Julian Assange is in immense danger. Remarks made this week by Ecuador’s foreign minister suggest that her government may be preparing to renege on the political asylum it granted to the WikiLeaks editor in 2012 and hand him over to British and then American authorities.
On March 28, under immense pressure from the governments in the US, Britain and other powers, Ecuador imposed a complete ban on Assange having any Internet or phone contact with the outside world, and blocked his friends and supporters from physically visiting him. For 45 days, he has not been heard from.
Ecuadorian Foreign Minister Maria Fernanda Espinosa stated in a Spanish-language interview on Wednesday that her government and Britain “have the intention and the interest that this be resolved.” Moves were underway, she said, to reach a “definite agreement” on Assange.
If Assange falls into the hands of the British state, he faces being turned over to the US. Last year, US Attorney General Jeff Sessions stated that putting Assange on trial for espionage was a “priority.” CIA director Mike Pompeo, now secretary of state, asserted that WikiLeaks was a “non-state hostile intelligence service.”
In 2010, WikiLeaks courageously published information leaked by then Private Bradley [now Chelsea] Manning that exposed war crimes committed by American forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. WikiLeaks also published, in partnership with some of the world’s major newspapers, tens of thousands of secret diplomatic cables, exposing the daily anti-democratic intrigues of US imperialism and numerous other governments.
For that, Assange was relentlessly persecuted by the Obama administration. By November 2010, it had convened a secret grand jury and had a warrant issued for his arrest on charges of espionage—charges that can carry the death sentence. The then Labor Party government in Australia headed by Prime Minister Julia Gillard threw Assange, an Australian citizen, to the wolves. It refused to provide him any defence and declared it would work with the US to have him detained and put on trial.
On June 19, 2012, under conditions in which he faced extradition to Sweden to answer questions over fabricated allegations of sexual assault, and the prospect of rendition to the United States, Assange sought asylum in the Ecuador’s embassy in London.
Since that time, for nearly six years, he has been largely confined to a small room with no direct sunlight. He has been prevented from leaving, even to obtain medical treatment, by the British government’s insistence it will arrest him for breaching bail as soon as he sets foot outside the embassy.
Now, for six weeks and three days, he has been denied even the right to communicate.
Jennifer Robinson, the British-based Australian lawyer who has represented Assange since 2010, told the London Times in an interview this month:
“His health situation is terrible. He’s had a problem with his shoulder for a very long time. It requires an MRI [magnetic resonance imaging scan], which cannot be done within the embassy. He’s got dental issues. And then there’s the long-term impact of not being outside, his visual impairment. He wouldn’t be able to see further than from here to the end of this hallway.”
The effort to haul Assange before a US court is inseparable from the broader campaign underway by the American state and allied governments to impose sweeping censorship on the Internet. Lurid allegations of “Russian meddling” in the 2016 US election and denunciations of “fake news” have been used to demand that Google, Facebook and other conglomerates block users from accessing websites that publish critical commentary and exposures of the ruling class and its agencies—including WikiLeaks and the World Socialist Web Site.
WikiLeaks has been absurdly denounced as “pro-Russia” because it published leaks from the US Democratic Party National Committee that revealed the anti-democratic intrigues the party’s leaders carried out to undermine the campaign of Bernie Sanders in the 2016 presidential primary elections. It also published leaked speeches of presidential candidate Hillary Clinton that further exposed her intimate relations with Wall Street banks and companies.
As part of the justification for Internet censorship, US intelligence agencies allege, without any evidence, that the information was hacked by Russian operatives and supplied to WikiLeaks to undermine Clinton and assist Trump—whom Moscow purportedly considered the “lesser evil.”
In response to the hysterical allegations, WikiLeaks broke its own tradition of not commenting on its sources. It publicly denied that Russia was the source of the leaks. That has not prevented the campaign from continuing, with Assange even being labelled “the Kremlin’s useful idiot” in pro-Democratic Party circles. WikiLeaks is blamed for Clinton’s defeat, not the reality, that tens of millions of American workers were repulsed by her right-wing, pro-war campaign and refused to vote for her.
Under conditions in which the Ecuadorian government has capitulated to great power pressure and is collaborating with British and US agencies to break Julian Assange, there is an almost universal and reprehensible silence on the part of dozens of organisations and hundreds of individuals who once claimed to defend him and WikiLeaks.
The United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, which in February 2016 condemned Assange’s persecution as “a form of arbitrary detention” and called for his release, has issued no statement on his current situation.
In Britain, the Labour Party and its leader Jeremy Corbyn have said nothing on the actions by Ecuador. Nor have they opposed the determination of the Conservative government to arrest Assange if he leaves the embassy.
In Australia, the current Liberal-National government and Labor leadership are just as complicit. The Greens, which claimed to oppose the persecution of Assange, have not made any statement in parliament or issued a press release, let alone called for public protests. Hundreds of editors, journalists, academics, artists and lawyers across the country who publicly defended WikiLeaks in 2010 and 2011 are now mute.
A parallel situation prevails across Europe and in the US. The so-called parties of the “left” and the trade unions are all tacitly endorsing the vicious drive against Assange.
Around the world, the Stalinist and Pabloite pseudo-left organisations, anxious not to disrupt their sordid relations with the parties of the political establishment and the trade union apparatuses, are likewise silent.
The World Socialist Web Site and the International Committee of the Fourth International unconditionally defend Julian Assange and WikiLeaks. If the ruling elite can haul him before a court, it will hold him up as an example of what happens to those who speak out against social inequality, militarism, war and police-state measures. His prosecution would be used to try to intimidate and silence all dissent.
If Assange is imprisoned or worse, and WikiLeaks shut down, it will be a serious blow to the democratic rights of the entire international working class.
Workers and young people should join with the WSWS and ICFI in demanding and fighting for the immediate freedom of Julian Assange.
As recently confirmed in a debate at the Brookings Institute by the Commandant of the United States Marine Corps, General Robert Neller, “there are military areas in which the United States maintains a technological advantage [over Russia and China], others in which there is substantial parity, and others in which the United States is lagging behind, revealing a technological gap with its peer competitors”.
The last point applies to weapons systems designed to operate at hypersonic speed. Let us start with the simple and pragmatic definition offered by The National Interest of hypersonic vehicles and weapons:
A hypersonic vehicle is one that moves through the atmosphere at a minimum speed of five times that of sound, or Mach 5. A hypersonic cruise missile travels continuously through the air employing a special high-powered engine. A hypersonic glide vehicle [HGV] is launched into space atop a ballistic missile, after which it maneuvers through the upper reaches of the atmosphere until it dives towards its target. Both vehicle types can carry either conventional or nuclear weapons.
As we can see, we are speaking here about technological developments that require money and scientific structures of the highest level to achieve such significant and complex results. The difficulty of implementing systems of such complexity is very well explained by Defense Review:
Another area of complexity concerns the communication between the hypersonic flight carrier and and its land-based components, especially if the re-entry vehicle is to be maneuvered remotely.
The fundamental component in performing a hypersonic flight naturally lies in the engines, used to reach speeds higher than Mach 7. There are ongoing studies by all of these countries concerning scramjet engines, essential for the purposes of producing hypersonic weapons. By employing a scramjet engine, and mixing it with other technologies (jet engine or ramjet), one would enable the aircraft and missiles to reach hypersonic speeds, as Beijing’s Power Machinery Research Institute explains:
The turbo-aided rocket-augmented ram/scramjet engine (TRRE), which uses rocket augmentation to aid the transition into the supersonic and hypersonic flight regimes, could be the world’s first combined cycle engine to fly in 2025, paving the way for hypersonic -space planes and single-stage space launchers.
DARPA also explains the US point of view on this particular area of research:
Advanced Full Range Engine program (AFRE) which is intended as a reusable hypersonic engine that combines an off-the-shelf jet engine with a dual mode ramjet engine.
War Is Boring definitively clarifies the concept using simpler words:
Turbojet? Ramjet? Scramjet? A turbojet spins a lot of blades to compress and heat incoming air. A ramjet moves so fast that the engine is already hot and compressed enough to ignite the fuel. A scramjet – short for “supersonic combustion ramjet” – is just that, a ramjet where the incoming air is moving at supersonic speeds.
The world of hypersonic weapons is divided into four types: hypersonic cruise missiles, which are surface- or air-launched; hypersonic glide vehicles, brought to high altitude by missiles or jets, re-entering the atmosphere at very high speeds while maneuvering, and able to hit targets with conventional or nuclear bombs; hypersonic attack aircraft, which are vehicles that fly at hypersonic speeds and are capable of taking off and landing, and are therefore useful for surveillance purposes but potentially also for attack; and finally, hypersonic anti-ship missiles.
Let’s examine them one by one, listing the current respective stages of research, development and testing of the countries in question.
The first type of hypersonic weapons are the easiest to understand. Simply put, these are cruise missiles with scramjet engines that are capable of accelerating to hypersonic speeds.
Hypersonic cruise Missiles (excluding anti-ship weapons available below) United States (testing phase)
BrahMos-II is a hypersonic missile currently under development in India and Russia
The most discussed weapon is the hypersonic glide vehicle (HGV). What exactly a HGV is can be explained as follows:
HGVs are unmanned, rocket-launched, maneuverable aircraft that glide and “skip” through the earth’s atmosphere at incredibly fast speeds. Compared to conventional ballistic systems, HGV warheads can be much higher, lower altitudes and less-trackable trajectories. The defense systems approach leaves less time to intercept the warhead before it drops its payload.
Glide Weapon/Hypersonic Glide Vehicle:
United States (experimental phase)
For years, the US has worked on missiles that can be used as a Tactical Boost Glide(TBG) weapon, which is a rocket glider that can reach speeds of 20,921 kilometers per hour, or Mach 20, and then uses a scramjet/ramjet engine to perform maneuvers. Currently, the United States is in the research and development phase of experimenting with an Advanced Hypersonic Weapon (AHW) known as the Hypersonic Technology Vehicle 2 (HTV-2)
Russia (entering into service in 2019)
KH-47M 2 Kinzhal (Dagger). An air-launched, modified Zircon missile launched from a MiG-31.
DF-17/DF-ZF/WU-14 – Hypersonic glide vehicle (HGV) medium-range system, with a range of between 1,800 and 2,500 kilometers.
As we can see, Russia is almost ready to start mass production of their HGVs, while the US is still in the early phase of experimentation, and China is already undertaking numerous tests.
The most complicated factor with hypersonic technology concerns the Hypersonic Attack Aircraft (HAA), equipped with scramjet engines and able to attain hypersonic speeds, but with the added benefit of being able to take off and land. They are to be unmanned and can be used for surveillance or attack purposes.
Hypersonic Attack Aircraft
United States (unknown phase)
No known projects, much speculation about tests and scientific research. For example, the US military created in 1996 a program called SHAAFT. Now the US Military is working on a number of prototypes:
TENGYUN is a hypersonic aircraft powered during the first stage by a turbine rocket combined cycle (TRCC) engine, which then launches a reusable second-stage rocket to reach the stratosphere.
Because scramjet technology, on which HAA systems rely, is still in its early phases of development, this weapon system is unlikely to see the light of day any time soon.
Anti-ship missiles accelerate to hypersonic speed, allowing them to hit naval groups. As described below, this is because of a scramjet motor that gives such missiles their power:
Anti Ship Missiles are believed to be a maneuvering, winged hypersonic cruise missile with a lift-generating center body. A booster stage with solid-fuel engines accelerates it to supersonic speeds, after which a scramjet motor in the second stage accelerates it to hypersonic speeds.
Anti Ship Hypersonic Missiles:
United States (Currently only possesses sub-sonic missiles)
In the next article I will explain how Russia and China Gained a Strategic Advantage in Hypersonic Technology and why this could be a game changer in future war scenarios.
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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.
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I think maybe the only mission accomplished was when they helped ISIS escape from Raqqa, when they helped them, and it was proven by video, and under their cover. The leaders of ISIS escaped Raqqa, going toward Deir ez-Zor just to fight the Syrian Army. The other mission accomplished was when they attacked the Syrian Army at the end of 2016 in the area of Deir ez-Zor when ISIS was surrounding Deir ez-Zor, and the only force was the Syrian Army.
The Putin-Netanyahu Summit on Victory Day really did change everything, and Russia is no longer shy about showing the world its desire to “balance” “Israel” and Iran in Syria.
Israel has repeatedly struck Syria with missiles and rockets – the most recent exchange taking place after Israel claims “Iranian rockets” struck positions the Israeli military is illegally occupying in Syria’s Golan Heights.
Israel used a false-flag tactic to justify a military strike in Syria claiming that it was the Iranians who fired the missiles at the Golan Heights in the first place. Israel clearly wants a war with Syria and their biggest obstacle to hegemonic power in the Middle East, Iran with Washington’s help of course. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu held the “Iran Lied” presentation in Tel-Aviv on Iran’s alleged secret nuclear weapons activity.
Israel hits Syrian and Iranian objectives and weapons warehouses again (evacuated weeks before) for the fourth time in a month. 28 Israeli jets participated in the biggest attack since 1974. Tel Aviv informed the Russian leadership of its intentions without succeeding in stopping the Syrian leadership from responding. Actually, what is new is the location where Damascus decided to hit back: the occupied Golan Heights (20 rockets were fired at Israeli military positions).
From the very beginning, way into Trump’s Presidential Campaign, he was against the deal. It was a bad deal, “the worst Obama could have made” – he always repeated himself, without ever saying what was bad about it, nor did he reveal who was the “bad-deal whisperer”, who for once didn’t get across to Obama with his unreasonable requests.
Featured image: An animation shows how carbon dioxide moves around the planet. (Photo: NASA/YouTube)
As the Trump administration charges forward with its war on science by canceling a “crucial” carbon monitoring system at NASA, scientists and climate experts are sounding alarms over atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide (CO2) that just surpassed a “troubling” threshold for the first time in human history.
“The reading from the Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii finds that concentrations of the climate-warming gas averaged above 410 parts per million [ppm] throughout April,” Chris Mooneywrote for the Washington Post. “The first time readings crossed 410 at all occurred on April 18, 2017, or just about a year ago.”
While the planet’s concentrations of carbon dioxide fluctuated between roughly 200 ppm and 280 ppm for hundreds of thousands of centuries, as the NASA chart below details, CO2 concentrations have soared since the start industrial revolution—and, without urgent global efforts to significantly alter human activities that produce greenhouse gas emissions, show no sign of letting up.
“As a scientist, what concerns me the most is not that we have passed yet another round-number threshold but what this continued rise actually means: that we are continuing full speed ahead with an unprecedented experiment with our planet, the only home we have,” Katharine Hayhoe, a climate scientist at Texas Tech University, told Mooney.
While CO2 levels have passed 400 ppm in the Earth’s history, “it has been a long time. And scientists are concerned that the rate of change now is far faster than what Earth has previously been used to,” as Mooney explained:
In the mid-Pliocene warm period more than 3 million years ago, they were also around 400 parts per million—but Earth’s sea level is known to have been 66 feet or more higher, and the planet was still warmer than now.
As a recent federal climate science report (coauthored by Hayhoe) noted, the 400 parts per million carbon dioxide level in the Pliocene “was sustained over long periods of time, whereas today the global CO2 concentration is increasing rapidly.” In other words, Earth’s movement toward Pliocene-like conditions may play out in the decades and centuries ahead of us.
As climate scientists continue to warn about the global consequences of rising levels of CO2 and other greenhouse gases—such as more intense and frequent extreme weather events—the Trump administration has pursued a multi-pronged anti-science agenda that includes rolling back regulations that aim to limit emissions and blocking future research.
On the eve the planet crossed the highest measured CO2 levels, 410 ppm, NASA quietly cancels carbon monitoring research programhttps://t.co/SK24fBzge2
News of the record-high levels of atmospheric carbon came as Sciencereported that the Trump administration “quietly killed” NASA’s $10-million-a-year Carbon Monitoring System (CMS), which “has helped stitch together observations of sources and sinks into high-resolution models of the planet’s flows of carbon”—because, as 350.org co-founder Bill McKibben remarked sarcastically, “what you can’t see can’t cook you.”
Trump kills crucial NASA work to measure carbon and methane. Because what you can't see can't cook you. https://t.co/aZedBKmRFI
“The White House has mounted a broad attack on climate science, repeatedly proposing cuts to NASA’s earth science budget, including the CMS, and cancellations of climate missions such as the Orbiting Carbon Observatory 3 (OCO-3). Although Congress fended off the budget and mission cuts, a spending deal signed in March made no mention of the CMS. That allowed the administration’s move to take effect.”
Canceling CMS likely has global ramifications, Kelly Sims Gallagher, director of Tufts University’s Center for International Environment and Resource Policy, pointed out, because the system monitors the Earth’s CO2 levels as nations that have signed on to the Paris climate agreement—from which Trump plans to withdraw—pursue policies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
“If you cannot measure emissions reductions, you cannot be confident that countries are adhering to the agreement,” Gallagher said, calling the decision to kill the system “a grave mistake.”
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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License
In Charles Dickens’s novel “A Tale of Two Cities”, set during the French revolution of 1789, he draws the character of Madame Defarge. She, along with other members of the Tricoteuse, the knitting women, perch every day next to the guillotine, knitting into hats and socks the names of those to be executed, while watching the upper aristocracy and upper bourgeoisie being dispatched to their death one by one. They were regarded as respected sisters of the revolution.
I cannot help being reminded of her when I read the CV of the woman nominated by President Donald Trump to be the new head of the CIA, Gina Haspel. She is a career officer who ran a CIA “black site” in Thailand. She implemented the torture policies of president George W. Bush. She also, according to The Economist, transmitted her boss’s orders to destroy video evidence of brutal interrogations.
She ignored the UN Convention Against Torture, which the conservative president, Ronald Reagan, had successfully fought to be ratified. James Comey, the FBI director, another Republican, who was fired by Trump, wrote in his recent memoirs:
“I could not get away from the mental pictures of naked men chained to the ceiling in a cold, blazingly lit, cell for endless days.”
When the allies captured high-ranking members of the Nazi government and German generals, they wanted all the information they could get. They got most of it but they never used torture. What Bush, with the connivance of Haspel and her like, did would never have been allowed, yet the stakes then were much higher.
Immediately on attaining office, president Barack Obama banned torture. In sharp contrast during his campaign, Trump said he favoured bringing it back and a “hell of a lot worse than waterboarding”. Contradicting him, his secretary of defence, General James Mattis, says he does not believe in torture. He argues that he could extract from a prisoner the information needed with two chairs, a packet of cigarettes and a couple of bottles of beer.
The Mattis line follows the arguments of the 2014 report of the US Senate that examined, among others, the torture of the 9/11 mastermind, Khalid Sheikh. He was waterboarded, which gives the sensation of drowning, 183 times. The report concluded that the information extracted from him could have been learnt without torture.
Primitive man, like other animals, followed his instincts and killed his enemy as swiftly as the job could be done. Archaeologists, examining skeletons, have found no evidence of torture.
For several hundred thousand years, torture did not exist. Only in the last few thousand has it become a weapon of state.
Rome tortured the early Christians. The Christian church repelled by this Roman practice, for a thousand years used its great strength to abolish torture. Until the time of Pope Innocent IV in the thirteenth century, it was practically unknown in the Western world.
The Inquisition brought it back. Heretics were forced to undergo a very systematic use of torture, while a magistrate sat close by logging carefully the instruments used.
In the 17th century, torture began to die out. In 1640, it was abolished in England by law. After the 1789 Revolution, France made the use of torture a capital offence. Most German states and Russia abolished it in the nineteenth century. Moreover, the European imperial powers did much to dampen its use in the many parts of the world where they had their empires.
During the twentieth century, torture returned with a vengeance. It reached such a scale that it dwarfed even the darkest Middle Ages. It was Mussolini’s fascists that were the first government to make torture an official policy. The blackshirts invented their own particular brand of torture; pumping a prisoner full of castor oil “to purge him of the will to exist”.
The German Nazis not only developed the concentration camps for mass extermination of the Jews, gypsies and homosexuals, they regularly used torture. Spain, under Franco, used torture until the 1970s. As late as 1981, Spanish police were found to have used torture against Basque nationalists.
In the United Kingdom during the civil war in Northern Ireland, torture was used in the 1960s and early 1970s mainly against the IRA. Hooding, loud, high-pitched noise, sleep and food deprivation were the main tools. It was uncovered by Irish newspapers and triggered a great row in Britain. Eventually it was banned.
In 1972, Amnesty International launched a campaign, supported by the Scandinavian countries and Holland, to abolish torture. But it took until 1984 to win a UN legally binding treaty. Bush and Trump have ignored it. So did the British government of Tony Blair.
With people like Gina Haspel in charge of the CIA, we can assume the worst. The Senate must not confirm her in office.
For decades, Kenya and Ethiopia have endured extreme droughts[1] that precipitated severe food shortages[2], whereby millions of people were forced to reduce their food consumption to just one meal per day and lacked access to adequate water supplies[3]. Ethiopia and Kenya have experienced below-average rainfall since the beginning of 2018, which has created food insecurity and led to the onset of a famine in some regions.[4] According to Kenya’s Minister of Environment, more than 10 million[5] people in the country are currently hungry and an estimated 4 million are at risk of emergency levels of hunger, or even famine, by as early as August.
The lack of potable water has forced millions of Kenyans and Ethiopians to depend on trucks for the delivery of drinkable water every few days. However, despite the fact that children are starving, cattle are dying from dehydration and starvation, and lakes are drying up, both Kenya and Ethiopia continue to produce flowers for the European market, which draws upon scarce water resources and exacerbates shortages[6]. Even in the midst of a severe food security crisis, Dutch farmers manage to transport 100s of tons of flowers from Kenya and Ethiopia to Europe each and every day without exception. Moreover, the production and transport of flowers is intensified each year during the few weeks leading up to Valentine’s Day and Mother’s Day in order to meet higher demands.
As of 2018, more than 220,000 hectares of land are allocated for flower production worldwide. The global flowers industry is valued at over US$100 billion, and it is estimated that consumers spend in excess of US$30 billion on flowers each year. The majority of the market is distributed throughout European Union countries from the town of Aalsmeer in the Netherlands, meaning that most of the flowers produced in South American and East African countries are transported to the Netherlands via air cargo and traded at Aalsmeer. This explains why the Netherlands is ranked as the largest exporter of flowers in world, accounting for almost 60% of global exports of flowers, even though the country itself only produces enough flowers to satisfy about 10% of total exports. The remainder of the flowers that are exported by the Netherlands are mostly produced by equatorial countries like Colombia[7], Ecuador[8], Ethiopia, and Kenya[9], where the flower industry has become a significant component of agricultural sector, as well as one of the most important foreign exchange earner industries. These countries make over 30% of their annual flower sales during the period that includes both Valentine’s Day and Mother’s Day.
The U.S. and Germany are the largest importers of flowers in the world. Kenya and Ethiopia[10] are the largest suppliers of flowers to Europe, while Ecuador and Colombia are the main suppliers to North America. These four countries have comparative advantages in flower production, because they possess ideal climates throughout the entire year and low production costs compared to their trade partners.
While the flower industry has created many jobs and has generated income for both importer and exporter nations, most of the workers employed in producing the flowers are underpaid, work long hours, and experience health issues due to repetitive actions and exposure to highly toxic pesticides and fertilizers.In addition to these hardships, female workers, who constitute the majority of the workforce in the flower industry, also face physical and sexual abuse.
Flowers are actually one of the most pesticide-intensive crops available. Since they are not edible, the amount of pesticide use permitted exceeds that of the food industry by approximately 50 times. Many of these pesticides are carcinogenic and toxic and, in addition to their negative health impacts on workers, they also do irreversible damage to the environment, including the air, soil, and particularly the water supply, as many of the chemicals used to grow flowers often end up in lakes and rivers.
Furthermore, despite the fact that equatorial countries possess ideal climates for flower production all year round, thousands of acres of climate-controlled greenhouses are employed because the flowers require artificial light, heating and cooling during their growing cycle. This process generates significant carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, particularly when considering that some of these greenhouses are as large as multiple football fields. Subsequently, additional CO2 emissions are generated when the packaged flowers are stored in warehouses and transported over thousands of miles in airplanes and trucks, all of which must be refrigerated. As such, it should come as no surprise that flower consumption is responsible for the release of tens of thousands of metric tons of CO2 during the weeks preceding Valentine’s Day and Mother’s Day each year, in addition to the hundreds of thousands of metric tons of CO2 produced during the rest of the year.
Flower farming also substantially reduces the amount of land available for traditional farming,while expending resources that could be better-allocated for the production of edible crops, which would serve to mitigate risks of food insecurity and malnutrition. This is evident in African nations like Kenya and Ethiopia, where the production of flowers expends scarce water supplies that could have been used to grow crops for local food consumption. Despite the fact that one hectare of land on a flower farm consumes an average of over 900 cubic meters of water per month,many farmers have abandoned traditional farming in these countries in favour of the more lucrative venture of supplying the flower industry. This has resulted in high food prices, making it difficult for the poor and low income workers to obtain sufficient food and water for their families, which has contributed to the onset of malnutrition for millions of people.[11]
The aggressive implementation of structural adjustment programs in underdeveloped countries during the 1980s and 1990s, which was overseen by the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF), played a decisive role in determining what kinds of goods the loan recipients would produce for exportation; in most African nations, support was generally provided to the agricultural sector. In the case of Kenya, the IMF and World Bank pressured its government to allocate land that was typically used for traditional agriculture and food production for the cultivation of flowers and other products for export in the 1990s. This was done in spite of the fact that Kenyans in some regions of the country had already been experiencing some level of food insecurity and malnutrition for decades. Today, flower exports generate $150 million for Kenya each year, making it the country’s third largest earner of foreign exchange after tea and tourism. Kenya is also Africa’s primary supplier of flowers to Europe, which are primarily destined for the Netherlands (69%), the UK (18%), and Germany (7%).
Kenya’s flower industry controls the majority of the land around Lake Naivasha, which boasts fresh water reserves. “Many of the large horticultural and floricultural farms surrounding the lake were once farms owned by European settlers, but are now owned by their descendants, wealthy Africans and/or international interests”[12] who often forbid the public from accessing the lake. Lake Naivasha provides an abundance of water for flower farms, which mostly produce flowers that are not indigenous to Kenya and typically require higher levels of water consumption,as well as excessive applications of stronger pesticides and fertilizers, relative to native species. Meanwhile, over 40% of Kenya’s population does not have access to a reliable source of potable water[13] and many people are forced to travel significant distances to obtain water for their families. To be more precise,
“with a population of 46 million, 41 percent of Kenyans still rely on unimproved water sources, such as ponds, shallow wells and rivers, while 59 percent of Kenyans use unimproved sanitation solutions… Only 9 out of 55 public water service providers in Kenya provide continuous water supply, leaving people to find their own ways of searching for appropriate solutions to these basic needs.”[14]
In addition to exacerbating water shortages,the flower industry also contributes to a number of significant ecological problems in the surrounding region, as it is a persistent emitter of CO2 that relies on excessive applications of toxic pesticides and fertilizers, which has caused irreversible damage to the environment and society. Specific to Kenya, a report published by Food and Water Watch[15] and the Council of Canadians[16] states that,
“The pesticides applied on the farms and in the greenhouses eventually end up in Lake Naivasha and in the groundwater, endangering the area’s people and wildlife.”
Flower production in Kenya
The flower industry has been praised as an economic success story in East African countries for creating jobs and generating income. However, most of the flower industry profits are accrued to multinational corporations, which are generally headquartered outside of the countries where the actual production takes place. In reality, the flower industry creates very low paid jobs for local workers, involving very heavy workloads. That is to say, citizens of the flower producing countries in South America and Africa receive very few benefits from the flower industry, even though it depletes their much-needed natural resources, particularly the scarce water supplies in Africa.
In the case of Kenya, locals who were already facing difficulty in terms of obtaining their basic needs and providing for their families also have to contend with their country’s resources being exploited to produce ephemeral consumption products for the citizens of Western countries.As the situation is currently constituted, Europe is essentially transferring the intensive water usage required to produce the flowers demanded by its citizens to the African nations that actually grow them. By depleting the water resources in Africa, the continent that can least afford to spare its scarce water supplies, Europeans can save their own fresh water reserves and allocate them to less wasteful endeavours, while still obtaining their flowers.
Flowers might be regarded as symbols of love. The truth, however, is that the current system of producing and consuming flowers is responsible for the destruction and depletion of water reserves, worsening food shortages, saturating the surrounding environment with toxic chemicals and fertilizers, and threatening humans, animals and plant life in the regions where they are grown. In essence, everyone who purchases flowers that were grown in Kenya is exploiting Naivasha water at the expense of the locals who are preventing from accessing it, and contributing to the loss of biodiversity, deforestation, soil degradation, and many other destructive impacts that the flower industry has had on the inhabitants of the region. When one learns of all these destructive outcomes generated by the flower industry, flowers start to lose their external beauty and no longer seem to represent a symbol of love.
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Global Research contributor Dr. Birsen Filip holds a Ph.D. in philosophy from the University of Ottawa.
Notes
[1] Somalia and South Sudan are also experiencing chronic drought, which has generated severe hunger crises requiring humanitarian assistance. Some have predicted that these countries might be affected by famine as early as 2018.
[2] Many African countries have been experiencing similar and worse cases of food insecurity and severe malnutrition for decades.
[5] Currently, significant food assistance is needed to prevent hunger and famine in a number of East African nations, including Ethiopia, Kenya, South Sudan, and Somalia, where almost 25 million people are impacted, including 15 million children. Inadequate rainfall and food insecurity are also devastating parts of Cameroon, Chad, Niger, and Nigeria.
[6] The current crisis facing a number of African countries is the outcome of many factors including centuries of exploitation, colonization, imperialism, climate change, conflict, overpopulation, corruption, the mismanagement of natural resources, and unsustainable resource use resulting in environmental degradation, biodiversity loss and deforestation. Allocating water supplies for the production of flowers exacerbates this situation.
[7] Colombia is the second-largest exporter of flowers in the world.
[8] Ecuador is the world’s third-largest exporter of flowers. Ecuador’s floriculture industry began to develop in 1991, with support from the Andean Trade Preference Act.
[9] Kenya is the fourth-largest exporter of flowers in the world.
[10] In 1990s, less than 100 hectares of land was allocated to flower farmers in Ethiopia. Today, 3,000 hectares of land are dedicated for flower production in Ethiopia, transforming the country into the second-largest exporter of flowers in Africa, behind only Kenya.
[11] Many African countries have been experiencing below-average seasonal rainfall, contributing to large numbers of animal deaths, poor harvests that result in insufficient supplies of low quantity food at a higher prices, and severe food insecurity for millions of people.
[13] The problem of accessing potable or reliable water sources is not limited to Kenya, as millions of people in a number of African countries are unable to obtain sufficient water for their daily needs or traditional farming. In Ethiopia, for example, in 2018, a devastating drought that has dried up water resources and destroyed livelihoods, as “61 million people lack access to Safe Water.” https://water.org/search/?query=ethiopia
[16] “The Council of Canadians is Canada’s largest citizens’ advocacy organization working to safeguard social security, promote economic justice, renew democracy, advocate alternatives to corporate-style free trade, and preserve our environment.” ftp://ftp.itc.nl/pub/naivasha/PolicyNGO/FWW2008.pdf
The debate in the New York Times and Washington Post over President Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), better known as the Iran deal, revolves around which tactics America should use to dominate Iran.
At one end of the spectrum of acceptable opinion is the view that President Trump was correct to withdraw from the deal because it supposedly failed to handcuff Iran to a sufficient degree. At the other is the far more common perspective, which is that Trump should have remained in the deal because it is an effective tool for controlling Iran.
In the New York Times, Bret Stephens (5/8/18) argued that the agreement did not achieve what he thinks should be the goal of US policy towards Iran, namely:
to put Iran’s rulers to a fundamental choice. They can opt to have a functioning economy, free of sanctions and open to investment, at the price of permanently, verifiably and irreversibly forgoing a nuclear option and abandoning their support for terrorists. Or they can pursue their nuclear ambitions at the cost of economic ruin and possible war.
The New York Times‘ Bret Stephens (5/8/18) is glad Trump canceled the Iran deal because that allows the US to threaten Iran with “economic ruin and possible war.”
Ending American participation in the deal makes sense, according to Stephens, because doing so puts Washington in a better position to threaten to violently destroy Iran in order to make it do want the US government wants. What he means by “support for terrorists” is unclear and evidence-free.
The Washington Post (5/9/18) ran an incoherent piece by US national security advisor John Bolton saying that Trump needed to take the US out of the Iran deal because, since its implementation, Iran has not “focus[ed] on behaving responsibly.” In other words, he opposes the nuclear accord because Iran has proven itself too immature for the freedom from US control that Bolton wrongly suggests it is offered under the JCPOA.
Commentators who differed on Trump’s decision nevertheless shared the premise of those in favor of taking the US out of the deal, which is that Iran belongs under imperial stewardship.
John Bolton (Washington Post, 5/9/18), one of the foremost advocates of the Iraq invasion and for regime change in Libya and Syria, accused Iran of “spreading an arc of death and destruction across the Middle East.”
Susan Rice, President Obama’s national security advisor, defended the Iran nuclear deal in the Times (5/8/18) on the grounds that it “has served American interests.”
“By withdrawing from the deal,” she writes, “we have weakened our ability to address [America’s] concerns” with Iranian policy.
Roger Cohen of the Times (5/8/18) took the same position, saying,
“The question has always been: Do you change Iran by isolating it or by engaging it step by step? The nuclear deal was a possible starting point in engagement.”
Trump, Cohen continues, “has done a grave disservice to American interests.”
In the Post (5/10/18), furthermore, David Ignatius criticized Trump for transforming Iran from “a manageable problem into a freewheeling, uncontrolled one.”
Iran and Global Empire
While analysts at the Times and the Post sit at different points within the parameters of permissible thinking, they have in common the view that Iran should be a ward of empire because otherwise it will interfere with the US’s global ambitions. Proponents and opponents of the Iran deal therefore debate it on the basis of whether it helps US ruling class efforts to secure global hegemony.
Stephens backed Trump’s move because he says that the agreement eased sanctions on Iran, thereby enabling the country to have more money with which to support its allies in Syria, Yemen and Lebanon. He says that “any [US] effort to counter Iran on the ground in these places would mean fighting the very forces we are effectively feeding. Why not just stop the feeding?” His position is that Trump is right to pull out of the deal because it enabled Iran to hinder US goals in the Middle East.
Bolton complained that “Tehran has poured billions of dollars into military adventures abroad, spreading an arc of death and destruction across the Middle East from Yemen to Syria,” ludicrously absolving the US/Saudi/UK coalition of its aggression against Yemen, and incorrectly assigning Iran sole responsibility for the bloodshed in Syria. That he was complaining about Iran’s support for forces that function as barriers to US domination in Syria and Yemen—support that is rather overblown in the Yemeni case—can hardly be seen as a coincidence.
At the other boundary of tolerable debate, Rice criticized Trump’s withdrawal because, she claimed, it meant that “Russia and China’s position in [the Middle East] will be bolstered at our expense.” In her view, Iran should be under US management for the purposes of imperial grand strategy.
The Nonexistent Iranian Nuclear Threat
Advocates of the agreement with Iran also debate detractors in terms of whether the arrangement is effective protection against the Iranian nuclear weapons program, a curious exercise given that no such program exists.
Yet Stephens implied that one does, or that there is reason to suspect that one might, writing that under the JCPOA,
Iran is under looser nuclear strictures than South Korea, and would have been allowed to enrich as much material as it liked once the deal expired. That’s nuts.
Bolton obscurely suggested that Iran is pursuing nuclear weapons by saying that the JCPOA is based on the theory that Iran would “trade its nuclear ambitions for economic incentives,” while also writing that the deal has an “abysmal record” and “undermines the security of the American people.” Later he refers to Israeli revelations of a “trove of documentation of Iran’s past nuclear weapons program,” which he then says demonstrates that the US and Israel “are safer together than we are individually.”
A New York Times illustration (5/8/18) depicts Trump erasing the restraints around an imaginary Iranian warhead.
Yet other writers argue that the US should have remained in the deal because it kept in check the nuclear weapons program that Iran does not have. A New York Times editorial (5/8/18) said:
When it comes to the danger of a nuclear arms race in the Middle East, there is no sign Iran or any of the other major powers in the existing and so far successful pact will simply fall in line with Mr. Trump’s notional new plan. More likely, his decision, announced on Tuesday, will allow Iran to resume a robust nuclear program.
The first sentence in this passage implied that Iran is involved in “a nuclear arms race,” or that there is reason to believe it likely will be part of one, even though there isn’t. Saying that Trump pulling out of the deal “will allow Iran to resume a robust nuclear program,” since it follows the phrase “nuclear arms race,” can easily be understood to refer to Iran’s “robust” nuclear weapons program, which it does not have.
In the Post, likewise, Jennifer Rubin (5/8/18) argued that Iran “now can do what it pleases with its nuclear program—either choose to remain in the deal with the Europeans or proceed again with its nuclear weapons program.”
Inadmissible Thinking
Rarely allowed into the debate is the notion that Iranians have the right to chart their own course free of US interference, or any accounting of the harm US sanctions inflict on the people of Iran–views that exist on the far fringes of respectable analysis, appearing in limited ways just once in each paper amid the deluge of opinion pieces written about the nuclear deal in recent days, and drowned out by the chorus calling for Iran to be held beneath the American boot.
That the US and its Israeli partner should cease their efforts to dominate the Middle East, or that America and Israel’s nonfictional nuclear weapons need to be abolished, are evidently inadmissible into public discourse.
In an exclusive interview with Kathimerini, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad denied that the Syrian Army used chemical weapons against civilians, while taking aim at both Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and US President Donald Trump.
Saying that Syria gave up its chemical arsenal in 2013, Assad said the
“Western narrative started after the victory of the Syrian Army, not before.”
He accused Erdogan of being “affiliated” with the Muslim Brotherhood Islamist movement and called Turkish troops “terrorists” over their intervention in Afrin.
As for Trump, who has called Assad an “animal,” the Syrian leader said it did not bother him “because I deal with the situation as a politician, as a president.”
Alexis Papachelas: There have been accusations from the US and the Europeans about the use of chemical weapons, and there was an attack after that. What is your response to that? Was there a chemical attack? Were you responsible for it?
President Bashar al-Assad: First of all, we don’t have a chemical arsenal since we gave it up in 2013, and the international agency for chemical weapons conducted investigations about this, and it’s clear or documented that we don’t have any. Second, even if we did have, we wouldn’t use them, for many different reasons. But let’s put these two points aside, let’s presume that this army has chemical weapons and it’s in the middle of the war; where should it be used? At the end of the battle? They should use it somewhere in the middle, or where the terrorists made an advancement, not where the army finished the battle and the terrorists gave up and said, “We are ready to leave the area,” and the army is fully in control of that area. So the Western narrative started after the victory of the Syrian Army, not before. When we finished the war, they said, “They used chemical weapons.”
Second, the use of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) in a crammed area with a population like Douma – the supposed area, it’s called Douma and they talk about 45 victims – when you use WMD in such an area, you should have hundreds or maybe thousands of victims. Third, why do all the chemical weapons – the presumed or supposed chemical weapons – only kill children and women? They don’t kill militants. If you look at the videos, it’s completely fake. I mean, when you have chemical weapons, how could the doctors and nurses be safe, dealing with the chemical atmosphere without any protective clothes, without anything, just throwing water at the victims, and the victims become OK just because you washed them with water. So, it’s a farce, it’s a play, it’s a very primitive play, just to attack the Syrian Army, because… Why? That’s the most important part: When the terrorists lost, the US, France, the UK and their other allies who want to destabilize Syria lost one of their main cards, and that’s why they had to attack the Syrian Army, just to raise the morale of the terrorists and to prevent the Syrian Army from liberating more areas in Syria.
AP: Are you saying that there was a chemical attack and someone else is responsible, or that there was nothing there?
PBA: That’s the question, because the side who said – allegedly – that there was a chemical attack, had to prove that there was an attack. We have two scenarios: Either the terrorists had chemical weapons and they used them intentionally, or maybe there were explosions or something, or there was no attack at all, because in all the investigations in Douma, people said, “We didn’t have any chemical attack, we didn’t see any chemical gas or smell any,” and so on. So, we don’t have any indications about what happened. The Western narrative is about that, so that question should be directed at the Western officials who said there was an attack. We should ask them: Where is your concrete evidence about what happened? They only talk about reports. Reports could be allegations. Videos by the White Helmets – the White Helmets are funded by the British Foreign Office – and so on.
AP: In a tweet, US President Donald Trump described you as “animal Assad.” What is your response?
PBA: Actually, when you are president of a country, you have first of all to represent the morals of your people before representing your own morals. You are representing your country. Does this language represent the American culture? That is the question. This is very bad, and I don’t think so. I don’t think there’s a community in the world that has such language. Second, the good thing about Trump is that he expresses himself in a very transparent way, which is very good in that regard. Personally, I don’t care, because I deal with the situation as a politician, as a president. It doesn’t matter for me personally; what matters is whether something would affect me, would affect my country, our war, the terrorists, and the atmosphere that we are living in.
AP: He said “mission accomplished in Syria.” How do you feel about that?
PBA: I think maybe the only mission accomplished was when they helped ISIS escape from Raqqa, when they helped them, and it was proven by video, and under their cover. The leaders of ISIS escaped Raqqa, going toward Deir ez-Zor just to fight the Syrian Army. The other mission accomplished was when they attacked the Syrian Army at the end of 2016 in the area of Deir ez-Zor when ISIS was surrounding Deir ez-Zor, and the only force was the Syrian Army. The only force to defend that city from ISIS was the Syrian Army, and because of the Americans’ – and of course their allies’ – attack, Deir ez-Zor was on the brink of falling into the hands of ISIS. So, this is the only mission that was accomplished. If he’s talking about destroying Syria, of course that’s another mission accomplished. While if you talk about fighting terrorism, we all know very clearly that the only mission the United States has been carrying out in Syria is supporting the terrorists, regardless of their names, or the names of their factions.
AP: He also used such language with the North Korean leader, and now they’re going to meet. Could you potentially see yourself meeting with Trump? What would you tell him if you saw him face to face?
PBA: The first question you should ask is: What can you achieve? The other: What can we achieve with someone who says something before the campaign, and does the opposite after the campaign, who says something today, and does the opposite tomorrow, or maybe in the same day? So, it’s about consistency. Do they have the same frequency every day, or the same algorithm? So, I don’t think that in the meantime we can achieve anything with such an administration. A further reason is that we don’t think the president of that regime is in control. We all believe that the deep state, the real state, is in control, or is in control of every president, and that is nothing new. It has always been so in the United States, at least during the last 40 years, at least since Nixon, maybe before, but it’s becoming starker and starker, and the starkest case is Trump.
AP: When will you accomplish your mission, given the situation here in Syria now?
PBA: I have always said, without any interference, it will take less than a year to regain stability in Syria; I have no doubt about that. The other factor is how much support the terrorists receive, which is something I cannot tell you, because I cannot predict the future. But as long as it continues, time is not the main factor. The main factor is that someday, we’re going to end this conflict and we’re going to reunify Syria under the control of the government. When? I cannot say. I hope it’s going to be soon.
AP: There has been some criticism lately, because you apparently have a law that says that anybody who doesn’t claim their property within a month cannot come back. Is that a way to exclude some of the people who disagree with you?
PBA: No, we cannot dispossess anyone of their property by any law, because the constitution is very clear about the ownership of any Syrian citizen. This could be about the procedure. It’s not the first time we have had such a law just to replan the destroyed and the illegal areas, because you’re dealing with a mixture of destroyed and illegal suburbs in different parts of Syria. So, this law is not about dispossessing anyone. You cannot, I mean even if he’s a terrorist. Let’s say, if you want to dispossess someone, you need a verdict by the judicial system – you cannot make it happen by law. So, there’s either misinterpretation of that law, or an intention, let’s say, to create a new narrative about the Syrian government in order to rekindle the fire of public opinion in the West against the Syrian government. But about the law, even if you want a procedure, it’s about the local administration, it’s about the elected body in different areas, to implement that law, not the government.
AP: It is clear that your biggest allies in this fight are Russia and Iran. Are you worried they might play too important a role in the future of the country after this war is over?
PBA: If you talk about my allies as a president, they are the Syrian people. If you talk about Syria’s allies, of course they’re the Iranians and the Russians. They are our strongest allies, and of course China that supported us politically in the Security Council. As for them playing an important role in the future of the country, these countries respect Syria’s sovereignty and national decision making and provide support to insure them. Iran and Russia are the countries which respect Syria’s sovereignty the most.
AP: It’s been a few years since you visited Greece. Your father had a very close relation with some of the Greek political leaders. How have the relations been between Greece and Syria these days, and what kind of message would you like to send to the Greek people?
PBA: At the moment, there are no formal relations between Syria and Greece; the embassies are closed, so there are no relations. At the same time, Greece wasn’t aggressive towards what happened in Syria. It always supported a political solution, it never supported war or attacks against Syria. You didn’t play any role to support the terrorists, but at the same time, as a member – and an important member – of the EU, you couldn’t play any role, let’s say, in refraining the other countries from supporting the terrorists, violating the international law by attacking and besieging a sovereign country without any reason, without any mandate by the Security Council. So, we appreciate that Greece wasn’t aggressive, but at the same time, I think Greece has to play that role, because it’s part of our region. It is part of the EU geographically, but it’s a bridge between our region and the rest of Europe, and it’s going to be affected, and it has been affected by the refugee situation, and terrorism now has been affecting Europe for the last few years, and Greece is part of that continent. So, I think it’s normal for Greece to start to play its role in the EU in order to solve the problem in Syria and protect the international law.
AP: How about Turkey? Turkey invaded part of your country. You used to have a pretty good relationship with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. How is that relationship now after the Turkish invasion?
PBA: First of all, this is an aggression, this is an occupation. Any single Turkish soldier on Syrian soil represents occupation. That doesn’t mean the Turkish people are our enemies. Only a few days ago, a political delegation visited from Turkey. We have to distinguish between the Turks in general and Erdogan. Erdogan is affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood. Maybe he’s not organized, but his affiliation is toward that ideology, I call it this dark ideology. And for him, because, like the West, when the terrorists lost control of different areas, and actually they couldn’t implement the agenda of Turkey or the West or Qatar or Saudi Arabia, somebody had to interfere. This is where the West interfered through the recent attacks on Syria, and this is where Erdogan was assigned by the West, mainly the United States, to interfere, to make the situation complicated, again because without this interference, the situation would have been resolved much faster. So, it’s not about personal relations. The core issue of the Muslim Brotherhood anywhere in the world is to use Islam in order to take control of the government in your country, and to create multiple governments with this kind of relationship, like a network of Muslim Brotherhoods, around the world.
AP: At an election campaign rally this week, he said that he’s going to order another incursion into Syria. How are you going to respond to that if it happens?
PBA: Actually, Erdogan has supported the terrorists since the very beginning of the war, but at that time, he could hide behind words like “protecting the Syrian people,” “supporting the Syrian people,” “supporting the refugees,” “we are against the killing,” and so on. He was able to appear as a humanitarian president, let’s say. Now, because of these circumstances, he has to take off the mask and show himself as the aggressor, and this is the good thing. So, there is no big difference between the head of the Turkish regime sending his troops to Syria and supporting the terrorists; this is his proxy. So, we’ve been fighting his army for seven years. The difference between now and then is the appearance; the core is the same. At that time, we couldn’t talk about occupation – we could talk about supporting terrorists – but this time we can talk about occupation, which is the announcement of Erdogan that he’s now violating the international law, and this could be the good part of him announcing this.
AP: But how can you respond to that?
PBA: First of all, we are fighting the terrorists, and as I said, the terrorists for us are his army, they are the American army, the Saudi army. Forget about the different factions and who is going to finance those factions; at the end of the day, they work for one agenda, and those different players obey one master: the American master. Erdogan is not implementing his own agenda; he’s only implementing the American agenda, and the same goes for the other countries in this war. So, first of all, you have to fight the terrorists. Second, when you take control of more areas, you have to fight any aggressor, any army. The Turkish, French, whoever, they are all enemies; as long as they came to Syria illegally, they are our enemies.
AP: Are you worried about a third world war starting here in Syria? I mean, you have the Israelis hitting the Iranians here in your own country. You have the Russians, you have the Americans. Are you concerned about that possibility?
PBA: No, for one reason: Because fortunately, you have a wise leadership in Russia, and they know that the agenda of the deep state in the United States is to create a conflict. Since Trump’s campaign, the main agenda was against Russia, create a conflict with Russia, humiliate Russia, undermine Russia, and so on. And we’re still in the same process under different titles or by different means. Because of the wisdom of the Russians, we can avoid this. Maybe it’s not a full-blown third world war, but it is a world war, maybe in a different way, not like the second and the first, maybe it’s not nuclear, but it’s definitely not a cold war; it’s something more than a cold war, less than a full-blown war. And I hope we don’t see any direct conflict between these superpowers, because that is where things are going to get out of control for the rest of the world.
AP: Now, there’s a very important question about whether Syria can be a unified, fully sovereign country again. Is that really possible after all that has happened?
PBA: It depends on what the criteria of being unified or not is. The main factor to have a unified country is to have unification in the minds of the people, and vice versa. When those people look at each other as foreigners, they cannot live with each other, and that is where you’re going to have division. Now, let’s talk about facts and reality – not my opinion, I can tell you no, it’s not going to be divided, and of course we’re not going to accept that, but it’s not about my will or about my rhetoric, to say we’re going to be unified; it’s about the reality.
The reality, now, if you look at Syria during the crisis, not only today, since the very beginning, you see all the different spectrums of the Syrian society living with each other, and better than before. These relationships are better than before, maybe because of the effect of the war. If you look at the areas under the control of the terrorists, this is where you can see one color of the Syrian society, which is a very, very, very narrow color. If you want to talk about division, you have to see the line, the separation line between either ethnicities or sects or religions, something you don’t see. So, in reality, there’s no division till this moment; you only have areas under the control of the terrorists. But what led to that speculation? Because the United States is doing its utmost to give that control, especially now in the eastern part of Syria, to those terrorists in order to give the impression that Syria cannot be unified again. But it’s going to be unified; I don’t have any doubt about that.
AP: But why would the US do that if you’re fighting the same enemy: Islamic terrorism?
