutors who worked in the area of counterterrorism” are among the members of that new “team” at Facebook.

In the months since, Facebook’s censorship of independent content has continued to spin out of control, with the site prioritizing “trustworthy” sites even though Facebook has not stated how a site’s “trustworthiness” is determined. The site’s censorship efforts, however, reached a crescendo when it was announced last month that the social media giant would team up with the war-loving, Washington-based think tank, The Atlantic Council, in order to “combat election-related propaganda and misinformation from proliferating” on the social media site.

The Atlantic Council is funded by the country’s top weapons manufacturers – Raytheon, Lockheed Martin, and Boeing – as well as by NATO and the United Arab Emirates, currently responsible for an offensive on a port in Yemen, slammed by the UN and human rights groups, that threatens to lead to the death of some 18.5 million civilians in the war-torn country. The Atlantic Council’s conflicts of interest with companies, organizations, and countries that benefit from war have raised concern among anti-war news sites that the think tank’s partnership with Facebook will negatively affect their own presence on social media.

While many thought that social media censorship on the most commonly used platforms could not get much worse after Facebook’s partnership with the Atlantic Council, the upcoming vote by the European Union on the controversial measure known as Article 13 could soon change that. The proposed law, if approved, would require platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Reddit and others to scan user-uploaded content before it is shown online and take down material that “could be stolen” or infringe on existing copyrights.

Several prominent figures, including World Wide Web inventor Tim Berners-Lee, warned the EU Parliament that the measure would be “an unprecedented step towards the transformation of the Internet from an open platform for sharing and innovation, into a tool for the automated surveillance and control of its users.”

The current censorship of social media is undeniably the worst it has ever been. However, it is unlikely that this troubling trend will get better anytime soon. Instead, it likely to get much worse. If you value fact-based news content that challenges the powerful and scrutinizes official narratives, now is the time to sign up for mailing lists, Steemit and other alternatives that will allow you to continue to receive the content you enjoy amid the increasingly bleak future of news shared via social media.

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

In general, the question of immigration is the most misunderstood social issue in the Western world. Ironically, the 1% and powerful elite are the only section of society that has a clear understanding of this social phenomenon.

Historically the wealthy 1% of “advanced” countries want both legal and undocumented immigrants in their countries. They look at immigrants not as human beings but as a cheap money making machine. This is not new and it is not unique to any particular country.

Like all powerful countries, the 1% in the U.S. gladly permits an engineer or a skilled medical doctor from any country to work in the U.S. legally and at the same time would allow- to a certain degree- migrant or undocumented workers to work hard in the shadow, for pennies. This creates a work force that has no rights or identity and is forced to endure a harsh working environment for long hours in the industrial or agricultural field. For peace and justice activists this understanding is crucial.

All U.S. Presidents have propagated the campaign against immigrants to a different degree. President Trump and his administration with their “zero tolerance” policy have only exposed the decades of cruelty and inhumane treatment that immigrants have had to endure in the custody of the U.S. government. A fascistic minded President and his shameless racist Attorney General, Mr. Sessions, want to intimidate not only immigrants and asylum seekers’ families but also those conscious people who are outraged and standing up to this barbaric and undemocratic behavior.

Unfortunately, despite mountains of evidence and images of how immigrant children were placed in cages during Mr. Obama presidency, a considerable number of activists are still  unconsciously distracted by the cunning Democratic Party leadership.

Both the Republican and Democratic parties are blaming each other for the tragedy of the isolated immigrants. It is repulsive to see that the well known representatives of the Democratic Party after 8 years of Mr. Obama’s anti-immigrant policies now acting like they are surprised of what is going on with ICE or other privately run detention centers. Republicans, in return, have made a mockery of being “compassioned” and toss another bizarre distraction into the mix by sending the First Lady to the South carrying a bold message from the White House that reads: “I REALLY DON’T CARE, DO U?” to visit the detained immigrant “children”!

It is needless to say that this obvious message became a feeding frenzy for the clueless political pundits from all sides on the gossip commercial media. However, a minority of conscious and democratic minded people are organizing demonstrations in different cities and chanting “Set the Children Free” and “We Are Not Giving Up”.

The hysteria over border security and building a wall is just an exaggerated and baseless notion that is propagated by politicians to keep the American population in a constant state of fear and confusion. Despite the 1% unfounded claims that the Immigration issues are very complicated and unsolvable, there are many practical solutions to the immigration question. Mr. Trump says: “The US will not be a migrant camp” meanwhile the U.S. Navy has developed a plan to construct internment camps to hold tens of thousands of immigration detainees on remote bases in California, Alabama and Arizona. Certainty these camps are also built for dissents who dare to question and expose the authorities. Mr. Sessions is already warning activista and immigrant rights advocates that “Free speech … will be protected, but obstructing law enforcement …will not be tolerated “.  Of course the vague word like “obstruction” is only defined by law enforcement! The Associated Press points out that

“President Donald Trump has repeatedly cited gang activity as justification for his crackdown on illegal immigration.”

The Independent reports that:

“Teenage immigrants detained in a Virginia juvenile detention centre allege that they were beaten and subjected to long periods of confinement, including some instances where teens were left nude in a cold concrete cell.”

Source: Massoud Nayeri

What needs to be done? Is there any solution to the question of Immigration? The answer is YES. But first we have to understand the root causes of the recent migration. Those families who are seeking asylum mainly are from the countries of El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras which today are facing unparalleled levels of violent crime. One of the best informative sources is the WOLA a leading research and advocacy organization advancing human rights in the Americas. Maureen Meyer and Elyssa Pachico in their Commentary: “Fact Sheet: U.S. Immigration and Central American Asylum Seekers”, layout the root cause of migration in details.

Second we have to act independent of influential politicians and ignore their friendly or provocative distractions. Congress has already shown it is incompetent. What we need is transparency – a task that only independent democratic minded people are able to carry on. In time of emergency, one must act swiftly. An Independent Fact Finding Commission by working people is in order. A People’s Commission that consists of conscious Religious Leaders, Professional Medical Caretakers, Civil Rights Lawyers, Working Mothers and Fathers, Teachers and Progressive Journalists as a group should have access to all detention Centers and immigrants’ official records with full authority to publish their uncensored findings and their recommendations for immediate implementation.

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

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Humanity’s ‘Dirty Little Secret’: Starving, Enslaving, Torturing and Killing Our Children

By Robert J. Burrowes, June 25, 2018

Every day, according to some estimates, human adults kill 50,000 of our children. The true figure is probably significantly higher. We kill children in wars. See, for example, ‘Scourging Yemen’. We kill them with drones. We kill them in our homes and on the street. We shoot them at school.

The Global Refugee Crisis: Humanity’s Last Call for a Culture of Sharing and Cooperation

By Rajesh Makwana, June 25, 2018

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.

How the US, Under Obama, Created Europe’s Refugee Crisis

By Eric Zuesse, June 25, 2018

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?

US Court Documents Reveal Immigrant Children Tied Down, Hooded, Beaten, Stripped and Drugged

By Patrick Martin, June 24, 2018

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.

Refugee Crisis: Manufactured Migrants Are Tools in U.S. Empire’s ‘Grand Chessboard’

By Barrie Zwicker, June 24, 2018

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.”

War and the Refugee Crisis: The Western Powers Which Bomb Enemy Nations Are Rejecting Their Refugees

By Masud Wadan, June 24, 2018

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.

At a meeting of the newly-revived National Space Council, President Donald Trump announced the  Space Policy Directive:  National Space Traffic Management (STM) Policy and ordered the Department of Defense to establish a Space Force as a sixth branch of the US military – although creating a ‘separate but equal’ Space Corps would need Congressional authorization.   

Under the guise of a ‘space junk directive’ to clean up a “congested and contested” cosmos that promises to keep the MIC fat and happy; at the same time make space safe for the up-and-coming commercial space industry (CSI), the Directive suggests an overly-ambitious mission of broad, wide-ranging goals with no time schedule or funding.

Specifically, the Directive provides a role for the DOD “to protect and defend US space assets and interests’ and I am still trying to wrap my mind around how the Director of National Intelligence will provide a Space Situational Awareness (SSA) of ‘knowledge and characterization of space objects.”  Further expounding on the US role in outer space, Trump added 

“..our destiny, beyond the Earth, is not only a matter of national identity, but a matter of national security.  We must have American dominance in space.”     

As the US presumes to act on behalf of other countries on the planet and commercial space endeavors which might someday launch a satellite up into the wild, blue yonder, the Directive proposes to establish operational criteria with the assumption that all players will accept the Empire’s dominance and happily follow their every command.  

Opposition within the Trump Administration has not been reticent with Air Force Secretary Heather Wilson suggesting that

“The Pentagon is complicated enough.  This will make it more complex, add more boxes to the organization chart, and cost more money.”

In an October, 2017 letter on the NDAA 2018, Defense Secretary James Mattis commented:  

“I oppose the creation of a new military service and additional organizational layers at a time when we are focused on reducing overhead and integrating joint warfighting functions.”   

And in a later letter to Congress, Mattis reiterated

“I do not wish to add a separate service that would likely present a narrower and even parochial approach to space operations,”

Despite Pentagon opposition, an administration witness told a recent House Armed Services subcommittee that 

“the President has prioritized space. He recognized the threats that have evolved and the pace at which they evolve.” 

In March, the president endorsed a Space Force during a White House ceremony with “we’re getting very big in space, both militarily and for other reasons” suggesting that the true purpose of a Space Force may be more than the equivalent of a celestial traffic cop. 

According to the Union of Concerned Scientists, there are 1,738 operational satellites with 803 US satellites in orbit (476 commercial, 150 government, 159 military and 18 civil).  Russia has 142 operational satellites and China has 204.   There are also 2,600 non-functional human-made satellites, most of which weigh less than 5 tons and fly in a low orbit specifically programmed to burn out and fall to earth after 25 years. 

It is difficult to conjure up the effects of a ‘growing threat’ from ‘human-made’ orbital clutter and debris floating the infinite vastness of outer space as cosmically significant enough to qualify as a national security risk or that US global dominance is required to sweep the cosmos clean of said debris.  Perhaps, however, the President is referring to something other than debris and clutter. 

While outer space is a wide-open, limitless expanse full of life that remains as clandestine as any black ops project. global citizens no longer members of the Flat Earth Club are familiar with the noteworthy increase of reported extra terrestrial activity across the planet. While UFO’s are part of the lexicon, having evolved from folklore to real time events, government secrecy abounds. 

Especially intriguing are former astronauts who have commented on their experiences as well as members of the US military  who have described sightings that move at very high velocities with no visible signs of propulsion or that hover with no apparent means of lift and can change direction or speed on a dime.  

A black ops until it was revealed in December, 2017, the Advanced Aviation Threat Identification Program (AATIP) which prepared a 500 page document of worldwide UFO sightings, was Congressionally funded by former Senator Harry Reid (D-NV), home state of Area 51.   In a CNN interview, retired AATIP director Luis Elizondo who resigned in protest over ‘excessive secrecy’ said

“my personal belief is that there is very compelling evidence that we may not be alone.”  

Two events that dared challenge the government’s decades of secrecy with open disclosure were two press conferences at the National Press Club featuring retired military personnel providing public comment on their direct experiences with an extra terrestrial world in their official capacity.  The first press conference occurred on September, 10, 2001, one day before the 911 attacks and another on September 27, 2010.    Both press conferences were organized by Dr. Steven Greer of the Disclosure Project who also produced the videos Sirius and Unacknowledged.   

In responding to the Directive, Greer said he has been

“talking about this for years and has spoken to multiple witnesses who said that at least since the 1960s the US has had military assets in space. They (Trump administration) are acknowledging something that is already there. However, what is not being talked about, even now, is that those military assets are tracking and targeting ET craft.”

On the edge of human consciousness lies a more subtle, less obvious presence than the usual political adversaries as the US continues to lay specious claim to ownership of Outer Space.   Since the Roswell crash in 1947, the US has maintained a committed disinformation campaign to withhold truth from a disempowered citizenry – a truth that would empower those who have been blind to the government’s deception and a truth that would challenge the carefully crafted, familiar world we call reality. 

