Global Research

War is a crime. The International Criminal Court has just announced that it will finally treat it as a crime, sort-of, kind-of. But how can war’s status as a crime effectively deter the world’s leading war-maker from threatening and launching more wars, large and small? How can laws against war actually be put to use? How can the ICC’s announcement be made into something more than a pretense?

The Kellogg-Briand Pact made war a crime in 1928, and various atrocities became criminal charges at Nuremberg and Tokyo because they were constituent parts of that larger crime. The United Nations Charter maintained war as a crime, but limited it to “aggressive” war, and gave immunity to any wars launched with U.N. approval.

The International Court of Justice (ICJ) could try the United States for attacking a country if

(1) that country brought a case, and

(2) the United States agreed to the process, and

(3) the United States chose not to block any judgment by using its veto power at the U.N. Security Council.

Desirable future reforms obviously include urging all U.N. members to accept the compulsory jurisdiction of the ICJ, and eliminating the veto. But what can be done now?

The International Criminal Court (ICC) can try individuals for various “war crimes,” but has thus far tried only Africans, though for some time now it has claimed to be “investigating” U.S. crimes in Afghanistan. Although the U.S. is not a member of the ICC, Afghanistan is. Desirable future reforms obviously include urging all nations, including the United States, to join the ICC. But what can be done now?

The ICC has finally announced that it will prosecute individuals (such as the U.S. president and secretary of “defense”) for the crime of “aggression,” which is to say: war. But such wars must be launched after July 17, 2018. And those who can be prosecuted for war will be only citizens of those nations that have both joined the ICC and ratified the amendment adding jurisdiction over “aggression.” Desirable future reforms obviously include urging all nations, including the United States, to ratify the amendment on “aggression.” But what can be done now?

The only way around these restrictions, is for the U.N. Security Council to refer a case to the ICC. If that happens, then the ICC can prosecute anyone in the world for the crime of war.

This means that for the force of law to have any chance of deterring the U.S. government from threatening and launching wars, we need to persuade one or more of the fifteen nations on the U.N. Security Council to make clear that they will raise the matter for a vote. Five of those fifteen have veto power, and one of those five is the United States.

So, we also need nations of the world to proclaim that when the Security Council fails to refer the case, they will bring the matter before the U.N. General Assembly though a “Uniting for Peace” procedure in emergency session to override the veto. This is what was just done in December 2017 to overwhelmingly pass a resolution that the U.S. had vetoed, a resolution condemning the U.S. naming Jerusalem the capital of Israel.

Not only do we need to jump through each of these hoops (a commitment to a Security Council vote, and a commitment to override the veto in the General Assembly) but we need to make evident beforehand that we will be certain or likely to do so.

Therefore, World Beyond War is launching a global petition to the national governments of the world asking for their public commitment to refer any war launched by any nation to the ICC with or without the Security Council. Click here to add your name.

After all, it is not only U.S. wars that should be prosecuted as crimes, but all wars. And, in fact, it may prove necessary to prosecute junior partners of the United States in its “coalition” wars prior to prosecuting the ring leader. The problem is not one of lack of evidence, of course, but of political will. The U.K., France, Canada, Australia, or some other co-conspirator may be brought by global and internal pressure (and the ability to circumvent the U.N. Security Council) to submit to the rule of law prior to the United States doing so.

A key detail is this: how much organized murder and violent destruction constitutes a war? Is a drone strike a war? Is base expansion and a few home raids a war? How many bombs make a war? The answer should be any use of military force. But in the end, this question will be answered by public pressure. If we can inform people of it and persuade the nations of the world to refer it to trial, then it will be a war, and therefore a crime.

Here’s my New Year’s resolution: I vow to support the rule of law, that might may no longer make right.

The year 2017 has been another active year for people fighting on a wide range of fronts. The Trump administration has brought many issues that have existed for years out into the open where they are more difficult to deny – racism, colonialism, imperialism, capitalism and patriarchy and the crises they create. More people are activated and greater connections between the fronts of struggle are creating a movement of movements. These are positive developments, bright spots in difficult times. They are the seeds of transformative change that we can nurture and grow if we act with intention.

The crises we face have been building for decades. They are reaching a point of extremism that will create an even greater response by people. What that response is, where it goes and what it accomplishes are up to all of us to determine.

The overreach by the plutocrats in power may bring a boomerang effect, energizing the population to take action and demand the changes we desire and need. We may reach a moment, a turning point, when the movements for economic, racial and environmental justice, as well as peace, can win significant changes, beyond the comfort zones of those in power. The boomerang will only occur if we educate and organize for it, and its size will also depend on us.

We have no illusions that this work will be easy. Those in power will do all that they can to derail, misdirect and suppress our efforts. Our tasks are to resist their tactics and maintain our focus on our end goals. This requires understanding how social movements succeed and being clear in our demands for transformative change.

We see several key areas where people are energized to work for changes that are opportunities to expand the current movement of movements into a powerful force that will overcome the stranglehold by the corporate duopoly parties. This is the first of two articles to help prepare us for the work ahead. In the second article, we will describe these key issues in greater depth and what we need to do to create the transformative moment we need.

The Long Development of this Transformative Era

The era of transformation has been developing over many decades. If we view it through presidential administrations, a frame of reference used commonly in the United States, we see that both major parties represent the interests of the wealthy and corporations, not the majority of the population, and that they effectively divide and weaken popular movements.

After Bill Clinton’s administration loosened regulations on finance, setting the stage for the 2008 crash, brought in trade agreements like NAFTA and weakened the social safety net, and George W. Bush’s administration expanded military aggression around the world and the domestic security state, as well as further enriching the wealthy, people were hungry for change. Barack Obama effectively built his ‘hope and change’ campaign around this desire, vaguely but eloquently promising what people wanted. His words allowed people to imagine that a transformation was coming.

Obama raised expectations, but he did not fulfill them. His cabinet was made up of Wall Streeters from Citigroup. He continued and expanded foreign wars, the wealth divide grew and tens of millions went without healthcare even after his private insurance-based Affordable Care Act became law. The frustration that had been building during the Clinton-Bush years burst onto the scene with Occupy, Fight for $15, Black Lives Matter, debt resistance, immigration reform, Idle No More and other fronts of struggle.

After Occupy, the media told us the people’s struggle went away, but, as we show in the daily movement news reporting on Popular Resistance, all of those struggles expanded. The corporate media’s failure to cover the national mass protest movement does not change reality — the resistance movements continue, are growing and are impacting popular opinion and policies.

Where We Are and What We Must Do

In 2013, we wrote a two part series describing the status of the movement and what the movement must do. In the December 2013 article, Closer than We Think, we described the eight stages of social movements, an analysis by long-time civil rights and anti-nuclear activist, Bill Moyer. The movement had gone through the “Take-Off”, Stage Four of the social movement when encampments covered the country, seemingly overnight, and brought the issues of the wealth divide, racist policing, climate change, student debt and other issues to the forefront. The meme of the 99% against the 1% illustrated the conflict between people power and the power holders. We passed through Stage Five, “the Landing,” where the encampments disappeared and people asked, “What happened? Did we accomplish anything?”

Our second article in January 2014 focused on the tasks of the movement and explained that we were now in Stage Six, the final stage before victory. This is a long-term phase that could last years where the goal is to build broad national consensus of 70% to 90% support among the public for the goals of the movement and to mobilize people as effective change agents.

During this phase, the contradictions in the system become more obvious to people. For example, as the United States and world experience the harsh realities of climate change in massive storms, widespread fires, droughts and famine, the government’s response is inadequate. When Obama was president his administration was an anchor on the world, weakening international climate and trade agreements. His secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, used her influence to promote fracking. The Trump administration has gone further, denying climate change, erasing words and phrases that describe it from government reports, silencing scientists and undermining the inadequate steps made to confront climate change that were put in place in the Obama era.

The inadequate response to the climate crisis is one example of many multiple crisis situations that exist in which the government does not respond, responds inadequately or even takes actions that make these crises worse. In some cases, the power holders go too far, as we see in the recently passed tax bill, designed to protect the donor class, and in abusive police practices as the racism and violence of our society are exposed. The overreaction, in the end helps build the national consensus we need to achieve our objectives.

The contradictions arise because there are obvious solutions to each crisis we face, but those in power refuse to put them in place. National consensus for these solutions grows during this phase, and the failures of the money-dominated political system become more obvious.

As a result, a transformative moment is building now. It can be seen in the 2016 presidential campaigns where people showed frustration with both corporate parties. Electoral challenges inside the parties showed populist anger based on hundreds of millions of people struggling every day to survive in an unfair economy. Donald Trump built his campaign around economic insecurity from the right and Senator Bernie Sanders did the same from the left. Now, Trump is betraying conservative populists with economic and healthcare policies that add to their insecurity and with the wealthiest cabinet in US history, serving the interests of Wall Street, the self-interest of elected officials and adding to the distrust of the DC duopoly. The realization of Trump’s betrayal is only beginning to show itself in the lives of those who supported him.

The Democrats have been struggling to come to grips with how they lost to Donald Trump. A large part of the party is in denial, blaming their failures on the fiction of Russiagate — claiming the Russians were responsible for their loss rather than a widely-disliked candidate who represented Wall Street and war for her entire career. The Democrats continue their internal divide: the divide between Wall Street donors who want the party to serve their interests and voters who want the party to represent their interests. Invariably the Democrats will be unable to turn their backs on their donors and will nominate a fake change agent who will spout popular progressive rhetoric and dash those hopes when in office.

It is critical for us to step out of the limitations of two and four year election cycles and recognize that social transformation does not arise by electing the perceived least evil. Social transformation occurs through a people-powered movement of movements that arises over decades of struggle and shifts the political reality so that the power holders must respond.

Issues Driving the Backlash 

There will be a backlash. It will look to the Democrats like a backlash against Trump’s extremism, but it will be broader. It will be a backlash against the extremism of the corporate duopoly. Their bi-partisan policies always put the wealthy and big business interests first. The boomerang will be built on the conflict between the necessities of the people and the planet vs. the greed of the wealthy.

There are a number of fundamental issues that are priorities for large majorities of the population, around which people are mobilizing and where national consensus is developing. They have the potential to connect our movements into a powerful force.

One of our tasks is to develop clear demands so that we cannot be side-tracked by false or partial solutions. If these fundamental issues are addressed through bold and transformative solutions, they will shift the political culture and our political system in a significant way towards the people-powered future we need. They will create change at the root causes of the crises we face.

These transformative issues include economic inequality, lack of access to health care, ensuring Internet freedom and a people’s media, confronting climate change and environmental disasters, ending US Empire and militarism at home, and addressing domestic human rights abuses, whether it is exploitation of workers, mass incarceration, racism or disrespect for Indigenous sovereignty. Throughout all of these issues there is a thread of racial injustice so our struggles must not just solidify around class issues, but must also solidify around the necessity of ending systemic racism.

We will address these issues and next steps in greater depth in the first newsletter of the new year. We wish all of you a peaceful week and hope you are able to spend time with loved ones. We are committed to being with you through the struggle and to doing all we can to stop the machine and create a new world.

All images in this article are from the author.

Most people don’t understand Trump’s domestic and international intentions, believing that he and his team are “ruining everything” because they’re “hopelessly incompetent”, though the fact of the matter is that the President is an Agent of Chaos (a.k.a. “The Kraken”) and is deliberately working to undermine, tear down, and ultimately reform or outright recreate all existing institutions because he’s convinced that they no longer serve America’s interests and have instead been co-opted by its enemies, both internal and external.

“The kraken is a legendary sea monster of giant size that is said to dwell off the coasts of Norway and Greenland” (image left, source wikipedia)

It’s a common theme nowadays to read articles from people who claim to have deciphered the mindset of President Donald J. Trump, and this one admittedly falls into that category but is approaching the topic from a completely different angle. Instead of pretending that he has some kind of “master plan” that’s meticulously being implemented step by step for building a new world order, or promoting the opposite extreme that he’s hopelessly incompetent and is unwittingly making a mess out of whatever he touches, it’s better to conceptualize Trump as an Agent of Chaos – endearingly called “The Kraken” by his supporters – who’s deliberately destroying everything in his path because he no longer believes that it’s useful for his country.

The word “country” is a loaded one that could imply any given number of things and actors, but in Trump’s context it refers to the general population and the long-term strategic interests of their government that’s tasked with maintaining their established way of life. The US expanded from a collection of thirteen mostly coastal colonies to a vast mainland empire that eventually conquered the world’s oceans and replaced the UK as the world’s strongest imperial power after the Second World War. No value judgement is being expressed here, as this is just a statement of fact, but it’s crucial to understanding Trump’s mindset.

His country overextended itself so much in the economic sense, especially since the end of the Cold War, that its domestic stability is now to a large degree dependent on external factors in far-flung corners of the globe, be it the developing markets in South America that its businesses sell to, the Congolese cobalt that almost all of its modern-day electronics (both civilian and especially military) depend on, or the Mideast oil that supports the petrodollar system, among many other examples. The imperial core is thus vulnerable to disruptions in the imperial periphery, which explains why the US always militarily intervenes in the “Global South” (“Third World”).

Most of these campaigns aren’t even directly relevant to immediately preserving internal stability and the American way of life, but are instead preemptive actions predicated on scenario extrapolations, whether in trying to thwart threats before they materialize or deprive competitors of strategic advantages such as reliable access to natural resources and trade routes in order to indefinitely prolong the US’ global hegemony. This policy was encapsulated in the 1992 Wolfowitz Doctrine and has defined the US’ post-Cold War global strategy ever since, and it basically seeks to protect unipolarity due to the belief that America is the “benevolent empire” that will herald in the “end of history”.

Although entirely self-serving, the strategy is structurally sound so long as the individuals tasked with executing it stay focused on promoting America’s geopolitical and economic interests, though the transnational liberal elite that soon rose to power all across the country after the end of the Cold War were more concerned about advancing their own personal and pecuniary interests at the expense of their country’s that they were supposed to support. Other globalist cliques emerged elsewhere in the world in doing the same thing to their people, which is using them as vehicles for their own self-enrichment and power-aggrandizement schemes.

Trump firmly believes that enough is enough, and that these folks mustn’t be allowed to fleece average Americans anymore through lopsided trade deals and pro-elite policies such as “open borders”, believing that the ideological grounds on which they’re argued are completely bankrupt and devoid of any serious substance. The category of individuals that are in favor of the aforementioned and have a stake in the existing order are considered to be Trump’s internal enemies, whether they work in the US’ permanent military, intelligence, and diplomatic bureaucracies (“deep state”) or are brainwashed “Cultural Marxists” rioting in the streets after being provoked by George Soros.

On the international front, the institutions that the US built for perpetuating its power have been co-opted by its competitors as part of a judo-like strategy to turn America’s own instruments against its interests, such as how the new National Security Strategy accuses China of doing with the post-Cold War global economic framework. Trump believes that it’s only a matter of time before this trend neutralizes the US’ weaponization of these institutions, and he fears that China’s One Belt One Road (OBOR) worldwide vision of New Silk Road connectivity will soon make it an uncompetitive player in the “Global South” regions that it’s come to depend on directly and indirectly due to its imperial economic overextension.

The end result of these two interconnected trends of institutional judo and OBOR is that the US will be pushed out of the strategic positions that enable it to sustain its global dominance and preserve the American way of life, with the implication being that internal stability within the imperial core will inevitably suffer as America’s adversaries asymmetrically take revenge on it for everything that it ruthlessly did over the decades in its drive to become the world’s preeminent power. All that the US’ competitors have to do in this regard is lessen the country’s access to the power structures, resources, and markets that it’s come to irreplaceably rely on in the contemporary world order that it ironically helped to create, with domestic destabilization bound to follow with time.

Believing that the current world system no longer sufficiently advances American interests ever since Washington lost control of its institutional tools, and that the eventual outcome of this increasingly multipolar state of affairs is that the US will in turn lose its global empire, Trump has decided to become the Agent of Chaos in bringing about its destruction. The strategy behind this “revolutionary” move is to place the US in the most advantageous position for reshaping the resultant world order afterwards, hoping that this will allow it to stave off the developing threats to its unipolar position and therefore ensure its continued imperial survival via a policy that has at times been described by various sources as a global “correction” or “restructuring”.

Another way of interpreting this move is to conceptualize it as the weaponization of chaos theory to achieve global structural change by means of Hybrid Wars, with the ultimate fallback plan being for the US to retreat to “Fortress America” in the resource-rich and theoretically autarkic Western Hemisphere that it plans to completely dominate in the event that the Eastern Hemisphere becomes uncontrollably and entirely engulfed in Hobbesian warfare. Although admittedly very cynical, this model of understanding is arguably the most accurate in explaining why Trump is deliberately fanning the flames in the world’s worst hotspots like North Korea and is systematically attempting to restructure global institutions such as the UN after undermining them from within through the appointment of “renegade” individuals like Ambassador Nikki Haley.

One of chaos theory’s central tenets is that the initial conditions of an event disproportionately determine its eventual outcome, so it’s with this in mind that Trump’s team believes that they can reshape the global order to a greater extent than their rivals if they take the initiative in destabilizing it first. That said, the oft-quoted “law of unintended consequences” has thus far proven that Russia’s judo master President Vladimir Putin has expertly exploited this in Georgia, Ukraine, and Syria, taking advantage of the instability that the US deliberately created in order to advance his own country’s interests, as well as positioning Moscow as the supreme “balancing” force in the Eurasian supercontinent for countering America’s chaotic designs. Not only that, but the US has inadvertently created the conditions for its top five Great Power adversaries to come together in the new multipolar continental framework of the “Golden Circle”.

Whether it’s on the home front in reversing the post-Cold War legacy of his Clinton-Bush-Obama predecessors or the international one in dismantling the same institutions that his own country at one time helped build, Trump’s policy towards the existing state of affairs can simplistically be described as resorting to the “nuclear option” minus the mushroom cloud (at least for now). The Kraken is purposely destroying all remnants of the “old order” that he touches from NAFTA to the Jerusalem status quo in his epic quest to “Make America Great Again”, though his weaponization of chaos theory might dangerously backfire if the Chinese and Russian strategic judo masters manage to get the best of him and decisively turn the tables on the US once and for all.

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

All images in this article are from the author.

The advantages of slavery by debt over “chattel” slavery – ownership of humans as a property right – were set out in an infamous document called the Hazard Circular, reportedly circulated by British banking interests among their American banking counterparts during the American Civil War. It read in part:

Slavery is likely to be abolished by the war power and chattel slavery destroyed. This, I and my European friends are glad of, for slavery is but the owning of labor and carries with it the care of the laborers, while the European plan, led by England, is that capital shall control labor by controlling wages.

Slaves had to be housed, fed and cared for. “Free” men housed and fed themselves. For the more dangerous jobs, such as mining, Irish immigrants were used rather than black slaves, because the Irish were expendable. Free men could be kept enslaved by debt, by paying them wages that were insufficient to meet their costs of living. On how to control wages, the Hazard Circular went on:

This can be done by controlling the money. The great debt that capitalists will see to it is made out of the war, must be used as a means to control the volume of money. . . . It will not do to allow the greenback, as it is called, to circulate as money any length of time, as we cannot control that.

The government, too, had to be enslaved by debt. It could not be allowed to simply issue the money it needed to meet its budget, as Lincoln’s government did with its greenbacks (government-issued US Notes). The greenback program was terminated after the war, forcing the government to borrow from banks – banks that created the money themselves, just as the government had been doing. Only about 10% of the “banknotes” then issued by banks were actually backed by gold. The rest were effectively counterfeit. The difference between government-created and bank-created money was that the government issued it and spent it on the federal budget, creating demand and stimulating the economy. Banks issued money and lent it, at interest. More had to be paid back than was lent, keeping the supply of money tight and keeping both workers and the government in debt.

Student Debt Peonage

Slavery by debt has continued to this day, and it is particularly evident in the plight of students. Graduates leave college with a diploma and a massive debt on their backs, averaging over $37,000 in 2016. The government’s student loan portfolio now totals $1.37 trillion, making it the second highest consumer debt category behind only mortgage debt. Student debt has risen nearly 164% in 25 years, while median wages have increased only 1.6%.

Unlike mortgage debt, student debt must be paid. Students cannot just turn in their diplomas and walk away, as homeowners can with their keys. Wages, unemployment benefits, tax refunds and even Social Security checks can be tapped to ensure repayment. In 1998, Sallie Mae (the Student Loan Marketing Association) was privatized, and Congress removed the dischargeabilility of federal student debt in bankruptcy, absent exceptional circumstances. In 2005, this lender protection was extended to private student loans. Because lenders know that their debts cannot be discharged, they have little incentive to consider a student borrower’s ability to repay. Most students are granted a nearly unlimited line of credit. This, in turn, has led to skyrocketing tuition rates, since universities know the money is available to pay them; and that has created the need for students to borrow even more.

Students take on a huge debt load with the promise that their degrees will be the doorway to jobs allowing them to pay it back, but for many the jobs are not there or not sufficient to meet expenses. Today nearly one-third of borrowers have made no headway in paying down their loans five years after leaving school, although many of these borrowers are not in default. They make payments month after month consisting only of interest, while they continue to owe the full amount they borrowed. This can mean a lifetime of tribute to the lenders, while the loan is never paid off, a classic form of debt peonage to the lender class.

All of this has made student debt a very attractive asset for investors. Student loans are pooled and repackaged into student loan asset-backed securities (SLABS), similar to the notorious mortgage-backed securities through which home buyers were caught in a massive debt trap in 2008-09. The nameless, faceless investors want their payments when due, and the strict terms of the loans make it more profitable to force a default than to negotiate terms the borrower can actually meet. About 80% of SLABS are backed by government-insured loans, guaranteeing that the investors will get paid even if the borrower defaults. The onerous federal bankruptcy laws also make SLABS particularly safe and desirable investments.

But as economist Michael Hudson observes, debts that can’t be paid won’t be paid. As of  September 2017, the default rate on student debt was over 11% at public colleges and was 15.5% at private for-profit  colleges. Defaulted borrowers risk damaging their credit and their ability to borrow for such things as homes, cars, and furniture, reducing consumer demand and constraining economic growth. Massive defaults could also squeeze the federal budget, since taxpayers ultimately cover any unpaid loans.

Investing in Human Capital: Student Debt and the G.I. Bill

It hasn’t always been this way. Until the 1970s, tuition at many state colleges and universities was free or nearly free. Education was considered an obligation of the public sector, and costs were kept low.

After World War II, the federal government invested heavily in educating the 15.7 million returning American veterans. The goal of the Servicemen’s Readjustment Act of 1944, or G.I. Bill, was to facilitate their reintegration into civilian life. By far its most popular benefits were financial assistance for education and housing. Over half of G.I.s took advantage of this educational provision, with 2.2 million attending college and 5.6 million opting for vocational training. At that time there were serious shortages in student housing and faculty, but the nation’s colleges and universities expanded to meet the increased demand.

The G.I. Bill’s educational benefits helped train legions of professionals, spurring postwar economic growth. It funded the education of 450,000 engineers, 240,000 accountants, 238,000 teachers, 91,000 scientists, 67,000 doctors and 22,000 dentists, 14 future Nobel laureates, two dozen Pulitzer Prize winners, three Supreme Court justices, and three presidents of the United States. Loans enabled by the bill also boosted the housing market, raising home ownership from 44% before the war to 60% by 1956. Rather than costing the government, the G.I. Bill turned out to be one of the best investments it ever made. The legislation is estimated to have cost $50 billion in today’s dollars and to have returned $350 billion to the economy, a nearly sevenfold return.

That educational feat could be repeated today. The government could fund a public education program as Lincoln did, by simply issuing the money or having the central bank issue it as a form of “quantitative easing for people.” Infrastructure funded with government-issued US Notes in the 1860s included not only the transcontinental railroad but the system of free colleges and universities established through federal land grants.

The exponential rise in college costs occurred only after the government got into the student loan business in a big way. The Higher Education Act of 1965 was part of President Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society agenda, intended “to strengthen the educational resources of our colleges and universities and to provide financial assistance for students in postsecondary and higher education.” The Act increased federal money given to universities, created scholarships, gave low-interest loans for students, established a National Teachers Corps, and included a PLUS loan program that allowed parents of undergraduate and graduate students to borrow up to the full cost of attending college. Unfortunately, the well-intended Act had the perverse effect of driving up tuition costs. The availability of federally guaranteed loans allowed colleges and universities to raise their prices to whatever the market would bear. By the mid-1970s, tuition was rising much faster than inflation. But costs remain manageable until the late 1990s, when the federal student loan business was turned over to private banks and investors with aggressive collection practices, converting federally-guaranteed student loans from a public service into a private investor boondoggle.

Meanwhile, in many countries in Europe university tuition is still free, including Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Norway, Slovak Republic, Slovenia, Sweden and Turkey. But providing an affordable education for the next generation is evidently not a priority with our government. Only 3 percent of the federal budget is spent on education – not just for college loans but for school programs of all sorts, from kindergarten through graduate school. Compare that to the outlay for military spending, including the Veterans Affairs and other defense-related departments, which consumes over half the federal budget and is an obvious place to cut. But there are no signs that our government is moving in that direction.

What then can be done to relieve the student debt burden? Stay tuned for Part 2.

Ellen Brown is an attorney, chairman of the Public Banking Institute, and author of twelve books including Web of Debt and The Public Bank Solution. A thirteenth book titled The Coming Revolution in Banking is due out soon. Her 300+ blog articles are posted at EllenBrown.com.

This article was originally published by Truthdig.org.

There has been a recent buzz promoted around the so-called Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (Quad) – a coalition of sorts counting the United States, India, Australia, and Japan as members. Promoted by familiar corporate-financier funded policy think thanks, the Quad is being portrayed as a step past Washington’s ill-fated “pivot to Asia” to address its waning power in the region.

Understanding that the US “pivot” was meant to co-opt and coerce Southeast Asia into forming a united front aimed at containing China’s economic, diplomatic, and military rise in the region in order to preserve and perhaps even expand US primacy in Asia Pacific, helps explain why it ultimately failed, and goes far in explaining what the Quad is and why it is being so eagerly promoted.

The Pivot’s Failure and Declining American Power 

Southeast Asia, through the supranational Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) resisted attempts by Washington to realign regional policy to suit US interests at the cost of ASEAN’s growing ties with Beijing.

There were various components to the pivot including US efforts to undermine, overthrow, and replace with obedient client regimes the governments of several ASEAN states including Myanmar, Thailand, and Malaysia.

The expansion of US “soft power” across ASEAN was a part of this component, particularly through the US State Department’s ongoing long-term efforts via the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) and its “Young Southeast Asian Leaders Initiative” (YSEALI) launched in 2013.

These efforts have so-far failed, with only limited success in placing a US client regime in power in Myanmar in the form of Aung San Suu Kyi and her National League for Democracy (NLD) party.

Elsewhere – in 2014 – the US-backed government of Yingluck Shinawatra, sister of long-time US ally Thaksin Shinawatra, was ousted in a military coup. Protests in Malaysia led by the US-funded and directed “Bersih” front have yet to materialize substantial results. And in Cambodia, the government under Prime Minister Hun Sen has begun an aggressive campaign to uproot and expel the US State Department’s media and opposition fronts including the arrest of opposition leader Kem Sokha and the dissolution of his Cambodia National Rescue Party – a move that may be replicated in some form or another by other ASEAN states if successful.

Another component was a series of artificial conflicts the US manufactured and then served as mediator in resolving surrounding the ongoing South China Sea territorial dispute. ASEAN collectively refused to become involved, and even supposed claimants in the dispute – Vietnam and the Philippines – have drifted away from the hardline approach proposed by the US to confront Beijing.

At one point, the Philippines even dismissed a supposedly “international court ruling” in its favor arranged by a team of US lawyers, and instead pursued bilateral negotiations with Beijing.

The final component of America’s pivot to Asia was the proliferation of terrorism sponsored by Washington’s closest allies in the Middle East. This included a 2015 bombing in Bangkok allegedly carried out by Turkish militants and the sudden appearance and spread of the so-called “Islamic State” (ISIS) in the Philippines.

ISIS’ arrival and occupation of the southern Philippine city of Marawi was particularly “serendipitous” for US foreign policy – coming at a time when the Philippines had rebuked US involvement in the South China Sea dispute, Washington’s interference in the Philippines’ internal political affairs, and began calling for the complete removal of US military forces from its territory. ISIS’ arrival thus provided an all-too-convenient pretext for the US to not only remain in the Philippines, but to expand its footprint there.

The “Quad” Picks Up Where the Pivot Tripped and Fell 

At the heart of Asia-Pacific, America finds itself increasingly unwelcomed and increasingly resorting to confrontation in a “pivot” that was supposed to unify the region behind Washington’s regional agenda rather than against it.

To address this, Washington has moved to the absolute edges of Asia-Pacific in search of willing allies – resulting in the “Quad.” India finds itself at the very western edge, Australia to its very south, and Japan to its very east. The US itself, is in no shape, form, or way located in or adjacent to Asia save for its overseas military presence in Korea, Japan, the Philippines, and Australia – a fact that casts immediate doubts over the legitimacy of the coalition’s agenda.

Western editorials regarding the Quad make no attempt to conceal the true intentions of this US-led initiative – to contain China.

The South China Morning Post in an op-ed titled, “US, Japan, India, Australia… Is Quad the First Step to an Asian NATO?” would claim:

The new strategy to confront China head on with a unified front underscored a growing regional competition between Beijing and Washington. The Quad meeting came as the US appeared to be shifting strategic focus. As Trump was visiting East Asia, he too referred to the region as the “Indo-Pacific” rather than the “Asia-Pacific” – a clear shot at Beijing.

The Diplomat in its piece titled, “US, Japan, India, and Australia Hold Working-Level Quadrilateral Meeting on Regional Cooperation,” would note regarding the statements produced from the dialogue, that:

The Australian and the U.S. statements touched on all seven of the issues highlighted above under the aegis of a “free and open Indo-Pacific.” Japan’s statement omitted any mention of enhancing “connectivity,” which, for India and the United States, has come to mean offering an alternative vision to China’s ambitious Belt and Road Initiative.

The piece would go on to state:

Meanwhile, India’s statement on Saturday’s meeting omitted any explicit reference to freedom of navigation and overflight, respect for international law, and maritime security. Delhi has however, in various bilateral statements and declarations with each of the other quadrilateral participants, voiced support for these principles. 

Both the Indian and Japanese omissions aren’t a statement of disinterest, but rather intended to assuage concerns in Beijing that the reconvened quadrilateral will explicitly attempt to contain China.

The Diplomat would conclude by noting much work would be required to offer the rest of Asia incentives to uphold “the status quo regional architecture and a rules-based order,” (read: US primacy in the region) “versus China’s competing vision.” Considering that fact and that even among the Quad, there is an obvious disconnect between each members’ agenda and with reality in regards to containing China, Washington faces a difficult, uphill battle in doing this.

Convincing India or Australia to refuse cooperating with, benefiting from. and thus enabling China’s rise will be an increasingly difficult proposition over time. For Southeast Asia, refusing to engage constructively with China ranges from difficult to impossible. Many states in Southeast Asia have already signed agreements and are beginning construction on portions of China’s One Belt, One Road (OBOR) initiative. This includes Laos and Thailand which are constructing high speed rail lines that will ultimately connect China’s southern city of Kunming to Malaysia and Singapore through both nations.

Southeast Asia’s armed forces are also increasingly turning to China both for new hardware and for joint training exercises – two realms once dominated by the United States, but no longer.

Hammering a Quad Peg into a Round Hole 

It is clear that part of Washington’s uphill battle then will consist of destabilizing and removing from power those governments in the region overseeing joint projects with China, and placing into power governments that will either delay or abandon such projects. This goes far in explaining the uptick in overt political interference by the US, including directly through US embassies in nations like Thailand and Cambodia where opposition groups are openly sheltered and shielded by US embassy staff.

In Thailand, the US along with the EU have been pressuring the interim government to hold premature elections in hopes of returning Shinawatra to power. In Cambodia, the US and EU are threatening sanctions against the government for its moves against US-funded and directed opposition groups. And in Myanmar, the US has engineered violence on both sides of the Rohingya crisis, threatening to upend stability should joint projects with China not be abandoned.

In essence, the US plans to continue all of the activities it has pursued during its “pivot to Asia” – including political subversion, confrontation with Beijing, and even terrorism. The Quad is not an alternative for ASEAN to turn to instead of Beijing, it is an alternative for ASEAN to turn to as a means of escaping US coercion and subversion.

The Quad is a Threat to Three out of Four Members

The success or failure of nations like Cambodia, Thailand, and Myanmar in navigating around Washington’s provocations will determine the overall success or failure of Washington’s Quad initiative. And even for India, Japan, and Australia, a destabilized Southeast Asia in no way serves their best interests – whether the respective leadership of each Quad member recognizes this or not.

Genuinely constructive ties between Quad members and a stable Asia would benefit the region as a whole and provide a windfall of benefits to each respective nation. This is a point that has not gone unnoticed in Beijing or by ASEAN members. As much as Washington sees India, Australia, and Japan as a counterbalance to China, these three nations are seen as potential economic and security alternatives to Washington’s increasingly unwelcomed role in Asia Pacific.

While Washington seeks to co-opt and dash the other members of the Quad onto the rocks of confrontation with a rising China for the sake of preserving its own regional primacy, China may seek to offer a safe and calm harbor instead. Economic ties between China and Quad-member Australia are already significant with China serving as Australia’s largest trade partner.  India also does considerable business across Asia and increasingly with China.

Washington’s plans to continue interfering in the region for the sake of its own primacy may well drive the Quad to at the very least transform into a trilateral effort – seeking to cut deals with China on their own terms without compromising or setting back their own interests for the sake of Washington.

Without the Quad, the US will have to search even further for partners in its quest for Asian primacy. With the UK signaling interest in sending warships around the planet to assist the US in provoking the Chinese off their own shores, perhaps Asia-Pacific will be relabeled once again – from Indo-Pacific to Anglo-Pacific, and the Quad replaced by an Anglo-American Duo.

Tony Cartalucci is a Bangkok-based geopolitical researcher and writer, especially for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook” where this article was originally published.

Featured image is from the author.

There has been a recent buzz promoted around the so-called Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (Quad) – a coalition of sorts counting the United States, India, Australia, and Japan as members. Promoted by familiar corporate-financier funded policy think thanks, the Quad is being portrayed as a step past Washington’s ill-fated “pivot to Asia” to address its waning power in the region.

Understanding that the US “pivot” was meant to co-opt and coerce Southeast Asia into forming a united front aimed at containing China’s economic, diplomatic, and military rise in the region in order to preserve and perhaps even expand US primacy in Asia Pacific, helps explain why it ultimately failed, and goes far in explaining what the Quad is and why it is being so eagerly promoted.

The Pivot’s Failure and Declining American Power 

Southeast Asia, through the supranational Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) resisted attempts by Washington to realign regional policy to suit US interests at the cost of ASEAN’s growing ties with Beijing.

There were various components to the pivot including US efforts to undermine, overthrow, and replace with obedient client regimes the governments of several ASEAN states including Myanmar, Thailand, and Malaysia.

The expansion of US “soft power” across ASEAN was a part of this component, particularly through the US State Department’s ongoing long-term efforts via the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) and its “Young Southeast Asian Leaders Initiative” (YSEALI) launched in 2013.

These efforts have so-far failed, with only limited success in placing a US client regime in power in Myanmar in the form of Aung San Suu Kyi and her National League for Democracy (NLD) party.

Elsewhere – in 2014 – the US-backed government of Yingluck Shinawatra, sister of long-time US ally Thaksin Shinawatra, was ousted in a military coup. Protests in Malaysia led by the US-funded and directed “Bersih” front have yet to materialize substantial results. And in Cambodia, the government under Prime Minister Hun Sen has begun an aggressive campaign to uproot and expel the US State Department’s media and opposition fronts including the arrest of opposition leader Kem Sokha and the dissolution of his Cambodia National Rescue Party – a move that may be replicated in some form or another by other ASEAN states if successful.

Another component was a series of artificial conflicts the US manufactured and then served as mediator in resolving surrounding the ongoing South China Sea territorial dispute. ASEAN collectively refused to become involved, and even supposed claimants in the dispute – Vietnam and the Philippines – have drifted away from the hardline approach proposed by the US to confront Beijing.

At one point, the Philippines even dismissed a supposedly “international court ruling” in its favor arranged by a team of US lawyers, and instead pursued bilateral negotiations with Beijing.

The final component of America’s pivot to Asia was the proliferation of terrorism sponsored by Washington’s closest allies in the Middle East. This included a 2015 bombing in Bangkok allegedly carried out by Turkish militants and the sudden appearance and spread of the so-called “Islamic State” (ISIS) in the Philippines.

ISIS’ arrival and occupation of the southern Philippine city of Marawi was particularly “serendipitous” for US foreign policy – coming at a time when the Philippines had rebuked US involvement in the South China Sea dispute, Washington’s interference in the Philippines’ internal political affairs, and began calling for the complete removal of US military forces from its territory. ISIS’ arrival thus provided an all-too-convenient pretext for the US to not only remain in the Philippines, but to expand its footprint there.

The “Quad” Picks Up Where the Pivot Tripped and Fell 

At the heart of Asia-Pacific, America finds itself increasingly unwelcomed and increasingly resorting to confrontation in a “pivot” that was supposed to unify the region behind Washington’s regional agenda rather than against it.

To address this, Washington has moved to the absolute edges of Asia-Pacific in search of willing allies – resulting in the “Quad.” India finds itself at the very western edge, Australia to its very south, and Japan to its very east. The US itself, is in no shape, form, or way located in or adjacent to Asia save for its overseas military presence in Korea, Japan, the Philippines, and Australia – a fact that casts immediate doubts over the legitimacy of the coalition’s agenda.

Western editorials regarding the Quad make no attempt to conceal the true intentions of this US-led initiative – to contain China.

The South China Morning Post in an op-ed titled, “US, Japan, India, Australia… Is Quad the First Step to an Asian NATO?” would claim:

The new strategy to confront China head on with a unified front underscored a growing regional competition between Beijing and Washington. The Quad meeting came as the US appeared to be shifting strategic focus. As Trump was visiting East Asia, he too referred to the region as the “Indo-Pacific” rather than the “Asia-Pacific” – a clear shot at Beijing.

The Diplomat in its piece titled, “US, Japan, India, and Australia Hold Working-Level Quadrilateral Meeting on Regional Cooperation,” would note regarding the statements produced from the dialogue, that:

The Australian and the U.S. statements touched on all seven of the issues highlighted above under the aegis of a “free and open Indo-Pacific.” Japan’s statement omitted any mention of enhancing “connectivity,” which, for India and the United States, has come to mean offering an alternative vision to China’s ambitious Belt and Road Initiative.

The piece would go on to state:

Meanwhile, India’s statement on Saturday’s meeting omitted any explicit reference to freedom of navigation and overflight, respect for international law, and maritime security. Delhi has however, in various bilateral statements and declarations with each of the other quadrilateral participants, voiced support for these principles. 

Both the Indian and Japanese omissions aren’t a statement of disinterest, but rather intended to assuage concerns in Beijing that the reconvened quadrilateral will explicitly attempt to contain China.

The Diplomat would conclude by noting much work would be required to offer the rest of Asia incentives to uphold “the status quo regional architecture and a rules-based order,” (read: US primacy in the region) “versus China’s competing vision.” Considering that fact and that even among the Quad, there is an obvious disconnect between each members’ agenda and with reality in regards to containing China, Washington faces a difficult, uphill battle in doing this.

Convincing India or Australia to refuse cooperating with, benefiting from. and thus enabling China’s rise will be an increasingly difficult proposition over time. For Southeast Asia, refusing to engage constructively with China ranges from difficult to impossible. Many states in Southeast Asia have already signed agreements and are beginning construction on portions of China’s One Belt, One Road (OBOR) initiative. This includes Laos and Thailand which are constructing high speed rail lines that will ultimately connect China’s southern city of Kunming to Malaysia and Singapore through both nations.

Southeast Asia’s armed forces are also increasingly turning to China both for new hardware and for joint training exercises – two realms once dominated by the United States, but no longer.

Hammering a Quad Peg into a Round Hole 

It is clear that part of Washington’s uphill battle then will consist of destabilizing and removing from power those governments in the region overseeing joint projects with China, and placing into power governments that will either delay or abandon such projects. This goes far in explaining the uptick in overt political interference by the US, including directly through US embassies in nations like Thailand and Cambodia where opposition groups are openly sheltered and shielded by US embassy staff.

In Thailand, the US along with the EU have been pressuring the interim government to hold premature elections in hopes of returning Shinawatra to power. In Cambodia, the US and EU are threatening sanctions against the government for its moves against US-funded and directed opposition groups. And in Myanmar, the US has engineered violence on both sides of the Rohingya crisis, threatening to upend stability should joint projects with China not be abandoned.

In essence, the US plans to continue all of the activities it has pursued during its “pivot to Asia” – including political subversion, confrontation with Beijing, and even terrorism. The Quad is not an alternative for ASEAN to turn to instead of Beijing, it is an alternative for ASEAN to turn to as a means of escaping US coercion and subversion.

The Quad is a Threat to Three out of Four Members

The success or failure of nations like Cambodia, Thailand, and Myanmar in navigating around Washington’s provocations will determine the overall success or failure of Washington’s Quad initiative. And even for India, Japan, and Australia, a destabilized Southeast Asia in no way serves their best interests – whether the respective leadership of each Quad member recognizes this or not.

Genuinely constructive ties between Quad members and a stable Asia would benefit the region as a whole and provide a windfall of benefits to each respective nation. This is a point that has not gone unnoticed in Beijing or by ASEAN members. As much as Washington sees India, Australia, and Japan as a counterbalance to China, these three nations are seen as potential economic and security alternatives to Washington’s increasingly unwelcomed role in Asia Pacific.

While Washington seeks to co-opt and dash the other members of the Quad onto the rocks of confrontation with a rising China for the sake of preserving its own regional primacy, China may seek to offer a safe and calm harbor instead. Economic ties between China and Quad-member Australia are already significant with China serving as Australia’s largest trade partner.  India also does considerable business across Asia and increasingly with China.

Washington’s plans to continue interfering in the region for the sake of its own primacy may well drive the Quad to at the very least transform into a trilateral effort – seeking to cut deals with China on their own terms without compromising or setting back their own interests for the sake of Washington.

Without the Quad, the US will have to search even further for partners in its quest for Asian primacy. With the UK signaling interest in sending warships around the planet to assist the US in provoking the Chinese off their own shores, perhaps Asia-Pacific will be relabeled once again – from Indo-Pacific to Anglo-Pacific, and the Quad replaced by an Anglo-American Duo.

Tony Cartalucci is a Bangkok-based geopolitical researcher and writer, especially for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook” where this article was originally published.

Featured image is from the author.

Nearly one hundred and fifty years ago, Karl Marx, citing the early 19th century French economist Jean Charles Léonard de Sismondi, observed that “the Roman proletariat lived at the expense of society, while modern society lives at the expense of the proletariat.”

Never has this been so true as today, as day after day, week after week, reports are published showing the massive social wealth piled up by the financial oligarchy at the expense of the working class.

The latest of these is the Bloomberg Billionaires Index published on Friday, which showed that the fortunes of the world’s wealthiest 500 billionaires rose 23 percent over the past year, making them $1 trillion richer than at the end of 2016. The combined wealth of this group reached $5.3 trillion. The gain of $1 trillion was four times last year’s increase.

Bloomberg found that the world’s richest 500 people as a group added an average of $2.7 billion to their fortunes every day in 2017. This means that, on average, each of these individuals added $5,400,000 every day, or $225,000 every hour—roughly equivalent to the combined income of five working-class households in the US over the course of a year.

The rapid expansion of the wealth of the financial oligarchy accompanies growing indicators of social misery at the other pole of society, exemplified in the report this month by the Centers for Disease Control that life expectancy in the US fell for the second year in a row.

Wealth concentration on the scale reflected in these reports has immense social implications. It is impossible to seriously address a single social issue without confronting the problem of economic inequality. The colossal diversion of resources into private wealth accumulation by the financial oligarchy effectively starves society of the resources it needs to deal with the most basic problems.

The United Nations estimates that it would cost $30 billion a year to eradicate world hunger, a small fraction of the wealth monopolized by the world’s billionaires. Amazon founder Jeff Bezos alone added $34.2 billion to his fortune in 2017.

America’s 159 billionaires added $315 billion to their fortunes last year, giving them a collective net worth of $2 trillion. This is double the $1 trillion spent by the US government in 2015 on health care ($980 billion), education ($70 billion) and housing ($63 billion) combined.

The funneling of these vast sums into the bank accounts of the super-rich, combined with the nearly $1 trillion set aside every year to fund the military machine that protects the oligarchy’s financial interests around the world, leaves virtually nothing to address the crumbling social and physical infrastructure (roads, bridges, rail, mass transit) of the United States.

The tax bill just passed by the Trump administration will fuel a further growth of social inequality in the US and around the world beyond what are already the highest levels since the Gilded Age at the turn of the 20th century.

The economic life of the planet is determined by the drive of the ruling elite for ever greater self-enrichment. The policies of all capitalist governments and parties, whether right-wing or nominally “left,” are driven by this requirement. The unprecedented rise in the stock market has been engineered by the world’s central banks, led by the US Federal Reserve, to enable the capitalist class to recoup its losses and increase its share of wealth and income in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis. The Fed, first under Bush and then under Obama, led the way in organizing bank bailouts and the infusion of trillions into the financial markets by means of ultra-low interest rates and “quantitative easing” money-printing operations.

To provide a certain context, the total of $5.3 trillion in assets controlled by the richest 500 people is greater than the combined GDPs of the UK and France. The $2 trillion owned by US billionaires is almost twice the GDP of Mexico, a country of 128 million people. It is also more than double the combined GDPs of Argentina, Chile and Peru.

Bezos’ gain for the year is itself only slightly less than the combined GDPs of Jamaica ($14 billion), Niger ($7.5 billion) and Zimbabwe ($16 billion), with a combined population of 40 million.

The financial elite has definite social interests, which it enforces through the wholesale buying of political parties and politicians, making democracy under capitalism nothing but a hollow shell.

What would happen in response to any serious effort to reform this state of affairs, to pursue a modest reallocation of social resources, within the framework of the capitalist system, to ensure that all people received the basic rudiments of nutrition, health care, and education?

It would inevitably be met with massive and overwhelming opposition on the part of the financial oligarchy, which controls all levers of the state power, and has at its disposal not only the courts and politicians, but, even more decisively, the police and the army.

When social reform is impossible, social revolution becomes inevitable. There is no way to avoid the conclusion that it is necessary to expropriate the wealth of the financial oligarchy.

These resources are derived from the social labor of the working class, which produces all the wealth of society. The working class is the only social force that can and must carry out this historic task. The only answer to the growth of poverty and immiseration for the masses alongside ever more obscene levels of wealth for a tiny minority is socialism, based on common ownership and democratic control of the productive forces and the rational, planned international coordination of economic life.

Ignoring the avalanche of evidence that prior sanctions on the DPRK are causing a devastating humanitarian crisis for the people of North Korea, especially the most vulnerable, on December 22, despite warnings of the catastrophic consequences to the people, the UN Security Council passed a new set of sanctions so draconian and inhumane that they must be compared to Hitler’s Nuremberg laws.

In quintessentially bad faith, many of these Security Council diplomats who voted “yes” professed ignorance of the human suffering their prior sanctions were inflicting, or are wantonly indifferent to the human agony their votes for these new sanctions make inevitable.

In view of the collapse of the DPRK’s socialist economic system these sanctions are intended to provoke, the ultimate question remains why China and Russia failed to veto these sanctions, while they have the power to prevent this catastrophe. What “arrangements” were made? Has the U.S. juggernaut succeeded in inducing the short-sighted submission of Russia and China, who must certainly anticipate the horrific results of a collapse of the DPRK, which will lead to the complete destabilization of the Eurasian continent, a permanent American military presence, and probably nuclear war. Surely Russia must remember that Gorbachev was assured by U.S. Secretary of State James Baker, that, in return for the Soviet Union’s agreement to the reunification of Germany,

“NATO will not expand one inch east of Berlin.”

Today Russia is surrounded by NATO bases. Was Gorbachev gullible or treacherous? Russians frequently suspect the latter.

All five permanent members of the Security Council are themselves are in gross violation of Article 6 of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which requires their divesting their military arsenals of nuclear weapons; they are, instead, investing trillions of dollars in upgrading “nukes.” Article 6 of the NPT requires their negotiating, in good faith, a treaty to abolish nuclear weapons,; this United Nations treaty was adopted this year, ignored by Russia and China, and opposed by the US, UK and France in a virulent campaign. The US is also violating article 1 of the NPT, placing nuclear weapons in 5 NATO countries: these 5 countries, including Italy, the Netherlands, Turkey, and Germany are in violation of Article 2 of the NPT. In violation of the NPT, themselves, the Permanent 5 members of the Security Council have absolutely no right to condemn the DPRK, which is not even a party to the NPT.

United Nations Security Council resolution 2397 dooms the UN to a legacy of destruction of stable, progressive independent nations including Iraq, Libya, and now the DPRK.

Prior to the adoption of resolution, 2397, the UN Human Rights Commissioner revealed that the tough sanctions already imposed on the DPRK are obstructing delivery of desperately needed humanitarian aid. As a result, 70% of the population, 18 million North Koreans suffer from acute food shortages. Sanctions obstructing international bank transfers are blocking UN ground operations, preventing delivery of food, medical equipment and other humanitarian aid.

According to AFP:

“’Aid groups are facing hurdles to clear customs for goods destined for North Korea, to ensure procurement and transport of aid supplies, as well as rising food prices that have shot up 160% since April,’ said UN Assistant Secretary-General Miroslav Jenca.”

