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A new report out Wednesday that’s based on government documents details the “pervasive abuse and neglect of immigrant children” in the custody of U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) during the Obama administration—and experts are warning such behavior could be much worse under the Trump administration, infamous for its “dehumanizaing” and “cruel” immigration policies.

Fleeing violence and poverty in Central America, tens of thousands of children come to the United States each year and are detained by CBP, a branch of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). The report (pdf) from the ACLU and University of Chicago Law School says detained children have faced “physical and psychological abuse, unsanitary and inhumane living conditions, isolation from family members, extended periods of detention, and denial of access to legal and medical services.”

In a series of tweets, the ACLU highlighted some of the particularly egregious cases revealed in the records, which were obtained via a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request and are dated from 2009 to 2014. The group also decried the lack of agency accountability, calling agents’ behavior “reprehensible and un-American,” and warning the practices could worsen under the Trump administration.

Officials at @CBP allegedly:
• Kicked a child in the ribs
• Ran over a 17yo with a patrol car
• Sexually assaulted a 16yo girl in a search
• Detained a 4lb premature baby and her mother in an overcrowded and dirty cell full of sick people

— ACLU (@ACLU) May 23, 2018

All human beings deserve to be treated with dignity and respect regardless of their immigration status — and children, in particular, deserve special protection. The abuse that takes place by government officials is reprehensible and un-American.

— ACLU (@ACLU) May 23, 2018

The amount of children who have come forward about various forms of abuse suggests that such treatment by U.S. officials is commonplace. The report notes that:

• a quarter of kids reported physical abuse, including sexual assault and beatings by CBP agents;
• more than half reported verbal abuse such death threats, and denial of necessary medical care, including cases that led to children requiring hospitalization; and
• 80 percent reported inadequate food and water.

“Beyond the misconduct detailed,” the report points out that these “documents are shocking for the independent reason that they do not contain any evidence of disciplinary action or other meaningful accountability for abusive CBP officials,” in spite of the fact that DHS has multiple internal oversight agencies.

“The misconduct demonstrated in these records is breathtaking, as is the government’s complete failure to hold officials who abuse their power accountable,” said ACLU Border Litigation Project staff attorney Mitra Ebadolahi. “These documents provide a glimpse into a federal immigration enforcement system marked by brutality and lawlessness.”

The records were obtained by two regional affiliates of the ACLU as part of ongoing litigation, and developed into a report by students in the International Human Rights Clinic at the University of Chicago.

“The students reviewing these records were shocked by the abuse and neglect these children were subjected to at the hands of U.S. officials,” said clinic director Claudia Flores. “The fact that these children were already so vulnerable—most traveling alone in hopes of escaping violence and poverty in their home countries—made the unlawful and inhumane actions reflected in the documents even more distressing.”

Considering that the “documents show that abuse occurs at each stage of a child’s interaction with CBP, from apprehension to detention to deportation,” the report concludes that “urgent intervention is necessary to protect these vulnerable children from mistreatment, abuse, and violence, which is otherwise bound to recur.”

Read full ACLU report here.

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

Featured image is from ACLU.

“Estamos  voar com o F-35 em todo o Médio Oriente e já atacamos duas vezes em duas frentes distintas”: anunciou ontem, o General Amikam Norkin, Comandante da Força Aérea de Israel, na conferência sobre “superioridade aérea” em Herzliya, (um subúrbio de Tel Aviv) com a participação dos mais altos representantes da aeronáutica de 20 países, incluindo a Itália.

O General não especificou onde foram usados os F-35 e deixou perceber que um dos ataques foi realizado na Síria. Também mostrou imagens dos F-35s israelitas a voar sobre Beirute, no Líbano, mas é quase certo, que também já foram usados para missões de não-ataque no Irão.

Israel, um dos 12 “parceiros globais” do programa F-35, liderado pela empresa americana Lockheed Martin, foi o primeiro a comprar o novo caça da quinta geração, que ele tornou a baptizar de “Adir” (Poderoso). Até agora, recebeu nove dos 50 F-35 encomendados, todos do modelo A de decolagem e pouso convencionais e é provável, que adquira 75 aparelhos. Objectivo realizável, visto que Israel recebe dos Estados Unidos, uma ajuda militar de cerca de 4 biliões de dólares por ano.

Em Julho de 2016, na base Luke dos U.S. Air Force, no Arizona, iniciou-se o treino dos primeiros pilotos israelitas do F-35. Depois de terem participado num curso com mais de três meses de duração, nos EUA, para conseguir o ‘brevet’, eles têm de levar a cabo alguns meses de treino de “vôo real” em Israel. Até agora formaram-se cerca de 30 pilotos. Em 6 de Dezembro de 2017, a Força Aérea de Israel declarou operacional, a sua primeira equipa dos F-35.

Israel também participa no programa F-35 com sua própria indústria militar. A empresa Israel Aerospace Industries produz as asas dos caças; a Elbit Systems-Cyclone fabrica componentes da fuselagem; A Elbit Systems Ltd está a desenvolver um display para o capacete da terceira geração, com o qual serão equipados todos os pilotos dos F-35. O anúncio do General Norkin de que o F-35 está finalmente “combat proven” (provado em combate) tem, portanto, um efeito prático fundamental: o de impulsionar o programa F-35, que tem enfrentado inúmeros problemas técnicos e necessita de actualizações contínuas com custos adicionais, que aumentam ainda mais o custo desmesurado do programa. O complexo  software do caça foi modificado mais de 30 vezes e requer mais melhorias. O anúncio do General Norkin foi particularmente apreciado pela Presidente Directora Executiva da Lockheed Martin, Marillyn Hewson, oradora da conferência sobre a “superioridade aérea”.

O anúncio de que Israel já usou o F-35 numa acção de guerra serve, ao mesmo tempo, de aviso ao Irão. Os F-35A, adquiridos por Israel, são projectados principalmente para o uso de armas nucleares, em particular para a nova bomba B61-12 com direcção de precisão, na fase final de fabrico, que os Estados Unidos além de a instalarem em Itália e noutros países europeus, certamente também irão fornecê-la a Israel, a única potência nuclear do Médio Oriente, possuidora de um arsenal estimado de 100 a 400 armas nucleares.

As forças nucleares israelitas estão integradas no sistema electrónico NATO, no âmbito do “Programa de Cooperação Individual” com Israel, país que, embora não seja membro da Aliança, tem uma missão permanente na sede da NATO, em Bruxelas. Nesse contexto, a Itália, a Alemanha, a França, a Grécia e a Polónia participaram com os EUA no Blue Flag 2017, o maior exercício de guerra aérea internacional da História de Israel, no qual também foram realizados testes de ataque nuclear.

Manlio Dinucci 

Artigo em italiano :

Gli F-35 israeliani sono già in guerra

il manifesto, 23 de Maio de 2018

Tradutora: Maria Luísa de Vasconcellos

«Stiamo volando con gli F-35 su tutto il Medio Oriente e abbiamo giàattaccato due volte su due differenti fronti»: lo ha annunciato ieri il generale Amikam Norkin, comandante della Forza aerea israeliana, alla conferenza sulla «superioritàaerea»in svolgimento a Herzliya (un sobborgo di Tel Aviv) con la partecipazione dei massimi rappresentanti delle aeronautiche di 20 paesi, Italia compresa.

Il generale non ha specificato dove sono stati impiegati gli F-35, ha lasciato peròintendere che uno degli attacchi èstato effettuato in Siria. Ha inoltre mostrato l’immagine di F-35 israeliani in volo su Beirut in Libano, ma quasi certamente sono giàstati usati per missioni non di attacco anche in Iran.

Israele, uno dei 12 «partner globali»del programma F-35 capeggiato dalla statunitense Lockheed Martin, èstato il primo ad acquistare il nuovo caccia di quinta generazione, che ha ribattezzato «Adir»(Potente). Ha ricevuto finora nove dei 50 F-35 ordinati, tutti del modello A a decollo e atterraggio convenzionali, ed èprobabile che ne acquisti 75. Obiettivo realizzabile, dato che Israele riceve dagli Stati uniti, ogni anno, un aiuto militare di circa 4 miliardi di dollari.

Nel luglio 2016 èiniziato, nella base Luke della U.S. Air Force in Arizona, l’addestramento dei primi piloti israeliani di F-35. Dopo aver seguito un corso di oltre tre mesi negli Usa, per conseguire il brevetto devono effettuare alcuni mesi di addestramento al «volo reale»in Israele.  Finora ne sono stati formati circa 30.  Il 6 dicembre 2017, la Forza aerea israeliana ha dichiarato operativa la sua prima squadra di F-35.

Israele partecipa al programma F-35 anche con la propria industria militare. Le Israel Aerospace Industriesproducono ali del caccia; la Elbit Systems-Cyclonefabbrica componenti della fusoliera; la Elbit Systems Ltd sta sviluppando un display per il casco di terza generazione, di cui saranno dotati tutti i piloti di F-35. L’annuncio del generale Norkin che l’F-35 èfinalmente«combat proven»(provato in combattimento) ha quindi un primo effetto pratico: quello di dare impulso al programma dell’F-35 che ha incontrato numerosi problemi tecnici e necessita continui ammodernamenti con costi aggiuntivi che fanno lievitare il costo giàenorme del programma. Il complesso software del caccia èstato finora modificato oltre 30 volte e richiede ulteriori aggiornamenti. L’annuncio del generale Norkin èstato quindi particolarmente apprezzato dall’amministratore delegato della Lockheed Martin, Marillyn Hewson, uno dei relatori alla conferenza sulla «superioritàaerea».

L’annuncio che Israele ha giàimpiegato gli F-35 in un’azione reale di guerra serve allo stesso tempo quale avvertimento all’Iran. Gli F-35A, quelli acquistati da Israele, sono progettati soprattutto per l’uso di armi nucleari, in particolare della nuova bomba B61-12 a guida di precisione in fase finale di realizzazione, che gli Stati uniti, oltre a schierare in Italia e altri paesi europei, forniranno quasi certamente anche a Israele, unica potenza nucleare in Medioriente, in possesso di un arsenale stimato in 100-400 armi nucleari. 

Le forze nucleari israeliane sono integrate nel sistema elettronico Nato, nel quadro del«Programma di cooperazione individuale»con Israele, paese che, pur non essendo membro della Alleanza, ha una missione permanente al quartier generale della Nato a Bruxelles.In tale quadro Italia, Germania, Francia, Grecia e Polonia hanno partecipato con gli Usa alla Blue Flag 2017, la piùgrande esercitazione internazionale di guerra aerea nella storia di Israele, in cui sono state effettuate anche prove di attacco nucleare.

Manlio Dinucci

Il«Contratto per il governo del cambiamemto», stipulato da Luigi Di Maio e Matteo Salvini a nome del MoVimento 5 Stelle e della Lega, da un lato «conferma l’appartenenza all’Alleanza atlantica, con gli Stati Uniti d’America quale alleato privilegiato», dall’altro promette «una apertura alla Russia, da percepirsi non come una minaccia ma quale partner economico e commerciale (per cui è opportuno il ritiro delle sanzioni), da riabilitarsi come interlocutore strategico al fine della risoluzione delle crisi regionali»e addirittura quale «potenziale partner per la Nato».

il manifesto :

Per l’ Italia nuovo governo, stesso «alleato privilegiato»

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North Korea: Is Trump Trying to Back Out of the Singapore Summit in Mid-June 2018?

By Peter Koenig and Press TV, May 23, 2018

US President Donald Trump has blamed Chinese President Xi Jinping for a change in North Korea’s tone following Washington’s landmark overtures with Pyongyang.

The Corbyn Effect

By William Bowles, May 23, 2018

Corbyn’s Phoenix-like rise signifies the last gasp of the old social democratic contract between capital and labour, when the organised working class took a little more of the wealth they created, back via the social contract, not necessarily as money but principally via the social wage; the NHS; public housing, social benefits, greater state regulation of capital, nationalisations, some progressive taxation and so on.

The Gaza Massacre and Israel’s Thriving “Blood Diamond” Economy

By Sean Clinton, May 23, 2018

Last week’s massacre in Gaza would not have happened if organisations which the public rely upon to uphold international human rights standards had done what they are supposed to do and spoken out at an OECD Forum on Responsible Mineral Supply Chains in Paris in April, just days after Israel had, at that stage, gunned down and killed over 30 innocent civilians in Gaza.

Land Rights in South Africa: The Absence of A Sweeping Land Redistribution Program

By Abayomi Azikiwe, May 23, 2018

A recently-held African National Congress (ANC) Land Summit (May 19-20) convened in the Republic of South Africa just several months after the passage of a parliamentary resolution which would theoretically redistribute white-owned farms to the African majority. 

Why Did the US Sabotage President Putin’s Peace Plan for Syria?

By Andrew Korybko, May 23, 2018

Secretary of State Pompeo’s direct and fiery demand earlier this week that Iran withdraw from Syria overshadowed President Putin’s indirect and polite request during last week’s Sochi Summit for the same, thereby putting Syria on the spot in having to publicly deny that any such talks were ongoing in order to “save face”, though the American strategy of sabotaging Russia’s peace plan isn’t as clear-cut as it may seem.

The “Libya Model” Is a Distraction. John Bolton’s Template for Threatening North Korea

By Kim Petersen, May 22, 2018

History tells a tale. After Libyan leader Moammar Gaddafi gave up Libya’s nuclear weapons program, he was eventually deposed by NATO bombing in support of rebels who brutally murdered Gaddafi in cold blood. Hillary Clinton gleefully cackled about it afterwards on CBS News.

Here is a little known but extremely relevant fact: The first campaign to “Stop the Stigma of Mental Illness” was launched many years ago by the psycho-pharmaceutical industry (Big Pharma) that makes tens of billions of dollars annually by selling unaffordable, often highly addictive, brain-altering drugs that are then promoted by psychiatrists and family physicians as being necessary for the rest of the drug-taking patient’s lives. 

Why doesn’t that surprise anybody? The norm for all capitalist enterprises is to make money by hook or by crook.

With a seemingly altruistic agenda of understanding and compassionately dealing with unfortunate people that are somehow different than the rest of us, the fact is that the campaign is all about marketing a product rather than ending the “stigma” of so-called “mental illnesses”.

The campaigns have been going on for decades under different guises and each one (see a partial list of some of them at the end of this column) has been started and funded by greedy, sociopathic multinational pharmaceutical corporations that primarily want to maximize their profits by getting more and more patients labeled as having mental illnesses (of unknown cause), which will ensure that many of them will be placed on potentially-dangerous, dependency-inducing psych drugs. 

The primary propaganda targets of drug company advertising are prescribing doctors and nurse practitioners. The secondary targets however are the obedient, drug-swallowing folks who are sitting in front of the boob tube, most of whom naturally feel sad or nervous from time to time and who are somehow willing to swallow whatever drug is prescribed to them. 

It is a simple three step process that begins with a prospective patient passively watching an attractive female actor on TV, to then wanting to get a diagnosis for whatever disorder the actor was supposed to have, and then finding a health caregiver to prescribe whatever drug the actor on TV was “cured” by taking. 

The same TV drugs and TV “disorders” are also subtly and cunningly promoted in non-paid TV programming that avoids discussing any of the negative aspects of the Big Pharma drugs (or vaccines) from which the media outlets had accepted large amounts of advertising money that always keeps unwelcome truths from coming out, thus complying with the old rule that says that “whoever pays the piper calls the tune” (meaning that TV and radio broadcasters never report anything that might offend the program’s paymasters and advertisers and that interview hosts try not to invite courageous truth-tellers or whistle-blowers on to their shows). 

Among the first Big Pharma front groups that promoted ”mental illness de-stigmatization campaigns” were the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) and Children and Adults with Attention Deficit Disorder (CHADD). Some of the deep-pocketed founding sponsors of NAMI, CHADD and some of the other so-called PAOs included Abbott, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Eli Lilly, Glaxo, Janssen, Merck, Novartis, Pfizer, SmithKline Beecham, and Wyeth-Ayerst Labs.

So next time you see an advertisement or a commentary article in your local newspaper or television station from an obvious PAO or some psychiatrist group that is promoting another “stop the stigmatization of the ‘mentally ill’” campaign, understand that the group is very likely a front group for a multinational psycho-pharmaceutical company that actually only wants to sell more product. 

Such blatant PAO promotions are no different than the “Just Get Your Damn Flu Shots” campaigns every fall and winter that are sponsored by some fake PAO. They also are just paid-for advertisements from some of the Big Vaccine corporations and their partners in the CDC that have vested interests in unloading their supply of seasonal vaccines to an unsuspecting public. 

The target audiences for seasonal influenza shots will not be informed how high are the Numbers Needed to Vaccinate (NNV), which is the number of people that have to be vaccinated in order for just one vaccinee to benefit. 

And the target audiences will also not be informed how low are the Absolute Vaccine Effectiveness (AVE) ratios for any given vaccine. (The AVE compares the number of vaccinated patients that didn’t get the viral infection with the number of patients that also didn’t get the infection but didn’t get vaccinated.) 

And the target audiences also won’t be informed that the 3 flu viruses that have to be prematurely chosen for the coming year’s influenza season are highly likely to be just another one of the many vaccine mis-matches that have occurred over the years – and therefore ineffective in preventing the flu. 

Below are some of the facts about how Big Pharma corporations have created and paid for the “de-stigmatization campaign PAOs for the so-called ‘mentally ill’”. A U.S. Senate investigation revealed that in just two years (2006-2008) Big Pharma companies funded NAMI to the tune of $23 million, representing three-quarters of its donations. And one of the major Big Pharma corporations actually “lent” one of its high-ranking officials to NAMI during its formative years in order the “harmonize” its strategies with the company.

Creating The Perfect Marketing/Lobbying Machine: Big Pharma’s Funding of “Patient Advocacy Organizations”

Mental health-type PAOs are groups operating under the guise of advocacy for the so-called “mentally ill”. In reality they are just Big Pharma front groups whose major functions are to influence public opinion by offering “expert opinions” on mental health issues, to keep mental health and so-called mental illnesses at the forefront of media coverage, to “support” patients who are already mired in the mental health system and to lobby legislators to pass legislation at both the state and federal levels. Big Pharma’s deceptive PAO campaigns affect large segments of the population, from normally inattentive and active kids to normally sullen and over-indulged teen-agers, to America’s stressed-out and traumatized military, to tired pregnant women and stressed-out nursing mothers and their babies, to the sad and neglected elderly in nursing homes, etc, etc, etc. 

The job of the PAOs is to convince target audiences that normal variations in mood, emotions and behaviors are actually abnormal mental health conditions that need psychiatric evaluation and prescription drugs forever.

Is the new NAMI-Spawned “Make it OK” Campaign Serving the Interests of Big Pharma?

Most potential psychiatric patients (all of us) are unfamiliar with the pro-drug mental health PAOs that include NAMI, CHADD, NAMI’s recent spin-off “Make It OK”, and the myriad of bipolar, anxiety, depression or ADHD “support groups” that are all over the internet, but these groups need to be exposed for the deceptive front groups that they actually are.

Presenting themselves as innocuous PAOs is disingenuous, but the concept is quite seductive to the propaganda targets and altruistic helping volunteers, many of whom have a sincere desire to help a loved one or a family member who might have emotional or mood problems or are already struggling with the toxic or addictive effects of their cocktails of psych drugs. 

Source: Hudson Hospital

PAOs are also very successful influencers of legislators, the media and the American public and have been very successful in getting laws passed that benefit the sociopathic drug industries that fund them, under the guise of helping the patients they claim to represent and from whom they reap enormous profits. 

One would expect that any organization claiming to be advocates for the rights of patients would have as primary goals the full disclosure of all drug risks, the right to refuse treatment, and the right to know that psychiatric labels are not medical conditions that can be confirmed by any known lab or radiological test. But they are not advocates for the rights of patients at all. 

One would expect that such altruistic-sounding PAOs would also provide patients with factual information about alternatives to Big Pharma’s unaffordable, poorly-tested, non-curative and sometimes lethal drugs (alternatives such as the many effective and potentially curative non-drug treatments that are affordable, non-addictive, non-harmful. But they don’t provide that information.

One would expect that an honest patients’ rights group would never endorse something as absurd and obviously dangerous as giving electroshock to pregnant women, nor would they condone schools requiring children to take a psychiatric drug as a condition of attending school. But they do.

One would think that an honest PAO would never be opposed to the FDA issuing warnings that antidepressants are known to cause some patients to become manic, more depressed, sleep deprived or have new thoughts of committing suicide and homicide. But they have opposed such warnings. 

One would think that an ethical PAO would never object to the FDA issuing warnings that so-called “ADHD” drugs are essentially amphetamine-based drugs and therefore highly addictive and  even deadly. But they have objected to such warnings.

The following information is excerpted from one of the most effective Big Psychiatry and Big Pharma whistleblowing organizations in the world, the Citizens Commission on Human Rights International (www.cchrint.org). CCHR’s website is full of unimpeachable information exposing the members of the multinational psychiatry and pharmaceutical industry for their many illicit activities. Check out some of their powerful videos here.

The Unholy Alliance Between PAOs And Big Pharma

In the late 1970s and 1980s, prominent American Psychiatric Association (APA) psychiatrists, directors and researchers with the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) were in need of more government funding, so they devised a plan to create a “growth of consumer and advocacy organizations” with the intention of getting these groups to help lobby Congress for increased funding for psychiatric research. Several groups emerged first on the scene during that period, including the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI’s first name), CHADD, Anxiety Disorders Association of America (ADAA), National Depression & Manic Depressive Association (NDMDA), now called Depression and Bipolar Support Alliance (DBSA), and National Alliance for Research on Schizophrenia and Depression (NARSAD). 

In an incestuous relationship, many of these groups were formed by the directors or researchers from the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), the very organization that needed mental health advocacy groups to make demands on Congress for increased funding. All of them had board or advisory board members with financial ties to Big Pharma. The majority of them were heavily funded by Big Pharma. So this turned out to be a brilliant marketing/lobbying strategy: set up patient’s rights groups to lobby for the funding needed for Big Psychiatry and Big Pharma while claiming to be “advocates” for the mentally ill.

Perhaps this explains why these groups – claiming to be patients’ “rights” groups – would so vehemently oppose such important mental health reforms as:

• Black box warnings to highlight how antidepressants can cause suicide in children and young adults.
• ADHD drug warnings that the psychostimulants being given to millions of children should carry warnings that the drugs could cause heart attacks and strokes.
• A federal law prohibiting school personnel from forcing parents to give their children mind-altering psychiatric drugs as a requirement for their inherent right to education.
• Better informed consent rights.
• Banning the use of ECT on pregnant women, and instead endorse its use. 

Rather, these groups—while raking in millions of Big Pharma dollars each year—frenetically lobby Congress and state governments to channel billions more taxpayer’s dollars into mental health programs that benefit the industry that funds them — not the patients they claim to represent. Among the issues these groups have supported include forced drugging of patients, endorsement and promotion of psychiatric drugs documented to be dangerous and lethal, mental health screening of all school children, drugging and electroshock treatment for pregnant women. And that is just the tip of the iceberg. These groups have also done all they can to suppress and/or minimize any workable alternative non-drug method (e.g. Soteria House, a proven and workable non-drug treatment for those diagnosed “schizophrenic”/psychotic) that threatens their multi-billion dollar psycho-pharmaceutical empire.

Source: Springer Studios

It is for this reason, and the disingenuous nature of many of these groups, that we are exposing their conflicts of interests because a patients’ rights group should be dedicated to patients—not the vested interests of the psycho/pharmaceutical industry. Big Pharma admits that it gets more bang for its buck from funding these front groups than it does from spending money on Direct-To-Consumer marketing (DTC).

Josh Weinstein, “a veteran pharma marketer” writing for the trade magazine Pharmaceutical Executive, in an article titled, “Public Relations: Why Advocacy Beats Direct-To-Consumer marketing said: “I have witnessed that the most direct and efficient tool for driving long-term support for [drug] brands has been, and continues to be, a well-designed, advocacy-based public education program….”

• “Unlike DTC, advocacy-based promotion brings with it a cadre of allies…This factor grows in importance as the pharma industry becomes more of a political target,” Weinstein says. In such a situation, advocacy groups “can be counted on to speak out for [the company]” and “the media will view them as more objective sources than industry spokespeople.”
• The pharmaceutical industry magazine Pharmaceutical Executive published a report by PR expert Teri Cox called “Forging Alliances, Advocacy Partners.” According to Cox, partnering with advocacy groups helps drug companies to “diffuse industry critics by delivering positive messages about the healthcare contributions of pharma companies to legislators, the media, and other key stakeholders.” And they help influence the decisions of policy-makers and regulators.
• Jeffrey Winton, vice-president of global public relations for Pharmacia is even clearer about the role of these groups. “Gone are the days when companies just handed out big checks to groups with no discussion afterward,” says Winton. “Now, we seek opportunities with groups that not only help them achieve their goals and objectives, but also help us move our business along.” 
• According to Dr. Peter Breggin, psychiatrist and founder of The International Center for the Study of Psychiatry and Psychology (ICSPP), the psychiatric-pharmaceutical company “advocacy” groups hold national meetings that bring together drug advocates to talk directly to consumers. They also put out newsletters and other information that praise medications. Sometimes they actively suppress viewpoints that are critical of drugs—for example, by discouraging the media from airing opposing viewpoints.”

The psychiatric-pharma cartel is able to conceal its covert advertising and uses these groups to bolster its poor reputation.

• Sharon Batt of Dalhousie University in Halifax, Canada, studied the behavior and funding of advocacy groups after years working herself in advocacy, where she noticed a general pattern. Organizations that accept pharmaceutical funding, she says, “tend to advocate for fast-track review and availability of drugs, greater insurance coverage, and they somehow see ‘direct-to-consumer’ advertising as a benefit to patients.” On the other hand, groups that maintain financial independence, she says, “emphasize safety over speed and are critical of direct-to-consumer advertising.”
• Weinstein adds: “working with advocacy groups is one of the most accomplished means of raising disease awareness and enhancing the industry’s image as deliverer of new and tangible value to patients.”

Government agencies such as NIMH, CDC, FDA and NIH should not have its officers or employee researchers sitting on the Boards or acting as advisers to any of these groups. All of these groups can and must disclose their pharmaceutical funding (of their own accord, not due to the fact that they are under Senate investigation as many of them currently are) they should also require complete disclosure of any vested interests of their board members and advisory committees. When you read each of their histories as we have provided, you will understand why.

And while several of these groups are now under Senate investigation for huge amounts of their previously undisclosed pharmaceutical funding, CCHR wants to provide the general public with more information about these psycho/pharma front groups, including some of the key players who formed them, advise them or sit on their boards. 

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Dr Kohls is a retired physician from Duluth, MN, USA. He writes a weekly column for the Duluth Reader, the area’s alternative newsweekly magazine. His columns deal with the dangers of American fascism, corporatism, militarism, racism, malnutrition, Big Pharma’s psychiatric drugging and over-vaccination regimens, and other movements that threaten the environment, prosperity, democracy, civility and the health and longevity of the planet and the populace. Many of his columns are archived at

http://www.globalresearch.ca/author/gary-g-kohls;

http://duluthreader.com/search?search_term=Duty+to+Warn&p=2; or at

https://www.transcend.org/tms/search/?q=gary+kohls+articles

Why should it be that in a climate that’s shifted so far to the right, that out of the morass that is contemporary Britain, there should emerge a politician who was shaped by and effectively still lives, in a world that no longer exists? It’s bizarre to say the least but how to explain it?

Perhaps it’s because, as Alain Badiou says, under neoliberalism, there is no politics. Hence, water can flow uphill and people can vote for Jeremy Corbyn. He exists outside politics, as an idea, as a nostalgic nod to another age. As a dream deferred. The date 1945 comes to mind. Note his slogan, ‘For the many, not the few’. It could mean anything really. It’s unfocused. It’s totally apolitical and it fits our depoliticised times.

When there is only a single politics, it means that there is fact, no politics, because politics is always the conflict between several politics. So in opposing this political void with the unity of the mass movement, one remains trapped within that political void: that is to say, within a void of thinking, and ultimately a failed action.

You will reply, ‘Well, not really – today within parliamentary democracy, there are several different politics, for there is a Left and a Right.’ In truth, within the current parliamentary system, the existence of multiple different politics is a fiction. There is in reality just one politics. And this has manifestly been the case ever since the 1980s.

Having ostensibly shaken off the communist political hypothesis, capitalism quite naturally gets back to its own doctrine, which is indeed, liberalism. The communist parties everywhere have disappeared, and the socialist parties – which often identify with what they call liberal socialism – have themselves rallied to the consensus over globalised capitalism. For this reason, across the West, there is no longer anything other than a single politics; which means no politics.

Many people have now more or less clearly understood that since capitalo-parliamentarism is a single politics, it is not a politics at all. – Alain Badiou[1] (my emph. WB)

Other quotes by Corbyn, reveal his own sentimental vision of a country he imagines existed at one time or another. A land of fair play and understatement:

Heads and hearts are connected.

Let’s defend the principle of a society that cares for everyone and everyone cares for everyone else.

We don’t pass by on the other side. – Jeremy Corbyn

Corbyn’s Phoenix-like rise signifies the last gasp of the old social democratic contract between capital and labour, when the organised working class took a little more of the wealth they created, back via the social contract, not necessarily as money but principally via the social wage; the NHS; public housing, social benefits, greater state regulation of capital, nationalisations, some progressive taxation and so on. This was the reformist mission of the Labour Party, to which Corbyn is trying to return but as a shadow of its former self. And we should not forget that whether Labour or Tory governments, the ‘social wage’ was actually paid for in part with the UK’s colonial possessions, its people and their resources! It was a kind of state socialism at home but most definitely imperialism abroad (my own view on this is that our former Empire has poisoned us, made us complicit in the vast crimes committed in our collective name over the centuries, it explains why so-called socialists can side with Empire).

Nevertheless, that social wage was and is, critical to millions of people. It’s the difference between living and surviving for perhaps 20 million people including several million children. Corbyn represents those of us who have been right royally shafted by neoliberal (read Victorian) capitalism; the former industrial workers, zero hours contracts, poor immigrants/refugees, old folks and the young. No wonder half-a-million people joined the Labour Party in the space of a couple of years. But although it’s many millions of people, it’s still a minority, with, as Badiou puts it, ‘a middle class reserve army of the rich’ in lockstep with the elites. Let’s face it, two-thirds of the population are quite alright thank you very much and it seems are quite comfortable with their government butchering people in far-off lands or treating our disabled like criminals.

But could the Corbyn Effect have happened without the central role of what’s inaccurately called ‘social media’ and the key role of Momentum and other outreach networks? Does it help explain the meteoric rise of Corbyn?

The UK is a very small country. The vast majority live in a tiny handful of cities, with the bulk of the population residing in the Southeast, with London at its centre. We live in a wired and increasingly wireless, culture. Television and now the Web mediates public life. The electronic and print media reflect the way the ruling elite sees itself and how it wants us to see them and their reality (they’re obviously not interested in how we see our reality). In this context, it’s really quite easy to reach almost the entire population and the mass media are monopolised by less than a handful of corporations – until the Web came along. Now, in theory anyway, a single individual can reach just about everyone! It’s a potential game changer as they say.

The paradox is that the twenty million (or so) I mentioned earlier, may be poor (relatively) but they’re all connected and most have smartphones which has made the Web portable. We are all connected and it’s this connection, plus desperation, that made the rise of Jeremy Corbyn possible in such a short space of time.

There are at least two precedents that I think inform the situation, one going back to the 17th century, the ‘Broadsheet’, made possible by another revolution, the printing press and the other, much closer to home, the Blackberry phone and all for pretty much the same reasons.

Rebellion

In 2011 a handful of the dispossessed rebelled here in London and elsewhere, triggered by yet another murder of a black man by the police. The state’s reaction was to blame Gangs and the Blackberry phone with its encrypted messaging, BBM, that according to the state, enabled them to coordinate their ‘lootin’ anna burnin’. Remind you of anything?

“Irresponsibility. Selfishness. Behaving as if your choices have no consequences. Children without fathers. Schools without discipline. Reward without effort. Crime without punishment. Rights without responsibilities. Communities without control. Some of the worst aspects of human nature tolerated, indulged – sometimes even incentivised – by a state and its agencies that in parts have become literally de-moralised.” — David Cameron in the Guardian, 15 August 2011

My reaction at the time was, in part, this:

Two thousand people arrested and all just to make a point. Courts working around the clock to make an example of anybody who dares challenge the status quo, no matter how chaotic and self-destructive such cries of rage are. History is littered with such spontaneous rebellions, all of which are symptoms of a much deeper malaise but clearly it’s a malaise that the political class do not want to confront, dare not confront, else they would be forced to deal with the conditions that they themselves have created.

/../

‘Gang culture’. Code word for Black. And the BBC follows up its list of ’causes’ with yet another parade of ‘experts’, this time pontificating on the alleged role of Gangs in the disturbances, with an even more outrageous list of ‘reasons’. One ‘expert’ even suggests, I kid you not, that the Gangs waited until the riots had caught hold, before moving in for the loot. And all of it coordinated via Blackberry Messenger (BBM)! – ‘The state unleashes the Dogs of Media’ By William Bowles, 17 August 2011.

Seven years later, for millions, conditions have gone from bad to worse. This time round it’s not the Blackberry but ‘social media’ that’s taking the blame for pretty much everything that ails us, from stalking celebrities to ‘fake news’. The World Wide Web is more of a Pandora’s Box than a trap.

Momentum

The people behind Momentum, the online political organiser, the force behind the Corbyn Effect are sussed, media-wise. They’re ‘media savvy’ as they say. Advertising, public relations, professional political workers, are the roots of this new kid on the block (though not new to US politics, where such tools have been in use, by the Right since the 1990s). They’re also well schooled in the inner life of the Labour Party, without which you don’t stand a chance!

Screenshot from Momentum website

What Momentum has shown is the power of the new interactive media to motivate and organise those previously without a voice. The technology has the potential to connect everyone to everyone else!

It’s a dilemma for the ruling elite, they can’t very well ban the Internet, or smartphones and tablets, or for that matter video cameras. So enter ‘fake news’ and corporate censorship via Facebook, Google, Twitter et al. They try to undermine the new, independent media by slandering it, blocking it, censoring it and undermining it. Enter the corporate, security state.

In the early days of the Web, the elite ridiculed it, they treated it like a joke. But when they realised just how powerful a medium it is, they tried to co-opt it. Hey presto! ‘citizen journalism’ was borne. Wonky videos without attribution, time or place started cropping up on BBC ‘News’, allegedly from the aforementioned ‘citizens’. And notice, that today, no more ‘citizen’ videos on the BBC News, now we have the White Helmets, funded by the UK Foreign Office and USAID, producing their little dramas for the public to swallow. Because that’s what they are, fiction. Propaganda, disinformation is now professionally made to look like citizen journalism, so no need any longer for the ‘citizen journalists’ themselves. It’s literally the White Helmets Theatrical Troupe in performance.[2]

The Corbyn Effect is the fortuitous product of a confluence of events. Firstly the maturation and now ubiquity of online and interactive technologies that made it possible to give a voice to the disenfranchised millions. It gave those who had been effectively abandoned by the state a voice to propel Corbyn into the leadership of his Party, but a party that hates his guts and tried twice to get rid of him.

As they say, ‘one swallow does not a summer make’. It’s going to take more than the mobilised millions, firstly to elect a Labour Party headed by Corbyn, he is also going to need a transformed Parliamentary Labour Party, never mind what the undying hatred of the corporate, security state will do should he be successful. This is why Corbyn remains an ‘aberration’ (as do all those who came before him, e.g. Wedgewood-Benn, Neil Kinnock et al).

Underlying all this, is Corbyn’s complete absence of politics and his total allegiance to the Labour Party, which means that ultimately he can’t be trusted, the Party always comes first. That’s why there are no extra-Parliamentary actions except the odd demo, when logic dictates that thousands on the streets trumps 257 neoliberals in Parliament. Sorry, 256. It’s also why Momentum, at first free of central control by the Labour Party hierarchy, is now wholly ‘owned’ by the Party. It’s been absorbed. Now it serves new masters (perhaps it did all along, we just didn’t know it).

The main man behind Momentum is professional politician, John Lansman, a long time Labour Party worker for Corbyn and also a friend of his. Lansman along with other socialists in the Labour Party hope to transform the Party into one that fights for socialism, at least I assume its socialism. At the very least they want to ameliorate Austerity, restore the NHS to working order and so on. How they intend to do this is not to clear to me. People like Lansman and others, have been trying for a hundred years to ‘transform’ the Labour Party’ (the words of William Morris are ringing in my ears, again!).

“If we ally ourselves to any of the presen[t] parties they will only use us as a cat’s-paw; and on the other hand, if by any chance a Socialist slips through into Parliament, he will do so at the expense of leaving his principles behind him; he will certainly not be returned as a Socialist, but as something else; what else is hard to say. As I have written before in these columns, Parliament is going just the way we would have it go. Our masters are feeling very uncomfortable under the awkward burden of GOVERNMENT, and do not know what to do, since their sole aim is to govern from above. Do not let us help them by taking part in their game. Whatever concessions may be necessary to the progress of the Revolution can be wrung out of them at least as easily by extra-Parliamentary pressure, which can be exercised without losing one particle of those principles which are the treasure and hope of Revolutionary Socialists.” — William Morris, the Commonweal, Volume 1, Number 10, November 1885, p. 93.[1] (My emph. WB)

The problem is that it’s always been a problem without a resolution. The Labour Party came about when the trade union leaders of the ‘labour aristocracy’ were coopted by the state and on the state’s terms, something they were quite happy to do, and it’s been this way ever since. You might as well try and transform the Tory Party to fight for socialism. The Labour Party is an intrinsic component of the ruling elite, the political class, is it realistic to contemplate its transformation into a party of revolution, or even meaningful reform?

