Global Research

In April 1962, the Kennedy administration ordered nuclear missiles to be sent to Japan’s Okinawa Island. The weapons were directed at the People’s Republic of China, a nation the Americans had “lost” to Communism 13 years before.

President John F. Kennedy‘s decision to aim missiles at China occurred six months before the Cuban Missile Crisis, known as the October Crisis in Cuba. The missiles Kennedy directed at Mao Zedong’s China were “near identical” to those aimed at the US, after the Soviet Union sent nuclear-armed weapons to Cuba in October 1962.

The American missiles on occupied Okinawa – an island just over 500 miles from China’s coast – were “over 75 times the power of the bomb dropped on Hiroshima” in August 1945. The nuclear weapon that leveled Hiroshima killed about 80,000 people initially, mostly civilians. However, further tens of thousands later died after succumbing to severe radiation poisoning.

In the early 1960s, China possessed by far the world’s largest population, at almost 700 million. Any order obeyed to fire such destructive weapons at China would have killed unprecedented numbers. Yet the American missiles on Okinawa remained hidden from public knowledge, and has only come to light in recent times. The reason for Kennedy’s order for missiles to be readied on Okinawa, can be traced to intense friction between two of Asia’s largest countries.

A 1962 aerial photograph shows Okinawa’s first Mace missile site at Bolo Point, Yomitan. (Source: Larry Johnston via APJJF)

During 1962, antagonism soared between China and American-backed India – primarily over border disputes along the Himalayas. It culminated in the Sino-Indian conflict, starting on 20 October, with much of the fighting occurring at over 4,000 meters. This forgotten conflict also began in the middle of the Cuban Missile Crisis, as the Americans were entirely distracted with Cuba. After a month of bloody fighting, China emerged victorious having secured territorial gains.

History, up to the current day, suggests the US holds the right to erect weapons wherever it chooses, ignoring the potential consequences. For example, in 1961, president Kennedy positioned intermediate-range “Jupiter” nuclear missiles in Italy and Turkey – this time aimed at Russia. The Turkish border is little more than 300 miles from Russia, separated alone by diminutive Georgia.

None of this was lost on the Russians. In May the following year (1962), the Soviet president Nikita Khrushchev complained to a confidant that the Americans “have surrounded us”. Kennedy’s reckless deployment of missiles was also a crucial factor leading up to the Cuban Missile Crisis.

Behind the thinking of his Cuban missile decision, Khrushchev explained following his retirement that the Americans

“would learn just what it feels like to have enemy missiles pointing at you; we’d be doing nothing more than giving them a little of their own medicine”.

The enormous threats against Russia also had a deeper psychological impact. Over the past century and more, Russia was repeatedly invaded and almost destroyed by invading armies. From Napoleon Bonaparte’s 1812 offensive, through to Operation Barbarossa overseen by Adolf Hitler in 1941.

The intimidation of Russia, a long-time nuclear power, has continued apace to the present day. One significant menace is the continued existence of NATO as an organization – and the presence of its troops and weapons along Russia’s frontiers. NATO receives much of its funding from America, so is in reality a tool of imperialism, posing a significant global security threat.

In more rational times Dwight D. Eisenhower, NATO’s first supreme commander, wrote in 1951 that NATO

“will have failed” if “in 10 years all American troops stationed in Europe… have not been returned to the United States”.

Eisenhower would become a re-elected US president (1953-61), so his was not a voice without weight. It would be interesting to gauge his reaction if he knew that, by 2018, American troops were still present on European soil. This reality may have disturbed George Kennan too, the farsighted former US ambassador to the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia, himself no dove. In 1996 Kennan described NATO expansion eastwards, in continued violation of agreements, as “a strategic blunder of potentially epic proportions”.

Meanwhile, a further critical element in the placing of Soviet missiles in Cuba, was the Kennedy administration’s assaults on the island nation. There was the failed Bay of Pigs invasion in April 1961, which ended in a Cuban rout of US-backed forces. Stung by this embarrassment, in January 1962 Kennedy outlined that “the Cuban problem” is “the top priority in the United States government”.

The ensuing Operation Mongoose brought the “terrors of the earth” to Cuba – a quote attributed to Arthur Schlesinger Jr., Kennedy’s top Latin American advisor. In the months before the missile crisis, Cuba was subjected to widescale terrorist attacks directed from America. This included the bombing of Cuban hotels and petrochemical plants, poisoning of crops and livestock, attacks on fishing boats, the tainting of sugar exports, etc.

In March 1962, it was made clear that the assaults were to lead to “final success” which would “require decisive US intervention”. The renewed invasion of Cuba was dated for October 1962 – it is no coincidence that Khrushchev sent his missiles to Cuba during the same month.

As the missile crisis peaked, the world came perilously close to a nuclear war, largely due to Kennedy’s hegemonic policies. This was all concealed from the American public, who were repeatedly informed the blame lay squarely with the USSR and its Cuban ally.

Following the de-escalation in late October, the US immediately recommenced terrorist operations against Cuba. These murderous acts continued for decades in various forms. This included American support for the Cuban exiles, Luis Posada Carriles and Orlando Bosch, two of the worst international terrorists of the post-World War II period.

Posada Carriles and Bosch are most infamously remembered for masterminding the 1976 destruction of a Cuban airliner, killing all 73 people aboard. However, the duo were also responsible for countless other terrorist attacks on embassies, consuls, tourist industries, ambassadors, civilians, etc. – not just in Cuba – but across Latin America.

Furthermore, the US continues its blockade of Cuba, which has lasted for more than five decades – despite opposition from virtually the entire world. The embargo was first introduced by Kennedy himself in October 1962.

After visiting Cuba two years ago, then president Barack Obama said he and Raul Castro “continue to have serious differences, including on democracy and human rights”. One could forgive the Cuban leader for being somewhat perplexed by this statement. Not mentioned by Obama was America’s efforts to bring “democracy and human rights” to Cuba, in the form of vicious terrorist assaults and economic strangulation.

Nor did Obama highlight Cuba’s central role in liberating southern Africa from apartheid. South Africa’s racist regime was heavily supported by the US, yet it appears trivial facts such as these are not worthy of mention by Obama, or indeed, the mainstream press.

Since the 1950s, the American record in introducing “human rights” and “freedom” to the world makes something of a mockery of its projected image. Instead, it is Cuba that has long been vilified by Western elites for supposed human rights abuses.

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Shane Quinn obtained an honors journalism degree. He is interested in writing primarily on foreign affairs, having been inspired by authors like Noam Chomsky. 

“Lies and misrepresentation of facts have become the hallmark of American politics in recent years more than ever before. Not just lies of commission by Trump and his crew, but lies of omission by the mainstream media as well.

In Trump’s recent package of tax cuts for corporations, investors and millionaires, the lie is that the total cuts amount to $1.5 trillion—when the actual amount is more than $5 trillion and likely even higher. And in his most recent announcement of budget deficits the amounts admitted are barely half of the actual deficits—and consequent rise in US national debt—that will occur. Even his $1.5 trillion so-called infrastructure spending plan, that Trump promised during his 2016 election campaign, and then throughout 2017, amounts to only $200 billion. The lies and exaggerations are astounding.

The mainstream media, much of it aligned against Trump, has proven no accurate in revealing the Trump lies and misrepresentations: They echo Trumps $1.5 trillion total tax cut number and provide no real analysis of the true total of the cuts; they low-ball the true impact of Trump’s budget on US annual budget deficits and the national debt; and they fail to expose the actual corporate subsidy nature of Trump’s ‘smoke and mirrors’ infrastructure plan.

Trump’s multi-trillion dollar tax cuts for business, investors and the wealthiest 1%, plus his annual trillion dollar deficits as far as the eye can see, plus his phony real estate industry handouts that parade as infrastructure spending together will lead the US economy into recession, most likely in early 2019. Here’s the scenario:

The massive deficits will require the central bank, the Federal Reserve, to raise short term interest rates. What’s called the benchmark federal funds interest rate will rise above 2% (currently 1.5%). The longer term 10 year US Treasury bond rate will rise to 3.5% or more. Those rates have already been rising—and their rise already provoking stock and bond market corrections in recent weeks which should be viewed as ‘dress rehearsals’ of more serious financial asset market retreats and contractions yet to come.

As this writer has argued repeatedly in recent publications, both the US real economy and financial markets (stocks, junk bonds, derivatives, etc.) are ‘fragile’ and increasingly susceptible to a significant downturn. In 2007-08 central bank interest rates rose to 5% and that precipitated a crash in subprime mortgage bonds and derivatives that set off the contraction in the economy. With the US economy not fundamentally having recovered from 2008-09 still to this day, and with household and corporate debt well above levels of 2008, it will take less of a rise in interest rates to provoke another similar reaction.

The US real economy is already weak. GDP numbers don’t reflect this accurately. Important sectors like autos and housing are softening or even stalling already. Consumption will falter. Consumers have loaded up on household debt. At $13.8 trillion, levels are equal or greater than 2007. They have also been depleting their savings to finance consumption in 2017-18. And despite all the recent media hoopla, there’s been no real wage gains occurring for 80% of the workforce in the US. Moreover, renewed inflation now occurring will reduce households’ disposable income and buying power even more this year. Rising taxes for tens of millions of households in 2018-19 will also negatively impact consumption spending. Don’t expect consumption to rise in 2018 as interest rates, taxes, and prices do. Just the opposite. Consumption makes up 70% of the US economy and it is now nearly exhausted. It will stagnate at best, and even retreat steadily beginning in the second half 2018.

Like the real economy, the US financial markets are fragile as well. They are in bubble territory and investors are getting increasingly edgy and looking for excuses to sell—i.e. take their super capital gains of recent years and run to the sidelines. A rise in rates much above the 2% and 3.5% noted will provoke a significant credit contraction (or even freeze). Money capital (liquidity) will dry up for non-bank companies, investment and production will be scaled back, layoffs will rise rapidly, and consumption will collapse—together bringing the economy down. It’s a classic scenario the forces behind which have been steadily building. And it won’t take too much more to provoke the next recession—likely in early 2019. The Federal Reserve’s plans to hike rates four more times this year will almost certainly set the scenario in motion.

Trump’s $5 Trillion Business-Investor Tax Cuts

Trump & Congress—with the mainstream media in train—say the Tax Cut Act just passed amounts to $1.5 trillion. But that’s not the true total value of the business tax cuts. That’s what they claim is the deficit impact of the tax cuts. (But even that deficit impact is grossly underestimated, as will be shown shortly).

Here’s the true value of the business-investor tax cuts:

1. $1.5 trillion cut due solely to reducing the corporate nominal tax rate from 35% to 21%.

2. Another $.3 trillion for the new 20% tax deduction for non-corporate businesses (lowering their effective tax rate from 37% to 29.6%).

3. $.3 trillion more for ending the business mandate for the Affordable Care Act

4. Still another, at minimum, $.5 trillion for a combined accelerated business depreciation writeoffs (a form of tax cuts for writing off all equipment added by business in the year purchased instead of amortized over several years); plus repeal of the Alternative Minimum Tax for Corporations: and a roughly halving of the AMT for individuals. But that’s not all.

5. The wealthiest 1% households, virtually all investor class, get their nominal individual income tax rate reduced from 39.6% to 37%. Moreover, the 39.6% did not kick in until an income level of $426,000 was reached. Now the threshold for the even lower 37% does not start until $600,000 income is reached. All that amounts to at least another $.5 trillion in tax cuts.

That’s a total of $3 trillion so far in tax cuts in the Trump Plan. But the further, really big tax cuts come for US Multinational Corporations. Their ‘take’ will be another $2 trillion in tax reduction over the next decade.

The Multinationals have hoarded between $2-$2.7 trillion in cash offshore in order to avoid paying taxes on their earnings. But that $2 trillion is a gross underestimation. First of all, it’s a figure for only the 500 largest US multinationals. What about the hundreds of thousands of other US corporations that also have foreign subsidiaries in which they park their cash to avoid taxes? And what about the unreported cash and assets they’re hoarding in offshore tax havens in the Cayman Islands, Bermuda, Vanuatu and elsewhere? That too is not part of the $2.-$2.7 trillion. Another reason to doubt the $2 trillion is accurate is that they already had $2 trillion stuffed away offshore back in 2011-12. According to the business periodical, Financial Times, the largest US corporations by January 2012 “are collectively sitting on an estimated $2,000bn of cash”. Does anyone believe they stopped diverting profits and cash offshore after 2011-12 for the past five years?

If one conservatively estimates there’s $4 trillion in cash stuffed offshore to avoid taxes (accumulating since 1997 when Bill Clinton conveniently allowed them to begin doing so), the new Trump tax act allows them to pay a tax of only 10% on average if they ‘repatriate’ (bring back) that cash. If they paid the prior 35% tax rate, it would cost them $1.4 trillion in 2018-19, the first year of the Trump tax. But estimates of this provision in the Trump bill show they plan to pay only $339 billion. So they will be saving approximately $1.061 trillion in the first year alone. Thereafter for the next nine years they pay only 8% to 15.5%, instead of the 35%. That amounts to at minimum another $1 trillion in tax savings for multinational US corporations under the Trump tax.

6. In short, US multinational corporations will get a tax reduction of at least $2 trillion

The Trump tax cuts for businesses and investors thus total $5 trillion over the next decade!

So how do Trump, Congress, and the media get to only $1.5 trillion? Here’s how they do it:

They raise taxes on the middle class by $2 trillion in the Trump tax plan. That leaves the $5 trillion in business-investor cuts, minus the $2 trillion in middle class tax hikes, for a net $3 trillion in cuts. But they admit to only $1.5 trillion in net tax cuts. So where’s the difference of the other $1.5 trillion? That difference is assumed to be ‘made up’ (offset) by the US economy growing at a GDP rate of 3-3.5% (or more) for the next ten years—i.e. more than 3% for every year for ten more years without exception!

That 3-4% annual overestimated economic (GDP) growth for the US economy is based on ridiculous assumptions: that slowing long term trends in US productivity and labor force growth will someone immediately reverse and accelerate; that the US will now grow at double the annual rate it did the previous decade; and that there’ll be no recession for another decade when the historical record shows the typical growth period following recession is 7-9 years and the US economy is already in its 8th year since the last recession. (If there’s a recession, then the annual GDP growth for nine years will have to average close to 5% a year—a figure never before ever attained!).

It’s all Trump ‘smoke and mirrors’, lies and gross misrepresentations. But no matter, for its really all about accelerating the subsidization of corporations and capital incomes for the wealthiest 1% by means of fiscal policy now that the central bank’s 9 years of subsidization of capital incomes by monetary policy (i.e. near zero rates, QE, etc.) is coming to an end.

Trillion $Dollar US Deficits for Years to Come

The US budget deficit consequences of the Trump tax cuts are therefore massive. Instead of averaging $150 billion a year on average (the $1.5 trillion) the effect will be three to four times that, or around $300 to $400 billion a year!

On top of that there’s Trump’s latest US budget, which projects another $300 billion for the next two years alone. With the majority of that total $150 billion a year caused by escalation of the Defense-War budget as the US builds up its tactical nuclear, naval and air forces in anticipation of more aggressive US moves in Asia. Last year’s budget deficit was $660 billion. The Congressional Budget Office estimates deficits of $918 billion by 2019. Independent estimates by Chase bank put it at $1.2 trillion. And that’s just the early years and assuming there’s no recession, which will balloon deficits by hundreds of billions more in reduced tax revenues due to a contracting US economy.

Independent projections are for US deficits to add $7.1 trillion over the next decade. But that’s an underestimate that assumes not only no recession, but also that defense-war spending will not rise beyond current projection increases, and that government costs for covering price gouging by the healthcare and prescription drug industries (for Medicaid, Medicare, CHIP, government employees) will somehow not also continue to accelerate. The likely true hit to US deficits—and therefore the US national debt—will well exceed $12 trillion! The US could easily see consecutive annual budget deficits of $1.5 trillion. That will mean a US debt total rising from current $20 trillion to $32 trillion (or more) over the coming decade.

From Tax Cuts, Deficits & Debt to the Next Recession

How does this potentially translate into recession? Here’s a very likely scenario:

The US central bank, the Fed, has already begun raising interest rates. That has already begun slowing key industries like auto and housing. It will soon impact consumers in general, who are near-maxed out with credit card, auto, student loan, and mortgage debt, and facing further accelerating inflation in rents, healthcare costs, transport, state and local taxation, and prices for imported goods.

The massive deficits will require the central bank to raise interest rates perhaps even faster and higher than before. Slowing foreigners’ purchases of US government bonds to pay for the accelerating debt, may require the Fed to raise rates still further. It’s 2007-08 all over again!

Rising Fed interest rates and inflation will also continue to depress bond prices. That has already begun, and to spill over to stock prices as the major contraction in stock prices in February 2018 has revealed. Both bond and stock prices are headed for further decline.

Should stock market prices correct a second time this year, this time by 20% or more, the contagion effects across markets will result in a general credit crunch for non-financial corporations and businesses. US corporate debt has risen even more than US household or government debt since 2009. The corporate junk bond markets will experience a crisis, as US Zombie companies (i.e. those in deep debt, an estimated 12% to 37% of all US corporations, depending on the source) cannot get new financing and begin to go bankrupt.

These stock and bond market effects, and emerging Zombie company defaults, will result in a general investment pullback by non-financial corporations. That will mean production cuts that result in layoffs and further wage stagnation and slowing consumption spending. The next recession will have begun.

The Central Bank (FED) Will Precipitate the Next Recession—As It Did in 2007

This scenario is all the more likely if the general argument that the US economy is both financial and non-financially weak and fragile is accurate. The weakness in the real economy and fragility in the financial markets mean that Fed interest rate hikes cannot exceed 2.0%, and longer term rates (10 year Treasury bonds) cannot exceed 3.5%, before the system ‘cracks’ once again and descends into recession. With the Fed rates at 1.5% and approaching 2% and the Treasury at 3% and approaching 3.5%, the US economy today is well on its way to approaching its limits.

Just as it was interest rates peaking in 2007 that precipitated (not caused) the crash in (subprime) mortgage bonds, that then spilled over through financial derivatives to the rest of the credit system—today the bond markets may once again be signaling the ‘beginning of the end’ of the current cycle. The new contagious derivatives may not be mortgage based bonds and CDO and CDS financial derivatives, as in 2008; the new financial contagion will be driven by the new financial derivatives—i.e. Exchange Traded Funds(ETFs), and related ETNs and ETPs—with their effects amplified by Quant hedge funds’ automated algorithm-based trading.

In summary, Trump tax cuts and Trump’s budget will exacerbate US budget deficits and debt and cause the central bank to raise interest rates even faster and higher. Those rate hikes cannot be sustained. They will lead to another credit crisis—this time even sooner than they did in 2007 given the even weaker US economy and more fragile financial markets. The next recession may be sooner than many think.

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Dr. Jack Rasmus is author of the recently published books, ‘Central Bankers at the End of Their Ropes: Monetary Policy and the Coming Depression’, Clarity Press, August 2017, and ‘Systemic Fragility in the Global Economy, Clarity, 2016. His forthcoming book later in 2018 is ‘Taxes, War & Austerity: Neoliberal Policy from Reagan to Trump’, Clarity Press. He blogs at jackrasmus.com and tweets at @drjackrasmus.

A new geopolitical confrontation is shaping up in the Middle East, and not only between Israel and Syria or Iran. Like most conflicts there, it involves a fight for hydrocarbon resources—oil and gas. The new focus is a dispute between Israel and Lebanon over the precise demarcation of the Exclusive Economic Zone between the two countries. The prime actors at present, in addition to the governments of Israel and Lebanon include Russia, the Lebanese Hezbollah, Syria, Iran and the US in the shadows. The latest Israeli attacks on alleged Iranian bases or Hezbollah camps inside Syria are closely tied to the Israeli aim to prevent a land link from Iran through Syria to the Hezbollah home-base infrastructure in Lebanon. The whole situation has the potential to lead to an ugly wider war nobody wants, at least almost nobody.

In 2010 the oil and gas geopolitics of the Mediterranean changed profoundly. That was when a Texas oil company, Noble Energy, discovered a huge deposit of natural gas offshore Israel in the Eastern Mediterranean, the so-called Leviathan Field, one of the world’s largest gas field discoveries in over a decade. The same Texas company later confirmed significant gas resources offshore in Cyprus waters near the Israeli Leviathan, called Aphrodite. Until recently, political paralysis inside Lebanon and the war in Syria had prevented Lebanon from actively exploring its offshore gas and oil potential. Now that’s changing. With the change, the tensions between Israel and Lebanon are escalating, and Russia is engaging in Lebanon in a bold way.

At a formal ceremony in Beirut on February 9, together with Lebanese President Michel Aoun, the heads of Total, ENI and Russia’s Novatek signed the first agreements to drill for oil and gas in the offshore sector claimed as part of Lebanon’s Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ). The event drew a sharp attack from Israeli Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman who called Lebanon’s exploration tender “very provocative,” declaring Lebanon had put out invitations for bids from international groups for a gas field “which is by all accounts ours.”

The energy tenders from Lebanon take place amid a backdrop of dramatic new defense relations between Russia and Lebanon, creating an entirely new political calculus in the Mediterranean region.

The Riches of Levant Basin

What’s clear at this point, after some eight years of exploration offshore in the Eastern Mediterranean, is that the region is awash with hydrocarbons, something neither Israel nor Lebanon had previously been able to find. For Lebanon, to develop its own sources of natural gas would be a literal godsend. The country has been subjected to electricity blackouts since the 1975 civil war. The country daily must experience cuts in electricity, because the peak demand exceeds production by a large margin. Lacking its own gas or oil Lebanon must import expensive diesel fuel at an annual loss to the economy of some $2.5 billion. Lebanon is one of the world’s most indebted countries with debt to GDP of some 145%. The Syrian war and internal Lebanese political stalemate have frozen its offshore energy exploration until now.

A UK company, Spectrum, conducted geophysical surveys in the offshore Lebanese section of the Levant Basin in recent years, including 3D seismic, and estimated that the Lebanese waters could hold up to 25 trillion cubic feet of economically recoverable gas. Development of those gas reserves would alter the entire economy of Lebanon. Until now the war in Syria and political paralysis inside Lebanon had prevented exploitation of the offshore region.

The prospects are promising enough that an international consortium led by the giant French Total, Italy’s ENI and Russia’s Novatek, a private oil company close to Vladimir Putin has stepped forward to bid for rights to drill. Consortium leader Total has announced the first well will be drilled next year in Block 4, an undisputed sector, and that a second well will be in Block 9, the block that falls partly within an area claimed by Israel. Total was quick to clarify that the Block 9 drilling would occur more than 15 miles from the disputed zone claimed by Israel. Despite this, Israel is vehemently protesting the drilling. Lebanon has an unresolved maritime border dispute with Israel over a triangular area of sea of around 330 square miles along the edge of three of its 10 blocks.

Russian buffer between Hezbollah and Israel?

Given the potential for conflict over the energy resources of the region, it’s no coincidence that just as Lebanon welcomes the participation of a major Russian oil company, Novatek, in development of its offshore resources, the Russian government has authorized the Russian Defense Ministry to prepare a military cooperation treaty that includes a “comprehensive framework for coordination,” with the Lebanese military. The framework reportedly includes joint military exercises and Russian usage of Lebanese ports and airfields as well.

The Russian-Lebanese cooperation reportedly also includes, “exchanging information on defense means and enhancing international security capabilities; activating anti-terror cooperation; improving joint cooperation in the fields of cadre training, military exercises and armed forces building; exchanging IT expertise; establishing mechanisms for cooperation between the two countries’ armies.” In short it is major.

This, in addition to the now-permanent Russian bases in Syria–Hmeimim air base and the Russian Naval base at Tartus on the Mediterranean–is a major move on Russia’s part to establish an permanent ongoing role in the volatile region as peace-broker or mediator as the credibility of Washington with her broken promises declines. This Russia-Lebanon deal is not exactly what is on Netanyahu’s wish list. The dramatic Israeli attacks inside Syrian airspace since February 10 indicate what seems to be a preemptive Israeli decision to try to disrupt the de facto Iran-Syria-Lebanon supply lines that could sustain the Hezbollah in Lebanon, that have begun to emerge in recent months.

Israel warns Putin of Hezbollah

If it were to come to a new Israeli-Lebanon-Syria shooting war, it would not be a war for simple control of potential oil or gas resources in the Lebanese offshore waters. The real target would be the Lebanese Hezbollah, the Iran-backed Shi’ia political party and militia, and a major actor on the side of Bashar al-Assad and Russia in the Syrian war. Were Lebanon to successfully develop the gas in the offshore region it could go a long way to stabilize the Lebanese economy, ease the high unemployment and, as Netanyahu sees it, further entrench the pro-Iran Hezbollah in power as the key stability factor.

Well before the latest Israeli strikes inside Syria recent Israeli press stories carried provocative headlines such as the recent one from the English-language Jerusalem Post: “5 reasons why Israel is ready for war with Hezbollah in Lebanon.” In September of last year, the Israeli Defense Forces launched a war game simulating such a clash with Hezbollah. IDF troops practiced shifting from a defensive to an offensive posture and executing maneuvers designed for the terrain of South Lebanon.

Last November a second front in a possible Israeli war against Lebanon’s Hezbollah was mooted when Saudi Crown Prince and future king, Mohammed bin Salman, abruptly summoned Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri to Riyadh to read a prepared statement of resignation. In the statement Hariri warned that unless Hezbollah ended its support for the anti-Saudi forces in Yemen as well as the pro-Assad Syrian engagement, the Saudis were prepared to impose severe economic sanctions on Lebanon as they did to Qatar. That would be devastating as the economically distressed Lebanese economy depends on remittances from some 400,000 Lebanese working in the Gulf who send home up to $8 billion yearly.

At this point Israel’s Netanyahu is in an open alliance with Saudi Prince bin Salman, with Washington in the shadows, to oppose Iran and Iranian influence in Syria as well as Lebanon and Yemen, following Netanyahu’s secret visit to Riyadh last September.

With the Trump Administration declaring its growing hostility to Iran as well as its highly-provocative unilateral recognition of Jerusalem as the Israeli capital, the preconditions for an Israeli third Lebanon war, this one backed from behind by Washington and up front by Saudi economic sanctions, using the pretext of territorial claims to Lebanese offshore waters, would have the potential to escalate into a far broader war across the Middle East. By inserting its formidable military presence as well as energy presence into Lebanon at this point, Russia at this point may be the only barrier to that new Middle East conflagration.

The dramatic escalation of Israeli attacks on Damascus and the Syrian shooting down of an Israeli F-16 jet, the first since 1982, and the disproportionate Israeli response against Syrian targets suggest how explosive the entire region is. As Ghassan Kadi writing for the Saker Blog recently notes in an excellent analysis of the situation in the region,

“The recent escalation between Syria and Israel is not a prelude for a bigger war. Nobody wants a war; not right now, as they are all aware of the damage that can be inflicted upon them. Israel keeps testing the waters, testing Syria’s air defense capabilities, and above all, testing Russia’s resolve and determination to create a true balance of power in the Middle East.”

As of this writing it appears as if Israel used the pretext of alleged Iranian drone incursion and the shooting of an Israeli F-16, something denied by Syria, to launch test probes of possible Russian and Iranian response going forward.

If Russia is able to contain these forces from an all-out war is not yet clear. The Russian decision to sign a military cooperation agreement with Lebanon at the same time a leading Russian energy company wins rights to drill for oil and gas offshore Lebanon is no spur-of-the-moment decision. It is a calculated chess move in one of the most entangled lands of the world. For the good of mankind let us hope it succeeds in restraining the war interests.

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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.

Featured image is from the author.

Featured image: A harsh critic of WADA and honorary member of the IOC Hein Verbruggen (1941-2017)

By the time the 2018 Winter Olympic Games opened in Pyeongchang last week, the masterminds behind the so-called Russian doping scandal had finally lost their control of the narrative, causing irreparable damage to the Olympic movement and to sports in general.  The politically motivated actions of a tiny group of functionaries in the sports industry have discredited the very concept of the purity of athletics and have resulted in a sharp drop in the world’s interest in the Games in Pyeongchang.  This is evident in the disastrous attendance figures (a month before the competitions began only 60% of the tickets had been sold, and the most popular events, hockey and figure skating, had the highest number of unclaimed seats) and could also be seen in the significant drop in the IOC’s ad revenues.

The reason for this downward spiral is obvious, when some athletes are discriminated against based on their nationality while others run mad with impunity, this not only ruins the element of suspense in the competitions, it also kills off spectator interest and advertising contracts.

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Let’s take a quick look back at the time line of events.  After the Russian Olympians’ stunning victories in 2014, which did much to spur the success of the “Russian Spring” in Crimea three weeks after the closing ceremonies in Sochi, influential Western players began investing serious money into hyping the scandal over the so-called “Russian doping file.”  

Back in December 2014, Germany’s ARD television channel produced a documentary featuring Russian track and field athlete Yuliya Stepanova and her husband, Vitaly Stepanov, a former employee of the Russian Anti-Doping Agency (RUSADA), in which they “exposed” the system of doping in Russia.  The fact that one year previously Stepanova had been disqualified in Russia, losing her eligibility for two years for doping, and that her violations had only been revealed after her husband left RUSADA in 2011, had somehow escaped the attention of the documentary’s creator Hajo Seppelt (for more information on the first round of efforts to promote the doping scandal, see our July 2016 article, “The Olympics as a Tool of the New Cold War”).

A month later WADA established a commission to investigate the alleged use of doping in Russian track and field athletics.  It consisted of three people: the chairman and first president of WADA, Richard Pound (Canada; image on the right), a law professor from the University of Western Ontario, Richard McLaren (Canada), and a former criminal investigator at Interpol, Günter Younger (Germany).  On Nov. 9, 2015, this commission published a report that included accusations against RUSADA.  The report also stated that in December 2014, the director of the Moscow Anti-Doping Laboratory, Grigory Rodchenkov, had ordered the destruction of more than 1,400 athlete doping tests, three days before a WADA audit team was to arrive in Russia.  On Nov. 10, 2015 Rodchenkov resigned from his position and in January 2016 he emigrated to the US (for more details on this individual’s background, please see the article mentioned above, “The Olympics as a Tool of the New Cold War”).

On May 12, 2016 the New York Times published a media bomb based on information provided by Rodchenkov.  It alleged that a special “doping program” was developed in Russia before the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, involving several dozen athletes, and its “specialty” supposedly consisted of anabolic steroids that were washed down with alcohol (!).  Then, in order to verify these borderline-bizarre allegations, WADA, at the IOC’s request, established yet another commission, this one headed by McLaren, which in July 2016, just a few weeks before the start of the Olympic Games in Rio, released the first (apparently urgent) section of its report that made the unsupported claim that the doping program in the world of Russian sports had the backing of the Ministry of Sports, the Sports Training Center for Russian Teams, and the Russian Federal Security Service.  On the basis of this “document,” which was never subsequently deemed convincing by any judicial authority, practically all Russian track and field athletes, as well as several competitors from other events, were banned from the Games in Rio.  

In November 2016 a new legislation took effect in Russia making it a criminal offense, with a punishment ranging from a fine to 3-5 years imprisonment, to induce an athlete to use doping drugs.

On Dec. 9, 2016 the second part of the McLaren commission’s report was released.  It claimed that the samples taken from 12 of the Russian medal winners at the 2014 Winter Olympics had been doctored.  It also stated that more than a thousand athletes might have been involved in or benefited from manipulations to conceal positive doping tests.  On the basis of this report, the IOC decided to strip the Russian national team of 13 of its medals won at the 2014 Winter Olympics.  But on Feb. 1, 2018, the CAS (Court of Arbitration for Sport) issued its own verdict, restoring the rights of 28 of the 42 Russian Winter Olympians affected by the IOC’s actions, including all of those who had lost their medals, and this fact would seem to put into question the legality and validity, at the very least, of McLaren’s report, based on the following statement found in that verdict:

In 28 cases, the evidence collected was found to be insufficient to establish that an anti-doping rule violation was committed by the athletes concerned.

Decisions about what to do with the remaining athletes were either postponed because it was no longer a pressing matter (the athlete in question had already retired) or else the plaintiffs’ appeals were partially upheld.  The lifetime ban on participation in the Olympic Games was lifted from all the applicants.

Despite the fact that the court blocked the IOC’s arbitrary decision to strip the Russian athletes of the medals they had won in Sochi, there was not time to challenge another egregious verdict: suspending the Russian Olympic Committee’s membership in the IOC and forcing the Russian team to compete in PyeongChang under a neutral Olympic flag.

Before we try to get the lowdown on this story, we must emphasize once again: both of these “investigative commissions” were established in the immediate aftermath of the made-to-order and in many respects fake news reports in the Western media about “doping in Russia.”  The biggest tipoff that they were fake was the fact that the main protagonists of this “investigative journalism” were individuals who had been justifiably punished or prosecuted in Russia for either using doping drugs or inducing others to use them, and under pressure from their media patron, those individuals extrapolated from their own sad experiences in front of the cameras to condemn the entire Russian sports community.  The hack jobs by Hajo Seppelt (image on the left) and the New York Times on the subject of Russian doping are examples of fake news in its purest form.

So, to all appearances, shortly after Russia’s triumphant performance at the Sochi Olympics, a small group of predominantly Anglo-Saxon sports functionaries made the decision (at present it’s hard to say whether they did so independently or at the behest of someone higher up) to ensure that there would be no more unpleasant surprises in the future.  They hired several professionals, the most publicly visible of whom were Richard McLaren and Hajo Seppelt, to help out with the media on their project and lend it an air of expertise (proof that McLaren is in no way an “independent lawyer” can be seen in his outraged reaction to the February CAS decision).

In addition to the challenging task of discrediting Russian athletics in the international media, these individuals had to conduct a backstage war with the International Olympic Committee at the same time.  Far from everyone in the IOC’s leadership was delighted at the prospect of the nascent scandal and the serious damage to the Olympic movement that was being broadly predicted three years ago.  This is quite evident from the copies of the email correspondence (seemingly quite genuine) between IOC officials in regard to the doping scandal that have recently appeared on the Internet.

Without question the most illustrative example of these was the exchange of harshly worded letters between McLaren and the Director General of the IOC, Christophe de Kepper (image on the right), which took place in March 2017.  They were prompted by de Kepper’s Feb. 24, 2017 memo that was circulated to the members of the IOC Executive Board, the National Olympic Committees, and international sports federations, which contained criticism of McLaren.  In particular, it noted that “the work of the Oswald Commission and of the IFs is not easy,” as McLaren’s mandate “did not involve any authority to bring Anti-Doping Rule Violation (‘ADRV’) cases against individual athletes.”  In regard to accusations that a “state doping system” exists in Russia, de Kepper stated with bewilderment that in his reports McLaren could not even stick to a consistent terminology: in some places he speaks of a “state sponsored system” whilst in the final full report he described an “institutional conspiracy.”  The main problem, as de Kepper acknowledges, is the lack of sufficient evidence to back up the accusations against the Russian athletes:

“The establishment of acceptable evidence is a significant challenge, as some IFs have already experienced; where in some cases they have had to lift provisional suspensions or were not able – at least at this stage – to begin disciplinary procedures due to a lack of consistent evidence.”

As can be seen both from the text of the memo and in other publicly available confidential IOC documents (for example, a stunningly open list of questions for Prof. McLaren, dated Dec. 19, 2016 and drafted by the IOC Disciplinary Commission chaired by Samuel Schmid after examining his final report), in the first days after the report’s publication, the IOC and international federations were faced with the difficulty of digging up any shreds of evidence backing McLaren’s allegations.  Questions have even been raised in regard to the accuracy of the translation of the materials found in the report (apparently translated from Russian):

“At the recent meeting (21 February) held by WADA in Lausanne to “provide assistance to IFs regarding how to analyse and interpret the evidence”, it was admitted by WADA that in many cases the evidence provided may not be sufficient to bring successful cases. IFs were told by WADA to make direct contact with the IP team to try to obtain further information. WADA also explained that the translations used by the IP team were not adequate and was obtaining official translations of some of the texts.”

International sports officials had a foreboding even back then that they could expect a real grilling once matters made it to the courts and arbitration tribunals:

“It is already evident from the appeals filed against some International Federations provisional suspension decisions that the IOC decision will have to stand up to a strong legal challenge.”

It is also interesting that in his memo de Kepper makes it clear that WADA’s flawed and one-sided efforts were much to blame for the scandal over “Russian doping”:

“The IOC is also pursuing the reform of the WADA system… We are driving forward to establish an independent testing authority – independent from sports organisations and from national interests… Sanctioning should be delegated to the CAS as the IOC successfully did at the Olympic Games Rio 2016… The IOC has made proposals for more accountability, transparency and diversity [of WADA]”.

You are unlikely to have read Prof. McLaren’s March 2, 2017 response to this memo.  But it’s quite interesting and a few passages from it deserve to be quoted here.

First of all, the professor expresses his intense dissatisfaction with the fact that he was not informed in advance about the drafting of the memo and also that the issues in dispute were never discussed with him:

“It would have been helpful if you had spoken to me in advance so that I could have addressed the various issues you raise in relation to my Report.”

Second, he tries to argue that he had never been tasked with searching for evidence of doping by any specific Russian athlete:

“It was not my mandate to bring violations against individual athletes. I am concerned that the IOC seems to be on a quest to re-define my mandate by attempting to establish that my Reports are inadequate for a purpose for which they were never intended.”

In regard to the confusion about the terminology (“state sponsored system”), McLaren acknowledges that the fantasies of those who fabricated information for him about “Russian doping programs” did not rise higher than the ministerial level (“My evidence stopped at the Ministry of Sport”).

Finally, as for the inaccuracies in the translations, it turns out that he had no intention of making those official:

“The translations into English by my team… were never intended to be ‘official’. They were provided on the Evidence Disclosure Package (EDP) to assist users and not to certify the translation for some legal purpose.”

Incidentally, in later comments with respect to the last passage, de Kepper’s office quite sensibly remarked: “It should be pointed out that the IOC as well as (and maybe even more so) the IFs are being asked to take some very tough decisions, with serious legal and non-legal consequences, on the basis of the Report(s).”

In general, de Kepper’s team’s reaction to Prof. McLaren’s letter and their stiff response indicate that the IOC had a pretty accurate picture of both the motives driving the Canadian lawyer as well as the mandate assigned to him:

“It seems that Robert McLaren’s first Report was intended to lead to the complete expulsion of the Russian team from the Rio Games, and the second – to expulse the Russian team from Pyeongchang Games, but not to deal with athletes on an individual basis. Perhaps McLaren and WADA should have thought this through in more detail prior to the Reports being made public – in particular, to themselves to have had the courtesy to discuss this matter of principle with the IOC in further detail, before WADA went down the path of using the (first) Report to try to have the Russian team excluded from the Rio Games, rather than McLaren and WADA considering to go down the path that the IOC intended to take, namely, to deal with the individual athletes on a case-by-case basis. This put the IOC and the IFs, and the Olympic movement in general, in a very difficult position.”

It should be noted that the insiders at the IOC Executive Board peppered their letter from McLaren with comments that indicate that the Canadian professor is lying at every turn:

As a result, de Kepper’s response has some harsh things to say about McLaren’s claims that he supposedly always cleared his reports with the IOC in advance:

“I am sorry to inform you that this has simply not been the case. We made multiple requests to be allowed to have advanced view of your documents with the promise of total confidentiality ahead of publication but sadly this was never forthcoming. Indeed, in the case of the first interim report you even told us that “this content does not primarily concern you’.”

De Kepper even twice transparently drops hints to McLaren, implying that the latter, in his role as a professional lawyer, must, after all, easily be able to see for himself how decisions that will inevitably face a strong legal challenge must be drafted:

“As a senior and respected international lawyer, you will certainly appreciate that the process of gathering credible evidence against individuals, sufficiently robust to ensure convictions in a manner which justice is done and seen to be done, is a long and detailed process. It was for this reason that it was felt necessary and important to send a communication to the Olympic Movement on the work by the two IOC Commissions to explain the process and describe the work that was being done. Indeed, it was the very fact that your mandate did not extend to individual cases that impelled us to explain to our stakeholders the process that is underway to complete this work.”

“This may well be the case – but as a law professor I hope you will agree that this is another instance where the standard of evidence we will need to successfully prosecute cases is higher than the evidence you have provided.”

In general, de Kepper’s letter in many places deserves to be quoted verbatim:

“As for the matter of you changing your description of the affair from a ‘State sponsored’ system to an “institutional conspiracy” this does seem to mark a change in attitude on your part. However, whatever your final conclusions, whilst your report does indeed uncover a conspiracy there is precious little evidence as to who would be involved in such a conspiracy. Would this again be a case that ‘goes beyond your mandate” or would you be able to indicate and provide evidence of who exactly may have been involved in this conspiracy. At present you have left us with good evidence that a crime has been committed but little evidence of those who were responsible.”

“Let us both agree that cooperation has not always been what it should have been between the IP team [Independent Person – a sleek euphemism, used by Prof. McLaren to indicate himself in his reports – OR] and the Olympic Movement. You have brought to our attention the limits of your mandate. However, please note that, in view of these limits, the IOC and, in particular, the IFs have ended up bearing a huge and very difficult burden in trying to convert the material/information referred to in your Report into Anti-Doping Rule Violations against individual athletes. A further problem was created by your Report (and the previous Report regarding this subject) seemingly being used to try and justify a total ban of the complete Russian Olympic team from the Rio Games and the Pyeongchang Games when, in fact, the IOC and the IFs are/were simply not of the view that a collective punishment should be, or should have been, imposed upon all Russian athletes” [all emphasizes done by OR].

“It is clear that such cooperation [between the IOC and IP team – OR] is now needed if we are to do our job and to turn your general conclusions about an ‘institutional conspiracy’ into concrete findings against individuals and organizations and also if we are to successfully prosecute individual cases with at least a chance of success at CAS. WADA has said that International Federations need to contact your team directly to receive materials. It would be good to receive your cast iron agreement that your team will offer this full cooperation and allow us to go beyond your mandate and prosecute successful cases against individuals and organizations based on evidence that will stand up in a court of law.”

***

It is interesting that during those same few days when de Kepper was working with his staff to draft the letter answering McLaren, de Kepper was also corresponding with the chief executive officer of the US Olympic Committee, Scott Blackmun (image on the left).

That correspondence was in reference to the statement from the US Olympic Committee, circulated on March 10, 2017 by the leading global news agencies, that it was preparing some kind of “position paper” in advance of the March 11-12 World Anti-Doping Agency Symposium in Lausanne (Switzerland), which would include American proposals for reforming WADA, specifically stipulating that “there must also be a clearly independent anti-doping body with overriding global authority of those national anti-doping organization (NADO) programs, with the responsibility to test, investigate, and sanction when necessary – ensuring consistency across countries and sports.”  This was undoubtedly an attempt by the US to head off the initiative announced by de Kepper in his Feb. 23 memo about needing reform and better balance from WADA.  De Kepper’s urgent email to Blackmun leaves no doubt that the USOC statement was entirely unexpected for him:

In his reply, Blackmun feigns surprised innocence:

“This was a piece that our executive board asked for and actively participated in creating…

…If there are differences between the details of our position and the IOC’s, then our statement is meant to reflect our recommendations, nothing more…

If you believe that our input should not conflict with the IOC’s desired outcome in any respect, I think that kind of defeats the point of providing input…

My own personal view was that the statement would not give you any heartburn as I know from our discussions that you agree on the most important point, which is independence. If I have miscalculated, apologies.”

The IOC’s position could not be clearer, based on the following correspondence:

De Kepper: “My point is rather that USOC had an opportunity also to show unity with the rest of the Olympic movement by openly supporting the IOC/OM positions on reforms and in particular the ITA [Independent Testing Authority – OR].”

And the essential: “There is however one problematic point and this is a fundamental one. USOC is pleading for WADA to have sanctioning powers and we strongly disagree with this. The same organisation cannot be legislator, police and judge at the same time. Recent history has shown where this can lead even more so if it is a political body with only limited cultural and geographical diversity in its boards.”

During those same few days (March 11-12, 2017), battles were raging even at the level of the Athlete Commissions (AC) between WADA and the IOC about the future of the anti-doping system.  Judging by mails coming from the same source, at the March 12 WADA AC meeting, an attempt was made to remove that body from the orbit of the IOC, and the meeting apparently became very heated.  The sponsor of the scandalous initiative was WADA’s Director General Olivier Niggli, and it was prompted by WADA’s dissatisfaction with the IOC’s position on the work of the McLaren commission:

Those who want to get a better feel for the nuances of the disputes between WADA and the IOC regarding the work of the world anti-doping agencies can study the draft presentation paper, which the Athlete Commission of the IOC drafted in the wake of Olivier Niggli’s maneuver. In our opinion, the main correction introduced into the text that day was the recommendation that WADA AC be composed with a majority of elected members and that its Chair should sit on the WADA Executive Committee as a full member:

Perhaps sports-industry insiders will be able to glean other interesting nuggets from this document.

Craig Reedie (right), president of the World Anti-Doping Agency, and Olivier Niggli, its director-general

Here is the picture that is emerging based on the material available to us: There is indeed a conspiracy at the heart of the “Russian doping” scandal, but it’s quite a different one than what the global media has so fervidly described so far.  This conspiracy involves WADA bureaucrats and a few national Olympic committees (the USOC is among them for certain), and their goal is to establish complete control over the system of regulating doping in sports, independent of the IOC.  They need that control, on one hand, to prevent any PR damage from the systematic use of doping by Western athletes, and on the other – to acquire some effective leverage in the form of political and propaganda pressure that can be used on any sport nation they think needs to be hog-tied.

Even more condemning conclusions over the doping deadlock the WADA is leading the international top sport into, were articulated by the late honorary member of the IOC Hein Verbruggen in his letter to Thomas Bach on Oct 13, 2016. If you haven’t read it yet, we strongly recommend to do it now. A couple of key quotations:

“The dramatic events of the last months in anti-doping have made us all think about WADA’s role and responsibilities. I think we have suddenly all realized that this organisation has in fact during 17 years been in the hands of four people: Mr Pound, Mr Howman, Mr Reedie and Mr Niggli. I left out Mr Fahey who unexpectedly was put into the WADA chair without having any experience in anti-doping (which was perhaps convenient for those who wanted to retain the power but definitely not good for WADA).”

“With all respect for President Reedie, I think nobody familiar with WADA will contest that Mr Pound still has a dominant position within that organization.”

“The current WADA has to a large extent failed to be a viable and universally trusted and respected anti-doping organization, because – as well as for genuine anti-doping – it has from the beginning (17 years ago) also been used for politics. We all know – but we usually do not dare to say – that there exists a sound anti-IOC and anti-Europe attitude at the level of the WADA leadership. This WADA-leadership (appointed by the IOC, which is the cynical part of the story) usually teams up with a small group of (mainly) Anglo-Saxon NADO’s (USA, Canada, New Zealand, Australia, United Kingdom and Norway/Scandinavia on the sideline) and this has created a division that has allowed the same people to stay at the helm for a way too long period. This “coalition” can also be seen from the composition of the WADA committees (including panels and expert groups)…”

“We have to face up to the inconvenient fact that many within the Olympic Movement are afraid of criticism by WADA and Mr Pound in the sensitive and mediatic field of anti-doping. This fear explains in my view why Mr Pound and friends do not seem to worry about not being nominated anymore and why they have been able to maintain their WADA positions for 17 years, as if there were no other competent people and good governance would not recommend a change from time to time. But of course Mr Pound sees that fear also and it explains why he feels so strong in his lecturing (and in my opinion: even insulting, see e.g. his “redemption” article) the IOC.”

“Even recognizing the work that WADA and its leadership have done for the fight against doping, that does not allow to turn a blind eye on what went wrong. This has recently culminated in WADA arrogating a public call on the IOC to impose a last minute ban on all Russian athletes from the 2016 Olympic Games, whereas it was precisely WADA that largely contributed to this very problematic situation by not following up promptly and adequately the information it had received since 2010.”

“My battle was, and still is, also for what I consider to be WADA’s genuine mission in an effective fight to protect clean sport, and in support of the IOC that has the moral leadership of the fight against doping and was and still is repeatedly chafed by the WADA leadership.”

As we know, despite the desperate struggle for legitimacy in sports, at least by the Director General of the IOC Christophe de Kepper, the International Olympic Committee was eventually forced to yield to the pressure of the international doping lobby.  The question as to what types of leverage were being used in mid and late 2017 might be the topic of a separate investigation.  It is obvious, for example, that McDonalds’ June 2017 decision to terminate its sponsorship contact with the IOC ahead of schedule, after a 40-year partnership, did not happen in a vacuum, but was instead part of a campaign to exert pressure on the IOC leadership.  It is also symptomatic that in January 2018, United States prosecutors issued grand jury subpoenas against the biggest sports organizations, including the International Olympic Committee, on “racketeering, money laundering, and fraud charges related to various elite competitions.”  An additional juicy detail is that the New York Times story on this subject not only came out within mere hours of the CAS’s verdict exonerating the Russian athletes, but also was written by the same Rebecca Ruiz, who in May 2016 was ordered to draft the fake article that triggered McLaren’s “investigation.”

*

All images in this article are from Oriental Review where this article was originally published.

Yesterday, a high court judge ruled to uphold a UK arrest warrant for WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, consigning him to further limbo and little chance of justice.

While the details, twists and turns of this case are certainly important, it’s essential to first understand that this case no longer has anything to do with any laws Assange is said to have broken. It is now one hundred percent political. 

How did we get here?

In August 2010, the Swedish Prosecutor’s Office issued an arrest warrant for Assange as part of an investigation for an alleged sexual assault involving two women. This triggered a European Arrest Warrant, which prompted UK authorities to issue a warrant for the arrest and detention of Assange.

In September 2010, Assange was arrested and then released on bail. At the time, US authorities were already openly branding Assange as an international criminal and calling for his apprehension and to stand trial in the US where he would face any number a federal charges ranging from espionage to ‘threatening US national security’ by publishing, among of other things, a damning video leaked in 2010 that depicted US war crimes in Iraq.

On June 19, 2011, prior to his extradition hearing, Assange jumped bail, and claimed political asylum at the Ecuadorian Embassy in London where he has been living in the basement ever since. By jumping bail at that time, Assange triggered a separate UK arrest warrant. However, the Swedish sex assault case was eventually dropped in August 2015, and has since been deemed by many analysts to be vexatious, if not completely fraudulent. Despite all this, the UK government has still enforced the original charge of jumping bail.

UK judgment

There were faint hopes that yesterday’s hearing at Westminster magistrates court might yield a victory for justice and common sense, but those hopes were dashed by senior Judge Emma Arbuthnot. Seemingly unmoved by recent game-changing events, she sluggishly reiterated that bail jumpers like Assange must “come to court to face the consequences of their own choices.”

In addition, the judge made a series of bizarre remarks, including a claim that Assange has not been arbitrarily detained, and should be grateful of the luxurious conditions of his incarceration.

“Firstly, he can leave the embassy whenever he wishes; secondly, he is free to receive, it would seem, an unlimited number of visitors and those visits are not supervised; thirdly, he can choose the food he eats, the time he sleeps and exercises.”

“He can sit on the balcony (I accept probably observed by the police and his supporters) to take the air. He is not locked in at night.”

The first comment by judge Arbuthnot was a condescending one, considering how police teams are on rotation 24/7, ready to detain Assange should he dare to step foot out the front door. It should also be noted that he has only ventured out on the embassy’s balcony a total of six times in five and half years.

Pulling security to get me safely on the balcony six times in six years for a few minutes turns into this: https://t.co/Y46PVZ9C5x

— Julian Assange ⌛ (@JulianAssange) February 13, 2018

Assange is all too aware of what will happen when he walks out that door in London’s Belgravia; he will be arrested, questioned and held on remand until such a time that the British will hand him over to US authorities to be rendered from RAF Northholt back to the US and placed in a federal penitentiary, awating to stand trial for a laundry list of trumped-up allegations prepared by the US Department of Justice.

While the UK government refuses to publicly announce any US extradition orders for Assange, it’s fairly obvious that UK and US authorities have a coordinated strategy in containing and apprehending him. According to a statement made to The Guardian by his defense lawyer Jennifer Robinson, the US government is certain to bring a case against Assange and Wikileaks:

“The UK FCO [Foreign and Commonwealth Office] refuses to confirm or deny whether there is an extradition request for Mr Assange,” she said. “In our recent FOI challenge against the CPS […] the CPS refused to disclose certain material because it would ‘tip off’ Mr Assange about a possible US extradition request. It is time to acknowledge what the real issue is and has always been in this case: the risk of extradition to the US.”

Considering the high-profile nature of this case, it’s a bit ludicrous for the UK government to pretend this is not a fait accompli. Of course, when any government official says ‘we can neither confirm or deny’ then it is evasive, and should normally be translated as an indirect confirmation.