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Renee Parsons served on the ACLU’s Florida State Board of Directors and as president of the ACLU Treasure Coast Chapter. She has been an elected public official in Colorado, an environmental lobbyist for Friends of the Earth and a staff member of the US House of Representatives in Washington DC. She can be found on Twitter @reneedove31.

“We do not have a civil war, since a civil war is based on inter-confessional, ethnic, religious or other conflicts,” Assad explained, adding:

“We do not have this in Syria. You can go anywhere, particularly in government-controlled areas, and can see all the layers of Syrian society living peacefully alongside one another.”

“The war has taught us a very important lesson. Our diverse society has become much more united than it was before the war. We learned this lesson.”

Time and again throughout the war, I explained the same thing. Syria is Obama’s war, now Trump’s – naked aggression launched for regime change, continuing with no prospect in sight for resolution.

Washington wants another imperial trophy, a sovereign independent state replaced by pro-Western puppet rule, an Israeli rival eliminated, Iran isolated ahead of a similar scheme to topple its government.

That’s what imperialism is all about, diabolical viciousness for dominance by brute force, no nation more ruthless about it over a longer duration than America.

“Land of the free and home of the brave,” “America the beautiful,” its self-styled exceptionalism and indispensable state rubbish are cover for permanent wars of aggression, barbarous rampaging, rage for global dominance, indifference to virtually everything just societies hold dear.

America’s self-proclaimed “manifest destiny” was all about settlers from abroad alone enjoying the nation’s “spacious skies…amber waves of grain…and purple mountain majesties…from sea to shining sea.”

Indigenous people had to go, mass slaughter the way, winning the west accomplished by eliminating them.

Hitler modeled his “final solution” on the American holocaust, genocide defined as destroying a nation or ethnic group by “tyrannicide, homicide, infanticide, etc.” – including its culture and heritage.

It’s the American way. Wherever US forces show up, mass slaughter, vast destruction and human misery follow.

NATO was established to serve its interests first and foremost. Today it’s a killing machine, a force for pure evil, not good.

Its existence threatens humanity’s survival, notably because of Washington’s aim to make it global force for colonizing planet earth, an agenda for endless wars and chaos, aiming for ruler-serf societies worldwide, wealth and powerful interests dominating all others.

General Smedley Butler famously explained it, saying

“I spent 33 years and four months in active military service, and during that period I spent most of my time as a high-class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers” – a “gangster” for monied interests.

“…I might have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents.”

His book titled “War is a Racket” is a powerful anti-war classic, far more relevant now than when he wrote it in 1935 during the Great Depression and FDR’s New Deal era – polar opposite the scourge of neoliberal harshness, supported by both right wings of US duopoly governance.

In his interview with NTV, Assad covered much more ground, his remarks always candid straightforward, an antidote to duplicitous Western politicians, notably US ones.

He called alleged Syrian use of CWs “fairy tales…(fabricated) stories…used when…terrorists under their control, are defeated in some part of Syria.”

US-supported terrorists are down but not out, he stressed. ISIS, al-Nusra, and likeminded jihadists aren’t going away. Washington, NATO, Israel, and their allies will “use them again and again, but under different names.”

He blasted the West, saying it’s “distant from the concept of integrity. They do not give. They only take.” They rape and destroy for their own self-interest.

Asked if he’ll run for another term in 2021, he said what he explained many times before. He’ll serve if Syrians want him. He’s overwhelmingly popular. Without strong support, he’ll step aside for new leadership.

He stressed the following:

The “problem (with) West is that they do not have statesmen…only fake politicians. Fake politics needs fake news.”

“Tales about chemical weapons are part of this fake. Western politicians, and I’m not talking about the people, only the politicians, there is absolutely no sense of morality or moral principles.”

“When you encounter unprincipled people, they do not touch your heart nor your mind.”

They ravage nations for their own self-interest. They rape and destroy because who’ll stop them.

Their ruthlessness and recklessness to own planet earth may end up destroying it.

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

In another twist from one of the most bizarre stories of recent times comes the news that the already beleaguered British taxpayer will now be footing the bill for buying Sergei Skripal’s house.

According to officials cited by The Sunday Times, taxpayers will be footing the bill for Skripal’s home, which is expected to be bought by the UK government for around £350,000. The Sunday Times also reported, that the taxpayer will pay for the home of Detective Sergeant Nick Bailey, who fell ill after coming into contact with the so-called nerve agent Novichok. That house is expected to cost taxpayers around £430,000. All in all, the purchase of both homes, cars, and other possessions, will amount to a hefty £1 million.

Asked why the state is buying both these properties and belongings, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs said it would be inappropriate to comment on the personal matters of anyone involved in the attack.

“Mr Skripal’s home is still the scene of an ongoing police investigation and has not yet been released for clean-up work,” a spokesman added.

Wiltshire Police told the Sunday Times it was a “personal matter”.

So, it’s all hush-hush then.

Earlier this month it was revealed the force’s overall cost, prior to house buying, will be in the order of £7.5million and the area’s police and crime commissioner Angus Macpherson has asked the Home Office to cover the bill.

In another report by the DailyStar – “A source said Sergei was in an MI5 safehouse and will be “under armed guard 24-hours a day for the foreseeable future”.

And yet The Times reported on April 8th that:

“Sergei and Yulia Skripal will be offered new identities and a new life in America in an attempt to protect them from further murder attempts. Intelligence officials at MI6 have had discussions with their counterparts in the CIA about resettling the victims of the Salisbury poisoning. “They will be offered new identities,” a senior Whitehall figure said.”

One wonders why the state is buying these two properties. One assumes they must be completely cleaned and safe by now even if they had been contaminated. And why not just board them up and leave them? There are plenty of empty homes across the UK. If not, how can the state declare that Salisbury itself is safe and ask members of the Royal family to visit the town if the authorities cannot contain a very confined space such as a house?

Source: TruePublica

There are many confusing aspects to this story that continues to this day and the buying of Skripal’s house with no explanation or valid reason only adds to it.

As OffGuardian put it with regard to the event as it was unravelling back in March:

“Even the numbers of casualties still can’t be agreed upon. The claim of “nearly 40” needing treatment that were made by Neil Basu, the national head of counterterrorism, and repeated in the Times and other outlets, were subsequently debunked by a senior physician at Salisbury hospital, who, in a letter to the Times, said unambiguously that only three people (presumably the two Skripals and Bailey) had ever needed treatment. A correction the Times itself published the same day.”

The government totally messed up their story – thanks to the continued ineptitude of Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson. As John Pilger put it – “this was a carefully constructed drama” – perhaps not as carefully constructed as it could have been though.

By April 20th, senior civil servants were distancing themselves from this story. Craig Murray, with connections in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office said:

“FCO sources tell me it remains the case that senior civil servants in both the FCO and Home Office remain very sceptical of Russian guilt in the Skripal case.”

Nothing actually really changed from that position even though mainstream media were having a festival of propaganda that was then to be subsequently silenced by the government as the story got more muddled and confusing and suspicions rose.

On April 22nd TruePublica was the only news outlet in Britain to report that a Novichok delivery system had been patented in the USA in April 2013. Why would anyone need to protect a patent design to deliver a deadly nerve agent that was supposedly illegal in the country that patented it – or any other country for that matter?

By April 30th the connection had been made about Pablo Millar. He was a colleague in both MI6 and then Orbis Intelligence with Christopher Steele, author of the fabrications of the Trump/Russia golden shower dossier, paid for by the Democrats in an attempt to tarnish Trump with a revelation that involved the Russians and prostitutes. In this case, British spooks were found to be making it up and the story was debunked within weeks.

As this news was about to become public the government sent out D-Notices banning all media mention of Pablo Miller making it more than probable that the government had something to hide and that the whole incident related to the Trump dossier puts Skripal in the frame for working on it.

By May 10th TruePublica reported that

“a D-notice (Defence and Security Media Advisory Notice) used by the British state to censor the publication of potentially damaging news stories had been formally issued to the mainstream media to withhold publication of the British ex-spy deeply involved in the Skripal/Novichok affair.”

TruePublica then published the D-Notice.

The involvement of Skripal, a double agent himself, with MI5 and MI6 officers, who had in fact, been suspected more recently of being a triple-agent, with the connection of major political parties in the USA along with the hundreds of Russian agents exposed (many of whom were reported as being captured and murdered) by Skripal’s disclosures to foreign government’s for cash – made him a target of many actors. Skripal could well have a been a victim of an assassination attempt by an aggrieved Russian family but the story of the Russian state itself being involved simply does not stack up. This is especially so given that if the Russian state was involved – it would have succeeded in its mission and not bungled it quite so badly as it turned out.

We will probably never learn of the truth in this case. Skripal has gone. No-one can speak to him, his daughter or their families.

The entire affair is an embarrassing mess for the government, which stinks of collusion and cover-up, most of the damage being done by Boris Johnson’s ridiculous lies.

The New Yorker staff writer Adam Entous revealed on June 18 that four sitting U.S. presidents beginning with Bill Clinton signed secret letters agreeing never to publicly discuss Israel’s undeclared nuclear arsenal. According to Entous, President Trump’s aides felt “blindsided” by Israeli ambassador Ron Dermer’s urgent demand to sign a fourth letter. Only a small number of “senior American officials” in the previous three administrations even knew about the existence of such letters. Though said not to specifically mention Israel’s arsenal, Israeli leaders interpret the letters as binding American pledges not to publicly mention Israel’s nuclear weapons or press Israel to sign the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT). The letters add to growing evidence of a longstanding multifaceted executive and federal agency conspiracy to violate the US Arms Export Control Act on Israel’s behalf.

US Foreign Assistance to Israel Since the Clinton Administration (US Billion)

Source: 2018 GAO report “US Foreign Aid to Israel,” MOU commitments, inflation-adjusted, excludes black budgets.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu – who has FBI-documented personal connections to Israel’s nuclear weapons program smuggling operations – was particularly concerned about newly-elected president Barack Obama. On February 9, 2009, veteran White House reporter Helen Thomas asked if Obama knew “of any country in the Middle East that has nuclear weapons.” Obama dodged answering the question before finally replying that he didn’t “want to speculate.” Speaking in Prague in April, 2009 Obama called for strengthening the NPT. However, by May 2009, Obama yielded to Israeli pressure and signed an updated version of the secret Israeli gag letter, according to Entous. On September 6, 2012 Obama’s Department of Energy, in consultation with the Department of State, issued a secret directive called “Guidance on Release of Information Relating to the Potential for an Israeli Nuclear Capability,” or WNP-136 making it a crime for any US government employee or contractor to publicly communicate any information – even from the public domain – about Israel’s nuclear weapons program.

The Israelis, empowered by their $6.3 billion per year US affinity network, are ever eager to curtail informed public discussion and policymaking about Israel’s nuclear weapons stockpile. Entous notes that Israel already had three nuclear devices by 1967 but does not examine how a country with no infrastructure to produce highly-enriched uranium managed to assemble such weapons. According to CIA and FBI files, Israel colluded with Pennsylvania nuclear processing plant administrators, two connected to Israeli intelligence and three with strong connections to the Zionist Organization of America, to divert enough US government-owned highly-enriched uranium to build several devices in the 1960s. The pillage of NUMEC, a privately-held thinly capitalized Atomic Energy Agency contractor, left behind a toxic mess and hundreds of poisoned, uncompensated victims.

More important than avoiding public knowledge about how Israel built its nuclear program, Israel and its lobby wish to preempt overdue enforcement of the 1976 Symington and Glenn Amendments to the Foreign Assistance Act now embedded in the US Arms Export Control Act. US presidents, upon learning that a non-NPT member is trafficking in nuclear weapons technology and testing nuclear weapons, are supposed to publicly notify Congress and cut off US foreign aid to said country. Israel has not signed the NPT and also continually smuggles nuclear weapons-making technology from the US. The President can comply with the AECA by publicly justifying to Congress why continuing foreign aid to non-NPT signatory proliferators serves the US national interest, as was done in the case of waivers for Pakistan. No president has ever complied with any of provisions of the AECA regarding Israel, including waivers. (PDF)

In May of 2018, the US District Court of Appeals of DC upheld a lower court’s ruling that US citizens have no standing to sue the president and executive agencies complicit in failing to enforce the AECA over the many administrations inflict by improperly withholding information sought through the Freedom of Information Act about Israel’s nuclear weapons program and US policy. In a brief, the US Department of Justice argued that the President has sole authority whether or not to recognize Israel’s nuclear weapons program as fact, stating “The legislative history of the [AECA] statute, moreover, makes clear that Congress intended that ‘the determinations under this section. . . be made by the President…the president’s decision whether or not to make a determination…is the epitome of a discretionary judgment…’” (PDF, page 5 and 6).

