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“The relationship between the President and the people he serves has shifted irrevocably. In every use of official power, the President is now a king above the law.”—Justice Sonia Sotomayor dissenting in Trump v. United States
The U.S. Supreme Court has made it official: the president of the United States can now literally get away with murder.
“The President of the United States is the most powerful person in the country, and possibly the world. When he uses his official powers in any way, under the majority’s reasoning, he now will be insulated from criminal prosecution. Orders the Navy’s Seal Team 6 to assassinate a political rival? Immune. Organizes a military coup to hold onto power? Immune. Takes a bribe in exchange for a pardon? Immune. Immune, immune, immune. Let the President violate the law, let him exploit the trappings of his office for personal gain, let him use his official power for evil ends. Because if he knew that he may one day face liability for breaking the law, he might not be as bold and fearless as we would like him to be. That is the majority’s message today. Even if these nightmare scenarios never play out, and I pray they never do, the damage has been done.”
The damage has indeed been done. Indubitably. Irrevocably. Unarguably.
Every American should be outraged, offended and afraid of what this ruling means for the future of our nation.
There can be no more pretending that we live in a constitutional republic. It’s all out in the open now. This is a dictatorship: Hitler has finally stepped out of the shadows.
The rule of law may have been on life support for a long time, but this ruling pulls the plug.
The facts of the case itself, which asks whether former president Donald Trump is immune from prosecution on charges that he attempted to overturn the 2020 presidential election, are less important than the ramifications of this ruling, which go so far as to dramatically expand the power of the presidency, rendering whoever occupies the Oval Office lawless and unaccountable.
This is exactly how tyranny rises and freedom falls.
“We conclude that under our constitutional structure of separated powers, the nature of presidential power requires that a former president have some immunity from criminal prosecution for official acts during his tenure in office. At least with respect to the President’s exercise of his core constitutional powers, this immunity must be absolute.”
Here’s the thing, however: this isn’t anything new. Not really.
Although the Constitution invests the President with very specific, limited powers, in recent years, American presidents have claimed the power to completely and almost unilaterally alter the landscape of this country for good or for ill. The powers amassed by each successive president through the negligence of Congress and the courts—powers which add up to a toolbox of terror for an imperial ruler—empower whoever occupies the Oval Office to act as a dictator, above the law and beyond any real accountability.
Moreover, it doesn’t even matter whether other presidents have chosen not to take advantage of any particular power, because “it is a President’s action in using power, rather than forsaking its use, that has the precedential significance.”
In other words, each successive president continues to add to his office’s list of extraordinary orders and directives, expanding the reach and power of the presidency and granting him- or herself near dictatorial powers.
All of the imperial powers amassed by past presidents—to kill American citizens without due process, to detain suspects indefinitely, to strip Americans of their citizenship rights, to carry out mass surveillance on Americans without probable cause, to suspend laws during wartime, to disregard laws with which he might disagree, to conduct secret wars and convene secret courts, to sanction torture, to sidestep the legislatures and courts with executive orders and signing statements, to direct the military to operate beyond the reach of the law, to operate a shadow government, and to act as a dictator and a tyrant, above the law and beyond any real accountability—were passed from Clinton to Bush to Obama to Trump to Biden and will be passed along to the next president.
These are the powers that continue to be passed along to each successive heir to the Oval Office, the Constitution be damned.
So you see, the Supreme Court didn’t make the president a dictator. It merely confirmed what we’ve been warning about all along: the president is already an imperial, unaccountable and unconstitutional dictator with permanent powers.
Absolute power absolutely corrupted the presidency.
As for Trump, his concept of power, immunity and the presidency has always been troubling, self-serving and corrupt.
Any presidential candidate who promises to be a dictator on day one will be a dictator-in-chief for life. The government does not voluntarily relinquish those powers once it acquires, uses and inevitably abuses them.
As political science professor Gene Sharp warned, “Dictators are not in the business of allowing elections that could remove them from their thrones.”
Which brings me back to the Supreme Court’s ruling on July 1, 2024, which was handed down mere days before the nation celebrates the anniversary of its declaration of independence from the heavy-handed tyranny of King George.
A document seething with outrage over a government which had betrayed its citizens, the Declaration of Independence was signed on July 4, 1776, by 56 men who laid everything on the line, pledged it all—“our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor”—because they sought to free the American people from the reign of a dictatorial British emperor and believed in a radical idea: that all people are created to be free.
Labeled traitors, these men were charged with treason, a crime punishable by death. For some, their acts of rebellion would cost them their homes and their fortunes. For others, it would be the ultimate price—their lives.
Yet even knowing the heavy price they might have to pay, these men dared to speak up when silence could not be tolerated. Even after they had won their independence from Great Britain, these new Americans worked to ensure that the rights they had risked their lives to secure would remain secure for future generations.
The result: our Bill of Rights, the first ten amendments to the Constitution.
Imagine the shock and outrage these 56 men would feel were they to discover that 248 years later, the government they had risked their lives to create has been transformed into a militaristic police state in which exercising one’s freedoms—at a minimum, merely questioning a government agent—is often viewed as a flagrant act of defiance.
In fact, had the Declaration of Independence been written today, it would have rendered its signers extremists or terrorists, resulting in them being placed on a government watch list, targeted for surveillance of their activities and correspondence, and potentially arrested, held indefinitely, stripped of their rights and labeled enemy combatants.
Read the Declaration of Independence again, and ask yourself if the list of complaints tallied by Jefferson don’t bear a startling resemblance to the abuses “we the people” are suffering at the hands of the American police state.
In the 248 years since early Americans first declared and eventually won their independence from Great Britain, “we the people” have managed to work ourselves right back under the tyrant’s thumb.
Only this time, the tyrant is one of our own making. The abuses meted out by an imperial government and endured by the American people have not ended. They have merely evolved.
Given the fact that America is a relatively young nation, it hasn’t taken very long for an authoritarian regime to creep into power.
Unfortunately, the bipartisan coup that laid siege to our nation did not happen overnight.
It snuck in under our radar, hiding behind the guise of national security, the war on drugs, the war on terror, the war on immigration, political correctness, hate crimes and a host of other official-sounding programs aimed at expanding the government’s power at the expense of individual freedoms.
The building blocks for the bleak future we’re just now getting a foretaste of—police shootings of unarmed citizens, profit-driven prisons, weapons of compliance, a wall-to-wall surveillance state, pre-crime programs, a suspect society, school-to-prison pipelines, militarized police, overcriminalization, SWAT team raids, endless wars, etc.—were put in place by government officials we trusted to look out for our best interests.
Folks, if ever there were a time to declare our independence from tyranny, it’s now.
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The first round of Iran’s presidential elections was held on June 28 (Tir 8). Despite the government’s high propaganda to encourage participation, the turnout was very low, as only 24, 535, 185 or 40% of 61, 452, 321 eligible voters voted to elect the ninth president of Iran, a historic low.
In this early presidential election, six candidates, Masoud Al-Pezeshkian, Mostafa Pourmohammadi, Saeed Jalili, Mohammad Baqer Ghalibaf, Alireza Zakani, and Amirhossein Ghazizadeh-Hashemi were selected by the Guardian Council to run. Before the start of the voting, the last two withdrew from the election. The official results of the elections of 58,640 locations in 482 cities were counted. Final votes were:
Massoud Pezeshkian 10,415,191 (42.5 %);
Saeed Jalili 9,473,298 (38.6%);
Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf 3,383,340 (13.8%); and
Mostafa Pour-Mohammadi 206,397 (0.84 %)
The low turnout is evidence of anti-clerical rule.
Iranians are fed up with theocratic rules. Pour-Mohammadi, the only mullah, received less than 1% of the votes. According to the final results of the presidential election, none of the four candidates managed to obtain the majority quorum of 51%. Thus, the election must go to the second round, which will be held on Friday, July 5 (Tir 15). Out of the 24,535,185 votes counted, Masoud Pezeshkian and Saeed Jalili will go to the second stage.
This is the second time in the history of presidential elections in Iran that the president is determined in the second stage.
In 2005, Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani was leading in the first stage, but he lost the election in the second stage to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. This time can be the same as Pezeshkian may lose to Jalili. Jalili’s upper limit vote will be the same as in the first round, plus a part of Ghalibaf’s votes. However, the upper limit of Pezeshkian’s votes will not be much higher than the first round unless those who boycotted the election come to the polls.
Ghalibaf, who targeted the college-educated segment of the population, failed to get enough votes. This segment of the population mostly boycotted the elections. Also, emancipated women opposed him for being the head of the Parliament and approving the mandatory hejab law. This segment is unlikely to vote for Pezeshkian either, as they see him as a charlatan who wants to preserve the same Islamic rules. In earlier years of post-revolution, Pezeshkian made the hijab mandatory in hospitals and universities, while it had not yet become compulsory. Furthermore, Jalili is a religious person. He has the senior clerics in his backing. Also, some high-ranking professors at Iranian universities, such as Sharif University of Technology, have endorsed his presidency. His mission is to maintain the status quo. He probably will get most of Ghalibaf’s votes as Ghalibaf has said he will support him. Also, most of the fundamentalists probably will vote for Jalili.
Pezeshkian is a candidate from the reformists’ faction. “Reformists” do not want to change the system.
They want to reshape the same theocratic system that most Iranian nationalists hate and at the same time, yield to the American demands.
Pezeshkian, 70, was born in Mahabad to an Azerbaijani father and a Kurdish mother. He is a conservative ethnic Azari who has insisted his children speak Turkish at home. His victory may help Iran’s enemies, who wish to partition Iran across its ethnic boundaries that have not really existed.
There were two debates between the two candidates on July 1 and 2. Economic growth, foreign policy, international trade, and energy were major issues in the debates. Pezeshkian did not present a consistent plan for how he wanted to run the country. He only criticized what had been done by the previous administration. The reformist candidate recited some verses from the Qur’an and Nahj al-Balagha to pretend he could use the same words as the clerics. Jalili discussed his plans for speeding up economic growth.
Pezeshkian pretends to maintain the theocratic rules while pursuing neoliberal economic reforms and returning Iran to the nuclear deal in the hope of lifting the economic sanctions.
However, this is wishful thinking; the nuclear issue is a pretext by the U.S. to weaken and contain Iran in the oil-rich region.
Even during the eight years of Hassan Rouhani’s presidency, when Zarif was foreign minister and the nuclear negotiator, the U.S. offered to temporarily suspend the sanctions, not lifting them and never was a law passed by the U.S. Congress to permit lifting the sanctions. Pezeshkian has chosen Javad Zarif as his foreign policy advisor. Some see Zarif as a demagogue flunky of America who never delivered on his promises.
If the nonvoters come to the stage, they may increase Masoud Pezeshkian’s chance of presidency. Otherwise, with the help of Ghalibaf’s votes, Jalili will win the presidency. In either case, theocracy will continue to exist, and opposition to the regime by the secular political group will continue.
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Protests erupted again on July 2 across Kenya against the worsening economic crisis and the impunity exemplified by President William Ruto.
Since June 18, youth-led demonstrations have been met with repression resulting in the deaths of at least 39 people according to the Kenyan National Human Rights Commission, a government-funded agency.
A representative of the Kenyan Medical Association told the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) in an interview that another two people had died on July 2. The KMA noted that they are very active in providing care to those injured in the clashes between the police and demonstrators.
This same KMA spokesperson said that physicians are treating gunshot wounds, injuries from teargas canisters and the inhalation of chemical agents being deployed to disperse the crowds in the cities of Nairobi, Mombasa, Kisumu, among many others. On July 2 it appeared as if less live ammunition was fired on protesters since the death tolls were far lower than on June 25 when the parliament building was attacked by demonstrators.
Police have utilized batons, water cannons, teargas and live ammunition in attempts to force people from the streets of Nairobi. An area in the central business district was targeted by demonstrators where enterprises were vandalized and set on fire.
The initial round of demonstrations was prompted by the attempt to pass the Finance Bill for 2024 which included substantial tax hikes impacting the overall cost of living. Increases in taxes for consumer goods and services would have a detrimental impact on workers, youth and farmers.
President William Ruto said during late June that he would not sign the Finance Bill sealing its fate. He then called for dialogue between the “Occupy Parliament” organizers and the government on a way forward in addressing the economic crisis.
Youth in Kenya have not responded positively to the overtures from Ruto. Supporters of the Occupy Parliament movement are pointing to the number of people killed by police during mass demonstrations in Nairobi, Mombasa, Kisumu and other regions of the East African state.
Criticism has centered not only around the now defunct Finance Bill, other charges of corruption by leading government officials within the ruling Kwanza Party of Ruto have also surfaced. There have been cracks as well within the president’s party where some are blaming leaders for being indifferent to the plight of the Kenyan masses.
In the second largest Kenyan city of Mombasa on the Indian Ocean coast, thousands of young people and workers took to the streets as well on July 2. During the early morning hours, many businesses remained closed in anticipation of possible violence.
Kenya young people demonstrate demanding the resignation of President Ruto (Source: Abayomi Azikiwe)
Demonstrators held their own self-made signs condemning the current state of the economy while accusing the Ruto administration of being corrupt and inefficient. One protester carried a sign saying, “not one project promised by the government has been completed over the last two years”, the time period since Ruto was elected in 2022.
Meanwhile in Kisumu, crowds of youth marched in the streets demanding accountability from the Ruto administration. They paid tribute to the people who have lost their lives and called for the resignation of the president.
What has fueled the anger of Kenyans is the seeming lack of remorse on the part of the president related to the deaths of civilians. Ruto has not condemned the police for their heavy-handed tactics. In a statement on June 30, the president said that complaints against the police would be handled through the normal channels already in existence within the government.
There are numerous reports of abductions of activists by the police. The Kenyan Supreme Court Chief Justice Martha Koome has issued an order forbidding any extra-judicial detentions by law-enforcement agents. (See this)
In an article published on July 2 in the Kenyan Post, a Cable News Network (CNN) correspondent conveyed his eyewitness account of the brutality utilized by the police. The journalist wrote that:
“When peaceful protesters stormed Parliament last Tuesday (June 25), Nairobi police boss Adamson Bungei was personally leading the operation. It is believed that Bungei issued the shoot-to-kill order that left three protesters, among them a 27-year-old student from the University of Nairobi, dead. CNN journalist Larry Madowo aired a video of Bungei watching as police used live bullets to disperse the protesters. ‘Nairobi police boss Adamson Bungei personally led the operation,’ Madowo said. Freelance journalist, Chris Sambu, also said that he witnessed Bungei passing by without uttering a word as bodies of peaceful protesters lay outside Parliament. For clarity, the 25th, June 2024 police killings on protesters was an operation led by the Nairobi region police commander Adamson Bungei. ‘As the chief commanding officer on the ground, he had the ability to order no firing live bullets at protesters. History will Judge him harshly,’ he wrote. ‘I took this video moments after protesters accessed parliament buildings and a shooting ensued. When guns went silent and tear gas smoke filled the Parliament road, a number of protesters lay dead. Bungei just passed there without uttering any word.’”
In response to the police killings there are those calling for the dissolution of parliament and the scheduling of new elections. These elements within and outside the government believe that the legitimacy of the Ruto administration has been fully eroded.
Economic Crisis Prompts Additional Borrowing by the Government
Rather than address the internal crisis within Kenya, some government officials have accused criminal elements of “infiltrating” the youth-led protests. Referring to people as “goons” and “thugs”, these detractors who are in support of the Ruto administration are calling for harsher measures to end the demonstrations. (See this)
There were reports on June 26 that the Kenyan Defense Forces (KDF) were activated to prevent further unrest. Many businesses have been attacked in Nairobi and other cities since June 20. However, these actions are more reflective of the desperate socio-economic conditions prevailing among youth and workers.
With the collapse of the Finance Bill 2024 due to nationwide demonstrations, the president has indicated that Kenya will be forced to borrow up to $US7.8 billion to meet existing public obligations. In addition to a 67% increase over already planned borrowing, there could very well be massive cuts in public employment and services.
“President William Ruto’s embattled administration faces a herculean task in the months ahead in funding public services, implementing development projects and programs and paying public debts. This follows the decision to reject the Finance Bill 2024 amid unprecedented public pressure. President Ruto last week moved to avert a financial crisis for his administration as the legal budget deadline loomed. The most workable option is borrowing more money to fund this year’s Sh3.9 trillion ($US30.3 billion) budget. On Sunday night, President Ruto alluded to this, saying Kenya would need to borrow Sh1 trillion ($US 7.8 billion) nearly double what was initially planned following the move to withdraw the Finance Bill 2024.”
Like in many other African states, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank have played a negative role during the post-colonial period beginning in the 1960s until the present. When governments face financial difficulty due to their continued dependency within the world capitalist system, they are forced to renegotiate terms of repayment for their monetary obligations.
IMF conditionalities often result in the imposition of austerity measures within developing countries. Governments are required to lay-off public servants including educators and healthcare workers in order to pay debt service to financial institutions based in the imperialist countries.
Kenya will be faced with very difficult decisions moving forward. Any acquiescence to the IMF requires the passing on of the debt obligations to the workers, farmers and youth who are already facing high unemployment and underemployment.
In the same above-mentioned article published by the Financial Standard it notes:
“The IMF has been pushing Kenya to ensure her fiscal strategy is centered on firmly reducing debt vulnerabilities and achieving a newly approved debt anchor by 2029 while protecting high-priority service delivery programs. Kenya first agreed with the IMF in July 2021, which is subject to review every six months before further funding is released.”
Perhaps the suggestions emerging from the youth movement and certain members of parliament for fresh elections could open a national discussion and debate over the future of Kenya. Obviously, a continuation of the status-quo will only result in ongoing mass demonstrations and further alienation by young people and workers from the government.
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Abayomi Azikiwe is the editor of the Pan-African News Wire. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.
Featured image: Kenya youth march in Mombasa, July 2, 2024 (Source: Abayomi Azikiwe)
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President Biden authorized Ukraine to “conduct limited attacks inside Russia with American-made weapons,” U.S. officials said. Some U.S. allies had already gone further. Britain weeks ago allowed Ukraine to use its long-range Storm Shadow missile systems for attacks anywhere in Russia, and France and Germany recently took the same position.
The decision announced by President Biden is due in particular to pressure from Secretary of State Antony Blinken to lift restrictions on Ukraine’s use of U.S. weapons. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg was tasked with pre-announcing Washington’s decision to the European Allies. Speaking at the Council of the European Union, he said,
“According to international law, Ukraine has the right to self-defense. And the right to self-defense also includes hitting legitimate military targets inside Russia.”
At the same time Poland announced the purchase of long-range missiles from the United States and declared it was “ready to host NATO nuclear weapons.” Sweden did the same: having just joined NATO, it declared that it was “willing to host U.S. nuclear weapons in case of war.”
France has tested a new air-launched nuclear missile and allocated 13 percent of its military budget to upgrading its nuclear weaponry.
Against what targets in Russia the long-range missiles supplied by the U.S. and other NATO countries to Ukraine are directed is shown by the news released by Kiev that “a Ukrainian drone targeted a second Russian long-range military radar.”This is an early warning radar designed to detect even hypersonic ballistic missiles and aircraft up to 10,000 km away.
It is impossible for the Ukrainian military to carry out such an attack alone deep into Russian territory. The Ukrainian army is in increasing difficulty, so much so that Kiev has passed a law allowing it to recruit from prisons ordinary prisoners, even criminals, willing to go to the front in exchange for freedom.
For more such an attack requires a satecllitary military network that Ukraine does not have.Conducting such attacks against Russia are actually U.S. and NATO forces under U.S. command. Countries like Italy, which “host” U.S. nuclear weapons, violating the Non-Proliferation Treaty, are thus turned into the front line of a nuclear confrontation with Russia that is more dangerous than that of the Cold War.
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This article was originally published in Italian on Grandangolo, Byoblu TV.
Manlio Dinucci, award winning author, geopolitical analyst and geographer, Pisa, Italy. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG).
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The US Supreme Court has much to answer for. In the genius of republican government, it operates as overseer and balancer to the executive and legislature. Of late, the judges have seemingly confused that role.
In contrast to its other Anglophone counterparts, the highest tribunal in the US professes an open brand of politics, with its occupants blatantly expressing views that openly conform to one side of the political aisle or the other. Not that the idea of a conservative or liberal judge necessarily translates into opposite rulings. Agreement and common ground can be reached, however difficult the exercise might be. Justice should, at the very least, be seen to be done.
The current crop, however, shows little in the way of identifying, let alone reaching common ground. Firm lines, even yawning chasms, have grown. The latest decision on presidential immunity from criminal prosecution is one such case. On July 1, the majority of the court held by six to three that a US president, including former occupants of the office, “may not be prosecuted for exercising his core constitutional powers, and he is entitled, to a minimum, to a presumptive immunity from prosecution for all his official acts.”
Throughout the sequence of decisions, which began before the trial judge, Tanya Chutkan, Donald Trump has argued that he should be immune from prosecution, notably regarding federal charges of subverting the results of the 2020 election. Those actions, he claims, formed part of his official duties. Furthermore, as he suffered no conviction or either impeachment, he could not be tried in a criminal court.
The decision offers a grocery basket of elastic terms that will delight future litigants. The total immunity, the decision states, covers “core constitutional powers”. The president, former or sitting, further had “presumptive immunity from criminal prosecution” regarding all discharged official acts as a function of the separation of powers. Falling for giddying circularity, the majority opinion goes on to remark that the immunity “extends to the outer perimeter of the President’s official responsibilities, covering actions so long as they are not manifestly or palpably beyond his authority.” It does not, however, extend to “unofficial acts” or “unofficial conduct”.
The majority was also of the view that no court should inquire into the President’s motives when distinguishing official from official conduct. “Such an enquiry would risk exposing even the most obvious instances of official conduct to judicial examination on the mere allegation of improper purpose, thereby intruding on the Article II interests that immunity seeks to protect.” This shielding does have a remarkable effect, granting the president uncomfortably wide powers regarding decisions that can involve breaching the very laws the office is intended to protect.
The decision magnifies the scope of presidential power. One might say it invests that power with imperial, distinctly anti-republican attributes. For decades, it had been assumed that presidents would be spared civil suits to, in the words of the majority, “undertake his constitutionally designated functions effectively, free from undue pressures or distortions.” To take the immunity to cover breaches of laws the executive is bound to be faithful in executing is a quite different creature. To suggest that would be to echo, as indeed US District Court Judge Chutkan opined in December 2023, of a “divine right of kings to evade criminal responsibility.”
The three liberal justices violently disagreed with the majority in a judgment authored by Justice Sonia Sotomayor. “Today’s decision to grant former Presidents criminal immunity reshapes the institution of the Presidency. It makes a mockery of the principle, foundational to our Constitution and system of Government, that no man is above the law.” The dissent excoriates, not merely the reasoning of the court but the man whose actions it will benefit. “Because our Constitution does not shield a former President from answering for criminal and treasonous acts, I dissent.”
According to the lashing words of Sotomayor, the majority had invented “an atextual, ahistorical, and unjustifiable immunity that puts the President above the law.” From the outset, it was unnecessary to make any finding on absolute immunity on the exercise of “core constitutional powers” given the facts outlined in the indictment. This was further “eclipsed” by the decision “to create expansive immunity for all ‘official act[s]’.” Whatever the terminology used – presumptive or absolute – “under the majority’s rule, a President’s use of any official power for any purpose, even the most corrupt, is immune from prosecution.”
With withering ire, Sotomayor also thought it “nonsensical” that “evidence concerning acts for which the President is immune can play no role in any criminal prosecution against him”. It would make it impossible for the government to use the President’s official acts to prove knowledge or show intent in prosecuting private offences.
Despite the broad sweep of the judgment regarding immunity, there are pressing questions on whether Trump’s own conduct regarding claims of election subversion would fall within the ambit of the ruling. The multiple lawsuits filed challenging the 2020 election result were peppered with admissions on his part that he was doing so in the personal capacity of a candidate rather than that of an office holder performing official functions. Since then, he has had a change of heart, taking the rather primitive view articulated by that other advocate of an imperial executive, President Richard Nixon, who claimed that, “When the president does it, that means that it is not illegal.”
The Supreme Court has remanded the questions on whether absolute immunity applies to such acts as pressuring state election officials and conduct around the events of January 6 to the lower courts. But the consequences of the decision have been immediate in the context of the hush money case, for which Trump was found guilty of 34 felony counts of falsifying business records. His lawyers have already asked that the July 11 sentencing be delayed while also applying to set aside the conviction. Thus, do shadowy motives, personal conduct and the official blur.
Much ink, resources and litigation, is bound to be expended over the next few years over what falls within official, as opposed to unofficial acts, that attach to the office of the US president. Along the way, a few laws may well be broken. With a delicious sense of irony, the Supreme Court ruling will also shield President Joe Biden from vengeful prosecutions planned by Trump and his courtiers. The law can, every so often, be fantastically double-edged.
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Dr. Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge. He currently lectures at RMIT University. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG). Email: [email protected]
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Everyone’s acting shocked and outraged at the Supreme Court ruling that Donald Trump and other former presidents are largely immune from criminal prosecution, as though presidents getting prosecuted for their crimes is something that’s been happening this entire time.
It’s like oh wow you’re saying powerful people won’t have to abide by the same rules as normal people in America anymore?
Guess they’ll have to release all those former US presidents who’ve been imprisoned for their war crimes and crimes against humanity now. Thanks a lot, Supreme Court.
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Those obvious dementia symptoms are not dementia symptoms.
That obvious genocide is not genocide.
Those obvious war crimes are not war crimes.
Those obvious NATO provocations are not provocations.
This obvious dystopia is not a dystopia.
This obvious propaganda is not propaganda.
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It’s hilarious how the liberal commentariat is freaking out not because their president is a dementia patient but because they’re not sure if a dementia patient can win an election.
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I’m still getting liberals doing the “ARE YOU A DOCTOR??” thing when I make the observation that Biden plainly has dementia. No I’m not a doctor, I’m just not blind. That thing we’re all seeing when we look at Joe Biden, that’s what normal people mean when they use the word dementia.
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Person who lives in the hub of the US empire while it murders, starves and abuses people all around the world: “If Donald Trump wins, America might become a tyrannical force for evil!”
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Zionists in the 19th and 20th century: Yeeehaw! We’re gonna colonize Palestine just like the colonialists in Australia and the Americas!
Zionists today: It’s antisemitic to call Israel a colonialist project; it’s actually ANTI-colonialist because Jews are indigenous to Israel.
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Palestinian mother: [watches her entire family killed by US-supplied bombs and starved by a US-backed blockade]
Western liberals: Ma’am what you fail to understand is that what you are seeing is actually a lot more complicated than it looks. Stop crying, do you want Trump to win?
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Israel is a material manifestation of an argument the west has been having with itself for generations, between its older genocidal settler-colonialist values and its purported values of modern times. Between the values of justice and egalitarianism we’re taught to value in school, and the fact that the west is still a savage and murderous civilization that hasn’t transcended its barbarity in the way it thinks it has.
The reason Israel has remained in this half-in, half-out state of ethnic cleansing with regard to the Palestinians is largely because the western backers upon whom Israel’s existence depends won’t fully get behind a 19th century-style extermination program to purge the land of an inconvenient population. Because the west remains a psychopathic and bloodthirsty civilization it still supports mountains of Israeli depravity, but because of the values it claims to uphold it also lacks the public consensus to go all-in on a final solution to the Palestinian question.
So until now Israel has remained in a kind of stasis, with Palestinians existing in this odd half-purged condition and continuing to resist as any population would under such circumstances. And now we’re at the point where the west is basically being told, “Either shit or get off the pot.” Either commit to the full-blown elimination of the Palestinians via genocide or ethnic cleansing, or change course and actually start standing by the values you claim to stand by for the first time in your miserable existence. Either commit to the savagery of your genocidal past, or commit to a real civilizational transformation.
Gaza is asking us a very important question about ourselves. Our answer will set the course for the future of our entire world.
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Gazan journalist Bisan Owda, currently trapped in Gaza like so many others, reports that “there are no places for people… no places to go to”.
It is a game of “death and hunger” she says, and it has been so for nine months.
The terrorists, she explains, are wearing soldier uniforms. They behead children, they blow up homes with people in them.
She correctly blames ”silent spectators” to this Western/Zionist perpetrated genocide, and says “they will have their turn.”
Zionists have been committing genocide against Palestinian civilians, for 265 days, she says. The Israeli army has evacuated the northern part of the Gazan strip, using starvation, famine, and military operations to achieve their goals.
Zionists bomb homes, businesses, buildings and tents, killing and maiming untold numbers of civilians.
This is “genocide by design,” explains author and human rights lawyer Dan Kovalik, on a Telegram post.
“Reuters just reported exactly what kind of bombs the U.S. has been sending Israel.
Biden sent 14,000 two thousand pound bombs – more than all other types combined.
These bombs destroy whole city blocks.
The destruction of Gaza is intentional…”
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Mark Taliano is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG) and the author of Voices from Syria, Global Research Publishers, 2017. He writes on his website where this article was originally published.
Featured image is from UNRWA
Order Mark Taliano’s Book “Voices from Syria” directly from Global Research.
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Fearmongering around bird flu mirrors COVID-19 responses, with calls for testing, social distancing, and vaccination in the agricultural sector. New RFID tagging requirements for dairy cows represent potential government overreach, aimed at increased animal tracking and control
Development of mRNA vaccines for bird flu in both humans and animals raises concerns about potential mandatory vaccinations and their impact on the food supply
FDA warnings against raw milk consumption lack evidence of foodborne transmission of bird flu to humans and may serve to protect industrial dairy interests. The centralization of the food system has led to a 72% decrease in small farms over the last 90 years, emphasizing the need to support small-scale farmers directly
The H5N1 virus may have origins in gain-of-function research, potentially emerging from a lab rather than occurring naturally in wild birds
Mass culling of poultry in response to outbreaks has led to over 92 million chickens being slaughtered since 2022, often using inhumane methods
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Let the fearmongering begin (again)! Propaganda efforts are making people believe humans can die from the bird flu and that we must “do our part” in preventing the next global pandemic. Wear masks, social distance, sanitize everything, get tested, get vaccinated … It’s kind of like “COVID-19,” but now in dairy cows!
Similar to “wear masks, stay home, practice social distancing and sanitize everything,” the United States Department of Agriculture is now encouraging farmers to regularly test animals, test the milk weekly, register livestock, step up the use of personal protective equipment, limit traffic onto their farms, and increase cleaning and disinfection practices.
“The most important step we can take today is biosecurity. I am calling on producers to use our resources to enhance their biosecurity measures and states and producers to opt in to our support programs and herd monitoring programs, which are designed to limit the spread of this disease in dairy cattle.” — Secretary of the USDA Tom Vilsack.
Image from www.desmoinesregister.com. Article written by the secretary of the USDA (Tom Vilsack), spreading the message that it is up to the farmers to comply to biosecurity methods to stop the spread.
Similar to “toilet paper shortages,” now there are limitations on number of egg cartons purchased at some stores in Australia as bird flu spreads rapidly across large poultry farms. (Are meat and dairy products next?)
Figure: Coles is one of the two largest supermarket chains in Australia.
Similar to summer event cancellations in 2020 and 2021, state fairs and livestock events are requiring testing1 and some are even being canceled this summer due to the bird flu.2
What’s next?
Lock downs of cows and chickens inside barns to reduce the spread?
Mandatory avian influenza testing?
Mandatory mRNA vaccination of all livestock to “solve the problem?”
Force farm employees to wear personal protective equipment (PPE)?
This is all a little déjà vu, isn’t it? Can you believe they are trying this again? And all of this may be obvious to you, but when you tune into any mainstream media account right now, people ARE buying it! And there is a massive amount of fearmongering and discussions on “why we should be concerned,” “what to do to prevent a spread.”
For example, Dr. Sanjay Gupta on CNN produced an “Are We Prepared for Bird Flu” fearmongering special.3 The CDC is now predicting that the next pandemic will be from the bird flu.
“Once the virus gains the ability to attach to the human receptor and then go human to human, that’s when you’re going to have the pandemic … I think it’s just a matter of time.” — Dr. Redfield, former CDC director.
News agencies from across the country are saying the exact same thing. So, is that really “news?” Or has it become propaganda again? Reporting what they want us to hear to spread fear. So in this article, let’s discuss how this bird flu “pandemic” is an attempt to obtain complete control of the food system.
“Who controls the food supply controls the people.” — Henry Kissinger
I will also touch on what YOU can do to help stop spread the fearmongering — helping others better understand why these types of events are occurring can hopefully help prevent people from falling for this. (AGAIN!)
What Is ‘Bird Flu’
According to According to the World Health Organization (WHO), “H5N1 is one of several influenza viruses that causes a highly infectious respiratory disease in birds called avian influenza (or ‘bird flu’).” The “bird flu” is not new — it is something agriculture has dealt with for a long time. The CDC actually outlines the history of Avian Influenza from 1880 — 2024 here.
Dr. Mercola wrote about this in 2006 in his book “The Great Bird Flu Hoax:” “The U.S. government is now practically screaming that a new avian super-flu will likely kill millions of Americans. The mainstream media is entirely onboard, as are drug companies and other corporations poised to benefit immensely off the paranoia. But there is NO coming bird flu pandemic.
It’s an elaborate scheme contrived by the government and big business for reasons that boil down to power and money.” Are they really trying this again?
GOF Origins?
While I do not think humans should be concerned, there is no denying that H5N1 can cause problems for birds. Many people say that H5N1 comes from wild birds — but is Nature really something we should be fearing or trying to separate ourselves from? Where did the strain come from and why is it so problematic? Are there other origins?
Gain-of-function (GOF) research seeks to alter the functional characteristics of a virus to “help” public health experts better understand how viruses can spread and better plan for future pandemics.
In 2010, there was controversial GOF research on avian flu viruses where strains of the H5N1 bird flu viruses were intentionally made to be transmissible via respiratory droplets among ferrets. These studies were funded by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) under Dr. Anthony Fauci. Bill Gates has also funded gain-of-function research on H5N1.4
In 2011, the scientists reported that they were successful in modifying the avian H5N1 virus so that it was transmissible between mammals, making the entire situation riskier for humans.5
After being put on pause for a period of time, federal funding for these controversial research projects quietly resumed in 2019.6 And GOF critics have repeatedly discussed the human risks if the virus escaped (or released) from a lab.
Did the current H5N1 strain come from a lab? Were migrating birds infected, which then traveled across the world and country infecting a number of poultry and livestock facilities around the world? There are individuals investigating potential lab origins of HPAI through gain of function research.7
“Genetic analysis indicates that genotype B3.13 emerged in 2024 and exhibits genetic links to genotype B1.2, which was identified to have originated in Georgia in January 2022 after the start of serial passage research with H5Nx clade 2.3.4.4 in mallard ducks at the USDA Southeast Poultry Research Laboratory (SEPRL) in Athens, Georgia in April 2021.”
Us humans will NEVER win the war against Mother Nature, as She will ALWAYS outsmart us. Image from www.theatlantic.com
Unfortunately, there is now troubling censorship that was recently instated to better control the narrative. Robert Malone reported that in June of this year, amendments to the WHO IHR (International Health Regulations) were illegally approved and prepared behind closed doors.8
“Although the ‘Article 55’ rules and regulations for amending the IHR explicitly require that ‘the text of any proposed amendment shall be communicated to all States Parties by the Director-General at least four months before the Health Assembly at which it is proposed for consideration,’ the requirement of four months for review was disregarded in a rush to produce some tangible deliverable from the Assembly …
The IHR amendments retain troubling language regarding censorship. These provisions have been buried in Annex 1,A.2.c., which requires State Parties to ‘develop, strengthen and maintain core capacities … in relation to … surveillance … and risk communication, including addressing misinformation and disinformation.'”9
Now Cows and Humans Get Bird Flu
But the bird flu now involves more than just birds … this year marks the first “bird to cow” and “cow to human” transmission.
A multi-state outbreak of H5N1 bird flu in dairy cows was first reported on March 25, 2024. And according to the CDC, there are now 12 states with outbreaks in dairy cows with a total of 126 dairy herds affected.10
According to the Ohio Department of Agriculture, however, most sick cows recover within a few days.
The first reported human case in the US was a dairy farmer in Texas who developed pinkeye earlier this year. “Swab testing” was used to determine this dairy farmer had the same strain of bird flu, H5N1, that is supposedly circulating in dairy cows.
Altogether, there have been four human cases in the U.S., and none involved person-to-person spread — all were infected after exposure to animals presumed to have bird flu. With the goal of spreading fear, the World Health Organization reported that the first human has died from the avian influenza in Mexico on April 24th.
A few important details they do not include in headlines is that this individual had many pre-existing conditions, had no exposure to poultry or other animals, and was bedridden for three weeks prior to the onset of avian flu symptoms.
This accusation by WHO that this man died from the bird flu was denied by the Mexican Health Secretary Jorge Alcocer.11 Jorge Alcocer said the 59-year-old man died from other causes, mainly kidney and respiratory failure, NOT the bird flu.
“I can point out that the statement made by the World Health Organization is pretty bad, since it speaks of a fatal case (of bird flu), which was not the case.” — Jorge Alcocer
While the individual who died may have tested positive for H5N2, the current “fear” in the U.S. is the spread of the H5N1 strain in dairy cows. In 2008, scientists documented how testing positive for H5N2 may just be a result of seasonal flu vaccines or antiviral medications.
“A history of seasonal influenza vaccination might be associated with H5N2-neutralizing antibody positivity.12 These results suggest that the administration of Tamiflu (an antiviral) may affect the results of HI tests for H5N2 virus.”13
Again, doesn’t all of this sound so familiar? Pre-existing conditions, false positive faulty testing, fear, misinformation …
False Testing
Just like with COVID, government agencies are relying on PCR tests as they ramp up testing for bird flu. But PCR tests are extremely inaccurate and lead to significant levels of false positives.14
PCR testing works by replicating tiny fragments of DNA or RNA until they become large enough to identify. The fragments are replicated in cycles, and each cycle doubles the amount of genetic material in the sample. The number of cycles required to create an identifiable sample is the “cycle threshold” (CT). A high CT means many cycles were required to “detect” a virus.
“A persistent sticking point with the PCR test is that it picks up dead viral debris, and by excessively magnifying those particles with CTs in the 40s, noninfectious individuals are labeled as infectious and told to self-isolate.
In short, media and public health officials have conflated ‘cases’ — positive tests — with the actual illness.” — Dr. Mercola, written about PCR testing with COVID. But now we this can be applied to the current bird flu situation.
In December 2020, even the WHO warned that using a high CT would lead to false-positive results. Moreover, Kary Mullis, who won the Nobel Prize for inventing the PCR test, has said it is inappropriate to use the test as a diagnostic tool to detect a viral infection.15
Yet the government is mass producing and encouraging PCR testing with no reporting on CTs. A big part of the CDCs new $93 million plan to reduce the impact of bird flu involves testing.16 The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) did not respond to “The Defender’s” inquiry about which CTs are used to test animals for bird flu.17
False positives can help them spread fear, encourage vaccinations, and mandate the mass killing of cattle herds of chicken flocks.
Proposed Solutions
Former CDC Director Tom Frieden, outlined how he thinks the US should respond:18
1) Rapid response — Test, isolate, cull livestock
2) Trust the government and comply, with this type of messaging — “It’s up to our farmers to comply and report testing”
3) Coordination amongst state and federal agencies to monitor more farms
The USDA requires that infected farms depopulate (kill) their flocks to better contain the virus and stop the spread. “The virus, however, is fatal to birds, and state and federal officials require all poultry in infected flocks to be killed to prevent its spread.”19 These mass killings (or “depopulations”) are paid for with public dollars through a USDA Program.20
On June 25, the Feds have paid Michigan farms $81 million to recoup the loss of having to cull millions of birds.21 More than $73 million of that $81 million was provided to the state’s largest egg producer, Herbruck’s Poultry Ranch. Nearly 6.5 million chickens (more than 40% of the state’s egg layers) were depopulated in early 2024.
Roughly $1 billion has been paid out nationwide since the highly pathogenic avian influenza, H5N1, started spreading in January 2022. Nationwide, large corporate egg producers have received some of the biggest payments to cover the cost of culling their flocks. For example, Jennie-O was provided $105 million, Tyson Foods was provided $29 million, and Cal-Main Foods $22 million.22
More than 92 million chickens have been slaughtered since the recent outbreak began in 2022. And in June of this year, 4.2 million birds were killed at a farm in Sioux County, Iowa. (Why were there 4.2 million chickens at a single farm?)
Corporations are compensated for the mass killings despite the utilization of inhumane depopulation methods that are not approved by animal welfare organizations. More than 80% of the mass culling here in the US use VSD+ (ventilation shut down plus), which is a cheaper option and is banned in other countries. Air is closed off to the barns and heat is pumped in until the temps rise above 104 °F, essentially cooking the birds alive.
In a mass killing of 5 million birds in March 2022 at Remembrandt Foods, some employees reported that it took about a month to pull the dead poultry from the cages and dump them into carts before piling the birds into nearby fields and buried in huge pits.
Is the massacre of millions of birds really the best way to handle this situation? (It isn’t working, as “avian flu” outbreaks continue to pop up!) What if flocks are massacred due to a single false positive test? What about the concept of “natural immunity?”
The “cull the whole flock with one positive test” approach of approach will just lead to a reduction in the nation’s food supply (or even food shortages) and will lead to even more centralization and regulation in the food supply that is getting worse each year.
Dairy Cow Tracking
The USDA used the H5N1 fearmongering to push a ruling through on April 26th of this year that RFID ear tags are now required for dairy cattle for an “efficient animal disease traceability system.”
Or … is it a way to monitor, track and control the total number of and movement of dairy cows? A way to keep records of mRNA vaccinations, pharmaceuticals and other protocols to maintain in control?
RFID (radio-frequency identification) tagging involves small devices that use radio frequencies to transfer data, mainly to track and identify objects, animals and people.
R-CALF USA is speaking out against this new ruling: “[T]he beneficiaries of this rule are not cattle producers or consumers. Instead, this rule is intended to benefit multinational beef packers and multinational ear tag manufacturers who will profit at the expense of cattle producers and consumers.
In fact, because the rule is cost-prohibitive for independent cattle producers, the agency is using millions of taxpayer dollars to give millions of their unnecessary EID ear tags away … We will fight against the implementation of this disastrous rule that infringes on the freedoms and liberties of our nation’s independent cattle farmers and ranchers. This is government overreach at its worst.” — R-CALF CEO Bill Bullard.
Vaccines
The CDC still says, “the human health risk assessment remains low,” yet there is extensive vaccine development.
Finland is now the first country to roll out the experimental bird flu vaccine and purchased vaccines for 10,000 people in mid-June,23 from manufacturer CSL Seqirus. This first round is intended for those “most at risk,” including farm workers and veterinarians. This purchase is part of the 40 million vaccine deal the EU has secured with CSL Seqirus.
This “Zoonotic Influenza vaccine Seqirus” (a two-dose vaccine, given 3 weeks apart) was authorized by European regulators based on immunogenicity studies showing that it elicited immune responses that scientists THINK would be protective against avian influenza.24 (How is “we think so” enough?)
The flu vaccine is traditionally made with eggs, and this has scientists worried. “A majority of the approved vaccines are created by incubating doses in chicken eggs, but the [bird flu’s] rate of fatality among poultry poses an issue for these vaccines.”25 So, many manufacturers are shifting towards more mRNA vaccine development.
“The bird flu outbreak in U.S. dairy cows is prompting development of new, next-generation mRNA vaccines — akin to COVID-19 shots — that are being tested in both animals and people.”26
The University of Pennsylvania is developing an mRNA vaccines for the bird flu using the same techniques that produced the COVID vaccines. According to a May 28th report from the Global Center for Health Security, “[a]n experimental mRNA vaccine against the H5N1 avian flu is highly effective in preventing severe illness and death in lab animals, researchers report.”27
Moderna and Pfizer are also competing for federal contracts to build a national stockpile of mRNA vaccines targeted toward the new bird flu.28
24 different companies are working towards the development of a bird flu vaccine for cows.29Mandatory chicken and dairy cow mRNA vaccinations would then mean we are exposed to mRNA vaccines through our food.
We definitely do not need more vaccines, as more and more studies are coming out documenting that health complications skyrocketed shortly after the Covid vaccinations were released in 2020.30,31,32 From Dr. Joseph Sansone:
“Dr. Francis Boyle, the Harvard educated law professor that drafted the 1989 Biological Weapons and Antiterrorism Act, which passed both houses of Congress unanimously, provided an affidavit stating that Covid 19 injections and mRNA nanoparticle injections violate the law he wrote.
Dr. Boyle asserted that ‘COVID 19 injections,’ ‘COVID 19 nanoparticle injections,’ and ‘mRNA nanoparticle injections’ are biological weapons and weapons of mass destruction and violate Biological Weapons 18 USC § 175; Weapons and Firearms § 790.166 Fla. Stat. (2023).”33
War on Raw Milk
There also seems to be a war on raw milk amidst all this fearmongering. The FDA is now encouraging states to discourage and stop sales of raw milk to prevent human bird flu spread.34 If you tune into various news reports from across the country, the message is similar:
“Eggs and pasteurized milk and dairy products from the store are safe to consume. But the FDA warns against the consumption of raw milk.”
The suggestion to avoid raw milk is listed twice on the list of CDC recommendations:
People should avoid exposures to sick or dead animals, including wild birds, poultry, other domesticated birds, and other wild or domesticated animals (including cows), if possible.
People should also avoid exposures to animal poop, bedding (litter), unpasteurized (“raw”) milk, or materials that have been touched by, or close to, birds or other animals with suspected or confirmed A(H5N1) virus, if possible.
People should not drink raw milk. Pasteurization kills A(H5N1) viruses, and pasteurized milk is safe to drink.
People who have job-related contact with infected or potentially infected birds or other animals should be aware of the risk of exposure to avian influenza viruses and should take proper precautions. People should wear appropriate and recommended personal protective equipment when exposed to an infected or potentially infected animal(s). CDC has recommendations for worker protection and use of personal protective equipment (PPE).
There is no evidence supporting foodborne transmission of HPAI to humans. In fact, the FDA and USDA concluded in 2010 that “HPAIV is not considered to be a foodborne pathogen.”35 HPAI in humans is linked to transmission via animal contact, not by foods.36
The only demonstrated transmission is direct contact with animals — not a single human has developed bird flu from milk.
“Recent risk communications from CDC, FDA, and USDA regarding transmission of influenza A sub-type H5N1 (highly pathogenic avian influenza virus or HPAI) to humans via raw milk include no supporting evidence of viral transmission from raw milk to humans in the peer-reviewed literature …
An extensive body of scientific evidence from the peer-reviewed literature introduced herein does not support the assumption by these US government agencies that HPAI transmits to humans via milkborne or foodborne routes and causes disease. Nor does the scientific evidence support the recommendation that consumers should avoid raw milk and raw milk products.”37
And something that the FDA really doesn’t want you to know is that there is no guarantee that pasteurization truly kills the virus.
When explaining why raw milk is not safe, many government agencies use this study with mice, saying heat treatment to the milk significantly reduces the HPAI virus titers. But the conclusion of the study is very, very important “bench-top experiments do not recapitulate commercial pasteurization processes.”
Enter this study that the FDA and mainstream media isn’t talking about which demonstrates that standard pasteurization protocols in the US for milk isn’t enough to actually inactivate the virus since this virus seems to handle heat surprisingly well.
And on top of that, raw milk has a number of antiviral properties and pasteurized milk does not contain.38
The “pasteurized milk at the store is safe, and raw milk is very unsafe and is filled with bird flu” messaging encourages consumers to continue supporting these MEGA CAFO dairy farmers, and discourages consumers from supporting smaller dairy farms raising cows in synchronicity with Mother Nature.
So no, avoiding raw milk won’t stop human spread. But it will encourage more of a centralized food system.
The FDA’s messaging to avoid consumption of raw milk and raw milk products do not appear to be based on scientific evidence, but instead seem to be stemming from the desire to protect the centralized dairy industry.
FDA and USDA will never do anything to compromise the dairy industry, as the dairy industry spends millions of dollars on lobbying each year to keep control.
Confinement Operations Aren’t Working
With the repeated “outbreaks” occurring in poultry flocks year after year, isn’t it obvious that the current industrial agriculture system IS NOT working?
Why aren’t government agencies discussing how diseases easily spread when animals are stuffed in buildings, overcrowded and locked in confinement? Can you imagine if you were stuffed into a home with thousands of people — wouldn’t it be hard not to get sick?
In CAFOs, animals are often regularly on antibiotics due to the close living conditions. Can a body with a wiped-out gut microbiome handle any amount of disease?
Mega confinement barns, extreme biosecurity, separation from nature, vaccinations and antibiotics — it doesn’t work! But it does help them maintain food control and is a profitable business model for big ag, big pharma, and big food companies.
The development of a vaccine and culling birds is much more profitable path for addressing bird flu relative to the natural immunity path.
What You Can Do
The solution is clear — stop supporting their system. Buy from farmers. Remember, the messaging and fearmongering around the bird flu is intentional, with the goal of developing even more food control. Everything through their centralized food system is “safe” — so you can trust the food at grocery stores is safe from HPAI. (So they say …)
Instead, the messaging should be “know where your food comes from, know your farmer and know how the animals are raised.” This discussion on food sourcing and knowing your food comes from is not profitable for industrial ag because they get $0 from that sale, so it isn’t brought up.
The centralization of the food system and shift in farming styles has been somewhat successful in benefiting the big corporations and maintaining food control, while hurting farmers. The size of farms has increased, while the number of farms has shrunk (opposite of what we want for low toxin, nutrient-dense food production.)
In fact, the number of small farms has decreased by over 72% in the last 90 years — in 1935 there were 6.8 million farms, and in 2023 there were 1.89 million farms.
“It is very hard as a farmer to be profitable in the conventional system, so more and more farms are going out of business. And many farms that are in business require an off the farm job to pay the bills.”
We are losing small scale farmers more and more each year, and they need your support to stay in business!
Moral of the story — whenever you can, buy directly from farmers, Cooperatives, or buyers’ clubs — these type of food systems support small-scale, toxin free farming. The prices may be more expensive, but farmers are paid a fair wage and produce higher quality food products.
Plus, with these type of transactions, the big agriculture companies get $0 of this sale, funneling less money into their system. And on top of that, remain grounded and maintain common sense as we head into the next round of bird flu fearmongering.
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Ashley Armstrong is the cofounder of Angel Acres Egg Co., which specializes in low-PUFA (polyunsaturated fat) eggs that are shipped to all 50 states (join waitlist here), and Nourish Cooperative, which ships low-PUFA pork, beef, cheese, A2 dairy and traditional sourdough to all 50 states. Waitlists will reopen shortly.
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Well well well, two of the most senior oncologists in the world this week shared their alarming findings with the experimental COVID gene therapies.
First, we have Prof. Fukushima, and now Prof Angus Dalgleish has reiterated his call to ban all mRNA vaccinations immediately in a forum with Senator Ron Johnson on April 26, 2024. [SOURCE]
Throw Professor Gabriel Oon in there too, Singapore’s most senior oncologist and founding President of Singapore’s Society of Oncology, who has been warning about the dangers of mRNA tech for some time now.
Could it be that these eminent oncologists from different parts of the world suddenly stopped supporting experimental vaccines and together started saying no to mRNA gene therapy as if they planned it? Let’s get to the heart of it: what these three vocal critics have in common is that they’re retired. This means they don’t have to worry about losing their jobs or money for speaking up. But there are many others still working who keep quiet because they’re afraid of risking their jobs.
So, here comes Prof Angus Dalgleish. He’s not just any doctor making noise online; he’s a major player in the health field, the genius behind the discovery of the CD4 receptor, and now the head of The Institute of Cancer Vaccines and Immunotherapy. Discovering the CD4 receptor is a massive deal because it’s like finding the secret entrance that the HIV virus uses to invade the body’s cells, causing AIDS. Prof Dalgleish’s discovery has led to breakthroughs in medicine, allowing us to create treatments that lock this entrance and keep the virus out. Because of his work, we’ve been able to give people fighting HIV a fighting chance. That’s why Prof Dalgleish is such a big name in the battle against HIV/AIDS.
Regarding the mRNA gene therapy, Prof. Dalgleish didn’t just talk about the bad stuff linked to spike proteins, like blood clotting and the scary Guillain-Barre syndrome. He went even further, sharing stories about his patients. These were people who had been doing well in their fight against cancer, but after getting the booster shot, they faced big setbacks. Their cancer came back worse than before.
“I started to see in my melanoma clinic patients who’d been stable for years, who suddenly came in, relapsed. Sometimes the relapse was quite vicious. I mean, they had very bad disease. We had to treat them all over again,” he said.
This shows how tough things got for them after the booster.
On top of that, Prof Angus Dalgleish watched three of his friends get the booster shot because they wanted to travel after being trapped at home for two to three years. Tragically, all three of them saw their cancer come back. Even worse, two of them died because the cancer didn’t respond to the treatments that usually work. This heartbreaking experience is why Dalgleish has started to speak out so strongly. He calls the use of mRNA platform in infectious disease “a gross medical negligence… really, this criminal negligence now, knowing what we do.” If that’s not a mic drop moment, I don’t know what is.
But why are Dalgleish and his fellow big-shot cancer doctors the only ones speaking up loudly while others stay quiet? It’s simple. They can. Being retired means they don’t have to worry about losing their jobs for saying what they think is wrong with the vaccines. This freedom lets them talk openly about their concerns.
Dalgleish is echoing what his oncology colleagues are calling for: a complete stop to using all mRNA gene therapy. He thinks the booster shot, once praised during the pandemic, is actually causing more problems than it solves. So, what do we have here, folks? A trio of retired oncological rebels, wielding nothing but their knowledge and experience, standing up against an industry seemingly hell-bent on its own agenda. It’s a stark reminder of the price of silence and the value of speaking out, no matter how heavy the crown. Let the rallying cry of Prof Angus Dalgleish, Prof Fukushima, and Prof Gabriel Oon echo far and wide: It’s time to question, time to demand better, and, dare I say, time to listen to those no longer shackled by the golden handcuffs of job security.
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The Worldwide Corona Crisis, Global Coup d’Etat Against Humanity
by Michel Chossudovsky
Michel Chossudovsky reviews in detail how this insidious project “destroys people’s lives”. He provides a comprehensive analysis of everything you need to know about the “pandemic” — from the medical dimensions to the economic and social repercussions, political underpinnings, and mental and psychological impacts.
“My objective as an author is to inform people worldwide and refute the official narrative which has been used as a justification to destabilize the economic and social fabric of entire countries, followed by the imposition of the “deadly” COVID-19 “vaccine”. This crisis affects humanity in its entirety: almost 8 billion people. We stand in solidarity with our fellow human beings and our children worldwide. Truth is a powerful instrument.”
Reviews
This is an in-depth resource of great interest if it is the wider perspective you are motivated to understand a little better, the author is very knowledgeable about geopolitics and this comes out in the way Covid is contextualized. —Dr. Mike Yeadon
In this war against humanity in which we find ourselves, in this singular, irregular and massive assault against liberty and the goodness of people, Chossudovsky’s book is a rock upon which to sustain our fight. –Dr. Emanuel Garcia
In fifteen concise science-based chapters, Michel traces the false covid pandemic, explaining how a PCR test, producing up to 97% proven false positives, combined with a relentless 24/7 fear campaign, was able to create a worldwide panic-laden “plandemic”; that this plandemic would never have been possible without the infamous DNA-modifying Polymerase Chain Reaction test – which to this day is being pushed on a majority of innocent people who have no clue. His conclusions are evidenced by renown scientists. —Peter Koenig
Professor Chossudovsky exposes the truth that “there is no causal relationship between the virus and economic variables.” In other words, it was not COVID-19 but, rather, the deliberate implementation of the illogical, scientifically baseless lockdowns that caused the shutdown of the global economy. –David Skripac
A reading of Chossudovsky’s book provides a comprehensive lesson in how there is a global coup d’état under way called “The Great Reset” that if not resisted and defeated by freedom loving people everywhere will result in a dystopian future not yet imagined. Pass on this free gift from Professor Chossudovsky before it’s too late. You will not find so much valuable information and analysis in one place. –Edward Curtin
ISBN: 978-0-9879389-3-0, Year: 2022, PDF Ebook, Pages: 164, 15 Chapters
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Back in 1999 few people seemed to notice what had happened to NATO. Under the leadership of President Clinton and Tony Blair, it converted itself from a very successful defensive alliance into an organisation with the self-awarded power of pro active interventions around the world on behalf of an undefined “international community”.
Its first target was Serbia which had been in the sights of the USA since the early nineties.
It was with a feeling of doom-laden deja-vu that I recently heard on the news that Croatian and Albanian football fans at the Euro competition had been chanting “Kill the Serbs!” There is an old Austrian saying “Im Balkan stirbt niemand” – Nobody dies in the Balkans (not of natural causes, that is). In 1999 people certainly were dying in Kosovo in fighting between the KLA (Kosovo Liberation Army) and Yugoslav federal forces.
Statistics from before the war suggested that an Albanian in Kosovo was about as likely to meet a violent death as an ordinary inhabitant of Washington DC at the same period whereas a Serb was several times more likely to come to an untimely end. Nonetheless this was adduced by the Americans as evidence of genocide by the Serbs. They also helped the KLA provide fake evidence of a mass execution at Racak. Bodies from fighting in the area were assembled to look like victims of a firing squad. The Western media accepted the tale eagerly without question. New Labour applied all its considerable powers of media manipulation to the project.
The massacre that never was constituted sufficient evidence for America-led NATO to present the ultimatum of Rambouillet which demanded free access for NATO troops to all of Yugoslavia for an unspecified period and a commitment to the eventual independence of Kosovo – or else they would bomb – and so they did. It is interesting to compare statements of the different leaders of fragmented Yugoslavia – some of whom were supported by the West as suitable promoters of civilised European values. Just have a guess from their words which leaders received the benison of American and Western approval, as well as arms and technical support.
(a) “Genocide is a natural phenomenon in keeping with the human-social and mythological divine nature. It is not only permitted but even recommended by the the Almighty for the spreading of the One True Faith”.
(b) “Protect brotherhood and unity….nationalism always means isolation from others, being locked in a closed circle and stopping growth. Emerge from a state of hatred, intolerance and distrust…”
(c) “There can be no peace or co-existence between the Islamic faith and non-Islamic institutions. The Islamic movement must and can take power as soon as it is morally strong enough, not only to destroy the non-Islamic power but to build a new Islamic one.”
Leader (a) was the clerico-fascist president of Croatia, Franjo Tudjman, who also said “Thank God my wife is neither a Jew nor a Serb”.
The initial quotation was from his magnum opus – his very own equivalent of Mein Kampf. He was strongly supported by the German Foreign Minister Hans Dietrich Genscher who triumphantly remarked of Croatia’s diplomatic recognition by the EU – “By this, Germany has regained diplomatically everything lost in Eastern Europe as a result of two world wars”. It opened the path to Germany’s new economic and political (and historical) Drang nach Osten.
Leader (b) was none other than the Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic, whom the British press dubbed “The Butcher of the Balkans”. He died in custody in suspicious circumstances [assassinated] before the international tribunal could pass verdict or sentence on him. Perhaps that was just as well for the West. He had been hitting prosecution witnesses for six for some time. The quotation was an appeal to the Political Correctness of the Tito era. In July 2016 the international court very quietly exonerated him post mortem from complicity in atrocities in Bosnia on page1303 of the very lengthy judgment against Radovan Karadzic . This was neither much mentioned nor noticed in British or Western media.
Leader (c) was Alia Izetbegovic, first president of Bosnia Hercegovina, armed by the USA and eulogised by Paddy Ashdown at his funeral as father of his people. Ashdown was the EU’s “High Representative” in Bosnia, effectively its Viceroy with total power. He approved that the Muslim war dead should be classified as “Shahid” – martyrs in the Jihad against the infidel Serbs.
So what were the objectives of the USA? In Sir Alfred Sherman’s paper “The Empire for the New Millennium?” he quoted the US Secretary of State, Madeleine Albright’s broad view –
“We are privileged to live in a country that, through most of this century, has chosen to lead. Today we are helping to shape events in every region in every corner of the world. We exercise this leadership not out of sentiment but out of necessity. We must mobilise every foreign policy tool from the simplest act of persuasion to the blunt instrument of force………We must work to sustain our prosperity by creating an ever-expanding global economy in which American genius and productivity receive their due…”
Not much concern for human rights and a “rules based order” there and a tone of arrogance which we have often heard from America before and since.
The attack on Yugoslavia coincided with the first expansion of NATO into Eastern Europe, contrary to assurances which had been given to Russia that they would not advance “an inch”! That action speaks as loudly and stridently as Madeleine Albright’s words.
Srdja Trifkovic wrote an Afterword to Sir Alfred’s paper entitled
“Why it’s not just the Balkans”. Twenty five years ago Trifkovic was writing presciently on matters with which we have since become all too familiar – the perversion of the very nature of the state, society and of the individual. He begins –
“The behaviour of the masters of the Western world abroad is an unsurprising extension of their behaviour at home. The gnostics who rule in Washington, to take the obvious example, are hell-bent on destroying all real communities in America and on eradicating the remains of its faith, tradition and culture ….all in the name of ideological concepts invoked to justify total control. All remnants of republican government at home and national sovereignty abroad, are to be subjugated to the Supreme Good of democracy, human rights and free markets.
Ideological assumptions that but two generations ago would have been deemed eccentric if not utterly insane, or even demonic, now rule the “mainstream”.
Trifkovic notes that the US Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott declared that the United States may not exist “in its current form” in the 21st century, because the very concept of nationhood – here and throughout the world – will have been rendered obsolete. It should be noted that Talbott’s was an exultant prophecy, not an impartial analyst’s assessment. Talbott wrote in Time magazine (July20 1992) that he is looking forward to a universal government run by “one global authority”.
Here is one optimist’s reason for believing unity will prevail….within the next hundred years …nationhood as we know it will be obsolete; all states will recognise a single global authority ..A phrase briefly fashionable in the mid twentieth century – “citizen of the world” will have assumed real meaning by the end of the 21st. century”…
Trifkovic then goes on to consider what is planned for humanity itself according to one Jon Huer, professor of sociology and philosophy at the University of Maryland.
“And now we come back to the Serbs. …Dr Huer noted that the bombing by Americans and human-shielding by Serbs were symbolic of two different worlds.
The high technology “of ultimate sophistication, so logical and so rational with little human involvement” is countered by the total disregard of logic and rationality”. Huer contends that this fact contrasts “two archetype societies, one future-oriented and the other past-oriented”. Americans believe in the powers of technology “and all that implies – reason, logic, practicality, solution-finding”. Serbs believe in the power of their destiny “powerful and so human”.
Americans are now entering a wholly different era of society and culture, one that the world has never seen before. It is what we might call the “Post Human Era” where all aspects of social life are streamlined and rationalized, and all shades of human relations and nuances simplified into manageable routines and procedures. In a Post-Human society, each individual is isolated from other individuals so that his or her self-calculation can be logically derived without distraction from other human beings.”
Dr Huer goes on:
“My historical hunch is that Americans are the future prototype humans, and Serbs an atavistic holdover from a bygone era. The Post-Human America will dominate the coming century…. elaborating popular culture, dominating economics and finances and continuing military hegemony the world over….. It would behoove the Serbs to recognize this inevitable development ..and join up with what will be, not what was or should be.”
So that was the future for us and the rest of the world, not just the Serbs, as seen twenty five years ago by an academic, one of what we would now call the global elite . It was obviously a view shared by many of our own political class who had forgotten the example of Vietnam. Very much more quickly, the Biden administration and its global hangers-on have forgotten their exemplary humiliation in Afghanistan. So, whilst Klaus Schwab of the World Economic Forum (to which our own British sovereign defers) is nurturing new generations of would-be “Young Global Leaders” to take us down this path, the world has changed .
The overwhelming ultimate sanction for the project, its final enforcer, that “blunt instrument of force”, so beloved of Madeleine Albright and the American dominant class, can still destroy the world but is no longer inevitably effective. Experiences in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and proxy wars in Syria and Ukraine demonstrate the fact.
Apart from economic dislocation and impoverishment, the main effect on Europe has been the arrival of hordes of immigrants – just such as the Americans are admitting at their own border. That is a process which the globalists in all the main parties have positively encouraged to weaken national cohesion – and democracy. It is not mere coincidence.
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The US Supreme Court has ruled that a president has immunity for official acts, but not for personal acts.
Which is which will be a contentious issue. For example, if a president were to have the CIA, FBI, or Secret Service murder a political rival that would be a personal act. But when President Obama had the US military murder a US citizen suspected of being a terrorist, it was an official act.
But was it?
The justification for the murder was suspicion alone, a bare-faced accusation unconfirmed by a trial and therefore in violation of due process.
Has it ever been established that it is an official act for a president to have a US citizen murdered without due process?
Perhaps it has happened secretly by the CIA but my impression is that President Obama’s murder of the Muslim religious leader who was an American citizen was the first public murder without due process and conviction delivering a death penalty.
Nothing was made of the murder because Americans had been indoctrinated with fear of Muslim terrorists and regarded the murder as an act of war.
When Vice President Biden bragged on TV that he forced by withholding billions of dollars in US aid from the Ukraine government unless it fired the prosecutor investigating the Ukrainian company that paid his son $50,000 a month as a director, was it an official act or a personal act? Why has there been no investigation of this self-serving use of presidential authority?
The Supreme Court majority emphasized that a president must have immunity for official acts or he can be stopped by lawsuits and politically motivated charges from performing his designated functions. In other words, the Court’s decision is based on elementary common sense.
If a president believes an election is fraudulent, it is his responsibility, and thereby an official act, for him to have the election verified. However, the Democrats and whore media defined the issue as “Trump overthrowing the election.” Even experts with the evidence in their hands were indicted for aiding and abetting Trump’s attempted overthrow of the election.
In other words, the criminal indictment brought against Trump assumed without justification that there was no evidence of election fraud.
As Trump had appointed a Justice Department and an entire government consisting of his enemies, his own government treated his official action as his private action.
A rally in support of Trump was mischaracterized by Democrats, whore media, and Republicans such as Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell as an “insurrection.”
What we should be disturbed about is the ability of the Democrats and the whore media to disrupt the 4-year term of a US president with a series of false charges that were never confirmed and then to use unconfirmed charges to indict a former president in an effort to prevent him from again running for president.
Prior to the Supreme Court’s ruling, the indictments against Trump were falling apart.
The biased “special counsel” prosecuting Trump was caught lying to the federal judge, who has put the case on hold. Fani Willis entrusted by the White House with Trump’s prosecution in Atlanta has been found to have given her lover $700,000 of taxpayers’ money with which he took Fani on vacations. Her case against Trump is also on hold.
In other words, the legal machinery the corrupt Democrats have employed against Trump is too corrupt to be able to do its assigned political assassination.