21WIRE editor Patrick Henningsen following Tuesday’s case hearing here:

What should have been considered by the British high court, but wasn’t, was new evidence that should have deactivated any legacy arrest warrant. Last year saw the release of a series of emails obtained through a FOIA challenge made by Italian journalist Stefania Maurizi, which showed how Swedish law enforcement wanted to drop the spurious sex investigation back in 2013 – only to have UK officials intervene and persuade them to keep the collapsed case going.

If that wasn’t bad enough, when Swedish officials wanted to travel to London to take an official statement from Assange, they were persuaded by UK authorities not to come, thus needlessly dragging proceedings on another few years. Maurizi’s FOI request revealed one email from the UK’s The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) lawyer to Swedish prosecutors, dated January 25 2011:

“My earlier advice remains, that in my view it would not be prudent for the Swedish authorities to try to interview the defendant in the UK.”

Upon hearing from Swedish officials that they might drop the Assange sex case back in August 2012, the CPS lawyer at the time barked back in an intimidating fashion, saying:

“Don’t you dare get cold feet!!!”

This is clear case of collusion between the two countries.

Award-winning British journalist Jonathan Cook explains the gravity of this discovery:

“Swedish director of public prosecutions, Marianne Ny, wrote to Britain’s Crown Prosecution Service on 18 October 2013, warning that Swedish law would not allow the case for extradition to be continued. This was, remember, after Sweden had repeatedly failed to take up an offer from Assange to interview him in London, as had happened in 44 other extradition cases between Sweden and Britain.”

Ny then confirmed to the CPS:

“We have found us to be obliged to lift the detention order … and to withdraw the European arrest warrant. If so this should be done in a couple of weeks. This would affect not only us but you too in a significant way.”

“In other words, for more than four years Assange has been holed up in a tiny room, policed at great cost to British taxpayers, not because of any allegations in Sweden but because the British authorities wanted him to remain there. On what possible grounds could that be, one has to wonder? Might it have something to do with his work as the head of Wikileaks, publishing information from whistleblowers that has severely embarrassed the United States and the UK,” said Cooke.

However, only a fraction of the email exchange evidence between the Sweden and the CPS was recovered. Why? Because CPS deleted many of the emails on Assange’s extradition – a clear case of the state destroying potentially self-incriminating evidence.

Not surprisingly, the CPS denied any wrongdoing at the time, stating this was ‘normal procedure to delete emails’ and claimed that there were no back-up copies either (looks like another ‘cock-up’, see HRC: ‘my dog ate the emails’.

But they were also kind enough to inform the public that,

 “We have no way of knowing the content of email accounts once they have been deleted.”

What about transparency, and accountability? If the evidence suggests that the CPS are guilty of destroying evidence, then who will hold them to account? What are the chances of oversight in this case?

Following this revelation, Prof. Mads Andenas, the Faculty of Law at the University of Oslo stated,

 “It is disloyal to the legal system, it leaves us, who follow this case, with very little confidence in the rule of law. And it is clearly a breach of duty to indicate something like what we now expect was, or we are pretty sure was requested.”

In both instances, interference by the CPS can be interpreted as an intentional effort to pervert the course of justice.

In the case of the deleted emails, this would have been ordered by a superior, who in turn, would have been instructed by another, which would lead to the highest levels of state, and the likelihood that rear guard actions were taken at the behest of the United States, with Britain serving as a glove puppet of the United States. It wouldn’t be the first time. In geopolitical terms, this is not technically dissimilar to the chain of events which led to then Attorney General Lord Goldsmith’s eleventh hour ploy to declare Tony Blair’s decision to invade Iraq as both legal and lawful. To claim that no pressure or direct marching orders came from the Bush Administration on this matter would be extremely naive, but that’s how state-friendly media outlets like the BBC gleefully spun the story long after-the-fact by promoting the idea that the AG simply “changed his views at the last minute’.

In November last year, Assange’s lawyer Robinson explained just how far off the rails UK authorities have gone in their bid to isolate Assange:

“The United Kingdom is in breach of its international obligations, it’s found [Assange is] arbitrarily detained. And a large part of this decision-making process, was the way in which this case has been handled; and the fact he has been offering his testimony to the Swedish prosecutors for seven years.”

On February 5, 2016, a UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (WGAD) announced that the arbitrary detention of Julian Assange is unlawful, and ordered that he be released and compensated by Sweden and the United Kingdom. (Justice4Assange)

By going against the UN working Group’s recommendations, the UK cannot claim to be in-line with the ‘rules-based international system’, a seemly illusive standard for some we’re told, and one which current Prime Minster Theresa May repeatedly invokes when referencing all things Russian. Don’t forget that it was during May’s tenure as Home Secretary, that this entire Assange fiasco took shape, and if a proper inquiry were to be held, it’s almost certain that investigators would find May’s own fingerprints on some of this scandal.

It’s not hard to see the pattern here. Julian Assange is being incarcerated for exposing one government who was attempting to hide crimes of one state (the US slaughtering innocent Iraqis), while Theresa May appears to be involved in covering-up the potential injustices of another state – the UK government in collusion the CPS. Add in the likelihood of Washington’s strong-arming here, and you have a real international conspiracy. Seeing that the UK have not been directly affected in any severe manner by the actions Assange or exposures on WikiLeaks, we can only assume that the UK government acting on behalf of Washington DC – at the expense of due process and the rule of law.

Unless it wants to spark a crisis in international law, the UK will have to respect Julian Assange’s present diplomatic status.

Certainly, this ladder day Count of Monte Cristo would prefer the lush views of the Anes in Quito than the basement walls of Belgravia, but for that to happen it will take some extraordinary set of circumstances to occur. Not in Britain though, as the lapdog already has its orders. The change will have to take place in the United States.

So long as elites continue to hide the crimes of the state, Julian Assange will continue to serve his time.

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This article was originally published by 21st Century Wire.

Patrick Henningsen is an American writer and global affairs analyst and founder of independent news and analysis site 21st Century Wire, and is host of the SUNDAY WIRE weekly radio show broadcast globally on the Alternate Current Radio Network (ACR). He has written for a number of international publications and has done extensive on-the-ground reporting in the Middle East including work in Syria and Iraq.

India’s American-backed anti-Chinese “containment” strategy seeks to have New Delhi establish control over crucial nodes along the Sea Lines Of Communication (SLOC) in the Afro-Indian Ocean, but the country’s plans are being thwarted by China’s ingenuity in crafting asymmetrical workarounds to these future chokepoints.

Background Dynamics

Make no mistake about it, there’s a New Cold War raging between China and India all across “Greater South Asia”, which has recently reached a fever pitch during the Amero-Indian “deep state” Hybrid War on the Maldives and attendant risk that New Delhi might militarily intervene in the externally provoked crisis and prompt an even tenser strategic standoff with China. The dynamics of the 21^st-century geopolitics of the Multipolar World Order are such that India has been ‘flipped’ by the US against China in the New Cold War just as China was turned against the USSR in the Old Cold War, with Washington masterfully exploiting preexisting conflicts between both pairs of Great Powers in order to indefinitely divide and rule the Eastern Hemisphere to its hegemonic benefit.

Decades ago the US set China up against the USSR and pitted the two communist countries against one another in an internecine ideological struggle for the “hearts and minds” of the “Global South”, but this time it’s seeking to embroil India and China in an epic battle over competitive connectivity in the same transcontinental Afro-Asian space. Whereas China’s One Belt One Road global vision of Silk Road connectivity focuses on hard infrastructure projects, the joint Indo-Japanese “Asia-Africa Growth Corridor” (also known as the “Freedom Corridor”) aims to develop its soft component in skills training, healthcare, education, and other fields, ideally representing the perfect complementarity if both sides would coordinate their efforts for win-win dividends but likely devolving into a “zero-sum” campaign for influence against one another.

Tightening The Noose

This isn’t by China’s choice, but India’s, which has been egged on by the US to take a more active military role in its southern ocean so as to diminish Beijing’s freedom of navigation in the body of water through which the vast majority of its trade traverses, which is an ironic role for the so-called “world’s largest democracy” to take against the country that the Mainstream Media regularly paints as doing the exact same thing in the South China Sea. The US keenly recognizes that the Afro-Indian Ocean is China’s strategic weak point and that it must devise a grand ‘solution’ to counter the fact that Beijing has broken out of its Malacca Strait “containment” zone after the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) endowed it with unhindered overland access to this region.

Before explaining the geostrategic nature of the Amero-Indian “Chinese Containment” strategy, the reader must first recognize that the game-changing LEMOA deal that the two parties signed in summer 2016 allowed for the former “non-aligned” South Asian state to enter into an unprecedented military-strategic partnership with the unipolar hegemon, one which crucially permits the two sides to use one another’s military facilities on a case-by-case basis. In practice, this means that the Indian Armed Forces can utilize the centrally located Diego Garcia base just as their American counterparts are now at liberty to do the same with any of India’s bases on the subcontinent. In addition, both parties can also pivotally place their military units in one another’s facilities in Africa, which will be argued is an important development that shouldn’t be overlooked.

The Afro-Indian Ocean

Prior to exploring how this strategy is rapidly evolving in the region, it’s necessary to explain what’s meant by the neologism of the “Afro-Indian Ocean”. As was explained in a previous article touching upon this terminology, the “Indian Ocean” is a misnomer because the “Indus River” that it and “India” are named after is actually called the “Sindhu” by its Pakistani natives, therefore invalidating the British imperial-era concept behind these two entities’ modern-day names. It’s much more geo-historically accurate in a socio-cultural sense to divide this body of water between its African and “Indian” halves owing to the fact that the first-mentioned African western portion has centuries-long ties to the Mideast because of the Arab slave trade while the bulk of the subcontinent experienced even longer relations with its Southeast Asian part because of their shared Hindu-Buddhist legacy.

It wasn’t until the British colonial period that India and the rest of the subcontinent entered into extended and meaningful interactions with Africa, so it’s misleading for the modern-day country of India to lay claim to this entire body of water when it doesn’t have the historical basis for doing so in its western half. It’ll also be seen later on in the analysis that the distinction between this ocean’s African and Indian portions has a strategic significance in drawing attention to the different conditions in each competitive space, which correspondingly allows the two Great Power camps to more efficiently devise better plans for deepening their influence in them amidst these New Cold War conditions. So as to assist the reader in better understanding the broad geographic scope of what this entails, here’s a map of the Afro-Indian Ocean divided into its three theaters of competition:

* Green: African Ocean
* Red: Central Ocean
* Blue: Indian Ocean

Now here’s what the map looks like when illustrating China and India’s strategic infrastructure projects in the Afro-Indian Ocean, whether of a military or economic (airport, maritime port) nature:

Beginning with the African Ocean, these are the highlighted projects:

China:

* Djiboutian military base (Djibouti-Addis Ababa railway)
* Lamu Port, Kenya (LAPSSET)
* Bagamoyo, Tanzania (Central Corridor)
* Gwadar Port, Pakistan (CPEC)

India:

* Assumption Island naval and air base, Seychelles
* Madagascan radar and listening post
* Agalega air and port facilities, Mauritius
* Duqm naval base, Oman
* Chabahar port, Iran

As for the Central Ocean, the relevant infrastructure is:

China:

* Malé air and port facilities, Maldives
* Hambantota port, Sri Lanka

India:

* Diego Garcia naval and air base, British Indian Ocean Territory (via LEMOA with the US)
* Trincomalee port, Sri Lanka

And lastly, the facilities in the newly defined “Indian Ocean” are:

China:

* Kyaukphyu port, Myanmar

India:

*Andaman and Nicobar Islands naval base (potentially supported by Japan)

* Singapore naval base

The Three Theaters Of “Containment”

The primary difference between China and India’s Afro-Indian projects is that Beijing’s are suspected of having a potential “dual-use” capability in the future while many of New Delhi’s openly flaunt their military motivations.  In addition, China’s have been in the works for years, but India’s are a relatively recent development mostly clinched in the past two years that “coincidentally” followed its LEMOA deal with the US. It’s plain to see that Washington is directing New Delhi’s Afro-Indian strategy with the purpose of turning it into a naval (“Atlanticist”) power in order to “contain” China’s continental (“Eurasianist”) power. Furthermore, each theater of Afro-Indian competition carries with it its own unique battlespace qualities:

African Ocean:

This region stretches from the Mideast all the way down to East Africa and sees China limited to mainland infrastructure while India balances its strategic deployments with insular ones in the Seychelles and Mauritius. The Chabahar-Gwadar nexus might be “too close to comfort” for some, but even in the event that neither Great Power deploys military forces thereat first, India’s new rights to dock its naval units in Oman’s Duqm port could signal a “game-changer” that compels China to follow suit in Gwadar like the Mainstream Media has been falsely imagining that it already has. Under such a scenario, India is unlikely to receive corresponding privileges in Chabahar, but it’s probably for this expected reason why New Delhi proactively “pivoted” to Duqm instead.

The strategic significance of this Omani port lays not only in its dual maritime-mainline connectivity potential as part of a prospective GCC Silk Road project and/or a connector between East Africa-Mideast-Central Asia (the latter two per the Ashgabat Agreement that India recently acceded to), but also in its possible disruptiveness in the event that hostilities break out between India and Pakistan and/or China. It’s with this in mind that Oman’s decision to allow the Indian Navy to dock at Duqm should be seen as an unprecedented move by the monarchy because it defies the state’s traditional “neutrality” and could theoretically make it a target of Islamabad and/or Beijing if either of these two allies (or in that case, probably both) go to war with New Delhi.

Duqm is also significant because it sits between Gwadar and Djibouti, thus interfering with Pakistan’s ASGA Sea Lines Of Communication between CPEC and its African counterpart of the Djibouti-Addis Ababa Silk Road, as well as Port Sudan and the Sahelian-Saharan Silk Road. In addition, Indian forces in Duqm could also create complications for any speculative Pakistani-Chinese base in South Yemen’s Aden in the event of war, thus bestowing this sleepy desert town with untold and disproportionate influence in the larger scheme of things, though provided that New Delhi fully actualizes its strategic potential (up to and including the consideration of allowing its American ally to use this facility as well). Moving beyond Duqm, India’s presence in the Seychelles-Madagascar-Mauritius triangle can allow it and the US (via LEMOA) to exert influence on China’s East African Silk Road ports in Kenya and Tanzania.

Central Ocean:

This part of the Afro-Indian Ocean has become a major battleground lately due to the Amero-Indian “deep state” Hybrid War on the Maldives that’s predicated on removing or “containing” Chinese influence in this strategic archipelago. Concurrent with this, India has been trying to make inroads in Sri Lanka after contributing to the 2015 “electoral coup” against Chinese-friendly former President Rajapaksa, though it and its American ally were in for a surprise when the ousted leader’s political party swept the local polls earlier this week in a stunning show of his people’s dissatisfaction with the Indian-leaning authorities that replaced him.

Events in these two countries are pivotal because of their geostrategic consequences in the context of the Chinese-Indian New Cold War, as the retention or growth of Beijing’s influence would secure its SLOC and thus deepen the New Silk Road’s presence across this central belt of the Afro-Indian oceanic waterway while the victory of Indian proxy forces would powerfully counteract this to New Delhi, Tokyo, and Washington’s decisive advantage. As the political situations continue to simultaneously simmer along the Maldivian-Sri Lankan northern axis of this region, the joint Indo-American outpost of Diego Garcia continues to monitor events and casts an ever- ominous shadow over both of them.

Indian Ocean:

The eastern part of this body of water, now more accurately described as the real “Indian Ocean” in the framework of this analysis, has China importantly securing a dual mainland-maritime facility in Myanmar’s Rakhine State in the northeastern reaches of the Bay of Bengal. As for India, its newfound naval access in the Strait of Malacca via its agreement with Singapore and prospective joint patrols with Japan in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands could see New Delhi link up these eastern bases with its Sri Lankan port in the west and possibly future presence in Bangladesh in the north to turn the Bay of Bengal into an “Indian Lake”. If “successful”, then this would replicate the strategic “containment” conditions of the South China Sea that the People’s Republic initially sought to avoid when it commenced CMEC, though the “upside” would be that CPEC would become all the more important as a result.

Counteracting The Naval “Containment” Doctrine

For as seemingly dire as the strategic situation may be for China when it comes to the Amero-Indian naval “containment” doctrine against it, there still exist several realistic options for how it can counteract this emerging network of threats:

Win-Win Deal-Making With Oman And The Seychelles:

There’s no reason that anyone should assume that India’s developing military presences in these two strategically positioned countries is exclusive to its naval forces, as China’s “CPEC Diplomacy” could conceivably see it use win-win deal-making to “buy” its way into their port facilities as well following the pattern that it perfected in what had previously been New Delhi’s Maldivian and Sri Lankan underlings less than a decade ago. Although it would of course be preferable to China and its Pakistani ally that India didn’t have an expanding military footprint in either of these states, the “damage” that it could potentially do to the New Silk Road might be mitigated if they wisely sought to emulate the Djiboutian example in diversifying their military partnerships to the maximum and “balancing” between multiple “patrons”.

Leverage Military-Strategic Partnerships With Multipolar Third Parties:

Just like India has teamed up with the US, Japan, and soon even France (which has a few strategic outposts in the Afro-Indian Ocean), so too can China and Pakistan do the same with their multipolar military-strategic partners of Russia and Turkey in this space as well. Moscow hasn’t yet returned to having permanent basing rights in this region, but that doesn’t mean that Islamabad can’t invite it to receive such a privilege in Gwadar, something that Russia might accept under the plausibly deniable and ostensible basis that it’s not “military-oriented” against any third state-level party (i.e. the US) but is conditioned on protecting its forthcoming Iranian-Pakistani pipeline from any regional threats (i.e. Daesh/Al Shabaab/Baloch pirates, etc.). As for Turkey, it already has a land base in Mogadishu and could try to expand this into a naval one sometime in the future too.

The prevailing concept is that the introduction of third parties partnered with China and Pakistan could deter any unilateral or multilateral interference by India and its unipolar allies against the New Silk Road’s SLOC, relying on a classic “Balance of Power” paradigm to retain stability in this increasingly tense region. Both Russia and Turkey have been “spreading their wings” as of late and could be very interested in participating in this framework, especially if it develops a convenient apolitical non-military cover in order to deflect any accusations that this meant to counteract anyone else. By leveraging their military-strategic partnerships with these two states, China and Pakistan can secure CPEC and ensure that the Zipper of Eurasia truly does become the Convergence of Civilizations without being offset by the Amero-Indian axis’ Omani-Seychellois naval nexus under the worst zero-sum scenario there.

Break The Bay Of Bengal Blockade:

Although still a far-off eventuality, India is visibly laying the groundwork for sealing off the Bay of Bengal and neutralizing China’s CMEC via its hoped-for quadrilateral coordination between Singapore, the Andaman and Nicobar Islands base, Sri Lanka, and Bangladesh, so China must do all that it can to break through this de-facto blockade scenario.

To that end, supporting the Maldivian and Myanmarese governments in the face of Hybrid War threats is imperative, as is encouraging Sri Lanka and Bangladesh to “flip” away from India and deepen their “balanced” relations with China. Per the latter recommendation, Rajapaksa might prospectively win the upcoming elections if his comeback trend remains consistent, while the possibility of the opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party doing the same after what may have recently been the politicized jailing of its leader on “corruption” charges is much less probable.

Nevertheless, China needs to make it a national security priority that it doesn’t “lose” either of those two states because the consequences could be disastrous in that they’d form the crucial corners of the Amero-Indian “containment” network aimed at making the Bay of Bengal into an “Indian Lake”. This scenario would lead to unprecedented pressure being placed upon CMEC, thereby rendering it strategically inviable, and could also threaten the ASEAN Silk Road as well.

Concluding Thoughts

The global center of strategic gravity is shifting eastward from the Euro-Atlantic to the Asia-Pacific, with the Afro-Indian Ocean sitting smack dab in the center of this worldwide paradigm shift and accordingly becoming the ultimate pivot space. It’s not by accident that the US manipulated India into allying with it and sparking a New Cold War with China because this competitive state of affairs provides the perfect pretext for Washington to use New Delhi as its “cat’s paw” for “containing China” and expanding the Pentagon’s “Lead From Behind” Great Power proxy network into this irreplaceably significant body of water through which most of Beijing’s trade traverses.

The rapidly growing constellation of Indian bases that have sprouted up here in the past year and a half since New Delhi sealed its game-changing military-strategic partnership with the US through the summer 2016 LEMOA deal strongly suggests that American planners are orchestrating India’s all-around expansion into this ocean, but China can utilize creative solutions in leveraging its multipolar Silk Road partnerships to proactively counteract this latent threat before it becomes uncontrollable. Nevertheless, it’s unclear which of these two ‘camps’ will come out on top in the geopolitically expansive competition for influence in the Afro-Indian space, but what’s undoubtedly certain is that this intense dynamic of strategic rivalry will define the coming decades of the 21^st century.

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

All images in this article are from the author.

The drive to censor the Internet took another step this week with a public statement by Keith Weed, the chief marketing officer for the London-based multinational Unilever, threatening to withdraw advertising from social media platforms if they fail to suppress “toxic content.”

Weed reportedly told an annual leadership meeting of the Interactive Advertising Bureau in Palm Desert, California that the company “will not invest in platforms or environments” that “create divisions in society, and promote anger or hate.” He added,

“We will prioritize investing only in responsible platforms that are committed to creating a positive impact in society.”

Excerpts of Weed’s remarks—the most explicit of their kind from a major corporate executive—were leaked to several media outlets, including the Wall Street Journal and the Guardian. They were immediately featured on NBC News and other major American news outlets on Sunday. The Journal’s report was accompanied by an interview with Weed.

The coordinated release was designed to escalate the propaganda offensive by the Democratic Party and US intelligence agencies, together with the corporate media, for Internet censorship. The fraudulent premise for this assault on freedom of speech, both in the US and across Europe, is the claim that political opposition and social tensions are the product not of poverty, inequality and policies of austerity and militarism, but of “fake news” spread by Russia through social media.

Weed’s statements preceded yesterday’s US Senate Select Committee on Intelligence hearing, which witnessed a series of hysterical denunciations of Russia by politicians and intelligence agents. The Democratic vice-chairman of the committee, Mark Warner of Virginia, declared that Russia “utilized our social media platforms to push and spread misinformation at an unprecedented scale.”

Facebook responded to Weed’s threats by declaring,

“[W]e fully support Unilever’s commitments and are working closely with them.”

The Journal stated that Unilever “has already held discussions” with Facebook, Google, Twitter, Snap and Amazon “to share ideas about what each can do to improve.”

Weed absurdly framed his demand for censorship, made on behalf of a multibillion-dollar global corporation, as the expression of popular anger over the supposed spread of “fake news.” He referred to research showing a decline in trust in social media and a “perceived lack of focus” in the form of “illegal, unethical and extremist behavior and material on” social media platforms. Speaking to the Wall Street Journal, he claimed to be articulating the concerns of consumers over “fake news” and “Russians influencing the US election.”

Image on the right is Keith Weed

In reality, the intervention by Unilever—a consumer products behemoth with a market capitalization of $157 billion and annual revenues of $65 billion, more than the gross domestic product of many countries—only highlights the economic and political forces driving the censorship campaign: an alliance of the military/intelligence apparatus, giant technology firms and the corporate-financial oligarchy.

Unilever’s annual marketing outlays of nearly $9 billion place it in the top five companies in that category globally. It owns dozens of brands used by some 2.5 billion people around the world, including Dove soap, Rexona deodorant and food products Cornetto, Magnum and Lipton. Weed’s statements amount to a declaration that Unilever will use this economic power to filter what the world’s population can and cannot read online.

This is in line with a long and reactionary tradition. Large advertisers played a significant role in enforcing the McCarthyite witch hunt of socialist and left-wing figures in the US during the late 1940s and 1950s. General Motors, DuPont, Reynolds Tobacco and other major companies were backers of the notorious anticommunist periodical Counterattack, which published names of suspected communist sympathizers and forced the removal of targeted performers and critical content from programs they sponsored.

In one of many such cases, the blacklisted Jean Muir was dropped from the television show “The Aldrich Family” after General Foods, the program’s sponsor, told NBC it would not sponsor programs featuring “controversial persons.”

In another development, Susan Wojcicki, the CEO of YouTube (owned by Google’s parent company, Alphabet), told a Code Media conference in Los Angeles that Facebook “should get back to baby pictures and sharing.” The statement is a reference to Facebook’s announcement last month that it is deprioritizing news content on its News Feed in favor of “personal moments.” The change is one of a number of recent measures to prevent Facebook users from accessing news and analysis outside of officially sanctioned corporate outlets.

UK Home Secretary Amber Rudd on Tuesday released a government-developed application that uses machine-learning algorithms to automatically detect ISIS-related content in videos so that it can be censored.

The BBC wrote that the tool was seen by the government as a way to demonstrate that its “demand for a clampdown on extremist activity was not unreasonable.” Rudd stated, “The technology is there. There are tools out there that can do exactly what we’re asking for,” i.e., identifying and censoring video content. The new application will be provided free of charge to smaller video hosting companies, and the government will consider making its use legally mandatory.

The Washington Post, which along with the New York Times has been at the forefront of the censorship campaign, linked the UK government’s announcement to the intervention of Unilever, writing that it came “amid mounting pressure on social media companies to do more to remove extremist content from their platforms.”

Though its ostensible purpose is to fund the U.S. military over a one year period, the National Defense Authorization Act, better known as the NDAA, has had numerous provisions tucked into it over the years that have targeted American civil liberties. The most well-known of these include allowing the government to wiretap American citizens without a warrant and, even more disturbingly, indefinitely imprison an American citizen without charge in the name of “national security.”

One of the lesser-known provisions that have snuck their way into the NDAA over the years was a small piece of legislation tacked onto the NDAA for fiscal year 2013, signed into law in that same year by then-President Barack Obama. Named “The Smith-Mundt Modernization Act of 2012,” it completely lifted the long-existing ban on the domestic dissemination of U.S. government-produced propaganda.

For decades, the U.S. government had been allowed to produce and disseminate propaganda abroad in order to drum up support for its foreign wars but had been banned from distributing it domestically after the passage of the Smith-Mundt Act of 1948. However, the Modernization Act’s co-authors, Reps. Mac Thornberry (R-TX) and Adam Smith (D-WA, no relation to the Smith of the 1948 act), asserted that removing the domestic ban was necessary in order to combat “al-Qaeda’s and other violent extremists’ influence among populations.”

Thornberry stated that removing the ban was necessary because it had tied “the hands of America’s diplomatic officials, military, and others, by inhibiting our ability to effectively communicate in a credible way.” Yet, given that Thornberry is one of the greatest beneficiaries of weapon manufacturers’ campaign contributions, the real intent — to skeptics at least — seemed more likely related to an effort to ramp up domestic support for U.S. military adventurism abroad following the disastrous invasions of Iraq and Libya.

Five years later, the effects of the lifting of the ban have turned what was once covert manipulation of the media by the government into a transparent “revolving door” between the media and the government. Robbie Martin — documentary filmmaker and media analyst whose documentary series,  “A Very Heavy Agenda,” explores the relationships between neoconservative think tanks and media — told MintPress, that this revolving door “has never been more clear than it is right now” as a result of the ban’s absence.

In the age of legal, weaponized propaganda directed at the American people, false narratives have become so commonplace in the mainstream and even alternative media that these falsehoods have essentially become normalized, leading to the era of “fake news” and “alternative facts.”

Those who create such news, regardless of the damage it causes or the demonstrably false nature of its claims, face little to no accountability, as long as those lies are of service to U.S. interests. Meanwhile, media outlets that provide dissenting perspectives are being silenced at an alarming rate.

The effects of lifting the ban examined

Since 2013, newsrooms across the country, of both the mainstream and “alternative” variety, have been notably skewed towards the official government narrative, with few outside a handful of independently-funded media outlets bothering to question those narratives’ veracity. While this has long been a reality for the Western media (see John Pilger’s 2011 documentary “The War You Don’t See”), the use of government-approved narratives and sources from government-funded groups have become much more overt than in years past.

From Syria to Ukraine, U.S.-backed coups and U.S.-driven conflicts have been painted as locally driven movements that desperately need U.S. support in order to “help” the citizens of those countries — even though that “help” has led to the near destruction of those countries and, in the case of  Ukraine, an attempted genocide. In these cases, many of the sources were organizations funded directly by the U.S. government or allied governments, such as the White Helmets and Aleppo Media Centre (largely funded by the U.S. and U.K. governments) in the case of Syria, and pro-Kiev journalists with Nazi ties (including Bogdan Boutkevitch, who called for the “extermination” of Ukrainians of Russian descent on live TV) in the case of Ukraine, among other examples. Such glaring conflicts of interests are, however, rarely — if ever — disclosed when referenced in these reports.

More recently, North Korea has been painted as presenting an imminent threat to the United States. Recent reports on this “threat” have been based on classified intelligence reports that claim that North Korea can produce a new nuclear bomb every six or seven weeks, including a recent article from the New York Times. However, those same reports have admitted that this claim is purely speculative, as it is “impossible to verify until experts get beyond the limited access to North Korean facilities that ended years ago.” In other words, the article was based entirely on unverified claims from the U.S. intelligence community that were treated as compelling.

As Martin told MintPress, many of these government-friendly narratives first began at U.S.-funded media organizations overseen by the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) — an extension of the U.S. state department.

Martin noted that U.S.-funded media, like Voice of America (VOA) and Radio Free Europe (RFE), were among the first to use a State Department-influenced narrative aimed at “inflaming hostilities with Russia before it soaked into mainstream reporting.” Of course, now, this narrative — with its origins in the U.S. State Department and U.S. intelligence community — has come to dominate headlines in the corporate media and even some “alternative” media outlets in the wake of the 2016 U.S. election.

This is no coincidence. As Martin noted, “after the ban was lifted, things changed drastically here in the United States,” resulting in what was tantamount to a “propaganda media coup” where the State Department, and other government agencies that had earlier shaped the narrative at the BBG, used their influence on mainstream media outlets to shape those narratives as well.

A key example of this, as Martin pointed out, was the influence of the new think-tank “The Alliance for Securing Democracy,” whose advisory council and staff are loaded with neocons, such as the National Review’s Bill Kristol, and former U.S. intelligence and State Department officials like former CIA Director Michael Morell. The Alliance for Securing Democracy’s Russia-focused offshoot, “Hamilton 68,” is frequently cited by media outlets — mainstream and alternative — as an impartial, reliable tracker of Russian “meddling” efforts on social media.

Martin remarked that he had “never seen a think tank before have such a great influence over the media so quickly,” noting that it “would have been hard to see [such influence on reporters] without the lifting of the ban,” especially given the fact that media organizations that cite Hamilton 68 do not mention its ties to former government officials and neoconservatives.

The ridiculous, opaque joke from Bill Kristol & Democratic hawks called "Hamilton 68" – mindlessly treated as Gospel by US media – claims that unnamed Russian bots & pro-Russia accounts spent yesterday talking about Ronald Reagan and Antonin Scalia. pic.twitter.com/IKmoNyxt00

— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) February 7, 2018

In addition, using VOA or other BBG-funded media has become much more common than it was prior to the ban, an indication that state-crafted information originally intended for a foreign audience is now being used domestically. Martin noted that this has become particularly common at some “pseudo-alternative” media organizations — i.e., formerly independent media outlets that now enjoy corporate funding. Among these, Martin made the case that VICE News stands out.

After the propaganda ban was lifted, Martin noticed that VICE’s citations of BBG sources “spiked.” He continued:

One of the things I immediately noticed was that they [VICE news] were so quick to call out other countries’ media outlets, but yet — in every instance I looked up of them citing BBG sources — they never mentioned where the funding came from or what it was and they would very briefly mention it [information from BBG sources] like these were any other media outlets.”

He added that, in many of these cases, journalists at VICE were unaware that references to VOA or other BBG sources appeared in their articles. This was an indication that “there is some editorial staff [at VICE News] that is putting this in from the top down.”

Furthermore, Martin noted that, soon after the ban was lifted, “VICE’s coverage mirrored the type of coverage that BBG was doing across the world in general,” which in Martin’s view indicated “there was definitely some coordination between the State Department and VICE.” This coordination was also intimated by BBG’s overwhelmingly positive opinion of VICE in their auditing reports, in which the BBG “seemed more excited about VICE than any other media outlet” — especially since VICE was able to use BBG organizations as sources while maintaining its reputation as a “rebel” media outlet.

Watch | VICE’s Fall From Counterculture Hipster Rag To Neoliberal Mouthpiece

Martin notes that these troubling trends have been greatly enabled by the lifting of the ban. He opined that the ban was likely lifted “in case someone’s cover [in spreading government propaganda disguised as journalism] was blown,” in which case “it wouldn’t be seen as illegal.” He continued:

For example, if a CIA agent at the Washington Post is directly piping in U.S. government propaganda or a reporter is working the U.S. government to pipe in propaganda, it wouldn’t be seen as a violation of the law. Even though it could have happened before the ban, it’s under more legal protection now.”

Under normal circumstances, failing to disclose conflicts of interests of key sources and failing to question government narratives would be considered acts of journalistic malice. However, in the age of legal propaganda, these derelictions matter much less. Propaganda is not intended to be factual or impartial — it is intended to serve a specific purpose, namely influencing public opinion in a way that serves U.S. government interests. As Karl Rove, the former advisor and deputy chief of staff to George W. Bush, once said, the U.S. “is an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality.” This “reality” is defined not by facts but by its service to empire.

Meanwhile, counter-narratives, however fact-based they may be, are simultaneously derided as conspiracy theories or “fake news,” especially if they question or go against government narratives.

The revolving door

Former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and former CIA Director John Brennan appear on CNN to discuss allegations of Russian influence in the presidential elections. (CNN Screenshot)

Another major consequence of the ban being lifted goes a step further than merely influencing narratives. In recent years, there has been the growing trend of hiring former government officials, including former U.S. intelligence directors and other psyops veterans, in positions once reserved for journalists. In their new capacity as talking heads on mainstream media reports, they repeat the stance of the U.S. intelligence community to millions of Americans, with their statements and views unchallenged.

For instance, last year, CNN hired former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper. Clapper, a key architect of RussiaGate, has committed perjury by lying to Congress and more recently lied about the Trump campaign being wiretapped through a FISA request. He has also mad racist, Russophobic comments on national television. Now, however, he is an expert analyst for “the most trusted name in news.” CNN last year also hired Michael Hayden, who is a former Director of both the CIA and the NSA, and former Principal Deputy Director of National Intelligence.

Former top US officials who now are analysts for CNN:
—Michael Hayden, director of CIA/NSA
—John Kirby, State Dept spox, Pentagon press secretary
—James Clapper, DNI
—Lisa Monaco, homeland security advisor
—Spider Marks, head of US Army Intelligence Centerhttps://t.co/7AejlAfi8p

— Ben Norton (@BenjaminNorton) February 8, 2018

CNN isn’t alone. NBC/MSNBC recently hired former CIA director John Brennan — another key architect of RussiaGate and the man who greenlighted (and lied about) CIA spying on Congress — as a contributor and “senior national security and intelligence analyst.” NBC also employs Jeremy Bash, former CIA and DoD Chief of Staff, as a national security analyst, as well as reporter Ken Dilanian, who is known for his “collaborative relationship” with the CIA.

Stand by for propaganda! NBC hires CIA director!https://t.co/HTcD5xIYRQ

— Defectio.com (@DefectioLive) February 7, 2018

Remember when new NBC analyst John Brennan blatantly lied to NBC's Andrea Mitchell about using the CIA to spy on Democratic staffers investigating torture? https://t.co/ZaetE53gcs https://t.co/y7fybCi3Dt

— Trevor Timm (@trevortimm) February 2, 2018

This “revolving door” doesn’t stop there. After the BBG was restructured by the 2016 NDAA, the “board” for which the organization was named was dissolved, making BBG’s CEO — a presidential appointee — all powerful. BBG’s current CEO is John Lansing, who – prior to taking the top post at the BBG – was the President and Chief Executive Officer of the Cable & Telecommunications Association for Marketing (CTAM), a marketing association comprised of 90 of the top U.S. and Canadian cable companies and television programmers. Lansing’s connection to U.S. cable news companies is just one example of how this revolving door opens both ways.

Media-government coordination out of the shadows

Defense Secretary James Mattis chats with Amazon founder and Washington Post owner, Jeff Bezos , during a visit to west coast tech and defense companies. (Jeff Bezos/Twitter)

Such collusion between mainstream media and the U.S. government is hardly new. It has only become more overt since the Smith-Mundt ban was lifted.

For instance, the CIA, through Operation Mockingbird, started recruiting mainstream journalists and media outlets as far back as the 1960s in order to covertly influence the American public by disguising propaganda as news. The CIA even worked with top journalism schools to change their curricula in order to produce a new generation of journalists that would better suit the U.S. government’s interests. Yet the CIA effort to manipulate the media was born out of the longstanding view in government that influencing the American public through propaganda was not only useful, but necessary.

Indeed, Edward Bernays, the father of public relations, who also worked closely with the government in the creation and dissemination of propaganda, once wrote:

The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country.”

While this was once an “invisible” phenomenon, it is quickly becoming more obvious. Now, Silicon Valley oligarchs with ties to the U.S. government have bought mainstream and pseudo-alternative media outlets and former CIA directors are given prominent analyst positions on cable news programs. The goal is to manufacture support at home for the U.S.’ numerous conflicts around the world, which are only likely to grow as the Pentagon takes aim at “competing states” like Russia and China in an increasingly desperate protection of American hegemony.

With the propaganda ban now a relic, the once-covert propaganda machine long used to justify war after war is now operating out in the open and out of control.

*

Whitney Webb is a staff writer for MintPress News who has written for several news organizations in both English and Spanish; her stories have been featured on ZeroHedge, the Anti-Media, and 21st Century Wire among others. She currently lives in Southern Chile.

North Korea, like virtually every country on earth, is using the Olympics this week as an opportunity for political theater, and this has greatly upset many in US media. Ostensibly this is because North Korea, marching with South Korea in the opening ceremonies and sending a squadron of cheerleaders to the Winter Games, is getting a pass on human rights abuses. But if one scratches the surface of the widespread outrage, it’s clear the real objection is that North and South Korea are having bilateral peace talks without the permission of—much less the participation of—the United States.

Leading the charge were four pieces by Atlantic Media—an outlet that last year plastered the cover of its magazine (7–8/17) with a cartoonish depiction of a North Korean invasion one might see in a Tom Clancy video game:

• The Olympics Are a Mass Propaganda Tool for Countries to Assimilate Their Citizens (Quartz, 2/7/18)
• North Korea Is Sending Kim Jong-Un’s Sister to Attend the Winter Olympics (Quartz, 2/7/18)
• At the Olympics, North Korea Executed a Propaganda Coup (Quartz, 2/9/18)
• North Korea’s Undeserved Olympic Glory (The Atlantic, 2/9/18)

Not shown: the US military, whose budget is roughly 100 times the size of North Korea’s.

The first piece (Quartz, 2/7/18), ostensibly a broad overview on a history of “regimes” using the Olympics to cover up their crimes, began the trend of decrying North Korea’s Olympic participation, calling it a “repressive authoritarian state that keep their citizens in check with fear and unchecked power” and “gross human rights violations.” These abuses are presented as prima facie reason to bar North Korea from any participation in the Olympics, without any indication as to what human rights standard Olympic countries ought to meet.

The other two Quartz pieces and The Atlantic piece repeat the same line: North Korea’s human rights abuses are so great it should be barred from “propaganda” exercises, regardless of what the South Koreans think is in their best interests.

The Atlantic’s Uri Friedman (2/9/18), lacking any coherent reason to level outrage at the peace gesture, disclosed it just sort of made him feel bad:

There they were, the South and North Korean Olympic teams marching together in sparkling white jackets behind a flag symbolizing Korean unity, as the soulful notes of the Korean folk song “Arirang” played and top South and North Korean officials warmly greeted each other in the stands, during an Opening Ceremony in Pyeongchang extolling peace. It felt wonderful.

But it also felt … wrong.

Friedman seems chiefly aggrieved that South Korea’s athletes should have to dilute their moment of glory with North Koreans who were allowed to violate pointless formalities:

They shared that exceedingly rare moment with athletes and coaches from North Korea, which did nothing to organize the event, missed the registration deadline for sending a delegation, and boasts only two athletes who qualified for the competition on merit.

Oh no, not the registration deadline!

Like all these articles, Friedman’s assumes the South Koreans are at best naive children being duped, and at worst cynical enablers indifferent to human suffering. The idea that there are larger concerns at work—namely staving off nuclear holocaust—is never seriously addressed.

The Washington Post took this line even further in “Pence’s Olympic Mission: Countering North Korean Propaganda”  (2/9/18), painting Vice President Mike Pence, who sat staring stonily at the joint Korean procession, as a noble bulwark against unfettered North Korean propaganda and human rights abuses:

Vice President Pence was a man on a mission….

Thursday at Seoul’s Osan Air Base, Pence had transformed himself into something of an anti-propaganda warrior — a mild-mannered, if resolute, superhero who arrived in South Korea on the eve of the Winter Games to single-handedly rebuff North Korea’s public relations efforts….

Nearly every one of Pence’s actions during his five-day trip to Japan and South Korea this week—his public declarations, private murmurings and scripted meetings and visits—have been aimed at combating North Korea’s shiny propaganda with gritty talk of his own.

It’s hard to think of a better illustration of the concept of cognitive dissonance than the Washington Post unironically referring to Mike Pence as a “superhero” in an article about the dangers of propaganda.

The Washington Post  (2/9/18) did not seem to be kidding when it called Vice President Mike Pence “a mild-mannered, if resolute, superhero.”

To maintain the pretense of the US as noble arbiter of human rights and fighter of “propaganda,” the piece positioned Pence, the second-highest-ranking member of the Trump administration and its most frequent apologist, as somehow separate from the Trump administration: “Of course, as with most of his international travel, Pence’s goals were complicated somewhat by Trump.”  The more logical explanation—that Pence is simply wielding human rights concerns in service of Trump’s warmongering, not apart from or opposed to it—is never entertained.

The US role of international defender of rights is an axiom of US corporate media (FAIR.org, 5/17/17, 7/24/17, 10/23/17), even as Trump  dismisses the idea of US as human rights champion and loudly buddies up to the world’s most egregious offenders. The Post, unable to challenge the fundamental myth of US as shining beacon of freedom, therefore paints Pence not as a representative of Trump, but a mitigating presence, acting apart from his warmongering agenda.

Pence made clear that it isn’t peace he seeks from North Korea, but “complete, verifiable and irreversible denuclearization.” Why they would or should do that while the president of the United States tweets out threats of nuclear genocideis more of a mystery.

The Post, like The Atlantic, doesn’t bother to interview any South Korean peace activists, or their newly elected left-wing President Moon Jae-in—who was ushered into office with an anti-Trump, pro-unification mandate. Instead, it engages in surface-level moralizing, seeking comment from hawkish Western think tanks like the Lockheed Martin–funded Center for Strategic and International Studies (FAIR.org, 5/8/17).

*

Adam Johnson is a contributing analyst for FAIR.org.

No one in either the Brexit camp or the Remain camp really knows what the UK economy will look like after Britain leaves the European Union, such is the immense uncertainty of the consequences surrounding the decision of the British electorate to vote to leave Europe’s trade bloc.  After March 2019, the UK will be well and truly in unchartered waters.

However, that said, Brexit is no revolution in any way whatsoever.  Britain will continue to share the same economic and political philosophy that the EU has and London will remain a key guardian of Western global hegemony.

Now, turning to British Foreign Policy, this is another area that will not be affected by Brexit.  London’s criminal and dangerous behaviour on the international stage will continue unabated in a post-Brexit world.

Britain will remain the US’ closest and most ardent friend and ally in the international arena and will continue to passionately lobby for American objectives.  Indeed, I believe that the Special Relationship between London and Washington will become even more enhanced after the UK leaves the EU, given the uncertainties of Brexit.  Perhaps the Brexit camp can explain why they never call for Britain to stop being a vassal state of the US, given that a core argument of theirs for the UK to leave the EU is to “regain” British independence?

The UK will remain a steadfast advocate of NATO and will continue to make the case for the Western military alliance to intervene in the internal affairs of sovereign countries, in order to help safeguard American global hegemony.  And Britain will continue to call upon other NATO members to meet the NATO guideline of spending a minimum of two percent of Gross Domestic Product on defence.

Britain will maintain its suspicious and antagonistic position on Russia (we must remember that ever since relations were first established between London and Moscow in the 1500s, relations between the two have been marked by mutual hostility).  Once out of the EU, Britain will place its own sanctions on Russia and will increase these as and when America says or does so itself (it was the UK who, in 2014,lobbied hard and extensively within the EU for the bloc to impose sanctions on Russia). The British will support the continuing NATO build-up on the western borders of the Russian Federation and will support the applications of countries wanting to join NATO, such as Ukraine.  And regarding Ukraine, the British will maintain, and probably increase, their political and military assistance to the Ukrainian Government, whom London regards as a victim of “Russian aggression”.  Furthermore, Britain will continue to refuse to recognise the Crimea as a part of Russia and will continue to demand that Russia “returns” the peninsula to Ukraine, while, at the same time, continuing to regard the Serbian province of Kosovo and Metohija as being an “independent country”.

Turning to the Middle East, Britain will remain a strong friend and ally to Israel and will continue to allow Israeli aggression in the region, such as against Lebanon and Syria.  And London will persist in turning a blind eye to the atrocious manner in which Israel treats the Palestinians and the building of Jewish settlements in the West Bank, offering, only occasionally, the most insincere criticism that a country is capable of.

Saudi Arabia need have no fear of Brexit, as London will continue to regard the Saudis as one of their most important strategic partners in the world.  BAE Systems will continue to sell billions of pounds worth of arms to the Saudis and British petroleum companies will continue buying Saudi oil to the tune of billions of dollars each year.  Further to that, London will allow the Saudis to keep on exporting their perverted ideology of Wahhabism – one of the most malignant cancers in the world today – and will remain silent on how most mosques in Britain are under the control of the Saudis and the Muslim Brotherhood, something that constitutes a terrible threat to the safety and well-being of British citizens, as the hideous terrorist attacks on British soil last year demonstrated.

London’s duplicitous position towards Iran will remain in place.  On the one hand, the UK has diplomatic relations with the Iranians and supports the Iran nuclear deal, which is to be applauded.  But, on the other hand, the British will maintain their links with subversive groups within Iran and would gleefully embrace an opportunity to help overthrow the Iranian Government and return Iran to how it was in the days of the Shah, a client state of the West, bereft of national dignity.

Finally, Whitehall will continue to prize its strategic relationship with Turkey, remaining indifferent to Ankara’s appalling treatment of its Kurdish population and allowing the Turks to continue violating international law, as they are currently doing in northern Syria and in northern Iraq.  And also, Britain will carry on in allowing Turkey to illegally occupy a third of the territory of the Republic of Cyprus and destroy Greek heritage in the north of the island, including the desecration of cemeteries and churches together with the pillaging and selling on the black market of Cyprus’ antiquities.  Britain will continue to resist the 200,000 Greek Cypriot refugees – whom the Turks ethnically cleansed during their invasion of Cyprus in 1974 -returning to their ancestral homes in the occupied part of Cyprus.  Overall, the UK will, unashamedly, continue to be in breach of its obligations as a guarantor of the Republic of Cyprus’ independence and territorial integrity, all so that British-Turkish relations remain unaffected.

The UK, in a post-Brexit world, will continue with its current foreign policy objectives – it will be business as usual!  Alas, Britain will remain the same old Britain.

I could discuss how Britain does not actually have an independent foreign policy; that its foreign policy is determined in Washington.  But that will have to wait for another time.

*

This article was translated from Farsi.

Dr Marcus Papadopoulos specialises in Russia and the rest of the former Soviet Union and the former Yugoslavia.

The song that deservedly won the Sanremo Festival is accompanied by a videoclip. It shows dramatic scenes of war and attacks. Despite all this, life must go ahead “because everything goes beyond your useless wars”. Let’s try replacing the videoclip with a docufilm of the latest facts.

In Europe, NATO is deploying increasing forces (including Italian ones) on the Eastern front against Russia, depicted as a threatening aggressive power.

In the framework of a nuclear rearmament costing $ 1.2 trillion, the United States is preparing to deploy the new nuclear bombs B61- 12 in Italy, Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands, and probably also in Poland and other Eastern countries. F-35 fighters will be equipped with the new bomb.

The Italian Air Force takes part in the nuclear war exercises: it sent one of its teams to the US Strategic Command last September.

Russia is also accused by US of deploying ground-based intermediate-range missiles on its own territory, in violation of the 1987 INF Treaty. Consequently the Pentagon is preparing to deploy missiles similar to Pershing 2 and Cruise in Europe.

This creates a military confrontation similar to the Cold War, which increases US influence in Europe and reunites the allies in the common strategy aimed at maintaining supremacy in a changing world.

This entails an increasing military expenditure: Italy will bring it from 70 to 100 million euros a day; Spain to 50 million with a 73% increase by 2024; France will increase it by 40%, exceeding 135 million a day. To boost its nuclear arsenal, France will spend 37 billion euros by 2025.

It’s a big business for miitary industries: the Lockheed Martin equity returns grew by 84% in three years.

Functional to the powerful interests that fuel the US / NATO escalation are the Ukrainian neo-nazi groups. The are trained by US instructors transfered from Vicenza. Ukraine has become the “nursery” of the revival of Nazism in the heart of Europe (but in Italy this is hardly spoken).

In Middle East, after the Russian intervention to support Damascus, the US / NATO plan to demolish the Syrian state (as already done with the Libyan one) failed. Now US and Nato, coordinated with Israel, try to balkanize the country by tearing it up pieces of the national territory.

In a hearing at the US Congress on 6 February, the ambassador (retired) Robert Ford declared that for military and “civilian” operations in Syria (where around 2,000 US troops are still operating) the United States has spent 12 billion dollars from 2014 (mostly to arm and support jihadist movements in order to undermine the state from within).

In East Asia – underlines the Pentagon’s “National Defense Strategy 2018” – the United States faces “China, a strategic competitor using predatory economics to intimidate its neighbors while militarizing features in the South China Sea”. The Pentagon is examining a plan to send a heavily armed Marines rapid reaction force to Asia-Pacific.

Losing economic ground with respect to China, the United States deploy their military forces. Thus they create new tensions in the region, not by chance when there are signs of détente between the two Koreas.

The outlet may be another war, not “useless” but very useful for the empire strategy.

Article in Italian :

A chi sono utili le «inutili guerre»

ilmanifesto.it

Video in italian (PandoraTV) :

L’Arte della Guerra – A chi sono utili le «inutili guerre»

La canzone meritoriamente vincitrice del Festival di Sanremo è accompagnata da un videoclip che mostra drammatiche scene di guerra e attentati in un mondo in cui la vita, nonostante ciò, deve andare avanti «perché tutto va oltre le vostre inutili guerre». Proviamo a sostituire al videoclip un docufilm degli ultimi fatti.

Do you remember the terrible onslaught of the mainstream media on presidential candidate Donald Trump in 2016? Dozens of revelations about his fake hair, pussy grabbing, tax avoidance and what not; dozens of public polls proving that the nation wanted Hillary and hated Trump, opinion pieces convincing you that only racist white trash could think of voting for him. They even printed that Time weekly (or was it Newsweek?) cover with a Madam President! greeting. And then came the day of counting.

This development comes to my mind as I follow the incessant attacks in the Russian media and social networks on presidential candidate Paul N. Grudinin (usually nicknamed Gru). Russian state-owned TV is supposed, by its charter, to play a neutral role in the election campaign. They did it for a week after his name was entered into the race. In that week’s time, Gru’s rating skyrocketed and almost reached that of President Putin. This was an unexpected turn of events for the Kremlin, whose political witch-doctors expected Gru to make a modest showing and to improve the doubtful legitimacy of the forthcoming elections.

When they recognised the magnitude of their mistake, they gave a command to their obedient TV channels, and Gru became the target of their daily attacks. Out of eight candidates, Gru is the only one who gets negative coverage. About him, they speak bad or nothing, just like about Trump in the US in his time.

A veteran candidate, the old Nationalist Zhirinovsky gets plenty of time on the TV, for he has only one message, Down with Gru. His wild attacks on Gru are broadcasted in every election campaign program every evening on the TV.

There is a spoiler, a tiny ‘Russian Communists’ Trotskyite party, whose only purpose in life is to steal votes from the mainstream Communist Party (KPRF). It is a virtual party that disappears after elections to come back to life before new elections. Some innocent souls in the Russian hinterland vote for them being convinced that this is theCommunist Party. They are violently anti-Gru, and post like mad in Facebook their denunciations of the not-quite-communist Gru.

However, Gru is not a run-of-the-mill communist candidate. A successful manager of an agricultural holding called Lenin Sovkhoz, he is a good example of Russian industrialists otherwise called ‘Red directors’, that is managers of Soviet factories and enterprises who adjusted to the new system. They are producers of goods for local consumption, and their interests do not coincide with those of the Putin (or Yeltsin) oligarchs. Those oligarchs made their fortunes by importing consumer goods and exporting raw materials; they are the base of Putin’s power.

