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Guatemalans voted in a referendum to take their 19^th-century territorial dispute with Belize to the UN for final adjudication.

The core of the issue boils down to imperial-era agreements between the Spanish and British Empires whereby Guatemala became the inheritor of Madrid-controlled areas in the region, including those in what is nowadays the southern half of Belize that the UK was purportedly only allowed to operate in but never legally given ownership of. A compromise was reached in the mid-19^th century which saw the British agree to build a road for Guatemala to its Caribbean coast in exchange for dropping its territorial claims, a deal that London never honored and which the Central American country says is now null and void.

Although Guatemala recognized Belize’s 1981 independence over a decade later in 1992, it never dropped its claims to the southern half of this newly created country. A 2008 accord between the two parties resulted in an agreement to hold referenda asking whether their citizens agree to let the UN’s International Court of Justice adjudicate over the dispute. The Guatemalans just held their vote and the 25% of its electorate who participated overwhelmingly voted yes, while Belize has yet to organize its own promised poll on the matter. If its people vote no, which is a possibility, then another mechanism would have to be found.

In that event, regional organizations such as the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) will probably rally around Guatemala and attempt to put unenforceable political pressure on Belize, which would understandably be reluctant to part with half of its territory no matter whether it was legally acquired or not. In a sense, nothing would really change even if Belize went to the UN and lost because the court’s decision is also militarily unenforceable, which is something that Bolivia is finding out after taking its own 19^th-century dispute with Chile to the same international body. This sobering conclusion leaves little room for any peaceful resolution.

Guatemala, however, is unlikely to resort to force, though hinting as much from time to time might serve as a convenient distraction from its crime and corruption problems. Belize also stands to gain by prolonging this dispute because it allows it to reinforce a sense of unifying nationalism, and it could also leverage any perceived Guatemalan hostility to extract benefits from its former British colonial overseer and possibly even the US. Therefore, while it’s a promising move that Guatemalans voted to take their dispute with Belize to the UN, it’s probably not going to resolve the issue anytime soon.

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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.

Mark Taliano reporting from Damascus

Swallows are filling the Damascene skies. Darting, climbing, rolling, they’re a frenzy of Life amidst the spires, the minarets, and the sky-scraping buildings.

The terrorists, their rifles, their bombs, their bullets, their executions have all but been defeated.  Though some still linger in their deceits, their barbarity, and their death throes.

Damascans are just now tasting freedom from the fear, the bombs, the missiles, the death.

War has spoken, but it will not go quietly into the dark night. It has stolen Syria’s sons and daughters, her friends, and lovers.

Syrian mothers whose sons paid the highest price for us all.  Aleppo, Syria

The imperialists, vultures, fakes,  “humanitarian” whores, are rotting, but they are not gone. They still loot, and plunder, build their forts, and sell their guns. But their masks have fallen …  for all who care to see.

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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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The neoconservative hawks around the US President, notably new National Security head John Bolton and designated Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, are on record that Iran is in Washington’s sights for regime change or at a minimum, economic sanctions and chaos. The rhetoric is not empty. The ground is being laid by US threats to not renew the Iran nuclear agreement in May, a move opposed by the other signatories and a move that would plunge Iran into a deep economic crisis at a time it can ill afford.

In recent weeks its currency has been dropping like a stone, provoking panic buying of dollars on the black markets and aggravating a growing domestic crisis. While Trump threatens in May not to renew the Iran nuclear agreement, opening new official sanctions, evidence suggests there is a dirty game underway from the side of key Washington allies Saudi Arabia and UAE to weaken the Rial.

In December 2017 there was a wave of protests across the country focused on the weak economy and high unemployment. Then, after initially charging foreign meddling (which there was to be sure), arresting thousands, the government was forced to recognize the economic grievances were legitimate and should be addressed. They were the largest protests since the US-incited attempt at a Green Revolution in 2009. With overall inflation at 14% in 2017 despite lifting of Western sanctions, and youth unemployment at 25%, the government of moderate Hassan Rouhani pledged to address the economic situation.

Currency war begins

Those protests gradually died down. Now what is taking place, however, is far more dangerous to the stability of Iran. It’s a not-so-subtle form of financial warfare from Washington. At this stage it takes the form of currency war, inducing panic among Iranians that leads them to dump Rials in a desperate bid to get dollars as the Rial sinks to its lowest since the 1979 Khomeini Revolution.

The trigger for the latest plunge in the Rial was the announcement by US President Trump that he is “inclined” to not certify Iranian adherence to the nuclear treaty on May 12 when the next quarterly decision is due. When Trump last signed off on the nuclear treaty in January he threatened to not approve unless radical improvements were agreed with the Europeans and Iran that would include eliminating Iran’s ballistic missile program and its support of Hezbollah, a significant force in the Syrian war.

The Rial began to fall against the US dollar in February. Reports at that time were that banks in the UAE, a close ally of Washington and Saudi Arabia, were deliberately delaying processing Iran oil payments despite the fact that oil production and exports have risen significantly since partial lifting of sanctions. Iran’s trade balance is positive. The country exported $50 billion of oil and $40 billion of non-oil exports while it imports $50 billion worth of goods and services last year. Oil production has risen significantly to 3.8 million barrels/ day from 2.6 million bpd in 2012 at the peak of sanctions.

Days before the latest US-UK-France bombing of Syria over false allegations of chemical weapons, the Rial was dropping on the free exchange markets in the country. On April 11, it was worth 60,000 Rials to the dollar. Last September it was one to 36,000. Now Rouhani has acted to end a dual official and private rate, and merged the market rate with the official central bank rate, fixing it at 42,000 in a desperate move to control the free fall. The Rial fell 20% in the two weeks prior to the exchange controls.

Syria Bombings

It is clear at this point that a prime goal of the entire run-up to the illegal US-UK-French bombing of Syrian targets on April 14, was to prepare a major game change in the relations between Russia, Syria and especially Iran at present. The current aim of both the neoconservatives now running Trump policy and of the Netanyahu Likud government in Israel is to force Iran out of Syria. The day after the bombing, on April 15, US Ambassador to the UN and strident neocon Nikki Haley told Fox news that the US will pull out of Syria when three conditions are met:

“To stop the use of chemical weapons, to totally defeat ISIS and to monitor the Iranians.”

In short US troops are at this point planning a long stay in Syria.

Despite the recent bombings, now the stage is set at any moment for US-backed terror groups in Syria to detonate another false flag chemical attack to justify new far more devastating bombings of Syria along the lines of Belgrade in 1999. And what does she mean by “monitor the Iranians”?

One clear result of the new heavy economic sanctions against Rusal and other Russian companies as well as the fall of the Ruble in recent days, combined with the fraudulent British intelligence Skripal nerve gas caper, and followed by the equally fraudulent White Helmets false flag Ghouta chemical weapons allegations, was to “soften” Russian support for the Iranian military presence in Syria. In his speech to the nation announcing the air strikes on Syria April 13, Trump declared,

“I also have a message tonight for the two governments most responsible for supporting, equipping and financing the criminal Assad regime. To Iran and to Russia…”

He then focused on Russia stating,

“Russia must decide if it will continue down this dark path or if it will join with civilized nations as a force for stability and peace (sic).”

According to the energy newsletter Oilprice.com, Iran’s currency situation is being aggravated by deliberate measures from key US allies Saudi Arabia and the UAE to hinder repatriation of dollars from Iranian oil exports. Iranian central bank governor Valiollah Seif said,

“Enemies outside of our borders, in various different guises, are fueling this issue and are going to some effort to make conditions tougher for the people.”

Renewed US Treasury Sanctions?

The orchestration of the US-led bombing of Syria, regardless of what targets were or were not hit, now sets the propaganda stage for a dramatic escalation of new sanctions against Iran, and for a major destabilization, something not possible in 2009.

What is taking shape now from the side of Washington is preparation to unleash a new wave of economic and financial sanctions on Iran, regardless.

US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin told the US Congress on April 12, two days before the Syria attacks, that the possibility existed of re-imposing sanctions on Iran while claiming that the US has not pulled out of the multinational Iran nuclear agreement. Mnuchin told a House hearing that

“If the president decides not to sign that (waiver), it doesn’t mean we’re necessarily pulling out of the deal. What it means is that the primary and secondary sanctions will go back in place.”

European diplomats have told Reuters off the record that even if Germany, France and UK decide to remain in the agreement, Western companies would withdraw from Iran because of the threat of US sanctions.” That would mean a devastating economic cordon sanitaire around the country.

Mnuchin added that, “very strong” sanctions on Iran were possible.

“If the president doesn’t sign the certification, the sanctions snap back into place,” Mnuchin stated, “I do think the primary and secondary sanctions would have an important impact on the Iranian economy, and that’s something he’s thinking about and balancing as he makes his decision.”

In recent years the US Treasury has become a part of the national security council, and speaks of its diabolical new “smart sanctions” like those targeting “the Putin oligarchs” and their companies.”

Mnuchin told the Congress that his Treasury Department is working on sanctions entirely independent from the nuclear deal, giving the game away that it has nothing to do with Iran’s alleged nuclear program, but rather with economically crippling or destabilizing Iran itself. If we look closely at the latest round of US Treasury sanctions on key Russian companies, it is clear that Washington feels so bold it no longer has to justify in any serious way imposing sanctions on a target country. All your crime need be today is to be accused of “continuing down this dark path…” as judged by the good Mr Trump and friends.

In 2012 the Obama Administration Treasury Department pressured the European Union countries which then ordered Belgium-based SWIFT, the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication, to cut all interbank credit lines for Iranian banks including the central bank, dealing a crippling blow to her ability to earn dollars for Iranian oil and other exports. It was unprecedented, and lasted four years until SWIFT links were reestablished following the 2016 Nuclear Agreement.

When the US Treasury speaks of imminent primary and secondary sanctions “snapping” back into place, it is clear that some in Washington plan to pressure the EU again to cut SWIFT lines again. Only this time the “justification” could be Iran’s presence in Syria, a presence, unlike that of the US or UK or France, done at the request of the lawful Syrian government.

Given the weakened state of the Iran economy, it would not require a military attack, something of great difficulty in any case, in order for Iran’s enemies—Washington, Saudi Arabia and Israel—to inflict huge damage and disruption to Iran’s economy. That in turn would be the likely setting, as was the case in Yugoslavia in 1989 with its US-induced economic crisis, for Washington to relaunch its fake democracy NGOs under National Endowment for Democracy or the Soros Foundations, to try to divide Iranians and spread chaos.

Clear at this point, with Washington and London abandoning any pretense of rules of international law to justify their acts of war, Iran is facing a potentially devastating new round of economic warfare to follow months of softening up through the de facto currency warfare. Things could get really ugly in the Middle East after May 12. That will target Iran, a key link to the Eurasian Belt Road Initiative, the new Economic Silk Road of China and the economic cooperation with Russia. If that succeeds, we can be sure that further targeting of Russia as well as of China is next in line. If those key strategic Eurasian powers fail to strengthen their mutual cooperation on economic, political and military levels, it could be like shooting fish in a barrel for Washington to knock out the rivals to its undisputed sole superpower hegemony. That would not be at all good for world peace prospects.

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F. William Engdahl is strategic risk consultant and lecturer, he holds a degree in politics from Princeton University and is a best-selling author on oil and geopolitics, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook” where this article was originally published. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is from NEO.

Seeds of Destruction: Hidden Agenda of Genetic Manipulation

Author Name: F. William Engdahl

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Year: 2007

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

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

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

Did you know that Vice President Dick Cheney admitted that on 11 September 2001 he, as President George W. Bush’s brief stand-in during the 9/11 attacks that hit the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, issued an order (and it was carried out) to shoot down United Airlines Flight 93 while it was in the air near Pittsburgh? If what he said at the time was true, then the standard ‘historical’ account of the plane’s having been brought down as a result of action by the passengers, would be concocted, not history at all.

Here is the video-clip of V.P. Cheney on 9/11, making this claim and explaining why he gave that order.

The Wikipedia article on Flight 93 provides the standard account, and fails even so much as just to mention the Vice President’a assertion and explanation that he provided on national TV at the time of the 9/11 events.

Flight 93 National Memorial, Stonycreek Township, Pennsylvania, USA, memorial sign, flight path

So: I edited the Wikipedia article by adding a sentence at the end of its opening paragraph, and by following that sentence with a brief second paragraph, and here is that entire two-sentence addition:

Vice President Dick Cheney alleged that he gave the order to shoot down Flight 93, and explained why when asked about it by Chris Wallace of Fox News as shown in this film-clip.

Consequently, the account given below of what brought the plane down — an account inconsistent with what Cheney said — could be entirely false. 

On the web browser that I was using, the addition showed as having been successfully made in the Wikipedia article. However, to be sure, I opened the URL in a different browser, and this time my addition was absent. I then went back to the “Edit” page” and this time to the “View history” page, and clicked there on “(talk)” and found this message, which I saw virtually immediately after I had thought that I had inserted the new information:

Hello, I’m Shellwood. I wanted to let you know that I reverted one of your recent contributions —specifically this edit to United Airlines Flight 93— because it did not appear constructive. 

No other explanation for blocking my addition was provided. “Shellwood” was there saying that mentioning, and linking to the video of Cheney saying, that allegation, which Cheney made on 9/11 about how Flight 93 came down, is not “constructive” to Wikipedia-readers who want information about Flight 93.

Previously, even the BBC published the fact that Wikipedia is edited by the CIA.

Anyone who reads the present article is hereby welcomed to try making the same addition to that Wikipedia article, and I hope that one of the readers here will be able to get it accepted by the editors of that site, so that Wikipedia can be made at least moderately trustworthy, on at least that one article. Perhaps if enough people try, then Wikipedia will come to recognize that Wikipedia’s modus operandum isn’t merely a very successful system of propaganda, but that it’s also something of a PR problem for Wikipedia, which they’ll need to do something about, if they’re to be able to survive (or at least retain their credibility) at all. Blocking inclusion in an article, of a fact that disproves part of the ‘history’ (and here the most important part) which is told in that article, is unacceptable in anyone’s eyes. 

As of today, April 20th, the Wikipedia article on Flight 93 does make one, and only one, mention of Cheney: 

Vice President Dick Cheney, in the Presidential Emergency Operations Center deep under the White House, upon learning of the premature crash, is reported to have said, “I think an act of heroism just took place on that plane.”^[2]

The link there, [2], goes to a CNN article, likewise published on 11 September 2001, which likewise presents Cheney as saying that he ordered the shoot-down of Flight 93:

After the planes struck the twin towers, a third took a chunk out of the Pentagon. Cheney then heard a report that a plane over Pennsylvania was heading for Washington. A military assistant asked Cheney twice for authority to shoot it down.

“The vice president said yes again,” remembered Josh Bolton, deputy White House chief of staff. “And the aide then asked a third time. He said, ‘Just confirming, sir, authority to engage?’ And the vice president — his voice got a little annoyed then — said, ‘I said yes.'” 

Screenshot of CNN article, September 11, 2001

The phrase that Wikipedia is quoting from Cheney, “I think an act of heroism just took place on that plane,” appears later in that CNN article, out of context, when one of Cheney’s aides attributes the statement to Cheney, but, since CNN provided no context for it, no reader can intelligently interpret what it had been referring to, if, in fact, the aide did say that Cheney did say it.

Wikipedia grabbed that out-of-context, possibly apocryphal, Cheney-statement, and constructed their ‘history’ of the plane’s crash, upon it, despite the fact that Cheney, on 9/11, clearly stated that he had ordered Flight 93 to be shot down, and that the order was executed — in other words: despite the fact that Wikipedia’s account of what brought that plane down is incontrovertibly false, even on the basis of the most reliable evidence that Wikipedia itself links to on that matter. Such a ‘history’ is fiction.  

So: any reader at the Wikipedia article who clicks onto its sources, can easily know that though the Wikipedia article presents a ‘history’ in which actions by passengers onboard Flight 93 caused the plane to crash there, that ‘history’ is fake, not at all real (though some allegations in that Wikipedia article might happen to be true). 

This means that only readers who click through to sources can even possibly come anywhere near to knowing anything that’s at all reliable about the history of our time. And, of course, the longer that any event recedes into history, the more immovably fixed the lies become as being ‘history’. We live actually in a world of lies. If modern ‘history’ is fake, then ancient ‘history’ is even more so. What about the Bible? What about even recently written ‘history’ books?

If Wikipedia is the best that ‘the market’ can come up with for ‘a free press’ in a ‘democracy’, then democracy isn’t at all possible. Something vastly better than this is definitely needed. What’s displayed here isn’t democracy at all: it’s merely ‘democracy’. This means that all of the military invasions by ‘democratic’ countries (such as America), against other countries, are the actions by dictatorships, not actions against dictatorships (as is always claimed).

So, it’s actually rather easy to document that 1984 — the reality, and not merely the novel — has, indeed, arrived, in our time.

However, at least in our time, we possess — for the very first time in all of history — the ability to access, merely a click away, an allegation’s actual source, at least in articles such as the present one (since all sources here are linked). The people living in ancient times who were not themselves aristocrats (the people making the key governmental decisions) were unalterably 100% vulnerable to being deceived by aristocrats’ and clergies’ lies, deceived into doing whatever those decision-makers wanted to manipulate them into doing — such as “fighting for God and country!” Unfortunately, the percentage of today’s people who care enough to be skeptical of whatever other people are trying to sell, and to dig deeper than the mere assertions, even just to click onto a link, is too tiny for democracy to be able to function. Unless they become the majority, “democracy” will remain merely a word, not yet even near to being the reality, anywhere.

That, for example, explains why, despite common realities such as this, “74% [of Americans] view Israel favorably, vs. 21% for Palestinian Authority”. In order for the national aristocracy to control its mass of voters, it must first deceive its mass of voters; and, in America, they’re deceived, and have been so, for decades, at least.

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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.

Per motivare la guerra del 2003, gli Usa accusarono l’Iraq di possedere armi di distruzione di massa: il segretario di stato Colin Powell presentò all’Onu una serie di «prove» risultate poi false, come ha dovuto ammettere lui stesso nel 2016. «Prove» analoghe vengono oggi esibite per motivare l’attacco alla Siria effettuato da Stati uniti, Gran Bretagna e Francia. Il generale Kenneth McKenzie, Joint Staff Director del Pentagono, ha presentato il 14 aprile una relazione, corredata da foto satellitari, sul Centro di ricerca e sviluppo Barzah a Damasco, definendolo «il cuore del programma delle armi chimiche siriane».

Para motivar a guerra de 2003, os EUA acusaram o Iraque de possuir armas de destruição em massa: o Secretário de Estado, Colin Powell, apresentou à ONU uma série de “provas” depois demonstradas falsas, como ele mesmo teve de admitir em 2016. “Provas” análogas são agora apresentadas para provocar o ataque à Síria pelos Estados Unidos, Grã-Bretanha e França.

O General Kenneth McKenzie, Joint Staff Director do Pentágono, apresentou um relatório, em 14 de Abril, acompanhado por fotos de satélite, do Centro de Pesquisa e Desenvolvimento de Barzah, em Damasco, designando-o como “o coração do programa de armas químicas da Síria”. O Centro, que constituía o alvo principal, foi atacado com 76 mísseis de cruzeiro (57 Tomahawk lançados de navios e submarinos e 19 JASSM de aviões).

O objectivo foi destruído, anunciou o General, “trazendo de volta, após alguns anos, o programa das armas químicas da Síria”. Desta vez não há necessidade de esperar treze anos para confirmar a falsidade da “prova”.

Um mês antes do ataque, em 13 de Março, a Organização para a Proibição de Armas Químicas (OPCW/OPAQ) anunciara oficialmente o resultado da segunda inspecção, realizada no Barzah Center, em Novembro de 2017 e das análises das amostras recolhidas em Fevereiro de 2018: “A equipa de inspecção não observou nenhuma actividade contrária às obrigações decorrentes da Convenção das Armas Químicas”.

Não foi por acaso que o Centro Barzah foi destruído pouco antes da chegada, pela terceira vez, dos inspectores da OPCW. A Síria, um Estado membro da OPCW, completou, em 2014, o desarmamento químico, enquanto Israel, que não adere à Convenção das Armas Químicas, não está sujeito a nenhum controlo.

Mas deste assunto não fala o aparelho político-mediático que, pelo contrário, acusa a Síria de possuir e usar armas químicas.

O Primeiro Ministro Gentiloni declarou que a Itália, apesar de apoiar “a acção limitada e destinada a atacar o fabrico de armas químicas”, não participou de forma alguma. De facto, essa mesma acção foi previamente acordada e planeada na sede da NATO. É provado pelo facto de que, imediatamente após o ataque, o Conselho do Atlântico Norte foi convocado, no qual os Estados Unidos, a Grã-Bretanha e a França “informaram os Aliados sobre uma acção militar conjunta na Síria” e os Aliados exprimiram oficialmente “o seu apoio total a esta acção”.

Gentiloni também declarou que “o apoio logístico que fornecemos sobretudo aos EUA, não poderia de modo algum ser traduzido, no facto de que acções directas destinadas a atacar a Síria, partam do território italiano”. Na realidade, o ataque à Síria vindo do Mediterrâneo foi dirigido pelo Comando das Forças Navais dos EUA na Europa, com sede em Nápoles-Capodichino, às ordens do Almirante James Foggo que, ao mesmo tempo, comanda a Força Conjunta da NATO, com sede em Lago Patria (Nápoles).

A operação bélica foi apoiada pela base da Força Aérea dos EUA, em Sigonella e pela estação americana de Niscemi, do sistema MUOS de transmissões navais.

Como mostram os rastos nos radares, os drones espiões americanos, RQ-4 Global Hawk, levantando voo de Sigonella, tiveram um papel fundamental no ataque à Síria, apoiados por aviões-cisterna para reabastecimento dos caças.

Portanto, a Itália partilha a responsabilidade duma acção de guerra que viola as normas mais elementares do Direito Internacional. Ainda não se sabe quais serão as consequências, mas é certo que alimenta as chamas da guerra, se bem que Gentiloni assegure que “não pode ser o início de uma escalada”.

Il manifesto, 17 de Abril de 2018

Video :

With the May 12 deadline set by U.S. President Donald Trump to “fix” the Iran nuclear deal (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action or JCPOA) approaching, European Union foreign ministers failed to agree on new sanctions against Iran at their meeting in Luxembourg on Monday April 16. The plan, hatched by the so-called EU3—France, Germany, United Kingdom—was to slap new sanctions on Iran for “destabilizing regional policies” such as its support for Bashar Assad in Syria.

The proposed sanctions were meant to send a message to Trump that Europeans, who are very keen to safeguard the JCPOA, take his concerns on Iran seriously. However, other EU member states, like Italy and Austria, sensibly judged that punishing Iran on non-JCPOA matters would do nothing to temper Trump’s hostility toward the agreement. The timing of the sanctions would have also lent credence to Tehran’s suspicions that the EU was desperate to “appease” Trump, even at the cost of punishing Iran in spite of the fact that it has lived up to its commitments under the JCPOA. Thus the EU risked finding itself in the worst of all worlds: failing to satisfy the U.S. and undermining hard-built trust in its relations with Iran.

At the press conference following the foreign ministers’ meeting, Federica Mogherini, the EU foreign policy chief, repeated the EU’s position that concerns about Iran’s regional activities and its missile program should be addressed outside the scope of the JCPOA. She reiterated that the EU already has sanctions in place covering these behaviors, and that more could be adopted any time if EU members agree. But she made it clear that this had nothing to do with Trump’s May 12 deadline.

Despite this obvious truth, the EU3 is expected to ratchet up pressure on the rest of their European partners as May 12 draws closer. However, instead of doubling-down on a failed approach that will not only fall far short of the minimum Washington demands, but also risk undermining the unified EU position, the EU3—and the EU as a whole—should adopt an alternative, and much more robust, strategy to safeguard the JCPOA.

Elements of such a strategy were proposed at the European Parliament hearing on April 12 by Ellie Geranmayeh from the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR) and Cornelius Adebahr from the Research Institute of the German Council on Foreign Relations (DGAP), two leading European think-tanks.

Geranmayeh noted that the recent appointments of Mike Pompeo and John Bolton, two hard-line opponents of the JCPOA, to senior positions in the Trump administration require an adjustment on the European side. The EU3 negotiated with the Rex Tillerson-led State Department on the assumption that Washington really wanted to just “fix” the deal, and that if the right “fixes” were found the U.S. would stay committed to the deal. This was always a leap of faith, since the Trump administration has never signaled an intention to honor the deal by allowing Iran to enjoy its full economic benefits. The appointments of Bolton and Pompeo only highlight an uncomfortable truth: early signals from the EU about its readiness to make concessions encouraged the Trump administration to raise the bar ever higher, to the point where the only acceptable solution, from Washington’s perspective, would be for the EU to join the U.S. in violating the deal. The EU should therefore sequence its steps much more carefully, and only on the basis of clear reciprocal commitments from U.S.

It is also time for serious contingency planning in case the U.S. decides to withdraw from the JCPOA. Reviving the EU Blocking Regulation, which prohibits EU companies from complying with U.S. secondary sanctions, is one option. Another would be to set up non-dollar denominated mechanisms for EU companies to do business in Iran, possibly using the European Investment Bank as one such vehicle. Communicating the EU’s seriousness on contingency measures would gain more leverage in negotiations with the U.S. than the EU3’s attempts to appease Trump have gained.

Geranmayeh also suggested the need for the EU to build a global coalition to protect the JCPOA. Such a coalition would include not only the deal’s other two signatories, Russia and China, but also big Asian economies, like Japan, South Korea, and India. All of these actors are worried about the risks the derailment of the JCPOA would pose to the global non-proliferation regime, and also about the long-term impact of U.S. secondary sanctions.

At the same time, Geranmayeh warned that the EU should also think carefully about what kind of package could be offered to Iran to sustain its commitment to the JCPOA after May 12. Although the Iranians, so far, have shown a degree of strategic patience, there are signs of increasing rhetorical defiance from Tehran. Ali Akbar Salehi, the head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, has said that, should the U.S. withdraw from the JCPOA, Iran could easily begin enriching uranium to 20%—the JCPOA caps Iran’s uranium enrichment at 3.67%. In any case, since the Iranians insist that their nuclear program was always civilian in nature, they see the JCPOA as a voluntary agreement, from which they can exit if they assess that it no longer serves their national interest.

As far as dealing with Iran´s activities in the Middle East, Mogherini herself suggested that sanctions are not the only tool at the EU’s disposal. Dialogue is equally important. In this context, it is worth heeding the advice of Cornelius Adebahr that the EU look seriously into proposals made by Iran’s foreign minister, Javad Zarif, at the Munich security conference on the regional security in the Persian Gulf and Middle East. Fostering regional understanding is something that the EU is good at, reflecting its own historical experience. As Adebahr pointed out, it is, in fact, Saudi Arabia that is reluctant to enter into some kind of regional security dialogue, not Iran. Instead of focusing narrowly on Iran’s “destabilizing activities,” the EU3 should nudge the Saudis and their allies toward some sort of accommodation with Iran. If the Saudis could be brought into negotiations with Iran it would do far more for Middle Eastern stability than piling more sanctions on Tehran ever could.

EU leaders should follow the advice of experts like Geranmayeh and Adebahr and abandon the futile attempts to satisfy the Trump administration. They should stand their ground to secure the survival of an agreement to which they contributed so much. Failing to do so will not only derail a working non-proliferation agreement, but also create a dangerous precedent whereby the EU collapses under Trump’s pressure.

*

Eldar Mamedov has degrees from the University of Latvia and the Diplomatic School in Madrid, Spain. He has worked in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Latvia and as a diplomat in Latvian embassies in Washington D.C. and Madrid. Since 2007, Mamedov has served as a political adviser for the social-democrats in the Foreign Affairs Committee of the European Parliament (EP) and is in charge of the EP delegations for inter-parliamentary relations with Iran, Iraq, the Arabian Peninsula, and Mashreq.

“So the story of Douma is thus not just a story of gas – or no gas, as the case may be. It’s about thousands of people who did not opt for evacuation from Douma on buses that left last week, alongside the gunmen with whom they had to live like troglodytes for months in order to survive.” – Robert Fisk (The Independent, April 17, 2018) [1]

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In the early morning hours of Saturday April 14th Syrian time, the armed forces of the United States, the United Kingdom and France launched airstrikes involving planes and ship launched missiles against three targets in Syria ostensibly with the intention of degrading President Assad’s capacity to use chemical weapons against his own country’s population. The airstrikes came at a time when the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, or OPCW, were preparing to investigate the accusation that chemical weapons were used in the Damascus suburb of Douma, a charge denied by the Syrian government.[2]

Russia and the US-led coalition can’t seem to agree on the details of the airstrikes. While Washington claims all 105 of the missiles they launched hit their target, the Russian Defence Ministry is claiming the Syrian Arab Army shot down 71 of the 103 missiles that were launched.[3]

The two sides also cannot agree on who is to blame for delaying the OPCW inspections. The White House has accused the Russians of working with the Syrian government to buy time while evidence of chemical weapons use is covered up. The Russian Foreign Ministry by contrast not only denied these allegations, they announced at an April 19th briefing that Syrian military forces found chlorine gas canisters from Germany as well as smoke barrel containers made in Salisbury in the United Kingdom.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova pointed out at the same briefing that Russia had previously attained intelligence in Eastern Ghoutta’s liberated areas of clandestine labs suggesting a false flag provocation was being prepared by the opposition militants. Stated Zakharova: “All this information was sent, is being sent and will be sent to the OPCW, but it still remains unnoticed by the West, the Western mainstream media, which do everything to ignore it.”

The Western media’s narrative seems to be falling apart. Robert Fisk, an acclaimed veteran journalist with the Independent had released a bomb-shell report from Douma, in which he spoke to a doctor at the underground clinic where the images of gas poisoning was filmed. According to Fisk’s report, the civilians were being treated for oxygen starvation, not gas poisoning. Further, unlike thousands of people who chose to remain in Douma, the White Helmets bolted from the area alongside fleeing Jihadi gunmen to the rebel held province of Idlib.

This week’s installment of the Global Research News Hour examines what the aftermath of the US-led airstrikes of April 14th tells us about the less frequently discussed motives behind the coalition’s assault, and what will likely be revealed in the days ahead.

Our first guest, Vanessa Beeley speaks to us from the ground in Damascus. She had been in Syria for the past five weeks, and she has spoken to Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs), cab drivers, civilians in liberated areas and others about the activities of the White Helmets (one of the West’s the main sources of information about the alleged April 7th CW attack). She brings us more detail about what civilians on the ground are saying about the gas attacks, and about what the complete liberation of Ghoutta will mean for the Western Alliance’s propaganda campaign against the Syrian government.

Professor Michel Chossudovsky is convinced that a financial bonanza can be enjoyed by corporate entities invested in military companies that stand to profit from successful military ventures where there are direct links with governments ‘in the know.’ He cites the example of British Prime Minister Theresa May whose husband Philip May works for a firm with major investments in BAE Systems and Lockheed-Martin, both of whose share prices soared after the airstrikes on Damascus. He advances his thesis in the second half hour. (See Transcript below.)

Vanessa Beeley is an Associate Editor of 21st Century Wire and has travelled to Syria several times. She is among those questioning standard narratives of the Syrian ‘civil war’ and has been on the ground in Syria since early March.

Professor Michel Chossudovsky is Professor of Economics (emeritus) at the University of Ottawa, Founder and Director of the Centre for Research on Globalization and  Editor of Global Research. He is the author of over 1000 articles and scholarly publications as well as the author of 11 books including The Globalization of Poverty and The New World Order (first published in 1997 and updated in 2003) and The Globalization of War, America’s Long War against Humanity (2015).

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Transcript- Professor Michel Chossudovsky Interview, April 19, 2018

Part One

Introduction

Prime Minister May approved of the decision to participate in airstrikes against what the US-UK-France alliance deemed to be chemical weapons facilities in Syria without a formal vote in the House of Commons and without UN sanction. It turns out that the Prime minister’s husband Philip May happens to work for the investment firm Capital Group which is the single largest shareholder in the arms manufacturer BAE systems, which built the so-called Storm-SHadow missiles, eight of which were reportedly fired by UK forces at targets in Syria alleged by the Western alliance to be chemical weapons facilities.

According to figures available as of March 31, 2018, one week before the chemical weapons attack was supposed to have occurred, Capital Group’s holdings in BAE stood at 360,000 shares, an increase of 11 % over the previous quarter.

Philip May’s firm is also the second largest shareholder in the US military arms firm Lockheed Martin Both BAE Systems and Lockheed Martin saw their stock prices soar in the wake of the Syria airstrikes.

Given that Philip May is reportedly an informal advisor to the Prime minister, does his involvement in Capital Group constitute a conflict of interest, in this or other instances of aggression, even when the use of such force may be legitimate? Are the other NATO powers similarly compromised in their use of force? To discuss these questions we are joined once again by Professor Michel Chossudovsky.

Michel Chossudovsky is  Professor of Economics (emeritus) at the University of Ottawa , the founder and director of the centre for research on Globalization, editor of globalresearch.ca and author of more than 1000 articles, scholarly publications and chapters in books. He is also the author of 11 books including The Globalization of Poverty and The New World Order (first published in 1997 and updated in 2003) and The Globalization of War, America’s Long War against Humanity (2015).

Global Research: Professor Chossudovsky it’s great to have you back on the program.

Professor Chossudovsky: Thank you very much. Delighted to be on the program. Uh, as we say, war is good for business, but speculating on particular outcomes when you know what will be the outcome is a multi-million dollar endeavour.

The issue is, if you really want to make money on the stocks of Lockheed Martin and British Aerospace, Northrop Grumman, Boeing, General Dynamics… in other words the large defense contractors, you have to not only have inside information on the conduct and the timing of that military operation, but you also have to know what is the likely outcome.

The likely outcome was actually known to a limited number of people in the United States, France, and Britain, and they knew the outcome because they knew that the Russians would not activate their air defense system, the S400. Why did they know that? Because prior to the conduct of this operation, they had actually negotiated with the Russians. They had said we will not attack any of your facilities. This is… these are predetermined targets, and the Russians agreed on the predetermined targets.

In other words the whole thing was staged. It was not really a military attack, a bona fide military attack, where the defensive capabilities of the S400 were deployed. And consequently, because of that, they knew that none of their high-tech jet fighters would actually be knocked out of the sky by the S400. They knew that in advance.

Now, if you don’t know that in advance, you can bet and say, well, you know if they knock them out of the sky, then the stocks of Lockheed Martin will literally plunge. That didn’t happen. But the normal speculator who didn’t have that advance information would place his bets and say well, I think the Russians are going to actually respond, which they didn’t.

And I think everybody, you know, people who read newspapers and reports, and so on said, well this is very dangerous. The United States is going to come in, they’re going to bomb Syria, then the Russians are going to knock them out of the sky with their S400. Then it’s escalation, then Lockheed Martin stocks might plunge because they, literally, you know, they lose faith because their bloody aircraft have been knocked down by the Russian air defense system, and that didn’t happen.

GR: Sorry – could you speak to that issue of foreknowledge, because looking at the stock indications, we see the stock going up after April 16th. What evidence do we have that there were certain people who had that foreknowledge? Where does that foreknowledge manifest itself?

MC: Well, that foreknowledge manifests itself in the office of Theresa May and her husband, Philip May, and in the office of President Macron, and of course the main protagonists, of course, are, well, it’s the Defense Secretary, the White House, etc., the National Security Adviser, there are quite a number of people who know what’s going to happen, quite a number of people.