This has always been the problem confronting revolutionaries. The reformists offer the working-class solutions short of revolution. Capitalism is presented as an economic system which can be reformed in the interest of workers. Parliament is presented as being capable of passing laws that could improve the lives of workers. All that is required is to gain a majority at the polls, so the emphasis remains on electioneering and canvassing. What the reformists refuse to acknowledge or say aloud, though the leadership is aware of it, are the political undercurrents in society that will frustrate their grand plans, namely that state and economic power lies with the capitalist class. – ‘The Perennial Question: to Work In or Outside the Labour Party?‘ (PDF) By Brian Green, May 2018

A Blackberry Moment(um)?

The irony (and paradox) of Corbyn’s success, is that the millions Momentum mobilised to pull it off are where the real power to transform society resides, and who knows, perhaps even the Labour Party but I think the millions have been used and dumped. Used to launch (probably a reluctant) Jeremy Corbyn, near the end of his professional life, so he had absolutely nothing to lose. And dumped because they’ve done their job. The local election results prove it. Where is the great Labour transformation at local level? Momentum branches? It’s simply not in the interests of the Parliamentary Party to have a rival at the Constituency level and history bears this out. And the trade unions behave in the same way, unfortunately. I saw an identical process at work in South Africa in 1993-94 when I was working in the ANC election campaign.

Worse still, Constituency Labour Parties have become, once more I might add, battlegrounds between various sorts of ‘lefts’ and the entrenched neoliberals who run the bureaucracy and have the PLP backing them and most importantly, access to resources of all kinds, including the media. The kicker is the Rules. They wrote ‘em, they know how to use ‘em. The left are the ‘interlopers’, who try to keep up with the entrenched bureaucrats. Mostly it’s a losing battle for the lefts. Enormous energy gets expended but the left still gets bulldozed and eventually expelled for one reason or another.[3]

But nevertheless, in spite of my total disbelief in the Labour Party as a vehicle for radical change, Momentum was an important development for the left, for it shows what can be done and the potential of this new medium of communication. Perhaps what the Left needs now is its very own ‘Blackberry Moment’.

But first the left is going to have to get serious about socialism instead of squabbling all the time about who is the ‘real revolutionary’ and trying to run everybody’s else’s ‘revolution’, and take a long, hard look at itself. Right now, I don’t see a single organisation on the left that really has a clue what to do. I think they all run on automatic, saying the same things, in the same way that they always have. I’m trying not to be cynical here, I’m a third gen lefty myself, but I’ve had to change my thinking throughout my life. Never to stand still, always to question.

The problem is that the various lefts are all led by their own professional lefties, or adhere to one or the other lefties who have made a career out of being one, mostly in academia and in journalism/publishing (the ‘Gatekeepers’). As long as their outmoded theories hold sway, we’re stuck with their interpretations of the world, interpretations that haven’t changed in decades because they haven’t changed in decades.

1945 gave us a small taste of what is really possible, a really small taste and it lasted about 30 years and degenerated over time. Given the nature of transnational capitalism, revolution here, by itself, is simply not possible. Therefore, we need to look toward a time when we can take action internationally. This requires an entirely new way of organising but we have the tools and Momentum was just the beginning.

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This article was originally published on Investigating Imperialism.

Notes

1. ‘Greece and the Re-invention of Politics’ by Alain Badiou, pps.75-76. Verso Books, 2018

2. This is not the place to go into the history of the role of propaganda and disinformation in the preservation of capitalism but suffice to say that the modern incarnations can be traced back to the post-WWII period and the creation of ‘foundations’ and ‘think tanks’ as part of the Cold War being waged on the Soviet Union. Universities played a pivotal role in their creation and running, as did the media/PR industry of course.

3. I’m not a fan of Ken Livingstone, or his opportunism but the hatchet job done on Livingstone by the rightwing Zionists, is sinister and fascistic (and the despicable role the BBC played in it). I don’t think Livingstone went far enough in exposing the links between Fascism and Zionism in the 1930s. And have we forgotten about the links between Israel and Apartheid South Africa, let alone Apartheid South Africa’s links to the German Nazis? Apparently so. See Jonathan Cook’s excellent essay on the subject.

Ditto the job they tried to do on Corbyn’s alleged anti-semitism and no doubt it contributed to the less than spectacular performance of Labour in the local elections. If you want to know where on the political spectrum these particular Zionists stand, look to Donald Trump. The Zionists have managed to conflate Zionism with being Jewish, this is why if you attack Zionism, you are called an anti-semite. It’s a sleight-of-hand. I’m Jewish, by birth (my mother was Jewish) but that’s where it ends. I’m don’t support the existence of a theocratic state called Israel, in fact,  it’s a settler state that needs to be dismantled and rebuilt with both Jews and Palestinians in the land of Palestine. Corbyn’s ‘crime’ by the way, was to attend a leftie Jewish, anti-zionist meeting of some kind. For this he was forced to apologise!

Featured image: Free Lula Vigil in Curitiba. (Source: author)

Brazil is experiencing a deep economic, political, social and environmental crisis as a result of the international crisis of capitalism and the inability of this system to solve the contradictions it generates. In this context, authoritarian solutions, such as coup d’états and attacks on democracy, have been the formula adopted to guarantee the implementation of a violent neoliberal offensive that removes the rights of the workers while at the same time hijacks and subordinates the State to the interests of large business groups.

In order to confront them, it is necessary to have clarity and to identify who is responsible for this crisis and the political instability in which we live: international financial capital; the media, especially Rede Globo, which fed and inflated the coup-mongers and fascist movements; and the Judiciary, which, on the one hand, places its own interests and privileges above the Constitution, and, on the other hand, rewards with impunity all repression and violence against the poor.

Build a Popular Project for Brazil

This moment demands the unity of the progressive forces in the action and effort to build a Popular Project for Brazil that is able to face the structural problems of our country, struggling against misery and unemployment; resuming development; facing housing and urban mobility issues in the cities; guaranteeing free access to quality healthcare and education; carrying out agrarian reform in the countryside; protecting natural resources as a common good and preventing their privatization; and regaining national sovereignty.

That is why we call on the Brazilian society as a whole to build and participate in the Congress of the Brazilian People, organized by the Brazil Popular Front, to be the space for discussion and organization on the country’s problems and the structural measures necessary to overcome them.

We also reaffirm our conviction of the innocence of President Lula, defend his right to run for presidential elections and, in the face of this political imprisonment resulting from an illegal and illegitimate process, demand his freedom!

For all these reasons, the Landless Rural Workers’ Movement is publicly declaring its support for Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva’s candidacy, since we understand that it represents the struggle against the coup and the aspirations of the Brazilian people for change in this scenario of crisis that plagues us all.

We will not forget or condone impunity and therefore we demand the solution and justice for the murder of our comrade Marielle, as well as for so many young poor victims of the repression. May your example in life continue to inspire young people, women and workers in these times of repression and authoritarianism. In her memory, not one moment of silence, but the commitment and struggle of the workers and landless rural workers against the coup, against the withdrawal of rights and freedom, for a more just, equitable and sovereign country!

Free Lula! Marielle Lives!

To Fight, To Build Popular Agrarian Reform!

Last week’s massacre in Gaza would not have happened if organisations which the public rely upon to uphold international human rights standards had done what they are supposed to do and spoken out at an OECD Forum on Responsible Mineral Supply Chains in Paris in April, just days after Israel had, at that stage, gunned down and killed over 30 innocent civilians in Gaza.  

Although the Israeli economy is heavily reliant on diamond exports – 30% of manufacturing exports worth $22 billion gross ($11 billion net) in 2014 – none of the representatives from organisations campaigning for responsible minerals supply chains, Global Witness, Amnesty International,  Impact Transform or the EU representative and Chair of the Kimberley Process (KP) diamond regulatory body, Hilde Hardeman, mentioned the fact that an OECD member and major player in the diamond supply chain had cold-bloodily assassinated unarmed civilians in Gaza.

Had they done so, the threat of sanctions and public awareness would be so damaging for the diamond industry and overall economy that Israel would not have given soldiers free rein to kill sixty innocent Palestinian men, women and children and maim and injure thousands more weeks later. 

The diamond industry in Israel has been described as “a cornerstone of the economy” and is a major source of the foreign currency needed to sustain the belligerent Zionist project in Palestine. 

Diamonds processed in Israel account for one-fifth of the global market share in value terms.  Jewellers claim these diamonds are conflict free but anyone familiar with the horrific scenes in Gaza over the past six weeks will know that is untrue.  

On the day Israeli soldiers assassinated sixty protestors in besieged Gaza the EU Vice-President, Federica Mogherini, in response to a written question from MEPs, confirmed the EU’s support for OECD due diligence guidelines for responsible mineral supply chains.  

But when I asked Hilde Hardeman (image on the right) if she had raised the killing by Israel of Palestinians civilians in Gaza at the OECD Forum on responsible mineral supply chains this was the reply I received one day after the latest Israeli massacre.

“Representatives of the European Commission participated in the OECD Forum on responsible mineral supply chains in Paris in April 2018.

However, the question you raise does not fall within the mandate of the Kimberley Process, which deals exclusively with rough diamonds and addresses issues or situations where rough diamonds are “used by rebel movements or their allies to finance conflict aimed at undermining legitimate governments” as defined by the relevant United Nations Security Council resolution.”

Although I hadn’t asked her about the discredited Kimberley Process she hides behind it to avoid explaining why she didn’t raise this issue of Israeli human rights violations at the OECD Forum. 

The remit of the KP is restricted to the mining sector and gives a free pass to diamonds that fund human rights violations downstream of mining. According to the Israeli political economist, Shir Hever, diamonds processed in Israel generate $1 billion annually in revenue used to fund the Israeli military. 

 Our political leaders have never shown any inclination to rein in let alone sanction the rogue regime in Israel that has perpetrated numerous massacres causing immense suffering and grief for the thousands of victims and their families in besieged Gaza and rest of Palestine.

Words of condemnation are not enough. Palestinians need actions that will penalise Israel for its litany of impunity-fuelled crimes against humanity. 

Civil society must act.  Amnesty International, Global Witness, Human Rights Watch and Impact Transform should call for the immediate suspension of Israel from the KP just as they called for Zimbabwe’s suspension when government forces there were accused of human rights violations.  

Between A2012 and 2016 diamond exports added $49.7 billion net to the Israel economy. Revenue from the diamond industry is a significant source of funding for an apartheid regime that has developed a stockpile of unregulated nuclear weapons and is guilty of grievous human right violations. Despite this, jewellers claim diamonds from Israel are conflict free. (Source: author)

Organisations such as The National Association of Jewellers, The London Diamond Bourse, together with The Association of Fine Jewellers in Ireland should end the trade in diamonds from Israel and call on the Kimberley Process to immediately suspend Israel until such time as it respects Palestinian rights and abides by international law. 

The EU, represented by Hilde Hardeman, must use its influence in Kimberley Process to uphold the standards by which we are constantly told the EU is guided and call for Israel’s suspension from the KP when it meets in intercessional in Antwerp June 18-21. 

The EU should also suspend the Euromed Agreement that gives Israel preferential trading conditions with the EU despite being in violation of the human rights standards which are an integral part of that Agreement. 

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Featured image is from Green Left Weekly.

Featured image: African National Congress NEC  member Ronald Lamola briefs press on Land Summit, May 22, 2018

A recently-held African National Congress (ANC) Land Summit (May 19-20) convened in the Republic of South Africa just several months after the passage of a parliamentary resolution which would theoretically redistribute white-owned farms to the African majority. 

Land transferal has been the key element in the historic National Democratic Revolution in South Africa and throughout the continent. 

Yet with the coming to power of the ruling ANC in 1994, a comprehensive land reform program has remained elusive. Africans are still disproportionately impoverished and landless while the economic prospects for redressing the inherited settler-colonial construct is largely dependent upon the role of South Africa within the broader world capitalist system. 

The lack of a sweeping land redistribution program results from the trepidation surrounding the economic and political impact of such revolutionary policies. Agricultural production for export and internal consumption is clearly one aspect of the problem. 

Moreover, the ownership and relations of production within the mining and manufacturing industries are also important in understanding the reluctance of the ruling ANC and even its allies within the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) and the South African Communist Party (SACP), both of which were involved in the Land Summit, to embark upon bold and innovative transformation. Even after twenty four years of governance resulting in many advances for the South African people, there is much more to be done to re-correct the mass poverty, dispossession and exploitation which were the foundation of the racist apartheid state.

Of course if a radical land redistribution program was enacted the ANC government would face the wrath of international finance capital. As was done in the Republic of Zimbabwe where under the leadership of former President Robert Mugabe and the Zimbabwe African National Union Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF), a concerted campaign to sanction, blockade, destabilize and overthrow the government went on for nearly two decades. 

During the post-Mugabe era since November 2017, the imperialist states such as the United States and Britain are continuing to set the terms for any semblance of a normalization of diplomatic, trade and investment relations. The ZANU-PF leadership under President Emmerson Mnangagwa has announced that western observers of the upcoming July elections will be invited into the country so that they can be satisfied that bourgeois democracy is operating in Zimbabwe. 

In a statement summing up the Land Summit, the ANC says:

“The recommendations identify the need for a South African agrarian revolution as a key component of land redistribution, promoting small holder farmers, and working together with emerging and existing farmers.

The plight of farmworkers and labor tenants was also a particular issue of concern, as millions of them continue to face insecurity in the land of their birth. The NEC will be asked to take decisions that will ensure that particular measures are taken to protect farm workers and dwellers, and that their continued precarious position in our society is addressed.” 

However, these concerns cannot be addressed absent of a full-scale assault on the national and class character of the society. The capitalist mode of production does not provide for such a policy of redistribution without the capacity of the revolutionary party and its allies to withstand the inevitable pressure from the imperialist states.

Nevertheless, South Africa, despite it being the most industrialized state on the continent, would require other regional nations to adopt similar policies in order to establish a bloc of resistance forces to stave off the efforts by the West to remove the ANC from power. The land question cannot be answered in its ultimate revelation apart from the broader revolutionary process to liberate and unite Africa as a whole. 

Meanwhile, the ANC in its press briefing on May 22 in regard to the Land Summit which took place at the party headquarters, Luthuli House, engages in a sober assessment of its role in government since 1994. ANC National Executive Committee (NEC) member Ronald Lamola reported that:

“The [Motlanthe] high-level panel [on assessment of key legislation and acceleration of fundamental change] said the reasons for our failures particularly on land reform are misguided policies, insufficient budget, failure to align the laws with the constitution, corruption, inefficient government systems, failure to fully exploit constitutional space especially in the area of expropriation without compensation, incorrect interpretation of the constitution.” (Citizen, May 22)

The Peasant’s Revolt: A Reassessment

One of the groundbreaking theoretical contributions to the ideological development of the ANC and the SACP was the work of Govan Mbeki in his book entitled “The Peasant’s Revolt” (image on the right) published in 1964 while he was in detention as a political prisoner stemming from the Rivonia Trial. Mbeki chronicles some of the largest outbreaks of unrest among people in the rural areas in the years following the conclusion of World War II marked by the institutionalization of apartheid under National Party regime. 

Mbeki emphasizes that:

“South African peasants have a long history of resistance to oppression. They know what it is to be crushed by the armed forces of the whites, to be imprisoned without trial, banished to desolate parts of the country, and banned from normal social contact. Since the enforcement of the Nationalist Party’s policies by harsh and frequently violent means, peasant resistance has been widespread and organized.” 

This same excerpt from the book goes on to say:

“Africans have resisted forcible removal from their homes to new territory. They have opposed the imposition of Bantu Authorities, the extension of passes to women, and schemes for the rehabilitation and reallocation of land. Between 1946 and 1962 risings have been provoked in Witzieshoek, on the border of Basutoland; in Marico, just south of Bechuanaland; in Sekhukhuneland, in the north-west Transvaal; in Zululand, on the South Coast; and throughout the Transkei, especially in Pondoland. They have been suppressed with brutal force.” (Chapter 9, Resistance and Rebellion)  

Although the political conditions are different in 2018, the imperialists are still committed to crushing any genuine land redistribution project in South Africa with economic measures and even military intervention if it is deemed necessary. The ANC and allied revolutionary forces in the labor and left organizations have no alternative than to take this history into account when they deliberate on a way forward. 

The Freedom Charter: Looking Back to Move Forward

Programmatically the Congress of the People held on June 25- 26, 1955 in Kliptown adopted the Freedom Charter which guided the dominate tendency within the national liberation movement for the following four decades. After May 1994 when President Nelson Mandela was inaugurated as head-of-state, many aspects of the Freedom Charter could not be implemented particularly clauses calling for the nationalization of industry, land and banking.

The global political and economic situation in 1994 required compromises from within the ANC and its allies. These tactical maneuvers were designed not to last for as long as they have. 

A set of social dynamics involving the factional disputes within the ruling party, the ongoing dominance of western imperialism based upon the dependency on the former colonial powers for trade, credit and material inputs for agriculture, mining and manufacturing, has effectively hampered genuine and sustainable development leading towards a socialist society. A pattern of disinvestment by capital along with its resultant downsizing and outsourcing of jobs guaranteed the perpetual decline in living standards for the urban working class, farmers and the rural proletariat. 

From an ideal standpoint the Freedom Charter conveys emphatically under the section entitled “The People Shall Share in the Country`s Wealth!”, that:

“The national wealth of our country, the heritage of South Africans, shall be restored to the people; The mineral wealth beneath the soil, the Banks and monopoly industry shall be transferred to the ownership of the people as a whole; All other industry and trade shall be controlled to assist the wellbeing of the people; All people shall have equal rights to trade where they choose, to manufacture and to enter all trades, crafts and professions.” 

South African Freedom Charter graphic

With specific reference to the land question, the Freedom Charter demands:

“The Land Shall be Shared Among Those Who Work It! Restrictions of land ownership on a racial basis shall be ended, and all the land re-divided amongst those who work it to banish famine and land hunger; The state shall help the peasants with implements, seed, tractors and dams to save the soil and assist the tillers; Freedom of movement shall be guaranteed to all who work on the land; All shall have the right to occupy land wherever they choose; People shall not be robbed of their cattle, and forced labor and farm prisons shall be abolished.”

Socialism and the Land Question

Obviously these demands of the National Democratic Revolution cannot be fully achieved without a socialist orientation for government related to the economic restructuring of class society deriving from colonialism and settler colonialism. Socialism in one country, a philosophical misnomer within orthodox Marxist theory, can be realized as in Cuba, the People’s Republic of China, the former Soviet Union as well as the non-capitalist paths to development enacted by various African states in the immediate post-independence processes of the 1960s through the 1980s, although the threat of counter-revolution remains a looming threat or reality.

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa of the ANC will stand for election in 2019. The economic crisis due to the declining value of the rand, the astronomically high rate of unemployment, persistent strikes and community unrest over low salaries, poor working conditions, service delivery problems and corruption will inevitably be a central feature of the consciousness of the electorate. In order to maintain its uncontested hold on state power, Ramaphosa and the ANC parliamentary candidates must convince the voters that they can effectively tackle these monumental difficulties. 

As Dr. Kwame Nkrumah said in his pioneering work on Neo-Colonialism in this period, until Africa is united under a Socialist Union government, imperialism will continue to stifle the forward progress of the masses of people. Consequently, the struggle for revolutionary land redistribution in South Africa and Zimbabwe is an integral part of the Pan-African movement for the reconstruction of the entire continent.

The ANC and ZANU-PF are tackling one of the most profound challenges of the modern period of the 21^st century. As the western industrialized states decline in their economic prowess a more equitable and inclusive system of trade and finance must be brought into being. This can be done based upon the material conditions of the African continent with its vast mineral, energy, agricultural and human resources. Therefore it is the people organized into their political parties and mass organizations that can ensure a future of stability and prosperity for the majority of the workers, farmers and youth.    

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Abayomi Azikiwe is the editor of Pan-African News Wire. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

All images in this article are from the author.

Background

US President Donald Trump has blamed Chinese President Xi Jinping for a change in North Korea’s tone following Washington’s landmark overtures with Pyongyang.

He was referring to a meeting between President Xi and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un in early May. Trump made the remarks during a meeting with South Korean President Moon Jae-in in the White House. He also raised doubts about his Singapore summit with Kim, saying there was a substantial chance the meeting would not happen as planned in mid-June. Concerns are growing over an abrupt change in tone both from North Korea and the United States. Last week, Pyongyang warned that the Kim-Trump summit could be canceled if the United States continued to push for a one-sided denuclearization deal. Pyongyang has been further infuriated Washington’s comparing North Korea’s fate with that of Gaddafi-era Libya and continued joint military drills with South Korea.

It sounds like Washington is trying to play double on N Korea, and China, after the trade war was seemingly settled.

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PressTV: What are your views?

Peter Koenig: To begin with, nothing is ever settled with the US. They do whatever suits them best and renege on any agreement if they feel it’s to their advantage.

Ethics and international law have no place in US politics.

As to Kim Jong-Un and North Korea – let’s face it, Kim Jong-un at the beginning gave away everything without getting anything back. He was ready to disarm completely, he even allowed the annual Sout-Korea / US military maneuvers to continue – which surprised me a lot.

Then President Xi probably called Kim – I don’t know whose initiative it was to meet twice within ten days or so – but probably President Xi’s – to tell Kim to wake up.

And now Kim did wake up; and, of course, Washington, especially with John Bolton in the room, he doesn’t like that turn-around at all [a nuclear disarmament is not going to be just unilateral], although it is quite logical.

And Bolton’s remarks about “applying the same approach to North Korea as they did to Libya” – is of course a horror. – Who would have any trust in the US?

And with Vicepresident Mike Pence doubling up, saying that a military option against North Korea is still on the table.

To me this sounds like Pence’s statement and Bolton’s horrifying comparison with Libya was done on purpose, since the US wants to back out of the summit and the meeting – and pursue its belligerent course against Pyongyang – this also on Bolton’s advice to Trump. Bolton wants war. He was the one who basically instigated the war scenarios against Iraq.

Bolton does definitely not want peace, never wanted peace.

Will see what happens. But I also believe that the mid-June Singapore summit will not take place, or if it does, it probably won’t lead to anything that makes the two Koreas safer.

I believe the only good and sustainable thing is a peace agreement between the two Koreas, north and south – and that South Korea, as a sovereign nation, will ask the US for denuclearization of the Peninsula, to dismantle its military base, starting with the nuclear arsenal.

If this happens – a huge IF – it may be possible to bring Kim along.

Kim, I believe, knows he can count on China, and probably Russia too.

PressTV: What are Washington’s economic benefits by keeping the aggression on North Korea alive, instead of finding a diplomatic solution?

PK: War and conflicts are the US economy’s lifeline. Washington NEVER wants peace. Peace would mean the collapse of the US economy. Besides, the US military-security industrial complex is one of the two key pillars that keep the US economy going. The other one is global – actually by now only western – financial hegemony, commanded by the FED and wall street and supported by the two international financial Bretton woods Institutions, the World Bank and the IMF.

Clearly, Bolton is the equivalent of a first hand and open lobbyist for the US military industrial complex.

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

We hear that Kosovo and Metohija’s frozen conflict is not conducive to Serbia’s interests, but nobody notes that Serbia stands to lose even more if negotiations under EU auspices continue under the same pattern and trend. Judging by the ongoing course wherein Serbia has been only delivering concessions and Prishtina’s clique only gaining control over the whole Province, Serbia may end up delivering irrevocably all her rights and interests and receiving nothing in return.

Except promises of EU membership by 2027 as “indicative” year! Rarely is heard that such a EU/USA deal “territory (of Kosovo and Metohija) for EU membership” would be illegal, contrary to the UN SC resolution 1244, UN Charter, OSCE Final Document and Constitution of Serbia. It would be unacceptable in principle because the state territory, national identity and dignity cannot be treated as trading commodities.

Mere notion of trading Kosovo and Metohija for EU membership is an indication of a sharp decline in awareness of the essence of national identity, dignity, state interests, national and state self-esteem. The fact that, besides the so-called political elite, a part of Serbian intellectual elite, the ‘educated ones’, and even certain national institutions also hold Kosovo and Metohija to be a ‘hanging rope’ that Serbia should promptly get rid of, ostensibly in order to rapidly embark on a wide-ranging economic and social progress, amounts to nothing less than an endorsement of the very dubious  message that relevance of the territorial principle is waning, that both Serbia and Kosovo would anyway end up inside the “European community”, that the perspectives of better life outwigh all other values, that Serbia inherently belongs to Euro-Atlantic integrations, that the sitting-on-two-chairs policy is untenable, and the like.

Whatever happens, from the murder of Oliver Ivanović[i] and public lynch of Marko Đurić[ii] through the statements of Priština leaders on ‘Eastern Kosovo’ or on Kosovo up to Niš, through the ‘mutual recognition’ platforms to the rifles from the battle of Košare, Belgrade repeats the chorus line that the dialogue and the EU umbrella has no alternative, that the business is as usual as if meanwhile nothing has happened or changed. Is this tactics? Assuredness? Wisdom? Responsibility? Experience? Foresight? Strenth? Winning combination? Advice of friends or of ‘friends’?

Image on the right: Oliver Ivanovic

The question to ask is whether any rational agreement with former leaders of terrorist KLA turned politicians is possible at all, even regardless of whether they are on the most wanted lists and whether they enjoy support of their NATO and EU sponsors? Knowing anyway that they indeed are on Interpol warrants and that they do enjoy support of ‘exceptional’ friends…

The reality is talked about selectively, as if it consisted of debts, obligations and restrictions only, as if Serbia were a state without roots, without history, universal rights or memberships in various international organizations, without friends, and as if she depended solely on the mercy of individual members of the EU and NATO! The legality and principles are hushed about, as if both were also advantages of the ‘other side’ which should not be reminded of further arguments in support of its case.

Nothing is said about absolute dominance of geopolitical approaches and interests of the leading Western countries in addressing the Kosovo-Metohija issue. There is not a slightest effort to analyze the impact of new trends in Europe and in global relations on the international position of Serbia and her negotiating capacity. Moreover, there is a perceptible resistance, a weird aversion to the necessity to adapt the negotiating tactics and policy to the altered realities. The impression is that we are perpetually, day in day out, in the grinding machine of those same neocolonial mechanisms for crushing, brainwashing and subduing, disinterested in changing anything except to loyally follow the ‘encouragements’ of on-duty commissioners that are “in the best interest of the future of Serbia”.

Nobody mentions the truth that for the key Western countries to whom, under the Brussels negotiating format, Serbia has effectively ceded resolving of status of Kosovo and Metohija, the only acceptable solution is the one supportive of their confrontation with Russia and China. This goes contrary to the vital interests of Serbia. The hitherto experience confirms that the Brussels negotiating framework excludes the principles of legality, balance, justice, and sustainability, thus precluding Serbia in protecting her legitimate rights and interests, especially those stemming from the UN Security Council Resolution 1244.

It’s been said that EU is the largest investor, largest donor and largest trade partner of Serbia. Although the purpose of linking the above statement with the negotiations with Pristina is not given explicitly and decidedly, there lingers on an unspoken message to the public that this benefaction obligates us to also endorse the unprincipled demands concerning the sovereignty, territorial integrity and the Constitutional order of Serbia. And these demands are as follows: legalization of the forcible creation of a new state in the part of the Serbian state territory; Kosovo’s membership in the UN and all other international organizations; drawing new international borders; another exercise in crushing the Serbian nation; legalization of ethnic cleansing of 250,000 Serbs and other non-Albanians; paving the way for the creation of ‘Greater Albania’.

Image below: Marko Duric

What covers silence is that EU Member States, especially the richest ones, are the biggest winners of democratization, transition and privatization in Serbia. What is not said is that the banks from EU member states alone have sucked tens of billions of Euros out from the Serbian economy and citizens in the processes of liquidation of the Serbian banks, acquisition of the Serbian financial market, and replacement of DM into Euro. No one has yet bothered to calculate profit gained by economies of those countries during privatization that the Government has labeled as predatory.

The most deafening silence is about NATO/EU member states having inflicted direct material damage to Serbia during the criminal NATO-led aggression of 1999, totaling more than US$ 100 billion. If, in spite of those countries’ clear legal duty to compensate war damages, the highest state authorities still find it disconcerting, for any reason, to initiate the inclusion of this matter in the agendas of pre-accession or any other negotiation, then the basic sense of appropriateness, national dignity and self-respect should request at least a measure of restraint in showering unduly the Western agents with undeserved compliments for their patronage.

It’s talked of the need for a just solution affording each ‘side’ to win some and lose some. Nothing is said about the minimum below which Serbia shall not and must not go on. The reflection of this  ‘flexibility’ of Serbia on the position of the ‘other side’ and its mentors is embodied in all sorts of claims brought up on a daily basis and even in unabashed open threats which, by one way or another, are also supported by representatives of the EU, USA, Germany and others. No mention whatsoever is made that within the Brussels negotiation, thus far, all Serbia did is giving her rights and interests away, without gaining anything concrete. Hence, a legitimate question to ask is if there are at all conditions in place for a well-balanced and a just compromise conducive to a durable peace and stability.

No matter what representatives of certain Western countries and their integrations may say, their perpetual blackmailing Serbia and open support to actors having territorial or other claims against Serbia testify that, for them, Serbia will never be too small, too weak or too humiliated to discontinue their crushing her into pieces, weakening and humiliating her.

They say Serbia is getting increasingly stronger and respected; none says she has never been as humiliated, deceived and blackmailed as nowadays. The recently staged publics lynch of Serbian official Marko Đurić and dozens of elected representative of the Serbian people in Kosovska Mitrovica is indicative of the true attitude of relevant actors vis-à-vis Serbia.

They say an agreement is concluded with NATO which will not allow any (military) force enter the North of the Province, whereas KFOR – predominantly composed of NATO troops – in that same part of the Province secures “ROSU” whenever the latter demonstrates, recurrently, its strength, weaponry and equipment acquired from NATO. Does the enduring attitude of EU and NATO towards UNSCR 1244, the Brussels Agreement on Principles, and the Agreement with NATO on the North of the Province, have any bearing for foretelling their position towards any hypothetical new legal documents to be signed, or maybe this question is but rhetorical?

Highest state authorities talk of so-called status-neutrality of the EU and EULEX, even though common sense recognizes this to be a blatant hypocrisy, given that both EU and EULEX in Kosovo and Metohija are implementing the master plan of creating a new member of NATO and the UN, drawing new borders, consolidating ethnic cleansing of Serbian people and pushing them northwards.

It’s been said that Kosovo has long been lost, that the previous governments had delivered it all, that the current governments merely ‘seeks to save what can be saved’, and that the Constitution is no defense. This is supplemented by saying what we need is courage, that we are in for ‘painful decisions’, that Serbia needs other countries, especially Germany, more than they need Serbia, and so on, and so forth.

BUT! If other, previous governments have already lost or delivered it all, wherefore all this commotion of pressures, lies, hypocrisy, blackmails and humiliations on the one hand, and lavishing offers of donations, investments and accolades to the sitting government, on the other? We are witnessing a mixture of arm-twisting and charm offensive at play.

To whom is intended and what is the purpose of statement that Serbia needs Germany and other countries more than they need Serbia? Whatever was it to necessitate such comparison, what objective is it designed to achieve? Does this mean that, in lieu of the equality, mutuality, reciprocity and independency, Serbia is to willingly endorse and proclaim the principle of subordination? What other reasons could possibly drive German investors to invest in Serbia if not those of own interests, profit, and sky-high subsidies from the Budget of Serbia?

Statements of the Serbian representatives abound with contradictions, mood extremes ranging from enthusiasm to frustration. Within such setup, the very meaning of certain terms routinely used in the political life becomes obscure. For instance, should the courage be exercised in defense against unlawful, unprincipled and blackmailing demands, or in acceptance thereof to the detriment of Serbia?

Belittling the official position of the national leadership of France that the priority is the EU’s reform (read: survival) as opposed to its enlargement, and placing the misleading interpretations that it is possible to conduct in parallel both EU reforms and enlargement, amount to a call to bury the hand in the sand. In light of the trend of growing divisions and uncertain outcome of the EU’s long-term reforms, the tales of enlargement involving the Western Balkans only serve to conceal the naked truth that enlargement is getting increasingly distant and uncertain. One may reasonably surmise these tales will live on, because a formal decision (confession) that any new accession is indefinitely laid aside or postponed (sine die) would damage the credibility of all who have proclaimed EU membership to be the ‘course without alternative’. Admittedly, this could deepen instability, backfire onto EU and render the reforms even more difficult.

Silence fell on the EU’s shameless exploitation of Serbia’s aspiration for membership aiming to trick Serbia into drawing new borders, into unlawful creation of a new state on a part of her state territory, into a fresh division of the Serbian nation and unification of the Albanian nation, into pardoning NATO for the crime of aggression, and for the sake of lessening intra-EU divisions. EU’s and NATO’s joint geopolitical goal to make Serbia sign a ‘comprehensive legally binding document’ thereby recognizing Kosovo, if achieved, would convert an illegal unilateral secession into a legal and consensual one.At this point, the argument of Kosovo secession being a dangerous precedent would be negated or at least heavily weakened due to the presumption of Serbia’s approval. In turn, this would usher in a realistic chance for the EU to remove a cause of serious internal divisions which blocks its functioning (since five MSs do not recognize independence of Kosovo).

We are told that the negotiations’ goal is to achieve historic reconciliation between the Serbian and the Albanian nations, and then again we are told, correctly, that we are not negotiating with the Albanians but instead with the USA, the UK, and Germany. No comment whatsoever that such negotiations and the proclaimed goal of ‘historic reconciliation’ are mutually conflicting. The great powers do not resolve crises, they manage them. This is particularly true within the backdrop of the growing global confrontation we are presently witnessing.

The ‘comprehensive legally binding document’ is publicly claimed to be a ‘blank paper’ whose future contents are unknown. Nothing is said of the state of reasoning that allows an advance endorsement of a document whose wording is not known to anyone including the presumed signatories on behalf of Serbia.

For the most part, no references are made of UNSCR 1244 being the basic comprehensive legal document of ultimate importance which obligates all members of the UN including EU and NATO member states, which is of lasting applicability, which may not be repealed, replaced or invalidated otherwise than following the same procedure in which it was adopted, and which, however, has not been implemented in a single provision thereof that provides for the right of Serbia and the Serbian people. It is unclear who or what prevents or discourages Serbia from demanding the observance and implementation of the pending obligations under this document? What does Serbia stand to gain by keeping silent on this Resolution? What is in it unfavorable for Serbia and, perhaps, beneficial for Pristina?

What we are listening is that the previous governments made crucial mistakes: firstly, by having addressed the International Court of Justice requesting its advisory opinion in a flawed wording, and secondly, by having enabled the transfer of negotiations to Brussels under EU’s ‘good services’ by means of so-called ‘jointly proposed resolution’ (of Serbia and the EU) at the UN General Assembly. Both is true. However, what we have not heard is that both the ICJ’s opinion and the UN General Assembly’s resolution on EU’s services are not of a binding but rather of an advisory character and, as such, do not prevent Serbia to undertake to remedy the mistakes. While mistakes made by the previous governments are condemnable indeed, those can hardly serve as an excuse for making the same or even graver mistakes today or in the time to come.

What in particular has never been uttered is that advisory opinions and advisory resolutions of any UN body or agency do not interfere, in any way, with the powers of the Security Council or prevail over the applicability of UNSCR 1244.

It’s been repeated, time and again, that Kosovo is lost and the government is merely ‘saving what is possible to save’; we are listening talks of difficult negotiation position, realities on the ground; past mistakes, delusions, misconceptions and myths; failure to understand true values and interest. The public is under constant bombardment of forecasts of disaster should the conscience of the nations is not altered; our history, Constitution, inherent characteristics of the nation are being depreciated. In the stead of long-standing cultural, moral, spiritual, historical and principled criteria, we are being offered solely with economic, trading, dealing, selective approaches and criteria. As if the acceptability of the latter is being relied upon among the impoverished and Western-propaganda-disoriented population.

One is left dumbfounded by total absence of efforts to identify, present or use any argument or fact in support of strengthening the negotiation position of Serbia. It is as if the biggest problems of the leadership are its own nation’s wrong conscience and system of values, rather than the anti-Serbian politics of the Western centers of power. In particular, there are no efforts to research and discover new and less known arguments that strengthen our negotiating capacity. This single-sided focus on accentuating all that hampers the negotiation position of Serbia coupled with total disregard for arguments favorable to Serbia articulated has debuted as a phenomenon unprecedented in the contemporary history of international affairs.

Parts of the Serbian elite are already ‘networked’ into the Western liberal multinational corporative system, tying their own privileges and the future to the interests of such neocolonial establishment, regardless of the price to be paid by the state and the nation in terms of the loss of independence, identity and, ultimately, the territory. Parts of society calling themselves elite acquire substantial material privileges by taking part in projects generously funded from EU & NATO sources, in activities of the so-called civil sector (NGOs), various task forces, forums, centers, conventions, associations, and the like. Hence, it is only logical that lines they publicly advocate, including in the so-called internal dialogue on Kosovo and Metohija, conform to, and replicate expectations and interests of the centers of power funding their operation. Their interpretation of national and state interests and public statements more or less openly implying that Serbia should recognize Kosovo and Metohija as an independent state, are the direct result of their interest in preserving own privileges. Their assigned role is to persuade the public that ‘better life’ depends on endorsing the ‘painful’ pragmatic decisions of the authorities.

We are told of significance of the First Brussels Agreement on Principles for Normalization and its provisions on the Community of Serbian Municipalities. In this narrative, said Agreement is even likened to the Dayton-Paris Agreement which is, to put it mildly, an exaggeration (not the only one). Even after it dawned on us all that back in 2013 Serbia was tricked into signing what, five years on, got exposed as a fraud, the persuasion of the public of necessity to sign a new ‘comprehensive legally binding document’ relentlessly goes on!