On December 9, NBC news reported:

“The Trump administration’s primary North Korea strategy would do little to curb the country’s nuclear program, and could trigger a famine, according to experts. The White House is urging China to turn off oil supplies to the 25 million Koreans…many analysts say such a move would have minimal impact on North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs, and would instead hit the country’s agricultural sector, potentially leading to mass starvation.”

Dr. David Von Hippel, a senior adviser at the Nautilus Institute for Security and Sustainability warned the results of an oil embargo could have a catastrophic impact on a humanitarian level.

“An oil cutoff would drastically reduce the amount of domestically grown food available to the civilian population….What arable land there is the DPRK farms intensively. They rely on tractors, irrigation pumps, refrigerators and transportation trucks to harvest and distribute food before it rots….even the current level of sanctions imposed in September (Resolution 2375) will impoverish North Korea’s breadbasket.”

On October 25 UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in the DPRK, Tomas Quintana stated that he was

“alarmed by reports that sanctions may have prevented cancer patients from access to chemotherapy…the shipment of wheelchairs and essential equipment for persons with disabilities is now constrained…humanitarian actors are facing difficulties to source much-needed supplies and carry out international financial transactions.”

Following his return from Pyongyang, UN Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs, Jeffrey Feltman stated:

“What I was concerned about was the reduction in programs for the DPRK. The program is only 30 percent funded. It’s having a large impact on how the UN can deliver on its humanitarian programs. I was concerned about the overall lack of funding…which affects the UN’s ability to deliver life-saving equipment on the ground.”

This humanitarian disaster is neither accidental nor coincidental. All this information was publicly available to all 15 members of the Security Council prior to December 22, when they inflicted even more deadly sanctions on the people of North Korea. The Security Council is an accessory to these crimes. Though they boast, irresponsibly, that the sanctions contain “humanitarian exemption,” how do they explain the alarming failure to implement these “humanitarian exemptions,” and the fact that the tragic victims of these criminal and fatal sanctions are the majority of the people of North Korea?

The damning answer is revealed in the investigation of the failure of “humanitarian aid” in the case of sanctions against Iraq, which resulted in another humanitarian catastrophe, including the death from starvation of more than half a million Iraqi children. In a brilliant work of investigative journalism by Joy Gordon, entitled “Cool War: Economic Sanctions as a Weapon of Mass Destruction,” (Published in Harper’s, 2002) Ms. Gordon States:

“News of Iraqi fatalities has been well documented (by the United Nations, among others), though underreported by the media. What has remained invisible, however, is any documentation of how and by whom such a death toll has been justified for so long…..But I soon learned that all U.N. records that could answer my questions were kept from public scrutiny. This is not to say that the UN is lacking in public documents related to the Iraq program. What is unavailable are the documents that show how the U.S. policy agenda has determined the outcome of humanitarian and security judgments…The operation of Iraq sanctions involves numerous agencies within the United Nations…These agencies have been careful not to publicly discuss their ongoing frustration with the manner in which the program is operated…Over the last three years, through research and interviews with diplomats I have acquired many of the key confidential UN documents concerning the administration of Iraq sanctions. I obtained these documents on the condition that my sources remain anonymous. What they show is that the United States has fought aggressively throughout the last decade to purposefully minimize the humanitarian goods that enter the country. And it has done so in the face of enormous human suffering, including massive increases in child mortality and widespread epidemics…what is less well known is that the government of Saddam Hussein had invested heavily in health, education, and social programs for two decades prior to the Persian Gulf War of 1991. Iraq was a rapidly developing country with free education, ample electricity, modernized agriculture and a robust middle class.”

The diplomats who heedlessly refer to failed “humanitarian exemptions” to these DPRK sanctions are privy to the facts excavated by Joy Gordon, and published in Harpers, and these diplomats are aware of the actual cause of the failure of “humanitarian aid.” This failure is the deliberate, premeditated killing of innocent North Koreans, and that is the purpose of these sanctions, which do not , in fact, affect the nuclear program. In any civilized, responsible organization, the perpetrators of these sanctions would be convicted of premeditated murder.

North Korea is not an aggressor: they fought successfully against brutal Japanese colonization, and were then provoked into defending themselves from guerrilla attacks by U.S. client Syngman Rhee’s army, in 1949, which violated the 38 parallel to attack North Korea, the provocation that ignited the Korean War of 1950-1953. Today, the US, South Korea and Japan are imperiling the survival of North Korea with their incessant military threats.

In the 1950-1953 U.S. led UN attack of North Korea, more than 3-4 million North Koreans were murdered by carpet-bombing, napalm, germ warfare and other weapons of mass destruction. These figures are confirmed by US General Curtis LeMay, and numerous others involved in perpetrating this massacre of North Koreans. As traumatic memories of the slaughter of 1 million Armenians by the Turks over 100 years ago still fester within the lives of today’s Armenians, as Hitler’s genocide of 6 million Jews 70 years ago cannot be forgotten by today’s Jews, so the massacre of more than three million North Koreans by a US controlled UN army can never be forgotten by North Korea, whose government is determined to protect North Korea from a repetition of this horror. And the only weapon that might deter the United States from another attempt to totally destroy the last remaining socialist country is their nuclear weapon, which might require the US to think twice before another attack.

Thus, an alternative method of slaughter, UN Security Council Resolution 2397, despite alarming warnings of catastrophic humanitarian consequences , ruthlessly cuts 90 percent of oil supplies to the DPRK; the resolution demands that 150,000 North Koreans working in other countries must be expelled, and have their jobs eliminated within 24 months, exacerbating the impoverishment of North Korea; in addition to other restrictions, and together with a large number of previous travel bans against individuals crucial to the economic sector of the DPRK, Resolution 2397 includes further travel bans against 15 key members of the economic sector, and foreign trade representatives.

Ambassador Han Tae Song, at the UN in Geneva earlier stated:

“It is obvious that the aim of the sanctions is to overthrow the system of my country by isolating and stifling it and to intentionally bring about humanitarian disaster instead of preventing weapons development as claimed by the U.S. and its followers.”

On December 7 it was reported that South Korea will spend almost $1,000,000.00 to purchase drones and grenade machine guns, for a “Decapitation Unit” to murder Kim Jong UN. This, of course is not only criminal homicide, it is in violation of international law. On December 10 Reuters reported that Japan, the US and South Korea will hold additional military drills, immediately following the December 4 US- South Korea large-scale military drills held the prior week. This is an incessant military threat to the survival of the people and government of North Korea, and an intolerable provocation. On December 17 South Korean and U.S. forces conducted a joint military plan to invade North Korea, ostensibly to “remove weapons of mass destruction.” This “Warrior Strike” military exercise was held at Camp Stanley, north of Seoul, near the 38 parallel. US commander of Forces Korea Vincent Brooks, and Lt. General Thomas Vandal were present at the “Warrior Strike” military drills.

By November 28, the government of the DPRK had not tested anything for almost three months. Instead of attempting peaceful negotiations in this stable atmosphere, as required by all Security Council Resolutions, the US, on the contrary, escalated its military threats against North Korea, with a series of deadly military drills. It is therefore preposterous that U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson stated on December 15 that North Korea must “earn” the right to negotiations. North Korea had conspicuously halted any testing for almost three months prior, and instead of seizing the opportunity to establish negotiations for peace, the US aggressively increased military threats.

The DPRK Foreign Ministry called US President Trump’s national security strategy

“the most recent American policy seeking to stifle our country and turn the entire Korean peninsula into an outpost of American hegemony…Trump is seeking total subordination of the whole world.”

UN Security Council Resolution 2397 will be fatal to North Korea’s economy. It will destroy the majority of the people, but have little or no impact on weapons development.

Finally, it is revealing that on December 4 the UN General Assembly adopted a resolution on the “Prohibition of the development and manufacture of new types of weapons of mass destruction and new systems of such weapons: report of the Conference on Disarmament”. The DPRK voted “Yes” in support of this resolution. The U.S. voted “No,” in opposition. Again, on the General Assembly resolution on the “Promotion of multilateralism in the area of disarmament and non-proliferation” the DPRK voted “Yes,” in support of this resolution, while the U.S. voted “No” in opposition. It is obvious which country is a threat to world peace: it is not the DPRK.

It is freezing in New York today. If an 90% oil cutoff were imposed on the United States, a huge number of civilians would freeze to death. The winter in North Korea is even colder. Resolution 2397 will condemn the people of North Korea to excruciating deaths. Ironically, December 22 is the United Nations “Holocaust Remembrance Day.” It is shameful that on December 22 the United Nations Security Council voted to inflict the Twenty –First Century’s Holocaust upon the people of North Korea. With the passage of Resolution 2397, the United Nations Security Council has become an instrument of barbarism and terror.

Carla Stea is Global Research’s Correspondent at United Nations headquarters, New York.

Featured image is from Zobiyen TV.

Condemning all measures aimed at altering the demographic composition, character and status of the Palestinian Territory occupied since 1967, including East Jerusalem, including, inter alia, the construction and expansion of settlements, transfer of Israeli settlers, confiscation of land, demolition of homes and displacement of Palestinian civilians, in violation of international humanitarian law and relevant resolutions.

United Nations Security Council Resolution 2334 was adopted on 23 December 2016. It concerns the Israeli settlements in “Palestinian territories occupied since 1967, including East Jerusalem”. The resolution passed in a 14–0 vote by members of the U.N. Security Council (UNSC). Four members with United Nations Security Council veto power, China, France, Russia, and the United Kingdom, voted for the resolution, but the United States abstained.

The resolution states that Israel’s settlement activity constitutes a “flagrant violation” of international law and has “no legal validity”. It demands that Israel stop such activity and fulfill its obligations as an occupying power under the Fourth Geneva Convention.

It was the first UNSC resolution to pass regarding Israel and the Palestine territories since 2009, and the first to address the issue of Israeli settlements with such specificity since Resolution 465 in 1980.

While the resolution did not include any sanction or coercive measure and was adopted under the non-binding Chapter VI of the United Nations Charter, Israeli newspaper Haaretz stated it “may have serious ramifications for Israel in general and specifically for the settlement enterprise” in the medium-to-long term.

The immediate effect is to place the state of Israel outside the International Community of Nations as confirmed by the UN General Assembly last week.

The General Assembly voted overwhelmingly during a rare emergency meeting 21 December 2017 to ask nations not to establish diplomatic missions in the historic city of Jerusalem, as delegates warned that the recent decision by the United States to do so risked igniting a religious war across the already turbulent Middle East and even beyond.

By a recorded vote of 128 in favour to 9 against, with 35 abstentions, the Assembly adopted the resolution “Status of Jerusalem”, by which it declared “null and void” any actions intended to alter Jerusalem’s character, status or demographic composition. Calling on all States to refrain from establishing embassies in the Holy City, it also demanded that they comply with all relevant Security Council resolutions and work to reverse the “negative trends” imperilling a two‑State resolution of the Israeli‑Palestinian conflict.

UNSCR 2334 confirms the territorial rights of Palestinians including the status of East Jerusalem and is endorsed by 128 major nations of the world.

Israel ignores this international condemnation at its own cost.

The December 21 election (21-D) reconfirmed the absolute majority of pro-independence members in the Catalan Parlement. It marked the political defeat of article 155, although that article and its consequences are still in force. On the other hand, the “unionist” bloc, favouring the “union” under the Spanish state and defending the latter’s implementation of article 155, emerged stronger and more aggressive. Ciudadanos (C’s) obtained the largest number of votes and deputies, and furthered its hegemony within this bloc.

The pro-independence majority bloc, winning the most votes and seats, legitimates the struggle for the Catalan Republic and the result of the October 1 referendum. However, the lack of strategic clarity continues. The October 27 unilateral declaration of independence revealed that the strategy of the pro-independence majority was inapplicable. But no steps were taken in practice to re-examine its orientation. And some of the proposals advanced indicate a disquieting direction.

The independentist majority in the previous Parlament (JuntsxCat, led by Carles Puidgemont; ERC, led by Oriol Junqueras; and the Popular Unity Candidacy, or CUP) was re-elected, but with a loss of two seats (70 vs. 72). Its percentage total remained virtually the same (47.49% vs. 47.74% in 2015) albeit with a much higher participation by voters (close to 82% of the eligible electorate). And the number of votes on December 21 was a slight increase from the number registered in the October 1 referendum and in the previous “plebiscitary” election [called by then President Artur Mas] on September 27, 2014 (respectively 2,063,361 vs. 2,044,038 and 1,897,274), but in a context in which a further 245,000 valid votes were cast.

The relation of forces within the independentist bloc was appreciably altered, but not fundamentally. Puigdemont managed to retain his leadership thanks to a greater autonomy vis-a- vis the PDeCat (Catalan European Democratic Party). The ERC (Catalan Republican Left) almost equalled the results of JuntsxCat, but did not manage to exceed them, as most of the opinion polls had predicted, which would have meant that the moderate left would have won a majority within the bloc and with Oriol Junqueras as the new President.

But the major change was the setback to the anticapitalist pro-independence party, the CUP, which lost more than 140,000 votes and 6 of its previous 10 deputies. This means it will play a much less decisive role in the new Parlement than it did previously, when it was able to influence the policy of the independentist bloc and the election of its President.

Catalunya en Comú-Podem [a coalition of five formations: Catalunya en Comú, Podem, Barcelona en Comú, Iniciativa per Catalunya Verds and Esquerra Unida i Alternativa], which is to continue characterizing itself as a left-wing sovereigntist force [defending Catalonia’s right to self-determination but not independence] notwithstanding its electoral campaign, lost close to 43,000 votes and 3 deputies. It obtained 323,695 votes and 8 deputies, less than its predecessor coalition Catalunya Sí Que es Pot did in 2015 (366,494 votes and 11 deputies) and ICV/EUiA [Initiativa per Catalunya Verds – Esquerra Unida i Alternativa] did in 2012 (359,705 votes and 13 deputies).

The unionist and pro-article 155 parties were unable to prevent the victory of the independentist movement. However, they did come very close to their previous results in votes (174,000 less) and percentage (4% less) but with a greater difference in seats (13). This means that Catalonia is divided into two major blocs: an independentist one, with an influence shared between the neoliberal centre and the moderate left; and a “unionist” one, defender of the anti-democratic article 155 and hegemonized by the neoliberal right. The left that fights for a clean break is a tiny minority within the pro-independence bloc and the weakened Catalunya en Comú-Podem cannot be included in either of the two blocs.

C’s is the largely hegemonic force in the unionist bloc and a supporter of article 155: it increased its votes by 367,000 and won 12 more deputies than it had in 2015. Its results were particularly strong in Barcelonés [the administrative region in which Barcelona is the centre], Vallés [the region with Caldas de Montbui as the historic capital], and Tarragonés [the province of Terragon]. C’s now dominate in what was previously the red belt of the PSC [Partit dels Socialistes de Catalunya, the Catalan counterpart of Spain’s social-democratic PSOE] and the ICV.

A very large share of C’s increased vote comes from the collapse of the PP [Partido Popular, the party of Spanish prime minister Mariano Rajoy], which lost 164,000 votes and 8 deputies. But probably most important is the fact that C’s managed to mobilize many who traditionally abstained from voting.

The defeat of the PP, the party that obtained the least votes and the least seats, is certainly good news and Rajoy will probably pay the price, given that he was unable to defeat the independentist bloc and destroyed his party in Catalonia. Moreover, he reinforced the party that is contesting his hegemony throughout the Spanish state.

Miquel Iceta [first secretary of the Catalan Socialist party] placed in third position on the PSC list Ramón Espadaler [former secretary of the Unió Democràtica de Catalunya, a Christian party, and now with the Convergència i Unió-CiU, a centrist party] together with some people from the Societat Civil Catalana or the Tercera Via [Third Way]. He tried to present himself as the supporter of an acceptable article 155. Thus he said he would ask for amnesty for the political prisoners. But he drew back when the unionist bloc turned on him. The results of all these maneuvers were modest; he increased his score by 80,000 votes and one deputy.

Breakdown of the number of seats (escaños) in the Parlement won by the respective parties under Catalonia’s proportional representation electoral system.

In short, the December 21 results shoSome implications for the Catalan leftuld allow the selection of a pro-independence government, with Puigdemont, who headed the independentist list with the most votes, as President. The ERC has already explained that this was their proposal. But it remains to be seen how the difficulties resulting from Puigdemont’s exile and the charges issued by the Supreme Court can be overcome. The court continues to expand the list of the people being prosecuted for rebellion, with the addition now of Artur Mas, Marta Pascal, Marta Rovira, Anna Gabriel and Neus Lloveras.

In fact, the most urgent task after the elections continues to be the effective withdrawal of article 155 and of all its consequences, in particular the freeing of the political prisoners, the return of the exiles and the staying of the trials. The yellow ties campaign must be boosted anew.

Secondly, we must specify how to advance toward the conquest of the independent Catalan Republic. The December 21 elections have once again highlighted the principal problem: how to go far beyond the two million votes, how to increase the social support for the republic, particularly among the towns and cities of the regions of Barcelona, the two Vallés, Tarragon, etc. The election campaign did not help to respond to this question and instead sowed some major doubts about the validity of the unilateral actions, as I explained in a previous article.

The discussion of what has failed and what must be rectified in the strategy of the majority separatist current is still pending. But it is more needed than ever if we are to avoid getting ahead of ourselves through improvisation or unjustified retreats.

***

Some implications for the Catalan left

by Richard Fidler

The breakdown of the election result in Barcelona, the Catalan metropolis, illustrates the challenge facing the progressive pro-independence and pro-sovereignty forces.

Source: La Vanguardia

The right-wing neoliberal and anti-independence Ciutadans (Citizens, or C’s) emerged on December 21 as the strongest party in the city, as it did in the surrounding area. This is the proletarian heart of Catalonia, with a very large population of immigrants from other parts of Spain (especially Andalucía, a much poorer region in the South) and from abroad, largely from north Africa and the eastern Mediterranean.

In Catalonia itself, native Catalans are now a minority, just under 50% of the total population. To be successful, the campaign for an independent Catalan Republic must win the support of many non-Catalan workers, especially in Barcelona. And this requires that the question of independence must be built around a comprehensive program of opposition to capitalist austerity and the prospect of forming a progressive government that can work together with Catalonia’s powerful grassroots social movements to strengthen working-class and popular organization, win major social reforms, and make serious inroads on capitalist property and prerogatives.

This challenge centres on the party that municipally is dominant in Barcelona, the Commons (Barcelona en Comú), headed by the city’s mayor Ada Colau, a former social housing rights activist. Her administration is known for its progressive policies and openness to immigration and immigrant rights. It has supported greater autonomy (“sovereignty”) for Catalonia, while not itself supporting independence, and it defended the Catalan government’s democratic right to hold the October 1 referendum. However, as Marti Caussa mentions, its attempt to build a pan-Catalan political force in alliance with the Catalan counterpart of Spain’s left-wing Podemos made no advance on December 21, isolated as it was in the polarization between the pro- and anti-independence blocs.

Anticapitalist militant Esther Vivas noted in her analysis of the Barcelona results:

“The Commons result must be related to a more general dynamic of bad news for the left forces. Two right-wing parties, Ciutadans and Junts per Catalunya, received the most votes. The ERC came second to Puigdemont and the CUP suffered a serious setback. The double defeat of the Commons and the CUP will reduce the alternative voices. This fact must be taken into account. Although these two forces do not relate to each other, they are the only ones that are situated outside of orthodox economic policies.”

As Vivas indicates, the CUP faces a challenge, too. In my opinion, it would be well advised to give further thought to how it can differentiate itself from the pro-capitalist independentist parties and build its links with the popular movements around a clear anticapitalist program that addresses the social needs and demands of the population that is not native Catalan.

That message may have been diluted somewhat by compromises imposed by the CUP’s parliamentary support of the Puigdemont government, although the party was not in the government. This support was conditioned by the government’s commitment to organize and hold a referendum on Catalan independence.

For example, earlier this year the CUP made a deal with Puigdemont and the ERC to give them sufficient votes on their pro-austerity budget to allow passage of the budget and keep the government in office, provided it went ahead with plans to hold the referendum this year. Under this arrangement, two CUP deputies voted with the government while the other eight deputies abstained to indicate the party’s underlying opposition to the budget.

While this voting tactic, and the CUP’s critical support of the pro-independence government, can be defended on tactical grounds, the unresolved problem — which proved critical on October 1 and in the following days — was that the government had no strategy capable of mobilizing sufficient support for independence and resisting the Madrid government’s repressive campaign to prevent both the popular vote and a declaration of independence. This left the political initiative to Madrid, and while the independence movement, with its pro-austerity majority, has survived it has been unable to advance since then.

The CUP and Québec solidaire have forged strong links, as illustrated at the recent QS congress. But Québec solidaire may soon face some analogous issues, now that it has fused with Option nationale and is preparing to resume its participation in the pro-sovereignty coalition Oui-Québec with the neoliberal Parti québécois and other ostensibly pro-independence forces.

***

Marti Caussa is an editor of Viento Sur. This article was originally published in the Catalan language. Translated by Richard Fidler.

Featured image: General of the Army Valery Gerasimov (Source: Wikimedia Commons)

US special operations troops are secretly harboring and training former fighters of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) at the remote American base in Al Tanf, Syria near the strategic nexus of the country’s borders with Iraq and Jordan, according to a report issued by the Russian military command.

The charge was made Wednesday by General of the Army Valery Gerasimov, chief of the Russian military’s general staff and deputy defense minister. He said that Russian drones and satellites had detected brigades of ISIS militants in and around both Al Tanf and another US military base near the Kurdish-controlled city of Al-Shaddadi in the country’s northeast.

“They are in reality being trained there,” Gerasimov said in an interview with the Russian daily Komsomolskaya Pravda. “They are practically Islamic State,” he added. “But after they are worked with, they change their spots and take on another name. Their task is to destabilize the situation.”

The Islamist fighters, he indicated, are being re-branded as the “New Syrian Army.”

According to the estimates of the Russian general staff, there are some 750 of the militants at the Shaddadi base, and roughly another 350 in Al-Tanf.

There was no immediate response from the Pentagon, which in the past has routinely denied charges of US collaboration with ISIS. In the waning days of the brutal US siege of the Syrian city of Raqqa, the so-called capital of ISIS, however, incontrovertible evidence emerged that Washington and its proxy ground force, the Kurdish-dominated Syrian Democratic Forces, intervened to rescue and relocate ISIS fighters trapped in the city.

The BBC documented the fact that the Pentagon and its Syrian Kurdish proxies organized a four-mile-long convoy to evacuate thousands of ISIS fighters, along with tons of weapons, ammunition and explosives from Raqqa last October.

The report was confirmed by the former official spokesman of the Syrian Democratic Forces, Talal Silo, who defected to Turkey in October. He told the media that some 4,000 people were driven out of the city, all but about 500 of them armed ISIS fighters.

Silo also charged that the same kind of operation had been carried out during the earlier sieges of Manbij in northern Aleppo province and Al Tabqah on the Euphrates River, where thousands of other ISIS fighters had been allowed to leave with their weapons and ammunition.

The American strategy was not, as repeatedly proclaimed by top US officials, to “annihilate” ISIS, but rather to turn it against Syrian army troops in order to prevent the government from reclaiming strategic territory, including the oil fields of Deir Ezzor province and the eastern border with Iraq, where Washington is attempting to carve out a zone of control.

The charges from Russia are entirely consistent with these earlier reports and serve as another damning exposure of the so-called “war on terrorism” that has been invoked as the rationale for US imperialism’s current intervention in Iraq and Syria, as well as its earlier wars in the region.

ISIS was itself a byproduct of Washington’s interventions in the Middle East, serving as both an instrument of and a pretext for American military aggression aimed at asserting US imperialist dominance over the oil-rich region.

The report of US forces training the ex-ISIS militants for deployment as a new anti-government militia in Syria constitutes one more indication that Washington is preparing a new and far more dangerous phase of its military intervention in the war-ravaged country.

In one sense, US strategy is coming full circle back to where it started, with the CIA’s fomenting of a war for regime change through the arming, funding and training of Al Qaeda-linked Islamist militias directed at toppling the government of President Bashar al-Assad and installing a more pliant US puppet regime.

These militias, however, were routed, thanks to not only the military support given by Russia and Iran to Assad’s forces, but also the overwhelming popular rejection of the socially and politically reactionary Islamist elements backed by Washington, the other Western powers, as well as Saudi Arabia and the other Gulf oil sheikdoms, Turkey and Israel.

The attempt to launch a war for regime change 2.0 is conceivable only on the basis of a far more direct and massive US military intervention in the country.

The governments of both Iraq and Syria have declared victory in the campaign against ISIS. The Pentagon itself told the Reuters news agency Wednesday that fewer than 1,000 ISIS fighters remained in both countries.

The US military refused to respond to a question from Reuters on whether some ISIS fighters could have escaped to other countries, saying that it would not “engage in public speculation.” In reality, the US military and intelligence apparatus knows full well where these fighters are and is reorganizing and retraining them.

Despite this supposed victory in the war on ISIS, Washington has given no indication that it intends to reduce its troop levels in either Iraq or Syria.

Russia, meanwhile, has announced the renewal of its agreements with the Syrian government on what it terms “permanent deployment bases” at the Mediterranean port of Tartus and at the airfield and command-and-control center in Hmeymim. Moscow has indicated that it intends to expand its Tartus naval base to accommodate a fleet of 11 warships, including nuclear-powered vessels and missile-armed destroyers.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Wednesday that with the defeat of ISIS, “the main anti-terrorist objective” was now the eradication of the Al Nusra Front, the Islamist militia formed as the Syrian affiliate of Al Qaeda. With its main forces now concentrated in northwestern Idlib province, Al Nusra operates in close alliance with the so-called rebels armed and funded by the CIA and Washington’s regional allies, and has been the principal beneficiary of the vast quantities of arms they have funneled into the country.

The shift toward a “post-ISIS” strategy in Syria places US imperialism ever more directly on a collision course with both Iran and Russia. From the beginning, Washington’s strategic objective, masked by the “war on terror” pretext, has been to exert military force as a means of countering Russian and Iranian influence, which it views as the principal obstacle to the assertion of US hegemony in the region.

The increasing threat of a direct military confrontation between the world’s two largest nuclear powers has been underscored by recent reports from both Washington and Moscow of alleged close encounters and provocative confrontations between US and Russian warplanes in the skies over Syria’s Euphrates River valley.

At the same time, the Trump administration has elaborated a vociferously anti-Iranian policy based on the forging of an alliance between the US, Saudi Arabia and its fellow Sunni oil monarchies and Israel. Saudi Arabia has repeatedly charged Tehran with carrying out “acts of war” based on unsubstantiated allegations of Iran arming Yemen’s Houthi rebels with missiles fired at the kingdom. For its part, Israel has warned that it will intervene militarily to prevent the creation of Iranian bases in Syria.

As US imperialism moves toward another escalation in Syria, with the threat of it mushrooming into a regional and even global war, the victims of the so-called anti-ISIS campaign continue to mount. Hundreds of thousands of refugees who were forced to flee and saw their homes bombed into rubble in both the Iraqi city of Mosul and the Syrian city of Raqqa are now facing near freezing cold along with the lack of adequate food and medical care, leading to new deaths.

A report last week by the Associated Press, based on data collected by the morgues and grave diggers of Mosul, indicated that the known toll in civilian lives resulting from the US “liberation” of the Iraqi city last July is approximately 11,000. This figure—10 times the civilian death toll acknowledged by the Pentagon—does not include many bodies still buried under the rubble.

Last July, Patrick Cockburn, the veteran Middle East correspondent of the British Independent, reported that Iraq’s former foreign minister Hoshyar Zebari had been informed by the intelligence service of Iraq’s Kurdistan Regional Government that the real death toll in Mosul was over 40,000.

That figure, like the latest reports of US protection and training for former ISIS fighters, was largely blacked out by the US corporate media, which faithfully covers up Washington’s war crimes.

Featured image: “Government officials should follow the leads of lawmakers like Sen. Chris Murphy and Rep. Ted Lieu and speak out frequently and loudly to mobilize public opposition to a potential war.” (Source: Richard Engel/Twitter)

President Bill Clinton’s greatest regret was his failure to respond to the Rwandan genocide. He estimated that U.S. intervention could have saved 300,000 lives. 

The Vietnam War was former Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara’s biggest regret. He wrote an entire book to explain why he was “terribly wrong.”

Former Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, Sen. Tom Harkin, and Sen. Walter Jones have all said that they deeply regret authorizing the war in Iraq. Jones once lamented,

“I helped kill 4,000 Americans, and I will go to my grave regretting that.”

In each case, government leaders regretted their complicity in hundreds of thousands of deaths. In each case, they had chosen to prioritize politics above ethics. Today’s political leaders are about to make the same mistake.

We are now on the verge of another unnecessary war — this time with North Korea — and it is likely to wreak more havoc than Vietnam, Iraq and Rwanda combined.

Top nuclear security expert Scott Sagan warns that the risk of war is far higher than during the Cuban Missile Crisis, and predicts that one million people could die on the first day – a figure that exceeds the death toll of the entire Rwandan genocide. Even more worryingly, Russia and China are making military preparations, suggesting that a Korean war could quickly escalate into a world war.

Despite this horrific scenario, President Trump continues to ratchet up tensions by issuing bombastic threats and overseeing provocative military exercises. He is increasingly keen to launch a “preventative” strike, and there are multiple indications that he plans to do so within the next three months unless North Korea agrees to denuclearize. At the same time, he is forbidding diplomacy, blocking any possibility of a peaceful solution to the crisis.

Put simply, war could be inevitable if Trump remains in power. Government leaders therefore have an ethical obligation to remove him from office before he fulfills his dream of using nuclear weapons.

Impeachment, however, is no longer a viable solution- the impeachment process takes several months, whereas Trump is reportedly looking to drop the first bomb by March.

Congress or Trump’s Cabinet will therefore need to invoke the 25th Amendment, which would immediately suspend Trump’s presidential authority on the grounds that he is “unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office.” While the amendment can be invoked on political grounds alone, Trump’s behavior suggests he has a cognitive inability to do his job: Neurologists warn that Trump is displaying symptoms of dementia, while prominent psychiatrists have argued that Trump’s particular brand of mental instability poses a grave risk to national security.

There are, however, measures short of dethroning Trump that would be helpful. Congress could pass legislation such as the Preventing Preemptive War in North Korea Act, the Restricting First Use of Nuclear Weapons Act or the No First Use Bill. All three bills would constrain the President — be it Trump or any of his successors — from unilaterally launching a pre-emptive nuclear strike. Congress has yet to prioritize any of these bills, and they have all remained at a standstill since they were introduced.

Finally, government officials should follow the leads of lawmakers like Sen. Chris Murphy and Rep. Ted Lieu and speak out frequently and loudly to mobilize public opposition to a potential war.

Political leaders who muster the courage to act may be taking a political risk, but they will save themselves from the prospect of spending the rest of their lives wondering if they could have prevented a historic tragedy.

Lisa Fuller spent the past eight years as a senior staff member and a civilian peacekeeper at Nonviolent Peaceforce, working in war zones such as Iraq, South Sudan and Sri Lanka.

Featured image: Veterans For Peace rally in Washington, less than a month after 9/11. (Source: Elvert Barnes/Flickr)

“Imagine there’s no heaven…and no religion too.”

A more useful line when it comes to our current wars may be “Imagine there’s no duopoly.” It’s hard to fault John Lennon for his idealism, of course. In his day, many blamed religion on the wars of history. But a much bigger obstacle right now, at least in the U.S., is partisanship. The two major political parties, in power and out, have been so co-opted by the war machine that any modern anti-war movement has been completely subsumed and marginalized—even as American troops and killer drones continue to operate in or near combat zones all over the world.

Aside from the very early days of the Iraq war, the anti-war movement has been a small, ineffectual pinprick on the post-9/11 landscape. A less generous assessment is that it’s been a bust. After liberals helped elect the “anti-war” Barack Obama, the movement all but disappeared, even though the wars did not. By putting a Nobel Peace Prize-winning Democratic face on his inherited wars, Obama expanded into new conflicts (Libya, Syria, Yemen) with little resistance, ultimately bombing seven different countries during his tenure. By 2013, Code Pink founder Medea Benjamin lamented, “We’ve been protesting Obama’s foreign policy for years now, but we can’t get the same numbers because the people who would’ve been yelling and screaming about this stuff under Bush are quiet under Obama.”

It’s easy to blame the military-industrial complex, the corporate media, and the greed and malleability of politicians. But what about the anti-war movement itself? Why has it failed so miserably, and can it revive as President Donald Trump continues the wars of his predecessors and threatens new ones?

The rallies and protests in the early 2000s attracted significant numbers but they were weighed down by far-left organizations like the Workers World Party, which brought with them myriad other issues beyond war like global warming and poverty. There was also long-held and fairly broad skepticism about the intentions of United For Peace and Justice (UFPJ) and the A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition, which organized most of the big protests over the last 17 years. This was due to the “big tent” affiliations of some of their steering committee members, which critics say led to a dilution of the message and drove the anti-war movement further from the mainstream.

Perhaps the movement’s biggest weakness was that it shied away from directly attacking its own—the liberal Democrats who voted for the war in Congress.

In a sense, Democrats did emerge as the de facto anti-war party during the Iraq war, but that was only because a Republican—George W. Bush—was commander-in-chief. And what of the Democrats who voted for the war and continued to fund it? Out of 77 senators who supported the resolution authorizing military force against Iraq in 2002, 20 are still in office and roughly half are Democrats, while out of the 296 votes in favor in the House, 90 are still in office and 57 of them are Democrats. Some of them, like Harry Reid and Chuck Schumer, went on to become party leaders. Two others, John Kerry and Hillary Clinton, went on to become secretaries of state and their party’s nominees for president in 2004 and 2016 respectively. All went on to support new military interventions and regime changes, albeit under a new, liberal interventionist, Democratic banner.

Conversely, steadfast non-interventionist Democrat Dennis Kucinich, who voted against the resolution, failed badly in both his 2004 and 2008 attempts at his party’s presidential nomination. Bottom line: Support for the war was hardly a deal-breaker for voters, any more than opposition to it was a dealmaker.

Reaction to war is just a microcosm of the political landscape, a manifestation of partisan-driven, short-term memory. Sure there might have been momentary disapproval, but when it came time to decide whether supporters of the war stayed or went, the sins of one’s party leaders meant very little in the zero-sum game of electoral politics. Parties outside the duopoly be damned.

The same thing happened to the anti-war right, as the Ron Paul movement took off in 2008 with an immense level of grassroots energy. One of the singular successes of his movement was the ability to reach people on an intellectual and practical level about the folly of our foreign interventions and the waste, fraud, and abuse of tax dollars. Paul didn’t shy from criticizing his own party’s leaders and actions. He explained the Federal Reserve’s relationship to the monetary costs of war.

Ultimately, media blackouts and distortion of Paul’s message (for example, conflating his non-interventionist foreign policy views with “isolationism”) helped kill his campaign. After Paul’s 2008 defeat, conservative political activists seized upon the Texas congressman’s libertarian-leaning revolutionary momentum and channeled it into the Tea Party—while leaving the non-interventionist impulses behind. By 2011, national coordinator Jenny Beth Martin acknowledged,

“On foreign policy probably the majority [of Tea Party Patriots] are more like [hawks] Michele Bachmann or Newt Gingrich.”

And don’t underestimate how the escalation of drone warfare during the Obama presidency muted the anti-war effort. Drone attacks made fewer headlines because they supposedly caused less collateral damage and kept U.S. troops out of harm’s way, which was portrayed by administration officials and the war establishment in Washington as progress.

What the drone program did, in essence, was to create the illusion of “less war.” Nevertheless, studies showing an increase of terrorism since the beginning of the “war on terror” indicate precisely the opposite: Civilian drone deaths (not always reported) create more enemies, meaning more of our troops will be put in harm’s way eventually.

So where should the anti-war movement go from here? Perhaps it should begin by tempering its far-left impulses and embracing its allies on the right who have been made to feel unwelcome. They could take a lesson from right-leaning places like Antiwar.com and TAC that have long been open to writers and activists on the left.

Meanwhile, flying “Resist Trump” signs at rallies not only misses the mark by suggesting that our needless wars aren’t a bipartisan, systemic problem, but creates a non-inclusive atmosphere for anti-war Trump voters. Ironically, not much “resistance” was heard when Democrats recently helped pass Trump’s $700 billion 2018 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) and failed to repeal the original post-9/11 Authorization for Use of Military Force, as was advocated for by Senator Rand Paul this year.

In addition, the few on the anti-war left who oppose war based on pacifist or religious reasons need to acknowledge that the majority of Americans believe in a strong national defense as outlined in the Constitution. Most people are willing to accept that there’s a big difference between that and the terrible waste and tragedy that comes with waging unnecessary wars overseas.

They are also averse to their lawmakers doing favors for special interests. Focusing on the money and influence that giant defense contractors like Lockheed Martin and Boeing have on Capitol Hill—essentially making war a business—makes the anti-war point by raising the issue of crony capitalism and the cozy relationship between politicians and big business, which increasingly leaves the American public out of the equation.

These corporations, along with Raytheon and Northrop Grumman, have accounted for $42 million in contributions to congressional candidates since 2009, with $12 million in the 2016 cycle alone. The majority of these funds have targeted Armed Services Committee members, such as perennial war hawk John McCain. In addition, influential neoconservative think tanks have received millions in grants over the years from “philanthropic” organizations such as the Bradley Foundation and the Olin Foundation, which have corporate backgrounds in the defense industry. The conservative Heritage Foundation is reportedly considering the vice president of Lockheed as its new president.

Furthermore, mantras and slogans like, “you’re either with us or against us” and “support our troops” have been used as powerful psy-ops to create a false dichotomy: you either support the war policy or you’re not patriotic. Debunking this by pointing out how these wars profit the elite while serving as a pipeline that puts more American military servicemembers—often from working-class backgrounds—into harm’s way should appeal to the current populist spirit on both sides of the political fence. In fact, it could begin to draw new, disenchanted voters into the movement.

Americans today are tired of war, which is good, for now. Unfortunately, without a strong anti-war movement, there won’t be much resistance when the next “big threat” comes along. The two major parties have proven to be false friends when it comes to opposing war—they only do it when it suits them politically. Moving beyond them and becoming stronger with allies and numbers—imagine, there’s no parties—is the best way to build a real opposition.

Daniel Martin is an anti-war activist, musician, and rock journalist from Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Follow him on Twitter @MartysInvasion.

After the 9/11 attacks, Congress and the Bush administration pretended that unlimited federal spending was one of the best ways to thwart terrorist threats. In 2002, Congress created the Homeland Security Department (DHS), sweeping some of the most inept federal agencies, such as the Secret Service and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), into the new mega-department. Congress also created numerous programs — some run directly by FEMA — to shovel out more than $30 billion in anti-terrorism funding to local and state governments.

As Sen. Tom Coburn (R–Okla.) observed a few years ago,

“FEMA’s lax guidelines and oversight made the agency a virtual rubberstamp for most anything that grant recipients creatively justified as related to homeland security — regardless of how loosely related.”

Louisiana Homeland Security grant recipients spent $2,400 for a lapel microphone and $2,700 for a teleprompter. Fort Worth, Texas, spent $24,000 of a federal anti-terrorism grant on a latrine-on-wheels. Other Texas local governments spent Homeland Security grants on “a hog catcher for Liberty County, body bags, garbage bags, Ziploc bags and two 2011 Camaros at $31,000 apiece,” as a Senate report revealed.

DHS approved a Michigan police department’s spending $6,200 of its grant on 13 sno-cone machines. The Senate report noted that local officials “defended the sno-cone purchases saying the machines were needed to treat heat-related emergencies.” DHS also asserted that the machines were “dual purpose” because they “could be used to fill ice packs in an emergency.”

The Jacksonville Urban Area Security Initiative used a DHS grant to produce an 8-minute film entitled “Domestic Terrorism: The First Line of Defense.” The film urged viewers to report any suspicious activity and to be especially wary of people are “alone or nervous” or people “of average or above average intelligence” (unlike the people who made the film). People were also told to be on the lookout for residents who displayed “increased frequency of prayer or religious behavior.” As a Techdirt analysis pointed out,

“Broadly defined ‘suspicious behavior’ is a great way to make every citizen a suspect … and justify every violation of personal privacy. If you need warrantless wiretaps or a reason to indefinitely detain U.S. citizens, all you have to do is start listing everyday activity as ‘suspicious.’”

Anti-terrorism funding has proven to be a boon for the travel industry. Many DHS grant recipients paid to send their employees to the HALO Counter-Terrorism Summit in 2012, which took place at the Paradise Point Resort & Spa on an island near San Diego. Invitees were told that

“this luxury resort features over 460 guestrooms, five pools, three fantastic restaurants overlooking the bay, a world-class spa and state-of-the-art fitness center. Paradise awaits.”

The highlight of the conference was a “zombie apocalypse” show featuring “40 actors dressed as zombies getting gunned down by a military tactical unit…. Conference attendees were invited to watch the shows as part of their education in emergency response training,” as a Senate investigation reported. This type of federally subsidized mass-shooting rehearsal did not spur any protests from anti-gun groups.

DHS handouts make state and local law-enforcement agencies more intrusive and punitive. DHS has given a number of grants to purchase license-plate readers for police patrol cars. One California urban area spent $6 million on the readers, which were used to detect vehicles with “excessive traffic violations.” Two years ago, DHS solicited proposals for private companies to create a national database on license-plate data that could disclose exactly when and where citizens drive. The subsequent firestorm caused DHS to temporarily back off from its proposal but it was rolled out again in 2015.

Maryland used federal Homeland Security grants to equip hundreds of police cars with license-plate scanners that create almost 100 million records per year detailing exactly where and when each vehicle travels. The grants also paid for stationary cameras that recorded license plates passing on nearby roads. The massive databank, which mortifies the ACLU, has been almost a total failure at nailing violent criminals or car thieves or terrorists. Instead, almost all the license-plate alerts involve scofflaws who failed to take their cars in for mandatory vehicle-emissions tests.

Local governments and agencies in the Chicago area spent $45 million in Homeland Security grants to set up a network of surveillance cameras known as “Project Shield.” The system was justified as an anti-terrorist measure but was shut down after it was recognized as a boondoggle. A Chicago Tribune editorial derided the program as “Project Sieve.” Some of its equipment failed to function in hot or cold weather. Almost 20 percent of the equipment was misplaced or stolen. Idiotic decisions were made in where to place the surveillance cameras — in police-station lobbies for example. Congressman Michael Quigley (D–Ill.) denounced Project Shield as “corruption which makes us less safe.”

After the heavy-handed police response to protests in Ferguson, Missouri, in August 2014, Barack Obama publicly fretted about the militarization of police. But many of the worst abuses have long been funded by DHS. A Senate report noted,

“‘Militarized’ vehicles and bomb detection robots top the list of ‘must have’ equipment being purchased by law enforcement teams around the country.”

Many police departments use DHS grants to purchase the same type of armored personnel carriers used by the U.S. military. The most popular model is the BearCat — an acronym for Ballistic Engineered Armored Response Counter Attack Truck. The Keene, New Hampshire, police department justified using federal funds to purchase a BearCat because of rowdiness at a local pumpkin festival. An Arizona police department used a BearCat to carry out a raid on a cockfight organizer. A police department in Washington state used its BearCat to “pull over drunk drivers.” The Clovis, California, Police Department displayed its BearCat at a local Easter egg hunt. A Senate report noted, “Police departments rave about the vehicles’ ‘shock and awe’ effect saying the vehicles’ menacing presence can be enough of a deterrent for would-be criminals.” Unfortunately, there is no way to deter police departments from spending federal dollars to intimidate local taxpayers.

Police departments are also using DHS grants to buy drones to conduct surveillance over their entire domains. As the Senate report explained,

“Given the proliferation of military drones used in war operations, local police now want similar equipment in their arsenal of crime-fighting tools.”

Senator Coburn warned,

“The deployment of these types of surveillance machines raises important questions about American citizens’ constitutional rights and the appropriate balance between improving security and freedom. Federal, state, and local policymakers must carefully consider whether new law-enforcement tools and strategies protect freedom or threaten civil liberties.”

But few members of Congress have shown any interest in reining in federally funded abuses.

Federal grant money is enabling local police to buy other military-style devices. As a Senate report noted,

“Long-Range Acoustic Device (LRAD) machines were originally developed for use by the military as a nonlethal way to repel adversaries, including Iraqi insurgents or pirates, by making a loud and intense sound that is capable of damaging hearing.”

Pittsburgh used $88,000 of DHS grant money to buy a “long-range acoustic device” and used it on protesters at a 2009 international summit in Pittsburgh, leading to at least one lawsuit from a victim claiming permanent loss of hearing.

Federal anti-terrorism grants are also spurring pointless intrusions around the nation. The Washington, D.C., subway system has been plagued by high-profile violent attacks by riders (as well as horrendous service which occasionally kills passengers). The feds’ solution? Special grants of $10 million or more per year to bankroll police to accost travelers before they enter the subway system and search their purse, briefcase, backpack, or whatever. Metro officials insisted that the searches were no big deal because they would be very brief — unless, of course, police found a reason to arrest someone or detain him for questioning. Police rely on hand-held explosive-detection devices which are well known to be ludicrously inaccurate (and can be triggered by hand sanitizer or soap). A Washington Postreporter noted that “many of those transit commuters still have the option of traveling by car, where their property is likely to be safe from police search as long as they don’t commit a crime, a distinction no longer available to Metro riders.” The police search teams are not deployed in response to any credible threat; instead, they are simply sent out to establish police presence. This is akin to the “security theater” that TSA has made famous. But news that police conduct warrantless searches of passengers entering subway stops quickly spreads on social media. If someone wants to avoid the hassle (or the discovery of the nuclear bomb in his suitcase), he merely needs to go to a different metro station a mile or two away.

Federal anti-terrorism grants have been a great political success regardless of pervasive waste, fraud, and abuse. As author and New York Times reporter James Risen (who was targeted for years by both the Bush and Obama Justice Department for national-security leaks he received) observed, the “homeland security–industrial complex” has been a windfall for Washington. Politicians have “learned that keeping the terrorist threat alive provides enormous political benefits…. A decade of fear-mongering has brought power and wealth to those who have been the most skillful at hyping the terrorism threat,” enhancing the “financial well-being of countless federal bureaucrats, contractors, subcontractors, consultant, analysis and pundits.”

The Trump administration has proposed curtailing some anti-terrorism grants to state and local governments but it remains to be seen whether Congress gets on board. What does the United States have to show for tens of billions of dollars of Homeland Security antiterrorism spending by local and state governments? Michael Sheehan, former New York City deputy commissioner for counterterrorism, observed,

“I firmly believe that those huge budget increases have not significantly contributed to our post–9/11 security.”

But the war on terrorism has been an unmitigated victory for Leviathan and politicians at every level of government.

James Bovard is the author of Attention Deficit Democracy, The Bush Betrayal, Terrorism and Tyranny, and other books. Bovard is on the USA Today Board of Contributors. He is on Twitter at @jimbovard. His website is at www.jimbovard.com  This essay was originally published by Future of Freedom Foundation.

Featured image is from the author.

The United States said Wednesday it had carried out a new drone strike in Somalia, killing 13 extremist al-Shabab militants, bringing the number of drone strikes on the country to 34 this year, more than double the number the previous year.

The Africa U.S. command said that its drone strike took place Sunday and was in coordination with the Somalian government.

Since President Donald Trump took office in January the United States has ramped up operations in Somalia after his administration loosened the rules of engagement in March.

Al-Shabab was blamed for the October truck bombing in Somalia’s capital, Mogadishu, that killed 512 people. Only a few attacks since 9/11 have left a higher death toll.

The U.S. military has been also carrying out drone strikes in other part of the Middle East, most notably in Yemen, where Saudi Arabia is also engaged in a military intervention against the Houthi rebel government.

President Trump’s announcement that the US now recognises Jerusalem as the Israeli capital has sent shock waves across, not only in the Middle East, but throughout the world.

Obviously the decision is cause for a major concern, as apart from throwing a spanner to the peace process, it is feared to unleash a new wave of violence across the region.

Apart from contravening the international laws upheld by the United Nations through its numerous resolutions since 1968, Trump has intentionally or otherwise affirmed the widespread suspicions that that US is a “dishonest broker”.

Trump’s contentions that recognising Jerusalem as the capital of Israel reflects historical and current realities is a blatant lie.

Under international laws and consistent with the UN charter, Jerusalem is an occupied territory. It was occupied during the 1967 war, and alongside the West Bank’s Palestinian territories, it has been under brutal Israeli subjugation and oppression since.

Any recognition of Israel’s sovereignty over these territories is a mockery of the international legal system.

Trump’s announcement is also a reversal of nearly seven decades of American foreign policy. It also undermined one of the tenets spelt out in the 1993 Oslo Accord in which the US does not recognise Jerusalem, a sacred city to the three Abrahamaic religions – Islam, Christianity and Judaism – as the Israeli capital.

Prior to this, since 2015, the Israelis have ignored international outcry and made irreversible inroads into the Al-Quds holy sanctuary with access being denied to a large proportion of Muslim worshippers. Some 80 Israeli settlers lost no time in striding around the Holy Sanctuary yesterday, escorted by the Israeli security forces.

The White House has also chosen to reject calls by major world and religious leaders to rescind the decision.

Pope Francis felt compelled to break silence and urged Trump to respect the status quo on Jerusalem. That too seems to have no effect.

President Trump’s announcement is unacceptable from any viewpoint and I urge him to realise the danger he had placed the whole region and the rest of the world from his insensible and ill-advised decision.

My hope and prayers are that his decision will be rescinded by the next President of the United States.

 

Dr. Mahathir Bin Mohamad

Perdana Global Peace Foundation

It has been all very ugly, aggressive and often distinctly vulgar: the way the British Foreign Secretary has behaved before and during his official visit to Moscow.

Mr. Johnson described Russia as “closed, nasty, militaristic and anti-democratic” concluding that it could not be “business as usual”.

