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“The greatest evil is not now done … in concentration camps and labour camps. In those we see its final result. But it is conceived and ordered (moved, seconded, carried, and minuted) in clean, carpeted, warmed and well-lighted offices, by quiet men with white collars and cut fingernails and smooth-shaven cheeks who do not need to raise their voices. Hence, naturally enough, my symbol for Hell is something like the bureaucracy of a police state or the office of a thoroughly nasty business concern.” ― C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters

Is the U.S. government evil?

You tell me.

This is a government that treats its citizens like faceless statistics and economic units to be bought, sold, bartered, traded, tracked, tortured, and eventually eliminated once they’ve outgrown their usefulness.

This is a government that treats human beings like lab rats to be caged, branded, experimented upon, and then discarded and left to suffer from the after-effects.

This is a government that repeatedly lies, cheats, steals, spies, kills, maims, enslaves, breaks the laws, overreaches its authority, and abuses its power at almost every turn.

This is a government that wages wars for profit, jails its own people for profit, and then turns a blind eye and a deaf ear while its henchmen rape and kill and pillage.

No, this is not a government that can be trusted to do what is right or moral or humane or honorable but instead seems to gravitate towards corruption, malevolence, misconduct, greed, cruelty, brutality and injustice.

This is not a government you should trust with your life, your loved ones, your livelihood or your freedoms.

This is the face of evil, disguised as a democracy, sold to the people as an institution that has their best interests at heart.

Don’t fall for the lie.

The government has never had our best interests at heart.

Endless wars. The government didn’t have our best interests at heart when it propelled us into endless oil-fueled wars and military occupations in the Middle East that wreaked havoc on our economy, stretched thin our military resources and subjected us to horrific blowback.

A police state. There is no way the government had our best interests at heart when it passed laws subjecting us to all manner of invasive searches and surveillance, censoring our speech and stifling our expression, rendering us anti-government extremists for daring to disagree with its dictates, locking us up for criticizing government policies on social media, encouraging Americans to spy and snitch on their fellow citizens, and allowing government agents to grope, strip, search, taser, shoot and kill us.

Battlefield America. Certainly the government did not have our best interests at heart when it turned America into a battlefield, transforming law enforcement agencies into extensions of the military, conducting military drills on domestic soil, distributing “free” military equipment and weaponry to local police, and desensitizing Americans to the menace of the police state with active shooter drills, color-coded terror alerts, and randomly conducted security checkpoints at “soft” targets such as shopping malls and sports arenas.

School-to-prison pipeline. It would be a reach to suggest that the government had our best interests at heart when it locked down the schools, installing metal detectors and surveillance cameras, adopting zero tolerance policies that punish childish behavior as harshly as criminal actions, and teaching our young people that they have no rights, that being force-fed facts is education rather than indoctrination, that they are not to question governmental authority, that they must meekly accept a life of censorship, round-the-clock surveillance, roadside blood draws, SWAT team raids and other indignities.

Secret human experimentation. One would also be hard-pressed to suggest that the American government had our best interests at heart when it conducted secret experiments on an unsuspecting populace—citizens and noncitizens alike—making healthy people sick by spraying them with chemicals, injecting them with infectious diseases and exposing them to airborne toxins. The government reasoned that it was legitimate (and cheaper) to experiment on people who did not have full rights in society such as prisoners, mental patients, and poor blacks.

As the Associated Press reports,

“The late 1940s and 1950s saw huge growth in the U.S. pharmaceutical and health care industries, accompanied by a boom in prisoner experiments funded by both the government and corporations. By the 1960s, at least half the states allowed prisoners to be used as medical guinea pigs … because they were cheaper than chimpanzees.”

In Alabama, for example, 600 black men with syphilis were allowed to suffer without proper medical treatment so that the government could study the natural progression of untreated syphilis. In California, older prisoners were implanted with testicles from livestock and executed convicts so the government could test their virility.

In Connecticut, mental patients were injected with hepatitis so the government could study the disease. In Maryland, sleeping prisoners had a pandemic flu virus sprayed up their noses so the government could monitor their symptoms. In Georgia, two dozen “volunteering” prison inmates had gonorrhea bacteria pumped directly into their urinary tracts through the penis so the government could work on a cure.

In Michigan, male patients at an insane asylum were exposed to the flu so the government could experiment with a flu vaccine. In Minnesota, 11 public service employee “volunteers” were injected with malaria, then starved for five days, so the government could study the impact.

Screenshot from PBS

In New York, prisoners at a reformatory prison were split into two groups to determine how a deadly stomach virus was spread: the first group was made to swallow an unfiltered stool suspension, while the second group merely breathed in germs sprayed into the air. In Staten Island, children with mental retardation were given hepatitis orally and by injection to see if they could then be cured.

Unfortunately, these incidents are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the atrocities the government has inflicted on an unsuspecting populace in the name of secret experimentation.

For instance, there was the U.S. military’s secret race-based testing of mustard gas on more than 60,000 enlisted men (African-Americans, Japanese-Americans, Hispanics, etc.). As NPR reports,

“All of the World War II experiments with mustard gas were done in secret and weren’t recorded on the subjects’ official military records. Most do not have proof of what they went through. They received no follow-up health care or monitoring of any kind. And they were sworn to secrecy about the tests under threat of dishonorable discharge and military prison time, leaving some unable to receive adequate medical treatment for their injuries, because they couldn’t tell doctors what happened to them.”

And then there was the CIA’s Cold War-era program, MKULTRA, in which the government began secretly experimenting on hundreds of unsuspecting American civilians and military personnel by dosing them with LSD, some having the hallucinogenic drug secretly slipped into their drinks, so that the government could explore its uses in brainwashing and controlling targets. The CIA spent nearly $20 million on its MKULTRA program, reportedly as a means of programming people to carry out assassinations and, to a lesser degree, inducing anxieties and erasing memories, before it was supposedly shut down.

Similarly, the top-secret Montauk Project, the inspiration for the hit Netflix series Stranger Things, allegedly was working to develop mind-control techniques that would then be tested out on locals in a nearby village, triggering crime waves or causing teenagers to congregate.

Sounds like the stuff of conspiracy theorists, I know, but the government’s track record of treating Americans like lab rats has been well-documented, including its attempts to expose whole communities to various toxins as part of its efforts to develop lethal biological weapons and study their impact and delivery methods on unsuspecting populations.

In 1949, for instance, the government sprayed bacteria into the Pentagon’s air handling system, then the world’s largest office building. In 1950, special ops forces sprayed bacteria from Navy ships off the coast of Norfolk and San Francisco, in the latter case exposing all of the city’s 800,000 residents.

In 1953, government operatives staged “mock” anthrax attacks on St. Louis, Minneapolis, and Winnipeg using generators placed on top of cars. Local governments were reportedly told that “‘invisible smokescreen[s]’ were being deployed to mask the city on enemy radar.” Later experiments covered territory as wide-ranging as Ohio to Texas and Michigan to Kansas.

In 1965, the government’s experiments in bioterror took aim at Washington’s National Airport, followed by a 1966 experiment in which army scientists exposed a million subway NYC passengers to airborne bacteria that causes food poisoning.

Now one might argue that this is all ancient history and that the government today is different from the government of yesteryear, but has the U.S. government really changed?

Ask yourself: Has the government become any more humane, any more respectful of the rights of the citizenry? Has it become any more transparent or willing to abide by the rule of law? Has it become any more truthful about its activities? Has it become any more cognizant of its appointed role as a guardian of our rights?

Or, having mastered the Orwellian art of Doublespeak and followed the Huxleyan blueprint for distraction and diversion, has the government simply gotten craftier and more conniving, better able to hide its nefarious acts and dastardly experiments under layers of secrecy, legalism and obfuscations?

Consider this: after revelations about the government’s experiments spanning the 20th century spawned outrage, the government began looking for human guinea pigs in other countries, where “clinical trials could be done more cheaply and with fewer rules.”

In Guatemala, prisoners and patients at a mental hospital were infected with syphilis, “apparently to test whether penicillin could prevent some sexually transmitted disease.” More recently, U.S.-funded doctors “failed to give the AIDS drug AZT to all the HIV-infected pregnant women in a study in Uganda even though it would have protected their newborns.” Meanwhile, in Nigeria, children with meningitis were used to test an antibiotic named Trovan. Eleven children died and many others were left disabled.

What kind of government perpetrates such horrific acts on human beings, whether or not they are American citizens?

Is there any difference between a government mindset that justifies experimenting on prisoners because they’re “cheaper than chimpanzees” and a government that sanctions jailhouse strip searches of individuals charged with minor infractions simply because it’s easier on a jail warden’s workload?

John Lennon was right: “We’re being run by maniacs for maniacal ends.”

Unfortunately, the more things change, the more they stay the same.

Just recently, for example, a Fusion Center in Washington State (a Dept. of Homeland Security-linked data collection clearinghouse that shares information between state, local and federal agencies) inadvertently released records on remote mind control tactics (the use of “psycho-electronic” weapons to control people from a distance or subject them to varying degrees of pain).

Mind you, there is no clear evidence to suggest that these particular documents were created by a government agency. Then again, the government—no stranger to diabolical deeds or shady experiments carried out an unsuspecting populace—has done it before.

After all, this is a government that has become almost indistinguishable from the evil it claims to be fighting, whether that evil takes the form of terrorism, torture, drug trafficking, sex trafficking, murder, violence, theft, pornography, scientific experimentations or some other diabolical means of inflicting pain, suffering and servitude on humanity.

For too long now, the American people have been persuaded to barter their freedoms for phantom promises of security and, in the process, have rationalized turning a blind eye to all manner of government wrongdoing—asset forfeiture schemes, corruption, surveillance, endless wars, SWAT team raids, militarized police, profit-driven private prisons, and so on—because they were the so-called lesser of two evils.

No matter how you rationalize it, the lesser of two evils is still evil.

There’s a scene in The Third Man, Carol Reed’s influential 1949 film starring Joseph Cotten and Orson Welles in which a rogue war profiteer (Harry Lime) views human carnage with a callous indifference, unconcerned that the diluted penicillin he’s been trafficking underground has resulted in the tortured deaths of young children.

Challenged by his old friend Holly Martins to consider the consequences of his actions, Lime responds, “In these days, old man, nobody thinks in terms of human beings. Governments don’t, so why should we?”

“Have you ever seen any of your victims?” asks Martins.

“Victims?” responds Lime, as he looks down from the top of a Ferris wheel onto a populace reduced to mere dots on the ground. “Look down there. Tell me. Would you really feel any pity if one of those dots stopped moving forever? If I offered you twenty thousand pounds for every dot that stopped, would you really, old man, tell me to keep my money, or would you calculate how many dots you could afford to spare?”

Lime’s callous indifference is no different from the U.S. government’s calculating cost-benefit analyses.

In the eyes of the government, “we the people” are chump change.

So why do Americans keep believing the government has their best interests at heart?

Why do Americans keep trusting the government?

Why do Americans pretend not to know what is so obvious to anyone with eyes and ears and a conscience?

As Carl Sagan recognized,

“If we’ve been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We’re no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It’s simply too painful to acknowledge, even to ourselves, that we’ve been taken. Once you give a charlatan power over you, you almost never get it back.”

We should never have trusted the government in the first place.

That’s why the Founders came up with a Bill of Rights. They recognized that without binding legal protections affirming the rights of the people, the newly instituted American government would be no better than the old British despot.

It was Thomas Jefferson who warned,

“In questions of power then, let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution.”

Unfortunately, we didn’t heed the warning.

As I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People, the government has ripped the Constitution to shreds and left us powerless in the face of its power grabs, greed and brutality.

So how do you fight back?

How do you fight injustice? How do you push back against tyranny? How do you vanquish evil?

You don’t fight it by hiding your head in the sand.

Stop being apathetic. Stop being neutral. Stop being accomplices.

Start recognizing evil and injustice and tyranny for what they are. Demand government transparency. Vote with your feet (i.e., engage in activism, not just politics). Refuse to play politics with your principles. Don’t settle for the lesser of two evils.

As British statesman Edmund Burke warned,

“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men [and women] to do nothing.”

It’s time for good men and women to do something. And soon.

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Constitutional attorney and author John W. Whitehead is founder and president of The Rutherford Institute. His new book Battlefield America: The War on the American People (SelectBooks, 2015) is available online at www.amazon.com. Whitehead can be contacted at [email protected].

Preparations for the meeting between Kim Jong-un and Donald Trump are for the moment continuing without a hitch. The next step is today’s  historic meeting between Moon Jae-in of South Korea and his North Korean counterpart. On the table are several possibilities. Pyongyang’s strategy seems to be much more refined than it may seem.

The news surrounding the negotiations on the North Korean peninsula continues to appear promising, with all the parties involved remaining relatively optimistic. Important words coming from Pyongyang have been heard in recent weeks. The North Korean leadership has recently established some guidelines regarding internal social and economic development over the coming years. Once complete nuclear deterrence has been achieved, the objective then becomes the development of the economy and an improvement in the material wellbeing of North Koreans. The renunciation of its nuclear status is part of a broader plan that brings with it some essential requirements, such as the reunification of the two Koreas, a peace treaty with the United States, and the withdrawal of foreign troops from the peninsula. The possibility of achieving economic wellbeing for North Koreans is subject to the success of meeting these requirements. In this sense, the April 27 meeting between Moon Jae-in (President of South Korea) and Kim Jong-un opens up new possibilities, given the good will of the leadership of both countries to resolve their long-standing problems. Proceeding according to the timeline presented above, the meeting between the two leaders should pave the way for the much more critical meeting between Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un in a place yet to be decided, but one which would have high symbolic value.

Avoiding excessive optimism, despite the obvious improvements in tone, rhetoric and actions compared to a year ago, the overall US strategy in the region should be considered. We have learned in recent months that the incumbent of the Oval Office has little influence over the dictates of the foreign-policy establishment, the deep state — call it what you like. This is a toxic concoction of industrialists, politicians, think-tank experts, former politicians, soldiers, and philanthropists dedicated solely to the preservation of the role of American primacy, with aspirations to global hegemony, dictated by the (wrong) belief that America is an exceptional country (see parts 1, 2, 3, and 4). In this sense, as highlighted by the Nuclear Posture Review, Washington has to deal with two peer competitors (China and Russia) and two minor opponents (Iran and North Korea) and plans its actions in the long term. The US troops stationed in South Korea reflect the desire of policy-makers to surround the Heartland and its periphery to contain the two powers that occupy this geographical space: Russia and China.

The presence of American troops in South Korea is part of this geostrategic project and is viewed by Washington as crucial to the balance of power. All of these factors, in addition to the need to keep the flow of South Korean money into the coffers to US defense companies, indicate how the talks initiated by DPRK, South Korea and the United States are anything but straightforward.

Observing the general picture of the region and the recent news released by Pyongyang, the question arises as to whether North Korea possibly pursued its nuclear-weapons program only in order to renounce it for the purposes of gaining important concessions from the Americans in the process? Regardless, obtaining a nuclear deterrent has its own inherent logic, in light of the danger posed by Washington and its aggressive imperialist foreign policy.

But as we know, the real deterrent against any American invasion of the peninsula, or a decapitating first-strike against Pyongyang’s leadership, lies in North Korea’s possession of a huge and impressive conventional arsenal that is lined up along the demilitarized zone (DMZ). I pointed out in my previous article how the consequences of a war on the peninsula, even when not involving nuclear weapons, would represent a red line that could not possibly be crossed. The firepower directed against the forces stationed in South Korea by the DPRK would oblige the US to enter into a total war with the North, bringing about an irreparable crisis with Seoul, which would see hundreds of non-interceptable missiles launched against its city and troops. The obvious consequence would be a diplomatic break between South Korea and the United States, since Seoul would be forced to surrender/negotiate with the North. This would result in a disaster for US policy-makers, who use the Korean peninsula to station troops and military equipment (such as THAAD) as a launchpad for containing China.

Realistically, however, what appears to be emerging is very similar to a strategy cleverly developed by the North Korean leadership over a number of years. As Pyongyang needed to bring the United States to the negotiating table, while at the same time guaranteeing its survival, it pursued its nuclear-weapons program. Since Washington seems to have understood that a military solution is not practicable, especially given the pressure brought to bear by its allies all too cognizant of a nuclear-armed DPRK, Pyongyang is now willing to display its good will, deciding to surprise the world by embarking on negotiations, with the renunciation of its nuclear weapons as a major bargaining chip. Under these conditions, Pyongyang is willing to cooperate, and South Korea welcomes the initiative with open arms, accelerating the meeting between the two leaders and paving the way for peace on the peninsula. The People’s Republic of China applauds the diplomatic efforts and encourages South Korea, and later America, in these diplomatic efforts.

Seoul, Beijing and Pyongyang have every interest in reaching an all-encompassing deal, with or without Washington. The diplomatic ability of this trio has managed to leave the United States with its back against the wall, first of all obliging it to sit down at the negotiating table (something already revolutionary for reasons explained above), and then requiring it to ease sanctions considerably. Otherwise, North Korea would be seen as the party that is willing to achieve peace, while Washington is left isolated and looking like the warmonger.

North Korea finds itself in a win-win situation. If sanctions are eased and peace talks are managed in the right manner, then the process of socio-economic rebirth, which Kim Jong-un considers a priority, can begin. Should the rhetoric of war prevail in Washington, then Washington would find itself at odds with its main ally, Seoul. It is likely that China could even justifiably renounce its sanctions against the DPRK, blaming the US for not making any progress in the face of extraordinary offers by Kim Jong-un to renounce his nuclear weapons.

Washington would come across as the uncooperative party, and this would free the relevant parties, including allies, from taking the United States into consideration. Beijing would easily take the place of Washington as a mediator between North and South Korea, starting tripartite talks, taking into account everyone’s interests but Washington’s. The focus of the United States will be on achieving the least negative outcome for itself, given that it knows it has one of the weakest hands to play at the negotiating table.

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Federico Pieraccini is an independent freelance writer specialized in international affairs, conflicts, politics and strategies. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is from the author.

There is a lot of concern over the possibility of a trade war between China and the USA. In early April, U.S. President Donald Trump announced that his administration was considering levying $100-billion of additional tariffs on Chinese exports, after the Chinese government responded to a previously proposed U.S. tariff hike on Chinese goods of $50-billion by announcing its own equivalent tariff hikes on U.S. exports. And the Chinese government has made it clear it will again respond in kind if these new tariffs are actually imposed.

So, what’s it all about?

To this point, it is worth emphasizing that no new tariffs have in fact been levied, by either the U.S. or Chinese governments. The first round of announced U.S. tariffs on Chinese goods are still subject to a public comment period before becoming effective, and the content of the second round has yet to be formally decided upon. Thus, both countries have time to back away from their threats.

Also significant is the fact that both countries are being careful about the products they are threatening to tax. For example, the Trump administration has carefully avoided talking about placing tariffs on computers or cell phones, two of the biggest U.S. imports from China. The U.S. has also refrained from putting tariffs on clothing, shoes, and furniture, also major imports from China.

Multinational Marketing Networks

It is not hard to guess the reason why: these goods are produced as part of multinational corporate controlled production and marketing networks that operate under the direction of leading U.S. corporations like Dell, Apple, and Walmart. Taxing these goods would threaten corporate profitability. As a former commissioner of the U.S. International Trade Commission pointed out:

“It seems that the U.S. trade representative was very much aware of the global value chains in keeping some of these items off the list.”

The Chinese government, for its part, has been equally careful. For example, it put smaller planes on its proposed tariff list while exempting the larger planes made by Boeing.

Although the media largely echoes President Trump’s claim that his tariff threats directed at China are all about trying to reduce the large U.S. trade deficit with China in order to save high paying manufacturing jobs and revitalize U.S. manufacturing, the president really has a far narrower aim – that is to protect the monopoly position and profits of dominant U.S. corporations. The short hand phrase for this is the protection of “intellectual property rights.” As Trump tweeted in March:

“The U.S. is acting swiftly on Intellectual Property theft. We cannot allow this to happen as it has for many years!”

Bloomberg News offers a more detailed explanation of the connection between the tariff threats and the goal of defending corporate intellectual property:

“the White House is considering imposing tariffs on a broad range of consumer goods to punish China for its IP [intellectual property] practices… the U.S. alleges … that China has been stealing U.S. trade secrets, forcing American companies to hand over proprietary technology as a condition of doing business on the mainland, and providing state support for Chinese firms to acquire critical technology abroad. A consensus is growing that these policies, designed to establish China as a dominant player in key technologies of the future, from semiconductors to electric cars, threaten to erode America’s technological edge, both commercial and military.”

In other words, U.S. tariff threats are, in reality, a bargaining chip to get the Chinese government to accept stronger protections for the intellectual property rights and technology of leading U.S. firms in industries such as pharmaceuticals, aerospace, telecommunications, and autos. If Trump succeeds, U.S. multinational corporations will become more profitable. But there will be little gain for U.S. workers.

Jobs for U.S. Workers?

The auto industry offers a good case in point. President Trump has repeatedly said that forcing China to lower its tariffs on imported U.S. cars will help the U.S. auto industry. As he correctly points out, there is a 2.5 per cent tariff on cars shipped from China to the U.S. and a 25 per cent tariff on cars shipped from the U.S. to China. Trump claims that lowering the Chinese tariff would allow U.S. automakers to export more cars to China and boost auto employment in the USA.

However, GM, Ford and other automakers have already established joint ventures with Chinese firms and the great majority of the cars they sell in China are made in China. This allows them to avoid the tariff. China is GM’s biggest market and has been for six years straight. The company has 10 joint ventures and two wholly owned foreign enterprises as well as more than 58,000 employees in China. It sells approximately 4 million cars a year in China, almost all made in China.

The two largest automobile exporters from the U.S. to China are actually German. BMW shipped 106,971 vehicles from the U.S. to China in 2017; Mercedes sent 71,198. Ford was the leading U.S. owned auto exporter and in third place with total yearly exports of 45,145 vehicles. Fiat Chrysler was fourth with 16,545.

In short, lowering tariffs on auto imports from the U.S. will do little to boost auto production or employment in the USA, or even corporate profits. The leading U.S. automakers have already globalized their production networks. But, changes to the joint venture law, or a toughening of intellectual property rights in China could mean a substantial boost to U.S. automaker profits.

For its part, the Chinese government is trying to use its large state-owned enterprises, control over finance, investment restrictions on foreign investment, licensing powers, government procurement policies, and trade restrictions to build its own strong companies. These are reasonable development policies, ones very similar to those used by Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan. It is short-sided for progressives in the U.S. to criticize the use of such policies. In fact, we should be advocating the development of similar state capacities in the U.S. in order to rebuild and revitalize the U.S. economy.

That doesn’t mean we should uncritically embrace the Chinese position. The reason is that the Chinese government is using these policies to promote highly exploitative Chinese companies that are themselves increasingly export oriented and globalizing. In other words, the Chinese state seeks only a rebalancing of power and wealth for the benefit of its own elites, not a progressive restructuring of its own or the global economy.

In sum, these threats and counter-threats over trade have little to do with defending worker interests in the U.S. or in China. Unfortunately, this fact has been lost in the media frenzy over how to interpret Trump’s grandstanding and ever-changing policies. Moreover, the willingness of progressive analysts to join with the Trump administration in criticizing China for its use of state industrial policies ends up blurring the important distinction between the capacities and the way those capacities are being used. And that will only make it harder to build the kind of movement we need to reshape the U.S. economy.

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Martin Hart-Landsberg is Professor Emeritus of Economics at Lewis and Clark College, Portland, Oregon; and Adjunct Researcher at the Institute for Social Sciences, Gyeongsang National University, South Korea. His areas of teaching and research include political economy, economic development, international economics, and the political economy of East Asia. He maintains a blog Reports from the Economic Front.

Featured image is from the author.

While Syrian troops carry on their liberation of Damascus’ suburbs from radical militants with the support of Iranian troops and Shia militia detachments, the United States and Saudi Arabia are planning to take advantage of Ankara’s tacit consent and launch a decisive blow against the forces of Bashar al-Assad. Saudi demands issued to Qatar, urging the latter to launch a military strike against Syria is just part of a multinational military operation in the making to rely on ground forces drawn from  Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states. We face the probable entry of so-called Arab coalition forces led by Saudi Arabia into Syrian territory, illegally occupied by the United States. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has recently expressed its readiness to send its troops to Syria within the framework of a so-called International Coalition to replace American troops deployed there acting on the request of US President Donald Trump.

It’s safe to say that the plan aimed at balkanizing Syria is in full swing. From a realistic point of view, the Saudi-led forces only need to obtain consent from the US to launch an invasion, all while Washington is engaged in a variety of unnecessary political maneuvers, including holding consultations with Kurdish-led SDF forces that it has sponsored for some time now. Thus, the US is attempting to extend some form of authority to these forces as they enter US-occupied territories. While Russian forces enjoy the invitation of the legitimately recognized government in Damascus, the Pentagon has no such luxury, and therefore wants to obtain a plausible pretext by recognizing the SDF as a governmental power in the territory of eastern Syria. This means that their consent will also be a factor aimed at legitimizing the military occupation of the GCC forces.

Meanwhile, Turkish troops are also actively engaged in the formation of local self-governed bodies in the territories that Ankara occupies. And even though their structure is far more complicated than those formed by the SDF, the process is clearly moving forward, and in the foreseeable future, Turkey will also try to use the same pretext to try and justify its military presence in northern Syria as if it was acting at the request of legitimate authorities in the border areas with Turkey.

A great many Arab media sources report that consultations are being held with leaders of the SDF. As a matter of fact, representatives of the United States are indeed holding talks with the Kurdish People’s Self-Defense Forces, the dominant force in the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), over the nature of the future occupation of their territories by a number of Arab states on the pretext that they will be defending those lands from the almost destroyed Islamic State (ISIS) terrorist organization, and it seems that the Kurdish leader Aldar Khalil believes that this occupation is a viable solution to the now unclear terrorist threat. However, he refused to disclose the contents of these negotiations, as well as the areas of possible deployment of Arab forces or their nationality, but he recognized them as part of the international US-led coalition. Kurdish sources would report that local militiamen had a meeting with representatives of the Arab states in Ayn Issa, a town within the Tell Abyad District of the Raqqa Governorate.

The progress made by pro-Assad forces and their Iranian allies aimed at liberating Syrian territories still held by militants are of little concern to the West and its allies, as these militants serve no direct role in future plans to occupy the edges of the Syrian state. Moreover, in the process of this liberation Syrian forces are suffering losses. On April 24, yet another attempt of breakthrough in the Yarmouk area failed, resulting in another 30 Syrian soldiers killed, including those from the elite Tiger Forces and Hezbollah, who had been redeployed to this area from Kalamoon due to the fact that Palestinians were leaving their positions en masse.

Naturally, the incursion of Arab forces will significantly strengthen the ground presence of the US-led coalition, and one is safe to assume that these Arab forces will try to push Iranian forces out of Syria and seal all land routes connecting Syria and Iran. The next phase of the war will have be aimed at directly colliding with the Iranian proxy forces and Iranian military detachments in Syria. Amid all of this remains the coalition’s ultimate goal – the overthrow of Bashar al-Assad.

Under these conditions, Russia is trying to strengthen air defense capabilities over the Syrian Arab Republic, so they can provide an adequate response to additional missile strikes that the Pentagon may launch against sensitive Syrian military infrastructure. This explains why the delivery of Russia’s advanced S-300 systems to Damascus is now being discussed by everyone, and in particular by Israel. However, Israeli officials made it clear that the Israeli Air Force will only launch strikes against S-300 systems deployed in Syria if they are used to target Israeli military aircraft. But you cannot win the Syrian war with air defense systems alone. They are quite capable of significantly weakening the effectiveness of US missile and bomb strikes, but the outcome will ultimately be determined by land engagements. Additionally, if the Syrian air defense forces are going to begin intercepting America’s Tomahawks and combat aircraft effectively, Washington is quite capable of bringing its entire military machine to the region, taking advantage of both its aircraft groups and the Al Udeid base in Qatar, that remains the largest in the region.

It seems that the end of the Syrian conflict is approaching. Almost all players have grown tired of it, including the US and Russia. Syria has become the strongest factor of contention amid Moscow’s relations with Washington and Tel Aviv, and against the backdrop of Washington’s attempts to make anti-Russian sanctions even broader, Moscow doesn’t seem determined to go all in on it. Armenia and eastern Ukraine also weigh heavily on decision makers in Moscow. Everyone understands that there will be no nuclear conflict between Moscow and Washington over Syria, no matter how intense such rhetoric becomes.

As for Saudi Arabia, it still finds itself trapped in a conflict of its own making in Yemen. It also faces mounting difficulties domestically including a possible attempted military coup from within. It’s clear that by pushing Qatar into the abyss that is the Syrian war, the Saudi royal family wants Syrian and Iranian forces to destroy all Qatari troops, as there is no more that six thousand servicemen serving Doha. Once those soldiers are eliminated, Riyadh will be able to work on eradicating the Al Thani regime with which it has poisoned ties, since the sitting Qatari emir has been courting Iran, while obstructing Saudi Arabia and the UAE from advancing aspects of their agenda in the Persian Gulf. The main goal of the Arabian monarchies shared by both the US and Israel is to destroy Iran through any means possible since it represents the principal rival of the Sunni Arab regimes in the region. And, apparently, Riyadh has received Trump’s consent for overthrowing the ruling Qatari family. It’s clear that Saudi Arabia is far more important to the US in its future struggle against Iran than a tiny gas-driven emirate like Qatar, too ambitious for its own good.

*

Peter Lvov, Ph.D in political science, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook.” 

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South Carolina is poised to be the first state to pass legislation to adopt an Israel-centric definition for “anti-Semitism.” This will then apply to the state’s campuses, potentially limiting discussion of Israel-Palestine to one-sided information that fosters U.S. policies that provide Israel $10 million per day. The bill has been heralded in Israel as a “a landmark bill” that will lead change across the U.S. and the world.

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The South Carolina Senate has recently passed legislation that changes the definition of anti-Semitism to include criticism of Israel, and then applies this new definition to college campuses in a manner that experts say will impede free academic inquiry. The U.S. gives Israel over $10 million per day, and Congress frequently approves increases to that amount; restricting discussion on this issue could serve to bolster and increase these expenditures.

The legislation codifies a definition of anti-Semitism that significantly changes the meaning of the word, and it requires the state’s colleges to use this new definition when determining whether an action is “discriminatory” and therefore prohibited. This new definition declares statements that are critical of Israel—even when factual—“anti-Semitic” and therefore impermissible.

A bill on this passed in the state House of Representatives, but when promoters failed to pass it in the state Senate, they resorted to a parliamentary maneuver that may have broken their own rules. They inserted the text at the last minute in South Carolina’s 545-page General Appropriations bill, which is considered a “must-pass” bill because it is required for state government to function. The insertion is on page 348, sandwiched between a section on “Statewide Higher Education Repair and Renovation” and a section that specifies the amount of money appropriated to one of the state’s colleges.

Since the inserted text (section 11.22) does not appear germane to the bill in which it was inserted (and was ruled out of order on the first attempt to add it), the maneuver may have broken legislative rules.1

However, it appears unlikely that the sponsors will be held to account, for two reasons: 1. In Israel the bill is considered extremely important, and some powerful organizations both in the U.S. and internationally support it. 2. However, in South Carolina, legislators tend to consider it insignificant legislation that will have little, if any, impact and therefore see no reason to expend political capital in questioning it. (More on this below.)

Not Law Yet

While pro-Israel groups are celebrating the passage as a “monumental” victory, there are actually two more steps before it becomes state law.

First, the bill must be reconciled with a previous appropriations bill passed by the House. This bill also contains an amendment redefining anti-Semitism and applying it to colleges, but uses different wording. Representatives of the two chambers will meet in the next week or so to create a compromise bill. After that has been accomplished, the Governor must sign it into law.

It is safe to assume neither of these steps will constitute obstacles, however. The governor is in an 8-candidate gubernatorial race where campaign donations are critical, and examination of campaign finance records indicate that pro-Israel donors, often from out of state, frequently play an outsized role in such elections. If history is any predictor, neither he nor any challengers are likely to oppose the legislation.

The Law Will Have Major Impact

The inserted legislation does several things:

First, it vastly expands the traditional, very clear meaning of anti-Semitism—hostility to or prejudice against Jewish people on the basis of their being Jewish—to a new definition that includes certain types of information about Israel.

The Senate bill spells out a long, hazy definition that consists of an array of types of actions, “certain perceptions,” “rhetorical manifestation,” etc., that would now legally constitute “anti-Semitism.” Half a dozen of them are related to the modern state of Israel.

The House bill, rather than spelling out the definition itself, codifies a definition adopted by a State Department special envoy in 2010, which also changed the traditional meaning of anti-Semitism to include statements critical of Israel. (Full text of both are below.)

The Senate bill requires South Carolina’s Commission on Higher Education to print copies of this new, Israel-centric definition of anti-Semitism and distribute them to all South Carolina public colleges and universities.

Finally, both bills mandate that academic institutions use this definition in deciding whether someone has violated a school’s policy prohibiting discrimination.

If the legislation goes through and becomes law, as proponents appear certain it will, the consequences could be two-fold: a significant loss of academic freedom at South Carolina colleges, and, indirectly, continued one-sided U.S. Middle East policies and massive expenditures.

But first let’s look at the historic and geopolitical background of this new definition.

Origin of the New Definition

The basic outline of this new, Israel-centric definition of anti-Semitism was first created by an Israeli minister in 2004. Israel partisans have successfully pushed its adoption by numerous entities around the world ever since, building on even the smallest endorsements to create momentum and a snowballing effect. (See this for details.)

In the U.S., a two-step process has achieved partial success in getting the nation to legally adopt the new definition, but the effort is ongoing—South Carolina’s law would be a major step forward for proponents of the definition, and the accompanying censorship of certain types of information.

The first step that would enable the adoption of the definition in the U.S. also occurred in 2004: Pro-Israel groups successfully promoted federal legislation to create a “special envoy” and State Department office to monitor anti-Semitism. This was done over the objections of state department officials, who said it was unnecessary.

The second step was accomplished by one of these envoys, who unilaterally adopted the new, Israel-centric definition in 2009. (All three envoys have been demonstrably pro-Israel, two later working for the Israel lobbying organization AIPAC—the American Israel Political Action Committee. President Trump, as part of his general cost-cutting measures, has not yet appointed a new envoy, causing many pro-Israel groups to call him anti-Semitic for this failure.)

Anti-Semitism Special Envoy Hannah Rosenthal (above) adopted the Israel-centric definition in 2009.

Since that time, Israel partisans have introduced legislation in the federal government and state legislatures—and even on some college campuses—to adopt this definition, which they call the “state department definition.” South Carolina, if the bill becomes state law, will be their first success in this effort.

Curtailing Freedom of Speech and Academic Inquiry

These bills usually contain a final sentence that says they don’t violate the Constitutional guarantee of free speech, and their sponsors make this claim to the people voting for them.

However, the reality seems to be the opposite.

Legal experts say the legislation will do just that, and there is a history of university administrators around the country censoring protected speech on the basis of such definitions.

In fact, the author of the definition adopted by the State Department anti-Semitism envoy has vehemently opposed legislating the definition into law, specifically writing that applying it to colleges “is a direct affront to academic freedom.”

In a letter opposing federal legislation to codify the definition as law, author Kenneth Stern stated:

“The definition was never intended to be used to limit speech on college campuses; it was written for European data collectors to have a guide for what to include and what to exclude in their reports.”

Stern, the American Jewish Committee’s expert on anti-Semitism for 25 years, opposed  incorporating the definition into law in a way that he called “unconstitutional and unwise.” Stern warned that this would “actually harm Jewish students and have a toxic effect on the academy.”

Other legal experts agree with Stern.

An analysis by the Center for Constitutional Rights and other groups that examined the proposed federal bill (not yet passed) found that not only would it interfere with freedom of speech, but that such censorship was the motivation for the legislation:

“The Act purports to address rising anti-Semitism on college campuses, but a close reading reveals that its true purpose is to silence campus advocacy for Palestinian rights and censor any criticism of Israeli government policies.”

The document continues:

“This vague and overbroad re-definition conflates political criticism of Israel with anti-Semitism, infringing on constitutionally protected speech.”

Finally, the paper specifically emphasizes:

“The re-definition is especially detrimental to universities, where freedom of speech, critical inquiry, and unfettered debate are integral.”

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) also actively opposes such legislation, stating that the federal bill poses “a serious threat to the First Amendment free speech rights of those on campus who may hold certain political views.”

In its letter of opposition to the federal bill, the ACLU stated:

“The First Amendment prevents the federal government from using its great weight to impose severe penalties on a person simply for sharing a political viewpoint critical of Israel.”

The chief of staff of the ACLU’s legislative office in Washington said that the legislation “opens the door to considering anti-Israel political statements and activities as possible grounds for civil rights investigations.”

How the Law Will Limit Free Speech in South Carolina

An examination of the South Carolina situation indicates how the new law could play out.

University of South Carolina guidelines contain the laudable statement that “all students should be able to learn and live” in an environment that is “free from discrimination … in all programs, activities, and services of the University.”

Since the new legislation defines many statements about Israel, no matter how factual, as “anti-Semitic” and therefore constituting discrimination, Israel partisans can be expected to invoke the law: to prevent public speakers from discussing information on Palestine, to prevent professors from educating students fully and accurately on the Middle East, and/or to punish professors or students who provide facts that Israel and its partisans don’t wish students to know. Anti-Palestinian activists have invoked the definition to accomplish all of these things elsewhere, in a number of instances.

In addition, the legislation could interfere with student groups’ ability to bring speakers to campus. While student groups are normally allowed to use student fees to bring outside speakers, under the new legislation this could change. While students could bring pro-Israel speakers without problems, groups wishing to bring speakers with different perspectives might not have an equal ability to do so. Ironically, a bill that many of its supporters intended to be against discrimination, might actually create discrimination against certain students, including those from ethnic or religious minorities.

By blocking such speakers and information, the “free marketplace of ideas” would be severely limited on South Carolina campuses when it comes to Israel-Palestine—one of the most significant issues in today’s world, a critical factor in Middle East wars, and the core issue of the Middle East.

For decades, the U.S. has given Israel far more of our tax money than to other nation (on average, 7,000 times more per capita than to other people), as well as massive diplomatic cover. Most of the rest of the world therefore considers the U.S. as the sponsor responsible for Israel’s actions. Therefore, it is particularly crucial that Americans be fully informed on Israel and its actions. No one, including the most committed supporter of Israel, benefits from one-sided, incomplete information. Friends don’t let friends bury their heads in misinformation while supporting ethnic cleansing.

“Momentous” Breakthrough

Pro-Israel groups, both international and domestic, have been watching—and participating in—the South Carolina situation with great eagerness. Now that South Carolina seems poised to adopt the “anti-Semitism” legislation, many hope that “as goes South Carolina, so goes the nation”—and the world.

Israel’s Jerusalem Post newspaper called the South Carolina legislation “a landmark bill that is set to be the model for states across America and countries around the world.”

The pro-Israel Brandeis Center, which helped promote the legislation, declared:

“Just as two dozen states followed South Carolina’s lead on legislation condemning the movement to boycott certain countries [Israel], we are hoping this momentous step will result in another national wave to, once and for all, begin defeating rising anti-Semitism.”

Anti-Semitism, that is, defined to include many forms of criticism of Israel.

Supporters of these bills claim their efforts are necessary to battle rising anti-Semitism. Therefore, it is important to realize and scrutinize what they mean by “anti-Semitism.”

The much-cited Anti-Defamation League (ADL) and another group, AMCHA, classify many actions in support of international law and Palestinian human rights as supposedly “anti-Semitism.” Both organizations actively advocate for Israel. The ADL, which is often perceived as a civil rights organization, has been connected to some initiatives promoting Islamophobia, and it produced a campus guide describing how to block events about Palestine.

Despite what the legislation’s supporters would have us believe, a 2017 report found that Jewish students “reported feeling comfortable on their campuses, and, more specifically, comfortable as Jews on their campuses.” Fewer than 10 percent of the students articulated the belief that anti-Israel sentiment is anti-Semitism. Even some Israel partisans have said that reports of alleged anti-Semitism on campuses are inaccurate.

Barry Trachtenberg, who teaches in the Jewish Studies Department at Wake Forest University, said it was a “factual distortion” to call colleges “hotbeds” of anti-Semitism, and said that that criticism of Israel is part of healthy academic debate.

“Students who engage in speech critical of Israeli policy are largely motivated by their concern for Palestinian human rights,” Trachtenberg said. “They are not motivated by anti-Semitic hate, but its opposite — a desire to end racial and religious discrimination of all kinds.”

The reality is that students who support Israel are extraordinarily well supported on American campuses. There are over two dozen organizations that collectively contribute millions of dollars to campaigns to promote Israel on campuses. Casino magnate Sheldon Adelson reportedly has raised at least $20 million to quash student speech critical of Israeli policies. Sheldon, who has said he wished he had served in the Israeli military rather than in the U.S. army, has created a task force that funds pro-Israel students to organize events on campuses, with the funding per campus reportedly in the six figures per year on at least forty campuses.

Israel has long recognized the need to promote its interests on campuses. The Israeli minister who created the original formulation for the new anti-Semitism definition said that college campuses were “one of the most important battlefields” for Israel.

An Israel lobby leader announced some years ago, after student government at U.C. Berkeley considered taking some measures to boycott Israel:

“We’re going to make certain that pro-Israel students take over the student government. That is how AIPAC operates in our nation’s capitol. This is how AIPAC must operate on our nation’s campuses.”

Organizations & individuals behind the bill

A number of pro-Israel organizations took credit for helping on South Carolina’s anti-Semitism legislation.

The Brandeis Center, named after former Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis (who for a period headed the world Zionist movement) announced that its representatives “testified at multiple South Carolina hearings on the bill and have been working closely with state legislators to ensure passage.”

Another group that helped promote the bill was the Israel Allies Foundation. Its U.S. executive director Joseph Sabag stated:

“The IAF was honored to help lead the advocacy and surrounding educational efforts, as well as provided policy and legal resources to legislators for this effort.”

Israel Allies Director Joe Sabag speaks at Standing with Israel event in Texas, where he praises the South Carolina bill.

IAF is a multi-million dollar international organization that promotes Israel around the world. Sabag explained that the mission of IAF, “via its 37 pro-Israel Caucuses worldwide, and in the U.S. Congress and state legislatures, is to provide policymakers with the resources they need to craft sound public policy.” IAF particularly works to create support for Israel among Christians, putting on events at churches and other venues throughout the United States.

Sabag said that the Israel Allies Foundation “couldn’t be prouder of what’s been accomplished here in South Carolina.”

The Israel Project, with a budget of about $8 million, is another organization that helped on the legislation. Founded 16 years ago to support Israel, The Israel Project focuses on “informing the media and public conversation about Israel and the Middle East.” Its website proclaims that it “is the only organization dedicated to changing people’s minds about Israel through cutting-edge strategic communications. We don’t attack the media, we become a trusted partner and resource.”

Israel Project President Josh Block (annual salary half a million dollars) praised South Carolina:

“South Carolina was the first state to pass anti-BDS legislation and now has become the first state in the nation to pass uniform definition of anti-Semitism legislation.” (BDS—boycott, divestment, sanctions—is an economic campaign to pressure Israel to end its violations of international law, U.S. law, and human rights.).

The Brandeis Center also credited CUFI (Christians United for Israel) and StandWithUs for their help on the legislation.

Founded in 2006, CUFI claims to have 3-4 million “members,” though this seems to actually be the number of emails the organization has gathered; the number of active supporters may be closer to 30,000 to 50,000. CUFI lobbies on behalf of Israel and disseminates pro-Israel spin on diverse issues to Americans and Canadians.

Charisma News reports:

“It’s no secret that one of the most powerful lobbying groups in Washington, D.C., the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), has long wanted a ‘Gentile arm,’ and some believe they now have it in CUFI.”

While CUFI’s head is megachurch pastor and celebrity John Hagee, its executive director and co-founder David Brog may be the organization’s real mover and shaker. According to Charisma News, “Brog is the powerhouse behind the Christian organization, yet he’s also a conservative (non-Messianic) Jew.” The article reports:

“Brog, who was chief of staff to liberal Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania for seven years, is said to run CUFI like a political campaign. He has talking points, stays focused and rallies his constituency.”

Prime Minister Ehud Barak is his cousin.

Stand With Us is an international organization supporting Israel headquartered in Los Angeles that works in the U.S., Canada, Israel, England, South Africa, China, Europe, and Australia. CEO Roz Rothstein commended South Carolina’s legislation, saying:

“Just as South Carolina took the lead in passing anti-BDS legislation, we hope that the passage of H3643 will be the first of many states to follow suit.”

Over 1,000 people helped StandWithUs celebrate its 16th anniversary at its 2017 gala at the Beverly Hilton Hotel in Beverly Hills.. The event raised more than $3 million.

The Brandeis Center also credited the Jewish Federations of Columbia and Charleston, South Carolina with helping on the legislation.

Representative Alan Clemmons

The official author of the House bill was Representative Alan Clemmons, known for his Israel advocacy. South Carolina’s Post and Courier newspaper reports that Clemmons is “Israel’s biggest supporter in a U.S. state legislature.”

Alan Clemmons (right) with Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu & wife; insert shows Clemmons with Israeli soldiers. [From Clemmons Twitter account.]

Clemmons, a Mormon, has traveled to Israel four times, met with Prime Minister Netanyahu, sometimes leads South Carolina delegations to Israel, and was a drafter of the 2016 national Republican Party platform on Israel, parts of which have been adopted by the Trump administration. In 2017 Clemmons joined U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. and former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley at special U.N. event sponsored by the World Jewish Congress.

Clemmons sometimes meets with extremist Israeli settlers (Israeli settlements are illegal under international law), and calls them his “great tutors” on the issue of Israel-Palestine. (But Clemons ignores the statements of religious leaders such as Dead Sea scholar Millar Burrows, Naturei Karta rabbis, and the American Council on Judaism, who have long opposed Israeli confiscation of Palestinian land.)

Alan Clemmons’ delegation to Israel spent much of its time in Israeli settlements, where their “eyes were opened” by Israeli settlers (sometimes from the U.S.) who claim they have the right to confiscate land belonging to Christians, Muslims, and others.

There is no record of Clemmons and his delegations ever traveling to Gaza or the West Bank on independent, fact-finding trips or having unscripted meetings with Palestinian Muslims and Christians.

Opposition to the Legislation

A number of South Carolinians objected to the legislation for diverse reasons.

Some argued it could “restrict thoughtful critiques of Israeli policy.” A Palestinian student activist wrote a letter to the editor in which she explained that her group, which included  Jewish members, “fully acknowledge and sympathize with the Jewish history, but assert our right to criticize the actions of Israel.”

South Carolina’s State newspaper reported on opponents who testified against the House bill:

“Speaking hurriedly to meet a two-minute time limit lawmakers had imposed, they said the bill would discourage college discussions on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and gag pro-Palestine student groups.”

The paper reported that Caroline Nagel, an associate professor of geography at the University of South Carolina, said she feared that the bill would “silence professors and student groups who are trying to explain and to give voice to a diversity of opinions about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.”

“I am frankly baffled,” Nagel said, “as to why any legislator would consider an idea to curtail our freedom of speech.”

Israel was created through the expulsion of hundreds of thousands of the original Muslim and Christian inhabitants. Under the new law such information might be considered “anti-Semitic” and prohibited.

Some opponents felt that the House members who signed onto it had been “hoodwinked.”

“They just think it’s something that’s nice for Israel,” said David Matos, president of Carolina Peace Resource Center. “They don’t realize it’s a pretty nasty attempt to suppress free speech on college campuses … to suppress debate on college campuses on Israel and Palestine.”

“It’s clearly unconstitutional,” Matos said. “The intent is to suppress political speech and smear it as anti-Semitism.”

Some State Legislators Raise Questions

South Carolina State Senator Brad Hutto held up the Senate bill, leading its sponsors to slip it into the appropriations bill instead. Hutto said:

“I have heard not one university trustee that I know come up here and tell me that they were having any problems understanding how to read the dictionary or make up their own mind and needing our help on it.”

The Israel Allies Foundation, angered at Hutto’s action, blasted Hutto, a longtime liberal who calls anti-Semitism “horrible,” for allegedly working “to benefit the forces of bigotry and intolerance.”

In reality, however, Hutto had explained that he would support the legislation if it applied to “all races, ethnicities and gender identities.”

In an interview for this article, Hutto said that he was opposed to the bill for several reasons.

Hutto felt there was no need for the legislation. While he emphasized that “anti-Semitism is a horrible thing,” he pointed out that the universities have an elected board of trustees fully capable of managing any complaints or problems. He said there was no need for the State Assembly to “micromanage conduct on campuses.”