We are told we must save our people in Kosovo and Metohija. True, by all means. Let us leave aside, for a moment, the question whether we agreed with the Serbian people in Kosovo and Metohija being hostages of arbitrariness of the Pristina’s leadership (and their mentors) thus being left only with the margin for protecting them solely by endless retreats and by satisfying that leadership’s every last whim; still, one always asked and never answered question is why has the right of 250,000 expelled Serbs and other non-Albanians to free, safe and dignified return to their homes and property in the Province been left unspoken of for so long? Who and why finds it disconcerting to insist on negotiating on this vital, priority interest of Serbia and the Serbian people? Sporadically, a muttered ‘explanation’ is given to the effect that this issue has been raised but the ‘other side’ refused to discuss it. What kind of argument this is? What is the extent and the list of things we ought to forsake in order to maintain the label of flexible, tolerant, responsible, wise, courageous, and predictable Europeans?! Does this mean that Serbia is obliged to only negotiate the matters of interest for the ‘other side’? What kind of future is one for the sake of which Serbia needs to consent to ethnic cleansing of a significant number of own nation from Kosovo and Metohija? With whom, and on behalf of which ‘common values’ is Serbia to negotiate, given that neither EU, nor USA, Germany, France, Italy, EULEX, UNMIK, KFOR, NATO, OSCE want to fulfill this obligation towards the Serbian nation? Hopefully, none will here resort to ‘convincing’ counter-arguments such as a debatable number of persons interested in return, or the matter of limited financial resources, and the like.

It’s been said that Serbia’s most important goals of the EU-facilitated negotiations are peace, stability and development. It is not said that the peace following NATO’s 1999 aggression against Serbia (the FRY) was not concluded in negotiations with the EU but in negotiations involving the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, the USA, the Russian Federation, the EU, G-8, and five permanent members of the UN Security Council. The conditions and the presumptions of peace were confirmed by UNSCR 1244. It has never been recalled that the basis of the peace constitute the Milosevic-Ahtisari-Chernomyrdin Agreement of June 3, the Military-Technical Agreement of June 9, and UNSCR Resolution 1244 of June 10, 1999.

Nothing is said of the fact that, together, these mutually integrated documents constitute the basis of sustainable peace, stability and development in the region and in Europe; nothing is said of the fact that do not and cannot exist any multilateral, bilateral or other documents legally or politically prevailing UNSCR 1244; nothing is said of the fact that there is no way for Serbia to renounce UNSCR 1244, either voluntarily or under coercion.

Nobody reveals that sidelining, ignoring or renouncing UN SC R 1244 is tantamount to renouncing peace and stability in Europe. The solution for Kosovo and Metohija the West wants is one exclusively serving their confrontation with Russia. None other solution is acceptable to the West.

This is why Serbia has to table request for full implementation of UNSCR 1244 without delay, because this is the only avenue capable of delivering a legitimate, lawful and just solution which serves the interests of peace, stability, and sustainable development.

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Translation from Serbian by Branislava Mitrovic

Notes

[i] Serbian politician from Kosovo and Metohija, killed January 16, 2018, In Kosovska Mitrovica, northern Kosovo

[ii] Director of the Government Directorate for Kosovo and Metohija

Secretary of State Pompeo’s direct and fiery demand earlier this week that Iran withdraw from Syria overshadowed President Putin’s indirect and polite request during last week’s Sochi Summit for the same, thereby putting Syria on the spot in having to publicly deny that any such talks were ongoing in order to “save face”, though the American strategy of sabotaging Russia’s peace plan isn’t as clear-cut as it may seem.

Damascus’ Curious Statement

President Putin’s peace plan for Syria was off to a smooth start after the Russian leader stood next to his Syrian counterpart and called for the withdrawal of all foreign forces from the Arab Republic, but then newly appointed Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s reiteration of this request as part of his provocative 12-point ultimatum to Iran put Damascus in the uncomfortable position of having to deny that any such talks with Tehran were happening. Syrian Deputy Foreign Minister Faisal Mikdad told Sputnik in an exclusive interview that:

“This topic is not even on the agenda of discussion, since it concerns the sovereignty of Syria. We cannot let anyone even raise this issue. Those who ask for something like that — and this is definitely not our Russian friends — are considering the possibility of intervention in all parts of Syria, including the support of terrorists in Syria and elsewhere in the region. The main goal of such statements is to pump the money out of the Arab countries. This will force them to pay more to the US treasury, which may be empty. As well as drawing the Arab states in direct conflict, as far as I can guess — with the Syrian government, and this is a dangerous situation.”

This was a curious statement because Syria’s “Russian friends” did in fact call for exactly that – the withdrawal of Iran and Hezbollah from the Arab Republic – with President Putin speaking about this in general during his Sochi Summit with President Assad and then his own Special Envoy to Syria Alexander Lavrentiev shortly thereafter elaborating on his boss’ suggestion by confirming that “this includes the Americans, Turks, Hezbollah, and of course, the Iranians”. As such, there are no grounds for denying that Russia officially wants Iran to withdraw from Syria.

Message To America

Mikdad must obviously be aware of this but chose to ignore it, instead tailoring his response to specifically address the US’ demands that this happen. This is different from Russia’s request in the sense that Moscow would allow Damascus to do this its own way and according to its own timeline in coordinating a “phased withdrawal” with both Tehran and Hezbollah so that these two can leave as heroes. Washington, meanwhile, is insisting that this be done as soon as possible in order to humiliate its enemies by making them seem weak and intimidated.

The Iranians, for their part, said over the weekend that they’ll stay in Syria for as long as Damascus wants, which can be read a rebuke to Russia, and which also set the stage for their Syrian ally to deny that any such talks were ongoing after the US made that demand of Tehran earlier this week. What’s really happening is more complex than the general public may be aware of, and it’s that Syria was probably in the process of initiating or already engaging in these negotiations with Iran but was forced by Pompeo to deny it.

The reason for this interpretation is that Mikdad’s response only addresses the American demands by ignoring the earlier Russian request, which is clear from the language that he used in touching upon the US-led plan to draw Saudi and other Arab conventional military forces into the Kurdish-occupied region of northeastern Syria. In order to “save face” and not have its secret peacemaking response to Russia’s foreign withdrawal request misinterpreted as “bowing to Trump’s threats”, Mikdad was compelled to publicly deny that anything of the sort was going on.

The Three Reasons For Sabotage

This begs the question of why the US would include such a provocative demand in its set of ultimatums to Iran and essentially sabotage President Putin’s peace plan for Syria, especially when considering that Russia’s request for an Iranian and Hezbollah withdrawal from the country fully aligns with American strategic objectives (albeit for completely different reasons). It needs to first be accepted that with Pompeo already planning to make a keynote speech about the Trump Administration’s so-called “Plan B” for Iran, that there was no way that he could leave out a withdrawal from Syria when demanding the same from Yemen and Iraq.

Secondly, the US is always trying to “one-up” Russia and exert what it believes to be its “global leadership”, so personal egos and professional jealousy may have played a role in why he was ordered (perhaps even at Trump’s own request) to say that so as to “steal the thunder” from President Putin’s proposal and remind the world that this was originally Washington’s idea from the beginning of the conflict, though issued in a completely different context and for entirely different ends.  This boast, however, may backfire by getting Iran and Syria to refuse Russia’s request, though that might be exactly what the US wants, at least for now.

The third and most cynical explanation for why Pompeo implanted this demand as part of his 12-point ultimatum to Iran is that the military-industrial complex wants to temporarily delay what might have even been a somewhat speedy withdrawal for just a little bit longer in order to give “Israel” some more opportunities to test its F-35 jets in the field. If President Putin’s peacemaking proposal was “too successful”, as it very well could have been until this happened, then America’s top global ally wouldn’t have had any more reasons to carry out strikes in Syria, thus depriving the Pentagon of valuable data on the in-battle operational capabilities of its newest warplanes.

The Five-Point Plan

What the US therefore sought to do through this “strategic intervention” in disrupting President Putin’s peace plan for Syria was to stoke the flames of “controlled chaos” in the country, hoping that it could drive a wedge between Russia, Syria, and Iran as regards the latter’s “phased withdrawal” from the Arab Republic in order to reopen the “window of opportunity” for “Israel” to recommence strikes against the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and their Hezbollah allies as a means of collecting battlefield testing data for the F-35s. According to the American game plan, the ultimate success of which remains to be seen, here’s what Washington intends to have happen:

1. President Putin sets the basis for a dignified and “phased” withdrawal of the IRGC and Hezbollah after his Sochi Summit with President Assad;

2. Pompeo preempts the immediate success of this initiative by including the aforementioned as one of his provocative 12-point ultimatums to Iran, knowing very well the response that this would elicit;

3. The hoped-for stalling of President Putin’s peace plan implementation could create the “window of opportunity” for “Israel” to continue “testing” the F-35s on the IRGC and Hezbollah

4. In the face of overwhelming Russian-facilitated “Israeli” force, the IRGC and Hezbollah would eventually have to leave Syria, though it would be framed as them “running scared” from the Zionists;

5. If the IRGC and Hezbollah refuse to withdraw, then this would fracture the Russian-Syrian-Iranian triangle and turn the Arab Republic into a zone of competition between these multipolar Great Powers.

The US is doing its utmost to exploit the preexisting distrust between Russia and Iran over the former’s military partnership with “Israel” in order to turn it into a full-fledged rivalry that could then be manipulated to the point of having Moscow willingly “balance” Tehran even further in the Mideast than it already is, all to America’s grand strategic advantage. Both partners are now vying with one another for predominant influence over Damascus, which is unhappy with having to pragmatically “compromise” on its “maximalist” objectives for President Putin’s peace plan but nevertheless recognizes that this might be the best deal that it’ll ever be offered given the circumstances.

Concluding Thoughts

The fate of this proposal, as well as Russian-Iranian relations more broadly, therefore depends on what Syria decides to do regarding Moscow – and now Washington’s – requests (and more specifically, demands, in respect to the latter) that the IRGC and Hezbollah withdraw from the country. Going along with this idea would definitely allow the multilateral internationalized peace processes (Astana, Geneva, Sochi, and the “constitutional commission”) to move forward but would undoubtedly be framed by the Mainstream Media as a “loss of face” for Iran, while going against it would (temporarily) bolster Syria & Iran’s “Resistance” image at the risk of provoking discord with their Russian partner.

The specter of another “Israeli” “shock and awe” bombing campaign in southern Syria and perhaps even deeper into the country’s hinterland hangs heavy over the heads of Damascus’ decision makers because they know very well that Netanyahu will soon be dispatched by Trump to “give some teeth” to Pompeo’s demand and that President Putin will passively facilitate this given his “deconfliction coordination” with the “Israeli leader”. Syria has no means to adequately defend itself from any forthcoming “Israeli” attacks against the IRGC and Hezbollah no matter its commendable intent in vowing to respond to them, so this might become the deciding factor in what Damascus ultimately does.

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This article was originally published on Eurasia Future.

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

VISIT MY NEW WEB SITE: 

stephenlendman.org 

(Home – Stephen Lendman). 

Contact at [email protected].

Time and again, Washington proved it can never be trusted, consistently breaching promises made, spurning its treaty obligations – operating solely by its own rules, aiming for global hegemony by whatever it takes to achieve its aims.

Negotiating with Washington is an exercise in futility, Trump’s JCPOA pullout the latest example, duplicity well understood by Pyongyang – betrayed before by US administrations, wanting a repeat episode avoided.

What does Kim Jong-un hope to accomplish? He clearly wants war avoided as do his South Korean and Chinese counterparts.

He and his government want to survive. Nuclear and ballistic missile capabilities are his most important deterrents against feared US aggression, a major threat to his country.

Why would he sacrifice them in return for US promises sure to be broken? He’s most likely willing to compromise, short of yielding entirely to US demands – not good enough for Washington.

China earlier promised to intervene on behalf of the DPRK if it’s preemptively attacked. Mao did in the early 1950s, Xi perhaps willing as well to prevent a potentially hostile US vassal state on its border.

Sovereign independent nations have no ally in Washington, the Trump regime a major threat to North Korea and world peace.

Weeks earlier, John Bolton said

“denuclearization” means the DPRK “pledging to give up any aspect of nuclear weapons and to give up uranium enrichment and plutonium reprocessing. (W)e got other things to talk about as well – ballistic missiles, chemical and biological weapons,” adding:

“We have very much in mind the Libya model from 2003, 2004. There are obviously differences. The Libyan program was much smaller, but that was basically the agreement that we made.”

In 2011, US-led aggression raped and destroyed Libya, Gaddafi sodomized to death, a fate Kim understands, wanting a similar outcome for himself from future US aggression avoided.

In his Monday anti-Iran address, Mike Pompeo threatened toughness on North Korea if its leadership fails to bow to US demands, saying Washington intends “resolv(ing) this challenge (on the Korean peninsula) forever.”

Mike Pence warned Pyongyang, saying June summit talks will be cancelled if Trump feels he’s being “played,” adding the military option remains on the table.

He lied claiming Pyongyang broke earlier promises made to the Clinton and Bush/Cheney administrations. It was the other way around, Washington betraying North Korea.

Given longstanding US duplicity, the same outcome is likely ahead. Washington deplores peace and stability.

It needs enemies to justify unjustifiable amounts of military spending – with all categories involved, including countless tens of billions of dollars in black budgets, it’s around what the rest of the world spends in total, maintaining its global empire of bases, its special forces deployed in most countries, waging endless wars of aggression against invented enemies.

Pence repeated Bolton’s threat, saying

“there was some talk of the Libyan model (earlier). (A)s (Trump) made clear, this will only end like the Libyan model ended if Kim Jong-un doesn’t make a deal” – if he’s unwilling to accept US demands, notably relinquishing his more important deterrent against possible US aggression.

A state of war has existed between the US and North Korea since adoption of the uneasy 1953 armistice on the peninsula.

America is nuclear armed and dangerous. It wants nations targeted for regime change as weak and defenseless as possible.

US treachery is longstanding, negotiating with its regimes a very hazardous undertaking, most often turning out badly for nations mistakenly trusting Washington.

It wants unchallenged global dominance, imperial trophies replacing sovereign independent states, North Korea no exception.

It’s hard seeing anything positive from Kim/Trump talks if they happen as scheduled – even if they’re portrayed favorably.

It’s highly unlikely that Kim will accept US pledges at face value, risking his country’s security if he dares go this way.

Hopes were high following adoption of the JCPOA, unanimously approved by the Security Council.

Obama breached the deal straightaway. Trump abandoned it. Pompeo threatened the toughest sanctions ever if Iran fails to obey outrageous US demands – presented to be rejected, not accepted.

Will Kim/Trump talks end the same way? Given longstanding US duplicity and rage for global hegemony, it’s highly likely.

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

Speaking at the Heritage Foundation this morning, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo practically declared war on Iran. His unprecedented threats against Iran went even beyond what President Trump had said in the past.

Commenting on the speech (full transcript here), JStreet wrote:

“With their decision to violate the historic JCPOA arms control agreement, the president and his ‘war cabinet’ have created a strategic disaster of their own making and undone the major accomplishments of the previous administration. They have made the US, Israel and the world less safe.”

Short history of Iran’s nuclear activities: 1957 to the JCPOA

After 12 years of intensive talks, initially between Britain, France and Germany (the EU-3), and finally between Iran and the five permanent members of the Security Council plus Germany (P5+1), Iran and the leading world powers reached a landmark agreement. The nuclear deal (officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action or JCPOA) was the result of the efforts of the greatest experts in nuclear non-proliferation, including experts from the IAEA and departments of energy and intelligence service of all those countries.

Iran’s nuclear programme had started in 1957 with the help of the United States as a part of the Atoms for Peace program, when a “proposed agreement for cooperation in research in the peaceful uses of atomic energy” was announced.

During the late 1960s and early 1970s, Mohammad Reza Shah’s government started an ambitious nuclear program. It established the Tehran Nuclear Research Centre in 1967, with a US-supplied 5-megawatt nuclear research reactor, which was fueled by highly enriched uranium.

Iran was one of the first countries to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) in 1968. The NPT allows all member states to engage in peaceful nuclear activity, including full range of processing, so long as they refrain from manufacturing nuclear weapons.

In return, the five recognized nuclear states (the United States, Russia, China, Britain and France) promised to move towards the elimination of their nuclear weapons in “good faith”. Not only have they not fulfilled this requirement, on the contrary, they have continued to develop more and more deadly and sophisticated nuclear weapons, and they have also been joined by India, Pakistan, Israel and recently by North Korea.

In 1974, with US backing, the Shah approved plans to construct up to 23 nuclear power stations, producing 23,000 megawatts of electricity. US and European companies competed against each other to help build those reactors.

In 1975, the Erlangen/Frankfurt firm signed a contract worth up to $6 billion to build the first nuclear power station in Bushehr. President Ford signed a directive in 1976 offering Iran the chance to buy and operate US built power stations, including a U.S.-built reprocessing facility for extracting plutonium from nuclear reactor fuel.

After the Islamic Revolution, all those programmes were suspended, including the Bushehr power station that was nearly complete.

The start of the eight-year long Iran-Iraq war further delayed the resumption of the nuclear program. Eventually, in 1981 during the presidency of the late Akbar Hashemi-Rafsanjani, Iranian officials decided that the country’s nuclear development should continue.

They turned to the Western countries that had promised to build reactors in Iran to resume their work, but all of them refused to cooperate.

In 1983, IAEA officials were keen to assist Iran in various aspects of reactor fuel fabrication, chemical engineering and design aspects of pilot plants for uranium conversion, corrosion of nuclear materials, LWR fuel fabrication, and pilot plant development for production of nuclear grade UO2. However, contrary to NPT regulations, the United States directly intervened to discourage IAEA assistance to Iran.

Finally, Iran turned to China, but under US pressure China too dropped her nuclear commerce with Iran.

However, Iran was successful to persuade Russia to complete the Bushehr reactor, which was completed after long delay and at great cost to Iran. Faced with this situation, Iran decided to conduct her own work on nuclear enrichment, in which she succeeded.

The United States imposed unilateral sanctions on Iran and forced other countries to follow suit. Iran was taken to the Security Council, which also imposed crippling sanctions that cut Iran’s oil exports by half and cost Iran billions of dollars in lost revenue.

Iran continued with her nuclear programme and increased the number of her centrifuges, despite threats of war, crippling sanctions, cyber sabotage, the assassination of her nuclear scientists by Israeli agents, etc.

It was only after President Barack Obama agreed that as a member of the NPT Iran was entitled to a peaceful nuclear programme that intense negotiations started, resulting in the JCPOA.

While establishing her right to engage in nuclear activity, Iran accepted the harshest conditions as confidence-building measures. The agreement reduced Iran’s enriched uranium stockpile by 98 percent and restricted the level of enrichment to 3.67 percent.

Given that an enrichment level of more than 90 percent is needed to build a nuclear bomb, the deal makes it impossible for Iran’s uranium to be weaponized.

Under the deal, Iran also reduced the number of its centrifuges from 20,000 to a little over 5,000, far below the number that would be needed for manufacturing a single bomb, even if she wanted to do so. Iran closed the Arak reactor, which was capable of producing plutonium, and agreed to severe restrictions on research and development activities in other facilities.

In short, the agreement made it virtually impossible for Iran to build a single bomb.

Some of Pompeo’s intolerable conditions

1) Pompeo demands that:

“First, Iran must declare to the IAEA full account of prior military dimension of its nuclear programme, and permanently and verifiably abandon such work in perpetuity”.

This is something that was pursued under PMU or Possible Military Use during the talks. The IAEA studied all those allegations, including taking soil samples from Parchin military base where the Israelis had claimed that nuclear activity had been conducted. The IAEA decided that there had been “no diversion” of nuclear material for military use.

Iran has agreed to abandon work on nuclear weapons in perpetuity, and all the talk about so-called “sunset clauses” is baseless. In addition to being a member of the NPT, Iran has also joined the “Additional Protocol”, which requires continuous, unannounced inspections of all her nuclear sites, and she has also given an undertaking never to produce nuclear weapons.

The prohibitions do not stop at the end of the “sunset clauses”, but will continue in perpetuity.

The IAEA that is the only legal body in charge of monitoring the deal has, on eleven separate occasions, certified that Iran has fully complied with the terms of the deal.

2) “Second, Iran must stop enrichment and never pursue plutonium reprocessing. This includes closing its heavy water reactor.”

Demanding that Iran should stop enrichment goes against NPT rules. As for “never pursuing plutonium reprocessing”, this is precisely what Iran has agreed to do under the JCPOA, and has destroyed her heavy water reactor.

3) “Third, Iran must also provide to the IAEA full unqualified access to all sites throughout the entire country.”

This is again another provision of the JCPOA, which the IAEA has used on many occasions.

4) “Iran must end its proliferation of ballistic missiles and halt the launching or development of nuclear-capable missiles.”

This is yet another misleading and illegal demand. Like any other country, Iran has the right to defend herself (UN Chater Art 51) and as she is unable to acquire advanced military equipment that the United States has readily sold to all Iranian neighbours, Iran’s missiles are her only means of deterring a military aggression.

Iran does not have intercontinental ballistic missiles as she has limited the range of her missiles to 2,000 kilometres. They are not designed to carry nuclear weapons, and in any case Iran does not have nuclear warheads.

5) Pompeo accused Iran of spreading terrorism in Syria, Iraq, Yemen, etc.

Iran has been fighting against ISIS and other terrorists in Iraq and Syria at the invitation of the governments of those countries. It is up to the Syrian government to ask Iran to withdraw her forces from that country, not for a US Secretary of State to dictate to other countries what they should and should not do.

All experts agree that the mantra of “Iran-backed Houthis” is exaggerated propaganda, as Iran’s contacts with the Houthis and influence over them is minimal.

It is Saudi Arabia and members of her coalition who, with American support, have been bombing Yemen, killing and wounding tens of thousands of innocent people and creating the world’s greatest humanitarian catastrophe there.

What this is really about: Obsession with revenge and regime change

President Trump and his three senior officials, Mike Pompeo, John Bolton and Rudy Giuliani, seem to be preparing the ground for a disastrous war with Iran.

Their hostility towards Iran does not seem to have anything to do with Iran’s nuclear programme, but has everything to do with an obsession for regime change.

Speaking at the Aspen Security Forum, Mike Pompeo boasted that

“one of the first things the President did is to go build a coalition of [Persian] Gulf states and Israel to help find a platform which could uniformly push back against Iranian expansionism.”(1)

When he was still a member of Congress in 2016, Pompeo called for action to “change Iranian behaviour, and, ultimately, Iranian regime.” (2)

In the past, he has called for strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities.(3)

Some of his hostility towards Iran seems to have been based on his hatred of Islam. In 2015, Pompeo, then a Congressman, attacked Barack Obama, who, according to him, took the side of the “Islamic East” in its conflict with the “Christian West”. “Every time there has been a conflict between the Christian West and the Islamic East, the data points all point to a single direction,” he said.

Some of his hostility towards Iran seems to have been based on his hatred of Islam. In 2015, Pompeo, then a Congressman, attacked Barack Obama, who, according to him, took the side of the “Islamic East” in its conflict with the “Christian West”. “Every time there has been a conflict between the Christian West and the Islamic East, the data points all point to a single direction,” he said. (4)

John Bolton is another strong advocate of regime change in Iran.

In an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal on 15 January 2018, entitled “Beyond the Iran Nuclear Deal: US policy should be to end the Islamic Republic before its 40th anniversary”, Bolton condemned the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran as a “massive strategic blunder.”

However, he went on to say that American policy, “should be ending Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution before its fortieth anniversary.”

He continued:

“Recognizing a new Iranian regime in 2019 would reverse the shame of once seeing our diplomats held hostage for four hundred and forty-four days. The former hostages can cut the ribbon to open the new U.S. Embassy in Tehran.” (5)

The former Mayor of New York, Rudy Giuliani, who is now a member of Trump’s legal team has also been a fervent advocate of regime change in Iran.

Speaking at a conference of the terrorist, cultish group, the Mojahedin-e Khalq Organisation, in Washington on 5 May 2018, Rudy Giuliani openly said that Washington’s policy was regime change in Iran, and he even promised that next year they would celebrate the event in Tehran. (6)

This obsession with the past and a deliberate decision to bring about a regime change in Iran will have incalculable costs.

Let’s not forget that prior to Iraq war, Paul Wolfowitz, one of the authors of that war, predicted that it would be a “cake walk”, that it “would pay for itself”, and that “US forces would be welcomed with roses”.

Fifteen years after that disastrous war, American forces are still operating in that country, and the war which has cost trillions of dollars to US taxpayers has killed and wounded millions of innocent Iraqi people, shattered that country and has given rise to a number of vicious terrorist movements.

It should be clear to everyone who is familiar with the Middle East that a war against Iran will not be like Iraq, it will be much worse. It will kill hundreds of thousands of innocent people, will set the Middle East on fire and will do a great damage to Israel and other US allies that she seemingly wishes to support.

During his confirmation hearing at the US Senate, Mike Pompeo was asked if Russia was a unique country. He replied: “This [US] is a unique, exceptional country. Russia is unique, but not exceptional.” (7)

This kind of aggressive, bullying, threatening, demanding and illegal language has not been heard from a responsible government official since before the Second World War.

The concept of Americans being unique and exceptional and almost chosen by God, and referring to other nations as inferior, in the way that President Trump referred to the Latinos as animals, is not far removed from the concept of a superior race and Der Untermensch, or subhuman people.

If we wish to avoid the horrors of the Second World, we must put an end to this kind of arrogant mentality.

It is time for the Europeans, for all the peace-loving Americans and for millions of concerned people across the world who will be paying the cost of this misadventure to stop this madness before it is too late.

Notes

1. Aspen Security Forum, The View from Langley, July 20, 2017.

2. “Rep. Mike Pompeo: One year later, Obama’s Iran nuclear deal puts us at increased risk”, Fox News Opinion, July 14, 2016.

3. Raphael Ahren, “With anti-Iran, pro-Israel stances, Pompeo may become Jerusalem’s new darling”, The Times of Israel, 14 March 2018.

4. Peter Beinart, “Mike Pompeo at State Would Enable Trump’s Worst Instincts”, The Atlantic, Nov 30, 2017.

5. “Beyond the Iran Nuclear Deal: US policy should be to end the Islamic Republic before its 40th anniversary”, Wall Street Journal, Jan 15, 2018.

6. “Rudy Giuliani speaks at Iran Freedom Convention”, CBSN, May 5, 2018.

7. USA: ‘US exceptional, Russia is not’ – Trump’s Sec of State pick Pompeo on YouTube here.

Featured image: Al Awda (The Return): Ship Murray is sailing on to Gaza.

Aboard the Al Awda

“Islands Brygge,” an idyllic harbor park that stretches along the east bank of Copenhagen, was alive with a celebratory crowd on Monday as three ships were about to steam towards Gaza. The 2018 Freedom Flotilla—two ships from Sweden and one from Norway — will call at ports in Germany, Holland, Belgium, France, Spain, Portugal and Italy before traveling through the Mediterranean Sea to its final destination: Gaza harbor.

Volunteer boat guides explained the history and mission of the Gaza Flotilla movement, which has organized a number of journeys to demonstrate solidarity with the people of Gaza and break the illegal economic siege. An independent U.N. panel and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) say the blockade violates the Geneva Conventions and is illegal.

Israel dragged the last Israeli settlers from Gaza and withdrew the Israeli Defense Force in 2005. When the Palestinian Authority lost a 2006 election in Gaza to Hamas, Israel imposed the illegal blockade. A considerable number of young Danish people learned about Gaza for the first time and walked away with new political awareness of the injustices suffered by Gaza’s children, who are denied the same carefree life enjoyed by Danish children.

The upbeat music and offerings of traditional Palestinian falafel wraps washed down with Danish beer created a festive atmosphere at the Freedom Flotilla tent Passerby lined up to buy ‘Boat to Gaza’ T-shirts, Palestinian kaffiyehs (traditional checkered scarves) while a Palestinian musician strummed the oud (traditional Palestinian lute) and sang a song of sentimental love for his Palestinian homeland. A local Palestinian man danced and waved the Palestinian flag while the crowd clapped along.

Image on the right: Murray: Boarding her boat to Gaza.

I feel proud and privileged to join a group of international passengers aboard the Norwegian ship “Al Awda,” (“The Return” in Arabic) as we prepared to embark on the first leg of our journey. Along our route we hope to raise awareness and educate people about the plight of Palestinians, especially in Gaza, who are denied the basic freedoms and human rights the rest of us take for granted.

Earlier this month as Gazans held The Great March of Return to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the Nakba (or the Catastrophe) — in which 800,000 Palestinians were forcibly driven from their land and homes by Israel in 1948 — Israeli snipers cut down peaceful demonstrators one by one, killing hundreds and maiming thousands, generating shock and outrage around the world and providing further incentive for people to support the burgeoning Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement (BDS).

Targeting Athletes

Israel seems to have reserved a special brand of sadism for Gaza’s athletes — several promising young cyclists and soccer players have become amputees, since Israel refused to allow them to leave Gaza to obtain the necessary medical attention that would have saved their legs. Reports of such heinous acts — documented widely in social media posts by those on the ground in Gaza — have served to further isolate Israel internationally and alienate peace-loving people around the world, who deplore the moral depravity of its government.

Reaching the harbor of Gaza (which means “jewel” in Arabic) should be as simple and straightforward as entering any harbor in Germany, France or Spain. But instead, Israel has denied Gazans use of their own harbor for commerce, trade and travel, and has bombed it on numerous occasions, along with their electric power plants and sewage systems, making life miserable for the local population and rendering 97 percent of the drinking water toxic.

As the Freedom Flotilla embarks on its peace odyssey, it is our hope to bring a light of hope and solidarity to the people of Gaza, who deserve the peaceful, dignified and joyful existence that is their right.

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Elizabeth Murray served as Deputy National Intelligence Officer for the Near East in the National Intelligence Council before retiring after a 27-year career in the U.S. government, where she specialized in Middle Eastern political and media analysis. She is a member of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS).

All images in this article are from the author.

Look past the smokescreen and it’s obvious that the failing state of Serbia is dying, literally, and the only thing that can save it is if Belgrade boldly breaks with its “balancing” tradition of the past and embraces China as much as possible, albeit in a smart way that leads to substantial social investments that deter brain drain and advance the proposed three-child policy that its people desperately need in order to survive this century.

Brainless “Balancing”

Serbia is struggling no matter what its leaders and their surrogates may say. It’s no longer part of the much larger and more important Yugoslavia, and its economy and population are only a fraction of their former self. Extensively bombed by NATO in 1999, Serbia experienced the geopolitical disembowelment of its Autonomous Province of Kosovo and Metohija right afterwards, a psychological-civilizational wound of the highest degree from which it’s never recovered. From a “pariah state” under Milosevic to the EU’s best friend under Vucic, Serbia has been led in whichever direction the West decides for it, though it’s nevertheless always still retained a special relationship with Russia due to the two brotherly countries’ shared historical sacrifices during the two World Wars and their common religious-cultural characteristics.

The outdated model of East-West “balancing” from the Old Cold War continued into the contemporary New Cold War by virtue of inertia and a dire lack of strategic creativity on the part of Serbia’s decision makers. Refusing to recognize that today’s Serbia is nothing like yesterday’s Yugoslavia, let alone operating within anything even remotely resembling the same geostrategic environment, they’ve mollified the desperate masses with Mainstream Media-driven slogans of “balancing” between the EU and Russia, which has actually been nothing more than a crude and ultimately cruel “bait-and-switch” operation to distract them while the government prepares to sell out its constitutional right to Kosovo. Scratch the surface of the superficial narrative of Serbia’s “success story” and anyone will find a dying population suffering from brain drain and with barely any long-term hope for the future.

The Serbian Smokescreen

Serbia has received arms and energy from Russia but little less of tangible significance apart from symbolic votes at the UNSC that have failed to change the on-the-ground reality in NATO-occupied Kosovo, while the Europeans have promised Serbs wealth and opportunity while robbing their economy dry and making it easier for its educated migrants to flee their former homeland. Somewhat sensing the seriousness of their country’s situation, Serbia’s decision makers sought to court investment from the Muslim countries of the Gulf and Turkey in a bid to “balance” everything out and inject a much-needed stimulus into their economy, though this has thus far failed to achieve anything apart from adding a bit of glitz and glamour to their capital’s riverfront and reminding everyone of Serbia’s old geostrategic ambition in possibly facilitating EU-Turkish trade via its territory.

The “Belgrade Waterfront” project has been a corrupt debacle internally even though powerful PR forces abroad are working very hard to market it as an international reputational success. The Gulf States, as they’re prone to do, have pretty much only enriched the existing elite at the expense of the average people, a pattern which is once again proven in the Serbian case. As for Turkey, it does indeed harbor sincere desires to cooperate with Serbia on the level of a strategic partnership one day, though the impact that it could have in saving this failing state is limited by geographic conditions. Instead of going through Serbia en route to Germany, Turkey might decide to keep its export line directly within EU borders at all times and therefore circumvent the landlocked Central Balkan country by shipping goods through Bulgaria, Romania, and then Hungary instead.

Catching China’s Eye

Serbia would probably receive some residually positive impact from this trade, but it can’t base its entire future economy around being a pit stop on a larger Turkish-German highway, nor, for that matter, should it do so when it comes to China’s Silk Road either. One of the most recent developments in Serbian strategic thought has been the country’s high-level comprehensive partnership with China through the 16+1 format that brings together the 12 countries of the Polish-led “Three Seas Initiative” (TSI), the rest of the former Yugoslavia, and Albania, and functions as a platform for building China’s Balkan Silk Road high-speed railway into the EU via its Balkan backdoor. As part of this, Beijing is already constructing the central Budapest-Belgrade portion that is then expected to expand south to the Chinese-owned Greek port of Piraeus (one of Europe’s largest) and prospectively as far north as Warsaw and maybe even one day Helsinki by going along the eastern edge of the “Baltic Ring”.

Like with every other Silk Road project anywhere in the world, China’s Balkan branch of this global infrastructure initiative is indeed a game-changer for all the parties involved, not least of which is Serbia because of its position smack dab in the center of this connectivity corridor. Not (yet) being part of the EU, the country is more attractive to the Chinese than other ones because of its comparatively (key word) less regulations, although this is changing as Serbia rushes head-first into Brussels’ embrace under the Vucic government. For the foreseeable future, however, Serbia is one of China’s two key partners in Central and Eastern Europe (the 16+1 space) alongside Poland, and this gives Belgrade a once-in-a-century opportunity to leverage its strategic position to all of its citizens’ advantage, though provided that its leadership is interested in doing so.

“Balancing” Like A Boss

Serbia is being abused by the EU, neglected by Russia, and has insufficient chances of being “saved” by Turkey or the Gulf States, so the only hope that this country has for “balancing” to its real benefit is to embrace China as much as possible in order to get its other partners “jealous” and prompt them to offer up Serbia better deals than before in order to remain competitive within its borders. A lot of Serbia’s economic assets are already in foreign hands so the country isn’t exactly starting off from an enviable position in this respect, but then again, its geostrategic position has never been better because of its irreplaceable transit location along the Balkan Silk Road, which might eventually be attractive enough for the Turks to not circumvent their trade around it but instead use Belgrade as their Central and Eastern European regional hub.

Faced with some real but friendly multipolar competition from China, Russia might decide to “step its game up” and do more for Serbia than ever before, anxious to preserve its market share and overall position in the Serbian economy, just like the Europeans might do as well. It might sound like a risky proposition considering that countries which have gone too far in a multipolar direction too quickly like what’s being proposed with Serbia’s full-spectrum and ultra-fast Chinese pivot often experience swift regime changes, though therein lies the paradox because the present government in Belgrade is much too important to the West to get rid of. Vucic could rightly be regarded as “Germany’s man in Serbia”, and he seems hell bent on carrying out Chancellor Merkel’s will and that of her American overlord in removing Kosovo from his country’s constitution in order to be guaranteed a future place in the EU.

So zealous is Vucic about accomplishing this task, that he’s even willing to sacrifice his political career and ultimately anything positive of note that could be said about his legacy in order to achieve his mission, and a man like him just simply can’t be replaced no matter how much external forces try to “hack” Serbia’s “democracy”. The fact of the matter is that the West needs Vucic much more than the reverse, which is why he can be considered pretty much “untouchable” in the regime change sense no matter how successfully the proposed pro-Chinese pivot plays out. Serbia could become more of a “Chinese colony” than some of the “Global South” countries that the Mainstream Media has falsely fear mongered about and it wouldn’t matter so long as he remained sincerely committed to selling out Kosovo, or at least appeared to be to his international handlers.

Flipping The Tables For Family’s Sake

Serbia, though, needs to be “smart” in its relations with China and not have a naïve policy of “come one, come all” and just blindly give Beijing whatever it asks for without a second thought. Instead, Serbia must recognize that it is just as important to China as the reverse, meaning that the two economically lopsided countries can become “strategic equals” in a sense. To explain, China needs reliable access to the European consumer and labor markets in order to continue fueling its own growth but it can’t entirely rely on the Eurasian Land Bridge through Russia in this sanctions-beleaguered environment of the New Cold War, ergo the real reason behind the Balkan Silk Road as more dependable “backup plan”. This corridor, however, isn’t feasible without Serbia, so that’s why this comparatively small and landlocked state has actually become one of the gatekeepers of future Chinese-European trade.

The best way for negotiating with the Chinese on anything is to appeal to their “win-win” mentality, to which end Serbia would have to craft a legitimate mutually beneficial reason beyond why it needs more benefits from Beijing than it presently receives. It’s at this point where it could offer economic and other incentives to Chinese entrepreneurs in exchange for social investments in schools, language-training programs (specifically Mandarin), and most importantly, financial subsidies for new mothers. Serbs are dying out, literally, and the only hope for this civilization to continue into the next century is to prioritize a three-child policy as soon as possible, though the government doesn’t have anywhere near the resources for doing so. China, however, has billions of dollars to throw around, as is evidenced by its social investments in Africa over the years, and there’s no reason why some of that largesse can’t come Serbia’s way too.