Some of them are advisers, of course, all this top secret, but admittedly, if Theresa May talks to her husband, who runs one of the largest financial investment outfits with stocks and so on so forth, well, her husband what’s he going to do? He’s going too…because that’s the whole basis of speculative trade. You bet on an outcome. And I haven’t investigated the matter, but essentially, you bet on the fact that the overall index of defense contractors on the stock market is going to go up.

In other words, those stocks are going to go up, so you bet on an upward movement. And, if you’re using options trade, then we’re talking about put and call.  The put option is when you are betting on the fact the whole thing is going to collapse. So, some people bet on the collapse of the Dow Jones – it’s a put option. If it’s a call option, well, they’re betting on the fact that it’s going up. Now, how do you make money on those kinds of operations? It’s only if you know what the outcome is going to be. And there’s an issue of timing and so on.

But in this particular case, the outcome of that attack was known in advance. That the Russians would not respond. Nobody else knew that. You know, there were a fair number of people involved in decision-making but nobody else. Now, that information was, of course, crucial to the speculators, to the investors, to the financial institutions which may have received that information.

And I would suspect, of course, the outfit of the husband of the Prime Minister of Great Britain had that information. I would suspect that the Rothschild’s also had that [information], because President Macron was a former employee of the Rothschild’s. And, of course, the Trump family and their links to Wall Street, the people there obviously had that kind of information to a lesser or greater extent. Certainly, Trump had it, and his cronies would certainly have bet on the result, and said, oh, it’s safe go ahead and bet on an upward movement of the stock market, the stocks of Lockheed Martin, and Boeing, and so on, because we’re going to come out successfully in that operation, and none of our military capabilities are going to be attacked by the Russian’s S400. Well, they don’t even need to explain that; they just say go ahead and bet.

GR: Okay, I just want to stop you right there, because I think some of our listeners are familiar with the speculative trading that was going on days in advance of the 9/11 attacks which…on United and American Airlines stock, people who would suggest foreknowledge that these attacks were going to happen, based on the unusual number of put and call options. Do we have any indications yet of unusual trading activity in advance of this military exercise, or is that something we’re still investigating?

MC: Well, that’s something that has to be looked into very carefully. There’s data on option trading… I think what we can reasonably say at this stage is that this is not strictly a conflict of interest regarding Theresa May and her husband. It’s far more serious. In this particular case the company of which he is a senior executive is a massive investment firm both in Britain and the United States, and it owns something of the order of 10% of Lockheed Martin shares. Some say it’s 7% but other estimates say up to 10%. And it also owns, when I say it owns, it owns that on behalf of customers, as well, but nonetheless, this is a bonanza for the May family.

It means that the British Prime Minister has fed information to her husband which enables the personal enrichment by that specific family. And the same thing goes for the Trump family. Now,  I don’t think that this process of corruption and fraud is limited to a single military event. They’ve been doing it all along. In other words, since Theresa May became prime minister, her husband is receiving foreknowledge of various statements that she’s going to make which will have impact on money markets, including Brexit of course.

So, every time Theresa May opens her mouth and says, oh, Brexit this, that and the other, well, her husband already has foreknowledge of that and can speculate on what happens at the level of the stock market. It’s a form of enrichment which, first of all, leads to tremendous wealth because you can use options, and it is directly the result of a complicity of heads of state and heads of government with powerful financial institutions.

In this particular case, we have a financial family in Downing Street with Theresa and Philip May, and, of course, we have, you know, a tycoon [Donald  in the White House], a real estate tycoon with links to Wall Street, who is in the White House and who does exactly the same, and whose cronies make billions of dollars simply on the basis of receiving foreknowledge of public statements which the president or his cronies will make. So that is the nature of this relationship.

Now, let’s put the Theresa May issue into perspective.

Theresa May is a liar regarding… Well, she’s a serial liar, because she has lied regarding the Skripal affair, the so-called nerve agent saga,

She’s also lied with regard to the chemical weapons attack in Douma, making statements which were undocumented, with a view to actually launching that attack on Friday evening after the closure of the stock market.

And third, she is a fraud…well, she’s a war criminal as well, because people get killed as a result of her actions.

So, there you have a liar, a war criminal, and a financial fraud combined. … Well, I was born in Wales and I’m British, and I don’t recall any previous British head of government, Prime Minister, who had that kind of triangular denomination of being a war criminal, a liar, and a fraud. Well, she is all three, and I would say that, under normal conditions, that government should topple, should fall.

Intermission

Part Two

GR: Do you see this government being brought down? Because I don’t see much messaging about this coming from the opposition benches.

MC: I don’t see it happening. I don’t see it happening. Because, despite the fact that Robert Fisk’s article was published in The Independent, and there were several testimonies of what happened in Douma, all of that now has been sort of squashed away and the mainstream media is coming out with lies and fabrications. And, as I would say, and that’s very important, when the lie becomes the truth, there’s no moving backwards. That is the nature of the crisis that we’re living through at this moment. And it’s a systematic lies, lies, lies, and these are actually transformed into truth, truth, truth by the New York Times, the Washington Post, and so on.

And people are misinformed as to what is going on. The independent media is, of course, threatened as well, and I think that is a fundamental issue.

Now, look at what’s happening to the anti-war movement. The anti-war movement in Britain is not necessarily bringing out the lies and the “financial killings” issue. They are in fact taking on a position which is pretty ambiguous. And then you have people like Tariq Ali who actually is calling for a regime change in Syria. And Tariq Ali happens to be one of the protagonist of the anti-war movement in Great Britain.

GR:  Just keeping the focus on the financial incentives behind war, I’m just going to try and help our listeners understand the dimensions of this… How this incident involving the Mays is different from a lot of the messaging we’ve seen over the years about the military industrial complex and how defense contractors make money from war. You know, Dick Cheney’s Halliburton and Kellogg, Brown & Root, the Bushes and the Carlyle Group, that you do have this kind of convergence between the economic, these major multinationals who create this incentive for going to war and the politicians that they lobby for, finance, or what have you, that creates this overall incentive for utilizing military force and militarism. I’m wondering if the incidents that you’re referring to with regard to May and Capital Group, if you could help clarify that difference.

MC: Well, you’re absolutely right. I mean, what we are generally focusing on is how politicians are being lobbied, how the military industrial complex of the United States acts as a lobby group and co-opts politicians one after the other. And they are essentially acting to ensure that Lockheed Martin, Boeing, et al will receive multibillion-dollar contracts from the Department of Defense, from the Pentagon, and of course the 1.3 or 1.2 trillion dollar nuclear weapons program, that’s all lobbying and that’s “war is good for business” as far as the so-called contractors are concerned. That’s happening. That is of a specific nature and different to what we’ve just discussed.

Because here we are dealing with the selling of foreknowledge from politicians to financiers. In other words, you have inside information that something is going to happen, and you slip that on to your broker on Wall Street, and then they speculate on the outcomes. And that is something which is quite routine.

For instance, take Bloomberg. Well Bloomberg Is a news agency, but it’s also an investor on Wall Street. So they come up with news reports, and inevitably, and I don’t wish to criticize them, inevitably, they have foreknowledge of what they’re going to publish as far as reporting on particular economic events. And the same thing is true for the New York Times. But then at the same time they’re investing in Wall Street, based on foreknowledge of news items for which many people have foreknowledge. I think of the various monthly indicators of employment and so on. That we know about, but here we are dealing with a level of corruption which is beyond the lobby type of relationships that politicians have to defense contractors.

Here, we’re dealing with the relationship between a head of government, Theresa May, and one of the most powerful financial groups on planet Earth, which can speculate based on foreknowledge of what Mrs. May is going to say and what Mrs May is going to do. And the outcome of those statements, as well. I mean, it’s not, as I mentioned earlier, it’s not simply the foreknowledge regarding an attack on Syria, but it is also the foreknowledge of the outcome of that attack. Will it lead to escalation? Will it lead to Russia blowing up aircraft in the skies of the eastern Mediterranean? Etc.

GR: Well, I think… just an important distinction to make is that you do lay out a very important case about the possibility of capitalizing on this sort of information, but we don’t really have as yet, at least as far as I’m aware, any documentation of unusual trading activity stemming from such speculative or insider knowledge. So, I guess what you’re suggesting is that’s something we really need to watch out for in the days ahead so that we can basically cement the case that this sort of thing is going on, and that, one would hope, would lead to some sort of repeal of this Prime Minister and the larger agenda.

MC: Well, I think, of course, the research has to be undertaken. I recall that was a theme of your program a couple of weeks ago regarding the legacy of Michael Ruppert. Well, Michael Ruppert actually took the trouble of looking at these transactions, options trades on the airlines companies, United Airlines, and came to the conclusion that there was some very unusual financial transactions which preceded 9/11 and, as a result of 9/11 of course, they reaped billions and billions of dollars of revenue.

That, of course, indicated that some people knew that 9/11 was going to happen, and they speculated on the outcome. The results of those investigations [by Ruppert] are impeccable. Now, I would suspect that what we need now is that the trading in defense stocks should be the object of an investigation, both in terms of options, but also in terms of actual (equity)  transactions, movements. I notice, of course, that on the Friday, Lockheed Martin’s value of the stock had declined, not by very much, but was on the downward movement. It was less than a quarter of a percent, I think, but it was in the red.

And then, of course, you have the weekend, and then it shoots up on Monday morning. And, typically, those kinds of speculative ops, I mean, I’m talking about actually the air strike against Syria, the air strike seem to have been timed with Wall Street. It took place after the closure of financial markets, worldwide. And then, of course, when financial markets opened up on Monday morning, then you have a movement in stock value.

GR: Well, I think that we’re going to leave it there, but thanks so much once again for your thoughts, Professor Chossudovsky.

MC: Thank you, so much. I’m delighted to be on the program.

GR: We’ve been speaking with Michel Chossudovsky. He’s the Founder and Director of the Centre for Research on Globalization, and the editor of GlobalResearch.ca

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

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Notes: 

1. Robert Fisk (April 17, 2018), ‘The search for truth in the rubble of Douma -and one doctor’s doubts over the chemical attack’, Independent; https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/syria-chemical-attack-gas-douma-robert-fisk-ghouta-damascus-a8307726.html
2. Helene Cooper and Ben Hubbard (April 14, 2018), ‘Pentagon Says Syria Strikes Hit ‘Heart’ of Chemical Weapons Program’, New York Times; https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/14/world/middleeast/syria-airstrikes-analysis.html
3. https://southfront.org/syrian-war-report-april-17-2018-syrian-forces-repel-more-missile-strikes/ 

Channel surfing last night I came across something on C-Span that caught my attention. I saw the famous Irish singer, Bono, from U-2, sitting with none other than Junior Bush. What gives I asked myself? Then I did some research and came up with this, from last May of 2017:

***

Bono hangs out with George W. Bush at his Texas ranch

By David Caplan

The current series of railroad strikes in France are portrayed in the media as “labor unrest”, a conflict between the government and trade union leaders, or as a temporary nuisance to travelers caused by the self-interest of a privileged category of workers.  In Anglo-American media, there is the usual self-satisfied tongue-clicking over “those cheese-eaters, always on strike”.

In reality, the strike by train conductors and other employees of the SNCF (Société Nationale des Chemins de Fer) is a deeply significant chapter in a social tragedy that is destroying France as we have known it.

What has made France a most comfortable country to live in for over half a century is not only the food and the scenery.  Above all, it has been the public services – the best in the world. The postal service, public education, health coverage, public utilities, railroad service – all were excellent, exemplary.  True, the French telephone system for a long time lagged far behind other developed countries before catching up, and there have always been complaints of over-the-counter rudeness in governmental offices, but that can happen anywhere. The important point is that thanks to its public services, France ran smoothly, providing favorable conditions for business and daily life. When people take good things for granted too long, they begin not to notice as they are gradually taken away.

President Emmanuel Macron’s program for destroying the SNCF is a wakeup call. But there is reason to fear that much of the public has already been plunged into a slumber too deep to be awakened.

It takes a long history to produce something as good as French public services.  It goes back to the centralization of the French state in the seventeenth century, associated with the finance minister of Louis XIV, Jean-Baptiste Colbert.  The SNCF was formed in 1938 by merging France’s various railroad companies as a state monopolyas part of the progressive social reforms of the Popular Front. At the end of World War II, public services received a decisive boost from the paradoxical alliance between the opposite wings of the French Resistance, the Communists and the Gaullists.  General Charles de Gaulle, although anti-communist, was the sort of conservative (look back at Bismarck) who understands that a nation’s strength and unity depend on a modicum of social justice. Despite open opposition on many issues, the Gaullists and the communists joined in a unified National Council of the Resistance, which in March, 1944, adopted a program calling for a mixed economy combining free enterprise with strategic nationalizations, along with social security programs and trade union rights.  This program of social justice laid the groundwork for an extraordinary increase in economic development, called Les Trente Glorieuses – the glorious thirty years of peace and prosperity.  The French mixed economy functioned better than either the bureaucratic communism or profit-centered capitalism in terms of freedom, equality and human well-being.

It is harder to build things up than to tear them down.

The Thatcher neoliberal putsch signaled the death sentence of the glorious thirty and the start of the forty inglorious: the persistent campaign, ideological and institutional, to destroy the social state, lower wages and benefits, and eventually transfer all decision-making power to the movements of finance capital.  This is variously called neoliberalism or globalization.

The counter-revolution struck France in the early years of the presidency of Socialist President François Mitterrand, causing his government to change its policies and break its “common program” alliance with the Communists.  To hide its anti-social shift, the Socialist Party changed its line to “anti-racism” and “the construction of Europe” (meaning the European Union), presented as the new horizon of “progress”.  The concern of workers to maintain the standard of living they had achieved in recent decades was derided as “reactionary”, in opposition to the new concept of borderless, global competition, the new “progress”.

In reality, “European construction” has meant the systematic deconstruction of member states’ sovereignty, bringing about the destruction of social welfare systems bolstered by sentiments of national solidarity for which there is no substitute in the vague abstraction called “Europe”.  Step by step, Europe is being deprived of its social protections and opened up to the whims of the likes of Goldman Sachs, industrial takeovers and shutdowns, and Qatar.

French railroad workers

The cheminots – France’s railroad workers – are not just fighting for themselves. They constitute the front lines of the final battle to save France from the ravages of neoliberal globalization.

Emmanuel Macron – protégé of the Rothschild bank, which helped him join the ranks of millionaires – presents his “reform” of the railways as a measure of “equality”, by depriving railroad workers of their “privileged status”.

Privileges?  Train conductors lead a hard life, long hours and few weekends to spend with their families.  The lives of millions of passengers depend on their concentration and devotion. In consideration of all this, their “privileged” status included job security and relatively early retirement (privileges that the rich can give themselves, and which are standard in military careers).

The striking rail workers protest that they do not want to be “privileged” but rather wish to see such “privileges” extended to others.  In any case, much more is at stake here than wages and hours.

Public services in France were more than conveniences.  For millions, they were an ethic, a way of life.  In many countries, public services are totally undermined by corruption and neglect.  This does not happen when people believe in what they are doing.  Such belief is not automatic: it is historically acquired.  The French cheminots have been like an extended family, held together by belief that they are carrying out an essential social duty.  In fact, many are literally “family”, as the job of train conductor often passed from father to son, as a matter of pride.

This devotion to social duty is more than a personal attitude: it is a spiritual value that a nation should treasure and preserve.  Instead, it is being sacrificed to the demands of finance capital.

How is that?  There is now an excess of capital sloshing around the world on the lookout for profitable places to invest. That is what “neoliberalism” is all about.  Ordinary businesses may go broke, or at least fail to turn a profit to stockholders.  That is why the public sector must be privatized.  The great thing about investing in public services, is that if they don’t make money, the government will step in and subsidize them – at taxpayers’ expense!

That is the attraction of the arms industry.  It can also apply to education, health care, transportation, communications.  But the official pretext is that these services must be privatized because that will make them “more efficient”.

That is the big lie.

It has already been exposed in the United Kingdom, where the privatization of the railroads has produced not only worse service but fatal accidents, especially since there is no immediate profit in rail maintenance.

Pride in the job well done was a much-neglected aspect of the rise of socialism. Artisans who were obliged by the rise of capitalism to abandon their independent activities in order to become slaves of industry were often the vanguard of the socialist movement in the nineteenth century.  Such pride is a far more stable element of social cohesion than increasingly childish anarchist calls to “destroy the system” – with no alternative in sight.

Macron is only a pawn. It is not Macron who decided to destroy France’s rail system. It was decided and decreed by the European Union, and Macron is merely carrying out orders. The orders are to open the rail system up to free international competition.  Soon, German, Italian, Spanish trains may be sharing with French trains the same rails – rails whose upkeep is turned over to another company, also in it for the profit. The stress of the rail workers will be increased by their insecurity.  To fill the profit margin, passengers will inevitably have to pay more.  As for residents of small rural communities, they will simply lose their railroad service altogether, because it is not profitable.

Run as a public service, the national railroad used its benefits from lines with heavy traffic to finance those in more sparsely inhabited rural areas, this providing  equal benefits to people wherever they live.  That is on the way out.  The destruction of public services hastens the desertification of the countryside and the growth of mega-cities.  Hospitals in rural areas are being shut down, post offices closed.  France’s charming villages will die out with the last elderly inhabitants still clinging to them.

That is the “modernization” program underway.

Overlooked in the multitude of foreign misunderstanding of France is the hallucinatory power of terms such as “modern” and “progress”.  The champions of privatization attempt to mesmerize the public with these magical words, while meanwhile slyly cutting back service in order to prepare the public to accept the planned changes as possible improvements.

Two things should be mentioned to complete this sad story. One is that in the wake of its privatization, France Télecom underwent a wave of employee suicides – 39 in two years –  certainly in part due to stress and demoralization, as methods were introduced to reduce the quality of service and increase profits.  When pride in work is destroyed, the path is short to indifference, negligence and even corruption.

Another point to recall is the propaganda campaign mounted about twenty years ago to smear the SNCF for its role in “deporting Jewish children” to Nazi concentration camps.  This was unjustifiable, considering that the Nazi occupiers confiscated the French railroads, which had no choice in the matter.Moreover, railroad employees (many of them communists) played an important role in the Resistance by sabotaging military trains – until the United States Air Force pounded the hell out of most major French railroad stations (and the surrounding neighborhoods) to prepare for the Normandy invasion.  This slander of the SNCF was naturally used by U.S. rivals to exclude French fast-speed trains from the U.S. market.

As Macron raises taxes to build up his military industrial complex, the only public employees who will soon be left to enjoy social benefits and early retirement will be the military – whose task will not be to serve France but to act as auxiliary in United States foreign wars.

Until soldiers are replaced by robots.

*

Diana Johnstone can be reached at [email protected]. She is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

Ireland banned fracking but Sambolo Resources wants to open one of Europe’s biggest projects to process fracked material in a Shannon Estuary nature reserve where whales and dolphins swim. Right now, they’re trying to renew planning permission with An Bord Pleanála – who have acted very strangely.

The proposed plant is called Shannon LNG and it is huge: the proposed final maximum regasification capacity of at least 10 billion cubic meters (bcm) per year would equal the European Union’s most ambitious gas project, the Southern Gas Corridor, and supply Ireland‘s fossil gas needs twice over. Fracked hydrocarbons would be tankered in from the United States, processed and much of it then sent to Europe. This project is a game changer, especially in jittery Brexit times.

Planning permission was first granted in 2008. But since then lots of things have changed:

• The Shannon Estuary has been declared an Estuaries Special Protection Area by the EU; the exact site is now an EU Special Protected Area
• We now know how dangerous fossil gas is: over a 20 year period methane is at least 86 more powerful than carbon dioxide as a green house gas
• Numerous leaks and accidents have proved the destructive impact of fracking and LNG on the environment, climate and public health
• Ireland has banned fracking and will soon vote on a full divestment from fossil fuels
• Ireland signed the Paris Climate Agreement; this project would make our emissions goals unreachable

Initially, An Bord Pleanála, the Irish State Planning Board, decided that extending the expiring planning permission for the proposed Shannon LNG terminal is a “Material Change”, meaning that then a second decision is required on whether the changes would have “significant effects on the environment”. If the alteration is deemed both material and having a significant effect on the environment then it is almost certain that Shannon LNG would be refused permission to extend planning permission beyond the 10 years. Then, 26 days later, An Bord Planeála changed its mind.

Then something unprecedented happened: environmental Groups from Ireland, Belgium, Germany and the USA united in one joint submission against the extension of planning. They fear than it would contribute significantly to climate change, destroy local biodiversity, involve more fossil fuel lock-in and damage the up-and-coming Irish renewables industry. Global trends show that investors are prioritising green development.

Right now, everyone is is still waiting to see if An Bord Pleanála will consider everything we have learned since 2008 in deciding to renew planning permission. The groups call on the public to send in important additional comments until May 13th, a date set by An Bord Pleanála.

Contact: [email protected] to send in your comments and/or sign the petition on Uplift.

*

Featured image is from TruePublica.

Mark Taliano, reporting from Aleppo, Syria.

Corporate media channels have a global reach that vaults over sovereign boundaries to make Western propaganda almost ubiquitous.  Consequently, toxic messaging – even as it contradicts the most elementary critical reasoning – prevails.

Not only are the lies about the War on Syria likely unprecedented, but so too is the credulity of global populations.  Prior to the dirty war on Syria and all of the ensuing dirty games, Syria’s population was highly educated, with a very low illiteracy rate.  So, despite the fact that terrorists in occupied areas forbid children to attend school, and despite the pervasiveness of Western propaganda operations, much of the population still critically assesses the waves of Western propaganda.

Syrians living in Syria know that Assad is not a monster.

Most have a certain reverence for the government, its agencies, and its institutions – especially now since they know that the government and its military protect Syria and Syrians.

National holiday celebrations: April 17, 2018

Syrians such as Abdel Hay Kaddour see through the apparatus of deceptions: the false flags, the fake NGOs, the White Helmets, the Assad demonization campaigns … everything.

Interview by Pearson Sharp

*

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. 

Voices from Syria 

ISBN: 978-0-9879389-1-6

Author: Mark Taliano

Year: 2017

Pages: 128 (Expanded edition: 1 new chapter)

List Price: $17.95

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The US recently announced possible plans to deploy thousands of additional US Marines to East Asia as part of the recently revealed 2018 National Security Strategy which designates China along with Russia as the US Department of Defence’s “principal priorities.”

The Business Insider in its article, “The US is considering sending heavily armed Marines to Asia to counter China,” would state:

The possible MEU [Marine Expeditionary Unit] deployments could reassure Asian allies that the US is not a waning power in the region, something that has become a concern for partners in the Indo-Pacific.

However, if a nation needs to arrange a token redeployment to convince its allies it isn’t a waning power, such gestures seem to only confirm such suspicions.

China is the New “Threat”  

Within the pages of the 2018 National Security Strategy, the US has justified its increasingly direct, adversarial posture towards China by claiming:

China is a strategic competitor using predatory economics to intimidate its neighbors while militarizing features in the South China Sea.

The document continues:

China is leveraging military modernization, influence operations, and predatory economics to coerce neighboring countries to reorder the Indo-Pacific region to their advantage. As China continues its economic and military ascendance, asserting power through an all-of-nation long-term strategy, it will continue to pursue a military modernization program that seeks Indo-Pacific regional hegemony in the near-term and displacement of the United States to achieve global preeminence in the future.

The paper also makes mention of what it calls an “international order,” a reoccurring theme throughout several decades of US policy papers. While this particular paper claims it is “free and open” and “rules-based,” other papers have more candidly described it.

Prolific US policymaker and neoconservative pro-war commentator Robert Kagan would claim:

The present world order serves the needs of the United States and its allies, which constructed it.

In other words, the “international order” is merely the world as the US sees fit. US policy in Asia, attempting to maintain hegemony in a region a literal ocean away from its own shores validates Kagan’s interpretation of what “international order” actually means. It is neither “free and open” nor “rules-based” unless it is understood that the world is considered “free and open” for Washington to do with as it pleases, with “rules” used only to constrain the actions of others in order to prevent competition.

In reality, the “international order” is predicated on a more timeless geopolitical maxim, “might makes right.” Reflected in the pages of the 2018 US National Security Strategy then, is a United States attempting to cope with the fact that very soon it will no longer be the mightiest in the zero-sum world it created.

Targeting China’s “strategic competition” across Asia with a military build-up in East Asia, however, reveals the United States’ fundamental weaknesses, its overdependence on military might and its reliance on geopolitical coercion based on outdated administrative institutions similar to those of the bygone British Empire. The US appears to have made its long-term containment policy regarding China based purely on the assumption that it could maintain its military supremacy over China and continue monopolising global economics indefinitely.

It assumed wrong.

Building Together Versus Dividing and Destroying 

In contrast, China is building an alternative order upon economic opportunities, binding Asia together through infrastructure, manufacturing, enterprise and trade. Absent from Beijing’s methodology is the political coercion, preconditions and interference ubiquitous throughout US foreign policy.

And while it is logical to assume that should China accrue the same amount of power and influence the US once had, it too would become coercive, the changing nature of technology, military and economic parity as well as leadership across Asia is ensuring a more equitable balance of regional power emerges in the form of the much discussed “multipolar world order.”

The US, as it fades from the region, has simply doubled down on threats, coercion and the creation of conflicts it then poses its continued role in the region as the solution to.

Rather than competing with China’s ambitious regional building spree with its own slew of sponsored projects, the US has opted to attack and undermine China’s efforts. It does so by funding groups to impede construction projects under the pretext of protecting the environment, attempting to replace governments with client regimes unwilling to work with Beijing and even resorting to sponsoring violence and terrorism to directly target individual Chinese projects.

When all else fails, the US seeks to sow sociopolitical division across targeted nations, ensuring that if the US cannot have Asia, no one will.

It is an unsustainable strategy both politically and technically. As Chinese-driven development continues, more people will be lifted from poverty and less likely to join US-sponsored opposition and militant groups seeking to destabilise and destroy Asia’s collective achievements and the stability that underpins them.

Positioning additional troops in Japan, South Korea or the Philippines will not significantly affect the vector sum of America’s regional or global decline. It has bet on and invested too deeply in the wrong course of action in its short history, having apparently learned nothing from the various empires that preceded and collapsed before it. Before American primacy too joins them in the scrapheap of history, it appears that US policymakers refuse to take a course of action now that could maintain a respectable position within this new, emerging multipolar world.

For Asia, the choice is simple if presented with a declining, coercive “international order” serving the United States “which constructed it,” or rising with China in a multipolar geopolitical paradigm where national sovereignty holds primacy, not a distant capital an ocean away.

*

Joseph Thomas is chief editor of Thailand-based geopolitical journal, The New Atlas and contributor to the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

Featured image is from the author.

Well-placed FCO sources tell me it remains the case that senior civil servants in both the FCO and Home Office remain very sceptical of Russian guilt in the Skripal case. It remains the case that Porton Down scientists have identified the chemical as a “novichok-style” nerve agent but still cannot tie its production to Russia – there are many other possibilities. The effort to identify the actual perpetrator is making no headway, with the police having eliminated by alibi the Russian air passenger on the same flight as Julia Skripal identified as suspicious by MI5 purely on grounds of the brevity of their stay.

That senior civil servants do not regard Russian responsibility as a fact is graphically revealed in this minute from head of the civil service, Sir Jeremy Heywood, sent to officials following the attack on Syria. Note the very careful use of language:

Their work was instrumental in ensuring widespread international support for the Government’s position on Russian responsibility for the Salisbury attack

This is very deliberate use of language by Sir Jeremy. Exactly as I explained with the phrase “of a type developed by Russia” about the nerve agent, you have to parse extremely carefully what is written by the senior civil service. They do not write extra phrases for no reason.

Sir Jeremy could have simply written of Russian responsibility as a fact, but he did not. His reference to “the government’s position on Russian responsibility” is very deliberate and an acknowledgement that other positions are possible. He deliberately refrains from asserting Russian responsibility as a fact. This is no accident and is tailored to the known views of responsible civil servants in the relevant departments, to whom he is writing.

This in no way detracts from the fact that Sir Jeremy takes it as read that it is the duty of civil servants to follow “the Government’s position”. But it is an acknowledgement that they do not have privately to believe it.

Allied missile strikes on Syria – a message from the Head of the Civil Service

In the early hours of 14 April, the armed forces of the United Kingdom, the United States and France launched a series of co-ordinated strikes on sites in Syria linked with the production and storage of chemical weapons. This was in response to the use of prohibited chemical weapons by the Syrian regime against the civilian population of Douma, whose horrific consequences were widely reported.

I want to thank civil servants in a number of departments, but especially in the Foreign & Commonwealth Office, the Ministry of Defence, Department for International Development, Department for Health and Social Care (and Public Health England), Department for Environment, Food, and Rural Affairs, and the Cabinet Office, for their work after the attack on Douma and throughout the allied operation. This response was designed to degrade the Syrian regime’s chemical weapons capability and as a deterrent to their future use.

Coming after the nerve agent attack in Salisbury just over a month ago, I also want to take this opportunity to renew my gratitude to the hundreds of public servants – at home and abroad – involved in the response to that attack and the ongoing investigation. Their work was instrumental in ensuring widespread international support for the Government’s position on Russian responsibility for the Salisbury attack and the participation of many nations in the diplomatic sanctions that followed.

We could wish it was in different circumstances. However, the response to the Salisbury incident and the chemical attack on Douma showed the public service at its best: collaborative, professional and quick to act in the national interest, even under the greatest pressure.

Jeremy Heywood
Cabinet Secretary and Head of the Civil Service

On April 16 the British prime minister, Theresa May made a speech to parliament setting out the “justifications” for Britain’s participation on the aggression against Syria in the dead-of-night missile attack of April 14. Throughout her speech she dramatically referred to barrel bombs and the smell of gas in the air yet in the hall where she spoke it was the stench of imperialism that filled the air.

Like all politicians serving the cause of imperialism and the capitalist exploitation of working people the world over who rely on creating illusions to stay in power, she repeated the same mantra of false accusations against Syria and Russia as all the NATO leaders have done in obedience to their imperial overlord.

There is no democracy when the people who have hold of the government machine lie to the rest to accomplish their crimes. That is what she has done, at length, in fact committing treason, by misinforming parliament and the British people about the reasons for the aggression against Syria which have nothing to do with chemical weapons, the pretext, and everything to do with the geo-political and geo-strategic ambitions of the USA, Britain and France to control the resources of the middle east and beyond to Iran, Afghanistan and finally Russia itself. Their ambition is not to save people, as May claims, but to destroy any sovereign government that gets in their way and the consequences for the people of those countries be damned.

Her speech was blatant war propaganda, designed to incite the people to call for war. But more than distorting and fabricating facts, she and the other NATO powers purport, once again, to rewrite international law and purport to make themselves the supremos of international law, in effect tearing up the Charter of the United Nations. Their law, is might makes right, and the world must tremble as it waits the next blow.

May stated, with all her stunning humbug,

The Leader of the Opposition has said that he can “only countenance involvement in Syria if there is UN authority behind it. The House should be clear that would mean a Russian veto on our foreign policy. “

Yes, indeed it would Mrs. May, exactly as its designed to do and as Britain agreed to when it became a member of the United Nations. Application of force against a sovereign country can only take place if the Security Council agrees. Action taken in violation of the UN Charter is an act of aggression, the primary war crime from which all others flow. Those that are involved in ordering, arranging and taking part in such military aggression are war criminals. That is the law.

But Mrs. May doesn’t like the law so decides to evade it by false statements of what the law is. She states,

When the Cabinet met on Thursday we considered the advice of the Attorney General. Based on this advice we agreed that it was not just morally right but also legally right to take military action, together with our closest allies, to alleviate further humanitarian suffering.

That statement is a lie. It was neither morally right, since there was no credible evidence presented that a crime had been committed, nor legally right, since the attack was conducted without UN approval, and was carried out not as a punishment but as an act of aggression.

She went on,

This was not about intervening in a civil war. And it was not about regime change. It was about a limited, targeted and effective strike that sought to alleviate the humanitarian suffering of the Syrian people by degrading the Syrian Regime’s chemical weapons capability and deterring their use.”

Another string of lies, for it is not a civil war but a war of international aggression against Syria by Britain, the USA and their allies and the Syrians long ago eliminated their chemical weapons stocks and equipment as certified by the USA itself and the UN and other bodies. The Russian military stated at their briefing that the majority of missiles were not fired at fantasy targets but at military airfields and military positions, and that the majority of the missiles were intercepted and all of them aimed at airfields. In fact, two cruise missiles failed to explode and were located almost intact and handed over by the Syrians to the Russians to examine. So it was completely ineffective except to confirm their intentions to continue their aggression against Syria and Russia. The attack was not meant to “alleviate suffering of the Syrian people” but to add to and prolong their suffering by trying to degrade and destroy their ability to defend themselves against the proxy forces of the west who have slaughtered them for these many years. And no it was not about “regime change” for there is no “regime” in Syria, but a government duly elected by the people. The attack was about trying to overthrow the sovereign government of Syria against the will of its people, and the will of the civilized world.

May continued,

And we have published the legal basis for this. It required three conditions to be met. So governments of all colours have long considered that military action, on an exceptional basis, where necessary and proportionate, and as a last resort, to avert an overwhelming humanitarian catastrophe is permissible under international law.

Another lie, because “governments of all colours” means only the NATO powers and because vigilante military action by one nation-state or a gang of them against another constitutes the crime of aggression. There is no “humanitarian intervention” doctrine known to international law. It’s a fascist invention for fascist purposes; conquering the world for the pursuit of profit against all the laws of civilization, disguised by invented quasi-legal sounding phrases. The “humanitarian intervention” doctrine, sometimes known as the “responsibility to protect” is nothing but an expression of their supreme hypocrisy, an admission of their moral degradation, their fascist morality and justice. For not only does it destroy the fabric of the UN Charter and allow aggression by any nation based on all sorts of pretexts and lead to world chaos, it can never be applied to them.

It is not a doctrine of universal application but of selected application, to be used only against those that stand in their way; one law for them, another law for the rest. For a “law” that is only applied by the powerful against the weak and can never be applied against the powerful is not a just law and as St. Augustine said ‘an unjust law is no law at all’. But they know this as they spout their lies and laugh up their sleeves at those that believe them or pretend to.

May then raved on about there being convincing evidence of a chemical attack when there is none. On the 19th of April the Russian ambassador showed a video to the Security Council of an interview with a Syrian boy and his father explaining how the British intelligence service connected group, the White Helmets, staged the scene for their videos. May compounded her crime by bragging that these bogus reasons were the same reasons used by NATO in its aggression against Yugoslavia in 1999 which she calls an “intervention,” their euphemism for international gangsterism. She then babbled that the reason they did not wait for an investigation by the OPCW team already on its way to Syria was due to Russian interference when Russia and Syria had paved the way for the team to do its work and then, tongue in cheek, eyes fluttering, nose lengthening with each word, like Pinocchio, she stated that she had not followed Washington’s orders but had committed the crimes all on her own. But the indictment to be drafted in her war crimes trial will include the count of conspiracy against her for agreeing with the US and France to attack Syria.

Then, near the end of her speech she referred to the Skripal affair, once again accusing Russia of being involved, and yet not once informing the people as to the whereabouts of the Skripals who have not been seen since the incident was claimed to have taken place. They have simply been disappeared.