Hutto also disliked that the bill focused on only one type of bigotry, and in only one place. He emphasized that “all bigotry of every kind is bad,” and said “it’s bad everywhere, in housing, at work, everywhere.” Hutto said he might consider supporting a broader bill that made a general statement against all bigotries in all their various forms and locations.

Hutto also felt it was a mistake to inject foreign policy into the state legislature when there are numerous pressing issues in South Carolina that the legislature needs to address.

The bottom line, however, was that Hutto didn’t think the law would have any impact, “other than getting one or two members free trips to Israel.”

For that reason, he said, most Senators considered the legislation unimportant. While some other Senators also opposed the legislation, he said—mostly out of freedom of speech concerns—they didn’t see the need to expend “political capital” on a law that they felt would “do nothing.”

Hutto, focused on South Carolina and the needs of his constituents, seemed surprised that the bill is considered so significant elsewhere.

A few people in the state house also opposed the bill.

One of them, Josiah Magnuson, said in an interview for this article that he supports Israel, but thought that the bill was “probably not the right approach” and was concerned that it might limit free speech. Like Hutto, though, he didn’t think the legislation was important or would do much.

Representative Jonathan Hill, a former sponsor who took his name off the bill, said that he thought it was wrong to apply to U.S. citizens a State Department definition of anti-Semitism intended for use abroad:

“It does not necessarily account for the rights of American citizens to free speech. It’s designed for application in a geopolitical context.”

In an interview for this article, Hill noted that the State Department definition “was created for diplomatic purposes, not for use in the U.S.” and was concerned that applying it to colleges “could interfere with the Constitutional rights of Americans.”

Hill emphasized that he finds anti-Semitism “reprehensible,” but is focused on “the most appropriate way to handle the situation.” He said, “I’m not against what Senator Clemmons is trying to accomplish, but I feel that he is going about it the wrong way.”

“The First Amendment is a pretty big deal,” Hill said. “At the end of the day the government can’t start micromanaging the things that you say.”

Jewish Academics Oppose the Legislation

Some Jewish groups and individuals also opposed the new definition and codifying it in federal law or state law.

The American Council on Judaism’s Allan Brownfeld recently wrote:

“There is a campaign to redefine anti-Semitism to mean criticism of Israel and opposition to Zionism. This campaign has as its goal the silencing of those who are critical of Israel’s 50-year occupation of Palestinian territories and are engaged in activities such as support for the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement.”

Brownfeld concluded:

“Real problems must be addressed with real discussion and debate. Only those who have something to lose by open debate would use the tactics we have seen deployed by Israel and its most fervent American supporters.”

Over 60 Jewish scholars signed a letter calling the federal bill “misguided and dangerous.”

Another 300 Jewish students signed a letter objecting that the federal bill conflated “legitimate criticism of the policies of the Israeli government with anti-Semitism, using a problematic definition of anti-Semitism never intended for use on college campuses … At a time when freedom of expression is under threat across the country, we need to be protecting and expanding speech, not restricting it.”

The letter said that such legislation would “limit our freedom of expression around the vital issues of our time.”

Truly a Vital Issue

The issue of Israel-Palestine is particularly relevant right now.

In the last few weeks there has been a massive uprising by men, women, and children in Gaza against the theft of their homes, their virtual imprisonment by Israel, and the decade-long blockade against them that has caused malnutrition among their children and severe hardship for their whole population.

Israeli forces have injured approximately 5,000 of the demonstrators, including a child who was shot in the head. During Easter, Israeli forces blocked hundreds of Palestinian Christians in Gaza from praying at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem.

These are not pleasant facts to disseminate or to know. Israel partisans may wish to dispute details, and have the right to do so. But the proper way to go about this is with civil, open, fair debate—not by suppressing information, breaking the rules, cheating students of their rights, and violating a Constitution that has served the United States well for over 200 years, as we have striven ever closer to the ideal of equal rights for all.

Allowing a special interest group to censor important information from our country’s students, even for the most benign of motivations, is unfair to our young people, damages our way of government, and causes profound harm to all of us.

Let us hope that South Carolina’s legislators rethink their support for this bill. If they don’t, let us hope that other states don’t follow in a direction that violates some of our nation’s most fundamental principles. Our students and our nation deserve better.

*

Alison Weir is executive director of If Americans Knew, president of the Council for the National Interest, and author of Against Our Better Judgment: The Hidden History of How the U.S. Was Used to Create Israel.

Note

1 The first attempt to insert the text into the Senate appropriations bill, Amendment No. 49, was ruled not germane and ruled out of order. Supporters of the text then came back with Amendment No. 74, which added the requirement that the new definition be printed and distributed. Because this required an expenditure, this time the amendment squeaked through. Both amendments were introduced by Senator Larry Grooms, who had shepherded the bill in the Senate.

Appendix

House Appropriations bill – 4950

Below is the section about anti-Semitism:

117.149. (GP: Prohibition of Discriminatory Practices) (A) In the current fiscal year and from the funds appropriated to public colleges and universities, when reviewing, investigating, or deciding whether there has been a violation of a college or university policy prohibiting discriminatory practices on the basis of religion, South Carolina public colleges and universities shall take into consideration the definition of anti-Semitism for purposes of determining whether the alleged practice was motivated by anti-Semitic intent.

(B) Nothing in this proviso may be construed to diminish or infringe upon any right protected under the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States or Section 2, Article I of the South Carolina Constitution, 1895.

(C) For purposes of this proviso, the term ‘definition of anti-Semitism’ includes:

(1) the definition of anti-Semitism set forth by the Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Anti-Semitism of the Department of State in the fact sheet issued on June 8, 2010; and

(2) the examples set forth under the headings ‘Contemporary Examples of Anti-Semitism’ and ‘What is Anti-Semitism Relative to Israel?’ in the fact sheet.

Senate General Appropriations bill 4950

Below is the text on pages 348-9 of General Appropriations bill 4950 passed by the Senate on April 12, 2018:

11.23. (CHE: Prohibition of Discriminatory Practices) (A) In the current fiscal year and from the funds appropriated to the 16 Commission on Higher Education, the commission shall print and distribute to all South Carolina public colleges and universities 17 the definition of anti-Semitism. 18 (B) For purposes of this proviso, the term “definition of anti-Semitism” includes: 19 (1) a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews. Rhetorical and physical manifestations 20 of anti-Semitism are directed toward Jewish or non-Jewish individuals and/or their property, toward Jewish community institutions 21 and religious facilities; 22 (2) calling for, aiding, or justifying the killing or harming of Jews; 23 (3) making mendacious, dehumanizing, demonizing, or stereotypical allegations about Jews as such or the power of Jews 24 as a collective; 25 (4) accusing Jews as a people of being responsible for real or imagined wrongdoing committed by a single Jewish person 26 or group, the state of Israel, or even for acts committed by non-Jews; 27 (5) accusing the Jews as a people, or Israel as a state, of inventing or exaggerating the Holocaust; 28 (6) accusing Jewish citizens of being more loyal to Israel, or to the alleged priorities of Jews worldwide, than to the interest 29 of their own nations; 30 (7) using the symbols and images associated with classic anti-Semitism to characterize Israel or Israelis; 31 (8) drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis; 32 (9) blaming Israel for all inter-religious or political tensions; 33 (10) applying double standards by requiring of it a behavior not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation; 34 (11) multilateral organizations focusing on Israel only for peace or human rights investigations; and 35 (12) denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination, and denying Israel the right to exist, provided, however, that 36 criticism of Israel similar to that leveled against any other country cannot be regarded as anti-Semitic. SECTION 11 – H030 – COMMISSION ON HIGHER EDUCATION PAGE 349 1 (C) South Carolina public colleges and universities shall take into consideration the definition of anti-Semitism for purposes of 2 determining whether the alleged practice was motivated by anti-Semitic intent when reviewing, investigating, or deciding whether 3 there has been a violation of a college or university policy prohibiting discriminatory practices on the basis of religion. 4 (D) Nothing in this proviso may be construed to diminish or infringe upon any right protected under the First Amendment to the 5 Constitution of the United States or Section 2, Article I of the South Carolina Constitution, 1895.

Below is the earlier bill, that had been held up in the Senate:

South Carolina Bill 3643

TO AMEND THE CODE OF LAWS OF SOUTH CAROLINA, 1976, BY ADDING SECTION 59-101-220 SO AS TO DEFINE CERTAIN TERMS CONCERNING ANTI-SEMITISM, TO PROVIDE INSTITUTIONS OF HIGHER LEARNING IN THIS STATE SHALL CONSIDER THIS DEFINITION WHEN REVIEWING, INVESTIGATING, OR DECIDING WHETHER THERE HAS BEEN A VIOLATION OF AN INSTITUTIONAL POLICY PROHIBITING DISCRIMINATORY PRACTICES ON THE BASIS OF RELIGION, AND TO PROVIDE NOTHING IN THIS ACT MAY BE CONSTRUED TO DIMINISH OR INFRINGE UPON ANY RIGHTS AFFORDED BY THE FIRST AMENDMENT TO THE UNITED STATES CONSTITUTION OR SECTION 2, ARTICLE I OF THE CONSTITUTION OF THIS STATE.

Be it enacted by the General Assembly of the State of South Carolina:

SECTION    1. Article 1, Chapter 101, Title 59 of the 1976 Code is amended by adding:

“Section 59-101-220.    (A) For purposes of this section, the term ‘definition of anti-Semitism’ includes:

(1)    the definition of anti-Semitism set forth by the Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Anti-Semitism of the Department of State in the fact sheet issued on June 8, 2010; and

(2)    the examples set forth under the headings ‘Contemporary Examples of Anti-Semitism’ and ‘What is Anti-Semitism Relative to Israel?’ in the fact sheet.

(B)    In reviewing, investigating, or deciding whether there has been a violation of a college or university policy prohibiting discriminatory practices on the basis of religion, South Carolina public colleges and universities shall take into consideration the definition of anti-Semitism for purposes of determining whether the alleged practice was motivated by anti-Semitic intent.

(C)    Nothing in this section may be construed to diminish or infringe upon any right protected under the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States or Section 2, Article I of the South Carolina Constitution, 1895.”

SECTION    2. This act takes effect upon approval by the Governor. 

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

Russia and China are both putting their feet down about the talk in the US and France about renegotiating the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the 2015 agreement on freezing and curtailing Iran’s nuclear enrichment program by the UN Security Council and Germany in return for lifting international sanctions. US President Trump is threatening to withdraw, while French President Emmanuel Macron urges that the deal be kept but renegotiated to widen restrictions on Iran.

The pushback comes as the US continues to violate the spirit of the agreement by retaining severe sanctions on Iran, which it had implied it would drop. The Department of Justice is even said to be planning action against Chinese smartphone Huawei for selling its products in Iran. You can imagine how this is going over in Beijing.

Russia’s deputy foreign minister Sergei Ryabkov insisted to the Tass news agency that

“We believe it as an irrevocable condition that the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) should be strengthened, preserved and that its functioning in its current form should be ensured in the future. Currently, it is crucial for all those who understand the JCPOA’s worthiness and significance to deal with what the situation dictates, that is to exert any effort for the agreement to be preserved and successfully and sustainably implemented in the future.”

Russian President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov concurred, saying

“We believe that no alternative exists so far . . . We are in favour of keeping the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action in its current form.”

Ryabkov pointed out that Trump’s false allegation that Iran received $150 billion for signing the deal is completely without foundation. The US, he said, had illegally frozen Iranian assets in US banks and simply finally returned that money to its rightful owner.

Cole: Trump, who has no problem stiffing his suppliers or threatening to “take Iraq’s oil,” probably cannot actually understand why you would restore to other people money you had illicitly stolen from them, or what the difference is between that and giving them your own money.

Peskov noted that the JCPOA had been hammered out in a seven-country negotiation over years: “The question is, will it be possible to repeat such successful work in the current situation?”

It would probably be difficult to pin down Trump on what exactly in the JCPOA makes him unhappy other than that it was a multilateral agreement in which the Obama administration took part.

The agreement strictly limited the number of Iran’s centrifuges, put the country under frequent and spot inspections by the UN, required the destruction of LEU or uranian stockpiles enriched to less that 20% (the only kind of enriched uranium Iran had), and required the mothballing and destruction of the planned heavy water nuclear power facility at Arak.

The requirement of inspections lapses after 10 years, a provision that Israel and other non-signatories have sometimes criticized. Military facilities are not subject to inspections, but then the US put that exception into the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty itself to avoid inspections of its own bases. Iran is under sufficient espionage scrutiny to make a secret ramping up of its enrichment program highly unlikely.

French president Emmanuel Macron wants to take on restrictions on Iran’s ballistic missile program and a provision that it withdraw from Syria, Iraq and Yemen. That is, rather outrageously, Macron wants to use the fact that Iran acquiesced in the deal on knee-capping its nuclear enrichment program as a wedge to push it around on a whole range of unrelated issues. I think most recent French international interventions, e.g. in Mali, have been useful to locals and the international community, but I’m not sure they leave Paris in a position to complain about Iran helping Iraq and Syria defeat Daesh/ ISIL.

Iran charges that hundreds of billions of dollars in Saudi arms purchases and investments lie behind the Franco-American push to renegotiate the JCPOA. It also charges Israeli behind the scenes lobbying in Washington and Paris.

Macron’s hopes of leveraging Trump’s obstructionism into negotiating a wider set of restraints on Iran will falter in the face of Russian and Chinese objections.

Russia and China wouldn’t really care if Iran’s ballistic missile program were interfered with, but Russia does want to sell Iran anti-missile missiles and wouldn’t want any agreement that forestalled those sales. Russia and China also probably would not care if the 10-year sunset provision of the Iran deal were extended.

But they see Iran’s role in Syria as a key contribution to the war effort against extremist Sunni guerrilla groups and both have their own problems with separatist or Salafi Muslim discontents. Both want the al-Assad government in Syria to survive.

So the “containing Iran” element in Macron’s thinking is a non-starter for Moscow and Beijing.

Moreover, although they might not mind the other tinkering with the JCPOA, they won’t help force Iran into accepting those further limitations.

On Monday at the meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Council, Russia and China issued a joint communique supporting the Iran deal.

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Featured image is from storiesflow.com.

Earlier today, Fort Russ published an op-ed by Russell Bentley, who revealed that a new offensive is about to begin on the Donbass in early May.

Today, mortar shelling has been carried out on the Yasinovaya town by the Ukrainian army, under the command of NATO. Such a statement was made by the deputy head of the operational headquarters of the self-proclaimed Democratic People’s Republic of Donetsk, Eduard Bazurin.

“According to our information, the operation was conducted by NATO artillery advisers, who arrived the day before to conduct field tests and training of Ukrainian security forces” said Basurin.

He added that American radar systems are deployed on the roofs of several multi-storey houses in Avdeevka, a few kilometers north of Donetsk.

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Featured image is from the author.

False Flag is a concept that goes back centuries. It was considered to be a legitimate ploy by the Greeks and Romans, where a military force would pretend to be friendly to get close to an enemy before dropping the pretense and raising its banners to reveal its own affiliation just before launching an attack. In the sea battles of the eighteenth century among Spain, France and Britain hoisting an enemy flag instead of one’s own to confuse the opponent was considered to be a legitimate ruse de guerre, but it was only “honorable” if one reverted to one’s own flag before engaging in combat.

Today’s false flag operations are generally carried out by intelligence agencies and non-government actors including terrorist groups, but they are only considered successful if the true attribution of an action remains secret. There is nothing honorable about them as their intention is to blame an innocent party for something that it did not do. There has been a lot of such activity lately and it was interesting to learn by way of a leak that the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has developed a capability to mimic the internet fingerprints of other foreign intelligence services. That means that when the media is trumpeting news reports that the Russians or Chinese hacked into U.S. government websites or the sites of major corporations, it could actually have been the CIA carrying out the intrusion and making it look like it originated in Moscow or Beijing. Given that capability, there has been considerable speculation in the alternative media that it was actually the CIA that interfered in the 2016 national elections in the United States.

False flags can be involved in other sorts of activity as well. The past year’s two major alleged chemical attacks carried out against Syrian civilians that resulted in President Donald Trump and associates launching 160 cruise missiles are pretty clearly false flag operations carried out by the rebels and terrorist groups that controlled the affected areas at the time. The most recent reported attack on April 7^th might not have occurred at all according to doctors and other witnesses who were actually in Douma. Because the rebels succeeded in convincing much of the world that the Syrian government had carried out the attacks, one might consider their false flag efforts to have been extremely successful.

The remedy against false flag operations such as the recent one in Syria is, of course, to avoid taking the bait and instead waiting until a thorough and objective inspection of the evidence has taken place. The United States, Britain and France did not do that, preferring instead to respond to hysterical press reports by “doing something.” If the U.N. investigation of the alleged attack turns up nothing, a distinct possibility, it is unlikely that they will apologize for having committed a war crime.

The other major false flag that has recently surfaced is the poisoning of Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia in Salisbury England on March 4^th. Russia had no credible motive to carry out the attack and had, in fact, good reasons not to do so. The allegations made by British Prime Minister Theresa May about the claimed nerve agent being “very likely” Russian in origin have been debunked, in part through examination by the U.K.’s own chemical weapons lab. May, under attack even within her own party, needed a good story and a powerful enemy to solidify her own hold on power so false flagging something to Russia probably appeared to be just the ticket as Moscow would hardly be able to deny the “facts” being invented in London. Unfortunately, May proved wrong and the debate ignited over her actions, which included the expulsion of twenty-three Russian diplomats, has done her severe damage. Few now believe that Russia actually carried out the poisoning and there is a growing body of opinion suggesting that it was actually a false flag executed by the British government or even by the CIA.

The lesson that should be learned from Syria and Skripal is that if “an incident” looks like it has no obvious motive behind it, there is a high probability that it is a false flag. A bit of caution in assigning blame is appropriate given that the alternative would be a precipitate and likely disproportionate response that could easily escalate into a shooting war.

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Philip Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest.

Featured image is from the author.

This pathbreaking analysis, which is currently the object of controversy and debate, was first published by Global Research in July 2016

The white working class in the US has been decimated through an epidemic of ‘premature deaths’ – a bland term to cover-up the drop in life expectancy in this historically important demographic.  There have been quiet studies and reports peripherally describing this trend – but their conclusions have not yet entered the national consciousness for reasons we will try to explore in this essay.  Indeed this is the first time in the country’s ‘peacetime’ history that its traditional core productive sector has experienced such a dramatic demographic decline – and the epicenter is in the small towns and rural communities of the United States.  

The causes for ‘premature death’ (dying before normal life expectancy – usually of preventable conditions) include the sharply increasing incidence of suicide, untreated complications of diabetes and obesity and above all ’accidental poisoning’ – a euphemism used to describe what are mostly prescription and illegal drug overdoses and toxic drug interactions.

No one knows the total number of deaths of American citizens due to drug overdose and fatal drug interactions over the past 20 years, just as no central body has kept track of the numbers of poor people killed by police nationwide, but let’s start with a conservative round number – 500,000 mostly white working class victims, and challenge the authorities to come up with some real statistics with real definitions.  Indeed such a number could be much higher – if they included fatal poly-pharmacy deaths and ‘medication errors’ occurring in the hospital and nursing home setting.

In the last few years, scores of thousands of Americas have died prematurely because of drug overdoses or toxic drug interactions, mostly related to narcotic pain medications prescribed by doctors and other providers.  Among those who have increasingly died of illegal opioid, mostly heroin, fentanyl and methadone, overdose, the vast majority first became addicted to the powerful synthetic opioids prescribed by the medical community, supplied by big chain pharmacies and manufactured at incredible profit margins by the leading pharmaceutical companies.  In essence, this epidemic has been promoted, subsidized and protected by the government at all levels and reflects the protection of a profit-maximizing private medical-pharmaceutical market gone wild.

This is not seen elsewhere in the world at such a level.  For example, despite their proclivity for alcohol, obesity and tobacco – the British patient population has been essentially spared this epidemic because their National Health System is regulated and functions with a different ethic: patient well being is valued over naked profit.  This arguably would not have developed in the US if a single-payer national health system had been implemented.

Faced with the increasing incidence of returning Iraq and Afghanistan veterans dying from suicide and overdose from prescription opioids and mixed drug reactions, the Armed Forces Surgeon General and medical corps convened ‘emergency’ US Senate Hearings in March 2010 where testimony showed military doctors had written 4 million prescriptions of powerful narcotics in 2009, a 4 fold increase from 2001.  Senate members of the hearings, led by Virginia’s Jim Webb, cautioned not casting a negative light on ‘Big Pharma’ among the largest donors to political campaigns.

The 1960’s public image of the heroin-addicted returning Vietnam War soldier that shocked the nation had morphed into the Oxycontin/Xanax dependent veteran of the new millennium, thanks to ‘Big Pharma’s’ enormous contracts with the US Armed Forces and the mass media looked away.  Suicides, overdoses and ‘sudden deaths’ killed many more soldiers than combat.

No other peaceful population, probably since the 1839 Opium Wars, has been so devastated by a drug epidemic encouraged by a government.  In the case of the Opium Wars, the British Empire and its commercial arm, The East India Company, sought a market for their huge South Asian opium crops and used its military and allied Chinese warlord mercenaries to force a massive opium distribution on the Chinese people, seizing Hong Kong in the process as a hub for its imperial opium trade.   Alarmed at the destructive effects of addiction on its productive population, the Chinese government tried to ban or regulate narcotic use.  Its defeat at British hands marked China’s decline into semi-colonial status for the next century – such are the wider consequences of having an addicted population.

This paper will identify the (1) the nature of the long-term, large-scale drug induced deaths, (2) the dynamics of ‘demographic transition by overdose’, and (3) the political economy of opioid addiction.  This paper will not cite numbers or reports – these are widely available.   However they are scattered, incomplete and generally lack any theoretical framework to understand, let alone confront, the phenomenon.

We will conclude by discussing whether each ‘death by prescription’ is to be viewed as an individual tragedy, mourned in private, or as a corporate crime fueled by greed or even a pattern of ‘Social-Darwinism-writ-large’  by an elite-run decision making apparatus.

Since the advent of major political-economic changes induced by neoliberalism, America’s oligarchic class confronts the problem of a large and potentially restive population of millions of marginalized workers and downwardly mobile members of the middle class made redundant by ‘globalization’ and an armed rural poor sinking ever deeper into squalor.  In other words, when finance capital and elite ruling bodies view an increasing ‘useless’ population of white workers, employees and the poor in this geographic context, what ‘peaceful’ measures can be taken to ease and encourage their ‘natural decline’?

A similar pattern emerged in the early ‘AIDS’ crisis where the Reagan Administration deliberately ignored the soaring deaths among young Americans, especially minorities, adopting a moralistic  ‘blame the victim’ approach until the influential gay community organized and demanded government action.

The Scale and Scope of Drug Deaths

In the past two decades, hundreds of thousands of working age Americans have died from drugs.  The lack of hard data is a scandal.  The scarcity is due to a fragmented, incompetent and deliberately incomplete system of medical records and death certificates – especially from the poorer rural areas and small towns where there is virtually no support for producing and maintaining quality records.  This great data void is multi-faceted and hampered by the problems of regionalism and a lack of clear governmental public health direction.

Early in the crisis, medical professionals and coroners were largely in ‘denial’ and under pressure to certify ‘unexpected’deaths as ‘natural due to pre-existing conditions’ – despite overwhelming evidence that there had been reckless overprescribing by the local medical community.  Fifteen to twenty years ago, the victims’ families, isolated in their little towns, may have derived some short-term comfort from seeing the term ‘natural’ attached to their loved-one’s untimely death.  Understandably, a diagnosis of ‘death by drug overdose’ would evoke tremendous social and personal shame among the rural and small-town white working class families who had traditionally associated narcotics with the urban minority and criminal populations.  They thought themselves immune to such ‘big city’ problem.   They trusted ‘their’ doctors who, in turn, trusted ‘Big Pharma’s’ assurances that the new synthetic opioids were not addicting and could be prescribed in large quantities.

Despite the local medical community’s slowly growing awareness of this problem, there was little public attempt to educate the at-risk population and still fewer attempts to rein in the over-prescribing brethren physicians and private ‘pain-clinics’.  They, or their nurse practitioners and PA’s, did not counsel patients on the immense dangers of combining opioids and alcohol or tranquilizers.  Many, in fact, were not even aware of what their patients were prescribed by other providers.  It is common to see healthy younger adults with multiple prescriptions from multiple providers.

Through the last few decades under neo-liberalism, rural county heath department budgets were stripped because of business-promoted austerity programs.  Instead, the federal government mandated that they implement expensive and absurd plans to confront ‘bio-terrorism’.  Often, health departments lacked the necessary budget to pay for the costly forensic toxicology testing required for documenting drug levels in suspect overdose cases among their own population.

Further compounding this lack of quality data, there was no guidance or coordination from the federal and state government or regional DEA regarding systematic documentation and the development of a usable database for analyzing the widespread consequences of overprescribing legal narcotics.  The early crisis received minimal attention from these bodies.

All official eyes were focused on the ‘war on drugs’ as it was being waged against the poor, urban minority population.  The small towns, where over-prescribing doctors formed the pillars of the local churches or country clubs, suffered in silence.  The greater public was lulled by media mis-education into thinking that addiction and related deaths were an ‘inner city’ problem, one that required the usual racist response of filling up the prisons with young blacks and Hispanics for petty crimes or drug possession.

But within this vacuum, white working class children were starting to dial ‘911’…because, ‘Mommy won’t wake up…’.  Mommy with her ‘prescribed Fentanyl patches’ took just one Xanax too many and devastated an entire family unit.  This was the prototype of a raging epidemic.  All throughout the country these alarming cases were growing.  Some rural counties saw the proportion of addicted infants born to addicted mothers overwhelm their unprepared hospital systems.  And the local obituary pages published increasing numbers of young names and faces besides the very elderly –never printing any ‘cause’ for the untimely demise of a young adult while devoting paragraphs for a departed octogenarian.

Recent trends demonstrate that drug deaths (both opiate overdose and fatal mixed interactions with other drugs and alcohol) have had a major impact on the composition of the local labor force, families, communities and neighborhoods.  This is reflected in the lives of workers, whose personal life and employment has been severely impaired by corporate plant relocations, downsizing, cuts in wages and health benefits.  The traditional support systems, which provided aid to workers damaged by these trends, such as trade unions, public social workers and mental health professionals, were either unable or unwilling to intervene before or after the scourge of drug addiction had come into play.

The Dynamic Demography of Drug-Induced Death

Almost all publicized reports ignore the demography and differential class impacts of prescription-related drug deaths.   The majority of those killed by illegal drugs were first addicted to legal narcotics prescribed by their providers.  Only the overdose deaths of celebrities manage to hit the headlines.

Most of the victims have been low wage, unemployed or under-employed members of the white working class.  Their prospects for the future are dismal.  Any dream of establishing a healthy family life on one salary in ‘Heartland America’ would be met with laughter.  This is a huge national population, which has experienced a steep decline in its living standards because of deindustrialization.  The majority of fatal overdose victims are white working age males, but with a large proportion of working class women, often mothers with children.  There has been little discussion about the impact of an overdose death of a working age woman on the extended family.  They include grandmothers in their 50’s living with three generations under one roof.  In this demographic, women often provide critical cohesion and stability for several generations at risk – even if they had been taking ‘Oxy’ for their chronic pain.

Apparently the US minority population has so far escaped this epidemic.  Black and Hispanic Americans had already been depressed and economically marginalized for a much longer period – and the lower rate of prescription drug deaths among their populations may reflect greater resilience.   It certainly reflects their reduced access to the over-prescribing private-sector medical community – a grim paradox where medical ‘neglect’ might indeed have been ‘benign’.

While there may be few class-based studies looking at comparative trends in ‘overdose deaths’ among urban minorities and rural/small town whites from sociology, public health or minority-studies university departments, anecdotal evidence and personal observation suggest that minority urban populations are more likely to provide assistance to an overdosing neighbor or friend than in the white community where addicts are more likely to be isolated and abandoned by family members ashamed of their ‘weakness’.  Even the practice of ‘dumping’ an overdosed friend at the entrance of an emergency department and walking away has saved many lives.  Urban minorities have greater access and familiarity with the chaotic big-city emergency rooms where medical personnel are skilled at recognizing and treating overdose.  After decades of civil rights struggles, minorities are possibly more sophisticated in asserting their rights regarding use of such public resources.  There may even be a relatively stronger culture of solidarity among the marginalized minorities in rendering assistance or an awareness of the consequences of not taking someone’s neighbor to the ER.  These urban survival mechanisms have been largely absent in the white rural areas.

Nationwide, US doctors had long been dissuaded from prescribing powerful synthetic opioids to minority patients, even those in significant pain.  There are various factors here, but the medical community has not been immune to the stereotype of the Hispanic or black urban addict or dealer.  Perhaps, this widespread medical ‘racism’ in the context of the prescription opioid epidemic has had some paradoxical benefit.

Whatever the reason, urban minority addicts, while experiencing overdose in large numbers are more likely to survive an opiate overdose than small town or rural whites, unfamiliar with narcotics and their effects.

In the rural and small-town (deindustrialized) US heartland there has been an enormous breakdown in community and family solidarity.  This has followed the destruction of a century-old stable employment base, especially in the manufacturing, mining and productive agricultural sectors.  Only post-Soviet Russia experienced a similar pattern of declining life expectancy from ‘poisoning’ (alcohol and drugs) following the nationwide destruction of its socialized full employment system and the breakdown of all social services.  Furthermore the loss of the tough Soviet police apparatus and the growth of an oligarch-mafia class saw the tremendous in-flooding of heroin from Afghanistan.

The growth of opioid addiction is not based on ‘personal choice’, nor is it the result of shifts in cultural life styles.  While all class and educational levels are included among the victims, the overwhelming majority are younger white working class and the poor. They cover all age groups, including adolescents recovering from sports injuries, as well as the elderly with joint and back pain.  The surge of addiction is a result of major shifts in the economy and the social structure.  The regions most affected by overdose deaths are those in deep, prolonged and permanent decline, including the former ‘rust belt’ regions, small manufacturing towns of New England, Upstate New York, Pennsylvania and the rural South and agricultural, mining and forestry regions of the west.

This is the product of private executive decisions to (1) relocate productive US companies overseas or to distant, non-union regions of the country, (2) force once well-paid employees into lower paid jobs, (3) replace American workers with skilled and unskilled foreign immigrants or poorly paid ‘temps’, (4) eliminate pension and health benefits and (5) introduce new technology – including robots- which cuts the labor force by rendering human workers redundant.  These changes in the relationship of capital to labor have created enormous profits for senior executives and investors, while producing a surplus labor force, which puts even greater pressure on young first-time workers and workers with seniority.  There have been no effective job protection/ sustainable job creation programs to address the decades of declining well-paid employment.  Good jobs have been replaced by minimum wage, service sector ‘MacJobs’ or temporary poorly paid manufacturing jobs with no benefits or protections.  All across this devastated heartland, expensively touted programs, such as ‘Start-Up New York’, have failed to bring decent jobs while spending hundreds of millions of public money in free PR for state politicians.

The drug addiction epidemic has been most deadly precisely in those regions of industrial job loss and working wage decline, as well as in the depressed, once protected, agricultural and food processing sectors where union jobs have been replaced by minimum wage immigrants.  The loss of stable employment has been accompanied by a slashing of social services and tremendous cuts in benefits – just when such services should have been bolstered.

Precisely because the so-called ‘drug problem’ is linked to major demographic changes resulting from dynamic capitalist shifts, it has never been the focus of elite-run government and corporate foundation grant research – unlike their fixation on the ‘radicalization of Muslims’ or ‘trends in urban crime’.  Research tended to focus on ‘minorities’ or merely nibbled at the periphery of the current phenomenon.  Good studies and data would have provided the rationale and basis for major public programs aimed at protecting the lives of marginalized white workers and reversing the deadly trends.  The decade-long, nation-wide absence of research and data into this phenomenon has justified the glaring absence of an effective governmental response.  Here the ‘neglect’ has not been ‘benign’.

In parallel with the increase in opioid addiction, there has been an astronomical increase in the prescription of psychotropic drugs and anti-depressants to the same population – also highly profitable to ‘Big Pharma’.  The pattern of prescribing such powerful, and potentially dangerous, mood altering medications to downwardly mobile Americans to ‘treat’ or numb normal anxieties and reactions to the deterioration in their material condition has had profound consequences.  Such individuals, often on unemployment assistance or MEDICAID, may be expected to follow a complex daily regimen of up to nine medications – besides their narcotic pain medications, while trying to cope with their crumbling world.

Where a dignified job with a decent wage would effectively treat a marginalized worker’s despair without unpleasant or dangerous ‘side effects’, the medical and mental health community has consistently sent their patients to ‘Big Pharma’.  As a result, post-mortem toxicological analyses often show multiple prescribed psychotropic medications and anti-depressants in addition to narcotics in cases of opioid overdose deaths. While this may constitute an abdication of the medical provider’s responsibility to patients, it is also a reflection of the medical community’s utter helplessness in the face of systemic social breakdown – as has occurred in the marginalized communities where drug overdose deaths concentrate.

Demographic studies, at best, identify the victims of drug addiction.  But their choice to treat their despair as an ‘individual problem’ occurring in a ‘specific, immediate context’ overlooks the greater political and economic structures, which set the stage for premature death.

The Political Economy of Overdose Deaths

When the remains of a young working class overdose victim is wheeled into a morgue, his or her untimely demise is labelled a ‘self-inflicted’ or ‘accidental’ opioid overdose and a great cover-up machine is turned on:  The sequence leading up to the death is shrouded in mystery, no deeper understanding of the socio-cultural and economic factors are sought.  Instead, the victim or his/her culture is blamed for the end-result of a complex chain of elite capitalist economic decisions and political maneuverings in which a worker’s premature death is a mere collateral event.  The medical community has merely functioned as the transmission belt in this process, rather than as an agent for serving the public.

The vast majority of overdose fatalities are, in reality, victims of decisions and losses far beyond their control.  Their addictions have shortened their lives as well as clouded their understanding of events and undermined their capacity to engage in class struggle to reverse this trend.  It has been a perfect solution to the predictable demographic problems of brutal neoliberalism in America.

Wall Street and Washington designed the macro-economy that has eliminated decent jobs, cut wages and slashed benefits. As a result millions of marginalized workers and the unemployed are under tremendous tension and resort to pharmacologic solutions to endure their pain because they are not organized.  The historical leading role of trade union and community organizations has been eliminated.  Instead, redundant workers are ‘charged by Big Pharma’ to dig their own graves and class leaders are nowhere to be found.

Secondly, the workplace has become much more dangerous under the ‘new economic order’.  Bosses no longer fear unions and safety regulations: many workers are injured by the accelerating pace of work, longer hours, faulty job training and lack of federal supervision of working conditions.  Injured workers, lacking any judicial, trade union, or public agency protection rightly fear retaliation for reporting their work injury and increasingly resort to prescription narcotics to cope with acute and chronic pain while continuing to work.

When employers allow workers to report their injuries, the low coverage and limited treatments available, encourage providers to over-prescribe narcotics on top of other medications with potentially dangerous interactions.  Many pain clinics, contracted by employers, are eager to profit from injured clients while pharmaceutical companies actively promote powerful synthetic narcotics.

A vicious chain is formed:  The pharmaceutical industry’s mass production of narcotics has been among its most profitable products.  Corporate pharmacy chains fill the prescriptions written by tens of thousands of ‘providers’ (doctors, dentists, nurses and physician assistants) who have only a limited amount of time to actually examine an injured worker.  The deteriorating work conditions create the injury and the workers become consumers of Big Pharma’s miracle relief – Oxycontin or its cousins – which a decade of drug salesmen had touted as ‘non-addicting’.  A long line of highly educated professionals, including doctors and other providers, pathologists, medical examiners and coroners carefully paper over the real cause, the corporate decision makers, in order to protect themselves from corporate reprisals should they ‘blow the whistle’.  Behind the scientific façade there is a Social Darwinism that few are willing to confront.

Only recently, in the face of incredible numbers of hospitalizations and deaths from narcotic overdose, the federal government has started to release funds for research.   Academic-medical researchers have started to collect and publicize data on the growing epidemic of opiate deaths; they provide shocking maps of the most affected counties and regions.  They join the chorus in urging the federal and state agencies to become more actively involved in usual panacea: ‘education and prevention’.  This beehive of activity has come two decades too late into the epidemic and reeks of cynicism.

Funding for research into this phenomenon will not result in any effective long-term programs for confronting these small community-based ‘crises of capitalism’.  There is no institution willing to confront the basic cause:  the devastation of capitalist– labor relations in post-millennial America, the corrupt nature of state-corporate-pharmaceutical linkages and the chaotic, profit-driven character of our private medical system.  Very few writers ever explore how a national, public, single-payer, health system would have clearly prevented with epidemic from the beginning.

Conclusion

Why does the capitalist-state and pharmaceutical elite sustain a socio-economic process, which has led to the large-scale, long-term death of workers and their family members in rural and small town America?

One ready and convincing hypothesis is that the modern dynamic corporate elite profits from the results of ‘demographic change by overdose.’

Corporations gain billions of dollars in profits from the ‘natural decline’ of redundant workers:  slashing social services and job benefits, such as health plans, pension, vacation, job training programs, allowing employers to increase their profits, capital gains, executive bonuses and raises.  Public services are eliminated, taxes are reduced and workers, when needed, can be imported – fully formed – from abroad for temporary employment in a ‘free labor market’.

Capitalists profit even more from the technology gains – robots, computerization, etc. – by ensuring that workers do notenjoy reduced hours or increased vacations resulting from their increased productivity.  Why share the results of productivity gains with the workers, when the workers can just be eliminated?  Dissatisfied workers can turn inward or ‘pop a pill’, but never organize to retake control of their lives and future.

Election experts and political pundits can claim that white American workers reject the major establishment parties because they are ‘angry’ and ‘racist’.  These are the workers who now turn to a ‘Donald Trump’.  But a deeper analysis would reveal their rational rejection of political leaders who have refused to condemn capitalist exploitation and confront the epidemic of death by overdose.

There is a class basis for this veritable genocide by narcotics raging among white workers and the unemployed in the small towns and rural areas of American:  it is the ‘perfect’ corporate solution to a surplus labor force.  It is time for American workers and their leaders to wake up to this cruel fact and resist this one-sided class war or continue to mourn more untimely deaths in their own drug-numbed silence.

According to the Jerusalem Post:

The Kingdom of Jordan began the process of revoking the Jordanian citizenship of about 30 Palestinian Authority and Fatah officials and their families, London-based Arabic language newspaper Raialyoum reported Wednesday.

The officials who are slated to lose their citizenship include Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat and Palestinian Authority negotiator Ahmed Qurei (“Abu Ala”).

The also stated that there would be major changes in the visa arrangements for entry into Jordan of the senior officials, granting them only temporary visitor’s rights.

Many Senior Palestinian Authority and Fatah officials, including Abbas and his two sons, were given Jordanian citizenship over a decade ago, a Jordanian official disclosed in early 2011.

Read complete article

On Wednesday, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in Trump v. Hawaii, the case against President Donald Trump’s executive order banning nationals of several countries, most of which are Muslim-majority.

In his closing arguments, United States Solicitor General Noel Francisco said that the ban was not targeting Muslims, because Trump actually has praised Islam as “one of the greatest countries of the world.”

“Well, the President has made crystal clear on September 25 that he had no intention of imposing the Muslim ban,” Francisco said, referring to the date that the third version of the ban was signed. “He has made crystal clear that Muslims in this country are great Americans and there are many, many Muslim countries who love this country and he has praised Islam as one of the great countries of the world.”

You can view the full transcript of Wednesday’s hearing here and also listen to Francisco say this at the 1:06:30 mark below.

In Francisco’s defense, this is probably a slip-up. He probably meant to say that Trump has praised Islam as one of the greatest religions of the world.

But still, it’s a slip-up that seems more likely to happen if you truly believe that Muslims are all the same. And regardless, Trump isn’t known for praising Islam as a great and wonderful religion. He’s known for the opposite.

The reason Francisco was trying to make this argument was because since Trump signed the first version of this executive order in January 2017 — just one week after he came into office — a large argument against the ban has hinged on whether or not it is in fact a “Muslim ban,” due to the president’s personal animus against Muslims.

The first version of the ban — the “Protection Of The Nation From Foreign Terrorist Entry Into The United States” — targeted a different set of countries than the one currently in effect. It suspended all nationals of Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen for 90 days, until the vetting for these countries was reviewed. If the Trump administration decided that there was still not enough vetting for a select country, that ban could continue. Initial interpretation of this ban also included those with green cards (or permanent residents) and those who already had valid visas, leading to chaos, confusion, and mass protests at airports across the United States. The ban also suspended all refugee resettlement for 120 days and suspended all Syrian refugee resettlement indefinitely.

The second version of the ban — signed in March after the first one was halted by the courts — targeted a slightly different set of countries. Under this version, nationals of Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen would not be able to receive visas to the United States for 90 days. Refugee resettlement would also be suspended for 120 days, and Trump lowered the total number of refugees who would be accepted to just 50,000, less than half of what the Obama administration had planned.

Again, the ban faced legal challenges, leading to the third version of the ban, signed in September. Nationals of Chad, Iran, Libya, North Korea, Somalia, Syria, and Yemen would be targeted (in addition to certain Venezuelan government officials). Chad has since been removed from the list, and virtually no North Koreans visit the United States, so in effect, again, most of the people affected by this ban are Muslim.

The Trump administration has argued repeatedly, including on Wednesday, that the ban was passed on national security grounds. You can read more about the oral arguments and the justices’ line of questioning on Wednesday from my colleague Ian Millhiser.

But throughout all of this, there have been some constants, and they are the statements Trump and his advisers have made. Trump very explicitly campaigned on the promise of banning Muslim immigrants from the United States. In December 2015, he called for the “total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country’s representatives can figure out what is going on.” He also flat out said “Islam hates us.”

Since he came into office, his advisers have also cast doubt on the intentions behind this ban — from then Trump adviser and now Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani, who claimed that the focus on national origin was a way to do the Muslim ban “legally”, to Steven Miller, who said there are only “minor technical differences” between the first and second version of the ban.

Since the first ban, Trump has admitted that religion was a key factor in creating the ban, and that he would prioritize Christian refugees. He has retweeted Islamophobic videos from a far-right group in the United Kingdom — and then defended doing so, even though at least one of them was fake. He has smeared London’s Muslim mayor, ignored attacks on Muslims, and called for the mass murder of Muslims based on a fable from hoax email chains.

The country of Islam is not real, but if it were, Trump probably would not praise it.

1. I have been asked by Tom Watson MP, Deputy Leader of the Labour Party, to prepare a brief opinion responding to the UK government’s position on the legality, under international law, of military action taken against the Syrian government on 13/14 April 2018. As set out in this opinion, the position taken by the government is significantly flawed. The military action taken was not in accordance with the United Nations Charter and international law.

2. The United Nations Charter (Article 2 (4)) prohibits the threat or use of armed force by states against other states. The International Court of Justice has held that prohibition of the use of force is also a principle of customary international law (Nicaragua Case 1986). The United Nations Charter provides two explicit exceptions to the prohibition of the use of force. First, states may use force in individual or collective self-defence (Article 51). Second, force may also be authorized by the UN Security Council acting under Chapter VII of the Charter, to maintain international peace and security. In addition, a use of force on the territory of a state that is consented to by the government of that state will not be in breach of the prohibition of the use of force. In recent years, the UK has relied on each of these three legal bases for force: the UK’s use of force against ISIS in Syria is being conducted on the basis of the collective self-defence of Iraq; the use of force in Libya in 2011 was authorized by the UN Security Council; and the UK’s use of force against ISIS in Iraq is being conducted with the consent of the Iraqi government.

3. In seeking to justify the airstrikes against the Assad government, the government relies on a legal position that is different from those stated in the previous paragraph. The UK government states that “The legal basis for the use of force is humanitarian intervention . . .” and then sets out three conditions for such a use of force. This argument asserts that under international law, states may, on an exceptional basis, take action in order to alleviate overwhelming humanitarian suffering, even where such action is not carried out in self-defence, authorised by the UN Security Council nor undertaken with the consent of the government of the territorial state.

4. However, despite the fact that the UK has advanced this legal position on a number of occasions, including in August 2013 when the government proposed to take military action in Syria, it is quite clear that the position advocated by the government is not an accurate reflection of international law as it currently stands. International law does not permit individual states to use force on the territory of other states in order to pursue humanitarian ends determined by those states.

5. Although the government appears to suggest that the so-called doctrine of “humanitarian intervention” is an established principle of customary international law, there is very little support by states for this legal position. For the formation of a rule of customary international law, two elements must be shown. First it must be shown that there is general state practice and second, such general state practice must be accepted as law (the requirement of opinio juris). There is neither a general state practice of humanitarian intervention nor is any such practice accepted as law. The UK government is one of only a handful of States that accepts that international law provides a right of humanitarian intervention. Indeed, neither the United States nor France has ever advanced such a view of the law nor have they sought to provide any legal justification for the recent strikes. With a couple of exceptions (namely Belgium and Denmark), other European states have also refused to endorse a legal principle permitting humanitarian intervention. On the contrary, a large number of states has rejected this legal position. In April 2000, the Declaration of the South Summit issued by the Group of 77 (which is composed of about 130 member States) states explicitly that: “‘We reject the so-called “right” of humanitarian intervention, which has no legal basis in the United Nations Charter or in the general principles of international law” (para. 54). In short, there is little opinio juris on which a doctrine of humanitarian intervention might be based under customary international law.

6. Although the matter has not been expressly considered by the International Court of Justice (ICJ), the Court did seem to reject the doctrine of humanitarian intervention in Military & Paramilitary Activities in and Against Nicaragua (Nicaragua v United States of America) (1986). In that case, the Court stated that: “while the United States might form its own appraisal of the situation as to respect for human rights in Nicaragua, the use of force could not be the appropriate method to monitor or ensure such respect.” (para. 268).

7. The responsibility to protect doctrine “R2P” does not change this position in any way. The 2005 World Summit Outcome document, agreed by consensus at Head of State level in the UN General Assembly, is the definitive document on what the “R2P” doctrine is intended to mean. Paragraph 139 of the document speaks of collective action, through the Security Council, should peaceful means fail. In other words, forceful action to prevent mass atrocity crimes is reserved to the Security Council. The notion that where the Security Council is deadlocked, “R2P” provides a legal framework for the international community to use military force – either by way of a regional coalition or a so-called “coalition of the willing” is absent from the document and would not have been approved were it suggested.

8. The most significant problem with the government’s legal position is that it would require a radical restructuring of the most fundamental rules of the international legal order. The argument that there is a right of humanitarian intervention under customary international law implies that a rule of customary international law can prevail over or modify the prohibition of the use of force in the UN Charter. Such an argument is problematic for three reasons. First, it would suggest that a rule of customary international law can prevail over an explicit and binding treaty rule. Second, such an argument would undermine the provision in the UN Charter (Art. 103) which ensures primacy of the Charter since the argument would suggest that states can override the Charter by pointing to a rule of customary law. Third, the argument would undermine the rule that the prohibition of force is a peremptory or overriding norm of international law (a norm of jus cogens) which prevails over inconsistent rules. Thus, even if it could be shown that the conditions existed for a rule of international law permitting humanitarian intervention, it would nonetheless be the case that such a rule of customary international law could not prevail over the prohibition of the use of force contained in the UN Charter.

9. It is possible for parties to a treaty to collectively interpret that treaty in a way which appears at odds with the text, and for such interpretation to become binding and definitive. The government might argue that its legal position is based on an interpretation of the UN Charter. However, for subsequent practice of states to establish a definitive interpretation of a treaty, such practice must establish the agreement of all the treaty parties as to the interpretation to be given to the treaty. For the reasons given earlier, it is clear that there is no agreement among UN members to interpret the prohibition of the use of force in a manner that permits humanitarian intervention.

10. Even if there was a doctrine of humanitarian intervention in international law, along the lines suggested by the government, the strikes against Syria would not appear to meet the tests set out by the government. The first of the three conditions set out by the government is that “there is convincing evidence, generally accepted by the international community as a whole, of extreme humanitarian distress on a large scale, requiring immediate and urgent relief.” While the humanitarian distress caused by the Syrian civil war is appalling and the use of chemical weapons is brutal and barbaric, it is by no means clear that the action taken by the government was one that was designed to bring “immediate and urgent relief” with regard to the specific evil it sought to prevent. Furthermore, although the government’s test requires that the international community as a whole accept the evidence of extreme humanitarian distress, in this particular case the action taken by the government came before the inspectors from the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons were able to reach the affected area.