The producers, both industrialists and agriculturalists, want more protectionist measures and cheaper credits, they want to boost the buying power of ordinary Russians, that is increase salaries and pensions. Their fortunes lie with the fortunes of the ordinary Russian workers. They are dissatisfied with President Putin, and even more with his government led by Mr Medvedev.

Gru became the candidate for a plethora of political organisations from the Left and from the Right; he is supported by Russian Nationalists, though his main alliance is with the KPRF (the mainstream Russian Communist Party). He is a combination of Sanders and Trump, for workers, against immigration, for protective trade barriers and low-cost credits for small producers. A self-made-man of the upper-middle class, not a billionaire, but definitely a wealthy man, he does not scare middle-class Russians who would be afraid to support a real red-in-tooth-and-claw Communist.

Though the official prediction grouop, the Russian Public Opinion Research Center, VTSIOM (ВЦИОМ) claims 70% of electorate will vote for Putin and only 7% for Grudinin, the feeling on the ground is very different. There are a few sites allowing people to express their preference by “voting”; a biggish site of this sort is this where out of 180,000 voters 60% preferred Gru, and only 30% voted for President Putin. On other sites, Gru gets anything from 30 to 80 per cent of the vote.

It is difficult to predict the result, and it is still over a month until election day, but VTSIOM’s assessment appears too low to justify the ferocious campaign against Gru. If he were about to get 6-7%, the top wheeler-dealer, the presidential administration, would not bother and would not activate its troll factories and fake social network accounts to stop Grudinin. It seems that man has a chance to win the battle, that is if the elections are reasonably fair.

Putin has been a good president, and a popular one, but he has his limitations. He still feels obliged to keep the Deal he made with the late President Yeltsin; he still keeps fighting the Soviet memory, he is surrounded by his buddies who roll in cash; he does not support local production except for the weapons industry. While he was good for a long while, there is a feeling that the country is ripe for a changing of the guard.

A teacher in the preparatory school may be wonderful, but sooner or later, the child should move on, to new teachers. Gru is the first man who has excited the Russians since 1996, and he is likely to make a strong bid.

The Russian Left is Different.

Grudinin has the support of the left and of the right; of workers and of managers; of communists and of nationalists. How could this happen? The main reason is that the Russian Left is quite different from the European Left. The Russians are Bolsheviks. The Western Left is predominantly Menshevik.

Historically, the Russian Social Democrats were divided into Bolsheviks, the Majorites, and Mensheviks, the Minorites. The actual argument that divided the Social Democrats into these majority and minority groups is of little importance now and of even less relevance. Nowadays, the Majorites are the Left for the Majority, while Minorites are the Left for Minorities.

The Russian Left is the force for the majority, for the workers, for the natives. The Western Left is for gender, ethnic, religious minorities. If you’d ask a Western worker about the Left, he will probably tell you: the Left is not for us, they care only for gays and migrants who take our jobs.

Mensheviks are (and were) better for Jews, as Jews are the ultimate minority. Bolsheviks accepted Jews as individuals and equals, not as a separate and preferred minority group. Bolsheviks fought against the Bund, the Jewish Social Democrats, while the Mensheviks joined with the Bund.

Stalin observed (and Trotsky quoted that in his book on Stalin):

“the majority of the Menshevik group were Jews. On the other hand, the overwhelming majority of the Bolshevik group were ethnic Russians. In this connection a Bolshevik observed in jest that the Mensheviks constituted a Jewish group while the Bolsheviks constituted a true-Russian group and, therefore, it wouldn’t be a bad idea for us Bolsheviks to organise a pogrom in the Party”.

While being comradely to Jewish comrades, Stalin effectively de-Jewified the Russian Communist Party by bringing in many ethnic Russian workers and peasants. He treated the Jews as just one of the tribes populating Eurasia, not as the Chosen Ones. This is the sin of Stalin in Jewish eyes, and that is why they condemn him now.

The Jewish influence in the Western Left has survived all these years and even outlived the massive Jewish involvement with the Left. After 1968, the Jews en masse departed to new pastures, but their influence lingered, entrenching the Jewish-friendly Menshevik tendency. They adapted the Western Left to fit their preferences and made it suitable for cohabitation with the elites. Along the way, they had lost their working class support, but they were more interested in keeping with the rulers.

The Jewish-run Mensheviks fit perfectly into the oligarchy. They believe that Anna and Susan Wojicki, the former wife of Sergei (“Google”) Brin and her sister, are unhappy discriminated women, unlike welders and auto mechanics, who are white men, the patriarchal lords of the world.

The Bolsheviks struggle for women’s equality is exemplified in free kindergartens, and the Mensheviks, in reserved places for women in the directorships of large companies.

Mensheviks are concerned about the rights of transgender people to a urinal of their preference. The Bolsheviks are concerned about the right of workers to work, to a decent wage, to their share of natural resources. You can easily understand what sort of Left is preferred in the eyes of mainstream media and their billionaire owners.

Migrants provide another cause of distinction. The Western working class achieved much during the years of the Cold War, when the Western ruling class had to compete with the Communists for workers’ loyalty. Now the rulers are eager to void these achievements – and the easiest way is through population replacement by the massive importation of migrants and refugees. For this purpose, Capital is waging wars in the Middle East and fanning strife in Africa, and they facilitate the refugees’ flight to Europe and America.

The Mensheviks, that is the Western Left, support migrants against the indigenous population, in the name of their anti-racism and internationalism. However, for all practical reasons they do the work for their masters, because migrants are easier to manipulate, they help to lower salaries, to undermine the workers’ organisations, and to destroy natural solidarity.

The Bolsheviks are against the causes of mass migration, against the use of migrants and refugees to the detriment of the indigenous population. This is the position of the Russian Communists, whose anti-migration rhetoric is so outspoken that even Trumpists would find it too brusque.

Mr Grudinin has a history of anti-immigration demands behind him. He calls for enforcing a visa regime with the Central Asian republics of Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kirgizstan, as now their working migrants do not need a Russian visa. He insists that every working migrant should be given the same salary as a native Russian worker, the idea being that in such conditions there will be less demand for migrants’ labour. Perhaps it makes sense to hire inexperienced dirt-cheap Tajik migrants, but if for the same price you can hire a qualified Russian worker, you will probably employ the latter.

Grudinin’s suggestions are anathema to the neo-liberal Kremlin. Putin keeps the doors of Russia wide open for immigration, to the detriment of native workers. If the immigration flow has decreased it is mostly the result of Rouble’s depreciation.

In the West, these ideas of limiting migration belong fully to the realm of the Right, or even the Alt-Right. They are described as “populist”, meaning they are popular but disapproved by the ruling elites. The Western Left has been manipulated into an unpopular position, while the popular (‘populist’) ideas have been transferred to the Right.

In Russia, the Russian Communists did not follow the path of the Mensheviks. They made all sorts of compromises, but they always stayed for the workers. They do not fight for gays, migrants and upper-class feminists. They make allies with the producers and against the rentiers and bankers.

Perhaps the Russian Communists will show the way to their Western comrades as they did a hundred years ago. These two branches of the world Left movement have had a checkered history. In the 19^th century, the new-born Russian revolutionary movement was keen to learn from the West; the Russian Narodniks went on a pilgrimage to visit Marx in London seeking his advice. The Western revolutionaries of that time (including Marx) were as distrustful of Russians as Robert Mueller or John McCain. They thought Russia was so backward and so reactionary that a Russian progressive Left was an impossibility.

And then something unexpected had happened. When the guns of the First World War struck, only the Russian Left, led by Vladimir Lenin, did not lose their heads, but led their country to the victory of socialist revolution. After 1917, for many years the Russian Left was the guiding star for the world Left.

The Russians paid heavily for their cutting edge achievement, while the European peoples became the main beneficiaries of the October Revolution. They’ve got all the Russians fought for, for free. Their leaders were afraid their workers would go over to the Communists; and thus the welfare state came into being.

Eventually, both branches of the Left forgot their history. The Western Left forgot their victories were due to the Red Army’s might, and they proudly preached the new-fangled theories of Euro-Communism. The Russians, always eager to learn a new trick, fell for it, and dismantled the socialist state, sincerely expecting they would live as good as Swedes. The end was gruesome: the Russians were plunged into long years of depopulation and de-industrialisation, while the flagship of the Western left, the huge Euro-Communist parties of France and Italy disappeared. Swedish socialism has almost perished.

Over the years, the Western Left virtually disappeared, and its place was taken by the pseudo-left, who appropriated the name of the historical Left parties. Capital raised in its secret labs this poisonous pseudo-Left, with one supreme goal in mind – to make the very name of communism obnoxious and repelling.

For the Bolsheviks, the Good Ones were workers, they were the salt of the earth. Everyone could join this class by identifying with workers. The Menshevik pseudo-left has offered a shortcut to join the Good Ones: Identity Politics. You are Good if you are discriminated against. If you are black, you suffer discrimination, even if you are an Obama. If you are a woman, you suffer discrimination. If you like BDSM, you are discriminated against. If you are a migrant, you are discriminated against. If you are a Jew, a Soros or a Rothschild, you are still suffer discrimination, for just half a century ago your grandfather was not allowed to join a country club.

For Bolsheviks, discrimination is not the most urgent problem. They are surely against discrimination; but it takes a backseat after the really important question: labour/capital relationship. When the working people win, discrimination will vanish, they say. By keeping the eye on this most important bottom line, the Bolsheviks are the greatest natural enemies of the 1%.

The cause of socialism was defeated in 1991, no doubt, but it is not the first defeat. In November 1941, when the German troops reached the outskirts of Moscow, it also appeared socialism had been defeated. However, in 1945 socialism rebounded. Since 1991, the winner, Capital, claims its victory is irrevocable and irreversible. It is, they say, the end of history.

But victories and defeats can be reversed. The Soviets did not know that. They believed that “the victory of socialism is inevitable because it is progressive.” Perhaps in the long run it is inevitable, but it can happen in a thousand years, and meanwhile a nuclear war or biological experiments can exterminate the human race.

The most basic ideals of French Republic – democracy, liberty, equality – were defeated by Napoleon, by the Bourbons, by Orleans, but they rebounded.

Nothing is inevitable. The Soviet Bolsheviks believed in inevitability – and lost; while their adversaries just fought hard, not giving an inch – and won. Their attitude should be emulated. The people of the West are ready for the real-Left turn. Recent successes of Jeremy Corbyn in England, of Bernie Sanders in the US, of Jean-Luc Mélenchon in France prove it. They are soft, but hard ones will come, too.

This is not the beginning of the end of the cruel man-eating neo-liberalism and its Menshevik allies, but this is the end of the beginning in the universal battle for socialism, as Churchill said of the British victory over the Germans at El Alamein. The light at the end of the tunnel is already visible. And then the Russian Communists will again become the beacon for the workers of the world.

Gru’s success can change a lot of things. His worldview has many points in common with Donald Trump. In a month’s time, we shall know how far this Russian Trump has succeeded in advancing.

*

This article was originally published by The Unz Review.

Israel Shamir can be reached at [email protected]

According to a Feb 13, 2018 by AFP

“The US President Donald Trump threatened retaliatory action against two major Asian trading partners Tuesday, warning of sanctions against China while vowing to revise or scrap a free trade deal with South Korea.

Accusing Beijing of decimating American steel and aluminum industries, Trump said he was “considering all options,” including tariffs and quotas.

Trump recently received two Commerce Department reports concerning alleged Chinese subsidies for steel and aluminum exports — materials that are vital for industries from construction to autos.

He has another two months to decide on possible retaliatory action, but strongly indicated that he is leaning toward hitting back at Beijing.

“I will make a decision that reflects the best interests of the United States, including the need to address overproduction in China and other countries,” he said.

For the full AFP Story click here 

**

PressTV: What is your take on this story?

PK: This is again in typical Trump manner, “beating hot air”. It’s the equivalent of saber-rattling, “fire and fury”, but for trade. Propaganda.

First, America promotes unfettered neoliberal economics, i.e. so-called “free trade”, calling it “competition”. If another country applies it – it’s not fair, it must be sanctioned.

Let’s see. Trump knows exactly that China is not afraid of such threats. What tool does he have?

China is largely detached from the western monetary system, meaning from the US dollar. China trades almost exclusively outside the dollar domain.

China also holds about US$ 3.1 trillion equivalent in foreign reserves, of which about two thirds in US-dollar denominated securities, about US$ 2 trillion.

China could retaliate against any sanctions by dumping some of these dollar reserves on the market and demolish the dollar. China probably won’t do that. Since the FED could simply suck these excess dollars up as more debt. And since debt has no meaning in the US, as Alan Greenspan said already 30 years ago, “we will never pay our debt; we just print new money”. So it wouldn’t work, but it would make a temporary noise and show the world the dollar’s vulnerability.

China as a sovereign nation, could also devalue its currency, the Yuan, and become even more competitive against merchandise produced in the US.

The US does that all the time. With almost unlimited amounts of dollars flooding the world, the FED in connivance with the BIS manipulates the value of the dollar at will in any country against any currency they want. – Why wouldn’t China be able to devalue their currency/ – Not even manipulate it – Just devalue it?

About China subsidizing steel production – yes possibly, so its car and other steel using manufacturer will become more competitive in the world. Fair? – what is fair these days? Most of the times these rules are made initially by Washington and when others follow, Washington barks.

Let’s take US agriculture. It’s highly subsidized at the tune of close to US$ 100 billion per year, in direct and indirect subsidies in order to make US agriculture more competitive world wide. This subsidized agriculture enters into so-called bilateral free trade agreements the US has with many countries around the globe, most of them developing countries, thus destroying local agriculture and making poor countries eventually dependent on US imports.

So – what are we talking about?

Of course, most people don’t know that. The MSM doesn’t tell you. It’s always “America First’ – dummy! – America is allowed to do whatever they want whenever they want and to whomever they want. That’s their rule of the game. And it’s unfortunately widely accepted around the globe.

PressTV: But does Trump have any tools to actually punish China and North Korea, or is this just noise to detract from his problems at home?

PK: He does not have any effective tools; increasing import tariffs? China is not dependent on exports to the US, or as I said before, China could devalue her currency and do a number of other things, like raising taxes for US corporations producing in China. But Mr. Trump knows all that. He has no effective tools for sanctioning either of the two Asian countries. It’s beating hot air.

And as you said, it’s deviating on the one hand from his US domestic problems with the economy – an ever-increasing budget deficit. I believe with the current budget proposal another US$ 4 trillion would be added to the deficit; and on the other hand, he wants to draw attention away from his war promotion propaganda, beating the war drums against Iran, Venezuela, North Korea… people, even in the US are getting sick and tired of his erratic pouncing.

And about South Korea – as far as I know the Trade Agreement with South Korea was initiated in 2012 by the Obama Administration. Be sure, the US does not initiate any trade agreement with anyone if they are not coming out as the winner. It must have looked good then for American corporations – and probably still looks good for them.

However, what usually is not reckoned with is that US corporations have already most of their manufacturing outsourced to cheap-labor countries, many of them in Korea – and in other Asian countries; and with such trade agreements more manufacturing will be done by them, i.e. in Korea or other Asian countries – and while US corporations are winning – American labor is losing. Not that Trump cares. But it doesn’t fit into his promise and campaign image of “America Firfst”.

That’s a logical equation of neoliberalism – that eventually shoots their inventor and initiator, the US of A, in her own foot.

Besides, Trump knows to be better careful with threatening so far still an ally, South Korea, where the US has about 30,000 soldiers stationed, as well as a nuclear arsenal accompanied by a navy fleet and a whole arsenal of fighter planes.

Such an alliance may be at the verge of being outmaneuvered between the two Koreans – who clearly want to find a way to unify again.

So, in conclusion – Trump, if it’s not nuclear saber-rattling – its trade war by beating hot air; it’s all the same.

*

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

Featured image is from FinanceTwitter.

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*     *     *

Corporate Crime: Federal Penalties Imposed on Largest Corporations Plunged During Trump’s First Year

By Good Jobs First, February 14, 2018

Federal penalties imposed on the largest U.S. companies for all kinds of misconduct fell sharply during the first 12 months of the Trump administration, with combined fines and settlements dropping to a fraction of the levels seen during the Obama Administrations. The Fortune 100 list of the very largest publicly traded U.S. corporations paid $1.1 billion in penalties to federal regulatory agencies and the Justice Department during Trump’s first year, compared to an annual average of more than $17 billion during the Obama years.

“US Foreign Policy Is the Greatest Crime Since WWII,” Former US Attorney General Ramsey Clark

By Jay Janson, February 14, 2018

The US Secretary of State’s criminally insane back handed remarks favoring a civil war, with all the probable loss of lives a civil war would bring, seems to fit as appropriate within a US foreign policy of world domination.  Human suffering has never been of any  consequence to the financial interests of that 1/10 of 1 per cent of Americans who, to one degree or another, rule us all.

Trump’s Neoliberal War Budget

By Stephen Lendman, February 14, 2018

Trump’s FY 2019 budget is all about benefiting Wall Street, the Pentagon, war-profiteers and other corporate predators at the expense of social justice.

It’s part of his scheme to help pay for the great GOP tax cut heist – outrageously calling for $1.7 trillion in social program cuts over the next decade.

U.S. Supports the Influx of ISIS Terrorists into Afghanistan. Massive U.S. Bombings Directed against the Taliban

By Masud Wadan, February 13, 2018

Afghanistan is now living under a precarious situation. Major shifts in US war plans are unfolding. The deadly suicide blasts of the last month in the capital Kabul that invoked international condemnation were followed by US-led retaliatory bombings of the Taliban sanctuaries in several parts of Afghanistan.

Who is Behind Fake News? The Brussels Terror Attacks: Fake Videos and Images. “The Man in the Hat”

By Prof Michel Chossudovsky, February 13, 2018

Read this April 20, 2016 Global Research report on the MSM coverage of the March 2016 Brussels terror attacks. The corporate media routinely use fake images and videos with a view to misleading the public in its coverage of controversial events including the “war on terrorism”.

In the early hours of Friday morning, the US Senate agreed to pass yet another controversial budget deal; this time spearheaded by the Trump administration. Despite the tirade from GOP Kentucky Senator Rand Paul, lecturing his fellow colleagues on the bill’s lack of fiscal prudence and oversight, a massive expenditure added trillions to the swelling US debt. The most noticeable increase was $300bn of new spending for the Pentagon which would increase the overall defense budget for 2018 and 2019 to $1.4tn.[1] Military leaders no doubt reveled as President Trump tweeted moments after signing the bill, stating,

“We love and need our Military and gave them everything – and more.”

The newly contracted defense budget is built upon a blue print advocating a massive rearmament, in accordance with the new national defense strategy outlined by Secretary of Defense James N. Mattis. It aims to redirect the US military towards a conventional confrontation with another great power state, discredit present and future budgetary restraints and further the empower the military-industrial elites all at the expense of the future prosperity of the American people.  America’s continuous war path is determined to safeguard the interests of the military class, sustain the country’s war economy and reinvigorate its declining influence on the world stage.

Since the advent of the “War on Terror”, American has undertaken in numerous military engagements in the Middle East and Africa. Described as the era of “low-tech wars,” America’s enemies have predominately taken the form of armed insurgency groups lead by religious extremists in protracted struggles of guerrilla warfare. In both Iraq and Afghanistan, America embarked on “nation building” policies to prop up democratic regimes supported by the recruitment of local law enforcement under the guidance of the US military. Like the war in Vietnam, the Middle East has sunk previous administrations into an expanding quagmire with little room to maneuver strategically. However, Defense Secretary Mattis recently remarked,

“Great Power competition, not terrorism, is now the primary focus of US national security.”[2]

America’s shift in military posture parallels the re-emerging powers of China and Russian onto the international stage. China’s unmatched economic growth has given its General Secretary, Xi Jinping, not only newly found prestige, but also an ability to flex China’s military muscle in its “apparent” home waters in the South China Sea; all to the ire of America’s regional allies.

Russia on the other hand, ruled by the acerbic President Vladimir Putin, has struggled economically, due to low oil prices and Western contrived sanctions, yet the country is determined to uphold its sphere of influence as evidenced by its military interventions in both Ukraine and Syria. With America’s focus primarily on the Middle East, previous administrations’ attempts to curb Chinese and Russian military ambitions have largely rung hallow. Trump’s new defense budget and national security strategy is meant to be a concerted effort to redirect American influence to confront the encroachment of its rivals in East Asia and Eastern Europe.

One of the more subtle pitfalls of the new defense budget is its attempt to discredit the legal budgetary restraints directly imposed on the military establishment since August of 2011.[3] In response to the consequential debt rise by the stimulus package enacted by Congress amid the financial recession of 2007-08. The Budget Control Act, as it became known, installed several budget caps and “sequestrations,” including “the reduction of roughly $1tn over 10 years” in defense expenditures to help stem the tide of government spending.[4] However, thanks to several conveniently placed loopholes, the Overseas Contingency Operations (OCO), a broad based funding program for military endeavors, remained effectively uncapped allowing the military to appropriate most of lost revenue back into its coffers through the OCO. Despite the loophole and t the relatively insignificant reduction in military spending, it did not prevent Defense Secretary Mattis from stating,

“no enemy in the field has done more to arm the readiness of the US military than the combined impact of the Budget Control Act…”[5]

According to a statement made by the Undersecretary of Defense and Chief Financial Officer, David L. Norquist, the current defense budget proposes to surpass the budget cap by $52bn.[6] Obviously the “cry wolf” tactics of the military did not go unheeded.

It remains clear that even the very gesture of reducing defense spending was enough to unnerve the military establishment. Their empowerment largely relies on appropriating the necessary cash flow to fund their military exploits abroad, thus preserving their indispensability to succeeding administrations. President Trump’s defense budget should come as an alarm for many as it seeks to redirect the military away from the “low tech wars” in the Middle East to conventional style rearmament reminiscent from the days of the Cold War. This includes modernizing every facet of the American military arsenal, from nuclear missiles, to cyber-security to satisfy the eclectic tastes of 21^st century warfare. Russia and China will no doubt perceive this massive military buildup as an excuse to begin arming their own initiatives, therefore provoking another unnecessary arms race.

The real losers in this unfortunate circumstance will be the American people. According to the Financial Times, the new two-year budget will “raise the US public debt burden to nearly 100 per cent of the country’s economic output within a decade.”[7] Trillions of dollar deficits are the reality that many Americans will soon have to face in the form of higher taxes to pay for today’s wars of aggression. In a recent audit in 2016 by the Defense Department’s Inspector General, “mistakes” in the military’s accounting detailed up to $6.5tn dollars of misappropriated funds channeled through the maze of the Pentagon’s books.[8]

The level of accountability from the military establishment remains at an all-time low. However, in a war economy, where the Department of Defense and armament industries are depicted as pillars of economic growth, it is of little surprise that the days of endless war are far from over. This is certainly not conducive to a healthy economy nor is it a suitable foundation for a stable long-lasting democracy.

It is an appropriate reminder, that perhaps a nation built from war, knows only how to war.

*

Andre Bermont is a freelance writer and Editor-in-Chief for cuibononews.com, a news aggregation and content website. Andre can be reached at [email protected]

Notes

[1] Gould, Joe, “Senate reaches budget deal with huge defense boost,” Defense News, February 7, 2018, https://www.defensenews.com/breaking-news/2018/02/07/congress-reaches-budget-deal-with-huge-defense-boost/ 

[2] Secretary of Defense Mattis, James N, “Remarks made by Secretary Mattis on the National Defense Strategy,” Department of Defense Official Website, January 19, 2018, https://www.defense.gov/News/Transcripts/Transcript-View/Article/1420042/remarks-by-secretary-mattis-on-the-national-defense-strategy/ 

[3] Harrison, Todd, “What Has the Budget Control Act of 2011 Meant for Defense,” Center for Strategic and International Studies, August 1, 2016, https://www.csis.org/analysis/what-has-budget-control-act-2011-meant-defense 

[4] Ibid

[5] Secretary of Defense Mattis, James N, “Remarks made by Secretary Mattis on the National Defense Strategy,”Department of Defense Official Website, January 19, 2018, https://www.defense.gov/News/Transcripts/Transcript-View/Article/1420042/remarks-by-secretary-mattis-on-the-national-defense-strategy/ 

[6] Norquist, David L, “DoD Releases Fiscal Year 2018 Budget Proposal,” Undersecretary of Defense Official Website, http://comptroller.defense.gov/Portals/45/Documents/defbudget/fy2018/fy2018_Press_Release.pdf 

[7] Sevastopulo, Demtri. “Trump signs deficit-swelling budget deal,” The Financial Times, February 9, 2018. https://www.ft.com/content/9ec9af4a-0d88-11e8-839d-41ca06376bf2 

[8] Crawford, Jamie, “Audit reveals Army’s Trillion-dollar gaffes,” CNN, August 23, 2016. https://www.cnn.com/2016/08/23/politics/us-army-audit-accounting-errors/ 

Featured image is from Jared Rodriguez / Truthout.

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

Michel Chossudovsky

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

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

Year: 2015

Pages: 240 Pages

List Price: $22.95

Special Price: $15.00

Click here to order.

Kudos to the 1941 W.C Fields comedy film “Never Give a Sucker an Even Break” for the inspiration. Well, this certainly does fit with what is transpiring now in our Amerikan Empire. This writer lives in an area I have always labeled as Death Valley USA, this Daytona Beach area. For the most part it is a place of low political and cultural sophistication. As with most areas of low repute there are lots of us who are ‘ exceptions to this rule’.

Yet, so many of those who live here or visit here are what old W. C. would call suckers. The month of February is NASCAR month in Daytona. We have that infamous Daytona 500 race that draws lots of Trump and right wing loving folks to our doorstep. Of course, we have our own natives with  lots of Northern transplants in the mix singing the mantra of ‘Making Amerika Great Again’.

In addition to those infamous Trump stickers on the many SUVs and pickup trucks, we have the seemingly countless license plates celebrating either the Marines or Army  ( not too many Navy or Air Force ones though). Do any of these people realize that, contrary to the right wing rhetoric, WE ARE NOT AT WAR!? The last time we were really ‘ At War ‘ was December, 1941. All the rest of them were propaganda spins that, sadly, so many suckers kept falling for. Well, the Bush SR. and Bush Jr/Cheney gangs got away with this fraud, and then Mr. ‘Hope and Change’ signed on, and of course Mr. President with the orange hair and tan continues the magic trick.

So, many of the aforementioned NASCAR fans and gung ho license plate carrying warriors are getting that fat tax break. You know, perhaps $ 900 a year, while the super rich and corporate hacks get upwards of tens and hundreds of thousands of dollars each! Meanwhile, the right wing will continue to cut away at Medicaid and even Medicare. So, that white haired senior citizen who was driving an old pickup truck in front of me  with his ‘Marines’ license plate and Trump sticker had better beware. Why? Well, he looks like he may be in line for going into a Nursing home in the not too distant future. With those Medicaid cuts happening he may not even be able to get placed in one! Or , until that day comes, he will most likely have to go deeper into his pockets for medications, because his Medicare will be stricter on what is covered etc.

What really both angers and saddens this writer is the whole topic of what the empire’s stooges (in both major parties) like to call ‘Defense Spending’. No, it is simply ‘Military Spending’ and it has been slowly bankrupting our nation to the tune of over 50% of our federal taxes. 

Now, those Trump loving and Gung HO Marines & Army lovers applaud the fact that Trump and the ‘Swamp’ want to increase the spending! So, while our towns and cities are teetering on insolvency, along with our states, more money is NOT going to help them fiscally. Instead, it is going to subsidize the 900+ foreign bases, overkill weapons systems and overall deployment of our military personnel to places they have NO business (and had NO business) being in! Our cherished ‘Safety Net’ is being torn apart with this insanity and the suckers still think THEY are the patriots! The real patriots are we folks who do NOT wish to send our young soldiers to all those places overseas to either kill or be killed for strictly the purposes of this Military Industrial Empire!

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

Speaking at his alma mater, the University of Texas, on February 1, Secretary of State Tillerson suggested a potential military coup in Venezuela.  Tillerson then visited allied Latin American countries urging regime change and more economic sanctions on Venezuela. Tillerson is considering banning the processing or sale of Venezuelan oil in the United States and is discouraging other countries from buying Venezuelan oil. Further, the US is laying the groundwork for war against Venezuela.

In a series of tweets, Senator Marco Rubio, the Republican from Florida, where many Venezuelan oligarchs live, called for a military coup in Venezuela.

The world would support the Armed Forces in #Venezuela if they decide to protect the people & restore democracy by removing a dictator

— Marco Rubio (@marcorubio) February 9, 2018

How absurd — remove an elected president with a military coup to restore democracy? Does that pass the straight face test? This refrain of Rubio and Tillerson seems to be the nonsensical public position of US policy.

The US has been seeking regime change in Venezuela since Hugo Chavez was elected in 1998. Trump joined Presidents Obama and Bush before him in continuing efforts to change the government and put in place a US-friendly oligarch government.

They came closest in 2002 when a military coup removed Chavez. The Commander-in-Chief of the Venezuelan military announced Chavez had resigned and Pedro Carmona, of the Venezuelan Chamber of Commerce, became interim president. Carmona dissolved the National Assembly and Supreme Court and declared the Constitution void. The people surrounded the presidential palace and seized television stations, Carmona resigned and fled to Colombia. Within 47 hours, civilians and the military restored Chavez to the presidency. The coup was a turning point that strengthened the Bolivarian Revolution, showed people could defeat a coup and exposed the US and oligarchs.

US Regime Change Tactics Have Failed In Venezuela

The US and oligarchs continue their efforts to reverse the Bolivarian Revolution. The US has a long history of regime change around the world and has tried all of its regime change tools in Venezuela. So far they have failed.

Economic War

Destroying the Venezuelan economy has been an ongoing campaign by the US and oligarchs. It is reminiscent of the US coup in Chile which ended the presidency of Salvador Allende. To create the environment for the Chilean coup, President Nixon ordered the CIA to “make the economy scream.”

Henry Kissinger devised the coup noting a billion dollars of investment were at stake. He also feared the “the insidious model effect” of the example of Chile leading to other countries breaking from the United States and capitalism. Kissinger’s top deputy at the National Security Council, Viron Vaky, opposed the coup saying,

“What we propose is patently a violation of our own principles and policy tenets .… If these principles have any meaning, we normally depart from them only to meet the gravest threat . . . our survival.”

These objections hold true regarding recent US coups, including in Venezuela and Honduras, Ukraine and Brazil, among others. Allende died in the coup and wrote his last words to the people of Chile, especially the workers, “Long live the people! Long live the workers!” He was replaced by Augusto Pinochet, a brutal and violent dictator.

For decades the US has been fighting an economic war, “making the economy scream,” in Venezuela. Wealthy Venezuelans have been conducting economic sabotage aided by the US with sanctions and other tactics. This includes hoarding food, supplies and other necessities in warehouses or in Colombia while Venezuelan markets are bare. The scarcity is used to fuel protests, e.g. “The March of the Empty Pots,” a carbon copy of marches in Chile before the September 11, 1973 coup. Economic warfare has escalated through Obama and under Trump, with Tillerson now urging economic sanctions on oil.

President Maduro recognized the economic hardship but also said sanctions open up the opportunity for a new era of independence and “begins the stage of post-domination by the United States, with Venezuela again at the center of this struggle for dignity and liberation.” The second-in-command of the Socialist Party, Diosdado Cabello, said,

 “[if they] apply sanctions, we will apply elections.”

Opposition Protests

Another common US regime change tool is supporting opposition protests. The Trump administration renewed regime change operations in Venezuela and the anti-Maduro protests, which began under Obama, grew more violent. The opposition protests included barricades, snipers and murders as well as widespread injuries. When police arrested those using violence, the US claimed Venezuela opposed free speech and protests.

The opposition tried to use the crack down against violence to achieve the US tactic of  dividing the military. The US and western media ignored opposition violence and blamed the Venezuelan government instead. Violence became so extreme it looked like the opposition was pushing Venezuela into a Syrian-type civil war. Instead, opposition violence backfired on them.

Violent protests are part of US regime change repertoire. This was demonstrated in the US coup in Ukraine, where the US spent $5 billion to organize government opposition including US and EU funding violent protesters. This tactic was used in early US coups like the 1953 Iran coup of Prime Minister Mossadegh. The US has admitted organizing this coup that ended Iran’s brief experience with democracy. Like Venezuela, a key reason for the Iran coup was control of the nation’s oil.

Funding Opposition

There has been massive US investment in creating opposition to the Venezuelan government. Tens of millions of dollars have been openly spent through USAID, the National Endowment for Democracy and other related US regime change agencies. It is unknown how much the CIA has spent from its secret budget, but the CIA has also been involved in Venezuela. Current CIA director, Mike Pompeo, said he is “hopeful there can be a transition in Venezuela.”

The United States has also educated leaders of opposition movements, e.g. Leopoldo López was educated at private schools in the US, including the CIA-associated Kenyon College. He was groomed at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government and made repeated visits to the regime change agency, the National Republican Institute.

Elections

While the US calls Venezuela a dictatorship, it is in fact a strong democracy with an excellent voting system. Election observers monitor every election.

In 2016, the economic crisis led to the opposition winning a majority in the National Assembly. One of their first acts was to pass an amnesty law. The law described 17 years of crimes including violent felonies and terrorism committed by the opposition. It was an admission of crimes back to the 2002 coup and through 2016. The law demonstrated violent treason against Venezuela. One month later, the Supreme Court of Venezuela ruled the amnesty law was unconstitutional. US media, regime change advocates and anti-Venezuela human rights groups attacked the Supreme Court decision, showing their alliance with the admitted criminals.

Years of violent protests and regime change attempts, and then admitting their crimes in an amnesty bill, have caused those opposed to the Bolivarian Revolution to lose power and become unpopular.  In three recent elections Maduro’s party won regional,  local and the Constituent Assembly elections.

The electoral commission announced the presidential election will be held on April 22. Maduro will run for re-election with the United Socialist Party. Opposition leaders such as Henry Ramos and Henri Falcon have expressed interest in running, but the opposition has not decided whether to participate. Henrique Capriles, who narrowly lost to Maduro in the last election, was banned from running for office because of irregularities in his campaign, including taking foreign donations. Capriles has been a leader of the violent protests. When his ban was announced he called for protests to remove Maduro from office. Also banned was Leopoldo Lopez, another leader of the violent protests who is under house arrest serving a thirteen year sentence for inciting violence.

Now, the United States says it will not recognize the presidential election and urges a military coup. For two years, the opposition demanded presidential elections, but now it is unclear whether they will participate. They know they are unpopular and Maduro is likely to be re-elected.

Is War Against Venezuela Coming?

A military coup faces challenges in Venezuela as the people, including the military, are well educated about US imperialism. Tillerson openly urging a military coup makes it more difficult.

The government and opposition recently negotiated a peace settlement entitled “Democratic Coexistence Agreement for Venezuela.” They agreed on all of the issues including ending economic sanctions, scheduling elections and more. They agreed on the date of the next presidential election. It was originally planned for March, but in a concession to the opposition, it was  rescheduled for the end of April. Maduro signed the agreement even though the opposition did not attend the signing ceremony. They backed out after Colombian President Santos, who was meeting with Secretary Tillerson, called and told them not to sign. Maduro will now make the agreement a public issue by allowing the people of Venezuela to sign it.

Not recognizing elections and urging a military coup are bad enough, but more disconcerting is that Admiral Kurt Tidd, head of Southcom, held a closed door meeting in Colombia after Tillerson’s visit. The topic was “regional destabilization” and Venezuela was a focus.

A military attack on Venezuela from its Colombian and Brazilian borders is not far fetched. In January, the NY Times asked, “Should the US military invade Venezuela?” President Trump said the US is considering US military force against Venezuela. His chief of staff, John Kelly, was formerly the general in charge of Southcom. Tidd has claimed the crisis, created in large part by the economic war against Venezuela, requires military action for humanitarian reasons.

War preparations are already underway in Colombia, which plays the role of Israel for the US in Latin America. The coup government in Brazil, increased its military budget 36 percent, and participated in Operation: America United, the largest joint military exercise in Latin American history. It was one of four military exercises by the US with Brazil, Colombia and Peru in Latin America in 2017. The US Congress ordered the Pentagon to develop military contingencies for Venezuela in the 2017 National Defense Authorization Act.

While there is opposition to US military bases, James Patrick Jordan explains, on our radio show, the US has military bases in Colombia and the Caribbean and military agreements with countries in the region; and therefore, Venezuela is already surrounded.

The United States is targeting Venezuela because the Bolivarian Revolution provides an example against US imperialism. An invasion of Venezuela will become another war-quagmire that kills innocent Venezuelans, US soldiers and others over control of oil. People in the United States who support the self-determination of countries should show solidarity with Venezuelans, expose the US agenda and publicly denounce regime change. We need to educate people about what is really happening in Venezuela to overcome the false media coverage.

Share this article and the interview we did on Clearing The FOG about Venezuela and the US’ role in Latin America.  The fate of Venezuela is critical for millions of Latin Americans struggling under the domination of US Empire.

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Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers are co-directors of Popular Resistance where this article was originally published.

Russia’s Center for Reconciliation in Syria says it’s been warned that Jabhat Al-Nusra terrorists brought in chlorine containers to a local village, where they aimed to work with the White Helmets to stage “a provocation.”

Federal penalties imposed on the largest U.S. companies for all kinds of misconduct fell sharply during the first 12 months of the Trump administration, with combined fines and settlements dropping to a fraction of the levels seen during the Obama Administrations. The Fortune 100 list of the very largest publicly traded U.S. corporations paid $1.1 billion in penalties to federal regulatory agencies and the Justice Department during Trump’s first year, compared to an annual average of more than $17 billion during the Obama years.

These findings come from the latest information collected by Violation Tracker, the country’s first wide-ranging database of corporate crime and misconduct. It covers banking, consumer protection, false claims, environmental, wage and hour, unfair labor practice, health, safety, employment discrimination, price-fixing, bribery and other civil and criminal cases. Violation Tracker, a free public service produced by the Corporate Research Project of Good Jobs First, is available here.

“Along with the massive tax cut, the Trump administration has given the largest corporations billions of additional dollars of benefits in the form of reduced penalties for misconduct,” said Good Jobs First Research Director Philip Mattera, who leads the work on the database.

Mattera acknowledged that the Obama Fortune 100 penalty totals reflected unprecedented settlements with the largest banks for their role in the financial meltdown. Those amounts peaked during the middle years of the Obama era.

“Yet Trump’s $1.1 billion total through January 19 is still far below the annual average of more than $9 billion for the Fortune 100 during Obama’s final two years in office,” he added. “It also trails behind the $3 billion total during Obama’s first year.”

To assist users in making comparisons, Violation Tracker has just added a new feature that allows searches to be limited to a specific administration. This can be combined with the numerous other search options relating to industry group, offense type, agency, penalty amount, etc. Violation Tracker now contains more than 300,000 entries from more than 40 federal regulatory agencies and all divisions of the Justice Department.

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Featured image is from The Greanville Post.

This week, the present US Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson, during his trip to five Latin American nations, made headlines world wide when he made the following barely veiled threatening statement, “In the history of Venezuela and South American countries, it is often times that the military is the agent of change when things are so bad, and the leadership can no longer serve the people.” and shortly afterward referring to the elected president of Venezuela, Nicolas Maduro added, 

“If the kitchen gets a little too hot for him, I am sure that he’s got some friends over in Cuba that could give him a nice hacienda on the beach and he could have a nice life over there.”

There are few countries in Latin America that have not experienced the USA both secretly and overtly backing a right wing military government coup.[1]

The US Secretary of State’s criminally insane back handed remarks favoring a civil war, with all the probable loss of lives a civil war would bring, seems to fit as appropriate within a US foreign policy of world domination.  Human suffering has never been of any  consequence to the financial interests of that 1/10 of 1 per cent of Americans who, to one degree or another, rule us all.

That is the way it has been since the end of the Second World War, a war made possible by US investments and joint ventures in the rearming of Nazi Germany,[ 2] a war that made the USA rich and the first all powerful single superpower.  

Now that China is about to replace the USA as the most powerful economy in the world,[3] maybe the days of such arrogance from a US Secretary of State are numbered, though the all powerful criminal media owned by the US military industrial complex would have us think otherwise. The CIA overseen mainstream media is preparing its audience for a probable future ‘necessary’ war with US designated ‘adversaries’ Russia and China. 

However, although ‘Might makes right!’ might continue to prove to be axiomatic and to assure US capability to make war whenever and wherever, there is a countering ultimate truth that whoever has the most money can buy the most guns. Also worth noting is that overspending on one’s military could lead to the demise experienced by the now non-existent Soviet Union.

There is something else that has made this archival research peoples historian wonder, and that is the prevalent assumption that the US and its allied neocolonial powers will forever continue to get away with mass murder and genocide.

That there be no law against invading other countries the way the USA has done to so many dozens of vulnerable Third World nations. At Nuremberg in 1945, Nazi Germans and Japanese leaders were held legally accountable for their much shorter run at doing the same as Americans have been doing since these principles were universally signed on to. It is also worth remembering that according to the long since universally adopted Nuremberg Principles of International Law, every single soldier following illegal orders to invade or bomb shall be tried as criminally responsible for his actions.[4] 

Back in 1991, former US Attorney General Ramsey Clark wrote, “US Foreign Policy is the Greatest Crime Since WWII,” in his book, The Fire This Time – US War Crimes in the Gulf, in which, Attorney Clark sites specific crimes in dozens of nations bombed and invaded by Americans since WW II[5]. Thirteen years later, back in Iraq for the crimes of a second President Bush, Clark declared, that 

“American aggression had already created incalculable levels of “misery for the world”; that “the poor of the planet [are] made poorer, dominated and exploited by the foreign policies of the U.S. and its rich allies;” that “the U.S. invasion of Iraq was a war of aggression, an offense called ‘the supreme international crime’ in the Nuremberg Judgment.”

The question arises, ‘how long can indescribably enormous crimes go unpunished?’ How long can the human race, so phenomenally accomplished in science and art, in space exploration and medicine, afford to let this unearthly criminal insanity continue – an indescribably idiotic wholesale extermination of millions of children, women and men?

Yours truly, just back from a month in China, as guest of his students of thirty years ago and marveling on the calm, warm, intelligent and joyful behavior of people throughout all levels of society, tuned in on C-Span Public TV Channels to watch the US Senate Committee on Foreign Relations and the US House of Representatives Armed Services Committee discuss the “present day threats to American interests world wide,” and the eighteen year and failing occupation war in Afghanistan. It was embarrassingly amazing to listen to government officials tossing outright fabrications back and forth while continually congratulating one and another obsequiously on ‘each other’s fine service in protecting our great country.’ Freaky! People who are really great, don’t need to keep telling each other and everyone else how great they are.

Seems, when time runs out on ‘exceptional America,’ a very considerable amount of Americans should be able to escape being put in the dock, by simply claiming, with good proof, criminal insanity.

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Jay Janson, who lived and taught in Korea for six years, is an archival research peoples historian activist, musician and writer; has lived and worked in all continents in 67 countries; articles on media published in China, Italy, UK, India, Sweden, Germany Vietnam and the US; now resides in NYC.

Notes

1. History of U.S. Interventions in Latin America

https://www.yachana.org/teaching/resources/interventions.html

2. 27 Million Died in Russia Because Wall Street Built Up Hitler’s Wehrmacht to Knock Out Soviet Union

https://www.opednews.com/articles/27-Million-Died-in-Russia-by-Jay-Janson-Hitler_Russia-And-Us-Conflict_Soviet-Union_Wall-Street-Hegemony-170811-655.html

3. “According to conservative estimates, by 2017, China will overtake the United States as the world’s largest economy, and by 2050, its economy will be twice as large as that of the United States. Chinese influence will extend well beyond the economic sphere. The full social, cultural and political repercussions of China’s ascendancy will be felt sooner. In the coming decades, the West will be confronted with the fact that its systems, institutions and values are no longer the only ones on offer.” [When China Rules the World -The End of the Western World and the Birth of a New Global Order by Martin Jacques] See also Nobel in Economics Joe Stiglitz – The Chinese Century, http://cgt.columbia.edu/news/stiglitz-chinese-century/

4. GIs Who Invaded Vietnam, Iraq, etc. Were Criminals By International Law & US Army’s Own Law Regarding any order to invade and or kill in another country: “An order which is unlawful not only does not need to be obeyed but obeying such an order can result in criminal prosecution of the one who obeys it. Military courts have long held that military members are accountable for their actions even while following orders — if the order was illegal. 

https://www.opednews.com/articles/GIs-Who-Invaded-Vietnam-I-by-Jay-Janson-Veterans-Day_Veterans-Day-171112-910.html

5. The Fire This Time: U.S. War Crimes in the Gulf by Ramsey Clark, 1992  Relying on evidence gathered firsthand as well as eyewitness reports, former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark accuses the U.S. government and its allies of committing war crimes during their attack on Iraq. Clark also presents evidence that the U.S. provoked the war to gain permanent domination over the Gulf. Amazon Book Review.

VISIT MY NEW WEB SITE: 

stephenlendman.org 

(Home – Stephen Lendman). 

Contact at [email protected].

US Presidents propose budgets. Congress has appropriation authority.

Trump’s FY 2019 budget is all about benefiting Wall Street, the Pentagon, war-profiteers and other corporate predators at the expense of social justice.

It’s part of his scheme to help pay for the great GOP tax cut heist – outrageously calling for $1.7 trillion in social program cuts over the next decade.

It largely resembles his FY 2018 budget – similar to Speaker Paul Ryan’s draconian proposal when he chaired the House Budget Committee – a plan to destroy social America.

Trump’s new budget unrealistically projects future economic growth at 3% annually – at a time when it’s 2% or less and a severe recession is long overdue.

A statement from Americans for Tax Fairness executive director Frank Clemente said the following:

“Donald Trump has proposed a federal budget that steals from working families to pay for his massive $1.5 trillion tax cut that largely benefits the wealthy and big corporations.”

“He’s taking away health care from seniors, food from families, college loans for the next generation, and support for people with disabilities to benefit the fortunate few.”

“Congress should reject the Trump budget and create a tax system that makes the rich and corporations pay their fair share so we can invest in all Americans, not take from them.”

President of the nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget Maya MacGuineas slammed Trump’s proposed budget, saying:

It “has too many gimmicks, exaggerated savings, and rosy assumptions. Most troubling, it doesn’t make the credible hard choices necessary to help bring the debt back to more manageable levels.”

It slashes “non-defense discretionary spending by (over) 40 percent” – vital social programs affected including:

• over $500 billion in Medicare cuts, more than $300 billion slashed from Medicaid;
• food stamps cut by over $200 billion;
• Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) loses $21 billion, $72 billion less for disability programs;
• elimination of block grants to help pay for child care and foster care;
• the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to get around $600 less; plus
• cuts to scientific research, Head Start (early childhood education, health, nutrition, and parent involvement services to low-income children and their families), the State and Labor Departments, Army Corps of Engineers, housing assistance, and help for debt-entrapped students.

Military spending is increased by nearly $800 billion over the next 10 years. Trump’s infrastructure proposal calls for spending $1.5 trillion over the next decade, 80% from private investment, along with from state and city budgets.

David Stockman believes his agenda will add trillions of dollars in federal debt, rising to around $35 trillion by 2028 – $15 trillion above the current level.

His budget proposal needs a simple House majority and 60-vote Senate majority – the former unlikely in an election year; the latter virtually unattainable.

House Republicans fear losing their majority in November midterm elections, vulnerable incumbents unlikely to support budget cuts harming their base.

Axios editor Nick Johnston called Trump’s budget and infrastructure proposals “science fiction.” An unnamed White House source said they’re about pumping up Trump’s base on taxes and the economy.

Congress failed to pass the FY 2018 budget last year, relying on continuing resolutions to keep government operating.

The same pattern is likely to repeat this year – at least through this November’s midterm elections.

*

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

This text was envisaged for publication in E-Book format (pdf) in mid-December. In view of the evolving crisis on the Korean Peninsula and with a view to informing public opinion, Global Research decided to release the preliminary draft version of Michel Chossudovsky’s essay entitled North Korea and the Dangers of Nuclear War: Towards the Implementation of a  Peace Project.  A prior version of this essay was presented by Michel Chossudovsky in early November 2017 at the University of Quebec’s Observatoire de l’Asie de l’Est (OAE), Montreal.  

A summarized and updated version of this article was presented in late February 2018 at a venue hosted at the South Korean Parliament. 

This text was the basis of Professor Chossudovsky’s Canada lecture tour:  Montreal, Hamilton, Toronto, Winnipeg and Vancouver.

Updates to the Introduction, February 14, 2018

Copyright: Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG), Montreal, 2017. Cannot be published online or in print without the permission of Global Research

***

Take a stance against nuclear war.

Forward this document far and wide to friends and colleagues. The search engines are censoring independent analysis. The mainstream media is lying through omission.

Bear in mind that “MISTAKES” are often what determine the course of World History. A Pre-emptive first strike US nuclear attack against North Korea  could potentially precipitate a Third World War.

SAY NO TO NUCLEAR WAR. A PEACE PROCESS CAN BE NEGOTIATED.

HELP US Spread the word, forward this essay and consider making a donation to Global Research.

Our longer term objective is a World without War.

AND WE  NEED THE SUPPORT OF OUR READERS

Michel Chossudovsky, November 30, 2017

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Introduction:

Dangerous Crossroads

Fire and Fury” was not invented by Donald Trump. It is a concept deeply embedded in US military doctrine. It has characterized US military interventions since the end of World War II. 

What distinguishes Trump from his predecessors in the White House is his political narrative.  

We are nonetheless at a dangerous crossroads. Foreign policy miscalculation could lead to the unthinkable. Bear in mind that “MISTAKES” are often what determine the course of World History.

Insanity in US foreign policy, not to mention the fiction that nuclear weapons are an “instrument of peace” as formulated by the Trump administration could lead to the unthinkable. Decision-makers in high office believe in their own propaganda.

A Pre-emptive first strike US nuclear attack against North Korea could potentially precipitate a Third World War.

About-turn in January? President Trump not only confirmed his support for the North-South Pyeongchang inter-Korean dialogue, he also stated his resolve to establish a direct dialogue with Pyongyang. A few weeks later, this peace-making rhetoric was replaced by a new gush of military threats against the DPRK.

From a strategic point of view, the US is intent upon undermining the North-South dialogue. In recent developments, reported by the US media a “powerful military-intelligence faction within the Trump administration is pushing for a pre-emptive military strike on North Korea” to take place during or in the immediate wake of the Winter Olympics. 

The operation is labelled by Washington as a “bloody nose” attack consisting of a either a conventional or low yield tactical nuclear weapon attack against North Korean’s missile facilities. 

Even if nuclear weapons were not immediately used, the death toll in South Korea alone is estimated in the tens of thousands on the first day, in a conflict that could rapidly draw in nuclear-armed powers such as China and Russia.

Yet, such an act of recklessness and savagery is precisely what is being discussed, debated and prepared in the upper echelons of the White House and the US security-intelligence apparatus. Within top military-foreign policy circles, the advanced nature of the plans is so well known that it is generating fears and opposition. (Peter Symonds, Trump Considers “Bloody Nose” Strike on North Korea, wsws.org, February 6, 2018

Meanwhile, the Olympics have been accompanied by a process of dialogue and peace negotiation which is being boycotted by the US.

The “more usable” nuclear weapons pertain to the so-called mini-nukes (B61-11, B61-12) with an explosive capacity of one third to up to twelve times a Hiroshima bomb. These “more usable” nukes are bunker buster bombs with a nuclear warhead, are said to be “harmless to the surrounding civilian population, because the explosion is underground” according to “scientific opinion” on contract the the Pentagon.

It is worth noting that in the wake of the Olympics,  large scale joint US-ROK war games are envisaged.

There is a real danger that these  joint war games could evolve towards active warfare, particularly in view of the pressures exerted within the US military-intelligence establishment to proceed with the so-called “bloody nose” option.

America’s commitment to the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula as contained in the 2018 NPR is a smokescreen. The US has been threatening the Korean people with nuclear war for sixty seven years. The denuclearization of the Korean peninsula as formulated in the NPR is directed solely against the DPRK. It does not address the massive build-up of US nuclear capabilities.

It is worth noting, in this regard that the DPRK was the only nuclear weapons state which voted in favor of UN General Assembly resolution L.41 to convene negotiations on a “legally binding instrument to prohibit nuclear weapons, leading towards their total elimination”.

What distinguishes October 1962 to today’s realities is that the leaders on both sides, namely John F. Kennedy and Nikita S. Khrushchev were accutely aware of the dangers of nuclear annihilation.

In contrast, president Donald Trump is misinformed regarding the dangers of nuclear war, “We will have no choice but to totally destroy North Korea” accusing Kim Jong-un, of being a “rocket man” on “a suicide mission.”