China shouldn’t be faulted for not magnanimously investing in Serbia’s social services and family-building policies because all countries – and especially that one – always try to advance their interests with the least amount of cost as possible, which is why it is incumbent on Serbia’s decision makers to convince them that these interests can better be served in the long-term by building up their country’s social capacities to function as its main Silk Road hub in Europe. Neither the Europeans, nor the Russians, nor the Gulf States, nor Turkey have done anything – nor have signified any interest – in promoting Serbian birthrates above replacement level and guaranteeing this dying population a respectable place in their homeland in the future, and with the government unable to do this either, then the only hope of this happening is for Belgrade to strike the relevant Silk Road deal with Beijing after persuading it that the People’s Republic must invest in this crucial component of its Balkan hub.

Concluding Thoughts

Serbia’s post-Old Cold War (or more accurately, even post-Tito) “balancing” strategy turned it from a subject of geopolitics to an object, especially following the externally provoked dissolution of Yugoslavia in the 1990s, and the country has yet to regain its former glory and probably, in all honesty, never will. That said, hope isn’t entirely lost even though the future definitely looks bleak for its people, but the first step must be for its decision makers to open their eyes to the groupthink illusion that their current “balancing” strategy has yielded any real benefits for the country. All that it’s done is prolong the state’s slow death while distracting the people with unrealistic dreams of a Tito-like geostrategic revival in the New Cold War as their beloved Province of Kosovo and Metohija is sold out before their very own eyes.

For as much as he’s already destroyed his reputation by fanatically doing all that he can to get rid of Kosovo, President Vucic could partially “redeem” his legacy and reverse it into a “positive one” if he takes advantage of the West’s strategic reliance on him and embraces his “untouchable status” to pivot as rapidly to China as possible per the aforementioned policy suggestions.

In the admittedly unlikely event that Serbian decision makers are capable enough of clinching the much-needed social investment deals with China after successfully leveraging their geostrategic position along the Balkan Silk Road, then Serbia might once again have a chance at becoming a subject in International Relations so long as it skillfully manages the newfound Great Power competition for it that this dramatic move could provoke. Should this best-case scenario happen, then Vucic might ultimately reconsider his previous crusade to sell out Kosovo if he sees that his Chinese pivot and resultant geostrategic “balancing” already brought Serbia even greater benefits than this Europhile himself could have ever imagined it would receive had it joined the EU on the condition of getting rid of its civilizational cradle. It’s not for sure that this will happen, but it’s nevertheless the absolute last chance to save Serbia.

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This analysis was inspired by Elena Bekić.

This article was originally published on Eurasia Future.

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

Writer Eric Zuesse wrote a great new piece “How Democracy Ended “ seen on a few fine sites. In it he shows how our U.S. so called democracy is really a scam controlled by the super rich. When all else fails to stop a political momentum, the two parties have always resorted to ‘The Fix is in’. To this writer, the ‘fix’ that Zuesse alludes to is deeply nesting in both our mainstream media and our elected and enabling two party structure.

The police have that wonderful  saying ‘To protect and to serve’. In many cases, witnessed at times throughout the years by this writer, local police have done just that. Sadly, in just as many instances, they have ‘protected and served’ the private property and rights of the super rich. Remembering the great labor disputes spanning perhaps since the beginnings of our republic, it was always the ‘Cops’ who came in on the side of the corporate few. It has always been as IF the corporate domain was the castle and the striking workers the barbarians. Instead of being there to ‘protect and serve’ both adversaries, the police always stood in front of the bosses vs. the working stiffs.

Well, we have that in spades in not only our mainstream corporate owned and operated media, but also in the three branches of this government. The mainstream media was always controlled, but since 9/11 it went on steroids! Most of us who actually study history (from non mainstream sources) knew that the Iraq debacle was based on hearsay and fabricated lies and half truths.

The whole ‘War on Terror’ was what the late great Gore Vidal named ‘Perpetual War’. Wars keep the natives in line. Wars make lots of money for a select corporate few (General Smedley Butler’s 1935 essay ‘War is a Racket’), and wars help justify our obscene and bloated military spending (duh, like over 50% our federal tax revenue). And who serves this War Economy so well? The media and of course the Congress.

Most of the members of Congress are very wealthy people, especially in the Senate. Regardless of that, they rely on the donations of the super rich, through personal and PAC money, to fund their re-elections. The late Sen. Paul Simon (image on the right) of Illinois once stated:

“When I go out on the campaign trail, and I come back to my hotel room, I usually have a whole bunch of messages. I go through them, and unfortunately, but honestly, if I see the name of someone who has given large donations to my campaign, I do call that person first. Sadly, that is the way it is.”

Simon was actually one of the most progressive Senators at the time, and he knew the realities. Money talks. That was in the late 80s and early 90s. Now it is 100 times worse. You watch the hearings on C-Span and all you see are ‘talking heads’ speaking NOT for their constituents… rather for their corporate handlers… from BOTH parties!

We are about to enter, as a nation, into an economic abyss, and hopefully not, a new hot war. All those who are there to ‘Protect and Serve’ this empire will give us are more of the same: Hype, spin, lies and half truths!

*

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

At the quarterly press briefing of the Association of Catholic Medical Practitioners of Nigeria (ACMPN), Owerri Archdiocese, on Monday 21st May, 2018, the chairman Academician Dr Prince Philip C. Njemanze MD (Hons) reaffirmed to all Nigerians the need for precautionary approach towards consuming genetically modified organisms (GMO) foods and planting the crops. The ACMPN Annual General Scientific Conference had published earlier the observations arising from the 12th scientific conference and annual general meeting with the theme Genetically-Modified Organisms: How Harmful, Harmless or Beneficial?, that took place at the Catholic Institute of West Africa (CIWA), Port Harcourt from 6th to 8th July, 2017. In attendance were medical doctors, scientific experts in biotechnology and nutrition especially those concerned with food safety regulation.

The general consensus was on the need for precautionary approach towards the introduction of GMO crops into our food system. The participants expressed concern on the rapid introduction of GMO crops into our food system without adequate assurance of safety and declared it highly immoral and a threat to food security.

Experts agree that food safety certification usually takes several decades since effects take place at molecular genetic level before subsequent clinical manifestation. It is therefore irresponsible for any organization or association, medical or scientific to give a risk free certification for any GMO crop to be used as food prior to long-term effects monitoring and continuing experimentation. Moreover, scientific studies in animals fed with GMO foods have shown detectable biological changes of cellular transformation into cancer cells or other forms of biochemical malfunction leading to liver failure and kidney failure. Studies in humans show strong association of GMO food with allergic reactions and mental diseases such as autism spectrum disorders.

The provision of unsafe food is no solution to hunger, but rather results in even greater health hazards. The use of transgenic crops which implies changing genetic material could be used for good and bad purposes. For example, the insertion of a sterilizing gene called Epicyte gene in Corn flex could sterilize children of school age using Corn flex in a school feeding programme, leading to loss of generations of people in Nigeria. These genetic changes are not reversible. There should be heightened attention to food safety in schools with feeding programs. Moreover, school feeding poisoning linked to insecticides have occurred in India.

Experts deplore the unacceptable influx of GMO crops and foods into Nigeria. Nigeria is a signatory to the United Nations Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety, which is a legally binding protocol to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) adopted by unanimous consent with 135 countries present. The Protocol covers the “trans-boundary movement, transit, handling and use of all living modified organisms that may have adverse effects on the conservation and sustainable use of biological diversity, taking into account risks to human health”.

The Nigerian Government established the National Biosafety Management Agency (NBMA) in 2015 to provide a regulatory framework, institutional and administrative mechanism for safety measure in the application of modern bio-technology in Nigeria with a view to preventing any adverse effect on human health, animals, plants and the environment. However, the NMBA is grossly ill-equipped, understaffed and has no present capacity to perform her mandate. This is unfortunate since food security is the most important of all national security concerns. The ACMPN therefore advocates increased funding for equipment and higher level of human resources preparedness for the NMBA.

ACMPN affirms that none of the major challenges that Nigeria faces in the agricultural sector can be addressed by deploying GMO or Hybrid seeds in the fields. The challenges mitigating against development of agriculture (poor transportation, land reform, lack of amenities in rural agricultural settings, lack of irrigation technology, lack of fertilizer, poor use of organic farming, lack of preservation technology, poor cost management, improper export and import controls, lack of subsidies and loans, aging manpower, lack of electricity, societal perception, etc) would not be addressed by deploying GMO or Hybrid crops. Rather, new and more complex problems could be introduced including long-term environmental and health hazards (cancers, allergies, infertility, autism spectrum disorders, ecosystem disequilibrium), which has been demonstrated by several groups of scientists in evidence-based studies. Similar precautions have been issued in a report on GMO by a scientific experts’ committee setup by Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Nigeria (CBCN) along with the Nigerian Supreme Council on Islamic Affairs (NSCIA) under the aegis of the Nigerian Inter-Religious Council (NIREC).

Long live the Federal Republic of Nigeria. In God we trust to keep us safe.

Signed:

Academician Dr Philip C. Njemanze MD

Committee Chair

Seeds of Destruction: Hidden Agenda of Genetic Manipulation

Author Name: F. William Engdahl

ISBN Number: 978-0-937147-2-2

Year: 2007

Pages: 341 pages with complete index

List Price: $25.95

Special Price: $18.00

This skilfully researched book focuses on how a small socio-political American elite seeks to establish control over the very basis of human survival: the provision of our daily bread. “Control the food and you control the people.”

This is no ordinary book about the perils of GMO. Engdahl takes the reader inside the corridors of power, into the backrooms of the science labs, behind closed doors in the corporate boardrooms.

The author cogently reveals a diabolical world of profit-driven political intrigue, government corruption and coercion, where genetic manipulation and the patenting of life forms are used to gain worldwide control over food production. If the book often reads as a crime story, that should come as no surprise. For that is what it is.

Yesterday (May 21, 2018) U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo presented a wish list of 12 demands as part of the Trump administration new policy against Iran. At the Heritage Foundation, he delivered his remarks and was merciless in criticizing those who made the “failed” nuclear deal with Iran in 2015 from the American John Kerry to the European Allies alike.  He declared that the Iran deal “put the world at risk because of its fatal flaws.” Among the many unfounded lies against Iran, Mr. Pompeo insisted that even today, a nuclear “program exist” in Iran and “the Iranians took great care … protect, hide and preserve the work of the gang of nuclear scientists.”

To prove his claim, Mr. Pompeo referred to the recent ridiculous display of Iran’s “stolen nuclear archive” by Mr. Netanyahu and proudly stated: “… as we have seen from Israel’s recent remarkable intelligence operation, Iran has lied for years”! Over all, Mr. Pompeo presentation “After the Deal: A New Iran Strategy” was not coherent enough to excite neither the International Community nor the pundits! Mr. Pompeo rather than naming the supportive counties of this new strategy, instead he literally named a dozen of countries (from Australia to UAE) and asked them “to join in this effort against the Islamic Republic of Iran.”! When Ms. Jones the President of the Heritage Foundation politely asked

“How are you going to bring them [allies] on board?”,

Mr. Pompeo replied:

“My team is going to work diligently to do that”!

Over all, the immediate reactions from the experts on Iran to Mr. Pompeo and his “plan B” strategy were not too optimistic. The Financial Times wrote

“Many analysts described the demands as unachievable. ‘It’s completely unrealistic and a total pipe dream; he’s asking for unilateral surrender by the Islamic Republic of Iran,’ said Barbara Slavin, Iran expert at the Atlantic Council.”

But noticeably, Mr. Pompeo had a different tone toward people of Iran. He directly addressed the “Iranian people” over and over during his speech. Mr. Pompeo spoke of the pompatus of love, but every Iranian -regardless of their political affiliations – in Iran or Diaspora, knew very well that the Secretary of State was talking about “Regime Change”. Although the Iranian people are known to LOVE the American people, there is no doubt that they don’t TRUST the American government. In this regard, they share the same sentiment with their brothers and sisters on the East and West of Iran.

The history of the destructive policies of the U.S. government in Afghanistan and Iraq is still fresh in the collective memory of the Iranian people. In 1957 a few years after US/UK coup in Iran, it was the CIA which created SAVAK the most hated and feared organization in Iran. When Mr. Pompeo team was busy writing the speech for their boss, they underestimated how deep the scare of SAVAK/CIA torture is on the consciousness of Iranian society. Ironically, Mr. Pompeo right after his speech had to be whisked away to attend the swearing-in ceremony of the new CIA Director, Gina Haspel, who is the personification of TORTURE in American history. When Mr. Pompeo warns Iran that “the sting of sanctions will be painful”, the Iranian people and for that matter other nations who have been the victims of the U.S. sanctions know very well that they are the one who would suffer from these “painful” sanctions, not their governments or the wealthy 1% in their countries.

The animosity of the U.S. administrations -since 1979 Iranian revolution- is against the Iranian people who rose up and cut off the second Imperial power foothold and the most important geopolitical country “an island of stability” in the “Middle East” after Israel. The working people in the cities and rural areas in Iran fought for their independence and became an aspiration for freedom in late 70’s. What Mr. Pompeo and Mr. Trump administration, like the administrations before them are afraid of is not the government of Iran, it is the energized people of Iran who will never be subjugated to the pre-revolution Imperial rules again. The 1% in Iran has no future without the Imperial economy, but the 99% in Iran only prospers with an economy that is not tied up with thousands of visible and or invisible connections to the Wall Street in the U.S.

In general, the people of Iran share the same values as the American people. They seek a decent life for their families and a brighter future for their children. They are against spending their tax money in building nuclear bombs in order to wipe out the other nations. As peaceful people, they are not interested in having strong military bases in foreign lands, in Syria or other places. The working people don’t have the WAR gene in their DNA, but they do fight for their freedom and peace. It is time that the Imperial powers realize that the 21 century is the century of Independence and self-determination for all oppressed nations.

True peace activists believe that peace without independent participation of the working people around world is impossible. True peace activists understand that a long-lasting peace manifest itself when those who produce and run the economy will end the system that puts profit over human needs and benefits from the endless wars.

*

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

Featured image is from the author.

What killed democracy was constant lying to the public, by politicians whose only way to win national public office is to represent the interests of the super-rich at the same time as the given politician publicly promises to represent the interests of the public — “and may the better liar win!” — it’s a lying-contest.

When democracy degenerates into that, it becomes dictatorship by the richest, the people who can fund the most lying. Such a government is an aristocracy, no democracy at all, because the aristocracy rule, the public don’t. It’s the type of government that the French Revolution was against and overthrew; and it’s the type of government that the American Revolution was against and overthrew; but it has been restored in both countries.

First here will be discussed France:

On 7 May 2017, Emmanuel Macron was elected President of France with 66.1% of the vote, compared to Marine Le Pen‘s 33.9%. That was the second round of voting; the first round had been: Macron 24.0%, Le Pen 21.3% Fillon 20.0%, Melenchon 19.6%, and others 15%; so, the only clear dominator in that 11-candidate contest was Macron, who, in the second round, turned out to have been the second choice of most of the voters for the other candidates. Thus, whereas Le Pen rose from 21.3% to 33.9% in the second round (a 59% increase in her percentage of the vote), Macron rose from 24.0% to 66.1% in the second round (a 275% increase in his percentage of the vote). In other words: Macron didn’t just barely win the Presidency, but he clearly dominated both rounds; it was never at all close. But once in office he very quickly disappointed the French public:

On 11 August 2017, Le Figaro bannered (as autotranslated by Google Chrome) “A hundred days later, Macron confronted with the skepticism of the French”, and reported that 36% were “satisfied” and 64% were “dissatisfied” with the new President.

On 23 March 2018, Politico bannered “Macron’s approval ratings hit record low: poll” and reported that, “Only 40 percent of the French population said they have a favorable opinion of Macron, a drop of 3 percentage points from last month and 12 percentage points from December, while 57 percent said they hold a negative opinion of the president.”

On 22 April 2018, Europe 1 reported that 44% were “satisfied” with Macron, and 55% were “dissatisfied” with him; and that — even worse — while 23% were “very dissatisfied” with him, only 5% were “very satisfied” with him.

So, clearly — and this had happened very quickly — the French public didn’t think that they were getting policies that Macron had promised to them during his campaign. He was very different from what they had expected — even though he had won the Presidency in a landslide and clearly dominated both rounds. That plunge in support after being elected President required a lot of deceit during his campaign.

Second, is US:

The situation in the US was very different in its means, but similar in its outcome: it was a close election between two candidates, each of whom had far more of the electorate despising him or her than admiring him or her. Neither of the two candidates in the second round was viewed net-favorably by the public. The key round of elimination of the more-attractive candidates, was in the primaries; and, after that, it became merely a choice between uglies in the general election. Any decent (or even nearly decent) person had already been eliminated, by that time. Consequently, the ultimate winner never had the high net-favorable rating from the US public, that Macron did from the French public.

America’s system of ‘democracy’ is very different than France’s: Throughout the primaries-season — America’s first round — the most-preferred of all candidates in the race was Bernie Sanders, who, in the numerous one-on-one polled hypothetical choices versus any of the opposite Party’s contending candidates, crushed each one of them except John Kasich, who, throughout the primaries, was the second-most preferred of all of the candidates (and who performed far better than did Trump did in the hypothetical match-ups against Clinton). In the hypothetical match-ups, Sanders beat Kasich by 3.3%, whereas Kasich beat Clinton by 7.4% — that spread between +3.3% and -7.4% is 10.8%, and gives a pretty reliable indication of what the Democratic National Committee threw away when rigging the primaries and vote-counts for Hillary Clinton to win the Party’s nomination. Sanders beat Trump by 10.4%, whereas Clinton beat Trump by 3.2%. That spread was only 7.2% in favor of Sanders over Clinton; but, in any case, the DNC cared lots more about satisfying its mega-donors than about winning, when they picked Clinton to be the Party’s nominee. (Ms. Clinton’s actual victory over Mr. Trump in the final election between those two nominees turned out to be by only 2.1% — close enough a spread so as to enable Trump to win in the Electoral College (which is all that counts), which counts not individual voters but a formula that represents both the states and the voters. Sanders would have beaten Trump in a landslide — far too big a margin for the Electoral College to have been able to go the opposite way, such as did happen with Clinton. This fact was also shown here and here. That’s what the DNC threw away.)

Hillary Clinton received by far the biggest support from billionaires, of all of the candidates; Sanders received by far the least; and this is why the Democratic Party, which Clinton and Barack Obama (two thoroughly billionaire-controlled politicians) effectively controlled, handed its nomination to Clinton. On 7 June 2016, the great investigative journalist Greg Palast headlined and documented “How California is being stolen from Sanders right now”, and four days later a retired statistician’s review of other statisticians’ statistical analysis of data from all of the primaries and caucuses, reaffirmed their findings, that the Democratic nomination had been stolen by the Democratic National Committee, and he concluded that

 “the whole process has been rigged against Bernie at every level and that is devastating even though I don’t agree [politically] with him.”

A more detailed study was published on 1 August 2016, titled “Democracy Lost: A Report on the Fatally Flawed 2016 Democratic Primaries”. Basically, what had happened is that the most-preferred of all the candidates got deep-sixed by Democratic Party billionaires, who ultimately control the DNC, just as Republican billionaires control the RNC. The US Government is squabbles between billionaires, and that’s all. That’s what’s left of American ‘democracy’, now.

On 12 August 2016, Julian Assange noted:

“MSNBC on its most influential morning program, Morning Joe, was defending Bernie Sanders. Then Debbie Wasserman Schultz [head of the DNC] called up the president of MSNBC. Amazingly, this is not reported in the US media. It is reported in the US media that they called up Chuck Todd who’s the host of Meet The Press. Something much more serious is not reported — that Debbie Wasserman Schultz herself personally called up the president of MSNBC to apply pressure in relation to positive coverage about Bernie Sanders on Morning Joe.”

That was typical of what went on.

Hillary Clinton’s favorable rating, by Election Day, was 40.3%, her unfavorable was 55.3%. Donald Trump’s favorable was 39.8%, unfavorable was 53.4%. Bernie Sanders, as of the end of the primaries on 29 June 2016, was 50.8% favorable, 39.6% unfavorable, and it has been getting steadily better afterward. But the suckered Democratic Party voters (the ones who were counted, at any rate) voted slightly more for Hillary than for Bernie. Even despite Sanders’s having had support from few if any billionaires, he almost won the Democratic nomination, and that’s remarkable. He might actually have received more votes during the primaries than Hillary did, but we’ll never know.

So: America is a dictatorship by the billionaires. And this means that it operates by fooling the public. France is similar, though it achieves this via a different way. And, in both countries, deceit is essential, in order to achieve its dictatorship. Fooling the public is now what it’s all about, in either case. Democracy can never be won by fooling the public; because fooling the public means removing the public’s ability to control the government. So, calling such a nation a ‘democracy’, is, itself, deceiving the public — it’s part of the dictatorship, or else support of the dictatorship.

In former times, this system was rationalized as ‘the divine right of kings’. Now it’s rationalized as ‘the divine right of capital’. But it’s also become covered-over by yet another lie: ‘democracy’. This is a ‘democratic’ aristocracy; it is an ‘equal opportunity’ aristocracy. In it, each citizen has ‘equal rights’ as every other citizen, no matter how wealthy. It’s just a castle of lies. And its doors are actually open only to the few richest-and-well-connected.

Here, a former CIA official tries to describe how the American dictatorship works — the enforcement-part of the system, and he does (even if only by implication) also touch upon the financial sources of it. Starting at 1:07:35 in that video, he discusses his personal case: why he could no longer tolerate working for the CIA. But his description of how he, as an Agency official, saw the system to function, starts at 3:45 in the video. Key passages start at 12:45, and at 20:15. Maybe any American who would email this article to friends who don’t understand how the system functions, will come under increased US surveillance, but that CIA official’s career and family were destroyed by what the system did to him, which was lots worse than just surveillance. Remarkably, he nonetheless had the courage to persist (and thus did that video). However, when one sees how politically partisan (and so obtuse) the viewer-comments to that video are, one might be even more depressed than by the account this former CIA official presents. But, even if the situation is hopeless, everyone should at least have the opportunity to understand it. Because, if the aristocracy are the only people who understand it, there can’t be any hope for democracy, at all.

*

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.

This article was originally published on Global Research in June 2017.

These days we rush from one media story to another, trying to keep up with the latest terrorist attack. Yesterday Paris; today London; tomorrow, who knows? These attacks are tragic enough when they are acts of violence by religious extremists who have outsmarted our police and intelligence agencies. But, of course, many of them are actually violent acts facilitated by our police and intelligence agencies, directly or indirectly. The tragedy in such cases lies not only in the immediate human suffering but in the way our civil society and elected representatives are betrayed, intimidated, disciplined and stripped of their power by our own security agencies. The War on Terror, which goes by different names in different countries but continues as a global framework for violent conflict, thrives on this fraud.

But if the very agencies that should be investigating and preventing these attacks are involved in perpetrating them, what is civil society to do to protect itself? Who will step in to study the evidence and sort out what really happened? And who will investigate the official investigators? Over the years, civilians from different walks of life have stepped forward–forming groups, sharing information and methods, creating a tradition of civilian investigation.

One such investigator is Elias Davidsson (image on the right). Some readers will be familiar with his meticulous book, Hijacking America’s Mind on 9/11 or his more recent work, Psychologische Kriegsführung und gesellschaftliche Leugnung. Davidsson has now produced a book on the 2008 attacks that occurred in Mumbai, India. The book is entitled, The Betrayal of India: Revisiting the 26/11 Evidence (New Delhi: Pharos, 2017).

To remind ourselves of these attacks–that is, of the official story of these attacks as narrated by the Indian government–we can do no better than to consult Wikipedia, which seldom strays from government intelligence narratives:

“The 2008 Mumbai attacks were a series of attacks that took place in November 2008, when 10 members of Lashkar-e-Taiba, an Islamic militant organization based in Pakistan, carried out a series of 12 coordinated shooting and bombing attacks lasting four days across Mumbai. The attacks, which drew widespread global condemnation, began on Wednesday, 26 November and lasted until Saturday, 29 November 2008, killing 164 people and wounding at least 308.”

This description, however faulty, serves to make clear why the events were widely portrayed as a huge crime—India’s 9/11. When we bear in mind that both India and Pakistan are armed with nuclear weapons, and when we consider that these events were widely characterized in India as an act of war supported by Pakistan (Davidsson, 72-74; 511 ff.; 731 ff.), we will understand how dangerous the event was for over a billion and a half people in south Asia.

We will also understand how easy it was, on the basis of such a narrative, to get a bonanza of funds and equipment for the Mumbai police (735-736) and why it was possible, given the framing of the event as an act of war, for India’s armed forces to get an immediate 21% hike in military spending with promises of continuing increases in subsequent years (739 ff.).

Wikipedia’s paragraph tells a straightforward story, but the straightforwardness is the result of much snipping and smoothing. Both Pakistan and Lashkar-e-Taiba denied responsibility for the attacks (65; 513) and, Davidsson argues, they did so for good reason.

In his Conclusions at the end of the book Davidsson encourages us to assess separately the actual attacks and the Indian state’s investigation of the attacks (865 ff.) It is “highly plausible,” he says, “that major institutional actors in India, the United States and possibly Israel, were complicit in conceiving, planning, directing and executing the attacks of 26/11” (873); but the evidence of a deceptive investigation is even stronger:

“The first definite conclusion of this book is that India’s major institutions, including the Central government, parliament, bureaucracy, armed forces, Mumbai police, intelligence services, judiciary and media, have deliberately suppressed the truth regarding 26/11 and continue to do so. I could discover no hint of a desire among the aforementioned parties to establish the truth on these deadly events (865).”

This distinction is useful for civil society investigators. We will frequently find it easier to prove that an investigation is deceptive, and that it is obscuring rather than illuminating the path to the perpetrators, than to directly prove the event itself to have been fraudulent. And there are two good reasons to pay attention to evidence of a cover-up. First, to cover up a crime is itself a crime. Second, those covering up a crime implicate themselves in the original crime. If they were not directly involved in the commission of the crime, they are at least accessories after the fact. To begin by exposing the fraudulent investigation, therefore, will often be wise. When this has been done we shall often find that we can begin to discern the path to the attack itself.

Davidsson gives a wealth of evidence about both the attacks and the investigation, but for this brief review I shall focus on the investigation.

Here are three recurring themes in his study that may serve to illustrate the strength  of the cover-up thesis.

(1) Immediate fingering of the perpetrator

When officials claim to know the identity of a perpetrator (individual or group) prior to any serious investigation, this suggests that a false narrative is being initiated and that strenuous efforts will soon be made to implant it in the mind of a population. Thus, for example, Lee Harvey Oswald was identified by officials of the executive branch as the killer of President John F. Kennedy–and as a lone wolf with no associates–on the afternoon of the assassination day, long before an investigation and even before he had been charged with the crime. And we had major news media pointing with confidence, by the end of the day of September 11, 2001, to Osama bin Laden and his group–in the absence of evidence.

In the Mumbai case the Prime Minister of India implied, while the attack was still in progress, that the perpetrators were from a terrorist group supported by, or at least tolerated by, Pakistan (65; 228; 478; 512; 731).

The Taj Mahal Hotel burning after the terrorist attacks in Mumbai (Source: Haunted India)

Likewise, immediately after the attacks Henry Kissinger attempted to implicate Pakistan. Three days prior to the attack on the Taj Mahal Palace Hotel in Mumbai, one of the main attack sites, Kissinger had been staying in the hotel. He “sat with top executives from Goldman Sachs and India’s Tata group in the Taj to ‘chat about American politics'” (331). Kissinger’s presence on the scene with Indian elites (the Tata family is one of India’s wealthiest, and the Tata Group owns the Taj) would be peculiar enough to cause raising of the eyebrows, but when combined with his immediate fingering of Pakistan it becomes extremely suspect. As Davidsson shows, what investigation there was came much later, and even today the case against Pakistan remains full of contradictions, unsupported allegations, and absurdities.

(2) Grotesque failure by official investigators to follow proper procedures

Incompetence is a fact of life, but there are times when the incompetence theory is strained to the breaking point and it is more rational to posit deliberate deception.  In the case of the Mumbai investigation, Davidsson depicts its failures as going well beyond incompetence.

• Neither the police, nor the judge charged with trying the sole surviving suspect, made public a timeline of events (188-189; 688-689). Even the most basic facts of when a given set of attacks began and when they ended were left vague.
• Key witnesses were not called to testify. Witnesses who said they saw the terrorists commit violence, or spoke to them, or were in the same room with them, were ignored by the court (e.g., 279 ff.).
• Contradictions and miracles were not sorted out. One victim was apparently resurrected from the dead when his testimony was essential to the blaming of Pakistan (229-230). A second victim died in two different places (692), while a third died in three places (466). No one in authority cared enough to solve these difficulties.
• Eyewitnesses to the crime differed on the clothing and skin color of the terrorists, and on how many of them there were (328-331). No resolution was sought.
• At least one eyewitness confessed she found it hard to distinguish “friends” from terrorists (316). No probe was stimulated by this odd confusion.
• The number of terrorists who committed the deeds changed repeatedly, as did the number of terrorists who survived (29 ff.; 689).
• Crime scenes were violated, with bodies hauled off before they could be examined (682-683).
• Identity parades (“line-ups”) were rendered invalid by weeks of prior exposure of the witnesses to pictures of the suspect in newspapers (101; 582).
• Claims that the terrorists were armed with AK-47s were common, yet forensic study of the attack at the Cama Hospital failed to turn up a single AK-47 bullet (156).
• Of the “hundreds of witnesses processed by the court” in relation to the attacks at the Café Leopold, Taj Mahal Palace Hotel, Oberoi-Trident Hotel or Nariman House, “not a single one testified to having observed any of the eight accused kill anyone” (40).
• Indian authorities declined to order autopsies on the dead at the targeted Jewish center in Nariman House. The dead, five out of six of whom were Israeli citizens (427), were instead whisked back to Israel by a Jewish organization based in Israel, allegedly for religious reasons (453). Religious sensitivity seems to have extended to a large safe at the crime scene, which the team also transported to Israel (454).

(3) Extreme secrecy and the withholding of basic information from the population, with the excuse of “national security”

• The surviving alleged terrorist had no public trial (661).
• No transcript of his secret trial has been released (670).
• One lawyer who agreed to defend the accused was removed by the court and another was assassinated (670).
• The public was told there was extensive CCTV footage of the attacks, despite the mysterious malfunctioning of the majority of CCTV cameras on the days in question (97-98; 109 ff.; 683 ff.); but only a very small percentage of the claimed footage was ever released and it suffers from serious defects–two conflicting time-stamps and signs of editing (111).
• Members of an elite Indian commando unit that showed up with between 475 and 800 members to battle eight terrorists (534) were not allowed to testify in court (327; 428-429).
• The “confession” of the suspect, on which the judge leaned heavily, was given in secret. No transcript of this confession has been released to the public and the suspect later renounced the confession, saying he had been under threat from police when he gave it (599 ff.; 681).
• The suspect, after being convicted and sentenced to death, was presumably executed, but the hanging was done secretly in jail and his body, like the bodies of the other dead “terrorists,” was buried in a secret place (37; 623).

It is difficult to see how the investigation described above differs from what we would expect to see in a police state. Evidently, the “world’s largest democracy” is in trouble.

Meanwhile, motives for the “highly plausible” false flag attack, Davidsson notes, are not difficult to find. The attacks not only filled the coffers of national security agencies, creating as they did the impression of a permanent threat to India, but also helped tilt India toward those countries claiming to take the lead in the War on Terror (809 ff.; 847). The FBI showed great interest in the attacks from the outset. It actually had a man on the scene during the attacks and sent an entire team directly after the event (812 ff.). The Bureau was, remarkably, given direct access to the arrested suspect and to his recorded confession (before he even had a lawyer), as well as to eyewitnesses (651-652; 815). The New York Police Department also sent a team after the conclusion of the event (816-817), as did Scotland Yard and Israeli police (651; 851). There seems to have been something of a national security fest in relation to Mumbai as ideas of closer cooperation in matters of security were discussed (e.g., 822).

In case Israel seems too small to belong with the other players in this national security fest, Davidsson reminds us that India is Israel’s largest customer in defense sales (853).

So, what can we learn from Davidsson’s book? For patient readers, a great deal: this 900-page study is as free of filler and rhetoric as it is rich in detail. (In correspondence the author told me that he was determined to produce a work dense with primary source material so that it could be of maximum help to activists in India striving for an official inquiry.) For readers with less patience, Davidsson has provided regular summaries. And both sets of readers will find that the book discusses not only details of the Mumbai attacks, but patterns of deception common in the War on Terror.

For all these reason, this book is a highly significant achievement and is of objective importance to anyone interested in the War and Terror–the structure and motifs of its ongoing fictions and the methods through which civil society researchers can lay bare these fictions.

Dr. Graeme MacQueen is the former Director of the Centre for Peace Studies at McMaster University in Canada. He was an organizer of the Toronto Hearings on 9/11, is a member of the Consensus 9/11 Panel, and is a former co-editor of the Journal of 9/11 Studies.

Featured image: Amazon

Il«Contratto per il governo del cambiamemto», stipulato da Luigi Di Maio e Matteo Salvini a nome del MoVimento 5 Stelle e della Lega, da un lato «conferma l’appartenenza all’Alleanza atlantica, con gli Stati Uniti d’America quale alleato privilegiato», dall’altro promette «una apertura alla Russia, da percepirsi non come una minaccia ma quale partner economico e commerciale (per cui è opportuno il ritiro delle sanzioni), da riabilitarsi come interlocutore strategico al fine della risoluzione delle crisi regionali»e addirittura quale «potenziale partner per la Nato».

La formula non ènuova: nel giugno 2016, il premier Renzi assicurava al presidente Putin che «la guerra fredda è fuori dalla storia» e che «Europa e Russia devono essere ottimi vicini di casa». Un mese dopo, al Summit di Varsavia, Renzi sottoscriveva il patto strategico Ue-Nato contro la Russia. Come farà il nuovo governo a «percepire» la Russia non come una minaccia e ad agire di conseguenza, mentre resta nella Nato che, sotto il comando dell’«alleato privilegiato»,è militarmente sempre più impegnata contro la «minaccia russa»?

Il nuovo governo, che intende «rivalutare la nostra presenza nelle missioni internazionali sotto il profilo del loro effettivo rilievo per l’interesse nazionale», ritireràle truppe italiane schierate in Lettonia e i cacciabombardieri italiani schierati in Estonia a ridosso del territorio russo con la motivazione, inventata dalla Nato, di fronteggiare «l’aggressione russa»? Impediràche i comandi e le basi Usa/Nato in Italia, da Vicenza ad Aviano, da Napoli a Sigonella, vengano usati per operazioni militari contro la Russia? Il nuovo governo, anzitutto, rifiuterà le nuove bombe nucleari B61-12 che gli Usa si preparano a schierare  in Italia contro la Russia, esponendo il nostro paese a crescenti pericoli quale base avanzata della strategia nucleare degli Stati uniti?

Rifiuterà di fornire al Pentagono, nel quadro della Nato, piloti e aerei per l’attacco nucleare? Richiederà agli Usa, in base al Trattato di non-proliferazione sinora violato, di rimuovere qualsiasi arma nucleare dal nostro territorio, e aderirà al Trattato Onu sulla proibizione delle armi nucleari (come si è impegnato a fare Luigi Di Maio firmando l’Ican Parliamentary Pledge)?

La decisione di non aderire al Trattato Onu è stata presa, prima che nel Parlamento italiano, nel Consiglio Nord-Atlantico, in cui secondo le norme Nato «non vi è votazione nédecisione a maggioranza», ma «le decisioni vengono prese all’unanimità e di comune accordo», ossia d’accordo con gli Stati Uniti d’America cui spettano per diritto la carica di Comandante Supremo Alleato in Europa e gli altri comandi chiave.

Rispetto all’industria militare, il Contratto ritiene «imprescindibile la sua tutela, con particolare riguardo al finanziamento della ricerca, per la progettazione e costruzione di navi, aeromobili e sistemistica high tech».

Che cosa c’èdi nuovo, nel programma del «governo del cambiamemto», rispetto al «Libro Bianco per la difesa» istituzionalizzato dal governo Gentiloni, che definisce l’industria militare «pilastro del Sistema Paese»?Il nuovo governo interromperào proseguiràla partecipazione al programma del caccia Usa F-35, che impegna l’Italia ad acquistarne 90 con una spesa di 13-16 miliardi di euro? E, rispetto alla spesa militare, il nuovo governo rifiuterà di aumentarla o manterrà l’impegno, assunto dai precedenti governi con gli Usa e la Nato, di portarla dagli attuali circa 70 milioni di euro al giorno a circa 100 milioni di euro al giorno? Spesa inevitabile se si vuole mantenere gli Stati Uniti d’America quale «alleato privilegiato».

Manlio Dinucci

Video :

VIDEO : L’Arte della Guerra – Nuovo governo, stesso «alleato privilegiato»

These two long-running civilizational allies might abruptly see their age-old economic relations disappear after Pompeo threatened to sanction anyone who defies the US’ unilaterally implemented punitive measures against the Islamic Republic, and the long-term geostrategic implications of this move could be as far reaching as provoking a more pronounced Chinese-Indian maritime rivalry.

New Secretary of State and former CIA chief Mike Pompeo issued what amounts to a declaration of Hybrid War against Iran on Monday while speaking at the neoconservative Heritage Foundation think tank about the Trump Administration’s so-called “Plan B” for dealing with the country after the US’ earlier withdrawal from the 2015 nuclear deal. America’s top diplomat made it no secret that his country would sanction anyone who defies its unilaterally implemented punitive measures against the Islamic Republic, in a stern warning that was directed more at his European “partners” than anyone else. Relatedly, however, this will inevitably have an impact on Armenia as well, which is a tiny, impoverished, and landlocked South Caucasian failing state which just experienced a pro-Western Color Revolution.