11. One significant problem with the interpretation given by the government to its legal position, is that if accepted by states globally, it would allow for individual assessments of when force was necessary to achieve humanitarian ends. It is precisely because of the risk of abuse that this may give rise to, and the consequent humanitarian suffering that will ensue from such abusive uses of force, that other states and many scholars have been reluctant to endorse the doctrine of humanitarian action. Acceptance of the government’s legal position in this particular case would essentially open up the possibility of a small group of states, or individual states, taking action based on their own subjective interpretations as to when it is right or proper to use force.

12. While the prospects of Security Council endorsement of strikes in Syria are non- existent, an attempt might have been made to conform to the UN Charter by seeking endorsement of the strikes from the UN General Assembly under the Uniting for Peace Resolution 377A (1950) which allows the Assembly to take measures in response to breaches of international peace, where the Council is blocked through the threat or use of force. This is the route that would permit collective international endorsement of both the overwhelming humanitarian suffering and of the need for military action to provide relief.

*

Prof. Dapo Akande is Professor of Public International Law & Co-Director, Oxford Institute for Ethics, Law & Armed Conflict, University of Oxford.

On April 20, North Korea made the dramatic announcement[1] of several decisions that included suspending further nuclear and missile tests and that its “nuclear test center would be discarded in order to ensure the transparency of the suspension of the nuclear test.”[2] A number of analysts, including a Washington Post column by Max Boot on Saturday, mistakenly dismiss the offer by claiming that the test site is probably unusable anyway.

North Korea’s Punggye-ri Nuclear Test Site, where North Korea has conducted six acknowledged underground detonations is still, as far as we can tell, fully operational. Following Pyongyang’s sixth nuclear test in September 2017, one area at the site—the North Portal, located at Mount Mantap where the last five underground nuclear tests had been conducted—was apparently abandoned. However, significant new tunneling was noted at the West Portal, another area of the site, up through early March 2018. That renewed tunneling was curtailed by mid-March, but not entirely stopped through early April, suggesting that either the tunnel was complete and ready for future renewed testing or that the slowdown simply mirrored the ongoing political changes underway.

Another potential test tunnel, accessible via the South Portal, includes a primary and secondary entrance. Complete for several years now, that area also remains suitable for future underground nuclear tests. In general, there have been fewer personnel and vehicular movements there than observed near the other portals, but nonetheless is still an alternative for additional testing in the future.

Source: November 2, 2015; Google Earth

In short, there is no basis to conclude that the Punggye-ri nuclear test site is no longer viable for future nuclear testing. There remain two portal areas located in more pristine competent rock that can be used for future tests if Pyongyang were to give the order. Whether that will stay an option will depend on reaching verifiable agreements that build on Pyongyang’s pledge to shut down the facility.

*

Notes

[1] This announcement has come after several weeks of political outreach and high level official dialogue between North Korea and South Korea, China and the US, with the latter having reportedly included a direct meeting in Pyongyang between Kim Jong Un and the US acting Secretary of State, Michael Pompeo, at the beginning of April. See “North Korea: CIA boss in secret talks with Kim Jong-un ahead of possible summit with Donald Trump,” ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation), April 18, 2018, http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-04-18/trump-says-us-having-direct-talks-with-north-korea-about-summit/9670084.

[2] The reporting also stated that “The suspension of nuclear testing is an important process for global disarmament, and the DPRK will join international efforts and efforts to halt the nuclear test altogether,” which would seem to offer possible future outreach to both the IAEA and CTBTO. Ankit Panda, Twitter Post. April 20, 2018, 6:18 pm, https://mobile.twitter.com/nktpnd/status/987455582809534464.

In July of 2017, the French energy giant Total signed a $5 billion deal with Iran to develop the South Pars off-shore oil field. At the time, Total executives acknowledged the fact that they could lose all of their investments in Iran if the geopolitical situation regarding sanctions deteriorates. The deal between Tehran and Total was the largest of its kind since the JCPOA (aka Iran nuclear deal) came into force in 2015.

Now though, European companies like Total may see their Iranian business deals become immediately jeopardised due to Donald Trump’s clearly stated intention to either amend or withdraw from the JCPOA. Making matters more complex, Tehran has vowed that it will not accept any ex-post-facto revisions of the JCPOA, not least because according to the International Atomic Energy Agency, United Nations, Russia, China, the EU, Germany, France and Britain, Iran remains fully compliant with the original deal. The United States and “Israel” remain alone in challenging Iran’s compliance and have done so for obvious geopolitical rather than objective reasons.

With Trump seemingly on the verge of tearing up the JCPOA which could put the entire deal in jeopardy, enough though all the other signatories to the deal including France want the deal to remain in place, French President Emmanuel Macron has flown to Washington for a charm offensive that has seen Macron publicly cultivate what appears to be a very close personal friendship with Donald Trump.

While Macron indicated during a press conference that France is open to working with the US to re-negotiated a would be JCPOA 2.0, during his address to the US Congress, Macron stated that

“France will not leave the JCPOA because we signed it”.

While Trump generally has nothing nice to say about Iran, many in the Democratic opposition see the JCPOA as a matter of domestic pride as it was one of Barack Obama’s few positive achievements in the Middle East. While no American politician can be described as “pro-Islamic Republic”, many will be keen for Trump to fail is his desire to undo what they consider a laudable legacy of Barack Obama.

Macron’s mission was therefore one designed to secure a personal friendship with Trump at a time when America’s other major US partners Germany and Britain are led by women that Trump has famously cold relations with. By contrast, Macron and Trump have hugged and kissed one another so much so, that one could be forgiven for assuming the two were long time soulmates.

Macron is clearly hoping to convince Trump to salvage the JCPOA and in return France has offered to play a larger role in the west’s illegal occupation of north-eastern Syria – something in keeping with Trump’s stated desire to see France and America’s Gulfi partners take over some of the front line duties of US soldiers in the region.

It is still too early to say if Macron’s deal to assert the French presence in US occupied Syria in return for Trump relaxing his position on the JCPOA will be a success, but in reiterating the French position vis-a-vis the JCPOA in front of the US Congress, Macron is making it clear that if Trump does decide to dump the JCPOA, France’s role will be one of damage control rather than enthusiastic approval.

There is no altruism in politics and while Trump and Macron have certainly hammed up the Village People act in front of the cameras, Macon is in the US to try and protect the French and pan-European businesses who have been doing business and seek to do further business in Iran. This means so much to Macron that he is willing to sacrifice French lives in Syria to try and change Donald Trump’s mind.

Behind the smiles, both Macron and Trump are testing the art of their own deal making.

*

Adam Garrie is Director at Eurasia future. He is a geo-political expert who can be frequently seen on Nedka Babliku’s weekly discussion show Digital Divides, RT’s flagship debate show CrossTalk as well as Press-TV’s flagship programme ‘The Debate’. A global specialist with an emphasis on Eurasian integration, Garrie’s articles have been published in the Oriental Review, Asia Times, Geopolitica Russia, the Tasnim News Agency, Global Research, RT’s Op-Edge, Global Village Space and others.

Emanuel Macron’s visit to the US illustrates a major transformation pf the Atlantic Alliance. Since the end of World War II in 1945, Europe has been beholden to the US, due to the major role it played in defeating Nazi Germany. (Until recently, neither the European nor the American public was aware of just how crucial the role of the Soviet Union had been, but writers critical of the current anti-Putin campaign have made a point of setting that record straight.)

What is still rarely talked about by the western media is the hold the Atlantic Alliance, set up by the United States just four years after the end of the war, still has on Europe. The reason for that hold is suggested by its full name, The North Atlantic Treaty Alliance (NATO), under which Europe’s national armies are under American control, in pursuit of American goals. In the name of ‘grandeur’, when France’s war-time hero Charles de Gaulle was President of France from 1958 to 1969, he took France out of NATO’s integrated command and pursued an independent nuclear policy, known as the ‘force de frappe’, (the strike force) which he saw as a guarantor of French independence.

France did not return to NATO’s integrated command until 2009, and no French President, no matter how enamored of the United States, could ever afford to display anything but haughty independence on the diplomatic front, including Macron’s predecessor, Francois Hollande. The fact that less than a year after being elected, Emanuel Macron has been dubbed ‘the Trump whisperer’ is not as surprising as the Western media claims: the French President is riding on the coattails of Europe’s increasing desire to free itself from the Atlantic ties that bind, a sentiment that has only grown since the neo-liberal financial crisis of 2007, and the wave of immigration set in motion by US wars against Middle East and African populations.

President Trump’s early decision to leave the Paris Climate Accords signed by Obama, topped with his announced intention of renegotiating the P5+1 Nuclear Treaty with Iran, had already put two nails in the Atlantic coffin when Macron was elected in May of 2017. France and Germany have been the movers and shakers of Europe since the nineteen fifties Franco-German Coal and Steel Alliance that eventually led to the European Union, thus Macron’s obligatory partner is Angela Merkel, the four term German Chancellor, known affectionately as ‘Mutti’ who is seen as nearing the end of her rule. Although Macron’s habit of referring to himself as Jupiter earns him mockery at home, as part of a wider agenda to remake the European Union, he seized the reins of transatlantic diplomacy.

The moment when the baton of European leadership passes from Germany to France is also a defining moment in US-Europe relations. Since the end of World War II, the US has been waving Russia at Europe like a matador waving a red flag in front of a bull, however since his election in 2000, Russian President Vladimir Putin has been increasingly winning friends and influencing Europe’s people. When, on top of the migration crisis, the US imposed sanctions on Russia for allegedly meddling in the 2016 election, with Europe bound by treaty to do likewise, things really began to sour. It’s difficult to know which event is the straw that is breaking the European camel’s back, but the arrival on the international scene of a young, no-nonsense leader with large ambitions has come in the nick of time to prevent the US from committing irreparable damage on the world scene. And that’s why Macron is being called ‘The Trump Whisperer’.

*

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

Featured image is from the author.

This transcript of an Israeli General on an Israeli radio station (begins 6.52 in) defending the latest killing by Israeli army snipers of a 14 year old boy who posed no threat of any kind, is much more powerful if you just read it than any analysis I can give.

***

Brigadier-General (Res.) Zvika Fogel (image below) interviewed on the Yoman Hashevua program of Israel’s Kan radio, 21 April 2018.

Ron Nesiel: Greetings Brigadier General (Res.) Zvika Fogel. Should the IDF [Israeli army] rethink its use of snipers? There’s the impression that maybe someone lowered the bar for using live fire, and this may be the result?

Zvika Fogel: Ron, let’s maybe look at this matter on three levels. At the tactical level that we all love dealing with, the local one, also at the level of values, and with your permission, we will also rise up to the strategic level. At the tactical level, any person who gets close to the fence, anyone who could be a future threat to the border of the State of Israel and its residents, should bear a price for that violation. If this child or anyone else gets close to the fence in order to hide an explosive device or check if there are any dead zones there or to cut the fence so someone could infiltrate the territory of the State of Israel to kill us …

Nesiel: Then, then his punishment is death?

Fogel: His punishment is death. As far as I’m concerned then yes, if you can only shoot him to stop him, in the leg or arm – great. But if it’s more than that then, yes, you want to check with me whose blood is thicker, ours or theirs. It is clear to you that if one such person will manage to cross the fence or hide an explosive device there …

Nesiel: But we were taught that live fire is only used when the soldiers face immediate danger.

Fogel: Come, let’s move over to the level of values. Assuming that we understood the tactical level, as we cannot tolerate a crossing of our border or a violation of our border, let’s proceed to the level of values. I am not Ahmad Tibi, I am Zvika Fogel. I know how these orders are given. I know how a sniper does the shooting. I know how many authorizations he needs before he receives an authorization to open fire. It is not the whim of one or the other sniper who identifies the small body of a child now and decides he’ll shoot. Someone marks the target for him very well and tells him exactly why one has to shoot and what the threat is from that individual. And to my great sorrow, sometimes when you shoot at a small body and you intended to hit his arm or shoulder it goes even higher. The picture is not a pretty picture. But if that’s the price that we have to pay to preserve the safety and quality of life of the residents of the State of Israel, then that’s the price. But now, with your permission, let us go up one level and look at the overview. It is clear to you that Hamas is fighting for consciousness at the moment. It is clear to you and to me …

Nesiel: Is it hard for them to do? Aren’t we providing them with sufficient ammunition in this battle?

Fogel: We’re providing them but …

Nesiel: Because it does not do all that well for us, those pictures that are distributed around the world.

Fogel: Look, Ron, we’re even terrible at it. There’s nothing to be done, David always looks better against Goliath. And in this case, we are the Goliath. Not the David. That is entirely clear to me. But let’s look at it at the strategic level: you and I and a large part of the listeners are clear that this will not end up in demonstrations. It is clear to us that Hamas can’t continue to tolerate the fact that its rockets are not managing to hurt us, its tunnels are eroding …

Nesiel: Yes.

Fogel: And it doesn’t have too many suicide bombers who continue to believe the fairytale about the virgins waiting up there. It will drag us into a war. I do not want to be on the side that gets dragged. I want to be on the side that initiates things. I do not want to wait for the moment where it finds a weak spot and attacks me there. If tomorrow morning it gets into a military base or a kibbutz and kills people there and takes prisoners of war or hostages, call it as you like, we’re in a whole new script. I want the leaders of Hamas to wake up tomorrow morning and for the last time in their life see the smiling faces of the IDF. That’s what I want to have happen. But we are dragged along. So we’re putting snipers up because we want to preserve the values we were educated by. We can’t always take a single picture and put it before the whole world. We have soldiers there, our children, who were sent out and receive very accurate instructions about whom to shoot to protect us. Let’s back them up.

Nesiel: Brigadier-General (Res.) Zvika Fogel, formerly Head of the Southern Command Staff, thank you for your words.

Fogel: May you only hear good news. Thank you.

***

There is no room to doubt the evil nature of the expansionist apartheid state that Israel has now become. Nor the moral vacuity of its apologists in the western media.

*

Translation by Dena Shunra

Craig Murray is an author, broadcaster and human rights activist. He was British Ambassador to Uzbekistan from August 2002 to October 2004 and Rector of the University of Dundee from 2007 to 2010.

Featured image is from the author.

Is it about America’s Interests or some American’s interest?

The military operation launched by the United States, France and Britain against Syria has achieved little to no gains unlike what was promoted by the United States and the West. The message that the United States and its allies intended to send to Syria was so weak that leaders in Washington, Paris and London had better spend money on their countries’ infrastructure or poverty issues. Perhaps the entire scene reflects what many now realize: America does not really have a Syrian strategy.

The understanding within the US political community, including US officials, analysts in Washington, opinion writers, and journalists around Syria for the past seven years, is generally below standard, unknown or incomprehensible in regards US interests and foreign policy that must be adopted.

The evolution of the Syrian crisis from a staged violent uprising into a global war has generated an astonishing level of complexity that makes it difficult for one to ascertain who is fighting who. This kind of contradiction is not unique to Syria alone. The same problem is observed in US policy regarding Libya, Yemen, Iraq, Palestine and even Iran.

US officials and politicians are still wrestling over the same question about Syria. The painful result, meanwhile, is what we see in Syria today… and what we will see in the USA tomorrow.

Saudi Arabia’s King Salman bin Abdelaziz was declared the “Islamic World’s Personality of the Year” by a group of religious scholars in Pakistan, honouring the royal for his apparent services to the Muslim world.

There are differing motivations that drove the US, UK, and France to bomb Syria.

Most people have already heard a lot of commentary about the US’ reasons for doing so, which were mostly to send a signal to Iran & Hezbollah as well as push the limits of what Russia will allow it to do in Syrian airspace, though comparatively less has been said about why the UK and France decided to tag along. London is caught up in post-Brexit domestic political chaos and is looking for a convenient distraction, especially since the Skripal case has begun to unravel and be exposed as the false flag chemical weapons attack that Russia has insisted it was all along. The UK also wants to retain its international relevance after global media mostly succeeded in convincing the masses that the country will become less important on the world stage after Brexit.

Another factor behind the UK’s decision to take part in these strikes was that France was very enthusiastic about them and was pining to lead the charge. London doesn’t want to lose out on its so-called “special relationship” with Washington to its historical Paris rival, which has been keen to present itself as the US’ chief EU ally given the fraying of relations between America and Germany for ideological and economic reasons. France is the only European power whose former colonial holdings could compete with the UK’s in geographic scope, and it’s eager to reestablish itself as a globally important Great Power through its recent diplomatic-military forays in the Mideast as judging by Macron’s intervention during the Hariri episode and his recent dispatch of troops to northern Syria.

The United Nations Security Council

Altogether, the combination of American, British, and French participation in the latest Syrian strikes importantly comprises 3/5 of the UNSC members who symbolically represent the West in the eyes of the world. Germany, while important, is pretty much only an EU power and doesn’t have a legacy of influence outside of the continent like the other three Great Powers do. The three aforementioned Western states stand in opposition to Russia, Iran, and China both in the context of what just took place last weekend and also more broadly, thus allowing one to more or less define the general geopolitical contours of what even the UN Secretary General recently acknowledged is a New Cold War, albeit this time between proponents of the unipolar and multipolar systems of International Relations instead of the capitalist and communist ideologies.

Last week’s hysterical hype about the supposedly imminent commencement of “World War III” and the nuclear apocalypse that people were being conditioned for manipulative reasons to expect right afterwards never came to pass, but all the same, there’s an unmistakable worldwide struggle going on for the future of International Relations. The US, the UK, and France are leading the unipolar camp while Russia, Iran, and China are doing the same with the multipolar one, though it must be stressed that all the members from each side aren’t in “perfect harmony” with one another and that some differences still remain. Having said that, while there are many proxy battlefields and even intangible domains in which this global competition is being waged, Syria is by far the most important of them, which is why last weekend’s escalations were so significant.

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This article was originally published on Oriental Review.

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

Michel Chossudovsky

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

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

Year: 2015

Pages: 240 Pages

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In late September 2016, a few days after Nikolas Cruz (Parkland, Florida shootout) turned 18 and became old enough to buy a gun, the Department of Children and Families sent one or more investigators to Cruz’s home. The Department had been alerted by posts on Snapchat where the young man talked crazily about cutting himself and asked for help in getting a gun.

Among the many missed opportunities widely discussed in the media, here is one on the local level where the Department of Children and Families actually went to his home to investigate. The department intended to evaluate Cruz for “possible detainment under the Baker Act, which allows authorities to hold individuals against their will for up to 72 hours.”

What did the investigator find? NBC News quotes the official report:

“Mr. Cruz stated that he plans to go out and buy a gun… It is unknown what he is buying the gun for.”

Not only was Cruz planning to buy a gun while apparently refusing to say what he was planning to use it for, but his mother’s observations cast serious doubt on her son’s mental capacity to own a weapon. According to the New York Times,

“She told the investigator that Mr. Cruz did not have a gun, though he did have an air gun she would take away from him when he did not follow rules about shooting only at backyard targets.”

Unbelievably, in full knowledge of Cruz’s intention to buy a gun, and his inability to take responsibility for the use of even an air gun, the department found Cruz to be a “low risk” and closed his case within two months.

Had Cruz been committed, under existing gun laws he would have become unable to legally buy a gun to carry out his murderous fantasies. Alternatively, if he had been carefully and safely removed from his psychiatric drugs while receiving good psychosocial therapy, his escalating violent impulses might have abated. Instead, he was left on his own to face the death of his mother and his expulsion from school, while his murderous impulses were fueled by drugs.

Nikolas Cruz

What do we know about Cruz’s psychiatric treatment?

The First Tragic Irony

According to the New York Times, the official department report that found Cruz to be “low risk” indicated that

“he was regularly taking medication for A.D.H.D. It was unclear whether he was taking anything for depression, according to the report.”

In more detail, NBC News observed that Nikolas’s adoptive mother “insisted he received his necessary medication as prescribed.”

Investigators from the Department of Children and Families also contacted Cruz’s healthcare provider. NBC News quoted directly from report,

“[Cruz’s] clinician from Henderson Mental Health has stated that there are no issues with [Cruz’s] medication and he has been compliant with taking his medication and keeps all his appointments.”

This is an irony of tragic proportions. Cruz was left unsupervised and free to buy a gun because he was faithfully taking psychiatric drugs that can cause or aggravate violence.

But do psychiatric drugs really cause violence?

Antidepressant-Induced Violence

In the early 1990s, a federal court appointed me to be the scientific expert for all of the combined product liability cases that were brought against Eli Lilly throughout the country concerning Prozac-induced violence, suicide and crime. Since then I have been involved in many cases in which judges and juries, and even prosecuting attorneys, have determined that psychiatric drugs have caused or substantially contributed to violence. For a lengthy list, see the Legal Section on my website.

In 2003/2004, I wrote a scientific review article about antidepressant-induced suicide, violence and mania which the FDA distributed to all its advisory committee members. This took place as the FDA Advisory Committee members prepared to review new warnings to be put in the Full Prescribing Information for all antidepressants.

In my peer-reviewed paper, I wrote:

Mania with psychosis is the extreme end of a stimulant continuum that often begins with lesser degrees of insomnia, nervousness, anxiety, hyperactivity and irritability and then progresses toward more severe agitation, aggression, and varying degrees of mania. (p. 2)

In words very close to and sometimes identical to mine, the FDA one year later required the manufacturers of every antidepressant to put the following observations in the Warnings section of the Full Prescribing Information:

All patients being treated with antidepressants for any indication should be monitored appropriately and observed closely for clinical worsening, suicidality, and unusual changes in behavior, especially during the initial few months of a course of drug therapy, or at times of dose changes, either increases or decreases. The following symptoms, anxiety, agitation, panic attacks, insomnia, irritability, hostility, aggressiveness, impulsivity, akathisia (psychomotor restlessness), hypomania, and mania, have been reported in adult and pediatric patients being treated with antidepressants for major depressive disorder as well as for other indications, both psychiatric and nonpsychiatric. (Celexa 2017, p. 8, bold added)

These adverse drug effects—including agitation, irritability, hostility, aggressiveness, akathisia, and impulsivity—are an obvious prescription for violence. Akathisia, which I also described in my article, is a psychomotor agitation that is strongly associated with violence.

The FDA further confirmed that antidepressants can cause violence in the FDA-approved Medication Guide for antidepressants. By law, Medication Guides must be based on science and on the drug’s Full Prescribing Information. These several-page guides are intended to be shared and discussed by the doctor with patients and their families.

The FDA Medication Guide for antidepressants warns clinicians, patients and families to be on the alert for the following:

• acting on dangerous impulses
• acting aggressive or violent
• feeling agitated, restless, angry or irritable
• other unusual changes in behavior or mood (Celexa 2017, p. 33)

This list (above) of antidepressant adverse effects from the Medication Guide should make clear that antidepressants can cause violence.

Stimulant-Induced Violence

The FDA also acknowledges the risk of both psychosis and aggression from the stimulant drugs used to treat ADHD, but waffles somewhat in the Full Prescribing Information about aggression. These excerpts are from the Dexedrine (amphetamine) Full Prescribing Information:    

Psychiatric Adverse Events 

Emergence of New Psychotic or Manic Symptoms: Treatment emergent psychotic or manic symptoms, e.g., hallucinations, delusional thinking, or mania in children and adolescents without a prior history of psychotic illness or mania can be caused by stimulants at usual doses.

Aggression: Aggressive behavior or hostility is often observed in children and adolescents with ADHD, and has been reported in clinical trials and the post-marketing experience of some medications indicated for the treatment of ADHD. Although there is no systematic evidence that stimulants cause aggressive behavior or hostility, patients beginning treatment for ADHD should be monitored for the appearance of, or worsening of, aggressive behavior or hostility. (Dexedrine, 2007, p. 3)

The Medication Guide for Dexedrine warns to report to the doctor “Mental (Psychiatric) Problems” that can be caused by the stimulant. The warning for stimulants echoes some of the adverse violence-related effects caused by antidepressants:

• new or worse behavior and thought problems
• new or worse bipolar illness
• new or worse aggressive behavior or hostility (Dexedrine, 2014, p. 9)

Study Shows Antidepressants and Stimulants Are Especially Likely to Cause Violence

One of the most convincing studies of medication-induced violence was based on reports of violence to the FDA over a several year period. When the number of prescriptions written for each drug was factored in, a small group of drugs accounted for almost all reports of violence.

In the study of violence reports to the FDA, any predisposition toward violence in the patients themselves was largely ruled out because some of the most violence-inducing drugs were not psychiatric drugs, and were being given to a more general population. Some of the violence-inducing drugs were antibiotics, including Lariam (Mefloquine), which Sgt. Robert Bales was taking when he slaughtered 16 helpless, innocent villagers in Afghanistan.

The amphetamines as a group (mostly used to treat ADHD) were third in order of frequency of violence reports per prescription. The amphetamines include drugs such as Adderall and Dexedrine (pure amphetamines) and amphetamine-like drugs based on methylphenidate, such as Ritalin, Focalin and Concerta. While amphetamines as a group were third in the list of most likely to induce violence, overall the antidepressants were the most common offenders, with Prozac, Paxil, and Effexor near the top.

Losing Track of the Threat

Cruz’s school counselor protested to the Department of Children and Families that they should re-examine their conclusion that he was a “low risk” for violence. Then in January 2017, two months after the agency had closed its investigation, the Broward County Public Schools disciplinary records indicate that the school referred Cruz to the Department of Children and Families for a “threat assessment” because of a long history of “fights with teachers” and “using profane language with school staff.” No other information was provided about the outcome of that referral.

What was going on? When public agencies have difficult children and young adults to deal with, they automatically turn to psychiatric diagnosing and drugging. Previously concerned adult authorities then withdraw their concern and attention because the child is getting “psychiatric treatment.” Caring, empathic and effective psychosocial treatments fall by the wayside.

Authorities do this without grasping that they are shoving the child under a suffocating chemical rug in the form of neurotoxins that blunt all emotions and stifle all behavior. Those dooming the children and youth to psychiatric oblivion probably do not know, as Bob Whitaker has shown in Anatomy of an Epidemic, that psychiatric drugs will diminish their competence and quality of life, while also raising the cost of their treatment and their disability payments. They do not foresee that the psychiatric strategy for treatment will sometimes lead to tragic outcomes like the school shootings. Nor do they realize that the overall evidence of harm from psychiatric drugs is infinitely greater than the evidence for good effects, as scientist Peter Gøtzsche has confirmed in Deadly Psychiatry and Organized Denial.

Another Tragic Irony

During Cruz’s build up to the mass murders, his Snapchat remarks about cutting himself and wanting to get a gun were not the only red flags that he was dangerous. Among many other warning signs, he declared on social media that he wanted to become a “professional school shooter” and he told an acquaintance that he had bought a gun and was planning to shoot up the school within weeks before it happened.

This was not mere bragging to bolster his ego. Cruz was intelligent enough to know that broadcasting his intention could lead to his being stopped. On some level of his disturbed mind, Cruz was begging to be stopped. Several people did in fact report him but to no avail.

The second great, tragic irony is that Cruz desperately signaled his dangerousness but agencies as high up as the FBI saw and never responded to his conscious or unconscious pleas to be stopped.

How Psychiatry Increases the Threat of Violence

Calling for more spending on mental health and on psychiatry will make matters worse, probably causing many more shootings than it prevents. 

Not only do psychiatric drugs add to the risk of violence, but psychiatric treatment lulls the various authorities and the family into believing that the patient is now “under control” and “less of a risk.” Even the patient may think the drugs are helping, and continue to take them right up to the moment of violence.

The belief in drugs is so prevailing that the authorities, in my forensic experience, will continue the offending drugs or even increase them in jail. Sometimes the perpetrator of the violence may begin to suspect the drugs contributed to his violence, but more often he is still hoping that they help and wants his medications continued in jail.

Even when some of their patients signal with all their might that they are dangerous and need to be stopped, mental health providers are likely to give drugs, adding fuel to the heat of violent impulses, while assuming that their violence-inducing drugs will reduce the risk of serious aggression.  

We have seen that Nikolas Cruz was probably being treated with violence-inducing stimulants and/or antidepressants by a psychiatrist who was nonetheless aware of his violent tendencies and serious underlying threats. We have seen how his blatant threats were disregarded, probably on the grounds that he was already in the mental health system and receiving drugs.

Psychiatry not only increases the risk of violence by giving violence-inducing drugs, but it lulls patients, families, professionals, schools and the public into an unrealistic and even disastrous sense of security. I have described dozens of such cases in my book, Medication Madness: the Role of Psychiatric Drugs in Cases of Violence, Suicide and Crime.

James Holmes

James Holmes, the Aurora Theater shooter, is an extreme example of the dangers of sending a violent person for psychiatric treatment. Holmes was in graduate school when he asked for psychiatric help. He told his psychiatrist he had such violent feelings that he dared not tell her all about them for fear that she would lock him up.

What did Holmes’ psychiatrist do? On that same first visit where he warned about seriously violent feelings, she started him on the antidepressant Zoloft. Under the influence of the drug, he became grossly psychotic and began elaborating his plans and collecting weapons.

Did Holmes’ psychiatrist need more training or awareness? No, she was especially trained in the prevention of campus school shootings and immediately contacted campus security, while starting him on Zoloft. Increased training under the current mental health system will only lead to even more drugging, because that is what my colleagues in psychiatry do—they drug nearly everyone they can get their hands on.

To prevent or reduce school shootings, we need to stop relying on current mental health and psychiatric interventions to prevent mass violence. Psychiatric approaches do more harm than good.

What More Can We Do to Prevent or Reduce School Shootings?

School shootings have multiple causes. My focus in this report is on the role of psychiatric drugs because it receives so little attention, despite being one of the chief causes of mass violence. In keeping with my emphasis, for solutions I will focus again on my own area of knowledge: the provision of psychosocial and educational services to children, youth, and their caregivers or families.

One of the first required steps is to force public disclosure of any and all drugs prescribed to violent perpetrators. We still do not know exactly what was prescribed to Cruz other than that he was treated for ADHD and depression. Family members have reported that he was taking psychiatric medications for depression around the time he assaulted his school, but we lack documentation for this.

Authorities often avoid releasing information about the medications that mass murderers were taking. In 2012, twenty-year-old Adam Lanza (image on the left) murdered 20 children and 6 adults at Sandy Hook Elementary School. Six years later, the State of Connecticut has never released his medical records or reported the medications in his blood. Why? According to an assistant attorney general for the state, Lanza’s medications cannot be made public because the information “can cause a lot of people to stop taking their medications.”

It took a legal action to force the corner in the Las Vegas mass murder case to make public what if any medications were identified in the perpetrator’s body. When it was reported that he had Valium in his body at the time of his death, it did not even get a ho-hum response from the press.

Similarly, in 2013, when it was quickly discovered that the naval yard shooter had recently been started on the antidepressant trazodone at the VA, the news just as quickly disappeared from view. So it will not be enough to get the information we need; we will also have to work to draw attention to it.

Despite how often threat reports are ignored, they are a frontline deterrent. We need to make it easier to report threats by young people by providing well-advertised state-wide designated online and telephone reporting sites, and by preparing and empowering state and local agencies to respond to these threats. Federal agencies should play little or no role in this strategy, which requires immediate local responsiveness.

Offering Better Services

I have already emphasized the importance of no longer relying on the current mental health and psychiatric system to stop school shootings. However, even if school shootings were not such a huge problem, we still need to stop drugging our children and youth to control their feelings, thoughts and actions. Antidepressants, stimulants, benzodiazepines and all other brain-disabling, mind-altering drugs should not be used to control the minds or behaviors of young people. Children need more adult help, not more neurotoxic drugs. We must not let them to grow up with their brains and minds soaked in neurotoxins.

We need to revamp the services we deliver in our schools and families to place more emphasis on educational and psychosocial approaches to healing distressed individuals and their families. The Department of Children and Families was sent to the Cruz household to investigate and not to help. It assumed that going to a mental health clinic and taking psychiatric drugs was a good idea that reduced his dangerousness. Cruz was then left largely on his own to deal with his mother’s death and expulsion from school.

We need to focus services for young people on helping parents and children in conflict without resorting to demeaning psychiatric labels and toxic psychiatric drugs. A variety of relatively low-cost programs involving volunteers, coaches, and counselors provides the best model for help. To be most effective, we need a drug-free wraparound program with voluntary psychosocial interventions, including efforts to support and strengthen the family or care-taking unit.

Wraparound treatment would be provided not only to the identified child or youth but to the entire family. The treatment team at various times would involve teachers, school counselors, individual and/or family therapy, and direct aid to struggling families. I describe these programs in Reclaiming Our Children, a book I wrote in response to the Columbine shootings. These approaches are much less costly than providing chronic, futile psychiatric treatment, and have a better chance of stopping a catastrophic spiral into mass murder.

In the Cruz case, the school and its counselor, and many of the students, were alert to his dangerousness. Unfortunately, the dominance of drug-oriented psychiatry left no place to turn for effective help. Cruz was already being treated within a mental health clinic that provided individual treatment based on diagnoses and drugs. Instead we need psychosocial interventions, including empathic therapy, for individuals and their families.

Good psychosocial and educational help for our distressed and potentially violent children and young adults, and their families, will remain unavailable as long as psychiatry dominates theory and practice. Reforms will never occur as long as prescribers are enabled to sicken young brains and minds with neurotoxic psychiatric drugs. With biological psychiatry and the pharmaceutical industry continuing to determine the kind of mental health services that are delivered, school shootings will continue to grow in number and ferocity.

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Dr. Breggin has been called “The Conscience of Psychiatry” for his decades of successful efforts to reform the field. He criticizes psychiatric drugs and ECT, and promotes more caring, empathic and effective therapies. His newest book is Guilt, Shame and Anxiety: Understanding and Overcoming Negative Emotions.

The U.S. and Russia provide diametrically opposite accounts of the percentages of U.S.-and-allied missiles that hit their targets in Syria on the night of April 13th-14th.

On the 14th, Russia’s military said that 71 of the 103 U.S.-and-allied missiles were shot down by Syria. But on this very same day, the U.S. announced that 105 missiles had been launched and “none intercepted.” So: Was the U.S. side’s success-rate 100%, as America claimed; or, instead, 31%, as Russia claimed? This difference is, obviously, huge.

During the subsequent days, U.S.-and-allied media celebrated their side’s alleged victory; for example, on April 22nd, USA Today bannered “105 to 0: Why Syria’s air defenses failed to intercept a single incoming missile”, and reported that:

U.S., French and British forces launched 105 missiles from aircraft and ships at three chemical weapons facilities in Syria last weekend in response to a suspected chemical weapons attack launched by the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad.

Russia claimed that Syrian defenses knocked down many incoming missiles, but the Pentagon said every weapon hit its intended target, dismissing the Russian comments as a disinformation campaign.

As of yet, the Russian side has not accused the U.S. side of a “disinformation campaign” about this. However, it has stuck to its guns and not backed down about its own, directly opposite, assertions; for example, Russia on April 16th gave a detailed breakdown of the results of the U.S.-and-allied bombing, and reported here (at 1:32:30), “a total of 103 cruise missiles were targeting the Syrian targets, and 71 [missiles] were taken out.” That claim would be a 69% Syrian-and-allied (defensive) success-rate, and a 31% U.S.-and-allied (aggressive) success-rate, on this event, which was the biggest direct military confrontation between Russian and American (and French and UK) forces, ever. This was also, therefore, arguably, the actual start of World War III. 

The issue in the wake of the U.S. side’s invasion here — the crucial issue — is the relative functionality of the two sides’ conventional weaponries, and perhaps even more broadly of their militaries: the functionality of, and preparedness for, the conventional stage, preceding the strategic nuclear stage, in WW III. Presumably, after the conventional phase will have its ultimate winner and loser, the loser will suddenly unleash its nuclear forces against the other, so as to avoid defeat. The first side to attack will have the advantage to achieve a nuclear victory. The nuclear phase of the war will be over within around 30 minutes. In military matters, to ‘win’ means simply suffering less damage than does the opponent; and the first to attack will destroy some of the opponent’s retaliatory strategic weapons. Only conventional weaponry is involved at the present stage, the conventional-war phase; but, if things do reach the nuclear stage between these two sides, then even the side that ‘wins’ the war will be far more totally destroyed than even the loser has been in any prior war in history.

On April 25th, a Russian news-site headlined (as autotranslated) “The Russian military showed the remains of downed Coalition missiles in Syria” and reported that:

The Russian Defense Ministry showed the wreckage of the American Tomahawk missiles and European TOOL, the Storm Shadow. At the disposal of the military were large fragments of the engines and control systems, parts of the fuselage. And many of them show visible marks from shrapnel. This proves the fact that the missiles were intercepted by air defense systems.

Although the truth about this matter might not be of much interest to voters in any country, it will matter a great deal to the ruling aristocracies in any countries, such as Turkey, which are now making decisions between buying weapons made by the U.S. side, or else buying weapons made by the Russian side. And those decisions, in turn, will factor heavily into the choosing-up-of-sides in WW III, if neither the U.S nor Russia backs down so that a full-fledged hot war between U.S. and Russia results.

Consequently, the question as to which of these two sides is lying, is geostrategically very important. If Russia is telling the truth, then the sway will be favorable to Russia; if America is telling the truth, America will benefit.

Also: ever since the U.S. misrepresented the evidence regarding “Saddam’s WMD” in the lead-up to America’s 2003 invasion-and-occupation of Iraq, the question as to whether or not the assertions by the U.S. Government are lies is at least as severe as is the question as to whether the Russian Government lies. Presumably, both sides do (though one side might be lying far more than does the other); but, the question here concerns, in particular, military matters, and even the fate of the world. Lying in order to ‘justify’ an invasion is as serious a matter as exists, anywhere, anytime; and, if the Organization for the Prevention of Chemical Weapons will determine that the U.S.-and-allied invasion of Syria on April 14th was likewise based upon lies, then the consequences of what happened in that invasion will be even larger than merely the military competencies of the two respective sides.

On April 25th, Russia’s Sputnik News bannered “OPCW Finds No Chemical Weapons at Syrian Facilities Bombed by US – Russian MoD”, and so it’s not only the U.S. side’s military competency that is yet to be determined, but — again, as had happened in 2003 Iraq — whether or not the U.S. now routinely lies in order to ‘justify’ its invasions. That might turn out to be an issue of interest not only to the ruling aristocracies, but to their respective subjects.

Perhaps neither of the two sides will back down as between there having been an American missiles-success-rate of 100%, or of 31%, but the OPCW represents a higher authority than does any nation; it represents, in fact, 192 nations. If the finding by the OPCW turns out to confirm the U.S. Government’s accusation (that Syria’s government had used chemicals on April 7th against its own people) which was used to justify the April 14th invasion, then the invasion will retroactively thereby receive at least some degree of moral, if not legal, confirmation. But if the finding turns out to disconfirm that accusation, then the April 14th invasion will be seen instead as a smaller version of George W. Bush’s and Tony Blair’s clearly illegal and unjustified 20 March 2003 invasion of Iraq. Repeating that type of invasion, now, even though far smaller than happened in 2003, would indicate to the entire world that the United States is an enduring and systematic threat to world peace. The stakes are high for both sides, regardless of what the finding by the OPCW turns out to be.  

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

Mark Taliano just got back from Syria.

He was there right in time to hear the cruise missiles, which exploded 5 km from his hotel. Taliano tells us what Syrians think of the war, and the role of Canada as an accomplice to vast war crimes.

Taliano and Phil focus on the Canadian government’s role in the war against Syria and discuss some of the things that Canadians should demand of the Trudeau government to bring about an end to that war.

Mark Taliano’s book can be purchase online directly from Global Research (scroll down for details)

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Mark Taliano is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG) and the author of Voices from Syria, Global Research Publishers, 2017.

Order Mark Taliano’s Book “Voices from Syria” directly from Global Research.  

Taliano talks and listens to the people of Syria. He reveals the courage and resilience of a Nation and its people in their day to day lives, after more than six years of US-NATO sponsored terrorism and three years of US “peacemaking” airstrikes.

Mark Taliano combines years of research with on-the-ground observations to present an informed and well-documented analysis that refutes  the mainstream media narratives on Syria. 

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Emmanuel Macron’s address to a joint session of the US Congress on Wednesday was one of the most belligerent public statements ever made by a French president. Hailing the unprovoked bombing of Syria on April 14 by Washington, London and Paris as a model for a new world order in the 21st century, Macron declared his support for US war threats against Iran, North Korea and beyond.

The address capped off Macron’s three-day state visit to Washington, amid the deepest crisis of the trans-Atlantic alliance since the end of World War II. Panic is mounting in European ruling circles over US moves to slap trade tariffs on European and Chinese goods, threatening a spiral of retaliation and a global trade war, and Washington’s announced plans to cancel the Iranian nuclear treaty, threatening the eruption of war throughout the entire Middle East. Yet Macron had nothing to propose save more calls for aggressive military action, covered over with hollow bombast about the defense of democracy.

“Our two nations are rooted in the same soil, grounded in the same ideals of the American and French revolutions,” Macron declared. “The strength of our bonds is the source of our shared ideals. This is what united us in the struggle against imperialism during the First World War, then in the fight against Nazism during the Second World War. This is what united us again during the era of the Stalinist threat, and now we lean on that strength to fight against terrorist groups.”

Macron’s rhetoric about Washington and Paris carrying out an eternal war for democracy, which takes the form in our epoch of a “war on terror” against Islamist groups, is a pack of lies. The trade rivalries between major US and European corporations, and US-European conflicts over whether to break Europe’s economic ties with Iran and risk war in the Middle East, are not conflicts to save democracy from terrorism. They are inter-imperialist conflicts rooted, as the great 20th century Marxists explained, in the violently clashing interests of rival nationally based capitalist ruling classes.

Macron proceeded to contradict his own fraudulent presentation. He appealed to Washington to drop its threats of trade war and coordinate its war policies more closely with Europe—not in order to fight terrorism, but to preserve the dominant role played in world politics by the imperialist powers against unnamed great-power rivals.

He said,

“We have two possible ways ahead. We can choose isolationism, withdrawal and nationalism. This is an option. It can be tempting to us as a temporary remedy to our fears. But closing the door to the world will not stop the evolution of the world… Other powers with a stronger strategy and ambition would then fill the void we would leave empty. Other powers will not hesitate once again to advocate their own model to shape the 21st century global order.”

The better way, Macron claimed, is to “build a 21st century world order based on a new breed of multilateralism.” As an example of this, he said:

“In Syria, we work very closely together. After prohibited weapons were used against the population by the regime of Bashar al-Assad two weeks ago, the United States and France, together with the United Kingdom, acted to destroy chemical facilities and to restore the credibility of the international community. This action was evidence of this strong multilateralism.”

Macron’s hailing of the April 14 bombing of Syria as a model for the future constitutes a warning to workers and youth internationally. Behind empty rhetoric about democracy and the rule of law, the ruling classes in the imperialist centers act ruthlessly, with utter contempt for international law, in order to assert and maintain their dominant world position against their geostrategic rivals such as China and Russia.

The April 14 attack was a war crime, based on NATO lies that Assad regime forces had used chemical weapons in the city of Douma. As Moscow presented evidence that the attack was staged by the NATO-backed White Helmets militia to provide a pretext for bombings, Washington, London and Paris launched missile strikes on Syrian state buildings, preempting UN investigations of the alleged chemical attack. Macron’s praise for this attack underscores that the 21st century order he foresees would be based on endless, lawless violence by the imperialist powers.

On this basis, Macron endorsed US threats against targets across Eurasia.

“The terrorist threat is even more dangerous when combined with the nuclear proliferation threat,” he said. “France supports fully the United States in its attempts to bring Pyongyang through sanctions and negotiations towards denuclearization of the Korean peninsula. As for Iran, our objective is clear: Iran shall never possess any nuclear weapons: not now, not in 5 years, not in 10 years, never.”

Having already indicated yesterday that he would accept Trump’s cancellation of the Iranian nuclear treaty, paving the way for renewed economic sanctions and a likely US war against Iran, Macron nonetheless issued the following pathetic proviso:

“But this policy should never lead us to war in the Middle East. We must ensure stability and respect the sovereignty of the nations, including of Iran, which represents a great civilization. Let us not replicate past mistakes in the region.”

Macron’s argument is a hypocritical fraud. On the one hand, he gave a blank check to Trump, who has threatened North Korea with “fire and fury like the world has never seen” and is backing Israeli threats of military action against Iran; on the other, he insisted that he did not support the war that flows from such policies. Then he tacked on an impotent appeal to avoid repeating “past mistakes,” that is, imperialist wars and military occupations in the Middle East over the last 25 years, without saying what these were.

Following the Stalinist dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, the imperialist powers were freed from any effective military counterweight to their neocolonial interventions in the Middle East. A series of bloody imperialist wars in the strategic and oil-rich region—from Iraq to Afghanistan, Libya and Syria—claimed millions of lives and forced tens of millions to flee their homes. The class interests driving these wars were obscured, however, by imperialist lies that they were motivated by the need to fight terrorism and save democracy. The Big Lie of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction set the pattern for the succeeding neocolonial wars.

The geopolitical crisis provoked by these decades of war is escalating into a military confrontation between the major world powers. As Russian and Iranian forces fight in Syria against NATO-backed “rebels,” and China seeks closer ties with Russia to protect itself from US threats over trade, the South China Sea and North Korea, the danger of the eruption of a war directly between major nuclear armed powers is growing. The April 14 attacks were stunningly reckless precisely because of the danger of their provoking a clash between Russian and NATO forces.

The attack on workers’ living standards necessary to finance these wars is now provoking a growing fightback in the working class. Mass strikes by teachers are proceeding in the United States as rail workers strike and university students occupy their classrooms in France to protest Macron’s drastic reforms, which he has pursued despite broad popular opposition.

This growth of working-class struggle is itself a major factor driving the ruling classes in both France and the US to escalate their military aggression abroad in an attempt to divert social tensions outward against a foreign “enemy” and create conditions for the use of state violence and censorship to crush opposition at home.

There is no possibility of mistakes since 04.04.2018. Beyond all official claims and speculation about increasing CO2 emissions as a threat to earth’s life there is now proof to the contrary. The real threat to life is the deadly ultraviolet cosmic radiation that in the meantime reaches the Earth’s surface because the ozone layer can no longer stop it.

That means, that a part of the atmosphere, the famous and unique Blue of the planet Earth, that all the astronauts worship, is in is in the process of dissolution. The atmosphere thus no longer offers the protection for which it was created in the course of earthly life. Specifically, the ozone layer is disappearing, which is responsible for this protection. Already at the end of the Perm 250 million years ago nearly all life on earth became extinct, because nothing grew any more. The so-called “Great Dying” had then probably the same reason (Gabbattis 2018).

Today, the problem consists not only in the existence of the infamous ozone holes over the Antarctic and over the Arctic, too, but also in that they, contrary to expectations, make no attempt to close themselves (Titze 2018), and that the ozone layer as such has in the meantime generally become very weak (Dönges 2017). This means that it lets the cosmic radiation pass also far from the ozone holes themselves. That this is possible, has always been denied.

The bearer of the horrendous message is Dr. Marvin Herndon together with Raymond Hoisington and Mark Whiteside, who have their respective Research results just published in the “Journal of Geography, Environment and Earth Science International”, Vol. 14, Issue 2, – titled:

“Deadly Ultraviolet UV-C and UV-B Penetration to Earth´s Surface: Human and Environmental Health Implications” (1)

In their article, the authors explain that UV-B radiation is a “stress factor”, that has a negative influence on the survival and growth of organisms in marine and freshwater, for instance Plankton, both as vegetable as well as animal. Thus, the food base of the marine and generally water inhabitants is endangered. In addition, UV-B can affect the photosynthesis, growth and metabolism of the underwater world, it can disturb the coral reef communities and destroy them by coral bleaching as well as by leading to a genome instability of plants. However, UV radiation is also harmful on land, for example generally for trees because it alters their biological and chemical environment. Conifers can produce deficient pollen under UV-B radiation and be disturbed in their reproduction or even become sterile. The toxicity of UV-B is known. It also applies to all other living beings.

UV-C, again, has for example lethal effects on insects and microorganisms. It even leads to a programmed cell death in plants. In rats, it causes cell damage, in humans, depending on the duration of irradiation, at least skin damages. In the announcement of the publication, there is a summary:

It is widely believed that atmospheric ozone blocks the deadly portion of solar radiation, UV-C and most UV-B, from reaching Earth’s surface. A just published scientific paper challenges this assumption. Published this week in the Journal of Geography, Environment and Earth Science International, the paper by J. Marvin Herndon, PhD, of Trans dyne Corporation, Raymond D Hoisington of I Ray Spectra Metrics, and Mark Whiteside, MD, MPH, a Florida Department of Health physician, confirms evidence NASA published and then failed to follow-up on in 2007.“

NASA was informed since years

Eleven years ago, NASA scientists published the first evidence that UV-C and UV-B was penetrating the ozone layer and reaching Earth’s surface, evidence now confirmed by Herndon et al. After D’Antoni et al.’s 2007 paper showed UV-C and UV-B reaching Earth’s surface – contrary to ethical protocols, NASA conducted no follow-up investigation, despite the grave implications of their own measurements. The article states:

´In science when a discovery is made that contradicts current understanding, scientists have the responsibility to attempt to refute the discovery beyond reasonable doubt. If unable to do so, the implications of the new discovery should be discussed in the scientific literature. The 2007 D’Antoni et al. discovery of UV-C radiation reaching Earth’s surface should have been the subject of intense investigation by NASA for two reasons, one scientific and one ethical.