Most Americans believe Israel has nuclear weapons and that Congress should factor Israel’s nuclear arsenal into congressional discussions about US foreign aid given to Israel to allegedly maintain its “qualitative military edge.” In polls, Americans consistently say the US gives too much aid to Israel.

Excluding clandestine US aid funneled through black budgets, US presidents and Congress have given an inflation-adjusted sum of $222.8 billion to Israel since the Symington & Glenn Amendments became law in 1976. Since Bill Clinton became the first known US president to sign a secret letter to Israel, inflation-adjusted aid to Israel has grown to $99.9 billion.

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Grant F. Smith is the director of the Institute for Research: Middle Eastern Policy in Washington and the author of the 2016 book, Big Israel: How Israel’s Lobby moves America now available as an audiobook.

Noted consumer advocate and author Ralph Nader on Friday offered a sharp retort to Laura Bush and Michelle Obama in response to the former first ladies levied criticism at the Trump administration’s cruel immigration policy that separated immigrant children from their families.

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

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

— Ralph Nader (@RalphNader) June 22, 2018

As it’s signed “-R,” it was written by Nader himself, rather than his staff who often tweet on his behalf.

The tweet follows an op-ed published Sunday at the Washington Post in which Bush took aim at Trump’s “zero tolerance” policy, writing that she “was among the millions of Americans who watched images of children who have been torn from their parents.”

“I live in a border state. I appreciate the need to enforce and protect our international boundaries, but this zero-tolerance policy is cruel. It is immoral. And it breaks my heart,” she wrote, tweeting out the same section of text.

Michelle Obama retweeted that, adding,

“Sometimes truth transcends party.”

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), it should also be noted, was created under the George w. Bush administration and the Obama administration also came under fire for his deportation policy, treatment of child migrants, and the detention of immigrant families.

The other living first ladies have also weighed in on the Trump administration’s widely condemned policy of ripping families apart at the Southern border, with all expressing at least some measure of criticism.

The current First Lady’s reaction to the separations and detention of chidlren was quite mild, with a spokesperson for Melania Trump saying she “hates to see children separated from their families.” It also rang particularly hollow, as, on her way to visit a detention center at the border, she wore a jacket emblazoned with the words “I really don’t care, do U?”

*

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

Featured image is from AlterNet.

Amid the ongoing killing of defenceless Palestinian demonstrators, the Israeli leadership is engaged in a fierce and multifaceted war on photographers, either by shooting at them or criminalising them. Israel’s occupation authorities fear that photographs and video images will expose their brutality on the ground, which may lead to the provision of evidence to help prosecute officers and soldiers in accordance with international criminal justice procedures.

In the past, professional journalists rarely managed to reach the sites and locations where Israel was committing its crimes and human rights violations in time to record them for posterity, because the army would declare the sites to be closed military zones. Images weren’t as much of a concern for the Israelis as they are today. Most of the killings, assaults and abuse that Israeli soldiers and settlers committed in the past took place away from the scrutiny of the lens; only a few incidents were documented on camera, and they usually caused an uproar by moving the world’s conscience.

This happened during the First Intifada that broke out in late 1987 and lasted for several years. A photographer captured shocking images of soldiers breaking the bones of young Palestinians. Soldiers were shown surrounding groups of handcuffed and blindfolded men before hitting them with stones repeatedly until their arms were broken.

There were also images of Palestinian children being used as human shields; Israeli soldiers tied them to the bumpers of their vehicles to protect themselves against stone-throwers. At the end of September 2000, Mohammad Al-Durra’s name was known around the world after he was shot and killed in his father’s arms, despite his father repeatedly calling on the soldiers to stop firing. The scene ended with Abu Mohammad collapsing over his son’s body.

In 2003, photographers documented the crushing to death of human rights activist Rachel Corrie by an Israeli bulldozer. The US citizen was protesting against the razing of Palestinian homes to the ground in Rafah, in the south of the Gaza Strip. In 2006, media lenses also captured the shock on the face of young Huda Ghalia on the beach in Gaza after an Israeli gunboat killed most of her family members in one murderous fusillade.

These events and others preceded the Palestinians’ use of smart phones linked to social media sites. This is the technological development that has raised concerns amongst the Israelis. While the soldiers are armed with their deadly weapons, the Palestinians and activists supporting them are armed with their smartphones, which can expose the actions of the soldiers in real time and may be enough to convict them in international courts one day.

Palestinian victims of Israeli brutality were once merely statistics reported in news reports, but the new generation of citizen journalists takes their lives and their deaths into the public domain around the world within seconds. Anyone can thus get close to them, get to know them, feel their pain and anguish, and sympathise in their tragedy. Modern high-resolution photography is being used to document Israeli war crimes, which Israel fears due to the potential consequences. This has been expressed officially by warnings about “harming the morale of the soldiers.”

The mass killings committed by Israeli snipers on the fringe of the Gaza Strip a few short weeks ago marked a turning point in this issue. The massacre of peaceful protesters and the extensive injuries they sustained provoked global outrage, so much so that even the pro-Israel lobby has been unable to justify Israel’s actions in the US and European media.

The so-called Israel Defence Forces fears that damning video footage documenting soldiers’ crimes will be used to prosecute them. Footage has emerged of soldiers standing on one of the hills near the border Gaza, shooting Palestinian protestors and then cheering at the injuries they inflicted. Such footage is rare, even though Israeli soldiers have regularly behaved in such a manner as they shoot at Palestinians and their homes.

This is why the government has introduced a bill in parliament — the Knesset — which would make it illegal to photograph soldiers in the act of carrying out their duties, no matter that such duties often contravene international law. The initial reading of the bill was passed on 20 June.

This is how the Israeli government is declaring war on photographers and their images. Israel and its army have things they want to hide from the world which they understand that most people will find repulsive.

Rushdi Sarraj [r], co-founder of Ain Media and Yaser Murtaja who was killed by an Israeli sniper in April (Source: MEMO)

It was also noticeable during the Great March of Return protests in Gaza that the Israeli snipers were targeting professional journalists wearing very clear “PRESS” insignia on their vests. Those carrying cameras were particular targets. The killing of photojournalist Yasser Murtaja has become a symbol of the sacrifices made by journalists while doing their job in the besieged territory.

If images from the front line are no longer available from independent eyewitnesses to Israel’s crimes, we can be certain that the government’s propaganda machine will swing into action to “prove” that the soldiers acted in “self-defence”. The Israelis will do anything to cover up their war crimes, hide their rights violations and continue to try to justify what most reasonable people believe is unjustifiable. Photographers and journalists must be allowed to go about their work free from violence and threats to their lives.

If there was a pill which could boost your health, increase testosterone, sharpen your mind and supercharge your athletic abilities … you’d take it, right?

Especially if there were no negative side effects … and the pill was cheap?

Well, there is something like that.

But instead of a pill you pop in your mouth, it’s a special type of light. Scientists call treatment with this special type of light “photobiomodulation” (or “PBM”), and they used to call it “low level light therapy” (or “LLLT”). Or some people simply call it “red light therapy”.

If this sounds crazy, remember that our bodies evolved to make Vitamin D from a specific type of light (specifically, the ultraviolet light coming from the sun). And scientists say that the blue light from your devices can damage your eyes and may cause severe health problems. So it is clear that light has an effect on us.

Thousands of Scientific Studies from All Over the World Demonstrate the Power of This Approach

Let’s jump right into the scientific proof that this approach is incredibly powerful for a vast range of conditions. We will link to the scientific studies, and note the academic institutions with which the researchers are affiliated.

Improves Athletic and Sports Performance

Top U.S. Olympic athletes state that PBM helps their performance. See this video, and then watch this one.
Many studies show that PBM can assist in athletic performance:

• Provides an advantage in sports performance (Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology, Universidade do Sagrado Coração)

• The effectiveness in improving muscle performance and recovery suggest applicability for high performance sports and in training programs (Harvard Medical School, Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard-MIT Division of Health Science and Technology, Federal University of Sao Carlos, University of São Paulo)

• Improves performance and accelerates recovery of high-level rugby players (Universidade Nove de Julho, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Universidade Cidade de São Paulo)

• Significantly reduced return-to-play in injured university athletes (Lehigh University)

• Twin exposed to PBM performed better than twin not exposed in terms of reduced muscle damage, pain, and atrophy, increased muscle mass, recovery, and athletic performance (Harvard Medical School, Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology, Massachusetts General Hospital, Federal University of São Carlos, University of São Paulo)

• Accelerates post-exercise recovery (University of Bergen,, University of Caxias do Sul, University of São Paulo)

• Improves muscular performance and accelerates recovery if applied before exercise (University of Bergen, Universidade Nove de Julho)

• Improves muscle performance, reduces muscle fatigue during exercises and benefits muscle repair(Massachusetts General Hospital, Federal University of São Carlos)

• Enhances physical performance, stamina, and provides prophylactic benefits to skeletal muscle(University of Florida)

• Decreases muscle injury (Tel-Aviv University)

• Helps all phases of muscle recovery process, including anti-inflammatory, antioxidative properties and bio-stimulation (University Paulista, Methodist University of São Paulo)

• Aids in muscle repair (Universidade Nove de Julho, University of São Paulo)

• Reduces loss of strength after resistance exercise, may be beneficial for improving muscle function during rehabilitation after musculoskeletal injury (University of Calgary, University of Florida, Troy University)

• Promotes mucle regeneration (Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology, Federal University of São Carlos, Universidade de São Paulo)

• Promotes skeletal muscle regeneration and accelerates tissue repair (Soochow University, Fudan University, South China Normal University)

• May modulate metabolic and renal function to achieve better performance (Harvard Medical School, Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard-MIT Division of Health Science and Technology, Federal University of Sao Carlos, University of São Paulo)

• Significantly increases performance, decreases muscle soreness, and reduces to skeletal muscle damage (Universidade Nove de Julho)

• Aids muscle recovery (Federal University of São Carlos, University of São Paulo)

• Decreases muscle fatigue (Nove de Julho University)

• Reduces muscle inflammation (Universidade Luterana do Brasil)

• Helps with Achilles heel (University of Bergen)

• Strenghtens knee muscles and quickens recovery from exercise (Universidade Federal de Ciências da Saúde de Porto Alegre, Brazil)

• Assists with muscle fatigue and muscle injury (Harvard University, Federal University of São Carlos)

Good for the Brain

• Researchers at the Department of Psychology and Institute for Neuroscience, University of Texas at Austin found:

“LLLT improves prefrontal cortex-related cognitive functions, such as sustained attention, extinction memory, working memory, and affective state. Transcranial infrared stimulation may be used efficaciously to support neuronal mitochondrial respiration as a new non-invasive, cognition-improving intervention in animals and humans. This fascinating new approach should also be able to influence other brain functions …”

They note:

“LLLT supplies the brain with metabolic energy in a way analogous to the conversion of nutrients into metabolic energy, but with light instead of nutrients providing the source for ATP-based metabolic energy.”

• Improves memory and attention (University of Texas at Austin)

• Improves reaction times, and improves performance on memory test in healthy test subjects(Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology, with funding from the U.S. National Institutes of Health, U.S. Air Force Office of Scientific Research, U.S. Army Medical Research)

• Improves cognition, reduces costs in traumatic brain injury treatment (VA Boston Healthcare System)

• Helps with dementia (Harvard Medical School, Boston University School of Medicine, Massachusetts General Hospital)

• Promising therapy for Alzheimer’s and brain injury (Boston University Medical Center, St Michael’s Hospital)

• Promising treatment for Gulf War syndrome (U.S. Department of Veteran’s Affairs)

• Helps with Parkinson’s (Lausanne University Hospital, École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, with funding from Swiss National Science Foundation)

Increases Testosterone

Studies from North Carolina State University, U.S. National Cancer Institute, College of Medical Sciences in Nepal, NRS Medical College and Dankook University, and the Wallace Memorial Baptist Hospital show that PBM may significantly increase testosterone levels in males.

