Global Research

In the late 1600’s in colonial Boston, the celebration of Christmas was against the law. Indeed, anyone evidencing the “spirit of Christmas” could be fined five shillings. In the early 1800’s, Christmas was better known as a season for rioting in the streets and civil unrest. However, in the mid-1800’s some interesting things changed the cultural response to the feast and, in 1870, Christmas was declared a federal holiday (which is to say that prior to 1870, Christmas was not a day-off in America). What happened?

Featured image: Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan and Chief of Police Roni Alsheikh attend a ceremony for Israeli police at the Police National College, Bet Shemesh, September 22, 2016. (Hadas Parush/Flash90)

The Israeli ministry tasked with fighting the BDS Movement is spending millions of shekels to place propaganda that looks like news in Israel’s most prominent media outlets.

The Israeli government paid the Yedioth Group, publisher of Israel’s best-selling daily newspaper, hundreds of thousands of shekels to publish articles and interviews meant to influence readers to support a campaign Israel is waging against its critics. The Strategic Affairs Ministry, headed by Minister Gilad Erdan, purchased positive coverage and the distribution of that content on the Internet.

According to information provided to “The Seventh Eye” and “Hatzlacha,” as part of a freedom of information request, the Yedioth Ahronoth Group received NIS 350,000 ($100,000) to publish journalistic articles, which were then distributed by member organizations of the “Pro-Israel Network” in Israel and around the world. The articles, according to the information furnished, were meant to motivate or enlist Israelis into the struggle.

The paid-for articles were published starting in June 2017 in the news section of Yedioth Ahronoth‘s weekend magazine, and on its website, Ynet. Like other campaigns that included purchasing articles from the newspaper, this one also included promotions in the widely-distributed weekend edition.

Alongside the paid-for articles, Ynet also published promotional videos produced by the Ministry of Strategic Affairs, as well as three interviews with a ranking official at the ministry, Tzahi Gabrieli. Two of those paid-for interviews were conducted by Ynet’s senior political correspondent, Attila Somfalvi, who asked soft-ball questions that allowed him to present his talking points.

In addition to the interviews with Gabrieli, Yedioth also interviewed a string of people from various Jewish organizations that do not have direct ties to the state. The role of those organizations in the government efforts against de-legitimization and their ties to the government are unclear.

Two of those organizations, the “World Jewish Congress” and “Stand With Us,” were sponsors of Yedioth’s anti-BDS conference last year, in which senior politicians and officials from the Strategic Affairs Ministry took part.

“Over the last year,” wrote journalist Reuven Weiss in one of the paid-for articles, “the boycott movement’s main base of operations in their campaign to delegitimize Israel has moved to social media, and new tools are required.”

The aim of at least some of those state-sponsored articles was to enlist the public to help some of those civil society organizations in spreading government messaging on the internet and to combat unflattering content. In other words, to get the public to execute the Ministry of Strategic Affairs’ strategy.

“Are you sick of hearing the lies about Israel spread in the international media and on social networks?” read an accompanying box in one of the Hebrew-language state-sponsored articles. Readers were then encouraged to Google the campaign’s name, “4il,” go to the site, and start sharing “videos, caricatures, and articles that expose the lies of BDS.” In addition, Yedioth suggested that readers download an app called Act.il, which enables them to take part in “daily missions” to advance pro-Israel messaging on social media.

As has become customary at Yedioth Ahronoth in recent years, readers are told only that the article they are reading was published “in cooperation with” an Israeli government ministry, without explaining that “in cooperation with” actually means “paid for by.” In recent months, the list of articles featuring that disclosure has grown to include articles written by the news organization’s diplomatic correspondent Itamar Eichner.

The relationship between the Ministry of Strategic Affairs and Yedioth Ahronoth is only part of a much broader, well-funded campaign: in June and July of 2017 the ministry spent nearly NIS 7 million ($2 million) on spreading its messaging to the public in Israel and abroad. That is larger than any of the other campaigns that have been exposed by The Seventh Eye in recent years. The second-largest such campaign documented previously was NIS 11 million, and that was over the course of more than a year.

In addition to the journalistic content that the Ministry of Strategic Affairs purchased in Yedioth, it also spent over half a million shekels on placing content on Israel’s highest-rated television news channel, Channel 2 and its website, Mako. And in addition to Hebrew-language articles, the ministry also purchased journalistic content targeting a more global audience, enlisting it in the fight against delegitimization.

The state-sponsored articles aimed overseas audiences were published in The Jerusalem Post, which was paid NIS 120,000 ($34,000); in the Times of Israel, which was paid NIS 95,000 ($27,000); and the J Media Group, an American publishing group, which was paid NIS 115,000 ($33,000). The J Media Group, which operates a television station called ILTV, also received money from the Strategic Affairs Ministry, along with Hebrew-language newspaper Makor Rishon. The ministry refused to release data on its relationship with Sheldon Adelson’s newspaper, Israel Hayom.

Israeli BDS activists take part in an anti-corruption demonstration in Tel Aviv’s Habima Square, December 9th, 2017. (Hagar Shezaf)

According to the data that was released, the Ministry of Strategic Affairs’ biggest expenditure of the campaign — over NIS 2.6 million ($740,000) — was budgeted to promote content on social media and search engines, including Google, Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. Another large sum, around NIS 2 million ($570,000), was budgeted for building the Act.il website and producing multi-media content for it. Another roughly NIS 490,000 ($140,000) was budgeted for “strategy,” “creative,” and “branding.”

The funds the government is using to purchase state-sponsored journalistic articles come from the public, and therefore most government ministries have agreed to release information on those types of relationships. It will soon be far more difficult to obtain information about the purchase of journalistic content by Ministry of Strategic Affairs. The ministry has in recent months been advancing legislation that would exempt it from Israel’s Freedom of Information Law. According to the draft legislation, “successfully waging this battle requires keeping it as ambiguous as possible.”

The Strategic Affairs Ministry claimed that the law would not apply to the types of relationships like that with the Yedioth Ahronot Group, but the bill itself, which passed a preliminary vote over the summer and is now waiting for its second and final votes, is written in a way that will apply to all of the ministry’s activities. In response to past freedom of information requests by The Seventh Eye and Hatzlacha, the ministry claimed that some of the requested documents were “classified.” It redacted other documents, claiming that they were liable to harm Israel’s foreign relations, and even state security.

Attila Somfalvi declined to respond to interview requests. Ron Yaron, the editor of Yedioth Ahronoth, sent the following response:

This article was first published in Hebrew on The Seventh Eye.

“Since wars begin in the minds of men, it is in the minds of men that the defences of peace must be constructed.” This is how UNESCO, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, defines its mission in the first sentence of its Constitution, adopted shortly after the end of the Second World War; and this is how the role of culture must be seen in the context of worldwide tension and conflict today. In our era of global interconnectedness and interdependence, issues of culture and cultural identity have indeed become of crucial importance for peace – irrespective of whether we subscribe to Samuel Huntington’s earlier diagnosis or not.[1] In order to understand and properly evaluate the meaning of “cultural” diplomacy, we shall briefly reflect on the nature of culture in the context of politics, and in particular of international relations.[2]

As the most comprehensive framework of reference for a community’s self-realization in its unique Lebenswelt (“life-world,” to borrow from Edmund Husserl’s phenomenology),[3] culture, through all of history, has proven its resilience vis-à-vis political power, even in the form of military force. The ancient Greek world-view – expressed in philosophy, science and arts – shaped cultural identity in the powerful Roman Empire that conquered the Greek city states; Arab-Islamic culture – to give just one other example – was able to survive under the Mongol Empire where each of the successor states adopted the dominant local religion (a point particularly stressed by Amy Chua in her far-reaching analysis of the importance of cultural inclusiveness and tolerance for the building of empires).[4] Culture rooted in religion has proven particularly resilient vis-à-vis political power as has been evident in the eventual fate of Marxism-Leninism in the former Soviet Empire (including in occupied Afghanistan), of Western-inspired modernism under the Shah of Iran, or of a dogmatic version of secularism in the Turkish Republic.

In world history, culture has indeed shaped politics; in the other direction, the influence was often much less successful, and certainly less sustainable. Even as regards the history of colonialism, the verdict is still out. Where the conqueror did not, or was not able to, eliminate the native population, the invader’s culture was often simply superimposed over indigenous traditions that, in turn, redefined and reshaped the dominant culture. This is also evident in the practice of the Christian faith under African or South American traditions. The relationship between culture and empire[5] is certainly more complex than the advocates of cultural supremacy have been willing to admit through the centuries; it is definitely not unidirectional.[6]

Unlike culture (or, as its most general expression, civilization), politics is not necessarily a comprehensive phenomenon, driven by the human desire to understand, and interpret, the world as such and defining man’s position in it. In the real – not to be confused with the ideal – world, relations between political entities have always been a competition for power, motivated by the pursuit of the “national interest.”[7] It is a historical reality that those interests – always oriented towards the “good life” of the nation – have all too often been asserted in the course of war. In all such situations, issues of culture and cultural identity have been subordinated to political considerations. Culture has often been instrumentalized for the purposes of legitimation. As is again the case in our time, in the era of a “global war on terror,” the international use of force (in the service of national interests) is justified as defense of “civilization” against its enemies.[8]

However, if war is the “continuation of politics by other means,” as von Clausewitz famously said,[9] one may ask the question whether cultural diplomacy (that belongs to the realm of politics) can help to prevent, or curb, conflict – or at least contribute to a negotiated settlement? In the political context, and even more so in international relations, we must be aware of the “dual use” aspect of culture (if I may borrow, for a moment, from arms control terminology). Especially in situations of armed confrontation, culture can be an element of indoctrination as well as of education. While the former means the instrumentalization of cultural identity in the service of war propaganda, the latter relates to information that may help to expose stereotypes and overcome prejudice.

Regrettably, at the beginning of the 21^st century, the former aspect appears to have become the dominant one. Many of the looming confrontations and ongoing conflicts are portrayed in the framework of a “clash of civilizations,” namely a vicious cycle of cultural stereotyping and use of force.[10] This has been particularly the case with so-called humanitarian interventions that have become a typical feature of post-Cold War power politics, and have been part of a wider strategic agenda of “régime change” – with devastating consequences for peace and stability far beyond the affected regions. The instrumentalization of notions such as “democracy,” “human rights,” “rule of law” for essentially political purposes has not only discredited those values and ideals, but has become a major obstacle to a stable and peaceful world order. Cultural exclusivism – the insistence on one’s own world-view and value system as being the universal one – has provoked perpetual resistance and produced counter-narratives from other cultural communities. How can, in such a confrontational scenario, issues of culture and cultural identity play again a constructive role?

What is needed is a grand design of cultural diplomacy that must be shaped by the recognition of mutuality (i.e. an understanding that cultural cooperation is essentially a two-way project), and that is aware of the integral aspect of culture, which may be described by our notion of the “dialectics of cultural self-comprehension.”[11] Culture can never flourish in an insular, abstract realm; accordingly, it must be propagated in a dialogical manner. Thus, cultural foreign policy as such is not compatible with an imperialist[12] agenda – not to speak of an agenda of war. Culture is not a mere corollary of politics, but a defining element of it. Only if politicians realize that there is no supremacy of politics over culture is there space for meaningful, and effective, cultural diplomacy. It is here where the role of UNESCO must be acknowledged.

At the present juncture of world affairs, the crucial question for cultural diplomacy will be whether it will evade the trap of the “clash of civilizations.”[13] If there is to be a real chance for cultural diplomacy to have an impact on international developments under the adverse circumstances of today’s many conflicts, it must be more than a mere decorum of regular diplomatic business. The goal of cultural diplomacy, as part of a state’s conduct of foreign affairs, must be an honest and integral sharing of a nation’s (people’s) life-world with other nations (comprising its distinct value system with all forms of art and lifestyle) – not only bilaterally, but also multilaterally. Only this is in accordance with UNESCO’s philosophical vision of overcoming “ignorance of each other’s ways and lives” that, in the words of its Constitution, throughout history has nurtured “suspicion and mistrust between the peoples of the world through which their differences have all too often broken into war.”[14] Thus, the approach must be inclusive and based not only on national self-assertion and pride, but on “cultural curiosity” at the same time. Ideally, the pursuit of cultural diplomacy in the global context should be an element of what the United Nations Organization, following the proposal of President Mohamad Khatami of Iran, has propagated as “dialogue of civilizations.”[15] Instead of fuelling aggressive attitudes that may lead to war (as has so often been the case in history), culture must be asserted, and thus developed, in a context of cooperation and mutual exploration of reality by all nations. In its true, namely inclusive, sense, culture is always a joint project of mankind, namely a realization of our common life-world that is based on the very universality of the mind.[16]

However, if we follow this philosophical ideal, serious credibility issues arise for cultural diplomacy under conditions of realpolitik. To stress it yet again: As a matter of principle, culture must not exclusively be used as a political tool or an instrument of power politics, as tempting as this may be for countries with global ambitions and responsibilities. The integrity of cultural diplomacy depends on the honesty of the message that is not to be tainted by “second thoughts.” An instrumental, or functionalist, approach is not only incompatible with culture as such, but also politically counterproductive. In this regard, the understanding of culture as an element of “soft power” may have to be reconsidered. To give just one, admittedly drastic, example: If culture is brought on the bayonets of an invader, this will not only discredit the invader’s self-proclaimed mission, but do more harm than good even according to that country’s strategic calculations. In such cases, the reassertion of identity on the part of the subjugated will be much stronger and the long-term prospects of stability in the concerned region will be much dimmer. The events in the wider Middle East since the beginning of the new century – and the chain reaction of cultural alienation and destabilization in other parts of the world triggered by those events – are a case in point.

As a result of these developments, a credibility (or consistency) issue has also evolved in terms of the crisis of today’s “multicultural society.” International conflicts, often followed by civil wars such as those in the Middle East, have further exacerbated tensions between cultural and religious communities in other parts of the world. In the era of globalization, the challenges have become almost insurmountable especially as relations between Islam and the non-Muslim world are concerned. How can countries where bias against another culture or religion has entered the social mainstream – and has begun to shape those countries’ domestic and international policies – credibly assert their national (i.e. “traditional”) identity vis-à-vis the rest of the world? Or, to say it more bluntly: How can cultural diplomacy be practiced in an atmosphere of hatred and prejudice where the exploitation of stereotypes has become part of the political game (i.e. of party politics)? The credibility problem exists on all sides of the cultural divide. How can countries successfully “market” their culture (including their language, poetry, arts and sports) in a constellation where mutual incriminations (in reference to cultural, in particular religious, issues) characterize the day-to-day interaction between those countries? In more general terms: How can a country be credible internationally as a “messenger of culture” that domestically antagonizes or oppresses other cultures? It is important here to stress that the notion of “leading culture” (or “guiding culture,” Leitkultur), often referred to in domestic debates in Germany, must not be interpreted in the sense of a dogmatic value statement because this would exclude dialogue or co-existence between cultures at the international level.

 In conclusion: Against all these challenges in today’s conflict-ridden global environment, cultural diplomacy may play a constructive, even crucial, role – when and if the protagonists avoid the Machiavellian temptation to use culture, and issues of cultural identity, as a political tool. In situations of tension and conflict, violent measures – except in cases of self-defense – are not necessarily the most efficient ones, not to speak of their illegality under modern international law. What is important in such circumstances is a creative, non-dogmatic approach – which is the quintessence of diplomacy. This is exactly the advantage of culture because it appeals to the universal nature of the human being – unlike politics that is, unavoidably, the management of group egoism (conventionally described as the “national interest”).