He did not define what the UK has become, and the Russian hosts were too polite to explain.

The “business as usual” it was not.

During the last few weeks, the behavior patterns of both the UK and US have began increasingly to resemble those of the badly brought up leadership of the provincial Italian mafia: “You do as we tell you, or we’ll poke out your eyes… or break your leg… or perhaps we’ll kidnap your daughter”.

Screenshot of The Independent, December 22, 2017

It appears that there is absolutely no shame left in Washington, in London, and in several other ‘provincial capitals’ of the Empire. Insults are piling on insults and then shot to all corners of the globe. Lies are being spread barefacedly, and bizarre deceptions and fabrications have been manufactured with impressive speed.

It is clear that the Empire is now missing its composure, its nerve; that it is scared of losing its control over the world and its monopoly on deciding what should be universally accepted as the truth.

The more the world realizes that it has been controlled and brutalized by shameless neo-colonialist gangsters, the more the Empire says, indirectly but sometimes even straight into the faces of the international community: “Our interests are what really matter! You will behave and obey, or we will smash you to pieces, starve you to death, invade you and bathe your land in blood”.

It is nothing new, of course: the West has been doing all this for many decades and centuries. Hundreds of millions of Asians, Africans, South Americans, Middle Easterners and Russians lost their lives in the process. All non-white continents were occupied, plundered and enslaved; all, without a single exception. But it was always done “for the good of the victims”, or “in order to protect them” (most likely from themselves).

The Brits were at the forefront of the art of manipulating the brains of their ‘subjects’. Their propaganda used to be refined, effective, some would even say ‘brilliant’. For decades after the end of the Second World War, they used to teach its offspring in North America and Australia, how to lie elegantly and how to convince even those nations that were being barbarically raped, that they were actually being rescued, pampered and made love to, gently and respectfully.

Now the masks have fallen off, and the ugly, gangrenous face of imperialism has been clearly exposed. Britain is simply not in the mood for refinements. It is brutal. It was always brutal. Now it is also, finally, honest.

It is all absolutely frightening, but it is also good, truly significant, that the West is suddenly behaving with such clarity.

*

What is it that Mr. Johnson is accusing Russia of? Of liberating Syria from those Western, Saudi, and Qatari backed terrorist groups? What else could be expected from the Foreign Secretary of the country that had been, for long centuries, the mightiest, ruthless and the most deceptive colonialist empire in the history of the mankind?Mr. Johnson is definitely not going to thank the liberator of the oppressed people, is it?

In his open letter to Boris Johnson, the British writer and journalist Neil Clark wrote:

“In April you canceled your planned visit to Moscow and traveled to the G7 talks instead, where you urged other countries to consider fresh sanctions against Russia (and Syria), saying that Vladimir Putin was “toxifying his image” by backing Assad.

But if Russia hadn’t supported the Syrian government, ISIS/Al-Qaeda affiliates would probably have taken control of the whole country. Is that what you wanted?”

Of course it was! More chaos, the better!

The UK has been playing appalling, truly Machiavellian games all over the Middle East, and it has been doing it for centuries – in Palestine, in what is now Iraq and Kuwait, and in many other areas. To borrow from the colorful lexicon of the Prime Minister Lloyd George, it was reserving rights “to bomb those niggers”, to bomb them and to fry them alive, to rob them of everything, even of the land itself. The UK, together with their close friends and allies such as Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab, managed to manufacture the most conservative branch of Islam, just in order to keep the local population in fear and submission to its commercial and colonialist interests.

The country responsible for hundreds of millions of dead, for tens of millions of human beings who have been hunted down like animals and shipped to America as slaves, has been reserving the right to judge the world, to decide what is ‘free’ and what is not, what is ‘democratic’ and what is dictatorial, what is true and what is false or even ‘fake’.

‘Fake news’ – the latest invention of the crumbling, paranoid Western regime!

Now the Empire is hunting down almost all ‘alternative media’ outlets, including the highly successful and informative RT (Russia Today) international television channel. It is important to remember and to understand: only the official Western channels and press agencies are allowed to spread indoctrinational over the world. To broadcast or to print ‘counter-propaganda’ (or call it an intellectual detox) is considered an arch crime, and punished as such. The RT is now portrayed as a hive of ‘agents’, at least in both Washington and London.

*

As the Syrian city of Aleppo was celebrating its first anniversary of liberation, grateful citizens were carrying, in reverent silence, portraits of Russian soldiers who spilled their blood for the liberation of their nation.

The Syrian people know, they clearly understand, who ignited the war, and who came to their rescue.

Boris Johnson can insult Russia as much as he desires, but one thing he cannot deny: there are no men, women and children carrying portraits of British soldiers, be it in Iraq or Afghanistan, in Syria, Libya or Yemen.

In Yemen, the UK talks peace but manufactures bombs that are enriching the already deadly Saudi arsenal of weapons, used to terrorize, and to murder thousands of defenseless Yemeni civilians.

Lavrov meets Johnson in Moscow (Source: RT News)

Russian Foreign Secretary Sergei Lavrov said nothing about the crimes against humanity that are being committed by British troops in several parts of the world.I believe that he should have said something, that he should have said a lot, but Mr. Lavrov is a seasoned diplomat, and he knows perfectly well what is appropriate, what is effective and what is counter-productive.

*

Yes, the Empire is evidently in panic.

It is scared of everything: of public opinion all over the world, of the great Chinese new Silk Road initiative which is gaining great popularity all over the Asian continent, of the Sino-Russian alliance, of the silent rebellion in the ranks of its former allies, particularly in Asia, of the undeniably increasing economic might of its adversaries, of the new ‘alternative media’, and even of its own tail lost somewhere in the darkness.

For many years, one effective way for the Empire to control the world was to spread dark cynicism and nihilism, in order to ‘pacify’, to immobilize its colonies and even its own people living in Europe and North America. Now this strategy is backfiring: British and North American citizens are not only passive and unwilling to fight for the internationalist and left wing ideals, they are also unimpressed, even disgusted with their own rulers and regime. Yes, most of them are cynical about such countries like Russia, China or Venezuela, but they are also cynical about the corporatism, capitalism, as well as Western domestic and foreign policy. They are not willing to commit to anything. They trust nothing. They believe in very few things.

For the Empire, people like Boris Johnson are extremely useful buffoons: they offer cheap entertainment to the masses, and they deliver it with impeccable upper-class English accents (the BBC-style). They play it dirty, trying to smear, to humiliate their opponents. They try to bring back pride to their imperialist and white supremacist regime, by humiliating the victims, who are now finally standing on their feet and ready to fight for the right to be different.

People like Mr. Johnson turn reality upside down, and it is all done ‘spontaneously’, with a boyish, almost innocent grin. Except that there is actually absolutely nothing innocent in this entire charade. It is all perfectly choreographed, all extremely professional.

*

The Empire is rotting and it is in agony. It panics. It fights for its life.

Peace is dangerous. If the world is at peace, it is indisputable that the Western Empire would lose, in no time. It would be defeated on social, moral, creative and even economic fronts.

That is why the Empire is spreading chaos, fear, war, perpetual conflicts and antagonism everywhere, all over the world: in Syria and Afghanistan, Libya, in all corners of Africa and parts of Southeast Asia, in Iran, Central and South America, even in the tiniest countries of Oceania.

It is challenging, provoking North Korea, it is insulting countries that have already suffered more than enough from Western terror and barbarism; countries like Russia, China and Iran.

It threatens those nations (and even some international organizations like UNESCO) that are supporting Palestine.

It essentially bullies all those who want to live their own lives, their own cultures, and their own economic and social systems. It punishes those countries that are refusing to plunder their own people and resources in order to support the high-life of the Western nations. It overthrows governments, and murders individuals.

*

In Moscow, the British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson made a fool of himself. He did! With his unmistakable spineless jellyfish style, he tried but failed to humiliate the nation, which, for several centuries fought determinedly against Western imperialism and colonialism, and, on numerous occasions has already managed to save the world.

Mr. Johnson applied an old and rather disgusting approach: he came to Russia with spite and superiority complex, ready to preach, to insult, to scold those white-looking but essentially Asian people – to ‘show them their place’.

But this is 2017 now, not 1990. London is not the center of the universe, anymore, just the capital of a confused and rather aggressive and increasingly badly behaved nation.

The British bulldog came to Moscow. Frankly, it did not even look like a bulldog, anymore – it looked totally… weird: stoned and mentally unbalanced. It barked and barked, while the Russian bear was calm, maintaining its composure. It was clear who of the two has the upper hand, and who is provoking and who is refusing to fight. It was also obvious who of the two is really scared.

And, it was so apparent to whom belongs the past and to whom belongs the future!

*

Andre Vltchek is a philosopher, novelist, filmmaker and investigative journalist. He has covered wars and conflicts in dozens of countries. Three of his latest books are his tribute to “The Great October Socialist Revolution” a revolutionary novel “Aurora” and a bestselling work of political non-fiction: “Exposing Lies Of The Empire”. View his other books here. Watch Rwanda Gambit, his groundbreaking documentary about Rwanda and DRCongo and his film/dialogue with Noam Chomsky “On Western Terrorism”. Vltchek presently resides in East Asia and the Middle East, and continues to work around the world. He can be reached through his website and his Twitter.

This article was originally published by New Eastern Outlook.

Featured image: Yvonne Ridley [right] with Mohammed Shofique, 11 year old Rohingya refugee currently residing at the Thainkhali Camp in Bangladesh

Millions of children around the world will wake up on Christmas Day and rip open their presents and parcels with an enthusiasm that only a child can display. The sparkle in their eyes will speak volumes to their parents and family. It’s an expression of undiluted happiness repeated across the Muslim world at the time of Eid. Even a humble date or the smallest act of kindness can bring joy to a child’s face.

I genuinely don’t know, though, if Mohammed Shofique will ever smile again after being exposed to a wickedness and evil that nobody, especially a child, should ever experience. The 11-year-old gave me a glimpse of his wretched world, and as I looked into his deep, brown eyes he shared with me a story of horror and pain which will remain with me forever.

In all my years as a journalist walking through the killing fields of Palestine, Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon and Pakistan, to name but a few, I have never experienced a story like the one young Rohingya Mohammed shared with me.

The little boy spoke in a slow, deliberate monotone. He had a story to tell, but in a camp of more than 670,000 refugees, it is difficult for anyone, let alone a child, to have his voice heard. I am blessed to have been given this opportunity not only to hear what he had to say, but also to listen.

As we talked through a translator, someone asked me if I had sought his parent’s permission to speak to him. It was a well-meaning intervention; I shook my head, and could barely respond, because Mohammed no longer has any parents. They were slaughtered along with most of his family in an orgy of killing by the monsters of Myanmar who tore through his village in Tulatuli, Maungdaw, with their guns, machetes and swords.

His home is now a small room of plastic and bamboo pulled together in Thainkhali Camp, one of the many that stretches over a vast area in Bangladesh near the Myanmar border. It is a far cry from the home that he shared with his father Noor Islam, 42, and his mother Hamida Khatu, 35, his five brothers and his sister Taslima.

“I can’t remember the date or the day it happened,” he told me, but it was morning, maybe around 9am.

He remembers fleeing from his home with the rest of his family as the brutal Myanmar forces fired randomly at anything and everything that moved in Tulatuli. The attack was sudden and unexpected.

Mohammed’s mother pushed 15 month old Arkan Ulla into his brother’s arms and as they ran for their lives they were separated from the rest of the family. They ended up being corralled in a field by the soldiers, along with many other villagers. As the boy stood there bewildered, hugging his little brother, gunfire crackled through the air and a number of men standing nearby fell to the ground.

“Among those who fell I recognised two of my uncles, Mohamed and Abdul Malik,” he told me.

I asked him if he could remember anything else and he told me how a “pious, religious old man” had stood fearlessly as the carnage was played out in the field.

“The soldiers pointed their guns at him and the triggers jammed. They couldn’t shoot him and it was as though something was protecting him. The soldiers got angry and one went up with a long sword and cut him down.”

He died, added the boy in a monotone.

Mohammed didn’t fidget while he spoke to me, as children often do; he stood there, rigid, as if still in shock, while more horrifying details poured from his mouth. It was as though he needed to download the memories of that awful day, relieved to share the burden.

And what a burden. Every time I think of this child my eyes fill with tears. If you can empathise, yours will too, for the horror of that day had only just begun.

As the soldiers set about their carnage in this tiny village, they plumbed to the depths of cruelty and depravity which is beyond our understanding. As they separated the villagers into three groups, Mohammed glimpsed his mother in the crowd. She reached out and took Arkan Ulla from him and handed the toddler to his sister. They were then led away. He would not see his siblings again.

Another group, including himself, his mother and his aunty, were pushed into a house. Once inside, a soldier held a gun to his mother’s head and demanded money and jewellery. She had neither, and told him so. The man became angry, and began beating Mohammed in front of her with a stick.

“I was beaten hard on the left side of my head,” the boy explained, “and then another soldier lifted a big knife and brought the blade down on my head.” The blow not only split Mohammed’s scalp open but it was so forceful that he was also knocked unconscious. “I must have been left alone after that because I think everyone thought I was dead.”

When he regained consciousness the soldiers had gone. Any relief he might have felt disappeared immediately as he surveyed the scene in what had become a house of horrors. What he saw will haunt him for the rest of his days.

“My mother was lying on the ground and I went to her but she was not moving. Her throat had been cut open. I looked around again and realised that I was the only one left alive.”

Bewildered and in shock — and deaf in one ear, presumably from the beating — the boy ran from the house when he realised it was on fire. As the flames ripped through the building, Mohammed ran towards nearby paddy fields and hid there until the following morning.

The village was smouldering and the unmistakable smell of dead and burning bodies filled the air. He saw corpses strewn at every turn, lying in pools of congealed blood. Alone and afraid, he followed a stream until he arrived at the village of Wykum.

Among the survivors he found there Mohammed looked for any familiar faces, but there were none. He spent the first four days and four nights alone and terrified, wondering what his fate would be. A small glimmer of hope presented itself when he saw a group of other Muslims and felt safe to join them.

Two days later he was in Bangladesh and in safe hands. Doctors treated his head wound and six stitches were inserted. He showed me the scar on his scalp; not in the proud, boastful way that young boys tend to show off their wounds, but in a shy, almost reserved manner; he needed me to see his scar and feel the ridge on his crown. He bowed down and showed me where the blade had ripped open his flesh.

That is the physical scar; it was easy to see and feel. What, though, about the psychological scars deep in this child’s soul? That’s what worries me. Expressionless throughout the telling of his compelling story, he narrated it in a dry, clinical fashion, unchanging in pitch and without any intonation.

By chance, an uncle spotted him with the other orphan children and took him to a room where he was reunited with his grandmother; to his amazement, there in the room was his younger brother Rowzi Ulla. The seven-year-old has lived in a silent world after illness left him deaf and without speech as a toddler.

“When I saw Rowzi I ran towards him and cried,” Mohammed recalled. “He cried and we hugged and we both cried together. We thought that we were alone in the world but now we have each other.”

Even this happy event is delivered in the same dull monotone.

When I asked what he wants to do in the future, Mohammed looked at me with his deep brown eyes:

“I don’t know what I want. I only have a brother. Sometimes I think I would be better if I died with my family and other times I thank God I’m still alive.”

Coming from an 11-year-old, this is hard to take.

He paused momentarily.

“The bad people should be punished for what they have done to me and everyone else,” he added deliberately.

There was no anger in his voice, no faltering or stuttering words. Not even any emotion; that was left for me to supply.

I made Mohammed a promise. I said that we would do our best to find the bad men who did such bad things to him, his family and the people in his village.

No child should have to experience what he has gone through. Equally, no one reading Mohamed’s story should rest until the wickedness that visited his village that day is dealt with in a court of law.

While the UN dithers and international politics are being played by powerful people in powerful places, we should take a moment to remember Mohammed and what he has gone through. We should then make every effort to see that justice is done for him and all the other Mohammeds whose individual stories are never going to be told. Hundreds of thousands of Rohingya have experienced horrors beyond human comprehension. The pain and suffering experienced by the Rohingya people will never go away, but it is our duty to see that justice is delivered on their behalf.

War crimes have been committed on an industrial scale by a ruthless military holding sway in Myanmar, assisted by some Buddhist monks and local police officers. We are now beginning to build up a picture of what happened in villages like Tulatuli; more importantly, the names and identities of those responsible for such atrocities are beginning to emerge. That is why I am able to send this message to the monsters of Myanmar: we know who you are, and we are coming for you.

Yvonne Ridley is working with an all-woman team of lawyers from Protect the Rohingya based in Johannesburg, South Africa. In the first initiative of its kind, statements from the refugees are being taken and evidence of war crimes is now beginning to mount against the Myanmar regime.

Featured image: Nautilus’ sea floor production tools, made by Soil Machine Dynamics (Source: SMD)

Many are looking to a new resource, deep sea minerals, thanks to growth in demand from emerging economies and the development of new technologies that require increased supply of metals such as copper.

While interest in mining metals from the deeps has been ongoing since the 1960s, activity has remained low, due to low metal prices and the challenges of operating in deep sea environments. This activity is also the focus of strong local and environmental opposition.

Slowly, however, the pieces have been falling into place to permit this activity. In 1982, the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) established the International Seabed Authority (ISA), based in Jamaica, to organize and regulate mineral-related activities in seabed areas beyond the limits of national jurisdictions.

More recently, the MIDAS project, which sought to assess the environmental hazards of deep sea mining, reported its findings. Many in the offshore sector, with technologies that could be complimentary to this space, are watching, but there are still concerns over its impact.

All that glitters

According to the MIDAS program, there are three types of resource: polymetallic (or manganese) nodules that occur in surficial seafloor sediments in abyssal plain muds, mainly in the Pacific and Indian Oceans; cobalt-rich ferromanganese crusts (CRCs) that occur as a surface encrustation on seamounts and rock outcrops in all oceans, but with the richest deposits found in the western Pacific; and seafloor massive sulfides (SMS) that are formed at seafloor hot springs along ocean plate boundaries.

Polymetallic (manganese) nodules – 2-15cm in diameter– can be found some 4-6km deep, and could provide a source of copper, nickel, cobalt and manganese, as well as rare earth elements. Mining them, and others, requires a combination of remotely-operated or autonomous underwater vehicles, pumps, suction and riser pipes, Italian shipbuilder Fincantieri’s Marko Keber told the Offshore Mediterranean Conference (OMC) in Italy, in March.

Polymetallic sulfides, meanwhile, are found in 1500-3000m water depth and are made of sulfide minerals containing various metals, such as copper, lead, zinc, gold and silver. CRCs are found in 800-2400m water depth, and are composed of ferromanganese oxides and contain cobalt, nickel, manganese, tellurium, rare earth elements and possibly platinum, Keber says.

Activity

Since 2000, the ISA has signed 13, 15-year exploration contracts. Six of these contracts expired in 2016 and a seventh will expire in 2017. The areas being explored are in the Clarion Clipperton Fracture Zone, the Indian Ocean, Mid-Atlantic Ridge, South Atlantic Ocean and the Pacific Ocean, according to an ISA report from last year.

There are concerns relating to impact of the mining systems on the sea floor, the creation of sediment plumes as a result of seabed operations, the integrity of the riser pipes and the release of waste materials following pre-processing of the minerals at the sea surface, says MIDAS, which conducted research from the Pelagia vessel from 2013-2016.

“The scale of these impacts needs to be assessed so that the development of regulations to control mining activities can be properly informed.”

“New environmental issues need to be considered, such as the large surface areas affected by nodule mining, the potential risk of submarine landslides through sediment destabilization in gas hydrate extraction, or the release of toxic elements through oxidation of minerals during seafloor massive sulfides (SMS) mining,” MIDAS adds.

Some of MIDAS’ work on sediment-laden plumes showed that they could have significant impact on ecosystems tens of kilometers away from the mined sites. MIDAS project scientists said that investment in technology (to limit the generation of plumes during mining) and in legislation (to make sure all contractors adhere to best practice) would be needed, as well as more research. Even with legislation, opposition is likely to remain to this activity.

Exploration plows on

Nevertheless, activity is ongoing. Most recently, ISA and China Minmetals signed a 15-year exploration contract for polymetallic nodules over a surface area of 72,745sq km of the Clarion-Clipperton Fracture Zone in the Pacific Ocean.

China has also been sponsoring another contractor with the ISA for the exploration for polymetallic nodules in the Clarion Clipperton Zone since 2001, and for which a five-year extension was signed this year. China also sponsors the China Ocean Mineral Resources Research and Development Association (COMRA) in contracts for exploration for polymetallic sulfides in the Southwest Indian Ridge and for exploration for CRCs in the West Pacific Ocean.

In January, ISA approved a plan for Poland to explore for polymetallic sulfides in the Mid-Atlantic Ridge between the Hayes, Atlantis and Kane transform fault zones, with 100, 10×10 km exploration blocks.

Nautilus

Nautilus Minerals could be the first company to commercially explore the sea floor. The company plans to search for SMS systems, a potential source of high grade copper, gold, zinc and silver.

Nautilus is developing a production system using existing technologies adapted from the offshore oil and gas, dredging and mining industries.

Its first project, a copper-gold project, Solwara 1, is due to start development offshore Papua New Guinea in Q1 2019, subject to financing.

Canadian-listed Nautilus has been developing the kit it needs for carrying out this work, including three sea floor production tools (SPTs), a riser and lifting system (RALS), a launch and recovery system (LARS), and a production support vessel (PSV).

The SPTs, built in northeast England by Soil Machine Dynamics (SMD), arrived in Papua New Guinea earlier this year and are being put through trials. Work on the production support vessel, including integrating the LARS and ancillary equipment, is ongoing at Fujian Mawei Shipbuilding’s Mawei shipyard in China.

The SPTs comprise three different vehicles, one each for three separate sea floor tasks. These are an auxiliary cutter to prepare the sea bed for the second tool, a more powerful bulk cutter. This is then followed by the third vehicle, a collecting machine, which then pumps the seawater slurry through a flexible pipe to the PSV via a riser system. Following initial processing, materials would be transferred to a Handymax vessel for shipment.

The cutting drum of the bulk cutter was designed and built by Sandvik; all the SPTs track sets were designed and built by Caterpillar. Modification to the track set for subsea operation and required cutting duty was completed by SMD in consultation with Caterpillar and Sandvik. The dredge pumps for all three SPTs were supplied by Damen. The hydraulic equipment for all three SPTs is based on existing Bosch Rexroth hydraulic equipment, with adaptations by SMD.

GE Oil & Gas has been involved in the development of the subsea slurry and lift pump. The riser has been designed by Nautilus’ RALS main contractor, Technip, and built by subcontractor General Marine Contractors. An agreement for the charter of a PSV to be first deployed at the Solwara 1 Project was awarded to Dubai-based Marine Assets.

Nautilus is also weighing operations offshore Fiji, Tonga, the Solomon Islands, Vanuatu and New Zealand as well as other areas outside the Western Pacific.

Opportunities

Many others are watching. Deep sea mining could offer offshore industry firms a new business, and Italy could be at the forefront of this business, Keber told OMC.

“The deep sea mining chain is practically the same as you have in other extractive industries. Exploration, seismic, production, logistics, processing, distribution and sales,” he says.

Keber notes similar technologies are used in the planning and production phases, and says that the support vessel being developed by Nautilus for SMS recovery is similar to Fincantieri’s Overdrill drillship design.

“We are mostly interested in surface vessels,” he says. “The configuration [of Nautilus’ ship design] is similar,” he says. “The power requirement is similar. Both are dynamically-positioned. The size is similar. The migration is a reality, it is possible.”

SMD has also continued its work in this space, teaming up with South Africa-based Underwater Mining Solutions, which already supplies shallow water mining equipment, to offer full scope subsea mining equipment.

The most developed area of the supply chain is the logistics, i.e. transporting ore from the production vessel to the coast for processing. The least developed part of the chain is the subsea part, Keber says. And, a potential gap exists for the development of a nodule or CRC production vessel, he says.

Norway has also been investigating deepsea mining, with projects including DeSMO and Marmine underway.

DeSMO is a pre-study to identify technology research and development opportunities, while MarMine completed a research mission over the Mohn’s Ridge area earlier this year. Work included drilling a core in 2700m water depth with an ROV-based drill rig.

The system was delivered by Seattle-based company Williamson and Associates and is custom made for ROV operations. It was deployed from the Polar King research vessel, operated by GC Rieber.

Debkafile, an Israeli website close to the military intelligence, has reported that the Trump administration has decided to take a series of punitive measures against the Palestinian Authority (PA) after its successful campaign on Jerusalem in the UN General Assembly.

In a report issued on 23 December, the Israeli website cited its sources in Washington as stating that President Trump had decided to sever contacts and relations with the PA and President Mahmoud Abbas.

According to Debkafile, the Israeli-Palestinian peace plan under preparation in Washington will not be submitted to Ramallah but only to Israel and the relevant Arab governments.

These steps were taken after the PA had been warned more than once, and told to drop its campaign against the Trump pronouncement on Jerusalem because of its negative impact on the region, according to the Israeli website. It added that the White House move was communicated to the PA through a third Arab party.

The Israeli website further reported that the US will not publicly announce its freeze of aid to the PA. However, the administration will stop support and delay the resumption of economic projects backed by US institutions and re-examine them.

President Trump also decided not to invite Palestinian officials to the White House, State Department and US Treasury, and not to receive Palestinians at the US National Security Council where they used to participate in meetings aimed at shaping US strategy in the Middle East.

According to the Israeli website:

“The US will halt its contributions to the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine (UNRWA), an estimated one billion dollars per annum” and will order Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Qatar to reduce the amount of aid provided to the Authority.

While no official statements were made by the US administration or the PA, the Israeli website confirmed that US officials have informed Saeb Erekat, the PA’s chief negotiator, that there is nothing to discuss with him anymore.

The end of the year is full of goodies. I watched with glee the 128 to 9 vote at the United Nations condemning the Trump Administration decision to move the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem and was even more amused when the Associated Press and the New York Post tried to twist the story into a victory for the United States and Israel because the outcome might have been even more lopsided. CNN’s Jake Tapper, a vocal critic of Trump in nearly everything, also cheered the White House decision, demonstrating once again that loyalty to his tribe is more important to him than doing the right thing for the American people.

Also last week I watched what had been described as President Donald Trump’s annual National Security Strategy (NSS) review speech, the first he has given since assuming office. Having missed the first two minutes while letting our bulldog Dudley out for routine maintenance, I came back and wondered if someone had changed the channel. Trump was going on and on in what appeared to be a campaign speech, talking about the failures of the Obama Administration before proceeding to describe how wonderful and safer everything is now that he is president.

While I am not terribly enamored of the Obama record on national security, particularly its targeted killings and its stealth wars, what turned out to be the Trump rebuttal was not what I expected, rather like a cheap shot directed against someone who can no longer respond effectively. President Trump did eventually get around to talking about national security but the presentation was clearly aimed at pleasing what Trump views as his most solid group of supporters, i.e. American voters who tend to see, as he does, the world as a place where enemies and threats prevail, requiring an always truculent response and an overwhelming military to back up the words.

Most Americans who watched the speech were probably unaware that it was a much-shortened version of a congressionally mandated 68 page long document that was put out simultaneously by the White House entitled National Security Strategy of the United States of America December 2017. The speech, its Jeremiad at the beginning aside, only partly reflected the document and in some cases actually contradicted it.

Both the speech and document were broken down into four broad categories:

I. Protect the American People, the Homeland, and the American Way of Life;

II. Promote American Prosperity;

III. Preserve Peace Through Strength; and

IV. Advance American Influence.

I was particularly interested in hearing what the administration would actually do and was hoping that the speech would avoid bromides and generalized commentary. In fact, there was a lot of chest thumping and relatively little in the way of pledges for action.

The first solid commitment was to build the wall with Mexico. It was packaged by Trump as a national security issue as no nation can call itself secure if it cannot control its own borders, which happens to be a viewpoint that I would agree with though I am skeptical about the wall. This naturally segued into a condemnation of the immigration and naturalization system. Trump restated his belief that a number of Muslim countries have to be subject to travels bans, which is a view that I would disagree with as I do not necessarily think that blocking whole countries provides a real solution to security problems. But I do support Trump’s call for extreme vetting of visa applicants. Inconsistent visa processing is a general security problem and all visitors and/or refugee and asylum applicants, in my view, should be subject to greater scrutiny.

Trump also went after some other horrible features of the current immigration program. He said visa lotteries would be stopped and chain migration, whereby entire extended families have gained entry to the United States based on just one individual being allowed to enter, would also be ended. And he would cut back on H-1B visas which allow foreigners with needed skills to be granted temporary work permits. This last has largely benefited Silicon Valley and the IT industry, which hire mostly Indian technical university graduates to work for much lower pay and benefits than U.S citizens would require, eliminating jobs for Americans. These are all reasonable corrections for the system, which, as it currently stands, is best described as out-of-control.

The third and final thing that Trump promised to do was to end the sequester and give billions more to the military to modernize and equip it to confront today’s threats. This was the really bad part of the speech and evidence that the White House has been listening far too much to its generals and the neocons that have begun to re-insert themselves in the Pentagon and National Security Council. The United State already spends more on “defense” than its seven closest competitors and it is unchallenged militarily. Nor is it threatened in any serious way anywhere in the world, with the possible exception of North Korea, which knows it would certainly be obliterated if it were ever to try to use one of its developing weapons systems against the U.S.

So why do we need more weapons? Pentagon experts would say that the deterrence systems in place are old and that combat aircraft, tanks and mobile artillery are inferior to those being produced by Russia, for example. But the same experts backed by the military industrial congressional lobby continue to recommend the production of aircraft carriers, which are, for example, particularly vulnerable to new missile technologies. And all the projects are, of course, subject to cost overruns. It is all the product of a completely corrupt system which Trump appears to have bought into. He repeated the hoary notion that the United States must remain unchallenged militarily all over the world, saying

“We will compete with all tools of national power to ensure that regions of the world are not dominated by one power.”

If one takes Trump at his word, the U.S. will use force worldwide to make sure that only Washington can dominate regionally, a frightening thought as it goes beyond even the wildest pretensions of George W. Bush and Barack Obama. And equally ridiculous are the potential consequences of such bullying – the White House clearly believes that it will make other nations respect us and follow our leadership whereas quite the reverse is likely to be true.

On the very limited bright side, Trump did have good things to say about the benefits derived from intelligence sharing with Russia and he also spoke about both Moscow and Beijing as “rivals” and “adversaries” instead of enemies. That was very refreshing to hear but unfortunately the printed document did not say the same thing.

The NSS report provided considerably more detail than did the speech but it also was full of generalizations and all too often relied on Washington group think to frame its options. The beginning is somewhat terrifying for one of my inclinations on foreign policy:

“An America that is safe, prosperous, and free at home is an America with the strength, confidence, and will to lead abroad. It is an America that can preserve peace, uphold liberty, and create enduring advantages for the American people. Putting America first is the duty of our government and the foundation for U.S. leadership in the world. A strong America is in the vital interests of not only the American people, but also those around the world who want to partner with the United States in pursuit of shared interests, values, and aspirations.”

One has to ask what this “lead” and “leadership” and “partner” nonsense actually represents, particularly in light of the fact that damn near the entire world just repudiated Trump’s decision to move the American Embassy in Israel as well as the nearly global rejection of his response to climate change? And Washington’s alleged need to lead has brought nothing but grief to the American people starting in Korea and continuing with Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq and numerous lesser stops along the way in places like Somalia, Panama and Syria. The false narrative of the threat coming from “foreigners” has actually done nothing to make Americans safer while also diminishing constitutional liberties and doing serious damage to the economy.

The printed report is much more brutal than was Trump about the dangers facing America and it is also much more carefree in the “facts” that it chooses to present. It says, with extreme hyperbole, that

“China and Russia challenge American power, influence, and interests, attempting to erode American security and prosperity. They are determined to make economies less free and less fair, to grow their militaries, and to control information and data to repress their societies and expand their influence. At the same time, the dictatorships of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea and the Islamic Republic of Iran are determined to destabilize regions, threaten Americans and our allies, and brutalize their own people.”

A somewhat more detailed account of what Moscow is up to is also contained in the written report, stating that

“Russia is using subversive measures to weaken the credibility of America’s commitment to Europe, undermine transatlantic unity, and weaken European institutions and governments. With its invasions of Georgia and Ukraine, Russia demonstrated its willingness to violate the sovereignty of states in the region. Russia continues to intimidate its neighbors with threatening behavior, such as nuclear posturing and the forward deployment of offensive capabilities.”

Nearly every detail in the indictment of Russia can be challenged. Most notably, if anyone is forward deploying offensive capabilities in Eastern Europe or invading other countries it is the United States, a trend that continues under Donald Trump. Just this past week, Trump approved the sale of offensive weapons to Ukraine, which has already drawn a warning from Moscow and will make any dialogue with Russia unlikely.

And, of course, there is the usual softball for Israel claiming that

“For generations the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians has been understood as the prime irritant preventing peace and prosperity in the region. Today, the threats from jihadist terrorist organizations and the threat from Iran are creating the realization that Israel is not the cause of the region’s problems.”

It is a conclusion that must make the unspeakable Benjamin Netanyahu smile. One might observe that as Israel has attacked all of its neighbors since it was founded, holding its governments blameless is a formulation that others in the region might well dispute.

So the Donald Trump National Security Strategy will be more of the same, a combination of the worst ideas to emerge from his two predecessors with little in the way of mitigation. Trump might balk at going toe-to-toe with North Korea because they have the actual capability to strike back and might think they have nothing to lose if they are about to be incinerated, something no bully likes to see, but Iran is certainly in the cross hairs and you best believe they have taken notice and will be preparing. Vladimir Putin too can sit back and wonder how Trump could possibly have gotten everything so ass-backwards when he had so much latitude to get at least some things right. The National Security Strategy will deliver little in the way of security but it will provide an answer to why most of the world has come to hate the United States.

Featured image is from the author.

Conspiracies in the extraterrestrial department have always constituted the residue of superstition in a secular age.  Chase away a Christ figure, or ward off God, and the mind still wanders, hoping to be bewitched.  If something cannot be explained, ignorance furnishes an often poor substitute.

The concept of extraterrestrial phenomena straddles scientific probabilities, faith and the sense that governments might not be telling their citizens the whole truth.  Rarely, for instance, does speculation on extraterrestrial research feature in the mainstream press, though the New York Times decided to dabble in the business of UFOs this month. 

The paper noted, quite rightly, that the US Defense Department, known to most others as the Pentagon, had put aside $22 million of its $600 billion annual budget on the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program (AATIP).  Identifying exactly where it was in the bureaucratic apparatus remained a contrived challenge, and it had its opponents.

The program, run by Luis Elizondo on the fifth floor of the Pentagon’s C Ring, was deeply concealed within the structure itself.  Supposedly concluding in 2012, supporters are certain that funding continues to, if not flow then certainly trickle to it.

A video shows an encounter between a Navy F/A-18 Super Hornet and an unknown object. It was released by the Defense Department’s Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program. By Courtesy of U.S. DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE on Publish DateDecember 16, 2017.

The study of UFO phenomena in US bureaucracy is a study of bureaucratic quirkiness itself.  Shadowy and opaque, the connections stretch across from Nevada Democrat Harry Reid, himself a fan of all things space, to billionaire friend, Robert Bigelow, who happily received government sponsorship for his aerospace venture.

The official record on US interest in the extraterrestrial research has been sketchy and speculative.  The US government, officially at least, claimed to have stopped gathering information on the subject of UFOs in 1969 with the cancellation of Project Blue Book by the US Air Force.  As the National Archives describes on a sombre note,

“The project closed in 1969 and we have no information on sightings after that date.”

Project Blue Book itself concluded after examining UFO reports since 1948 that no such entity reported, investigated or evaluated by the USAF posed a threat; that such sightings did not suggest “technological developments or principles beyond the range of present-day scientific knowledge” and that, perhaps most damningly of all, no sightings filed as “unidentified” could be deemed extraterrestrial vehicles.

Such reports, far from dissuading, have quite the opposite effect.  In May, Bigelow told Lara Logan of 60 Minutes about his absolute conviction about alien life forms, and “an existing presence, an ET presence. And I spent millions and millions and millions – I spent probably more as an individual than anybody else in the United States has ever spent on this subject.” (Bigelow, typically, confuses expenditure and dedication with verifiable sightings.)

In of itself, Bigelow’s interest is admirable. But curiosity finds idiosyncratic ways of making a mark.  It is not merely the scientific level that matters but one of induced faith, a Damascene conversion that turns a figure into a devotee. 

Interest in investigating the existence of other life forms, Bigelow contends, arose after his grandparents encountered an UFO outside Las Vegas. (Those aliens really have a thing for that part of the world.)

“It really sped up and came right into their faces and filled up the entire windshield of the car.”

That particular object conformed to caricature, darting “off at a right angle and shot off into the distance.”

For Reid, a vital figure behind creating the AATIP, nothing but pride comes to mind.

“I am not embarrassed or ashamed or sorry I got this thing going.  I think it’s one of the good things I did in my congressional service. I’ve done something that no one has done before.”

Reid, however, doesn’t stop there. He speaks about the findings of the Pentagon unit with a dazed piousness, telling Las Vegas news channel KLAS Channel 8, about the inherent dangers. This is the technology imperative, one constantly manifested during the Cold War: the fear that somewhere, something or someone, is so advanced as to strike terror in the human species.  Behind every ET phenomenon and unidentified object is a primordial fear that another earthly being is doing better and just might be a threat. Forget the ETs: the darkness lies within.

As Reid himself explained,

“If China, Russia, Japan, other countries are doing this and we’re not, then something is wrong because if the technology, as described and the way people see this movement took place in anything we have available to us, it would kill everybody.”

The technology imperative, one which acts as a discouragement for certain scientists in contacting potential alien forms, also finds voice in Stephen Hawking’s concerns that aliens could be “vastly more powerful and may not see us as any more valuable than we see bacteria.”

There will always be alien boffins.  Some, like Douglas Vakoch, president of the Messaging Extraterrestrial Intelligence (METI), envisage a planet or planets in the universe with liquid water, hosting life.  Such grounds do not sound merely sensible but probable.  Then there are the Reids and the Bigelows, a mixture of political and personal enchantment, part crazed part curious.  But to date, the sceptics on the current record of sightings seem to be holding the reins. The truth might be out there, but it remains happily inscrutable.

Dr. Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge.  He lectures at RMIT University, Melbourne.  Email: [email protected]

Trouble has been brewing in Saudi Arabia, the jewel of the US empire, under the very eyes of the imperialists. Since circa 1980, the socially stabilising economic redistribution mechanisms, the objective pillars holding society together, were neoliberally eroded. As for the subjective grounds, or the political US-backing that the Saudi monarchy enjoys, it so happens that until about 2011, the timing of the Arab Spring, the Saudi-comprador class’ surreal social and political practice received low-key criticism. Saudi Arabia is the only place where the outstanding atrocities of the royal family, not just the beheadings, but the infusion and funding of pro-imperialist Islamist ideology across the world, became a sort of folk tradition pertaining only to “Saudi” culture. In its defence of its subject-state, American liberalism dropped the existentialist golden rule of ethics. The rule by which humanity’s very existence, its state of physical being as such, imposes a shared set of values and morals.

For the orthodoxy, working Saudis as human beings were reduced to just humans without their state of being. They existed as ideas, but not as real people. Absurdly, Arabs inhabiting the Arabian Peninsula, enduring grotesque physical and social torture under US-Marines supported monarchs, did not share the universal feeling of suffering. Instead, a peculiar form of imperialist-constructed Islam made them into a special sort of noble savage. For the reigning US empire, what the custodians of American oil under Arab sands do is their own tradition and their own business, not humanity’s. The reconstruction of pro-imperialist Wahabi identity serving as an ideological tool, otherwise instigating a renaissance of the alleged despotism inherent in Islamic culture, became the fuel for the war on terror.

The ideological windfall to capital as a result of Saudi obscurantism has been significant. Just as the socialist culture of the cold war created a cross country competition for the betterment of social conditions, the Saudi stance of “obligations before rights” drags down world culture into a race to the bottom. History commanded by anti-humanist ideologies is the quickest doorway to the commodification of human beings. It propels capital, the social relationship and its corresponding social class, into its element:fascism.

As of 2011 however, the picture somewhat changed. Critiquing the Saudis for their political practice or Islamic madrassa funding became a pastime for the mainstream media. Suddenly the right of Saudi women to drive faced off against an American political correctness that intelligently masks over the unjust imprisonment of Leonard Peltier and the empire’s structural racism.[2] Then came the “Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act” (JASTA) with lawsuits threatening to swallow some of the oil revenues.[3] With the palace coup of the tender feet prince, Mohammad bin Salman (MBS), however, the old mainstream love of Saudi Arabia has to some extent been rekindled. An article in the NY Times of November 23, 2007, heaps kudos upon the reforms of the spiteful prince; the author exclaims that he thought he would not live to see reform and progress in Saudi Arabia. Amusingly, a Qatari-based academic tweets with 70 years of NY Times clippings describing Saudi royals in the language of reform.[4]

In a similar manner to collapsing neighbouring states, the objective and subjective elements that corrode the underbelly of Saudi national institutions have intensified. Although the natural end of the ruling Arab comprador class is to weaken and then to set ablaze its own social formation at the behest of imperialism (as argued in Kadri [2016]), the Zionist-imperialist historical momentum can still opt for a bigger piece of the pie: war with Iran. Such war aligns Israel, the US and reactionary Arabs against Iran. In a region where violence and realpolitik mark the practice of the US-European-Israeli coalition, “war for war’s sake,” the chief instrument of global accumulation may reassert itself once again. The trajectory of war and its momentum, either within regional states or across states, are unrelenting. For now, the palace coup brokered the crisis and delivered an even more strategic US-asset and an“impulsive tyrant,” MBS, into power.[5] In what follows, I will consider some aspects of the overbearing impact of instability in the kingdom of Saudi Arabia upon the oil dependent world, specifically China. I argue that although China exhibits an energy deficit, it has become far too big and powerful to be stopped.

A snapshot of the economy

In the late 1990s, Saudi Arabia needed a barrel of oil to be priced at slightly above 20 US$ to break even or to not incur a budget deficit (SAMA, 2017). Between 2014 and 2016, the barrel had to sell at a range between 80 to 100 US$ for Saudi Arabia to balance its budget (SAMA, 2017).[6] The Saudi kingdom had become increasingly dependent on oil for its day-to-day spending, as opposed to other sources of income. Addiction to oil exports unequivocally signals the failure of its diversification policies. Just as it borrowed to redress its deficit between 1980 and 2002 as oil prices plummeted, it has also resorted to short term borrowing at high interest rate to offset the current deficit (in 2014 prices fell to around 50 US$ per barrel). In addition to outstanding financing of many anti-Arabist and Islamist movements around the world, in 2011, it funded the mercenary-led aggression visited upon Syria and, later in 2015, it besieged Yemen and bombarded it – the war on Yemen is ongoing until the time of writing in December 2017. After Trump’s visit in May 2017, it had also committed to purchasing 350 billion US$ worth of US weapons over the next 10 years, with about 110 billion US$ upfront.[7] Saudi Arabia may not yet be in a severe financial crisis, but with its high dependence on oil while oil prices remain low, the ongoing mild crisis may become one of state and economy together.

Just like rest of the world under neoliberalism (a stage beginning circa 1980), the kingdom gradually parted with its state sponsored policies of the 1970s. It handed over the reins of investment and other resources to the private sector. The princes and their friends who owned the private sector liquidated much of their wealth and sent it abroad. In its West Asia report, the United Nations (2007) calculated the rate of capital flight over the neoliberal period to have been around a fifth of national product (GDP). Between 1980 and 2000, the Saudi rate of investment and, subsequently, economic growth declined. Real per-capita income fell by around two thirds (from around 18,000 constant US$ in 1981 to about 8000 US$ in 2000) (WDI, various years). By 2002, Saudi poverty rates rose and nearly a quarter of the population subsisted below the national poverty line. However, the increasing privatisation of development has also altered the resource allocation rules. Whether at high or low oil prices, private-led development redistributed income upward to the merchant-comprador class. As a case in point, despite high average oil prices between 2002 and 2013 (in the 100 US$ range), in 2013 various news sources reported that a quarter of the Saudi population still subsisted at incomes below national poverty line.[8]

Since 2014, the kingdom had registered a significant deficit because of falling oil prices: from the undulating plateau of 90-110 US$ per barrel to a lower one of between 30-55 US$ per barrel. However, as the higher rates of return for the private sector must rise and the pool of excess dollars covering state activity diminishes, the monarchical canaille engages in more vicious forms of competition. The current coup’s related imprisonment of leading Saudi billionaires and the shooting of two other princes are leading indicators.

I must stress that it is not only lower oil prices that dampen Saudi developmental performance; it is also the rate at which national wealth escapes abroad or moves up relative to the income share of the working population. Seen from an accounting perspective, the worsening Saudi balance sheet and attendant social problems could be and in fact were easily foreseen. It is almost a matter of straightforward arithmetic: if the price of oil falls below the breakeven point for long periods of time or (inclusive or) the income of the wealthy class and imperialist tribute rises at a faster rate than the share of wages, the Saudis’ economic and social problems will intensify. Here is a caption from the foreword to the UN report about Western Asia, which predicts the current Saudi crisis (UN, 2007).

But only three years after the decline in oil prices in the first oil boom, per capita income fell drastically, and certain states resorted to short-term borrowing from private banks at high interest rates to redress their fiscal deficits. Recently, moreover, speculative elements have accounted for a significant proportion of the oil price. If speculative pressures subside, a fall could occur again, yet this time at a higher rate.

Of the certain states, Saudi Arabia is the only Gulf country to have borrowed significantly. Ludicrously, the United Nations (UN) omits mention of Saudi Arabia and uses certain states instead. The UN censors much criticism of the Kingdom and avoids showing it in bad light. The UN has appointed Saudi Arabia as the head of one of the Human Rights Council panels, and onto the UN women’s rights commission.[9] The UN as well as mainstream media invest much effort to project the idea that the Saudi monarchy, which is key to sowing anti-women ideology across the world, is capable of reforming from within. The latest right to drive for women (late 2017) was unashamedly hailed by Amnesty International as a concession made by the Monarch in response to women’s activism.[10]It is incomprehensible how a step by step reform could take hold in a kingdom whoseraison d’êtreis to instil social regression and cultural differentiation that serve as pretext for permanent war.[11]

Currently, the Saudi sovereign fund is at 225 billion US$,[12] the accumulated deficits (around 134 billion US$) and the arms purchase deal taxes Saudi with an additional 110 billion US$, grosso modo these shortages do not constitute a significant financial crisis. However, it is not the magnitude of the deficit in relation to the national debt that is damning, it is the amplified accent on private agency in resource allocation and income redistribution, which is of concern. The rates of imperial and comprador rents must grow at the expense of the war industry and its casualties and the immiseration of working people.Instead of rearranging the macro context to temper profit rates and limit the leakage, that is to roughly restrain the rate of usurpation from the public interest qua corruption, MBS embarked on a more radical privatisation plan, the 2030 plan.[13] This plan enlarges the crucible for corruption as it deregulates all value transfers in favour of the King and international company. The degree to which the neoliberally imposed policy context dips into the wage bill and destroys national assets will roughly be determined by the risk in the national market and the freedom the capital class enjoys tapping into national resources and shifting assets abroad. Corruption is handed down by imperialism as macro policy measures to a receptive comprador class. The de-regulatory policy battery is the incubator of corruption. It is a testimony to capital’s ideological victory how the mainstream, which re-regulates resource flows to the top one percent under conditions class-dependent institutions, and still parochially indicts “corrupt individuals” for the lost development opportunities.

The missing dimension of the coup

While the orchestrated Palace coup is afoot in Saudi Arabia, few are paying attention to the potential disruption that such a fiasco may entail for the global oil markets.[14] At the present juncture, the US’s stock of power has grown because of the rise of yet another more US-loyal and obedient Saudi prince (MBS). If the tragic prince manages to survive, the US will have in place a more trigger-happy anti-Iran asset than the deposed Epicurean – “what is in it for me” – bunch.[15] The rise of such war-inclined agent to power strengthens the US-led imperialist class relations accumulating by means of encroachment wars (Kadri 2014). If he does not ascend to the throne and Saudi Arabia capsizes, US-led capital will still reap war related profits arising from the wreckage he leaves behind. Contingently upon the degree and duration of violence, in case war erupts either across the Strait of Hormuz and or by an internally collapsing Saudi Arabia, the levels of global oil supplies may fall below demand. Oil shortages can be short-term serious or long-term chronic, which is nothing like the insignificant shortages experienced in 1973 whose exaggerated effects represented the trojan horse by which financialisaton arose. It so appears that no matter what happens in Saudi Arabia due to the coup, China and many of the oil dependent states may incur a loss.

However, does the rise of such a US-marioneted prince offset the recent losses of America and its allies, in Syria, Iraq and Yemen? Furthermore, would it not be the case that any serious disruption in Saudi Arabia, the US’s protégé nation that guarantees stability in the global oil market, would hold an increasingly grudging world hostage to the global hegemon? Questions of receding American power and imperialist racketeering come to mind. As they should.

Incidentally, whether MBS, the vengeful prince, can pull it off – given that he has eroded many of the outstanding sources of Saudi authority – or whether Saudi Arabia will fragment following in the path of neighbouring states, are issues that bedevil the stability of global oil supplies. This is a risk like no other in modern history. A protracted conflict either within Saudi Arabia or with Iran, one that is different from the ongoing Saudi aerial-bombardment of the resisting, but starving, Yemeni people, would be a first in recorded history, especially as it may entail chronic shortfalls in oil supply. Although the current oil market is buoyant, partly citing political uncertainty behind the higher prices, the mainstream’s overrated “hypothesis of efficient markets” cannot envisage a scenario of strategic shortfalls in oil production.[16] Such scenarios are said to be algebraic-time incoherent (the steady state or conventional time we use to predict the future); these would-be events (hypotheticals) are entwined with the uncertainty of history, or with the way dominant political forces undergo a volte-face. Although uncertainty is more about the dialectic of social continuity and discontinuity, let us just say that at some time in mid-stream, people organised and in a position of power suddenly change their minds and change the course of history. Fortunately, the actuaries of the mainstream cannot grapple with real or social time events (uncertainty), otherwise these pundits would be hired to predict the timing and abort the next revolution; the hope of billions around the planet for emancipation.