The History of  “Fire and Fury”

President Harry Truman from the very outset of the Korean War (1950-53) was a firm advocate of “Fire and Fury” against the people of both North and South Korea. General Douglas MacArthur, who had actually carried out the atrocities directed against the Korean people appeared before the US Congress and:

“spoke of human suffering so horrifying that his parting glimpse of it caused him to vomit”.

“I have never seen such devastation,” the general told members of the Senate Armed Services and Foreign Relations committees. At that time, in May 1951, the Korean War was less than a year old. Casualties, he estimated, were already north of 1 million.

“I have seen, I guess, as much blood and disaster as any living man,” he added, “and it just curdled my stomach.”  (quoted by the Washington Post, August 10, 2017)

Does the DPRK Constitute a Security Threat to the USA?

The American people should, in the words of Vietnam War Veteran Brian Willson  “place themselves in the position of people living in targeted countries. That North Korea, a nation of 24 million people, i.e., one-twentieth the population of the U.S., many of them poor, a land slightly larger in area than the U.S. state of Pennsylvania, continues to be one of the most demonized nations and least understood, totally perplexes the Korean people.”

What most people in America do not know –and which is particularly relevant when assessing the alleged “threats” of the DPRK to World peace– is that North Korea lost thirty percent of its population as a result of  US led bombings in the 1950s. US military sources confirm that 20 percent of North Korea’s population was killed off over a three period of intensive bombings:

“After destroying North Korea’s 78 cities and thousands of her villages, and killing countless numbers of her civilians, General Curtis LeMay remarked, “Over a period of three years or so we killed off – what – twenty percent of the population.”

It is now believed that the population north of the imposed 38th Parallel lost nearly a third its population of 8 – 9 million people during the 37-month long “hot” war, 1950 – 1953, perhaps an unprecedented percentage of mortality suffered by one nation due to the belligerance of another.” (quoted in Richard Rhodes, “The General and World War III,” The New Yorker, June 19, 1995, p. 53.)

Every single family in North Korea has lost a loved one in the course of the Korean War.

In comparison, during the Second World War the United Kingdom lost 0.94% of its population, France lost 1.35%, China lost 1.89% and the US lost 0.32%. During the Korean war, North Korea lost 30 % of its population.

These figures of civilian deaths in North Korea should also be compared to those compiled for Iraq by the Lancet Study (John Hopkins School of Public Health). The Lancet study estimated a total of 655,000 Iraqi civilian deaths, in the three years following the US led invasion (March 2003- June 2006).

The US never apologized for having killed 30 percent of North Korea’s population. Quite the opposite. The main thrust of US foreign policy has been to demonize the victims of US led wars.

There were no war reparations.

The issue of US crimes against the people of Korea was never addressed by the international community.

The atrocities of the Korean War set the stage for America’s war against the people of Vietnam.

For more than half a century, Washington has contributed to the political isolation and impoverishment of North Korea. Moreover, US sponsored sanctions on Pyongyang have contributed to destabilizing the country’s economy.

North Korea has been protrayed as part of an “axis of evil”. For what?

The unspoken victim of US military aggression, the DPRK is portrayed as a failed war-mongering “Rogue State”, a “State sponsor of terrorism” and a “threat to World peace”. These stylized accusations become part of a consensus, which we dare not question.

The Lie becomes the Truth. North Korea is heralded as a threat. America is not the aggressor but “the victim”.

Washington’s intent from the very outset was to destroy North Korea and demonize an entire nation. The US has also stood in the way of the reunification of North and South Korea.

People across America should put politics aside and relate to the suffering and hardships of the people of North Korea. War Veteran Brian Willson provides a moving assessment of the plight of the North Korean people:

“Everyone I talked with, dozens and dozens of folks, lost one if not many more family members during the war, especially from the continuous bombing, much of it incendiary and napalm, deliberately dropped on virtually every space in the country. “Every means of communication, every installation, factory, city, and village” was ordered bombed by General MacArthur in the fall of 1950. It never stopped until the day of the armistice on July 27, 1953. The pained memories of people are still obvious, and their anger at “America” is often expressed, though they were very welcoming and gracious to me. Ten million Korean families remain permanently separated from each other due to the military patrolled and fenced dividing line spanning 150 miles across the entire Peninsula.

Let us make it very clear here for western readers. North Korea was virtually totally destroyed during the “Korean War.” U.S. General Douglas MacArthur’s architect for the criminal air campaign was Strategic Air Command head General Curtis LeMay who had proudly conducted the earlier March 10 – August 15, 1945 continuous incendiary bombings of Japan that had destroyed 63 major cities and murdered a million citizens. (The deadly Atomic bombings actually killed far fewer people.).Eight years later, after destroying North Korea’s 78 cities and thousands of her villages, and killing countless numbers of her civilians, LeMay remarked, “Over a period of three years or so we killed off – what – twenty percent of the population.” It is now believed that the population north of the imposed 38th Parallel lost nearly a third its population of 8 – 9 million people during the 37-month long “hot” war, 1950 – 1953, perhaps an unprecedented percentage of mortality suffered by one nation due to the belligerance of another.

Virtually every person wanted to know what I thought of Bush’s recent accusation of North Korea as part of an “axis of evil.” I shared with them my own outrage and fears, and they seemed relieved to know that not all “Americans” are so cruel and bellicose. As with people in so many other nations with whom the U.S. has treated with hostility, they simply cannot understand why the U.S. is so obsessed with them.”(Brian Willson, Korea and the Axis of Evil, Global Research, October 12, 2006 emphasis added)

Pyongyang 1953

The Nature of US Atrocities against the People of Korea

The DPRK’s Foreign Minister’s Cable to the United Nations Security Council confirmed the nature of the atrocities committed by the US against the people of North Korea, acting under the banner of the United Nations:

See original below.

“ON JANUARY 3 AT 10:30 AM, AN ARMADE OF 82 FLYING FORTRESSES LOOSED THEIR DEATH-DEALING LOAD ON THE CITY OF PYONGYANG. …

HUNDREDS OF TONS OF BOMBS AND INCENDIARY COMPOUND WERE SIMULTANEOUSLY DROPPED THROUGHOUT THE CITY, CAUSING ANNIHILATING FIRES. IN ORDER TO PREVENT THE EXTINCTION OF THESE FIRES, THE TRANS-ATLANTIC BARBARIANS BOMBED THE CITY WITH DELAYED-ACTION HIGH-EXPLOSIVE BOMBS WHICH EXPLODED AT INTERVALS THROUGHOUT FOR A WHOLE DAY, MAKING IT IMPOSSIBLE FOR THE PEOPLE TO COME OUT ONTO THE STREETS. THE ENTIRE CITY HAS NOW BEEN BURNING, ENVELOPED IN FLAMES, FOR TWO DAYS. BY THE SECOND DAY 7,812 CIVILIANS’ HOUSES HAD BEEN BURNT DOWN. THE AMERICANS WERE WELL AWARE THAT THERE WERE NO MILITARY OBJECTIVES LEFT IN PYONGYANG. …

THE NUMBER OF INHABITANTS OF PYONGYANG KILLED BY BOMB SPLINTERS, BURNT ALIVE AND SUFFOCATED BY SMOKE IS INCALCULABLE, SINCE NO COMPUTATION IS POSSIBLE. SOME FIFTY THOUSAND INHABITANTS REMAIN IN THE CITY, WHICH BEFORE THE WAR HAD A POPULATION OF FIVE HUNDRED THOUSAND.”

It was all for a good cause: the fight against “evil communism”. The doctrine of fighting communism acted as a powerful ideological instrument during the Cold War era.

Our message to US military servicemen and women at all levels of the military hierarchy.

Reverse the course of History. Abandon the Battle Field, Refuse to Fight!

For complete text of the cable addressed to the UN Security Council click UN Repository

 

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Video: Korean War: 600,000 Tons of American Bombs on the North. Every City was Destroyed

This episode details the UN bombing campaign over North Korea and the results for the people on the ground.

The majority of civilians killed in the Korean War were killed in North Korea by air attack. (This segment on the bombing of North Korea was censored from the US version of this documentary.).

Extensive war crimes committed by the United States. 

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Chapter I

Historical Context:

Nuclear War, Who is the Aggressor? 

Confirmed by US military documents, both the People’s Republic of China and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea have been threatened with nuclear war for sixty-seven years. 

In 1950, Chinese volunteer forces dispatched by the People’s Republic of China were firmly behind North Korea against US aggression.

China’s act of solidarity with The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) was carried out barely a few months after the founding of the PRC on October 1, 1949. 

Truman had contemplated the use of nuclear weapons against both China and North Korea, specifically as a means to repeal the Chinese Volunteer People’s Army (VPA) which had been dispatched to fight alongside North Korean forces. [Chinese Volunteer People’s Army, 中國人民志願軍;  Zhōngguó Rénmín Zhìyuàn Jūn].

It is important to stress that US military action directed against the DPRK was part of a broader Cold War military agenda against the PRC and the Soviet Union, the objective of which was ultimately to undermine and destroy socialism.

The Planning of Nuclear War against the Soviet Union

According to a secret document dated September 15, 1945, “the Pentagon had envisaged blowing up the Soviet Union  with a coordinated nuclear attack directed against major urban areas.

All major cities of the Soviet Union were included in the list of 66 “strategic” targets. The tables below categorize each city in terms of area in square miles and the corresponding number of atomic bombs required to annihilate and kill the inhabitants of selected urban areas.

Six atomic bombs were to be used to destroy each of the larger cities including Moscow, Leningrad, Tashkent, Kiev, Kharkov, Odessa.

The Pentagon estimated that a total of 204 bombs would be required to “Wipe the Soviet Union off the Map”. The targets for a nuclear attack consisted of sixty-six major cities.

One single atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima resulted in the immediate death of 100,000 people in the first seven seconds. Imagine what would have happened if 204 atomic bombs had been dropped on major cities of the Soviet Union as outlined in a secret U.S. plan formulated during the Second World War.

VIDEO: Wiping the Soviet Union Off the Map

Hiroshima in the wake of the atomic bomb attack, 6 August 1945

The document outlining this diabolical military agenda had been released in September 1945, barely one month after the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki (6 and 9 August, 1945) and two years before the onset of the Cold War (1947).

The secret plan dated September 15, 1945 (two weeks after the surrender of Japan on September 2, 1945 aboard the USS Missouri, see image below) , however, had been formulated at an earlier period, namely at the height of World War II,  at a time when America and the Soviet Union were close allies.

It is worth noting that Stalin was first informed through official channels by Harry Truman of the infamous Manhattan Project at the Potsdam Conference on July 24, 1945, barely two weeks before the attack on Hiroshima.

The Manhattan project was launched in 1939, two years prior to America’s entry into World War II in December 1941. The Kremlin was fully aware of the secret Manhattan project as early as 1942.

Were the August 1945 Hiroshima and Nagasaki attacks used by the Pentagon to evaluate the viability of  a much larger attack on the Soviet Union consisting of more than 204 atomic bombs? The key documents to bomb 66 cities of the Soviet Union (15 September 1945) were finalized less than a month after the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings (6, 9 August 1945):

“On September 15, 1945 — just under two weeks after the formal surrender of Japan and the end of World War II — Norstad sent a copy of the estimate to General Leslie Groves, still the head of the Manhattan Project, and the guy who, for the short term anyway, would be in charge of producing whatever bombs the USAAF might want. As you might guess, the classification on this document was high: “TOP SECRET LIMITED,” which was about as high as it went during World War II. (Alex Wellerstein, The First Atomic Stockpile Requirements (September 1945)

The Kremlin was aware of the 1945 plan to bomb sixty-six Soviet cities.

The documents confirm that the US was involved in the “planning of genocide” against the Soviet Union.

Moreover, central to our understanding of the Cold War which started in 1947, Washington’s September 1945 plan to bomb 66 cities into smithereens played a key role in triggering the nuclear arms race.

The Soviet Union was threatened and developed its own atomic bomb in 1949. While the Kremlin knew about these plans to “Wipe out” the USSR, the broader public was not informed because the documents were of course classified.

Today, neither the 1945 plan to blow up the Soviet Union nor the underlying cause of the nuclear arms race are acknowledged. The Western media has largely focussed its attention on the Cold War US-USSR confrontation. The plan to annihilate the Soviet Union dating back to World War II and the infamous Manhattan project are not mentioned.

Washington’s Cold War nuclear plans are invariably presented in response to so-called Soviet threats, when in fact it was the U.S. September 1945 plan to wipe out the Soviet which motivated Moscow to develop its nuclear weapons capabilities.

Had the US decided not to develop nuclear weapons for use against the Soviet Union, the nuclear arms race would not have taken place. Neither The Soviet Union nor the People’s Republic of China would have developed nuclear capabilities as a means of “Deterrence”.

The Soviet Union lost 26 million people during World War II.

The USSR developed its own atomic bomb in 1949, in response to 1942 Soviet intelligence reports on the Manhattan Project.

Let’s cut to the chase. How many bombs did the USAAF request of the atomic general, when there were maybe one, maybe two bombs worth of fissile material on hand? At a minimum they wanted 123. Ideally, they’d like 466. This is just a little over a month after the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Of course, in true bureaucratic fashion, they provided a handy-dandy chart (Alex Wellerstein, op. cit)

http://blog.nuclearsecrecy.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/1945-Atomic-Bomb-Production.pdf

This initial 1945 list of sixty-six cities was updated in the course of the Cold War (1956) to include some 1200 cities in the USSR and the Soviet block countries of Eastern Europe (see declassified documents below).

Source: National Security Archive

“According to the 1956 Plan, H-Bombs were to be Used Against Priority “Air Power” Targets in the Soviet Union, China, and Eastern Europe. Major Cities in the Soviet Bloc, Including East Berlin, Were High Priorities in “Systematic Destruction” for Atomic Bombings.  (William Burr, U.S. Cold War Nuclear Attack Target List of 1200 Soviet Bloc Cities “From East Germany to China”, National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 538, December 2015

Excerpt of list of 1200 cities targeted for nuclear attack in alphabetical order. National Security Archive

In the post Cold War era, under Donald Trump’s “Fire and Fury”, nuclear war directed against Russia, China, North Korea and Iran is “On the Table”.

What distinguishes the October 1962 Missile Crisis to Today’s Realities:

1. Today’s president Donald Trump does not have the foggiest idea as to the consequences of nuclear war.

2, Communication today between the White House and the Kremlin is at an all time low. In contrast, in October 1962, the leaders on both sides, namely John F. Kennedy and Nikita S. Khrushchev were accutely aware of the dangers of nuclear annihilation. They collaborated with a view to avoiding the unthinkable.

3. The nuclear doctrine was entirely different during the Cold War. Both Washington and Moscow understood the realities of mutually assured destruction. Today, tactical nuclear weapons with an explosive capacity (yield) of one third to six times a Hiroshima bomb are categorized by the Pentagon as “harmless to civilians because the explosion is underground”.

4.  A one trillion ++ nuclear weapons program, first launched under Obama, is ongoing.

5. Today’s thermonuclear bombs are more than 100 times more powerful and destructive than a Hiroshima bomb. Both the US and Russia have several thousand nuclear weapons deployed.

Moreover, an all war against China is currently on the drawing board of the Pentagon as outlined by a RAND Corporation Report commissioned by the US Army  

Washington is actively involved in creating divisions between China and its neighbours including the DPRK and the ROK.

The objective is to draw South East Asia and the Far East into a protracted military conflict by creating divisions between China and ASEAN countries, most of which are the victims of Western colonialism and US military aggression: Extensive crimes against humanity have been committed against Vietnam, Cambodia, Korea, the Philippines, Indonesia. In a bitter irony, these countries are now military allies of the United States.

Who is the Aggressor?

The Soviet Union had tested it’s first atomic bomb on August 29, 1949 in response to Washington’s design to wage nuclear war against the USSR, first formulated in September 1945.

According to analysts, the Soviet atomic bomb was instrumental in the Truman administration’s decision to eventually stall US nuclear war preparations against North Korea and China. The project  was scrapped in June 1951. 

In March 1949, President Truman approved National Security Council Memorandum 8/2, which identified the entire Korean peninsula “as an area where the principles of democracy were being matched against those of Communism.” (see P. K. Rose, Two Strategic Intelligence Mistakes in Korea, 1950, Perceptions and Reality, CIA Library, Apr 14, 2007.

The NSC Memorandum 8/2 paved the way for the June 1949 guerrilla attacks on the DPRK:

“Inquiry uncovers secret of series of attacks by South on North. South Korean troops attacked the North a year before the Korean war broke out, researchers have claimed in the latest disturbing revelation about the conflict which almost led to global war. More than 250 guerrillas from the South are said to have launched an attack on North Korean villages along the east coast in June 1949. The incident has been confirmed by a South Korean army official.  (John Gittings, Martin Kettle, The Guardian, 17 January 2000)

Washington’s objective was to extend it’s geopolitical zone of influence over the entire Korean Nation, with a view to taking over all the Korean colonial territories which had been annexed to the Japanese Empire in 1910. The Korean war was also directed against the People’s Republic of China as confirmed by president Truman’s November 1950 statements (see transcript below), which intimated in no uncertain terms that the atomic bomb was intended to be used against the People’s Republic of China.

According to military analyst Carl A, Posey in Air and Space Magazine:

Truman’s decision to contemplate the use of nuclear weapons is confirmed in Truman’s historic November 30, 1950 Press Conference 

(Excerpts below, click to access complete transcript)

THE PRESIDENT. We will take whatever steps are necessary to meet the military situation, just as we always have.

[12.] Q. Will that include the atomic bomb ?

THE PRESIDENT, That includes every weapon that we have.

Q. Mr. President, you said “every weapon that we have.” Does that mean that there is active consideration of the use of the atomic bomb?

THE PRESIDENT. There has always been active consideration of its use. I don’t want to see it used. It is a terrible weapon, and it should not be used on innocent men, women, and children who have nothing whatever to do with this military aggression. That happens when it is used.³

³Later the same day the White House issued the following press release:

“The President wants to make it certain that there is no misinterpretation of his answers m questions at his press conference today about the use of the atom bomb. Naturally, there has been consideration of this subject since the outbreak of the hostilities in Korea, just as there is consideration of the use of all military weapons whenever our forces are in combat.

“Consideration of the use of any weapon is always implicit in the very possession of that weapon.

“However, it should be emphasized, that, by law, only the President can authorize the use of the atom bomb, and no such authorization has been given. If and when such authorization should be given, the military commander in the field would have charge of the tactical delivery of the weapon.

“In brief, the replies to the questions at today’s press conference do not represent any change in this situation.”

…

Q. Mr. President, I wonder if we could retrace that reference to the atom bomb? Did we understand you clearly that the use of the atomic bomb is under active consideration?

THE PRESIDENT. Always has been. It is one of our weapons.

Q. Does that mean, Mr. President, use against military objectives, or civilian–

THE PRESIDENT. It’s a matter that the military people will have to decide.  I’m not a military authority that passes on those things. [refutes his earlier statement on not using it “against civilians”]

Q. Mr. President, perhaps it would be better if we are allowed to quote your remarks on that directly?

THE PRESIDENT. I don’t think–I don’t think that is necessary.

Q. Mr. President, you said this depends on United Nations action. Does that mean that we wouldn’t use the atomic bomb except on a United Nations authorization ?

THE PRESIDENT. No, it doesn’t mean that at all. The action against Communist China depends on the action of the United Nations. The military commander in the field will have charge of the use of the weapons, as he always has. [intimates that the use of atomic bomb is “against Communist China”]

[15.] Q. Mr. President, how dose are we to all-out mobilization.

THE PRESIDENT. Depends on how this matter we are faced with now works out.

[16.] Q. Mr. President, will the United Nations decide whether the Manchurian border is crossed, either with bombing planes or–

THE PRESIDENT. The resolution that is now pending before the United Nations will answer that question.

Q. Or with troops?  … (emphasis added

In December 1949, a detailed top secret National Security Council (NSC) report was addressed to president Truman:

 

“Development of sufficient military power in selected non-Communist nations of Asia to maintain internal security and to prevent further encroachment by communism….

Gradual reduction and eventual elimination of the preponderant power and influence of the USSR in Asia

… The United States should continue to provide for the extension of political support and economic, technical, military and other assistance to the democratically-elected Government of the Republic of Korea.

(NSC top secret report, December 1949)

Beneath the facade of spreading democracy, Washington’s ultimate objective was to establish a proxy State in South Korea.

America’s appointee Sygman Rhee was flown into Seoul in October 1945, in General Douglas MacArthur’s personal airplane, Rhee became president in 1948, with a mandate to curb political dissent including the arrest, torture and assassination of thousands of alleged Communist opponents.

Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD)

The doctrine of mutually assured destruction (MAD) evolved in the wake of the launching of the Soviet atom bomb in August 1949. Prior to that, the US resolve was to use nukes on a first strike basis against the Soviet Union, the People’s Republic of China and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK).

However, at the outset of the Korean war in 1950, confirmed by Truman’s statements, no clearcut distinction was made between a nuclear weapon and a conventional weapon. The Truman administration’s nuclear doctrine consisted in using nuclear weapons within the framework of a conventional war theater.

The concept of Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) which characterized the Cold War was based on the recognition that the use of nuclear weapons “by two or more opposing sides would cause the complete annihilation of both the attacker and the defender”.

China was first threatened by the US with nuclear war in 1950, a year after the inauguration of the People’s Republic of China.  Some 14 years later in October 1964, China tested its first 16-ton nuclear bomb.

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 Chapter II

The Threat of Nuclear War.

North Korea vs. the United States

While the Western media portrays North Korea’s nuclear weapons program as a threat to Global Security, it fails to acknowledge that the US has being threatening North Korea with a nuclear attack for more than half a century“

The Hiroshima Doctrine” applied to North Korea

US nuclear doctrine pertaining to Korea was established following the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945, which were largely directed against civilians.

The strategic objective of a nuclear attack under the “Hiroshima doctrine” was to trigger a “massive casualty producing event”resulting in tens of thousands of deaths. The objective was to terrorize an entire nation, as a means of military conquest. Military targets were not the main objective: the notion of “collateral damage” was used as a justification for the mass killing of civilians, under the official pretence that Hiroshima was “a military base” and that civilians were not the target.

In the words of President Harry Truman:

“We have discovered the most terrible bomb in the history of the world. … This weapon is to be used against Japan … [We] will use it so that military objectives and soldiers and sailors are the target and not women and children. Even if the Japs are savages, ruthless, merciless and fanatic, we as the leader of the world for the common welfare cannot drop that terrible bomb on the old capital or the new. …  The target will be a purely military one… It seems to be the most terrible thing ever discovered, but it can be made the most useful.” (President Harry S. Truman, Diary, July 25, 1945)

“The World will note that the first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima a military base. That was because we wished in this first attack to avoid, insofar as possible, the killing of civilians..”(President Harry S. Truman in a radio speech to the Nation, August 9, 1945).

[Note: the first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945; the Second on Nagasaki, on August 9, on the same day as Truman’s radio speech to the Nation]

Nobody within the upper echelons of the US government and military believed that Hiroshima was a military base, Truman was lying to himself and to the American public. To this day the use of nuclear weapons against Japan is justified as a necessary cost for bringing the war to an end and ultimately “saving lives”.

US Nuclear Weapons Stockpiled and Deployed in South Korea

Barely a few years after the end of the Korean War, the US initiated its deployment of nuclear warheads in South Korea. This deployment in Uijongbu and Anyang-Ni had been envisaged as early as 1956.

It is worth noting that the US decision to bring nuclear warheads to South Korea was in blatant violation of  Paragraph 13(d) of the Armistice Agreement which prohibited the warring factions from introducing new weapons into Korea.

The actual deployment of nuclear warheads started in January 1958, four and a half years after the end of the Korean War, “with the introduction of five nuclear weapon systems: the Honest John surface-to-surface missile, the Matador cruise missile, the Atomic-Demolition Munition (ADM) nuclear landmine, and the 280-mm gun and 8-inch (203mm) howitzer.” (See The nuclear information project: US Nuclear Weapons in Korea)

The Davy Crockett projectile was deployed in South Korea between July 1962 and June 1968. The warhead had selective yields up to 0.25 kilotons. The projectile weighed only 34.5 kg (76 lbs). Nuclear bombs for fighter bombers arrived in March 1958, followed by three surface-to-surface missile systems (Lacrosse, Davy Crockett, and Sergeant) between July 1960 and September 1963. The dual-mission Nike Hercules anti-air and surface-to-surface missile arrived in January 1961, and finally the 155-mm Howitzer arrived in October 1964. At the peak of this build-up, nearly 950 warheads were deployed in South Korea.

Four of the weapon types only remained deployed for a few years, while the others stayed for decades. The 8-inch Howitzer stayed until late 1991, the only weapon to be deployed throughout the entire 33-year period of U.S. nuclear weapons deployment to South Korea. The other weapons that stayed till the end were the air delivered bombs (several different bomb types were deployed over the years, ending with the B61) and the 155-mm Howitzer nuclear artillery. (Nuclear Information Project, op. cit)

Officially the US deployment of nuclear weapons in South Korea lasted for 33 years. The deployment was targeted against North Korea as well as China and the Soviet Union.

South Korea’s Nuclear Weapons Program

Concurrent and in coordination with the US deployment of nuclear warheads in South Korea, the ROK had initiated its own nuclear weapons program in the early 1970s.

The official story is that the US exerted pressure on Seoul to abandon their nuclear weapons program and “sign the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) in April 1975 before it had produced any fissile material.” (Daniel A. Pinkston, “South Korea’s Nuclear Experiments,” CNS Research Story, 9 November 2004, http://cns.miis.edu.]

The ROK’s nuclear initiative was from the outset in the early 1970s under the supervision of the US and was developed as a component part of the US deployment of nuclear weapons, with a view to threatening North Korea.

Double Standards: While the West in chorus accuses the DPRK of developing nuclear capabilities, the development of a nuclear weapons program in South Korea was never an issue. Neither was the ROK designated as an undeclared nuclear weapons state.

Moreover, while this program was officially ended in 1978, the US promoted scientific expertise as well as training of the ROK military in the use of nuclear weapons. And bear in mind: under the ROK-US CFC agreement, all operational units of the ROK are under joint command headed by a US General. This means that all the military facilities and bases established by the Korean military are de facto joint facilities. There are a total of 27 US military facilities in the ROK (See List of United States Army installations in South Korea – Wikipedia)

The Planning of Nuclear Attacks against North Korea from the Continental US and from Strategic US Submarines

According to military sources, the removal of US nuclear weapons from South Korea was initiated in the mid 1970s. It was completed in 1991:

The nuclear weapons storage site at Osan Air base was deactivated in late 1977. This reduction continued over the following years and resulted in the number of nuclear weapons in South Korea dropping from some 540 in 1976 to approximately 150 artillery shells and bombs in 1985. By the time of the Presidential Nuclear Initiative in 1991, roughly 100 warheads remained, all of which had been withdrawn by December 1991. (The nuclear information project: withdrawal of US nuclear weapons from South Korea)

According to official statements, the US withdrew its nuclear weapons from South Korea in December 1991.

This withdrawal from Korea did not in any way modify the US threat of nuclear war directed against the DPRK. On the contrary: it was tied to changes in US military strategy with regard to the deployment of nuclear warheads. Major North Korean cities were to be targeted with nuclear warheads from US continental locations and from US strategic submarines (SSBN)  rather than military facilities in South Korea:

After the withdrawal of [US] nuclear weapons from South Korea in December 1991, the 4th Fighter Wing at Seymour Johnson Air Force Base has been tasked with nuclear strike planning against North Korea. Since then, strike planning against North Korea with non-strategic nuclear weapons has been the responsibility of fighter wings based in the continental United States. One of these is the 4th Fighter Wing at Seymour Johnson Air Force Base in North Carolina. …

“We simulated fighting a war in Korea, using a Korean scenario. … The scenario…simulated a decision by the National Command Authority about considering using nuclear weapons….We identified aircraft, crews, and [weapon] loaders to load up tactical nuclear weapons onto our aircraft….

With a capability to strike targets in less than 15 minutes, the Trident D5 sea-launched ballistic missile is a “mission critical system” for U.S. Forces Korea. Ballistic Missile Submarines and Long-Range Bombers

In addition to non-strategic air delivered bombs, sea-launched ballistic missiles onboard strategic Ohio-class submarines (SSBNs) patrolling in the Pacific appear also to have a mission against North Korea. A DOD General Inspector report from 1998 listed the Trident system as a “mission critical system” identified by U.S. Pacific Command and U.S. Forces Korea as “being of particular importance to them.”

Although the primary mission of the Trident system is directed against targets in Russia and China, a D5 missile launched in a low-trajectory flight provides a unique very short notice (12-13 minutes) strike capability against time-critical targets in North Korea. No other U.S. nuclear weapon system can get a warhead on target that fast. Two-three SSBNs are on “hard alert” in the Pacific at any given time, holding Russian, Chinese and North Korean targets at risk from designated patrol areas.

Long-range strategic bombers may also be assigned a nuclear strike role against North Korea although little specific is known. An Air Force map suggests a B-2 strike role against North Korea. As the designated carrier of the B61-11 earth penetrating nuclear bomb, the B-2 is a strong candidate for potential nuclear strike missions against North Korean deeply buried underground facilities.

As the designated carrier of the B61-11 earth penetrating nuclear bomb [with an explosive capacity between one third and six times a Hiroshima bomb] and a possible future Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator, the B-2 stealth bomber could have an important role against targets in North Korea. Recent upgrades enable planning of a new B-2 nuclear strike mission in less than 8 hours.  (The nuclear information project: withdrawal of US nuclear weapons from South Korea, emphasis added))

The Bush Administration’s 2001 Nuclear Posture Review: Pre-emptive Nuclear War

The Bush administration in its 2001 Nuclear Posture Review established the contours of a new post 9/11 “pre-emptive” nuclear war doctrine, namely that nuclear weapons could be used as an instrument of “self-defense” against non-nuclear states

“Requirements for U.S. nuclear strike capabilities” directed against North Korea were established as part of  a Global Strike mission under the helm of  US Strategic Command Headquarters in Omaha Nebraska, the so-called CONPLAN 8022, which was directed against a number of “rogue states”including North Korea as well as China and Russia.

On November 18, 2005, the new Space and Global Strike command became operational at STRATCOM after passing testing in a nuclear war exercise involving North Korea.

Current U.S. Nuclear strike planning against North Korea appears to serve three roles: The first is a vaguely defined traditional deterrence role intended to influence North Korean behavior prior to hostilities.

This role was broadened somewhat by the 2001 Nuclear Posture Review to not only deter but also dissuade North Korea from pursuing weapons of mass destruction.

Why, after five decades of confronting North Korea with nuclear weapons, the Bush administration believes that additional nuclear capabilities will somehow dissuade North Korea from pursuing weapons of mass destruction [nuclear weapons program] is a mystery. (Ibid, emphasis added)

Asymmetry of Nuclear Capabilities? 

The asymmetry of nuclear weapons capabilities between the US and the DPRK must be emphasised. According to ArmsControl.org (April 2013) the United States:

“possesses 5,113 nuclear warheads, including tactical, strategic, and non-deployed weapons.”

According to the latest official New START declaration, out of more than 5113 nuclear weapons,

“the US deploys 1,654 strategic nuclear warheads on 792 deployed ICBMs, SLBMs, and strategic bombers…”ArmsControl.org (April 2013).

The latest estimates place the DPRK’s nuclear capabilities at 1o nuclear warheads.

Source: www.Sipri.org

Moreover, according to The Federation of American Scientists the U.S. possesses 500 tactical nuclear warheads. (ArmsControl.org April 2013).

The tables above do not include the nuclear capabilities of Five Undeclared Nuclear Weapons States, Belgium, Netherlands, Germany, Italy, Turkey, which possess and deploy 150 B61 tactical nuclear weapons, weapons are directed against Russia, Iran and countries in the Middle East.

While the nuclear warheads are made in America, they are entirely under national command.

Nobody seems to be concerned and the issue is not an object of media coverage. Belgium is reported to have 20 B61 nuclear weapons under national command, Turkey has 50.

Source: Hans M. Kristensen, Federation of American Scientists,

presentation to Dutch and Belgian parliamentary committees , 2014

Double standards. No Trump “Fire and Fury” directed against Holland or Belgium, which possess 40 nuclear weapons under national command. Compare that to the DPRK’s 10 nuclear weapons, heralded as a “threat” to the security of the Western World.

The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, the unspoken victim of US military aggression, has been incessantly portrayed as a war mongering nation, a menace to the American Homeland and a  “threat to World peace”. These stylized accusations have become part of a media consensus.

The threat of nuclear war does not emanate from the DPRK but from the US and its allies. Meanwhile, Washington is now implementing a $32 billion refurbishing of strategic nuclear weapons as well as a revamping of its tactical nuclear weapons, which according to a 2002 Senate decision “are harmless to the surrounding civilian population.”

These continuous threats and actions of latent aggression directed against the DPRK should also be understood as part of the broader US military agenda in East Asia, directed against China and Russia.

It is important that people across the land, in the US, Western countries, come to realize that the United States rather than North Korea or Iran is a threat to global security.

Political Insanity and Nuclear War 

Insanity in US foreign policy, not to mention the fiction that nuclear weapons are an “instrument of peace” could lead to the unthinkable.

A One Trillion dollar nuclear weapons program was launched under the Obama administration.

Trump wisely pushed it to $1.2 Trillion:

Screenshot of New York Times

There is a long history of US political insanity geared towards providing a human face to U.S. crimes against humanity.

On August 9, 1945 on the day the second atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki, president Truman (image right), in a radio address to the American people, concluded that God is on the side of America with regards to the use of nuclear weapons and that

“He May guide us to use it [nuclear weapons] in His ways and His purposes”. 

According to Truman: God is with us, he will decide if and when to use the bomb:

[We must] prepare plans for the future control of this bomb. I shall ask the Congress to cooperate to the end that its production and use be controlled, and that its power be made an overwhelming influence towards world peace.

We must constitute ourselves trustees of this new force–to prevent its misuse, and to turn it into the channels of service to mankind.

It is an awful responsibility which has come to us.

We thank God that it [nuclear weapons] has come to us, instead of to our enemies; and we pray that He may guide us to use it [nuclear weapons] in His ways and for His purposes” (emphasis added)

This GRTV video was first published in 2013 in the context of the 60th commemoration of the 1953 Armistice Agreement.

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Chapter III

On the Pentagon’s Hit List

A War on North Korea

Would Engulf the Entire Northeast Asian Region

Geography 101: “Get Trump an Atlas”. Trump Wants to Bomb North Korea With Nuclear Weapons. Where is the Target Country? 

George W, Bush was known for his total ignorance of geography. “Dubya the Geographer: Someone Buy This Man an Atlas” appears in dubyaspeak.com, Dubya Speaks, We Record the Damage.  

Fast forward to 2017: What about Donald Trump who has his thumb on the nuclear button. What is his knowledge of geography.

What is the “damage” of ignorance among Trump’s foreign policy makers? In the words of Donald Trump:

“best not make any more threats to the United States. … [Kim Jong-un] has been very threatening – beyond a normal statement – and as I said, they will be met with fire, fury and, frankly, power the likes of which the world has never seen before.” (emphasis added)

“Trump Speaks, We Record the Damage.”  What is the “Damage” underlying Trump’s “fire, fury and power …” threats implying the preemptive use of nuclear weapons against North Korea?

And who will be around to “Record the Damage” in the wake of a world war?

Ask Trump, Where is North Korea? 

Where is the target country? 

A preventive first strike nuclear attack is now being contemplated against North Korea. And this is where Geography 101 comes in.

The distance between the centre of South Korea’s capital Seoul and the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) marking the border with North Korea is 57 km or 35 miles, half the distance between Manhattan and New Jersey (71 miles via Interstate Highway 95S).

The  distance between Seoul and Pyongyang is about 121 miles, less than the distance between the Trump Tower in Manhattan and The Trump Taj Mahal Casino in Atlantic City (131 miles)

Trump World Tower Manhattan

Pyongyang;  Compare the towers: Pyongyang vs. NYC

South Korea’s Gimpo international airport is barely 2 miles from the border with North Korea.

The distance between Seoul and the historical city of Kaesong in North Korea is 40 miles.

A nuclear attack against the DPRK would inevitably engulf  both North and South Korea, ie. the entire Korean peninsula, depending on the size and explosive yield of the nuclear bombs.

The Geopolitical Context: China, Russia, North Korea, South Korea, Japan

Pyongyang is close to the Chinese border. The DPRK has a border with the Russian Federation. The City of Vladivostok is approximately 60 miles from the DPRK border.

The entire Northeast Asian region –which largely consists of five countries– would also be affected  by the nuclear blast. In a bitter irony, two of these countries, namely Japan and South Korea are staunch allies and military partners of the US.

Source: screenshot of Google maps

What would be the nature of the unspoken “damage” resulting from a US led nuclear attack against the DPRK?

According to “scientific opinion” on contract to the Pentagon, the mini-nukes (tactical nuclear weapons) (e.g. B61-11) with an explosive yield of up to 6 times a Hiroshima bomb are, “harmless to the surrounding civilian population because the explosion is underground”.

It’s a big lie which is now embedded in the military manuals. And those lies are part of the daily intelligence briefings which are fed to president Donald Trump who as Commander in Chief has the real powers of unleashing a nuclear war. 

The Hiroshima bomb on August 6, 1945 was conducive to 100,000 killed or doomed in 9 seconds. Todays bombs (including the mini-nukes) are much more powerful.

Trump’s war against the DPRK is not only a war against the entire Korean nation.

The decision to use nuclear weapons against the DPRK could be a prelude to World War III.

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Chapter IV

Propaganda:

Falsifying Social Realities in North Korea

The North Korean government, according to the Western media is said to be oppressing and impoverishing its population.

According to US News and World Report, “North Korea is one of the most miserable places on earth. The standard of living has deteriorated to extreme levels of deprivation in which the right to food security, health and other minimum needs for human survival are denied,” 

Here in the USA we have medicare, all our kids are educated, we are all literate, and “we want to live in America”.

And in the DPRK, the health system sucks, they don’t have schools and hospital beds, they are all a bunch of illiterates,  

You would not want to live there!  (author’s paraphrase)

Beneath the mountain of media disinformation, there is more than meets the eye. Despite economic sanctions and military threats, not to mention the failed intent of “respectable” human rights organizations (including Amnesty International) to distort the facts, North Korea’s “health system is the envy of the developing world” according to the Director General of the World Health Organization:

“WHO director-general Margaret Chan said the country had “no lack of doctors and nurses””.

Screen shot of April 2010 BBC report

Health. DPRK vs. USA

While praising North Korea, the WHO admonishes the USA for “not having a universal health coverage”:

Screenshot CNBC Report, February 2017 quoting a study by the WHO and Imperial College London

Lets look at the figures. The Library of Congress Federal Research Division quoting official sources concurs:

Do the Pyongyang towers (see image above) compete with Manhattan’s Trump Tower? Ask Donald Trump.

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Chapter V

The Candlelight Movement,

 The Demilitarization of the Korean Peninsula

The 1987 June Democratic Uprising was a nationwide grassroots movement in the Republic of Korea (ROK) directed against the military regime of president Chun Doo-hwan, a ROK army general who came to power in 1979  following a military  coup and the assassination of President General Park Chung-hee. 

Chun Doo-hwan (1979-1987) had announced the appointment of a new military dictator: Army GeneralRoh Tae-woo as the next unelected president of the ROK. 

This self-proclaimed decision in defiance of public sentiment was conducive to the June 1987 mass movement in support of constitutional reform with a view to instating the holding of direct presidential elections. While the June movement put an end to unelected military rule, what was achieved was a military-civilian transition whereby General Roh-Tae-woo, was instated through the conduct of presidential elections. (In 1996, Roh was sentenced to more than 22 years in prison on bribery, mutiny and sedition charges.)

While the June movement was a landmark, it did not modify the social hierarchy, the corrupt political and corporate networks, the authoritarian nature of the leading corporate giants (Chaebols), not to mention the shadow decision making processes within the military and intelligence apparatus, conducted in liaison with Washington.  

Thirty years later, the irony of history is that another grassroots protest movement, The Candle Light Movement in part inspired by the 1987 June Uprising successfully sought the impeachment of president Park Guen-hye, daughter of  General Park Chung-hee who ruled the ROK from 1963 to 1979.  According to media reports, the mega protests gained impetus on November 12, 2016 with one million protesters, rising to 1,9 million on November 19, and culminating on December 3, with 2,3 million. “The 2.3 million mega-protest … was a critical turning point that halted Park’s last attempt to escape impeachment

UPP Rep. Lee Seok-ki.(right)

The government backlashed on grassroots organizations and the labor movement. In turn, under Mrs. Park’s presidency, the neocolonial relationship exerted by the US was reinforced with particular emphasis on expanded militarization.

Rep. Lee Seok-ki of the United Progressive Party (UPP) was accused without evidence of “plotting to overthrow the ROK government” of president Park Guen hye.

That government was indeed overthrown, by the people’s Candlelight movement, by a democratic process which was ratified by the constitutional court.

Convicted on charges of bribery, corruption, abuse of power, coercion and leaking government secrets (in a total of 18 cases), Park Guen-hye faces between 10 years to life in prison.

Bear in mind, these accusations are but the tip of the iceberg, they do not include Ms. Park’s orders to arbitrarily arrest her political opponents and repeal fundamental civil rights.

In a bitter irony, it was the constitutional court under pressure from the Conservative Party, which ratified president Park’s baseless accusations against Rep. Lee Seok-ki, which led to his imprisonment. That erroneous decision by the Constitutional Court, which was in part upheld by the Supreme Court, invoking the 1948 National Security Act must be challenged and annulled.

Park Geun-hye at the Seoul central district court in South Korea. Photograph: Xinhua/Rex/Shutterstock

Reunification and The Sunshine Policy

The Sunshine policy initially established under the government of Kim Dae-jung with a view to seeking North-South cooperation had already been abolished by Park Guen-hye’s predecessor president Lee Myung-bak (2008-2013). In turn, this period was marked by a heightened atmosphere of confrontation between North and South, marked by successive war games.

The administrations of both presidents Lee and Park were largely instrumental in repealing the Sunshine Policy which had been actively pursued during the Roh Moo-hyun administration (2003-2008), with increased public sentiment in favor of reunification of North and South Korea.  

Sunshine 2.0. The Demilitarization of the Korean Peninsula

The legacy of history is fundamental: From the outset in 1945 as well as in the wake of the Korean war (1950-53), US interference and military presence in the ROK has been the main obstacle to the pursuit of democracy and national sovereignty.

Washington has consistently played a role in ROK politics, with a view to ensuring its hegemonic objectives in East Asia. The impeached president Mrs. Park served as an instrument of the US administration.

Will the popular movement against the impeached president prevail?

It was conducive to the conduct of new presidential elections leading to the election of Moon Jae-in as president of the ROK.

Supported by the Candle Light movement, Moon Jae-in’s presidency potentially constitutes a watershed, a political as well as geopolitical landmark, an avenue towards national sovereignty in defiance of US interference, a potential break with a foregone era of authoritarian rule.

President Moon Jae-in had worked closely with president Roh Moo-hyun as his chef de cabinet. He has confirmed his unbending commitment in favor of dialogue and cooperation with Pyongyang, under what is being dubbed Sunshine 2.0 Policy, while also maintaining the ROK’s relationship with the US.

While President Moon Jae-in (left) is firmly opposed to the DPRK’s nuclear program, he has nonetheless taken a firm stance against the deployment of the US-supplied Terminal High-Altitude Area Defence Missile Defence System (THAAD).

In recent developments, the ROK Defense Ministry acting behind his back took the initiative (May 30, 2017) of bringing in four more launchers for the THAAD missile system. “President Moon said that it’s ‘very shocking’ after receiving a report” on the incident from his national security director” (Morningstar, May 30, 2017)

President Moon’s commitment to cooperation with North Korea coupled with demilitarization, will require redefining the ROK-US relationship in military affairs. This is the crucial issue.

The World is at a dangerous crossroads: How will the policies of President’s Moon’s administration affect the broader East Asia geopolitical context marked by US threats of military action (including the use of nuclear weapons) not only against North Korea but also against China and Russia?

In the present context, the US has de facto control over ROK foreign policy as well as North South Korea relations. Under the OPCON agreement, the Pentagon controls the command structure of the ROK armed forces.

Ultimately this is what has to be addressed with a view to establishing a lasting peace on the Korean peninsula and the broader East Asian region.

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Chapter VI

The Repeal of the ROK-US Combined Forces Command (CFC)

Towards a Bilateral North-South Peace Agreement 

In 2014, the government of  President Park Geun-hye postponed the repeal of the OPCON (Operational Control) agreement “until the mid-2020s”. What this signified is that “in the event of conflict” all ROK forces would be under the command of a US General appointed by the Pentagon, rather than under that of the ROK President and Commander in Chief.

It goes without saying that national sovereignty cannot reasonably be achieved without the annulment of the OPCON agreement as well as the ROK – US Combined Forces Command (CFC) structure.

As we recall, in 1978 a binational Republic of Korea – United States Combined Forces Command (CFC), was created under the presidency of General Park (military dictator and father of impeached president Park Guen-hye). In substance, this was a change in labels in relation to the so-called UN Command.

“Ever since the Korean War, the allies have agreed that the American four-star would be in “Operational Control” (OPCON) of both ROK and US military forces in wartime …. Before 1978, this was accomplished through the United Nations Command. Since then it has been the CFC [US Combined Forces Command (CFC) structure]. (Brookings Institute)

Moreover, the Command of the US General under the renegotiated OPCON (2014) remains fully operational inasmuch as the 1953 Armistice (which legally constitutes a temporary ceasefire) is not replaced by a peace treaty.

The 1953 Armistice Agreement

What underlies the 1953 Armistice Agreement is that one of the warring parties, namely the US has consistently threatened to wage war on the DPRK for more than 60 years.

The US has on countless occasions violated the Armistice Agreement. It has remained on a war footing. Casually ignored by the Western media and the international community, the US has actively deployed nuclear weapons targeted at North Korea for more than half a century in violation of article 13b) of the Armistice agreement. More recently it has deployed the so-called THAAD missiles largely directed against China and Russia.

The US is still at war with North Korea. The armistice agreement signed in July 1953 –which legally constitutes a “temporary ceasefire” between the warring parties (US, North Korea and China’s Volunteer Army)– must be rescinded through the signing of a long-lasting peace agreement.

The US has not only violated the armistice agreement, it has consistently refused to enter into peace negotiations with Pyongyang, with a view to maintaining its military presence in South Korea as well as shunting a process of normalization and cooperation between the ROK and the DPRK.

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Michel Chossudovsky’s keynote address at the 60th anniversary commemoration of the end of the Korean war, Seoul, South Korea, July 26, 2013 

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If  one of the signatories of the Armistice refuses to sign a Peace Agreement, what should be contemplated is the formulation  of a comprehensive Bilateral North-South Peace Agreement, which would de facto lead to rescinding the 1953 armistice.

What should be sought is that the “state of war” between the US and the DPRK (which prevails under the armistice agreement) be in a sense “side-tracked” and annulled by the signing of a comprehensive bilateral North-South peace agreement, coupled with cooperation and interchange.

This proposed far-reaching agreement between Seoul and Pyongyang would assert peace on the Korean peninsula –failing the signing of a peace agreement between the signatories of the 1953 Armistice agreement.

The legal formulation of this bilateral entente is crucial. The bilateral arrangement would in effect bypass Washington’s refusal. It would establish the basis of peace on the Korean peninsula, without foreign intervention, namely without Washington dictating its conditions. It would require the concurrent withdrawal of US troops from the ROK and the repeal of the OPCON agreement.

Bear in mind, the US was involved in the de facto abrogation of paragraph 13(d) of the Armistice agreement, which forecloses the parties from entering new weapons into Korea. In 1956, Washington brought in and installed nuclear weapons facilities into South Korea. In so doing, the U.S. not only abrogated paragraph 13(d), it abrogated the entire Armistice agreement through the deployment of US troops and weapons systems in the ROK.

Moreover, it should be noted that the militarization of  the ROK under the OPCOM agreement, including the development of new military bases, is also largely intent upon using the Korean peninsula as a military launchpad threatening both China and Russia. Under OPCOM, “in the case of war”, the entire force of the ROK would be mobilized under US command against China or Russia.

The THAAD missiles are deployed in South Korea, against China, Russia and North Korea.  Washington states that THAAD is solely intended as a Missile Shield against North Korea.

Similarly, the Jeju island military base is largely intended to threaten China.

THAAD System

The Jeju island military base is also directed against China. 

Less than 500km from Shanghai

Moreover, Washington is intent upon creating political divisions in East Asia not only between the ROK and the DPRK but also between North Korea and China, with a view to ultimately isolating the DPRK.

In a bitter irony, US military facilities in the ROK (including Jeju Island) are being used to threaten China as part of a process of military encirclement. Needless to say, permanent peace on the Korean peninsula as well as in the broader East Asia region as defined under a bilateral North-South agreement would require the repeal of both the Armistice agreement as well as OPCOM, including the withdrawal of US troops from the ROK.

It is important that the bilateral peace talks between the ROK with DPRK under the helm of President Moon Jae-in be conducted without the participation or interference of outside parties. These discussions must address the withdrawal of all US occupation forces as well as the removal of economic sanctions directed against North Korea.

The exclusion of US military presence and the withdrawal of the 28,500 occupation forces should be a sine qua non requirement of a bilateral ROK-DPRK Peace Treaty.

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Chapter VII  

The Republic of Korea’s Relationship with the United States

Military rule was imposed by the United States starting in the immediate wake of World War II. At the Potsdam Conference (July–August 1945), the US and the Soviet Union agreed to dividing Korea, along the 38th parallel.

There was no “Liberation” of Korea following the entry of US forces. Quite the opposite. A US military government was established in South Korea on September 8, 1945, three weeks after the surrender of Japan on August 15th 1945. Moreover,  Japanese officials in South Korea assisted the US Army Military Government (USAMG) (1945-48) led by General Hodge in ensuring this transition. Japanese colonial administrators in Seoul as well as their Korean police officials worked hand in glove with the new colonial masters.

While Japan was treated as a defeated Empire, South Korea was identified as a colonial territory to be administered under US military rule and US occupation forces. America’s handpicked appointee Sygman Rhee [left] was flown into Seoul in October 1945, in General Douglas MacArthur’s personal airplane

US Sponsored Military Dictatorship

The underlying model of military dictatorship applied in the ROK from 1945 to 1987 was not substantially different to what was imposed by Washington in Latin America and South East Asia.

As of the 1980s, a major shift in US foreign policy occurred. US interventionism was geared towards the replacement of military regimes by compliant “democratic governments”, which would not in any way weaken or jeopardize America’s interference in the internal affairs of sovereign states.

Most of the US sponsored military dictatorships in the course of the 1980s were replaced by US sponsored democracies, (e.g. Chile, Argentina, Brazil, Philippines, Indonesia). Meanwhile, US increasingly intervenes in national elections, promotes political leaders and instigates “regime change”.

What has developed in many countries is a facade of democracy, what might be described as a “democratic dictatorship”.

Sweeping macro-economic reforms are often imposed. Democratically elected leaders continue to be threatened if they do not conform, heads of state are often co-opted.

What the foregoing suggests is that the repeal of authoritarian rule in the ROK, with government’s run by the military replaced by an elected president, does not necessarily imply a shift in the structure of the State.

Financial Warfare directed against the Republic of Korea. The 1997-98 Asian Crisis

As we recall, in the ROK, the democratically elected president Kim Dae jung had been instructed by Washington in no uncertain terms (prior to the elections) to implement sweeping macro-economic reforms in response to the speculative onslaught against the Korean Won in 1997 at the height of the Asian crisis.

Succumbing to political pressure, president Kim Dae-jung, a former dissident, political prisoner and starch opponent of the US backed military regimes of Park Chung-hee and Chun Doo-hwan, had caved in to Wall Street and Washington prior to his formal inauguration as the country’s democratically elected president.

In fact Washington had demanded through its embassy in Seoul that all three candidates in the presidential race commit themselves to adopting the IMF sponsored “bailout”. Kim Dae-jung was committed to democracy and national sovereignty. He had the support of the Korean people. Yet what occurred was a process of political arm twisting both prior as well as in the wake of the 1997 presidential elections. Kim Dae jung remained firmly opposed to the IMF bailout agreement. He candidly warned public opinion and accused the outgoing government of organising a massive sell-out of the Korean economy:

“Foreign investors can freely buy our entire financial sector, including 26 banks, 27 securities firms, 12 insurance companies and 21 merchant banks, all of which are listed on the Korean Stock Exchange, for just 5.5 trillion won,’ that is, $3.7 billion.” (quoted in Michel Chossudovsky, The Globalization of Poverty and the New World Order, Global Research, Montreal, 2003)

The 1997 Asian crisis was engineered. It was the result of financial manipulation. The ROK had been the object of a deliberate process of economic destabilization instigated by powerful financial institutions. Yet in the wake of the election president Kim Dae-jung was obliged to conform to Washington’s demands.