PBA: Because the US usually has an agenda and it has goals. If it cannot achieve its goals, it resorts to something different, which is to create chaos. Create chaos until the whole atmosphere changes, maybe because the different parties will give up, and they will give in to their goals, and this is where they can implement their goals again, or maybe they change their goals, but if they cannot achieve it, it’s better to weaken every party and create conflict, and this is not unique to Syria. This has been their policy for decades now in every area of this world.
AP: Looking back, do you feel you’ve made any mistakes in dealing with this crisis and the civil war, when it started?
PBA: If I don’t make mistakes, I’m not human; maybe on a daily basis sometimes. The more you work, the more complicate the situation, the more mistakes you are likely to make. But how do you protect yourself as much as possible from committing mistakes? First of all, you consult the largest proportion of the people, not only the institutions, including the parliament, syndicates, and so on, but also the largest number of people, or the largest part of society, to participate in every decision.
While if you talk about the way I behaved toward, or the way I led, let’s say, the government or the state during the war, the main pillars of the state’s policy were to fight terrorism – and I don’t think that fighting terrorism was wrong, to respond to the political initiatives from different parties externally and internally regardless of their intentions, to make a dialogue with everyone – including the militants, and finally to make reconciliation. So, about the pillars of our policy, I think the reality has proven that we were right. As for the details, of course, you always have mistakes.
AP: How much is it going to cost to reconstruct this country, and who is going to pay for that?
PBA: Hundreds of billions, the minimum is 200 billion, and according to some estimates it’s about 400 billion dollars. Why is it not precise? Because some areas are still under the control of the terrorists, so we couldn’t estimate precisely what the figure is. So, this is plus or minus, let’s say.
AP: There has been a lot of speculation. For example, people say in order for a political solution to be viable, you might have to sacrifice yourself for the good of the country. Is that something that has crossed your mind?
PBA: The main part of my future, as a politician, is two things: my will and the will of the Syrian people. Of course, the will of the Syrian people is more important than my will, my desire to be in that position or to help my country or to play a political role, because if I have that desire and will and I don’t have the public support, I can do nothing. After seven years of me being in that position, if I don’t have the majority of the Syrian people’s support, how could I hold it for more than seven years now, with all this animosity from the strongest and the richest countries? Who supports me? If the Syrian people are against me, how can I stay? So, when I feel that the Syrian people do not want me to stay anymore, of course I have to leave without any hesitation.
AP: A lot of blood has been spilt. Can you see yourself sitting across from the opposition and sharing power in some way?
PBA: When you talk about blood, you have to talk about who spilt that blood. I was president before the war for 10 years. Had I been killing the Syrian people for 10 years? No, definitely not. So, the conflict started because somebody, first of all part of the West, supported those terrorists, and they bear the responsibility for this war. So first of all the West, who provided military and financial support and political cover, and who stood against the Syrian people, who impoverished the Syrian people and created a better atmosphere for the terrorists to kill more Syrian people. So, part of the West, mainly France, UK, and US, and also Saudi Arabia and Qatar and Turkey are responsible for this part. Of course blood has been spilt – it’s a war – but who’s responsible? Those who are responsible should be held accountable.
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It couldn’t get any clearer – Russia is without a doubt “urging” Syria to “compromise” on a so-called “political solution” to its long-running crisis, and to do so as soon as possible in order to avoid a larger Mideast war. The groundbreaking Putin-Netanyahu Summit that took place a couple of days ago in Moscow on Victory Day was bookended by two back-to-back “Israeli” bombings of Syria within a 24 hour period, all of which was followed by Russia reportedly declining to sell S-300s to Syria.
There’s no other way to analyze this than to see it for what it truly is, which is Russia utilizing various means to “urge” Syria to “compromise” on its hitherto recalcitrant position in refusing to make tangible progress in adapting the 2017 Russian-written “draft constitution” for “decentralization” (and possibly even “federalization”) and “complying” with Moscow and others’ “request” that it initiate the “phased withdrawal” of Iran’s elite Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and their Hezbollah allies from the Arab Republic.
Sudden Flip-Flopping Or Scenario Fulfillment?
The suddenness with which Russia moved may have caught many Alt-Media observers by surprise, but that’s only because many of them were brainwashed by the community’s dogma that Russia is “against” “Israel” and supposedly on some kind of “anti-Zionist crusade”, which it definitely isn’t. Instead, Russia and “Israel” are veritably allies and the events of the past couple of days prove it. That said, just because Russian foreign policy seems (key word) to be “pro-‘Israeli’” doesn’t in and of itself make it “anti-Iranian”, at least not how Moscow conceives of it. Rather, Moscow believes that it’s fulfilling its grand geostrategic ambition to become the supreme “balancing” force in 21st-century Eurasia, to which end it’s playing the globally irreplaceable role of preventing the current “Israeli”-Iranian proxy war in Syria from evolving into a full-fledged conventional one all throughout the Mideast. This concept is a lot for some people to digest, so it’s requested that they reference the following background texts in order to catch up to the present state of affairs:
The gist of all of this is that Russia’s excellent relations with “Israel” are part of its envisioned hemispheric “balancing” act in deterring its many diverse and in some cases rivalling partners (such as “Israel” and Iran) from resorting to military means to settle their disputes and to instead rely on Russian-mediated diplomatic efforts to broker a “political solution”, whether openly or clandestinely through “gentlemen’s agreements”. In the Syrian context – whether one thinks it’s “morally/ethically” right, wrong, or feels indifferent towards it – Russia has determined that the “Israeli”-Iranian proxy war will continue to escalate so long as Damascus allows the IRGC and Hezbollah to retain their military presence in the Arab Republic after the defeat of Daesh, the latter event of which should have served as the trigger for allowing those two a “dignified” and “phased” withdrawal from the country but ultimately didn’t because of Damascus’ desire to play off Tehran and Moscow in a bid to reap strategic benefits from both.
Walking The Tightrope Between Tel Aviv And Tehran
In addition, there are also very serious matters of national pride when it comes to Syria’s relationship with its Iranian and Hezbollah Resistance allies, both of whom proved themselves as the country’s most loyal partners in the military and ideological senses. It’s all but politically impossible for President Assad to “comply” with what is quickly becoming the “international community’s” informal “request” for him to ‘compromise” on his country’s ties with these two because his domestic base might be tempted to perceive this (whether rightly or wrongly) as “selling out” and having fought this war “for nothing” since these terms were present from the very beginning of the conflict. The Syrian government refused to remove both of them from the country over seven years ago as a “compromise” for preempting what has since turned out to be one of the worst wars of this century so far, so it’s unlikely that it will do so now no matter how much “pressure” is put upon it, including from its Russian partners.
The contradiction between Syria’s “maximalist” approach in wanting to liberate “every inch” of its territory (which is its sovereign and legal right) and Russia’s “pragmatic” one in recognizing the impossibility of this reality and declining to get militarily involved in advancing these plans (which would correspondingly include forcibly removing NATO members Turkey and the US from the Arab Republic) have led to a “strategic dilemma” between the two partners whereby Damascus is intent on dragging its feet and procrastinating in order to avoid the political (“new constitution”)and military (“phased withdrawal” of the IRGC and Hezbollah) “compromises” that Moscow’s “solution” entails. Russia respects that Syria has informally made the choice to avoid committing to either of these two interlinked prospective means for resolving the crisis, but it nevertheless won’t stop trying to “convince” Damascus that the options presented before it are what Moscow believes to be the “best” ones that will ever be offered from this point forward.
In pursuit of its peacemaking objective to get Syria to “compromise” on the terms that Russia has presumably presented it with in order to avoid escalating the “Israeli”-Iranian proxy war inside the country to the point where it becomes a conventional one all throughout the region, Moscow has apparently decided to send very strong symbolic messages to Damascus to let it know just how serious it is about this. The most powerful signals that sent shockwaves through the Alt-Media and likely also the global diplomatic communities came from the Putin-Netanyahu Summit and Russia’s passive “acceptance” of “Israel’s” latest bombing run against what Tel Aviv claimed were Iranian units in southern Syria. Furthermore, Russia’s reported reconsideration of possible S-300 sales to Syria also stands out in the starkest terms as an informal statement declaring Moscow’s unwillingness to contribute to anything that would “compromise” “Israel’s” ability to bomb suspected Iranian and Hezbollah targets at will.
Concluding Thoughts
Referring back to the title of this analysis, it couldn’t be any clearer that Russia is “urging” Syria to “compromise” as soon as possible, though it’s uncertain whether Moscow’s latest messages will get Damascus to “comply” or if it will continue digging in its heels to resist all international “pressure” to do so. Time is running out, however, because “Israel” has signaled that it’s run out of patience with this “game” and will utilize all means at its disposal to remove Iran and Hezbollah from Syria once and for all, counting as it will on open US and Gulf backing alongside Russia’s implicit support. Moscow’s passive involvement in these “containment” measures is a real game-changer and dramatically alters the strategic dynamics of the “Israeli”-Iranian proxy war in Syria, making it more likely than not that the odds will decisively shift in Tel Aviv’s favor with time unless Damascus “cuts a deal” and freezes the state of affairs before it gets any worse than it already is.
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.
The nomination of CIA operative Gina Haspel to be CIA director has, fortunately, given rise to powerful arguments against the U.S. government’s participation in torture, a practice that is common to tyrannical regimes. The critics of Haspel’s nomination are right: The United States should never be engaged in evil conduct, and the torture of a human being is without any doubt whatsoever evil conduct. That’s why torture is inevitably associated with such regimes as Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union, and North Korea. It has no place in a country whose very own founding document, the Constitution, expressly prohibits the federal government from inflicting “cruel and unusual punishments” on people.
Unfortunately, though, hardly anyone is talking about assassination, which is another core program of Haspel’s CIA, one that involves murdering people. One might be tempted to say that assassination is “legalized murder” but actually that wouldn’t be correct. It’s not that assassination is legal, it’s that there is no one who is willing to prosecute anyone for it, especially given the overwhelming power that both the CIA and the Pentagon have long wielded within America’s federal governmental structure.
Keep in mind that when the Constitution called the federal government into existence, it enumerated the powers that the federal government could lawfully wield. The idea was that if a power wasn’t enumerated, it couldn’t lawfully be exercised.
When one closely examines the powers that the Constitution delegated to the federal government, one thing is clear: Assassination, like torture, wasn’t among them. The Framers had decided not to give federal officials the power to assassinate or the power to torture people.
Even that wasn’t good enough for the American people, however. They remained convinced of the danger that federal officials would begin torturing and murdering people because that’s what the British government, which had been their government only a few years before, had done when it owned and controlled its New World colonies.
That’s what caused the American people to demand the passage of the Bill of Rights as a condition for agreeing to approve the Constitution. They wanted to make certain that federal officials got the message: No cruel and unusual punishments and no murder. They were concerned that without the express prohibitions found in the Bill of Rights, federal officials would inevitably start torturing and killing people.
Here is how our American ancestors phrased the restriction on murder committed by federal officials: “No person shall be … deprived of life … without due process of law.”
Proponents of assassination assert that since the CIA and the Pentagon are assassinating foreigners, that particular restriction doesn’t apply. They say that the Constitution applies only here in the continental United States.
But that’s not what the restriction itself states. The restriction states “No person.” The framers of the Fifth Amendment obviously had a mastery over the English language. If they had wanted the restriction on murder to apply only to American citizens, they would have written, “No person except foreign citizens shall be deprived of life without due process of law.” Their intent clearly was to prohibit the federal government from murdering anyone.
What is “due process of law”? No, it’s not a room full of CIA officials, Pentagon officials, and members of the National Security Agency getting together, reviewing the evidence, and voting on who is going to be assassinated. Instead, due process of law means a formal accusation, such as a grand-jury indictment, and a judicial trial before an independent judge and the right of trial by jury, where evidence has to be produced showing that the person to be killed has, in fact, committed a crime and, if convicted, is deserving of the death penalty.
There is no due process of law when it comes to the CIA’s and Pentagon’s assassination program. They decide among themselves who is going to be assassinated. No indictment. No judge. No jury. No testimony. No due process of law.
What is the justification for these state-sponsored murders? The CIA and the Pentagon say that the victims are evil or that they are involved in “terrorism” or both. But who made the CIA and the Pentagon the arbiters of evil? Moreover, what the CIA and Pentagon describe as “terrorism” is oftentimes nothing more than resistance to U.S. imperialist and interventionist activities in foreign lands, much like people under the yoke of the Soviet and British empires resisted them (and were labeled as “terrorists” as well). Or the victim is simply aligned with a group that is acting contrary to a foreign regime that is being run as a loyal puppet regime of the U.S. Empire, much like Eastern European countries were governed under the Soviet Empire.
It’s probably worth noting that the Pentagon’s and CIA’s power to assassinate people now also extends to Americans, notwithstanding the restriction on assassination in the Fifth Amendment. That’s what the Anwar al-Awlaki case was all about. Following their long-time deference to the supreme authority of the national-security branch of the federal government, the federal judiciary confirmed that it would not step in and interfere with the assassination of any American at the hands of the national-security establishment. For that matter, they held the same thing with respect to the CIA’s and Pentagon’s power to torture Americans, which was what the Jose Padilla case was all about.
One thing is indisputable: If our American ancestors had known that they were calling into existence a federal government with the power to torture and murder people, they would never in a million years have approved the Constitution, the document that called the federal government into existence in the first place.
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Jacob G. Hornberger is founder and president of The Future of Freedom Foundation. He was born and raised in Laredo, Texas, and received his B.A. in economics from Virginia Military Institute and his law degree from the University of Texas. He was a trial attorney for twelve years in Texas. He also was an adjunct professor at the University of Dallas, where he taught law and economics.
Israel has repeatedly struck Syria with missiles and rockets – the most recent exchange taking place after Israel claims “Iranian rockets” struck positions the Israeli military is illegally occupying in Syria’s Golan Heights.
At face value, for Iran to inexplicably launch missiles at Israel, unprovoked and achieving no conceivable tactical, strategic, or political gain strains the credibility of Israel’s narrative even further.
But it is perhaps published US policy designating Israel as a hostile provocateur tasked with expanding Washington’s proxy war against Damascus that fully reveals the deadly and deceptive game Israel and the Western media are now playing.
For years, US policymakers admitted in their papers that the US desired regime change in Iran and sought to provoke a war to achieve it.
Israel Baits the Hook
The corporate-funded Brookings Institution – whose sponsors include weapon manufacturers, oil corporations, banks, and defense contractors – published a 2009 paper titled, “Which Path to Persia? Options for a New American Strategy Toward Iran,” and would not only spell out the US desire for regime change in Iran but devise a number of options to achieve it.
These included sponsoring street protests in tandem with known terrorist organizations to wage a proxy war against Iran as was done to Libya and Syria. It also included provoking Iran to war – a war Brookings policymakers repeatedly admitted Iran seeks to avoid.
In regards to provoking a war with Iran based on a number of contrived cases, the paper would admit (emphasis added):
The truth is that these all would be challenging cases to make. For that reason, it would be far more preferable if the United States could cite an Iranian provocation as justification for the airstrikes before launching them. Clearly, the more outrageous, the more deadly, and the more unprovoked the Iranian action, the better off the United States would be. Of course, it would be very difficult for the United States to goad Iran into such a provocation without the rest of the world recognizing this game, which would then undermine it. (One method that would have some possibility of success would be to ratchet up covert regime change efforts in the hope that Tehran would retaliate overtly, or even semi-overtly, which could then be portrayed as an unprovoked act of Iranian aggression.)
The Brookings paper even admits that Iran may not retaliate even to the most overt provocations, including US or Israeli air raids and missiles attacks. The papers notes:
…because many Iranian leaders would likely be looking to emerge from the fighting in as advantageous a strategic position as possible, and because they would likely calculate that playing the victim would be their best route to that goal, they might well refrain from such retaliatory missiles attacks.
Brookings also admits that even massive airstrikes on Iran would not achieve US objectives, including regime change and that airstrikes would have to be part of a wider strategy including either a proxy war or a full-scale war led by the US.
More recent Brookings papers, like the 2012 “Assessing Options for Regime Change, Brookings Institution,” would admit that Israel’s role – particularly from its occupation of the Golan Heights – is to provide constant pressure on Syria to aid in regime change there.
The paper notes (emphasis added):
Israel’s intelligence services have a strong knowledge of Syria, as well as assets within the Syrian regime that could be used to subvert the regime’s power base and press for Asad’s removal. Israel could posture forces on or near the Golan Heights and, in so doing, might divert regime forces from suppressing the opposition. This posture may conjure fears in the Asad regime of a multi-front war, particularly if Turkey is willing to do the same on its border and if the Syrian opposition is being fed a steady diet of arms and training. Such a mobilization could perhaps persuade Syria’s military leadership to oust Asad in order to preserve itself. Advocates argue this additional pressure could tip the balance against Asad inside Syria, if other forces were aligned properly.
We can assume that the 2012 objective of taking pressure off “the opposition” has failed – since US-NATO-Gulf sponsored terrorists have been all but defeated everywhere inside Syria, save for border regions and territory occupied by US forces to the east.
Instead, Israel’s role now has switched – both from pressuring Syria, and from attempting to provoke Iran with attacks on Iranian territory – to provoking a wider war with Syria and its allies – including Iran – by launching provocations against Syria as described in the 2009 Brookings paper, “Which Path to Persia?”
Despite Israel’s serial provocations going unanswered for years by Syria, each attack is depicted by the Western media as defensive in nature. At the beginning of May when Syrian forces finally did retaliate, the Western media attempted to depict it as an unprovoked attack, citing Israeli military officials who claimed “Iranian missiles” were fired at the Golan Heights – rather than on-the-ground sources – both Israeli and Syrian who said otherwise.
Syria Isn’t Biting
Retaliation by Syria, however, has been proportional and reluctant.
A cynical reality remains as to why. Israel’s war on Lebanon in 2006, conducted with extensive airpower – failed to achieve any of Israel’s objectives. An abortive ground invasion into southern Lebanon resulted in a humiliating defeat for Israeli forces. While extensive damage was delivered to Lebanon’s infrastructure, the nation and in particular, Hezbollah, has rebounded stronger than ever.
Likewise in Syria, Israeli airstrikes and missile attacks will do nothing on their own to defeat Syria or change the West’s failing fortunes toward achieving regime change. They serve only as a means of provoking a retaliation sufficient enough for the the West to cite as casus belli for a much wider operation that might effect regime change.
Attempts to place wedges among the Syrian-Russian-Iranian alliance have been ongoing. Claims that Russia’s refusal to retaliate after US-Israeli attacks or its refusal to provide Syria with more modern air defenses attempt to depict Russia as weak and disinterested in Syria’s well-being.
The fact remains that a Russian retaliation would open the door to a possibly catastrophic conflict Russia may not be able to win. The delivery of more modern air defense systems to Syria will not change the fact that US-Israeli attacks will fail to achieve any tangible objectives with or without such defenses. Their delivery will – however – help further increase tensions in the region, not manage or eliminate them.
Because Syria Already Won
Syria and its allies have eliminated the extensive proxy forces the US and its allies armed and funded to overthrow the Syrian government beginning in 2011. The remnants of this proxy force cling to Syria’s borders and in regions the US and its allies are tentatively occupying.
Should the conflict’s status quo be maintained and Russia’s presence maintained in the region, these proxy forces will be unable to regroup or regain the territory they have lost. In essence, Syria has won the conflict.
Indeed, sections of Syria are now under the control of occupying foreign armies. Turkey controls sections in northern Syria and the United States is occupying territory east of the Euphrates River. While Syria’s territorial integrity is essential – Syria will be better positioned to retake this territory years from now, than it is at the moment. Maintaining the status quo and preventing the conflict from escalating is the primary concern.
Over the next several years – within this status quo – the global balance of power will only further shift further away from America’s favor. As that happens, Syria will have a much better opportunity to reclaim its occupied territory.
While it is only human for people to become infuriated by unprovoked attacks – these attacks by the US and Israel are designed specifically to provoke a response. Long-term patience is just as important to winning a war as immediate fury.
Sun Tzu stated in the timeless strategic treatise, “The Art of War,” that:
A government should not mobilize an army out of anger, military leaders should not provoke war out of wrath. Act when it is beneficial, desist if it is not. Anger can revert to joy, wrath can revert to delight, but a nation destroyed cannot be restored to existence, and the dead cannot be restored to life.
The US and its allies seek to provoke Syria and its allies into a war now while the US believes it still hold military primacy. Avoiding this until a time when US military primacy no longer exists is the true key to finally and completely winning the Syrian war.
The most perfect of all “retaliations” will be winning the Syrian war – confounding and defeating the US, NATO, the Persian Gulf states, and Israel finally and completely – not launching symbolic missile attacks the US eagerly seeks to use to provoke a wider war they may be able to win while the current global balance of power still favors them.
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Tony Cartalucci is a Bangkok-based geopolitical researcher and writer, especially for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook” where this article was originally published. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.
Trump crossed the Rubicon and the world is reacting. He decided to pull out of the Iran nuclear agreement (JCPOA) signed in 2015 by Iran, the United States, Germany and all permanent members of the Security Council (P5+1), the fruit of more than a decade of planning. He then lit another match handed him by John Bolton and the “war parties” in Washington, Tel Aviv and Riyadh to widen sanctions by including any nation doing business with Iran (“secondary sanctions”).
In short, unless JCPOA is perpetuated in defiance of Trump by treaty signatories minus the U.S., the agreement will be void. The Iran treaty withdrawal, together with the imposition of sanctions against Iran and any nation violating the Trump mandate has forcibly quickened the turn of the global wheel that already was heading away from American diktats to forge alternatives in global cooperative governance and more trustworthy alliances.
Trump’s latest shove of the wheel could now enlist the strongest EU nations (Germany, and France) to assist this momentum away from America, which in the real world will further isolate America from ninety-five percent of the world’s population. But in Trump’s world he aims to control it in the style of world autocrat, iconoclast and renegade through bullying, insults, sanctions, Tomahawk missiles and, if necessary, threatening to use “The Bomb”.
The headline at Brussel’s EurActiv after the Trump announcement read: “Trump becomes number one threat to European economy” (May 9). “Trump’s action has inflamed a transatlantic relationship already strained by his threat to impose tariffs on European products, along with his 2017 withdrawal from the Paris climate accord” (Politico, May 9). Germany, with France and Britain, has said it remains committed to the nuclear deal and has no intention of breaking off business ties with Iran as long as the Islamic Republic upholds its side of the agreement (Deutsche Welle, May 11). Some 120 German companies run operations with their own staff in Iran and some 10,000 German businesses trade with the country.
Der Spiegel (May 12) wrote “Clever resistance is necessary, as sad and absurd as that may sound. Resistance against America.”
At the time of Trump’s announcement, former Fox News staffer and US Ambassador to Germany Richard Grenell tweeted:
“As @realDonaldTrump said, US sanctions will target critical sectors of Iran’s economy. German companies doing business in Iran should wind down operations immediately.”
That dictatorial command might seem good international diplomacy to Fox News fans, but was taken correctly by Chancellor Angela Merkel and most Germans as an insult to their leaders, industry, sovereignty and nation.
Whether or not Mrs. Merkel’s meeting with Vladimir Putin results in an agreement to work together to uphold the Iran accord, it presently remains the desire of Russia, France, Britain and Germany to defend their respective “interests” against American threats that have no basis in international law, let alone morality. Quite possibly it now has become all too clear to Europe that it needs the protection of another superpower (like Russia) to defend itself against Donald J. Trump.
Furthermore, as the largest buyer of Iran oil, China certainly isn’t going to passively watch their lifeblood interrupted without a strong response.
Trump is resolving for Europeans one nagging question: “Can Trump be trusted?” As it stands the answer is NO, Trump cannot be trusted. And since Donald J. Trump is president of the United States and represents it, it translates to the United States cannot be trusted.
Since crossing the Rubicon, the future is uncertain but scenarios should be examined and one is this:
A sort of “mini-Axis” could evolve based, for now, solely on the sanction issues, but having the potential to enlarge into a full-Axis as more destructive maneuvers by Trump catapults most of the developed world (West and East) to form stronger ties and alliances with each other despite their preexisting differences (“the enemy of my enemy is my friend”). One Axis foreseeable is: EU-Russia-China vs. US-Israel-Saudi Arabia.
Trump is a president that was elected by less than one-half of voters. He will not be held entirely responsible for whatever will happen to the United States in the future. The Trump voters must share in that responsibility.
May 9 might be looked upon by future historians as the “official” beginning of the end of the American Empire.
If Donald J. Trump isn’t evicted from office by Americans, the world will evict America from the global community.
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Michael T. Bucci is a retired public relations executive from New Jersey currently residing in New England.
Theresa May is set to roll out the red carpet for Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan this weekend, as new figures reveal that Britain has sold more than $1bn of weapons to Ankara since the failed 2016 coup and subsequent crackdown under emergency powers, Middle East Eye can reveal.
Turkey remains a “priority market” for British weapons, despite concerns from human rights groups and EU officials over the erosion of the country’s rule of law.
Turkey is a fellow member of NATO and has cooperated with the EU in tackling the refugee crisis, but critics say that Erdogan’s government has arrested or sacked more than 100,000 state workers and members of the military in the wake of the coup attempt.
Unlike many other Western allies, London spoke out quickly after the coup, in which fighter jets bombed the Turkish parliament and troops opened fire on civilians.
But the UK has remained largely silent as Turkey targeted not only the alleged plotters but also political dissidents, journalists and members of pro-Kurdish parties for “supporting terrorism”.
Brexit push
Erdogan will meet the Queen and the prime minister during his three-day visit to the UK, starting on Sunday. It comes as the UK is making a Brexit push to boost trade with Ankara, but also in the middle of a snap Turkish parliamentary and presidential campaigns conducted under a state of emergency.
UK weapons sales since the attempted coup include a $667m deal for military electronic data, armoured vehicles, small arms, ammunition, missiles, drones, aircraft and helicopters.
It also includes a $135m deal for BAE Systems to fulfil Erdogan’s plan to build a Turkish-made fighter jet.
The jet deal was signed by May in January 2017 under an “open licence” to ease the transfer of military technology, and UK officials now reportedly wish to expand the deal by pushing for Rolls-Royce to win the engine contract.
Lloyd Russell-Moyle, a Labour MP who recently travelled to northern Syria, where Turkey is involved in operations against the Kurdish YPG militia, told MEE:
“The government has been increasing arms sales to Turkey as it has fallen into authoritarianism at home and warmongering abroad.
“The government should be finding ways to protect our allies from Erdogan’s aggression but it instead rewards Turkey with new arms contracts. The government is putting private profit over both human rights and global security.
He added:
“10 Downing Street under Theresa May has become a revolving door for the world’s biggest tyrants, who are also our biggest arms customers.”
Turkey says the aim of its intervention in Afrin, a Kurdish canton in Syria’s northern Aleppo province, is to counter the YPG, which it considers a terrorist group and an extension of the banned Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which has fought for Kurdish autonomy in Turkey for more than 30 years.
Russell-Moyle claimed there was evidence that UK-made arms had been used by Turkey in northern Syria. The British government has said it cannot categorically state that UK weapons are not in use in Turkish military operations in Afrin.
Erdogan as a global statesman?
Andrew Smith, a director of Campaign Against Arms Trade, which compiled the figures on weapons sales, added that Erdogan is using the visit to London to “project an image of himself as a global statesman, rather than the tyrant he is”.
Smith told MEE:
“By arming and supporting Turkish forces, the government is making itself complicit in the abuses that are being carried out.
“The last thing Theresa May and the Queen should be doing is giving him the legitimacy and endorsement of such a high-profile visit.”
UK diplomats say they regularly raise human rights issues with Turkey, and that Ankara is a key partner in countering terrorism, as well as on refugee issues, given its strategic border with Syria, Iraq and Iran.
Kate Allen, Amnesty International UK’s director, called for a more forceful approach on Turkey’s policies.
“This visit is an opportunity for Theresa May to show the president that human rights and a thriving civil society in Turkey are a priority of the UK,” she said.
According to Amnesty’s latest report, a nationwide crackdown in Turkey has resulted in mass arrests and the “near-destruction” of Turkey’s legal system.
It also noted that the post-coup attempt state of emergency had been renewed on seven occasions, and that more than 100,000 public sector workers have been arbitrarily dismissed.
The report noted that journalists, academics, human rights activists and others have been arrested, prosecuted and handed prison sentences.
The European Commission, meanwhile, has recommended that Turkish accession to the EU should remain on hold because of concerns about human rights abuses.
May’s close relationship with Erdogan is at sharp odds with the tone of the Brexit campaign, when prominent anti-EU campaigners accused Brussels of “appeasement” towards Turkey, and warned that “democratic development had been put into reverse under Erdogan”.
In 2016, her foreign secretary, Boris Johnson, won a free speech competition in the Spectator for a poem which derided the Turkish leader for his efforts to prosecute a German comedian for an offensive poem.
Kurdish groups are expected to plan protests throughout Erdogan’s visit to London.
A spokesman for the Department for International Trade, the government department which oversees arms exports, told MEE:
“The UK government takes its export control responsibilities very seriously and operates one of the most robust export control regimes in the world. We rigorously examine every application on a case-by-case basis against the Consolidated EU and National Arms Export Licensing Criteria, with risks around human rights abuses being a key part of that process.
“A licence will not be issued if to do so would be inconsistent with any provision of the mandatory Licensing Criteria, including where we assess there is a clear risk that it might be used in the commission of a serious violation of International Humanitarian Law.”
“Why do people continue to believe that NGOs such as 350.org/1Sky that are initiated and funded by Rockefeller Foundation, Clinton Foundation, Ford, Gates, etc. would exist to serve the people rather than the entities that create and fund them? Since when do these powerful entities invest in ventures that will negatively impact their ability to maintain power, privilege and wealth? Indeed, the oligarchs play the “environmental movement” and its mostly well-meaning citizens like a game of cards.” – Cory Morningstar [1]
Planet Earth is beset with multiple crises, including environmental degradation, growing inequality, military and paramilitary violence, and exploitation of the most vulnerable.
We typically see masses of people mobilizing to confront government or corporate actions that foster environmental and social injustices. Front-line battles may include a march for women, a pipeline protest, a petition drive, or some act of non-violent civil disobedience.
Far from such actions being direction-less and spontaneous, major Non Governmental Organizations funded by philanthropic foundations typically play a pivotal role in the promotion of campaigns, the training and hiring of organizers, and the securing of resources that can make activism viable.
For example, the environmental NGO 350.org/1SKY which was one of the driving forces behind the opposition to the Keystone XL pipeline and the 2014 People’s Climate March was initiated and funded by the Rockefeller and Clinton Foundations, among others. [2]
The Pacifica network of non-commercial alternative radio and news stations, including its daily news broadcast Democracy Now! has received millions in grants from the Ford, Open Society Institute, Carnegie, MacArthur, and J.M Kaplan Fund Foundations. [3]
Then there is AVAAZ. The celebrated online activist platform, which has helped raise awareness and drive petitions behind causes related to human rights, climate change and international conflict, has received hundreds of thousands of dollars from the Foundation to Promote Open Society, and has publicly cited the Open Society Institute as a founding partner. [4]
AVAAZ has partnered with the TckTckTck campaign, launched by one of the world’s largest global advertising and communications firms. Other partners include corporations like EDF Nuclear, Lloyds Bank, MTV, and other multi-nationals with a track record of despoiling our shared environment.[5]
It seems unlikely that wealthy investors and venture capitalists thriving on the status quo would sponsor a movement that might threaten their grip on power. Still, does the acceptance of these philanthropic donations necessarily constitute an unacceptable compromise, even when they come with no obvious strings attached?
This is the critical question to be explored in this week’s edition of the Global Research News Hour. Our guides for the hour will be Cory Morningstar and Bob Feldman.
Bob Feldman is an investigative journalist who has studied for more than a decade the role of philanthropic foundation funding in compromising the perspectives of the alternative print and broadcast media they sponsor. Based out of Boston, his blog site is wherechangeobama.blogspot.ca
This week’s program gratefully acknowledges the recording and production assistance of Campus Community radio station RadioWestern, CHRW 94.9FM out of the University of Western Ontario in London Ontario, on the traditional territories of the Anishinaabeg, Haudenosaunee, Lunaapeewak and Attawandaron peoples.
Transcript- Interview with Cory Morningstar and Bob Feldman, May 9, 2018
Part One
Introduction
Global Research: Many listeners are by now familiar with the role of corporate advertising in shaping the content and focus of mainstream media broadcasts. Along with the manufacture of consent of the body politic goes the manufacture of dissent, where social, labour, environmental, anti-war movements get co-opted in sophisticated ways. One of the principle mechanisms by which this process is orchestrated is through what is called the Non Profit Industrial complex. A web of NGOs interconnected with State and corporate entities which channel activist energies in directions that ultimately don’t undermine, and more often than not, further the ambitions of the elite of the elite.
Cory Morningstar is all too familiar with this dynamic. She has written about the NPIC for close to a decade now.
Cory Morningstar is an independent investigative journalist, writer and environmental activist. Her recent writings can be found on Wrong Kind of Green, The Art of Annihilation, Political Context, Counterpunch, Canadians for Action on Climate Change and Countercurrents. She joins us here at the studios of Radiowestern. It’s great to chat with you again Cory.
Cory Morningstar: Thank you for having me, Michael!
GR: And joining us by phone from Boston Massachusetts is Bob Feldman. And Bob is – he’s also an investigative journalist and he is – for more than a decade he has been researching the role of philanthropic foundation funding in compromising the perspectives of the alternative print and broadcast media that depend on such funding for their operations. So thank you for joining us Bob!
Bob Feldman: Thank you for having me.
GR: For the sake of those who might be skeptical-minded, what would you say to those people who say well there’s no quid pro quo. I mean it’s great that the Rockefellers or the Du Ponts or whoever donate this money, I mean we need that money if we’re going to stop this pipeline or we’re going to get the messaging out or set up this website.
CM: But all you have to do is look at what progress have we made? We’ve made no progress. I mean, emissions are through the roof – what are we at now? 410 parts per million. You know countries are being… all over you’ve got, you ask native states all over the whole globe conquering, invading, occupying, we’ve really made no progress.
BF: Yeah, the thing is…the thing about is..it’s since the early 1970s that the foundation money has been pouring in trying to convert the environmentalist movement into sustainable development. Joan Roelofs, in her book, Foundations and Public Policy, mentions this fact. Natural Resources Defense Council, Sierra Club Legal Defense, all these groups have gotten this foundation money and yet it’s 50 years later and it hasn’t achieved reversal. So we have to ask ourselves why? Why has the movement … why do we end up with Trump in 2017? 2018? A lot of the information there’s a new book out by David Callahan – Inside Philanthropy, he’s the editor – and it’s called The Givers: Wealth, Power, and Philanthropy in a New Gilded Age.
And he has sense I’d like to read because it kind of summarizes what’s happened. You know, he says like progressives always talks about the right-wing being funded by the right-wing foundations and he correctly criticizes that. But he has this quote, that ‘progressives have been largely silent about how “charitable” dollars are influencing politics and policy often with deeper impact than the campaign spending the left so fervently wants to restrict. You can see why progressives keep mum on this issue. Its advocates are especially dependent on philanthropy.’
And… Growing up I thought, well, foundations they are helping the people. And then, I read C. Wright Mills’s book, The Power Elite, in which he mentioned, well, foundations are a tax dodge, and I thought, well, yeah, but maybe they’re still helping fund good things.
But then, 50 years ago, in ‘68, at Columbia, the radical students’ SGS in alliance with Harlem and the Afro-American Society took over and we made some demands, and then this police bust, and then everyone was radicalized, everyone was talking revolution on the campus, and then what happened is that they split the students, the moderates from the revolutionary students. The Ford Foundation came in with a $40,000 grant for students to fund students for a restructured university, and the idea was that SGS was saying, well, we want a revolution in society, a society free of militarism, free of racism.
But the Students to Restructure Society, funded by the Ford Foundation, they said no, let’s just focus on changing the university, limiting the demands. At that point — it was a $40,000 grant, which is equivalent to $300,000 in 2018 money — at that point, I realized that this is what the foundations are about: manipulating movements, insurgent movements. And then, today, of course, you have not only the example of the – with Wrong Kind of Green articles that Cory has written, explained, but you also have…in terms of Black Lives Matter…The Color of Change, for instance, got in 2017, 7.5 million dollars. So it’s an attempt to limit and manipulate what kind of issues the activists are going to prioritize and what their tactics are going to be. Because if they get too out of the parameters of what the agenda of those controlled foundations are, and the foundations themselves are directed by corporate directors, then the funding ends.
GR: What you’re saying there is quite interesting. You’re speaking of that split, the split between the kind of resistance they can live with and the kind that we want to try to eclipse. Cory, I just want to turn to you, if you could maybe help us visualize the difference that you see this foundation money making as it’s playing out, like what the environmental movement could be without the foundation monies’ intrusion versus what we’re seeing coming out now.
CM: Yeah, well, I think, you look back, and I know, I wasn’t there, but you read about even the Black Panthers and their breakfast programs and actually tangible things in the community, and now today it’s like, well, I’m going to give 50 bucks to Greenpeace this year, I’ve done my part. I mean we don’t have, we’ve lost that sense of community, and working with each other as adults, as parents, as humans, we need to take responsibility for our own issues. We’ve basically, I think, been happy to get these problems onto the NGOs – that’s part of it.
And like Bob was saying too, with the money, there’s a lot of conditions, and so you get people, you don’t even have to censor, and, you know, the people involved, the journalists, the NGOs, they become adept at self-censorship, and a lot of these millions of dollars given happen over five years, you get a certain amount every year, so you know, if you bite the hand that feeds you, that money, that cheque will not be there the following year.
GR: I know that there was a report that came out a few years ago by MacDonald Stainsby and Dru Oja Jay that commented on foundation funding and how its distorted tar sands activism. And so, we don’t see the level of opposition to tar sands as a result.
CM: I mean, the tar sands, one way or another that oil will make it to the market where there’s a demand. That oil, like water through a pipe, will find its way one way or another to escape eventually it finds the route to get out. What we don’t talk about is if we don’t want oil, what are we going to give up? Well, in fact, we’re willing to give up nothing because that would put a damper on economic growth and you need economic growth to keep this economic system going. Capitalism, if it stalls, it collapses, so we can’t have that, so this whole focus on the pipelines… you’ve got thousands of pipelines all over the whole planet, and we put all the focus on North America on a single pipeline.
Well then, the oil, quietly in the background, all switches to rail, and then you’ve got Warren Buffet ends up making billions, tons and tons of billions of dollars on rebuilding a rail dynasty in North America while everyone’s focused on a single pipeline. Right? No one notices this. It’s all being done in the background and there’s absolutely no dissent to that. And then that horrible, horrible accident in Montreal that killed almost 50 people from the oil, you know, the rail accident with the oil. Now we have the same thing happening in BC with oil being diverted to Portland and being put on to ships to Asia. I mean oil is going to get to the market. So, to not look at, you know, what is the purpose? Do we want to stop this pipeline, or do we want to stop oil? If you want to stop oil, what are we willing to give up? What are we willing or wanting to discontinue?
And the Non-Profit Industrial Complex, the NGOs that basically take up all the breathing room, all the space, they don’t want you to give up anything. I mean, there’s no talk really of changing the way we live in the West. You know, the fact of the matter is, here 1% of the population is creating almost all the emissions on the planet. There’s a tiny percentage of people doing all the damage. We don’t talk about that. So we’re not talking about systemic change, we’re talking about how can we have everything we already have plus have a lot more and do it in a clean, environmentally, ecologically, sound way. Well there is no way, right?
GR:Yeah, and I know Bob you… It seems to me… I mean you’ve got a series out right now on your blog wherechangeobama.blogspot.ca, and I know that one of the…it’s part of a 14-part series, I think there are more coming, but I think you did mention that there was some awareness way back when about the dangers of this kind of funding, and I don’t know if the awareness just went away, or if people became indifferent. I mean, what have been the changes or when did you see this, I don’t know, acceptance of foundation funding as perhaps a necessary evil or a vehicle for this, for pursuing whether it’s media or activism?
BF: It started to a certain degree in terms of the Black liberation movement in the late sixties. They posed a systemic threat. And then, the Ford Foundation came in and started, the Rockefeller Foundation, started funding black capitalism, and poured in lots of money to the Urban League, NAACP, and then within the anti-war movement, the peace movement. I think it started in terms of the ’80s nuclear freeze, and so you had the sad thing that at that point in the early ’80s, 800,000 people marched against nuclear war in June of 1982, and then it was a contingent saying well, the Israeli military is bombing Beirut, is invading Lebanon. We’re anti-war, we’re peace, that should be a priority also for this march. There was a contingent saying that, but then the organizers said no, you can’t talk about opposing Israel and militarism. Then the late ’80s and early ’90s, that’s when groups like Pacifica started seeking the foundation funding and then alternative media groups started to seek it and get it.
CM: I mean, look at Democracy Now, beating the drums for war on Libya. and I mean I don’t listen to Democracy Now, but I’m pretty sure on Syria as well. Look at the so-called Left beating drums for war, you know, like that’s unbelievable in this day and age, like how can we fall for the same stories? Rinse, recycle, repeat, basically the same old stories over and over, where so-called humanitarian intervention and we have the liberal left journalists and liberal left media completely, again, like echoing through the chambers, these pro-war, this pro-war propaganda.
BF: Yeah, I think that’s the thing that on Libya, Syria, and also in 1999 the “humanitarian military intervention” in Serbia, Yugoslavia. It didn’t echo Michael Parenti’s opposition, it took a different stand, Democracy Now, which demonized Milosevic, which echoed, I mean it was opposed to the war, but it echoed aspects of what the Democratic Party and the State Department were saying, and in part it was because in situations like Libya and Syria and 9/11 and in the 1999 war, if you get too, if you appear too anti-war, and you’re not willing to concede certain points about, that the media is pushing about the illegitimacy of the regime that the U.S government wants to change, whether it’s Syria, Libya, or Serbia, then the funding goes.
It’s self-censorship, really. Isn’t that like Bill Moyers who has given 1.1 million since 2013 to fund Democracy Now, his Schumann media center. Isn’t that he’s going to say – tell you not to do a lot of investigative reporting segments after 2013, 50 years after the Kennedy assassination, to have a whole series on Democracy Now, but the reality is that since he’s funding Democracy Now, since Bill Moyers was LBJ’s aide for three years after Kennedy was assassinated, he maybe doesn’t want that emphasized, and then since Bill Moyers redefined himself since that time, they just won’t get into that, and then anybody who thinks, oh, we should explore these particular historical events in greater detail, they’re either called conspiracy theorists, or the other thing is Johnny one-notes. Listeners aren’t interested, you know.
But I think the thing about the foundations is that, early in the 20th century, there was a lot of criticism on the left for foundations. It was seen as undemocratic. It was seen as well, Rockefeller, Carnegie, they got their money by exploiting workers in vicious ways, exploiting consumers in vicious ways, unethical business practices, making weapons of death in some cases, and these plutocrats shouldn’t then be able to redefine themselves and fund groups, that it was undemocratic, that their power should be taken away. But you got a situation now where they make their money in immoral means, and they continue to… and those foundations also invest in those corporations that are responsible for the destruction of the Earth, and for systemic racism and for militarism… the foundations still have investments in those corporations.
And at the same time, they use some of the profits, the dividends they get through those investments to fund the groups which purportedly are either reporting on the harm done by the corporations, or fighting against the policies, the results of the policies of these corporations, and what’s left off the hook is the foundations themselves are tied in with the systemic problems that people want to see eradicated. It’s a way that the foundations become the means of the 1% to block these structural systemic changes.
CM: Yeah, I think our movements represent very much a part of that same 1%. I mean the staff at AVAAZ make around 200 k a year. I mean, we’re talking elite status, and you can look straight across the board, Sierra Club, all the big ones, they’re making huge six-figure salaries. You know, some of them 4 or $500,000 a year, and then they’re asking seniors to send in their cheques for $5 a month. I mean it’s –
BF: Oh yeah, Democracy Now, it’s a good example. Like I was just, I glanced at it today before the sh- you know, early morning, and I noticed they say ‘well if you send in our money, a supporter will match it three times’, but they don’t name their supporter. At the same time, they don’t disclose on their website the amount of money that they’ve received in recent years from various foundations like the former vice president of Microsoft for 10 years, Rob Glaser, he has a foundation, the Glaser Progress Foundation, they were given 15… since 2001 $1.2 million to fund Democracy Now, and Democracy Now doesn’t probably… I don’t think it’s done that many segments on exposing the negative role historically and even currently of Microsoft, its work for the military. Microsoft, for instance, just got a $27 million contract to work for the Pentagon to provide software to help the Pentagon do its thing around the world. Part of why they might not do this is because, at one point, one of the chief funders was involved with Microsoft for 10 years helped build it up.
But part of why…oh, the other thing, it’s also the economic thing, is that Amy Goodman she gets a hundred and sixty thousand a year total compensation. Most people don’t know that. The salaries, I mean, you had to get the salaries, you have to go look on the form 990 that all these NGOs file. It’s often hard, not easy to find, a lot of people either aren’t going to look on it…often the forms aren’t completely filled out, or not filled out until later. But like Cory says there’s a lot of money within this NGO or this Non-Profit Industrial Complex. It matches, it enables people to, without working the 9 to 5 world, you get an alternative job and live quite well, not live on the average salary of most movement activists who are grassroots, or most working people and you know in the world not even the United States, you know.
Intermission
Part Two
GR: That cuts you off from the broader grassroots community because you’re sort of in a separate world where you’re more inclined to mingle with some of those elites than with the …your…feel that same sense of solidarity.
BF: Yeah, you become a grant hustler. And also, the other thing is, let’s say we’re in a movement group, if we all sit in the room and somebody, and we’re all, we’re doing it. The people are like working 9 to 5 and then they go in the evening, then somebody else is….that one person in the room, if you talk about then what are we going to do, about finding what this corporation’s doing on this issue. The person in the room who’s backed as part of the NGO, he has the economic basis to have more influence, and has… over what’s going to happen.
And, I mean, there’s a group called Ploughshares, for instance, the Ploughshares Fund, and they focus on stopping nuclear war. And they’ve gotten, since 2015, they’ve gotten $2.7 million from the Rockefeller Brothers fund, and then what they do, is then they distribute to a lot of grantees. You go to the website, you can see all their grantees that they distribute. Like, twenty of them within the peace movement, and most of those grantees just focus on the nuclear war issue and don’t focus on the wars that are being waged now, that aren’t, that don’t involve nuclear weapons.
CM: Yeah, because you’re, you can’t talk about imperialism, right?
BF: Yeah, exactly. Right, And that’s the common thing that…instead of doing anti-imperialist revolutionary movement, that would you know, now, that would go against the system, you have the foundations, you use the NGOs, you know thousands of NGOs, that end up fragmenting the movement. And the funny part is that when Bernie Sanders ran in 2016… he talked about political revolution, he didn’t talk about economic revolution, he didn’t talk about all the other kinds of revolutions that we need… but he used the word ‘revolution’, and I was thinking when he ran, that all these, if you listen to Democracy Now, or a lot of these other medias…. there’s rarely any talk of allowing people who are calling for revolution now, against the 1%, using that word day-in and day-out, calling for economic, political revolution, and instead you have a mindset which is what I call the thirty-year gradualism, you know?
It…the thing is, you know, we need immediate change, the Poor People’s Movement is talking about, well they’re going to have their demonstrations Monday beginning, trying to continue what Martin Luther King did in ’68. It’s gotten some publicity in the alternative media world, and to an extent, it has some foundation funding, but it talks about the four things that people could be focusing on. Which again would… fighting systemic racism, fighting environmental destruction, fighting poverty, and fighting the war economy.
Those four things could be, people could unite on, but yet because we have all these thousands of NGOs, and it’s fragmented movement, foundation-subsidized movement, people are…don’t unite in the way that they did in the Sixties around fighting a imperialist society that’s trying to keep the empire…and is responsible for so many deaths in the last thirty years and, of course, even before. So you don’t have the kind of reaction that there should have been when they attacked Libya, and in terms of the covert war in Syria, that is…instead, people are in these NGOs, in their NGO offices, in a fragmented way and then calling demonstrations about this issue, that issue, this issue, that issue, and yet if you look at the [interference] starvation, and the costs, the economic costs of imperialism around the globe, yet there isn’t this sense of urgency.
And I attribute part of it is because if each year the grant comes through to the NGO, and then the NGO, you know, holds its protests and it gets some people out, there’s no, it’s a different form of activism then what we…and it’s undemocratic because what’s driving it is still the same plutocrats who control the corporations.
GR: You’re listening to the Global Research News Hour. This week’s show is dedicated to the Non-Profit Industrial Complex and the Parallel Left and it’s being recorded out of the studios at Radiowestern CHRW 94.9 FM at the University of Western Ontario. And our show of course airs on CKUW 95.9FM in Winnipeg and on partner radio stations across Canada and the United States. I am your host Michael Welch and I’m joined by London-based Cory Morningstar and from Boston Bob Feldman. And of course, just following up on your last comments there Bob, I wanted to draw attention to some of the work that – a couple of essays that Cory had written last year. And I’m just going to pull up a quote because it speaks to not only propagandizing but social engineering.
Here’s the quote:
“Today’s so-called environmental leaders and human rights activists are not (yet) genetically engineered, rather they are socially engineered experiments decanted from Harvard, Yale, Rockwood Leadership Institute and other institutions of indoctrination that serve and expand the global hegemony. One could theorize that today’s 21st century activism is a new process of mimesis – the millennial having assimilated into spectacle – far removed from both nature and reality.”
So, I’m just wondering maybe – get your thoughts about this idea that – we’re not just talking propaganda lines where – ‘Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction! We’ve got to go to war’, we’re talking about shaping people’s behaviour. So, could I maybe get you to address that. How you see this…
BF: Yes, it’s like redefining – I mean what’s been redefined is what fighting the power is about. You know? What creating meaningful change is and what’s been thrown into the – what’s been forgotten is the whole history of institutional resistance just as what’s been forgotten is how the funders and foundations have gotten – got that money. It’s ahistorical. I mean part of like – I’ve write about foundations for – since 1996, you know, I wrote for Downtown which wasn’t funded by foundations. And this time around what I kind of realized in terms of writing In the Pay of Foundations is it’s not – I couldn’t just mention well it gets foundation funding and therefore, hey, it’s a synthetic kind of – and a kind of morally contradictory, you know? That people wouldn’t necessarily understand – because a lot of people – they don’t understand on a gut level that well why foundations – what’s so bad about foundations?