Playing with oil supplies is synonymous with the politics of brinksmanship. Oil is a strategic commodity for many reasons, foremost because it provides much of the energy required for sustaining world population growth. The high energy content and versatility of the black liquid supported the expansion of humanity from a little over one billion at the beginning of the twentieth century to more than seven billion now. As oil and energy from oil to sustain or improve upon production levels fall below consumption for periods that exceed the drawing down of stocked reserves, the strategic impact of oil becomes all too clear for everyone to see.

It may be as well to recall that Saudi Arabia is peculiar in the world of oil production. It provides what is called a “production cushion” by its ability to quickly pump additional oil (around 2 million bpd) to balance abrupt global oil shortages. Pari passu, instability in the Saudi state infuses a higher risk premium into the oil price, which otherwise would not be necessary. The bravado positioning by the Saudis or the Iranians, the “I can bomb the hell out of you” cant may not all be to waste because it injects additional dollars into the oil price. The Saudis and Iranians can sell the oil, but neither Iran nor definitely Saudi Arabia command history. The Saudis and the Iranians cannot bear serious influence on the strategic character of oil. Ultimate control of oil is in the remit of the imperialist power and or the way history, the resultant of objective and impersonal forces, plays out. A scenario that includes a prolonged absence of such Saudi cushion qua safety valve and, possibly a decrease in Saudi oil supplies, the strategic side of oil, spells adversity for most oil dependent states.

China in the whirlwind of imperialism

Of all the oil dependent states, China is the world’s biggest importer of oil. On the face of it, China may be hardest hit. In a sense, a significant drop in Saudi oil supplies may more than just dent the high Chinese rates of growth (the effect of significantly high oil prices without oil shortages). The effect of longer-periods oil shortage may also bring a significant portion of China’s production capacity to a halt. As is well known, China’s inexorable rise is anathema to US empire. An empire is not simply a big economic power. China is a big economic power, but it is neither an empire nor imperialist. Defining imperialism by the exploitation of wage labour would make the grocery store next door imperialist. By way of short definitions: Imperialism is an extension of class exploitation by violence assumed under the agency of the nation state. Classes, the intermediates of political will in forms of social organisation, make history. The nation state is the ultimate intermediated structure of class.

The overly analytical minds of the orthodoxy employ such atomistic logic (grocery store imperialism) to define China as imperialist. But then again, the mainstream is paid to exonerate the imperialist or the dominant actual and ideological force in history. Imperialism is a real and historically specific form of exploitation that draws wealth from whole nations by coercion and violence. The state as a form of class organisation serves as the structure and conduit of “commercial exploitation.” Unlike the common form of exploitation, commercial exploitation is a process of depriving whole peoples of their will and ownership of resources. It emerged with the Marxist definition of the economic role of chattel slavery. Forms of slavery, the practice of commercial exploitation, have progressively come to involve the de-subjectification of whole nations. De-subjectification is the loss of effective agency in value forming relationships, as in people losing control of themselves and their resources to the imperialist power. As the crisis of capital deepens, commercial exploitation never ceases to serve as pedestal for northern wage labour. By the way, I am using Northern and Western as ideological and not geographic descriptors, which makes MBS a purely US-European product unrelated to the practice of Mecca’s ancient Caravan trade. With the progress of time, we must look for the forms of commercial exploitation in the imperialist wars that undo the states of the developing world and inflict a high degree of depopulation.

Initially, capital required limited forms of slavery, like chattel slavery. However, imperialism in the monopoly age, the state to state form of commercial exploitation, extracts more of the conquered peoples’ wealth by commodifying their lives – turning people and the environment into cheapened commodities that serve the pursuit of higher profits. It literally must consume peoples’ lives in a shorter time span relative to the historically determined living standards and life expectancies. Technological progress under capitalism improves the war-related technology, and involuntarily, the means for the prolongation of life. Growth of technology, war technology and war are market processes alienated from social control under capitalism.

War,as a domain of accumulation, is the shortest route to premature life extinguishing and, therefore, the furnace of surplus value making. People are value. They are the labourers and the stock of labour power at once. People are not cheap, they are consumed as existing value and de-commissioned by a history of imperialist slaughter. This is quite different from the conventional notion of military Keynesianism, which measures monetary form, as opposed, to the value content of war.

China, in particular, bore tremendous losses at the hands of a history ushered by Western imperialism. An empire, on the other hand, is something like the US empire. It is heir to centuries of accumulated European colonial and imperialist plunder along with, and this is an oft-missing point in the analysis of imperialism, the culture of ideas that justifies expansion. Anouar Abdel-Malek was the forerunner of the ideas of Orientalism and the historical surplus value (Abdel Malek, 1963). The amassed culture (culture as the store of knowledge) of empire is crucial because often the mainstream treats wealth or things as things without the ideas that organise the making of wealth or things. Wealth and the social relations that produce wealth (object/subject), including their attendant forms of social organisation, are inseparable and must be treated together. The accumulated cultural wealth of the subject of history or empire, which expands the production of commodities by means of war,illustratively signals its strength by the extent to which the masses perceive imperialist aggression as a democratic or a human rights related practice.

China, which until two centuries ago was the leading civilisation of the planet, has arisen and grown. All else remaining constant, within a decade or so and at the present rates of growth, China will even be bigger than the US in nominal dollar terms GDP. It is already bigger in terms of purchasing power parity exchange rates. Recently, Chinese scientists and engineers are leaving the US to continue their studies or to work in China.[17] Conditions of employment, salary scale, universities and research are becoming competitive.A bigger China heralds a material rupture (a break with the past in the global balance of economic power). As China becomes big enough, it also becomes inevitable for an ideological rupture to follow (Althusser, 1962). The rupture may not be socialist, but it will be a break with the past as US-dominant ideology loses grounds. That latter rupture, a dethronement of the dominant culture and ideology, of ways of knowledge and modes of social organisation, must follow either because of reasons related to a rising intrinsic ideology peculiar to China or because the rift that China creates leaves open the space into which new forms of political organisation and their corresponding novel ideas (ideologies) would grow. At any rate, it is necessary to apply the brakes on the mass of Western ideas and a logic whose money signification in the profit rates include war and forms of slavery as inputs.

Although China is not a market economy by any stretch of the evidence and may not even be described as capitalist, because it is state-owned and controlled with investment and production state-directed, with profit secondary to growth as the objective (Roberts, 2017), internationalist working-class organisations sharing the universal value of socialism are also not in the waiting. Organisationally and ideologically, socialism is in its worst crisis since the mid-19^th century. It has contracted the virus of liberal democracy as opposed to proletarian democracy, while the platitude that socialism was tried and failed continues to grip the popular imagination. Without exception, the apparatuses of imperialism continuously revise history and the numbers that Stalin supposedly killed, which are facetiously in the hundreds of billions, serve as the false front for the moral condemnation of communism. But what is particularly stultifying in capital’s ideological assault is the personification of history, as in one person makes history. Capital spectacularises world events and perverts modes of perceptions such that “bad guys” like Saddam and Qaddafi exist outside a social context and must be destroyed along with their states. On the other side of the spectrum, the twentieth century experience of socialist forces cloning the Soviet model, initially via the “Comintern,” imposing a prefab-universal model of socialism upon national liberation movements does not help either.[18] Many Arab communist parties, for instance, blindly followed the edict of the Soviet Union and in 1948 recognised the colonisation of Palestine. That was a historical mistake from which they have never recovered. Subordinately to the dismal organisational showings of socialism, the “either good socialism or nothing” mode of thinking, a formal binary reared by Hollywood culture,undermines the formation of a revolutionary working-class consciousness that ties reform to revolution. Otherwise, revolutionary consciousness situates the cultural or national form of struggle at the service of internationalism.

Mao Zedong’s socialism with national characteristics opposed a teleological understanding of socialism. Mao’s (1937) definition of the philosophical universal, more appropriately the “general”, as the historically unfolding realisation of “particular” struggles, which do not culminate into a preconceived form of communism, aligns the national dimension of the class struggle with internationalism. His was not a world of good and bad guys into which socialism will appear from nowhere. His was the real intercausal world dominated by belligerent imperialism opposed by weak anti-systemic liberation movements whose fights are shaped by cultural identities infused with class consciousness. This was an anti-dogmatic position in which not only and not always were Soviet-allied communist parties internationalist.

Just as capital counteracts its own homogenising forces via identity politics or labour differentiation, labour through the exercise of its “particularity”, through national liberation movements, re-universalises the condition of production for labour and bridges global living standards. Capital integrates the world market, but as the less developed must become similar in level of development (homogenisation), it bludgeons them into inferior status (differentiation). By shifting the focus in the struggle on class as opposed to identity and, equivalently, on liberation as opposed to nationalism (in the oxymoronic term national liberation), the “general”, as the condition of how close we are in our state of flux to equalising the production conditions/living wages for global labour, comes into view. The universal/general as a category is the restless mediation of all the different particulars.

Every song, dance, tradition and identity must be reasserted as political practice so long as the struggle targets the sphere of production as opposed to circulation. The imperialist form of capital’s practice shuns equal jobs for equal pay across countries (production sphere) and prefers to redistribute higher wages to one national working class over another (circulation sphere). The realisation of socialism as that “general” condition is contingent upon forms of organisation and consciousness that eschew Northern welfarism and homogenise returns per origin of production and working condition. Northern welfarism brings production-side wages across gender and other social constructs closer together, but it does so as the booster of imperialist armies. Better Northern living standards include an imperialist rent component and are not only wrought from the hijacked struggles of the Northern classes. The rent in Northern wages is the allocation of the historical surplus value or that share of the historically accumulated wealth mostly torn from humanity’s labour by the exercise of violence and commercial exploitation (For similar arguments see Abdel-Malek, 1981; Caldwell, 1969).

In view of the preceding outline, why should China’s rise be supported?

With the rise of China, there will be a change of power at the top of the global pyramid in the international division of labour and an eclipse of outstanding US-European culture. The realisation of socialism will be contingent on the class struggle. In any case, praxis is about exerting pressure on imperialism and should not be solely motivated by a yet to be instantiation of utopian socialism. Most liberal intelligentsia characterises China by the self-evident principle of “state capitalism” and follows through on the argument with anti-Chinese practice, re-asserting US-led imperialism, just as it did against the Soviet Union during the cold war. However, capitalism does not auto-negate into socialist utopia overnight, and the “ideal socialism or nothing”sanctimony of the Northern left reflects a deep-seated infatuation with bourgeois democracy/culture and is simply a pro-imperialist class position.

In the case of China, internationalism stood on stronger grounds until the coup against Lin Biao in 1971 and the rapprochement with the US. However, the current strength of China is are positioning windfall for national liberation movements. An ideological big wall of China has arisen. One promising indication remains that the Chinese model principally reposes on socialism as opposed to neoliberalism. Even if socialism does not ensue from global power rebalancing, at least, the apparatuses that have historically accumulated the drivel of “let NATO bomb Libya, Iraq and Syria to liberate them from their tyrants,” would flounder. At any rate, the degree of these global alternations potentially bears the long awaited civilizational turnaround: the elimination of genocide for the sake of progress, or put bluntly, the “kill the third-worlder and weep for him or her” ethos of the white man’s burden, becomes likely. In a manner of speaking, humanist theory and, its ideological arm socialism, are at their nadir such that any motion unseating US-led capital and its dominant ideas must bear fruit. But, so far, one thing is for sure:

“the East wind would have defeated the West wind,” as per Mao Zedong.

Meanwhile, arresting the advance of China has become something of an American obsession. For those who stress that China is imperialist, they foresee a détente during which both imperialist powers (China and the US) would jointly feast on imperial tribute – a sort of super-imperialism in which the US and China cohabitate and split the imperialist rents. Even were such a hypothesis true, that is, if China was imperialist, one is also reminded that inter-imperialist rivalry motivates warring because, under capitalism, all predatory parties take their cue from fetish-like market forces that are alienated from responsible social control. People fall victim to external market forces shaped by profit making. In such a world, objective circumstances that escape the command of reasonable people systemically lead capital, the class in control under capitalism, into war. There were always wars, but their frequency, causes and modes of realisation vary according to the historical periods in which they occur. Even under the two-imperialisms assumption, the US and China will collide. However, the reality remains that China is not an imperialist power by any stretch of the imagination. China is still shedding the shackles of years of colonial loot and wars of depopulation.

Worse yet, the current mainstream’s neurotic fixation with stymieing the ascent of China has gotten to the point of recommending a pre-emptive nuclear strike either within the intermediate term (the window of opportunity) or while the US still enjoys “nuclear primacy” as one of the feasible political tools at the US’s disposal (Gompert et al., 2016).[19] A recent assessment posited that a “Pentagon computer model estimated that a U.S. counterforce strike against China’s ICBM silos using high-yield weapons detonated at ground blast would still kill anywhere between 3-4 million people… this makes using nuclear weapons thinkable for the first time since the 1940s (Keck, 2015).”[20] The imperialist vernacular of nuclear war was never solely a veneer for power positioning. However, with Trump at the helm, there is something to sombrely ponder about an inchoate president playing the role of madman at the pinnacle of an empire that contemplates the use of nuclear weapons as a first strike option.

Still, Trump is no exception to the streak of past US presidents. In the early 1980s, Bush Senior comforted himself with the thought that more Russians would die than Americans in case the US nuked the Soviet Union first. The theory with which conventional wisdom explains such mad presidential behaviour is dis-ingeniously called the “madman theory.” Apart from having nothing to do with theory, this theory has little to do with the personality of the incumbent president. In the nuclear age, playing mad is practically part of the job description of all US presidents. What is connectedly disconcerting however, is that the madmen of America are faced off against a “thuggery”in Russia provoked by imperialist encirclement. As Tillerson noted, Russia, by virtue of its nuclear arsenal, imposes its will.[21] In such a world of strategic alliances, no game theoretician can ingeniously draw up a mix of “thug and madman theories” and, all the while, pinpoint to a no first-strike equilibrium position.

Above all,the liberal bent of the empire and its presidents, including their overall culture of selective democracy (democracy for the few), regards as primary bourgeois rights and “negative freedom” (national defence and defence of interests in foreign territory) and only pays lip service to social rights or human lives. The proof for this is evidenced ex post-facto in the hundreds of millions of war and related deaths at the hands of liberal or social democratic Western regimes in the 20^th century.

A Western social fascism breeding in a liberal or bourgeois democratic receptacle combined with a primacy of politics or, the premise that imperialist aggression has principally sociological causes, mean that no Chinese adage of “one tide lifting all boats” can write off the prospect of outright or surrogate confrontations with the US. The ongoing wars in the Levant and Ukraine may be considered as proxy wars that disrupt China’s new Silk Road.Placing the pursuit of power for stability of capitalist rule before instantaneous economic gains is the sociological underpinning of imperialism. That is not to say that economics falls last. Economics is determining in the last moment or after working people have been coerced or commodified by violence to extract the most value for price out of them. In most cases such a process of objectification (turning people into objects), the most gruesome aspect of the law of value realised as imperialist or colonial practice, involves depopulation by war, hunger or severe austerity. The mainstream, including the western Marxists, de-abstract the higher rates of depopulation wrought as a result of imperialist violence from the workings or the totality of capital. For that line of thought, capitalism is the exploitation of the productive worker in the modern factory, while the death from hunger and wars are related to the age-old practice of imperialism.

However, capitalism has always been about factories interlocked with the global production chain producing commodities en-masse and factories (ideological apparatuses) producing the consciousness that suits the overproduction of commodities (Curcio, 1983). What we leave into the theory of exploitation and,what we tweak out of it (de-abstract),determines who we are ideologically. There is a class and ideological content to the concept of the factory: how widely encompassing it is and what it includes. There is also an ideological content to the concept of value: whether it is that share of labour employed from the total labour available to humanity or just the national labour force.There is an ideological content to war as economic practice: whether it is an extension to support central production units or not. Obviously, for Western academe living off the avails of imperial rent and incorporating Marx into its corpus, the factory is just the modern unit, value has national boundaries denominated by its own moneyed form and, war is a costly mission civilisatrice.

Such reductionism is theoretically inadequate because capital reconstructs the money form, not by productivity, but by class and power relations. Moreover, it has been customary in our globally integrated world, serving as one big factory, for the production of suitable consciousness to entail the coercion of people up to the point where they become unconscious of their interests. Defeating peoples into submission or into slave-like conditions, to de-subjectify them as in stripping them of their power to negotiate, is a principal characteristic of commercial exploitation. A commercial exploitation, whose foremost modern form is the deconstruction of states by war, is central to setting the global moneyed and non-moneyed terms of exchange.

Hence, the pursuit of power of which one speaks is not some presidential or royal psychological whim, it is the power that cements the rule of capital, the governing social relationship in the historical phase known as capitalism. The most ferocious side of capital is imperialism, or the social relationship by which private gains expand by commercial exploitation and its extreme forms of commodification cum consumption of man and the environment. Here even the semblance between free agents entering into an exchange contract disappears. De-subjectification by violence is the sine qua non to capital and intrinsic to imperialism. The necessary, but not exclusive, theoretical reason for the violence arising from the particular form of capitalist accumulation follows the value relations within the commodity itself. Violence specifically follows the contradiction between use and exchange value (public or social usefulness of commodities vs. the way value is torn from people and expropriated privately). The private category is set against the pubic via a process of coercive and violent alienation, which becomes encroachment wars in the developing world.

Capital deprives the labourer from his or her own self, the resources of the labouring class and the fruits of labour. It is misplaced to theorise war and accumulation by trans-historical behavioural characteristics. For a theory to be pertinent, the immediacy must be situated in the mediation or, the present must arise based on the historically specific social forces that have shaped it, not the game theoretic accounts of “he did – I did.” The appearance of permanent imperialist war has its essence (essence as in value relationship, not as by the most recent use) in the genome of the capitalist system, or the commodity as self-expanding value.

The point of the above is that violence under capitalism is rooted in the law of value, and that China’s rise redresses the balance of power with empire and much of the value for low prices that the US earns in imperial rent will be lost.In such a metabolic order – metabolic as in the making of wealth consumes man and nature as cheapened inputs – China cannot continue to wiggle its way out of the US’s wrath (the commodification of its own people) and all at once, climb to the top of the global economic ladder by stealth. As the chief capitalist power in history, the US is being led by its own objective and alien market forces. It unavoidably must stop China. The case may be that it is only the reasonable view of some US strategists who foresee the prospects of any nuclear disaster as mutually assured destruction or a nuclear winter, which mitigates the realisation of that abominable first strike scenario (Johnstone, 2017).

The market imbroglio

With the nuclear confrontation’s prospect being serious but remote, China’s market-led expansion remains vulnerable so far as its trade routes fall in areas of US sponsored or instigated wars or through states under the thumb of Uncle Sam, like the Gulf states. More to the point, China’s energy security and circuits are vulnerable. The recent coup by the defiant Saudi prince potentially destabilises that circuit in a region that exports a fifth of global oil supplies, which flow through the Hormuz strait on daily basis. Saudi Arabia itself produces nearly a sixth of global oil. Apart from the Soviet targeting and depressing the sources of German strategic oil supplies in WWII, oil demand and supply have since run tightly close to each other. So, to restate the obvious, missile-lobbing within Saudi territory or across the waters of the Gulf strategically harms all oil dependent countries.

Although China may incur some shortages in the short term, other powerful emerging countries such as India will also lose. This begs the question: can the US regulate the sabotage of oil supply and production across an oil dependent globe? With the US being the third largest producer of oil and with its capacity to speedily increase production via unconventional drilling methods, it can be selective in choosing the parties it wants to bail out and the parties it wants to leave behind. For the latter group, their resources will be disengaged or be put up for grab at fire sale prices, and their capital could flow North to the safety of dollar markets. Just like every global war and recession so far, a war in Saudi or with Iran may turn out to be a wealth and value restructuring arrangement in favour of US empire.

For the US, it is the impact of the chronic oil shortage on China’s internal security that counts. China’s Achilles heel may still be the loosening of the centripetal pull of the Beijing authority upon the vast stretches of the successor state to the heavenly kingdom, as per just about any caricature reading of Chinese history. However, modernity and its trappings have eroded distances and homogenised traditions. The heavenly kingdom has become worldly with bullet trains now crossing the country. The effect of the oil shock may not shatter China, but can it bring its working population to endure the effects of severe austerity – up to the point of subversionary spill-over. Put differently, can the shortages of oil combined with an overstretched Chinese credit market – as in China’s debts triggering a financial bust or a Minsky moment – precipitate a downward spiral steep enough to thrust China into the sort of shock therapy and internal collapse that undermined the post-socialist Soviet republics?

The simple answer is no. China is too big to fail. It is true that Chinese public or private institutions may have overborrowed in times of economic expansion and might be overexposed in the downturn: the Minsky moment. It is also true that steady attempts to electronically link Chinese finance to the global market and circumvent its restrictions on capital outflows are ongoing. However, China grows in the safety of a regulated capital account. Minsky moments can be contained. It is not just because a crisis may undervalue the Yuan and, consequently, higher exports incomes may rebound markets, that China may be saved. Price movements and macroeconomic accounts are within its purview. China is a huge net lender. It is not some banana republic short leashed by debts to the financial-bogeyman institutions of imperialism. It lends the imperialist institutions.  China has lent and borrowed from itself and according to the conditions it lays out, including the manipulation of the interest rate to balance its savings and investment rates. In a worst-case scenario, China can always restructure the conditions of debt repayment with standstill type arrangements to avoid collapse. Such autonomy is the fruit of the regulated capital account that locks much of the surplus vale within the national boundary, a policy widely recognised as the precursor to China’s economic success.

At the present interval, prominent scholars of China venture to ask what would happen if China decided to impose sanctions on the USA (Chossudovsky, 2017).[22] With Russia becoming its first supplier of crude, China has enough partnerships for energy supply, productive capacity and financial wherewithal to withstand the shock and possibly use the opportunity to recapitalise with alternative energy sources. China is also adopting measures to avert an energy sparked crisis. Already, China invests in electric vehicles, renewables, and its own shale and coal reserves, which will reduce the country’s dependence on foreign suppliers (Butler, 2017).[23] Moreover, higher oil prices incentivise regions that produce at high cost, shale and tar sands, to join the chorus of oil producers. With so much additional oil production and state credit available, wither the window of opportunity by which a Saudi-US instigated oil shock can trigger a financial bust in China.For imperialism, neither the first-strike nor the market-strike windows of opportunity are viable options.

China is the world’s leading auto-sufficient system of market accumulation, but it also has a huge socialised sector that can backstop a crisis. Short of nuclear war, the Chinese system is rooted in the protectionism of the socialist era, which makes it somewhat undefeatable. For China, development and working-class security are key to national security. Its trebling of manufacturing workers’ wages in a little over a decade signifies the lingering centrality of labour in the state. Politically, the living socialism in the Chinese model can be discerned from the neoconservative critique levied at Xi Jinping.  The latest of such critiques (November 2017) by the Brookings Institute regrets Xi Jinping consolidation of power and his lack of willingness to override entrenched interests resisting neoliberal reforms – especially financial openness and labour market rigidities.[24] While on the socialist side, the late Fidel Castro stated that Xi Jinping is one of the strongest and most capable revolutionary leaders he has met (Castro, 2014). The demarcation lines have been drawn.

Just as Chinese export-led capitalism slipped into socialism behind the philosophical argument of “the two uniting into one,” so too can socialism displace any remnants of capitalism under some new form of the argument of “the one divided into two.”[25] These aphorisms were about how much capitalism should China introduce into its socialism, and whether socialism can survive the growth of an unequal wage system. In times of crisis, socialist measures become indispensable to the capacity of the state, any state, to provide and cement the popular national defence lines. The reassertion of socialism in China’s nineteenth Communist party congress (2017) signals China’s awareness of the seriousness of the mounting geopolitical contradictions.

MBS as the American war asset

For a considerable period after the end of the Cold War, no matter how foolish or miscalculating US empire appeared, right or wrong, the outcome of its actions favoured its status. The US could lose, but its very loss would be a win because there was no other power challenging its hegemony. For instance, in 2003 the United Nations did not authorise the invasion of Iraq, but the US invaded. While there was no power to challenge its decision, the nexus of war and financial expansion played in favour of its capital class. So long as the US was unchallenged, it had won whether it acted soberly or foolishly. History was American and in history there is no right and wrong. What was necessary for history, that is necessary to service the expansion of commodity production via a metabolic order auto-reproducing by value destruction and creation simultaneously, was also borne out by the immediate politics of the Oval office. An identity or a complete reconciliation of historical necessity and immediacy in politics as chance was nearly always in evidence. The Hegelian utopia in which the dialectical category of necessity became its opposite chance materialised, albeit, until the world realised that the bombing of Libya in 2011 was just another imperialist state destruction project. Applying the same NATO sponsored measures to Syria became impossible because China’s considerable presence permitted Russia’s direct intervention.

That ideality, the identity of necessity with chance or coincidence, is no longer the case. Immediately after the end of the cold war, that same ideality was dubbed an end of history. But necessity and chance are not just formal ideas without referent in reality. The bombing of Baghdad in 1991 has brought more pressure to bear for the world to become more unequal. The weakening of Arab socialism contributed to weakening global labour.

On the macroeconomic level, the US’s share of the global market has been declining vis-à-vis China’s. It is around 15 percent for the USA (2017 figures), while China’s is 18 and will rise to 20 percent in 2020. Politically, the US’s receding hegemony in Iraq, Syria and Yemen and the hemming in of Iran and Turkey upon the northern border of historical Palestine, are the harbingers of US imperial twilight. The US had tried in vain to enact a no-fly zone over Syria, but was faced with by the Chinese and Russian veto. More recently, the US’s attempts to sacrifice the Kurds in Iraq have failed. Such concrete events as manifestations of many chance occurrences signal an opportunity to be appreciated, a novel historical necessity, the rise of the developing world behind the new big wall of China.

The US’s Saudi sponsored coup, a fratricidal spectacle torn from the pages of a Shakespearian play, will most likely flounder because manic MBS has confronted public power (the Leninist class-based understanding of the deep state as an instrument of capital), the bureaucratic structure and the order of kinship and clientelism holding together the kingdom. The coup will likely fail also because no one is convinced that it is an anti-corruption campaign. In fact, the present king was most opposed to corruption investigation in the past.[26]Although one may speak with confidence that the long-term prospects of Saudi Arabia under the current private resource allocation measures are grim, the early signs are that the Palace putsch is foolhardy.

However, MBS is no bull in a china-shop. He has been in command of the strongest units in the Saudi army aggressing Yemen. The supportive US is aware of his moves and has long had substantive military forces in Saudi Arabia. MBS is fighting the American/Israeli war in Yemen, leaving millions on the brink of starvation. This war is not about a sectarian Zaydi-Wahhabi war; it is about the control of the Mandeb strait, the alternative route to millions of barrels per day of Saudi oil in case the Gulf experiences war-disruptions.[27]

More important, the war in Yemen is an extension of the destruction of value, death by war, starvation and related diseases, from the horn of Africa to the Sahel. It is baffling how the mainstream, including western Marxism, narrowly focuses on the woman’s contribution to social reproduction as if capital is of the male gender targeting women’s do-good recreation of value or labour power. The role of women is crucial, but social reproduction, the regulation of population growth as the stock of value, is holistic. Capital as the principal social relation in history hands orders to socially reproduce, chiefly by means of eliminating lives as value, before mothers’ milk is passed to infants. Lives, humans that is, are the beginning and ends of social reproduction. The hours spent in producing moneyed commodities are inseparable from hours spent in reproducing mon-moneyed commodities, including the production of waste.

Shifting the focus of the labour theory of value away from the non-moneyed or dollar-cheap and shortened third world lives is laden with ideological bias. Such reductionism is falsely adequate because the people involved in interpersonal comparisons and evaluation of practice (the determinants of theoretical adequacy) are of the same denomination. They regurgitate the existing lopsided structure of class and power relations. Following Emmanuel (1972), the discrepancy in the structure question can be posed as such: why the cheaply priced life of an Iraqi consumed in war predicates the more expensive life of a New Yorker gradually consumed in the drudgery of western industry.Dropping this link because one life is already more money-valued than the other, leaves the historical question of which value, class or power relations set the moneyed terms of trade out of the picture.

Moreover, the more conservative strands of the mainstream analyse the third world and its value/life destruction away with an assortment of undying,conflicting and shifting identities.[28]While the war, the waste side of the system, is its more decisive constituent, the theory of the neoclassical economists, the most absurd of the mainstream, offer a fictional society choice between guns or butter. Guns, the shoddy metaphor for wars, involve the restoration of power structures and the consumption of people as commodities by people as labourers. In real society, people are the starting point of value making and are value themselves. The consumption of living labour by living labour organised as classes with national structures, engaged in the permanently imposed wars of imperialism, is an act of commercial exploitation that limits the progress of the weakest states.  In this unending, anachronistic and holistic war as production measure, the more powerful machines of the North and the higher prices of their associated commodities are determined by the historically accumulated power (real and ideological), cultural expropriation and the consumption of non-moneyed resources and human lives in the South.

Tautologically, the higher moneyed signification of the wealth amassed by imperialism circularly determines the higher prices and profits associated with Northern assets, including the wages of its working class. For capital, uneven development, theoretically originating within the contradictions of value, was identified as an ontological condition or an absolute law of accumulation under capitalism before the recycled catchphrase now in common usage: combined and uneven development. Waste, wars, depopulation and environmental degradation are themselves producers of commodities in the process of consumption or realisation. These waste industries are also integrated precursors and end points in the civilian-end use commodity (butter-like as opposed to guns) realisation process of a global market that must tote the guns to produce butter.Accumulation by market expansion requires accumulation by encroachment wars. Seen from that optic, the continuation of war and or its escalation are the material and ideological foundation of capital, and its more ferocious form, imperialism.

The above brings us full circle to the definition of MBS as an incontrovertible war-asset to imperialism. The extolled NY Times reformer, is more than just a custodian of the oil spigots on behalf of empire. War and oil politics are complex and inseparable. MBS combines more of both than his predecessors.

History is against the US/Saudi alliance

There are other sociological reasons that might hasten the failure of the coup. The US held Saudi Arabia in a state of animated suspension to control/usurp its oil, it imposed upon that society an immutable state of consciousness re-enacted by a fabricated Islamic conservatism; such stasis, in which the European colonial settlement of Palestine remained unforgiven, would backfire if the gung-ho prince was to allegorically hoist the Zionist flag over Mecca. Saudi life before oil was of the typical peasant or nomadic structures in which everyone, men and women, worked and had a say in the decisions made. It was the combination of Euro-US imperialism that imposed an identity, which promotes idleness and segregation, and essentially, the subjugation of the Arabian Peninsula. However, the very reactionary identity cum social ideology erected by imperialism will at a moment’s notice reinvent itself as anti-imperialist. This occurs at the juncture where the élan of resistance, the global ideological recharge occurring in the background as we speak, switches the meaning of popular parables from submission to revolt as per Frantz Fanon. In Saudi Arabia, the credo of anti-Zionism was uncompromised to compete with the popularity of pan-Arabism. More important, the anti-Zionist struggle is contiguous to peoples’ liberation struggles in the region. Such legacies instilled at the popular level are the brakes that will hold back impetuous pro-Zionist-imperialist rapprochement.

Of course, the imperialist sponsored Sunni-Shiite identity schism reared by the invasion of Iraq and its US-erected Sectarian constitution is a sinkhole into which Iran had fallen, othering many into the Sunni hand-me-down imperialist rubric (The Bremer constitution for Iraq). But the recent gains of the multi-sectarian Arab Syrian army and the bitter victory of Yemen, a country that withstands a baleful famine in the process, had thrown a monkey wrench into the imperialist plot. The blowback from the defeat of the MBS-Zionist alliance/coup will air on the side of China. What China had sown into the Arab world, especially its long-standing support for the rights of the Palestinian people, will come to fruition. Although the short-term impact of oil shortages on China may be dire, the boomerang effect upon a US empire auto-eroding by the practice of racism inside and outside, and the instigation of war to promote its growth by waste industry, can also be dire. In the last instance, the coup will decidedly fail because China’s influence is on the march.

However, just as there are imperialistically imposed identity-politics traps mitigating popular anti-imperialist unity in the Arab region and elsewhere in the developing world, there are also similar hurdles of identity superseding class unity in the North. The weakness of organised socialist forces in the North and their ideological platitudes minimising the contribution of the global South to wealth-making and value are not haphazard, they are closely related to the accumulation of historical surplus value and its bearing on the production of working class consciousness. Theorising is never free of ideology; theorising that things or objects such as better northern machines bereft of historical subjects produce more wealth and justify higher northern wages is absurd thingification (things making and explaining things). The dominant strand of Western/liberal Marxism theorises only objects without subjects. It misses the point that the primary inputs in the furnace of wealth-making are the stacked wasted lives of peoples in the third world, labourers consumed alive as labour power in imperialist genocide; wars that are endemic parts of global production outside any teleological order. Depending on one’s point of reference, wars can be the final stage in the realisation of commodities. The western point of reference, where western-machines manufactured-commodities are the last stage of production, is superficial and biased.To be parsimonious, the productivity/price of the machine/commodity is denominated in the dollar whose value, through the exercise of imperialist war, is reinvented by the west as store of wealth and means of exploitation. War precedes and follows any production process as input and output. War, as the industry that consumes all sorts of living and dead labour, is the first and last stage of any production and realisation process.

A system that must devour its weakest living social and environmental orders, cannot be reformed. Sorting trash for recycling in the North or producing electric cars to halt environmental calamity are measures of self-delusion, a fig-leaf that displaces white-man burden, especially as the social relations required to set the background for higher profits necessitate the destruction of the weakest human and environmental circles; ones like the ongoing Somali famine that killed one million children over the last two years, yet goes on almost unnoticed (Mountain 2017). To have voided the necessity for ironclad popular organisation as undemocratic and, to have swerved popular energy into futile academic tit-for-tats, hastens the real ricochet effect of imperialism: the rise of fascism in the North.  The results remain to be seen.

Ali Kadri is visiting fellow at the Centre for Human Rights, LSE, and author of The Cordon Sanitaire: A Single Law Governing Development in East Asia and the Arab World, Palgrave, 2017.

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Kadri, A. (2016). The unmaking of Arab socialism. London: Anthem Press.

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Selected citation

Ali Kadri, “The Saudi palace coup, the oil market and China”, real-world economics review, issue no. 82, xx December 2017, pp. xx-xx, http://www.paecon.net/PAEReview/issue82/Kadri82.pdf

You may post and read comments on this paper at https://rwer.wordpress.com/comments-on-rwer-issue-no-82/

Notes

[1] Ali Kadri is visiting fellow at the Centre for Human Rights, LSE and author of The Cordon Sanitaire: A Single Law Governing Development in East Asia and the Arab World,

https://www.palgrave.com/de/book/9789811048210

[2] Leonard Peltier is a Native American activist who has spent over 40 years in prison for a crime he did not commit. https://www.whoisleonardpeltier.info/

[3]  Saudi Arabia seeks to end U.S. lawsuits over Sept. 11 attacks

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-saudi-sept11/saudi-arabia-seeks-to-end-u-s-lawsuits-over-sept-11-attacks-idUSKBN1AH4RL

[4] See https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/23/opinion/saudi-prince-mbs-arab-spring.html, and the following reply: https://twitter.com/anhistorian/status/934080718816399361?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Etweet

[5] The adjective impulsive tyrant appeared in the “The Saudi System and Why Its Change May Fail.”https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2017/11/21/saudi-system-and-why-its-change-may-fail.html

[6] Saudi Arabian Monetary Authority, (SAMA), TABLE (2):Annual Government Revenues and Expenditures.

[7] US-Saudi Arabia seal weapons deal worth nearly $110 billion immediately, $350 billion over 10 years. https://www.cnbc.com/2017/05/20/us-saudi-arabia-seal-weapons-deal-worth-nearly-110-billion-as-trump-begins-visit.html

[8] Saudi Arabia’s riches conceal a growing problem of poverty: in a country with vast oil wealth and lavish royalty, an estimated quarter of Saudis live below the poverty line

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jan/01/saudi-arabia-riyadh-poverty-inequality

[9] US Welcomes News That Saudi Arabia Will Head UN Human Rights Panelhttps://sputniknews.com/middleeast/201509231027429010-US-Welcomes-Saudi-UNHRC/

 https://www.un.org/press/en/2017/ecosoc6824.doc.htm

[10] It is a testament to the bravery of women activists who have been campaigning for years that the government of Saudi Arabia has finally relented and decided to permit women to drivehttps://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2017/09/saudi-arabia-right-to-drive-is-a-long-overdue-step-forward-for-women/

[11] In colloquial aphorisms traded amongst the youth in Arab cities, the Saudi royal family has justified the right to drone the children of burqa women by the right of women to wear makeup. Such is an example of the cultural differentiation. 

[12] Figures vary according to source and some Arab sources places the fund at 700 billion US$. The quoted figure is from the Financial Times. Saudi sovereign wealth fund aims to double its assets to $400bn.https://www.ft.com/content/e4d40b90-b99e-11e7-9bfb-4a9c83ffa852

[13] See this official link for details of the plan. http://vision2030.gov.sa/en

[14] An internet search reveals one article written by a former NSA intelligence officer, which is aptly titled, “What the Saudi Shake up Means for China: The success or failure of Saudi Arabia’s reform campaign will have huge ramifications for China.” It is awry that only the intelligence services have an interest in such a topic. https://thediplomat.com/2017/11/what-the-saudi-shake-up-means-for-china/

[15] There are many strands within the Saudi ruling circles. The “what is in it for me bunch” are, as the term implies, the sections of the royal family and associates who seek a higher share of the rent for themselves, but are also unwilling to sacrifice the whole social formation in the process. There are also those with sentiments of distrust toward US policies that have emerged from the extension of Iranian power to Iraq.

[16] OPEC sees evidence of oil market moving to balance.

http://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/business/opec-sees-evidence-of-oil-market-moving-to-balance-9403148

[17] China’s ‘Best And Brightest’ Leaving U.S. Universities And Returning Home

https://www.forbes.com/sites/kenrapoza/2017/04/17/chinas-best-and-brightest-leaving-u-s-universities-and-returning-home/#43d121751d41

[18] The Comintern is an abbreviation of the Communist International,

https://www.marxists.org/history/international/comintern/

[19] For portentous or propaganda reasons, there are many articles that flaunt American nuclear primacy as an option with China. The Rand’s study by Gompert, David C., Astrid Stuth Cevallos and Cristina L. Garafola entitled,War with China: Thinking Through the Unthinkable. Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, 2016, https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RR1140.html, is one such example.

[20] Keck Z. (2015) “The Most Dangerous Nuclear Weapon in America’s Arsenal”, The National Interest,

http://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/the-most-dangerous-nuclear-weapon-americas-arsenal-13433

[21] In unusual criticism, Tillerson slams Russia’s ‘malicious tactics’ ahead of trip to Europe.http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-fg-tillerson-russia-20171128-story.html

[22] Chossudovsky M (2017) Imagine What Would Happen if China Decided to Impose Economic Sanctions on the USA? Global Research, September 03, 2017

[23] Butler N (2017) Made in China – the world energy market of the future, Financial Times,

https://www.ft.com/content/c1ddb6e1-b9df-39f9-bcd5-ee97989928b3

[24] Avoiding war: Containment, Competition, and Cooperation in US-China Relations, Brookings,

https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/fp_20171121_china_interview.pdf

[25] Ai S. (1965) Surreptitious Substitution of Theory of Reconciliation of Contradictions and Classes for Revolutionary Dialectics Must Not Be Permitted, Beijing, Renmin Ribao,

http://marxistphilosophy.org/aisuu.pdf.

[26] The following article in the Arabic Al-Akhbar contains the WikiLeaks links to the current King opposing investigation into corruption: http://www.al-akhbar.com/node/286474

[27] Yemen war clouds raise dangers for top oil shipping route. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-mideast-crisis-yemen-shipping/yemen-war-clouds-raise-dangers-for-top-oil-shipping-route-idUSKBN0MM2JX20150326

[28] For instance, the late Ali A. Saleh, the former president of Yemen, himself a Zaydi, was allied with the Saudis and between 2004 and 2011 bombed the Northern Houthi areas. Theologically, Zaydis are more a variant of Sunnism, quite different from Iranian Twelver Shiism. The people he had bombed were his allies against the Saudis, until few days before he re-switched sides again and died in mysterious circumstances. The shifting sands of identities should not conceal the strategic objectives or imperialist or class politics.

In that year, Great Britain was forced into a humiliating retreat as a furious American President insisted on an immediate withdrawal of British forces from Egypt, which was a watershed moment that paved the way for the end of British imperialism and the colonial domination of Africa and the Middle East.

UNSCR 2334 confirms the territorial rights of Palestinians including the status of East Jerusalem:

The era of a British Commonwealth of Nations under the patronage and rule of the monarchy, based upon cheap labour and the exploitation of the natural resources of overseas ‘territories’ and ‘protectorates’ gained by the likes of Cecil Rhodes, vanished virtually overnight as former colonial territories finally gained independence from imperial rule and control over their geographic assets.

The mendacity of the current British Conservative government is a tragedy as it continues to support a regime that adversely impacts the lives and livelihoods of millions of indigenous families in the Middle East including the West Bank, Gaza, East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights, in gross violation of the will of the United Nations General Assembly and the Security Council.

The motivation of Prime Minister Theresa May in allying Britain with the hard-Right, extremist Likud Party of Israel, is unknown but can only be ascribed to her basic ignorance and naivety regarding the global agenda of the Political Zionist Movement. The state of Israel is, of course, neither a member of NATO nor of the EU. It is also neither a party to the nuclear NPT, nor subject to inspection by the IAEA, which facts alone make it a great risk to global peace.

Now, the British Conservative Party in collaboration with America’s satellite state in the Middle East, supports a neo-colonial project to forcibly transfer millions of indigenous Arabs from former Palestine to adjoining Territories in a blatant attempt to create a ‘Greater Israel’ extending from the River Jordan to the eastern shores of the Mediterranean Sea.

Theresa May’s apparent ambition to be another perfidious Tory politician in the image of Anthony Eden, must be curtailed before she is allowed to damage the nation further – and the way to achieve that is through a General Election in 2018.

Featured image is from Kobi Gideon/GPO.

The other day I was in a shopping mall looking for an ATM to get some cash. There was no ATM. A week ago, there was still a branch office of a local bank – no more, gone. A Starbucks will replace the space left empty by the bank. I asked around – there will be no more cash automats in this mall – and this pattern is repeated over and over throughout Switzerland and throughout western Europe. Cash machines gradually but ever so faster disappear, not only from shopping malls, also from street corners. Will Switzerland become the first country fully running on digital money?

This new cashless money model is progressively but brutally introduced to the Swiss and Europeans at large – as they are not told what’s really happening behind the scene. If anything, the populace is being told that paying will become much easier. You just swipe your card – and bingo. No more signatures, no more looking for cash machines – your bank account is directly charged for whatever small or large amount you are spending. And naturally and gradually a ‘small fee’ will be introduced by the banks. And you are powerless, as a cash alternative will have been wiped out.

The upward limit of how much you may charge onto your bank account is mainly set by yourself, as long as it doesn’t exceed the banks tolerance. But the banks’ tolerance is generous. If you exceed your credit, the balance on your account quietly slides into the red and at the end of the month you pay a hefty interest; or interest on unpaid interest – and so on. And that even though interbank interest rates are at a historic low. The Swiss Central Bank’s interest to banks, for example, is even negative; one of the few central banks in the world with negative interest, others include Japan and Denmark.

When I talked recently to the manager of a Geneva bank, he said, it’s getting much worse. ‘We are already closing all bank tellers, and so are most of the other banks’. Which means staff layoffs – which of course makes it only selectively to the news. Bank employees and managers must pass an exam with the Swiss banking commission, for which they must study hundreds of extra hours within a few months to pass a test – usually planned for weekends, so as not to infringe on the banks’ business hours. You got two chances to pass. If you fail you are out, joining the ranks of the unemployed. The trend is similar throughout Europe. The manager didn’t reveal the topic and reason behind the ‘retraining’ – but it became obvious from the ensuing conversation that it had to do with the ‘cashless overtake’ of people by the banks. These are my words, but he, an insider, was as concerned as I, if not more.

Surveillance is everywhere. Now, not only our phone calls and e-mails are spied on, but our bank accounts are too. And what’s worse, with a cashless economy, our accounts are vulnerable to be invaded and robbed by the state, by thieves, by the police, by the tax authority, by any kind of authority – and, of course, by the very banks that have had your trust for all your life. Remember the ‘bail-in’, the infamous “hair-cut”, first tested in early 2013 in Cyprus? – Bail-ins will become common practice for any bank that has abused its greed for profit and would go belly-up, if there wouldn’t be all those deposits from customers. Even shareholders are not safe. This has been quietly decided some two years ago, both in the US and also by the non-elected white-collar mafia, the European Commission – EC.

The point is, ‘banks über alles’ (“banks above everything”, following the Third Reich’s battle cry “Deutschland Über Alles”). And which country would be better suited to introduce ‘cashless living’ than Switzerland, the epicenter – along with Wall Street – of international banking.

Bank’s will call the shots in the future, on your personal economy and that of the state. They are globalized, following the same principles of deregulation worldwide. They are in collusion with globalized corporations. They will decide whether you eat or become enslaved. They are one of the tree major weapons of the 0.1 % to beat the 99.9% into submission. The other two at the service of the master hegemon’s Full Spectrum Dominance drive, are the war- and security industry and the ever more brazen propaganda lie-machine. Banking deregulation has become another little-propagated rule of the World Trade Organization (WTO). Countries who want to join WTO, must deregulate their banking sector, prying it open for the globalized money-sharks, the Zion-controlled banking conglomerates.

Retrenchment of personnel in the banking employment market is increasing. The news only selectively reports on it, when there are large amounts of jobs being eliminated. Statistics lie everywhere, in the EU as well as in Washington. – Why scare people? They will be scared enough, when they are offered jobs at salaries on which they can barely survive. That’s happening already. It used to be a tactic applied for developing countries: Keep them enslaved by debt and low pay, so they don’t have time and energy to take to the streets to protest – they have to look for food and work, whatever menial jobs they can get, to feed their families. It’s now hitting Europe, the West in general. Some countries way more than Switzerland.

Cashless trials are going on elsewhere, especially in Nordic countries, where selected department stores and supermarkets do no longer take cash. Another monstrous trial has been carried out in India a year ago, in the last quarter of 2016, where from one day to another 80% of the most popular money bills were eliminated, and could only be exchanged for new bills by banks and through bank accounts. And this in an almost pure cash country, where half the population has no bank account, and where remote rural areas have no banks. People were lied to so that the sudden introduction had maximum effect.

It caused massive famine and thousands of people died, as they had suddenly no acceptable cash to buy food – all instigated by the USAID Project ‘Catalyst’, in connivance with the Indian rulers and central bank. It was a trial. It was a disaster. If it works in India with 1.3 billion people, two thirds of whom live in rural areas and most of them have no bank account, the scam could be applied in any developing country – see also India – India, Death by Demonetization: “Financial Genocide”, The Crime of The Century

What is going on in Switzerland is a trial with the high end of populations. How is the upper crust taking to such radical changes in our daily monetary routine? – So far not many protests have been noticed. There is a weak referendum being launched by a group of people who want the Swiss Central Bank be the only institution that can make money, like in the ‘olden days’. Though a very respectable idea, the referendum has no chance in today’s banking and debt-finance environment, where youth is being indoctrinated with the idea that swiping your card in front of an electronic eye is cool. Today, most money is debt-money, made by private banks, like elsewhere in Europe and the US. Worldwide banking deregulation, initiated by the Clinton Administration in the 1990s – today a rule for any member of the World Trade Organization (WTO) – has made this all possible.

Digitization and robotization is just beginning. Staffed check-out counters in supermarkets are disappearing; most of them are converted into automatic check-outs – and that happened within the last year. – Where are the employees gone? – I asked an attendant who helped the customers through the self-checkout. ‘They joined the ranks of unemployed’, she said with a sad face, having lost several of her colleagues. ‘It will hit me too, as soon as they don’t need me anymore to show the customers on how to auto-pay.’

Bitcoins

Digitization also includes the cryptocurrencies, the blockchain moneys floating around – of which the most famous one is Bitcoin. It brings digitization of money to an apex. The system is complex and seems to lend itself only to ‘experts’. Cryptocurrencies are fiat money, based on nothing, not even on gold. Cryptos are electronic, invisible and highly, but highly speculative, an invitation for gangsters and fraudsters. It looks as if cryptocurrencies were designed for crooks and speculators.

Bitcoin was allegedly invented by Satoshi Nakamoto which could be a pseudonym of a man or a group of people, suspected to live in the US. “Nakamoto’s” identity is believed to be commonwealth origin, due to the vocabulary used in his writings. One of his close associates is purportedly a Swiss coder, who is also an active member of the cryptocurrency community. He is said to have graphed the time stamp of each of Nakamoto’s more than 500 bitcoin forum posts. Such ‘forum posts’ exist in the thousands, worldwide. They form an elaborate network based on algorithms.