If understood in the integrative and comprehensive sense we have described here, cultural diplomacy may serve a constructive role in the building of an order of peaceful coexistence among nations.[17] In order to be credible and efficient at the same time, it should embrace the idea of dialogical relations between cultures and civilizations on the basis of equality. Sovereign equality of nations, a basic principle of the United Nations Charter, must include sovereign equality of cultures. Only this will allow the conduct of diplomatic relations on the basis of mutuality.

Against this background, initiatives of cultural diplomacy may help to create a climate that is conducive to the settlement of conflicts and disputes through negotiations. In certain situations, culture in the widest sense (including sports) may indeed be the “icebreaker” and pave the ground for further confidence-building measures. The “ping-pong diplomacy” of April 1971 that preceded, or initiated, the thaw, indeed the establishment of diplomatic relations, between the United States and Communist China, culminating in the historical visit of President Nixon in Beijing in 1972, is one of the most colorful examples. Other examples where culture played a constructive role in a conflictual environment are the joint hosting of the FIFA World Cup 2002 by former enemies Japan and South Korea or the series of concerts, in September 2010, of the Youth Symphony Orchestra of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), including musicians from Armenia and Azerbaijan, in the two countries’ capitals. In a constellation where both South Caucasian countries were still technically at war over the unresolved Nagorno Karabakh conflict, the ensemble took a direct flight from Baku to Yerevan with the former Culture Ministers of both countries on board. This multilateral initiative, though not followed up by bilateral measures or negotiations, is a particularly creative example how culture can build bridges, or brake political taboos, in otherwise intractable situations.[18]

Will the philosophical ideal of culture as common denominator of the conditio humana stand the test of reality? Cultural diplomacy is indeed most effective when it is embedded in a wider policy of peace. At the same time, it reinforces such policy. If it is used as a tool of ideological confrontation, indeed a corollary of war, culture is not only losing its creative force, but becoming devoid of any content; it is made sterile and “useless” in terms of the advancement of humanity. While the instrumentalization of culture for interventionist policies can make the thesis of the “clash of civilizations” a self-fulfilling prophecy, the honest pursuit of cultural diplomacy means the renunciation of any form of cultural exceptionalism. It paves the ground for a global dialogue of civilizations as foundation of peace – a peace that eventually will be more durable than an order of inter-state relations that is the result of an always fragile – and constantly fluctuating – balance of power.

Prof. Hans Köchler is a distinguished author, professor of philosophy at the University of Innsbruck, Austria, and president of the International Progress Organization.

Notes

Last week, the Federal Communications Commission took the long anticipated, widely disparaged step of doing away with net neutrality protections, over the objections of roughly 80 percent of Americans who support a level online playing field. Net neutrality is no more — unless, that is, the right people say that the FCC has gone too far.

There are three possible paths to the reinstatement of net neutrality protections that were stripped away through last week’s vote.

The courts

One path to challenge the FCC’s rollback lies in the courts. Numerous actors, including government officials and technology and free speech advocates, have pledged to challenge the legitimacy of the agency’s action. Challengers might focus on the sheer audacity of the FCC’s move and its disregard for the administrative process. Just two years ago, the agency adopted net neutrality principles based on extensive research and commentary. A federal court upheld the rule and the appellate court affirmed that decision. More Americans commented on the rule — and commented favorably — than on any other prior proposed rule. The 2015 Open Internet Order reflected good, sound law and codified the primary enforcement regime that had been in place in one form or another for most of the prior decade. In contrast, the rescission of the rule was based not on a similar mountain of evidence or changed circumstances, but rather on the ideology of the president’s new FCC appointees.

The states

The blowback against the FCC decision from states and municipalities has been swift and severe. Nearly 20 state attorneys general are challenging the agency’s assertion that it can block states from imposing their own net neutrality rules. State legislators across the country are examining whether they can establish a patchwork of net neutrality mandates through state legislation. Even towns and counties in Iowa, Washington, and elsewhere are examining whether their interactions with internet service providers offer an opportunity to ensure compliance with net neutrality principles.

Congress

The most immediate and effective target for action, however, is Congress. Under a law referred to as the Congressional Review Act, Congress can overturn any agency rule if it votes to do so within 60 “legislative days” from the time the rule is presented to Congress. Since a legislative day is one in which both chambers are in session, in practical terms that means there is likely a four or five-month window before the clock expires on the CRA.

The adoption of a CRA reversal of the FCC rollback would be an ideal and simple solution. It would be as if last week’s FCC vote had never occurred, reverting to a status quo supported by a vast majority of Americans. A CRA resolution will be offered as soon as the FCC rule has been presented to Congress. Already, over two dozen senators have signed on to a proposal to overturn the FCC net neutrality rollback. A similar process has begun in the House.

Unfortunately, some members of Congress have introduced other forms of legislation, but those would largely serve the interests of the internet service providers, who rejoiced at last week’s FCC vote. They don’t contain the net neutrality protections secured in 2015. Back then, the FCC reclassified broadband internet as a “common carrier” — a term used to describe a public utility — so that it could be subject to government regulation. A new bill sponsored by Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), for instance, appears to provide protections that would prevent ISPs from blocking or slowing down certain kinds of data. But it includes gaping holes in those seeming protections, would stop short of reclassification, and fails to address the many other net neutrality protections we need.

Some bills seem well-intentioned, but they also address net neutrality on a piecemeal basis that falls far short of the 2015 order. Others, such as the Blackburn bill, would actually codify gains for the ISPs under the guise of offering half-protections to internet users.

For now, the CRA resolution — a simple bill to cancel the FCC’s arrogant decision — is the one thing that all outraged Americans can get behind. Congress can and should carry out the will of the people by saving their internet.

Michael Macleod-Ball is the former chief of the ACLU’s Washington Legislative Office, and is now the president of 627 Consulting, LLC, where he advises the ACLU on First Amendment and open government issues.

Featured image is from the author.

In 2015, Europe experienced its largest inflow of refugees since World War II, with 1,015,078 people reaching the continent, which put considerable strain on a number of countries that were forced to allocate sufficient resources to accommodate them. After gaining an appreciation for the severity of the refugee crisis, politicians and policymakers in the European Union (EU) responded by enacting measures to either return refugees to their home countries or limit the number of future arrivals. They clearly viewed this approach as preferable to treating the refugees with the dignity and respect afforded to equal human beings,and more feasible than altering their hegemonic practices and foreign policies that played significant roles in creating or exacerbating the refugee crisis in the first place.

Among the specific measures undertaken by the EU was offering Turkey, which already hosted more than 3-million refugees, financial incentives to take back some of the refugees that had already passed through the country and reached Europe. Since the terms of that agreement were finalized in Brussels in March 2016, Europe witnessed a dramatic reduction[1] in the number of refugees crossing Turkish borders[2]. The European Commission also signed similar agreements with Ethiopia, Mali, Niger, Nigeria and Senegal, whereby these nations would institute measures to prevent people from leaving for Europe and facilitate the return of unwanted migrants.

Even though the number of refugees reaching Europe has fallen dramatically in last two years, the 28-member EU is still under considerable strain from the mass arrivals of 2015,combined with an inability to reach a consensus on how to manage the ongoing refugee crisis.On September 23, 2015, the Council of the European Union attempted to respond to the refugee crisis by instituting a quota system, whereby a total of 120,000 asylum seekers would be relocated from Southern Europe, mainly Greece and Italy, to Central and Western European nations. The relocation quota was originally adopted as an emergency measure, limited to a term of two years. That term has already expired and the resolution has not been extended despite the fact that its provisions were largely disregarded when it was in force.

Although most EU governments supported the quota system, it has faced considerable opposition and criticism from certain segments of the EU since first being instituted by the Council of the European Union to manage the relocation of refugees. Specifically, a number of countries from the former communist block[3], including Hungary, Slovakia, Romania and the Czech Republic, openly opposed this resolution, arguing that accepting this marginal number of refugees posed a threat to their ethnic and cultural identities. Poland also expressed support for the stance of these nations.

On September 6, 2017, the European Court of Justice dismissed claims made by the Czech Republic, Hungary, Romania and the Slovak Republic against mandatory refugee quotas designed to achieve a fair distribution of asylum seekers by taking a number of factors into account including population size, unemployment rate, and total GDP. Subsequently, German Chancellor Angela Merkel advised the leaders of these countries to accept the Court’s ruling and take in their shares of refugees to help alleviate the unfair burden placed upon countries like Italy and Greece since the refugee crisis began. While Slovakia has relented in its position on the matter, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán rejected the European Court of Justice’s verdict, describing it as a violation of Hungary’s sovereignty and cultural identity. He is adamant that his government has no intention of changing its immigration policies in order to accommodate the European Court of Justice ruling and has encouraged other European leaders to join him in protecting Europe’s Christian identity.

The refugee crisis has exposed Europe’s racist and xenophobic underbelly. This is evidenced by the notable rise in support for right-wing, racist, anti-Islamic and anti-immigrant parties in a number of European countries, including Alternative für Deutschland[4] (Alternative for Germany) in Germany, Jobik[5] in Hungary, the National Front[6] in France, Golden Dawn[7] in Greece, Freiheitliche Partei Österreichs (FPÖ)[8] in Austria, the Finns[9] in Finland, the Sweden Democrats[10] in Sweden, the Danish People’s Party[11] in Denmark, Partij voor de Vrijheid (PVV)[12] in the Netherlands, and Lega Nord[13] in Italy. The success of these far-right parties suggests that the onset of the refugee crisis has meant the racist, xenophobic and anti-immigrant discourses expressed by their politicians, which were once considered unacceptable and relegated these parties to the fringes of the political spectrums in their respective countries, are resonating with an increasing number of people across Europe.

This recent growth in support for xenophobic and racist political parties also appears to have emboldened political leaders from some European countries to openly express hostile views vis-à-vis Muslim refugees.For example, in 2015-16, Hungarian Prime minister, Viktor Orbán, expressed concerns that certain policies, such as Angela Merkel’s decision to host 800,000 Syrian refugees in Germany, could facilitate significant demographic changes in Europe over the longer term, including the possibility that the population of Muslims could one day eclipse that of Christians. He demonstrated his racist and xenophobic views when he stated:

“I am speaking about culture and the everyday principles of life, such as sexual habits, freedom of expression, equality between men and woman and all those kinds of values which I call Christianity”.

He further added that,

“If you allow thousands or millions of unidentified persons into your house, the risk of … terrorism will significantly increase”.

On this basis, Orbán argued that

“a group of Europe’s intellectual and political leaders wishes to create a mixed society in Europe which, within just a few generations, will utterly transform the cultural and ethnic composition of our continent”.

The Hungarian Prime minister summed up his position by stating,

“for us, Europe is a Christian continent, and this is how we want to keep it. Even though we may not be able to keep all of it Christian, at least we can do so for the segment that God has entrusted to the Hungarian people”.

Prime Minister Orbán is not the only political leader to hold such views as, in 2015, Czech President Miloš Zeman stated that accepting Muslim refugees would mean host countries would “be deprived of women’s beauty, because they’ll be covered from head to toe … unfaithful women will be stoned and thieves will have their hands cut off”. Meanwhile, Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico promised that not even a single Muslim would be permitted to enter Slovakia, clearly conveying his belief that Slovakia was built for its citizens, not minorities or refugees. Jarosław Kaczyński, former Prime minister of Poland, took a more alarmist approach by claiming that migrants would bring diseases, such as cholera, parasites and protozoa into Europe. The Croatian Interior Minister, Ranko Ostojic, went even further in expressing his anti-refugee sentiments, as he suggested that it might be necessary to deploy the military to seal his country’s borders.

Unfortunately, the racist tendencies of some European leaders were not limited to only making statements. For example, Czech authorities resorted to stamping registration numbers directly onto the arms of refugees in 2015. That same year, Macedonian police used tear gas and stun grenades against refugees, while the country’s authorities actually took the extreme measure of building a razor wire fence around the city of Gevgelija. Furthermore, the international media widely reported that Hungarian police established detention camps with 24-hour police surveillance that offered little in the way of basic human needs, in addition to firing tear gas and deploying water cannons against refugees.France has also featured prominently in reports describing the mistreatment of refugees, including physical violence, harassment and intimidation at the hands of the police and locals. Many of the measures being taken against refugees in a number of European countries and some statements made by prominent politicians and leaders at the highest levels are equally disturbing.

Such examples of mistreatment, discrimination and xenophobia endured by refugees from African and Asian countries at the hands of Europeans are not entirely unexpected given the perceptions of the East that emerged in Occidental countries on account of their imperial and colonial ambitions.The West has created entirely fictional representations of African and Arab-Islamic cultures and traditions, essentially depicting these regions as parts of a savage world in need of civilizing.Many contemporary Western philosophers and liberal thinkers[14] that made significant contributions to the narratives of the outside world of the Occidental realm held views that were similar to those put forth by Orbán, Zeman, Kaczyński, Fico, Ostojic, etc.

Portrayals of the East/Orient as savage and uncivilized have been exploited by Western political leaders in order to justify the colonial and the imperial ambitions of the U.S. and its European allies in the 20^th and 21^st centuries, often in the name of civilizing the uncivilized, protecting human rights, installing freedom and democracy, and fighting terrorism.Despite public proclamations of such high ideals, these interventions typically involved committing human rights violations,applying economic sanctions and embargoes, instituting regime change, engaging in covert actions and destabilization efforts, and initiating military intrusions and wars of aggression aimed at establishing hegemony over key markets and natural resources.However, it appears as though the European allies of the US did not anticipate the possibility that their imperial ambitions could eventually result in a blowback at home in the form of refugees arriving en masse.

The refugee crisis is unlikely to be resolved through short-sighted measures like: a largely unsupported quota system to relocate refugees among EU member countries; offering financial incentives to countries like Turkey, Ethiopia, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, and Senegal, to either take back some of the refugees or tighten security at their borders; or, simply abandoning countries on Europe’s frontlines, namely Greece and Italy, to shoulder a disproportionate share of the burden on their own. Such efforts will accomplish little more than masking the problems in the short-term and delaying their consequences to a later date, when they become too large and serious to ignore. In early 2017, European Parliament President Antonio Tajani made the startling claim that “there could be as many as 30 million migrants heading to Europe in the coming years”. This is particularly concerning when considering how the last two years have demonstrated that European countries are wholly unprepared and ill-equipped to address the needs of the limited number of refugees that have already reached the continent in terms of providing them with decent shelter, health services, education, professional training, and employment opportunities.Also of concern is a general lack of benevolence and empathy on the part of many European citizens, as demonstrated by the significant rise in support for right-wing political parties and their racist, Islamophobic and anti-immigrant platforms in recent years.

The responses to the refugee crisis demonstrate that many of the forces that engendered some of the worst crimes of the 20^th century during WWII still appear to be thriving in much of contemporary Europe. That is to say, anyone who dismisses the manipulative power of Viktor Orbán, or the recent successes of far-right political parties in Europe, does so at their own peril. Such individuals need to be reminded that,

“Hitler did not have to destroy democracy; he merely took advantage of the decay of democracy and at the critical moment obtained the support of many to whom…he yet seemed the only man strong enough to get things done.”[15]

Global Research contributor Dr. Birsen Filip holds a Ph.D. in philosophy from the University of Ottawa.