Now the Supreme Court knocks the props out from under the main charge orchestrated from the fake “insurrection” charge.The Supreme Court’s ruling makes it clear that the special council’s charges against Trump have no legal basis and should be dropped.
The response of Democrats is revealing. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor claims that “the President is now a king above the law.” Democrat US Representative Bennie Thompson, chairman of the January 6 Insurrection Committee, declared the US Supreme Court to be “lawless and corrupt.”
Why aren’t these charges from Sotomayor and Thompson applied to where they belong? Where were Sotomayor and Thompson when President Obama claimed the power of a king to assassinate a US citizen without due process of law? Where were they when President George W. Bush claimed the power of a feudal lord to detain suspects indefinitely without due process of law?
The collapse of American law from its basis in facts and reason into emotion has been underway for years.
No one seems to care.
Appointments to the federal courts no longer emphasize knowledge of law and commitment to law as a shield of the people. Instead, people are appointed according to whether a minority or woman is needed, whether inclusion requires a homosexual or a transgendered person. Law is no longer about justice. It is about “equity.” It is about disposing of challenges to official narratives. Law is now used to revolutionize the United States, to convert it into a tower of babel with no capability to constrain the ruling elites’ use of the country to further their own interests.
This is the issue that needs addressing. How can it be done?
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Paul Craig Roberts is a renowned author and academic, chairman of The Institute for Political Economy where this article was originally published. Dr. Roberts was previously associate editor and columnist for The Wall Street Journal. He was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy during the Reagan Administration. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.
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Germany continues its irrational “preparation for war” against Russia. Recent media reports indicate that the country’s military counterintelligence service is about to receive additional support to prepare itself against foreign threats in the event of a conflict with Russia. Berlin seems to be ready to take all possible steps towards an open war with Moscow, even though there is obviously no possibility of Germany being victorious in such a conflict.
According to the German newspaper Die Welt, the MAD is seeking to expand its operational capacity, not only in domestic territories but also abroad. The aim is to make the German armed forces capable of dealing with the challenges that a war scenario poses. The MAD plans to become capable of monitoring not only the activities of German soldiers – which is typical of counterintelligence services – but also spying on foreign and enemy troops.
“The amendment grants the Military Counterintelligence Service the necessary powers to protect the Bundeswehr against espionage and sabotage by foreign powers, as well as against extremist attempts at infiltration from within its own ranks, even during foreign missions,” a spokesperson for the German Ministry of Defense said during an official statement.
The agency plans to use both advanced technology and infiltrated personnel to obtain strategic information from foreign armed forces.
Die Welt reported that expanding MAD’s powers is currently a priority for the German Defense Ministry, which is betting on intelligence as an efficient tool to give Berlin a strategic advantage in the event of war. The Ministry’s plan is in line with Olaf Scholz’s policy of open enmity with the Russian Federation, being Moscow seen by Germany as a threat not only to national security but also to the stability of Europe as a whole.
A bill is about to be voted on to formalize the expansion of MAD’s powers. Given the high level of anti-Russian paranoia in Germany, it is highly likely that the bill will be approved. However, it must be remembered that the German government is extremely unpopular, having occurred a strong rise in the right wing during the recent elections. In practice, it is possible to say that anti-Russian measures have strong institutional support, but they do not please ordinary people, who want the country to follow a path of peace and stability.
Recently, the German authorities have established an action plan to maintain a kind of “war-ready brigade”, deploying around 5,000 German soldiers on NATO’s eastern flank. The Baltic countries, mainly Lithuania, are the main focus of action in this plan, given their geographical proximity to the Russian territory of Kaliningrad and the border with the Republic of Belarus. Germany believes in the baseless narrative that Russia plans to invade Poland and Lithuania in order to annex territories connecting Belarus to Kaliningrad, which is why Berlin is proposing to “closely monitor” the situation in the region.
It is expected that the new powers of the MAD will allow the German secret service to support NATO partners in this task of monitoring Russian actions. Currently, the MAD has extremely limited operational capabilities, as the agency is only legally allowed to operate within German military facilities. Berlin wants to change this scenario and allow actions abroad, as it sees the current situation with Russia as serious and dangerous, demanding reforms in German military law.
Obviously, every country has the right to change the structure of its intelligence system to improve national security. The problem is when these changes are motivated by unreal “threats” invented by US-backed foreign media. There is no Russian interest in promoting territorial expansion towards the Baltics. The recent territorial reintegration of some former Ukrainian oblasts does not mean that Russia has any expansionist plans. Moscow only accepted the desire of these regions to join the Federation because there was no other way to guarantee the security of the ethnic Russians living there, but there is no interest on Russia’s part in acquiring new territories in Western Europe.
Germany is simply preparing to face a fake threat.
Moreover, it is doing so in an amateurish and naive manner. It does not seem rational for a country to publicly announce its plan to expand its intelligence service and use spies abroad. Now, Germany’s “enemies” – which, in this specific case, are the Russians – have all the necessary information to also react through counterintelligence operations.
In practice, Berlin has neutralized its own intelligence potential, which shows how unprepared the country is to join any military initiative. The best for Germany is to focus on its own internal problems instead of seeking to wage unwinnable wars.
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This article was originally published on InfoBrics.
Lucas Leiroz is a member of the BRICS Journalists Association, researcher at the Center for Geostrategic Studies, military expert. He is a regular contributor to Global Research. You can follow Lucas on X (former Twitter) and Telegram.
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There was a “huge commotion” in the office of Volodymyr Zelensky due to the debate between US President Joe Biden and his Republican rival Donald Trump, said Verkhovna Rada (Parliament) deputy Oleksandr Dubinsky on his Telegram channel.
“The biggest commotion after the Trump-Biden debate is now not in the United States, but in Ukraine, in President Zelensky’s office,” said the parliamentarian.
In Dubinsky’s view, Kiev must now consider “what to do next.”
“Assessing the possibility of Trump’s victory, Zelensky (and if he doesn’t understand, then Yermak (Andrei Yermak, head of the presidential staff) must understand that he needs to end the conflict before the US elections,” he posted. “Because after that, he [Zelensky] could become a problem implementing the new president’s plans.”
At the same time, says the deputy, Zelensky could also become a problem for Biden if he is re-elected since he wants to restore Ukraine’s borders from 1991, when the country achieved independence from the Soviet Union.
“You can endlessly rely on the ‘borders of ‘91’, but it is obvious to everyone that without the support of the United States (and even the acting administration no longer supports), and given the heterogeneity of the European Union, this will be quickly ended,” he concluded.
American media agree that Biden performed poorly in the first debate with his predecessor on June 27 in Atlanta. The current American president stuttered and did not always clearly formulate his thoughts. After the event, a television camera captured the moment when Biden’s wife, Jill, helped him down the stairs. Now, politicians and journalists are talking about Democrats abandoning Biden as their candidate for office and replacing him with another candidate.
It is also recalled that in early June, Zelensky said Trump would become a “loser president” if he wins the election and agrees to end the conflict at Ukraine’s expense, something the billionaire has consistently promised to do if he is to win.
Since the start of the Russian special military operation in February 2022, Ukraine has received significant financial contributions to its budget. However, financial assistance from other countries to Ukraine will reach its lowest level in 2024. The US and its allies immediately began supplying Kiev with weapons, including heavy weapons, which exacerbated the conflict and increased the risk of a direct military confrontation between Russia and NATO countries.
The slowdown in financial aid to Ukraine shows that Western countries are becoming tired of being mired in the war,and although the Biden administration remains committed to prolonging the conflict, even if there is a silent acceptance that Russia has won, consistent US support is impossible, even if Trump is to lose the elections and is unable to immediately push forward his plan for peace.
Nonetheless, a Trump victory will see accelerated efforts towards peace, unlike a Biden victory, which will only seek peace when all possible resources have been exhausted.
Trump has consistently been leading in the polls, and this is only set to continue after Trump’s dominance in the debate. Given Biden’s poor performance, many analysts and even members of his own party are calling for him to be replaced as the Democratic Party candidate since the CNN debate took place before the closing date for nominations. Nonetheless, two names are being considered in his place: Vice President Kamala Harris and California Governor Gavin Newsom. The problem is that there is little time to build a new candidacy before November 5.
US foreign policy dominated the first part of the presidential debate, and the clash between both candidates focused on the type of confrontation with Russia. Biden took pride in having created a broad front of nations against the Russian Federation as punishment for its special operation, while Trump criticised the Democrat for having allowed the conflict, for financing Kiev, and for dragging the United States into the situation.
According to Trump, the war would not have happened under his watch. In fact, Trump had positive exchanges with Russian President Vladimir Putin when he was in the White House. There was a capacity for dialogue behind the curtain that is currently suspended because the Democratic Party is more interventionist and driven by its normative preaching.
Trump has a less interventionist stance, consistent with the Republican segment that the candidate represents. And due to this less interventionist stance, it is almost certain that the blind support that the Kiev regime received from the Biden administration will come to a halt if Trump is to be elected. Biden’s poor performance would have only elevated Trump’s popularity, which in turn, as Dubinsky pointed out, would have caused a “huge commotion” in Kiev as their only chance of survival rests with the Democrats.
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This article was originally published on InfoBrics.
Ahmed Adel is a Cairo-based geopolitics and political economy researcher. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.
The number of Ukrainian recruits who do not want to fight is proliferating despite the military facing a major manpower shortage, The Guardian reported. Although Ukraine has secured money and weapons from the West to aid in the war effort, at least for the next few months, manpower shortage is one issue that cannot be resolved.
Last night’s (June 27, 2024) debate between President Joe Biden and Presidential contender, Donald Trump, was according to most media-outlets a ridiculous disaster. President Biden appeared to be totally lost and maybe only partially aware on where he was and what he was doing. It left the Dems in panic mode.
U.S. prosecutors accepted a guilty plea to one conspiracy charge under the Espionage Act, with no additional prison sentence. The plea deal did not contain a gag order, and officials agreed to Assange’s request to avoid travel to the continental United States.
A preprint study revealed a potential way to clear out mRNA from COVID-19 shots. The research, led by cardiologist, internist and epidemiologist Dr. Peter McCullough, offers hope for those who are suffering from health damage caused by COVID-19 injections.
The bad news is that in the USA, much of what transpired, or failed to transpire, in the realm of social progress was dictated by fears of Communism during the two decades after the end of WWII. Many social programs, such as those directed at ending racial segregation in the American south, were labeled Communist or communist-inspired by reactionaries.
What I am about to talk about now, as a doctor, was very shocking data to me. This is a comparison of the risks involved in administering the seasonal flu vaccine and the COVID vaccine to people over the age of 65. It is.
France was the last European nation to lose its sovereignty, and France might be the first to recover its sovereignty. In the 1960s France was still a nation of ethnic French as contrasted with the tower of babel and a geographical entity that it is today.
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“By allowing the US government to compel Julian Assange to plead guilty to a crime he did not commit, America has condemned itself to be a land where telling the truth is a crime.” —Scott Ritter
Scott is right of course. In more ways than one. This could set a precedent for any journalist who tells the truth. It is also a way of intimidating journalists from doing their honest job, of investigating and publishing the truth. Julian Assange’s case may also set a precedent that the First Amendment of the US Constitution is not sacrosanct.
Let us be honest, the First Amendment has been beaten up badly many times over the past few decades, even more so under reigning neoliberal policies – around the western world.
Setting the western world apart, sounds like seeking divisions. It is the west that sets itself apart with the rules-based orders – that kills international and local laws and even national Constitutions – and is attempting to set precedence of elite-made rules, over the laws of the lands and of the hearts – ethics, moral standards.
Even the New York Times (NYT) stated:
“Julian Assange, the WikiLeaks leader, was indicted on 17 counts of violating the Espionage Act for his role in obtaining and publishing secret military and diplomatic documents in 2010, the Justice Department announced on Thursday — a novel case that raises profound First Amendment issues.”
Much more can be and has been said about losing freedom of speech, of expression, of press. These sad and ugly precedents have been set, by a falling hegemon. As this empire is falling by its own weight, its “precedents” will be falling as well.
On the other hand, Julian Assange
“Agreed to plead guilty to ONE felony related to the disclosure of national security information in exchange for his release from Belmarsh Prison in the United Kingdom” (Common Dreams, June 24, 2024, and this)
This is one charge of 17 (the others have been dropped), “disclosure of national security information”, which he received from Chelsea Manning and which has been published later on – even by the mainstream media, who were not accused, indicted and in prison.
That is what our world is all about. We, the People, have let it drift into certainly one of the most dystopian states, humanity has ever known. Even George Orwell would turn in is grave, would he know that his “1984” predictive novel would be so boldly surpassed, in just 40 years beyond the target of his prophecy.
Today what is important – MOST IMPORTANT – Julian Assange is FREE. He is free and back with his family. He is able to enjoy the first time in his and their lives, his kids outside of prison confinement.
After all these years, it sounds like a miracle.
Julian Assange’s wife, Stella, gave happy and emotional interview with BBC (9 min) on 25 June, when Julian was on his way to the US Court in Saipan, Northern Mariana Island, in the North Pacific, a US-administered territory. See video below.
Julian Assange has finally been reunited with his loved ones. The WikiLeaks founder arrived in Australia on Wednesday, 26 June, returning to his homeland after a 14-year-long legal battle. Upon landing, Assange was seen embracing his wife, Stella Assange, while lifting her off the ground and hugging his father, John Shipton. His return marks the end of a long saga, during which Assange spent over five years in a British high-security prison and seven years in asylum at the Ecuadorian embassy in London, fighting extradition to the US.
Julian has achieved his freedom with the help of many – his lawyers, Jennifer Robinson and Barry Pollak; the current Australian Prime Minister and Foreign Affairs Minister, who negotiated diplomatically and secretly for over two years with the Biden Administration; the many supporters praying for him; those visiting him in prison; those taking to the streets, and demonstrating for his release; and all those who quietly put their brains in spiritual mode, meditating for justice – Julian has his deserved and due freedom again. That is important.
See what US Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene (Rep.) has to say in defense of Julian Assange (45 sec.):
Roger Waters, a big fan and defender of Julian’s, gave a brief interview on 26 June about the release of Julian. He does not hide his happiness, but also expresses his distraught about the loss of freedom of speech and expression symbolized by Julian’s 14 years of confinement, deprivation of freedom for doing his true job as a journalist – TELLING THE TRUTH – see this:
Here are comments of Julian’s Defense Team during a Press Conference outside the US Court in Saipan, Northern Mariana Island:
It is said that Julian’s Defense Team is considering filing a lawsuit with the European Court or the UN for torture against him, the lawyer of the WikiLeaks founder told RIA Novosti, see this:
❗️Assange’s defense is considering filing a lawsuit with the European Court or the UN for torture against him, the lawyer of the WikiLeaks founder told RIA Novosti. – FRWL reports
What will that bring? No retribution, for sure. But perhaps a reimbursement of the tremendous debt Julian and his family and team have incurred – over US$520,000 for his travel and the hired jet.
Julian’s freedom also shows that a sense of justice still prevails, the justice of morals and ethics has overcome. And that is important.
No matter whether the circumstances were helped by a last-minute Washington’s face-saving act, or 2024 being a US-election year and the Dems needing all the help they can get. Freedom has won.
And isn’t this a sign that this freedom still enhances the noble thought behind the First Amendment? That freedom of expression may have a revival?
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Note to readers: Please click the share button above. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.
Peter Koenig is a geopolitical analyst and a former Senior Economist at the World Bank and the World Health Organization (WHO), where he worked for over 30 years around the world. He is the author of Implosion – An Economic Thriller about War, Environmental Destruction and Corporate Greed; and co-author of Cynthia McKinney’s book “When China Sneezes: From the Coronavirus Lockdown to the Global Politico-Economic Crisis” (Clarity Press – November 1, 2020).
Peter is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG). He is also a non-resident Senior Fellow of the Chongyang Institute of Renmin University, Beijing.
All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name (only available in desktop version).
To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.
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For five years, the United States Justice Department defied calls from around the world to drop Espionage Act charges against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. Prosecutors even faced pressure from the Australian government, which demanded that a close ally end the case and return one of their citizens to his home country. Yet prosecutors remained committed to putting Assange on trial.
That all changed in May after the British High Court of Justice granted Assange an extradition appeal hearing on the question of the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. The Justice Department “re-engaged” Assange’s legal team and participated in “very intense” negotiations for a plea deal.
U.S. prosecutors accepted a guilty plea to one conspiracy charge under the Espionage Act, with no additional prison sentence. The plea deal did not contain a gag order, and officials agreed to Assange’s request to avoid travel to the continental United States. He was released on bail from Belmarsh prison and flew on a charter flight to a courthouse in a U.S. territory in the Pacific Ocean known as the Northern Mariana Islands.
More importantly, the Justice Department pledged not to pursue any future charges for any uncharged conduct that Assange allegedly committed prior to his guilty plea.
This abrupt shift brought a conclusion to a 14-year-long legal saga on June 26. The award-winning journalist had spent a little more than five years detained at Belmarsh prison, which is often referred to as “Britain’s Guantanamo.” Chief Judge Ramona Manglona accepted the plea deal and sentenced Assange to time served.
“I do hope that there will in fact be some peace restored,” Manglona remarked. “I’ll just note, too, that this past week the island has been celebrating 80 years of peace since the Battle of Saipan. This was a very bloody place between the Japanese and the Americans, and the people have been celebrating the fact that we’ve been celebrating peace here with the former enemy.”
“And now, there is some peace that you need to restore with yourself when you walk out, and you pursue your life as a free man.”
Before ending the proceeding, Manglona added,
“Mr. Assange, apparently, it’s an early happy birthday to you,” and, “It’s probably the first one that you’ll have outside of a prison or any type of limitation.” (His birthday is July 3.)
A press conference was held by Stella Assange and Assange’s legal team in Canberra after Assange landed in Australia. While Assange was not at the press conference, his attorneys revealed key details about the nature of the plea agreement and the legal and political factors that helped end this multi-year long prosecution and extradition case.
The US Came Back to the Table After the Appeal Hearing Was Granted
Justice Department prosecutors were not truly motivated to come to a plea agreement with Assange until weeks ago, after the High Court in London granted Assange the right to appeal his extradition.
“[T]he negotiations were a protracted process that went on for several months, sort of in fits and starts,” explained Assange’s U.S. lawyer Barry Pollack. “We were not close to any sort of a resolution until a few weeks ago, when the Department of Justice re-engaged and there have been very intense negotiations over the last few weeks.”
This point was also emphasized by Stella Assange, who said it was “important to recognize that Julian’s release and the breakthrough in negotiations came at a time when there had been a breakthrough in the legal case, in the U.K.” The High Court had “allowed permission to appeal. There was a court date set for the 9-10 of July….in which Julian would be able to raise the First Amendment argument at the High Court.”
“It is in this context that things finally started to move,” Stella declared.
Assange was granted the right to appeal his extradition to the U.S. on the basis that it was at least arguable that he would be prejudiced at trial by reason of his nationality and citizenship. The U.K. Extradition Act 2003 prohibits extradition to a country where a person may be prejudiced at trial by reason of their nationality.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Gordon Kromberg, a lead prosecutor in the case, told the courts that the U.S. government might argue during trial proceedings that Assange was not protected by the First Amendment.
“[Kromberg] made a formal sworn declaration on behalf of the respondent and in support of the extradition request,” the High Court stated in its judgment of March 26. “He put himself forward as able to provide authoritative assistance as to the application of the First Amendment. It can fairly be assumed that he would not have said that the prosecution ‘could argue that foreign nationals are not entitled to protections under the First Amendment’ unless that was a tenable argument that the prosecution was entitled to deploy with a real prospect of success.”
“If such an argument were to succeed it would (at least arguably) cause the applicant prejudice on the grounds of his non-US citizenship (and hence, on the grounds of his nationality),” the court added.
The U.S. government deployed their hubristic argument about Assange and the First Amendment as part of their defense of the extradition request—and it backfired.
Marjorie Cohn, the dean of the People’s Academy of International law and former president of the National Lawyers Guild, asserted,
“It is no coincidence that the plea came a little more than a month after the High Court of England and Wales ruled that Assange could appeal the extradition order against him. The Justice Department apparently feared it would lose the appeal.”
Stella Assange said that she believed the negotiations “revealed how uncomfortable the United States government is, in fact, [with] having these arguments aired.”
“The fact that this case is an attack on journalism, it’s an attack on the public’s right to know, and it should never have been brought,” she concluded. “Julian should never have spent a single day in prison. But today we celebrate because today Julian is free.”
US Agreed Not to Pursue Further Charges
One of the most incredible revelations regarding Assange’s plea deal is that the U.S. government “agreed that they would not bring any other charges against Julian for any conduct, any publications, any newsgathering, anything at all that occurred prior to the time of the plea,” according to Barry Pollack.
This is of particular note because, as Pollack explained, even if Assange succeeded in his appeal against extradition, that success “would have just resolved this case.”
The 18-count indictment against Assange focused almost exclusively on the WikiLeaks publisher’s role in obtaining, possessing, and publishing documents between 2009 and 2011, known as the Iraq War logs, Afghanistan War diaries, Guantanamo Bay detainee files, and diplomatic cables (Cablegate).
One criminal charge under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act was disturbingly expanded by prosecutors to include a speech that Assange gave to a room of computer specialists during which he encouraged people to provide WikiLeaks with information which was in the public interest.
However, Assange was never charged for WikiLeaks’ role in publishing emails belonging to the Democratic National Committee—acts which even former FBI director Robert Muellerconcluded were likely protected by the First Amendment.
Nor was Assange ever charged for WikiLeaks’ 2017 exposé detailing the CIA’s expansive cyberwarfare arsenal known as the Vault 7 materials. The leak and publication of files led Mike Pompeo, when he was CIA director, to reportedly obsess over targeting, kidnapping, or killing Assange in revenge.
With the plea agreement [PDF], which The Dissenter reviewed, the U.S. government cannot ever bring a case against Assange for other acts of journalism.
“The United States agrees not to bring any additional charges against the Defendant based upon conduct that occurred prior to the time of this Plea Agreement,” the plea agreement states, “unless the Defendant breaches this Plea Agreement.”
Judge Manglona said,
“I was quite surprised, but I think it’s a very generous statement.” She noted that it applied to everything for the past 14 years. “That’s very broad.”
Another key position that Assange’s legal team took during the negotiations was that “any resolution would have to end this matter,” according to Pollack. Meaning that “Julian would be free, [and that] he was not going to do any additional time in prison. He was not going to do time under supervision. He was not going to do time under a gag order.”
Political Lobbying Behind the Scenes
Australian human rights attorney Jennifer Robinson (Credit: Free Assange News)
Australian human rights attorney Jennifer Robinson, who represented Assange in the U.K., further described the strong political dimension to the case. Extensive lobbying efforts by members of the Australian government proved crucial to the overall result.
Robinson thanked Australian prime minister Anthony Albanese for his “principled leadership,” “statesmanship,” and “diplomacy.” She explained that raising opposition to Assange’s extradition at the “highest levels” of the U.S. government “completely changed the situation for Julian” and “enabled our negotiations with the U.S. government that allowed us to reach this outcome.”
The prime minister was under intense and growing pressure from the wider public, parts of the press, and an increasing number of Australian members of parliament.
Robinson credited Kevin Rudd, who is Australia’s Ambassador to the US and a former Australian prime minister, as well as Steven Smith, who is Australia’s High Commissioner to the U.K., and the consular staff in London. Smith accompaniedAssange on his flight from London to Saipan.
She explained that Rudd’s “relentless efforts in Washington working together, closely with us—with myself and my co-counsel Barry Pollack, completely changed our relationship with the U.S. and completely changed the negotiations. Without his efforts and his adept diplomacy, we would not be in the position we are today. And Julian would not be home.”
Speaking to the Australia Broadcasting Corporation on June 27, Robinson explained that once Ambassador Rudd was sent to Washington D.C. the U.S. Department of Justice finally started to deal with the defense team in a meaningful way.
“That opened up conversations for us with the Department of Justice that…we were trying to have and were not getting responses and so things moved.”
As many people, including Stella Assange, argued over the past few years, this was a politically motivated prosecution, and therefore it stood to reason that it would be political pressure, which would ultimately resolve the case.
The lobbying efforts of high-ranking Australian politicians and government officials would not have occurred without the intense lobbying of everyday members of the public, activists, and press freedom and human rights organizations (the latter of which were brought on board as a result of intensive upward pressure).
A number of years ago there were only a few political figures in the U.K. and Australia, who were willing to be open and clear in their opposition to Assange’s extradition. For example, people such as then-Labour MP for Derby North Chris Williamson and George Galloway, who was recently re-elected to parliament, as well as Australia’s independent MP for Clark, Tasmania Andrew Wilkie and the conservative politicianGeorge Christensen, at the time a member of House of Representatives with the National Liberal Party, for Dawson, Queensland.
“It took millions of people…people working behind the scenes, people protesting on the streets—for days and weeks and months and years,” Stella Assange told the press conference, “and we achieved it.”
Julian Assange and his legal team arrive in Canberra, Australia (Credit: Free Assange News)
Assange Required to Instruct WikiLeaks to Destroy Unpublished Files
Before Assange’s guilty plea was entered in court, the agreement with the U.S. government required him to “take all action within his control to cause the return to the United States or the destruction of any such unpublished information in his possession, custody, or control, or that of WikiLeaks or any affiliate of WikiLeaks.”
Barry Pollack confirmed that Assange had instructed WikiLeaks editor-in-chief Kristinn Hrafnsson to destroy “any materials they might have that were not published.”
WikiLeaks editor-in-chief Kristinn Hrafnsson confirmed to The Dissenter that Assange had requested that he destroy “all unpublished U.S. secret documents.”
This provision in the plea agreement echoed the infamous decision in 2013 by editors at The Guardian newspaper to take apower drill and angle grinder to a hard drive which contained copies of vast troves of information leaked by National Security Agency (NSA) whistleblower Edward Snowden to then Guardian columnist Glenn Greenwald.
Editors were threatened with legal action if they did not either hand over the hard drives. They agreed to destroy them in the basement of their headquarters in London, even though it was understood that copies existed elsewhere outside of the U.K.
Technicians from Government Communications Headquarters—the U.K equivalent of the NSA—filmed the destruction of the computer hard drive while taking notes and providing instructions to the editors.
Guardian editor Paul Johnson was among those whodescribed the destruction as a “purely symbolic” act, since everyone involved knew that there were copies of the materials—which revealed the details of Anglo-American mass-warrantless spying and surveillance of hundreds of millions of people in the U.S. and around the world.
Yet the act was more than symbolic. It was a potent reminder of the power of the U.K. government (acting with the encouragement of the U.S. national security state), and its ability to threaten and bend even well-known and well-resourced establishment news media to its will.
As investigative journalist Kit Klarenberg recounted for The Dissenter, three years after the destruction of the hard drive, The Guardian’s investigative team “was dissolved, and Guardian coverage of military, security and intelligence issues declined precipitously. In fact, presently, many key national security correspondents at the Guardian have little background in the field.”
The US Did Not—or Could Not—Identify Any Victims
The United States government was unwilling or unable to identify any “victim” of the published leaks, and prosecutors did not request that Assange pay restitution for any alleged harm.
However, during a press briefing on June 26, State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller maintained there were “victims.”
“If you recall when WikiLeaks first disseminated and published State Department cables, they did so without redacting names,” Miller falsely asserted. “They just threw them out there for the world to see. And so the documents they published gave identifying information of individuals, who were in contact with the State Department. That included opposition leaders, human rights activists around the world whose positions were put in some danger because of their public disclosure.”
“Those of you who covered the State Department at the time will probably remember that in the days leading up to that release the State Department really had to scramble to get people out of danger, to move them out of harm’s way,” Miller said.
Miller was not at the State Department. He was working at the time as a Justice Department spokesperson in President Barack Obama’s administration, and in fact, Miller opposed the Assange prosecution before he was an official in President Joe Biden’s administration.
The entire cache of 250,000-plus diplomatic cables became available on the internet because Guardian editor David Leigh included the passphrase for an encrypted file containing the cables in a book he co-authored about working with WikiLeaks.
Assange called the State Department to warn them of the risks posed by the publication of unredacted cables.
“I appreciate that you’ve recognized that these kinds of releases absolutely can pose a threat to the very sources reflected in the material,” said Cliff Johnson, who was a legal advisor to the State Department.
Miller complained about the supposed negative impact that the release of the cables had on U.S. diplomacy. But Secretary of Defense Robert Gatessaid when the cables were first published,
“I’ve heard the impact of these releases on our foreign policy described as a meltdown, as a game-changer, and so on,” and, “I think those descriptions are fairly significantly overwrought.”
“The fact is, governments deal with the United States because it’s in their interest, not because they like us, not because they trust us, and not because they believe we can keep secrets.” He also said “every other government in the world knows the United States government leaks like a sieve, and it has for a long time.”
Associated Press reporter Matthew Lee was covering the State Department when WikiLeaks first published the cables. As he recalled, there was no “public concern that was raised about the potential security risks posed to sources who might have been quoted.”
Aside from the cables, the U.S. military was never able to find any evidence that the publications of military war logs from Iraq and Afghanistan resulted in any person’s death.
Pentagon Papers whistleblower Ellsberg testified at Assange’s extradition hearing in September 2020. He noted that Assange withheld 15,000 files from the release of the Afghanistan War Logs. He also requested assistance from the State Department and the Defense Department on redacting names, but they refused to help WikiLeaks redact a single document, even though it is a standard journalistic practice to consult officials to minimize harm.
“I have no doubt that Julian would have removed those names,” Ellsberg declared. Both the Pentagon and State Department could have helped WikiLeaks remove the names of individuals.Rather than take steps to protect individuals, Ellsberg suggested U.S. officials chose to “preserve the possibility of charging Mr Assange with precisely the charges” that he faced.
Assange Stated in Court That He Committed Journalism
The U.S. government may have accepted a plea deal that showed Assange some mercy, but they still coerced, or forced, the WikiLeaks founder to plead guilty to journalism if he wanted to obtain his freedom.
At the court hearing in Saipan, Judge Manglona asked Assange to describe what he did that constituted “the crime charged.”
“Working as a journalist, I encouraged my source to provide information that was said to be classified in order to publish that information. I believe that the First Amendment protected that activity, but I accept that as written it’s a violation of the Espionage Act statute.”
“So you had [a] certain belief, but you understand what the law actually says as well?” Manglona replied.
Assange told the judge,
“I believe the First Amendment and the Espionage Act are in contradiction with each other, but I accept that it would be difficult to win such a case given all the circumstances.”
Essentially, Assange recalled an act that reporters at numerous media outlets commit routinely, and the judge accepted that as a “crime.”
Matthew McKenzie, deputy chief for the counterintelligence and export control section in the U.S. Justice Department’s national security division, emphasized that the U.S. government rejects Assange’s contention that his conduct should be protected by the First Amendment.
The U.S. Justice Department could have celebrated the end of this legal saga and spun it as a victory. But prosecutors put out an announcement that contained no statements from Attorney General Merrick Garland, the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, or any prosecutors who were involved in the case. It contained a closing argument that one might hear before the jury deliberated over a verdict, but no proclamations of victory.
Stephen Rohde, a constitutional scholar and former chair of the ACLU Foundation of Southern California, said,
“When U.S. prosecutors had to put up or shut up to satisfy the High Court that Assange’s right to freedom of expression would be protected if he was extradited, they blinked. An Assange trial posed grave risks that the U.S. would be embarrassed by revelations that the CIA had plotted to kidnap or assassinate him.”
The case ended in a whimper for the U.S. government. In contrast, Assange and his legal team were mindful of the damage to press freedom but jubilant that one of the most well-known political prisoners in the world was free.
And for journalists and media organizations around the world, it was a bittersweet outcome.
Like Jennifer Robinson explained at the press conference, the plea agreement has no impact on legal precedent. It is the prosecution itself which set the precedent that media professionals anywhere in the world can face prosecution by the U.S., under a law with no public interest defense, for the crime of journalism.
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Last night’s (June 27, 2024) debate between President Joe Biden and Presidential contender, Donald Trump, was according to most media-outlets a ridiculous disaster.
President Biden appeared to be totally lost and maybe only partially aware on where he was and what he was doing.
It left the Dems in panic mode.
At least those who have no clue, who have been kept in the dark by their own party.
Video: The First 2024 Presidential Debate
They have been told, “We are gonna win in November, and Joe Biden is our candidate”. His popularity has been faked by statistics, so the less informed would go along supporting somebody who had lost the capacity of thinking straight. And that for the Presidency of the United States – the Hegemon-in-Chief.
The ”thinkers” of the Dems Party have probably prepared a plot – a secret plan – worked out for years already to have a chance to beat Donald Trump in preventing a hypothetical case, where electronic cheating of the vote-counting doesn’t fully work for them.
It is well possible that the Dems will pull a last minute wild card, just before or during the Democratic National Convention (DNC) – 19-22 August 2024 in Chicago – and propose an alternative candidate to Joe Biden, one well-versed in international and national affairs, internationally quite popular, especially with Israel’s Chief Zionist, Netanyahu – for example, current Secretary of State, Antony Blinken.
Secretary Blinken would have a fair chance to come close to beat Donald Trump, possibly close enough so that the missing “percentages” could be easily manufactured in favor of Blinken. He is a Globalist, Jew, and Zionist – and trusted ally of Zionist Israel, the country that really runs the United States.
It is widely believed that (other than Israel), Blinken is really running the White House, and former President Obama may also be there in a prominent advisory role.
Some people have mentioned Michelle Obama as a last minute shoe-in at the DNC. Frankly, that appears less likely, as she may be popular mostly with women but overall stands a lesser chance because of her lack of on-the-ground experience.
Stepping back a few years, let us look at the real count of the 2020 elections, when Donald Trump was the real winner by a landslide, some people talk about at least two-thirds of all the votes. Some may also remember the “blackout” for several hours, when there was no vote-counting reporting in the night from Tuesday, November 3 to Wednesday, November 4, 2020.
That is when the fraud happened – in one way or another (with lost mail-in votes and highly sophisticated electronic voting-boot manipulations; but this is yet another story) – and in the morning the results were suddenly turned around. From an ever-increasing lead of Donald Trump in the evening of November 3, to his sudden defeat by Joe Biden, with an electoral vote count of 306 to 232; and a 4-point margin in favor of Biden in the popular vote in the morning of November 4. See this.
In fact, in “real terms” and by Real Law, as opposed to the Globalists “rules-based order”, Donald Trump is still President and Commander-in-Chief of the United States of America.
However, under no circumstances could the Globalist elite, aka the US Democrats, let a non-Globalist President run the Empire. By the way, these same rules apply to Europe. A large proportion of so-called socialists and “greens” have sold their soul to the devil, or you may call it, the Globalists, those being directed by the World Economic Forum’s (WEF) Klaus Schwab and the dark forces behind the WEF’s Great Reset, as well as the WEF-allied United Nations (UN) with its Agenda 2030, and its illustrious 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) – which in reality hide the true agenda of destroying humanity as we know it.
No way could these “nameless” elites tolerate a non-Globalist in the White House, or God forbid at the head of the European Union. Leaders who think nationalist, like Donald Trump – MAGA (Make America Great Again) or Hungary’s PM, Viktor Orban, MEGA (Make Europe Great Again, meaning each one of the European countries), are a no-go.
So, the fight will be fierce from now to November 6, 2024 – Presidential Elections, lies and manipulations of the dark forces, no holds barred. In Europe, the neoliberal corrupt Ursula von der Leyen has just been reappointed for another five years – though the European Parliament still must rubber-stamp her appointment. That may happen early next week.
A seemingly unrelated matter but since everything is connected, the relation is there as we see, could change the entire monstrous game-plan.
Depending on Russia’s reaction to the recent NATO coordinated and guided missile attack by a US-made ATACMS multiple cluster bomb on a Sebastopol beach, killing 5, and possibly injuring as many as 150 people – the world’s macro-balance may change, on relative short-notice.
Russia’s Foreign Minister, Sergey Lavrov,has warned Washington, as well as the US Ambassador to Moscow, that the responsibility of this “deliberate missile strike against the civilian population of Sebastopol, lies primarily with Washington, which supplies this weapon to Ukraine, as well as with the Kiev Regime, from whose territory this strike was launched. Such actions will not go unanswered.”
Mr. Putin’s patience has been running thin already for a while. It is possible that this provoking attack has crossed the red line for good.
What Russia’s reaction may be, is at this point anybody’s guess. But nuclear is not excluded.
It could be a tactical nuclear attack on several key European / NATO adversary “provocateurs”, London, Paris, Frankfurt, and even Washington and New York – all simultaneously. “Tactical”- to avoid civilian casualties to the extent possible, yet, to knock out vital infrastructure and financial centers, where much of the western funding for the Ukraine war is coming from.
This is, of course sheer speculation. However, if such retribution – or similar – should be Russia’s reaction, the world’s power balance as we know it, may forever change.
Let us hope a nuclear attack will not happen. But if it does, it would certainly be the West’s responsibility.
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Note to readers: Please click the share button above. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.
Peter Koenig is a geopolitical analyst and a former Senior Economist at the World Bank and the World Health Organization (WHO), where he worked for over 30 years around the world. He is the author of Implosion – An Economic Thriller about War, Environmental Destruction and Corporate Greed; and co-author of Cynthia McKinney’s book “When China Sneezes: From the Coronavirus Lockdown to the Global Politico-Economic Crisis” (Clarity Press – November 1, 2020).
Peter is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG). He is also a non-resident Senior Fellow of the Chongyang Institute of Renmin University, Beijing.
All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name (only available in desktop version).
To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.
Click the share button above to email/forward this article to your friends and colleagues. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.
They were stirring up that the vaccine should be taken for people with diseases, so my spouse and I stupidly believed that that just getting this vaccine would definitely save us and we got vaccinated. Two days later, while I was on a day off going back to my parents’ house, he passed away alone An autopsy was also conducted.
I wasn’t satisfied because many of our customers were doctors, they said to perform the autopsy anyway because if you leave the cells, they can be examined again with the latest technology later on. So the advice was to go ahead with the autopsy anyway. Okay. Based on the suggestion to preserve the cells, we had the pathologist perform the autopsy. The autopsy was conducted. And I was not satisfied either. The reason is that the pathologist said the vaccine was 100% not related. At that time, even the minister said that it’s absolutely impossible to die from the vaccine. “Has anyone acknowledged this?” was the question posed. The pathologist told me that all you can do now is to conduct late-night consultations and honor your husband’s memory. That’s all you were told you could do. Even if you were to take the cells everywhere, or even talk to a university hospital, just to work on a single cell would cost 300,000 yen, and to work on all the cells would cost tens of millions of yen. Either way, you were laughed at with the notion that even if you sued the government, you’d lose. At that time, I thought it was absolutely terrible. What I’m thinking about now, beyond the process of death, is the immense damage caused by the coronavirus vaccine and how the country continues to ignore it and pushes for vaccination. They proceed.
Meanwhile, they relentlessly pressure private companies to the fullest. The vaccine damage are not shared with the public. Not at all. Neither information nor the media are disseminated. They make the damages from the new coronavirus vaccine seem smaller or ignore them altogether, as if to suggest it’s being circulated in such a way. That’s what I’ve thought over these three years. People are dying, and the reality of what is happening is being hidden. They are gone. There are people currently existing who suffer from side effects and damages, yet, even this is hardly broadcasted by the media. Almost not at all.
What infuriates me the most is the way the new coronavirus vaccine damage is being substituted for coronavirus damage and disseminated by the media.
I also feel stifled by this and really think, what kind of country is this, you know? Even before and now, after getting vaccinated, I think the information being spread by the country to Japan is impure. “Please get vaccinated.” “After that, it’s your responsibility.” I absolutely think this situation is wrong.
Because you signed the vaccination ticket, it’s all on you. I got vaccinated because of the media’s guidance. I believed in the country. In the end, the country says it’s your responsibility because you signed the vaccination ticket. It’s your responsibility.
What does that even mean?
You can’t make the decision not to get it to get it. You can’t judge that one step wrong could lead to death. Really?
What kind of shot is that?
In the end, I believe my husband wanted to live. I think my husband truly regretted it. The country really should take responsibility. That’s all.
Source: Aussie17
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Video 2: A Mother Recounts Her Son’s Death Amid Landmark Class Action Lawsuit Filed by COVID Vaccine Victims Against Government
🚨 A Heart-Wrenching Moment at Japanese Press Conference: A Mother Recounts Her Son's Death Amid Landmark Class Action Lawsuit Filed by COVID Vaccine Victims Against Government.
Plaintiff number 7: "My son had his third dose of the vaccine on May 1, 2022, and then in the early… pic.twitter.com/S8z86CMlHL
“My son had his third dose of the vaccine on May 1, 2022, and then in the early hours of May 4, at 4:30 AM, he suddenly shouted out and immediately after went into cardiac arrest, He was rushed to the hospital by ambulance and put on ECMO, but he passed away a week later, on May 11. He was only 19 years old”
“My son, who worked at a pharmaceutical company, had strong side effects from the first and second doses and said he wouldn’t take a third, but he had to take it for the sake of the company; the president also strongly urged him, resulting in him getting vaccinated.”
“Please, this is the truth. It’s neither a lie nor a made-up story. Don’t look away from reality. Why is vaccination not halted? How long will this situation be ignored? I hope there are as few people as possible enduring the suffering we go through every day. “
Video 3 – Japan’s Most Senior Oncologist, Prof. Fukushima Condemns mRNA Vaccines as ‘Evil Practices of Science’
Japan’s Most Senior Oncologist, Prof. Fukushima Condemns mRNA Vaccines as ‘Evil Practices of Science’
Highlights
“I am the most senior medical oncologist in Japan. I was the first to open a cancer outpatient clinic at Kyoto University, and before that, in Kyoto University, in 2020, I was the head of a section at the Aichi Cancer Center, all positions were at the Aichi Cancer Center Hospital. I established the first course in pharmacoepidemiology at Kyoto University in Japan. …
People are saying about what’s being called “turbo cancer,” a type previously unseen by doctors, characterized by its incredibly fast speed. By the time it’s discovered, it is already in stage four, advanced cancer, and such cases are starting to sporadically appear in consultations. Thus, doctors began sharing information about these extraordinary cases that are different from before. So, this has gradually become the situation since last year or the year before that. Indeed, doctors have been sensing from the field that something unusual related to cancer may be happening. They were feeling it on the ground. …
Moreover, the results of our analysis show, surprisingly, that specific types of cancer, in relation to the vaccination, seem to be experiencing excess mortality. Firstly, cancers such as breast cancer, ovarian cancer, thyroid cancer, and then statistically, esophageal and lung cancer. These are, and another one is prostate cancer in men. Such cancers are specifically observing excess mortality. This phenomenon cannot be simply explained by disruptions such as early screenings being unavailable due to the pandemic, or lost opportunities for treatment. …
It’s as if we’ve opened Pandora’s box and are now encountering all sorts of diseases. We’re facing them. Autoimmune diseases, neurodegenerative diseases, cancer, and infections. All of these, including rare and difficult diseases, even those rare conditions are happening. Even diseases unheard of are being encountered by ordinary doctors. …
This isn’t science; it’s more akin to faith, hysteria, or even cult behavior, in my opinion. Opposing vaccines doesn’t make one a heretic like Galileo; it’s become like being treated as a complete outcast. That’s the situation. This is madness. …
We really must take these damages seriously and address them earnestly. Any efforts to dismiss these damages as if they didn’t happen are, frankly, the work of evil. This is a quintessential example of the evil practice of science. …
Therefore this vaccine was from the beginning based on misconception, misconduct, and evil practices of science, totally defective, founded on misconceptions, leading to a totally false production, a false product, I believe. …
We must confront this directly again and shine the light of science on it, so the WHO should lead a comprehensive outcome research on this gene vaccine used on humanity on a large scale for the first time, and all countries should cooperate with it.
We should never again use such vaccines. This is a shame for humanity. It’s a disgrace!
Video 4 – Dr. Atsuo Yanagisawa, Former President of the International Society for Orthomolecular Medicine, SHOCKED at mRNA Adverse Reactions Data
Dr. Atsuo Yanagisawa, Former President of the International Society for Orthomolecular Medicine, SHOCKED at mRNA Adverse Reactions Data
Highlights:
What I am about to talk about now, as a doctor, was very shocking data to me. This is a comparison of the risks involved in administering the seasonal flu vaccine and the COVID vaccine to people over the age of 65. It is.
For the influenza vaccine, the number of administrations over 10 years is 180 million times, and for the COVID vaccine, it’s 190 million times, with the latter being administered over a period of 3 years. In both cases, a person received the vaccine 2, 3, 4, 5 times. It’s a multi-dose vaccine. Now, regarding the adverse reactions officially recognized as causing death by certain countries, for the influenza vaccine, there were only 4 deaths out of nearly 180 million doses administered. Just four people. On the other hand, for the COVID vaccine, there were 378 deaths, which means there were more than 90 times the number of people officially dying from adverse reactions, due to the vaccine. …
Now, regarding the risks of this new coronavirus vaccine, we first call on the government to temporarily halt the vaccinations. Pause them, and then, on that basis, reassess the vaccine’s safety trials and safety to consider whether it’s worth examining safety further.
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Dr. William Makis is a Canadian physician with expertise in Radiology, Oncology and Immunology. Governor General’s Medal, University of Toronto Scholar. Author of 100+ peer-reviewed medical publications.
The Worldwide Corona Crisis, Global Coup d’Etat Against Humanity
by Michel Chossudovsky
Michel Chossudovsky reviews in detail how this insidious project “destroys people’s lives”. He provides a comprehensive analysis of everything you need to know about the “pandemic” — from the medical dimensions to the economic and social repercussions, political underpinnings, and mental and psychological impacts.
“My objective as an author is to inform people worldwide and refute the official narrative which has been used as a justification to destabilize the economic and social fabric of entire countries, followed by the imposition of the “deadly” COVID-19 “vaccine”. This crisis affects humanity in its entirety: almost 8 billion people. We stand in solidarity with our fellow human beings and our children worldwide. Truth is a powerful instrument.”
Reviews
This is an in-depth resource of great interest if it is the wider perspective you are motivated to understand a little better, the author is very knowledgeable about geopolitics and this comes out in the way Covid is contextualized. —Dr. Mike Yeadon
In this war against humanity in which we find ourselves, in this singular, irregular and massive assault against liberty and the goodness of people, Chossudovsky’s book is a rock upon which to sustain our fight. –Dr. Emanuel Garcia
In fifteen concise science-based chapters, Michel traces the false covid pandemic, explaining how a PCR test, producing up to 97% proven false positives, combined with a relentless 24/7 fear campaign, was able to create a worldwide panic-laden “plandemic”; that this plandemic would never have been possible without the infamous DNA-modifying Polymerase Chain Reaction test – which to this day is being pushed on a majority of innocent people who have no clue. His conclusions are evidenced by renown scientists. —Peter Koenig
Professor Chossudovsky exposes the truth that “there is no causal relationship between the virus and economic variables.” In other words, it was not COVID-19 but, rather, the deliberate implementation of the illogical, scientifically baseless lockdowns that caused the shutdown of the global economy. –David Skripac
A reading of Chossudovsky’s book provides a comprehensive lesson in how there is a global coup d’état under way called “The Great Reset” that if not resisted and defeated by freedom loving people everywhere will result in a dystopian future not yet imagined. Pass on this free gift from Professor Chossudovsky before it’s too late. You will not find so much valuable information and analysis in one place. –Edward Curtin
ISBN: 978-0-9879389-3-0, Year: 2022, PDF Ebook, Pages: 164, 15 Chapters
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What follows is the text of a talk I was scheduled to give at the conference: “The Legacy of World War II and the Holocaust,” held on June 22, 2010, in Kiev, Ukraine, during the Presidency of Viktor Yanukovich, a meeting in which I was unable to participate, due to other commitments on that date.
Introduction
From 2010 until the present, there is no evidence that neofascist and neonazi influences in the USA and elsewhere have decreased:
new figures, television channels, and speaking platforms have joined these once-fringe areas of the political arena, and their impact appears to have increased and spread, more so in the USA and Europe, than in Mexico, in which I have lived for more than two decades. Right-wing political groups have appeared in other parts of Latin America, but it is difficult to determine their influence as of this writing (mid-2024). Text of this speech, originally dated 2010, follows.
My name is David Stea.
I am an American expatriate living in Mexico for a considerable number of years. Like those Europeans who left Europe during the 1930s, many Americans left the USA during the aptly-named witch-hunts of the post-World War II era to seek refuge in Mexico during the reign of Joseph McCarthy and the Congressional UnAmerican Activities Committee in the USA. My family was not one of those. In some ways I was part of a later diaspora, having returned to the USA in 1997, I was unable to stomach the neofascist regime of George Bush, and returned to Mexico in 2006.
This is a rather personal narrative. So perhaps some history is in order.
Having been born in New York, I did not have to live through the Holocaust.
But I grew up during the nightmare of World War II; by the time I was six years old, all of my crowd had been through weekly air-raid drills – my father, just barely too old for military service, was a warden and I well recall his helmet and special issue flashlight, which partly dispelled the darkness of the blackouts. We kids, having no doubt that the Nazis might soon invade, carefully studied plane-spotter cards depicting silhouettes of German aircraft, and learned the names of the German general staff and what SS ranks corresponded to Wehrmacht ranks.
We knew that U-boats were blowing up British ships outside New York harbor, but the concern with aircraft later seemed silly; after all, how could German planes have crossed the Atlantic? It turned out much later that we were closer to the truth than we then realized.
I studied engineering, and by the late 1950s became a reliability engineer and ergonomist working for the prime contractor to the US Atomic Energy Commission. Of course this was all very hush-hush; most of us were convinced that, in the long run, war with the Soviet Union was inevitable. Weapons reliability was therefore one of my areas of emphasis, and we were in close contact with one of the world’s experts in reliability engineering, a brilliant and charming figure named Robert Lusser. While we never met face-to-face, we exchanged correspondence, and he was quite helpful to me.
After having too many mushroom-shaped dreams, I left that line of work and eventually accepted the invitation to enroll in the PhD program in experimental psychology at Stanford University, in Palo Alto California. After receiving the PhD at Stanford University, I helped to found the field of environmental psychology, and became a university teacher. Flash forward to 1970, when I attended an outdoor graduation exercise at Clark University, where I was Professor of geography and psychology. As Robert Goddard, the father of American rocketry, had been at Clark University, at this graduation exercise an honorary doctorate was bestowed upon Dr Werner Von Braun.
I knew by then that Dr Von Braun, regarded as a role model for American youth interested in science, had also been a dedicated Nazi and an officer of the SS. Ashamed that an American university at which I was employed was awarding a doctorate to the father of the V-2 ballistic missile, responsible for so many civilian deaths in Great Britain, I attended no more graduation ceremonies at any of the universities at which I worked for the next 25 years.
This was, of course, a hollow gesture. More important was that I began to study the strange history of Nazi scientists and their associates who had entered the US, many literally smuggled in by the US government, during the early years of the Cold War. I did not have to search very far; hidden away in the back rooms of libraries were published books detailing, with illustrations, how the Nazi connections of people deemed potentially valuable to future US military effort were simply expunged from their records, literally deleted. Tom Lehrer, a stage personality who was both a comic writer and singer, wrote a song lampooning the Van Braun personality cult, but the supposed father of German rocketry was merely the tip of a metaphorical iceberg largely ignored by US audiences.
Until the demise of the Soviet Union, anything which, we were told, would increase American security, seemed justified.
In 1988 the motion picture “The House on Carroll Street” exposed a governmental plot to smuggle former Nazis unto the USA.
It was not a box office success. At about that time, I found that the cordial colleague of my weapons reliability years, Dr Lusser, had been a fierce competitor of Von Braun, that Lusser, who worked with Willy Messerschmidt, had been the designer of both the V-1 “buzz bomb” and the ME-262, the first operational jet aircraft, and at least a peripheral figure in “Projekt Amerika”, a plan to launch planes from the Azores to bomb targeted East Coast US cities. So we kids in Brooklyn had not been so paranoid after all.
How, then, did the Cold War, the fear it engendered on two continents, the consequent support for neofascist governments, and, indirectly for neofascist movements in various countries, come to be?
At least part of the answer lies in one of the ironies of modern times. David Irving, British military historian, a notorious anti-Semite, Holocaust denier, and supporter of neo-Nazi causes, unwittingly did us a favour: he was also the translator of several books written by high-ranking SS and Wehrmacht officers.
Among these was General Reinhard Gehlen, the head of Fremde Heere Ost, or FHO, Branch 12 of the Germany Army’s General Staff, controlling intelligence activities on the Wehrmacht’s eastern front before and during WWII. His book, whose English title is “The Service” details not just Gehlen’s rise to chief of the FHO, but his surrender –actually a “sale” — of the Gehlen Organization first to the USA and later to West Germany, where the Gehlen group became the Federal Intelligence Service (BND), with Gehlen as not just reserve lieutenant general of the Bundeswehhr, but President of the BND.
Why is this important? It is important precisely because it was Gehlen who, to increase his apparent value, convinced the American government that he possessed an enormous amount of intelligence on Soviet plans and plots, of what he regarded as the imminent and incredible danger posed by the Soviet Union.
John Foster Dulles, who became Secretary of State under President Eisenhower, and his brother, Allen Welsh Dulles, an expert on Germany and head of the CIA, believed absolutely in the veracity of Gehlen’s every word, and, as a corollary, the importance of incorporating the skills of the German military into the USA – which meant importing the people who had developed them as well, a plan that Allen Dulles was to call “Operation Paperclip”.
The agenda of the UnAmerican Activities Committee shifted from combating subversives to combating communists: the Nazi/fascist threat was deemed no longer to exist.
Whether this made it easier for former high-ranking SS to escape to South America and the Middle East — via the supposed ODESSA organization or Martin Bormann’s brilliant plan for the emergence of a Fourth Reich through establishing Nazi cells outside Europe – remains unsubstantiated.
Thus, under the umbrella of combating the Soviet threat were the Nazi histories of such imports as Werner Von Braun expunged.
Von Braun became an American citizen and the most important figure in the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration, where Lusser worked as well, under the direction of his former adversary.
Toward and Into the 21st Century
The good news is that the Fourth Reich never arose. Paradoxically, one of the Latin American countries that absorbed the most fascists and Nazis took in more Jewish refugees than any other country in the world: almost half a million. For reasons unknown Argentina’s President Juan Peron was attracted to the Axis powers and sympathetic to the plight of the Jews.
The bad news is that in the USA, much of what transpired, or failed to transpire, in the realm of social progress was dictated by fears of Communism during the two decades after the end of WWII. Many social programs, such as those directed at ending racial segregation in the American south, were labeled Communist or communist-inspired by reactionaries.
Even the term “reactionary” once used to label neofascist movements was replaced by “conservative”, previously meaning “keeping things as they are”. As the once-powerful Ku Klux Klan waned, with its hatred of racial minorities, Catholics, Jews, and almost everyone, waned in strength, the American Nazi Party became a political organization dedicated to “white power”.
The danger to America in the first decade of the 21st century has not been movements that are blatantly Nazi but, what have been called “hate media”: television talk show hosts such as Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck emerged in the first decade with a racist and classist appeal that has been attractive to millions of viewers. The neo-fascist Ann Coulter has proposed that the solution to problems in Middle Eastern countries is for the US to invade these countries, kill all their leaders and forcibly to convert the population to Christianity: shades of the Crusades. Christians, she claims, are perfected Jews, which implies that Jews are simply less perfect Christians – or simply less. A book by Ann Coulter is virtually guaranteed to hit the New York Times best seller list within weeks after its appearance.
The conservative juggernaut rolls on. As immigrant paranoia increases in Europe, so it does in the USA. The latest mandate in the American state of Arizona forces police to stop and demand identification of status by anyone even vaguely suspected of being in the US illegally. The states of Texas and Ohio, and at least one city in California are considering similar laws. Changes in the Arizona educational system will mandate firing teachers of English who speak with a (presumably “foreign”) accent.
There is an old English saying that “sticks and stones may break my bones, but names will never harm me.” It’s from a different era. The use of sticks and stones may be less fashionable in today’s world, but names do harm. They always have and always will.
Thank you.
*
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David Stea received a B.S. in Mechanical/Aeronautical Engineering from Carnegie Institute of Technology in 1957 and a Ph.D. in Psychology from Stanford University in1964. As Carnegie Interdisciplinary Fellow at Brown University, he developed the new field of Environmental Psychology and the related study of spatial and geographic cognition. He was Associate Professor of Psychology and Geography at Clark University, Professor of Architecture and Urban Planning at UCLA through 1988, and then Distinguished Professor of Architecture at the University of Wisconsin.
Dr. Stea has held four distinguished professorships in the U.S.A., Indonesia, and Mexico. He is a member of the editorial boards of a number of journals, the co-author or co-editor of several books, including Image and Environment, Landscape in Language, and Maps in Minds, and some 150 articles.
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This article was first published on June 30, 2013
Canada Day, July 1st, 2024
Author’s Note and Update
As “Leader of the Free World”, the United States has waged numerous wars against sovereign countries since the end of World War II resulting in millions of deaths. The atrocities and crimes committed are on record.
The corporate media has upheld ALL these military interventions (without exception) starting with the Korean war in 1950 as “peace-making operations” intent upon “spreading democracy” Worldwide.
At this juncture in our history, namely the war in Ukraine, it is important that a REAL peace process be initiated with a view to preventing escalation. What is happening in Ukraine has serious geopolitical implications and could potentially lead to a World War III scenario.
In the context of the Ukraine war, Canada is unconditionally supporting the United States without reflecting on an unspoken chapter in the history of our country.
Canada Day 2024: We must reflect on our history. Most Canadians are unaware of the fact that the United States of America had formulated in 1924 (One hundred years ago) a carefully designed plan to invade Canada and bomb Montreal, Quebec City, Halifax and Vancouver.
What has been deliberately omitted from our history books in schools, colleges and universities is that our American neighbour had envisaged a detailed plan to invade Canada. The use of “poison gas” was part of that project.
War Plan Red was officially approved by the US War Department in May 1930.
The 1928 draft stated that “it should be made quite clear to Canada that in a war she would suffer grievously”.
And guess who was in charge of planning the bombing raids against Canadian cities:
General Douglas MacArthur who during World War II was put in charge of waging the Pacific War and coordinating the extensive bombing of Japanese cities (1941-1945).
The war plan was explicitly geared towards the conquest of Canada.
“The U.S. Army’s mission, [written in capital letters], was “ULTIMATELY, TO GAIN COMPLETE CONTROL OF CRIMSON [Canada].”
Canada’s Global and Mail has twisted realities upside down. The Red War Plan to Attack CRIMSON was casually presented as a peacemaking endeavor. It was a plan to rightfully defend the US:
First approved in 1930, Joint Army and Navy Basic War Plan – Redwas drawn up to defend the United States in the event of war with Britain.
It was one of a series of such contingency plans produced in the late 1920s. Canada, identified as Crimson, would be invaded to prevent the Britons from using it as a staging ground to attack the United States. (Globe and Mail, December 31, 2005, emphasis added)
The war plan directed against Canada initially formulated in 1924 was entitled “Joint Army and Navy Basic War Plan — Red”. It was approved by the US War Department under the presidency of Herbert Hoover in 1930. It was updated in 1934 and 1935 during the presidency of Franklin D. Roosevelt. It was withdrawn in 1939 (but not abolished) following the outbreak of the Second World War.
“Though ostensibly for war against Britain Plan RED is almost devoid of plans to fight the British. The Plan is focused on the conquest of Canada, which was color- coded CRIMSON. The U.S. Army’s mission, written in capital letters, was “ULTIMATELY, TO GAIN COMPLETE CONTROL OF CRIMSON.” The 1924 draft declared that U.S. “intentions are to hold in perpetuity all CRIMSON and RED territory gained… The Dominion government [of Canada] will be abolished.”
The strategic bombing of Halifax, Montreal and Quebec City were envisaged under Plan RED. Moreover, the US Army had been instructed (in capital letters),
“TO MAKE ALL NECESSARY PREPARATIONS FOR THE USE OF CHEMICAL WARFARE FROM THE OUTBREAK OF WAR. THE USE OF CHEMICAL WARFARE, INCLUDING THE USE OF TOXIC AGENTS, FROM THE INCEPTION OF HOSTILITIES, IS AUTHORIZED…” (quoted by Floyd Rudmin, op cit).
In a bitter irony, General Douglas MacArthur who led US forces in The Pacific during World War II, not to mention the conduct of the carpet bombing raids against North Korea (1950-1953) was actively involved in the planning of war directed against Canada.
“In March 1935, General Douglas MacArthur proposed an amendment making Vancouver a priority [bombing] target comparable to Halifax and Montreal” (Ibid)
Today, Canada’s sovereignty as a Nation State is threatened by the Justin Trudeau government which is firmly aligned with Joe Biden’s military agenda, acting as a de facto US proxy.
The article below (first published in June 2013) reviews in detail, the US plans to annex and wage war on Canada.
The historical documents of Annexation (1866), Invasion of Canada “War Plan Red” (1930) and “War Plan Red” (1935) (95 pages) are contained in Annex.
These documents are part of our history. It is important that “War Plan Red” (1930 and 1935) be firmly acknowledged and debated in schools, colleges and universities across the land.
Michel Chossudovsky, Global Research, Canada Day, July 1, 2023, Canada Day, July 1, 2024
The following article by Michel Chossudovsky pertaining both to the US Bill to Annex Canada (1866) and “War Plan Red” (1930, 1935)was first published in 2013
America’s Plan to Invade and Annex Canada
Michel Chossudovsky
Global Research, June 30th, 2013
Canada Day July 1st is an opportunity for Canadians to reflect on issues of national sovereignty.
Territorial control over Canada has been part of Washington’s geopolitical and military agenda since the 1860s, following the end of the American civil war.
In 1867, Canada became a nation, a federation, under the British North America Act, largely in response to the threat of annexation by the United States as formulated in a bill adopted by the US Congress in 1866:
“A Bill for the admission of the States of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Canada East, and Canada West, and for the organization of the Territories of Selkirk, Saskatchewan, and Columbia. (Annexation Bill)” (see map below)
Fast Forward: The plan to annex Canada to the USA is still on the books?
In April 2002, upon the creation of US Northern Command (USNORTHCOM), Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld put forth the concept of “Binational integration” of military command structures, alongside a major revamping in the areas of immigration, law enforcement and intelligence.
Rumsfeld also stated without consulting Ottawa, that the areas of territorial jurisdiction of USNORTHCOM on land and sea would extend into the Northwest territories and the Canadian Arctic.
Moreover, territorial integration under the proposed North American Union and Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP) (launched in 2005) would embody Canada (as well as Mexico) into the US Homeland Security apparatus. Broadly speaking, Washington would set the agenda for “integration” and would exert an overriding influence in developing the legal, political, economic, military and national security architecture of the proposed NAU.
What is at stake is de facto annexation, where Canada would cease to function as a sovereign nation, relegated to the status of a US protectorate.
The Conservative government in Ottawa has not only embraced the SPP, it is also actively supporting the US war agenda, its national security agenda and its “Global War on Terrorism”.
In the last few years “Securing the North American Security Perimeter” has been viewed by Washington as a means to “bringing Canada into Fortress America”.
Historical Background: US Bill to Annex Canada (1866)
Most Canadians are unaware that a Bill to Annex Canada into the US was introduced and adopted by the US Congress in 1866 prior to the 1867 Alaska Purchase from Russia. The Complete text of the 1866 Bill is contained in Annex to this article.
The text of the bill is tantamount to an invasion plan. It was to come into force upon its proclamation by US president Andrew Johnson (left). It included the territories of British North America from Newfoundland and the Maritimes to British Columbia, extending North into the Hudson Bay territory and North West Territory bordering onto “Russian America”. (i.e Alaska) (See map below)
It consisted in the outright confiscation of public lands. It also implied US control over the trans Canada railway system, waterways, canals as well as control over the Saint Lawrence seaway.
The US government had also contemplated paying “compensation” to the Hudson Bay Company. This consisted essentially in a plan to confiscate the territories under H.B.C jurisdiction (see map), “in full discharge of all claims to territory or jurisdiction in North America, whether founded on the charter of the [Hudson Bay] company or any treaty, law, or usage.”
The United States will pay ten millions of dollars to the Hudson Bay Company in full discharge of all claims to territory or jurisdiction in North America, whether founded on the charter of the company or any treaty, law, or usage. (Article XI)
The territorial division of British North America is outlined in the bill. The various constituent “Canadian states” would conform to US laws in setting up their legislature.
While the 1866 Annexation project was stalled upon the adoption of the British North American Act in 1867, US plans to annex and/or invade Canada militarily were contemplated in the 1930s.
In the late 1920s, Washington formulated a detailed plan to invade Canada, entitled “Joint Army and Navy Basic War Plan — Red”. The plan was approved by the US War Department under the presidency of Herbert Hoover in 1930. It was updated in 1934 and 1935 during the presidency of Franklin D. Roosevelt. It was withdrawn in 1939 following the outbreak of the Second World War.
Secretary of War Patrick J. Hurley was largely instrumental in the formulation and approval of Plan Red by the US administration.
The plan to invade Canada consisted of a 94-page document “with the word SECRET stamped on the cover. It had been formulated over a period of more than five years (See full text in Annex).
In February 1935, the [US] War Department arranged a Congressional appropriation of $57 million dollars to build three border air bases for the purposes of pre-emptive surprise attacks on Canadian air fields. The base in the Great Lakes region was to be camouflaged as a civilian airport and was to “be capable of dominating the industrial heart of Canada, the Ontario Peninsula” (from p. 61 of the February 11-13, 1935, hearings of the Committee on Military Affairs, House of Representatives, on Air Defense Bases (H.R. 6621 and H.R. 4130). This testimony was to have been secret but was published by mistake. See the New York Times, May 1, 1935, p. 1.
In August 1935, the US held its largest peacetime military manoeuvres in history, with 36,000 troops converging at the Canadian border south of Ottawa, and another 15,000 held in reserve in Pennsylvania. The war game scenario was a US motorized invasion of Canada, with the defending forces initially repulsing the invading Blue forces, but eventually to lose “outnumbered and outgunned” when Blue reinforcements arrive. This according to the Army’s pamphlet “Souvenir of of the First Army Maneuvers: The Greatest Peace Time Event in US History” (p.2). ( Professor F.W. Rudmin, Queen’s University Kingston, Ontario, Comments on “War Plan Red”, see complete text in Annex III)
One of the updates to the 1930 invasion plan was the use of chemical weapons against Canadian civilians:
“In 1934, War Plan Red was amended to authorize the immediate first use of poison gas against Canadians and to use strategic bombing to destroy Halifax if it could not be captured.” (Ibid)
It is worth noting that in the course of World War II, a decision was taken by the War Department to retain the invasion plan on the books. War Plan Red was declassified in 1974.