Bitcoin was formally created in January 2009 with a fix amount of 21 million ‘coins’, of which more than half are already in circulation, or ‘mined’ as the jargon goes, and 1 million, or about 4.75% (of the total) can be traced to Nakamoto. This, based on the current market value corresponds to close to US$15 billion. Today’s overall Bitcoin market cap is more than US$ 315 billion. The market is highly volatile. Drastic daily fluctuations are common, especially within the last 12 months. If one of the major Bitcoin holders, like Nakamoto, would capitalize his profit by selling a big portion of his holdings, the Bitcoin price would be in free fall, functioning pretty similar to the regular stock exchange.

On 24 August 2010, when Bitcoin was first traded, its value was US$ 0.06. On 26 December 2017, the coin was worth US$ 15,770, an increase of more than 250,000%. In the last twelve months, its value increased from about US$ 800 in December 2016 to a peak of close to US$ 20,000 in mid-December 2017, an increase of nearly 2,500 %. However, in the last 7 days, after several ups and downs, the price has dropped by about US$ 680, i.e. by more about 4%, and the trend – is uncertain. Perhaps a sign of quick profit-taking? This all shows how unstable this cryptocurrency is, apparently much more so than trading corporate shares on the stock market. And certainly not apt as a every-day currency base.

The number of cryptocurrencies available over the internet as of 27 November 2017 is above 1300 and growing. A new cryptocurrency can be created at any time and by anybody. By market capitalization, Bitcoin is presently the largest blockchain network (database network, storing data in different publicly verifiable places), followed by Ethereum, Bitcoin Cash, Ripple and Litecoin.

Bitcoin may be the next bubble, bringing down a parallel economy which has already its fingers clawing into our regular western economy. Cryptocurrencies are officially forbidden in Russia and China, though stopping cryptocurrency dealings by individuals is hardly possible. They do not touch the traditional banking system. That’s why major banks hate them. They circumvent the banking suckers, prevent them from making ever higher profits from horrendous commissions, against which the people at large are powerless.

Here is Bitcoin’s positive side. It escapes bank and state controls. If countries’ economies were run on Bitcoins or another cryptocurrency, they would escape US sanctions which function only because western currencies are foster-children of the US-dollar, hence, subject to the dollar hegemony; meaning all international transactions have to pass through a US bank. A typical case is ‘banking blockades’, when Washington decides to stop all international transactions of a country until it submits to the wishes of the empire. It is blackmail; totally illegal, but unless there is a monetary alternative, the (western) world is subject to this system.

Argentina is a case in point. Buenos Aires was forced by a New York judge in June 2014 to pay a New York based Vulture Fund US$1.6 billion, an illegal ruling according to a UN Resolution. Argentina refused to pay, so the judge, interfering in a sovereign nation, blocked more than US$500 million of Argentina’s debt payment to creditors, bringing the country to the brink of a second bankruptcy in 13 years. Eventually, neoliberal Macri negotiated a deal with the Vultures and made a payment in excess of US$ 400 million.

This US blackmail would not have been possible had Argentina been able to make its foreign transactions in Bitcoins or another cryptocurrency. Venezuela has created the “petro”, a hydrocarbon and gold based national cryptocurrency to escape dollar-caused inflation and for some of its foreign transactions, thereby also escaping the sanctions stranglehold of Washington. Had Greek and Cyprus citizens had a cryptocurrency alternative to the euro, they would not have been subject to the cash control imposed by the European Central Bank.

On the other hand, funding of terror organizations, like ISIS, cannot be disrupted, if the terror group deals in cryptocurrencies. – This shows, for good or for bad, Bitcoins, or cryptocurrencies are for now unique in resisting censure and blackmail, or any kind of authoritarian outside interference in electronic money transactions.

Cashless Living

If Switzerland accepts the change to digital money, a country where until relatively recently most people went to pay their monthly bills in cash to the nearest post office – then we, in the western world, are on a fast track to total enslavement by the financial institutions. It goes, of course, hand-in-hand with the rest of systematic and ever faster advancing oppression and robotization of the 99.9% by the 0.1%.

We are currently at cross-roads, where we still can either decide to follow the discourse of a new electronic monetary era, with ever less to say by “We, the People” about the product of our work, our money; or whether, We, the People, will resist a banking / finance system that has full control over our financial resources, and which can literally starve us into submission or death, if we don’t behave. In order to resist we need an alternative monetary system or monetary network, away from the dollar-euro hegemony – and cryptocurrencies, as structured today, are no alternative.

All the more important is the ascent of another economy, another payment and transfer scheme which already exists in the East, the Chinese International Paymen System (CIPS), effectively a replacement of SWIFT, totally privately run and linked to the US-dollar and US banks. The world needs a multipolar currency system, based on the real economic output of a country or society, as is the case in China and Russia, not one based on fiat money as is the current western economy.

Will Switzerland, the stronghold of world finance, along with New York, London and Hongkong, resist the temptation of increased profit, power and control, offered by digital money? – We, the People, have still the chance to decide either for continuing rotting in a fraud economy, based on wars and greed – for which digital money, exacerbated by cryptocurrencies, is a new tool for a new maximizing profit bonanza on the back of the common people; or do we opt for an honest future and for a life that leaves us free to take sovereign political and monetary decisions in a full cash society. For the latter we must wake up to see the propaganda fraud going on before our eyes, and to resist the robot and electronic money onslaught being unleashed on us.

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

Japan’s Cabinet on Dec.19 approved a plan to purchase two Aegis Ashore ballistic missile defense (BMD) systems to add to Japan’s current two-step missile defense consisting of Patriot Advanced Capability-batteries and Aegis-equipped destroyers. The government’s decision is explained by the “need to drastically improve our ballistic missile defense capability to protect Japan continuously and sustainably.” North Korea on Nov. 29 tested a new, more powerful ballistic missile that it says can fly over Japan’s current missile defense shield.

Two Aegis Ashore units to be operational by 2023 can cover Japan entirely by using advanced missile interceptors, such as the jointly developed SM-3 Block IIA and SM-6 capable of engaging cruise missiles. The Aegis combat system would start tracking the missile in its ascent phase and launch interceptors before it overflies the Aegis Ashore site. The system would supplement the Patriot batteries capable of engaging short- and medium-range ballistic missiles in their terminal phase and 4 Aegis-equipped guided-missile destroyers. Japan will also acquire long-range offensive strike air-to-surface missiles, one of which being the US-made JASSM-ER, that could be launched at North Korean targets from F-15 fighter planes and, eventually, F-35s, if an attack appeared to be imminent.

Self-Defense Force bases in Akita, northern Japan, and Yamaguchi, in southwestern Japan, are potential sites. The cost for the two Aegis Ashore missile defense systems could exceed $2 billion. Aegis Ashore was chosen over an option of the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) because of its lower cost and versatility. Japan will be the third country to host the system after Romania and Poland (to be deployed in 2018).

Japan has already bought a great deal of defensive equipment from the US. It had already decided to procure an advanced version of the SM-3 Block IIA sea-based ballistic missile system, F-35 fighter aircraft, V-22 Osprey tiltrotor aircraft, and AAV-7 amphibious vehicles ensure a steady income for US defense contractors.

Japan has long been building toward a military capable of more than defense. On the 70th anniversary of that constitution, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe announced in May for the first time that he planned to revise it to make “explicit the status” of the country’s 227,000-strong self-defense force. There are voices raised in the country, calling for developing a greater capacity to deliver first strikes, if threatened.

Some defense policymakers in Tokyo say it may be time to reconsider non-nuclear pledges and invite US nuclear weapons to be stationed on its soil. Last year, the government of Shinzo Abe stated  that there is nothing in the nation’s constitution that explicitly forbids Japan from using nuclear weapons. Yusuke Yokobatake, the Director-General of the Japanese Cabinet Legislation Bureau, said last year,

“We don’t think that the use of all kinds of nuclear weapons is prohibited under the constitution”.

Shigeru Ishiba, a leading member of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), believes Japan needs to discuss its non-nuclear principles, following Pyongyang’s nuclear tests.

US President Trump welcomes the trend, calling for more joint military drills and promising to sell more “sophisticated military equipment” to Japan and South Korea. Donald Trump made headlines as a presidential candidate when he suggested last year that Japan might do well to pursue a nuclear weapons arsenal. Some American defense experts have recently made assessments of what exactly a Japan’s nuclear arsenal should be like.

The very fact that the problem of North Korea is used for launching discussions of the possibility of Japan hosting US nuclear weapons, or even acquiring the potential of their own, is extremely worrisome. There are a lot of conventional weapons to counter the North Korean threat with but a nuclear deterrent appears to be a great temptation. If South Korea and Japan were to restart its nuclear weapons program, it would mean withdrawing from the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). Other countries will follow the example to bury the treaty, which has been in force since 1970. There are many nations with technological potential to rapidly join the nuclear club, letting the genie out of the bottle and starting an uncontrolled nuclear arms race. Japan cannot go nuclear without US approval to make the US responsible for consequences.

The constitution renounces the use of force in international conflicts, banning the acts of belligerence. While Article 9 technically bans the maintenance of standing armed forces. It has been interpreted by successive Japanese governments to allow the Self-Defence Forces for exclusively defensive purposes. Historic changes enacted in 2015 expanded that to allow for limited collective self-defense, or aiding an ally under attack. Any change to the constitution requires approval first by two-thirds of both houses of parliament, and then in a public referendum. The party of Prime Minister Abe and its coalition partner together hold such a majority and has a free hand to push legislation.

As is known, Aegis Ashore missile defense systems use Mk-41 launchers that can also fire ground-based intermediate range surface-to-surface cruise missiles. The Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF Treaty) is a bilateral agreement between Russia and the US. Japan has decided to buy the Aegis Ashore, not deploy American ones on its soil. So, technically, the system will be Japanese, not the US and there will be no violation of the treaty. But the system will be part of US-Japanese joint planning. It will violate the spirit and emasculate the agreement.

Japan is mulling the acquisition of Tomahawk long-range cruise missiles. Sea or ground-based Tomahawks will give it the capability to strike not only North Korea but also China and Russia. The defensive Aegis Ashore can be easily converted into an offensive weapon; it’s enough to change the software. The concern of Russia and China is well justified. If Japan decides to go nuclear, using the threat coming from North Korea as a pretext, it’ll have the means of delivery in service to install nuclear warheads on. The facts adduced above prove that such a possibility is not excluded.

The decision just taken by the Japanese government will seriously complicate the Russian-Japanese relations. It does not matter if the system is formally Japanese, not America, the threat is there. It will negatively affect the prospects for finding a solution to the Kuril Islands problem as well as the whole range of other issues. It’ll be much harder to reach an agreement on a peace treaty between the countries. The planned deployment will be a constant irritant to obstruct cooperation in all areas. And it will make Japan a target for a retaliatory strike, making the country much less safe than it is now.

Featured image is from the author.

Syrians are, first and foremost, human beings. The notion that they can be accurately described as Sunnis, or Shias, or Muslims or Christians is misleading. It is a form of xenophobic “Orientalism” that obliterates their humanity. Labelling people according their religious affiliations is an imperial weapon used to create sectarianism. And the West seeks to fabricate sectarianism in Syria.

Syrians in liberated areas of Syria celebrate Christmas, just like we do, but in terrorist-occupied areas Christmas celebrations are forbidden. Such is the success of Canada’s foreign policy. If the Western-supported terrorists were to win, Christmas would not be celebrated in Syria at all. In word and deed, we support anti-Christmas, anti-Everything terrorist proxies in Syria.

When the government and media messaging dehumanizes Syria and Syrians, and the public accepts it, the stage is set for more “regime change” war which has inflicted terrorism on Syria and all Syrians for seven years.

We should follow Syria’s example and consider Syrians first and foremost as human beings. Once they are humanized, it is easier to understand their resistance to the West’s terrorist proxies. When we see Syrians (and those who live in other imperial “prey” nations) for who they really are – rather than as  fictitious depictions of them — we will be better equipped to see that imperialists dehumanize all the peoples and all the leaders of countries that they seek to destroy. Furthermore, we’ll see that they seek to transform their fictitious narratives into self-fulfilling prophecies.  Imperialists create sectarian conflicts. Divide and conquer is a colonial staple. Hate is a weapon of war.

China is strengthening its role in the world order. From its inclusive economic policy through The Belt and Road Initiative, China is  challenging US hegemony by replacing the US petrodollar with its own currency in 2018. What will likely spring from this major turning point? 

We bring to the attention of Global Research readers the selection of articles below.

Please help us spread this selection by forwarding it far and wide, discussing it within your circle of friends and colleagues,  reposting our articles on blog sites and social media, etc.

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China Plans to Break Petrodollar Stranglehold

By Pepe Escobar, December 27, 2017

Venezuela is also on board. It is crucial to remember that Russia is number two and Venezuela is number seven among the world’s Top 10 oil producers. Beijing already has close economic ties with Moscow, while it is distinctly possible that other producers will join the club.

Ascent of the Petro-Yuan: Russia and China to Kneecap Petrodollar in 2018?

By RT News, December 26, 2017

The world’s largest crude oil importer China is likely to roll out the petro-yuan next year predicts Saxo Bank. Beijing’s largest oil supplier Russia would gladly accept the yuan to phase out the dollar in trade with China.

Pakistan Plans Replacing U.S. Dollar with Yuan in Trade with China

By Zero Hedge, December 22, 2017

Pakistan is considering replacing the U.S. dollar with the Chinese yuan for bilateral trade between Pakistan and China, Pakistan’s Minister for Planning and Development Ahsan Iqbal said according to Dawn Online and The Economic Times. Interior Minister Iqbal, who has been central to the planning and implementation of China-Pakistan economic ties, was reported discussing the proposal after unveiling a long-term economic development cooperation plan for the two countries, Reuters added.

A Currency War Will Escalate as China’s ‘Petro-Yuan’ Is Set to Challenge the U.S. Military-Backed ‘Petro-Dollar’

By Timothy Alexander Guzman, November 03, 2017

As the U.S. dollar continues to lose its status as the world’s premiere reserve currency, the reality of a world war seems inevitable, especially when major countries such as China, Russia and Iran are making strategic moves to bypass the U.S. dollar in favor of other currencies such as China’s ‘Petro-Yuan’. China has made the decision to price oil in their own currency the “Yuan” by a new gold-backed futures contract which will change the dynamics of the world’s economy.

Dollar Blow: China Launches New ‘Yuan-Ruble’ Payment Mechanism

By 21st Century Wire, October 13, 2017

This breaking development coincides with other recent moves, including news that China will “compel” Saudi Arabia to trade oil in yuan. If this happens, the rest of the global oil market could follow suit, which would spell catastrophe for the U.S. dollar as the world’s reserve currency.

Challenging the Dollar: China and Russia’s Plan from Petroyuan to Gold

By Federico Pieraccini, October 08, 2017

For China, Iran and Russia, as well as other countries, de-dollarization has become a pressing issue. The number of countries that are beginning to see the benefits of a decentralized system, as opposed to the US dollar system, is increasing. Iran and India, but also Iran and Russia, have often traded hydrocarbons in exchange for primary goods, thereby bypassing American sanctions.

Gold, Oil and De-Dollarization? Russia and China’s Extensive Gold Reserves, China Yuan Oil Market

By F. William Engdahl, September 14, 2017

When Chinese President Xi Jinpingproposed the creation of what then was called the New Economic Silk Road at a meeting in Kazakhstan in 2013, few in the West took it seriously. The name officially today is the Belt, Road Initiative (BRI). Today, the world is beginning to take serious note of the scope of the BRI.

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Featured image: Democratic Republic of Congo President Joseph Kabila

A monumental democratic movement demanding inclusion in the future of the West African state of Togo thrust the former German and French colony into the forefront news coverage this past year related to events on the continent.

President Faure Gnassingbe has been in office for over a dozen years after inheriting the throne from his deceased father Eyadema. All together the Gnassingbe family has ruled this largely agricultural producing state for more than a half century.

For months an alliance of 14 different political parties and coalitions has staged mass demonstrations and general strikes. The government has responded utilizing repressive crowd control tactics by the security forces as well as arresting leaders of the opposition.

Two formations have been prominent in the recent resistance these being the National Alliance for Change (ANC) led by Jean-Pierre Fabre and the Pan-African National Party (PNP) headed by Tikpi Atchadam. Altogether there have been 16 reported deaths related to the unrest.

One major impediment to the process of dialogue is the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) which is chaired by Lome. Although ECOWAS had made statements urging national reconciliation, there have not been any fundamental reforms enacted by the regime.

Reports indicate that there are mediation efforts taking place with Ghana playing a leading role since it has a direct interest in preventing a deeper crisis which could prompt even more people to cross the border into the former British colony. The demonstrations have had an impact on the economic situation inside the country. During the festive season sales were down for small businesses despite the fact that people still gathered at the beaches to celebrate the holidays.

Close by in Cameroon, there has been a series of general strikes largely surrounding the inherited divisions of a state which has undergone German, French and British colonialism during the 19th and 20th centuries. People in the northwest and southwest regions of the country where English is the predominant language has protested against the apparent discriminatory practices within the educational and legal systems.

Compounding these sectional divisions of a post-colonial society, the inability of the state bureaucracy to pay teachers their salaries has led to demonstrations and work stoppages within the French speaking regions of Cameroon as well. Some educators say they have never received a paycheck since they graduated from college and joined the civil service, although the production and export of oil accounts for 40 percent of the gross domestic product. Whether this is the direct result of inefficiencies or outright corruption and embezzlement by higher level governmental officials taking resources which are allocated to pay workers, is immaterial since under either situation the educators are the victims along with their students and society as a whole.

Cameroon is theoretically not a francophone nation. However, those in the English speaking regions, constituting approximately 17 percent of the population, say that in essence it is administered as such.

As a neighboring state with the Federal Republic of Nigeria, there is the problem of Boko Haram which has spread its tentacles to Cameroon. The government is involved in a regional military alliance with Niger, Chad and Abuja to battle against the terrorist group which has staged its most deadly attacks in northeast Nigeria, where the Islamist group’s attacks began in 2009 in the aftermath of the assassination of its leader and other members.

Both Togo and Cameroon are indicative of the crises of governance which emerged after the defeat of colonialism in West Africa. These issues can only be resolved through the emergence of a new breed of national leadership which places the well-being of the people above the narrow class interests of various ruling and sectional groups.

The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Burundi and South Sudan: Central Africa and the Quest for Stability

Pressure is still being applied to President Joseph Kabila of the DRC to hold multi-party elections in one of Africa’s largest geographic nation-states. This is a familiar narrative pronounced by most international media organizations.

At the same time the DRC remains a mineral-rich state which is characterized by political and social instability. Fighting in the central region of Kasai between supporters and opponents of the present government has created a refugee problem within the neighboring Republic of Angola.

During December the neighboring Ugandan People’s Defense Forces (UPDF) entered DRC territory once again in operations against the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF), an Islamic-dominated guerilla organization which has waged a war against the Kampala for at least two decades. Nevertheless, this time the DRC government said it endorsed the UPDF operation aimed at crippling the ADF.

ADF rebels have been blamed for the early December ambush of 15 Tanzanian peacekeeping troops in the DRC operating under the rubric of the United Nations. UPDF spokesman Brig. Richard Karemire said of the military attacks inside the DRC that:

“Recently, the DRC authorities proposed that the two countries plan and conduct limited joint operations against this growing terrorist menace in our neighborhood. These terrorists should know that they may only buy time, but will be targeted wherever they are. In a preemptive move, this afternoon UPDF (Uganda People’s Defense Forces) conducted attacks on their camps in eastern DRC. ADF terrorists may only buy time but will be targeted wherever they are hiding! Our troops didn’t enter DRC. We employed the Air forces and long range artillery to carry out the attacks.” (Xinhua, Dec. 23)

The question remains as to whether the security situation in the DRC is conducive for the holding of national elections? Moreover, even if there was a new government put in place would it be in any better or worse position to address the decades-long divisions which have been a hallmark of the former Belgian colony since the imperialist overthrow and assassination of the first Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba in 1960-61.

Right next door in Burundi the small former German and later Belgian colony has stood up to attempts by outside interests to bring down the administration of President Pierre Nkurunziza, who is serving his third term in office. The president in late October withdrew from the dreaded International Criminal Court (ICC) stemming from its preoccupation with the affairs of African Union member-states.

Even though Bujumbura has withdrawn from the Rome Statute that provides the ostensible legal framework for the ICC, the Netherlands-based institution says it will continue to pursue Burundian leaders over alleged human rights violations. The purported human rights groups and the European Union (EU) are continuing to reaffirm the necessity of the ICC to take action against African governments and rebel organizations while the war crimes of genocidal proportions inflicted upon the peoples of Africa, the Middle East, Asia and Latin America by the western imperialist states, with a leading role played by the U.S., are routinely ignored by the ICC, EU and largely by the investigators of London’s Amnesty International and the New York City Human Rights Watch.

The Republic of South Sudan has been proven to be a nonviable state created at the aegis of Washington after a protracted civil war with the northern Republic of Sudan for two decades, with a transition process from 2003-2011, when Juba was recognized as an independent nation by the UN and the AU. Yet by the December 2013, the newest nation in the world was being ripped apart due to the conflict between President Salva Kiir and former Vice-President Reik Machar.

Today the situation in South Sudan has become a major humanitarian disaster along with being a threat to regional security throughout central and eastern Africa. Numerous attempts by regional organizations to gain a ceasefire between the two warring factions of the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) and the SPLM in Opposition (SPLM-IO) have remained elusive.

Madagascar, Mozambique and Zambia: Pandemics, Economic Challenges and the Question of Solidarity with Oppressed Peoples

The African nation of Madagascar off the coast of the sub-continent has been hit by an outbreak of Pneumonic and Bubonic plague. This is the worst occurrence of these deadly diseases in recent times.

It was the Bubonic plague which struck 14th century Europe and within five years had killed an estimated 25 million people. Its rapid spread from Italy to the north of England spawned tremendous changes in the historical trajectory of Europe in successive centuries.

With specific reference to Madagascar, the World Health Organization (WHO) reported on November 27 emphasizing:

“From the 1 August through 22 November 2017, a total of 2348 confirmed, probable and suspected cases of plague, including 202 deaths (case fatality rate 8.6 %), were reported by the Ministry of Health of Madagascar to WHO. There were 1791 cases of pneumonic plague, of which 22% were confirmed, 34% were probable, and 44% were suspected. In addition to pneumonic cases, there were reports of 341 cases of bubonic plague, one case of septicaemic plague and 215 cases with type unspecified. In total, 81 healthcare workers have had illness compatible with plague, none of whom have died. Since the beginning of the outbreak, cases of pneumonic and bubonic plague have been detected in 55 out of 114 districts (48%), including non-endemic areas and major cities. Analamanga Region has been the most affected, with 68% of the cumulative reported cases.”

(http://www.who.int/csr/don/27-november-2017-plague-madagascar/en/)

Nonetheless, with the work of healthcare professionals, no new cases of the diseases have been reported since mid-November. There is speculation that another outbreak could take place during 2018.

Such epidemics are a direct result of the underdevelopment of healthcare infrastructure in Madagascar. The same problems are faced in AU member states across the continent. The Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) epidemic from late 2013 until the early months of 2015 in several West African states, with the most severely affected being Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia, was arrested with the assistance of the international community including the Republic of Cuba which sent hundreds of healthcare workers who played a critical role in the crisis.

Further west along the coast of the Indian Ocean is the former Portuguese colony of Mozambique. The country was born in the 1975 as a result of a protracted revolutionary war led by the Mozambique Liberation Front (FRELIMO) which went on to co-found the Southern African Development Coordination Conference (SADCC), the forerunner to the contemporary Southern African Development Community (SADC), founded in 1992 in Windhoek, Republic of Namibia. SADC now has 16 member-states with the Union of Comoros, also in the Indian Ocean, being its most recent affiliate.

As a result of the legacy of Portuguese slavery and colonialism, Mozambique faced enormous socio-economic challenges at its independence. Further complications arose when the Portuguese intelligence trained Mozambique National Resistance (RENAMO) was taken over by the settler-colonial regime of Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). After the liberation of Zimbabwe in April 1980, the racist apartheid regime then ruling the Republic of South Africa utilized RENAMO in an effort to destroy Mozambique as an independent nation-state.

The decline of apartheid compelled RENAMO to sign a ceasefire agreement with the FRELIMO government in 1992. Since this time period with RENAMO becoming an opposition party, periodic flare-ups of violence by the organization have occurred.

Although Mozambique has been cited for its economic growth over the last decade, recent problems involving the decline in commodity prices and difficulties within the financial sector has hampered the capacity of the country to develop. An article published by World Finance notes:

“Higher-than-expected government borrowing has shaken confidence in Mozambique’s economic prospects, with foreign direct investment falling 20 percent in the past year. There are, however, signs of improvement. The discovery of 20 billion barrels of natural gas in 2011 promises to transform the economy, but there are still many challenges that must be overcome if the country’s economy is to continue to develop.” (Dec. 22)

These discoveries of natural gas and oil resources in Mozambique as well as along the Indian Ocean East African states of Tanzania, Kenya and Somalia, illustrates the prospects for vast economic development. However, with the control of energy prices still remaining within the purview of the imperialist countries, the existence of these resources does not necessarily translate into greater independence and sovereignty.

Over the last four years, the consequences of the flooding of the oil and natural gas world markets with U.S. produced energy resources has had a profoundly negative impact on countries within Africa such as Nigeria and Angola. Consequently, the need to create alternative markets and sources of finance separate from the western-based banking institutions in all likelihood is a prerequisite of genuine growth and development on the continent.

This lack of real independence is reflective of the position of the Southern African state of the Republic of Zambia which announced in December that it would play host to the convening of an Israel-Africa Summit. Zambia maintains an embassy staff in Israel which includes a military attache.

A December 21 vote by the UN General Assembly against the declaration of U.S. President Donald Trump mandating the transferal of the American embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, recorded Zambia as being absent during the process. This order by Trump sparked anti-American and anti-Zionist demonstrations throughout Palestine and around the world.

Togo was reported as voting against the resolution opposing the U.S. As mentioned above, Lome has undergone mass opposition protests demanding democratization of the country which has lived under a neo-colonial dominated regime for some 50 years. Togo had initially agreed to have the Israel-Africa Summit on its soil. Nonetheless, the unrest related to its own domestic crisis forced the event to be cancelled prompting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s visit to the Republic of Kenya during the inauguration ceremonies for the second term of President Uhuru Kenyatta in order to seek assistance from other AU member-states.

Togo opposition on the march for removal of neo-colonial regime in Lome

Zambian President Edgar Lungu was photographed shaking hands with Netanyahu in Kenya on the sidelines of the inauguration. Such expressed intent to host this summit was revealed in an article published by the Lusaka Times in early December.

These revelations from Lusaka illustrate the weaknesses of African states in regard to maintaining their long-held solidarity with the Palestinian people and all other oppressed nations globally. Such a realization of this purported intent will serve as a colossal setback in the role of Africa within world affairs.

The Imperatives of Pan-Africanism and Socialist Transformation

Of course as long as the continent remains divided under capitalist and imperialist dominance these challenges will continue. Africa is rich in mineral, energy, hydro-electric and agricultural potential which can only be beneficial to the workers, farmers and youth when genuine national independence and sovereignty is attained.

Although there has been spurts of economic growth on the continent over the last decade, the reversal of this process within a period of four years proves that the reliance on foreign direct investment absent of a plan for strategic planning which will benefit the majority of people residing within the AU member-states, can only result in periodic cycles of debt crises, stagnation and economic downturn. This has been the situation in the leading African states of Nigeria, South Africa, Angola and Egypt.

Reports during 2017 stated that both South Africa and Nigeria were emerging from recession with minimal amounts of growth over a period of two quarters. However, this limited upturn is contingent upon the slight increase in commodity prices and the extension of credit from western-based financial institutions.

Kwame Nkrumah leaving prison, Feb. 1951

An integration of the AU member-states geographically, economically and politically is the only real solution for sustainable growth and development. This must be accompanied by the withdrawal of Pentagon forces through the U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) from the continent and its replacement with an All-African High Command as envisioned in the 1960s by former First Republic of Ghana President Dr. Kwame Nkrumah.

The lessons of the 20th and 21st centuries also reveal that under socialism the fastest and most efficient societal development can take place. The examples of the former Soviet Union, along with the existing socialist states of the People’s Republic of China, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) and the Republic of Cuba illustrate how formerly colonized, semi-colonized and underdeveloped countries can achieve rapid expansion and the improvement of the living standards among the working people.

Therefore Africa should recapture the vision of the early revolutionary independence leaders who sought to build the continent as a major force within world affairs. This can be done under the direction of a new generation of leaders committed to liberating the continent and its people from the centuries-long legacy of enslavement, colonialism and neo-colonialism.

On Christmas day of 2017 the Canadian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Chrystia Freeland, released a statement “announcing that the Venezuelan Ambassador to Canada … is no longer welcome in Canada.” She continued, “I am also declaring the Venezuelan chargé d’affaires persona non grata.” The mean-spirited attitude of the Canadian government against Venezuela has taken no Christmas break.

Freeland’s statement is totally a sore tit-for-tat reaction to Venezuela’s declaration of Canada’s chargé d’affaires in Caracas as persona non grata on December 23 “for his permanent and insistent, gross and vulgar interference in the internal affairs of Venezuela … despite a call to respect the Vienna Convention on diplomatic relations,” in the words of Delcy Rodriguez, the president of the Venezuelan National Constituent Assembly.

However, Venezuela’s action seems to have some foundation, at least based on one account. Canada has programs managed directly by its embassy in Caracas that can only be considered as intervention in domestic affairs of Venezuela.

In 2014, under the Canadian Funding to Local Initiatives program, targeting Venezuela and managed by the Canadian Embassy in Caracas, Canada distributed $125,212 to unspecified recipients. The goal of that expenditure of Canadian taxpayers money is stated in an official report:

“The Canadian Funding to Local Initiatives (CFLI) provided flexible, modest support for projects with high visibility and impact on human rights and the rule of law, including: enabling Venezuelan citizens to anonymously register and denounce corruption abuses by government officials and police through a mobile phone application in 2014-15.” [1]

Ms. Freeland should know that “funding of local initiatives” with the intention of undermining the elected government is blatant intervention. She should also accept that combating corruption in Venezuela is the task of the Venezuelan government, its justice system, and citizens according to their sovereign constitutional mandate.

Imagine for a moment the Venezuelan embassy in Ottawa asking Canadians to report to the Venezuelan embassy cases of corruption in Canada by government officials or by corporations avoiding taxes by stacking their profits in tax haven countries. Would Chrystia Freeland accept that as part of the Venezuelan diplomatic mission work? That would be immediately condemned as an undiplomatic activity!

Chrystia Freeland has been quite outspoken against Venezuela and president Nicolas Maduro. She is entitled to speak her mind. However her hostility goes beyond her words. The Canadian government whose foreign relations she represents has been on a mission to interfere in and destabilize Venezuela for several years now. Canada has condoned extreme violence by the Venezuelan opposition, has issued several sets of sanctions against Venezuelan officials, has spearheaded OAS “revolts” against Venezuela, has created and hosted the Lima Group of 12 countries to instigate Venezuela, and has organized meetings in Canada with fugitives from the Venezuelan law.

Despite all evidence that the Venezuelan government is acting within its constitutional and sovereign right, and despite the three major democratic and transparent elections in 2017 with a sizeable majority for the governing party, the Canadian government continues the escalation of provocative aggression for the sake of regime change in Venezuela.

The Venezuelan government is not ready to be pushed around.

Note

[1] http://www.international.gc.ca/gac-amc/publications/plans/dpr-rmr/dpr-rmr_1415.aspx?lang=eng

Interview. We spoke with Antonio Casilli, author of pioneering research on the new digital capitalism. “We continue to work more and more, and the platforms are fragmenting and rendering invisible the labor that is necessary to make the algorithms work.”

“We are the ones who make the robots, with our own labor,” he says. “We make the criteria according to which they operate. And then we teach them to learn how to improve. The problem is not that robots are stealing our work, but that we continue to work more and more, and that the platforms are fragmenting and rendering invisible the labor that is necessary to make the algorithms work.“

In Italy there has been a lot of discussion about the firing of two IKEA workers, Marica in Corsico and Claudio in Bari. They were fired because their lives could not fit into the algorithm that governs the workforce. Have we gone back to the 19th century?

The capitalism of digital platforms makes labor discipline more rigid, as it imposes seemingly “scientific” measurements and evaluations, which can resemble the old industrial manufacturing. The key difference is that the workers, in exchange for their submission to this discipline, are not getting the social safety and the political representation that they obtained before in exchange for their subordination. This new Taylorism has all the disadvantages and none of the old benefits. The workers are caught within a contradiction in terms: subordinate and precarious at the same time.

After the Amazon strike in Piacenza, you advised the unions that they should also pay attention to data politics, not only to labor policy. What does that mean?

In Piacenza, only the visible tip of the iceberg was seen. That was a strike in a physical location, for better working conditions in connection to tangible assets. There is a whole other part of Amazon that for years has been engaged in struggle. I am thinking of the micro-jobbers on Amazon Mechanical Turk, a system for the creation and training of artificial intelligence that is powered by micro-workers, people paid piecemeal, only a few cents, for data, image and text management tasks. These workers must organize themselves for better compensation and more humane working conditions. In this case, trade unions need to recover lost ground, because the “Turkers” perform tasks that are too small for them to take into account.

Are the unions doing this?

Yes, although there are several different initiatives at the moment working at the national scale. In Germany, the metalworkers of IgMetall have provided a platform for these workers’ claims: FairCrowdWork. In France, the CGT has created Syndicoop, which helps trade unionists to organize employees around a campaign. In Belgium, there is SMart: a cooperative, not a trade union, which works with freelance workers and also with home delivery workers (“riders”). A process is taking place in which the classical trade unions are seeking to “platformize” themselves, while the cooperatives develop services on a mutual basis for workers on the platforms.

From the struggles of Italian “riders,” the demand emerged that they should be put on the same contract as logistics workers. Is it the same in France and in other countries?

In the on-demand economy, the services based on real-time platforms and products are the focus of a major legal and political dispute regarding the contractualization of workers. Up to now, the goal has been to regularize their position in a common sector contract that would apply to the area covered by the platform. In the case of Uber, in America, Europe and South Korea labor struggles are converging toward calling for their recognition as urban transport workers. For Amazon, workers are seeking the application of the common contract for postal workers. The action plan still needs to be widened further.

Widened how?

By recognizing all the micro-work done by the “click workers,” even those paid a few cents per piece to accomplish tasks such as managing data, images or texts. Their work is useful for machine learning, for teaching a machine how to learn and creating artificial intelligence.

The Islamic State (IS) group shocked the world when, in 2014, it walked a few hundred men into Iraq’s second city and took it from 30,000 fleeing Iraqi troops. Days later, IS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi declared a caliphate from the city’s historic Nouri mosque.

Almost three years on, in October 2016, the Iraqi government launched operations to retake the city. What followed was one of the most intense and brutal urban conflicts for generations.

Middle East Eye special correspondents witnessed events unfold, and documented the violence, exhaustion, hardship, fear and celebration as the city was slowly liberated during 2017. Here is the pick of their reports on one of the biggest stories of the year. Click on the pictures below to read the articles in full.

By January of 2017 Iraqi forces had stuck several blows against Islamic State. Eastern outlying villages had been cleared of militants, and many of the urban areas east of the Tigris river were under tentative Iraqi control. By mid-January commanders were declaring the full liberation of the east of the city.

But the hardest fighting was yet to come, and Islamic State was not finished in the east.

As Tom Westcott reported on 29 January, the Jungle, the sprawling leafy eastern banks of the Tigris river, where roads ran alongside deserted fairgrounds and hotels – perfect for ambushes – became the last eastern strongpoint for IS and final advances made under constant risk of sniper fire, was the only option for Iraqi troops from the elite Golden Division. Click on the pictures to read in full.

By February, Iraqi forces had pushed Islamic State back to the western bank of the Tigris. But the group refused to concede the ground, sending frogmen across the river to harass and disrupt troops stationed along the banks.

Westcott, reporting from an Iraqi forward position along the river, told on 1 February how the Iraqi forces stopped their enemies dead in the water.

By the end of the month, Iraqi forces had consolidated their hold on eastern Mosul – but it was far from safe. Westcott, this time reporting from behind the front lines in liberated areas, detailed on 22 February how IS was using small drones to drop bombs on anything that moved.

The drones were used without warning and often with deadly precision. “You can’t leave the house without checking the sky every single second and, even if you hear one of the drones, you don’t have time to run because they are so fast,” said one civilian, who recounted how his neighbour had been seriously injured by a grenade dropped from the sky.

Hospitals said they were treating up to 10 people a day for injuries suffered in the drone attacks.

Iraqi advances into the city would not have been so decisive had it not been for the air power of the US-led coalition. But that trump card came with a heavy price, especially as fighting reached a crescendo as forces moved into western Mosul.

Airwars, a monitoring group, analysed the civilian cost of fighting in urban areas – something the US coalition itself was unable to do in as much detail.

On 8 March, Alessandro Accorsi reported US coalition bombs may have already killed hundreds of Mosul civilians, including up to 130 in a single assault on the district of Dawassa only days before.

A US military spokesman told Middle East Eye the coalition would “fully assess this allegation to assess its validity”. In October, the US military stated the Airwars report “contains insufficient information of the time, location and details to assess its credibility”.

By mid-March, as Iraqi forces pushed into the west of the city, the true scale of destruction by Islamic State became apparent.

The ancient history of Mosul had been desecrated by IS militants, who viewed many non-Islamic artefacts and architecture as forbidden.

Their answer was to smash it to pieces – and Mosul’s once-proud museum lay in ruins on its liberation. Tom Westcott reported from the remains of the museum on 14 March.

In one interview in the remains of a block of homes hit by air strikes Abu Ahmed, a civilian, recounted the overwhelming use of force: “This block was hit by 14 air strikes targeting two Daesh fighters. Now we have nothing left.”

Another civilian confirmed the tactic: “The aircraft see one Daesh guy on the roof and drop a bomb. In the basement below, a family of 10 are sheltering and they get killed too.”

With the battle moving in Iraq’s favour, reports began to turn to the increasingly desperate tactics employed by Islamic State. Their use of children – so-called “young lions of the caliphate” – as frontline soldiers was in full swing.

Francesca Manocchi, on 25 March, reported how IS over three years had snatched children from their families, trained them to kill, and turned them loose on their home city.

The report began with the harrowing account of one Iraqi soldier, Hasan, who faced a horrific life-or-death choice: kill, or be killed, by a 10-year-old suicide bomber.

Increasing numbers of IS militants began to melt into the civilian population as more territory was lost to Iraqi forces. For the army, the answer was to round up all men of fighting age and “process” them at temporary sites dotted around the city.

But the task was huge, laborious, fraught with danger, and exacted a terrible toll on many innocents caught in the system. Tom Westcott, reporting on 27 March from Akrab, recounted how the Iraqi army rooted out suspects from the masses of tired, scared and hungry men.

As yet another man, who had handed himself in as an Islamic State emir, disappeared for interrogation, an Iraqi soldier offered a chillingly frank confession as to his fate:

The fate of captured IS fighters was not always the same. Just behind the front lines in western Mosul, with suicide bombs exploding and the rattle of gunfire all around, one group of volunteer medics from the US sheltered in a makeshift hospital and did their best to treat anyone who came through their doors.

Jannie Schipper, on 13 April, reported how not everyone in the emergency room agreed with the policy.

“He is 100 percent IS,” a translator claimed, as an 18-year-old was dragged in with terrible injuries. “He killed many people himself. He had already been judged and condemned to death.”

The medics continued their work.

Despite the ongoing destruction and death, resolute Mosul residents began picking up the pieces of their pre-Islamic State lives.

An 18 April report by Sam Kimball showed how the Shabak minority returned to what was left in their homes to begin again.

In May, Quentin Muller reported how music, banned by Islamic State, once again filled the streets of the city, while Laurene Daycard met a Mosul woman who had run an “illegal” beauty salon during IS occupation, paying militants off before her husband was finally arrested and beaten.

She was now free to run her business and customers were slowly starting to return. “But they are still afraid that IS may come back. I am still afraid,” she said.

By July, the fighting had all but ended, but not without terrible losses in the Iraqi army and further destruction of the city.

The Nouri mosque, the 800-year-old monument where IS leader Baghdadi had declared his so-called caliphate, lay in ruins, destroyed by retreating IS as a last insult to the city and Iraq.

As the historic Old City was bombarded with air strikes, the civilian population of western Mosul either cowered in their basements or had fled for refugee camps outside the city.

Rumours had surfaced of blanket shoot-to-kill tactics of Iraqi soldiers exhausted by months of street-to-street fighting and still facing fanatical suicide attackers, and allegations of cruelty to civilians from both sides.

After the Old City was declared liberated, a special MEE correspondent gained access to what was left. On 26 July their report laid bare in terrible detail a graveyard of human remains, filth and rubble where exhausted soldiers relayed stories of the last unforgiving days of fighting, as bulldozers made short work of covering over what many have described as war crimes.

The Iraqi prime minister, Haider al-Abadi, promised to investigate the reports. The results of that investigation are pending.

By August, two weeks after the horror of the Old City was laid bare, Mosul was still picking through the rubble for those who had not survived.

Tom Westcott gained access to the aftermath, and followed a family to their crumpled former home as they looked for the remains of their relatives. “My whole family was here when the air strikes hit and only five of us got out alive,” Omar Zwar, 25, told Middle East Eye. “It killed eight of my family. Most of them were under the rubble, and I tried to cover the other bodies as best as I could with stones before we fled.”

In other areas of west Mosul, spared the carnage of Islamic State’s last stand, life began to normalise. In one district, a young local entrepreneur saw his opportunity to bring back all that had been banned by the group – playing cards, dominoes, mobile phone accessories. But the shopkeeper had one stand-out line for sale: shisha pipes and tobacco.

For Mosulis who had endured three years of occupation and months of bitter fighting, once-forbidden pleasures gave some comfort.

Westcott met 16-year-old Abdel Halek in his tiny shop in al-Jadida.

With fighting ended and Iraqi soldiers mopping up IS resistance elsewhere, the focus fell once again in October on the actions of coalition aircraft in the battle for Mosul.

An analysis of Britain’s role in the campaign against Islamic State by Jamie Merrill discovered the RAF had dropped 3,400 bombs on targets in Syria and Iraq, the vast majority falling around Mosul.

Civilians were being ruthlessly exploited by IS, which had moved them into conflict zones, used them as human shields, and prevented escape.

The British government maintained that there was “no evidence” their bombs had killed a single civilian.

As the dust settled on Mosul, one man above all was lauded as its saviour – Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi.

Abadi had been sworn in only weeks after IS had taken the city, to wide expectation of failure. He now stands as the strong leader Iraqis needed, defeating not only IS but also an attempted breakaway by the leaders of Iraqi Kurdistan in September.

But, as Suadad al-Sahly reported in November, the recapture of Mosul was only one problem solved, and Iraq faces many more in the coming years.

MEMORANDUM FOR: The President

FROM: Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity

SUBJECT: Is Iran the “World’s Leading Sponsor of Terrorism?”

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY/BACKGROUND 

We are concerned by recent strident and stark public statements from key members of your Administration that paint Iran in very alarmist terms. The average American, without the benefit of history, could easily be persuaded that Iran poses an imminent threat and that there is no alternative for us but military conflict.

We find this uncomfortably familiar territory. Ten years ago former President George W. Bush was contemplating a war with Iran when, in November of 2007, intelligence analysts issued a formal National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) debunking the prevailing conventional wisdom; namely, that Iran was on the verge of getting a nuclear weapon.  The NIE concluded that Iran had stopped working on a nuclear weapon in 2003.

Recalling this moment in his memoir, Decision Points, President Bush noted that the NIE’s “eye-popping” intelligence findings stayed his hand.  He added this rhetorical question: “How could I possibly explain using the military to destroy the nuclear facilities of a country the intelligence community said had no active nuclear weapons program?”

We believe that you are facing a similar situation today. But instead of an inaccurate claim that Iran has nuclear weapons, the new canard to justify war with Iran is the claim that Iran remains the “world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism.” This is incorrect, as we explain below.

 * * *

One of the recurring big bipartisan lies being pushed on the public with the enthusiastic help of a largely pliant media is that Iran is the prime sponsor of terrorism in the world today.

In the recent presentation of your administration’s National Security Strategy for 2018, the point is made that:

“Iran, the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism, has taken advantage of instability to expand its influence through partners and proxies, weapon proliferation, and funding. . . . Iran continues to perpetuate the cycle of violence in the region, causing grievous harm to civilian populations.”

Those sentiments are echoed by several other countries of the Middle East. Saudi Arabia’s Foreign Minister, Adel al-Jubeir, for example, declared in October 2015 that: Iran “is the biggest sponsor of terrorism in the world, and it is working on destabilizing the region.”

The Saudi foreign minister conveniently declined to mention that 15 of the 19 terrorists who hijacked planes and attacked America on 11 September 2001 were Saudis, not Iranians.  And, while Iran was an active promoter of terrorism two decades ago, it is no longer in the forefront of global terrorism. Ironically, that dubious distinction now goes to Iran’s accusers — first and foremost, Saudi Arabia.

The depiction of Iran as “the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism” is not supported by the facts. While Iran is guilty of having used terrorism as a national policy tool, the Iran of 2017 is not the Iran of 1981. In the early days of the Islamic Republic, Iranian operatives routinely carried out car bombings, kidnappings and assassinations of dissidents and of American citizens. That has not been the case for many years. Despite frequent claims by U.S. officials that Iran is engaged in terrorism, we simply note that the incidents recorded annually in the U.S. Department of State’s Patterns of Global Terrorism rarely identifies a terrorist incident as an act by or on behalf of Iran.

Iran’s relationship with Hezbollah also has evolved radically. In the early years of the Islamic Republic, Hezbollah was often a proxy and sub-contractor for Iran. But during the last 20 years Hezbollah has become an entity and political force in its own right. It fought Israel to a standstill in 2006 in southern Lebanon, which was a watershed moment in establishing Hezbollah’s transformation into a conventional army. In the intervening years, Hezbollah, which is now part of the Lebanese government, also has turned away from the radical, religious driven violence that is the hallmark of the Sunni extremists, like ISIS.

Iran’s Asymmetrical Response

After Iran fell under the rule of the Ayatollah in 1979 terrorism, its role in high profile terrorist attacks, such as the taking of U.S. hostages and the bombings of the U.S. Embassy and the Marine barracks in Lebanon, fed understandable U.S. animosity towards Iran.  But Iran’s actions were not driven primarily by blind hatred or radical religious views.  For Iran terrorism was a way to punch back against more powerful foes, principally the United States, which was providing military and intelligence support to Iran’s neighbor and enemy, Iraq.

The Iranians were also pragmatic and had direct dealings with Israel. During the early days of the Iranian revolution the Mullahs, despite publicly denouncing Israel, happily accepted secret military support from the Israelis. Israel was equally pragmatic. The Israeli leaders ignored the Mullahs and gave the support as a means of helping counter the threat posed by Iraqi President Saddam Hussein. A classic case of the enemy of my enemy is my friend.

The public image of Iran as a hotbed of fanatical terrorists has been usurped since the August 1998 bombings of the U.S. Embassies in east Africa by Al Qaeda and other radical Sunni entities. The U.S. Government’s own list of terrorist attacks since 2001 shows a dramatic drop in the violence carried out by Iran and an accompanying surge in horrific acts by radical Sunni Muslims who are not aligned with Iran.  The latest edition of the Global Terrorism Index, a project of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, shows that four groups accounted for 74 percent of all fatalities from terrorism in 2015 — Boko Haram, Al-Qaeda, the Taliban and ISIS.

Thirteen of the 14 Muslim Groups identified by the U.S. intelligence community as actively hostile to the US are Sunni, not Shia, and are not supported by Iran:

– ISIS (Sunni)

– The Al-Nusra Front (Sunni)

– Al-Qa’ida Central (Sunni)

– Al-Qa’ida in Magheb (Sunni)

– Al-Qa’ida in Arabian Peninsula (Sunni)

– Boku Haram (Sunni)

– Al-Shabbab (Sunni)

– Khorassan Group (Sunni)

– Society of the Muslim Brothers (Sunni)

– Sayyaf Group in the Philippines (Sunni)

– Taliban in Pakistan and Afghanistan (Sunni)

– Lashgar i Taiba (Sunni)

– Jemaa Islamiya (Sunni)

– Houthis (Shia)

The last major terrorist attack causing casualties that is linked to Iran was the July 2012 bombing of a bus with Israeli tourists in Bulgaria. That departure from Iran’s more recent policy on terrorism was retaliation for what Iran perceived to be Israel’s role in assassinating five Iranian scientists involved with Iran’s Nuclear program, between January 2010 and January 2012 (the dates and names of those attacked are appended).

One can easily imagine the outrage and lust for revenge that would sweep the U.S., if Americans believed a foreign country sent operatives into the United States who in turn murdered engineers and scientists working on sensitive U.S. defense projects.

Special Operations

There have been other terrorist attacks inside Iran bearing the handprint of support from the United States. Author Sean Naylor, Relentless Strike, which details the history of operations carried out by U.S. Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) over the past 30 years, sheds light on this uncomfortable truth:

“JSOC personnel also worked with the Mujahideen-e-Khalq (MEK), a militant Iranian exile group that had based itself in Iraq after falling afoul of the ayatollahs’ regime in Tehran. The State Department had placed the MEK on its list of designated terrorist organizations, but that didn’t stop JSOC from taking an attitude of “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” toward the group. “They were a group of folks that could transit the border, and they were willing to help us out on what we wanted to do with Iran,” said a special operations officer.”