Notes

[1] That view is perfectly stated by Orbán: “we declare that trouble should not be brought here, but assistance must be taken to where it is needed”.

[2] According to a UNICEF report, only 140,000 migrants and refugees have reached European shores from January to October 2017, a far cry from the high numbers reported in 2015.

[3] In all likelihood, most refugees do not intend to remain in these Eastern Europe countries on a permanent basis.  Instead, they probably regard them as temporary stopovers on their way to Western European nations like Germany, France, and the UK.

[4] Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) is a right-wing political party founded in Germany in April 2013. It regularly promotes anti-immigrant and anti-Islamic policies. In 2017, AfD became the third-largest party in Germany by acquiring 94 out of a total of 709 seats in the Bundestag in the federal election held that year.

[5] Jobbik is a Hungarian nationalist Christian political party that claims its “fundamental purpose” is to defend “Hungarian values and interests”,which apparently involves advocating for anti-immigrant and anti-Islamic policies.

In 2014, Jobbik won 20.54% of the vote in parliamentary electionsto become third-largest party in the Hungarian National Assembly.

[6] The NationalFront is aright-wing nationalist political party that was founded in France in 1972. Its popularity has been rising recently, as evidenced by the fact that it captured 25% of the vote in the European elections held in 2014. The National Front has expressed unfavourable views about immigration and Islam since it was founded. However, it could be argued that these positions have become more extreme in recent years, particularly since Marine Le Pen was made leader of the party in 2011.

[7] Golden Dawn is a Greek far-right and neo-fascist party with extreme anti-immigrant views that has been exploiting the refugee crisis to gain more support. In 2015 it captured7% of the vote in the Greek national election.

[8] FPÖ is an anti-Islamic political party with Nazi sympathies that currently holds 51 of the 183 seats in Austria’s National Council. FPÖ obtained 26% of the vote in the most recent election held on October 15, 2017. FPÖ leader Heinz-Christian Strache is of the opinion that about 60% of all Austrians share the xenophobic, racist, anti-immigrant and anti-Islam views advocated by his party.Recent elections in Austria, held on October 15, 2017, resulted in the formation of a coalition of conservative far-right parties,comprised of the Austrian People’s Party (Österreichische Volkspartei, ÖVP) and the Freedom Party of Austria (Freiheitliche Partei Österreichs, FPÖ), taking control of the government.

[9] The Finns is a Finnish political party that is well-known for its strong anti-immigration stance and calls for a Muslim-free Finland. In 2015, it became the second-largest party in Finland’s parliament.

[10] The Sweden Democrats is currently the third-largest party in Sweden that openly supports extreme anti-immigrant policies and the white supremacist movement.

[11] The Danish People’s Party supports anti-immigration and anti-Islamic policies. It is currently the second-largest party in Denmark.

[12] Partij voor de Vrijheid (PVV) is a Dutch nationalist and anti-Islam party. As of 2012, it is the third-largest party in the Netherlands.

[13] Lega Nord is a neo-fascist and anti-immigrant political party in Italy that currently ranks fourth among all political parties in the country.

[14] Prominent examples include Martin Heidegger, an avowed anti-Semite and racist, Baron de Montesquieu, who defended slavery, David Hume, a declared white supremacist who associated civilization with the white race, and Immanuel Kant, who proclaimed the superiority of the white race over the Indigenous populations of the Americas and Africa. Furthermore, John Stuart Mill defended the notion of colonial powers civilizing unsophisticated nations, John Locke supported the enslavement of Africans and discrimination against Indigenous peoples, and both Friedrich A. Hayek and Ludwig von Mises often made racial and discriminatory comments about non-white people.

[15] Hayek (2007, 108).

VISIT MY NEW WEB SITE: 

stephenlendman.org 

(Home – Stephen Lendman). 

Contact at [email protected].

Sanctions don’t work. They’re counterproductive and ineffective. They’re imposed for punitive reasons, yet accomplish nothing other than harming ordinary people in targeted nations.

US sanctions on Russia failed, its economy growing again this year, expecting greater growth in 2018. Many years of Iran and North Korea sanctions did nothing to change their policies, just the opposite. Both countries became more determined to defend themselves against feared US aggression.

Nuclear weapons aside which Iran lacks, its military matches or exceeds the capability of other Middle East nations.

Nuclear armed North Korea’s military is formidable. Both nations face the risk of US aggression. In Iran’s case, Israel poses a major threat.

For both countries, military power is essential for self-defense, neither nation an aggressor. Their histories proves it, providing clear evidence neither country threatens any others.

They’re threatened, not the other way around, requiring a strong defense. North Korea decided to include nuclear weapons in its arsenal, believing they’re the best way to deter US aggression.

Iran advocates a nuclear-free region, a world free from these weapons of mass destruction. It developed its military with powerful conventional weapons – never attacking another nation in centuries, threatening none now.

Piling on more sanctions against these or other countries makes them more determined to enhance their defense capabilities. Anything less would be irresponsible.

The problem of their military capabilities lies in Washington, not their seats of government.

If America’s rage for global dominance didn’t exist, nor Israel’s quest for regional hegemony, North Korea and Iran wouldn’t have gone all-out to develop potent military capabilities.

In going along with Washington’s demand for tougher Security Council sanctions on North Korea, along with earlier rounds, Russia and China acted irresponsibly.

They bowed to America’s imperial will, failing to reject it, imposing enormous harm on ordinary North Koreans, accomplishing nothing else.

According to China’s Global Times (GT), representing Beijing’s views, its government “object(ed) to a maritime military blockade against Pyongyang that might trigger conflict.”

Fact: By banning most DPRK imports, including food and other essentials, China and Russia effectively agreed to a partial blockade – a shameful act by both countries, siding with an imperial aggressor, opposing the aggrieved nation.

GT: New sanctions show “the determination of major powers to prevent the country conducting further tests.”

Fact: Each round of sanctions encouraged Pyongyang to continue developing its nuclear and ballistic missile capabilities, nothing to curtail them.

GT: “The international community is hoping new sanctions stop Pyongyang conducting nuclear activities and make Washington more patient to break the stalemate.”

Fact: Chances for accomplishing these objectives are virtually nil. Russia and China know it – why pretend otherwise!

GT: “The US military threat does not sound like a mere verbal menace anymore. Now is undoubtedly the most insecure time for Pyongyang since the 1950s.”

Fact: Indeed so! Sanctions achieve nothing toward reducing the threat North Korea faces.

Fact: America is a notorious bully, a threat to world peace. The only language it understands is force, targeting nations it can easily overwhelm.

Fact: Combined, Russian and Chinese military capabilities match Washington’s. Instead of going along with its imperial designs, including sanctions on North Korea, both countries should challenge the Trump administration – short of risking war.

Fact: When confronted by strength matching its own, bullies usually back off. Failing to do so makes matters worse.

In the case of North Korea, it advances things closer to war on the peninsula, the risk greater after the latest round of sanctions, not the other way around.

GT: China is “sympathetic toward North Korean people that suffer the hardships. We hope the sanctions only target its nuclear development and missile activities. We do not want to hurt people’s livelihoods or impair the stability of the” nation.

Fact: That’s precisely what multiple rounds of sanctions did. Since first imposed on its nuclear program in 2006, it steadily advanced, far more capable now than then, along with ballistic missiles able to travel longer distances.

A nuclear-free world would be ideal – not as long as America maintains an arsenal, its capability Trump and other US hawks intend enhancing.

Perhaps they’ll be used against North Korea, Iran and/or another targeted country ahead.

The DPRK wants peace, a formal end to the 1950s conflict, recognition of its sovereign rights, and oppressive sanctions lifted.

America wants endless wars of aggression, seeking subservience of all nations to its will.

Unless challenged, global war may be inevitable – China and Russia the only nations able to do it effectively.

Appeasing hegemons doesn’t work. Confronting them responsibly may be the only way “to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war, which twice in our lifetime has brought untold sorrow to mankind” – as stated by the UN Charter’s Preamble.

A Final Comment

In response to the latest SC sanctions, Pyongyang’s Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said the following:

“We will further consolidate our self-defensive nuclear deterrence aimed at eradicating the US nuclear threats and establishing the balance of force with it.”

DPRK nuclear weapons aim to protect the nation against “the blackmail of American imperialists.”

“The US should not forget that the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea has rapidly emerged as a strategic state capable of posing a substantial nuclear threat to the US mainland.”

Likely not yet, perhaps soon, and the DPRK’s message is clear. It intends pursuing its nuclear and ballistic missile capabilities as long as it fears possible US aggression.

No matter how severe, sanctions won’t stop it from advancing its ability to defend the nation.

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

President Trump after a year in office has succeeded in rounding up the Republican representatives around his “Tax Cut” Shenanigans to deceive the American people. Democrats, who are also in support of tax cuts for the rich, cautioned that this bold act against the working people might undermine the entire system. However they played their usual role as a complaining opposition.

The White House has promised that people will feel “good” in February by the “giant tax cut Christmas gift”! It is needless to say that no one has been able to explain the rationale behind this insensible claim. The political reality is that the 1% is overjoyed by the passage of this “tax cut” law while the 99% is aggravated, annoyed and ready to fight back against this incursion.

Meanwhile the usual pundits from “liberal” to “conservative”- in the corrupted Media are selling the “tax cut” bill as a “victory” for the President. They argue endlessly about how this “victory” will affect the Republican and Democratic parties in 2018 mid-term election, as if that’s the main concern for the majority of people!

This is not the first time that Congress is providing a giant “tax cut” for the rich; right after the WWII, the political deputies in Washington were very generous in giving “ tax relief” to big business at the public expense. However this time around, the massive transfer of wealth from the majority of working people to a small minority of billionaires was terribly bold and ruthless. The fact is that the elite are preparing the entire country for a major world war.  While the administration is selling their unpopular “tax cut” plan to the “forgotten people,” they are at the same time entertaining the possibility of a preemptive nuclear strike against North Korea or Iran.

The recent international embarrassment for Mr. Trump and his administration on the question of Jerusalem as the Capital of Israel is a clear indication that day by day the “leader of the free world” is isolating the U.S. in the international arena, a unique situation that no diplomat could have imagined in their life time. Thanks to Mrs. Nikki Haley, under the leadership of Mr. Trump, the people around the world once again found a chance to show their sympathy for Palestinians under siege. The fatal reaction of the Israeli army against the Palestinian demonstrators, unveiled the ugly face of the Israeli apartheid brutal forces. The insane U.S. foreign policy is making the most powerful military force on earth look a little foolish even to the most “friendly” allies!

Despite the constant distraction and misinformation, the American people are realizing that Mr. Trump and his cabal are trying to “make America great again” only for the rich on the back of the men and women who live paycheck-to-paycheck. People are saying that the idea of imposing income tax was actually to limit the wealth of the 1%; if the rich don’t pay their share of taxes, why should we?

The Socialist Equality Party condemns the targeting of Jill Stein, the Green Party presidential candidate in the 2016 election, by the neo-McCarthyite witch-hunters on the Senate Intelligence Committee.

The SEP has fundamental political differences with the Green Party. However, we unequivocally defend the constitutional right of the Green Party to conduct its work and campaign for office unmolested by the government and its police and intelligence agencies. The attack on Stein, spearheaded by the Democratic Party, is an unconstitutional attempt to delegitimize and suppress political opposition to the monopoly of the capitalist two-party system.

Stein warned in a statement that investigations are being “used to intimidate and silence principled opposition to the political establishment” in a climate of “attacks on our civil liberties, with the emergence of censorship in social media and the press, criminalization of protest, militarization of police and massive expansion of the surveillance state.”

On Monday, Stein confirmed that Senate investigators had demanded that she produce documents related to her alleged interactions with Russia. Her suspicious activity, according to the congressional investigators, consisted of attending a dinner celebrating the tenth anniversary of RT, the only TV network that gave her campaign any significant coverage, at which Russian President Vladimir Putin was also present.

Stein has absolutely nothing to answer for to the US Congress. As a presidential candidate, she was fully within her rights not only to attend a media event, but to meet and have discussions with any other public figure, foreign or domestic.

Is anyone expected to believe that neither Hillary Clinton nor her campaign had contact with any political leaders of other countries? On September 19, 2016, for example, Clinton met publicly with three foreign heads of state, including Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, installed in a fascist-led putsch, and Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, the butcher of Cairo who drowned the Egyptian revolution in blood.

The investigations into allegations of Russian “meddling” are based on unfounded claims that Russia manipulated the US elections. However, the fact that Sisi and Poroshenko are in power exposes the extent to which the United States meddles in the political affairs of every country all over the world, staging coups, propping up dictatorships and bombing and invading countries at will.

In addition to the dinner hosted by RT, Stein, according to ranking committee Democrat Mark Warner, had “very complimentary things to say about Julian Assange.” And this is now evidence of potentially criminal activity? Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, is a journalist who has helped expose the crimes of the US political establishment.

For having spoken out publicly in support of a political prisoner and dissident, Stein is threatened with being hauled before a congressional committee as if she were involved in treasonous activity.

This is the Orwellian reality of America in 2017, ruled by two right-wing, oligarchic parties that can and will tolerate no political opposition.

The entire premise of “Russian collusion” is made up out of whole cloth, aimed at explaining away the Democrats’ own hemorrhaging support among broad sections of the population and pinning their electoral defeat on the very existence of an alternative to the two-party system.

In her book, What Happened, Clinton fumed that “the Russians targeted propaganda to undecided voters and to ‘soft’ Clinton supporters who might be persuaded to stay home or support a third-party candidate.”

She continued, “Perhaps this is one reason why third-party candidates received more than five million more votes in 2016 than they had in 2012. That was an aim of both the Russians and the Republicans, and it worked,” resulting in Clinton’s loss.

Now, the Democrats are using their institutional power to pursue a vendetta against a party they blame for having contributed to their electoral defeat.

The reason the third party vote grew in 2016 was not Russian “meddling,” but because millions of people hated the candidates of the two big business parties. The Democratic Party is leading the attack on political opposition within the United States because it feels itself under siege from popular sentiment, which is on the whole moving to the left.

For this reason, the Democratic Party has lashed out with a series of provocations, from allegations of Russian “meddling” to the hysteria surrounding sexual misconduct. All the while, it has created the most favorable possible conditions for the Republicans to pass a massive reduction in corporate taxes, a policy that enjoys bipartisan support.

The old tropes of the most right-wing sections of the Republican Party at the height of Cold War McCarthyism—in which the foreign policy setbacks of US imperialism and all political dissent were presented as the result of a conspiracy of foreign infiltrators and left-wing agitators—have been adopted by the Democratic Party.

The Senate’s investigation of the Green Party comes as figures like Warner and House Intelligence Committee ranking Democrat Adam Schiff are pressing for mass political censorship by technology companies, and as the FCC has ruled to revoke net neutrality, giving internet service providers free reign to block access to oppositional web sites.

The targeting of the Green Party marks a new stage in the drive to criminalize dissent and political opposition within the United States as the ruling elite prepares yet another onslaught on the social rights of the working class and draws up plans for “great power” conflicts that threaten a new world war.