On the BBC in an interview on April 18th, Prime Minister Trudeau of Canada, in London for a visit, adopted exactly the same words that May used in her speech, in a fawning, servile expression of Canada’s role as bum-boy of the USA making himself liable for prosecution as a war criminal as well. The other “allies” of the USA followed suit and so the world continues its descent into disorder, chaos and war as these gangsters run amok on behalf of their capitalist class, making money off the backs of the dead and maimed, off the backs of the working people who pay for the wars while they get rich. The war on “terror” which was always a phoney war, is now over and the war on Russia and its allies is openly declared. More anti-Russian “sanctions”, meaning economic warfare, are pending, designed to make life miserable for Russians, warfare that the Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, in an interview on BBC’s Hard Talk programme, stated, rightly, was tantamount to trying to commit genocide against the Russian people.

And where is the International Criminal Court in all this as war crimes are committed on a daily basis by these thugs? Not a word said. The prosecutor may not have jurisdiction over Syria but she has a moral obligation to speak out and condemn these crimes as violations not only of the United Nations Charter but also of the Nuremberg Principles, the Geneva Conventions and the Treaty of Rome. Instead, she sits n her office in The Hague, drinking tea and wondering how to spend her large salary, and making herself and the ICC a laughable irrelevancy.

International justice is dead, and swings from a tree, lynched by the NATO powers and their allies. World peace lies on the ground covered in blood, her throat cut from ear to ear. Freedom of speech and association are on the run, pursued by the hounds of propaganda, government, mass media intimidation and outright censorship and the risk of world war is now ever present. Yet the people, aside from a few groups and individuals, a mass drugged by propaganda and the struggle of their daily lives, say nothing, do nothing against these criminals to bring them under control,

And so there is only one certainty; that these wars will continue until the imperialism that drives it is defeated. But to do that the capitalist system itself has to be brought down and since there is little chance of that happening any time soon the matter will be decided by war, and a world war, beyond anyone’s imagining or comprehension.

*

Christopher Black is an international criminal lawyer based in Toronto. He is known for a number of high-profile war crimes cases and recently published his novel “Beneath the Clouds. He writes essays on international law, politics and world events, especially for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook.”

The European Parliament (EP) on Thursday called for an immediate and unconditional end to the blockade imposed on the Gaza Strip and condemned the Israeli killing of peaceful protesters near Gaza’s eastern border over the past three weeks.

The Parliament during its Thursday session passed a resolution by a majority of 524 votes (nearly 70% of the EP members) to conduct transparent and independent investigations into the crimes committed against the protesters taking part in the Great March of Return.

The resolution stressed the Palestinians’ right to peaceful protest, called for utmost restraint and underlined that priority must be to avoid any further escalation of violence and loss of life.

The EP expressed deep concern over the UN reports that the Gaza Strip will become uninhabitable by 2020.

It also praised the aid and services provided by UNRWA at many levels to about 1,3 million Palestinian refugees in the region.

The resolution reaffirmed that the main goal of the European Union is to achieve a two-state solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict on the 1967 borders with Jerusalem as a joint capital.

Thousands of Palestinians have taken part in the Great March of Return launched since 30th March along Gaza’s border with the 1948 occupied territories in demand of the Palestinian refugees’ right of return.

At least 35 Palestinians have been killed and about 3,100 injured by the Israeli gunfire deliberately targeting peaceful protesters.

A tightened blockade has been imposed by Israel on the Gaza Strip since 2007 causing unprecedented deterioration in the living conditions in the coastal enclave as well as high rates of unemployment and poverty.

The Palestinian Authority (PA) president Mahmoud Abbas in April 2017 decided to wage a set of punitive measure against Gaza to force Hamas to hand over the administration of the territory to the PA government.

The measures included cutting 30%-50% of the salaries of PA employees in Gaza, forcing some of them into early retirement, reducing power supplies and halting medical referrals.

Let us not mince words.

We are living in an age of war profiteers.

We are living in an age of scoundrels, liars, brutes and thugs. Many of them work for the U.S. government.

We are living in an age of monsters.

Ask Donald Trump. He knows all about monsters.

Any government that leaves “mothers and fathers, infants and children, thrashing in pain and gasping for air” is evil and despicable, said President Trump, justifying his blatantly unconstitutional decision (in the absence of congressional approval or a declaration of war) to launch airstrikes against Syria based on dubious allegations that it had carried out chemical weapons attacks on its own people. “They are crimes of a monster.”

If the Syrian government is a monster for killing innocent civilians, including women and children, the U.S. government must be a monster, too.

In Afghanistan, ten civilians were killed—including three children, one an infant in his mother’s arms—when U.S. warplanes targeted a truck in broad daylight on an open road with women and children riding in the exposed truck bed.

In Syria, at least 80 civilians, including 30 children, were killed when U.S.-led air strikes bombed a school and a packed marketplace.

Then there was a Doctors without Borders hospital in Kunduz that had 12 of its medical staff and 10 of its patients, including three children, killed when a U.S. AC-130 gunship fired on it repeatedly. Some of the patients were burned alive in their hospital beds.

Yes, on this point, President Trump is exactly right: these are, indeed, the crimes of a monster.

Unfortunately, this monster—this hundred-headed gorgon that is the U.S. government and its long line of political puppets (Donald Trump and before him Obama, Bush, Clinton, etc.), who dance to the tune of the military industrial complex—is being funded by you and me.

It is our tax dollars at work here, after all.

Unfortunately, we have no real say in how the government runs, or how our taxpayer funds are used.

We have no real say, but we’re being forced to pay through the nose, anyhow, for endless wars that do more to fund the military industrial complex than protect us, pork barrel projects that produce little to nothing, and a police state that serves only to imprison us within its walls.

Consider: we get taxed on how much we earn, taxed on what we eat, taxed on what we buy, taxed on where we go, taxed on what we drive, and taxed on how much is left of our assets when we die.

Indeed, if there is an absolute maxim by which the federal government seems to operate, it is that the American taxpayer always gets ripped off.

This is true whether you’re talking about taxpayers being forced to fund high-priced weaponry that will be used against us, endless wars that do little for our safety or our freedoms, or bloated government agencies such as the National Security Agency with its secret budgets, covert agendas and clandestine activities. Rubbing salt in the wound, even monetary awards in lawsuits against government officials who are found guilty of wrongdoing are paid by the taxpayer.

Not only are American taxpayers forced to “spend more on state, municipal, and federal taxes than the annual financial burdens of food, clothing, and housing combined,” but we’re also being played as easy marks by hustlers bearing the imprimatur of the government.

With every new tax, fine, fee and law adopted by our so-called representatives, the yoke around the neck of the average American seems to tighten just a little bit more.

Everywhere you go, everything you do, and every which way you look, we’re getting swindled, cheated, conned, robbed, raided, pickpocketed, mugged, deceived, defrauded, double-crossed and fleeced by governmental and corporate shareholders of the American police state out to make a profit at taxpayer expense.

Yet as Ron Paul observed, “The Founding Fathers never intended a nation where citizens would pay nearly half of everything they earn to the government.”

We are now ruled by a government consumed with squeezing every last penny out of the population and seemingly unconcerned if essential freedoms are trampled in the process.

If you have no choice, no voice, and no real options when it comes to the government’s claims on your property and your money, you’re not free.

You’re not free if the government can seize your home and your car (which you’ve bought and paid for) over nonpayment of taxes.

You’re not free if government agents can freeze and seize your bank accounts and other valuables if they merely “suspect” wrongdoing.

And you’re certainly not free if the IRS gets the first cut of your salary to pay for government programs over which you have no say.

Somewhere over the course of the past 240-plus years, democracy has given way to kleptocracy (a government ruled by thieves), and representative government has been rejected in favor of a kakistocracy (a government run by the most unprincipled citizens that panders to the worst vices in our nature: greed, violence, hatred, prejudice and war) ruled by career politicians, corporations and thieves—individuals and entities with little regard for the rights of American citizens.

As I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People, the American kleptocracy continues to suck the American people down a rabbit hole into a parallel universe in which the Constitution is meaningless, the government is all-powerful, and the citizenry is powerless to defend itself against government agents who steal, spy, lie, plunder, kill, abuse and generally inflict mayhem and sow madness on everyone and everything in their sphere.

But what if we didn’t just pull out our pocketbooks and pony up to the federal government’s outrageous demands for more money?

What if we didn’t just dutifully line up to drop our hard-earned dollars into the collection bucket, no questions asked about how it will be spent?

What if, instead of quietly sending in our checks, hoping vainly for some meager return, we did a little calculating of our own and started deducting from our taxes those programs that we refuse to support?

If we don’t have the right to decide what happens to our hard-earned cash, then we don’t have very many rights at all.

If the government can just take from you what they want, when they want, and then use it however they want, you can’t claim to be anything more than a serf in a land they think of as theirs.

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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].

Scientists are now saying that the “Big One” in California may not be caused by the San Andreas fault line, but by the Hayward Bay fault line. It is now thought to be the “ticking time bomb” fault line and more dangerous than the San Andres.

The scariest scenario for the next major earthquake may not be from the San Andreas Fault (though that one still threatens), but from the Hayward Fault that runs along the east side of the San Francisco Bay. In fact, many say that the next earthquake on the Hayward Bay fault line would be “disastrous.” According to KTUV, a magnitude 7.0 earthquake along the Hayward Fault could kill as many as 800 people and injure 18,000, according to results of a new research released Wednesday.

The U.S. Geological Survey, citing findings from a simulated tremor with an epicenter in Oakland, said the disaster would cause 400 fires that could destroy 50,000 homes. Nearly half a million people would be displaced, authorities said.

The simulated quake in the video above, known as the “HayWired scenario,” was modeled to occur at 4:18 p.m. on April 18 (yesterday). It replicates a rupture along the fault’s entire 52-mile length, from San Pablo Bay in the north to just east of San Jose in the south. According to this model, the violent shaking from the earthquake could cause the two sides of the fault to split six feet apart in some places. Some of the aftershocks would continue for several months as well. Cities in the East Bay would be hit hard, including Berkeley, Oakland, San Leandro, and Hayward.

If a 7.0 magnitude quake occurred like the one simulated, researchers say that the East Bay residents could be without water from anywhere between six weeks to six months. Electricity could be out for up to four weeks in some locations.

According to Business Insider, the statistical chances of this type of an earthquake occurring are not very comforting either. There’s about a 76% chance that the San Francisco Bay Area could experience a 7.2 magnitude earthquake within the next 30 years, according to some recent reports.

The San Andreas Fault under San Francisco rumbled apart about 112 years ago, causing the devastating 1906 earthquake that swallowed city blocks, broke water mains, and triggered massive fires that burned for days.  However, the threat of another major quake for the Bay Area is “real and could happen at any time,” according to researchers for the US Geological Survey.

The Hayward Fault is a “tectonic time bomb, due any time for another magnitude 6.8 to 7.0 earthquake,” according to a 2008 USGS report. Since then, research has indicated that the likelihood of a Hayward quake is greater and more threatening to the 7 million Bay Area residents than a San Andreas quake would be.

“It’s just waiting to go off,” USGS earthquake geologist emeritus David Schwartz warned when speaking to the Los Angeles Times.

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Mac Slavo is a Frequent Contributor to Global Research

Featured image is from the author.

VISIT MY NEW WEB SITE: 

stephenlendman.org 

(Home – Stephen Lendman). 

Contact at [email protected].

Many more like her are needed – prominent individuals and others unwilling to support a nation responsible for decades of unaccountable high crimes against Palestinians, along with waging wars on neighboring states.

Dual US/Israeli citizen, award-winning actress, animal and environmental rights activist Portman declined to participate in a Jerusalem Genesis Prize Foundation ceremony.

It’s awarded “to individuals who have achieved international recognition in their professional field, the worlds of science and the arts.”

It’s for “exceptional people whose values and achievements will inspire the next generations of Jews.”

“The objective of the Genesis Prize is to emphasize across the Jewish community and the world at large the importance of Jewish values to the fulfillment of human potential and to the betterment of the world.”

Portman’s representative told Genesis that

“(r)ecent events in Israel have been extremely distressing to her, and she does not feel comfortable participating in any public events in Israel,” adding:

“(S)he cannot in good conscience move forward with the ceremony” – strong comments referring to dozens of defenseless Gazans killed, thousands more injured since Good Friday Great March of Return protests began.

Portman issued the following statement, saying

“I chose not to attend (the awards ceremony) because I did not want to appear as endorsing Benjamin Netanyahu,” adding:

“I am not part of the BDS movement…Like many Israelis and Jews around the world, I can be critical of the leadership in Israel without wanting to boycott the entire nation.”

“But the mistreatment of those suffering from today’s atrocities is simply not in line with my Jewish values. Because I care about Israel (her birthplace), I must stand up against violence, corruption, inequality, and abuse of power.”

In response to her decision not to attend, Genesis cancelled its June 28 awards ceremony. Portman received $2 million from the foundation.

She’ll keep her award money, intending to donate to organizations involved with women’s rights, especially focused on Israel.

In announcing its award, Genesis said the following:

“Natalie’s charismatic on-screen presence has touched the hearts of millions.”

“Her talent, her commitment to social causes and her deep connection to her Jewish and Israeli roots are greatly admired.”

“She exemplifies the core traits of the Jewish character and values of the Jewish people – persistence and hard work, pursuit of excellence, intellectual curiosity, and a heartfelt desire to contribute to making the world a better place.”

“Without a doubt, she is a role model for millions of young Jews around the world.”

Portman’s decision was courageous, risking damage to her career. Criticism came quickly.

Israel’s Minister of Culture Miri Regev accused her of “f(alling) into the hands of BDS supporters,” adding:

“Portman, a Jewish actress born in Israel, joins those who tell the successful, wondrous founding of the State of Israel as ‘a tale of darkness and darkness.’ “

Likudnik lawmaker suspended from the Knesset for six months for stalking, sexual harassment, sexist and chauvinist statements, along with other offensive remarks against MKs Oren Hazan called for “revok(ing) her Israeli citizenship,” saying she’s “a tool for the haters of Israel.”

In response to her decision, a Genesis statement said:

“Ms. Portman is a highly accomplished actress, a committed social activist and a wonderful human being.”

“The staff of the foundation enjoyed getting to know her over the past six months, admires her humanity, and respects her right to publicly disagree with the policies of the government of Israel.”

“However, we are very saddened that she has decided not to attend the Genesis Prize ceremony in Jerusalem for political reasons.”

“We fear that Ms. Portman’s decision will cause our philanthropic initiative to be politicized, something we have worked hard…to avoid.”

Portman has been largely apolitical – though in 2015, she criticized Netanyahu’s “racist comments,” calling them “horrific,” saying she was “very upset and disappointed that he was reelected.”

Kulanu party MK Rachel Azaria said her awards ceremony boycott constitutes a “warning light” to Israel, adding:

“She’s speaking for many in US Jewry, especially the young generation. Losing them may be too high a price.”

Her unwillingness to participate in an event associated with a racist rogue state hopefully inspires many other Jews and non-Jews to criticize its ruthlessness.

Along with BDS activism, it’s perhaps the only way for Palestinians one day to be free on their own land, in their own country, liberated from oppressive occupation harshness.

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

In launching airstrikes against Syria, over the alleged chemical weapons attack in Douma, an independent German Parliamentary report has declared that the US, Britain, and France have breached international law.

The grounds for the finding are that the prohibition of the use of force still applies when the anticipated recipient of the the forceful action has violated international treaties.

The UN charter says that members should “refrain … from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state.” The report also questioned the British narrative regarding the humanitarian necessity of a military strike in Syria.

Deutsche Welle reports:

The United States, France and the United Kingdom violated international law by launching airstrikes against Syria in response to a suspected chemical weapons attack, an independent German parliamentary report has found.

“Military force used against a state to punish it for infringing an international convention violates the prohibition of force under international law,” said the report by the German parliament’s non-partisan research service (the “Unterabteilung Wissenschaftliche Dienste”).

The three countries launched airstrikes on Saturday after accusing the Syrian government of carrying out a chemical weapons attack near the capital Damascus on April 7 that allegedly killed at least 40 people.

Hours after the operation, German Chancellor Angela Merkel had said the operation was “necessary and appropriate” to preserve the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC), an international treaty outlawing the use of chemical weapons.

Legal problems

The report was commissioned by Germany’s Left party, which asked the civil servants to ascertain if the strikes conformed with international law. The findings cited the UN Charta, which calls on members to “refrain … from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state.”

This ban on using military force, the report added, still applies when a country breaches an international treaty such as the CWC.

The UK’s argument that airstrikes would remedy a humanitarian crisis and were therefore exempt from this ban was “not convincing,” according to the report. The strikes, it said, could not stop the suffering caused by the ongoing civil war and it was not clear why a chemical weapons attack was a “decisive” event that required humanitarian intervention.

Moreover, the report disagreed with an argument voiced by German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas, who had cited the UN Security Council’s inability to react to the suspected chemical attack as part of his support for the airstrikes.

The Council’s indecisiveness, based on Russia’s opposition to US-backed proposals to investigate the suspected attack, was irrelevant from a legal perspective, it said.

‘Slap in the face’ for the German government

Left lawmakers Heike Hänsel and Alexander Neu called the WD report a “slap in the face” for the German government, which had helped “erode” international law by supporting airstrikes.

Omid Nouripour, the foreign policy spokesman for the Green Party, said it was “high time that the government publicly declare [it had broken international law].”

But the foreign policy spokesman for Merkel’s conservatives, Roderich Kiesewetter, defended the government’s support for the airstrikes despite the WD’s findings.

In a Twitter post, he wrote: “Sometimes a politically suitable assessment of how to deal with violations of international law is needed … The [WD] report found the airstrikes were contrary to international law. I think the government reacted wisely!”

Lesenswert, manchmal bedarf es politisch kluger Abwägung, wie mit Völkerrechtsverstößen zB Chemiewaffeneinsatz umgegangen wird: Luftschlag war laut Bundestags-Gutachten völkerrechtswidrig. Ich finde, kluge Reaktion Bundesregierung!https://t.co/7qDJ0tuo3Chttps://t.co/HVI0vY3OU1

— Roderich Kiesewetter (@RKiesewetter) April 20, 2018

Unverified pretexts for military force not only just don’ make sense, they happen to violate international law. However, if violating international law, alone, is a sufficient justification for military action against the offending state, then, if Britain, France, and the US, just broke international law, wouldn’t that make them fair game for whoever wants to carry out the sentence of breaking international law with an ‘appropriate’ strike?

It seems like a vicious cycle, if breaking international law can justify breaking international law to punish the state that has violated international law, then the state that breaks international law to satisfy a breach of international law would additionally make themselves a potential target for having themselves violated international law.

It really doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. ‘Eye for and eye’ just isn’t the best form of foreign policy. If Syria gassed a few dozen people, how does that justify dropping ‘smart’ bombs on more people? But killing people with gas is inhumane, while killing people with bombs is perfectly fine, like giving chocolates to children or something. Bombing countries, their infrastructure and population typically isn’t humanitarian, anyways.

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Featured image is from the author.

We watch in horror as the damages from climate change continue to mount.

Last year, Hurricane Harvey dropped more rain on Houston than any storm has ever dropped on any American city, ever. Hurricane Maria set back development in Puerto Rico 25 years, according to early estimates. And the tab keeps mounting: in 2017 alone, the economic cost of hurricanes and wildfires was greater than the cost of paying tuition for every American in a public college or university. We can’t have a working nation or a world if we don’t stop the climate from careening out of control. That’s been clear for decades now, but what’s been less clear is precisely what we should do about it.

Happily, that’s no longer the case. We now know exactly what to do, and we’re increasingly certain it can be done. We have to switch off of coal, oil, and gas, and on to 100% wind, water, and sun energy sources. And though this drive for a conversion to clean energy started in northern Europe and northern California, it’s a call that’s gaining traction outside the obvious green enclaves. More and more major US cities have taken the pledge to go 100% renewable by the year 2050, while others have taken action to sever their ties with the fossil fuel industry, signifying a global shift in how we’re thinking about our energy system.

What Medicare for All is to the health care debate, or Fight for $15 is to the battle about inequality, 100% Renewable is to the struggle for the planet’s future. It’s how progressives will think about energy going forward.

Former President Barack Obama drove environmentalists crazy with his “all of the above” energy policy, which treated sun and wind as two items on a long menu that also included coal, gas and oil. That’s simply not good enough. No more half-measures.

Scientists now tell us that at current rates, within a decade we’ll likely have put enough carbon in the atmosphere to warm the earth past the Paris climate targets. And in any event there’s no need any longer to go slow: engineers have in the last few years brought the price of renewables so low that it would make sense to switch over even if fossil fuel wasn’t wrecking the earth. In fact, that’s why the appeal of 100% renewables goes well beyond the left: if you pay a power bill, clean energy is increasingly the common-sense path forward. But that doesn’t mean it’s going to happen automatically: the fossil fuel industry recognizes its peril, and is rallying all the political power its cash reserves can buy to prevent the idea getting traction. It’s going to be a hell of a fight.

“..if you pay a power bill [100% renewable] is increasingly the common-sense path forward.”

To understand why it took a while to get here, consider the solar panel. We’ve actually had this clever device for quite a while: Bell Labs produced the first recognizable models in 1954. They were only about four percent efficient, and they were incredibly expensive to produce, which meant that they didn’t find many uses on planet Earth. In space, however, they were essential: Buzz Aldrin deployed a solar panel on the moon not long after Apollo 11 touched down.

Improvements in efficiency and drops in price came slowly for the next few decades (Ronald Reagan, you may recall, took down the solar panels Jimmy Carter had installed atop the White House). But in 1998, with climate fears on the rise, Germany’s Green Party found itself holding the political balance of power after a close election. In return for its support, the Social Democratic government began moving quickly toward renewable energy. German demand for solar panels and wind turbines coincided with rapidly growing Chinese industrial capacity in the early years of the new millennia, as factories across the People’s Republic learned to make the panels ever more cheaply.

There are now days when Germany generates half of its power from the sun—and, more to the point, the price of a panel began to truly plummet years ago, a freefall that continues to this day. By 2017, solar or wind power had won most competitive bids for electric supply, and India announced the closure of dozens of coal mines and the cancellation of plans for dozens of new coal-fired generation stations because the cost of solar power was badly undercutting fossil fuel. Even in places like Abu Dhabi, the comparative advantage of free power from the sun is impossible to resist, and massive arrays are going up amidst the oil fields.

“What Medicare for All is to the health care debate, or Fight for $15 is to the battle about inequality, 100% Renewable is to the struggle for the planet’s future. “

One person who noticed the falling prices and improving technology early on was Mark Jacobson, the director of Stanford University’s Atmosphere and Energy Program. In 2009 his team published a series of plans showing how the United States could generate all its energy from the sun, the wind, and the falling water that produces hydropower. Two years later,  along with actor Mark Ruffalo and other co-conspirators, Marc co-founded The Solutions Project to take the idea out of academic journals and into the real world. The group has since published similarly detailed plans for most of the planet’s countries. (If you want to know how many acres of south-facing roof you can find in Alabama, or how much wind blows across Zimbabwe, these are the folks to ask).

Mark Ruffalo on New York’s Shale Gas Ban (Source: The Solutions Project)

With each passing quarter the price of solar and wind power has fallen farther, moving the 100 percent target from aspirational goal to the obvious solution. I spent the spring of 2017 in some of the poorest parts of Africa where people—for the daily price of enough kerosene to fill a single lamp—were now installing solar panels and powering up TVs, radios, and LED bulbs. If you can do it in Germany and you can do it in Ghana, you can probably do it in Grand Rapids and Gainesville.

That’s especially true since renewable energy is lights-on popular across the American political spectrum. The polling data is almost unbelievable: in a country with a yawning partisan gulf on virtually every issue, one poll after another shows that massive majorities of Democrats, Republicans and independents favor government action to develop renewable energy.

“The fossil fuel industry is well aware that they’re not the future, yet they’re determined to keep us stuck in the past as long as possible.”

Even 72% of Republican voters want to “accelerate the development of clean energy” in the United States. That helps explain why, say, the Sierra Club is finding dramatic success with its Ready for 100 campaign. Sure, Berkeley was quick to sign on, and Madison, Wisconsin. But by the early summer of 2017 the U.S. Conference of Mayors had endorsed the drive, and leaders were popping up in unexpected places.

Columbia South Carolina mayor Steve Benjamin even said,

“It’s not an option. It’s an imperative.”

Environmental groups from Climate Mobilization to Greenpeace to Food and Water Watch are backing the 100% target, differing mainly on how quickly we must achieve the transition, with answers ranging from 2028 to 2050. (The right answer, given the state of the planet, is 25 years ago. The second best response: as fast as is humanly possible.)

Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders joined with Oregon Senator Jeff Merkley in the spring of 2017 to propose the first federal 100 percent bill. It won’t pass Congress any time soon, but Congress is not the only legislative body that matters in America—you could make an argument that in the Trump era capitals like Sacramento are just as important.

In a conscious bid to recreate the spirit of the Paris climate talks, California governor Jerry Brown summoned the world’s “sub-national” leaders—governors, mayors, regional administrators—to a giant San Francisco conference in September of 2017:

“Look, it’s up to you, and it’s up to me and tens of millions of other people to get it together to roll back the forces of carbonization and join together to combat the existential threat of climate change,” said Brown, as he invited the world to his gathering.

If activists have their way over the next few months, many of those cities and states will arrive in the Bay bearing pledges to take their places totally renewable.

That’s not to say that this fight is going to be easy. The fossil fuel industry is well aware that they’re not the future, yet they’re determined to keep us stuck in the past as long as possible. Every year they can drag out the transition means billions of dollars in revenue.

The arguments against renewables has always been: the sun goes down, the wind ceases to blow. Indeed, one group of academics challenged Jacobson’s calculations last spring partly on these grounds.  But technology marches on: Elon Musk’s batteries work in Tesla cars, but scaled up they also make it possible, and economic, for utilities to store the afternoon’s sun for the evening’s electric demand. As one California utility executive said at an industry meeting in May 2017, “The technology has been resolved. How fast do you want to get to 100 percent? That can be done today.”

The trouble,  however, is that most utility executives think in very different ways. The growth in new rooftop  solar installations has come to what the New York Times called “a shuddering halt,” largely because of “a concerted and well-funded lobbying campaign by traditional utilities, which have been working in state capitals across the country to reverse incentives for homeowners.” Instead of cutting residents a break for helping solve the climate crisis, the utilities—led by the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) and the Edison Electric Institute (whose lobbying efforts ratepayers actually underwrite)—are eager to end “net-metering” laws that let customers sell excess power they generate back to the grid. That’s pretty much the law that Germany used to make itself a renewable energy powerhouse—and in the process cause huge losses for its utilities.

Rather than trying to adapt to renewable energy, says industry observer Nancy LaPlaca,

“utilities have a great monopoly going and they want to keep it.”

They use their political clout to make sure that state regulators roll over.  Sometimes the results are truly ludicrous—Arizona, for instance, whose capital lies in the “Valley of the Sun” and whose sports fans root for the Suns and the Sun Devils, produces only about 4% of its power from solar energy. Its biggest utility has showered state regulators with dark money to keep it that way—in fact, in the spring of 2017 a former utility commissioner and his wife were indicted by the feds, along with an industry lobbyist, for their role in anti-solar shenanigans.

And it’s not just right-wing Republicans who want to keep business as usual chugging along. Democrats have often found themselves supporting new fossil fuel plans because they are beholden to the building trades unions for campaign support. That was the case last fall when the AFL-CIO, reflecting those building trades members, released a statement supporting the Dakota Access pipeline days after the security companies hired by the oil industry had sicced German Shepherds on indigenous protesters:

“The AFL-CIO supports pipeline construction as part of a comprehensive energy policy,” labor chief Richard Trumka said in a statement.  “Pipeline construction and maintenance provides quality jobs.”

And of course Donald Trump approved the project early in his presidency, shortly after a cheerful meeting with the heads of the building trades unions. The first oil flowed through it the same afternoon that he pulled America out of the Paris climate accords.

That means, of course, that renewables advocates need to emphasize the jobs that will be created as we move towards sun and wind—and since those jobs aren’t always going to be in the same places as the fossil fuel ones they replace, a just transition for displaced workers is needed. There are already far more Americans employed in the solar industry than in the coal fields, and we’re still near the start of the conversion: Sanders and Merkley produced studies to show their federal 100 percent bill, beyond its generous transition benefits, would produce three million net new jobs over the coming decades.

Environmental justice advocates, who have been at the front of the climate fight, are quick to point out that a push for renewables needs to means more than EV charging stations and solar panels on the roofs of people who can afford big roofs. If a city announces it’s going 100% renewable and then keeps buying diesel buses (or stops buying buses altogether, relying on Lyft and Uber to create an alternate transit system), then it would be an empty boast.

“America’s twisted politics may slow the transition to renewables, but other countries are now pushing the pace.”

Meanwhile, renters need ways to join the renewable revolution, just like homeowners. None of it’s easy. As Jacqui Patterson, who heads the NAACP’s environmental justice work, says: “people now lose their lives for not being able to pay for electricity—they’re burning down their houses by using candlelight, or because their oil has run out and they have to use heaters,  or they’re on respirators and their electricity goes out. So as we’re transitioning to renewables, we need to make sure there are not unintended consequences in term of rate increases–for those communities ‘just transition’ means their bills don’t fluctuate upwards. Ideally their bills would go down.” In the best of worlds, she adds, “just transition means they’re owning part of the energy infrastructure. They’re not just a consumer writing a check every month, but they see now a chance to own part of that infrastructure.”

There are signs that’s starting to happen. When Sanders and Merkley announced their federal legislation in April of 2017, leaders of groups like Green for All and Brooklyn’s feisty UPROSE were featured speakers; one of the most impassioned endorsements came from Mustafa Ali of the Hip Hop Caucus:

“This act gives our country an opportunity to embrace a just transition, honor the innovation and hard work that exists in communities that are often overlooked and forgotten, and revitalize  communities of color, low income communities and indigenous populations,” he said.

In May of 2017, the Wallace Global Fund, one of the big environmental philanthropies, pointedly awarded the Standing Rock Sioux a million dollars to build renewable energy on the reservation, a fitting commemoration to the bravery of protesters who tried to hold the Dakota pipeline at bay and a reminder that private charities will need to play a role in this transition as well. But the political battle will be hard-fought: the New York Times reported last year that the Koch Brothers have begun to aggressively (and cynically) court minority communities, arguing that they “benefit the most from cheap and abundant fossil fuels.”

America’s twisted politics may slow the transition to renewables, but other countries are now pushing the pace. In July of 2017, for instance, the Chinese announced that Qinghai Province—a territory the size of Texas—had gone a week relying on 100% renewable energy, a test of grid reliability designed to show that the country could continue its record-breaking pace of wind and solar installation. (About the same time the Chinese released aerial photos of their newest giant wind farm—which seen from above depicts a cheerful black-and-white panda).

China is not alone:

• One Friday in April of 2017, Great Britain managed to meet its power demands without burning a lump of coal for the first time since the launch of the Industrial Revolution.

• Solar production has grown six-fold since 2014 in Chile

• Santiago announced that starting this year, their subway system will be running entirely on the sun.

• Since January 1 of 2017, Holland’s train system has been entirely powered by the wind.

These are all good signs—but set against the rapid disintegration of ice caps and the record global temperatures set each of the last three years they also seem like too little. It’s going to take a deeper level of commitment—including turning the federal government from an obstacle to an advocate over the next election cycles. That’s doable precisely because the idea of renewable energy is so popular.

“There’s a few reasons why 100% renewable is working—why it’s such a powerful idea,” says Mike Brune, executive director of the Sierra Club. “People have agency, for one. People who are outraged, alarmed, depressed, filled with despair about climate change—they want to make a difference in ways they can see, so they’re turning to their backyards. Turning to their city, their state, their university. And, it’s exciting—it’s a way to address this not just through dread with something that sparks your imagination.”

Sometimes, he said, all environmentalists have to rally together to work on the same thing: the Keystone pipeline, the Paris accord. “But in this case the politics is as distributed as the solution—it’s people working on thousands of examples of the one idea.”  An idea whose time has come.

Wednesday’s criminal referral by 11 House Republicans of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton as well as several former and serving top FBI and Department of Justice (DOJ) officials is a giant step toward a Constitutional crisis.

Named in the referral to the DOJ for possible violations of federal law are: Clinton, former FBI Director James Comey; former Attorney General Loretta Lynch; former Acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe; FBI Agent Peter Strzok; FBI Counsel Lisa Page; and those DOJ and FBI personnel “connected to” work on the “Steele Dossier,” including former Acting Attorney General Sally Yates and former Acting Deputy Attorney General Dana Boente.

With no attention from corporate media, the referral was sent to Attorney General Jeff Sessions, FBI Director Christopher Wray, and U.S. Attorney for the District of Utah John Huber.  Sessions appointed Huber months ago to assist DOJ Inspector General (IG) Michael Horowitz.  By most accounts, Horowitz is doing a thoroughly professional job.  As IG, however, Horowitz lacks the authority to prosecute; he needs a U.S. Attorney for that.  And this has to be disturbing to the alleged perps.

This is no law-school case-study exercise, no arcane disputation over the fine points of this or that law. Rather, as we say in the inner-city, “It has now hit the fan.”  Criminal referrals can lead to serious jail time.  Granted, the upper-crust luminaries criminally “referred” enjoy very powerful support.  And that will come especially from the mainstream media, which will find it hard to retool and switch from Russia-gate to the much more delicate and much less welcome “FBI-gate.”

As of this writing, a full day has gone by since the letter/referral was reported, with total silence so far from The New York Times and The Washington Post and other big media as they grapple with how to spin this major development. News of the criminal referral also slipped by Amy Goodman’s non-mainstream Democracy Now!, as well as many alternative websites.

The 11 House members chose to include the following egalitarian observation in the first paragraph of the letter conveying the criminal referral: “Because we believe that those in positions of high authority should be treated the same as every other American, we want to be sure that the potential violations of law outlined below are vetted appropriately.” If this uncommon attitude is allowed to prevail at DOJ, it would, in effect, revoke the de facto “David Petraeus exemption” for the be-riboned, be-medaled, and well-heeled.

Stonewalling

Meanwhile, the patience of the chairmen of House committees investigating abuses at DOJ and the FBI is wearing thin at the slow-rolling they are encountering in response to requests for key documents from the FBI.  This in-your-face intransigence is all the more odd, since several committee members have already had access to the documents in question, and are hardly likely to forget the content of those they know about.  (Moreover, there seems to be a good chance that a patriotic whistleblower or two will tip them off to key documents being withheld.)

The DOJ IG, whose purview includes the FBI, has been cooperative in responding to committee requests for information, but those requests can hardly include documents of which the committees are unaware.

Putting aside his partisan motivations, House Intelligence Committee Chair Devin Nunes (R-CA) (image on the right) was unusually blunt two months ago in warning of legal consequences for officials who misled the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court in order to enable surveillance on Trump and his associates. Nunes’s words are likely to have sent chills down the spine of those with lots to hide:’ “If they need to be put on trial, we will put them on trial,” he said.”The reason Congress exists is to oversee these agencies that we created.”

Whether the House will succeed in overcoming the resistance of those criminally referred and their many accomplices and will prove able to exercise its Constitutional prerogative of oversight is, of course, another matter — a matter that matters.

And Nothing Matters More Than the Media

The media will be key to whether this Constitutional issue is resolved.  Largely because of Trump’s own well earned reputation for lying, most Americans are susceptible to slanted headlines like this recent one — “Trump escalates attacks on FBI …” — from an article in The Washington Post, commiserating with the treatment accorded fired-before-retired prevaricator McCabe and the FBI he (dis)served.