So, I kind of included more research as to how did Henry Ford get his money, what did he – what was he, what did he do? How was the Ford Foundation funded? What’s its history? Or something like the Public Welfare Foundation. What – what was it – where did that money come from? What did they do? How did Charles Marsh, who was LBJ’s backer in Texas – into oil. How did he get his money? And to try to get that. But I think – that’s part of the thing is that people grew up in my time, ’50s and 1960s were socialized a little differently than people who were socialized later and then went to – like you say this whole thing of whole prep schools and the elite.
Most people don’t know that Bill Gates for instance, his grandfather on his mother’s side, Maxwell, was a big banker. Actually, the great-great-great-great grandfather. And the grandfather (inaudible) versus a safe bank and left him a Trust Fund. This whole Silicon Valley thing, and the whole computer millionaires. Part of the thing is that they’ve used – it’s funny ’cause they’ve used the rhetoric of the ’60s about changing the world to perpetuate a vicious imperialist system, you know, and they get away with it because of the thing you mention in terms of the elite students, and all these elite universities, being socialized in a certain way. You know, and then also coming from a different generation than the 50s and 60s. They – and not having…
CM: I think they – I think people today think that history doesn’t matter. That it’s in the past. It’s irrelevant. Things aren’t…
BF: Right.
CM: …like that anymore, right? But the truth is these foundations are invisible. You know? The NGOs are at the forefront, and they play an invisible role and today they’re more powerful than they have ever been in the past. There’s trillions, literally trillions of dollars pumped into the Non-Profit Industrial Complex, which at this point, I mean I was speaking to um my um peer, my comrade Forrest Palmer a couple weeks ago and I said you know I feel like we need to start calling this the Non-Profit Industrial Spectacle. I mean it’s just become absolutely ridiculous.
There’s a new NGO of late I’ve just started watching called Global Citizen. They actually – if you can imagine – they have rewards now for activism. Like, think of air-miles, um all those points, rewards that you use to shop. So activism has been completely commodified to the point now the partners and sponsors involved with Global Citizen will reward you for doing an action with rewards, whether it’s concert tickets, it’s all tied into celebrity which is a huge part of activism, not to mention aside this really is – the Non Profit Industrial Complex is an actual army, right? This is an arm of empire, this is an army that’s funded and paid for by the elites that um fund this complex to perpetuate and protect and further their power, to extend it even further. And I think that’s um really important to understand, um that’s what it’s for, that’s why the trillions of dollars and they can mobilize their army.
Um, I mean if you look at the numbers it’s actually staggering how many people are employed by NGOs and non-profits um all which make up the Non-Profit Industrial Complex. It’s a massive part of the economy, just like militarism, and so they’re able to really, really shape and mold entire agendas and actually whole society by mobilizing their employees, their staff. I mean you picture, think of millions of people all um basically echoing the same message through the media – and um all the different media vices and all of a sudden you’ve created this huge, what feels like momentum but it’s all engineered. Hence – how we continue to devolve and how our movements continue to lose um importance.
GR: Cory, I just wanted to draw – just ’cause I’ve read – like, last year you did an update on your research on AVAAZ and PURPOSE, which – PURPOSE is uh– they’re linked. They’re very notable because it links environmentalism with the imperialist agendas in Syria. That is it seems to me it’s taking that social engineering to – or that – to a new level.
CM: If you look back there’s an old photograph I found. It’s Bob Hunter, one of the original co-founders of Greenpeace in Canada. He has a T-Shirt on and on the T-Shirt he has written across in black marker ‘F—k you’ and he’s at a meeting. Right? Sitting in on a meeting. He’s all scruffy. It looks like he just came in from the garden or from work. That was the real deal back then. About real things, you know? Protecting nature.
Now, today, Greenpeace is at the forefront right up there with AVAAZ, OXFAM, there’s basically a top twenty that works hand in hand with the UN, and um you know basically run the social movements across the world. Mold them. Shape them. Social engineering, TckTckTck, like basically, Greenpeace, 350, and OXFAM, which are the three biggest created, TckTckTck, they took this type of social engineering to a whole new level. In 200 – when was that – 2009 at COP21 you saw them basically undermine all the most vulnerable states on the planet. That climate conference when you look back at documents – Greenpeace documents from around 1990 where they cited one degree as the temperature that the planet could not exceed. Well, in 2009 they demanded a full two degrees, what the corporations wanted, so we continue to grow the economy at the expense of all life on the planet, so you can see that huge, you know – It’s not even the same thing anymore. These NGOs are an arm of the elite. They’re an apparatus of the establishment and empire.
So AVAAZ and PURPOSE. AVAAZ, um, Purpose is there for profit – P.R. Firm. Basically the sister org of AVAAZ. I would say they’re the most powerful NGO in the world aside from 350 which was incubated by the Rockefeller Foundation and started um with the Rockefeller Foundation and the Clinton Foundation and again that’s hand in hand with AVAAZ, one of the most powerful NGOs in the world right now as well. Anyway, I mean what they do now, we’ve been engineered to such an extent that we don’t even notice. We no longer fight to protect nature – to protect trees. We’re fighting for windmills. We’re fighting for solar panels. We’re fighting to continue a very rich way of life for a small number of people. That’s what the environmental movement is today. And that’s what I call, not environmentalism but anthro – anthro- like basically…
GR: Anthropocentrism. .
CM: Anthropocentrism. Yeh, it’s completely – it’s pragmatism. It’s full. This is business. This is big business. Now you’ve got AVAAZ, PURPOSE. The main, overall arching campaign of all of them now is this huge push for renewable energies which is actually a huge push for further imperialism. You know you can call it green imperialism, eco-imperialism. It’s just as dirty. It’s just another growth industry. Today they want to basically steal from the treasuries and how we’re going to dump trillions and trillions about 60 trillion, 90 trillion dollars into creating you know a brand new, basically global infrastructure, renewable energy which is – what is that based on? That’s based on further exploitation, further of brothers and sisters all over the planet. Mining, all dirty industry. Further, further industry for a very few, you know, people.
GR: Beyond the part – the fact that lithium mining is not necessarily without its toxic concerns, and of course and other rare earth minerals which is mining, um, this call for electrification of the grid. It’s not likely going to do anything. I mean I think there was…
CM: No, you’ve got Bill McKibben right now in Africa report – you know flying to Africa. What do they need Bill McKibben in Africa for, I don’t know, but they’ve got him – What was the article? I don’t know Rolling Stone? New York Times? What have you, saying how amazing it was that he was in Africa, and (inaudible) village with their few solar panels or whatever they have now – they all have a TV. Well what the hell do they need a TV for? Right? Like that’s progress? I mean, it’s just upside down now with technology and our values, what we see as progress. And um yeah…
BF: And I think that – that whole rap that Cory gave, it’s like that’s the kind of thing that should be talked about on the foundation subsidized shows there on daily. Like Democracy Now. I mean that’s – and the thing is yet if you start talking about the NGOs and the foundations that doesn’t happen as much and so you get a situation where people don’t necessarily know what’s going on – that undercuts the whole original mission of what an alternative left media was supposed to be about, you know? When you not allowing a lot of dissident grass-roots movement people on there. That’s what’s holding back, what has held back especially the last twenty years. Held back the growth of a movement that’s really effective, you know….
Intermission
Part Three
GR: I think we’re running pretty much close to the end of our time. I was wondering if each of you might want to have a few suggestions about if we wish to hold on or foster the movements and media that are not to be captured by these elite interests with their hegemonic agendas. What advice would you make in terms of being able to do that – to maintain that sovereign and make sure that we do make room for these dissenting voices?
CM: I’ll go first because I’m probably far less optimistic than Bob.
I don’t really have a lot of hope for that. I don’t think anything’s going to change a lot until it has to change. Some sort of catastrophic event or some sort of collapse which will eventually happen because this can’t go on forever. But I feel like, you know I often wonder if we’ve been socially engineered to be so incredibly passive. Perhaps we’re not even, you know – we just – we don’t even have the capacity anymore to really fight the fight. We’re just so incredibly passive and polite. And that’s all a part of social engineering.
Even that aspect in the – the whole um – Oh God – direct action thing versus – you can’t even talk about tactics. It can only be non-violent direct action, non-violent direct action. Well, you know, and basically if you have anything else to say but that, you’re ostracized and basically outcast. You’re isolated completely. I mean you can’t ask – what is the Assata Shakur quote? I can’t think of it off the top of my head, but basically you’re begging your oppressor for – to do what you want, like I mean it’s just never going to happen.
And so I think we’re really, really comfortable here. I don’t see things changing. We’re being trained to devolve where we’re not educating ourself. We’re not seeking out information. We’re becoming mentally lazy. It’s too much work to research. It’s too much work to learn. You want all your information in a hundred and forty characters. You know. And without the history. Without understanding the history of where we’ve been. Of where the environmental movement has been – the history, the critical importance of the foundations and the interlocking victory. Unless we understand how power functions and how it can use us to advance it’s own desires, I think we’re really just spinning our wheels.
GR: Bob, do you have any thoughts about preserving truly independent media and grassroots activism going forward?
BF: Yeh, well I think the thing is that things can change very rapidly. I mean, you had the Occupy Wall Street thing which initially came from a lot of people from below. And then it pushed the idea of the One Percent. Now, media has – the alternate media, if people press them, and at the same time engage in what I call institutional resistance, some of the systems in crisis worldwide. It’s in crisis here. And the way I look at it is that the exclusion of grassroots dissident, radical left, environmentalists and others is a sign of the weakness and the fear of those – of the one percent those who hold power because if they weren’t afraid that if they gave us access there’d be a response. To prove how liberal and tolerant they were they would allow these kinds of discussions within their alternative media world, and within the mainstream media world. But I think the fact there is this high level censorship…
The fact that you’ve interviewed Global – Global Research News – all those people who are on there who get posted there but you never hear them on Democracy Now and the other shows, I think that’s – that’s because there’d be a response and things can change very rapidly. We could be in a big war. And at that point there will be an attempt to co-opt the movement. But often that doesn’t work. The lessons of ’68 show that they couldn’t co-opt, at least for the two years ’68-’70. They had to then repress. So I think that history can change fast and the level of crisis in terms of the Earth is so dire that people might be forced to press for more media change. So I guess I’m not…
CM: Maybe when they have to change….
BF: Yeh, I guess I’m not as pessimistic as you are Cory – The key thing as I see it is using the mass media power, and that alternative media, to pressing those who have the daily access of 1400 stations to let it on – a whole range of people who have been excluded.
GR: I guess, and on that note, I would be remiss if I didn’t point out that for those listeners who’ve listened to this program, they probably get by now that philanthropic donations is probably not the answer. So that would be, probably an invitation to open up your wallets and support independent community radio stations like CHRW like CKUW as well as independent sites like Global Research.
And so, with that I think it’s time for us to say good-bye now. So thank you very much Bob Feldman, investigative journalist from Boston.
BF: Yeh thanks for having….
GR: ..And your website is wherechangeobama.blogspot.ca. And Cory Morningstar. Thank you for joining us!
CM: Thank you Michael.
GR: You can find a lot of her essays at theartofannihilation.com.
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It is quite true that “Macedonian national identity is one of the most complex in the Balkans”.[1] The present-day Macedonians are having a century and a half identity disputes with their neighbors, especially with the Greeks and the Bulgarians but as well as and self-identity problems within the territory of the state of Macedonia which was proclaimed as an independent in November 1991 on the foundation of ex-Yugoslav socialist republic (1945−1991) under the same name.
Today, only about 64% of Macedonia’s citizens claim to be the Macedonians in ethnolinguistic terms while the rest of population reject this name even from the national-political point of view – i.e., to be called Macedonians just as the citizens of the state of Macedonia. Bulgaria does not recognize the existence of ethnolinguistic Macedonians under the claim that all the Slavs of Macedonia are of the Bulgarian ethnolinguistic origin while Greece rejects to recognize any ethnolinguistic Macedonians on its own state’s territory using the term Slavophone Greeks for those Greece’s inhabitants who are claimed by Skopje to be Macedonian diaspora in neighboring Greece. Even the world is divided in regard to the official name of the state of Macedonia as some countries recognized it as the Republic of Macedonia but other states prefer rather the term the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM). Therefore, this country is the only state in the world to be officially recognized by other states or international organizations as the Former…[2]
This article is dealing with the conflicting claims to Macedonian identity primarily asserted by both Greeks and Slavo-Macedonians. The long-time conflict between Greeks and Slavo-Macedonians over the question which ethnic group has the right to identify itself as being Macedonian is, in fact, a political dispute over the name, flag, history, and territory but, in essence, it is a dispute over the question who has the right to use the terms Macedonia and Macedonians.[3]
Terminology
Macedonia is a geographical and historical area which name originates from the antique time and which is mentioned as a land at several points in the Bible. Writing on the problem of who the contemporary Macedonians are and/or who they are not is quite a controversial issue from both academic and political sides. From a very practical point of view, there are three standpoints of identifying those people who are today either calling themselves as Macedonians or living within the territory of some Macedonia:
Macedonians are those who are living within a multiethnic geographic area of Macedonia[4] that is bounded to the north by Skopska Crna Gora Mts. and Shara Mts.; to the east by the Rila Mts. and Rhodope Mts.; to the south by the coast of the Aegean Sea around the city of Thessaloniki, Olympus Mts. and Pindus Mts.; and to the west by the lakes of Ohrid and Prespa. This territory is today politically divided between FYROM, Bulgaria, Albania, and Greece (as a consequence of the Balkan Wars in 1912−1913) while geographically it is composed by Lower (south) and Upper (north) Macedonias.
Macedonians are those who are today living in FYROM as the citizens of this political entity called as such by a temporary name as a result of Macedonian-Greek diplomatic negotiations from 1991 to 1993.
Macedonians are all those who are calling themselves by such ethnonational name no matter they are living in FYROM or in geographic-historical Macedonia.[5]
The Antique Macedonians
To deal with the identity issue of the modern-day Macedonians requires firstly to draw attention to the difference between the ancient Macedonians and the contemporary Macedonian nation. In one word, these two ethnic groups have nothing in common except the same ethnic name due to the very fact that the modern Macedonians accidentally live on the part of the territory once populated by the ancient Macedonians of Philip the Macedon and Alexander the Great. It means that three thousand years ago a people called the Macedonians lived at the Balkan peninsula among whom Alexander the Great (336−323 BC) is, for sure, the best well-known representative of these ancient Macedonians, who created in the 4th century BC the first global empire by connecting the provinces of three continents[6] – the empire in which the ancient Greek language became the first global lingua franca with the Greek culture as the first universal culture of civilized world.[7] The ancient Macedonians originally lived north of the ancient Greeks (north of Olympus Mts.) up to the southern parts of the central Balkans and had their own language and traditions.[8] However, the upper class (aristocracy) was fairly Hellenized and used the ancient Greek language for official purposes followed by worshiping of the ancient Greek gods.[9]
Alexander the Great mosaic
It is of quite a fake assumption that southernmost ex-Yugoslav republic was named as Macedonia because it covered the territory of the ancient Kingdom of Macedon and, therefore, the so-called Macedonians of Yugoslavia had historical rights for cultural and identity legacy of Macedonia and Macedonians from the time of Antique. To be clear, the present-day state of Macedonia is located not on the territory of ancient Kingdom of Macedon but rather on the territory of the Roman Province of Macedonia which was composed by vast territory including present-day Albania, Greek Thessaly, FYROM, and parts of Bulgaria up to Rhodope Mts.[10] The archaeological sites on the territory of FYROM (for instance, Stobi or in Bitola) of the Antique time belong to the Roman but not to the Macedon period. These facts suggest that FYROM Macedonians have nothing to do either with the territory of the ancient Kingdom of Macedon or with its historical and cultural legacy. In other words, the name of a present-day state of Macedonia is, in fact, empty of the real ancient Macedon inheritance. The Greek historiographers are basically right with their claim that the Yugoslav historiography for the very political purpose simply extended Antique Macedon state “…much further towards the north than the borders of historical Macedon, in such a way as to include actual Slavic regions that have never been parts of Macedonia in antiquity, but were actually districts of ancient Dardania”.[11]
A real ethnolinguistic origin of the ancient Macedonians is not clearly fixed. There are many unproven theories on their origin: Greek, Illyrian, Thracian or mixture of all of them. However, in the course of time, the ancient Macedonians became enough different from the Greeks, especially from the matter of their spoken language, that even majority of the Greek intellectuals of the time considered Macedonians as barbarians – not the Greeks by blood, i.e., those who did not speak Greek language as a native one. The most prominent figures of those well-known Greeks who perceived Macedonians as not Greeks, and therefore being barbarians, are Thucydides (the author of famous “Poloponnese Wars”), Demosthenes (384−322 BC)[12] and (pro-Philip) Isocrates (436−338 BC). However, as a matter of fact, there were thousand years of continuous presence of Hellenic culture and civilization on the territory of the Kingdom of Macedon that many Greeks considered, like today, ancient Macedonians as one of many Greek tribes.[13] According to Prof. M. Rostovtzeff, Greeks hardly understood Macedon language but, anyway, it was a dialect of Greek with many foreign words.[14]
The Slavo-Macedonians
If the ancient Macedonians were not the ethnolinguistic Greeks, they have not been as well as the ethnolinguistic Slavs like the modern Macedonians are. In other words, self-called Macedonians who today inhabit the Balkan peninsula, are the Slavic people, having nothing in common with the ancient Macedonians of Philip II (Philip of Macedon) and his son Alexander the Great.[15] From the late Antique onward there were several different ethnic groups who became settled at the Balkan peninsula as, for instance, Celts, Huns, Bulgars, Germanic tribes, Slavic tribes, Mongols or Ottoman Turks. Surely, they either drove away or assimilated the autochthonous population, or even became assimilated (like the Asiatic Bulgars who became ethnolinguistic Slavs).[16] The Slavs, divided into many tribes, were settled in the Balkan peninsula from the end of 6th century AD (from around 580 up to 624) and the autochtonous people living in the land of Roman Province of Macedonia (at that time under Byzantine administration) became soon assimilated by these Slavic tribes who became settled even on the Peloponnesus peninsula (today in South Greece). However, no single historical source of the time recorded any Slavic tribe under the name of “Macedonians” or “Bosnians” (well- known were the “Serbs” and “Croats”). Therefore, modern Macedonia’s people, whom we know under the national name of “Macedonians”, differ in ethnic point of view from the ancient Macedonians, with a different language and culture.[17] Subsequently, FYROM’s Macedonians should be called as Slavo-Macedonians for the matter of difference with the Antique Macedonians.
In essence, the present-day Macedonians are the Slavs who to a certain degree assimilated pre-Slavic population of Macedonia but borrowed the ancient name of the settled land (of Roman Province of Macedonia and Byzantine Theme of Macedonia) as their new national one.[18] However, the problem of political-national nature arose when after the WWII Yugoslav Macedonians started to claim a national, historical and cultural legacy of the ancient Macedonians and their state with whom they, in fact, had nothing in common. However, one can say that something similar goes about the Greeks as well. The ethnic nature of contemporary Greece is in no close match to the ethnic nature of the area at the time of Alexander the Great. New peoples in the Middle Ages entered Greek territories and merged with the existing peoples. Whereas in FYROM there is a majority of people of mixed ethnic stock who speak a Slavic language and have a predominantly Slavic culture (about 2/3 out of total population), in Greece, there is a majority of people of mixed ethnic stock who speak Greek language and sharing Greek culture. Therefore, as both FYROM and Greece have changed dramatically in the ethnic mixture over the past 1500 years, like all other Balkan regions, it cannot be claimed that there is a pure and not interrupted the ethnonational continuity of any Balkan modern nation with the ethnic groups from the past. Moreover, the Balkans “…is one of the most ethnically, linguistically and religiously complex areas of the world. Its geographic position has historically resulted in it being disrupted by invaders moving from Asia Minor to Europe or vice-versa”.[19]
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Dr. Vladislav B. Sotirović is Founder & Editor of POLICRATICUS-Electronic Magazine on Global Politics (www.global-politics.eu). Contact: [email protected]
Notes
[1] Stephen Barbour, Cathie Carmichael (eds.), Language and Nationalism in Europe, New York: Oxford University Press, 2000, 229.
[2] James Pettifer (ed.), The New Macedonian Question, New York: Palgrave, 2001, 3−59.
[3] Loring M. Danforth, Ethnic Nationalism in a Transnational World, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1997, 6.
[4] About Ottoman Macedonia’s ethnolinguistic and multiconfessional composition, see [Henry N. Brailsford, Macedonia: Its Races and Their Future, London: Methuen & Co., 1906].
[5] Hough Poulton, Who are the Macedonians?, Hong Kong: Hurst & Company London, 1995, 1−2.
[6] Hans-Erich Stier et al (eds.), Westermann Großer Atlas zur Weltgeschichte, Braunschweig: Westermann Schulbuchverlag GmbH, 1985, 22−23.
[7] On this issue, see in [Philip Freeman, Alexander the Great, New York: Simon & Schuster Paperbacks, 2011; Thomas R. Martin, Christopher W. Blackwell, Alexander the Great: The Story of an Ancient Life, New York: Cambridge University Press, 2012].
[8] In the 5th and 4th centuries BC, biggest portion of the present-day state of Macedonia was not part of the ancient Kingdom of Macedon and it was covered by the territory known as Paeonia that was populated by the ancient Illyrians but not by the Macedonians [Giuseppe Motta (ed.), Atlante Storico, Novara: Istituto Geografico de Agostini S.p.A., 1979, 13].
[9] On ancient Macedonians, see in [Eugene N. Borza, In the Shadow of Olympus: The Emergence of Macedon, Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1992; Joseph Roisman, Ian Worthington (eds.), A Companion to Ancient Macedonia, Chichester, West Sussex: Wiley-Blackwell, 2010].
[10] Hans-Erich Stier et al (eds.), Westermann Großer Atlas zur Weltgeschichte, Braunschweig: Westermann Schulbuchverlag GmbH, 1985, 38−39.
[11] Nicolas K. Martis, The Falsification of Macedonian History, Athens: Graphic Arts, 1984, 13.
[12] “Demosthenes viewed the peoples of Macedonia as barbarous riffraff led by a king (Philip II) who not only did not belong and was unrelated to the Greeks but could not even boast a respectable foreign heritage” [John Crossland, Diana Constance, Macedonian Greece, London: Batsford Ltd, 1982, 9,15].
[13] Michael B. Sakellariou (ed.), Macedonia. 4,000 Years of Greek History and Civilization, Athens: Aristide d Caratzas Publ., 1988, 63.
[14] Михаил Ростовцев, Историја старога света: Грчка, Рим, Нови Сад: Матица српска, 1990, 155.
[15] This was recently recognized by a mayor of Skopje who sincerely gave a statement that today’s Slavo-Macedonians have nothing in common with Macedonians of Philip the Macedon and Alexander the Great.
[16] The modern Bulgarians are of Turkic origin who migrated to the Balkans from their homeland found north of the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov. They crossed the Danube in the late 7th century (679−681) and inhabited the territory of present-day North Bulgaria, which was at that time already settled by seven Slavic tribes. By the early 10th century Turkic Bulgars became assimilated by the local Slavs but their ethnic name was given to such amalgam of Bulgar-Slavic people. From the 10thcentury onward the Bulgarians (mixture of Bulgars and Slavs) are considered as a Slavic people who were speaking Slavonic language [John V. A. Fine, JR., The Early Medieval Balkans: A Critical Survey from the Sixth to the Late Twelfth Century, Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 1994, 305].
[17] Here it has to be noted that the fundamental dogma of the FYROM historiography about the origin of the modern Macedonians clearly confirms that they are the Slavs and even the oldest Slavic nation [James Pettifer (ed.), The New Macedonian Question, New York: Palgrave, 2001, 55].
[18] The modern ethnonym Macedonian is derived from the ancient toponym Macedon. Similar it happens with today ethnonym Bosniak that is derived from a toponym Bosnia (a name of the land Bosnia comes from Bosnia [Bosna] river). Therefore, modern ethnonyms Macedonian and Bosniak are not grounded on the ethnic foundations but rather on the territorial.
[19] Hugh Poulton, The Balkans: Minorities and States in Conflict, London: Minority Rights Publications, 1994, 1.
All images, except the featured, in this article are from the author.
Trump has handed over to polluters oil and mineral rights in US National Monuments. Mining will now deface what was before Trump protected national monuments, and oil drilling will destroy the Arctic National Refuge. He has appointed polluters to run the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and he has waived rules in order to comply with the polluting industries’ wish list.
Trump wants to cut EPA funding by 23 percent and to cut funding for restoration programs for the Great Lakes and Chesapeake Bay by 90 percent. He wants to pay for the upkeep of national parks by expanding oil and gas exploration on public lands. But he doesn’t hesitate to send the equivalent of the annual environmental budget in war criminal missile attacks on Syria and plans for attacking Iran.
To be quite clear, Trump is privatizing national property and allowing a small handful of polluting corporations to plunder public assets while he builds a case for war against Iran.
The assault on the environment started with VP Dick Cheney, but Trump has unleashed private plunder of public assets to an extreme degree.
No one has ever explained how assets owned by the American people can be turned over to a few friends and supporters of the ruling elite in Washington. In what law does the power exist for a president or federal agency chairman to expropriate public assets for plunder by politically connected friends?
The way America works, thanks to the Republican Supreme Court that legalized it, polluters bid with their campaign donations to be given permission to loot and despoil national monuments and refuges. The Supreme Court called the corporate purchase of the US government a constitutionally permitted exercise of free speech.
Existing law prevents the environmental looting, but law means nothing to Washington. We have experienced the entirety of the 21st century so far with Washington being in total noncompliance with international law, instead behaving consistently as a war criminal as defined by existing international law.
Trump has now escalated Washington’s war criminal behavior. He has unilaterally pulled out of a multi-nation agreement that ensures Iran’s nuclear non-proliferation, and he has imposed more illegal unilateral economic sanctions on Iran that punish US companies such as Boeing and corporations in numerous European countries. Trump’s foreign policy is under the control of Israel. Trump is unable to act in America’s interest or in the interest of Washington’s European, Canadian, and Australian vassals.
Trump’s stupid decision has caused rebellion among Washington’s usual compliant and well paid vassals—UK, France, and Germany. Europeans are saying that it is long past time that Europe represented its own interests instead of Washington’s. (See this)
The silver lining in Trump’s stupid decision is that it might cause Europe to become independent and to cease being a chorus praising Washington’s war crimes. Will we see a rebellion of European political figures, essentially Washington’s whores, that will break up the Empire and lead to an independent Europe?
Such a development would justify all of Putin’s hesitation to put his foot down.
As matters stand, “the coalition of the willing” is reduced to Washington and Israel. Not even a majority of Americans support Trump pulling out of the multi-nation Iran agreement, nor do they support his appointment of a war criminal, Haspel, as director of the CIA, nor do they support Trump’s permission to Israel to continue the war against Syria and to attack Iran.
But the people everywhere in the western “democracies” are powerless. They are never allowed to elect anyone who would do the right things. Invariably their votes put in office those who exploit them and peoples of other countries. This is why the other part of the world views the West as a plague upon all mankind, including the western peoples themselves.
Trump was expected to be a disaster for the environment. The hope was that the liberal/progressive/left would rally to his intent to withdraw from Syria and to normalize relations with Russia. By supporting Trump against the neoconservatives and the military/security complex, the liberal/progressive/left, it would have gained some chips that could be used to moderate Trump’s assault on the environment.
Unfortunately, the liberal/progressive/left aligned with Brennan’s CIA, Comey’s FBI, and Hillary’s DNC and committed to the orchestrated “Russiagate” allegations that were intended to discredit Trump and to force him out of office. I was very disappointed to see the environmental movement join in with the orchestrated “Russiagate” conspiracy against Trump.
As a result, Trump owes environmentalists and the liberal/progressive/left nothing. The consequence is that the environment, civil liberty and peace have been lost.
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This article was originally published on Paul Craig Roberts Institute for Political Economy.
Dr. Paul Craig Roberts is a frequent contributor to Global Research.
Tensions are at an all-time high in the Middle East as Israel launched more than sixty missiles at Syria because Israel claimed that Iranian forces fired rockets into the Golan Heights, an Israel-occupied territory since the 1967 Six-Day War. A report by Reuters said that
“Israel said it attacked nearly all of Iran’s military infrastructure in Syria on Thursday after Iranian forces fired rockets at Israeli-held territory for the first time in the most extensive military exchange ever between the two adversaries.”
The report went on to mention that
“it was the heaviest Israeli barrage in Syria since the start in 2011 of its war, in which Iranians, allied Shi’ite Muslim militias and Russian troops have deployed in support of President Bashar al-Assad.”
What was interesting about the report was that Israel claimed that 20 Iranian Grad and Fajr rockets were launched from Syria. Reuters’ said that the Trump administration “portrayed its rejection of that agreement as a response, in part, to Iran’s military interventions in the Middle East, underpinning Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s tough line towards Tehran.” Now here is what Israel claims what happened according to Reuters:
Israel said 20 Iranian Grad and Fajr rockets were shot down by its Iron Dome air defense system or did not reach targets in the occupied Golan Heights, territory captured from Syria in a 1967 war
Iran responded to the Israeli claims in a Zero Hedge report:
In the aftermath of one of the most severe Israeli attacks on Syria “in decades,” Iranian lawmakers said Thursday that Iran had no role in the attack, and that Shia nation doesn’t operate any bases in Syria.
Mohammad Javad Jamali Nobandegani, a member of the Iranian Parliament’s national security and foreign policy committee, said Israel’s claim that Iran had provoked Israel by firing first was “a lie,” adding that
“Israel’s history of carrying out unprovoked attacks in Syria has been well-documented.” “Iran does not have military base in Syria,” Nobandegani added
RT News interviewed Leonid Ivashov, the president of the Academy for Geopolitical Problems and a retired colonel-general of the Russian military intelligence (GRU) said that
“every time one resorts to arms, one seeks to hit some particular targets and has to analyze the potential consequences [of the attack],” and that “It would be just egregiously silly to launch a missile targeting the region of Golan Heights [which is heavily guarded by the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF)] as it would certainly prompt military response” Ivashov said.
Iran has “absolutely no reasons” to launch a missile strike against Israel, he added.”
In other words, Israel used a false-flag tactic to justify a military strike in Syria claiming that it was the Iranians who fired the missiles at the Golan Heights in the first place. Israel clearly wants a war with Syria and their biggest obstacle to hegemonic power in the Middle East, Iran with Washington’s help of course. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu held the “Iran Lied” presentation in Tel-Aviv on Iran’s alleged secret nuclear weapons activity. Netanyahu claimed that
“After signing the nuclear deal in 2015, Iran intensified its efforts to hide its secret files…In 2017 Iran moved its nuclear weapons files to a highly secret location in Tehran.”
Screenshot from Jerusalem Post
So the first question is how did the Israelis obtain the secret files? Well, according to a Jerusalem Post article ‘Mossad Smuggled Half a Ton of Nuclear Documents Out of Iran-In One Night: How Did They Do It?’ Good question:
Israel’s Mossad intelligence service broke into the anonymous Tehran building that housed Iran’s secret nuclear files and smuggled half a ton of documents and compact discs back to Israel the same night. The New York Times in an article posted on its website Monday night quoted a senior Israeli official who spoke on condition of anonymity as saying that the Mossad discovered the warehouse in February 2016 and kept the building under surveillance since then.
Mossad operatives broke into the building in January, took the original documents, and returned to Israel the same night, the official told the Times
So Mossad, Israel’s intelligence agency broke into a building in Tehran and managed to smuggle a half a ton of nuclear documents out of Tehran and into the Israeli government’s hand, all in one night? It was also right before Trump was about to make a crucial decision on the Iranian deal. That story seems incredibly hard to believe. The Associated Press (AP) published the response of the U.N. nuclear agency in regards to Netanyahu’s presentation:
The U.N. nuclear agency says it believes that Iran had a “coordinated” nuclear weapons program in place before 2003, but found “no credible indications” of such work after 2009. The agency issued its assessment on Tuesday, a day after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu released what he said was a “half ton” of seized documents proving that Iran has lied about its nuclear intentions.
The documents focused on Iranian activities before 2003 and did not provide any explicit evidence that Iran has violated its 2015 nuclear deal with the international community
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) website published what the organization’s Director General, Yukiya Amano had told the Agency’s 35-member Board of Governors back in March:
“As of today, I can state that Iran is implementing its nuclear-related commitments,” he said in his introductory statement to the Board. “The JCPOA represents a significant gain for verification. It is essential that Iran continues to fully implement those commitments. If the JCPOA were to fail, it would be a great loss for nuclear verification and for multilateralism”
For the upcoming months of the summer season, the Middle East will experience chaos and a possible major war between Israel and Iran. Since Trump cancelled the Iran Nuclear Deal which is also known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) between the P5+1 (China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States; plus Germany) and Iran because at least according to Netanyahu and Trump, it was a “bad deal” which Trump had repeatedly claimed when he was a Presidential candidate in 2016. Now Trump is imposing economic sanctions on Iran adding its support of opposition groups and terrorist organizations in hopes of regime change. New economic sanctions will also lead to more protests by the Iranian people angered at their current economic situation in hopes of regime change.
However, there is another crisis that will take place under the Trump Administration and that is the decision to move the U.S. embassy from Tel-Aviv to Jerusalem on May 14th in recognition of Jerusalem as being Israel’s capital is sure to intensify the growing danger of a Third Intifada. Washington and Tel-Aviv have a long term strategy to destroy the fabric of Muslim society as Israel becomes the dominant force (with Washington’s full-support) for democracy in the Middle East.
Trump, Netanyahu and the “Bad” Iranian Nuclear Deal
One thing is clear, Trump and in all fairness, most of Washington since 1948 has supported Israel’s actions in the past way before Netanyahu became Prime Minister. Netanyahu’s televised theatrics was to convince the Trump Administration that Iran had a clandestine program to develop nuclear weapons. The White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders (image on the right) released a statement:
The United States is aware of the information just released by Israel and continues to examine it carefully. This information provides new and compelling details about Iran’s efforts to develop missile-deliverable nuclear weapons. These facts are consistent with what the United States has long known: Iran had a robust, clandestine nuclear weapons program that it has tried and failed to hide from the world and from its own people. The Iranian regime has shown it will use destructive weapons against its neighbors and others. Iran must never have nuclear weapons
What the Trump Administration indicated here is that Iran is guilty because Netanyahu provided compelling evidence although they claimed that they are continuing to examine the evidence. However, no evidence is required for the Trump team, Iran is guilty as charged.
On April 26, Israeli Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman had a high-level meeting with US officials in Washington, one of them was with the neocon psychopath, John Bolton. According to The Jerusalem Post, Liberman had nothing but kind words for the Trump Administration including its recent hire of John Bolton as National Security Adviser:
John Bolton is a loyal friend of Israel, who is very knowledgeable about the Iranian threat. We discussed this as well as the complex and sensitive situation in Syria, “Liberman said after the meeting. “I am pleased that the Americans see eye-to-eye with us in regards to the situation in the Middle East and thank the administration for its support of Israel
Liberman says “Americans see eye-to-eye with us” meaning that Israel and the U.S. have an agenda and that is to protect Israel and to destroy Syria, Hezbollah and Iran at all costs. Liberman gave Bolton “a caricature of him tearing up a UN resolution equating Zionism with Racism, a resolution Bolton was a major opponent of when he was US ambassador to the UN.” The purpose of the meeting between Israeli and American officials was to discuss “tensions between Israel and Iran over the Islamic Republic’s military entrenchment in Syria and Israel’s advocating to rip up the P5+1 nuclear deal”The Jerusalem Post reported. The caricature of Bolton tearing up the UN Resolution was a symbolic gesture in hopes that Trump will do the same with the Iran Nuclear Deal and he did. Trump did keep a campaign promise he made to the Israelis. Liberman has called for world powers (basically the U.S.) to enforce a policy of economic measures or sanctions along with the strict demands of the UN resolution that includes halting Iran’s use of ballistic missiles. Last month, The Jerusalem Post published another article ‘Liberman: ‘There will Not be a Nuclear Iran’ where Liberman said that
“The State of Israel is determined to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. This is not just a slogan, not just words,” Liberman said. “There will be no Iranian military presence in Syria, and there will be no nuclear Iran. We are not just saying this; we mean what we’re saying.”
In regards to the Iran Nuclear Deal, Trump has repeatedly reminded the world that the deal was bad just like his partner-in-crime Netanyahu has been saying since the deal was signed. One of Trump’s complaints about the deal is that he claims that the U.S. government under the Obama administration gave away money to Iran. Trump even tweeted earlier this year that
“Never gotten over the fact that Obama was able to send $1.7 Billion Dollars in CASH to Iran and nobody in Congress, the FBI or Justice called for an investigation!”
Trump is either playing stupid or just plain ignorant of the facts in regards to the Obama Administration sending 1.7 billion in cash to Iran. Well the facts are clear. The money was owed to Iran since 1979 since the U.S. froze all Iranian funds in American banks as retaliation for the seizure of the U.S. embassy in Tehran during the 1979 revolution that ousted the Shah of Iran, a U.S. puppet. The Iran hostage crisis went on for more than a year but ended with the Algeria Declaration that involved a number of agreements between the United States and Iran that resolved the hostage crisis. It was brokered by the Algerian government which was signed in Algiers on January 19, 1981. The agreement included an exchange for the release of 52 American diplomats and citizens.
The U.S. government and Iran agreed to resolve the money issue through ‘international arbitration’ meaning that both sides since 1979, have made payments to each other. It has been estimated that by 1983, Iran returned more than $896 million to U.S. banking institutions and in return, the U.S. transferred hundreds of millions in frozen funds to Iran. Today, private claims from the U.S. side have been resolved to the tune of $2.1 billion while Iran received more than $3 billion of its estimated $12 billion in frozen assets since 1981. So Trump’s personal assessment of the Obama Administration as just giving money to Iran deserves an investigation is absurd. Trump’s ignorance on the facts is clear.
The number one question the world had asked in regards to the Iran Nuclear Deal was what will Trump do? Nobody knew what will Trump do except those in the halls of Washington where members of congress and the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) rub elbows on a daily basis. But during the 2016 U.S. Presidential campaign, Trump did promise to rip up the agreement. So when Trump became President he cancelled the Iran Nuclear Deal despite pressure from members of the European Union, the IAEA and the international community including Russia and China not to withdraw from the deal.
Cancelling the deal will allow Trump to impose new sanctions on Iran. On September 13, 2017, The Arms Control Association released a press statement calling for “Trump and the U.S. Congress to continue to fulfill Washington’s commitments under the multilateral accord.” The press release stated the following:
More than 80 of the world’s leading nuclear nonproliferation specialists issued a joint statement Wednesday on why the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) between six world powers and Iran “has proven to be an effective and verifiable arrangement that is a net plus for international nuclear nonproliferation efforts.”
“Since the nuclear deal was implemented in January 2016, the JCPOA has dramatically reduced the risk posed by Iran’s nuclear program and mandated unprecedented monitoring and transparency measures that make it very likely that any possible future effort by Iran to pursue nuclear weapons, even a clandestine program, would be detected promptly,” the statement notes
It has been reported that Iran will remain the JCPOA agreement along with the European Union, Russia and China further isolating the U.S. One important question remains, Can the U.S. and Israel attempt a false flag in Syria and blame it on Iran? Yes. Israel will continue to launch attacks on Syria until Netanyahu comes up with another presentation titled ‘Iran has Secretly Developed Nukes in Syria’ then a joint US-Israel military strike on Iran is most likely.
Trump, North Korea and the Nobel Peace Prize
‘Nobel’, ‘Nobel’ the crowd chanted for U.S. president Donald J. Trump at a rally in Michigan last Saturday to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize (which has lost credibility a long time ago for giving war criminals Henry Kissinger and the former U.S. President Barack Obama the peace prize). Yes, North and South Korea has a real possibility of reuniting is a welcoming attempt at peace by the entire world, but I doubt Trump’s “fire and fury” threats and calling the North Korean leader Kim-Jong-Un“Rocket Man” led to a North and South Korea peace process was simply not the case. RT News published what the Chair of the Russian Upper House Committee for International Relations, Senator Konstantin Kosachev had said about awarding Trump the Nobel Peace Prize:
Screenshot from RT News
A Russian senator has described calls to award Donald Trump the Nobel Peace Prize for his role in the Korean peace deal as an attempt by the US to take credit for the resolution of a conflict that it had been stoking for decades.
“I see this as an attempt to make the United States an exceptional and only contributor to the ‘Korean turnaround.’ Of course this is not true. If the US has ever played any exceptional role it was their role in provoking tensions on the Korean peninsula and constant provocations aimed against DPRK,” the Chair of the Russian Upper House Committee for International Relations Senator Konstantin Kosachev told TASS on Saturday
However, while Trump is taking the credit for the peace process that is currently taking place on the Korean Peninsula, he has pulled out of the JCPOA with possibility of the U.S. and Israel launching strikes, possibly even nuclear strikes against Iran. Israel has a majority of zealots in the Knesset willing to take that chance and risk a nuclear war to once and for all, defeat one of their major enemies for the survival of the Jewish State. Indeed, very dangerous times ahead.
Jerusalem, a Holy City in Chaos
The U.S. embassy move to Jerusalem scheduled for May 14th will increase tensions in an already fragile situation between the Israelis and Palestinians, possibly igniting a third intifada? Since Trump announced the recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, a Sputnik News report indicated that Hamas has called for the Third Intifada:
According to the Palestinian Islamic fundamentalist organization, which governs the Gaza Strip, it expects the “day of rage” protests against the US move, which claimed two lives and left over 1,000 injured on Friday, to continue.
“Protests will continue in the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and Jerusalem.Because we protest against the US recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, as we consider it the capital of Palestine. We hope that the protests will develop further and further,” the movement’s press secretary told RIA Novosti
A day after Trump’s announcement, which has been condemned by Muslim states and countries backing a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian crisis, the leader of the political bureau of Hamas called for a third “intifada” uprising “against the US and Zionist plans to Judaize Jerusalem.” Amid tense clashes between Palestinians and police over the US decision on Jerusalem, the Israeli army has intensified its operations against Hamas, particularly, targeting its tunnels in the Gaza Strip
The first Palestinian intifada between 1987-1991 was a resistance against the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories that Israel gained during the 1967 Six-Day War. The start of the second intifada was when Israeli Prime Minister at the time, Ariel Sharon and a group of his supporters visited the Temple Mount in September of 2000. The second intifada lasted until 2005.
One of the long-term goals of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was to seize control of Jerusalem and turn it into the capital of the Jewish people. Most people around the world rejected Israel’s proposal to convert Jerusalem into an ethnically cleansed capital of Israel. Trumps decision to move the U.S. embassy in Tel-Aviv to Jerusalem was also influenced by one of the main Zionist billionaires, Sidney G. Adelson who reportedly donated more than $20 million to the Trump Campaign in 2016. Back in February, a New York Times article titled ‘Hard-Line Supporter of Israel Offers to Pay for U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem’ made it clear on why Mr. Adelson donated to the Trump campaign:
Sheldon G. Adelson, one of the most hawkish supporters of Israel among American Jews, has offered to help fund the construction of a new American Embassy in Jerusalem, according to the State Department, which on Friday said it was reviewing whether it could legally accept the donation
The article also mentions that Mr. Adelson has been advocating Washington to move its embassy to Jerusalem for a long time. Trump has kept another promise:
For years, Mr. Adelson, a Las Vegas casino mogul, has pushed the United States government to move its embassy to Jerusalem, the disputed capital that both Israelis and Palestinians claim as their own. With an estimated net worth of $40 billion, Mr. Adelson donated heavily to Mr. Trump’s campaign and gave $5 million to the committee organizing the president’s inauguration festivities, the largest such contribution ever.
Mr. Trump vowed during his campaign that, if elected, he would “fairly quickly” move the embassy to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv. In December, he announced that he would formally and officially recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and move the embassy there
Not only was Adelson an influence in Trump’s insane decision to move the U.S. embassy, his son-in-law Jared Kushner, who is also Trump’s Middle-East Advisor and whose family runs the Charles and Seryl Kushner Foundationwhich has donated to Israeli “land-grabbers” or settlers in Palestinian territories in the past. Back in 2016, an interesting report by Haaretz, one of Israel’s main newspapers ‘Kushner Foundation Donated to West Bank Settlement Projects’ tells us who and what the Kushner’s was funding:
On average, the family donates a few million dollars a year to charitable causes through the Charles and Seryl Kushner Foundation, tax forms for the years 2010 through 2014 show. The average donation is typically in the range of $5,000 to $10,000. Jared Kushner – as well as his brother and two sisters – sits on the board of his parents’ family foundation, which was created in 1997.
Among organizations and institutions in the West Bank that receive funding from the Kushner family, the leading beneficiary is American Friends of Beit El Yeshiva. Located in one of the more hard-line, ideological settlements, Beit El Yeshiva received $20,000 from the Kushner family in 2013
Not only did the Kushner Foundation donated to Beit El Yeshiva, the foundation also donated to the Israeli settlement of Yitzhar where the radical Od Yosef Chai led attacks on Palestinian villages along with Israeli security forces.
“This particular yeshiva has served as a base for launching violent attacks against nearby Palestinians villages and Israeli security forces, as well; as a result, it no longer receives funding from the Israeli government” according to Haaretz.
Last year, Reuters’ reported that the Israeli settlement of Bet El also supported Trump’s choice of nominating Jared Kushner as Senior Advisor on the Middle East.
“For many in the Israeli settlement of Bet El, deep in the occupied West Bank, Donald Trump’s choice of Jared Kushner as his senior adviser on the Middle East is a sign of politics shifting in their favor”
The report said that the Kushner family’s charitable foundation has donated” tens of thousands of dollars to their settlement” and that it is “part of a diplomatic rebalancing after what they view as eight years of anti-Israel bias under the U.S. administration of Barack Obama.” According to Haaretz:
“He will stand up for our interests. I suppose he will lean in our favor,” said Avi Lavi, 46, who has lived in Bet El for more than 40 years. “He’ll be fair, as opposed to Obama, whose policy leaned always towards the Arabs.”
New U.S. President Trump says his son-in-law Kushner, 36, is capable of brokering the “ultimate deal” to deliver peace between Israelis and Palestinians
As long as there is the continued expansion of Israeli settlements on Palestinian territories, there will never be a peaceful solution between both sides. On August 17, 2017, United Press International (UPI) reported that the
“U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Tuesday said Israel’s settlement activities in Palestinian lands was a “major obstacle” to achieving a peaceful two-state solution.” On September 25th, 2017, www.un.org published the ‘meetings coverage’ of U.N. Security Council over Israel’s illegal settlement activity:
Israel had moved forward with illegal settlement activity at a high rate since late June further dashing hopes for a two-State solution, the United Nations top envoy for the Middle East peace process told the Security Council today.
“Continuing settlement expansion, most notably during this period in occupied East Jerusalem, is making the two-State solution increasingly unattainable and undermining Palestinian belief in international peace efforts,” Special Coordinator Nickolay Mladenov told Council members
Jared Kushner reportedly also pressured Trump’s National Security Advisor, General Michael Flynn to intervene with Russia’s decision (who did not to support Trump’s decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital) on behalf of Israel. In 2017, Consortium News article ‘The Israel-gate Side of Russia-gate’ reported on what special prosecutor Robert Mueller discovered:
In investigating Russia’s alleged meddling in U.S. politics, special prosecutor Robert Mueller uncovered evidence that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pressured the Trump transition team to undermine President Obama’s plans to permit the United Nations to censure Israel over its illegal settlement building on the Palestinian West Bank, a discovery referenced in the plea deal with President Trump’s first National Security Adviser Michael Flynn.
At Netanyahu’s behest, Flynn and President Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner reportedly took the lead in the lobbying to derail the U.N. resolution, which Flynn discussed in a phone call with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak (in which the Russian diplomat rebuffed Flynn’s appeal to block the resolution)
The New York Times report ‘Hard-Line Supporter of Israel Offers to Pay for U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem’ on what the Palestinian leadership had said regarding the embassy move which falls on Israel’s 70th anniversary of its war of independence. For the Palestinians , the anniversary of the ‘Nakba’ known as the ‘catastrophe.’ The Nakba was when the Zionists began the ethnic cleansing of indigenous Palestinians which numbered between 750,000 to one million and turning them into refugees:
“The decision of the U.S. administration to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and to choose the anniversary of the Nakba of the Palestinian people for carrying out this step expresses a flagrant violation of the law,” Saeb Erekat, the secretary general of the Palestine Liberation Organization and a veteran Palestinian negotiator, said in a statement on Friday
On December, 2017, Reuters’ also reported what the reaction was from the Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on the Trump Administration’s decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital when he said it was the “greatest crime”and that it was a “flagrant violation of international law”:
“Jerusalem is and always will be the capital of Palestine,” he told an emergency meeting of Muslim leaders in Turkey. He said the United States was giving away Jerusalem as if it were an American city. “It crosses all the red lines,” he said
With more than seven-hundred thousand Israeli settlers in occupied Palestinian lands, there will never be a two-state solution between Palestinians and the Israelis.
Trump’s decision to relocate the U.S. embassy has influenced other governments including two in Latin America including Guatemala and now, Paraguay who happen to be U.S. puppet states. However, the historic decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital was rejected by the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) with 128 nations voting ‘No’ or “null and void” to recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital with 9 voting in favor with 25 nations abstaining and 21 nations absent. Trump’s decision has isolated Muslims, Christians, Jews and the entire world over this reckless act of belligerence in accordance to international law. The Trump Administration even threatened to take names of those who voted against their decision.
The Balkanization of Syria for Israel
Syria is in the middle of an extreme situation where they have to deal with the remaining elements of ISIS, Al-Nusra and every other future terrorist organization with new made-up names along with American forces slowly creeping up in numbers. Syria also has to deal with the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and their actions in recent months is a troubling sign that Israel is gearing up for a long war against its neighbors including Hezbollah and possibly Lebanon.
An important note to consider, and as I had written before, a U.S.-Israeli led attack on Iran cannot happen until Syria and Hezbollah in the south of Lebanon is neutralized. A war on Iran alone will be difficult for the Western alliance in a war against a united front with Syria, Hezbollah, Lebanon, Iran, Russia and even China on Iran’s side. If the balkanization project for Syria under the Yinon plan succeeds, remnants from ISIS, al-Nusra and al-Qaeda in and around Syria and from neighboring warzones will be able to create a new army of jihadists destined to wage a war with Iran on its borders with help from the Saudis and other Gulf states.