The Washington Post, which casually dismissed the historical significance of “Joint Army and Navy Basic War Plan — Red”, nonetheless acknowledged the aggressive nature of the proposed military endeavor:
“A bold plan, a bodacious plan, a step-by-step plan to invade, seize and annex our neighbor to the north. …First, we send a joint Army-Navy overseas force to capture the port city of Halifax, cutting the Canadians off from their British allies.
Then we seize Canadian power plants near Niagara Falls, so they freeze in the dark.
Then the U.S. Army invades on three fronts — marching from Vermont to take Montreal and Quebec, charging out of North Dakota to grab the railroad center at Winnipeg, and storming out of the Midwest to capture the strategic nickel mines of Ontario.
Meanwhile, the U.S. Navy seizes the Great Lakes and blockades Canada’s Atlantic and Pacific ports. … “(Raiding the Icebox; Behind Its Warm Front, the United States Made Cold Calculations to Subdue Canada, by Peter Carlson, Washington Post, 30 December 2005, emphasis added).
The complete text of War Plan Red is contained in Annex III. The complete text of the 1866 Annexation Plan is contained in Annex I.
The plan is detailed. It involves both military as well an intelligence components.
According to historian John Major “War, Plan Red” also consisted in “a series of possible pre-emptive American campaigns to invade Canada in several areas and occupy key ports and railways before British troops could provide reinforcement to the Canadians…”
Canada’s National Defense
The Canadian federal government and military were fully aware of these “Secret” US plans to invade Canada. In the 1920s, Lieutenant James “Buster” Sutherland Brown had been appointed Director of Military Operations and Intelligence in Ottawa to address the issue of Canada’s national security. His tasks consisted in developing contingency war plans in the case of a US attack against the Dominion of Canada. Under the helm of “Buster” Sutherland Brown (subsequently promoted to Brigadier), Canada’s response to US threats was formulated under “Defence Scheme No. 1”, a counterattack contingency plan, in the case of a US invasion.
“Defense Scheme No. 1” was abandoned in 1931 by Canada’s chief of the general staff, A.G.L. McNaughton (following the adoption of “War Plan Red” in 1930) , on the grounds that “the Americans would inevitably win such a war” and there was no use in acting upon a contingency plan.
Ottawa had caved in. The watershed decision by the Conservative government of Prime Minister R. B. Bennett which came to office in August 1930 to abandon a Canada national defense plan constituted a de facto recognition of US hegemony in North America. While the invasion of Canada under Joint Army and Navy Basic War Plan — Red was never carried out, the military threat of an invasion plan served to oblige Canada to ultimately surrender to US political and economic pressures.
Let us remember on Canada Day, July 1st, 2020 that the greatest threat to Canadian national sovereignty emanates from US plans of “deep integration”, which have been supported by both the Harper and Trudeau governments.
Minor revisions on July 1st 2020
ANNEX I
(emphasis added)
TRANSCRIPT OF US BILL TO ANNEX CANADA INTO THE US (1866)
A Bill for the admission of the States of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Canada East, and Canada West, and for the organization of the Territories of Selkirk, Saskatchewan, and Columbia. (Annexation Bill)
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That the President of the United States is hereby authorized and directed, whenever notice shall be deposited in the Department of State that the governments of Great Britain and the provinces of New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, Newfoundland, Canada, British Columbia, and Vancouver’s Island have accepted the proposition hereinafter made by the United States, to publish by proclamation that, from the date thereof, the States of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Canada East, and Canada West, and the Territories of Selkirk, Saskatchewan, and Columbia, with limits and rights as by the act defined, are constituted and admitted as States and Territories of the United States of America. SEC. 2 And be it further enacted, That the following articles are hereby proposed, and from the date of the proclamation of the President of the United States shall take effect, as irrevocable conditions of the admission of the States of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Canada East, and Canada West, and the future States of Selkirk, Saskatchewan, and Columbia, to wit:
ARTICLE I.
All public lands not sold or granted; canals, public harbors, light-houses, and piers; river and lake improvements; railway stocks, mortgages, and other debts due by railway companies to the provinces; custom-houses and post offices, shall vest in the United States; but all other public works and property shall belong to the State governments respectively, hereby constituted, together with all sums due from purchasers or lessees of lands, mines, or minerals at the time of the union.
ARTICLE II.
In consideration of the public lands, works, and property vested as aforesaid in the United States, the United States will assume and discharge the funded debt and contingent liabilities of the late provinces, at rates of interest not exceeding five per centum, to the amount of eighty-five million seven hundred thousand dollars, apportioned as follows: To Canada West, thirty-six million five hundred thousand dollars; to Canada East, twenty-nine million dollars; to Nova Scotia, eight million dollars; to New Brunswick, seven million dollars; to Newfoundland, three million two hundred thousand dollars; and to Prince Edward Island, two million dollars; and in further consideration of the transfer by said provinces to the United States of the power to levy import and export duties, the United States will make an annual grant of one million six hundred and forty-six thousand dollars in aid of local expenditures, to be apportioned as follows: To Canada West, seven hundred thousand dollars; to Canada East, five hundred and fifty thousand dollars; to Nova Scotia, one hundred and sixty-five thousand dollars; to New Brunswick, one hundred and twenty-six thousand dollars; to Newfoundland, sixty-five thousand dollars; to Prince Edward Island, forty thousand dollars.
ARTICLE III.
For all purposes of State organization and representation in the Congress of the United States, Newfoundland shall be part of Canada East, and Prince Edward Island shall be part of Nova Scotia, except that each shall always be a separate representative district, and entitled to elect at least one member of the House of Representatives, and except, also, that the municipal authorities of Newfoundland and Prince Edward Island shall receive the indemnities agreed to be paid by the United States in Article II.
ARTICLE IV.
Territorial divisions are established as follows: (1) New Brunswick, with its present limits; (2) Nova Scotia, with the addition of Prince Edward Island; (3) Canada East, with the addition of Newfoundland and all territory east of longitude eighty degrees and south of Hudson’s strait; (4) Canada West, with the addition of territory south of Hudson’s bay and between longitude eighty degrees longitude ninety degrees; (5) Selkirk Territory, bounded east by longitude ninety degrees, south by the late boundary of the United States, west by longitude one hundred and five degrees, and north by the Arctic circle; (6) Saskatchewan Territory, bounded east by longitude one hundred and five degrees, south by latitude forty-nine degrees, west by the Rocky mountains, and north by latitude seventy degrees; (7) Columbia Territory, including Vancouver’s Island, and Queen Charlotte’s island, and bounded east and north by the Rocky mountains, south by latitude forty-nine degrees, and west by the Pacific ocean and Russian America. But Congress reserves the right of changing the limits and subdividing the areas of the western territories at discretion.
ARTICLE V.
Until the next decennial revision, representation in the House of Representatives shall be as follows: Canada West, twelve members; Canada East, including Newfoundland, eleven members; New Brunswick, two members; Nova Scotia, including Prince Edward Island, four members.
ARTICLE VI.
The Congress of the United States shall enact, in favor of the proposed Territories of Selkirk, Saskatchewan, and Columbia, all the provisions of the act organizing the Territory of Montana, so far as they can be made applicable.
ARTICLE VII.
The United States, by the construction of new canals, or the enlargement of existing canals, and by the improvement of shoals, will so aid the navigation of the Saint Lawrence river and the great lakes that vessels of fifteen hundred tons burden shall pass from the Gulf of Saint Lawrence to Lakes Superior and Michigan: Provided, That the expenditure under this article shall not exceed fifty millions of dollars.
ARTICLE VIII.
The United States will appropriate and pay to “The European and North American Railway Company of Maine” the sum of two millions of dollars upon the construction of a continuous line of railroad from Bangor, in Maine, to Saint John’s, in New Brunswick: Provided, That said “The European and North American Railway Company of Maine” shall release the government of the United States from all claims held by it as assignee of the States of Maine and Massachusetts.
ARTICLE IX.
To aid the construction of a railway from Truro, in Nova Scotia, to Riviere du Loup, in Canada East, and a railway from the city of Ottawa, by way of Sault Ste. Marie, Bayfield, and Superior, in Wisconsin, Pembina, and Fort Garry, on the Red River of the North, and the valley of the North Saskatchewan river to some point on the Pacific ocean north of latitude forty-nine degrees, the United States will grant lands along the lines of said roads to the amount of twenty sections, or twelve thousand eight hundred acres, per mile, to be selected and sold in the manner prescribed in the act to aid the construction of the Northern Pacific railroad, approved July two, eighteen hundred and sixty-two, and acts amendatory thereof; and in addition to said grants of lands, the United States will further guarantee dividends of five per centum upon the stock of the company or companies which may be authorized by Congress to undertake the construction of said railways: Provided, That such guarantee of stock shall not exceed the sum of thirty thousand dollars per mile, and Congress shall regulate the securities for advances on account thereof.
ARTICLE X.
The public lands in the late provinces, as far as practicable, shall be surveyed according to the rectangular system of the General Land office of the United States; and in the Territories west of longitude ninety degrees, or the western boundary of Canada West, sections sixteen and thirty-six shall be granted for the encouragement of schools, and after the organization of the Territories into States, five per centum of the net proceeds of sales of public lands shall be paid into their treasuries as a fund for the improvement of roads and rivers.
ARTICLE XI.
The United States will pay ten millions of dollars to the Hudson Bay Company in full discharge of all claims to territory or jurisdiction in North America, whether founded on the charter of the company or any treaty, law, or usage.
ARTICLE XII.
It shall be devolved upon the legislatures of New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Canada East, and Canada West, to conform the tenure of office and the local institutions of said States to the Constitution and laws of the United States, subject to revision by Congress.
SEC 3. And be it further enacted, That if Prince Edward Island and Newfoundland, or either of those provinces, shall decline union with the United States, and the remaining provinces, with the consent of Great Britain, shall accept the proposition of the United States, the foregoing stipulations in favor of Prince Edward Island and Newfoundland, or either of them, will be omitted; but in all other respects the United States will give full effect to the plan of union. If Prince Edward Island, Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick shall decline the proposition, but Canada, British Columbia, and Vancouver island shall, with the consent of Great Britain, accept the same, the construction of a railway from Truro to Riviere du Loup, with all stipulations relating to the maritime provinces, will form no part of the proposed plan of union, but the same will be consummated in all other respects. If Canada shall decline the proposition, then the stipulations in regard to the Saint Lawrence canals and a railway from Ottawa to Sault Ste. Marie, with the Canadian clause of debt and revenue indemnity, will be relinquished. If the plan of union shall only be accepted in regard to the northwestern territory and the Pacific provinces, the United States will aid the construction, on the terms named, of a railway from the western extremity of Lake Superior, in the State of Minnesota, by way of Pembina, Fort Garry, and the valley of the Saskatchewan, to the Pacific coast, north of latitude forty-nine degrees, besides securing all the rights and privileges of an American territory to the proposed Territories of Selkirk, Saskatchewan, and Columbia.
ANNEX II
DETAILS OF “WAR PLAN RED” (1930)
The plan is detailed (See annex III). It involves both military as well an intelligence components:
Nova Scotia and New Brunswick:
Occupying Halifax, following a poison gas first strike, would deny the British a major naval base and cut links between Britain and Canada.
The plan considers several land and sea options for the attack and concludes that a landing at St. Margarets Bay, a then undeveloped bay near Halifax, would be superior to a direct assault via the longer overland route.
Failing to take Halifax, the U.S. could occupy New Brunswick by land to cut Nova Scotia off from the rest of Canada at the key railway junction at Moncton.
Quebec and the valley of the Saint Lawrence River:
Occupying Montreal and Quebec City would cut the remainder of Canada off from the Eastern seaboard, preventing the movement of soldiers and resources in both directions.
The routes from northern New York to Montreal and from Vermont to Quebec are both found satisfactory for an offensive, with Quebec being the more critical target.
Ontario and the Great Lakes area:
Occupying this region gains control of Toronto and most of Canada’s industry, while also preventing Britain and Canada from using it for air or land attacks against the U.S. industrial heartland in the Midwest.
The plan proposes simultaneous offensives from Buffalo across the Niagara River, from Detroit into Ontario, and from Sault Ste. Marie into Sudbury. Controlling the Great Lakes for U.S. transport is considered logistically necessary for a continued invasion.
Winnipeg
Winnipeg is a central nexus of the Canadian rail system for connecting the country.
The plan sees no major obstacles to an offensive from Grand Forks, North Dakota, to Winnipeg.
Vancouver and Victoria:
Although Vancouver’s distance from Europe reduces its importance, occupying it would deny Britain a naval base and cut Canada off from the Pacific Ocean.
Vancouver could be easily attacked overland from Bellingham, Washington, and Vancouver Island could be attacked by sea from Port Angeles, Washington.
The British Columbia port Prince Rupert has a rail connection to the rest of Canada, but a naval blockade is viewed as easy if Vancouver were taken. (Wikipedia)
The following is a full-text reproduction of the 1935 plan for a US invasion of Canada prepared at the US Army War College, G-2 intelligence division, and submitted on December 18, 1935. This is the most recent declassified invasion plan available from the US archival sources. Centered pagination is that of the original document. The spelling and punctuation of the original document are reproduced as in the original document, even when in error by present-day norms.
This document was first identified by Richard Preston in his 1977 book, “The Defence of the Undefended Border: Planning for War in North America 1867-1939” (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press.) Preston’s reference citation (p. 277) identified this to be archived at the US Military History Collection, Carlisle Barracks, Pa., coded AWC 2-1936-8, G2, no. 19A. It was located by the US National Archives and supplied on microfilm.
The military planning context of this document is War Plan Red, which was approved in May 1930 by the Secretary of War and the Secretary of Navy. War Plan Red and supporting documents are available from the US National Archives on microfilm, in the Records of the Joint Board, 1903-1947, Roll 10, J.B. 325, Serial 435 through Serial 641. In War Plan Red, the US Army’s theatre of operations is defined to be: “All CRIMSON territory” (p.80), and the US Army’s mission, in bold type: ULTIMATELY, TO GAIN COMPLETE CONTROL OF CRIMSON (p. 84). CRIMSON is the colour code for Canada. In 1934, War Plan Red was amended to authorize the immediate first use of poison gas against Canadians and to use strategic bombing to destroy Halifax if it could not be captured.
In February 1935, the War Department arranged a Congressional appropriation of $57 million dollars to build three border air bases for the purposes of pre-emptive surprise attacks on Canadian air fields. The base in the Great Lakes region was to be camouflaged as a civilian airport and was to “be capable of dominating the industrial heart of Canada, the Ontario Peninsula” from p. 61 of the February 11-13, 1935, hearings of the Committee on Military Affairs, House of Representatives, on Air Defense Bases (H.R. 6621 and H.R. 4130). This testimony was to have been secret but was published by mistake. See the New York Times, May 1, 1935, p. 1.
In August 1935, the US held its largest peacetime military manoeuvres in history, with 36,000 troops converging at the Canadian border south of Ottawa, and another 15,000 held in reserve in Pennsylvania. The war game scenario was a US motorized invasion of Canada, with the defending forces initially repulsing the invading Blue forces, but eventually to lose “outnumbered and outgunned” when Blue reinforcements arrive. This according to the Army’s pamphlet “Souvenir of of the First Army Maneuvers: The Greatest Peace Time Event in US History” (p.2).
The following document is a declassified public domain document and may be freely reproduced. This should be of particular interest to people in the Halifax and Quebec City regions, then considered to be the most strategic cities in Canada.
F.W. Rudmin Queen’s University Kingston, Ontario
[page numbers oof original document are indicated]
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SUPPLEMENT NO. 3
TO
REPORT OF COMMITTEE NO. 8
SUBJECT:
CRITICAL AREAS OF CANADA AND APPROACHES THERETO _______________________________________________ .
Prepared by:
SUBCOMMITTEE NO. 3
Major Charles H. Jones, Infantry, Chairman. Lt. Col. H.W. Crawford, Engineers.
I. Papers Accompanying. ___________________ 1. Bibliography. (Omitted, filed in Rec.Sec.) 2. List of Slides. ” 3. Appendices (1 and 2). ” 4. Annexes. (Incl. A,B,C,D,E,F,G,H,K, and L) ”
II. The Study Presented. ___________________ Determine under the geographical factor, the critical areas in Crimson (Canada) and the best approaches thereto for Blue. A critical area is assumed to be any area of such strategic importance to either belligerent that control thereof may have a material bearing on the out- come of the war.
III. Facts bearing on the study. __________________________ 1. General Considerations: An area in Crimson territory may be of strategic importance from the viewpoint of tactical, economic, or political considerations. In the final analysis, however, critical areas must be largely determined in the light of Red’s probable line of action and Crimson’s contribution to that effort. 2. Geographical Features of Canada. a. Location and extent. The location and extent of the Dominion of _ Canada is shown on the Map herewith (see Exhibit A). It comprises the entire northern half of the the North American continent, excepting only Alaska and the coast of Labrador, a dependency of the colony of New- foundland. The principal political subdivisions are those located along the border of the United States. These from east to west are: (1) The Maritime Provinces: Prince Edward Island. Nova Scotia. New Brunswick. (2) Quebec. (3) Ontario. (4) The Prairie Provinces: Manitoba. Saskatchewan. Alberta.
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(5) British Columbia. Newfoundland, while not a part of the Dominion of Canada, would undoubtedly collaborate in any Crimson effort. b. Topography. (Slide 14852) _ The great area in eastern Canada underlain by rocks of Precambrian age is known as the Canadian Shield. Its northern boundary crosses the Arctic archipelago; the eastern boundary lies beyond Baffin Island and Labrador, and reaches the depressed area occupied by the St. Lawrence, a short spur crossing this valley east of Lake Ontario to join the Adirondack Mountains of New York. The southern boundary runs from this spur west to Georgian Bay thence along the north shore of Lake Huron and Lake Superior, thence northwest from the Lake of the Woods to the western end of Lake Athabaska. Its average elevation does not exceed 1500 feet. The greatest known elevations are in the eastern part of Baffin Island and along the coast of northern Labrador. Peaks of the Torngat Mountains of Labrador have elevations of between 4000 and 5000 feet.
The coast is one of the boldest and most rugged in the world, with many vertical cliffs rising 1000 to 2000 feet high. Occasional exceptions occur in which there are reliefs of several hundred feet, as in the hills along the north shore of Lake Huron and Lake Superior. The area is dotted with lakes, large and small, and of irregular outline. A lowland of considerable extent stretches for some distance into Ontario and Manitoba from Hudson Bay. Extending south and west form the Canadian Shield, between the Ap- palachian Mountains on the east and the Cordilleras on the west, lies the Great North American plain.
The northeastern portion of this plain called the St. Lawrence lowlands occupies southern Ontario, south of a line ex- tending from Georgian Bay to the east end of Lake Ontario; eastern Ontario lying between the Ottawa and St. Lawrence rivers, and that part of Quebec lying adjacent to the St. Lawrence between Montreal and Quebec. The plain west of the Canadian Shield, known as the Interior Plains, stretches northward to the Arctic Ocean between a line approximately join- ing Lake Winnipeg and Lake Athabasca, Great Slave Lake and Great Bear Lake on the east, and the foothills of the Rocky Mountains on the west.
That part of the St. Lawrence Lowlands lying in the eastern angle of Ontario, and in Quebec south of Montreal and extending down the St. Law- rence is comparatively flat and lies less than 500 feet above sea level. On the lower St. Lawrence it is greatly narrowed by the near approach of the Appalachian system to the Canadian Shield. The part lying adjacent to Lakes Ontario, Erie and Huron is of less even surface, has its greatest elevation of over 1700 feet south of Georgian Bay and slopes gently to the Great Lakes. The Interior Plains region is in general rolling country with broad undulations and a slope eastward and northward of a few feet per mile, descending from an elevation of 3000 to 5000 feet near the mountains on the west to less than 1000 feet at the eastern border. The rolling character of the area is relieved by several flat topped hills, by flat areas that formed the beds of extensive lakes, and by deep river valleys. The Appalachain and Arcadian regions occupy practically all that part of Canada lying east of the St. Lawrence, with the exception of the lowlands west of a line joining Quebec City and Lake Champlain. The Applachain region is a continuation into Quebec of three chains of the Applachain system of mountains. The most westerly of these ranges, the Green Mountains of Vermont, stretches northeast into the Gaspe peninsula, where it forms flat topped hills some 3000 feet high. The Acadian region, which includes
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New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island is an alternation of upland with hills and ridges rising 2500 feet and higher. Adjacent to the Bay of Fundy is a series of ridges rising in places to 1200 feet. Between these two New Brunswick uplands, which converge toward the southwest is a lowland forming the whole eastern part of the province. This lowland ex- tends east to include Prince Edward Island, the western fringe of Cape Breton Island and the mainland of Nova Scotia north of the Cobequid moun- tains, which have an elevation of 800 to 1000 feet. South of the Cobequid Mountains lies a long narrow lowland stretching from Chedabucto Bay to Minas Basin, and along the Cornwallis Annapolis valley between North and South Mountains. South of this lowland is a highland sloping to the Atlantic Coast.
The northern part of Cape Breton Island is a tableland 1200 feet high with its central part rising to an elevation of over 1700 feet. The Cordelleran region, a mountainous area bordering the Pacific extends from the United States through Canada into Alaska and embraces nearly all of British Columbia and Yukon and the western edge of Alberta and the Northwest Territories. The eastern part of the Cordillera is occu- pied by the Rocky Mountains, with peaks rising to 10,000 feet and 12,000 feet. They extend northwest and fall away towards the Liard River. The western part of the Cordillera is occupied by the Coast Range and the mountains of Vancouver and Queen Charlotte Islands.
The Coast Range rises to heights of 7000 to 9000 feet. Between the Rocky Mountains and the Coast Range lies a vast plateau 3000 to 4000 feet high and cut by deep river valleys. 3. Population. According to the census of 1931, the total population on June 1, 1931 was 10,376,786, of whom 5,374,541 were males. The inhabited areas of the Dominion are essentially confined to a narrow strip alolo the United States boundary, generally south of the 56th parallel of latitude west of the Lake Winnipeg, and south of the 49th parallel of latitude east of Lake Superior. Approximately 10% of the total population are found in the Maritime provinces, 61% in Quebec and Ontario, 23% in the Prairie Provinces and 6% in British Columbia. Of the present population, 51.86% are of British descent, 28.22% French, and the remainder of widely scattered nativity. 4. Climate. The climate of southern Canada is comparable to that of the northern tier of the states of the United States. The west coast of British Columbia tempered by the Pacific Ocean is mild and humid. The prairie provinces generally experience extreme cold weather from November to March, with heavy snow fall. The climate of southern Ontario, the St. Lawrence Valley and the Maritime Provinces is much milder that that of the prairie provinces, but freezing temperatures are general between the end of November and the first of April, and the ground is usually covered with between one and three feet of snow. Any extensive military operations in Canada between November 1st and April 15th would be extremely difficult, if not impossible. 5. Communications. a. Railways. _ There are only two railway systems in Canada, both crossing Canada east and west from the Atlantic to the Pacific. These lines generally parallel the United States border, in some instances crossing through the United States.
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(1) The Canadian national Railways system (See inclosure B) belonging to and operated by the government, has eastern terminals at Halifax, N.S., Portland, Maine (Grand Trunk), and through the Central Vermont, at Boston, New London and New York. Western terminals are Vancouver and Prince Rupert B.C. An extension from Cochrane, Ontario, to Moosonee, Ontario on James Bay, was completed by the Province of Ontario in July 1932, to connect with water routes to Churchill, Hudson Bay and with the northern route to Europe. (2) The Canadian Pacific system (see inclosure C) has its eastern terminus at Saint John, N.B. and it western terminus at Vancouver, B.C. As indicated by the systems maps, there are numerous branch lines serving the industrial and farming areas of the Dominion, and connecting lines ty- ing in with various railroads of the United States. From a military viewpoint, these railroads provide excellent trans- portation facilities for Blue, if invasion of Crimson is decided upon, and being located in close proximity to the border are, from the Crimson view- point, very liable to interruption. This is particularly true at Winnipeg some 60 miles north of Blues border, through which both transcontinental systems now pass. This fact probably encouraged Canada to construct the railroad from The Pass, Manitoba and develop the port at Churchill. Complete details concerning all railroads of Canada are contained in Appendix No. 1. b. Highways. _ In recent years Canada has greatly increased and improved her road con- struction and while there are enormous stretches of country, particularly in the northern portion of the Dominion, with few or no roads, the southern portion is well served with improved roads. A number of transcontinental motor roads are under construction or projected, the most important being the “Kings International Highway” from Montreal to Vancouver, via Ottawa, North Bay, Sudbury, Sault Ste. Marie, Winnipeg, MacLeod, Crow’s Nest Pass, Fernia and Cranbrook. Another highway is being constructed from Calgary to Vancouver. The principal roads in Ontario, Quebec and the Maritime Provinces are shown on Inclosure D, herewith. Roads in the Prairie Provinces and British Columbia are shown on inclosure E. The majority of improved roads are classified as gravel; macadam and concrete construction amounting to only 7870 miles out of a total of some 95,000 miles improved. Gravel roads will require extensive maintenance under heavy motor traffic, especially during the spring. c. Water Transportation. _ (1) Inland Waterways. The Great Lakes, with the St. Lawrence River, is the most im- portant fresh water transportation system in the world. At the present time it affords a draft of 21.0 feet over all the Great Lakes and through the Welland Canal into the St. Lawrence. From the Atlantic Ocean to Mon- treal, the present head of ocean navigation on the St. Lawrence, a draft of 30.0 feet is available, adequate for the great majority of ocean shipping. For some distance above Montreal the present channel has an available depth of only 14.0 feet. The inland waterway is of prime importance to the economic life of both the United States and Canada for the transportation of bulk com- modities, especially for the movement of wheat from the western plains to shipping centers on the eastern seaboard; of iron ore from the mines in Minnesota to foundaries along Lake Ontario; and for coal from the mines of Pennsylvania and West Virginia to Ontario, Quebec and the northwest.
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The locks at Sault Ste. Marie, the boundary channels between Port Huron and Detroit and to a lesser degree the Welland Canal are the critical points on this waterway and effective control of such areas is vital to Blue. Navigation on the Great Lakes is generally closed by ice from about the end of November to the first of April. The St. Lawrence River is ordinarily ice bound for a similar period, but somewhat later about early in December to the latter part of April. While there are a number of Canadian lake ports of importance, Montreal is the only one which would not be automatically closed by Blue control of the Lakes. Montreal is also an important ocean port and will be considered along with other deep sea ports. (2) Ocean Shipping. The Dominion of Canada owns and operates a cargo and passenger carrying fleet consisting of some 57 cargo vessels and 11 passenger ships. The principal ocean ports and the magnitude of Canadian ocean traffic is indicated by the following tabulation:
A. Number and tonnage of sea-going vessels entered and cleared at the principal ports of Canada. (For year ending March 31, 1934.)
Churchill, Man. * 15 15 132,000 Three Rivers, Que 79 79 424,560 Windsor, N.S. 56 69 201,032
Note: The above figures do not indicate amount of commerce; Register tons ______ are gross tons. (Namely cubical contents in cubic feet divided by 100) less deductions for crews space, stores, etc.
A brief description of the above ports to indicate size, avail- able depths and important terminal facilities is included in Appendix No. 2. While the above tabulation lists the principal ports, it should be _________ realized that there are a large number of less desirable ports having available depths at low water of from 20 to 30 feet and provided with satis- factory terminal facilities, which can be used in an emergency for landing troops or supplies. Examples of this class of harbors are: Pictou, N.S. Sydney, N.S. Canso, N.S. Gaspe’, Quebec Sorel, Quebec
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The port of Montreal, favorably located at the head of ocean naviga- tion on the St. Lawrence and the foot of inland navigation of the Great Lakes, is a natural shipping and railroad center. The port of Quebec is less favorable situated economically being more than 100 miles northeast of Montreal. Strategically, however, Quebec controls the commerce of Canada moving to or from the Atlantic seaboard. Its possession by Blue would interrupt eastern rail and water communication between England and the Mari- time Provinces and the rest of Canada. The port of Halifax is one of the best harbors on the Atlantic Coast and the principal winter port of Eastern Canada. The harbor has been ex- tensively developed by the Dominion government as a modern ocean terminal and naval base. It is fortified, though much of the armament is obsoles- cent. In case of war with Red, Halifax would become of prime importance to Red as a naval base and as a debarkation point for overseas expeditions in case Blue controlled the St. Lawrence. However, the routes available for a Red advance from Halifax into northeastern United States or towards Quebec and Montreal are quite difficult. The port of Saint John, New Brunswick is similar in many respects to the port of Halifax. It is open throughout the year and equipped with the most modern terminal facilities, including one of the largest drydocks in the world. It is an important shipping center for grain and dairy products. Due to the proximity of the port to the United States border and the fact that the principal rail connections (C.P. Ry.) passes through the state of Maine, the port would be of little use to Crimson or Red, at least in the early stages of war, provided Blue made any effort to control this area. The port of Vancouver, B.C. came into prominence with the opening of the Panama Canal, providing an alternate route to that of the transcontinental railroads for grain, dairy, lumber and the other products of western Canada to Europe. The port of Victoria, on Vancouver Island, is similarly situated, but due to the absence of rail connection with the mainland is more concerned with passenger and mail traffic than with bulk commodities. Esquimalt, two miles west of Victoria, and the only Canadian naval base on the west coast, is equipped with a large modern drydock, and affords good anchorage for the largest vessels. Consequently this area is of prime importance to Crimson. With the closing of the Panama Canal to Red traffic and the presence of Blue naval forces based on Honolulu, its commercial value is largely des- troyed. Assuming that Blue controls the St. Lawrence and cuts Crimson’s eastern communication with Red, the areas importance is enhanced, although it remains a decidedly unsatisfactory outlet. If Red should win control of the Pacific steamship lanes, the area becomes of first importance to Red. All factors considered, it must be controlled by Blue. The port of Prince Rupert is a first class harbor with modern terminal facilities and excellent and extensive anchorages. It becomes of extreme importance to Crimson, if and when they are denied the use of the southwest British Columbia ports, although, as in the case of Vancouver, it affords a most unsatisfactory and hazardous route to Europe. Physical occupation of Prince Rupert harbor by Blue is not vital, but closing the port to ocean traffic should be effected. The port of Churchill, Manitoba now offers a good harbor and limited but modern terminal facilities, affording a back door to the Prairie Provin- ces and, by way of Moosonee, Ontario, and the Temiskaming and Northern Ontario Railroad, with central and western Ontario. Hudson Bay and James Bay are open to navigation only about 4 months of the year, but this condition is partially offset by the fact that the distance from the Prairie Provinces
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to Europe, via Churchill is from 500 to 1000 miles shorter than the rail- water route via Montreal. In case Red is denied the use of the Atlantic or Pacific ports, or both, Churchill will afford an outlet for grain and meat products from Ontario, Manitoba and Sasketchewan and an inlet for mili- tary supplies and troops from Europe unless the northern trade route through Hudson Strait is controlled by the Blue fleet, and this is improbable. d. Air Transportation (Civil). _ During 1933 there were 90 commercial aircraft operators in Canada. Their activities included forest file patrols, timber cruising, air photo- graphy, transportation of passengers, express and mail, etc. To encourage a more widespread interest and knowledge of aviation the Department of National Defense, since 1928, has issued two light air- planes and made certain grants to each of 23 flying clubs and a large air terminal has been built at St. Hubert, seven miles south of Montreal and a terminal airdrome at Rimouski, Quebec for the reception of trans-atlantic mails. At the close of 1934 there were 101 air fields of all types, 368 civil aircraft and 684 licensed pilots in Canada. Some details of airports in New Brunswick and Nova Scotia are given in a letter from the Office of the Chief of Air Corps, herewith. (See inclosure F) e. Telephone and Telegraph. _ (1) Cables. Six transoceanic cables have termini in Canada, five on the Atlantic and one on the Pacific. The Atlantic cables are landed at Halifax, though several of them are routed through Newfoundland. The Pacific cable lands at Vancouver from whence a cable also leads to the United States. (2) Radio. A transoceanic commercial radio beam service is carried on by a station at Drummondville, Quebec, with Australia, Great Britain and the United States. In 1932 a direct radio telephone circuit with Great Britain was opened through the medium of this beam station. (3) General. Canada is well supplied with local telephone, telegraph and radio service. Interruption of Canada’s trans-oceanic telegraph and radio service will seriously handicap Red-Crimson cooperation. 6. Other Economic Factors. a. Agriculture. _ Agriculture, including stock raising and horticulture, is the chief single industry of the Canadian people. Canada is not only self-sustaining, as far as food is concerned, but has a large excess for export. Food pro- duction is varied and so distributed throughout the dominion that each section is practically self-sustaining and cutting her off from the outside would would mere serve to deny her people certain luxuries, such as coffee, tea, sugar, spices and tropical fruit. The Maritime Provinces are noted for their fruit and vegetable crop, particularly for the oat and potato crops of Prince Edward Island and New Brunswick and apples in Nova Scotia. Quebec and Ontario are mixed farming communities with the Niagara peninsula specializing in fruit. Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta are the principal wheat producing centers, with other grains and stock raising of increasing importance. The rich valleys of British Columbia produce apples, other fruit and vegetables.
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b. Forests. _ The principal forests are in the provinces of British Columbia, Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. The manufacture of lumber, lath, shingles and other products such as paper pulp, is the second most important Canadian industry. c. Mineral Resources. _ Canada is one of the greatest mineral producing countries of the world. Nova Scotia, British Columbia, Quebec, Ontario, Alberta and the Yukon Ter- ritory contain the chief mining districts. The following summary notes pertinent facts concerning minerals of primary military importance. Aluminum. Aluminum was the 16th ranking Canadian export in 1934. Large quantities of bauxite, the principal source of supply were imported from the United States. Coal. There are enormous deposits of coal in Canada, largely in Nova Soctia and New Brunswick, in the east and in Alberta, Saskatchewan and British Columbia in the west. Due mainly to the distance of the fields from the manufacturing and industrial centers, about 50% of the coal consumed is imported from the United States, via the Great Lakes. Statistics for the calendar year 1933 show: Produced: Nova Scotia 6,340,790 tons New Brunswick 314,681 ” Manitoba 3,036 ” Saskatchewan 903,776 ” Alberta 4,748,074 ” British Columbia 1,484,653 ” Yukon Territory 638 ” Imported: From United States 8,865,935 tons From United Kingdom 1,942,875 ” Total – – – – – – ……………………….22,265,235 tons. (see slide 14855) In case of war with the United States, Canadas coal imports from this country would be cut off and her railroads and industrial activities seriously handicapped. If Blue controlled the Quebec area and Winnipeg, Canada’s railroads and industries dependent upon “steam power” would be crippled. Copper. The world production of copper in 1933 was (in short tons): Canada 149,992 Mexico 43,900 Rhodesia 144,954 Peru 28,000 Belgian Congo 73,409 Spain and ) Chile 179,200 Portugal ) 34,720 Japan 75,459 United States 196,190 Canada’s production was distributed approximately as follows: Province Tons ________ ____ Quebec 35,000 Eastern Townships Ontario 72,700 Sudbury area Manitoba 19,000 Flin Flon Saskatchewan 1,600 British Columbia 21,600 Western Manitoba
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Iron and Steel. Canada ranks seventh among the nations as a producer of iron and steel but only a small percentage of her production is derived from domestic ores, in view of the abundant supply of higher grade ores in Newfoundland and Minnesota. The Wabana section of Newfoundland contains the largest known single deposit of iron ore in the world. There are large iron ore deposits in Quebec, northern Ontario and British Columbia but for various reasons they are handicapped for blast furnace treatment. Iron and steel are produced in Nova Scotia (Sydney) and in Ontario. Iron ore is obtained from the Mesabi Range in Minnesota, via the Great Lakes and from Newfound- land. (See slide 14856) The bulk of iron and steel products, however, are imported, principally from the United States and the United Kingdom.
Lead. Lead is obtained in Canada largely from deposits in British Columbia, the largest porting being exported to England. Nickel. The world production of nickel in 1933 was about 50,736 tons, of which about 82% originated in the Sudbury district, north of Georgian Bay in Ontario. The remainder came chiefly from New Caledonia (Fr.). A new deposit of nickel was recently discovered in northern Saskatchewan but has not yet been worked. Nickel is necessary to industry and indispensable in war. Control of the Sudbury mines, in case of war, is therefor of vital importance. Petroleum. The production of crude oil or petroleum in Canada during 1934 amounted to 1,417,368 barrels, principally from the Turner Valley field in Alberta. A small amount is also obtained from wells near Monkton, New Brunswick and in southwest Ontario, between Lake Huron and Lake Erie. Considerable quantities are also imported from the United States. Zinc. Canada ranks fourth among the worlds producers of zinc. Her out- put in 1934 totaled 298,579,531 pounds.
The principal producing mines are located in the Kootenay district of British Columbia and near Flin-Flon in northwest Manitoba. Approximately 2/3 of the zinc exported goes to Great Britain. d. Manufacturing. _ (1) General. Canada is the second largest manufacturing country in the British Empire, with Ontario and Quebec the most important industrial centers. The relative standing of the various provinces during 1933, based on the value of products manufactured, was approximately as follows: Ontario $1,000,000,000. Quebec 650,000,000. British Columbia * 146,500,000. Manitoba 91,000,000. Alberta 55,000,000. Nova Scotia 53,000,000. New Brunswick 45,000,000. Saskatchewan 36,000,000. Prince Edward Island 3,000,000. *Includes Yukon Territory
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The principal industries ranked according to gross value of products (1932) are: Pulp and Paper $123,415,492. Central Electrical Stations 117,532,081. Non-ferrous metal smelting 100,561,297. Slaughtering and meat packing 92,366,137. Flour and food mills 83,322,099. Butter and Cheese 80,395,887. Petroleum Products 70,268,265. Bread and other bakery product 51,244,162. Cotton yarn and cloth 51,197,628. Printing and publishing 50,811,968. Clothing factory, women’s 44,535,823. Automobiles. 42,885,643. Rubber goods. 41,511,556. Hosiery and knitted goods 40,997,210. Sawmills. 39,438,057. (2) Munitions. (a) Aircraft.
There are at present six firms manufacturing aircraft as follows: Canadian-Vickers……………Montreal, Que. De Haviland………………..Toronto, Ont. Curtis Reid………………..Cartierville, Que. Fairchild………………….Longueuil, Que. Boeing…………………….Vancouver, B.C. Ottawa Car Mfg. Co………….Ottawa, Que. Aero engine factories have been established by: Armstrong-Siddeley Motors Co. at Ottawa, Que. Aero Engines of Canada at Montreal, Que. Canadian Pratt-Whitney Aircraft Co. at Longueuil, Que. (b) Miscellaneous. During the World War Canada demonstrated her ability to divert her peace time industries to the production of munitions, when she manufactured and exported large quantities of shells, fuses, cartridge cases, explosives, gun forgings, machine guns and small arms ammunition.
This production could not be obtained in case of war with Blue but some munitions could be produced if her factories were free to operate and raw materials were available. The government arsenal at Lindsey, Ont., is equipped to produce small arms ammunition and the arsenal at Quebec manu- factures some small arms and artillery ammunition. e. Commerce. _ Analysis of Canada’s industry and resources indicate that she has a sufficiency or surplus of certain raw materials but a deficiency of others. The more important of these materials are as follows: (1) Sufficiency or surplus; Arsenic, asbestos, cadmium, cobalt, copper, feldspar, fish oil, fluospar, foodstuffs, furs, gold, graphite, gypsum, lead, leather, magnesium, mica, nickel, silver, talc, wood and zinc. (2) Deficiency; Aluminium, antimony, bauxite, barytes, camphor, chromite, coal, cotton, flax, hemp, iron, jute, kaolin, manganese, mercury, nitrates, phosphate, petroleum, opium, quinine, rubber, silk, sugar, sulphur, tea, tin, tobacco and wool.
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7. Combat Estimate. a. All matters pertaining to the defense of Canada are under a Department _ of National Defense (Act of Jan. 9, 1923) with a minister of National De- fense at the head. A Defense Council has been constituted to advise the Minister. b. The Navy has an authorized complement of 104 officers and 812 men, a _ large majority serving under 7 year enlistments. In addition certain spec- ialists are loaned from the British Royal Navy. The Reserve consists of from 70 to 113 officers and from 430 to 1026 men recruited from sea-faring personnel. The ships of the Royal Canadian Navy are:
c. Army. _ (1) Personnel: Estimated Strength (by G-2): Organized Forces. ________________ Active Reserve Total ______ _______ _____ Permanent Active Militia 403 403 Officers 403 403 Men 3300 3,300 Non Permanent Active Militia Officers 6,911 6,911 Men 44,962 44,962
Reserves, Non-active Officers 10,000 10,000 Men 30,000 30,000 __________________ Total Organized 3,703 91,873 95,576 * Note: The Canada Year Book, 1935, pp 1114, gives permanent and non-permanent active militia 1934: Permanent Officers and men——— 3,760 Non-permanent officers and men—– 135,184 _________ Total 138,941
The latest information concerning the distribution of the active militia is shown on the accompanying map. (Incl. G) (2) It is probable that the Non-permanent Active Militia can be brought to a strength of 60,000 at M plus 15 and to full strength of 126,000 in M plus 30 days. (Note: This estimate is approximately twice that of G-2, First Army.) New troops will begin to appear in 180 days at the rate of 50,000 monthly. d. Air Service. _ The Royal Canadian Air Force operates under a directorate in the office of the Chief of Staff of the Army. Strength (Dec. 1, 1934) Active: Officers 117 Men 664 Reserve: Officers 38 Men 236 _____ Total 1,055
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The equipment consists of some 84 combat planes with probably 20 on order. (G-2 estimate) The Armaments Year Book, League of Nations, gives a total of 166 planes of all kinds and the Statesman Year Book, 1935 gives 189 planes of all kinds. It is probable that about one squadron of pursuit and one squadron of observation could be organized for immediate service. e. Comment. _ The location of Canada’s industry and population along a narrow extent front facing the northern United States border and her relatively weak military and naval forces, widely dispersed, will necessitate a defensive role until Red forces are landed.
The promptness and effectiveness of British aid must depend upon suitable debarkation points on Canada’s east coast. The West Coast does not favor overseas operations unless Red controls the Pacific, and even then is too remote from critical Blue areas. f. Red Reinforcements. _ Various estimates have been made of the size, composition, and time of placing Red reinforcements in Canada. In any such estimate, the time factor is of prime importance but depends on an unknown quantity, viz, “the period of strained relations.” The following estimate is considered conservative: Probable Enemy Forces in Canada _______________________________Empire Days after Crimson (Less Crimson) Total M Day men Div. Men Div. Men Divisions 15 25,000 5 — — 25,000 5 30 50,000 5 — — 50,000 5 60 50,000 5 126,000* 8 176,000 13 90 50,000 5 203,000 13 253,000 13 120 50,000 5 238,000 16 288,000 21 150 50,000 5 255,000 16 305,000 21 180 90,000 6 255,000 16 345,000 22 *Under certain conditions this force might be landed in Canada by 30 M.
Air Forces. __________ Red has available at once 48 squadrons of 10 to 12 planes each. The following forces can probably be landed in Canada as indicated. 10 M 13 squadrons. 30 M 30 squadrons. 60 M 41 squadrons. 90 M 56 squadrons. 120 M 74 squadrons. f. Conclusion. _ Crimson cannot successfully defend her territory against the United States (Blue). She will probably concentrate on the defense of Halifax and the Montreal-Quebec line in order to hold bases of operation for Red. Important secondary efforts will be made to defend her industrial area and critical points on her transcontinental railroad lines.
8. Areas of Strategic Importance. Analysis of the above data and discussion indicates certain areas which would become of considerable military importance in the event of war with Red; namely, a. The Halifax Monkton St. John area, sometimes called the Martime _ Province area. b. The Montreal Quebec area, sometimes called the St. Lawrence Area. _
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c. The Great Lakes Area. _ (1) Niagara River Area. (2) Sarnia-Windsor Area. (3) Sault Ste. Marie Area. (4) Sudbury Area. d. Winnipeg Area. _ (1) Winnipeg City and vicinity. (2) Churchill, Manitoba Area. e. Vancouver-Victoria Area. _ (1) Ports of Vancouver and Victoria, area. (2) Prince Rupert area. f. The reasons why these various areas are strategically important may be _ briefly summarized as follows: (1) Halifax Monkton St. John Area. (Maritime Province) The port of Halifax is the key point in the area, for while the port of St. John affords excellent facilities for an overseas expedition, it is so close to the United States border that uninterrupted use by Red cannot be expected. At Monkton, the peninsula connecting Nova Scotia and the mainland narrows to 14 miles. With Halifax in possession of Crimson, this area affords the best defensive position to prevent any advance west- ward by Red. (a). Control of Halifax by Blue would: 1. Deny Red the only ice free port on the east coast and the _ only ports, other than the St. Lawrence River ports, suitable as an overseas base. 2. Deny Red a prepared naval base on the east coast, from which _ to operate against Blue naval forces or commercial shipping. 3. Disrupt transoceanic submarine cable service between Crimson _ and Red (except from Newfoundland) and between Crimson and the West Indies. 4. Deny Red the use of certain air bases from which to operate _ against northeastern United States. (b) The control of Halifax by Blue, renders the Port of St. John and the Monkton area of secondary importance. Failing to secure Halifax _______ control of the Monkton area by Blue would: ___________________________ 1. Deny Red the use of St. John Harbor. _ 2. Cut the lines of communication between the port of Halifax _ and St. John and the remainder of Canada. 3. Place Blue directly across the only line of advance (by _ Red) from Halifax, on the shortest possible defensive line. 4. Deny Red the use of certain air bases from which to operate _ against northeastern United States. 5. Give Blue the use of various small air fields at Monkton _ and St. John. (2) Montreal – Quebec Area (St. Lawrence River Area). The ports of Montreal and Quebec, while ice bound about four months of the year, still afford the best overseas base both as to facilities and location. In addition the area is of great commercial importance in that it controls all lines of communication, by land, sea and wire between in- dustrial and agricultural centers of Canada and the eastern seaboard. While Montreal has the larger and more commodius harbor and terminal facilities, Quebec, due to its physical location, is the key point of the area. Control of this area by Blue would: (a) Deny the use of all good St. Lawrence River ports to Red. (b) Cut all Canada, west of Quebec, viz. industrial, and agricult- ural centers from the eastern seaboard.
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(c) Deny Red and Crimson and make available to Blue, the principal air bases in eastern Canada. (d) Deny Crimson coal and iron from Nova Scotia and Newfoundland as well as all imports via the Atlantic. (3) The Great Lakes Area. This area comprises several critical points: (a) Niagara River crossings and Welland Canal. (b) The waters connecting Lake Huron and Lake Erie. (c) The great industrial area of Canada – that part of Ontario lying between Lake Huron and Lakes Erie and Ontario. (d) The waters connecting Lake Superior and Lake Huron, including the Soo Locks. (e) The Sudbury nickel-copper mines. Control of the Great Lakes waterway is vital to Blue, for the transporta- tion of iron ore, coal and grain and such control will necessitate occupation of a bridgehead covering the narrow boundary waters at and near the Soo Locks and in the Detroit Area. The bridges over the Niagara River and the Welland Canal, connecting Lake Erie and Lake Ontario are of importance to Blue for occupation of the Important industrial area of the Niagara-Ontario peninsula. The Welland Canal would become of importance as a line of communi- cation if Blue seized the peninsula. While control of that area is of importance in crippling Crimson industry, it is probably of greater importance in denying the enemy Crimson and Red, a most convenient base for operations against highly industrialized areas in the United States. (4)
Winnipeg Area. Winnipeg is the nerve center of the transcontinental railroad system. Control by Blue will effectively separate eastern and western Canada and block transportation on men, grain, coal, meat and oil to the east. The completion of the Canadian National Railroad to Churchill Manitoba on Hudson Bay and the development of the port at Churchill provide an alternate route to Europe via Moosonee, Ont., and the Tem. and Ont. Ry. to northeast Ontario. While the water route through Hudson Bay is only open about four months of the year, and the ports are supplied by single track railroads, a considerable amount of traffic could be developed in an emergency. (5)
Vancouver – Victoria Area. As pointed out above, the ports in this area are of secondary im- portance only under the conditions, which may reasonable be assumed. How- ever, the area has certain military importance, due to the naval base at Esquimalt, and is a possible outlet for the Canadian plan provinces and western Canada. Its control by Blue would deny the enemy any base or outlet on the West Coast; simplify the problem of protecting our shipping in the Puget Sound area; and interrupt cable communication with the far east. While Prince Rupert, B.C. has an excellent harbor and terminal facilities with good rail connections leading east, naval blockade of this port would be readily possible, once the Vancouver – Victoria area was in Blue control.
9. Routes of Approach to the Areas of Strategic Importance. a. Halifax – Monkton – St. John Area (Maritime Provinces) (Incls. D & H). _ Three possible routes of approach are considered, viz: (1) Via water from Boston or New York to Halifax or vicinity. (2) Via water from Boston or New York to ports in Western Nova Scotia and thence overland to Halifax.
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(3) From Eastern Maine, via St. John and/or Fredericton to Monkton – Amherst – Truro to Halifax. b. Discussion of Routes of Approach to the Halifax – Monkton – St. John _ (Maritime Province) Area. (1) The distance by water from Boston to Halifax is 370 miles and from New York 600 miles, or in time about 30 or 50 hours respectively. The Port of Halifax is fortified and would undoubtedly be mined. A frontal attack would require a large force and would involve undesirable delays. Other developed ports of Nova Scotia on the Atlantic are too distant from _________ Halifax and involve a long advance after a landing is effected and this advance would be over difficult terrain. A number of undeveloped bays along the east shore offer favorable conditions for landing operations and of these, St. Margarets Bay, the near- est, being some 16 miles by road west of Halifax, appears satisfactory. Deep water, with a minimum depth of 7 fathoms extends nearly to the head of the Bay, not far from Hubley and French Village, which are on an improved road and on the railroad from Yarmouth to Halifax. The bay is protected from all winds and seas, except those from the south and is of sufficient size to harbor any fleet required for the expedition.
Tidal range is the same as at Halifax, 6 to 6 1/2 feet. There are numerous small but adequate boat and barge landings on the west, north and east shore of the bay, from whence improved roads lead to the main highway. The highway Hubbard – French Village – Hubley – Halifax is 18 feet wide, of macadam, with east grades and with concrete bridges capable of carrying heavy artillery and tanks. The railroad is single track, standard gauge and parallels the road. It has rather heavy grades and is of light construction. Rocky wooded hills rise rather steeply to a height of 200 to 400 feet all around St. Margarets Bay, but the roads are within the 50 foot contour and the terrain between the roads and the water is greatly rolling. The main highway French Village – Halifax, runs through low rocky hills and movement off the roads by wheeled vehicles would be practically im- possible. (2) The ports on the western shore of Nova Scotia off the Bay of Fundy are subjected to extremely high tides – 20 to 25 feet, and generally afford only limited terminal facilities and have depths generally inadequate for docking transports. Tidal currents are strong. From Windsor, on the Avon River, to Halifax, there is one improved road and a branch of the Canadian Northern Railroad. The distance is about 50 miles, with high ground and good defensive positions in the center of the island. As a route of approach to Halifax it is considered inferior to the route from St. Margarets Bay. (3)
The All Land Route via Eastern Maine. This route involves an advance from the Maine border of approximately 320 miles over difficult terrain. The St. Johns River, rising near the border of northern Maine, flows south just east of the Maine – New Brunswick border to Woodstock, thence generally southeast through Fredericton to St. John. It is navigable from the mouth to the falls some distance above Woodstock, N.B. The average tidal range at St. John is 20 1/2 feet, decreasing up stream. The river is crossed by a highway and a railroad bridge at Fredericton, each nearly 1/2 mile long. Two other bridges, a cantilever railroad bridge and a suspension bridge span the river about one mile above the city of St. John. There are numerous ferries operating alone the river. It is apparent that the St. John River is a serious obstacle to any advance overland from Maine. While the St. John could be bridged, such operations would result in considerable delay.
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The railroad and road nets available are shown on Inclosures B, C and D. They are reasonably adequate for a force of the size probably required for this operation. (4) Conclusion. If Halifax is to be captured without the use of large forces and expenditure of considerable time and effort, it must be accomplished promptly before Red reinforcements can be landed or Crimson organize for its defense. Any advance overland from Maine would eliminate all elements of surprise and make the capture extremely difficult – a major operation. An overseas expedition is one of the most uncertain of military operations, and with the Red fleet on guard in the North Atlantic, with Red’s immediate military objective the retention of a base in eastern Canada for future operations against Blue, a joint operation against Halifax must be promptly and perfectly executed to assure any hope of success. This route is considered the best but existing conditions at the time, may make this route impracticable, and the all land route necessary. c. The St. Lawrence Area. (Quebec – Montreal) _
The only practicable routes of advance for Blue, into this area, are from northern New York, New Hampshire and Vermont and from northwest Maine. (See map) (Incl. K) (1) Rivers. (a) The St. Lawrence River flanks the left side of all routes of approach to Quebec. From Montreal to Three Rivers it flows through an alluvial plain, with the south bank 25 to 75 feet above the river. Below Three Rivers the banks increase steadily in height to Quebec, where they are 140 to 175 feet high. The normal rise and fall of the river above the tidewater is 10 feet but this maybe doubled by ice jams. Tidal range reaches a maximum of 18 feet at Quebec, and practically disappears at Richelieu Rapids 40 miles above Quebec. The river above Quebec is obstructed by ice from November to April but ice breakers can get through. The river from Quebec to Montreal, generally about 1/2 to 2 miles wide (except at Lake St. Peter) is navigable on a 30′ draft to Montreal. The distance from Quebec to Mon- treal is 160 miles. In the area south of the St. Lawrence, between Quebec and Mon- treal, are several rivers of importance which will naturally influence any plans for an advance on Quebec, viz: Richelieu River St. Francis River Nicolet River Becancour River Chaudiere River Etchemin River Other streams will create obstacles of lesser importance. (b) The Richelieu River flows north from Lake Champlain to enter the St. Lawrence about 35 miles north of Montreal. It is navigable on a 6 1/2 foot draft throughout its length. (c) The St. Francis River rises in St. Francis Lake some 50 miles northwest of Jackman, Maine. It flows southwest to Lennoxville, Quebec, where it turns sharply northwest to flow into the St. Lawrence (Lake St. Peter). Headwaters are controlled. The regulated flow is some 3000 feet per second or more, with an average fall of 6.6 feet per mile. It is not fordable below Sherbrooke.
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(d) The Nicolet River rises in Nicolet Lake, 8 miles west of Lake Alymer, and flows generally northwest to empty into the St. Lawrence at the east end of Lake St. Peter. The average low water flow is about 2000 feet per second. Banks in the upper reaches – hilly wooded terrain – are steep and from 200 to 500 feet higher. The average fall is about 21 feet per mile but there are a number of dams. From Arthabaska to Lake St. Peter the stream flows through a flat open country, with banks 25 feet high or less, except for a gorge starting about 4 miles north of St. Clothilda and ending 3 miles from Lake St. Peter.
The river is not a serious obstacle but there are many swampy areas between it and the Becancour River. (e) The Becancour River rises about 5 miles northwest of Lake St. Francis and flows north, then southwest, then northwest to enter the St. Lawrence a few miles below Three Rivers, Que. The lower reaches of the river, below the vicinity of Lyster, Que, flows through generally flat country of gentle slope. The stream averages 300 to 400 feet wide and is fordable at few places. From Maddington Falls to within 3 miles of the St. Lawrence the river flows through a narrow gorge 100 to 250 feet below the surrounding flat country.
The river is not a serious obstacle to an advance on Quebec, by reason of the general direction of flow in its lower reaches and the characteristics of the country. (f) The Chaudierre River rises in Lake Megantic, about 45 miles west of Jackman, Maine and flows generally north into the St. Lawrence, op- posite Quebec. From Lake Megantic to Hersey Mills, it flows swiftly between steep banks in a narrow valley. The adjacent terrain is rugged and heavily timbered. From St. George to Valley Junction the valley widens materially and the country is less rugged. Below Valley Junction the river flows through gentle undulating country between relatively low banks.
The Chaudiere is a strong swift stream with an average discharge of over 4000 feet per second. The width varies from 200 feet at St. George to 400 feet or more in the lower reaches. From St. Maxine to the St. Lawrence it is 600 to 1500 feet wide. This river must be considered a serious obstacle. (g) The Etchemin River rises in Lake Atchemin and flows northwest into the Chaudiere. It is 200 to 300 feet wide in the lower reaches, with banks generally high and steep. It forms a considerable obstacle. (2) Terrain. The southerly portion of the area bordering on the United States, east of the Richelieu River, is hilly verging on mountainous (up to 3000′). The Notre Dame Mountains extend the Green Mountains of Vermont in the form of a series of ridges, gradually decreasing in elevation from Lake Champlain northeast to the meridian of Quebec, thence northeast parallel to the St. Lawrence. From the St. Lawrence the terrain rises smoothly and gradually toward the southeast to the foothills of the Notre Dame Mountains. On the line Montreal Sherbrooke a serious of eight hills (wooded) rise sharply to heights varying from 800 to 1500 feet or more above the surrounding country. In general the hills of the Quebec theatre are wooded, those below the 500 foot contour and east of the Becancour River sparsely, while west of the river there are densely forested areas at intervals. (3) Roads. The main roads to Montreal lead north from Plattsburgh, New York and Burlington, Vermont. Quebec may be reached via routes No. 1 and 5, through Sherbrooke, Que; via route No. 3 along the south bank of the St. Lawrence; or via Montreal and the north bank of the St. Lawrence. The latter is the longest route and undoubtedly the most difficult. Another route is available from Jackman, Maine, via route No. 23 through Valley Junction. The road net available is shown on inclosure No. “D” and “K.”
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(4) Railroads. The railroads available are shown on inclosures “B” and “C.” They are entirely adequate for any probable movement against this area. (5) Discussion of routes. (a) Northern New York – Vermont to Montreal Roads: No. 9 from Plattsburgh to St. Lambert and South Mon- treal. Distance 69.2 miles, all paved. No. 7 from Burlington, Vt., via St. John, Que. to St. Lambert or South Montreal. Distance 94.2 miles, all paved. There is a bridge across the Richelieu River at St. Johns. There are two highway bridges across the St. Lawrence at Montreal. Railroads: Delaware and Hudson – Albany to Montreal. New York Central – Malone to Montreal. Rutland and C.P. – Burlington to Montreal. Central Vermont and C.N. Montpelier to Montreal. Comments: The terrain is favorable and no physical barrier to the advance as far as the St. Lawrence, except the crossing of the Rich- elieu River, for a force moving from Vermont. An advance on Quebec from Montreal is possible, but offers the longest route, with many rivers per- pendicular to the line of advance (down the St. Lawrence) which offer excellent defensive positions. (b) Northern Vermont and New Hampshire to Quebec. Physical features: The Richelieu River on the west and the Chaudiere and Etchemin Rivers on the east tend to delimit the zone of advance. Roads: No. 5 – Newport, Vt. to Sherbrook then No. 7 to Valley Junction to the highway bridge on the St. Lawrence and to Quebec, or via No. 23 from Scott Junction to Levis, Que and the ferry to Quebec. Distance 212.5 miles from Newport, Vt. All improved road, mostly gravel. Some of the road through the hilly country is paved. No. 5 from Sherbrooke via Victoriaville is an alternate route. No. 23, Jackman, Maine – Valley Junction – Levis. This dis- tance is 109 miles. The road is improved and about 50% paved. It is the shortest route. It crosses the Chauderie and Etchemin Rivers. There are numerous alternate routes and connecting roads. Railroads: Canadian Pacific – Newport to Quebec. Canadian Pacific – Jackman via Megantic to Quebec. Canadian National – Portland, Me., via Sherbrooke to Quebec. Comments: While the terrain in this sector is hilly verging on the mountainous, with several defiles and river crossings, it offers the short- est and best route of advance on Quebec.
d. The Great Lakes Area. _ This area must be considered under the following subdivisions, as the routes of approach vary, and approach must be made from all of these direc- tions. The Buffalo – Niagara River Area. The Port Huron – Detroit Area. The Sault St. Marie or Soo Locks – Sudbury Area. (1) The Buffalo – Niagara River Area. Bridges cross the Niagara River at Buffalo (Peace Bridge); at Niagara Falls (suspension Bridge) and the (lower Arch Bridge) and at Lewiston, New York. ” ” ”
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Roads: The road net approaching the Niagara River from the United States and leading across the river into southern Ontario and through Hamilton to Toronto and Montreal, is one of the best along the inter- national boundary and is entirely adequate for any probably movement. Railroads: The Canadian Pacific and the Canadian National rail- roads have a network of railways connecting Buffalo with Toronto and points east. Branch lines lead to all important parts of the Niagara peninsula. Comment: The crossings over the Niagara River should be promptly secured to assure a line of advance into the Niagara Peninsula of Ontario.
(2) The Detroit – Port Huron Area. This area has much the same characteristics as the Buffalo Niagara River Area but beyond securing the crossings over the boundary waters, sufficient area to cover the Great Lakes water routes against Crimson interference is essential. Crossings: Ambassador Bridge – Detroit – Windsor. Two tunnels (one railroad) Detroit – Windsor. Numerous ferries. Railroads and roads: There is an excellent railroad and road net available for any advance eastward from Detroit and Port Huron. Comment: The Ontario Peninsula is of great industrial importance to Canada and a military area of great strategic value, as a base for air or land operations against the industrialized areas between Chicago and Buffalo. Any Blue operations should advance via Buffalo – Niagara Falls and Port Huron – Detroit simultaneously.
(3) Sault Ste. Marie – Sudbury Area. The best route of approach to the Sudbury area, about 200 miles east of the Soo, is obviously via Sault St. Marie, along the north shore of North Channel. An operation along this route, automatically covers the Soo. The Canadian Pacific railroad and one good gravel road leads east from the Soo. These provide ample facilities for supply of the probable force required. The southern flank of this line is protected by North Sound and the north flank by rough heavily wooded terrain entirely devoid of roads or other communications suitable for the movement of armed forces.
(4) Winnipeg Area. The main route from the United States to Winnipeg is north from Grand Forks and Crookston through Emerson. A main road follows the west bank of the Red River, from Emerson into Winnipeg. A good hard sur- face road from Grand Forks and one from Crookston furnishes a suitable road net south of the border. There are several secondary roads on both sides of the border to supplement the hard surface roads. The Canadian Pacific has two main lines extending north from the border, one leading from Fargo through Gretna along the west bank of the Red River, and one from Thief River Falls, through Emerson along the east bank of the Red River. The Canadian Northern has a line from Grand Forks through Emerson Junction to Winnipeg on the west bank of the Red River and another line connecting with Duluth and extending through Warroad to Winnipeg. The best and only practicable route of approach is obviously north from Grand Forks and Crookston. The terrain is flat and open and offers no natural obstacles to an advance.
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Churchill, on Hudson Bay, has rail connection by the Canadian National system at Hudson Bay Junction about 325 miles northwest of Winni- peg. The best and only route of approach to cut this line is along the railroad from Winnipeg.
(5) The Vancouver Area (Vancouver – Victoria) (See Incl. E & L) (Omitted) The best practicable route to Vancouver is via Route 99 through Bellingham, a distance of 55 miles and over a paved highway, through wooded and farming country. A secondary and longer route lies about 15 miles fur- ther to the east running through Sumas to strike the highways running east from Vancouver at the meridian of Mission City. The Grand Trunk Railroad extending from Vancouver to Seattle fur- nishes a satisfactory rail service. Victoria and Esquimalt, on the island of Vancouver can be reached by water only. Ferry service is maintained between Vancouver and Nanaimo on the east shore of the island, some 50 miles north of Victoria and between Vancouver, Burlingham and Port Angeles and Victoria. The best route of ap- proach is by water from Port Angeles, Washington.
IV. Conclusions: ___________ a That the critical areas of Canada are: _ (1) The Halifax-Monkton-St.John Area (The Maritime Provinces). (2) The St.Lawrence Area (Quebec and Montreal). (3) The Great Lakes Area. (4) The Winnipeg Area. (5) The Vancouver Area (Vancouver and Victoria).
b. That the best routes of approach to these areas are: _ To (1) By joint operations by sea from Boston. (2) From Northern New Hampshire-Vermont area. (3) (a) From Sault St. Marie and the Soo Locks Area. (b) From Port Huron – Detroit Area. and (c) From the Buffalo-Niagara Falls Area. (4) From Grand Forks-Crookston through Emerson. (5) Along Puget Sound through Everett and Bellingham, supported by an attack by water in Puget Sound.
V. Recommendations. _______________ None.
VI. Concurrences. ____________ The committee concurs in the foregoing conclusions.
CHARLES H. JONES Major, Infantry, Subcommittee Chairman.
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I often find it useful, when attempting to make sense out of various scenarios, to look at extremes or ideals the better to apprehend a more complex and muddied situation and arrive, perhaps, at a clearer conception of causality.
For example, I was recently told by a friend that a school kid bashed another school kid – it seemed to me as if it were typical and not highly unusual school-yard shenanigans. But when the Principal was called in to mete out justice the basher was given a reprieve because he was ‘hangry’. In other words the poor school-yard bully hadn’t had his Wheaties and as a consequence he indulged in an act of petty violence against an apparently undeserving (but well-fed) victim. Therefore it wasn’t deliberate malevolence or caprice at play, but malnourishment – the hunger’s the thing that led to anger and thus to a bloody nose or blackened eye. The basher-bully was exonerated of all responsibility, probably rewarded with a candy bar to compensate for his state of malnourishment, and all was right in the world of the grammar school once again.
But I asked my friend a simple question: does every hungry person assault someone? Is hunger at the root of all evil?
I recall many times when I have been hungry, thirsty, anxious, aggravated, irritated, worried and distraught, and perhaps I may have glowered at a pedestrian daring to step into the hashmarks of a crosswalk as I was cruising along, or perhaps I may have uttered an icy ‘thank you’ to an innocent barista serving coffee, but I can’t remember gratuitously tackling somebody whose looks, for one reason or other, I didn’t like just because I wasn’t at my utmost physical best.
Even in states of extreme inebriation there are some who will go wild, and others who go mum, so unless a person has been pushed to the non compos mentis brink, personal agency – and personal responsibility – are always at play.
As I have grappled with the question of groups and group psychology since the covid debacle was introduced and lent it greater urgency, given the strange and harmful turns groups took, I have found it useful to look at groups with which I have had a direct personal experience, and which themselves represent ideals.
To begin with groups abound, everywhere. They can’t be avoided and we can’t avoid being included in them somehow. Chat groups, condominium associations, sporting teams, platoons or battalions of soldiers, boards of trustees, groups spontaneously formed, groups gathered together for a brief time, groups more enduring – they are inescapable and take on a multiplicity of forms and possess a multiplicity of degrees of power or influence.