Helps Prevent Macular Degeneration

• Studies from the State University of New York, University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee, and Austalian National University show that PBM can help reduce macular degeneration and other causes of blindness

Good for the Skin

• It’s good for the skin (Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology, Defence Institute of Physiology & Allied Sciences, India, Aripam Medical Center, Israel):

“In dermatology, LLLT has beneficial effects on wrinkles, acne scars, hypertrophic scars, and healing of burns. LLLT can reduce UV damage both as a treatment and as a prophylaxis. In pigmentary disorders such as vitiligo, LLLT can increase pigmentation by stimulating melanocyte proliferation and reduce depigmentation by inhibiting autoimmunity. Inflammatory diseases such as psoriasis and acne can also benefit.”

• Stimulates, heals and restores skin (Harvard Medical School, Massachusetts General Hospital)

• Protects skin against wrinkles (Dankook University, Yonsei Wonju College of Medicine)

• Reduces wrinkles (Medical Light Consulting, Heidelberg, Germany, International GmbH, Windhagen, Germany)

• Helps in healing wound from Staph infection (Baqiyatallah University of Medical Sciences)

• Speeds healing of diabetic wounds (King Faisal Specialist Hospital and Research Centre)

• Hastens wound healing by promoting fibrous tissue, epidermal and endothelial cell proliferation(Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences, Peking Union Medicine College)

Mood and Depression

• Helps with major depression (Massachusetts General Hospital, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai)
• Assists with seasonal and non-seasonal depression (New York State Psychiatric Institute)
• Less experience of day-to-day anxieties and stressors in healthy test subjects (Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology, with funding from the U.S. National Institutes of Health, U.S. Air Force Office of Scientific Research, U.S. Army Medical Research)
• Improves mood (University of Texas at Austin)
• Improves behavioral recovery from neurodegeneration (University of Texas at Austin)

Protects the Heart

• Helps protect the heart after a heart attack (Sydney University, Australian Catholic University, University of New South Wales, Macquarie University, Maitland Hospital, Blacktown Hospital)

Reduces Pain

• Reduces pain after spinal cord injury (Australian National University)

• Reduce pain in cancer patients (University of Alabama at Birmingham Hospital)

Helps Teeth and Gums

• May improve healing, reduce inflammation and control pain (University of Birmingham)

• Improves blood flow and neovascularization, non-healing wounds can be healed, ‘normal’ wounds heal faster and better, pain and many types of inflammation can be significantly reduced (Kangbuk Samsung Hospital)

• May help to regenerate damaged bone (Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences)

• Helps heal bone defects after grafts (Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio Grande do Sul)

• Promotes bone healing after socket extraction surgery (University of Medicine and Pharmacy of Târgu Mures)

• Helps promote healing after periodontal surgery (Tokyo Medical and Dental University)

• May help form dentin on damaged, immature teeth (AJA University of Medical Sciences, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, University of Tehran)

• Reduces harmful bacteria in mouth (Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Qom University of Medical Sciences)

• May help reduce harmful bacteria in the mouth (University of Campinas)

• Reduces pain in mouth (Urmia University of Medical Sciences)

• Reduces tooth sensitivity (Atatürk University)

• Reduces tooth sensitivity (University of Ankara, Near East University)

Assists with Weight Loss

• Studies from Massachusetts General Hospital, Louisiana State University, Louisiana State University, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, and the San Antonio Medical Spa show that PBM can help with those trying to lose weight

Thyroid

• The University of Sao Paulo Medical School has shown that PBM can help with thyroid conditions.

Joint Pain and Arthritis

• Reduces osteoarthritis pain (University of Ottawa)

• Reduces pain and improves health status in chronic joint disorders (University of Bergen)

• Reduces osteoarthritis pain in knee (São Paulo University)

• Reduces pain and improves quality of life in patients with knee osteoarthritis (University of Dundee)

Nerve Damage

• Studies from Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School, the University of Pennsylvania, Medical College of Wisconsin, and University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee show that PBM is helpful in addressing nerve damage

Other Healing Effects

Studies have shown many other beneficial effects from PBM, including:

• Increases peripheral blood flow (Brigham Young University)

• Helps with tumors (Institute of Research and Development, Brazil)

• Reduces pain from chemotherapy (University of Alabama, Children’s Hospital Wisconsin NASA)

• Helps with burns (Karolinska Institutet, Sweden)

• Promotes wound healing, tissue repair, and the prevention of tissue death, to relieve inflammation and edema because of injuries or chronic diseases, and as an analgesic and a treatment for other neurological problems (Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Guangxi Medical University, Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology; funding from U.S. National Institutes of Health, U.S. Air Force Office of Scientific Research)

• Reduces tinnitus (University of Manchester, Weill Cornell Medical College, Rumaillah Hospital and Hamad General Hospital)

• Fights certain types of bacterial infection (Friedrich Schiller University)

• Reduces baldness in men and women (various)

Indeed, an FDA scientists said at a recent conference that PBM showed positive effects on virtually every health condition studied so far.

(And the articles listed above are just a sample … I have collected hundreds of other links to scientific articles on the health benefits of PBM. But spamming you with links would be boring. And scientists such as Hamblin have written definitive summaries of the topic.)

How Was This Discovered?

The discovery of PBM – like many great scientific discoveries – was largely an accident …

Emeritus Professor, Radiation Oncology (Radiation Biology) Stanford University School of Medicine, Kendric C. Smith, notes:

“The father of phototherapy is Niels Ryberg Finsen, who first used sunlight, and then red light, to treat patients with smallpox in the 1800’s. He received a Nobel Prize in 1903.”

In 1967, professor of surgery at Pazmany Peter University in Budapest named Endre Mester experimented on rats and mice to try to induce cancer with lasers. He shaved the mice, and then shot a red laser at them. To his surprise, the red laser didn’t induce cancer … instead hair grew back faster on the animals.

In the 1990’s, NASA ran experiments to see if LED lights could help plants grow onboard the space shuttle. But the astronauts soon noticed that the lights helped their wounds heal more quickly.

NASA notes:

“Tiny light-emitting diode (LED) chips used to grow plants in space are lighting the way for cancer treatment, wound healing, and chronic pain alleviation on Earth.”

Evolutionary Basis for the Health Benefits of Red Light

What possible mechanism could explain the incredibly diverse positive effects from PBM? What possible evolutionary explanation is there for this treatment?

Our bodies evolved to consume certain materials to stay healthy. For example, we evolved to eat protein and drink water … so we need both to maintain health. Scientists have recently learned that our bodies also evolved to consume omega 3 fatty acids, and as mentioned above, to make Vitamin D from UV light.

The sunlight shining on our ancestors’ and our bodies is comprised mainly of red and near infrared light between around and nanometers:

Source: Nick84, CC BY-SA 3.0

As NASA discovered with its red light experiments, red light helps plants to grow. And a new study from researchers from the U.S. and Finland show that virtually all life-forms respond favorably to light. They note:

“Veterinarians routinely use PBM to treat non-mammalian patients. The conclusion is that red or NIR light does indeed have significant biological effects conserved over many different kingdoms, and perhaps it is true that “all life-forms respond to light”.

Our ancestors were outside a lot. Many of them woke up shortly before dawn, and went to sleep shortly after dusk. So they got exposed to a lot of natural light … not only bright overhead white sunlight, but also the red wavelengths in the sunrise and sunset.

So maybe we evolved to get a lot of exposure to red light. The fact that plants and other organisms seem to be positively effected by red light would support that argument.

But that still doesn’t explain why red light applied to the inside of the body has beneficial effects. Specifically, red light shined inside the nose or – according to Chinese and Russian tests – directly into the bloodstream, have positive effects.

How could this be?

Scientists have proven that red light boosts the production of ATP by mitochondria, which are the powerhouses in our cells. Every cell in our body (other than red blood cells) contain mitochondria.

Now here’s my personal theory …

Mitochondria may originally have been photosynthetic bacteria. For example, a top evolutionary biologist – Oxford professor of evolutionary biology Thomas Cavalier-Smith – argues:

[T]he first enslavement step [of the bacteria which would become mitochondria by larger organisms which would eventually evolve into humans] was uptake of a host carrier protein through the outer membrane (OM) and its insertion into the inner, cytoplasmic membrane (IM) of a photosynthetic purple bacterium that escaped into the host cell’s cytoplasm from the food vacuole into which it was initially phagocytosed.

Studies show that photosynthetic purple bacteria utilize similar wavelengths to those used in PBM.

So while I obviously don’t know why PBM does so many helpful things, my hypothesis is that PBM taps into latent abilities of our mitochondria … that may have lain untapped for millions of years.

While this may sound whacky, the Harvard Medical School professor who wrote the book (actually severalof them) on PBM, Dr. Michael Hamblin, told me “I think there is something in your theory”.

Postscript: In a separate article, I will discuss various ways to use PBM and get exposure to red light therapy.

Dublin mayor calls for Irish boycott of 2019 Eurovision in Israel

14 May 2018

Dublin’s mayor on Monday called for Ireland to boycott next year’s Eurovision Song Contest, which is to be held in Israel, in solidarity with the Palestinians.

Micheal Mac Donncha told Dublin Live news site that he would support a boycott of the Israeli-hosted event.

“I would support that, I don’t think we should send a representative,” he said.

Read more at www.timesofisrael.com

French director Jean-Luc Godard among dozens of film professionals to boycott Israel cinema event

May 8, 2018

The French filmmaker Jean-Luc Godard joined dozens of other film-industry professionals from France who vowed to boycott an event celebrating Israeli cinema.

Godard, a pioneer of the 1960s New Wave cinema and an avowed Marxist who has fought accusations of anti-Semitism, added his name to a May 4 petition calling for a boycott of the France-Israel Season event by the Institut Francais. The state-run organization for furthering French culture abroad scheduled next month’s event in cooperation with Israeli government officials.

Read more at www.jta.org

5 June 2018

The Palestinian ambassador to Argentina said to play in Jerusalem would be to disregard the plight of their Palestinian communities.

After an intense campaign by the pro-Palestinian activists and groups calling for a peaceful boycott against Israel, Argentine Football Association (AFA) have canceled their friendly match with Israel, AFA official Hugo Moyano confirmed Tuesday.

Read more at www.telesurtv.net

Shakira abandons plan to play in Tel Aviv

29 May 2018

Palestinians are welcoming the news that Shakira won’t be playing in Tel Aviv this summer.

PACBI, the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel, said that Shakira’s decision dashes Israel’s hopes “to use her name to art-wash its latest massacre in Gaza.”

Read more at electronicintifada.net

Gilberto Gil cancels Tel Aviv gig

22 May 2018

Palestinians are hailing the decision by Brazilian music legend Gilberto Gil to pull the plug on a performance in Israel this summer.

Meanwhile, dozens of artists are declaring their support for the cultural boycott of Israel following the latest Israeli mass killings of civilians in the occupied Gaza Strip.

Read more at electronicintifada.net

U.S. and U.K. bands boycott Berlin event due to Israeli embassy donation

June 11, 2018

US singer John Maus announced his withdrawal from the Berlin Pop-Kultur music festival due to pressure from the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign.

He is the fourth musical act to boycott the event because the Israeli Embassy is a small sponsor of the August international festival.

Read more at www.jpost.com

After Monday’s Massacre, Boycotting Israel is the Best Way the World Can Fight Back

15 May 2018

May 15, 2018 marks the convergence of three events in Palestine, each with the potential of sparking unrest and violence. The combination of the three portended grave consequences and what happened on Monday with 55 Palestinian civilians gunned down by Israeli soldiers at the Gaza border is confirmation of how dire the situation is. Here, we examine each of these events in their present and historic contexts.

Read more at thewire.in

Pressure grows to cancel “France-Israel Season”

23 May 2018

Demands are growing to cancel the Saison France-Israël 2018 – or France-Israel Season – a series of hundreds of “cultural” events backed by both governments that is set to start next month.

In the first major sign that the pressure is being felt, the French government announced on Wednesday that Prime Minister Édouard Philippe was canceling a trip to open the France-Israel Season.