“Democracy Now! is funded entirely through contributions from listeners, viewers, and foundations. We do not accept advertisers, corporate underwriting, or government funding. This allows us to maintain our independence.” – from the Democracy Now website. (emphasis added)

“If they don’t like what we’re doing, we don’t get funded next year.” – TomPaine.com Executive Director John Moyers (quoted on Gatekeepers chart)

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(Note: This installment of the Global Research News Hour is a repeat. Originally posted June 24, 2017. – MAW)

The long-running program Democracy Now boasts of its independence from corporate and state sponsorship, which would compromise its ability to critique in a sustained way the powerful for-profit and government interests potentially linked to their paymasters. As a result, the program’s coverage of the 2003 Iraq War, the Israel-Palestine conflict and other foreign engagements has generally been superior to that of the Washington Post, CNBC, FOX, the New York Times, and other major outlets.

However, there seem to be media narratives this ‘unembedded, independent news hour’ does not challenge. One of them is Syria.

DN typically upholds the official line of Syrian president Assad as a tyrant and the principal cause of suffering of the Syrian people. Journalists like Eva Bartlett and Vanessa Beeley who cite the US/NATO backed militants as a more significant menace to Syrian society rarely appear as Democracy Now host Amy Goodman’s interview guests. For instance, Beeley’s credible reporting on the role of the so-called White Helmets as an arm of the terror groups and as a propaganda instrument for US/NATO is completely shunned by producers of the show.

This distortion has become evident to many of the program’s regular listeners. It inspired a peace group representing Berkeley and the East Bay region in California to compose and distribute an open letterand petition calling for more diversified coverage of the Syrian conflict. (Readers can add their name to the petition here.)

One significant reason why DN’s Syria coverage may be aligning with U.S. imperialist narratives might be the philanthropic foundations that fund the show.

In a previous interview, journalist Cory Morningstar explained how foundations with their roots in Wall Street financiers have manipulated much of the environmental movement, thereby restricting the kinds of activities the activists engage in. She posited that environmentalists are channeling their energies into promoting divestment away from fossil fuels and into the so-called ‘green economy’ which happens to advance the goals of the Rockefellers, Bill Gates, and other wealthy elites seeking new frontiers for investment. Such actions, however do not deconstruct or challenge the very financial system which is destroying the planet and exploiting marginalized peoples around the world. (Listen to that interview here.)

Journalist Bob Feldman explains how this same effect impacts ‘dissident’ media in his 2007 paperReport from the Field: Left Media and Left Think Tanks – Foundation-Managed Protest? The Ford Foundation, which is connected to the CIA, the Rockefeller Foundation, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the Carnegie Endowment, the Tides Foundation, the Open Society Institute have all donated millions into “left” media outlets. These include Democracy Now, Working Assets Radio, Counterspin, The Nation, Z Magazine, and Mother Jones among others.

The critical scrutiny of State oppression is therefore cunningly restricted. To quote journalist Brian Salter, “..the big establishment foundations are successfully sponsoring the kind of ‘opposition’ that the US ruling elite can tolerate and live with.”

The question of how and why trusted alternative media outlets like Democracy Now is failing in its accurate reporting on Syria is the focus of this week’s installment of the Global Research News Hour radio program.

In the first half hour we hear from Vanessa Beeley. She is an independent researcher, writer, photographer and peace activist. She has researched the background of the White Helmets and has been visiting Syria since July 2016. Beeley is an Associate Editor and contributor to 21st Century Wire, and contributes to UK Column and Mint Press News, and her work is published at Global Researchamong other online outlets. She acquaints listeners with what she has seen and experienced in Syria that leads her to believe the Western Press is wildly misrepresenting the facts on the ground.

We next hear from Daniel Borgstrom. He is a former U.S. Marine who served from 1959 to 1963. He is now an activist and a member of East Bay Veterans for Peace, chapter 162. Borgstrom is the author of the open letter and petition directed at Democracy Now. He explains his campaign and his thoughts about DN’s distorted reporting on Syria and other issues near the middle of the program.

Finally, we hear from Bob Feldman. Feldman is a journalist and researcher who has investigated the extent to which philanthropic foundations fund and control left media outlets and think tanks. In 2007, he authored the paper Report from the Field: Left Media and Left Think Tanks – Foundation-Managed Protest? for the on-line journal Critical Sociology. Before that he, together with colleague Brian Salter, composed a series of articles on the Left Gatekeeper phenomenon for their site questionsquestions.net. He elaborates on his research in the last twenty minutes of the show. Links to his various blogs can be found at Where’s the Change.

Special thanks to journalists Barrie Zwicker and Ann Garrison for their assistance in connecting with this week’s guests.

[Correction: In the narration of the episode, and in a previous version of this article, it stated that Daniel Borgstrom served in Vietnam. The veteran never served in Vietnam. – MAW]

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The Global Research News Hour airs every Friday at 1pm CT on CKUW 95.9FM in Winnipeg. The programme is also podcast at globalresearch.ca . The show can be heard on the Progressive Radio Network at prn.fm. Listen in everyThursday at 6pm ET.

Community Radio Stations carrying the Global Research News Hour:

CHLY 101.7fm in Nanaimo, B.C – Thursdays at 1pm PT

Boston College Radio WZBC 90.3FM NEWTONS  during the Truth and Justice Radio Programming slot -Sundays at 7am ET.

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Burnaby Radio Station CJSF out of Simon Fraser University. 90.1FM to most of Greater Vancouver, from Langley to Point Grey and from the North Shore to the US Border.

It is also available on 93.9 FM cable in the communities of SFU, Burnaby, New Westminister, Coquitlam, Port Coquitlam, Port Moody, Surrey and Delta, in British Columbia, Canada. – Tune in  at its new time – Wednesdays at 4pm PT.

Radio station CFUV 101.9FM based at the University of Victoria airs the Global Research News Hour every Sunday from 7 to 8am PT.

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Cowichan Valley Community Radio CICV 98.7 FM serving the Cowichan Lake area of Vancouver Island, BC airs the program Thursdays at 6am pacific time.

Campus and community radio CFMH 107.3fm in  Saint John, N.B. airs the Global Research News Hour Fridays at 10am.

Caper Radio CJBU 107.3FM in Sydney, Cape Breton, Nova Scotia airs the Global Research News Hour starting Wednesday Morning from 8:00 to 9:00am. Find more details at www.caperradio.ca

RIOT RADIO, the visual radio station based out of Durham College in Oshawa, Ontario has begun airing the Global Research News Hour on an occasional basis. Tune in at dcstudentsinc.ca/services/riot-radio/

Every year, Facebook gets thousands of requests for data from governments worldwide, including search warrants, subpoenas, or calls to restrict certain kinds of content. And, according to a new report, those requests are increasing at an alarming rate.

According to QZ.com, in the United States, the requests rose by 26% from the last six months of 2016 to the first six months of 2017, while globally, requests increased by about 21%. Since 2013, when the company first started providing data on government requests, the US number has been steadily rising—it has roughly tripled in a period of four years.

This is alarming many and causing a concern about privacy.  Joe Joseph, from the DailySheeple, isn’t sugarcoating the reality of Facebook either.  “Duh. This is exactly what Facebook was designed to do,” says Joseph.

“You have to remember that Zuckerberg had “seed money” and that seed money came from CIA front companies that put a lot of resources into this and… basically think about it as like, sowing seeds; if you will. They knew that Facebook was gonna bear fruit. I don’t think they realized just how big it would become. But I can tell you that they get so much information and intel from social media:  I don’t think that it would go away even if we wanted it to.”

The government keeps requesting the information, and Facebook continues to comply with the government’s demands.  In the first six months of 2013, it granted the government—which includes the police—79% of requests (“some data was produced” in these cases, the company says); in the first six months of 2017, that share rose to 85%.

“We continue to carefully scrutinize each request we receive for account data — whether from an authority in the U.S., Europe, or elsewhere — to make sure it is legally sufficient,” Chris Sonderby, the company’s general counsel, wrote in a post. “If a request appears to be deficient or overly broad, we push back, and will fight in court, if necessary.”

But Joseph thinks Facebook is just trying to pacify the easily manipulated sheeple of society.

“This is pretty troubling when you think about what you put out there, what they collect, and Facebook only being one of the many avenues that they have,” Joseph says. “The United States is collecting your data. Whether you like it or not. They are scooping up everything. And they’re taking it and they’re storing it in their facility at Bluffdale, Utah which has the capacity at this time to store every communication on the face of this earth for the next one hundred years.”

“It’s unbelievable,” Joseph continues.  “This is stuff that is unacceptable to me, but I’m sure, to a lot of you. And these companies have really gone too far…they can reconstruct your life and make anyone they want a patsy.”

Featured image is from the author.

“Telling the truth is always difficult….It’s extremely difficult in conditions of empire. And it’s extremely difficult in conditions of empire threatened, which is basically what we have today.”

– Professor Mark Crispin Miller (October 2016)

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(Note: This installment of the Global Research News Hour is a repeat originally posted August 1, 2017)

In recent years, as documented on this site and on the Global Research News Hour radio program, we have seen an acceleration in the level of propaganda and its ability to shape common narratives around war.

The Assad government is blamed for virtually all the blood being spilt in Syria in recent years, in spite of evidence to the contrary. Russia, not NATO, is being blamed for an imperialist agenda for Ukraine and Eastern Europe. And a McCarthyist narrative accusing President Putin of interference in the 2016 US Presidential elections has taken hold in spite of an almost complete lack of evidence upholding that narrative.

More to the point, reporters risk being tagged ‘conspiracy theorists’ or ‘Russian agents’ if they dare to challenge these and other official narratives.

Billions of dollars of investment, not to mention political careers are dependent on maintaining these narratives, so it is understandable that dissident perspectives will sooner or later come under attack if the body politic begins to be influenced by them.

This is why media criticism and independent reporting has become such an important tool for building democratic resistance to corporate and State power. .

Project Censored is one of the key resources for highlighting and breaking down news media censorship in the US. Founded in 1976 by Dr. Carl Jensen of Sonoma State University in Rohnert Park California, the media research project’s mission has been to educate students and the public about the importance of a free press for democratic self-government, while expressing and opposing all forms of news censorship, promoting independent journalism, independent investigative journalism and critical thinking.

On October 21st, the organization put together a ‘Media Freedom Summit‘ as part of its 40th anniversary celebrations,

PC presented a round table discussion that touched on a number of crucial themes including the ‘conspiracy theory’ meme, the reporting that frustrated plans to launch an assault on Syria, threats to authentic reporting, and the distorted reporting around the 2016 election campaign which was ongoing at the time of this summit.

Abby Martin is the creator and host of The Empire Files, a weekly investigative news program airing onTelesur English, She is the past host of RT’s Breaking the Set, and the co-founder of the independent citizen journalism project known as Media Roots. She served as moderator for the discussion.

Mnar Muhawesh is the founder and editor in chief of Minneapolis based independent media outlet Mint Press News. She also hosts Behind the Headline for that news outlet. Her coverage of Syria earned her a place in Project Censored’s Top 25 most censored stories of 2015-2016.

Mark Crispin Miller is a professor of media, culture and communication at New York University, and author of numerous articles on media censorship and election fraud, He is the author of several books, including Boxed In: The Culture of TV, and The Bush Dyslexicon: Observations on a National Disorder. He is also the editor of Loser Take All: Election Fraud and the Subversion of Democracy, 2000-2008. He is the curator of Open Road media series Forbidden Bookshelf, which re-publishes titles of America’s repressed history.

David Talbot is the best selling author of the The Devil’s Chessboard: Allen Dulles, the CIA and America’s Secret Government. He is the Founding editor of Salon.com. His most recent endeavour is Hot Books, a new imprint in partnership with Skyhorse publishing putting out titles on key contemporary issues often escaping the attention of the mainstream media.

Attention broadcasters! Some mildly offensive language is used in this broadcast. Listener discretion is advised.

Audio courtesy of Mint Press News and Project Censored.

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Sometimes you wake up in the morning and it’s 2003 all over again. That was the year when the United States embarked on its catastrophic course of intervention in Asia. It was at least somewhat justified in invading Afghanistan to eliminate al-Qaeda but then made the mistake of sticking around to fix the country, a repair job that has lasted sixteen years and counting with no end in sight. And it was also the time when the neoconservatives who were then controlling the Pentagon and White House decided that it was necessary to go after Iraq.

As Baghdad in no way threatened the United States, and everyone who had examined the actual evidence knew that to be the case, a false narrative about Saddam Hussein had to be contrived. The White House claimed that Iraq was supporting al-Qaeda, that it was seeking uranium to construct a nuclear weapon and that it was building gliders that could cross the Atlantic Ocean with cargoes of chemical and biological weapons.

None of that turned out to be true, but the piece de resistance of the go-to-war crowd was the presentation made by Secretary of State Colin Powell before the United Nations on February 5, 2003. With Central Intelligence Director George Tenet sitting behind him presumably to establish bona fides for the information that was about to be revealed, Powell detailed how Iraq was preparing and concealing from inspectors weapons of mass destruction, was avoiding disarming and was colluding with al-Qaeda. It was all a lie, intended only to make a minimal case to the U.N. that increasing the military pressure on Iraq was a supportable, indeed a necessary, policy. One month later President George W. Bush called on President Saddam Hussein to resign based on his failure to comply with U.N. demands and, when he did not do so, launched an invasion of Iraq.

America’s current United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley is no Colin Powell either in terms of intellect or credibility, but she did try to act like him when she spoke on December 14^th in front of a sparsely attended press conference that was focused on a much larger US television audience. Haley displayed parts of what she claimed to be fragments from an Iranian-sourced missile that was allegedly used in an attack initiated by Houthi “rebels” and directed against the Saudi capital Riyadh. Haley denounced what she described as Tehran’s “increasing military role” all around the Middle East. She claimed hyperbolically

“It’s hard to find a conflict or terrorist group in the Middle East that doesn’t have Iran’s fingerprints all over it,”

and warned that Washington will “build a coalition to really push back against Iran and what they’re doing.” To give weight to her message, she pointed at the fragments and said

“They are allowing missiles like this to be fired over to innocent civilians.”

Haley’s blinkers, or ignorance, enable her to avoid any consideration of the US-supported war being waged by the Saudis against Yemen which has directly claimed upwards of 5,000 civilian lives while also introducing both famine and cholera to the Yemeni people. A major part of the Yemeni suffering has been inflicted by US manufactured munitions being dropped or fired by the Saudis during hundreds of sorties, many of which are directed against civilian targets. Direct involvement by Washington has also included supplying Riyadh with intelligence and aviation fuel.

Unfortunately, Haley is not alone. The United States is maintaining a military presence in Syria, even though ISIS has been defeated, to be able to threaten any developing Iranian permanent presence in the country. It is doing so even though it is in Syria illegally. Israel has also said it will take military action, presumably supported by Washington, if Iran establishes any military bases. The Wall Street Journal reports that the administration will not allow “Iran and its proxies to be able to establish a presence in Syria.” Donald Trump, during his successful electoral campaign, repeatedly denounced Iran, and his foreign policy team, including Generals James Mattis and H.R. McMaster, as well as CIA Director Mike Pompeo, are all unrelentingly hostile to Tehran, as are the pathologically pro-Israel Congress and mainstream media. Are we about to see Iran on center stage in a performance of Iraq Redux? Quite likely.

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

Featured image is from the author.

This GRTV interview was first published in June 2016.