Despite the implication of NASA’s 2007 findings for atmospheric science and despite their profound implications for human and environmental health, NASA failed to conduct a follow-up investigation…. This inaction begs the question: Is NASA complicit in a covert global activity, such as military ‘national-defense’ aerial jet-spraying of toxic coal fly ash that poses serious risks to life on Earth?

For at least 20 years, with ever increasing quantity and duration, the military has engaged in spraying particulate matter into the region where clouds form to manipulate and weaponize the atmosphere and weather. Analytical data on rain and snow samples are consistent with toxic coal fly ash as the main aerosolized substance being used. Since about 2010 this aerial spraying has become a near-daily, near-global operation. As the article reveals, the aerial spraying ´places vast amounts of chlorine, bromine, fluorine and iodine into the atmosphere all of which can deplete ozone… Potentially other substances in coal fly ash aerosols, including Nano-particulates, might adversely affect atmospheric ozone´. Ozone depletion is now global and is allowing deadly ultraviolet to reach ground level. The article further notes, ´Ultraviolet radiation is the most harmful and genotoxic component of the solar radiation spectrum. The mutagenicity and lethal action of sunlight exhibit two maxima, both in the UV region of the spectrum. The authors ´provide introductory information on the devastating effects of UV-B and UV-C on humans, phytoplankton, coral, insects and plants´. The military might consider all this as ‘collateral damage’, but it is far more serious, threatening virtually all life on Earth.

Other reasons for the ozone dying: the entire military geoengineering

As much to Herndon et al. If we also think of Rosalie Bertell‘s study “Planet Earth. The Latest Weapon of War” (in German “Kriegswaffe Planet Erde”), then it becomes clear what besides the ongoing spraying of the atmosphere with nanoparticles, the so-called “Solar Radiation Management”, SRM, which is now also officially aimed at by civilian geo engineers, has contributed to the destruction of the ozone layer and continues to contribute, indeed increasingly:

1. Radioactivity: There were 2,200 nuclear tests, including those with hydrogen bombs, in particular in the atmosphere between 1958 and 1998, 2/3 of which were carried out by the USA, 1/3 by the Soviet Union; to this adds the damage caused by accidents of nuclear power plants from Harrisburg to Chernobyl to Fukushima, which since 2011 has to be considered a permanent LAA (Largest Assumed Accident) that remains unstoppable and is responsible for the first appearance of an ozone hole over the Arctic; in addition there is the Nano dust of innumerable tons of uranium ammunition (DU ammunition from “depleted uranium”, mostly waste from the nuclear industry) used in all wars since the first Gulf War in the Balkans, the Middle East and Afghanistan (recently Hänsel 2017); and there are certainly radioactive loads of which we know nothing (military secrecy), or which are not counted like the normal operation of nuclear power plants. Already in the 1950s Wilhelm Reich found out that radioactivity is destroying the vital energy he called “orgone”, especially of the air (see Senf 2003).

2. Supersonic flights contribute to the destruction of the ozone layer in the atmosphere (which is why the civil Concorde project on the introduction of the supersonic flight in civilian traffic has been dropped).

3. Missile flights contribute to the destruction of the atmosphere because of their propellants, which partly work with plutonium (such as the 1997 Saturn Cassini rocket that arrived at Saturn in 2017).

4. The irradiation of the ionosphere with billions of watt-strong artificial electromagnetic waves through the worldwide installations of “ionospheric heaters”, such as HAARP in Alaska, heat the ionosphere and charge it extremely, cutting it up and producing holes in it (s. Begich/Manning 2001). Each time the waves pass the underlying ozone layer.

5. The “Star Wars” activities of the military from space, the work on satellites and the formation of electronic grids to monitor, control and energetically influence the entire earth’s space (recently Freeland 2018) in the form of a planetary “lockdown”, as well as their earthly counterpart:

6. The microwaves, wireless energy transmission, mobile phone masts and in general the earthly production of cosmic radiation such as X-rays in medicine, food industry and everyday life.

7. Even “normal” air traffic has become one of the evildoers of ozone depletion (Herndon, 2017, already Loppow 1993), not to mention the spraying in the troposphere and the stratosphere with heavy metals and other toxic substances, which Herndon particularly mentions.

The whole program is implemented with the ongoing military “geoengineering” of the MIC, the Military-Industrial Complex (see Werlhof 2018).

What is to be done?

What we experience is an ongoing destruction process. It has now apparently reached a point where it suddenly changes, that is, it has begun to become irreversible. It took no more than 50 years to do so, assuming the unrecognized discovery of UV-B and -C radiation on Earth by NASA 2007. That’s not much, considering that this process has triggered even planetary effects which, in fact, threaten nothing less than our survival on earth and even will end it if we – meaning us as humanity per se – don’t do the right thing now.

Yet, the catastrophe has already begun: The “silent spring”, predicted by Rachel Carson in the 1960s (Carson 1962), is already occurring. The decline in bird- and insect-populations between 40 and 70% has long since been noticed everywhere, as well as coral bleaching in the oceans, the emptiness of the Pacific Ocean after Fukushima and, in general, the daily extinction of animal and plant species (WWF 2008).

It is obvious that the process of destroying the atmosphere through military geoengineering should be stopped almost immediately, so that the earth has a chance to heal the wounds that were inflicted on it – in particular ozone depletion. How long would that take? And: Would there be enough time to save earth´s life and renew it? Or has this chance already passed? That would be the case if the effects felt today were only the first part of those which need 40-60 years to make themselves noticed, so that the whole rest would yet follow, and we would only be experiencing the beginning of what is already on the way…

In general, the recovery of the ozone layer has been calculated to last 50 years (see Ozone). But it did not happen because the conditions for it were not present at all. There have even been attempts to directly attack the ozone layer and experiment with it for a kind of “climate engineering”, for example to produce an ozone hole over enemy territory. However, the person responsible, Harry Wexler, later before his death warned explicitly against it (Wexler 1962, see Fleming 2018). Now, however, one is amazed that the ozone layer has never been as thin as it is today, and that just above our heads (Läubli 2018), far away from the ozone holes!

But no matter how things are understood, we are to do something about the causes of ozone-dying, which until now have generally not been known to us and/or have been kept from us. There is no alternative – anymore. Doing nothing is not an option and would mean in fact to agree with the suicide of humanity and its murder of all earthly life.

The previous thesis, which was advocated by science, however, still pretends that it is the CFCs in refrigerators that caused the ozone holes. Since CFCs is banned, there was hope the the ozone holes to be reduced. But this did not happen (Titze 2018, generally Ozone). Radioactivity and other substances and processes were never part of the debate anyway because the military is taboo and allowed to do what it wants to. This is what in the end we learned through the European Commission, when we, a European activist group, organized through “Sky guards”, petitioned the European Parliament for a renewed review of geoengineering and its consequences (Fraile 2018). Military activities are of no concern of the Parliament, we were instructed from above.

If these activities, however, even without war, threaten all life on earth, and are about to destroy it, then what?

So far, such a view was not present in the public discussion at all and, when in doubt, has been considered a petty doom or a conspiracy theory. Now, nevertheless, there is proof that it is true and in which way that is the case. Even those who “already knew” have now the proof in their hands. That changes everything-

This proof is “the” message of the 21st century

For the first time and for all people on earth, there is no message that would be more important. Now everyone can know, and nobody can appeal not to have known. It would not help him anyway. Because it is no longer about any justification, but about the question of whether we as alleged “homo sapiens” manage to preserve life on earth in fact and as such – or not, as we eventually allowed some of us to risk it in front of or behind our backs.

Yet: Who really understands this news after all the terrible ones that constantly are flooding us? Who “hears “them and their “Call”? Who lets them penetrate his or her armour? Who gets scared? Whom does it tear away from his chair? Who recognizes the brutal, even inexpressible truth that it communicates?

However, regardless of our reactions or their refusal: With this message, the world has already changed. There is a before and an after, no matter what we think of it. Objectively, from now on, everything has a different meaning, whatever we do or don´t do, and whether we think about it or not, what is now known, namely that for the first time in history there is proof that we humans have already endangered the planet itself, whether we manage to save it, respectively the life on, in and above it, our own included, or not.

One thing is clear: The taboo that surrounds the military must fall. The social “movements” and politicians, however, who rely on “climate justice” and the end of civil CO2 emissions, immediately have to deal with the fact that they are absorbed in a myth, and the problem at stake is quite different from what they assumed – knowingly or not. A radical rethinking will be needed …

The necessary worldwide uprising

In other words: now that the evidence about the real problem is inevitably on the table, there must be a world-wide uprising followed by an equally global movement that can no longer be disconcert and confused. Because the military will not by itself stop doing what it does – it has known for at least 11 years what it is doing! And this will not be the only thing it knows without us knowing it. At the moment, the military is even trying to get its entire program into civilian life through so-called civil geoengineering at universities around the world, a tactic that it has always used, because then it is all the more difficult to get rid of the military “achievements” again.

Greenpeace activists protest outside the Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) shareholder’s meeting held at The Prince Park Tower in Tokyo. They hold a banner which reads: “TEPCO: The worst Ever Polluting Company.”  TEPCO is the operator of the crisis-stricken Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant which has been emitting radiation since it was struck by an earthquake and tsunami on March 2011. The activists also raised a banner reading “No more nuclear” in Japanese, asking TEPCO to disengage from the nuclear industry.

Now we are to make sure to change this. In fact, we have no choice and most of all no time. This is true for all of us, namely “humanity” itself. It sounds unbelievable, but “we” must, objectively, achieve that:

1. no new radioactivity arises
2. the military stops supersonic flights
3. no more missiles fired into space
4. all ionospheric heater systems closed
5. the satellites shut down, no new ones installed
6. wireless power transmissions and
7. air traffic to be largely stopped

It does not seem that there is even the slightest chance of getting through with at least one of these points anywhere. And yet, that’s what is on the agenda, whether it’s going to work or not, and whether we want it or not.

Or do we humans want to perish together with the animals and plants of this earth and our own living conditions, without even having resisted, yes, without even having understood what was going on, because we, for example, did not recognize our own technology and therefore could not confront it, not to mention the machinations behind it …? (See BUMERANG 3/2017).

That’s how it is, suddenly. Everything turns out to be completely different than we always thought it to be. There is no mistake, no doubt anymore. It’s a new time. The moment of truth has come. Now it’s our turn, whether we like it or not, whether prepared or not, whether capable or not. It is up to us whether earthly life comes to an end or not – and very quickly so, because all causes persist and are constantly being further developed.

Already in 2000 Rosalie Bertell warned us that if the ozone hole doubles, there will be no more agriculture on earth. Now it’s about to get even worse. We certainly cannot wait until nothing grows anymore before we start to do something. That’s obvious, isn´t it? What an awakening it will be!

*

Text above was taken from 13th Information-Letter (April 2018) of PLANETARY MOVEMENT FOR MOTHER EARTH (PBME) – see the link for further source information.

For the German version of this article, see here (Deutsche Fassung siehe hier).

Claudia von Werlhof is Professor of Political Science and Women’s Studies at the University of Innsbruck, Austria.

Note

1 Journal of Geography, Environment and Earth Science International, Vol. 14, Issue 2
J. Marvin Herndon, Raymond D. Hoisington and Mark Whiteside:
Deadly Ultraviolet UV-C and UV-B Penetration to Earth´s Surface: Human and Environmental Health Implications
http://www.sciencedomain.org/abstract/23870
http://www.journalrepository.org/media/journals/JGEESI_42/2018/Mar/Herndon1422018JGEESI40245.pdf
http://www.nuclearplanet.com/uv.html
http://www.nuclearplanet.com/uvc2.pdf

The Turkish government has made the decision to repatriate all of its gold reserves that are currently housed in the US Federal Reserve System (FRS). Overall Turkey was storing 220 tonnes, valued at $25.3 billion, in the US, which it repossessed on April 19, 2018.

Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has toughened his stance against the US dollar (USD), declaring that international loans should be made in gold instead of the American currency. Ankara is seeking to reduce dependence on the US financial system. The gold’s homecoming was partly prompted by the US threats to impose sanctions if Turkey goes through with the signed deal to purchase Russian S-400 missile defense systems.

This is a dramatic move reflecting an international trend. Venezuela repatriated its gold from the US in 2012. In 2014, the Netherlands also retrieved its 122.5 tonnes of gold that were stored in US vaults. Germany brought home 300 metric tonnes of gold stashed in the United States in 2017. It took Berlin four years to complete the transfers. Austria and Belgium have reviewed the possibility of taking similar measures.

Few people believe the US Treasury’s assurances that the 261 million ounces (roughly 8,100 tonnes) in official gold reserves that are stored in Fort Knox and other places are fully audited and accounted for. The Federal Reserve has never been fully and independently audited. The pressure for a full, independent audit of all US gold reserves has always been resisted by the government and in Congress. Nobody knows if the gold is really there. What if the vaults turn out to be empty? It’s wiser to bring your gold home while you can, rather than to just keep on wondering.

The gold bars that the US claims to hold are of low purity and do not conform to international industry standards. Even if the US has the amount of gold it claims to have, most of it would not be acceptable for trading on the international market. While other countries are pulling their gold out of the FRS banks, Russia and China are boosting their reserves, creating gold-backed currencies for themselves and thus moving the world away from the dominance of the USD.

The US dollar’s status as the global reserve currency has been called into question. It faces some tough competition. The tariffs introduced by the US administration as an instrument of coercion against other countries are failing to bolster the greenback, which may soon face headwinds. An international currency war looms as a possibility. This makes investors look for other options. Indeed, why should other countries rely on a US dollar that is not backed by gold or anything but “the good faith and credit of the American worker,” when America itself is not trusted internationally?

For instance, the Chinese yuan is going strong. Russia, Turkey, and Iran are considering the prospects for making payments in their national currencies. Iran has recently announced it is switching from the dollar to the euro as its official reporting currency. Russia and China have a currency swap agreement that avoids settlements in the USD.

The quest to reduce dependence on the dollar was provoked by the ongoing use of sanctions as a political weapon, a kind of foreign-policy tool of choice. Even America’s closest allies are threatened by these restrictive measures. The recent attack on the Nord Stream 2 gas project is a good example. It’s only natural for other countries to be looking for ways to resist the US policy of twisting arms. Using alternative currencies and bringing gold home are ways to do that.

America has always opposed such efforts. Any methods would do. Muammar Gaddafi, the Libyan leader, was toppled and killed after he came up with the idea to introduce a golden dinar to be used as an international currency in the Middle East and Africa. Iran has recently banned the use of the USD in trade. It refuses to sell its oil for the US currency. President Trump is likely to kill the Iran deal in May, provoking Tehran into reviving its nuclear program.

An armed conflict with Iran might be much closer than generally believed. The nuclear deal has been honored, to everyone’s satisfaction but to Washington’s chagrin. Iran undoubtedly has no military capability that would be a threat to the US. It has never been responsible for any terrorist acts committed abroad or things like that. But it has done something unforgivable in the eyes of the US. It has threatened the USD. That’s what Washington cannot accept, because if it does not support the dollar, there will be problems financing the US government’s huge federal debt. A war with Iran would eliminate the largest non-USD oil exporter. One thing leads to another. The gold repatriations are a precursor to a currency war and armed conflict. That’s what drives US foreign policy.

*

Peter Korzun is an expert on wars and conflicts.

Featured image is from the author.

“If wars can be started by lies, peace can be started by truth.” — Julian Assange

Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the world has witnessed one war after another, started by the US and its NATO allies, some argue, because of the collapse of the former USSR. Although that might be true, as the USSR certainly did serve as a balancing force against western powers, another reason why the world has been engulfed by wars is also definitely because of the death of real journalism in the western mainstream media which, arguably, still dominates the news world—though its ability to shape people’s perceptions is declining by the day. Because without real journalism, people remain misinformed and can thus be easily coerced into wars under false pretences and, in cases, not even be aware altogether that their governments are waging wars using their tax money.

But what is “real journalism”? That itself some would say is subjective. So here is my view—real journalism is the pursuit of truth. No matter what it is.

It is no secret that being human, we all have our own biases as well as limitations to overcome those biases and, perhaps, even a willingness to do so, never mind our abilities. But real journalism, similar to the truth, should not be subjected to our own prejudices (to the maximum possible extent), be that ideological, political (party-centric), racial, social, etc. As someone once brilliantly said, “reality is what it is, not what you want it to be.” Similarly, the truth is what it IS. Not what we want it to be.

You could argue that there can be infinite ways of interpreting something, but I would argue that some things only have limited useful interpretations. For instance, you could argue about the nature of reality as scientists, including some working for NASA, have recently said that all evidence point to the fact that we live in a holographic universe, similar to a video game. But the fact is, if you jump off a rooftop, you die (physically at least, according to our understanding), no matter how you interpret the nature of reality, even if the universe is only a video game, it’s game-over. That is TRUTH.

This is why, I believe, that journalism is most useful when it deals with the truth, you could say, facts—notwithstanding that subjectivism does come into play at certain stages—and we can go on and on but for the sake of brevity, let’s end there.

But this is why real journalism is supposed to take us places where we do not want to go, not even real journalists, but where we must, if the TRUTH is truly what we desire to discover and then, only then, perhaps hope to disseminate. Why? I can go on endlessly about this too, but to make a long story short, here is a quote from Canadian Clinical Psychologist and Professor of Psychology (formerly at Harvard), Dr Jordan Peterson:

“Reality is the truth, and how are you going to adapt to it without using the truth? Well, the problem is that reality is the terrible truth, but it is certainly possible that the terrible truth is its own medicine.”

Back to journalism—the death of real journalism in the western mainstream press did not happen overnight. It had been planned, thoroughly thought out and exceptionally well executed. As former CIA director William Casey said in 1981,

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

And, of course, the media has been the primary choice of weapon in achieving that goal. For those who would like to delve deeper into this, I would encourage you to do some research on Operation Mockingbird and other programmes of similar nature.

As regards the times we live in, Wikileaks has done a phenomenal job of exposing, for instance, how numerous western journalists from every news outlet you can think of were, let’s say, willing to “bend” the truth to promote their candidate of choice, namely Hillary Rodham Clinton, in the run-up to the last US elections. And they did so by publishing official government documents (and communications between officials and others) which contained nothing but facts.

For example, in one batch of the Podesta Emails, Clinton’s campaign handlers can be seen discussing the “placing” of stories in the media using “friendly journalists”. One email explicitly says,

“we are all in agreement that the time is right [to] place a story with a friendly journalist in the coming days…For something like this…we feel that it’s important to go with what is safe and what has worked in the past, and to a publication that will reach industry people for recruitment purposes. We have has [sic] a very good relationship with Maggie Haberman of Politico over the last year. We have had her tee up stories for us before and have never been disappointed.”

Moreover, Wikileak’s Editor-in-Chief Julian Assange has also shown how US journalists in hordes belong to the same think tanks or organisations such as the Council on Foreign Relations, suggested (with evidence) by some to have enormous influence over US foreign policy. Does this not indicate a conflict of interest, or the danger of conformity at the very least?

Unfortunately, journalists in large numbers across the world have blindly followed their cue and amplified the lies or “planted” stories, I would suggest, more innocently than maliciously, as one cannot expect incurious and uncritical minds to dig too deep to discover what is true, especially when millions of dollars are spent packaging those lies. When the priority of journalists, and that of the news outlets, becomes making money—especially from big business and government—one problem the truth faces is, as Upton Sinclair once said:

“It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on him not understanding it.”

Even more unfortunately, it is because of such conformity that the lies have led to one war after another. The Iraq War was instigated by the lie of weapons of mass destruction. That in Afghanistan with lies about 9/11 (for more on this, see my article: What Really Happened on 9/11. Post-mortem of the “Official Story”), so on and so forth. But what else can you expect when 90 percent of all media in the US is owned by only five corporations?

At the same time, let us not forget that there are some incredible journalists all across the world whose jobs have been made more difficult by the corporate media and its lies, but who have done some fantastic work despite great personal risks. In the Syrian War, for example, hundreds of Syrian journalists such as Danny Makki, Afra Dagher and others (many of whom have died) have done a brilliant job by exposing the lies that have allowed foreign interests to continue waging war against their nation, all the while the global media twists and presents it as a “civil war” to the rest of the world to keep it going.

Not only Syrian journalists, there were also others such as Canadian journalist Eva Bartlett who speaks fluent Arabic and has visited Syria numerous times to report the truth, despite her close encounter (at least) once with death; Vanessa Beeley, who has thoroughly exposed the White Helmets; Patrick Henningsen and others who have exposed the lies of the corporate media. And there are many more incredible and courageous journalists who are doing the same elsewhere.

But going against powerful interests to expose the truth that they prefer to keep hidden is not an easy task by any means. This has been made obvious by the death, or rather murder (by car bomb), of Maltese investigative journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia who specialised in reporting on government corruption, nepotism, patronage, money laundering, links between Malta’s online gambling industry and organised crime, as well as countless others like her.

Sometimes, however, neither is suppressing the truth, as easy, as has been in the case of the murder of Daphne, which simply gave birth to an international consortium of journalists from multiple news outlets joining hands to not only investigate her murder, but to keep her stories alive by investigating them as well. Or in the case of Julian Assange, arguably the greatest journalist—if you look from the perspective of truth tellers—of our time (if not in history).

Despite being holed up in the Ecuadorian embassy for more than five years, without sunlight and facing constant, clear and present danger from the world’s most powerful governments and organisations (including possible assassination by drone while in the embassy in complete violation of the Vienna Convention, as suggested by Hillary Clinton, and alternative ways by others)—Assange’s resolve to speak truth to power has not budged one bit. His indomitable will in the face of insurmountable odds has acted as a beam of light for many individuals who, seeing his example, have followed in his footsteps with courage to do some fantastic journalistic work.

Yet, threats to truth are never far away. In March, the Ecuadorian government silenced Julian Assange by cutting off all his communications with the outside world. This, similar to the case of Daphne, galvanised journalists, activists, etc. to join hands and fight for Assange’s freedom of speech and other human rights. Although the battle to reconnect Julian is yet to be won, the entire case is demonstrative of an invaluable lesson that we all must learn from history.

That truth—and journalism (when it is done in the pursuit of truth)—is a most valuable commodity that is always in danger, as is the right to speak it, always challenged by powerful interests that benefit from keeping the majority in the dark. But what we should also learn from history is that light also shines brightest where it is darkest. And Assange has exemplified this in times that are some of the darkest in human history.

What we should also learn is that, because those who wish to cast their shadows of fear, intimidation and lies on the entire human family have a tendency of working together—as that is the only way they can ever succeed—those opposing them must also unite, if what they desire is truth, and not self-aggrandisement, profit, etc. And this is something that Wikileaks has been able to achieve with its 100 percent record for accuracy for over a period of over 10 years, as it has not asked people to unite for Wikileaks, but rather for truth—through its example, not words.

But why should journalists take such enormous risks to pursue the truth? Why not compromise to gain other benefits? And most importantly, why bother at all? I am yet to be able to articulate a concrete answer to that, so I will let Julian Assange answer that for me:

“Every time we witness an injustice and do not act, we train our character to be passive in its presence and thereby eventually lose all ability to defend ourselves and those we love. In a modern economy, it is impossible to seal oneself off from injustice.

If we have brains or courage, then we are blessed and called on not to frit these qualities away, standing agape at the ideas of others, winning pissing contests, improving the efficiencies of the neo-corporate state, or immersing ourselves in obscuranta, but rather to prove the vigour of our talents against the strongest opponents of love we can find.

If we can only live once, then let it be a daring adventure that draws on all our powers. Let it be with similar types whose hearts and heads we may be proud of. Let our grandchildren delight to find the start of our stories in their ears but the endings all around in their wandering eyes.

The whole universe or the structure that perceives it is a worthy opponent, but try as I may I cannot escape the sound of suffering.

Perhaps as an old man, I will take great comfort in pottering around in a lab and gently talking to students in the summer evening and will accept suffering with insouciance. But not now; men in their prime, if they have convictions are tasked to act on them.” 

As for me, the best way I have discovered I can act on them is by trying to find the truth and to speak it to the best of my abilities.

As for the threat to journalism around the world today, it is not really a threat to journalism, per say, but rather a threat to truth itself. Which is why not only should journalists take this current threat more seriously than ever before, but so should everyone else who realises that without truth, all we can do is live a lie—and by realising this, fight back, with the only weapon powerful enough to defeat the current threats: “the truth”.

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Eresh Omar Jamal is a member of the Editorial team at The Daily Star, Bangladesh. His Twitter handle is: @EreshOmarJamal

President Putin warned that any further strikes on Syria will “lead to chaos in International Relations”.

He made his remarks while speaking to his Iranian counterpart in a telephone conversation over the weekend, and his vague words have led to a flurry of speculation about what he was implying. There are of course whose “confirmation bias” and obsession with “World War III” led them to see in his words an ominous threat to respond with military force the next time that anything like this happens, but it’s extraordinarily unlikely that this is what the Russian leader had in mind because he could have otherwise done so right after the attack first happened or during any of the countless times that Israel bombed the country in the past two and a half years since his military’s been deployed to the Arab Republic. Instead, it’s much more probable that President Putin was speaking in general terms about regional stability and the international system as a whole.

For starters, Foreign Minister Lavrov had earlier warned right before the attack happened that it could “lead to new waves of migrants to Europe and a lot of other developments that aren’t at all needed, either by us or our European neighbors”, clearly implying that there might be another Migrant Crisis after any large-scale attack. This is because it could embolden Daesh and other terrorist groups to go on the offensive against the Syrian Arab Army (SAA), especially if they felt like they could rely on Western firepower to support them. Another aspect to keep in mind is that the staging of false flag chemical weapons attacks by the so-called “White Helmets” could also continue unabated if they came to believe that their foreign state sponsors will always commence airstrikes in response. The combination of government-organized NGOs (GONGOs), terrorists, chemical weapons false flags, and conventional state-led attacks is a recipe for disaster in any country.

Syria, though, isn’t just any “regular place” but is the prime proxy battleground at the moment in the New Cold War between the world’s unipolar and multipolar forces, and there’s always the ever-present “Damocles’ Sword” of a direct clash between these two “blocs” hanging over the head of everyone in the world, although it must be said that this apocalyptic hype has been grossly overblown by both sincerely concerned people and those who have a self-interested stake in manipulating them for whatever their reasons  may be. In any case, the transition from unipolarity to multipolarity is evidently being preceded by a period of global chaos that Russia is doing its utmost to contain, but which Trump – by his Kraken-like nature – is embracing in order to bring about systemic change that he hopes can be guided in the direction of the US’ grand strategic interests.

President Putin is wise enough to know that Pandora’s Box can never be closed once it’s opened and that the opportunity for preventing that from happening passed a long time ago, but even if he’s unable to stop the world from descending further into chaos, he knows that he at least has an obligation to warn about it so that the global public can know who’s responsible for everything that happens afterwards.

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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.

Luigi Di Maio: “If someone thinks about disengaging Italy from our historical allies, who are the West and NATO countries, he will always find me against it. Italy, and especially the 5 Star Movement, has never said that it intends to separate from our historical allies”.

This declaration by the candidate premier (on La7 TV, 16 April) raises a basic question that goes beyond the current political debate. What is the assessment of Italy’s seventy years of bonding with its “historical allies”?

In 1949, with the 5th De Gasperi Government (Christian Democracy – Pli – Psli – Pri), Italy became a NATO member under US command. Subsequently, according to the secret agreements signed by De Gasperi in Washington in 1947, the deployment in Italy of US bases and forces began, with about 700 nuclear weapons.

For 40 years, in the US/NATO strategy, Italy was at the forefront in confronting the USSR and the Warsaw Pact. Italy could be sacrificed in case of war (the US also kept atomic demolition mines ready on our territory).

The end of the Cold War, with the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact and the USSR in 1991, opened for Italy not a period of peace but a continuous series of wars in the wake of its main “historical ally”

In 1991, with the 6th Andreotti Government (DC – Psi – Psdi – Pri – Pli), the Italian Republic participated, in the Gulf under US command, in its first war, violating Article 11 of its Constitution.

In 1999, with the D’Alema Government (Ulivo – Pdci – U-deur), Italy plaid a fundamental role, with its bases and its fighter bombers, in the NATO war against Yugoslavia.

In 2003, with the 2nd Berlusconi Government (Forza Italia – AN – LN – Ccd-Cdu), Italy began its participation (currently in progress after 15 years) in the US / NATO war in Afghani-stan.

Also in 2003, with the same government, it participated in the US-led coalition’s invasion of Iraq

In 2011, with the 4th Berlusconi Government (PdL, LN, MpA), Italy plaid a role of primary importance in the NATO war against Libya, in which it participated with 7 air bases, fighter bombers and warships.

In 2014-2018, with the Renzi Government (Democratic Party, NCD, SC, UCD) and the Gentiloni Government (same coalition), Italy participated in the US/NATO escalation against Russia, by deploying troops in Latvia and jet fighters in Estonia.

At the same time these and other governments ceded our national territory to the Pentagon, which uses it as its bridge and flight deck to launch military operations in a wide geographic area.

The Command of rhe US Naval Forces Europe-Africa in Naples-Capodichino, led by the same US admiral who commands the Allied Joint Force Command Naples at Lago Patria, covers half of the Atlantic Ocean and the seas bordering throughout Europe and Russia and almost the whole of Africa.

The US bases in Aviano, Vicenza, Camp Darby, Gaeta, Sigonella, and the MUOS ground station in Niscemi are used to carry out military operations in Middle East, Africa and Eastern Europe.

Italy is tied to the US directly and through NATO, in which since 1949 the US maintain the leading position of Supreme Allied Commander Europe and all the other key commands. Italy is thus deprived of sovereign power in foreign policy .

The new nuclear bombs B61-12, that the United States will deploy in Italy by 2020, will expose us to even greater risks. Luigi Di Maio signed the ICAN Parliamentary Pledge to have Italy adhere to the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, that is removing US nuclear weapons from Italy. Will he keep the pledge or break it so as not to “disengage Italy” from its main “historical ally”?

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

No, Russian-“Israeli” ties aren’t in a state of “crisis” after the latter bombed Syria earlier this month, but are actually enjoying an unprecedented flourishment that won’t be offset by whatever happens in the Arab Republic, and Moscow might even tie Tel Aviv into the same multilateral free trade area that has recently expanded to include Iran.

“Israel’s” bombing of Syria earlier this month predictably prompted many in the Alt-Media to declare that this time Russia will surely ‘teach its ally a lesson’ by openly turning into the ‘anti-Zionist crusader state’ that their dogma has indoctrinated them into imagining that it’s been this entire time. They were, as is becoming the norm, totally wrong, and three specific events prove that ties between the two sides aren’t in a state of “crisis” but are rather flourishing, with the latest milestone in their relationship being the resumption of free trade talks.

First things first, it took Russia over 24 hours to summon the “Israeli” “Ambassador” after the early-April bombing of Syria, which is extremely unusual behavior if Moscow was indeed as caught off guard as it publicly proclaims to have been at the time. Ordinarily, the offended country would immediately request an official meeting with the insulting party’s top representative, especially when the incident in question had to do with an unannounced military strike that could have supposedly injured the host country’s servicemen, but this curiously wasn’t the case.

Furthermore, it took President Putin two full days to speak to Netanyahu, which is also very strange if one believes the Alt-Media narrative that Russia and “Israel” are experiencing one of their worst crises in decades. In addition, it wasn’t even the Russian side that initiated the conversation but the “Israeli” one, which again wouldn’t normally be the case if Moscow was so furious at Tel Aviv that its leader felt like giving his counterpart a serious tongue lashing. Instead, it looks like Netanyahu might have even been calling President Putin to thank him for his calmness in handling the situation.

Skeptics might have brushed these two interrelated observations off as a “conspiracy theory” of someone who’s “reading too deep into it” and “refuses to see the reality of Russian-‘Israeli’ tensions”, but the reality is that those individuals are the ones dabbling in an actual conspiracy theory because they refuse to acknowledge that Russian-“Israeli” relations are better than at any point in history since the time when Moscow was the first to “recognize” the unilaterally declared “independence” of the self-proclaimed “Jewish State”. Whatever doubts one may have had about this were just dispelled earlier this week.

The “Israeli” “Ambassador” to Russia announced that the two sides had resumed negotiations on a free trade agreement through the Eurasian Economic Union (EAU), thus proving that there’s no “crisis” whatsoever in their relations. If anything, Moscow and Tel Aviv are now coordinating with one another at such a high level that the previously unbelievable scenario of “Israeli” goods entering the Iranian market via Russia might one day become a distinct possibility given that an interim four-year free trade agreement has just entered into effect between the Islamic Republic and the EAU.

Russia, with its huge diaspora in “Israel” and ever-expanding economic relations with the Mideast political entity, could conceivably serve as a bridge between the two mortal enemies even without either of them acknowledging it if its entrepreneurs act as the middleman in selling goods between each of them by taking advantage of their possible joint membership in the same multilateral free trade zone. Neither “Israel” nor especially Iran would import products from the other if they were aware of their origins (whether in whole or in part), but stamping a “Made in Russia” sticker on them because some superficial assembly was done in the country might present the most profitable “workaround” for Moscow.

There’s no way that any of them could stop this from happening too if they agreed to the legal provisions of the free trade agreement because they’d then be in violation of its terms for prospectively discriminating against Russian-based companies that also conduct business with their nemesis. This might be less “sensitive” for “Israel” than it is for Iran, though, so it’s more likely that the Islamic Republic and not the unilaterally declared “Jewish State” would be the one to take the initiative in worsening relations with Russia if they felt offended by this potential move.

Russia would of course regret seeing its majority-Persian partner responding in such a way and wouldn’t under any conditions “conspire” with “Israel” to provoke this outcome, but it also would be mostly powerless to prevent this scenario from materializing because the state – like in any free country – isn’t able to control who its entrepreneurs conduct business with unless a given party is officially sanctioned, which isn’t the case here. Therefore, while there are indeed geopolitical “balancing” benefits from serving as the economic bridge between “Israel” and Iran, there are also certain risks that shouldn’t be overlooked either.

Either way, however, it also can’t be overlooked that Russian-“Israeli” relations have never been this good, and that’s in spite of the scandal over their supposed “disagreements” in Syria, which themselves might in fact be nothing more than a skillful display of “perception management” for overseas (and specifically Syrian) public consumption just like Lavrov’s position on Afrin and more recently the S-300s. As enticing as it might be for some people to want to believe that Russia and “Israel” are experiencing a major “crisis” at the moment, the evidence proves otherwise and debunks this continuously discredited Alt-Media dogma.

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This article was originally published on Eurasia Future.

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

Featured image is from The Unz Review.

At first, I thought I had inadvertently entered an active war zone. I was on a lonely two-lane road in southern New Mexico heading for El Paso, Texas. Off to the side of the road, hardly concealed behind some desert shrubs, I suddenly noticed what seemed to be a tank. For a second, I thought I might be seeing an apparition. When I stopped to take a picture, a soldier wearing a camouflage helmet emerged from the top of the Stryker, a 19-ton, eight-wheeled combat vehicle that was regularly used in military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. He looked my way and I offered a pathetic wave. To my relief, he waved back, then settled behind what seemed to be a large surveillance display mounted atop the vehicle. With high-tech binoculars, he began to monitor the mountainous desert that stretched toward Mexico, 20 miles away, as if the enemy might appear at any moment.

That was in 2012 and, though I had already been reporting on the militarization of the U.S.-Mexican border for years, I had never seen anything like it. Barack Obama was still president and it would be another six years before Donald Trump announced with much fanfare that he was essentially going to declare war at the border and send in the National Guard. (“We really haven’t done that before,” Trump told the media on April 3rd, “or certainly not very much before.”)

Operation Nimbus II, as the 2012 mission was called, involved 500 soldiers from Fort Bliss and Fort Hood and was a typical Joint Task Force North (JTF-N) operation. Those troops were officially there to provide the U.S. Border Patrol with “intelligence and surveillance.” Since JTF-N was tasked with supporting the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) on the border, its motto was “protecting the Homeland.” However, it was also deeply involved in training soldiers for overseas military operations in ongoing American wars in the Greater Middle East.

Only weeks before, 40 Alaskan-based Army airborne engineers had parachuted into nearby Fort Huachuca as if they were part of an invasion force landing in Southern Arizona. That border operation (despite the dramatic arrival, all they did was begin constructing a road) “mirrors the type of mission the 40 soldiers might conduct if they were deployed to Afghanistan,” JTF-N “project organizers” told the Nogales International. As JTF-N spokesman Armando Carrasco put it, “This will prepare them for future deployments, especially in the areas of current contingency operations.”

So seeing combat vehicles on the border shouldn’t have surprised me, even then. A “war” against immigrants had been declared long before Trump signed the memo to deploy 2,000-4,000 National Guard troops to the border. Indeed, there has been a continuous military presence there since 1989 and the Pentagon has played a crucial role in the historic expansion of the U.S. border security apparatus ever since.

When, however, Trump began to pound out tweets on Easter Sunday on his way to church, Americans did get a vivid glimpse of a border “battlefield” more than 30 years in the making, whose intensity could be ramped up on the merest whim. The president described the border as “getting more dangerous” because 1,000 Central Americans, including significant numbers of children, in flight from violence in their home countries were in a “caravan” in Mexico slowly heading north on a Holy Week pilgrimage. Many of them were intending to ask for asylum at the border, as they feared for their lives back home.

Fox & Friends labeled that caravan a “small migrant army” and so set the battlefield scenario perfectly for the show’s number one fan. The end result — those state National Guards caravaning south — might have been as ludicrous a response to the situation as a tank in an empty desert pointed at Mexico, but it did catch a certain reality. The border has indeed become a place where the world’s most powerful military faces off against people who represent blowback from various Washington policies and are in flight from persecution, political violence, economic hardship, and increasing ecological distress. (Central America is becoming a climate-change hot spot.) Yet these twenty-first century border “battlefields” remain hidden from the public and largely beyond discussion.

The Fetish of the Border

As I moved away from the Stryker that day, I wondered what that soldier was seeing through his high-tech binoculars. It’s a question that remains no less pertinent six years later as yet more National Guard troops head for the border. Even today, such forces aren’t likely to ever see a caravan of 1,000 refugees, only — possibly — tiny groups of crossers moving through the U.S. borderlands to look for work, reunite with family, or escape potentially grave harm. Such people, however, usually travel under the cover of night.

Even less likely: anyone carrying drugs into the United States. According to the Drug Enforcement Agency, the majority of illicit narcotics that cross the border into the world’s largest market (valued at approximately $100 billion per year) arrive through legal ports of entry. Least likely of all: a person designated as a “terrorist” by the U.S. government, even though that’s became the priority mission of Joint Task Force North and Customs and Border Protection. A flood of money has, in these years, poured into border budgets for just such a counterterrorism mission, yet no such person, not a single one, has been reported crossing the southern border since 1984. (And even that incident seems dubious.)

Indeed, the most likely thing to glimpse along that divide is evidence of the countless billions of dollars that have been spent there over the last 30 years to build the most gigantic border enforcement apparatus in U.S. history. You would be quite likely, for instance, to see armed U.S. Border Patrol agents in their green-striped vehicles. (After all Customs and Border Protection, or CBP, the Border Patrol’s parent outfit, is now the largest federal law enforcement agency.) You might also catch glimpses of high-tech surveillance apparatuses like aerostats, the tethered surveillance balloons brought back from American battle zones in Afghanistan that now hover over and monitor the borderlands with long-range cameras and radar.

Those binoculars wouldn’t be able to see as far as the small town of Columbus, New Mexico — the very town that Mexican revolutionary Pancho Villa so famously raided in 1916 — but if they could, you might also see portions of an actual border wall, built with bipartisan support after the Secure Fence Act of 2006 passed, with votes from Democrats like Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and Chuck Schumer. Those 650 miles of walls and barriers cost an average of $3.9 million per mile to build and additional millions to maintain, money that went into the coffers of the military-industrial complex.

In 2011, for example, CBP granted the former Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg Brown & Root (a company known for its profiteering in Iraq) a three-year, $24.4 million contract for border wall maintenance. And you can multiply that so many times over since, year after year, bigger and bigger budgets have gone into border and immigration enforcement (and so into the pockets of such corporations) with little or no discussion. In 2018, the combined budgets of CBP and Immigration and Customs Enforcement amount to $24.3 billion, a more than 15-fold increase since the early 1990s, and a $4.7 billion jump from 2017.

So, in those desert borderlands, that soldier was really looking at a market, a profit zone. He was also viewing (and himself part of) what sociologist Timothy Dunn, author of the pioneering book The Militarization of the U.S-Mexico Border, 1978-1992, calls the “fetishization of the border.” That Stryker — the “Cadillac of combat vehicles” made by General Dynamics — fit the bill perfectly. The slick armored beast, which can travel at speeds up to 60 miles per hour, could track down just about anything, except the real forces that lay behind why people continually arrive at the border.

Low Intensity Doctrine and the Hidden Battlefields

In 2006, George W. Bush’s administration sent 6,000 National Guard troops to the border during Operation Jump Start, the largest military deployment there of the modern era. Those troops, however, were meant as no more than a placeholder for a post-9/11 enforcement apparatus still to be organized. Before then, as Timothy Dunn told me in an interview, there had normally been only 300 to 500 soldiers in border operations at any given time, whose justification then was the war against drugs.

That Bush deployment was, as Dunn put it, “the first to have them out there in high-profile, explicitly for immigration enforcement.” Still, what those soldiers could do remained largely limited to reinforcing and supporting the U.S. Border Patrol, as has been the case ever since. As a start, the U.S. military operates under grave restrictions when it comes to either making arrests or performing searches and seizures on U.S. soil. (There are, however, loopholes when it comes to this, which means that National Guard units under state control should be watched carefully during the Trump deployments.) What those troops can do is perform aerial and ground reconnaissance, staff observation posts, and install electronic ground sensors. They can supply engineering support, help construct roads and barriers, and provide intelligence — in all, Dunn reports, 33 activities, including mobile teams to train the Border Patrol in various increasingly militarized tactics.

However, the Border Patrol, already a paramilitary organization, can take care of the arrests, searches, and seizures itself. It is, in fact, the perfect example of how the Pentagon’s low-intensity-conflict doctrine has operated along the border since the 1980s. That doctrine promotes coordination between the military and law enforcement with the goal of controlling potentially disruptive civilian populations. On the border, this mostly means undocumented people. This, in turn, means that the military does ever more police-like work and the Border Patrol is becoming ever more militarized.

When Bush launched Operation Jump Start, Washington was already undertaking the largest hiring surge in Border Patrol history, planning to add 6,000 new agents to the ranks in two years, part of an overall expansion that has never ended. It has, in fact, only gained momentum again in the Trump era. The Border Patrol has increased from a force of 4,000 in the early 1990s to 21,000 today.  The Bush-era recruitment program particularly targeted overseas military bases. The Border Patrol, as one analyst put it, already operated like “a standing army on American soil” and that was how it was sold to future war vets who would soon join up. To this day, veterans are still told that they will be sent to “the front lines” to defend the homeland.

The Border Patrol not only recruits from the military and receives military training, but uses military equipment and technology prodigiously. The monoliths of the military-industrial complex — companies like Lockheed Martin, Boeing, and Elbit Systems — have long been tailoring their technologies to homeland security operations. They are now deeply involved in the increasingly lucrative border market. As one vendor told me many years ago, “we are bringing the battlefield to the border.”

Much like the military, the Border Patrol uses radar, high-tech surveillance, complex biometric data bases, and Predator B drones that fly surveillance missions across the Southwest, at the border with Canada, and in the Caribbean. Such forces operate in 100-mile jurisdictions beyond U.S. international boundaries (including the coasts), places where they essentially have extra-constitutional powers. As one CBP officer told me, “We are exempt from the fourth amendment.” Border zones, in other words, have become zones of exception and the DHS is the only department the federal government permits to ethnically profile people in such areas, a highly racialized form of law enforcement.

By deploying heavily armed Border Patrol officers, building walls, and using surveillance technologies in urban areas that traditionally had been crossing spots for the undocumented, such migrants are now forced to traverse dangerous and desolate areas of the southwestern deserts. It’s a strategy that anthropologist Jason De Leon has described as creating “a remote deathscape where American necropolitics are pecked onto the bones of those we deem excludable.”

Instances of overt violence on the border, the sort that might be associated with increased militarization, sometimes make the news, as in multiple incidents in which Border Patrol officers, deputized police, or even military troops have shot and killed people. Most border crossers, however, are now funneled away from the television cameras and reporters to those distant desertscapes where hidden “battles” with the elements remain unseen and so are no longer a political problem. According to Dunn, this is the low-intensity-conflict doctrine at work.  

Along the U.S. border with Mexico, 7,000 corpses have been found since the early 1990s and a reasonable estimate of the actual death toll is triple that number. Thousands of families still search for loved ones they fear lost in what journalist Margaret Regan has termed the Southwest “killing fields.” Recently, while I was giving a talk at a New York state college, a young man approached me, having realized that I was from Arizona. He told me that he’d last seen his mother in the desert near Nogales and asked if I had any idea how he might search for her, his eyes brimming with tears.

Globally, since 2014 the International Organization on Migration has recorded 25,000 migrant deaths — a figure, the group writes, that “is a significant indicator of the human toll of unsafe migration, yet fails to capture the true number of people who have died or gone missing during migration.” On such hidden battlefields, the toll from the fetishization of the world’s borderlands remains unknown — and virtually ignored.

Securing the Unsustainable

At a global level, the forecast for the displacement of people is only expected to rise. According to projections, when it comes to climate change alone, by 2050 there could be between 150 million and 750 million people on the move due to sea level rise, droughts, floods, super storms, and other ecological hazards. Former Vice President Al Gore’s former security adviser, Leon Fuerth, wrote that if global warming exceeded the two degree Celsius mark, “border problems” would overwhelm U.S. capabilities “beyond the possibility of control, except by drastic measures and perhaps not even then.”

At the same time, estimates suggest that, by 2030, if present trends continue, the richest one percent of people on this planet may control 64% of global wealth. In other words, what we may have is an unsustainable world managed with an iron fist. In that case, an endless process of border militarization and fortification is likely to be used to control the blowback. If the booming border and surveillance markets are any indication, the future will be as dystopic as a Stryker in the beautiful desert highlands of New Mexico — a world of mass displacements that leave the super-rich hunkered down behind their surveillance fortresses.

Pouring billions of dollars into border zones to solve political, social, economic, and ecological problems is hardly a phenomenon limited to the United States. The border fetish has indeed gone global. Border walls now commonly zigzag between the global north and south and are being built up ever more as a rhetoric — caught perfectly by the Trump administration — focusing on criminals, terrorists, and drugs only ratchets up, while the huge forces that actually fuel displacements and migrations remain obscured.  Borders have become another way of making sure that nothing gets in the way of the sanctity of business as usual in a world that desperately needs something new.

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Todd Miller, a TomDispatch regular, has written on border and immigration issues for the New York Times, Al Jazeera America, and the NACLA Report on the Americas. His latest book is Storming the Wall: Climate Change, Migration, and Homeland Security. You can follow him on Twitter @memomiller and view more of his work at toddmillerwriter.com.

The musical chairs playing out among the senior officials that make up the President Donald Trump White House team would be amusing to watch but for the genuine damage that it is doing to the United States. The lack of any coherence in policy means that the State Department now has diplomats that do not believe in diplomacy and environment agency heads that do not believe in protecting the environment. It also means that well-funded and disciplined lobbies and pressure groups are having a field day, befuddling ignorant administrators with their “fact sheets” and successfully promoting policies that benefit no one but themselves.

In the Trumpean world of all-the-time-stupid, there is, however, one individual who stands out for her complete inability to perceive anything beyond threats of unrelenting violence combined with adherence to policies that have already proven to be catastrophic. That person is our own Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley, who surfaced in the news lately after she unilaterally and evidently prematurely announced sanctions on Russia. When the White House suggested that she might have been “confused” she responded that “With all due respect, I don’t get confused.” This ignited a firestorm among the Trump haters, lauding Haley as a strong and self-confident woman for standing up to the White House male bullies while also suggesting that the hapless Administration had not bothered to inform one of its senior diplomats of a policy change. It also produced a flurry of Haley for higher office tweets based on what was described as her “brilliant riposte” to the president.