The MEK were classified as a terrorist group, until the United States decided that as long as the MEK would help kill Iranians rather than Americans, that they were no longer terrorists. The MEK’s history of terrorism is quite clear. Among more than a dozen examples over the last four decades these four are illustrative:

• During the 1970s, the MEK killed U.S. military personnel and U.S. civilians working on defense projects in Tehran and supported the takeover in 1979 of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran.
• In 1981, the MEK detonated bombs in the head office of the Islamic Republic Party and the Premier’s office, killing some 70 high-ranking Iranian officials, including Iran’s President, Premier, and Chief Justice.
• In April 1992, the MEK conducted near-simultaneous attacks on Iranian embassies and installations in 13 countries, demonstrating the group’s ability to mount large-scale operations overseas.
• In April 1999, the MEK targeted key military officers and assassinated the deputy chief of the Iranian Armed Forces General Staff.

Despite this history, a bipartisan parade of prominent U.S. political and military leaders has lobbied on behalf of MEK and has been well compensated in return.

Benighted Policy So Far

In the ultimate ironic turn, the U.S.-led 2003 war in Iraq played a critical role in Iran’s resurgence as a regional power. Saddam Hussein was replaced by Shia muslims who had received sanctuary in Iran for many years and Baathist institutions, including the Army, were taken over by Iraqis sympathetic to Tehran.

Iran has come out ahead in Iraq and, with the 2015 nuclear agreement in place, Iran’s commercial and other ties have improved with key NATO allies and the other major world players—Russia and China in particular.

Official pronouncements on critical national security matters need to be based on facts. Hyperbole in describing Iran’s terrorist activities can be counterproductive. For this reason, we call attention to Ambassador Nikki Haley’s recent statement that it is hard to find a “terrorist group in the Middle East that does not have Iran’s fingerprints all over it.” The truth is quite different. The majority of terrorist groups in the region are neither creatures nor puppets of Iran. ISIS, Al-Qaeda and Al-Nusra are three of the more prominent that come to mind.

You have presented yourself as someone willing to speak hard truths in the face of establishment pressure and not to accept the status quo. You spoke out during the campaign against the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq as a historic mistake of epic proportions. You also correctly captured the mood of many Americans fatigued from constant war in far away lands. Yet the torrent of warnings from Washington about the dangers supposedly posed by Iran and the need to confront them are being widely perceived as steps toward reversing your pledge not to get embroiled in new wars.

We encourage you to reflect on the warning we raised with President George W. Bush almost 15 years ago, at a similar historic juncture:

“after watching Secretary Powell today, we are convinced that you would be well served if you widened the discussion … beyond the circle of those advisers clearly bent on a war for which we see no compelling reason and from which we believe the unintended consequences are likely to be catastrophic.”

LIST OF IRANIAN SCIENTISTS ASSASSINATED IN IRAN

January 12, 2010: Masoud Alimohammadi, Iranian Physicist:

Killed by a car bomb.  The perpetrator reportedly confessed to having been recruited by Israeli intelligence to carry out the assassination.

November 29, 2010: Majid Shahriari, Iranian nuclear scientist:

Killed by a car bomb.  According to German media, Israel was the sponsor.

November 29, 2010: Assassination attempt on Fereydoon Abbasi Iranian nuclear scientist:

Wounded by a car bomb.

July 23, 2011: Darioush Rezaeinejad, Iranian electrical engineer, unclear scientist

Killed by unknown gunmen on motorcycle.  Specialist on high-voltage switches — a key component of nuclear warheads.  Assassinated by Israeli intelligence, according to the German press.

January 11, 2012: Mostafa Ahmadi-Roshan, Iranian nuclear scientist

Killed at Natanz uranium enrichment facility by a magnetic bomb of the same kind used in earlier assassinations of Iranian scientists.

________________________

Signed:

Richard Beske, CIA, Operations Officer (ret.)

William Binney, former NSA Technical Director for World Geopolitical & Military Analysis; Co-founder of NSA’s Signals Intelligence Automation Research Center

Marshall Carter-Tripp, Foreign Service Officer (ret.) and Division Director, State Department Bureau of Intelligence and Research

Bogdan Dzakovic, Former Team Leader of Federal Air Marshals and Red Team, FAA Security, (ret.) (associate VIPS)

Philip Giraldi, CIA, Operations Officer (ret.)

Larry C. Johnson, former CIA and State Department Counter Terrorism officer

Michael S. Kearns, Captain, USAF (Ret.); ex-Master SERE Instructor for Strategic Reconnaissance Operations (NSA/DIA) and Special Mission Units (JSOC)

John Kiriakou, Former CIA Counterterrorism Officer and former senior investigator, Senate Foreign Relations Committee

Karen Kwiatkowski, former Lt. Col., US Air Force (ret.), at Office of Secretary of Defense watching the manufacture of lies on Iraq, 2001-2003

Edward Loomis, NSA, Cryptologic Computer Scientist (ret.)

David MacMichael, National Intelligence Council (ret.)

Ray McGovern, former US Army infantry/intelligence officer & CIA analyst (ret.)

Elizabeth Murray, Deputy National Intelligence Officer for Near East, CIA and National Intelligence Council (ret.)

Torin Nelson, former Intelligence Officer/Interrogator (GG-12) HQ, Department of the Army

Todd E. Pierce, MAJ, US Army Judge Advocate (ret.)

Coleen Rowley, FBI Special Agent and former Minneapolis Division Legal Counsel (ret.)

Greg Thielmann — Former director of the Strategic, Proliferation, and Military Affairs Office of the State Department’s intelligence bureau (INR) and former senior staffer on the Senate Intelligence Committee

Kirk Wiebe — former Senior Analyst, SIGINT Automation Research Center, NSA

Lawrence Wilkerson, Colonel (USA, ret.), Distinguished Visiting Professor, College of William and Mary (associate VIPS)

Sarah G. Wilton, CDR, USNR, (Retired)/DIA, (Retired)

Robert Wing — former Foreign Service Officer (associate VIPS)

Ann Wright, Col., US Army (ret.); Foreign Service Officer (who resigned in opposition to the war on Iraq)

American politics have rarely presented a more disheartening spectacle. The repellent and dangerous antics of Donald Trump are troubling enough, but so is the Democratic Party leadership’s failure to take in the significance of the 2016 election campaign. Bernie Sanders’s challenge to Hillary Clinton, combined with Trump’s triumph, revealed the breadth of popular anger at politics as usual – the blend of neoliberal domestic policy and interventionist foreign policy that constitutes consensus in Washington. Neoliberals celebrate market utility as the sole criterion of worth; interventionists exalt military adventure abroad as a means of fighting evil in order to secure global progress. Both agendas have proved calamitous for most Americans. Many registered their disaffection in 2016. Sanders is a social democrat and Trump a demagogic mountebank, but their campaigns underscored a widespread repudiation of the Washington consensus. For about a week after the election, pundits discussed the possibility of a more capacious Democratic strategy. It appeared that the party might learn something from Clinton’s defeat. Then everything changed.

Featured image: The Deepwater Horizon oil spill, found to be partially caused by lax safety regulations, killed 11 people and injured 16. (Photo: Florida Sea Grant/Flickr/cc)

The oil and gas industry is poised to save hundreds of millions of dollars over the next decade thanks to a rollback of offshore drilling safety regulations that have been proposed by the Trump administration—including the elimination of the word “safe” from one rule.

The rules in question were put in place following the Deepwater Horizon explosion in 2010, which killed 11 people, injured 16, and caused the worst oil spill in U.S. history.

Siding with the fossil fuel industry, which has complained safety regulations are overly broad, the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE) has proposed scrapping or changing some major requirements, according to the Wall Street Journal. The rules to be changed include one that orders companies to take steps to prevent oil-well blowouts, part of what caused British Petroleum’s (BP) Deepwater Horizon disaster.

The BSEE argued that the word “safe” should be taken out of the rule, to stop regulators from “interpreting the term in a way to withhold certain drilling permits.”

The bureau also proposed eliminating a rule that requires a third party to inspect drilling equipment, like the blowout preventor which failed just before the BP explosion.

The rollback “is literally going back to business as usual,” a former federal official told the Journal, which obtained the BSEE’s proposal.

The oil and gas industry is expected to save about $900 million over the next decade if the proposal is adopted. Fossil fuel companies rake in more than $100 billion in revenue per year, making the annual savings comparatively minor—but as critics and politicians pointed out on social media, the elimination of the Obama-era safety regulations could cost lives as the BP disaster did.

The move is estimated to save the industry $900 million. And more workers will probably die because of it. https://t.co/YtlnuGv8cc

— Lydia DePillis (@lydiadepillis) December 26, 2017

Trump wants to drill off our beaches AND make it more dangerous!

Dad fought for these safety rules as co-chair of the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill Commission. And, as governor, I’ll fight to protect our beaches from Trump and the oil companies. https://t.co/mla00koTwT

— Gwen Graham (@GwenGraham) December 26, 2017

The Trump administration wants to wipe away the memory of the BP spill by expanding off shore drilling and safety provisions that save lives. New Jerseyans know that these reckless actions will threaten our coastal communities.https://t.co/826FcxG1JW

— Rep. Frank Pallone (@FrankPallone) December 26, 2017

In yet another galling example of historical revisionism put into practice, the Guardian reported Tuesday that thousands of documents from the National Archives have gone missing in recent years – and some may have been deliberately destroyed by civil servants hoping to purge unflattering details about the UK’s abuses of power from the historical record.

Per the Guardian:

Thousands of government papers detailing some of the most controversial episodes in 20th-century British history have vanished after civil servants removed them from the country’s National Archives and then reported them as lost.

Documents concerning the Falklands war, Northern Ireland’s Troubles and the infamous Zinoviev letter – in which MI6 officers plotted to bring about the downfall of the first Labour government – are all said to have been misplaced.

Other missing files concern the British colonial administration in Palestine, tests on polio vaccines and long-running territorial disputes between the UK and Argentina.

Almost 1,000 files, each thought to contain dozens of papers, are affected. In most instances the entire file is said to have been mislaid after being removed from public view at the archives and taken back to Whitehall.

The controversy echos another incident from 2013 when a Guardian investigation found that the Foreign Office was storing documents that shed light on the brutality of colonialism from the in a secret bunker, where they would be safe from the public’s prying eyes. According to public records, many of the files that have gone missing this time around were “loaned out” to employees of the Foreign Office, which was responsible for the 2013 incident. Many others were taken by representatives of the Home Office.

The photo above shows a group of elderly Kenyans who were detained and abused during the Mau Mau insurgency

For example, an entire file on the Zinoviev letter scandal is said to have been lost after Home Office civil servants took it away. When approached by the Guardian, the Home Office declined to say why it was taken or when or how it was lost. Nor would its say whether any copies had been made. In some instances, files have been returned with pages missing.

In one example, Foreign Office officials removed a small number of papers in 2015 from a file concerning the 1978 murder of Georgi Markov, a dissident Bulgarian journalist who died after being shot in the leg with a tiny pellet containing ricin while crossing Waterloo Bridge in central London. When asked about their whereabouts, the FO said it had no knowledge of where they might be.

While the National Archives told the Guardian that they follow up when files go missing, going by the department’s comments below, their enforcement efforts sound disturbingly weak. Beyond calling and asking what’s being done to locate the missing files.

Some of the other files the National Archives has listed as “misplaced while on loan to government department” include information concerning activities of the Communist party of Great Britain at the height of the Cold War. Another details the way in which the British government took possession of Russian government funds held in British banks after the 1917 revolution. Still another includes an assessment prepared for government ministers on the security situation in Northern Ireland in the early 1970s.

The disappearances highlight the ease with which government departments can commandeer official papers long after they have been declassified and made available to historians and the public at the archives at Kew, south-west London.

A Freedom of Information Act request in 2014 showed that 9,308 files were returned to government departments in this way in 2011. The following year 7,122 files were loaned out, and 7,468 in 2013. The National Archives says Whitehall departments are strongly encouraged to promptly return them, but they are not under any obligation to do so.

“The National Archives regularly sends lists to government departments of files that they have out on loan,” a spokesperson said. “If we are notified that a file is missing, we do ask what actions have been done and what action is being taken to find the file.”

The Guardian first caught wind of the missing files during high court proceedings brought by a group of elderly Kenyans who were detained and abused during the Mau Mau insurgency in 1950s Kenya.

The FO and HO aren’t the only departments seemingly restricting access to information that would cast a negative light on British history.

One time, the Ministry of Defense refused to release files about arms sales to Saudi Arabia and special forces operations against Indonesia. The official excuse? The files had been exposed to asbestos, the MOD said.

A likely story indeed.

Petrodollars have dominated the global energy markets for more than 40 years. But now, China is looking to change that by replacing the word dollars for yuan.

Nations, of course, have tried this before since the system was set up by former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger in tandem with the House of Saud back in 1974

Vast populations across the Middle East and Northern Africa quickly felt the consequences when Iraq’s Saddam Hussein decided to sell oil in euros. Then there was Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi’s pan-African gold dinar blueprint, which failed to create a splash in an oil barrel.

Fast forward 25 years and China is making a move to break the United States petrodollar stranglehold. The plan is to set up oil-futures trading in the yuan, which will be fully convertible into gold on the Shanghai and Hong Kong foreign exchange markets.

The Shanghai Futures Exchange and its subsidiary, the Shanghai International Energy Exchange (INE), have already run four simulations for crude futures.

It was expected to be rolled out by the end of this year, but that looks unlikely to happen. But when it does get off the ground in 2018, the fundamentals will be clear – this triple oil-yuan-gold route will bypass the mighty green back.

The era of the petroyuan will be at hand.

Still, there are questions on how Beijing will technically set up a rival futures market in crude oil to Brent and WTI, and how China’s capital controls will influence it.

Bejing has been quite discreet on this. The petroyuan was not even mentioned in the National Development and Reform Commission documents following the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party last October. 

What is certain is that the BRICS, the acronym for Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, did support the petroyuan move at their summit in Xiamen earlier this year. Diplomats confirmed that to Asia Times.

Venezuela is also on board. It is crucial to remember that Russia is number two and Venezuela is number seven among the world’s Top 10 oil producers. Beijing already has close economic ties with Moscow, while it is distinctly possible that other producers will join the club. 

“This contract has the potential to greatly help China’s push for yuan internationalization,” Yao Wei, chief China economist at Societe Generale in Paris, said when he hit the nail firmly on the head.

An extensive report by DBS in Singapore also hits most of the right notes, linking the internationalization of the yuan with the expansion of the grandiose Belt and Road Initiative.

Next year, six major BRI projects will be on the table. 

Mega infrastructure developments will include the Jakarta-Bandung high-speed railway, the China-Laos railway and the Addis Ababa-Djibouti railway. The other key projects will be the Hungary-Serbia railway, the Melaka Gateway project in Malaysia and the upgrading of Gwadar port in Pakistan.

HSBC has estimated that the expansive Belt and Road program will generate no less than an additional, game-changing US$2.5 trillion worth of new trade a year.

It is important to remember that the “belt” in BRI is a series of corridors connecting Eastern China with oil-gas rich regions in Central Asia and the Middle East. The high-speed rail networks, or new “Silk Roads”, will simply traverse regions filled with, what else, un-mined gold.   

But a key to the future of the petroyuan will revolve around the House of Saud, and what it will do. Should the Crown Prince, Mohammad bin Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, also known as MBS, follow Russia’s lead? If it did, this would be one of the paradigm shifts of the century. 

Yet there are signs of what could happen. Yuan-denominated gold contracts will be traded not only in Shanghai and Hong Kong but also in Dubai. Saudi Arabia is also considering issuing so-called Panda bonds, with close ally, the United Arab Emirates, taking the lead in the Middle East for Chinese interbank bonds. 

Of course, the prelude to D-Day will be when the House of Saud officially announces it accepts the yuan for at least part of its exports to China. But what is clear is that Saudi Arabia simply cannot afford to alienate Beijing as one of its top customers.

In the end, it will be China which will dictate future terms. That may include extra pressure for Beijing’s participation in Aramco’s IPO. In parallel, Washington would see Riyadh embracing the petroyuan as the ultimate red line.

An independent European report pointed to what might be Beijing’s trump card – “an authorization to issue treasury bills in yuan by Saudi Arabia” as well as the creation of a Saudi investment fund and a 5% share of Aramco.

Nations hit hard by US sanctions, such as Russia, Iran and Venezuela, will be among the first to embrace the petroyuan. Smaller producers, such as Angola and Nigeria, are already selling oil and gas to the world’s second largest economy in Chinese currency.

As for nations involved in the new “Silk Roads” program that are not oil exporters such as Pakistan, the least they can do is replace the dollar in bilateral trade. This is what Pakistan’s Interior Minister Ahsan Iqbal is currently mulling over.

Of course, there will be a “push back” from the US. The dollar is still the global currency, even though it might have lost some of luster in the past decade.

But the BRICS, as well as the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, or SCO, which includes prospective members Iran and Turkey, are increasingly settling bilateral and multilateral trade by bypassing the green back.

In the end, it will not be over until the fat (golden) lady sings.  When the beginning of the end of the petrodollar system becomes a fact, watch out for a US counterpunch.

Christmas is a special time of the year in Palestine. From the beginning of December, Palestinian Christians and Muslims gather in town squares across the country to light Christmas trees and mark the advent of the holiday season.

Palestinian children look forward to the arrival of the traditional Arab Christmas cookie, maamoul, a small pastry stuffed with dates and nuts also served by Muslims in Ramadan.

A gloomy Christmas

This year, however, Christmas is a far more gloomy time than normal. In Bethlehem, the city of Jesus’s birth, the lights have been turned off on the large Christmas tree in Manger Square.

In Nazareth, where Jesus’s family hailed from, celebrations have been cancelled.

In Beit Sahour, the village where the shepherds spotted the stars that portended Jesus’s birth, the mood was summarised in the words of the former Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem Michel Sabbah:

“Our oppressors have decided to deprive us from the joy of Christmas.”

Palestinian Christians have declared a Christmas blackout across the country in protest against US President Donald Trump‘s decision earlier this month to declare Jerusalem the capital of Israel.

The move angered Palestinians of all backgrounds, but for Palestinian Christians it was an especially bitter blow given that Trump has professed concern for Middle East Christians and has made protecting them a repeated talking point.

US Vice President Mike Pence was meant to visit the region to meet with local Christian leaders ahead of Christmas, but every single one has now refused to see him.

Palestinians are angry because Jerusalem is a historically Palestinian-majority city, one that Israel occupied through military force in 1967 in a takeover that was never recognised by the international community.

In order to understand the depth of Palestinian Christians’ rage, it’s necessary to understand the history of Israel’s occupation and the toll it has taken on Jerusalem’s native people.

Driving Christians out

In 1948, when Israel was founded, 750,000 Palestinians were driven from their homes or were forced to flee – including nearly half of all Christian Palestinians, who became refugees overnight. When Israel occupied Jerusalem, the West Bank, and Gaza in 1967, 300,000 more Palestinians were displaced.

This included an entire Christian neighbourhood of Jerusalem: the Syriac Quarter, home to Christian refugees from massacres in Ottoman Turkey in the 1910s who were given refuge in Palestine. Hundreds of Palestinian Christians thus became refugees two and even three times over.

Since 1967, Israel has maintained a policy of isolating Jerusalem from its hinterland through a system of military checkpoints and permits that cut off access to the city for Palestinian Christians and Muslims alike.

While Israeli Jews in Jerusalem enjoy full rights as citizens of a democracy, their Palestinian neighbours face discrimination in every aspect of life, including what the State Department terms “insurmountable obstacles” in tasks as simple as getting a building permit for their home.

These restrictions aim to pressure Palestinians to leave: since 1967, Human Rights Watch has documented nearly 15,000 Palestinian residents of Jerusalem who have been expelled merely for living away from the city too long under what Israel calls its “Centre of Life” policy.

Trump and Pence have made protecting Middle Eastern Christians part of their foreign policy goals in the region.

But among the West Bank’s 50,000 Christians, the Israeli occupation and its ensuing economic effects are regularly cited as the main reason for emigration. American support for Israel is helping drive Palestinian Christians out.

Since the beginning of the peace process in the early 1990s, Palestinians have sat down at the table with Israel over and over again to negotiate a lasting solution to the conflict. Despite Israel’s rhetoric of peace, however, the reality on the ground has been far different.

While at the beginning of negotiations there were around 280,000 Israeli settlers living in settlements in the occupied Palestinian West Bank and East Jerusalem – considered illegal under international law – today there are 700,000, or more than 10 percent of Israel’s population, according to Israel’s housing minister.

These settlements have been constructed so as to surround every Palestinian town from all sides, with Israeli civilians used essentially as human shields around Israeli military bases and checkpoints.

End Israeli violations

The result is strangulation for the Palestinians caught between them. Bethlehem, for example, is surrounded on every single side by Israeli military installations.

This includes 22 different settlements and a military base built around Rachel’s Tomb, a sacred shrine where Muslims, Jews and Christians used to all worship but which has now been taken over and surrounded by a 20-foot concrete wall with access forbidden to non-Jews.

According to the UN, more than 85 percent of the land around Bethlehem is off-limits to Palestinians, leaving little room for economic growth.

The Israeli settlement of Har Homa towers over Bethlehem from a nearby hill – one that was once covered in olive groves where Palestinian Christians traditionally picnicked on saint days after visiting the nearby Saint Elias Monastery.

Today, the olive groves have been bulldozed. Israel’s separation wall blocks Bethlehem’s Palestinian residents from reaching the monastery, which was once the start of the city’s Christmas parade. It is now cut off from the worshipers who once brought joy and laughter to its halls on Christian holidays.

If Pence wants to save Christmas and protect Middle Eastern Christians, it’s imperative that Trump’s decision to move the Israeli embassy to Jerusalem be stopped. Israel should be punished for its persecution of Palestinians – including Palestinian Christians – not rewarded.

To that end, it is imperative that US legislators end military aid to Israel, which currently stands at nearly $4bn a year, and ensure that the US has no role in supporting Israeli human rights violations.

The Israeli occupation is not happening in a vacuum – it is directly supported by the US government, Israel’s closest ally. All Bethlehem wanted for Christmas and the new year is an end to Israeli human rights violations. It’s up to Americans to make that happen.

Alex Shams is an Iranian-American writer and PhD student of anthropology at @UChicago. Previously based in Palestine. Former editor of @MaanNewsAgency.

This article was first published on November 15, prior to the latest December UN Security Council resolution against the DPRK, which was adopted unanimously, with the support of Russia and China.

The situation with North Korea is terrifying – I see the stealthy build-up of pressure on the Security Council, similar to that preceding the Iraq and Libya invasions.  The Russian-China veto prevented an attack by the UN on Syria, but Russia and China are not vetoing these vicious sanctions on North Korea, and permitting this incredibly provocative US-ROK military surrounding the DPRK.  What deals are being made?

On October 13, the DPRK sent another emergency letter to United Nations Secretary-General Guterres; this was the third letter sent to the UN since November 20, three letters in 23 days attempting to alert the United Nations to the crisis situation in Northeast Asia jeopardizing International Peace and Security, a crisis that could precipitate nuclear war at any moment. All three letters have been ignored, raising alarming questions about the UN’s commitment to “save humanity from the scourge of war.

Any attempt to accuse the DPRK of “provocation”is flagrant prevarication, as the provocations, and threats to the survival of North Korea described in this appeal to the Secretary-General reveal the US-south Korean  preparation for imminent attack and obliteration of North Korea.

Ambassador Ja Song Nam stated:

“I write to you with respect to the worst ever situation prevailing in and around the Korean peninsula, which is making it impossible to predict when nuclear war breaks out due to the US nuclear war equipment of unprecedentedly large scale being massively deployed taking up a strike posture. The United States, based on the deployment of three nuclear powered aircraft carrier strike groups in the sub-region, is holding another joint military exercise with south Korea, involving different types of destroyers and submarines, beginning from November 11, 2017. The U.S. is reactivating….. nuclear capable strategic bomber B-52….and is maintaining a surprise strike posture with frequent flight of B-1B and B-2 formations to the air space of south Korea….The US flung the words of “total destruction”of a sovereign state at the UN General Assembly, the world largest official forum of diplomacy and is now running amok for war exercises by introducing nuclear war equipment in and around the Korean peninsula, thereby proving that the US itself is the major offender of the escalation of tension and undermining of the peace…..Despite this fact, the UN Security Council, whose mission is to ensure the world peace and security, keeps turning a blind eye to the nuclear war exercises of the United States who is hell bent on bringing a catastrophic disaster to humanity, thereby giving rise to a serious concern on the double standard of the UN Security Council.”

It defies logic and sanity that the DPRK, which, between 1950-1953, suffered the slaughter of more than 3 million of its citizens by US and ROK soldiers guilty of crimes against humanity, and which is attempting to protect itself from another comparable or worse slaughter, is being viciously subjected to collective punishment by UN Security Council sanctions, condemning the people of the DPRK to agonizing deaths from starvation and disease, while forced to endure the psychological torture of an encirclement by US-ROK nuclear weapons poised to exterminate their entire people.

The perpetrator of this threatened genocide is a nuclear power which has violated articles 1 and 6 of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, and should be held accountable for these violations, and itself sanctioned. But at the United Nations the de facto law is “might is right,” and “money talks.”

The United Nations has lost its moral authority, and is accurately condemned for almost complete lack of impartiality, deserving of its pejorative designation as an annex of the US Pentagon. It is now also fair to question whether the UN will survive this ignominy, and uphold its purpose: to save humanity from the scourge of war.” Nicholas Kristof’s excellent November 4 article “Slouching toward war in North Korea” tells a grim picture of the deadly price of complacency and double standards. Unless the UN Secretary-General has the courage to restore the UN’s impartiality, the people of North Korea may be annihilated, along with all of humanity.

Carla Stea is Global Research’s Correspondent at United Nations headquarters, New York.

Featured image is from UN Photo/Jean-Marc Ferré.

From our archives, this carefully researched article was first published by GR on Jun 1, 2004.

North America is now suffering its seventh year of conspicuous and dangerous aerosol and electromagnetic operations conducted by the U.S. government under the guise of national security. Concerned citizens watch in fear as military tankers discolor the skies with toxic chemicals that morph into synthetic clouds.

We continually witness bizarre meteorological occurrences as powerful electromagnetic devices manipulate both the jet stream and individual storm fronts to create artificial weather and climatic conditions. Black operations projects embedded within these aerosol missions are documented to sicken and disorient select populations with biological test agents and psychotronic mind/mood control technologies.

Part of what is happening in the atmosphere above us involves the Pentagon’s secret space weapons program, designed for strategic, operational and tactical levels of war. NASA missions will soon be transferred to Pentagon control.1 The Air Force Space Command declares that, in order to monitor and shape world events, it must fight intense, decisive wars with great precision from space.2 Air Force Secretary James G. Roche has stated:

“Space capabilities are integrated with, and affect every link in the kill chain.”3

A glimpse into new death technologies under construction is in legislation introduced by Ohio Congressman Dennis Kucinch. His unsuccessful Space Preservation Act of 2001 was intended to ban space deployment of:4

* electronic, psychotronic and information weaponry

* high altitude ultra low frequency weapons

* plasma, electromagnetic, sonic and ultrasonic weapons

* laser weapons

* strategic, theater, tactical or extraterrestrial weapons

* chemical biological, environmental climate or tectonic weapons

* chemtrails (this item was stricken from a later version, suggesting duress)

In their quest to remain top dog in the kill chain, the purveyors of perpetual war have deliberately dimmed earth’s life-giving sunlight,5 and reduced atmospheric visibility with lung-clogging particulates and polymers.6 This ecological terrorism has severely compromised public health, according to thousands of testimonials. Years of mass appeals to legislators, media and military officials for information, and for cessation of catastrophic atmospheric degradation, have fallen on deaf bureaucratic ears. Public awareness of what befalls us remains as murky as our skies because those “in the know” are muzzled by national secrecy laws and Americans have no authority to challenge matters of national security. Left to gather clues, we know this much so far:

1. At least part of the aerosol project has been dubbed Operation Cloverleaf,7 probably due to its multi-faceted operations, which include: weather modification, military communications, space weapons development, ozone and global warming research plus biological weaponry and detection testing.

2. Dumping tons of particulate matter from aircraft has geo-engineered our planetary atmosphere into a highly charged, electrically-conductive plasma useful for military projects.8 The air we breathe is laden with asbestos-sized synthetic fibers and toxic metals, including barium salts, aluminum, and reportedly, radioactive thorium.9 These materials act as electrolytes to enhance conductivity of military radar and radio waves.10 Poisonous on par with arsenic and a proven suppressant of the human immune system,11 atmospheric barium weakens human muscles, including those of the heart.12 Inhaled aluminum goes directly to the brain and medical specialists confirm that it causes oxidative stress within brain tissue, leading to formation of Alzheimer’s like neurofibrillary tangles.13 Radioactive thorium is known to cause leukemia and other cancers.14

3. Only a small percentage of the military’s atmospheric modification projects are visibly obvious. What we can’t see is equally dangerous. The ionosphere, the earth and its inhabitants are continually bombarded with high frequency microwaves used to manipulate the charged atmosphere for weather modification, information gathering and for tectonic (earthquake-producing) weaponry.15 Independent chemtrail researcher Clifford Carnicom confirms that we are also continuously subjected to extremely low electromagnetic frequencies (ELF) pulsing at 4 hertz multiples, frequencies known to profoundly affect human biological and mental functioning.16

4. There is a well-documented biological component to continuously ongoing atmospheric studies in which nations and regions are furtively inoculated via specially designed delivery systems with combinations of viruses, bacteria, fungi, mycoplasma, desiccated blood cells and exotic biological markers so that testmasters can assess human, animal and plant response.17

5. The multi-organizational megalith perpetrating these bio-chem projects against humanity includes the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) and its research arm DARPA, plus the Department of Energy (DOE) with its huge network of national labs and universities. Private defense contractors and pharmaceutical companies are heavily involved.18 Cooperating governments of other nations and probably some United Nations agencies are complicit, since the aerosol projects are global in scope.

Gross chemical and electromagnetic pollution is only part of the horrific realities we endure. The sociopaths who brazenly pervert skies, climate and weather for power and profit are the same madmen who have waged four limited nuclear wars since 1991. Radioactive weaponry, declared both illegal and immoral by the entire civilized world, has been used by the Pentagon in Desert Storm, the Balkans campaign and the on-going occupation-wars against Afghanistan and Iraq. Few Americans understand the extent of carnage inflicted in their name across the planet.

By scientific definition, the missiles, tank penetrators and bunker busting bombs unleashed against Iraq and Afghanistan by U.S. and British forces in the so-called war on terror are nuclear weapons.19 Refuse from radioactive weaponry does not disperse, but remains in the atmosphere organotoxic, mutagenic and carcinogenic to all living flesh for 4.5 billion years.

Inhabitants of the Pentagon’s two newly “liberated” nations are now slowly dying of radiation and heavy metal poisoning. Victims of U.S. weaponry used in Afghanistan have a concentration of non-depleted uranium isotopes in their bodies never before seen in civilian populations.20 Tons of depleted and non-depleted uranium contaminating their land, air, food and water guarantee their painful demise. Using data from the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA), nuclear scientist Leuren Moret calculates that the estimated 2,500+ tons of depleted uranium used against Iraq in 1991 and 2003 is sufficient to cause 25 million new cancers.21 Is it a coincidence that the population of Iraq, according to the CIA, is 25 million?

The quarter million U.S. and British fighting forces who have helped the Pentagon deliver this holocaust also face inevitable radiological death by slow burn. Rotated into atomic war zones since 2001, coalition troops have inhaled and ingested millions of tiny invisible ceramic uranium particles which emit alpha, beta and gamma radiation as they embed in lungs, kidneys, blood, lymph and bone.22 Radiation exposure to a single internalized U-238 (uranium) alpha particle is 50 times the allowable whole body dose for one year under international standards.23 As U-238 decays into daughter isotopes, it becomes ever more radioactive, causing cell and organ destruction to escalate over time.24 Uranium contamination leads to incapacitating, multi-organ system disorders identical to illnesses suffered by thousands of Gulf War I vets. Bodily fluids poisoned with uranium isotopes sicken spouses and visit upon offspring a genetic Armageddon.25

Who knows what a disabled and prematurely dying military population will mean to future stability and safety of USA? Yet Senator Chuck Hagel (R- Neb.) now demands that America provide more fodder for its atomic battlefields by reinstating the military draft so that “all of our citizens…bear some responsibility and pay some price” in order to “understand the intensity of the challenges we face.”26

Despite disingenuous denials that biological harm will result from atomic warfare,27 the Pentagon knows full well the gruesome realities of uranium weaponry by virtue of its own voluminous studies spanning 60 years. Pentagon documents confirm that America’s war establishment knowingly exposes its own troops to dangerous levels of radiation.28 The resulting illness of those now returning from the war zones is already making headlines.29

Because our military-industrial overlords brazenly poison the very grunts who make their war games possible, we must logically conclude there is virtually nothing they would not secretly and sadistically do to the rest of us. Military officials lie as perniciously about chemtrail operations30 as they do about effects of DU weaponry. If people were to consider the published science regarding chemtrails and DU, they would understand that we are all in mortal jeopardy.

Both the Pentagon’s aerosol operations and its limited nuclear wars are deeply interconnected. We can trace the beginnings of Operation Cloverleaf right to the Strangelove brain of Dr. Edward Teller, father of the hydrogen bomb and proponent of nuking inhabited coast lines to rearrange them for economic projects.31 Before he died in 2003, Teller was director emeritus of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, where plans for nuclear, biological and directed energy weapons are crafted. In 1997, Teller publicly outlined his proposal to use aircraft to scatter in the stratosphere millions of tons of electrically-conductive metallic materials, ostensibly to reduce global warming.32

Shortly after Teller’s presentation, the public began seeing frenetic chemtrailing. In 2000, CBS News admitted that scientists were “looking at drastic solutions for global warming, including manipulating the atmosphere on a massive scale.” CBS confirmed that the plan to load the air with tiny particles would “deflect enough sunlight to trigger global cooling.”33

Teller estimated that commercial aircraft could be used to spew these particles at a cost of 33 cents a pound.34 This gives credence to a report by an airline manager, forced by a compulsory non-disclosure agreement to remain anonymous, that commercial aircraft have been co-opted to assist the military in consummating Project Cloverleaf.35 A 1991 Hughes aircraft patent confirms that sunscreen particulate materials can be run through jet engines.36 A science textbook now used in some public schools discusses the sunscreen project by showing a large orange-red jet with the caption, “Jet engines running on richer fuel would add particles to the atmosphere to create a sunscreen.” The logo on the plane says “Particle Air.”37 The implications of this crucial information should not be understated. A program to make America’s millions of annual jet flights a source of specially designed particulate pollution is serious business.

Cloverleaf particles and polymers saturating the air we breathe are smaller than 10 microns (PM 10) and are invisible to the human eye. By comparison, a human hair is 60 to 100 microns in thickness. Scientists and the EPA report that because PM10 and sub-micron pollution particles bypass lung filters and enter the blood stream, they cause radical changes in the endocrine and nervous systems. 38 They can trigger high blood pressure and cause heart attack within two hours of inhalation.39 They cause the blood to become sticky, making it tougher for the heart to pump and increasing the risk of blood clots and vessel damage.40 Now researchers in Taiwan document “a significant increase” in the number of stroke victims when PM10 pollutant levels rise.41 The American Lung Association confirms that we are breathing more toxic air than ever.42 No wonder nationwide asthma rates have been soaring in recent years.43

Tiny synthetic filaments called polymers are part of the brew. In 1990, a NATO report detailed how high-flying aircraft can modify the atmosphere by spraying polymers to absorb electromagnetic radiation.44 U.S. patent number 6315213 describes how cross-linked aqueous polymers dispersed into a storm diminish rain.45

Polymer chemist Dr. R. Michael Castle has studied atmospheric polymers for years. He has found that some of them contain bioactive materials, which can cause “serious skin lesions and diseases when absorbed into the skin.”46 He has identified microscopic polymers comprised of genetically-engineered fungal forms mutated with viruses. He says that trillions of fusarium (fungus)/virus mutated spores, which secrete a powerful mico-toxin, are part of the air we breathe.47 Allergies anyone?

We can safely bet that into our particle-enriched air, experimenters are also dumping nanoparticles, developed for a variety of military and industrial uses. These engineered carbon molecules, as small as one-thousandth the diameter of human hair, display bizarre chemical properties and are known to trigger organ damage.48 A recent study at Southern Methodist University found that fish exposed to one type of nanoparticle suffered severe brain damage after only 48 hours.49

The military’s aerosol operations have been climate altering to the extreme. Air traffic is a huge source of greenhouse pollution. Increasing that traffic exponentially in order to scatter tons of heat-trapping metallic particulates and heat-liberating barium salts have undoubtedly led to accelerated global warming. Greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, including carbon dioxide, have reached a record high this year.50 As carbon dioxide levels rise, oxygen levels decrease.

In 1996, Scientists for Global Responsibility compiled a report contending that dangerous geoengineering, as proposed by Teller and the Global Change Research Coordination Office, would be absolutely ineffective in mitigating global warming. The report noted that climate engineering research is funded by industry with a vested interest in continued high consumption of fossil fuels.51 The hair-brained scheme of particle engineering was contrived to ensure that industry polluters will never be forced to decrease their greenhouse gas emissions. But because warming and pollution trends have worsened drastically since the aerosol projects began, we must suspect that the warming mitigation program is a hoax and that chemtrailing is really intended, among other things, to create a series of “hobgoblins.”

The establishment’s modus operandi for maintaining a fierce and lucrative hold upon the collective American mind has been defined precisely by satirist H.L. Mencken (1880-1956) who wrote:

“The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed, and thus clamorous to be led to safety, by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.”

In The Report from Iron Mountain published in 1967, just as the Pentagon’s lucrative Vietnam War was being revved into high gear, establishment braintrusters confirmed that perpetual war is absolutely vital for controlling and manipulating the masses. The document even suggested a number of options for creating fictitious enemies, noting that perpetual war induces populations to give blind allegiance to political authority.52

Since the 1930s, when the Eastern Establishment, including the Bush family, used its New York banks and oil companies to secretly fund Hitler’s German Nazi party,53 our controllers have employed FEAR, the concept of ENEMY and WAR to keep us in bondage. Chemtrailing is a manifestation of the Fourth Reich, an era of corporate fascism ushered in by a powerful military juggernaut, which manufactures enemies and unleashes fake terror attacks to scare us into voiceless submission.

Both Saddam Hussein and the al Qaeda networks have long been nourished with U.S. government and corporate funding and groomed by U.S. military and corporate advisors to play useful roles as “enemies.”54 Former German Technology Minister Andreas von Bulow recently confirmed on U.S. radio that hijacked planes were able to fly around the eastern U.S. on 9/11 unimpeded by military interdiction because those attacks were part of a carefully-orchestrated “covert operation” designed to coerce America into perpetual conflict with the Muslim world.55

Now, a “secret” Pentagon report has been conveniently leaked to the media. It contends that abrupt climate change is the most fearful hobgoblin yet.56 Authored by change agents with ties to the CIA and the Royal Dutch/Shell Group, the report contends that abrupt climate change will lead to a global catastrophe of monumental proportions, including nuclear war and natural disasters, as whole nations disappear beneath the encroaching sea and survivors fight for dwindling food, water and energy supplies.

Yet the Pentagon has been involved for decades in the drastic manipulation of weather, climate and atmospheric conditions. The U.S. used a chemical agent dubbed Olive Oil during Operation Popeye to induce heavy rains in Vietnam 40 years ago.57 The Air Force document titled “Weather As a Force Multiplier: Owning the Weather in 2025” lists its weaponized agenda for creating abrupt climate change including: Storm creation and modification, fog and cloud creation, precipitation enhancement, precipitation denial, drought inducement and artificial creation of “space weather.” This document also states that the military’s radical weather modification agenda will “become a part of national security policy with both domestic and international applications.”58

Weather weapons are now routinely used in war zones. A citizen reporting from Serbia noted that during NATO operations in the Balkans, black clouds suddenly materialized out of blue skies, hailstones were the size of eggs, and surreal thunder and lightening terrified the people. He reported that scientists found that the electromagnetic field over Serbia had been punctured, causing rain systems to circumvent the region.59 In addition to manufactured drought, scientists also predict that Serbia will suffer 10,000 cancer deaths from DU weaponry used there.60

According to University of Ottawa Professor Michael Chossudovsky, the military’s High-frequency Active Auroral Research Program (HAARP), operating in Alaska as part of the Strategic Defense Initiative, is a powerful tool for weather and climate modification.61 Operated jointly by the U.S. Navy and Air Force, HAARP antennas bombard and heat the ionosphere, causing electromagnetic frequencies to bounce back to earth, penetrating everything living and dead.62

HAARP transmissions make holes in the ozone,63 creating yet another hobgoblin. HAARP inventor Bernard Eastlund described in his original patent how antenna energy can interact with plumes of atmospheric particles, used as a lens or focusing device, to modify weather.64 HAARP is capable of triggering floods, droughts and hurricanes, much to the chagrin of both the European Parliament and the Russian Duma.65

HAARP also generates sweeping pulses through the ULF/ELF range.66 In 2000, independent researchers monitored HAARP transmissions of 14 hertz. They found that when these signals were broadcast at high output levels, wind speeds topped 70 miles per hour. They watched as these same transmissions dispersed a huge weather front approaching the west coast from California to British Columbia. Although precipitation had been originally forecast, the front was seen shredding apart on satellite photos and rain did not materialize.67 The hobgoblin drought can be an enriching and empowering tool for certain corporate and governing entities.

HAARP is not only capable of destabilizing agricultural and ecological systems anywhere on the planet, but its effects can target select regions to affect human physical, mental and emotional responses during non-lethal warfare projects.68 HAARP frequencies beamed at specific targets can generate catastrophic earthquakes,69 exactly like the quake last December which killed thousands of people in Iran, a nemesis nation according to the Bush administration.

The Pentagon’s warning about climate catastrophe is surely nothing more than a thinly-veiled attempt to prepare the masses for the bizarre atmospheric upheavals we can expect as the military continues to brutalize our planet and near space with its grotesque toys. And we ain’t seen nothing yet. Dr. Eastlund and his ilk have developed plans for solar power satellites designed to modify the weather with electromagnetic beam output that dwarfs the present HAARP system.70 As abrupt climate change is increasingly orchestrated, we will surely need additional fascist agencies, an ever-growing military budget and more poison-particle projects that just happen to ensure population reduction as a side benefit.

Despite visual evidence that every aspect of our physical environment is being manipulated and damaged for war games, some Americans cannot accept that dangerous covert operations are being conducted by a government they still believe to be a virtuous defender of freedom. Their stumbling block is a numbing belief that their own officials would never perpetrate dangerous experimentation on humanity since “they have families too.” History and the release of declassified government documents disprove such naiveté.

Although “they” had families too, the U.S. government and its defense contractors exposed citizens of the northwest U.S. to huge and deliberate releases of radioactive iodine 131 from the Hanford Nuclear Reservation where plutonium was produced for nuclear bombs.71 Those Cold War releases unleashed radiation illnesses upon thousands of downwinders, some of whom received up to 350 rads of radiation when a maximum safety dose is set at .025 rads annually.72 Between 1949 and 1952, radioactive pellets, dust and particles were tested on the hapless citizens of Utah and New Mexico.73

By 1963, 1,200 nuclear weapons tests conducted at the Nevada test site had exposed every person in the U.S. to deadly radioactive fallout, causing millions of fetal deaths, spontaneous abortions, stillbirths and birth defects.74 The U.S. government also conducted over 4,000 radiation experiments on individual human test subjects without their informed consent.75 The delayed effects of decades of radiation exposure from weapons testing are today demonstrated by a U.S. population plagued with epidemic cancer and heart disease, neurological disorders, low fertility, chronic fatigue, obesity (thyroid involvement), immune system dysfunction and learning disabilities. Approximately half of all pregnancies in the U.S. result in prenatal or postnatal death or an otherwise less than healthy baby.76 As military tankers spew white chemical plumes across America at a cost of $3,448 per hour per tanker,77 we are reminded of Dr. Leonard Cole’s 1994 testimony before a Senate Committee regarding 45 years of open air testing during which military aircraft sprayed American cities with bacteria, fungus and carcinogenic chemicals.78 Between 1962-1973, the U.S. Navy conducted hundreds of bio-chem tests known as Operation SHAD (Shipboard Hazard and Defense). SHAD projects like Autumn Gold and Copper Head exposed 10,000 navy personnel to aircraft spray laden with biological and chemical warfare agents, including sarin nerve gas.79 The cocktails used in those genocidal “tests” are now linked to cancer, heart and lung problems suffered by surviving guinea pigs.

We are told that defense officials perpetrated these atrocities so that scientists could learn about how to “protect” Americans from attack. So why, in the late 80s, would our “protectors” fall all over themselves to supply Saddam Hussein’s war machine with 90 shipments of chemical and biological weaponry, including sarin, anthrax, botulism, brucella and West Nile Virus?80

It will likely be years before Americans are told what is being tested upon them during our present chemtrail/space wars era. The Hanford downwinders did not learn until 1986 what had been unleashed upon them some 30 years earlier; SHAD victims filed suit in 2003 to learn the extent to which they were intentionally exposed to dangerous substances in the 60s.

To understand how our nation has arrived at this doomsday corruption, we must recall that immediately after WWII ended, the U.S. government initiated Operation Paperclip through which a large number of German Nazi scientists were imported to the United States. Once issued new identities, these death industry pros were employed in U.S. military laboratories to develop a dazzling array of secret weaponry projects.81 With congressional funding, the crowning achievement of this nexus was the creation of ghastly new bioweapons, including the AIDS virus82 and an incapacitating chronic fatigue agent engineered from mycoplasma and brucella.83

The military is empowered to continue lethal experimentation by devious wording of Section 1520a Chapter 32 of U.S. Code Title 50. The law states that the Secretary of Defense may NOT conduct any chemical or biological test or experiment on civilian populations, unless such tests are for medical, therapeutic, pharmaceutical, agricultural, industrial purposes or for research in general or for protection against weapons or for law enforcement purposes, including riot control. So DOD may not use us for guinea pigs, unless it is for any “good” reason under the sun! The law states that human subjects must give informed consent. But a nasty loophole in Section 1515 of Chapter 32 allows informed consent to be suspended by executive order during a period of national emergency, a situation under which this nation perpetually labors by deliberate hobgoblin design.

Few American test rats realize that the Pentagon’s boys in Congress have now:

* appropriated millions of dollars for the manufacture and testing of new “mini nukes” and bunker buster bombs.84

* authorized the DOE to resume nuclear testing in Nevada.85

* exempted DOD and DOE from landmark environmental laws in the development of these new weapons.86

America’s 70,000 nuclear weapons manufactured since 1945 are not sufficient! As DOE gears up to develop and test fourth-generation nukes, numerous reports continue to surface about the agency’s sordid corruption and mismanagement. DOE’s habitual cover-up of site contamination and its devious efforts to downplay serious illnesses suffered by many of its nuclear workers are among recent scandals.87

When new “low yield” nuclear weapons (defined as being smaller than 5 kilotons) are tested in Nevada, downwinders might like to know that a mini .5 kiloton nuclear warhead would have to burrow 150 feet to eliminate atmospheric fallout. No weapon yet developed can penetrate more than 40 feet into the earth. A tested nuclear warhead that burrows to only 40 feet will throw a million cubic feet of radioactive debris into the atmosphere.88

The Pentagon’s new nuke era is in the capable hands of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who has so ably presided over the pre-emptive nuclear incineration of Middle Eastern Muslims. Rumsfeld has never adequately explained why his Department was unable to defend the Pentagon building despite a full hour’s notice that hijacked planes were in the air. Should Rumsfeld be replaced due to the Pentagon’s Iraqi torture scandal, we are assured that his Bush-appointed successor will share his have-nuke-will-travel ideology.

Working closely with Rumsfeld is a coven of pro-nukers, including his advisor Keith Payne, a vocal advocate of pre-emptive nuclear war. Payne has written that an “intelligent” nuclear offensive launched by the U.S. would result in only 20 million U.S. casualties, “a level compatible with national survival and recovery.”89

Now that we have tied together the historical and political realities for which we mindlessly wave our flags, we still hope that sufficient numbers of American lab rats will miraculously awaken from their collective stupor and take stock of our appalling situation. After all, rodents have a notoriously short life span and are always killed when no longer useful to those conducting research. The irony of this horror story is that we rats are being plundered to finance our own demise. Our national debt of 7.2 trillion grows by $1.8 billion a day.90 The Pentagon cannot account for $2.3 trillion of its shadowy transactions.91 The radioactive operations in Iraq are costing $3.7 billion a month, those in Afghanistan $900 million a month.92 No one knows how many $billions are being flushed into Operation Cloverleaf and other hobgoblin projects. The U.S. spends $11,000 per second on weapons, according to calculations of celebrated author William Thomas.93

So, while we await the great awakening, have a wonderful, barium-dried summer under a synthetic tarpaulin of aluminum-white, particle-laden, electrically-charged aviation scum that passes for sky. Endure well your respiratory and ocular difficulties while staring at huge oily sun rings and smeary sundogs, the patent signature of chemical assault. Don’t forget to salute and click your heels when you see tanker formations patriotically saturating the atmosphere with such a dense, micro-particulate brew that they cast black shadows alongside or ahead of themselves.

As you witness the noxious drama in the skies, remember, it’s all just part of the “kill chain.”

Notes

1. “USAF Plans to Utterly Dominate, Rule Space,” Joel Bleifuss, editor of In These Times.com, 9-14-03.

2. Almanac 2000, Journal of the Air Force Association, May 2000, Vol. 83.

3. Roche’s “kill chain” statement was made during his October 2002 speech at the Conference on the Law and Policy Relating to National Security Activities in Outer Space.

4. “Pentagon Preps for War in Space,”Noah Shachtman, http://www.wirednews.com , 2-20-04.

5. “The Theft of Sunlight,” Clifford Carnicom, 10-25-03: “…Measurements show a rapid reduction in the transmission of sunlight from a value of 97% on a ‘clear day’ to the lower level of approximately 80% during the early stages of heavy aerosol operations….The absorption and displacement of this solar energy into environmental, military, biological and electromagnetic operations represents a theft of the natural and divine rights of the inhabitants of this planet.” www.carnicom.com .