Nor is the Post above issuing transparently clever warnings — like this one in a lead article on March 17:

“Some Trump allies say they worry he is playing with fire by taunting the FBI. ‘This is open, all-out war. And guess what? The FBI’s going to win,’ said one ally, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to be candid. ‘You can’t fight the FBI. They’re going to torch him.’” [sic]

Mind-Boggling Criminal Activity

What motivated the characters now criminally “referred” is clear enough from a wide variety of sources, including the text messages exchange between Strzok and Page.  Many, however, have been unable to understand how these law enforcement officials thought they could get away with taking such major liberties with the law.

None of the leaking, unmasking, surveillance, “opposition research,” or other activities directed against the Trump campaign can be properly understood, if one does not bear in mind that it was considered a sure thing that Secretary Clinton would become President, at which point illegal and extralegal activities undertaken to help her win would garner praise, not prison.  The activities were hardly considered high-risk, because candidate Clinton was sure to win.

But she lost.

Comey himself gives this away in the embarrassingly puerile book he has been hawking, “A Higher Loyalty” — which  amounts to a pre-emptive move motivated mostly by loyalty-to-self, in order to obtain a Stay-Out-of-Jail card.  Hat tip to Matt Taibbi of Rolling Stone for a key observation, in his recent article, “James Comey, the Would-Be J. Edgar Hoover,” about what Taibbi deems the book’s most damning passage, where Comey discusses his decision to make public the re-opening of the Hillary Clinton email investigation.

Comey admits, “It is entirely possible that, because I was making decisions in an environment where Hillary Clinton was sure to be the next president, my concern about making her an illegitimate president by concealing the re-started investigation bore greater weight than it would have if the election appeared closer or if Donald Trump were ahead in the polls.”

The key point is not Comey’s tortured reasoning, but rather that Clinton was “sure to be the next president.”  This would, of course, confer automatic immunity on those now criminally referred to the Department of Justice.  Ah, the best laid plans of mice and men — even very tall men.  One wag claimed that the “Higher” in “A Higher Loyalty” refers simply to the very tall body that houses an outsized ego.

I think it can be said that readers of Consortiumnews.com may be unusually well equipped to understand the anatomy of FBI-gate as well as Russia-gate.  Listed below chronologically are several links that might be viewed as a kind of “whiteboard” to refresh memories.  You may wish to refer them to any friends who may still be confused.

2017

• Russia-gate’s Mythical ‘Heroes’ June 6, 2017
• The Democratic Money Behind Russia-gate Oct. 29, 2017
• The Foundering Russia-gate ‘Scandal’ Dec. 13, 2017 
• What Did Hillary Clinton Know? Dec. 25, 2017

2018

• The FBI Hand Behind Russia-gate Jan. 11, 2018
• Will Congress Face Down the Deep State? Jan. 30, 2018
• Nunes Memo Reports Crimes at Top of FBI and DOJ Feb. 2, 2018
• ‘This is Nuts’: Liberals Launch ‘Largest Mobilization in History’ in Defense of Russiagate Probe Feb. 9, 2018
• Nunes: FBI and DOJ Perps Could Be Put on Trial Feb. 19, 2018
• ‘Progressive’ Journalists Jump the Shark on Russia-gate March 7, 2018
• Intel Committee Rejects Basic Underpinning of Russiagate March 14, 2018
• McCabe: A War on (or in) the FBI? March 18, 2018
• Former CIA Chief Brennan Running Scared March 19, 2018

*

Ray McGovern works with Tell the Word, a publishing arm of the ecumenical Church of the Saviour in inner-city Washington. He served as an Army Infantry/Intelligence officer and then a CIA analyst for a total of 30 years.  In retirement, he co-created Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS).

North Korea’s official state media has announced that as of Saturday, all nuclear and long-range missile testing in the country are being suspended indefinitely. They also announced they will be closing their nuclear testing site.

The decisions were made at a meeting of the nation’s Central Committee, and officials say it marks a broad shift in national focus, toward trying to improve North Korea’s economy. It is also a very helpful move for the peace process.

Earlier this week, South Korea confirmed talks are ongoing with both the US and North Korea on a deal that would end the Korean War. The Korean War began in 1950, and other than an armistice, is still ongoing.

North Korea also told South Korea they are interested in reaching a peninsula-wide denuclearization deal. Nuclear testing had already been seen as effectively on hold, and the new announcement makes that official.

This comes as the summit between South Korean President Moon Jae-in and North Korea’s Kim Jong-un approaches. Another summit, expected in late May or early June, is planned between Kim and President Trump. Major deals clearly look to be on the horizon.

The US has openly talked about considering establishing an embassy in Pyongyang, something they’ve never had. North and South Korea also reestablished their bi-national hotline Friday, allowing direct communication between the two leaders.

Punggye-ri is the only nuclear test site in North Korea. The last nuclear test at the site took place in 2017, and was seen as successful. North Korea is believed to have a small nuclear arsenal, but its exact size is subject to debate.

North Korea has always said its nuclear program is meant to deter a US attack. Progress in diplomacy promises to eliminate this concern. North Korea is no longer demanding that the US commit to a military withdrawal from the peninsula as part of a denuclearization deal.

*

Jason Ditz is news editor of Antiwar.com.

Featured image is from the author.

VISIT MY NEW WEB SITE: 

stephenlendman.org 

(Home – Stephen Lendman). 

Contact at [email protected].

Years of Geneva and Astana talks (along with one Sochi round) achieved no breakthroughs – nothing toward resolving years of US-launched aggression in Syria, conflict in its eighth year, nothing in prospect for ending it.

Deescalation zones failed. Washington, its rogue allies, and terrorist foot soldiers don’t recognize them.

Diplomacy can’t work when one belligerent wants endless war, not resolution. Washington launched naked aggression in Syria for regime change.

Its objective remains unchanged, making diplomacy futile – notably with US forces occupying around one-third of the country, according to Syrian UN envoy Bashar al-Jaafari.

Washington came to Syria to stay, aiming to control as much of the country as possible, likely wanting it partitioned, its resources looted, its people exploited.

If US soldiers are withdrawn, special forces will remain. Trump’s withdrawal scheme is to have Saudi, UAE and Qatari troops replace Pentagon soldiers on the ground, functioning as US proxies together with terrorist foot soldiers – supported by US airpower.

Week ago US, UK and French aggression on targeted Syrian sites virtually assures more of the same ahead.

On the phony pretext of destroying (nonexistent) Syrian CW facilities, military sites were the main targets. The mission failed because government air defenses destroyed most incoming missiles.

Failure virtually assures further US-led aggression to try accomplishing what wasn’t achieved on April 14.

Sergey Lavrov has worked tirelessly for conflict resolution without success. On Thursday, he urged a greater UN presence in the country, saying:

“Generally speaking the question of building up UN presence in Syria deserves attention from various points of view including the collection of authentic information.”

“We cannot tolerate a situation where UN agencies in their reports and public statements rely on information borrowed from other sources in Syria, not the UN’s own ones.”

Admitting the deplorable state of things in the country, he stressed

“(t)he main thing is to stay within the framework of international law, and we will be seeking that all our partners (sic) should follow precisely this course rather than try to play their geopolitical schemes to the detriment of the interests of the Syrian people.”

Lavrov knows better. Russia has no Western “partners,” just US-led adversaries. Prospects for conflict resolution in Syria are virtually nil.

Russia respects international law, including relevant Security Council resolutions on Syria – not Washington and its imperial allies.

As long as Washington’s objectives in the country remain unchanged, countless more rounds of peace talks will be as fruitless as earlier ones.

That’s the dilemma Russia faces. It has no Western partners for peace in Syria, notably Washington wanting endless war, Assad’s government replaced by pro-Western puppet rule.

US imperial aims rule out any prospect for peace and stability in Syria, as well as in other US war theaters.

Endless wars and turmoil serve its agenda. Peace and stability defeat it.

That’s the cold hard reality Russia has to deal with. Greater UN involvement in Syria won’t change a thing.

*

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

“War is good for business” and foreknowledge of US-UK war plans is an invaluable instrument for investors and institutional speculators. 

The value of Lockheed and BAE shares soared on the World’s stock markets, on the Monday morning following the Friday April 14  (local time) bombing of Syria.

Philip May, husband of Britain’s Prime Minister Theresa May happens to be a senior executive of Capital Group which is a major holder of both Lockheed Martin and British Aerospace (BAE) shares: 

The fact that Philip May is both a Senior Executive of a hugely powerful investment firm, and privy to reams of insider information from the Prime Minister – knowledge which, when it becomes public, hugely affects the share prices of the companies his firm invests in – makes Mr May’s official employment a staggering conflict of interest for the husband of a sitting Prime Minister. (Tom D. Rogers, Disgusting Conflict of Interest: Theresa May’s Husband’s Investment Firm Made a “Financial Killing” from the Bombing of Syria, April 17, 2018 (emphasis added)

Staging the Attack on Syria

The Pentagon had ordered a massive deployment of naval forces in the Eastern Mediterranean. The British government had put its Royal Air Force bombers on standby. The USS Truman aircraft carrier was en route to the Eastern Mediterranean.

Meanwhile, Russia had initiated on the Wednesday prior to the US-led attacks major war games off the Syria coastline. In turn, Russia’s Ministry of Defense had warned that they would respond with their state of the art S-400 missile defense system, not only against the JASSMs and Tomahawk missile attacks but also against coalition warships, jet fighters and air force bombers deployed in the Eastern Mediterranean.

Russia S-400 deployed in Syria

While the broader public was led to believe that a major confrontation between Russia and the US-led coalition was imminent, with potentially devasting consequences, a handful of officials in the upper echelons of the US, UK and French governments were privy to the precise details and timing of the bombing operation against Syria which took place after the closing of the World’s stock markets on Friday evening, April 13 (ET). They had advanced knowledge that a confrontation between Russia and the US-led Coalition forces would not take place. 

Was Philip May privy to top secret information. transmitted to him by U.K. Prime Minister Theresa May? Did he have prior knowledge of the exact nature of the April 14 attack on Syria as well as its outcome?

Was this information also made available to a handful of Trump cronies, family members and partners on Wall Street?

Did France’s President Emmanuel Macron– who has ties to powerful financial interests– share some of this secret information with his financial friends including the Rothschilds and Goldman Sachs?

Screenshot Bloomberg Business Week,  April 19, 2018

Secret Agreement with the Russians

While a few US, UK and French senior officials and their financial cronies had foreknowledge of what was going to happen, the vast majority of financial brokers were totally in the dark. They did not know whether to bet up or down on Aerospace and Defense stocks including Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, etc.

The terms of the top secret agreement with Russia were that Russian military assets would not be targeted and in return Russia promised NOT  to respond militarily against the US led coalition.

The attack was staged. There was no concrete military objective. A costly “face saving” propaganda operation to boost public support for Trump’s presidency?

Over 100 missiles were directed against three targets. Those targets had been agreed upon with the Russians. The US, British and French officials and their financial cronies not only knew when the attack would take place, they also had secret information on the likely outcome of the attacks which had been carefully negotiated with Russia.

Syria’s air defense system responded to the missile attacks with Soviet era technology. The media heralded the attack as a “success” and Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Raytheon and BAE stocks skyrocketed on Monday morning at the opening of major stock markets.

Dow Jones U.S. Selected Aerospace and Defense Index (April 16-20, 2018)

Had Russia effectively retaliated by targeting US war ships and knocking  coalition jet fighters out of the sky, the outcome would have been markedly different. In all likelihood, Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, BAE, etc. stocks would have plunged.

On the day prior to the alleged Douma chemical attacks (April 6), the value of Lockheed shares 

had tumbled by 3.46 percent to 334.66 rising to 353.38 on the 19th of April, i.e. a cumulative rise of 5.5%

Did a handful of powerful financial operators have secret information (handed to them by politicians in high office) which enabled them to predict the outcome and “place their financial bets” on a rise in the stock values of major defense contractors including Northrop Grumman, Lockheed Martin, BAE, Raytheon and Boeing.

Raytheon produces the Tomahawk cruise missiles which were used in the Syria attack. Lockheed Martin produces the JAMMs.

A Financial Killing?

Are we talking about billions of dollars accruing to the families and/or  cronies of top US, UK, French government officials? The bonanza earnings resulting from equity transactions as well as the trade in options needs to be carefully assessed.

War, Politics and Insider Trade 

More generally, insider trade constitutes a routine process of enrichment of the financial elites. Powerful financial actors have access to foreknowledge pertaining to crucial political and military decisions (e.g. through their social ties to politicians).

Foreknowledge of statements and decisions pertaining to Brexit, for instance, by Britain’s Prime Minister also constitutes an invaluable instrument in the hands of powerful financial interests and institutional speculators.

Conflict of interest and corrupt politics are central to reaping the profits of insider trade.

Update

Five days after the April 13 (ET) attack on Syria, the US Air Force rewarded Lockheed Martin with an almost one billion dollar contract to kick-start the design of a new hypersonic cruise missile. Has the US fallen behind? the hypersonic missile is already part of Russia’s military arsenal.

Yes: “war is good for business”: But if war breaks out between Russia and the US, will Lockheed Martin, BAE , Raytheon, et al be able to duly cash in their  multibillion dollar profits:

Defense News, April 18, 2018

As the U.S.-Saudi-led war against Yemen enters its third year, the people of this coffin-shaped nation on the Arabian peninsula find themselves struggling not only to survive but to be seen and heard by a mainstream media that is preoccupied with war in neighboring Syria, the resumption of Cold War-like tensions with Russia, and President Trump’s Twitter account and sex life.

When the international press corps does shine a light on the conflict in Yemen, it is described as a sectarian affair, a bloodless, “video-game” battle fought by nameless Iranian proxies against Saudi Arabia.  But what’s really happening in the poorest country in the Middle East is a test of our humanity — a catastrophic, perfect storm of suffering and death, and the most horrific genocide you’ve likely never heard of.

Consider these stark realities:

The people of Yemen are without food, water, medicine, and fuel. According to the United Nations, more than half of Yemen’s 28 million people are facing food shortages, and international relief workers estimate that a staggering 150,000 Yemenis died from starvation last year alone. The nongovernmental organization, Save the Children, puts the number of children currently dying of starvation at 130 per day, owing largely to the Saudi blockade of Yemen’s ports.

In addition, half of the country’s health care infrastructure has been destroyed. Saudi Arabia is striking Yemen’s hospitals, which are running out of medicine and supplies to treat the wounded. All the while, these attacks have continued to receive backing from the United States and the United Kingdom since their onset on March 26, 2015.

The death toll in Yemen is so high that the Red Cross is even donating morgues to hospitals. And if that weren’t enough, the military campaign has not only empowered al-Qaida to step into a vulnerable situation, it’s actually made the group richer, according to Reuters.

Still, the Saudi government continues to block any diplomatic resolution in Yemen. Riyadh even threatened to cut funding to the UN over its inclusion on a list of children’s rights offenders, effectively weaponizing humanitarian aid.

Unimaginably, the situation could get much worse: in his administration’s final days, President Barack Obama sold the unscrupulous Saudis skin-melting white phosphorous.

The UN’s humanitarian chief, Mark Lowcock, told Al Jazeera last month:

“The situation in Yemen .  . . looks like the apocalypse.”

In the weeks that follow, MintPress plans to break the lock-box on the war and humanitarian crisis that is stalking the poorest country in the Middle East, with a series of stories from our reporters on the ground. Our goal is merely this: by giving shape and form and voice to the Yemeni people who have been rendered all but invisible and mute, we hope to chronicle this epochal war, account for the despair, and explain, in painstaking detail, David’s strategy for defeating Goliath, once again.

*

Mnar Muhawesh is founder, CEO and editor in chief of MintPress News, and is also a regular speaker on responsible journalism, sexism, neoconservativism within the media and journalism start-ups. She started her career as an independent multimedia journalist covering Midwest and national politics while focusing on civil liberties and social justice issues posting her reporting and exclusive interviews on her blog MintPress, which she later turned MintPress into the global news source it is today.

In a major win for the pro-Palestinian Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions, BDS movement, students at the Barnard College, an elite women’s liberal arts college in New York City with a high percentage of Jewish students, have voted to divest from eight companies that do business in Israel. 

An overwhelming 64 percent of the students voted for pulling out of Hyundai, Boeing and the Israeli national water carrier Mekorot, which according to the BDS movement’s website,  practices “water apartheid for Palestinians.”

“Mekorot steals water from Palestinian aquifers, supplies water to illegal settlements and sells Palestinians their own water, often at exorbitant prices,” the campaign says on its website adding that it has been accused of violating international law.

The referendum was brought forth by the Jewish Voice for Peace and Students for Justice in Palestine and mentioned ways these companies “profit from or engage in the State of Israel’s treatment of Palestinians.”

So far, no university has ever divested from Israel but the students at Barnard are hoping that Barnard college may make an exception and be a bellwether.

“If Barnard, the most selective women’s college in the nation, divests, it will influence other schools,” SJP organizer Caroline Oliver stated, according to Forward news outlet.

“These things do matter, they influence how people think on campus,” the president of the pro-Israel club Aryeh, Albert Mishaan, told the Forward Tuesday. “These victories, however symbolic, become the next jumping-off point for further anti-Israel campaigns.”

Barnard has approximately 850 Jewish students, out of a total undergraduate population of around 2,500. Some 1,153 participated in the vote.

Known and documented,  the US and its allies have been financing, training and arming rebel factions in Syria, including ISIS and al Qaeda, with a view to toppling the government of  Bashar Al-Assad. That strategy did not work.

The goal of the “War on Terror” is not to defeat ISIS, but to topple non-compliant governments. In his Orwellian speech at the UN, Obama said:

“We must declare war on war, so the outcome will be peace upon peace.”

Wage war to create peace is the agenda put forth by Donald Trump’s infamous national security advisor John Bolton. 

The threat of a wide regional war in the Middle East is accompanied by ever more sensationalist lies by the mainstream media. The tensions are high and the outlook is grim.

As Michel Chossudovsky wrote:

“A sophisticated and all encompassing propaganda program supports war in the name of World peace and global security.

The underlying scenario of Worldwide conflict goes far beyond the diabolical design of Orwell’s 1984.

The Ministry of Truth upholds war as a peace-making undertaking by twisting realities upside down.

In turn, the lies and fabrications of the mainstream media are presented with various innuendos in a complex web of deceit.”

The temptation to view this tense political atmosphere as doomed is high. Indeed, today’s modern weapons systems know no bounds in their potential for carnage and destruction, and we have some very dangerous leaders (many of whom have been “democratically” elected) poised at the triggers. They are, after all, the ones who stand to profit from “America’s Long War”.

This is exactly the reason why we must not unplug, tune out or look away. The world cannot afford more victims of war. There ARE steps to take, and they require mass mobilization.

Awareness of what is happening in the world around us is a crucial first step. Don’t automatically trust the news you read – question it; check the sources; follow the money trail, cui bono. And more than anything, keep the dialogue going and spread the message to those around you. The tools are all there – newsletters, social media, videos – so let’s get creative and put them to good use.

Forward Global Research articles far and wide. Post them on your Facebook and Twitter.  And if you are in a position to make a financial contribution to help our efforts, please make a donation or start a Global Research membership and help us help you stay informed.

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A critically important part of assembling the Korean peninsula-wide denuclearization jigsaw puzzle is the institutional and legal form of North Korean commitments on the one hand, and the nuclear negative security assurances by the NPT-Nuclear Weapons States (NWSs), especially the United States, on the other. Given the risk of mutual annihilation between the two Koreas as well as to third parties such as the United States, Japan, and China, finding a way to square this circle is urgent.

The Nautilus Institute has published a special report ‘A Korean nuclear weapons-free zone treaty and nuclear extended deterrence: options for denuclearising the Korean Peninsula, A Korean Nuclear Weapons-Free Zone Treaty and Nuclear Extended Deterence: Options for Denuclearizing the Korean Peninsula

This article summarizes the special report.

***

A critically important part of assembling the Korean peninsula-wide denuclearization jigsaw puzzle is the institutional and legal form of North Korean commitments on the one hand, and the nuclear negative security assurances by the NPT-Nuclear Weapons States (NWSs),¹ especially the United States, sought by North Korea on the other.

The institutional framework might take one of three possible forms.

The first, a Korean peninsula-only deal between the ROK and the DPRK is possible. It would essentially revise and expand the 1992 Denuclearization Declaration, and make the commitments specific, with stringent monitoring and verification measures. The United States, Russia, and China would make a general security assurance commitment to the DPRK, and at least the United States, provide a specific nuclear negative security assurance to the DPRK that it would not threaten or attack the DPRK first with nuclear weapons once the DPRK complies fully with its NPT obligations as a non-nuclear weapons state (NNWS).

Such a Korean Peninsula-only deal is likely easier to negotiate, but may not be credible at the outset to the DPRK given its perception of past reversals of US executive branch commitments such as the rapid demise of Clinton’s non-hostility statement to the DPRK in 2000 under the Bush administration, and the failure of the 1994 Budapest security assurances to protect the Ukraine against Russian aggression. The DPRK’s perceptions of the non-binding US negative security assurance commitment implied by a new Denuclearization Declaration, especially if the Trump Administration tears up the Obama-era Iran Deal, may lead it to balk or hedge against uncertainty from a Korea-only deal.

A Korean Peninsula-only deal might be made more legally binding if it were elevated from a mere declaration to an inter-Korean treaty between the two states and if each Korea were to caveat its ratification by issuing a reservation with regard to sovereignty issues (both Koreas refuse to sign treaties with the other because it would imply recognition of the others’ constitutional claims to exercise sovereignty over the entire Korean peninsula). Whether this issue can be finessed at this time in either Korea is doubtful politically, especially in democratic South Korea.

The second, a full-fledged regional nuclear weapons-free zone (NWFZ) UN treaty may be more enduring because it affects how the NWSs use nuclear threats against all the NNWSs party to a treaty, and thereby against each other. It may be difficult, however, to bring the United States and Japan into such a treaty even if the DPRK, China, and Russia favor it and it may take time for the NWSs to ratify their nuclear negative security assurances to a regional NWFZ (which would be calibrated to DPRK compliance).

It may be possible to square the circle: the ROK and the DPRK could implement a third, hybrid option of a UN NWFZ Treaty that specifies that additional members may join at the outset or later. This approach may be optimal in providing for a politically less demanding Korean Peninsula-only, rather than a full regional NWFZ treaty at the outset, but it may also result in a more legally binding framework than a Korean Peninsula-only, fragile political agreement. Its feasibility depends on whether such a UN treaty framework, as it has in the past with many other UN treaties, gives the two Koreas an acceptable “work around” on their competing sovereignty claims when they sign and ratify the treaty.

At minimum, South Korean and American officials should explore at the senior official level the DPRK’s interest in these options, and study carefully the pros and cons of these options in preparation for the two summits. It is especially important to clarify what type of nuclear negative security assurance is sought by the DPRK and if they are not clear, suggest some desirable options that would serve to improve the security of all parties to a comprehensive settlement of the nuclear issue in the Korean Peninsula.

This issue is important because it is linked to the degree to which the United States’ and other NWSs’ negative security assurances are legally binding, thereby affecting the DPRK’s perception of the desirability and credibility of a proposed deal. In the full- length paper, we therefore review how a NWFZ would affect the existence of nuclear extended deterrence in US security commitments to the ROK and to Japan.²

Whichever framework is employed for the denuclearization process, the US commitment of extended deterrence would remain subject to the normal political prerogatives of the United States and the ROK at any time to vary these understandings on the use of nuclear threat against the DPRK and other parties. We conclude that concerns in Seoul (and Tokyo) that a NWFZ would terminate nuclear extended deterrence are groundless.

In short, there is no incompatibility between nuclear extended deterrence and adherence by the United States and the ROK to a NWFZ treaty.

*

Morton Halperin is senior advisor, Open Society Foundations. 

Peter Hayes is Director of the Nautilus Institute and Honorary Professor at the Centre for International Security Studies at the University of Sydney. 

Leon Sigal is Director, Northeast Asia Cooperative Security Project, Social Science Research Council.

Notes

¹ NWFZ treaties predate the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, Article VII of which states: “Nothing in this Treaty affects the right of any group of States to conclude regional treaties in order to assure the total absence of nuclear weapons in their respective territories.” In principle, any nuclear-armed state can provide nuclear negative security assurances to NPT-non-nuclear weapons states (NNWS) who are party to a UN NWFZ treaty, and have ratified the NNPT and are fully compliant with their NPT obligations. In practice, in Northeast Asia, only NPT-NWSs would make such commitments to NNWSs such as the ROK, Japan should it join, and the DPRK should it comply. See UN Office of Disarmament Affairs, Nuclear Weapons Free Zones.

² Morton Halperin, Peter Hayes, Leon Sigal, “A KOREAN NUCLEAR WEAPONS-FREE ZONE TREATY AND NUCLEAR EXTENDED DETERRENCE: OPTIONS FOR DENUCLEARIZING THE KOREAN PENINSULA“, NAPSNet Special Reports, April 12, 2018.

The British government refused to assist a French investigation into suspected money laundering and tax fraud by the UK telecoms giant Lycamobile – citing the fact that the company is the “biggest corporate donor to the Conservative party” and gives money to a trust founded by Prince Charles.

French prosecutors launched a major probe into the firm and arrested 19 people accused of using its accounts to launder money from organised criminal networks two years ago, after BuzzFeed News revealed its suspicious financial activities in the UK. But the Conservatives continued taking Lycamobile’s money – and it can now be revealed that the British authorities stonewalled a formal request from French prosecutors to carry out raids in London as part of the ongoing investigation.

Confidential correspondence between British government officials and their French counterparts, shown to BuzzFeed News by a source in the UK, reveals that the French wanted British authorities to raid Lycamobile’s London headquarters last year and seize evidence as part of their investigation into money laundering and tax fraud by the company.

In an official response dated 30 March 2017, a government official noted that Lycamobile is “a large multinational company” with “vast assets at their disposal” and would be “extremely unlikely to agree to having their premises searched”.

Read full article here.

To motivate the 2003 war, the US accused Iraq of possessing weapons of mass destruction: Secretary of State Colin Powell presented to the UN a series of “evidences” that turned out to be false, as he himself had to admit in 2016.

Similar “evidences” are now presented to motivate the attack on Syria by the United States, Britain and France.

On 14 April, General Kenneth McKenzie, Joint Staff Director of the Pentagon, presented a report, accompanied by satellite photos, on the Barzah Research and Development Center in Damascus, calling it “the heart of the Syrian chemical weapons program”.

The Center, which was the main target, was attacked with 76 cruise missiles (57 Tomahawk launched from ships and submarines and 19 JASSM launched from aircraft). The target was destroyed, the general announced, bringing “the Syrian chemical weapons program back for years”.

This time there is no need to wait thirteen years to confirm that the “evidence” IS FAKE.

A month before the attack, on March 13, the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) had officially announced the result of the second inspection, carried out at the Barzah Center in November 2017, and of the analysis of samples taken completed in February 2018: “The inspection team did not observe any activities inconsistent with obligations under the Convention”.

It is no coincidence that the Barzah Center was destroyed just before the OPCW inspectors arrived there for the third time.

Syria, a member of the OPCW, completed chemical disarmament in 2014, while Israel, which does not adhere to the Chemical Weapons Convention, is not subject to any control. But this fact is neglected by the political-media apparatus, which instead accuses Syria of possessing and using chemical weapons.

The Italian premier Gentiloni stated that Italy, while supporting “the limited and targeted action to strike the manufacture of chemical weapons”, has not in any way taken part in it.

The attack was actually agreed upon and planned within NATO. This is proved by the fact that, immediately after the attack, the North Atlantic Council was convened: the United States, Great Britain and France “briefed Allies on their joint military action in Syria overnight” and Allies officially expressed “their full support for this action”.

Premier Gentiloni also stated that “the logistical support that we provide above all to the US could not in any way result in the fact that from the Italian territory started direct actions aimed at hitting Syria”.

In fact, the attack on Syria from the Mediterranean was led by the US Naval Forces Europe, with headquarters in Naples-Capodichino, commanded by Admiral James Foggo, who at the same time commands the Allied Joint Force Command Naples with headquarters at Lago Patria (Naples).

The war operation was supported by the US Naval Air Station Sigonella and the Niscemi station of the US Muos system of naval transmissions. As the radar tracks show, the US RQ-4 Global Hawk spy drones, taking off from Sigonella, played a key role in the attack on Syria, attack supported by air tankers to refuel the jet fighters.

Italy therefore shares the responsibility for a war action that violates the most elementary norms of international law. It is not yet known what its consequences will be, but it is certain that it feeds the flames of war. Although premier Gentiloni assures that “it cannot be the beginning of an escalation”.

VIDEO (subtitles in English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, German)

Hungarian writer and historian György Dalos described his relationship to Marx in a short, reflective piece that appeared in the Neue Zürcher Zeitung on 25 October 2017. In it, he claims that Marx drew upon that age-old human ideal of a society living in wealth and security and without fear of violence or retribution; and that Karl Kautsky canonised Marx’s teachings as “Isms”. This involved a need to understand the principle of social evolution and its socioeconomic formations, starting with primitive-communal, moving to capitalist and then culminating in communist.

Dalos writes that the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, having secured the supposed legalities, was able to assert its claim that it would pull level with the advanced capitalist countries by the 1980s and then outpace them ten years later. Dalos states that we are now a generation further on from the collapse of the Soviet system. In light of these experiences, he writes that all political “Isms” are now a thing of the past for him. But Dalos also pensively asks if the world would be a better, more peaceful, more rational place without Isms? He wonders whether, without such doctrines and their reassuring, forward-looking regularities, we would be condemned to a lifelong present?

The question that must be asked, however, is a different one, as it would be disastrous to once again bind the promise of a more open future to legalities. Is it not true that it is precisely Marx who claims that materialist theory is involved in those very efforts of people to collectively – and with knowledge and awareness – shape their own circumstances independently and avoid having to follow laws? One could then additionally ask if the Left’s refusal to use “Marx-Ism” separates them from this contradiction-laden history, from their experiences and their understanding, and from being spurred on by historical struggles to develop materialist theory further? Does the loss of “Marx-Ism” not contribute to individuals and political groups losing their ability to interpret and take a stance toward constant changes and contradictory processes; does it not deny them a terminology that would allow them to collectively understand their world and a common vocabulary to agree on shared practices, even if such progress is steeped in conflict? Is that why, when confronted with the many questions thrown up by everyday life, they uncreatively reach for seemingly obvious ideologemes, for prevailing approaches, ideas and feelings that hold out promises of inspiring action and suggest certain goals?

A less promising alternative seems to be emerging: if Marx’s scientific theory on philosophy of history and ideology is reduced to a general “Ism”, it becomes authoritarian; if it is done away with entirely, the theory no longer performs its intended function precisely within the social-political conflict, namely when social conflicts arise, explaining them, revolutionizing common sense and thereby helping to bring about a more comprehensive, emancipatory scope for action.

Theorists of Conscious Praxis to Redefine Structures

In light of this dilemma, it would be conceivable to consider Marx solely as a scholar. He rejected any canonization and dogmatization of his theories – after all, that would compromise the very scientific character of his work. Before the eyes of those that invoked his writing, he professed that he himself was no Marxist. He expressly rejected the idea that his theories were an a priori construction, or even that they held the historical and philosophical key to every secret and had an answer ready to every question (“It’s the economy, stupid!”). He considered research and the conceptual penetration of the subject to be key points in materialistic attitudes to the world, and as relationships are changing as a result of human practices, materialist theory is not gradually merging with reality, moving toward a conclusive end; it is intrinsically linked with these practices, refining them and thus systematically remaining open.

Marx believed that he was contributing to an academic revolution. The object of his analysis was the capitalist mode of production in its ideal standard. After decades of academic research, he himself only managed to uncover parts of the “anatomy” of this mode of production, not the overall process, i.e. of capital and standard bourgeois society. He suggested this was the aspiration of his research programme. Despite a series of analyses of specific social struggles, he left behind no political, philosophical, legal or moral theories that were comparable with critiques of political economy; at best, they were possible avenues for exploration. Many who cited him and who comprised the Marxist school focused on expanding such analyses and even added several additional research fields.

Marx himself opted to observe economic conditions with all the precision and rigour of a scientist. At the same time, however, he stressed that the principles of the capitalist mode of production were transitory and that their inherent logic of capitalist reproduction would one day drive them to their limits. Such reflections are not the product of a philosophical consideration of history; rather, they are the result of sober, abstract and empirical analysis. Marx’s theory aims to make understandable precisely those internal dynamics by which the struggles within the capitalist mode of production were taking place. The problems created by the capitalist generation of wealth cannot be solved by the bourgeoisie, they can only be deferred. One could argue that Marx already considered that the knowledge he had developed would go some way to help solve these problems and that humanity thus had the means to change its own course. Of course, there is no way that Marx could have known the dimensions social relations would take within the class struggle. But he was able to name the consequences of the bourgeois idea of wealth and those contradictory movements which would lead to wealth being created: the compulsion for growth and the destruction of capital (i.e. factories, plants, workplaces, human skills), the constant alternation between prosperity and crises both large and small, market liberalization and regulation, democracies and dictatorships, unrest and repression, “surplus” and underpopulation, workers being granted a share of the wealth they had generated and their renewed impoverishment.

All of these and other movements were already taking shape during Marx’s lifetime. And he was constantly willing to flesh out his understanding of the ideal standard of the mode of capitalist production, that is to specify, firstly, what would inevitably and logically be its defining features; secondly, set out what the historical impacts of a specific society would be; and, thirdly, define rapidly moving current events. In light of where capitalism was on its historical trajectory, Marx was at the time unable to contribute any musings on the way in which the logic of accumulation, of the global market, of class relations and of the different forms of the capitalist state, as well as the many superstructures, were shifting. This led to premature revisions and to theories being refuted.

When during the era of the Fordist welfare state it was suggested that poor working conditions, unemployment, starvation wages and precarious pay structures were all a thing of the past, not only was this an attempt to whitewash the continuing structures of exploitation, violence and discipline; it was also an inadmissible generalization. This is because the contradictory movements were not suspended but reproduced on a larger and more destructive scale (democracy, human rights, and the expansion of access to education and mass consumption went hand in hand with ecological destruction, military conflict and genocide, authoritarianism and “surplus” population on an international scale) and today they affect the lives of the entire global population. Neoliberal policies have resulted in a resurgence of precarious living conditions, such as low wages, insecure prospects, exhausting working conditions and rising competition among labourers, including for many wage earners in developed capitalist states. Marx was neither an evolutionist nor was he a voluntarist; his academic opinions and his political analyses and activities aimed to contribute to a social organization in which people could live with one another free from all forms of domination.

Academia or Ideology?

Attempts to dogmatically pin social development down to specific legalities in Marx’s name and commanding actions to ensure its final completion marked a terrible regression to the bourgeois materialism of the 18th century. These efforts failed on such a monumental scale that to this day the praxis of parties, trade unions and movements largely ignores the traditions of that other form of Marxism, the one that advocates radical emancipation and freedom. The theory is restricted to critical political economy or the occasional use of Marxist terminology for individual research disciplines. This broadly corresponds to what Marx might have referred to as contemplative materialism, which takes the reality “out there” for granted and then feels it has the right to simply take terms used in different schools of thought, including Marxist theory, and – using a detached comparison – pick and choose from them depending on their purported usefulness. Here the connection between theories and specific social trends and social practices is forgotten; the dominant definitions of existing problems are accepted. The adoption of such knowledge practices indirectly suggests that drawing upon the Marxist school of critical economic theory offers little insight into many social processes – and that perhaps no insight ought to be sought, as this would unduly overstretch the theory’s specific terminology. To then go one step further and use them to construct a “Marx-Ism” would suggest that all that was required to deduce certain guidelines from Marx’s works, which could then be used to solve all those issues and problems confronting modern-day citizens in their political decisions and everyday lives, was the correct interpretation of or further reflection on his texts. Certain actors could use “Marx-Ism” as a pretext to impose their own views and modes of living, despite the fact that such acts would undermine the theory’s scientific credibility.