Already, more than 10,000 people have signed a petition launched this week urging President Emmanuel Macron to cancel the France-Israel Season altogether.

Read more at electronicintifada.net

Featured image: Doug Ford with a female supporter, May 4, 2018. (Source: Doug Ford / Wikimedia)

While U.S. socialists have always challenged the myth of American exceptionalism – that the U.S. is immune to class struggle and a politics linked to it – they tend to have the opposite view of Canadian politics: that the latter is somehow exceptional, rooted in a classic social-democratic and even socialist political culture that makes it immune to reactionary trends like Trumpism and the right-wing populist wave around the world.

But Canada, and its industrial heartland and largest province of Ontario, is far from immune from these forces. Case in point: the June 7 election of a right-wing populist government of the Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario (PC), led by politician and businessman Doug Ford.

Canada has gone through a number of less reactionary but austerity-driven Conservative governments, most recently that of Stephen Harper from 2006–2015, and Ontario was ruled by a more moderate PC for forty years before hard-line, Thatcher-like neoliberal PC governments ruled from 1995–2003. That draconian regime drove the Ontario economy into the low-wage, low-tax, “anything-goes” development model that dominates today. The Liberal government that succeeded it over the past fifteen years did little to challenge that model.

The election of the PCs in Ontario should have been expected. The PCs were far out in front in the opinion polls for over a year. The party suffered from internecine leadership struggles in the past few months but still maintained a huge lead until the last part of the election campaign. The PC’s popularity was based especially on the anger of people across the province with the long-standing incumbent governing Liberals.

Exhaustion With the Liberals

Ontario Liberals fancy themselves as a “centrist,” business-friendly party that seeks to integrate the needs of capital with workers, combining competitiveness-oriented policies with forms of positive social reforms, vacillating over time between the two policy poles. In reality, it has continued the low-wage economic model it inherited from the previous PC government, driving down spending on social programs slowly – ultimately leaving Ontario with the lowest program spending per capita in the country.

Over its mandate, the Liberals accumulated several scandals and policy boondoggles, along with some moderate reforms. By the time this election was called, there was a general weariness and disgust with them that was captured by Ford and his party.

Some of that weariness came from a more traditional conservative aversion to government spending and taxation and being insufficiently business-friendly. Some reflected opposition or uneasiness with the progressive changes to the labour code made by the Liberals in their final months, in response to mass pressure and protests and an eye for capturing progressive voters, including increasing the minimum wage to $14 with plans to move to $15 per hour.

Kathleen Wynne’s government kept a lid on social-service spending, squeezing education and in particular healthcare, then partially reversing itself in the buildup to the election to take votes from the NDP. People objected to the scandals, the selling off of 53 per cent of the Hydro One electrical utility, and the swift move of the latter to pay its now-private executives shockingly high salaries. Those on both the Right and Left opposed the government for different reasons, while drawing opposite conclusions of what to replace it with.

As in all the right-wing populist movements in the Global North, issues such as job insecurity, workplace closures, relatively high personal tax levels (in a province where government spending per capita remains abysmally low), fed fear and anger amongst key sections of the electorate, and the working class in particular. According to figures cited by Peter Graefe of McMaster University, even with relatively low general unemployment levels (5.5 per cent), the lowest in fifteen years, there remains an exceptionally low labour participation rate, as the percentage of Ontarians aged 15–64 participating in the labour market declined from 79 per cent in 2003 to 72.3 per cent in 2017.

A Social-Democratic Opening

Frustration with the government and opposition to the possibility of a right-wing populist PC victory fueled a response on the Left, as well. While the PCs initially led in the opinion polls, their lead was steadily eroded by the social-democratic Ontario New Democratic Party (NDP). The predicted popular vote for the NDP and PC were virtually tied by the week before the election. But the first-past-the-post electoral system favored the PC, and the popular vote was skewed in a way that gave them enough seats to form a comfortable majority.

June 16, Toronto: Rally for Decent Work. More pics at flickr.com.

As such, much of the frustration with the Liberal government was divided between the PCs, who ended up with 40 per cent of the popular vote, translating into seventy-six parliamentary seats and a clear majority (sixty-three needed), and the social-democratic New Democratic Party (NDP), who took 34 per cent of the vote, translating into forty seats. The governing Liberals took 19 per cent of the popular vote, translating into seven seats. (The Greens won one seat with 4.6 per cent of the vote.)

The NDP is a party of moderate social reform, the successor to the more radical Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF), which was founded during the Great Depression and transformed after the 1930s into a moderate Keynesian party. In 1961, a further effort to become more “mainstream,” working with the Canadian Labour Congress (CLC), led to the creation of the NDP.

In its earlier days, the NDP championed some of Canada’s key social-welfare reforms. In the neoliberal period, the party reflected the Third Way orientation of sister parties in the Global North. Its one time in power in Ontario was in 1990–1995. The party’s current leader, Andrea Horwath, ran two previous middle-of-the-road electoral campaigns that proposed very limited reforms, couched in a discourse of financial orthodoxy. They were outflanked on the left by the Liberals in the 2014 election. This time, they had a more ambitious set of moderate social-democratic proposals, including a form of dental care, day care, Pharmacare, transit, measures to facilitate unionization, and a commitment to fighting privatization.

The NDP also fielded several activist- and left-oriented candidates in some ridings. As the campaign progressed and the precipitous drop in Liberal support became apparent, the NDP became the only electoral challenge to the prospects of a Ford victory. Because of this, much of the Left (and Liberals) rallied behind them.

In purely electoral terms, more voters chose moderate or progressive options than those who chose the PCs. The Liberals couched themselves as “responsible” social reformers, opposing both the draconian right-wing platform of the PCs and attacking the NDP for somehow being too negative toward the private sector or even “socialist.” Yet, the Liberal defense of the flurry of reforms they introduced in the waning months of their mandate made them appear to be progressive in some ways.

Looked at this way, the majority of voters actually voted for more progressive policies than Ford’s PCs. It’s hard to portray the electoral outcome as a wholesale endorsement of right-wing populism. Yet Ford has a majority government at his command.

Clearly, the Ontario electorate is divided in this province. Ford got most of his seats from the rural, exurban, and suburban areas, and traditionally conservative spaces. The NDP elected people in larger urban centers and places where organized labour remains strong or has an historical resonance. But even there, the story isn’t that simple; class, demographic, and ideological differences and contradictions helped shape the outcome.

Doug Ford, the PCs, and Right-Wing Populism à la Ontario

Doug Ford is a multimillionaire co-owner of Deco Labels, a labeling and packaging business based in Chicago and Toronto. He and his brothers inherited it from their father, who was a member of the hard-line, neoliberal PC government of Mike Harris. Doug was a city councillor in Toronto, while his infamous brother, the late Rob Ford, was the mayor who was seen on video smoking crack not long before he died in 2016.

Both Ford brothers wore the mantle of “standing up for the little guy,” using the standard right-wing populist arsenal of opposition to taxes and government spending (referring to the “gravy train” of government waste and “privilege”), public housing, and services; opposing above-ground public transit, defending car dominance of the roads and championing privatization.

But populism of the Right has different inflections in different places. Ford is not openly racist, as is President Donald Trump. Ford courted fiscal and social conservatives within different immigrant communities and communities of color and carefully balanced not-so-concealed appeals to racism and xenophobia with base-building across ethnic and other social divides.

In running for the leadership of the PC party – just a few months before the election – Ford brought his persona and politics with him, much of it as simplistic and obnoxious as Trump. He spoke about “The People,” about bringing “relief” to the “hard-pressed” taxpayers of Ontario, “putting more money in your pocket and letting YOU decide how to spend your hard-earned money,” about cutting taxes and making the province open for business investment in order to create jobs.

While the party gave no costed platform, explaining what exactly the party’s policy intentions were and how they were going to pay for them (and Ford made sure of keeping the media at arms length throughout the entire campaign), their promises were a mix between usual right-wing populist issues and promises peculiar to the Ontario context: cutting the already low corporate tax rate; scrapping the cap-and-trade agreement with California and New York and opposing any carbon tax; reducing gas taxes by 10 cents per liter (the source of much public-transit funding); cutting income tax by 20 per cent for “middle” and upper level earners; freezing the minimum wage and introducing a low-wage tax credit; introducing a meager increase in healthcare spending for long-term care; scrapping a revised (and socially progressive) sex-education curriculum; bringing in provincial ownership of subways and increasing spending on subways (to the detriment of other forms of mass transit), and promising “a buck a beer.”

Instead of renationalizing Hydro One, they promised to fire the company’s high-earning officers and to lower electricity bills. (Previous PC governments began the process of privatizing electricity markets.) And, Ford, unlike his luckless PC predecessor in the 2014 election who boasted of 100,000 public sector layoffs, guaranteed that there would be no job losses as a result of “efficiencies.”

The rough edges of this are clear: severe cuts to state revenues, subsidies for the wealthy, spending promises that can’t be fulfilled without radical cuts to services, an end to environmental initiatives with renewable energy, downward pressure on public sector and other workers’ wages and benefits, and an appeal to social-conservative opposition to updated and progressive sex education in schools. He also opposes safe injection sites for drug users and maintains a “law and order” stance in favor of unfettered police powers.

So, who does he appeal to? Aside from more conservative workers, the wealthier voters favor Ford’s promotion of their interests. Entrepreneurial types who look to replace public-service delivery with low-wage private services see openings.

The business community has supported Ford wholeheartedly. He is committed to further deepening the low-wage model and undoing even moderate reforms introduced by the Liberals. Key members of the business class have grumbled about Canada’s failure to match the Trump tax cuts. Ford offers an unmistakable move in this direction.

On the other hand, key sections of the capitalist class also look to increased investment in infrastructure, transit, and education. It’s unclear how Ford’s promises to dramatically cut revenues would allow the expenditures necessary to make that happen.

The Making of a Right-Wing, Working-Class Voter

There were many working-class Ford supporters, and their support reflects several of the contradictions in working-class life in neoliberal capitalism. In the face of ongoing concerns about job insecurity, stagnant incomes, and deindustrialization, especially in smaller communities, workers are conflicted about how to respond. Unions are limited and weak. Few workers have experience with collective resistance or demanding government limitations on the power of capital.

On the contrary, many blame governments for high taxes and too much “regulation,” for the most part believing that only the private sector can provide “real” jobs and see regulation as an impediment to job creation. Many are so frustrated that they are open to racist, xenophobic, and sexist appeals by the Right. There are no mass political movements or organizations that challenge those beliefs, and right-wing populists like Ford have ready-made – if bogus – responses.

Many workers have difficulties paying their bills and identify taxes as a leading cause of their problems rather than stagnant wages and low-wage jobs. There are also huge imbalances between rural and urban life which shape the way workers in the latter look at the world. Even as the effects of climate change become clearer, reliance on cars in suburban areas increases, keeping many workers sensitive to the cost of gasoline. Carbon taxes and the like are seen as a burden, rather than part of a solution to environmental degradation.

In response to the many challenges of working-class life, people are encouraged to move up the ladder of class and income, seeing successful capitalists as role models to emulate rather than a class which runs and benefits from exploiting them. People living in cities, on the other hand, are portrayed as somehow being part of a despised “elite,” benefiting from new private business and service investments, and somehow enjoying lifestyles denied to people in smaller, rural areas.

Collective resistance and class solidarity don’t automatically occur: they need to be built. In their absence, people are open to the solutions posed by Ford and his allies. But, even with these appeals, half of the electorate responded negatively to Ford’s message.

Still, noticeably weak in the campaign was the labour movement. Three different unions waged competing anti-privatization campaigns in the year leading up to the election and were in no position to wage a sustained anti-Ford campaign with its own agenda. They did little or no education in most unions with their members, let alone in their communities, about the underlying issues, other than official appeals to vote for the NDP. Without any socialist political party or movement with roots in working-class communities or institutions, this is not surprising.

During the final weeks of the campaign, the PCs aired an effective series of ads which targeted the NDP. Attacks on NDP candidates aimed at “radical activists” and “lawbreakers” (who were indeed the more progressive and activist people in the party), went relatively unanswered, as did ads saying that the NDP would chase business out of the province. The NDP had few answers for the latter attacks.