In the summer of 1947, Rabbi Fischmann told the U.N. Special Committee of Enquiry that
“The Promised Land extends from the River of Egypt up to the Euphrates, it includes parts of Syria and Lebanon.”
In The Zionist Plan for the Middle East,Oded Yinon said that
“Lebanon’s total dissolution into five provinces serves as a precedent for the entire Arab world including Egypt, Syria, Iraq and the Arabian peninsula and is already following that track” later he added:
Syria will fall apart, in accordance with its ethnic and religious structure, into several states such as in present day Lebanon, so that there will be a Shi’ite Alawi state along its coast, a Sunni state in the Aleppo area, another Sunni state in Damascus hostile to its northern neighbor, and the Druzes who will set up a state, maybe even in our Golan, and certainly in the Hauran and in northern Jordan
Israel’s recent strikes in Syria aiming at Iranian military personal suggests that Israel will certainly continue to strike targets within Syria that serves multiple purposes and that is to further destroy Syria by targeting military or civilian areas. Yinon wrote that
“every kind of inter-Arab confrontation will assist us in the short run and will shorten the way to the more important aim of breaking up Iraq into denominations as in Syria and in Lebanon.”
Create conflict between various nations and groups , you create a manufactured crisis. Israel never planned for peace in the Middle East, they planned to tear it apart since Theodore Herzl, the founder of Zionism declared that
“the Jewish State stretches: “From the Brook of Egypt to the Euphrates.”
World War III is in the Final Stages, So How Can the World Stop It?
Trump’s cancellation of the JCPOA and the U.S. embassy move scheduled for May 14th will be adding gas to the fire in the Middle East. There is a looming war between US-backed Israeli forces and Iran. Israel is risking a heavy price if they followed through with a nuclear strike on Iran because it is most likely that their undeclared nuclear weapons would finally be put to use in such a risky confrontation. Israel will surely be hit with rockets from almost all directions including Syria, Hezbollah in the South of Lebanon and from Palestine due to the decision to move the U.S. embassy in Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, one of the holiest cities in the world for Muslims, Christians and Jews alike. All of the US-Israeli actions since Trump became President will lead to more wars and chaos. Chaos is good for Israel’s long-term agenda. World War III is getting closer. So what can the world do to stop it?
Russia and China have to stand together militarily and more importantly diplomatically through peace. Every sovereign nation can benefit in a new economic era with China’s New Silk-Road and other regions where they can solidify their relationships and work towards the good of their nations is a good start.
All nations that are on the U.S. hit list need to unite and resist. For example, in South America, who to Washington it is still known as their backyard, the US Vice President and Judeo-Christian crusader Mike Pence recently had suggested that Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela are ripe for regime change. Telesur reported on what Pence had said at a ceremony for the new U.S. ambassador to the Organization of American States (OAS), for the Trump Administration, Carlos Trujillo:
During his speech the U.S. vice president singled out Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela. Of Cuba he said the island continued to live “under tyrannical legacy,” using terminology and rhetoric used by right-wing Cuban Americans against the communist government of Cuba.
Later it was Nicaragua’s turn. Pence accused Daniel Ortega’s government of “brutally repressing” peaceful protesters, a common allegation used by successive U.S. governments and their western allies to justify interference despite lacking proper evidence to back their claims.
The he attacked the Venezuelan government calling President Nicolas Maduro a “dictator” and charged him with turning “one of South America’s most prosperous countries into one of the poorests”
This is just one example of how the U.S. Empire continues to operate. Bolivia, Cuba, Nicaragua, Ecuador and Venezuela united can push back any attempt by Washington to destabilize their governments. One way is to prevent regime change is to ban any US-funded Non-Government Organization such as USAID and the NED for starters. Bolivia and Ecuador has wisely banned U.S. NGO’s from creating a counter-revolutions run by the opposition who has close ties to Washington. One positive note in my opinion is the joint Venezuela-Palestine Bi-National Bank for Venezuela’s crypto currency, the ‘petros’ is definitely a step in the right direction, let’s see how far it can go to help each other in the long run minus US-Israel interference in the process.
As for the war in Syria, it is a wake-up call to the world that the US-Israel alliance must be stopped or we all will face the threat of a nuclear war launched by either Israel or the U.S. against Iran. What would could possibly go wrong? A new world war with the real possibility of going nuclear with Russia and China backing Iran.
In a the U.S. mainstream media, news magazine Newsweek reported last month that
“an angered Kremlin may reconsider that position and provide Assad with the weapons systems he has been pushing for, especially after Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told the BBC Moscow would do what was needed to help Syria “deter aggression.”
The report also mentioned what Ex-Israeli military intelligence chief Amos Yadlin had said about the idea that Russia had deploying S-300s to Syria and that it would be targeted by Israel’s air force. Yadlin said
“If I know the air force well, we have already made proper plans to deal with this threat. After you remove the threat, which is basically what will be done, we’re back to square one,” he told Bloomberg.”
Russia has the military capabilities to deal with the US-Israel threat in Syria. Iran and China also have the military capability to strike U.S. and Israeli forces at a moment’s whim. Hezbollah, Syria, Iran, Russia and China can stop World War III as they stand united against the actions taken by the U.S. and Israel as it continues to target Syria. Not only the nations I just mentioned can stop World War III, the international community can form peaceful protests in every region of the world to stop the U.S. and Israel’s path to war.
Another important element to stop World War III is the alternative media by spreading important and vital information to the international community. Truth is the medicine needed to treat the sickness of war propaganda. Western-led wars at least since the Spanish-American War of 1898 has been responsible for some of the worst atrocities in human history. We as a people have a real chance of stopping the next major war. One of the solutions against the wicked powers of the West and Israel is to stand united and spread the truth on what the real agenda is. Peace can still be possible so let’s all take a stand and try to stop this war, because in the end, it is up to all of us and let’s not waste any time doing so.
Featured image: Defendant Adolf Eichmann takes notes during his trial in Jerusalem. The glass booth in which Eichmann sat was erected to protect him from assassination. (Photo credit: Israeli Government)
On May 9, Gina Haspel, Donald Trump’s choice for head of the Central Intelligence Agency, testified at her Senate confirmation hearing in Washington, DC. Some senators questioned her about her tenure, in 2002, as CIA station chief in Thailand. There, the agency ran one of the “black sites” where suspected al-Qaida extremists were interrogated using procedures that included waterboarding. She was also asked about her role in the destruction of videotapes in 2005 that documented the torture of illegally detained suspects. Her evasive answers to these questions, disconcerting and unsatisfying, are also hauntingly familiar.
In 1960, Adolf Eichmann was kidnapped by Israeli spies in Argentina and brought to trial in Jerusalem for his part in the extermination of millions of European Jews during Germany’s Third Reich. In his interrogation with Israeli police, published as Eichmann Interrogated, DeCopo Books, NY, 1999, Eichmann stated that in the intervening years since the acts in question his own view of them had evolved and before the Senate on May 9, Haspel expressed herself similarly.
Haspel testified that while she can’t say what exactly might constitute an immoral order in the past, her “moral compass” would not allow her to obey one today, given the “stricter moral standard” she says “we have chosen to hold ourselves to.” She does not judge the actions that she and her colleagues took in the years after 9-11, “in that tumultuous time” of decidedly looser moral standards: “I’m not going to sit here, with the benefit of hindsight, and judge the very good people who made hard decisions.” She testified that she supports laws that prohibit torture, but insists that such laws were not in place at the time and that such “harsh interrogations” were allowable under the legal guidance the CIA had at the time and “that the highest legal authority in the United States had approved it, and that the president of the United States had approved it.”
Likewise Eichmann was probed about his obedience when “ordered to do something blatantly illegal.” In a response that augured Haspel’s Senate testimony a half century later, Eichmann told his interrogators:
“You say illegal. Today I have a very different view of things…But then? I wouldn’t have considered any of those actions illegal… If anyone had asked me about it up until May 8, 1945, the end of the war, I’d have said: This government was elected by a majority of the German people…every civilized country on earth had its diplomatic mission. Who is a little man like me to trouble his head about it? I get orders from my superior and I look neither right nor left. That’s not my job. My job is to obey and comply.”
Not to compare the evil of the holocaust with the CIA rendition and torture (as if evil could be measured by quantity) but the evasions and obfuscations of these two willing technicians of state terror are chillingly similar. Eichmann’s cowardly protestations that he could not have known that facilitating torture and murder was illegal ring hollow. It was only after Eichmann’s atrocities, though, that such crimes as torture were formally codified into law. By 2002, however, along the precedents of the war crimes tribunal at Nuremberg, the United States was legally bound along with most nations in the world to the Geneva Conventions, to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the United Nations Convention against Torture. Even the U.S. Army Field Manual, cited by Haspel in her hearing, labels waterboarding as torture and a war crime.
“We all believed in our work. We were all committed,” Haspel proudly boasted to the Senate, describing the morale and esprit de corps of her CIA comrades overseeing illegal detention, torture and murder in the years after 9-11. Eichmann similarly praised the work ethic of his team. Inspired by Eichmann’s trial, Thomas Merton, in his poem, “Chant to be Used in Processions Around a Site with Furnaces,” put these words in the mouth of a condemned concentration camp commander:
“In my day we worked hard we saw what we did our self-sacrifice was conscientious and complete our work was faultless and detailed.”
An Israeli court did not buy Adolf Eichmann’s defense that he was following orders and obeying the law as he understood it and he was hung on June 1, 1962. We will soon know if the U.S. Senate will accept Gina Haspel’s appropriation of Eichmann’s alibi and confirm her as Director of the Central Intelligence Agency.
Featured image: On May 9, 2018 Vladimir Putin had talks with Prime Minister of Israel Benjamin Netanyahu in the Kremlin (Source: author)
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s attendance at Victory Day 2018 as President Putin’s guest of honor, the day-long meeting that they had, and then Israel’s bombing of Iranian positions in Syria later that same night forever changed how the Alt-Media Community views the Russian-Israeli relationship.
Up until this Wednesday’s 2018 Victory Day event in Moscow, most of the Alt-Media Community was still brainwashed by the dogma that Russia is somehow “against” Israel despite years of evidence to the contrary, including multiple quotes from President Putin on this topic published on the Kremlin’s official website. That all changed earlier in the week when President Putin invited Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to attend the celebration as one of his two guests of honor, the other being Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic. It shouldn’t be a surprise that this happened because, after all, Russia and Israel are allies, like the author explained in September 2017.
The gist of this assertion comes down to the ethno-religious ties that bind the two parties together and lay the basis for a comprehensive partnership with one another, one which Russia has skillfully sought to use as a fundamental component of its “balancing” strategy. How this works in practice is that Russia, whose military mandate in Syria is strictly about fighting terrorism and not protecting the Syrian Arab Army (SAA), passively allows Israel to bomb what it says are suspected Iranian positions in the Arab Republic because it believes that the “phased withdrawal” of Tehran’s elite Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and their Hezbollah allies after the defeat of Daesh is a “necessary compromise” for “ensuring regional peace”.
This “politically incorrect” observation shouldn’t be taken as the author’s personal endorsement of this policy, but simply as a reflection of reality as it objectively exists. Moreover, in case the dozens of Israeli bombings that have occurred without Russian interference since the beginning of Moscow’s anti-terrorist operation in September 2015 weren’t enough evidence to convince the reader that the two parties coordinate these activities, the Russian Ambassador to Israel openly acknowledged this himself when he said late last month that “We are mutually coordinating and updating about Syria … So far, there have been no incidents between us, nor even hints at incidents, and I hope there will not be.”
All of this sets the backdrop for the action-packed 24 hours of 8-9 May, 2018.
Israeli forces carried out air strikes at targets in Syria (Source: author)
Israel launched another surprise attack against Syria on the night of 8 May, just an hour or so after Trump withdrew the US from the Iranian nuclear deal, reportedly killing several Iranians in the process. This daring raid was made all the more sensitive because it occurred just hours before Netanyahu arrived in Moscow as one of President Putin’s two guests of honor for the Victory Day events. While in the Russian capital, the Israeli premier was feted with the honor of standing two positions away from his host and was seen amicably chatting with him the entire time.
After watching the parade, the two leaders marched to the Alexander Garden to pay homage to the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, during which time Netanyahu proudly held up a picture of a Soviet Jewish World War II veteran as he participated in Russia’s Immortal Regiment, a relatively new tradition that is regarded as almost sacred and in which Russians walk through the streets carrying photos of their family members who served and sacrificed during the war. This entire time, Netanyahu was proudly wearing the St. George Ribbon to commemorate the over 26 million Soviet citizens who died in the war against fascism.
Clearly, Israel’s bombing of Syria the night before had no impact on how warmly President Putin treated his guest of honor, nor on Netanyahu’s commitment to observing the Victory Day events.
During the Putin-Netanyahu press conference, the latter revealed that the war veteran that was between him and President Putin was actually one of the men who liberated Auschwitz, which obviously wasn’t a coincidence and was clearly part of the Kremlin’s meticulous planning of this event. That observation served as the lead-in for the Israeli premier to compare Iran to Nazi Germany and imply that it’s plotting a ‘second holocaust’, ergo the need to ‘contain’ it in Syria. It can only be speculated what the two men discussed behind closed doors prior to that point, but Netanyahu did say before his trip that it would be precisely about Iran and Syria.
Hours after Netanyahu left Moscow and within 24 hours of the last Israeli bombing of Syria, yet another one occurred, albeit this time apparently more large-scale than the last.
At this point, there’s no longer any use in Alt-Media denying it, Russia and Israel are indeed allies, and what took place in the 24 hours of 8 and 9 May was a display of choreographed “military diplomacy” that represents one of the high points of the “Syrian show”. Sometimes events really are as simple as they appear, which in this case means that – whether one supports it, is against it, or feels indifferent towards it – Russia and Israel were coordinating Tel Aviv’s latest moves in Syria at the highest level of their leaderships, and that what took place after Netanyahu’s departure from Moscow was apparently greenlit by President Putin.
The actual conspiracy theories of the much-ridiculed “5-D chess” explanation or the superficial slogan of “keeping your enemies closer” that Alt-Media demagogues continue to rely on in order to maintain their weaponized disinformation campaign that Russia is somehow “against” Israel are losing their luster as it’s becoming increasingly impossible to continue suppressing the facts about the true relationship between these two. President Putin invited Netanyahu to Moscow to celebrate Victory Day as one of his two guests of honor in order to show the world that Israel is just as much of an ally to Russia as Serbia is, whose president was also personally invited to attend as well.
A turning point might therefore have finally been reached after Victory Day 2018 sobered up the minds of many in the Alt-Media Community and revealed to them that the dogma that some outlets and figures had indoctrinated them with for years about Russia and Israel turned out to be a complete lie.
*
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.
Richard Grenell, the new U.S. ambassador to Germany, formally took up his post in Berlin on Tuesday and immediately got to work as Donald Trump’s representative by offending the German people with a tweet.
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As @realDonaldTrump said, US sanctions will target critical sectors of Iran’s economy. German companies doing business in Iran should wind down operations immediately.
Grenell’s inaugural Twitter address to his hosts, a stern command to German companies doing business in Iran to obey the American president’s decision to sabotage the nuclear arms control agreement that opened the way for Western investment, or face U.S. sanctions, did not go over well.
As Germany’s leading financial daily, Handelsblatt, reported, the tweet drew thousands of comments,
“many of them from angry Germans basically telling the ambassador, a longtime critic of the Iran deal, to butt out.”
Among the more temperate replies to Grenell’s tweeted threat was one from Wolfgang Ischinger, a former German ambassador to the United States, who advised the novice diplomat to avoid issuing “instructions” to his hosts.
Ric: my advice, after a long ambassadorial career: explain your own country’s policies, and lobby the host country – but never tell the host country what to do, if you want to stay out of trouble. Germans are eager to listen, but they will resent instructions.
Grenell’s comments sparked anger across the political spectrum. Fabio De Masi of Die Linke, a far-left opposition party, called on the German foreign ministry to make it clear to Grenell that his threats on behalf of “the arsonist in the White House” were inappropriate.
Germany’s finance minister, Olaf Scholz, reportedly pledged on Wednesday to protect German businesses working with Iran from potential U.S. sanctions.
In response to the wave of criticism generated by his tweet, Grenell suggested that he was just following orders and had used “the exact language sent out from the White House.”
the exact language sent out from the White House talking points & fact sheet. https://t.co/vKYRny6Hkq
It was notable, however, that America’s ambassadors to the two other European signatories to the Iran deal, Britain and France, issued no such warnings to companies in those nations.
Rolf Mützenich, an arms control expert from the Social Democratic wing of Germany’s governing coalition, suggested that Grenell appeared to be imitating his boss “in miniature,” through his use of Twitter as a battering ram.
That impression, however, is unfair to Grenell, whose reputation as a noted Twitter troll far predates his association with Trump.
Grenell, who once served the Bush administration as U.N. Ambassador John Bolton’s spokesman, was forced to delete hundreds of sexist, rude comments from his Twitter feed in 2012, during his brief tenure as foreign affairs spokesman for Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign.
The uproar over his tweets at the time, combined with anger from Republican homophobes who objected to the fact that he was gay, led to Grenell’s resignation from the Romney campaign just days after he had joined it.
In addition to mocking the physical appearance of female political figures, Grenell has frequently used his Twitter account to harass journalists, relentlessly accusing them of partisanship for any reporting that challenges the far-right ideas he promotes.
Rather than engage in dialogue, Grenell uses the platform to badger reporters whose work he dislikes to the point where many eventually tire of his inane arguments and block him.
At 1:45, the Senate is voting to confirm Richard Grenell to be U.S. ambassador to Germany.
Congrats to the first person I ever blocked on Twitter for aggressive rudeness! pic.twitter.com/WTzO2ofPTw
(In the interest of full disclosure, I am one of the legion of reporters who resorted to the block button to escape Grenell’s harassment. In my case, the final straw was his claim that, by sharing video of Richard Nixon bowing to Chairman Mao during the absurd controversy over Barack Obama bowing to another foreign leader, I was secretly working for the 2012 Obama campaign.)
Calling Grenell a troll is perhaps not entirely accurate, though, since his reputation for harassing reporters was well-established before the advent of Twitter. During his tenure as spokesman for the U.S. delegation at the U.N. members of the press corps described him to the Village Voice, in 2003, as “rude,” “arrogant,” “unbearable,” and a “bully.”
It is unclear what sort of vetting process Grenell went through before being dispatched to Germany as Trump’s representative, but the Germans should be braced for more confrontational behavior if his personal interactions with reporters are any guide. Irwin Arieff, who covered the U.N. for Reuters during the Bush administration told the Huffington Post in 2012 that his memory of Grenell was as “the most dishonest and deceptive press person I ever worked with.”
“He often lied, even more frequently offered half answers or withheld information that would weaken his case or reflect poorly on his ideological point of view,” Arieff added.
For the first time in American history, a Twitter troll has been made an ambassador. There is hope for all you eggs and bald eagles. https://t.co/tCp7KyYQIs
The new U.S. ambassador’s abrasive start to his tenure in Germany comes as that nation is searching for ways to keep the deal to constrain Iran’s nuclear program in place. According to Handelsblatt, German exports to Iran were worth $3.5 billion last year, and many of Germany’s biggest businesses are now working with the country.
In addition to Germany, France, Britain and the European Union helped to negotiate the deal with Iran, and are considering ways to keep it alive despite Trump’s threat to impose new U.S. sanctions on European firms that do business in Iran. One legal measure under consideration would be using an existing E.U. law to shield German, French and British companies from American sanctions.
Updated: Wednesday, May 10, 8:25 a.m. EDT
This post was revised to add a new headline, more tweets from Richard Grenell’s Twitter feed and to note his claim that his offensive tweet used language provided by the White House.
There have been major developments this week, all of them bad, including Putin re-nominating Medvedev as his Prime Minister, and Bibi Netanyahu invited to Moscow to the Victory Day Parade in spite of him bombing Syria, a Russian ally, just on the eve of his visit. Once in Moscow, Netanyahu compared Iran to, what else, Nazi Germany. How original and profound indeed! Then he proceeded to order the bombing of Syria for a second time, while still in Moscow. But then, what can we expect from a self-worshiping narcissist who finds it appropriate to serve food to the Japanese Prime Minister in a specially made shoe? The man is clearly batshit crazy (which in no way makes him less evil or dangerous). But it is the Russian reaction which is so totally disgusting: nothing, absolutely nothing. Unlike others, I have clearly said that it is not the Russian responsibility to “protect” Syria (or Iran) from the Israelis. But there is no doubt in my mind that Netanyahu has just publicly thumbed his nose at Putin and that Putin took it. For all my respect for Putin, this time he allowed Netanyahu to treat him just like Trump treated Macron. Except that in the case of Putin, he was so treated in his own capital. That makes it even worse.
[Interestingly, while whining about “Nazi Iran” Netanyahu did say something truly profound and true. He said “an important history lesson: when a murderous ideology emerges, one has to push back against it before it is too late”.That is indeed exactly what most people across the world feel about Israel and its Zionist ideology but, alas, their voice is completely ignored by those who rule over them. So yes, it sure looks to me like it is becoming “too late” and that the consequences for our collective cowardice – most of us are absolutely terrified from speaking the plain truth about our Zionist overlords – will cost us all a terrible price.]
Then, of course, there is Donald Trump pulling out of the so-called Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) in spite of Iran’s full compliance and in spite of the fact that the USA does not have the authority to unilaterally withdraw from this multilateral agreement. But being the megalomaniac that he is, and not to mention the spineless lackey of the Israel Lobby, Trump ignored all that and thereby created further tensions between the USA and the rest of the world whom the US will now blackmail and bully to try to force it to support the USA in its rabid subservience to Israel. As for the Israelis, their “sophisticated” “strategy” is primitive to the extreme: first get Trump to create maximal tensions with Iran, then attack the Iranians in Syria as visibly and arrogantly as possible, bait the Iranians into a retaliation, then bellow “OI VEY!!!” with your loudest voice, mention the Holocaust once or twice, toss in a “6 million people” figure, and get the USA to attack Syria.
How anybody can respect, nevermind admire, the Israelis is simply beyond comprehension. I sure can’t think of a more contemptible, nasty, psychopathic gang of megalomanical thugs (and cowards) than the Israelis. Can you?
Nonetheless, it appears undeniable that the Zionists have enough power to simultaneously force not one, but two (supposed) superpowers to cave into their demands. Not only that, they have the power to do that while also putting these two superpowers on a collision course against each other. At the very least, this shows two things: the United States have now completely lost sovereignty and are now an Israeli protectorate. As for Russia, well, she is doing comparatively better, but the full re-sovereignization the Russian people have voted for when they gave their overwhelming support to Putin will not happen. A comment I read on a Russian chat put it: “Путин кинул народ – мы не за Медведева голосовали” or “Putin betrayed the people – we did not vote for Medvedev”. I am not sure that “betrayed the people” is fair, but the fact that he has disappointed a lot of people is, I think, simply undeniable.
It is still way too early to reach any conclusions at this point, and there are still way too many unknown variables, but I will admit that I am very worried and that for the first time in 4 years I am having major doubts about a fundamental policy decision by Putin. I sure hope that I am wrong. We will find out relatively soon. I just hope that this will not be in the form of a major war.
In the meantime, I want to refocus on the Skripal case. There is one outright bizarre thing which I initially dismissed, but which really is becoming disturbing: the fact that the Brits are apparently holding Sergei and Iulia Skripal incommunicado. In other words, they have been kidnapped.
There was this one single telephone call between Iulia Skripal and her sister, Victoria, in which Iulia said that she was okay (she was clearly trying to reassure Victoria) but it was clear that she could not speak freely. Furthermore, when Victoria mentioned that she would want to visit Iulia, the latter reply ‘nobody will give you a visa’. After that – full silence. The Russian consulate has been making countless requests to have a visit, but all that the Brits have done since is have Scotland Yard post a letter which was evidently not written by Iulia and which said
“I have access to friends and family, and I have been made aware of my specific contacts at the Russian Embassy who have kindly offered me their assistance in any way they can. At the moment I do not wish to avail myself of their services, but, if I change my mind I know how to contact them”.
What friends?! What family?! Nonsense!
Her sister tried to contact her many times through various channels, including official ones, and then in total despair, she posted the following message on Facebook:
“My darling sister, Yulia! You are not communicating with us, and we don’t know anything about you and Sergey Victorivich. I know that I have no right to interfere in your affairs without asking your permission, but I worry too much. I worry about you and your dad. I also worry about Nuar. [Nuar is Yulia Skrial’s dog, whom she left to stay at a kennel center, while she was traveling to the UK.] He is now at the dog hotel, and they want to get paid. We have to decide something what to do with him. I am ready to take him and to take care of him until you come back home. Besides Nuar, I am concerned about your apartment and your car. Nothing has been decided about their safety and maintenance. We can help with all that, but I need your power of attorney in my or my sister Lena’s name. If you think that all of these is important, draw up a power of attorney form in a Russian consulate in any country. If you won’t do that, we will understand and won’t interfere in your affairs.
Vika“
No reply ever came.
I just entered the following query into Google: “Skripal”. April 10th has an entry saying that she was released from the hospital. That is the most recent one I have found. I looked on Wikipedia, the same thing, there is nothing at all.
I have to admit that when I first heard the Russian complaints I figured that this was no big deal. I thought “the Brits told the Skripals that Putin tried to poison them, they are probably afraid, and possibly still sick from whatever it is which made them sick, but the Brits would never outright kidnap two foreign citizens, and most definitely not in such a public way”.
I am not so sure anymore.
First, let’s get the obvious one out of the way: the fear for the security of the Skripals. That is utter nonsense. The Brits can organize a meeting between а Russian diplomat in the UK at a highly protected UK facility, with tanks, SAS Teams on the standby, helicopters in the air, bombers, etc. That Russian diplomat could speak to them through bullet-proof glass and a phone. And, since the Russians are all so dangerous, he can be searched for weapons. All which the Skripals need to do is to tell him/her “thank you, your services are not needed”. Conversation over. But the Brits refuse even that.
But let’s say that the Skripals are so totally terrified of the evil Russians, that they categorically refuse. Even by video-conference. It would be traumatic for them, right? Okay.
What about a press conference then?
Even more disturbing is that, at least to my knowledge, nobody in the western corporate media is asking for an interview with them. Snowden can safely speak from Russia and address even large conferences, but the Skripals can’t speak to anybody at all?
But here is the worst part of this: it has been two months already since the Skripals are held in total secrecy by the UK authorities. Two months, that is 60 days. Ask any specialist on interrogation or any psychologist what kind of effect 60 days of “specialized treatment” can do to a person.
I am not dismissing the Russian statements about “kidnapping” anymore. What I see is this: on substance, the Skripal false flag has crashed and burned, just like MH17 or the Douma chemical attack, but unlike MH17 or Douma, the Skripals are two witnesses whose testimony has the potential to result in a gigantic scandal, not just for the May government, but for all those spineless Europeans who showed “solidarity” with Britain. In other words, the Skripals will probably never be allowed to speak freely: they must either be killed or totally brainwashed or disappeared. Any other option would result in a scandal of planetary magnitude.
I can’t pretend like my heart goes out to Sergei Skripal: the man was an officer who gave an oath and who then betrayed his country to the British (he was a British agent, not a Russian one as the press writes). Those holding him today are his former bosses. But Iulia? She is completely innocent and as of April 5th (when she called her sister Victoria), she was clearly in good health and with a clear mind. Now she has been disappeared and I don’t know which is worse, the fact that she might never reappear or that she might one day reappear following months of British “counseling”. As for her father, he paid for his betrayal and he too deserves a better fate than being poisoned, used and then disappeared.
In the big scheme of things (the Zionists war against our entire planet), two individuals like Sergei and Iulia Skripal might not matter. But I think that the least we can do is to remember them and their plight.
This also begs the question of what kind of society we live in. I am not shocked by the fact that the British state would resort to such methods (they have always used them). I am shocked that in a so-called western “democracy” with freedom, pluralism and “European values” (whatever that means) the Brits could get away with this.
How about some “solidarity” with the Skripals – you, Europeans?!
British government official agencies are the patrons, managers and funders of the White Helmets, who have been the go-to source for the mainstream Western media reporting on the ongoing Syrian war. For good measure, the U.S. State Department’s Agency for International Development (USAID) has kicked in $23 million to finance Mayday Rescue, the cutout between the White Helmets and the British Ministry of Defense, the Home Office, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and 10 Downing Street. This is all a matter of public record, yet no Western major media outlet has bothered to include these “data points” in their lavish coverage of the White Helmets.
Mayday Rescue was founded by James le Mesurier, who founded both Mayday Rescue and the White Helmets after “retiring” from the British Army and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. Mayday Rescue has its headquarters in Istanbul, Turkey, where it runs a training program for the White Helmet recruits. Mayday Rescue’s annual budget is $35 million, with the funds coming from USAID, the UK Conflict Security and Stability Fund, and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. To date, an estimated 3,000 recruits have been through the Mayday Rescue training programs and deployed into 120 different locations in rebel held parts of Syria.
Another element of the British government flowchart backing the White Helmets is the communications and media firm Incostrat, founded by Paul Tilley, another British Army veteran, who ran the Ministry of Defence’s Strategic Communications for the Middle East and North Africa. Tilley ran British government communications during the Libya invasion, working directly out of 10 Downing Street. In November 2014, soon after le Mesurier was founding Mayday Rescue and the White Helmets, Tilley “retired” from the British service to found the strategic communications firm. Incostrat provides the social media and other communications services for Mayday and the White Helmets.
All very neat.
In January 2015, the British Ministry of Defence renamed its Security Assistance Group (SAG) the 77th Brigade. The name change was in honor of the legendary World War II era British special warfare operator Orde Wingate, who as a Major General in the British Army founded the 77th Indian Infantry Brigade, which conducted “long-range penetration” operations in the CBI theater. The renamed current 77th Brigade, according to its own website, conducts “non-lethal engagement and legitimate non-military levers as a means to adapt behaviors of opposing forces and adversaries,” including information activities and outreach. By its own public description, the 77th Brigade is “an agent of change.” They are nowadays referred to as “Twitter Troops” and “Facebook Warriors.”
The Israeli Haaretz newspaper reported that only 30 out of 86 foreign envoys serving in Israel had accepted Tel Aviv’s invitation to the Sunday reception. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had invited the entire foreign diplomatic corps to the event.
Israel’s Hadashot TV news said many European envoys, including those from the United Kingdom, France and Germany, boycotted the May 14 event.
“It is a little strange to invite us to celebrate an event that we opposed and condemned. The Americans were more clever and knew in advance not to invite us to save themselves from embarrassment,” the network quoted a diplomatic source as saying.
The event, which will take place a day before the official relocation ceremony, will be attended by US President Donald Trump‘s daughter and adviser, Ivanka Trump, his son-in-law and adviser, Jared Kushner, US Secretary of the Treasury Steven Mnuchin and other US officials.
Haaretz reported this week that the Israeli foreign ministry did not invite most of the Israeli opposition lawmakers to the reception.
Senior Palestinian official Saeb Erekat on Monday called on foreign dignitaries in Israel and around the world to “boycott the inauguration ceremony… lest they lend legitimacy to an illegal decision and to continued Israeli policies of occupation, colonization and annexation.”
“Those who attend the ceremony will thus be sending an ominous message, a message that they encourage flagrant violations of international law and the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people,” said Erekat.
Last December, Trump announced his decision to recognize Jerusalem al-Quds as Israel’s so-called capital and relocate the US embassy from Tel Aviv to the occupied Jerusalem al-Quds, breaking with decades of American policy.
His decision infuriated the Palestinians, who declared that Washington could no longer play a role as a mediator in the so-called Middle East peace process. It also sparked outrage across the Muslim world and even among Washington’s Arab allies.
On December 21, the United Nations General Assembly overwhelmingly voted in favor of a resolution that calls on the US to withdraw its controversial recognition of Jerusalem al-Quds as the Israeli “capital.”
Palestinians to storm Israel-Gaza fence
Yahya Sinwar, the political chief of the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas, said Thursday he hopes to see hundreds of thousands of Palestinians storm the fence between the Gaza Strip and the occupied territories during protests next week that will coincide with the US embassy move to Jerusalem al-Quds.
“What’s the problem with hundreds of thousands breaking through a fence that is not a border?”asked Sinwar, who hoped Israel forces would not shoot at “peaceful” protests.
However, he warned that the protests risked spiraling out of control, saying
“the Gaza Strip is like a hungry tiger that has been starved and left in a cage for 11 years.”
The coastal enclave is under Israeli land, air and sea blockade since 2007. Sinwar said now the tiger is on the loose, and nobody knows what it will do.
On Wednesday, Sinwar said the mass anti-occupation rallies will be “decisive,” vowing that he and other top officials were “ready to die” in a campaign to end Israel’s decade-old siege of the territory.
Senior Palestinian official Ahmad Majdalani said Tuesday that May 14 “will be a huge, popular day of rage everywhere.”
“Our people will express their rejection of relocating the embassy to occupied al-Quds,” he was quoted by the Voice of Palestine, the official Palestinian Authority radio station.
Monday’s demonstration will cap six weeks of protests along the Gaza fence and coincide with the 70th anniversary of Nakba Day (Day of Catastrophe), when Israel was created in 1948.
At least 52 unarmed Palestinian protesters have been killed by Israeli live fire since protests began on March 30.
The Israeli military regime has faced international criticism over its use of live fire, with the United Nations and European Union calling for an independent investigation. Tel Aviv has rejected the call.
14 May 2018 marks the 70th anniversary of the Israeli Declaration of Independence by Zionist terrorist David Ben Gurion, the foundation of an invasion-, violence-, racism- , genocide- and theft-based Apartheid Israel, and commencement of the large-scale, Rohingya Genocide-scale ethnic cleansing of Indigenous Palestinians from Palestine. US Alliance backers of Apartheid Israel will mark the occasion with lying praise for this evil rogue state, but decent Humanity will tell the truth and demand “Free Palestine”, an end to Israeli Apartheid, return of all refugees and a democratic, multi-ethnic Unitary State in Palestine.
To mark this occasion, I have set out below (A) the chronology of the violent invasion and ethnic cleansing of Palestine, (B) a summary of the appalling conditions of the Indigenous Palestinians, (C) the impact of Apartheid Israel on the world, and (D) a humane outcome for a democratic post-Apartheid Palestine.
(A). Chronology of the violent invasion and ethnic cleansing of Palestine.
In 1880 there were about 500,000 Arab Palestinians and about 25,000 Jews (half of the latter being immigrants) living in Palestine. Genocidally racist Zionists have been responsible for a Palestinian Genocide involving successive mass expulsions (800,000 in 1948 and 400,00 in 1967) , ethnic cleansing of 90% of the land of Palestine, and in the century since the British invasion of Palestine about 2.3 million Palestinian deaths from violence (0.1 million) or from violently-imposed deprivation (2.2 million). Presently there are now 8 million Palestinian refugees, and of 14 million Palestinians about 50% (7 million) are forbidden to even step foot in their own country on pain of death, only 1.8 million Palestinian Israelis (13%) are permitted to vote for the government ruling all of the former Mandated Palestine, and 5.0 million Palestinians have zero human rights as Occupied Palestinians in West Bank Bantustans (3.0 million) or in the Gaza Concentration Camp (2.0 million) [1-6].
True Orthodox Judaism is opposed to Zionism (a) because Zionism is genocidal racism , and (b) because the traditional Orthodox Jewish position for 2,000 years was that Jews can only return to Zion (Jerusalem) when the Messiah arrives to reveal the glory of the Lord to the whole world. Orthodox Judaism fostered the beautiful idea of a Kingdom of the Mind that has transmuted in the secular world into the wonderful international communities of scientists, scholars, musicians, artists and writers. However in response to Russian pogroms and discrimination against both religious and secular Jews, Zionist activists (many being secular socialists) argued for a Jewish State. Nathan Birnbaum, who coined the term Zionism, later rejected the evil Zionist ideology and reverted to the humanity of Orthodox Judaism. Racist Zionism substantially originated with racist psychopath Theodor Herzl, a Jewish Hungarian writer and activist. In his book “Der Judenstaat” (“The Jewish State”) Herzl declares (1896): “Shall we choose Palestine or Argentine? We shall take what is given us… For Europe we shall constitute there [in Palestine] a sector of the wall against Asia, we shall serve as the vanguard of culture against barbarism” [7-9]. Over 20 other territories have been proposed for a Jewish colony, including Australia (in a scheme by the anti-Zionist Jewish Freeland League that was finally vetoed in 1944 by the war-time Curtin Labor Government) but the racist Zionists and successive racist British Governments decided to colonize and thence ethnically cleanse Palestine. Indeed genocidally racist psychopath Theodor Herzl notoriously stated (1895): “We shall try to spirit the penniless [Palestinian] population across the border by procuring employment for it in the transit countries, while denying it employment in our country. The property owners will come over to our side. Both the process of expropriation and the removal of the poor must be carried out discretely and circumspectly” [8, 9]
The British Sinai and Palestine Campaign of WW1 began with repulse of a Turkish advance in the Sinai from Palestine in 1915.
The British and French divided up the formerly Ottoman Empire-ruled Middle East via the Sykes-Picot Agreement of 1916 [6]. British, Australian and New Zealand soldiers were critically involved in the conquest of Palestine and Syria in WW1 [10] that led to a famine in which 100,000 Palestinians died, this marking the beginning of the Palestinian Genocide that would involve 2.3 million premature Palestinian deaths from violence or deprivation over the next century [1, 11, 12].
2 days after the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC) victory at Beersheba (31 October 1917), on 2 November 1917 racist British warmonger and UK Foreign Secretary, Lord Balfour, offered Palestine as a Jewish Homeland to the Zionists in a letter to the degenerate Zionist Lord Rothschild that included the caveat (subsequently grossly violated by the genocidally racist Zionists) that there should be no detriment to the Indigenous inhabitants or indeed to Jewish people around the world: “His Majesty’s government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country” [13-16]. According to genocide-ignoring, holocaust-ignoring and racist Zionist historian, the late Professor Sir Martin Gilbert, the Balfour Declaration was issued in an ultimately unsuccessful attempt to get traitorous Russian Zionists to keep Russia in WW1 [17, 18]. There were 20 schemes for Jewish colonies around the world, including in Australia [19-21]
Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC) soldiers were responsible for the Surafend Massacre on 10 December 1918 in which about 100 Palestinian villagers were killed in retaliation for the death of a New Zealand soldier [23-24].
1918-1939. Between WW1 and WW2 there was massive, British-permitted Jewish immigration to Palestine resulting in massive and deadly displacement of Palestinian workers and tenant farmers from agricultural land. Resultant Palestinian opposition lead to armed conflict between Indigenous Palestinians and increasingly violent and racist Zionist invaders. In 1939 the British Government, concerned to maintain the loyalty of its scores of millions of Muslim subjects in the coming war, issued a White Paper constraining further Jewish entry to Palestine. Indeed the first WW2 casualties in the British Empire were Jewish illegal immigrants shot while attempting to land in Palestine [6].
The 1939 British White Paper stopped Jewish immigration to Palestine in a move designed to increase global Muslim support for Britain in the looming war with Nazi Germany.
1939-1945. Zionist terrorist groups, notably Irgun, collaborated with the Nazis, and killed Allied servicemen before, during and after WW2 [25-29]. The neo-Nazi Zionist terrorist organization Irgun was heavily involved in the ethnic cleansing of Palestine and spawned the current rightwing Israeli leadership, but was removed from the pro-Zionist Australian Government’s list of terrorist organizations in the 21st century. Zionists opposed sanctuary in non-Palestine venues for Jews fleeing Nazi Europe and hence contributed to the WW2 Jewish Holocaust (5-6 million Jews killed) that was part of a much wider but Zionist-ignored WW2 Holocaust (30 million Slaves, Jews and Gypsies killed by the Nazis) [6].
Some Jews recognized the great wrong being done to the Indigenous Palestinians. Thus the anti-Zionist Freeland League under Dr Isaac Steinberg proposed to make the Kimberley region of North West Australia a region of exclusive Jewish settlement. This proposal won widespread political support in White Australia (Indigenous Australians were not even counted as Australians until after a 1967 Referendum) but was eventually vetoed by PM John Curtin in 1944 on Intelligence advice that quite possibly related to the 1944 British War Cabinet decision to Partition Palestine [19-21]. The “forgotten” Joel Brand scheme to “buy” 800,000 Jewish Hungarians from the Nazis and transport them to Turkey was vetoed by Zionist mass murderer Churchill and 400,000 Jewish Hungarians subsequently perished [25-27] (also “forgotten” has been Churchill’s responsibility for the 1942-1945 Bengali Holocaust in which the British with Australian complicity deliberately starved 6-7 million Indians to death for strategic reasons) [30-33].
Sir Isaac Isaacs, a staunch anti-Zionist and Australia’s most famous Jewish citizen as the first Australian-born Australian Governor-General, stated in 1946: “The honour of Jews throughout the world demands the renunciation of political Zionism” and “the Zionist movement as a whole…now places its own unwarranted interpretation on the Balfour Declaration, and makes demands that are arousing the antagonism of the Moslem world of nearly 400 millions, thereby menacing the safety of our Empire, endangering world peace and imperilling some of the most sacred associations of the Jewish, Christian, and Moslem faiths. Besides their inherent injustice to others these demands would, I believe, seriously and detrimentally affect the general position of Jews throughout the world” [25, 34].
1945-1947. After WW2 a greatly weakened Britain faced the reality of being unable to hold on to its vast Empire. Racist Britain had already decided on a Partition of India (perhaps for anti-Soviet strategic reasons) and enabled India to be partitioned on Independence in 1947 in a catastrophic process that generated 20 million refugees and killed 1 million people. Similarly, in 1944 the British had decided on withdrawal from Palestine and the Partition of Palestine. In 1947 the UN approved a Partition Plan. In 1948 the last British left the day after genocidal racist Ben Gurion declared Israeli independence, and the UN recognized the State of Israel [6].
Well-armed Israeli forces committed atrocities against Palestinians (e.g. the horrendous Deir Yassin massacre that distressed anti-racist Jews like Albert Einstein [25, 35]) that encouraged 800,000 Palestinians to flee cities, towns and hundreds of villages in the 1948 Nakba (Disaster). The incipient Apartheid Israel seized a substantially ethnically cleansed 78% of the former British Mandated Palestine after defeating Arab forces from UK- or France-dominated neighbouring countries. The Convention for the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on 9 December 1948. Article 2 of the UN Genocide Convention defined genocide as “defines “genocide” thus: “In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group, as such: a) Killing members of the group; b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group”[36]. Genocidal “intent” is established sustained ethnic cleansing action and more rarely by confession. However the genocidal Zionists established “intent” by a remorseless, 100 year and continuing Palestinian Genocide and numerous statements of genocidal intent from the Zionist leadership from Theodor Herzl to Benjamin Netanyahu [8, 9].
Israel waged an illegal war of aggression against Egypt in collusion with the UK and France who wanted to re-take the Suez Canal in a move opposed by the US. Many of the Egyptian soldiers were vitamin A deficient and were essentially blind “sitting ducks” at night [6].
In 1967 Israel, now armed with nuclear weapons (with US and French help) [37, 38], invaded all its neighbours in the Six Day War, conquered all of Palestine, the Sinai Peninsular of Egypt and the Golan Heights of Syria. A further 400,000 Indigenous Palestinians fled their homes, their communities and their country in the 1967 Naksa (Setback). The Israeli war machine did not confine itself to killing Arabs but also attacked an unarmed US spy ship, the USS Liberty, in international waters, killing 34 and wounding 171, a crime that the Zionist-subverted US responded to in the most craven and secretive fashion. A massive increase in Zionist power in the US dates from about this time, most likely connected with the new nuclear weapons status of a genocidal Apartheid Israel [38-41]. Apartheid Israel has justified its war criminal attacks in the Six-Day War with holocaust-threatened IsraelDavid versus a genocidal Arab Goliath propaganda (hasbara) but a succession of top Israeli officials have confessed otherwise. Thus General Matituahu Peled, chief of logistical command during the war: “The thesis according to which the danger of genocide hung over us in June 1967, and according to which Israel was fighting for her very physical survival, was nothing but a bluff which was born and bred after the war”. Mordechai Bentov, a member of the wartime government, stated in 1971: “This whole story about the threat of extermination was totally contrived, and then elaborated upon, a posteriori, to justify the annexation of new Arab territories.” War criminal Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin, stated in 1982 that “In June 1967 we had a choice. The Egyptian army concentrations in the Sinai approaches did not prove that Nasser was really about to attack us. We must be honest with ourselves. We decided to attack him” . According to the late Itzhak Yaakov, a retired Brigadier General responsible for the development of Israeli nuclear weapons, Apartheid Israel planned to detonate a nuclear bomb in the Egypt if the war it launched in June 1967 turned against it (in 2001 Yaakov was given a two-year suspended sentence in Israel for attempting to reveal this) [8, 9].
In the 1973 Yom Kippur War, Egypt unsuccessfully sought to recover the Israeli-occupied Sinai Peninsular but the Sinai was returned in a US-brokered 1979 peace agreement between a now US lackey Egypt and a nuclear-armed Apartheid Israel.
1982-2000. Between1982 and 2000 there was Israeli occupation of much of Lebanon. The war criminal Israeli invasion of Lebanon was associated with the Sabra and Shatila refugee camp massacres in which 3,000 unarmed Palestinians were murdered in Israeli-occupied Beirut by Christian Falangist forces.
The first Palestinian Intifada began in 1987 and was violently suppressed.
In 1988 the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) under Yassir Arafat recognized Israel.
The Oslo 1993 Agreement permitted constrained Occupied Palestinian self-government. However the continued seizure of Arab lands led to a renewed Intifada in 2000.
In response to Israeli Occupation, ethnic cleansing and illegal settlements, the second Palestinian Intifada commenced in 2000 with disproportionate Israeli responses to Palestinian resistance. Israeli withdrew from Lebanon in 2000.
2000 – present. In the 21st century, US-backed Israeli Occupation, illegal Settlements and violence continued with limited violent responses from Palestinians yielding disproportionate responses from the Israelis. In 2005 Israel pulled out from the Gaza Strip leaving a densely populated Gaza Concentration Camp violently guarded by land, air and sea and subject to crippling blockade by the neo-Nazi Israelis. Rocket and mortar attacks from Gaza killed 34 Israelis in the period 2004-2017 [42] but the disproportionate Israeli responses involved high explosive bombardment from land, air and sea in repeated Gaza Massacres inflicted on one of the most densely populated urban areas in the world and with about 10,000 Palestinians being violently killed and tens of thousands wounded [43]. Israeli deaths from Palestinian violence or “terrorism deaths” in the period January 2000 – February 2017 totalled 1,347 as compared to 9,505 Palestinians killed by Israelis in this same period. If one considers total 21st century Israeli deaths from terrorism, the Palestinian/Israeli death ratio for this period is 9,505/1,347 = 7.1. If one considers total 20th century plus 21st century violent deaths, the Palestinian/Israeli death ratio is about 110,000/ 3,847 = 29. By way of comparison, blood-soaked German Nazi leader and war criminal Adolph Hitler recommended an enemy partisan/German military reprisal death ratio of 10 [43] . Nazi is as Nazi does.
In democratic elections held under Occupier Israeli guns, the Occupied Palestinians overwhelmingly supported Hamas which gained a majority of representatives. However the US-backed Israelis did not recognize the results and Hamas MPs were variously killed, imprisoned or exiled to the Gaza Concentration Camp. Apartheid Israel and Egypt commenced blockade of the Gaza Concentration Camp [44].
The Israeli-backed Fatah attempted a coup in Gaza that was suppressed by Hamas. Hamas officials were sacked in the West Bank. [44]
2008-2009. In the 2008-2009 Gaza War (called Operation Cast Lead by the Israelis) about 1,400 Palestinians were killed and 5,300 were wounded. 13 Israelis were killed, this including 10 from friendly fire and 3 civilians [45].
In the 1-week Israeli Operation Pillar of Defense (220 Palestinians killed, half civilians, and 1,000 wounded, as compared to 2 Israeli soldiers killed and 20 wounded) [46]. In 2012 the UN formally recognized the State of Palestine with official observer status at the UN [47, 48].
In the 2014 Gaza Massacre (called Operation Protective Edge by the Israelis) 2,300 Palestinians were killed (including about 1,500 civilians) and 10,600 were wounded. 73 Israelis (66 of them soldiers) were killed [49].
The 2016 UN Security Council Resolution 2334 condemning illegal Israeli settlements and other Israeli war crimes in the Occupied Palestinian Territories was passed unanimously (except for an Obama America abstention rather than veto). Trump America and US lackey Australia subsequently vehemently opposed the resolution, this making them #1 and #2, respectively, as supporters of Apartheid Israel and hence of Apartheid [50-52].
This year has been appallingly marked by the cold-blooded killing by Israeli soldiers of nearly 50 Palestinians and the wounding of about 6,800 more out of thousands of unarmed Occupied Palestinians protesting 70 years of exile and highly abusive confinement in the Gaza Concentration Camp. Comparisons with the 1960 Sharpeville Massacre in Apartheid South Africa (involving 69 unarmed demonstrators killed and 220 wounded) demand global Boycotts, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) against Apartheid Israel and all its supporters that were successfully applied by the World against Apartheid South Africa[53-55].
(B). Summary of the appalling conditions of the Indigenous Palestinians.
(1). The Palestinian Genocide commenced with the famine deaths of 100,000 Palestinians associated with conquest of Palestine in WW1 by the British and the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC) [1, 10].
(2). The violent killing of Indigenous Palestinians commenced with the 1918 Surafend Massacre by ANZAC soldiers in which about 100 Palestinian villagers were massacred [22-24].
(3). Since the British invasion of Palestine in WW1 there have been 2.3 million Palestinian deaths from Zionist violence (0.1 million) or from imposed deprivation (2.2 million ) [1].
(4). There are 8 million Palestinian refugees and all of the 14 million Palestinians are excluded from all or part of Palestine [1].
(5). Of about 14 million Palestinians (half of them children, three quarters women and children), 7 million are forbidden to even step foot in their own country, 5 million are held hostage with zero human rights under Israeli guns in the Gaza Concentration Camp (2.0 million) or in ever-dwindling West Bank Bantustan ghettoes (3.0 million), and 1.8 million live as Third Class citizens as Israeli Palestinians under Nazi-style Apartheid Israeli race laws [1].