One over-the-top bit of effusion from a former Haley aide even suggested that her “deft rebuttal” emphasizes her qualities, enthusing that “What distinguishes her from the star-struck sycophants in the White House is that she understands the intersection of strong leadership and public service, where great things happen” and placing her on what is being promoted as the short list of future presidential candidates.

For sure, neocon barking dog Bill Kristol has for years been promoting Haley for president, a sign that something is up as he was previously the one who “discovered” Sarah Palin. Indeed, the similarities between the two women are readily observable. Neither is very cerebral or much given to make any attempt to understand an adversary’s point of view; both are reflexively aggressive and dismissive when dealing with foreigners and domestic critics; both are passionately anti-Russian and pro-Israeli. And Kristol is not alone in his advocacy. Haley regularly receives praise from Senators like South Carolina’s Lindsey Graham and from the Murdoch media as well as in the opinion pages of National Review and The Weekly Standard.

The greater problem right now is that Nikki Haley is America’s face to the international community, even more than the Secretary of State. She has used her bully pulpit to do just that, i.e. bully, and she is ugly America personified, having apparently decided that something called American Exceptionalism gives her license to say and do whatever she wants at the United Nations. In her mind, the United States can do what it wants globally because it has a God-given right to do so, a viewpoint that doesn’t go down well with many countries that believe that they have a legal and moral right to be left alone and remain exempt from America’s all too frequent military interventions.

Nikki Haley sees things differently, however. During her 15 months at the United Nations she has been instrumental in cutting funding for programs that she disapproves of and has repeatedly threatened military action against countries that disagree with U.S. policies. Most recently, in the wake of the U.S. cruise missile attack against Syria, she announced that the action was potentially only the first step. She declared that Washington was “locked and loaded,” prepared to exercise more lethal military options if Syria and its Russian and Iranian supporters did not cease and desist from the use of chemical weapons. Ironically, the cruise missile attack was carried out even though the White House had no clue as to what had actually happened and it now turns out that the entire story, spread by the terrorist groups in Syria and their mouthpieces, has begun to unravel. Will Nikki Haley apologize? I would suspect that if she doesn’t do confusion she doesn’t do apologies either.

Haley, who had no foreign policy experience of any kind prior to assuming office, relies on a gaggle of neoconservative foreign-policy “experts” to help shape her public utterances, which are often not cleared with the State Department, where she is at least nominally employed. Her speechwriter is Jessica Gavora, who is the wife of the leading neoconservative journalist Jonah Goldberg. Unfortunately, being a neocon mouthpiece makes her particularly dangerous as she is holding a position where she can do bad things. She has been shooting from the lip since she assumed office with only minimal vetting by the Trump Administration, and, as in the recent imbroglio over her “confusion,” it is never quite clear whether she is speaking for herself or for the White House.

Haley has her own foreign policy. She has declared that Russia “is not, will not be our friend” and has lately described the Russians as having their hands covered with the blood of Syrian children. From the start of her time at the U.N., Haley has made it clear that she is neoconservatism personified and she has done nothing since to change that impression. In December 2017 she warned the U.N. that she was “taking names” and threatened retaliation against any country that was so “disrespectful” as to dare to vote against Washington’s disastrous recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, which she also helped to bring about.

As governor of South Carolina, Haley first became identified as an unquestioning supporter of Israel through her signing of a bill punishing supporters of the nonviolent pro-Palestinian Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, the first legislation of its kind on a state level. Immediately upon taking office at the United Nations she complained that “nowhere has the U.N.’s failure been more consistent and more outrageous than in its bias against our close ally Israel” and vowed that the “days of Israel bashing are over.” On a recent visit to Israel, she was feted and honored by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. She was also greeted by rounds of applause and cheering when she spoke at the annual meeting of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) in March, saying

“When I come to AIPAC I am with friends.”

Nikki Haley’s embrace of Israeli points of view is unrelenting and serves no American interest. If she were a recruited agent of influence for the Israeli Mossad she could not be more cooperative than she apparently is voluntarily. In February 2017, she blocked the appointment of former Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad to a diplomatic position at the United Nations because he is a Palestinian. In a congressional hearing she was asked about the decision: “Is it this administration’s position that support for Israel and support for the appointment of a well-qualified individual of Palestinian nationality to an appointment at the U.N. are mutually exclusive?” Haley responded yes, that the administration is “supporting Israel” by blocking every Palestinian.

At various U.N. meetings, though Haley has repeatedly and uncritically complained of institutional bias towards Israel, she has never addressed the issue that Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians might in part be responsible for the criticism leveled against it. Her description of Israel as a “close ally” is hyperbolic and she tends to be oblivious to actual American interests in the region when Israel is involved. She has never challenged the Israeli occupation of the West Bank as well as the recent large expansion of settlements, which are at least nominally opposed by the State Department and White House. Nor has she spoken up about the more recent shooting of three thousand unarmed Gazan demonstrators by Israeli Army sharpshooters, which is a war crime.

Haley’s hardline on Syria reflects the Israeli bias, and her consistent hostility to Russia is a neoconservative position. She has repeatedly said that regime change in Damascus is a Trump administration priority, even when the White House was saying something different. A White House warning that it had “identified potential preparations for another chemical weapons attack by the Assad regime led to a Haley elaboration in a tweet that “…further attacks will be blamed on Assad but also on Russia and Iran who support him killing his own people.” Earlier, on April 12, 2017 after Russia blocked a draft U.N. resolution intended to condemn the alleged Khan Shaykhun chemical attack, which subsequently turned out to be a false flag, Haley said, “We need to see Russia choose to side with the civilized world over an Assad government that brutally terrorizes its own people.”

Haley is particularly critical of Iran, which she sees as the instigator of much of the unrest in the Middle East, again reflecting the Israeli and neocon viewpoints. She claimed on April 20, 2017 during her first session as president of the U.N. Security Council, that Iran and Hezbollah had “conducted terrorist acts” for decades within the Middle East, ignoring the more serious terrorism support engaged in by U.S. regional allies Saudi Arabia and Qatar. She stated in June 2017 that the Security Council’s praise of the Iran Nuclear Agreement honored a state that has engaged in “illicit missile launches,” “support for terrorist groups,” and “arms smuggling,” while “stok[ing] regional conflicts and mak[ing] them harder to solve.” All are perspectives that might easily be challenged.

So, Nikki Haley very much comes across as the neoconservatives’ dream ambassador to the United Nations–full of aggression, a staunch supporter of Israel, and assertive of Washington’s preemptive right to set standards for the rest of the world. And there is every reason to believe that she would nurture the same views if she were to become the neocon dream president. Bearing the flag for American Exceptionalism does not necessarily make her very good for the rest of us, who will have to bear the burdens and risks implicit in her imperial hubris, but, as the neoconservatives never feel compelled to admit that they were wrong, one suspects that Haley’s assertion that she does not do confusion is only the beginning if she succeeds in her apparent quest for the highest office in the land. Worse than John Bolton? Absolutely.

*

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

Featured image is from the author.

This article was originally published in May 2011 at the very outset of the war on Syria. It demonstrates unequivocally the use of fake images as an instrument of war propaganda.

**

Shocking Images of Torture

The images are from Iraq, and are several years old. Danmark’s Radio’s news program, the 9 o’clock evening news May 16, aired ‘shocking images’ of Syrian demonstrators, who were being tortured by Syrian government militias.

Live Footage of Torture of Syrian Demonstrators

Allegedly ‘live footage’ of torture of Syrian demonstrators was presented with great pathos while warning of ‘extremely graphic images’, and a rare critical question from the studio residing host to the ‘reporter in the field’; Steen Noerskov [Nørskov] about the authenticity of these images was woven away. The caption under the at times very unclear pictures was ‘Syria -SYSTEMATIC TORTURE‘.

Denmark’s Radio (DR) stressed that the footage was authentic, that the source who had delivered them was trustworthy, and that the Arabic dialect that was heard in the video was a Syrian dialect.

Systematic Torture

Steen Noerskov pointed out that ‘if the rumors are right, schools are being used as prisons and torture centers’.

Transcript of Video from Danish News:

Speaker:

‘Denmark’s Radios News has documented last week, that these snipers who according to activists operate from rooftops actually exist.

The station showed some silhouettes of soldiers on rooftops, without informing the viewers if this was the ‘documentation’, or what this documentation consists of apart from these images.

Then without a break;

‘in the Office of Human Rights Watch‘ in Syria’s neighboring country Lebanon, we have also documented grave mistreatment and torture, in a city close to the Jordanian border.’

An activist from the, according to some sources including it’s founder Bernstein, not so impartial ‘Human Rights Watch‘, director Nadim Houry is then filmed commenting the ‘sensational footage’, and saying that practices like this are widespread, and that there is a clear pattern.

Sten Noerskov:

‘The new footage, which the Syrian refugees have given us, not only shows the marks after mistreatment and torture, they show the mistreatment and torture while it’s going on. We don’t know from when or where these images originate, we only know they come from Syria; the people who gave them to us, did so last week.

‘In Beirut the people from Human Rights Watch try to find out from where or when these pictures are.’

Then, as an attempt to make the viewers believe in the authenticity of the footage, ‘the electricity building’ and ‘this is the main road’ were shown, cutting back immediately to a man who is being beaten severely with a wooden plank with nails.

Lillian Gjerulf-Kretz:

‘Good evening Sten Noerskov. These are very unpleasant images but how certain can be be, that these images originate from Syria?’

Sten Noerskov:

We are very sure they come from Syria. One can hear a man who is lying down being beaten shout ‘awass ni’, awass ni’, shoot me, shoot me.. An Iraqi wouldn’t do that, an Egyptian wouldn’t do that, a Libyan wouldn’t do that; it’s a Syrian-Arabic dialect.

We talked for a long time, spent a lot of time together with a woman who presented this footage from the border area between Syria and Lebanon. We know her story, and she told us in a very convincing way, how she got hold of this material.’ (end of transcript)

Ekstra Bladet: Now, so it shows, the pictures are a hoax. They are not from Syria at all, but from Iraq and are several years old, according to Politiken.dk.

Chief Editor Thomas Falbe, who is responsible for the section for international news of Denmark’s Radio’s TV-Avisen [the 18:30 and 21:00 news]:

‘Regrettably the images were wrong. They are not from Syria, they are from Iraq. This is a regrettable mistake, says Thomas Falbe. The mistake will be rectified in the 21:00 hours news tonight.’

How DR could believe that these old pictures from Iraq were pictures from Syria?

Thomas Falbe: ‘We did what we could to verify the footage and received them from a source we trust’.

According to Thomas Falbe the mistake will have no consequences for anybody.

Syrian expats in Denmark support Bashar al-Assad – Western media broadcast false reports. Danmarks Radio news June 10, 2011 – Studio host: Tine Goetzsche – Narrator: Hakan Jakob Kosar

In Danish: Danmarks’s Radio News May 16, 2011 – False report retracted later (ca. 5 minutes). Host: Lillian Gjerulf Kretz – Reporter in the field Steen Noerskov [Nørskov]

Retraction of program alledgedly documenting ‘systematic torture of protestors in Syria’. Danmarks Radio – Tv-avisen 21:00 17 maj (30 seconds)

Here ABC News with a similar story – ABC News Sunday, May 8, 2011 9:44 AEST

Syd Walker: To summarize, the ABC website – website of the publicly-funded Australian Broadcasting Corporation which fondly cultivates a reputation for objectivity and accuracy in news reporting – has been running a video as a news item for several days purporting to depict recent brutality by Syrian government forces, when in fact it’s old footage from a different country!

I tweeted Jess Hill [ABC journalist] in some anger about this – as well as the Managing Director of the ABC. Jess at least had the decency to reply. Here’s what she said in reply:

“I’d say it’s not dishonesty as much as carelessness. Reminds everyone the importance of verifying”

Well, I’m sorry Jess, but I cannot see that. The story in question was a targeted hit-piece on Syria. It deceptively portrayed video images of Syrian “security”, using material that had nothing to do with Syria.

That’s no accident. It’s deliberate deception. ‘Accidents’ like that simply do not happen through ‘carelessness’. Please don’t insult the intelligence of ABC viewers.

*

Sources

Ekstra Bladet 17 maj 2011 – DR’s torturbilleder fra Syrien var falske

Denmark’s Radio’s Tv-avisen 21:00 16 maj, Tv-avisen 21:00 17 maj

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South Korea Government: “…We Got a Call from Our Next-door Neighbor”

By Massoud Nayeri, April 25, 2018

In the last ten days, people around the world have witnessed two different approaches by the different leaders. They saw the uselessness of the forces of war in Syria versus the constructive power of peaceful plans in Koreas – one to increase endless hostilities by military strikes and the other to reduce tensions by compromising and embracing diplomacy.

The Democratic Party’s War History and the U.S. Congress’ 2018 Authority for the Use of Military Force (AUMF)

By Renee Parsons, April 25, 2018

The proposed AUMF of 2018 would replace AUMF 2001 and repeal AUMF 2002 while it will codify an “uninterrupted authority to use all necessary and appropriate force in armed conflict” against  the Taliban, al Qaeda, ISIS and as yet unidentified “designated associated forces” who might “pose a grave threat to the US” in whatever country they occupy.

UK Sells $445 Million of Arms to Israel, Including Sniper Rifles

By Jamie Merrill, April 25, 2018

The government data will raise fresh concerns that British-made weapons are being used by the Israeli military in the Occupied Territories, amid fears that components in sniper rifles used to kill scores of Palestinian civilians in recent weeks could have been made in the UK.

History of the Palestinian Nation: Why Oranges Stick in My Throat

By Rima Najjar, April 25, 2018

During the time that Palestinians call The Great Rebellion, or Revolt against British pro-Zionist policies in Palestine, 1936 – 1939, things began to go seriously wrong for Palestinian Arabs living in Jaffa and have continued to deteriorate with no reprieve yet.

What “Moral Obligation” Did Russia Have to Not Sell S-300s to Syria? Moscow-Tel Aviv’s Unspoken Relationship

By Andrew Korybko, April 25, 2018

It’s inconceivable for many who are indoctrinated with Alt-Media dogma to countenance, but Russia used to be very “Western-friendly” and it was in this international context that Moscow made its decision to withhold sales of the S-300s to Syria.

War Profiteers vs. The People of the United States

By David DeGraw, April 25, 2018

We bring to the attention of our readers an important report on the billions of dollars of unaccounted U.S. taxpayers money which have served to line the pockets of war profiteers.

“Political Correctness” and The Surveillance State: Diagnosing the West with “Sadistic Personality Disorder” (SPD)

By Andre Vltchek, April 25, 2018

By now it is clear that the West is the least free society on Earth. In North America and Europe, almost everyone is under constant scrutiny: people are spied on, observed, their personal information is being continually extracted, and the surveillance cameras are used indiscriminately.

While the world’s attention is riveted on Syria, the US is significantly boosting its forces in Europe. And these are not just divisions streaming in to take part in some exercises that will leave once those are over. This is a serious buildup to create a potentially offensive posture. The beefing up of the US forces is taking place amid preparations for a Russia-US summit. That’s a rather peculiar background for the event, to put it mildly!

The 4th Combat Aviation Brigade and the 4th Infantry Division will deploy to Europe as part of its Operation Atlantic Resolve. Based in Germany, the forces will participate in multiple exercises, most of which will be held very near the Russian border in Poland, Hungary, Romania, and the Baltic States. The Army is considering deploying an entire division in a Reforger type of exercise, with troops coming over to use the pre-positioned hardware. Those forces could potentially see a surge, with a division-level deployment in late 2018 or 2019.

The plans include the creation of a rear-area operations command to be hosted by Germany. Another command is planned that will ensure mobility in the North Atlantic shipping lanes. A “military Schengen” to allow easy movement across borders is under consideration. NATO is rotating four battalion-size, combat-ready, air-power-supported battle groups throughout Poland — which is hosting 800 American troops — and the Baltic States.

In February, the US Army held the largest artillery exercise in Europe since the Cold War. The event was dubbed Dynamic Front 18 and involved seven rocket-launching systems, 94 artillery pieces, including eight German Panzerhaubitze 2000 armored howitzers, 14 British L118 light guns, and 18 US M777 155 mm howitzers.

The US military command is weighing the option of keeping the USS Harry S. Truman carrier strike group in the Mediterranean, the European command’s area of responsibility, instead of deploying it to the Middle East, which is under the control of Central Command. The group left Norfolk on April 11. This move would be intended to “check Russia,” freeing other American naval assets to carry out missions in the Baltic and the Black Sea. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis told the House Armed Services Committee on April 12 that he was studying the possibility of shaking up his department’s employment of carrier groups. The rotational deployments have been increased from the traditional six to ten months. A large number of US ships are concentrated in the vicinity of Syria.

Poland will host Anakonda 2018, the largest ever NATO military exercise, the scale of which is truly exceptional this year. It will involve about 100,000 troops, 5,000 vehicles, 150 aircraft, and 45 warships. The event was much smaller two years ago. The scenario is based on the premise of a surprise attack against Russia. Obviously this huge force will be assembled for offensive, not defensive operations. One hundred thousand troops, just imagine! This is the most flagrant violation of the NATO-Russia Founding Act, signed between NATO and Russia in 1997, which contains a passage about NATO refraining from the “stationing of substantial combat forces.”

Meanwhile, around 3,600 American soldiers have landed in Jordan. They are participating in the two-week US-Jordanian exercise, Eager Lion, which kicked off on April 15. The training event is a drill for AV-8B Harriers, MV-22 Ospreys, and attack helicopters. It follows the US, UK, and French air strikes on Syria. The situation in southern Syria is fraught with conflict, which might easily pull in US and Russian armed forces.

In his remarks about a possible Russia-US summit, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov stated that he is confident Russian and American military leaders will prevent an armed conflict. US officials have said many times they are ready to do anything to keep hostilities from erupting. Well, that’s what they say, but actions speak louder than words. Forces are amassing that are poised for attack. The US deployments cannot be seen as anything other than war preparations that are already well underway, and Moscow has to be doubly vigilant.

The two nations’ leaders will have a host of urgent issues to discuss, but moving to tame the heightened tensions would be a step in the right direction. Some things could be done without delay, reviving some existing agreements that have been undeservedly forgotten for instance, such as the 1989 Prevention of Dangerous Military Activities Agreement or the Incidents at Sea (INCSEA) agreement of 1972. The INCSEA stood both parties in good stead, preventing a military clash between the Soviet and US navies during the 1973 Yom Kippur War. It can do so again in the same region.

Provocative military deployments in Europe are hardly the way to create a propitious environment for a summit. Nor do they enhance the security of the United States. But they are taking place, poisoning the atmosphere and creating a big problem.

*

Arkady Savitsky is a military analyst based in St Petersburg, Russia.

Featured image is from the author.

The desperate airstrikes (on April 13) on already evacuated buildings in Syria by the U.S., U.K. and France based on bogus “intelligence” reports of an alleged “Chemical Attack” showed nothing but the helplessness of the Imperial powers. While the most “powerful man” in the world – President of the Unites State – acted like a bulldozer demolishing a few marked buildings in Syria, on the Korean Peninsula, leaders of North and South Korea were engaged in building a meaningful relationship! For better communication between the leaders of these two countries, they installed a direct hotline. According to Reuters, South Korea’s director for the Government Situation Room, Youn Kun-young, told reporters:

“The call quality was very good and we felt like we got a call from our next-door neighbor”.

A shock wave was sent to the Western powers when on Friday the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un announced that the country has suspended nuclear and long-range missile tests since further tests are unnecessary.

In the last ten days, people around the world have witnessed two different approaches by the different leaders. They saw the uselessness of the forces of war in Syria versus the constructive power of peaceful plans in Koreas – one to increase endless hostilities by military strikes and the other to reduce tensions by compromising and embracing diplomacy.

Following the North Korea participation in the last Winter Olympics in South Korea; now for the first time; North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong-un, and President Moon Jae-in of South Korea will meet on April 27, in the PEACE HOUSE on the southern side of the DMZ (in South Korea).

This is a monumental shift and a new stage in the global political situation. For true peace activists, this optimistic situation should be a turning point in organizing a Global Union for Peace. The impact of denuclearization of a region without firing even a single bullet is tremendous. In the Middle East, people with different religions and sects were living together peacefully as neighbors or even as integrated societies with common interests for centuries. The aftermath of the Korean Summit, will have the suffering people and refugees in the troubled regions from Africa to Asia to ask if it is possible to follow the Korean experience and reject the influence of foreign military powers and find peaceful solutions to arbitrary and injected problems?

This radical idea is a nightmare to the warlords of the most powerful countries. This fact alone is another aspect that all true peace activists should be aware of and be prepared to counter the incoming barrage of lies and misinformation about the North and South Korean Summit that already has started. By devaluing the significance of the summit with North Korea, the US media is questioning the “real intention” of Kim Jong-un! They are warning the White House in many ways to be cautious about this “dangerous dance”!

There is no doubt after the failure of the “chemical attack” campaign, the successful “people to people” diplomacy in Korea, will push the warlords closer to a naked global war that has already begun by proxy. Unfortunately, today there are a few people and forces like Mr. Netanyahu of Israel who are in a position to ignite a nuclear war indirectly at any moment. This fact makes the task of true peace activists undeniably more intense and indisputable.

The Korean people are showing in practice that PEACE outside of the US influence is possible. Sending a delegation of well-known peace activists to North and South Korea in support of Korean people for their initiative for PEACE is in order. These Peace Ambassadors can reflect and inform people outside of Koreas first hand of the true situation in both countries – a rare opportunity for all peace loving people.

*

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

Featured image is from the author.

In late January, Turkey launched a ground incursion named Operation Olive Branch in the Afrin canton of northern Syria. The offensive is directed against the Kurdish-led Democratic Union Party in Syria (PYD), particularly its armed wing named People’s Protection Units (YPG), which Ankara considers as a terrorist group since 1985 and the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) positions surrounding the city of Afrin. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan stated that the aim of the operation was to give Afrin back to its rightful owners, a statement that has since been used by Kurdish group to claim that he intends to engineer a demographic shift. However, by March, Turkish troops took control of Syria’s Afrin region, deploying “police force” to oversee 115 “strategic forces” and more than 80 villages under its control, the state-run Anadolu news agency reported.

The most interesting part of the offensive is the timing and unspoken goals of Turkey to break US-YPG alliance. Attacking Afrin didn’t become an urgent Turkish priority until the US announced that it was going to create a border security force, consisting of 30,000 personnel along with YPG fighters. The existence of autonomous Kurdish region in northern Syria trips Turkey’s paranoia about its own Kurdish problem with Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) with whom they are warring for decades. In addition, the conclusion Turkey drew was that the US-YPG alliance, which Pentagon ensured not to last beyond the demise of ISIS in eastern Syrian, was going to continue indefinitely as part of Trump’s administration’s ways to counter Iranian influence.

Turkey Afrin operation Olive Branch

According to Kurdish Health Council, a local PYD-affiliated body, more than hundreds have been killed and injured. The deputy Middle East director at the Human Rights Watch says that the Turkish border guards have been indiscriminately shooting at refuges attempting to flee the conflict zone into Turkey.  Moreover, the United Nations says that that the area, which is under the control of the Democratic Union Party (PYD) – a Syrian Kurdish political party – has a civilian population of approximately 323,000, including 125,000 people displaced, remaining are hiding in caves and basements, trapped in Kurdish enclave. There were also news reports from the YPG and the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights that the Turks used a prohibited chemical weapon, called napalm, against civilian population.

Amnesty international condemned Turkish Armed Force stating that “the use of artillery and other imprecise explosive weapons in civilian areas is prohibited by international humanitarian law and all parties should cease such attacks immediately”. Previously, UN called for a new ceasefire to begin immediately. But Ankara notoriously stated that the ceasefire talk does not apply to its Afrin operation. In addition, Al Jazeera has also reported that civilians from the Gaziantep area in Turkey are trying to make their way to Afrin to serve as human shields for the towns, standing in the way of the Turkish forces and daring them to attack anyway. In fact, the Turkish government has already detained more than 300 of its civilian for condemning military offensive in Afrin.

However, a delegation from the Kurdish Regional Government which is co-run by Barzani-led Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) arrived Afrin to bring humanitarian assistance to those trying to survive Turkey’s operation. It appears that the latest development in Afrin has illustrated Kurds that US is not a reliable partner in the region. This led to the rapprochement between YPG- Damascus, deploying 1700 Syrian Democratic Forces from eastern Syrian to aid the YPG against Turkey and its rebel proxies, an unwelcomed development for the US, Russia and Turkey.

Beforehand US has signed a deal with YPG to fight Turks together. Turkey’s deputy prime minister has dismissed as “false” media reports that Syrian government forces were poised to enter a Kurdish enclave in Afrin, adding such a move will be a ‘major disaster’. Meanwhile, Russia was functioning to keep the Syrian force for itself from entering Afrin to create a zero-sum game situation. It appears that Russia is hoping that the conflict between YPG and Turks-FSA will create a situation where Moscow will win without fighting a war. In fact, Kurdish politician Fawza Youssef believes that “the Russians are the ones who decided this game.” Prior to the operation, Ankara reportedly dispatched its military chief to Moscow to seek approval for its intense aerial bombardment in Afrin region, thus ushering in a new phase of its involvement in the multisided war across the border.

The territories held by the Kurds and the pro-Turkish Free Syrian Army fighters as well as the site of Turkish offensives against Kurdish militias, with positions as of January 26, 2018

It appears that the renewed conflict led to all actors involved to switch their sides to pursue their mutual interest which includes the new U.S –Turkey and its FSA, Assad-YPG alliance in Syrian civil war. However, this led Turkey to seek support from US to prevent the Syrian Democratic forces to aid YPG force in Afrin. Ibrahim Kalin, a spokesperson for President Erdogan, said his country had taken “necessary steps” through official channels and “expected from the US that it should absolutely step in” to prevent the movement of the Kurdish forces from Manbij to Afrin.” Shortly, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu told reporters that Turkey and the US have reached an understanding over the rest of Kurdish –held northern Syria. It is still unclear what possible “understanding” they might have, since Turkey wants YPG gone from all those areas and the US does not.

Previously, the Turkish government warned the U.S and its forces embedded with the Kurd around Manbji that if they don’t skedaddle they might go for a war. The growing tension in Afrin obliged U.S Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, to visit Turkey after his week-long trip to Europe where he expressed his concern over Ankara’s security dilemma. At the end of the meeting, U.S – Turkey produced a ceasefire of coordination to alleviate Ankara’s angst. This could mean a Joint U.S –Turkish coalition force in Manbji which would replace YPG/SDF presence there. It also appears like some kind compromise that sees the Kurds pull back to the eastern side of Euphrates while the Arab remnants of SDF remain in Manbij or are replaced by Turkey’s Free Syrian Army proxies.

Meanwhile, in Afrin the rebels who fought on Turkey’s behalf seems very pleased with their victory over the YPG and said that they are ready for bigger challenge. In other words, they are willing to fight against Hayat Tahrir al-Sham in Idlib, eventually, to help the Democratic Syrian army to secure the country, if Assad is out of the picture. Yet, there seems to be a whole bunch of Syrian who regard Free Syrian Army as Turkish mercenaries so that they don’t really get much of political base anymore. On the other hand, Turkey is satisfied with its victory in Afrin for now and is planning a move against the YPG and Manbij. However, the question here to ask is that how deep into Syria they are going to be able to push before the Syrian government and Russia decided enough is enough.

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Nagapushpa Devendra is a Research Assistant in the West Asia Centre of the Indian Institute for Defense Studies and Analyses (IDSA). Master of Arts in Diplomacy, Law and Business from the Jindal School of International Affairs, OP Jindal Global University, she is focused on International Law, International Theories, Refugee Crisis, Proxy Wars and Political Co-existence of West Asia with International Communities/Actors.

All images in this article are from the author.

If there is any surprise that Senate Democrats, most of whom are virtually indistinguishable from pro-war Republicans, are about to coalesce in support of the newest version of the Authority for the Use of Military Force of 2018 (AUMF), then you have seriously not been paying attention.

The proposed AUMF of 2018 would replace AUMF 2001 and repeal AUMF 2002 while it will codify an “uninterrupted authority to use all necessary and appropriate force in armed conflict” against  the Taliban, al Qaeda, ISIS and as yet unidentified “designated associated forces” who might “pose a grave threat to the US” in whatever country they occupy.

Since its adoption in 2001 within days of the 911 attack, the AUMF has served to justify every expansion of the US military’s role in the Middle East with every relevant Congressional oversight committee acting as little more than a syncopation of bobbing heads.

The AUMF 2018 offers  no restriction on military ops and no expiration or sunshine date while it  abdicates all Congressional statutory war making authority as defined in the Constitution to the executive branch with no meaningful oversight or accountability.

In other words, the AUMF 2018 represents a complete capitulation  to the MIC in a permanent continuation of almost two decades of “forever war”ostensibly in the Middle East for future generations of American troops  as the country is driven deeper into an indisputable ditch of financial insolvency and a wicked, amoral quagmire at home.

It has been fifty years since Congressional Democrats were in the vanguard of the anti-Vietnam war movement. Since the 1960’s few elected Democrats have dared challenge the party leadership to speak for peace or challenge any administration’s military interventionist policy and yet it is the Democratic party which claims the moral high ground.

Still instructive is an analysis of the October, 2002 Congressional AUMF resolution approving GW Bush’s grotesque invasion of Iraq. The original AUMF was adopted by Congress three days after the 911 attacks with Senate Democratic Majority Leader Tom Daschle (SD) shepherding the resolution to enactment as its primary sponsor.  The Senate approved the use of military force in Iraq with a 77 – 23 and House approval was on vote of 296 – 133.   In both houses, Democratic ‘liberals’ provided the necessary cushion of support for the resolution which initiated the next 17 years of extreme civil devastation, death and destruction throughout the Middle East and a US indebtedness crisis that threatens a massive financial implosion.

And yet there appears to be no accountability aimed at those alleged ‘liberals’ still in office who  continue to support funding for every Defense appropriations bill with no regard for any  consequences.

It may come as a shock to loyalist Democrats that the majority of every major war in the 20^th Century was initiated and/or conducted under a Democratic president. WW I  aficionados can thank Woodrow Wilson, the revered FDR took the US into WWII, the unprepared Truman allowed the use of atomic weapons on the civilian population of Nagasaki and Hiroshima before initiating the Korean War in 1950 and LBJ’s escalation in Vietnam became a metaphor for his Great Society. In the early 1990’s, with NATO acting as its proxy, the Clinton Administration initiated a military effort to break up the non-aligned socialist Yugoslavia  ending the decade with ‘humanitarian bombing’ that devastated the civilian population while disintegrating the once-prosperous country.

On the other hand, former President Jimmy Carter, a volunteer with Habitat for Humanity since leaving office, can proudly assert that

“We kept our country at peace. We never went to war. We never dropped a bomb. We never fired a bullet.”

Most recently, is Barack Obama, who campaigned as a Constitutional scholar and whose fraudulent 2009 Noble Peace Prize was awarded prior to a bombing spree on seven Islamic countries.  During his eight years in office, Obama dropped over 26,000 bombs in his last year in office including a multitude of drone strikes, established a Tuesday morning assassination list and began war in four countries living in peace when he took office in 2008.

There is something more than a cosmic coincidence going on here as all those aforementioned  Democratic Presidents are today considered by party loyalists to be ‘liberal’ on the ideological spectrum.

Introduced by Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn), retiring Chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, AUMF 2018 is co-sponsored by Democratic Sens. Tim Kaine (D-Va), Chris Coons (Del) and Bill Nelson (Fl). Kaine, HRC’s vice president candidate, and Coons serve on Foreign Relations while Nelson is on the Armed Services Committee.  Kaine and Nelson are both up for re-election this year as are three other Democrats on the committee; Sens. Menendez (NJ), Chris Murphy (Conn) and Cardin (Maryland). In addition, Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Az) who also serves on Foreign Relations, has opted to not seek re-election.

Corker has indicated that a potential Senate floor vote depends on the strength of AUMF support within the Foreign Relations Committee and that a wide margin in favor would facilitate Senate floor passage.  Sen. Rand Paul (R-SC) and Sen. Jeff Merkley (Oregon) have announced their opposition to the resolution. Foreign Relation Committee members who attended the recent 2018 AIPAC Policy Conference included Senators Cardin (D-Md),  Coons (De), Menendez (NJ), Marco Rubio (R-Fl), Rob Portman (R-Oh) as well as Sen. Tom Cotton (Ak) who serves on the Senate Armed Services Committee.

Can there be a more pathetically farcical example of the “world’s greatest legislative body” so utterly devoid of conscience, so disconnected from life’s reality with no awareness of their own culpability for war crimes. As the committee deliberates on whether to lessen its Constitutional responsibilities and lighten its legislative duties,  approval of the AUMF 2018 will confirm the public’s perception that, despite a cushy career with great benefits,  the Congress is a completely irrelevant and obsolete forum.

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Renee Parsons is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is from Common Dreams.

Turkey’s role in the on-going war of Syria has been a subject of controversy from the beginning. From initially supporting the US and NATO to clashing with Russia, the ‘sick man of Europe’ has recently been seen making a dramatic turn towards Russia and Iran, resultantly withdrawing from its demand of Assad’s exit from power.

Ever since the policy turn, Turkey has been cooperating with Russia and Iran in Sochi and Astana peace processes to bring the war to an end. And just when these plans were starting to pay off, Turkey took yet another turn when it ‘welcomed’ the US missile strike on Syrian as a result of the alleged—and now largely debunked—chemical attack by the Syrian government. This has been followed by Ankara rebuffing Moscow’s demand for handing over Afrin, where Turkey has established its control, to the Syrian government, arrogating instead to itself the authority and timing to do the hand-over not to the Syrian government, but the ‘people of Afrin’ as Erdogan recently said.

This turn has taken place despite the fact that Moscow has recently established a nuclear power-plant in Turkey; Russia has been accommodating ever since Turkey-Russia rapprochement Ankara’s interests in Syria by allowing it to do its military operations against the US-backed Kurdish groups and that Turkey is deeply interested in buying Russian S-400 anti-air platforms. What explains the Turkish turn and what Turkey is trying to achieve in Syria needs to be discerned to decipher the complex geo-politics of the war in Syria.

Turkey wants to remain a committed NATO member

Importantly enough, this Turkish-turn happened at a time when the US president has just announced his intentions to withdraw from Syria. While the controversial missile strike turned out to be more of a face-saving-exit strategy for the US from Syria, the announcement in itself meant, as far as Turkey is concerned, that the US might finally be succumbing to Ankara’s age-old demand of de-militarizing the Kurds.  Much to Turkey’s pleasure, the US president has already decided to end their funding and support of Kurdish militias in Syria.

According to media reports in the US, the White House has ordered to put on hold US$200 million, which was meant for “infrastructural funds” in the Kurdish controlled areas of Syria. This freezing of aid plus the fact that the US is seriously considering to withdraw its troops mean that Turkey will be left with practically no hurdles to suppress the Kurdish militias away from its border.

This potentially means that the US is now willing to address Turkey’s long-standing demand to wean it back from its increasing confluence with Russia and Iran. The US, in other words, after having lost the means to influence the ground situation in Syria, is now wooing Turkey back and influence the Syrian end-game through it.

The in-coming US Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, has already hinted at such a possibility. In his confirmation hearing, he responded to the question of trilateral dialogue between Russia, Iran and Turkey, saying that

“the American people need to be represented at that table” and that “[w]e can be part of that conversation.”

And while Turley’s major concern has been Kurdish concentration on its border, causing instability to reach Ankara, NATO, too, now seems serious to redress this factor. This was confirmed by NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg during his recent visit to Turkey where he said that no NATO member has suffered more terrorist attacks (read: PKK attacks)  than Turkey, saying that it is “the ally most exposed to the instability in this region.”

Turkey, therefore, has no hesitation in responding positively to the West over its willingness to take its core interests into account. Turkey, which is still a committed NATO member, would therefore certainly want to remain so and spearhead Western interest in Astana and Sochi, and play the game in a way that would limit both Iranian and Russian influence in Syria and the Middle East.

Turkey Changing its rules of engagement in Syria

But how exactly is this happening? Turkey’s differences with Russia and Iran on the question of Afrin have already become well-known. With Turkey refusing to hand-over Afrin to Syria and linking its withdrawal from Afrin to the withdrawal of other foreign forces (read: Russian and Iranian) from Syria, it has sent a clear message to both Moscow and Tehran: that its alliance with them remains temporary alliance of convenience and that it tends to separately with deal its economic relations with Russia and its interests in Syria, which converged to the extent that Russia allowed Turkey to do its operations against Kurds, but are now diverging on the question of restoring the territory to the Syrian government.

These disagreements underline strongly that despite cooperation, Turkey is far from abandoning NATO for either Russia or Iran. But by re-projecting itself as a key-actor and a decider, Turkey has indicated that it remains suspicious of both Astana and Sochi processes and that it wants to chart its course through Afrin and Idlib, the latter being already the subject of fierce negotiations and undoubtedly the next war objective in Syria.

For Turkey, Idlib remains a key, and it has previously urged Russia and Iran to prevent a Syrian offensive from taking place there. With that offensive now likely to begin any time, the importance of Afrin has increased all the more for Turkey as it intends to use it as a means to keep poking in Idlib and keep Turkey-backed Jihadi elements entrenched to influence the final outcome of the Syrian end-game and extract maximum concessions from Russia and Iran in the up-coming Sochi conference.

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Salman Rafi Sheikh is a research-analyst of International Relations and Pakistan’s foreign and domestic affairs, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

Featured image is from the author.

Britain has approved the sale of arms to Israel worth $445m since the 2014 Gaza war, including components for drones, combat aircraft and helicopters along with spare parts for sniper rifles, according to figures seen by Middle East Eye.

The government data will raise fresh concerns that British-made weapons are being used by the Israeli military in the Occupied Territories, amid fears that components in sniper rifles used to kill scores of Palestinian civilians in recent weeks could have been made in the UK.

Arms export licences to Israel soared to £216m, or $300m at current exchange rates, last year from £20m in the wake of the Gaza war, new Department for International Trade figures show.

They include a major £183m licence covering “technology for military radars”, but ministers have also approved the sale for export of grenades, bombs, missiles, armoured vehicles, assault rifles, small arms ammunition, sniper rifles and components for sniper rifles.

The value of arms approvals to Israel more than doubled last year after £84m in sales in 2016, prompting campaigners to warn that there is “little doubt” that UK-made weapons have been used in the Occupied Palestinian Territories.

The Campaign Against the Arms Trade, or CAAT, which compiled the figures, expressed concern that UK-made radar technology could be used by Israeli jets and helicopters over the Occupied Territories.

However, it is the scale of small arms sales that have prompted fears UK-made sniper rifle components and targeting scopes may have been used by the Israeli military on the Gaza border.

British weaponry, Israeli oppression

Labour MP Richard Burden, the chairman of the British-Palestine group in Parliament, told MEE that given the risk of weapons being used for “internal repression” in Gaza and the West Bank he was “alarmed by the scale of UK arms exports to Israel in recent years”.

He added that he will be “pressing” ministers to launch an investigation into whether UK arms have been used in “the current Israeli military operations on the Gaza border”.

Palestinian officials say at least 40 people have been killed by Israeli forces since the start of a six-week protest at the Israeli occupation, dubbed the Great March of Return, earlier this month.

The shootings prompted international outcry after it emerged Israeli snipers who shot Palestinians had positioned themselves alongside the Gaza security fence, with orders allowing them to shoot unarmed Palestinians who came within 100 yards.

The violence prompted Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn to call for a review of arms sales to Israel in a message condemning its “illegal and inhumane” killing and wounding of “yet more unarmed Palestinian protesters”.

Corbyn also called for the UK to support calls for a “independent and transparent” UN inquiry into the shootings and called for a review of the sale of UK-made arms that “could be used in violation of international law”.

Government ministers, as well as senior Labour figures including the shadow foreign secretary, Emily Thornberry, have argued that Israel has a right to defend itself from military assault and “terrorist attacks”.

The Israeli military says it only fires in self-defence and that its forces on the Gaza border were “identifying attempts to carry out terror attacks under the camouflage of riots”, but campaign groups have labelled the shootings a “massacre”.

The Israeli military did not respond to a request for comment.

Andrew Smith, a spokesman for CAAT, told MEE:

“There is little doubt that UK equipment has been used against the people of Gaza time and again, but that hasn’t stopped successive governments from licensing even more arms to the Israeli military.

“The appalling scenes we have seen over recent weeks are yet another stark reminder of the repression and abuse that Palestinians are living under every day. The response to protests hasn’t just been heavy-handed, it has been a massacre.

“By continuing to arm Israeli forces the UK isn’t just making itself complicit in future attacks, it is sending a message of support for the collective punishment that has been inflicted.

“The situation is desperate, and the UK should be working for a peaceful and just solution, not pushing arms sales which can be used in abuses for years to come.”

Israel has historically breached assurances given to ministers that UK-made arms would not be used in the Occupied Territories.

Critics of the British arms trade say that the sale of weapons to Israel also stands in stark contrast to Foreign Office warnings in its most recent annual human rights report that Israel’s occupation policies continue to violate the “human rights of Palestinians”.

That report cited “punitive demolitions” of homes belonging to the families of Palestinians suspected of perpetrating attacks on Israelis.

Chris Doyle, the director of the Council for Arab-British Understanding, or CAABU, told MEE

it was an “outrage that Britain is still selling such weaponry to a state that treats human life and international law with such contempt”.

Campaigners have also expressed alarm that some of the weaponry approved for export, such as military radar, components for fast jets and helicopter parts, is of the sort previously used by Israeli forces in Gaza and the West Bank, including during the 2014 Gaza war – dubbed “Operation Protective Edge” by Israel – and during the 2009 assault.

After the 2009 conflict – “Operation Cast Lead” – the influential Commons committee on arms exports reported that British arms exports “almost certainly” were used in the attack, in direct contravention of the UK’s policy that arms exports should not be used in the Occupied Territories.

British restrictions lifted

The then foreign secretary, David Miliband, said Israeli equipment used in the attack on Gaza “almost certainly” contained British-supplied components, including cockpit displays in US-made F-16 combat aircraft, and components for the fire control and radar systems, navigation equipment and engine assemblies for US-made Apache attack helicopters.

There were renewed calls for a halt to arms sales during the Gaza conflict in 2014, which resulted in the deaths of more than 2,200 Palestinian and 76 Israelis. The then-prime minister, David Cameron, said all export licences would be reviewed.

However, all restrictions on arms sales to Israel were dropped in 2015 following a 12-month review, in which the government admitted UK-made weapons may have been used in the 2014 bombardment of Gaza.

Since then, MEE understands the government has made no assessment of whether UK weapons have been used in the Occupied Territories, and arms licences have soared.

A spokesman for the Department for International Trade said the

UK “takes its export control responsibilities very seriously and operates one of the most robust export control regimes in the world”.

It added:

“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.

“We will not grant a licence if doing so would be inconsistent with these criteria and will suspend or revoke licences when the level of risk changes.”

President Donald Trump’s new national security adviser chaired a nonprofit that has promoted misleading and false anti-Muslim news, an NBC News review found.

From 2013 until last month, John Bolton was the chairman of the Gatestone Institute, a New York-based advocacy group that warns of a looming “jihadist takeover” of Europe leading to a “Great White Death.” The group’s authors have also appeared on Russian media, including Sputnik and RT News, criticizing mainstream European leaders like French President Emmanuel Macron.

The group has published numerous stories and headlines on its website with similar themes. “Germany Confiscating Homes to Use for Migrants,” warned one from May 2017, about a single apartment rental property in Hamburg that had gone into temporary trusteeship. Another from February 2015 claimed the immigrants, for instance, Somalis in Sweden were turning that country into the “Rape Capital of the West.”

Gatestone is “a key part of the whole Islamaphobic cottage industry on the internet,” said Ibrahim Hooper, spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, a civil rights and advocacy group. Hooper added that Bolton being associated with Gatestone, “and in one of the most powerful positions on the planet, is very disturbing.”

The NBC report also says:

Alina Polyakova, a Brookings Institution fellow who studies far-right populism and disinformation campaigns in the European Union, said Gatestone is “putting out content that was clearly anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim and was echoing some of the Russian disinformation propaganda” being spread by internet trolls and on social media.

Birmingham, England – The no-go zone

Gatestone has been a significant promoter of the disputed notion that “no-go zones” exist in the heart of major cities where Muslims rule by Shariah law. In January 2015, then-Gov. Bobby Jindal of Louisiana, a Republican, cited Gatestone’s research in a speech in London.

In September 2015, Fox News contributor Steve Emerson, who’s also written for Gatestone, said in an appearance on the network that the British city of Birmingham is a “no-go zone” for non-Muslims. The claim prompted the British broadcasting regulator Ofcom to find the network in breach of its broadcasting code. Emerson later apologized.

Churches in London

One of the retweeted stories that Gatestone instigated claimed that 500 churches in London have closed while 423 new mosques have opened, which went viral and was picked up by numerous websites including Breitbart News. The fact-checking website Snopes.com said Gatestone used “shoddy research and cherry-picked data” for the story, which was clearly not true.

Cambridge Analytica/Trump/Brexit

Gatestone is in part funded by the William Rosenwald Family Fund, which funds a host of pro-Israel groups including the Middle East Forum.

Gatestone has also received financial backing from Robert and Rebekah Mercer, the billionaire father-daughter team who have supported conservative candidates in the U.S. including Cruz and Trump. The Mercers also co-founded Cambridge Analytica, the data company being scrutinized for its activities that have allegedly influenced the Brexit EU referendum. The British High Court granted the Information Commissioner’s Office a warrant to search Cambridge Analytica’s London offices in March. There are now a number of court action and libel cases currently in play.

In an archived 2017 web page, Rebekah Mercer was listed as a member of the Gatestone Board of Governors.

Notes via MediaBias/FactCheck: The Gatestone Institute, formerly Stonegate Institute, is a “not-for-profit international policy council and think tank based in New York City” with a specialization in strategy and defense issues. Gatestone Institute is  anti-Islamic, pro-Christian and Jewish/Israel. Many of the articles will link back to sites that don’t say what they claim or make the same rash judgments, without proof. Example: Obama tells Christians to not protest in Egypt then has no quotes or sources saying he said that. (M. Allen 12/30/2016)

If there’s any argument against our excessive reliance on digital platforms to maintain social fabric, it is surely found inside Iraq today. Forced into long stays indoors, behind walls and gates, checked a dozen times between home, office and school, Iraqis have been confined to TV and computer communication (with dysfunctional consequences). That may be changing.

After being constrained throughout 15 years of strife, particularly urban dwellers are hazarding out to engage in face-to-face contact. During my recent stay in Iraq, I witnessed not only socializing in cafes and shops, but also gatherings which signal essential, life-affirming cultural engagement.

Foreign journalists, security personnel, merchants and diplomats remain completely out of sight, inside their fortified compounds. But some citizens, prevented by years of unpredictable civil strife from normal social and cultural discourse, are willing (or determined) to risk danger and venture out to public events.

This willfulness is apparent on the morning when I accompany my colleague, journalist Nermeen al-Mufti, to her favorite tea shop inside Al-Mutanabbi Street. Passing vendors of secondhand electrical goods, kitchenware, toys and clothes, shunning used books displayed on the pavement, ignoring freshly squeezed pomegranate juice and an enticing array of dried dates and figs, we move deeper inside the quarter and through a crowded passageway into Qaisairriyeh Hanash. This formerly covered market is now an open atrium, lined with stalls exhibiting new publications. Its ample floor space is filled by a collection of haphazardly set chairs where Friday’s clientele congregate.

I’m assured that no one at these weekly gatherings in Qaisairriyeh Hanash tea house is unaware of the sacredness of their get-togethers. (Indeed, following a bombing here in 2007, this very place became a monument to literary survival with increased numbers of visitors attending.) Risking an excursion out of their walled-in homes, these women and men insist on the immortality of their traditions, particularly Iraq’s literary heritage–modern no less than ancient.

The same resolve surely applies to the audience at a concert I attend with 300 others at the Iraq National Theater one winter evening. Urged by friends at the media center where I am working, we venture across town, heralded by a light rain that shimmers the pavement in our path. (Although it’s insufficient to break the winter drought, we interpret this shower as an auspicious sign.) We’ve come to hear Sumeriyon, a jazz group headed by oud virtuoso Mustafa Zayir. The packed house even includes children accompanying their parents; the crowd’s attention is reverential, their pride palatable.

Perhaps no one wanted that evening of music– a fusion of traditional and modern, eastern and western–to end.