6. “Visibility Standards Changed,” Clifford Carnicom, 3-30-01: “It will be noted that in October of 1997, a change in the reporting system of visibility data was reduced from a former maximum of 40 miles to a limit of 10 miles. It is a reasonable question to ask as to why that change was made, and whether or not it was made in anticipation of…large scale aircraft aerosol operations over large scale geographic regions.” http://www.carnicom.com .

7. “A Meeting,” Clifford Carnicom, 7-26-03. See http://www.carnicom.com .

8. “Atmospheric Conductivity,” Clifford Carnicom, 7-09-01, http://www.carnicom.com .

9. For facts on barium toxicity, see Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, September 1995. For references on barium related to chemtrails, see www.carnicom.com for the following articles: “Barium Tests are Positive,” Clifford Carnicom, 5-10-04; “Sub-micron Particulates Isolated,” Carnicom, 4-26-04; “Barium Affirmed by Spectroscopy,” Clifford Carnicom, 11-1-2000; “Electrolysis and Barium,” Carnicom, 5-27-02; “Rainwater Metals,” Carnicom, 7-30-01; “Barium Identification Further Confirmed,” Carnicom, 11-28-00.

10. “The Plasma Frequency: Radar Applications,” Clifford Carnicom, 11-05-01; See http://www.carnicom.com .

11. “Functional heterogeneity in the process of T lymphocyte activation; barium blocks several modes of T-cell activation, but spares a functionally unique subset of PHA-activable T cells,” Clinical Experimental Immunology, Pecanha and Dos Reis, May 1989.

12. Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR) Safety Data Sheet.

13. Aluminum Toxicity, Barbara Barnett, MD, 11-26-02. See http://www.emedicine.com .

14. Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, July 1999; For information on thorium in chemtrails: “The Methodic Demise of Natural Earth,” Dr. Mike Castle, 3-27-04, http://www.willthomas.net .

15. Angels Don’t Play This HAARP, Nick Begich and Jeane Manning, 1995; “HAARP: Vandalism in the Sky?” Begich and Manning, Nexus Magazine, January 1996.

16. “Elf Radiation is Confirmed,” Clifford Carnicom, 11-17-02; “Elf Disruption & Countermeasures,” Clifford Carnicom 11-27-02; “A Proposal of Cascading Resonance,” Clifford Carnicom, 4-21-03. See http://www.carnicom.com for these and numerous other frequency studies; also “Electromagnetic Waves Linked to Children’s Brain Tumor,” Kyodo News Service, 6-8-03.

17. Death In the Air, Global Terrorism and Toxic Warfare, Leonard G. Horowitz, Tetrahedron Publishing Group, 2001; “Military Conducting Biological Warfare in Washington,” 12-12-97, www.rense.com; Probing the Chemtrails Conundrum, William Thomas, Essence Publications, 2000, http://www.willthomas.net .

18. For a comprehensive list of those involved in Operation Cloverleaf and associated projects, see: “Chemtrails–Top Intel, Military, and Defense Contractors Watching Carnicom.com,” rense.com, 1-12-00. Among agencies most interested in opposition to chemtrail projects is the United States Department of Energy Joint Genome Institute associated with Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. See: “The Monitors of JGI,” Clifford Carnicom, March 17, 2003, carnicom.com. 19. The Trojan Horse of Nuclear War– A paper presented at the World Depleted Uranium Weapons Conference at the University of Hamburg, October 16-19, 2003, Dr. Leuren Moret. Dr. Moret is a former staff scientist at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. Her work is highly documented with scientific papers.

20. Uranium Medical Research Centre, “Afghan Field Trip #2 Report,” November 2002; http://www.umrc.com ; also “Astoundingly High Afghan Uranium Levels Spark Alert,” Alex Kirby, BBC News Online, 5-23-03.

21. Moret, op. cit.

22. “Medical Effects of Internal Contamination with Uranium,” Dr. Asaf Durakovich, Department of Nuclear Medicine, Georgetown University School of Medicine, Washington D.C. March 1999. Volume 40, No. 1

23. Moret, op. cit.

24. “Contamination of Persian Gulf War Veterans and Others By Depleted Uranium,” Leonard A. Dietz, 2-21-99.

25. Durakovich, op cit; Dietz, op. cit. Moret, op. cit.

26. “Republican Senator: Bring Back the Draft,” World Net Daily, 4-20-04.

27. “Pentagon’s Uranium Denial,” New York Daily News, 4-27-04; “Pentagon: Uranium Didn’t harm N.Y. Unit,” Associated Press, 5-3-04. “Pentagon-Depleted Uranium No Health Risk,” Dr. Doug Rokke; 3-15-03. Dr. Rokke was an U.S. Army DU expert (1991-1995) and he confirms that the Pentagon is lying about DU risks.

28. Documents in which the hazards of uranium and depleted uranium exposure are discussed include: U.S. Army Training Manual STP-21-1-SMCT: Soldiers Manual of Common Tasks; “Health Effects of Depleted Uranium,” David E. McClain, Armed Forces Radiobiology Research Institute (AFRRI) Bethesda, Maryland; Marine Corp Memo Concerning DU (unclassified) 9-8-90; US Army Training Video, U.S. Army Depleted Uranium Project video: Depleted Uranium Hazard Awareness, 1995; “Army Not Adequately Prepared to Deal With Depleted Uranium Contamination,” General Accounting Office, January 1993; Office of the Secretary of Defense, Memorandum from Bernard Rostker to chiefs of all military branches re: Depleted Uranium Ammunition Training, 9-09-97.

29. “Soldiers Believe Depleted Uranium Cause of Illnesses,” Associate Press, 4-9-04; “Poisoned?” Juan Gonzalez, New York Daily News, 4-4-04. Other stories in this series are: “Inside Camp of Troubles” and “Army to Test N.Y. Guard Unit.”

30. “Air Force Increases Rank of Lie,” letter by Walter M. Washabaugh, Colonel, USAF, denying the existence of chemtrails, received by e-mail on May 22, 2001 and posted at http://www.carnicom.com by Clifford E Carnicom, May 22 2001.

31. Begich and Manning, op. cit. p. 51.

32. Global Warming and Ice Ages: Prospects for Physics-Based Modulation of Global Change, Edward Teller and Lowell Wood, Hoover Institution, Stanford University, prepared for invited presentation at the International Seminar On Planetary Emergencies, Erice, Italy, August 20-23, 1997; also “The Planet Needs a Sunscreen,” Wall Street Journal, 10-17-97.

33. CBS News Eye on America Report : Cooling the Planet in two parts: 1-15-01 and 1-16-01.

34. Teller and Wood, op. cit.

35. “An Airline Manager’s Statement,” Posted by C.E. Carnicom on behalf of the author, 5-22-00. Quote: “The few airline employees who were briefed on Project Cloverleaf were all made to undergo background checks, and before we were briefed on it we were made to sign non-disclosure agreements which basically state that if we tell anyone what we know we could be imprisoned….They told us that the government was going to pay our airline, along with others, to release special chemicals from commercial aircraft….When we asked them why didn’t they just rig military aircraft to spray these chemicals, they stated that there weren’t enough military aircraft available to release chemicals on such a large basis as needs to be done….Then someone asked why all the secrecy. The government reps then stated that if the general public knew that the aircraft they were flying on were releasing chemicals into the air, environmentalist groups would raise hell and demand the spraying stop.”

36. US patent 5003186; Stratospheric Welsbach Seeding for Reduction of Global Warming, Hughes Aircraft Company, issued March 26, 1991.

37. Secondary school text book: Science I Essential Interactions, published by Centre Point Learning, Inc. of Fairfield, Ohio. See “Chemtrail Sunscreen Taught in Schools,” William Thomas, http://www.willthomas.com .

38. “Dirty Air and High Blood Pressure Linked,” Reuters Health, 3-31-01; “Bad Air Worsens Heart Trouble: Study Blames Particulates for Many Sudden Deaths,” Marla Cone, Los Angeles Times, June 4, 2000.

39. “Tiny Air Pollutants In the Air May Trigger Heart Attacks,” John McKenzie, ABC News 6-21-01, u .

40. “Air Pollution ‘Increases Stroke Risk,'” BBC News, 10-10-2003.

41. Ibid.

42. “Americans Breathing More Polluted, Toxic Air Than Ever,” Natalie Pawelski, CNN Environmental Unit, http://www.cnn.com .

43. Asthma Statistics, www.getasthmahelp.org; “Asthma Deadly Serious,” Spokesman Review, 7-6-97; www.asthmainamerica.com .

44. NATO paper: “Modification of Tropospheric Propagation Conditions,” May, 1990.

45. US patent 6,315,213 (Cordani) issued November 13, 2001.

46. “Chemtrails, Bio-Active Crystalline Cationic Polymers,” Dr. Mike Castle, 7-14-03 See u .

47. Ibid.

48. “Nanoparticles Toxic in Aquatic Habitat, Study Finds,” Rick Weiss, Washington Post, 3-29-04.

49. Ibid.

50. “Greenhouse Gas Level Hits Record High,” 3-22-04, http://www.NewScientist.com .

51. Climate Engineering: A Critical Review of Proposals, Scientists for Global Responsibility, School of Environmental Sciences, UEA, Norwich NR47TJ, November 1996.

52. Lewin L. C et al. Report from Iron Mountain on the Possibility and Desirability of Peace, New York: The Dial Press, 1967.

53. Trading With the Enemy, Charles Higham, Delacorte Press, 1983; Wall Street and the Rise of Hitler, Antony Sutton, 1976; “IBM Sued by Holocaust Lawyers –100 other US Firms Targeted for Nazi Links,” Paterson and Wastel, The Telegraph, UK, 2-18-0l; “Ford and GM Scrutinized for Alleged Nazi Collaboration,” Michael Dobbs, Washington Post, 11-30-98; “How the Bush Family Made Its Fortune From the Nazis,” John Loftus, 7-2-02, http://www.rense.com . (John Loftus was a U.S. Department of Justice Nazi War Crimes prosecutor.)

54. This is a “Google project” that can fill volumes. Go to Google and type “CIA and al Queda,” then “CIA and Saddam.” Do the same with “Carlyle Group” for information on the Bush family’s shady dealings with the “enemy.”

55. Former German Defense Minister Confirms CIA Involvement in 9/11: Alex Jones Interviews Andreas von Bulow, 2-17-21, http://www.apfn.net

56. “Pentagon Tells Bush: Climate Change Will Destroy Us,” Mark Townsend and Paul Harris, The Observer, UK 2-24-04; “Climate Collapse, The Pentagon’s Weather Nightmare Could change Radically and Fast,” David Stipp, Fortune Magazine, 2-9-04.

57. The Dead Farmer’s Almanac, Who Really Controls the Weather? Jim Larranaga, Priority Publications, 2001.

58. Weather as a Force Multiplier: Owning the Weather In 2025, June 17, 1996. This report was produced by directive from the chief of staff of the Air Force.

59. “Very Weird Weather in Serbia, What’s Happening?” Goran Pavlovic, 10-30-03, rense.com.

60. “The Secret Nuclear War,” Eduardo Goncalves, The Ecologist, 3-22-01.

61. “Washington’s New World Order Weapons Have the Ability to Trigger Climate Change,” Center for Research on Globalization, Professor Michael Chossudovsky, University of Ottawa, January 2001.

62. “HAARP: Vandalism in the Sky?” Nick Begich and Jeane Manning, Nexus Magazine, December 1995.

63. Ibid.; also Castle, op. cit. Dr. Castle presents information on how HAARP punches massive holes in the open-air column ozone and how the Air Force then uses toxic chemicals to “patch” the holes it has created: Dr. Castle says: “Welsbach seeding and ozone hole remediation sciences utilize chemistries that are toxic to humans and the environment.”

64. “HAARP: Vandalism in the Sky?” Begich and Manning; Researcher David Yarrow is quoted as saying that Earth’s axial spin means that HAARP bursts are like a microwave knife producing a “long tear–an incision” in the multi-layer membrane of ionospheres that shield the Earth’s surface from intense solar radiation.

65. U.S. HAARP Weapon Development Concerns Russian Duma, Interfax News Agency, 8-10-02.

66. HAARP Update, Elfrad Group, http://elfrad.org/2000/Haarp2.htm 6-27-00.

67. “14 Hertz Signal Suppresses Rainfall, Induces Violent Winds,” 10-25-00, Newshawk Inc.; “When the Army Owns the Weather–Chemtrails and HAARP,” Bob Fitrakis, 2-13-02: In this article HAARP inventor Bernard Eastlund is quoted on how HAARP can affect the weather: “Significant experiments could be performed. The HAARP antenna as it is now configured modulates the auroral electrojet to induce ELF waves and thus could have an effect on the zonal winds.” Find this article with search engine at http://www.rense.com .

68. Angels Don’t Play This HAARP, Begich and Manning, op. cit.

69. Ibid.

70. “Space Based Weather Control: The ‘Thunderstorm Solar Power Satellite,’ ” Michael Theroux. See www.borderlands.com/spacewea.htm .

71. “After 12-year Wait for Trial, Downwinders Losing Hope,” Spokesman Review, 5-18-03; also “Hanford Plaintiffs Seek Details,” Spokesman Review, 4-2-04.

72. “Hanford Put Area At Risk: Spokane, North Idaho Were Exposed to Significant Radiation,” Spokesman Review,” April 22, 1994.

73. “Sick Century,” Eduardo Goncalves, The Ecologist, 11-22-01.

74. Moret, op. cit. “The Trojan Horse of Nuclear War” contains excellent statistics on the U.S. health ramifications of Cold War nuclear weapons testing and includes references to numerous scientific papers which document this tremendous damage to the national health.

75. Undue Risk, Secret State Experiments on Humans, Jonathan D. Moreno, Freeman & Co. 1999: Moreno was a senior staff member of the President’s Advisory Committee on Human Radiation Experiments which completed in 1995 its studies of horrific U.S. government radiation experiments conducted since World War II.

76. Information reported by the National Research Council of the National Academy of Science Institute of Medicine in a 2000 study titled: Scientific Frontiers in Developmental Toxicology, Board on Environmental Studies and Toxicology.

77. “Trouble With Tankers,” William Thomas, http://www.willthomas.net .

78. Testimony by Dr. Leonard A. Cole before the U.S. Senate Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, May 6, 1994; also Clouds of Secrecy, The Army’s Germ Warfare Tests Over Populated Areas, Leonard A. Cole, Rowman & Littlefield, 1988.

79. “Secret Germ Warfare Experiments?” CBS News, 5-15-2000; “Pentagon to Reveal Biowarfare Tests,” CBS News, 9-20-2000; “US Navy Sprayed BioWarfare Chemtrails on Its Own Ships and Men,” NewsMax.com, 7-8-00; “Sailors: ‘We Were Used,’ ” Florida Today, 1-31-03.

80. Senate Banking Committee Report 103-900 (Riegle Report) issued May 25, 1994. This 551-page document contains a comprehensive list of biological and chemical warfare agents shipped to Saddam by U.S. companies under purview of the U.S. Commerce Department for use against Iran during the Iran-Iraq war in the late 80s during the regime of George Bush Sr.

81. Moreno, op.cit. “To this day few Americans know about the special top-secret program that brought German scientists to the United States after World War II, and fewer still know that their number included medical scientists. Code-named Operation Paper Clip…hundreds of ‘specialists’ …entered the United States under Joint Chiefs’ protection, avoiding regular immigration procedures and requirements…It is hard to escape the conclusion that many of the German recruits were for decades important consultants on a myriad of military-medical projects.”

82. Emerging Viruses: Aids and Ebola, Dr. Len Horowitz, Tetrahedron Inc., 1996.

83. The Brucellosis Triangle, Donald W. Scott, Chelmstreet Publishers, 1998.

84. “Bush Signs Bill for New Generation Nuclear Weapons,” rense.com, 12-2-03. The Energy and Water Development Appropriations Act of 2004 allocates millions for new nuclear weapons and bolsters readiness for new weapons testing at the Nevada nuclear test site.

85. Ibid.

86. “House Approves Pentagon Wish List–Bill Includes Military Exemptions From Environmental Laws,” Nick Anderson, Los Angeles Times, 11-8-03.

87. “DOE Count of Worker Injuries Inaccurate,” Spokesman Review, 3-28-04; also “Book Alleges Cover-up at Nuclear Site,” Spokesman Review 3-28-04; also DOE Has Record of Broken Promises, editorial, 4-11-04.

88. “Kennedy Warns on Nuclear Tests,” Julian Borger in Washington, The Guardian http://www.guardian.co.uk , 4-30-03.

89. “Rumsfeld’s Dr. Strangelove,” Fred Kaplan, MSN.com, 5-12-03.

90. “Bush Drives the Nation Towards Bankruptcy,” Peter Eavis, The American Conservative, 2-15-04.

91. The War on Waste, 1-29-02, cbsnews.com.

92. “Money for Iraq Fight Running Out,” The Australian 2-12-04 These figures are from U.S Army Chief of Staff General Peter Schoomaker.

93. “Fight of the Century,” William Thomas, http://www.willthomas.net .

Gallup headlined on December 18th, “Americans View Government as Nation’s Top Problem in 2017”. Their report made clear that though this finding was unprecedented, it’s part of a longer-term trend, toward Americans naming America’s own “government as the most important problem facing the nation.” In a democracy, the public do not view the nation’s government to be (as in America) their enemy (which is the case if they view the “government as the most important problem facing the nation”). Americans increasingly view the Government as their enemy.

In a dictatorship, only the people who control the government are satisfied with the government; but, in a democracy, the public are satisfied with the government — or else that government will be replaced in elections by people who control the government and who do provide government that the public approve of. In the United States, we’re instead moving in the exact opposite direction: steadily going from one government to another, none of which wins the public’s approval; and the present American government winning the public’s approval even less than its predecessors did. This is not the situation that exists in authentic democracies. It’s what one expects to find in a country that’s ruled by a dictatorship. Dictators don’t need to worry so much about polls, because they don’t represent the public; they exploit the public — they use the public.

The only scientific study that has yet been done on the question of whether the U.S. is, in fact, run by a democratic government, or instead by a dictatorial one (specifically by an oligarchy, or a government that represents only the richest citizens), was published in September 2014, and it found clearly that the U.S. is definitely not a democracy, but the other type: that “the preferences of the average American appear to have only a minuscule, near-zero, statistically non-significant impact upon public policy”, whereas “economic elites and organized groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on U.S. government policy”; and, furthermore, that, “The real-world impact of elites upon public policy may be still greater” than their statistics indicate, because the researchers weren’t able to measure the impact that the super-rich have on policy, but only the impact that the rich have on policy (versus the impact that the total American public have on policy). The rich control America’s Government, but whether the richest do, wasn’t able to be researched, as of 2014. 

This academic study’s scientific methodology was so good, so that no one, as of yet, in the more than three years since its publication, has been able to find any flaw in its data or methodology. Its headline, like its writing, was as dull as possible, “Testing Theories of American Politics”, and this (and especially its atrocious writing) might at least partially explain why America’s mainstream press overwhelmingly has ignored that seminal and landmark study in the social sciences, and especially has ignored that study’s enormous implications, regarding contemporary U.S. politics and government. (A vastly clearer presentation of that study, and of its findings, can be found here in this 6-minute video summary of it.)

Increasingly after that time, particularly after Donald Trump’s becoming U.S. President on 20 January 2017, polls are confirming strongly that what this scientific analysis said, describes, even more starkly than before, the American reality — that the U.S. federal Government now blatantly ignores public opinion, and is controlled instead only by the rich.

One example of this phenomenon was recently headlined by me “Poll: By 2-to-1, Americans Oppose Moving U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem”, and it reported that in the only two published national polls in the U.S. that were taken prior to Trump’s announcement that the U.S. Embassy in Israel will be moved from Tel Aviv to the disputed city of Jerusalem — one having been a November 2017 poll of 2,000 Americans, published on December 11th, and the other being a September 2017 poll of 1,000 U.S. Jews — the overall U.S. public opposed any such move by 63% to 31%, and U.S. Jews opposed it by around similar percentages (though the polling-questions on the two polls differed significantly and therefore their findings are not directly comparable). Furthermore, that article also linked to another question which was included in the November poll, and which showed that only a minority of Americans — almost all of whom are Democrats — believe that Russia is a “foe” of the United States; and, of course, the U.S. federal Government (even the existing Republican one) does consider Russia, more than any other country, to be America’s foe; so, that, too, presents a stark contrast between the Government and its public.

Furthermore, on December 14th, Hillary Clinton’s 2008 campaign manager, the pollster Mark Penn, whom she had mis-cast into the role of her campaign’s strategist in 2008, headlined at The Hill, “Mueller, FBI face crisis in public confidence”, and he summarized numerous polls which were finding that whereas Americans overwhelmingly distrust President Donald Trump, Americans distrust even more the Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation that’s trying to find reasons to impeach and remove him from office. Americans are getting increasingly scared of their Government, and now distrust both sides of it.

Another addition to these polls that show America’s public to be ignored by America’s Government (other than for the public to be manipulated by means of the major newsmedia that the billionaires who control this Government own), was also issued on December 18th, and this poll was headlined “Half The Public Say Their Taxes Will Go Up Under GOP Plan”. It scientifically sampled 806 Americans, and reported that: 

“Nearly half the American public (47%) disapprove of the tax reform bills passed by the Senate and House and just 26% approve. … Strong disapproval (35%) of the proposal far outweighs strong approval (13%). … In ‘swing’ counties where the margin of victory for either candidate was less than ten points, 30% approve of the plan compared with 38% who disapprove. … Many Americans see this bill more as an attempt by Republicans to gain a political victory and would rather see Congress scrap this plan and start over. … Half of the public (50%) predict that the federal taxes they pay will go up with the plan now under consideration by Congress. Just 14% say their taxes will go down. … The public was much more optimistic right before Trump took the oath of office in January. Back then, two-thirds expected that the middle class would benefit from the policies of a Trump administration.”

All polls show that the American public believe overwhelmingly that only the rich will benefit from the Trump/Republican tax-law changes. (If purely the long-term impacts, such as the resultant soaring public debt, are considered, then this perception, by the public, of the tax-law changes, is almost certainly accurate.) The blatancy with which U.S. federal policy violates what the polls show that the American public overwhelmingly want (such as reducing the federal debt), and imposes instead upon the public what they clearly don’t want (such as increasing that debt), is now stunning.

Such findings provide yet additional evidence that the far more extensively documented findings in the massive study “Testing Theories of American Politics” apply with special force today, probably even more so than they did in the period from 1981 to 2002, which was the period that that empirical study had examined in detail. Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter expressed publicly on 28 July 2015 (even before Trump was President), that, “Now it’s just an oligarchy with unlimited political bribery being the essence of getting the nominations for president or being elected president. And the same thing applies to governors, and U.S. Senators and congress members.” He was stating what is, by now, an increasingly proven fact. America is a dictatorship.

However, current U.S. Government office-holders haven’t publicly expressed any such view, although the Democratic U.S. Presidential candidate whom Hillary Clinton ‘beat’ in 2016, Bernie Sanders, has come the closest to saying it. 

It’s not even clear, however, whether a majority of Americans actually want a democratic government. On 9 September 2015, the YouGov poll headlined “Could a coup really happen in the United States?” (which question presumed that a U.S. coup hadn’t already happened, such as on 9 December 2000, or on 22 November 1963, though there is evidence that it happened in both cases), and YouGov reported that “when people are asked whether they would hypothetically support the military stepping in to take control from a civilian government which is beginning to violate the constitution, 43% of Americans would support the military stepping in while 29% would be opposed.”

Perhaps many in that large 43% plurality of Americans were somehow blissfully ignorant that the American Government routinely not only was “beginning to violate” but routinely had been and were violating, the U.S. Constitution, such as by placing onto its Supreme Court, anti-Constitutional ‘Justices’ who arbitrarily label political money as “speech” that’s unlimitedly protected by the First Amendment, so that unlimited political spending by billionaires can effectively control the U.S. Government (such oligarchy as is now scientifically established to be the case), or by violating the Constitution in so many other ways, such as by simply not enforcing certain laws in certain cases, such as by refusing to prosecute the banksters whose frauds caused (and who profited from) the 2008 financial crash — they perpetrated a massive unpunished crime against the public, and this is supposed to be ‘democracy’. But regardless: a 43%-to-29% plurality of the nation’s public are so pro-military as to favor a U.S. coup under that vague condition; they would prefer the military, an intrinsically anti-democratic authoritarian institution, to take direct control over the U.S. Government — as if there could be some valid excuse for this intrinsically dictatorial institution to overthrow the established and supposedly legal government, and to replace it by one that’s not just supposedly, but blatantly, illegal to be in control of the Government. This would mean that America’s billionaires — people who already own and profit from the military’s weapons-making firms — will take control of America, even if they don’t already have control. They control the military-industrial complex, because they control the Deep State that, in any capitalist country, IS the military-industrial complex. They control the weapons-manufacturing firms such as Lockheed Martin, and also the megabanks, and the lobbying firms, and all the rest of the systematic corruption (the Deep State), which controls the U.S. government.

That same poll (question 13) also asked “Do you believe that the military has a duty to protect the Constitution against domestic enemies?” and 72% answered “Yes” and 12% answered “No.” Thus, by a 6-to-1 margin, Americans don’t know the difference between the function that the military and CIA are supposed to perform, versus the function that the police and the FBI and entire Justice Department are supposed to perform.

As if that’s not frightening enough about America, Americans now support the nation’s military-industrial complex above all other institutions, public or private. The war-making institution isn’t used only for defense (though its PR euphemism is ‘the defense establishment’ and it should instead be called “the invasion-and-coup establishment”), but it is also — and now almost exclusively — used for invasions and coups that are based on lies (from ‘the defense establishment’, boosting their own business), such as invasions and coups against Iraq 2003, Libya 2011, and Ukraine 2014. Instead of despising that institution of conquest, Americans now admire it, above all others — and far above all the rest of the U.S. Government. 

So: “Could a coup really happen in the United States?” A coup wouldn’t even be necessary in order to produce here dictatorship, which has already long existed in this country. And, while domestic spending is being slashed by the existing U.S. regime, military spending (which already is as large as the next ten largest national military budgets in the world) is soaring.

Why would America’s generals want to perpetrate a coup? They’re already getting almost everything they want — and without the opprobrium they’d suffer from a coup. It would be plain stupid for them to do that. The very question which was asked in that poll was a bad joke, but a full 72% of the U.S. public not only didn’t ridicule the idea, but actually endorsed it. They endorsed what’s commonly called a ‘police state’, but which actually is a “military state” — rule by the military. Maybe that’s what we’ve already got. But, behind the military-industrial complex, stand the nation’s billionaires — the people who really run U.S. foreign policies.

If that brute fact can’t become understood by the American people, then not only does democracy no longer exist in the U.S., but the basis to create (or restore) democracy here is likewise absent. Americans are big supporters of the military-industrial complex. The U.S. public have been deceived about what it is, and what it isn’t — so deceived, that they place it at the top, as the most respected of all institutions. How much more upside-down — black is white, white is black — like Big Brother’s “Newspeak,” could the U.S. public be duped to be, than that? If America’s invasion-and-coup institution is at the top, then why are all the others held in lower esteem than this — the most-corrupt of all institutions in America?

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

Featured image: Palestinians burn picture of U.S. Vice President Mike Pence during a protest against Trump decision to announce Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and “pilgrimage” of Pence to Bethlehem.

Twice in one week, the United Nations slapped the Trump Administration in the face in voting by a huge majority to reject the US unilateral recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. In specially called sessions, the Security Council voted 14-1 and the General Assembly 128-9  to censor the U.S. decision as violations of international law and UN resolutions..

The two UN votes were also collective acts of defiance against Washington’s bullying of member nations.  U.S. Ambassador Nikki Haley stated that the U.S. would “take down names” and cut U.S. funds to governments that voted against the U.S.. Haley went so far as to send threatening letters to most of the UN members stating that the “President and the U.S. take this vote personally.”

 Tump echoed his ambassador, crassly adding,

“Let them vote against us. We’ll save a lot. We don’t care.”

Meanwhile, mass anger in the Middle East has forced Vice President Mike Pence to cancel a planned “Christmas Pilgrimage” where this evangelical rightwinger had hoped to create divisions between Muslims and Christians. Instead, unpredented numbers of Christian leaders in the area have come forward to denounce Washington’s decision.

Pence’s picture was burned and stomped in Bethlehem’s Manger Square, a town traditionally associated wth Christianity. One by one,  Palestine Authority head Mahmoud Abbas and then the region’s Christian leaders publically canceled their meeting with Pence, excoriating the U.S. and declaring solidarity with Palestine. Approximately 20 percent of the Palestinian people are Christian, and  Arab Christians are an integral part of the region.

Democrats also support Jerusalem as Israel’s capital

 On Dec. 6, Trump announced that the United States was the first country to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. This was a frontal attack on the rights of the oppressed Palestinian people and a gift to the racist, apartheid government of Israel, whose aim is to colonize all of Palestine and drive out as much of the indigenous Palestinian population as possible.

It is also a gross violation of international law and defies the many international bodies that regard the 1980 Israeli annexation of East Jerusalem as illegal. The West Bank, Gaza, Syria’s Golan Heights and East Jerusalem were seized by Israel using U.S.-supplied arms in the 1967 Six Day War.

While it is not on the front pages, it was not just a Republican endeavor. The  Democratic Party leadership in the U.S. Senate also supported Trumps announcement. On Dec 5, Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, the Senate’s top Democrat, said that he had advised Trump to declare Jerusalem as Israel’s “undivided” capital. Maryland Senator Ben Cardin, the ranking Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee, reiterated his support for recognizing Jerusalem on Dec. 4.

Meanwhile, this has also been the position of Hillary Rodham Clinton for many years. In 1999, when running for New York Senator, she called for Jerusalem to be the “eternal and indivisible capital of Israel” and pledged to move the U.S. embassy there.

Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders limited himself to a five-line statement of “concern.”

Even abstaining countries denounce Trump from podium

The General Assembly resolution called Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital “null and void.” It reaffirmed  50 years of Security Council resolutions that opposed Israel declaring full sovereignty over Jerusalem. These resolutions included requirements that the city’s final status must be decided in direct negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians. The resolution “demands that all states comply with Security Council resolutions regarding  Jerusalem, and not to recognize any actions or measures contrary to those resolutions.”

Only nine states – including the United States and Israel –voted against the resolution. The other countries were the tiny, vunerable nations of Togo, Micronesia, Nauru, Palau, Marshall Islands, and the rightwing regimes in Guatemala and Honduras. While 35 countries abstained due to U.S. pressure, even ambassadors from abstaining countries, including Mexico, used their time on the podium to criticize the Trump administration’s decision.

On Dec. 18, an identical resolution in the Security Council, passed 14-1, but was then vetoed by the U.S., the only government opposing it.

US never an impartial mediator, covered for Israeli aggression

Palestinians, Arabs, Muslims, and concerned individuals organizations and governments have responded to Washington’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital with denunciations and protests. Demonstrations have taken place across the globe, including many in the US.

On Dec. 13, in Istanbul, the 57 member Organization of Islamic Cooperation said it considered the U.S. action legally null and would hold Washington responsible for any consequences. Speaking there, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas said,

“We will no longer accept that [the U.S.]  has a role in the political process,” and canceled a meeting with U.S. Vice President Mike Pence.

Many in the Palestinian struggle and progressives around the world feel that the U.S. has never been an impartial mediator, instead serving as a cover for Israeli aggression and land theft. Since the 1993 Oslo Accords, every U.S. administration, Republican and Democrat, has mediated Palestinian-Israeli talks on implementing a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza. In that time Israel has seized control of 60 percent of the West Bank. Some 2.6 million Palestinians are being squeezed into ever-smaller spaces, making a contiguous viable Palestinian state impossible, with a  map of the borders where Palestinians still maintain some control looking like Swiss cheese. While UN resolutions have denounced settlements, today some 600,000 Jewish Israelis live in government-subsidized settlements there–1 out of 10 Israelis. The Palestinian population is constantly harassed by Israeli soldiers, 40 percent of the men on the West Bank have been arrested, and 99 percent of Palestinian cases in Israel’s military court end in convictions.

Israel used its U.S-supplied arsenal for massive bombardments of Gaza in 2008-9 and 2014, targeting homes and hospitals. Gaza’s 1.8 million people,  without water or natural resources, have been embargoed and blockaded since 2007, denied essential medicine and construction materials to re-build homes. Its population is held prisoner, unable to leave.

All this happened while the US was “mediating.”

Arab Christian leaders denounce Pence

Meanwhile Pence, an evangelical Christian, had planned a “Christmas pilgrimage” to Palestine this month to drive a wedge between Middle Eastern Christians and their Muslim neighbors. But this has badly backfired, as these Christian leaders have canceled their meetings with Pence and roundly denounced him.

In Bethlehem, where the Abbas-Pence meeting was to take place, a banners now hanger on Manger Square near the Church of the Nativity reading, “Bethlehem refuses US vice president’s visit.” On Dec. 17, protesters burned and stomped on photos of Pence and his chief negotiator, Jason Greenblatt, in that town’s Manger Square.

Rev. Boules Haliem, spokesman for Pope Tawadros II, the Coptic patriarch of Egypt, said,

“The pope will simply not sit down with anyone so long as this is the American position….“We will always stand with the people of Palestine.”

In Jerusalem the patriarch and leaders of 13 Christian churches said in a Christmas message that Trump’s decision “tramples on the mechanism that has maintained peace throughout the ages,” and warned it “will lead to a dark reality.”

On Dec. 13, in Amman, Jordan, Christian leaders organized a candlelight vigil of 2,000 to protest Washington’s decision

The highest Christian authority in Lebanon, Maronite Patriarch Beshara Al-Rai, denounced Trump’s decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital because

“It violates international legitimacy resolutions, defies international and regional will, and is a slap in the face of the Palestinians, Levantine Christians, Muslims and all the Arabs”… He called on Trump to “reverse this destructive decision.”

In a highly unusual move, Al-Rai gathered Catholic and Orthodox patriarchs and representatives, as well as leaders of the nation’s Protestant churches and Sunni, Shiite and Druze communities in an Interreligious Summit in Lebanon to discuss the Trump announcement.  A Dec. 14 joint statement  stressed that Jerusalem “has a privileged position in the consciences of believers of these faiths,” and that

“The U.S. president’s decision, based on special political calculations, is a challenge and a provocation for more than 3 billion people and touches on the depth of their faith,” the statement said.

Father Jamal Khader, the Catholic parish priest of the West Bank Palestinian city of Ramallah, summed it up when he said,

“To declare Jerualem as the capital based on some biblical argument is a dangerous thing.”

Trump is “wanting to separate Christians from the rest of the community. But we are part of the community. …I don’t agree with an ideology that looks at Christians as Westerners, or wants us to side against Muslims,” Father Khader added.  “No—we lived together for 1,400 years, and we can live with them now.”

This article was originally published by Liberation News.

All images in this article are from the author.

The US government may have misspent $21 trillion, a professor at Michigan State University has found. Papers supporting the study briefly went missing just as an audit was announced.

Both great powers, Russia and the USA, recently claimed victory over the Islamic State (aka Daesh, ISIS, ISIL) in Syria, but only one did the right thing in response.

President Putin of the Russian Federation flew to Syria to announce deep cuts to its troop and equipment commitments in Syria and to assure President Assad of Syria and the Syrian people that Russian troops would return immediately if ISIS terrorists reared their ugly heads again in his country.

Russia has been open and transparent with the whole world about its military commitments in Syria, right down to actual troop numbers and types of military aircraft. President Putin stated moreover that Russia would continue to maintain one naval and one airbase inside Syria.

How can Putin say and do these things in Syria? The answer is that Russia, like Iran, has maintained a military alliance with Syria for several decades and has, in addition, signed many political, economic, and cultural agreements with Syria. The Russian military intervention in Syria, starting on Sept 30, 2015, was at the invitation of the sovereign government in Damascus and was in compliance with international law. This was backed with proactive and constructive support for both the reconciliation and dialogue initiatives which was complemented by the Syrian government simultaneously announcing a program of reconciliation with “rebels” of Syrian origin, a program which saw some 20,000 Syrian “rebels” lay down their arms and reintegrate with their families in the main Syrian society to defend and rebuild Syria.

The US presence in Syria, on the other hand, has been in flagrant violation of international law. It’s true that the USA had the permission of the sovereign government of Iraq to fight the Islamic State in Iraq. However, it lacked such permission from the government of Syria and from the United Nations Security Council.

Like Russia, the USA recently declared victory over the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq and announced that it would continue to maintain a military presence in Syria. Unlike Russia, it has never been open and transparent with the world about either its troop commitments or its real intentions in Syria.

For example, the USA lied to the world about its covert support to the Islamic State in Syria (and Iraq). It lied about its Coalition’s alleged purpose “to degrade and destroy ISIS.” In fact, until the Russian military offensive in Syria in 2015, the US Coalition never even bothered to bomb the convoys of tanker trucks smuggling Syrian oil to Turkey, or the convoys of transport trucks carrying supplies from Turkey to ISIS-held cities in Syria and Iraq, or the convoys of ISIS fighters that travelled across hundreds of kilometres of open desert in broad daylight to capture and destroy the Syrian world heritage site of Palmyra. Rather, Coalition planes attacked Syrian Arab Army (SAA) positions on several occasions, on behalf of ISIS, at Deir Ezzor, Al Tanf, and other locations. Most recently, the USA oversaw the rescue of thousands of the Islamic State’s last remaining fighters from Raqqah and brought the terrorists in a convoy with their heavy equipment to Coalition-held territory in the northeast corner of Syria, east of the Euphrates River. That triangular corner of Syria contains some Kurdish and Arab tribes, about half of Syria’s petrochemical resources, and a large swath of good agricultural land.

Today, we know, through a slip of the tongue on the part of US Major-General Jarrard, that the USA now has 4000 soldiers in Syria, though officially it claims only 500.¹ Thanks to the Turkish government, which supplied their GPS locations, we have also learned that the USA has built ten military bases in that corner of the country, all of which are illegal since they were not approved by the government of Syria. In fact, the continuing US presence in Syria constitutes an illegal occupation. Nevertheless, US military and political leaders, such as Secretary of State Tillerson, have indicated that they intend to stay indefinitely inside Syria.

Why? Because a continuing US military presence in Syria allows the USA to pressure the Syrian government regarding the terms of the inevitable political settlement of the Syrian conflict. From its vantage point in NE Syria, the USA could continue militarily to threaten Damascus – not TO mention other nearby states such as Lebanon, Iraq, Turkey, and Iran – and to make life miserable for Syrians, such as by supporting roving bands of ISIS terrorists or ISIS missile attacks on Syrian communities.

However, a number of military analysts have observed that the US occupation of the NE corner of Syria is not viable. That chunk of sovereign Syrian territory is surrounded on all three sides by potentially hostile forces: Turkish, Iraqi, and Syrian. All of the Kurdish and Arab tribes who live in this triangle have abandoned any allegiance they may once have had to the US Coalition and its so-called Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). So, the only allies the USA has on the ground in that part of Syria are those (rescued) ISIS terrorist mercenaries who have nominally switched allegiances. Hardly a solid military position…

The Syria Solidarity Movement maintains that the USA does NOT hold exceptional status regarding international law. We regard the US occupation of any part of Syria as a war crime and we call upon the USA and its Coalition partners to get out of Syria now. In addition, we demand the following:

• the USA forces withdraw from Syria and disband its Coalition allegedly to “degrade and destroy ISIS”;
• the USA end its unilateral (and therefore) illegal economic sanctions against Syria;
• the USA disband the so-called “Friends of Syria Group” of countries (FSG) which organized the proxy war against Syria;
• the USA and its coalition and FSG partners restore diplomatic relations with Syria and come to the UN peace process, without any preconditions, to bring a speedy end to the Syrian conflict.

Featured image is from Inside Syria Media Center.

Donald Trump’s reckless policies, belligerence, volatile personality, and rejection of diplomacy have brought the world to the brink of war in Korea.  Such a war could rapidly turn nuclear, killing hundreds of thousands or millions of people, spreading deadly radiation across the planet, and likely involving China and Russia.  North Korea will never give up its nuclear and ballistic missile program under pressure, as it views the program as an indispensable bulwark against U.S. aggression.

The following timeline reveals how dangerous the situation is—a situation artificially ratcheted up by U.S. President Trump and his fellow warmongers.   The world needs to unite against Trump and his war plans, which pose an imminent threat to humanity—just as the world united against Trump’s illegal and counterproductive declaration of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.

August 8

Trump threatens apocalypse—

“North Korea best not make any more threats to the United States,” Trump told reporters….“They will be met with fire and fury like the world has never seen. He [North Korean leader Kim Jong Un] has been very threatening … and as I said they will be met with fire, fury and frankly power, the likes of which this world has never seen before.”

(Emphasis added throughout)

—“Trump warns North Korea threats ‘will be met with fire and fury’ “. CNBC, Jacob Pramuk.

Trump’s remarks were widely criticized by both Republicans and Democrats as well as the corporate media.

September 27

“On September 26, four days after the Pentagon sent a flight of B-1 bombers and fighter escorts off North Korea in a display of military force, Pyongyang “moved a small number of fighter jets, external fuel tanks and air-to-air missiles to a base on its eastern coast,” according to reports. Trump threatened Pyongyang once again, saying he was prepared for “a military option” to solve the crisis, which would be “devastating.”

…Nobody knows how [Trump] will feel when he wakes up to find that Kim has tested another H-bomb, flung a missile over Japan or needled him with another insult. All we know is that when he wanders out in his bathrobe and opens the nuclear football, he’s got the keys to Armageddon in his hands.”

—“No One Can Stop Trump From Waging Nuclear War With North Korea, Not Even His Generals”. Jeff Stein.

October 8, 2017

The White House Is “An Adult Day Care Center”—

“Senator Bob Corker, the Republican chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, charged in an interview that President Trump was treating his office like “a reality show,” with reckless threats toward other countries that could set the nation “on the path to World War III.”  In an extraordinary rebuke of a president of his own party, Mr. Corker said he was alarmed about a president who acts “like he’s doing ‘The Apprentice’ or something.”  “He concerns me,” Mr. Corker added. “He would have to concern anyone who cares about our nation.”

…When Mr. Trump, posting on Twitter, accused Mr. Corker of deciding not to run for re-election because he “didn’t have the guts.” Mr. Corker shot back in his own tweet: “It’s a shame the White House has become an adult day care center….”  Mr. Trump poses such an acute risk, the senator said, that a coterie of senior administration officials must protect him from his own instincts. “I know for a fact that every single day at the White House, it’s a situation of trying to contain him.” ….Mr. Corker said his concerns about Mr. Trump were shared by nearly every Senate Republican.” ”

—“Bob Corker Says Trump’s Recklessness Threatens ‘World War III’”.  Jonathan Martin and Mark Landler. New York Times, Oct. 8, 2017

October 13, 2017

Robert Reich, former U.S. Secretary of Labor—

“Corker’s interview [see above] was followed by a report from Gabriel Sherman of Vanity Fair, who wrote that the situation has gotten so out of control that Trump’s chief of staff, John Kelly, and Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis have discussed ways to stop Trump should he order a nuclear attack…. Many of Trump’s advisors believe he is “unstable” and “unravelling” quickly.

“Is Trump really unraveling?….I phoned an old friend, a Republican former member of Congress who keeps up with what’s going on. I scribbled notes as he talked:

Me: So what’s up?….

He:  …Others are thinking about doing what Bob did. Sounding the alarm. They think Trump’s nuts. Unfit. Dangerous….[U.S. Secretary of State] Tillerson would leave tomorrow if he wasn’t so worried Trump would go nuclear, literally.

…Me: You think Trump is really thinking nuclear war?

He: Who knows what’s in his head? But I can tell you this. He’s not listening to anyone. Not a soul. He’s got the nuclear codes and, well, it scares the hell out of me. It’s starting to scare all of them.That’s really why Bob [Corker] spoke up.

…Me: So what’s gonna happen?

He: You got me. I’m just glad I’m not there anymore. Trump’s not just a moron. He’s a despicable human being. And he’s getting crazier. Paranoid. Unhinged. Everyone knows it. I mean, we’re in shit up to our eyeballs with this guy.”

—“Robert Reich: Trump Is Coming Unraveled, and Republicans Know It”.

November 22, 2017

“If Trump wants nuclear war, virtually no one can stop him….There is no law that would make a presidential order to launch a preemptive nuclear strike on North Korea illegal….  Congress has the constitutional responsibility for declaring war, but it has not done so since World War II. That has not prevented every president since then from engaging in military conflicts large and small. Even American participation in the Korean War was not authorized by Congress. So, the absence of a formal declaration of war against North Korea is no barrier to a nuclear strike.

….In addition, Trump has taken a step that further removes the possibility of a legal constraint. He has added North Korea once again to the list of state sponsors of terrorism….The list has frequently been used for political purposes that have nothing to do with terrorism. That is demonstrated by the fact that the Bush administration took North Korea off the list in an attempt to salvage a deal regarding its nuclear program….

The bottom line is that a nuclear war won’t be prevented by military officers refusing to obey an order they consider illegal. And such a situation won’t be avoided by congressional action. The legislative branch is paralyzed by partisan politics. Using the bomb is up to the discretion of a president who came to office with no experience in the military, government or foreign affairs beyond real estate deals in other countries. And after ten months of on-the-job training, he seems no better prepared for such a responsibility.”

—“If Trump wants nuclear war, virtually no one can stop him.” Dennis Jett, Professor of International Relations, Pennsylvania State University.  

December 14, 2017

Senator Lindsey Graham plays golf with Trump and predicts war—

” …Lindsey Graham [Republican, South Carolina] …estimated the odds that the Trump administration deliberately strikes North Korea first, to stop it from acquiring the capability to target the U.S. mainland with a long-range, nuclear-tipped missile. And the senator’s numbers were remarkably high.  “I would say there’s a three in 10 chance we use the military option,” Graham predicted….If the North Koreans conduct an additional test of a nuclear bomb—their seventh—“I would say 70 percent.”

Graham said that the issue of North Korea came up during a round of golf he played with the president on Sunday. “It comes up all the time,” he said.  “War with North Korea is an all-out war against the regime,” he said. “There is no surgical strike option. Their [nuclear-weapons] program is too redundant, it’s too hardened, and you gotta assume the worst, not the best. So if you ever use the military option, it’s not to just neutralize their nuclear facilities—you gotta be willing to take the regime completely down.”

—“Lindsey Graham: There’s a 30 Percent Chance Trump Attacks North Korea”.

Earlier, on August 1, “Senator Graham said that President Trump is willing to go to war with North Korea to stop it from being able to hit the American mainland with a nuclear weapon.  “There is a military option: to destroy North Korea’s nuclear program and North Korea itself,” Graham told the Today show’s Matt Lauer. “He’s not going to allow—President Trump—the ability of this madman [Kim Jong Un] to have a missile that could hit America.  If there’s going to be a war to stop him, it will be over there.  If thousands die, they’re going to die over there. They’re not going to die over here—and he’s told me that to my face.”

The North Koreans are not stupid: They know they’re militarily outclassed by the United States and South Korea. So their strategy in the event of an out-and-out war, as far as outside analysts can tell, is to inflict overwhelming pain as quickly as possible: to bombard South Korea, US allies in Japan, and any American forces they can find with missiles and artillery to the point where their stronger enemies lose their appetite for a protracted conflict….

A South Korean simulation conducted in 2004, before the North had developed nuclear weapons, estimated that there could be up to 2 million casualties in the first 24 hours of a conflict.  Obviously, the death toll would be exponentially higher if North Korea used any of its nuclear weapons. Those could potentially destroy Tokyo (population 9.3 million), Seoul (population 10 million), or other cities in the two countries.  It’s not clear how many working nuclear weapons the North has, though estimates suggest around 10 to 16. We do know that its missiles have enough range to reach Tokyo, and that the country has tested a nuclear weapon designed to fit on precisely such a missile.

“This is madness,” Kingston Reif, the director for disarmament and threat reduction policy at the Arms Control Association, tweeted after seeing Graham’s comments. “Unhinged madness.””

—Vox

December 18, 2017

McMaster pushes for war

Interviewed by the BBC, US National Security Advisor, General H.R. McMaster said “We have to be prepared, if necessary, to compel the denuclearisation of North Korea without the co-operation of that regime.”  His statement was almost tantamount to a unilateral declaration of war.  (“HR McMaster: Russian meddling ‘sophisticated subversion’”.  BBC News, Dec. 19, 2017 http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-42409144)

Asked during a PBS interview whether he thought the chance of war was increasing every day, McMaster said: “I think it is still the case. We’re out of time with this problem.  Not out of time completely but we have a very short amount of time to be able to address the problem of North Korea.”

McMaster’s reiterating of this ominous warning over the past few months is apparently intended to make a U.S. attack on North Korea sound inevitable.

December 20, 2017

“America is drawing up plans for a ‘bloody nose’ military attack on North Korea to stop its nuclear weapons programme, The [London] Telegraph understands. The White House has ‘dramatically’ stepped up preparation for a military solution in recent months amid fears diplomacy is not working, well-placed sources said.

One option is destroying a launch site before it is used by the regime for a new missile test. Stockpiles of weapons could also be targeted.   The hope is that military force would show Kim Jong-un that America is ‘serious’ about stopping further nuclear development and trigger negotiations.  Three sources—two former US officials familiar with current thinking and a third figure in the administration—confirmed military options were being worked up.”