What the foregoing signifies is that a democratically elected government does not in itself ensure democracy and national sovereignty.

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Chapter VII

Reunification and the Road Ahead

There is Only One Korean Nation

America’s neo-colonial practice applied both prior and in the post World War period has been geared towards weakening the nation state. Washington seeks through military and non-military means  the partition and fracture of independent countries. (eg. Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, Central America, Iraq, Syria, Sudan). This foreign policy agenda focussing on fracture and partition also applies to Korea.

There is only one Korean Nation. Washington opposes reunification because a united Korean Nation would weaken US hegemony in East Asia.

Reunification would create a competing industrial and military power and nation state (with advanced technological and scientific capabilities) which would assert its sovereignty, establish trade relations with neighbouring countries (including Russia and China) without the interference of Washington.

It is worth noting in this regard, that US foreign policy and military planners have already established their own scenario of “reunification” predicated on maintaining US occupation troops in Korea. Similarly, what is envisaged by Washington is a framework which would enable “foreign investors” to penetrate and pillage the North Korean economy.

Washington’s objective is to impose the terms of Korea’s reunification. The NeoCons “Project for a New American Century” (PNAC) published in 2000 had intimated that in a “post unification scenario”, the number of US troops (currently at 28,500) should be increased and that US military presence should be extended to North Korea.

In a reunified Korea,  the stated military mandate of the US garrison would be to implement so-called “stability operations in North Korea”:

While Korea unification might call for the reduction in American presence on the peninsula and a transformation of U.S force posture in Korea, the changes would really reflect a change in their mission – and changing technological realities – not the termination of their mission. Moreover, in any realistic post-unification scenario, U.S. forces are likely to have some role in stability operations in North Korea. It is premature to speculate on the precise size and composition of a post-unification U.S. presence in Korea, but it is not too early to recognize that the presence of American forces in Korea serves a larger and longer-range strategic purpose. For the present, any reduction in capabilities of the current U.S. garrison on the peninsula would be unwise. If anything, there is a need to bolster them, especially with respect to their ability to defend against missile attacks and to limit the effects of North Korea’s massive artillery capability. In time, or with unification, the structure of these units will change and their manpower levels fluctuate, but U.S. presence in this corner of Asia should continue. 36 (PNAC, Rebuilding America`s Defenses, Strategy, Forces and Resources for a New Century, p. 18, emphasis added)

Washington’s intentions are crystal clear.

It should be understood that a US led war against North Korea would engulf the entire Korean nation.

The US sponsored state of war is directed against both North and South Korea. It is characterised by persistent military threats (including the use of nuclear weapons) against the DPRK.

It also threatens the ROK which has been under US military occupation since September 1945. Currently there are 28,500 US troops in South Korea. Yet under the US-ROK OPCON (joint defense agreement) discussed earlier, all ROK forces are  under US command.

Given the geography of the Korean peninsula, the use of nuclear weapons against North Korea would inevitably also engulf South Korea. This fact is known and understood by US military planners.

What has to be emphasized in relation to Sunshine 2.0 Policy is that the US and the ROK cannot be “Allies” inasmuch as the US threatens to wage war on North Korea.

The “real alliance” is that which unifies and reunites North and South Korea through dialogue against foreign intrusion and aggression.

The US is in a state of war against the entire Korean Nation. And what this requires is:

the holding of bilateral talks between the ROK and the DPRK with a view to signing an agreement which nullifies the Armistice and sets the term of a bilateral “Peace Treaty”. In turn this agreement would set the stage for the exclusion of US military presence and the withdrawal of the 28,500 US forces.

Moreover, pursuant to bilateral Peace negotiations, the ROK-US OPCON agreement which places ROK forces under US command should be rescinded.  All ROK troops would thereafter be brought under national ROK command.

Bilateral consultations should also be undertaken with a view to further developing economic, technological, cultural and educational cooperation between the ROK and the DPRK.

Without the US in the background pulling the strings under OPCON, the threat of war would be replaced by dialogue. The first priority, therefore would be to rescind OPCON.

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Order Directly from Global Research Publishers

Michel Chossudovsky

The US has embarked on a military adventure, “a long war”, which threatens the future of humanity. US-NATO weapons of mass destruction are portrayed as instruments of peace. Mini-nukes are said to be “harmless to the surrounding civilian population”. Pre-emptive nuclear war is portrayed as a “humanitarian undertaking”.

While one can conceptualize the loss of life and destruction resulting from present-day wars including Iraq and Afghanistan, it is impossible to fully comprehend the devastation which might result from a Third World War, using “new technologies” and advanced weapons, until it occurs and becomes a reality. The international community has endorsed nuclear war in the name of world peace. “Making the world safer” is the justification for launching a military operation which could potentially result in a nuclear holocaust.

The mainstream media is currently waging a campaign against the alternative and independent media including Global Research.

Progressive online media is accused of propagating “fake news”. Are these allegations justified?

Read this April 20, 2016 Global Research report on the MSM coverage of the March 2016 Brussels terror attacks. The corporate media routinely use fake images and videos with a view to misleading the public in its coverage of controversial events including the “war on terrorism”.

Who are the protagonists of “fake news”?

Michel Chossudovsky, Global Research, 13 February 2018

***

After a month of exhaustive police investigations, the Belgian authorities have identified and arrested the alleged (surviving) terror mastermind of the airport bombing, the “man in the hat” Mohamed Abrini. The other four alleged terrorists involved in the kamikaze bombing attacks at the airport and the metro station are reported dead. 

According to reports, Abrini was identified on a Brussels airport still photo released by one or more airport video security surveillance CCTV cameras.

This photo –which identifies three of the terror suspects– has become a central piece of evidence in the police investigation.

In this still photo, the mystery “man in the hat” allegedly Mohamed Abrini is seen accompanying the two alleged suicide bombers, who according to reports blew themselves up in Brussels airport.

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Moreover, Abrini happens to be, according to French police investigators, the main surviving suspect of the Paris November attacks.

The official story is that the attacks in both Paris and Brussels were ordered by the ISIS, which just so happens to be supported by Turkey and Saudi Arabia in close liaison with Washington and NATO headquarters in Brussels. (The issue of US-NATO-Israel support of the Islamic State is amply documented).

According to media reports:

The revelation that a Paris attacks suspect escorted two of the Brussels bombers to their deaths at the city’s airport is the strongest sign yet that the Islamic State attackers who brought mayhem to both European cities — killing a total of 162 people — were intimately linked. (See Guardian April 9, 2016)

La canzone meritoriamente vincitrice del Festival di Sanremo è accompagnata da un videoclip che mostra drammatiche scene di guerra e attentati in un mondo in cui la vita, nonostante ciò, deve andare avanti «perché tutto va oltre le vostre inutili guerre».

Proviamo a sostituire al videoclip un docufilm degli ultimi fatti.

In Europa la Nato sta schierando crescenti forze (comprese quelle italiane) sul fronte orientale contro la Russia, presentata quale minacciosa potenza aggressiva. Nel quadro di un riarmo nucleare del costo di 1.200 miliardi di dollari, gli Stati uniti si preparano a schierare dal 2020 in Italia, Germania, Belgio e Olanda, e probabilmente anche in Polonia e altri paesi dell’Est, le nuove bombe nucleari B61-12, di cui saranno armati i caccia F-35. Alle esercitazioni di guerra nucleare partecipa l’Aeronautica italiana, che lo scorso settembre ha inviato un suo team presso il Comando strategico degli Stati uniti. Gli Usa accusano inoltre la Russia di schierare sul proprio territorio missili a raggio intermedio con base a terra, in violazione del Trattato Inf del 1987, e si preparano a schierare in Europa missili analoghi ai Pershing 2 e ai Cruise degli anni Ottanta. Si crea in tal modo un confronto militare analogo a quello della guerra fredda, che accresce l’influenza Usa in Europa e ricompatta gli alleati nella comune strategia mirante a mantenere la supremazia in un mondo che cambia.

Ciò comporta una crescente spesa militare: l’Italia la porterà da 70 a 100 milioni di euro al giorno; la Spagna a 50 milioni con un aumento del 73% entro il 2024; la Francia la accrescerà del 40% superando i 135 milioni al giorno. Per potenziare il proprio arsenale nucleare la Francia spenderà 37 miliardi di euro entro il 2025.

Affari d’oro per le industrie belliche: il rendimento azionario della maggiore del mondo, la statuntense Lockheed Martin, è aumentato dell’84% in tre anni. Funzionali ai potenti interessi che alimentano l’escalation Usa/Nato sono le formazioni neonaziste ucraine, addestrate da istruttori Usa trasferiti da Vicenza. L’Ucraina di Kiev, dove convergono militanti da altri paesi, è divenuta il «vivaio» del rinascente nazismo nel cuore dell’Europa (ma di questo in Italia praticamente non si parla).

In Medioriente, fallito in seguito all’intervento russo a sostegno di Damasco il piano Usa/Nato di demolire lo Stato siriano come già fatto con quello libico, è in corso il tentativo, coordinato con Israele, di balcanizzare il paese strappandogli pezzi del territorio nazionale. In una audizione al Congresso Usa, il 6 febbraio scorso, l’ambasciatore (a riposo) Robert Ford ha dichiarato che, per le operazioni militari e «civili» in Siria, nella cui parte orientale operano oggi circa 2.000 militari Usa, gli Stati uniti hanno speso dal 2014 12 miliardi di dollari (in gran parte per armare e sostenere movimenti jihadisti allo scopo di scardinare lo Stato dall’interno).

In Asia orientale – sottolinea la «National Defense Strategy 2018» del Pentagono – gli Stati uniti hanno di fronte «la Cina, un competitore strategico che usa una economia predatoria per intimidure i suoi vicini, mentre militarizza sotto diversi aspetti il Mar Cinese Meridionale». Il Pentagono sta esaminando un piano per inviare in Asia Orientale una forza di reazione rapida del Marines, pesantemente armata.

Perdendo terreno sul piano economico rispetto alla Cina, gli Stati uniti mettono in campo la loro forza militare. Creano così nuove tensioni nella regione, non a caso nel momento in cui vi sono segnali distensivi tra le due Coree.

Lo sbocco può essere un’altra guerra, non «inutile» ma utilissima alla strategia dell’impero.

Manlio Dinucci

Will this be the trigger, finally, for the active commencement of Operation Greater Israel that Netanyahu has been meticulously planning for the whole of his political career, and prior to his increasingly likely indictment on corruption charges as he is finally forced from office later this year?

A last ditch attempt to implement the infamous Zionist ideological agenda for the ethnic cleansing of the whole of former Palestine and the military expansion into not only Lebanon but also Jordan, Syria and Iraq in order to confront his sworn enemy, Iran, and to implement his (revisionist) Zionist dream of Israel as hegemon of the Middle East?

That would likely involve a full-scale attack on Lebanon; the targeted (criminal) political assassination of senior Hezbollah leaders and presumably the Israeli occupation of Beirut using US-supplied F-16 and F-35 strike aircraft, courtesy of Mr Trump, and (reluctantly) backed by the American Pentagon.

The expected illegal annexation of the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights with the assistance of American troops authorised by the Trump-Kushner family White House would put the Middle East and the world on a trajectory that would very probably lead to a regional nuclear war.

It would appear that Europe, including Britain, will be impotent to stop the Trump-Netanyahu war machine but it will not come as any great surprise to those who are familiar with the long-time, Likud charter agenda for a Greater Israel: a neo-colonial enterprise that holds complete contempt for the UN Security Council; for the entire international community and for the concept of Middle East peace.

This would, of course, well turn out to be the trigger for a much wider conflagration that could extend well beyond the Middle East into Europe, and an escalating confrontation with both Russia and/or the European Union, as well as the United Nations Security Council that represents the global international community and had already categorically condemned Israeli aggression and illegal expansion in its passing, without dissent, of UNSC Resolution 2334, as recently as December 2016. These are the facts.

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

Michel Chossudovsky

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

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

Year: 2015

Pages: 240 Pages

List Price: $22.95

Special Price: $15.00

Click here to order.

Afghanistan is now living under a precarious situation. Major shifts in US war plans are unfolding. The deadly suicide blasts of the last month in the capital Kabul that invoked international condemnation were followed by US-led retaliatory bombings of the Taliban sanctuaries in several parts of Afghanistan.

One of the signs that fuelled “prediction” (without evidence) that these bombings were to occur was that the Taliban allegedly claimed responsibility for the Intercontinental hotel and ambulance attacks. The latter provided legitimacy to the US led retaliatory bombing raids.  [There is no firm evidence that the Taliban were behind the attacks].

Among the US Administration’s revengeful moves against the Taliban for the recent Kabul bombings was Trump’s authorization which allowed the US High Command in Afghanistan to strike the militants strongholds across the border in Pakistan. But last week, NATO’s Resolute Mission in a released news report informed of a new air operation directed against the group’s hotspots in the north-eastern Afghan province of Badakhshan that shares borders with both China and Tajikistan.

Last week, the top US commander General John Nicholson told the media that the Taliban can’t win the war and therefore chose instead to kill people and destroy buildings and establishments. Meanwhile, Ashraf Ghani’s government has urged the US-NATO forces to escalate the air campaign and ground operations against the Taliban group. It points out that the recent events and Afghan government’s open calls for the intensified US operations against the group is a step forward to a new show of “war on terrorism”.

It was reported that one of the goals of the last week’s B52 airstrikes was to impede the militants from organizing terrorist plots in proximity of China and Tajikistan’s borders.

The operations were reportedly led by the American B52 Stratofortress Bombers that involved dropping of at least 24 precision-guided bombs on the Taliban hubs. The use of such gigantic bombs that is designed for “mass destruction” –resulting in the killings of civilians– was viewed as aggressive and inappropriate. The Taliban insurgents always take shelter in residential areas and there is no guarantee that harm has not been inflicted, resulting in the loss of civilian lives.

These large-scale aerial attacks could indeed lead to evacuation of the area, with local residents as well as Taliban militants leaving it open for the smooth arrival and settlement of the brand new militant group by the name of ISIS-K.

In any corner of the country, the Taliban fighters have not operated on a scale that may require the call for the B52 or the use of the mega bomb MOAB. The group can only be defeated through ground operations by a well-equipped Afghan Army.

The US’ B52 bombings on remote and marginal regions of Afghanistan that is allegedly justified with a view to protect the borders with China and Tajikistan from militant encroachment is illogical inasmuch as the rebel groups actively involved within 65 km of the capital Kabul in Wardak, Nangarhar and Laghman provinces.  Shouldn’t they get wiped out first before moving hundreds of miles into the north where the militants might not even know what happened recently in Kabul?

The worrisome news that prompts the need for questioning the recent B52 air operations is the influx of the ISIS militants from Syria and Iraq into Afghanistan.

These incoming batches of ISIS fighters are joining the other groups that have already been settled predominantly in the northern provinces of Afghanistan and live in absolute security.

The logic underlying US operations in the north of Afghanistan should be addressed and understood.

On February 1, Russian Special Envoy Zemir Kabulov warned that some 7,000 terrorists and thousands of reservists of ISIS currently reside in Afghanistan.

“We have been carefully monitoring the genesis of the Afghan wing of the ISIS over the past three years… The ISIS has nearly 7,000 active fighters, without taking into account several thousands of reservists”, Kabulov told the Rossiya-24 TV channel. The Taliban fighters’ number in Afghanistan currently stands at around 60,000 or 70,000, he noted.

He went on to say that the Afghan government and the foreign troops stay idle on detecting the ISIS reservists. He said:

“This is a serious case. The ISIS members have come to Afghanistan not for Jihad against the US and other foreign troops; they have come to set up a foothold for their further expansion to the north, to Central Asia”.

He maintained that Afghanistan’s air space is exclusively controlled by the US, then either it does nothing to prevent the movements of the mysterious helicopters that transport ISIS fighters into the territory or it is involved in the process itself.

Most of the ISIS fighters making their way into Afghanistan are originally from Russia and the Central Asia. They are radicalized and turned hostile to their own nations. They are perfect for the mission because they bear cognition and knowledge of the roadmap.

Chief of Staff of the Iranian Armed Forces Major General Mohammad Baqeri told Tasnim news agency that continued tensions in Southwest Asia would provide Americans with the much-desired pretext to prolong their military presence there. He said

“After witnessing ISIS and other organized terrorist groups losing their ground in Iraq and Syria, they are now relocating them to Afghanistan, which has become the scene of fresh explosions, assassinations and crimes”.

The expanding foothold of the ISIS in the north is affirmed by many news agencies, local authorities and Afghan MPs which is described as a descent into a dangerous Syria-like situation.

Jawid Kohistani, a renowned Afghan military think tank had earlier said that the US supports the ISIS in Afghanistan and the fighters creep up into Afghanistan with the aid of Arabs and the cooperation of Pakistan through the port of Karachi.

The US Generals keep pronouncing the war on ISIS at a time the group has pulled out its domain of rule from a few districts in eastern Afghanistan into sizable portion of territories in the northern Afghanistan.

Masud Wadan is an independent author based in Kabul.

---

by Michel Chossudovsky

ISBN Number: 9780973714715

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In this new and expanded edition of Michel Chossudovsky’s 2002 best seller, the author blows away the smokescreen put up by the mainstream media, that 9/11 was an attack on America by “Islamic terrorists”.  Through meticulous research, the author uncovers a military-intelligence ploy behind the September 11 attacks, and the cover-up and complicity of key members of the Bush Administration.

The expanded edition, which includes twelve new chapters focuses on the use of 9/11 as a pretext for the invasion and illegal occupation of Iraq, the militarisation of justice and law enforcement and the repeal of democracy.

According to Chossudovsky, the  “war on terrorism” is a complete fabrication based on the illusion that one man, Osama bin Laden, outwitted the $40 billion-a-year American intelligence apparatus. The “war on terrorism” is a war of conquest. Globalisation is the final march to the “New World Order”, dominated by Wall Street and the U.S. military-industrial complex.

September 11, 2001 provides a justification for waging a war without borders. Washington’s agenda consists in extending the frontiers of the American Empire to facilitate complete U.S. corporate control, while installing within America the institutions of the Homeland Security State.

Featured image: Sobchak at a demonstration in Moscow in May 2012 (Source: Wikimedia Commons)

Last week, the Russian socialite and presidential candidate Ksenia Sobchak spent three days in the US, talking to politicians and appearing at think tanks as part of her presidential campaign. Her candidacy signals an attempt by sections of the Kremlin to find channels to a rapprochement with US imperialism, and to close ranks within the ruling class.

She concluded her three-day trip to the United States on February 7 with a presentation at Columbia University’s Harriman Institute, one of the most important think tanks dealing with US imperialist foreign policy in the former Soviet Union. She had previously spent two and a half days in Washington, where she toured think tanks such as the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), spoke at Georgetown University and attended the national prayer breakfast at the invitation of the Trump White House. She also gave interviews on CNN and other TV shows.

It is fair to assume that, outside a small layer within the political elites, no one in the US or Western Europe knew anything about Ksenia Sobchak prior to this trip. Yet in Russia, she is one of the best known public figures. As the daughter of Anatoly Sobchak, who was the mayor of St. Petersburg in the 1990s and mentor to both Vladimir Putin and Dmitri Medvedev, she has been part of the ruling circles of Russia since her childhood. The Sobchak family stood at the very center of the violent mafia wars over economic control and political power that dominated the 1990s, and Ksenia Sobchak has counted many of those who have destroyed the Soviet state and robbed it among her closest friends.

While she initially made her name as the “Russian Paris Hilton”, posing for Russian Playboy and playing in various reality TV shows, like many children of the Russian political elite, she has also obtained a degree from the Moscow State Institute of International Relations (MGIMO), which has traditionally trained the cadre for the Russian government and state apparatus. In the past few years, she has professed political ambitions, as a self-proclaimed leader of the liberal opposition movement and the protests in Russia’s capital in 2011-2012.

Her current presidential bid is formally backed by the Civil Initiative, one of many, often short-lived, pseudo-liberal parties and groupings. Polls indicate that she might receive less than 1 percent of the votes on March 18.

Sobchak announced her candidacy contesting Vladimir Putin, who is widely expected to win the elections on March 18, shortly after the main leader of the so called liberal opposition, Alexei Navalny, had been banned from participating. Navalny strongly opposes Sobchak’s candidacy and has instead advocated a boycott of the elections.

The most obvious question about her candidacy is: what is its purpose?

Sobchak herself has acknowledged that she discussed with Putin personally before announcing it. Her entire trip to the United States was covered widely not only by the American, but also by the Russian state-owned media.

In her presentations at the CSIS in Washington and Columbia’s Harriman Institute, she emphasized her orientation toward the West and commitment to an Orange Revolution type policy. Leaving aside her platitudes about “liberalism”, “democracy”, “transparency”, and “honesty”, a script well known by now by everyone who follows the machinations of US imperialist foreign policy and its lackeys in the former Soviet Union, her program boils down to this:

• Rapprochement with NATO and the US in particular, and steps toward integrating Russia into the European Union. Bound up with that would be a significant decrease in military spending (now 20 percent of Russian GDP).
• Unconditional defense of private property (“property is sacred”) and the need for a “strong state” to protect it.
• The opening up of Russia to foreign investors, including the right of foreigners to invest in and own parts of Russia’s key industries, oil and gas among them.

Her empty slogans about improving the educational system or laments about the poor state of hospitals are of course nothing but window dressing. The opening up and restructuring of the Russian economy would transform Russia, now basically a semi-colony of world imperialism on an economic level, into a full-blown playground for imperialism and its companies. It would result in massive attacks on the already dramatically low living standards of the working class.

The “democracy” that Sobchak envisions is the “democracy” and “freedom” of the oligarchs and aspiring entrepreneurs to grab whatever wealth they can get, too much of which, in their opinion, is now under the control of Putin, his friends and allies, and the state.

Speaking at the Harriman Institute, Sobchak stated that she was in close discussions with the ex-oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky, whom Putin put in jail largely in order to prevent a sell-off of the Russian oil industry to American companies.

Ksenia Sobchak with Timothy Frye, the director of the political science department and head of the Harriman Institute at Columbia University on February 7 (Source: WSWS)

Khodorkovsky’s imprisonment was supported by wide layers of the population, who were outraged by the open criminality with which Khodorkovsky had attained his fortune in the 1990s. In late 2013, Putin released him in an effort to appease the imperialist powers and pave the way for a rapprochement—a move that did not yield the results the Kremlin had hoped for. On the contrary, with the coup in Ukraine, both the US and the EU have embarked on a course of aggressive confrontation with Russia.

While advocating policies that are associated with the liberal opposition and a Maidan-style movement, she rejects the repetition of such a movement in Russia, and considers the call for a boycott by Navalny as “too radical”. Rather, her goal is “to influence Putin, to influence the system” in the next six years by attaining a substantial vote.

In a telling moment at Columbia’s Harriman Institute, she warned that anything else could lead to a revolution “which will be very different from ours” (meaning from that proposed by the liberal opposition); one that would be “much more radical than even what Navalny stands for. And no one wants that, so let’s keep it in this framework of discussions”—discussions that would, of course, take place only within the ruling circles, and behind the back of the population.

She went on to explicitly propose that a “compromise candidate” for Putin’s succession should be found, suggesting the ex-finance minister Alexei Kudrin, one of Putin’s closest advisors and a darling of the international financial elite.

Sobchak’s candidacy is a result and expression of the deep crisis of the Russian oligarchy.

Amid the continuously escalating confrontation with US imperialism, power struggles behind the doors of the Kremlin have intensified. Gleb Pavlovsky, a former advisor to Putin, who is now working for the US imperialist think tank Carnegie, wrote last fall:

“[I]t is now possible to talk about a system that operates without Putin. He is not acting in sync with his inner circle. Each feels uncomfortable with the other, as the president grows more stingy about intervening to resolve the power struggles within the elite…. The atmosphere inside the government apparatus is becoming more fearful, and the rivalry with the security agencies is intensifying. Arrests taking place in Kremlin circles are not carried out according to “Putin’s plan,” ordered from above, but are rather a manifestation of competition for power…. The near-term political goal is not about getting to a post-Putin Russia, it is about planning a transition. But it’s worth noting that the discussions are all about preserving the system, not about preserving Putin.”

These power struggles are fueled not only by fear of a war with the United States, but also the rising class tensions in Russia and internationally. As poverty and social dissatisfaction have been growing in Russia, the Kremlin has no doubt viewed with a great deal of anxiety the eruption of working class struggles in the Middle East and Europe.

There is a real fear by Putin and substantial sections of the Russia oligarchy that an escalation of the power struggles within the elites, including with the liberal opposition, could help provoke unrest within the Russian working class. Ksenia Sobchak, who has been shaped by and experienced first-hand the vicious struggles for power in the oligarchy since the 1990s, shares this fear.

In contrast to Navalny, she represents a wing within the oligarchy and upper middle class that sees a repetition of a Maidan-type movement in Russia as both unrealistic and too destabilizing. In her view, the “questions in dispute”, i.e., to what extent Russia’s market should be opened to foreign capital and how a rapprochement with the West can be achieved, can and have to be discussed behind closed doors by representatives of the liberal opposition, US imperialism, and ruling circles within the Kremlin.

2006-Present

07 February 2018: Israel advances a plan to build a walkway though the Mount of Olives in East Jerusalem to connect two settler residential compounds in the Palestinian At-Tur neighbourhood

07 February 2018: During a Knesset report on the policy of refusing to return the bodies of Palestinians killed by Israeli forces to their families for burial, officials are urged to ‘throw it into the sea’, ‘we should not return bodies. We should demolish homes’, others say

05 February 2018: A number of Israeli politicians, including coalition government members, call for ‘practical moves’ to be taken to annex settlements in the occupied West Bank while Donald Trump heads the White House

04 February 2018: Israel grants legal status to the unauthorised outpost of Havat Gilad in the occupied West Bank

05 February 2018: The Israeli army is imposing ‘harsh travel restrictions’ in an effort to ‘drive Palestinians out’ in the southern Hebron Hills area of the occupied West Bank, according to human rights NGO B’Tselem

02 February 2018: In a report, the EU Heads of Mission in Jerusalem warn that Israel is using tourism to legitimise its illegal settlement construction with ‘local Palestinian residents absent from the narrative being promoted to the visitors’

30 January 2018: The Israeli occupation army maintains a ‘policy of suppressing demonstrations in Gaza with live fire’ against  demonstrators ‘who are not endangering them’,  NGO B’Tselem reports

31 January 2018: Israel’s Defence Minister Avigdor Lieberman announces via Twitter that the illegal settlement outpost of Havat Gilad will be ‘legalised’ on Sunday.

01 February 2018: The Israeli municipality in Jerusalem begins to impose taxes on church and United Nations properties in occupied East Jerusalem

30 January 2018: The Knesset passes in its first reading a bill extending the authority of the Israeli Higher Education Council over higher education institutions in illegal settlements built on Palestinian lands occupied in 1967

30 January 2018: The Israeli army is set to take full ‘security control’ of Palestinian neighbourhoods in occupied East Jerusalem that lie behind the illegal Separation Wall, in particular the areas of  Kafr Aqab and the Shuafat refugee camp

15 January 2018: Israeli Jewish settlers in the occupied West Bank launched field teams of photographers and videographers to take pictures of Palestinian protesters to help the Israeli occupation forces to identify and arrest them easily

January 2018: Israel’s Ministry of Justice recommends punitive measures be imposed on men who marry more than one woman, including reducing child and family allowances, in an effort to stifle the increase in the Arab population

07 January 2017: Israel publishes a “blacklist” of 22 NGOs from Europe, the United States, South America and Africa whose activists are barred from entry

26 December 2017: Poverty levels among Israel’s Arab citizens have increased as a result of the government’s racist policies, official data shows

24 December 2017: The leader of Al-Araqeeb village receives 10 month sentence, $10,300 fine and expelled from his home by Israel

6 December 2017: Israeli occupation bulldozers raze the village of Al-Araqeeb in the Negev area for the 122nd time leaving its residents homeless despite the stormy and cold weather.

30 November 2017: 10 US Senators urge Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu not to demolish Palestinian villages in the occupied West Bank, reports the Jewish Telegraphic Agency

16 November 2017: Israeli authorities demolish the Palestinian village of Al-Araqeeb in the Negev Desert for the 121st time

25 October 2017: Staff from the Israel Land Authority (ILA) accompanied Israel Police and bulldozers who raided Al-Araqeeb village and demolished the makeshift homes made out of tin that the residents build every time the village is demolished. This is the 120th time that the village has been razed

3 October 2017: Israeli bulldozers, accompanied by police forces, raided the Arab Bedouin village of Al-Araqeeb in the Negev region and demolished it for the 119th time

14 September 2017: Israeli army bulldozers demolish the village of Al-Araqeeb in the Negev for the 118th time

5 September 2017: Israeli authorities demolished 1,158 homes belonging to Israeli Arabs in the Negev between August 2016 and August 2017, a report issued by Coexistence Club in the Negev reveals

24 August 2017: An Israeli court has ordered residents of Al-Araqeeb village to pay the government $541,000 for the cumulative cost of destroying their homes 116 times since 2010

09 November 2017: 30 families in the Jordan Valley receive eviction notices dated 1 November warning them they have eight days to evacuate their homes before they are demolished. They now live in constant fear of raids and forced displacement

10 November 2017: Amendments are made to the proposed ‘Jewish Nation-State Law’ allowing it to head for its first vote in the Knesset next month

09 November 2017: Israel plans to double the number of settlers in the Jordan Valley area because the area ‘must be strengthened’, Israeli Radio reports

08 November 2017: Israel approves building permits for 240 new homes in settlements in occupied East Jerusalem, including 90 units in Gilo and another 150 in Ramat Shlomo

08 November 2017: Israeli occupation forces destroy a Palestinian-owned commercial building in the French Hill district of occupied East Jerusalem. This is the third time that the building has been destroyed by the Israelis

08 November 2017: Israel’s Transportation Minister Yisrael Katz (image on the right) demands the dismissal of a civil servant who supports the Palestinian right of return, saying ‘a legal way has to be found to immediately terminate the new employee’s employment at the National Road Safety Authority’

06 November 2017: Israeli occupation forces have began clear its own landmines from Palestinian-owned land adjacent to the illegal settlement of Karnei Shomron near Qalqiliya. The clearance programme is expected to last two months; more than 2,200 landmines are believed to have been laid in the area, which covers around 20 acres of stolen land

24 October 2017: Israeli occupation forces once again deliver demolition notices to Palestinians in the occupied East Jerusalem neighbourhood of Silwan

26 September 2017: Illegal Israeli settlers call for the Israeli government to enact harsher punishments on the families of Palestinian prisoners through ‘deny citizenship’ and ‘carry out more house demolitions’

26 September 2017: Israeli MK Amir Ohana proposes a bill which would ‘expand the interior minister’s authority to revoke permanent residence status for security reasons’ in an effort to ‘circumvent’ controversial court rulings against revoking residency of Arabs in Jerusalem

11 September 2017: Israel begins construction of its first new illegal settlement in the occupied West Bank. The new settlement, known as Amichai, is being built to house about 300 hardline residents of the illegal West Bank Jewish outpost of Amona. The Cabinet allocated $16 million for its construction

11 September 2017: Israeli authorities are making it increasingly difficult for Palestinians’ foreign spouses to stay in the occupied West Bank, reducing the length of the validity of visas, the process for obtaining permanent residency has been frozen

2017: Israel announces plans to limit the travel of those arriving in Ben-Gurion airport to the Palestinian Occupied Territories.

2016: NGO ‘Funding Transparency’ Law

Israel begins plans to pass a law that will ban the Muslim call for prayer on loudspeakers between 23:00 and 07:00.

Stop-and-Frisk Law – Amendment: The new law allows police to stop and frisk people in case of a reasonable suspicion that he or she is about to commit a violent act. The law was passed amid the recent wave of violence.

Anti-Terror (Counter-Terrorism) Law: This contains broad and vague definitions of terrorism and terrorist organisations often exploited by law enforcement authorities to criminalise legitimate actions of Palestinian citizens of Israel and Palestinian residents of the Occupied Territories.

Expulsion of MKs Law – Amendment: The bill allows for the Israeli Jewish majority in the Knesset to further delegitimise and marginalise the elected political representatives of the Palestinian minority in Israel and to oust Arab MKs and political lists on the basis of purely political and ideological considerations.

2016: NGO “Funding Transparency” Law: This requires NGOs that receive 50 per cent or more of their funding from foreign governments to make it clear in every instance. Organisations that express views critical to the government’s policies, particularly those policies which discriminate against or otherwise harm Palestinians in the Occupied Territories, are the main targets of this law.

Mandatory minimum sentences for convicted stone-throwers – Amendment: A mandatory minimum prison sentence on a convicted stone-thrower or similar acts is set at “one-fifth of the maximum sentence” which equates to either two or four years.

Revoking child allowances from parents of children convicted of security offences: This removes child allowances for parents of a child convicted on criminal charges.

2015- Fines on parents of stone-throwers – Amendment: Direct fines are imposed on the parents of minors convicted of committing an offence listed in the Israeli Penal Code; for example stone-throwing. This discriminates against the parents of Palestinian children within Israel or residents of East Jerusalem brought before Israeli civil courts.

2014-March: Increased Governance and Raising the Qualifying Election Threshold – Bill to Amend Basic Law: The Government: This raises the threshold percentage of votes required for political parties in order to obtain seats in the Knesset to 3.25 per cent. This undermines the parliamentary representation of Palestinian Arabs and prevents Arab parties from contesting the elections within multiple party lists.

Civil Wrongs Law – Amendment: This creates further obstacles to justice and accountability for civilian victims harmed by Israeli security forces in the Occupied Territories.

July- Income Tax Ordinance – Amendment: This grants a 35 per cent tax exemption on donations to institutions that promote “Zionist settlement”. It differentiates between public institutions on political and ideological grounds.

2012– May: Israeli Prisons Ordinance Amendment No. 43: This was passed allowing for restrictions on security prisoners’ access to legal counsel for three months at a time, which can be extended for another three months.

Israeli Prisons Ordinance – Amendment: This allows the Israel Prison Service (IPS) to prohibit prisoners involved in “security crimes” from meeting their lawyers due to suspicion that the meeting will lead to the transfer of information relating to a “terror organisation”. This law targets Palestinian prisoners and Palestinian lawyers.

Anti-Boycott Law: This prohibits the promotion of academic, economic or cultural boycotts of Israeli citizens and organisations and against Israeli institutions or illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank. A civil lawsuit can be filed against anyone who calls for a boycott, namely the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement.

Admissions Committees Law: The Admissions Committees Law legalises Committees that operate in small community towns built on state land in the Negev and Galilee. They are permitted to filter on the basis of ethnicity applicants for housing units and plots of land; Arab Palestinians are the main victims of this process.

Citizenship Law: This allows courts to revoke the citizenship of persons convicted of treason, espionage, assisting the enemy in time of war, violating state sovereignty and acts of terrorism. The law was proposed following the arrest and indictment of Arab civil society leader Ameer Makhoul on charges of espionage and has since been used discriminately against Palestinians.

Nakba Law: The Finance Minister can reduce state funding or support to an institution if it holds an event that rejects the existence of Israel as a “Jewish and democratic state” or commemorates “Israel’s Independence Day or the day on which the state was established as a day of mourning.” The law deprives Arab citizens of commemorating the Nakba in a way that is an integral part of their history.

2011– Foreign Government Funding Law: This imposes invasive reporting requirements on NGOs, requiring them to submit and publish quarterly reports on any funding received from foreign governments or publicly-funded foreign donors. Palestinian NGOs in Israel and all NGOs which promote Palestinian rights are particularly vulnerable since they do not seek funding from Israeli governmental sources and have limited access to private funding.

Extension of Detention – Criminal Procedure Law: Designed to extend the harsh detention procedures for those suspected of security offences. Again, this law is used exclusively against Palestinians.

Negev Development Authority Law: “Individual settlements” are used to provide individual Jewish Israeli families with potentially thousands of acres of land for their exclusive use. In the Negev, these settlements were seen as part of a plan for “saving” the land.

Absorption of Discharged Soldiers Law: Jewish Israeli students living in the NPA will be granted a “compensation package”. Since Palestinian Arab citizens of Israel are exempt from military service they are excluded from receiving these state-allocated benefits and discriminated against on the basis of their national belonging.

Land Ordinance Law: This allows Israel to confiscate land for “public purposes” and has been used to confiscate Palestinian-owned land in Israel.

2010– Termination of Proceedings and Deletion of Records in the Disengagement Plan Law: This exempts anyone who was convicted in relation to their opposition to Israel’s 2005 Gaza disengagement plan from legal sanction, provided they have not received a prison sentence. This established a separate legal process for people who were charged when demonstrating against the Gaza disengagement from those charged for other political demonstrations, thus discriminating on ideological grounds.

More than 1 million Palestinians were displaced in 1948

Regional Councils Law: This law, which grants the Interior Minister absolute power to declare the postponement of the first election of a Regional Council, was passed shortly before elections were due to take place in the Abu Basma Regional Council, which includes ten Arab Bedouin villages in the Negev.

Israel Land Administration Law: Enforced land privatisation, especially of land owned by Palestinian refugees and internally displaced persons, as well as land on which settlements are built in occupied East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights.

The Economic Efficiency Law – Legislative Amendments: Classifying towns, villages and areas as “National Priority Areas” (NPAs), this allows for the allocation of state resources without criteria; 553 Jewish towns and only 4 small Arab villages are classified as NPAs with “A” status.

2009– Economic Efficiency Law: This law stipulates that children who do not receive the vaccinations recommended by the Ministry of Health will no longer be provided with “child allowances”. This mainly affects Arab Bedouin children living in the Negev due to the lack of availability of vaccinations.

Absorption of Discharged Soldiers Law – Amendment No. 7: The benefits package available to Jewish Israelis adding to the already extensive educational benefits package enjoyed by discharged soldiers in Israel is not available for Palestinian Arab citizens of Israel due to them being exempt from military service and so excluded from receiving these state-allocated benefits.

2008– Criminal Procedure Law – Interrogating Suspects – Amendment No. 4: This exempts the police and the Israeli Security Agencies from recording audio and video documentation of interrogations of suspects and is used exclusively against Palestinians.

2006- Criminal Procedure Law: This law removes a number of essential procedural safeguards for detainees suspected of security offences and is used solely against Palestinians.

1960-2003

2003- Citizenship and Entry into Israel Law: This bans the unification of the family where one spouse is an Israeli citizen (usually applied to Palestinian citizens) and the other is a resident of the Occupied Palestinian Territories. An additional amendment in 2007 expanded the ban to include citizens and residents of Iran, Lebanon, Syria and Iraq. Although the law was originally a temporary order, it has been used repeatedly, making it a permanent law.

1998- Hebrew Date Law: The use of the Hebrew calendar in all correspondence and publications issued by the state authorities does not recognise the use of the Islamic calendar.

1994- Knesset Law: In the opening session of the Knesset excerpts from The Declaration of the Establishment of the State of Israel will be read out to emphasise the exclusive connection of the state to the Jewish people.

The Golan Heights Law: This law is another annexation law which aims to provide a legal defence for the application of Israeli law in the Syrian Golan Heights occupied by Israel since 1967.

Image of Israeli and UN forces at the Golan Heights border [Escla/Wikipedia]

Interpretation Law: Article 24 states that the Hebrew versions of laws will be the guiding versions, which disregards Article 82 of the Palestine Order-in-Council (1922), which states that both Hebrew and Arabic are official state languages.

1981– Public Lands Law (Eviction of Squatters): An amendment to the law, introduced in 2005 expanded the powers of authorities to operate through administrative orders to evacuate land in accordance with the law. The 2005 amendment was aimed against the Arab Bedouin population of the Negev.

1980- Basic Law: Jerusalem, Capital of Israel: “Jerusalem, complete and united, is the capital of Israel” removes any connection for Palestinians and insists that the Occupied East of the city is part of the State of Israel.

1971- Religious Jewish Services Law: Religious councils in Jewish towns, cities and settlements can be established but no parallel law to authorise the establishment of non-Jewish religious councils exists.

1967- Protection of Holy Sites Law: The Ministry of Religious Affairs has declared 135 Jewish sites as holy sites, although Muslim, Christian and Druze holy places have still yet to be recognised as holy sites.

National Planning and Building Law – Limitation of Water, Electricity and Telephone: Article 157A prohibits national utility companies from connecting a building to national electricity, water and telephone networks if it lacks a building permit. This has been used exclusively to dislodge residents from the unrecognised Arab Bedouin villages in the Negev.

National Planning and Building Law: This does not require Council and District Committees to include Arab-Palestinian representatives.

1965– Broadcasting Authority Law: Broadcast programmes must reinforce the Zionist identity of the state of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state and reflect the life of Jews in the Diaspora communities. Arabic language channels must promote the “understanding and peace with the neighbouring states in accordance with the basic goals of the state.”

1960- Basic Law: Israel Lands: The ownership of “Israel lands” cannot be transferred in any manner except to Jews only.

1960- Israel Land Administration Law: The government is able to nominate members to the discriminatory “Israel Land Administration Council” which determines and formulates Israel’s land policy within the state.

1945-1960

1958- Basic Law: The Knesset: Arab political candidates are disqualified from participating in the elections for the Knesset if the existence of the State of Israel as the state of the Jewish people is denied, as well as the democratic nature of the state and incitement to racism.

1953- Jewish National Fund Law: The Jewish National Fund was established in 1901 to collect funds for purchasing land for the exclusive benefit of the Jewish people.

1953- State Education Law: The law establishes separate, independent systems and secular state and state religious schools, to maintain a distinct Jewish community, Jewish culture and Zionist ideology.

1953- Land Acquisition Law (Actions and Compensation): Approximately 93 per cent of the land in Israel is owned by the state. Only 3-3.5 per cent is owned by the Arab population, compared to 48 per cent Arab ownership in 1948.

1952- World Zionist Organisation-Jewish Agency (Status) Law: This law authorises the World Zionist Organisation, the Jewish Agency and other Zionist bodies to function in Israel as quasi-governmental entities to advance the goals of the Zionist project.

1952- Entry into Israel Law: This law governs the entry into Israel of non-citizens of the state. It grants preferential treatment to Oleh [a Jewish person who migrates to Israel under the Law of Return].

1952- Citizenship Law: Article 2(a) of the Citizenship Law stipulates that, “Every emigrant under the Law of Return will become a citizen of Israel as a direct result of the return.” Article 3 of the law deprives Palestinians who were residents of Palestine prior to 1948 of the right to gain citizenship or residence status in Israel.

1950- Law of Return: Every Jew who migrated to Israel automatically became a citizen of the state, no matter where they were born. No comparable law exists to guarantee the rights of Palestinians to migrate or receive citizenship, even if they were born in the area that is now the State of Israel.

1950– Absentees’ Property Law: People who were expelled or who fled after November 1947 due to the war, as well as their movable and immovable property, are marked as “absentees”. Property belonging to absentees was placed under the control of the State of Israel and the Absentees’ Property Law was used by Israel to possess land belonging to internal and external Palestinian refugees.

1949- State Stamp Law: The state stamp is placed on all official documents; it consists of the Star of David and the Menorah (candelabrum).

1945– Law and Government Ordinance, Article 18A: designates the official holidays of the state to be Jewish holy days. The only other official state holiday is Israel’s Independence Day.

*

All images in this article are from Middle East Monitor.

An editorial in the February 2nd Washington Post headlined “The Nunes memo shows the opposite of what Trump hoped it would prove”, and its first argument was that “the memo reveals that there were preexisting [i.e., prior to the FBI’s investigation into the DNC’s infamous Steele dossier, which even Steele himself acknowledged was probably 10% to 30% false] grounds to investigate, based on information about a different Trump associate. So the president cannot construe this memo as offering evidence that the Russia probe began corruptly.” 

However, the Nunes Memo wasn’t alleging “that the Russia probe began corruptly.” It instead argued that when the FBI’s follow-on investigation reached the point where they would need permission from the FISA (or “FISC”) court in order to obtain evidence that might possibly implicate U.S. President Trump in impeachable offenses, the FBI resorted to an ilegal tactic to win the court’s okay: hiding crucial material information from the FISA court. That’s the case the Nunes Memo actually summarizes.

The FBI began its investigation into the Steele dossier after it had already begun its investigation — based upon then-credible grounds to investigate — regarding George Papadopoulos (a supporter of Trump and aspirant for a position in his Administration if Trump would win). 

There is no question that the initial FBI investigation began in July 2016 and had nothing to do with the Steele dossier; this is acknowledged even by National Review, a Republican publication that seeks Trump’s impeachment and replacement by Mike Pence. NR notes that,

“The investigation isn’t the fruit of the poisonous dossier (though the dossier did play a role); it existed before the dossier.”

But the Nunes Memo doesn’t deny this, either.

However, unlike the Washington Post, even NR had the journalistic integrity to make clear that “if the evidence upon which the investigation was opened is sound, then the investigation is appropriate.” The Washington Post, obviously, did not. The Post simply started with the false assumption that the Nunes Memo argues “that the Russia probe began corruptly.” 

Then, NR says, “Ironically enough, the memo in fact confirms the necessity of the Special Counsel Robert Mueller,” and NR then ignores the legal conditions under which a Special Counsel may legally be appointed to remove a given investigation from the domain of the U.S. Justice Department. These legal requirements are extremely vague, but they do include “(b) That under the circumstances, it would be in the public interest to appoint an outside Special Counsel to assume responsibility for the matter.” President Trump’s Attorney General Jeff Sessions yielded to political pressures — both from Democrats and from far-right Republicans (reminiscent of the close bonds that had existed in the 1950s between the far-right Republican Joe McCarthy and his strong Democratic supporters Henry ’Scoop’ Jackson and Bobby Kennedy) — to start the anti-Russia and anti-Trump process; and there would likely have been considerable flak from those same political quarters if Sessions had not yielded to them on this matter, but there was no requirement for Sessions to do so. If he had not done so, then their attempt to replace Trump by Pence would have proceeded more slowly. The Nunes Memo alleges that even the possibility of the appointment of a Special Counsel wouldn’t have existed if the FISA court had not (unknowingly) allowed U.S. national-security and intelligence-gathering laws to be broken.

On 21 October 2016, the Obama Justice Department and its FBI sought from the FISA court a probable-cause to get its approval to obtaining all information that the Obama Administration (including its CIA, NSA, etc.) had acquired regarding contacts between Russia on the one hand and Trump and his team on the other — the court’s permission for the sitting President to gather this information against the man who was then running against that sitting President’s chosen heir-apparent. It was at this time that the Steele dossier became ‘evidence’ for the court — and the court was blocked from seeing the evidence that should have excluded the court from accepting Steele’s document as being evidence in this matter. After all, if even the Steele dossier’s author admitted publicly that his document was somewhere between 10% and 30% false, then to accept it as constituting ‘evidence’, is to accept what even the document’s author admits contains that much falsehood; and, to impeach a President on grounds like that would be an atrocity.

This is what the Nunes Memo is actually about. It’s about legal and illegal process.

Then, the Washington Post says,

“Second, the memo indicates that the Justice Department sought its warrant against Mr. Page in October 2016 — after Mr. Page had left the Trump campaign. So the president’s campaign was not the intended target.”

That’s a non-sequitur; the possibility exists that both “Mr. Page had left the Trump campaign” and “the president’s campaign was … the intended target.” In order to explore whether or not that was actually the case would require the type of investigation that the Nunes Memo purports to be summarizing.

The Post’s third argument was that the FISA court wouldn’t have renewed the approval three times if its initial grant of Obama’s spying against Trump hadn’t been legally and soundly based — including all the information that the Nunes Memo summarizes, and which had been hidden from that court.

The Post’s fourth and final argument (but followed by lots of subordinate and un-numbered points) was:

For the conspiracy narrative to hold any water, one would have to believe that officials appointed by a Republican president, including one confirmed by a Republican Senate, were part of a plot to bring down that same Republican president, and that they successfully hoodwinked FISA judges selected by the Republican-appointed chief justice of the United States. This hoodwinking would have continued after the nature of the dossier had been widely publicized and Mr. Page’s Russian connections publicly scrutinized. This is beyond improbable.

“Beyond Improbable” though the people who hire and fire at the Washington Post are obviously claiming it to be, the Nunes Memo cites and alleges powerful evidence that much of that did, in fact, happen. The Memo’s allegations and evidence will be seriously considered by all of America’s journalistic institutions, even if (as at the Washington Post) ignored by a great many of America’s propaganda institutions (the ones that prefer a President Pence to President Trump, which include all Democratic Party outlets, and many Republican Party ones as well).  

On February 3rd, the brilliant intelligence analyst W. Patrick Lang boldly attempted an analysis of what very possibly might explain all of this, though he presented it under the unfortunately obscure heading of “Habakkuk on ‘longtime’ sources:” and I consider it stunning.

In any case: anyone who believes ‘news’media only because they’re famous (and despite the considerable evidence that they’re not to be trusted) is going to be a happy gull of either Democratic Party billionaires or Republican Party billionaires; and a country with a majority like that won’t be any democracy at all.

To boil this all down: the Nunes Memo summarizes a case that the campaign to replace Trump by Pence has used tactics which are illegal in the United States, and which should be illegal in any democracy.

The best summary that I have seen of the Nunes Memo is this (which also happens to be from Pat Lang), which also links directly to the best online source for the document itself (so, if after seeing that summary, you wish to see the document that’s being summarized, both are right there).

Clearly, the Washington Post, from the top on down, is propaganda. Their ‘news’ is heavily colored because that’s what the owner requires; it’s one reason why reporters are hired and fired: to promote war against Russia. They get this from their bosses, the people who hire, fire, promote and demote, them.

They’ll do anything to pump Russiagate, regardless of what the actual facts are. It’s what they are paid to do. The failing doesn’t come only from the reporters. They’re hired and retained in order to fail in the way that the owner wants — to pump up military spending as much as possible.

Unfortunately, Trump has evidently decided to capitulate, instead of to resist; he’s now as much of a neocon as his electoral opponent Hillary Clinton had been promising to be (perhaps doing this so as not for him to be quickly impeached); and, as a result, the march toward the nuclear precipice continues, and military spending soars while all other federal departments get cut back, and $1.5 trillion gets added to the federal debt over the next ten years.

Good job, military-industrial complex!

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This article was originally published by Strategic Culture Foundation.

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.

Norwegian parliamentarian Bjørnar Moxnes has officially nominated the BDS movement for Palestinian rights for a Nobel Peace Prize. He did so with the support of his party, the progressive Rødt (Red) Party, explaining why BDS “should be supported without reservation by all democratically-minded people and states.”

The following is his statement on nominating the BDS Movement for Palestinian Rights for a Nobel Peace Prize.

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As a member of the Norwegian parliament, I proudly use my authority as an elected official to nominate the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement for Palestinian rights for the Nobel Peace Prize.

Nominating the BDS movement for this recognition is perfectly in line with the principles I and my party hold very dear. Like the BDS movement, we are fully committed to stopping an ascendant, racist and right-wing politics sweeping too much of our world, and securing freedom, justice and equality for all people.

Inspired by the South African anti-apartheid movement and the American Civil Rights movement, the grassroots, Palestinian-led BDS movement is a peaceful, global human rights movement that urges the use of economic and cultural boycotts to end Israeli violations of Palestinian human rights and international law.

Basic Human Rights

The BDS movement seeks to end Israel’s half-century of military rule over 4.5 million Palestinians, including the devastating ten-year illegal siege collectively punishing and suffocating nearly 2 million Palestinians in Gaza, the ongoing forcible eviction of Palestinians from their homes, and the theft of Palestinian land through the construction of illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank. It seeks equal rights for Palestinian citizens of Israel, currently discriminated against by dozens of racist laws, and to secure the internationally-recognized legal right of Palestinian refugees to return to homes and lands from which they were expelled. Palestinian refugees constitute nearly 50 per cent of all Palestinians, and they are being denied their right to return, guaranteed by law to all refugees, simply because of their ethnicity.

The BDS movement’s aims and aspirations for basic human rights are irreproachable. They should be supported without reservation by all democratically-minded people and states.

The international community has a longstanding history of supporting peaceful measures such as boycotts and disinvestment against companies that profit from human rights violations. International support for such measures was critical in the struggle against apartheid in South Africa and the racist colonial regime in former Rhodesia.

If the international community commits to supporting BDS to end the occupation of Palestinian territory and the oppression of the Palestinian people, new hope will be lit for a just peace for Palestinians, Israelis and all people across the Middle East.

The BDS movement has been endorsed by prominent figures, including the former Nobel Peace Prize winners Desmond Tutu and Mairead Maguire. It is gaining support from unions, academic associations, churches, and grassroots movements for the rights of refugees, immigrants, workers, women, indigenous peoples and the LGBTQI community. It is increasingly embraced by progressive Jewish groups and anti-racist movements across the world.