America’s hegemonic project is to destabilize and destroy countries through acts of war, covert operations in support of terrorist organizations, regime change and economic warfare. The latter includes the imposition of deadly macro-economic reforms on indebted countries as well the manipulation of financial markets, the engineered  collapse of national currencies, the privatization of State property, the imposition of economic sanctions, the triggering of inflation and black markets.

As NATO forces conduct full-scale military exercises on Russia’s doorstep, the world’s attention once again turns to Eastern Europe.

But as Professor Michel Chossudovsky, author of Towards A World War III Scenario and The Globalization of War points out, in this era of total warfare the real threat is not just a military one and its scope is truly global.

 

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Order Directly from Global Research Publishers

Michel Chossudovsky

The US has embarked on a military adventure, “a long war”, which threatens the future of humanity. US-NATO weapons of mass destruction are portrayed as instruments of peace. Mini-nukes are said to be “harmless to the surrounding civilian population”. Pre-emptive nuclear war is portrayed as a “humanitarian undertaking”.

While one can conceptualize the loss of life and destruction resulting from present-day wars including Iraq and Afghanistan, it is impossible to fully comprehend the devastation which might result from a Third World War, using “new technologies” and advanced weapons, until it occurs and becomes a reality. The international community has endorsed nuclear war in the name of world peace. “Making the world safer” is the justification for launching a military operation which could potentially result in a nuclear holocaust.

The Pentagon admitted for the first time this week that it has “conducted multiple ground operations” in Yemen, the impoverished and war-ravaged country on the Arabian Peninsula, while conducting more than 120 air strikes there this year, triple the number in 2016.

This revelation of an escalation on yet another front in the expanding US military intervention in the Middle East came as Yemen marked the 1,000th day of the war being waged by Saudi Arabia and its fellow Gulf oil sheikdoms against the poorest nation in the Middle East.

Multiple aid agencies issued statements warning that the deaths of millions are threatened as the war claims more victims and plunges vast portions of the population into conditions of famine and disease.

The depth of the country’s humanitarian crisis was underscored this week with the announcement by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) that the number of cholera cases in Yemen had reached one million, making the ongoing epidemic by far the worst in recorded human history.

The rapid spread of the disease, which has claimed the lives of over 2,200 people since April, a third of them children, is an unmistakable manifestation of the destruction of Yemen’s social infrastructure by the nearly three-year-long, unrelenting US-backed Saudi bombing and blockade of the country.

Cholera is easily preventable and treatable so long as there is access to clean water. US-supplied Saudi bombs and missiles, however, have destroyed much of the Yemen’s water and sanitation infrastructure, while the air, sea and land blockade has deprived the country of fuel needed to run whatever systems have survived the onslaught. Meanwhile, at least 50 percent of Yemen’s health care facilities have been destroyed.

According to the ICRC, fully 80 percent of Yemeni population now lacks access to food, fuel, clean water and health care, creating the conditions for the spread not only of disease, but also famine.

In a report released Thursday in Cairo, the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization said that fully one-quarter of the Yemeni population, nearly 8 million people, was suffering from severe food insecurity, placing their lives at imminent risk. Another 36 percent of the population faced what the agency referred to as “moderated food insecurity.”

Prices of what food is available reportedly shot up 28 percent in the month of November alone, placing basic necessities out of reach for the majority of the population.

While 12,000 civilians have been reported killed since the beginning of the war in 2014, this number is vastly eclipsed by deaths from the hunger and disease caused by the war. Last month, the aid agency Save the Children warned that 50,000 children would die before the year’s end, while the United Nations has reported that one Yemeni child is dying every ten minutes from preventable causes.

Oxfam, which described conditions in Yemen as “apocalyptic,” said in a statement:

“For 1,000 days, huge amounts of sophisticated modern weapons have pounded Yemen, and on top of that we are now witnessing a Medieval siege where mass starvation is being used as a weapon of war.”

To put it bluntly, Saudi Arabia and its allies and arms suppliers, principally the United States and Britain, are guilty of a world historic war crime that has employed methods against the people of Yemen comparable to those used by Hitler’s Third Reich.

Begun in March of 2014, the war has been waged for the purpose of returning the Saudi puppet, Rabbu Mansour Hadi, to the presidency and to prevent the emergence of a government with friendly ties to Iran.

The US ground intervention and air strikes acknowledged by the Pentagon’s Central Command on Wednesday is ostensibly directed against Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) and the Islamic State in Yemen, Sunni Islamist militias that are virulent enemies of the Houthis, whose base is among the Zaidis, a sect that emerged historically from Shia Islam.

Many of the victims of the US operations are civilians killed in both air strikes and search and destroy missions carried out by special operations troops on the ground. In an unusually publicized raid last January in central Yemen’s Al Baydah Province, special operations troops backed by drones and attack helicopters killed 57 people, at least 16 of them civilians, while one American soldier was killed.

Washington has been waging a covert drone war against Yemen since 2002. Before this year, the number of Yemenis killed in this campaign is estimated at nearly 1,500, according to the Bureau of Investigative Journalism.

In the same statement acknowledging its ground operations and the dramatic escalation of its bombing campaign, the Pentagon reported that the number of ISIS fighters in Yemen had doubled since the beginning of the year, an estimate that suggests the US campaign is having little impact outside of killing civilians, and is a sideshow compared to the war being waged by the Saudis with Washington’s backing.

The Saudi monarchy would be unable to wage this criminal war without the support of the US government and military. Massive US arms contracts have supplied the Saudi Air Force with missiles, cluster bombs and other munitions that have been used to reduce Yemeni schools, hospitals, residential areas, farms, factories and basic infrastructure to rubble. US Air Force planes are flying refueling missions to allow the Saudis to carry out round-the-clock bombing, while intelligence officers are supplying them with targets. The US Navy is deployed off Yemen’s coast backing up the Saudi blockade.

While the Trump administration, with the collaboration of the US corporate media, has remained virtually silent on the deepening of the worst humanitarian crisis on the face of the planet, it has repeatedly signaled its support for Saudi Arabia’s near-genocidal aggression. It views the war entirely through the prism of its bid to build up a military alliance with Saudi Arabia and the other Sunni Persian Gulf oil sheikdoms, along with Israel, to reverse the growth of Iran as a regional obstacle to the imposition of American hegemony in the oil-rich Middle East.

Washington’s support for Saudi Arabia and its determination to provoke a military confrontation with Iran found particularly noxious expression last week when the US ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, staged a televised presentation at a military base in Washington, DC in front of the wreckage of what was proclaimed an Iranian missile fired from Yemen at Riyadh’s international airport last month. The missile caused no casualties.

Haley insisted that the debris placed on display constituted “undeniable” evidence that Iran is arming the Houthi rebels, violating the 2015 nuclear accord negotiated with the major powers and acting as a “threat to the peace and security of the entire world.”

The presentation called to mind nothing so much as the “undeniable” evidence presented by then US-Secretary of State Colin Powell to the United Nations Security Council in February 2003 of Iraqi “weapons of mass destruction” in preparation for the US invasion little more than a month later.

In this case, the US evidence is every bit as concocted. According to Foreign Policy, which viewed a UN report prepared following an examination of the same debris used in Haley’s television appearance, UN investigators found not just Iranian, but also American parts in what was left of the missile, suggesting that the device was cobbled together by the Yemenis themselves.

Unexplained by Haley’s presentation is how Iran could have smuggled missiles into Yemen through a naval blockade maintained by the Saudis and the US Navy that has turned away ships carrying food, medicines and fuel. Moreover, the Yemeni military, whose stockpiles were taken over by the Houthi-led government, had scores of its own missiles.

Responding to Haley’s performance, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif on Wednesday described the US allegations as “provocative” and “dangerous.”

“They try to hide their support for the bombardment of the innocent Yemenis through such accusations,” Zarif said.

On December 19, the Houthi leadership claimed responsibility for another missile fired at Riyadh, declaring that it had been aimed at the Saudi royal palace. Like the earlier missile, it was brought down without causing any casualties.

The White House condemned the abortive missile attack, again claiming without any substantiation that Iran was responsible. US imperialism is supporting and exploiting the slaughter of the Yemeni people to create the conditions for a new region-wide war against Iran with incalculable global consequences.

“One basis for life and another basis for science is an a-priori lie” –Karl Marx, Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts, 1845.

Base-Superstructure Theory (BST) is Marx’s guiding general theory, but is long misunderstood.  Deeply embedded in a monumental corpus of system-challenging analysis, it has become lost in secondary interpretations with partial takes and opposed propagandas militating against coherent comprehension. Within the last 35 years, there has also been a sea-shift of global culture to anti-foundationalist relativism which has uprooted the very idea of a common base or ground, Marx’s ‘economic base’ most vehemently of all.

The Productive Base as the Ground of Society and History

Within a dominant post-1991 cultural assumption that ‘Marxism is dead’, the BST has been essentially abandoned even by Marxists as ‘postmodernist’ and ‘identity politics’ tides sweep across the West. Yet Marx’s overall historical materialist principle remains intact within the academy – that the material conditions of historical societies – opposed to God or human concepts – determine human affairs. This first ontological step of Marx’s general theory repudiates the conceptual idealism of philosophy from Plato to Hegel which supposes that disembodied Ideas determine material reality, rather than the other way round.  Marx introduces this foundational principle of the BST (emphasis added as henceforth):

“Men can be distinguished from animals by consciousness, religion, or anything else you like. They themselves begin to distinguish themselves from animals as soon as they begin to produce their means of subsistence”.

This is Marx’s ‘productive base’, usually referred to as Productivkraften or ‘productive forces’.  This production beyond Nature’s available provisions increasingly “subjugates Nature to its sway” (Capital, “On the Labour Process”). Yet Marx’s work takes on the revolutionary political edge for which he is most famous in the iconic Manifesto of the Communist Party in 1848. Here his philosophy of society and history moves to a sweeping 10-Point social program, much of it instituted within the next century – extension of existing industrial development to state ownership, graduated income tax, free education for all children by public schools, and a national bank.  Marx’s theory has been in this way largely proven in practice against the standard assumption to the contrary.

Yet it is not until his 1859 Preface to A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy, that Marx defines his general theory with his base-superstructure model as “the guiding thread of my studies”. Since this canonical statement carried through in Das Kapital is widely misconceived as a mechanistic determinism in which all elements of society are uniquely determined by the ruling economic system, it requires close inspection.

“In the social production which men carry on”, Marx begins his paradigm statement, “they enter into definite relations that are indispensable and independent of their will”.

While this is usually thought to be a statement against humanity’s free will, it is more modestly a statement of unacknowledged fact about the ‘free society’ capitalism is assumed to be. Wage or salary work must be done by the great majority to stay alive “independent of their will”. Their “definite relations” are materially determined by the employer who must achieve the lowest costs with ‘no choice in the matter’. And behind this “wage slavery”, Marx emphasises in Capital, lies the further unacknowledged horrific historical fact of the “great expropriation of the people from the soil, from the means of subsistence, and from the means of labour – [by] violent  and painful methods”. They must sell their labour into servitude, or they do not survive. This servitude, Marx documents, is enforced by mass hangings, mutilations, floggings, pillories, and deprivation of children.

Yet Marx acerbically rejects any kind of voluntarism as an alternative.  The mode of production that produces a society’s means of life must, he argues, be developed to a stage where the direct producers are effectively organised to historically replace the ruling capitalist system of social production.  This is why he asserts as the guiding framework of his work:

“production relations must correspond to a definite stage of development of men’s material powers”.

This is ‘the productive base’ on which slave-owning, feudal or capitalist social systems are raised in their turn, but which ruling cultures assume as ‘everlasting’. Marx summarizes in this central statement of his general theory that the “the totality of these relations of production constitutes the economic structure of society– the real foundation [or base] on which the legal and political superstructure arises”.

Marx is opposed to the ruling determinism, but organises the facts as they are against ‘ideological illusions’ – the essential method of his base-superstructure theory. While many claim Marx denies the autonomy of individual consciousness, or free choice, or democracy, or all at once, his master verb for superstructure determination by the economic base is entsprechen- to correspond to or comply with. This means that the state and legal institutions of a society must comply with the ruling ownership structure society’s forces of production, or be selected out as materially unviable. This is why Marx says in his Preface to Capital,

“My standpoint can less than other make the individual responsible for relations for whose creature he socially remains, however much he may subjectively raise himself above them” (emphases again added as elsewhere).

Marx insists against most philosophy that subjectivism is incapable of understanding the real world or changing it. This is why he ridicules Kant’s ‘moral will’ as an impotent deontology that excludes consequences a-priori; and why he mocks Max Stirner’s ‘Omnipotent Ego’, neo-Hegelianism, and all commentary which revolves within “consciousness in itself”. Marx’s Theses on Feuerbach is the iconic expression of this unprecedentedly activist ontology and epistemology and the philosophical ground of his base-superstructure theory:

“The dispute over the reality or non-reality of thinking which is isolated from practice is a merely scholastic question” (Thesis II).

Marx would be hard on most postmodernism, analytic theory, and academia in general today, and this may be why they are all inclined to pooh-pooh Marx. Yet his BST is most easily de-mystified when reading attends to its straightforward material model – a building foundation and a superstructure raised upon it. No superstructure can stand without a foundation, and this could be called an ‘inexorable law’. But this does not mean the superstructure conforms to the base by ruling out all alternatives within its range of permission.  Nor, conversely, does it mean that the base will change in virtue of those alternatives in the mind, even if socialist.  Superstructural phenomena must, in Marx’s BST, comply with the underlying mode of production, or face strong selective pressures to extinction. Thus Marx argues that the laws, policies and state in a society orrespond to the productive base to survive, and why he disparages those who think a legal proclamation will change social reality if there are not the material conditions to enable it to occur. In logical terms, Marx’s meaning may be summarized without his militant mood: legal, state and ideological phenomena must be consistent with the society’s material reproduction at the established level of society’s productive provision of means of existence, or go under.

Social Being Determines Consciousness

Marx continues his BST ‘guiding thread’ to write that “definite forms of social consciousness correspond to a society’s mode of production”. This has led to many competing interpretations, dogmas and denunciations. Yet to test it, one may ask: where is there not correspondence in global capitalism between ‘ruling forms of social consciousness’ and ‘the economic structure’?  More specifically, do we find that the dominant meanings of “freedom”, “responsibility”, “productivity”, “and “justice” are do not comply with  the capitalist system? An easy refutation would be any published conception of these anchoring normative concepts which opposes, say, the rightness of private profit, or rejects the assumption that citizens must sell their services to employers as their duty to society.

Marx continues his explanation with perhaps the most controversial sentence of his base-superstructure theory.

“It is not the consciousness of men that determines their being, but, on the contrary, their social being determines their consciousness”.

For this, Marx is held to be declaring a materialist reductionism, or the epiphenomenal nature of human thought, or denial of moral choice, or undialectical simplification, or a soulless doctrine. In fact, Marx only repudiates any theory which excludes material foundations from its understanding. Thus received philosophers and press commentary, for example, are ridiculed by Marx and more specifically, religio-moral certitudes reflecting ruling-class interests. Yet since all words and languages are social constructions, Marx’s claim is obviously true in a now accepted way. The most studied philosophers of the twentieth century, Martin Heidegger and Ludwig Wittgenstein, for example, declare language as the “home of Being” and “the limit of thought” respectively, and contemporary etymology usually presupposes language’s social and historical nature. Marx’s claim that “social being determines consciousness” is hardly controversial today except that Marx’s BST further argues that the social is y determined by the capitalist economic structure that must and will be overthrown. In Marx’s BST terms without his militance, this line of thought is rejected by official society as unacceptable. This is how, as Marx provocatively describes it in many different contexts, a realm of illusory cover stories and concepts blinker out the capitalist system’s oppressive exploitations while purporting the highest moral motives. Consider Marx’s bitingly witty asides in this light:

“The Church of England will more readily pardon an attack on its Thirty-Nine Articles than 1/39^th of its income”.