The joy of cultural discourse, however unobtrusive and humdrum it may appear in the crowded atrium of Qaisairryeh Hanash, is equally apparent. An informal Friday court is underway, with chairs randomly gathered into clusters leaving little space for arrivals to maneuver around them. Yet, room is made when any friend appears. The atmosphere is notably relaxed, and relaxing. If there’s any anticipation in the murmuring and movement as the space continues to swell with newcomers, it’s not about the arrival of anyone special. (For lectures, poetry readings and other public presentations, go deeper into the quarter to the Qishla garden and the refurbished Baghdad Cultural Center. Younger writers can be found there.)

These gatherings represent the detritus of Iraq’s intellectual community which lost so many members—novelists, poets, journalists, critics, artists, actors, and others. These women and men in their middle age congregating in Qaissairriyeh represent the generation still so vital to cultural life here. They speak less about who is gone, and more about what they are writing and what printers are publishing new work.

Sumeriyon Baghdad

It’s a windy morning and a loose strip of corrugated tin roofing clatters loudly as it flaps 30 feet above us. No one seems alarmed about it. A waiter arrives at regular intervals, unbeckoned, and replaces abandoned or cooled drinks with fresh glassfuls of steaming tea—Iraqis’ ruby red brew with the obligatory two centimeters of sugar undisturbed at the bottom of the vessel. As the server moves on, no one gestures payment. Friday morning’s clientele has become an informal club at Al-Mutanabbi book quarter where these regulars contribute a monthly fee to cover whatever tea they consume.

Few visitors appear interested in snacking but when a slight figure balancing a wide plate on his head moves among the crowd, he’s signaled to pause. Lifting his load to the ground and proffering orders, the tower of pretzel-like biscuits –six for 100 dinars– woven into a pyramid on his tray is soon depleted. No one needs encouragement to tuck in when Mustafa, seated among us, places a bagful on our cluttered table. (Another vendor follows with a similar bundle but it’s exhausted less quickly.)

A man I do not know appears from nowhere at my side, then steps gently into our circle. Ahmed, well known to the others, is welcomed without words; conversations in progress continue. Eschewing an invitation to take a chair, Ahmed reaches into a cloth bag over his shoulder to extract several volumes of a book –copies of his new collection of poetry. He distributes these as gifts to anyone interested. After accepting modest approvals for his work, he moves on.

I and Nermeen are two of only half a dozen women joining the 150 or so visitors this morning. Space is made for us in the cluster she’s chosen to join. We’ve hardly touched our tea than Nermeen becomes a source of energetic laughter and rejoinders; there’s more news about government blunders, or the blistering book review that’s appeared during the past week. Conversation is largely about what friends are reading, about news of books not yet seen, and other literary gossip.

The entrance to the atrium is a busy passageway between bookstalls set along the wall. As visitors make their way into the atrium, their eyes scan the room until someone steps towards his colleague. They embrace; tea is passed to the newcomer and another joins them.

I am distracted from the intimacies of my own circle by those unremarkable movements and murmurs vibrating though the hall. These personal occasions are as profound as any staged performance. Indeed they constitute a weekly ballet of quiet, professional encounters in a place currently outside history. There may be nothing grand to celebrate today, only friends meeting each other, sustaining an essential tradition.

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Barbara Nimri Aziz is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

All images in this article are from the author.

During the time that Palestinians call The Great Rebellion, or Revolt against British pro-Zionist policies in Palestine, 1936 – 1939, things began to go seriously wrong for Palestinian Arabs living in Jaffa and have continued to deteriorate with no reprieve yet.

Jaffa, at the time, was a major economic center in Palestine, a port and commercial hub. In the 19th century, Palestinian citrus farmers had introduced innovative grafting techniques to growing oranges, for which Jaffa is famous to this day – but with credit for its flourishing citrus industry going to Jewish usurpers rather than Palestinian Arabs.

In fact, the very existence of these Palestinian Arabs is often denied through Israel’s Zionist myth-making on hasbara sites.

By the 1930s, Jaffa’s flourishing citrus industry and exports had turned it into a major economic center, providing jobs for thousands and spurring the development of related economic sectors like banking, textiles, transportation, manufacturing and tourism. Dubbed the Bride of the Sea, it was also a major cultural center.

The seeds of the Great Rebellion were sown when the League of Nations, in the “mandate” it issued to the British government over Palestine in 1922, included language facilitating European Jewish immigration to the country.

Life in Jaffa for Palestinians was affected in deeply horrific ways both during and after the Great Rebellion and during and after the Nakba of 1948, which Israel touts as “independence”,  but which in reality is a conquest and colonization of Palestine by foreign forces, a fact that is ongoing to this day.

The bloody dispossession of Palestinians is referred to incorrectly and deceptively on the internet as a “civil war”.  It’s what google spits out in spades.

Palestinian Arabs naturally resented the massive foreign Jewish immigration that did, in fact, follow in Palestine in accordance with British mandate policies; they resisted the takeover of Palestine by the Jewish Zionist Movement, which was orchestrated from Europe.

Jaffa experienced a major violent disruption in 1936 when large sections (amounting to 220-240 buildings) of the Old City of Jaffa were blown up by the British military, ostensibly for “town-planning purposes”, but really as a punitive measure against the Palestinian rebellion.

Leaflets were dropped on Jaffa and its environs telling people to vacate their homes with the end result that 6,000 Palestinians were made homeless.

Life for these Palestinians during the Great Rebellion events deteriorated badly. There are many accounts of the devastating hardship of that time, including an account, for example, of a British policeman executing a Palestinian Arab in the Manshiya district of Jaffa, and of incidents of British troops robbing Palestinians – even children of their pocket money.

The Nakba events leading to the forcible establishment of Israel continued the destruction of the Palestinian social and economic matrix in Jaffa begun by the British as described above.

As early as the 1930s, myth-making depicting Palestine as a land empty of people was in progress.

In the 1930s the Jewish painter Nahum Gutman painted a picture of the area between the Old Mosque in Jaffa and Tel Aviv as if it were empty, nothing but sand. He erased the Arab houses that were there from his vision, exemplifying the Zionist conceit of an empty land, ignoring the Palestinians who actually lived there. In 1948 there were 100,000 inhabitants – Palestinian and Jewish – of Jaffa. Photos that show this do not appear in Israeli museums.

In 1931, the population of Jaffa was 44,638 Palestinians (i.e., non-Jews) and 7,209 Palestinian Jews.

Under the 1947 UN Partition Plan, Jaffa was to be part of an Arab state. However, Jewish terrorist forces (the Irgun) and Haganah militia mounted a siege on Jaffa, effectively cutting it off from the rest of Palestine, and indiscriminately shelled the Palestinian population with mortars for four days and nights in April 1948.

Israeli research such as that by Amiram Gonen speaks of the emergence of “a geographic heartland” after the Nakba in Jaffa and Tel Aviv.

But the fact is, after the establishment of Israel as a Jewish state on a partitioned Palestine in 1948, life in Jaffa for a huge number of Palestinians became non-existent, for the simple reason that they were forced out of the city and denied return. The British tried to protect Palestinian Arabs from being evicted in Jaffa and failed, handing over their military bases to Zionist forces.

Today, Jaffa refugees and exiles are scattered in the West Bank and all over the world, but they haven’t forgotten the life they lived there before the Nakba.

As one example, as much as 80% of the population of Balata refugee camp in the West Bank, east of Nablus, is originally from Jaffa. It is a camp meant to hold 5000 refugees but is now more than 27,200 Palestinians strong and is known as a symbol of resistance.

Only 30% of the population of Jaffa today is Palestinian Arab.  It is a story worth retelling and remembering repeatedly, because it continues to be buried under an avalanche of Israeli hasbara.

The expulsion of the Palestinians – not merely the fighters but the civilians – had been well prepared. Throughout the 1930s and 40s dossiers on all the Palestinian villages had been meticulously compiled by Zionist militias and stored in the files of the Haganah (the Zionist military organisation that operated during the time of the British mandate, 1921-48, after which it formed the basis of the IDF). These files can still be consulted today in the Haganah archives (see Pappe, Ethnic Cleansing, passim).

The Haganah sent spies into the villages, where they availed themselves of the Arab hospitality offered them and, under the pretext of concern for the wellbeing of their hosts, enquired about the number of animals and the amount of land each family owned. This information came in useful when half the villages of Palestine were destroyed in the Nakba. No doubt it also formed a database for the ‘Great Book Robbery’ that took place at the same time, when 70,000 volumes were stolen from well-to-do Palestinian homes and from mosques, some of them to be pulped as being ‘hostile’ to the new Israeli state, and others ending up in the National Library with ‘AP’ (abandoned property) embossed on their spines.

For those Palestinians who remain, life in Jaffa today, as Sami Abu Shehadeh and FadiShbaytah write below, is grim:

The story of Jaffa’s ongoing Nakba is the story of the transformation of this thriving modern urban center into a marginalized neighborhood suffering from poverty, discrimination, gentrification, crime and demolition since the initial wave of mass expulsion in 1948 to the present day.

The life of Palestinians in Jaffa (and other Palestinian cities and towns) during the British Mandate has been documented (and illustrated through photographs from the time) in a wonderful book edited by historian Walid Khalidi titled ‘Before their Diaspora.”

For those interested in this topic, Khalidi’s book has been made available online for free by The Institute for Palestine Studies.

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Rima Najjar is a Palestinian whose father’s side of the family comes from the forcibly depopulated village of Lifta on the western outskirts of Jerusalem. She is an activist, researcher and retired professor of English literature, Al-Quds University, occupied West Bank. She is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is from Abed Rahim Khatib / Flash 90.

Lavrov’s remark about how Russia no longer has a “moral obligation” to refrain from selling its S-300 anti-air defense systems to Syria has caused serious confusion among the ranks of the Alt-Media Community who don’t quite understand what he meant. 

The “Moral Obligation”

The Alt-Media Community celebrated Russia’s announcement that it was considering selling the S-300 anti-air defense system to Syria following the US-led strikes earlier this month, but then some confusion kicked in after Foreign Minister Lavrov later revealed that no decision had yet been made in this respect. It can’t be known for sure, but the threats made by Russia’s “Israeli” ally to “retaliate” against Syria if Damascus uses these armaments to protect its skies could have been a factor behind why Moscow might be reconsidering this no-cost deal. Another source of confusion is over Russia’s intentions in countenancing this move in the first place, since many people don’t understand what Lavrov had in mind when he spoke about how his country no longer has a “moral obligation” to refrain from selling these wares to Syria.

Russia’s top diplomat preceded his curious remark by stating that

“We took into consideration their argument that this would destabilize the situation, despite the missile systems being a purely defensive system”,

after which he mentioned that the latest developments changed the situation and removed Moscow’s prior reluctance. Still, many in the Alt-Media Community took issue with his choice of words because of the literally moralizing tone attached to them which seemed to suggest that selling S-300 defensive missile systems to Syria was previously “immoral” until “two wrongs made a right” following the latest US-led bombing. It’s inconceivable for many who are indoctrinated with Alt-Media dogma to countenance, but Russia used to be very “Western-friendly” and it was in this international context that Moscow made its decision to withhold sales of the S-300s to Syria.

Rethinking Russia: A Former Western Friend, Not An Eternal Foe

Contrary to the myths that began to form after “EuroMaidan” more or less “formalized” the already existing New Cold War, Russia only endeavored to carve out a respectable place in the American-led world order while simultaneously undertaking incremental steps to reform it towards a more equitable multipolar one in the future. That began to change following the synchronized Eurasian-wide asymmetrical Hybrid War aggression that the US started to carry out against Russia in the half decade afterwards which made it undeniable that Washington would never acknowledge the sovereign boundaries that Moscow demanded for itself. It took a while for most of the country’s permanent military, intelligence, and diplomatic bureaucracies (“deep state”) to recognize this inconvenient geopolitical fact, but the Rubicon was crossed after Kremlin “ideologist” Vladislav Surkov penned his now-famous article a few weeks ago about how Russia is a “half-breed”.

In it, the man who is regarded as one of the most influential in modern Russia today and a key advisor of President Putin wrote how preparations must be made for a prolonged struggle against the US and its allies, and that this might regrettably result in a degree of “solitude” that the country can’t ignore. Accordingly, it also means that the centuries-long dream of some circles of the Russian elite to be “accepted” by their Western counterparts per what has been claimed by others is a massive “inferiority complex” has abruptly ground to a halt and been exposed as nothing more than a manipulative fantasy for controlling the country’s “movers and shakers”. In light of this long-belated revelation, Russia no longer harbored any illusions about the perceived benefits that it hoped to achieve by paying lip service to the West and complying with its dictates such as the one ordering it to not sell S-300s to Syria.

“Israeli” Interests

Truthfully, there was never anything “moral” about this decision in the first place, nor was Russia ever “obliged” to do what it was told, but this evaluation isn’t due to the author’s subjective take on the situation but rather his objective assessment of the Neo-Realist “19^th-Century Great Power Chessboard” paradigm that he believes is playing the most prominent role in guiding decision makers. Whether rightly or wrongly, Russia believed that its interests at the time would best be served by obeying the West and not opposing it, but it can only be speculated why it came to this conclusion. Nevertheless, the policy was implemented and remained in force for several years even though it was obvious that the Syrians needed the S-300s to protect themselves from the over 100 “Israeli” airstrikes that have thus far taken place, but cynically, this may have actually been the Neo-Realist (i.e. interests-driven) motivation for delaying the shipment the entire time.

For amoral reasons that have nothing to do with “obligations” but everything to do with “balancing”, Russia might have refused to sell the S-300s to Syria in order to satisfy the strategic interests of “Israel”, which wants to retain full control of its neighbor’s airspace in order to bomb it at will on the pretext that it’s targeting the IRGC or Hezbollah. It’s for precisely this reason why Tel Aviv is so vehemently against Moscow’s rekindled interest in giving the S-300s to Damascus, but just like in the past, this system might never make it to the Arab Republic and there’s a chance that Russia’s statements on the matter are once again all about taking what it believes to be the “moral” position at the time and nothing more. Words without actions might come off as “insincere”, especially to Syria, but to the Great Powers that Russia’s courting, they’d only be seen as standard “diplomacy”.

Some of the masses might reflexively respond that this is in and of itself “immoral”, but the fact is that “morals”, “ethics”, and “principles” don’t guide International Relations – interests do – though they’re often relied upon to craft publicly presentable explanations for predetermined policy decisions. Another point to reflect on is that Russia might very well go forward with this weapons transfer anyhow, but that it’s unlikely to make much of a difference in the grand scheme of things because “Israel” will probably follow through on its threats to strike these systems if they interfere with its bombing missions. The S-300s might be able to take down a few warplanes, but each battery would be utterly demolished by the massive retaliatory strike that could be expected and which would overwhelm the target unless Russia rose to its defense, which it won’t ever do because Moscow isn’t going to go beyond its anti-terrorist military mandate.

Concluding Thoughts

Therefore, all the talk about the S-300s will mostly just remain that – talk—because they’re unlikely to affect any of the prevailing battlespace dynamics in the uncertain event that they’re even dispatched to Syria in the first place. Russia’s remarks about this system were mostly for soft power purposes in allaying the understandably distraught Syrian population, much like Lavrov’s earlier statement about Afrin was designed to have the same effect. A clear pattern is thus emerging, and it’s that Russia responds to military aggression against Syria through promising statements that raise its countrymen’s hopes and deflect their attention from focusing on the unpopular fact that Moscow will never overstep its mandate in threatening “World War III” in their defense. Whether one thinks that this approach is “right”, “wrong”, or simply feels indifferent to it, this is the reality of the situation as it presently exists, and Russia doesn’t have any “moral obligation” whatsoever when it comes to Syria, for better or for worse.

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This article was originally published on Eurasia Future.

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

Featured image is from Eurasia Future.

We bring to the attention of our readers an important report on the billions of dollars of unaccounted U.S. taxpayers money which have served to line the pockets of war profiteers.

“The fact that this mind-blowing amount of missing tax money has not been a lightning rod for mainstream media coverage, congressional investigations, and a lead issue for all political representatives, particularly those who claim to care about our skyrocketing national debt, calls into serious question the integrity and legitimacy of all leadership and responsible parties. … We are trapped in a vicious cycle; increased military spending, with inadequate oversight, leads to billions of our annual taxpayer dollars being given directly to the people who profit of war, terrorism and societal destabilization in general – as evidence clearly demonstrates.”

“Condemnation without investigation is the height of ignorance.” – Albert Einstein

OPENING STATEMENT

If one recalls, the Nazi regime running Germany in the 1930s and 40s came up with the word Fatherland for their nation.

As many should know, words and phrases can have deepest meaning in the worlds of both advertising and propaganda. Actually, propaganda is advertising. It advertises what the masses should be feeling about actions by and upon their country. Remember this from Herman Goering:

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

That quote should be enshrined in some Hall of Fame for the truth about the masses. The sad reality is how it resonates so well nowadays in Amerika. Hitler knew that the ‘Big Lie’ was the best lie. Why? Well, if it was so out of bounds then it must be true!

The 9/11 Truth movement has done its best, through countless research and investigation, to dispel the Big Lie, or should I say lies, about the ‘Who’ and the ‘How’ of the Twin Towers (and Bldg. 7) going down. Then we have the other ‘Big Lie’ as to the (so called) connection between 9/11 and Iraq. You get my drift? Read the books by David Ray Griffin (# 1 is 9/11 The New Pearl Harbor) as a start to get educated on the hundreds of facts that make the case against the 9/11 Commission Report. Oh yes, and the Warren Commission Report was truthful in that the lone gunman did it because he was a Commie dog. Where is that bridge in Brooklyn I have for you to purchase?

Let’s just focus on my country, the one I dearly love. In the early 20th century, there were a myriad of small newspapers and newsletters that covered a whole spectrum of political thought. Socialists and even Communists ran and won elected office throughout our country. In 1920, after the socialist movement had been hammered down by the pro war/anti Bolshevik forces that controlled our nation, Eugene Debs ran once again for president from the Socialist Party…from prison… and received one million votes, or 3.5 % of the total… as Convict 9653! So what happened to our populace since then, so that nearly one hundred years later we are in a worse shape politically?

As Ralph Nader calls them, the Two Party/One Party system gives the public the choice between Tweedle Dum and Tweedle Dee. If someone dare mentions being a Socialist, not even a Marxist or Communist, they are looked at like one sites a leper. Of course, the embedded with empire mainstream media only allows discourse from writers and citizens who express within the spectrum of the Republican & Democratic parties. Occasionally they will put in front of the camera only totally almost near crazed people and ideas as the only offering to the status quo. This assault on the minds of my fellow citizens has been going on for generations.

The public schools are increasingly underfunded, and the curricula are set up in primary and middle schools to ‘teach for the testing’ and not for rational thinking. Overt and covert militarism has flooded our schools, our local governments and of course our media. All of these institutions make sure to drum home that ‘We are at war’ and to ‘follow the flag’. The Pentagon is so infused with our educational system that they use our schools and scholastic sporting events as recruitment material. How many times must we see soldiers in camouflage marching on the fields of play before or during games? They cover the football field or basketball courts with giant flags, right out of the Goebbels playbook.

Finally, every student in our nation’s high schools should be made to read Orwell’s 1984, and then discuss it in depth. The parallels to our current Amerikan empire are astounding! This writer thought it a bit obtuse when in 1984 each home and apartment had cameras that could see all that someone was doing. Well, the 21st Century surveillance state has arrived! Scary isn’t it? In Orwell’s book he shows how the nation Oceania was in a state of what the late author Gore Vidal called Permanent War. How fitting. Of course, what Goering revealed about the propaganda of war making also fits too well now. W.C. Fields said it best: “Never give a sucker an even break.”

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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].

Now that the Trump, May, and Macron regimes have proven beyond all doubt that they are lawless war criminal regimes, what is next?

Will the Russian president and foreign minister continue to speak of “our Western partners” and seek common ground with proven lawless war criminals? What would that common ground be?

How can other governments accept the US, UK, and French governments that intentionally lied about a Russian chemical attack on the Skripals and about a Syrian chemical attack on Douma, risking a third world war, and then themselves attacking Syria on the basis of a transparent lie unsupported by any evidence? How exactly do you conduct diplomatic relations with war criminals?

You don’t. You put them on trial. Why aren’t Trump, May, and Macron on trial?

The reason is that the world has been conditioned, like Pavlov’s dogs, to expect and accept the West’s war crimes as ordinary common features of life. The West’s crimes are protected by precedents established by decades of failing to hold the West accountable. The West has squatters rights in committing unaccountable war crimes.

Stymied in the effort to overthrow Syria, Netanyahu is now focusing the Trump regime on renewing Washington’s conflict with Iran. Will Washington’s vassals continue to provide cover for Washington’s crimes, or are some of the Europeans beginning to understand that the risks they assume for Washington exceed the money that Washington pays them?

Where will Russia stand if Washington renews its assault on Iran?

Despite the air attacks carried out on its Syrian ally by the US, NATO, and Israel, the Russian government still has not found the decisiveness to sell Syria its S-300 air defense system. Syria intercepted 70% of the US missiles in the last attack using obsolete Soviet-era air defense systems. The S-300 would allow Syria to protect itself from air attack and thus reduce the chance of war resulting from Israeli and US attacks on Syria.

Russian indecisiveness combined with the rest of the world’s toleration of ongoing US war crimes suggests that more provocations will be orchestrated, that more lawless attacks will take place, and that eventually a fatal conflict will be brewed.

Think about it. The British are caught in the Skripal lie. Washington, the British, and the French are caught in the Douma chemical attack lie, and there are no consequences for those governments who orchestrated hoaxes and then used the hoaxes to justify their war crime.

How can it be that the American people are undisturbed by their government’s 17 years of wars based entirely on blatant lies? How can it be that the American people and the Evangelical churches are unmoved by the millions of innocent peoples in seven countries who have been murdered, maimed, orphaned, and displaced by the profit-driven US military/security complex and by the neoconservative ideology in service to Israel?

How can it be that the US media is as effective a propaganda ministry for Washington as the German press was for the Nazis?

How can it be that the European, Canadian, and Australian governments and the citizens of these countries are not ashamed of their participation in these never-ending crimes?

Where is India’s voice? China’s? South America’s?

Why is the world silent in the face of massive, long-term, ongoing war crimes?

Why does the Russian government think it can have a partnership with a war criminal regime? Why would Russia want such a shameful and demeaning association?

Where is Russia’s counterpart to NATO?

Where is there any determination to put a halt to the West’s criminality?

Why is the world content with Washington’s path to world war?

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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.

As Congress pretends to restrain the already vast powers to wage war acceded to the executive branch we see further dereliction of duty resulting in shameful sorrows of empire and untold suffering abroad. A draft bill touted as reigning in the AUMF (authorization for use of military force) passed shortly after 9/11 in fact gives the executive branch an even greater blank check to wage war. In part, it allows the President to proclaim new enemies against whom any amount of force may be used, requiring two-thirds of Congress to reject that determination.

The Authorization for Use of Military Force of 2018 which was released (pdf) one week ago in essence “takes Congress’s constitutional power to declare war, in which the president can only act when provided congressional authorization, and inverts it, by giving the president the ability to act unless a supermajority of Congress stops them.)

The proposed bill is bipartisan, sponsored by 3 Democrats and 3 Republicans, showing that the dereliction of constitutional duty is systemic to Congress. The military and executive thus essentially oversee themselves, an obviously perilous dynamic. In 1961, President Eisenhower warned of the growing and unwarranted influence of the military industrial complex. Today, American people should see death on their doorstep, given the global slaughter wrought in their name.

Endless war is the destruction of civil society. Yet, like the 2001 & 2002 AUMF’s, the 2018 proposed bill has no time limit. Thus, America’s longest wars continue and new wars are waged at the behest of war profiteers with apparent ease. Presidents fight wars if they are permitted. In 2016 the Congressional Research Service found that Bush and Obama used AUMF to justify the use of military force 37 times in 14 countries (pdf). The decision to go to war is the most consequential decision a government can make. Today, that decision is made in the shadows, with little public scrutiny or debate.

Martin Luther King wrote 50 years ago (in 1968),

“We must put an end to war or war will put an end to mankind.”

War today is illegitimate and unjustifiable whether applying the principles of Just War Doctrine or moral philosophy (Kantian, Rawlsian, or utilitarian). The architects of the so-called global war on terror have sought to redefine war and the legal basis for fighting war. It is an obvious sham. We must do everything possible to resist this sordid agenda.

Christopher Anders of the ACLU predicts that the AUMF of 2018 will “amp up war everywhere.” The war machine fueled by myopic greed and profit is built upon a fear factory of lies. We must ask ourselves: would we be so readily placated if there was a draft/military conscription? What does this reveal? What are we doing to stop senseless wars fought in our name? If we do nothing do we have blood on our hands? What should we be doing? What will we do?

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William A. Cohn is a member of the California Bar and the author of “How Free is Free Speech?” He lectures on law, ethics and critical thinking at the University of New York in Prague and is a visiting professor of jurisprudence at New York University.

Featured image is from Dandelion Salad/flickr/cc.

Featured image: Brits enjoying Africa

“This disorder is characterized by cruel, aggressive, manipulative, and demeaning behavior directed towards others.” Psycho-Net. UK

Western culture is clearly obsessed with rules, guilt, submissiveness and punishment.

By now it is clear that the West is the least free society on Earth. In North America and Europe, almost everyone is under constant scrutiny: people are spied on, observed, their personal information is being continually extracted, and the surveillance cameras are used indiscriminately.

Life is synchronized and managed. There are hardly any surprises.

One can sleep with whomever he or she wishes (as long as it is done within the ‘allowed protocol’). Homosexuality and bisexuality are allowed. But that is about all; that is how far ‘freedom’ usually stretches.

Rebellion is not only discouraged, it is fought against, brutally. For the tiniest misdemeanors or errors, people end up behind bars. As a result, the U.S. has more prisoners per capita than any other country on Earth, except the Seychelles.

And as a further result, almost all conversations, but especially public discourses, are now being controlled by so-called ‘political correctness’ and its variants.

But back to the culture of fear and punishment.

Look at the headlines of the Western newspapers. For example, The New York Times from April 12. 2018: “Punishment of Syria may be harsher this time”.

We are so used to such perverse language used by the Empire that it hardly strikes us as twisted, bizarre, pathological.

It stinks of some sadomasochistic cartoon, or of a stereotypical image of an atrocious English teacher holding a ruler over a pupil’s extended hands, shouting, “Shall I?”

Carl Gustav Jung described Western culture, on several occasions, as a “pathology”. He did it particularly after WWII, but he mentioned that the West had been committing terrible crimes in all parts of the world, for centuries. That is most likely why the Western mainstream psychiatrists and psychologists have been glorifying the ego-centric and generally apolitical Sigmund Freud, while ignoring, even defaming, Carl Gustav Jung.

The extreme form of sadism is a medical condition; it is an illness. And the West has been clearly demonstrating disturbing and dangerous behavioral patterns for many centuries.

Let’s look at the definition of sadism, or professionally, Sadistic Personality Disorder (SPD), which both the United States and Europe could easily be diagnosed with.

This is an excerpt of a common definition of the SPD, which appears in Medigoo.com and on many other on-line sites:

“…The sadistic personality disorder is characterized by a pattern of gratuitous cruelty, aggression, and demeaning behaviors which indicate the existence of deep-seated contempt for other people and an utter lack of empathy. Some sadists are “utilitarian”: they leverage their explosive violence to establish a position of unchallenged dominance within a relationship…” 

It is familiar, isn’t it? The Empire’s behavior towards Indochina, China, Indonesia, Africa, Latin America, Russia, the Middle East and other parts of the world.

What about the symptoms?

“…Sadistic individuals have poor behavioral controls, manifested by a short temper, irritability, low frustration tolerance, and a controlling nature. From an interpersonal standpoint, they are noted to be harsh, hostile, manipulative, lacking in empathy, cold-hearted, and abrasive to those they deem to be their inferiors. Their cognitive nature is considered rigid and prone to social intolerance, and they are fascinated by weapons, war, and infamous crimes or perpetrators of atrocities. Sadists classically are believed to seek social positions that enable them to exercise their need to control others and dole out harsh punishment or humiliation…” 

Just translate “sadistic individuals” to “sadistic states”, or “sadistic culture”.

Is there any cure? Can a sadist be effectively and successfully treated?

“Treating a sadistic personality disorder takes a long time…”

And many sites and publications carry a clear disclaimer:

“The above information is for processing purpose. The information provided herein should not be used during any medical emergency…”

And humanity is right now clearly at the crossroads, facing annihilation, not only a ‘medical emergency’. The world may soon have to literally fight for its survival. It is because of the SPD of the West and its Empire.

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So, what is in store for us now; for instance, for Syria?

What will the sadistic psychopath do to a country that refused to kneel, to prostitute itself, to beg for mercy, to sacrifice its people?

How horrible will the “punishment” be?

We have just witnessed 103 missiles being fired towards Damascus and Homs. But that is only what the Empire did to entertain its masses. It has been doing much more evil and cruel things to the nation which constantly refuses to glorify the Western imperialist and its neocon dogmas. For instance, the Empire’s ‘professionals’ have been manufacturing, training and arming the most atrocious terrorist groups and injecting them into the body of Syria.

The torture will, of course, continue. It clearly appears that this time the script will be based on some latter adaptation of the Marquise de Sade’s work, on his novel Juliette, not Justine. You see, in Justine, women were ‘only’ tied up, slapped and raped. In Juliette, they were cut to pieces, alive; they were burned and mutilated.

While Justine can still be read, no normal human being could go through the 700 pages of pure gore that is Juliette.

But our planet has somehow got used to the horrors that have been administered by the sick Western Empire.

People watch occurrences in places like Afghanistan, Syria, Iraq or Libya as ‘news’, not as the medical record of a severely ill psychiatric patient.

The most terrible ‘novel’ in the history of our Planet has been written, for centuries, by the appalling brutality and sadism of first Europe and then by its younger co-author – the United States.

Poster of human zoo at Military Museum in Paris

And the human beings in many parts of our Planet have gotten so used to the carnage which surrounds them that they do not throw up anymore; they do not feel horrified, do not revolt against their fate. They just watch, as one country after another falls; is violated publicly, gets ravaged.

The mental illness of the perpetrator is undeniable. And it is contagious.

In turn, the extreme violence that has been engulfing the world has triggered various neuroses and mental conditions (masochism, extreme forms of submission, to name just two of many) among the victims.

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Exposure to the constant and extreme violence ‘prescribed’ and administered by the West, has left most of the world in a neurotic lethargy.

Like a woman locked in a marriage with a brutal religious fanatic husband in some oppressive society, the world has eventually stopped resisting against the Western dictates and tyranny, and ‘accepted its fate’.

Many parts of the planet have developed ‘Stockholm Syndrome’: after being kidnapped, imprisoned, tormented, raped and humiliated, the victims have ‘fallen in love’ with their tyrant, adopting his worldview, while serving him full-heartedly and obediently.

This arrangement, of course, has nothing to do with the healthy or natural state of things!

In Africa, Latin America, the Middle East and Asia, bizarre things are happening! People from those nations that have been robbed and devastated for centuries by the European and North American despots, have been flying happily and proudly to Paris, Berlin, London, Madrid, New York and other Western cities, in order to ‘learn’, to ‘study’ how to govern their own countries. There is usually no shame, and no stigma attached to such obvious intellectual prostitution.

Many victims are still dreaming about becoming like their victimizers, or even more so.

Many former and modern-day colonies of the West are listening, with straight faces, to the Europeans preaching to them (for a fee) about ‘good governance’, an ‘anti-corruption drive’ and’democracy’.

The media outlets of non-Western nations are taking news reports directly from Western press agencies. Even local political events are explained by those ‘wise’ and ‘superior’ Europeans and North Americans, not by the local thinkers. Locals are hardly ever trusted – only white faces with polished English, French or German accents are taken seriously.

Torturing Vietnamese patriots by French colonialists

Perverse? Is it perverse? Of course, it is! Many servile intellectuals from the ‘client’ states, when confronted, admit how sick the continuous global dictatorship is. Then they leave the table and continue to do what they have been doing for years and decades; the oldest profession in short.

Such a situation is truly insane. Or at least it is extremely paradoxical, bizarre, absurd. Even a mental clinic appears to make more sense than our beloved planet Earth.

However, clinical psychiatrists and psychologists are very rarely involved in analyzing the neuroses and psychological illnesses of the brutalized and colonized planet. They hardly ever ‘analyze’ the perpetrators, let alone expose them for what they really are.

Most of psychologists and psychiatrists are busy digging gold: encouraging human egotism, or even serving big corporations that are trying to ‘understand their employees better’, in order to control and to exploit them more effectively. Other ‘doctors’ go so far as to directly serve the Empire, helping to oppress and to ‘pacify’ the billions living in the colonies and new colonies of the West.

In 2015, I was invited as one of the speakers to the 14th International Symposium on the Contributions of Psychology to Peace, held in Johannesburg and Pretoria, South Africa (hosted by legendary UNISA).

During that fascinating encounter of the leading global psychologists, I spoke about the impact of wars and imperialism on the human psyche, but I also listened, attentively. And I learned many shocking things. For instance, during his chilling presentation, “Human Rights and U. S. Psychologists’Wrongs: The Undermining of Professional Ethics in an Era of ‘Enhanced Interrogation’”, Professor Michael Wessells from Columbia University, New York, spoke about U.S. psychologists and their participation in torturing political prisoners.

Instead of diagnosing the Empire with SPD and other violent and dangerous conditions, many psychologists are actually helping to torture those who are opposing this unacceptable arrangement of the world.

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Those who refuse to ‘learn from the West’, to fall in love with it, or at least to serve it faithfully, are being brutally punished.

Lashes are hitting exposed flesh. Entire nations are being destroyed, genocides distributed to all continents. East Timor, Afghanistan, Iraq: it never stops.

Flogging a Punjabi man by British colonialist

I follow the discourses of the US and especially British UN delegations, ‘discussing’ Syria and even Russia. What comes to my mind is Punjab in India. I recall those old, historic photos of Indian men being hanged by the Brits, pants down, and flogged in public.

They have been doing this kind of stuff, for centuries. They like it. It clearly excites them. This is their democracy, their respect for human rights and for other cultures!

If someone refuses to take his or her pants down, they catch the person, rape him or her, then do the flogging anyway.

I also recall what my Ugandan friend used to tell me:

“When the Brits came to Africa, to what is now Uganda, their army would enter our villages and first thing they’d do was to select the tallest and strongest man around. They’d then tie him up, face towards the tree. Then the British commander would rape, sodomize him in front of everybody. This was how they showed the locals who is charge.”

How symbolic!

How healthy is the culture that has been controlling our world for centuries!

One of the most frightening things about mental illnesses is that the patient usually does not realize that he or she is suffering from them.

It is about the time for the rest of the world to treat the West as a mental patient, not as the ‘leader of the free and democratic world’.

We have to think, to gather, to develop a strategy of how to deal with this unfortunate, in fact, terrible situation!

If we refuse to understand and to act, we may all end up in the most dangerous situation: as complacent servants of the perverse whims of a frustrated, extremely aggressive and truly dangerous SPD patient.

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Andre Vltchek is a philosopher, novelist, filmmaker and investigative journalist. He has covered wars and conflicts in dozens of countries. Three of his latest books are his tribute to “The Great October Socialist Revolution” a revolutionary novel “Aurora” and a bestselling work of political non-fiction: “Exposing Lies Of The Empire”. View his other books here. Watch Rwanda Gambit, his groundbreaking documentary about Rwanda and DRCongo and his film/dialogue with Noam Chomsky “On Western Terrorism”. Vltchek presently resides in East Asia and the Middle East, and continues to work around the world. He can be reached through his website and his Twitter. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

All images in this article are from the author.

The English-born Thomas Cole (1801-1848) is arguably America’s first great landscape painter – the founder of the Hudson River School, the painter who brought a romantic sensibility to the American landscape, and sought to preserve the rapidly disappearing scenery with panoramas that invoke the divinity in nature. The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s “Thomas Cole: Atlantic Crossings” is an astounding exhibition featuring a painter of extraordinary power and vision, underscoring his environmentalism and the deep sense of loss that pervades many works as he reflects on deforestation, the intrusion of the railroad, and the vanishing beauty of the untrammeled wilderness.

Like J. M. W. Turner, whose originality he much admired, Cole is able to capture the grandeur of majestic vistas while never losing loving sight of the delicate details that summon our emotional engagement with the scene. In his View on the Catskill (1836-37), poetic touches come together to create a charmed and rustic idyll: horses, brown and white, race through a green meadow, a mother and child collect wildflowers beside a winding creek, a hunter returns home to his family – the varied ingredients of an irretrievable Arcadia.

View on the Catskill (1836-37) (Source: Metropolitan Museum of Art)

The Oxbow (1836) is one of Cole’s seminal masterpieces. A panorama of the Connecticut River Valley following a thunderstorm, The Oxbow is a landscape of stark contrasts structured along a diagonal that separates the wild, wooded and windswept hillside of the foreground, from the tranquil, light-filled and cultivated valley that we see in the distance, where virtually every inch of the landscape has been altered by human hands. The artist includes himself in the foreground, presumably sketching the very scene that we are viewing: a confrontation – in fact, for Cole, an irreconcilable conflict – between the world of untamed wilderness on the one hand and the humanly-imposed world of peace, order and homogeneity, on the other. By placing himself within the former, the artist is undoubtedly asserting where his own sympathies lie. He looks back at us, as if to say “Come to the woods” – or as a John Muir would put it: “In God’s wildness lies the hope of the world.”

The Course of Empire (1836) is an epic five-part series in which Cole allows us to witness the rise and fall of human civilization. Cole brilliantly includes the same distinct mountain peak in each scene, so that we are in effect looking at a landscape as it is transformed over millennia by human ingenuity and progress – only to be undone from within by excessive wealth, luxury and greed.

While the Roman Empire undoubtedly served as Cole’s model, his tale is clearly meant to be a universal one. The human saga commences with The Savage State, the primitive society of hunter-gatherers, in which Cole has included canoes and teepees. In Arcadia or Pastoral State, we see the beginnings of art, music, architecture, religion, science and soldiery: it seems that, for Cole, this was mankind’s happiest time.

Cole was undoubtedly thinking of America as much as he was of Ancient Rome, and the emperor that he includes in the central canvas could very well have been Andrew Jackson – the seventh president of the United States whose expansionary policies Cole consistently railed against. Of course, Jackson was also the president who decimated the Native Americans with the Indian Removal Act of 1830, sending thousands West on the Trail of Tears.

Like John Constable, Cole had a keen eye for clouds – their movement, density and form; as well as their expressive potential: the way they not only serve the story, but can tell one in their own right. Cole adopted Constable’s use of the plein air oil sketch to study cloud formations and other meteorological phenomena, including the atmospheric effects of light and weather. Included in the show is Constable’s Hadleigh Castle (1829), a large and somber canvas depicting the battered ruins of a once mighty fortification as it stands atop a ragged bluff. The painting with its unreserved mood of loss had an immense impact on Cole, the effect of which can be seen in Desolation, the fifth and final part in The Course of Empire.

Constable’s Hadleigh Castle (1829) (Source: Wikimedia Commons)

Cole’s large-scale works reveal a philosophy of nature in which the natural world is essentially a manifestation of God and not simply an agglomeration of resources to be utilized and exploited by man – a conception of the living world which has only grown more urgent given the current dismissal of environmental regulations which protect America’s wilderness treasures.

Thomas Cole’s paintings testify not only to the intoxicating beauty of the unspoiled scenery, but also to the inwardness and interiority of the natural world. In our current reductionistic climate – where nature is viewed as a series of things and processes existing partes extra partes – Cole’s holism represents an important corrective. Cole refuses to see nature as a mere agglomeration of things and processes existing merely in external relation to one another.

This exhibition boldly reinterprets Cole as a proto-environmentalist – championing nature in its fresh wild state, decrying the erasure of unblighted wilderness, and ultimately the destruction of the landscape as a redemptive source of healing and renewal. Empires will rise and fall, Cole reminds us; but look at the world as on the first morning of creation – Cole will explicitly offer us such a vision in his Garden of Eden (1828) – and you will discover, “a calm religious tone steal through [the] mind, and when [one] has turned to mingle with his fellow men, the chords which have been struck in the sweet communion cease not to vibrate.”

Cole’s defense of the regenerative power of the landscape is grounded in his panentheism – which emphasizes not only God’s transcendence, but also the perception of the immanent divine in all things. His paintings speak to us in a voice that cannot be ignored – we see in them an elevated beauty of the natural world: a reflection of divine transcendence that makes an undeniable claim upon us all.

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Sam Ben-Meir is a professor of philosophy and world religions at Mercy College in New York City.

Featured image is from Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Relevant to unfolding events, this carefully documented article by Timothy Alexander Guzman was first published by GR in February 2018

What is happening in Syria is a reminder of what happened in Nicaragua during the U.S. supported Contra war against the Sandinistas in the 1980′s. It was an important part of the Iran-Contra Affair, one of the most controversial scandals in modern history involving the Washington-CIA matrix worldwide.

From time to time, the mainstream media (MSM) likes to reflect on the historical legacies of U.S. interventions in the name of American-style democracy. On May 7th, 2016, The New York Times published a story by Frances Robles on a former Contra fighter who wished for U.S. aid to fight a covert war against Daniel Ortega and the Nicaraguan government titled ‘Ortega vs. the Contras: Nicaragua Endures an ’80s Revival’ which paints a different picture in regards to what actually happened during the civil war in Nicaragua. The article is about a rebel fighter by the name of Tyson who lives in the mountains of Nicaragua who was “longing for the days when covert American funding paid for overt warfare.”

What Robles should have written was that Tyson was “longing for the days when covert American funding paid for terrorist activities that killed scores of men, women and children throughout the civil war in Nicaragua.” That would have been a more honest written article, but we are talking about The New York Times here. Robles went on to say:

Tyson and his men are contras — yes, like the ones from the 1980s who received stealth funding during the Reagan administration to topple Mr. Ortega’s leftist Sandinista government.

That war ended more than 25 years ago, when Mr. Ortega lost at the polls. But since being re-elected in 2006, Mr. Ortega has come to rule over this Central American nation in sweeping fashion. He has developed the economy and minted new millionaires, but also outraged an array of opponents who condemn his tight control over elections, Congress, the police, the military and the courts

The article also claims that the former Contras are complaining that “they are broke” without “international aid” which sounds like a plea for help to fight the Ortega government:

The contras of today, often nicknamed “the rearmed,” are a shadow of what they once were. They complain they are broke and say the reason they are not more successful is that they do not have international aid, as they did during the Reagan administration.

Still, skirmishes in rural areas around the country as recently as last week have left police officers, civilians and soldiers dead, a violent expression of the broader anger brewing against the government

Though Mr. Ortega enjoys strong support among the poor, he was widely criticized for constitutional changes that repealed term limits, allowing him to run this year for a third consecutive term. Students, opposition politicians and other protesters flock to the elections board every Wednesday to rally against his consolidation of power

Washington is still not particularly comfortable with the current President of Nicaragua, Daniel Ortega who was an enemy of the U.S. during the Nicaragua’s civil war that claimed more than 40,000 lives between 1978 and 1989 and wounded and displaced hundreds of thousands more. Now with the Trump Administration in the White House, Nicaragua’s relationship with the U.S. remains to be seen especially after they voted against Trump and Netanyahu’s plan to move the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem.

The history of the U.S. government intervening in Nicaragua since 1912 followed by a CIA-orchestrated covert war that began after the Nicaraguan Revolution of 1979 involved acts of terrorism and a Washington-sponsored propaganda campaign against the Sandinistas who overthrew the Somoza government is rarely mentioned in the MSM. Since the mid-1970′s, the U.S. government has funded terrorist operations in Latin America right before they set their sights on the Middle East. Before Al-Qaeda (Interestingly, it was the Carter Administration in 1979 with his National Security Advisor, the late Zbigniew Brzezinski who created the Mujahedeen to fight the Soviets before they became Al-Qaeda), ISIS (the Islamic State), Jebbah al-Nusra, and other terrorist groups operating in the Middle East today, Latin America was already witnessing U.S. sponsored terrorism. Washington’s support of terrorists is not new strategy since the terrorists are “useful tools” against governments in Latin America, Asia and the Middle East who were or still are “non-compliant” to Washington’s geopolitical interests.

The CIA sponsored numerous terrorists from Latin America including the Cuban right-wing exiles, Orlando Bosch and Luis Posada Carriles (a former CIA agent who was convicted of being involved in numerous terrorist attacks while still employed by the agency) who carried out the 1976 bombing of a Cuban plane over Venezuelan territory. There were also other Cuban right-wing exiles such as Jose Dionisio Suarez and Virgilio Paz Romero who assassinated Chilean diplomat Orlando Letelier with a car bomb in Washington D.C. on September 21st, 1976. The assassination was coordinated with Augusto Pinochet’s regime and its secret police DINA (The Dirección de Inteligencia Nacional) in collaboration with members of the Coordination of United Revolutionary Organizations, a U.S.-sponsored, anti-Fidel Castro terrorist group. Not surprising, most of the Cuban terrorists were released under the George H. W. Bush administration. Latin America is America’s backyard so keeping the continent under control by Washington and the Military-Industrial Complex by all means necessary is a standard practice to protect their political and economic interests.

The Somoza Dynasty: A U.S. Backed Dictatorship

Anastasio Somoza Garcia and FDR

On January 1st, 1937, Anastasio Somoza Garcia became the 21st President of Nicaragua until May 1947 then again from May 1950 until September 1956. Somoza Garcia was put into power originally by the U.S. Marines who invaded Nicaragua back in 1912, and from 1927 until 1933 they fought against Augusto Cesar Sandino and his rebel fighters in a guerilla war for almost five years. With U.S. backing, Somoza Garcia led the war against Sandino who was determined to end the U.S. occupation of Nicaragua. Sandino agreed to sign a truce under false pretenses with Somoza Garcia which led to his assassination ending the revolution for the time being. Anastasio Somoza Garcia ruled Nicaragua as a dictator until his assassination in 1956 by poet Rigoberto López Pérez. Then came his son, Luis Somoza Debayle who became acting president after his father’s assassination and later on that year, was elected as Nicaragua’s next president.

Although Luis Somoza’s rule was not as bad as his father’s but the restrictions on civil liberties remained and corruption was still widespread. Luis’s brother, Anastasio Somoza Debayle, the future president was head of the National Guard at the time and was considered the second most powerful man in the Nicaraguan government during his brother’s presidency. Luis Somoza remained in power until May 1963 since he refused to run for reelection. However, most politicians in Nicaragua were loyal to the Somoza dynasty allowing René Schick Gutierrez who was considered a puppet politician of Luis Somoza to become President from May 1963 to August 1966. Luis Somoza died from a heart attack in 1967.

Then on May 1967 Anastasio Somoza Debayles following in his family’s footsteps becomes President of Nicaragua until May 1972, then again from December 1974 until July 1979. Somoza Debayles was naturally a multimillionaire and a U.S. puppet who inherited a fortune from his family plundering Nicaragua. As part owner along with his father of Plasmaferesis, Somoza Debayles continued his family’s legacy by literally buying blood for cheap from the Nicaraguans who were mostly poor, homeless and hungry and some were even alcoholics, then selling the blood for a high price as Telesur reported in 2016:

The Nicaraguan newspaper La Prensa, the most prominent opposition voice that criticized the Somoza dictatorship, broke the scandal in 1977 in a series dubbed the “Vampire Chronicles.” According to the Nicaraguan newspaper El Diario Nuevo, founded in 1980 by a breakaway group of La Prensa staffers, the Plasmaferesis exposé was among the dictatorship-era coverage that most repulsed the society and “devastatingly impacted Somoza.”

“It was a dark business,” former La Prensa journalist Roberto Sanchez Ramirez told El Diario Nuevo in 2008. “Every morning the homeless, drunks, and poor people went to sell half a liter of blood for 35 (Nicaraguan) cordobas”

It was estimated that Somoza made around $12 million a year buying and then selling the blood of his people for a 300% mark-up price. In 1983, a report by The Glasgow Herald ‘Inside the City that is Watched by American Might’ said that “Another is that the blood plasma which arrived at Managua airport for the relief of earthquake victims were promptly re-exported by a Somoza company to the United States.”

On December 23rd, 1972, a devastating earthquake took place destroying the nation’s capital, Managua, killing more than 10,000 people with hundreds of thousands more wounded. Somoza declared Martial Law and gained control of the National Emergency Committee allowing him to embezzle relief funds sent from around the world to help the earthquakes victims and rebuild the capital.