As we, on our side of the covid fence, well know, groups emerged that sought to exclude and punish those who didn’t go along with the plan to accept a highly dubious injectable. And also, as we well know, it wasn’t hunger that made them angry at us. What was it? What galvanized such energetic hostility and lack of respect? Did the jabs soften or alter their brains or consciences? (N.B.: The Nazis of the 20th century hadn’t received a covid jab). Was it a collective psychosis?
Many have come forward with explanations for the explosion of highly irrational and highly malicious trends and behaviours. Here I wish to tack aslant and look at the example of a group whose activity and goals are not only benevolent but enriching and enlightening: a Chorus.
Many years ago, in the late Seventies and early Eighties, I was a member of a choral group that had the wonderfully good fortune to sing some of the most magnificent music imaginable: Beethoven, Brahms, Bach, Haydn, Mahler – with one of the greatest symphonies of the time, The Philadelphia Orchestra, conducted by the likes of Ormandy, Abbado, Giulini, Bernstein and others.
Participating in the final movement of Beethoven’s Ninth at the Academy of Music in Philadelphia and Carnegie Hall in New York remains one of the highlights of my life.
For me it was a dream come true to join and contribute to a group united in the common goal of artistic truth and beauty. But what were the elements underpinning such a group?
For one, the whole was unquestionably greater than the sum of its parts. There were very many highly accomplished and beautiful individual singers in the chorus, but the gathering of voices in a greater number and with focus created something ineffable. Indeed, many voices – like mine – were rather humdrum; but together we created a sound that, properly honed and harnessed, could send shivers down the spines of our auditors. There was no ‘standing out’ in a chorus, except by fidelity to the composer’s score; there was no ‘ego’ as we are wont to say in psychological circles.
Second, what unified the chorus? Like any collection of people, motives and inclinations were varied. Some liked to be onstage, some liked to let the air out of their lungs, some liked the comfort of a large association or the thrill of a live performance. All, however, had to be united in subjugation to the realization of the wishes of the composer via the composer’s interpreter, the conductor. It was the role of the choral director to prepare us for the conductor and even if the director very occasionally bristled with a conductor’s approach, it wasn’t for her to object.
An ideal, a vision united us, which was the music itself and whatever lay behind and around and consequently could be expressed by the music. There were occasions when we sang ‘lesser’ compositions but these too required complete and selfless dedication. And who, in the end, can say what is better or worse in matters of art?
Third, we exercised power – good power, as I like to call it. This reminds me of another occasion when I was lucky enough to have attended a concert of Luciano Pavarotti, seated onstage behind the great singer. When Pavarotti turned towards those of us behind him, a palpable frisson of excitement swept through: I can’t describe it otherwise than as a transmissible and very perceptible physical and emotional energy. In a large chorus something similar and even more powerful occurs. The vibrations of the human voice, the vibrations of human voices collectively assembled in musical expression, the vibrations and sonorities of the orchestra accompanying the collective vocal aspiration – these all bring one, as a singer, to a state of exultation. And when I have listened to a great chorus as a member of the audience I have similarly been transported, but not with the incomparable bristling degree as when I have been an active participant.
Therefore the essential elements in the psychology of what I call an ideal good group are: the collective power of people who have agreed to sacrifice their individuality in service to a commonly held ideal, for the sake of achieving an ideal that could not otherwise – e.g., singly – be realized. The ideal group brings out the very best of us, collectively speaking, but one must understand that even here individual strivings must be pursued elsewhere. There is no getting round the fact of a submission to something collectively agreed upon that is greater than one’s own single self.
At the polar extreme of a good group is a group united and dedicated to mass murder. Even such a group shows the same common elements of subservience to a vision embodied by an ideal to which members submit, and in service to which members, in their collectively gained power, may do virtually anything – unlike choral members whose activities are narrowly defined by a score.
The key, therefore, is the uniting vision and its promise of power and pleasure to the group’s participants, the realization of fantasies behind which lurks the illusion of omnipotence, immortality and ecstasy.
To understand how many millions of generally good-enough people could have succumbed during the Vax apartheid period here in New Zealand to shunning their no-jab neighbours, excluding them from society, being on the cusp of sending them away to quarantine camps or leaving them, in the paraphrased words of one notable Leftist thinker, to forage for their own food, one must understand the uniting vision.
After at least a year of relentless ceaseless repetitive messages from every major media outlet about the deadliness of the ‘pandemic’ – with a ticker-tape of case and death counts running with every video – followed by the image of an injectable panacea which, we were told, would protect, preserve and save all of humanity – it is no wonder that those of us outside that group would be treated as dangerous vermin threatening the salvation of their newer healthier world. The covidians had their own song-sheet and they were lustily singing that all men would be brothers if and only if they got the magic needle.
The promise of omnipotence, immortality and ecstasy, crafted by the most sophisticated propagandists in history in collusion with the most encompassing and centralized communications networks in history, seduced the majority, quite efficiently.
For me it has never been a question of ‘mass formation’ or ‘mass psychosis’ but mass manipulation cleverly touching the chords of our deepest desires, which also include the desire to harm and kill and destroy, a profound facet of omnipotence.
Great art harnesses our destructive urges by transforming them into an expression of beauty. The dark arts of propaganda unite us by providing a vision so alluring, enticing and necessary that otherwise good and decent people turn rogue.
In our battle against these murderous propagandists we must offer a truer vision of collective good. We cannot attempt to motivate by fear – our enemies are the experts in this.
I had lunch the other day with a local community organizer. She has been at it for decades, forming economic and service cooperatives as a dedicated ‘liberal leftist’. She is now accused of being ‘far right’ when in reality her ideas and ideals have been as unchanging as Climate all along. We’re beyond right and left, anyway, and her way forward is a way of peaceful cooperative local alliances, showing others what good will and good energy and good power can accomplish.
I think she’s on the right track. With every battle against the covidians and our corrupt politicians – and battle we must – we must promote our own benevolent ideals. I don’t see any other way.
And this is all the more important as the second phase of the New Zealand Covid Inquiry, set for November, comes into play. . . . .
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Dr. Garcia is a Philadelphia-born psychoanalyst and psychiatrist who emigrated to New Zealand in 2006. He has authored articles ranging from explorations of psychoanalytic technique, the psychology of creativity in music (Mahler, Rachmaninoff, Scriabin, Delius), and politics. He is also a poet, novelist and theatrical director. He retired from psychiatric practice in 2021 after working in the public sector in New Zealand. Visit his substack at https://newzealanddoc.substack.com/.
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French President Emmanuel Macron thought he could defeat the far-right parties in his country by bringing forward early parliamentary elections, but it did not turn out the way he expected, and now, the political force led by Marine Le Pen, could end up in a ruling coalition, according to the renowned French sociologist Didier Fassin.
Almost from the beginning of his first presidential term, Macron —who claimed to be neither right nor left in the campaign—began to shift his policies to the right, attacking the left, but he ended up boosting the popularity of Marine LePen’s National Rally (Rassemblement National) party.
“The question is how Macron, who ran for president in 2017 as ‘neither right nor left’, and assured voters that he would ‘change the software’ of the country, has failed to the point of giving it the keys to power,” comments Fassin, a professor at the Collège de France, in an article published in the British newspaper The Guardian. “By tactically shifting towards the right and lambasting the left, he may have simply legitimised the party’s ideas.”
According to the analyst,
“Macron thought he could defeat Le Pen by shifting right. Instead, he has emboldened her. The president’s hazardous strategy has failed. Now France stands on the brink of its first far-right government since 1945.”
During his first term, the French president made unpopular decisions, earning him the nickname “president of the rich.” These included abolishing wealth taxes, introducing a flat tax on capital income, lowering the tax rate for corporations, restricting access to unemployment benefits, raising the minimum retirement age, and cutting housing benefits for the poor.
But this shift by Macron to the right, the specialist explained, far from harming the far right, has strengthened it, and proof of this was its recent success in the European elections at the beginning of June, in which Marine Le Pen’s party obtained 31.4% of the votes, more than double the 14.6% of Macron’s party.
Furthermore, Macron’s failed strategy has also managed to strengthen the most radical left, as the socialists, communists, greens and France Unbound have formed a New Popular Front, which, according to a recent poll, could obtain 28% of the votes in the next legislative elections, behind the 36% of the National Rally.
Fassin concludes,
“Macron’s gamble may lead to an unexpected outcome – whether a victory for the left or an ungovernable alliance with the right. Shortly after dissolving parliament, the president joked casually about his decision: ‘I’m delighted. I threw my unpinned grenade in their legs. Now we’ll see how they’re doing.’ His cynical gesture could end up hurting him more than his opponents.”
One of the critical issues in the election is Macron’s unrelenting support for the Kiev regime, especially his efforts to send French and European troops to Ukraine. In February, the French president stated at a press conference after the Paris Conference on Ukraine that the leaders of Western countries discussed the possibility of sending ground troops to Kiev. However, it was not possible to reach a consensus.
This was then followed by Macron, in an interview with The Economist magazine in March, not ruling out sending troops to Ukraine if he received a request from Kiev and if Russia breaks the front line. Moscow, in turn, warned that all French soldiers in Ukraine, both instructors and mercenaries, would be legitimate targets for the Russian Armed Forces.
Macron’s claims earned him criticism from prominent opponents, such as Marine Le Pen, who stated that the president “is playing the warlord, but it is about the lives of our children that he speaks so carelessly.”
More recently, Jordan Bardella, leader of the National Rally party, represented by Marine Le Pen in the Lower House of the French Parliament, declared earlier this month that he is against sending the military to Ukraine.
“There are red lines that the President of the Republic has crossed, but that I will not cross tomorrow as Prime Minister of a ‘government of coexistence.’ I, unlike the President, am against sending French troops and soldiers to Ukraine,” Bardella commented in a speech broadcast on the BFMTV television channel on June 19, adding that most French people also reject Macron’s decision.
“That can have tragic consequences, and I do not want France to be directly involved in a conflict with a nuclear power, which would represent a risk to world peace and the stability of our country,” he said.
Bardella focuses on wanting to fix France’s myriads of issues, from a cost-of-living crisis for ordinary French to dealing with mass migration and radical Islam in the country. These are issues that have been hurting the French but neglected by Macron as he attempts, and fails, to forge himself as a 21st-century Napoleon and creates the conditions for the National Rally party to gain power.
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This article was originally published on InfoBrics.
Ahmed Adel is a Cairo-based geopolitics and political economy researcher. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.
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A preprint study led by Dr. Peter McCullough suggests using siRNA and RIBOTACs to target and degrade residual mRNA from COVID-19 vaccines, potentially mitigating long-term health risks associated with persistent spike protein production
COVID-19 mRNA vaccines have shown wider distribution in the body than initially claimed, raising concerns about unintended effects and the need for an “off switch” to stop ongoing spike protein production
The study proposes using siRNA and RIBOTACs as potential methods to bind to and degrade vaccine mRNA in cells, offering a targeted approach to prevent adverse events from mRNA-based therapies
“Long vax” symptoms, similar to long COVID, have been reported following vaccination, including fatigue, brain fog, numbness, and cardiovascular issues, highlighting the need for effective treatments for those affected
Another study led by McCullough found a significant increase in cerebral thromboembolism risk associated with COVID-19 vaccines compared to other vaccines, leading to calls for a moratorium on their use
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A preprint study revealed a potential way to clear out mRNA from COVID-19 shots. The research, led by cardiologist, internist and epidemiologist Dr. Peter McCullough, offers hope for those who are suffering from health damage caused by COVID-19 injections.
“As the world is waking up to nearly two thirds with potential future disease and disability from the long-lasting mRNA coding for the dangerous Wuhan spike protein, the search is on for ways to stop this molecular monster from doing more damage,” McCullough writes.1
The technique involves the use of small interfering RNA (siRNA) and ribonuclease targeting chimeras (RIBOTACs) to “target, inactivate, and degrade residual and persistent vaccine mRNA” and in so doing, help prevent uncontrolled spike protein production while reducing toxicity.2
Technique May Help Mitigate Damage Triggered by mRNA COVID Shots
Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna studies show that mRNA from COVID-19 shots, which is carried by tiny particles called nanolipids, does not stay only in the shoulder muscle or nearby lymph nodes as initially claimed. Instead, the mRNA can be found in various tissues in the body, raising safety concerns.
There is a worry that this mRNA might integrate into the body’s DNA or cause unintended spike protein production, which could be harmful. To address these concerns, scientists are looking at ways to eliminate this leftover mRNA to stop the production of the spike protein, which the COVID-19 shot mRNA helps produce.
“Without any way to turn off the messenger RNA, we think every single messenger RNA shot, because it’s been made synthetic and resistant to human breakdown, is going to make people progressively sick,” McCullough says. “We have to find a way to get this out of the body … We’re gonna need an off switch for this.”3
McCullough’s study highlights “emerging concerns regarding the wide systemic biodistribution of these mRNA vaccines leading to prolonged inflammatory responses and other safety concerns.”4According to the scientists, “The stability of mRNA vaccines, their pervasive distribution, and the longevity of the encapsulated mRNA along with unlimited production of the damaging and potentially lethal Spike (S) protein call for strategies to mitigate potential adverse effects.”5
The study reviews a strategy involving siRNA and RIBOTACs. “It may seem unfathomable for doctors to inject more RNA to deactivate Pfizer and Moderna synthetic mRNA that has accumulated in the body after multiple injections,” McCullough says. “However, siRNA used today in my practice (patisiran, inclisiran) appears to be safe and well-tolerated only notable for injection site reactions.”6
siRNA and RIBOTACs May Act as Off Switch for COVID mRNA Shots
siRNA is a type of RNA molecule that can specifically bind to and degrade messenger RNA (mRNA) in cells. This process prevents the mRNA from being used to produce proteins. siRNA works by entering the cell and becoming part of a complex called the RNA-induced silencing complex (RISC).
Within RISC, the siRNA pairs with its matching mRNA sequence and guides the complex to cut and destroy the target mRNA, stopping protein production. siRNA is used in research and therapeutic applications to silence specific genes, helping to study gene function and treat diseases caused by overactive or harmful genes.
RIBOTACs, meanwhile, are synthetic molecules designed to bind to specific RNA molecules and recruit natural cellular enzymes, called ribonucleases, to degrade the target RNA. RIBOTACs enter the cell and attach to both the target RNA and the ribonuclease enzyme. This binding brings the enzyme into close proximity with the target RNA, allowing the enzyme to cut and degrade the RNA.
RIBOTACs are used to specifically target and destroy RNA molecules that are involved in disease processes, providing a precise way to reduce the levels of harmful proteins produced by these RNAs. According to the study, “The targeted nature of siRNA and RIBOTACs allows for precise intervention, offering a path to prevent and mitigate adverse events of mRNA-based therapies.”7
The study described two methods to target and degrade residual and persistent COVID-19 shot mRNA, including siRNA Therapy (A) and RIBOTAC neutralization (B):8
“A: siRNA targeted against COVID-19 vaccine mRNA enters the vaccinated cell via LNPs [lipid nanoparticles], where it incorporates into the RISC. The siRNA in RISC binds to the complementary sequence of the target vaccine mRNA and cleaves it, thus suppressing spike protein production.
B: RIBOTACs targeted against COVID-19 vaccine mRNA enter the vaccinated cell via LNPs, where they bind to both the target vaccine mRNA and endogenous RNase. This results in RNase-mediated vaccine mRNA degradation and the suppression of spike protein production.”
“We use these small interfering RNAs already in practice,” McCullough said. “There’s one called Patisiran, the other one, Inclisiran. I use them in my practice. They only last in the body a few days. They bind up messenger RNA to inactivate it … We hope that some molecular technology companies can pick this up and consider this.”9
COVID-19 Shots Trigger Debilitating Adverse Events and ‘Long Vax’
An effective “off switch” could provide a lifeline for those suffering debilitating effects. Significant serious adverse events have occurred among many who received mRNA COVID-19 injections, which have also been said to have an “unacceptably high harm-to-reward ratio.”10
For every 1 million shots, an estimated 1,010 to 1,510 serious adverse reactions, such as death, life-threatening conditions, hospitalization or significant disability, may occur.11 When compared to the flu shot, data from the European Medicines Agency Eurovigilance Database shows that COVID-19 shots cause more:12,13
Meanwhile, “long vax,” which describes an array of symptoms caused by COVID-19 shots, is finally getting some much-deserved recognition.
As reported by Science magazine in 2022, “In rare cases, coronavirus vaccines may cause long COVID-like symptoms,”14 which can include (but is not limited to) brain fog, memory problems, headaches, blurred vision, loss of smell, nerve pain, heart rate fluctuations, dramatic blood pressure swings and muscle weakness. The feeling of “internal electric shocks” are also reported.
Also in 2022, a preprint study from the U.S. National Institutes of Health reported new neuropathic symptoms that began in 23 adults within one month of receiving a COVID-19 shot.15 All of the patients felt severe tingling or numbness in their faces or limbs, and 61% also experienced dizziness when standing up, intolerance to heat and heart palpitations.
A study by Yale scientists also shed light on long vax, which they described as chronic post-vaccination syndrome, or PVS.16 In a study of 241 people who reported PVS after an mRNA COVID-19 shot, the median time from the jab to the onset of symptoms was three days, with symptoms continuing for 595 days. The five most common symptoms included:17
Exercise intolerance (71%)
Excessive fatigue (69%)
Numbness (63%)
Brain fog (63%)
Neuropathy (63%)
In the week before the survey was completed, patients reported a range of additional symptoms highlighting the mental toll the condition takes. The symptoms required a median of 20 interventions for treatment and included:18
COVID mRNA Shots Linked to 111,795% Increase in Brain Clots
Adding to the urgency in uncovering a strategy to help those who have received COVID shots, another study led by McCullough revealed they’re linked to a 111,795% increase in brain clots known as cerebral thromboembolism.19
Cerebral thromboembolism, a known side effect of COVID-19 shots, is a medical condition where a blood clot (thrombus) forms in a blood vessel, travels through the bloodstream and becomes lodged in an artery supplying blood to the brain. This blockage prevents blood flow to parts of the brain, potentially leading to a stroke.
For the study, researchers used data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) covering January 1, 1990 to December 31, 2023. They compared cerebral thromboembolism cases reported after COVID-19 shots to those reported after flu shots and other vaccines.
The study found the risk of cerebral thromboembolism after COVID-19 vaccines is significantly higher compared to flu vaccines and all other vaccines.20 While there were 52 reports of cerebral thromboembolism associated with influenza vaccines, there were 5,137 cases linked to COVID-19 shots.21
The staggering increase led the researchers to call for “an immediate global moratorium on the use of COVID-19 vaccines,” particularly in women of reproductive age. McCullough wrote:22
“This paper did not capture the level of permanent neurologic devastation and disability suffered by these patients. I can tell you that the rates must be very high given the extensive nature of the blood clots reported. These data among others strongly support removing all COVID-19 vaccines and boosters from the market. No one should be put at risk for a serious stroke with any vaccine.”
Help for Those Injured by an mRNA COVID
It’s important to be wary of any new mRNA shots that come on the market and carefully weigh if the risks outweigh the reported benefits before getting one. However, if you’ve already had one or more COVID-19 shots, there are steps you can take to repair from the assault on your system.
The more mRNA shots you take, the greater the immune system damage. So, the first step is to avoid getting anymore mRNA jabs. Next, if you’ve developed any unusual symptoms, seek out help from an expert. The Front Line COVID-19 Critical Care Alliance (FLCCC) has a treatment protocol for post-jab injuries. It’s called I-RECOVER and can be downloaded from covid19criticalcare.com.23
Dr. Pierre Kory, who cofounded the FLCCC, has transitioned to treating the vaccine injured more or less exclusively. For more information, visit DrPierreKory.com. McCullough is also investigating additional post-jab treatments, which you can find on PeterMcCulloughMD.com. Finally, if you’re suffering from long vax, be sure to review my strategies for boosting mitochondrial health to allow your body to heal.
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The Worldwide Corona Crisis, Global Coup d’Etat Against Humanity
by Michel Chossudovsky
Michel Chossudovsky reviews in detail how this insidious project “destroys people’s lives”. He provides a comprehensive analysis of everything you need to know about the “pandemic” — from the medical dimensions to the economic and social repercussions, political underpinnings, and mental and psychological impacts.
“My objective as an author is to inform people worldwide and refute the official narrative which has been used as a justification to destabilize the economic and social fabric of entire countries, followed by the imposition of the “deadly” COVID-19 “vaccine”. This crisis affects humanity in its entirety: almost 8 billion people. We stand in solidarity with our fellow human beings and our children worldwide. Truth is a powerful instrument.”
Reviews
This is an in-depth resource of great interest if it is the wider perspective you are motivated to understand a little better, the author is very knowledgeable about geopolitics and this comes out in the way Covid is contextualized. —Dr. Mike Yeadon
In this war against humanity in which we find ourselves, in this singular, irregular and massive assault against liberty and the goodness of people, Chossudovsky’s book is a rock upon which to sustain our fight. –Dr. Emanuel Garcia
In fifteen concise science-based chapters, Michel traces the false covid pandemic, explaining how a PCR test, producing up to 97% proven false positives, combined with a relentless 24/7 fear campaign, was able to create a worldwide panic-laden “plandemic”; that this plandemic would never have been possible without the infamous DNA-modifying Polymerase Chain Reaction test – which to this day is being pushed on a majority of innocent people who have no clue. His conclusions are evidenced by renown scientists. —Peter Koenig
Professor Chossudovsky exposes the truth that “there is no causal relationship between the virus and economic variables.” In other words, it was not COVID-19 but, rather, the deliberate implementation of the illogical, scientifically baseless lockdowns that caused the shutdown of the global economy. –David Skripac
A reading of Chossudovsky’s book provides a comprehensive lesson in how there is a global coup d’état under way called “The Great Reset” that if not resisted and defeated by freedom loving people everywhere will result in a dystopian future not yet imagined. Pass on this free gift from Professor Chossudovsky before it’s too late. You will not find so much valuable information and analysis in one place. –Edward Curtin
ISBN: 978-0-9879389-3-0, Year: 2022, PDF Ebook, Pages: 164, 15 Chapters
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France was the last European nation to lose its sovereignty, and France might be the first to recover its sovereignty. In the 1960s France was still a nation of ethnic French as contrasted with the tower of babel and a geographical entity that it is today.
During the ten-year presidency of Charles De Gaulle (1959-69) France’s policy was one of national independence. DeGaulle refused to join NATO, and he opposed a supranational Europe in which nations would subordinate themselves to a European Union.
French independence could be on the point of return judging from the success of Marine Le Pen’s party yesterday in the current French elections. Her nationalist party has in the first round of the parliamentary elections taken 34% of the votes with President Macron’s centrist coalition receiving only 21% support. If the second round produces similar results, a restoration of French independence is possible.
For many years European governments have worked consistently to overwhelm their ethnic populations with third world immigrant-invaders. It has reached the point where ethnic European women raped by immigrant-invaders fear to report the crime as it can result in a charge of racism or worse against the victim. For example, in response to a gang-rape of an ethnic German female, a 20-year old ethnic German female citizen called one of the gang rapists a “disgraceful rapist pig.”The German citizen was sentenced to jail for defaming an immigrant-invader, a protected species under German law, while the rapist was given a suspended sentence and served no jail time.
For many years the European working class has experienced their living standards reduced in the name of economy. Not long ago the French were protesting the rise in the retirement age, which forces them to work longer for their pension. The French have noticed that economy measures only apply to their living standards and not to the vast sums that Macron pours into the West’s war against Russia in Ukraine. Now all of Europe hears continually that they must prepare, and cough up money for, war with Russia.
The French don’t want war with Russia. Nor do the Germans, or the Italians. Only “their” governments do, and war is what Washington’s puppets have put on the agenda.
Europeans don’t want the high energy cost and lost profit and employment opportunities imposed on them by Washington’s “Russian sanctions.” It seems to Europeans that the purpose of Washington’s sanctions is to make Europe more dependent on Washington, essentially reducing them to serfs.
Finally, after suffering decades of abuse, insult, and total disregard by their leaders, Europeans protested in the recent European Union parliamentary elections. The ruling parties were repudiated across the board. The Belgian prime minister had to resign. The French president had to call national elections. I wrote that if the repudiation carries over into the national elections, we could see the unravelling of NATO, the European Union, and a return of sovereign European nations.
World War II gave control of Europe to the US instead of to Germany. The Soviet collapse gave Washington control over the Warsaw Pact, placing NATO on Russia’s border. Washington’s policy was to de-Germanize Germany and to destroy a national awareness. Washington controlled German education and indoctrinated Germans that nationalism was racist, produced Hitler and the Holocaust. Legislation was passed essentially criminalizing a positive attitude toward German nationalism. It meant that you were a Nazi. It still does. It is unclear if a German state can ever be resurrected.
Rid of the Germans, Washington turned its efforts on France. De Gaulle’s departure weakened France. It took time, but eventually Washington controlled who the French president would be. With France, Germany, and the British in Washington’s pocket, the rest of Europe went along.
Today European nations that shared the rule of the world are puppets of a criminal regime in Washington. The notion that there is any military power in these puppet states is laughable.
The self-confidence that made the British the ruler of the world has long departed. It was destroyed at Oxford and Cambridge. No Western country has a positive opinion of itself. All are being keyed for war with Russia, China, Iran.
The Kremlin does not understand the hollowed out, empty, West where there is no support for any government. Western peoples are brainwashed into impotence and cannot even protect their constitutional rights. Why would anyone fight for these governments, and if forced, with what spirit?
Putin sits there in his legalistic way accepting insult after insult, provocation after provocation, as his way of avoiding war with the West. It is not only Western provocations that are widening the Ukraine conflict into World War III. Putin has permitted the conflict to go on and on and on, and this has enabled Washington to get more and more and more involved, thus widening the conflict.
If Putin does not immediately use sufficient force to terminate the conflict, World War Three seems certain.
There is hope that if Le Pen wins France and does not sell out to Washington, the unravelling of NATO and resurrection of European independence will begin. But this can be a slow process, while the developments in Ukraine toward wider war are accelerating. The time is rapidly ending during which Putin can use sufficient force to end the conflict before it results in World War Three.
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Paul Craig Roberts is a renowned author and academic, chairman of The Institute for Political Economy where this article was originally published. Dr. Roberts was previously associate editor and columnist for The Wall Street Journal. He was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy during the Reagan Administration. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.
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ISR (intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance) is one of the most important aspects of warfare.
Without such assets and platforms, any military is virtually blind, making it either impossible or at least extremely ineffective to use any sort of strategic and/or long-range weapons.
Very few people would even consider the possibility that ISR platforms can be used as weapons. Even legally speaking, there are no black-and-white grounds to think of them as such. This legal grey area is precisely what the US-led NATO hopes to continue exploiting indefinitely. And indeed, it gives the political West’s crawling invasion of Russia a crucial asymmetric advantage, perhaps the most important one it still has (or had, at this point).
The political West became so brazen in this that it started flying less than 100 km off the coast of Crimea, prompting the Russian Aerospace Forces (VKS) to respond directly. Thus, in March last year, a Russian Su-27SM3 masterfully downed a USAF MQ-9 “Reaper” dronewithout firing a single shot. The result was that such flights stopped for weeks after the “unfortunate incident”, saving thousands of lives that would’ve otherwise been jeopardized by the Kiev regime. However, in recent months, NATO resumed such flights.
The result has been an absolute disaster, particularly for civilians. Namely, as the political West is now openly using terrorist tactics against Russia (already announced in major media outlets and coordinated with Islamic radicals in the country), the Kremlin needs the most effective way to counter this. The last days of June saw several well-coordinated NATO terrorist attacks in Russia, including the direct targeting of hundreds of beachgoers in Crimea, when a US-sourced ATACMS missile fired by the Neo-Nazi junta killed at least four (including two children) and wounded over 150 people. In the immediate aftermath of this terrorist attack,
However, it seems that precisely this happened, as recent reports by military sources suggest that the VKS promptly responded by dispatching its top-of-the-line interceptors to “pay a visit” to the ISR drones used by the USAF. According to Fighter-Bomber, one of the most prominent Russian milbloggers, they “neutralized” an American RQ-4B “Global Hawk” over the Black Sea. Fighter-Bomber claims there’s even a video of the event. His account suggests that a MiG-31 made two passes by the US drone, flying at up to Mach 2.3 (over 2800 km/h). He says that “this is the first such case in the history of aviation” and that “no one has ever ‘met’ anyone at such altitudes and speeds”. Fighter-Bomber also said that the superfast, high-flying MiG-31 (NATO reporting name “Foxhound”) was chosen because it’s the only aircraft in the VKS (and the world) that could perform such a task.
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This article was originally published on InfoBrics.
Drago Bosnic is an independent geopolitical and military analyst. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.
Featured image: U.S. Air Force MQ-9 camera footage of the Russian Su-27 Black Sea intercept on March 14. [Source: edition.cnn.com]
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The number of Ukrainian recruits who do not want to fight is proliferating despite the military facing a major manpower shortage, The Guardian reported. Although Ukraine has secured money and weapons from the West to aid in the war effort, at least for the next few months, manpower shortage is one issue that cannot be resolved.
“I want to leave the country. My mind can’t take being trapped here any more,” said Dmytro, a 31-year-old potential recruit. “I never thought about leaving until the mobilisation laws were introduced. But I can’t stay in my flat forever.”
The Kharkov native told the British newspaper that he had approached individuals online who promised to facilitate his escape from Ukraine for at least €8,000, an astronomical amount considering the average salary in the country is about €550.
“I am not made for war. I can’t kill people, even if they are Russians. I won’t last long on the front … I want to build a family and see the world. I am not ready to die,” he said, adding that although he did not trust the human traffickers, he had no other choice.
According to the newspaper, even before the mobilisation intensified, more than 20,000 Ukrainians fled the country despite the Kiev regime’s attempts to stop it. The exodus began when Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky signed in April a law that reduced the mobilisation age from 27 to 25 and punished draft evaders by freezing their bank accounts, seizing their properties, and taking their driver’s licenses.
According to the law, all people eligible for military service must update their personal details at a recruitment centre and demobilisation dates are not specified either.
“Since the war’s beginning, the draft has been criticised as chaotic and tarnished by corruption. Ukraine has intensified its efforts to stop people fleeing across borders and evading the draft, highlighted by Zelensky’s dismissal of all regional military recruitment chiefs in April. This dismissal followed reports of officers accepting bribes to exempt men from conscription. But the practice appears to be hard for the authorities to root out,” The Guardian detailed.
One poll found that 94% of respondents believe corruption is one of the main problems in Ukraine, with 61.7% saying that corruption in procurement for the army is the most harmful to Ukraine’s ability to resist and defeat Russia. It is natural that there will be little enthusiasm among Ukrainians to risk their lives fighting a better armed and manned military when corruption further impedes an almost impossible task.
Another Ukrainian, Andrei, told The Guardian that he too was seeking to leave the country, having already previously failed.
“The journey is only getting more difficult,” he said, adding: “I don’t think I will be this lucky a second time if things go wrong” but that he was still considering paying the hefty €8,000 demanded by the human traffickers to get him into Moldova.
“For now, I am on a self-imposed house arrest. I don’t leave my flat at all,” Andrei said. And who can blame him for wanting to dodge the recruiters after some of his mobilised friends had already been deployed and killed, which, according to the newspaper, “damaged his mental health.”
The outlet highlighted that there were a variety of reasons why Ukrainians were avoiding conscription, from wanting to avoid “gruesome trench fighting and a brutal death rate” to complaints of “inadequate training before being sent to the frontlines” and due to family reasons. In effect, Ukrainians are not willing to fight and conscription, as The Guardian begrudgingly admits, “risks dividing Ukrainian society, already plagued by war fatigue.”
“Many Ukrainian soldiers at the front, or those who have returned after being injured, criticise draft dodging, arguing that the practice weakens their country’s war effort as Russian forces make advances across multiple fronts,” the article concludes.
Although Ukraine will receive $61 billion in aid from the US over the coming months and is receiving new weapons and ammunition which will alleviate, but not solve, some issues, an impossible issue to resolve is the lack of manpower. It is recalled that earlier this year, a Ukrainian service member told The Washington Post that the companies in his battalion were staffed at only 35% of normal levels.
This is an issue that cannot be solved with Western money and is why the Kiev regime is attempting to mobilise as many as half a million more Ukrainians to fight the Russian military, including from the country’s prison population. With Ukrainians no longer blindly believing the regime’s propaganda that the war will be won, morale and motivation have diminished, even to the point that ordinary citizens are willing to risk departing with their life savings to have the chance to escape mobilisation.
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This article was originally published on InfoBrics.
Ahmed Adel is a Cairo-based geopolitics and political economy researcher. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.
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After NATO’s catastrophic, illegal invasions of Yugoslavia, Libya and Afghanistan, on July 9th NATO plans to invade Washington DC. The good news is that it only plans to occupy Washington for three days. The British will not burn down the U.S. Capitol as they did in 1814, and the Germans are still meekly pretending that they don’t know who blew up their Nord Stream gas pipelines. So expect smiling photo-ops and an overblown orgy of mutual congratulation.
The details of NATO’s agenda for the Washington summit were revealed at a NATO foreign ministers’ meeting in Prague at the end of May. NATO will drag its members into the U.S. Cold War with China by accusing it of supplying dual-use weapons technology to Russia, and it will unveil new NATO initiatives to spend our tax dollars on a mysterious “drone wall” in the Baltics and an expensive-sounding “integrated air defense system” across Europe.
But the main feature of the summit will be a superficial show of unity to try to convince the public that NATO and Ukraine can defeat Russia and that negotiating with Russia would be tantamount to surrender.
On the face of it, that should be a hard sell. The one thing that most Americans agree on about the war in Ukraine is that they support a negotiated peace. When asked in a November 2023 Economist/YouGov poll “Would you support or oppose Ukraine and Russia agreeing to a ceasefire now?,” 68% said “support,” and only 8% said “oppose,” while 24% said they were not sure.
However, while President Biden and NATO leaders hold endless debates over different ways to escalate the war, they have repeatedly rejected negotiations, notably in April 2022, November 2022 and January 2024, even as their failed war plans leave Ukraine in an ever worsening negotiating position.
The endgame of this non-strategy is that Ukraine will only be allowed to negotiate with Russia once it is facing total defeat and has nothing left to negotiate with – exactly the surrender NATO says it wants to avoid.
As other countries have pointed out at the UN General Assembly, the U.S. and NATO’s rejection of negotiation and diplomacy in favor of a long war they hope will eventually “weaken” Russia is a flagrant violation of the “Pacific Settlement of Disputes” that all UN members are legally committed to under Chapter VI of the UN Charter. As it says in Article 33(1),
“The parties to any dispute, the continuance of which is likely to endanger the maintenance of international peace and security, shall, first of all, seek a solution by negotiation, enquiry, mediation, conciliation, arbitration, judicial settlement, resort to regional agencies or arrangements, or other peaceful means of their own choice.”
But NATO’s leaders are not coming to Washington to work out how they can comply with their international obligations and negotiate peace in Ukraine. On the contrary. At a June meeting in preparation for the Summit, NATO defense ministers approved a plan to put NATO’s military support to Ukraine “on a firmer footing for years to come.”
The effort will be headquartered at a U.S. military base in Wiesbaden, Germany, and involve almost 700 staff. It has been described as a way to “Trump proof” NATO backing for Ukraine, in case Trump wins the election and tries to draw down U.S. support.
At the Summit, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg wants NATO leaders to commit to providing Ukraine with $43 billion worth of equipment each year, indefinitely. Echoing George Orwell’s doublethink that “war is peace”, Stoltenberg said,
“The paradox is that the longer we plan, and the longer we commit [to war], the sooner Ukraine can have peace.”
The Summit will also discuss how to bring Ukraine closer to NATO membership, a move that guarantees the war will continue, since Ukrainian neutrality is Russia’s principal war aim.
As Ian Davis of NATO Watch reported, NATO’s rhetoric echoes the same lines he heard throughout twenty years of war in Afghanistan: “The Taliban (now Russia) can’t wait us out.” But this vague hope that the other side will eventually give up is not a strategy.
There is no evidence that Ukraine will be different from Afghanistan. The U.S. and NATO are making the same assumptions, which will lead to the same result. The underlying assumption is that NATO’s greater GDP, extravagant and corrupt military budgets and fetish for expensive weapons technology must somehow, magically, lead Ukraine to victory over Russia.
When the U.S. and NATO finally admitted defeat in Afghanistan, it was the Afghans who had paid in blood for the West’s folly, while the US-NATO war machine simply moved on to its next “challenge,” learning nothing and making political hay out of abject denial.
Less than three years after the rout in Afghanistan, US Defense Secretary Austin recently called NATO “the most powerful and successful alliance in history.” It is a promising sign for the future of Ukraine that most Ukrainians are reluctant to throw away their lives in NATO’s dumpster-fire.
In an article titled “The New Theory of Ukrainian Victory Is the Same as the Old,” the Quincy Institute’s Mark Episkopos wrote,
“Western planning continues to be strategically backwards. Aiding Kyiv has become an end in itself, divorced from a coherent strategy for bringing the war to a close”.
Episkopos concluded that
“the key to wielding [the West’s] influence effectively is to finally abandon a zero-sum framing of victory…”
We would add that this was a trap set by the United States and the United Kingdom, not just for Ukraine, but for their NATO allies too. By refusing to support Ukraine at the negotiating table in April 2022, and instead demanding this “zero-sum framing of victory” as the condition for NATO’s support, the U.S. and U.K. escalated what could have been a very short war into a protracted, potentially nuclear, war between NATO and Russia.
Turkish leaders and diplomats complained at how their American and British allies undermined their peacemaking, while France, Italy and Germany squirmed for a month or two but soon surrendered to the war camp.
When NATO leaders meet in Washington, what they should be doing, apart from figuring out how to comply with Article 33(1) of the UN Charter, is conducting a clear-eyed review of how this organization that claims to be a force for peace keeps escalating unwinnable wars and leaving countries in ruins.
The fundamental question is whether NATO can ever be a force for peace or whether it can never be anything but a dangerous, subservient extension of the U.S. war machine.
We believe that NATO is an anachronism in today’s multipolar world: an aggressive, expansionist military alliance whose inherent institutional myopia and blinkered, self-serving threat assessments condemn us all to endless war and potential nuclear annihilation.
We suggest that the only way NATO could be a real force for peace would be to declare that, by this time next year, it will take the same steps that its counterpart, the Warsaw Pact, took in 1991, and finally dissolve what Secretary Austin would have been wiser to call “the most dangerous military alliance in history.”
However, the world’s population that is suffering under the yoke of militarism cannot afford to wait for NATO to give up and go away of its own accord. Our fellow citizens and political leaders need to hear from us all about the dangers posed by this unaccountable, nuclear-armed war machine, and we hope you will join us—in person or online—in using the occasion of this NATO summit to sound the alarm loudly.
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In the USA, elections are organized on a regular basis for the President, both houses of Congress (the House of Representatives and the Senate), and state and local government offices. In practice, candidates in the majority of cases run for office as members of the party (one of two main political parties – the Democrats or the Republicans) in order to get the party’s support for their candidacy. However, in principle, whoever wants to run as an independent candidate can organize a petition. In that case, if it is collected enough signatures, the person can run. According to the electoral law, any American citizen over the age of 18 may vote in an election under conditions that the person is registered and meets the requirements for residency in a state (one out of 50).
Elections for the Members of Congress
The US Congress (Parliament) is composed of two houses: the House of Representatives (in fact, the Lower House, representing the people) and the Senate (in fact, the Upper House, representing the states). The House of Representatives has 435 members. Each member is serving a two-year term. However, the exact number of each state depends on the size of its population. For instance, some states like Montana, as they have very small populations, have a few representatives (Montana has only one) while other states with bigger populations have proportionally more representatives: for example, California with the largest population has 53. The borders of the districts that members of the House of Representatives represent are changed every ten years after each census or official counting of the inhabitants. The purpose is to include an equal number of voters.
Every state elects two Senators (altogether 100). Each of them is serving a six-year term. However, every two years, around 1/3 of the Senate comes up for re-election. The elections for the Senate are organized at the same time either as elections for the House of Representatives or for the President.
In both cases of elections for Congress, the people in the particular district or state choose their representative and only the candidate with a plurality of votes (i.e., with the most votes) is elected for the Congress.
Alongside the elections on the national level, each state has its own government which is set up like the federal government with elections held in the same way.
The Presidential Elections
Elections for the President and Vice-President are held every four years according to, in fact, a complicated and very particular procedure that is unique in the world.
The first electoral step is primaries or primary elections. It means that from January to June in the election year, political parties choose their candidates through a series of elections in each state. In other words, people choose the party whose primary they want to vote in and vote for their choice of candidates.The second step is the congressional convention, i.e., in the summer, each political party (in fact only the two biggest) holds a convention in order to make its final choice of candidates. Teams of delegates from each state go to the convention to vote for the pair of candidates that won their party’s primary elections. Nevertheless, usually, the party chooses the final candidates informally in advance, based on who has been most successful in the primaries.
It has to be noted that the presidential election all the time are organized on the Tuesday following the first Monday in November. Several weeks before the election, the voters who are registered to vote receive a card telling them the address of the polling station where they have to cast their vote. Every voter at the polling station casts a single presidential vote (for both a President and Vice-President), together with separate votes for a member of the House of Representatives and (in the case of hold elections) a senator.
The next procedure goes after the votes are counted in the presidential election. The point is that each state (50) has a number of electors (one for each congressional district and senator) who make up the Electoral College (like a committee). According to the rules, each elector casts two votes, one for the President and another for the Vice-President (formally not dependent on the results of voting by the people but in reality following the people’s wish expressed in the elections). In fact, the members of the Electoral College chose both candidates who received the greatest number of votes in the state. Finally, a candidate with the support of at least 270 of 538 electors becomes President or Vice-President.
The Two-party System
In the USA there are two focal political parties – the Democratic Party and the Republican Party. In practice, there are other smaller political parties and associations but they very rarely win major elections. In essence, therefore, in the USA exists a two-party system at least for the very practical reason that the US “winner-take-all” political system makes it difficult for more than two main political parties to exist at one time.
The Democrats as a party started in the 1820s growing from the branch of the US’ first political party – the Federal Party. The Republican Party began as an anti-slavery party in 1854 with members from the Democratic Party and the Whigs.
Belonging to a party involves simply choosing that party when you register to vote. There are no membership dues or requirements. In practice, it is normal for people to change membership or vote across party lines. It has to be noticed that the heads of the national parties do not hold official positions in the government.
Concerning the role of the political parties in the USA at first place has to be said that party organizations are less important compared to the states with the Parliaments. For the very reason of the way the government is composed, the same political party does not necessarily control the two houses of Congress (the House of Representatives and the Senate) or the presidency at the same time. Consequently, it is very difficult to hold one party responsible for the actions of the government. In essence, US citizens (those with voting rights) vote for individual candidates for each office rather than a party state (list of candidates). Basically, it means that the candidate’s personal quality or electoral propaganda performance is in the majority of cases more valuable than his/her party’s membership.
For both major political parties in the US, one of the most important activities is to organize the party convention (big meeting). It is organized every four years at the time before the elections for the President. The convention officially chooses the presidential candidate of the party (together with the Vice-President) and at the same time proclaims the political-electoral platform (ideas and policies) of the party.
Both national parties raise money for election campaigns and provide additional kinds of help to their candidates to win. Local branches of the parties (with the ordinary people active in the party) are working to support local and national candidates.
According to the rules, in Congress (the House of Representatives and the Senate), the majority party controls the most important and powerful committees which make significant decisions on the issues and laws that are dealt with by Congress. As a matter of comparison, the members of the US Congress are more independent from their parties than British Members of Parliament. They aim to appear loyal first to the people they represent but, nevertheless, at the same time, they are trying to be as loyal as to their party’s membership in order to have a chance to become members of important committees and, therefore, fight for the support for their own proposals. Many politically active US citizens do not want politicians to be too much partisan (strongly attached to their party) but to have a more bipartisan (cooperative) attitude and, henceforth, work together for the common good of the nation.
In general, if we are comparing the US parties’ politics with many other countries, both the Democrats and the Republicans can be understood from the wider perspective as the parties of the political center. However, what is differentiating them from each other is that the Democratic Party is to the left while the Republican Party is to the right of the center. Traditionally, the Democratic Party program and politics support spending on social welfare programs while the Republican Party is against such policy. Typically, the Republicans support spending on the US Army believing there should be few laws restricting the business of producing the arms. The Republican Party is called the Grand Old Party (GOP) having an elephant as the party’s symbol while a donkey symbolizes the Democrats.
During the last several decades, the Democrats have been getting support more and more from young voters, low-paid workers, union members, the urban population, and African-Americans (and other minorities). However, more rich people, those with stronger conservative-religious approaches and/or patriarchal standpoints followed by the white citizens who reside in central and southern portions of the USA usually support the Republican Party.
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Dr. Vladislav B. Sotirović is a former university professor in Vilnius, Lithuania. He is a Research Fellow at the Center for Geostrategic Studies. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.
Confronted by a multidimensional, highly coordinated attack on our humanity – our identity as Homo Sapiens, our freedom and even our existence – most humans retreat in fear. And, in this state, people are incapable of resisting.
Sexual harassment is less surprising, if you know that the WEF’s Davos meeting every year in January, converts Davos into one huge luxury bordello. Local businesses and populations complain that the WEF meetings are harming Davos’s reputation.
The advisors of former US President Donald Trump have prepared a plan to cut support for Ukraine if Kiev continues to refuse negotiations with Russia and if the billionaire wins this year’s presidential election.
The plan to steal the West Bank is fully supported by Netanyahu, and forms a basis for the current right-wing Jewish extremist coalition keeping Netanyahu in power, and out of jail.
Fabricated atrocity stories serve the same purpose as Orwell’s “Two Minutes of Hate” in his novel, 1984. These carefully crafted theatrics engineer an artificial “consent” amongst credulous audiences for real atrocities committed by their governments and its agencies against prey countries and their citizens.
Julian Assange of WikiLeaks fame is now back in the country of his birth, having endured conditions of captivity ranging from cramped digs in London’s Ecuadorian embassy to the maximum-security facilities of Belmarsh Prison.
Has anyone noticed that Putin is conducting his “limited military operation,” by which he means limited to Donbas and the former Russian territories that are again part of Russia, as a response to US/NATO/Ukrainian initiatives?
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Just 48 hours after Dr. McCullough appeared on FOX News primetime TV with commentary on transgender puberty blockers, hormones, and breast/genital surgery, the Texas Supreme Court upheld the statewide ban on age < 18 years transgender programs by vote of 8-1 in a challenge from a lower court.
“the package of transgender medicine (hormones and surgery) is disfiguring, sterilizing, increases the burden of psychiatric disease, and raises all-cause mortality.”
“The Texas Supreme Court upheld a state law on Friday that bans gender-transition medical treatment for minors, overturning a lower-court ruling that had temporarily blocked the law and dealing a blow to parents of transgender children.
The court, whose nine elected members are all Republicans, voted 8 to 1 in favor of allowing the law, which passed last year, to remain in effect. It bars doctors from prescribing certain medications to minors, like hormones and puberty blockers, and forbids them from performing certain surgical procedures, like mastectomies, on minors.
Parents of transgender youths, along with gay and transgender advocacy groups, argued that the ban should be blocked because it violated the Texas Constitution, in part by preventing parents from making what they felt were the best medical decisions for their children.
The argument is a powerful one in Texas, where protecting parental rights from government intervention has been an important goal, particularly for conservatives. But the court found that the argument fell short.”
The Texas law, known as Senate Bill 14, is part of a wave of legislation that Republican-controlled states have passed targeting transgender rights, including limits on bathroom use and sports participation and bans on gender-transition care for minors. About two dozen states have passed bans or severe restrictions. Under the Texas law, physicians who offer the treatments may have their medical licenses revoked.”
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“My Cancer Story! I was diagnosed with stage 4 pancreatic cancer in August 2023, and without treatment, I had 3-6 months to sort out my affairs.
I began my fenbendazole protocol immediately.
I nearly quit up since my quality of life had deteriorated dramatically. But I started to feel better. Less nausea. I had gained some weight back! Increased energy. My scan in November 2023 indicated that this severe cancer had neither grown or spread. My cancer marker dropped from over 100,000 to 35,000. As of January 2024, my new marker number was 18k!!! My oncologist was just scratching his head, and a family member said he seemed bewildered! And no, I did not inform him about the fenben.”
I was terrified he’d drop me as a patient. I was quite appreciative for fenben and how it has helped me. I was feeling better and stronger. I had scans and bloodwork done in March, and my markers are now down to 6000. And the tumors were shrinking!!! Two weeks after my previous scan. I scanned again, and it returned NED.
This was my protocol:
Morning
Curcumin (600mg daily)
Zinc (50mg)
Milk thistle, As a food supplement, take 15 – 30 drops, 2-3 times daily in a little fruit juice or water. 7 days a week
Serrapeptase (120,00IU)
Fenbendazole (1000mg of Panacur C is advised to be taken seven days a week. It is recommended that it should be taken with a meal).
Night
Curcumin (600mg tablet per day are recommended
Berberine (600mg 2-3 times a day )
Quercetin (500mg 1/day)
Turkey Tail
Vitamin E (800mg for 7 days a week)
Fenbendazole (1000mg at night)
Ivermectin 12mg daily 5/7days a week
Limit sugar and processed food intake
Drank green tea often”
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My Take…
This is an excellent protocol.
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Dr. William Makis is a Canadian physician with expertise in Radiology, Oncology and Immunology. Governor General’s Medal, University of Toronto Scholar. Author of 100+ peer-reviewed medical publications.
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The advisors of former US President Donald Trump have prepared a plan to cut support for Ukraine if Kiev continues to refuse negotiations with Russia and if the billionaire wins this year’s presidential election. According to one of the advisors, they were “pleased” with Trump’s response to their plan.
“We tell the Ukrainians, ‘You’ve got to come to the table, and if you don’t come to the table, support from the United States will dry up,’” he said. “And you tell Putin, ‘He’s got to come to the table and if you don’t come to the table, then we’ll give Ukrainians everything they need to kill you in the field,’” said retired Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg, who devised the plan with Fred Fleitz.
The two advisers, who were chiefs of staff at the National Security Council during Trump’s presidency, told Reuters on June 25 that a ceasefire was envisaged based on the existing front line. They clarified that Trump “responded favourably.”
“I’m not claiming he agreed with it or agreed with every word of it, but we were pleased to get the feedback we did,” Fleitz said.
In mid-June, Russian President Vladimir Putin put forward peace proposals to resolve the conflict by recognising the status of Crimea, Kherson, Zaporozhye, Donetsk, and Lugansk as regions of Russia, consolidating Ukraine’s non-aligned and nuclear-free status, demilitarising and denazifying the country, and lifting anti-Russian sanctions. Kiev rejected the initiative.
“Ukraine has an absolutely clear understanding and it is spelled out in the peace formula proposed by President (Volodymyr) Zelensky, it is clearly stated there – peace can only be fair and peace can only be based on international law,” Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak told Reuters.
Meanwhile, White House National Security Council spokesperson Adrienne Watson said the White House would not force the Kiev regime into negotiations with Russia as “President Biden believes that any decisions about negotiations are up to Ukraine.”
As far back as October 2022, Zelensky legislated the banning of peace negotiations with Moscow. Effectively, the Biden administration is making no efforts to push Kiev to negotiate peace with Moscow since Zelensky has not removed the decree, who instead pushes his own ridiculous terms as a means for achieving peace, such as the arrest of Putin.
Trump’s Campaign Communications Director, Steven Cheung, commented on Kellogg and Fleitz’s plan in Newsweek:
“President Trump has repeatedly stated that a top priority in his second term will be to quickly negotiate an end to the Russia-Ukraine war. President Trump believes European nations should be paying more of the cost of the conflict, as the U.S. has paid significantly more, which is not fair to our taxpayers. The war between Russia and Ukraine never would have happened if Donald J. Trump were President. So sad.”
Cheung is referring to Trump’s famous statements last year, in which he said that if re-elected president, he would tell Zelensky, “No more,” and that “you got to make a deal,” before reaffirming that he would have a peace deal “done in one day, one day.”
Although there is no indication that Moscow is receptive to Trump’s peace plan, especially as a major objective is the demilitarisation of Ukraine, at least his administration, if elected in November, has intentions of establishing peace, unlike Biden, who is instigating perpetual war in Eastern Europe.
The Biden administration is obviously frustrated with Trump’s intentions for ending the war in Ukraine, considering the very real prospect that the former president could re-enter the White House in January 2025, who has consistently been leading in the polls.
Biden campaign spokesperson James Singer told Newsweek on June 25,
“Donald Trump heaps praise on Vladimir Putin every chance he gets, and he’s made clear he won’t stand against Putin.”
This very reaction shows that the Biden administration would rather continue wasting tens of billions of US taxpayer dollars to prop up the Ukrainian military so the war does not come to a swift conclusion, which will ultimately end in only one way – Russia’s decisive victory.
For this reason, it is little wonder that Moscow’s first reaction to Kellogg and Fleitz’s plan is one of positivity, even if it was caveated with a warning that peace must take into account the “real state of affairs on the ground.”
“The value of any plan lies in the nuances and in taking into account the real state of affairs on the ground,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told Reuters. “We do not know what kind of plan we are talking about, or what is set out in it.”
“President Putin has repeatedly said that Russia has been and remains open to negotiations, taking into account the real state of affairs on the ground. We remain open to negotiations, and in order to evaluate the plan, we must first familiarise ourselves with it,” he added.
Whether Trump will be elected president remains to be seen, but his return to the White House would mark a slow de-escalation in the hostile ties between Moscow and Washington that Biden instigated. If elected, it is very unlikely that the war will end in “one day,” but it does at least point to intentions to end the fighting, a basis of a peace plan to work off, and an end to Zelensky’s ban of negotiations with Moscow.
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This article was originally published on InfoBrics.
Ahmed Adel is a Cairo-based geopolitics and political economy researcher. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.
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The plan to steal the West Bank is fully supported by Netanyahu, and forms a basis for the current right-wing Jewish extremist coalition keeping Netanyahu in power, and out of jail.
Image: Bezalel Smotrich (Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0)
While the world watches the genocide in Gaza, there is another war on the Palestinian people in the Occupied West Bank. On June 9, the New York Times (NYT) reported that IsraeliFinance Minister Bezalel Smotrich outlined, in a speech to Jewish extremists, a plan by the Israeli government led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, to annex the Occupied Territories of the West Bank. His speech was recorded secretly and leaked to the NYT.
Smotrich is part of the more than 600,000 Jewish settlers illegally occupying Palestinian lands. He advocates Israel taking all the Palestinian territories, and preventing the Palestinians from ever having an independent state. The UN, the U.S. and the international community all agree that Gaza and the West Bank should be eventually an independent Palestinian state, which would be the end of a brutal Israeli military occupation and apartheid.
This is not the first secret leaked speech of Smotrich. In October 2022, Smotrich was caught calling Netanyahu “the liar of all liars”, as reported by The Jerusalem Post.
The plan involves supporting the Jewish settler’s expansion in the West Bank, which is illegal under international law, and has been under occupation since 1967. Officially, the Israeli government maintains that the West Bank’s status will be negotiated in the future. The Smotrich-Netanyahu plan would forever deny the almost 3 million Palestinians of the Occupied West Bank their freedom.
For Palestinians, the plan would mark the end of any hope to live in freedom and democracy, but for the Jewish Zionists, the plan would be a culmination of their goal to have one land ‘from the river to the sea’ which is occupied only by Jews.
Not every Jew is a Zionist, and not every Zionist is a Jew. For example, after October 7, U.S. President Joe Biden said he was a Zionist, while being a Christian.
Zionism is a political movement, hiding behind a religion. Similarly, Al Qaeda and ISIS are political movements, hiding behind a religion.
Using the word Zionist as a label of identification is not antisemitic, because Zionism is not limited only to Jews.
Those who oppose Zionism are not being anti-Semitic. They simply oppose a political position of the Israeli government, just as they may oppose a political position of the Japanese government on an issue.
The official name of Israel is “The Jewish State of Israel”. Some have offered that there is the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, and also similarly of Iran. So why do people complain about the religious nature of Israel? Israel denies the human rights and civil rights of non-Jewish people in Israel and Palestine, and has been classified as an Apartheid state by the UN and human rights groups.
Tallie Ben Daniel, the managing director of Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP), which sees Zionism as a movement whose aim “is to deny the rights of Palestinians and the humanity of Palestinians.”
“For us, we want to be clear: the form of Zionism that has survived and has power now is an expansionist, right-wing, genocidal form,” Ben Daniel said. “The people in power in Israel right now … want to annihilate the Palestinians and get all the land for Jews, and there is no thought there could be coexistence,” said Ben Daniel.
Israeli occupation authorities increased restrictions on the freedom of movement across the West Bank following October 7, and increased the apartheid system against Palestinians in both Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories. They used laws, segregation, deprivation, and forced displacement to oppress the Palestinians.
Israel Defense Forces (IDF) operations in the West Bank have killed 137 Palestinian children since October 7, 9,000 Palestinians have been arrested without charge or trial, and the almost daily IDF raids in the West Bank have taken 553 Palestinian lives.
“Finance minister Bezalel Smotrich became governor of the occupied West Bank in February, and security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir formed a volunteer “national guard” in April. Their Jewish supremacist notions became mainstream after Hamas’s 7 October attack,” according to Amnesty.
The International Court of Justice (ICJ) received submissions regarding the legality of Israel’s occupation of the Occupied West Bank Territories.
On Sunday, Israeli forces raided homes and businesses in Nablus, Ramallah, the Al-Far’a refugee camp near Tubas, and towns in Hebron and Tulkarm leading to clashes and armed confrontations with Palestinians who attempted to defend their homes and families.
The IDF destroyed infrastructure, private property, and vehicles before withdrawing from the camp, while in Nablus, a Palestinian was shot in the leg with a live bullet, and another was arrested.
In the town of Silwad, the IDF detained around 40 people and caused extensive damage to several homes and businesses during searches, in which residents were mistreated and assaulted during the process.
Mujahed Abadi, who had been shot twice, testified that IDF beat him severely before letting him go, and refusing to explain their crimes committed against him.
Abadi, 24, said he had stepped outside in Jenin while Israeli troops were conducting a raid and the IDF shot him in the arm and the leg.
He said after nearly two hours of hiding while bleeding profusely, the IDF found him and began beating him severely, including targeting his bullet wounds.
“Two soldiers lifted me up from my hands and feet and swung me back and forth to throw me at the military vehicle,” Abadi said.
“They did it the first time, I fell on the ground. On top of my injuries, they dropped me. The second time one of them picked me up and threw me at the vehicle.”
He was driven around on the hood of the military jeep like a trophy.
The IDF confirmed the incident on Saturday, but offered no excuses.
Belgium’s Deputy Prime Minister Petra De Sutter said,
“How many of these inhumanities do we need to witness before sanctioning Israel?”
United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories Francesca Albanese said,
“It is flabbergasting how a state born 76 years ago has managed to turn international law literally on its head.”
Abadi’s injuries include a broken arm from the impact of the bullet, a wounded leg and burns on his back from the intense heat of the IDF jeep’s hood.
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Fabricated atrocity stories serve the same purpose as Orwell’s “Two Minutes of Hate” in his novel, 1984. These carefully crafted theatrics engineer an artificial “consent” amongst credulous audiences for real atrocities committed by their governments and its agencies against prey countries and their citizens.
Saddam Hussein’s “Weapons of Mass Destruction” never materialized, but Washington’s sanctions certainly did. In fact,Washington’s sanctions intentionally killed about 600,000 Iraqi children under five(1) through willful destruction of water supplies. (Tragically, Western-supported Zionists are using the same siege tactics against Palestinians now.) Remember Madeline Albright’s confession?
Similarly, al Qaeda’s White Helmets(2) fabricated “consent” for Western war crimes against Syria and Syrians with their chemical weapons false flags, falsely attributed to the Assad government.
Meanwhile, according to UNICEF, close to 13,000 children have been killed or injured in the Syrian conflict.
But there is more:
“More than 609,000 children under the age of five are stunted from chronic undernutrition; 12 million Syrians do not have enough food to meet daily dietary needs; 6.9 million people are internally displaced, and 90% of Syrians are estimated to be living in poverty.
The Report continues:
All data quoted in this press release pre-dates the February 2023 earthquakes.
In 2022, the number of children with moderate acute malnutrition increased by 55 per cent.
Maternal malnutrition ranges from 11 per cent in northwest Syria and parts of Damascus to 25 per cent in northeast Syria.
Before the earthquakes, nearly two-thirds of water treatment plants, half of pumping stations and one-third of water towers across Syria were damaged due to conflict.
Nearly half the population rely on alternative and often unsafe water sources to meet or complement their water needs.
At least 70 per cent of the discharged sewage is untreated.
More than 84,600 suspected cholera cases have been reported since a cholera outbreak was declared in Syria in September 2022. Malnourished children with weakened immune systems are more likely to acquire cholera.
More than 39,000 new suspected cholera cases are expected within the next six months in 2023, placing at least 3 million people at risk and in need of lifesaving prevention interventions.”(3)
On a more broad-based level, recall that 9/11 launched the so-called Global War On Terror (and domestic police-state legislation) which amounted to carte blanche for imperialism in the name of going after the very same jihadi terrorists that the West has supported for decades, and continues to support, to destabilize and destroy prey countries, and to collectively punish and kill innocent civilians.
On August 12, 2012, the U.S. DIA(4) explicitly stated what everyone should know:
And now the West is overtly supporting Nazism in Ukraine with its public declaration that it will be arming the Azov Battalion, which the U.S Congress recognized as Nazi in 2015.(5)
It is the Nazi elements, closely welded to Ukraine’s Banderite “nationalists”, that the West and its agencies have supported since the end of the Second World War.
In an interview with Patrick Henningsen, human rights lawyer Dan Kovalik,(6) explains that the West “absorbed” Nazis after the war, giving the examples of NATO and Operation Paperclip.
When Trudeau (who at a recent conference shouted out the fascist Slava Ukraini greeting) or any other Western leader lambasts Russia about orphans or humanitarian concerns with a view to escalating NATO involvement in the war, it should be laughable.
“Civilian population (children) and civilian objects (schools, hospitals, residential areas) were the deliberate object of UAF and Azov Battalion attacks in blatant violation of the Law of Armed Conflict (LOAC).
In accordance with the LOAC, Moscow took the decision starting in February 2014 to come to the rescue of Donbass civilians including children.” (7)
Russian UN Envoy Vassily Nebenzia further clarified that,
“since the beginning of the special military operation, Russia had welcomed over 730,000 child refugees from Ukraine — most of them with their parents and just 2,000 from orphanages of the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics. A total of around five million Ukrainians and Donbass residents have sought refuge in Russia over the past 21 months.” (8)
Westerners should understand that whenever their governments, in unison with other governments, loudly proclaim that a target country is committing atrocities, they are often projecting their own criminality onto the prey country with a view to fabricating unreasonable hatred and pretexts for an escalation of warfare.
The aforementioned historical literacy may well prevent the unthinkable.
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Mark Taliano is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG) and the author of Voices from Syria, Global Research Publishers, 2017. He writes on his website where this article was originally published.
(6) “INTERVIEW: Dan Kovalik – U.S. Plays Dangerous Game In Ukraine.” 21st Century Wire, 19 June, 2024. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c–pr90Qdq4) Accessed 28 June, 2024.
Featured image: Former UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson holding Azov neo-Nazi banner (Wolfsangel) associated with Third Reich’s SS Panzer Division Das Reich. (Source: Mark Taliano)
Order Mark Taliano’s Book “Voices from Syria” directly from Global Research.
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You would think that my announcement on Facebook of my Gazan cousin’s wedding in Jordan were an invitation to a wake in hateful memory of Israel. Zionist trolls who swarm every such Palestinian affirmation of identity reared their ugly heads to spin their narratives of erasure and sow discord.
Palestinian weddings have long represented resilience. They take on deeper significance during times of war; they celebrate traditions and reinforce bonds; they provide emotional support and foster community bonds; they celebrate life despite adversity and symbolize unity and hope for a better future.
On June 21, 2024, I posted my photo at a wedding with my Gazan cousins on Facebook. The caption read,
“Gazans (my cousins of the Bseiso family) celebrating a wedding in Jordan at a site overlooking Palestine.”
Zionist trolls used this post as an opportunity to question the family’s Palestinian identity (“Bseiso family from Aleppo, Syria who migrated two centuries ago to the land of Israel”) and to express their views that Jordan is Palestine and, by implication therefore, that there was no need for Palestinians to assert their right to self-determination and sovereignty in their ancestral homeland:
– “The Hashemit Kingdom of Jordan is in Palestine! PALESTINE is not a State or country, but a Region, just like the Balkan or Kavkaz!”
– “They are in Jordan! So this is their real place !!!!:!!”
– “Mais la Jordanie c’est la Palestine arabo musulmane ! Et sur 80% de la région de Palestine , presque tout le territoire . Qu’est ce qu’ils ont encore à regarder de plus?” [But Jordan is Arab-Muslim Palestine! And on 80% of the region of Palestine, almost the entire territory. What more do they have to watch?]
– “Er…Jordan is in Palestine!🤦”
By describing Jordan as “in Palestine,” the trolls obfuscate history to stir up trouble and create divisions. Jordan’s monarchy has faced challenges in balancing Palestinian interests while maintaining stability and it is this delicate stability that Israel and these trolls want to injure. The geopolitical border described in the rallying cry “from the river to the sea” includes only the West Bank of the Jordan River, not the East.
Although there are historical and cultural connections between the areas west and east of the Jordan River, Transjordan was not considered part of Palestine in a strict geopolitical sense during the Ottoman period or under the British Mandate after 1921, when international boundaries between Palestine and Transjordan were established. At the time, the Sykes-Picot Agreement and the Balfour Declaration produced a recipe for disastrous instability in the southern part of Greater Syria, namely, two countries (Palestine and Transjordan) for three peoples — Palestinians, Transjordanians, and a growing Jewish Zionist colonists from Europe in Palestine.
The establishment of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan has provided continuity and a degree of stability in the region (Hashemites hold a special role as custodians of the Muslim holy sites in Jerusalem), but the monarchy has never resolved the underlying conflict between Zionists and Palestinians in the region, preferring instead to co-operate with the US and buy into its illusory and deceptive “peace process.”
Jordan has supported Palestinian rights and provided refuge and integration for many Palestinians. It has consistently advocated for a two-state solution and the rights of Palestinians on international platforms. This advocacy has helped keep the Palestinian cause in the international spotlight. However, Jordan has also acted to preserve its own authority, sometimes at the expense of Palestinian nationalist aspirations. Its actions have not always aligned perfectly with Palestinian nationalist goals. And although today, in the aftermath of Oct 7, public opinion in Jordan is swinging firmly against normalization with Israel, concerns about stability and security remain paramount for Jordanians.