Armenian Ambitions

The Armenians and Persians have always enjoyed excellent relations with one another notwithstanding a few outlier events in their history, and the long-running friendship between these different civilizations disproves Huntington’s provocative thesis about the imminence of a so-called “Clash of Civilizations” between Christianity and Islam, which itself has always pretty much just been a 21^st-century unipolar blueprint for dividing and ruling the Eastern Hemisphere. Although institutionally connected to Russia through the Eurasian Economic Union (EAU), trade with Armenia’s largest partner must pass through Georgia en route, whereas no such obstacles remain when it comes to neighboring Iran, which just signed a provisional free trade agreement with the bloc. Moreover, Armenian-Iranian economic relations have always been solid, although their full potential has yet to be tapped.

It’s in view of this that Armenia has considered putting its hitherto unattractive political geography to use by pioneering what its former president called a “Black Sea-Persian Gulf Corridor” (BSPG) through its territory in connecting the European marketplace with the Iranian and South Asian (Indian) one. Should this ever be created, then it could very well siphon off Indian trade from the prospective North-South Transport Corridor (NSTC) through Iran and Azerbaijan to Russia in order to remove the last-mentioned state from the transit route and more directly trade with the EU. In and of itself, this could indirectly accomplish one of the US’ main strategic objectives in “isolating Russia” but at the expense of enhancing Iran’s economy, though Pompeo’s latest sanctions threats suggest that “isolating Iran” could allow it to do the same without risking the chance of “blowback”.

Forcing An Armenian-Russian Wedge

Because of this, both the NSTC and its EU-destined BSPG branch are now endangered, which almost instantly removed whatever strategic economic appeal Armenia could have had to the West when it recently signed the “Comprehensive  & Enhanced Partnership Agreement” (CEPA) with the EU in setting the basis for an unofficial but regulated “free trade” area with the bloc in spite of its EAU membership. Furthermore, Pompeo’s insistence on sanctioning those who violate American sanctions against Iran could pretty much pull the plug on existing Armenian-Iranian trading relations as well because the country’s companies might fear that they’ll become “untouchable” to the Europeans if the US blacklists them, which would basically shut them out of the EU marketplace and nullify one of the main reasons why this poverty-stricken state agreed to CEPA in the first place.

Another point to keep in mind is that many businesses in Armenia are somehow or another officially or unofficially linked to another larger Russian one and de-facto function as its “subsidiaries”, meaning that they too could prospectively be sanctioned by the US if their Russian “parent company” defies American threats and trades with Iran, whether or not any of this occurs on Armenian territory. This sobering reality will probably be abused by new Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan as he carries out a silent “lustration” of all Russian-linked political and economic forces in the country despite his public assurances to the contrary, thereby representing yet another fault line in Russian-Armenian relations and the EAU more generally. Speaking of externally provoked wedges against multipolar interests, the US is betting that it can exacerbate the existing one between India and China, too.

Manipulating New Delhi

With India forced to rely on maritime means for trading with the EU and unable to streamline an overland one through Iran via the NSTC and/or BSPG to diversify away from its sole dependence on this route, there’s an increasing likelihood that New Delhi can be pushed into a collision course with Beijing in those very same transit waters along the western edge of the Afro-Bengali Ocean that have become ever more important for China in recent years as it expands its strategic-economic presence in Africa. The US is already planning for a 100-year-long military-strategic partnershipwith India that significantly includes a crucial naval component intended to make the South Asian state a “counterbalance” to China, and it’s accordingly expected that the LEMOA-like “military logistics” pact that India just concluded with fellow “Hex” member France will allow it to use the latter’s naval bases all throughout this massive space and specifically in Djibouti.

The odds of avoiding a pronounced Indian-Chinese maritime rivalry are substantially decreased so long as New Delhi remains reliant on maritime trade routes with Europe and unable to diversify via overland ones through Iran (whether the NSTC and/or BSPG), which is a long-term grand strategic objective that the US is trying to accomplish as part of its new anti-Iranian sanctions regime. Washington could therefore kill two birds with one stone by masterfully wielding the summer 2017 “Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act” (CAATSA) as a Hybrid War weapon against both Armenia and India, as the first-mentioned would become much more dependent on the West and might enter into economic conflict with its Russian partners because of this while the second one would be pushed closer to clashing with China one of these days as the two Great Powers vie with one another for supremacy in the Afro-Bengali Ocean.

Concluding Thoughts

On the whole, Pompeo’s unofficial declaration of Hybrid War against Iran is veritably a game-changing development that will affect much more than just the Islamic Republic, as it’s already been seen to have the effect of getting the Europeans to balk on tradingwith the relabeled “pariah state”. India might have been comparatively less pliable if it had been able to successfully convince the Trump Administration that a trans-Iranian trade route through Armenia on the way to the EU could cut Russia out of the economic equation and strengthen the South Asian state’s potential to one day “counter China”, though provided that Washington was willing to tolerate a stable Iran.

That, however, is now a pipe dream because the US wants to weaken Iran with sanctions in order to provoke identity-based conflict within it that could then be guided in the direction of regime change, and moreover, America would rather dominate the EU as its own captive market than share it with India if it had the choice.

It’s all around “better” for the US to “isolate” Iran, which in turn does the same to Russia in neutralizing its NSTC with India, and resultantly improve the prospects of Armenia pivoting closer to the EU while provoking an Indian-Chinese maritime rivalry after New Delhi remains reliant on the same seafaring trade routes to reach Europe as Beijing does. The only possibility for disrupting this scenario is if the pro-Western authorities in both Armenia and India come to realize that their civilizations have more to gain in the long term by embracing multipolarity at the defiance of the US’ anti-Iranian sanctions, though this remains to be seen and isn’t something that observers should bet too much on happening.

*

This article was originally published on Eurasia Future.

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

On Fox News Sunday, United States national security advisor John Bolton brought up the Libya model as a template for the denuclearization of North Korea.

Following up, president Donald Trump noted,

“In Libya, we decimated that country. That country was decimated.”

However, Trump did assure North Korean chairman Kim Jong-un that he’d remain in power after denuclearization.

Then came US vice-president Michael Pence on Fox News:

There was some talk about the Libyan model last week, and you know, as the President made clear, this will only end like the Libyan model ended if Kim Jong Un doesn’t make a deal.

When told that such a comparison could be viewed as a threat, Pence instead considered:

“Well, I think it’s more of a fact.”

History tells a tale. After Libyan leader Moammar Gaddafi gave up Libya’s nuclear weapons program, he was eventually deposed by NATO bombing in support of rebels who brutally murdered Gaddafi in cold blood. Hillary Clinton gleefully cackled about it afterwards on CBS News.

What kind of dunderhead would Kim have to be not to realize the behind-the-curtain machinations Washington has planned for him and his government. The US simply should not be believed or trusted.

But there seems to be an apparent wrench in the works of Washington’s scheming. Kim, after all, has a nuclear bomb. It makes one wonder: what do Donald Trump and the US military establishment not understand about nuclear deterrence? There are no winners in a nuclear war.

All the blather about a Libya model merely reinforces the correctness of the North Korean decision and the necessity to develop a nuclear deterrence. It must be emphasized that — despite wild proclamations from Washington [1] — what North Korea possess is a nuclear deterrence and not a nuclear threat. Obviously, to initiate a nuclear attack would be sheer folly and a suicidal act for Kim Jong-un and his government. However, North Korea is on record as asserting a no-first-use policy for nukes. [2] This is a rational stance.

Contrariwise, the US does not reject its first use of nukes. Thus, the US nukes exist as other than a deterrence factor.

Is the US an irrational actor?

The bigwigs in the Trump administration are not dunderheads either. There is a method to their madness — a desired outcome. The US, despite administration declamations to the contrary, is quite aware that North Korea would not start a nuclear war. The North Koreans are known to be rational.

Yet the strategizing of the military-industrial complex is also based in rationality when its capitalistic motivations are considered. When it comes to warmongering, the greater the number of enemies the US is faced with, the more opportunities for weapons deals to replenish homeland armories and supply fearful allied countries. Moreover, there are the opportunities created for morally challenged investors to seek profit from war.

The military-industrial complex’s lust for war profiteering motivates it to maintain a hostile posture to designated enemies like North Korea. This is rational in the pecuniary sense. It is rational for the military-industrial complex to assume a hostile posture to Iran. It is logical to support war crimes by the Jewish State against the civilian population of Gaza and also to support the siege of Gaza in hopes of fomenting a violent uprising. It’s rational to keep Syria in conflagration.

It is even rational to poke the Russian bear and prod the Chinese dragon. The more formidable the designated enemy, the greater the potential for evoking fear among the domestic populations and crank over the wheels of the military-industrial ever more.

In this manner arms sales are stimulated, share prices for armaments are sent rising, and thus it happens that the undiplomatic bombast and war crimes committed by military industrialists are rewarded with ensanguined lucre.

Nonetheless, all the money in the world means nothing come a nuclear winter.

*

Kim Petersen is a former co-editor of the Dissident Voice newsletter. He can be reached at: [email protected]. Twitter: @kimpetersen.

Notes

1. Michael Pence in his recent interview stated that the US “is not going to tolerate the regime in North Korea possessing nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles that threaten the United States and our allies…”

2. A translation of the North Korean news agency KCNA quotes Kim saying, “As a responsible nuclear weapons state, our republic will not use a nuclear weapon unless its sovereignty is encroached upon by any aggressive hostile forces with nukes.”

After 18 months of withering attacks and accusations, Donald Trump has decided to get up off the canvas and fight back. In a series of tweets stretching from Sunday night to early Monday morning, Trump announced that he would launch his own investigation to see whether the FBI and DOJ had improperly targeted his campaign for “political purposes”.

“I hereby demand, and will do so officially tomorrow, that the Department of Justice look into whether or not the FBI/DOJ infiltrated or surveilled the Trump Campaign for Political Purposes – and if any such demands or requests were made by people within the Obama Administration! Donald Trump, @realDonaldTrump, Twitter, Sunday, May 20

It’s a gutsy move by Trump but one that could backfire quite badly. By demanding an investigation of the DOJ and FBI, the president is asking those agencies to willingly reveal their own transgressions, to produce the documents and other information that could potentially expose many of their own people (Obama holdovers) to criticism or even criminal prosecution. It’s hard to believe that many career bureaucrats would want to assist Trump in an effort that could potentially damage their colleagues or the reputation of their own department.

In any event, Trump has decided to throw caution to the wind and go for broke. He’s decided that the only way he’s going to get his enemies off his back is by flushing them out into the open and subjecting their activities to public scrutiny. It’s a risky strategy, but the scrappy New Yorker seems to think he can pull it off without a hitch. Here’s another late-night tweet from Trump:

Reports are there was indeed at least one FBI representative implanted, for political purposes, into my campaign for president. It took place very early on, and long before the phony Russia Hoax became a “hot” Fake News story. If true – all time biggest political scandal! Donald Trump, @realDonaldTrump, Twitter, May 18

Is he right? Did the FBI place a mole inside the campaign to gather information on Trump and his aids? Because, if they did, then this is bigger than Watergate, in fact, it would be the biggest political corruption scandal in history. According to the New York Times, however, Trump’s got it all wrong. There was no spy inside the campaign, there was a trusted informant who was trying to gather information from individual members of the campaign. There’s a big difference. But whether the informant was inside or outside, the fact remains that the FBI launched a counterintelligence operation against the rival party’s presidential campaign in order to gather information that was intended to damage, discredit or incriminate the targets of the operation. That’s the bottom line, isn’t it? The nation’s top law enforcement agency, operating on orders from god-knows-who (Obama?), was engaged in a plot to gain an unfair advantage in the election, undermine the two-party system and sabotage the democratic process. Trump may have misstated the details but the basic facts remain the same. Here’s an excerpt from the article in the Times:

“President Trump accused the F.B.I. on Friday, without evidence, of sending a spy to secretly infiltrate his 2016 campaign “for political purposes” even before the bureau had any inkling of the “phony Russia hoax.”

In fact, F.B.I. agents sent an informant to talk to two campaign advisers only after they received evidence that the pair had suspicious contacts linked to Russia during the campaign. The informant, an American academic who teaches in Britain, made contact late that summer with one campaign adviser, George Papadopoulos, according to people familiar with the matter. He also met repeatedly in the ensuing months with the other aide, Carter Page, who was also under F.B.I. scrutiny for his ties to Russia.” (“F.B.I. Used Informant to Investigate Russia Ties to Campaign, Not to Spy, as Trump Claims ” New York Times)

The Times is technically right, but their hair-splitting defense misses the point altogether. It’s up to the FBI to prove that their extremely-suspicious and perhaps illegal activities were justifiable. And whatever excuse the Bureau eventually settles on, it should not have anything to do with Russiagate since that bogus probe has been a ‘dry well’ from the get-go and hasn’t produced even a scintilla of hard evidence in more than a year and half. The FBI needs to come clean and explain what was really going on behind the scenes. What’s this all about? Clearly, the informant wasn’t talking to gasbag Papadopoulos because he thought he’d uncover a link between Putin and Trump, but because his disjointed braggadocio would help him build a case against the president. That what’s really going on, it’s plain as the nose on your face. The FBI was using the Russia pretext to gather damaging and possibly incriminating dirt on Trump. The obvious objective was to prevent Trump from being elected and then, afterwards, to remove him from office. This is from The Hill on Monday:

“The Department of Justice (DOJ) has asked its inspector general to look into whether the FBI surveilled President Trump’s campaign for “inappropriate purposes.”

“If anyone did infiltrate or surveil participants in a presidential campaign for inappropriate purposes, we need to know about it and take appropriate action,” Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein said in a statement.” (DOJ asks watchdog to probe Trump campaign surveillance claims, The Hill)

Got that? So deep-state Rod is going to sort this mess out and let us all know if there’s been any funny business or not. What a joke. The man is so conflicted he should have been removed months ago. It was Rosenstein who wrote the 3-page memo that persuaded Trump to dump Comey after which he quickly appointed Robert Mueller as Special Counsel using the ‘firing of Comey’ as his justification. That might the sleaziest political switcheroo I’ve seen in my lifetime.

And notice how carefully Rosenstein chooses his words like an ambulance-chasing barrister inveigling an injured client. He says,

“If anyone did infiltrate or surveil participants in a presidential campaign for inappropriate purposes, we need to know about it and take appropriate action,”

Okay, so who decides what is appropriate or inappropriate? The Inspector General or our buddy Rosenstein who’s going to do everything in his power to hide the smoking gun. In any event, that doesn’t change the fact that the campaign was infiltrated by at least one informant who tried to wrangle as much information as possible out of his targets. Which brings us to the case of Stefan Halper (image on the right), “the 73-year-old Oxford University professor and former U.S. government official” who “was outed as the FBI informant ” and who “was paid handsomely by the Obama administration starting in 2012 for various research projects.

….Halper was enlisted by the FBI to spy on several Trump campaign aides during the 2016 U.S. election…..while a search of public records reveals that between 2012 and 2018, Halper received a total of $1,058,161 from the Department of Defense.” Here’s more from an article at Zero Hedge:

“The most recent award to Halper for $411,575 was made in two payments, and had a start date of September 26, 2016 – three days after an… article by Michael Isikoff about Trump aide Carter Page, which used information fed to Isikoff by “pissgate” dossier creator Christopher Steele….

The second installment of Halper’s 2016 DoD contract is dated July 26, 2017 in the amount of $129,280 – around three months before the FISA warrant on Carter Page was set to expire following repeated renewals signed by Deputy AG Rod Rosenstein and a federal judge….

Halper’s July 28 email to Page – sent two days after the second portion of his contract kicked in, suggests that the espionage operation against Trump associates was still active seven months into the new administration….

Following Halper’s doxxing, President Trump called for an official investigation by the Department of Justice -” (“FBI Informant Stefan Halper Paid Over $1 Million By Obama Admin; Spied On Trump Aide After Election”, Zero Hedge)

And here’s more on Halper from the WSWS:

“The choice of Halper for this spying operation has ominous implications. His deep ties to the US intelligence apparatus date back decades. His father-in-law was Ray Cline, who headed the CIA’s Directorate of Intelligence at the height of the Cold War. Halper served as an aide to Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney and Alexander Haig in the Nixon and Ford administrations.The revelations of the role played by Halper point to an intervention in the 2016 elections by the US intelligence agencies that far eclipsed anything one could even imagine the Kremlin attempting.” (“Long-time CIA asset named as FBI’s spy on Trump campaign”, Bill Van Auken, World Socialist Web Site)

Maybe the Halper connection is a big nothingburger for which there is some perfectly logical explanation, but, seriously, does anyone really think this passes the smell test??

Let’s cut to the chase: When we look at the long list of potential felonies committed by the Obama team– including bogus FISA warrants, wiretaps, improper unmasking, questionable surveillance on campaign members, and, now, paid informants dredging up whatever dirt they can find on the newly-elected government, we are left scratching our heads wondering, “Is this really America? What on earth were these people thinking??” Here’s how political analyst Nick Short sums it up in a recent comment on Twitter:

“FBI opened a CI (CounterIntelligence) investigation in the absence of any (a) incriminating evidence, or (b) evidence implicating the Trump camp in Russian espionage. The FBI collaborated w/ CIA to probe an American political camp using foreign-intel surveillance & informants. Bigger than Watergate…” @PoliticalShort

Bingo. Any reasonable person would naturally assume that the informant was being used to gain an unfair advantage in the election by gathering privileged information that could be used against the targeted party or its candidates. (aka–Trump) In other words, we must disabuse ourselves of the idea that the perpetrators of this counterintelligence operation, were at all focused on the fictitious “Russia” angle. There’s no proof of that whatsoever. There is, however, considerable circumstantial evidence that a cabal of senior-level government officials, Intel agents, law enforcement officers, and high-ranking members of the DNC were using their access to the extraordinary powers of state surveillance to sabotage the democratic process, undermine the two-party system and topple the elected government. Unlike the Times, which seems to think these goings-on are just a harmless blip on the radar, we believe that this naked attempt to decimate the two-party system and reinforce the malign grip of unseen corporate oligarchs is actually the most egregious political crime of the century. Here’s how Barry Grey sums it up at the World Socialist Web Site:

“The recent press reports add to a wealth of information showing that the US intelligence and spy agencies, operating behind the backs of the American people and without any democratic accountability, manipulated the 2016 elections on a scale that massively outweighed anything Moscow could have attempted.

The real threat to the democratic rights of the American people comes not from Russia or foreign terrorists, but from the US government itself, which is completely controlled by a vast military/intelligence complex allied to the financial oligarchy. Both major parties are beholden to this “deep state” machine for surveillance and repression.

The Democratic Party evinces not the slightest concern or opposition to this police state apparatus. Its ringing defense of the FBI and CIA coincides with its critical role in supplying the votes necessary to confirm “black site” torturer Gina Haspel as CIA director earlier this week.” (“Democrats defend FBI following reports it spied on Trump’s election campaign”, Barry Grey, World Socialist Web Site)

Right again. This is not a Dems vs Republicans issue, at least, it shouldn’t be. It’s about the unelected cabal that operates behind the cloak of partisan politics to exert its stranglehold on political power. As comedian George Carlin said,

“The parties exist to make you think you have a choice. But you have no choice. You have owners, and they own everything.”

Russiagate was merely the paper-thin pretext this secretive group settled on to launch its attack on the candidate who was never supposed to win the election. Here’s more from the NY Times:

“F.B.I. agents sent an informant to talk to two campaign advisers only after they received evidence that the pair had suspicious contacts linked to Russia during the campaign….The role of the informant is at the heart of the newest battle between top law enforcement officials and Mr. Trump’s congressional allies over the F.B.I.’s most politically charged investigations in decades. The lawmakers, who say they are concerned that federal investigators are abusing their authority, have demanded documents from the Justice Department about the informant.

Law enforcement officials have refused, saying that handing over the documents would imperil both the source’s anonymity and safety. The New York Times has learned the source’s identity but typically does not name informants to preserve their safety.” (“FBI used informant to investigate Russia ties to Campaign, Not to spy, as Trump claims”, New York Times)

Translation– The FBI and DOJ are stonewalling Congress. They’re preventing Congress from getting the documents they need to fulfill their constitutional duty of oversight. The documents they need will likely reveal information that proves that senior-level officials were spying on the Trump campaign to gain an unfair advantage in the elections. Congress needs the documents to establish whether officials or agents at the FBI, CIA or NSA were involved in a conspiracy to torpedo the Trump campaign or (later) topple the President. Here’s more from the Times:

“Democrats say the Republicans’ real aim is to undermine the Special Counsel investigation.”

Special Counsel’s credibility has already been severely eroded by its obvious bias in carrying out a politically-motivated agenda that has been used to cast a cloud of suspicion around the president while producing no hard evidence that these suspicions are warranted. It’s worth noting, that the current Russia investigation is based on the dubious claim that Russia hacked DNC computers. As Andrew C. McCarthy points out in his excellent article at National Review, that’s pretty thin gruel. Here’s what he says:

“It has now been confirmed that the Trump campaign was subjected to spying tactics under counterintelligence law — FISA surveillance, national-security letters, and covert intelligence operatives who work with the CIA and allied intelligence services. It made no difference, apparently, that there was an ongoing election campaign, which the FBI is supposed to avoid affecting; nor did it matter that the spy targets were American citizens, as to whom there is supposed to be evidence of purposeful, clandestine, criminal activity on behalf of a foreign power before counterintelligence powers are invoked.

But what was the rationale for using these spying authorities?

The fons et origo of the counterintelligence investigation was the suspicion — which our intelligence agencies assure us is a fact — that the Democratic National Committee’s server was hacked by covert Russian operatives. Without this cyber-espionage attack, there would be no investigation. But how do we know it really happened? The Obama Justice Department never took custody of the server — no subpoena, no search warrant. The server was thus never subjected to analysis by the FBI’s renowned forensics lab, and its evidentiary integrity was never preserved for courtroom presentation to a jury…..

So, yes, the entire “Russia hacked the election” narrative the nation has endured for nearly two years hinges on the say-so of CrowdStrike, a private DNC contractor with significant financial ties to the Clinton campaign.” “In Politicized Justice, Desperate Times call for Desperate Measures”, Andrew C. McCarthy, National Review

So the FISA surveillance, the national-security letters, the FBI informants and 18 months of relentless probing-harassment have all been justified on the basis of allegations about Russia hacking that may or may not have happened at all??

Yep. Like we said earlier, it’s pretty thin gruel.

More from the Times: “No evidence has emerged that the informant acted improperly when the F.B.I. asked for help in gathering information on the former campaign advisers, or that agents veered from the F.B.I.’s investigative guidelines and began a politically motivated inquiry, which would be illegal.” (New York Times)

What sort of nonsense is this?? The “informant acted improperly” the minute he infiltrated the Trump campaign with the intention of gathering information on the rival party. Is the Times really trying to make the case that spying on one’s political opponent is morally, ethically or legally acceptable??

It’s ridiculous. This is just a feeble attempt to protect the informant from prosecution which he will undoubtedly face when he’s forced to testify before a grand jury and provide details of his employment including who gave him his assignment, what information was he gathering (and on who), and what other government officials or agency chiefs were involved in the counterintelligence operation aimed at sabotaging the election? (We already know that former CIA boss John Brennan originally referred the case to the FBI, so we’re convinced that he is the one who got the ball rolling.)

The fact that the informant has been exposed is just the first step in a long process that will (hopefully) reveal the machinations of the deep state apparatus and its connection to behind-the-scenes corporate mandarins, the real puppetmasters in this political fiasco.

One last blurb from the Times:

“According to people familiar with (General Michael) Flynn’s visit to the intelligence seminar, the source was alarmed by the general’s apparent closeness with a Russian woman who was also in attendance. The concern was strong enough that it prompted another person to pass on a warning to the American authorities that Mr. Flynn could be compromised by Russian intelligence, according to two people familiar with the matter.”

Got that? Flynn talked to a Russian woman at a seminar and the Times thinks that’s sufficient grounds for ‘tailing’ him or infiltrating the Trump campaign or issuing FISA warrants or National Security letters or collecting all-manner of electronic surveillance on Trump’s former campaign chairman or appointing a Special Counsel to snoop around in the elected government’s private affairs or saturating the airwaves with fake news stories for the better-part of 18 months. Where does it stop or is Russia going to be the all-purpose excuse for government misbehavior until we’re all locked up in Gitmo under 24-hour surveillance?? Would the editors of the Times find a justification for that, too?

We’re pretty sure they would.

The reason the Times released this article on a Friday night, when everyone was focused on the Royal wedding, was to minimize the political fallout. They wanted to see the public’s reaction, but they wanted to limit the circulation. They wanted to see if they could still control the narrative in lieu of damning new details that had surfaced. Most of all, they wanted to see if they could still divert people’s attention from the fact that a powerful group of government insiders and their junta-allies at the DNC have been engaged in a coup d’état to roll back the 2016 elections and remove the president from office. It’s getting harder to hide the truth all the time.

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This article was originally published on The Unz Review.

Mike Whitney is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

More than 400 lawsuits are pending against Monsanto Co. in U.S. District Court in San Francisco, filed by people alleging that exposure to Roundup herbicide caused them or their loved ones to develop non-Hodgkin lymphoma, and that Monsanto covered up the risks. The cases have been combined for handling as multidistrict litigation (MDL) under Judge Vince Chhabria. The lead case is 3:16-md-02741-VC.

On March 13th, 2017, U.S. District Judge Vince Chhabria ruled — over Monsanto’s objections — that certain documents obtained by plaintiffs through discovery could be unsealed. The documents listed below include discovery materials, transcripts of court proceedings, depositions and other case-related items.

Recent updates in the federal MDL:

• Science Week: Live testimony from witnesses took place March 5-9, 2018
• Link to video of the hearings and transcript of oral arguments
• Judge Chhabria  ordered an additional hearing for two plaintiffs’ experts, Dr. Chris Portier and Dr. Beate Ritz.  Additional Daubert hearing testimony from Dr. Portier took place 4/6/2018, while additional testimony from Dr. Ritz took place 4/4/2018. Transcripts are available below.

Parties, attorneys and journalists may listen to case management conferences and hearings by telephone—but may not participate—using the CourtCall remote court appearance service. Advance registration is required. This can be done online (journalists select “other” from the drop-down menu) or by calling CourtCall at (866) 582-6878 no later than noon on the day before the case management conference.

Additionally, thousands of other plaintiffs have made similar claims against Monsanto in state courts. Plaintiffs’ attorneys estimate the total number of plaintiffs at approximately 4,000. The first trial in the Roundup litigation is set for June 18, 2018 in the Superior Court for the County of San Francisco. Documents pertaining to that case as well as others are also included below in the middle column.  An expert admissibility and summary judgment hearing was held May 10 in San Francisco County Superior Court. Details regarding the time and location of the trial can be found here: (STATE CASE) Dewayne Johnson V. Monsanto trial date set

European Parliament Joint Committee hearing on the Monsanto Papers took place in October 2017. Information from Carey Gillam’s presentation, “Revelations from the Monsanto Papers.”

Seeds of Destruction: Hidden Agenda of Genetic Manipulation

Author Name: F. William Engdahl

ISBN Number: 978-0-937147-2-2

Year: 2007

Pages: 341 pages with complete index

List Price: $25.95

Special Price: $18.00

This skilfully researched book focuses on how a small socio-political American elite seeks to establish control over the very basis of human survival: the provision of our daily bread. “Control the food and you control the people.”

This is no ordinary book about the perils of GMO. Engdahl takes the reader inside the corridors of power, into the backrooms of the science labs, behind closed doors in the corporate boardrooms.

The author cogently reveals a diabolical world of profit-driven political intrigue, government corruption and coercion, where genetic manipulation and the patenting of life forms are used to gain worldwide control over food production. If the book often reads as a crime story, that should come as no surprise. For that is what it is.

“A fish rots from the head down.” —Ancient proverb of disputed origin

Another week has come and gone, and with it, another mass shooting. The American culture of death marches on, fueled by our obscene stockpiles of lethal weaponry and stoked by the divisions, alienation, hatred and fear that have come to define us as a nation.

As I wrote in my column after the 2012 Sandy Hook massacre, we are in the grips of a self-destructive social and psychological disorder—a Hobbesian “war of all against all”—that has long festered. Far from improving since then, the disorder has metastasized to new levels under the leadership of our 45th president.

The latest outrage took place early Friday morning at a high school in Santa Fe, Texas, a rural community of just over 12,000 about 20 miles northwest of Galveston.

The perpetrator has been identified as Dimitrios Pagourtzis (image below), a 17-year-old student, who used a shotgun and a .38 revolver belonging to his father to shoot 10 people dead—eight fellow pupils and two teachers—and wound at least 10 more. Pagourtzis is being held without bail on charges of capital murder. In all likelihood, in the “hang ’em high” Lone Star State, he’ll be tried as an adult and given the death penalty.

Described by classmates as a quiet loner who had been subjected to persistent bullying, Pagourtzis was carrying a duffel bag and wearing a long black trench coat and combat boots, despite the 88-degree temperature outside, when he entered an art class and opened fire. His Facebook page, investigators learned shortly after the incident, contained photos of a custom-made T-shirt printed with the words “Born to Kill,” along with photos of a duster jacket adorned with Nazi military medallions and an Iron Cross. According to some accounts, he was wearing the shirt at the time of the shooting.

In addition to seizing the firearms Pagourtzis used, police reportedly have found improvised explosive devices on campus and in surrounding areas. Authorities have interviewed, but apparently not charged, two other students as persons of interest or possible accomplices.

Within hours of the shooting, President Trump sent his official condolences to the people of Santa Fe. Speaking at a prison-reform conference at the White House, he assured the community:

“We grieve for the terrible loss of life and send our support and love to everyone affected by this absolutely horrific attack. To the students, families, teachers and personnel at Santa Fe High: We’re with you in this tragic hour and we will be with you forever.”

On Friday afternoon, Trump ordered flags at federal facilities to be flown at half-staff. Still later in the day, he announced that his school safety commission would reconvene. The commission, which is led by Education Secretary Betsy DeVos and includes Attorney General Jeff Sessions but has no rank-and-file teachers or students, was set up after the murders in February at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla.

We’ve been here before, all of us in one way or another. We’ve witnessed the carnage, either as survivors ourselves or as friends or relatives of the fallen, or just from afar as spectators watching images of blood and grief on television and social media. We’ve heard the heartfelt prayers and the feckless clichés from political figures pledging solidarity, support and vague promises of action. Over and over again.

Worse, we all know that nothing constructive will come from Trump’s safety commission. After Parkland, the best the commission could offer was the arming of teachers. In the meantime, we’ve come to embrace mass shootings as routine features of everyday life.

Mass shootings are defined broadly as crimes with at least four victims, whether killed or wounded. Delineated thusly, the slaughter in Santa Fe is the 101st event of its kind this year. As one Santa Fe student told a local ABC news reporter in an interview Friday, she wasn’t at all shocked that one had erupted at her school.

“It’s been happening everywhere,” the student said. “I’ve always kind of felt like eventually it was going to happen here too.”

The student’s grim fatalism, sadly, is grounded in fact. We are awash in an ocean of firearms and killers armed to the teeth.

In a purely empirical sense, America’s obsession with guns and gun violence is easy to chart, as CNN did in an online article that was first posted in October 2017 and updated in March, not long after the Parkland shootings. Among other findings the network summarized were the following:

• Americans own 310 million guns, nearly half of the 650 million owned by civilians worldwide. According to a 2017 Pew Center study cited by CNN, 66 percent of American gun owners have more than one firearm, and 74 percent say their sense of personal freedom is directly tied to their gun ownership.
• Americans possess more guns per capita—89 per 100—than any other country. War-ravaged Yemen places second with 55 per 100.
• The U.S. makes up less than 5 percent of the world’s population but accounts for 31 percent of mass shooters worldwide.
• Gun homicide rates are 25.2 percent higher in the U.S. than in other high-income countries.

Guns are also a big business in the U.S. The annual revenue of gun and ammunition manufacturers tops $13 billion a year, and gun stores rake in $3 billion. In 2013, according to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, nearly 11 million pistols, revolvers, rifles and shotguns were sold across the country.

The surge in sales and profits has been accompanied by stepped-up political spending by gun industry lobbyists, particularly the National Rifle Association. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, Federal Election Commission records show that the PAC and nonprofit arms of the NRA spent a combined $54.4 million in the 2016 elections. A cool $30 million was directed to supporting Trump’s presidential bid.

The NRA has also spent millions more to defeat even modest legislative proposals aimed at restoring the assault weapons ban: bolstering the federal background-check system and applying the system to gun shows and private sales; limiting the sale of large-capacity magazines; outlawing straw purchases (in which a nominal buyer poses for an ineligible end user); restricting the number of guns that any single person can buy in a given time period; and ensuring the availability of mental health counseling for all Americans.

It’s tempting to think of Trump, a businessman of expediency and self-aggrandizement, as the NRA’s tool, happy to do the gun lobby’s bidding in exchange for buckets of campaign cash. Tempting but wrong.

In the NRA, Trump has found the perfect vehicle for the culture of death that helped propel him to office. The NRA is as much his tool as he is theirs.

What is that culture? In a 2013 column on gun control titled “Mass Violence, Gun Control and the American Culture of Death,” I quoted Rich Broderick, an unheralded journalist based in Minnesota, who described it well before Trump’s election as a “culture that embraces a soulless free-market idolatry in which the value of everything, including human beings, is determined by the bottom line. … It is a culture of death that prevails on Wall Street, K-Street, Hollywood, and our ever-expanding Military-Industrial-Congressional Complex.”

In the aftermath of Trump’s ascension, others have taken the metaphor further. In a column posted by Truthout in early March this year, the American and Canadian scholar Henry Giroux wrote:

“We live in an age in which the politics of disposability has merged with what [CounterPunch editor] Jeffrey St. Clair has called the spectacle of ‘American Carnage.’ The machineries of social death and misery now drive a mode of casino capitalism in which more and more people are considered waste, expendable and excess. The politics of disposability now couples with acts of extreme violence as pressure grows to exclude more and more people from the zones of visibility, justice and compassion. This is especially true for children. Violence against children in the United States has reached epidemic proportions.”

Even conservative commentators see the grave dangers afoot. In a Washington Post column printed the day before the shooting in Santa Fe, Michael Gerson, who helped craft George W. Bush’s second inaugural address, wrote:

“Whatever else Trumpism may be, it is the systematic organization of resentment against outgroups. Trump’s record is rich in dehumanization. It was evident when he called Mexican migrants ‘criminals’ and ‘rapists.’ When he claimed legal mistreatment from a judge because ‘he’s a Mexican.’ (Judge Gonzalo P. Curiel was born in Indiana.) When he proposed a ‘total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States.’ When he attacked Muslim Gold Star parents. When he sidestepped opportunities to criticize former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke. When he referred to ‘very fine people’ among the white-supremacist protesters in Charlottesville. When he expressed a preference for Norwegian immigrants above those from nonwhite ‘shithole countries.’ ”

This does not imply, of course, that the NRA or Trump can be held criminally responsible for the acts of Dimitrios Pagourtzis or any other mass shooter. Still, it implies something of nearly equal weight: Trump and the NRA have combined to put fear and dehumanization into the hearts and minds of Americans, and fear and dehumanization sustain a fertile environment for continued outbreaks of mass violence.

If we are ever to heal our culture of death, at a minimum, we have to dislodge both the NRA and Trump from the pinnacles of power they now occupy. As the old saying goes, “A fish rots from the head down.”

*

Bill Blum is a former judge and death penalty defense attorney. He is the author of three legal thrillers published by Penguin/Putnam.

On May 16, 2018, Canada’s Prime Minister issued a statement calling for an “immediate independent investigation” into the “tragic” killing and wounding of “countless” protesters in Gaza. Trudeau professed in his statement to be “appalled that Dr. Tarek Loubani, a Canadian citizen, is among the wounded – along with so many unarmed people, including civilians, members of the media, first responders, and children.”

A mere two days later, in a debate at the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC), Trudeau’s government opposed just such an investigation. Ultimately, the UNHRC voted by a margin of 29-2, with 14 abstentions, to establish a Commission of Inquiry into the Gaza massacres.

Given Trudeau’s history of shameless pandering to the pro-occupation lobby, his May 16 statement inspired little confidence that he would in fact insist upon a truly independent investigation into the Gaza massacres and the IDF’s shooting of Dr. Loubani. That is why, on May 17, I tweeted:

The explanation given for Trudeau’s immediate and craven self-reversal, which you can watch and listen to here, is that the UNHRC resolution calling for the investigation “prejudges the outcome of such an investigation,” is “one-sided and does not advance the prospects for a peaceful, negotiated settlement” between Israelis and Palestinians, and “singles out Israel without reference to other actors.”

Let’s unpack that, shall we?

Claim #1: The UNHRC resolution “prejudges the outcome of such an investigation”

It is certainly true that the UNHRC’s resolution, which can be seen here, accuses Israel of violating international humanitarian law, but so too does Canada’s own government. Canada’s Global Affairs website states:

Canada does not recognize permanent Israeli control over territories occupied in 1967 (the Golan Heights, the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip). The Fourth Geneva Convention applies in the occupied territories and establishes Israel’s obligations as an occupying power, in particular with respect to the humane treatment of the inhabitants of the occupied territories. As referred to in UN Security Council Resolutions 446 and 465, Israeli settlements in the occupied territories are a violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention. The settlements also constitute a serious obstacle to achieving a comprehensive, just and lasting peace.

As far as the recent killings in Gaza are concerned, Trudeau himself stated on May 16 that he was “appalled” by the shooting of Dr. Loubani and of “so many unarmed people, including civilians, members of the media, first responder and children.”

The whole world knows that it is the Israeli military that is shooting those unarmed protesters, and is doing so deliberately. In a now-deleted tweet, the Israeli army itself declared on March 31, 2018, the day after it shot 773 Palestinians with live fire, that “we know where every bullet landed.”

Under the circumstances, the fact that the UNHRC resolution accuses Israel of violating international law is no justification for opposing the UNHRC investigation. On the contrary, the UNHRC has ample reason – as does Canada’s own government – to level such accusations. The UNHRC investigation will help to ascertain the extent and nature of those violations, and precisely which military and governmental officials are responsible for them.