This is the same Marx that in The Holy Family talks of religion as the “spirit of spiritless conditions, the heart of a heartless world” – thus resonantly affirming the spirit and the heart that he is said to deny. What he is in fact castigating is the capitalist church and its rich investments, rents and hypocrisies exploiting the populace and grinding the poor. Marx’s BST analysis also lays bare the institutionalised veils of doctrine masking the cupidity of the Conservative Party and its Lords:  “The high Tory hymns the beauties of the British Constitution, the Crown and the Law until the day of danger snatches from him the confession that he is interested only in – Ground Rent.”

Marx’s base-superstructure method of laying bare private capital gain underneath moral pomposity and the robes of religion, the constitution, and the law still applies to, say, US politicians’ invocation of ‘God’s blessing’ and ‘our sacred Constitution’ – why Marx may be so abhorred by establishments across the world.

Freedom in Marx’s Base Superstructure Theory

Long the primary reason for repudiating Marx’s base-superstructure theory has been its alleged denial of individual freedom. Yet his work from the beginning is devoted to freedom as of ultimate value, preferring Epicurus to Democritus in his doctoral thesis solely because the theory of Epicurus allowed freedom into an arbitrary “swerve” of atoms against the “far more scientific” Democritus who is a mechanist.  Yet there is an implicit principle of ‘technological determinism’ as the ultimate regulator of Marx’s base-superstructure theory.  Few understand that this position rules out the success of state seizure for socialist revolution without a developed productive base to sustain it – as history since Marx has significantly confirmed. Marx also predicts social transformation to a “many-sided” working class “ready and able to meet any change of production;” as well as technological replacement of labour to allow “free time” from “the realm of necessity” – opposite positions to a denial of human freedom.

In spite of Marx’s failed prediction of ‘inevitable revolution’ in advanced industrial societies, Marx is rather prescient in anticipating the material possibilities of freedom by technological and worker development, and how they are ‘fettered’ by the capitalist economic structure within which all lower-cost benefits of technological advances like labour-saving machinery go to capitalists  as the working day increases. Marx’s evolving productive base is throughout grounded in humanity’s distinguishing feature as a species and the origin of human freedom: “the capacity to raise a project in the head before it is constructed in reality”. (Capital, “On the Labour Process”). A socially self-directing mode of production with socialist plan is the meta version of this built-in human freedom.

This distinguishing ground of historical materialism is brought into revealing alliance with Darwin’s classical Origin of the Species when Marx connects “nature’s technology” to human society’s “organs of technology” as the ultimate basis of historical development:

“Darwin has interested us in the history of Nature’s Technology i.e., in the formation of the organs of plants and animals, which organs serve as instruments as of production for sustaining life. Does not the history of the productive organs of man, of organs that are the material basis of all social organization, deserve equal attention?” (Capital, “The Development of Machinery”).

In his still under-theorized evolutionary theory, Marx goes beyond Darwin in arguing that:

(1) the forces of selection are increasingly social, not natural, and

(2) organic instruments are evolved by creative cooperative production, not instinctual repertoires or genes.

Marx’s base-superstructure theory is the framework within which historical as opposed to natural evolution develops, and human capacity self-realization not species reproduction numbers is its logic of advance.

Economic Determinism, Darwinian Selection and Social Revolution

Marx’s implicit principle of economic determination by extinction of what does not fit the ruling property order is evolutionary biology at the historical level, As Marx says in his Preface to Capital,

“the economic formation of society is viewed as a process of natural history”.  

In fact, however, history is not a natural process as its laws are made not found in nature, and Marx’s own theory implicitly seeks human society’s supersession of nature’s ultimate law of dominance by physical force.

Yet both evolutionary and historical materialist theories recognise selection and extinction of life forms that adapt or not, survive, flourish or die, in the struggle for continued life. Marx, however, argues for the revolutionary necessity of surpassing the brutality of natural evolution by working-class overthrow of the ruling class system of “hitherto existing society” which always “pumps out surplus labour from the direct producers” to enrich masters, lords or capitalists” (Capital III, “Genesis of Capitalist Ground-Rent”). Marx’s ultimate goal is liberation from capitalist class rule, in his theory the last to rule society against its common interests with productive development the material base of this revolution. For Marx’s BST, however, species liberation only becomes historically possible with industrial mass production to organise it. Human survival and extinction, class domination and overthrow are based on technological development which eventually outgrows the old form of control and appropriation of society’s means of production to bring about a higher stage of society led by the direct producers themselves.

Marx’s revolutionary theory is the most controversial element of his explanatory model, and has so many versions that it helps to define its inner logic in dispassionate terms:

1. a social revolution in a society’s law, politics and ideology is propelled by

2. ever more open class struggle to

3. achieve a higher stage of development of the productive base of society

4. than the prior ruling-class economic structure can manage

5. without forfeit of society’s stage of material production.  

In the rare periods of successful social revolution, Marx offers an original causal explanation: Only when productive force development goes beyond the fetters of the established ruling-class relations of production can a social revolution occur.  Marx’s guiding framework is concisely stated by his ‘guiding thread’ (with possible application to contemporary society in square brackets:

“At a certain stage of their development, the material forces of production [think of the Internet] come into conflict with the existing relations of production – or – what is but a legal expression for them – with the property relations within which they had been at work before [private -profit copyright, patent and control over published meanings]. From forms of development of productive forces, these relations [of corporate ownership profit] turn into their chains. Then occurs a period of social revolution [the creators of knowledge deciding on commons publication and open access in cumulative transition from the for-profit ‘information economy’ to the ‘knowledge commons’].

At the macro level of interface with evolutionary biology, Marx’s BST suggests new technologies as the ‘organic extensions of human society’ outgrowing the ruling ownership ‘anatomy’ to necessitate society’s transformation to a higher and more productive form.  A society, he writes in introducing Capital, is an “organism always changing” while the “birth-pangs of revolution” presuppose a long process in “the natural laws of its movement” which “can neither clear by bold leaps, nor remove by legal enactments the obstacles involved – – but can shorten the and lessen the birth-pangs”. The underlying common ground of both disjunctive and cumulative-transition understandings of this social transformation is that any uprising social organisation of material forces must be more efficient and productive than the one now ruling . This is an understanding that has, ironically, been seized upon by counter-revolutions across the world since wherein external capitalist powers deliberately destroy socialist life bases by armed and financial means – the converse of Marx’s revolutionary theory.  Marx asserts in his definitive BST explanation:

“No social order ever disappears before all the productive forces for which there is room in it have been developed, and new higher relations of production never appear before the material conditions have matured in the womb of the old society.”

Counter-revolutions prevent this evolution of the ruling mode of production ever succeeding.

Self-Maximizing Growth and Marx’s Aporia of Productive Object 

Marx’s base-superstructure theory implicitly recognises that the ultimate value base and driver of capitalism is the “fully developed shape [of] the money form” in terms of which all decisions of what commodities to produce and how they are produced are made solely to maximize revenue returns to private capital owners in cycles of increasing accumulation: in general formula Money-Commodity-More Money or M-C-M¹ . As Marx also argues, capitalist investors are “personifications of economic categories, embodiments of particular class relations and class interests”, and so are a-priori indifferent to what life is degraded, exploited and destroyed in multiplying private money profits with no cumulative limit (Marx’s Preface, Chapter I, and Chapter  XXV of Capital).

While Marx’s BST is confirmed by capitalist history, a deep-structural issue emerges. How can Marx or his followers believe that the results of this totalizing system of life oppression, immiserization and life capital rundown must “inevitably” result in a completely opposite outcome of “social revolution”, “dictatorship of the proletariat”, and “from each according to his ability, to each according to his need”?  There is no clear definition of any step of this historical vision. Most deeply, there is no answer to the question: what is the criterion of the life needs that production is ultimately for?

Marx focuses rather on the socialist logic he sees built into competing large scales of capitalist production  – “an ever-expanding scale, the co-operative form of the labour process, the conscious technical application of science, the methodical cultivation of the soil, the transformation of the instruments of labour in instruments of labour only usable in common, the economising of all means of production by their use as means of production of combined socialised labour, the entanglement of all peoples in the net of the world-market, and with all this the international nature of the capitalistic regime” (Capital, Chapter XXXII). Marx’s  analysis here is breathtaking in scope, but what remains absent is the underlying life base and laws of any productive force development and exponential growth. That this development must be consistent with the universal needs and capacities of humanity, its natural biosphere and fellow creatures does not enter into Marx’s base-superstructure theory as an issue (nor mainstream theories today). As with the capitalist epoch in general, technological development seems to be a secular Providence that can solve any problem.

In Capital, Marx restricts the parameters to be considered to the technology used and collective wage labour as historical agency.

“The wealth of those societies in which the capitalist mode of production prevails”, he writes in his first sentence of Capital presents itself as “an immense accumulation of commodities”.

The commodities of which all wealth consists in capitalist society are always produced in accordance with the master organising principle of their production and profit, M-C-M^{1 ,} the capitalist value-system Marx first defines. This ‘immense accumulation  of commodities’ are the values of this system in whatever form they take, and are defined in the same first page of Capital as material use-values for wants – – – whether they spring from the stomach or fancy makes no difference”. Marx underlines this criterion of commodities by his approving footnote citing Nicholas Barbou’s subjectivist principle:

“want is the appetite of the mind and as natural as hunger to the body”.

It is this commodity base – and all capitalist productive forces are commodities – which constitutes the productive forces to drive the ‘inevitable proletarian revolution’.   

Since all these productive and consumer commodities are driven ex hypothesi by systemic compulsion to sell anything to moneyed desires for the lowest inputs costs and highest profits over generations, there is a problem of transition to socialism that is not met. The depredatory effects on organic and ecological life systems of these capitalist productive powers and consumables across generations are not recognised or regulated to prevent them in theory or practice. With no defined  life standards or criteria to distinguish life-destructive from life-enabling productive forces and products, how can the cumulative looting and polluting of humanity’s and other species’ life support systems by global capitalism be reversed when they are conceived as “development” even by Marx?

Marx envisions in his Grundrisse notebooks to Capital a future state in which “once the narrow bourgeois form is peeled away”, there can be “the evolution of all human powers as such unmeasured by any previously established yardstick”. But what if the ‘bourgeois form’ cannot be peeled away because it built into the productive forces themselves? The life-base standards definable at every level do not exist. In Capital Volume II, Marx is poignantly unaware of the problem when he says (emphases added):

“Regardless of whether such a product as tobacco is really a consumer necessity from the physiological point of view, it suffices that it is habitually such”.

We see here the relativization of life necessity to habitual wants which can drive productive forces through the human organism and the biosphere with no life-carrying capacity limits defined in even Marx’s BST.

Re-Setting Base-Superstructure Theory to the Life Ground

Marx’s base-superstructure theory begins with humanity distinguishing itself from other animals by production of the means of life. Yet ‘means of life’ disappears as a category after 1847 in Marx’s corpus, and is replaced on the first page of Capital by commodities serving desires not needs. Productive forces since increasingly mass-manufacture commodities which are disabling and addictive in their consumption – even in a communist-party society moving from mass bicycle riding to fossil-fuel motors toxifying the air and environment. Marx conceives commodities as values because they embody labour hours. Yet if we take into account the life and life capital effects of industrial commodities from extraction through processing to product through consumer bodies to wastes through the biosphere  – all in motion in Marx’s day – a darker picture emerges than ‘productive force development’ and ‘‘immense wealth of commodities’ to ground socialist revolution. Nowhere does any measure of life capital enter into theory or measure. True productive value measured by the yardstick of life capacity gained versus lost is not conceived.  As in capitalism before and since, the “precision of natural science” Marx attributes to “the material mode of production” lacks any criteria which we may call life capital standards to meet this fatal problem.  Life-degrading commodities and machines cannot be selected against even by revolutionary socialism if there is no regulating principle whereby to recognise them. It seems that Marx’s first principle in the Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts has dropped out of view:

“One basis for life and another basis for science is an a-priori lie”.

The Missing Life Capital Base of Marx’s Base-Superstructure Theory

Re-set of Marx’s base-superstructure theory to principled consistency with life capital standards is the missing foundation, and the measure of life capital necessity is undeniable once defined. Any material need or necessity is that without which life capacities of any kind are reduced or die – from oceans to songbirds to human brains. While Marx’s BST abstracts out this life base of the productive base, it seems implicitly presupposed in both his attacks on the capitalist system and his revolutionary alternative to it. One may test the italicised principle by seeking any denunciation or affirmation of Marx’s analysis which does not conform to it. So can Marx’s BST be re-set to include this life base and measure?  There is only way do so, and that is by comprehension of the following three moments of any coherent value system that

(i) produces more life value

(ii) without loss and

(iii) with cumulative gain.

The sole concept which comprehends these three moments is life capital – what may also be called true capital – whose collective form includes every social asset through time from the sciences and arts to stable hydrological cycles to a public healthcare system to pollution-abating and recycling technologies to regional biodiversity and arable lands to aquifers, rivers, sewers and filter systems. In fidelity to Marx’s method which understands social systems in terms of social relations rather than atomic aggregates, this missing concept may be modified as ‘collective life capital’.  In onto-axiological terms, any life capital at all is only coherent if it reproduces and gains consistently with other life capital: as follows from Marx’s principle of “from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs”.

The Productive Agency of Social Transformation 150 Years after Capital

Marx believed that industrial workers (the proletariat) would rise up around the world (Source: Wikimedia Commons)

At the heart of Marx’s base-superstructure theory, the concluding pages of Capital contend that the industrial working class or proletariat is “disciplined, united, organised by the very mechanism of the process of capitalist production itself” to revolt against it.  Yet a logical slippage occurs here. For within “this very mechanism of capitalist production”, no purpose is allowed but to serve the M-C-M¹ “law of motion of modern society” which, by Marx’s own description, operates solely to lower money costs for capitalists to pump out maximum profit. What has gone unnoticed is a fallacy of equivocation between the production process of workers bound to strict servitude within the industrial workplace and workers joining together outside this workplace on the basis of their collective life interests. As Marx himself says in Wage Labour and Capital,

“life only begins for the labourer where his bought labour ceases”.

Marx further claims in this signature passage that the industrial proletariat is “growing in revolt” and “always increasing in numbers”. Here the error is not logical, but historical. The industrial proletariat since Marx’s Capital has been increasingly replaced by automated systems which in the last half century have multipled industrial job reduction, separation of work functions into globally scaled assembly-lines, and deprivation of collective worker leverages of strike, union association, local market demand, and job security. Here again Marx’s base-superstructure theory of social transformation needs to be re-set to remain applicable. The class most superseding and displacing the industrial proletariat is one of knowledge workers who emerge everywhere that symbolic practices replace physical inputs in production. Yet Marx’s First Preface to Capital where his general theory is most evident as in his previous Preface to A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy (bear in mind that a Preface is a traditional location for a work’s lodestone of meaning to be generically defined) is far-seeing in a way that has not been recognised. Marx implicitly conceptualises the leading edge of the knowledge class and its public- sector economic base as a transformative agency of developed industrial society across life domains:

where there are plenary powers to get at the truth (Marx’s emphasis): if it was possible to find for this purpose men as competent, as free from partisanship and respect of persons as are the English Factory inspectors, her medical reporters on public health, her commissioners of inquiry into the exploitation of women and children, into housing and food”.