After World War I, the League of Nations granted Britain the mandate for Palestine in 1920. Initially, this mandate included the territory east of the Jordan River. However, the British had different administrative plans for these regions. In 1921, the British decided to separate the territory east of the Jordan River from the Mandate for Palestine, creating the Emirate of Transjordan. Abdullah I of the Hashemite family was installed as the emir. This effectively created a distinct administrative entity, although both were under British control.
The establishment of Transjordan as a separate administrative unit in 1921 meant that it was no longer considered part of Palestine in a political or administrative sense. By 1923, this separation was formalized, but the British government often treated them as two complementary entities —for example, the Palestinian currency was also the official currency of Transjordan; Palestinian civil servants were seconded to the administration in Transjordan, and Palestine supported the Transjordanian budget both directly and indirectly. Both regions, after all, were administered by the same Mandate. The British resident in Amman operated under the directives of the high commissioner in Palestine and Palestinian officials were usually appointed to the administration of Transjordan as well.
As a result of the subsequent partitioning of Palestine and the violent creation of the settler-colonial Zionist Jewish state on 78 percent of Palestinian territory, antagonism toward Israel and support for Palestine remain deeply ingrained in the political culture and national consciousness of Arab and Muslim nations.
My friend Max Monclair expressed it perfectly: “The only reason Jordan isn’t ‘in Palestine’ is because of the British. No one living in Palestine decided on any of this. The trolls need to learn history or be honest that they are defending the self-claimed ‘right’ of the West to determine the shape of the rest of the world.”
Just as the Zionist movement and the presence of US-backed Israel in the region has significantly influenced Jordan’s history, politics, and stability, it has also had significant negative and dramatic impact on the stability of several other Middle Eastern countries, ranging from territorial disputes to broader geopolitical tensions. The unresolved tensions of the past in Palestine continue to shape the politics of the region today.
Following is a cursory rundown of these scenarios:
Egypt: Israel’s aggression on Palestinians, especially in Gaza, continues to pose immediate threats to Egypt, including potential refugee influx, internal instability, and sharp reductions in state revenues that undermine Egypt’s economic and national security.
Iraq: The Zionist movement played a role in the 1950s attacks on Iraqi Jews, leading to tensions and displacement. It intensified competition between superpowers (the United States and the Soviet Union) in the region, affecting Iraq’s stability.
Lebanon: The 1982 Lebanon War, initiated by Israel, had a profound impact on Lebanon’s stability. Israel’s invasion aimed to weaken Palestinian and Syrian influence but resulted in significant casualties and displacement. The concept of “Greater Israel” also included parts of Lebanon, further contributing to regional tensions.
Syria: The 1967 War led to Israel capturing the Golan Heights from Syria, escalating tensions and affecting regional stability. The uprooting, dispossession of Palestinians influenced Syria’s domestic and foreign policies, contributing to instability.
Yemen: Israel’s actions and their consequences in the region shaped the Houthi worldview regarding the Zionist-American aggression. while Yemen faces internal strife, the Houthi movement’s alignment with Palestine underscores the broader geopolitical contest in the Middle East.
Sudan: The Israeli-Palestinian conflict impacted Sudan’s security and relations with power dynamics in the Middle East, indirectly affecting its stability.
As I wrote here: “Much of the world is finally realizing that Zionism and Israel are not just problems, but everybody’s problems.”
Long before Oct 7 and the Al-Aqsa Flood, there was Al-Buraq Revolution of 1929, the first Palestinian uprising against attempts to Judaize Jerusalem during the British Mandate era. Al-Buraq Wall is the western wall of Al-Aqsa Mosque. Muhammad Jamjoum, Fouad Hijazi, and Atta al-Zeer were Palestinian revolutionaries executed by the British Mandate in 1930 for their role in the Al-Buraq Revolution. These three individuals became enduring symbols of Palestinian resistance and struggle. Mirror of the East (جريدة مرآة الشرق) Newspaper reported the following on June 21, 1930:
“This is my wedding day, ma, so rejoice
When the mother of the martyr Muhammad Jamjoom went to visit him in prison, he saw her crying and said to her, ‘This is my wedding day, my mother, so ululate’ and the martyr Atta al-Zeer told his sisters, ‘Do not think that I am dead, I am alive, so do not cry for me.’
Those sentenced to death Fouad, Atta and Mohamed continued to sing national anthems until the last hour.”
“In the refugee camps, there was joy: A wedding in a tent” by Raed Issa
By comparing his martyrdom to a wedding, Muhammad Jamjoum invoked the idea of Palestinian weddings as powerful expressions of resilience, love, and continuity.
Palestinians carry a profound mix of emotions when it comes to the martyrdom of their sons. Along with immense grief and pain, they feel a deep sense of national pride. They regard martyrdom as a worthy sacrifice in defense of their homeland and resistance to occupation, colonization, and injustice — a path to paradise and divine reward. To Palestinians, “Peace be upon you السلام عليكم” means liberation, equality, and justice.
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This article was originally published on Medium here.
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 and whose mother’s side of the family is from Ijzim, south of Haifa. She is an activist, researcher, and retired professor of English literature, Al-Quds University, occupied West Bank.
Featured image: My Facebook post on June 21, 2024 with the caption, “Gazans (my cousins of the Bseiso family) celebrating a wedding in Jordan at a site overlooking Palestine.” (Source: Rima Najjar)
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Since the refugee crisis in 2015, it has become clear that the EU cannot shape its policies uniformly. The sanctions policy against Russia since 2014 has also not been so easy to organize.
Hungary is the best example of how a state defends itself against the patronage of the EU center and tries to protect its own interests.
During the refugee crisis, it was the entire Visegrád Group that opposed the liberal migration policy. At that time, Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary were the only states in the EU to protect their own interests.
When it comes to policy towards Russia and the question of supporting Ukraine, Hungary is not entirely alone, as there are also critical forces in Slovakia. Unfortunately, things are different in the Czech Republic and especially in Poland, as a particularly aggressive mood against Russia is widespread there.
So we can really see Hungary as a great role model for defending national interests. The politics of this state have now also become a model for the Austrian opposition. It is known that many members of the FPÖ (Freedom Party of Austria) regularly attend meetings in Budapest. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban is clearly known in Europe for his course and is considered a hero by many opposition groups.
In France, even before the elections, there is a talk of a movement to the right. It is clear that the patriotic forces will receive many percent. The reason for this is President Macron’s catastrophic policies. However, the ruling system in France always has the opportunity to let all other parties march together against the right. Let’s just think about what happened in Germany before the EU elections. There were the “marches against the right” and the mobilization of artists and public figures. The system always tries to prevent the right opposition from winning at all levels.
If parliamentary elections also take place in Austria in 2024 (the date is proposed by the government for September 29th), then it can also be expected that the FPÖ will win a lot. And here, too, it is to be expected that a very tough election campaign will be conducted. Dirty campaigns against the FPÖ are nothing new.
But in reality, all the right opposition parties have the same problem – the system always prevents them from finding a good partner to form a coalition. And in those cases where such a coalition and government does emerge, it is usually destroyed by betrayal or other dirty campaigns.
Often these parties are not very careful in selecting candidates for government and important positions. Some people are then susceptible to blackmail or are too weak to withstand pressure. This is then used as an opportunity by the political opponent. There are already many examples of this from history. There have been many of these scandals, especially in Austrian politics, which have repeatedly weakened or destroyed the already established forces. A strong network of party structures and media is able to organize a major campaign at any time to weaken the political opponent.
The next problem is that most right-wing parties are mostly liberal. In a normal political system there should also be left-wing forces that are patriotic. These would then be potential candidates for a coalition.
But with the current set-up of parties in most European countries, a situation arises where a single liberal right-wing party has to oppose all other parties, which also have no interest in a coalition. The basic prerequisites for a coalition government are therefore not met.
But what developments can we expect after the EU elections?
The result of the elections shows us clearly where the national parliaments will develop. All right-wing parties can be expected to be successful. But the politics of exclusion, which is already prepared by the system, will be the worst conditions for participation in government.
The example of Hungary will continue to encourage opposition forces in other countries to aim for participation in the government.
The greatest hope is that there will be changes in some established parties who realistically recognize the current situation in Europe and want to solve the problems.
Since there are different interest group lobbies in many parties, it is possible that some parties will have to change course in relation to the right opposition.
It is also possible that there will be revolts among voters or individual sections in some parties. Their positions and the associated salaries are also important to MPs and officials. This means they cannot support a political course that turns voters towards their political opponents.
Internal struggles for power within the party and for good positions could change the course of some parties.
And if the profile of some parties has changed so much, there is of course the possibility of a coalition with the right-wing parties.
It is also possible that parties change their profile simply to maintain their power and thus retain voters. These would also be “new” political forces.
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Patrick Poppel is an expert at the Center for Geostrategic Studies (Belgrade).
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Julian Assange of WikiLeaks fame is now back in the country of his birth, having endured conditions of captivity ranging from cramped digs in London’s Ecuadorian embassy to the maximum-security facilities of Belmarsh Prison. His return to Australia after striking a plea deal with the US Department of Justice sees him in a state with some of the most onerous secrecy provisions of any in the Western world.
As of January 2023, according to the Attorney-General’s Department, the Australian Commonwealth had 11 general secrecy offences in Part 5.6 of the Criminal Code, 542 specific secrecy offences across 178 Commonwealth laws and 296 non-disclosure duties spanning 107 Commonwealth laws criminalising unauthorised disclosure of information by current and former employees of the Commonwealth.
In November 2023, the Albanese Government agreed to 11 recommendations advanced by the final report of the review of secrecy provisions. While aspiring to thin back the excessive overgrowth of secrecy, old habits die hard. Suggested protections regarding press freedom and individuals providing information to Royal Commissions will hardly instil confidence.
With that background, it is unsurprising that Assange’s return, while delighting his family, supporters and free press advocates, has stirred the seething resentment of the national security establishment, Fourth Estate crawlers, and any number of journalistic sellouts. Damn it all, such attitudes seem to say: he transformed journalism, stole away our self-censorship, exposed readers to the original classified text, and let the public decide for itself how to react to disclosures revealing the abuse of power. Minimal editorialising; maximum textual interpretation through the eyes of the universal citizenry, a terrifying prospect for those in government.
Given that the Australian press establishment is distastefully comfortable with politicians – the national broadcaster, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, for instance, has a central reporting bureau in Canberra’s Parliament House – Assange’s return has brought much agitation. The Canberra press corps earn their crust in a perversely symbiotic, and often uncritical relationship, with the political establishment that furnishes them with rationed morsels of information. The last thing they want is an active Assange scuppering such a neat understanding, a radical transparency warrior keenly upsetting conventions of hypocrisy long respected.
Let’s wade through the venom. Press gallery scribbler Phillip Coorey of the Australian Financial Review proved provincially ignorant, his mind ill-temperedly confused about WikiLeaks. “I have never been able to make up my mind about Assange.” Given that his profession benefits from leaks, whistleblowing and the exposure of abuses, one wonders what he is doing in it. Assange has, after all, been convicted under the US Espionage Act of 1917 for engaging in that very activity, a matter that should give Coorey pause for outrage.
For the veteran journalist, another parallel was more appropriate, something rather distant from any notions of public interest journalism that had effectively been criminalised by the US Republic. “The release of Julian Assange has closer parallels to that of David Hicks 17 years ago, who like Assange, was deemed to have broken American law while not in that country, and which eventually involved a US president cutting a favour for an Australian prime minister.”
The case of Hicks remains a ghastly reminder of Australian diplomatic and legal cowardice. Coorey is only right to assume that both cases feature tormented flights of fancy by the US imperium keen on breaking a few skulls in their quest to make the world safe for Washington. The military commissions, of which Hicks was a victim, were created during the madly named Global War on Terror pursuant to presidential military order. Intended to try non-US citizens suspected of terrorism held at the Guantánamo Bay detention facility, they were farcical exercises of executive power, a fact pointed out by the US Supreme Court in 2006. It took Congressional authorisation via the Military Commissions Act in 2009 to spare them.
Coorey’s colleague and international editor of The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age, Peter Hartcher, was similarly uninterested in what Assange exposed, babbling about the publisher’s return as the moment “Assangeism came into plain view”. He had no stomach for “the cult” which seemed to have infected Canberra’s cold weather. He also wondered whether Assange could constructively “use his global celebrity status to campaign for public interest journalism and human rights”. To do so – and here, teacher’s pet of the political establishment, beater of the war drum for the United States – Assange would have to “fundamentally” alter “his ways to advance the cause”.
All this was a prelude for Hartcher to take the hatchet to the journalistic exploits of a man more decorated with journalism awards that many in the Canberra gallery combined. The claim that he is “a journalist is hotly contested by actual journalists.” Despite the US government conceding that the disclosures by WikiLeaks had not resulted in harm to US sources, “there were many other victims of Assange’s project.” The returned publisher was only in Australia “on probation”, a signal reminder that the media establishment will be attempting to badger him into treacherous conformity.
Even this language was too mild for another Australian hack, Michael Ware, who had previously worked for Time Magazine and CNN. With pathological inventiveness, he thought Assange “a traitor in the sense that, during a time of war, when we had American, British and Australian troops in the field, under fire, Julian Assange published troves of unredacted documents”. Never mind truth to power; in Ware’s world, veracity is subordinate to it, even in an illegal war. What he calls “methods” and “methodology” cannot be exposed.
Such gutter journalism has its necessary cognate in gutter politics. All regard information was threatening unless appropriately handled, its more potent effects for change stilled. Leader of the opposition in the Senate, Simon Birmingham, found it“completely unnecessary and totally inappropriate for Julian Assange to be greeted like some homecoming hero by the Australian Prime Minister.” Chorusing with hacks Coorey, Hartcher and Ware, Birmingham bleated about the publication by Assange of half a million documents “without having read them, curated them, checked to see if there was anything that could be damaging or risking the lives of others there.” Keep the distortions flying, Senator.
Dennis Richardson, former domestic intelligence chief and revolving door specialist (public servant becomes private profiteer with ease in Canberra), similarly found it inexplicable that the PM contacted Assange with a note of congratulation, or even showed any public interest in his release from a system that was killing him. “I can think of no other reason why a prime minister would ring Assange on his return to Australia except for purposes relating to politics,” moaned Richardson to theGuardian Australia.
For Richardson, Assange had been legitimately convicted, even if it was achieved via that most notorious of mechanisms, the plea deal. The inconvenient aside that Assange had been spied upon by CIA sponsored operatives, considered a possible object of abduction, rendition or assassination never clouds his uncluttered mind.
Sharp eyes will be trained on Assange in Australia, however long he wishes to say. He is in the bosom of the Five Eyes Alliance, permanently threatened by the prospect of recall and renewed interest by Washington. And there are dozens of journalists, indifferent to the dangers the entire effort against the publisher augurs for their own craft, wishing that to be the case.
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Dr. Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge. He currently lectures at RMIT University. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG). Email: [email protected]
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Madelyne and Olivia Meylor, of Mount Horeb, Wis., claim that the HPV vaccine caused primary ovarian failure in both of them. The sisters are 20 and 19 years old, respectively.
“There is nothing about this particular vaccine that would make this at all plausible,” said Dr. Kim Gecsi, who directs the ob/gyn clerkship program at University Hospitals Case Medical Center in Cleveland.
Like the flu shot, the Gardasil vaccine contains an inactive virus, triggering an immune response in the patient, Gecsi said. This immune response includes the production of antibodies specifically taught to fight HPV, so if a live virus ever gets into the patient’s body, her immune system can fight it off.
May 19, 2016 – Judge dismisses lawsuit: Wisconsin sisters say Gardasil vaccine caused their premature ovarian failure
Maddie and Olivia Meylor say they have been robbed of their womanhood after receiving a Gardasil vaccine which prevents HPV. The Wisconsin sisters were the first in the United States to claim that the HPV vaccine caused premature ovarian failure. A federal judge on Monday, May 16th ruled against the young women.
Maddie and Olivia Meylor were diagnosed with premature ovarian failure in 2007, when they were teenagers. They started menopause decades early.
“We were devastated,” said Joen Meylor, the girls’ mother. “It’s rare at their age and it’s very rare that two sisters would have premature ovarian failure.”
The sisters went through the same genetic testing, looking for answers. They say all roads led back to that doctor’s visit in 2007.
“I realized it was the Gardasil vaccine,” said Joen Meylor.
The Meylors believe the HPV vaccine is to blame for their rare disorder.
The sisters, who may never be able to have children in the traditional sense, filed a federal claim with the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program.
“We can carry a child, but we can’t create our own,” Olivia Meylor said.
A federal judge on May 16th ruled that some of the sisters’ symptoms appeared to begin before they were immunized as teenagers, and the case was dismissed.
The judge did not make a ruling as to whether ovarian failure is a legitimate injury from the vaccine.
An attorney for the Meylors said they plan to appeal.
FOX6 News spoke with the sisters in November of 2014, when they were 20 and 21.
At that time, we also reached out to Merck, the maker of Gardasil. The company said the vaccine’s safety was tested in clinical trials — and continues to be studied in more than a half-million people.
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My Take…
This story caught my eye, because I think we will see something SIMILAR with COVID-19 mRNA Vaccines. Infertility cases and a great deal of denial.
So first, does this (Premature Ovarian Failure) happen with HPV Vaccines? YES.
There are 90 cases in VAERS. With an under-reporting factor of 100, that jumps to 9000 possible cases.
Let’s look at a few of the 90 cases:
VAERS 300878 – 18 year old had 2nd HPV Gardasil jab on Oct. 19, 2007.
“…on 19-Oct-2007 with the second dose of Gardasil. Following the second vaccination, the patient missed her period, and was diagnosed with premature ovarian failure.”
“The physician reported that the “patient presented with new onset amenorrhea times 2 months starting concurrent with her first vaccine,” however the date of onset was also reported as 24-OCT-2007. She had a workup with labs, which determined that she had premature ovarian failure”
VAERS 414453 – 16 year old girl from Maryland had 1st HPV Gardasil jab on Oct.20, 2009.
“her 16 year old daughter who in October 2009, was vaccinated with the first dose of GARDASIL. Subsequently, the patient had no period in November 2009, or after that. In December 2009, the patient was vaccinated with the second dose of GARDASIL and her ovaries failed due to auto immune disease.”
VAERS 486297 – 23 year old woman from New York had HPV Gardasil on June 4, 2010.
“23 year old patient had blood drawn approximately a week and half after first Gardasil injection and it was discovered that patient”s FSH level was a 72, far above normal range indicating Premature Ovarian Failure or Premature Menopause. In addition patients menstrual cycle ceased after first Gardasil injection.”
Conclusion
That’s 3 of the first 4 search results. There is a clear temporal relationship.
Dr. Little presents “Polysorbate 80” as a HPV Vaccine component with potential ovarian toxicity.
Polysorbate 80 is added to keep particles suspended in the liquid and prevent clumping.
AstraZeneca, Johnson & Johnson and Novavax COVID-19 Vaccines also have Polysorbate 80.
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Dr. William Makis is a Canadian physician with expertise in Radiology, Oncology and Immunology. Governor General’s Medal, University of Toronto Scholar. Author of 100+ peer-reviewed medical publications.
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From his prison cell, former Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan has expressed escalating criticism of Pakistan army chief Asim Munir’s drive to seize political power, according to multiple sources who remain in close touch with Khan.
The communications include new allegations about Khan’s history with Munir. According to those in touch with the imprisoned prime minister, Khan is making new allegations that Munir violated an agreement to remain neutral in Pakistani politics in exchange for Khan accepting his appointment as army chief.
The deposed prime minister also alleges that Munir conspired with his civilian political rivals, including former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, to cooperate against him in exchange for dropping corruption charges that had forced Sharif into exile.
The escalating personal conflict between Khan and Munir also looms large in the communications. Khan alleges that Munir ordered agents of Pakistan’s notorious intelligence service to kill him and that the general covered up assassination attempts by squashing a police probe and burying CCTV footage.
The allegations from Khan about Munir come as the general has continued amassing political power and leading a brutal crackdown on rival political parties, activists, and the press in Pakistan.
The crackdown included the removal and imprisonment of Khan, Pakistan’s most popular politician; violence and arrests targeting his Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, or PTI, party; and a rigged election this February.
Khan’s fate remains the biggest unanswered question in the country’s politics, which the prison communiques suggest are driven by acrimony between him and Munir.
With transnational repression reaching the U.S. — the military reportedly detained Pakistan-based family members of rivals living in the U.S. and Canada — the crackdown is drawing increasingly stronger condemnations from American officials.
Last week, Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., issued a video statement condemning the targeting of family members of Americans and called for sanctions to be placed on Pakistani military leaders including Munir.
Rep. @RoKhanna calls for US to sanction "Pakistan's military ruler" Asim Munir along with "any military leaders in Pakistan" over transnational repression
Khanna adds: "We all know that the election in Pakistan was rigged. Imran Khan is still in jail"pic.twitter.com/UmNpBkmX6s
“Pakistan’s military ruler Asim Munir is now targeting American families of pro-democracy activists,” Khanna said. “We all know the elections in Pakistan were rigged, and Imran Khan is still in jail. The United States needs to sanction Asim Munir and any military leader in Pakistan who is targeting Americans.”
Assassination Attempts
Khan’s allegations about Munir were shared with The Intercept by a number of sources close to him who requested anonymity to protect their security.
In the communications, Khan alleges the existence of CCTV footage and other evidence showing that Munir concocted a scheme to have Khan killed at a tumultuous court appearance on March 18, 2023.
Khan’s car was mobbed by spectators on the way to court, some of whom, Khan alleges, were Inter-Services Intelligence agents dressed in civilian clothes. The attempt on his life, Khan says, was only thwarted by a crowd of PTI supporters who surrounded his car.
Khan also offered his own narrative on a November 2022 incident when he was wounded in a shooting attack at a political rally that killed one of his supporters. The Pakistani government detained a single person for the attack, whom officials claimed had been motivated by religious extremism.
According to sources close to the former prime minister, Khan accused Munir of being behind a cover-up of the incident. The general, he claims, blocked an independent probe into the attack and that eyewitness accounts pointed to the involvement of multiple assailants.
Munir’s Political Plays
Pakistan has been held hostage to the political clash between Khan and Munir, with the former prime minister now imprisoned on charges widely seen as politicized.
Khan claims that Munir bargained with his civilian political rivals, including Sharif, the former prime minister, to spare them from corruption charges. In exchange, the politicians like Sharif supported jailing Khan and cracking down on his party.
The crackdown — extrajudicial killings, torture, mass detentions, and other sweeping measures aimed at dismantling the PTI — has so far failed to dim Khan’s popularity. In elections this February, candidates affiliated with PTI won sweeping support, according to exit polls, before electoral rigging engineered by the military allowed a coalition government of Khan’s opposition to form.
Khan characterizes the events as a betrayal by Munir. In Khan’s telling, according to the sources close to him, the prime minister’s downfall was precipitated after Munir reneged on an agreement. Khan says that the then-President Arif Alvi, a senior member of his party, had the power to block Munir’s ascension to the top military post in the country but allowed it to go forward after the general’s emissaries said he planned to stay out of politics.
Munir, like Pakistani military leaders before him, plays a prime role in the country’s political affairs.
Khan’s legal status remains in flux after serious corruption and espionage charges against him were thrown out in court. The former prime minister now remains imprisoned solely on charges that he improperly married his third wife in contravention of religious guidelines.
PTI meanwhile remains at odds with the military establishment, with halting attempts to mediate a resolution to Pakistan’s ongoing political standoff so far unsuccessful.
Deepening Crackdown — and Crises
Khan’s removal by his military and civilian rivals came in a 2022 no-confidence vote organized amid pressure from the U.S. over the prime minister’s foreign policy stances.
Since the removal, Pakistan has been wracked by overlapping economic and political crises that have paralyzed the nation of 200 million.
Even with Khan and PTI sidelined, the military continues its attempts to suppress speech. This year, the military blocked X and issued a statement denouncing “digital terrorism.” Government officials have also made reference to imposing a national firewall on the country’s internet.
Khan’s personal safety is widely believed to be in jeopardy by his supporters, including Pakistani Americans who recently lobbied for Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., to contact the Pakistani government about his safety.
In addition to blaming Munir for betraying his trust and attempting to engineer his murder, from prison Khan has repeatedly raised the specter that the general is leading the country toward a repeat of its traumatic 1971 partition — a stinging embarrassment for Pakistani nationalists.
The partition occurred following a military-led crackdown and massacre after an army rival won elections. The civil war spurred the secession of the eastern half of the country into the nation of Bangladesh.
Correction: June 27, 2024, 2:47 p.m. ET
An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated that Imran Khan was prime minister at the time of Asim Munir’s ascension, and could have blocked it. This story has been updated to note that Arif Alvi was president at that time.
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Featured image: General Asim Munir (Pakistan) (Licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0)
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Has anyone noticed that Putin is conducting his “limited military operation,” by which he means limited to Donbas and the former Russian territories that are again part of Russia, as a response to US/NATO/Ukrainian initiatives? When the Russian military strikes outside the limited combat zone, it is usually a response to a Ukrainian strike into Russia out of the combat zone. After 2.5 years of conflict, Putin has made no effort to win the war. He doesn’t even seem to understand that Russia is at war, not engaged in a limited police action.
Putin has left the Ukrainian government in functioning order and has not interfered with Zelensky’s ability to continue the conflict. Kiev is intact. The government in Kiev is intact. Nothing has been done to close Ukraine’s borders from Western armament supplies. The entire initiative of the conflict is with the West. The West acts, and Putin responds. There are no Russian initiatives. Indeed, Russia was forced into the conflict by the West’s initiatives.
This is not the way to fight a war.
It is Putin’s refusal to fight and win a war that is causing the enormous expansion–the ever widening–of the war.
Notice that the Kremlin’s response to the US missile attack on Crimean civilians and a public beach is to call in the American ambassador and complain, to investigate, to send condolences, not to destroy and occupy Kiev. After all this time haven’t the Russians learned that no one pays any attention to their complaints? Why does Putin think he can shame the shameless West? Why does the Kremlin worry about over-responding to attacks? See this.
Washington doesn’t worry about over-provoking Russia.
Let me be clear, I am on humanity’s side. I don’t want nuclear war. Putin should never have entered a conflict when he did not intend a quick victory before Washington/NATO could get involved and widen the war.
Now that French troops are in Ukraine, now that US/NATO personnel are conducting the targeting of the US long-range missiles on Russian civilians, and now that Russia is faced with the likelihood of NATO troops entering Ukraine, Putin’s response is to play into Washington’s hands by speaking of bringing North Korean troops into the conflict. Imagine the propaganda damage. North Korea is even more demonized than Russia and Putin.
Why does Putin want to widen the conflict instead of quickly winning it?
Is the reason that his central bank director convinced him Russia lacked the resources to conduct a real war? Is this why Putin endlessly emphasizes Russian nuclear capability? Does Putin lack the resources to conduct conventional war? With his central bank director’s 16% interest rates hindering the Russian economy, perhaps it is so. Putin’s central bank director left Russian central bank reserves in Western depositories where Washington could seize them. Was this incompetence or an act of treason? Washington has decided that the interest income earned by the seized Russian central bank reserves will be given to Ukraine to continue the war. So Russia’s own central bank reserves are financing Ukraine’s ability to conduct war against Russia.
When the Soviet Union collapsed, Russia, especially the youth, were corrupted for years by Washington’s propaganda. They lost their national consciousness and became “citizens of the West.” Has Russian youth escaped from this delusion, or does it still rule?
The question before us is: Does Russia have leadership capable of comprehending that Russia has an enemy intent on her destruction and dismemberment, or will the Kremlin finally realize this at the last minute, too late to avoid nuclear war?
It is extraordinary that the fate of the world rests on Russian misperception and inadequate response to the West’s intent. As a result of Putin’s inability to act decisively, he was drawn into a conflict that has become open-ended, involving, at least in plans, troops from foreign countries. To pretend that such a conflict is a “limited military operation” is an act of irresponsibility, even evidence of reality denial.
Russia is at war with the West. She got there because she refused to acknowledge the fact. Grasping reality remains a challenge for the Kremlin which continues to enable the Ukraine conflict to spin out of control rather than use the force to decisively terminate the conflict before it ends in World War III.
Russia Considers, Russia Considers, but Never does anything.
And so the provocations continue and worsen and “are edging closer to the point of no return.”
Does it ever occur to the Kremlin that doing something, rather than “considering,” might stop the march to the point of no return?
Moscow could be forced to downgrade diplomatic ties with Western countries, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov has warned, citing hostile policies of the US and its allies.
“We have not initiated such a step yet, despite all of the things related to the most tumultuous phase in our relations with the West,” the diplomat said in an interview with the Izvestia newspaper, published on Thursday.
“Is a decision to downgrade the level of diplomatic ties possible? I can say that we are examining this issue. Such decisions are made on the highest level,” Ryabkov said, adding that it is too early to “speculate.”
The West’s “sense of impunity” on the world stage will eventually force Russia to retaliate more decisively, if the situation does not change, the deputy minister warned.
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Paul Craig Roberts is a renowned author and academic, chairman of The Institute for Political Economy where this article was originally published. Dr. Roberts was previously associate editor and columnist for The Wall Street Journal. He was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy during the Reagan Administration. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.
“O fundador do WikiLeaks declara-se culpado e é condenado por conspirar para obter e divulgar informações classificadas sobre a defesa nacional. Julian Assange, fundador do WikiLeaks, declarou-se culpado de conspirar com Chelsea Manning, na altura analista dos serviços secretos do exército norte-americano, para obter e divulgar ilegalmente documentos confidenciais relacionados com a Defesa Nacional”, declarou o Departamento de Justiça dos EUA.
Após 14 anos de prisão, cinco dos quais em condições extremamente duras, o jornalista de investigação Julian Assange vê-se obrigado a “abjurar” para salvar a sua vida. Há cerca de quatro séculos, Galileu Galilei foi forçado pela Santa Inquisição a negar o que a ciência mostrava, nomeadamente que no centro do Sistema Solar está o Sol e não a Terra. A condenação de Julian Assange não pode apagar as verdades incontestáveis sobre as estratégias e os crimes de guerra dos EUA. A condenação de um jornalista, acusado de conspiração por trazer à luz do dia factos que deveriam ter permanecido secretos, é uma mensagem ameaçadora para todos os jornalistas empenhados nestas e noutras investigações.
O “caso Assange”, que confirma o que é a “Justiça” americana, não é certamente o único. Basta recordar que, ao abrigo da Lei de 18 de setembro de 2001, o Presidente dos Estados Unidos está autorizado a usar a força militar tanto contra indivíduos como contra nações inteiras, cuja “culpa” é decretada pelo próprio Presidente, que emite a sentença sem julgamento ou possibilidade de recurso e ordena a sua execução imediata. De acordo com o mesmo procedimento – documentado pelo New York Times (29 de maio de 2012) – foi criada uma “lista de morte” durante a administração Obama, que incluía pessoas de todo o mundo que tinham sido secretamente condenadas à morte por acusações de terrorismo e que, após a aprovação do Presidente, foram eliminadas com drones ou assassinos profissionais.
Muitos outros foram secretamente raptados e presos sem julgamento na base americana de Guantánamo, em Cuba. No mesmo contexto, outros crimes foram acrescentados aos documentados pela WikiLeaks. Estes incluem o ataque terrorista levado a cabo por mãos ucranianas, com foguetes e balas de fragmentação dos EUA, contra banhistas russos numa praia em Sevastopol, na Crimeia, e o ataque, por militantes islâmicos do Isis baseados na Ucrânia, a uma igreja ortodoxa no Daguestão russo, durante o qual um padre ortodoxo foi degolado.
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With Ukraine recent attacking Sevastopol, Crimea using the MGM-140 Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS) considerable alarm has been raised yet again as to what will the Kremlin do in response. ATACMS relies on U.S. military assistance to aim and guide the missiles. Sooner or later, the Russians will either strike the NATO forces directly, or NATO would continue to escalate even further.
To deal with this topic, we were joined by Drago Bosnic. He is a military and geopolitical analyst, regular author onGlobal Research and a frequent guest on the Global Research News Hour radio program. This interview was recorded on June 26, 2024.
Global Research: Let’s talk about the recent attacks on Sevastopol.
Russia has accused the U.S. of supplying weapons and then putting in flight coordinates.
Four people were killed, 124 injured. The Russian people are no doubt outraged by this, and then Russia is most assuredly going to push back. I assume they’re not ready to launch nuclear missiles just yet, I hope.
But I’m going to ask you, Drago, what form immediately would the Russians take in pushing back against what is essentially a terrorist attack?
Drago Bosnic: It’s difficult to say what exactly they’re going to do. However, we already have an idea when it comes to that because President Putin himself has said that Russia will now be supplying long-range weapons of various sorts to, as he said, regions of the world which are opposed to the United States. He’s a legal expert, by the way, and the fact that he didn’t use the word state or country tells you pretty much all you need to know about who’s going to be getting those long-range systems that are going to be attacking, let’s say, American or British ships.
The point is, non-state actors could soon be getting long-range Russian weapons because of what the Washington DC and the Pentagon are doing in Ukraine. You perfectly said it, it’s a terrorist attack because, first of all, those ATACMS missiles were armed with cluster warheads, which are anti-infantry weapons or just weapons that are designed to cover a wide area of effect. The thing is, if you use something like that against civilians, if your target is a crowded beach, it’s only logical that the Russians will conclude that you were intending to inflict mass maximum damage to civilians because there’s no other way to explain why they would be using weapons like the ATACMS, especially with the cluster warheads I mentioned.
In that regard, the Russians are understandably furious. I don’t think they will launch nuclear weapons. However, the point is, this is like a boiling the frog effect that has on the Russians because at some point, they will stop being tolerant towards these things.
It seems to me that the Biden administration is pushing for an ever-escalating enmity towards Russia as we get closer to the election. We might not see nuclear weapons launched now, but as we get closer to the American election in November, this is when things could become quite dangerous because the Kiev regime itself has used the war as a way to postpone or simply cancel elections in Ukraine. I’m pretty sure that the Biden administration and its allies would like to do the same in America because there’s simply no way in which Biden could defeat Trump in a fair and square election.
If there’s any sort of an emergency or, God forbid, an open warfare between Russia and the United States, then the US would also have to impose martial law, just like it was the case during the COVID pandemic. Then they could essentially do anything at that point. They could cancel elections, they could postpone them, they could manipulate them in some other way.
The point is, the Russians know who’s conducting these terrorist attacks. There was an American ISR drone, the RQ-4, that was flying over the Black Sea when the attacks were happening, which means that the US military was directly involved in targeting and guiding these weapons. Also, the Russians know for a fact, and some of my military sources in the Russian military have actually told me, that the Russians know which American satellites were used to take pictures of the beach and the area that was being targeted.
The involvement of the US is a well-known fact in the Russian military. It’s only a matter of the decision of the Russian political leadership. How are they going to respond to that? This is where we are going into the unknown.
This is going to be the real danger for the entire world. It seems to me that the warmongers at the Pentagon and in Washington, D.C. don’t really think about that. They’re not really thinking about the possible consequences that the entire world could suffer because of their, I don’t know how else to say it, but insanity.
That is to me insanity, because why would you want to do something like that to anyone, much less to a nuclear superpower?
GR: They’re actually deliberately trying to poke them to the point of escalation to basically nuclear levels or something like that, just to avoid an election or something.
DB: It’s pure insanity. Any remotely sane person would be against that.
However, it seems that we’ve run out of such people in Washington, D.C., I would say.
GR: There was also a series of terrorist attacks in Dagestan over the weekend. Attacking an Orthodox church and synagogue, a traffic police outpost, 20 people were killed and an Orthodox priest had his throat slit, ISIS style.
This seems to resemble the terrorist attack in March against Crocus City Hall. These terrorists were trying to escape to Ukraine. That’s what the case was with Crocus City Hall.
Are these attacks then therefore linked to Ukraine, NATO in any way, or is it just a coincidence?
DB: I have yet to hear any official Russian source say that. However, it’s virtually guaranteed that’s the case. The investigation is still ongoing, so I can’t really say with certainty how that was done.
However, what I think is that the people who were involved in all this were obviously implanted by foreign actors. Who those actors may be, we don’t yet know, but we can assume because the priest, I believe his last name is Father Kotelnikov, he was murdered in the most brutal way imaginable. He was serving in that church for 40 years, which means that he was very well known to the locals.
The vast majority of people living in Dagestan are Muslims. So I don’t think the locals did this because if they wanted to, they would have done that 40 years ago. The Russian people, even though they are a minority in Dagestan, ethnic Russians I mean, were mostly Orthodox Christians.
They’ve been living side by side with the Muslims for centuries. So there’s no reason and it’s not logical that the Russians and the Orthodox Christians and Muslims in the region would just go against each other just like that. What I was able to see from the statements of the officials in the region, they condemned the attack obviously, which means that they were not obviously involved in that.
What I think is that whoever has pushed for this attack, whoever organized it, financed it, armed the perpetrators, I think they’re just trying to foment hatred and religious divisions, especially because the targets were a synagogue and an Orthodox church. The Jewish community that is in Dagestan is one of the oldest, not in Russia, but in the world actually. They’ve been there for centuries.
And again, there’s no reason for the Muslims to start attacking a synagogue and an Orthodox church because there is a quite robust religious harmony in this region. So now what we’re seeing, we’re seeing someone from the outside trying to create division and hatred and possibly, let’s say, a staging ground for a civil war of some kind, which again is part of a wider war against Russia. Because if you’re fighting a country like Russia, you would want to make sure that they’re busy everywhere in order to simply shift their attention away from the main battlefield or the theory of operations, which is of course, Ukraine.
So I think in the following days and weeks and months, we’ll probably find out more about who organized this. And I have no doubt that the hand of the CIA or other American three-letter agencies is going to be behind this.
GR: Talk about Russia’s visits to North Korea and to Vietnam.
I mean, they compared to NATO. Did Russia advance to a superior position as a result of his meetings with these two, I guess, lesser countries, or is that just sort of smoke and mirrors?
DB: I think it has. I think it has.
North Korea is sort of like what I like to call a pocket superpower. Obviously, it’s not my term, but a lot of people actually call it that way. And in many ways, it is because there aren’t any other countries which are relatively small, especially compared to North Korea’s neighbors, such as Russia, China, and its adversary, the United States, that actually have ICBMs, these Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles, which are also nuclear armed.
And the amount of these missiles is obviously nowhere near the number of missiles that the United States has. However, it is more than enough to create a lot of damage in the U.S. We’re not talking about a few thousand people. We’re talking about millions, because detonating an ICBM over the city the size of New York or Los Angeles would be a disaster.
It could bring about the end of these areas as inhabitable areas. So obviously, any sane leadership would want to negotiate with a country with such a capability. However, the Washington DC and the Pentagon are actually pushing North Korea towards more and more enmity.
So how is North Korea supposed to react to this? Well, in not a very friendly manner. So what we have now is a formation of a sort of NATO-like alliance or a Warsaw Pact-like alliance, between North Korea and Russia. Because the Article 3 and Article 4 of the agreement that they signed, which has 23 clauses, by the way, it says explicitly that attack on one country is going to be considered an attack on both.
So if the political West wants to wage a nuclear war against Russia, it’s also going to get a simultaneous nuclear war with North Korea. So now we are getting into the realm of these strict wire alliances that could push the world into an abyss from which we will not be able to get out. So I mean, it’s not a very optimistic situation.
However, it will continue being worse if the West doesn’t simply back down and start negotiating with the Russians and these other global and regional powers.
GR: It seems that the NATO forces are assembling in the region. They’re talking about getting 300,000 on the, I guess, lining the border with Ukraine, with Russia and with Belarus.
The US House of Representatives just signed a bill calling for conscription of young Americans to serve in Ukraine although it hasn’t been passed by the Senate. But I mean, is all this pointing to the reality that sooner or later, probably a little bit later when, I guess, both Ukraine and Russian forces have just about used up the NATO forces planning to get involved more directly and possibly basically escalated to an even further level?
DB: Yes. Yes.
I think that’s very, very possible, unfortunately, especially because various leaders of very powerful NATO countries, primarily the President of France, Mr. Macron, they’ve been talking about the possibility of direct NATO involvement, or at least the involvement of separate NATO members, which again is equally dangerous because the Article 4 and Article 5 of the NATO statute give provisions for the involvement of the entire Alliance in case that any of the member states is involved in any sort of a conflict. So it doesn’t necessarily need to be a direct attack on any NATO country. It can simply, the Article 4 gives the provision for NATO to act as a unified fighting force.
And of course, NATO itself has a lot of logistical and other intelligence systems that give it the ability to act like that. So we are at a precipice, I think, at this point. We are in great danger that has not been seen, possibly even worse than the so-called Cuban Missile Crisis was, because now we don’t really have people who are reasonable on one side.
And that is, of course, the Washington DC. I’m not hearing a single high-ranking American official being reasonable about this. We can see calls for peace in Russia and China and these other countries, but I do not hear any calls for peace and negotiations in Western countries.
And worse yet, we now have rabid Russophobes like Kaja Kallas, the current Prime Minister of Estonia, who’s probably going to take the place of Mr. Borrell as the top EU, let’s say, diplomat, even though I don’t see any sort of diplomacy there. All I hear is warmongering and calls for Russia to be defeated. So we can see from the way that these people talk.
For instance, Ms. Kallas says that there’s no plan A, B, or C. The only plan is to defeat Russia. So when you’re talking about any country, any diplomat would have to be very careful about the way they use their words, right? Their choice of words tells you a lot about how diplomatic someone is. So if she says that her goal is to defeat Russia, even though her country is barely a million people, if I’m not mistaken, how can we talk about sanity? How can we talk about diplomacy if all she’s talking about is defeating Russia? So I mean, we also hear American officials say something like that, but even they are sometimes careful about the choice of words.
However, we don’t hear that from people like Kallas. So again, it seems that everything is being set up for a confrontation that has not been seen for decades or even more than half a century. So this is what really is dangerous.
GR: So basically, we’re looking at a NATO-Russia confrontation. It’s a real thing and we are going into World War III, correct?
DB: Unfortunately, this is the only logical conclusion we can come to if we see the actions of both sides, but especially NATO, because NATO is the one that is pushing this. Russia is mostly reacting to it, which is only logical.
I mean, if somebody is attacking you, you at least have to be ready to start defending yourself. But I don’t see any, even a modicum of de-escalation from NATO and the US.
Os políticos ucranianos já admitem a responsabilidade ocidental pelo fracasso diplomático nas negociações com a Rússia em 2022. Numa declaração recente, o antigo chefe da delegação ucraniana admitiu que havia uma possibilidade real de pôr fim ao conflito nas suas fases iniciais, razão pela qual o fracasso foi a intervenção desestabilizadora do Ocidente nas negociações.
De acordo com informações publicadas recentemente pela revista Time, os países ocidentais não deram à Ucrânia qualquer garantia concreta de segurança durante as conversações com a Rússia na Turquia, dificultando a obtenção de um acordo. O jornal cita como fonte o deputado ucraniano David Arakhamia, que chefiou a delegação de Kiev durante as negociações de paz.
De acordo com Arakhamia, havia uma probabilidade substancial de acabar com a guerra na primavera de 2022, quando Moscou e Kiev conversavam diretamente para estabelecer termos mutuamente benéficos. O deputado disse à Time que em apenas seis semanas de negociações já tinha sido possível chegar aos termos básicos do acordo, o que foi um passo extremamente significativo para a paz – faltando apenas acertar alguns detalhes.
Oficialmente, vários motivos contribuíram para a interrupção das negociações. Na época, a mídia ocidental começou a espalhar notícias falsas sobre supostos “crimes de guerra” russos, principalmente na região de Bucha – onde diversas testemunhas relataram ter visto tropas ucranianas orquestrando um cenário com corpos levados de outras cidades. Além disso, sabe-se que o então primeiro-ministro do Reino Unido, Boris Johnson, foi enviado pela OTAN a Kiev numa visita não programada apenas para pressionar Zelensky e forçar o presidente ucraniano a interromper as negociações.
Contudo, Arakhamia ainda enfatiza um ponto interessante. Segundo ele, embora a Ucrânia tivesse na altura concordado com a neutralidade e a não adesão à OTAN, o Ocidente não agiu de forma semelhante e não deu à Ucrânia qualquer garantia de segurança para evitar o início de outro conflito no futuro. Na prática, o legislador ucraniano deixa claro que os parceiros ocidentais não contribuíram em nada para alcançar um cessar-fogo, não dando a Kiev a garantia de uma paz duradoura.
Obviamente, Arakhamia comenta o assunto do ponto de vista ucraniano. Segundo ele, o Ocidente não conseguiu garantir que não haveria “outra invasão russa”. Contudo, apesar do seu viés russofóbico, o político tem uma opinião interessante sobre o caso, uma vez que a inércia do Ocidente em concordar com a proposta russa obviamente colocou problemas irreversíveis para alcançar a paz. Embora a Ucrânia tivesse concordado em não procurar qualquer integração na OTAN, sem uma promessa do Ocidente de não provocar ainda mais a Rússia através de Kiev, não seria possível evitar o início de outro conflito com Moscou no futuro.
A Time também afirma que a situação no campo de batalha foi uma das razões pelas quais o Ocidente se recusou a encorajar a paz. Na altura, a Rússia tinha retirado as suas tropas dos arredores de Kiev num movimento militar que tinha dois objetivos: acabar com as manobras de distração em Kiev, reforçando a presença russa no Donbass, e mostrar boa vontade diplomática para avançar nas negociações de paz. Contudo, em vez de compreender o ato russo como um passo para acabar com as hostilidades, a OTAN convenceu as autoridades ucranianas de que as forças russas eram “fracas” e que uma vitória militar era possível.
Por outras palavras, as palavras de Arakhamia e o relatório da Time deixam claro que o Ocidente não quis a paz em nenhum momento e fez todo o possível para prolongar o conflito, resultando na situação atual. A Ucrânia já perdeu mais de meio milhão de soldados, além de ter sofrido um drástico fluxo migratório, com milhões de pessoas deixando o país. Incapaz de continuar a lutar, mas não autorizado a retomar as negociações, Kiev está agora a recrutar mulheres, idosos e adolescentes para continuar a preencher as suas fileiras, enviando recrutas mal treinados e inexperientes para a morte certa nas trincheiras.
Todo este horror poderia ter sido evitado se o Ocidente tivesse simplesmente aceitado a paz nas primeiras semanas da operação militar especial. Tudo o que a OTAN teve de fazer foi prometer a Kiev que respeitaria a neutralidade acordada entre a Ucrânia e a Rússia. Em vez disso, a aliança atlântica optou por usar as hostilidades para travar uma guerra por procuração prolongada para tentar “desgastar” a Rússia, gerando um verdadeiro massacre de cidadãos ucranianos. A responsabilidade pelas mortes ucranianas cabe inteiramente ao Ocidente, que escolheu deliberadamente a guerra.
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Important article first published by Global Research on November 2, 2023
Global Research Introduction
Incisive and carefully documented geopolitical analysis by Richard Medhurst pertaining to the building of the Ben Gurion Canal linking the Eastern Mediterranean to the Gulf of Aqaba.
The Ben Gurion Canal Project was initially a “secret” (classified) U.S. project formulated in 1963 by the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory LLNG, a strategic think tank (focussing on nuclear radiation) on contract with the U.S Department of Energy. The LLNG project was formulated in response to the nationalization of the Suez Canal in July 1956 by President Gamal Abdel Nasser (1956-1970). Its intent was to bypass the Suez Canal.
According to the “classified” document prepared by the LLNG (1963) quoted by Business Insider, July 2023, a strategic plan was envisaged:
“to blast an alternative Suez Canal through Israel using 520 nuclear bombs”.
The plan consisted in using 520 buried nuclear explosions “to help in the excavation process through the hills in the Negev Desert. The document was declassified in 1993”. I have not been able to consult the “declassified” LLNG document.
The declassified document is acknowledged in Richard Medhurst’s video.
This U.S. plan, first negotiated with Israel in the 1960s is of utmost relevance to unfolding events in Palestine.
It’s objective is to achieve US-Israeli Maritime Dominance against the people of the Middle East. In the context of a broader US-led Middle East War, the Ben Gurion Canal Project is part of America’s hegemonic military agenda. It is consistent with Netanyahu’s “Plan to Wipe Palestine Off the Map”:
The Ben Gurion Canal will give Israel in particular and other friendly nations the freedom from blackmail arising out of access to the Suez Canal.
Arab states have been leveraging the Red Sea to pressure Israel and in response, Israel has decided to gain more control of the Red Sea. These African countries have cultural and economic affinities with the Arab states. One of the main military benefits for Israel is that it gives Israel the strategic options as the Ben Gurion Canal will totally take away the importance of Suez for the US military if needed in the aid for Israel.
Israel aims to push Egypt further into a corner by eliminating Suez in the global trade and energy corridor and becoming a global trade and energy logistics center.
Experts are of the opinion that this situation will shake the strategic-energy balance of China’s Belt and Road Project initiative in the Mediterranean, along with the Strait of Hormuz, which is the transfer point of 30 percent of the world’s energy. The Ben Gurion Canal would have the solid backing of the West. (Eurasia Review, November 7, 2023, emphasis added)
President Biden is broadly supportive of the Israeli led genocide. Visibly what is at stake is a U.S. hegemonic project which seeks the expulsion of Palestinians from their homeland and the appropriation of all Palestinian lands.
According to Yvonne Ridley:
“The only thing stopping the newly-revised [Ben Gurion Canal] project from being revived and rubber-stamped is the presence of the Palestinians in Gaza. As far as Netanyahu is concerned they are standing in the way of the project” (Yvonne Ridley, November 10, 2023, emphasis added)
While the project is contemplated by US-Israel as outlined by Richard Medhurst, the validity of the LLNG 1963 plan is doubtful to say the least.
What is revealed in Medhurst’s video is the U.S. military-intelligence strategy to use Israel as a “hub” in the Middle East with a view to securing the hegemonic control over strategic international waterways.
In solidarity with the People of Palestine
Michel Chossudovsky, Global Research, November 10, 2023
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According the Richard Medhurst:
“It will begin at the port city of Eilat and finish right next through, if not directly through, Gaza”
Watch the video below.
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Incisive analysis by Edward Curtin on the structures of evil which characterize the slaughter of civilians by the Netanyahu government, first published on October 30, 2023
My title is redundant for a reason, since the root of the word radical is the Latin word, radix, meaning root. For I mean to show how the use and misuse of language, its history or etymology, and ours as etymological animals as the Spanish philosopher José Ortega y Gassett called us, is crucial for understanding our world, a world once again teetering on the edge of a world war that will almost inexorably turn nuclear as events are proceeding. If our language is corrupted, as it surely is, and political propaganda flourishes as a result, the correct use of our language and the meaning of words becomes an obligation of anyone who uses them – that is, everyone, especially writers.
The United States government exists to wage war. In its present form, it would crumble without it; and in its present form, it will crumble with it. Only a radical structural change will prevent this. For war-making is at the core of its budget, its raison d’être – 816.7 billion for the Fiscal 2023 National Defense Authorization Act alone – a deficit-financed sum that tells only part of the story. This amount that finances the military-industrial complex and its blood money is for a country that has never been invaded, is bordered by friendly neighbors, and is oceans away from the multitude of countries its leaders attack and call our enemies. The U.S. wages wars around the world because killing is its lifeblood, its structural essence.
In writing of the misuse of language, George Orwell wrote,
“It becomes ugly and inaccurate because our thoughts are foolish, but the slovenliness of our language makes it easier for us to have foolish thoughts.”
So with these words Orwell slyly places us within the enigma of the chicken and the egg, a conundrum or paradox that relates to my theme in a weird way, but which I will directly ignore.
By radical I do not mean the widespread political usage as in radical-right or radical-left or radical meaning one who plays the role through dress or demeanor.
I am using the word in its primary meaning – a radical is one who is rooted in the earth, which means everyone. Everyone therefore is mortal, human not a god, and comes from the earth and returns to it. Everyone is radical in this sense, although they may try to deny it. And the more one feels alive the more one senses one will die and doesn’t like the thought, therefore many tamp down their aliveness in order to reduce their fear of death. The best way to do this is to disappear into the crowd, to become a conventional person. To act as if one didn’t know that one’s political leaders were in love with death and killing and were not obedient cogs in a vast systemic killing machine. Maybe the unconscious assumption is that these “leaders” can kill death for you by killing vast numbers of people and make you feel someone has control of this thing called death.
Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, who stood strongly against the Vietnam War and marched with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., put the basic sense of radical well when he said:
Our goal should be to live life in radical amazement. . . . get up in the morning and look at the world in a way that takes nothing for granted. Everything is phenomenal; everything is incredible; never treat life casually. To be spiritual is to be amazed.
To be radically amazed that we exist is to be equally amazed that we will die. And there’s the rub.
Yesterday I got in our car and drove away to meet a journalist friend. It was evening and my wife had previously used the car. I had just spent time following all the dreadful news about the massive slaughter by Israel of Palestinians in Gaza, including the death of more than 3,000 children whose numbers are climbing fast. Visions of those children and babies played havoc with my spirits, and I kept thinking of my own children and the love and tenderness that comes with being a parent. A musical cd that my wife had been listening to started playing. The case was on the console. It was Sacred Arias by Andrea Bocelli. He of the majestic voice was singing Silent Night. I was overwhelmed with tears by his passionate words:
Silent night! Holy night! All is calm, all is bright round yon Virgin Mother and Child, Holy infant so tender and mild, sleep in Heavenly peace! sleep in Heavenly peace!
I saw nights in Gaza as Israeli bombs burst and shattered everyone and everything to bits, all the holy infants, the children and adults.
I felt beside myself with grief, a U.S. citizen driving down a safe country road contemplating the savagery of my nation and its support for the Israeli government’s brutality and mass killings of Palestinians for all the world to see on screens everywhere.
I felt ashamed to live in a land where justice is a game reserved for rhetoric alone as it joins in the massacre of the innocent, as it always has, now together with the apartheid Israeli regime.
I thought of all the compromised politicians who pledge their allegiance to the killers, Biden and all his presidential predecessors, now including the aspirant Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., a man with a conscience on many important issues whom I have supported in his quest for the presidency, but a man whose conscience has abandoned him when it comes to the Palestinians, as Scott Ritter has recently documented. I have privately urged Kennedy to reconsider his “unwavering, resolute, and practical” support for the Israeli government following the Gaza breakout of October 7, but to no avail. In fact, I have been trying to get him to withdraw his unconditional support for Israel since the summer when he withdrew his support for Roger Waters, marched with Rabbi Shmuley Boteach in the Israel parade in NYC, and allowed Boteach to say that Sirhan Sirah had killed his father without correcting him since he knew it was an egregious lie. My failure in this regard deeply saddens me.
I felt betrayed again – perhaps you will call me naïve – as when I was young and last put my trust in voting for a US presidential candidate in 1972. I thought I had learned to radically grasp the systematically corrupt nature of the U.S. warfare state. Now more than three weeks have passed and Bobby Kennedy has remained silent, only to ask for our prayers for the victims of the mass shooting in Maine. For the Palestinians, not a word. Although he considers the Israeli-Palestinian situation complicated, there is nothing complicated about genocide; it doesn’t necessitate long analyses and discussions with advisers. The facts of the Israeli slaughter of Palestinians in Gaza are evident for all to see, if they wish. Bobby Kennedy has turned away. And I have now sadly turned away from him.
I remembered the Gospel words I heard long ago about the fulfillment of the words of the prophet Jeremiah: “A voice was heard in Ramah, sobbing and loudly lamenting: it was Rachel weeping for her children, refusing to be comforted because they were no more.” But this time it is not the Jewish Rachel, for Herod has assumed the name Netanyahu and his U.S. allies, and the weeping ones are Palestinian mothers and fathers.
Nothing can justify such slaughter, not the terrible killings of innocent Israelis on October 7 that I denounce; not the fear that the birth of messengers of peace might strike into Herod/Netanyahu’s heart – nothing! Seventy-five years of ethnic cleansing of Palestinians continues apace. The Jewish child Jesus, the radical preacher of love and peace for all people, didn’t die on a private cross, nor do the Palestinians. So it goes.
I thought of the indescribable sweet wonder of holding your baby in your arms while realizing how many Palestinian parents have been holding their dead children in theirs. Rage welled up in me at the obscenity of those who support this and those who shut their eyes to it and those who remain silent.
I realized that as a Christian I am baptized into the human family, not some special in-group, which is the opposite of Jesus’s message. Every child is holy and innocent and to massacre them is evil. And to remain silent as it happens is to be complicit in evil.
I remembered how these many ongoing weeks of terror started and thought of a poem that is succinctly apposite: Harlem by Langston Hughes:
What happens to a dream deferred?
Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun? Or fester like a sore- and then run? Does it stink like rotten meat? Or crust and sugar over- like a syrupy sweet?
Maybe it just sags like a heavy load.
Or does it explode?
And I thought that he could have omitted that final question mark because we have our answer, then and now.
Then the music stopped and I arrived at my destination to meet my friend.
Yes, to be radical is to be rooted in the earth and to realize all people are part of the human family, each of us made of flesh and blood and therefore sisters and brothers deserving of justice, peace, and dignity. But this is just a first step in the grasping of the full dimension of the radical vision. It can end in fluff if a second step is not taken: to use our freedom to uproot ourselves from the conventional government and mass media propaganda and mind control that clouds our understanding of how the world works. This takes study and work and an understanding of the historical and systemic roots of all the alleged “unprovoked” violence that ravages our world.
Thus the existential and socio-historical merge in the radical vision that allows us to grasp the structures of evil and our personal responsibility.
Today that obligation is clear: To oppose the Israeli genocide of the Palestinians.
Otherwise we are guilty bystanders.
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This article was originally published on the author’s blog site, Behind the Curtain.
Edward Curtin is a prominent author, researcher and sociologist based in Western Massachusetts. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG).
In recent developments, in response to Israel’s bombing of Iran’s Consulate in Damascus, according to media reports:
Iran has launched more than 300 cruise and ballistic missiles and drones at Israel, IDF officials said, a retaliatory attack weeks after an Israeli strike on the Iranian consular building in Syria killed two of Tehran’s top commanders.
“There were explosions visible in the air over Jerusalem as air sirens rang throughout the country.”
“Iran said that after tonight’s attack, the “matter can be deemed concluded” unless there is more violence.”
“Doing the Dirty Work For Us”
The fundamental question is whether this retaliatory attack will lead to escalation, including an Israeli counter-attack on Iran.
In this regard, Israel is largely serving the strategic interests of the U.S. acting on behalf of Washington.
The dirty work concept is embedded in U.S foreign policy.
Let your allies do the Dirty Work for You. The Israeli attack against the Iran Consulate in Damas was conducted in consultation with Washington.
The geopolitical and strategic implications as well as the probability of a retaliation by Iran had been carefully analyzed.
Let’s be under no illusions. The use of nuclear weapons by Israel in response to Iran’s retaliation is being discussed behind closed doors both in Tel Aviv and in Washington. That does not mean that it is contemplated as an option.
Déjà Vu
It is worth noting that at the outset of Bush’s Second Term, Vice President Dick Cheney dropped a bombshell, hinting, that Israel would, so to speak: be doing the dirty work for us (paraphrase) without US military involvement and without us putting pressure on them “to do it”.
“The Israelis might well decide to act first, and let the rest of the world worry about cleaning up the diplomatic mess afterwards,”
“Israel would not be able to act unilaterally against Iran, without a green light from the Pentagon which controls key components of Israel’s air defense system.
In practice, a war on Iran, were it to occur would be a joint US-Israeli endeavor, coordinated by US Strategic Command (STRATCOM) with America’s allies playing a key (subordinate) role.” (quoted from 2018 article)
Source: Council on Foreign Relations
Israel and the US-NATO Alliance
It is a complex military-intelligence undertaking, carefully planned over several years, in liaison and coordination with US intelligence, the Pentagon, US Strategic Command and NATO. (See article below).
Israel’s War ongoing against Palestine is currently conducive to a process of military escalation which potentially could engulf a large part of Middle East.
Israeli Military Cooperation with the Pentagon and NATO
Military cooperation with both the Pentagon and NATO is viewed by Israel’s Defence Force (IDF) as a means to “enhance Israel’s deterrence capability regarding potential enemies threatening it, mainly Iran and Syria.”
Israel is a de facto member of NATO (with a special status) since 2004, involving active military and intelligence coordination as well as consultations pertaining to the occupied territories.
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg confirmed (Press Conference, Brussels, October 12, 2023) that Israel is under attack and that U.S. military deployments in the Middle East are ongoing allegedly to avoid escalation:
There is always the risk that nations and/or organisations hostile to Israel will take try to take advantage. And that includes, for instance, organisations like Hezbollah or a country like Iran. So this is a message to countries and organisations hostile to Israel that they should not try to utilise the situation. And the United States have deployed, or has deployed more military forces in the region, not least to deter any escalation or prevent any escalation of the situation. (NATO Press Conference, Brussels, October 12, 2023, emphasis added)
Barely three days following the commencement of IDF’s bombing of the Gaza Strip, America’s largest Aircraft Carrier The USS Gerald R. Ford has come to the rescue of Israel, positioned itself in Israel’s territorial waters.
According is the CBS Report, The USS Gerald Ford is presented as a “show of force and a warning to bad actors”. It also points to escalation. The hideous crimes committed by the IDF against 2.3 million Palestinian civilians in the Gaza Strip are not mentioned.
According to media report:
“[this] is part of the United States’ show of support after Hamas launched an unprecedented attack on the Jewish state”.
“CBS News national security correspondent David Martin says the aircraft’s presence is meant to signal a warning to bad actors in the region.”
The War on Iran is no longer on Hold?
Below is the text of my January 2018 article focussing initially on the 2003 “Iran Theatre Near Term” (TIRANNT) project and the history of military alliances. An earlier version of this text was published on August 22, 2010
Michel Chossudovsky, Global Research, June 30, 2024
US Winks, Israel Bites?
Shifting Middle East Alliances.
The War on Iran is “On Hold”?
By Michel Chossudovsky
January 2, 2018
In 2003, the war on Iran project was already Déjà Vu. It had been on the drawing board of the Pentagon since the mid-nineties.
Since the launching of the Theater Iran Near Term (TIRANNT)war games scenario in May 2003 (leaked classified document), an escalation scenario involving military action directed against Iran and Syria had been envisaged, of which Syria was the first stage in 2011.
The initial invasion of Iraq under “Operation Iraqi Freedom” was launched on March 20, 2003, April 9 marks the Fall of Baghdad; officially the invasion was completed on May 1st, 2003.
In May 2003, immediately following the invasion and occupation of Iraq, the TIRANNT (Theater Iran Near Term) war games scenario were carried out as revealed by William Arkin, a former US intelligence analyst:
“In early 2003, even as U.S. forces were on the brink of war with Iraq, the Army had already begun conducting an analysis for a full-scale war with Iran. The analysis, called TIRANNT, for “theater Iran near term,” was coupled with a mock scenario for a Marine Corps invasion and a simulation of the Iranian missile force. U.S. and British planners conducted a Caspian Sea war game around the same time. And Bush directed the U.S. Strategic Command to draw up a global strike war plan for an attack against Iranian weapons of mass destruction. All of this will ultimately feed into a new war plan for “major combat operations” against Iran that military sources confirm now exists in draft form. [This contingency plan entitled CONPLAN 8022 would be activated in the eventuality of a Second 9/11, on the presumption that Iran would be behind it] (William Arkin, Washington Post, 16 April 2006)
Screenshot of WPo article, opinion section
“Theater Iran Near Term”, a scenario of waging a war against Iran following the defeat of Iraq was the unspoken concept. Under the auspices of US Central Command, TIRANNT focussed on both “Near Term” (i.e. following the Iraq war) as well “Out-Year” (signifying the subsequent year) scenarios for war with Iran ” …including all aspects of a major combat operation, from mobilization and deployment of forces through postwar stability operations after regime change.” (Ibid)
The core TIRANNT effort began in May 2003, when modelers and intelligence specialists pulled together the data needed for theater-level (meaning large-scale) scenario analysis for Iran. TIRANNT has since been updated using post-Iraq war information on the performance of U.S. forces. Meanwhile, Air Force planners have modeled attacks against existing Iranian air defenses and targets, while Navy planners have evaluated coastal defenses and drawn up scenarios for keeping control of the Strait of Hormuz at the base of the Persian Gulf.
A follow-on TIRANNT Campaign Analysis, which began in October 2003, calculated the results of different scenarios for action against Iran to provide options for analyzing courses of action in an updated Iran war plan. (Ibid)
Needless to say, the “Near Term” plans formulated in 2003 had been postponed.
USCENTCOM’s “Dual Containment”. First Iraq, then Iran
The 2003 decision to target Iran under TIRANNT as well as all subsequent endeavors and “secret plans” were part of the broader Middle East military roadmap. Already during the Clinton administration, US Central Command (USCENTCOM) had formulated in 1995 under the doctrine of “Dual Containment” “in war theater plans” to invade first Iraq and then Iran:
“The broad national security interests and objectives expressed in the President’s National Security Strategy (NSS) and the Chairman’s National Military Strategy (NMS) form the foundation of the United States Central Command’s theater strategy. The NSS directs implementation of a strategy of dual containment of the rogue states of Iraq and Iran as long as those states pose a threat to U.S. interests, to other states in the region, and to their own citizens. Dual containment is designed to maintain the balance of power in the region without depending on either Iraq or Iran. USCENTCOM’s theater strategy is interest-based and threat-focused. The purpose of U.S. engagement, as espoused in the NSS, is to protect the United States’ vital interest in the region – uninterrupted, secure U.S./Allied access to Gulf oil.”
emphasis added, the original document of USCENTCOM is no longer available)
The Role of Israel. Doing the Bombing For Us?
The TIRANNT (2003) scenario was followed by a series of military plans pertaining to Iran. Numerous post 9/11 official statements and US military documents had pointed to an expanded Middle East war, involving the active participation of Israel.
Broadly, what characterizes U.S. foreign policy is to encourage America’s allies “to do the dirty work on our behalf”.
At the outset of Bush’s Second Term, Vice President Dick Cheney dropped a bombshell, hinting, in no uncertain terms, that Iran was “right at the top of the list” of the rogue enemies of America, and that Israel would, so to speak, “be doing the bombing for us” (paraphrase), without US military involvement and without us putting pressure on them “to do it”.
In contrast, under the Trump administration, according to Professor James Petras, Israel and the Zionist Lobby are playing an active role, pressuring President Trump to take the first step:
“Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the Presidents of the 52 Major Jewish American Organizations are leading President Trump, like a puppy on a leash, into a major war with Iran. The hysterical ’52 Presidents’ and ‘Bibi’ Netanyahu are busy manufacturing Holocaust-level predictions that a non-nuclear Iran is preparing to ‘vaporize’ Israel, , The buffoonish US President Trump has swallowed this fantasy wholesale and is pushing our nation toward war for the sake of Israel and its US-based supporters and agents. (James Petras, Global Research, October 27, 2017)
Who are the Main Actors?