(6). 90% of Palestine has now been ethnically cleansed of Indigenous Palestinian inhabitants in an ongoing war criminal ethnic cleansing that has been repeatedly condemned by the UN and most recently by UN Security Council Resolution 2334 that was unanimously supported (with a remarkable Obama US abstention rather than a veto) [50-52].
(7). GDP per capita is US$2,800 for Occupied Palestinians as compared to US$39,000 for Apartheid Israel [56].
(8). Through imposed deprivation, each year Apartheid Israel passively murders about 2,700 under-5 year old Palestinian infants and passively murders 4,200 Occupied Palestinians in general who die avoidably under Israeli Apartheid each year. There is an approximately 10 year life expectancy gap between Occupied Palestinians ands Israelis [1, 6], this grossly violating Articles 55 and 56 of the Geneva Convention Relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War that demand that an Occupier must provide life-sustaining food and medical services to the Occupied “to the fullest extent of the means available to it” ) [57].
(9). Apartheid Israel violently kills an average of about 550 Occupied Palestinians each year [43].
(10). Occupied Palestinians are deprived of essentially all human rights and civil rights by Apartheid Israel (e.g. Apartheid Israeli home invasions, beatings, executions, killings, exilings, mass imprisonments, seizures of land and homes, and population transfer in violation of the UN Genocide Convention and the Geneva Convention) [5, 36, 57].
(11). Nuclear terrorist, serial war criminal, genocidally racist, democracy-by-genocide Apartheid Israel determines that 74% of its now 50% Indigenous Palestinian subjects who are Occupied Palestinians cannot vote for the government ruling them i.e. egregious Apartheid [1, 58]. The UN regards Apartheid as one of the worst of human rights violations [58, 59].
(12). In its genocidal treatment of the Palestinians, US-, UK-, Canada-, France- and Australia-backed Apartheid Israel ignores numerous UN General Assembly Resolutions and UN Security Council Resolutions, the UN Genocide Convention, the Geneva Convention, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Rights of the Child Convention, the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, and many other aspects of International Law [36, 57, 59-64].
(13). Apartheid Israel has attacked 12 countries and occupied 5 with 1950-2005 avoidable deaths from deprivation in countries neighbouring and variously occupied by Apartheid Israel totalling 24 million [6].
(14). 5 million Occupied Palestinians (half of them children) are routinely blackmailed through torture or denial of life-saving medical care to spy on fellow Palestinians for Apartheid Israel [65].
(15). 5 million Occupied Palestinians (half of them children) are excluded by armed military check points from Jews-only areas and Jews-only roads.
(16). 50% of Israeli children are physically, psychologically or sexually abused each year [66-68] but 100% of Occupied Palestinian children are subject to traumatizing human rights abuse by the serial war criminal Israel Defence Force (IDF) through actual or threatened deadly violence [65].
(17). With continuing blockade and after repeated, large-scale destruction of homes, schools, hospitals ands infrastructure, conditions in the Gaza Concentration Camp are appalling [69], with the UN stating that Gaza may become unliveable within several years [69, 70].
(18). In March-May 2018 the IDF killed about 50 Palestinians and wounded about 6,800 more out of thousands of unarmed Occupied Palestinians protesting 70 years of exile and highly abusive confinement in the Gaza Concentration Camp. By way of comparisons, in the 1960 Sharpeville Massacre in Apartheid South Africa some 5,000-7,000 unarmed African protestors held a demonstration against the racist pass laws outside the police station in Sharpeville, Transvaal, South Africa when the police opened fire, killing 69 demonstrators and causing a total of 289 casualties including 29 children [53-55].
(19). Apartheid Israel has been stealing water from West Bank aquifers but water allocations to Occupied Palestinians violate WHO standards for potable water [73] .
(20). US-backed Apartheid Israel has attacked 12 countries including all its immediate neighbours [6], has up to 400 nuclear weapons and possess missile delivery systems including those based on Germany-supplied submarines [37]. This dangerous, war-exacerbating conduct acutely threatens all 13.9 million Israeli subjects, these comprising 6.6 million Jewish, 6.9 million Indigenous Palestinian and 0.4 million non-Jewish and non-Arab subjects.
(C). Impact of Apartheid Israel on the world.
(1). Presently there are 16 million avoidable deaths from deprivation and deprivation-exacerbated disease each year globally and there have been 1,500 million such deaths since 1950 (this including 600 million Muslims) [6], this carnage being significantly linked to continuing Zionist perversion of US aid and foreign policy [6].
(2). There have been 32 million Muslim deaths from violence, 5 million, or from deprivation, 27 million, in 20 countries invaded by the pro-Zionist US Alliance in the US War on Terror (US War on Muslims) since the US Government’s 9-11 false flag atrocity in which Apartheid Israel is very likely to have been complicit [72, 73].
(3). There have been millions of refugees generated and millions of Indigenous deaths from violence or imposed deprivation in countries subject to Apartheid Israeli-backed, genocidal civil wars, notably Guatemala, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, Syria, Sudan and South Sudan [74].
(4). There have been 28 million American preventable deaths since 9-11 (1.7 million annually) that are inescapably linked to Zionist-beholden US Governments committing to a $40 trillion long-term accrual cost of supporting Apartheid Israel, this including a $7 trillion long-term accrual cost for the killing of millions of Muslims abroad in the Zionist-promoted War on Terror instead of keeping millions of Americans alive at home. Australia has similarly committed to $11 billion per year long-term to the War on Terror ($176 billion since 9-11) with this fiscal perversion linked to 1.4 million preventable Australian deaths since 9-11 (85,000 annually). Canada has similarly committed hugely to the War on Terror with this inescapably linked to 0.1 million Canadian preventable deaths annually or 1.7 million preventable deaths in Canada since 9-11. The UK has similarly committed hugely to the War on Terror with this linked in terms of fiscal deprivation to 0.15 million UK preventable deaths annually or 2.5 million preventable deaths in the UK since the 9-11 atrocity that killed 3,000 people [75-81].
(5). Zionists are notoriously involved in perversion of Western democracies, governments, media and other institutions , most notably in pro-Apartheid US and pro-Apartheid Australia that are the 2 strongest supporters of Apartheid Israel and hence of the obscene ideology of Apartheid. Thus in September 2015 the US, Australia, Canada, Apartheid Israel and 4 US lackey Pacific Island States voted “No” to a UN General Assembly motion to permit the flying of the State of Palestine flag at the UN while 119 other nations decently voted “Yes”. Trump America and US lackey Trumpist Australia fervently oppose UN Security Council Resolution 2334 that condemned genocidal Israeli war crimes [50-52]. Racist Zionism is a huge threat to Australia in 50 areas but the threat is publicly ignored by the US lackey, pro-Apartheid, Zionist-beholden major parties (the Liberal Party and National Party Coalition Government and the Labor Party Opposition) even after Australian PM Kevin Rudd was removed in a US approved, mining company-backed, and pro-Zionist-led coup [82-87]. Israeli war criminal Ariel Sharon (the “butcher of Beirut”) notoriously stated: “Don’t worry about American pressure on Israel. We, the Jewish people, control America, and the Americans know it” [8, 9, 38].
(6). The world is existentially threatened by (a) nuclear weapons, (b) poverty and (c) climate change but (a) Apartheid Israel reportedly has up to 400 nuclear warheads and indeed proposed to use them against Egypt in 1967 [37], (b) 16 million people die avoidably each year in the Developing World minus China [6], this being linked to Zionist-backed US wars, notably the US War on Muslims, and the horrendous perversion of the US aid budget for arms, notably for Apartheid Israel; and (c) an entrenched Western culture of lying, emplaced by a dominant, homicidally greedy, neoliberal, Neocon American and Zionist Imperialist (NAZI) One Percenter Establishment, has now made a catastrophic global plus 2C temperature rise unavoidable – it is predicted that 10 billion people will die this century in a near-terminal Climate Genocide if climate change from remorselessly increasing GHG pollution is not requisitely addressed [88].
(7). The racist Zionists have a deadly record of mendacity. Indeed e-LIARS is an appropriate anagram for ISRAEL. There is massive Zionist presence on the boards of the top American media companies that represent 2/3 of the top 30 global Mainstream media corporations. While numerous anti-racist Jewish intellectuals are resolutely critical of Apartheid Israel and the ongoing Palestinian Genocide [25], Western Mainstream Media variously censor or white-wash the nuclear terrorist, genocidally racist, and grossly human rights-abusing conduct of Apartheid Israel. A part explanation for this massive lying is that the American 60% of the world’s 30 biggest media companies have a disproportionately high Jewish Board membership. Jews and females represent 2% and 51%, respectively, of the US population but average 33% and 19%, respectively, of Board members of the top 18 US media companies [89]. Zionist-perverted Mainstream media fake news through lying by omission and lying by commission [89-97] threaten rational risk management that is crucial for societal safety and successively involves (a) accurate data, (b) scientific analysis, and (c) informed systemic change to minimize risk. However mendacity and spin pervert this science-based protocol to a lying- and spin-based protocol successively involving (a) lying, censorship, self-censorship, intimidation, (b) anti-science spin-based analysis, and (c) counterproductive blame and shame that cripples mandatory reportage and can ultimately lead to irrational acts, violence and war [98].
(8). Racist Zionism is deadly anti-Arab anti-Semitism through the ongoing Palestinian Genocide and the ongoing Muslim Genocide and Muslim Holocaust. However racist Zionism is also anti-Jewish anti-Semitic through (a) falsely conflating the activities of genocidally racist Apartheid Israel with all Jews, and (b) by endlessly and falsely defaming the large body of anti-racist Jews who, together with numerous anti-racist non-Jews, are utterly opposed to the human rights abuses and genocidal crimes of Apartheid Israel [99, 100] and resolutely speak out about these crimes against Humanity [1, 25, 37, 101-106].
(9). Zionism, Israeli Apartheid and the ongoing Palestinian Genocide are an awful blot on Jewry, Judaism and Humanity, and as such contribute to repugnant anti-Jewish anti-Semitism, this leading to the crie de coeur of anti-racist Jews: “Not in our name”.
(10).For anti-racist Jews and indeed all anti-racist humanitarians the core moral messages from the WW2 Jewish Holocaust (5-6 million dead, 1 in 6 dying from deprivation) and from the more general WW2 European Holocaust (30 million Slav, Jewish and Gypsy dead) are “zero tolerance for racism”, “never again to anyone”, “bear witness” and “zero tolerance for lying”. However these sacred injunctions are grossly violated by the anti-Arab anti-Semitic , Islamophobic and indeed anti-Jewish anti-Semitic racist Zionists running Apartheid Israel and their Western backers
(D). A humane outcome of a democratic post-Apartheid Palestine.
The Humanity-threatening awfulness outlined above has been utterly avoidable. The 2-State Solution for Palestine has been a Western excuse for inaction and is now dead because of the ethnic cleansing of 90% of the land of Palestine. However, a peaceful , humane solution informed by the post-Apartheid South African experience is for a Unitary State in Palestine with return of all refugees, zero tolerance for racism, equal rights for all, all human rights for all, one-person-one-vote, justice, goodwill, reconciliation, airport-level security, nuclear weapons removal, internationally-guaranteed national security initially based on the present armed forces, and untrammelled access for all citizens to all of the Holy Land. It can and should happen tomorrow. In the face of continuing Occupation, continuing Exile, continuing Apartheid and ongoing Palestinian Genocide, the world must act against Apartheid Israel with Boycotts and Sanctions as it successfully did to Apartheid South Africa. Peace is the only way but silence kills and silence is complicity. All decent Humanity must (a) inform everyone they can, and (b) urge and apply Boycotts, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) against Apartheid Israel and all people, politicians, parties, collectives, corporations and countries supporting this genocidally racist, nuclear terrorist rogue state.
*
Dr Gideon Polya taught science students at a major Australian university for 4 decades. He published some 130 works in a 5 decade scientific career, most recently a huge pharmacological reference text “Biochemical Targets of Plant Bioactive Compounds” (CRC Press/Taylor & Francis, New York & London , 2003).
[6]. Gideon Polya, “Body Count. Global avoidable mortality since 1950”, that includes a succinct history of every country and is now available for free perusal on the web: http://globalbodycount.blogspot.com/ .
[7]. Theodor Herzl, “Der Judenstaat” (“The Jewish State”), 1896.
[15]. William Gerhardie, “God’s Fifth Column. A biography of the Age 1890-1940” (Hodder & Stoughton, 1981; The Hogarth Press, 1990, with editing and an Introduction by Michael Holroyd and Robert Skidelsky).
[30]. Gideon Polya (2011), “Australia And Britain Killed 6-7 Million Indians In WW2 Bengal Famine”, Countercurrents, 29 September, 2011: http://www.countercurrents.org/polya290911.htm .
[31]. Gideon Polya, “Jane Austen and the Black Hole of British History. Colonial rapacity, holocaust denial and the crisis in biological sustainability”, G.M. Polya, Melbourne, 1998, 2008 that is now available for free perusal on the web: http://janeaustenand.blogspot.com/ .
[40]. Gideon Polya, “American Holocaust, Millions Of Untimely American Deaths And $40 Trillion Cost Of Israel To Americans”, Countercurrents, 27 August, 2013: https://www.countercurrents.org/polya270813.htm .
[50]. United Nations, “Israel’s settlements have no legal validity, constitute flagrant violations of international law, Security Council reaffirms. 14 delegations in favour of Resolution 2334 as United States abstains”, 23 December 2016: https://www.un.org/press/en/2016/sc12657.doc.htm .
[59]. John Dugard, “International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the crime of Apartheid”, Audiovisual Library of International Law: http://untreaty.un.org/cod/avl/ha/cspca/cspca.html .
[72]. Gideon Polya, “Paris Atrocity Context: 27 Million Muslim Avoidable Deaths From Imposed Deprivation In 20 Countries Violated By US Alliance Since 9-11”, Countercurrents, 22 November, 2015: http://www.countercurrents.org/polya221115.htm .
[75]. Gideon Polya, “Australian State Terrorism – Zero Australian Terrorism Deaths, 1 Million Preventable Australian Deaths & 10 Million Muslims Killed By US Alliance Since 9-11”, Countercurrents, 23 September, 2014: http://www.countercurrents.org/polya230914.htm .
[76]. Gideon Polya, “Pro-Zionist, Pro-war, Pro-Opium, War Criminal Canadian Government Defames Iran & Cuts Diplomatic Links”, Countercurrents, 10 September, 2012: http://www.countercurrents.org/polya100912.htm .
[77]. Gideon Polya, “UK Terror Hysteria exposed – Empirical Annual Probability of UK Terrorism Death 1 in 16 million”, Countercurrents, 16 September, 2014: http://www.countercurrents.org/polya160914.htm .
[78]. Gideon Polya, “West Ignores 11 Million Muslim War Deaths & 23 Million Preventable American Deaths Since US Government’s False-flag 9-11 Atrocity”, Countercurrents, 9 September, 2015: http://www.countercurrents.org/polya090915.htm
[80]. Gideon Polya, “Save Humanity And The Biosphere Through Zero Tolerance For Deadly Neoliberalism And Remorseless Neoliberals”, Countercurrents, 13 May, 2016: https://www.countercurrents.org/polya130516.htm .
[81]. Gideon Polya, “American Holocaust, Millions Of Untimely American Deaths And $40 Trillion Cost Of Israel To Americans”, Countercurrents, 27 August, 2013: https://www.countercurrents.org/polya270813.htm .
[86]. Gideon Polya, “50 Ways Australian Intelligence Spies On Australia And The World For UK , Israeli And US State Terrorism”, Countercurrents, 11 December, 2013: https://countercurrents.org/polya111213.htm .
Israel hits Syrian and Iranian objectives and weapons warehouses again (evacuated weeks before) for the fourth time in a month. 28 Israeli jets participated in the biggest attack since 1974. Tel Aviv informed the Russian leadership of its intentions without succeeding in stopping the Syrian leadership from responding. Actually, what is new is the location where Damascus decided to hit back: the occupied Golan Heights (20 rockets were fired at Israeli military positions).
Syria, in coordination with its Iranian allies (without taking into consideration Russian wishes) took a very audacious decision to fire back against Israeli targets in the Golan. This indicates that Damascus and its allies are ready to widen the battle, in response to continual Israeli provocations.
But what is the reason why new Rules of Engagement (ROE) were imposed in Syria recently?
For decades there was a non-declared ROE between Hezbollah and Israel, where both sides were aware of the consequences. Usually, Israel prepares a bank of target objectives with Hezbollah offices, military objectives and warehouses and also specific commanders with key positions within the organisation. Israel hits these targets (updated) in every war. However, the Israelis react immediately against Hezbollah commanders , who have the task of supporting, instructing and financing Palestinians in Palestine, and above all the Palestinians of 1948 living in Israel. This has happened on many occasions where Hezbollah commanders related to the Palestinian dossier were assassinated in Lebanon.
Last month, Israel discovered that Iran was sending advanced low observable drones dropping electronic and special warfare equipment to Palestinians. The Israeli radars didn’t see these drones going backward and forward with their traditional radars, but were finally able to identify one drone using thermal detection and acoustic deterrence, to down it on its last journey.
In response to this, Israel targeted the Syrian military airport T-4 used by Iran as a base for these drones. But Israel was not satisfied and wanted more revenge, hitting several Iranian and Syrian targets during the following weeks.
Tel Aviv believes it can get away with repetitively hitting Iranian objectives without triggering a military response. Perhaps Israel really believed that Iran was afraid of becoming engaged in a war with Israel, with the US ready to take part in any war against the Islamic Republic from its military bases spread around Syria, in close vicinity to the Iranian forces deployed in Syria. Obviously, Iran has a different view from the Israelis, the Americans and even the Russians, who like to avoid any contact at all cost.
Regardless of how many Israeli jets took part in the latest attack against Iranian and Syrian objectives and how many missiles were launched or intercepted, a serious development has occurred: the Syrian high command broke all rules and found no obstacle to bombing Israel in the occupied Golan Heights.
Again, the type of missiles or rockets fired by Syria against Israeli military objectives it is not important and if these fell into an open space or hit their targets. What is important is the fact that a new ROE is now in place in Syria, similar to the one established by Hezbollah over Kiryat Shmona near the Lebanese border, when militants fired anti-aircraft cannons every time Israel violated Lebanese airspace in the 2000.
Basically Israel wanted to hit objectives in Syria but claims not to be looking for confrontation. Israel would have liked to continue provoking Syria and Iran in the Levant, but claims to be unwilling to head towards war or a battle. Israel would like to continue hitting any target it chooses in Syria without suffering retaliation. With its latest attack, Israel’s “unintended consequences” or provocation has forced the Syrian government to consider the occupied Golan Heights as the next battlefield. If Israel continues and hits beyond the border area, Syria will think of sending its missiles or rockets way beyond the Golan Heights- to reach Israeli territory.
Actually, Hezbollah’s secretary general Sayyed Hasan Nasrallah said a few years back:
“Leave Lebanon outside the conflict. Come to Syria where we can settle our differences”.
Syria, logically, has become the battlefield for all countries and parties to settle their differences, the platform where the silent war between Israel and Iran and its allies is finding its voice.
In Damascus, sources close to the leadership believe Israel will continue to attacking targets. However, Israel knows now where Syria’s response will be. This is what Israel has triggered but didn’t expect. Now it has become a rule.
The Israeli Iron Dome is inefficient and unable to protect Israel from rockets and missiles launched simultaneously. Now the battle has moved into Syrian territory occupied by Israel to the dislike of Tel Aviv, and Russia. Iran and Syria are not taking into consideration Russia’s concern to keep the level of tension low if Israel is not controlling itself. Syria recognises the importance of Russia and its efficient role in stopping the war in Syria and all the military and political support Moscow is offering. However, Damascus and Tehran have other considerations and for the purpose of containing Israel. They have trained over 16 local Syrian groups ready to liberate the Golan Heights or to clash with any possible Israeli advance into Syrian territory.
Israel triggered what it has always feared and has managed to get a new battlefield, the Golan heights. It is true that Israel limited itself to bombing weapons warehouses never hit before. It has bombed bases where Iranian advisors are based along with Syrian officers (Russia cleared most positions to avoid the embarrassment of being hit by Israel). It is also true that Israel didn’t regularly bomb Iranian military and transport aircraft carrying weapons to Syria, or the main Iranian centre of control and command at Damascus airport. This means that not all parties are pushing for a wider escalation, so far.
Can the situation get out of control? Of course it can, the question is when!
This weekend the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) celebrates its 60th anniversary. On May 12, 1958, Canada and the US officially signed their most significant bilateral military accord.
The Cold War agreement was supposed to defend the two countries from an invasion by Soviet bombers coming from the north. But, the Berlin Wall fell three decades ago and NORAD continues. In fact, the agreement was renewed indefinitely in 2006.
Initially NORAD focused on radar and fighter jets. As technologies advanced, the Command took up intercontinental ballistic missiles, cruise missiles and space-based satellites.
Thousands of Canadian military personnel support NORAD’s operations. One hundred and fifty Canadians are stationed at NORAD’s central collection and coordination facility near Colorado Springs, Colorado. Hundreds more work at regional NORAD outposts across the US and Canada and many pilots are devoted to the Command. A Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) general is deputy commander of NORAD and its commander-in-chief is a US Air Force general.
In the lead-up to its establishment newly elected Prime Minister John Diefenbaker faced “heavy pressure from the military” to back the agreement. Then chairman of the chiefs of defence staff, Charles Foulkes, later admitted to a House of Commons defence committee that
“we stampeded the incoming Conservative government with the NORAD agreement.”
Before NORAD’s creation the RCAF had been expanding ties to the US command in Colorado Springs and misled the politicians about the scope of these efforts. In Dilemmas in Defence Decision-Making: constructing Canada’s role in NORAD, 1958 – 96 Ann Crosby points out that the RCAF pursued NORAD discussions secretly “in order to address the politically sensitive issues without the involvement of Canadian political representatives.”
While the Canadian Forces frame the alliance as an exclusively military matter, NORAD’s political implications are vast. The accord impinges on Canadian sovereignty, influences weapons procurement and ties Canada to US belligerence.
External Affairs officials immediately understood that NORAD would curtail sovereignty. An internal memo explained,
“the establishment of NORAD is a decision for which there is no precedent in Canadian history in that it grants in peace time to a foreign representative operational control of an element of Canadian Forces in Canada.”
Under the accord the Colorado-based commander of NORAD could deploy Canadian fighter jets based in this country without any express Canadian endorsement.
For over a decade the US commander of NORAD effectively controlled nuclear tipped Bomarc missiles based near North Bay, Ontario, and La Macaza, Québec. According to the agreement, the Canadian battle staff officer on duty in North Bay would receive authorization from the Colorado Springs commander, “allow[ing] for the release and firing of nuclear armed Bomarc missiles without specific Canadian government authorization.”
NORAD also deepened the US military footprint in Canada. As part of the accord, the US set up the Distant Early Warning (DEW) line across the Arctic in the late 1950s. NORAD also drove Ottawa to formally accept US Bomarc missiles in 1963. According to Crosby, the agreement that laid the basis for NORAD effectively – unbeknownst to Prime Minister Diefenbaker – committed Canada to acquiring US nuclear weapons for air defence.
NORAD has pushed the CF towards US arms systems. It’s also heightened pressure to add and upgrade radar, satellite, jets, vessels, etc. In the late 1950s the RCAF pushed for interceptor jets so Canada could be “a full partner in NORAD”. Air Marshal Hugh Campbell explained that
“if Canada was not providing any effective weapons in the air defence system… Canada could no longer be a full partner in NORAD.”
More recently, CBC reported that Canada may be “compelled to invest in technology that can shoot down cruise missiles as part of the upcoming overhaul of the North American Aerospace Defence Command.”
NORAD is presented as a defensive arrangement, but that can’t be taken seriously when its lead actor has 1,000 international bases and special forces deployed in 149 countries. Rather than protect Canada and the US, NORAD supports violent missions led by other US commands. In 1965 NORAD’s mandate was expanded to include surveillance and assessment sharing for US commands stationed worldwide (United States European Command, United States Pacific Command, United States Africa Command, etc.).
NORAD has drawn Canada into US belligerence. During the July 1958 US invasion of Lebanon NORAD was placed on “increased readiness” while US troops checked secular Arab nationalism after Iraqis toppled a Western-backed King (at the same time British troops invaded Jordan to prop up the monarchy there).
In a higher profile incident, Canadian NORAD personnel were put on high alert when the US illegally blockaded Cuba in October 1962. This transpired even though Prime Minister Diefenbaker hesitated in supporting US actions during the Cuban Missile Crisis.
During the 1973 Ramadan/Yom Kippur/Arab–Israeli War NORAD was placed on heightened alert. Washington wanted to deter the USSR from intervening on Egypt’s behalf.
NORAD systems offered surveillance and communications support to the 1991 war on Iraq. They also supported the 2003 invasion of Iraq. The same can be said for US bombing in Afghanistan, Libya, Somalia, etc.
Unfortunately, public opposition to NORAD has largely dried up. While anti-war activists won the NDP over to an ‘out of NORAD’ position in the 1960s, the party’s current defence critic recently complained that the Trudeau government hasn’t done more to strengthen the bilateral military accord. In November Randall Garrison criticized the Liberals for failing to follow its defence policy review’s recommendation to upgrade a multi-billion dollar early-warning radar system used by NORAD. In a story headlined “Conservatives, NDP call on Liberal government to match rhetoric with action on NORAD” Garrison told the Hill Times, “so they put in that they are going to replace it, and that’s certainly the biggest thing we need to do in terms of our cooperation with NORAD, [but] I don’t see the follow through down the road on it, in terms of planning, implementation, or budgeting.”
As NORAD turns 60, it’s time to rekindle opposition to this odious accord.
The United States has done it again: reneged on a signed agreement. President Donald Trump has drop kicked the Iran Nuclear deal (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, JCPOA).
The examples of US government chicanery are myriad. In 1972, American president Richard Nixon and his Soviet counterpart Leonid Brezhnev agreed on an Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty that limited strategic defense systems. In December 2001, president George W Bush gave notice of US intent to withdraw from the ABM treaty. When Nixon signed, the USSR was a military superpower. Russia was still economically crippled, recovering from the collapse of the USSR and communism, when Bush opted out. The result was, according to Russia, the development of sophisticated next-gen hypersonic and nuclear weapons.
In 1994, US ambassador Robert Gallucci and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea vice-minister Kang Sok-ju signed the Framework Agreement. That agreement stipulated that the DPRK cease operation and construction of nuclear reactors that were part of a covert nuclear weapons program. In exchange the US would construct two proliferation-resistant nuclear power reactors for the DPRK and supply it with heavy fuel oil pending completion of the reactors. In January 2002, Bush calls the DPRK a part of the “axis of evil.” In April 2002, Bush stated he would not certify the DPRK’s compliance with the Agreed Framework. In November 2002, the US announces a halt to fuel shipments to the DPRK. In December 2002, the DPRK announced it would restart the nuclear facilities and later orders the IAEA inspectors out of the country. In January 2003, the DPRK left the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty. Today, the DPRK is a nuclear-weapons state with ICBM capability.
In 2015, Iran reached a deal with the P5+1 group of world powers (the US, UK, France, China, Russia and Germany) to limit its nuclear program and permit international inspections in exchange for the lifting of economic sanctions against the country. Iran has always been found in compliance with the agreement; nevertheless, Trump predictably pulled out of the JCPOA.
It was predictable given the US’s longstanding history of treaty breaking, starting with the Indigenous nations who were dispossessed by the European settler-colonists. It was predictable given Trump’s fetishism with Israel, whose prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu has been an unrelenting warmonger against Iran. It is predictable given the team that Trump assembled. For example, Trump’s national security advisor John Bolton, an anti-Iran deal hawk, was George W Bush’s undersecretary of state for arms control and international security when the Agreed Framework was killed. This outcome was favored by Bolton who wrote,
“This was the hammer I had been looking for to shatter the Agreed Framework.”
The Washington Postspeculates that this may mean war. Yes, it may well, and Israel has seized upon Trump’s announcement to attack Iranian troops in Syria.
Iran says it will stay in the JCPOA. What about the rest of the P5+1? Surely Russia and China will not take part in a continuance of sanctions against Iran. Europe seems disposed to honor the deal as well. That the US could sanction its NATO and European partners is dubious, and such sanctions wouldn’t work. As the US threatened trade war against China revealed, tariffs imposed by one side can also be imposed by the other side.
The Destructiveness of Disinformation and Sanctions
That economic sanctions could debilitate a country’s economy is clear. As such economic sanctions are often considered an act of war.
Ahmad Noroozi, international PR manager for Execution of Imam Khomeini’s Order (EIKO), laments the effects of sanctions:
“The sanctions have had hard impacts on Iranian civilians despite the claims of targeting Iran’s government. The sanctions lifted under the JCPOA, are coming back into motion again under different pretexts. Every now and then, a new organization in Iran comes under the light to step up pressures on the country.”
Noroozi says EIKO is normally under attack even though:
“The organization’s mission is to help the poor families of Iran and doing charity works.”
Reuters, however, claims EIKO is a slushfund for the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Noroozi points out that EIKO has always been subject to disinformation campaigns.
Disinformation has been a staple of US imperialism. The are several examples of false flags/disinformation, ranging from the Gulf of Tonkin missile attack; the phantom WMD in Iraq; the alleged Skripal Novichok poisoning affair attributed to Russia, without a shred of evidence presented (and plenty of refutations of the British government claims); and the recent chemical attack in Douma, Syria, staged by the White Helmets. Such disinformation is often used as a casus belli and many people wind up murdered as a result.
That the sanctions would harm the citizenry – even children – is of negligible concern to the US. The then-US ambassador to the United Nations, Madeleine Albright, quipped that the death of half-a-million Iraqi children was a price worth paying to achieve US policy objectives.
In their Foreign Affairs article, “Sanctions of Mass Destruction,” John Mueller and Karl Muellerwrote about Americans insouciance to the deaths of Iraqis:
It is interesting that this loss of human life has failed to make a great impression in the United States. Americans clearly do not blame the people of Iraq for that country’s actions: even at the height of the Gulf War, 60 percent said they held the Iraqi people innocent of responsibility for Saddam’s policies. Yet the massive death toll among Iraqi civilians has stirred little public protest, and hardly any notice.
Some of the inattention may derive from a lack of concern about foreign lives. Although Americans are extremely sensitive to American casualties, they – like others – often seem quite insensitive to casualties suffered by those on the opposing side, whether military or civilian.
The writers noted that economic sanctions are a far deadlier than WMDs:
“economic sanctions … may have contributed to more deaths during the post-Cold War era than all weapons of mass destruction throughout history.”
Since the use of WMDs are prohibited because of their massive lethality, why then are economic sanctions, which are of greater lethality, still used?
Lastly, if the sanctions of mass destruction should effect a dire lethality in Iran, then what comes after?
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Kim Petersen is a former Original Peoples editor of The Dominion grassroots newspaper and former co-editor of the Dissident Voice newsletter. He can be reached at: [email protected]. Twitter: @kimpetersen.
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.
Featured image: George W. Bush with Ellen Degeneres, backstage after the former President appeared on “Ellen” and was hailed by her as a good friend (Source: @theellenshow/Instagram)
How many lies and how many innocent lives have been sent out into the ethers by men like Junior Bush and his Bush/Cheney Cabal? Too many is the answer. Yet, as with the case with the Irish singing star (and humanitarian) Bono, Junior Bush has been ‘Born Again Philanthropist’. Well, good for him, but… that should not and DOES not absolve him from his war crimes.
Screenshot AVC News, May 27, 2017
The real shame of all of this is just how short a memory do Ms. Ellen Degeneres and Mr. Bono have?
I mean, come on you two Media stars, have you both forgotten what transpired beginning in October of 2001? Does this writer need to once again review the horrific damage we, and our NATO led coalition did to the nations of Iraq and Afghanistan?
Bono, you the humanitarian, have you seen the photos of the myriad of little children with no limbs or eyes or birth defects from our depleted uranium shells?
Ellen, you who call yourself such a ‘liberated feminist’, how many women in those two countries are either dead or widowed or parentless/childless due to those actions signed off by Junior Bush?
Let us not forget Mr. Obama, who has his dirty hands in all of this ‘Empire on Steroids’. It was he, influenced stringently by Mrs. Clinton and the other Neo Cons surrounding him, that ‘signed off’ on the illegal and immoral carpet bombing of Libya in 2011.
What that accomplished was to open up that nation to the chaos it still is engulfed in. Another Middle Eastern nation that, for all of Gaddafi’s flaws, had the greatest standard of living and a better safety net that we have here. All destroyed for the sake of empire. You see, Gaddafi was going to take Libya OFF of the petrodollar and onto a new African currency. And , he would not participate in our empire’s Africa Command or better known as Africom.
For Junior Bush and his Bush/Cheney Cabal, Saddam Hussein, for decades our gangster running Iraq, was conned by Bush Sr. in 1990-91 into our infamous Desert Storm. Years later he decided to begin selling his oil away from the petrodollar and via the Euro, so…. Bye Bye Saddam. The sad joke many of us in the Anti War community share is that if Iraq had Coconut Oil under the ground instead of Crude Oil… no more ‘ Saddam the Hitler’ and no War on Iraq 1 or 2.
Ms. Degeneres and Mr. Bono: no doubt you care about all these facts. Do you?
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Philip A Farruggio is a son and grandson of Brooklyn, NYC longshoremen. He has been a free lance columnist since 2001, with over 300 of his work posted on sites like Consortium News, Information Clearing House, Global Research, Nation of Change, World News Trust, Op Ed News, Dissident Voice, Counterpunch, Activist Post, Sleuth Journal, Truthout and many others. His blog can be read in full on World News Trust., whereupon he writes a great deal on the need to cut military spending drastically and send the savings back to save our cities. Philip has a internet interview show, ‘ It’s the Empire… Stupid’ with producer Chuck Gregory, and can be reached at [email protected].
If you’ve been following the Skripal/Novichok/Chemical weapons/Syria drama unfold through TruePublica you’ll be up to date on most, if not all, the relevant information there is to know.
On several occasions, we have published news relating to the D-Notices sent out by the state to censor the mainstream media in both print and broadcast to ensure that their version of the story, one filled full of holes, didn’t go, well, mainstream.
One question raised a few times by our readers was, who is it actually decides when to issue a D-Notice and who sits on its committee.
Here is the explainer and an interesting one it is too.
A DSMA-Notice (Defence and Security Media Advisory Notice) — formerly a DA-Notice (Defence Advisory Notice), and before that called a Defence Notice (D-Notice) until 1993—is an official request to news editors not to publish or broadcast items on specified subjects for “reasons of national security.”
In the UK the original D-Notice system was introduced in 1912 and run as a voluntary system by a joint committee headed by an Assistant Secretary of the War Office and a representative of the Press Association. Any D-Notices or DA-notices were only advisory requests, and so are not legally enforceable; hence, news editors can choose not to abide by them. However, they are today slavishly complied with by the media.
In 1971, all existing D-Notices were cancelled and replaced by standing D-Notices, which gave general guidance on what might be published and what was discouraged; and what would require further advice from the secretary of the Defence, Press and Broadcasting Advisory Committee (DPBAC). In 1993, the notices were renamed DA-Notices (Defence Advisory Notices).
One of the recommendations resulting from the 2015 review of the DA-notice system, included the renaming of the system to the Defence and Security Media Advisory (DSMA) Committee. In 2017, the notices were reworded and then reorganized into the following categories:
DSMA-Notice 01: Military Operations, Plans & Capabilities
DSMA-Notice 02: Nuclear and Non-Nuclear Weapon Systems and Equipment
DSMA-Notice 03: Military Counter-Terrorist Forces, Special Forces and Intelligence Agency Operations, Activities and Communication Methods and Techniques
DSMA-Notice 04: Physical Property and Assets
DSMA-Notice 05: Personnel and their Families who work in Sensitive Positions
From here, it gets interesting because in 2015 the ‘committee’ from all accounts seemed to change shape, which beforehand had been made up of state officials, and some elements of the press, particularly in times of real national security such as the world wars. Nowadays it is made up of a few state officials and mostly – the mainstream media.
There are 15 senior media people who sit on this censorship committee. As well as the BBC, ITV, ITN and Murdoch’s Sky News, representing broadcasters, there are a variety of representatives from the broadsheet and tabloid press, regional and Scottish newspapers and magazines and publishing – including two News UK and Harper Collins, (both owned by Murdoch) as well as Trinity Mirror, the Daily Mail and the Guardian.
On the government side of the committee are the chair from the MoD and four intelligence connected representatives from the MoD (Director General Security Policy), Foreign Office (Director for National Security), Home Office (unspecified post) and Cabinet Office (Deputy National Security Adviser for Security, Intelligence, and Resilience).
The DSMA committee itself obviously likes to project the view that it is a rather dull and uninteresting meeting of minds and that there’s nothing going on to report. But these meetings are to discuss and agree what can and cannot be printed or broadcast in the mainstream media. Then, instead of going back to their respective places of work and simply passing on the message – the state then issues notices to the same people who just agreed not to print the scandals the government just asked them not to print in the first place.
SpinWatch makes an interesting point by highlighting exactly how much the mainstream media collude directly with government on controlling the output.
“as a former vice chair of the committee (a journalist) put it, ‘is emphatically not censorship… but voluntary, responsible media restraint’. Then working at Sky News, that vice chair, Simon Bucks, is now CEO at the Services Sound and Vision Corporation, the broadcasting service which says it is ‘championing the Armed Forces’. Bucks also wrote that the DSMA committee is ‘the most mythologised and misunderstood institution in British media… “Slapping a D-notice” on something the establishment wanted suppressed has been the stuff of thrillers, spy stories and conspiracy theories for more than a century”.
The reader should have gathered from that statement alone, that indeed, slapping a D-Notice on the media is not the stuff of conspiracy theories otherwise they wouldn’t be doing it in the first place. The conspiracy is that that the mainstream media stand accused of colluding in important cover-ups with and for the state. That is not a theory – that is a fact.
The Labour party is currently attacking freedom of speech and the free press, if there was indeed one to speak of, with a Bill tabled by deputy Labour leader Tom Watson (known as Labour’s ‘bully boy’) this week. This Bill was described by the Financial Times thus:
“it would force our hand and chill freedom of expression in this country. Investigative journalism – such as the FT’s expose of The Presidents Club this year – could well become too risky given the potential costs.” It would be handing rich individuals a licence to harass the press, free of charge.”
Thankfully this draconian measure failed.
No doubt being caught up in the expenses scandal that the Telegraph printed didn’t exactly help with Mr Watson’s general view that Britain should benefit from a free press. His proposal came a couple of days after the World Press Freedom report showing Britain is now languishing nicely in 40th place in a group of other countries who also despise free speech – by those who try to hold power to account.
An Israeli security cabinet minister ominously wrote on Twitter that “Hezbollah=Lebanon” and promised that “The State of Israel will not differentiate between the sovereign State of Lebanon and Hezbollah, and will view Lebanon as responsible for any action from within its territory”.
Education Minister Naftali Bennett was responding to Hezbollah’s impressive gains in the first Lebanese elections in nearly a decade, which proved that many of its citizens are solidly standing with the Resistance organization and embrace its anti-Zionist ideology. This understandably scares Israel but can also be seen as a perfect example of confirmation bias by it in fear mongering that Iran has taken over Lebanon via proxy, disregarding the fact that Hezbollah is its own independent organization despite being closely allied with the Islamic Republic and fighting shoulder-to-shoulder with its elite Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) in neighboring Syria.
The conflating of all Lebanese civilians with Hezbollah and then in turn drawing no distinction between them and Israel’s Iranian state enemies is alarming because it suggests that Tel Aviv is preconditioning the global public to accept its military’s indiscriminate targeting of civilians in any forthcoming war with Hezbollah and/or Iran on the basis that the democratic expression of a foreign population’s support for a group that Israel regards as “terrorists” makes them “legitimate” wartime targets. The support that many Lebanese have for Hezbollah isn’t entirely ideologically driven either but is also rooted in the organization’s socio-economic activities on the local level, which many observers tend to ignore.
It needs to be accepted that Hezbollah is an independent organization separate from, but closely allied with, Iran, and that its civil society outreaches and not just its ideological platform have earned it the trustful support of many Lebanese. Still, there are people in the country who strongly disagree with the group and would vehemently decry any association between them and their political foes, let alone if the latest democratic elections were used as the basis for targeting them and their families in any upcoming conflict. What this basically amounts to is blackmailing the entire civilian population of a country and is therefore the textbook definition of interfering in another country’s domestic political process.
Lebanese President Michel Aoun meets with Prime Minister Saad al-Hariri, and Lebanese Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri at the presidential palace in Baabda, Lebanon, 2018 (Source: author)
That said, Israel obviously had an interest in the outcome of this election for the very reason that it regards Hezbollah as one of its top enemies and an existential threat to the self-proclaimed “Jewish State”, but its high-level security representatives likely refrained from making such inflammatory remarks before the vote out of fear that they might actually lead to a landslide victory for the party, though the point is now moot because the patriotic sentiments of all Lebanese citizens have now been resolutely directed against Israel as a result. This was entirely predictable, and the fact that Israel went ahead with this warning anyways is very telling.
By all indications, this threat was issued from a position of weakness after Israel’s permanent military, intelligence, and diplomatic bureaucracies (or “deep state”) accepted their strategic defeat in Lebanon and its resultant long-term implications. The dramatic intervention of allied Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman into Lebanese domestic politics late last year during the scandalous Hariri affair totally backfired against Israel’s interests, and not even the powerful Mossad could fix the mess that he made and redirect it to their favor. As reluctant as they’ve been to admit it, this stunning statement reads as an unofficial declaration that Israel accepts the loss of Lebanon to Iran.
As conventional wisdom goes, “desperate people do desperate things”, and this is more apt than ever when it comes to Israel after it’s convinced itself that last weekend’s democratic elections in Lebanon were hijacked by an Iranian “terrorist” proxy, as it’s difficult to think of why else it would imply that civilians might be punished for voting an anti-Israeli political party into power. That said, Israel’s fear might also manifest itself in different, more unpredictable ways, than dangerously risking a repeat of its epic 2006 military fail, so Lebanese but also Syrians must remain alert at all times because the strategic situation is more volatile than ever.
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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.
Americans pay twice as much or more for prescription drugs as consumers in other developed countries.
Republicans and undemocratic Dems bear full responsibility, letting Big Pharma ripoff consumers for maximum profits – Trump like his predecessors.
Candidate Trump pledged to let Medicare negotiate discounts for prescription drugs. Straightaway in office, he yielded to Pharma lobbyists, abandoning his promise, falsely claiming “smaller, younger companies” would be harmed.
Instead of lowering extortionist drug prices, he cut taxes for corporate predators and high-net-worth individuals like himself.
According to Americans for Tax Fairness, the 10 largest US drug companies were “among the biggest winners from the Trump-GOP tax cuts but they are sharing few of the benefits with their employees and are offering no pricing relief to their customers.”
“Instead, they are mostly rewarding their CEOs and other wealthy shareholders with fat stock buybacks and dividend hikes, recent public announcements and analysis reveal.”
They’ll save $6.3 billion in taxes this year – $76 billion in taxes on offshore profits. In 2017, they had $506 billion in untaxed offshore profits.
Under pre-Trump US law, they owed around $134 billion in untaxed profits. Under GOP-enacted law, their untaxed liability dropped to about $57 billion.
Most nations negotiate lower prices with drug companies. In America, they can charge what the market will bear, as much as they can get away with, keeping prices for many drugs extraordinarily high, including expensive chemo drugs used to treat cancer.
Harvard Medical School Professor of Medicine Dr. Jerry Avron debunked the Big Pharma myth about drug prices, falsely claiming high prices are needed to finance “research and development to discover the new drugs of tomorrow.”
Not so! Much R&D is federally funded, paid for by US taxpayers, Pharma benefitting hugely – along with from university research.
Under Republicans and undemocratic Dems, America’s Food and Drug Administration (FDA) operates as arm of corporate interests, not protecting and promoting public health as claimed – most of its budget funded by Big Pharma.
Industry-run, it notoriously approves inadequately tested, potentially dangerous vaccines and other drugs – later discovered to be hazardous to human health, because of harmful, at times lethal, side effects.
Last May, Trump appointed physician/resident neocon American Enterprise Institute fellow Scott Gottlieb as FDA commissioner.
Earlier he was involved in agency decisions affecting about 20 healthcare companies, his allegiance to them, not public health, safety and welfare.
US drug pricing is unregulated, companies charging whatever they wish. Gottlieb supports the industry goal of maximum profit-making.
So does Trump’s Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar – former president of Lilly USA LLC, Eli Lilly’s largest affiliate company, earlier serving as Bush/Cheney’s deputy HHS secretary.
Trump reneged on his campaign pledge to lower drug prices. SocialSecurityWorks tweeted:
“Big pharma’s stocks are soaring because they know the Trump Administration will do nothing to rein in their greed.”
On Friday, Trump lied, again vowing to “bring soaring drug prices back down to earth” – what he’s done nothing to achieve so far in office, catering to Pharma, not challenging its price-gouging policies.
According to Public Citizen president Robert Weissman,
“(w)hat Trump laid out (on Friday) is policy that Big Pharma can love – and no wonder, because Big Pharma wrote it.”
“Trump abandoned his campaign commitment to Medicare Part D negotiation – which would save $16 billion a year or more – and shamefully aims to beat up on other countries to make them pay more, doing nothing for American consumers but forcing more rationing overseas.”
“Those are the top lines. That’s what matters, and everything else is noise around the margins.”
“Trump’s few tough words for pharma are a cover-up for the sweetheart deal he really is offering the megacorporations that raise prices on Americans by the day.”
His scheme does nothing to make prescription drugs more affordable, everything to assure continued high prices – yielding to Pharma lobbyists, betraying US consumers.
Protect Our Care’s Brad Woodhouse said:
“Don’t be fooled: President Trump and his administration are bought and paid for by Big Pharma” – along with other corporate predators, benefitting at the expense of the public welfare.
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Stephen Lendman is a Research Associate of the CRG, Correspondent of Global Research based in Chicago.
Trump’s “Broken Deal”, his irrational decision to withdraw from the JCPOA, or simply called Iran’s Nuclear Deal, has hardly any other motives than again launching a provocation for war. The decision goes against all reason. Let’s not forget, that deal took 9 years of diplomatic efforts, a negotiation called “5 + 1” for the UN Security Council Members, plus Germany – and, of course, Iran. It was finally signed in Vienna on 14 July 2015.
A quick background: From the very beginning, way into Trump’s Presidential Campaign, he was against the deal. It was a bad deal, “the worst Obama could have made” – he always repeated himself, without ever saying what was bad about it, nor did he reveal who was the “bad-deal whisperer”, who for once didn’t get across to Obama with his unreasonable requests.
My guess is, Trump didn’t know, and he still doesn’t know, what was / is bad about the deal. Any deal that denuclearizes a country, is a deal for Peace, therefore a good deal, lest you forget the profit motive for war. The reasons Trump recently gave, when announcing stepping out of the Nuclear Agreement – Iran could not be trusted, Iran was a terrorist nation supporting Al-Qaeda and other terror groups, Iran’s ballistic missile system – and-and-and… were ludicrous, they were lies, contradictory and had nothing to do with the substance of the Deal – which frankly and sadly, Trump to this day probably doesn’t quite grasp in its full and long-range amplitude.
But what he does understand are his very close ties to Israel, or better to his buddy Bibi Netanyahu. And this not least, thanks to Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law, who has long-standing business connections to Israel and is also close to Netanyahu. Even the mainstream media are not blind to this fact. But this is merely an added weight in Trump’s bias towards Israel, as the deep dark state that calls the shots on US Foreign Policy, is composed by the likes of Netanyahu. Survival, political or otherwise, Trump knows, depends on how well you follow their orders.
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But back to reality: First, the Atomic Commission in Vienna has confirmed up to the last minute that Iran has no intention to start a nuclear arms program. They have confirmed their attestation 8 times since the signing of the deal. Second, the European allies – speak vassals – have so far strongly expressed their disagreement with Trump’s decision, especially the three “M’s” – May, Merkel and Macron. Their less noble reasons for doing so, may have to do with economic interests, as they have already signed billions worth of trade and technology-exchange contracts with Iran. Thirdly, even the more moderate and diplomatic Foreign Minister of the European Union, Ms. Federica Mogherini (image on the right), said in no unclear tones – that there was no justification to abandon the Deal, and that the EU will stick to it. However, given past history, the EU has rather demonstrated having no backbone. – Have they now suddenly decided – for business reasons – that they will grow a backbone? – Would be nice, but so far, it’s merely a dream.
Of course, Russia and China, will stick to the Deal. After all, an international agreement is an international agreement. The only rogue country of this globe, and self-nominated exceptional nation, feels like doing otherwise. Literally, at every turn of a corner, if they so please. And like in this case, it doesn’t even make sense for the United States to withdraw. To the contrary. In theory, Iran could now immediately start their nuclear program and in a couple of years or sooner, they would be ready and equipped with nuclear arms.
But Iran is a smart and civilized nation. They have signed the Non-Proliferation pact and, at least for now, Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani, has already pledged to stick to it. That could of course change, depending on how the Europeans will behave in the future. Will they eventually cave in to US pressure, or will they finally claim back their sovereignty and become an independent autonomous European Unit, able and willing to enter business relations with whomever they want and with whomever they deem is right, irrespective of illegal US sanctions. That would mean, of course, Iran, and normalizing relations with Russia, their natural partner for hundreds of years before the ascent of the exceptional nation. – Time will tell, whether this is a mere pipe dream, or what.
What is it then that Trump and his handlers expect from this illegal decision of rescinding an international agreement? – A move towards “Regime Change”? – Hardly. They must know that with this undiplomatic decision, they are driving President Rouhani into the camp of the hardliners, this large fraction of Iranians who from the very beginning were against this Deal in the first place.
This decision is also a blow to the Atlantists or the “Fifth Column” which is quite strong in Iran. They see themselves abandoned by the west, as it is clear now, that Iran will accelerate the course they have already started, a move towards the East, becoming a member of the Eurasian Economic Union and formalizing their special status vis-à-vis the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), by becoming a regular member. Both are headed by Russia and China.
And, not to forget either, how does this “Broken Deal” affect negotiations between President Trump and DPRK’s President Kim Jong-un on 11 June in Singapore? – Will anything that Trump negotiates and signs have any credibility?
Plus, not to forget, President Xi Jinping was crystal clear when he recently said that Iran will be a crucial and vital link within the New Silk Road, or the BRI – Belt and Road Initiative, a Chinese socio-economic and cultural enterprise that will likely dominate the next few hundred years with trillions of investments in transport, industrial manufacturing, education, research and cultural infrastructure, connecting Asia from the very east with western Europe, Africa, the Middle East and even South America. The BRI is also being included in the Chinese Constitution.