Observe how encompassing these ‘plenary powers to get at the truth’ are. Observe how even in a capitalist society Marx supports the knowledge-formation capacities of public servants to be competent, free from bias, and respectful of persons. Observe how he exactly endorses their existing capacities to seek the facts across the most basic domains of human life production and reproduction of the working class. Little known in contemporary culture, Marx’s base-superstructure theory implicitly calls for life-capital knowledge evolution as the ultimate species advantage led by public authority with ‘plenary powers to get at the truth’.

John McMurtry Ph.D (University College London) is a fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and Professor (emeritus) of Philosophy.

Source

Karl Marx and Frederick Engels. 1975-2004. Collected Works.  Lawrence and Wishart Ltd./Progress Publishers: New York/Moscow.

 

People of the United States:

For the past century, the owners of the fruit companies called our country “Banana Republic” and characterized our politicians as “cheaper than a mule” (as in the infamous Rolston letter).

Honduras, a dignified nation, has had the misfortune of having a ruling class lacking in ethical principles that kowtows to U.S. transnational corporations, condemning our country to backwardness and extreme poverty.

We have been subject to horrible dictatorships that have enjoyed U.S. support, under the premise that an outlaw is good for us if he serves transnational interests well. We have reached the point that today we are treated as less than a colony to which the U.S. government does not even deign to appoint an ambassador. Your government has installed a dictatorship in the person of Mr. Hernández, who acts as a provincial governor–spineless and obedient toward transnational companies, but a tyrant who uses terror tactics to oppress his own people. Certain sectors of Honduran private industry have also suffered greatly from punitive taxes and persecution.

You, the people of the United States, have been sold the idea that your government defends democracy, transparency, freedom and human rights in Honduras. But the State Department and Heide Fulton, the U.S. Chargé d’Affaires who is serving as de facto Ambassador to Honduras, are supporting blatant electoral fraud favoring Mr. Hernández, who has repeatedly violated the Honduran Constitution and (as noted by the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights) basic human rights. He is responsible for the scandalous looting of USD $350 million from the Honduran Social Security Institute and while he lies to you shamelessly that he is fighting drug cartels, he has destroyed the rule of law by stacking the Supreme Court with justices loyal to him.

The people of the United States have the right to know that in Honduras your taxes are used to finance, train and run institutions that oppress the people, such as the armed forces and the police, both of which are well known to run death squads (like those that grew out of Plan Colombia) and which are also deeply integrated with drug cartels.

People of the United States: the immoral support of your government has been so two-faced that for eight consecutive years the U.S. Millenium Challenge Corporation has determined that the Hernandez regime does not qualify for aid because of the government’s corruption, failing in all measures of transparency. With this record, the Honduran people ask: Why is the U.S. Government willing to recognize as president a man who the Honduran people voted against, and who they wish to see leave office immediately?

People of the United States: We ask you to spread the word, to stand up to your government’s lies about supporting democracy, freedom, human rights and justice, and to demand that your elected representatives immediately end U.S. support for the scandalous electoral fraud against the people of Honduras, who have taken to the streets to demand recognition of the victory of the Alliance Against the Dictatorship and of President-Elect Salvador Alejandro César Nasralla Salúm.

We can tolerate difference and conflict, seeking peaceful solutions as a sovereign people, but your government’s intervention in favor of the dictatorship only exacerbates our differences.

The electoral fraud supported by the U.S. State Department in favor of the dictatorship has forced our people to protest massively throughout the country, despite savage government repression that has taken the lives of more than 34 young people since the election, and in which hundreds of protestors have been criminalized and imprisoned.

We stand in solidarity with the North American people; we share much more with you than the fact that the one percent has bought off the political leaders of both our nations.

As descendents of the Independence hero Morazán, we want to live in peace, with justice and in democracy.

The Honduran people want to have good relations with the United States, but with respect and reciprocity.

Tegucigalpa, December 21, 2017

José Manuel Zelaya Rosales
Constitutionally Legitimate President of Honduras 2005-2010
Chief Coordinator, Opposition Alliance Against the Dictatorship

***

It’s the season to be jolly, and the Trump administration has been busy doling out gifts.  Sanctions seem to be top of the pile, derived from that trove of options outlined in the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act.  The law, initially introduced in 2012, targets the bank assets of those unfortunate enough to make it to the US Treasurer’s list.

“Today,” went the US Treasury press release, “the Trump administration launched a new sanctions regime targeting human rights abusers and corrupt actors around the world.”  As is the nature of Trumpist language, every executive order to expand existing legislation resembles a grand proclamation, an event of momentous significance.  At the very least, the president insists that he is coping with a “national emergency”, a good cover for mere flatulence.

Secretary of Treasury Steven T. Mnuchin was trying to get comfortable on his high horse. 

“Today, the United States is taking a strong stand against human rights abuse and corruption globally by shutting these bad actors out of the US financial system.”

Assets were being frozen; names were being shamed for “the egregious acts they’ve committed”.

Thirteen individuals were singled out in the Annex to the December 21 Executive Order. The Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) sprigged the order with an additional 39 associated individuals and entities to the sanctions list.

Many of the names are hard to defend as subjects of human kindness.  There is Yahya Jammed, former President of Gambia, the man behind an assassination squad known as the Junglers.  There is Maung Maung Soe, formerly chief of the Burmese Army’s Western command, instrumental in cleansing Rakhine State of its Rohingya population.  But then come more problematic characters, largely on the basis that they resemble, in its most direct way, the American way of life: loot, extend, expand.  

There is Slobodan Tesic, notorious dealer of arms and munitions in the Balkans known for his power to persuade. (A large bank balance helps with clients actual and potential.)  There is the ruthless Dan Gertler, who made a bundle in oil and mining deals in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Most of all, such an approach, combining sanctions with supposedly moral rectitude, seems mismatched.  This is a point that has riled Beijing in particular.  Gao Yan, director of the Beijing Public Security Bureau Chaoyang Branch, is singled out for his mistreatment of human rights activist Cao Shunli.  Cao’s tragic demise from organ failure whilst being detained at the bureau is grim, but hardly presents a case for US authorities to gloat.  The US record on its own prisoners is, by whatever standard, fairly atrocious.

The Chinese approach to the matter of human rights resembles a dodderer in search of a cane, a case of pure gradualism.  We will eventually make to the venue, but we will take time. 

“We urge the United States,” came the Chinese Foreign Ministry’s Hua Chunying, “to impartially and objectively look upon China’s human-rights development and to stop acting as a so-called human-rights judge.” 

Do not, she suggested, use domestic jurisprudence to determine how best to sanction foreign nationals.

The Chinese record on human rights is bloodied and spotty, but the US has afforded ample ammunition to those keen on shifting the focus from Beijing to the ailing nature of the American Republic.

China’s State Council has been particularly florid on this score.

“With the gunshots lingering in people’s ears behind the Statue of Liberty, worsening racial discrimination and the election farce dominated by money politics, the self-proclaimed human rights defender has exposed its human rights ‘myth’ with its own deeds.”

A Trump White House is essentially the last thing compatible with a human rights agenda.  Its enthusiastic brown nosing with members of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, notably in terms of its own foreign policy forays, would make the most reserved of activists redden with fury.

Then come the domestic abuses that have become routine.  Be it Muslims, Mexicans or migrants in general, Trump has made such subjects the capital of political gain.  Denigration sits poorly with human rights protections, but the transactional nature of Trump’s policy will always evaluate such rights in the context of gain rather than actual value.

The one thing that gives cold comfort here is the transparency of such exercises. Trump has overturned a longstanding US hypocrisy on the subject of human rights, a form of weaponized hypocrisy that ignores its own failings.

“The United States,” went the council report, “repeatedly trampled on human rights in other countries and wilfully slaughtered innocent victims.”

That’s what having a drone fleet is bound to do.

The true harm being done in such skirmishes is to human rights itself.  These actions, faux recriminations and fabricated moments of fury, testify to the essential irrelevance of human rights in the international system.  Power remains the currency that makes the relevant sounds, and this tailors well with President Trump’s real estate brutishness. 

Then there is the necessity of appearance.  Slapping sanctions on the notorious and criminal gives the impression of progress, indignation via executive order.  Reports condemning the record of abuses of a country seek to stimulate domestic interest and satisfy the rights lobbies. In truth, Beijing and Washington have little appetite for moralising in substance.  There are deals to be done, and competition to be engaged in.

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

VISIT MY NEW WEB SITE: 

stephenlendman.org 

(Home – Stephen Lendman). 

Contact at [email protected].

Despite opposing harsh sanctions on North Korea, calling them counterproductive and ineffective, Russia and China bowed to US interests, piling on the DPRK again.

Sanctions mostly harm ordinary people in countries where they’re imposed, not their ruling authorities.

By going along with US demands for tougher sanctions, Moscow and Beijing shamed themselves, siding with an imperial bully against the North Korean people, grievously harmed by previous sanctions, each new round compounding their suffering, new sanctions banning food imports.

Multiple rounds of Security Council sanctions demand North Korea cease nuclear testing, suspend ballistic missile tests, and prohibit the export of arms and munitions to the nation.

They deny the country access to the international financial system, banning numerous products besides weapons and munitions.

They include natural gas, gold, silver, rare earth metals, vanadium, titanium, cold, iron, copper, nickel, zinc, lead, seafood and other foods, machinery, electrical and industrial equipment, earth and stone including magnesite and magnesia, wood, transportation vehicles and vessels.

They ban around 90% of refined petroleum products, cap crude oil exports at four million barrels annually, and require repatriation of around 100,000 North Koreans working abroad within 24 months.

The resolution stopped short of calling for nations to board and search North Korean ships in international waters. Permitting it would let Washington and its allies blockade the country, a flagrant violation of international law, a de facto declaration of law, risking confrontation between Pyongyang and other nations.

In September, US Treasury Secretary Mnuchin said

“(f)oreign financial institutions are now on notice that going forward they can choose to do business with the United States or North Korea, but not both.”

According to White House homeland security advisor Thomas Bosset, there’s not much left to sanction “short of starving the people of North Korea to death…”

Russian deputy UN envoy Vladimir Safronkov complained about his country not being adequately consulted on the new sanctions. Yet Moscow approved them anyway, a shameful act.

China’s deputy UN envoy Wu Haitao called on the DPRK to “refrain from conducting any further nuclear and missile tests” – while urging dialogue and de-escalation of tensions.

North Korea responds to carrots, not sticks. Newly imposed sanctions won’t curtail efforts to further develop its nuclear and ballistic missile capabilities.

They’re vital deterrents against threatened US aggression. Abandoning them would leave the nation more vulnerable to US attack and control.

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

Featured image: Ahed Tamimi (Source: RT News)

The detention of Ahed Tamimi of the West Bank village of Nabi Saleh, along with her human rights activist mother Nariman Tamimi, for “lightly slapping” an Israeli soldier, as Amira Hass put it in Haaretz, is remarkable only because of the high profile, courage and sumoud (steadfastness) of the Tamimi family, who were featured on the cover of The New York Times Magazine in 2013.

It is a fate shared by thousands of Palestinians. Ahed’s father Bassem, like close to a million Palestinians since 1967, has also seen the inside of an Israeli jail.

Ahed was reacting in frustration to the shooting, by an Israeli soldier, of a 15-year-old Palestinian boy distantly related to her (Mohammed Tamimi). who had just been wounded in the head with a rubber-coated metal bullet and taken to a Palestinian hospital. (See Israelis shoot boy in head, take revenge against his family)

Your question, ‘What do you consider to be justice for Ahed Tamimi?’, raises an important point related to Israel’s military occupation of the West Bank and the legitimacy of the legal system it imposes on Palestinians there (Jewish “settlers”. and Jews in general in the West Bank are governed by a different set of rules).

In the documentary film The Law in these Parts, Israeli military judges and prosecutors have exposed the legal framework and its human impact on Palestinians, young and old.

The egregiousness of this situation in Palestine is being addressed today in US Congress, where a new US bill: Palestinian children’s rights under Israeli military occupation.

Ahed is refusing to answer questions at her interrogation, a clear indication that she does not accept the legitimacy of her detention or the military legal system imposed upon her protest activities in occupied Palestine.

Justice for Ahed Tamimi and all Palestinian political prisoners means their immediate release.

The 2017 Conference on International Law and the State of Israel: legitimacy concluded in its closing statement that

“…while Israel has relied up to date on the use of ‘hard power’, reflecting its geopolitical and strategic alliances on the world stage and notably the support of the USA, in the long term this would not provide a viable and just solution.”

Ahed Tamimi is part of Generations R, if you like, the generations of Palestinians who have not given up on return to their homeland and self-determination – and never will.  It’s been reported that 95% of new Palestinian detainees in Israel jails are youth.  This youngest generation of Palestinians has proved to be as courageous and steadfast as their legendary elders, including, to name a few, 15 year olds Ibrahim Al-Qawasmi and LouayNashteh from Hebron, Wael Hashash, 19, and AttallahHashash, 24, from Nablus, Ahmed Qassem, 19, from Jenin, and Ahmed Abu Rahma (17) from Ramallah.

Over 6,500 Palestinians, including 300 children, are currently languishing in Israeli prisons.

Rima Najjar is a Palestinian whose father’s side of the family comes from the forcibly depopulated village of Lifta on the western outskirts of Jerusalem. She is an activist, researcher and retired professor of English literature, Al-Quds University, occupied West Bank.

Years ago, those confronting and questioning the Western media’s “pro-democracy” narrative regarding Myanmar opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, her National League for Democracy (NLD) political party and her supporters including saffron-clad supposed “Buddhist monks,” were ridiculed and dismissed.

Warnings that Suu Kyi’s political movement was nothing more than a foreign-funded attempt to co-opt the people and resources of the Southeast Asian state of Myanmar – a former colony of the British Empire still referred to widely in the West by its colonial nomenclature, “Burma” – were dismissed as mere conspiracy theories.

Meanwhile, concerns that violence targeting Myanmar’s Rohingya minority was in fact being bolstered by Suu Kyi’s rise to power were intentionally and concertedly sidestepped by the Western media who attempted to conceal the true nature of Suu Kyi’s political party and the core “values” of her support base and shift blame onto the ruling military-led government.

It was inevitable that upon taking power, Suu Kyi and the NLD – enabled by decades of US-UK-EU financial, political, and material support – the progressive veneer applied to this “democracy icon” would begin to peel, and the true nature of her and her followers would reveal itself.

Consumed by a Monster of Their Own Creation 

In an immense amount of irony, prominent Western media organizations like Reuters now find themselves decrying the very government they themselves spent decades helping into power, as the government cracks down on reporting over the ongoing Rohingya crisis.

Two Reuters employees – Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo – were reportedly arrested after illegally obtaining documents from Myanmar police. Reuters and the myriad of faux-human rights advocates that conspired with the US, British, and European governments to put Suu Kyi into power are now calling on the Myanmar government – though not Suu Kyi by name – to release their colleagues.