Twelve years since BDS’ launch, it’s high time for us to commit to doing no harm, and for all states to withdraw their complicity in Israel’s military occupation, racist apartheid rule, ongoing theft of Palestinian land, and other egregious human rights violations.

Awarding a Nobel Peace Prize to the BDS movement would be a powerful sign demonstrating that the international community is committed to supporting a just peace in the Middle East and using peaceful means to end military rule and broader violations of international law.

My hope is that this nomination can be one humble but necessary step toward bringing forth a more dignified and beautiful future for all peoples of the region.

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Palestinian BDS National Committee

The Palestinian BDS National Committee is the broadest Palestinian civil society coalition that works to lead and support the BDS movement for Palestinian rights.

The broad consensus among Palestinian civil society about the need for a broad and sustained Campaign for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) resulted in the Palestinian Call for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) against Israel that was launched in July 2005 with the initial endorsement of over 170 Palestinian organizations.

The signatories to this call represent the three major components of the Palestinian people: the refugees in exile, Palestinians under occupation in the West Bank and Gaza Strip and the discriminated Palestinian citizens of the Israeli state.

The efforts to coordinate the BDS campaign, that began to grow rapidly since the 2005 Call was made public, culminated in the first Palestinian BDS Conference held in Ramallah in November 2007. Out of this conference emerged the BDS National Committee (BNC) as the Palestinian coordinating body for the BDS campaign worldwide.

The BNC’s mandate and role is:

• To strengthen and spread the culture of boycott as a central form of civil resistance to Israeli occupation, colonialism and apartheid
• To formulate strategies and programs of action in accordance with the 9 July 2005 Palestinian Civil Society BDS Call
• To serve as the Palestinian reference point for BDS campaigns in the region and worldwide
• To serve as the national reference point for anti-normalization campaigns within Palestine
• To facilitate coordination and provide support & encouragement to the various BDS campaign efforts in all locations

The BNC has offices in various parts of Palestine, a small staff spread across five countries and a network of international partners.

The BNC’s main activities include:

• Campaigning with BDS activists locally and worldwide by preparing and disseminating BNC statements and public speaking
• Advocacy by briefing and lobbying policy makers
• Monitoring & Rapid Response by means of BNC calls for action against projects and initiatives which amount to recognition of or cooperation with Israel’s regime of apartheid, colonialism and occupation (i.e., normalization)
• Media Outreach in Palestine and abroad, based on a professional media strategy
• Coordination with BDS activists locally and worldwide, including preparation of regional and international organizing meetings and conferences
• Awareness Raising & Training activists and organizations about BNC analysis, standards and BDS campaign work; through workshops, BNC information materials and the BDS campaign website (www.bdsmovement.net)
• Developing the BDS Campaign in Arab countries
• Research and BDS Strategy Development

The current members of the BNC are:

Council of National and Islamic Forces in Palestine
General Union of Palestinian Workers
Palestinian General Federation of Trade Unions
Palestinian Trade Union Coalition for BDS (PTUC-BDS)
Palestinian NGO Network (PNGO)
Palestinian National Institute for NGOs
Federation of Indep. Trade Unions
Global Palestine Right of Return Coalition
Occupied Palestine and Syrian Golan Heights Initiative
General Union of Palestinian Teachers
Palestinian Federation of Unions of University Professors and Employees (PFUUPE)
General Union of Palestinian Women
General Union of Palestinian Writers
Union of Palestinian Farmers
Grassroots Palestinian Anti-Apartheid Wall Campaign – Stop the Wall
Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI)
Popular Struggle Coordination Committee (PSCC)
Civic Coalition for the Defense of Palestinian Rights in Jerusalem
Coalition for Jerusalem
National Committee to Commemorate the Nakba
Union of Public Employees in Palestine-Civil Sector
General Union of Palestinian Peasants
Union of Palestinian Charitable Organizations
Union of Professional Associations
Women Campaign to Boycott Israeli Products
Palestinian Economic Monitor
Union of Youth Activity Centers-Palestine Refugee Camps
Agricultural Cooperatives Union
National Committee for Grassroots Resistance

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Bjørnar Moxnes is a Norwegian parliamentarian, member of Rødt (Red) Party.

All images in this article are from the author.

The author tracks key economic forces that have resulted in technological innovations which have given birth to the gig economy that is threatening job security, the gigzombie who is the alienated worker in the gig economy, and misguided anger directed at immigrants.

“A gig economy is an environment in which temporary positions are common and organizations contract with independent workers for short-term engagements. The trend toward a gig economy has begun. A study by Intuit predicted that by 2020, 40 percent of American workers would be independent contractors.”

Introduction

This article explains sweeping changes that have resulted in the gig economy and migration patterns. The gig economy is the future workplace, once associated with less industrialized countries in the 1970s, where temporary, unstable employment is commonplace and companies tend toward hiring employees who are all but in name performing the work of permanent workers, but are denied permanent employee rights. It undermines the traditional economy and will aggravate unemployment, poverty and immigration. The gigzombie is the alienated gig employee, whose vitality has been sapped by rapid technological advancements that are changing the nature of work and increasingly threatening job security. Mr. Doug Scfifter, a New York City livery driver, wrote before he recently killed himself in front of New York’s City Hall, the gig economy “is the new slavery…I am not a slave and I refuse to be one.” ¹

Since the end of the post WW II economic expansion in the 1970s² capitalism has been struggling with slow growth and flat wages. The gig economy, which is driven by technological innovation, is a restructuring response to cut production costs and increase profits. It is not a solution for unemployment and forced migration, yet estimates show that the gig economy will soon account for more than one half of all jobs.³ Capitalism manufactures unemployment which is necessary for its existence. Immigrants are not the cause of unemployment and the gig economy is not the solution for unemployment; they are manifestations of the logic of this system.

Explaining the Underlying Economics Forces of the Sweeping Changes

To understand these sweeping changes in the U.S. and global economies and migration patterns, it is important to understand the economic forces that have brought us to this point. The best explanation of the economic forces that have brought us to this point is the Marxist theory of the accumulation of capital (wealth). The theory assumes that labor is the source of all wealth. The drive for profits gives rise to technological change. Labor and machines working together create more wealth.  However, in order to create more wealth, workers are displaced by machines, which tends to cause unemployment. When the number of displaced workers, plus the increase in population is greater than the number of jobs created, the result is the reserve army of the unemployed (mass unemployment), misery and impoverishment, which triggers migration to places where people think there are jobs. Immigration laws, which are anti-labor laws, are used to manage the ebb and flow of the global reserve army of unemployed, by opening or closing the immigration spigot to make cheap labor available.

To summarize, to cut labor costs and increase profits, capitalists replace workers with machines, thereby producing the reserve army of the unemployed (mass unemployment) which is necessary for its own existence. Capitalists control unemployed workers, who are forced to accept lower wages and poor working conditions. As they move into and out of the workforce, they are used as a lever to discipline the employed to do the same, thereby destroying unions and depressing wages, making it easy to lay off workers without notice and replacing them with gigzombies (temporary and part-time employees), destroying the safety net, and keeping production costs down. In this respect, unemployed workers are as necessary as employed workers for the existence of capitalism. In proportion as wealth increases, unemployment rises, and the levels of unemployment, torment, ignorance and poverty grow. Capitalism is unable to create enough jobs for everyone who wants to work; it manufactures and uses the army of the unemployed, a necessary outcome of the accumulation of wealth, as a tool to perpetuate its own existence, by pitting employed and unemployed workers and native and immigrant workers against one other, making them compete for a limited number of jobs.

The reserve army of the unemployed, the workers’ “graveyard of immiseration and impoverishment,” is evidence that capitalism is unable to deliver sufficient jobs. This system blames workers’ jobless predicaments on them and/or encourages them to blame others, like immigrants. Immigrants are not the cause of unemployment; they are one of the manifestations of the process of production whose natural outcome is unemployment.

In addition to mass unemployment and migration, capitalism creates obscene levels of inequality; the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. Even mainstream “economists are skeptical that the benefits of growth [from the]…albeit fragile recovery…will reach working people whose wages have stagnated even as jobless rates have plunged.” “The World Economic Forum… [recent] survey…warned of rising economic inequality… [and]…rising risks…adding that they threaten catastrophic consequences for humanity, and for the economy.”⁴

The Modern Workplace

There have been significant changes as the modern workplace transitions from the traditional forty-hour work week with benefits, to the gig economy, where there is a race to reduce labor cost, and immigrants are targeted and dehumanized. Immigrants remain another instrument of control for the capitalist due to the schism between them and the native workforce. The most important shifts in the workplace include those directly related to automation, and the state’s use of right-to-work laws to dismantle unions as well as restructuring the tax system.

Today, the gig workplace could be virtual, your home, a day-to-day temporary location, an Amazon or Walmart warehouse, driving your car as an UBER or Lyft independent contractor, and to a lesser extent the traditional office. It is characteristic of temporary and part-time, flexible jobs, without benefits. It undermines the traditional economy of full-time workers who rarely change positions and instead focus on a lifetime career.

Technological innovation gives employers the ability to identify, calculate, and monitor how much you produce whether your office is in your home or somewhere else. In this increasingly automated workplace, machines supplied and used by workers maintain their oppressive function by managing the workplace from a distance allowing employers complete control over workers; as has been said, the machine incorporate and absorb the worker who is the appendage within it and extracts labor power from it.  Already more than 34 percent of the workforce is employed as temporary part-time precarious employees and an additional 13 percent wish to join the gig economy.⁵ Expectations are the gig economy will soon make up half of all employees.

The transition to the gig economy has been advanced by right-to-work laws. Under provisions of the Taft-Hartley Act that require unionized workplaces to become “open shops”, employees must be allowed to work whether or not they join the union or pay dues. This makes it more difficult for workers to form unions. In part, right-to-work laws have devastated organized labor. A study by Cornell University’s, International Labor Relations School, found that wages for union members are generally ten to thirty percent higher than the wages for non-union workers.⁶ In the absence of union representation, labor costs decrease at the expense of workers, by reducing wages and benefits. These anti-union attacks are also evident in other industrialized countries. While the U.K. government is demanding health care by demanding give backs from workers, in France unions are under attack from a government that wants to make it easier for businesses to fire employees.

The recent tax law passed by the U.S. Congress and signed by the President, an act of class-warfare that gives $1.5 trillion to corporations and the wealthy, has also contributed to the transition to the gig economy. Many find appealing the opportunity that it seemingly offers to cut taxes for small businesses, and are expected to continue to form independent contractor small businesses in order to take advantage of it. This, however, comes at a cost as employers shift the cost of wages and benefits, once hard-fought for by unions, onto employees.

In search of cheap labor, capitalists reconfigure and control global markets, by war, militarism, and persecution. The best evidence of this is in the Middle East where immigrants fleeing into Europe and elsewhere have become another instrument of control for the capitalist, because of the schism between the indigenous European and migrant workers. These migrants are greeted with physical and figurative walls, xenophobia, and other forms of misguided anger.

Composition of the Workforce

The composition and size of the workforce has dramatically changed due to cost-cutting technological innovations driving the transition to the gig economy. The most important changes include an increase in the reserve army of the unemployed; transitions from union to non-union employees, as well as full-time permanent status to temporary part-time independent contractors, consultants, and freelancers; increased migration; and the widening inequality gap.

The spectrum of the workforce (the proletariat) spans from active employed workers to the mass unemployed (reserve army of the unemployed) to those who have lost their class identity, people who are very poor and disenfranchised, “the lowest sediment of the relative-surplus population”, “vagabonds, criminals, prostitutes…”, (the lumpen proletariat). ⁷ The active employed are distributed among the primary, secondary, and tertiary sectors. The reserve army of the unemployed includes the floating, latent, and stagnant unemployed. While there has been a proportionate decrease in the active employed, there have also been significant increases in the reserve army of unemployed.

The labor market is divided into three sectors of the economy: The primary, secondary, and tertiary. The primary sector includes all non-manufacturing workers in the extractive industries like mining, farming, and fishing; the secondary sector includes all industrial/manufacturing workers; and the tertiary sector includes service workers in the public and private spheres.

The reserve army of the unemployed is also divided into three sectors: The floating, latent, and stagnant unemployed. The floating unemployed is the most mobile group and moves more easily into and out of manufacturing jobs, depending on whether the economy is expanding or contracting. The latent unemployed, generally less mobile, include primary sector workers who migrate to urban areas where they compete with unemployed manufacturing workers. The stagnant unemployed, the least mobile and fluid sector, includes those who are able to work, those who cannot work, like the elderly, the disabled, the sickly, and the single parent households, and “orphans and [poor] children”. As the deindustrialization of the economy becomes more acute, the floating and latent sectors and misery grow.

Technological innovation has displaced a significant number of workers who have migrated from farming and manufacturing into the service sector, the fastest growing sector both in the U.S. and globally. As this trend continues it will result in an increase in the floating unemployed, especially where jobs are more easily automated, like machine operators and fast food service workers.  Since 1970, the workforce in the manufacturing decreased from 17.4 percent to about 10 of the workforce In the U.S. The supply of independent freelancers, contractors, consultants, and precarious and informal workers will expand.

Over the past fifty years, the number of workers displaced by automation plus the increase in population has far outpaced the number of jobs created, in the U.S. and global economies. The size of the global industrial reserve army of the unemployed is over 1.5 billion. By 2030, not accounting for population growth, an additional 400 to 8oo million will be displaced by automation.⁸ In the U.S. the reserve army of the unemployed increased by over 70 million or 114 percent and globally, the number of unemployed increased by 780 million, or 111 percent. The U.S. population increased by 74 million and the global population increased by over 4 billion.⁹ These numbers are much bigger than the 47.5 million full time and part time jobs created in the U.S. and 920 million jobs created globally. These changes will all create downward pressure on wages and exacerbate unemployment, migration and inequality.

As the reserve army increases, the level of poverty increases, proportionately. According to UNICEF, over 22,000 children die every day due to poverty and 1.3 billion live on less than $1.25 per day in extreme poverty. The U.S. accounts for 5 percent of the world’s population and over 20 percent of the incarcerated; over 2 million people, many of them due to the criminalization of poverty, are incarcerated in the prison industrial complex of the U.S, and counting.¹⁰ Fifty percent of the labor force earns less than $27,000 per year and the bottom half of the population has less wealth than the top one percent. Eighty percent is struggling, living from pay check to pay check and the student debt has reached $1.3 trillion dollars.

The evidence shows that the active employed segment of the workforce in the gig economy is increasingly subjected to less than subsistence wages. The U.S. military is the biggest employer in the world with 2.2 million employees, Walmart is the third biggest employer in the world with 2.1 million employees, and MacDonald’s is fourth with 1.9 million employees. Many of these workers live pay check to pay check on sub-standard wages; many of them qualify for food stamps, a subsidy to employers’ profit margins. To add insult to injury, Walmart’s response, in part, is to sell online 13 square foot domiciles for $4,000. Just when you think it could not get any worse, recently Walmart closed sixty stores and 10,000 people lost their jobs; they found out they were fired when they showed up for work and the entrances to the stores were locked, that was the only notice they received.¹¹  Mr. Doug Schifter, the New York City livery driver, wrote before committing suicide “I worked 100-120 consecutive hours almost every week for the past fourteen plus years [only to end up deeper in debt].”¹²

The role of labor unions is to serve as a voice for employees and act as their representative during collective bargaining negotiations. After peaking at 35 percent (21 million members) in 1979, today union membership in the U.S. is at an all time low, about 10 percent. About 28 states in the U.S. enforce “right-to-work laws” which makes it difficult to form or join a union. As union membership decline, migration, inequality, outsourcing, globalization, and unemployment increase, and wages and benefits decrease. In desperation many workers join the gig economy, while others have been forced into retirement, or slip into poverty.

The rise in the global reserve army of unemployed which has worsened economic plight, as well as natural and human made disasters (like wars) and persecution, have contributed to increased migration patterns. These migration patterns have impacted economic, social and cultural dimensions in the U.S. and globally. On the one hand, what often drives the public discourse on immigration are issues relating to the threat immigrants pose to host countries’ values and customs and that the government should manage immigration against such threats.  On the other hand, a circumspect review of immigration data dispels these myths about immigrants and their impact on the economy and cultural and social values. The truth is that immigrants inject new energy into academia, arts and sciences, and technological innovation.

Contrary to popular belief,

“While some policymakers have blamed immigration for slowing U.S. wage growth since the 1970s, most academic research finds little long run effect on Americans’ wages. The available evidence suggests that immigration leads to more innovation, a better educated workforce, greater occupational specialization, better matching of skills with jobs, and higher overall economic activity. Immigration also has a net positive effect on combined federal, state, and local budgets.”¹³

Furthermore, immigrants have lower rates of crime than the native-born because they don’t want to risk deportation. Most immigrants do not compete with low wage American workers because they occupy different niches and immigrants often lack English language skills. In addition, while the number of immigrants has increased, the number of murders has decreased in the U.S. Suggesting that contrary to popular belief, at the same time that the number of immigrants increased, there has been a dramatic fall in the number of murders in the U.S. ¹⁴

Today, over 60 million people have been displaced by wars and natural disasters and there are over 160 million others living outside their countries of origin.¹⁵ In 1999, 4 million U.S. citizens chose to live in other countries and in 2016 that number more than doubled to 9 million. Many immigrants no longer see the U.S. as their first destination. In 1978, the U.S. was the first country people chose to move to, but by 2017, it was number sixteen. However, due to heightened economic plight in the less developed world, immigration has continued to shape the U.S. workforce. In 1970, there were 9.6 million immigrants in the U.S., or 4.7 percent of the population. In 2016, there were 43.7 million, or 13.5 percent of the population. The majority of immigrants in the U.S. are from India, China, Mexico, the Philippines, and Canada. Over fifty five percent had private health care coverage compared to 69 percent of U.S. born. Twenty nine percent use the public health care system compared to 36 percent of native born.

Meanwhile, as attacks on immigrants continue, wealth has become more concentrated in the hands of a few billionaire oligarchs. The number of billionaires in the U.S. increased from one in 1970 to 425 today; globally, the number of billionaires increased from two in 1970 to 2,043 today. The richest 42 people on the planet control more wealth than the poorest fifty percent of the world’s population. Over 65 percent of Americans have less than $1,000 is savings; 44 percent of them have less than $400. These repulsive levels of inequality rival the time of the Pharaohs. More and more “Free time…both leisure and time for higher activities,” is saved for the privileged few who engage in creative, fulfilling activities, while the majority of people engage in “alienated labor” just to stay afloat.

Conclusion: “Workers of the World Unite”

The data regarding unemployment, immigration, inequality, and poverty are staggering. Last year in New York City there were over 50,000 homeless children, 1.9 million children living in poverty, and 77,000 people in New York City were homeless. In the U.S. there were over 2.5 million homeless children and between 13.4 million and 16.5 million children living in poverty.¹⁶ The U.S. population has outpaced job creation by over 50 million. About 55 million workers in the U.S. are employed in the gig economy, most of them in temporary, part-time, low paid jobs, without any job security or benefits.

The global economy has followed similar trends. The world’s population increased by 3.4 billion and there has been a shift toward the service sector, which is already under pressure from automation. The availability of cheap labor as well as high levels of unemployment and the lack of unions in the less industrialized world have maintained and intensified temporary part-time employment that is now trending in more industrialized economies. More than 3 billion people live on less than $2.50 per day.

Migrant serfs, otherwise known as mostly retired elderly white people, who gave the best years of their lives, now live nomadic lives, in make-shift refugee trailer camps, which they set up serendipitously in the parking lots of big box warehouses where they work; they are constantly chased away by the police. Because their social security checks are generally less than $1,000 a month, they supplement it by working at Amazon and Walmart warehouses, many of them making sub-standard wages in exchange for robotic ten hour workdays. They can be fired without notice and don’t get paid extra if they take longer than the prescribed time to complete their assigned work.

Many of them have said that they work sometimes under horrible workplace conditions without any air conditioning or heating and are made to endure remarks from their superiors (such as “we appreciate you because of your mature work ethic and the example you set for younger gigzombies”). At the same time they are complemented for their work ethic, they are discouraged from talking to union organizers. It has been reported that Amazon warehouses have set up “Li’lMed” stations and Urine Color Charts outside bathroom walls for workers to check the color of their urine to monitor dehydration and to convey the feeling that the company cares about them.¹⁷ Recently, Amazon announced that it plans to universalize its “Li’lMed” health care approach. It wants to lower healthcare cost for workers and has plans to revert back to the days of the “company store” when employees depended on employers for everything. It plans to set up its own health care system, at first, to service its employees.  If it is successful, it could metastasize throughout the whole economy, allowing Amazon to privatize and provide universal health care for all of us.

Sadly, these elderly workers, who are made to compete with younger workers who are in their prime working age, have been known to say that they are happy with what they can get, the opportunity to subject themselves to such humiliation. Exhausted, even though they need the money, termination comes as a blessing in disguise, since it gives them recovery time to heal physically and emotionally. Evidently, capitalism not only produces misery and impoverishment, but it has no desire to help those in need. In this respect, the working conditions of the gig economy is reminiscent of the horrible working conditions experienced almost a hundred years ago, in the 1930s, by San Francisco longshoremen; there is a well known example of a reported incident after a 700 pound load accidently dropped on the foot of a longshoreman and broke several bones. Employers placed the worker on the no hire blacklist because they said he had weak bones.¹⁸

As economic crises become more frequent and deeper and unemployment, migration and inequality reach dizzying heights, and militarism and war persists, critics have called for a greater role for government. But these trends are systemic and ubiquitous and, as such, a greater role for government and the gig economy that is automated and stocked with gigzombies, are not solutions to these problems. Mass unemployment is a necessary outcome of the capitalist production process. Immigration, globalization, outsourcing, and the transition to the gig economy are all manifestations of capitalism’s need to re-invent itself. The reserve army of unemployed is, indeed, the “graveyard of immiseration and impoverishment,” and is the necessary outcome of the logic of this system; as such, capitalism continues to produce its own “grave diggers.”

In this respect, there are important lessons to learn from the revolutionary tradition in the U.S. This tradition has a long history that has inspired subsequent generations to demand a world free of misery, impoverishment, exploitation, oppression, and class distinctions. They understood that radical change is not just a thing of the past, but that it requires international solidarity, since the alternative is a life of abject poverty.

Capitalism is an economy driven by profits, which retards the development of humanity; when profit investment ventures dry up, the system shuts down. A collectivized system where the fruits of human labor are available to all, will set free the forces of labor for the benefit of everyone, not just a few. The solution to misery and poverty is international solidarity. The workers, the creators of wealth, want dignified and creative work, with a shorter work week and a livable wage with benefits. While the words of Marx were resounding for the nineteenth century working class, they still ring true today: “A study of the struggle waged by the English working class reveals that, in order to oppose their workers, the employers either bring in workers from abroad or else transfer manufacture to countries where there is a cheap labor force. Given this state of affairs, if the working class wishes to continue its struggle with some chance of success, the national organisations must become international.” ¹⁹

*

Anthony Gabb, Ph.D. is Associate Professor of economics at St. John’s University, New York. He has delivered and published dozens of papers, a book chapter and a book review. His most recent work, Financial Oligarchy Feudal Aristocracy, was published by The World Financial Review.  He work has appeared in The New York Times, Corriere della Sera, and he has appeared on Chanel 1 New York.

Notes

1. https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=1888367364808997&id=100009072541151

2.  Robert Gordon, The Rise and Fall of American Growth: The U.S. Standard of Living Since the Civil War, The Princeton Economic Series of the Western World, 2016 

3.https://www.mckinsey.com/~/media/McKinsey/Global%20Themes/Future%20of%20Organizations/What%20the%20future%20of%20work%20will%20mean%20for%20jobs%20skills%20and%20wages/MGI-Jobs-Lost-Jobs-Gained-Report-December-6-2017.ashx

4.  https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/27/business/its-not-a-roar-but-the-global-economy-is-finally-making-noise.html

5.https://www.mckinsey.com/~/media/McKinsey/Global%20Themes/Future%20of%20Organizations/What%20the%20future%20of%20work%20will%20mean%20for%20jobs%20skills%20and%20wages/MGI-Jobs-Lost-Jobs-Gained-Report-December-6-2017.ashx

6.https://digitalcommons.ilr.cornell.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=https://www.google.com/&httpsredir=1&article=1176&context=key_workplace

7. Karl Marx, vol. 1, Capital (Moscow: Progress Publishers), pp. 600-604                         

8.  https://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2017/home.htm

9.  https://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2017/home.htm

10. Survival of the Richest w/ Donald Jeffries – YouTube 

11. https://www.truthdig.com/videos/companies-like-amazon-exploit-itinerant-elderly-workers-lost-great-recession-video/

12. https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=1888367364808997&id=100009072541151

13. http://budgetmodel.wharton.upenn.edu/issues/2016/1/27/the-effects-of-immigration-on-the-united-states-economy

 14. https://www.truthdig.com/articles/fascist-underpinnings-trumps-state-union/

15. https://www.ukessays.com/essays/cultural-studies/migration-in-the-era-of-globalization-cultural-studies-essay.php

 16. https://www.unicef.org/publications/files/UNICEF_SOWC_2016.pdf

 17.https://www.truthdig.com/videos/companies-like-amazon-exploit-itinerant-elderly-workers-lost-great-recession-video/

18. WBAI Letters and Politics, 1/10/18, Peter Afrasiabi https://www.wbai.org/archive.php   

19. Karl Marx, International Workingmen’s Association 1867, meeting on June 4, 1867 the General Council, On The Lausanne Congress

A wave of hysteria has swept the Alt-Media Community following Syria’s downing of an “Israeli” jet, but for as much as people want to imagine that Damascus is on the cusp of liberating Palestine and that Moscow has turned against Tel Aviv, believing anything of the sort is nothing more than wishful thinking. 

Pop The Champagne!

Syria finally shot down an “Israeli” jet after what some sources have estimated was the Zionist entity’s more than 100th strike against the Arab Republic since 2011, and Damascus’ supporters all across the world are celebrating this powerful act of Resistance for putting Tel Aviv in its place.

This event was made all the more symbolic because Syria has been struggling against 7 years of multifaceted Hybrid War, showing the world that even the most conflict-weary state in the Mideast is capable of successfully standing up to the regional bully.

The resultant euphoria has begun to take on hysterical dimensions, however, with many Alt-Media commentators suggesting that Russia has taken Syria’s side in this conflict and that this automatically means that Damascus and its allies are on the cusp of liberating Palestine.

Nothing of the sort has happened and any “serious” talk about these long-awaited developments is delusional.

Sobering Up

Russia’s position has been deliberately ambiguous and corresponds with its new diplomatic-strategic position of attempting to achieve a “balance” between opposing parties in any given conflict.

Much ado has been made about President Putin’s plea to Netanyahu to avoid any escalation of the War on Syria, but this was to have been expected, just as it was predictable that people would see in this statement whatever they wanted to.

Instead of soberly recognizing that this is Russia’s standard response to any development that happens anywhere in the world, some people wrongly interpreted this as Putin chastising Netanyahu, with this narrative being reinforced because details about the presumed talks that he must have also had with his Syrian and Iranian counterparts haven’t been disclosed.

For reasons of strategic sensitivity in the framework of the Astana peace process, Russia is likely to refrain from any public criticism of Syria and Iran, and it’s very telling that the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MID) and the country’s Presidential Administration haven’t commented on the veracity of “Israel’s” claims that an Iranian drone flying over the occupied Golan Heights was what sparked the latest escalation.

The absence of commentary doesn’t indicate that Russia is dismissing “Israel’s” narrative, but to the contrary suggests that it is quietly accepting it as truth, though as was remarked above, is reluctant to say anything further about these claims in public because of its relationship to Syria and Iran in this sensitive context.

The Imaginary Russian-“Israeli” Split

Like the author wrote about last year, “Does Anyone Still Seriously Think That Russia And Israel Aren’t Allies?”, and any shocked readers should reference that piece for more background information into this admittedly provocative pronouncement if they aren’t already aware of how close these two sides really are.

Russia may feel uncomfortable about what “Israel” has just done in Syria, but it’s been passively facilitating such strikes for the past 2-5 years in an attempt to “balance” regional affairs per the “19th-Century Great Power Chessboard” paradigm, particularly as it relates to limiting Iran’s post-Daesh role in Syria.

Moscow’s silence every other time that this happened points to at least tacit approval of Tel Aviv’s actions or even clandestine coordination at times, because as the saying goes, “words are cheap”, and while it couldn’t have hurt Russia’s soft power to at least rhetorically condemn all of “Israel’s” previous bombings, Moscow still abstained from doing so.

The remains of the F-16 jet that crashed in northern Israel (Source: RTE)

What Russia didn’t expect, however, was that Syria would ever succeed in shooting down an “Israeli” jet, as it’s for Moscow’s aversion to this very same scenario that it has hitherto held off on selling top-notch anti-air missile systems to Damascus and has clearly reaffirmed on multiple occasions that its in-country military mandate does not include protecting Syria’s airspace from any foreign air force, whether American, “Israeli”, or Turkish.

This implies that Russia did not in fact provide Syria with the directive to shoot down the “Israeli” jet, nor would it have ever approved of such an action if it was previously informed, thus debunking the “populist” claims that Moscow gave the green light to Damascus to carry out this prominent act of self-defense.

Syrian Sovereignty And Its Limitations

Russia was probably informed of what happened immediately afterwards, but Syria as a sovereign state wouldn’t have sought its approval beforehand in any case, nor should it have.

Seeing as how this action prompted “Israel” to pummel Syria’s air defenses in response — an objective fact that’s “coincidentally” forgotten amidst the Alt-Media celebrations — it’s indeed true that the conflict between both parties has escalated, though that doesn’t mean that Syria’s response was unjustified or that Damascus is about to commence a liberation campaign in Palestine.

To address the first of the two, Syria has every right to defend its airspace from foreign intrusion no matter what the reason is for the external force’s territorial infringement (e.g. an Iranian drone venturing into the occupied Golan Heights), even if this sovereign decision “endangers” Russia’s “master plan” of “balancing” the Mideast.

As for the second point, there is no way that the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) is anywhere capable of freeing Palestine owing to “Israel’s” track record of responding with overwhelming force in the face of even the tiniest move in this direction, as was just evidenced by its large-scale bombing run against the country’s air defense systems after losing one of its jets.

“Allied” Disagreements

Having established the realistic limitations to what Syria can do against “Israel”, as well as explaining the nuances of Russia’s position in this matter, it’s now time to tackle the origin of this latest escalation and explain why it happened in the first place.

The Syrian state and its people were saved from impending destruction following Russia’s decisive anti-terrorist intervention in 2015, and while forever indebted to Moscow for what it did, Damascus doesn’t automatically have to comply with all of its partner’s “suggestions” for “politically” resolving the country’s conflict.

To be direct, Syria does not have to approve of the “decentralization” clauses controversially included in the 2017 Russian-written “draft constitution” for Syria out of the implied “guilt” that it “owes” Moscow something for saving it, considering that Russia’s mandate is specifically to fight terrorism and does not entitle it to lead the subsequent “peace process”.

That said, as the UNSC country with the most powerful influence over Damascus, it’s natural that Russia would take the lead in trying to kickstart the country’s stalled commitment to Resolution 2254’s mandate that it carry out “constitutional reform” and hold new elections, and this ambitious role is intended to deepen Moscow’s multipolar leadership in the Mideast following the vacuum that was created in the wake of Washington’s “Pivot to Asia”.

No matter the well-intended win-win motivations behind Russia’s stewardship of Syrian peace process, the “inconvenient fact” remains that the country’s government has been dragging its heels in this regard out of its implied unhappiness with Moscow’s “suggestions” and its unwillingness to commit to a “military solution” that would fulfill President Assad’s famous promise to liberate “every square inch” of Syria.

So as not to be misconstrued at this delicate moment of the analysis, the author is not hinting that there is a serious rift between the two wartime partners, but just that there nevertheless exist differences of vision — particularly over the end game — that are perfectly normal for any pair of friendly countries to have.

The Deir ez-Zor Disaster

The point to remember, however, is that Russia doesn’t have a “monopoly” on the Syrian peace process and that Iran is also crucially involved as well, and unlike Moscow, Tehran is in perfect alignment with Damascus’ preferred path forward in the war, no matter how unachievable it might be given the presence of approximately 2000 US troops and 10 American bases occupying the energy-rich and agriculturally wealthy northeastern third of the country.

Russia realized the impossibility of forcing the US out of Syria early on and that’s why it entered into a “gentlemen’s agreement” with it to informally recognize a so-called “deconfliction line” between these two Great Powers along the Euphrates River, but Syria and its Iranian ally don’t accept this deal and are intent on opposing it to the best of their abilities, just as they don’t like how Russia has passively allowed “Israel” to carve out a “buffer zone” near the occupied Golan Heights via its “rebel” proxies.

To this end, the SAA and their supported militias (which might have possibly included some kind of Iranian element as well) responded to Kurdish-led SDF provocations along the Russian-US “deconfliction zone” near Deir ez-Zor but were then decimated when the US promptly carried out a punitive strike against them, one which led to Russian condemnation but nothing else, whether before or after.

It’s possible that Syria was encouraged by Iran to respond to the Kurdish attacks despite what might have been Russia’s general orders to stand down under any such conditions while Moscow attempts to enter into a “deal-making” dialogue with Washington, and it’s Damascus’ refusal to follow this “protocol” that could have triggered the US to react with disproportionate force in seeking to “set an example”.

This version of events would also explain Russia’s lack of any substantial response before or after what happened.

Gambling In The Occupied Golan Heights

Should that have been the case, then Syria clearly didn’t heed the US’ “warning” because it soon thereafter might have been encouraged by Iran once more to defend itself from America’s “Israeli” ally in the southern part of the country against what could have either been yet another unprovoked attack (albeit one which Russia seems to always quietly agree with “Israel” is due to some sort of Iranian ‘tripwire’) or a drone ruse by Tehran in order to catalyze events.

It should be explained here that Iran, as a military actor invited into Syria at the request of the democratically elected and legitimate government, has every legal right to operate drones inside the country’s internationally recognized territory which thus includes the “Israeli”-occupied Golan Heights, so there’s no reason in principle to deny that it flew a drone over that part of the state if that’s what truly happened (and which Russia hasn’t openly denied).

Nevertheless, international law and international reality are two different things, and the facts on the ground are such that “Israel” has unilaterally and illegally annexed the Golan Heights, so flying an Iranian drone over them would indeed incite a military response no matter how illegal it may be.

Iran might have wanted to set a trap for its hated Zionist enemy, especially if it had just secretly improved Syria’s air defense capabilities, and this might have been something that Syria would have voluntarily gone alone with in earnest owing to the identical policy that it shares with Tehran when it comes to “Israel”.

The “Resistance’s” Strategy Towards Russia

It’s important to mention that Syria and Iran are “Resistance” states and therefore prioritize ideals and what they sincerely believe to be the “right thing” over realpolitik, international reality, and the power-centric paradigm of Neo-Realism that the vast majority of the world operates under per the “19th-Century Great Power Chessboard”, which is why these two countries are predisposed to doing the seemingly “inexplicable” in challenging the US and “Israel” when not even Russia dares to confront them in the region (choosing instead to seek out “pragmatic” “balancing” deals with mixed “success”).

It’s precisely because of Russia’s “Machiavellian” position and the dissatisfaction that Syria and Iran have towards it that they have an incentive to challenge Moscow’s grand strategy whenever it conflicts with their “Resistance” principles, as it may have done in Deir ez-Zor and the occupied Golan Heights over the past week.

Neither of these two Russian partners want to “betray” Moscow or even “undermine” its regional position, but actually want to “help” it realize its “full potential” by engineering situations where Russia is compelled to “choose” between the “Resistance” and its sworn enemies, genuinely believing that all that it might take to get Moscow to abandon its newfound “balancing” strategy and pivotally become a partisan player like it used to be during the Old Cold War is to “gently” give it a “push” in the “right direction” through the Deir ez-Zor and occupied Golan Heights defensive escalations.

The problem is that Russia doesn’t perceive of the recent events in this manner, and instead of smiling upon Syria and Iran’s strategic “ingenuity” in masterminding these “clever” pivot-inciting “opportunities”, Moscow is more inclined to believe that Tehran is “exploiting” Damascus’ irritation at Russia’s leadership of the “peace process” and attendant “balancing”-directed “suggestions” at “decentralization” in order to utilize it as a “cat’s paw” for drawing the US and “Israel” into a standoff with Russia, one which the Islamic Republic might be gambling could work out to the “Resistance’s” benefit.

Fatal Miscalculation

Such a “wishful-thinking” assumption would be a terrible mistake because Russia isn’t going to risk a war with either of the “Resistance’s” above-mentioned adversaries because Eurasia’s consummate Neo-Realist state “knows better” than to “fall for” this “idealistic” “trap”.

If it comes down to it, which it very well might, Russia can “reconcile” itself with the “federalized” fragmentation of the Arab Republic into “spheres of influence” in order to advance its “balancing” vision and could even accept the removal of President Assad so long as it’s “orderly” and doesn’t replicate the terrorist-producing Libyan scenario (ergo Moscow’s repeated assertions that his political fate wasn’t the reason why it launched its military intervention), so the “Resistance” could ultimately be shocked to find out that Moscow might not rush to its “rescue” if it keeps “playing with fire” when it comes to what might have been Russia’s clandestine “gentlemen’s agreements” with the US and “Israel” in Syria.

To conclude by bringing everything full circle and back to the lead-in news event that inspired this analysis, Syria’s downing of the “Israeli” jet filled the “Resistance”-friendly Alt-Media Community with hope that Palestine might soon be liberated after what they’ve largely convinced themselves was Russia’s “chastisement” of “Israel”, but such wishful thinking is actually nothing more than a dangerous delusion that might horrifyingly see this celebratory occasion lead to Syria’s total destruction because of what might come to be the “Resistance’s” fatal miscalculation about Russia.

*

This article was originally published by Eurasia 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.

Behind the scenes, Sweden wanted to drop the extradition case against Assange back in 2013. Why was this not made public? Because Britain persuaded Sweden to pretend that they still wished to pursue the case.

In other words, for more than four years Assange has been holed up in a tiny room, policed at great cost to British taxpayers, not because of any allegations in Sweden but because the British authorities wanted him to remain there. On what possible grounds could that be, one has to wonder? Might it have something to do with his work as the head of Wikileaks, publishing information from whistleblowers that has severely embarrassed the United States and the UK.

In fact, Assange should have walked free years ago if this was really about an investigation – a sham one at that – into an alleged sexual assault in Sweden. Instead, as Assange has long warned, there is a very different agenda at work: efforts to extradite him onwards to the US, where he could be locked away for good. That was why UN experts argued two years ago that he was being “arbitrarily detained” – for political crimes – not unlike the situation of dissidents in other parts of the world that win the support of western liberals and leftists.

According to a new, limited release of emails between officials, the Swedish director of public prosecutions, Marianne Ny, wrote to Britain’s Crown Prosecution Service on 18 October 2013, warning that Swedish law would not allow the case for extradition to be continued. This was, remember, after Sweden had repeatedly failed to take up an offer from Assange to interview him in London, as had happened in 44 other extradition cases between Sweden and Britain.

Ny wrote to the CPS:

“We have found us to be obliged to lift the detention order … and to withdraw the European arrest warrant. If so this should be done in a couple of weeks. This would affect not only us but you too in a significant way.”

Three days later, suggesting that legal concerns were far from anyone’s mind, she emailed the CPS again:

“I am sorry this came as a [bad] surprise… I hope I didn’t ruin your weekend.”

In a similar vein, proving that this was about politics, not the law, the chief CPS lawyer handling the case in the UK, had earlier written to the Swedish prosecutors:

“Don’t you dare get cold feet!!!”

In December 2013, the unnamed CPS lawyer wrote again to Ny:

“I do not consider costs are a relevant factor in this matter.”

This was at a time when it had been revealed that the policing of Assange’s detention in the embassy had at that point cost Britain £3.8 million. In another email from the CPS, it was noted:

“Please do not think this case is being dealt with as just another extradition.”

These are only fragments of the email correspondence, after most of it was destroyed by the CPS against its own protocols. The deletions appear to have been carried out to avoid releasing the electronic files to a tribunal that has been considering a freedom of information request.

Other surviving emails, according to a Guardian report last year, have shown that the CPS “advised the Swedes in 2010 or 2011 not to visit London to interview Assange. An interview at that time could have prevented the long-running embassy standoff.”

Assange is still holed up in the embassy, at great risk to his physical and mental health, even though last year Sweden formally dropped an investigation that in reality it had not actually been pursuing for more than four years.

Now the UK (read US) authorities have a new, even less credible pretext for continuing to hold Assange: because he “skipped bail”. Apparently the price he should pay for this relatively minor infraction is more than five years of confinement.

London magistrates are due to consider on Tuesday the arguments of Assange’s lawyers that he should be freed and that after so many years the continuing enforcement of the arrest warrant is disproportionate. Given the blurring of legal and political considerations in this case, don’t hold your breath that Assange will finally get a fair hearing.

Remember too that, according to the UK Foreign Office, Ecuador recently notified it that Assange had received diplomatic status following his successful application for Ecuadorean citizenship.

As former British ambassador Craig Murray has explained, the UK has no choice but to accept Assange’s diplomatic immunity. The most it can do is insist that he leave the country – something that Assange and Ecuador presumably each desire. And yet the UK continues to ignore its obligation to allow Assange his freedom to leave. So far there has been zero debate in the British corporate media about this fundamental violation of his rights.

One has to wonder at what point will most people realise that this is – and always was – political persecution masquerading as law enforcement.

*

For many decades the Federal Reserve has rigged the bond market by its purchases. And for about a century, central banks have set interest rates (mainly to stabilize their currency’s exchange rate) with collateral effects on securities prices. It appears that in May 2010, August 2015, January/February 2016, and currently in February 2018 the Fed is rigging the stock market by purchasing S&P equity index futures in order to arrest stock market declines driven by fundamentals, and to push prices back up in keeping with a decade of money creation. 

No one should find this a surprising suggestion.  The Bank of Japan has a long tradition of propping up the Japanese equity market with large purchases of equities. The European Central Bank purchases corporate as well as government bonds.  In 1989 Fed governor Robert Heller said that as the Fed already rigs the bond market with purchases, the Fed can also rig the stock market to stop price declines. That is the reason the Plunge Protection Team (PPT) was created in 1987.

Looking at the chart of futures activity on the E-mini S&P 500, we see an uptick in activity on February 2 when the market dropped, with higher increases in future activity last Monday and Tuesday placing Tuesday’s futures activity at about four times the daily average of the previous month.  Futures activity last Wednesday and Thursday remained above the average daily activity of the previous month, and Friday’s activity was about three times the previous month’s daily average. The result of this futures activity was to send the market up, because the futures activity was purchases, not sales.

Who would be purchasing S&P equity futures when the market is collapsing from under them? The most likely answer we can come up with is that the Fed is acting for the PPT. The Fed can actually stop a market decline without purchasing a single futures contract. All that has to happen is that a trader recognized as operating for the Fed or PPT enters a futures bid just below the current price. The traders see the bid as the Fed establishing a floor below which it will not let the market fall.  Expecting continuing declines to make the bid effective, they front-run the bid, and the hedge funds algorithms pick it up, and up goes the market.

Is there another explanation for the shift in the market from decline to rise?  Are retail investors purchasing dips?  Not according to this report in Bloomberg, that last week a record $23.6 billion was removed from the world’s largest ETF, the SPDR S& 500 index fund. Here we see retail investors abandoning the market.

If central banks can produce zero interest rates simultaneously with a massive increase in indebtedness, why can’t they keep equity prices far above the values supported by fundamentals?  As central banks have learned that they can rig financial asset prices to the delight of everyone in the market, in what sense does capitalism, free markets, and price discovery exist? Have we entered a new kind of economic system?

*

This article was originally published by Paul Craig Roberts Institute for Political Economy.

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The Global Economic Crisis

The Great Depression of the XXI Century

Global Research

Each of the authors in this timely collection digs beneath the gilded surface to reveal a complex web of deceit and media distortion which serves to conceal the workings of the global economic system and its devastating impacts on people’s lives.

In all major regions of the world, the economic recession is deep-seated, resulting in mass unemployment, the collapse of state social programs and the impoverishment of millions of people. The meltdown of financial markets was the result of institutionalized fraud and financial manipulation.

The economic crisis is accompanied by a worldwide process of militarization, a “war without borders” led by the U.S. and its NATO allies.

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This book takes the reader through the corridors of the Federal Reserve, into the plush corporate boardrooms on Wall Street where far-reaching financial transactions are routinely undertaken.

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-Mario Seccareccia, Professor of Economics, University of Ottawa

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-David Ray Griffin, author of The New Pearl Harbor Revisited

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This previously published article (December 2017) on Global Research reveals the well-calculated plan of the US, Israel and Saudi Arabia on inciting a “civil war” in Lebanon to defeat Hezbollah. 

Israel – seemingly leading the squad with the green signal from Washington – has just fabricated yet another grounds for war. 

***

Washington’s plan to oust Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has ultimately failed. Now Lebanon seems to be in the cross-hairs with tensions between Israel and Hezbollah on the same level that led to the 2006 Lebanon war. There is also the possibility that a new offensive against Syria that might take place as Washington maintains its troop levels in the devastated country caused by ISIS and other terrorists groups they supported. Various reports suggests that the Pentagon may reveal that there are close to 2,000 U.S. troops stationed in Syria even though ISIS has been defeated. So why is Washington staying in Syria? Will there be another attempt to overthrow Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in the near future? Most likely, yes. Adding the Trump administration’s continued hostilities towards Iran, the drumbeats of a new war in the Middle East is loud and clear.

Israel, Saudi Arabia and the U.S. have one main objective at the moment and that is to destabilize Lebanon and attempt to defeat Hezbollah before they prepare for another offensive in Syria to remove Assad from power. Before they declare an all-out war on Iran, they must neutralize their allies, Hezbollah and Syria which is by far an extremely difficult task to accomplish.

The Israeli government knows that it cannot defeat Hezbollah without sacrificing both its military and civilian populations. Israel needs the U.S. military for added support if their objective is to somewhat succeed. Israel and the U.S. can continue its support of ISIS and other terrorist groups to create a new civil war in Lebanon through false-flag terror operations which in a strategic sense, can lead to an internal civil war. Can Hezbollah and the Lebanese military prevent terrorist groups from entering its territory? So far they have been successful in defeating ISIS on the Lebanon-Syria border, and will most likely be successful in preventing a new U.S.-supported terrorist haven in Lebanon. Lebanon’s Prime Minister Saad Hariri who originally resigned from his post while visiting the Saudi Kingdom, then suspending his resignation is a sign that a political crisis has been set in motion. So what happens next?

The Curse: Lebanon’s Natural Resources and the Greater Israel Project

In the case of a devastating war on Lebanon, with a civil war intact, Israel would surely attempt to take control over Lebanon’s natural resources. Since Trump got in the White House, Israel has expanded its Jewish settlements through land seizures throughout Palestine at unprecedented levels and with the occupation of the Golan Heights (a Syrian territory), they already control a portion of oil, gas and vital water supplies. Lebanon would be a huge bonus. In 2013, Lebanese Energy Minister Gebran Bassil estimated that Lebanon has around 96 trillion cubic feet of natural gas reserves and 865 million barrels of oil offshore. With Lebanon’s political chaos and Israel preparing for a long-term war with Hezbollah, all leads to Israel Shahak’s ‘The Zionist Plan for the Middle East’ which states the intended goal for the fragmentation of Lebanon and other adversaries in the Middle East:

3) This is not a new idea, nor does it surface for the first time in Zionist strategic thinking. Indeed, fragmenting all Arab states into smaller units has been a recurrent theme. This theme has been documented on a very modest scale in the AAUG publication, Israel’s Sacred Terrorism (1980), by Livia Rokach. Based on the memoirs of Moshe Sharett, former Prime Minister of Israel, Rokach’s study documents, in convincing detail, the Zionist plan as it applies to Lebanon and as it was prepared in the mid-fifties.

4) The first massive Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1978 bore this plan out to the minutest detail. The second and more barbaric and encompassing Israeli invasion of Lebanon on June 6, 1982, aims to effect certain parts of this plan which hopes to see not only Lebanon, but Syria and Jordan as well, in fragments. This ought to make mockery of Israeli public claims regarding their desire for a strong and independent Lebanese central government. More accurately, they want a Lebanese central government that sanctions their regional imperialist designs by signing a peace treaty with them. They also seek acquiescence in their designs by the Syrian, Iraqi, Jordanian and other Arab governments as well as by the Palestinian people. What they want and what they are planning for is not an Arab world, but a world of Arab fragments that is ready to succumb to Israeli hegemony. Hence, Oded Yinon in his essay, “A Strategy for Israel in the 1980’s,” talks about “far-reaching opportunities for the first time since 1967” that are created by the “very stormy situation [that] surrounds Israel” 

Israel is gearing up for a long and devastating war against Hezbollah, an Iranian-ally who is . based in Lebanon’s southern region to deter Israel’s expansionist ideas. As Saudi Arabia (Israel’s closest ally in the region) continues its immoral and devastating war on Yemen, it is raising tensions with Iran. According to Thomas L. Freidman’s article ‘Saudi Arabia’s Arab Spring, At Last’ praising who he calls “M.B.S.” or Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince, Mohammed bin Salman for his reformist policies. According to Friedman 

“Iran’s “supreme leader is the new Hitler of the Middle East,” said M.B.S. “But we learned from Europe that appeasement doesn’t work. We don’t want the new Hitler in Iran to repeat what happened in Europe in the Middle East.”

The Trump administration’s continued support of the Saudi Monarchy which negotiated an arms deal worth billions to take place has only emboldened the Saudi government to take an aggressive stand towards its adversaries in the Middle East namely, Iran.

Lebanon Prepares for Another War

On November 21st, Reuters’ published an article titled ‘Lebanon army chief warns of Israel threat amid political crisis’based on Lebanon’s Army Chief warning his troops to be on high alert concerning Israel’s aggressive behavior along the Southern border. It was reported that 

“Lebanon’s army chief told his soldiers on Tuesday to be extra vigilant to prevent unrest during political turmoil after the prime minister quit, and accused Israel of “aggressive” intentions across the southern frontier” despite Lebanon’s Prime Minister Saad Hariri’s return to Lebanon and decided to put his resignation on hold.

The army’s Twitter account quoted the Lebanese Army’s Commander General Joseph Aoun who said that

“Troops should be ready to “thwart any attempt to exploit the current circumstances for stirring strife” and that “the exceptional political situation that Lebanon is going through requires you to exercise the highest levels of awareness.”

Israel understands that a defeat against Hezbollah and the Lebanese military will be absolutely difficult to accomplish, therefore preparations to engage the Hezbollah this time will be an effort to create as much damage as possible and reduce their military capabilities, maybe in time for U.S. troops to enter the war through Syria and coordinate targets with the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). As I mentioned earlier, and may I add, with an interesting choice of words, a report published by Reuters on November 24th suggests that the Pentagon might announce how many troops they have in Syria:

Two U.S. officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said the Pentagon could, as early as Monday, publicly announce that there are slightly more than 2,000 U.S. troops in Syria. They said there was always a possibility that last minute changes in schedules could delay an announcement. That is not an increase in troop numbers, just a more accurate count, as the numbers often fluctuate

A War That No One Will Win 

The Council of Foreign Relations (CFR), an establishment think-tank based in New York City published an article on July 30th of this year by Neocon warmonger Eliot Abrams who was a deputy assistant and deputy national security adviser for President George W. Bush titled ‘The Next Israel-Hezbollah Conflict’ admits that “the next war is a war that will not be “won” by Israel or Hezbollah.” Abrams said that “Israel’s realistic war aims will not match the damage it will suffer—and the damage it will necessarily inflict” in reference to a strategic assessment ‘by Israel’s Institute for National Security Studies titled ‘Political and Military Contours of the Next Conflict with Hezbollah’ by Gideon Sa’ar, an Israeli politician and a former Likud member of the Knesset and Ron Tira, a strategist, Israeli Air Force officer and a pilot highlights what Israel’s realistic goals should be:

Israel’s objectives in a future conflict will be derived first and foremost from what it wants to achieve in the distinct context (such as, for example, preventing Hezbollah’s buildup of certain qualitative edge capabilities or preventing deployment of high quality Iranian weapon systems in Syria), but a review of the fundamental data reveals a few “generic” objectives that could be applicable in many contexts: postponing the following conflict, shaping the rules for the routine times that will follow the conflict, increasing deterrence with respect to Hezbollah and third parties, undermining the attractiveness of Hezbollah’s war paradigm (use of rockets and missiles hidden among the civilian population), preserving Israel’s relations with its allies, and creating the conditions to reduce Iranian involvement in the post-war reconstruction of Lebanon, as well as imposing new and enforceable restrictions on the freedom of access of the Iran-Alawite-Hezbollah axis

The strategic assessment mentioned what realistic goals Israel can achieve when the conflict takes place according to the assessment:

There is only a limited range of “positive” and achievable objectives that Israel can hope to attain from Hezbollah and from Lebanon. While the purpose of an armed conflict is always political, in many contexts it is hard to find a political objective that is both meaningful and achievable at a reasonable cost, and that is the reason for the basic lack of value that can be found in an Israel- Hezbollah military conflict 

The reason according to Mr. Abrams’s conclusion that an Israeli defeat over Hezbollah is impossible is because of Russia’s presence in the region:

That’s because Russia cannot be expelled, Lebanon will remain roughly half-Shia, and Hezbollah will survive—as will its relationship with Iran. After the war, the best assumption would be that Hezbollah will rebuild, as it did after 2006. But Hezbollah would achieve nothing positive in such a conflict, suffering immense damage and bringing immense destruction upon Lebanon. Its only possible “gain” is the damage it would inflict on Israel. In a way this is the only “good news”

Israel’s Economy During Wartime

David Rosenberg’s opinion piece ‘Israel’s Next War: We Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet’ on the 2014 Israel-Gaza Conflict in the Israel-based news source Haaretz explains the consequences of war and how it effects Israel’s economy. Rosenberg said that

 “In 2014, the missile war wasn’t a threat so much as a spectacle, as Israelis watched Iron Dome missiles bring down Qassam rockets, to applause. Score one for the home team.”