The mandate of the UNHRC’s Commission of Inquiry is:

to investigate all violations of international humanitarian law and international human rights law in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, particularly in the occupied Gaza Strip, in the context of the military assaults on the large-scale civilian protests that began on 30 March 2018, whether before, during or after, to establish the facts and circumstances, with assistance from relevant experts and special procedure mandate holders, of the alleged violations and abuses, including those that may amount to war crimes, to identify those responsible, to make recommendations, in particular on accountability measures, all with a view to avoiding and ending impunity and ensuring legal accountability, including individual criminal and command responsibility, for such violations, and on protecting civilians against any further assaults, and to present an oral update to the Council at its thirty-ninth session and a final, written report at its fortieth session.

It is simply unfathomable that any government truly committed to human rights would object to this mandate.

Claim #2: The UNHRC Resolution is “one-sided”

If the UNHRC Resolution appears to focus on Israel’s misconduct, that is simply because it is Israel’s military that is doing all of the killing and the Palestinians who are doing all of the dying. To date, not a single Israeli soldier has been killed, and only one has been lightly wounded.

By contrast, according to the human rights organization Al Haq, approximately 111 Palestinians have been killed, including 12 children, two journalists, and four persons with disabilities. During the same period, approximately 7,000 Palestinian were injured, including 1,244 children, 253 women, 42 paramedics, and 60 journalists – at least 3,615 of whom were hit by live fire.

One could hardly imagine more ‘one-sided’ casualty figures than this. If indeed the UNHRC resolution is ‘one-sided’, that resolution simply reflects the terrible reality of what is happening on the ground.

Claim #3: The UNHRC Resolution “does not advance the prospects for a peaceful, negotiated settlement”

This is, without doubt, the Trudeau government’s most pathetic rationale for opposing the UNHRC investigation.

The obvious point of the UNHRC investigation is to ensure that those who are responsible for these atrocities are held accountable. Without accountability, Israel will continue to violate international humanitarian law with impunity.

Are we seriously to believe that the perpetuation of Israel’s impunity will ‘advance the prospects for a peaceful, negotiated settlement’?

The answer to this question is obvious. So too is the Trudeau government’s double standard.

In the case of 19 other human rights violators, the Trudeau government has gone well beyond mere investigation by imposing economic sanctions. Meanwhile, it lavishes support on Israel – a state whose human rights violations the Canadian government has acknowledged for decades – by voting against broadly-supported UN resolutions critical of Israel’s human rights abuses, supporting more trade between Canada and Israel, allowing products from Israel’s illegal, West Bank settlements to be labelled as ‘product of Israel’ in Canadian stores, permitting the sale of Canadian-made weapons to Israel, and according charitable status to the Jewish National Fund, an organization that is deeply complicit in the violation of Palestinian human rights. The Canadian government even permits Canadians to serve in Israel’s lawless military forces.

In effect, Canada’s government has rewarded Israel for trampling the rights of the Palestinian people, who have lived under a brutal military occupation for over 50 years.

Has this ‘advanced the prospects for a peaceful, negotiated settlement’?

Claim #4: The UNHRC Resolution “singles out Israel without reference to other actors”

The Trudeau government’s statement of opposition at the UNHRC did not identify who the “other actors” are, but undoubtedly, at least one of them is Hamas, which Canada’s government designates a terrorist organization.

Whatever its offences may be, however, there is simply no evidence that Hamas fighters have killed or wounded any protesters or Israeli soldiers during the Great March of Return. Why then, should the UNHRC’s investigation focus on Hamas?

Israel’s apologists claim that Hamas has organized the protests. This is vigorously disputed by observers on the ground: they say that the protests have been organized by Palestinian civil society. Renowned Israeli journalist Gideon Levy maintains that these unarmed protesters are approaching the fence in Gaza not because Hamas brought them there, but because, after years of an inhuman blockade and eight massacres by Israeli forces, a profound sense of despair has befallen Gaza, and all that remains to its trapped and tormented inhabitants, half of whom are children, is to peacefully express their dissent, even if expressing their dissent poses great risk to themselves.

Let us assume, however, that Hamas organized these peaceful protests. Shouldn’t we welcome this development? Is it not a sign that Hamas may have understood, finally, that peaceful resistance is the right and only path to freedom?

The real reason for Trudeau’s lightning-speed self-reversal

The real reason for Justin Trudeau’s opposition to the UNHRC investigation is not that it is one-sided, undermines peace, or fails to focus on the true perpetrators of these atrocities. No, the real reason is that Justin Trudeau came under a withering assault from Canada’s pro-occupation lobby the moment that he waded into the waters of justice.

After briefly exhibiting a modicum of moral courage, Trudeau has swiftly retreated into his comfortable bunker of lies, hypocrisy and callous indifference to Palestinian suffering.

To borrow his own term, Canadians should be “appalled”.

Thousands of UK personnel are intimately involved in maintaining the military war machine of Saudi Arabia, enabling it to carry out its one-sided slaughter in Yemen.

A recent report, “UK Personnel Supporting the Saudi Armed Forces–Risk, Knowledge and Accountability”, by researchers Mike Lewis and Katherine Templar, is part of a Brits Abroad study funded by the Joseph Rowntree Trust.

The Saudi Arabian-led war against the Middle East’s poorest country is now in its fourth year. The Saudi regime launched the war in March 2015 to reinstall President Abd-Rabbuh Mansur Hadi (image below) who had been driven from power by Houthi rebels. Hadi is currently in exile in Riyadh, apparently under house arrest.

The US, UK and other western countries have supported the Saudi intervention. Like Saudi Arabia, they regard the war against the Houthis as a proxy conflict with Iran.

According to the UN, more than 10,000 people have been killed in Yemen since the Saudis launched their invasion in March 2015, and more than 85,000 people have been displaced since January this year.

Among the crimes carried out was the killing by Saudi planes of over 30 people at a wedding in April this year, with twice as many suffering horrific wounds. In October 2016, around 150 were killed and more than 500 injured when Saudi planes bombed a funeral in Sana’a, the Yemeni capital.

The UK has a decades long program for supplying weapons to Saudi Arabia. According to the report, 50 percent of all UK weapons and military equipment exports between 2013 to 2017 went to Saudi Arabia. In the period between 2007 and 2011 it was just over a quarter. Most materiel went to the Royal Saudi Air Force (RSAF), with the UK supplying nearly half its 324 Combat aircraft, along with spare parts and ammunition.

According to a Sky News report in March, 50 open licences to supply weapons to Saudi Arabia were issued for the period July 2016 to September 2017—up by a third on the previous 15 months and coinciding with Theresa May’s premiership. Open licences allow an uncapped number of weapons to be sent over a period of five years. Only then can the value of the licence be revealed, but the government is under no obligation to publish the figures.

The grand total of UK arms licences since the invasion in Yemen in March 2015 is more than $6.2 billion for aircraft, helicopters, drones, bombs and missiles, according to government figures.

Lewis and Templar’s report explains:

“Under a sequence of formal agreements between the UK and Saudi governments since 1973, the UK Ministry of Defence and its contractors supply not only military ‘hardware’, but also human ‘software.’ Around 7,000 individuals—private employees, British civil servants and seconded Royal Air Force personnel—are present in Saudi Arabia to advise, train, service and manage British-supplied combat aircraft and other military equipment.”

The UK government claims these personnel are not involved directly in targeting, loading weaponry or in the planning of operational sorties. But confidential agreements signed between the UK government and the RSAF, which are not to be released to the public till 2027, outline the number of personnel and functions they undertake.

The UK-Saudi Al Yamamah agreement, a record arms deal signed in 1986 which included the supply and support of Tornado fighter-bombers, is still ongoing. The agreement is secret, but the report’s authors were able to see a batch of Downing Street papers that were filed in the National Archive at Kew revealing some details.

Under the agreement the

“United Kingdom civilian and military personnel will remain available in Saudi Arabia for preparation, including arming and support, of the [Tornado fighter-bomber] aircraft during an armed conflict…”

Lewis and Templar interviewed technicians, managers and officials of all ranks over two years and their report notes the critical role of UK personnel in the Saudi war-machine:

“A mix of company employees and seconded RAF personnel have continued to be responsible for maintaining the weapons systems of all Saudi Tornado IDS fighter-bombers, a backbone of the Yemen air war… work as aircraft armourers and weapons supervisors for the UK-supplied Typhoon fighters deployed at the main operating bases for Saudi Yemen operations, and provided deeper-level maintenance for Yemen-deployed combat aircraft.”

UK personnel in Saudi Arabia have been placed at physical or legal risk, including from scud missiles and unexploded ordnance. Some of those who have tried to whistle-blow over possible war crimes have been harassed and have not been afforded protection under UK law.

The report unearthed evidence that some of the UK personnel are involved in the handling of cluster bombs.

Lewis and Templar also found that the UK government has used private companies to “work on behalf of the British state but with Saudi masters; without the legal protections accorded to UK civil servants or military personnel; and without any guidance or protocols for reporting risks of IHL (International Humanitarian Law) violations to the UK government, or to their employers… Whitehall’s limited oversight of their activities is a deliberately constructed choice.”

The British government singled out arms exports as a key priority post-Brexit, with former defence secretary Michael Fallon promising that the UK would “spread its wings across the world.”

Britain’s arms trade with Saudi Arabia is enormously unpopular at home, with only 6 percent of the British public supporting it according to a recent poll. A legal bid to challenge the UK’s arms exports was financed by a crowd fund appeal.

Earlier this month, the Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT) won its Court of Appeal bid to overturn last year’s High Court judgement that the export of arms from the UK to Saudi Arabia was lawful, despite widespread concern the trade was in breach of international humanitarian law. CAAT also won the right to challenge the closed verdict, where judges had heard evidence from the government in secret.

The court case revealed that the government went ahead with the sales despite its export policy chief telling then business secretary, Sajid Javid,

“My gut tells me we should suspend [weapons exports to the country].”

The UK has long-standing interests in the Yemen. British troops first occupied the port of Aden in present day Yemen in 1839 and it soon became important as a coaling station for British warships. From 1937 the port of Aden and the surrounding protectorate became a British colony. In 1934 Britain aided Saudi Arabia when it annexed Asir, then part of Yemen. Britain enforced a treaty to give Saudi Arabia a 20-year lease on the territory which remains a part of Saudi Arabia to this day.

In 1962, following the death of King Ahmad of Yemen, Arab nationalist army officers took power and proclaimed a republic. Royalists backed by Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Israel and Britain began an insurgency to restore the monarchy.

A dirty war ensued, with Britain initially supplying Jordan with fighter jets to carry out airstrikes in Yemen and embedding military advisers with its key allies. From March 1963, Britain supplied weaponry directly to the Royalist forces. At the same time, MI6 along with SAS founder David Stirling set up a British force to work with the insurgents. To mask British involvement, SAS and paratrooper forces were given temporary leave and were paid over £10,000 a year (equivalent to £197,000 today) by a Saudi prince.

In 1964 under the Labour government of Harold Wilson (image on the left), covert bombing of Yemeni targets by the RAF began. Airworks Services was set up as a British company to train Saudi pilots.

Britain was eventually driven out of Aden in November 1967.

Today, driven by intractable crisis and the further erosion of its global standing, Britain is seeking to re-establish its influence in Yemen and across the Middle East as part of a new carve-up by the imperialist powers.

As a general rule, when Dick Cheney favors a foreign policy position it’s best to be on the opposite side if you value liberty over war and authoritarianism. The former vice president’s enthusiastic endorsement of not only Gina Haspel as CIA director but of the torture program she oversaw should tell us all we need to know about Haspel.

Saying that Haspel would make a great CIA director, Cheney dismissed concerns over the CIA’s torture program. Asked in a television interview last week about the program, Cheney said,

“if it were my call, I’d do it again.”

Sadly, the majority of the US Senate agreed with Cheney that putting a torturer in charge of the CIA was a good idea. Only two Republicans – Senators Paul and Flake – voted against Haspel. And just to confirm that there really is only one political party in Washington, it was the “yes” vote of crossover Democrats that provided the margin of victory. Americans should really be ashamed of those sent to Washington to represent us.

Just this month, the New York Times featured an article written by a woman who was kidnapped and send to the secret CIA facility in Thailand that Haspel was said to have overseen. The woman was pregnant at the time and she recounted in the article how her CIA torturers would repeatedly punch her in the stomach. She was not convicted or even accused of a crime. She was innocent. But she was tortured on Haspel’s watch.

Is this really what we are as a country? Do we really want to elevate such people to the highest levels of government where they can do more damage to the United States at home and overseas?

As the news comes out that Obama holdovers in the FBI and CIA infiltrated the Trump campaign to try and elect Hillary Clinton, President Trump’s seeming lack of understanding of how the deep state operates is truly bewildering. The US increasingly looks like a banana republic, where the permanent state and not the people get to decide who’s in charge.

But instead of condemning the CIA’s role in an attempted coup against his own administration, Trump condemned former CIA director John Brennan for “undermining confidence” in the CIA. Well, the CIA didn’t need John Brennan to undermine our confidence in the CIA. The Agency itself long ago undermined the confidence of any patriotic American. Not only has the CIA been involved in torture, it has manipulated at least 100 elections overseas since its founding after WWII.

As President Trump watched Gina Haspel being sworn in as CIA director, he praised her:

“You live the CIA. You breathe the CIA. And now you will lead the CIA,” he said.

Yes, Mr. president, we understand that. But that’s the problem!

The problem is not Haspel, it’s not John Brennan, it’s not our lack of confidence. The problem is the CIA itself. If the president really cared about our peace, prosperity, and security, he would take steps to end this national disgrace. It’s time to abolish the CIA!

*

Featured image is from TruePublica.

Featured image: President visit the Western Wall, Jerusalem, May 22, 2017. (Photo credit: Matty Stern/U.S. Embassy Tel Aviv)

In a letter addressed to President Donald Trump, with copies to the International Criminal Court (ICC) and the UN Security Council, four top former officials at the highest level of the US government have given him legal notice about his duty to advise the US Congress, the ICC and the UNSC, among others, about Israel’s actions coinciding with the “70^th anniversary of the expulsion of 750,000 Palestinians from their homes.”

The letter is signed, among others, by former CIA operations officer Phil Giraldi; former Pentagon official Michael Maloof; former US Army officer and State Department coordinator for counterterrorism contractor Scott Bennett; and former diplomat and author of Visas For al-Qaeda: CIA Handouts That Rocked The World, Michael Springmann.

Maloof, Bennett and Giraldi, as well as Springmann and this correspondent, were among guests at the 6^th International New Horizon conference in the holy city of Mashhad, eastern Iran. The top themes of the conference’s debates were Palestine and the Trump administration’s unilateral exit from the Iran nuclear deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).

As Maloof and Bennett separately confirmed to Asia Times, the letter was written by Giraldi and Maloof at an airport lounge as they were waiting for a flight from Mashhad to Tehran, where it was presented at a press conference this past Tuesday. This correspondent was on a reporting trip in Karaj. We all reunited on Thursday at Mashhad’s airport. The press conference in Tehran was virtually ignored by US corporate media.

Visas for the visiting Americans were an extremely delicate matter debated at the highest levels of the Iranian government between the Foreign Ministry and the intelligence services. In the end, the visitors, under intense scrutiny by Iranian media, ended up finding a huge, eager audience all across Iran.

A new psyops in the making

The letter signatories make a direct connection about Israeli actions that may trigger “and escalate American military actions against Turkey, Syria, Lebanon, Iran and Russia since these nations are opposed to the transfer of the US embassy to Jerusalem; and rising tensions already exacerbated by the US withdrawal from the JCPOA.”

President Trump is also served legal notice that the letter “will be included as evidence in all matters relating to the US Embassy move to Jerusalem/Al Quds and the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. The letter is to be listed as “exhibit 1 in any war crimes investigation and prosecution (past, present, future) relating to this matter, at all times.”

As Bennett told Asia Times, the main concern is that according to his military sources the current, volatile situation may establish the preconditions for “a new psyops campaign.”

Trump has been served legal notice – pursuant to 18 US Code 4, and 28 US Code 1361 – of “national and international legal violations.” The letter also doubles as “a legal notice to the American people” – and is established as legal protection “against any retaliation, detainment, investigation, sequestration, interrogation, discrimination, imprisonment, torture, financial consequences, or any other negative or prejudicial consequences or actions.”

Moreover, “any action taken against the undersigned will be interpreted as a violation of the following; 18 USC 242 (conspiracy to deny/violate constitutional civil rights); 42 USC 1983, 1984, 1985 (civil action for rights violations); 18 US 2339A (providing material support to terrorists).

The letter may also be interpreted as an olive branch; apart from requesting full whistleblower protection, the signatories offer themselves to fully debrief the President as well as Congress.

The letter is copied to Russian President Vladimir Putin, Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and the President of the European Parliament, Antonio Tajani.

There has been no White House response so far.

Considering the US embassy transfer to Jerusalem; the unilateral abrogation of the JCPOA followed by a declaration of economic war against Iran; the new narrative on the DPRK — as in there’s only our deal, or you will be destroyed like Libya; not to mention the treatment of whistleblower Julian Assange, the prospects for a fruitful dialogue remain bleak.

The Law Society of South Africa (LSSA) joins the call by human rights organisations across the world in demanding that the international community take strong measures against Israel to put an end to the ongoing international human rights and humanitarian law violations perpetrated by the Israeli security forces’ use of live ammunition and snipers against civilian protesters.

According to the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Israel’s actions in the context of Gaza amount to wilful killings which may be prosecuted as war crimes by the International Criminal Court (ICC).

The prosecutor of the ICC is currently carrying out a preliminary examination into the situation in Palestine to prosecute and hold political and military officers accountable, in order to avoid further violations and to ensure justice.

The prosecutor of the ICC must accelerate her ongoing preliminary examination and open an investigation without further delay.

For the seventh week in Gaza, Palestinian protesters demanding an end to the unlawful closure of the Gaza strip and the right of return for refugees who were forced to flee from their land 70 years ago were once again met with dis- proportionate violence by Israeli security forces, who used deadly force.

The LSSA calls for legal organisations worldwide to highlight the serious human rights violations and calls for an end to the killings, and for the UN to pressurise the Israeli state and its supporters to stop these atrocities.

In releasing this statement, the LSSA acts in compassion and solidarity with the loved ones and families of those killed and does not subscribe to the view that any killing of civilians can be justified on the basis of political expediency.

The inaction and absence of a political will by the international community and Israel to ensure respect for international humanitarian law will only exacerbate the conflict and allow for the chronic denial of human rights and justice to continue.

It is essential that the international community takes immediate action to protect the civilian population in Gaza.

Failure by the international community to ensure the respect for international humanitarian law will only allow the conflict to worsen, with the resultant catastrophic loss of human life and continued denial of human rights and justice

We call on all concerned to engage in dialogue and peaceful means to resolve differences.

We express our support for the South African government and hope it will do all it can to encourage peace and discourage disproportionate violence.

VISIT MY NEW WEB SITE: 

stephenlendman.org 

(Home – Stephen Lendman). 

Contact at [email protected].

Trump’s hardened war cabinet is in charge of geopolitical policymaking, more wars of aggression likely on its agenda – Iran perhaps a prime target.

In his first public address as Secretary of State, titled “After the Deal: A New Iran Strategy,” neocon extremist Mike Pompeo threatened Iran with “the strongest sanctions in history” if it fails to comply with US demands – things Tehran won’t ever agree to, its sovereignty not for sale to Washington.

“The JCPOA put the world at risk because of its fatal flaws,” Pompeo roared – a bald-faced lie!

“(T)he weak sunset provisions of the JCPOA merely delayed (Iran’s) inevitable nuclear weapons capability” – another disgraceful Big Lie, adding:

“After the countdown clock ran out on the deal’s sunset provisions, Iran would be free for a quick sprint to the bomb, setting off a potentially catastrophic arms race in the region. Indeed, the very brevity of the delay in the Iranian nuclear program itself incentivized Middle Eastern proliferation.”

America and Israel are nuclear armed and dangerous. Iran abhors these weapons, wanting nothing to do with them. No evidence suggests otherwise.

Pompeo:

“Iran has lied for years about having had a nuclear weapons program. Iran entered into the JCPOA in bad faith. (It) continues to lie.”

“The mechanisms for inspecting and verifying Iran’s compliance with the deal were simply not strong enough. (Its) ballistic and cruise missiles could deliver nuclear warheads.”

It “spen(ds) its resources fueling proxy wars across the Middle East…Iran perpetuates a conflict that has displaced more than 6 million Syrians” internally and millions more “outside its borders.”

All of the above are bald-faced lies, many more in Pompeo’s hostile address, barely stopping short of declaring war on the Islamic Republic – Pompeo saying:

Washington will work with its allies “to deter (nonexistent) Iranian aggression. We will track down Iranian operatives and their Hezballah proxies operating around the world and we will crush them. Iran will never again have carte blanche to dominate the Middle East.”

“If they restart their nuclear program, it will mean bigger problems – bigger problems than they’d ever had before.”

He wants air-tight assurance that “Iran has no possible path to a nuclear weapon, ever” – something it deplores, never sought and wants eliminated everywhere, all nations threatened as long as these weapons exist.

He demands Iran cease all uranium enrichment and pledges no plutonium processing ever. The JCPOA permits enough of the former for energy use.

Tehran must allow “unqualified access to all sites throughout the country,” including off-limits military ones under the JCPOA.

Its government must cease its regional military activities – entirely involved in combating US supported terrorists in Syria on request of its government.

It must cease supporting legitimate entities Washington illegally declared terrorist organizations, including Hezbollah, Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and Yemeni Houthis.

US citizens held by Iran must be released, no matter what offenses they’re accused of committing.

The Islamic Republic must cease being a threat to Israel. It never was and isn’t now, the Jewish state a major threat to regional and global security.

It “must end its…ballistic missiles…launching or development of nuclear-capable missile systems” – the latter something it doesn’t have or want, the former it has every right to develop.

It “must…permit the disarming, demobilization, and reintegration of Shia militias” in Iraq. Tehran supports what Washington rejects – Iraqi sovereignty.

Iran must “cease harboring senior al-Qaida leaders” – a US specialty, the Islamic Republic strongly opposed to the scourge they represent.

“Iran…must end the IRG Qods Force’s support for terrorists and militant partners around the world.” What Iran abhors, Washington supports.

Pompeo:

“At the end of the day, the Iranian people will get to make their choice about their leadership.”

“If they make the decision quickly, that would be wonderful. If they choose not to do so, we will stay hard at this until we achieve the outcomes that I set forward today.”

Pompeo wants a Senate-ratified treaty replacing the JCPOA. He wants Iran transformed into a US vassal state. He wants what Tehran won’t ever agree to – demands made to be rejected, not accepted.

He threatened European and other companies with stiff sanctions if they fail to bend to Washington’s will on Iran, adding:

“I know our allies in Europe may try to keep the old nuclear deal going with Tehran. That is their decision to make. They know where we stand.”

On Monday, Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Bahram Ghasemi said his country’s involvement in Syria is at Assad’s request, stressing:

“Nobody can force Iran to do something against its will. Iran is an independent country that pursues its policies according to its own interests,” adding:

“All those should leave Syria who entered the territory of the country without the approval of the Syrian government.”

He said Pompeo’s hostile Monday demands are undeserving of a serious answer, calling the notion of negotiating with Washington “ridiculous.”

He also denied US accusations of aiding the Taliban in Afghanistan, saying:

“The Islamic Republic…has been standing for nearly four decades alongside the friendly and brotherly government and people of Afghanistan to defend their sovereignty and independence, and the statements made to satisfy outsiders and invaders have no congruity with these friendly relations.”

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani vowed the Islamic Republic will continue “out path” undeterred by Washington, adding the era of its regimes “decid(ing) for the world is over.”

He categorically rejected Pompeo’s outrageous demands.

His deplorable address reflected US imperial arrogance and hubris, further proof of its pariah state status, at war on humanity for global hegemony – everyone everywhere threatened by its endless quest for dominance, no matter the human cost.

Trump’s outrageous hostility toward Iran, his JCPOA pullout, along with appointing notorious neocon extremist Iranophobes to key administration positions escalated regional tensions instead of responsibly stepping back from the brink.

Will hot US war on the Islamic Republic follow propaganda and sanctions war? Administration extremists make the unthinkable possible.

*

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

A few years ago the story of former Russian double agent Sergei Skripal allegedly being poisoned with a deadly nerve agent in the UK supposedly by the Russian state, would have shook geopolitics and placed immense pressure on Moscow.

Today, while it certainly did shake geopolitics, it was more from the narrative hitting a brick wall than from its desired impact toward cornering the Kremlin.

While the United Kingdom’s credibility unraveling played a major role in the UK’s own narrative failing, it has been the growing global alternative media that has exposed and diminished the true nature of British credibility in the first place.

Analysts have linked the Skripal affair with a series of other Anglo-American geopolitical maneuvers including staged chemical attacks in Syria and the subsequent missile attack launched against the Syrian state.

However, all of these pretexts failed to find their mark, leaving Western capitals increasingly exposed without the cover of legitimacy they have manufactured and enjoyed in the past.

Russia’s Own, Modern Media 

Russia’s own international media played a significant role in publicly informing global audiences of alternatives to the UK’s Skripal narrative, as well as challenging the UK directly.

The growing influence of Russia’s international media helped provide balance to global discourse that was once solely dominated by US and European media organizations.

Long gone are the days of clumsy Soviet state media. Russia’s modern media has performed an act of public relations judo, using the most effective techniques of the Western media, and directing them back against the West.

When this involves some of the most dishonest and aggressive agendas driven by Western special interests, they resonate with a global public increasingly disillusioned by the Western media.

For the time being, the global alternative media comprised of small independent media organizations and even individuals, have benefited from working with modern Russia media.

Despite claims of “Russian influence” and “Russian propaganda,” it should be noted that citizens and organizations around the globe contributing to, being interviewed by and appearing on Russian media are no different than those appearing on American and European networks.

Attempts to portray it as being somehow different is based on the assumption that Anglo-American and European media is in some way morally superior to that of other nations, yet this assumption in and of itself is predicated on decades, if not centuries of exceptionalism bred from quite immoral hegemony.

Independent media organizations and individual journalists and analysts holding alternative views from the mainstream US-European media are systematically denied a platform to fairly air these views in the West. Contrary to the West’s supposed values of “free speech” and objectivity among a “free press,” the actions of the Western media promote anything but.

As long as Russia’s media focuses on issues such as corrupt global corporations, global military aggression and other global issues barred from being discussed freely and honestly in the West, this partnership will continue to flourish.

The UK’s attempts to frame Russia for a “nerve agent” attack on Sergei Skripal and his daughter on British soil and thus dishonestly drag the British nation into a wider confrontation with Russia threatened not only Moscow’s best interests, but those of the British public as well.

The Alternative Media 

While state media from Russia certainly helped counter the UK’s narrative regarding Skripal, thousands of independent media organizations and individuals around the globe also contributed.

News personalities and analysts with large audiences across social media and video platforms like Twitter, Facebook and YouTube have grown into an increasingly important counterbalance to the Western corporate media.

To illustrate how effective the alternative media has become, the Western media has intentionally and very dishonestly attempted to lump them in with Russian international media to undermine their credibility.

Public Perception isn’t Everything, But it is Also Not Nothing

While the truth behind the Skripal affair has yet to be fully revealed, with Sergei Skripal and his daughter having  disappeared from public view and official mention, and while it is still not certain why exactly the British government fabricated this incident, it does appear linked to the likewise staged chemical attack in Douma, Syria.

The Skripal affair may have been designed to undermine Russian credibility at the United Nations Security Council ahead of the staged Douma chemical attack. Had things worked according to plan, a much bolder and more muscular “international” response might have been organized by the US, forcing Russia to back down in Syria and even potentially move the Syrian government out from under its political and military protection.

However, this did not happen, for a variety of reasons.

The military balance in the Middle East may still favor the US and its allies, but it is an advantage that can only be exploited through a much wider conflict than is currently unfolding in Syria.

It will be difficult for the US to create the right combination of provocations and manipulate public perception sufficiently to justify the scale of conflict required to move its agenda forward in Syria.

The Skripal affair failed make its desired impact on public perception regarding Russia at the United Nations. Yet the US was prepared to move forward with staged provocations and then strikes on Syria anyway.

It is always difficult to quantify how much public perception plays in decision making. Washington’s military might is not directly affected by public perception, but an unconvinced and unwilling public can indirectly and unpredictably undermine military operations.

With this in mind, we can see why nations like Russia, China and Iran have developed their own international media organizations, clawing space for themselves across once Western-dominated global audiences.

The impact of this may not have in and of itself stopped the “Skripal Effect,” but it certainly blunted it. With sound foreign policy composed of viable incentives and deterrents, Moscow was able to fully stop it. The Skripal affair is now being transformed into a scandal, with the British government having more to explain themselves than supposed Kremlin assassins of whom there is still no evidence.

As Russia reaps the benefits of years of developing its own reach into the global public, other nations across the developing world should consider the merits of creating their own international media organizations aimed at providing their side of the story to global audiences and reflecting their own national interests.

Currently, many nations throughout the developing world have corps of journalists trained and indoctrinated in the West. When they return to their home nations, their reporting reflects Western, not domestic interests. They often develop direct ties to the Western media and even Western embassies, which further compromises not only any genuine journalist integrity, but also their ability to at least represent the interests of local populations they deliver misinformation to.

Nations like Russia and China which export technology and defense systems, could potentially export their successes regarding international media by assisting other nations in building up effective media organizations that truly reflect each respective nation’s interests. Unlike the US which funds media in targeted nations to simply serve as an echo chamber in support of the US-led international order, Russia and China would be giving the tools to other nations to defend their information space themselves.

While the interests of these nations may not always overlap with Moscow or Beijing’s, they will also most certainly never overlap with Western hegemony, a fact that serves to confront a common grievance among a growing number of nations worldwide well beyond just Russia and China.

*

Ulson Gunnar is a New York-based geopolitical analyst and writer especially for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

Featured image is from the author.

“Two plus two is five – if the party says so” (George Orwell)

Should anyone record the history of the 20th and 21st centuries, they may report that, while temperatures and sea levels were rising, the human sense of reality has been clouded by electronic system, including television, the internet and smart phones, by science fiction, virtual realities, public circuses, fake news, gratuitous hype and superlatives, overtaking common sense and the quest for protection of the Earth and the survival of the species.

As glaciers melt, sea levels rise at an accelerate rate and intense hurricanes and wildfires increase, by a factor of ~3 since early in the 20^th century, unthinkable consequences of runaway global warming and nuclear wars loom. A new Orwellian age of fake news, half-truths, cover-ups and false flags is becoming the order of the day. When $trillions are spent on weapons of  mass destruction instead of protecting nature and humanity from global heating, the hapless inhabitants of planet Earth are left with a non-choice between a nuclear winter and a greenhouse summer. When politicians lay flowers on the graves of soldiers and at the same time re-arming for future wars, or decline to endorse anti-nuclear treaties, or pledge token action on climate change while promoting new coal mines, can anyone believe it when they talk about a “future”? 

Hoodwinked by the half-truths of a conscience-free mainstream media, the inhabitants of suburbia international have become more interested in cricket ball tampering, Eurovision-type circuses and royal weddings, allowing the “powers that be” to proceed with policies leading toward ecocide and genocide.

It may or may not be understood, but is hardly reported by the mainstream media that, under a global temperature rise of +1.5C, which has already been reached over the continents (see this), sea level is committed to rise by more than 10 meters, flooding coastal plains, delta and low river valleys where the bulk of the world’s population live and grows food, and where major industrial centers and cities are located. This would include large parts of Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, Viet Nam, China, Philippines, Egypt, Italy, Netherlands, Germany, UK, southeast USA, and many other parts of the world, triggering large waves of migration. Although the precise time table is unclear, several meters sea level rise during the 21^st century is possible.

Source: author

Depending on the extent to which fossil fuel combustion and amplifying feedbacks take place, on current trajectories warming would rise toward and beyond +2 degree Celsius, amplified by the release of methane from the polar oceans and from melting permafrost. A rise of global temperatures to and above Pliocene (5.2-2.6 million years-ago) level (+2C to +3C) would result in 25+/-12 meters sea level rise and higher, changing the map of the world (see this).

It does it look as if the Empire is inclined to do much to arrest climate change. In so far as the rest of the world may decide to attempt to limit global warming, this would depend on: 

• Whether the rise in global temperature has already reached a point of no return?
• Whether current emission levels will be halted and negative emissions, namely carbon capture and storage, can be sequestered on a scale that can arrest and reverse global heating?
• Whether governments may undertake such measures despite pressure by the fossil fuel industry and their powerful lobbies?
• Would governments be able to divert the $trillion-scale funds from the military-industrial complex toward climate mitigation and adaptation?

On January 17, 1961, retiring President Dwight D. Eisenhower warned

“In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists, and will persist”. 

If leaders are unwilling or unable to convey the facts of climate change to the populations, what chance is there they would be prepared to elaborate on the enormous danger of a global nuclear conflict? Although in principle the advent of nuclear weapons is supposed to have rendered wars obsolete, at present no negotiations are being held between the big powers on limiting nuclear weapons or removing them from on-alert state. Given the absence of real ideological differences between west and east, both dominated by oligarchs, a rising rivalry based on oil and weapons is pushing the world toward a nuclear suicide pact by accident or design. 

The first casualty of war being the truth (Hiram Johnson), in the lack of leadership this role should fall on the Fourth Estate. Dominated by the rating and infotainment, much of the mainstream media has undertaken the role of prosecutor, judge and jury on behalf of dominant political lobbies. Rather than advocating peace, much of the press vilifies perceived enemies using derogatory language. No one wants to believe in conspiracy theories, such are propagated where it serves a political purpose, but history is full of examples of false flag attacks, some of which have led to war:

The realities of the world belong to the starved masses bombarded in distant regions, not to those who watch them on television. Should there be anyone to record the history of the 20^th and 21^st centuries, they may observe that, while temperatures and sea levels were rising, the human sense of veracity has been clouded by electronic systems, including television, internet, smart phones, Facebook, Twitter, public circuses, science fictions, fake news, virtual realities, hype and superlatives, overtaking the human common sense and the quest for survival. 

*

Dr Andrew Glikson, Earth and Paleo-climate science, ANU School of Anthropology and Archaeology, ANU Climate Change Institute, ANU Planetary Science Institute, Honorary Associate Professor, Geothermal Energy Centre of Excellence, University of Queensland. Dr. Andrew Glikson is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

We demand from Iran:

First, Iran must declare to the IAEA a full account of the prior military dimensions of its nuclear program, and permanently and verifiably abandon such work in perpetuity. [Israel and the U.S. get to keep our nukes but Iran must not keep theirs, and must instead do what these two rabidly hostile bully-Governments, Israel & U.S., say.]

Second, Iran must stop enrichment and never pursue plutonium reprocessing. This includes closing its heavy water reactor. [Maybe Iran will do that when Israel and U.S. stop threatening Iran, and when Israel stops having nukes while Iran doesn’t.]

Third, Iran must also provide the IAEA with unqualified access to all sites throughout the entire country. [The latest IAEA report on Iran actually says, “Since 16 January 2016 (JCPOA Implementation Day), the Agency has verified and monitored Iran’s implementation of its nuclear-related commitments.” Iran fulfills its obligations under the treaty, but now the U.S. does not (and insists that Europe must not).]

[Fourth,] Iran must end its proliferation of ballistic missiles and halt further launching or development of nuclear-capable missile systems. [Iran will do that when Israel and U.S. do.]

[Fifth,] Iran must release all U.S. citizens, as well as citizens of our partners and allies, each of them detained on spurious charges. [The U.S. dictates that the legal cases against those charged be terminated, and this demand assures that those cases will be fully prosecuted; so, Pompeo is hardly helping anyone by this arrogance.]

[Sixth,] Iran must end support to Middle East terrorist groups, including Lebanese Hizballah, Hamas, and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad. [All Islamic terrorism except against Israel comes from the Sunni-run nations that are allies of the U.S. against Shia-run Iran and that finance Al Qaeda and other such terrorist groups, all of which are Sunni and rabidly anti-Shia — and Iran is the leading Shia nation.]

[Seventh,] Iran must respect the sovereignty of the Iraqi Government and permit the disarming, demobilization, and reintegration of Shia militias. [ America overthrew Iraq’s Government in 2003 and now accuses Iran of violating “the sovereignty of the Iraqi Government.” Is Pompeo rehearsing for a role as Satan in some stupid play?]

[Eighth,] Iran must also end its military support for the Houthi militia and work towards a peaceful political settlement in Yemen. [The U.S., and two of its Sharia-law Sunni royal allies, Saudi Arabia and UAE, are bombing the hell out of and starving Yemen, and demand that Houthis and other Shia in Yemen stop their resisting that.]

[Ninth,] Iran must withdraw all forces under Iranian command throughout the entirety of Syria. [Iran might consider doing that after the U.S. and its fundamentalist-Sunni allies stop their invasion-occupation of sovereign Syrian territory.]

[Tenth,] Iran, too, must end support for the Taliban and other terrorists in Afghanistan and the region, and cease harboring senior al-Qaida leaders. [Pompeo lies: the Taliban are fundamentalist Sunnis who were trained and armed by Saudi Arabia and the United States and therefore are enemies of Iran; he’s like the wife-beater who demands that someone who isn’t wife-beating must cease wife-beating.]

[Eleventh,] Iran, too, must end the IRG Qods Force’s support for terrorists and militant partners around the world. [The Quds Force were created during the 1980s Iran-Iraq war in order to protect Iranians against Saddam Hussein’s invasions when Saddam was supported by the U.S. Government in order to re-conquer Iran in 1980. Iran will not take orders from the nation, America, that overthrew Iran’s democratically elected Government in 1953, and that then backed Saddam’s attempt to reconquer Iran in the 1980s. The U.S. Government lies constantly about Iran.]

[Twelfth,] And too, Iran must end its threatening behavior against its neighbors – many of whom are U.S. allies. This certainly includes its threats to destroy Israel, and its firing of missiles into Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. It also includes threats to international shipping and destructive – and destructive cyberattacks. [These are just more lies and distortions.]