Near the end of Somoza’s rule, he ordered the bombing of Managua in an attempt to stay in power but was still overthrown in 1979 by the Sandinistas. Noam Chomsky, a Professor Emeritus at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)  wrote an analysis on what happened in Nicaragua under the Carter Administration and the MSM in a chapter titled ‘Teaching Nicaragua a Lesson’ in his 1992 book ‘What Uncle Sam Really Wants’ and said the following:

In the ten years prior to the overthrow of the Nicaraguan dictator Anastasio Somoza in 1979, US television-all networks-devoted exactly one hour to Nicaragua, and that was entirely on the Managua earthquake of 1972. From 1960 through 1978, the New York Times had three editorials on Nicaragua. It’s not that nothing was happening there-it’s just that whatever was happening was unremarkable. Nicaragua was of no concern at all, as long as Somoza’s tyrannical rule wasn’t challenged.

When his rule was challenged, by the Sandinistas in the late 1970s, the US first tried to institute what was called “Somocismo [Somoza-ism] without Somoza”-that is, the whole corrupt system intact, but with somebody else at the top. That didn’t work, so President Carter tried to maintain Somoza’s National Guard as a base for US power.

The National Guard had always been remark ably brutal and sadistic. By June 1979, it was carrying out massive atrocities in the war against the Sandinistas, bombing residential neighborhoods in Managua, killing tens of thousands of people. At that point, the US ambassador sent a cable to the White House saying it would be “ill advised” to tell the Guard to call off the bombing, because that might interfere with the policy of keeping them in power and the Sandinistas out.

Our ambassador to the Organization of American States also spoke in favor of “Somocismo without Somoza,” but the OAS rejected the suggestion flat out. A few days later, Somoza flew off to Miami with what was left of the Nicaraguan national treasury, and the Guard collapsed.

The Carter administration flew Guard commanders out of the country in planes with Red Cross markings (a war crime), and began to reconstitute the Guard on Nicaragua’s borders. They also used Argentina as a proxy. (At that time, Argentina was under the rule of neo-Nazi generals, but they took a little time off from torturing and murdering their own population to help reestablish the Guard-soon to be re named the contras, or “freedom fighters.”)

As time passed on during the revolution, the Carter Administration decided to end its support to the Somoza government who was internationally known for its human rights abuses, but at the same time, Carter did not want the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) in power. In an important note, the Carter Administration also put pressure on Israel to stop arming Somoza and his National Guard since Israel supported Somoza Debayles because his father, Anastasio Somoza Garcia supported Israel financially during The Arab-Israeli War of 1948.

So by 1979, Carter wanted to work with moderate elements within Nicaragua such as the Broad Opposition Front or La Frente Amplio Opositor (FAO) whose members included dissidents from the Somoza government, the Democratic Union of Liberation (UDEL) and the “Twelve” who represented the Terceristas. However, Carter and the FAO planned to remove Somoza from office without the FSLN, but the Nicaraguan people did not want “Somocismo sin Somoza” (Somocism without Somoza), so protests flooded the streets in opposition to the idea. ‘The Twelve’ left the coalition and formed the ‘National Patriotic Front’ (Frente Patriotico Nacional – FPN) and joined forces with the ‘United People’s Movement’(MPU).

Tens of thousands of people, many of them young adults joined the fight with FSLN against the U.S. backed Somoza government which led to an the armed struggle reuniting the FSLN on March 7, 1979. The Sandinistas were in power from 1979 to 1990 first under The National Directorate that lead to the reunification of the FSLN with several known members of the revolution including Daniel Ortega (current President of Nicaragua), Tomás Borge, Bayardo Luis Carrión, Arce Castaño, Humberto Ortega, Henry Ruiz (GPP faction), Jaime Wheelock, Víctor Tirado (Terceristas) and Carlos Núñez.

In William Blum’s ‘Killing Hope: U.S. Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II’ explains the Carter Administration’s involvement in Nicaragua’s politics with his authorization of the CIA in an attempt to create a political movement that will protect U.S. interests and maintain its influence:

When Anastasio Somoza II was overthrown by the Sandinistas in July 1979, he fled into exile leaving behind a country in which two-thirds of the population earned less than $300 a year. Upon his arrival in Miami, Somoza admitted to being worth $100 million. A US intelligence report, however, placed it at $900 million. It was fortunate for the new Nicaraguan leaders that they came to power while Jimmy Carter sat in the White House. It gave them a year and a half of relative breathing space to take the first steps in their planned reconstruction of an impoverished society before the relentless hostility of the Reagan administration descended upon them; which is not to say that Carter welcomed the Sandinista victory

Blum continued “In 1978, with Somoza hearing collapse, Carter authorized covert CIA support for the press and labor unions in Nicaragua in an attempt to create a “moderate” alternative to the Sandinistas.” In other words, the CIA was authorized to manipulate the press with U.S. approved propaganda and lead the labor unions to an alternative political party that can defeat the Sandinistas:

Towards the same end, American diplomats were conferring with non-leftist Nicaraguan opponents of Somoza. Washington’s idea of “moderate™, according to a group of prominent Nicaraguans who walked out on the discussions, was the inclusion of Somoza’s political party In the future government and “leaving practically intact the corrupt structure of the somocista apparatus”, including the National Guard, albeit in some reorganized form. 

Indeed, at this same time, the head of the US Southern Command (Latin America), Lt. General Dennis McAuliffe, was telling Somoza that, although he had to abdicate, the United States had “no intention of permitting a settlement which would lead to the destruction of the National Guard”. This was a notion remarkably insensitive to the deep loathing for the Guard felt by the great majority of the Nicaraguan people

The Nicaraguan Revolution replaced the long-hated Samoza Dynasty under Carter and then continued under the Reagan Administration who planned on destroying the Sandinistas. The Sandinistas were popular among the Nicaraguan people because of their dedication to land and anti-poverty reforms, education and most important for its anti-Somoza stance. General support among the Nicaraguans for the Sandinistas grew after the 1972 earthquake. So why was the U.S.  concerned about the Sandinista government? Was it that the Sandinista model of democracy for the people of Nicaragua was seen as a positive development around the world? Well at least according to Chomsky’s 1992 book I just mentioned, yes, in fact it “terrified US planners”:

Why did the US go to such lengths in Nicaragua? The international development organization Oxfam explained the real reasons, stating that, from its experience of working in 76 developing countries, “Nicaragua was…exceptional in the strength of that government’s commitment…to improving the condition of the people and encouraging their active participation in the development process.” Of the four Central American countries where Oxfam had a significant presence (El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua), only in Nicaragua was there a substantial effort to address inequities in land ownership and to extend health, educational and agricultural services to poor peasant families. 

Other agencies told a similar story. In the early 1980s, the World Bank called its projects “extraordinarily successful in Nicaragua in some sectors, better than anywhere else in the world.” In 1983, The Inter-American Development Bank concluded that “Nicaragua has made noteworthy progress in the social sector, which is laying the basis for long-term socio-economic development.” 

The success of the Sandinista reforms terrified US planners. They were aware that-as Jose Figueres, the father of Costa Rican democracy, put it-”for the first time, Nicaragua has a government that cares for its people.” (Although Figueres was the leading democratic figure in Central America for forty years, his unacceptable insights into the real world were completely censored from the US media.) The hatred that was elicited by the Sandinistas for trying to direct resources to the poor (and even succeeding at it) was truly wondrous to behold. Just about all US policymakers shared it, and it reached virtual frenzy

One of the main reforms instituted by the Sandinistas was in education which was definitely a step in the right direction especially since Somoza Debayles declared “I don’t want an educated population. I want Oxen.” That quote is as Orwellian as one can get. The philosophy of the new Sandinista educational reform was to “free” Nicaragua’s population from the historical lies perpetrated by the Somoza’s education system or what can be called “indoctrination.” The idea was to “awaken” the political thoughts of the people to build a resistant society against any military or economic intervention imposed by a foreign power on the Nicaraguan home front.

The ideology of the Sandinistas follows the economic and political philosophies of the Nicaraguan Sandinista National Liberation Front which was led by Augusto César Sandino before his assassination. However, modern Sandinista ideology was mainly developed by Carlos Fonseca (inspired by the Cuban Revolution of 1959) who wanted a socialist populism among Nicaragua’s peasant population. In an interesting article published by Global Research on June 27, 2013 titled ‘CIA Covert Ops in Central America: Nicaragua and the Road to Contra-Gate’ by Greg Guma of Maverick Media which was based on his confrontation with U.S. Ambassador Anthony Quainton in Managua. Here is what Mr. Guma wrote:

Back in Managua we soon found an opportunity to confront US Ambassador Anthony Quainton. At an Embassy event, we asked for the justification of the covert US role in a Honduran-Nicaraguan war? “We are trying to get back to the original goals of the revolution” he said. The reply sounded arrogant. Asked about the pointless violence he tried to explain that “the killing of women and children is not the policy of our government,” then attempted to define the situation as “Nicaraguans fighting Nicaraguans.” Witness for Peace members became enraged as he defended the Contras, claiming that they wanted to “return to democratic political institutions” 

Guma continued:

In a private conversation later, Quainton did acknowledge that Reagan’s characterization of the Sandinistas as “totalitarian” wasn’t constructive. He also agreed that US actions such as aid cut-offs and import sanctions were pushing Nicaragua toward the Soviets, a situation policy-makers claimed they were trying to prevent. “But the problem of regional destabilization is at the head of the agenda,” he said, “and that determines policies and makes other things less important.” In other words, it made little difference that Nicaragua had a mixed economy, open elections at the local level, or a Council of State with representatives from various parties and social groups. The country’s social and economic progress, agrarian reform and literacy crusade were simply cancelled out. Why? Perhaps because the existence of a “New Nicaragua” served as a good example that raised aspirations throughout the region. Now, that was “destabilizing” to US interests 

In 1985, Daniel Ortega became President of Nicaragua until 1990 when he lost the election to Violeta Barrios de Chamorro, who won the presidency with help from the U.S. government interfering in the election process with of course, assistance from the CIA. The left-wing think tank located in the belly of the beast, Washington, DC called ‘The Council of Hemispheric Affairs (COHA) published an article in 2009 based on Ortega titled ‘Nicaragua Under Daniel Ortega’s Second Presidency: Daniel-Style Politics as Usual?’ admitted that the Sandinistas did have “significant” and some “genuine” reforms for the people, but it was not a perfect administration which at some point was marked by corruption, alleged human rights violations and other scandals:

Once the dominant member of the 5-person “Junta of National Reconstruction’ that ruled Nicaragua following the overthrow of President Anastasio Somoza in 1979, Ortega served as the country’s president from January 1985 to April 1990. Ortega and his administration attempted to institute a number of significant Marxist-inspired reforms while combating both dissent and the opposition of US-backed, right-wing Contras. Although the Ortega administration achieved some genuine social transformations during his term in office, including a higher literacy rate and, to a degree, the inclusion of women within the governing process, it was also marked by corruption and controversy, including human rights violations and numerous scandals. Ortega lost the 1990 presidential election to Violeta Barrios de Chamorro, with some help from the CIA

With today’s MSM headlines about the unproven claims about Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential elections, the U.S. government actually interfered in Nicaragua’s 1990 elections. The New York Times admitted in a 1997 article ‘Political Meddling by Outsiders: Not New for U.S.’ that that The National Endowment for Democracy(NED) which is basically a CIA institution was used “For the Nicaraguan election of 1990, it provided more than $3 million in ”technical” assistance, some of which was used to bolster Violeta Barrios de Chamorro, the presidential candidate favored by the United States.”

Reagan Backs CIA War on Nicaragua

The presidency of Jimmy Carter lasted one-term due to his economic and foreign policy failures which did pave the way for Ronald W. Reagan to easily defeat Carter in a landslide allowing the former Hollywood B-actor to become the 40th U.S. President. The Reagan Administration preferred what they called an “anti-communist” plan for Latin America and destroying the Sandinistas was part of that plan as his administration lobbied congress for more than $100 million in foreign aid for Nicaragua’s private sector that included funds for Non-government organizations (NGO). When Reagan was a Presidential candidate he criticized the Carter administration’s Central America policies. Once in office, the Reagan administration put pressure on international aid agencies to cut aid and told international banks to stop lending to Nicaragua. In 1982, they also reduced Nicaragua’s sugar imports to the U.S. by more than 90%. By then, the Reagan Administration had initiated a large-scale war against Nicaragua with basically, economic sanctions. Since the Somoza government had a personal army called the National Guard, the Reagan administration found a way to form a Counter-revolution or Contrarrevolución against the Sandinistas by creating the Contras with the former National Guardsmen.

The Contras was originally created in 1981 to initially to remove the Sandinistas from power. The Reagan Administration authorized the CIA to arm and train the Contras. Between 1980 and 1981 the Contras began to organize along the border with Honduras and initiated a guerilla war against the Sandinista government that led to bloodshed throughout most of the 1980s. The Contras became a de-facto U.S. backed terrorist organization mainly based in Nicaragua and in Honduras during the height of the war that killed tens of thousands of civilians including women and children. In 1985, The New York Times reported on how Reagan spoke highly of the Contras calling them ”our brothers” and ”freedom fighters” in a speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference where he called for Congressional approval of $14 million in aid for the rebels. Here is what Reagan said according to the report:

”And we owe them our help,” he said. ”You know the truth about them, you know who they’re fighting and why. They are the moral equal of our Founding Fathers and the brave men and women of the French Resistance. ‘We cannot turn away from them,” he said. ”For the struggle here is not right versus left, but right versus wrong”

Human Rights Violations, CIA Propaganda and the Censorship of ‘La Prensa’

In March 1981, the Sandinistas implemented a mass literacy program along with universal healthcare and promoted gender equality. However, at least according to the MSM and U.S. funded human rights organizations, the Sandinistas was seen as a human rights violators and so were the contras to a point. The Nicaraguan people including the Miskito people, an indigenous ethnic group from the Mosquito Coast region who suffered from human rights abuses which I will get into detail later. Let me begin by quoting a New York Times article from November 18th, 1987 which took a balanced approach (I know, it’s hard to digest the New York Times as being somewhat fair and balanced) against both sides of the civil war. The article ‘ Sandinistas and Contras Accused of Rights Abuses’ by Michael Freitag who was quick to point out the human rights violations of the Sandinistas:

”Ongoing and serious human rights violations” have resulted from the Nicaraguan Government’s continued use of tribunals outside the regular court system to try people accused of national security offenses, a New York-based human rights organization has charged in a report. 

The group, the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights, also criticized the Nicaraguan rebels for ”continuing gross human rights violations” that included ”political killings, disappearances and other serious mistreatment of civilian noncombatants.” The 24-page report, called ”Human Rights in Nicaragua,” was issued on Monday to update a 1985 study that the lawyers’ organization made of human rights violations in Nicaragua 

The article also mentioned a report ‘Nicaragua: Revolutionary Justice’ based on the Nicaraguan government’s actions:

In its 1985 report, entitled ”Nicaragua: Revolutionary Justice,” which focused on the activities of the Sandinista Government, the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights found that the Nicaraguan security police used threats of death and other forms of psychological coercion to obtain confessions from people who were accused of actions against the Sandinistas.

The Government appeared to continue such activities in 1987, the new report said. In the first six months of 1987, the lawyers’ group asserted, about 3,000 people suspected of aiding the contras were arrested by the Nicaraguan security forces. #3,000 Held by Sandinistas ”The Nicaraguan Government’s chief concern, and its primary objective in carrying out these arrest and detention policies, is to discourage aid and assistance to the contras, whether or not it is given voluntarily,” the report said. Of the 3,000 people detained, 1,118 were charged with aiding the contras, and their cases were referred to special tribunals

Freitag’s article also pointed out the record of the Contras human rights abuses but had to add what described as “another peril” for Nicaraguan civilians, the Sandinista justice system:

In reviewing the contras’ record on human rights, the new report found the rebels responsible for the disappearance, abduction and murder of civilians. It cited a study in July 1987 by an anti-Sandinista Nicaraguan human rights organization that ”documented contra kidnappings and robberies, the forced recruitment of civilians, including women and children under the age of 16, and the summary execution of prisoners.” ‘Indiscriminate’ Contra Violence

”Given the contras’ reputation for indiscriminate violence,” the report said, ”Nicaraguan civilians who deny the request of a contra patrol for food or shelter or a local guide know they are doing so at their own peril.”

Whether voluntarily or not, it said, ”many civilians living in the war zone have aided the contras and encountered another peril: the Sandinista justice system”

Freitag did accuse both sides of the conflict but at the same time, the Sandinistas was seen as the worst of the two factions. What should be known is that the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights (LCHR), founded in 1975 was a joint project of the Council of New York Law Associates and the International League for Human Rights which was funded by the Ford Foundation and the Rockefeller Brothers Fund which has ties to the CIA and other U.S. government agencies.

The Sandinistas were accused of human rights abuses by other CIA-linked human rights organizations such as The Puebla Institute. According to a 1987 article published by the Los Angeles Times and the Associated Press (AP) titled ‘Rights Abuses Led 300,000 to Flee Sandinista Rule, Study Says’ claimed that “Torture and other serious human rights violations by Nicaraguan authorities have led to the exodus of about 300,000 people–10% of the population–since the 1979 Sandinista revolution, according to a study released Tuesday.” The report mentioned the Puebla Institute, a Roman Catholic human rights organization who published the findings:

The report by the Puebla Institute, a lay Roman Catholic human rights organization, cited a variety of reasons for the exodus, including alleged restrictions on freedom of religion and Sandinista military attacks against civilians.

Titled “Fleeing Their Homeland,” the study was based on interviews with 100 Nicaraguans at refugee camps in Honduras and Costa Rica. None of the refugees testified to abuses by the U.S.-backed Nicaraguan contras or said they had left for that reason, according to the study

Of course the report claims that none of the refugees accused the contras of human rights abuses, but there is an explanation by a true journalist at heart, the late Robert Parry, founder and editor of Consortium News, who covered the Iran-Contra affair for the AP and Newsweek with Peter Kornbluh, a director of the National Security Archive’s Chile Documentation Project and of the Cuba Documentation Project exposed the CIA’s propaganda in an article published in 1988 by Foreign Policy magazine titled ‘Iran-Contra’s Untold Story’ and they said the following:

Through managing the contra war, however, Casey’s CIA often found itself in a position to influence congressional attitudes about the conflict. According to Chamorro, CIA officers told contra leaders to play down their goal of overthrowing the Sandinista government, stressing instead a desire for negotiations and democratic reforms. The contras were instructed how best to lobby individual members of Congress, Chamorro said in his 1987 book Packaging the Contras: A Case of CIA Disinformation. He wrote that CIA money was channeled to the Nicaraguan exile Humberto Belli to help found the Puebla Institute, which published his book Nicaragua: Christians under Fire and later printed reports denouncing the Sandinista human rights record. “Of course the CIA told us to say that the money for the book and Institute was from private individuals who wanted to remain anonymous,” Chamorro wrote. The Puebla Institute denies that it received CIA money or that it has any association with the CIA

Parry’s 2013 Consortium News article ‘Pope Francis, CIA and ‘Death Squads’ detailed how Pope Francis remained silent on the disappearances of thousands of people by Argentina’s military junta and the election of Argentine Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio and the role played by the Catholic church by supporting various dictatorships who oppressed leftists across Latin America:

The election of Argentine Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio as Pope Francis brings back into focus the troubling role of the Catholic hierarchy in blessing much of the brutal repression that swept Latin America in the 1970s and 1980s, killing and torturing tens of thousands of people including priests and nuns accused of sympathizing with leftists.

The Vatican’s fiercely defensive reaction to the reemergence of these questions as they relate to the new Pope also is reminiscent of the pattern of deceptive denials that became another hallmark of that era when propaganda was viewed as an integral part of the “anticommunist” struggles, which were often supported financially and militarily by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency.

It appears that Bergoglio, who was head of the Jesuit order in Buenos Aires during Argentina’s grim “dirty war,” mostly tended to his bureaucratic rise within the Church as Argentine security forces “disappeared” some 30,000 people for torture and murder from 1976 to 1983, including 150 Catholic priests suspected of believing in “liberation theology”

Parry also sheds light on Pope John Paul II’s policies during the reign of U.S. backed right-wing death squads across Latin America:

Pope John Paul II, another favorite of the U.S. news media, shared this classic outlook. He emphasized conservative social issues, telling the faithful to forgo contraceptives, treating women as second-class Catholics and condemning homosexuality. He promoted charity for the poor and sometimes criticized excesses of capitalism, but he disdained leftist governments that sought serious economic reforms.

Elected in 1978, as right-wing “death squads” were gaining momentum across Latin America, John Paul II offered little protection to left-leaning priests and nuns who were targeted. He rebuffed Archbishop Romero’s plea to condemn El Salvador’s right-wing regime and its human rights violations. He stood by as priests were butchered and nuns were raped and killed.

Instead of leading the charge for real economic and political change in Latin America, John Paul II denounced “liberation theology.” During a 1983 trip to Nicaragua then ruled by the leftist Sandinistas the Pope condemned what he called the “popular Church” and would not let Ernesto Cardenal, a priest and a minister in the Sandinista government, kiss the papal ring. He also elevated clerics like Bergoglio who didn’t protest right-wing repression.

John Paul II appears to have gone even further, allowing the Catholic Church in Nicaragua to be used by the CIA and Ronald Reagan’s administration to finance and organize internal disruptions while the violent Nicaraguan Contras terrorized northern Nicaraguan towns with raids notorious for rape, torture and extrajudicial executions.

The Contras were originally organized by an Argentine intelligence unit that emerged from the country’s domestic “dirty war” and was taking its “anticommunist” crusade of terror across borders. After Reagan took office in 1981, he authorized the CIA to join with Argentine intelligence in expanding the Contras and their counterrevolutionary war.

A key part of Reagan’s Contra strategy was to persuade the American people and Congress that the Sandinistas represented a repressive communist dictatorship that persecuted the Catholic Church, aimed to create a “totalitarian dungeon,” and thus deserved violent overthrow.

A special office inside the National Security Council, headed by longtime CIA disinformation specialist Walter Raymond Jr., pushed these propaganda “themes” domestically. Raymond’s campaign exploited examples of tensions between the Catholic hierarchy and the Sandinista government as well as with La Prensa, the leading opposition newspaper.

To make the propaganda work with Americans, it was important to conceal the fact that elements of the Catholic hierarchy and La Prensa were being financed by the CIA and were coordinating with the Reagan administration’s destabilization strategies

The Catholic church had an important role to play along with the right-wing death squads and the CIA who accused the Sandinista government of oppressing the Catholic church. Parry mentioned La Prensa, a national newspaper described as Nicaragua’s only opposition paper during that time criticized the Sandinista government for its socialist economic policies and the FSLN’s leader Daniel Ortega. The Sandinista government eventually ordered La Prensa to shut down. In 1986, The New York Times published an article highly critical of the Sandinistas government’s decision titled ‘Main Nicaragua Opposition Paper Indefinitely Closed by Sandinistas’ on what Capt. Nelba Cecilia Blandon, head of the press censorship office had said in a letter to editors of La Prensa:

La Prensa, the combative opposition newspaper that for 60 years has been a principal source of news for Nicaraguans, was ordered shut today by the Sandinista Government. The action was announced in a two-sentence letter from Capt. Nelba Cecilia Blandon, head of the press censorship office.

”In accordance with instructions from above, I notify you that from this moment the newspaper La Prensa is closed for an indefinite time,” Captain Blandon wrote. ”With nothing more to add, I send my considerations”

According to The New York Times, The Sandinistas decision came after the Reagan administration approved $110 million in aid to anti-government rebels (the contras):

The indefinite closing came less than 24 hours after the United States House of Representatives voted in favor of President Reagan’s proposal to provide $110 million to anti-Government rebels.

President Daniel Ortega Saavedra, accompanied by other senior Sandinista leaders, said this evening that in the wake of the House vote, the Nicaraguan Government would begin to enforce the existing state-of-emergency decree ”strictly and severely”

The report also mentioned how La Prensa was also critical at one point in its history of the Somoza government which led to the Assassination of its editor Pedro Joaquin Chamorro Cardenal in 1978 which led to the Nicaraguan Revolution that put the Sandinistas in power:

La Prensa has been the principal anti-Sandinista organ in Nicaragua during recent years. It had been subject to censorship, but was still able to publish some material critical of the Government.

Pedro Joaquin Chamorro Cardenal, who was a fierce opponent of the deposed Somoza dictatorship, used the pages of La Prensa to castigate the Somoza Government. He was assassinated in January 1978, and it is widely believed that his killing, which was blamed on allies of President Anastasio Somoza Debayle, was a key spark to the anti-Somoza uprising that led to the Sandinista takeover in July 1979. Member of Original Junta

Mr. Chamorro’s widow, Violeta Barrios de Chamorro, was a member of the original Sandinista junta. She later quit the junta because of her political disagreements with the Government. In a recent speech, Mrs. Chamorro said she considered La Prensa’s situation more difficult now than at any time during the Somoza regime

In 1988, The New York Times reported that the Speaker of the House Jim Wright, accused the CIA of supporting the opposition from behind the scenes all along. The article ‘Furor in Nicaragua on C.I.A. Charges’ was written by Stephen Kinzer, author of ‘Overthrow’ said:

A furor has erupted in Nicaragua over charges by the Speaker of the House, Jim Wright, that the Central Intelligence Agency is manipulating opposition political parties here.

Leaders of the Sandinista Government say Mr. Wright’s assertions prove their much-repeated contention that the opposition is a tool of Washington, and hence fundamentally illegitimate. Opposition leaders are outraged, and accuse Mr. Wright of tacitly encouraging the Sandinistas to practice political repression

The report also mentions that La Prensa admitted to receiving funds from the National Endowment for Democracy(NED):

Opposition leaders reacted angrily to Mr. Wright’s accusations. Several charged he had endangered prospects for a fuller democracy in Nicaragua. ”Consciously or unconsciously, Mr. Jim Wright acted very irresponsibly,” said Mario Rappaccioli, a leader of the Conservative Party. ”He should know that any allegation of ties between this United States agency and any Nicaraguan citizen means virtual death, in the form of a 30-year jail sentence. It is not necessary that the ties exist, only that someone say that they exist.”

In a commentary, La Prensa said Mr. Wright’s statements this week ”have undoubtedly been very useful to the Sandinistas in their effort to discredit the civic struggle of the internal opposition.”

The Government has charged that the United States is sending tens of thousands of dollars to La Prensa each year, and the newspaper said the charge was true. It said all the donations were public and duly registered with the central bank, and were therefore legal. La Prensa has received funds from the National Endowment for Democracy, a bipartisan, Congressionally financed agency created to take over financing of groups that in the past might have received covert aid from the C.I.A.

According to author William I. Robinson who published ‘A Faustian Bargain: U.S. Intervention in the Nicaraguan Elections and American Foreign Policy in the Post-Cold War Era’ explained how the CIA, USIA (United States Information Agency) and the NED played an important role in the Anti-Sandinista campaign:

Despite the emphasis on externally based propaganda, the CIA, the USIA, and the NED maintained a foothold in the internal opposition media outlets throughout the 1980s, the most important of these being La Prensa. Given its prominence for the United States as a leading symbol of the anti-Sandinista campaign, that La Prensa’s publisher went on to become the presidential candidate for the UNO coalition should come as no surprise. The United States had to generate an image of La Prensa as a struggling “independent” news outlet defending freedom and democracy in the face of Sandinista repression.

One NED document exclaimed “the history of La Prensa is one of struggle, courage and, at times, tragedy, parallel to that endured by the country and the people of Nicaragua. While La Prensa is by no means the sole key to a political opening in Nicaragua, it is probably true that without La Prensa a meaningful political opening cannot occur.” Of course, there was nothing” independent” about La Prensa. It was funded by the United States and functioned as an important outlet inside Nicaragua for the U.S. war and as an official organ of the internal opposition

In other words, Washington was behind the opposition by providing the necessary tools including propaganda in an effort to overthrow the Sandinista government.  In regards to propaganda, another article by Robert Parry exposed the CIA who produced a manual for the contras based on Psychological Operations in guerrilla warfare tactics. In 1985, Parry and Brian Barger also exposed the CIA and the Contras cocaine trafficking operation that made its way into the U.S. mainland. Parry’s 2008 article ‘Iran-Contra’s ‘Lost Chapter’ is a look into how the CIA with help from the Republican party under the Reagan Administration transformed how the American public viewed world events through propaganda:

As historians ponder George W. Bush’s disastrous presidency, they may wonder how Republicans perfected a propaganda system that could fool tens of millions of Americans, intimidate Democrats, and transform the vaunted Washington press corps from watchdogs to lapdogs.

To understand this extraordinary development, historians might want to look back at the 1980s and examine the Iran-Contra scandal’s “lost chapter,” a narrative describing how Ronald Reagan’s administration brought CIA tactics to bear domestically to reshape the way Americans perceived the world.

That chapter which we are publishing here for the first time was “lost” because Republicans on the congressional Iran-Contra investigation waged a rear-guard fight that traded elimination of the chapter’s key findings for the votes of three moderate GOP senators, giving the final report a patina of bipartisanship

Then CIA Director William Casey was in charge of the propaganda system that was meant to influence the media, the congress and the American people in favor of Reagan’s policies:

The American people thus were spared the chapter’s troubling finding: that the Reagan administration had built a domestic covert propaganda apparatus managed by a CIA propaganda and disinformation specialist working out of the National Security Council.

“One of the CIA’s most senior covert action operators was sent to the NSC in 1983 by CIA Director [William] Casey where he participated in the creation of an inter-agency public diplomacy mechanism that included the use of seasoned intelligence specialists,” the chapter’s conclusion stated.

“This public/private network set out to accomplish what a covert CIA operation in a foreign country might attempt to sway the media, the Congress, and American public opinion in the direction of the Reagan administration’s policies”

According to Parry, the Reagan administration launched a “clandestine propaganda operation” that involved a system of inter-agency committees whose mission was to work with both private groups and individuals to raise funds, organize lobbying campaigns and to initiate a propaganda campaign to manipulate public opinion and U.S. government officials in their favor:

The seeds of this private/public collaboration can be found in the 84-page draft Iran-Contra chapter, entitled “Launching the Private Network.” [There appear to have been several versions of this “lost chapter.” This one I found in congressional files.]

The chapter traces the origins of the propaganda network to President Reagan’s “National Security Decision Directive 77” in January 1983 as his administration sought to promote its foreign policy, especially its desire to oust Nicaragua’s leftist Sandinista government.

In a Jan. 13, 1983, memo, then-National Security Advisor William Clark foresaw the need for non-governmental money to advance this cause. “We will develop a scenario for obtaining private funding,” Clark wrote. As administration officials began reaching out to wealthy supporters, lines against domestic propaganda soon were crossed as the operation took aim at not only at foreign audiences but at U.S. public opinion, the press and congressional Democrats who opposed funding Nicaraguan rebels, known as Contras.

At the time, the Contras were earning a gruesome reputation as human rights violators and terrorists. To change this negative perception of the Contras, the Reagan administration created a full-blown, clandestine propaganda operation.

“An elaborate system of inter-agency committees was eventually formed and charged with the task of working closely with private groups and individuals involved in fundraising, lobbying campaigns and propagandistic activities aimed at influencing public opinion and governmental action,” the draft chapter said

So was the New York Times, the Reagan Administration and the CIA collaborating to influence public opinion and the U.S. congress to support the contras? National Security Council staff member Oliver North was one of the main people in the Iran-Contra affair where he was involved in secret arms shipments to the Contras and to Iran. In the 84-page draft Iran-Contra chapter, entitled ‘Launching the Private Network’ a memo dated March 10th, 1985 from North described his involvement with the CIA Director William Casey of his pro-Contra news “aimed at securing Congressional approval for renewed support to the Nicaraguan Resistance Forces”:

The Iran-Contra “lost” chapter depicts a sometimes Byzantine network of contract and private operatives who handled details of the domestic propaganda while concealing the hand of the White House and the CIA.

“Richard R. Miller, former head of public affairs at AID, and Francis D. Gomez, former public affairs specialist at the State Department and USIA, were hired by S/LPD through sole-source, no-bid contracts to carry out a variety of activities on behalf of the Reagan administration policies in Central America,” the chapter said.

“Supported by the State Department and White House, Miller and Gomez became the outside managers of [North operative] Spitz Channel’s fundraising and lobbying activities.

“They also served as the managers of Central American political figures, defectors, Nicaraguan opposition leaders and Sandinista atrocity victims who were made available to the press, the Congress and private groups, to tell the story of the Contra cause”

A civil war was brutal and complicated for both sides of the conflict. The Sandinistas probably did commit human rights abuses during the course of the war, but war is ugly and sometimes innocents get caught in the crossfire. However, Washington’s propaganda campaign was to discredit the Sandinistas and accuse them of human rights violations. After decades of Somoza’s brutal dictatorship, anger and despair among the Nicaraguan people created the conditions for a civil war. To be fair, the U.S. government actions for more than 44 years in its support of the Somoza Dynasty led to the Nicaraguan Revolution causing a massive blowback to both the Somoza government and to its own special interests.

Operation Red Christmas: A False Flag Operation?

In a 1983 report by Time magazine suggested that human rights violations were committed by the Sandinistas:

“According to Nicaragua’s Permanent Commission on Human Rights, the regime detains several hundred people a month; about half of them are eventually released, but the rest simply disappear”

According to Wikipedia under the term ‘Sandinista National Liberation Front’ the section ‘Allegations of Human rights Violations by the Sandinistas’ claimed that ‘Time also interviewed a former deputy chief of Nicaraguan military counterintelligence, who stated that he had fled Nicaragua after being ordered to kill 800 Miskito prisoners and make it look like they had died in combat.’ The article (found here) ‘Nicaragua: Nothing Will Stop This Revolution’ does not mention anything about a former deputy chief of Nicaraguan military counterintelligence who claimed that he was ordered to kill more than 800 Miskito prisoners or any mention of the Miskito people in general.

One important fact about Time magazine is that they have extensive ties to the CIA since the 1950′s. An article by Carl Bernstein ‘The CIA and the Media’ (www.carlbernstein.com) exposes the links between Time and Newsweekmagazines and the CIA:

Time and Newsweek magazines. According to CIA and Senate sources, Agency files contain written agreements with former foreign correspondents and stringers for both the weekly news magazines. The same sources refused to say whether the CIA has ended all its associations with individuals who work for the two publications. Allen Dulles often interceded with his good friend, the late Henry Luce, founder of Time and Life magazines, who readily allowed certain members of his staff to work for the Agency and agreed to provide jobs and credentials for other CIA operatives who lacked journalistic experience.

For many years, Luce’s personal emissary to the CIA was C.D. Jackson, a Time Inc., vice president who was publisher of Life magazine from 1960 until his death in 1964.While a Time executive, Jackson coauthored a CIA sponsored study recommending the reorganization of the American intelligence services in the early 1950s. Jackson, whose Time Life service was interrupted by a one year White House tour as an assistant to President Dwight Eisenhower, approved specific arrangements for providing CIA employees with Time Life cover. Some of these arrangements were made with the knowledge of Luce’s wife, Clare Boothe. Other arrangements for Time cover, according to CIA officials including those who dealt with Luce), were made with the knowledge of Hedley Donovan, now editor in chief of Time Inc. Donovan, who took over editorial direction of all Time Inc. publications in 1959, denied in a telephone interview that he knew of any such arrangements. “I was never approached and I’d be amazed if Luce approved such arrangements,” Donovan said. “Luce had a very scrupulous regard for the difference between journalism and government.”

In the 1950s and early 1960s, Time magazine’s foreign correspondents attended CIA “briefing” dinners similar to those the CIA held for CBS. And Luce, according to CIA officials, made it a regular practice to brief Dulles or other high Agency officials when he returned from his frequent trips abroad. Luce and the men who ran his magazines in the 1950s and 1960s encouraged their foreign correspondents to provide help to the CIA, particularly information that might be useful to the Agency for intelligence purposes or recruiting foreigners

Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward broke the Watergate story for The Washington Post in the early 1970′s that lead to the resignation of President Richard Nixon.

Other sources that accused the Sandinistas is the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) under The Organization of American States (OAS) also published a report in 1983 titled ‘Report on the Situation of Human Rights of a Segment of the Nicaraguan Population of Miskito Origin’:

On February 19 and 20, 1981, approximately 30 Miskitos leaders of the Misurasata Organization were imprisoned by the State Security forces, among them Brooklyn Rivera, Hazel Lau, and Steadman Fagoth. In addition, the organization’s offices were placed under army control. Government accused the leaders of Misurasata of promoting a separatist movement on the Atlantic coast. New waves of protest broke out in the area, and led to the formation of February 25 of that year of a Peace Committee comprised of members of the FSLN, Misurasata, and religious institutions

In response to the recommendations of that Committee, Rivera and Lau were released together with the other leaders who had been captured; Steadman Fagoth, representative of Misurasata in the Council of State, accused of high treason and of being an agent of the Security Force of the previous regime, a charge he denied, was not released.

At the insistence of Misurasata and other organizations, Fagoth was released in May 1981, returned to the Atlantic coast and moved to Honduras, where he was followed by 3,000 Miskitos. Later, in September of that year, Brooklyn Rivera, who had continued to negotiate with the Government on behalf of Misurasata, also left the country

In the same report the Sandinistas were also accused of forced relocation of more than 42 Miskito villages in the report:

7. On December 28, 1981, the Government of Nicaragua decided to move 42 villages of the Coco River region to an area located some 60 kilometers south of the river, on the Rosita-Puerto Cabezas road. The up-river towns, from Leimus to Raiti, had to be evacuated on foot, under very difficult and harsh conditions, as there were no passable roads for vehicles. The down-river villagers, from Leimus to the Atlantic coast, were moved in trucks and most of those evacuated were allowed to take some of their belongings. Throughout January and part of February, q982, approximately 8,500 Miskitos were relocated in five different camps in what the Government has called the Tasba Pri project “free land” in the Miskito language). 

8. As a result of the events related to the so-called Red Christmas operation, many Miskitos were captured by the Government of Nicaragua, and together with some ministers of the Moravian Church, accused of being counterrevolutionaries. A massive exodus then ensued; during which approximately 10,000 Miskitos and many Moravian ministers crossed the Coco River into Honduras, where some 8,000 were subsequently settled in refugee camps in the area of Mocoron, in the Gracias a Dios Department

However, the conflict led to human rights abuses even among the Miskito people themselves. According to a 1985 article by The New York Times titled ‘Anti-Sandinista Indians Reported Quitting Battle’ admitting to the fact that the Miskitos also committed numerous atrocities in their own community:

Miskito Indian rebels fighting the Nicaraguan Army are disenchanted with their leaders and have largely stopped their guerrilla operations in recent months, two former rebel commanders say.

The former rebel officials, who say they have been in close contact with the guerrillas in Honduras, said deep discontent with one guerrilla leader, Steadman Fagoth, had caused hundreds of Indians to quit fighting. They accused Mr. Fagoth of mistreating his men, of ordering the killing of prisoners and Miskitos who opposed his rule and of kidnapping other Indians who were considering voluntarily returning to Nicaragua

The IACHR’s 1991 annual report claims that the discovery of “common graves” seemed to be people executed by the Sandinista People’s army or the State Security and by the Nicaraguan resistance:

In September 1990, the Commission was informed of the discovery of common graves in Nicaragua, especially in areas where fighting had occurred. The information was provided by the Nicaraguan Pro Human Rights Association, which had received its first complaint in June 1990. By December 1991, that Association had received reports of 60 common graves and had investigated 15 of them. While most of the graves seem to be the result of summary executions by members of the Sandinista People’s Army or the State Security, some contain the bodies of individuals executed by the Nicaraguan Resistance.

This raises a number of important problems. The first is the matter of the victims’ identification. The second is to ascertain the circumstances of their deaths, the time and place of their deaths, and those responsible. This issue of responsibility is directly linked to the amnesty that was decreed on March 14, 1990, when the National Assembly was controlled by the Sandinista Front. The amnesty has protected the authors of acts that violate human rights. Because of the circumstances under which the amnesty was granted, some human rights groups believe it was tantamount to a self-pardon. This measure was used at the very outset, to prevent investigations. Though those investigations are being carried out, members of human rights groups say that those investigations come up against numerous obstacles in the National Police or in the Office of the Inspector General of the Army, which is the institution to which investigations are referred when there is evidence that military personnel are involved.

The human rights groups state that one of their chief concerns is that those responsible for the human rights violations that the graves reveal remain in positions of power in either the Police or the Army, or are members of grass roots organizations of the Sandinista Front. Both the Nicaraguan Pro Human Rights Association and the Permanent Commission on Human Rights have proposed that a special committee be formed to investigate the circumstances surrounding the deaths of those whose bodies were found in the common graves

The IACHR’s 1992 annual report also claimed that the discovery of mass graves were the result of mass executions carried out as early as 1984 by Nicaragua’s security services (who supposedly pretended to be the contras) that contained more than 75 bodies. Another 72 grave sites were also discovered:

According to the information supplied to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, between January 14 and 15, 1992, seven common graves were discovered in El Bijagua district, Camoapa jurisdiction, department of Boaco. They contained the bodies of 75 people. The investigations conducted by human rights organizations found that they were the bodies of peasant farmers from the area who were murdered in November 1984, after being “recruited” by elements of State Security who pretended to be members of the Nicaraguan Resistance. They were taken to the site where the graves were discovered supposedly to receive military training. According to the reports received. The current Chief of the National Police, Commandant René Vivas Lugo, was Deputy Secretary of the Interior at the time these events occurred.

The Inter-American Commission was also told that in May, a common grave containing the six corpses of an entire family were discovered in the town of Quininowas, Department of Jinotega. Human rights groups investigated and found that the killings were allegedly committed by members of the Ligero Cazador Battalion of the Sandinista People’s Army, who invaded that town on February 7, 1985.

By December 1992, human rights groups had received 72 reports of common graves and had investigated 13 of those reports. While the majority of those graves seem to contain the remains of individuals summarily executed by members of the Sandinista People’s Army, some contain the remains of persons executed by members of the Nicaraguan Resistance

However, in response to the CIA’s covert activities against the Sandinistas, Sergio Ramirez Mercado, one of the three members of the governing body of Nicaragua at that time delivered a statement ‘Nicaragua Makes Its Case’ (which can be found at the Freedom of Information Act Electronic Reading Room at www.cia.gov) before the government declared a ‘state of emergency’ and said the following:

The supply of money, training and arms to the bands of former Somoza National Guardsman operating from Honduran territory, as part of a clandestine operation run by the Central Intelligence Agency

Mercado went on to mention Operation Red Christmas was organized by the CIA:

As a consequence of this terrorist activity, bands of former National Guardsmen, in alliance with Steadman Fagoth, a former Somoza security agent, were able this past December and January to organize their “Red Christmas” operation, which destroyed indigenous communities along the Coco river between Nicaragua and Honduras and created a beachhead in Nicaraguan territory. Before the revolutionary government re-established absolute control of the zone, Red Christmas resulted in the murder of nearly sixty Nicaraguans, including civilians and members of our frontier guards, army troops and security forces. Red Christmas also provoked the forced exodus of a considerable number of indigenous communities into Honduras. National Guardsmen tortured and raped residents of the communities as well as local medical personnel.

The revolutionary government was forced to relocate the riverside communities in more secure areas of the national territory, where our Miskito brethren will have, for the first time, access to systematic medical assistance, education, adequate housing, electricity and cultivable land. This relocation has given rise to a ferocious, slanderous campaign of lies mounted by the C.I.A and the state department against our revolution

Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, a historian, writer and feminist who wrote ‘Blood on the Border: A Memoir of the Contra War’published in 2005 based on her own experience when she visited Nicaragua to follow the situation of the Miskito communities in the northeastern region of Nicaragua. Dunbar-Ortiz wrote a chapter titled ‘Red Christmas’ where she explains how the CIA planned to create a militarized northeastern front to draw in the Sandinista military and allow the real war to take place on the northwestern Honduran border and on the short southern border with Costa Rica:

This is what the CIA called it, Operation Red Christmas, and by that they meant bloody. They meant the red of fire and of the blood caused by gunfire, not the red of fireworks in celebration of Navidad. Red Christmas was the opening salvo of the US-organized and -financed Contra war to Oust the Sandinistas. Not many people knew about it at the time, and little of the reportage and history then or since identify Red Christmas as the beginning of the Contra war. I know only because I was there. It was reported at the time that the US government spent $2.5 billion a year on media for domestic consumption. Against all propaganda to the contrary, my own word was a whisper, the testimony of an eyewitness. From then on, I would try to magnify the whisper.

What was publicized then and is now remembered about Red Christmas is the Sandinista army’s evacuation (“removed,” “forcibly relocated,” “herded into concentration camps,” as press accounts read at the time) of all the inhabitants of the Miskitu villages on the Rio Coco border with Honduras to five settlements eighty miles south of the border. The evacuation did in fact take place in January 1982 as a response to the start of the Contra military initiative.

In November 1981, the Reagan administration had signed a “finding” authorizing the CIA to spend $19.5 million to the Contra project. The Red Christmas attacks of December 21, 1981 made use of several thousand CIA-trained guerillas-mostly Miskitu Indians, followers of Steadman Fagoth, who attacked Sandinista forces along the Rio Coco. There were trained by former Somoza Guardsman and officers on loan from the Argentine military dictatorship that had been established in 1976 under General Jorge Rafael Videla, masters of murdering civilians, torture, and disappearances until their collapse in 1983.

The aim of the Red Christmas attack was to create a militarized northeastern front to draw the Sandinista military while the real war would take place on the northwestern Honduran border and the short southern border with Costa Rica. In western Honduras, former Somoza guardsmen were already operating as the FDN (Nicaraguan Democratic Front). Down in Costa Rica, a former Sandinista commander , Eden Pastora had formed a paramilitary unit, ARDE, funded by the CIA, and was allied with Brooklyn Rivera’s MISURASATA. While the Sandinistas were busy putting down a CIA-created Miskitus rebellion, they would be unable to defend Managua from attacks from the north and south. The CIA’s other objective was to place civilians, Miskitus, in the crossfire so that the US could accuse the Sandinistas of massacring the Indians.

The Sandinistas were not fooled by this strategy, however. And they had, no intention of allowing the Miskitus to be cannon fodder. Yet they had to stop the attacks on their northeastern front. They therefore chose to evacuate the Miskitu border population and create a free-fire zone in the northeast. In part, this choice was forced on them because the Miskitus border zone was the most densely populated of the three areas. But it was also based on Sandinista mistrust of the Miskitus-the Sandinistas did not believe the Miskitus would resist attacks by their own brothers, whereas they knew that the scattered northern mountain villages on the Pacific side and those on the southern frontier were strongly pro-Sandinista and could be relied on to defend themselves. Since then, Sandinista leaders have acknowledged that it was a mistake to have moved the Miskitus, but the Sandinistas were placed in a no-win situation by the US strategy.

Many Sandinista supporters in the United States and elsewhere faulted the Sandinistas for responding militarily without consideration of the alternatives. And in truth, the decision backfired almost immediately. Instead of moving to the camps the Sandinistas had created for them, nearly half the Miskitu population crossed the river into Honduras. After listening to Moravian and Contra propaganda, they were afraid that the Sandinistas really did plan to incarcerate them in Cuban concentration camps while Cuban settlers would be brought in to colonize their beloved land. They responded to promises made by the missionaries and the contras that they would be taken care of, even given land holdings, if they joined the Contra side. In Honduras, a refugee camp had been prepared for them-thanks to the US “proconsul” in Honduras, John Negroponte, and his wife, Diane. During his tenure as US ambassador to Honduras from 1981to 1985, Negroponte oversaw the growth of military aid to Honduras from $4 million to $77.4 million a year, all for the Contra war

The IACHR’s 1983 ‘Report on the Situation of Human Rights of a Segment of the Nicaragua Population of Miskito Origin’ also acknowledged Nicaragua’s concerns about the CIA’s ‘Red Christmas’ operation:

On September 16, 1983, the Government of Nicaragua replied to this communication from the IACHR. The note, signed by the Foreign Minister and addressed to the Chairman of the Commission, reviews the process of friendly settlement, and then states the viewpoints of the Nicaraguan Government with respect to implementation of the Commission’s recommendations. With respect to the recommendation that it investigate the alleged violations of the right to life of the of Miskito citizens as a result of the events that took place in the region of the Coco River at the end of 1981, the note merely indicates that enclosed is “the report of the military investigation of the Leimus case, which contains the plan known under the name of Red Christmas, by means of which the armed Somocista counterrevolution attempted to invade Nicaragua from Honduras in the border area of Zelaya Norte, to seize part of our territory and declare it a liberated zone (seizure of the territory of Nicaragua), and to set up a provisional government that would immediately request the recognition of the governments in the region as well as military support.”

That action, adds the Government of Nicaragua: 

Would be accompanied by an attempt to sow confusion through propaganda disseminated by a broadcast that is transmitted from Honduras in the Miskito language: many Miskitos, misled, left for that country, manipulated by the former agent of the Somocista security guard Steadman Fagoth Muller, who urged them to invade our territory in support of the Somocista bands that attacked the border populations, which were poorly armed and trained. 