Radically speaking, it is true that, as a crucial component of critical theory, Marxist theory follows the logic of no particular viewpoint – if, that is, a viewpoint is understood as a place that can be occupied and from where it is possible to speak and judge others. Marx takes a critical stance against those scholars who well-meaningly argue from a staunch bourgeois perspective and betray the scientific truth. But Marx’s theory is also not an unbiased, empirical, analytical academic discipline. It resolutely sides with labour within society and advocates for the creation of a collective world and the emancipation of humanity. For Marx, the antagonistic social principle – a society’s living labour capital – was symbolically embodied by the proletariat. Marx has a critical understanding of class: his aim is to overcome the class-based society and to emancipate the individual from all forms of power imbalance, including forced labour. Viewed from this angle, Marxist theory challenges the totality of existing modes of living and the way society is organized.

Historically speaking, “Marx-Ism” claimed to be representing the interests of the working class. It was inevitable that it would be completely incapable of acknowledging the differential emancipatory needs within the class and in many other social groups, or could generally do so only within the scope of instrumental viewpoints. By taking a critical stance against this problematic generalization, social movements not only forgot about this particular class entirely – many of their intellectual proponents even contested the fact that the “proletariat” could be that empty signifier which contained the general sense of emancipation. As they pursued their own individual emancipatory goals, “Marx-Ism” was subjected to a volley of criticism for all manner of reasons: for the reductionist one sidedness of its partiality toward a single class, for its economism, its claim to classification as well as its academic rationalism and Eurocentrism – but the call for emancipation from domination brought to the fore by Marx was simply abandoned.

Toward a New Wold View

These criticisms are an opportunity to reflect on the status of Marxist theory. If it is simply understood as an academic theory, and perpetuated as such, it loses almost every link to everyday lives, to concepts and convictions as felt by the individual, and to their everyday experiences of contradictions, habits and struggles. This type of positivistic understanding of the theory suggests that what we are dealing with is standard academia, i.e. research conducted in isolation and thus separated from political practices and the individual’s mode of living. Such a conclusion has far-reaching consequences. Firstly, the authority of Marxist theory becomes limited: there are too many aspects of the macro social process to which it does not apply. As a result, an eclectic range of other theories are cited. However, as a theory that emerged from conflict and which sees itself as integral to a process of the struggle gaining its own sense of self, it is partial in every issue and insists upon full emancipation.

Secondly, this has significant consequences for scholars as they may consider themselves experts in the critique of political economy and cultivate Marxist-philological or specific specialist knowledge. It can be observed that this understanding of materialism can lead them to believe that they are facing the harshness of material living conditions, and are thus superior to all those who still hold on to illusions inherent to the exploitative drive behind capital or who are taken in by its fetishistic character in some other way. But in all other aspects they can be ignorant, or even cold, devoid of any reflexivity on their own communication and authoritative behavioural patterns; blind toward sexism; ignorant to ecological concerns about the dominant mode of living and toward prevailing cultural practices. They themselves might foster conventional bourgeois modes of living, or even affirm them: zealous consumption of meat, that liberated feeling of a ride in a sports car, extensive travel and the hedonistic nature of the creative industries. Any criticism is rebuffed as a form of moralising asceticism. Lifestyles and everyday habits appear to have no inherent connection to the theory.

Which brings us, thirdly, to the question of why individuals should be convinced by the logical value of this theory when there remain a multitude of everyday and political practices in which it is not applied. Holding firm to the theory when it is challenged by political actors or scholars requires a unique level of conviction. Fourthly, Marxist theory is ultimately losing its autonomy from current academic research. This means it is not seen as the struggle to achieve human emancipation without recourse to a religious, ethical or purely political rationale as was the criticism levelled by Marx in his disputes with the early socialists.

From the perspective of full emancipation, Marx was clearly working on an unprecedented form of knowledge and sooth-saying that aims to reverse the separation between academia and “ideology”. Despite the fact that Marx and Engels’ work adhered to a materialist, critical understanding of the world, their criticism of Feuerbach suggests that this did not necessarily entail a detached view of the world as an object; rather, to use the words of Gramsci, it involves an active, appropriative and changing conception (concezione del mondo) that brings together spontaneous emotions and thoughts as a single bloc. Individuals should be capable of acknowledging both theory and the truth; the shape their coexistence takes should be determined by collective decisions that everyone is able to come to using their own judgement, i.e. common sense. Freedom means that common sense is not a courthouse; it is shaped by collective cooperation. It is not some final authority; it is the medium of sharing.

Reflective Marxism: A New Form of Knowledge and Soothsaying

Among those theorists who expand upon Marx’s work, there are some critical proposals that allow for Marxism to be discussed in a reflective manner. Those who represent more established schools of critical thought consider the idea of Marxism as a world view with scepticism, as it was reduced to formulaic textbook theory cut off from the experiences and contradictions of the individual. Marxist thinking hardly touched upon the individual’s way of life. Conventional and authoritarian lifestyles, subaltern modes of thought and conformist attitudes were able to persist. The questions that subsequently arose were how everyday patterns of behaviour, thought and feeling could be changed in order to achieve emancipation, and how the individual could acquire a belief in their own autonomy. This encapsulates all areas – and as the gravitational pull of economic and political conditions meant that they were more difficult to change, Adorno proposed starting with subjectivity with the aim of strengthening the individual’s sense of autonomy. This meant empowering a person to resist collective pressure, not to be afraid to appropriate challenging concepts, to tolerate contradictions and to expound the problems of harmonious, positive, smooth, as well as logically and theoretically sound ideas, to question the subordination of thought to praxis, to engage critically with one’s own emotions, to allow space for introspection and self-reflexivity, and to examine one’s everyday habits, i.e. enjoyable behaviours implicit to interactions with others.

In light of the Gramscian argument that everyone is a philosopher, but under the conditions of the authoritative organization of the social division of labour, unable to fully realise their ability to appropriate the world in an active, conceptual way, focusing on the subject and their intellectual activities is by no means a half-baked solution. The subalterns frequently live at different speeds. Through their specific form of labour, they participate in state-of-the-art production methods to process the natural world; at the same time, they are incapable of rationally developing their common sense and continue to be subjected to religious, metaphysical, provincial or bourgeois aspects of the world as disseminated by schools or the creative industries. Their common sense is compiled in a bizarre fashion and makes them passive and incapable of action. In this respect, Gramsci understands the importance of the Philosophy of Practice as initiated by Marx. It helps the subalterns develop an independent world view that empowers them to participate in the highest level of culture and social life and make it their own; in being able to “actively participate in the shaping of world history” and to become their own leaders (Gramsci, Prison Notebooks, Book 11, 1375).

The aim is to make truth the foundation of vital actions and a crucial element of the coordination of intellectual and moral relations between humans, i.e. a uniquely new moral and intellectual bloc. This is characterized by individuals – previously separated from their intellectual functions – who were capable of coherently reflecting on their actual present and of overcoming the heterogeneity of theory and praxis by rationally organizing their coexistence based on a level of cooperation that encompasses every activity. That would be a far-reaching change as the context – shared existence – would no longer be experienced and understood through the valuation of social activities in the form of abstract labour, i.e. in the competition and conflicts between individuals within a sclerotic collective for whom world views, interpretive models and interpretations are still considered aspects of social struggles. The general concept would submit to the emancipated individual and their reconciled “metabolism” with nature.

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Alex Demirović has taught at various universities, including TU Berlin and Goethe University Frankfurt am Main. He is Senior Fellow of the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation, editor of the magazine LuXemburg and chairman of the scientific advisory board of the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation.

Source

Gramsci, Antonio, 1995: Prison Notebooks, Vol. 6, eds. Klaus Bochmann, Wolfgang Fritz Haug et al, Berlin/Hamburg.

Featured image is from the author.

Philip May, husband of the UK prime minister, works for a company that is the largest shareholder in arms manufacturer, BAE Systems, whose share price has soared since the recent airstrikes in Syria.

Featured image: Civilians leaving old Mosul. This boy is going to fall of exhaustion just after this picture is taken. (Credit: Herve Jakubowicz)

With upcoming elections in May, the Iraqi government is urging Internally Displaced People (IDPs) to return home. After the defeat of ISIS in December 2017, an increase in security and number of returnees to their region of origin is expected; however, many IDPs see no way to leave the camps just yet.

While two million people have returned to their homes, three million people farther remain displaced. The eruption of ISIS in January 2014 and the following years of violence have led to a humanitarian disaster; on top of that, the number of IDPs displaced between 2006 and 2007 is still at approximately one million.

Nearly 9 million Iraqis require humanitarian assistance of which 5 million are in critical need of safe drinking water, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). A drastic reduction in armed conflict is anticipated for this year, however, the complex pattern of second displacements may continue to occur even though Iraq expects an increase in returns, according to UNICEF’s Humanitarian Action for Children Report.

“There is an impetus for people to return to their area of origin ahead of elections in May,” Melany Markham, media coordinator for the Norwegian Refugee Council, told IPS. The May elections were originally scheduled for September 2017, but were delayed by six months due to the Iraqi civil war.

The Muttahidoon, the Uniters for Reform Coalition and Iraq’s largest Sunni political alliance, called for a further six months’ delay to allow enough time for IDP voters to return home, however, Iraq’s Supreme Court ruled a second delay unconstitutional.

In camps east of Mosul, the numbers of arrivals after their second or even third displacement now surpass the number of departures of returnees.

“We cannot go back to Mosul without guarantees and international guarantees to be safe and to be some people to protect us,” an unidentified IDP told NPR correspondent Jane Arraf.

A similar development can be witnessed in Anbar Province.

“At least one in five of the displaced people who left the Kilo 18 camp in Anbar Province in December returned back to the camp because they couldn’t go home. Sometimes it’s an issue of safety and sometimes they return because their homes have been destroyed or they are occupied by others,” said Melany Markham.

“In our consultations, it doesn’t seem to be ISIS that is posing the threat. The threat is of tribal violence or retribution towards people who have proven or suspected affiliations with ISIS. Other people are afraid or unexploded ordinances,” stated the spokesperson for the Norwegian Refugee Council. “In order to mitigate these threats, land needs to be decontaminated or cleared before people can go home. Those who fear violence from the community will need to be able to settle in other places – more permanent solutions for these people must be found.”

On April 3, Iraq’s Ministry of Justice published the country’s 2018 federal budget. After voting in favor of the $88 billion draft on March 3, President Fuad Masum ordered to publicly share the document after previous weeks of dispute over the reduction of Iraq’s Kurdish region’s share from 17 percent to 12 percent.

The tense relations between Baghdad and the regional government in Erbil worsened after Kurdistan’s September referendum with 93 percent overwhelmingly endorsing the secession from Iraq. The budget cuts will affect the region around Erbil and Mosul, where ISIS caused a tremendous devastation and a surge of refugees.

In retaliation, Iraqi forces closed Erbil International Airport, took disputed territories, including the oil-rich city of Kirkuk, from Kurdish control, and shut down border crossings with Iraq’s neighboring countries. At Baghdad’s request, Iran closed seven unofficial border crossings with Kurdistan in support of the measures taken to isolate the Kurdish region.

The effects of Iraq’s political and financial crisis in retaken areas like Erbil and Mosul impact the establishment of a stable, safe environment for IDPs to return to. About $30 billion were pledged for the rebuilding of infrastructure at a recent reconstruction conference in Kuwait. Yet, the World Bank estimated that a total $88 billion dollars of damage has been caused.

Outside of refugee camps, Iraq’s public services such as water networks and health systems, essential but costly, remain overburdened in the war-affected regions, struggling to provide service to returnees. It will take time to restore Iraq’s infrastructure.

During a Barcelona concert on April 13, Roger Waters denounced the Syrian White Helmets as “a fake organization that exists only to create propaganda for jihadists and terrorists.” Warning that the groups’ unverified claims about chemical weapons attacks across insurgent-held territory were aimed at triggering Western military intervention,

Waters cautioned his audience, “If we were to listen to the propaganda of the White Helmets and others, we would encourage our governments to start dropping bombs on people in Syria. This would be a mistake of monumental proportions for us as human beings.”

In fact, Waters had first hand experience with the powerful pro-war PR operation behind the White Helmets. Back in October 2016, a public relations firm representing the White Helmets called The Syria Campaign attempted to recruit Waters by inviting him to a lavish dinner organized by a Saudi-British billionaire, Hani Farsi. The rock legend and renowned activist was told that by signing on to the organization’s mission, he could help “elevate the voices of Syria’s peaceful heroes”

Just days before his recent concert in Barcelona, Waters was lobbied again to support the White Helmets, this time by an eccentric French photojournalist affiliated with what he described as a “very powerfull [sic] syrian network.” The activist demanded to join Waters on stage and deliver a message for the “children of syria.”

Waters did not respond to either request.

These emailed solicitations from White Helmets representatives and activists were provided by Waters to the Grayzone Project, and are published in full at the bottom of this article. The documents demonstrate how the organization’s well-funded public relations apparatus has targeted celebrities as the key to the hearts and minds of the broader Western public.

Unlike many other A-listers, however, Waters took time to research the White Helmets and investigate its ulterior agenda. 

“I was quite suspicious after I was invited to that [White Helmets] dinner,” Waters told the Grayzone Project. “And now my worst suspicions have been confirmed.”

The Syria Campaign’s initial approach

The October 2016 dinner invite was delivered to Waters by a representative for the Corniche Group, an international holding company belonging to the family of the London-based Saudi billionaire Hani Farsi. Farsi was seeking Waters’ presence at a fundraising dinner he had organized on behalf of The Syria Campaign.

The Syria Campaign is a well-funded public relations front established to promote The White Helmets as a group of heroic rescuers who require the protection of Western militaries. Through series of petitions and public demonstrations, The Syria Campaign has unsuccessfully pushed for a No Fly Zone in Syria that would have likely resulted in the kind of Western military intervention that toppled Libyan President Moammar Qaddafi and destabilized Libya.

The slick PR firm has also resorted to astroturfed public stunts like a pro-White Helmets flash mob and orchestral performance at New York City’s Grand Central Station where participants were paid up to $600 each.

Participants in astroturfed White Helmets concert & flashmob were paid up to $600 each by a public relations firm, Ubers were paid for too pic.twitter.com/5KTkIUEv4g

— Max Blumenthal (@MaxBlumenthal) March 5, 2017

Farsi’s relationship to the The Syria Campaign had been kept private until now. A Syrian-British oil tycoon named Ayman Asfari has taken a much more vocal role with the PR group, providing it with seed money to advance his mission to stimulate US and UK support for regime change in Syria. Waters was informed that Asfari’s wife, Sawsan, would be on hand for the 2016 White Helmets fundraising dinner.

Over the past two years, The Syria Campaign has secured endorsements of the White Helmets’ work from actors including George Clooney, Aziz Ansari, Ben Affleck, and pop stars like Coldplay and Justin Timberlake. The Syria Campaign also helped orchestrate the production of an Oscar-winning Netflix documentary about the White Helmets in 2017. In the email to Waters, a Corniche Group staffer urged the singer to watch that film and provided him with a link to its trailer.

“I would encourage the celebrities who’ve signed to endorse the White Helmets to stop supporting them because we know what they are,” Waters told the Grayzone Project. “I don’t blame them for having bought in to it. On the face of it, it felt plausible that the White Helmets were just good people doing good things. But now we know they’re trying to encourage the West to drops bombs and missiles illegally in Syria.” 

Waters said he also concluded that The Syria Campaign — the PR firm behind the White Helmets — was not simply the humanitarian voice it purported to be, but a corporate outfit that represented much more prosaic interests.

The Syria Campaign’s top funder, Asfari, was described by the UK Independent as one of the “super rich” Syrian exiles poised to oversee the rebuilding of the country if Assad were removed, and to presumably reap lucrative contracts in the process.

In its invite to Waters, The Syria Campaign presented him with links to articles that read like press releases for the White Helmets: one from Time Magazine and another by The Guardian urging the Nobel Prize committee to honor the organization with its highest award. The Syrian Campaign appeared to be taking credit for generating both pieces.

Government funding, violent extremist activity

The reality of the White Helmets is much more disturbing than its hired PR guns have cared to admit. Not only have the White Helmets operated exclusively alongside Islamist extremist insurgents, including the local Al Qaeda affiliate Jabhat al-Nusra and ISIS, its members have participated in several documented public executions, and helped extremists dispose of beheaded corpses of those they’ve killed.

Unable to discount the documented facts about the White Helmets’ ties to jihadist insurgents, The Syria Campaign published a lengthy report last year dismissing all critical reporting about the organization as the result of a vast Kremlin-directed conspiracy.

Not a scandal @RefugeesIntl, DC & Wall St elites are honoring the group ISIS hostage John Cantlie called "the Islamic State's fire brigade"? pic.twitter.com/icBnKzWgN2

— Max Blumenthal (@MaxBlumenthal) April 26, 2017

In its email to Waters, The Syria Campaign took credit for having “helped these rescue workers attract more than $15 million in government funding and turned them into household names.”

In fact, since the White Helmets were founded in Turkey by a former British MI5 officer named James Le Mesurier, the group has received at least $55 million from the British Foreign Office, $23 million or more from the United States Agency for International Development’s Office of Transition Initiatives — the State Department’s de facto regime change arm — and untold millions from the Kingdom of Qatar, which has also backed an assortment of extremist groups in Syria including Al Qaeda.

The White Helmets are routinely relied upon by the governments that fund them as a primary source on alleged chemical attacks, including the most recent incident in Douma. When Defense Secretary James Mattis cited “social media” in place of scientific evidence of a chemical attack in Douma, he was referring to video shot by members of the White Helmets. Similarly, when State Department spokesperson Heather Nauert sought to explain why the US bombed Syria before inspectors from the OPCW could produce a report from the ground, she claimed,

“We have our own intelligence.” With little else to offer, she was likely referring to social media material published by members of the White Helmets.

A final appeal from an eccentric activist

In the days leading up to Waters’ April 13 concert in Barcelona, an assistant received an email from a French photojournalist named Pascal Hanrion who described himself as “a militant with the syrian white helmets to denounce crimes against humanity in syria,” and part of a “very powerfull [sic] syrian network.” Unlike the corporate PR professionals of The Syria Campaign, Hanrion appeared to be a freelance activist.

Back in July, 2016, Hanrion ran a marathon-style race through the Swiss Alps wearing a white helmet presented to him as a gift by rescue workers from the town of Jisr al-Shugour, which is located in the Al Qaeda-controlled Syrian providence of Idlib. According to journalist Jenan Moussa, the homes of original Jisr al-Shugour residents have been handed over by Al Qaeda’s local affiliate to Chinese Uighur jihadists and their families.

In his email, Hanrion requested to join Waters on stage so he could send a message to the “children of Syria” reminding them, “you are not forgotten!”

Instead of allowing the eccentric activist on stage, Waters delivered a message of his own, urging his audience to deconstruct the wall of pro-war narratives brick-by-brick.

“What we should do is go and persuade our governments not to go and drop bombs on people,” Waters implored the crowd, inspiring gales of applause. “And certainly not until we have done all the research that is necessary so that we would have a clear idea of what is really going on. Because we live in the world where propaganda seems to be more important than the reality.”

Waters’ speech and the emails to him from The Syria Campaign and Hanrion are below:

See White Helmets Emails to Roger Waters by Max Blumenthal on Scribd.

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Featured image is from the author.

By firing missiles on Syria with its French and British allies, President Donald Trump has managed to force the Western powers to accept the end of their unilateral domination of the world. The insignificant result of this demonstration of force drags NATO back to reality. Without having made use of its weapons, Russia now succeeds the Soviet Union in the balance of world power.

Over the last few weeks, and for the first time in their history, the United States and Russia have mutually threatened one another with a World War. The totally disproportionate character of the crisis in terms of the subject of the dispute demonstrates that what is at stake here today no longer has any connection with what has been happening in the Greater Middle East since 2001, but exclusively with an attempt to maintain the current World Order.

After the gigantic massacres of millions of people over seventeen years, from Afghanistan to Libya, the manner in which about fifty people in East Ghouta (Syria) are allegedly said to have died seems almost ridiculous. And yet on 14 April (local time), this was the pretext chosen by Washington, Paris and London to launch a three-party aerial attack.

Let’s avoid getting distracted by the circumstances, and get straight to the heart of the matter – the Western powers are attempting to maintain their domination over the rest of the world, while Russia and China are breaking free of it.

The President of the United States, Donald Trump, did not hesitate to tweet to Russia that he was going to fire missiles of a new generation on its soldiers in Syria. The Russian ambassador, Alexander Zasypkine, immediately responded that these missiles would be intercepted and the planes and ships that fired them would be destroyed. The Turkish Prime Minister, Binali Yıldırım, expressed his astonishment at this “street brawl” and called the participants to reason. All of the actors then began to back-pedal.

The naval group of the aircraft carrier USS Harry S. Trumanleft its base in Norfolk, apparently to take position facing Syria. It will take several weeks before it is operational. The question of the confrontation between the United States and Russia, in other words the Third World War, will then be raised again.

It goes without saying that the preparation of this naval unit and its 6,500 soldiers began well before the affair of the Ghouta which serves as a pretext for its deployment.

The question is therefore to understand whether, by firing a deluge of missiles on a few abandoned buildings, Washington and its allies have postponed the confrontation in order to occupy a more efficient position, or, on the contrary, have given up on direct warfare and are preparing for a new form of conflict.

The result of the bombing on 14 April is astonishing – 103 missiles are said to have been fired by the Allies. 71 of these are said to have been destroyed in flight by Syria. A decommissioned military laboratory was apparently destroyed, and the installations of two aerodromes were damaged. This deluge of fire allegedly wounded only three people and killed none. If Donald Trump, Emmanuel Macron and Theresa May had intended to show their power, they in fact showed themselves to be powerless.

Seen from Damascus, the message was clear – Syria is in the process of freeing itself from the jihadists, but will not enjoy peace for all that, and will not be able to count on any help from the West for its reconstruction.

The Allies pretend that Syria kept stocks of chemical weapons, despite its membership of the Convention which prohibits them. They claim that they targeted only areas linked to these weapons. And yet, for example, they fired four missiles at the international commercial airport in Damascus, an exclusively civilian target. Happily, the Syrian Arab Army managed to intercept them all.

In total, the Syrian Arab Army, which was only in possession of S-125’s, S-200’s, Buk’s, Kvadrat’s and Osa’s, managed, single-handed, to shoot down two thirds of the Western projectiles. Finally, despite themselves, the Allies had just fought the first battle of their history in which they killed not one enemy. France, which tested its new naval Cruise missile for the first time in a combat situation, was unable to boast of a success to its potential clients.

Of course, the Allies limited themselves. They carefully avoided hitting Russian or Iranian targets, and these two states did not participate in the operation. Nonetheless, the Western armada no longer has the capacity to impose its will on middle powers as long as they are protected by Russia.

Everyone has understood that, as from now:

• the United States and Russia – just as in earlier times the USA and the USSR – will refrain from any direct confrontation in order to avoid nuclear war;
• and that the middle powers allied with Russia will not be significantly damaged by the West.
• The only military superiority possessed by Washington, London and Paris resides in their capacity to manipulate armed groups and use them as proxies.

By bringing France and the United Kingdom into the fray, President Trump has forced them to accept the reality they were refusing to see.

This grand show, then, was no more than a futile gesture. After a quarter of a century of unilateral domination by the West, its three main military powers have just been down-graded. The world has returned to a bipolar situation like that of the Cold War, although the new rules still need to be defined. The Third World War will have to wait.

*

Translation by Pete Kimberley

Thierry Meyssan is a Political consultant, President-founder of the Réseau Voltaire (Voltaire Network). Latest work in French – Sous nos Yeux. Du 11-Septembre à Donald Trump(Right Before our Eyes. From 9/11 to Donald Trump).

Source

Al-Watan (Syria)

It is well known that Israel has been supporting the so-called opposition operating in Syria in order to overthrow the legitimate government of Bashar al-Assad since the very beginning of the Syrian crisis in 2011. Another goal of Tel Aviv is to gain full control over the Golan Heights which Prime Minister B. Netanyahu is currently using to provide the militants from Syria with weapons.

Besides, the fighting, jihadists striving to break the war-torn country are receiving medical care in Israeli hospitals.

“Israel has been always stood by our side in a heroic way,” confirmed Moatasem al-Golani, the spokesman for the rebel group Liwa Fursan al-Joulan also known as Knights of the Golan. “We wouldn’t have survived without Israel’s financial assistance, food and weapons supplies.”

Moreover, the Israel Defense Forces have set up special paramilitary training camps, both in terms of imparting military, paramilitary and terrorist skills as well as radical jihadist indoctrination. According to Inside Syria Media Center’s military correspondents on the ground, the Israeli military has been providing weapons and ammunition as well as intelligence support as well as full-scale air support.

Thus, Israeli AF (IAF) have carried out more than 100 airstrikes on Hezbollah and the Syrian Arab Army’s positions. Moreover, the IAF have intensified their activity by conducting an air attack on the Syrian airbase T-4 on April 9, and also on the Ash-Shayrat and Ad-Dumayr air bases on April 17, 2018.

Furthermore, there is recent evidence of Israel increasing supplies to the rebels affiliated to the Free Syrian Army (FSA). This assistance mainly consists of providing arms and weapons as well as money to buy ammo on the black market.

Local activists report that in late March – early April the contacts have intensified between the Israeli intelligence officers and the representatives of the Syrian armed groups acting in the area of Israeli-occupied Golan Heights. The Israelis handed over to the militants some bags, boxes and cases, contents unknown, probably ammunitions, medicine and food rations.

Tel Aviv, thus, seeks to maximize the support in order to get them ready for an offensive of the Syrian troops and Lebanese Hezbollah in the south of al-Quneitra Governorate.

Obviously, by supplying opposition groups in southern Syria, Israel aims to block and sabotage not only the peaceful settlement of the conflict but also the demilitarization of the Syrian-Israeli border in the Golan Heights in accordance with Agreement on Disengagement between Israel and Syria.

*

This article was originally published by Inside Syria Media Center.

Sophie Mangal (pen name) is a special investigative correspondent. She is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is from the author.

Featured image: Protesters near the Gaza border fence (YouTube)

To say that the situation in Gaza is deplorable and desperate is an understatement. That impoverished strip of land on the Eastern Mediterranean has been deplorable and desperate for decades.

I traveled to Gaza many times during the 1990’s, in my capacity as co-Chair of Builders for Peace, which was a project launched by Vice President Al Gore to help grow the Palestinian economy. My colleagues and I were unprepared for what we found. Secretary of Commerce Ron Brown, who led one of these delegations, described what he saw as “worse than Soweto.”

During the first quarter century of its occupation, Israel pursued a policy described by Sara Roy as the, ”de-development of Gaza.” There was no investment in infrastructure, with the local population reduced to a cheap pool of labor working either as day laborers in Israel or as poorly paid sub-contractors working for Israeli exporters. The poverty of the place was palpable, as was the congestion. Gaza is among the most densely populated places on earth.

Because 70% of Gazans are refugees living in camps, they received education, some medical and social services thanks the UNRWA – the United Nations agency created to provide for Palestinian refugees. But not much more.

In Jabalya Camp, we saw little children walking through a pool of water in the middle of a dirt road. Since it hadn’t rained in days, we asked about the source of the water and were horrified to learn that it was open sewage – the result of the fact that there were no paved roads in that part of the camp and no sewage system.

The Strip’s best agricultural land had been taken by Israeli settlers.  Palestinians who farmed on the land that remained had difficulty exporting their product unless they worked with Israeli middlemen reducing their ability to make a sustainable profit. We heard the same complaint from small manufacturers.

A number of the American business leaders that Builders for Peace brought on our visits were interested in investing and developing partnerships with Palestinian businesses but were discouraged from doing so when they learned that there would be restrictions on their ability to import raw materials and export finished products.

A visit to the border revealed the hardships faced by the tens of thousands of Gazans who relied on day labor employment in Israel. Because, by Israeli law they could not overnight in Israel and they were forced to leave their homes before dawn to get to the border before 6 am in hopes of being selected for a day’s work in construction, agriculture, or janitorial services. The lucky ones were loaded on trucks taken to their jobs and, at the end of the day, they were driven back to the border. Exhausted, they got home late at night to sleep and then to repeat the process the next day.

In 1996, I was honored to be a part of the Carter Center’s team monitoring the first Palestinian election. The lines of voters were long and the excitement was real. I documented poignant scenes of men and women spending long hours waiting for their chance to cast their first-ever ballots in an election they believed was to be the first step to independence.

The last time I went to Gaza during the Clinton Administration, I accompanied President Clinton as he addressed a meeting of the Palestine National Council and cut the ribbon opening Gaza’s new airport. Despite Palestinian (and US) frustration with the Netanyahu government’s declared intention to end the Oslo peace process, there was still hope in the air.

As desperate and deplorable as conditions were in Gaza back then, in many ways, those were the “good years”.

Likud hardline policies, violence, and provocation, coupled with Hamas’ instigated acts of terrorism served to make a bad situation worse. Ariel Sharon’s decision to unilaterally withdraw from Gaza and his refusal (despite US Secretary of State Condoleza Rice’s entreaties) to allow for an orderly hand-off of the administration of the Strip to the Palestinian Authority, paved the way for an eventual Hamas take-over.

What followed was a complete Israeli blockade of Gaza, creating even greater Palestinian impoverishment. Three punishing Israeli wars on Gaza (in 2008, 2012, and 2014) left over 3,800 Palestinians dead, 15,000 wounded, and an already dilapidated infrastructure even more devastated by deliberate Israeli targeting of civilian sites, like a sewage reservoir and a chicken processing plant. In all three wars, there was clear evidence that Israel committed war crimes.

The blockade was especially cruel with the Israelis allowing in only enough food to provide for the minimum caloric intake to sustain life and no support to infrastructure repair. Ninety-five percent of Gaza’s water is contaminated and undrinkable and most residents receive only between two to four hours of electricity daily. Poverty levels have reached extreme levels as has unemployment. For the last three decades, youth unemployment has hovered between 70% to 80% – meaning that most young Palestinians in Gaza have never had a job and have no prospect of a job. It breaks my heart when I read of the despair of a young protester in Gaza who was recently quoted saying “No peace, no jobs, no unity, and no future, so what difference would death make? If we are going to die, then let it not be in vain”.

To their credit, the people of Gaza have during the past three weeks embarked on a mass non-violent protest, terming it the “Great March of Return”. Fearing a non-violent mass movement, the Israelis have, true to form, responded with overwhelming violence, while attempting to cover their unconscionable behavior with denial and deceit. They positioned 100 snipers on earthen mounds on their side of the border and during the past three weeks, they have shot and killed 32 Palestinian protesters, wounding another 1,300.

While the Israelis have claimed that those whom they shot were threatening to breach the border, Israeli human rights groups have documented that the overwhelming majority of those hit were hundreds of yards from the border fence and even those few whom the Israelis said were throwing incendiary devices were over one hundred yards away – their action being more symbolic then threatening.

The entire affair has been more like a “turkey shoot” then a military confrontation, with innocent protesters who are captives in the world’s largest open air prison being randomly picked off by sniper fire. Even more sickening was the recently released video of a sniper shooting and hitting a Palestinian while his fellow snipers cheered his success. The Israeli response to this video has been to call for punishing the maker of the video and not the sniper who killed the unarmed protester.

Some have dismissed the entire “Great March” as a Hamas ploy. But such a charge is both patently false and cruel. The effort was launched by civil society and while Hamas has embraced it, it should be endorsed by all Palestinian factions and not left to Hamas to be the effort’s only sponsor.

When Palestinians use non-violent means to make their case, whether in mass mobilizations or through the BDS movement, they should be encouraged and supported. To deny them this right is to say that they have no right to protest their conditions and they should, as one Israeli leader has cruelly suggested, “go home and get on with their lives.”

In the weeks ahead, I hope to see Palestinians in the West Bank and Jerusalem, and Palestinians in Lebanon and Jordan join this “Great March”. Attention must be paid to this long-suffering people, whether they be the desperate in Gaza, or their compatriots who also long for and deserve that the world acknowledge their right to be recognized as equal human beings.

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James J. Zogby is the president of the Arab American Institute.

The geopolitical dynamics of the New Cold War have made it so that France – and not the UK or Germany – is the US’ “special partner” in Europe given Paris’ much broader pan-hemispheric influence and its pivotal place in Washington’s developing Asian alliance system.

The days when the UK or Germany could be considered the US’ top European partner are gone and France has now emerged as Washington’s chief ally on the continent. The UK is mired in post-Brexit domestic political chaos and is decisively turning inward during the indefinitely long transitional period of recalibrating its foreign policy towards the EU and the British Commonwealth. This has made the island nation much less attractive of a strategic partner than ever before and compelled the US to urgently search for a replacement. Germany, which used to vie for this position during the Obama years, has totally lost its luster under the Trump Administration due to the two Great Powers’ ideological and economic differences. Moreover, the country is inextricably tied to Russia via the existing European pipeline network and the new ones being spearheaded under the Baltic and Black Seas, thus making it “strategically unreliable” from the perspective of long-term American policymaking calculations.

The time has therefore come for the US to replace its maritime and mainland “special partnerships” with the UK and Germany, respectively, and France fits the role perfectly because of its hybrid geostrategic nature as Western Eurasia’s mainland-maritime nexus.

The country is a continental power in terms of the influence that it wields over Southern Europe (particularly the “PIGS” countries) while it’s a maritime one because of its vast colonial legacy in Africa and parts Asia (mostly the Mideast and Southeast Asia). In fact, France can be regarded as an African superpower despite not having any actual mainland territory there simply by virtue of its financial and military strength through the two African Franc systems and the ongoing Sahel-spanning “Operation Barkhane” multinational anti-terrorist mission, to say nothing of its network of bases and historical tendency to intervene all across the continent at will. The US has no greater ally in Africa than France, and the two Great Powers cooperate extensively in hegemonically managing its affairs and attempting to “contain” China. In addition, these two countries could conceivably cooperate with the Indo-Japanese “Asia-Africa Growth Corridor” (AAGC) and even bring the UAE into this framework given its growing Horn of Africa influence.

This analytical angle brings the article to the point of discussing the Asian aspect of France’s strategic significance to the US. Paris is trying its hardest to regain its long-lost Mideast influence through Macron’s leading involvement in attempting to resolve last year’s Hariri affair and his country’s enthusiastic participation in the latest Syrian strikes. Prior to that, France opened a base in the UAE in 2009 and has since cultivated close ties with the Emirates’ GCC Saudi ally too. The Levantine and Gulf components of Paris’ Mideast policy give France the perception of greater regional weight which it has attempted to leverage in exerting influence over Iran. Of all the five Mideast states mentioned, the UAE is nevertheless the most important one for France because “Little Sparta’s” transregional influence in the Peninsula & its nearby Horn of African environs pairs well with the Abu Dhabi Crown Prince’s mentor role over his Saudi counterpart and arguably makes it one of the world’s fastest-rising powers.