However, Rosenberg claims that the next war with Hezbollah will be different, in fact it will effect Israel’s economy in several ways:

The next war isn’t going to look like that. The round figure everyone uses for Hezbollah’s missile arsenal is 100,000. That is a suspiciously round figure and is probably wrong, but no one disputes that the Shiite militia is well-armed, and more importantly, many of its missiles carry much more powerful warheads and are much more accurate than they were in 2006. Hezbollah’s arsenal includes attack drones and coast-to-sea missiles, too. For its part, Israel is also better prepared. Iron Dome, which is designed to bring down short-range rockets, has been complemented by the introduction of the David’s Sling and Arrow systems, designed to intercept long-range rockets and ballistic missiles, respectively. 

But against an onslaught of thousands of missiles, no Domes, Slings or Arrows will be able to provide the kind of defense Israelis have grown used to. Israel’s infrastructure and economic activity are vulnerable to even a limited missile attack from Hezbollah. Geographically, Israel is a small country with no hinterland, which means facilities for electric power and water are concentrated in small areas. More than a quarter of electric power is generated at just two sites. Natural gas is produced at a single offshore field and delivered via a single pipeline. A large portion of our exports derive from a single industrial plant. A prolonged missile war will almost certainly bring business to a halt

Israel’s economy will shrink within a short-time period according to Rosenberg:

In the worst-case scenario, a post-war Israel would no longer be seen by global investors and businesses as a safe place to put their money and do deals. Imagine Startup Nation without the constant flow of cross-border capital and mergers and acquisitions. The fantasyland of the last 11 years would disappear in a matter of days or weeks

Rosenberg is correct. For example, during the 2014 Israel-Gaza Conflict, Israel was faced with economic uncertainties. The Times of Israel published an article during the conflict with an appropriate title ‘War depresses people, economy; strong shekel harmful’ clarified what experts said on how the economy would be effected during a “drawn-out” conflict:

Experts temper the pessimism by noting that in the past, the Israeli economy has been resilient. If the current conflict is resolved quickly, there may be little cause for concern. On the other hand, a drawn out conflict in Gaza may cause investors to worry about the country’s stability and could cause long term damage to Israel’s reputation and position as a key player in the global economy. 

“Our key concerns are the openness of the Israeli economy and our ability to be a key player in the global markets,” Zvi Eckstein, former deputy governor of the Bank of Israel and dean of the School of Economics at the Interdisciplinary Center (IDC) Herzliya, noted in an interview with The Times of Israel. “It’s really still a key uncertainty how the conflict will end up,” said Eckstein. “Most people predict we will get back to the same relatively stable geopolitical situation as we were in early July, and if so, I would say the economy would rebound back later next year. But if not, the threat to Israel’s economy would be quite devastating”

That conflict was against a weaker adversary, Hamas. For starters, a war with Hezbollah, Lebanon and Syria however would have a negative impact on Israel’s tourism industry where it receives more than 3 million tourists (mainly from the U.S. and Europe) per year. Israel’s level of production will also take a hit. The Street published an interesting article ‘How Is Israel’s Economy Affected by the Current War?’ explains what happened to Israel’s economy during the 2014 Israel-Gaza Conflict:

The Israeli economy suffers directly from reductions in productivity every time missile alert sirens send the country’s residents into bomb shelters. The economic costs of the war are estimated upwards of $2.9 billion, and already the war has soaked up 1.2% of the GDP. In the event that quiet prevails after a ceasefire is reached, the Israeli economy is resilient enough to withstand the costs of this operation.

History reflects that the Israeli economy surged at a rate of 6% prior to the 2006 Lebanon war and then slowed down to 2.9% prior to this current conflict. The tourism sector is going to be particularly hard hit, and if a third intifada ensues the economic costs for Israel could be crippling. Since a big chunk of Israel’s workforce is enlisted in the IDF, productivity declines are widespread and costs are mounting. The IMA (Israel Manufacturers Association) has already listed a figure of $240 million in losses as a result of the war effort

Another War, Another Tragedy

Israel, Saudi Arabia and the U.S. want to permanently eliminate the Iran-Syria-Hezbollah alliance and to achieve that goal, Lebanon will have to become another Libya causing more chaos in an already volatile situation. The only beneficiaries in this coming war is Israel and the U.S. if of course, they are victorious. The U.S. and their allies would re-establish themselves as the hegemonic power in the Middle East with absolute control over the natural resources including oil, gas and water. Israel would also expand and conquer more territory for Greater Israel. Saudi Arabia would remain a vassal state with more political leverage over its neighbors.

And if Saudi Arabia foolishly decided to go to war with Iran, the House of Saud will inevitably collapse since Iran is much more stronger, militarily speaking. Washington plans to keep its military presence in Syria is a signal that removing Assad from power is still on the agenda. Saudi Arabia, Israel and the Trump administration (decertifying the Iran Nuclear Deal with the intention to eventually kill the deal) is a recipe for a planned long-term conflict. Israel’s economy would suffer a major setback if they were to launch an attack against Hezbollah. Besides the fact that a war against Hezbollah would mean that missiles would constantly strike within Israel, creating a massive amount of stress on Israeli citizens and a downturn of the economy would only add another dimension to the wide-reaching full-scale war. Israel hopes that Hezbollah will be temporally neutralized until the U.S. congress and the Trump Administration jointly approve another military and economic aid package worth billions in time to continue its wars. Then there is the possibility of a joint U.S., Saudi Arabia and Israeli orchestrated attack on Syria to remove Assad from power to ultimately isolate Iran, but with Russia and China backing Iran, it would be a no-win situation.  The biggest loser in all of its foreign policy blunders is the U.S. Israel and Saudi Arabia.

Israel’s plan to launch more aggressive wars against its neighbors to further an expansionist objective would come at a great cost to Israeli citizens as their economy sinks into the rabbit hole and with the threat of incoming missiles from southern Lebanon makes it that much more worst. Lebanon and to an extent Israel will be once again devastated by a new war. For both sides of the border, it is a formula for disastrous consequences.

This article was originally published by Silent Crow News.

Featured image is from the author.

“Horse-trading determines who goes to jail and for how long.  That is what plea bargaining is.  It is not some adjunct to the criminal justice system; it is the criminal justice system.”- US Supreme Court Justice Kennedy (2012)

The February 5 decision of the British court refusing to permit the extradition of hactivist Lauri Love was more than an opinion. It was a reproach.  While a quiet confidence had been expressed that the decision would go his way, not permitting his extradition might also dint various trans-national security efforts.  Prosecutors were taking note.

Love had been accused of hacking into the systems of various US institutions: the FBI, NASA and the US Central Bank.  Such accusations were so grave as to endanger Love with a potential prison sentence of 99 years – provided the US authorities could convince the courts that extradition from the UK was warranted.

They were initially successful, convincing District Court Judge Tempia sitting at Westminster Magistrates’ Court that any harm Love might suffer was conjectural.  Despite being diagnosed with Asperger Syndrome, antibiotic resistant eczema and major depression, not to mention finding that Love was a high suicide risk, the 2016 ruling favoured extradition.  Love’s appeal was heard on November 29-30 by the Lord Chief Justice, Lord Burnett of Maldon and Mr Justice Ouseley.

US prosecutors do not take kindly to hactivists.  Aaron Schwartz, known for developing the RSS software undergirding the syndication of information on the Internet, remains one of the most notable, and tragic, casualties in this instance. What he faced was a weapon commonly used in such instances, the brutally all capturing Computer Fraud and Abuse Act of 1986.  His alleged crime was to have enabled free access to an academic website, JSTOR through the MIT computer network.  This anti-capitalist sin meant a possible fine of up to $1 million with a princely jail term of 35 years. Schwartz preferred suicide.

Supporters of Love preferred to focus on keeping the trial local, citing the case of Gary McKinnon, who was also pursued for computer hacking offences.  Attempts to seek McKinnon’s extradition failed due to the refusal by the then Home Secretary and current UK Prime Minister Theresa May, to do so.

“After careful consideration of all the relevant material,” May explained in October 2012, “I have concluded that Mr McKinnon’s extradition would give rise to such a high risk of him ending his life that a decision to extradite him would be incompatible with Mr McKinnon’s human rights.”

In light of that case, vulnerable defendants can make the claim for a forum bar, thereby preventing the extradition from going through in cases where it “would not be in the interests of justice”.

With all that said, adding the “forum bar” to the UK Extradition Act 2003 in 2013 did not alter the reluctance on the part of judges to prevent extradition requests on grounds of forum.  Prosecutorial wisdom, it seemed, was to be respected. They, the assumption went, would have a deeper sense of the facts.

Central to the entire process was the possibility that Love would, in reaching the United States, even have access to a fair trial.  Would he, for instance, be fit to plead?  The pre-trial detention facilities at the Metropolitan Correctional Centre, located in Manhattan, or the Metropolitan Detention Centre at Brooklyn were cited as inadequate in supplying mental health care.  This was even more significant given that Love has been found to be a suicide risk.

A crucial factor in the Love case was the absence of the prosecutor’s belief as to whether the United Kingdom was not the most appropriate forum to try the defendant.  Previous decisions had essentially deemed this a neutral matter.  As the High Court explained in Shaw v Government of the United States of America [2014] EWHC 4654 (Admin),

“The judge has to ask whether there is a belief; but if there is not, then he cannot have any further ‘regard’ to this factor.”

The judges in Love’s case effectively repudiated this approach, claiming that the absence of prosecutorial belief on the subject of the appropriate forum was a more than telling factor in considering extradition.  Such “silence is a factor which tells in favour of the forum bar”.

The utterance sent legal analysts into a spin of speculation.  The absence of a prosecutor’s belief regarding the appropriateness of forum had certainly been a common practice.  The decision in Love, claimed Ben Lloyd, suggested that prosecutors had to show greater diligence in making their claim for extradition, certifying, for instance, that the UK was not appropriate. The lack of involvement of a domestic prosecutor, for instance, “could be taken as a factor in favour of the operation of the forum bar” (§34).

The judges did not stop there.  The lower court had, in their view, erred in not accepting the seriousness of the material supplied by Professor Kopelman, Emeritus Professor of Neuropsychiatry.  According to that medical assessment, Love’s custody in the United States would be crippling.

“His ability to cope with the proceedings in the trial, to make rational decisions, and to give evidence in a satisfactory manner would be severely compromised.”

In the words of the judges,

“it is clear from the rest of his evidence that severely worsening depression, with the possible onset of psychotic imagery was exactly what Professor Kopelman anticipated” (§31).

Such factors were more than mere conjectures.

Love also had a demonstrable connection to family and home.

“His entire wellbeing is bound with the presence of his parents.  This may now have been enhanced by the support of his girlfriend.  The significance of breaking those connections… demonstrates their strength” (§43).

Having been foiled in both the McKinnon case and that of Love, US prosecutors will have to identify different routes when nabbing their quarry.  Hacktivists weighed down by the baggage of mental health will prove a particularly difficult proposition.  The greatest challenge remains: convincing British judges of the suitability of a judicial forum beset by decline and ruin.

*

Dr. Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge.  He lectures at RMIT University, Melbourne.  Email: [email protected]

Featured image is from HackRead.

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Another Unnecessary War: Israel is Planning to Launch a Military Operation against Lebanon

By Prof. Idan Landau, February 12, 2018

The writing is already on the wall: Israel will soon launch a military operation in Lebanon. Not a targeted attack on a weapons convoy or factory, but a simultaneous attack on Hezbollah’s missile production and launch sites. The operation will take place at the same time as, or immediately after, a series of assassinations of known Hezbollah operatives.

Turkey-led Forces Suffer Hundreds Dead Since Start of Afrin Operation against Kurdish Forces in Northern Syria

By Andrew Illingworth, February 12, 2018

By comparison, monitors say that the death toll for defending Kurdish forces in Afrin is not too far behind with some 150 to two hundred fighters reportedly being killed since the Turkey’s offensive across the region began.

Countering the Asia-Pacific Quad Military Alliance: China-Pakistan Relations

By Ulson Gunnar, February 12, 2018

The US recently included India in its shifting Asia Pacific policy, as part of its Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (often referred to as the “Quad”). The Quad also includes Australia and Japan along with the United States itself.

US Declares Full Support to Israeli Airstrikes on Syria. Hezbollah Backs Damascus

By South Front, February 12, 2018

On February 9, Major Adrian Rankine-Galloway officially announced that the US supports the Israeli attack that targeted twelve positions of the Syrian Air Defense Forces and the Iranian forces in Syria. The Pentagon spokesman told reporters that the US fully supports “Israel’s right to defend itself”, according to Reuters.

New NATO Headquarters Planned in Germany

By Johannes Stern, February 12, 2018

The Bundeswehr (German Armed Forces) is to build a new NATO headquarters in Germany. According to information from the Deutsche Presse Agentur (DPA), the member states of the military alliance have agreed in principle to accept an offer from German Defence Minister Ursula von der Leyen (CDU, Christian Democratic Union). There were no other candidates for the headquarters. The official decision is due to be announced at the Defence Ministers’ meeting this week.

“To my mind, he exists now alongside I.F. Stone, Drew Pearson, George Seldes, Gary Webb, and others as seekers of truth at the steep price you seem to have to pay to follow your common sense and your integrity when they are in direct opposition to the tyranny of mainstream media conformity.” – Film-maker Oliver Stone [1]

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On Saturday January 27th, Robert Parry, whose stories in the 1980s shook a nation, quietly and unceremoniously passed away, finally succumbing to a long-standing bout with previously undiagnosed pancreatic cancer. He was 68. [2]

According to his family, tributes and mournful condolences from every corner of the country and the political spectrum have come flooding in. The New York Times and the Washington Post, along with Jim Naureckas of Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, Jon Schwartz of The Intercept, Katrina Vanden Heuvel of The Nation, Michael Tracey of the Young Turks, independent journalist Caitlin Johnstone, film-maker Oliver Stone, and vlogger Ryan Johnson, among others have chimed in with their praise of the man, and their recognition of Parry within the fixture of world class investigative journalists. [3]

Bob Parry, of course, is best known for his ground-breaking reporting exposing the Iran-Contra affair, the Reagan-era scandal involving the illicit sale of arms to Iran and use of the proceeds to fund the Contra rebel army in Nicaragua. He also played a key role, along with colleague Brian Barger, in probing the trafficking of cocaine by those same Nicaraguan Contras. This research provided the bedrock for Senator John Kerry’s congressional investigation in 1986, as well as Gary Webb’s later investigations into the drug trafficking networks both in Nicaragua and Los Angeles. [4]

Unfortunately, following Reagan’s departure from high office, Parry’s diligent and persistent efforts to probe the underpinnings of the Reagan-Bush administration met with increasing disapproval from within establishment media circles. Parry’s determination to follow the documentary trail detailing the Reagan campaign’s sabotaging of the Carter administration’s negotiations during the Iranian hostage crisis cost him a more lucrative future within mainstream journalism. [5]

Robert Parry’s main journalistic vehicle became the online investigative platform known as the Consortium for Independent Journalism found at consortiumnews.com. The site has provided both reporters and news consumers access to analysis daring to counter Washington ‘Groupthink’ as Parry has called it.

The choice of inconvenient truths over conventional mainstream narratives can marginalize even the most professional and brilliant journalists as Robert Parry had come to discover first hand.

On this week’s Global Research News Hour, we review some of the highlights of this intrepid journalist’s career with figures that have known, worked with, and admired him for many years. We also air part of one of his last interviews, conducted less than a month before his first stroke.

John Pilger is an Australian-born journalist and documentary film-maker. As a chief foreign correspondent he covered numerous wars, including, most notably, the Vietnam War. He has contributed to BBC, ABC Television, Al Jazeera, and Russia Today, as well as The Guardian, New Statesman, The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, The Nation, and The Sydney Morning Herald, among others. Pilger presented the Martha Gillhorn Prize for Journalism to Robert Parry in June of 2017. His site is johnpilger.com.

Ray McGovern served in Washington as an Army infantry/intelligence officer and then served as a CIA analyst for 27 years. He served under Presidents Kennedy through H.W. Bush, chairing National Intelligence Estimates and preparing the President’s Daily Brief. Ray Mcgovern co-founded Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity and has been a regular contributor to consortiumnews.com.

Nat Parry is one of Robert Parry’s four children, and based in Copenhagen, Denmark. He composed a stirring tribute to his father on the consortiumnews.com website, at which he has assumed duties as an editor.

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Support independent journalism! In addition to donating to consortiumnews.com, please also consider a donation to CKUW 95.9FM, the radio station which hosts the Global Research News Hour during our annual fund-raising drive. Make your donation today at fundrive.ckuw.ca. Also consider donating to Global Research.

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 . The show can be heard on the Progressive Radio Network at prn.fm. Listen in everyThursday at 6pm ET.

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It is also available on 93.9 FM cable in the communities of SFU, Burnaby, New Westminister, Coquitlam, Port Coquitlam, Port Moody, Surrey and Delta, in British Columbia, Canada. – Tune in  at its new time – Wednesdays at 4pm PT.

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Notes:

1. https://www.facebook.com/TheOliverStone/posts/1810015752356049
2. https://consortiumnews.com/2018/01/28/robert-parrys-legacy-and-the-future-of-consortiumnews/
3. https://consortiumnews.com/2018/02/01/outpouring-of-support-honors-robert-parry/
4. https://consortiumnews.com/2018/01/28/robert-parrys-legacy-and-the-future-of-consortiumnews/
5. ibid

The writing is already on the wall: Israel will soon launch a military operation in Lebanon. Not a targeted attack on a weapons convoy or factory, but a simultaneous attack on Hezbollah’s missile production and launch sites. The operation will take place at the same time as, or immediately after, a series of assassinations of known Hezbollah operatives. That organization will, of course, react by launching a massive missile barrage at population centers in Israel, and Hamas may contribute its share in the south. Last week we were informed that missile interceptor systems have already been deployed throughout the country as part of a joint “drill” between the IDF and the U.S. military. Washington has already given a green light, or so we learn from Thomas Friedman’s most recent column — a faithful mouthpiece of American foreign policy.

In this well-orchestrated event, Israel’s mouthpieces play a single tune: Iran and Hezbollah have crossed a red line, and if their Russian patron does not restrain them (the crux of Israel-Russia security coordination), Israel will strike hard (and it will do so because the Russians cannot restrain them). Defense Minister Liberman promises that “all of Beirut will be hiding in bomb shelters,” while Minister Naftali Bennett has pledged that  (Hebrew) “the Lebanese will pay the price” (an explicit threat to commit war crimes). Of course this is also the finest hour of the retired generals who can now speak freely.

“The IDF is going to use a lot of force. These places will be destroyed almost completely,” promises Maj.-Gen. (res.) Noam Tibon.

Maj.-Gen. (res.) Amiram Levin tossed another log into the fire: “Lebanon will be destroyed.”

Which “red line” was crossed this time? According to Israel, it was the establishment of an Iranian missile factory in Lebanese territory. As far as I recall, Israel has at least three factories producing precision-guided missiles (Rafael, IAI and Elbit), but this is apparently not a sufficient pretext for a Lebanese attack. Such pretexts are an Israeli privilege alone. Israel has long warned its neighbor against purchasing arms (long-range, precision-guided missiles), and is careful to destroy convoys that transfer such weapons into Lebanon.

This is nothing short of Orwellian. There is no “balance” between the precision of Israeli missiles and those in the hands of Hezbollah. Weapons “removing the balance of power” in the organization’s hands actually restore balance. But a true balance between Hezbollah’s deterrence capability and that of the IDF is an intolerable thought for the top echelons of the Israeli defense establishment. Therefore, it is necessary to bomb any sign of weapons that “remove the balance of power” — an attack designed to destroy the balance between the two sides. This loop is self-defeating for Israel.

The commentators still see clearly that this is a war of choice. “Israel is climbing up a high horse,” wrote Alex Fishman in Yedioth Ahronoth last month, “and is approaching with giant steps a ‘war of choice’: without mincing words, it’s an initiated war in Lebanon.” Writing on the putative risk of Hezbollah firing first, Maariv‘s Ran Edelist commented: “There is no danger of war, Hezbollah has no motive or intent to go to war against an enemy that will overwhelm it easily after a few days of battle.” Ben Caspit also wrote about a fair prospect of a “war of choice,” while a Haaretz editorial wrote the following:

Pay attention to this diffident tone. Remember it, and compare it to the commentators’ tone after the first missile lands and results in causalities. When Israel enters a “war footing,” journalists don their battle vests and salute the flag. Even those who doubted the operation’s initial reasoning will justify it openly in face of fatalities. We were always at war with the Iranian missile factory, they will tell us through clenched teeth. And of course, when the cannons roar, you have to keep quiet. Why? So as not to stop the flow of fatalities.

An anti-war message by ‘Yesh Gvul,’ an organization of Israeli soldiers who refused to serve in the First Lebanon War:
Come down here, airplane
Take us to Lebanon
We’ll fight for Sharon
And return in a coffin

Israel has a long history of fabricating “grounds for war.” The Israeli-British-French conspiracy (the Protocol of Sèvres) that led to the Sinai Campaign was hidden from the public for many years; instead the government resorted to the excuse of “preventing infiltration of terrorists from Sinai.” The Oranim battle plan (Hebrew) for the First Lebanon war, which sought to replace the government in Beirut, was hidden from the public. Instead the pretext for the invasion was said to be the removal of Fatah from the area 40 kilometers north of the border.

The escalation that led to the Six-Day War was largely the fruit of Israel’s aggression against Syria – as evidenced by statements made by Defense Minister Moshe Dayan and David Ben Gurion in the weeks before the war (documented in Tom Segev’s book, 1967, and in Guy Laron’s research). The official cause was Nasser’s closure of the Straits of Tiran. But IDF Chief of Staff Rabin revealed to the Eshkol government that Nasser had promised to allow Israeli ships to pass through the straits accompanied by American warships, and stressed to the members of the government that this was “top secret” information that should not be leaked, since it would undermine the “basis” for the war to a large extent.

Let’s return to the lie of “deterrence” against Hezbollah. In Fishman’s article, he notes: “Classical deterrence is when you threaten an enemy not to harm you in your territory, but here Israel demands that the enemy refrain from doing something in its own territory, otherwise Israel will harm it. From a historical perspective and from the perspective of international legitimacy, the chances of this threat being accepted as valid, leading to the cessation of enemy activities in its own territory, are slim.” I have previously written about the distorted perception of “Israeli deterrence”:

Consider the following subversive thought: in the absence of a non-belligerence agreement between Israel and Hezbollah, the latter’s military consolidation reduces the risk of war in the north. Simple logic is derived from game theory. As long as there is a huge power gap between the IDF and Hezbollah, Israel can afford to attack targets in Syria and Lebanon dozens of times without fear of endangering the home front.

This is an illusion, a strategic rigidity whose bounds are narrow as the crosshairs of a rifle. These attacks raise the level of hostility and fuel the enemy’s motivation to exact revenge — a factor that is never understood well enough by the defense establishment. Israel’s aggressive “deterrence,” the utter contempt for Lebanese sovereignty, sows future calamity. And so, we have reached this explosive situation in which Hezbollah has every reason to strike back. And therefore, of course, a pre-emptive strike is needed again — this time much larger, which risks leading to war.

On the other hand, in a scenario in which Hezbollah acquires capabilities to actually threaten Israel’s home front — hundreds and thousands of long-range precision missiles — the IDF will fear striking first. The unbearable lightness of violating Lebanese sovereignty through air strikes and bombardments will stop. Finally, Israel will be deterred. Incidentally, Hezbollah itself will have fewer reasons to attack us, and the feelings of hostility and retaliation will not burn as brightly as they do today.

The following are the two scenarios that we face at the moment:

1. In the current scenario, Hezbollah already has around 130,000 missiles, of which only a few dozen are precision-guided. Israel’s relentless provocation (approximately 100 bombings over five years) has emboldened a bitter enemy across the border that is looking for an opportunity for revenge. When war breaks out, the IDF plans to launch a “pre-emptive strike” on all known concentrations of missiles. Israel’s Air Force commander admits that “it will not be over in three hours.”

The defense minister mutters something about “casualties.” Allow me to translate: for several hours, perhaps a few days, thousands of missiles will be launched into Israel. According to assessments, Hezbollah is believed to have the capability to launch 1,200 rockets a day. There is no defense system capable of responding to such a threat. Yes, there will be very many losses. How many? The same assessments speaks of hundreds of Israelis killed. Yes, on the Lebanese side there will be even more losses, villages will be crushed, but this is very small comfort for our bereaved families. They will explain to us, over and over, that this was necessary to prevent Hezbollah from acquiring accurate missiles.

I am sure that anyone struck dead by a non-guided “dumb” missile will, in their last breath, let out a sigh of relief, knowing that in their death they prevented the enemy from acquiring precision-guided missiles.

2. In the second scenario, which is completely imaginary, Israel comes down from its high horse and stops dictating which weapons its neighbors are and are not allowed to have — just as our neighbors do not stick their noses in Israel’s arsenals. As a result, every state and armed group in the region will know that as long as they refrain from violating the sovereignty of their neighbor, that neighbor will do the same. That is classical deterrence between rivals whose mutual destructive capacity is so hideous it does not even cross their minds to press the button.

After so many years of military stockpiling, which exhausts the entire civilian budget and makes no use other than for “deterrence,” fresh faced politicians are appearing on both sides of the border with the strange idea that, perhaps, it is possible to achieve the same quiet with a smaller army. Perhaps it is possible to sign a non-aggression pact and store all those glittering missiles in the museum?

The Turkish Army and allied Free Syrian Army militias have suffered hundreds of dead among their combined ranks since kicking-off their offensive against Kurdish forces in Syria’s Afrin region just over three weeks ago.

According to war monitoring groups (many of them opposition-leaning), Turkish-backed rebels have now suffered just short of two hundred dead.

Per Sunday, the Turkish Army had officially (i.e. by its own account – shown below) lost 33 soldiers killed in action and another 93 injured.

By comparison, monitors say that the death toll for defending Kurdish forces in Afrin is not too far behind with some 150 to two hundred fighters reportedly being killed since the Turkey’s offensive across the region began.

For Kurdish paras, Turkish airpower and heavy artillery has been the main cause of their losses; on the other hand, Kurdish anti-tank guided missile strikes and hit-and-run attacks have been big contributors to dead and wounded among the ranks of pro-Ankara forces.

In September of last year, we noted that Facebook representatives were meeting with the Israeli government to determine which Facebook accounts of Palestinians should be deleted on the ground that they constituted “incitement.” The meetings — called for and presided over by one of the most extremist and authoritarian Israeli officials, pro-settlement Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked — came after Israel threatened Facebook that its failure to voluntarily comply with Israeli deletion orders would result in the enactment of laws requiring Facebook to do so, upon pain of being severely fined or even blocked in the country.

The predictable results of those meetings are now clear and well-documented. Ever since, Facebook has been on a censorship rampage against Palestinian activists who protest the decades-long, illegal Israeli occupation, all directed and determined by Israeli officials. Indeed, Israeli officials have been publicly boasting about how obedient Facebook is when it comes to Israeli censorship orders:

Shortly after news broke earlier this month of the agreement between the Israeli government and Facebook, Israeli Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked said Tel Aviv had submitted 158 requests to the social media giant over the previous four months asking it to remove content it deemed “incitement.” She said Facebook had granted 95 percent of the requests.

She’s right. The submission to Israeli dictates is hard to overstate: As the New York Times put it in December of last year,

“Israeli security agencies monitor Facebook and send the company posts they consider incitement. Facebook has responded by removing most of them.”

What makes this censorship particularly consequential is that “96 percent of Palestinians said their primary use of Facebook was for following news.” That means that Israeli officials have virtually unfettered control over a key communications forum of Palestinians.

In the weeks following those Facebook-Israel meetings, reported The Independent,

“the activist collective Palestinian Information Center reported that at least 10 of their administrators’ accounts for their Arabic and English Facebook pages — followed by more than 2 million people — have been suspended, seven of them permanently, which they say is a result of new measures put in place in the wake of Facebook’s meeting with Israel.” Last March, Facebook briefly shut down the Facebook page of the political party, Fatah, followed by millions, “because of an old photo posted of former leader Yasser Arafat holding a rifle.”

A 2016 report from the Palestinian Center for Development and Media Freedoms detailed how extensive the Facebook censorship was:

Pages and personal accounts that were filtered and blocked: Palestinian Dialogue Network (PALDF.net) Gaza now, Jerusalem News Network, Shihab agency, Radio Bethlehem 2000, Orient Radio Network, page Mesh Heck, Ramallah news, journalist Huzaifa Jamous from Abu Dis, activist Qassam Bedier, activist Mohammed Ghannam, journalist Kamel Jbeil, administrative accounts for Al Quds Page, administrative accounts Shihab agency, activist Abdel-Qader al-Titi, youth activist Hussein Shajaeih, Ramah Mubarak (account is activated), Ahmed Abdel Aal (account is activated), Mohammad Za’anin (still deleted), Amer Abu Arafa (still deleted), Abdulrahman al-Kahlout (still deleted).

Needless to say, Israelis have virtually free rein to post whatever they want about Palestinians. Calls by Israelis for the killing of Palestinians are commonplace on Facebook, and largely remain undisturbed.

As Al Jazeera reported last year,

“Inflammatory speech posted in the Hebrew language … has attracted much less attention from the Israeli authorities and Facebook.”

One study found that “122,000 users directly called for violence with words like ‘murder,’ ‘kill,’ or ‘burn.’ Arabs were the No. 1 recipients of hateful comments.” Yet there appears to be little effort by Facebook to censor any of that.

Though some of the most inflammatory and explicit calls for murder are sometimes removed, Facebook continues to allow the most extremist calls for incitement against Palestinians to flourish. Indeed, Israel’s leader, Benjamin Netanyahu, has often used social media to post what is clearly incitement to violence against Palestinians generally. In contrast to Facebook’s active suppression against Palestinians, the very idea that Facebook would ever use its censorship power against Netanyahu or other prominent Israelis calling for violence and inciting attacks is unthinkable. Indeed, as Al Jazeera concisely put it, “Facebook hasn’t met Palestinian leaders to discuss their concern.”

Facebook now seems to be explicitly admitting that it also intends to follow the censorship orders of the U.S. government. Earlier this week, the company deleted the Facebook and Instagram accounts of Ramzan Kadyrov, the repressive, brutal, and authoritarian leader of the Chechen Republic, who had a combined 4 million followers on those accounts. To put it mildly, Kadyrov — who is given free rein to rule the province in exchange for ultimate loyalty to Moscow — is the opposite of a sympathetic figure: He has been credibly accused of a wide range of horrific human rights violations, from the imprisonment and torture of LGBTs to the kidnapping and killing of dissidents.

But none of that dilutes how disturbing and dangerous Facebook’s rationale for its deletion of his accounts is. A Facebook spokesperson told the New York Times that the company deleted these accounts not because Kadyrov is a mass murderer and tyrant, but that

“Mr. Kadyrov’s accounts were deactivated because he had just been added to a United States sanctions list and that the company was legally obligated to act.”

As the Times notes, this rationale appears dubious or at least inconsistently applied: Others who are on the same sanctions list, such as Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, remain active on both Facebook and Instagram. But just consider the incredibly menacing implications of Facebook’s claims.

What this means is obvious: that the U.S. government — meaning, at the moment, the Trump administration — has the unilateral and unchecked power to force the removal of anyone it wants from Facebook and Instagram by simply including them on a sanctions list. Does anyone think this is a good outcome? Does anyone trust the Trump administration — or any other government — to compel social media platforms to delete and block anyone it wants to be silenced? As the ACLU’s Jennifer Granick told the Times:

It’s not a law that appears to be written or designed to deal with the special situations where it’s lawful or appropriate to repress speech. … This sanctions law is being used to suppress speech with little consideration of the free expression values and the special risks of blocking speech, as opposed to blocking commerce or funds as the sanctions was designed to do. That’s really problematic.

Does Facebook’s policy of blocking people from its platform who are sanctioned apply to all governments? Obviously not. It goes without saying that if, say, Iran decided to impose sanctions on Chuck Schumer for his support of Trump’s policy of recognizing Jerusalem as the Israeli capital, Facebook would never delete the accounts of the Democratic Party Senate minority leader — just as Facebook would never delete the accounts of Israeli officials who incite violence against Palestinians or who are sanctioned by Palestinian officials. Just last month, Russia announced retaliatory sanctions against various Canadian officials and executives, but needless to say, Facebook took no action to censor them or block their accounts.

Similarly, would Facebook ever dare censor American politicians or journalists who use social media to call for violence against America’s enemies? To ask the question is to answer it.

As is always true of censorship, there is one, and only one, principle driving all of this: power. Facebook will submit to and obey the censorship demands of governments and officials who actually wield power over it, while ignoring those who do not. That’s why declared enemies of the U.S. and Israeli governments are vulnerable to censorship measures by Facebook, whereas U.S and Israeli officials (and their most tyrannical and repressive allies) are not:

All of this illustrates that the same severe dangers from state censorship are raised at least as much by the pleas for Silicon Valley giants to more actively censor “bad speech.” Calls for state censorship may often be well-intentioned — a desire to protect marginalized groups from damaging “hate speech” — yet, predictably, they are far more often used against marginalized groups: to censor them rather than protect them. One need merely look at how hate speech laws are used in Europe, or on U.S. college campuses, to see that the censorship victims are often critics of European wars, or activists against Israeli occupation, or advocates for minority rights.

One can create a fantasy world in one’s head, if one wishes, in which Silicon Valley executives use their power to protect marginalized peoples around the world by censoring those who wish to harm them. But in the real world, that is nothing but a sad pipe dream. Just as governments will, these companies will use their censorship power to serve, not to undermine, the world’s most powerful factions.

Just as one might cheer the censorship of someone one dislikes without contemplating the long-term consequences of the principle being validated, one can cheer the disappearance from Facebook and Instagram of a Chechen monster. But Facebook is explicitly telling you that the reason for its actions is that it was obeying the decrees of the U.S. government about who must be shunned.

It’s hard to believe that anyone’s ideal view of the internet entails vesting power in the U.S. government, the Israeli government, and other world powers to decide who may be heard on it and who must be suppressed. But increasingly, in the name of pleading with internet companies to protect us, that’s exactly what is happening.

VISIT MY NEW WEB SITE: 

stephenlendman.org 

(Home – Stephen Lendman). 

Contact at [email protected].

Raqqa was raped and destroyed, not liberated as falsely claimed.

Months of US-led terror-bombing turned most of the city to rubble – on the phony pretext of combating ISIS Washington supports.

Life is Raqqa was normal before Obama launched war on Syria. Today there’s rubble everywhere, countless numbers of rotting corpses beneath it.

Like Mosul, Fallujah, Aleppo, along with other cities and towns US terror-bombing destroyed, Raqqa bears testimony to US imperial viciousness – a thriving metropolis turned into a wasteland.

Strategic self-defense bombing involves destroying an adversary’s economic and military ability to wage war – targeting its warmaking capacity and related infrastructure.

Terror-bombing is entirely different, aiming to cause mass casualties and destruction. Geneva and other international laws forbid targeting civilians.

Fourth Geneva protects them in times of war – prohibiting violence against them, treatment for the sick and wounded required.

Nuremberg Principles prohibit “crimes against peace, war crimes and crimes against humanity.”

They include “inhumane acts committed against any civilian populations, before or during the war.”

Indiscriminate killing, along with “wanton destruction of cities, towns, or villages, or devastation not justified by military necessity” is absolutely prohibited.

US wars of aggression breach these laws unaccountably, culpable officials never punished, including congressional members, guilty of authorizing funding for mass slaughter and destruction.

Raqqa survivors lost everything, largely from US-led terror-bombing, turning the city into a desolate graveyard, thousands, maybe tens of thousands, of civilians massacred – one of history’s great crimes.

US-led terror-bombing raged from early June through late October 2017 (four-and-a-half months of relentless hell), destroying or badly damaging virtually every structure in the city.

“The Pentagon relocated most ISIS terrorists to other parts of the country, letting them escape the carnage, using them to commit more atrocities.

Revisiting what happened, RT International falsely called US-led terror-bombing “liberation from ISIS by US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces” comprised of anti-government terrorists, RT failed to explain.

It said Washington intends providing no funds for reconstruction, adding:

Months after “what was hailed as a liberation, Raqqa still looks more like a battlefield rather than a living city.”

“Entire residential compounds have been reduced to rubble. Numerous residential buildings have sustained irreparable damage or been rendered uninhabitable.”

“The streets of the city, which are surrounded by the ruins of what were once residential districts, are still filled with debris.”

A city resident/survivor identified as Khawla said “(w)e are living (in) a tragedy amongst destruction” everywhere, adding:

“There is no electricity, no water, no telephone, no mobile service, (n)o markets and shops,” no medical facilities, nothing but desolation and despair.

Another resident said

“(w)e got rid of (ISIS), but our houses were flattened to the ground. Look at the destruction around you. It is a ghost-city.”

Washington bears full responsibility for what happened – in Raqqa and throughout Syria, a similar pattern in all its war theaters.

Wherever US forces show up, mass slaughter, destruction and human misery follow – Nuremberg-level high crimes, accountability never forthcoming.

*

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

The Bundeswehr (German Armed Forces) is to build a new NATO headquarters in Germany. According to information from the Deutsche Presse Agentur (DPA), the member states of the military alliance have agreed in principle to accept an offer from German Defence Minister Ursula von der Leyen (CDU, Christian Democratic Union). There were no other candidates for the headquarters. The official decision is due to be announced at the Defence Ministers’ meeting this week.

A possible location for the new headquarters is the Cologne-Bonn region. The Bundeswehr already has its Joint Support Service and Armed Forces Office situated there. The Defence Ministry said that the establishment of a new planning and command centre for rapid troop and material transports was part of NATO’s “ongoing modifications.” According to a spokesman for the ministry, Germany was “one of the nations that is fundamentally eligible for the establishment and operation of this command, given its competences, its recognition in the Alliance and its central geographical position.”

In reality, Germany, which has been massively upgrading its military capacity since 2014 and trying to increase its military weight within NATO, would become even more strongly involved in NATO preparations for war against Russia than before. Last autumn, a report in Der Spiegel quoted from a secret document of the military alliance underscoring how far the plans have progressed.

In the paper, titled “Progress Report on the Alliance’s Strengthened Deterrence and Defence Posture,” leading NATO military officials plead for a marked strengthening of military capabilities to be able to lead a so-called “Major Joint Operation Plus.” The term describes a war in which the major military organizations of all NATO countries, and thus hundreds of thousands of soldiers, are involved.

The secret report further states that NATO “must be able to rapidly reinforce a threatened ally or allies, to underpin deterrence in peacetime and crises, and to reinforce an ally or allies for defense in case of attack.” It must be empowered to mobilize and retain troops quickly, “whatever the nature, demand, destination or duration of the operation, mission or activity.” This would require “a robust civil/military logistics structure and enabling capabilities” with lines of communications ranging from North America to the eastern and southern borders of the Alliance territory, including “intra-European routes.”

The plans drawn up behind the backs of the population are so far-reaching—among other things, to make the civil infrastructure (roads, rail networks and airports) combat ready and to better organize supplies—that even the newsweekly Der Spiegel concluded, “In other words: NATO is preparing for a possible war with Russia.”

It is no coincidence that the construction of a new NATO headquarters in Germany—a second, according to the DPA, is to be built in the United States to secure the air and sea routes between North America and Europe across the Atlantic—was made public just a day after the agreement between Social Democrats (SPD) and Christian Democrats (CDU/CSU) to form a new edition of the grand coalition. In the coalition agreement, the parties pledge “to make an appropriate contribution to preserving the deterrence and defence capability of the [NATO] Alliance and to a strong European defence.”

The section, “Germany as a Reliable Partner in NATO, OSCE and the Council of Europe,” also states,

“We want to strengthen the European contribution to the transatlantic partnership and are committed to closer cooperation between NATO and the EU. We want to achieve the agreed NATO capability goals and fill in capability gaps.”

With this formulation, the CDU/CSU and the SPD are obviously committed to raising defence spending to the agreed NATO minimum of two percent of Gross Domestic Product by 2024. But what else is included? What specific war plans have the SPD and CDU/CSU representatives already approved when they negotiated the coalition agreement as part of a veritable conspiracy behind the backs of the people?

Would the German government, which played a central role in the pro-Western coup in Ukraine in 2014 and has had combat troops stationed in Lithuania for more than a year, take part in a US-led NATO war against Russia? Or does the ruling class in Germany see the new headquarters primarily as an opportunity to prepare German-European war missions independently of NATO?

“The special feature of the new headquarters in Germany is that it will not be integrated into the existing NATO command structure. This could also make it possible to use the staff and the capacity for national exercises and operations outside the Alliance,” according to the articles by the DPA.

*

Featured image is from The Sleuth Journal.

The US recently included India in its shifting Asia Pacific policy, as part of its Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (often referred to as the “Quad”). The Quad also includes Australia and Japan along with the United States itself.

The nascent alliance is openly arrayed against China, with member states openly declaring their intent to contribute toward containing Beijing’s activities in the region and compete against Chinese efforts to establish greater ties with its immediate neighbors. This includes Japan and Australia pledging to more aggressively patrol the South and East China Seas.

For India’s part, it seeks to become a greater power within the Indian Ocean. Additionally, New Delhi has increasingly postured its military against China against the backdrop of greater tensions along the Chinese-Indian border.

China appears to be pursuing its own strategy to break out of the Quad’s containment policy, including measures to place India in check.

Beijing’s Pakistan to Washington’s India  

Part of this strategy includes growing ties between Beijing and Islamabad. This includes a number of major joint infrastructure projects across Pakistan. Collectively known as the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), the ambitious network of projects connects Gwadar port in Pakistan’s Balochistan province on the Arabian Sea with the Pakistani-Chinese border near the western Chinese province of Xinjiang.

Railways and roads provide China with access to the Arabian Sea, eliminating the need to move certain goods past Singapore and through the Strait of Malacca.
CPEC also includes a gas pipeline from Gwadar to Nawabshah which will eventually enable gas imports from Iran.

Beyond CPEC, China is also building power plants across Pakistan, developing stronger ties between various Chinese and Pakistani industries and institutions and developing closer Chinese-Pakistani military ties.

Chinese-Pakistani military ties provide the ideal answer to Washington’s intentions to use India against China. Pakistan and India have maintained contentious relations for decades, but the fact that both nations possess formidable nuclear arsenals and large conventional armies means that any conflict is short-lived with both sides attempting to avoid major escalations.

China has ensured that Pakistan has maintained military parity with neighboring India, including through the joint-development of both conventional weapons systems and its nuclear program.

Together, these ties will significantly enhance Pakistan’s economy, providing long-term jobs both in constructing and maintaining infrastructure projects, as well as adding to national economic growth. They will also ensure that Pakistan maintains military parity with neighboring India, maintaining a balance of power in South Asia.

For Beijing, these ties provide China with access not only to the Arabian Sea, but also with a means of further connecting its western Xinjiang province, allowing for additional economic development there. With a strong ally bordering India, ties with Pakistan also grants Beijing more leverage when maneuvering diplomatically vis-à-vis New Delhi.

Attacking China’s Pakistan Flank 

For both nations, these ties represent an answer to pressure they both face from Washington. In China’s Xinjiang province, the United States has leveraged socioeconomic disparity there to stoke separatist movements and even terrorism aimed at destabilizing Beijing.

Likewise, Pakistan’s Balochistan province hosts violent extremists accompanying a separatist movement also sponsored by Washington.

The US National Endowment for Democracy, an increasingly notorious front used by Washington and Wall Street to influence the internal politics of nations around the globe, has pumped in millions of dollars year-to-year for decades to build up networks in Xinjiang and Balochistan to not only contest control over these regions by their respective central governments, but to also disrupt ambitious economic development in both provinces.

The separatist movement in Balochistan, for example, has targeted Chinese construction projects in a bid to impede the region’s development and complicate Chinese-Pakistani ties. The US-sponsored conflict illustrates the true face of Washington’s campaign to more widely contain China’s political and economic rise in the region.

In 2017, terrorists attacked a laborers’ camp at the port of Gwadar, wounding 26. Media outlets like Reuters would specifically mention the likelihood of such attacks upsetting China’s One Belt, One Road initiative of which CPEC projects fall under. Disrupting this ambitious project has become the primary objective of US and European policymakers focused on Asia.

Politico in its article, “China’s plans to rule the seas hit trouble in Pakistan,” would claim:

China’s strategic ambition to extend its maritime power across the Indian Ocean is hitting severe obstacles in the giant, volatile Pakistani province of Balochistan. 

Beijing’s priority is to develop the sleepy Baloch fishing port of Gwadar, 300 miles west of Karachi, to project its commercial and naval influence further west. But kidnappings, drive-by shootings and bomb attacks in the past few weeks and months offer a chilling warning that China will have to pay a high price for a deep-water harbor near the mouth of the Persian Gulf.

Politico’s article notes how Chinese-Pakistani ties put India directly in check. But in a much wider sense, they also put US efforts to contain China in check as well. The article also notes that both China and Pakistan remain unswayed by the violence plaguing Balochistan and are committed to completing CPEC projects in the troubled province.

While the Politico article never mentions the US government and its support of separatists in Balochistan, a local government representative did cite the US military’s ongoing occupation of neighboring Afghanistan as being partially responsible for Balochistan’s security situation.

More recently it has been reported that China is seeking to establish a military base in Balochistan. This is in addition to an increase in Pakistani military assets in the province.

The Washington Times in its article, “China Building Military Base in Pakistan,” would report:

China is constructing its second overseas military base in Pakistan as part of a push for greater power projection capabilities along strategic sea routes. 

The facility will be built at Jiwani, a port close to the Iranian border on the Gulf of Oman, according to two people familiar with deal. 

Plans call for the Jiwani base to be a joint naval and air facility for Chinese forces, located a short distance up the coast from the Chinese-built commercial port facility at Gwadar, Pakistan. Both Gwadar and Jiwani are part of Pakistan’s western Baluchistan province.

The move further cements joint Chinese-Pakistani plans for Balochistan and raises the bar for US-backed efforts to foment conflict in the region. China’s invited presence in the region versus America’s uninvited covertly-backed separatist movement is a microcosm of America’s overall unsustainable policy to contain China.

Hard Choices for Quad Members 

US dominance in Asia has for decades been built upon immense economic disparity between itself and nations across the region plagued by war, large populations and lopsided deals dealt to them by supposedly international institutions. With the rise of China and other regional states, this disparity is diminishing and with it America’s dominance of the region.

At one time, a covertly-backed separatist movement would have (and did) confound development in Pakistan. Today, it was the pretext China needed to further expand its reach and definitively answer US efforts with a permanent solution the US has no answer to.

America’s attempt to compete against China’s economic development with unsustainable military threats and equally unsustainable covertly-backed conflict is a losing battle. The US-led Quad alliance will bring only hardship to its Australian, Japanese and Indian members who will be tasked with picking up the slack and made to pay steep prices economically and diplomatically to do so. In the end, the conflict the Quad seeks to create to foil China and the rest of Asia’s ambitions will only hurt the entire region as a whole, including three of the four Quad members themselves, as other analysts have pointed out.

This leaves only one question: how long will it be before America’s Quad partners realize cooperating with rather than competing against the rest of Asia is in their best interests, and leave America searching for new partners in even further flung reaches of Asia? The answer will be provided by Beijing’s own diplomatic efforts to convince them, including old enemies like Japan and fierce competitors like India, that there is a place in this new Asia for them.

*

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

All images in this article are from NEO.

Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) has come a long way in advocating for Palestinian rights. They now fully embrace the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) Movement, seeing it as the most effective method to effect change. JVP is on Israel’s BDS Ban List and is described by another Jewish group in the US (the Anti-Defamation League — ADL) as “the largest and most influential Jewish anti-Zionist group in the United States.”

In recent years, JVP has significantly expanded and now has many chapters across the US. Its concerns go to the heart of Jewish identity, Zionism, and Jewish institutional culture, topics Israel has long hijacked. Their boldest campaign to date has been the campaign to convince young US Jews not to participate in the Birthright trips Israel sponsors for Jews around the world.

This JVP campaign is very significant because it delegitimizes Israel as a Jewish state, as a birthright of Jews worldwide. It is also directed at a Jewish demographic that, by all accounts, is moving away from Israel’s hasbara and is likely open to transformative change.

Israel cannot survive as a Jewish state without a constant influx of Jews as immigrants to keep the Jewish majority it created by denying Palestinian right of return and blocking Palestinian aspirations to self-determination in their own homeland.

Today, thanks to BDS, we are no longer trapped in the language of “disputed territory” or dual “narratives”. It’s finally clear that the demise of the Jewish state is inevitable, leading to an exodus of Jews from Palestine. Israel’s end will come, as Henry Siegman, President of the U.S./Middle East Project, writes in The National Interest, from one of two scenarios, both of which will be fueled by the nature or character of the Jewish state itself.

First scenario:

“If after what undoubtedly would be a long and bitter anti-apartheid struggle Palestinians prevail, they will be in the clear majority. Having established the principle that the majority can impose on the minority the religious and cultural identity of the State, Israel will not be in a strong position to deny Palestinians that same right. That will lead in time to a significant exodus of Israel’s Jews.”

Second scenario:

“If Palestinians do not prevail, then the undeniable apartheid character of the state and the cost of the ongoing struggle will lead to the same result — an exodus of Israel’s Jews over time, creating an even greater demographic imbalance between the country’s Jewish and Arab populations. Palestinians will not leave because they will have nowhere to go.”

JVP’s campaign to convince college-age American Jews not to participate in Israel’s Birthright trips amounts to telling them that Israel’s national identity and territorial claims in Palestine cannot be defined by their own American national identity disguised as corrupted Judaism.

This is a message worth conveying to Jews worldwide. Any Jew feeling the need or desire to emigrate from his or her country could do Palestinians a favor and boycott immigrating to Israel. To religious Jews, the message is, as Siegman says: “Most Jews did not make their lives in Jerusalem in the past two millenniums, even in times when they were able to do so. Instead they ascribed the yearned-for return to Jerusalem to eschatological time.”

The time has finally come for Zionist chains to be broken and for self-determination, dignity, and transformative justice for Palestinians to spring forth across synagogues, churches and mosques worldwide.

As Dr Gideon Polya eloquently put it in Palestinian Me Too: 140 Alphabetically-listed Zionist Crimes Expose Appalling Western Complicity & Hypocrisy :

“A peaceful , humane solution that would be of enormous benefit to all the world, to all the Jewish Israelis and to all the Indigenous Palestinians, would be a unitary state in Palestine with return of all refugees, zero tolerance for racism, equal rights for all, all human rights for all, one-person-one-vote, justice, goodwill, reconciliation, airport-level security, nuclear weapons removal, internationally-guaranteed national security initially based on the present armed forces, and untrammeled access for all citizens to all of the Holy Land. It can and should happen tomorrow.”

*

Rima Najjar is a Palestinian whose father’s side of the family comes from the forcibly depopulated village of Lifta on the western outskirts of Jerusalem. She is an activist, researcher and retired professor of English literature, Al-Quds University, occupied West Bank.

Defending the latest round of US/Israeli aggression against Syria, US State Department spokesperson Heather Nauert struck a Hitlerian note when she blamed Syria and Iran for an act of overt Israeli aggression, saying “The United States . . . strongly supports Israel’s sovereign right to defend itself,” and when she lied that “Iran’s malign activities” and “calculated escalation of threat and its ambition to project its power and dominance places all people in the region at risk.” 