—“Exclusive: US making plans for ‘bloody nose’ military attack on North Korea”.  London Telegraph

December 22, 2017

John Bolton beats war drums—

“North Korea could be hit by a pre-emptive military strike from the US as it continues to ramp up its missile fears to the globe.   The rogue state has accelerated its nuclear and ballistic missile testing over the past year, sparking World War 3 fears.  Former US Ambassador to the United Nations, John Bolton, said that the US President Donald Trump is “very close” to making a huge decision on the hermit kingdom.  Speaking to Fox Business, Mr Bolton said: “I think the President shouldn’t be waiting around. I think actually we are very close to a binary decision here.

“Either we leave North Korea with this ballistic missile capability and the possibility of putting a nuclear warhead under the nose cone. Or we take military pre-emptive action.” “

—“North Korea WARNING: Trump ‘very close’ to pre-emptive strike decision amid WW3 threat”. Darren Hunt.

World War Three

Did you hear about the nuclear war?
It was over by half past four.
Most of the planet
went out the door
in that very short nuclear war.

While some folks were swelling with pride
a couple of billion died.
Bombs and radiation
swept over each nation
in that very brave nuclear war.

The people were dumber than dumb.
They never got rid of The Bomb
so it got rid of them—
women children and men—
in that one-hour nuclear war.

With a slightly different perspective
there could have been a corrective
but the people fell for Trump’s invective
in that terminal nuclear war.

***

Walt Gelles has published articles online at Countercurrents.org, GlobalResearch.ca, OpEdNews.com and other websites. 

This article was originally published by Countercurrents.

Featured image is from the author.

During  time of mourning or fear of grave existential threats, the human psyche is quite capable of denying and ignoring likely and imminent dangers. President Trump raised the prospect of venturing into a nuclear war with North Korea.  It is essential that some of us counter this propensity. In nuclear war there are blast, firestorm and  radiation effects and no first responders or infrastructure to assist the survivors. This is the time to face the prevention of the unthinkable.

Nuclear Weapons

Until the advent of the atomic bomb, war did not have the capacity to end, for all time, the continuation of the human beings or to threaten the continuity of life itself. The atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki produced the greatest immediate mass death from individual weapons yet known. Within the first two to four months following the bombings, the acute effects of the atomic bombings had killed 90,000–146,000 people in Hiroshima and 39,000–80,000 in Nagasaki; roughly half of the deaths in each city occurred on the first day.

The threat of nuclear weapons has increased.  This reality was expressed by President Kennedy:

Today, every inhabitant of this planet must contemplate the day when this planet may no longer be habitable. Every man, woman, and child lives under a nuclear sword of Damocles, hanging by the slenderest of threads, capable of being cut at any moment by accident or miscalculation or madness.[i]

Former Secretary of Defense William J. Perry said,

“I have never been more fearful of a nuclear detonation than now—There is a greater than 50 percent probability of a nuclear strike on U.S. targets within a decade.”[ii]

Apocalyptic dangers like this, that we know exist but still ignore, continue to have an effect upon us. They push us away from a long-term connection to our planet, pressing us to live for the moment as if each moment might be the last.[iii]

Current public attention has focused on the possibility of a nuclear weapon attack by terrorists. The RAND corporation conducted  an analysis to examine the impacts of a terrorist attack involving a 10-kiloton nuclear explosion in the Port of Long Beach, California.[iv] A set of strategic forecasting tools were used to examine immediate and long term results. It concluded that neither the local area nor the nation are at all prepared to deal with the potential threat of a nuclear device brought into the U.S. aboard a container ship. Long Beach is the world’s third busiest port, with almost 30% of all U.S. imports and exports moving through it.

The report noted that a ground-blast nuclear weapon detonated in a shipping container would make several hundred square miles of the fallout area uninhabitable Such a blast would have unprecedented economic impacts throughout the country and the world. As one example, the report noted that several nearby oil refineries would be destroyed  exhausting the entire supply of gasoline on the West Coast in a few days. This would leave city officials to deal with immediate fuel shortages and the strong likelihood of related civil unrest. Blast effects would be accompanied by firestorms and by long-lasting radioactive fallout, all contributing to a collapse of local infrastructure. Impacts on the global economy could also be catastrophic for two reasons: first, the economic importance of the global shipping supply chain, which would be severely hampered by the attack, and second, the well-documented fragility of global financial systems.[v]

By current standards a ten-kiloton nuclear explosion represents a miniscule sample of the power of larger nuclear weapons now in the arsenals of a growing number of countries.  It is difficult even to imagine what a larger nuclear strike would mean.  Another former Defense Secretary, Robert McNamara recalls his experience during the Cuban missile crisis when the world came close to an exchange of nuclear weapons launched by the U.S. and the Soviet Union against each other. In his sober warning many Years later McNamara cited a report by the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, describing the effects of a single 1-megaton weapon:

At ground zero, the explosion creates a crater 300 feet deep and 1,200 feet in diameter. Within one second, the atmosphere itself ignites into a fireball more than a half-mile in diameter. The surface of the fireball radiates nearly three times the light and heat of a comparable area of the surface of the sun, extinguishing in seconds all life below and radiating outward at the speed of light, causing instantaneous severe burns to people within one to three miles. A blast wave of compressed air reaches a distance of three miles in about 12 seconds, flattening factories and commercial buildings. Debris carried by winds of 250 mph inflicts lethal injuries throughout the area. At least 50 percent of people in the area die immediately, prior to any injuries from radiation or the developing firestorm.ii

Had the attack on the Twin Towers involved a 20-megaton nuclear bomb, blast waves would have carried through the entire underground subway system. Up to fifteen miles from ground zero flying debris, propelled by displacement effects, would have multiplied the casualties. Approximately 200,000 separate fires would have produced producing a firestorm with temperatures up to 1,500 degrees. A nuclear bomb destroys the fabric of water supplies, food, and fuel for transportation, medical services, and electric power. Radiation damages destroys and deform living things for 240,000 years.[vi]

There is no reason to believe that a nuclear attack would involve only one such weapon. Moreover, the illustrations above are for a nuclear bomb much lower in destructive capacity than most bombs now available on ready-alert status. These larger weapons are capable of what George Kennan has considered to be of such magnitude of destruction as to defy rational understanding.[vii] Such bombs, and others still more destructive, are contained in the warheads of missiles, many capable of delivering multiple warheads.

Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, nuclear weapon stockpiles in excess of what would be needed to destroy all of the world’s population have been reduced.  However, 31,000 nuclear weapons remain in the world—most of them are American or Russian, with fewer numbers held by the United Kingdom, France and China, India, Pakistan and Israel. Failure to end the Cold War nuclear confrontation between Russia and the U.S. leaves the two nations with more than 2,000 strategic nuclear warheads on high-alert status. These can be launched in only a few minutes and their primary mission remains the destruction of the opposing side’s nuclear forces, industrial infrastructure, and political/military leadership.[viii] We now have the capacity to destroy, for all time, every person, every blade of grass, and every living thing that has evolved on this planet. But has our thinking evolved to enable us to prevent this from happening?

Our voices need to be heard. First, we can urge our leaders to get Trump to turn off the threats of nuclear war, whether by use of flattery or by pressure from his own military advisors. Second, if we do survive the moment one of the most important tasks is to block nuclear weapons modernization. Nukes do not need to be tested for absolute yield in order to serve as a deterrent. The improvement of destructive capability has led to a nuclear race.

Modernization, according to the CBO will cost $400 billion immediately and from $1.25 to $ 1.58 trillion over thirty years. Upgrades of nuclear weapons designed for battleground use will challenge other nations to procure them and invite the threshold for using nuclear weapons to be violated. Now is the time to insist to our Congress that the modernization of nuclear weapons be dropped from the national budget. This will buy some time to heal a planet and human community under deep stress.

*Thanks to Kelisa Ball for assistance with editing and research.

Notes

[i] Kennedy, J. F. (1961, September). Address to the UN general assembly. The Miller Center, The University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Virginia. Retrieved from http://millercenter.org/president/speeches/detail/5741

[ii] McNamara, R.S. (2005). Apocalypse Soon. Foreign Policy Magazine. Retrieved from http://www.foreignpolicy.com/story/cms.php?story_id=2829

[iii] Macy, J.R. (1983). Despair and personal power in the nuclear age. Philadelphia, PA: New Society.

[iv] Meade, C. & Molander, R. (2005). Analyzing the economic impacts of a catastrophic terrorist attack on the port of Long Beach. RAND Corporation. W11.2 Retrieved from

http://birenheide.com/sra/2005AM/program/singlesession.php3?sessid=W11

http://www.ci.olympia.wa.us/council/Corresp/NPTreportTJJohnsonMay2005.pdf

[v] Ibid.

[vi] Scientists Committee for Radiation Information (1962). The Effects of a Twenty-Megaton Bomb. New University Thought: Spring, 24-32.

[vii] Kennan, G.F. (1983). Nuclear delusion: Soviet American relations in the nuclear age. New York: Pantheon.

[viii] Starr, S. (2008). High-Alert Nuclear Weapons: The Forgotten Danger. SGR (Scientists for Global Responsibility) Newsletter, No.36, Retrieved from http://www.sgr.org.uk/publications/sgr-newsletter-no-36

*Parts excerpted from The Hidden Structure of Violence: Who Benefits From Global Violence and War by Marc Pilisuk and Jennifer Achord Rountree. New York, NY: Monthly Review, 2015.

In what has been a nightmare at Christmas, the plight of refugees relocated to other sites on Manus Island after the closure of the facility at Lombrum Naval Base has worsened.  The latest scenes at East Lorengau Transit Centre, where 300 men have been since December 19, have been ugly and pitiable.  In the broader scheme of things, they have been far from surprising, expected with the dread that has become all too natural.

Local landowners have been none too pleased at the political machinations of the Papua New Guinea government and officials in Canberra.  They were the ones frozen out of negotiations about how best to solve the refugee problem.  They were the ones side-stepped in another arrangement that sees Australia ignore those responsibilities outlined in the Refugee Convention.

From November 29, they have been engaged in a campaign of protest against staff management and the refugees, notably JDA Wokman, the contractor charged with resettlement services.  They, so goes the argument, want compensation for not getting the necessary contract for running the new detention facilities.  The company in question there is Peren Investments.  Keep it brutal, but keep it local.

The scenes on that day in November worsened.  Access to the East Lorengau Refugee Transit Centre was blocked.  The police were called in.  As Manus Province police commander, David Yapu, explained,

“Because the situation was tense and level of threats was high, Police intervened and acted as a middle person to negotiate with PNG Immigration and Citizenship Service Authority, Peren Investments and JDA to come to some mutual understanding and clear the road block and allow the services to flow into the centre.”

There was one group conspicuously absent: the refugees themselves.

As Kurdish-Iranian refugee Behrouz Boochani has observed with characteristic grimness,

“Some powerful [people] in island are competing & using us as tools for their aims.  Nobody here to guarantee our safety.  Anything bad happens to us, those who took us here by force are responsible.  We resisted because situation outside predictable.”

Boochani’s observation has relevance beyond the plight of his fellow refugees on the tropical island itself. It speaks to the vulgarity of the refugee debate in Australia, the refusal by the major parties to consider the human element, preferring electoral gains, political mileage.

Locally, the situation is perpetually volatile.  Various members of the local populace are starting to show that their bite is every bit as effective as their irate bark.  According to Sri Lankan refugee Thanus Selvarasa,

“These local people attack us, the camp (and) we are hostage people now.”

Boochani’s sentiment is similar:

“We are now hostages of landowners.  There is no food and medicine here and if they continue it will be a critical situation.”

For Selvarasa, there are scenes of war, combat, the language of conflict and struggle.

“We have some rice only but today it’s mostly finished,” he claimed on December 20.

The contractor has attempted to deliver food by stealth, but was halted on being stopped by protestors.

Meetings duly took place between the various groups – landowners, immigration officials and members of JDA Wokman.  Accordingly, some breathing space was given, with the blockade being lifted.

“Money and political interests,” lamented a depressed Boochani, “are their priority, not people’s life.”

Such arrangements are only temporary.

The Australian angle on this has been painfully familiar. Despite the contract regarding the new camps being an Australian one; despite being fuelled on the money of Australian tax payers, responsibility is being ignored.

“This is a matter for the Government of PNG,” came the dismissive remark from the Department of Home Affairs.

Not so, came the comment from Cecile Pouilly at a UNHCR briefing in distant Geneva prior to Christmas Eve.

“In light of the continued perilous situation on Papua New Guinea’s Manus Island for refugees and asylum seekers abandoned by Australia, UNCHR has called again this week on the Australian government to live up to its responsibility and urgently find humane and appropriate solutions.”

It is exactly the sort of thing Australian politicians do not want.  Before them stand such figures as Boochani, who inhabit a world where borders are asserted to restrict rather than permit.  Boundaries are drawn, fictional doodles that are treated as reality.  It was the destiny of Kurdistan to be parcelled after the First World War, and since then, Kurds have inhabited a world without borders, or least of their own.  There is, for Boochani, only one recourse in the face of this absurdity: a form of stateless humanism.  Even in deracination, roots can be put down.

For the bloodless managers, the populist number crunchers, the procedural, paper-driven fanatics, the refugee is a removable contrivance. The borderless concept suits the apparatchiks in Canberra, those who insist that refugees are creatures of the vanishing, disposable refuse in the game of higher politics.

Dr. Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge.  He lectures at RMIT University, Melbourne.  Email: [email protected]

The world’s largest crude oil importer China is likely to roll out the petro-yuan next year predicts Saxo Bank. Beijing’s largest oil supplier Russia would gladly accept the yuan to phase out the dollar in trade with China.

“China is by far the world’s largest oil importer, and many producer nations are already more than happy to transact in yuan terms. With the US’ global power and reach waning, and given the success of CNY-based commodity futures in general, the Shanghai International Energy Exchange’s decision to launch a yuan-based crude oil future is a runaway success,” reads one of Saxo’s ‘outrageous’ predictions for 2018.

Saxo Bank expects the Chinese yuan-denominated oil contract to be “a move with tremendous geopolitical and financial consequences.”

The US West Texas Intermediate and European benchmark Brent have a joint daily turnover of more than two billion barrels or 20 times the total daily world oil demand. However, the US WTI oil standard is losing its role in the oil market, notes Saxo.

“China, meanwhile, has already become far and away the world’s largest crude oil importer and many key exporters – led by Iran and Russia – are more than happy to transact in yuan terms,” the bank’s analysts conclude.

Saxo expects the Chinese oil contract to become “a raging success,” while the yuan is set to appreciate 10 percent against the dollar, taking the dollar-yuan exchange rate below 6.0 for the first time.

NATO members including the US, UK, Germany, Norway, Spain, Denmark and the Netherlands have begun taking public steps in defining guidelines regarding the deployment of offensive cyberweapons.

Reuters in its article, “NATO mulls ‘offensive defense’ with cyber warfare rules,” would state:

A group of NATO allies are considering a more muscular response to state-sponsored computer hackers that could involve using cyber attacks to bring down enemy networks, officials said.

Reuters would also report:

The doctrine could shift NATO’s approach from being defensive to confronting hackers that officials say Russia, China and North Korea use to try to undermine Western governments and steal technology.

The article also noted that the United States and its allies already possess and have threatened to use cyberweapons offensively, citing the 2010 Sutxnet virus deployed against Iranian nuclear infrastructure as a possible example. Other examples cited of possible applications included shutting down power plants with malware rather than bombing them.

Reuters also reported that NATO was setting up “cyber commands” including one in Estonia apparently intended to launch cyber attacks into Russia.

Extending NATO Aggression into Cyberspace 

At face value, a nation developing the ability to defend itself and carry out counterattacks against foreign aggressors, including in cyberspace, appears as legitimate policy.

For NATO, however, its track record of serial aggression and expansion beyond its borders predicated on intentionally false pretexts indicate that the military alliance will simply carry its aggression into cyberspace as well.

The NATO invasion and occupation of Afghanistan followed the attacks on September 11, 2001 on Washington D.C. and New York City. Despite none of the alleged suspects involved in the attack actually coming from Afghanistan, and the government of Afghanistan having played no role in the attacks, NATO would invade and has since occupied the nation for the past 16 years.

The 2003 invasion of Iraq led by the US and other prominent NATO members was predicated entirely on falsehoods. Claims that the Iraqi government at the time possessed chemical and biological weapons later turned out to have been intentionally fabricated to justify an invasion that, by some estimates, cost the lives of over a million Iraqis and thousands of US and European soldiers. The invasion and occupation resulted in regional conflict that continues to this day.

In 2011 when terrorists affiliated with Al Qaeda moved against the government of Libya, NATO portrayed the resulting conflict as a crackdown on what it and Western media called “freedom fighters.” NATO armed militants and eventually intervened in an air campaign that toppled the government, leaving Libya in ruins since.

Between 2013-2014 the US and its NATO partners openly fomented protests against the elected government of Ukraine. Supporting Neo-Nazi militias and their affiliated political parties, NATO succeeded in overthrowing the government and placing into power organizations and parties involved in the protests. NATO has since intervened on various levels, short of military intervention, to protect the regime in Kiev from both political challengers and a possible counter-coup.

In many ways, since the Arab Spring in 2011, the US and its NATO partners have already used cyberweapons of sorts to destabilize and attack targeted nations. Social media was manipulated in the opening weeks of protests, false information transmitted, technology and software distributed among US-NATO funded opposition groups, all in an effort to stampede targeted governments out of power.

Today, NATO members are involved in the bombing, invasion, occupation and drone warfare from Africa to Asia. They employ the tools of modern disinformation and propaganda to interfere and manipulate in the political processes of nations worldwide.

The notion that NATO will develop and deploy cyberweapons in an offensive capacity will not only enhance ongoing aggression, but because of the nature of cyberweapons and the possibility of attacks concealing their point of origin, might see it expand into areas where currently, conventional military means cannot be justified.

Considering the extensive experience NATO possesses in fabricating pretexts for aggression, and the perceived benignity of cyberwarfare versus conventional weapons, we can expect to see NATO use this new concept of “offensive defense” to further menace the nations and peoples of this planet with a degree and frequency far above and beyond its conventional military operations.

While Reuters cites Russia, China and North Korea as likely targets of NATO cyberattacks, it is likely that any and all actors, both state and non-state, will find themselves targets of NATO aggression should their interests conflict with those that underwrite the NATO alliance.

Developing the means to put these capabilities in check and prevent NATO from developing any sort of advantage in cyberspace will be a prerequisite for future peace and stability, online and off.

Ulson Gunnar is a New York-based geopolitical analyst and writer especially for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

Featured image is from the author.

The fight between the Federal Communications Commission’s choice to abandon the principles of net neutrality and the majority of Americans started early in 2017 and continued into the very last month of the year. But even with the FCC’s bad vote coming so late, we fought all year to build up momentum that will allow us to fix their blunder in 2018.

2017 started out with a warning: in his final address as chairman of the FCC, Tom Wheeler said that the future of a free and open Internet safeguarded by net neutrality was hanging by a thread.

“All the press reports seem to indicate that the new commission will choose an ideologically based course,” said Wheeler.

Wheeler also offered up the argument that

“Network investment is up, investment in innovative services is up, and ISPs’ revenues—and stock prices—are at record levels. So, where’s the fire? Other than the desires of a few [providers] to be free of meaningful oversight, why the sudden rush to undo something that is demonstrably working?”

That would be a constant question posed throughout 2017: why would the FCC, under its new chairman, former Verizon lawyer Ajit Pai, move to eliminate something as functional and popular as net neutrality? After all, net neutrality protections guarantee that all information transmitted over the Internet be treated equally, preventing Internet service providers from prioritizing, say, their own content over that of competitors. It’s a logical set of rules that preserves the Internet as we know it. Net neutrality has been protected by the FCC for over a decade, culminating in the 2015 Open Internet Order, which we worked hard to get adopted in the first place.

As early as February, there were signs that the FCC was going to abandon its role guarding against data discrimination by ISPs. Early in the month, the FCC indicated it would cease investigating AT&T’s zero-rating practices. “Zero-rating” is when a company doesn’t count certain content against a user’s data limit. While zero-rating may sound good in theory, in reality it’s just your provider picking winners and losers and trying to influence how you use your data. AT&T was zero-rating content from DirecTV, which it owns. And, prior to Pai’s chairmanship, the FCC wanted to know if AT&T was treating all video service the same, in accordance with the principles of net neutrality. As Chairman, Pai abandoned the investigation.

The argument consistently put forward by opponents of net neutrality is that it imposes onerous rules on ISPs that stifle innovation and competition in the marketplace. The innovation claim is undermined by the many start-ups that lined up to defend net neutrality, telling the FCC that creativity depends on clear, workable rules. The competition claim is just as laughable, given that it is the large broadband companies that wanted net neutrality gutted—the same companies that are often the only option customers have. Net neutrality protections that forced monopolist ISPs to treat all data the same were some of the only competitive safeguards we had. Without them, Time Warner’s alleged practices of misleading customers and Internet content providers would lose the tempering effect the Open Internet Order provided.

On April 26, the fear and rumor became reality as the FCC chairman announced his intention to roll back the Open Internet Order and “reclassify” broadband Internet access so that ISPs would be allowed to block content and selectively throttle speeds, which was previously prohibited. We knew this was unpopular and would have a devastating effect on speech and the Internet, so we gave you a tool to tell that to the FCC. We knew that the vast majority of you support net neutrality, and we worked hard to make sure your voices were heard.

The new plan proposed by Pai claimed to make ISPs answerable to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) instead of the FCC – even though a pending court case might keep the FTC from having any oversight of major telecommunications companies altogether. Even if it retains some authority, the FTC can only get involved when ISPs break the promises they chose to make—a flimsy constraint that telecom lawyers can easily write around. Sure enough, just as the FCC carried out Pai’s repeal, we saw Comcast roll back its promises on net neutrality. And that was just the start of the problems we have with Pai’s proposal. An attack on the open Internet is an attack on free speech, and that’s worth defending.

In June, we and a coalition of hundreds of other groups that included nonprofits, artists, tech companies large and small, libraries, and even some ISPs called for a day of action in support of net neutrality. That day came on July 12, when EFF and other websites “blocked” access to their websites unless visitors “upgraded” to “premium” Internet service, a parody of the real consequences that would follow the repeal of net neutrality. Our day of action resulted in 1.6 million comments sent to the FCC.

We kept busy in July, submitting our own comment to the FCC in strong opposition to the proposed repeal. Removing net neutrality protections would, we explained, open the door to blocking websites, selectively throttling Internet speeds for some content, and charging fees to access favored content over “fast lanes.” Our comment joined that of nearly 200 computer scientists, Internet engineers, and other technical luminaries who pointed out that the FCC’s plan was premised on a number of misconceptions about how the Internet actually works and how it is used.

Even with the comments from the engineers, the final version of the plan released by the FCC still contained incorrect information about how the Internet works. It became clear the FCC was forging ahead with a repeal, without stating a valid reason for doing so or listening to the voices of the public that were pouring in. With that in mind, we created a tool that makes it easy to tell Congress to protect the web and created a guide for other ways to get involved.

On December 14, the FCC voted 3-2 to roll back net neutrality and abdicate its responsibility to ensure a free and open Internet. That vote is not the end of the story, not by far. The new rule is being met with legal challenges from all sides, from public interest groups to state attorneys general to technology companies. Meanwhile, state governments have started introducing laws to protect net neutrality on a local level. Even as lawsuits begin, Congress can stop the FCC nightmare from going forward. Under the Congressional Review Act (CRA), Congress has a window of time to reverse an agency rule. This means that we, and you, must continue to monitor and pressure Congress to do so. So call Congress and urge them to use their power under the CRA to save the Open Internet Order.

Featured image is from EFF.

The current situation in Libya shows that the processes that the UN and the West tried to implement still are failing. Nevertheless, there is a new tendency to look at Libya in terms of settling disputes on the ground by rearranging a variety of players, too numerous and complex to detail, even so France sent last Thursday its Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian, to visit Libya in a continuing futile attempt to impose a forced marriage between UN selected and backed Fayez Serraj and the head of the Libyan National Army (LNA), East Libya based Field Marshall Khalifa Haftar. An absolute impossibility.

There seems no reality, an almost delusional way of thinking in France and amongst the UN members. The fact is the LNA and Haftar controls almost all the oil in Libya and the majority of the country’s territory. Whereas Serraj is unable to move beyond the small naval base situated by the sea in Tripoli, heavily protected by paid militias.

Following Le Drian’s meeting in Tripoli with Serraj, Le Drian flew to Benghazi for a meeting with Haftar, he described “to discuss the political process in Libya and the war on terrorism led by the Libyan army.”

Haftar told Le Drian that the army will not stop fighting terrorism in all of Libya. In response Le Drian is said to have informed Haftar of the international community’s respect for the sacrifices of the army against terrorist groups.

At the same time, however Le Drian demanded Haftar and the army command respect the political process of the Libyan Political Agreement (LPA) and to work on a complete settlement with all Libyan parties.

Le Drian nor the UN or Western powers fail still to understand the the LPA is rejected by the Libyan people as a totally illegitimate document, and completely irrelevant to the whole peace process. Haftar will not commit to the political process as dictated by the UN, and continued to stress the importance the acknowledgment be made public by the UN and international community’s of their respect for the LNA’s efforts against terrorism. Haftar allegedly then firmly added

“Lifting the arms embargo on the army, if done by the UN Security Council, will be very welcomed”.

The LNA Command still believes that some international powers are trying to keep the arms embargo in place, in order to give leverage to a certain political party in the country, or perhaps to recreate another political Islamist party in Libya, by inference, Haftar is presumed to be mainly talking about the overt international support by UK, US, UN and EU to back the existing Muslim Brotherhood Party and its members, something Haftar vehemently opposes.

At this point it should be noted that most Libyans know that Serraj ‘is a slave’ to the Brotherhood.

Further let’s be very clear. Haftar announced the other day that the Libyan Political Agreement “expired” two years after the Libyan political parties signed it. Saying

“As of Dec. 17, 2017, the so-called political agreement expires. Therefore, all bodies resulting from this agreement automatically lost their legitimacy, which is questioned since day one,” Haftar stated in a televised speech a few days ago.

Haftar and the majority of the Libyan people are saying emphatically “no” to the LPA.

Why the UN persists with this fantasy either means they are on drugs or they are incompetent, possibly both, forgive the flippancy.

The LPA ain’t gonna happen. It’s impossible.

Let everyone come back down to earth.

First, Libyans don’t give a toss about migrants that Liberal Western Press and EU seem to think is a priority. For Libyans it’s not. Libyans want migrants to go home and the UN to stop interfering and let the strongest player on the ground in Libya bring order and peace to their country. That player is Haftar and the LNA and the only thing stopping this natural evolution is this constant pointless interference by the Western world.

France and the UN and its members continued talks with duplicated institutions and entities, from both East and West Libya, only hampers a solution to the Libyan quagmire. Simply put, the West picked the wrong side in choosing to back the West of Libya when the East owns and occupies, courtesy of Haftar’s LNA, the majority of Libya’s oil and country.

The Saudis are important; with various factions’ agreement, including Haftar, sent senior clerics to help to help in terms of the religious map of Misrata (and the whole of Libya). The assassination a few days ago of the Mayor of Misrata is part of this overall struggle against on the one hand ISIS ideology and it’s opposite, secularism. Some see Salafism as a ‘half way house’ so to speak.

Though it can’t be confirmed, Haftar appears to have actually made a deal with the Saudis that a handful of their clerics ‘sort out’ Misrata by allowing the promotion of Salafism in the belief that that will destroy the remnants of ISIS extremism in and around Misrata and of course elsewhere in the Country. This ‘trade off’ between the lessor of two evils, Salafists and ISIS ideology has to find space, in reality, for a degree of secularism to evolve, something that most Libyans want. No easy thing.

The UAE is also crucial to Libya’s future. One because of its closeness to the new generation of Saudi leadership and secondly from a practical view point, because of its own airbase established nearly two years ago in East Libya. The complete construction of the UAE’s Al Khadim Air Base in Eastern Libya means in less than a few weeks they can have full deployment of a range of their aircraft to support Haftar. Fully deploying their Jets to the Libya Civil War theatre. Clearly, the UAE is preparing to intervene in Libya militarily even more. Many welcome this. Al Khadim AFB is located in Al Marj province, near where Haftar’s main HQ is, and has recently added a new large parking area and aircraft shelters that will accommodate a variety of aircraft.

Haftar will never commit to the LPA as dictated by the UN and has said so very clearly.

In summary this is the reality:

Politically it is only Russia’s, not UN, EU or US, role, mainly through friends from Chechnya, that remains one of the most critical and one that can be truly effective to restore peace to Libya.

And militarily, Haftar will eventually succeed, with military assistance mainly from both Egypt and the UAE.

The following are excerpts from the introduction to the book NUCLEAR WEAPONS: AN ABSOLUTE EVIL that can be downloaded here.

Today, because of the possibility that U.S. President Donald Trump might initiate a nuclear war against Iran or North Korea, or even Russia, the issue of nuclear weapons is at the center of the global stage.

I strongly believe that the time has come for all countries to take a united stance on this issue. Most of the world’s nations live in nuclear weapon free zones (NWFZs). This does not give them any real protection, since the catastrophic environmental effects of nuclear war would be global, not sparing any nation.

However, by supporting the Nuclear Weapons Convention and by becoming members of NWFZ’s, nations can state that they consider nuclear weapons to be morally unacceptable, a view that must soon become worldwide if human civilization is to survive.

We must take a stand, and state clearly that nuclear weapons are an absolute evil; that their possession does not increase anyone’s security; that their continued existence is a threat to the life of every person on the planet; and that these genocidal and potentially omnicidal weapons have no place in a civilized society.

On December 9, 1948, the United Nations General Assembly adopted a convention prohibiting genocide. It seems appropriate to discuss nuclear warfare against the background of this important standard of international law.

Cannot nuclear warfare be seen as an example of genocide? It is capable of killing entire populations, including babies, young children, and adults in their prime and old people, without any regard for guilt or innocence. The retention of nuclear weapons, with the intent to use them under some circumstances, must be seen as the intent to commit genocide. Is it not morally degrading to see our leaders announce their intention to commit the “crime of crimes” in our names?

The continuity of life is sacred. In 1985, International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW) received the Nobel Peace Prize. IPPNW was founded in 1980 by six physicians, three from the Soviet Union and three from the United States. Today, the organization has wide membership among the world’s physicians. Professor Bernard Lowen of the Harvard School of Public Health, one of the founders of IPPNW, said in a recent speech:

“…No public health hazard ever faced by humankind equals the threat of nuclear war. Never before has man possessed the destructive resources to make this planet uninhabitable… Modern medicine has nothing to offer, not even a token benefit, in the event of nuclear war…”

“We are but transient passengers on this planet Earth. It does not belong to us. We are not free to doom generations yet unborn. We are not at liberty to erase humanity’s past or dim its future. Social systems do not endure for eternity. Only life can lay claim to uninterrupted continuity. This continuity is sacred.”

Mr. Javier Pérez de Cúellar, former Secretary-General of the United Nations, emphasized the same point in one of his speeches:

“I feel nuclear weapons are criminal! Every war is a crime!”

War was always madness, always immoral, always the cause of unspeakable suffering, economic waste and widespread destruction, and always a source of poverty, hate, barbarism and endless cycles of revenge and counter-revenge.

It has always been a crime for soldiers to kill people, just as it is a crime for murderers in civil society to kill people. No flag has ever been wide enough to cover up atrocities.

But today, the development of all-destroying modern weapons has put war completely beyond the bounds of sanity and elementary humanity.

Today, war is not only insane, but also a violation of international law. Both the United Nations Charter and the Nuremberg Principles make it a crime to launch an aggressive war. According to the Nuremberg Principles, every soldier is responsible for the crimes that he or she commits, even while acting under the orders of a superior officer.

Nuclear weapons are not only insane, immoral and potentially omnicidal, but also criminal under international law. In response to questions put to it by WHO and the UN General Assembly, the International Court of Justice ruled in 1996 that “the threat and use of nuclear weapons would generally be contrary to the rules of international law applicable in armed conflict, and particularly the principles and rules of humanitarian law.”

The only possible exception to this general rule might be “an extreme circumstance of self-defense, in which the very survival of a state would be at stake”. But the Court refused to say that even in this extreme circumstance the threat or use of nuclear weapons would be legal. It left the exceptional case undecided.

In addition, the Court added unanimously that “there exists an obligation to pursue in good faith and bring to a conclusion negotiations leading to nuclear disarmament in all its aspects under strict and effective international control.”

Can we not rid ourselves of both nuclear weapons and the institution of war itself? We must act quickly and resolutely before everything that we love in our beautiful world is reduced to radioactive ashes.

John Scales Avery is a theoretical chemist noted for his research publications in quantum chemistry, thermodynamics, evolution, and history of science. Presently an Associate Professor in quantum chemistry at the University of Copenhagen,since the early 1990s, he has been an active World peace activist. During these years, he was part of a group associated with the Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs, which in 1995 received the Nobel Peace Prize.

Featured image is from IPPNW.

VISIT MY NEW WEB SITE: 

stephenlendman.org 

(Home – Stephen Lendman). 

Contact at [email protected].

Shipments of arms and munitions to Ukraine began after the February 2014 coup.

Orchestrated by Obama’s administration, it replaced democratic governance with fascist putschists – an illegitimate regime under US-installed president Poroshenko.

State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert’s claim about the Trump administration’s decision to supply Ukraine with “enhanced defensive capabilities as part of our effort to help Ukraine build its long-term defense capacity, to defend its sovereignty and territorial integrity, and to deter further aggression” twisted facts to fit its agenda.

Heavy weapons and munitions have been supplied since spring 2014 – solely for waging naked aggression on Donbass freedom fighters, wanting democratic governance, refusing to accept fascist rule.

Washington’s Ukraine Freedom Support Act (UFSA) of 2014 authorized lethal and non-lethal aid – including communications equipment, body armor, night vision goggles, humvees, radar equipment, and counter-mortar detection units, along with weapons and munitions.

Kiev putschists have been supplied with sniper and assault rifles, hand grenade launchers, mortars and shells, portable stinger missiles, anti-tank and anti-armor missiles. What’s known may be the tip of the iceberg.

Washington under Obama and Trump have been directly involved in planning and directing Kiev’s aggression on Donbass – covertly since April 2014, responsible for thousands of deaths, largely ignored by Western media.

Under Obama, National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) funding included hundreds of millions of dollars to Kiev for weapons, munitions and other material support, along with training and direction by US special forces.

Kiev breached Minsk I and II ceasefire terms straightaway, its lawlessness supported and encouraged by Washington.

Trump operates the same way as Obama, continuing to supply Kiev with heavy weapons and munitions, perhaps in greater amounts than earlier.

Nauert claiming Washington “remains committed to the Minsk agreements as the way forward in eastern Ukraine” is a bald-faced lie.

The Trump administration is “committed” to continued naked aggression on Donbass, wanting fascist rule installed, its democratic governance replaced.

Putin spokesman Dmitry Peskov blasted Washington’s Ukraine agenda, saying the continued supply of weapons and munitions will “motivate loose cannons (in Kiev intending) force to settle the situation in Donbass, an absolutely dead-end” agenda.

Putin earlier said conflict in Ukraine will be further fueled by supplying Kiev with weapons,

“worsen(ing) the situation, (assuring) casualties could increase.”

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov blasted the move, calling Washington an “accomplice (to) war” on Donbass, adding:

It’s futile to appeal to US politicians “blinded by Russophobia, and eagerly applauding the Ukrainian nationalist punitive battalions.”

Last October, invoking the National Emergencies Act, Trump signed an executive order, authorizing the reactivation of up to 1,000 retired military pilots.

Does he have another war or two or more in mind?

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

Acts of violence assume many forms: they may travel by the arc of a guided missile or in the language of an economic policy decision that contaminates drinking water, and they may leave behind a smoldering village or a starved child. The all-pervasive occurrence of violence makes it seem like an unavoidable, and ultimately incomprehensible, aspect of the human world, particularly in a modern era. But, in this detailed and expansive book, Marc Pilisuk and Jennifer Rountree demonstrate otherwise. Widespread violence, they argue, is in fact an expression of the underlying social order, and whether it is carried out by military forces or by patterns of investment, the aim is to strengthen that order for the benefit of the powerful.

The Hidden Structure of Violence marshals vast amounts of evidence to examine the costs of direct violence, including military preparedness and the social reverberations of war, alongside the costs of structural violence, expressed as poverty and chronic illness. It also documents the relatively small number of people and corporations responsible for facilitating the violent status quo, whether by setting the range of permissible discussion or benefiting directly as financiers and manufacturers. The result is a stunning indictment of our violent world and a powerful critique of the ways through which violence is reproduced on a daily basis, whether at the highest levels of the state or in the deepest recesses of the mind.

Because of its inter-disciplinary approach, The Hidden Structure of Violence will be valuable for scholars and students in a range of fields, but especially psychology, macro-economics, sociology, international relations, history, journalism, peace studies, military science, community development, and social change.

Bibliography for Hidden Structure of Violence

One hopes that the overwhelming rejection of the Trump Administration’s recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel by the UN General Assembly (UNGA) on the 21st of December 2017 will compel Washington DC to rescind its decision. Given Trump’s track record so far —- on the Climate Change Accord and UNESCO —it is very unlikely. The most we can expect him to do is to delay a little the proposed transfer of the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. For Trump what matters most is his Christian Right constituency in the US a substantial portion of which is made up of Christian Zionists.

Leaving aside Trump and his supporters, the Jerusalem vote is a clear affirmation of the world’s commitment to international law. Jerusalem was placed under that law in 1947 when historic Palestine was unfairly partitioned. Seizing or annexing any part of that city and then proclaiming it as the capital of one of the disputants is illegal.  Surely, the US which sees itself as the world’s “greatest democracy” understands this. So should Israel, West Asia’s “only democracy.”

The Jerusalem vote is also a victory of sorts for global justice. Global justice, like international law, has not always been at the top of the UN’s agenda. Nonetheless, on Palestine, there have been a couple of occasions when a modicum of justice was done. In November 1974, the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) was granted observer status by the UNGA. The UNGA also voted in favour of non-member status for Palestine on 29 November 2012. However, it was more vocal in its condemnation of apartheid in South Africa in 1962 and 1973, and of the genocide perpetrated upon the Bosnian Muslims by the Serbs in 1993. And, for decades, the UNGA has denounced the inhuman sanctions imposed upon the people of Cuba by the US government.

If the UNGA has not been able to emerge as the principled voice of global justice on a much more extensive scale it is partly because of various impediments. One of the most formidable of these is the US-Israel link. (Even on Cuba, it is US and Israel who have consistently opposed the global consensus on lifting sanctions.) Within the context of West Asia and North Africa (WANA) it is this link between US hegemony and Zionism the pivot of which is Israel that is the principal cause of much of the turmoil and turbulence in the region that has resulted in the loss of millions of lives and brought about so much destruction and devastation.

The link serves three purposes at least –

1) control, and not just access, over oil in the world’s most important oil-exporting region. Control is achieved through servile regimes that are completely subservient to the US and Israel

2) control over vital waterways in the world’s most strategic region where three continents meet, and

3) maximum protection for Israel’s “security.”

This is one of the main reasons why the US’s biggest air-base in the region is in Qatar; its biggest navy in the region, the fifth fleet, is in Bahrain; and some of the biggest recipients of its military hardware are countries such as Saudi Arabia and Egypt. Add to all this, the NATO airbase in Konya, Turkey.

Since Israel’s notion of total security is not just hardware and infrastructure but also the elimination of any element within its vicinity that is independent and determined to preserve its dignity, it has sought systematically to crush every form of resistance to its dominant power.Crushing resistance is not just in relation to Palestinian freedom-fighters and liberation movements. It also involves Lebanon, Iraq, Syria, Jordan, Egypt, Libya even Sudan and Yemen. Beyond the Arab world, Israel’s ultimate target is of course Iran.

Has Israel achieved its targets? In spite of multiple assassinations and periodic slaughter of Palestinian civilians, the Palestinians continue their legitimate struggle for an independent state. Indeed, through the peaceful Boycott, Divest, Sanctions (BDS) movement, their struggle has expanded and gained more support especially from Western Europe.

At the same time, attempts to bring Lebanon under Israeli grip — one of the most vicious and brutal of which was the Sabra-Shatila massacre of 1982 — have failed miserably. In 2006, the Hezbollah provided heroic resistance to the Israeli military campaign and thus defended Lebanese territorial sovereignty. Though Israel using Anglo-American fire power ousted Saddam Hussein, an implacable opponent of Israeli dominance, it has not been able to control current Iraqi politics. If anything, in post-Saddam, Shia centred Iraq, the ruling elite appears to be more inclined towards Tehran.

This is not something that neither Israel nor the US bargained for. Their determined drive to overthrow Syria’s Bashar Al-Assad, in the midst of the Arab uprisings, has also come to nought. Though tens of thousands of people were killed in the six year war, Bashar, aided by the Hezbollah, Iran and Russia refused to yield to terror groups armed by outfits linked to the US and funded by its regional allies. And Iran not only continues to protect its sovereignty but has also succeeded in expanding its influence within WANA in the face of US-Israeli machinations and concerted attempts by the ruling class in Saudi Arabia to isolate her.

What all this shows is that the US-Israel link has not been able to achieve one of its primary goals, namely, enhancing the “security” of Israel. The defeat of this diabolical link in the UN General Assembly on the 21^st of December merely underlines this fact. It should embolden all of us to accelerate our struggle for a just world.

Dr. Chandra Muzaffar is the President of the International Movement for a Just World (JUST).

Many thanks to singer/songwriter Donovan’s Season of the Witch for inspiration. As New Year 2018 is  before us, we are truly in a ‘ Season of the RICH’. One need not be an accountant or financial whiz to know that this so called ‘ Tax Reform Bill ‘ is a super rich man’s gift to the super rich.

Alas, all you suckers out there are , like this writer, a few paychecks away from financial uncertainty. The less than one thousand dollars extra per year that this bill will throw you is nothing compared to the mega millions the super rich and the large corporations will see added to their spreadsheets. Some of you still  hold steady to the hogwash that the Trump team and the mainstream whore media are selling: The more the super rich save in taxes the more  that will be reinvested in our economy. Remember the two phony Wall Street bailouts, one under stooge # 1 Junior Bush, and the second under stooge # 2 Obama? All it did was allow these predators to give each other bonuses and more stock buybacks.

We are living in an age here in an Amerika that not only rivals the infamous Gilded Age ( 1870-1890) but surpasses it! The CEOs of major Fortune 500 companies earn in excess of 300 times that of their average worker. Matter of fact , between 1978 and 2014 CEO pay increased by over 1000% while that of their average worker increased by 11%. That was three years ago… now it is worse! Yet, as with the phony Wall Street bailouts, many Amerikans still believe that the super rich deserve it. After all, my friend Dante informs me: ” The rich pay most of the taxes.” Oh really. Well, go to the gas pump and see how much in tax money is collected each time you fill up. Multiply that by the 99+ % of us, compared to the fraction of 1% who gas up. Who pays more of that tax? Oh, and check out the sales tax collected on a toaster or toaster oven. Every home usually has one right? Well, once again do the multiplying and see how many toasters we 99+ % have compared to our super rich fellow citizens. Get my drift? Bottom line: WE working stiffs and the poor are taxed the most!

You remember the words of the late Governor George Wallace on January of 1963: ” Segregation Now, Segregation Tomorrow, Segregation Forever” Well, the time has come for we working stiffs to join in with our own mantra: Socialism Now, Socialism Tomorrow, Socialism Forever! To those out there who think that this is a call for Communism, sorry. No, to this writer true socialism means that the major interests  of the public , like banking, energy, transportation, health care and medicine, rental housing, education, elections, infrastructure repair, to name but a few, should be non profit. What this would do , among other things, is allow small business to prosper and flourish. Let the entrepreneurs  succeed in small business. Imagine if all privately owned small businesses had real and viable profit sharing for all employees. Imagine how  productivity would increase if  each working stiff at such a place had a stake in it.

It is time for we 99+ % to start thinking bigger, and not continuing to behave like serfs. The great statesman Frederick Douglass, put it succinctly: Power concedes nothing without demand. It never has. It never will! One demand that all we working stiffs should focus on is this: A 50% Surtax on ALL income over one million dollars.. with NO deductions! That alone would bring in enough revenue to our treasury to underwrite Medicare AND Dental Care for all! Sure would save this writer a few teeth.

PA Farruggio

December 2017

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

Pyonyang’s urban skyline, competing with Manhattan and the Trump Tower?

The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) is being choked into submission if not starvation by the UN Security Council, by a vote of 15 : 0; i.e. unanimously. None of the 15 UNSC states, let alone the five permanent members, have had the guts to say no to a killer Resolution, drafted and proposed by the United States of America, a name that increasingly stands for international rogue and crime nation.

The New York Times reports on 22 December 2017:

“President Trump has used just about every lever you can use, short of starving the people of North Korea to death, to change their behavior,” the White House homeland security adviser, Thomas P. Bossert, said Tuesday. “And so, we don’t have a lot of room left here to apply pressure to change their behavior.”

Two immediate questions come to mind – first, who is Trump to blackmail the UNSC into punishing nations which do not bend to the empire’s wishes?

Yes, blackmailing, because that’s exactly what is categorically part of the chief rogue’s international behavior. Case in point is the recent UN Resolution to nullify Trump’s unilateral decision to declare Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, when he, the Donald, threatening he would watch closely who would vote against the US, in view of punishing those nations monetarily or with other sanctions; and second, how come Russia and China went along with this literally genocidal program of sanctions contained in this UNSC Resolution?

Both Russia and China know that Washington’s arguments against the DPRK are based on a web of lies. That everything coming out of Washington is a lie, or untruth, or omission of facts – is well known around the globe. But in this case, where two ascending super-powers, Russia and China have the veto right to say NO to these illegal sanctions, it begs the question, why’ didn’t they use their veto?

Even more so, since Russia and China are both also ‘sanctioned’ by Washington for not ‘behaving’, and because Russia and China are natural allies of North Korea. – Why were they going along with Washington’s blackmail? – A veto could have sent a clear message to the sort of preposterous Nikki Haleys and Donald Trumps of this world, that there is no more fear of the devil, but that the power plates are clearly shifting away from Washington.

Was it out of fear that the madman could possibly press the red bottom, if provoked? – Voting with the madman is certainly no reason to believe that the Mad Man will not press the nuclear bottom. – Then, what kind of diplomacy is it? – The fear of more sanctions directed at Russia and China?

This would be outright ridiculous, as both countries, founders of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), are almost fully detached from the western dollar economy and are heading a new economy that already comprises about half of the world’s population and one third of the globe’s economic output. Hence, they can function fully independently from the west. There are no fears of sanctions either.

Then why?

Maybe because they, Russia and China, want to show the world that no matter how they vote, they will do what they deem correct, like in this case not adhering to the sanction, as they will not let North Korea’s people, their friends and allies, suffocate to death. This would tell those nations who still do not dare contradicting the US of A – “Don’t be afraid, we are on your side.”

Already a month ago, Reuters reported that according to the North Korean representative at the UN Geneva, those who most suffer from the sanctions are women and children. This is a classic. It applies almost everywhere when sanctions are dished out. For example, in Iraq where under the Clinton sanctions program, following a 1995 UN report,

“576,000 Iraqi children may have died since the end of the Persian Gulf war because of economic sanctions imposed by the Security Council, according to two scientists who surveyed the country for the Food and Agriculture Organization.”

In addition, the study found “steeply rising malnutrition among the young, suggesting that more children will be at risk in the coming years.” – Indeed, close to a million Iraqis have died as the result of a decade long US-imposed UN sanctions scheme.

Will the world allow similar numbers – or higher – of people to die in North Korea, just because the DPRK has opted to defend herself against the self-proclaimed exceptional nation that has for over 60 years refused to sign a peace agreement and instead constantly threatened North Korea with annual high-powered military war games along the Korean Peninsula?

North Korea has done no harm to any other nation. Indeed, North Korea does not intend to start a war with anyone. North Korea has had the courage and strength to rebuild as a socialist nation in almost full isolation from a 1953 US-devastated country with the loss from then 30% of the population, about 3 million people. Does anyone wonder why North Korea has opted to defend herself – come what may?

This is Pyonyang in 1953. Completely destroyed by the USAA (and rebuilt by North Korea).

And does anybody realize, including the 15 UNSC countries having condemned the DPRK to starve, that North Korea has declared numerous times that she wants nothing more than Peace, that she is willing to sign a nuclear weapons disarmament program along with all the other nuclear powers; and she is ready to negotiate, as long as Washington stops its high-handed and dangerous military maneuvers and jet fighter territorial overflights?

North Korean kids (image left)

Why would North Korea, or any nation for that matter – not have the same right as the US, UK, Russia, China, France, Israel, India, Pakistan, and the NATO member nuclear weapons sharing states of Belgium, Germany, Italy, Netherlands and Turkey – all of which have allegedly acquired B61 tactical nuclear weapons (Made in America) targeted at Russia, Iran and other countries in the Middle East allegedly for “defense purposes”?

Turkey has five times more nuclear weapons than North Korea at its Incirlik base, Belgium and the Netherlands have together four times m0re nuclear weapons than the DPRK.

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

DECEMBER 24, 2017 | KLAUS MARRE AND DONKEYHOTEY

God bless us, every one! Photo credit: DonkeyHotey / WhoWhatWhy (CC BY-SA 2.0)

.

To obscure the bill’s true nature and to ensure reelection,

Its authors came up with a great piece of deception.

What might look like a middle class tax cut in an election year

Is actually a mirage that will soon disappear.

While the windfall for corporations is here to stay,

The “cut” for American families will soon go away.

To those in the know, this trickery is obscene,

But Republicans hope it will buy votes in 2018.

And what about the commander in chief,

Who claims that the law will grant him no financial relief?

Sadly it’s just another bold-faced lie,

The kind only his most loyal supporters might buy.

As nobody who knows Trump would find at all shocking,

The president has managed to stuff his own stocking.

So let us exclaim before you enjoy Christmas night

That this tax reform bill is a big piece of shite.