Ford’s brand of right-wing populism fits into the context of Canadian and Ontario political culture, much as Trump has his roots in the peculiarities of U.S. populism. Both are odious. The PCs don’t openly call for privatizing Medicare or education, or even public transit. Public and working-class support for these services play a greater role in the political culture of Ontarians than Americans. But that doesn’t mean that the new government won’t build on people’s frustrations with these public goods and look to undermine their non-commodified elements or undermine public ownership and control over time.

The same is partially true for avoiding the open embrace of nativist, anti-immigrant, xenophobic, racist, and homophobic elements of U.S. right-wing populist culture. They are present in the PC caucus, party, and in Ford’s politics. Social-conservative elements within different Canadian demographic segments including immigrants and native-born whites were clearly courted by Ford, and his bloc of supporters includes large numbers of people with economically and socially conservative ideas from different communities (some of whom are elected MPPs).

Ford mobilized voters over the sex-education issue both outside and within some immigrant communities, but also the planned legalization of marijuana by the Federal Liberal government. The PC’s tapping of social-conservative views within certain communities, in the context of Canada’s multicultural ethos, has the potential to create an identitarian mobilization on the Right, even as it opens space for white supremacist groups.

Along with this were dog-whistle appeals to those open to the worst of these positions, such as when he said that Northern Ontario should provide jobs to all the jobless in the province before inviting immigrant workers to fill openings in these communities. He also reinforced homophobic and misogynistic attitudes toward the current premier, Kathleen Wynne, who is a lesbian (particularly in his opposition to the updated sex-education curriculum which includes thoughtful introductions to LGBTQ issues). His campaign showed a disdain for “political correctness” similar to Trump’s.

Most disturbing is the crew of unsavory hard-right activists who used print and social media to put forward a more unadulterated form of hatred – groups such as Ontario Proud and the Toronto Sun tabloid. The latter developed a campaign against the NDP’s proposals to provide rights and services to immigrants and refugees, claiming that it would waste resources necessary to provide services to “deserving” Ontarians. Ford has refused to dissociate himself from these groups.

As a sidelight, a few days before the election, the widow of Doug’s brother Rob announced a lawsuit, accusing the future premier of cheating her and her family out of Rob’s inheritance and running the family business into the ground. Like the accusations of Trump’s philandering and sexual assaults on women, it had no effect on the election’s outcome.

Resisting Ford and His Agenda

Within progressive spaces, social activist groups, left organizations, trade unions, and communities, there are feverish discussions about how to resist Ford. This will not be easy.

Many are looking at the last time the hard right was elected in this province. In the mid-1990s, after small but determined groups of anti-poverty and community groups organized various protests against the first attacks of the Harris government (a 21 per cent cut in welfare rates and elimination of an anti-scab law), the trade union movement organized.

The Days of Action were a series of one-day, rotating general strikes and mass demonstrations, co-organized by the Ontario Federation of Labour (in the name of a bitterly divided union movement), in partnership with local coalitions of social and community activist movements and groups. Hundreds of thousands of workers struck their employers, joining with community members and marching together in mass rallies.

The key to the success of this tactic were the mass, intensive education campaigns with workers in each city, many of whom had voted for the PC. The education campaigns succeeded in convincing a number of workers not only to change their minds, but to engage in illegal strikes against their employers, forcing the latter to pressure the government to change its policies.

The government was forced to moderate its offensive, though it was ultimately reelected four years later. But the change in attitudes by many workers and the experience of organizing extra-parliamentary struggle marked a major step forward for province’s working class and helped to transform some unions’ culture. That later set the stage for further movements like the anti-globalization mobilizations within unions.

There are several lessons that one can quickly draw from the experience of the Days of Action and the fightback against right-wing populist regimes elsewhere. Clearly, without engaging the working class as a whole, in unions as well as communities, you can’t build a movement that can confront both employers and the government. Simply taking verbal pot shots at the obvious buffoonery of Ford (or Trump for that matter) doesn’t change anything. It simply emboldens their base.

There has be a series of alternative policies and approaches popularized across the working class that can address many of the workers who supported Ford and his party. Mass democratic movements of workers, women, indigenous, LGBTQ people, tenants, and more need to be ready to disrupt the workings of the system that Ford looks to impose. This won’t be easy.

The NDP (like the Democrats in the USA) will include elements that can be part of any resistance movement. Some of the newly elected MPPs have excellent activist histories that have placed them decidedly to the left of the party’s leadership. They should be welcomed as allies.

On the other hand, the NDP has a history of limiting the space for left critiques and activism within its caucus. Leader Horwath has already made moves to limit the party’s role to being an official parliamentary opposition and a government-in-waiting. This doesn’t bode well for the NDP’s potential role in any movement.

But it is critical not to subordinate any movement’s autonomy or leadership to that of a moderate, electoral political party like the NDP. It is important to keep in mind that the latter only became the center of electoral opposition to Ford because of the collapse of the Liberals and the lack of any real left alternative.

Most important is to build what was completely lacking in the last major popular push against the Harris years: socialists have to work with allies to change the opinions and understanding of working people who look to the false solutions of Ford. This can’t be done in isolation, but as part of building an alternative resistance in unions, communities, and other working-class spaces and institutions.

It means combining socialist principles with deeper education about the causes and solutions to challenges posed by neoliberalism, along with learning about right-wing populism and its agenda. Socialists need to argue that a clear analysis of the conjuncture and of the nature of our forces and those on the other side is essential in building solid resistance. This has to be done inside and alongside unions and working-class institutions and spaces and social movements, around all kinds of issues that have a class component: housing, transportation, education, workplace issues, jobs, social programs, racism, sexism, homophobia, and more.

Upcoming municipal elections across Ontario in October provide a potential space to mobilize resistance across the province if the Left can build sectoral networks around the above issues, in alliance with elected officials, candidates, and community and labour activists.

Socialist organizations and individuals are small and isolated. We can’t control the larger course of events, but we can contribute toward building a countermovement against Ford and the broader right-wing populist push he represents – a movement that can ultimately move from playing defense against these forces to offense.

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Herman Rosenfeld is a Toronto-based socialist activist, educator, organizer and writer. He is a retired national staffperson with the Canadian Auto Workers (now Unifor), and worked in their Education Department.

Since 2002, Guantanamo Bay has held a total of 780 prisoners. In this time it has become a global symbol of injustice: a place which stands for torture, abuse, and indefinite detention.Since 2002, Guantanamo Bay has held a total of 780 prisoners. In this time it has become a global symbol of injustice: a place which stands for torture, abuse, and indefinite detention.

Over the last 15 years, the Government has attempted to suppress the truth about Guantanamo. In response, we have been working to bring the facts to the public. As it turns out, Guantanamo is not a prison full of the “worst of the worst,” but a prison full of mistakes.

Here, we bring you 7 facts that you may not know about America’s infamous illegal prison:

1. Most detainees were sold to the US for enormous bounties

The vast majority of detainees in Guantanamo (86%) were not captured by US forces. Instead the Government filled the prison with people they bought for bounties. The US flew planes over parts of Afghanistan and Pakistan offering $5,000 for any “suspicious person.” This amounted to approximately seven years’ average salary for most people in the area, encouraging them to turn over innocent men in exchange for a life-changing amount of money.

Since then, it has turned out they got it wrong most of the time. It didn’t even take long for those in charge to see their mistake– as early as 2002, Guantanamo’s operational commander complained that he was being sent too many “mickey mouse” detainees.

2. The Bush administration decided that the prisoners had no rights, and Reprieve was a big part of changing that

After the first prisoners arrived at Guantanamo in 2002, the Bush administration claimed that the Geneva Convention – the rules governing the treatment of prisoners of war – did not apply. As a result, the detainees were denied access to lawyers, and the right to challenge their detention.  This was until Reprieve’s founder Clive Stafford Smith and two other lawyers successfully challenged President Bush in the Supreme Court. They won access to Guantanamo, opened it up and began representing the prisoners held there. Since then, we have gone on to secure the release of over 80 detainees – more than any other organization.

3. All the prisoners initially faced the death penalty

All the detainees in Guantanamo faced a death sentence. Clive Stafford Smith had spent 25 years defending people on death rows in America’s Deep South before turning to Guantanamo.

4. At least 15 children have been held in Guantanamo

One of the youngest detainees in Guantanamo was Mohammed El Gharani, who was just 14 years old when he was taken there. Despite being a child, Mohammed was tortured, including having his head slammed against the floor, and cigarettes stubbed out on his arm. Mohammed was held for a total of seven years without charge or trial, until Reprieve lawyers won a court order for his release in 2009.

5. More men have died in Guantanamo than have been convicted of a crime

In total, only 8 men held in Guantanamo have ever been convicted, and 4 of these convictions have since been reversed. But in total, 9 men have died in the prison without ever being charged with a crime.

6. Over 90% of Guantanamo detainees have been released without charge

730 men have been released without charge from Guantanamo, often after having endured years of suffering and abuse.
Now, 41 prisoners remained detained, including many who have not be charged or given a fair trial, and some who have been cleared for release. Many of these detainees have been subjected to horrifying torture and abuse.

7. Guantanamo is possibly the world’s most expensive prison

It costs the US tax payer $445 million a year to keep the remaining 41 detainees held in Guantanamo. This means that it costs $29,000 per prisoner per night to keep Guantanamo open – far more than any federal prison.

Featured image is from Reprieve US.

In this month’s prestigious British Medical Journal, The Lancet, has given considerable coverage in its June issue to the fact of the dangerous upsurge for both young and old of the variety of Diabetes which is becoming one of the largest global health crises of the 21st century.

The Lancet is the oldest medical journal in the world, founded in 1823.

In short, the etymology of the name of the journal was intended to convey excellence in medical research and to provide the “light of wisdom”.

Once thought of as a disease that only affected older people, diabetes is now being diagnosed increasingly in people under the age of 20, the vast implications of which have yet to be fully understood nor appreciated.

Alarming rising rates have been recorded in the first decade of the 21st century, not only in America and Europe, but particularly the Middle East and Africa, of diabetes which has been shocking to say the least. Asian countries, India and China show similar trends.

The most influential factor in the increase in diabetes, in the 5 to 15 age group, is junk food.

More and more young people are developing the early stages of diabetes and those that are diagnosed and some even hospitalised due to further complications of the disease, such as kidney disease and teenagers incredibly having heart attacks, costs a country’s health system considerably and in addition  in terms of lost wages and productivity where adults are concerned.

A main goal is to reduce the rates of hospitalisation, and help those diagnosed to better manage their care, with simpler smaller insulin delivery systems that take some of the inevitable embarrassment and stigma away from the disease, so improving children and the publics knowledge of diabetes is a priority.

The bottom line, especially for our children and grandchildren, is to limit or eradicate eating junk foods. Such so called food is calorie-dense and nutrient poor. In recent decades, junk food, essentially fast food and convenience food consumption in America alone increased dramatically, with more than 25 percent of all people now consuming predominantly junk food diets. This trend has occurred concurrently with rising epidemics of numerous chronic diseases and accounts for a long list of reasons why eating junk food is bad. It directly contributes to the on set of diabetes; full stop!

Also, junk food plays a major role in the obesity epidemic. By the year 2050, the rate of obesity in America is expected to reach 45 percent, according to researchers at Harvard University.

Children who eat fast food as a regular part of their diets consume more fat, carbohydrates and processed sugar, with less fibre, than those who do not eat fast food regularly. Junk food in these children’s diets accounts for 187 extra calories per day, leading to 6 additional pounds of weight gain per year. Obesity increases the risk of cardiovascular disease, diabetes and many other chronic health conditions.

Such fast foods may be connected to depression and therefore the increase in Doctors over prescribing opioids, the dangers of which are now only too well known. In contrast, diets that had vegetables, whole grains and lactose, a sugar that comes from milk and other dairy products, had protective effects against developing depression.

There are increased risks of becoming diabetic for adolescents and young adults due a lack of consideration by us parents in the overall lifestyle plan we should, as responsible adults, impose on our children. The easy fix of allowing one’s child to spend way too much time on their iPhones, on video games and bingeing on McDonalds et al. By our accepting that our children live what is in effect a sedentary lifestyle is also a major contributor to the onset of diabetes. In a sense advances in technology and new gadgets make children less physically active, less sportive than bygone generations and thus nature’s balance is ‘thrown off’ because of the easy and quick nature of life, our acceptance that our child ‘keeps quiet’ makes our life as parents easier. So we must share the bulk of the blame for the onset of diabetes in children. We consciously allow their addiction to their ‘hand helds’ whilst also acquiescing to their requests for junk foods from pizzas to burgers usually accompanied by a variety of sugary drinks that come almost free with such so called meals.