Political rhetoric is often misleading. Israel is America’s ally. Military operations are closely coordinated. Tel Aviv is however subordinate to Washington. In major military operations, Israel does not act without the Pentagon’s approval.
Barely acknowledged by the media, the US and Israel have an integrated air defense system, which was set up in early 2009, shortly after the Israel invasion of Gaza under “Operation Cast Led”.
The X-band radar air defense system set up by the US in Israel in 2009 would “integrate Israel’s missile defenses with the U.S. global missile detection network, which includes satellites, Aegis ships on the Mediterranean, Persian Gulf and Red Sea, and land-based Patriot radars and interceptors.” (Sen. Joseph Azzolina, Protecting Israel from Iran’s missiles, Bayshore News, December 26, 2008). )
What this means is that Washington calls the shots. Confirmed by the Pentagon, the US military controls Israel’s Air Defense:
”This is and will remain a U.S. radar system,’ Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell said. ‘So this is not something we are giving or selling to the Israelis and it is something that will likely require U.S. personnel on-site to operate.’” (Quoted in Israel National News, January 9, 2009, emphasis added).
At the outset of Obama’s Second Term, the US and Israel initiated discussions pertaining to a “US personnel on site” presence in Israel, namely the establishment of a “permanent” and “official” military base inside Israel. And on September 17, 2017, a US Air Defense base located in the Negev desert was inaugurated. According to the Israeli IDF spokesperson, the objective is to send a “message to the region, ” including Iran, Lebanon, Syria and Palestine.
Israel would not be able to act unilaterally against Iran, without a green light from the Pentagon which controls key components of Israel’s air defense system.
In practice, a war on Iran, were it to occur would be a joint US-Israeli endeavor, coordinated by US Strategic Command (STRATCOM) with America’s allies playing a key (subordinate) role.
The Evolving Structure of Military Alliances
Since the formulation of USCENTCOM’s “in war theater” plans in the mid-nineties, and more specifically since the onslaught of the war on Syria in 2011, the geopolitics of the broader Middle East Central Asian region has evolved dramatically with Russia and China taking on a major role.
In this regard, the shift in the structure of military alliances has served to weaken US influence. Iran is now supported by a powerful China-Russia block. In turn, Pakistan and India have joined the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), which has contributed to undermining US-Pakistani relations.
In turn, Iran’s bilateral relations with China including strategic oil, gas and pipeline deals (as well as military cooperation) have developed since President Xi Jinping took office in 2012.
Moreover, while Tehran has reached a “pact of convenience” with Ankara, the unity of Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States is now in jeopardy, with Qatar, Oman and Kuwait building an alliance with Iran, to the detriment of Saudi Arabia and the UAE.
Since the war on Syria, Iran has not only established a strong bilateral relationship with Syria, it has also reinforced its ties with Lebanon and Yemen.
In other words, US hegemony is threatened in the broader Middle East Central Asian region. The structure of alliances and “cross-cutting coalitions” in 2018 does not favor a US-led military operation against Iran.
The Atlantic Alliance is in crisis and so is the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC).
The US and Turkey are clashing in Northern Syria, where Turkey is fighting US sponsored Kurdish rebels.
Turkey, which constitutes NATO’s heavyweight (in terms of conventional forces) has acquired Russia’s S400 air defense system. Does this signify that Turkey (as a member state of the Atlantic Alliance) no longer fully shares the US-NATO-Israel defense system?
Another consideration is Turkey’s rapprochement with both Russia and Iran.
presidents Putin and Erdogan (right)
Demise of the “Triple Alliance”: US, Israel, Turkey
How does Turkey’s “pact of convenience” with Iran affect the Israel-Turkey Security and Secrecy Agreement (SSA) launched by the Tansu Çiller government in 1994?
The SSA agreement was a carefully designed instrument of US foreign policy (sponsored by the Clinton administration) which set the stage for a firm and close Israel-Turkey relationship in military and intelligence cooperation, joint military exercises, weapons production and training.
The SSA largely served US strategic interests in the Middle East. The intent of the SSA Israel-Turkey bilateral military-intelligence agreement was to create a triangular relationship between the US, Israel and Turkey. This de facto (rather than de jure) “triple alliance”, under the helm of the Pentagon, was intended to integrate and coordinate military command decisions (as well as intelligence) between the three countries pertaining to the broader Middle East.
From a strategic standpoint, the Pentagon was intent upon “using” both Israel and Turkey in Middle East military operations (i.e to act on our behalf).
The “Triple alliance” was based on close (bilateral) military ties respectively between Israel and Turkey with the US, coupled with a strong bilateral military relationship between Tel Aviv and Ankara.
In turn, Israel signed a far-reaching military cooperation protocol with NATO in March 2005 in Jerusalem. Under this agreement, Israel had become a de facto member of NATO. The 2005 Israel-NATO bilateral military cooperation agreement was viewed by the Israeli military as a means to “enhance Israel’s deterrence capability” against Iran, which has recently entered into an alliance of convenience with Turkey, a NATO member state. Sounds contradictory?
It is also worth noting Israel’s longstanding membership in NATO’s Mediterranean Dialogue together with six other non-NATO member states: Algeria, Egypt, Jordan, Mauritania, Morocco and Tunisia. Recently, these six countries have taken a stance against Israel in the wake of Trump’s decision to move the US embassy to Jerusalem.
It was no coincidence that the Mediterranean Dialogue (MD) was launched in the same year as the Israel-Turkey SSA agreement (1994).
Is the Israel-Turkey SSA agreement currently in jeopardy?
Following Trump’s Jerusalem Statement, the Mediterranean Dialogue is also in crisis, to the detriment of Washington.
How can joint military and intelligence operations directed against Iran be carried out when Turkey (a NATO member state and an ally of Israel) is “in bed with the enemy”?
Another consideration is the de facto demise of GUUAM (Georgia, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan and Moldova), a loose US-NATO sponsored military alliance of five former Soviet republics created in 1999, slated to be used against Russia and Iran.
For the above reasons, the Pentagon’s TIRANNT “Near Term” scenario of a conventional war against Iran at this juncture is unlikely.
While a conventional war on Iran is currently on hold, the US has indelibly opted for nonconventional warfare including destabilization, economic sanctions, infiltration, cooptation and regime change.
The Pentagon, nonetheless retains its longtime strategic option of inducing its closest allies including Saudi Arabia and Israel to “wage war on its behalf”.
We are nonetheless at a dangerous crossroads in our history. While Pentagon analysts are fully aware that the US cannot win a conventional war against Iran, a first strike tactical nuclear weapons attack is still “on the table”. So are intelligence ops, the recruitment of hired “jihadist” terrorists, the funding of insurgencies, etc. (not to mention the use of a panoply of nonconventional weapons systems including electromagnetic, chemical and biological weapons).
***
War is a criminal undertaking which is supported by the US media.
Global Research is committed to revealing the nature of this military agenda as well as fostering a broad counter-propaganda campaign which serves to undermine the fake legitimacy of Washington’s “humanitarian” wars.
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.
America’s hegemonic project in the post 9/11 era is the “Globalization of War” whereby the U.S.-NATO military machine —coupled with covert intelligence operations, economic sanctions and the thrust of “regime change”— is deployed in all major regions of the world. The threat of pre-emptive nuclear war is also used to black-mail countries into submission.
This “Long War against Humanity” is carried out at the height of the most serious economic crisis in modern history.
It is intimately related to a process of global financial restructuring, which has resulted in the collapse of national economies and the impoverishment of large sectors of the World population.
The ultimate objective is World conquest under the cloak of “human rights” and “Western democracy”.
Please Note: These Titles are currently available in pdf format.
Comments Off on Will Israel “Do the Dirty Work for Us”? Towards Military Escalation? “Theater Iran Near Term (TIRANNT)”? The War on Iran is No Longer On Hold?
Of relevance to the recent Iran-Israel confrontation and the ongoing debate on Israel’s nuclear weapons capabilities , this article by the late Stephen Lendman first published in May 2012 outlines the features of Israel’s nuclear weapons, focusing on the revelations of Mordechai Vanunu. May the legacy of Stephen Lendman live.
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Israel’s long known open secret is its formidable nuclear arsenal. Less is known about its chemical and biological weapons (CBW) capability. More on that below.
In 1986, Dimona nuclear technician Mordechai Vanunu revealed documents showing what many long suspected.
Israel had been secretly developing, producing and stockpiling nuclear weapons for years.
Experts called his information genuine. They revealed sophisticated technology able to amass a formidable nuclear arsenal. Today it’s more potent than ever.
In 2006, former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert told Germany’s Sat. 1 channel:
“Iran, openly, explicitly and publicly, threatens to wipe Israel off the map. Can you say that this is the same level, when they are aspiring to have nuclear weapons, as America, France, Israel and Russia?”
Later he denied what viewers clearly heard him say. Calls for him to step down followed. So did accusations of ineptitude for acknowledging Israeli nuclear weapons publicly.
Israel always stuck to its nuclear ambiguity position. Olmert later backtracked. Damage control didn’t assuage criticism. Opposition party members called him irresponsible.
Meretz party member Yossi Beilin said:
“The prime minister’s amazing statement regarding nuclear capability indicates a lack of caution bordering on irresponsibility.”
Olmert’s approval rating plunged. Aides tried frantically to limit damage. His spokesman, Miri Eisin, said his comments didn’t mean Israel had or wants nuclear weapons.
Of course, the cat was out of the bag after Mordechai Vanunu revealed it 20 years earlier. Damage control made things worse. Vanunu welcomed Olmert’s admission, accidental or otherwise. He hoped he said it intentionally, saying:
“For 20 years, they tried to deny me and my story, but the policy of cheating and lying didn’t succeed.”
Changes are taking place, he added. He hoped his situation would improve. It didn’t. He still chafes under repressive Israeli policies. Practically under house arrest, he’s harassed. His fundamental rights are denied. He wants his citizenship revoked and permission to leave, but Israel won’t grant either right.
He’s a legend in his own time. He only wants to live free. After what Israel put him through for decades, he deserves that much and more.
Israel refuses to discuss its nuclear capability. Others are less reticent. On May 4, Haaretz headlined “Israel’s atomic arsenal could fall victim to a new US nuclear policy,” saying:
Visiting Hiroshima last February, escorts “drew (Israeli Defense Secretary Ehud Barak’s) attention to a map of the world listing the number of nuclear warheads in the possession of the atomic powers. There is a number next to Israel’s name, too: ’80.’ Barak did not respond.”
Most experts believe Israel has hundreds of warheads and sophisticated long-range delivery systems.
“According to a (late 1990s) secret document of the Pentagon’s Defense Intelligence Agency….leaked during the period of the George W. Bush administration, Israel had ’60 to 80′ nuclear warheads in 1999.”
The Pentagon updates its data regularly. It keeps close watch on all nuclear powers and suspected ones like North Korea.
Israel never signed the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT). In 1969, Nixon and Prime Minister Golda Meir mutually agreed that Israel’s nuclear capability wouldn’t harm relations. In 1998, so did Clinton and Netanyahu. In 2009, Obama continued past policy.
Expect change eventually. Israel’s belligerency over Iran’s peaceful nuclear program may “boomerang” on its military one.
Israel’s Chemical and Biological Weapons (CBW)
Israel signed the 1993 Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC), but didn’t ratify it. It never signed the 1972 Biological Weapons Convention (BWC). Its policy is CBW ambiguity.
In 1993, the US Congress Office of Technology Assessment WMD proliferation assessment included Israel as a nation having undeclared offensive chemical warfare capabilities. In 1998, former Deputy Assistant Defense Secretary Bill Richardson said:
“I have no doubt that Israel has worked on both chemical and biological offensive things for a long time. There’s no doubt they’ve had stuff for years.”
Israel tests new weapons in combat. Against Lebanon in 2006 and Gaza during Cast Lead, it used direct energy weapons, chemical and/or biological agents, and others producing injuries and symptoms medical professionals never previously saw.
For example, bodies with dead tissue had no apparent wounds. Corpses were found shrunken. Civilians had heavy lower limb damage requiring amputations. Nonetheless, unstoppable necrosis followed (death of cells and living tissue) followed by death.
Internal wounds had no trace of shrapnel. Corpses were blackened but not burned. Some badly wounded victims didn’t bleed. The Palestinian health ministry said Israel used a new type explosive in Gaza. It contained toxins and radioactive materials. They burned and tore victims’ bodies from the inside. They also left long term deformations.
A Palestinian doctor accused Israel of using chemical ammunition that burns and injures soft tissue, but can’t be traced by X-rays. Severe internal wounds were reported. Unknown gases believed to be nerve agents were used. Those affected lost consciousness for about 24 hours. They experienced high fevers and muscle rigidity. Some needed urgent blood transfusions.
In Gaza, white phosphorous was used. It burns flesh to the bone. Depleted uranium spread radioactive contamination. Close-range explosives caused severe injuries, requiring amputations. Children had legs cut off, abdomens sliced open, or died because nothing could save them.
In June 2011, CounterPunch contributor Saleh El-Naami headlined “Exposing Israel’s Most Dangerous Secret,” saying:
Only authorized personnel have access to the Israeli Institute for Biological Research (IIBR). Israel calls it “a governmental, applied research institute specializing in the fields of biology, medicinal chemistry and environmental sciences.”
Others reveal IIBR is “where Israel develops its biological and chemical weapons and prepares for any eventuality of biological or chemical warfare.” Its facility is Israel’s “most top-secret military installation….”
Official censorship prohibits anything discussed about it. One exception only occurred after long-term employee Avisha Klein sued “for harassment and emotional abuse.”
She was part of a team developing mustard gas protective ointment. During proceedings, more information came out.
IIBR has hundreds of scientists and technicians. Its many departments specialize in chemical and biological weapons research, development and production. One is a poison used for assassinations.
In 1977, Prime Minister Menachem Begin ordered Mossad to eliminate Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine leader Wadie Haddad. He was fond of Belgian chocolates. Mossad coated some with “a slow-acting poison, and had them delivered to Haddad….”
The substance had “undetectable properties.” Haddad’s health deteriorated. Flown to East Germany for treatment, he was diagnosed with leukemia and died on March 29, 1978. Thirty-two years later, the truth came out. IIBR’s poison killed him.
Other assassinations were conducted the same way. IIBR specializes in toxic substances and protective vaccines. Anthrax research got attention. Israel feared enemies might use it.
IIBR works closely with Israeli military and intelligence operations. They list priorities. IIBR works on them.
“For example, information that has come to light during the coverage of Klein’s suit reveals that many years ago the Israeli military establishment was concerned that Arab states might use such chemical agents as mustard gas in an potential assault against Israel and, therefore, instructed the institute to develop a chemical substance to minimise the effects of the gas.”
Israeli soldiers were used to test vaccines. Some experienced “permanent physical damage.” Lawsuits for damages were filed. Victims want recognition as disabled veterans and appropriate compensation. Pressure got IDF officials to announce experiments on Israeli personnel would end.
The Nuremberg Code prohibits medical experiments without human subjects voluntarily consenting. Recruitment must exclude “coercion, fraud, deceit, and (provide) full disclosure of known risks.”
Experiments are prohibited “where there is an a priori reason to believe that death or disabling injury will occur.” Those permitted must be expected “to yield fruitful results for the good of society, unprocurable by other methods or means of study….”
In 1948, Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion ordered European Jewish scientists recruited who could “either increase the capacity to kill masses or to cure masses; both are important.”
Avraham Marcus Klingberg became a chemical and biological weapons (CBW) expert and IIBR deputy director.
Avraham Marcus Klingberg was also recruited. He became the father of Israel’s nuclear weapons program in charge of the Israeli Atomic Energy Commission (IAEC). Ben-Gurion was determined to have a nuclear option and other non-conventional weapons to counter numerical Arab advantage.
In his farewell address to the Israeli Armaments Development Authority (RAFAEL), he defended the strategy saying:
“I am confident, based not only on what I heard today, that our science can provide us with the weapons that are needed to deter our enemies from waging war against us.”
He and Shimon Peres became leading forces behind Israel’s nuclear, biological, and chemicals development program. Strict secrecy was maintained. Staff were forbidden to discuss anything related to their work. Prohibitions remain strict.
Truths eventually leak out. One day much more will be known. Vanunu was harshly punished to deter other whistleblowers. Bradley Manning faces similar treatment. In his case, life in prison may result.
Nonetheless, some who know tell others. Suppressing vital truths everyone needs to know remains hard to do forever.
Much is known about Israel’s nuclear program. Perhaps CBW disclosures will expose secrets too important to hide.
***
Stephen Lendman’s legacy will live
Consult the late Stephen Lendman’s book entitled “How Wall Street Fleeces America: Privatized Banking, Government Collusion and Class War”
Fidel Castro was both an incisive analyst as well a powerful voice against nuclear weapons.
In the light of recent developments in the Middle East and Eastern Europe, we bring to the attention of our readers Fidel’s powerful October 15, 2010 statement on the dangers of nuclear war,
Today, the dangers of military escalation in both the Middle East and Eastern Europe are beyond description.
“In a nuclear war the collateral damage would be the life of all humanity”
Israel is a nuclear power.
Let’s be under no illusions. The use of nuclear weapons by Israel in response to Iran’s attack is being discussed behind closed doors both in Tel Aviv and in Washington. That does not mean that it is going to be implemented.
Fidel Castro’s Message to the World against Nuclear War. Calling for World Peace
“The conventional war would be lost by the US and the nuclear war is no alternative for anyone. On the other hand, nuclear war would inevitably become global”
“I think nobody on Earth wishes the human species to disappear.
And that is the reason why I am of the opinion that what should disappear are not just nuclear weapons, but also conventional weapons. We must provide a guarantee for peace to all peoples without distinction
“In a nuclear war the collateral damage would be the life of all humanity. Let us have the courage to proclaim that all nuclear or conventional weapons, everything that is used to make war, must disappear!”
“It is about demanding that the world is not led into a nuclear catastrophe, it is to preserve life.”
This interview was recorded at Fidel Castro’s home in Havana by Cuba Debate and Global Research on October 15, 2010
TRANSCRIPT
The use of nuclear weapons in a new war would mean the end of humanity. This was candidly foreseen by scientist Albert Einstein who was able to measure their destructive capability to generate millions of degrees of heat, which would vaporize everything within a wide radius of action. This brilliant researcher had promoted the development of this weapon so that it would not become available to the genocidal Nazi regime.
Each and every government in the world has the obligation to respect the right to life of each and every nation and of the totality of all the peoples on the planet.
Today there is an imminent risk of war with the use of that kind of weapon and I don’t harbour the least doubt that an attack by the United States and Israel against the Islamic Republic of Iran would inevitably evolve towards a global nuclear conflict.
The World’s peoples have an obligation to demand of their political leaders their Right to Live. When the life of humankind, of your people and your most beloved human beings run such a risk, nobody can afford to be indifferent; not one minute can be lost in demanding respect for that right; tomorrow will be too late.
Albert Einstein himself stated unmistakably: “I do not know with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones”. We fully comprehend what he wanted to convey, and he was absolutely right, yet in the wake of a global nuclear war, there wouldn’t be anybody around to make use of those sticks and stones.
There would be “collateral damage”, as the American political and military leaders always affirm, to justify the deaths of innocent people.
In a nuclear war the “collateral damage” would be the life of all humanity.
Let us have the courage to proclaim that all nuclear or conventional weapons, everything that is used to make war, must disappear!
Fidel Castro Ruz, October 15, 2010
The Legacy of Fidel Castro Lives
Michel Chossudovsky, April 18, 2024
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From October 12 to 15, 2010, I had extensive and detailed discussions with Fidel Castro at his home in Havana, pertaining to the dangers of nuclear war, the global economic crisis and the nature of the New World Order. These meetings resulted in a wide-ranging and fruitful interview.
The first part of this interview published by Global Research and Cuba Debate focuses on the dangers of nuclear war.
The World is at a dangerous crossroads. We have reached a critical turning point in our history.
This interview with Fidel Castro provides an understanding of the nature of modern warfare: Were a military operation to be launched against the Islamic Republic of Iran, the US and its allies would be unable to win a conventional war, with the possibility that this war could evolve towards a nuclear war.
The details of ongoing war preparations in relation to Iran have been withheld from the public eye.
How to confront the diabolical and absurd proposition put forth by the US administration that using tactical nuclear weapons against Iran will “make the World a safer place”?
A central concept put forth by Fidel Castro in the interview is the ”Battle of Ideas”.
The leader of the Cuban Revolution believes that only a far-reaching “Battle of Ideas” could change the course of World history. The objective is to prevent the unthinkable, a nuclear war which threatens to destroy life on planet earth.
The corporate media is involved in acts of camouflage. The devastating impacts of a nuclear war are either trivialized or not mentioned. Against this backdrop, Fidel’s message to the World must be heard; people across the land, nationally and internationally, should understand the gravity of the present situation and act forcefully at all levels of society to reverse the tide of war.
The “Battle of Ideas” is part of a revolutionary process. Against a barrage of media disinformation, Fidel Castro’s resolve is to spread the word far and wide, to inform world public opinion, to “make the impossible possible”, to thwart a military adventure which in the real sense of the word threatens the future of humanity.
When a US sponsored nuclear war becomes an “instrument of peace”, condoned and accepted by the World’s institutions and the highest authority including the United Nations, there is no turning back: human society has indelibly been precipitated headlong onto the path of self-destruction.
Fidel’s “Battle of Ideas” must be translated into a worldwide movement. People must mobilize against this diabolical military agenda.
This war can be prevented if people pressure their governments and elected representatives, organize at the local level in towns, villages and municipalities, spread the word, inform their fellow citizens regarding the implications of a thermonuclear war, initiate debate and discussion within the armed forces.
What is required is a mass movement of people which forcefully challenges the legitimacy of war, a global people’s movement which criminalizes war.
In his October 15, 2010 message (see video below), Fidel Castro warned the World on the dangers of nuclear war:
“There would be “collateral damage”, as the American political and military leaders always affirm, to justify the deaths of innocent people. In a nuclear war the “collateral damage” would be the life of all humanity. Let us have the courage to proclaim that all nuclear or conventional weapons, everything that is used to make war, must disappear!”
The “Battle of Ideas” consists in confronting the war criminals in high office, in breaking the US-led consensus in favor of a global war, in changing the mindset of hundreds of millions of people, in abolishing nuclear weapons. In essence, the “Battle of Ideas” consists in restoring the truth and establishing the foundations of World peace.
The interview was conducted in Spanish. It was translated into English by Global Research and Cuba Debate.
The original Spanish version as well as translation into English were published by Cuba Debate and Global Research.
Michel Chossudovsky, Global Research, November 2010
Conversations on the Dangers of Nuclear War. 11-15 October 2011
Professor Michel Chossudovsky: I am very honored to have this opportunity to exchange views concerning several fundamental issues affecting human society as a whole. I think that the notion that you have raised in your recent texts regarding the threat against Homo sapiens is fundamental.
What is that threat, the risk of a nuclear war and the threat to human beings, to Homo sapiens?
Commander in Chief Fidel Castro Ruz: Since quite a long time –years I would say- but especially for some months now, I began to worry about the imminence of a dangerous and probable war that could very rapidly evolve towards a nuclear war.
Before that I had concentrated all my efforts on the analysis of the capitalist system in general and the methods that the imperial tyranny has imposed on humanity. The United States applies to the world the violation of the most fundamental rights.
During the Cold War, no one spoke about war or nuclear weapons; people talked about an apparent peace, that is, between the USSR and the United States, the famous MAD (Mutual Assured Destruction) was guaranteed. It seemed that the world was going to enjoy the delights of a peace that would last for an unlimited time.
Notice the Book by Bob Woodward entitled Obama’s Wars. Fidel had ordered a copy when it was launched, delivered to him in the UN diplomatic pouch. He had read it cover to cover when I met up with him on October 12, 2010
Michel Chossudovsky: … This notion of “mutual assured destruction” ended with the Cold War and after that the nuclear doctrine was redefined, because we never really thought about a nuclear war during the Cold War. Well, obviously, there was a danger –as even Robert McNamara said at some point in time.
But, after the Cold War, particularly after September 11 [2001], America’s nuclear doctrine started to be redefined.
Fidel Castro Ruz: You asked me when was it that we became aware of the imminent risk of a nuclear war, and that dates back to the period I talked to you about previously, barely six months ago. One of the things that called our attention the most regarding such a war danger was the sinking of the Cheonan during a military maneuver. That was the flagship of the South Korean Navy; an extremely sophisticated vessel. It was at the time when we found on Global Research the journalist’s report that offered a clear and truly coherent information about the sinking of the Cheonan, which could not have been the work of a submarine that had been manufactured by the USSR more than sixty years ago, using an outdated technology which did not require the sophisticated equipment that could be detected by the Cheonan, during a joint maneuver with the most modern US vessels.
The provocation against the Democratic Republic of Korea added up to our own earlier concerns about an aggression against Iran. We had been closely following the political process in that country. We knew perfectly well what happened there during the 1950s, when Iran nationalized the assets of the British Petroleum in that country- which at the time was called the Anglo Persian Oil Company.
In my opinion, the threats against Iran became imminent in June [2010], after the adoption of Resolution 1929 on the 9th of June, 2010, when the United Nations Security Council condemned Iran for the research it is carrying out and the production of small amounts of 20 per cent enriched uranium, and accused it of being a threat to the world. The position adopted by each and every member of the Security Council is known: 12 member States voted in favor –five of them had the right to veto; one of them abstained and 2 –Brazil and Turkey- voted against. Shortly after the Resolution was adopted –the most aggressive resolution of of them all– one US aircraft carrier, embedded in a combat unit, plus a nuclear submarine, went through the Suez Canal with the help of the Egyptian government. Naval units from Israel joined, heading for the Persian Gulf and the seas nearby Iran.
The sanctions imposed by the United States and its NATO allies against Iran was absolutely abusive and unjust. I cannot understand the reason why Russia and China did not veto the dangerous Resolution 1929 of the United Nations Security Council. In my opinion this has complicated the political situation terribly and has placed the world on the brink of war.
I remember previous Israeli attacks against the Arab nuclear research centers. They first attacked and destroyed the one in Iraq in June 1981. They did not ask for anyone’s permission, they did not talk to anybody; they just attacked them and the Iraqis had to endure the strikes.
In 2007 they repeated that same operation against a research center that was being built by Syria. There is something in that episode that I really don’t quite understand: what was not clear to me were the underlying tactics, or the reasons why Syria did not denounce the Israeli attack against that research center where, undoubtedly, they were doing something, they were working on something for which, as it is known, they were receiving some cooperation from North Korea. That was something legal; they did not commit any violation.
I am saying this here and I am being very honest: I don’t understand why this was not denounced, because, in my opinion, that would have been important. Those are two very important antecedents.
I believe there are many reasons to think that they will try to do the same against Iran: destroy its research centers or the power generation centers of that country. As is known, the power generation uranium residues are the raw material to produce plutonium.
Michel Chossudovsky: It is true that that Security Council Resolution has to some extent contributed to cancelling the program of military cooperation that Russia and China have with Iran, especially Russia cooperates with Iran in the context of the Air Defence System by supplying its S-300 System.
I remember that just after the Security Council’s decision, with the endorsement of China and Russia, the Russian minister of Foreign Affairs said: “Well, we have approved the Resolution but that is not going to invalidate our military cooperation with Iran”. That was in June. But a few months later, Moscow confirmed that military cooperation [with Iran] was going to be frozen, so now Iran is facing a very serious situation, because it needs Russian technology to maintain its security, namely its [S-300] air defence system.
But I think that all the threats against Russia and China are intent upon preventing the two countries from getting involved in the Iran issue. In other words, if there is a war with Iran the other powers, which are China and Russia, aren’t going to intervene in any way; they will be freezing their military cooperation with Iran and therefore this is a way [for the US and NATO] of extending their war in the Middle East without there being a confrontation with China and Russia and I think that this more or less is the scenario right now.
There are many types of threats directed against Russia and China. The fact that China’s borders are militarized –China’s South Sea, the Yellow Sea, the border with Afghanistan, and also the Straits of Taiwan- it is in some way a threat to dissuade China and Russia from playing the role of powers in world geopolitics, thus paving the way and even creating consensus in favour of a war with Iran which is happening under conditions where Iran’s air defence system is being weakened. [With the freeze of its military cooperation agreement with Russia] Iran is a “sitting duck” from the point of view of its ability to defend itself using its air defence system.
Fidel Castro Ruz: In my modest and serene opinion that resolution should have been vetoed. Because, in my opinion, everything has become more complicated in several ways.
Militarily, because of what you are explaining regarding, for example, the commitment that existed and the contract that had been signed to supply Iran with the [Russian] S-300, which are very efficient anti-aircraft weapons in the first place.
There are other things regarding fuel supplies, which are very important for China, because China is the country with the highest economic growth. Its growing economy generates greater demand for oil and gas. Even though there are agreements with Russia for oil and gas supplies, they are also developing wind energy and other forms of renewable energy. They have enormous coal reserves; nuclear energy will not increase much, only 5% for many years. In other words, the need for gas and oil in the Chinese economy is huge, and I cannot imagine, really, how they will be able to get all that energy, and at what price, if the country where they have important investments is destroyed by the US. But the worst risk is the very nature of that war in Iran. Iran is a Muslim country that has millions of trained combatants who are strongly motivated.
There are tens of millions of people who are under [military] orders, they are being politically educated and trained, men and women alike. There are millions of combatants trained and determined to die. These are people who will not be intimidated and who cannot be forced to changing [their behavior]. On the other hand, there are the Afghans –they are being murdered by US drones –there are the Pakistanis, the Iraqis, who have seen one to two million compatriots die as a result of the antiterrorist war invented by Bush. You cannot win a war against the Muslim world; that is sheer madness.
Michel Chossudovsky: But it’s true, their conventional forces are very large, Iran can mobilize in a single day several million troops and they are on the border with Afghanistan and Iraq, and even if there is a blitzkrieg war, the US cannot avoid a conventional war that is waged very close to its military bases in that region.
Fidel Castro Ruz: But the fact is that the US would lose that conventional war. The problem is that nobody can win a conventional war against millions of people; they would not concentrate their forces in large numbers in a single location for the Americans to kill them.
Well, I was a guerrilla fighter and I recall that I had to think seriously about how to use the forces we had and I would never have made the mistake of concentrating those forces in a single location, because the more concentrated the forces, the greater the casualties caused by weapons of mass destruction….
From left to right: Michel Chossudovsky, Randy Alonso Falcon, Fidel Castro Ruz
Michel Chossudovsky: As you mentioned previously, a matter of utmost importance: China and Russia’s decision in the Security Council, their support of Resolution 1929, is in fact harmful to them because, first, Russia cannot export weapons, thus its main source of income is now frozen. Iran was one of the main customers or buyers of Russian weapons, and that was an important source of hard currency earnings which supported Russia`s consumer goods economy thereby covering the needs of the population.
And, on the other hand China requires access to sources of energy as you mentioned. The fact that China and Russia have accepted the consensus in the UN Security Council, is tantamount to saying: “We accept that you kill our economy and, in some ways, our commercial agreements with a third country”. That’s very serious because it [the UNSC Resolution] not only does harm to Iran; is also harms those two countries, and I suppose –even though I am not a politician –that there must be tremendous divisions within the leadership, both in Russia and in China, for that to happen, for Russia to accept not to use its veto power in the Security Council.
I spoke with Russian journalists, who told me that there wasn’t exactly a consensus within the government per se; it was a guideline. But there are people in the [Russian] government with a different point of view regarding the interests of Russia and its stance in the UN Security Council. How do you see this?
Fidel Castro Ruz: How do I see the general situation? The alternative in Iran –let me put it this way –the conventional war would be lost by the US and the nuclear war is not an alternative for anyone.
On the other hand, nuclear war would inevitably become global. Thus the danger in my opinion exists with the current situation in Iran, bearing in mind the reasons you are presenting and many other facts; which brings me to the conclusion that the war would end up being a nuclear war.
Filming of Fidel’s message on October 15.2010. From left to right: Fidel Castro, TV crew, Michel Chossudovsky, Randy Alonso Falcon
Michel Chossudovsky: In other words, since the US and its allies are unable to win the conventional war, they are going to use nuclear weapons, but that too would be a war they couldn’t win, because we are going to lose everything.
Fidel Castro Ruz: Everyone would be losing that war; that would be a war that everyone would lose. What would Russia gain if a nuclear war were unleashed over there? What would China gain? What kind of war would that be? How would the world react? What effect would it have on the world economy? You explained it at the university when you spoke about the centralized defence system designed by the Pentagon. It sounds like science fiction; it doesn’t even remotely resemble the last world war. The other thing which is also very important is the attempt [by the Pentagon] to transform nuclear weapons into conventional tactical weapons.
Today, October 13th, I was reading about the same thing in a news dispatch stating that the citizens of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were drawing up strong protests about the fact that the US had just carried out subcritical nuclear tests. They’re called subcritical, which means the use of the nuclear weapon without deploying all the energy that might be achieved with the critical mass.
It reads: “Indignation in Hiroshima and Nagasaki because of a United States nuclear test.”…
“The Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki that suffered a nuclear attack at the end of WW II, deplored today the nuclear test carried out by the US on September last, called sub critical because it does not unleash chain nuclear reactions.
“The test, the first of this kind in that country since 2006, took place on September 15th somewhere in Nevada, United States. It was officially confirmed by the Department of Energy of that country, the Japan Times informed.”
What did that newspaper say?
“I deeply deplore it because I was hoping that President Barack Obama would take on the leadership in eliminating nuclear weapons”, the governor of Nagasaki, Hodo Nakamura, stated today at a press conference.
A series of news items related to that follows.
“The test has also caused several protests among the citizens of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, including several survivors of the atomic bombs attacks that devastated both cities in August of 1945.
“We cannot tolerate any action of the United States that betrays President Barack Obama’s promise of moving forward to a world without nuclear arms, said Yukio Yoshioka, the deputy director of the Council for the Victims of the Hiroshima Atomic Bomb.
“The government stated that it has no intention of protesting.” It relegates the protest to a social level and then said: “With this, the number of subcritical nuclear tests made by the United States reaches the figure of 26, since July 1997 when the first of them took place.”
Now it says:
“Washington considers that these tests do not violate the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) since they do not unleash any chain reactions, and therefore do not release any nuclear energy, and so they can be considered to be laboratory tests.”
The US says that it has to make these tests because they are necessary to maintain the “security of its nuclear arsenal”, which is the same as saying: since we have these great nuclear arsenals, we are doing this in order to ensure our security.
Michel Chossudovsky: Let us return to the issue of the threat against Iran, because you said that the US and its allies could not win a conventional war. That is true; but nuclear weapons could be used as an alternative to conventional warfare, and this evidently is a threat against humanity, as you have emphasized in your writings.
The reason for my concern is that after the Cold War the idea of nuclear weapons with a “humanitarian face” was developed, saying that those weapons were not really dangerous, that they do not harm civilians, and in some way the nuclear weapons label was changed. Therefore, according to their criteria, [tactical] nuclear weapons are no different from conventional weapons, and now in the military manuals they say that tactical nuclear weapons are weapons that pose no harm to civilians.
Therefore, we might have a situation in which those who decide to attack Iran with a nuclear weapon would not be aware of the consequences that this might have for the Middle East, central Asia, but also for humanity as a whole, because they are going to say: “Well, according to our criteria, these [tactical] nuclear weapons [safe for civilians] are different from those deployed during the Cold War and so, we can use them against Iran as a weapon which does not [affect civilians and] does not threaten global security.”
How do you view that? It’s extremely dangerous, because they themselves believe their own propaganda. It is internal propaganda within the armed forces, within the political apparatus.
When tactical nuclear weapons were recategorized in 2002-2003, Senator Edward Kennedy said at that time that it was a way of blurring the boundary between conventional and nuclear weapons.
But that’s where we are today; we are in an era where nuclear weapons are considered to be no different from the Kalashnikov. I’m exaggerating, but somehow nuclear weapons are now part of the tool box –that’s the word they use, “tool box” –and from there you choose the type of weapon you are going to use, so the nuclear weapon could be used in the conventional war theatre, leading us to the unthinkable, a nuclear war scenario on a regional level, but also with repercussions at the global level.
Fidel Castro Ruz: I heard what you said on the Round Table [Cuban TV] program about such weapons, presumably harmless to people living in the vicinity of the areas where they are to be targeted, the power [explosive yield] could range from one-third of the one that was used in Hiroshima up to six times the power [explosive yield] of that weapon, and today we know perfectly well the terrible damage it causes. One single bomb instantly killed 100,000 people. Just imagine a bomb having six times the power of that one [Hiroshima bomb], or two times that power, or an equivalent power, or 30 per cent that power. It is absurd.
There is also what you explained at the university about the attempt to present it as a humanitarian weapon that could also be available to the troops in the theatre of operations. So at any given moment any commander in the theatre of operations could be authorized to use that weapon as one that was more efficient than other weapons, something that would be considered his duty according to military doctrine and the training he/she received at the military academies.
Michel Chossudovsky: In that sense, I don’t think that this nuclear weapon would be used without the approval, let’s say, of the Pentagon, namely its centralised command structures [e.g. Strategic Command]; but I do think that it could be used without the approval of the President of the United States and Commander in Chief. In other words, it isn’t quite the same logic as that which prevailed during the Cold War where there was the Red Telephone and…
Fidel Castro Ruz: I understand, Professor, what you are saying regarding the use of that weapon as authorized by the senior levels of the Pentagon, and it seems right to me that you should make that clarification so that you won’t be blamed for exaggerating the dangers of that weapon.
But look, after one has learned about the antagonisms and arguments between the Pentagon and the President of the United States, there are really not too many doubts about what the Pentagon decision would be if the chief of the theatre of operations requests to use that weapon because he feels it is necessary or indispensable.
Michel Chossudovsky: There is also another element. The deployment of tactical nuclear weapons now, as far as I know, is being undertaken by several European countries which belong to NATO. This is the case of Belgium, Holland, Turkey, Italy and Germany. Thus, there are plenty of these “little nuclear bombs” very close to the theatre of war, and on the other hand we also have Israel.
Now then, I don’t think that Israel is going to start a war on its own; that would be impossible in terms of strategy and decision-making. In modern warfare, with the centralization of communications, logistics and everything else, starting a major war would be a centralized decision. However, Israel might act if the US gives Israel the green light to launch the first attack. That’s within the realm of possibilities, even though there are some analysts who now say that the war on Iran will start in Lebanon and Syria with a conventional border war, and then that would provide the pretext for an escalation in military operations.
Fidel Castro Ruz: Yesterday, October 13th, a crowd of people welcomed Ahmadinejad in Lebanon like a national hero of that country. I was reading a cable about that this morning.
Besides, we also know about Israel’s concerns regarding that, given the fact that the Lebanese are people with a great fighting spirit who have three times the number of reactive missiles they had in the former conflict with Israel and Lebanon, which was a great concern for Israel because they need –as the Israeli technicians have asserted – the air force to confront that weapon. And so, they state, they could only be attacking Iran for a number of hours, not three days, because they should be paying attention to such a danger. That’s the reason why, from these viewpoints, every day that goes by they are more concerned, because those weapons are part of the Iranian arsenal of conventional weapons. For example, among their conventional weapons, they have hundreds of rocket launchers to fight surface warships in that area of the Caspian Sea. We know that, from the time of the Falklands war, a surface warship can dodge one, two or three rockets. But imagine how a large warship can protect itself against a shower of weapons of that kind. Those are rapid vessels operated by well-trained people, because the Iranians have been training people for 30 years now and they have developed efficient conventional weapons.
You yourself know that, and you know what happened during the last World War, before the emergence of nuclear weapons. Fifty million people died as a result of the destructive power of conventional weaponry.
A war today is not like the war that was waged in the nineteenth century, before the appearance of nuclear weapons. And wars were already highly destructive. Nuclear arms appeared at the very last minute, because Truman wanted to use them. He wanted to test the Hiroshima bomb, creating the critical mass from uranium, and the other one in Nagasaki, which created a critical mass from plutonium. The two bombs killed around 100,000 persons immediately. We don’t know how many were wounded and affected by radiation, who died later on or suffered for long years from these effects. Besides, a nuclear war would create a nuclear winter.
I am talking to you about the dangers of a war, considering the immediate damage it might cause. It would be enough if we only had a limited number of them, the amount of weapons owned by one of the least mighty [nuclear] powers, India or Pakistan. Their explosion would be sufficient to create a nuclear winter from which no human being would survive. That would be impossible, since it would last for 8 to 10 years. In a matter of weeks the sunlight would no longer be visible.
Mankind is less than 200,000 years old. So far everything was normalcy. The laws of nature were being fulfilled; the laws of life developed on planet Earth for more than 3 billion years. Men, the Homo sapiens, the intelligent beings did not exist after 8 tenths of a million years had elapsed, according to all studies. Two hundred years ago, everything was virtually unknown. Today we know the laws governing the evolution of the species. Scientists, theologians, even the most devout religious people who initially echoed the campaign launched by the great ecclesiastical institutions against the Darwinian Theory, today accept the laws of evolution as real, without it preventing their sincere practice of their religious beliefs where, quite often, people find comfort for their most heartfelt hardships.
I think nobody on Earth wishes the human species to disappear. And that is the reason why I am of the opinion that what should disappear are not just nuclear weapons, but also conventional weapons. We must provide a guarantee for peace to all peoples without distinction, to the Iranians as well as the Israelis. Natural resources should be distributed. They should! I don’t mean they will, or that it would be easy to do it. But there would be no other alternative for humanity, in a world of limited dimensions and resources, even if all the scientific potential to create renewable sources of energy is developed. We are almost 7 billion inhabitants, and so we need to implement a demographic policy. We need many things, and when you put them all together and you ask yourself the following question: will human beings be capable of understanding that and overcome all those difficulties? You realize that only enthusiasm can truly lead a person to say that he or she will confront and easily resolve a problem of such proportions.
Michel Chossudovsky: What you have just said is extremely important, when you spoke of Truman. Truman said that Hiroshima was a military base and that there would be no harm to civilians.
This notion of collateral damage; reflects continuity in [America’s] nuclear doctrine ever since the year 1945 up until today. That is, not at the level of reality but at the level of [military] doctrine and propaganda. I mean, in 1945 it was said: Let’s save humanity by killing 100,000 people and deny the fact that Hiroshima was a populated city, namely that it was a military base. But nowadays the falsehoods have become much more sophisticated, more widespread, and nuclear weapons are more advanced. So, we are dealing with the future of humanity and the threat of a nuclear war at a global level. The lies and fiction underlying [US] political and military discourse would lead us to a Worldwide catastrophe in which politicians would be unable to make head or tails of their own lies.
Then, you said that intelligent human beings have existed for 200,000 years, but that same intelligence, which has now been incorporated in various institutions, namely the media, the intelligence services, the United Nations, happens to be what is now going to destroy us. Because we believe our own lies, which leads us towards nuclear war, without realizing that this would be the last war, as Einstein clearly stated. A nuclear war cannot ensure the continuation of humanity; it is a threat against the world.
Fidel Castro Ruz: Those are very good words, Professor. The collateral damage, in this case, could be humanity.
War is a crime and there is no need for any new law to describe it as such, because since Nuremberg, war has already been considered a crime, the biggest crime against humanity and peace, and the most horrible of all crimes.
Michel Chossudovsky.- The Nuremberg texts clearly state: “War is a criminal act, it is the ultimate act of war against peace.” This part of the Nuremberg texts is often quoted. After the Second World War, the Allies wanted to use it against the conquered, and I am not saying that this is not valid, but the crimes that they committed, including the crimes committed against Germany and Japan, are never mentioned. With a nuclear weapon, in the case of Japan.
Michel Chossudovsky.- It is an extremely important issue for me and if we are talking about a “counter-alliance for peace”, the criminalization of war seems to me to be a fundamental aspect. I’m talking about the abolition of war; it is a criminal act that must be eliminated.
Fidel Castro Ruz – Well, who would judge the main criminals?
Michel Chossudovsky.- The problem is that they also control the judicial system and the courts, so the judges are criminals as well. What can we do?
Fidel Castro Ruz I say that this is part of the Battle of Ideas.
It is about demanding that the world not be spearheaded into a nuclear catastrophe, it is to preserve life.
We do not know, but we presume that if man becomes aware of his own existence, that of his people, that of his loved ones, even the U.S. military leaders would be aware of the outcome; although they are taught in life to follow orders, not infrequently genocide, as in the use of tactical or strategic nuclear weapons, because that is what they were taught in the [military] academies.
As all of this is sheer madness, no politician is exempt from the duty of conveying these truths to the people. One must believe in them, otherwise there would be nothing to fight for.
Michel Chossudovsky .- I think what you are saying is that at the present time, the great debate in human history should focus on the danger of nuclear war that threatens the future of humanity, and that any discussion we have about basic needs or economics requires that we prevent the occurrence of war and instate global peace so that we can then plan living standards worldwide based on basic needs; but if we do not solve the problem of war, capitalism will not survive, right?
Fidel Castro Ruz.– No, it cannot survive, in terms of all the analysis we’ve undertaken, it cannot survive. The capitalist system and the market economy that suffocate human life, are not going to disappear overnight, but imperialism based on force, nuclear weapons and conventional weapons with modern technology, has to disappear if we want humanity to survive.
Now, there something occurring at this very moment which characterizes the Worldwide process of disinformation, and it is the following: In Chile 33 miners were trapped 700 meters underground, and the world is rejoicing at the news that 33 miners have been saved. Well, simply, what will the world do if it becomes aware that 6,877,596,300 people need to be saved, if 33 have created universal joy and all the mass media speak only of that these days, why not save the nearly 7 billion people trapped by the terrible danger of perishing in a horrible death like those of Hiroshima or Nagasaki?
Michel Chossudovsky. -This is also, clearly, the issue of media coverage that is given to different events and the propaganda emanating from the media.
I think it was an incredible humanitarian operation that the Chileans undertook, but it is true that if there is a threat to humanity, as you mentioned, it should be on the front page of every newspaper in the world because human society in its totality could be the victim of a decision that has been made, even by a three-star general who is unaware of the consequences [of nuclear weapons].
But here we are talking about how the media, particularly in the West, are hiding the most serious issue that potentially affects the world today, which is the danger of nuclear war and we must take it seriously, because both Hillary Clinton and Obama have said that they have contemplated using nuclear weapon in a so-called preventive war against Iran.
Well, how do we answer? What do you say to Hillary Clinton and Barak Obama regarding their statements pertaining to the unilateral use of nuclear weapons against Iran, a country that poses no danger to anyone?
Fidel Castro Ruz.- Yes, I know two things: What was discussed. This has been revealed recently, namely far-reaching arguments within the Security Council of the United States. That is the value of the book written by Bob Woodward, because it revealed how all these discussions occurred. We know the positions of Biden, Hillary, Obama, and indeed in those discussions, who was firmer against the extension of the war, who was able to argue with the military, it was Obama, that is a fact.
I am writing the latest reflection, actually, about that. The only one who got there, and gave him advice, who had been an opponent because of his Republican Party membership, was Colin Powell. He reminded him that he was the President of the United States, encouraging advice.
I think we should ensure that this message reaches everybody; what we have discussed. I think many read the articles you have published in Global Research. I think we need to disclose, and to the extent that we have these discussions and harbor the idea of disclosure. I am delighted every time you argue, reasonably, and put forth these issues, simply, in my opinion, there is a real deficit of information for the reasons you explained.
Now, we must invent. What are the ways to make all this known? At the time of the Twelve Apostles, there were 12 and no more, and they were given the task of disseminating the teachings a preacher transmitted to them. Sure, they had hundreds of years ahead of them. We, however, we do not have that. But I was looking at the list of personalities, and there are more than 20 prominent people who have been working with Global Research, prestigious people, asking the same questions, but they do not have hundreds of years, but, well, very little time.
Michel Chossudovsky. – The antiwar movement in the United States, Canada and Europe is divided. Some people think the threat comes from Iran, others say they [the Iranians] are terrorists, and there is a lot of disinformation in the movement itself.
Besides, at the World Social Forum the issue of nuclear war is not part of the debate between people of the Left or progressives. During the Cold War there was talk of the danger of nuclear conflict, and people had this awareness.
At the last meeting held in New York on non-proliferation, under the United Nations, the emphasis was on the nuclear threat from non-state entities, from terrorists.
President Obama said that the threat comes from Al Qaeda, which has nuclear weapons. Also, if someone reads Obama’s speeches he is suggesting that the terrorists have the ability of producing small nuclear bombs, what they call “dirty bombs”. Well, it’s a way of [distorting the issues] and shifting the emphasis.
Fidel Castro Ruz. – That is what they tell him [Obama], that is what his own people tell him and have him believe.
Look, what do I do with the reflections? They are distributed in the United Nations, they are sent to all governments, the reflections, of course, are short, to send them to all the governments, and I know there are many people who read them. The problem is whether you are telling the truth or not. Of course, when one collects all this information in relation to a particular problem because the reflections are also diluted on many issues, but I think you have to concentrate on our part, the disclosure of essentials, I cannot cover everything.
Michel Chossudovsky. – I have a question, because there is an important aspect related to the Cuban Revolution. In my opinion, the debate on the future of humanity is also part of a revolutionary discourse. If society as a whole were to be threatened by nuclear war, it is necessary in some form, to have a revolution at the levels of ideas as well as actions against this event, [namely nuclear war].
Fidel Castro Ruz .- We have to say, I repeat, that humanity is trapped 800 meters underground and that we must get it out, we need to do a rescue operation. That is the message we must convey to a large number of people. If people in large numbers believe in that message, they will do what you are doing and they will support what you are supporting. It will no longer depend on who are those who say it, but on the fact that somebody [and eventually everybody] says it.
You have to figure out how you can reach the informed masses. The solution is not the newspapers. There is the Internet, Internet is cheaper, Internet is more accessible. I approached you through the Internet looking for news, not through news agencies, not through the press, not from CNN, but news through a newsletter I receive daily articles on the Internet . Over 100 pages each day.
Yesterday you were arguing that in the United States some time ago two thirds of public opinion was against the war on Iran, and today, fifty-some percent favored military action against Iran.
Michel Chossudovsky .- What happened, even in recent months, it was said: “Yes, nuclear war is very dangerous, it is a threat, but the threat comes from Iran,” and there were signs in New York City saying: ” Say no to nuclear Iran, “and the message of these posters was to present Iran as a threat to global security, even if the threat did not exist because they do not have nuclear weapons.
Anyway, that’s the situation, and The New York Times earlier this week published a text that says, yes, political assassinations are legal.
Then, when we have a press that gives us things like that, with the distribution that they have, it is a lot of work [on our part]. We have limited capabilities to reverse this process [of media disinformation] within the limited distribution outlets of the alternative media. In addition to that, now many of these alternative media are financed by the economic establishment.
Fidel Castro Ruz.- And yet we have to fight.
Michel Chossudovsky .- Yes, we keep struggling, but the message was what you said yesterday. That in the case of a nuclear war, the collateral damage would be humanity as a whole.
Fidel Castro Ruz.- It would be humanity, the life of humanity.
Michel Chossudovsky.- It is true that the Internet should continue to function as an outreach tool to avoid the war.
Fidel Castro Ruz.- Well, it’s the only way we can prevent it. If we were to create world opinion, it’s like the example I mentioned: there are nearly 7 billion people trapped 800 meters underground, we use the phenomenon of Chile to disclose these things.
Michel Chossudovsky .- The comparison you make with the rescue of 33 miners, saying that there are 33 miners below ground there to be rescued, which received extensive media coverage, and you say that we have almost 7 billion people that are 800 meters underground and do not understand what is happening, but we have to rescue them, because humanity as a whole is threatened by the nuclear weapons of the United States and its allies, because they are the ones who say they intend to use them.
Fidel Castro Ruz.- And will use them [the nuclear weapons] if there is no opposition, if there is no resistance. They are deceived; they are drugged with military superiority and modern technology and do not know what they are doing.
They do not understand the consequences; they believe that the prevailed situation can be maintained. It is impossible.
Michel Chossudovsky. – Or they believe that this is simply some sort of conventional weapon.
Fidel Castro Ruz. – Yes, they are deluded and believe that you can still use that weapon. They believe they are in another era, they do not remember what Einstein said when he stated he did not know with what weapons World War III would be fought with, but the World War IV would be fought with sticks and stones. I added there: “… there wouldn’t be anyone to handle the sticks and stones.” That is the reality; I have it written there in the short speech you suggested I develop.
Michel Chossudovsky .- The problem I see is that the use of nuclear weapons will not necessarily lead to the end of humankind from one day to the next, because the radioactive impact is cumulative.
Fidel Castro Ruz. – Repeat that, please.
Michel Chossudovsky. – The nuclear weapon has several different consequences: one is the explosion and destruction in the theater of war, which is the phenomenon of Hiroshima, and the other are the impacts of radiation which increases over time.
Fidel Castro Ruz.- Yes, nuclear winter, as we call it. The prestigious American researcher, University of Rutgers (New Jersey) Professor Emeritus Alan Robock irrefutably showed that the outbreak of a war between two of the eight nuclear powers who possess the least amount of weapons of this kind would result in “nuclear winter”.
He disclosed that at the fore of a group of researchers who used ultra-scientific computer models.
It would be enough to have 100 strategic nuclear weapons of the 25,000 possessed by the eight powers mentioned exploding in order to create temperatures below freezing all over the planet and a long night that would last approximately eight years. Professor Robock exclaims that it is so terrible that people are falling into a “state of denial”, not wanting to think about it; it is easier to pretend that it doesn’t exist”. He told me that personally, at an international conference he was giving, where I had the honor of conversing with him.
Well, but I start from an assumption: If a war breaks out in Iran, it will inevitably become nuclear war and a global war. So that’s why yesterday we were saying it was not right to allow such an agreement in the Security Council, because it makes everything easier, do you see?
Such a war in Iran today would not remain confined to the local level, because the Iranians would not give in to use of force. If it remained conventional, it would be a war the United States and Europe could not win, and I argue that it would rapidly turn into a nuclear war. If the United States were to make the mistake of using tactical nuclear weapons, there would be consternation throughout the world and the US would eventually lose control of the situation.
Obama has had a heated discussion with the Pentagon about what to do in Afghanistan; imagine Obama’s situation with American and Israeli soldiers fighting against millions of Iranians. The Saudis are not going to fight in Iran, nor are the Pakistanis or any other Arab or Muslim soldiers. What could happen is that the Yanks have serious conflicts with the Pakistani tribes which they are attacking and killing with their drones, and they know that. When you strike a blow against those tribes, first attacking and then warning the government, not saying anything beforehand; that is one of the things that irritates the Pakistanis. There is a strong anti-American feeling there.
It’s a mistake to think that the Iranians would give up if they used tactical nuclear weapons against them, and the world really would be shocked, but then it may be too late.
Michel Chossudovsky .- They cannot win a conventional war.
Fidel Castro Ruz .- They cannot win.
Michel Chossudovsky. – And that we can see in Iraq; in Afghanistan they can destroy an entire country, but they cannot win from a military standpoint.
Fidel Castro Ruz. – But to destroy it [a country] at what price, at what cost to the world, at what economic costs, in the march towards catastrophe? The problems you mentioned are compounded, the American people would react, because the American people are often slow to react, but they react in the end. The American people react to casualties, the dead.
A lot of people supported the Nixon administration during the war in Vietnam, he even suggested the use of nuclear weapons in that country to Kissinger, but he dissuaded him from taking that criminal step. The United States was obliged by the American people to end the war; it had to negotiate and had to hand over the south. Iran would have to give up the oil in the area. In Vietnam what did they hand over? An expense. Ultimately, they are now back in Vietnam, buying oil, trading. In Iran they would lose many lives, and perhaps a large part of the oil facilities in the area would be destroyed.
In the present situation, is likely they would not understand our message. If war breaks out, my opinion is that they, and the world, would gain nothing. If it were solely a conventional war, which is very unlikely, they would lose irretrievably, and if it becomes a global nuclear war, humanity would lose.
Michel Chossudovsky.- Iran has conventional forces that are …significant.
Fidel Castro Ruz.- Millions.
Michel Chossudovsky.- Land forces, but also rockets and also Iran has the ability to defend itself.
Fidel Castro Ruz.- While there remains one single man with a gun, this is an enemy they will have to defeat.
Michel Chossudovsky.- And there are several millions with guns.
Fidel Castro Ruz.- Millions, and they will have to sacrifice many American lives, unfortunately it would be only then that Americans would react, if they don’t react now they will react later when it will be too late; we must write, we must divulge this as much as we can. Remember that the Christians were persecuted, they led them off to the catacombs, they killed them, they threw them to the lions, but they held on to their beliefs for centuries and later that was what they did to the Moslems, and the Moslems never yielded.
There is a real war against the Moslem world. Why are those lessons of history being forgotten? I have read many of the articles you wrote about the risks of that war.
Michel Chossudovsky.- Let us return to the matter of Iran. I believe that it is very important that world opinion comprehends the war scenario. You clearly state that they would lose the war, the conventional war, they are losing it in Iraq and Afghanistan, Iran has more conventional forces than those of NATO in Afghanistan.
Fidel Castro Ruz.- Much more experienced and motivated. They are now in conflict with those forces in Afghanistan and Iraq and one they don’t mention: the Pakistanis of the same ethnic group as those in the resistance in Afghanistan. In White House discussions, they consider that the war is lost, that’s what the book by Bob Woodward entitled “Obama’s Wars” tells us. Imagine the situation if in addition to that, they append a war to liquidate whatever remains after the initial blows they inflict on Iran.
So they will be thrust into a conventional war situation that they cannot win, or they will be obliged to wage a global nuclear war, under conditions of a worldwide upheaval. And I don’t know who can justify the type of war they have to wage; they have 450 targets marked out in Iran, and of these some, according to them, will have to be attacked with tactical nuclear warheads because of their location in mountainous areas and at the depth at which they are situated [underground]. Many Russian personnel and persons from other nationalities collaborating with them will die in that confrontation.
What will be the reaction of world opinion in the face of that blow which today is being irresponsibly promoted by the media with the backing of many Americans?
Michel Chossudovsky.- One issue, Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, they are all neighbouring countries in a certain way. Iran shares borders with Afghanistan and with Iraq, and the United States and NATO have military facilities in the countries they occupy. What’s going to happen? I suppose that the Iranian troops are immediately going to cross the border.
Fidel Castro Ruz.- Well, I don’t know what tactic they’re going to use, but if one were in their place, the most advisable is to not concentrate their troops, because if the troops are concentrated they will be victims of the attack with tactical nuclear weapons. In other words, in accordance with the nature of the threat as it is being described, the best thing would be for them to use a tactic similar to ours in southern Angola when we suspected that South Africa had nuclear weapons; we created tactical groups of 1000 men with land and anti-air fire power. Nuclear weapons could never within their reach target a large number of soldiers. Anti-air rocketry and other similar weapons was supporting our forces. Weapons and the conditions of the terrain change and tactics must continuously change.
Michel Chossudovsky.- Dispersed.
Fidel Castro Ruz.- Dispersed, but not isolated men, there were around 1000 men with appropriate weapons, the terrain was sandy, wherever they got to they had to dig in and protect themselves underground, always keeping the maximum distance between components. The enemy was never given an opportunity to aim a decisive blow against the 60,000 Cuban and Angolan soldiers in southern Angola.
What we did in that sister country is what, a thousand strong army, operating with traditional criteria, would have done. Fine, we were not 100 000, in southern Angola there were 60,000 men, Cubans and Angolans; due to technical requirements the tactical groups were mainly made up of Cubans because they handled tanks, rockets, anti-aircraft guns, communications, but the infantry was made up of Cuban and Angolan soldiers, with great fighting spirit, who didn’t hesitate one second in confronting the white Apartheid army supported by the United States and Israel. Who handled the numerous nuclear weapons that they had at that moment?
In the case of Iran, we are getting news that they are digging into the ground, and when they are asked about it, they say that they are making cemeteries to bury the invaders. I don’t know if this is meant to be ironic, but I think that one would really have to dig quite a lot to protect their forces from the attack which is threatening them.
Michel Chossudovsky.- Sure, but Iran has the possibility of mobilizing millions of troops.
Fidel Castro Ruz.- Not just troops, but the command posts are also decisive. In my opinion, dispersion is very important. The attackers will try to prevent the transmission of orders. Every combat unit must know beforehand what they have to do under different circumstances. The attacker will try to strike and destabilize the chain of command with its radio-electronic weapons. All those factors must be kept in mind. Mankind has never experienced a similar predicament.
Anyway, Afghanistan is “a joke” and Iraq, too, when you compare them with what they are going to bump into in Iran: the weaponry, the training, the mentality, the kind of soldier… If 31 years ago, Iranian combatants cleaned the mine fields by advancing over them, they will undoubtedly be the most fearsome adversaries that the United States has ever come across.
***
The interview was conducted in Spanish.
Our thanks and appreciation to Cuba Debate for the transcription as well as the translation from Spanish.
***
Fidel’s Message on the Dangers of Nuclear War
Recorded on the last day of the Conversations, October 15, 2010 the original Global Research/Cuba Debate video (our copyright) was removed on alleged copyright infringements alongside many other Youtube postings.
TRANSCRIPT
The use of nuclear weapons in a new war would mean the end of humanity. This was candidly foreseen by scientist Albert Einstein who was able to measure their destructive capability to generate millions of degrees of heat, which would vaporize everything within a wide radius of action. This brilliant researcher had promoted the development of this weapon so that it would not become available to the genocidal Nazi regime.
Each and every government in the world has the obligation to respect the right to life of each and every nation and of the totality of all the peoples on the planet.
Today there is an imminent risk of war with the use of that kind of weapon and I don’t harbour the least doubt that an attack by the United States and Israel against the Islamic Republic of Iran would inevitably evolve towards a global nuclear conflict.
The World’s peoples have an obligation to demand of their political leaders their Right to Live. When the life of humankind, of your people and your most beloved human beings run such a risk, nobody can afford to be indifferent; not one minute can be lost in demanding respect for that right; tomorrow will be too late.
Albert Einstein himself stated unmistakably: “I do not know with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones”. We fully comprehend what he wanted to convey, and he was absolutely right, yet in the wake of a global nuclear war, there wouldn’t be anybody around to make use of those sticks and stones.
There would be “collateral damage”, as the American political and military leaders always affirm, to justify the deaths of innocent people.
In a nuclear war the “collateral damage” would be the life of all humanity.
Let us have the courage to proclaim that all nuclear or conventional weapons, everything that is used to make war, must disappear!
Fidel Castro Ruz
October 15, 2010
Michel Chossudovsky Book’s published in 2011, following his October 2010 meeting with Fidel Castro
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TNT Radio: Today, there are wars in Ukraine, the Middle East, and elsewhere, and military tensions are rising in Asia. What do you think are the underlying reasons for wars around the world?
Peter Koenig (PK): Let me begin with a famous quote:
“WAR is a racket. It always has been. It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives.”
This is a quote from a 1935 speech and short book by Smedley D. Butler, a retired United States Marine Corps Major General and two-time Medal of Honor recipient. Based on his career military experience, Butler discusses how business interests commercially benefit from warfare.
Butler goes on summarizing on how to get out of the War Racket:
“Three steps must be taken to smash the war racket. 1. We must take the profit out of war. 2. We must permit the youth of the land who would bear arms to decide whether or not there should be war. 3. We must limit our military forces to home defense purposes.”
Smedley D. Butler, was one of the Unites States’ most decorated soldier – turned Anti-War activist.
Explaining this in economic terms – how it works – is easy. It is demonstrated on a daily basis, mostly by the United States, the so-called empire of the last and present century.
It is a question of supply and demand.
They – the Hegemon and /or its puppets – plant conflict in an area of their political and economic interest – say the Middle East, rich in hydrocarbons and a strategic transit region – then they have a reason to intervene and “resolve” the conflict militarily.
To create a conflict, you create first an enemy, then you infiltrate a “terror group” – which also is created artificially by the same self-styled empire, the US of A, like Al Qaeda, created in the late 1980s.
To diversify the terror, you create more terror groups, like the Islamic State (IS), or Hamas – a creation in 1987 by Israel’s Mossad, the CIA and UK’s MI6 – so, Zionist-Israel has an enemy to fight whenever it is convenient.
The current war in Gaza and on a larger scale, prompted by the planned 7 October 2023 Hamas “attack” against Palestine has been prepared for at least four years – and now is the time to basically eradicate Palestine. That is the Zionists argument, always under the pretext “Israel has the right to defend itself”
What the Zionists, representing Israel do, is of course NOT “self-defense” – but outright slaughter, genocide, Human Rights abuse – of the worst kind, never seen before in recent history.
The western leaders (a miserable misnomer) look on, even applause, and support Israel, supplying them weapons and cash to continue their killing machine. Billions of dollars-worth of weapons – you see, weapons are a huge cash generator for the war industry. Human lives, misery, and death – creating massive and horrendous suffering.
A similar and simultaneous proxy-war is going on in Ukraine, by which the United States wants to weaken and then conquer Russia in one way or another – it is the world’s largest country and the riches in natural resources.
The Unites States have planned, financed – YES, financed – and started two World Wars, mainly to subdue and conquer the then Soviet Union. They failed, despite some 26 million Russians having been killed in WWII. And the Soviet Union was supposed to be an ally of the west against Nazi-Germany. The US strategy is always dancing at least on two weddings, as the saying goes – or more – so that their interests are always represented.
They were able to corrupt the then Soviet leaders and bring about the collapse of the USSR in 1991. For almost ten years the West, notably the US, was jubilant having finally conquered the Big and Rich Russia.
But then came Mr. Vladimir Putin, a little-known former KGB agent, recommended into the Russian Presidency by Boris Yeltsin. In May 2000, Putin began his first term of Russian Presidency. He is currently in his fifth term – and Russian people have never lived as well in their history as they do know. That is why President Putin’s popularity rates around 80%. None of his western counterparts have ever reached such a high approval rating.
Therefore, the attacks on President Putin by the west – and especially the western bought mainstream media – continue. Demonization and provocation no end.
After the 2014 Western provoked Maidan Coup – remember Victoria Nuland’s infamous “Fuck the EU” –Ukraine’s Nazi-Azov battalions, or the “Right Sector” – the same Nazis who fought during WWII with Hitler against Russia – were again attacking in Ukraine’s Donbas area Russian speakers – killing at least 14,000 and no stop was in sight.
The western provocation, making Ukraine a NATO country, was crossing Mr. Putin’s Red Line – as he said many times before.That’s what the west wanted, Russia interfering in Ukraine to safe the Russian nationals of the Donbas and other areas.
The provocations continue – with hundreds of billions-worth of weapon deliveries and cash to one of the world’s most corrupt countries – whose citizens have become the platform for the killing, Ukrainian men – and now also women – are sent to the front, where according to Scott Ritter, they do not survive longer than about a week.
How many millions of young Ukrainian men, with no choice but obeying – have already been killed?