The UAE has also moved very close to India in recent years, as has France, thus allowing one to speak of a trilateral strategic complementarity that perfectly aligns with the US’ grand interests. The Emirates hosts a sizeable Indian diaspora community that provides low-wage labor for the developing powerhouse, and Abu Dhabi recently pivoted from its historical partnership with Pakistan towards India owing to Islamabad’s refusal to participate in the War on Yemen. India has since played an important role in this conflict by providing medical services to the “coalition’s” injured fighters, and its American-friendly Prime Minister Modi even visited the country and announced New Delhi’s intentions to take ties to the next level. It’s therefore obvious why the US and France’s UAE ally would make a logical addition to the Indo-Japanese AAGC given that it has plentiful resources to invest in the continent and the intention to do so after establishing itself as a Horn of Africa power.

France, on the other hand, has more of a military partnership with India than the UAE’s economic one, and the two Great Powers are presently exploring several weapons deals with one another. Relatedly, Paris and New Delhi also recently agreed on a LEMOA-like military pact that allows them to use each other’s bases, therefore theoretically giving India access to France’s facilities all across Africa and especially its crucial naval one in Djibouti. The convergence of French, Emirati, and Indian interests around the Bab el-Mandeb maritime chokepoint connecting EU-Chinese trade could become a powerful force in the New Cold War and represents an unfolding alliance system in line with American interests that neither the UK nor Germany can provide. It’s for these larger and far-reaching strategic reasons involving Africa, the Mideast, and South Asia why France is fast becoming the US’ new “special partner” in Europe and one of its most important allies anywhere in the world.

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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.

Yesterday (4-18-2018) on Fox News, a loyal Democrat, Governor Bill Richardson (in regard to the secret meeting of CIA Director Mike Pompeo with Kim Jong-un, leader of North Korea) said:

“The CIA IS BACK and I like it”!

For true peace activists, this gleeful admission is troublesome. History teaches us when the CIA is in charge of U.S. foreign policy, everyone should expect either a bloody coup d’état or an assassination – reminiscent of the glory days of the CIA in the 1950’s – a decade where the potential for progress for many nations in the Middle East and Latin America was ripped away by a few gentlemen in the CIA who were just carrying out orders from Washington in cooperation with the local thugs posed as US allies and partners. Of course those days are gone and North Korea is not a country that can easily be changed.

The Trump administration’s attempt to make North Korea a subordinate ally, probably against China is farfetched and uncertain at best, but definitely Mr. Trump has no intention to bring peace to the region by this overstated impending summit. Simultaneously, on the side of the “secret meeting”, North and South Korea are joining hands to end the hostility. However all these last minute diplomacy efforts could turn upside down since the U.S. war machine has already left the base and China has displayed her “naval hardware for the world to see –10,000 personnel, 76 fighter jets, 48 naval vessels, a nuclear powered submarine and China’s first aircraft carrier.”

So the stage is already set for another global military confrontation. But besides the obvious military powers’ drive for war and their media, are there any other obstacles that exist for peace activists to pause and reflect upon? The answer is yes; the so-called “LEFT” in the Western World, unintentionally is playing into the hands of warmongers under the cover of “humanitarian” concerns! The European and American “LEFT” want to clean all capitalist states of dictators! They claim they are for peace as long as no dictator is allowed to oppress their people. So, the “left” justification for a limited military operation or suggestion of enforcing no-fly zone (NATO terminology!) must be rejected wholeheartedly.  No Compromise! Unite For Peace, Stand Against All Warlords!

An honest and independent peace activist does not and should not believe in the farce “Democracy” which is promoted by Washington, London, Paris or Berlin; neither should they support the dictators or authoritarian leaders of China, Russia and North Korea. They should not trust the regimes in the Middle East which rely on their military might rather than political solutions, regardless of how much they might be able to pose as an anti Imperialist force. In 2018, our choices are very limited. It is the question of life or death; Peace or War.

Peace activists must create an international umbrella for peace. Under this umbrella, everyone is able to promote their ideology and express themselves freely, but they must fight together against the warlords. Peaceful and Democratic minded people are the majority. Let’s excise our power together before is too late. Let’s Create a GLOBAL UNION FOR PEACE!

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

Featured image is from the author.

VISIT MY NEW WEB SITE: 

stephenlendman.org 

(Home – Stephen Lendman). 

Contact at [email protected].

Investigative journalist Sara Carter broke the story, saying 11 congressional lawmakers made what’s called a criminal referral to Attorney General Jeff Sessions.

They called for investigating Hillary Clinton, James Comey, Andrew McCabe, Loretta Lynch and others, their dubious conduct and abuses of power gone unpunished.

In a letter to Sessions, they said

“(w)e write to refer the (designated) individuals for investigation of potential violation(s) of federal statutes.”

“(W)e are especially mindful of the dissimilar degrees of zealousness that has marked the investigations into Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and the presidential campaign of Donald Trump, respectively.”

“Because we believe that those in positions of high authority should be treated the same as every other American, we want to be sure that the potential violations of law outlined below are vetted appropriately.”

The fabricated Christopher Steele doggy dossier, financed by Hillary and the DNC, was cited as “present(ing) false and/or unverified information to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC).”

The dossier made spurious accusations without evidence, alleging misconduct and collusion between Trump, his campaign team and Russia during the 2016 presidential campaign – including phony accusations of Russian US election interference.

Lawmakers cited DOJ and FBI personnel involved in obtaining FISC warrant authorization “based on unverified and/or false information for possible violation(s) of 18 USC 242 and 18 USC 1505 and 1515b.”

They referred to the explosive January Devin Nunes memo, revealing extensive FISA abuses by high-level US officials – naming former FBI director James Comey, former deputy FBI director Andrew McCabe and current deputy attorney general Rod Rosenstein.

A March letter Nunes sent to Jeff Sessions was also mentioned. According to lawmakers, Comey “engaged in questionable conduct vis-a-vis President Donald Trump.”

He “wrote memoranda detailing alleged conversations between himself and President Trump, creating ‘a paper trail’ for ‘documenting what he perceived as the president’s improper efforts to influence a continuing investigation.’ “

A previous article said he disgraced the office he held, mocking legal, moral and ethical standards – including involvement in the witch-hunt Russiagate probe, along with letting Hillary off the hook for serious wrongdoing.

He remains unaccountable for major offenses, cashing in handsomely from his mistitled “A Higher Loyalty” book published this week.

He claimed material in the book came personal recollections of discussions with Trump, admitting inclusion of some classified material.

The 1974 Privacy Act governs the collection, maintenance, use and dissemination of personal information maintained by federal agencies.

It prohibits disclosing it without written consent, stating:

“No (federal) agency shall disclose any record which is contained in a system of records by any means of communication to any person, or to another agency, except pursuant to a written request by, or with the prior written consent of, the individual to whom the record pertains.”

All federal agencies must prevent unauthorized release of personal records.

FBI policy prohibits staff from releasing “any information acquired by virtue of (their) official employment (to) unauthorized individual(s) without prior official written authorization” from the agency.

Releasing information related to ongoing investigations and sensitive operations is prohibited without written permission.

All material related to official agency business remains government property.

According to the lawmakers,

“Comey leaked classified information (without authorization) when sharing (it) with (Columbia University) Professor (Daniel) Richman.”

He leaked it to the media, remaining unaccountable for the action along with Comey.

Hillary was criminally referred to the DOJ “for potential violation(s) of 52 USC 30121 and 52 USC 30101.”

Former attorney general Loretta Lynch was criminally referred to the DOJ for “her decision to threaten with reprisal the former FBI informant, William Douglas Campbell, who first came forward in 2016 with insight into the sale of the Canadian firm Uranium One, which controlled nearly 20 percent of uranium mining interests in the United States,” Carter reported.

According to congressional lawmakers, Lynch’s criminal referral was for potentially violating “18 USC 1505 and 1515b.”

Will Jeff Sessions act responsibly on any or all of the above? Rarely ever are federal officials held accountable for their lawless actions – never for naked aggression, the highest of high crimes.

*

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

On Sunday April 15th, Britain’s Guardian bannered “OPCW inspectors set to investigate site of Douma chemical attack” and pretended that there was no question that a chemical attack in Douma Syria on April 7th had actually occurred, and the article then went further along that same propaganda-line, to accuse Syria’s Government of having perpetrated it. This ‘news’ story opened [and clarificatory comments from me will be added in brackets]:

UN chemical weapons investigators were set on Sunday to begin examining the scene of a chemical attack in the Syrian city of Douma, which had prompted the joint US, French and British strikes against military installations and chemical weapons facilities near the capital, Damascus.

The arrival of the delegation from the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) came as the Syrian military announced that it had “purified” [no source provided, but this — from 7 March 2018 — is the only source that existed prior to the April 14th missiles-invasion of Syria, and its meaning is very different: see this] the region of eastern Ghouta, of which Douma is a part, after a two-month campaign that killed nearly 2,000 civilians [no source provided as regards either the number, or that all of them were ‘civilians’ and that none of them were jihadists or “terrorists”], following years of siege.

The propaganda-article continued directly: 

“Units of our brave armed forces, and auxiliary and allied forces, completed the purification of eastern Ghouta, including all its towns and villages, of armed terrorist organisations,” the general command statement said.

No source was provided for that, but this sentence is a sly mind-manipulation, because here is what the Syrian Government’s General Command had actually said: “Statement of the Army General Command declaring Eastern Ghouta clear of terrorism” as headlined by the Syrian Government itself. 

In other words: the Guardian’s ‘journalist’ had substituted the word “clear” by the word “purify” and did this after having already asserted but not documented, that the Government had just completed “a two-month campaign that killed nearly 2,000 civilians.” When the Syrian Government announces that an area has been “cleared of terrorists (or of terrorism),” the U.S.-allied propagandist uses the word “purify,” such as “purified the region of eastern Ghouta” or “the purification of eastern Ghouta, including all its towns and villages, of armed terrorist organisations.” But by the time that the reader gets there to “purification … of armed terrorist organisations,” the reader has already been doctrinated to believe that Syria’s Government is trying to “purify” land, or perpetrate some type of ethnic-cleansing. That’s professional propaganda-writing; it is not professional journalism.

Later, the article asserts that,

“The OPCW mission will arrive in Douma eight days after the chemical attack, and days after the area fell to the control of Russian military and Syrian government forces. That delay, along with the possibility of the tampering of evidence by the forces accused of perpetrating the attack, raises doubts about what the OPCW’s inspectors might be able to discover.”

However, a fierce debate is being waged over whether this was not any real “chemical attack” but instead a staged event by the jihadists in order to draw Trump back into invading Syria. In other words: any journalistic reference yet, at this time, to the event as “the chemical attack” instead of as “the alleged chemical attack” is garbage, just as, prior to the guilty-verdict in a murder trial, no journalistic reference may legitimately be made to the defendant as “the murderer,” instead of as “the defendant.” That is lynch-mob ‘journalism’, which Joseph Goebbels championed.

The Joseph-Goebbels-following ‘journalist’ has thus opened by implying that the Russia-allied Syrian Government is trying to crush a democratic revolution, instead of the truth, that the U.S.-allied Governments are trying to overthrow and replace the Russia-allied Syrian Government. It’s a big difference, between the lie, and the truth.

Another story in the April 15th Guardian was “Pressure grows on Russia to stop protecting Assad as US, UK and France press for inquiry into chemical weapons stockpiles” and this one pretended that the issue is for “Russia to stop protecting Assad,” who is the democratically elected and popular President of Syria, and not to stop the invasion of Syria since 2011 by U.S. and Saudi backed foreign jihadists to overthrow him.

Furthermore, as regards “press for inquiry into chemical weapons stockpiles,” the real and urgent issue right now is to allow the Organization for the Prevention of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) into Douma to hold an independent and authoritative investigation into the evidence there. Russia pressed for it at the U.N. Security Council and the U.S. and its allies blocked it there. But the OPCW went anyway — even after the U.S.-allied invasion on April 14th — and this courageous resistance by them against the U.S. dictatorship can only be considered heroic. Now that they are there, the remaining jihadists in Douma are firing shots at them to drive them away.

That type of ‘news’-reporting is virtually universal in The West, among the U.S. and its allied governments, which refer to themselves as ‘democracies’ and refer to any Government that they wish to overthrow and replace by their own selected dictator, as ‘dictatorships’, such as these regimes had referred to Iraq in 2003, Libya in 2011, Syria forever, and Ukraine in 2014. It’s Newspeak.

*

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.

With slight disappointment the public regarded the field. Just a minute ago, two knights were converging in fearsome joust, their spears pointing forth, plumage blowing, horses galloping, ladies out waving their handkerchiefs to their champions, – and now we see they have passed each other, both firmly in the saddle, plumage unruffled, spears unbloodied, horses trotting away joyfully.

“Cowards!” – the boys shouted, while the ladies are happy to see their knights riding off the field unharmed. We all know this was just the first joust, where prudence often inhibits the testosterone flush. Soon, the knights will ride again.

This is a brief summary of the Syrian strike. An external force had pushed the leaders of Russia and the US into confrontation; Putin and Trump were equally unwilling to fight, but they couldn’t avoid the charge. The best they could do, they did: they avoided each other.

This was the somewhat unexpected conclusion of the carefully planned encounter. It plainly did not make sense to fire up fear and loathing of Russians to its unprecedented heights for such a finale. A mountain gave birth to a mouse, as Horace said. Presumably, the mountain will make another effort.

The last thing I want is to cheer and encourage the next encounter. The two presidents already have displayed vigour and courage by limiting the damage to a minimum. It is unwise to troll them for failing to defeat their opponent, though this is now being done by hundreds of pundits and by millions of private persons.

On the US side, Trump has been castigated by such brilliant humanitarians as Mr Mohammed (brother to late unlamented Zahran) Alloush, the leader of Jaysh al-Islam, a moderate Jihadi fighter group supported and paid for by that most progressive prince and lady drivers’ best friend, Mohammed bin Salman. The airstrikes were “a farce”, he said. Israel is also upset that President Trump “did the minimum he could”.

If Trump hasn’t been skinned yet by the neocons in Washington, it’s because he judiciously brought into his camp the worst warmongers, John Bolton and Nikki Haley as human shields in the case of a neocon attack: nobody can accuse a man whose security adviser is Bolton and the UN ambassador is Haley of being soft on Putin. Now they can’t voice their indignation. As they say in the army, it’s better to have them inside the tent pissing out than outside the tent pissing in.

Well, some guys are anyway unhappy. Vil Mirzayanov, the Russian expert, who had spied over the development of the Novichok chemical weapon and immigrated to the US, wrote in his blog to his erstwhile CIA masters:

“[by this strike], Trump confirmed that he is a Putin’s agent! Poor Nikki [Haley] should slam the door and leave, as an honest person can’t serve under Kremlin’s agent”.

Real Kremlin’s agents, trolls and scribes, or alternatively, Western dissidents presented the strike as a “huge victory for Putin”. This is the common ground of Putin and anti-Putin trolls: whatever the Kremlin ruler does, has to be presented as his great victory. Afterwards, they part their ways, and Putin’s agents bless the Lord for Putin, while anti-Putin trolls call to fight him harder and accuse everybody softer than Genghis Khan of collaboration with the tyrant.

It is silly to present the strike as Putin’s achievement. Kremlin tried to avoid the strike altogether, spoke darkly of a harsh response, of “carriers” being shot at, of Satan 2.0 and nuclear winter, but the talk failed to stop the strike. No British or American planes were downed, or even shot at. The Russians didn’t use their S-300 or S-400 SAM systems, claiming the US missiles didn’t approach Russian bases. This is a dubious argument: Putin tried to stop at attack on Damascus; and Damascus is not a Russian base. Let us face it: Putin did not stop the strike and he didn’t make the offender pay a price for this breach of the Law of Nations.

General (Ret) Leonid Ivashov, an important Russian military observer, said the strike had annihilated Russian deterrence, exposed Putin’s bluff of his powerful new weapons and, worst of all, proved him indecisive and unable to respond to an attack. We walked away with our tail between our hind legs, as punished dogs, he continued. Russia’s achievements in Syria have been erased by this shameful inaction.

What is worse, Trump’s strike destroyed what was left of the international law structure established by Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin. These three giants created the UN and its Security Council in order to avoid such eventualities by forbidding aggression, and the strike has been definitely an act of aggression against a sovereign state despite an objection of a permanent SC member, namely Russia. Now the gates of hell are open, international law has been demolished, and this happened because Putin agreed to accommodate Trump’s strike, said Ivashov.

Though official Russian media speaks of a great Russian victory, as no Russian or Syrian soldiers were killed, many Russians subscribe to the bleak view of Ivashov. The main question is whether this Russian fight aversion will encourage the Americans to carry out a future strike, or whether Trump will rein in his adversaries.

It is hard to accept the official Russian version saying the Syrian SAM systems intercepted 70% of the incoming missiles, as the excellent journalist Pepe Escobar did. This would be too good a result even for the best, latest, and most update systems. The unimpressive outcome of the attack can be explained easier by Trump’s decision to minimise the damage, as indeed the Israeli military says.

The Russian military experts here in Moscow told me that out of a hundred missiles fired by the US and their allies, only one or two were modern cruise missiles (“nice and smart”)and they destroyed the research institute in Barzeh. (It was not a “chemical weapons centre”, just a chemical research institute; it’s destruction was a copy-paste of Bill Clinton’s bombing of the pharmaceutical factory in Sudan over a similar pretext.)

All other missiles were old and at the end of their service; they had to be utilised somehow, and so they were. A few of them might have been downed by Syrian anti-aircraft fire, others fell without inflicting much damage. Syrian air defence is not able to blow modern cruise missiles out of sky; Syrian appeals to supply them with modern SAM systems have been refused at the request of Israel. (Netanyahu came to Moscow saying that S-300 in Syrian hands will turn all Israel into a no-fly zone; Putin agreed with him, and the Syrians were denied modern SAMs.) Now, hopefully these modern systems will find its way to Syrian army.

The Russian experts who were in contact with the US military told me that the US military used this occasion for retraining and refreshing reserve pilots; what they call “a milk run”. This combination of old missiles and less experienced pilots helped to lower the efficiency of the strike. And both sides, the Russians and the Americans, admitted that the deconfliction line was operative all the time, to avoid eventualities.

I’d consider that a good conclusion of the fictional chemical weapons story. The story has fallen to pieces altogether, anyway. The poisoning of Skripal ended with the old spy in good health; with Boris Johnson being caught lying; with [the chemical weapons control body] OPCW refusing to connect Skripal’s poison to Moscow; and with Brits keeping Miss Skripal incommunicado under duress, away from her fiancé and the rest of her family, a clear sign of a collapsing story. Hopefully, Jeremy Corbyn will be able to use May’s debacle for his political advantage.

The Syrian part of this story collapsed as well, after Robert Fisk, one of the very best British Middle East observers (next to David Hirst) visited Douma and delivered a report straight from the donkey’s mouth, i.e. as told by a doctor of the clinic videoed by the White Helmets. He said:

“There was a lot of shelling [by government forces] and aircraft were always over Douma at night – but on this night, there was wind and huge dust clouds began to come into the basements and cellars where people lived. People began to arrive here [to the clinic] suffering from hypoxia, oxygen loss. Then someone at the door, a “White Helmet”, shouted “Gas!”, and a panic began. People started throwing water over each other. Yes, the video was filmed here, it is genuine, but what you see are people suffering from hypoxia – not gas poisoning.”

The Russians actually located some people who are seen in the video, and they say it was staged. (Western media says they were threatened into saying what they said). I have more trust in Fisk’s report, than in the Russian one, but that may be my own prejudice. Anyway, both versions are not mutually exclusive, they do not contradict each other, but they undermine the fake story that provided the cue for the strike.

An interesting bit of data, proving that preparations for the strike were carried out before the alleged attack, has been published by the Cyprus banking community blog. They say the British air base of Akrotiri on Cyprus had its perimeter urgently strengthened (by the British company Agility) on April 5, that is before the alleged Douma gas attack. The second British air base, Dhekelia, carried out similar works on April 12, a week later, before the decision to strike had been adopted by the British government. The Dhekelia works were done with great speed and urgency, and road-constructing equipment had to be taken from the nearby villages of Xylotympou and Ormideia. The payment to the local workers had been routed via HSBC bank in Hong Kong, they say. And indeed these bases (forcibly retained by Britain) were used for the strike on Syria.

The OPCW could dispel the mist around both cases, that of Skripal and that of Douma, but do not hold your breath. It appears that OPCW is as integrated into the machinery of the Masters of Discourse as any other international body. Refusal of OPCW to allow Russia to take part in Skripal investigation, despite the clear requirement of its own charter, makes its conclusion doubtful, at best. While inability of OPCW inspectors to enter Douma despite all efforts of Damascus and Russians to facilitate their entry tells us they are not eager to investigate; like they weren’t eager to enter Khan Sheykhun last year.

Meanwhile, the Western media and the Jihadi groups on the ground are busy to create a new web of lies instead of the old one. Now they say the Fisk report is suspicious because he was allowed in by the Russians. We can learn of their attitudes from the following twit

“Salih @Salih90119797 Apr 17 More

Replying to @Elizrael

We salute Israel in spite their crimes in Palestine we hope they’ll continue their strikes every part of Syria; Iran regime should comedown”

These “Islamic rebels” are actually Israel’s stooges rather than warriors of the Prophet.

Anyway, people who manufactured these beautiful and complicated simulacra, are still around, and doubtless they will prepare a new one, if it will be necessary.

In my view, the two presidents have made heroic efforts at saving their countries and mankind from destruction; both risked their good names, their positions, their reputations to go that far. Trump minimized the bombing, Putin minimized the response.

Both have made some mistakes. Mr Putin made his big mistake when he gave Israel carte blanche to bomb Syria whenever she feels like it. Israeli strikes (and there were more than a hundred of them last year) created the air of permissiveness and that allowed Trump to follow in Israel’s footsteps. If Israel bombs Syria, and Russians do not react, why can’t Trump? It appears unfair for the US to be bested by its satellite. If you permit Tom to grab your girlfriend’s pussy without a single objection, you must be expect that Dick and Harry will try to repeat this feat. Israel created the precedent, the US used it.

I asked Senator Alexey Pushkov, the head of the foreign relations committee, whether he doesn’t think it was a mistake, in hindsight. He justified the policy saying that Russia came to Syria in order to fight jihadi groups, ISIS, Al Qaeda et al, not Israel. Russia is friendly to Israel, Iran and Turkey, and it does not want to sort out local disagreements. Pushkov stressed that Russia always censured Israeli raids on Syria, though it didn’t act against them. As a matter of fact, if Russia criticized Israel, it was done very, very quietly. The only time this condemnation was made public, happened just now, when the Israeli strike occurred in a very tense moment.

Mr Trump made a mistake when he fired the missiles instead of firing Mueller. But anyway, thank you, Mr Trump, for limiting the damage. Try to complete the withdrawal from Syria, while at it.

However, the big problem is that the forces promoting war are still active. It feels that there is a big wave carrying the Russian and American boats into a collision and the rocks. This time, the leaders succeeded managed to avoid the confrontation. But the wave is still there, and the next time we may be less lucky.

We have entered a new phase of human conscience, when millions of social network users express their opinion. These opinions are often dangerous and our enemies know how to manipulate. Unless there is a serious effort to lower destructive feelings, mankind will perish, and we would have nobody to blame but ourselves.

It is necessary to counteract the US-Russian confrontation with a positive action. The bloodshed in Gaza provides a good cause for such action. A joint effort by Russia and the US to relieve the Gaza siege may change the agenda of the world. It will also take the mind of the warmongers off Syria and off Moscow.

*

This article was first published on The Unz Review.

Israel Shamir can be reached at [email protected].

Featured image is from the author.

Most major monetary, fiscal, and macroeconomic economists, and financial institution and capital market experts agree, the global economy and financial system is more systemically fragile than ever before: $10 trillion bank NPLs, $13 trillion Negative Interest Rate Policy (NIRP), rotating financial bubbles – China (private loans $30 trillion), and $152 trillion global debt ($100 trillion private) – 225% GDP.

According to Dr. Rasmus, Global Financial Fragility (FF) is positively related to: total financial asset investment in the system, and with interest rate maturity optimization, elasticity of inside (shadow banking) credit, and available income to service total debt levels; with inflation expectations to the change in total debt levels; with credit default and reinvestment risk; and with fiscal and monetary government subsidies, support, credit facilities, QE, bailouts, etc. (See Appendix).

Financial instability in the global system is reflected in: dueling QEs and currency wars, trouble with large systemic banks (Italian/Deutsche), government and corporate bond bubbles, emerging markets dollarization of corporate debt/liabilities, oil and commodity deflation, energy junk bonds, massive flows into ETFs and U.S. equity markets, flash crashes and high speed trading systems, on-line and peer-to-pear shadow banking-lending networks, Yuan/U.S. dollar devaluation-revaluation-appreciation-depreciation volatilities, BREXIT, EU Entropy, U.S. populous election outcomes, South China Sea aggression, global GDP and trade volume secular downward decline, CAPEX under investment, labor productivity collapse, real wage-income decline-stagnation, commodity goods deflation, etc.

Dr. Jack Rasmus book, “Systemic Fragility in the Global Economy” is another example of the continuing growth of literature showing how fragile the global economic and financial system really is. Dr. Rasmus builds a methodical case of the systematic fragility of the global financial-economic system, and how current central bank economic ideologies and orthodoxy have been deficient and unorthodox.

Their financial-real cycle analysis is poor, their reliance on the Phillips Curve as a policy rule is flawed, they have a linearity bias, measurements of debt-income feedback effects are underdeveloped, they have a misunderstanding of financial asset price determination, their models are missing finance transmission mechanisms, etc.

Their policies have made matters worse, by driving the cost of capital to zero (negative), replacing real assets for financial assets, printing trillions to bail out and purchase bad debt and defective financial products, allowing massive leakage of capital to flow unregulated (shadow banking) across globe platforms, etc.; and all with no real affect on real economic growth, wage growth, labor participation rates, inflation rates, and more importantly standards of living or social welfare.

OVERVIEW

The first part of the book is an overview of the five major economies as of 2016; the second part addresses the nine major variables that drive systematic fragility.

These factors are the definition of fragility:

1) The relationship between debt (levels, rates of change, etc.),
2) The ability to service debt (forms of income and price as a determinant of income),
3) Terms and conditions of debt servicing (covenants and term structure of rates).

Dr. Rasmus defines fragility as: the mutual inter-determination of these three variables; moreover, the variables function within the three main sectors of the economy: household consumption, business (financial and non-financial), and government sector.

The debt-income-terms of servicing, mutually determine each other within the three sectors. The three sectors are also mutually determinative of each other; there are feedback effects between the three sectors, as well as within them.

Fragility is measured as a quantitative index variable. By producing a leading index of fragility, it can forecast imminent systemic instability events. A time series (cross-section, factor analysis, data mining, simultaneous equation) regression analysis is needed of all nine (three within each of the three sectors) to determine the weights, and causal interactions. This can be done via machine learning (AI) and neural network analysis. This work is being prepared, and is ‘a work in progress’.

OUTLINE

In the first part of the book, Chapters 1 -to- 6, are an overview of the degree of fragility as of 2016, in the major economies: Europe, Japan, China, Emerging Markets, and U.S.; and Chapters 7 -to- 15 are a consideration of the main drivers of financial instability: slowing investment and deflation, explosion of money-credit-debt, shift to financial assets and restructuring of financial markets, structural change in labor markets, and central bank and government fragility, the key being the change in financial structure and investment.

The third part of the book, Chapters 16 -to- 18, is a critique of mainstream economics, Keynsian and Classical economic theory, Marxist and Minskyan economics, and the failure of these theories to address financial variables in post-modern macroeconomic-monetary policy theory, models and analyses.

In Chapter 19, Dr. Rasmus, offers his own Theory of Systematic Fragility, as of 2016; where it is Central bankers and massive liquidity injections that are fundamental originating causes of systemic fragility, but these alone do not completely explain fragility.

Stagnation and Instability in the Global Economy

In the U.S., China, Japan, Europe there is a coordinated effort to correct the failures of capitalism (under investment, employment, consumption, price stability, etc.), and the response by all central banks have been the same, a constant injection of massive amounts (trillions of U.S. Dollars, Yen, Euros, Pounds, Yuan, Peso, Rubble, etc.) of liquidity (credit) to back-stop, set a support, and prop up asset prices.

However, this leads to asset price bubbles and asset price collapse (financial/currency crisis/stagnation/deflation/under employment-investment), crisis more frequent since 1995 (Peso Crisis, Thai Baht, Russian Default, Y2K/911, Housing Bubble, Financial Crisis, etc.), and global central bankers (governments) now do not have the balance sheets to deal with future crisis; and have not fixed the real problem underlying the economy, they have only created a monetary illusion of policy effectiveness: dead-cat bounce recoveries, emerging market currency collapse, Japanese perpetual recessions, Europe’s stagnation, and China’s asset price hyper-inflation and debt crisis.

The perfect example of this financial-economic fragility is Japan.

Japan’ Perpetual Recession

Over the last 17 years (1990 – 2017), the Bank of Japan (BOJ) implemented aggressive forms of unorthodox monetary policy (Negative – Nominal/Real — Interest Rate Policy/Quantitative Easing): printing massive amounts of money, buying massive amounts of sovereign-corporate (infrastructure) bonds, driving bonds yields negative, and driving domestic investors/savers (negative effective rates), and financial institutions (disintermediation), literally crazy.

Japan will be the ultimate experiment in monetary-fiscal policy mistakes, as they will have to resort to even more extreme measures to try to get themselves out of their existential structural crisis. The ultimate fiscal-monetary response could be, with unintended political-economic-cultural consequences, from a massive and coordinated debt forgiveness, by both fiscal/monetary authorities, is unknown and untested in modern monetary history.

Japan is extremely fragile, as at some point they will not have the tax revenues to service the sovereign debt payments, and will theoretically fall into default, and will ask for forgiveness, not from bond holders, but from the BOJ, that owns the majority of the debt.

Not only is Japan’s economy and financial system extremely fragile, but so is Europe.

Europe’s Chronic Stagnation

The actual European Central Bank (ECB) structure (dominated by Germany – Bundesbank) is a major impediment in its ability to respond to current crisis: fiscal austerity, inability to devalue the Euro, fear of hyper-inflationary trends, and misspecification of monetary policy targets (inflation, productivity, employment, wages, and exchange rates).

Poor performance (contagion), bank crisis (runs on banks), social unrest (extreme right-wing populism), massive debt issuance, and deflation (liquidity trap/collapse of money velocity) is the costly (stagnation) result of policy mistakes. This — along with the lack and hesitant response to bank runs in Spain-Greece-other EU countries — has had a significant negative impact on ECB independence and credibility, in regards to the ability to respond to future financial and economic crisis.

Not only is Europe’s economy and financial system extremely fragile, but so is China.

China: Bubbles, Bubbles, Debt and Troubles

The Asian Contagion of the late 1990s required massive bank and corporate bailouts (recapitalizations). The 2000s, witnessed a modernization of the Peoples Bank of China (PBOC), as a central banking institution through banking reforms, conversion of State Owned Entities (SOEs) to private-public firms (privatization toward a more Japanese Keiretsu system), pushing for more export-oriented policies (higher-value commodities-services), and larger government sponsored infrastructure projects (commercial-residential-dams-roads-power plants, etc.).
Excessive industrial and monetary policy is unsustainable, and will have significant negative externalities on the global economy. The next financial crisis, in China, will come from the excessive extension of credit from both fiscal and monetary authorities, and will come from government and corporate bond market defaults, as the system is severely over-leveraged. China is using more and more debt to fix bad debt problems, and the simulative multiplier-accelerator effect on the economy is deteriorating (decelerating) quickly.
Systematic fragility is not only experienced at the microeconomic (country/market) level, but manifests at the macroeconomic (systemic/systematic/institutional) level.

Trends in Systematic Fragility

Systematic fragility is made up of financial, consumption and government fragility; and intra-sector fragility, is caused by debt levels (rate of change), income (servicing of debt), and terms and conditions of servicing of debt. Transmission mechanisms between these factors and sectors are price systems (financial/commodity), government policy (monetary/fiscal), and psychological expectations (investors/consumers).

What is important, is fundamental forces and enabling factors driving fragility are: the end of Bretton Woods, central bank managed float systems, ending of international capital controls, the liquidity explosion, debt escalation, financial asset investment shift, and the rise of the new global finance capital elite; and financial deregulation, global digital-network technology, financial engineering (derivatives) revolution, highly liquid financial markets, financial restructuring and emergence of the shadow banking system.

Globalization, technologicalization and deregulation/integration is accelerating capital flows and accumulation, and concentration of capital to targeted and non-targeted markets across the world, fundamentally restructuring markets and institutions. This process is continuing at a rapid pace, and depending on the recipients, is economically, financially and politically (institutionally) destabilizing, destructing and deconstructing liberal-democratic-capitalism.
Financial product innovation and advancements in the use of technology for trading purposes, is accelerating the shift from real to financial asset investment — and with the rise of global equity, debt, and derivative markets – is changing the institutional structure, and exacerbating the fragility and instability, of the global financial system.

Central Banks and Fragility

Central banks bailed out the private banking system, and will again – along with other strategic affiliated institutions, corporations, businesses and brokerages — by printing massive amounts of fiat currency (seigniorage), to buy (defective/defaulted) securities product (derivatives), accumulate more sovereign-corporate-personal debt, with even more crowding out effects, and with no real eventual long-term impacts on real economic growth, wages, and productivity; and social welfare or standards of living.

Only asset prices bubbles and a massive redistribution and concentration of wealth will occur. Global capital markets, financial institutions, governments, businesses, and consumers are sitting on an extremely fragile system. This is obvious when looking at the level of government debt, service.

Government Debt and Government Fragility

It is estimated, between the U.S Federal Reserve Bank, Bank of England, and European Central Bank, $15 trillion direct liquidity injections, loans, guarantees, tax reductions, direct subsidies, etc. have been used. If you add in China and Japan, the total gets to as high as $25 trillion, and if you add in other emerging country (Asian, Latin America, and Middle-East) central banks, the total gets as high $40 trillion. Add in inter-temporal substitution (opportunity costs) over 40 years, we are looking at hundreds of trillions of debt, and debt service.

What perpetuates this reliance on debt, and debt service, is the misconception of valid economic theory and analysis, and its real application.

Failed Conceptual Frameworks of Contemporary Economic Analysis

It is obvious, global monetary and fiscal policy responses have made the global financial and economic system even more fragile, and eventually insolvent and bankrupt, and modern central banking is ineffective and has put us into a perpetual liquidity trap, the velocity of money has collapsed. There is no money going into real long-term (capital budgets) assets, only short-term financial assets (equity, fixed-income, ETFs, derivatives, structured products, crypto-currencies, etc.).

This has led us into the contradiction of macroeconomic theory, monetary policy and central banking: liquidity-debt-insolvency nexus, the moral (immoral) hazard of perpetual bail-outs, growing concentration of wealth at the extremes, growing perception that Negative/Zero Interest Rate Policy (N/ZIRP) can fix under-investment in capital (human/physical) and deflationary (disinflationary) trends, and that current banking regulation-supervision is bad for the economy, financial services (institutions) industry, and for institutional and retail investors (savers) in the long run.

And unfortunately, these techniques and tools have been used by other Global Central Governments and Banks (BOJ/ECB/BOE/PBOC), with similar, disastrous, and disappointing outcomes. The focus is on saving the financial institutional system in the short-run, using extreme and un-orthodox monetary policies (tools), with a lack of concern or understanding of long-run economic, social, cultural, and political consequences and outcomes. This is the true reflection, of failed conceptual frameworks, of contemporary economic analysis.