That list is pretty long, but if you take a look at it, these are 12 very basic requirements. The length of the list is simply a scope of the malign behavior of Iran. We didn’t create the list, they did.

*

Not a month goes by without Canada demonstrating in many ways that it is a strong supporter of the neoliberal imperial agenda of the – take your choice – one percenters, military-industrial-financial complex, the deep state.  Since the last report, many things have lined up with U.S. desires for global hegemony.

Russia

First off was another politically oriented attack against Russia – if you can’t get them on the false flag Skripal affair, attack them somewhere else.  In this instance the Trudeau government “condemned” the Kerch bridge connecting mainland Russia with Crimean Russia.   The road section was completed in two and a half years and was officially opened by Vladimir Putin earlier this month.  This follows on the example of their imperial mother, as the UK also condemned the bridge while lying about the annexation of Crimea to Russia.

Along with this are reports of UN forces working on the Ukrainian front lines in the Donbas with possible deaths or injuries to US and Canadian personnel.  With nothing being reported in the mainstream media (MSM)  this indicates that it may not have happened as it would be a great cause for some more anti-Russian hysteria; or maybe they want it silenced as the Canadian forces are supposed to be there simply on a training mission.

Israel

How pathetic – Canada’s lack of critical reasoned response to the Israeli murder of unarmed protesting Gaza prisoners –  interesting how a change of word paints a different picture.  Canada did respond indirectly through the CBC, its MSM branch, calling the murders to be a result of “clashes” and “violence” even though it was demonstrably a non-violent protest on the part of the Palestinians.  To add context, a CBC correspondent showed a simple outline map of Gaza, describing the border as a 60 km “fence” to keep out any “invasion” from Gaza.

The missing context is the absolute control Israel exerts over all aspects of life in Gaza and the use of its massive military to keep the Palestinians under constant military threat from the sea, land, and air.   The other part of the missing context of course is the whole history of the colonial settler actions of the Jewish people, a position Canada is familiar with in its own relations with its indigenous people.

Korea

As with all things military, Canada plays a subordinate role to the U.S. while cloaking its imperial role in terms of “peace and security”.  Canada has taken on the No. 2 position for the command of UN forces technically still at war with North Korea.  It goes beyond Korea as the new commander also stretches that role out “throughout the Asia-Pacific region”  – an interesting case of ‘mission creep’.

Again Canadians as a whole remain ignorant of the context.  There are many historical works on the Korean war indicating that it was essentially a civil war, with the generally approved forces of Kim Il-sung attempting to unite a country divided arbitrarily by the U.S. (with Soviet Union acquiescence) in its attempts to contain China and Russia in the nascent Cold War.

If Canada truly wanted peace in the region it would unilaterally declare its part of the war finished, withdraw its forces, and then work critically towards the U.S. in order to stop their threats and antagonism towards North Korea – and to withdraw their forces and nuclear weapons bases from the region.

Saudi Arabia versus Venezuela

Canada retains strong military and financial ties to Saudi Arabia  and supports their attitudes against Yemen and Iran – in part by supplying them with billions of dollars of armoured vehicles.  Even if the vehicles are not used directly in combat, it does release other monies and materials to be used in the Saudi’s illegal war against Yemen and support its rhetorical boasting against Iran.

On the other hand Canada has decided it won’t recognize the recent election in Venezuela, probably one of the most scrutinized in Latin America.   Apparently they say it was rigged and undemocratic even though it has one of the more foolproof election processes in the region.  Trudeau actually admitted that he was stopping Canada’s own attempts at electoral reform because they did not suit the purposes of his Liberal government, another nice double standard.

Of course, the real sticker here is that Venezuela has oil….but so does Saudi Arabia?  The essential difference being that the theocratic monarchic misogynist head-chopping Saudi’s sell their oil using the petro-dollar and are part and parcel of the U.S. attempts at global hegemony for their financial elite.  Venezuela on the other hand does not support U.S. global hegemony, has been under sanctions for a long time, has had one pro-U.S. coup defeated by Chavez, and sells it oil for other currencies.

Canada in its subordinate imperator role (see all the above) has wisely decided to limit its consular contact – a great way for a country wanting “peace and security” through negotiations (a la Israel) to play its proper role.

Climate and pipelines

This is a domestic issue that reflects a global reality.  Canada theoretically supports the Paris climate agreement, yet at the same time is pushing for a dilbit pipeline (dilbit is a combination of tar sands and a solvent to carry it) from the interior to the coast.  This demonstrates a double standard on two fronts.  First is the climate change denial and rhetorical abuses of the slogan calling for both the pipeline and more jobs (as always) against the scientifically known results of spewing more carbon (and other pollutants) into the atmosphere and waterways of Canada and thus the world.  In the process the indigenous people get screwed again, as a significant portion of the pipeline runs through their unceded territory and through their historical fishing and harvesting territories.

In sum, Canada continues its recalcitrant and incorrigible actions against countries deemed to be enemies by the U.S. imperium.   The maternal influence is strong and is supported by its subservience to its aggressive sibling.

*

Jim Miles is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

Sofia is proceeding from the assumption that any de-facto revival of the South Stream pipeline would make it a pivotal player in the New Cold War, and contrary to most people’s initial reactions, Moscow might actually be interested.

Bulgarian President Rumen Radev told Russia’s famous business publication Kommersant that his country wants to receive direct energy shipments from Russia through an undersea pipeline that he tentatively called “Bulgarian Stream” and which bears no difference whatsoever to the “South Stream” project that Sofia itself helped scuttle back in late 2014. Since that time, Turkey and its Turkish Stream pipeline have replaced Bulgaria and the South Stream as Russia’s newest southern-focused energy corridor, but Sofia appears to be having second thoughts about the wisdom of obstructing Moscow’s megaproject in order to please its backers in Brussels and Washington at the time, hence the attempt to revive this project in everything but name.

For reasons of national security amid deteriorating EU-Turkish ties that will likely remain on their downward trajectory for the foreseeable future, Bulgaria would rather receive direct energy exports from Russia through “Bulgarian Stream” than Turkish Stream, which if ever actualized would make it one of only three direct pipeline customers after Poland discontinues its purchase of Russian gas in 2022 like planned and Russia accordingly phases out if trans-Ukrainian pipelines. More costly but “politically convenient” US LNG is expected to make up the EU’s difference of supplies by that time, as well as the extra resources that Russia will export through Nord Stream II & Turkish Stream, both of which will directly connect to Germany & Turkey and make them important hubs for Northern/Western and Southern/Central Europe, respectively.

Bulgaria, despite being a “small power”, wants to carve out an ultra-strategic niche for itself in Europe’s energy security by playing in the “big leagues” with these two Great Powers, betting on Brussels and Berlin’s dislike of Ankara to get them to be more lenient when it comes to enforcing EU regulations on any prospective pipeline deal between Sofia and Moscow (unlike the last time around with South Stream). Should this come to pass, then Bulgaria – and not Turkey – would become the ultimate “gatekeeper” for Russian energy supplies to the rest of the Balkans and Central Europe (Hungary), thereby enabling the EU to manage Turkey’s energy influence by restricting it to Southern Europe via the TANAP-TAP projects.

In fact, even that might be “balanced” out if Brussels gets its way with the East Mediterranean Pipeline (EMP) from “Israel” to Italy that the author briefly touched upon in a January 2017 analysis about Cyprus and which political analyst Adam Garrie recently talked much more about in one of his latest pieces. When framed in this manner, the EU’s American-pressured policy of “energy diversification” takes on a new dimension by actually “encouraging” “Bulgarian Stream” so as to prevent any overreliance on Turkish-transiting supplies, especially in the event that a “New Détente” is reached. Altogether, the EU would in theory like to receive gas from Russia (Nord Stream II, “Bulgarian Stream”), Azerbaijan (via the Turkish-transiting TANAP-TAP projects), “Israel” (EMP), and the US (LNG), with the possibility existing for Qatari LNG to “fill in the gaps”.

By being one of the EU’s two energy interfaces with multipolar Russia, Bulgaria hopes to be able to achieve an outsized geostrategic importance by leveraging this to its ultimate benefit in the New Cold War in order to finally become a “Balkan Power”, though not in the traditional sense of this concept. As the Warsaw-led “Three Seas Initiative’s” (TSI) southeastern-most member, Bulgaria could “balance” pro-American Poland’s institutional Russophobia in order to make this “bloc” mildly multipolar, especially when considering the TSI’s very close Silk Road relations with China. This would go well with Russia’s existing outreach efforts to the transnational organization’s four “Austro-Hungarian” states on which its Croatian rapprochement is predicated.

Bulgaria wants to replace Serbia as the “object” of “East-West” rivalry between Russia on the one hand and the EU & the US on the other despite already being a member of the latter two’s main institutions (EU & NATO) by attracting attention to its newfound energy significance. Moreover, Bulgaria is a coastal state that already enjoys a lot of tourism from “both sides”, so that’s an additional “selling point” in its “international attractiveness”. What works against its envisioned geostrategic role, however, is that the West already has predominant influence over it and that this could be exploited at any time to provoke a bilateral crisis in Bulgaria’s relations with Russia so as to obstruct the shipment of its “Bulgarian Stream” supplies to the rest of its Balkan and Central European partners.

There’s really no getting around this point, however, since Russia would either directly or indirectly rely on Bulgaria as a transit state in this respect, especially considering that the Republic of Macedonia is no longer a viable option after its rolling regime change succeeded in removing multipolar-friendly Prime Minister Grueveski and replaced him with the Soros-compliant Zaev. At the same time, though, Russia and Turkey might have had an implicit understanding with one another that the latter would be the main “gatekeeper” of Russian gas to the region and not Bulgaria, meaning that this “gentleman’s agreement” won’t be abrogated unless the EU made it all but impossible for this plan to go ahead, which is unlikely because Brussels nevertheless needs Ankara to supply Southern Europe via TANAP-TAP and can’t cut it out of the continent completely.

At the end of the day, it’s difficult to say whether “Bulgarian Stream” will ever go ahead or not because its fate rests on two factors that evade the public eye, being firstly whether a Russian-Turkish implicit agreement on Moscow facilitating Ankara’s energy “gatekeeper” role in the region exists and secondly whether the EU would prefer for Southeastern Europe to “balance” its Turkish-transiting supplies through Russian-originating ones. Related to the second-mentioned point, the EU isn’t an entirely independent actor in this regard because it’s already proven its strategic weakness in going along with the US’ anti-Russian sanctions despite this being contradictory to its interests, though any developing Transatlantic rift over the Iran deal might provide a chance for increasing this project’s prospects.

Because of these uncertainties, it’s impossible to say at this moment whether “Bulgarian Stream” will in fact ever be built, but at the same time and considering its strategic attractiveness to both the EU and Russia, it’s equally impossible to entirely discount it either.

*

This article was originally published on Eurasia Future.

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

Featured image is from PravdaReport.

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Long-time CIA Asset Named as FBI’s Spy on Trump Campaign

By Bill Van Auken, May 21, 2018

The naming of Stefan Halper as the individual sent by the FBI to spy on the Trump campaign during the 2016 election campaign has further inflamed the political warfare raging within the US state apparatus and political establishment. Halper is a long-time CIA asset with deep ties to US and British intelligence.

Back to the Future? Bolton, Trump and Iranian “Regime Change”: “Splinter the Iranian State into Component Parts”

By Gareth Porter, May 21, 2018

Bolton was part of the powerful neoconservative faction of national security officials in the George W Bush administration that had a plan for supporting regime change in Iran, not much different from the one Bolton is reportedly pushing now. But it was a crackbrained scheme that involved the Mujahideen-e-Khalq (MEK) exiled terrorist organisation that never had Bush’s support.

Facebook and The Atlantic Council Unite: Now Social Media Giant Serves NATO’s Agenda

By Bryan Macdonald, May 21, 2018

Facebook has engaged a think tank funded by weapons manufacturers, branches of the US military and Middle-Eastern monarchies to safeguard the democratic process. It’s akin to hiring arsonists to run the fire brigade.

Hypersonic Technology: How Russia and China Gained a Strategic Advantage

By Federico Pieraccini, May 21, 2018

The United States, China and Russia have in recent years increased their efforts to equip their armed forces with such highly destructive missiles and vehicles seen in the previous article. Putin’s recent speech in Moscow reflects this course of direction by presenting a series of weapons with hypersonic characteristics, as seen with the Avangard and the Dagger.

The War the National Rifle Association (NRA) Is Waging against American Kids

By Prof Rodrigue Tremblay, May 21, 2018

American schools have increasingly become shooting galleries in a war that the National Rifle Association (NRA) is winning, with the help of venal politicians and clueless Supreme Court Justices, against American students and teachers.

The Bayer-Monsanto Merger: Empowering a Life-Destroying Cartel

By Michael Welch, Dr. Vandana Shiva, Nick Meyer, and Ellen Brown, May 20, 2018

The U.S. Department of Justice recently cleared the path for the German pharmaceutical and chemical company Bayer to merge with U.S. based agricultural giant Monsanto in a take-over deal worth more than $60 billion.

It is our right to transfer the Arabs … The Arabs should go!” – Yosef Weitz, leading Zionist figure, director of the Land and Afforestation Department of the Jewish National Fund (JNF), 1940

The Arabs will have to go, but one needs an opportune moment for making it happen, such as a war.” – David Ben-Gurion, 1937

The main thing is, first and foremost, to hit them hard. Not just one hit… but many painful [hits], so that the price will be unbearable. … To bring them to a state of panic that everything is collapsing … fear that everything will collapse … The world will say nothing. The world will say that we are defending ourselves.” – Current Prime Minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, 2001

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While Israel claims “security” and “defense of its border” to justify the recent mass murder in Gaza, the historical record of Israel’s founding fathers and government planners paints a different picture entirely. Aware that an “injustice was unavoidable” for their state to be established, the early Zionist settlers adopted a position of pure hegemony towards the Palestinians — which continues to this day. They had to be “shown the power of Israel” through the “use of force” until they were “compelled to concede” and “submit” to Israeli rule.

Yet, according to President Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, the recent move of the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem marks the start of “the journey to peace,” with “a strong America recognizing the truth.”

“What a glorious day!” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said of the event, telling Trump “You have made history.”

Indeed — while legitimizing Israel’s colonization of Jerusalem, as well as the massacre in Gaza only miles away, all while proclaiming a dedication to “peace” and “truth” — the event perfectly encapsulates what the U.S. really means when it speaks of “peace,” and the “truth” of what policy towards the Palestinians really looks like.

The “peace” of settler-colonialism

The Embassy move coincided with the 70th anniversary of the forceful expulsion of the indigenous Palestinian population from their homelands by European immigrants and the settler-colonialism that created the state of Israel on top of it.

Describing the situation in 1918, Israel’s founding father David Ben-Gurion explained:

There is no solution to the question of relations between Arabs and Jews. … And we must recognize this situation. … We as a nation want this country to be ours; the Arabs, as a nation, want this country to be theirs.”

Albert Hourani, a distinguished historian at Oxford, in 1946 further explained that “no room can be made in Palestine for a second nation except by dislodging or exterminating the first.” Chaim Weizmann, soon to be the first president of Israel, agreed. According to a contemporary chronicler:

[Weizmann was] the first witness who has frankly and openly admitted that the issue is not between right and wrong but between the greater and lesser injustice. Injustice is unavoidable and we have to decide whether it is better to be unjust to the Arabs of Palestine or the Jews.”

This premeditated injustice is the reason Palestinians refer to Israel’s birthday as the “Nakba” — Arabic for “catastrophe.” It denotes the time when they were brutalized by Zionist settlers who justified their actions based upon past injustices committed against them by someone else, as an abused child justifies growing up to become the abuser of their own children.

The Embassy move made by “a strong America” was also a “recognition of the truth” of a longstanding Israeli policy, now fully endorsed and legitimized by U.S. unilateralism, of taking over and colonizing East Jerusalem, which began immediately following its seizure by Israel in 1967.

In the declassified record, we find that, as early as 1971, CIA analysts were describing how Israel was “undertaking a number of programs within the city that are clearly designed to make Israeli control irreversible.” Israel’s position that it sought full control of all of Jerusalem — “adopted immediately following the 1967 war” — was evidenced as “the Israelis have continued to make it abundantly clear [that] they have no intention of giving up control of the city.”

Read |  The declassified CIA memo on Jerusalem

Click here to read.

This is significant, the CIA analysts noted, because “the status of Jerusalem constitutes a stumbling block on which the entire peace effort could founder.” The Israeli actions therefore have “further complicated the issue” and ensured that achieving peace would be impossible, as indeed it was.

During all of this, the U.S. continuously voiced its dedication to “peace” and diplomatic resolution.

Carrying on the tradition, Trump on Monday said to the embassy ceremony that the United States “remains fully committed to facilitating a lasting peace agreement,” at the same time the U.S. was legitimizing a decades-long occupation of Jerusalem that effectively nullified any slim hope that might have remained for a negotiated settlement.

Trump’s brash actions are really just a more honest face displaying what the U.S. and Israel have always pursued: full Palestinian capitulation and submission. The legitimate grievances of the indigenous population are irrelevant; what matters is the rule of force. “The strong do what they can, and the weak suffer what they must,” as Thucydides’ old maxim goes.

A “Glorious Day” in Israel; a massacre in Gaza

As Israel was celebrating its “glorious day,” the happy faces of wealth and privilege of the U.S. and Israeli elite were juxtaposed to an Israeli massacre in Gaza only miles away, in a squalid ghetto filled with resentment and despair.

The Palestinian refugees living in Gaza (70 percent of its population) have endured 12 long years of imprisonment and blockade within one of the most densely populated areas in the world. Denied basic human rights such as freedom of movement, Gaza is essentially a “giant open prison camp,” as former British Prime Minister David Cameron described it. According to former Israeli National Security Council Director Giora Eiland,

it is the “biggest concentration camp on earth.”

The enclave’s infrastructure is in collapse, due in part to repeated Israeli aggressions, colloquially referred to as “mowing the lawn” by the Israeli military. The last campaign saw the deaths of over 2,300 Palestinians — nearly 70 percent of whom were civilians (as per UN report) — at Israel’s hands.

Israeli officials explained their reasons for imposing the siege. It is meant to keep Gaza’s economy “on the brink of collapse,” to make sure that it is “functioning at the lowest level possible” short of tipping it over the edge into a “humanitarian crisis.” That way, Israel wouldn’t have to allow “residents of Gaza to live normal lives,” as former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert admitted.

Another facet of being “totally subject to the decisions and policies of the Israeli government,” as Israeli human rights groups describe living in Gaza, is having over 90 percent of the water contaminated and “unfit for human consumption.” Since over half of Gaza’s population is under 18 years old, this means that “innocent human beings, most of them young, are slowly being poisoned by the water they drink,” as explained by Harvard political economist Sara Roy, the foremost academic expert on Gaza.

Palestinians in Gaza are trapped within an unremitting state of humiliation and agony.

Indeed, in 1948, Israeli government experts assessed that the Palestinian refugees would either have to assimilate elsewhere or they “would be crushed, … some of them would die and most of them would turn into human dust in the waste of society, and join the most impoverished classes in the Arab countries.”

Instead of standing idly by, Palestinians living in Gaza have decided to protest against their abuse. They decided to set up tents near the fence and gradually and peacefully move closer, in assertion of their internationally recognized right to return to the homes they were displaced from, in what is now Israel.

Israeli officials from the highest military and political echelons responded by deploying uniformed snipers to the fence with orders to shoot live ammunition against the demonstrators, regardless of their being unarmed or peaceful. The result was a bloodbath.

On Monday alone, Israel orchestrated “the highest number of both fatalities and injuries” since the protest began, killing at least 60 Palestinians, including eight children (one girl) and a health worker. 2,770 others were injured, 1,359 by live ammunition, with 130 others in critical condition.

Altogether, since March 30, 104 Palestinians have been killed, 12 of whom were children, while a staggering 12,600+ have been injured. No Israelis have been killed, with only one soldier being “lightly wounded.”

In short, Israel has been orchestrating a massacre, a “horrific slaughter” of “senseless violence” and “unabated brutality against civilians” meant “to stifle civil unrest,” which “has nothing to do with defense,” as U.S. Representative John Yarmuth (D-KY) wrote in outrage.

Because of Israel’s calculated policy, reads a statement by the UN’s Human Rights Commissioner:

it seems anyone is liable to be shot dead or injured: women, children, press personnel, first-responders, bystanders, and [anyone] at almost any point up to 700m from the fence.”

The reason for the slaughter: Submitting to Israeli rule

Putting official justifications and rhetoric aside, the real reasons for the carnage are not hard to understand.

As the early Zionists understood, an “injustice was unavoidable” if their project was to succeed. The founding of Israel was thereafter based on the rejection of the injustice at its inception, on its “right to exist.”

The abused Palestinians, who naturally reject having their homes stolen from underneath them, must, therefore, be crushed and forever prevented from exercising self-determination, from becoming strong enough to push their legitimate grievances.

The basic characteristic was described by Ben-Gurion just before the country’s founding. He testified before the United Nations Special Committee on Palestine that his approach to the Palestinian Arabs would be one of pure hegemony, where he would “tell them, here is a decision in our favor. We are right. We want to sit down with you and settle the question amicably. If your answer is no, then we will use force against you.”

The reason for this attitude, according to historian Charles D. Smith of the University of Arizona, was that, in Ben-Gurion’s mind, “the Arabs denied Israel’s right to exist,” so, therefore “they had to be shown the power of Israel time and again until they were compelled to concede.”

In other words, “Once they learned that opposition to Zionism was futile, they would ultimately accept it and submit to Jewish rule.”

Faced with peaceful demonstrations opposing the misery of Israeli rule, demanding the right to return to the homeland that Israel claims for itself, Israel, therefore, responded by “using force against you” since “your answer is no” to the question of submission to Israeli designs.

The protesting Palestinians “would be crushed” and “some of them would die” until they accepted their fate of being relegated to “the waste of society” in “the most impoverished classes in the Arab” world; they “had to be shown the power of Israel … until they were compelled to concede.”

Despite this inhumanity, the protesters have offered an inspiring display of courage and strength. To refrain from taking up arms or launching rockets in the face of such relentless brutality and carnage, to protest for their just right to a life of dignity and freedom when they know that it will likely cost them their very lives and limbs, is an awe-inspiring demonstration of self-sacrifice and commitment to justice.

For us in the United States and the West, Palestinian sacrifice must not be in vain. It is our responsibility to stop our government(s) from enabling this horror, lest our foot-dragging and inaction carry on for so long that “most of them … turn into human dust in the waste of society,” right before our very eyes.

*

Steven Chovanec is an independent journalist and analyst based in Chicago, Illinois. He has a bachelor’s degree in International Studies and Sociology from Roosevelt University, and has written for numerous outlets such as The Hill, TeleSur, MintPress News, Consortium News, and others. His writings can be found at undergroundreports.blogspot.com, follow him on Twitter @stevechovanec.

Featured image: The hills above Hebron. (Photo EAPPI/Alex)

Hebron is the largest city in the West Bank and perhaps one of the most unique. About 800 Israeli settlers live in its centre, under the protection of a similar number of soldiers. This has resulted in the Israeli army closing off large sections of the city centre to Palestinians. Harsh restrictions have also been imposed on residents of adjacent areas.

Settlements are illegal under international law. The Fourth Geneva Convention, applicable during military occupation, states that the occupying power “shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territories it occupies”.

Freedom of Movement in Hebron

At the centre of the city is the burial site of Abraham and Sarah, Isaac, Rebecca and Jacob. Judaism ranks Hebron as the second-holiest city after Jerusalem, while Islam regards it as one of the four holy cities.

Sunset in Hebron City. Photo EAPPI/Alex

Article 12 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights states;

“Everyone lawfully within the territory of a State shall, within that territory, have the right to liberty of movement”.

Shuhada Street

Once the city’s main thoroughfare, Shuhada street in Hebron’s old city was designated a Closed Military Zone (CMZ) in 2015, though it had already been closed to Palestinian traffic for many years before that.

Shuhadda Street, Hebron. Photo EAPPI/Miles

Hebron’s old city has been under Israeli military control since 1997, when an agreement, intended to be temporary, divided control of the city between the Palestinian Authority and Israel.

Israeli military post atop a Palestinian home in Hebron’s old city. Photo EAPPI/Alex

Palestinian residents of Shuhada Street are not permitted to drive there, no matter how old or infirm, even to bring heavy items to their homes. But Israeli settlers are free to drive along it, or take buses that only Israelis may use.

Shuhadda Street, Hebron. Photo EAPPI/Miles

Military Checkpoints in Hebron

Within the small central area of Hebron there are some 20 checkpoints. These significantly disrupt the day-to-day lives of Palestinians.

Military Checkpoint in Hebron. Photo EAPPI/Miles

This pressure on their social, economic and cultural life is such that more and more feel compelled to leave.

Breaking the Silence in Hebron

In 2004 a group of Israeli soldiers who served in Hebron created an exhibition out of testimonies and photos of their time there.  They wanted to show Israelis the reality of what they had seen.

Breaking the Silence tour, Shuhadda Street, Hebron. Photo EAPPI

The soldiers created an organisation called Breaking the Silence. The name reflects their desire to speak the truth about what young Israelis experienced while serving their country. They have built up a large library of testimonies from serving and former soldiers.

When asked why they do this their spokeswoman says; “The occupation crosses moral red lines”.

Some of the testimonies make for harrowing reading.

The Israeli government is attempting to suppress Breaking the Silence. It challenges the confidentiality of the testimonies, seeking to undermine their credibility. The government also takes legal steps against them, such as blocking funding and preventing them speaking in schools and other institutions. The pressure on Breaking the Silence has been increasing, and individuals have been attacked and threatened personally.

Another week in the Donald Trump presidency, another handful of days so stuffed full of sordid and highly complicated stories that even journalists have trouble keeping track of what’s going on.

But the thread tying all the latest news together — from Trump lawyer Michael Cohen‘s sundry exploits, to Trump’s ongoing presidential profiteering, to the Russia investigation — is corruption. The Trump administration will surely go down as one of the most — if not the most — rotten in American history.

Let’s roll this most recent bit of tape. Ronan Farrow, who has become one of the signature investigative reporters of the Trump presidency, revealed at The New Yorker why somebody leaked the notorious financial reports of Michael Cohen showing that he had been given fantastically large sums of money from AT&T, Novartis, and a Russian oligarch-connected LLC. This information came from a “suspicious activity report” (SAR), which is something a bank files with the Treasury Department when they suspect something fishy is going on with a customer.

It turns out the source is a law enforcement official, and he released the SAR after he discovered that two more SARs detailing $3 million of additional similar transactions had somehow vanished from the Treasury Department’s database. The source told Farrow that he feared that someone within Treasury was withholding the documents for political reasons, and thus released the one he had.

The precise meaning of this revelation is as yet unclear. But let me suggest a reasonable tentative conclusion: corruption. AT&T and Novartis have already admitted they were paying Cohen personally for “insights” into the Trump administration, particularly regarding, respectively, a huge proposed merger with Time Warner and health-care policy. Given that Cohen has zero experience with antitrust or health-care law and the scale of the secret payments, it’s nearly beyond question they were really hoping to purchase political influence. And as for the disappearance of the SARs, Trump already straight-up admitted on national television that he fired then-FBI Director James Comey to stifle the Russia investigation, so obstruction of justice is clearly not a charge the president fears.

Obviously Cohen is legally innocent until proven guilty. But let’s have a whisper of common sense here. It’s not exactly a stretch to figure that the other SARs probably contain something similar to the first one, or that someone very well could be attempting to quash the Russia investigation, as Trump has already tried to do. (Oh, and a Qatari investor recently alleged that Cohen hit him up for a $1 million bribe in December 2016.)

That brings me to Trump’s bizarre about-face on the Chinese phone manufacturer ZTE, in which he promised to help restore the company’s jobs after being hit with U.S. fines and sanctions. Are we really to believe that this has nothing to do with China loaning $500 million to a huge Trump-branded development in Indonesia days beforehand? It simply beggars belief — indeed, there is practically no other comprehensible explanation.

Then there is the Russia investigation. As David Klion writes, the thing to remember about “Russiagate” (an unfortunate appellation, but one which seems to have stuck) is that Russia as such is only an incidental part of the story. Nearly all the major players are American, and if Russian efforts to influence the election did actually succeed to some degree, it’s only because America’s democratic institutions are rotten nearly to the core. Nations meddle in each other’s elections all the time, for good reasons and bad. The United States has done it dozens of times, and often immensely more aggressively than anything Vladimir Putin allegedly did in 2016. The remarkable thing was that such relatively moderate and cheap efforts actually made any sort of difference — and in such a rich and powerful nation.

One important reason why Trump was able to become president is because his business career was not derailed at any of the several points in which he allegedly committed crimes. He could have been finished on one of the dozen-plus occasions he was credibly accused of sexual harassment or assault, or when he illegally discriminated against black tenants in his properties, or for the Trump University scam, or for an illegal loan to one of his casinos, or about 10 other things. But instead, he was actually coddled and lifted up by the New York establishment.

And he was far from alone. It turns out that when you stop enforcing the law against rich people, a seething plasma of corruption tends to engulf the national political system. Perhaps in the future we can start applying laws to everyone, even the wealthy and powerful.

*

Featured image is from the author.

It wasn’t just the news that the US had pulled out of the Iran Deal – that died when the White House opened its doors once again to John Bolton, a challenger to Kissinger’s status as the most unhinged sociopath in Washington history. It was the conditions drafted for a post-Iran deal world that really turned heads: that European, Russian and Chinese firms have 90-180 days to divest from Iran or meet the wrath of US financial penalties.

Without the secondary sanctions which Bolton and co have threatened on Europe the US breaking the agreement means very little. US trade with Iran only came to about $200 million last year, whereas Iran-EU trade grew to represent €20 billion. EU exports to Iran grew at an annual rate of 31.5 percent and imports grew 83.9 percent during 2016-17. From 2013 to 2017, the annual growth rate for imports was a staggering 89.7 percent, and growth for exports was 18.7 percent. For a largely economically stagnating continent, the new Iranian market comprising 80 million people is a big deal.

It’s important to make the distinction that the US did not formally withdraw from the JCPOA as most media outlets have lazily described it. The Iran deal is an agreement, not a treaty, and no mechanism for withdrawal is in place. The US simply chose to break the rules of an agreement they signed just three years ago.

To bow to American economic threats would be to enable the undermining of international law and punish those who have played along with good faith. According to all independent research, and not just Benjamin Netanyahu’s mad drawings of cartoon bombs, Iran have adhered to all the terms of the agreement and thus don’t possess the means to launch a nuclear weapon, unlike Benjamin Netanyahu, who possesses the world’s third largest stockpile.

The EU have stood up to an aggressive Trump administration once this year and they should do it again. It may carry risks, but the alternative is to throw away sovereignty. Conservative commentators argue that it’s ‘not worth starting a trade war with the US’; the reality is that we’re already in one.

Legal protections for EU firms who want to continue trading with Iran are possible but a last resort. An appeal to the World Trade Organisation would be fruitless as they merely serve to uphold US financial hegemony at all costs. When Third World countries who are burdened with false debts or countries bullied with ill-conceived sanctions look to the WTO for assistance they are met with the response of Chief Wiggum from the Simpsons: ‘ the law is Powerless to *help* you, not punish you.’

This is a political crisis, and demands a political solution. The EU could promise to compensate firms who face US fines through selectively lowering Iranian tariffs. The most obvious Hail Mary solution, however, would be to reintroduce a blocking statute against the sanctions, similar to the one used by the EU to continue trading with Cuba in the 90s.

.@JunckerEU #Sofia #Iran “Need to protect our companies, notably SMEs. @EU_Commission will start work tomorrow on amending the Blocking Statute to include US Iran sanctions. Aim is to get it in place before sanctions kick in on 6 August. We need to do it and we will do it.” pic.twitter.com/ZB3ZPVGc53

— Mina Andreeva (@Mina_Andreeva) May 17, 2018

This would fire the starting gun for a full-on trade war, but the only other option would be to allow the sovereignty of Europe to be undermined and the US to take the seat of George Bush-era aggressive global dominance once again.

The EU could cogently claim that their hand was forced, even if they choose to go down a ‘drastic’ route. Ultimately the only errant party in this affair is the US; they can go back on the agreement if they choose, but they have no right to set the document on fire.

Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif has indicated that if the EU can give decent reassurances on the continuation of EU trade then business could continue almost as normal. This whole affair could be reduced to a simple tantrum of a fracturing empire if the EU decide to show some steel.

Good and substantive meetings with counterparts in Beijing & Moscow; heading to meet with EU High Rep and E3 FMs in Brussels. Will soon determine how P4+1 can guarantee Iran’s benefits under the #JCPOA, and preserve this unique achievement of diplomacy. pic.twitter.com/qH51vd7Dby

— Javad Zarif (@JZarif) May 14, 2018

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Featured image is from the author.

A new report published by Drone Wars UK reveals that over the last five years the number of countries actively using armed drones has quadrupled. Drone Wars: The Next Generation demonstrates that from just three states (US, UK and Israel) in 2013, there are now a further nine who have deployed armed drones in a variety of roles including for armed conflict and counter-terror operations. The report also shows that a further nine states are very close to having armed drone capabilities, almost doubling the number of existing users. To this number, we have added five non-state actors who have used armed drones, which will take the number of active operators of armed drones to over 25 in the next few years.

A number of studies by think tanks and NGOS over the last few years have shown that military drone technology has spread to over 90 countries, however, the ability to use armed drones has until recently remained in the hands of only a relatively few states. Some media reports, perhaps egged on by special interest groups, can give the impression that the skies are already filled with armed drones from many countries, ready to strike at any moment and so there is little to be done. However, while the numbers of countries operating armed drones is increasing, we are not yet at the point of being unable to control the proliferation and use of these systems.

Drone Wars has sifted through much rumour, hearsay and propaganda from various countries to find out exactly who has manufactured, exported or acquired armed drones, and in what ways these drones have been put to use. We believe our report gives a clear picture of the reality of armed drone proliferation and the implications for global peace and security.

Click image at the right to read report.

The report also looks at the international mechanisms under which the export of armed drones is controlled and discusses whether they are fit for purpose.  The report ends with a call to the UK government to support a new initiative, developing under the auspices of the UN agency UNIDIR, to build a multilateral process to address the concerns around the proliferation and use of armed drones.

Who has armed drones?

As is well known, China has sold armed drones to a number of countries around the world. Since 2013, Nigeria, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, UAE and Egypt have begun operating armed Chinese drones whilst another four countries (Jordan, Myanmar, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan) are thought to have recently taken possession of, or be in discussion about the sale of, Chinese drones. These Wing Loong and CH series drones are cheaper and less powerful than US Predators and Reapers.  As, according to their specifications, they are not capable of delivering a payload of at least 500 kg to a range of at least 300 km they do not fall into the category of systems that would be refused under Category 1 of the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR) as the US systems do.

The Second Generation of armed drone operators

Turkey, Pakistan and Iran are actively using their own manufactured drones. Iran has, it seems, supplied Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis with armed drones while ISIS and the PKK have attached small explosives to off-the-shelf drones. Turkey are thought to be concluding deal with Qatar and the Ukraineand South Korea are very close to beginning production of their own armed drones.

As for the larger countries that one might expect to have already deployed armed drones, such as Russia and India, they still appear to be some distance from producing workable models. Moreover, the European countries who operate unarmed versions of US Predators and Reapers have been unable, until now, to convince the US to allow the export of armed versions. Italy and France look set to arm their Reapers in the near future, while Germany will take delivery of Israeli Heron drones that they can reportedly arm. Meanwhile several cross-European projects are underway to develop indigenous armed drones within the EU.

Imminent operators of armed drones 

Many of the states who have employed armed drones have done so to monitor and strike against armed groups within their own country. Nigeria against Boko Haram, Turkey against the PKK, Egypt against Sinai Province, Iraq against ISIS and Pakistan against al-Qaeda and associated groups. This is over half of the new (state) operators of armed drones and highlights how the ‘war on terror’ is facilitating the spread of this particular military technology. The ability of military drones to gather intelligence from hard-to-access areas and monitor individuals of interest and strike at a moment’s notice has proved attractive option for dealing with internally armed groups. However, given the US precedent of using drones for targeted killings, this raises questions about whether the spread of drones will help or hinder the rule of law in this area. Other countries have used their armed drones in extraterritorial conflict, such as Saudi Arabia, UAE and Iran, and UAE, Egypt and possibly Iran and others in Syria.

Clockwise from top left: Chinese Wing Loong, Turkey’s Anka and Bayraktar, Iranian Shahed 129

The findings of this report serve as a reminder that the developing proliferation of armed drones is a reality and that the international community must take seriously the consequences of both drones in the theatre of war, and their use in the war on terror for extra-judicial killing.

With the numbers of operators of armed drones having more than quadrupled in the last five years, when NSAs are taken in to account, it is highly problematic that there has been such limited development on controls for proliferation and use of armed drones. The recent lobbying in the US has only served to convince the Trump administration to roll back conditions on export, with more of the same promised. Given the diversity of states that have engaged the use of armed drones and China’s prolific sales, it is incumbent upon all members of the international community to engage speedily and thoroughly in an open, UN-led process that will deal with both proliferation and use.

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All images, except the featured, in this article are from the author.

Featured image: Stefan Halper

The naming of Stefan Halper as the individual sent by the FBI to spy on the Trump campaign during the 2016 election campaign has further inflamed the political warfare raging within the US state apparatus and political establishment. Halper is a long-time CIA asset with deep ties to US and British intelligence.

Published reports that the FBI had used a confidential informant to gather information on the Trump campaign led US President Donald Trump to announce via Twitter on Sunday,

“I hereby demand, and will do so officially tomorrow, that the Department of Justice look into whether or not the FBI/DOJ infiltrated or surveilled the Trump Campaign for Political Purposes, and if any such demands or requests were made by people within the Obama Administration!”