It also states that: 

The deaths that occurred in Leimus were the consequence of the fierce attacks directed by the counterrevolutionary units that tried to take the town, and finding a group of 14 detainees, accused of collaboration with the counterrevolution, they took advantage of the confusion that prevailed at the time to flee toward the river under crossfire. 

And that: 

Also enclosed is the judgment of the Judge Advocate’s Office of the Sandinista Armed Forces, which investigated the events that took place at the end of December 1981, which led to a report dated April 2, 1983

Operation Red Christmas was basically a false flag operation intended to discredit the Sandinista government. The Reagan administration wanted to justify their covert actions by using the Miskito’s as cannon fodder to advance their cause, and that was to remove the Sandinista government by whatever means necessary.

*

This article was originally published by Silent Crow News.

All images in this article are from the author.

The joint supersonic cruise missile cooperation between India and Russia is endangered by the US’ wielding of CAATSA sanctions against New Delhi, and there’s a chance that this groundbreaking partnership might end sooner than later unless the South Asian state continues to downgrade its other military cooperation with Moscow.

Reuters released a shocking but nevertheless unsurprising report earlier today quoting experts and unnamed sources who allege that the US’ CAATSA sanction threats are responsible for delaying the Russian-Indian S-400 deal that was first agreed to in late 2016. The author warned earlier in the month in his article about the “OPCW Vote & South Asia: Why Pakistan Backed Russia But India Abstained” that New Delhi’s refusal to openly support Moscow in this international body foreboded very negatively for the future of their military partnership because it proved that the South Asian state is very susceptible to American pressure nowadays.

These words of caution were just confirmed by the respected outlet, and the revelation that Washington is wielding CAATSA as an asymmetrical weapon for damaging Moscow’s most profitable military relationship implies that it might have also played a role in India’s recent decision to scrap the multibillion-dollar Fifth-Generational Fighter Aircraft (FGFA) project that it was involved in with Russia for years already.

Now that the S-400 deal is reportedly in the crosshairs too, it’s very probable that their joint supersonic cruise missile cooperation is as well. The Brahmos project is the signature achievement of the long-standing Russian-Indian military partnership and is regarded as having produced the fastest missile of its type in the world. Unfortunately, its Russian partner NPO Mashinostroyeniya was sanctioned by the Obama Administration in 2014 and is therefore subject to CAATSA’s punitive restrictions, that is, however, unless India can “earn” the “exemption” that it’s supposedly lobbying for. According to one of the experts that Reuters interviewed, “one way to avoid secondary sanctions would be if the U.S. determines that India is reducing its dependence on Russian arms”, which it evidently has been because the outlet cited the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute’s publication from last month that said that “Russian hardware represented 62 percent of the country’s total weapons imports during the past five years, compared with 79 percent in 2008-2012.”

Even though Russian-Indian military cooperation is declining as New Delhi “diversifies” its traditional imports with new American, “Israeli”, and French wares as part of its “multi-alignment” policy, this may not be enough to “earn” the US’ “mercantile mercy”, especially considering that Trump is known to be a ruthless businessman who is reputed to enjoy crushing his competitors. If the US feels emboldened by India succumbing to what might have been CAATSA pressure by backtracking on its erstwhile FGFA deal with Russia and now getting second thoughts about the S-400, then it might not think twice about dealing a “death blow” to Russian-Indian military relations by refusing to issue an “exemption” to the country, therefore forcing it to also discontinue its production of the Brahmos supersonic cruise missile and possibly enter into a nasty trade dispute with Moscow over ownership of its remaining munitions. This could also have profound regional military implications because India might not feel bound by its previous agreement to seek Russia’s approval for exporting the Brahmos.

While it’s difficult to ever know exactly what the Trump Administration is planning, and thus it’s entirely possible that India might “earn” its “exemption” and subsequently be “allowed” to purchase the S-400s and continue its Brahmos cooperation with Russia, the distrust that the FGFA deal’s scrapping may have produced in Moscow might have convinced the Great Power of the necessity in accelerating its developing military partnership with New Delhi’s rivals in Islamabad. It’s “coincidental”, to say the least, that the Pakistani National Security Advisor was in Moscow meeting with his counterpart just days after the FGFA deal with India was abandoned and right before the Reuters report about how America’s CAATSA pressure might thwart the S-400 deal was released, clearly signifying that Russia regards Pakistan as one of many non-traditional partners in compensating for the US’ strategic “poaching” of historic ones like India. This New Cold War“rebalancing” of sorts is still unfolding, but it’s nevertheless geopolitically promising and is occurring independently of US-Indian relations.

To conclude with some closing comments about the Brahmos topic of this analysis, it’s unclear whether any CAATSA pressure has been put on India to discontinue its cooperation with Russia in this respect, but it can confidently be conjectured that this already is or will soon likely be the case given that the US is already going after its newfound “100-year-long” strategic partner for seriously considering the purchase of S-400s. The US’ phased plan is to first interfere with all forthcoming Russian-Indian military deals and then continue leaning on New Delhi to progressively disengage from its existing cooperating with Moscow, after which Washington hopes that the South Asian state will begin to incrementally adopt Western (American, “Israeli”, French) wares to replace its former Soviet-Russian ones. This is a long-running process that has only just begun and will still take at least a decade to fully play out, but given the current dynamics, one can expect that the Brahmos might soon than later appear on the chopping block.

*

This article was originally published on Eurasia Future.

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

Today is the day that net neutrality’s “slow and insidious” death at the hands of the Republican-controlled FCC officially begins, and Congress is facing urgent pressure to save the open internet before it’s too late.

With Monday marking 60 days after the FCC’s net neutrality repeal entered the Federal Register, parts of the GOP-crafted plan—spearheaded by agency chair and former Verizon lawyer Ajit Pai—will now slowly begin taking effect, while some still need to be approved by the Office of Management and Budget.

Net neutrality backers in Congress, meanwhile, are still struggling to compile enough votes to repeal Pai’s new rules, despite the fact that they are deeply unpopular among the American public.

The Senate needs just one more vote to pass a Congressional Review Act (CRA) resolution to restore net neutrality protections before it can move to the House, where it would face an uphill battle. An official vote in the Senate has yet to be scheduled, but could come in the next few weeks.

In a recent Twitter thread, the advocacy group Fight for the Future warned against sensationalistic headlines proclaiming that net neutrality will immediately be gone on Monday, noting that large telecom companies will ensure that the open internet’s death is as quiet and subtle as possible in order to minimize public backlash.

“The ISPs aren’t going to immediately start blocking content or rolling out paid prioritization scams. They know Congress and the public are watching them,” the group noted. “And that’s the worst part. What will happen is over time ISP scams and abuses will become more commonplace and more accepted. They’ll roll out new schemes that appear good on their face but undermine the free market of ideas by allowing ISPs to pick winners and losers.”

The most important thing for EVERYONE to understand is that nothing catastrophic or dramatic is going to happen immediately when the FCC rules go into effect. Telecom shills will immediately start saying "See? The sky didn't fall, we never needed #NetNeutrality." They're lying.

— Fight for the Future (@fightfortheftr) April 19, 2018

The Senate will vote in a matter of weeks on a Congressional Review Act (CRA) resolution to block the FCC's repeal. Now is the moment to get engaged.

Everyone: take action at https://t.co/xSJHbLq2Wn

Small businesses: sign this letter https://t.co/fto5TanXbn

Retweet & spread!

— Fight for the Future (@fightfortheftr) April 19, 2018

With net neutrality backers in Congress scrambling to rally enough votes to repeal Pai’s rules, states like Washington and California are moving ahead with ambitious plans to protect the open internet from telecom throttling and manipulation.

As Common Dreams reported last week, California legislation that has been hailed as the “gold standard” for net neutrality protections has passed out of the Energy, Utilities, and Communications Committee, despite a fervent effort by the telecom industry to tank the bill.

While advocacy groups have applauded state efforts to defend the open internet from Pai’s FCC, they have argued that the only way to ensure net neutrality protections nationwide is to restore them at the federal level.

In a recent series of tweets, Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.)—who introduced the resolution to bring back net neutrality safeguards shortly after the FCC voted to repeal them last December—urged Americans to pressure their lawmakers to act before Pai’s plan takes full effect.

With #OneMoreVote in the Senate, we can vote to reverse @realDonaldTrump's attack on the internet. The House can do the same with 218 votes. It currently has 160.

But we won’t get those votes unless lawmakers hear from people who care about protecting the future of the internet.

— Ed Markey (@SenMarkey) April 20, 2018

“Momentum is on our side, but time isn’t. Help us save the internet by making your voices heard now,” Markey concluded. “Members of Congress need to know that there will be a price to pay for being on the wrong side of internet history.”

*

Ah, the “Sorrows of Empire.” Its lies these days so easily exposed. Yet, too often ignored.

This past Saturday morning, April 14, 2018, the world released a collective sigh of relief after a week of collective, anguished hand-wringing at the too-likely possibility of our own utter annihilation. US President, Donald J. Trump, a man of massive ego, reportedly small hands etc., had failed, despite direct attempts by the Big Bad Wolf of American military madness, to blow down the retaining walls protecting human conscience… and reality.

Or fatally damage Syria.

Having witnessed this failed attempt to blow the world to pieces via the winds of war, we, the remaining civilized world, were instead treated to worldwide giddy, heel kicking and side-splitting laughter at the ultimate tepid US military inspired results. Yes, despite a week of US hegemonic huffing and puffing- and tweeting- many of us were amazed to actually wake-up once again.

This past Saturday, we all discovered that the latest triumvirate of self-serving, sadistic and socially challenged world leaders (US/UK/FR)  had suffered a storied defeat…one caused by two little pigs- guinea pigs really- and one black cat.

Thanks to these three demur little mammals, who spoke not a word of English, but were likely – if the UK media folly is to believed – secretly taking Russian language lessons, these three accurately summed up current Western foreign policy:

“You can fool some of the people some of the time. You can fool some of the people all of the time, but… You can’t fool all of the people all the time.”

This sage advice off course was not within the full understanding of Messrs. Trump and Macron, nor Ms. May who instead preferred to believe in their own weakening hearts and minds the much older capitalist mantra:

“Never give a sucker an even break!”

Having seen their laundry list of previous cunning political connivances go almost unchallenged by their own populace in routine acquiescence, their lies became ever bolder. And inexplicable. This lulled them into a false sense of overconfidence that believed they could provide all manner of utter nonsense as long as it was alleged to be attached to the never passe “Soviet Union” better known as “Russia.” So, it was natural for these three myopic world leaders to assume their latest plot would pass easily within the shadows of their own dark souls. Instead, theirs was a comedy show that suddenly snapped the world to the realization:

“We no longer believe a f**king thing you say!”

This ultimate and fundamental realization was spawned weeks before this past Saturday’s illegal attack. In the quaint UK town of Salisbury,  former double agent and recent MI6 participant, Sergei Skripal, had relocated to go out to pasture and retire. Little did he know that his long-term goals would turn out to be somewhat premature. Well, almost.

UK Prime Minister, Theresa May, was and is, a desperate woman. So desperate is she – after her own recent David Cameron moment of parliamentary disaster – to retain power within the posh digs at No. 10 that she quite willingly proved correct all criticisms of her Conservative Party: She joined forces with the Irish Nazi party led by Ian Paisley, better known as the DUP… and gave them a 1 Billion British pound mortita for their trouble. That’s desperate!

Strangely, Ms. May could not understand why, after all this, she was still reviled by all the UK parliamentary parties and most of the British people. Having done her best to achieve Neville Chamberlain style unpopularity, she needed a distraction… no matter how amateurish the production. For she had long ago concluded, as have so many foreign leaders, that her public was just as easily controlled as watering a potted plant in the window of her number 10.

Over arrogant, Ms. May sent in her Keystone Cops – MI-6- to do what had worked so often before in times of political need. So easy. Indeed. As the plot unfurled on a park bench in Salisbury on  March 4, 2018, the press dutifully expanded daily on the one proffered set of lies. Nice and smoothly… Russia did it! Who, but a treasonous Brit would possibly argue with such a complete lack of prima face evidence? Yes, all was going so well for Ms. May and her conspirators until their hired media minions made their first fatal and undeniable mistake.

Enter the true hero of our story, our savior, Nash Van Drake. Cat. Black cat. Likely Russian agent and the only live witness; one who knew all too well the other fundamental slogan of political cover-up…“Dead men ( and cats) tell no tales”. The two Guinea pigs were already toast, which of course fit the UK narrative that the Russian sounding Novichok- quickly renamed that week from its original name, “Foliant”– had ultimately (after the Gov’t story changed multiple time) originated in… or on… or around the Skripal house, hence the two little Guinea pigs timely demise and convenient incineration. However…

You see, Van Drake was a black cat: Persian of Arabic descent. In the UK being black and/ or Arab is increasingly great cause for caution. After years of living safely curled up on the living room settee watching the daily BBC propaganda reel or evenings on former spy Mr. Skripal’s lap forever watching James Bond reruns on ITV- over and over and over again- when the strange alien-looking men in yellow suits, plastic masks, and oxygen tanks picked the lock on the Skripal’s front door, astutely Van Drake took to these years of imposed TV training and knew just what to do. Run!

The poor caged Guinea pigs didn’t have a chance.

Once upon a time, the secret services of the dominant world had at least the courtesy to respect the world’s intelligence quotient even when discounting their country’s own. In that era, evil political intentions did attempt to carefully cover the footprints leading to their too many false flag operations. Professional surreptitious skullduggery, however, has now given way to plots of conquest that are really ham-fisted affronts to simple mental logic followed by a near total media cover-up in favor of same.

This has so far been all too effective, and with the similarly agendized publishers in the US and UK having control of over 90% of these “media choices,” a media black-out of inconvenient facts has been the de rigueur  method of cover-up. This new methodology of political deceit relies on one single, all-important premise, one that evil minds similar to those of Trump, Macron, and May believe to their soulless core:

“We  control the story and …You… are too stupid and willfully ignorant to find the truth.”

While quantitatively and historically accurate in their belief to date, unfortunately for MI-6 and their resulting worldwide television theatrical performance, Brits are also animal lovers. One might well, then, imagine the look on the faces of the conspirators when, after already disposing of the evidence of the two conveniently dead rodents and thus certifying their claim that the Skripals were poisoned at their home, they were suddenly shocked by the very first serious media question, one for which the co-conspirators collectively had only one confused, nervous, sideways looking answer… “What Cat?!”

Like Jack Ruby seeking out Oswald, the cops were off again to fix this glaring omission. Poor Van Drake, still hiding in the dark of his own Palestine under the couch, and now revealed, never had a chance. As the yellow suited masked men dragged him kicking and screaming off to certain chemical weapons death at Briton’s own self-proclaimed Auschwitz, the secret chemical weapons facility know instead as Porton Down, the poor kitty had no way of knowing that his cremation would make him the hero of this hilarious and almost fatal- for-us– tragedy. For it was Van Drake, his being alive and next dead, that snapped the world to the proper realization that; one: the highly lethal military grade Novichok/Foliant in question was approximately as deadly as Van Drake’s own flea collar, and better: Ms. May, the Cons, and the vaunted UK press were completely lying out their ass!

Finally, it seemed the counter-intelligence services of first world hegemony had actually managed to underestimated the true intelligence of the average Briton and, apparently, the military intelligence services of most of the other nations on earth. It’s one thing to shoot Palestinians for target practice, inflict the world’s biggest cholera epidemic on Yemen while bombing its hospitals and doctors, or terrorize a  few hundred thousand Rohingya into abandoning their homes for the pleasure of capitalist pursuits: all these so easily ignored by a deliberate media sedated, flag-wrapped public. But, this time they had gone too far. They had killed… a cat!

What a f**k-up!

Fast forward to the land -the epicenter- of nationwide mind fabrication. Just as strangely as barely-prime minister, Ms. May, the new White House presidential marionette in orange, despite having been repeatedly for a year bitch slapped into submission by his adversaries on all sides of the aisle, was still having problems with those pesky Democrats and their Justice Dept, their attorney’s and this past week, their cops. Worse, to a President who craves personal approval like an American male does Opioids, his popularity ratings were down.

What to do? To a man with a golf ball sized IQ, there was only one thing he could do. A choice that would make him popular from the boardrooms of Halliburton to the gun-toting, Jack Daniels-swilling taverns, and barrooms of Tennessee. From the dark shadowy dampness of the Israeli Knesset to the gold lined palaces of the newly anointed Saudi prophet, MBS in Riyadh: A nice “new, shiny, smart” war.

Perfect.

But how to start a new war. That chemical weapons false flag rubbish had failed, one, two three… six times in the past. Oh, and that Salisbury debacle -where the Skripal’s were doing just fine all of a sudden- now makes seven failures. But, to hell with a smart guy like Einstein, why not give it another shot. Besides Trump had a specially prepared US media tool awaiting: Those ever handy and timely White Helmets; the ones who always seem better with a video camera than at performing first aid. Fresh off being handed a shiny 2017 Oscar for their star acting role in their own Hollywood propaganda film of justification, surely they could finally get it right this time?

Thus we, the civilized world,  were treated to another round of intelligence insulting western inspired theatrics. And it might have worked. Almost did. Because, hey, these are the guys who wore the White helmets. White ones. Who could argue with that?

Needing a coalition of the willing for his new war, the logical first choice for Trump was to invite his equally flawed counterpart in London to jump into bed with him.  Apparently the salacious allegations of the Steele dossier- which the UK press failed to show as connected to Skripal senior- may be true since Trump showed a continued passion for the kinky in next going French, and  inviting another similarly descending political hack to his menage a trois of war.

Macron, whose popularity echoes his two concubines in being approximately that of Napoleon bringing the troops home from Russia, was down to his skivvies in seconds. Reduced to attacking farmers and peaceful protesters in his stated effort to bring all things capitalist to bare in traditionally socialist France, he had obviously failed to yet master the emasculation of his own media. Thus the irony of all this, applied to French Napoleonic law, was that in the eyes of his countrymen Macron was at the very least, “guilty until proven innocent.” And, good luck with that.

So, when Washington called, followed by a short follow-up ring from Tel Aviv, Macron also knew just what to do. And, off to war it was.

For two weeks these three frolicked in a pre-war orgy of selling the exact same pack of lies to their own nation’s public via their own controlled media; lies that continued to include the connection to the Soviet Union Russia via the Skripal chemical weapons attack in Salisbury. Of course, this Syrian attack in Ghouta was real this time. Right?

However, in this mad three-nation ramp-up to new war many persons of rational mind and a penchant for self-preservation, persons that included world leaders still in possession of their facilities, continued to wonder about the massive logical and factual problems with the Skripal incident and “the cat.” This was shown in the universal lack of willingness of other countries to enter the fray. When Angela Merkel doesn’t willingly join an American rush to war, you know there’s a big problem. However, many leaders did save face with Israel and half-heartedly attested to the full package of lies being true by abstaining in their UN votes to stop the pending attack.

So, our three continued to cavort in pre-war bliss despite the constant interruptions made by John Bolton and Mike Pompeo, scratching and whining at the bedroom door while trying to get in. But, their orgy did continued, the glee of upcoming death and destruction being spawned from their own loins an aphrodisiac far too strong to be controlled.

Sadly, despite the inquiries and outrage of the few sharp minds- and cat lovers- worldwide, these three Israeli concubines did finally manage to achieve coitus this past Saturday, April 14, 2018, with the Donald next indiscriminately ejaculating cruise missiles all over Syria.

These missiles, having an unusually high mortality rate of their own ( 71/103), did almost nothing to Syria or Syrians who that new morning danced in streets afterward. But this charade did allow an embattled US president to temporarily forget his troubles, put his golf balls back in his sack and feel much better after having finally relieved himself.

Not quite done, it was time for the final act: for the three to prove that,  when it comes to congressional or parliamentary oversight for more war: 1) it is far easier to beg forgiveness, than to ask permission and 2) these same legislative checks on war powers  are in reality as effective and deterrent as that of a Las Vegas boxing commissioner. A few more calls from Tel Aviv, soon to be Jerusalem, and the little fish in the US congress and the two parliaments were again nicely kettled into the proper way of retroactive thinking and approving…more war.

Well, the moral of this ages-old recurring fable of overconfident governmental, covert operations should be obvious. It should not take one dead cat and a couple of Guineas to shock us all to the proper realization:

           “When it comes to the Governments of our world…it’s all a pack of lies”

So, we the intelligent world salute you Nash Van Drake and your tiny brethren. May you all rest in peace in the service of us all. May we together pray: pray that the world quickly awakens to the terminal realizations of poor Van Drake, reluctant hero, as the steel doors of the gas chamber called Porton Down creaked open before him and he swallowed forever his last breath…

Not a one of us has nine lives, and our governments are pretty sure that we are all… dumber than a god damn cat!

*

Brett Redmayne-Titley has published over 150 in-depth articles over the past seven years for news agencies worldwide. Many have been translated. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research. On-scene reporting from important current events has been an emphasis that has led to multi-part exposes on such topics as the Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiations, NATO summit, KXL Pipeline, Porter Ranch Methane blow-out, Hizbullah and many more. He can be reached at: [email protected]. Prior articles can be viewed at his archive: www.watchingromeburn.uk. 

Nobody seems to believe Saudi Arabia’s official explanation that the extended gunfire that reportedly took place near the royal palace over the weekend was the result of a single toy drone straying over restricted airspace, with popular sentiment all over the internet being that this narrative is nothing more than a cover-up for either a terrorist attack or a failed coup attempt. In all likelihood, that’s probably the case, but it’s in Riyadh’s interests not to publicize what might have happened in order to not scare away international investors from Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman’s (MBS) ambitious “Vision 2030” socio-economic reform program. Seeing as how the authorities succeeded in containing the speculative events – whatever they truly were – to a small area outside the prying eyes of the populace, they were able to run with this “publicly plausible” excuse no matter how ridiculous it actually sounds.

Educated Guesswork

It’s impossible at this point to know exactly what may have happened, but it there’s a high chance that it wasn’t what the government said, with the most likely scenarios being a terrorist attack or a failed coup attempt. Had it been the first-mentioned, however, then there wouldn’t be much of a reason to keep news about it suppressed because the armed forces’ swift and successful response could actually make its military look better than it already does after suffering so many defeats by the Houthis. That said, there’s also an argument that can be made about why no one should know about this if it happened because it could be exploited by the country’s homegrown (and up until recently, deliberately cultivated) Islamic extremists to assert the infowar narrative that the royal family is “haram” and must be overthrown just like what was last seriously attempted in 1979.

Had what happened actually been a failed coup attempt possibly instigated on behalf of or through the active participation of members of the royal family against the “Red Prince”, then there’d be even more reason for Riyadh to keep it under wraps because of the potential that it could undermine international confidence in his government. Foreign “deep states” (permanent military, intelligence, and diplomatic bureaucracies) might already be aware of the truth, but once again, all that matters to MBS in this context is what possible “Vision 2030” investors think, and the most important ones that he’s aiming for are in the private sector. Even if it was a failed coup attempt, it ultimately didn’t succeed, which would imply that he and his own “deep state” will be carrying out swift retribution behind the scenes to ensure that it doesn’t happen again.

The Military Factor

After all, his military and security services have already proven their loyalty to him last year in executing his mostly flawless “deep state” “anti-corruption” coup, during which time they could have easily turned against him or accepted what can be assumed were impressive bribes offered by the arrested royals to let them escape. They didn’t do this, and therefore demonstrated that not only do they support the Crown Prince, but that they may have even been the “brains” behind the sweeping operation in the first place and simply allowed MBS to be the public face of what happened for matters of mutual convenience. The military-intelligence axis of the Saudi “deep state” sees MBS and his “Vision 2030” as the Kingdom’s “last hope” amidst rising socio-economic pressures that are bound to explode in the next decade if radical action such as what the Crown Prince has been proposing isn’t undertaken.

Enemies All Around

From the other side of this analysis, there are two distinct international forces that don’t want MBS to succeed, and these are interestingly Great Power rivals Iran and the US, though for completely different reasons that aren’t in any way related to one another. The Islamic Republic has a deep hatred for the Wahhabi Kingdom due to the regional proxy war between the two that they’ve been fighting since 1979 per the US’ “Lead From Behind” encouragement for sectarian divide-and-rule ends, while America is extremely uncomfortable with Saudi Arabia’s rapid rapprochement with Russia and deepening Silk Road partnership with China, both of which it fears could move it closer to the “doomsday scenario” of transitioning from the petrodollar to the petroyuan. For these reasons, Iran and the US can be regarded as two of the most likely “suspects” that might have directly or indirectly advanced a speculative coup attempt scenario.

That said, Saudi Arabia is entirely responsible for a large amount of its most destabilizing domestic factors, specifically its millions of Wahhabi followers who are now dead-set on retaining their rigid “traditions” and might see the “Vision 2030” socio-economic reforms as a “threat” to their “ideal” (dystopian) lifestyle, so the reader shouldn’t get any impressions that the author is only laying the blame for unrest in the Kingdom at Iran and America’s doorsteps. MBS has done a lot to alienate many powerful members of his family, some of whom are suspected of having terrorist ties and could expectedly have a bone to pick with him after his latest “deep state” coup against his “fellow” royals, so there’s an entirely believable and self-sustaining scenario of “conspiratorial” unrest that might unfolded in sparking the latest conjectural events independently of any foreign factors.

Concluding Thoughts

At the end of the day, nobody can really know for sure whether Saudi Arabia’s drone scare was for real or if it was just a clumsy cover story for a failed terrorist attack or coup attempt, but it’s natural to speculate about the most probable cause of the extended gunfire that was reported after it clearly didn’t confirm to what are presumably highly trained marksmen shooting down a single flying toy. The Saudis are understandably jumpy after so many Houthi missile strikes against their capital, but this obviously wasn’t one of those either, and while it’s indeed possible that the toy drone story might have been what really happened, it’s almost silly to countenance it given the absolutely disproportionate response that the armed forces gave to it. That’s why it’s more likely that the truth of the matter is that either a terrorist attack or coup attempt was thwarted, with the second-mentioned possibility being more probable.

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This article was originally published on Eurasia Future.

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

Permanent State of Emergency and the Dream of Absolute Power

After declaring a state of emergency in the country, the decree laws of the government have replaced the law and therefore the constitution (already suspended partially) in Turkey.

The main aim of the government since the failed coup attempt is quickly avoiding the cases slowing down or hindering the construction of the new structure of the state. So that merging the security apparatuses and connecting them directly to the ruler has been undertaken. What is expected is to maintain the absolute power of the ruling party and to surpass the threats against accumulation of capital without any economic or political lost.

These aims were almost achieved in 2017 – especially by the referendum in April 2017. That is to say, the referendum in 2010, that annihilated the division of powers, has been sustained and advanced further by the decree laws since July 2016 to the present and the referendum in 2017. Five major themes have emerged as critical issues in the consolidation of the new structure.

1. The government, ever since the beginning of its rule, has begun to try seizing all public organizations or establishing alternative ones when it has not been strong enough to seize. This effort has now entered a new phase. Article 108 of the constitution has been amended after the referendum in April 2017. This amendment has authorized the state auditing board of the presidency (DDK) to undertake “administrative investigations” for all public agencies and institutions and professional organizations that have the status of public agency or institution. As a result of that authorization, the government has announced that the possible independent structure of organizations except the state is not recognized any longer. That is to say, from now on all independent public organizations are under threat.

2. There has always been a tension between the police and the army in Turkey. Most of the underlying reasons have already been eliminated in favour of the government. Definitely, the main reasons were accepted as the relatively autonomous administration and resource management of the army in comparison to the other. In addition to this, the army had been accepted as the protector of the Kemalist ideology. As is mentioned, most of the reasons have already been eliminated, and the remaining ones have been eliminated by the authorization given to the police department to use the vehicles, arms and properties of the military police department in need without any special permission by Article 12 of the decree law numbered 668.¹ Therefore, the police department, always known as loyal to the ruler, has gained more power against the relatively less loyal structures in the past.

3. Within the old structure of the state, every security apparatus had its own intelligence section. The reason was the different needs and the different uses of the information. Beside this, because of the legal and administrative obstacles, investigating individuals and organizations was not easy “enough” to perform for the intelligence services. These all have been changed by Article 62 of the decree law numbered 694. First of all, the national intelligence coordination council (MIKK) was established under the administration of the president. The main tasks of the MIKK have been defined as merging and managing all the intelligence services both inside and outside of Turkey, providing the coordination between the offices, the public agencies and institutions and also monitoring their tasks and responsibilities, and announcing security forces about them if it is needed. What is more, the MIKK has the authority to perform security clearance for any person, agency or institution. This means everyone and every organization might be monitored – with or without any legitimate reasons.

4. There are many active pro-government paramilitary groups in Turkey. After the declaration of state of emergency, many of them began searching for a way to legalize themselves. Despite their unrecognized status among the state institutions, the groups had the direct support of whom they were working for. Moreover, each was benefiting from many official opportunities. They were more like official organizations rather than civil ones. However the groups were still feeling themselves uncomfortable because of the unofficial recognition of their position in the state. Then the state, under the decree law published with the number 696 on 24th of December 2017, has finally recognized the official status of the paramilitary organizations that were already responsible for many dirty jobs such as using violence against the peaceful opposition.

5. The government has undertaken the revision of the election system in February 2018 by the amendment of many articles in the constitution. Many groups in the opposition describe the revision as the annihilation of the elections due to legitimating some of the anomalies in a possible fair election. One of them is the repeal of the article that the voting envelopes and papers have to be signed and approved officially. The opposition claims that this amendment makes possible to use fake voting envelopes and papers in the upcoming elections. In addition to that amendment, security forces have gained the right to remove everyone in the polling stations if it is needed. It is well known that security forces are mostly supporting the government. Who could claim the privacy of the voting polls any longer by this amendment?

Another amendment is the repeal of the article that makes compulsory for an individual to use voting IDs with the other individuals living in the same location and therefore being on the same voting list. The consistency between the locations and the voting lists was accepted as a measure to prevent giving vote by fake identities. But now the Article is no longer available. However that is not all. Furthermore, the assignment of the chairman of the board of polling stations has been taken over by the government. It is an amendment clearly against the neutrality principle of the chairman.

People from other countries are usually curious about how an anti-intellectual political organization could be so influential on the masses. There are many reasons for this. But one of the main reasons is the bourgeois press. The bourgeois represented in the government owns 90 per cent of all the press in Turkey including TV and radio channels, newspapers, journals, etc. It means when someone relates with a media organ, she or he sees, listens and reads only the same source.

The Press as the Means of Politicization and Depoliticization of the Masses

Today the press is accepted as the fourth power with legislative, executive and judiciary in most countries experiencing a working bourgeois democracy. Besides this, in countries faced with authoritarian or fascist state forms, the press is a crucial part of the total power. However, under all forms of capitalism, the main point of the bourgeois press is to take part in the maintenance of the existing social relations. It is not possible to think otherwise after realizing that the press is usually under the private property of one or two monopolies. It does not matter how much the organs of these monopolies refer to the words “impartial”, “independent”, “objective” press and moreover. By using the term ideological state apparatuses of Louis Althusser, it could be mentioned that the bourgeois press defines the borders and the limits of an official ideology or ideologies to keep the subjects inside the existing order.²

As for Turkey, it might be seen that the press is an important instrument of the existing order to persuade the masses for a country without law. The law in Turkey is actually the sum of decisions given by the ruler and his officials. At exactly this point, the need for legitimacy of their decisions is conveniently supplied by the bourgeois press. This could only be done by the press itself. It gathers all individuals together into a common place. Using this opportunity, it gains the chance to persuade or threaten the subjects in favour of the government. And it does not hesitate to use different kinds of manipulation and disinformation for this mission.

The press has always been influentially used during the AKP rule. Many visual and printed media organs have established without caring about their ratings. Here the only measure has usually been making the party ideology, Political Islam more apparent and more effective. What is important is the concrete consequences of the influence performed by the press. And these consequences have been the direct products of the Political Islamist intelligentsia not having any academic or intellectual formations but having fake or fictional titles. These “experts” aim to determine and control the minds of people by the media organs. Various subjects from daily problems to social events are being undertaken by the “experts” at the media organs.

By focusing the minds, Political Islamists have two main ends. One is politicization; and the other is depoliticization of the masses.

For the goal of politicization, the first thing is to polarize and divide the masses for the negative cases in charge of the government. Then passing the buck to the opposition, even if it is the victim. By this process, it is as easy as pie to mark workers, peasants, students, academicians, intellectuals, journalists, engineers, lawyers and many others who protest the violation of their rights as “the devils in human form.” Here the press is the major instrument to declare who is enemy and who is not.³ After that, it mobilises the masses against the opposition.

The goal of depoliticization is the other side of the coin. It is a process keeping the masses ready to mobilize against the opposition but hindering them to not listen to or to take part in the opposition. The main point here is making people irrelevant to politics up to the call by the ruler. By forming cynic supporters like these, neutrality or apathy of the masses is expected on the decisions of the government. The result of cynical supporters is a relatively social silence which protects the powerful from possible wave of resistance and struggle against the coming violation of rights.⁴

The government has escalated the repression against the opposition after declaring state of emergency by the effective usage of the politicization and depoliticization processes. Also the bourgeoisie has designed its press once more after the accomplishment of the five critical domestic security issues mentioned above. Hereafter the expectation from the press is to formulate every act of the government as “national will” and to mask the class character of the state.

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“Were You Sad or Were You Happy?”. The Destruction of Syria’s Industrial Heartland

By Mark Taliano, April 24, 2018

Western terrorists have targeted Syria’s industrial base since the beginning of the war, stealing what they could, and destroying everything else.

The “Ukraine Issue” and Canada’s “Foreign” Minister Chrystia Freeland

By PaulR, April 24, 2018

This week, Canada is hosting a meeting of foreign ministers of the G7. But on this occasion, Freeland has made it into something of a G8 by inviting along her Ukrainian counterpart, Pavlo Klimkin.

No Restitution, No U.S. Reconstruction Money for Syria

By Eric Zuesse, April 24, 2018

On April 22nd, an unnamed U.S. “Senior Administration Official” told a press conference in Toronto, that the only possible circumstance under which the U.S. Government will agree to pay anything for the harms (bombings of infrastructure etc.) it’s doing to Syria, would be if Syria will agree to cede, to U.S. control, a portion of its land.

US CENTCOM Chief Makes “Secret and Unprecedented” Visit to Israel as Russia Mulls Arming Syria

By Zero Hedge, April 24, 2018

Increasingly it appears that the recent US coalition missile strikes on Syria have utterly backfired: instead of weakening Syria or degrading its military capabilities, the attack may have actually served to strengthen Syria’s defenses.

Nicaragua: Next in Line for Regime Change?

By Tortilla Con Sal, April 24, 2018

Events in Nicaragua over the past week are clearly modeled on the kind of U.S.-led, NATO-driven regime change that succeeded in Libya, Ivory Coast and Ukraine, but has so far failed in Thailand, Syria and Venezuela. At a national level, the protests have been led by the private sector business classes defending their rate of profit against socialist policies in defense of low-income workers and people on pensions.

What Will Weapons Inspectors Find in Syria… and Does It Matter?

By Rep. Ron Paul, April 24, 2018

Proponents of the US and UK position that Assad used gas in Douma have argued that the Syrian and Russian governments are preventing the OPCW inspectors from doing their work. That, they claim, is all the evidence needed to demonstrate that Assad and Putin have something to hide. But it seems strange that if Syria and Russia wanted to prevent an OPCW inspection of the alleged sites they would have been the ones to request the inspection in the first place.

The following text is the Introduction to a review article

A new “Report to the Club of Rome” has been prepared by Ernst von Weizsaecker and Anders Wijkman (Come On! Capitalism, Short-termism, Population and the Destruction of the Planet, 2018) as part of its 50th anniversary celebrations — subsequent to its original foundation in Rome in 1968. Its declared mission is to promote understanding of the global challenges facing humanity and to propose solutions through scientific analysis, communication and advocacy.

The new report is divided into three main sections as succinctly described in a review by Ugo Bardi, himself a member of the Club (Saving the World: Top-Down or Bottom-Up? A Review of the Latest Report to the Club of Rome, “Come On”, Resilience, 13 April 2018):

• The first part, the review of the current trends, is – in my opinion – the best part of the book. It is a well thought-out review which doesn’t shun from facing some politically unnameable subjects, such as that of overpopulation and of the need to stop its growth.
• The second part of the book is a review of the theories and models currently used to understand the situation in which we find ourselves. This section provides a description of religious views of the relation of humankind with the world, starting with the Pope’s encyclical letter Laudato Si’ and then moves to a detailed criticism of the current economic theories.
• Finally, the third part of the book. This is the most ambitious section, indeed it is as long as the first two summed together. It is also the most difficult and complex: what to do, in practice? Here, the authors face a problem that has affected the Club’s analysis over the past 50 years: who should act to save humankind from destruction?

Since 1968 some 60 reports to the Club of Rome, or variously associated with it, have been produced — most notably following publication of The Limits to Growth in 1972. The concern here is how best to review another such report, in the light of the insights variously offered in the earlier reports. That concern has previously been partially articulated in a review of that pattern after 40 years (2012), updated for this occasion (Club of Rome Reports and Bifurcations: a 50-year overview, 2018).

The issue is how the insights have been accumulated over 50 years and how they are now articulated within the new report in the effort “to promote understanding of the global challenges facing humanity and to propose solutions through scientific analysis, communication and advocacy”. Has the understanding of global challenges taken more coherent and insightful form? Is there indeed greater insight into the challenges of “communication and advocacy”?

Clearly the first part of the book is be valued as a new clarification of the issues — the “problematique”? — on the assumption that the key factors have not been adequately articulated previously. Whether the issues have been presented in more systemic terms susceptible to more integrative comprehension — as a catalyst for remedial action — is obviously a concern. In then reviewing a range of theories through which the current situation can be viewed and comprehended — the “resolutique“? — again the question is to what extent that set reflects a comprehensive range of envisaged modalities. What might some consider to have been excluded or misrepresented? Given the eternal strife among the model builders and advocates, what new insights are offered regarding the reconciliation of their conflicting perspectives — a challenge articulated by Nicholas Rescher (The Strife of Systems: an essay on the grounds and implications of philosophical diversity, 1985)? Or is one approach simply to be favoured over all others?

Rather than advocating a “top-down” approach which has arguably been called into question over the past 50 years, the authors have focused on a “bottom-up” strategy. This is most clearly apparent in the third section of the book focusing on practical, implementable solutions — the “imaginatique”? — such as agro-ecology, the blue economy, regenerative urbanization, benign investments, and much more. The emphasis — and hence the title Come On! — is not to endeavour to force people not to do something by legislation (“top-down”). The focus is rather on encouraging people to choose to do something for their own benefit — namely “bottom-up”. Clearly this can be valued as a catalogue of possibilities. How people might choose between them, and whether the resulting pattern of choices is systemically viable, is another matter.

Read the full text here.

On 16 April 2018, the internationally respected analyst of Middle-Eastern affairs, Abdel Bari Atwan, headlined about Trump’s increasingly overt plan to break Syria up and to establish permanent U.S. control over the parts it wants, “Attempting the Unachievable”. He stated that

“The coming few months are likely to prove very difficult for the Americans, and very costly, not just in Syria but also in Iraq.”

He closed:

“Who will cover the costs of this American move? There are no prizes for guessing the answer: it has already been spelled out.”

The only country that his article mentioned was Israel:

“It would not be surprising if Israel and the various lobbies that support were behind this American strategic volte-face. For Israel is in a state of panic.”

The U.S. already donates $3.8 billion per year to Israel’s military, in order for Israel to purchase U.S.-made weapons. However, Atwan argues that the costs of this invasion-occupation of Syria are likely to run into the trillions of dollars. The Gross Domestic Product of Israel is only $318.7 billion as of 2016. So, America now already donates a bit more than 1% to that amount, and Atwan’s thesis is that Israel will now become instead a net donor to America’s international corporations (funding some of the Pentagon, which then will pay that money to America’s weapons-firms), in order to avoid adding the enormous costs of this increasing invasion-occupation of Syria, onto America’s taxpayers, fighting forces, etc.

I do not consider this enormous reversal of Israel — from recipient to donor — to be likely. Far likelier, in my view, is Saudi Arabia, to finance the invasion.

The GDP of Saudi Arabia is $646.4 billion as of 2016, more than twice Israel’s — and the Saud family, who own that country, are accustomed to paying for the services they buy, not having them donated (unless by their fellow fundamentalist Sunnis, to spread the faith). Furthermore, the royal family, the Sauds, are extremely close to America’s leading oil families, who also donate heavily to Republican politicians. Ever since at least 2012, the Sauds have been the U.S. Government’s main partner in the long campaign to overthrow and replace Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad, by a Sharia-law, fundamentalist-Sunni, regime, which will do what the Sauds want.

America’s oil companies and pipeline companies, and military contractors such as Lockheed Martin, profit from America’s invasion-occupation of Syria, but U.S. President Donald Trump isn’t doing it only with their welfare in mind; he has an international campaign to press America’s allies to foot a larger percentage of the cost to U.S. taxpayers for America’s military. He wants America’s allies to pay much more, in order for them to be able to enjoy the privileges of staying in America’s alliance against Russia, China, and other countries whose economies threaten to continue growing faster than America’s. U.S. aristocrats fear that such challengers could replace them as the global hegemon or Empire, the uber-aristocracy. Empire is expensive, and the general public pay for it, but Trump wants foreign taxpayers to pay a bigger share of these costs in order to relieve part of the burden on U.S. taxpayers. His famous comment about the invasion-occupation of Iraq, “We should have taken the oil”, is now being put into practice by him in Syria. However, that money goes only to corporations, not to the U.S. Treasury.

Which allies could finance escalated war against Syria?

On 24 September 2017, the Wall Street Journal bannered, “U.S.-Backed Forces Seize Syrian Gas Plant From Islamic State”, and reported:

“U.S.-backed forces said Sunday they were advancing through eastern Syria after seizing a gas plant there from Islamic State, striking a blow to the terror group’s dwindling finances, which rely heavily on its control of Syria’s oil and gas fields. The plant, one of the most important in the country, is capable of producing nearly 450 tons of gas a day.”

Trump wants the profits from that to go to American companies, not to Syrian ones. That’s the type of arrangement Trump has been favoring when he says “We should have taken the oil.” Syria is allied with Russia, and with Iran. The U.S. is allied with Saudi Arabia and Israel, which are the two countries that call Iran an “existential threat” — and which have been urging a U.S. invasion to overthrow Assad.

The Sauds and their allied fundamentalist Sunni Arab royal families are considering to finance an American-led invasion of Syria. Turkey’s newspaper Yeni Safak headlined on 15 June 2017, “Partitioning 2.5M barrels of Syria’s oil”, and reported:

A meeting was held on June 10 for the future of Syrian oil on the premise of the intelligence of Saudi Arabia and the US in Syria’s northeastern city of Qamishli, which borders with Turkey. One of the US officers who visited terrorist organizations in the Sinjar-Karachok region after Turkey’s anti-terror operation in northern Syria and spokesman for the Global Coalition to Counter Daesh, Colonel John Dorrian, attended the meeting. Representatives from Egypt, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Saudi Arabia, as well as some tribal leaders from Syria and senior Democratic Union Party (PYD) members attended the meeting. The delegation gathered for the purpose of determining a common strategy for the future of Syrian oil, and decided to act jointly after Daesh. Former President of the National Coalition of the Syrian Opposition and Revolutionary Forces, Ahmed Carba, determined the tribal and group representatives from Syria, and Mohammed Dahlan determined which foreign representatives would attend the meeting. Representatives agreed on a pipeline route. Radical decisions were made regarding the extraction, processing and marketing of the underground wealth of the Haseke, Raqqah and Deir ez Zor regions, which hold 95 percent of Syrian oil and natural gas’ potential.

That’s “taking the oil.” There could be lots of it.

This article also reported that, “Syria produced 34,828,000 barrels of crude oil in the first quarter of 2011 and reached 387,000 barrels per day during the same period” and that, “there are 2.5 billion barrels of oil reserves in Syria.”

On 16 April 2018, Whitney Webb at Mint Press bannered “How the US Occupied the 30% of Syria Containing Most of its Oil, Water and Gas”, and reported that,

“Though the U.S. currently has between 2,000 to 4,000 troops stationed in Syria, it announced the training of a 30,000-person-strong ‘border force’ composed of U.S.-allied Kurds and Arabs in the area, which would be used to prevent northeastern Syria from coming under the control of Syria’s legitimate government.”

She noted, regarding the area in Syria’s northeast, where U.S.-armed, Saudi-funded, Syrian Kurds are in control: “those resources – particularly water and the flow of the Euphrates – gives the U.S. a key advantage it could use to destabilize Syria. For example, the U.S. could easily cut off water and electricity to government-held parts of Syria by shutting down or diverting power and water from dams in order to place pressure on the Syrian government and Syrian civilians. Though such actions target civilians and constitute a war crime, the U.S. has used such tactics in Syria before.”

She says:

“Given the alliance between Syria and Iran, as well as their mutual defense accord, the occupation is necessary in order to weaken both nations and a key precursor to Trump administration plans to isolate and wage war against Iran.”

That type of plan could be worth a lot to Israel, but Yeni Safak headlined on 18 April 2018, “US to build Arab force in NE Syria as part of new ploy: The US is seeking to amass an Arab force in northeastern Syria comprised of funding and troops from Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the UAE.” This report said:

The Saudi Arabian Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir said that the kingdom is willing to send troops to Syria in a press conference on Tuesday. The minister noted that discussions on sending troops to Syria were underway. “With regards to what is going on now, there are discussions regarding what kind of force needs to remain in eastern Syria and where that force would come from. And those discussions are ongoing,” said al-Jubeir. He stressed that troop deployment in Syria will be done within the framework of the Islamic Military Counter Terrorism Coalition and also suggested Saudi Arabia would provide financial support to the U.S.

How likely is it that Israel would be funding this huge escalation in The West’s invasion-occupation of Syria — an escalation in which fundamentalist-Sunni armies would then be serving Israeli masters? Though Arab royals might find it acceptable, their soldiers would not.

The Sauds are the world’s wealthiest family, and they can and do use the state that they own, Saudi Arabia, as their investment asset, which they aim to maximize. This war will be a great investment for them, and for their allies, in the US, UK, Israel, and elsewhere. Israel can’t take the lead in such a matter. But the Sauds and their friends could.

Funding by the Sauds would be the likeliest way. On 21 May 2017, I headlined “U.S. $350 Billion Arms-Sale to Sauds Cements U.S.-Jihadist Alliance” and reported that the day before,

“U.S. President Donald Trump and the Saud family inked an all-time record-high $350 billion ten-year arms-deal that not only will cement-in the Saud family’s position as the world’s largest foreign purchasers of U.S.-produced weaponry, but will make the Saud family, and America’s ruling families, become, in effect, one aristocracy over both nations, because neither side will be able to violate the will of the other. As the years roll on, their mutual dependency will deepen, each and every year.”

That turned out to be true — and not only regarding America’s carrying the Sauds’ water (doing their bidding) in both Yemen and Syria, but in other ways as well. Now the Sauds will pitch in to pay tens of thousands of troops in order to dominate over Iran and Shiites, whom the Sauds hate (and have hated since 1744).  

On 21 March 2018, CNBC bannered “Trump wants Saudi Arabia to buy more American-made weapons. Here are the ones the Saudis want”, and reported what Trump had just negotiated with Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman al-Saud, which was a step-up in that $350 billion sale, to $400 billion. So: Trump is working on the Sauds in order to get them to take over some of the leadership here — with American weapons. It’s a business-partnership.

On 16 April 2018, which was the same day that Atwan suggested Israel would take the lead here, the Wall Street Journal bannered “U.S. Seeks Arab Force and Funding for Syria: Under plan, troops would replace American military contingent after ISIS defeat and help secure country’s north; proposal faces challenges,” and reported that:

The Trump administration is seeking to assemble an Arab force to replace the U.S. military contingent in Syria and help stabilize the northeastern part of the country after the defeat of Islamic State, U.S. officials said. John Bolton, President Donald Trump’s new national security adviser, recently called Abbas Kamel, Egypt’s acting intelligence chief, to see if Cairo would contribute to the effort, officials said. The initiative comes as the administration has asked Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates to contribute billions of dollars to help restore northern Syria. It wants Arab nations to send troops as well, officials said. 

If the U.S. will invade, Israel will participate in this invasion-occupation, but the Sauds will lead it — with U.S.-made weapons. And taxpayers everywhere will lose from it, because invasions just get added to the federal debt. The invading nation goes into debt, which that nation’s public will pay. The invaded nation gets its wealth extracted and sold by the invading aristocracy. It’s happened for thousands of years.

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