And, finally, we are helping increase the insistence of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) in our children, which was very recently reiterated in an exhaustive study published in the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry on May 23, 2018.

The fact is the prevalence of a variety of different types of diabetes is increasing worldwide. We must take corrective action for future generations before its too late by reintroducing in our family value rules the concept of discipline, rationing our children’s use of their electronic gadgetry whilst encouraging outside or inside sporting activities particularly team sports.

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Richard Galustian is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

In a recent article titled ‘Challenges for Resolving Complex Conflicts’, I pointed out four conflict configurations that are paid little attention by conflict theorists.

In this article, I would like to discuss a fifth conflict configuration that is effectively ignored by conflict theorists (and virtually everyone else). This conflict is undoubtedly the most fundamental conflict in human society, because it generates all of the violence humans perpetrate and experience, and yet it is utterly invisible to almost everyone.

I have previously described this conflict as ‘the adult war on children’. It is indeed humanity’s ‘dirty little secret’.

Let me illustrate and explain the nature and extent of this secret war. And what we can do about it.

Every day, according to some estimates, human adults kill 50,000 of our children. The true figure is probably significantly higher. We kill children in wars. See, for example, ‘Scourging Yemen’. We kill them with drones. We kill them in our homes and on the street. We shoot them at school.

We also kill children in vast numbers by starving them to death, depriving them of clean drinking water, denying them medicines – see, for example, ‘Malaria is alive and well and killing more than 3000 African children every day’ – or forcing them to live in a polluted environment, particularly in parts of Africa, Asia and Central/South America. Why? Because we use military violence to maintain an ‘economic’ system that allocates resources for military weapons, as well as corporate profits for the wealthy, instead of resources for living.

We also execute children in sacrificial killings after kidnapping them. We even breed children to sell as a ‘cash crop’ for sexual violation, child pornography (‘kiddie porn’) and the filming of ‘snuff’ movies (in which children are killed during the filming), torture and satanic sacrifice. And these are just some of the manifestations of the violence against children that have been happening for centuries or, in some cases, millennia. On these points, see the video evidence presented at the recent Judicial Commission of Inquiry into Human Trafficking and Child Sex Abuse organized by the International Tribunal for Natural Justice.

The compelling testimony at the Commission of Inquiry of survivor/perpetrator Ronald Bernard will give you a clear sense of the deep elite engagement (that is, the 8,000-8,500 ‘elite’ individuals running central banks, governments, secret service agencies, multinational corporations, terrorist organizations and churches) in the extraordinary violence inflicted on children, with children illegally trafficked internationally along with women, weapons, drugs, currencies, gold and wildlife.

In a particularly poignant series of moments during the interview, after he has revealed some of the staggering violence he suffered as a child at the hands of his father and the Church, Bernard specifically refers to the fact that the people engaged in these practices are terrified (and ‘serving the monster of greed’) and that, during his time as a financial entrepreneur, he was working with people who understood him as he understood them: individuals who were suffering enormously from the violence they had suffered as children themselves and who are now so full of hatred that they want to destroy life, human and otherwise. In short: they enjoy and celebrate killing people and destroying the Earth as a direct response to the violence they each suffered as a child.

There are more video testimonies by survivors, expert witnesses, research scholars in the field and others on the International Tribunal for Natural Justice website and if you want to read scholarly books documenting aspects of this staggering violence against children then see, for example, ‘Childhunters: Requiem of a Child-killer’ and ‘Epidemic: America’s Trade in Child Rape’.

For further accounts of the systematic exploitation, rape, torture and murder of children over a lengthy period, which focuses on Canada’s indigenous peoples, Rev. Kevin Annett’s evocative report ‘Hidden from History: The Canadian Holocaust – The Untold Story of the Genocide of Aboriginal Peoples by Church and State in Canada’, and his books ‘Unrelenting’ and ‘Murder by Decree: The Crime of Genocide in Canada’ use eyewitness testimonies and archival documentation to provide ‘an uncensored record of the planned extermination of indigenous children in Canada’s murderous “Indian residential schools”’ from 1889 to 1996.

Apart from what happened in the Indian Residential Schools during this period, however, the books also offer extensive evidence documenting the ongoing perpetration of genocide, including child rape, torture and killing, against Canada’s indigenous peoples by its government, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and the Catholic, Anglican and United Churches since the 19^th century. Sadly, there is plenty more in Kevin’s various books and on the website of the International Tribunal into Crimes of Church and State which also explain the long-standing involvement of the Vatican in these genocidal crimes against children.

Of course, Canada is not alone in its unrelenting violence against indigenous children (and indigenous peoples generally). The United States and Australia, among many others, also have long records of savagery in destroying the lives of indigenous children, fundamentally by taking their land and destroying their culture, traditional livelihoods and spirituality. And when indigenous people do not simply abandon their traditional way of being and adopt the dominant model, they are blamed and persecuted even more savagely, as the record clearly demonstrates.

Moreover, institutional violence against children is not limited to the contexts and settings mentioned above. In the recently conducted Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse undertaken in Australia, childcare services, schools, health and allied services, youth detention, residential care and contemporary out-of-home services, religious activities, family and youth support services, supported accommodation, sporting, recreational and club activities, youth employment, and the military forces were all identified as providing contexts for perpetrating violence against children.

Over half of the survivors suffered sexual violation in an institution managed by a religious organization such as places of worship and for religious instruction, missions, religious schools, orphanages, residential homes, recreational clubs, youth groups, and welfare services. Another one-third of survivors suffered the violence in an institution under government management such as a school, an out-of-home care service, a youth detention centre or at a health service centre. The remaining 10%  suffered violence in a private organization such as a child care centre, a medical practice or clinic, a music or dance school, an independent school, a yoga ashram or a sports club, a non-government or not-for-profit organization.

Needless to say, the failure to respond to any of this violence for the past century by any of the institutions ‘responsible’ for monitoring, oversight and criminal justice, such as the police, law enforcement and agencies responsible for public prosecution, clearly demonstrates that mechanisms theoretically designed to protect children (and adults) do not function when those same institutions are complicit in the violence and are, in any case, designed to defend elite interests (not ‘ordinary’ people and children). Hence, of course, this issue was not even investigated by the Commission because it was excluded from the terms of reference!

Separately from those children we kill or violate every day in the ways briefly described above, we traffic many others into sexual slavery – such as those trafficked (sometimes by their parents) into prostitution to service the sex tourism industry in countries such as Thailand, Cambodia, the Dominican Republic, the Philippines and India – we kidnap others to terrorize them into becoming child soldiers with 46 countries using them according to Child Soldiers International, we force others to work as slave laborers, in horrific conditions, in fields, factories and mines (and buy the cheap products of their exploited labor as our latest ‘bargain’) with Human Rights Watch reporting over 70,000,000 children, including many who aren’t even, technically-speaking, slaves, working in ‘hazardous conditions’ – see ‘Child Labor’ – and we condemn millions to live in poverty, homelessness and misery because national governments, despite rhetoric to the contrary, place either negligible or no value on children apart from, in some cases, as future wage slaves in the workforce.

We also condemn millions of children, such as those in Palestine, Tibet, Western Sahara and West Papua, to live under military occupation, where many are routinely imprisoned, shot or killed.

In addition, while fighting wars we cause many children to be born with grotesque genetic deformities because we use horrific weapons, like those with depleted uranium, on their parents. See ‘“Falluja Babies” and Depleted Uranium: America’s Toxic Legacy in Iraq’ and ‘Depleted uranium used by US forces blamed for birth defects and cancer in Iraq’.

In other cases, we cause children shockingly debilitating injuries, if they are not killed outright, by using conventional, biological and chemical weapons on them directly. See ‘Summary of historical attacks using chemical or biological weapons’.

But war also destroys housing and other infrastructure forcing millions of children to become internally displaced or refugees in another country (often without a living parent), causing ongoing trauma. Worldwide, one child out of every 200 is a refugee, whether through war or poverty, environmental or climate disruption. See ‘50mn children displaced by war & poverty worldwide’.

We also inflict violence on children in many other forms, ranging from ‘ordinary’ domestic violence to genital mutilation, with UNICEF calculating that 200 million girls and young women in 30 countries on three continents have been mutilated. See ‘Female genital mutilation/cutting’.

And we deny children a free choice (even those who supposedly live in a ‘democracy’) and imprison vast numbers of them in school in the delusional belief that this is good for them. See ‘Do We Want School or Education?’ Whatever other damage that school does, it certainly helps to create the next generation of child-destroyers. And, in many countries, we just imprison children in our jails. After all, the legal system is no more than an elite tool to control ‘ordinary’ people while shielding the elite from accountability for their grotesque violence against us all. See ‘The Rule of Law: Unjust and Violent’.

While almost trivial by comparison with the violence identified above, the perversity of many multinational corporations in destroying our children’s health is graphically illustrated in the film ‘Global Junk Food’. In Europe, food manufacturers have signed up to ‘responsibility pledges’, promising not to add sugar, preservatives, artificial colours or flavours to their products and to not target children.

However, the developing world is not in Europe so these ‘responsibility pledges’ obviously do not apply and corporations such as Coca-Cola, McDonald’s, Kentucky Fried Chicken and Domino’s Pizza sell their junk food in developing countries (with the video above showcasing Brazil and India) loaded with excess oil, salt and sugar and even using fake cheese.

The well-documented report reveals corporations like these to be nothing more than drug dealers, selling toxic food to ill-informed victims that deliver a lifetime of diabetes and obesity to huge numbers of children. So, just as weapons corporations derive their profits from killing children (and adults), junk food corporations derive their profits from destroying the health of children (and adults). Of course, the medical industry, rather than campaigning vigorously against this outrage, prefers to profit from it too by offering ‘treatments’, including the surgical removal of fat, which offer nothing more than temporary but very profitable ‘relief’.

But this is far from representing the only active involvement of the medical industry in the extraordinary violence we inflict on children. For example, western children and many others are rarely spared a plethora of vaccinations which systematically destroy a child’s immune system, thus making their health ongoingly vulnerable to later assaults on their well-being. For a taste of the vast literature on this subject, see ‘Clinical features in patients with long-lasting macrophagic myofasciitis’, ‘Vaccines: Who’s Allergic To Thimerosal (Mercury), Raise Your Hand’ and ‘Vaccine Free Health’.

And before we leave the subject of food too far behind, it should be noted that just because the junk food sold in Europe and some other western countries has less fat, salt, sugar, preservatives and artificial colors and flavours in it, this does not mean that it is healthy. It still has various combinations of added fat, salt, sugar, preservatives and artificial colors and flavours in it.

Separately from this: don’t forget that virtually all parents are systematically poisoning their children by feeding them food grown by the corporate agribusiness giants which is heavily depleted of nutrients and laced with poisons such as glyphosate. For a taste of the vast literature, see ‘The hidden truth about glyphosate EXPOSED, according to undeniable scientific evidence’. Of course, in many countries we are also forcing our children to drink fluoridated water to the detriment of their health too. See ‘Research Exposes How our Water is Making us Depressed, Sick: Fluoridated water is much to blame’.

Obviously, organically/biodynamically grown food, healthily prepared, and unfluoridated water are not health priorities for their children, according to most parents.

As our ultimate act of violence against all children, we are destroying their future. See ‘Killing the Biosphere to Fast-track Human Extinction’.

So how do we do all of this?

Very easily, actually. It works like this.

Perpetrators of violence learn their craft in childhood. If you inflict violence on a child, they learn to inflict violence on others. The child rapist and ritual child killer suffered violence as a child. The terrorist suffered violence as a child. The political leader who wages war suffered violence as a child. The man who inflicts violence on women suffered violence as a child. The corporate executive who exploits working class people and/or those who live in Africa, Asia or Central/South America suffered violence as a child. The racist and religious bigot suffered violence as a child. The soldier who kills in war suffered violence as a child. The individual who perpetrates violence in the home, in the schoolyard or on the street suffered violence as a child. The parent who inflicts violence on their own children suffered violence as a child.