A Theory and Application of Systematic Fragility

Dr. Rasmus presents a true theory (model), of Systematic Fragility, a proxy for instability, a measure and quantitative score, used to forecast financial instability events, measuring pre-post-crash-recession cycle phases, it is a simultaneous equation-solution, the weights and factors are non-linear relationships, and are determined through the use of machine-learning (AI) algorithms, that adjust the factors, equations, and outcomes in real (continuous) time.

For example, over the last 10 years, the Fed accumulated over $4.5 trillion in bank reserves/balance sheet (bonds), made up mostly of mortgage backed securities and U.S. government Treasury notes and bonds, the average size of the balance sheet prior to the financial crisis was $500-to-$800 billion. Since these were mainly reserves creation, and an addition to the monetary base, and not really the money supply, the policy effects (QE/(Zero-Negative Real Interest Rate policy) have been mute.

The real cause of deficient real-macroeconomic performance, is a collapse in the velocity of money, driven by alternative forms of money creation and flows across the globe (cryptic-digital currencies-shadow banking, etc.); the lack of fiscal labor market policy to lower under-employment and raise labor market participation rates; and resolve to solve other social, cultural, political and economic disruptions. Making it now impossible to conduct monetary policy.
With the U.S. fiscal debt totaling over $22 trillion (interest payments +$1.0 trillion per year), the Feds Balance Sheet totaling $4.3 trillion, the potential for continued -perpetual war (defense spending) and entitlement expenditures, and political and policy uncertainty (next Federal Reserve President) there is little room for monetary and fiscal solutions to fight the next financial and economic crisis.

Neoliberal new-classical macroeconomic theory is flawed, at best, as it relies on the primacy of central bank monetary policy, tax structure shifts, free trade theory, running of twin deficit systems, allows for major labor market restructuring, leading to wage compression, drives toward privatization of public goods and institutions, and fiscal austerity, and financialization-fiscalization of elites, institutions and products.

CONCLUSIONS

Most major monetary, fiscal, and macroeconomic economists, and financial institution and capital market experts agree, the global economy and financial system is more systemically fragile than ever before.

According to Dr. Rasmus, shows us that global Financial Fragility (FF) is positively related to total financial asset investment in the system, and with interest rate maturity optimization, elasticity of inside (shadow bank) credit, and available income to total debt levels; with inflation expectations to change in total debt levels; with credit default and reinvestment risk; and with fiscal and monetary government subsidies, support, credit facilities, QE, bailouts, etc. (See Appendix).

Government policies have made matters worse, by driving the cost of capital to zero (negative), replacing real assets for financial assets, printing trillions to bail-out and purchase bad debt and defective financial products, allowing massive leakage of capital to flow unregulated (shadow banking) across the globe, etc.; all with no real effect on real economic growth, wage growth, labor participation, inflation, standards of living or social welfare.

These failures and fragility are reflected in increased volatility in social and economic indicators, capital market pricing and investment risk, and resulting reductions risk-adjusted returns, inefficient allocation investment capital and resources, and falling employment and real income growth rates, standards of living and overall social welfare.

The conclusion, if this system of unorthodoxy continues — and I believe it is too late to address the systemic and systematic risks associated with the economy, government, and central banking — exposes the economy, financial institutions and capital markets, to failure, again, at an ever higher social price.

The reality is our economic and financial system are extremely fragile, and we are facing ever higher systematic-systemic credit default (illiquidity) risk, and another severe financial crisis, great recession and depression, as our tools and system are ineffective and broken.

*

Dr. Souza has 27 years of experience in commercial and residential real estate economic research; and is Real Estate, Financial and Investment Economist for: Pillar6 Advisors, LLC; Johnson Souza Group, Inc.; CapitalBrain.co, and GreenSparc. Dr. Souza holds degrees in: accounting, finance, economics, public administration, information systems and political science; and Doctorate in Business Administration (DBA) with a concentration in Corporate Finance.

One reason it’s so easy to get an American administration, the mainstream media, and the American people to jump on an anti-Russian bandwagon is of course the legacy of the Soviet Union. To all the real crimes and shortcomings of that period the US regularly added many fictitious claims to agitate the American public against Moscow. That has not come to a halt. During a debate in the 2016 Republican presidential primary, candidate Ben Carson (now the head of the US Housing and Urban Development agency) allowed the following to pass his lips:

“Joseph Stalin said if you want to bring America down, you have to undermine three things: Our spiritual life, our patriotism, and our morality.”

This is a variation on many Stalinist “quotes” over the years designed to deprecate both the Soviet leader and any American who can be made to sound like him. The quote was quite false, but the debate moderators and the other candidates didn’t raise any question about its accuracy. Of course not.

Another feature of Stalinism that was routinely hammered into our heads was that of the “non-person” or “unperson” – the former well-known official or writer, for example, who fell out of favor with the Stalinist regime for something he said or did, and was thereafter doomed to a life of obscurity, if not worse. In his classic 1984 George Orwell speaks of a character who “was already an unperson. He did not exist: he had never existed.” I was reminded of this by the recent sudden firing of Rex Tillerson as Secretary of State. Matthew Lee, the courageous Associated Press reporter who has been challenging State Department propaganda for years, had this to say in an April 1 article:

Rex Tillerson has all but vanished from the State Department’s website as his unceremonious firing by tweet took effect over the weekend.

The “Secretary of State Tillerson” link at the top of the department’s homepage disappeared overnight Saturday and was replaced with a generic “Secretary of State” tab. When clicked, it leads to a page that informs visitors in a brief statement that Deputy Secretary of State John Sullivan “became acting Secretary of State on April 1, 2018.” It shows a photo of Sullivan signing his appointment papers as deputy in June 2017 but offers no explanation for the change in leadership.

In addition to that change, links that had connected to Tillerson’s speeches, travels and other events now display those of Sullivan. The link to Tillerson’s biography as the 69th secretary of state briefly returned a “We’re sorry, that page can’t be found” message. After being notified of the message, the State Department restored the link and an archive page for Tillerson’s tenure was enabled.

The most repeated Cold War anti-Communist myth was of course Nikita Khrushchev’s much quoted – No, eternally quoted! – line: “We will bury you.” On November 20 1956 the New York Times had reported:

“In commenting on coexistence last night Mr. Khrushchev said communism did not have to resort to war to defeat capitalism. “Whether you like it or not, history is on our side,” he said. “We will bury you.”

Obviously, it was not a military threat of any kind. But tell that to the countless individuals who have cited it as such forever.  So, as matters turned out, did communism, or call it socialism, bury capitalism? No. But not for the reason the capitalists would like to think – their superior socio-economic system. Capitalism remains the world’s pre-eminent system primarily because of military power combined with CIA covert actions. It’s that combination that irredeemably crippled socialist forces in Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Philippines, Guatemala, Haiti, Ecuador, the Congo, Brazil, Dominican Republic, Chile, Angola, Grenada, Nicaragua, Bulgaria, Albania, Afghanistan, Yugoslavia, El Salvador, etc., etc., etc.

We’ll never know what kind of societies would have resulted if these movements had been allowed to develop without US interference; which of course was the idea behind the interference.

Political assassination. Political propaganda.

In the Cold War struggles against the Soviets/Russians the United States has long had the upper hand when it comes to political propaganda. What do the Russkis know about sales campaigns, advertising, psychological manipulation of the public, bait-and-switch, and a host of other Madison Avenue innovations. Just look at what the American media and their Western partners have done with the poisoning of the two Russians, Sergei Skripal and his daughter, in the UK. How many in the West doubt Russia’s guilt?

Hugo Chavez and Fidel Castro

Then consider the case of Hugo Chávez. When he died in 2013 I wrote the following:

“[W]hen someone like Chávez dies at the young age of 58 I have to wonder about the circumstances. Unremitting cancer, intractable respiratory infections, massive heart attack, one after the other … It is well known that during the Cold War, the CIA worked diligently to develop substances that could kill without leaving a trace. I would like to see the Venezuelan government pursue every avenue of investigation in having an autopsy performed.” (None was performed apparently.)

Back in December 2011, Chávez, already under treatment for cancer, wondered out loud:

“Would it be so strange that they’ve invented the technology to spread cancer and we won’t know about it for 50 years?”

The Venezuelan president was speaking a day after Argentina’s leftist president, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, announced she had been diagnosed with thyroid cancer. This was after three other prominent leftist Latin America leaders had been diagnosed with cancer: Brazil’s president, Dilma Rousseff; Paraguay’s Fernando Lugo; and the former Brazilian leader Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.

“Evo take care of yourself. Correa, be careful. We just don’t know,” Chávez said, referring to Bolivia’s president, Evo Morales, and Rafael Correa, the president of Ecuador, both leading leftists.

Chávez said he had received words of warning from Fidel Castro, himself the target of hundreds of failed and often bizarre CIA assassination plots.

“Fidel always told me: ‘Chávez take care. These people have developed technology. You are very careless. Take care what you eat, what they give you to eat … a little needle and they inject you with I don’t know what.”

When the new Venezuelan president, Nicolas Maduro, suggested possible American involvement in Chávez’s death, the US State Department called the allegation “absurd” even though the United States had already played a key role in the short-lived overthrow of Chávez in 2002. I don’t know of any American mainstream media that has raised the possibility that Chávez was murdered.

I personally believe, without any proof to offer, (although no less than is offered re Russia’s guilt in the UK poisoning) that Hugo Chávez was indeed murdered by the United States. But unlike the UK case, I do have a motivation to offer: Given Chávez’s unremitting hostility towards American imperialism and the CIA’s record of more than 50 assassination attempts against such world political leaders, if his illness and death were NOT induced, the CIA was not doing its job. The world’s media, however, did its job by overwhelmingly ignoring such “conspiracy” talk, saving it for a more “appropriate” occasion, one involving their favorite bad guy, Russia.

If I could speak to British prime-minister Theresa May and her boorish foreign minister Boris Johnson I’d like to ask them: “What are you going to say when it turns out that it wasn’t Russia behind the Skripal poisonings?” Stay tuned.

Another of the many charming examples of Cold War anti-communism

Nostalgia is on the march in Brazil, a longing for a return to the military dictatorship of 1964-1985, during which nearly 500 people were killed by the authorities or simply disappeared. It was a time when the ruling generals used systemic brutality, including electric shocks, as well as psychological torture in their effort to cement power and ward off what they called “communism”. They also stole many of the very young children of their victims and gave them to their followers, whom the children then believed to be their parents.

Crime is the main problem in Brazil today, the leading reason for the desire to return to the good old days of dictatorial rule. An estimated 43 percent of the Brazilian population supports at least a temporary revival of military control, according to a 2017 poll, up from 35 percent in 2016. Fear of violence, whether it be terrorism or street crime, has fueled support for authoritarian parties and bolstered populist leaders with tough-on-crime, anti-immigrant platforms around the world, from President Rodrigo Duterte in the Philippines to Chancellor Sebastian Kurz in Austria to a fellow named Trump in the good ol’ US of A.

“Thanks to you, Brazil did not become Cuba!” the crowd chanted at a recent demonstration in Brazil, some snapping salutes.

This is indeed the height of irony. In all likelihood many of those people were not strangers to hunger, struggling to pay their rent, could not afford needed medical care, or education; yet, they shouted against a country where such deprivations are virtually non-existent.

The United States of course played a significant role in the 1964 overthrow of the Brazilian democracy. How could it be otherwise in this world? Here is a phone conversation between US President Lyndon B. Johnson and Thomas Mann, Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs, April 3, 1964, two days after the coup:

MANN: I hope you’re as happy about Brazil as I am.

LBJ: I am.

MANN: I think that’s the most important thing that’s happened in the hemisphere in three years.

LBJ: I hope they give us some credit instead of hell.

Does the man ever feel embarrassed?

In his desperation for approval, our dear president has jumped on the back of increased military spending. Speaking to the presidents of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania he said that he should be given “credit” for pressuring countries like theirs to give more money to NATO. None of presidents had the nerve to ask Mr. Trump why that is a good thing; perhaps pointing out that some of the millions of dollars could have been used to improve the quality of their people’s lives.

A few days later, at the White House Easter Egg Roll the president “bragged to a crowd of children about increasing military spending to $700 billion.” One can imagine what their young minds made of this. Will they one day realize that this man called “The President” was telling them that large amounts of money which could have been spent on their health and education, on their transportation and environment, was instead spent on various weapons used to kill people?

The size of the man’s ego needs can not be exaggerated. The Washington Post observed that Trump instructed the Lithuanian president

to praise him on camera, just as he said she had done privately in the Oval Office. She obliged, saying changes to NATO would not be possible without the United States and that its ‘vital voice and vital leadership’ are important. Trump pressed her: ‘And has Donald Trump made a difference on NATO?’ Those in the room laughed, as she confirmed he has made a difference.

Thank God some of those in the room laughed. I was beginning to think that all hope was lost.

The stars we honor

Is it a sign of America’s moral maturation that numerous celebrities have been forced to resign or retire because of being exposed as sexual predators?

Maybe. To some extent. I hope so.

But I’d be much more impressed if talk shows and other media stopped inviting and honoring much worse people as guests – war criminals, torturers, serial liars, and mass murderers; people like George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Madeline Albright, Colin Powell, Condoleezza Rice, Hillary Clinton, Bill Clinton, Henry Kissinger, Donald Rumsfeld, John Bolton, and many military officials.

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This article was originally published on The Anti-Empire Report.

Notes

1. For a book-length discussion of cold-war anti-communist propaganda see Morris Kominsky, The Hoaxers (1970)

2. The Guardian (London), December 29, 2011

3. Washington Post, March 16, 2018

4. Michael Beschloss, Taking Charge: The White House Tapes 1963-1964 (1997), p.306

5. Washington Post, April 5, 2018

In the wake of last weekend’s US-British-French missile strikes on Syria, a campaign is growing in the American political and military/intelligence establishment for a wider war that would threaten a nuclear conflict with Russia.

On Tuesday, Democratic and Republican lawmakers attacked the Trump administration for the “limited” nature of the attack and demanded that the White House commit to a more extensive military operation to overthrow the Assad government and confront Iran and Russia.

After a private briefing to the Senate by Defence Secretary James Mattis and Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Joseph Dunford, Republican Senator Lindsey Graham told reporters that the administration had no strategy and appeared willing “to give Syria to Assad, Russia, and Iran.” He said,

“I think Assad, after this strike, believes we’re all tweet and no action.”

Graham called for the establishment of a permanent no-fly zone over parts of Syria, which would inevitably require shooting down Russian jets, and the deployment of more US troops on the ground to partner with their Al Qaeda-linked and Kurdish proxy forces. He declared that Russia and Iran should not be allowed to continue “winning the battlefield uncontested.”

Democratic Senator Chris Coons criticized Trump’s recent threat to withdraw US troops, telling reporters,

“It’s important for us to remain engaged in Syria.”

He added,

“If we completely withdraw, our leverage in any diplomatic resolution or reconstruction or any hope for a post-Assad Syria goes away.”

The recklessness of the American ruling elite was expressed in an op-ed column published yesterday in the New York Times by Susan Rice, who served as ambassador to the UN and then national security adviser under Obama.

In the column, Rice categorically opposes any withdrawal of American troops. She calls for the Trump administration to indefinitely maintain its occupation of roughly a third of Syrian territory along the country’s northern and eastern borders with Turkey and Iraq—a region that includes the country’s petroleum resources. This is in line with calls being made in the US media with increasing frequency and openness for a permanent carve-up of the country.

Rice writes that Washington and its allies must “help secure, rebuild and establish effective local governance in liberated areas.” These are code words for establishing neo-colonial control over the territory and using it as a base for operations against the Assad regime and Russian and Iranian forces.

Dispensing with the fraudulent chemical weapons pretext used to justify the US and allied bombing, Rice points to the aims of such an intervention:

“This will allow the United States to thwart Iranian ambitions to control territory spanning Iraq, Syria and Lebanon; retain influence in major oil-producing areas, and deny Mr. Assad a substantial portion of Syrian territory, pending a diplomatic solution.”

This strategy is in basic agreement with an April 16 editorial by the Wall Street Journal that calls for Trump to establish “safe zones” in northern Syria, both in the US-occupied territory east of the Euphrates River and the border area with Jordan. This, the newspaper writes, “wouldn’t threaten Assad’s control over the rest of Syria,” but would “send a signal that the US isn’t abandoning the region to Iran and Russia.” The editorial calls for a “peace based on dividing the country into ethnic-based enclaves.”

What is being discussed is a permanent dismemberment and restructuring of Syria and the entire Middle East, in part to provide US imperialism with a forward staging base for its war preparations against Iran and Russia.

An April 15 commentary in the Journal by Ryan Crocker, the former US ambassador to Syria, and Michael O’Hanlon, a senior fellow at the Democratic Party-aligned Brookings Institution, advises that future air strikes “up the ante, going after military command and control, political leadership and perhaps even Mr. Assad himself… Targets within Iran should not be off limits, depending on the provocation.”

On Tuesday, the Times published a report based on statements by anonymous military and administration officials that Defence Secretary Mattis had urged Trump to seek congressional approval for the bombing, but was overruled by the president. The article states that “in several White House meetings last week, he [Mattis] underscored the importance of linking military operations to public support—a view Mr. Mattis has long held.”

In a recent editorial, the Times similarly stressed the need for Congress to pass legislation authorizing further military operations in Syria and elsewhere.

Mattis is also widely reported to have advised selecting Syrian targets in such a manner as to minimize the chance of Russian retaliation. What is behind these considerations, both military and political, is the need to prepare for an extended and bloody war that would likely involve large numbers of American troops and lead to military conflict with Russia and/or Iran. This will require a crackdown against anti-war opposition within the US, for which a legal fig leaf of congressional sanction is deemed necessary.

In her Times op-ed, Rice calls for the US to “keep avoiding direct conflict with Russia,” while not allowing “Russia and Iran free rein.” Washington must “push back firmly and smartly” against Russia, she writes, “whether with respect to chemical weapons or other outrages.”

In other words, the CIA must continue to manufacture an endless series of provocations and pretexts in order to justify Washington’s drive to remove Russia as an obstacle to the establishment of US hegemony in the Middle East and all of Eurasia.

One such pretext was provided by the release Monday of a joint US-UK government report charging Russia with vague acts of “cyber warfare” against the West. Though the document did not provide a single specific charge or piece of evidence against Russia, it has been widely amplified throughout the media in an effort to create an atmosphere of hysteria in the US and legitimize a confrontation with Moscow.

The US cable television networks on Wednesday began more prominently featuring reports of the death of Russian investigative journalist Maksim Borodin, whose investigations have included the Russian private military contractor Wagner. Borodin fell from a fifth-floor balcony in Yekaterinburg on Sunday. In typical fashion, prior to any investigation and without any evidence, the media is widely reporting Borordin’s death as the latest in a long line of assassinations supposedly ordered by Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The intensity of the anti-Russia campaign grows in proportion to the exposure of the official pretexts for the bombing of Syria as lies. Five days after the attack, no evidence has been provided to substantiate the claim that the Assad regime carried out a gas attack in the eastern Ghouta town of Douma, while evidence continues to mount that the incident was staged by the Western intelligence agencies to provide a pretext for intervention.

The intelligence agencies have been assisted by a corrupt and servile media. A study released yesterday by Fairness in Accuracy and Reporting, a media watchdog, reveals that of the top 100 US newspapers by circulation, not a single editorial board opposed the bombing of Syria.

Sky News cuts off UK General Shaw for questioning Syria gas attack pretext

The Western media’s role as a disseminator of government lies was demonstrated in an interview by Britain’s Sky News with former British Major-General Jonathan Shaw on April 13 in the lead-up to the bombing. When Shaw veered off script and questioned what possible motive the Assad government could have in carrying out a chemical weapons attack, given that its forces were about to overrun the US-backed “rebels” in Douma and a gas attack would likely trigger Western intervention, Sky host Samantha Washington abruptly cut him off mid-sentence and shut down the interview.

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Featured image is from International Action Center.

In a time when such revelations as those of Edward Snowden pass a person’s lips with ease and awareness, political clamouring for action and measures against Russia on the subject of cyber attack seem risible.  This is not to say that Russia does not engage in an energetic, state of the art program of surveillance and penetration.  More significant is the sheer noise such acts generate from those who claim to have the book of ethics in one hand and the code of laws in the other – the international ones no less.

This is cyberwarfare writ large, its warriors on keyboards becoming a new feted aristocracy, digital knights fashioning the next theft, or the next destabilising virus.  Singling out a monster can only come across as a vulgar, if convenient distraction.  In another sense, it offers backhanded praise.

On April 16, the US Department of Homeland Security, Federal Bureau of Investigation and the UK’s Cyber Security Centre released a “Technical Alert” citing “malicious cyber activity carried out by the Russian Government.”  The joint US-UK statement noted attacks on “network infrastructure devices worldwide such as routers, switches, firewalls, and the Network Intrusion Detection System (NIDS).”

Jeanette Manfra charged with cybersecurity and communications matters within the US National Protection and Programs Directorate was even dramatic on the scale of the assault.

“Russian government activities continue to threaten our respective safety, security, and the very integrity of our cyber ecosystem.”

Then came the Five Eyes chatterers, the small Anglophone grouping that was given some dressing down by the Snowden revelations in 2013. Four of them – Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the United Kingdom –  got comfortable at the National Cyber Security Centre in London during the week.  The only member missing before the picture shoot was the US colossus. 

UK Prime Minister Theresa May accused Moscow of “using cyber as part of a wider effort to attack and undermine the international system.” May was at pains with her colleagues to observe that,

“We know what it’s doing, and we should be in no doubt that such cyberwarfare is one of the greatest challenges of our time.”

The others also added their contribution to the potluck luncheon of indignant warning.  Canada’s Justin Trudeau was confident in condemnation.  

“There are folks out there in the world, countries out there in the world who do not share our values and our approach to freedoms and mostly the rules-based order.” 

Trudeau was telling if inadvertently so. 

“So the importance of like-minded friends and partners like us four to stand together provides a response and a solidarity that is a clear message to those around the world who do not play by the same rules.”  

Whose rules you ask? The answer is clearly evident.

The Australians added their own version, claiming that up to 400 Australian businesses might have been the target of Russian sponsored hackers, though Cyber Security Minister Angus Taylor demonstrated the confused state of thinking by claiming no information had been “compromised”.  Keeping a brave face, Australia’s defence minister Marise Payne reiterated the same theme: the attacks had taken place, but evidently without much consequence (in her words, without “any exploitation of significance”). 

At the National Cyber Security Centre gathering, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull rounded the assault on Russia in a job lot description:

 “The message to be sent in solidarity that this type of illegal conduct whether it is a chemical attack in Syria, the use of a nerve agent on British soil or the expanding cyber attacks across the internet across the whole digital domain on which all our businesses and economics depended. These must be resisted.”

The rather seedy way of roping international values into a Five Eyes arrangement that insists on targets, surveillance and theft is a fairly rich thing to do.  That very same gathering has done its fair share of spying on each other’s citizens, blurring the line on plausible targets. The rules-based order so praised has been left wanting, and limping. The world of global surveillance is an unruly one indeed.

The case of New Zealand offers one such example of that limp, notably in the government handling of the Kim Dotcom case.  Not only has the intelligence service there lost its head in monitoring him specifically for their American lords, the entire outfit had demonstrated that it is happy to spy on residents, something which it is legally barred from.  

It was left to the High Court of New Zealand to find on a few occasions in 2017 that the operation conducted by the Government Communications Security Bureau against Dotcom, Bram van der Kolk and Mathias Ortmann, all associated with Megaupload, was illegal.  Such spying constituted “illegal searches” in violation of the New Zealand Bill of Rights.

In targeting Russia, importance is elevated, the very thing that will be earning points on the Moscow tally board of realpolitik.  

“We have found the Russians in routers and deep inside networks for 20 years,” says Robert Hannigan, a person who knows a thing or two about hoovering and gathering intelligence from tapped transatlantic fibre-optic cables.  

He was, after all, a former head of Britain’s GCHQ, the agency responsible for those very exploits.

The recent spike of interest in Russia’s cyber heft made the New York Times feel nostalgic, a sort of tunnel vision view about a revamped and rejigged Cold War that was gaining pace.  

“The sweep and urgency of the statements from both sides of the Atlantic called to mind a computer-age version of a Cold War air raid drill, but asking citizens to upgrade their passwords rather than duck and cover.” 

The shaky ground upon which the argument against Russia is built on presumes harked international norms in the face of a new Wild West frontier of battles and appropriations.  The exceptionalist language of devilry Russia is coated with ignores one brutal fact: cyber measures have become ordinary fare, boringly regular.  The only response from connected citizens is rudimentary, if at times ineffectual common sense: change passwords regularly, and hope for the worst.

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

The Hamilton Coalition To Stop The War is pleased to announce that it will demonstrate against the April 13 missile attacks on the part of the USA, UK, and France on Syria. The Coalition regards those attacks as outrageous and reckless acts of war, illegal under international law.

Having lost their proxy war for regime change in Syria, the three rogue states are becoming more reckless and desperate. Their missile strikes were intended to pre-empt an investigation by the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) that might exonerate the Syrian Arab Republic from the charge of using chemical weapons in the city of Douma. The strikes came a mere six hours after the OPCW announced it was deploying its fact-finding mission to Syria.

And the USA, UK, and France don’t seem to care that they run the risk of provoking Russia, Iran, and China into a wider Mideast war or even into a third world war.

Shamefully, the Trudeau government joined the western chorus – without a shred of proof – condemning the Syrian government for using chemical weapons and wholeheartedly endorsing the missile attacks.

At our demonstration this Sunday April 22, we will demand:

1. the Canadian government accept the will of the Syrian people to determine their own future without foreign interference, in accordance with the UN Charter, and formally withdraw from the US military coalition in Syria and Iraq;

2. the Canadian government end its illegal economic sanctions on Syria that punish ordinary Syrians by driving up the price of essentials and by blocking the flow of remittances to Syria. These brutal economic sanctions have turned millions of Syrians into refugees;

3. The Canadian government cut off its funding – believed to have been 12 million dollars so far – to the White Helmets organization, which is the propaganda arm of Al Qaeda in Syria and which is the group which staged the phony chemical incident in Douma;

4. the Canadian government re-establish normal diplomatic relations with the government in Damascus and commit funding to the reconstruction of that once-beautiful country which our government has helped to lay waste;

5. the US government end both its support for terrorist mercenaries in Syria and its occupation of the eastern third of Syria, east of Euphrates River, and get out of Syria now!

The demonstration will take place on Sunday, April 22, from 2 to 4 pm across from the US Consulate, 360 University Avenue, Toronto. Other sponsoring organizations include the Canadian Peace Congress and the Toronto Association for Peace and Solidarity.

This incisive article by veteran war correspondent  Felicity Arbuthnot was published by Global Research more than six years ago, on February 2, 2012.

You will not read it in the New York Times. 

At a time of  mounting media fabrications –when “objective truths are fading” and  “lies are passing into history”– this analysis reveals the diabolical modus operandi of US-NATO terrorism and  how covert intelligence ops are applied to trigger conditions which are conducive to the collapse of nation states. One of these “conditions” is the outright killing of  innocent civilians as part of a cover operation and then blaming president Bashar Al Assad of  having committed atrocities against his own people

Michel Chossudovsky,  Global Research , January 27, 2012, updated April 19, 2018

“In order to facilitate the action of liberative (sic) forces, …a special effort should be made to eliminate certain key individuals. …[to] be accomplished early in the course of the uprising and intervention, …

Once a political decision has been reached to proceed with internal disturbances in Syria, CIA is prepared, and SIS (MI6) will attempt to mount minor sabotage and coup de main (sic) incidents within Syria, working through contacts with individuals. …Incidents should not be concentrated in Damascus …

Further : a “necessary degree of fear .. frontier incidents and (staged) border clashes”, would “provide a pretext for intervention… the CIA and SIS [MI6 should use … capabilitites in both psychological and action fields to augment tension.” (Joint US-UK leaked Intelligence Document, London and Washington, 1957)

“’The very concept of objective truth is fading out of the world. Lies will pass into history.” (George Orwell (Eric Arthur Blair, 1903-1950.)

For anyone in two minds about what is really going on in Syria, and whether President Assad, hailed a decade ago as “A Modern Day Attaturk”, has become the latest megalomaniacal despot, to whose people a US-led posse of nations, must deliver “freedom”, with weapons of mass, home, people, nation and livelihood destruction, here is a salutary tale from modern history.

Have the more recent sabre rattlings against Syria* been based on US-UK government papers, only discovered in 2003 – and since air brushed (or erroneously omitted) from even BBC timelines, on that country?(i)

In late 2003, the year of the Iraq invasion, Matthew Jones, a Reader in International History, at London’s Royal Holloway College, discovered “frighteningly frank” documents: 1957 plans between then UK Prime Minister, Harold Macmillan, and then President, Dwight Eisenhower, endorsing: “a CIA-MI6 plan to stage fake border incidents as an excuse for an invasion (of Syria) by Syria’s pro-western neighbours.” (ii)

At the heart of the plan was the assassination of the perceived power behind then President Shukri al-Quwatli. Those targeted were: Abd al-Hamid Sarraj, Head of Military Intelligence; Afif al-Bizri, Chief of Syrian General Staff: and Khalid Bakdash, who headed the Syrian Communist Party.

The document was drawn up in Washington in the September of 1957:

“In order to facilitate the action of liberative (sic) forces, reduce the capabilities of the regime to organize and direct its military actions … to bring about the desired results in the shortest possible time, a special effort should be made to eliminate certain key individuals.

“Their removal should be accomplished early in the course of the uprising and intervention, and in the light of circumstances existing at the time.”

In the light of President Assad’s current allegations of foreign forces and interventions, cross border incursions (as Colonel Qadafi’s before him, so sneered at by Western governments and media – and, of course, ultimately proved so resoundingly correct.) there are some fascinating, salutary phrases:

“Once a political decision has been reached to proceed with internal disturbances in Syria, CIA is prepared, and SIS (MI6) will attempt to mount minor sabotage and coup de main (sic) incidents within Syria, working through contacts with individuals.

“Incidents should not be concentrated in Damascus … care should be taken to avoid causing key leaders of the Syrian regime to take additional personal protection measures.”

Further : a “necessary degree of fear .. frontier incidents and (staged) border clashes”, would “provide a pretext for intervention”, by Iraq and Jordan – then still under British mandate.

Syria was to be: “made to appear as sponsor of plots, sabotage and violence directed against neighbouring governments … the CIA and SIS [Her Majesty’s Secret International Serivce, MI6] should use … capabilities in both psychological and action fields to augment tension.”

Incursions in to Iraq, Jordan and Lebanon, would involve: “sabotage, national conspiracies, and various strong arms activities”, were, advised the document, to be blamed on Damascus.

In late December 2011 an opposition “Syria National Council” was announced, to “liberate the country”, representatives met with Hilary Clinton. There now seems to be a US – endorsed “Syrian Revolutionary Council.”

The Eisenhower-Macmillan plan was for funding of the: “Free Syria Committee” and “arming of political factions with paramilitary or other actionist capabilities”, within Syria.

CIA-MI6, planned fomenting internal uprisings and replacing the Ba’ath-Communist-leaning government, with a Western, user-friendly one. Expecting this to be met by public hostility, they planned to: “probably need to rely first on repressive measures and arbitrary exercise of power.”

The document was signed off in both London and Washington. It was, wrote Macmillan in his diary: “a most formidable report.” A Report which was: “withheld even from British Chiefs of Staff …”

Washington and Whitehall had become concerned at Syria’s increasingly pro-Soviet, rather than pro-Western sympathies – and the Ba’ath (Pan Arab) and Communist party alliance, also largely allied within the Syrian army.

However, even political concerns, were trumped by Syria then controlling a main pipeline from the Western bonanza of Iraq’s oil fields, in those pre-Saddam Hussein days.

Briefly put: in 1957, Syria allied with Moscow (which included an agreement for military and economic aid) also recognized China – and then as now, the then Soviet Union warned the West against intervening in Syria.

Syria, is unchanged as an independent minded country, and the loyalties remain. It broadly remains the cradle of the Pan Arab ideal of Ba’athism, standing alone, since the fall of Saddam Hussein’s regime.

In 1957, this independent mindedness caused Loy Henderson, a Senior State Department official, to say that:“the present regime in Syria had to go …”

Ultimately, the plan was not used, since, British mandate or not, neighbouring countries refused to play. However, the project, overtly, bears striking similarity to the reality of events over the last decade, in Syria – and the region.

In a near 1957 re-run, Britain’s Foreign Minister, William Hague has said President Assad “will feel emboldened” by the UN Russia-China vote in Syria’s favour.

Hilary (“We came, we saw, he died”) Clinton, has called for: “friends of a democratic Syria”, to unite and rally against the Assad government:

“We need to work together to send them a clear message: you cannot hold back the future at the point of a gun”, said the women filmed purportedly watching the extrajudicial, illegal assassination of may be, or may be not, Osma Bin Laden and others – but certainly people were murdered – by US illegal invaders – at the point of lots of guns.

Supremely ironically, she was speaking in Munich (5th February) historically: “The birth place of the Nazi party.”

The Russia-China veto at the UN on actions against Syria, has been condemned by the US, varyingly, as: “Disgusting”, ‘shameful”, “deplorable”, “a travesty.”

Eye opening, is the list of US vetoes to be found at (iii). Jaw dropping double standards can only be wondered at (again.).

Perhaps the bottom line is: in 1957, Iraq’s oil was at the top of the agenda, of which Syria held an important key. Today, it is Iran’s – and as Michel Chossudovsky notes so succinctly: “The road to Tehran is through Damascus.”(iv)

Notes

i. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-14703995

ii. http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2003/sep/27/uk.syria1

iii. http://www.jadaliyya.com/pages/index/4237/us-on-un-veto_disgusting-shameful-deplorable-a-tra

iv. http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=25955

A group of Russian correspondents led by Evgeny Poddubny has found a boy filmed by the White Helmets in their video showing people “affected” by the alleged chemical attack in Douma on April 7.

According to Poddubny:

• 11-year-old Hassan Diab is fine;
• He suffered no injuries from the “chemical attack” because there was no attack (at least then and there);
• The boy participated in the video for food (rice, dates and cookies).

Poddubny also contacted Hassan’s father – he also said that there was no chemical attack in the town.

Hassan Diab during the “chemical attack” and after. 

A full video by Poddubny:

BOMBSHELL
11 year old #Douma "victim" blows "chemical attack" narrative wide open.
Full video from @epoddubny here: https://t.co/fqHWzUnZSK#CasusBelli #FalseFlag pic.twitter.com/3Ps0IxeyMh

— Syricide (@Syricide) April 19, 2018

Hassan’s story is quite similar to the case observed during the battle for Aleppo city in 2016. A photo of Omran Daqneesh became popular in the mainstream media and was widely used for propaganda purposes against Syrian forces fighting militants in the city.

Omran Daqneesh

“We were very harmed because of the gunmen and how they used things to their benefit with my child,” Omran’s father told Ruptly after the city was liberated. “Thank god, he was only slightly wounded. Thank god after the army advanced and retook these areas; we are now back in our homes. The situation now is very good, thank god.”

Daqneesh’s father also accused militants of using his son for propaganda purposes.

Interesting pic.twitter.com/jw1HzWCXzV

— Jad (@jadinho123) April 13, 2018

Not only Russians say that there was the Douma chemical attack was staged.

Earlier Pearson Sharp, a reporter of One America News Network also visited Douma and found that all the locals say that the so-called April 7 Douma chemical attack had been fabricated by militants.