There is a good reason why this gigantic Chinese Program is hardly mentioned in the western mainstream media. – The corporate oligarchs who control these media don’t want the world to know that the western fraudulent economy, built on debt and a pyramid monetary system (a large Ponzi scheme) is gradually declining, leaving all those that cling to it eventually abandoned and in misery.
Well, as in Chinese peaceful Tao tradition, President Xi is offering the world’s nations, to join this great socio-economic initiative – no pressure – just an offer. Many have already accepted, including Iran, India, Turkey, Greece … and pressure from business and politicians in Europe to become part of this tremendous project is mounting. The BRI is an unstoppable train.
What good will US-western sanctions do to an Iran detached from the west? And ever more detached from the western economy and monetary system? – None. As Mr. Rouhani said, Iran will hurt for a short while, but then “we will have recovered for good”. It’s only by hanging between east and west – a line that President Rouhani attempted to pursue, that western sanctions have any meaning. From that point of view, one can easily say, Trump shot himself in the foot.
But there is the other branch of the deep state – the military-security industrial complex – the multitrillion-dollar war machine – an apparatus which feeds largely on itself: It produces to destroy and needs to destroy ever more to guarantee its survival. That would explain how Obama inherited two wars and ended his Presidency with seven wars – which he passed on to Trump, who does his best to keep them going. But that’s not enough, he needs new ones to feed the bottomless war monster – which has become just about synonymous with the US economy, i.e. without war, the economy collapses.
Wars also make Wall Street live. War, like the housing market, is debt-financed. Except, war-funding is a national debt that will never be paid back – hence, the Ponzi scheme. New money, new debt, generated from hot air refinances old debt and will accumulated to debt never to be paid back. In 2008, what the General Accounting Office (GAO) calls “unmet obligations”, or “unfunded liabilities”, projected debt over the next five years, amounted to about US$ 48 trillion, or about 3.2 times GDP. In April 2018, GDP stood at about US$ 22 trillion as compared to unfunded liabilities of about US$ 140 trillion, nearly 6.5 times GDP. Ponzi would turn in his grave with a huge smile.
Since Washington’s foreign policy is written by Zionist thinktanks, it follows logic that more wars are needed. A big candidate is Iran. But why? Iran does no harm to anybody, the same as Syria – no harm to anybody, nor did Iraq, or Libya for that matter. Yet, there is a distinct group of people who wants these countries destroyed. It’s the tiny little tail that wags the monster dog – for the resources and for greater Israel – as unofficial maps already indicate – stretching from Euphrates across the Red Sea all the way to the Nile and absorbing in between parts of Syria, Iraq, all of Palestine, of course, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Egypt.
Those who control the US thinktanks make sure that this target is enshrined in the minds of US decision makers. It would count as a major achievement in the course of global hegemony by the Chosen People (not to confound with the ‘exceptional nation’). Although, Iran is not within this picture, Iran would be the most serious and formidable opponent – enemy – of such a scheme.
Benjamin Netanyahu presenting on Iran’s nuclear program
By breaking the Nuclear Deal, Trump and his masters, especially Netanyahu, may have assumed a harsh reaction, now or later, by Iran. Or in the absence of such a reaction, launch a false flag – say a rocket lands in Israel, they claim it comes from Iran – and bingo, the brainwashed western populace buys it, and there is a reason to go to direct confrontation between Israel and Iran – of course, backed by Washington. This would make for war number 8, since Obama took over in early 2009. And it could account for a lot of killing and destruction – and most probably would involve also Russia and China — and – would that stay simply as a conventional war within the confines of the Middle East? – Or would it spread around the globe as a nuclear WWIII? – Would the commanding elite want to risk their own lives? You never know. Life in bunkers is not as nice as in luxury villas and on luxury boats. They know that.
That’s the dilemma most of those who stand behind the Trump decision probably haven’t quite thought through. Granted, it is difficult to think straight and especially think a bit ahead, when blinded by greed and instant profit – as the western neoliberal / neofascist doctrine dictates.
My hunch is, don’t hold me to it though, that this Trump decision, to “Break the Deal”, is the beginning of a disastrous and yet, ever accelerating decline of the western Global Hegemony Project.
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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 21st 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.
May Day in Havana is calm and festive. Walking through quiet, crowded streets, under a full moon, we try to be near the Plaza when the anthem plays at 7.30am. Foreigners say: “Only in Cuba … Wouldn’t miss it.“ Across the island, almost half the country’s population turns out. Newspapers say numbers are more than usual in support of the country’s new direction. It is not clear yet whether it is new.
My friend’s son, 33, complains that the new leader, Miguel Díaz-Canel (image below), has not defined a vision. He expects vision. Where I live, no one expects vision from politicians. Politicians manage. They respond to interests. Or not. My friend’s son takes it for granted that leaders lead.
Fidel led. It’s why millions still march in Havana at May Day. Twenty-five years ago, the world’s major media said Cuba could not survive more than a few months without the USSR. They ridiculed Cuba chuckling self-righteously as they showed farmers plowing with mules, and people waiting in lines for buses that didn’t come. The situation was indeed terrible.
So why is there a May Day event in Havana in 2018? It should be a question.
The recent Netflix documentary Cuba and the Cameraman shows how awful was the “special period” of the nineties. The footage is raw. It holds back nothing. True, many Cubans left. But many stayed. They’re still there, and their kids expect leadership from leaders.
Expectations determine what knowledge we pursue, and even what we see in front of us. What’s not expected is not asked about. It doesn’t get explained, and so we don’t learn, and don’t know we could.
It is a matter of mind/body connection. As you act in a certain way, you acquire expectations. They arise from lived experience. They determine what you see and what you demand explanations for. The point is well-known in analytic philosophy of science.
Philosophers in the North Atlantic pay lip service to mind/body connection. But we teach philosophy as if it doesn’t depend upon how we live and who we are, as persons. We teach it as an intellectual game: useless for practical purposes.
And yet it has practical purpose. The answer to the question, why did Cuba survive, is, in part at least, philosophical vision. Fidel provided it, continually. Such vision motivates. It tells us who we are, creating expectations, which direct understanding, giving rise, occasionally, to capacities.
Marx called it “species essence”. He said individual thinking depends upon it. Our understanding of it, though, can be wrong. Then, when we try to live well, humanly, we get frustrated, or worse.
That’s why José Martí, and his early nineteenth century predecessors, thought philosophy was crucial for Latin American independence. They weren’t idealists. They just knew about expectations. They knew the dehumanizing expectations of imperialism. They opposed them, quietly, persistently, philosophically, over centuries.
“They” includes Juan Marinello. He was born on a slave plantation in 1902. His father owned it. Marinello became a professor, writing some of the most beautiful academic prose in the Spanish language, according to scholars. 1 By 1938, he was leader of the United Revolutionary party, a wing of the Cuban Communist Party.
Marinello wrote “essays of enthusiasm”. He didn’t add long lists of notes or make complicated arguments. He used metaphors. His essays express expectations, creating confidence, directing enquiry. In 1948, in a famous speech, “Youth and Old Age”, he said Cuba had no youth. Cuba’s youth, Marinello argued, were old, because youth is a time of sacrifice and vision. Marinello expected vision.
He expected intellectuals to resist the “gloomy house of customers and listless motivation of career jumping”. 2 They were dark times. US ideological power was suffocating, as it remains. And yet academics spent their time making long arguments, with endless footnotes, avoiding, or ignorant of, the crucial question: species essence.
Marinello expected intellectuals to be – metaphorically! – youth, motivated by vision and not by livelihood dependent on the dominant class and imperialism.
Tired lefties say Cuban youth will succumb to the appeal of capitalism. They’ve been saying it for sixty years. They forget that Cuban youth have expectations, like Marinello had expectations.
They miss the point of enthusiasm. If there are some who have it, the example is there. And others can try. They gain expectations that make knowledge possible, because they make questions possible. And they gain capacities.
One of the first things that impressed me about Cuba were expectations. These people expected a better society. Cuba was devastated in the early nineties. Yet skinny professors at the University of Havana were out recording birthweights to know the effects of smoking on infant mortality. There were no lights, no gas to cook, no pens, but they worked to reduce the infant mortality rate.
They succeeded. Cuba’s infant mortality rate fell to below 10 during the “special period” of economic crisis when Cubans said the sun had stopped shining on their island.
The question, why did Cuba survive, is not asked in the North because we don’t expect the reality that the answer explains. It’s a reason to know Mayday in Havana.
Martí said freedom is the ability to think without hypocrisy. That is, it is the ability to think as one lives, or to live what one professes. Because if you can’t live what you profess, you also can’t learn about it. You can’t discover. You don’t expect to, and as a result can’t ask the proper questions.
It is more interesting and challenging than constructing long arguments that leave no distinction unexamined.
Ana Belén Montes had the freedom Martí described. She’s in jail in the US, suffering harsh conditions, having hurt no person. Please sign petition here.
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Prof. Susan Babbitt teaches philosophy at Queen’s University, Kingston Ont. She is author of Humanism and Embodiment (Bloomsbury 2014). She is a frequent contributor to Global Research.
Notes
1. José Antonio Portuondo, “Prólogo”, Juan Marinello, Cuba: Cultura, Havana,1989, xx
2. Ramiro Maetzu, cited in Marinello, “Joventud y Vejez” Cuba: Cultura, 199
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A nova bomba nuclear B61-12 – que os EUA se preparam para enviar para Itália, Alemanha, Bélgica, Holanda e, provavelmente, outros países europeus – já está na fase final de produção.
Foi anunciado, no passado dia 1 de Maio, pelo General Jack Weinstein, Chefe Adjunto do Estado Maior da Força Aérea dos EUA, responsável pelas operações nucleares, ao expor num simpósio da Air Force Association, em Washington, perante um auditório escolhido de oficiais de alta patente e representantes da indústria bélica.
“O programa está a desenvolver-se muito bem”, sublinhou com satisfação o general, especificando que “já efectuamos 26 testes de engenharia, desenvolvimento e voo guiado da B61-12”.
O programa prevê a produção, a iniciar-se em 2020, de cerca de 500 bombas B61-12, com uma despesa de cerca de 10 biliões de dólares (pelo que, cada bomba acaba por custar o dobro de quanto custaria se fosse inteiramente em ouro)
Os múltiplos componentes da B-61-12 são projectados nos Sandia National Laboratories (2), em Los Alamos, Albuquerque e Livermore (no Novo México e Califórnia)e produzidos numa série de instalações fabris no Missouri, Texas, South Carolina, Tennessee.A bomba é testada (sem carga nuclear) no Tonopah Test Range (3), no Nevada.
A B61-12 tem “qualidades” completamente novas em comparação com a actual B61 instalada na Itália e noutros países europeus: uma ogiva nuclear com quatro opções de potência seleccionáveis; um sistema de orientação que a conduz com precisão em direcção ao objectivo; capacidade de penetrar no subsolo, mesmo através de cimento armado, explodindo na profundidade. A maior precisão e capacidade de penetração tornam a nova bomba adequada para atacar bunkers dos centros de comando, de modo a “decapitar” o país inimigo.
Uma B61-12 de 50 kt (equivalente a 50 mil toneladas de TNT) que explode no subsolo, tem o mesmo potencial destrutivo de uma bomba nuclear de mais de um megaton (um milhão de toneladas de TNT) que explode na superfície.
A B61-12 pode ser lançada dos aviões de combate americanos F-16C/D, instalados em Aviano, e pelos caças italianos, Tornados PA-200, estabelecidos em Ghedi. Mas, para usar todas as capacidades da B61-12 (especialmente a pilotagem de precisão), são necessários os novos caças F-35A. Isto acarreta a solução de outros problemas técnicos, que se juntam aos inúmeros verificados no programa F-35, no qual a Itália participa como parceiro de segundo nível.O complexo software do caça-bombardeiro, que até agora foi modificado mais de 30 vezes, requer mais actualizações.
Para mudar os 12 caças F-35, a Itália terá de gastar cerca de 400 milhões de euros, o que se soma à despesa ainda não contabilizada (estimada em 13-16 biliões de euros) para a compra de 90 caças e para a sua modernização contínua. Dinheiro que sai dos cofres do Estado (ou seja, sai do nosso bolso), enquanto o dinheiro derivado dos contratos para a produção do F-35 entram nos cofres das indústrias militares.
A bomba nuclear B61-12 e o caça F-35, que a Itália recebe dos EUA, são, portanto, parte de um único “pacote bomba” que vai explodir nas nossas mãos.
A Itália estará exposta a novos perigos como base avançada da estratégia nuclear dos EUA contra a Rússia e contra outros países. Não há senão uma maneira de evitá-lo:
pedir aos EUA, com base no Tratado de Não-Proliferação para retirar toda e qualquer arma nuclear do nosso território; recusarmo-nos a fornecer ao Pentágono, pilotos e aviões para o ataque nuclear, no âmbito da NATO; sair do Grupo de Planeamento Nuclear da NATO; aderir ao Tratado ONU sobre a Proibição de Armas Nucleares.
Existe alguém no mundo político disposto a não fazer política da avestruz?
Die neue Atombombe B61-12 – deren Lieferung die US nach Italien, Deutschland, Belgien, Holland und möglicherweise andere europäische Länder vorbereitet – befindet sich derzeit in der Endphase ihrer Realisierung.
Dies wurde von General Jack Weinstein, stellvertretender Stabschef der US-Luftwaffe, ver-antwortlich für atomare Operationen, am 1. Mai, auf einem Symposium der Air Force Association in Washington, vor einem ausgewählten Publikum von leitenden Offizieren und Führungskräften der Rüstungsindustrie, in einem Einwurf bekanntgegeben.
“Das Programm läuft sehr gut,” bemerkte der General zufrieden, und gab an, dass „wir be-reits 26 Technik-, Entwicklungs- und Flugtests der B61-12 durchgeführt haben.“ Das Pro-gramm sieht die Produktion von 500 B61-12 vor, beginnend in 2020, mit Kosten von ca. 10 Milliarden Dollar (dabei kostet jede Bombe das Doppelte, das sie kosten würde, wenn sie komplett aus Gold gefertigt würde).
Die vielen Komponenten der B61-12 werden in den Sandia National Laboratories von Los Alamos, Albuquerque und Livermore (in New Mexico und Californien) entwickelt, und in einer Reihe von Werken in Missouri, Texas, South Carolina und Tennessee gefertigt. Die Bombe wird (ohne atomare Ladung) in der Tonopah Test Range in Nevada getestet.
Die B61-12 hat im Vergleich zu der derzeitigen B61, die in Italien und anderen europäi-schen Ländern stationiert ist, völlig neue „Qualitäten“: einen Atomsprengkopf mit vier wählbaren Leistungsoptionen; ein Flugsystem, das sie mit Präzision zum Ziel führt; die Fä-higkeit, sogar durch Stahlbeton in den Untergrund einzudringen und in der Tiefe zu explo-dieren.
Durch die größere Präzision und Durchschlagkraft ist die Bombe zum Angriff auf Bunker der Kommandozentralen geeignet, um somit die feindlichen Länder zu „enthaupten“. Eine 50 kt B61-12 (entspricht 50.000 Tonnen TNT, das Dreifache der Hiroshimabombe), die un-terirdisch explodiert, hat dieselbe zerstörerische Kraft wie eine Atombombe von einer Me-gatonne (eine Million Tonnen TNT), die an der Oberfläche explodiert.
Die B61-12 kann von den in Aviano stationierten F-16C/D US-Kampfflugzeugen und von den in Ghedi stationierten italienischen PA-200 Tornados abgeworfen werden. Allerdings, um die gesamte Kapazität der B61-12 (vor allem ihr Leitsystem) zu nutzen, sind die neuen F-35-A Kampfflugzeuge nötig. Dies beinhaltet die Lösung anderer technischer Probleme, die zu den zahlreichen Problemen kommen, die im F-35-Programm aufkamen, an dem Ita-lien als Partner auf zweiter Ebene beteiligt ist.
Die komplexe Software des Kampfflugzeugs, die bisher über 30mal modifiziert wurde, er-fordert weitere Updates. Um 12 F-35 zu modifizieren, wird Italien rund 400 Millionen Euro ausgeben müssen, die zu dem noch immer nicht veranschlagen Aufwand (geschätzte 13-16 Milliarden Euro) für die Anschaffung und fortwährende Modernisierung von 90 Kampfflug-zeugen hinzukommen. Geld, das aus der Staatskasse kommt (d.h. unserer), während das Geld für die Produktion der F-35 in den Kassen der Rüstungsindustrie landet.
Die B61-12 Atombombe und das F-35 Kampfflugzeug, die Italien von den US erhält, sind daher Teil einer einzigen „Paketbombe“, die in unseren Händen explodieren wird. Italien wird als ein weiterer Stützpunkt für die US-Atomstrategie gegen Russland und andere Län-der weiteren Gefahren ausgesetzt sein.
Es gibt nur einen Weg, dies zu vermeiden: die USA auf der Basis des Atomwaffensperrver-trages aufzufordern, jegliche Atomwaffen von unserem Gebiet zu entfernen; die Weigerung, dem Pentagon Piloten und Kampfbomber für Atomangriffe im Rahmen der NATO zur Ver-fügung zu stellen; Austritt aus der NATO-Planungsgruppe; Einhaltung des UN-Vertrags über das Verbot von Atomwaffen.
Gibt es jemanden in der politischen Welt, der bereit ist, keine Vogel-Strauß-Politik fortzu-setzen?
On May 10th 2018, the British government “condemned” recent Iranian rocket attacks against Israeli positions in the Golan Heights, adding that Israel “has the right to defend itself”. It did not condemn recent Israeli attacks on Iranian positions which apparently killed Iranian personnel, but choose to issue the condemnation once Iran retaliated. Britain has not been an impartial, at-a-distance observer of the conflagration in Syria. Indeed if the recollections of Roland Dumas are anything to go by, it was at the heart of an international conspiracy of nations aimed at overthrowing the government of Bashar al-Assad. And given Britain’s recent participation in the military action taken in concert with the United States and France over a highly disputed allegation of Syrian government responsibility for a chemical attack on the Syrian city of Douma, questions abound as to what interests Britain has in relation to Syria. The following are ten questions which any informed and conscientious British Member of Parliament should take the opportunity to ask either the Prime Minister or Foreign Secretary in a formal letter or during relevant Parliamentary proceedings such as ministerial question time.
1. Why has the British government been silent about many attacks carried out by Israel over the course of the Syrian conflict against both Syrian and Iranian positions?
2. Are Iranian rocket attacks against Israel not justified under international law on the basis of self-defence? After all, Israel has fired at Iranian positions and killed Iranian soldiers. Iran did not fire first.
3. Is it not a contravention of international law to attack a sovereign state (Syria) and another nation (Iran) invited by the legal government to help defend it against externally supported insurgents?
4. If Iran is firing at the Golan Heights, would the British government want to clarify that the Iranian military is in fact firing at territory that has been illegally occupied and annexed by Israel?
5. Would the British government like to comment on former French Foreign Minister Roland Dumas’s statement made in 2013 that while on a private visit to England, British officials approached him to join in a plan to organise an armed insurrection against the Syrian government? In his words, the war we have witnessed these past seven years by the Syrian government against Islamic fanatics was “prepared, conceived and organised” at least two years in advance of what became an insurgency. Would the British government care to clarify the capacities of the “officials” who sought Monsieur Dumas’s help in this illegal conspiracy? Were they politicians, intelligence agents, military officers or all of the mentioned categories?
6. Would the British government take the opportunity to explain why, as reported by the British Guardian newspaper in March 2013, British military officers were stationed at the border shared between Syria and Jordan while tasked with offering “logistical and other advice in some form” to rebels and prospective insurgents?
7. Would the British government consider explaining why it allowed the collapse of the 2015 Old Bailey trial of Bherlin Gildo, a Swedish national who had been charged with terrorist activities in Syria? Would the government elucidate on the reasons why Britain’s security and intelligence services would have been “deeply embarrassed” about their covert support for anti-Assad militias?
8. Would the British government explain why British soldiers such as the late Sergeant Matt Tonroe of the Parachute Regiment have been embedded with United States Special Forces in Syria without the express invitation of the legal government of that sovereign nation?
9. Why is the Theresa May-led government keen to continue funding the al-Nusra-linked ‘White Helmets’ group of “volunteer rescuers” which only operates in rebel-held areas? Can the government clarify the extent to which British intelligence is associated with the group’s founder, former British soldier James Le Mesurier and whether British intelligence may have connections with the organisation?
10. Finally, would the British government like to take the opportunity to offer a detailed clarification of just what national interest issues compel British involvement in Syria?
La nuova bomba nucleare B61-12 – che gli Usa si preparano a inviare in Italia, Germania, Belgio, Olanda e probabilmente in altri paesi europei – è ormai in fase finale di realizzazione.
America’s national wildlife refuges are being doused with hundreds of thousands of pounds of dangerous agricultural pesticides every year, according to a first-of-its-kind analysis by the Center for Biological Diversity.
The Center report, No Refuge, reveals that an estimated 490,000 pounds of pesticides were dumped on commodity crops like corn, soybeans and sorghum grown in national wildlife refuges in 2016, the most recent year for which data are available. The analysis was conducted with records obtained by the Center under the Freedom of Information Act.
“These refuges are supposed to be a safe haven for wildlife, but they’re becoming a dumping ground for poisonous pesticides,” said Hannah Connor, a senior attorney at the Center who authored the analysis. “Americans assume these public lands are protected and I think most people would be appalled that so many pesticides are being used to serve private, intensive agricultural operations.”
The pesticides include the highly toxic herbicides dicamba and 2,4-D, which threaten the endangered species and migrating birds that wildlife refuges were created to protect. Refuge pesticide use in 2016 was consistent with pesticide applications on refuges over the previous two years, the Center analysis showed.
America’s 562 national wildlife refuges include forests, wetlands and waterways vital to thousands of species, including more than 280 protected under the Endangered Species Act.
Yet intensive commercial farming has become increasingly common on refuge lands, triggering escalating use of highly toxic pesticides that threaten the long-term health of these sensitive habitats and the wildlife that depend on them.
In 2016 more than 270,000 acres of refuge land were sprayed with pesticides for agricultural purposes. The five national wildlife refuge complexes most reliant on pesticides for agricultural purposes in 2016 were:
Klamath Basin National Wildlife Refuge Complex in California and Oregon, with 236,966 pounds of pesticides;
Central Arkansas Refuges Complex in Arkansas, with 48,725 pounds of pesticides;
West Tennessee Refuge Complex in Tennessee, with 22,044 pounds of pesticides;
Tennessee National Wildlife Refuge Complex in Tennessee, with 16,615 pounds of pesticides;
Chesapeake Marshlands National Wildlife Refuge Complex on the Eastern Shore of Maryland and Virginia, with 16,442 pounds of pesticides.
Additional findings from the report:
Aerial pesticide spraying: In 2016, 107,342 acres of refuge lands were aerially sprayed with 127,020 pounds of pesticides for agricultural purposes, including approximately 1,328 pounds of the notoriously drift-prone dicamba, which is extremely toxic to fish, amphibians and crustaceans.
Glyphosate: In 2016 more than 55,000 agricultural acres in the refuge system were treated with 116,200 pounds of products containing glyphosate, the pesticide that has caused widespread decreases in milkweed plants, helping to trigger an 80 percent decline of the monarch butterfly over the past two decades.
2,4-D: In 2016 more than 12,000 refuge acres were treated with 15,819 pounds of pesticide products containing 2,4-D, known to be toxic to mammals, birds, amphibians, crustaceans, reptiles and fish and is likely to jeopardize the continued existence of endangered and threatened salmonids.
Paraquat dichloride: In 2016 more than 3,000 acres of corn and soybean crops on refuge lands were treated, mainly through aerial spraying, with approximately 6,800 pounds of pesticides containing paraquat dichloride, known to be toxic to crustaceans, mammals, fish, amphibians and mollusks and so lethal it is banned in 32 counties, including the European Union.
“These pesticides are profoundly dangerous for plants and animals and have no place being used on such a staggering scale in our wildlife refuges,” Connor said. “The Interior Department needs to put an end to this outrage and return to its mission of protecting imperiled wildlife, not row crops.”
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Featured image is from Center for Biological Diversity.
The Jewish Museum in New York City is currently presenting the work of Chaim Soutine (1893-1943), featuring just over thirty paintings by one of the most distinctive and significant artists of the early twentieth century. Focusing on still life paintings, of which he was a master, “Chaim Soutine: Flesh” includes his vigorous depictions of various slaughtered animals – of beef carcasses, hanging fowl, and game. These are dynamic works of great boldness and intensity, and taken together they constitute a sustained and profoundly sensuous interrogation of the flesh, of carnality – of blood, skin and sinew.
Soutine was a Russian-French Jew, born in Smilavichy (in present day Belarus), the tenth child of an extremely religious tailor who wanted his son to become a shoemaker. Routinely beaten, Soutine grew up in poverty amidst virulent anti-Semitism. By 1913, he arrived in Paris where he would train at the École des Beaux-Arts under Fernand Cormon, chiefly known for his images of the macabre. It was not long before Soutine established his individual style and technique, which dispensed with preliminary drawing, and was marked by a striking use of color and an enlivened, animated brush. In 1923, a collector purchased almost all of his work: Soutine went from being a literally starving artist to a celebrity almost overnight.
Still Life with Rayfish (1924) (Source: The Met)
The exhibition commences with Still Life with Rayfish (1924) – on loan from the Metropolitan Museum of Art – a painting which is characteristically Soutine: at once rather unsettling and at the same time utterly transfixing. The motif of the rayfish can be traced back to Jean-Baptiste-Siméon Chardin‘s masterpiece, The Ray (1728). Soutine is often engaged with the old masters, whose works he discovered at the Louvre – but rather than copying or working directly from their paintings he would stage their subjects for himself within his studio, revealing an acute sensitivity towards the real fleshly being before him. The ray’s mouth is agape and seems to be locked in a silent yet ceaseless cry. The painting is an excellent introduction to this artist, who was virtually obsessed with the fundamental mystery of embodiment, and the way humans and animals echo one another.
Not only dead creatures, but also even inanimate objects are quickened and enlivened by the touch of Soutine’s brush. Forks, for example, are subtly anthropomorphized: they become grasping hands, emaciated arms. Soutine himself was no stranger to hunger and he suffered from a severe gastro-intestinal condition that precluded him from eating the very meats he painted with such diligence.
The Fish (1933) (Source: The Athenaeum)
The Fish (1933) is looking back to Gustave Courbet‘s Trout (1872) even as it breaks away with its expressionistic use of impasto (thick globs of paint) – an approach to texture that is startling in its boldness and beauty. Soutine does not simply depict the surface of the creature: we see the skin as skin — as an organ that is lived and living, that suffers and is suffered. Soutine’s quivering fish reminds us that the epidermis of the skin is “like a pond surface or forest soil; not a shell so much as a delicate inter-penetration.”
A number of the artist’s living animals are included in the show. They are haunting paintings, which invariably convey a sense of entrapment and fear, a vulnerability that does not merely accompany, but constitutes, the reality of carnal existence. It is however for his slaughtered animals that Soutine is more truly remembered. And perhaps this was inevitable – as Soutine recalled:
“Once I saw the village butcher slice the neck of a bird and drain the blood out of it. I wanted to cry out, but his joyful expression caught the sound in my throat. This cry, I always feel it there. When, as a child, I drew a crude portrait of my professor, I tried to rid myself of this cry, but in vain. When I painted the beef carcass it was still this cry that I wanted to liberate. I have still not succeeded.”
The carcasses of beef – of which Soutine painted at least ten – are among his most significant achievements. While he takes his initial inspiration from Rembrandt’s Flayed Ox (1655), which he would have encountered at the Louvre, Soutine does not simply copy the work of his predecessor. In fact, he famously hung actual beef carcasses from the rafters of his Monparnasse studio. Like Rembrandt’s Flayed Ox, Soutine’s beef carcass resembles the crucifixion of Christ. But Soutine would surpass even Rembrandt in his prolonged interrogation of the flesh as a kind of elemental being. Soutine would repeatedly pour blood onto the carcass to re-enliven the decomposing flesh and enhance its color. The powerful stench of rotting meat, as well as the leaking of blood through the studio floor led neighbors to complain (and in fact to suspect that someone had been murdered) – so much so that the police came to confiscate the putrefying carcass. The authorities were instead treated to a lengthy discussion on the high demands of Art.
Perhaps what is most startling is that both blood and mud seem to have been applied to the canvas itself, calling forth an extremely visceral experience. These are extraordinarily powerful works of art that seem indeed to cry out to us in a primordial language: the splayed carcass suggests a kind of martyrdom; a melancholic, even tragic, vision of the world; a profound awareness of the inexorable processes of death, putrefaction and decay.
The art historian Sam Hunter observed that for painters such as Chaim Soutine and Francis Bacon (who undoubtedly encountered Soutine’s work),
“Flesh is … the essential material of being and of things, life’s basic substance.”
Soutine reminds us that painters of the highest order perform a kind of ontological function, an operation on behalf of being itself – a function that involves the turning back of the flesh of the world on itself. If Soutine’s work beckons us toward a compassion for animals, it is not by appealing to any rational moral principle; nor does it derive its authority from an extra-worldly source. Its origin is literally in the flesh, in the intercorporeity, the transitivity that exists between humans and animals – a connection and separation that is the presupposition and ground of carnal empathy.
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Sam Ben-Meir is a professor of philosophy and world religions at Mercy College in New York City.
Featured image: Sen. Bob Corker and Sen. Tim Kaine talk during a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing, March 11, 2015. Sens. Corker and Kaine have introduced a new Authorization of Military Force bill to Congress in April 2018. (Photo: Tom Williams / CQ Roll Call)
Under the guise of exercising supervisory power over the president’s ability to use military force, Congress is considering writing Donald Trump a blank check to indefinitely detain US citizens with no criminal charges. Alarmingly, this legislation could permit the president to lock up Americans who dissent against US military policy.
The bill that risks conveying this power to the president is the broad new Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF), S.J.Res.59, that is pending in Congress. Senate Foreign Relations Committee chair Bob Corker (R-Tennessee) and Democratic committee member Tim Kaine (Virginia) introduced the bipartisan bill on April 16, and it has four additional co-sponsors.
This proposed 2018 AUMF would replace the 2001 AUMF that Congress gave George W. Bush after the September 11 attacks. Although the 2001 AUMF authorized the president to use “all necessary and appropriate force” only against individuals and groups responsible for the 9/11 attacks, three presidents have relied on it to justify at least 37 military operations in 14 countries, many of them unrelated to 9/11.
But the 2018 AUMF would codify presidential power to make war whenever and wherever he chooses.
S.J.Res.59 allows the president “to use all necessary and appropriate force” against Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Yemen, Libya and Somalia, al-Qaeda, ISIS (also known as Daesh), the Taliban and their “associated forces” anywhere in the world, without limitation.
“Associated forces” is defined as “any organization, person, or force, other than a sovereign nation, that the President determines has entered the fight alongside and is a co-belligerent with al Qaeda, the Taliban, or ISIS, in hostilities against the United States or its coalition partners.”
However, the bill contains no definition of “co-belligerent.” A president may conceivably claim that a US citizen who writes, speaks out or demonstrates against US military action is a “co-belligerent” and lock him or her up indefinitely without charge.
Under the new AUMF, the president could tell Congress he wants to use force against additional countries or “associated forces” that are not listed in the bill. It would put the burden on Congress to say no by a two-thirds vote, a virtually impossible margin to achieve in the current political climate.
The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights — a treaty the United States has ratified, making it part of US law under the Constitution’s Supremacy Clause — forbids arbitrary detention without charge.
Supreme Court Hasn’t Sanctioned Indefinite Detention for US Citizens
Nevertheless, in the 2004 case of Hamdi v. Rumsfeld, the Supreme Court upheld the enemy combatant designation of US citizen Yaser Hamdi, who had been apprehended in Afghanistan in 2001. But the Court limited its holding to people fighting against US forces in Afghanistan, and did not include the broader “war on terrorism.”
The Court also stated that US citizens held as enemy combatants must be provided due process to contest the factual basis for their detention before a neutral decision maker.
Justice Sandra Day O’Connor wrote for the Court’s plurality,
“We have long since made clear that a state of war is not a blank check for the President when it comes to the rights of the Nation’s citizens,” adding, “even the war power does not remove constitutional limitations safeguarding essential liberties.”
The Supreme Court has not ruled on whether a US citizen who is apprehended in the United States can be detained indefinitely. It declined to decide the case of José Padilla, who was arrested at Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport in 2002 and held in military custody as an enemy combatant by the Bush administration, relying on the 2001 AUMF. The Court ruled that Padilla’s habeas corpus petition was mistakenly filed in New York instead of South Carolina.
Criminal charges were eventually brought against Padilla in 2005. He had been held in isolation for more than three years and tortured while in custody.
Padilla was tried and convicted in 2007 of conspiracy charges and providing material support to terrorism, and sentenced to 17 years imprisonment. In 2014, his sentence was increased to 21 years. Meanwhile, the Fourth Circuit and the Second Circuit US Courts of Appeal came to opposite conclusions about whether an American citizen apprehended on US soil could be held indefinitely as an enemy combatant.
“John Doe” is another American citizen detained by the US government. In September 2017, the US-Saudi citizen was named an enemy combatant for allegedly fighting for ISIS and has been held in military custody in Iraq ever since. Although the 2001 AUMF never mentioned ISIS, the government used it as a basis to detain Doe. In April, the Department of Defense attempted to transfer Doe to Saudi Arabia and avoid a judicial ruling in the case, but a federal judge in Doe v. Mattis blocked the move.
It is not clear how passage of the proposed 2018 AUMF would affect Doe’s case.
Does Defense Authorization Act Permit Indefinite Detention?
“No citizen shall be imprisoned or otherwise detained by the United States except pursuant to an Act of Congress.”
An AUMF is an Act of Congress.
Another Act of Congress is the National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal year 2012 (NDAA). Relying on the 2001 AUMF, the 2012 NDAA purported to codify the president’s authority to hold US citizens in military custody indefinitely.
Section 1021 of the NDAA says,
“Nothing in this section shall be construed to affect existing law or authorities relating to the detention of United States citizens, lawful resident aliens of the United States, or any other persons who are captured or arrested in the United States.”
When he signed the NDAA, Barack Obama declared in a signing statement that section 1021 does not “limit or expand the authority of the President or the scope of the Authorization for Use of Military Force,” pledging that
“my Administration will not authorize the indefinite military detention without trial of American citizens.”
Obama’s statement implied that while a president does have the power to indefinitely detain Americans, he chose not to exercise that power.
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina) supported the NDAA, stating that
it would “basically say in law for the first time that the homeland is part of the battlefield,” adding that people could be held without charge by the military, “American citizen or not.”
Noam Chomsky, Daniel Ellsberg, Chris Hedges and other journalists and human rights activists sued the US government, claiming the 2012 NDAA would have a chilling effect on their freedom of speech because they could be arrested. A federal district court judge found section 1021(b)(2) unconstitutional and issued a permanent injunction prohibiting the government from relying on it.
But the Second Circuit Court of Appeals lifted the injunction in 2013, stating that section 1021 of the NDAA “has no bearing on the government’s authority to detain American citizen plaintiffs” because “Section 1021 simply says nothing about the government’s authority to detain citizens.”
The 2018 AUMF Might Be Used to Indefinitely Detain Americans
Nothing in the 2018 AUMF would prevent the president from adding an American organization or individual to the list set forth in the bill, according to Christopher Anders of the ACLU.
The 2018 AUMF has no expiration date. Every four years, the president would be required to give Congress a proposal to repeal, modify or maintain the authorization. Once again, it puts the onus on Congress, by a two-thirds majority, to take contrary action.
S.J.Res.59 may not make it to the floor of the Senate and/or the House. Congress has thus far resisted enacting a new AUMF that could be seen in any way to limit the president’s military authority.
Ironically, however, the enactment of this new 2018 AUMF could both enshrine the president’s unlimited power to wage war and also provide the president with a basis for indefinitely detaining US citizens in military custody without criminal charges.
If this bill were to pass, it would imperil our right to speak out and challenge whatever military adventures the president decides to undertake.
Marjorie Cohn is professor emerita at Thomas Jefferson School of Law, former president of the National Lawyers Guild, deputy secretary general of the International Association of Democratic Lawyers and an advisory board member of Veterans for Peace. The second, updated edition of her book, Drones and Targeted Killing: Legal, Moral, and Geopolitical Issues, was published in November. Visit her website: MarjorieCohn.com. Follow her on Twitter: @MarjorieCohn. Cohn is a frequent conrtibutor to Global Research.
“I’m not going to sit here with the benefit of hindsight and judge the very good people who made hard decisions who were running the agency in very extraordinary circumstances.” –Gina Haspel, May 9, 2018.
It was always going to be the most complicated of hurdles. Having moved Mike Pompeo on to the role of Secretary of State, President Donald Trump had to find a replacement at the Central Intelligence Agency. Punting for Gina Haspel was an invitation to go into battle, given the Acting Director’s associations with the era of agency waterboarding.
Of specific interest to members of the Senate Intelligence Committee was Haspel’s role in running a covert detention site in Thailand during the blooming violence of the “war on terror” inspired by President George W. Bush’s crusade against jihadis real and fictional. Details of the site are still sketchy, though the jottings on her conduct are sufficient to cause concern. Hypothetical scenarios were considered; questions on what Haspel as director would do if that man in the White House would insist on torture were submitted.
Given that Trump has shown his enthusiasm in torturing the enemy in purely transactional terms, Haspel was asked what would happen in the event the president gave the order.
“Senator, I would advise,” came her response to Republican Senator Susan Collins. “I do not believe the president would ask me to do that.”
Hardly cause for comfort.
In a performance that seemed disoriented and inconsistent, Haspel fudged the issue of whether torture was immoral while suggesting that the CIA was simply not up to snuff in interrogations. This was tantamount to claiming that these good defenders of Freedom land were executioners with blunt axes. In fact, in the Haspel remit of CIA operations, interrogations of whatever form had never been conducted by the agency, a point distinctly at odds with patches of that body’s history.
As it stood now, such tasks of probing suspects were being conducted by “other US government entities… I would advise anyone that asked me that the CIA is not the place to conduct interrogations. We do not have interrogators and we not have interrogation expertise.”
She spoke of having been given a “strong moral compass” by her parents, and keeping the ship steady.
“Having served in that tumultuous time, I can offer you my personal commitment, clearly and without reservation, that under my leadership the CIA will not restart such a detention and interrogation programme.”
The utilitarian aspect of the argument was pressed by Senator Kamala Harris, Democrat from California. Trump had advanced that old canard that torture actually worked; did the nominee agree?
“It’s a yes or no answer,” came an unsatisfied senator. “I’m not asking do you believe they were legal. I’m asking do you believe they were immoral.”
Haspel’s response was to transform herself into a utility enthusiast.
“Senator, I believe that the CIA did extraordinary work to prevent another attack on the country, given the legal tools that we were authorized to use.”
This was the desk job rationale, the bureaucrat’s classic number. Not a word about the substantive nature of morality mattered here. References to holding “ourselves to the moral standard outlined in the Army Field Manual” or such vague formulations as “the higher moral standard we have decided to hold ourselves to” proliferated as scripted answers.
What mattered most was the result, which was not that people were tortured, but that the United States had been served well, a defence that might have found some sympathy with other famous bureaucrats of the violent and murderous persuasion.
“I believe, as many directors who have sat in this chair before me, that valuable information was obtained from senior al Qaida operatives that allowed us to defend this country and prevent another attack.”
Ergo, those soiled hands got results in the name of protecting the Republic.
Haspel did make inroads among some members of the intelligence committee.
“After meeting with Gina Haspel,” came the confident words of Democrat Joe Manchin of West Virginia, “discussing her extensive experience as a CIA agent, and considering her time as acting director, I will vote to confirm her to be our next CIA director.”
She was evidently a character of “great character”.
An illustrative if sharp point in Wednesday’s proceedings came when former CIA operative Ray McGovern made an intervention at Haspel’s refusal to consider the moral dimension of enhanced interrogation techniques. What of instances, suggested Senator Jack Reed of Rhode Island, when a CIA officer might be tortured? Would such conduct be immoral?
McGovern duly stood up in the audience and uttered, somewhat inscrutably, that
“Senator Wyden, you deserve a direct answer.”
(Wyden was not questioning Haspel at the time) The outcome was swift and violent: committee head Senator Richard Burr ordering the Capitol Police to frogmarch the one time chair of the National Intelligence Estimates out of the chamber.
Ray McGovern apprehended by the Capitol Police out of the court hall.
Prior to the hearings, McGovern had penned a powerful note on the lamentable nature of Trump’s appointee. We already knew that Haspel had sought to destroy “dozens of videotapes of torture sessions, including some before her arrival.” Haspel was also part of that industry of deception on “the supposed effectiveness of torture”, something she repeatedly fed “to CIA superiors, Congress, and two presidents.”
With protestors crying foul, and the senators probing the prospects of what a Haspel-led CIA might look like, torture is again making an appearance as prospect and reality. McGovern’s ejection simply served to sully things further.
Much of what happens to Haspel will come down to the swaying views of such committee members as the ailing Senator John McCain, who has already made his position on Haspel clear:
“Her refusal to acknowledge torture’s immorality is disqualifying.”
*
Dr. Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge. He lectures at RMIT University, Melbourne. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research and Asia-Pacific Research. Email: [email protected]
Listening to Donald Trump’s announcement of his decision to withdraw the United States from the Iran nuclear deal (also known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA) brought to mind Shakespeare’s line about “a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.” The idiot is “a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage and then is heard no more.” Trump certainly was full of sound and fury. Understanding how to respond to that decision, and the larger structures of thought that are at work, requires more than sifting out the nonsense, half-truths, and falsehoods in Trump’s presentation. It is necessary to pay attention to what Donald Trump did not say.
In Trump’s litany about Iran, and the dangers it poses, and what he aimed to do by way of response, three important silences stand out. There are no doubt other silences worth noting. Still, three are clear.
The first silence: Trump’s greatest fear is that Iran may behave like the United States. For Trump, should Iran get what he called “the world’s most dangerous weapons,” along with “ballistic missiles that could deliver nuclear warheads,” America could be “held hostage to nuclear blackmail “ and American cities “threatened with destruction.” This is all true enough. But one would never know from Trump’s speech that the United States has thousands of nuclear weapons and is the only country to have used such weapons to destroy cities.
If Iran is to be condemned for possibly pursuing this appalling capability, and also be compelled to abandon this quest, what are we to make of the purpose of America’s roughly 4,000 existing nuclear weapons? If the problem is nuclear weapons, beyond supporting the new nuclear ban treaty, what can the world do to eliminate nuclear weapons everywhere, starting with these actually existing weapons?
The second silence: There is nothing in Trump’s statement recognizing that today’s world is an international community of states and peoples, the center of which is the United Nations system. The stated purpose of this system, according to the UN Charter, is “[t]o maintain international peace and security, and to that end: to take effective collective measures for the prevention and removal of threats to the peace.”
Trump described the nuclear deal as “horrible, one-sided… poorly negotiated … decaying and rotten … [and] defective at its core” and claimed that without remedial action “the world’s leading state sponsor of terror will be on the cusp of acquiring the world’s most dangerous weapons.” What Trump did not mention was that the Iran nuclear deal he rejected was unanimously endorsed by the United Nations Security Council.
UN Security Council Resolution 2231 of 20 July 2015
“[c]alls upon all Member States, regional organizations and international organizations to take such actions as may be appropriate to support the implementation of the JCPOA, including by taking actions commensurate with the implementation plan set out in the JCPOA and this resolution and by refraining from actions that undermine implementation of commitments under the JCPOA.”
Trump’s action is a clear violation by the United States of this resolution.
What can “[m]ember States, regional organizations and international organizations,” and especially the UN General Assembly and the Security Council, do to assert the legitimacy and mandate of the United Nations in this situation? How can the world hold the United States to account?
The third silence: Trump seems not to consider the possibility of opposition that is so determined, he may not get his way. For Trump, the possibilities and responsibilities of power are his alone:
“If I allowed this deal to stand,” he said, things would get much worse, and he alone could fix the problem that is Iran since “[w]hen I make promises, I keep them.”
If Iran’s leadership will not submit, “it will have bigger problems than it has ever had before.” There is no doubt in Trump’s mind that eventually Iran will see he was right, and then, “they are going to want to make a new and lasting deal.”
No matter how much he wishes it to be true, Donald Trump, his permissions and commitments, and the power of the American state that he commands cannot shape the entirety of the world’s future. People and their governments everywhere, including American citizens and their representatives, all have a voice, a scope for action. What can they do if they want not to live in Trump’s world? What are the paths for collective, effective resistance and for enabling regime change in Washington?
*
Zia Mian is a physicist and co-director of Program on Science and Global Security, Princeton University.
Alt-Media totally misunderstands – and oftentimes deliberately misportays – President Putin’s relationship with Israel, which a reading of the official Kremlin website’s most relevant links indicates is a lot better than most people may think.
Alt-Media dogma indoctrinates its followers with the notion that it’s impossible for Russia and Israel to be on friendly terms with one another, let alone allies, because President Putin is supposedly on an “anti-Zionist crusade” to “save the world”, which isn’t true whatsoever. Many websites have popped up and fed into this delusional “wishful thinking” with outlandish headlines and false narratives in order to reap revenue from increased web traffic and the donations that they hope to solicit as a result.
When confronted with the facts, many people who have been exposed to Alt-Media dogma for too long of a time react with verbal violence as they writhe in the throes of cognitive dissonance, unable to countenance that everything that they thought they knew (or rather, were brainwashed to believe) was a lie. For the bulk of them, their binary thinking has made it impossible to accept that any person or country that “legitimizes” Israel can ever be praised for anything else that they may ever do, meaning that these folks consider it unacceptable to sympathize with anything that President Putin and Russia do anywhere else in the world for the simple fact that both of them are on exceptionally friendly terms with Alt-Media’s supposedly biggest foe.
It’s every person’s prerogative to adhere to whatever belief complex they want, but the facts are the facts, and disregarding them for the sake of “political convenience” or because they’re “ideologically inconsistent” with one’s larger views or the causes that they hold most dear leads to the creation of echo chambers, groupthink, and ultimately an Alt-Reality that’s completely divorced from real life. It’s in the interests of “popping this bubble” and setting the record straight about President Putin’s real relationship with Israel that the author set about documenting his official statements on the topic.
It should be cautioned that the below list of quotes from the Kremlin website isn’t comprehensive and purposely focuses on the most praiseworthy comments that the Russian leader has made. The Alt-Media Community is already well aware that Russian representatives support a so-called “two-state solution” and the independent Palestine that comes with it, having condemned Israel for violating UN Resolutions prohibiting the construction of settlements, so there’s no need to redundantly go over these remarks, especially when it wasn’t President Putin saying them. Instead, what follows is a collection of comments that will irrefutably debunk the Alt-Media dogma that President Putin is on an “anti-Zionist crusade” and hopefully broaden the reader’s understanding of the complex “balancing” strategy that Russia envisions itself playing in the world.
The rest of the article is structured according to the three main topics of strategy, terrorism/military affairs, and overall friendship that President Putin spoke on in regards to Israel, with each one including a one-sentence summary before every pertinent quote. The President’s words are then followed by the hyperlinked name of the occasion that the Kremlin website quoted him speaking at and the date that the comment was made so that interested readers can verify each individual reference. That being said and without further ado, here’s what President Putin really thinks about Israel in his own words, which is sure to surprise a lot of people:
Strategy
Russia Will Balance Between Israel And The Arab Countries:
“And we understand that all the positive experience accumulated over the years in the relations between Russia and the Arab countries and what has recently emerged between Russia and Israel, all that positive experience can be used to resolve this complicated situation. We are ready to put it at the disposal of the negotiating parties.” – Interview with the German Magazine Focus, 19 September, 2001
Russia’s Approach To The Mideast Is “Cardinally Different From The Attitude Of The Former Soviet Union”, And “Those Times Are Long Gone”:
“First, the attitude of Russia to the problems of the Middle East is cardinally different from the attitude of the former Soviet Union. As you know, in former times the Soviet Union restricted foreign travel. In general, a totalitarian regime tends to isolate itself, and those times are long gone.” – Interview with the American Broadcasting Company ABC, 7 November, 2001
President Putin Will Do Everything In His Power To “Win The Confidence Of [The Israeli] People”, Which Means That “They Must Come To See That Russia Takes An Even-Handed Position And Pursues A Policy Aimed At Settling The Conflict And Ensuring…The Interests Of Israel”:
“Our attitude to émigrés from the Soviet Union has changed dramatically. In the Soviet Union all these people were seen as almost enemies of their country, as defectors, traitors and so on. There is nothing like that today. I think there is a good and positive potential for the development of inter-state relations. And we of course must use it. But for that potential to be tapped it is necessary to win the confidence of these people. They must see that Russia takes an even-handed position and pursues a policy aimed at settling the conflict and ensuring the interests of all the people who live in that region, including the interests of Israel.” – Excerpts from a Talk with German and Russian Media, 7 April, 2002
The Concept Of “Broader Europe” Must Include Israel:
“I think a lot of time will be required for all the European countries to realise and become conscious of the need for a “broader Europe”, which would include your country as a key partner. If we really want to be influential players in international relations, if we want to play a role in the world’s future, ensuring its prosperity and security we must understand that the united Europe that includes Russia with its 150 million citizens, will contribute to our economic growth and will strengthen our military potential. We should also think about the Balkan countries and other candidate countries, for example, Turkey. I think that the European future must also include Israel. This is the path on which we have embarked. I have confidence in this path.” – Transcript of a Plenary Session of the Russia-European Union Summit, 31 May, 2003 (of note, free trade talks between the Eurasian Economic Union And Israel have recently resumed)
Russia “Always Discusses” Syria And Iran With Israel, People “Do Not Need To Ask In (The) Future [Whether They] Discussed These Questions Or Not”:
“We discussed today the issues of arms supplies to Syria and the Iranian nuclear programme. We always discuss these issues when we meet with the Israeli leadership. You do not need to ask in future, did we discuss these questions or not. We always discuss them. The question is one of we say and what views we exchange.” — Press Statement and Answers to Questions Following Talks with President of Israel Moshe Katsav, 28 April, 2005
Russia Keeps Israel Updated On Its Ties With Iran At Tel Aviv’s “Request”:
Ahmadinejad Should Have “Avoided A Wording That Could Be Improperly Quoted Or Interpreted Differently” When He Spoke Of Israel Vanishing From The Pages Of Time, And That “Iranian Threats Towards Neighboring Countries, Especially Israel…Are Absolutely Unacceptable”:
“Vladimir Putin: A response to your question could take hours. It’s so complex. I will try to be as concise as possible. First, I have repeatedly voiced Russia’s official stance – Iran has the right for a peaceful nuclear program and it cannot be singled out for discrimination. Second, we need to be aware that Iran is located in a very challenging region. I have told our Iranian partners about that. That’s why Iranian threats made towards neighbouring countries, in particular Israel, threats that Israel can be destroyed, are absolutely unacceptable. This is counterproductive.