This war, like all wars and conflicts, is a big racket for the arms industry. In addition, it is well known to the west – even reported on mainstream such as BBC and CNN – that roughly two thirds of the weapons sent to Ukraine never reach the front, but go straight to the black-market, where they are bought by criminals, or more likely existing and to be-created “terror groups” – who will then again create western mandated conflicts, so that there is a never-ending circle of wars – a never-ending racket, to use Smedley Butler’s term.
And this past weekend – 15/16 June – Switzerland is hosting a so-called Peace Conference in the Burgenstock luxury resort, on the Lake of Lucerne – where usually the Bilderbergers meet – and one of the major actors, Russia, was not invited. It is hilarious, beyond words and reasoning.
Therefore, the talks of the 92 nations represented at the conference is not about Peace, but it is all about War.
TNT: In the United States, the richest country in the world, poverty and homelessness are on the rise. What do you think is the reason for this?
PK: There are several reasons. But one of the most important reasons is that most of the money that otherwise could help social services to avert poverty, is flowing into wars and conflicts, into military budgets.
Current wars and conflicts around the world, most of them initiated by the US and their allies or “proxies”, cost annually trillions of dollars and bring in accordingly trillions of profits for the elite and weapon industry shareholders, among which are pension funds, insurance companies, Big Finance and – not least the Vatican.
Poverty and homelessness in the United States as well as in Europe, are no seriousissues. They are just tolerated, because those who call the shots, a small group of so-called elites, also the dirty-richest multi-billionaires of this world, do not care about people. They care about money.
Money has become the new God, especially since the last century, more specifically after the US approval of the Federal Reserve Act of 1913. Since then, the limitless printing of US-dollars has become another “racket” that – indeed – complements the War Racket – and is in no way thought of aiding the poor and homeless. To the contrary, they are left to their demise.
Fewer people on this planet, is one of the key goals of the World Economic Forum (WEF), as well as that of the WEF-allied United Nations – clearly documented in the WEF’s Great Reset, and the UN Agenda 2030.
It is an active “Depopulation Agenda” under the false pretense of so-called 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) – plus the full digitization of everything, as per the WEF’s Fourth Industrial Revolution – a completely dystopian plan to fully digitize the world. This is nonsense and cannot succeed, because everything digital is linear, but the world is dynamic, not linear.
As more people are seeing the light, are waking-up, as we call it – positive thinking rather than revenge-seeking is very powerful and spreads with the might of Quantum Physics – non-existence of time and space – around the world.
There is hope.
TNT: The American ruling class: What philosophical thinking do you think drives the world?
PK: What increasingly rules the world is egocentricity especially by a small elite – but which rubs off on the public in general. Whether this can be called philosophical thinking is questionable.
This dirty-rich ruling class – with trillions of ill-begotten money – buys just about everything. In the first place – they buy the mainstream media. Those who do not obey the rules, are out. Second, they have a very strong and since 80-years well researched and developed propaganda mechanism, by a little know agency in the UK, the Tavistock Institute.
Their front is a luxury real estate agency, but their real purpose is what they call “social engineering” and “mind manipulation”. They have started developing their highly sophisticated techniques in the early 1940’s.
Tavistock collaborates closely with the Pentagon-attached thinktank, “DARPA” (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency), and measure reactions of people to lies, oppression and fear-mongering – covid, lockdowns, the “climate change” hoax, more plandemics, more mandated vaccines, elimination of agriculture, eating bugs instead of meat – introducing the “rules-based order” in total defiance of existing international and local laws.
Nonstop fear, fear, fear.
Fear weakens the immune system.
It is like the Empires last-ditch effort to pull as many people, countries down with it, while it is inevitably collapsing.
TNT: What do you think of the argument that the current U.S.-centered unipolar world order is declining and transitioning to a multipolar world order? And why do you think that is?
PK: After more than hundred years of western ever-increasing excesses, the world wakes up and starts resisting – particularly the “over-sanctioned” Russia and China.
Rather than responding with aggression – which is the West’s weapon of choice – quietly and peacefully China, Russia and the expanded BRICS are seeking and creating a multi-polar world.
This requires exiting from the current western imposed, fraudulent dollar-based monetary apparatus, towards an independent and sovereign economy that functions harmoniously within the participating countries as a multi-polar system, where cooperation leads to shared benefits, an equilibrium that inspires peace rather than conflict.
Until the mid-nineties some 90% of all countries’ reserves consisted of dollar-denominated assets; and more than 90% of international transactions were carried out in US-dollars. Today, both have shrunk to between 60% and 70%.
Partially, because the west has abused its power, by “sanctioning” left and right, countries that disregarded the orders and dictates of the west, basically the US. By abandoning dependence on the dollar – western “sanctions”, like the almost limitless packages of sanctions against Russia, become totally meaningless – serving only as western propaganda, as long as the brainwashed public doesn’t see through the farce.
The proof: Russia’s GDP despite sanctions grew in 2023 by 3.3%, and isprojected to grow by at least 3.5% in 2024. The collective west’s growth ranges between 0% and maximum 2%.
Another reason is the fact that international trading has gradually shifted from the dollar – which always bears exchange risks – to local currencies; and that gradually over the past years, the Saudis, head of OPEC, have started trading hydrocarbons in other currencies than the “agreed” US-dollar.
In fact, a few days ago, OPEC has officially announced that they will no longer adhere to the dollar only trading rule, but will admit any currency chosen by trading partners.
That will reduce the demand of the dollar and help de-dollarizing the world.
TNT: Why do you think more countries are challenging U.S. hegemony, and what are their ideological backgrounds?
PK: Every empire in human history has found its end.
Most empires – the last big one was the Roman Empire – have collapsed from within, because in their exuberant and ever-more arrogant strive for dominance and outward expansion – and – YES – wars – they have neglected the local populations.
We are seeing this currently in the US, with rapidly increasing poverty, homelessness, unemployment, massively lacking health insured people – and more.
When a point of “no-return” has been reached, which is clearly the case now with the US and the larger West, including Europe – the decline is accelerating. Most countries despise oppressive empires, and when they can be “sanctioned” and economically hurt, they do not dare say much.
But when the wheel is turning in favor of the hitherto dominated – they dare speak up, take actions to disassociate from the villain, the oppressor, the Hegemon, US of A.
This is currently happening at warp speed.
That is also the reason, why there are so many nations who want to join the BRICS, it is like joining he east, as they realize the west is gone – the future lies in the East.
There are about 15 candidates who would like to join the BRICS. During the next “BRICS Summit” in October 2024, hosted by Russia, possibly another 6 to 10 new ones will be admitted. They will eventually also become members of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (the China-based SCO), a political and economic strategic organization providing its members with needed technical and advisory support.
About the ideological background – it’s the desire for freedom and sovereignty.
TNT: Why do you think the war in Ukraine happened? Was it a unilateral Russian invasion and if not, why not?
PK: This is a long and complex story.
The short answer is that preparation for the War started even long before the February 2014 instigated Maidan Coup. As the world had witnessed, from a leaked phone conversation between Victory Nuland, then Dpty. Foreign Secretary of the US and the then US Ambassador to Kiev, Geoffrey Pyatt, when Madame Nuland told Mr. Pyatt, something to the extent,
“We have not for nothing spent five billion dollars to let this deal fall apart because of Europe, Fuck the EU…”
After the February 22, 2014 Coup, it was regime change in Kiev, and the US pushed for separation from Moscow, blackmailing Kiev into accepting an expensive IMF loan of some 18 billion dollars, versus a Russian aid package of US$ 25 billion at much softer conditions.
Washington was pressing Ukraine into becoming a NATO member – knowing that this was President Putin’s Red Line. They kept the provocations rolling – including by killing through the Right Sector, the Nazi Azov battalions – 14,000 Russians in the Donbas area.
This eventually prompted the Russian intervention in Donbas and other Russian speaking areas, to protect these people from the criminal Kiev aggressions.
The rest is history – and as I mentioned before, Peace is not discussed, not wanted by the west, but War is. The war Ukraine against Russia was lost from Day One. The West knew it.
But War is extremely profitable, and the west hopes to weaken Russia, with this War of attrition – so it would be easier to later conquer Russia.
This is of course not going to happen. The defeat of the west is already cast in stone.
TNT: Do you think there is a possibility of war in East Asia, Korea right now?
PK: There is a certain uncertainty with the present absurdly pro-western South Korean Government, but I do not believe so.
The US has still some 30,000 troops stationed in South Korea and nuclear weapons – but a serious provocation by the South on North Korea would not be a good omen, unless with a US intervention – another proxy war fought by South Korea against the North on behalf of the US – this is too close to China, for China just looking on.
The US and the collective west know that.
Therefore, my assessment is that a war with the Koreas is unlikely.
More likely are reunification initiatives – for bringing the North and South back together after the atrocious US initiated Korean War from 1950 to 1953, killing between 2 and 3 million people.
There is hope. And where there is hope there is a will — a positive outcome is possible and even foreseeable.
*
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Peter Koenig is a geopolitical analyst and a former Senior Economist at the World Bank and the World Health Organization (WHO), where he worked for over 30 years around the world. He is the author of Implosion – An Economic Thriller about War, Environmental Destruction and Corporate Greed; and co-author of Cynthia McKinney’s book “When China Sneezes: From the Coronavirus Lockdown to the Global Politico-Economic Crisis” (Clarity Press – November 1, 2020).
Peter is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG). He is also a non-resident Senior Fellow of the Chongyang Institute of Renmin University, Beijing.
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Incisive article by Dr. Paul Craig Roberts first published by Global Research on June 13, 2024
***
These are the words of Serbia’s President Aleksander Vucic. He ought to know. He is in the middle of it. He thinks Europe will be at war with Russia in “not more than three or four months,” if that long.
President Vucic says “no one is attempting to stop the war. Nobody is speaking about peace. Peace is almost a forbidden word.” Scroll down for text and 5 minute video
Hungarian leader Viktor Orban has a similar view as does Slovakian president Robert Fico, who survived a recent assassination attempt.
In Western Europe, UK, and Washington everyone is talking about wider war with long range missiles used for attacks deep into Russia. Such attacks cannot revive the defeated Ukrainian military. Their purpose seems to be to provoke Russia into a retaliation that Washington can use to widen the war.
President Vucic is correct. The West is making no effort–indeed, is avoiding all effort–to defuse the dangerous situation. Instead, the West is throwing oil on fire with long range missile attacks and French troops sent into Ukraine.
It has been completely clear from day one that Putin’s limited drawn-out war enabled the West to get more and more involved into the conflict to the point that the conflict now is really between the West and Russia. As President Vucic says, the West’s prestige is now involved and the West cannot permit Russia to prevail.
It seems that Putin might have finally realized that the war is no longer limited to Donbas and has become a wider threat that is not subject to negotiation on terms that Russia can accept.
Now that Putin is backed into a corner with the prospect of NATO missiles striking deep into Russia, President Vucic’s expectation that war is close at hand is understandable. The way matters are shaping up, the avoidance of war depends on how many provocations the Kremlin will accept and for how long. Putin needs to quickly knock Ukraine out of the war before Ukraine fills up with NATO military personnel.
Zelensky’s term has expired, making him illegitimate. Russian forces should quickly take Kiev, install a new government agreeable to Ukraine as a neutral country and to the reunification of Donbas with Russia.
I don’t know if Putin still has time to avoid a larger war by quickly winning the current conflict or whether Putin has been fighting on the cheap and lacks the force size to take Kiev and control the country.
If Putin has been too limited in his goal and too parsimonious with his means, he has bought himself a wider war.
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“Covid Jabs May be to Blame for Increase in Excess Deaths”
If this report by The Telegraph had been published in early 2021, several million lives would have been saved.
But in 2021, censorship was imposed. Honest journalism was silenced. The media was supportive of the fear campaign.
The Telegraph report by Science Editor Sara Knapton, 5 June 2024 pertains to:
Researchers from The Netherlands analysed data from 47 Western countries and discovered there had been more than three million excess deaths since 2020, with the trend continuing despite the rollout of vaccines and containment measures.
They said the “unprecedented” figures “raised serious concerns” and called on governments to fully investigate the underlying causes, including possible vaccine harms.
Writing in the BMJ Public Health, the authors from Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam, said: “Although Covid-19 vaccines were provided to guard civilians from suffering morbidity and mortality by the Covid-19 virus, suspected adverse events have been documented as well.
“Both medical professionals and citizens have reported serious injuries and deaths following vaccination to various official databases in the Western World.”
From early 2021, coinciding with the rollout of the Covid vaccine, an upward trend in Covid vaccine related deaths has unfolded.
There is an increase in Excess Mortality attributable to the Covid Vaccine.
Ironically, Three years later the mainstream media is now reporting (See Telegraph above) on Covid related vaccine excess mortality.
Excess Mortality Triggered by the Covid 19 “Vaccine” (2020-2022)
Below is a graph pertaining to Excess Mortality in Germany (all Causes), which points to the Deviation of Observed Mortality from Expected Mortality (by age group) in 2020, 2021, and 2022.
Back in 2021 the mainstream media played a key role in sustaining disinformation regarding the Covid vaccine. It was part of the propaganda apparatus. It was instrumental in sustaining the fear campaign.
The mainstream media also provided legitimacy to a regime of censorship, threats, penalties, dismissals of scientists and scholars at major universities, the firing of doctors and nurses at hospitals “for telling the truth”, not to mention the insidious role of “Big Money” foundations in the bribing and cooptation of politicians in more than 190 countries, And much more.
People Worldwide have lived through this crisis. Many lives have been destroyed.
Without media censorship and the suppression of the truth, this crisis would not have occurred.
Does the publication of The Telegraph on Covid vaccine related Excess Mortality point to a fundamental change in regards to the mainstream media, namely a tendency towards the lifting of censorship?
We have worked relentlessly on behalf and in solidarity with our respective communities, nationally and internationally.
This crisis affects humanity in its entirety, namely the planet’s 8 billion people who are the victims of fake science, fraud and corruption.
Profits in the billions of dollars are the driving-force behind this diabolical agenda.
“Killing is Good for Business”. What we are witnessing is a crime against humanity on an unprecedented scale, affecting the lives of the entire population of our planet.
The WHO as well as some 190 national governments are complicit in the Covid vaccine roll-out. They had the responsibility of canceling the vaccine.
Concurrently, the media in the course of the last three years, has been spinning the lies on behalf of both the governments and Big Pharma.
The official data pertaining to vaccine related deaths and adverse events is not mentioned.
PFIZER HAS A CRIMINAL RECORD
Of significance, never mentioned by the media or acknowledged by our governments, Pfizer is the only Pharmaceutical Company which has a criminal record with the US Department of Justice.
How on earth can we trust a Big Pharma vaccine conglomerate which pleaded guilty to criminal charges by the US Department of Justice including “fraudulent marketing” and “felony violation of the Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act”?
Bear in mind: the fraud committed by Pfizer in 2009 was trivial (Celebrex, Lipitor, Lyrica, etc ) in comparison to the Worldwide distribution of the mRNA killer “vaccine”.
A couple of weeks prior to the official launch of the mRNA vaccine in early November 2020, the BBC featured a timely Covid media report entitled:
“Covid: Why is the Virus such a Threat”?
According to the BBC, quoting and misquoting “scientific opinion” the virus had developed
“A hit and run killer evolutionary tactic”,
with a view to spreading the Covid-19 infection far and wide.
The unspoken objective of this report by BBC Science Correspondent James Gallagher was to “scare the British public”, sustain the fear campaign while also promoting acceptance of the Covid mRNA vaccine.
The article was based on the “authoritative voice” of Prof Lehner of Cambridge University, an Infectious Diseases Physician at Addenbrooke’s Hospital, Cambridge:
“A simple virus has brought life as we know it to a screeching halt.
We have faced viral threats before, including pandemics, yet the world does not shut down for every new infection or flu season.
So what is it about this coronavirus? What are the quirks of its biology that pose a unique threat to our bodies and our lives?
According to Lehner: In the early stages of an infection
“the virus is able to deceive the body. … It [the virus] behaves like a ‘hit and run’ killer
The amount of virus in our body begins to peak the day before we begin to get sick. …
But it takes at least a week before Covid progresses to the point where people need hospital treatment.
“This is a really brilliant evolutionary tactic – you don’t go to bed, you go out and have a good time,” says Prof Lehner of Cambridge University.
So the virus is like a dangerous driver fleeing the scene – the virus has moved on to the next victim long before we either recover or die.
In stark terms, “the virus doesn’t care” if you die, says [Cambridge] Prof Lehner, “this is a hit and run virus”. ….
Answer: media disinformation and the fear campaign.
According to the BBC: A microscopic virus with an outright terrorist agenda?
This frivolous BBC report personifies the so-called “virus that does not care”, with a view to creating panic, quoting the incautious statements of a Cambridge scientist, who’s on the payroll of Big Pharma’s Wellcome Trust.
In turn the “Hit and Run Virus” (rather than corrupt governments) is blamed for having “ordered the lockdown” (March 11, 2020), imposed on 190 countries, which has created economic and social havoc Worldwide.
What is at stake is the criminalization of the mainstream media for having misled millions of people in the course of the last 3 years, thereby sustaining the lies of Big Pharma and the corrupt directives of politicians, not to mention the fraudulent statements of the Director General of the WHO, Dr. Tedros.
What’s now happening is that the BBC acknowledges that people are dying but “experts are not sure why”,
“They do not know what the cause and reason is”
THE BBC “CONSPIRACY THEORIES”
The BBC accuses alleged conspiracy theorists, of stating that the Covid vaccine is ‘not safe”.
Mr Ward said he’s “worried that people may believe the conspiracy theories”.
But he insists “they are just that, they’re just conspiracy theories. What I’m going on is the facts”.
He said: “All of the international evidence is that the vaccines we give out in the UK are safe, they are highly effective and they’ll protect you from some really horrible diseases.”
At the same time, the BBC describes the SARS-CoV-2 virus being involved in a “conspiratorial”“hit and run killer evolutionary tactic” [SIC] (See BBC, James Gallagher, October 22, 2020)
In early December 2023, the number of vaccine doses Worldwide recorded by the WHO was of the order of 14 billion: an average of 1.75 vaccine doses per person for a World population of 8 billion people. (13,595,583,1250 recorded by the WHO on November 23, 2023)
.
Had the media truthfully reported on the nature of the Covid vaccine and its devastating impacts, millions of lives would have been saved.
The governments and national health authorities in cahoots with Big Pharma were fully aware from the very outset that the Covid-19 “vaccine” was conducive to an upward trend in mortality and morbidity.
Doctors For Covid Ethics (D4CE)
Doctors for Covid Ethics issued a broad statement in July 2021 based on the data of EudraVigilance, (EU, EEA, Switzerland), MHRA (UK) and VAERS (USA):
“more deaths and injuries from the COVID-!9 “vaccine” roll-out than from all previous vaccines combined since records began.”
The signal of harm is now indisputably overwhelming, and, in line with universally accepted ethical standards for clinical trials, Doctors for Covid Ethics demands that the COVID-19 “vaccination” programme be halted immediately worldwide.
Continuation of the programme, in the full knowledge of ongoing serious harm and death to both adults and children, constitutes Crimes Against Humanity/Genocide, for which those found to be responsible or complicit will ultimately be held personally liable.
The vaccine was launched in mid-December 2020. By the end of February 2021, “Pfizer had already received more than 1,200 reports of deaths allegedly caused by the vaccine and tens of thousands of reported adverse events, including 23 cases of spontaneous abortions out of 270 pregnancies and more than 2,000 reports of cardiac disorders.”
The data collected from mid-December 2020 to the end of February 2021 unequivocally confirms “Manslaughter”.
Based on the evidence, Pfizer had the responsibility to immediately cancel and withdraw the “vaccine”. Murder as opposed to Manslaughter implies “Criminal Intent”. From a legal standpoint it is an “Act of Murder” applied Worldwide to a target population of 8 billion people.
Michel Chossudovsky, Global Research, June 5, 2024
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The Worldwide Corona Crisis, Global Coup d’Etat Against Humanity
by Michel Chossudovsky
Michel Chossudovsky reviews in detail how this insidious project “destroys people’s lives”. He provides a comprehensive analysis of everything you need to know about the “pandemic” — from the medical dimensions to the economic and social repercussions, political underpinnings, and mental and psychological impacts.
“My objective as an author is to inform people worldwide and refute the official narrative which has been used as a justification to destabilize the economic and social fabric of entire countries, followed by the imposition of the “deadly” COVID-19 “vaccine”. This crisis affects humanity in its entirety: almost 8 billion people. We stand in solidarity with our fellow human beings and our children worldwide. Truth is a powerful instrument.”
Reviews
This is an in-depth resource of great interest if it is the wider perspective you are motivated to understand a little better, the author is very knowledgeable about geopolitics and this comes out in the way Covid is contextualized. —Dr. Mike Yeadon
In this war against humanity in which we find ourselves, in this singular, irregular and massive assault against liberty and the goodness of people, Chossudovsky’s book is a rock upon which to sustain our fight. –Dr. Emanuel Garcia
In fifteen concise science-based chapters, Michel traces the false covid pandemic, explaining how a PCR test, producing up to 97% proven false positives, combined with a relentless 24/7 fear campaign, was able to create a worldwide panic-laden “plandemic”; that this plandemic would never have been possible without the infamous DNA-modifying Polymerase Chain Reaction test – which to this day is being pushed on a majority of innocent people who have no clue. His conclusions are evidenced by renown scientists. —Peter Koenig
Professor Chossudovsky exposes the truth that “there is no causal relationship between the virus and economic variables.” In other words, it was not COVID-19 but, rather, the deliberate implementation of the illogical, scientifically baseless lockdowns that caused the shutdown of the global economy. –David Skripac
A reading of Chossudovsky’s book provides a comprehensive lesson in how there is a global coup d’état under way called “The Great Reset” that if not resisted and defeated by freedom loving people everywhere will result in a dystopian future not yet imagined. Pass on this free gift from Professor Chossudovsky before it’s too late. You will not find so much valuable information and analysis in one place. –Edward Curtin
ISBN: 978-0-9879389-3-0, Year: 2022, PDF Ebook, Pages: 164, 15 Chapters
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Important article by Vladislav Sotirovic first published on April 26, 2024
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In 2009, Russian President Medvedev (President from May 7th, 2008 to May 7th, 2012) called for a new European security policy known as “Fourteen Points” as a new security treaty to be accepted to maintain European security as the ability of states and societies to maintain their independent identity and functional integrity (this Russian draft European security treaty was originally posted on the President’s website on November 29th, 2009).
This treaty proposal was passed to the leaders of the Euro-Atlantic States and the executive heads of the relevant international organizations such as NATO, EU, the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), and the Organization of Security Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). In this proposal, Russia stressed that it is open to any democratic proposal concerning continental security and is counting on a positive response from Russia’s (Western) partners.
However, not so surprisingly, D. Medvedev’s call for a new European security framework (based on mutual respect and equal rights) became interpreted particularly in the USA in the fashion of the Cold War 1.0, in fact, as a plot to pry Europe from its strategic partner (USA).
Nevertheless, this program in the form of a proposal was the most significant initiative in IR by Russia since the dismissal of the USSR in 1991. From the present perspective, this proposal could save Ukrainian territorial integrity but it was rejected primarily due to Washington’s Russophobic attitude.
As a matter of fact, Moscow since 1991, and particularly since 2000, viewed NATO as a Cold War 1.0 remnant and the EU as no more but only as a common economic-financial market with many crisis management practices. Nevertheless, Medvedev’s 2009 “Fourteen Points” was announced on November 29th, 2009 Russia published a draft of a European Security Treaty. Medvedev’s program resembles the program drawn up by US President Woodrow Wilson (issued on January 8th, 1918), who had emancipated peace aims in his well-known “Fourteen Points”. These two programs have two things in common:
1) Both documents advocate multilateralism in the security area and devotion to international law; and
2) They are very idealistic in terms of the tools needed for their implementation.
The Russian proposal from 2009 is founded on existing norms of international security law according to the UN Charter, Declaration on Principles of International Law (1970), and the Helsinki Final Act of the Conference for Security and Cooperation in Europe (1975) followed by the Manila Declaration on the Peaceful Settlement of International Disputes (1982) and the Charter for European Security (1999).
The 2009 Russian proposal on European Security (ten years after the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia) can be summarized in the following six points:
Parties should cooperate on the foundation of the principles of indivisible, equal, and unrelieved security;
A Party to the Treaty shall not undertake, participate in, or support any actions or activities significantly detrimental to the security of any other party or parties to the treaty;
A Party to the treaty which is a member of military alliances, coalitions, or organizations shall work to ensure that such alliances, coalitions, or organizations observe principles of the UN Charter, the Declaration of Principles of International Law, the Helsinki Final Act, the Charter for European Security followed by certain documents adopted by the OSCE;
A Party to the treaty shall not allow the use of its territory and shall not use the territory of any other party to prepare or carry out an armed attack against any other party or parties to the treaty or any other actions affecting significantly the security of any other party or parties to the treaty;
A clear mechanism is established to address issues related to the substance of this treaty and to settle differences or disputes that might arise between the parties in connection with its interpretation or application;
The treaty will be open for signature by all states of Euro-Atlantic and Eurasian space followed by several international organizations: the EU, the OSCE, the CSTO; NATO, and the CIS.
Russia, in fact, understood the treaty as a reaffirmation of the principles guiding security relations between states but above all respect for independence, territorial integrity, sovereignty within nation-state borders, and the policy not to use force or the threat of its use in IR.
Actually, the security issue in Europe became a strategic agenda for Russia from 2000 onward. During its whole post-Soviet history, Russia felt very uncomfortable as put on the margins of the process of the creation of a new (US/NATO-run) security order in Europe based on the NATO enlargement toward the borders of Russia.
It has to be remembered that Moscow at that time proposed to Washington and Brussels three conditions that, if accepted by NATO, might make enlargement acceptable to Russia:
A prohibition against stationing nuclear weaponry on the territory of new NATO members;
A requirement for joint decision-making between NATO and Russia on any issue of European security especially where the use of military force was involved; and
Codification of these and other restrictions on NATO and rights of Russia in a legally binding treaty.
However, none of these proposed conditions of NATO-Russia security cooperation in Europe was accepted.
After this failure, a new military doctrine of the Russian Federation from 2010 accepted the reality that the existing international security architecture including its legal mechanism does not provide equal security for all states (a phenomenon of the so-called “asymmetric security”). The same doctrine clearly stressed that NATO’s ambitions to become a supreme global actor and to expand its military presence toward Russia’s borders became a focal external military threat for Russia. Surely, from 2010, it became clear to Moscow that NATO has not accepted the Russian proposal to create a common European security framework functioning on the principle of “symmetric” relations including certain duties and rights equal for both sides.
Nevertheless, the time when Moscow suggested a new security initiative was very appropriate for the matter of the declination of both soft and hard power of the Collective West (USA/EU/NATO) as a result of the second war against Iraq and the global economic meltdown. Since the disasters of Iraq, Guantánamo, and Abu Ghraib, Washington and its Western allies lost any moral credibility and authority to claim global leadership. In addition, Western support for Georgian aggression and the corrupted regime of Mikheil Saakashvili revealed once more the Atlanticist disregard for real democracy and justice. Simultaneously, the global economic and financial crisis spelled the end of the neoliberal fiction of globalization confirming at the same time Western unsuccess in regulating global finance. Consequently, the unipolar IR around the Collective West ceased to shape and direct both global geopolitics and geoeconomics.
The Russian (in fact, President Dmitry Medvedev’s) proposal for a new security agreement with NATO was a serious test of the honesty of the Collective West versus Russia.
Simply, the proposal called for a new treaty to implement already accepted previous declarations since the end of the Cold War 1.0 that the West and Russia are friends, security is indivisible, and nobody’s security can be enhanced at the cost of others.
Basically, the new security treaty should be founded on a multilateral system, rather than a system based on hegemony or bipolarity.
Behind the proposal was the rejection of a hegemonic role for the USA.
However, the crucial question was:
Does the USA want to participate in multilateral efforts to address issues of both European and global security challenges?
Nonetheless, very soon it became clear that this Russian agenda for a new European security concept was seen by Western policymakers as an attempt to undermine NATO and its eastward expansionistic policy.
In other words, President D. Medvedev’s proposal for the new security design in Europe was understood by the Westerners as a perfidy intention to change the terms of the debate on the future of the European security system without the participation from NATO to the direction of the new body that includes Russia as a founding member and, therefore, as a pillar of a new security framework of the Old Continent. Therefore, his proposal, as such, was unacceptable to the Collective West.
It has to be stressed that the most difficult step in the rapprochement between Russian and Western competing European security agendas after the Cold War 1.0 was and still is the politicized attitude by the pro-Western part of Europe (EU/NATO) that Russia is posing security danger to the continent. However, on the opposite side, Russia’s security fears come primarily at least from the policy of NATO’s eastward enlargement if not from the question of NATO’s existence after 1991 in general.
NATO enlargement
After all, it appears that, in fact, the focal problem was not about keeping the status quo in terms of the European security framework, but, however, what a new security system was going to be. In other words:
Should it be a NATO-centric structure (as it has been since 1991)? In this case, NATO will be turned into a forum for consultation on both European and global security questions; or
Should it be a new institutional framework founded on a legally framed treaty that guarantees equality and indivisibility of security of all political subjects (states)?
The Russian 2009 “Fourteen Point” security program represented at that time, actually, the first positive foreign policy initiative by Moscow since the dissolution of the Soviet Union. This D. Medvedev’s initiative had both real geopolitical meaning and many diplomatic symbolic features. The initiative’s crucial value was that:
It advocated the formation of a new European security framework founded on new and democratic principles of the indivisibility of international security and the inclusiveness of all interested and relevant actors; and
The focal objectives of the initiative were to upgrade the already existing (but ineffective) European security system and to expand it into the region of Asia-Pacific for the sake of creating a common security area from Alaska to Siberia.
It was, however, obvious that the creation of such a security system would preserve primarily Russian national interests in both regions primarily in Europe but in Asia-Pacific as well. In addition, the proposal will pave the way for integrating a rising China and other countries of Asia into a complex network of the European security framework. Nonetheless, the proposal was rejected in the name of further NATO eastward expansion which was in many Western eyes the most fateful error of the US policy during the whole period of the post-Cold War 1.0 era.
Such NATO policy, in fact, inflamed nationalistic, anti-Western, and militaristic feelings in Russia, and finally restored the policy of Cold War 1.0 into Cold War 2.0 (a renewed East-West security competition in Europe) keeping in mind the fact that in Russia, exists strong belief, based on accounts by Mikhail Gorbachev, Evgenii Primakov, and other Russian most influential policymakers, that Washington has broken its commitment not to expand NATO as a precondition for German reunification in 1989−1990.
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Dr. Vladislav B. Sotirović is a former university professor in Vilnius, Lithuania. He is a Research Fellow at the Center for Geostrategic Studies. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.
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On June 6, 2024, the leaders of North America and Western Europe flocked to the beaches of Normandy, France to pay tribute to the historic battle fought between the allied forces and the Nazis for control of France and to eventually overthrow the Nazis.
This battle took its toll, but the Allies emerged victorious. However, at the ceremonies, no mention whatsoever was extended to the role of the Soviet Union on the Eastern Front, in which the casualty rate was far greater, the Nazi presence far greater, and the victory a key to the success in the West. In fact, the only reference to Russia was in State leader’s speeches equating Vladmir Putin to the next Adolf Hitler!
The facts of the defeat of Germany mainly at the hands of the Soviet Union are laid out in a conversation with Canadian-Belgian historian Jacques Pauwels in the recent episode of the Global Research News Hour.
Dr. Jacques R. Pauwels, is a renowned author, historian and political scientist, Research associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization. His books include The Myth of the Good War: America in the Second World War (second edition, 2015), Big Business and Hitler (2017), and Myths of Modern History: From the French Revolution to the 20th century world wars and the Cold War — new perspectives on key events (2022).
The following incisive interview with Michael Welch was recorded on June 25, 2024.
Global Research: You must have caught some of the footage of earlier this month of D-Day.
What struck you most about what was said and what was not said during the day of festivities 80 years later?
Jacques Pauwels: Well, Michael, I’ve been to Normandy quite a few times. And I’ve actually was there in 1995. And it was then the 40th, the 50th anniversary of the landings in Normandy.
And it’s quite, of course, a moving experience to be there as all these World War commemorations tend to be. One cannot help being impressed. And I have always had an ambivalent feeling about that, because on the one hand, it is only fair to recognize the efforts of the men and some women also that sacrificed themselves over there.
And I by no means would want to underestimate the importance and the valor of everybody involved, as well as the planning of the operation. A big bravo is indeed due. So I have no problem with honoring the men and women that were involved in this operation.
And I certainly wouldn’t recognize that it ended up the landings in Normandy did make a contribution to the victory by a coalition of countries that all needed to put in a very, very big effort to defeat that huge military monster that Nazi Germany happened to be. Because there’s no doubt about that in the early 40s, and from 1939 on to 1944, approximately, Nazi Germany was the biggest, the most powerful military machine in the world. And to defeat that machine took an effort by all the allies, every little effort counted.
So there’s no way that we can or should possibly underestimate what happened. Having said that, it’s also sad, I found, as the other side of the coin, that these celebrations have been manipulated, I should say, by the powers that be that organized them, and that are basically providing the big speakers over there, you know, to minimize, if not obfuscate, the efforts of the most important of all the members of the coalition, which was the Soviet Union, and of which, of course, Russia is today the successor country. And it is undoubtedly the case, as I as an historian have learned over the years, having been brought up in a country, Belgium, where we also believe that the landings of Normandy made all the difference.
I have learned through my long studies about the First, Second World War, and the First World War too, that the biggest contribution in the victory against Nazism was made by the Soviet Union. By the many countries of the Soviet Union, and we should not say the Russians, because the Ukrainians, the Estonians, the Latvians, the Kazakhs, you know, the Uzbeks, you know, they were all there as parts of this country, this multinational state called the Soviet Union. So the Soviet Union basically made by far the biggest contribution, and by far the greatest sacrifices.
And it’s fair to say that the war was decided on the Eastern Front, not the Eastern Bank, on the Eastern Front, and not in Normandy.
GR: Yeah. So could you maybe just talk about, like, we’ve heard so much about, you know, the D-Day, and all the sacrifices, and certainly, you know, hard fought and everything.
Could you tell us a little bit, you know, just to kind of complete the list of some of, just briefly, if you can, about some of the epic battles fought by the Russians, or, you know, in defense of the land from the Nazis. Just briefly.
JP: Well, when you compare the magnitude of the battles that followed, or started with D-Day, which is generally called the Battle of Normandy, which lasted from the D-Day itself, June 6, 1944, until the end of August, you know, so there was quite a few months of fighting.
That battle, that was a big battle, but it was not nearly as big a battle, for example, as the Battle of Stalingrad, which was a much bigger battle involving many, many more men on both sides, and enormously higher casualties on both sides. And as such, that in terms of the big battle, Normandy was, in fact, not the big battle of the war. But more importantly, there were another, there was even another battle on the Eastern Front that was actually just as big as Normandy, and was really the turning point of the war.
And that was not even Stalingrad, which was fought between, from the September 1942 to early February 1943. But I mean the Battle of Moscow, which was already fought in late 1941. In fact, it, the big offensive that was launched then by the Red Army against the invading German army was launched on December 5. And that day, the Germans had to withdraw many kilometers and give up their idea of a quick and easy victory in the Soviet Union, which they had planned and foreseen and predicted and confidently expected when they started the war against the Soviet Union on the 22nd of June 1941.
So that battle, really, that was the turning of the tide, and not Normandy. So if you consider that, that was in late 1941. And that is actually years before the landings of Normandy, you know.
And actually, interestingly enough, it was already a done deal. And on the 5th of December 1941, Hitler’s generals reported to him that he could no longer win the war. And that was even before the United States became involved in the war.
And that was when only Britain really was fighting in the West, because France had been knocked out. Belgium and the Netherlands had been knocked out. Greece and Yugoslavia had been knocked out.
Germany was the mistress of Europe, essentially. And it looked, when they invaded the Soviet Union, that that was going to be only a matter of about a couple of months before that victory there would be achieved. And that would have been basically pretty well the end of the war.
Because, and this is important to remember, had the Nazis, or had the Soviets, had the Red Army not managed to stop the German advance in front of Moscow, you know, very close, very close to victory, so to speak, in December 1941, you know. And had the Nazis been able to take Moscow, and had they defeated the Soviet Union, as was expected not only in Berlin, but also in London and in Washington, where the experts predicted that the German army would go to the Red Army like a warm knife through butter, had the success of the Nazis constantly expected, and that pretty well the whole world expected, had it been achieved, you know. And that would have meant that the Soviet, that Nazi Germany would have had at its disposal the huge resources of the Soviet Union, including, for example, the rich agricultural land of the Ukraine and the petroleum of the Caucasus.
And in that case, there would never have been a landing in Normandy, because that would have meant that in 1944, when the Allies would have tried to land, they would have faced not less than 10 percent of the German army, as was the case in June 1944, you know. And hardly any Luftwaffe airplanes in the sky, because of a total dramatic lack of fuel. So if indeed Operation Barbarossa, the Nazi attack on the Soviet Union, would have been successful, there would never have been a landing in Normandy.
GR: Yeah.
JP: That is really one way, that one thing that is never mentioned, of course, that is simply totally forgotten, totally ignored, because, of course, Russia today, as in the case of the Soviet Union before, is not a country that we love a lot. We have reasons of our own, you know, in the West to not like them, and therefore, in fact, to minimize their contribution. And in fact, it’s fair to say that when Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union in June 1944, that many leaders of Great Britain, for example, in the United States were hoping that the Nazis would destroy the Soviet Union, because that was something that they had actually hoped that Hitler would do from the very start.
GR: Yeah, I’m just going to mention, I mean, first of all, when Barbarossa was coming to a close after fighting for about six months, and they were, the Russians, the Soviets were quite forceful. And then there was the attack by Japan on, well, the so-called attack on Pearl Harbor. So, I guess the Germans, like, as you related last time, in our previous conversation, it was Germany that launched, they said they were at war with the United States.
That kind of threw the United States off balance. And so, it was back in 1941, that the United States was allied with, you know, France and England and so on. And so, I was just going to get to the point where, you know, why wait for so long before you actually open up a second front, like almost three years before they opened up that second front, which proved to be the Operation Overlord, which and then the Normandy situation D-Day that sort of led to the end of…
JP: Well, what’s happened is that when Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union in 1941, and there was only one country really that still was fighting Nazi Germany, that was Britain, because the United States was not involved in the war yet, it was neutral.
Now, some people say, well, they sympathize with Britain, and they supply them with weapons and all that stuff. That’s all very, very true. In fact, they made a lot of money in the process.
And that’s what wars sometimes are all about. Not only sometimes, but very often, all about. But the United States had no desire to go to war with Nazi Germany.
In many ways, they sympathize with them. They had nothing against fascism. They had nothing against the German variety of fascism, which we call Nazism.
In fact, many members of the British and the American elite liked Nazism and fascism a lot. They were fellow fascists, as the right term goes. Because the reason being, the fascists were anti-communists, anti-socialists.
They were fascist systems, were capitalist systems. And as such, the capitalist elite of Britain and of the United States much preferred a fascist capitalist system to a socialist, communist, non-capitalist, anti-capitalist system. Especially since the Soviet Union, and this is extremely important and too often neglected in our history books, since the Soviet Union was the champion of the countries that were colonized by Western countries.
The Soviet Union, ever since it was set up, even before it was officially set up, under Lenin already, revolutionary Russia, before the Soviet Union officially came to be as a state, they supported the struggle of countries in the colonies against their colonial masters. And they did so big time. And in fact, it’s fair to say that many countries in Africa and Asia, owe their independence, managed to become independent from Western countries, thanks to help they got from the Soviet Union.
We know, for example, that the Soviets helped the Vietnamese to win the American war, as they call it, right? And we know that, for example, today, in many countries like Africa, especially South Africa, that they refuse to go along with sanctions against Russia, because they say, when we were fighting Apartheid, who was on our side and who was against us? You, the West, you helped the Apartheid system. And we were supported by the Soviet Union, which is basically the predecessor of the Russian. So we are still grateful to the Soviet Union, now Russia, and we still suspect, you know, that we don’t know that grateful, we have no reason to be grateful to you, because you were on the side of our oppressors.
So don’t expect us today to join you in your problems that you may have with Russia. We’re not on that side. And that is the result of that.
But to go back to what your question then, the United States was not involved in the war, even when the Soviet Union attacked, sorry, when the Soviet Union was attacked by Germany. And in the United States, many members of the elite, meaning the political and of course, the economic elite, were looking forward to the destruction of the Soviet Union at the hands of the Nazis. That didn’t quite work out.
Many of them would have been disappointed that the Nazis actually were beaten back by the Soviets. But at that stage, the United States still had no desire to get involved in a war with Germany. But they did have a desire, they did plan a war against Japan.
And they actually, you might say, arranged for Pearl Harbor to be attacked. You know, it was basically a provocation, you know, and that led to war with Japan, a war that was expected, that was wanted, and that was planned. Plans existed for war against Japan.
And by the way, these plans reflected a racist attitude, totally underestimating the Japanese. The Americans thought the war against Japan would be very, very easy, would take a few months, it would be game over, you know. And by the way, why that is, I don’t have time to explain now, I want to go back to the problem of Germany.
But against Germany, in the United States, there were no plans whatsoever for warfare against Nazi Germany. The United States in 1941 had plans for war against three countries. And I’m not making this up.
You know, I can give you the sources if you want to. There’s been studies of that. And this is a secret, it’s a known fact, but you’ll never hear about it in our media.
It’s a fact that the United States in 1941 had plans for war against Japan, Mexico, against which previous wars had produced big wins, like for example, big gains like California, Arizona, New Mexico, big chunks of Texas in the 1840s, mind you, a long time ago. But the plans were still there. And the third set of plans for warfare were against Great Britain and Canada, including actually attacks, the plans for warfare against attacks in Britain, basically foresaw bombings from the air of Halifax, Toronto and Vancouver, right? And by the way, with poison gas.
And these plans existed. And against Nazi Germany in 1941, the plans for Nazi Germany did not exist. There weren’t any.
Now, when you have plans to fight a country, as the United States did, plans for war against Mexico and against Britain, it doesn’t mean that you want to have that war right now. But it means that you’re taking it into account as a possibility. But if you have no plans whatsoever, it means that you have no desire to go to war against them.
You don’t see a reason for having war against the country. So in 1941, in December 1941, the United States had no plans for war against Germany. But Germany, Hitler himself on the 11th of December of 1941, four days after Pearl Harbor, and basically, basically, oh, not even a week after the big turnaround of the fighting in the Eastern Front, with the Battle of Moscow starting with a big major counter offensive being launched by the Red Army on the in front of Moscow, you know, at that stage, Hitler, out of desperation, declared war on the United States, not because he had to, because his alliance with Japan only called for the ally to come to the rescue of the other guy, if the other guy gets gets attacked, and not does it self attack another country.
So the attack by Japan on Pearl Harbor did not commit Hitler to declare the war on Japan’s enemy, you know, but he did it in the hope that somehow Japan might then declare war on his enemy, namely the Soviet Union. And then his thinking was, then when the Soviet Union is forced to fight a two front war against us on the Western Front, and against Japan and Siberia, then maybe maybe I still have a chance to win the war.
GR: Yeah.
JP: Well, to come back to the United States, this meant that the declaration of war by Hitler on the 11th of December came as a total surprise. Because the day after Pearl Harbor, Roosevelt had asked Congress to declare war on Germany, which they did, but not on, sorry, on Japan, but not on Germany, because Germany was not involved in the in the attack on Pearl Harbor, right. And actually, when the news came in four days later, that Germany had declared war, that was a big surprise.
That was not expected. Yeah, that was unexpected. And that brings us to your question, why did it take so long, then, suddenly, now the United States had to make plans for a war on two fronts against Japan, for which plans were ready, but shouldn’t work out, but as nearly as well as they thought, and against Germany.
And there they had, of course, an ally. Now they found themselves to be an ally of the sort of Britain, with whom they would have to coordinate the fighting. And by the way, they were suddenly an ally of a country that was definitely seen to be an enemy of the Soviet Union.
I mean, American generals, including guys like Patton, at the end of the war would say, we fought the wrong war with the wrong ally against the wrong enemy. We should have fought, you know, against the Soviet Union with the right enemy, with the right ally, namely Nazi Germany, because they had much more sympathy for the Nazis. And the sympathy, by the way, for Nazism and fascism in general, is reflected in the fact that when the war ended, that nothing was done to get Franco, the nasty fascist ruler of Spain, out of power.
It could easily have been done. You know, essentially, in 1945, when Germany was defeated, if London and Washington would simply have called Madrid and say, tell the old guy there, Francisco, to get the hell out of there and retire now, or else he would have had to do it. But he didn’t.
And Franco could be dictator for, was allowed to be dictator of Spain until 1975 still. So that shows that the United States had no, nothing against fascists really. But what happened then was that now they faced the problem of having to fight a war against Japan, and also a war against Germany.
And that’s why they decided that they would deal with Germany first, which they really wouldn’t do, because they both found it convenient that the war on the Eastern Front would drag on as long as possible, so that the Nazis and the Soviets would kill each other for a long time and exhaust each other, so that when the moment would come, the Allies, the British and Americans would be able to intervene, you know, and basically make the decisions, you know. Come in, fresh, so to speak, and then..
GR: The United States and the Allies just…
JP: They could dictate the terms of peace.
GR: But that’s not what happened. I mean, Russia was too good.
JP: No, well, exactly. They sat on the fence for a long time. They refused to open a second front in France, as they could have done in 1942 already, but they didn’t.
They were quite happy to let the Soviets and the Nazis fight each other. But then after Pearl Harbor, sorry, after Stalingrad, in very early 1943, it suddenly became obvious that Germany was kaput, and that the Red Army would move the long distance and slowly, of course, all the way to Berlin, and it would be the end of Nazi Germany. That’s when the plans were suddenly made for landings in Normandy.
The landings in Normandy were not planned nor executed to liberate France. They were planned and executed to prevent the Soviet Union from defeating Germany alone, and in the end, liberating all of Western Europe without intervention, without any input from the Western powers. That’s why they were landed.
Charles de Gaulle knew that very well. Charles de Gaulle described the landings in Normandy as the beginning of a second occupation of France, where the German occupation was replaced by an American occupation. And Charles de Gaulle always refused to attend the ceremonies on D-Day, the commemorations of D-Day, throughout his long rule as President of France.
GR: I want to bring it up to the present now, because certain aspects of World War II basically feature the United States actually helping the Nazis with weapons and with oil early on. But I mean, I do see a similarity with what’s happening with Ukraine and Russia, because they’re supplying, and NATO is supplying them, the fighters. History has a pattern of repeating itself. Is that what we’re witnessing now? Or are there some differences you got to highlight?
JP: Well, there’s two things we have to keep in mind here, Michael.
Why did Hitler attack the Soviet Union? And when we say, why did Hitler, we should be careful here. It’s not as if Hitler decided everything for himself. Hitler acted on behalf of the German elite, of German bankers and industrialists, and large landowners, and so forth, who all had a keen interest in attacking the Soviet Union.
Attacking the Soviet Union had a double objective. One was to destroy communism. The idea was that the Soviet Union was the cradle, the wellspring of communism in the world, who supported basically our colonials, our colonial subjects in their struggle to become independent of us, God forbid.
So we have to destroy the Soviet Union to destroy communism, and basically to keep our colonies. That’s one thing. And secondly, and so the biggest, the bigger an anti-communist you were in Nazi Germany, and of course, the elites were mostly anti-communist, the more you wanted the destruction of the Soviet Union.
But the anti-communists in Germany were typically the industrialists, and the large landowners, and the elites. That, of course, also had another interest other than simply the destruction of an ideology, namely making, turning Russia into a super colony of Germany. Because Germany is a great industrialized power, but a fairly small kind of agricultural sector to feed all these industrial workers.
And Germany was always jealous of Britain and the United States, that they had these huge colonies. Britain had India to exploit, you know, and Britain became rich by making India poor. And the United States became rich and big by taming the Wild West, wiping out the people, the Native people, and taking their land.
So Hitler himself, this book’s written about that, I can give you the references to that. Hitler himself wanted for Germany and India a Wild West. He wanted for Germany a super colony, as India had been the super colony for Britain, and as the Wild West had been the super colony, land to be exploited for the United States.
And that was the idea, because if indeed the Soviet Union would have been destroyed by Nazi Germany, there would have been no independent countries over there. Basically, Germany would have colonized the land, with the help of some local dictators, of course, of which Ukraine had quite a number. But I mean, they wanted the rich land of Ukraine for themselves, not for the benefit of the Ukrainians.
They wanted to oil the Caucasus for themselves, right? And indeed, if that would have worked, Germany would have been a super, super, superpower. The Allies, if indeed Nazi Germany would have managed to defeat the Soviet Union in 1941, it would have become a huge superpower, every bit as powerful as Britain, definitely, and the United States, even the two together. And we could never have beaten it.
Today, you know, as I write jokingly in my books, you know, the fashionistas on the Champs-Élysées would walk around in Lederhosen, you know, German style. And today, in all of Europe, the young kids would not learn English, they would be speaking German, because that would be the country that would dominate culturally, linguistically, economically, politically, all of Europe. And that is really what it was all about.
So what we’re saying is that Russia, in the minds of people like the ones that backed, like the industrialists that backed Hitler, you know, like the large landowners, was the land that would bring them riches. Agricultural land in Ukraine, the oil wells of the Caucasus, all these wonderful things. The fall of communism, you know, in Russia, in the Soviet Union, the end of the Soviet Union, means that there’s no longer a reason to fight, an ideological reason to fight the Soviet Union.
Communism is gone over there, right? It’s no longer in power, right? It still exists as an idea. But it’s no longer, it no longer is embodied in a state that Russia today is a capitalist country. But Russia still presents that those riches, those raw materials, that rich agricultural land of Ukraine, the oil wells of the Caucasus, near Georgia, by the way, you know, these and that’s why, that’s why the idea is still there in the minds of the powerful people, the elites in Germany, but also the United States now, you know, that if we could lay our hands on these goodies, you know, that’s what we really want.
And indeed, as we now know, the Zelensky regime has done exactly what the big corporations and banks in the United States and the Western world want. You mean, they already own most of the agricultural land in Ukraine, you know, and the same would happen when, if ever, Russia would break up, which is undoubtedly the idea that the oil wells of the Caucasus and other kinds of other resources all the way to Siberia would basically become the property, you know, of Western corporations or Western banks. That is why, that is why the West liked Yeltsin, because he was such a corrupt oligarch that he was willing to let the West take over as long as there was something in it for him and his family, by the way, today is one of the richest families in Russia.
But and that’s why they hate Putin, because Putin was a successor of Yeltsin, was supposed to basically go along with that, the, you might say, the opening up of Russia and making the resources, the riches of the Soviet Union, the ex-Soviet Union, available to the Western corporations, banks, and so forth. But Putin did not play that game. And that’s why he was suddenly transformed into the big enemy and demonized, as is the case today.
So essentially, then, now as then, what’s at stake is also the great riches of Eastern Europe, the former Soviet Union. In Ukraine, the rich agricultural land, and in the rest of Russia, the minerals in the mines of the Urals and Siberia, and the resources, the oil, the petroleum of the Caucasus, you name it, there’s still lots of wonderful goodies there waiting to be appropriated by Western, you know, by Western, basically firms by Western corporations and banks.
GR: I really want to thank you, Jacques, for presenting your views on this topic at this critical time.
JP: Wars are also generating huge profits for the arms manufacturers, for the military-industrial complex.
And you don’t even have to win the war. Right now, it doesn’t look, in my mind, as if Ukraine will win the war, as if the West will win. But in the meantime, the Western military-industrial complex has made a lot of money already. By flipping over all these weapons to Ukraine, and that means forcing NATO members to buy new material. So it’s a wonderful war in that respect as well.
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Of relevance to the crimes currently committed by the Netanyahu government against the People of Palestine, we bring to the attention of our readers the 2013 Judgement of the Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Tribunal, an initiative of former Prime Minister Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohamad, who headed the Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Commission (KLWCC).
On a personal note, I was a signatory of the Kuala Lumpur Declaration to Criminalize War (2005). I was subsequently invited to become a member of the Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Commission (KLWCC) chaired by Tun Mahathir Mohamad which was created in 2007.
I should mention that the indictment directed again the State of Israel was the object of sabotage.
One of the appointed foreign judges was a Zionist who was in “conflict of interest” with links to the State of Israel. Members of the KLWCC brought this issue to the attention of Prof. Francis Boyle who had acted as prosecutor on behalf of the Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Commission chaired by Tun Mahathir Mohamad. The numerous witnesses from Palestine refused to provide testimony.
The Tribunal hearings were postponed and reconvened on November 13, 2013 following the act of recusal and the appointment of a new judge.
The Kuala Lumpur Judgment is all the more significant in view of the current procedure of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) instigated by the Republic of South Africa against the State of Israel, on charges of genocide directed against the People of Palestine.
Read it carefully, particularly the testimonies. Forward this text far and wide.
In solidarity with the People of Palestine.
Michel Chossudovsky, June 30, 2024
Video. Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohamad
Global Solidarity in Support of Palestine
November 4, 2023
The 2005 Kuala Lumpur Declaration to Criminalize War
under the helm of Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohamad
Signatories of the 2005 Kuala Lumpur Declaration. From Left to Right:
Francis A.Boyle, Helen Caldicott, Denis J. Halliday, Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohamad, Hans-Christof Von Sponeck, Michel Chossudovsky, Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf
.
Important Excerpt from the 2013 Judgment
What Amounts To Genocide?
Simply put, genocide means any designated acts committed with intent to destroy in whole or in part a national, ethnical, racial or religious group as such. The definition of genocide as given in Article 2 of the Tribunal’s Statute is taken verbatim from Articles 2 & 3 of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide which states that the following acts may by themselves or cumulatively constitute the international crime of genocide:
Killing members of the group
Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group
Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life, calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part
Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group
Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group
***
The State of Israel was charged on 20 November 2013
with war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide.
The procedure was initiated by the Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Commission under the helm of the former Prime Minister of Malaysia Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohamad.
It was part of an initative launched in December 2005 to Criminalize War.
It involved detailed testimonies and evidence.
The Members of the Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Commission (KLWCC) are:
Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohamad, chairman,
Prof. Michel Chossudovsky,
Mr. Denis Halliday,
Mr. Musa Ismail,
Dr. Zulaiha Ismail,
Dr. Yaacob Merican,
Dr. Hans von Sponeck
This indictment is supported by extensive evidence and testimony. Read the following recommendations:
As a tribunal of conscience, the Tribunal is fully aware that its verdict is merely declaratory in nature. We have no power of enforcement. What we can do, under Article 34 of Chapter VIII of Part 2 of the Charter is to recommend to the Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Commission, WHICH WE HEREBY DO, to submit this finding of conviction by the Tribunal, together with a record of these proceedings, to the Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, as well as the United Nations and the Security Council.
The Tribunal recommends to the War Crimes Commission to give the widest international publicity to this conviction and grant of reparations, as these are universal crimes for which there is a responsibility upon nations to institute prosecutions.
The Tribunal deplores the failure of international institutions to punish the State of Israel for its crimes and its total lack of respect of International Law and the institutions of the United Nations. It urges the Commission to use all means to publicise this judgement and in particular with respect to the Parliaments and Legislative Assemblies of the major powers such as members of the G8 and to urge these countries to intervene and put an end to the colonialist and racist policies of the State of Israel and its supporters.
Below is the full text of the procedure as well as the formal indictment against Amos Yaron and the State of Israel.
On behalf of the members of The Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Commission, under the helm of Dr. Tun Mahathir Mohamad.
Michel Chossudovsky, Global Research, July 18, 2020, November 8, 2023
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THE KUALA LUMPUR WAR CRIMES TRIBUNAL 20 – 25 NOVEMBER 2013 Case No. 3 – CHG – 2013
The Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Commission Against Amos Yaron Case No. 4 – CHG – 2013
The Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Commission Against The State of Israel
Coram
Judge Tan Sri Dato’ Haji Lamin bin Haji Mohd Yunus Judge Tunku Sofiah Jewa Judge Shad Saleem Faruqi Judge Mohd Saari Yusuf Judge Salleh Buang Judge John Philpot Judge Tunku Intan Mainura
Prosecution Team
Prof. Gurdial Singh Nijar Tan Sri Aziz Rahman Mr. Avtaran Singh Ms. Gan Pei Fern Mr. Nizamuddin Hamid Dr. Sharizal M Zin Ms. Rafika Shari’ah Ms. Mazlina Mahali Ms. Diyana Sulaiman
Amicus Curiae-Defence Team
Mr. Jason Kay Kit Leon Ms. Larissa Jane Cadd Dr. Abbas Hardani Prof. Dr. Rohimi Shapiee Dr. Rohaida Nordin Dr. Matthew Witbrodt
The Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Tribunal (Tribunal) reconvened on 20 November 2013 to hear two charges against Amos Yaron (first Defendant) and the State of Israel (second Defendant). The first Defendant was charged with war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide, whilst the second Defendant was charged with the crime of genocide and war crimes.
The charge against the first Defendant is as follows –
“The Defendant Amos Yaron perpetrated War Crimes, Crimes Against Humanity, and Genocide in his capacity as the Commanding Israeli General in military control of the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps in Israeli occupied Lebanon in September of 1982 when he knowingly facilitated and permitted the large-scale Massacre of the Residents of those two camps in violation of the Hague Regulations on Land Warfare of 1907; the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949; the 1948 Genocide Convention; the Nuremberg Charter (1945), the Nuremberg Judgment (1946), and the Nuremberg Principles (1950); customary international law, jus cogens, the Laws of War, and International Humanitarian Law”
The charge against the second Defendant is as follows –
“From 1948 and continuing to date the State of Israel (hereafter ‘the Defendant’) carried out against the Palestinian people a series of acts namely killing, causing serious bodily harm and deliberately inflicting conditions of life calculated to bring about physical destruction.
The conduct of the Defendant was carried out with the intention of destroying in whole or in part the Palestinian people.
These acts were carried out as part of a manifest pattern of similar conduct against the Palestinian people.
These acts were carried out by the Defendant through the instrumentality of its representatives and agents including those listed in Appendices 1 and 2.
Such conduct constitutes the Crime of Genocide under international law including the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide 1948 (‘the Genocide Convention’) in particular Article II and punishable under Article III of the said Convention. It also constitutes the crime of genocide as stipulated in Article 10 of the Charter of the Kuala Lumpur Foundation to Criminalise War.
Such conduct by the Defendant as an occupying power also violates customary international law as embodied in the Hague Convention of 1907 Respecting the Laws and Customs of War on Land, and the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949.
Such conduct also constitutes War Crimes and Crimes against Humanity under international law.”
The charges (together with the particulars of the charges) had been duly served on the Defendants, and were read in open court by the Registrar as these proceedings commenced.
Neither Defendant was present in these proceedings, but both were represented by the Amicus Curiae-Defence Team.
Preliminary objections and applications by Amicus Curiae-Defence Team
The Amicus Curiae-Defence Team filed two preliminary objections to these proceedings – the first contending that there are defects in the Charges preferred against the first Defendant, and the second contending that the State of Israel cannot be impleaded in these proceedings on the grounds of State Immunity.
In respect of its first preliminary objection the Amicus Curiae-Defence Team contends that the trend in modern international criminal tribunals is either to have jurisdiction for acts that have been committed after these tribunals have been constituted such as the International Criminal Court (ICC), or alternatively its jurisdiction is for a limited duration of time such as the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) or the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC).
The Amicus Curiae-Defence Team submits that this Tribunal came into existence on 6 June 2008, whilst the various acts allegedly committed by the Defendant in charge no. 3 occurred in the month of September 1982, while the acts allegedly committed by the Defendant in charge no. 4 occurred since 1948 and continued up to the present day.
In respect of its second preliminary objection the Amicus Curiae-Defence Team submits that there is no authority conferred by the Charter on this Tribunal to hear any action against the government of a country, for example, the government of Israel. The Amicus Curiae-Defence Team also argued that international law does not allow the “State of Israel” to be impleaded as an accused. The State of Israel is a nation state, recognised by the United Nations, and as a nation state, it has rights under international law.
The Amicus Curiae-Defence Team further submits that the State of Israel has not entered appearance in these proceedings and has therefore not submitted to the jurisdiction of this Tribunal. The Amicus Curiae-Defence Team submits that the State of Israel enjoys immunity for the crimes of genocide and war crimes and therefore Charge 4 should be dismissed.
On behalf of the Prosecution Team, it was argued that with regard to the first preliminary objection, the jurisdiction issue must be established by reference to the founding Charter or statute that sets up the Tribunal. The Charter of the KL Foundation to Criminalise War states that the jurisdiction of the Tribunal shall be governed by the provisions of this Charter: Part 1, Article 1. There is no temporal limit. In particular, Article 7 sets no time limit. In this sense the Charter is identical to the ‘open ended’ temporal jurisdiction of the Military Tribunal at Nuremberg or the International Military Tribunal for the Far East.
The Prosecution Team also submitted that the Tribunal had convicted Bush and Blair of war crimes committed in 2003 – which also predates its setting up: KL War Crimes Commission v George W. Bush and Anthony L. Blair, KLWCT Reports 2011, p. 1. The verdict by the KLWCT against Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld et alwent back to torture committed from 2001.
With regard to the second preliminary objection, the Prosecution Team submits, inter alia, that these two Charges are international criminal war crimes being adjudicated by an international tribunal. States have no immunity for such crimes before such tribunals.
Before these proceedings began, the Amicus Curiae-Defence Team had also submitted two (2) applications to quash the charge against the two Defendants. The grounds of applications were as follows:
The charge is defective for duplicity, and / or latent duplicity.
The charge is defective for uncertainty.
The charge is an abuse of process and / or oppressive.
On behalf of the two Defendants, the Amicus Curiae-Defence Team sought for the Tribunal to make the following orders:
That the charge against the two Defendants be quashed.
That the Prosecution against the two Defendants be permanently stayed.
In the alternative, that the Charges be redrafted according to the principles of criminal law.
The Amicus Curiae-Defence Team contends that there were multiple offences within one charge and multiple forms of alleged instances of criminal conduct within one charge.The Amicus Curiae-Defence Team submits that the Rules against Duplicity must be strictly adhered to in a criminal proceeding.
In rebuttal, the Prosecution Team submits that this Tribunal is governed by its own Rules and these Rules are silent on the application of the Rule against Duplicity in drafting charges. This rule against duplicity, as it exists in national legal systems, does not, and cannot, apply in the same way in proceedings before international criminal courts. More importantly, the Tribunal should take into account the heinous nature of these crimes and the scale they were alleged to be perpetrated.
On the Amicus Curiae-Defence Team’s submission that the charge is defective due to uncertainty, the Prosecution Team submits that it is premature for anyone to say so without appreciating the particulars contained in the charge. The particulars in the charge are facts that the Prosecution seeks to prove in the course of the proceedings.
Having considered the Preliminary Objections raised by the Amicus Curiae-Defence Team and the Two Applications filed by the Amicus Curiae-Defence Team and the submissions by both the Amicus Curiae-Defence Team and the Prosecution Team in the several documents already filed with this Tribunal, and having considered further oral submissions by both parties, the Tribunal unanimously ruled that the Preliminary Objections and Two Applications have little merit and were accordingly dismissed.
A written ruling of the Tribunal was read out by Judge Tunku Sofiah Jewa on 20 November 2013.
Prosecution’s Case
The Prosecution’s case against the first Defendant is that the first Defendant had committed War Crimes, Crimes Against Humanity, and Genocide in his capacity as the Commanding Israeli General in military control of the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps in Israeli-occupied Lebanon in September of 1982 when he knowingly facilitated and permitted the large-scale Massacre of the Residents of those two camps. These crimes were in violation of, inter alia, the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949, the 1948 Genocide Convention, jus cogens, International Humanitarian Law; and Articles 9, 10, and 11 of the Charter of the Kuala Lumpur Foundation to Criminalise War.
The Prosecution’s case against the second Defendant is that from 1948 and continuing to date the State of Israel had systematically carried out against the Palestinian people a series of acts namely killing, causing serious bodily harm and deliberately inflicting conditions of life calculated to bring about physical destruction – with the intention of destroying in whole or in part the Palestinian people.
These acts constitute the Crime of Genocide under international law including the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide 1948 (‘the Genocide Convention’) in particular Article II and punishable under Article III of the said Convention. It also constitutes the crime of genocide as stipulated in Article 10 of the Charter of the Kuala Lumpur Foundation to Criminalise War.
In his opening statement, the Chief Prosecutor Prof Gurdial Singh said that the Prosecution will adduce evidence to prove the counts in the indictment through oral and written testimonies of victims, witnesses, historical records, narrative in books and authoritative commentaries, resolutions of the United Nations and reports of international bodies.
Testimony of Witnesses
The Prosecution Team called 11 witnesses to testify on its behalf.
The Prosecution’s first witness (PW1) was Chahira Abouardini, a 54 year old resident of Camp Shatila, Beirut, Lebanon.
She testified that when the Israelis invaded Lebanon in May 1982, they attacked the area near Camp Shatila, which was then the base of the Palestinian resistance. She also testified that her father and sister were shot and killed by the Lebanese Phalangist militia.
She also said that there were a lot of dead bodies everywhere, strewn all over – bodies of men, women, children and even animals. Armed militiamen had started the killing from the houses near the sports complex where the Israeli forces were based. They entered homes and killed people. Anyone who moved was killed.
PW1 also testifed that at one location on the way to the stadium, she saw her cousin’s daughter’s body. The killers had opened her body and taken out her baby and then placed the baby on her dead body. PWI testified that the victim was actually deaf and dumb and was living in a home for the disabled.
PW1 testified that there were bodies piled up everywhere because the militiamen had collected the people together and then shot them all at one time. As a result it was difficult to identify the dead victims, and families had to dig between dead bodies to find their relatives.
PW1 said that in the 36 hours of the attack, some 3,500 people from Shatila and Sabra had been massacred. She said that the Phalangist militia who committed these atrocities worked together with the Israelis. They were puppets of the Israeli forces.
When PW1 was offered by the Prosecution to the Amicus Curiae-Defence Team for cross-examination, the Amicus Curiae-Defence Team declined to cross-examine the witness.
The second Prosecution witness (PW2) called by the Prosecution Team was Bayan Nuwayhed al-Hout. She gave her testimony as an expert witness through Skype. She was not physically present before the Tribunal.
The Prosecution tendered (as an exhibit) excerpt of a book titled “SABRA AND SHATILA – SEPTEMBER 1982” written by PW2 where she said “For 40 continuous hours between sunset on Thursday 16 September and midday on Saturday 18 September 1982, the massacre of Sabra and Shatila took place, one of the most barbaric of the twentieth century”.