Repeating his denunciation of the year-old probe by Robert Mueller, the special counsel who is investigating alleged Russian interference in the 2016 election and possible collusion by the Trump campaign, as a “witch hunt,” Trump declared last week that the report of FBI spying on his campaign was a political scandal “bigger than Watergate.”

A few hours after Trump’s latest tweet, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein issued a statement saying that the Department of Justice had referred the matter to its inspector general, who is already reviewing applications to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to monitor former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page. Rosenstein said the inspector general would determine “whether there was any impropriety or political motivation in how the FBI conducted its counterintelligence investigation of persons suspected of involvement with the Russian agents who interfered in the 2016 presidential election.”

The identification of Halper—who was implicated as the leading figure in a conspiracy by intelligence agents to subvert then-President Jimmy Carter’s re-election campaign in 1980—as the covert FBI spy has been the subject of a heated debate in Washington and the media.

Both the New York Times and the Washington Post, the two papers of record for the US political establishment, have studiously observed the demands of the FBI to conceal Halper’s identity.

The Post reported that it was concealing the identity of the spy from the American people because of “warnings from US intelligence officials that exposing him could endanger him or his contacts.” For its part, the Timesmerely indicated that it was following standard operating procedure, stating that it “has learned the source’s identity but typically does not name informants to preserve their safety.” Nothing could more nakedly expose the US media as a propaganda extension of the American intelligence agencies.

The White House has backed the Republican chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, Rep. Devin Nunes of California, who issued congressional subpoenas demanding that the Justice Department turn over documents on the origins of the investigation into the Trump campaign and the role of FBI spies. Nunes has demanded that Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein be held in contempt of Congress for refusing to turn over the documents.

Democrats have rallied behind the FBI’s defiance of congressional oversight. Leading Democrats have rushed to the defense of the intelligence agencies, denouncing Trump and Nunes for allegedly placing US security at risk.

Senator Mark Warner, the ranking Democrat on the Senate intelligence panel, appeared on the CBS News program “Face the Nation” Sunday—well after Halper’s identity as the FBI covert agent had already been revealed by a number of publications—to threaten that “when individuals want to try to reveal classified information about the identity of an FBI or CIA source, that is against the law.”

Warner went on to warn that the attack on the Justice Department and the FBI by Trump and his allies “leads to an… era where people can start saying I’m going to decide which laws I want to follow and which laws I don’t want to follow.” He went on to declare that “classified information, identity of agents is sacrosanct.”

This line was echoed by the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, Representative Adam Schiff of California, who declared on the NBC Sunday talk show “Meet the Press,” in relation to the FBI spy, that “revealing information about this individual could compromise people’s lives, it could betray a relationship with our allies, it could compromise the investigation.”

This hysterical defense of the already blown cover of the FBI informer Halper is in line with the overarching political focus of the Democratic Party’s opposition to Trump, which is directed not at his war on immigrants, attacks on social programs or tax cuts for the rich, but rather at advancing the claims of “Russian meddling” in the 2016 election and “collusion” by the Trump camp.

The protracted campaign on this issue by the Democrats and the media, together with the Mueller investigation, now in its second year, has produced no evidence to substantiate that Russian government “meddling” played any role in tilting the US elections to Trump. The most widely cited “proof” of Russian interference is the alleged purchase by unidentified Russians of $100,000 worth of Facebook ads, less than a drop in the bucket in a $4 billion presidential campaign.

The revelation of Halper’s role in spying on the Trump campaign has exposed the previous explanation for the origin of the FBI investigation into alleged Russian ties to the Trump campaign as a lie. As the New York Times reported last week, in a lengthy article based on unnamed government sources, the probe was purportedly launched after the Australian ambassador to Great Britain, Alexander Downer, contacted US authorities to recount a conversation with George Papadopoulos (image on the right), a Trump foreign policy adviser, who told him about efforts to obtain “dirt” on Hillary Clinton from Russian sources.

It is now clear, however, that Halper was sent to spy on the Trump campaign before any contact from the Australian ambassador. He reportedly met, beginning in early July 2016, with at least three Trump campaign advisors. Two of them, Papadopoulos and former national security advisor Gen. Michael Flynn, have since pleaded guilty to making false statements to FBI investigators about their contacts with Russian individuals. The third, Carter Page, was the subject of an FBI surveillance warrant.

Pentagon documents indicate that the Department of Defense’s shadowy intelligence arm, the Office of Net Assessment, paid Halper $282,000 in 2016 and $129,000 in 2017. According to reports, Halper sought to secure Papadopoulos’s collaboration by offering him $3,000 and an all-expenses-paid trip to London, ostensibly to produce a research paper on energy issues in the eastern Mediterranean.

The choice of Halper for this spying operation has ominous implications. His deep ties to the US intelligence apparatus date back decades. His father-in-law was Ray Cline, who headed the CIA’s Directorate of Intelligence at the height of the Cold War. Halper served as an aide to Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney and Alexander Haig in the Nixon and Ford administrations.

In 1980, as the director of policy coordination for Ronald Reagan’s presidential campaign, Halper oversaw an operation in which CIA officials gave the campaign confidential information on the Carter administration and its foreign policy. This intelligence was in turn utilized to further back-channel negotiations between Reagan’s campaign manager and subsequent CIA director William Casey and representatives of Iran to delay the release of the American embassy hostages until after the election, in order to prevent Carter from scoring a foreign policy victory on the eve of the November vote.

Halper subsequently held posts as deputy assistant secretary of state for political-military affairs and senior adviser to the Pentagon and Justice Department. More recently, Halper has collaborated with Richard Dearlove, the former head of MI6, the British intelligence service, in directing the Cambridge Security Initiative (CSi), a security think tank that lists the US and UK governments as its principal clients.

Before the 2016 election, Halper had expressed his view—shared by predominant layers within the intelligence agencies—that Clinton’s election would prove “less disruptive” than Trump’s.

The revelations of the role played by Halper point to an intervention in the 2016 elections by the US intelligence agencies that far eclipsed anything one could even imagine the Kremlin attempting.

Now that the Trump administration has derailed the Iran nuclear deal, the old issue of regime change in Iran is back again. National Security Advisor John Bolton is obviously the chief regime-change advocate in the administration, and there is every reason to believe he has begun to push that policy with Donald Trump in his first month in the White House. 

Bolton was part of the powerful neoconservative faction of national security officials in the George W Bush administration that had a plan for supporting regime change in Iran, not much different from the one Bolton is reportedly pushing now. But it was a crackbrained scheme that involved the Mujahideen-e-Khalq (MEK) exiled terrorist organisation that never had Bush’s support.

Bolton may find history repeating itself, with Trump resisting his plan for regime change, just as Bush did in 2003.

Trump calls for change

Trump has appeared to flirt with the idea of Iranian regime change in the past. During the December protests in Iran, he said on Twitter that it was time for a change, noting:

“The great Iranian people have been repressed for many years.”

Trump’s killing of the nuclear deal, however, stopped short of rhetoric signalling the aim of overthrowing the Islamic Republic. Instead, Trump suggested that

“Iran’s leaders” are “going to want to make a new and lasting deal, one that benefits all of Iran and the Iranian people”.

He added:

“When they do, I am ready, willing and able.”

A few days after the Trump announcement, an unnamed National Security Council (NSC) official avoided any hint of regime change, telling the neoconservative Washington Free Beacon:

“Our stated policy is to change the Iranian regime’s behaviour.”

Now, Bolton has issued an even more explicit denial, telling ABC News:

“That is not the policy of the administration. The policy of the administration is to make sure Iran never gets close to deliverable nuclear action.”

And on CNN’s State of the Union, he said:

“I’ve written and said a lot of things when I was a complete free agent. I certainly stand by what I said at the time, but those were my opinions then. The circumstance I’m in now is I’m the national security adviser to the president. I’m not the national security decision-maker.”

It’s not difficult to read between the lines: the implied message is that his views on regime change have not prevailed with Trump.

Advocating to bomb Iran

Bolton has long been one of the most vocal supporters of such a policy, although he is better known as the primary advocate of bombing Iran. He has been one of the most enthusiastic clients among former US officials who have associated themselves with MEK, which seeks to overthrow the Tehran regime with US backing.

Bolton has not only appeared at MEK rallies in Paris, along with other former US officials on the take from the well-endowed paramilitary organisation. In July 2017, he declared that the Trump administration should adopt the goal of regime change in Iran, calling MEK a “viable” alternative to the regime. And his final line, delivered with his voice rising dramatically, noted that “before 2019, we here will celebrate in Tehran”.

It appears that Bolton was still pushing the idea within the administration as of last week. The Washington Free Beacon reported on 10 May that a three-page paper outlining a regime-change strategy from a small far-right organisation called the Security Studies Group, with which Bolton is said to have close ties, was circulated among NSC officials. The quotes from the paper in the story make it clear that the strategy is based largely on seeking to exploit ethnic and religious conflicts in Iran.

The paper reportedly makes the point that ethnic minorities – such as Kurds, Azeris, Ahwazi Arabs and Baloch – represent one-third of Iran’s population, and argues that the Iranian regime’s “oppression of its ethnic and religious minorities has created the conditions for an effective campaign to splinter the Iranian state into component parts”.

It adds:

“US support for their independence movements, both overt and covert, could force the regime to focus attention on them and limit its ability to conduct other malign activities.”

Those minorities have all had organisations that have carried out violent actions, including bombings and assassinations against Iranian officials, over the past decade, and such a strategy would presumably involve supporting a step-up in such activities – in other words, US support for terrorist activities against Iranian government targets.

The role of MEK

But none of this is new. It was the official line of the powerful alliance between the neoconservatives and the Cheney-Rumsfeld axis within the Bush administration. By 2003, Douglas Feith, the uber-neoconservative former undersecretary of defense for policy, had developed a plan for giving MEK, whose army had been captured by US troops in Iraq, a new name and using them for a covert paramilitary operation in Iran.

Meanwhile, Iran was offering to provide names and other data on al-Qaeda officials it had captured in return for US information on MEK. When former defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld sought to protect MEK from such a deal, Bush’s response was:

“But we say there is no such thing as a good terrorist.”

Despite the neocon fixation with supporting MEK, both the CIA and the Israelis have long regarded the idea that it could be an instrument for regime change in Iran as ridiculous. After the organisation helped Saddam Hussein’s regime suppress Shia and Kurdish uprisings, it lost any semblance of legitimacy inside Iran. After it relocated to Iraq, moreover, it was transformed into an authoritarian cult.

The former Israeli ambassador to Iran, Uri Lubrani, who was given a free hand to organise a programme for destabilising Iran, recognised long ago, as he told two Israeli journalists, that MEK has no capacity to do anything inside the country.

It was Lubrani who first advanced the argument that about a third of the total Iranian population were ethnic minorities, and that promoting their anti-Tehran activities could help to destabilise the government. Those groups have carried out terrorist bombings and other armed actions in various parts of Iran over the years, and it is well documented that Israel was supporting and advising the Baloch extremist organisation Jundallah on such operations. But the Israelis have used MEK mainly to put out disinformation on Iran’s nuclear programme.

The policy paper Bolton is reportedly pushing states explicitly that the regime change policy should include the use of military force against Iran if necessary. That was the premise of the Cheney-Bolton plan for regime change in Iran, as former vice president Dick Cheney’s Middle East adviser, David Wurmser, later revealed. And it is the game that Bolton, the enthusiast for bombing Iran, is apparently still playing.

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Gareth Porter is an independent investigative journalist and winner of the 2012 Gellhorn Prize for journalism. He is the author of the newly published Manufactured Crisis: The Untold Story of the Iran Nuclear Scare.

Featured image is from the author.

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

Michel Chossudovsky

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

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

Year: 2015.

Launched in 2015 by the Prime Minister of Malaysia Tun Mahathir Mohamad

Pages: 240 Pages

List Price: $22.95

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Click here to order.

Facebook has engaged a think tank funded by weapons manufacturers, branches of the US military and Middle-Eastern monarchies to safeguard the democratic process. It’s akin to hiring arsonists to run the fire brigade.

A hot topic in military prognostications regarding China, Russia and the United States revolves around the development and use of hypersonic technology for missiles or UAVs as an invulnerable means of attack. As we will see, not all three countries are dealing successfully with this task.

The United States, China and Russia have in recent years increased their efforts to equip their armed forces with such highly destructive missiles and vehicles seen in the previous article. Putin’s recent speech in Moscow reflects this course of direction by presenting a series of weapons with hypersonic characteristics, as seen with the Avangard and the Dagger.

As confirmed by US Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering, Dr. Michael Griffin:

We, today, do not have systems that can hold them [hypersonic weapons] at risk…and we do not have defenses against those [hypersonic] systems. Should they choose to deploy them we would be, today, at a disadvantage.

Further confirmation that the US is lagging in this field came from General John Hyten, Commander of US Strategic Command:

“We don’t have any defense that could deny the employment of such a weapon against us, so our response would be our deterrent force, which would be the triad and the nuclear capabilities that we have to respond to such a threat.”

The development of hypersonic weapons has been part of the military doctrine that China and Russia have been developing for quite some time, driven by various motivations. For one thing, it is a means of achieving strategic parity with the United States without having to match Washington’s unparallelled spending power. The amount of military hardware possessed by the United States cannot be matched by any other armed force, an obvious result of decades of military expenditure estimated to be in the range of five to 15 times that of its nearest competitors.

For these reasons, the US Navy is able to deploy ten carrier groups, hundreds of aircraft, and engage in thousands of weapon-development programs. Over a number of decades, the US war machine has seen its direct adversaries literally vanish, firstly following the Second World War, and then following the collapse of the Soviet Union. This led in the 1990s to shift in focus from one opposing peer competitors to one dealing with smaller and less sophisticated opponents (Yugoslavia, Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, international terrorism). Accordingly, less funds were devoted to research in cutting-edge technology for new weapons systems in light of these changed circumstances.

This strategic decision obliged the US military-industrial complex to slow down advanced research and to concentrate more on large-scale sales of new versions of aircraft, tanks, submarines and ships. With exorbitant costs and projects lasting up to two decades, this led to systems that were already outdated by the time they rolled off the production lines. All these problems had little visibility until 2014, when the concept of great-power competition returned with a vengeance, and with it the need for the US to compare its level of firepower with that of its peer competitors.

Forced by circumstances to pursue a different path, China and Russia begun a rationalization of their armed forces from the end of the 1990s, focusing on those areas that would best allow them the ability to defend against the United States’ overwhelming military power. It is no coincidence that Russia has strongly accelerated its missile-defense program by producing such modern systems as Pantsir and S-300/S-400, which allows for a defense against ballistic attacks and stealth aircraft. Countering stealth technology became an urgent imperative, and with the production of the S-400, this challenge has been overcome. With the future S-500, even ICBMs will no longer pose a problem for Russia. In a similar vein, China has strongly accelerated its ICBM program, reaching within a decade the ability to produce a credible deterrent with their equivalent of the Russian SS-18 Satan or the American LGM-30G Minuteman III, possessing a long range and multiple independent reentry vehicles (MIRVs) armed with nuclear warheads.

After sealing the skies and achieving a robust nuclear-strategic parity with the United States, Moscow and Beijing begun to focus their attention on the US anti-ballistic-missile (ABM) systems placed along their borders, which also consist of the AEGIS system operated by US naval ships. As Putin warned, this posed an existential threat that compromised Russia and China’s second-strike capability in response to any American nuclear first strike, thereby disrupting the strategic balance inherent in the doctrine of mutually assured destruction (MAD).

For this reason, Putin has since 2007 been warning Russia’s western partners that his country would develop a system to nullify the American ABM system. In the space of a few years, Russia and China have succeeded in this task, testing and entering into production various hypersonic missiles equipped with breakthrough technologies that will strongly benefit the entire scientific sector of these two countries, and against which the US currently has no counter.

Currently there are no defenses against hypersonic attacks; and given the trend of employing ramjet/scramjet engines on new generations of fighter jets, it seems that more and more countries will want to equip themselves with these game-changing systems. Russia, to counter America’s naval superiority, has already entered into service the Zircon anti-ship missile, and already plans an export version with a range of 300 kms.

India and Russia have long been working on the Brahmos, which is yet another type of hypersonic missile that could in the future be launched from the Su-57. Although it is a relatively new technology, hypersonic weapons are already causing more than a headache for many Western military planners, who are only coming to realize just how far they are lagging behind their competitors.

It will take a while for the US to close the hypersonic technological and scientific gap with China and Russia. Lockheed Martin has been awarded a contract to this end. In the meantime, the two Eurasian powerhouses are focusing on their overland integration via the Belt And Road Initiative (BRI) and the Eurasian Union, a strategic arrangement that denies the US and NATO the ability to easily intervene in an area so far inland, compounded by its inability to control the airspace, and ultimately outnumbered on the ground in any case.

The objective of the Russians and the Chinese is the realization of a highly defended (A2/AD) environment on their coasts and in their skies, which are buttressed by hypersonic weapons. In this way, Russia and China possess the means to disrupt the maritime logistical chain of the US Navy in the case of war. In addition, the A2/AD would be able to stop US power projection, thanks to HGV weapons able to sink aircraft carriers and target specific land-based ABM systems or logistic-chain hubs.

It is a defensive strategy that could potentially halt US Naval power projection as well as its ability to control the skies, two linchpins in the way the US plans to fight its wars. No wonder think-tanks in Washington and four-star generals are starting to sound the alarm on hypersonic weapons.

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Federico Pieraccini is an independent freelance writer specialized in international affairs, conflicts, politics and strategies. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is from the author.

VISIT MY NEW WEB SITE: 

stephenlendman.org 

(Home – Stephen Lendman). 

Contact at [email protected].

Nicolas Maduro won another six-year term overwhelmingly by a two-thirds majority – far greater than polls predicted, turnout disappointing at less than 50%.

His main adversary, Chavista turncoat Henri Falcon, fared much poorer than predicted with around 21% of the vote.

Businessman/evangelical pastor linked to the Panama Papers tax haven scandal got only about 11% support.

Addressing a late Sunday night crowd of supporters, Maduro hailed his triumph as a victory over “imperialism,” saying:

“How much have they underestimated our revolutionary people, and how much have they underestimated me. And here we are victorious,” adding:

“It has been a heroic, beautiful, popular victory forged in the struggle. I’m the president of all of the Venezuelans. I call for a dialogue process. Permanent dialogue is what Venezuela needs. The revolution is here to stay!”

Scores of international observers from 30 countries monitored Sunday’s elections, including former Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, saying:

“I do not have any doubt about the voting process. It is an advanced automatic voting system. I come here to keep the peace, coordinate and promote dialogue to improve the democratic mechanism here,” adding:

“What I need to do here is to see whether people can cast their ballots at their own discretion. Now we all see how people vote, don’t we?”

Other international observers called Sunday’s vote open, free and fair, the atmosphere calm, no incidents reported, no irregularities other than minor ones corrected.

Venezuela’s democratic process is the world’s best by far, polar opposite America’s money-controlled system, one-party rule with two right wings, serving privileged interests exclusively, steadily eroding social justice, heading toward eliminating it altogether – planned demise since the neoliberal 90s.

The Trump administration rejects the result of Venezuela’s election, Deputy Secretary of State John Sullivan told reporters, adding sanctions on the country’s oil industry may be imposed, saying “(t)hey are under active review.”

Falcon rejected his overwhelming defeat, falsely calling the result illegitimate, wanting a new election not forthcoming.

The Trump administration and Western media, notably the NYT, falsely claimed key opposition candidates were barred from running.

Former presidential candidate Henrique Capriles was barred for misconduct. Leopoldo Lopez is a convicted criminal for leading violent anti-government protests – earlier imprisoned, currently under house arrest.

Parties boycotting last December’s municipal elections had to re-register with electoral authorities. Eligibility required them to collect signatures from 0.5 percent of the electorate in 12 states.

In late January, Venezuela’s Supreme Court ruled against the MUD coalition running a joint ticket – for “double affiliation,” holding membership in two parties at the same time, the court explaining:

“In the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, one cannot be a member of two political parties at the same time, because the interests of one and the other could coincide in some aspects, but there will always be distinctions, which make this unethical and inoperative.”

In late February, the key opposition undemocratic Dem Unity Roundtable (MUD) coalition announced they’d boycott the presidential election, falsely calling the process “fraudulent and illegitimate.”

Founder and former editor of Venezuela Analysis Greg Wilpert called MUD’s pullout “puzzling,” saying given dire economic conditions (largely from US political and economic war), this year’s election was “the best opportunity since 1998 that the opposition ha(d) to defeat the Bolivarian Revolution.”

Why didn’t MUD participate? Wilpert believes it wanted more than just winning the presidency.

“(I)t wants a radical break from the Bolivarian Revolution, and the only way it can do that is to provoke a political and economic crisis that would lead to a coup or some other form of radical regime change.”

Chavistas control Venezuela’s “Supreme Court, the National Electoral Council, the Attorney General’s office, (and) National Constituent Assembly…in charge of re-writing the constitution.”

Since Venezuela became a Bolivarian social democracy under Hugo Chavez, now under Maduro, Washington sought regime change.

Multiple coup attempts to replace Bolivarian social democracy with fascist tyranny failed – in 2002, a late 2002/2003 general strike/management-led oil lockout, a 2004 recall referendum, months of likely CIA-orchestrated street violence to unseat Maduro, a 2014 plot against him, a 2005 plot to kill him, a 2017 helicopter attack on Venezuela’s Supreme Court and Justice Ministry, and a 2017 terrorist attack on Fort Paramacay in Carbobo state two days after Venezuela’s Constituent Assembly was inaugurated last August.

Will another US regime change attempt follow Sunday’s election? Trump administration economic war will surely continue, likely intensify, including imposition of tough new illegal sanctions.

Washington’s rage for control of Venezuela’s vast oil reserves, the world’s largest with its heavy oil, virtually assures continued Trump administration destabilizing activities ahead.

Whether Maduro and Bolivarian social democracy can survive the onslaught remains very much uncertain.

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

The Canadian BDS Coalition and many of its member groups and friends are among the more than 50 signatories to this open letter sent on May 16th to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Minister of Foreign Affairs Chrystia Freeland.

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Dear Prime Minister Trudeau and Minister Freeland:

We are concerned Canadians who cannot remain indifferent and quiet to the massacre of innocent civilian Palestinians whose only crime is their peaceful protest of a brutal and illegal occupation.

Palestinians in Gaza live in an open prison denied basic necessities, electricity, clean water and medicines. The UN has already declared Gaza an unlivable place. How many Palestinians should die or get injured before the world would wake up to these war crimes? Why are Canadians silent and oblivious to these crimes against humanity?

We are calling on our government, our representatives in parliament, the human rights organizations and fellow Canadians to condemn and protest the slaughter of innocent people who are exercising their natural right to resist peacefully their occupiers. We are calling on Canadians to condemn those who have imprisoned and besieged their land and water and those who have denied them their basic human rights. Portraying all Palestinians in Gaza as members of Hamas or their protest as a terrorist activity is a callous trick to dehumanize them and justify their massacre.

We call on all Canadians and particularly the constituency of justice and peace to raise their voices in protest of these war crimes. Those who are silent at this juncture are complicit with these crimes. It is time to assert that Palestinians’ lives are precious too and that Canadians do not acquiesce with the brutal and disproportionate use of violence by the Israeli military against unarmed civilians.

It is high time that Canada lives up to its obligation as a high signatory under Article 1 of the Fourth Geneva Convention which requires that the Convention is upheld in all circumstances. Beyond this our domestic legislation, the Special Economic Measures Act, calls for action where gross and systematic human rights violations have been committed in a foreign state. Based on international and domestic law we call on the Canadian government to condemn Israeli actions and that a military embargo be put in place.

Our organizations demand the Canadian government to call for the lifting of the blockade on Gaza, and to denounce the opening of any embassies in Jerusalem/Al Quds. We join together to demand that the Canadian government immediately call Israel to cease and desist the massacre of civilians and recall the he Canadian ambassador to Israel until Israel abides by its obligations under international law to protect Palestinian civilians.

Sincerely,

• Canadian Arab Federation/ Canada
• Palestinian Canadian Congress /PCC
• Palestine House
• Association Of Palestinian Arab Canadians/ APAC
• Canadian Palestinian professional foundation/CPPF
• The Canadian Syrian Cultural Club
• The Canadian Lebanese Progressive Society/ LCPS
• Canadian Arab Network
• Arab Canadian Theatre of Kitchener Waterloo/KW-ACT
• Association Of Progressive Palestinian Canadians/ APPC
• Palestine Aid Society – Canada
• Palestinian Association of Hamilton
• Annahda Club of Montreal
• Syrian Canadian Club of Ottawa
• Canadian Palestinian Foundation of Quebec
• Independent Jewish Voices/ Canada
• United Network for Justice and Peace for Palestine and Israel/ UNJPPI
• Canadian Unitarian For Social Justice/CUSJ -Canada
• NDP Socialist Caucus
• Just Peace Advocates
• Canadian Peace Congress
• Canadian BDS Coalition
• Socialist Action
• The International league of People’s Struggle/ILPS-Canada
• CODEPINK
• Barnard-Boecker Centre Foundation/BBCF- BC
• Canada Palestine Association/Vancouver
• The Canada Palestine Support Network/CanPalNet- Vancouver
• Coalition Against Israel Apartheid/ CAIA- Victoria
• Canada-Palestine Support Network – Winnipeg
• Winnipeg Coalition Against Israeli Apartheid
• Mid-Islanders for Justice and Peace in the Middle East/MIJPME
• Justice for Palestinians Calgary
• Palestine Solidarity Network-Edmonton
• Regina Peace Council/ Saskatchewan
• Bathurst United Church Of Canada
• Palestine Study Group/Okanagan
• Christian PeacemakerTeams/CPT-Ontario
• Educators for Peace and Justice/Ontario
• Palestinian Solidarity Working Group-Sudbury
• People for peace, London
• Palestinian and Jewish Unity/PAJU-Quebec
• Amnesty International Kelowna
• Coalition Against Israel Apartheid / CAIA- Toronto
• Al-Quds Committee/Toronto
• Al-Haadi Musalla/Toronto
• Science for Peace/Toronto
• Beit Zatoun
• Zatoun
• Toronto BDS
• International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network/IJAN
• Women in Solidarity with Palestine
• Jewish Liberation Theology Institue
• Oakville Palestinian Rights Association/Oakville
• Conscience Canada

NDP Condemns Killings in Gaza

On Monday (May 14), Canada’s New Democrats strongly condemned the killings of protesters in Gaza by Israeli Defence Forces and urged the Liberal government to take a more active stance for peace and human rights. According to numerous news reports, at least 55 Palestinians in Gaza were killed and around 2,000 were injured Monday by the Israeli military in demonstrations near the Gaza-Israel border.

“The use of live ammunition against protestors and resulting deaths are clear violations of international law and human rights,” said NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh. “Our government has been shamefully silent on recent developments in Gaza, and the Prime Minister should condemn the violence, call on Israel to cease violations of international law, and support an independent investigation into these deaths.”

The protests follow the decision by U.S. President, Donald Trump, to relocate the American embassy to Jerusalem and recognize the disputed city as the capital of Israel. Trump’s move has been widely criticized by the international community, as this move will further destabilize the region and hinder the peace process. The Liberal government has refused to condemn Trump’s decision.

“The decision by the U.S. government to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel is reckless and flies in the face of international law, not least since East Jerusalem is occupied Palestinian territory,” said Hélène Laverdière, the NDP Critic for Foreign Affairs. “All those responsible for the outrageous killings in Gaza today must be held to account. The Canadian government must call on the government of Israel to respect international law, condemn illegal settlements, and finally stand up for the rights of Palestinians as well as the rights of Israelis.”

Gaza has been under a total land, sea and air blockade since 2007, a situation that was described by former UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon as a form of collective punishment, which is a clear violation of the Geneva Conventions. Palestinians have been under Israeli military occupation since 1967. Illegal killings, arbitrary and abusive detention, forced displacement, restrictions on movement, the expansion of illegal settlements, collective punishment and institutionalized discrimination have characterized this occupation that has persisted for over half a century. The NDP believes that Canada must do more towards a real, long-term, just peace for Palestinians and Israelis, and must call on the government of Israel to end this occupation.

CJPME Condemns Israeli Shooting of Canadian Doctor, Slaughter of Gaza Protesters

Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East (CJPME) condemns Israel’s shooting of London, Ontario based doctor Tarek Loubani, shot while attending the wounded in Gaza. Despite being clearly identified as a first responder, Loubani sustained a moderate injury to his left leg, and a minor injury to his right leg. A friend and colleague of Loubani’s, paramedic Musa Abuhassanin was killed, along with at least 54 other Palestinians in Gaza yesterday.

Tarek Loubani (in blue scrubs) and other volunteers in Gaza. (Source: The Bullet)

Loubani makes regular medical missions to Gaza, and was trying to provide medical treatment to Palestinian protesters injured by Israeli snipers. Monday was the bloodiest day yet of a weeks-long protest in Gaza where Palestinians seek to call international attention to the “Nakba”: the dispossession and loss suffered by Palestinians as a result of the UN Partition Plan of 1947. International condemnation of Israel’s violent response to the protest grew yesterday, as UN human rights chief, Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein condemned the “shocking killing of dozens” by Israel, and the EU called on Israel to respect the principle of proportionality.

The Trudeau government’s response was muted, with foreign affairs minister Chrystia Freeland refusing to call out Israel on its bloody response to what is a passionate, but manifestly peaceful protest. However, NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh asserted, “The use of live ammunition against protestors and resulting deaths are clear violations of international law and human rights.” He also called for an independent investigation of the Palestinian deaths.

“We demand that our government condemn the shooting of Loubani, if not the killing of the 55 other Palestinians,” declared Thomas Woodley, President of CJPME. “While the shooting of Palestinians civilians is unlawful, the shooting of medical personnel is even more egregious,” continued Woodley. Many pundits pointed out the incongruity between the killings in Gaza, and the nearby fanfare of the inauguration of the new U.S. embassy in Jerusalem. Current events suggest that CJPME was correct in disagreeing with U.S. president Trump’s assertion that the move of the embassy was a step toward peace.

IJV Canada statement on the 70th Anniversary of the Nakba

Seventy years have passed since the state of Israel was established in Palestine. As a direct result, hundreds of Palestinian villages were destroyed, thousands were killed and and hundreds of thousands were rendered homeless. For Zionists, 15 May 1948, marks the culmination of ambitions to create a Jewish-majority state; for Palestinians, it marks what came to be known as al-Nakba: the Catastrophe.

Independent Jewish Voices Canada (IJV) is a grassroots organization grounded in Jewish tradition that opposes all forms of racism and advocates for justice and peace for all in Israel-Palestine. Today, IJV stands in solidarity with Palestinians marking and mourning 70 years since the 1948 Nakba.

Palestinians say, “the Nakba continues!” and it is the shameful truth. The Israeli government systematically imprisons Palestinian children, it continues to colonize Palestinian land for Jewish-only settlement in collaboration with the Jewish National Fund, and of course denies Palestinian refugees their right to return.

The ongoing Nakba has perhaps been hardest on Palestinians in Gaza, who live in what is known as the world’s largest open-air prison, largely cut off from the outside world and subject to repeated aerial bombing campaigns. We dedicate a special message of solidarity to them, currently mourning the death yesterday and today of more than 60 people and the wounding of over 2000 others by Israeli snipers. The bravery they exhibit in facing the Israeli army speaks to the desperation of their situation, but also of the undying Palestinian will for justice and return to the land they call home.

Let this latest string of massacres be a wake up call to the world. We call on Canadians, and fellow Jewish Canadians in particular, to join us not only in acknowledging and mourning the Nakba, but in doing all that we can to put an end to it.

Mennonite Church Canada Working Groups Call for Sanctions Against Israel

The following letter was drafted by representatives of the Mennonite Church Canada network of regional working groups on Palestine and Israel, and sent to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Chrystia Freeland, Canada’s foreign affairs minister, on May 2, 2018. It is being published in Canadian Mennonite at the request of the working groups.

***

In July 2016, Mennonite Church Canada passed a resolution regarding Palestine-Israel. The resolution was brought forth after more than 60 years of Mennonite service in the region and in response to the calls for justice from our Palestinian Christian brothers and sisters through the 2000 Kairos Palestine Document, “A moment of truth,” to end Israel’s illegal occupation.

As a people rooted in Anabaptism, we remain committed to peace and living in right relationships with all of humanity. Our peace witness requires accountability, and therefore we write this statement with grave concern over the situation in Gaza, in particular within the last three weeks.

On March 30, 2018, on the commemoration of Land Day (the 42nd anniversary of the 1976 protest by Palestinian citizens of Israel against the expropriation of their land in Galilee, during which protesters were met with the military, who killed six unarmed protesters and injured 100), tens of thousands of Palestinians in Gaza embarked on a nonviolent protest to enact their right of return, which is part of a larger campaign called the Great March of Return. (In accordance with UN Resolution No. 194, passed after the war of 1948, Palestinians have the inalienable right to return to their home and their lands taken in 1948. Israel has denied them this right, resulting in millions of Palestinians living in refugee camps until this day.)

As protesters marched toward the border, they were met with severe repression from the Israeli military. Protesters faced tear gas shot from drones, rubber-coated steel bullets, and live ammunition from snipers. Twenty-one unarmed protesters were killed and more than 1,200 wounded, causing a state of emergency to be declared in Gaza hospitals.

One week later, in a follow-up action, Palestinian protesters marched to the border. Again, they were faced with excessive violence from the Israeli military. Eight unarmed protesters were killed. Included in the deaths is local journalist, Yaser Murtaja. Murtaja, who was covering the protest wearing a vest with “Press” written in large letters across the front and back. Murtaja was killed by a bullet from a sniper. The targeting of journalists is in contravention of international law.

We support and stand in solidarity with the nonviolent protesters in Gaza. In response, we condemn the Israeli military’s actions in killing unarmed protesters and targeting journalists. We express grave concern over statements by Israeli Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman, who stated to the press,

“There are no innocents in Gaza.”

While we express our concern over the events of the last few weeks, we recognize that Gaza has been in crisis for far longer. In 2007, Israel imposed a blockade on Gaza, forbidding the entry and exit of certain products, as well as imprisoning the entire population. Due to the blockade, Gazans have not been able to rebuild most of what was destroyed during the three wars on Gaza. Without adequate electricity, hospitals have been unable to run at full capacity, while medical workers say they are quickly running out of medical supplies. Meanwhile, Gaza’s water table has been destroyed. The United Nations has stated that if the blockade continues, Gaza will be unlivable by 2020.

MC Canada is committed to peace, and we yearn to see a peaceful and just solution to what is happening in Palestine and Israel. Because we believe in nonviolence and are committed to the values of Jesus, we love and are in relationship with both Palestinians and Israelis, and are committed to the safety and security of both. However, part of love and being in authentic relationship is accountability.

MC Canada’s resolution on Palestine and Israel states:

“We encourage the government of Canada to support measures that put pressure on Israel (including through economic sanctions) to end the occupation and work for a just peace, in accordance with international law.”

To implement this call, and in the necessity of accountability, we call upon the Government of Canada to put pressure on Israel to abide by international law through economic sanctions. As a peace church, we do not advocate for military intervention. However, the violence that Israel is imposing needs to end; through sanctions, this accountability can be carried out nonviolently.

Accordingly, we call upon the Government of Canada and all political parties having representation in Parliament to:

• Condemn Israel’s use of lethal force to suppress peaceful protest.
• Demand an independent and transparent investigation into the killing and wounding of unarmed Land Day protesters by Israeli forces.
• Work for a sustainable peace for both Israelis and Palestinians.
• Call for economic sanctions by the Canadian government and the United Nations until the siege is lifted and a comprehensive solution is found.

Solidarity with the Great Return March in Gaza

The members of the Socialist Project wish to express solidarity with the Palestinian “Great Return March” in Gaza, in addition to the ongoing non-violent movement in the West Bank against Israeli occupation and colonization. This movement, and international solidarity efforts in support of it, represents the most hopeful path to end the Israeli occupation and colonization of Palestinian land. As the occupation is carried out with the crucial support of the Canadian and U.S. governments, it is the duty of citizens in these countries to support the Palestinian struggle for human rights.

On March 30, the Israeli military perpetrated what appears to have been a deliberate massacre of non-violent demonstrators in Gaza, killing at least 17 and injuring 1,400. Almost half of these were children. While Israel routinely carries out mass killings of Palestinian civilians in the Gaza strip, the massacre nonetheless stands out as a particularly flagrant attack on non-violent demonstrators with no conceivable pretext. With this attack, the Israeli military (IDF) has followed through on threats it made to organizers and supporters of the march in the weeks leading up to the demonstrations, and has once again revealed the absurdity of its purported commitment to democracy and human rights.

Israel’s baseless claims that the protests are merely a “ploy” by Hamas to “carry out terror attacks” are intended to justify the murder of unarmed civilians demanding basic human rights. These demands are supported by international law as well as nearly every country in the world – with the marked exception of Canada, the USA, and Israel. In addition, the organizers of the march, which was supported by a wide cross-section of Palestinian political organizations, repeatedly insisted upon the non-violent nature of the march – claims supported by the observations of human rights workers (see also updated casualty numbers) as well as videos posted on social media.

It should be noted that this action is unfortunately consistent with Israel’s ongoing brutal suppression of the non-violent movement against the settlements and occupation in the West Bank, which has included the use of live ammunition against unarmed demonstrators, the imprisonment and torture of children, and other harsh methods.

The Socialist Project joins the international campaign for Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions, as well as international civil society and human rights organizations such as Independent Jewish Voices, Jewish Voice For Peace, Amnesty International, and numerous others in condemning the massacre and demanding that violence against the demonstrators cease. We reaffirm our place among the rising chorus of voices from around the world calling for an end to the illegal occupation and colonization of Palestinian land, and the right-of-return for the thousands of Palestinian families displaced and made refugees in the Nakba of 70 years ago.

This statement by the Socialist Project was released on 3 April 2018.