Oksana BOYKO: This is not a proper quote of the Iranian president.
Vladimir Putin: It doesn’t quite matter whether it’s a proper quote or not. It means it’s best to avoid a wording that could be improperly quoted or could be interpreted differently. That’s why the focus on Iran does have a reason behind it.” – Visit to Russia Today television channel, 11 June, 2013
Russia Will Aid The “Normalisation Of Relations” Between Iran And Israel, But That “It Is Impossible To Move Ahead” Unless Moscow Helps “Maintain The Security Of All Nations In The Region, Including Israel”:
“Here I believe we should jointly identify what is in the way of normal relations between Iran and Israel. I think that we should not only bear in mind everything that hinders the normalisation of relations between the two states, but we need to analyse all the aspects and minimise the negative side of this process. This is in the interests of Iran, I am sure this is also in the interests of Israel and the entire international community. When I recently spoke in my Address [to the Federal Assembly] of the progress we have made regarding Iran, you may have noticed that I said we should maintain the security of all the nations in the region, including Israel. This is an important aspect, without which it would be difficult, even impossible to move ahead.” – News conference of Vladimir Putin, 19 December, 2013
Terrorism/Military
Russia’s Federal Intervention In Chechnya Prevented Terrorists From Traveling To The Mideast And Waging War On Israel:
“One of the militants’ chieftains, Shamil Basayev, said recently that he was planning to send 150 of his gunmen to the area of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Imagine 150 top-notch experts in ambushing, mining, hostage taking and torture of prisoners. It is not the number of gunmen but the fact that they would lend a totally different character to the conflict. If I may ask you a counter question: if we had not launched a counter-terrorist operation in the region, how many of his men would Basayev have threatened to send to the conflict area? And how far would he have gone in his plans of expansion?” – Interview with the French Newspaper Le Figaro, 26 October, 2000
Israel Provides A “Good Example” Of “How To Deal With Terror” After its “Decades Of Suffering” From It And “Is An Element Of Stability In The Middle East, And Hence In The Whole World”:
“First of all I would like to say that the way the Israeli Government and the whole society in Israel deal with terror is a good example of how policy in this sphere should be designed. And I think that policy has grown out of the decades of suffering endured by the Israeli people. In resolving political issues you can have political contacts with anyone. But there should be no negotiations with terrorists.
Terrorists perceive any negotiations with them as a sign of weakness and are encouraged to try to use terror to achieve political goals. That cannot be tolerated. I think international cooperation in this sphere is a must. I think the Russian public understands that we must and will cooperate with Israel in this field. And it is no secret for the public in Israel either. The reasons for such cooperation are clear and it is justified.
The international significance of terrorism was highlighted by the fact that quite recently a leader of the terrorists operating in Chechnya called publicly through the mass media for the extermination of the Jewish people…Let me remind you that the Soviet Union was one of the initiators and supporters of the creation of the State of Israel. Today Russia believes that Israel is an element of stability in the Middle East, and hence in the whole world.” — Answers to Questions at a Joint Press Conference with President Moshe Katsav of Israel, 23 January, 2001
Palestine Must “Put An End To Terrorist Actions” & “Develop On A Democratic Basis”, And The World Must “Ensure The Security Of The Jewish State Of Israel And Its Citizens”:
“As for the overall situation, we believe that it is necessary, on the one hand, to do everything to put an end to terrorist actions, to allow the Palestinian state to develop on a democratic basis and to ensure the security of the Jewish state of Israel and its citizens.” — News Conference after the G8 Summit, 28 June, 2002
Russia Will Never “Violate Any (Regional) Balance” Against Israel Through Its Arms Sales To Syria, And Will Ensure That All Shipments “Cannot Be Unnoticeably Handed Over To Terrorist Organizations”:
“He then asked me about possible deliveries of serious rocket equipment, including to Syria, which really could cause concern in Israel and reach the territory of Israel from dislocation points in Syria. We refused this deal because we do not want to violate any balance, however fragile it may be, that exists in the region. As for the deal that was signed with Syria and will be realised, this concerns close-range anti-rocket systems. These systems can attack air targets in visible range. Furthermore, these systems are set on vehicles, and they cannot be unnoticeably handed over to terrorist organisations. Furthermore, our military have the right to control and inspect them in places they are stored and stationed.” — Interview with Israeli Television Channel One, 20 April, 2005
Russia And Israel Agree That Terrorism Is “The Most Dangerous Challenge Facing Humanity”:
“The declaration affirms, in particular, the two signatory countries’ intention to develop their cooperation in the fight against modern threats and challenges. Russia and Israel unequivocally condemn as criminal and without justification all terrorist acts, methods and practices, no matter where and by whom they are carried out. Russia and Israel consider terrorism one of the most dangerous, if not the most dangerous challenge facing humanity.
President Putin Will Award “The Medal For Services To The Fatherland” To Anyone Who Brokers A Russian-Israeli Fighter Plane Deal:
“Now, for the “sweetest” part of your question – the possibility of selling Russian aircraft to Israel. If you could help us sign contracts with Israel for the sale of fighter planes worth, say, a couple of billion dollars, I would give you the Medal for Services to the Fatherland.” – Press Statement and Answers to Questions Following Talks with President of Israel Moshe Katsav, 28 April, 2005
“Russia And Israel Should Improve Coordination Of Their Efforts In The Fight Against Terrorism, Extremism And Ethnic Intolerance”:
“Mr Putin expressed his confidence that the victory celebrations on May 9 would become another symbol of the international community’s unity in the fight against the threat of terrorism. There can be no place for xenophobia, chauvinism or religious intolerance in the twenty-first century. Mr Putin noted that the agreements reached with the Israeli leadership during his visit will help to resolve this problem in Russia, for which, as a multiethnic state, any manifestations of nationalism have a destructive effect.” — Russia and Israel should improve coordination of their efforts in the fight against terrorism, extremism and ethnic intolerance, 28 April, 2005
Following The 2006 Israeli-Hezbollah War, Russia Reaffirmed Its “Long-Term Interests” In Israel And The Importance Of “Protecting [Its] Civilian Population…From Terror”, As Well As Cooperating With It Against “Threats Such As Terrorism, Extremism, Ethnic Intolerance And Local Conflicts”:
“There can be no doubt that stable bilateral relations are in the long-term interests of both Russia and Israel, and that strengthening these relations will contribute to ensuring regional and international stability. Our countries are united in their desire to combat the threats of the twenty-first century, threats such as terrorism, extremism, ethnic intolerance and local conflicts. The only way to break out of the vicious circle of violence is to end mutual accusations, free the hostages and resume peaceful negotiations. It is extremely important to protect the civilian population of Israel and its neighbours from terror.” — Press Statements following Russian-Israeli Talks, 18 October, 2006
Russia “Strongly Condemns” The 2012 Terrorist Attack Against Israeli Tourists In Bulgaria That Was Reportedly Carried Out By Hezbollah:
“Vladimir Putin sent a telegram expressing his condolences to Prime Minister of Israel Benjamin Netanyahu following a terrorist attack in Bulgaria, strongly condemning the criminal act.” — Condolences to Prime Minister of Israel Benjamin Netanyahu, 19 July, 2012 (details of the incident are available here)
It Was A “Barbaric Act Of Terrorism” For Palestinians To Kidnap And Kill The Three Israeli Teenagers Whose Murder Sparked “Operation Protective Edge”:
“Please accept my profound condolences following the atrocious murder of three Israeli teenagers. We resolutely condemn this barbaric act of terrorism and we hope that the organisers and perpetrators will be caught and receive the punishment they deserve. I ask you to pass on my words of sincere sympathy and support to the victims’ families and the entire Israeli people.” — Vladimir Putin sent his condolences to Prime Minister of Israel Benjamin Netanyahu, 1 July, 2014 (later that month Israel commenced “Operation Protective Edge” in response)
Israel Is Russia’s “Unconditional Ally” Against Terrorism:
“We also talked about the need to join ranks in countering international terrorism. Israel knows first-hand how to fight terrorism, and, in this sense, we are unconditional allies. Our countries have considerable experience in combatting extremism. We will continue strengthening contacts with our Israeli partners in this area.” — Statements for the press and answers to journalists’ questions following Russian-Israeli talks, 7 June, 2016
It’s A “Terrorist Attack” For Palestinians To Ram Trucks Into IDF Troops:
“Vladimir Putin expressed his condolences to Prime Minister of Israel Benjamin Netanyahu following a terrorist attack in Jerusalem.” — Condolences to Prime Minister of Israel Benjamin Netanyahu, 8 January, 2017 (details of the incident are available here)
Russia And America Put Aside Their Differences In Order To “Maintain Stable Cooperation…On Many Issues, Including The Southern De-Escalation Zone (In Syria), Where Israeli…Interests Are Also Present”:
“I have to note that other countries, including the United States, are greatly contributing; even though they are not participating in the talks in Astana directly, they are influencing these processes behind the scenes. We maintain stable cooperation with our American partners in this sphere, on this track, even though not without disputes. However, there are more positive than negative elements in our cooperation. So far, we have managed to agree on many issues, including the southern de-escalation zone, where Israeli and Jordanian interests are also present.” – Meeting of the Valdai International Discussion Club, 19 October, 2017
Friendship
President Putin Has “Many Personal Ties With People Who Live In Russia And Israel”, Including A “Major Political Figure” In The Latter:
Israel “Strives For Peace” And Has “Suffered A Great Deal Over The Last Decades”:
“Mr Prime Minister, I think that we will have a chance to talk in more detail about the situation in the Middle East. We know that Israel strives for peace. The Jewish people have suffered a great deal over the last decades.” — Opening Remarks at a Meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, 3 November, 2003
The USSR’s Bad Ties With Israel “Were Not To The Benefit Of…The Soviet Union”:
“Russia and Israel have special relations, I believe. The Soviet Union was one of the founders of the state of Israel, when as a permanent member of the UN Security Council, in the post-war period, it actively supported the creation of the state of Israel. Later, during the cold war, everyone knows how relations between the countries developed, and these relations were not to the benefit of Israel or the Soviet Union, in my opinion.” — Interview with Israeli Television Channel One, 20 April, 2005
Russian-Israeli Relations Have “Reached A Completely New Level”, Partially Because Of The Former Soviet Diaspora:
“I would like to start by saying how pleased we are to see you here on precisely this day – the day that marks 15 years since the re-establishment of diplomatic relations between Israel and Russia. Relations between the Russian Federation and Israel have reached a completely new level over recent years. They have become more trusting. We have fundamentally changed our attitudes toward our compatriots. We consider those who left Russia and the former Soviet republics to take up permanent residence in Israel as our compatriots. Today we think, not without reason, that they are a major resource in further improving the relations between our two countries.” — Beginning of Meeting with Prime Minister of Israel Ehud Olmert, 18 October, 2006
Ariel Sharon Was An “Outstanding Statesman And Military Commander” Who “Upheld The Interests Of Israel”, “Enjoyed International Respect”, And Was “A Consistent Supporter Of Friendly Relations” With Russia:
“Vladimir Putin sent a message of condolences to Prime Minister of the State of Israel Benjamin Netanyahu on the passing of the former Prime Minister of Israel, an outstanding statesman and military commander Ariel Sharon. The President of Russia highly praised Ariel Sharon’s personal qualities, his activity to uphold the interests of Israel, noting the respect he enjoyed among his compatriots and internationally.
Image on the right: Israeli President Shimon Peres shakes hands with Russian President Vladimir Putin at the Israeli leader’s Jerusalem residence on June 25, 2012 in Jerusalem, Israel
Mr Putin stressed that Ariel Sharon will be remembered in Russia as a consistent supporter of friendly relations between Russia and Israel, who made a significant contribution to expanding mutually beneficial cooperation. Vladimir Putin conveyed his words of sympathy and support to Ariel Sharon’s family and the entire nation of Israel.” — Condolences on the death of Ariel Sharon, 11 January, 2011
Russia And Israel Share “Common Humanitarian Values” And “It Is In Russia’s National Interests To Secure…Peace And Order For The People Of Israel”:
“We fought Nazism together – I want to emphasise that we really fought together. This means that we have common humanitarian values – this is the sturdiest foundation for cooperation…It is in Russia’s national interests to secure peace and order in the Middle East, peace and order for the people of Israel. It is no accident that the Soviet Union was among the initiators and supporters of the creation of the state of Israel.” — Meeting with President of Israel Shimon Peres, 25 June, 2012
Russia And Israel Are In A “Multifaceted Partnership” That Even Extends Into “Space Exploration” And “Satellite Communications Systems”:
“This visit to Israel has once again reaffirmed for me that the strong ties of friendship binding our countries and peoples are not just words, but are a real and solid foundation upon which we are building fruitful political dialogue, a multifaceted partnership, successful bilateral cooperation and work together to help resolve the biggest issues facing the world…We have agreed to expand our cooperation in space exploration. Russian rockets will carry Israeli spacecraft into orbit, and our specialists are developing satellite communications systems for our Israeli partners.” — Meeting with Prime Minister of Israel Binyamin Netanyahu, 25 June, 2012
President Putin Congratulated Shimon Peres For “Strengthening Humanitarian, Scientific And Educational Ties Between Our Countries”:
“I would also like to congratulate the President of Israel on being awarded the title of Honorary Professor of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Mr President, this title is in recognition of your contribution to strengthening humanitarian, scientific and educational ties between our countries.” – Statements for the press following Russian-Israeli talks, 8 November, 2012
The USSR “Was The First Country To Recognize The State Of Israel” And “A Solid Foundation Of Trust And Understanding” Has Since Developed:
“Mr Netanyahu’s visit was timed to coincide with the 25th anniversary of restoring Russian-Israeli diplomatic relations. Of course, our relations actually extend further back in history: we established diplomatic relations in 1948, and the Soviet Union was the first country to recognise the state of Israel at the time. We noted in our statement today that in the quarter century since restoring diplomatic relations we have developed our cooperation in a dynamic and productive way. We have a solid foundation of trust and understanding to rely on as we make plans for the future.” — Statements for the press and answers to journalists’ questions following Russian-Israeli talks, 7 June, 2016
Israel Is A “Key Country In The Mideast” That Has An “Historical Relationship” With Russia:
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.
The validity of the US political system hinges on the perceived legitimacy of its voting process. Even in 2018’s hyper-partisan climate, faith in the possibility of change through voting stops Americans from burning Washington down and tearing out the throats of the political class. Yet each election cycle brings more proof that these contests are neither free nor fair, despite our vaunted self-image as the pinnacle of democratic perfection.
Bush v. Gore, Sanders v. Clinton, and all the little anomalies in between have cast a shadow over the American democratic process.
Public trust in the political and media establishment is at an all-time low, yet neither group has grasped the need to evolve or perish. Instead, it is the military-intelligence axis, cloaked in Resistance camouflage, plotting an unprecedented power grab while the old guard is at its weakest. What’s left of American democracy is on the chopping block and the Deep State is poised to infiltrate the elected state.
Trump’s election win shocked Democratic and progressive voters out of their Obama-era complacency, alerting them to their own party’s duplicity even as they began to realize how far right that party had drifted over the preceding eight years. Support for the Democratic Party among millennials has actually declined 9% since the 2016 election, and it’s not because the Republicans’ message is so compelling. While the percentage of millennials who support the Democrats declined from 53% to 46%, support for Republicans remained constant at 28%. Many of those 9% said they would rather stay home on election day. How are Democrats failing so thoroughly to connect with voters when all predictions point to a “blue wave” of midterm victories?
The 2016 election taught a generation of activists that the Democratic party did not care about their vote. Bernie Sanders supporters saw their candidate systematically silenced, sidelined, suppressed, mocked – and finally, when he seemed poised to win the nomination against all odds, cheated. It is no surprise that many were unable to heed the tepid calls for Party unity that followed, even when those calls came from Sanders himself. Responding to a lawsuit filed by DNC donors and Sanders supporters, lawyers for the Party claimed it had no contractual obligation to consider voters’ input in choosing a candidate – that Party leadership could choose the winner in the proverbial smoke-filled back room if they wanted – and that the DNC charter, which mandates the Chairperson “exercise impartiality and even handedness as between the Presidential candidate and campaigns,” was just a “political promise” and therefore nonbinding.
In the intervening two years, the DNC could have made an effort to mend fences. Even if party leadership couldn’t agree to do away with the undemocratic superdelegate structure, a sincere apology campaign would have gone a long way – disillusioned liberals, after all, have nowhere to go, absent a viable third party. But the DNC continues to shun progressive candidates, throwing its weight behind lukewarm “centrists” indistinguishable from their Republican opponents in the race to take back control of Congress despite poll after poll suggesting voters are moving to the left.
In Texas’ 7th district, the DCCC published opposition research to smear Laura Moser, a progressive writer in a three-way primary contest against a Goldman Sachs banker and a corporate lawyer. In Colorado, Democratic Whip Steny Hoyer was caught on tape pressuring Levi Tillemann to drop out of the 6th District primary, explaining that while “staying out of primaries sounds small-D democratic, very intellectual, and very interesting,” the DCCC had already chosen to support corporate lawyer and Iraq veteran Jason Crow. House Majority Leader Nancy Pelosi defended the mafiaesque intimidation, chastising Tillemann for recording the phone call without Hoyer’s permission.
Hoyer is a fitting mouthpiece for big-money Democrats, having begun his House career as a protégé of then-DCCC chair Tony Coelho, whose signature accomplishment was transforming the DCCC from a common people’s party into a corporate lobbyist’s paradise. Coelho instituted the fundraising practice of selling access to Democratic leaders at a Party “Speaker’s Club,” where donors who pledged $5000 and up could bend the ear of committee chairmen, Party leaders, and other club members. The Speaker’s Club seems quaint in the post-Citizens United era, but in 1983 the campaign finance arms race had only just begun. Hoyer has also pioneered the exploitation of fundraising loopholes like bundling and leadership PACs to become the top donor to fellow House Democrats.
After Juanita Perez Williams tanked in her 2017 bid for mayor of Syracuse, losing even her own neighborhood to an independent candidate in the heavily Democratic city, the DCCC flew her to Washington to discuss running for New York’s 24th Congressional district against the Republican incumbent. She initially declined, even donating to Dana Balter, whom four local Democratic committees were backing for the seat, then jumped into the race at the last minute, claiming a “political mentor” had changed her mind. Perez Williams criticized Balter for failing to attract support from national Democratic leaders and donors, pointing to her Republican opponent’s comparatively massive war chest as proof she would not be able to compete in the general election, and secured an added chunk of campaign dollars with her inclusion in the DCCC’s Red to Blue swing-seat program. Syracuse Democrats seethed as their grassroots organizing was ignored.
The DCCC increased its primary involvement in 2006, promoting corporate moderates over progressive candidates with the rationale that centrists were more likely to beat Republicans in the general election. Instead, many of the Party’s anointed candidates lost the general, while some progressives won without DCCC support. 2016, too, saw big losses by moderates at the polls, handing tripartite control of the government to the Republican Party. Democrats have lost over 1000 state legislature seats since Obama’s election in 2008, a downward spiral that continued in 2016 despite record fundraising numbers. Last year saw the DNC defiantly packing its leadership ranks with lobbyists and deep-pocketed donors, ensuring another crop of superdelegates out of touch with rank-and-file voters. But they seem determined not to learn from their mistakes, doubling down on a failed strategy. That is, if these are mistakes at all, and not deliberate Party suicide.
Viewing Democrats’ electoral losses as failure assumes winning elections is their goal, but the primary process seems geared more toward enriching the party’s network of approved political consultants. Prospective candidates are given the “rolodex test,” challenged to raise $250,000 from the contacts on their phone before the DCCC will even consider backing them. They are told to spend four hours a day fundraising and then turn over 75% of that money to the DCCC’s chosen campaign consultants (a Memorandum of Understanding ironically refers to these as “professional staff and consultants who can help execute a winning campaign in the 2018 General Election”). Primary campaigns must focus on “highlighting our shared values as Democrats and holding Republicans accountable.” Running within this uninspired paradigm turns the Democrats into the Party of No – they actually field-tested the slogan “I mean, have you seen the other guys?” for the midterms.
Bullying voters to the polls by portraying Trump as Hitler 2.0 didn’t work in 2016 and will not work in 2018, but the party refuses to take a clear stand for anything. The official 2018 platform, “A Better Deal,” is a Clintonesque hodgepodge of compromises sure to inspire strong feelings in no one. Too populist for Wall Street and too moderate for progressives, it includes a new regulatory agency to curb skyrocketing prescription drug prices, a new federal office devoted to policing monopolistic corporate behavior, and 10 million jobs created through tax-credit alchemy. Like rats deserting a sinking ship, individual Democratic candidates have recognized the necessity of distancing themselves from their party’s albatross of a message and many are running on platforms of their own design. While the DNC heeds the stay-the-course advice of hedge funder Steve Rattner, who considers Medicare-for-all a fringe notion despite polls indicating that two-thirds of Democrats support it, progressives are running on everything from free public college tuition to a new 9/11 investigation.
Abandon Your Principles, All Ye Who Enter Here
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer pledged to lead the anti-Trump crusade after 2016, but he joined ninety-two percent of Democratic senators in failing to condemn the president’s illegal missile strike in Syria last month. A few piped up with weak legalistic objections, reprimanding the president for neglecting to get congressional authorization for the strikes, but the total lack of moral condemnation suggested they would have gladly granted such authorization. Only Edward Markey (D-MA), Christopher Murphy (D-CT), and Kristen Gillibrand (D-NY) (along with Bernie Sanders, once more an Independent) stood with US and international law against the bombing. Elizabeth Warren and Kamala Harris, two supposed stalwarts of the Resistance, revealed themselves as utter political invertebrates with their refusal to stand up to the president.
2001 AUMF (Source: GovTrack)
The lack of resistance from the Resistance is even more troubling in the context of the new Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) bill proposed by Senators Bob Corker (R-TN) and Tim Kaine (D-VA). The previous AUMF, signed in the wake of 9/11, has been extended year after year via increasingly tortuous links between the locations and entities initially authorized for military engagement and our current “enemies.” Current military engagements bear little resemblance to those authorized in the 2001 and 2002 AUMFs but Congress had been reluctant to attempt a rewrite until now, lest they deprive the president of his beloved war powers.
Source: Common Dreams
The new AUMF allows the president to unilaterally declare war anywhere in the world, against any non-nation-state group, without Congressional approval. It is an unprecedented and unconstitutional expansion of executive power. Under Article I of the Constitution, a Congressional majority and presidential approval are required to legally go to war. Past presidents got around that problem by calling their war a “police action” (Korean War) or using a false flag attack to justify a temporary use of military force that was then extended both temporally and geographically (Vietnam/Cambodia/Laos, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Yemen) or just shooting first and asking questions later (Syria). Trump will no longer have to even pretend to seek Congressional approval, since blocking a presidential declaration of war would require a veto-proof two-thirds majority in a Congress that can barely agree on bills to fund itself.
One would expect the Resistance to be up in arms about the idea of giving unprecedented war powers to a president they so vehemently oppose, but the silence so far has spoken volumes. Barbara Lee and Jeff Merkley are the only Senate Democrats to publicly oppose the bill, joined by Rand Paul on the Republican side. After seventeen years of constant war, have the other Senators forgotten what it’s like to say no to blowing something up? If this is Resistance, I’d hate to see Acquiescence.
The Israeli Knesset recently passed a similar resolution allowing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to declare war “in extreme circumstances” with the approval of his Defense Minister. Netanyahu celebrated the vote by fearmongering about Iran’s “secret nuclear program,” a figment of his imagination, in a thinly-veiled bid to Trump to pull out of the Iranian nuclear deal (JCPOA). Given the close relationship between the two countries – Senators Corker and Kaine, like everyone else in Congress, had to sign what amounts to a loyalty oath to Israel in order to access campaign funds – it is not a coincidence that both nations are giving their leaders unprecedented war-making powers at this time. The clouds of war are gathering over Iran as Trump nixes the JCPOA and Netanyahu plays target practice on Syrian air bases.
It was not Obama, King of the Drones, who taught the Democrats to stop worrying and love the bomb. Clinton’s “humanitarian bombing” of Yugoslavia sent that country back to the stone age under the guise of saving the poor Albanians from genocidal maniac Slobodan Milosevic. Only Milosevic wasn’t the monster the media claimed, the Kosovo Liberation Army had been designated a terrorist group until the CIA opted to start funding them, and Milosevic was eventually exonerated of war crimes charges. Clinton’s war crimes are often overlooked in the shadow of Bush’s, but those looking to the Democratic Resistance to stand up to the military-industrial complex would do well to remember that not since Carter has a Democratic president made it through his tenure without starting a war – and Carter only lasted one term.
Death Squad Caucus
The 2018 campaign introduced a more virulent strain of political operator into the Democratic machine, one with no ideological connection to the Party but which nevertheless has the full backing of its leadership. Fifty-seven intelligence agency veterans – more than in any election in US history – are running for Democratic Congressional seats, hoping to capitalize on the anticipated “blue wave” of Democratic voters turning out to register their dissatisfaction with Trump. The DCCC specifically sought out candidates with Deep State backgrounds for its “Red to Blue” program, running military-intelligence candidates in 10 of the 22 House seats that comprise the program. Party leaders actively recruited such candidates and enthusiastically fund them The Deep State Democrats make no effort to conceal their pasts, now that decades of positive media portrayals and war-on-terror propaganda have convinced voters they are the good guys. Indeed, the CIA’s reputational transformation from reviled rogue agency and illegal infiltrator of left-wing groups to patriotic feeder group for the nominally Left Democratic Party is surely the public relations coup of the century.
Elissa Slotkin, CIA vet and former top aide to John “Death Squad” Negroponte (image on the right), the war criminal responsible for thousands of civilian deaths during Reagan’s Central American regime-change wars of the 1980s, is running for Michigan’s 8th Congressional District, challenging the Republican incumbent. Slotkin moved to Michigan last May, two months before launching her candidacy. Her candidate page checks all the boxes – union endorsements, middle-of-the-road platitudes, an endorsement from Joe Biden(!), with the obligatory line about how “the game feels rigged by politicians in Washington, who seem to care more about the interests of big donors and corporations, [sic] than the very people they represent.” As Senior Assistant to Negroponte when he was Director of National Intelligence under Bush, Slotkin would have been present when Negroponte was forming and training anti-insurgent death squads in Iraq. Surely this experience gives her extensive insight on how to fight for affordable healthcare for the people of Michigan.
Slotkin is just one of many candidates linked to Iraq war crimes. Jeff Beals, running for New York’s 19th District Congressional seat, has tried to obfuscate his ties not only to Iraqi death squads, but also to the Clinton political machine. Beals’ campaign manager is Bennett Ratliff, a “longtime friend and ally of Hillary Clinton,” who worked with the then-Secretary of State in her attempt to legitimize the 2009 coup against democratically-elected Honduran president Manuel Zelaya. Beals has downplayed Ratliff’s role in his campaign, calling himself a “Bernie democrat” and shunning traditional big-money fundraising in order to paint himself as a grassroots candidate. Beals was involved in the initial effort to set up a US-friendly puppet regime in Iraq in 2005 under Nour al-Maliki, who presided over an explosion in sectarian insurgency and the rise of ISIS. When he first arrived in Iraq, Beals came under the wing of Deputy Ambassador to Iraq Robert Ford, helping recruit Iraqi death squads under the direction of Ambassador…John Negroponte. 2018 might as well be called the Year of the Death Squad Democrats. Yet to hear Beals tell it, he was part of an effort to “help [the US] find a way out” of Iraq. In 2005. Must have gotten turned around somewhere in Najaf.
If Death Squad Beals doesn’t float your aircraft carrier, there’s another spook running in New York’s 19th. Patrick Ryan served two tours as an Army intelligence officer in Iraq, coordinating counterterrorism and counterinsurgency in Mosul, which soon became Iraq’s first ISIS stronghold when Iraqi security forces inexplicably fled the advancing militants in June 2014, leaving their weapons (and $500 million in cash) behind. Back in civilian life, Ryan worked with Berico Technologies on a plan for a “real-time surveillance operation of left-wing groups and labor unions” in collaboration with HBGary Federal and Palantir Technologies. HBGary famously collapsed after hacker group LulzSec released company emails detailing the extent of that surveillance operation, which had been commissioned by the US Chamber of Commerce. Ryan later worked for data analytics firm Dataminr, which received funding from InQTel, the CIA’s venture capital firm, and provided law enforcement with real-time social media updates from activists via proprietary access to Twitter’s “firehose”. While Ryan isn’t insulting voters’ intelligence by running as a progressive, the fact that he and Beals have the two wings of the Democratic party staked out is disturbing.
WSWS has compiled a complete and detailedlist of all the CIA candidates. If Democrats win the 24 seats necessary to reclaim the House, spook-slate candidates will hold the balance of power among freshman representatives. No platform plank is too bizarre for an intel plant’s platform – State Department operativeTom Malinowski would “work to keep American a force for good in the world, aligned with countries that share our belief in human rights, not with the dictators Trump prefers” – presumably the Jersey House hopeful knows that the US government provides military assistance to over three-quarters of the world’s dictatorships, and will just pick and choose his preferred repressive regimes to avoid “aligning” (what does that mean, exactly?) with countries favored by Trump.
Resistance groups are pushing voters to flip the House at all costs – to vote the Party, not the candidate – but early intervention in these primaries is essential lest the general election force yet another matching pair of red and blue evils down our throats. Congress is supposed to provide the checks and balances on Deep State power – when it becomes another tentacle of the intelligence services, there is no turning back. Power grabbed by these agencies is not voluntarily relinquished.
Alienating Their Audience; Spending Their Money
Last month, DNC Chair Tom Perez filed a lawsuit against the Trump campaign, WikiLeaks, and the country of Russia, alleging they colluded to influence the 2016 election. This pointless temper tantrum of a suit reflects Democratic establishment anger that the Mueller investigation has come up all but empty, yielding 13 indictments against Russian nationals for penny-ante crimes like identity theft and wire fraud but tacitly admitting there is no evidence of the promised collusion. The House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence concurred in its report, finding no evidence the campaign “colluded, coordinated or conspired” with the Russian government. Case closed? Not for Perez. Confronted with the writing on the wall, he has merely painted over it.
The text of the suit is overtly melodramatic (“No one is above the law!“), indulging in legally indefensible leaps of logic in its tortured attempt at proving the DNC’s case. Though there is still no proof the Russian government was responsible for the DNC email leak, Perez holds them (and WikiLeaks, and the Trump campaign) responsible for the results anyway, claiming the leak was part of a campaign to “undermine public faith in the US democratic process, denigrate secretary Clinton, and harm her electability and potential presidency.” Certainly the emails helped undermine faith in elections and hurt Clinton’s electability, but only because they presented voters with indisputable evidence that the DNC primary had been rigged in Clinton’s favor. The leaks undermined “the party’s ability to achieve unity” and “rally members around their shared values” because they demonstrated that the Party did not share voters’ values!
Adding insult to injury, the suit describes the content of the hacked emails as “trade secrets” and claims that because their publication harmed the DNC’s “business,” compensation is in order. Leaking is now “economic espionage.” They even tack on copyright law violations. The whole package spits in the face of the First Amendment, once more demonstrating that the DNC does not share the values of the rank and file voters, who value freedom of the press – and who are embarrassed by the DNC’s need to relitigate the lost election. The lawyer who filed the DNC suit is a partner in the Securities Litigation and Investor Protection practice at Cohen Milstein, where he focuses on recovering money for investors in mortgage-backed securities. How this joke suit stacks up to bad mortgage investments is unclear, but perhaps he is a sort of legalistic St. Christopher, patron solicitor of lost causes.
CNN’s Gloria Borger was the first to accuse Perez of pulling a fundraising stunt, which he denies, and indeed the legal costs inherent in such a sprawling and bizarre lawsuit would cancel out any sympathy donations. Instead, the purpose of the filing seems to be to keep the specter of collusion in the headlines a little longer. Never mind that it’s splintering the party unity the DNC supposedly values so highly, with Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-MO) and Rep. Jackie Speier (D-CA) publicly expressing misgivings, or that voters are sick of Russiagate – a Harvard-Harris poll conducted last June revealed 73% of voters were concerned that Mueller’s probe was distracting Congress from more important issues. Another poll released earlier this month shows the promised “blue wave” of Democratic turnout losing momentum, with voters left cold by candidates’ apparent disinterest in the economic issues that actually affect their lives.
Since 2016, the RNC has out-fundraised the DNC by more than 2:1. While individual Democratic campaigns and party committees have seen their fundraising numbers soar, the DNC’s refusal to conduct an “autopsy” of the 2016 debacle or offer a clear plan for winning in the midterms has turned off longtime donors. Broke and desperate, the Party is asking members to contribute or raise $1000 each, a request it never made in the past. The resulting vicious cycle sees the DNC hemorrhaging money, manpower, and voter support. To burden the cash-strapped organization with a massive lawsuit is nothing short of suicidal.
The DNC declined to examine the reasons for its 2016 loss, preferring instead to blame Russian meddling with a soupçon of misogyny. California Progressive Caucus Chair Karen Bernal and DNC delegate Norman Solomon conducted their own autopsy and found that the Party had prioritized wooing Republicans and independents over connecting with its base, especially youth, people of color, and the working class; the absence of a strong economic justice message, as well as Clinton’s hawkishness, also turned voters off, as did the Party’s failure to address its own undemocratic procedures as revealed in the leaked emails. The autopsy concluded the Party must do away with the superdelegate process; distance itself from Wall Street, corporate interests, and the military-industrial complex; and focus on programs addressing economic and social justice. All signs would indicate that Perez and the DNC have not actually read the autopsy. The Party is poised to repeat the blunders that cost it so much in 2016. No political organization could be so stupid – meaning this is a deliberate strategy.
The DNC’s seemingly inept response to the 2016 debacle may be the first step in a corporate raid on the Party by Deep State interests. “Order out of chaos” is the modus operandi of US intelligence, and DNC leadership couldn’t have done a better job of tanking the Party’s value, driving away donors, voters and even candidates with its focus on bland corporate-friendly messaging amid an activist political climate. The CIA then plays the corporate raider (or parasitic wasp, depending on your tastes), taking over the empty shell of the Party and filling it with its own operatives. Once in control, the Deep State can evict the remnants of the DNC’s stubborn progressive contingent and wrench the Overton Window irreversibly to the right. Many progressives already criticize the Democratic party for being nearly indistinguishable from the GOP. With its anti-war faction all but wiped out already under Obama and Clinton, the two parties have never been closer to complete overlap. The rise of the Deep State Democrats will lead to a total eclipse of democracy. This coup must be blocked at all costs.
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Helen Buyniskiis a journalist and photographer based in New York City. She covers politics and other anthropological phenomena. Helen has a BA in Journalism from New School University and also studied at Columbia University and New York University. Find more of her work at http://www.helenofdestroy.com and http://medium.com/@helen.buyniski.
Comments Off on The Resistance Is a Deep-State Trojan Horse. “The New AUMF Allows the U.S. President to Unilaterally Declare war Anywhere in the World”
So the Belhaj family have accepted an apology and half a million pounds of our tax money to drop their legal action against HMG and against Jack Straw personally over their extraordinary rendition to torture in Libya.
The British establishment, whichever party is in power, continues to do everything possible to cover up the shameful history of its complicity in torture and extraordinary rendition, and in particular to hide the authorisation by Jack Straw and Tony Blair and the involvement of senior MI6 officials like Sir Mark Allen and Sir Richard Dearlove.
A judicial inquiry by Judge Gibson into British government complicity i torture was cancelled when he showed signs of being an honest and independent man, and was replaced by an inquiry in secret by the Intelligence and Security Committee of Parliament. I gave evidence to that inquiry but no report has ever issued.
Most tellingly, a police investigation into the Belhaj case and other cases was dropped by the Crown Prosecution Service ensuring that Jack Straw never stood trial. Senior policemen in the investigation had told me they believed they had sufficient evidence to prosecute. That evidence included my own sworn witness statement, taken by the Metropolitan Police over two days of interviews.
This is the crux of my sworn evidence, where I testify that the decision to use intelligence from torture came from Jack Straw and Richard Dearlove.
You can see my full evidence and an account of the circumstances of the CPS dropping the case here.
On the same issue of complicity in torture, in the US Gina Haspel, like Straw, Dearlove, and Allen here, has got away with her crimes, to the extent she has now been appointed head of the CIA. My good friend Ray McGovern yesterday made a protest over her very close involvement in authorising torture, at her confirmation hearing. As a result Ray, who is 78 years old, was brutally assaulted by six policemen who kept yelling “stop resisting” at this unresisting 78 year old man, as they dragged him around the floor, dislocating his shoulder.
Nobody has gone to jail in the UK for a complicity in torture which everybody knows occurred. Everybody also knows precisely who ought to have gone to jail, including Blair and Straw. The government spent over £4 million in legal battles to try to keep the evidence in the Belhaj case secret, before they settled out of court to avoid a public trial and to save the Establishment being exposed.
Never was there a plainer example of the neo-cons sticking together than the Tory protection of Blair and Straw.
I am personally not happy at this waste of taxpayer resources to keep Jack Straw out of jail. Are you?
Comments Off on Rendition to Torture in Libya, Complicity of U.K. Government: Half a Million Pounds of Taxpayers’ Money Bails Out War Criminals Jack Straw and Sir Mark Allen
Der US-Flugzeugträger Harry S. Truman, der vom größten Marinestützpunkt der Welt in Norfolk (Virginia)aus in See stach, erreichte mit seiner Angriffsgruppe das Mittelmeer.
Die Angriffsgruppe besteht aus dem Lenkwaffenkreuzer USS Normandy und den Lenkwaffenzerstörern USS Farragut, USS Forrest Sherman, USS Bulkeley und USS Arleigh Burke. Zwei weitere, USS Jason Dunham und USS The Sullivans, werden zu einem späteren Zeitpunkt wieder in die Angriffsgruppe eintreten. Der deutsche Zerstörer FGS Hessen wird der Truman-Schlaggruppe hinzugefügt.
Die Flotte mit mehr als 8.000 Mann an Bord hat eine enorme Feuerkraft. Die Truman – ein 300 Meter langer Superträger, ausgerüstet mit zwei Kernreaktoren – kann in aufeinanderfolgenden Wellen 90Kampfmaschinen und Hubschrauber starten. Seine Angriffsgruppe, bereits um vier Zerstörer im Mittelmeer ergänzt und einigen U-Booten, kann über 1.000 Marschflugkörper starten.
Die US Naval Forces Europe-Africa – deren Hauptquartier sich in Neapel-Capodichino befindet, während sich die Basis der 6. Flotte in Gaeta befindet – sind somit verstärkt. Sie stehen unter dem Befehl desselben Admirals (derzeit James Foggo), der das Kommando der Alliierten Streitkräfte in Neapel am Lago Patria leitet.
Der Einsatz der US-Flotte im Mittelmeer ist Teil der allgemeinen Stärkung der US-Streitkräfte in Europa, auf Befehl desselben Generals (derzeit Curtis Scaparrotti), der die Position des Obersten Alliierten Befehlshabers in Europa innehat.
In einer Kongressanhörung erklärt Scaparrotti den Grund für die Stärkung der US-Streitkräfte in Europa.Was er präsentiert, ist ein wahres Kriegsszenario: Er wirft Russland vor, “eine Destabilisierungskampagne durchzuführen, um die internationale Ordnung zu ändern, die NATO zu zerschlagen und die US-Führung auf der ganzen Welt zu untergraben”.
Nach “der illegalen Annexion der Krim durch Russland und ihrer Destabilisierung der Ostukraine” haben die Vereinigten Staaten, die mehr als 60.000 Soldaten in den europäischen NATO-Staaten stationieren, ihre Stellung in Europa durch den Einsatz eines Panzerbrigade-Kampftrupps und einer Kampffliegerbrigade, sowie durch Vor-Positionierung von Ausrüstung für zusätzliche Panzerbrigade-Kampftruppen, ausgebaut.Zur gleichen Zeit verdoppelten die USA ihre maritimen Stationnierungen im Schwarzen Meer.
Um ihre Streitkräfte in Europa zu stärken, gaben die Vereinigten Staaten in fünf Jahren mehr als 16 Milliarden Dollar aus. Gleichzeitig drängten die USA die europäischen Verbündeten, ihre Militärausgaben in drei Jahren um 46 Milliarden Dollar zu erhöhen, um den NATO-Einsatz gegen Russland zu verstärken.
Dies ist Teil der von Washington im Jahr 2014 mit dem Putsch vom Maidan und dem anschließenden Angriff auf die Russen der Ukraine ins Leben gerufenen Strategie: Europa zur ersten Reihe eines neuen Kalten Krieges zu machen, um den Einfluss der USA auf seine Verbündeten zu stärken und die eurasische Zusammenarbeit zu behindern. Die NATO-Außenminister bestätigten am 27. April ihre Zustimmung, indem sie eine weitere Erweiterung der NATO nach Osten gegen Russland durch den Beitritt von Bosnien-Herzegowina, Mazedonien, Georgien und der Ukraine vorbereiteten.
Diese Strategie erfordert eine angemessene Vorbereitung der öffentlichen Meinung. Zu diesem Zweck wirft Scaparrotti Russland vor, “selbst in Italien politische Provokation zu betreiben, Desinformation zu verbreiten und demokratische Institutionen zu untergraben “. Er kündigt weiter an, dass “die USA und die NATO derrussischen Fehlinformation mit wahrheitsgetreuen und transparenten Informationen entgegentreten.” Daraufhin kündigt die Europäische Kommission eine Reihe von Maßnahmen gegen fake news (gefälschte Nachrichten) an und wirft Russland “Desinformation in seiner Kriegsstrategie” vor.
Es ist zu erwarten, dass die NATO und die EU das, was hier veröffentlicht wird, zensieren werden, indem sie festlegen, dass die US-Flotte im Mittelmeer eine falsche Nachricht von Russland in seiner “Kriegsstrategie” ist.
F.H. Buckley recently wrote an opinion piece in the New York Post headlined “When the president doesn’t need to ask Congress before striking.” Not to give away the ending, but it’s counter-historical, counter-textual, and counter-constitutional. The article’s audacity is more to be marveled at than imitated. The president always needs congressional authorization for offensive use of the United States Armed Forces. Thus, President Trump’s twin missile attacks against Syria for its unsubstantiated use of chemical weapons against third parties violated the Constitution’s Declare War Clause.
That clause’s “plain meaning,” Alexander Hamilton explained, is that “it is the peculiar and exclusive province of Congress, when the nation is at peace, to change that state into a state of war; whether from calculations of policy or from provocations or injuries received. In other words, it belongs only to Congress to go to war.”
George Washington spoke for every participant in the drafting and ratifying of the Constitution when he elaborated,
“The Constitution vests the power of declaring war with Congress; therefore, no offensive expedition of importance can be undertaken until and after they shall have deliberated upon the subject and authorized such a measure.”
It speaks volumes that Mr. Buckley is unable to reference a single word from the Constitution’s framers to contradict Hamilton or Washington. Instead, he decrees in the manner of a Russian czar that the Declare War Clause has become antiquated and may be ignored with impunity, and that wars in self-defense and wars of aggression are indistinguishable, like erasing the distinction between killing in self-defense and first-degree murder. That should shock even the most stone-hearted.
The Constitution is not like a restricted railroad ticket, good for this day and train only. Neither is it deaf to changed circumstances or the force of better reasoning. Article V authorizes amendments by two thirds of the House and Senate and three fourths of the States. Twenty-seven amendments have been ratified over the course of 228 years, including the Bill of Rights, the Civil War Amendments, and a two-term limit for the presidency. But Mr. Buckley can no more repeal the Declare War Clause by shouting about its alleged unworkability than anti-gun zealots can repeal the Second Amendment’s individual right to keep and bear arms by decrying the use of firearms to commit murder. Mr. Buckley’s reasoning invites every man to become a law unto himself and pick and choose which constitutional prescriptions to obey.
Mr. Buckley also errs by suggesting that Franklin Roosevelt could have fought World War II against Japan after Pearl Harbor without a congressional declaration of war. President Thomas Jefferson confronted a comparable situation after the Barbary States of North Africa had declared war against the United States. He informed Congress that he was “[u]nauthorized by the Constitution, without the sanction of Congress, to go beyond the line of defense,” and communicated all information to Congress relevant to determining whether it should authorize “measures of offense also.”
Contrary to Mr. Buckley, the cases of Afghanistan, Syria, and Africa do not excuse flouting the Declare War Clause. In Afghanistan, we are propping up a tottering, corrupt, fraudulently elected, unpopular government that routinely violates the Afghan Constitution. As Mr. Buckley concedes, the feeble Afghan state would immediately collapse in favor of the Taliban if America’s 15,000 mercenary troops were removed. But it is up to Congress, not the president, to decide whether the armed forces should be employed offensively in the hopes of preventing such an eventuality. Why is Mr. Buckley terrified of a congressional vote?
Contrary to Mr. Buckley, neither Syria nor Africa confront the United States with a choice between complete war or nothing under the Declare War Clause. As Chief Justice John Marshall explained in Bas v. Tingy, Congress may authorize the offensive use of the military to conduct limited war: limited in place, in objects, and in time. But Congress has never authorized missile attacks on Syria or the use of the armed forces to fight terrorist organizations in Niger or West Africa generally. Both were unconstitutionally dictated by President Trump alone.
The law on this is clear as day. As the Supreme Court decreed in the Prize Cases:
“By the Constitution, Congress alone has the power to declare a…foreign war…[The President] has no power to initiate…war…against a foreign nation.”
Mr. Buckley further errantly maintains that the Declare War Clause is much ado about nothing. If asked by the President, says Mr. Buckley, Congress will always approve offensive use of the armed forces whether in Syria or elsewhere. Did he take history lessons from President Trump? In 228 years, Congress has declared war in only five conflicts, and only in response to foreign aggression against the United States. In 2013, Congress refused President Obama’s request for authority to attack Syria. In 1995, it refused President Clinton’s request for authority to conduct military strikes in Bosnia. Congress has the wonderful temperament of a Labrador Retriever. It stays at peace unless attacked.
In sum, there may be better ways to destroy and bankrupt our republic than perpetual presidential wars, but they do not readily come to mind.
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Bruce Fein was associate deputy attorney general and general counsel of the Federal Communications Commission under President Reagan and counsel to the Joint Congressional Committee on Covert Arms Sales to Iran. He is a partner in the law firm of Fein & DelValle PLLC.
An hours-long exchange of fire between the Israeli military and alleged rocket-equipped Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) personnel seized the world’s attention early Thursday morning just after midnight, fanning fears that the Middle East is once again being plunged into a major new war pitting the settler-colonial state against its bitter rival, the Islamic Republic of Iran.
While certain media outlets and Western capitals have supportively characterized the Israeli role in the incident as the result of an Iranian “provocation,” the Israelis have spent years persistently stoking a conflict with Syria and Iran through their backing for anti-government insurgents, while also reserving the right to carry out unprovoked attacks on targets in Syria assumed to be associated with Iran.
According to military sources in Tel Aviv, Iran had begun positioning weaponry and personnel in preparation for an attack on Israeli occupation targets in the illegally-occupied Golan Heights just hours after U.S. President Donald Trump withdrew from the 2015 six-party Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) with Iran.
Occupation spokesperson Lt. Col. Jonathan Conricus accused Iran of firing approximately 20 Grad and Fajr rockets at Israeli military bases in the Golan, adding that most of the rockets were either intercepted by the Iron Dome aerial defense system or simply landed in Syria-controlled territory.
However, Beirut-based Al-Mayadeen claims that around 50 missiles were fired from within Syria at Israeli forces stationed in the Golan Heights, targeting 10 Israeli positions and sending Israeli civilians fleeing for their shelters.
Following the salvos, Israeli occupation forces unleashed a torrent of missiles at targets within Syria, claiming to hit dozens of alleged Iranian military compounds and the logistics headquarters of the Quds Force, the external operations unit of the IRGC. According to the Syrian Army General Command, a large portion of these missiles were downed, though three people were killed and two were injured while an ammunition depot and radar station were destroyed.
— 24 Resistance Axis (@Syria_Hezb_Iran) May 9, 2018
Citing Lebanon’s Al-Manar television, Israeli media claimed that Iran’s Supreme National Security Council Deputy Head Abu al-Fadl Hassan al-Baiji denied any Iranian role in the attack, stating:
Iran does not have any connection to the missiles fired at Israel. If Iran did it we would have announced it immediately. When [ISIS] attacks Iranian targets in Syria we responded and made it known. Iran does not have any military presences in Syria and it was the Syrian army that fired missiles.”
The Israeli military pinned the blame for the attack from Syria on the Quds Force commander without citing any evidence.
“It was ordered and commanded by Qassem Soleimani and it has not achieved its purpose,” an Israeli spokesman said.
The Russian Defense Ministry confirmed that Iranian armed groups and Syrian Arab Army air defense units had come under fire in Southern Syria by over 70 air-to-surface and tactical missiles, over half of which were intercepted by the Syrian air defense.
“Participating in the air raid were 28 Israeli planes F-15 and F-16, which fired more than 60 air-to-surface missiles on different parts of Syria. Also Israel launched more than ten tactical surface-to-surface missiles,” the Russian Defense Ministry said.
The exchange of fire is the largest military engagement between Syria and the Israelis since the 1973 October War, when a coalition of Arab nations unsuccessfully fought to take back territories occupied by the Israelis.
Israeli occupation forces had seized the 500 square-mile Golan plateau from Syria during an expansionist military campaign of 1967, prior to annexing it in a move that remains unrecognized by the international community, with the exception of Tel Aviv’s benefactors in Washington.
Israel claims it doesn’t want escalation
“We hit … almost all of the Iranian infrastructure in Syria,” Israeli war minister Avigdor Lieberman said at a security conference near Tel Aviv. “I hope we finished this chapter and everyone got the message.”