So if we want to end violence, exploitation, ecological destruction and war, then we must finally admit our ‘dirty little secret’ and end our longest and greatest war: the adult war on children. And here is an incentive: if we do not tackle the fundamental cause of violence, then our combined and unrelenting efforts to tackle all of its other symptoms must ultimately fail. And extinction at our own hand is inevitable.

How can I claim that violence against children is the fundamental cause of all other violence? Consider this. There is universal acceptance that behavior is shaped by childhood experience. If it was not, we would not put such effort into education and other efforts to ‘socialize’ children to fit into society. And this is why many psychologists have argued that exposure to war toys and violent video games shapes attitudes and behaviors in relation to violence.

But it is far more complex than these trivialities suggest and, strange though it may seem, it is not just the ‘visible’ violence (such as hitting, screaming at and sexually abusing) that we normally label ‘violence’ that causes the main damage, although this is extremely damaging. The largest component of damage arises from the ‘invisible’ and ‘utterly invisible’ violence that we adults unconsciously inflict on children during the ordinary course of the day. Tragically, the bulk of this violence occurs in the family home and at school. See ‘Why Violence?’ and ‘Fearless Psychology and Fearful Psychology: Principles and Practice’.

So what is ‘invisible’ violence? It is the ‘little things’ we do every day, partly because we are just ‘too busy’. For example, when we do not allow time to listen to, and value, a child’s thoughts and feelings, the child learns to not listen to themSelf thus destroying their internal communication system. When we do not let a child say what they want (or ignore them when they do), the child develops communication and behavioral dysfunctionalities as they keep trying to meet their own needs (which, as a basic survival strategy, they are genetically programmed to do).

When we blame, condemn, insult, mock, embarrass, shame, humiliate, taunt, goad, guilt-trip, deceive, lie to, bribe, blackmail, moralize with and/or judge a child, we both undermine their sense of Self-worth and teach them to blame, condemn, insult, mock, embarrass, shame, humiliate, taunt, goad, guilt-trip, deceive, lie, bribe, blackmail, moralize and/or judge.

The fundamental outcome of being bombarded throughout their childhood by this ‘invisible’ violence is that the child is utterly overwhelmed by feelings of fear, pain, anger and sadness (among many others). However, mothers, fathers, teachers, religious figures and other adults also actively interfere with the expression of these feelings and the behavioral responses that are naturally generated by them and it is this ‘utterly invisible’ violence that explains why the dysfunctional behavioral outcomes actually occur.

For example, by ignoring a child when they express their feelings, by comforting, reassuring or distracting a child when they express their feelings, by laughing at or ridiculing their feelings, by terrorizing a child into not expressing their feelings (e.g. by screaming at them when they cry or get angry), and/or by violently controlling a behavior that is generated by their feelings (e.g. by hitting them, restraining them or locking them into a room), the child has no choice but to unconsciously suppress their awareness of these feelings.

However, once a child has been terrorized into suppressing their awareness of their feelings (rather than being allowed to have their feelings and to act on them) the child has also unconsciously suppressed their awareness of the reality that caused these feelings. This has many outcomes that are disastrous for the individual, for society and for nature because the individual will now easily suppress their awareness of the feelings that would tell them how to act most functionally in any given circumstance and they will progressively acquire a phenomenal variety of dysfunctional behaviors, including some that are violent towards themself, others and/or the Earth.

From the above, it should also now be apparent that punishment should never be used. ‘Punishment’, of course, is one of the words we use to obscure our awareness of the fact that we are using violence. Violence, even when we label it ‘punishment’, scares children and adults alike and cannot elicit a functional behavioural response. See ‘Punishment is Violent and Counterproductive’.

If someone behaves dysfunctionally, they need to be listened to, deeply, so that they can start to become consciously aware of the feelings (which will always include fear and, often, terror) that drove the dysfunctional behavior in the first place. They then need to feel and express these feelings (including any anger) in a safe way. Only then will behavioral change in the direction of functionality be possible. See ‘Nisteling: The Art of Deep Listening’.

‘But these adult behaviors you have described don’t seem that bad. Can the outcome be as disastrous as you claim?’ you might ask. The problem is that there are hundreds of these ‘ordinary’, everyday behaviors that destroy the Selfhood of the child. It is ‘death by a thousand cuts’ and most children simply do not survive as Self-aware individuals. And why do we do this? We do it so that each child will fit into our model of ‘the perfect citizen’: that is, obedient and hardworking student, reliable and pliant employee/soldier, and submissive law-abiding citizen. In other words: a slave.

Of course, once we destroy the Selfhood of a child, it has many flow-on effects. For example, once you terrorize a child into accepting certain information about themself, other people or the state of the world, the child becomes unconsciously fearful of dealing with new information, especially if this information is contradictory to what they have been terrorized into believing. As a result, the child will unconsciously dismiss new information out of hand.

In short, the child has been terrorized in such a way that they are no longer capable of thinking critically or even learning (or their learning capacity is seriously diminished by excluding any information that is not a simple extension of what they already ‘know’). If you imagine any of the bigots you know, you are imagining someone who is utterly terrified. But it’s not just the bigots; virtually all people are affected in this manner making them incapable of responding adequately to new (or even important) information. This is one explanation why many people are ‘climate deniers’ and most others do nothing in response to the climate catastrophe.

Of course, each person’s experience of violence during childhood is unique and this is why each perpetrator becomes violent in their own particular combination of ways.

But if you want to understand the core psychology of all perpetrators of violence, it is important to understand that, as a result of the extraordinary violence they each suffered during childhood, they are now (unconsciously) utterly terrified, full of self-hatred and personally powerless, among another 20 psychological characteristics. You can read a brief outline of these characteristics and how they are acquired on pages 12-16 of ‘Why Violence?’

As should now be clear, the central point in understanding violence is that it is psychological in origin and hence any effective response must enable both the perpetrator’s and the victim’s suppressed feelings (which will include enormous fear about, and rage at, the violence they have suffered) to be safely expressed. As mentioned above, for an explanation of what is required, see ‘Nisteling: The Art of Deep Listening’.

Unfortunately, this nisteling cannot be provided by a psychiatrist or psychologist whose training is based on a delusionary understanding of how the human mind functions. See ‘Defeating the Violence of Psychiatry’ and ‘Psychiatry: Science or Fraud? The professor’s trick that exposed the ongoing Psychiatry racket…’ Nisteling will enable those who have suffered from psychological trauma to heal fully and completely, but it will take time.

So if we want to end violence (including the starvation, trafficking, rape, torture and killing of children), exploitation, ecological destruction and war, then we must tackle the fundamental cause. Primarily, this means giving everyone, child and adult alike, all of the space they need to feel, deeply, what they want to do, and to then let them do it (or to have the feelings they naturally have if they are prevented from doing so). See ‘Putting Feelings First’. In the short term, this will have some dysfunctional outcomes. But it will lead to an infinitely better overall outcome than the system of emotional suppression, control and punishment which has generated the incredibly violent world in which we now find ourselves.

This all sounds pretty unpalatable doesn’t it? So each of us has a choice. We can suppress our awareness of what is unpalatable, as we have been terrorized into doing as a child, or we can feel the various feelings that we have in response to this information and then ponder (personal and collective) ways forward.

If feelings are felt and expressed then our responses can be shaped by the conscious and integrated functioning of thoughts and feelings, as evolution intended, and we can plan intelligently. The alternative is to have our unconscious fear controlling our thinking and deluding us that we are acting rationally.

It is time to end the most fundamental conflict that is destroying human society from within – the adult war on children – so that we can more effectively tackle all of the other violence that emerges from this cause too.

So what do we do?

Let me briefly reiterate.

If you are willing, you can make the commitment outlined in ‘My Promise to Children’. If you need to do some healing of your own to be able to nurture children in this way, then consider the information provided in the article ‘Putting Feelings First’.

In addition, you are also welcome to consider participating in ‘The Flame Tree Project to Save Life on Earth’ which maps out a fifteen-year strategy for creating a peaceful, just and sustainable world community so that all children (and everyone else) has an ecologically viable planet on which to live.

You might also consider supporting or even working with organizations like Destiny Rescue, which works to rescue children trafficked into prostitution, or any of the many advocacy organizations associated with the network of End Child Prostitution and Trafficking.

But for the plethora of other manifestations of violence against children identified above, you might consider using Gandhian nonviolent strategy in any context of particular concern to you. See Nonviolent Campaign Strategy or Nonviolent Defense/Liberation Strategy. And, if you like, you can join the worldwide movement to end all violence by signing online ‘The People’s Charter to Create a Nonviolent World’.

In summary: Each one of us has an important choice. We can acknowledge the painful truth that we inflict enormous violence on our children (which then manifests in a myriad complex ways) and respond powerfully to that truth. Or we can keep deluding ourselves and continue to observe, powerlessly, as the violence in our world proliferates until human beings are extinct.

If you want a child who is nonviolent, truthful, compassionate, considerate, patient, thoughtful, respectful, generous, loving of themself and others, trustworthy, honest, dignified, determined, courageous, powerful and who lives out their own unique destiny, then the child must be treated with – and experience – nonviolence, truth, compassion, consideration, patience, thoughtfulness, respect, generosity, love, trust, honesty, dignity, determination, courage, power and, ideally, live in a world that prioritizes nurturing the unique destiny of each child.

Alternatively, if you want a child to turn out like the perpetrators of violence described above, to be powerless to respond effectively to the crises in our world, or to even just turn out to be an appalling parent, then inflict violence – visible, ‘invisible’ and ‘utterly invisible’ – on them during their childhood.

Tragically, with only the rarest of exceptions, human adults are too terrified to truly love, nurture and defend our children from the avalanche of violence that is unleashed on them at the moment of birth.

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Robert J. Burrowes has a lifetime commitment to understanding and ending human violence. He has done extensive research since 1966 in an effort to understand why human beings are violent and has been a nonviolent activist since 1981. He is the author of ‘Why Violence?’ He is a frequent contributor to Global Research. His email address is [email protected] and his website is here.

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.”

*

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

*

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

*

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.

*

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.

*

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.

*

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.

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Vladimir Kozin, Ph.D., is an Expert Council member of the Russian Senate’ Foreign Relations Committee, Professor of the Academy of Military Science, former high-ranking diplomat, leading expert on disarmament and strategic stability issues.

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:

CHLY 101.7fm in Nanaimo, B.C – Thursdays at 1pm PT

Boston College Radio WZBC 90.3FM NEWTONS  during the Truth and Justice Radio Programming slot -Sundays at 7am ET.

Port Perry Radio in Port Perry, Ontario –1  Thursdays at 1pm ET

Burnaby Radio Station CJSF out of Simon Fraser University. 90.1FM to most of Greater Vancouver, from Langley to Point Grey and from the North Shore to the US Border.

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.

Radio station CFUV 101.9FM based at the University of Victoria airs the Global Research News Hour every Sunday from 7 to 8am PT.

CORTES COMMUNITY RADIO CKTZ  89.5 out of Manson’s Landing, B.C airs the show Tuesday mornings at 10am Pacific time.

Cowichan Valley Community Radio CICV 98.7 FM serving the Cowichan Lake area of Vancouver Island, BC airs the program Thursdays at 6am pacific time.

Campus and community radio CFMH 107.3fm in  Saint John, N.B. airs the Global Research News Hour Fridays at 10am.

Caper Radio CJBU 107.3FM in Sydney, Cape Breton, Nova Scotia airs the Global Research News Hour starting Wednesday Morning from 8:00 to 9:00am. Find more details at www.caperradio.ca

RIOT RADIO, the visual radio station based out of Durham College in Oshawa, Ontario has begun airing the Global Research News Hour on an occasional basis. Tune in at dcstudentsinc.ca/services/riot-radio/

Radio Fanshawe: Fanshawe’s 106.9 The X (CIXX-FM) out of London, Ontario airs the Global Research News Hour Sundays at 6am with an encore at 4pm.

Los Angeles, California based Thepowerofvoices.com airs the Global Research News Hour every Monday from 6-7pm Pacific time. 

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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Notes