Adolf Hiter covered his “projection of power and dominance” and his invasion of Poland with the same blatant lies that Washington and Israel use to cover their aggressions. Hitler claimed that Polish forces had crossed the frontier and attacked Germany. That is the excuse used by Israel and its puppets in the White House and Pentagon that blames Iran for Israel’s attack on Syria. When Washington and Israel are shameless in their lies, why does Russia think they are “partners” with whom agreements can be reached?

Eric Zuesse notes that only Syria and Russia complain about Washington’s illegal occupation of Syrian territory, an occupation that has no UN authorization and is a complete and total violation of international law, and Israel’s continual attacks on Syria. 

Washington’s continuing support for war against the legitimate government of Syria and support for Israeli and terrorist attacks on Syrian and Russian forces are undermining Russia’s efforts to bring peace to the region. Zuesse also notes that Washington and its UK puppet block all UN action against Washington’s illegality. 

Zuesse is correct. But is the continuation of Washington’s campaign against Syria and Russia largely the fault of Russia? Stephen Lendman makes a case that it is Russia’s fault. 

Why? It appears to be the case that the Russian government is so anxious for Western approval that it ends its successful military campaigns before the job is finished. It was Putin himself who declared “victory” in Syria and withdrew some of the Russian military before clearing all of Syria of foreign and jihadist occupation, thus leaving in place US beachheads for renewing the conflict.

It couldn’t have taken more than two more weeks for Russia and Syria to liberate all of Syria from the US backed jihadists, but apparently Russia was afraid to annoy Washington that much and to risk contact with US personnel, even though Russia is in Syria legally under international law and the US is present illegally.

Again trusting to international law, the UN, and “our Western partners,” Russia quit prematurely. As Lendman says, the complaints by Zakharova, Lavrov, Russian Defense Ministry spokesmen, and Putin himself are based in absolute fact. But the question is, when will Russia learn, if ever, that facts and law make no difference whatsoever to Washington? Washington’s interest is in its hegemony over the world and in Israel’s hegemony in the Middle East.

Lendman makes the point that

“As long as Russia maintains the myth of partnership with Washington instead of giving Washington a taste of its own medicine . . . conflict will likely continue escalating.” 

Lendman might be correct judging by the reported heavy Israeli attacks on Syria on February 10 after Syrian air defences damaged Israel’s image of invincibility by shooting down one of Israel’s US-supplied war planes that was attacking Syria and reports that the conflict might be escalating and involving Iran. RT reports that the Kremlin is worried that the de-escalation zones are threatened and that Putin got on the telephone with Netanyahu urging restraint.

All of my life US presidents have been urging restraint on Israel to no effect whatsoever. Putin’s urges will have no more effect, unless Putin takes the card from Lendman’s playbook and tells the war criminal Netanyahu who heads the illegal Israeli state, which is based on land stolen at bayonet point from Palestinians, that any more of this and Russia will take Israel out. Lendman thinks that no other way of talking to the crazed zionist state, or to Washington, will have any effect, and history seems to be on Lendman’s side. See this and this.

Either Russia is unsure of its power or Putin is prevented from using Russia’s power by the treasonous Atlanticist Integrationists who constitute Washington’s Fifth Column inside the Russian government and economy. It is a mystery why Putin tolerates a small handful of traitors who have minimal public support while the West and Israel become daily more aggressive against Russian national interests.

Putin sensibly avoids escalating a situation, but one gets the impression that there are constraints on Putin’s ability to stand up to Washington. The Saker identifies the problem as the pro-Washington “Atlanticist Integrationists” who for personal career reasons, personal business reasons, and because they are supported by Washington-financed NGOs and media inside Russia, have sold out Russian sovereignty to globalism. Putin, apparently, is unwilling or unable to move aside those who serve as Washington’s check on Russian nationalism, which prevents any real Russian victory. If the “Atlanticist Integrationists” inside Putin’s government are able to block more decisive responses, the question arises: how powerful, really, is Putin? Did Putin win Syria only to lose it to Washington and the Israelis? How can we imagine Putin, the head of a powerful state, on the telephone pleading with an Israeli war criminal who heads a tiny state? We know that Israel owns Washington, but does Israel own Russia also?

How many times did Putin announce victory in Syria, pull out, and then have to go back after Washington’s forces had recuperated? Why does Putin refuse the reincorporation of the breakaway Russian provinces in Ukraine? He allowed Crimea back in because of the Russian naval base, but he has refused the Russian provinces of Donetsk and Luhansk. Consequently, the Russian people in these provinces continue to be subject to attack, and Washington has now armed its Ukrainian nazi state with weapons to reconquer the breakaway republics.

This entire conflict, primed to grow in intensity, could have been stopped by Putin acknowledging the same overwhelming majority vote as occured in Crimea and reincorporating the provinces in Russia.The nazi government of Ukraine even with Washington and EU’s support is not so completely insane that it would attack Russia and expect to continue to exist.

Putin can entirely end the Ukrainian conflict by accepting the former Russian provinces back into Russia. We can understand that Putin might be thinking long term, as were the Soviet leaders who put Russian populations into Ukraine, to balance the Ukrainian state with Russian populations so that the West cannot completely turn Ukraine, a historic part of Russia herself, into a completely hostile state against which more military forces must be directed. Clearly Putin is a long term strategic thinker, but Russia’s fate and that of the rest of us will be decided in the short run.

We can also understand that Putin, by continuing to stress international law, is trying to bring Europe to the realization that Washington operates outside of and above law. Putin is wasting his time. For decades European leaders have been on Washington’s payroll. They don’t give a hoot about anything other than their bank balances.

The neoconservatives who rule in Washington believe that Putin’s removal will restore Washington’s hegemony over the world. They regard China as a country that will accept American leadership in exchange for riches. This is most likely a mistaken view of the Chinese government, but it serves to concentrate the attack on Russia, within whose government Washington has allies.

Can the Russian government successfully withstand Washington without Putin dispensing with the Atlanticist Integrationists?

I understand that the views expressed here might be wrong. Zuesse perhaps is wrong. Lendman is perhaps wrong. The Saker is perhaps wrong. And perhaps I am mistaken in my reading of them. No one should underestimate Putin. Nevertheless, Russia should be aware that she is perceived by neoconservative policymakers as a weak state lacking in courage that Washington, and even tiny Israel, can push around, as Washington has done since the collapse of the Soviet Union and as Israel is doing now in Syria. There is never any cost to Washington of blackening Russia’s eyes and Russia’s reputation. 

Russia’s passivity is inviting nuclear war or Russian surrender.

Whether or not Russia wants to acknowledge it, Russia is in a fight for her life. There is evidence that top Russian leaders are unaware of this. Sergei Chemezov says that Russia is willing to sell Russia’s S-400 anti-aircraft system to Washington so Washington can learn how to defeat it and catch up with Russian military technology. Unless Chemezov is making a joke, there is a problem in his perception of reality. 

Putin damaged himself with people who have a moral conscience when he met with the criminal-in-chief of the Israeli state and treated Netanyahu as if he were not a war criminal who belonged on the scaffold but a world leader worthy of Russia’s recognition. This act of folly deflated Putin’s reputation as a leader who stood for moral outcomes and not merely for self-interested, negotiated outcomes.

The world needs a leader. The hopes were on Putin.

The America-worshipping Russian Atlanticist Ingegrationists must have many screws loose to want to be part of degenerate Western civilization: See this, this, this and this. 

*

This article was originally published by Paul Craig Roberts Institute for Political Economy.

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Since 2001, Global Research has been delivering critical analysis to its readers as well as direction for the questions we should be asking.

If you look to Global Research as a resource for information and understanding, to stay current on world events or to experience diversity and transparency in your news, please consider making a donation to Global Research.

Global Research is an independent organization that is funded exclusively through the support of its readers. It does not accept public or private funding. Every contribution helps us continue to bring you the up-to-date, incisive information that you count on.

The National Health Service (NHS) purchases millions of pounds worth of Israeli-made generic drugs every year; our supermarket chains sell Medjool dates grown in the Occupied Jordan Valley and soon-to-be-married British couples buy Israeli-cut diamond rings, all this as Theresa May’s government turns a blind eye to the shocking human rights abuses in the West Bank, East Jerusalem, the Golan Heights and, of course, Gaza.

Whether you are a Jew, a Catholic, a Protestant, a Hindu or a Muslim living in Britain – these are extremely unpalatable facts.  We are reaping the results of human suffering that has been going on for decades, in the full knowledge of the odious conduct of the extremist Likud government that implements a revisionist Zionist agenda that should be abhorrent to the British people.

However, the Israel embassy in London together with the very active Israel lobby at Westminster ensures that the British voter is kept in ignorance by immediately labelling any publication of this information as ‘antisemitic’.

These are the unsavoury facts and that is the tragedy as Britain steadfastly ignores the authority of UN Security Council Resolution 2334 that condemned, without dissent, Israel’s unlawful settlements on stolen land and its refusal to seek peace in the region.

What is the point of the UN Security Council of which the United Kingdom is a Permanent Member when this Conservative government votes for a Resolution that severely condemns Israel, then immediately continues to issue export licences for arms and military equipment to the Likud coalition of Binyamin Netanyahu that is, and has been, the perpetrator of documented human rights abuses on a massive scale in the Occupied Territories for so many years?

This Conservative government is comparable to that of Anthony Eden in 1956. However, whereas they both colluded with Israel in illegal acts that threatened world peace, Eden then did it secretly whilst Theresa May now does it openly. For both, their conduct presaged their political demise.

“China, as a responsible major country, is ready to cooperate with all relevant parties to seize the historic opportunity in the development of the Arctic, to addresses the challenges brought by the changes in the region” –Chinese White Paper January 25, 2018.

China’s January 25^th unveiling of the “Polar Silk Road” has created a wonderful opportunity for Northern development not seen for decades. This opportunity not only extends China’s incredibly successful growth model to North America, through a revolutionized system of arctic shipping, and infrastructure development, but also provides for a new spirit of diplomacy founded not upon militarization of the Arctic as desired by neo-con utopian throwbacks of the Cheney and Obama eras, but rather cooperation, respect, development and trust.

With Global Affairs Canada responding favorably to the Polar Silk Road initiative and with the Canadian government’s membership in the China-led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, not to mention British Columbia’s Memorandum of Understanding uniting BC with the Belt and Road initiative, this new reality demands serious thinking for Canadians and Americans alike if we are to properly respond in the most genuine and beneficial way for the sake of our people and humanity at large [1].

From Whence Springs our Crisis?

North America’s stagnant economies have suffered for nearly 50 years under a false set of poisons known dualistically as “post-industrial-consumer society” on the one hand and an “anti-industrial growth economy” on the other. Not since the days of John F. Kennedy, Franklin Roosevelt (and their Canadian counterparts John Diefenbaker, C.D. Howe and W.A.C. Bennett) have long term projects driven our economic thinking with the effect of increasing both the productive powers of labor, and improving the moral, physical and intellectual welfare of our citizens [2]. The increase of these three parameters (physical, intellectual, moral) increased our population carrying capacity in ways that no other species is capable, allowing us to nearly triple our population since 1950, and in so doing, demonstrate the true nature of mankind as a species of boundless creative reason to the horror of the British Empire and its indoctrinated managerial elite globally.

Those humanist leaders mentioned above came from an era that didn’t dichotomize “economics” and “politics” as both were recognized as two sides of the same coin which was wonderfully expressed by Benjamin Franklin who described political-economy as the “Science of human happiness”[3]. As soon as that dichotomy was imposed onto western society- formalized by the 1971 destruction of the Bretton Woods Fixed exchange rate system, politics became nothing but a game of sophistry, corruption and hypocrisy, while “economy”, now unbounded by the “moral constraints” of national regulations, became simply a cover for post war imperialism via debt slavery, cheap labor, frenzied speculation, and resource looting. This dichotomized world had no place for such leaders as those listed above- neither in North America nor any other part of the world. Intelligence agencies, now under the full control of the Anglo American financier oligarchy ensured that no nationalist, pro-industrial leader would long be tolerated in office in any country globally[4].

During the pathological Cold War years, the world was divided among the “developed” who were not supposedly in need of growing any further, and the “undeveloped” who were permitted money and “appropriate technologies” such as windmills, but no real scientific or technological progress that increased the standards of living or productive powers of labor of society. Any form of scientific innovation was relegated to the function of military affairs, or to advance the new “mental pacification industries” (ie: entertainment, pharmacological and recreational drugs, etc). Infrastructure was no longer permitted to be the domain where technology was expressed, nor “development” defined. In fact, during the 1978-2000 interval, new investment in Canadian infrastructure dropped to 0.1%/year (compared to 4.8%/year average prevalent from 1955-1978)[5]. Similar trends struck the USA resulting in future havoc now unfolding across North America. Meanwhile productive industries were outsourced to cheap labor markets resulting in a society increasingly addicted to “cheap goods” and decadent services.

The linear logic of animal population boundaries known as “carrying capacity” was thereby imposed upon mankind by the same neo-Malthusian elite who hated mankind so much that they were willing to kill our brightest leaders and engineer a philosophy of cynicism just to convince society, in a vicious form of Pygmalion effect, that our nature was wired to destroy nature and ultimately self destruct. A leading Malthusian architect of this “new society” was Club of Rome co-founder Sir Alexander King, who infamously revealed this intention in the surprisingly candid 1991 book The First Global Revolution:

“In searching for a new enemy to unite us, we came up with the idea that pollution, the threat of global warming, water shortages, famine and the like would fit the bill. All these dangers are caused by human intervention, and it is only through changed attitudes and behavior that they can be overcome. The real enemy then, is humanity itself.”[6]

And so it went that a generation of doped up baby boomers were induced to “free themselves from the past and future alike” by following the mantras of such gurus as Timothy Leary and Aldous Huxley to “turn on, tune in and drop out”. Since humanity is too hopelessly corrupt, they were told to let go of all responsibility to change a world which cannot ultimately be changed and instead go inward in the search for pleasure (pleasure/pain thus becoming validated as a new standard for right/wrong).

This turning away from the future and past rendered an entire generation hopelessly malleable and susceptible to a new ethic called variously “post-structuralism”, “post-realism” and “post-industrialism”. To be more to the point, such names adopted by the counter-culture movement were better labelled “post-truth”.

Now nearly 50 years into this neurotic mess, and facing the immanent meltdown of the illusory speculative debt bubble that too many idiotic economists believe is our “economy”, we have been presented with a potentially wonderful crisis.

A Return to a Humanist Future

China respects the right of all nations to seek their own path. We will never pursue development at the cost of others. We will find a convergence with other countries and will strengthen cooperation with other developing countries and promote cooperation through the Belt and Road Initiative,”

–Xi Jinping, October 22, 2017

What has made this crisis “potentially” wonderful is that a new, viable order has arisen in extraordinarily quick speed since something new began to happen in 2013. This new order is one which respects the right to sovereignty of every nation, and which assumes that international relations should be based upon mutual development of the mental and physical resources of each nation. This is not the New World Order that the Huxley brothers promoted, but one which is founded upon the revival of the just world that Franklin Roosevelt envisioned in opposition to Churchill at the end of World War Two[7] and that John Kennedy described in his call for replacing the Cold War with a commitment for all mankind to explore the stars together[8].

In the past 30 years, China’s growth model has lifted over 800 million people out of poverty and with the May 2013 announcement of the New Silk Road, China has tied it’s destiny to such new and powerful institutions as the BRICS, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization and Eurasian Economic Union inviting all nations of the world to join in the dream. Aware that the monetarist framework of such Bretton Woods-era institutions as the IMF, World Bank and WTO would never permit the type of long term investment into the extended New Silk Road, China has led in the creation of a series of new international financial mechanisms such as the Asia Infrastructure Investment Bank, The New Development Bank, New Silk Road Fund, and more.

With this new pace of progress, former colonial countries of the “2^nd and 3^rd worlds” have become encouraged to challenge the over bloated Gods of Olympus sitting atop the crumbling towers of the City of London and Wall Street. Increasingly even countries of the “1^st world” sick of stagnancy and despair have begun to throw their lots in with the New Silk Road. On this note, Donald Trump’s successful state visit to China in November 2017 solidified not only over $250 billion in deals between the two powers and opened the door for vastly enhanced Chinese investment into America, but made a giant leap towards uniting American interests with Eurasia.

Thus far, the New Silk Road has extended development corridors from China to Europe, increasing trade and cultural exchange while unleashing vast potential along the way. New modern cities have been built up from scratch in the hundreds, and new industries, technologies and associated scientific discoveries have blossomed. These corridors have sprung up across the Middle East, Africa, Eurasia and even South America and the Caribbean with poverty alleviation, conflict reduction and hope as the effects.

The Bering Strait as the Lynch pin for the Polar Silk Road

It is conservatively estimated that 30% of the world’s undiscovered natural gas and 13% of undiscovered oil reserves are in the Arctic. Minerals stretching all across the periodic table are bountifully found in the Arctic but are of no use for humanity to the degree that no transport grids have been built to reach them.

The Bering Strait tunnel uniting both continents under one humanist vision

Currently, China’s projects with its Arctic neighbors involve primarily shipping, tourism, and raw materials. However, the Silk Road spirit is based on full spectrum growth of all components of national economies and has been led by the creation of development corridors everywhere it has been applied (energy, fiber optics, water, community building, health, education and transport infrastructure), and there is no reason to believe that the Arctic shall be an exception to this philosophy.

Since Russia’s Siberian development program parallels the philosophy of the New Silk Road with billions being invested by international players into the Russian far east stretching up to the Bering Strait connection, the century old project of the Bering Strait rail tunnel must be revisited as an ideal point of collaboration to bring next generation technologies and practices back on line for the reconstruction of our physical, mental and moral economic health.

The linking of the 100 km gap between Russian and American continents has been endorsed by Vladimir Putin since 2007, followed by China’s endorsement beginning openly in May 2014. Now, with over 25 000 km of high speed rail built in China alone (38,000 km to be built by 2025), with several additional magnetic levitation rail projects now under construction and vast rail projects extending into the Russian arctic, the next logical step for Eurasian development is to bring America as a whole into this program with rail lines through the Bering Strait. With such a commitment in place, the construction of the long overdue 1000 km rail gap known as the Alaska-Canada rail line will easily be accomplished, with new rail networks built up through the Canadian territories and down through the continent unlocking raw materials, building new advanced cities and uplifting peoples’ living standards along the way.

The Re-awakening of a Once Great People

The necessity to revisit such bold programs as the Mid-Canada Development Corridor, designed by Canadian World War Two hero Gen. Richard Rohmer can finally occur in a lawful fashion once this paradigm is permitted to spread organically to the Arctic. Rohmer’s 1969 plan which foresaw a 4000 km rail track stretching from Nova Scotia to the Yukon, through the “mid Canada” Canadian Shield was designed to open up the underdeveloped zone between the Tundra and the thin zone of development hugging the American border. Had this program been undertaken when it was last presented to the world in 1969 as an alternative to the post-industrial hell that was chosen in its stead, not only would Canada’s population be at least double its current size, but loss of manufacturing jobs (and inversely our addiction to cheap goods from poor nations), the decay in our infrastructure and the dumbing down of our citizens would NOT have occurred.

The Mid-Canada Development Corridor- Map by Chris Brackley

From this vantage point the creation of Arctic cities inspired by Prime Minister John Diefenbaker’s Frobisher Bay domed city will quickly become pearls along the great Belt and Road of the North. Such complexes, providing over 5000 engineers and their families with all the comforts of the city of Toronto, were ready to be constructed as early as 1958 were it not for a coordinated attack upon Diefenbaker and the North American economy more generally.

What’s more important than raw material development are the new scientific opportunities to explore the effects of cosmic radiation and its undiscovered role in driving climate cycles, biospheric evolution, and even certain forms of viral diseases. Such investigations can only occur in the cosmic radiation-saturated environments that the Arctic provides. Space exploration, which both Russia and China are increasingly world leaders, also necessitates Arctic environments that mimic extra-terrestrial climate conditions as we will encounter on Mars.

The most important thing is that China wants to have this future and knows that we in the west can be awoken from our long slumber.

China’s Long Term Vision for Humanity

In May 2016, forecasting the unveiling of the Polar Silk Road, China’s Ambassador to Canada wrote:

The Belt and Road initiative is a new type of cooperation mechanism. China will follow the principles of openness, cooperation, harmony, inclusiveness, mutual benefit and win-win cooperation. The development programs under the initiative framework are not exclusive but are open to all interested countries or parties, be it from regions along the route or from other parts of the world… Some Canadian friends said to me that as Canada and China are Pacific neighbors, the Belt and Road initiative means a lot of opportunities for Canada as well. In view of the progress that has been made in China-Canada cooperation in all fields over the years, Canada can build on its advantages in resources and technology to strengthen cooperation with Asian countries in such areas as infrastructure development, industrial investment, energy resources, financing, people-to-people exchanges and advanced manufacturing… In the meantime, China and Canada could jointly explore ways and means to extend the Belt and Road to North America [italics by author].”

For the geopolitical thinker, or any other victim of the baby boomer social engineering, such intentions expressed by China are entirely non-existent. All that exists are supposed mechanisms of planning based upon Hobbesian ideas of power of the stronger to dominate the weaker and power to monopolize resources. The notion of power as located in mankind’s ability to coexist and cooperate in the interests of both humanity and the universe as the idea was understood by such thinkers as Gottfried Leibniz, Benjamin Franklin, Abraham Lincoln, Franklin Roosevelt et al., is all but totally lacking in the minds of a society conditioned to think in materialistic terms of reference.

However, any clear minded thinker with a grasp of history, and a loving sense of the future can readily identify the intention of China and its key Eurasian allies. For those who do have eyes unclouded by the effects of social engineering described above, such as Schiller Institute Chairwoman Helga Zepp-LaRouche, the New Silk Road doesn’t only represent an opportunity to build infrastructure, and heal the wounds of the past half decade, but even more so, it represents nothing less than an opportunity to finally put humanity into harmony with the natural laws of the universe whose primary command is “be creative or collapse”. In a recent conference in Berlin, Mrs. LaRouche ended with the following words.

The next phase of the evolution of the New Silk Road promoted by the Schiller Institute is pictured above with several dozen major projects highlighted. (Source: worldlandbridge.com)

It is very good to live at this moment in history and contribute to make the world a better place.  And it can be done, because the New Paradigm corresponds to the lawfulness of the physical universe in science, Classical art, and these principles.  Neo-liberalism and the left-liberalism are as outdated and will disappear like the scholastics debating how many angels can sit on the top of a pin.  What will be asserted is the identity of the human species as the creative species in the universe.”

*

Jonathon Ludwig is an editor and journalist of the Canadian Patriot Review (www.canadianpatriot.org).

Notes

[1] Whether or not Canadian government support for such initiatives is genuine is not a matter we are dealing with at this time. The fact is that there has been an expression of support for a process whose rules are not being shaped by the Anglo-American elite, and our assessment stems from that fact. The fact remains, that in a time of crisis even those agencies which benefited from the decay of society must either adapt to the cure if they wish to survive or collapse with the host that they parasitically destroyed.

[2] Such grand projects were once known as the New Deal, the Apollo program, the hydro-nuclear energy revolution and Avro Arrow

[3] From Leibniz to Franklin on “Happiness” by David Shavin, Fidelio Vol. 12 no. 1

[4] For a fuller timeline of CIA-MI6 coups and assassinations since WW2, see “A Timeline of CIA Attrocities”, by Steve Kangas, Feb. 7, 1997

[5] Danger Ahead the Coming Collapse of Canada’s Municipal Infrastructure, Federation of Canadian Municipalities, Nov. 2007. While the rate of investment improved slightly from 2001, the damage caused by the 25 year gap has become unsolvable without a complete systemic change. American rates of infrastructure collapse are of a similar magnitude with the American Society of Civil Engineers 2017 report card calling for a conservative estimate of $2 trillion to bring infrastructure up to “acceptable” levels.

[6] The First Global Revolution: A Report by the Club of Rome, 1991 by Alexander King

[7] For a full account of the battle between FDR and Churchill’s opposing intentions for the post-war world taken from Elliot Roosevelt’s book As He Saw It, see http://archive.larouchepac.com/node/30370

[8] In his UN address on Sept 20, 1963 Kennedy said: “I include among these possibilities a joint expedition to the Moon…. Why … should man’s first flight to the Moon be a matter of national competition? Why should the United States and the Soviet Union … become involved in immense duplications of research, construction, and expenditure? Surely we should explore whether the scientists and astronauts of our two countries—indeed of all the world—cannot work together in the conquest of space, sending someday in this decade to the Moon not the representatives of a single nation, but the representatives of all of our countries.”

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

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Featured image: Colten Boushie

The news was released tonight (Friday, February 09) at about 18:30h that the jury in the trial of a Canadian farmer near Battleford, Saskatchewan found him not guilty for the murder of a young native, Colten Boushie.  Boushie was killed August 09, 2016.

The episode highlights, for those who care to examine the case, the underlying powerful racial prejudice that exists in Canada today.  After the arrest of the farmer social media became filled with racially biased comments, supporting the farmer because of the belief that “Indigenous people are responsible for rising crime in rural Saskatchewan which is leaving farmers scared and with no alternative but violence.”

When the police informed Boushie’s family about the murder, they did not offer any support, but then proceeded to search the home.  This is the same RCMP that is up against about 2800 sexual abuse/misconduct charges within its own ranks.  If they operate that way internally, it can only be hypothesized that their actions externally are of the same quality.

Background

Racial prejudice is systemic in Canada.  It is part of our colonial-settler heritage as the Indian bands were displaced through treaty lies, guns, germs, and steel.  Across the Prairies in particular, the Indians – who originally traded fairly with the new European arrivals – were soon pushed out through starvation. The large herds of millions of buffalo the Indians depended on were slaughtered in order to open up the land for farmers, leaving them open to starvation, disease, and subsequent displacement.

Following the many different “resettlement” schemes (really ethnic cleansing) the European settler-colonial governments morphed into more formal government structures that systematically attempted to destroy Indian culture.  This occurred through laws banishing Indian religious rituals, denied access to lawyers, stole/kidnapped/removed children from their families and forced them into mostly religious schools where the children suffered various kinds of abuse – physical, emotional, and sexual.

This was complemented by a series of Indian hospitals that again removed children from their families and placed them in abusive environments ostensibly for their health.  Accompanying all this was the systemic bias of the imposed culture itself and its British/Christian imperial heritage in which Indians were simply savages that needed “civilizing”.  It ran – and runs – through the governments, the judicial, and the legislative parts of our government as well as within the media.

But back to the courtroom

After the court’s not guilty verdict some of the details of the trial demonstrate this racial bias.  In his defense the farmer said that when he leaned into Boushie’s car to get the keys the gun “accidentally” fired.  As reported on the news, supporting this argument was an argument made by a non-witness and non-expert that guns will sometimes “delay” “somehow” when they are fired.  Before the verdict, the courts, the police, and the civic leaders were asking everyone to remain calm, an obvious sign they acknowledged the deep racial divide within the community.

Given the RCMP actions, given the inherent racial bias, given the poor testimony as presented in the news, at the least this case calls for a retrial.  It also should be the basis of a demand for a parliamentary/judicial inquiry – containing civilians outside the system of both races.  Should the current Liberal government fail to do so only adds to the frustration of the Indian people in face of current government actions that seem to be only paying lip service to the Indian population without actually doing anything but harvesting media publicity as being good guys and gals.

Solutions

Solutions are difficult because the white residents of the country are loath to give up some of their privileges and some of their stolen wealth.  Most treaties have not been honoured except for the lip service of consultation concerning matters that might concern them (e.g. hydro electric dams, mines, forestry, agriculture, infrastructure).

The Royal Proclamation of 1763 provided British Royal protection to Indian lands – at the time as a means of securing territory against the French and British, but being upheld in courts of law ever since.  The Indian Act of 1876 carries this forward, but more generally acts as a governmental means of controlling Indian actions across Canada – giving the government control of Indian lands, financing, status, settlements, et al.  The Canadian Constitution Act incorporates these previous Acts but again provides limits that essentially allow for continued misrepresentation of all original treaties.

The real solution, as I have argued several times before to the government of Canada, involves honouring those treaties to their full intent (not the European forked tongue intent but the commonly represented understanding).  It involves reparations for lands damaged or removed by various settler processes – the railways, and especially in the Prairies the land grant process used to encourage more white farmers to settle the area, now conveniently devoid of Indians.

It involves returning land to the Indians, current manufacturing and resource harvesting industries not withstanding.  The latter could continue subject to acceptance of the Indians involved who were more than likely never consulted in the first place if it had an impact on their treaty rights for hunting, fishing, harvesting, and cultural practices (all recognized in the above documents). Or as in the provinces of British Columbia, Quebec, the Maritimes and much of the north,  the vast majority of the land still belongs to the Indians who retain unceded title.

Another large step would be the removal of the Indian Act and its archaic and ethnically prejudiced laws in order to truly deal with the Indians “nation to nation.”

The current Trudeau government has argued that the government of Canada needs to honour this nation to nation relationship.  Apart from a few apologies, and a few commissions (another relic of the British empire that more closely resembles an avoidance mechanism), their has been no apparent implementation of much that assists the Indians of Canada.

First step

The first step is as indicated above, to have a retrial with a representative jury, or an investigation that covers the evidence, the RCMP handling of the case, and the role of the judiciary[1] and government within the overall structure of the Constitution and the UN Treaty on Indigenous Rights.  I am no authority on the trial or its arguments, but what was presented through the media (mostly the CBC) indicates that much needs to be done in order to overcome Canada’s systemic racial prejudices toward its Indians.

*

Note

[1] It should be noted that the Indian bands have been quite successful with actions moved before the Supreme Court, usually land claims.  The criminal courts, the lower courts, are where this comment’s intention refers.  

Economic systems include elements of design. Economic systems are not the progeny of happenstance, nor are they beyond our powers, like the sun and moon and stars above. And based on how things have worked out, nor are they the fruit of unimpeachable wisdom. In any case, they are influential. If a successful human presence on earth – which includes wise stewardship of the biosphere – were deemed to be a worthwhile goal, the intention of excellence in the design of economic systems is indispensable.

How are contemporary societies doing, while employing, or being deployed by, current economic systems?

Things are not working out so well for billions of people and many other species on earth. In an age of unprecedented technology and knowledge and productive capacity, we observe increasing environmental degradation, countless species lost or diminished, and many hundreds of millions of humans living in more or less squalor, and in great financial difficulty.

Countless jurisdictions also face financial difficulty, including debilitating levels of debt. Even in so-called wealthy countries, there is widespread social breakdown and high, even unprecedented, levels of public and private debt, and high real levels of unemployment. Perversely, what is financed includes ongoing development of vast capacity to destroy, highlighted by the continuing pathology of wars of aggression.

Meanwhile, in many countries, a small percentage of the population gains a very disproportionate portion of the wealth, and a tinier percentage have gained extreme concentrations of wealth, with a smaller number yet claiming ownership of much of the planet’s wealth and property..

The confluence of environmental and social breakdown, wars, widespread financial difficulty, and extreme concentration of wealth is not accidental. It is an outcome of the very design of our economic systems. Current money systems are designed to privilege selfish or narrow group interests; elite interests. And narrow – oligarchic – interests having been given primacy, broad human betterment and environmental stewardship are secondary considerations, at best.

That is, many national systems and the international money system are by design such that we can never achieve broad human success and good stewardship of the earth.

But that has not been the story told. The intrinsic financial elite serving bias of economic systems has been misrepresented to the public – as say, among obscure matters too complex for mere commoners, or as sensible obedience to immutable economic laws – and sometimes the system is just pushed down the people’s throat – with ongoing attempts made to camouflage the economic systems’ inherent elite-privileging characteristics.

Financial-elite domination of mass communications has hitherto ensured that broadly-beneficent economic models receive insufficient public attention to create a strong and knowledgeable economic-reform consensus; and academia has overwhelmingly taught conventional financial-elite-friendly economic theory. And politics manifests economic dogma and ignorance, while too often serving not the public interest but elite agendas.

The elite privileging and dysfunctional designs of current economic systems were developed in an extinct cultural context – especially pertaining to technology. That is, besides being dysfunctional, they are outmoded.

Given that current financial systems are catastrophically flawed, proposals have been made for economic system reform that is intended to provide broad, not narrow, benefit, and to eliminate harmful features. And what person of goodwill would not prefer economic system designs that work well – intrinsically – on behalf of broad, not narrow, human benefit, while encouraging harmony with the biosphere, and including a decisive concern for the future?

But selfishness will never retire gracefully. Those dominating the established financial paradigm are also busy, stealthily or brazenly, intending to maintain or strengthen the elite-privileging characteristics of existing financial system arrangements. This includes the attempt to reduce the role of physical currency and to expand the role of elite-controlled and manipulation-enabling ephemeral means of exchange and stores of value.

Current financial system reform proposals are offered within the context of rapidly evolving and widely available new technology and tools, and changing societal and cultural circumstances. These include unprecedented and rapid massive creation, compilation and outpouring of knowledge; and an internet-based massive increase in less fettered or unfettered public discourse, in conjunction with broad access to same.

Following is a look at, and comparison of, and some comment upon, two recent efforts via books to present a program of broadly beneficent economic reform. Both writers happen to be fellow Canadians, but they come from different backgrounds, and their formulae have some important differences. But there are also many points of agreement in their respective theses.

One of the authors, John M. Braden, could hardly be more obscure. The title of Braden’s book is Because the Future Matters: Let’s Stop Letting Modern Economics and Our Energy Addiction Ruin Almost Everything! The book was published in 2015 and Braden passed away in 2017.

The other author, Paul T. Hellyer, is a well known long time public figure in Canada, having authored over a dozen books, a majority of which have dealt, in whole or part, with economic matters, and having held senior cabinet positions in the Canadian federal government, including Minister of Defense and Acting Prime Minister. His book is called THE MONEY MAFIA and subtitled A World in Crisis. Published in 2014, Hellyer wrote this book early in his ninth decade

In both books there are many matters I am not commenting on, but leave to the readers of these books to discover. Presented are some of the key ideas in the books that pertain to reform of the economic/financial system. I knew Braden personally, and read and made suggestions on an earlier version of his manuscript.

Both authors evince genuine concern about not just our current and future human predicament but about the very fate of the earth. Both authors make use of the word transitional to describe their proposals.

As if to underline the extreme absurdity of our situation, both Hellyer and Braden resort to the summary word “insanity” to describe aspects of the current financial system and conventional economics.

Hellyer, in his outspoken style, describes the folly of giving “private corporations a monopoly to create money as total insanity.” Further, “to let them create all that money as debt that has to be repaid with interest goes beyond total insanity….”

Braden in his understated style almost apologizes for his use of such “strong words” as insane and insanity in reference to the “energy extravagances” of modern society. His basic thesis, stated “more gently” is: “conventional economics virtually compels sane people to engage in insane economic activity.”

Both authors are adamant that the financial system as currently designed has basic characteristics doing great harm and leading to more catastrophic consequences, and that we can, and ought to, and must, make basic improvements.

A closer look at Braden’s proposals

Braden calls his proposed economic program Intelligent National Frugality (INF). It is offered as a corrective to current economic systems that in effect mandate environmental degradation, increasing resource scarcity, and social breakdown and dysfunctions.

He proposes an alternative taxation and pricing and financing strategy that will inherently encourage environmental stewardship, more careful resource use, and greater social health, and discourage resource foolishness and energy gluttony: Thus Intelligent.

The term Frugality explicitly rejects the ideology of perpetual economic growth, and the culture of ‘more and more stuff is better and better’, of material and energy extravagance. But it allows for a wealth of cultural expression and unlimited qualitative progress within the context of a much more careful and sensible human presence on earth.

The term National identifies the nation state as the scale at which INF economics should apply, and also that a country is the appropriate political vehicle for establishing INF economics. Implied is that in order for any country to be able to carry out such a reformed economic system, it must have sufficient independence and sovereignty.

One basic principle found at the heart of Braden’s thesis is that a taxation and pricing system should as far as possible encourage the beneficial and discourage the harmful – encourage the good and discourage the bad. Stated thus, it’s a principle hard to argue with, but it begs the ongoing question as to what constitutes good and bad.

Braden’s core answer is that INF economics would heavily tax those types of energy classified as non-renewable – so-called fossil fuels and nuclear – on the basis of their actual energy content, and at the primary stage of their movement into use. This would mean that all processes and products coming later, using either the energy or matter of the energy source, would in cost and price reflect that original taxation.

All direct and indirect subsidies would be removed from these forms of energy. And the tax would be introduced gradually, intending a not-seriously-disruptive process of increase over a period of years.

As a result, there would be a growing disincentive to use fossil fuels in a cavalier fashion, and a growing incentive to use such energy more carefully. More benign and renewable competing forms of energy, and processes that use these, would gain comparative price advantage; thus be encouraged.

Nuclear energy, in Braden’s vision, if taxed appropriately and not subsidized, will simply become completely untenable. Indeed, one of the highlights of the book for me is Braden’s elegant and succinct yet devastating refutation of nuclear energy, on the basis of its financial, ethical and safety shortcomings.

Which leads to another key principle of INF economics: that human energy, mental or physical, is not taxed at all. Human energy thus becomes the financially most advantageous energy of choice in many instances. Under INF economics, sales taxes and value added taxes would also be eliminated.

There is no inherent ‘right’ or ‘left’ ideological basis for Braden’s proposals. But in order to implement his ideas, it is as noted necessary that a country be able to make independent national economic policies. This includes not being bound by restrictive bi-national or multinational economic agreements that preclude independent national initiatives in economic policy.

Braden repudiates so-called ‘free trade’, which in practice elevates international financial and corporate power over indigenous national economic policy, and he endorses less reliance on distant trade and long transport of goods. INF economics inherently encourages a more decentralized and self-reliant society; and a tendency towards many more and smaller internally competitive industrial enterprises and businesses. And many more small farms, and villages and towns, would primarily serve their locality. INF economics would also intrinsically encourage production of products featuring ease of repair, durability, recycling, and so on.

Braden, like Hellyer, considers full employment to be a basic goal and one which INF economics would facilitate. Again, this follows from the elevation of human energy in many instances into the most financially attractive choice.

Another foundational proposal by Braden is for adoption of a new banking system, one which is not debt-based. Here Braden and Hellyer join conceptual forces with advocacy of “Hundred Percent Money” as Braden calls it or Government Created Money (GCM) in Hellyer’s words. Braden notes the taboo-like near absence of contemporary discussion by conventional economics of GCM.

Braden’s basic proposal regarding GCM is that governments create an appropriate amount of legal-tender currency, and introduce the money into the economy by spending the money for worthwhile purposes. In the case of changed circumstances, say population or economic growth, where more such money would be helpful, more money can added in order to continue to “… facilitate normal commercial transactions in everyday life.” This money is permanent, not ephemeral like much of the ‘money’ in our debt-based system. GCM does not obligate or earn interest in its creation.

This GCM “does not constitute newly created wealth” but will facilitate economic activity which can create new wealth. Braden stresses that GCM “is able to function quite satisfactorily regardless of whether economic growth does or does not take place.” This is in sharp contrast to debt-based money, which requires a growing economy in order for the debt treadmill to continue functioning.

Braden then turns to fractional reserve banking, which in a nutshell gives lenders the privilege of lending money that does not exist, and then asking for repayment in real dollars plus interest, or the collateral if the repayment is not made. At the strokes of a banker’s computer keys, the issuance of “impermanent” credit creates an increase in the country’s ‘money’ supply, and when the loan is paid off, the money supply of a country is reduced. Through the process, interest is collected. This is now the dominant means by which ‘money’ is ‘created’.

Braden asserts that he can find “no theoretical arguments at all in favour of the fractional reserve system.” And he lists several reasons for condemning it, including that the fractional reserve system is “unworkable [without] ongoing economic growth.” Braden rejects as folly the dogma that perpetual economic growth, per se, is desirable.

As an example of the harmful absurdities built into the current fractional-reserve, credit-creation privileges that some financial institutions have been granted, a young family in Canada typically ends up paying more or less twice for the home they purchase, unless they lose the home due to not being able to pay for it twice: it’s called a mortgage.

Braden believes that governments can act sensibly regarding money creation and management of associated policies, which is not a storyline that private financiers have endorsed. One might note here that elite financial domination has been served by a lot of hand wringing angst in media over the specter of democratic processes and governments having final authority over money creation and policy, but there seems to be much less concern over obscure financiers controlling both money and politics. We might also note that any dearth of competent politicians and bureaucrats when it comes to money matters is to some significant extent the fruit of financial and corporate influence over the political selection process, and elite achievement of attenuated public discourse about basic financial issues.

Braden presents his ideas using commonplace, clear language. His is a broad yet limited vision. Some pertinent practical challenges that we face are either absent or hardly discussed.

These challenges include the massive inertia of and massive dependence upon the existing system; the trillions of dollars per day volume; the power of those willing and able to deploy tactical disinformation and extreme violence to maintain control over existing financial arrangements; the control of mass communications by those avoiding full and effective discussion of critical economic and finance-related issues. Also absent is discussion of the large role played by international financial institutions like the BIS or the IMF, key institutions of the global-financial cabal.

What Braden does provide, however is a basic outline of an economic and financial system that is designed to encourage sensible human behaviour, both in respect to human interaction, and in relationship to the earth. His ideas deserve careful consideration.

A closer look at Hellyer’s ideas

In contrast to Braden’s low key and circumspect approach to the subject of financial reform, Hellyer presents in swashbuckling style his financial reform proposals. He grapples with a different field of practical considerations than does Braden, including identifying extreme criminality in the prevailing international financial system. But he is kindred with Braden in many basic goals and concerns, and in many ideas, including being an ardent advocate of debt-free government-created money. And Paul Hellyer (image right) like Braden evinces great concern over environmental degradation, including the over-reliance on problematic fossil fuels.

Hellyer begins his book with a well known 19^th century Lincoln quote in which the green-back president admits to great concern that the money power in the United States will use its cunning influence to concentrate wealth “in a few hands … and the Republic [will be] destroyed.”

And lo and behold, and that’s now just about where the US is at, along with many other countries in more or less the same boat: the danger that concerned Lincoln has now gone global: Hellyer writes that “a small group” … “using the cover of globalization” have “the ultimate goal of creating an unelected World government under their control.” He sees in such an outcome an extremely wealthy oligarchic global tyranny, presiding over an enslaved public, in which serf-like austerity for the many is enforced. Bad idea, asserts Hellyer, for “we have the capability of providing ‘the good life’ for all humankind.”

How do we do that? For Hellyer one key requirement for human success is “… to establish the kind of democracy we dream of and deserve – government … for all of the people, and not just the rich elite.”

He describes his book as including “an integrated blueprint for action” to “replace war with peace, injustice with justice, immoral inequality with improved equality of opportunity and, topping the list an end [to destroying earth, and mobilizing] to preserve it for the benefit of generations yet unborn.”

Whereas Braden repudiates so-called ‘free-trade’ as inherently a bad idea, Hellyer admits to a residual fondness for the idea, but has great reservations about its actual manifestation, which he suggests might be called “unrestricted investment”: Under so-called free trade, corporate privilege and influence dominate, while the public interest and influence atrophy: Hellyer asserts that for national politicians to implement ‘free trade’, it is already in effect treason, but then goes further, describing eliminating by treaty a country’s inherent right to issue currency as “high treason.” By such a default the corporations and especially the bankers win control over the people and their sovereign powers. Even food safety standards and public health are fodder for the corporate greedy-grindstone.

Turning to “the International Banking and Financial System”, Hellyer finds “… grand larceny on a scale almost beyond belief.” He notes that fractional reserve banking is now running amuck, with no real limit to the amount of interest-accumulating credit that can be created out of thin air, no matter how little actual money is ‘in reserve’. But in the end, unwilling to give government complete control over issuance of currency, Hellyer settles on a formula by which commercial banks can create loans on the basis of having in reserve just over one third of the credit issued.

Hellyer devotes a chapter each to the Bank of International Settlements (BIS, the elite and dominant private central bank of the global network of private central banks), the International Monetary Fund, and the private banking cartel known as The Federal Reserve, nominally of the United States. He finds each of these to be inherently pernicious, and urges their elimination.

Hellyer asserts that private corporations’ domination of issuance of currency and credit must end, and be replaced with government created money. “The right to create money belongs to federal governments….Banks … have only privileges granted by legislatures,” but through cunning have usurped government’s proper financial role and power, to great elite advantage and societal disadvantage.

Faced with countless needed or beneficial projects left undone, and much harm being done, including much unemployment, due to “an acute shortage of money” deployed for proper purposes, Hellyer asserts that “what the world desperately needs is a massive infusion of government-created debt-free money (GCM) ….” He tentatively suggests 10 trillion dollars as a start. And as does Braden, Hellyer notes the “profound difference” between GCM and Bank Created Money (BCM). “All [ephemeral] BCM has to be repaid with interest whereas GCM [is] debt-free and remains in the money supply permanently.”

As an example of a successful use of GCM, Hellyer describes Canada’s experience during the period from 1939 to 1974. In contrast to its inadequate response to the extreme poverty and financial difficulties of the 1930s, the Canadian government, with the advent of WW2, got a brain and printed money and spent it into circulation. In effect, the government and commercial banks shared the money creation function, and this enabled a previously seriously impoverished largely agricultural country to quickly undertake ambitious national projects, including much industrial development, without getting ensnared in ‘the web of debt,’ and without an inflation problem.

This beneficent policy was mysteriously ended in 1974, leading to an unnecessary cost over the following decades of hundreds of billions of dollars to Canadian taxpayers; and many worthwhile projects were made more financially difficult, expensive, or stillborn.

Hellyer describes a recent proposal made by a group of banking system reformers to have the Canadian government use its constitutional power to create 150 billion dollars of GCM, with half going to the federal government and half to the provinces and territories and municipalities. The Canadian charter banks, over several years, would be required to increase their cash reserves up to 34%. The proposal includes giving the democratically elected Finance Minister the final say over Bank of Canada policy.

Hellyer identifies the “most formidable’ obstacle to monetary reform as the ignorance of the public when it comes to money matters. But whatever specific variation on the theme is implemented, “…any worthwhile reform must [provide] a fast, smooth transition to full employment and the transfer of the ultimate power over interest rates and … the money supply from unelected, unaccountable bankers to the elected representatives of the people who, in theory at least, should operate the system in the interests of their electors.”

Hellyer draws other important considerations into his vision of social and financial reform, for example calling for the end of suppression of energy breakthroughs and beneficial patents. And with Braden, he stresses the need for a strong ethical or spiritual foundation for society: Who was it who said, for any system to work well, no matter how brilliantly conceived, good people are indispensable?

While Braden and Hellyer both introduce their own noteworthy innovations on the theme of economic reform, their basic position on the central issue of money creation is one that is shared by many. For example, Ellen Brown in her brilliant book THE WEB OF DEBT advocates GCM, and elimination of personal income taxes. And in his 1992 book DEBT VIRUS, Jacques Jaikaran writes: “The solution is a system that would provide adequate [GCM] funds for government without borrowing; a system that would effectively eliminate income taxes….”

It is easy to take a cynical attitude towards attempts by ‘naïve’ people to concoct ‘grandiose’ blueprints for basic economic reform. But more appropriate targets for criticism are those whose active commitment is to the egregiously and grievously dysfunctional financial path we are on.

As noted, this is not just about us. Previously I mentioned environmental degradation: more particularly, to cite just a few examples, many species of insects over wide areas of the earth have disappeared or are in trouble; historically prolific flora and fauna of the oceans and in the tidal pools are missing or in trouble, from mammals to fish to crustaceans to phytoplankton; the oceans now have vast areas of garbage and vast dead zones; the earth’s atmosphere has had incomprehensible millions of tonnes of aluminum oxide added to it via supremely-arrogant experimentation; a large part of the protective ozone layer is thinned or missing, human created unstable pernicious radioactive atoms proliferate in the environment, and glyphosate and other harmful chemicals become near ubiquitous in the environment. This list is the mere tip of the total situation.

Braden and Hellyer, instead of losing heart in the face of seemingly overwhelmingly difficult and portentous human-driven earthly dynamics, have identified a basic problem – a deeply defective money system – and both have sketched for us largely kindred ideas towards a more sensible economics.

While nearly everyone has financial concerns, most people lack even rudimentary understanding of current financial systems, or proposed alternatives. Indicated then as helpful would be the development of a more effective, broadly-based, unfettered, basic-financial-reform study-teaching-and-advocacy movement.

*

Robert Snefjella is a retired Canadian organic farmer and contractor.

Featured image is from Bart/flickr/cc.

On February 9, Major Adrian Rankine-Galloway officially announced that the US supports the Israeli attack that targeted twelve positions of the Syrian Air Defense Forces and the Iranian forces in Syria. The Pentagon spokesman told reporters that the US fully supports “Israel’s right to defend itself”, according to Reuters.

“Israel is our closest security partner in the region and we fully support Israel’s inherent right to defend itself against threats to its territory and its people,” Maj. Rankine-Galloway said, according to Reuters.

Maj Rankine-Galloway also noted that the US Department of Defense did not participate in the Israeli military operation in Syria and warned from Iran’s “destabilizing activities” in the Middle East.

“We share the concerns of many throughout the region that Iran’s destabilizing activities that threaten international peace and security, and we seek greater international resolve in countering Iran’s malign activities,” said Rankine-Galloway.

Earlier, State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert also stressed the US support for the attack on Syria that resulted in the shot down of an Israeli Air Force (IAF) F-16 warplane, and the damaging of another warplane, an F-15.

“The United States is deeply concerned about today’s escalation of violence over Israel’s border and strongly supports Israel’s sovereign right to defend itself,” Nauert said, according to Reuters.

Meanwhile, the Damascus ally, Lebanese Hezbollah, said in an official statement that the shootdown of the Israeli warplane by the Syrian Air Defense Forces was the “start of a new strategic phase” that will put a limit to the Israeli interventions into Syrian airspace.

“We condemn the enemy’s [Israel’s] blatant support of terrorism and radical groups and its interference in the Syrian crisis by aggression and threats, we confirm that today’s developments mean the old equations have categorically ended,” Hezbollah said in its official statement.

From its side, the Russian Foreign Ministry expressed its concern over the Israeli airstrikes on Syria in an official statement and called on all sides to avoid the escalation of the situation. In its statement, the ministry also warned Israel of threatening the lives of Russian servicemen in Syria.

“We urge all parties involved to exercise restraint and to avoid any actions that could lead to an even greater complication of the situation. We consider it necessary to unconditionally respect the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Syria and other countries of the region. It is absolutely unacceptable to create threats to the lives and security of Russian servicemen who are in Syria at the invitation of its legitimate government to assist in the fight against terrorists,” the Russian Foreign Ministry said, according to the Washington Post.

While the situation on the Syrian-Israeli border is once again under control, local sources believe that this calm could end at any moment as both sides are now ready, more than ever, for another armed confrontation.

---

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.

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Make Sports, Not War

By Eric Margolis, February 11, 2018

One of VP Pence’s main missions is to whip up support among rightwing South Koreans who bitterly oppose any peace deal between the two Koreas and support attacking the north.  Many on South Korea’s hard right are evangelical Christians.  It’s no coincidence that Mike Pence, an ardent fundamentalist Protestant, was sent to show the flag and rally opposition to any détente with North Korea.  Whatever happened to ‘turn the other cheek?’

Syria: Voices of Truth, Peace, and Justice

By Mark Taliano, February 11, 2018

Mainstream media messaging dictates much of what we think, hear, feel, say, and do.  It creates an engineered framework which excludes what the “Other”, those living in Imperial prey nations, think, hear, feel, say, and do. MSM demonizes them, and turns them into stock characters, imperial projections, as it obliterates their humanity, and our common humanity.

In Libya, ISIS Is Using Human Trafficking to Finance Its Activities

By Al Shahid, February 11, 2018

A new UN report has warned of potential collusion between human traffickers and state institutions in Libya, amidst further concerns that groups such as ISIS are exploiting these processes.

Downed Russian Warplane Illustrates Enduring Danger of US-Backed Terrorism

By Tony Cartalucci, February 11, 2018

The BBC and other Western media organizations have worked ceaselessly to aid groups like “Hayat Tahrir al-Sham” in their efforts to re-brand themselves and obfuscate public awareness over their status as terrorist organizations, thus making it easier for either the US and its European allies to aid and arm such groups, or for Western allies in the Middle East to aid and arm them.

Israel Escalates Aggression on Syria

By Stephen Lendman, February 11, 2018

In response to Syria’s air defense downing an Israeli F-16 attacking targets in its territory from its airspace, the IDF escalated aggression against multiple Syrian sites.

Don’t be Cynical about an Olympics Detente with North Korea

By Peter Van Buren, February 11, 2018

The path to some form of peaceful co-existence on the Korean Peninsula lies in understanding survival, and that means North Korea can never denuclearize, a precondition the United States has insisted on before negotiations can move forward.