The alleged chemical attack in Douma became an excuse for the US-led missile strike on Syria on April 14.

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All images in this article are from South Front.

The Arab Spring was an elaborate plot by “imperialist” Western governments, according to a new book by an independent journalist and filmmaker. The book also claims that the Arab Spring was just a smokescreen for the murder of Colonel Gaddafi and regime change in Libya.

Julian Samboma, who is a former London correspondent for InterPress Service (IPS), maintains that his conclusions are based on a dialectical analysis of the Arab uprisings of 2011. The book – ​The Dialectic & the Detective: The Arab Spring and Regime Change in Libya​– also argues that the uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt eight years ago were not actually rebellions against ex-Presidents Ben Ali and Mubarak.

“The so-called Egyptian ‘revolution’ was, in essence, not a revolt against the political dictatorship of Mubarak, but rather a revolt against the economic dictatorship of (Western) imperialism…This is as true of the Tunisian Revolt as it is of the Egyptian variant,” the book states in Chapter Five.

The “detective” in the book’s title is a reference to the author’s assertion that he tackled his subject as a detective would an actual mystery. The author states that he set out to figure out the mechanics of the “plot” to kill Gaddafi using, he states, “the same method Karl Marx used” in “Das Kapital”, his seminal study of capitalism: “If I could figure that out, I reasoned, I would know how the imperialist conspiracy to effect regime change in Libya was planned and executed.”

At a time when the Western powers are preparing to launch another war on yet another Arab country, ​The Dialectic & the Detective​maintains that the anti-Gaddafi street protests which rocked Libya that February were started by Libyan jihadists and other rebels in concert with Western intelligence, to manufacture a context that would eventually lead to UN resolution 1973 and the NATO air war against Gaddafi’s Libya.

Using a wealth of historical evidence, the book demonstrates that so-called Arab Spring protests in Tunisia and Egypt – seen as precursors of the Libyan uprising – were but reruns of anti-IMF and anti-austerity protests that have been familiar features in both countries since the 1960s.

In Chapter Eight, titled “The Propaganda Brigade”, the author makes a blistering attack on the mass media, for serving as the outriders of the imperialist powers in their mission to effect regime change in Libya. He highlights their systematic campaign of disinformation about alleged black African mercenaries killing peaceful Libyan protesters, and that Gaddafi was feeding industrial-strength Viagra to his troops in a policy of mass rape against women in the east of the country.

This book is a must-read for anyone with an enthusiasm for truth and justice. It is well-researched, well-written, and very accessible, given the philosophical nature of its analytical framework. Its arguments contradict almost everything bourgeois writers have said about the Arab Spring and the so-called Libyan “revolution”. But they are not just arguments; they are well-researched arguments, based on empirical data and dialectical logic.

***

The Dialectic & the Detective: The Arab Spring and Regime Change in Libya​, (40,000 words) will be published as an ebook on 24 April 2018 by eBeefs.com. It is not yet known when printed editions will become available.

You can pre-order your copy by following this link (the cost of the book may increase after publication).

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stephenlendman.org 

(Home – Stephen Lendman). 

Contact at [email protected].

On September 14, 2001, three days after the mother of all false flags, congressional members near unanimously passed the Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) – signed into law by GW Bush.

The measure launched endless US wars of aggression, smashing one country after another, no end of it in sight, new nations on Washington’s target list to attack.

The 2001 AUMF granted presidents authority to use all “necessary and appropriate force” against designated nations, groups or individuals.

AUMF is flagrantly illegal. Only Security Council members may authorize war by one nation against others – in self-defense alone if attacked or if one is imminent, never preemptively.

No nation attacked America since December 7, 1941. None threatened it since WW II ended or now. The war on terrorism is a colossal hoax. Washington uses it to wage permanent wars on humanity.

With or without AUMF authorization, all sovereign independent nations are vulnerable, on Washington’s target list for regime change.

Earlier or proposed AUMF legislation has nothing to do with combating ISIS, al-Qaeda, or other terrorist groups Washington created and supports.

US administrations invent pretexts to wage endless wars on humanity, risking eventual catastrophic nuclear war.

Senators Bob Corker and Tim Kaine introduced a new AUMF to give Trump and succeeding presidents greater war powers than already – to continue waging endless wars of aggression on anyone based on the phony pretext of targeting “non-state terrorist groups.”

It requires the president to report to Congress within 48 hours of launching military action. House and Senate members would then have 60 days to review the action – either authorizing it or calling for it to end.

New AUMF authority would be congressionally reviewed every four years – updated, restricted or expanded.

Since WW II, Congress never halted US aggression once begun, warmaking authority left to the president.

The 1973 War Powers Act intended to check presidential power to wage war without congressional approval – except under “national emergency (conditions) by attack upon the United States, its territories or possessions, or its armed forces.”

It requires presidents to notify Congress within 48 hours of committing armed forces to military action, forbidding armed forces from remaining for more than 60 days, a further 30-day withdrawal period granted – no longer without congressional authorization.

Since enacted into law, the measure was repeatedly violated by presidents, ignored by Congress, notably during the rape of Yugoslavia and endless post-9/11 wars of aggression against nations threatening no one.

When presidents take America to war for any reason, the vast majority of congressional members support the action – international, constitutional and US statute laws ignored.

If enacted into law, new AUMF legislation will grant presidents authority to continue waging endless wars of aggression – its restrictive-sounding language not limiting what administrations wish to do.

On April 12, an ACLU letter to Senate members said the following:

“It would be hard to overstate the depth and breadth of our concern about reports of the new AUMF.”

“Not only would the Corker(-Kaine) AUMF almost irretrievably cede to the Executive Branch the most fundamental power that Congress has under Article I of the Constitution – the power to declare war – but it also would give this president and all future presidents authority to engage in worldwide war, sending American troops to countries where we are not now at war and against groups that the President alone decides are enemies.”

“The Executive Branch would be able to add additional countries…to the list of countries where Congress is authorizing war, as well as additional enemies (including groups that do not even exist on the date of enactment).”

Past is virtually assured to be prologue. The 2001 AUMF launched endless wars of aggression still raging in multiple theaters.

A new war powers authorization will be a blank check for presidents to wage war on any nations or groups with a stroke of a pen or a verbal OK.

ACLU official Christopher Anders explained the Corker/Kaine AUMF if enacted “would cause colossal harm to the Constitution’s checks and balances, would jeopardize civil liberties and human rights at home and abroad, and would lead to a breathtakingly broad expansion of war without meaningful oversight.”

The proposed AUMF would limit congressional power to restrain presidential war powers by requiring a veto-proof two-thirds majority to block it.

Historically, Congress has overridden less than 10% of presidential vetoes.

America illegally, immorally and unethically operates as a global policeman – self-authorizing judge, jury and execution powers.

A new AUMF would rubber-stamp presidential authority to wage virtually unrestricted naked aggression on humanity, including at home against designated individuals or groups.

US-led aggression in Syria last week, supported by most congressional members, (overwhelmingly by media scoundrels), was a shot across the bow for much more to come, anywhere globally where presidents wish to target – facilitated by a new AUMF if enacted.

*

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

The U.S. nuclear submarine that helped U.S., U.K., and French forces commit an act of war against Syria last week is no longer welcome near the waters of Italy’s largest seaports, Newsweek reports.

Citing Italian newspaper La Repubblica, Newsweek reported that Naples Mayor Luigi de Magistris wrote last week to Rear Admiral Arturo Faraone, head of the city’s port authority, to express his disapproval that Faraone had allowed the U.S.S. John Warner to pass through the Gulf of Naples on March 20, following a two-week military exercise conducted by NATO forces.

In his letter, the mayor reportedly argued that he had designated the city a “denuclearized zone” in a 2015 law that sought to “prohibit docking and parking of any vessel that is nuclear-powered or contains nuclear weapons.” Magistris also declared Naples a “city of peace.”

Magistris also went on record to voice his disdain for policies that lead to war and reiterated his strong stance in favor of pursuing peaceful alternatives.

“Our administration is not against anyone but it is in favor of policies of peace, disarmament and international cooperation,” de Magistris told Italian news service Agenzia Nazionale Stampa Associata (ANSA) on Monday. “It is in favor of diplomacy so that international institutions like the U.S. are the lead players in moments of crisis.

“The fact that it is the same submarine (involved in the Syria attack) further reinforces the rightness of the order with which we said ships of nuclear propulsion or carrying nuclear weapons are not welcome in the port of Naples and, therefore, they are not allowed to travel through or stay,” he also said, appearing to affirm his disapproval for Washington’s aggressive actions.

According to Rai News, as quoted by Newsweek, Faraone responded to Magistris by stating he “shared his concerns” but that “decisions regarding the arrival and/or transit of foreign military naval units in national territorial waters” were outside of Faraone’s jurisdiction as such jurisdiction instead resided with the Italian Ministry of Defense.

“The moment we say that we are a denuclearized port our position as a city is firm,” de Magistris also told Italian daily Il Mattino on Tuesday. “Then it is up to others to translate our will concretely into effect. We hope that the national government and the governments of other countries in the future will refrain from allowing these types of ships to transit or stop in the harbor.

Before the Anglo-alliance strike on Syria took place last week, the prime minister’s office in Italy released a statement that confirmed Italy would not play any role in a Western attack on the Syrian government but would offer “logistical support” – an apparent reference to the two key air force bases in Italy used by U.S. forces (Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi was assassinated by a U.S. drone flown out of a base in Sicily in 2011). The U.K.-based Telegraph responded to the prime minister’s statement by calling Italy the “weak link” in the western alliance.

That being said, current Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni eventually told lawmakers he supported the strikes against Syria, saying “Italy is not a neutral country” when it comes to the NATO alliance squaring off against Russia, according to the Associated Press.

VISIT MY NEW WEB SITE: 

stephenlendman.org 

(Home – Stephen Lendman). 

Contact at [email protected].

A US summit meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un may or may not happen, Trump saying:

“If we don’t think it’s going to be successful, we won’t have it…“If I think that if it’s a meeting that is not going to be fruitful we’re not going to go. If the meeting when I’m there is not fruitful, I will respectfully leave the meeting,” adding:

“Just because North Korea is responding to dialogue, there should be no reward. Maximum pressure should be maintained,” above all, demanding the DPRK “denuclearizes.”

Ahead of a possible Kim/Trump summit, an April 27 inter-Korean one will be the first since 2007, only the third one since the peninsula was divided post-WW II.

Both countries are in talks to formally declare an end to the 1950s war, replacing an uneasy armistice, an important agreement if concluded.

It’s unknown if Kim Jong-un and his delegation will walk across the heavily militarized border to meet with South Korea’s Moon Jae-in, a symbolic reconciliation gesture if so – something no North Korean leader ever did since the 1953 armistice.

Their summit will be held at Peace House in Panmunjom, on the South Korean side of the border.

On Wednesday, Trump said both countries “have my blessing to discuss the end of the war” – a positive sign if he maintains this position, uncertain given how often he says one thing and does another.

Reportedly Kim and Moon will release a joint statement, saying they intend to formally end decades of conflict between the North and South.

A successful summit would pave the way for Trump to meet Kim – likely in late May or June if occurs, the first ever between leaders of both countries.

According to Chinese Studies Professor John Delury, “(e)nding the state of conflict is the core of the whole thing…as complicated as denuclearization. There has to be a process of actually delivering the peace.”

Major issues need to be resolved, given a state of war between both countries for decades.

Weeks earlier, secretary of state designee Mike Pompeo met with Kim in Pyongyang, preparing for a summit with Trump.

Denuclearizing the peninsula won’t happen without iron-clad security guarantees for the DPRK, what’s been unattainable throughout the post-WW II period – very risky to do given Washington’s rage for endless wars of aggression against all sovereign independent nations.

North Korean officials are mindful of US aggression in Iraq and Libya, nations abandoning WMDs, defenseless except for conventional weapons when attacked by Washington and its imperial partners with overwhelming force.

The DPRK is also mindful of America’s lack of good faith. Its leadership hasn’t forgotten US abandonment of the 1994 Agreed Framework, explained earlier as follows:

Pyongyang agreed to freeze and replace its nuclear power plant program with a light water nuclear reactor, along with steps toward normalizing relations with Washington.

The Clinton administration agreed to build two light-water reactors by 2003. In the interim, it would supply Pyongyang with 500,000 tons of heavy fuel annually.

US sanctions would be lifted. The DPRK would be removed from the State Department’s state sponsors of terrorism list. Both countries agreed to provide “formal assurances” against threatened or actual use of nuclear weapons.

Pyongyang agreed to allow Washington to monitor its nuclear sites. It upheld its part of the deal – collapsing after GW Bush declared North Korea part of an axis of evil in his first State of the Union address, breaching the agreement unilaterally.

US administrations consistently betray sovereign independent countries, why Washington can never be trusted under GOP or undemocratic Dem leadership. Rare exceptions prove the rule, none since the Soviet Union dissolved in 1991.

A nuclearized peninsula gives US administrations pause about attacking the DPRK. Abandoning its key deterrent leaves the nation vulnerable.

North Korea wants peace, unacceptable sanctions lifted, and normalized relations with the West.

Abandoning its most effective defense against possible US aggression may be too great a price to pay – given Washington’s permanent war policy, its rage for global dominance, its longstanding regime change policy against all sovereign independent nations.

*

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

When I wrote the article about the “Most Dangerous Decade” two weeks ago, I didn’t realize that my time frame was too optimistic. What’s happening now in Syria has the potential to start WW III. Don’t believe for a second that the Syrian crisis is over after Trump’s recent bombing. There are large regions of Syria that are still held by Al Qaeda, and the overall goal of the U.S. still remains unattained.

Although Americans are starting to wake up, many people are still caught up in the mainstream narrative regarding the Syrian war. I have written a book and many articles on this topic, but perhaps what the average person needs is a really short article that highlights the truth and debunks the common lies about Syria, Assad and the war.

Assad’s terrible regime caused the Civil War

Nope. Fact is that, starting in 2011, tens of thousands of foreigners – Al Qaeda and other jihadists – were sent into Syria to overthrow Assad. The U.S. and its allies – Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Turkey & Jordan – assisted in buying and transporting weapons to the “insurgents.” Special forces from the U.S., U.K., France and Israel also spent billions of dollars arming and training the terrorists, a.k.a “moderate rebels.” What’s happening in Syria is not a civil war – it’s a proxy war.

Assad kills his own people

Assad has been fighting the Islamic terrorists for seven years. It’s cynical and Orwellian for the West to shed crocodile tears for the Syrians and blame Assad for this brutal war.

While the presstitutes make it look like Assad is fighting women and children, fact is that the rebels have highly sophisticated weapons – million-dollar tanks, U.S.-made anti-tank missiles that cost $250,000 etc.

Assad oppresses minorities

Assad protects Christians and other minorities. There’s no Sharia Law in Syria, and religious minorities have full freedom. The only group that’s “oppressed” in Syria is the violent Muslim Brotherhood, which has been banned for many decades. The Syrian opposition consists of Sunni extremists who have been persecuting and killing Shiites and Christians for the last seven years.

Syrians hate Assad

The mainstream media will never show how popular Assad is. War propaganda’s #1 rule is to completely demonize the enemy.

In the CNN and Zogby polls conducted in 2009 and 2010, Assad was ranked as the most popular Arab leader. In the first 10 years of Assad’s government (2000 – 2010), Syria’s GDP tripled and the country was safe and peaceful.

Syria is a Jihadist country

Less than 5% of the country are violent extremists motivated by Salafist/Wahhabi sectarianism. Syria has always been a secular, moderate country.

USA supports the good guys

As a Pentagon memo warned even back in 2012, the US has been supporting the bad and evil guys – Muslim Brotherhood, Al Qaeda and ISIS. That’s the difficult truth that most Americans cannot accept. Calling them “moderate rebels” is just Orwellian doublespeak to sell the disastrous policy to the American public. What we did in Syria was basically what we did with the Mujahideen in Afghanistan in the 1980s.

USA/UK got involved only because of atrocities

Globalists and colonialists have been trying to overthrow secular Syrian governments since the late 1940s. From the 1950s thru the 1980s, the U.S. and the U.K. tried to use Muslim Brotherhood for their subversive plots. In the 1990s, the Neocons made it clear that Syria had to be defeated.

In 2007, the Bush administration started funding the Muslim Brotherhood again. In 2009, the U.K. started a satellite T.V. station to broadcast anti-Assad propaganda.

In 2011, the U.S. and its allies funded and armed the opposition to start the fake “revolution.” When it failed, they brought in Al Qaeda, created ISIS, and spent billions of dollars on this psychotic project.

White helmets are awesome

The U.S./U.K. governments have given more than $100 million to the White Helmets, who are conniving jihadists in uniforms. They are armed and only operate in rebel-controlled areas. They participate in extrajudicial executions and possibly in organ trafficking. The fact that they won an Oscar just goes to reveal the unfathomable levels of deception in the New World Order.

Monster Assad used chemical weapons

Is it really hard to believe that jihadists would kill people and children in order to frame Assad? Syrian rebels put children in cages and use them as human shields:

the rebels have bombed buses full of children simply because the kids were Shiite Muslims; and the “moderate rebels” use even their own daughters and sons – some as young as nine years old – as suicide bombers. Yet, we are supposed to trust the pictures, videos and the false flag narratives that these head-chopping barbarians feed us?

There has never been a single proven case of Assad using chemical weapons. No, you can’t determine anything from videos and pictures – we don’t know when and where they were taken; and you certainly can’t determine how the people died. Biological samples sent to the CIA by Al Qaeda should be ignored as well, obviously. Proper due process involves independent weapons experts going to the alleged sites, specialists performing autopsies and so on.

The UN has confirmed that ISIS and Al Qaeda in Syria have used chemical weapons more than 100 times. The most hypocritical aspect of this whole drama is that, after the fall of Gaddafi, the U.S. transferred Libya’s chemical weapons (Sarin, mustard gas and others) to the Syrian rebels.

If Assad loses, there will be peace in Syria

If Assad goes away, the tiny country of Syria will be broken up into ethnic regions; millions of Christians and Shiites will be persecuted, killed or driven from their homes; ISIS and Al Qaeda will rule the Sunni region; and the bigger, deadlier conflict – Iran War – will begin shortly. America will spend a few trillion dollars, millions of people will be killed, and Europe will be flooded with more refugees. In other words, it will be a wet dream for Neocons, Israel, globalists and the military-industrial complex.

This is, of course, a quick summary. You can find more details in my book, “Deconstructing the Syrian War” which also delves into history, geopolitics, Islamic terrorism, war propaganda and the bigger picture about the struggle for global hegemony. If Americans and Europeans don’t understand the true motives and facts about the Syrian war, they will be lead into calamitous military adventures and destructive global wars in the near future.

*

Chris Kanthan is the author of a new book, “Syria – War of Deception.” It’s available in a condensed as well as a longer version. Chris lives in the San Francisco Bay Area, has traveled to 35 countries, and writes about world affairs, politics, economy and health. His other book is “Deconstructing Monsanto.”

All images in this article are from the author.

The theme for Earth Day is End Plastic Pollution.  If one ever wondered what can happen to a plastic bag discarded carelessly, the following research has a surprising and worrying answer.

This Science article looks at plastic waste entering the oceans — often through catchment areas and into rivers that flow to the ocean.  It assesses the influence of such waste on disease in reef-building corals.  The authors survey 159 coral reefs in the Asia-Pacific, a region containing 55.5 percent of global reefs and 73 percent of the human population living within 50 km of a coast — about a quarter billion people.

Our plastic bag finally reaches the ocean and microbes hitch a ride on it, living longer and increasing their chances of landing on an unfortunate host: a coral reef.  The authors have measured plastic items per 100 square meters.  The count can vary from a low of 0.4 in Australia to a high of 25.6 in Indonesia.  Size of human population in coastal regions, good management or mismanagement of plastic waste disposal are all factors in the amount of waste entering the water.

The study results are striking.  The likelihood of disease from the microbes rises from 4 percent in areas free of plastic to a whopping 89 percent average when the corals have such debris.  Another major issue is coral structural complexity which, importantly, underpins micro-habitats for reef-reliant organisms.  Unfortunately, the study also finds that plastic debris is up to 8 times more likely to affect reefs with greater structural complexity.  The resulting lack of habitat can devastate fisheries through a drop in productivity by a factor of three.  Thus public awareness here could be a critical factor.

Next is a vast global study spanning the four major continents and New Zealand.  Authored by 115  scientists, it traces the movement of 57 mammalian species through the GPS-tracking of 803 individuals.  It finds a strong negative effect of the human footprint on animal spacial mobility, threatening long term viability unless the situation changes.

The authors note the consequences for ecosystem function globally as the effects are critical for wildlife conservation and also in the spread of disease.  In the latter aspect, the authors warn that “reduced vagility may go beyond ecosystem functioning to directly affect human well-being.”  In their understated words, it means the danger of accelerated animal extinction and human epidemics.

Most of us tend to assume all bees are good.  Apparently not, as a couple of scientists explain.  So as we reach for that honey jar … it all depends on where it came from.  That is the contention of the last paper which assesses the impact of managed honey bees on wild bees and other pollinators.

The authors identify managed honeybees and their honey production and pollination of commercial crops as an agricultural issue, not an ecological one.  They advocate restriction of managed honey beehives in protected-ecological areas to reduce their harmful effects  noting that half of all European wild bees are threatened with extinction.

The parrots in the local pet store are almost always at risk.  It is human encroachment the owner tells us.  Forests are cut down, reducing habitat and food sources, and diminishing parrot populations.  Farmers plant crops in the cleared areas.  The parrots may or may not eat these but are perceived as a threat and often killed, further endangering them.

It’s becoming increasingly clear that we need to adapt our construction methods to be more environmentally friendly. However, this isn’t just a case of green energy and sustainable materials, plans must also account for the local ecosystem.

The construction of both residential and commercial properties is encroaching further and further into our countryside. As a result, wildlife habitats are negatively affected and the UK’s biodiversity suffers.

In addition, changing animal behaviours in urban areas are being caused by a range of human factors. These include air and light pollution as well as habitat loss and fragmentation amongst others.

As towns and cities take over more green space, we’re increasingly likely to encounter wildlife or even share our home with them. A surprisingly common example of this is bats roosting in and around homes.

Thankfully, there are solutions being developed which will allow us to coexist peacefully with our indigenous animal species. Read on to find out what issues exist and how conservation-friendly construction can remedy them…

Thanks to the contributions of our readers, we have been able to maintain complete independence. You can help Global Research make information available to the widest possible readership.  

We ask that you consider making a donation to Global Research in our battle against mainstream media disinformation.

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As Lies on Syrian Gas Attack Unravel, US and UK Shift to Claims of Russian “Cyber War”

By Will Morrow, April 19, 2018

On Monday, the US and British intelligence agencies released a joint report charging Moscow with unspecified “cyber warfare” against the West. The American media was filled with hysterical warnings that Russia may have hacked “millions” of personal devices as well as critical infrastructure.

The Victims in Syria, Gaza and Yemen. U.S. “Outrage” versus U.S. “Crimes against Humanity”

By David William Pear, April 19, 2018

Two million Palestinian refugees have been trapped in Gaza for over a decade.  Gaza has been turned into an inhumane open-air concentration camp.  The people in Gaza have been cut off from the outside world.  They are living under a blockade and Israel controls everything and anything that goes in or out of the Gaza Strip.  What goes in is barely enough food for Gazans to survive.  Netanyahu jokes that he has put Gaza on a diet.

Cuba Chooses a New President

By Stephen Lendman, April 19, 2018

Meeting on Wednesday, Cuba’s National Assembly reportedly is poised to choose Miguel Mario Diaz-Canel Bermudez as Castro’s successor – an official announcement not expected until Thursday.

Diaz-Canel was the only name proposed to assume the nation’s top post as State Council chairman (president of the state).

The Skripals Have Survived but They Are Not Safe: The Novichok Fraud Should Bring Down the UK Government

By Karin Brothers, April 19, 2018

This Swiss finding implies that the Skripals were not poisoned by the Novichok/A-234, and that the sample it was given appeared to be fraudulent. The report supported the contentions of many observers that the British government’s claims were not to be trusted.

The British Are Driving the West’s War Agenda—But Why?

By Richard C. Cook, April 19, 2018

Mounting evidence shows that both the Skripal and Syrian incidents were actually false-flag provocations, likely carried out by or with the connivance of Western intelligence services. The target of both provocations was, without question, the Russian state and its president Vladimir Putin. Of course Syria has also long been on the “hit list” of Middle Eastern nations targeted for “regime change” by the U.S. neocons after 9/11, with Israel a key beneficiary.

Fake News Is Fake Amerika

By Philip A Farruggio, April 18, 2018

We all know what transpired afterwards, as the country that we true patriots love, along with our British stooges, had committed a most heinous action, worse than even the Vietnam debacle. The ‘Fake News’ empire was working on steroids… and it still is with our illegal and immoral dabbling in other Middle Eastern affairs. Isn’t it time for the majority of our fellow citizens to stop believing in the lies and disinformation that passes as truthful news?

One of the unexpected events that happened during the PyongChang Olympics was the remarkable diplomatic manoeuvre of the three stars: Moon Jae-in, Kim Jong-un and Donald Trump.

Moon Jae-in convinced Kim Jong-un to send a large delegation to PyomgChang and show to the world that North Korea was not a country ruled by an irrational man;

Kim Jong-un told the world that he wanted peace;

Trump made it clear that he was not Obama, who according to Trump did nothing to solve the North Korean nuclear crisis.

Moreover, the “three stars: have made it possible to have two historical summits: the inter-Korea summit and the U.S.-North Korea summit.

That is great, but what can we expect from these summits? One thing is sure; each of the stars seems to have different hopes and expectations. Whatever their hopes and expectations may be, these summit must bring peace in the Korean peninsula after seventy years of unnecessary uncertainty, fragile security, fear and tension.

The PyongChang Meetings

The PyongChang Olympics may have written a new page in the modern history of world diplomacy. The world was expecting the worst scenario of Trump’s war against Kim Jong-un and the very success of the Olympics was in doubt. But, the war did not show its ugly teeth, not yet anyway; the youth of the world competed, fraternized, shared the victory and showed sincere friendship in defeat. Yes, the PyongChang was a success as a sport festivity.

But there was something else. We were all impressed with the silent, elegant and dignified diplomacy of Kim Yo-Jong, sister of Kim Jong-un; we were all touched by the honest effort of the North-South combined women hockey team who worked hard together in harmony despite seventy years of ideological separation. The world class performance of the North Korean musical group made us wonder how a country under the constant threats from outside and inhuman sanctions for so long could produce such a team.

Moreover, the PyongChang has provided a diplomatic arena where three stars performed well. Moon Jae-in took an initiative, in consultation with Trump, to invite a huge delegation of North Korea to PyongChang and succeeded in creating a peace mood. In return, Kim Jung-un has invited in early March special envoy of Moon Jae-in to Pyongyang where Moon Jae-in was invited to a summit with Kim at the end of April. The same envoy went to Washington and reported to Trump of Kim Jong-un’s wish to meet with Trump, who accepted Kim’s invitation. Trump suggested the end of May as the date of the summit. This drama of diplomacy is so unexpected and so dramatic that the world- frankly speaking- felt a little dizzy. Another surprising event was the reaction of Xi Jinping and Abe. Both welcomed the double summits and claimed their piece of peace pie evoking their role in international sanctions against Kim Jong-un.

It goes without saying that we all wish for successful summits. But we are not sure how these summits will come out. Nonetheless, we may allow ourselves to have an idea about the motivations of the summit stars. If we know the motivations of the stars, we may able to have an idea about the summit outcomes. What are the reasons for Kim Jung-un for transforming himself from being a man of reckless worrier to a man of peace? What does Trump hope to gain? What has motivated Moon Jae-in to go between Donald Trump and Kim Jung-un?

Why the summits?

Let us begin with Kim Jong-un. His decision to seek for peace with the U.S. and its allies may be explained in terms of internal factor as well as external determinants. Internal factors would include the following. First, after the launch of ICBM Hwasung-15 in November last year, reaching as far as 15,000 km, the Juche regime seems to believe that it can now deter nuclear attacks of the U.S.; this was made clear in Kim Jung-un’s New Year Speech. Second, the successful conclusion of the nuclear programs has made Kim Jung-un’s leadership more solid and more consolidated, thus ensuring internal social cohesion and political stability.

Third, the development of private market, the multiplication of mobiles phones allowing the North Koreans the access to outside world’s reality may have made them more open-minded and perhaps desire for more economic development and peace. It is very likely that Kim Jong-un is well aware of this reality and that it can endanger the survival of the Juche regime. But young leader seems to think that his leadership is strong enough to ensure the regime’s survival.

On the other hand, there are also several external determinants of Kim Jong-un’s desire for peace. First, the intensification of nuclear threats and endless sanctions have surely been an important factor of Kim’s decision. So far, North Korea has been successfully minimizing the damaging effect of sanctions mainly through underground network of trade and the emergence of private market and, partially, China’s aid. Now, the situation is different. Since Trump took over the power in Washington, the nuclear threats have become more alarming, while the sanctions have become much more damaging, especially since China joined the international sanctions on North Korea. In such situation, North Korea might have concluded that the peace with the U.S. and its allies was perhaps the only way to save its regime.

Another external factor is the regime change in South Korea. For ten years (2008-2017), South Korea was governed by conservative presidents, Lee Myung-bak (2008-2013) and Park Geun-hye (2013-2017). By the way, both are now in prison for bribery, corruption and abuse of power.

One of the chief characteristics of the conservative governments is its anti-North Korea culture. This is partly explained by the past colonial history. The conservative government of South Korea was formed in 1948 principally by Koreans who served, as high ranking civil servants, under Japanese colonial government; they collaborated for torturing and murdering patriots who fought against Japan. On the other hand, the North Korean government was established by Kim Il-sung and the patriots. Thus, right from the beginning of the era of post-World War II, there has been deep and intense feeling of anger and hostility between the conservative government in the South and North Korean leaders.

This has produced two unfortunate results. First, the conservative governments which have ruled South Korea for sixty years out of seventy years since 1948 have produced a situation where the inter-Korean relation was dominated by mutual hostility, suspicion, mistrust and, above all, tension. Second, the conservative governments have used the inter-Korean tension as a tool of electoral campaign. Prior to elections, the conservative governments often created an environment of fear by fabricating inter-Korean armed clashes or false rumours in such a way that the votes could go to the conservatives, who pretended themselves as the best guarantee of “security”; South Koreans are very sensitive about the security. This unfortunate phenomenon is called the “Book-Poong-Northern Wind”.

Now, in 2017, the liberal government of Moon Jae-in took over the power. Let us remember that Moon was one of the chief architects of the “Sunshine Policy” for ten years from 1998 to 2008. The return of the liberal government under the leadership of Moon could have changed Kim Jong-un’s perception of inter-Korea relations. The young leader of Juche knows that he can trust Moon Jae-in and this might have contributed to his decision to have the inter-Korea summit and even the Washington-Pyongyang summit. It seems that Kim Jong-un relies on Moon Jae-in’s mediation role for the success of the Trump-Kim summit.

Now, let us move to Donald Trump. There may be also internal and external factors which might have led Trump to think of meeting with Kim Jong-un. Internally, the “Russia” gate, the sex scandal and his low popularity might have induced Trump to use the U.S.-North Korea summit as means of turning public concerns away from his internal problems. Besides, Trump promised, during his election campaign, to do something with North Korea, something which previous presidents, especially, Obama did not do. The summit with the young leader of the Juche regime may be the realization of his electoral promise.

The external factor motivating Trump to talk to Kim Jong-un is perhaps his perception of the China containment policy. China is getting stronger every day; Russia is developing new arms including powerful and fast under-water drones. Moreover, both Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin can now rule for long time to come, perhaps for life time. This could have made trump to re-examine Washington’s relation with Pyongyang; he might have decided to solve the  North Korean issues once for all so that he could allocate more resource to the strategy of China containment.

As for Moon Jae-in, several good reasons might have led him to take the diplomatic initiatives. First, Moon remembers well that Korea became Japanese colony because of the division of Korean leaders into Pro-Japanese, pro-Chinese or pro-Russia factions. Korea was and is surrounded by military giants trying to use the Korean peninsula for the promotion of their own interests. For Moon, the reunification or at least the North-South mutual cooperation and united efforts to cope with outside intervention are very important. This point has been often made by Professor Michel Chossudovsky, who has even suggested a North-South peace treaty.

Second, one of the reasons for low FDI in South Korea has been the North-South tension. Hence, Moon hopes, through the summits, to reduce the North-South tension and increase foreign investments in South Korea. Third, the South Korean economy has attained a level of maturity and exhausted its potential growth; Seoul needs new economic frontier to develop further its economy; North Korea is the new economic frontier.

What Can We Expect from the Summits?

Thus, all the three nations have good reasons to engage in dialogues. The interesting question is:”What could be the results of the summits?”  “What can the three countries expect from these summits, if they are successful?”

The North-South Summit will be held on April 27th. The main agenda to be dealt with in this summit will be the preparation for the Trump-Kim Summit which may take place at the end of May or early June.

What Trump asks seems to be complete and immediate denuclearization meaning immediate and complete destruction of nuclear arms and missiles. On the others hand, Kim appears to be ready to denuclearize gradually. Kim’s position is as determined as Trump’s position is. Therefore, if they meet at the summit without prior negotiated compromise, the summit could end up with total failure and the nuclear crisis may become even more risky and even more dangerous.

In this situation, somebody should play the role of go-between and facilitate the Trump-Kim negotiation. Moon Jae-in, President of South Korea is the only person who can play effectively such role owing to his remarkably sincere diplomacy shown during the PyongChang Olympics.. Moon is the only person who has the trust of both Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un.

It appears that there have been sustained discussions between Pompeo, former director of CIA (and now Secretary of State)  and Suh Hoon, director of South Korean CIA (National Intelligence Service) and between Chung Eui-yong, Korea’s National Security Council chief and John Bolten nominated as Trump’s National Security Advisor. It is not known what will be the outcome of these contacts and meetings. However, one thing sure is this; if there are no compromises, there is no use having the Trump-Kim summit.

Even if Trump and Kim come to some agreement on denuclearization, the content and speed of denuclearization depends on the rewards Kim will ask and Trump will be ready to provide them. It seems that North Korea would ask the following: the removal of nuclear assets from the Korean peninsula, end of US nuclear threats, removal of sanctions against North Korea, signing of a peace treaty and normal bilateral diplomatic relations. Trump’s intention of meeting this demand is not known.

However, it is quite possible that Trump might accept some of these demands for two reasons.

First, North Korea will not ask the withdrawal of the US troops from South Korea; this means that Washington can continue its strategy of China containment.

Second, it is more than possible that Washington would try to make North Korea friendly to the U.S. through normal diplomatic relations and trade and economic development cooperation. If this happens, North Korea will no longer be effective buffer zone for China. In other words, the process of North Korea’s denuclearization is liable to become an important variable in the dynamics of the Sino-American Thucydides trap.  Thus, the denuclearization on the Korean peninsula does not mean the end of the danger of war in the region as long as the U.S. persists on its ambition to dominate China instead of cooperating for global prosperity and security.

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Professor  Joseph H. Chung has been teaching economics in Canada and Korea and serving, as advisor and consultant, various governments and public agencies including Korea’s Economic Bureau of Planning and the Presidential Council for Unification of Korea. Now he is co-director of the East Asia Observatory (OAE) of Quebec University-Montreal Campus (UQAM). His research projects are focused on Korean affairs.