When asked by the Prosecutor to give her comments on the published figure of 3,500 being the number of people killed, PW2 said that according to her research she estimated the figure to be around 1,350. She said that she had approaced various international organisations to collect the list of victims, but she never received them.
When PW2 was offered to the Amicus Curiae-Defence Team for cross-examination, the latter also said that they have no desire to cross-examine the witness.
The Prosecution’s third witness (PW3) was Mahmoud Al Samouni, a 15 year old resident of Sammouna Street, Gaza Zaitun, Gaza City. He gave his testimony through Skype.
PW3 testified that the Israeli forces attacked his place on January 3, 2009 with bombs and missiles. He said that he saw parachutists coming down and landing on the highest buildings.
He testified that more than 50 soldiers came to his house, all with weapons. They shot at the inner walls of the house and all over his home. They demanded the owner of the house to come out and when PW3’s father came out, the soldiers shot him, killing him on the spot. The soldiers continued shooting into the house for 15 minutes, injuring his brother Ahmad and 5 other members of his family, including his sister Amal – who sustained serious injuries, including a shrapnel in her head. His brother Ahmad subsequently died.
PW3 was not cross-examined by the Amicus Curiae-Defence Team.
The Prosecution’s fourth witness (PW4) was Salah Al Sammouni, a 34 year old resident of al-Zaytour neighbourhood in Gaza City. He gave his testimony through Skype.
He said that on January 3, 2009, he received information from his father’s cousin that Israeli military tanks had entered Gaza City and surrounded the al-Zaytoun neighbourhood and the surrounding areas.
He further testified that 21 members of his family were killed by the Israelis on January 5, 2009. He tendered as an exhibit a list of the names of these dead family members.
When this witness was offered to the Amicus Curiae-Defence Team for cross-examination, the Amicus Curiae-Defence Team declined to cross-examine him.
The Prosecution’s fifth witness (PW5) was Paola Manduca, currently residing in Genova, Italy. She gave her testimony as an expert witness through Skype.
She told the Tribunal that she had conducted and co-ordinated in 2011 two research projects relating to the impact of weapons on reproductive health arising from the Israeli attacks on Gaza. The outcome of her research reveals the degradation of the reproductive health and increase in major structural birth defects.
She also testified that 66% of Gaza parents with a birth defect child had been exposed to bombing or white phosphorus shelling during Operation Cast Lead in 2008/2009.
Her research led her to the conclusion that there is a long term effect on reproductive health associated to metal contamination by exposure to weaponry during the war and by war remnants.
When PW5 was offered to the Amicus Curiae-Defence Team for cross-examination, the Amicus Curiae-Defence Team declined to cross-examine her.
The Prosecution’s sixth witness (PW6) was Dr Ang Swee Chai, a consultant orthopaedic and trauma surgeon, currently residing in London, England. She was physically present during the proceedings and was orally examined by the Chief Prosecutor and subsequently cross-examined by the Amicus Curiae-Defence Team.
She testified that she arrived in Beirut in August 1982 as part of a British medical team, volunteering her services as an orthopaedic surgeon. She started work as an orthopaedic surgeon in Gaza Hospital on August 22. The Hospital was an 11 storey building in the Sabra and Shatila Palestinian refugee camps, officially opened on August 23, 1982.
PW6 gave a detailed account of the events that took place from 15-22 September 1982.
On 15 September, Israeli planes flew from the sea towards the direction of the camps, and then the shelling began in all directions, clearly seen from the Gaza Hospital. On 16 September, casualties poured into the hospital, whilst shootings and shelling continued outside. Shootings continued into the night.
On 17 September, the witness said that she operated on an eleven year old boy, shot with 27 members of his family. All 27 died, but the boy survived.
On 19 September PW6 said members of the hospital medical team were able to return to Sabra and Shatila camps, where they saw dead bodies everywhere, whole families obviously shot together. She said that according to the International Red Cross, the total number of dead people was 1,500.
The witness testified that from the Israeli headquarters in the Kuwait Embassy most of the area of the massacre in the two camps could be easily seen. She was told by Palestinian survivors that they could not escape during the massacre because the Israelis had sealed off the camps. When the Norwegian Ambassador came in to try to evacuate the Norwegian medics, he told the witness that he had to get the Israeli authorities to agree.
The witness also said that from recently declassified materials from the British National Archives, she discovered that the death toll in the two camps was 3,500 people. When the Israelis surrounded and invaded the Akka Hospital on 15 September, they killed patients, nurses and doctors.
PW6 was cross-examined by the Amicus Curiae-Defence Team, but her testimony remained intact and unshaken.
The Prosecution’s seventh witness (PW7) was Nabil Alissawi, a resident of Karkfa Street, Bethlehem.
The witness said that whilst he was a student of Ahliya University in 2008, he took part in a peaceful street demonstration near the Azah Refugee Camp and Paradise Hotel. At about 12.30pm whilst the demonstrators were thus engaged, he was shot by a sniper. He passed out and was taken to a hospital.
He later discovered that a dum dum bullet had pierced his stomach and then broke into 3 pieces, going into 3 different directions – 2 exiting his body but the third remained stuck in his bladder. He was hospitalised for 2 1/2 months where he underwent 3 operations. He subsequently received treatment for another 2 1/2 months where he underwent more surgical operations to repair his intestines.
As a result of his injuries, his life had been totally altered. He carried an abdominal scar, he cannot sit upright, nor can he swim competitively. He is prohibited from entering Israel, and is always in a state of fear and anxiety. He is a victim with no freedom in his own country.
The Prosecution’s 8thwitness (PW8) was Ilan Pappe, an Israeli historian and social activist. He gave his oral testimony via Skype. Author of 15 books, including “The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine” (2006), “Gaza in Crisis” (co-authored with Noam Chomsky, 2010) he is one of Israel’s New Historians who have been rewriting the history of Israel’s creation in 1948 and the expulsion of 700,000 Palestinians in the same year. He has written that the expulsion was not decided on an ad hoc basis as other historians had argued, but constituted the ethnic cleansing of Palestine in accordance with Plan Dalet, which was drawn up in 1947 by Israel’s future leaders.
The witness testified that the people behind Plan Dalet was small group of people (about 30) comprised of generals in the Jewish military outfit, experts on Arab affairs, with the Chairman who would be the first Prime Minister of Israel. They turned this plan into a Master Plan with a blueprint for the systematic expulsion of the Palestinians from their country.
When asked by the Chief Prosecutor what happened to those Palestinians who refused to move, the witness said that in certain places, elder villagers were executed to intimidate the rest. And in some places, all male members were massacred. Palestine had some 800 villages. 530 villagers had their residents expelled.
The witness also testified that the villages that were occupied were wiped out physically and on the ruins they built settlements or recreational places. In the cities, the Palestinian neighbourhoods were repopulated by Jewish immigrants from Europe or from other countries.
Asked about Gaza, the witness said that Gaza is a huge prison, incarcerating 2 million people.
Cross-examined by the Defence – Amicus Team whether he would agree that the body of his work and his views “could be to assuage the guilt of being alive because of Zionism”, the witness replied that he does not feel that way. He said that because his parents were victims of genocidal policies of the Nazi, he does not want be part of the new genocide.
Responding to another question from the Defence – Amicus Team, the witness said that the Jews who escaped from Germany and Europe in the 1930s were indeed refugees looking for safe haven, but the Jews who came in 1982 and in subsequent years came as colonisers.
The Prosecution’s 9thwitness (PW9) was Taghreeb Khalil Nimat, a resident of Nablus, West Bank. She lives with her parents and 9 siblings.
The witness testified that in 1979 or early 1980, her father was arrested by the Israeli forces and detained in prison for 18 days for singing a song about Palestinian freedom. A year later, he was again arrested and detained in prison for 21 days for the same offence.
In 1987 the witness applied for employment at the government office but her application was rejected. It was commonly understood that if any family member has a history of being detained by the Israeli government, it would be difficult to seek employment at the government office.
The witness testified that on 15 April 2004, whilst travelling from Nablus to Bethlehem (a distance of 80 km) she was stopped by an Israeli military car and then detained for 29 hours without food or water. During detention, the witness was put under interrogation and insulted verbally. Following the incident, the witness was stigmatised by her community, including her friends and colleagues.
The Prosecution’s tenth witness (PW10) was Dr. Walid Elkhatib, a resident of Beit Jalla City, Bethlehem District, West Bank. He is a qualified medical doctor, specialising in public health.
The witness testified that as a general practitioner, he worked at an emergency clinic during the first intifada, where he saw many patients with different kinds of injuries as a result of Israeli violence – gun shot wounds, exposed to tear gas and physically abused by Israeli soldiers. Over the last 17 years he had been in charge of child health and protection, social health and Palestinian child law and rights.
He also testified that the invasion of Palestinian cities by Israeli forces (including the shelling and bombing, usage of tear gas, the building of walls to separate Jerusalem and the West Bank, check points which restrict the movement of the Palestinian people) have affected Palestinian health and education, especially that of children.
The witness said that the first intifada (1987-1993) was not military in nature. It involved demonstrations against the Israeli occupation. There were then no roadblocks, no wall, no shelling and no airplane bombings.
The second intifada (2000-2009) began when Ariel Sharon went to the Al-Aqsa Mosque. The Palestinians protested against this visit. On that day, Israeli soldiers killed 20 people outside a mosque.
During the second intifada, the witness said that 77.8% of Palestinian families suffered mental problems. From 2001-2011, there were 2282 cases of disability – mostly due to injuries sustained by those involved in the intifada, caused by live ammunition, shrapnel, rubber bullets and explosions. Disabilities means that many of these people have less opportunities for work and they end up in poverty.
The witness testified that poverty is rife in the West Bank and Gaza, increasing from an average of 20% (prior to intifada) to 51% (during the intifada). Anemia became prevalent amongst the children (42%) as a result of imbalanced diet and amongst pregnant women (21%).
On the subject of checkpoints, the witness testified that there were about 730 checkpoints between cities, towns and villages in the West Bank. There had been many cases of pregnant women (forced to stop and wait at these places) delivering their babies at these checkpoints. There had also been many emergency cases who had been stopped at these checkpoints and prevented from going through to hospitals. In such cases, people had died at these checkpoints.
The witness also testified that before the second intifada, he believed that Israel was looking for peace with Palestinians. After the second intifada, he no longer had that belief.
The Prosecution’s eleventh witness (PW11) was Jawad Musleh, a resident of Beit Sahour, Bethlehem District. He is a program co-ordinator in a travel agency.
The witness, a Christian, testified that he was arrested in August 1985 by the Israeli authorities and released 20 months later, in March 1987. He was first detained at a prison in West Jerusalem, and later transferred to another prison in Haifa and finally to another prison in the West Bank. He was then only 15 years old, a student of a Catholic School at Beit Sahour.
The witness testified that he was tortured in the first prison in West Jerusalem, during interrogation. The Israelis used mental and psychological torture to make him confess to crimes he did not commit – that he was a member of the Palestine Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP). He refused to confess but he continued to be beaten, and if not beaten, put in confinement with his hands tied behind his back and a hood over his head.
He finally confessed, after which he was detained for 20 months. He continued to be tortured when he was incarcerated. He said that there are now more than 5,000 prisoners in Israeli prisons.
The witness also testified that more Israeli colonies are being built on lands in the West Bank and Jerusalem. There are now 700,000 Jewish settlers living in the West Bank and Jerusalem.
The West Bank is now divided into 3 Areas – A, B and C. Area A are lands under the Palestinian authority and cover main cities and towns like Bethlehem, Hebron, Nablus, Ramallah, Jenin and others. Area B are small villages surrounding the main cities, where Israel is in control of security whilst civil services like health and education are the responsibility of the Palestinian authority. Area C, which is the rest of the West Bank, is under the complete control of the Israeli authorities. Checkpoints and roadblocks are set up throughout Areas A, B and C. These checkpoints are often closed arbitrarily and without prior notice, for long hours.
The witness further testified that Area C is the richest source of water supply. Water supply is therefore under the complete control of the Israeli authorities. Water is supplied to the Israeli settlers at a cheaper price, and 5 times more in volume, compared to water supplied to the Palestinians – which is often inadequate for their daily use, causing great hardship and suffering.
Prosecution’s closing submission
In his closing submission, the Chief Prosecutor said that he had called 11 witnesses (some of whom had testified through Skype), tendered 15 exhibits and furnished several documents and reports to the Tribunal during the course of the proceedings.
He urged the Tribunal to bear in mind that this is a Tribunal of Conscience and the case before it is an extraordinary case, which Winston Churchill used to call as a “crime without a name”.
He said that the Prosecution had provided evidence of facts which, examined as a whole, will show that the perpetrators had committed acts against the Palestinians, with intent to kill, cause serious bodily or mental harms and deliberately inflict conditions of life calculated to bring about the physical destruction of the Palestinians as a whole or in part.
From the testimony of Prof Pappe (PW8) the Prosecution had shown that before 1948, before UN Resolution 47, there was already a plan in place to take over the Palestinian territory, and this plan would be activated the moment the British relinquished its mandate over the territory.
At that point in time, the Palestinians were on 94% of the land, with the Jewish population settling over a mere 6% of the land. Under the UN partition plan, more than 50% of the land was to be given to the Jews.
Plan Dalet might not legally be genocidal in form at its inception, but as it took shape the ethnic cleansing metamorphised into killing, massacre and creating impossible conditions for life for the Palestinians – either they leave or they die. The Prosecution submits this is genocide within the meaning of Article 2 of the Genocide Convention.
On Sabra and Shatila, prosecution witnesses (PW1 and PW6) had testified that the Palestinian refugees in those camps had been killed by the Phalangists, aided and abetted by the Israelis who were in complete control of the two camps.
According to the Kahan Report, all of Beirut was under Israeli control, and there was clear symbiotic relationship between Israel and the Christian forces (the Lebanese Maronite Christian militia or the Phalangists or Keta’ib).
On Operation Cast Lead in 2008, the Chief Prosecutor said that the Israeli Defence Force had used all kinds of weapons, including white phosphorus – which is an incendiary weapon. The use of incendiary weapons is prohibited under Protocal III on the Prohibitions or Restrictions on the Use of Incendiary Weapons.
As a result of the Israeli occupation of Gaza, nowhere in Gaza is safe for civilians. 1.5 million Palestinians are now trapped in despair, their fragile economy ruined. Under the Dahiya Doctrine (October 2008), the complete destruction of Gaza is the ultimate objective, the whole place must be flattened.
The Prosecution submits that the cumulative effect of the actions taken by the Israeli government, as shown by the Prosecution witnesses and the several documents tendered to the Tribunal, have shown beyond reasonable doubt that Israel is guilty of the crime of genocide under the Genocide Convention and the Charter of the Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Commission (The Charter).
Co-Prosecutor Tan Sri Abdul Aziz, submitting on the first charge against Amos Yaron, said that Amos Yaron was the commanding officer in charge of the Israeli Defence Force, in charge of the area of Beirut, and camps Sabra and Shatila. He said there were two issues which he has to deal with – first, whether or not there was a large scale massacre of the residents of the two camps, and second, whether or not Amos Yaron facilitated and permitted such massacre, in violation of international law and Articles 9, 10 and 11 of the Charter?
On the first issue, he submitted there was a large scale massacre, as testified by PW1. She was there, and she saw the massacre with her own eyes. There was corrobating testimony by PW6, and further acknowledged in the Kahan Report.
On the second issue, Amos Yaron was in charge, to ensure that there would be peace and law and order. The Kahan Report itself concluded that anybody who knew about Lebanon would know that by releasing the Phalangists into Beirut, there would be massacre. Surely, Amos Yaron, the General in charge, must have known that by allowing the Phalangists to go into the two camps, the massacre would take place. But he decided to do nothing.
He received the reports of the killing of women and children, but he did not check the report. He did not pass the report to his superiors. The co-prosecutor submits that by ignoring all this despite knowing the circumstances, he himself had the intention of causing the death of the people in the two camps.
Whether the Prosecution has established a prima facie case
After the Prosecution Team had submitted its closing submission, the Amicus Curiae-Defence Team submitted there is no case to answer – as provided in Article 26 of Chapter V (Mode of Proceedings) of Part 2 of the Charter.
The Tribunal then had a short recess to enable the Judges to deliberate and consider the totality of the evidence adduced by the Prosecution.
When the Tribunal reconvened a short while later, the President of the Tribunal ruled that the Tribunal had unanimously agreed that a prima facie case had been established in both charges and the Amicus Curiae-Defence Team is therefore invited to present the defence case.
The Defence case
Mr. Jason Kay Kit Leon of the Amicus Curiae-Defence Team submitted that in the charges against the two Defendants, the Prosecution had listed war crimes, crimes against humanity and crimes against peace. Apparently the Prosecution had abandoned these charges, concentrating only on genocide.
He said that the offence of genocide is defined in Article 2 of the Genocide Convention 1948, whilst the OED defines it simply as “the deliberate killing of a large group of people, especially those of a particular nation or ethnic group”.
He submitted that the charge of genocide is unique; it means that you don’t like a group, you kill them; you kill them in a grand manner. Genocide means that at the end of the act, you have a lesser number of victims than before the genocide started.
He further submitted that when one talks of “massive killing”, it is many hundreds of thousands to millions of people. To suggest that an isolated event, the unfortunate murder of 3,000 people (Sabra and Shatila) is the same as massive killing is almost disrespectful of the true horror of massive killing (as in Rwanda, where 800,000 people were killed in 100 days).
With regard to the Kahan Report, the Amicus Curiae-Defence Team said that it also identified other people as being responsible, with two other names other than Yaron still alive. The question is why only Yaron was charged? Why was Defence Minister Ariel Sharon spared?
He also submitted that the PLO had repeatedly violated the July 1981 cease-fire agreement. By June 1982, when the IDF went into Lebanon, the PLO had made life in northern Israel intolerable through its repeated shelling of Israeli towns.
On Cast Lead, the Amicus Curiae-Defence Team submitted that the IDF had come out with two reports. The point is if you are going to kill people nilly willy, you do not report it.
On the issue of the wall, the Amicus Curiae-Defence Team submitted that the primary consideration is one of security of the Israeli settlers. The State of Israel has a duty to defend their lives, safety and well-being.
On the issue of checkpoints, the Amicus Curiae-Defence Team said countries have a right to immigration laws.
With regard to Plan Dalet, the Amicus Curiae-Defence Team said that it is subject to divergent opinions, with historians on one side asserting that it was entirely defensive, while other historians assert that the plan aimed at an ethnic cleansing.
Finding by the Tribunal of the Charge against Amos Yaron
Sabra and Shatila Massacres
Under Charge 3, theDefendantAmosYaronis charged with WarCrimes,CrimesagainstHumanity,andGenocide. As the Commanding Israeli General in military control of the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps in Israeli occupied Lebanon in September of 1982, he knowingly facilitated and permitted the large-scale Massacre of the Residents of those two camps in violation of the Hague Regulations on Land Warfare of 1907; the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949; the 1948 Genocide Convention; the Nuremberg Charter (1945), the Nuremberg Judgment (1946), and the Nuremberg Principles (1950); customary international law, jus cogens, the Laws of War, and International Humanitarian Law; and their related provisions set forth in articles 9, 10, and 11 of the Charter of the Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Commission.
Israel invaded Lebanon beginning June6,1982.
The Israeli siege and bombardment of West Beirut continued throughout the summer of 1982. In spite of the devastation caused to Lebanon and the civilian population, Israel did not succeed in its goal of defeating or dislodging the Syrian and P.L.O. forces.
An agreement was brokered onAugust19, 1982 between Lebanon, the United States, France, Italy, Israel, and the P.L.O. for the evacuation of the P.L.O. and Syrian forces under the auspices and protection of a multi‑national force. The agreement further provided that the Israeli Defense Forces would not attempt to enter or occupy West Beirut following the evacuation of the P.L.O. and Syrian forces.
Pursuant to that agreement, the multinational American, French, and Italian force oversaw the evacuation of the P.L.O. and Syrian forces until completed on September l, 1982. The multinational force left Lebanon from September l0-12, 1982, after the completion of the evacuation.
On September 14, 1982, Lebanese President Bashir Gemayel, a Phalangist, was assassinated in Beirut.
Israeli Prime Minister Begin, Prime Minister of Defense Sharon, and Chief of Staff Eitan decided that the IsraeliDefense Forces (IDF) would immediately enter and occupy West Beirut.
Pursuant to the decision, on September 15, 1982, the IDF entered West Beirut under the command of Defendant Brigadier General Amos Yaron, the Defendant in this case. The IDF established a forward command post on the roof of a seven-story building southwest of the Shatila camp, and Defendant Brigadier General Yaron commanded IDF forces from that post. The area surrounding the two camps, Sabra and Shatila, was thereafter under the command and control of the IDF, and all forces in the area, including the Phalangists, were considered to be operating under the authority of the IDF and acting according to its instructions.
The Tribunal heard detailed testimony about the events occurring between September 16 and September 18, 1982. A horrible systematic massacre of defenceless Palestinian refugees occurred with the deaths of up to 3,500, largely women and young children in the two camps.
Brigadier General Amos Yaron was commander of the operation in Beirut. He was asked by Major General Drori to coordinate the entry of Phalangist force at the forward command post.[1]
After these massacres, the Israeli government was under immense pressure set up a commission of enquiry under the chairmanship of Yitzuk Kahan (‘the Kahan Commission’), to enquire into the massacre. This commission held 60 sessions hearing 58 witnesses.[2]
The Kahan Commission made the following observations:
Defence Minister, Ariel Sharon and Chief of Staff, Eitan declared on Sept 16 1982 before the massacres began that all of Beirut was under Israeli control and the camps were closed and surrounded.[3]
There was a clear symbiotic relationship between Israel and the Christian forces (the Lebanese Maronite Christian militia) known as the Phalangists or Keta’ib assisted by the Israeli Mossad. Even the uniforms of the South Lebanese Army (SLA) and the Phalangists were the same as those of IDF – and provided by Israel.[4]
The Israelis exercised some degree of control of the SLA.[5]
The Phalangists’ plan to use force to remove Palestinians was discussed at several meetings with Israel[6].
Three key officials of the Israel cabinet decided that the IDF under the command of Brigadier General Amos Yaron would enter West Beirut: the PM Begin, Defence Minister Sharon and Chief of Staff Eitan. The IDF would not enter the camps but rather would delegate the entry in to the camps to the Phalangists. Eitan said that he and Sharon agreed on the entry of the Phalangists into the Sabra and Shatila camps: the operational order provided: “…Searching and mopping up of the camps will be done by the Phalangists-Lebanese army”. [7]Also a summary of the Defence Minister’s instructions: “Only one element, and that is the IDF, shall command the forces in the area. For the operation in the camps the Phalangists should be sent in”.[8]
The use of terms such as:
“purifying and purging” (NY Times, Sept 20 1982 at A6, col 5; Washington Post Sept 21 at A14, col 6);
“moppingup”(NY Times, Sept 23, 1982 at A8, col 4); and
“cleaning up” (NY Times, Sept 23 1982 at A8, col 6; Sept 26 1982, A11, col 2) the camps
shows the actual intent of the Israeli officials’ and its commanders[9]
The camps were surrounded and under the complete control of the Israelis, preceding the killings[10]:
The Chief of Staff Eitan, after acknowledging that the Phalangists ‘had gone too far” gave the thumbs up to continue the “mopping up’
An International Commission was set up to enquire into the reported violations of international law byIsrael during its invasion of Lebanon.
It produced a Report in 1983: Israel in Lebanon: Report of the International Commission to Enquire into Reported Violations of International Law byIsrael during its Invasion of Lebanon 196 (1983)[11]:
(a) The Commission was chaired by Sean MacBride, former Irish Foreign Minister, and former United Nations Commissioner for Namibia and Nobel Peace Prize winner in 1974.
(b) Four of the Commission’s six members concluded that Israel embarked on “deliberate destruction of the national and cultural rights and identity of the Palestinian people amounting to genocide”.
(c) It concluded that:
The massacres that took place at Sabra and Shatila in September 1982 can be described as genocidal massacres, and the term “complicity in genocide” is wide enough to establish the responsibility of Israel for these acts.”
(d) The Report placed the massacre in context:
“[Sabra and Shatila] massacres were low-technology sequels to earlier high-technology saturation bombardment by Israel from land, sea and air of every major Palestinian camp situated anywhere near the combat zone throughout southern Lebanon. The underlying Israeli objective seems clearly directed at making the Palestinian camps uninhabitable in a physical sense as well as terrorizing the inhabitants and thereby breaking the will of the Palestinian national movement, not only in the war zone of the Lebanon, but possibly even more centrally, in the occupied West Bank and Gaza”: p. 121[12],
(e) That this represents a comprehensive policy to destroy an entire ethnic group is again illustrated by Ammon Kapeliouk, Sabra and Shatila (p. 45-6):
“Since the beginning of the war in June 1982, the Israelis have repeatedly used bulldozers to destroy homes and force the residents to flee. The refugee camps of south Lebanon were bombarded and then destroyed with explosives and bulldozers. In Israel, this operation was known as “the destruction of the terrorist infrastructure.” The objective was to prevent the Palestinians from forming a national community in Lebanon. Therefore, it was necessary to destroy not only homes, but also Palestinian institutions such as schools, hospitals, and social service centers. In addition, the Israelis sought to deprive the Palestinian population of all males by arresting thousands of men and forcing thousands more to flee.”[13]
The Defendant Amos Yaron
The Commander, Brigadier General Yaron, and the Phalangists agreed that a Phalangist Liaison Officer with communications equipment would be present at all times in the IDF command post with a Mossad Liaison officer at the Phalangist headquarters.[14]
Yaron knew about Phalangist combat ethics. He was pleased with his decision and was quite content to have the Phalangists participate and not leave the operation up to the IDF.
Yaron could not explain his lack of action or intervention by the Israeli army to protect civilians when he learnt on the first night, September 16, after the intervention of the Phalangists that massacres were occurring.[15]
Even when Israeli military authorities were well aware of the exactions by the Phalangists on Friday 17 September, they did not intervene to protect the Palestinian civilians but rather allowed them to bring in tractors to do what they wanted.[16]
The following testimony confirms that from the command posts, the Israelis, including of course Brigadier Commander Amos Yaron, could see into the camps and observe the massacres:
(a) From the command post, it was possible to see into the camps, even into the narrow alleys. One could see the mass grave 300 meters away dug by the Phalangists and the bulldozer used to bury the hundreds of victims.[17]
(b) Similarly, the testimony of Dr Ang Swee Chai
(c) Reports of Senior Journalists.[18]
Washington Post, senior foreign correspondent, Jonathan Randal: noted this as an ‘obviously wrongheaded factual error’;
A New York Times article Sept 26 1982 at A9, col 2.
Loren Jenkins, Washington Post Beirut correspondent, Sept 20 1982: Israel aided and abetted.
(d) Doctors and nurses testified they heard constant shooting and shelling from Shatila and knew later that a massacre might be taking place: NY Times Sept 20 1982 at A6, cols 3-4 [19]
(e) Leila Shahid quotes an Israeli officer saying that watching from the roofs of one of the buildings occupied by the Israelis was like watching ‘from the front row of a theatre’. [20]
(f) Israeli soldiers prevented Palestinian refugees from fleeing and returned them to the camps. Soldiers reported to their superiors that massacres were taking place.[21]
The United Nations condemned the Sabra Shatila killings… Security Council Resolution S/RES/521(1982): 19 September 1982 condemned the “criminal massacre. The General assembly went much farther than the Security Council. In the General Assembly Resolution 37/123: on 16 December 1982, it held:
Section D.1: Condemned in the strongest terms the large scale massacre of Palestinian civilians in the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps (Vote: 123 -0; 23 abstentions)
Section D.2: Resolves that the massacre was an act of genocide (vote: 98-19; 23 abstentions)
Legal Issues
Burden of proof
The burden of proof in this tribunal is beyond all reasonable doubt.[22] All elements of an infraction must be proven beyond all reasonable doubt. This applies to War Crimes, Crimes against Humanity and the Crime of Genocide.
A person is guilty of genocide if he acts with an intention as described in the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (Genocide Convention) at Article 2.[23]
In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:
(a) Killing members of the group;
(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.
This intention is known as the mens rea of specific intention in criminal law as opposed to the concept of general intention. The expression dolus specialis has been adopted by the Ad Hoc Tribunals to describe this requirement with respect to the criminal state of mind. To convict, an accused must have the intention to destroy, in whole or in part the group described in the Convention.
Proof of genocidal intent can be done by inference in the light of all the facts and does not require a specific plan.[24] This intent must be proven beyond all reasonable doubt. If there is any alternative interpretation of the state of mind of the Defendant, the Prosecution will fail. The inference must be the only reasonable inference available on the evidence.[25]
State liability is incurred if an organ of the State or a person or group whose acts are legally attributable to the state commits any of the acts described in Article III of the Convention.[26]
Evidentiary Conclusions
The findings below are only made if the Tribunal is convinced beyond all reasonable doubt of the finding.
The Status of the Israel Defence Force in Lebanon from 15 September 1982
The evidence described above shows that Israel had invaded Lebanon illegally and had become an occupying force for part of Lebanon. Defendant Yaron was in charge of the occupation. As discussed below, this amounts to a Crime against Peace incurring the criminal responsibility of the State of Israel and the Defendant Yaron.
The relationship between Lebanese militia and the Defendant
The evidence described above shows without doubt that the Defendant and the IDF collaborated with the Phalangist militias and used the militias to carry out Israeli policy of destroying the Palestinian people. The Defendant Yaron worked with the militias personally.
Victims
The evidence shows that a large number of men woman and children were killed. Most were Palestinian. There was little or no resistance to the invaders. This is a part of the Palestinian nation and as such satisfied the requirements of the Genocide Convention.
Knowledge by the Defendant and his acts and omissions
There is no room for doubt that the Defendant Yaron had a thorough knowledge of the exactions being committed by the associated militias. The Defendant actively sent these militias into the Sabra and Shatila camps knowing what they would do. As reports emerged of their killings of unarmed civilians: men, woman and children, he failed in his duty as commander of an occupying and invading force to protect civilian population.
Intention of Israeli State, Intention of Defendant Amos Yaron
This evidence shows beyond all reasonable doubt that the Defendant Yaron consciously refused to protect the Palestinian population in the Sabra Shatila camps. His responsibility however goes much farther. He and the Israeli army used the Militias to destroy the Palestinian population in the camps. There was almost no resistance. The massacres were fully observed by the Israeli army from its vantage points. No persons could escape from the area cordoned off by the Israeli army. He was informed throughout about the progress of the massacre. The only inference reasonably possible is that Amos Yaron intended mass murder and that the Palestinian population be destroyed.
The Defence argued that Yaron did nothing to commit the crimes in Sabra and Shatila and cited exculpatory findings of the Kahan commission to attempt to clear Yaron for the charges.
This Tribunal is not bound by the Kahan Commission but its factual observations are useful in the search for truth. The Kahan Commission findings were made in Israel whereas the Tribunal is an international tribunal of opinion independent of Israel and the major powers. The Tribunal does not accept Defence arguments concerning the acts and omissions of the Defendant Yaron.
The Defence argued that the Prosecutor erred in not accusing Ariel Sharon. As for the failure to accuse Ariel Sharon, it is up to the Prosecutor to decide whom to charge, and barring abuse or oblique motive by the Prosecutor, the Tribunal cannot intervene in Prosecutorial Discretion.
The Defence objected to the use of General Assembly resolutions to prove genocide. The finding of intent (to commit genocide) by the General Assembly is soft law but is useful in the context to help to evaluate the intention of Israel and Amos Yaron.
The Tribunal considers the actions of Amos Yaron as engaging his personal criminal liability.
Command responsibility
Given the finding that Amos Yaron is personally responsible for the crimes committed, it declines to consider his liability for command responsibility.
Legal consequences
The Tribunal will examine the facts proven in the light of the crimes provided for in the Charter, namely Crimes against Peace, Crimes against Humanity, Genocide and War Crimes, provided for in articles 8, 9, 10, and 11 of the Charter.
Cumulative convictions
The Tribunal recalls the law with respect to cumulative convictions. The Appeals Chamber of the International Tribunal for former Yugoslavia held at paragraph 168[27]:
The Appeals Chamber accepts the approach articulated in the Čelebići Appeal Judgement, an approach heavily indebted to the Blockburger decision of the Supreme Court of the United States.[28] The Appeals Chamber held that:[29]
“fairness to the Defendant and the consideration that only distinct crimes justify multiple convictions, lead to the conclusion that multiple criminal convictions entered under different statutory provisions but based on the same conduct are permissible only if each statutory provision involved has a materially distinct element not contained in the other. An element is materially distinct from another if it requires proof of a fact not required by the other.
Where this test is not met, the Chamber must decide on the basis of the principle that the conviction under the more specific provision should be upheld”.
The Tribunal will follow this principle.
Crimes Against Peace
Lebanon is a sovereign state which was invaded by Israel on 15 September 1982. Amos Yaron participated in this aggression of Lebanon and became Brigadier General of this occupation force. The Tribunal recalls the Nuremberg Principles I and VI
Principle I states, “Any person who commits an act which constitutes a crime under international law is responsible therefore and liable to punishment”.
Principle VI states,
“The crimes hereinafter set out are punishable as crimes under international law:
(a) Crimes against peace:
(i) Planning, preparation, initiation or waging of a war of aggression or a war in violation of international treaties, agreements or assurances;
(ii) Participation in a common plan or conspiracy for the accomplishment of any of the acts mentioned under (i).
We recall the terms of the Nuremberg judgement under the pen of Mr Justice Birkett states:
“The charges in the Indictment that the Defendants planned and waged aggressive wars are the charges of the utmost gravity. War is essentially an evil thing. Its consequences are not confined to the belligerent states alone, but affect the whole world.
To initiate a war of aggression, therefore, is not only an international crime; it is the supreme international crime differing only from the other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole”.
The State of Israel has committed the mother of all international crimes by invading Lebanon and this has led Yaron to commit crimes against humanity and genocide.
Crimes against humanity
The Tribunal repeats the relevant parts of Article 9 of the Charter.
Crimes against humanity
For the purpose of this Charter,“crime against humanity” means any of the following acts when committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack directed against any civilian population, with knowledge of the attack:
(a) Murder;
(b) Extermination…;
The crime of extermination is the act of killing on a large scale.[30] The expression “on a large scale” does not, however, suggest a numerical minimum.[31] In addition to the threshold mens rea requirements for all crimes against humanity, the mens rea of extermination requires that the Defendant intend to kill persons on a massive scale or to subject a large number of people to conditions of living that would lead to their deaths in a widespread or systematic manner.[32]
The Tribunal has found above that Amos Yaron (and the Israeli State) participated directly with the Lebanese Militias in the mass murder and destruction of the Palestinians in Sabra and Shatila camps.
For this reason, the Tribunal finds Amos Yaron guilty of a crime against humanity as charged.
Genocide charge
As found above, the Defendant Yaron intended the mass murder and the destruction of the Palestinian population at Sabra and Shatila. This population constituted a national group as envisaged by the Genocide conventions. Not only did Amos Yaron intend the mass murder of these Palestinian refugees and their destruction as a group, he succeeded in killing of up to 3,500 Palestinians.
Amos Yaron intended the destruction of this part of the Palestinian people and therefor had the specific intent as required by Article 10 of the Charter.
The Tribunal notes that as Brigadier General of the Israeli Army occupying force, he engages the Criminal responsibility of the Israeli State implying the guilt of the Israeli State as was found in the Chapter of this judgement on Charge 4.
The Tribunal finds Amos Yaron guilty as charged of genocide.
War crimes
This tribunal will decline to consider war crimes since the crimes against humanity are more specific. A war crimes conviction would be a cumulative conviction.
Finding of the Tribunal of the Charge against the State of Israel
In relation to the charges against the State of Israel for genocide and war crimes, the Tribunal is conscious of the novelty of the issues raised. It wishes to confront these issues head-on with a view to furthering the ideals of international law and to interpret existing precedents in such a way as to make them as good as can be from the point of view of justice and morality.
We take note that the Prosecution did not pursue the charge of war crimes vigorously and instead concentrated on the charge of genocide. The Tribunal too will, therefore, confine itself to the issue of genocide.
The main legal points raised before us were the following:
Preliminary Objection About Retrospectivity Of Laws
Learned counsel for the Defence argued that the general moral rule against retrospective laws prevents the Tribunal from hearing cases that occurred prior to its establishment on 6th June 2008. The charges against Israel relate to facts that occurred well before 2008.
This issue was raised by the Defence as a preliminary objection and was unanimously rejected by the Tribunal for the following reason: the offences of genocide and war crimes for which the State of Israel is being charged were not created by the Charter. These offences have existed since the middle of the last century. The Charter sets up a machinery to investigate and prosecute these charges and to create a war crimes tribunal to adjudicate on them. The Charter does not specify any dates or time frames as was the case for the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), the Extraordinary Chambers in the Court of Cambodia (ECCC) and the Special Court for Sierra Leone (SCSL).
Defence counsel was magnanimous to concede that open ended temporal jurisdiction did indeed exist for the Nuremberg Tribunal, the Tokyo Tribunal and under the US Military Commission Act 2006 for the Guantanamo detainees.
The Tribunal holds that as our Charter does not confine the Tribunal to any time frame, it is not prevented from adjudicating on events that occurred decades ago. The Tribunal notes that almost all international tribunals that deal with genocide are created to exercise jurisdiction over crimes committed well before the creation of the tribunal. The Tribunal holds that the jurisdiction of the Tribunal is open-ended and not confined to any time period. The Tribunal has full jurisdiction to try this case.
Preliminary Objection That Only Natural Persons Can Be Charged
Learned Defence counsel argued that there cannot be a charge against the State of Israel because under Article 2(1)(iii) of the Charter plus the Rules of Procedure and Evidence in Articles 2, 3, 4, 5, 11 & 12, the Charter envisages jurisdiction only over natural persons and not against nation states. However, Defence counsel conceded that the Charter in Article 2(1)(ii) permits jurisdiction over a “government”. The Tribunal is of the view that being a tribunal of conscience, and created to investigate serious crimes, it must reject such technical and esoteric distinctions as between a “state” and a “government”. States operate through their governments. The Tribunal will not refuse jurisdiction simply on this technical ground.
Further, it rules that Chapter III Article 6(b) of its Charter explicitly lays down that “if the charge involves a sovereign state, a current head of state/government or a former head of state/government, service of a copy thereof to any relevant embassy or High Commission shall suffice…” This is conclusive proof that under its Charter, the Tribunal is empowered to try States as well as individuals.
Preliminary Objection That Israel Has Sovereign Immunity
Defence counsel submitted that international law does not allow the State of Israel to be impleaded as an accused. It was submitted that no matter what the facts may be and how serious the alleged crime may be, the State of Israel enjoys absolute immunity in international law from being impleaded in a domestic court or tribunal unless it voluntary subjects itself to such jurisdiction.
To our mind, the impugned preliminary objection of the Amicus Curiae-Defence Team raises the need for an appraisal of the dichotomy between the concept of State Immunity on the one hand and the doctrine of jus cogens on the other.
The concept of State immunity stipulates that a Stateis immune from jurisdiction in a foreign court unless it consents.
On the other hand, the doctrine of jus cogens refers to that body of peremptory principles or norms recognised by the international community as a whole as being fundamental to the maintenance of an international legal order and from which no derogation is permitted.
As corollary to a study of these two doctrines, the following three questions need to be considered, namely:
(a) What principles of law, relevant to the issue at hand, constitute jus cogens?
(b) Can the doctrine of State Immunity be considered as having acquired the status of jus cogens?
(c) If there is a conflict between two principles of law, one being a jus cogensbut not the other, which should prevail?
Well into the middle of the twentieth century, nations had accepted the proposition that a sovereign State could not be sued before its own municipal Courts. When that dogma ceased to exist, e.g. in the UK with the passage of the Crown Proceedings Act 1947, it was replaced by the equally unhelpful doctrine that a sovereign State was exempt from the jurisdiction of a foreign municipal court. The Latin maxim upon which the proposition is based was par inparem imperium non habet, i.e. an equal has no power over an equal.
This practice which provided carte blanche immunity to foreign States became known as the “Absolute State Immunity principle”.
Support for the Absolute State Immunity principle can be found in most, if not all, of the cases, appearing in Bundle 3 of the authorities submitted by learned Amicus Curiae-Defence Team in support of their preliminary objection application. These cases include The Schooner Exchange[33]; Mighell v. Sultan of Johore[34]; The Porto Alexandre Case[35]; Duff Development Co. v. Kelantan Government[36]; The Cristina Case[37], Commonwealth of Australia v Midford (Malaysia) Sdn Bhd & Anor [38] and Jurisdictional Immunities of the State (Germany v Italy)[39].
Jurisdictional Immunities of the State (Germany v. Italy: Greece Intervening) was a 2012 International Court of Justice case where the Court, inter alia,found by a 14 to one majority, that the Italian Republic had violated its obligation to respect the immunity which the Federal Republic of Germany enjoyed under international law by allowing civil claims to be brought against it based on violations of international humanitarian law committed by the German Reich between 1943 and 1945.
At page 10 paragraph 31 of their notes on Preliminary Objection, Amicus Curiae-Defence Team, quoted a passage from the second edition of Judge Tunku Sofiah’s work, Public International Law – a Malaysian Perspective, as follows:
“Judgments of the International Court of Justice “are always considered as pronouncements of what the most authoritative international judicial body holds to be in international law on a given point, having regard to the given set of circumstances.”
The learned judge Tunku Sofiah, however, agrees with us that the outdated concept of absolute state immunity must be read along with other compelling considerations relevant to our times and especially to the situation before us.
Laws, unless they concern that of the Almighty, can neither be immutable nor static. And when justice so demands, through the passage of time, shifts and changes to laws that are unjust invariably take place.
In some countries, like China, for example, the State jealously guards the “absolute” concept of State Immunity and denies any attempt by anyone to implead a State unless that State consents.
Other States prefer a “restrictive” interpretation of the concept and allow immunity to States only in respect of the States’ “public” acts as opposed to their “private” ones.
As evidence of state practice, one can point to the example of the United States. It is to the credit of the United States Government, that through a proposal made in a letter by the U.S. State Department’s Acting Legal Adviser, Jack B. Tate, to the Acting Attorney-Generaldated 19 May 1952, there was a shift in policy of the U.S. Government fromsupport for the absolute theory of State immunity to support for the restrictive theory.
Let us now briefly turn to the subject of jus cogens. What principles of law, relevant to the issue at hand, constitute jus cogens?
If one were to look into the jurisprudence of the ICJ as well as that of national courts, there are numerous instances where the prohibition on genocide as a jus cogens norm of international law has been recognised. See, for example:
the ICJ judgment in the Democratic Republic of the Congo v. Rwanda(2006) at para 64;
Application of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (Bosnia and Herzegovina v. Yugoslavia), 26 Feb. 2007 (ICJ Judgment) at paragraphs 161, 162, 173 &174. A historical account of the Convention reveals many currents and cross-currents. But what is clear is that obligations relating to the prevention and punishment of genocide are part of customary international law (para 161). The undertaking is unqualified (para 162). There is dual responsibilityon the part of individuals as well as the State. “Genocide is an international crime entailing national and international responsibility on the part of individuals and States” (A/RES/180(II)) (paras 161 &163). “Contracting parties are bound by the obligations under the Convention not to commit, through their organs or persons or groups whose conduct is attributable to them, genocide and the other acts enumerated in Article III. Thus if an organ of the State, or a person or group whose acts are legally attributable to the State, commits any of the acts proscribed by Article III of the Convention, the international responsibility of that State is incurred” (para 179).
“Duality of responsibility continues to be a constant feature of international law. This feature is reflected in Article 25, paragraph 4, of the Rome Statute for the International Criminal Court, now accepted by 104 States: “No provision in this Statute relating to individual criminal responsibility shall affect the responsibility of States under international law”.
“Where crimes against international law are committed by State officials, it will often be the case that the State itself is responsible for the acts in question or for failure to prevent or punish them. In certain cases, in particular aggression, the State will by definition be involved. Even so, the question of individual responsibility is in principle distinct from the question of State responsibility. The State is not exempted from its own responsibility for international wrongful conduct by the Prosecution and punishment of the State officials who carried it out” (ILC Commentary on the Draft Articles on Responsibility of States for Internationally Wrongful Acts, ILC Report A/56/10,2001 Commentary on Article 58, para 3).
Requests for Provisional Measures,13 Sept. 1993 (ICJ Rep.325) Separate Opinion of Judge Lauterpacht at para. 100.
Eminent scholars of international law, such as M. Bassiouni[40], too, have confirmed the prohibition on genocide as a jus cogens norm of international law.
So has the influential Restatement on Foreign Relations of the United States.
We can find no legal authority which states that the doctrine of State Immunity has acquired the status of jus cogens, that Latin tag which, in English, simply means “compelling law”.
On the other hand legal authorities abound that as a source of law, jus cogensis hierarchically higher.
It is also trite law that where there is a conflict between two principles of law, the one hierarchically higher in importance should prevail.
To our mind the international law doctrine against impleading a foreign state, being hierarchicallylower in importance than that of the prohibition against genocide, resulted in the Charge against the State of Israel to be maintained for full trial.
Decline Of State Sovereignty: The Distinction Between Sovereign & Commercial Acts
By the so-called “Tate Letter”, the United States confers immunity on foreign States only for their public and governmental acts, but not their commercial activities. It is worth observing that the commission of a war crime or genocide or crime against humanity can never be a sovereign or governmental act.
This preference for restrictive State immunity was given statutory effect in the United States by the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act of 1976.
The United Kingdomcame later in 1976 in adopting the restrictive immunity approach. That occurred in the case of The Philippine Admiral [41] where the Privy Council held that in cases where a State-owned merchant ship involved in ordinary trade was the object of a writ, it would not be entitled to sovereign immunity and the litigation would proceed.
In 1978 the State Immunity Act of 1978, adopting a restrictive approach, was enacted by the
United Kingdom. Since then, these two legislations have been served as a model for the national legislations of other countries including Australia, Canada, Pakistan, Singapore, South Africa and Malaysia.
The Tribunal find it rather mind-boggling when some courts can consider commercial disputes as a reason for not allowing a State to be shielded by the State Immunity principle and yet strenuously protect such a State in cases of genocide or other war crimes. Human lives cannot be less important than financial gain!
Other Inroads Into The Concept Of State Sovereignty
There have been other inroads into the domain of the State Immunity principle including the following:
In 1972, the European Convention on State Immunity 1972was executed. That became the first attempt to establish an international legal regime for State immunity on the basis of the restrictive doctrine. It is already in force amongst the signatory States.
In 2004, the United Nations Convention on Jurisdictional Immunities of States and Their Propertywas adopted by the General Assembly but this has yet to come into force[42].
And not too long ago, both the United States and Canada enacted legislation to permit their respective citizens or permanent residents to institute proceedings against States which harbour terrorists.
In the law of the European Union, member States, can be subjected to hefty fines for violations of EU law. The consent or non-consent of the State is irrelevant. It is the State and not individual state actors who are defendants in EU courts. The subjection of the State to the jurisdiction of the EU courts flows automatically from membership of the EU.
In a jurisprudential, Hohfeldian analysis, the concepts of legal right and legal duty are co-relatives of each other. If a state has legal duties under international law, then someone must have a corresponding legal right against the State. Defence counsel confirmed for us that the State of Israel is a signatory to the Genocide Convention. It has never repudiated the Convention. In fact it has its own law on Genocide that it enacted to conduct genocide trials in Israel like the one in the Eichmann We hold that Israel’s voluntary subjection to the Genocide Convention imposes on it enforceable duties that it cannot repudiate by simply refusing to give consent to a proceeding against it on a charge of genocide.
Like all other areas of law, international law is not static and is evolving to meet the felt necessities of the times. The Tribunal is conscious that the concept of state sovereignty is in decline. In the human rights era in which we are living, state sovereignty is a shield against foreign aggression. It cannot be used as a sword against one’s own nationals or the nationals of another territory. If a sitting head of a sovereign State like the President of Sudan (who personifies the State of Sudan) can be indicted for certain heinous crimes against international law, then it does not make sense to submit that a sovereign state can never be held accountable in international courts without its consent. This will not be in line with modern developments in international law. Witness for example the opinion in the Bosniacase which the Tribunal referred to earlier.
It was submitted to us that the rationale for excluding the State from prosecution and instead directing the Prosecution at natural persons is that if a State is visited with a verdict of ‘guilty’ that verdict would be onerous to the entire, innocent population of the State. Touching though this argument is, it is not consistent with a large body of international law e.g. the Charter of the United Nations where measures are prescribed which would amount to collective punishment of the entire population. Under Article 41 the Security Council may authorise complete or partial interruption of economic relations. Embargoes that may devastate innocent lives may be imposed. Under Articles 42 and 44, war measures including the use of force may be employed against a nation. Under Article 5, membership of a nation to the General Assembly can be suspended. Under Article 6, a member can be expelled.
A system of law must have coherence. Its different parts must, in the words of the great jurist Ronald Dworkin, have a “fit”. The idea of absolute State immunity from prosecution for grave crimes like genocide appears inconsistent with other wholesome developments in international law. Absolute state immunity is an antiquated doctrine and given the choice between precedents, this Tribunal is inclined to break free of the icy grip of this past dogma.
All these go to show that concerted efforts are taking place on the international scene to move towards a less restrictive State Immunity doctrine. In the words of Lord Denning:
The doctrine of sovereign immunity is based on international law. It is one of the rules of international law that a sovereign state should not be impleaded in the Courts of another sovereign state against its will. Like all rules of international law, this rule is said to arise out of the consensus of the civilised nations of the world. All nations agree upon it. So it is part of the law of nations.
To my mind [so Denning continued], this notion of a consensus is a fiction. The nations are not in the least agreed upon the doctrine of sovereign immunity. The Courts of every country differ in their application of it. Some grant absolute immunity. Others grant limited immunity, with each defining the limits differently. There is no consensus whatever. Yet this does not mean that there is no rule of international law upon the subject.
It only means that we differ as to what that rule is. Each country delimits for itself the bounds of sovereign immunity. Each creates for itself the exceptions from it. It is, I think, for the Courts of this country to define the rule as best they can, seeking guidance from the decisions of the Courts of other countries, from the jurists who have studied the problem, from treaties and conventions and, above all, defining the rule in terms which are consonant with justice rather than adverse to it[43].
Inequitable Enforcement of International Law
Another reason why the Tribunal wishes to reject the doctrine of absolute state immunity from prosecution in matters of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity is that the existing international law on war and peace and humanitarianism is being enforced in a grossly inequitable manner. Small, weak nations, mostly in Africa and Asia, are periodically subjected to devastating sanctions, military interventions and regime changes. At the same time, unbearable atrocities and brutalities that are inflicted on the militarily weak nations of Latin America, Africa and Asia by powerful nations in the North Atlantic and their allies go unscrutinised and unpunished.
We take note that the Israeli perpetrators of Sabra and Shatila were never punished and instead rewarded. We took note of the Jerusalem Poststory of Nov. 22, 2013. On January 4, 2009, 100 members of the al-Samouni family huddled inside a house. In the morning mist, an Israeli airstrike killed 21 people inside. Yet last week the Military Advocate General of the IDF informed B’Tselem (human rights group in Israel) that he had decided to close the investigation into this incident without taking any measures.
In the light of this reality that horrendous wrongs go unpunished and instead the victim is demonised and brutalised, we feel that it is time for the legal world to bring some juristic balance to our exposition of state immunity and international rights and wrongs and to expose the truth. This is what the Charter requires us to do.
What Amounts To Genocide?
Simply put, genocide means any designated acts committed with intent to destroy in whole or in part a national, ethnical, racial or religious group as such. The definition of genocide as given in Article 2 of the Tribunal’s Statute is taken verbatim from Articles 2 & 3 of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide which states that the following acts may by themselves or cumulatively constitute the international crime of genocide:
Killing members of the group
Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group
Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life, calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part
Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group
Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group
No significant evidence was introduced by the Prosecution Team in relation to acts (d) & (e) above, but we heard 11 witnesses and examined thousands of pages of documents relating to acts (a)-(c). The Prosecution repeatedly used the words “ethnic cleansing” and the tribunal regards ethnic cleansing as part of acts (a) to (c) above.
Actus Reus
The central issue before us was whether genocidal acts took place contrary to Article 2 of the Convention (Part 1, Article 10 of the Charter).
The Tribunal heard 11 witnesses and examined documentary evidence that clearly indicated a long catalogue of incredible crimes conceived as long ago as 1945 and continuing till the present. What is significant is that these are not isolated acts in the heat of the moment but repeated pattern of atrocities committed against the inhabitants of Palestine.
Forcible expulsion of more than 700,000 Palestinians from their homes.
Massacres of those who refused to abandon the land of their birth.
Repeated, periodic and massive killings through air and naval strikes using the most sophisticated weaponry over the last 65 years.
Brutal assaults on many refugee camps as for example in Sabra and Shatila. Israel’s military action in Sabra and Shatila was condemned by no other than the 1983 Israeli Kahan Report. The report found Brigadier General Yaron to be complicit in the atrocities and massacres committed by the Lebanese Phalangists. As Brigadier General Yaron was a commanding officer of the Israeli Armed Force, his culpability has to be attributed to the State of Israel. The IDF sealed the camps and prevented any Palestinians from leaving. It allowed the Phalangist militias to enter the camp and to commit mass murders. The Kahan Report notes (Prosecution document volume 3, page 291) that Brigadier General Yaron had no reservations about admitting the Phalangists into the camps; he testified that he was happy with his decision and explained his position in that “We have been fighting here for four months already, and there is a place where they can take part in the fighting, the fighting serves their purposes as well, so let them participate and not let the IDF do everything”. Credible witnesses testified to us that women and children were shot in their homes; pregnant mothers were killed and their babies extruded from the womb. Among the witnesses the Tribunal heard was the internationally respected medical doctor, Dr. Ang Swee Chai who testified to the magnitude of the atrocities and the fatalities that she witnessed first hand.
Periodic seizure of Palestinian lands and farms and conversion of them into Israeli settlements.
Building of a 190km long wall/fence which has been condemned by the ICJ (but whose construction has been rationalised by 2 Israeli Supreme Court decisions).
Apartheid like conditions of affluence in the illegal settlements and extreme depravation in the Palestinian ghettos. Some roads are for the Jewish population only.
Use of white phosphorus which tears out the insides of human bodies on the civilian population.
Detention without trial and ill treatment of prisoners.
Torture.
Denial of adequate food, stealing of water resources, supply of inadequate quantum of water, and building materials.
Land and sea blockades of Palestinian areas, especially in Gaza.
Use of excessive force on Palestinian combatants armed with crude weapons and in some cases against children throwing stones.
Siege and imprisonment of an entire nation.
Daily humiliations at hundreds of checkpoints on Palestinian territory and impossible conditions of life.
The Tribunal heard moving testimony from credible witnesses that what has happened to them has happened to thousands of their brethren.
The Tribunal also took note that many of the above atrocities committed by Israel over the last 67 years were, now and then, condemned by the UN Security Council, the UN General Assembly and other international organisations.
Chief Counsel for the Amicus Curiae-Defence Team presented to us an ingenious argument that there is no genocide in Palestine because the population of the Palestinians is continuing to grow. Unless there is a significant decrease in population, there can be no genocide he asserted. The Tribunal finds this submission totally insensitive and inhuman. It is internationally documented that nearly 700,000 Palestinians were driven from their home to lead nomadic and deprived lives in neighbouring lands where they are not generally welcomed. The fact that the remaining population of Palestine after the ethnic cleansing in the mid 1940s continues to show modest growth has not disproved the existence of periodic killings, humiliation, and dehumanisation.
In determining whether genocide has been committed, one cannot play a game of numbers. Even if one person is killed on account of his race, ethnicity or religion with intention to kill others for the same reason, that is genocide.
It is impossible for the members of the Tribunal to disregard clear cut evidence of brutalisation, demonisation and dehumanisation of an entire population. It is incredible that in an age of human rights, such atrocities can continue to rage for more than 6 decades and that there are people in nations who trivialise such inhumanity. The Tribunal unanimously holds that the acts committed against the Palestinians amount to genocide over the last 67 years.
The Tribunal must however clarify that it takes note of the violations of international humanitarian law by some members of the Palestinian community. Their prosecution and guilt is a separate matter.
Was There Mens Rea?
As the Tribunal has stated earlier, the Tribunal heard 11 witnesses and examined documentary evidence that clearly indicated a long catalogue of incredible crimes conceived as long ago as 1945 and continuing till the present. What is significant is that these are not isolated acts in the heat of the moment but repeated pattern of atrocities committed against the dispossessed inhabitants of Palestine.
What is also significant is that the above culpable acts are systematically directed against the same group and by the same offender over the last 67 years. The scale of atrocities committed and their general nature indicate a clear genocidal intention.
Trial Chamber I of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia stated that the specific intent of the crime of genocide “… may be inferred from a number of facts such as the general political doctrine which gave rise to the acts possibly covered by the definition in Article IV or the repetition of destructive and discriminatory acts”. The Tribunal accepts evidence from various internationally respected social scientists among them Prof Ilan Pappe and John Pilger and Prof Noam Chomsky that the ethnic cleansing of Palestine is a world historic tragedy that is the result of deliberate State policies of succeeding governments of Israel since 1948.
The Tribunal wishes to state that the test that it employed in determining guilt was the test of “beyond reasonable doubt”.
Was it a case of Self-Defence?
The Tribunal heard significant evidence from the Amicus Curiae-Defence Team that Israeli actions of bombing, killing, maiming, other military interventions, curfews, checkpoints and “apartheid walls” were in response to continuous Palestinian terrorism.
The Tribunal agrees that there is cogent evidence of Palestinian resistance to Israeli presence, incidences of suicide bombing, and firing of crude rockets into Israeli territory by Palestinian fighters. However it is our finding that much of the Palestinian generated violence is not on Israel’s own territory, but from and on Israeli occupied Palestinian land. Much of the violence perpetrated by Palestinians is a reaction to the brutalities of the vicious racism, brutalities and genocide that is a tragic feature of Palestinian life.
Much as we condemn violence and pray for peace, it must be stated that no power on earth can douse the flame of freedom from the human spirit. As long as there is suppression, there will always be people prepared to die on their feet than to live on their knees.
We also hold that the force employed by IDF is excessive, totally disproportionate and a violation of international humanitarian law. The methods used are unspeakably inhumane and amount to war crimes.
We unanimously find the State of Israel guilty as charged.
Verdict
After considering the evidence adduced by the Prosecution and submissions by both the Prosecution and the Amicus Curiae-Defence Team on behalf of the two Defendants, the Tribunal is satisfied, beyond reasonable doubt, that the First Defendant, Amos Yaron, is guilty of Crimes Against Humanity and Genocide and the Second Defendant, the State of Israel is guilty of Genocide.
Orders
10.1 The Tribunal orders that reparations commensurate with the irreparable harm and injury, pain and suffering undergone by the Complainant War Crime Victims be paid to them. While it is constantly mindful of its stature as merely a tribunal of conscience with no real power of enforcement, this Tribunal finds that the witnesses in this case are entitled ex justitiato the payment of reparations by the two convicted parties. It is the Tribunal’s hope that armed with the Findings of this Tribunal, the witnesses (victims in this case) will, in the near future, find a state or an international judicial entity able and willing to exercise jurisdiction and to enforce the verdict of this Tribunal against the two convicted parties. The Tribunal’s award of reparations shall be submitted to the War Crimes Commission to facilitate the determination and collection of reparations by the Complainant War Crime Victims.
10.2 International Criminal Court and the United Nations, Security Council– As a tribunal of conscience, the Tribunal is fully aware that its verdict is merely declaratory in nature. We have no power of enforcement. What we can do, under Article 34 of Chapter VIII of Part 2 of the Charter is to recommend to the Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Commission, WHICH WE HEREBY DO, to submit this finding of conviction by the Tribunal, together with a record of these proceedings, to the Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, as well as the United Nations and the Security Council.
10.3 Commission’s Register of War Criminals – Further, under Article 35 of the same Chapter, this Tribunal recommends to the Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Commission that the names of the two convicted parties herein be entered and included in the Commission’s Register of War Criminals and be publicised accordingly.
10.4 The Tribunal recommends to the War Crimes Commission to give the widest international publicity to this conviction and grant of reparations, as these are universal crimes for which there is a responsibility upon nations to institute prosecutions.
10.5 The Tribunal deplores the failure of international institutions to punish the State of Israel for its crimes and its total lack of respect of International Law and the institutions of the United Nations. It urges the Commission to use all means to publicise this judgement and in particular with respect to the Parliaments and Legislative Assemblies of the major powers such as members of the G8 and to urge these countries to intervene and put an end to the colonialist and racist policies of the State of Israel and its supporters.
Conclusion
Having delivered its verdict and consequential orders, this Tribunal wishes to place on record its deep appreciation to both the Prosecution and the Amicus Curiae-Defence Teams for their efforts in ensuring that this resumed Hearing was able to be conducted in the best tradition of any Bar.
The Tribunal commends Co-Prosecutors Prof Gurdial Singh Nijar and Tan Sri Abdul Aziz Abdul Rahman and the other members of their team for their thorough preparation of their case.
The Tribunal also commends every single member of the Amicus Curiae-Defence Team for accepting their difficult assignment as friends of the court and for giving their all beyond their call of duty in the name of justice and fair play for their absent Defendants. Mr Jason Kay, Ms. Larissa Jane Cadd and Dr. Matthew Witbrodt, all of whom had addressed the Tribunal during the Hearing, meticulously presented the case for the Defendants with extraordinary fidelity even though none of them had met or had been instructed by the Defendants.
Finally, the Tribunal extends its thanks to members of the Malaysian public and other benefactors who had generously contributed to the Kuala Lumpur Foundation to Criminalise War in financing the holding of this adjourned Hearing.
*
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Notes
[1] The Kahan Report, Ariel Charon and the Sabra and Shatila Massacres in Lebanon : Responsablity Under International Criminal Law for Massacres of Civilian Populations, Linda A Malone, Utah Law Review, 373, herein after Malone
[2] Report of the Commission of Inquiry into the Events at the Refugee Camps in Beirut, herein after the Kahan Report. February 8, 1983, p.2
[3] Kahan Report. p. 16, Malone p. 402.
[4] Malone p. 381, Kahan Report p. 7.
[5] Malone p. 372, Kahan Report. P. 7
[6] Malone p. 382-383, Kahan Report p. 8
[7] Malone p. 383, Kahan Report. P. 12
[8] Malone p. 386
[9] Malone p. 432
[10] Malone pp. 387-388
[11] The Sabra and Shatila Massacre : Eye-Witness Reports, Leila Shahid, Journal of Palestinian studies.Vol 32. No. 1. p. 36 at p. 43
[12] cited in Shahid at p. 43
[13] Shahid. P. 44
[14] Malone p. 388
[15] Kahan Commission p. 81.
[16] Malone p. 392
[17] Malone page 384-385
[18] Malone page 384-385
[19] Malone pa. 385, fn 52
[20] Shahid, p. 44
[21] Shahid, pp. 40-41
[22] KLWCT Charter article 2, subsection (i)
[23] As adopted in Article 10 of the KLWCT Charter.
[24] Akayesu Trial Judgement, ICTR, para 560
[25] Krstic, ICTY, Appellate Judgment, 19 April 2004, para. 41
[26] Case Concerning Application of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. I.C. J. Decision of 26 February 2007 para. 179
[27] Prosecutor V. Dragoljub Kunarac, Radomir Kovač and Zoran Vuković, Case No. It-96-23& It-96-23/1-A, Judgement, 12 June 2002
[28] Blockburger vUnited States, 284 U.S. 299, 304 (1931) (“The applicable rule is that, where the same act or transaction constitutes a violation of two distinct statutory provisions, the test to be applied to determine whether there are two offenses or only one is whether each provision requires proof of an additional fact which the other does not.”).
[29] ^elebi}iAppeal Judgement, paras 412-13. Hereinafter referred to as the ^elebići test.
[40] M. Bassiouni, ‘International Crimes: Jus Cogens and Obligatio Erga Omnes’(1996) Law and Contemporary Problems 58(4), p.68
[41] [1976] 2 WLR 214
[42] The Convention was open for signature by all States until 17 January 2007 and would have entered into force on the thirtieth day following the date of deposit of the thirtieth instrument of ratification, acceptance, approval or accession. As of 7 May 2013, there are 28 signatories to the Convention and 13 instruments of ratification have been deposited. (According to its Article 30, the Convention requires 30 state parties in order to come into force.)
[43] Trendtex Trading Corporation Ltd v. Central Bank of Nigeria,(at p. 888)
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Today, we are at a dangerous crossroads in our history.
Nuclear war is on the table.
Politicians are unaware of the broader implications.
Say NO to nuclear war. Say Yes to humanity.
Say No to WWIII
We will be posting several important articles on the dangers of nuclear war.
Forward our articles. We are the object of extensive censorship.
Michel Chossudovsky, June 30, 2024
The interview with James Corbett was first published in 2015
***
An important transition in nuclear doctrine occurred in the immediate wake of 9/11.
The Cold War MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction) doctrine was scrapped by the Bush Jr administration in 2002, replaced by the first strike pre-emptive use of nuclear weapons as a means of self defense. (2001 Nuclear Posture Review, adopted by the US Senate in 2002).
America’s use of nuclear weapons on a first strike basis is no longer considered as a weapon of total annihilation. Quite the opposite, the preemptive use of nuclear weapons is upheld as a means to ensuring global peace and security.
In contrast to the Truman era, however, today’s US thermonuclear bombs are several hundred times more powerful (in terms of yield) than the atom bomb dropped on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945, which resulted in the death of some 100,000 people in a matter of seven seconds.
And in the US, there is a 1.2 trillion dollar nuclear weapons program in support of Donald Trump’s “fire and fury”, comparable in some regards to Truman’s diabolical 1950 narrative pertaining to the use of the atomic bomb “as a means of self defense”against both China and North Korea.
While the US has waged countless wars in what is euphemistically described as “the post war era” (1945- present), the issue of “self defense” is erroneous: in the course of the last century, the national security of the United States of America has never been threatened.
Financing the Culture of War
Trump’s 1.2 trillion dollar nuclear weapons program constitutes a financial bonanza for the defense contractors. US media reports suggest that the nuclear weapons program “makes the World safer”.
And there are more than 5000 US nuclear weapons deployed. And now the US is committed to developing a generation of “more usable” low yield tactical nuclear weapons (bunker buster bombs) which are “harmless to the surrounding civilian population because the explosion is underground”.
“Making America Great again”…
“Blowing up the Planet” on a first strike basis as a instrument of peace and global security.
Those who decide on the use of nuclear weapons believe their own lies.
The Worldwide Corona Crisis, Global Coup d’Etat Against Humanity
日本語の序文のテキスト.
Another consideration is Turkey’s rapprochement with both Russia and Iran.
According to Lehner: In the early stages of an infection