While the Israeli military claims that it doesn’t seek further escalation, the attack comes on the tail of dozens of airstrikes on Syria in recent years. The Israelis have also provided weapons, cash, and material aid to anti-government militias near the illegally-held Golan.
As recently as Monday, Lieberman had promised to assassinate or “liquidate” Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and “topple his regime” if he allowed the Iranians to retaliate in response to the Israeli attacks.
In response to repeated provocations, Iran has shown a remarkable amount of restraint. Tehran’s patience reached its end last month when Israeli jets fired eight missiles at the T-4 airbase in Homs, killing several Iranians including Colonel Mehdi Dehghan, a top officer in Iran’s unmanned aerial vehicle program. Following the attack, Iranian officials vowed to strike back.
Immediately after Trump’s withdrawal from the JCPOA on Tuesday, Israeli officials began accusing Iran of positioning its forces in preparation for an attack. The alleged activity was cited as a justification for a new round of airstrikes on Syria targeting a military base in Kisweh.
According to London-based war monitor the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, 23 people including five Syrian soldiers were killed in the attack; however, forces aligned with the Syrian government claim that no one was killed.
A new phase
Syria’s Foreign Ministry described the Israeli attacks as the start of a “new phase” in the conflict with the “Zionist entity,” noting that the Israelis’ “direct aggression” against Syria is a result of Tel Aviv’s frustration with the failure of its anti-Damascus opposition proxies.
“This aggressive conduct by the Zionist entity … will lead to nothing but an increase in tensions in the region,” an official at the ministry said, according to Syrian news agency SANA.
A Syrian Army spokesman noted that the army remains alert and ready “to defend the sovereignty of the homeland against any aggression.”
In the Gaza Strip, the Palestinian resistance movement called the Israeli attacks “further proof of its acts of terrorism in the region and the threat it poses for Middle East peace and stability.”
While the Israelis are patting themselves on the back for humbling the alleged Iranian military presence in Syria, the airstrikes are unlikely to turn the tide or significantly alter the balance of forces in the Syrian conflict — which is near its final days, as Syrian government forces and allied fighters clear the remaining pockets of foreign-backed anti-government rebels.
The attack is also unlikely to significantly deter Iran or its allies from establishing a presence on the border with the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, feeding continued Israeli anxiety about the continued strengthening of resistance forces in the region.
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Elliott Gabriel is a former staff writer for teleSUR English and a MintPress News contributor based in Quito, Ecuador. He has taken extensive part in advocacy and organizing in the pro-labor, migrant justice and police accountability movements of Southern California and the state’s Central Coast.
The greatest injustice of the climate crisis is that those least responsible for it are hit first and hardest. But within this injustice lies the key to a just and sustainable future – a movement for people and planet that centers the rights and struggles of the poor in the global South.
The climate crisis is often compared to the Titanic – we are headed for a fatal collision and must change course. But that’s not where the metaphor ends. Yes, we’re all on the boat. Yes, all our lives will be affected. But like the Titanic, the privileged have rescue boats and the rest do not.
Citizens of wealthy – and overwhelmingly white – countries in the global North are on the deck sipping cocktails, listening to the orchestra and feeling sure of rescue.
Borderless world
But below deck, the poor, most marginalised, black and brown people will be the first to drown. Those locked inside the global South are drowning already and when they try to escape, they find the doors locked shut.
This is why the dream of a borderless world is resurfacing in progressive circles, especially amongst those focused on the climate question.
Of course, most of the people on deck already experience a borderless world. With a UK passport, you can fly to 186 countries without even applying for a visa.
Likewise, multinational corporations are free to move their goods, their money and even their workers across borders with ease.
Those moving from former colonies are always ‘the immigrant’ but when white people with Northern citizenship settle abroad, they enjoy the status of ‘expat’. Ironic, then, that it is these relatively privileged voices telling us that a borderless world is impossible.
First and hardest
Borders in the modern sense didn’t even exist in the 19th century – when millions of white Europeans migrated to North America, Australia and South Africa.
Most were drawn by European colonialists as a mechanism of control. Today they continue to imprison people, preventing them from escaping from the crisis our empires created.
Meanwhile, the poorest 50 percent are responsible for just 10 percent. This is the great injustice of the climate crisis: that those least responsible for creating it are being hit first and hardest.
In 2014, another heat wave killed 1,200 people in one city. In 2010, a fifth of the country flooded, affecting 20 million people. This – in a country where 40 percent of the population already lives in poverty – is a deadly threat.
It’s a pattern we see repeated across the global South, from the 23 million people devastated by drought in Sub-Saharan Africa to the 7,000 killed and two million left homeless in the Philippines after Typhoon Haiyan. These are just direct ‘disaster impacts’.
Some say that to win the argument on global warming we should avoid these staggeringly frightening numbers because people will stop listening.
But we must find a way to tell the truth without paralysing people with fear. We must do this for all those millions of fellow human beings for whom ‘not listening’ is a luxury reserved for those on deck.
Dirty energy
In the global North, it is our passports that protect us: powerful citizenships built on the backs of slaves whose descendants are still exploited by the global economy; a system whose arrogance built the ship and now locks its borders.
We must never speak of global warming exclusively or even primarily as an environmental issue. To do so is an act of theoretical genocide when it is, in fact, the defining social justice issue of our times.
Not much has changed since the colonial era except the language. In this neo-colonial system, exploitation of people and planet has been sanitised and rebranded as ‘international development’.
The UK and United States governments have led the world putting corporate profit over human rights. They have enforced unjust trade rules and the privatisation of basic services and utilities, defending the right of corporations to the unbridled extraction of finite resources.
What calls itself ‘green capitalism’ is still subsidising dirty energy companies to the tune of $10 million per minute.
Social justice
Neo-colonial free-market capitalism keeps the power to change course above deck, with a corporate captain whose career depends on staying the course.
Forced migration, global warming, poverty and hunger – these are the symptoms of a system in crisis.
That is why environmentalism, social justice and migrant and refugee rights are so intimately linked. We will win on all these fronts – or none of them. Our only hope lies with a movement rooted in social justice and allied with those fighting and dying on the frontlines in the global South.
These are the communities we can trust with our shared future. They are the ones resisting fossil fuel corporations and pioneering beautiful solutions, from food sovereignty and agro-ecology to land rights and community-owned energy alternatives.
It is they who hold the keys to solving the climate crisis, tackling global inequality and ensuring us all the right to a dignified life, wherever we call home.
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Asad Rehman is executive director of War on Want and has over 35 years experience campaigning on social, economic, climate and racial justice issues. War on Want is a charitable membership organisation that works in partnership with grassroots social movements, trade unions and workers’ organisations to empower people to fight for their rights. To find out more, you can visit its website or follow its team on twitter @WarOnWant.
A Cinco de Mayo tweet by Mexican journalist Ricardo Alemán insinuating that presidential frontrunner Andrés Manuel López Obrador of the left-leaning Morena party could be assassinated created an uproar in Mexican media and on social media outlets:
“A fan killed John Lennon. A fan killed Versace. A fan killed Selena. Let’s see when, lefties,” it read.
Although Alemán quickly erased the tweet and rendered an apology, arguing in a video posted on his Twitter account that his statement had been misinterpreted and distorted, a torrent of outrage poured forth. The communicator lost two jobs and wound up in a heap of political and legal trouble.
Personalities from across the Mexican political spectrum, including López Obrador campaign chief Tatiana Clouthier, independent presidential candidate Margarita Zavala, former election crimes special prosecutor Santiago Nieto, and historians Enrique Krauze and Lorenzo Meyer condemned Aleman’s words.
In the bigger scheme of things, the Alemán Affair brought back to the fore existing tensions and deep-seated anxieties shadowing the 2018 election campaign. And with good reason. Since last fall, when the electoral process unfolded, scores of political aspirants, primary candidates, sitting office holders, activists and family members have been murdered across the country.
Cited by the Spanish news agency EFE, a recent report by the private security consulting firm Etelleket chalked up 173 aggressions against politically-associated individuals between Sept. 8 of last year and April 8 of this year, plus aggressions against 30 family members. The casualty list included 77 murders, a number representing a sharp increase from the 2015 mid-term elections when 70 aggressions (including 21 murders) were counted by Etellekt.
Recent violence directed against politically active individuals and/or family members has occurred in many regions of Mexico, but is most marked in the states of Guerrero, Oaxaca, Puebla, Veracruz and Mexico, according to Etelleket.
While Etelleket’s findings bore the quality of a loud wake up call, politically tainted violence has only increased since the report was released.
A review of Mexican media accounts tallies 14 additional relevant slayings since April 8, boosting the murder roll to 91.
A sampling of recent murder victims include Maribel Barrajas, 25-year-old Mexican Green Party candidate for the Michoacan state legislature; Ricardo Bravo, municipal Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) leader in Eduardo Neri, Guerrero; Chihuahua PRD activist Juan Carlos Gutiérrez; Alejandro González, mayor of Pacula, Hidalgo; Addiel Zermann, Social Encounter Party (PES) candidate for Tenango del Aire, Mexico state; and Manuel Fuentes Torruco, a 66-year-old cousin of Eduardo Fuentes, the legal substitute mayor of Cardenas, Tabasco, who is immersed in a conflict over the political position. Last month, one of Eduardo Fuentes’ daughters reportedly warned of violent threats against her family.
Image on the right: Andrés Manuel López Obrador
On Sunday, the bullet-ridden body of Eduardo Aragón Caraveo, Chihuahua City leader of the PES who went missing May 4, was recovered in the trunk of his vehicle. The PES is one of three parties that form López Obrador’s Together We Will Make History electoral coalition.
In a separate attack on Sunday, an estimated 250-300 gunmen descended on the community of Ignacio Zaragoza, Chihuahua, leaving in their wake at least four dead, including PRD city council candidate and campaign coordinator Liliana Garcia, who was kidnapped and then murdered.
According to El Diario de Juárez, gunmen also burned properties belonging to PRD politician Felipe Mendoza and Octavio Chaparro, head of the PRD in Ignacio Zaragoza.
Posted on the Ciudad Juárez website Arrobajuarez.com, a statement from Chihuahua Morena party leader Martín Chaparro strongly condemned the latest bouts of Chihuahua violence. Chaparro reminded the public that the municipal treasurer of Ignacio Zaragoza, Guadalupe Payan, was kidnapped and murdered just last March.
Violence, he affirmed, had “reached all spheres,” necessitating an urgent “security strategy that guaranteed citizens the right to go out and freely vote without pressures on July 1.”
By Monday, the Chihuahua PRD was calling for the suspension of the elections in Ignacio Zaragoza.
On Tuesday, Abel Montúfar made the news when the contender for a Guerrero state legislative seat was murdered. A candidate of the ruling PRI state electoral coalition, Montúfar had longtime connections to law enforcement institutions and PRI political circles. He was slain in Guerrero’s Tierra Caliente, a region known as a narco corridor that is beset by violence. Prior to his killing, Montúfar reported death threats.
Late on the evening of Montúfar’s murder, a Mexican military patrol was ambushed near a ranch linked to the slain politician’s family. According to a Mexican military communique posted on Aristegui Noticias, three soldiers were killed and three wounded. No arrests were immediately announced.
As a tough week progressed, Luis Raúl González, Mexico’s human rights ombudsman, weighed in against political violence and polarization in any form. Democratic exercises should be an occasion to “find solutions to the problems we face, not pathways to blind alleys of violence, intolerance and division,” González said in a communique issued by the official National Human Rights Commission.
The geography of election-year violence
Until now, the bulk of the violence has occurred in state or municipal political environments where numerous posts are also up for election in 2018. Though exact motives remain a mystery in the majority of the killings, different news accounts mention ongoing criminal conflicts, underworld power struggles and coveted political transitions as the backdrop.
In Guerrero and Chihuahua, for instance, violent disputes between drug gangs frame the local context, while in Puebla, Verarcuz and Higaldo, the activities of so-called huachicoleros, or highly organized bands of thieves who rob gasoline from Pemex pipelines for a brisk black market, stand as important factors.
In Guerrero, crime and violence are likewise raising serious concerns among staff and representatives of the National Electoral Institute (INE), the official agency charged with organizing the July 1 elections. At an INE session in the state capital of Chilpancingo last week, INE personnel denounced that their trainers had suffered robberies of cell phones and money, warnings to not walk streets at certain hours and other incidences of intimidation. In one case, an INE staffer was trapped during a military operation to free a kidnap victim. Mostly, the incidents occurred in Acapulco, Zihuatanejo and Tlapa.
In previous years, INE staff had as always endured sun exposure, dehydration and dog bites in the course of their work, but a “climate of insecurity and violence” was complicating the institute’s mission in 2018, INE official Analid Mier was quoted in the Guerrero daily El Sur as saying.
The newspaper also reported that at least 17 state legislative hopefuls had withdrawn from the race, including Silvia Rivera, a current federal congresswoman from President Enrique Peña Nieto’s Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) who had defected to López Obrador’s camp but ended up dropping her pursuit of a new political office because of threats. Similar to Montúfar, Rivera had originally sought office in the violent Tierra Caliente.
For his part, INE chief Lorenzo Cordova downplayed the impact of violence on successful completion of the 2018 political cycle. Quoted in Aristegui Noticias, Cordova condemned violent acts, but assured that the electoral process “was going well, on time and advancing along.”
Meanwhile, as the political storm over Ricardo Alemán’s tweet hit full blast, the Mexican television networks Televisa and Channel 11 dropped the journalist from their programming.
“I don’t agree with it but I respect it,” Alemán said in another tweet. “Every company has the right to contract whoever suits their interests. Lynching and the demand for censorship won! The democrats of Morena!”
But others had a far different view of the nature of an episode that’s tested the limits and balances between freedom of speech, journalistic professional responsibility and political sensibility in an already charged electoral atmosphere.
Ricardo Peralta, who is mentioned as a possible anti-corruption chief in a López Obrador government if the candidate is elected president, announced he would file legal charges with the Office of the Federal Attorney General against Alemán, for the alleged offense of crime apology.
Peralta was quoted in El Universal as justifying legal action not as a personal vendetta against Alemán, but as an effort to establish a precedent against the “irresponsible use of the communications media, and in this instance, a social media network by those considered opinion leaders who can’t incite hate and violence.”
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Kent Paterson is an independent journalist who covers issues in the U.S./Mexico border region.
He said that he wants his government to have a plan for moving toward a completely renewables-based society within six months. In the past he has tied this goal to Costa Rica’s tradition of progressive exceptionalism, in not having a national army (this country’s exceptionalism is somewhat different from that of the United States, let us say).
He said,
“We must impel decisive and coordinated action by all sectors of society to initiate and speed up this process permanently, not only promoting [green] transportation and electrical and hydrogen power production, but modernizing our institutions.”
Alvarado arrived at his inauguration in a hydrogen-powered bus.
Costa Rica is well on its way to having a completely green electricity grid. Some 78% of its electricity comes from hydro, and wind and geothermal provide 10% each. Costa Rica has a vast untapped solar potential, since less than 1% of its electricity currently comes from photovoltaic cells. The government has invested heavily in making sure electricity from these sources can be efficiently transported to cities where it is needed. Costa Rica benefits from the stabilizing effect of hydroelectric power, which serves as a baseline source when wind fluctuates. In the UK and other countries without big hydroelectric potential, that role still has to be played by natural gas (nuclear plants cannot be scaled up and down quickly enough to play this role).
The country hopes to have a completely green electricity grid by 2021, less than three years from now.
The big carbon-producing sectors Costa Rica needs to improve on are transportation, construction and agriculture.
Even the former government had announced a goal of 37,000 electric vehicles by 2023, some 2.6% of the fleet of 1.4 mn. automobiles in the country of 5 million.
Alvarado will want to move more quickly and ambitiously than that. Even before his inauguration, the Costa Rica Institute of Electricity announced the purchase for $3.5 mn. of 100 Hyundai electric sedans, as part of a demonstration project urging government institutions and private business to go to EVs.
Costa Rica is a small country and cannot by itself make much of a dent in global heating, which is caused by human burning of coal, petroleum and gas. But by setting a realistic goal of going 100% green, it makes itself a model and a demonstration project for the rest of the world. Alvarado’s message: it can be done.
Alvarado faces enormous challenges in implementing his reforms, since he heads a minority government (parliament is divided by six parties) and a powerful Evangelical party opposes many of his initiatives.
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Juan Coleis the founder and chief editor of Informed Comment and Richard P. Mitchell Professor of History at the University of Michigan. Follow him at @jricole
Overnight Wednesday Israeli aggression on multiples Syrian sites wasn’t the end of it, much more sure to come – partnered with Washington in waging undeclared war on Syria and Iran.
It’s been ongoing for decades. Trump’s JCPOA pullout, along with US/Israeli rage for regime change and Russia’s failure to challenge their regional aggression, suggests much greater trouble to come – the ominous threat of full-scale war on Syria and Iran, a nightmarish scenario.
Trump’s earlier remarks turning truth on its head signaled hostile anti-Iran steps he’s taken with more to come, outrageously calling its government “a corrupt dictatorship…whose chief exports are violence, bloodshed, and chaos,” adding:
“We cannot let a murderous regime continue these destabilizing activities while building dangerous missiles.”
The only Middle East “murderous regime(s)” are US-supported despotic ones, Israel, and America’s regional presence, not Iran, the region’s leading peace and stability advocate, not Syria, a nation struggling valiantly against US-led aggression.
Trump falsely accused Iran of links to al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups. Just the opposite is true, the Islamic Republic combating this US-supported scourge.
Following Israel’s latest aggression in Syria, its security cabinet met Thursday night plotting its next moves, further military action sure to come.
Israeli ministers saying they have no intention of escalating conflict was a bald-faced lie. The IDF continues provoking Syria and Iran to retaliate against its aggression, wanting a pretext great enough for potential full-scale war on both countries.
The threat of it erupting is real, things heading ominously in this direction – one hostile action against Syria and Iran at a time.
Major conflicts begin incrementally. The Middle East is the world’s leading hotspot.
Netanyahu lied claiming “Iran crossed a red line,” falsely accusing its military of firing rockets on occupied Israeli Golan targets.
“We are in a protracted campaign, and our policy is clear. Iran cannot be allowed to entrench itself militarily in Syria” he added.
Iranian National Security Council deputy head Abu al-Fadl Hassan al-Baiji denounced his false accusation, saying the Islamic Republic “ha(d) nothing to do with the missiles that struck the enemy entity…”
“(r)epetitive attacks of Quds occupiers on Syrian territory is a blatant violation of Syria’s sovereignty and an aggressive move.”
“The Zionist regime, which cannot put up with stability, security, and serenity in the region, has set up its own security on insecurity and making the region all the more unstable.”
Ghasemi criticized the international community’s failure to condemn Israeli aggression, assuring more of it to come, partnered with Washington.
Iran’s government issued the following statement in response to Trump’s JCPOA pullout, saying:
“The unlawful withdrawal of the US President from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action is but the final of long and persistent violations of this accord on the part of the United States, and especially since the coming into office of its new extremist Administration.”
“Mr. Trump’s absurd insults against the great Iranian nation indicates the extent of his ignorance and folly.”
“Moreover, his baseless charges against the Government of the Islamic Republic of Iran in fact befits a regime which has through its interventions dragged the Middle East into chaos and ignited terrorism and extremism; whose Zionist ally is engaged in unprecedented cruelty, violations of human rights and aggression; and whose regional clients gave birth to and nurtured terrorist groups, which Mr. Trump in a ridiculous claim linked to the Islamic Republic of Iran.”
“It is regrettable that this kind of individual now governs the civilized and peaceful American people.”
The statement condemned numerous JCPOA breaches, stressed Iran’s full compliance with its principles, noted that it’s an international accord adopted unanimously by the Security Council, requiring all nations to observe it.
America and Israel are serial lawbreakers, both countries threatening regional and world peace. They’re in no position to criticize Iran or any other countries.
The Islamic Republic’s foreign minister is tasked with enlisting support from other JCPOA signatories, Iran’s economic partners, and the international community to guarantee Tehran’s rights under the nuclear deal.
The Atomic Energy Organization of Iran head is charged with pursuing all necessary steps required to pursue unrestricted pre-JCPOA nuclear activities if diplomatic efforts fail.
Trump illegally reimposed nuclear-related sanctions on Iran. The US Treasury sanctioned six Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) officials and three Iranian enterprises, more of the same to come – flagrantly breaching unanimously adopted Security Council Res. 2231 (July 2015) affirming the JCPOA, making it binding international law, prohibiting any nation from unilaterally abrogating it.
America is an international outlaw, breaching the JCPOA one of numerous examples along with its endless wars of aggression.
Will nuclear deal signatories Britain, France and Germany reject US reimposed nuclear-related sanctions or bow to Washington’s will on this vital issue?
In 1996, the EU adopted a Blocking Regulation, largely aimed at countering US sanctions on Cuba and Iran.
If invoked to challenge US reimposed nuclear and related sanctions on Iran, EU companies could engage in unrestricted trade with the Islamic Republic – risking loss or restricted access to the US market.
It’s clear which choice they’ll make unless the EU vowed to sanction US businesses in retaliation, a most unlikely prospect.
Brussels wants good economic relations maintained with Washington, likely to sacrifice trade with Iran to assure it, going along with Trump’s action despite publicly sticking with the JCPOA.
Prospects for saving it as slim. The deal’s demise virtually assures Iranian resumption of pre-JCPOA nuclear activities.
Trump vowed severe consequence if events unfold this way. Clearly tougher US sanctions will be imposed, aiming for isolating Iran economically and politically.
Will US/Israeli war on the Islamic Republic follow? Will Russia intervene as it did in Syria? Is East/West confrontation inevitable?
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Stephen Lendman is a Research Associate of the CRG, Correspondent of Global Research based in Chicago.
I spent nearly 15 years in the CIA. I like to think that I learned something there. I learned how the federal bureaucracy works. I learned that cowboys in government – in the CIA and elsewhere around government – can have incredible power over the creation of policy. I learned that the CIA will push the envelope of legality until somebody in a position of authority pushes back. I learned that the CIA can wage war without any thought whatsoever as to how things will work out in the end. There’s never an exit strategy.
I learned all of that firsthand in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq. In the spring of 2002, I was in Pakistan working against al-Qaeda. I returned to CIA headquarters in May of that year and was told that several months earlier a decision had been made at the White House to invade Iraq. I was dumbfounded, and when told of the war plans could only muster, “But we haven’t caught bin Laden yet.” “The decision has already been made,” my supervisor told me. He continued,
“Next year, in February, we’re going to invade Iraq, overthrow Saddam Hussein, and open the world’s largest air force base in southern Iraq.”
He went on,
“We’re going to go to the United Nations and pretend that we want a Security Council Resolution. But the truth is that the decision has already been made.”
Soon after, Secretary of State Colin Powell began traveling around Europe and the Middle East to cultivate support for the invasion. Sure enough, he also went to the United Nations and argued that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, necessitating an invasion and overthrow because that country posed an imminent threat to the United States.
But the whole case was built on a lie. A decision was made and then the “facts” were created around the decision to support it. I think the same thing is happening now.
First, Donald Trump said repeatedly during the 2016 campaign that he would pull out of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), also known as the Iran sanctions deal. The JCPOA allows for international inspectors to examine all of Iran’s nuclear sites to ensure that the country is not enriching uranium and is not building a weapons program. In exchange, Western countries have lifted sanctions on Iran, allowing them to buy spare parts, medicines, and other things that they had been unable to acquire. Despite the protestations of conservatives in Congress and elsewhere, the JCPOA works. Indeed, the inspection regime is exactly the same one that the United Nations imposed on Iraq in the last two decades.
Trump has kept up his anti-Iran rhetoric since becoming president. More importantly, he has appointed Iran hawks to the two most important positions in foreign policy: former CIA Director Mike Pompeo as Secretary of State and former US ambassador to the UN John Bolton as National Security Advisor. The two have made clear that their preferred policy toward Iran is “regime change,” a policy that is actually prohibited by international law.
Perhaps the most troubling development, however, is the apparent de facto alliance against Iran by Israel, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Bahrain. Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s recent “presentation” on what he called a clandestine Iranian nuclear weapons program was embarrassingly similar to Powell’s heavily scripted speech before the UN Security Council 15 years earlier telling the world that Iraq had a program. That, too, was a lie.
Saudi crown prince Muhammad bin Salman, the godfather of the Saudi war in Yemen, which in turn is a proxy war against Iran, recently made a grand tour of the United States and France talking about “the Iranian threat” at every turn. The rhetoric coming out of the UAE and Bahrain is at least as hostile as what has been spewed by the Saudis.
Meanwhile, there’s silence on Capitol Hill. Just like there was in 2002.
I can tell you from firsthand experience that I’ve seen this before. Our government is laying the groundwork for yet another war. Be on the lookout for several things. First, Trump is going to begin shouting about the “threat” from Iran. It will become a daily mantra. He’ll argue that Iran is actively hostile and poses an immediate danger to the United States. Next Pompeo will head back to the Middle East and Europe to garner support for a military action. Then US Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley will scream in front of the UN Security Council that the US has no choice but to protect itself and its allies from Iran. The final shoe to drop – a clear indication of war – will be if naval carrier battle groups are deployed to the eastern Mediterranean, the Arabian Sea, or the Persian Gulf. Sure, there’s always one in the region anyway. But more than one is a provocation.
We have to be diligent in opposing this run into another war of choice. We can’t be tricked or taken by surprise. Not again.
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John Kiriakou is a former CIA counterterrorism officer and a former senior investigator with the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. John became the sixth whistleblower indicted by the Obama administration under the Espionage Act – a law designed to punish spies. He served 23 months in prison as a result of his attempts to oppose the Bush administration’s torture program.
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.
Nearly everyone loses by President Donald Trump’s decision on Tuesday to withdraw from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) relating to Iran’s nuclear energy program and to reinstate the “highest level” of sanctions while also threatening secondary sanctions on any country that “helps” the Iranians. The whole world loses because nuclear proliferation is a disaster waiting to happen and Iran will now have a strong incentive to proceed with a weapons program to defend itself from Israel and the United States. If Iran does so, it will trigger a regional nuclear arms race with Saudi Arabia and Egypt undoubtedly seeking weapons of their own.
Iran and the Iranian people will lose because their suffering economy will not now benefit from the lifting of sanctions and other economic inducements that convinced it to sign the agreement in the first place. And yes, even the United States and Israel will lose because an agreement that would have pushed back by ten or fifteen years Iran’s timetable if it were to choose to develop a weapon will now be reduced to a year or less. And the United States will in particular lose because the entire world will understand that the word of an American president when entering into an international agreement cannot be trusted.
The only winners from the withdrawal are President Donald Trump and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who will enjoy the plaudits of their hardline supporters. But their victory will be illusory as the hard reality of what they have accomplished becomes clear.
Failure of JCPOA definitely means that war is the only likely outcome if Tel Aviv and Washington continue in their absurd insistence that the Iranians constitute a major threat both to the region and the world. A war that might possibly involve both the United States and Russia as well as Iran, Saudi Arabia and Israel would devastate the region and might easily have potential to escalate into something like a global conflict.
The decision to end the agreement is based on American domestic political considerations rather than any real analysis of what the intelligence community has been reporting. Deep-pocketed Iran-hating billionaires named Sheldon Adelson, Rebekah Mercer and Paul Singer are now prepared to throw tens of millions of dollars at Trump’s Republican Party to help it win in November’s midterm elections.
Those possessed of just a tad more foresight, to include the Pentagon and America’s European allies, have strongly urged that JCPOA be continued, particularly as the Iranians have been fully in compliance, but there is a new team in Washington. America’s just-confirmed Secretary of State Mike Pompeo did not exactly endorse the ludicrous Israeli claim made by Benjamin Netanyahu two weeks ago that Iran has a secret weapons of mass destruction program currently in place, but he did come down hard against the JCPOA, echoing Trump in calling it a terrible agreement that will guarantee an Iranian nuclear weapon. The reality is quite different, with the pact basically eliminating a possible Iranian nuke for the foreseeable future through degradation of the country’s nuclear research, reduction of its existing nuclear stocks and repeated intrusive inspections.
The failure of the JCPOA is not about the agreement at all, which is both sound and workable. There is unfortunately an Israeli-White House construct which assumes that Iran is both out to destroy Israel, for which no evidence has been revealed, as well as being singularly untrustworthy, an odd assertion coming from either Washington or Tel Aviv. It also basically rejects any kind of agreement with the Iranian government on principle so there is nowhere to go to “fix” what has already transpired.
The United States has changed in the past seventeen years. The promotion of policies that were at least tenuously based on genuine national interests is no longer embraced by either political party. A fearful public has allowed a national security state to replace a constitutional republic with endless war as the inevitable result. Presidents once constitutionally constrained by legislative and judicial balance of power have successfully asserted executive privilege to become like third world dictators, able to make war without any restraint on their ability to do so. If America survives, historians will no doubt see the destruction of the JCPOA as the beginning of something new and horrible, where the government of these United States deliberately made a decision to abandon a beneficial foreign treaty to instead opt for a path that can only lead to war.
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Philip Giraldi, Ph.D. is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest.
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.
The US trade war against China has claimed its first major victim with the telecom firm ZTE announcing that the “major operating activities of the company have ceased.”
The announcement, which came in a statement issued to the Hong Kong stock exchange late on Wednesday, is the result of a seven-year ban imposed by the Trump administration on sales of US components to the company last month, claiming it had breached the terms of a settlement of a deal over the company’s sales to Iran and North Korea.
The company operates on a global scale, doing business in more than 160 countries with over 74,000 employees. It generated revenues of $17 billion last year and recorded a profit of more than $700 million. It is the fourth largest smartphone vendor in the US and also supplies equipment for phone and telecommunications networks.
It is one of the largest suppliers of telecommunications equipment supporting networks across Africa and in the Middle East, a business which could now be wiped out. The wireless carrier MTN, which provides networks to 220 million people in 22 countries across Africa, said it was assessing contingency plans given its exposure to ZTE in its networks.
Telstra, the biggest Australian telecom firm, said it would no longer carry its own-branded smartphones made by ZTE because it could not guarantee supply. ATT, the major distributor of ZTE phones in the US has said it is assessing the impact of the ban.
Production at the company’s manufacturing plant in Shenzen ceased in April but employees are continuing to report for work and collect their wages. In its statement ZTE said that “as of now” it still maintained sufficient cash to comply with its commercial obligations.
ZTE said that together with “related parties” it was “actively communicating with relevant US government departments” in order to facilitate the removal or modification of the order banning sales of components to it by US firms.
The Chinese government is directly involved in those discussions. At the meeting at the end of last week in Beijing with a high-level US economic and trade delegation, the Chinese government raised the ZTE case in its list of demands. It pointed to “high concern” over the case and called on the US to “listen to ZTE’s complaints seriously,” and consider the company’s progress in complying with US demands.
How much weight that will carry is another question under conditions where the central axis of US trade policy towards China is aimed at blocking its development in high-tech industries, not least in telecommunications, which it regards as an existential threat to US economic and ultimately military dominance.
Far from pulling back, the Trump administration is reported to be considering imposing further bans on Chinese companies selling telecom equipment in the US on “national security” grounds.
The ban by the Commerce Department has struck a severe blow because it targets one of the key weaknesses of the Chinese telecoms sector. China does not have a highly developed chip-making capacity and ZTE has been forced to rely on the US firms Qualcomm and Intel for the chips used in its devices.
In the longer term, the Chinese government is expected to respond by pouring resources in to the development of chip-making capacity. In its report on the ZTE shutdown the New York Times cited a recent speech by Chinese President Xi Jinping pointing in this direction.
“By tightening our belts and gritting our teeth, we built ‘two bombs and one satellite,’” Xi said. “The next step is to do the same with science and technology. We must cast away false hopes and rely on ourselves.”
In the immediate situation, the US action has brought warnings that it will bring about major disruption in global supply chains.
Christopher Thomas, a partner at McKinsey’s in Beijing, told the Financial Times:
“The complexity of this issue is mind-boggling because the electronics value chains are much more complex and globally integrated than they were in the past.”
A technology lawyer cited by the newspaper said the ruling over ZTE would “lead to increased Balkanisation of the tech world, and speed up the tech ‘arms race’ between China and the US.”
The issue of the ZTE ban will likely be raised at talks in Washington next week when a Chinese delegation, headed by chief economic negotiator Liu He, will hold talks with senior economic officials of the Trump administration over US demands that the trade deficit between the two countries be reduced by $200 million within two years. The US has threatened to impose tariffs on up to $150 billion worth of Chinese goods by the end of this month unless progress is made.
The Wall Street Journal reported that China was likely to offer to import more US goods as the main way of reducing the trade gap.
However it noted it was “far from clear whether even a good-faith effort by China to reduce the deficit would be enough to satisfy the Trump negotiating team” because although Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin is focused on deficit reduction, the US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer “has been leading negotiations on more fundamental issues.”
Those issues centre on Beijing’s “Made in China 2025” program which aims at boosting the country to a leading role in high-tech development. Lighthizer and fellow anti-China hawk White House economic adviser Peter Navarro regard the program as a direct challenge to US economic supremacy and the US “negotiating” platform issued in Beijing last week included the demand that it be virtually scrapped.
The ever-more aggressive “America First” program, which is directed not just against China but at all the major US trading partners, is starting to produce shifts in economic relations. This was in evidence at a trilateral summit in Tokyo earlier this week attended by Chinese Premier Li Keqiang, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and South Korean President Moon Jae-in.
Standing beside his Japanese and South Korean counterparts, Li delivered a speech calling for closer economic integration between the three countries and for the completion of the Chinese-backed Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership.
Without directly citing the Trump administration he declared:
“In the current circumstances, China, Japan and South Korea should stand even more firmly, uphold the rules-based multilateral trading system and proudly oppose protectionism and unilateral actions.”
Moon and Abe also made similar remarks endorsing free trade and closer economic alignment of the three countries.
In the face of the most significant moves towards global trade war since the 1930s, one of the other characteristics of that disastrous decade—the formation of trade blocs—is also starting to take shape.
2nd UPDATE: After refusing to directly answer questions about her history as an alleged torturer, Ray McGovern decided to ask Gina Haspel a question or two of his own and he wound up in jail for it, reports Joe Lauria.
Updated with news that McGovern returned home and details of him being charged with Unlawful Disruption of Congress and Resisting Arrest.
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Instead of facing a judge to defend herself against prosecution for violating U.S. law prohibiting torture, 33-year CIA veteran Gina Haspel on Wednesday faced the Senate Intelligence Committee in a hearing to confirm her as director of the Central Intelligence Agency.
Haspel does not look like someone who would be associated with torture. Instead she would not be out of place as your next door neighbor or as a kindly grade-school teacher.
“I think you will find me to be a typical middle-class American,” she said in her opening statement.
Haspel is the face of America. She not only looks harmless, but looks like she wants to help: perhaps to recommend a good gardener to hire or to spread democracy around the globe while upholding human rights wherever they are violated.
But this perfectly typical middle class American personally supervised a black site in Thailand where terrorism suspects were waterboarded. It remains unclear whether she had a direct role in the torture. The CIA said she arrived at the black site after the waterboarding of senior al-Qaeda operative Abu Zubaydah had taken place. Some CIA officials disputed that to The New York Times. The newspaper also reported last year that Haspel ran the CIA Thai prison in 2002 when another suspect, Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, was waterboarded.
Even if she did not have a direct hand in overseeing the torture, she certainly acquiesced to it. And if that were not bad enough, Haspel urged the destruction of 92 videotaped CIA “enhanced interrogations,” conducted at the prison in Thailand, eliminating evidence in a clear-cut obstruction of justice to cover-up her own possible crimes.
At her public hearing Haspel refused to say that the torture was immoral. Instead she tried to romanticize her nefarious past in adolescent language about the spy trade, about going to secret meetings on “dark, moonless nights,” in the “dusty back alleys of Third World capitals.”
Haspel claimed to have a “strong moral compass.” We really can’t know because we only found out about what she did in Thailand in 2002 because of press reports. Just about everything else she did during her three decades at the agency remains shrouded in secrecy because she refused to declassify almost all of her record for the committee.
“Bloody Gina,” as some CIA colleagues called her, told the hearing she would not re-institute the “enhanced interrogation” program if she became director. One wonders if the US were attacked again like on 9/11 if she would keep her vow, especially as she admitted nothing wrong with “enhanced interrogation” the first time.
Haspel testified that the U.S. has a new legal framework that governs detentions and interrogations forbidding what she refused to call torture. But the U.S. already had a law on the books against it when the Senate ratified the international Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment on October 21, 1994. Every time the U.S. “tortured some folks” after that, as Barack Obama put, it broke U.S. law.
In speaking about it in a folksy way, Obama was minimizing the enormity of the crime and justifying his decision to not prosecute any American who may have taken part in it. That includes Haspel. So instead of facing the law she’s facing a career promotion to one of the most powerful positions in the United States, if not the world.
McGovern Speaks Out
Haspel tried to wiggle out of relentless questioning about whether she thought torture was immoral, let alone illegal. Completely ignoring U.S. ratification of the Convention Against Torture, Haspel clung to the new Army Field Manual, which contains a loophole in an annex added after 9/11 that justifies cruel punishment, but not specifically torture.
Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), who was tortured in Vietnam, had no doubts about Haspel. After the hearing he issued a statement saying,
“Ms. Haspel’s role in overseeing the use of torture by Americans is disturbing. Her refusal to acknowledge torture’s immorality is disqualifying.”
Ray McGovern apprehended by Capitol Police out of the court hall.
Because she wasn’t giving any straight answers, Ray McGovern, a CIA veteran of 27 years and frequent contributor to Consortium News, stood up in the hearing room and began asking his own questions. Capitol police were immediately ordered by the chairman, Sen. Richard Burr (R-NC), to physically remove McGovern from the room. As he continued turning towards the committee to shout his questions, four officers hauled him out. They ominously accused him of resisting arrest. Once they got him into the hallway, rather than letting him go his way, four policemen wrestled him to the ground, re-injuring his dislocated left shoulder, as they attempted to cuff him.
After spending the night in jail, McGovern, 78, was to be arraigned on Thursday. He has not responded to several voice message left on his mobile phone. A police officer at Central Booking told Consortium News McGovern was no longer under their control and had been sent to court. According to DC Superior Court, he has been charged with Unlawful Disruption of Congress and Resisting Arrest. Ray returned home Thursday night.
McGovern was one of several people arrested before and during the hearing for speaking out. The spectacle of citizens of this country, and in Ray’s case a veteran CIA officer, having to resort to disrupting a travesty of a hearing to put an alleged torturer in charge of the most powerful spy agency in the world is a disturbing indicator of how far we have come.
A Different Kind of Hearing
In 1975, Sen. Frank Church (D-ID) conducted hearings that revealed a raft of criminality committed by the CIA, the National Security Agency and the Federal Bureau of Investigation over a period of thirty years from the end of the Second World War. It has been more than 40 years since that Senate investigation. After the release of the CIA Torture Report by the Senate in 2014 and the revelations about the NSA by Edward Snowden, a new Church Committee-style expansive probe into the intelligence agencies is long overdue.
A central question it should ask is whether the CIA really serves the interests of the American people or rather the interests of its rulers, which the agency has done from its founding by Wall Street elites, such as its first director, Allen Dulles.
While the Republican-controlled intelligence committee may have partisan motives to launch such a new Church-like commission to look into the agencies’ shenanigans in the Russia-gate fiasco, the majority of Republicans are hawks on intelligence matters and many support torture and want Haspel to be the next CIA director. For instance, Burr told Haspel:
“You are without a doubt the most qualified person the president could choose to lead the CIA and the most prepared nominee in the 70-year history of the agency. You have acted morally, ethically and legally over a distinguished 30-year career.”
None of this bodes well for the nation.
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Joe Lauria is editor-in-chief of Consortium News and a former correspondent for The Wall Street Journal, Boston Globe, Sunday Times of London and numerous other newspapers.
Last week we reported that a D-notice (Defence and Security Media Advisory Notice) used by the British state to censor the publication of potentially damaging news stories had been formally issued to the mainstream media to withhold publication of the British ex-spy deeply involved in the Skripal/Novichok affair.
We revealed that Channel 4 journalists had been issued these D-notices, which were in respect of a former British intelligence officer called Pablo Miller. Miller was an associate of Christopher Steele, first in espionage operations in Russia and more recently in the activities of Steele’s private intelligence firm, Orbis Business Intelligence.
Steele was responsible for compiling the Trump–Russia dossier, comprising 17 memos written in 2016 alleging misconduct and conspiracy between Donald Trump’s presidential campaign and the Putin administration. The dossier paid for by the Democratic Party, claimed that Trump was compromised by evidence of his sexual proclivities in Russia’s possession. Steele was the subject of an earlier (unsuccessful) D-notice, which attempted to keep his identity as the author of the dossier a secret.
If Miller and, by extension, Skripal himself were somehow involved in Orbis’ work on the highly-suspect Steele–Trump dossier, alongside representatives of British and possibly US intelligence, then all manner of motivations can be suggested for an attack on the ex-Russian spy and British double agent by forces other than Russia’s intelligence service, the FSB.
In other words, the state attempted to clear up the mess it had already made of the Trump dossier, since proven to have made many false assertions, particularly of collusion with senior Russian officials and links to ex-Russian double agent Sergei Skripal.
Yesterday, spinwatch.org revealed that the Skripal affair has resulted in the issuing of not one but two ‘D-Notices’ to the British mainstream media, which are marked ‘private and confidential’. They also disclose the contents of both notices, which have been obtained from a reliable source.
Here is the first one dated 7th March lifted straight from the powerbase website:
Subject: URGENT FOR ALL EDITORS – DEFENCE AND SECURITY MEDIA ADVISORY (DSMA) NOTICE
Private and Confidential: Not for Publication, Broadcast or for use on Social Media TO ALL EDITORS The issue surrounding the identity of a former MI6 informer, Sergei Skripal, is already widely available in the public domain. However, the identifies of intelligence agency personnel associated with Sergei Skripal are not yet widely available in the public domain. The provisions of DSMA Notice 05 therefore apply to these identities. DSMA Notice 05 inter alia advises editors against the:
‘inadvertent disclosure of Sensitive Personnel Information (SPI) that reveals the identity, location or contact details of personnel (and their family members) who have security, intelligence and/or counter-terrorist backgrounds, including members of the UK Security and Intelligence Agencies, MOD and Specials Forces.’ The full text of DSMA notice 05 can be found on the DSMA website.
If any editor is currently considering publication of such material, may I ask you to seek my advice before doing so?
Please do call or email me if you have any questions or need further clarification.
I would be grateful were the Press Association and Society of Editors to promulgate this notice through their own networks.
Group Captain John Alexander | Second Deputy Secretary | Defence and Security Media Advisory Committee
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7th March D-notice can be viewed HERE refers to “the identities of intelligence agency personnel associated with Sergei Skripal not yet widely available in the public domain.”
The 14th March D-notice can be viewed HERE and specifically focuses on “reactions from the Russian authorities” and the publication of Sensitive Personal Information (such as naming the ex-spook in question) or identify personnel who work in sensitive positions.
The use of the word ‘advisory’ is cleverly inserted to give a false impression that this notice is not state censorship. It is indeed nothing less than state censorship.
The mainstream media are ‘advised’ not to publish and if they do there will be consequences. Those consequences include being left out of government and agency press releases, attendance at meetings, official announcements and the like. In other words, complete exclusion alongside other measures to ensure compliance.
As Spinwatch says:
“However, the DSMA-Notices (as they are now officially called) are one of the miracles of British state censorship. They are a mechanism whereby the British state simply ‘advises’ the mainstream media what not to publish, in ‘notices’ with no legal force. The media then voluntarily comply.”
As internet freedom supporters in the Senate attempt to force a vote to reverse the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) unpopular repeal of net neutrality rules, dozens of prominent websites went on “red alert” in support of the protections on Wednesday, hoping to prompt users to flood lawmakers’ offices with phone calls, emails, and other messages pressuring them to reinstate net neutrality.
— Fight for the Future (@fightfortheftr) May 9, 2018
“The Internet is lighting up in protest once again, because this Senate vote will impact the future of the Web for years to come,” said Evan Greer, deputy director of Fight for the Future, in a statement. “This is the most important moment in tech policy since the FCC repeal, and everyone should be paying attention. This is the moment for entire web to come together to fight. Net neutrality is not a partisan issue outside of Washington, D.C. Now we need to get D.C. to catch up with the rest of the country.”
Etsy, Reddit, OKCupid, and Foursquare are just some of the websites launching Red Alerts for Net Neutrality on their websites on Wednesday, urging users to contact their senators and demand that they join 83 percent of Americans in supporting the reinstatement of net neutrality rules.
— Fight for the Future (@fightfortheftr) May 9, 2018
All 47 Democrats in the Senate along with Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Angus King (I-Maine), and Susan Collins (R-Maine) have committed to supporting net neutrality by filing a petition to force a vote on a bill that would overturn the FCC’s decision. Although 75 percent of Republican voters polled reported that they supported net neutrality at the time, Collins is the only Republican who has agreed to represent those constituents’ views.
The “Red Alert for Net Neutrality” campaign is aimed at securing one last supporter of the petition. Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) has hinted at potential support for a bill, and Fight for the Future is urging net neutrality advocates in other states to call their senators, pointing to Sens. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) and Cory Gardner (R-Colo.) as potential supporters.
Independent journalists, small businesses, and other non-corporate internet companies have been among the groups speaking out against the FCC’s decision for months. The net neutrality rules that the FCC voted to repeal keep internet service providers (ISPs) like Verizon and Comcast from giving favorable treatment to large internet companies by offering faster delivery of their content in exchange for extra fees.
“Congress has the chance to rewind a terrible Trump administration policy decision, and one of its least popular, too,” said Craig Aaron, president and CEO of Free Press Action Fund, in a statement. “There’s only one way to stand up for real net neutrality—and to stand on the right side of history—and that’s by voting for the resolution of disapproval to restore these essential safeguards. The public will be closely watching who’s looking out for them and who’s only serving phone and cable lobbyists.”
“This is a moment to use the internet and its ability to reach millions of people, give those people the ability to contact their lawmakers on an unprecedented scale, and frankly melt some phones in Washington, D.C.,” Greer told the Daily Beast.
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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License
Native Americans have long existed in a legal and cultural limbo, surviving the devastating impacts of a trail of broken treaties by the U.S. government with staunch determination to maintain their unique cultures and legal federally recognized tribal sovereignty.
In further defiance of the nearly 600 treaties that the U.S. government signed with tribal nations, the Trump administration now appears to be on the move to bring an end to that centuries-old struggle, by committing a ‘paper genocide’.
The phrase ‘paper genocide’ is used when a culture is wiped from mass consciousness and visible autonomy through tactics such as removing their ethnic designations from a national census – or in this case, having their sovereignty dismantled by the notion that Native America is a ‘race’ and not a diverse sum of distinct cultures and subcultures of sovereign Nations, tribes, and Peoples.
Trump slipped this into negotiations surrounding Indian health care—a move that may very well breach the Supremacy Clause of the United States Constitution which establishes that all treaties made under its authority “constitute the supreme law of the land”.
Politico broke the story on April 22, reporting, that
“the Trump administration contends [that] tribes are a race rather than separate governments.”
“The tribes insist that any claim of “racial preference” is moot because they’re constitutionally protected as separate governments, dating back to treaties hammered out by President George Washington and reaffirmed in recent decades under Republican and Democratic presidents alike, including the Clinton, George W. Bush and Obama administrations.”
Trump, however, seems to have little regard for his predecessors.
In February of this year, a legal memo was submitted by Hobbs, Straus, Dean & Walker LLP to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services in the hopes of preemptively avoiding a long, drawn-out battle with an opaque and slippery administration that has already made grotesque moves towards appropriating Native America’s remaining wealth of natural resources and sacred spaces.
The White House’s most recent budget cuts have also taken aim at crucial but extremely vulnerable institutions serving Native America – such as the Community Health Representative program under the Indian Health Service.
The newly proposed requirement that Indian Nations be subject to Trump’s naïve ‘catch all’ solution of forcing all recipients of federal healthcare funds into jobs is obtuse and out of touch with the realities of Native reservations in the U.S.
It could also have potentially disastrous consequences given the lack of employment opportunities on reserve. What’s more, this clumsy and obtuse assimilation policy runs the risk of destroying the very fabric of Native America – the remaining webs of family and culture – their very identity and existence – all towards the vulgar end of opening more land for commercial extractivism and every other industry.
Senator Tom Udall – a Democrat representative of New Mexico – is currently leading a pushback against these efforts in Congress; and, a group of Senators (including a Republican — Lisa Murkowski – from Alaska) signed a recent letter to the United States Secretary of Health and Human Services, Alex Azar. Their collectively endorsed statement issues an accusation that the Trump administration has failed,
“…to recognize the unique legal status of Indian tribes and their members under federal law, the U.S. Constitution, treaties, and the federal trust relationship”.
Although many comparisons have been made between the Nixon and Trump administrations’ scandalous tenures…even Nixon left a solid, positive legacy on Native American policies at the federal level.
Nixon advocated for a reversal of historical policy and efforts of ‘termination’ and endorsed the concept of ‘self-determination’ regarding federal relations with Native Americans. It is rumored Nixon’s legacy to Native Americans – which stands in juxtaposition to his historical image – stemmed from a promise he made to his mother that when he became president he’d ‘be good to the Indians’.
According to the Nixon Foundation website, other instances Nixon fulfilled this legendary promise to his mother were by:
1) “Returning the sacred Blue Lake to the people of Taos Pueblo in 1970”;
2) “Enacting the Menominee Restoration Act, restoring the recognition of the previously terminated tribe in 1973″;
3) “Signing the Indian Healthcare Act”;
4) “Laying “the groundwork for the signing of the Indian Self-Determination Act”;
5) “Increasing the budget of the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) by 214%”;
6) “Establishing the first special office on Indian Water Rights”;
7) “Passing the Indian Financing Act of 1974”; and,
8) “Pledging that all available BIA funds be arranged to fit priorities set by tribal governments themselves”.
Trump is currently forging ahead in a race to the bottom for the designation of ‘worst president ever’ in the history of the United States; and, via his crude efforts at going after Native Americans’ very cultural and legal existence at this juncture, he may have stamped the final seal on his fate in garnering this ‘honor’.
pedir aos EUA, com base no Tratado de Não-Proliferação para retirar toda e qualquer arma nuclear do nosso território;