Reuters employee Andrew Marshall has recently flooded his social media accounts with desperate pleas for his colleagues’ release, citing US “demands” that Myanmar release them, and alluding to the debt Suu Kyi and the NLD owed the foreign press for their role in bringing them to power.

Yet even now, as Reuters finds two of its own rendered as collateral damage in the wake of Suu Kyi and the NLD’s ascent into power, both this most recent row regarding Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo and the ongoing Rohingya crisis are only obliquely linked to Suu Kyi by the Western media. Marshall – for example – continuously cites “Myanmar’s president – Suu Kyi’s ally” as supporting the prosecution of his colleagues – either unaware or unwilling to admit that Suu Kyi herself created and currently occupies the highest office – State Counsellor – referred even by the Western press as the “de facto” head of the Myanmar government.

Suu Kyi has both the political power – and since her office itself is an exercise of extralegal power – the legal power to act on a number of issues Reuters and other within the Western media continuously attempt to raise in regards to Myanmar. Yet despite this, the lack of responsibility assigned to her stands in stark contrast to other crises around the globe, particularly in Syria where the nation’s leader, President Bashar al-Assad is wholly blamed for all regardless of the logic, legality, or legitimacy of Western accusations.

The Making of a Monster 

Marshall also repeatedly referred to Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo as “truth seekers” and “real journalists,” yet one wonders just how accurate such labels are.

Real truth seeking journalists would have noted and reported years ago of the compromised nature of Aung San Suu Kyi and her National League for Democracy and the contradiction in terms a “democracy icon” was when Suu Kyi’s entire movement – from her party to supposed “nongovernmental organizations” (NGOs), academics, and media platforms – were created, funded, and directed by and solely for foreign interests.

Indeed, in what sense is Suu Kyi’s political movement a representation of Myanmar’s self-determination – the foundation of any genuine democracy – if that political movement is a product of Washington and its interests, not Myanmar’s and its people’s?

It was in a 36 page 2006 Burma Campaign UK document titled, “FAILING THE PEOPLE OF BURMA? A call for a review of DFID policy on Burma (PDF),” that it was revealed how virtually every aspect of Myanmar’s opposition was funded and directed by foreign governments, the US via USAID, the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), and convicted financial criminal George Soros’ Open Society and the UK via the Department for International Development (DFID) being chief among them.
The report openly admitted:

The National Endowment for Democracy (NED – see Appendix 1, page 27) has been at the forefront of our program efforts to promote democracy and improved human rights in Burma since 1996. We are providing $2,500,000 in FY 2003 funding from the Burma earmark in the Foreign Operations legislation. The NED will use these funds to support Burmese and ethnic minority democracy-promoting organizations through a sub-grant program. The projects funded are designed to disseminate information inside Burma supportive of Burma’s democratic development, to create democratic infrastructures and institutions, to improve the collection of information on human rights abuses by the Burmese military and to build capacity to support the restoration of democracy when the appropriate political openings occur and the exiles/refugees return.

The document also admits that all prominent opposition media in Myanmar is funded by the US government, stating:

The NED sub-grant program also has fostered the development of three well-known Burmese media organizations. The New Era Journal, the Irrawaddy, and the Democratic Voice of Burma (DVB) radio have become critical sources of independent news and information on the struggle for democracy in Burma. These organizations also serve as training ground for the development of professional Burmese journalists.

Illustrating the emphasis on placing Suu Kyi into power rather than merely “promoting democracy” and allowing the people decide themselves, the report blatantly admits (emphasis added):

Voice of America (VOA) and Radio Free Asia (RFA) have Burmese services. VOA broadcasts a 30-minute mix of international news and information three times a day. RFA broadcasts news and information about Burma two hours a day. VOA and RFA websites also contain audio and text material in Burmese and English. For example, VOA’s October 10, 2003 editorial, “Release Aung San Suu Kyi” is prominently featured in the Burmese section of VOAnews.com. RFA’s website makes available audio versions of 16 Aung San Suu Kyi’s speeches from May 27 and 29, 2003. U.S. international broadcasting provides crucial information to a population denied the benefits of freedom of information by its government. Broadcasts reach a broad spectrum of society and a broad swathe of the country, influencing Burmese decision-makers and offering support to future democratic leaders. Anecdotal evidence indicates that government officials listen to these broadcasts frequently. 

In addition to simply funding and running the existing opposition, the US and UK actively sought to expand it through “scholarships” in which citizens of Myanmar would be indoctrinated abroad before being sent back to help sow subversion on behalf of “Western values.”

This included dumping US tax dollars into programs linked directly to Suu Kyi herself:

The State Department provided $150,000 in FY 2001/02 funds to provide scholarships to young Burmese through Prospect Burma, a partner organization with close ties to Aung San Suu Kyi.

Many of those lining Suu Kyi’s regime have literally been built up professionally and politically by the US and UK government. The current Minister of Information was trained by US NED and Soros money and is heading the very ministry that is pursuing Reuters’ employees now, along with anyone else impeding the current government’s objectives.

It is clear that for years, the US and UK meddled directly and deeply in the internal political affairs of Myanmar – a crime the US is now accusing and condemning Russia of. Unlike in the case of accusations against Moscow where no evidence has been provided, Reuters’ “truth seekers” had only but to click on the Burma Campaign UK’s website and read the document still publicly available there detailing US-UK meddling in Myanmar’s political affairs. Yet they did not.

While Reuters and others went through great lengths to promote Suu Kyi as a “democracy icon” above criticism, she represented precisely the opposite of democracy – particularly self-determination. She was a creation of, by, and for foreign interests – and despite this obvious fact – Reuters and others never reported this to the public.

Evidence of Suu Kyi and her followers’ animosity toward the nation’s Rohingya minority was also intentionally concealed for years by these “truth seekers” and “real journalists.” The “Saffron Revolution” of 2007 was depicted by the Western media as a peaceful pro-democracy uprising crushed by a brutish military junta. Yet in reality, these “saffron” supporters were engaged then in violence, as well as the chief protagonists driving hatred and violence against the Rohingya.

It was warned as early as 2012 that Suu Kyi’s support base was comprised of violent extremists, used intentionally by the US and UK as proxies to undermine Myanmar’s military-led government, to protest specific joint China-Myanmar projects including mines and dams, as well as ignite conflict that would drive Chinese interests out of Rakhine state – the epicenter of the current Rohingya crisis. It was also warned long before Suu Kyi came to power, that should she lead the nation, the Rohingya would suffer first and foremost.

Again, the West’s “truth seekers” failed to properly assign responsibility for the violence to Suu Kyi and her supporters – instead – reporting violence as ambiguously as possible, insinuating that it was the military carrying it out when in reality it was often the military serving as the only line of defense between Rohingya communities and their entire annihilation.

It was lies and intentional disinformation that created the monster that is now Suu Kyi and her NLD. The extensive full-spectrum support provided by the US and British governments along with the Western media’s role in spinning and covering up the truth led directly to the current Rohingya crisis in Myanmar and to the arrest and disappearance of two Reuters employees.

While Andrew Marshall of Reuters seeks to obliquely blame anyone but Suu Kyi, he and others may eventually summon the courage to do so one day. Whether or not they can look in the mirror and rightfully find blame and answer for their own role in Suu Kyi’s rise to and abuse of power is another matter entirely. But until they do so, the monster of Myanmar will continue to grow, and many others just like it will grow with it.

Ironically – while Marshall, the rest of Reuters, and the Western media wring their hands over Suu Kyi’s “sudden” change of heart, in neighboring Thailand these same people are attempting to return Thaksin Shinawatra and his political allies to power in the name of “democracy” – a scenario that will turn out equally as bad for Thailand as Suu Kyi has for Myanmar.

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.

The American Vice President said that Trump had “put Pakistan on notice” with his recently unveiled National Security Strategy, employing the exact same language that had earlier been used against the US’ hated Iranian rival and strongly implying that Islamabad might be the next member in an expanded “Axis of Evil”, though this might tremendously backfire against American interests if its multipolar rivals institutionalize their cooperation through the “Golden Circle” in response.

Vice President’s surprise visit to Afghanistan saw Trump’s second-in-command bellicosely declare that:

“President Trump has put Pakistan on notice. As the President said, so I say now: Pakistan has much to gain from partnering with the US, and Pakistan has much to lose by continuing to harbor criminals and terrorists.”

The phrase “to put on notice” is the exact same one that Trump used in reference to Iran in February when condemning its latest missile test at the time, choosing such language because of the implied threat that it carries of an impending military response.

In the Pakistani context, “putting the country on notice” might be an advance hint that the US is considering cross-border drone strikes or possibly even special forces raids against its one-time ally in the War on Terror, even though Islamabad promised earlier this month that it would shoot down any unmanned aerial vehicles that violate its sovereign airspace.

The Trump Administration is likely preparing the scenario that the author warned about over the summer in which the US bombs and then subsequently sanctions CPEC on “anti-terrorist” pretexts, something which could immediately happen if Pakistan manages to shoot at (and not even shoot down) any American aerial vehicle (whether manner or unmanned) that infringes its borders.

Observers shouldn’t be surprised by the US’ anti-Pakistani policies since the writing was on the wall ever since Trump’s election, with the author accurately predicting just days after that epochal event that “Trump will also be especially attracted to Modi’s jingoism that Pakistan is a ‘Muslim terrorist-exporting Chinese ally’ and will thus double down on the joint US-Indian Hybrid War on CPEC (the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor)”.

This has all come to pass with the President’s “Afghan” strategy, Mattis’ anti-CPEC statements, and the relevant South Asian section of the US’ new National Security Strategy, proving beyond any reasonable doubt that the US is indeed waging a Hybrid War on CPEC.

In connection with this development and the overall trend of 21^st-century geopolitics, the US is teaming up with India as its desired “Lead From Behind” partner for “containing China” across the next eight decades, strongly suggesting that the allied American and Indian intelligence agencies of CIA and RAW will continue wielding the weapon of Baloch and Afghan-based terrorism against Pakistan.

The author warned in summer 2016 that the  Baloch campaign could dangerously spill over the border into the Iranian province of Sistan and Baluchestan, thus “killing two birds with one stone” from the strategic perspective of the US because it could undermine Tehran just as much as Islamabad, though Pakistan will nevertheless be more impacted by this because its own province of Balochistan hosts the terminal CPEC port of Gwadar.

As the US ramps up its Hybrid War on Pakistan, it will instinctively rely on the infowar component of the recently unveiled National Security Strategy to craft the narrative that the South Asian state is just as much of an “evil terrorist-exporting destabilizer” as Iran, thus redirecting the world’s attention eastwards from the “Syraq” theater in hinting that the new geographic focus of the US’ “War on Terror” will be the transregional West Asian-South Asian space, or in other words, Iran and Pakistan.

Iran is one of the original members of Bush’s infamous “Axis of Evil”, and Pence’s invocation of the same hostile language that Trump used against Iran in threatening that Pakistan has also been “put on notice” indicates that the South Asian Islamic Republic is about to be grouped into the same category of state-level “threats” as its West Asian neighbor, which can be expanded to include Russia and China when accounting for the US’ 2015 National Military Strategy.

Pakistan’s impending inclusion in this ignoble grouping augurs very negatively for its Turkish ally, which has been in the prolonged (and painful) process of progressively pivoting away from the West and embracing its newfound multipolar partners of Russia and Iran, so the end result will probably see these four countries and China embodying an “Axis of Evil 2.0” in the eyes of American strategists.

The Russian-Chinese Strategic Partnership functions as its own critical mass of power in Eurasia, but the three Muslim states are also slowly coming together with one another to form what the author described earlier this year as a “Multipolar CENTO”, thus crystalizing a significant center of geostrategic gravity in the international Muslim community, or “Ummah”, that enjoys close multidimensional relations with Moscow and Beijing (with the former being propelled by the country’s “progressive” foreign policy faction).

This state of affair means that the five multipolar Great Powers aren’t an “Axis of Evil”, but rather an “Axis of Resistance” that are joining forces to reform the global system and complete the ongoing transition away from unipolarity, so the most effective response that each of them can have to Pence’s foreboding message to Pakistan is to enhance their collective cooperation with one another by finding a means to officially institutionalize it.

The crisscrossing Great Power networks of the Russian-Chinese Strategic Partnership, the Multipolar CENTO, the Chinese-Pakistani Strategic Partnership, the Astana Tripartite (of Russia, Iran, and Turkey), and the fast-moving Russian–Pakistani Rapprochement need to be formally brought together in a single platform, one which could be given the catchy name of the “Golden Circle” in homage to the description that others have previously used when discussing this future format.

Furthermore, all five countries and Afghanistan will be meeting in Islamabad for a three-day speakers’ conference from 23-25 December focusing on parliamentary cooperation for peace, connectivity, and prosperity in the broader region, so the framework for the “Golden Circle” is already being established and just needs to be taken to the next level, which could realistically happen as early as sometime next year once all of these states begin to experience concerted American pressure against them once the US starts applying the Trump Doctrine in practice.

All in all, while the US is confident that it can “contain” the multipolar Eurasian Great Powers and pick them off one by one with Hybrid War, it will probably be stunned when it finds out that its aggressive efforts to dismantle the emerging Multipolar World Order are actually strengthening it by catalyzing the formal creation of the “Golden Circle”.

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

Featured image is from the author.

Catalonia has held its first elections since Madrid disbanded the old parliament in Barcelona and deposed the leaders of the Generalitat de Catalunya, including Catalan leader Carles Puigdemont who remains in Belgium even though the Spanish National Court in Madrid has withdrawn its European Arrest Warrant against Puigdemont in relation to charges of  sedition, rebellion and embezzlement of public funds.

All of this has come in the aftermath of Catalonia declaring itself a sovereign state with Puigdemont as its leader, after a referendum from the 1st of October in which 92% of votes were cast in favour of independence among 42% of recognised Catalan voters.

Whatever one’s views were on Catalonia’s independence movement, what is clear now is that Europe has a new frozen conflict that no one seems prepared to deal with in a mature manner. If the Greek economic crisis, refugee crisis, Brexit and the current disputes between Brussels against Warsaw and Budapest have taught Europe anything, it should be that popular agitation and conflicts between governing bodies ought to be addressed seriously, calmly and respectfully in order to keep a disagreement from spiralling out of control.

In many ways, Puigdemont helped to freeze the conflict when he agreed to participate (albeit in in absentia) in elections for Catalonia’s regional parliament which were ordered by Madrid in the aftermath of disbanding the old parliament and Generalitat (government).

This was an incredibly risky move for Puigdemont. On the one hand, as someone who declared independence, he was the head of a new state. On the other hand, by agreeing to participate in ‘regional elections’ called by the Spanish Premier, he was de facto acknowledging that the state he earlier claimed to lead, does not in fact exist.

While many will see this as either a coward’s way out or an opportunist’s way back in, the only conclusion is that Catalonia’s position remains as tenuous as ever, but all within the context of a frozen conflict that could reignite at a moment’s notice.

In essence, Puigdemont’s participation in the Madrid overseen elections has turned his Declaration of Independence into a declaration of intent.

Such a matter is not new to Catalonia as in 2014, a referendum stating a declaration of intent, or perhaps better referred to as a large survey, found that of approximately 40% of eligible voters, 80% wanted to form a state. Those numbers rose to 92% in this year’s vote–one which Catalan authorities at the time called legally binding and definitive, while Madrid called the vote illegal.

After winning the referendum this year, Puigdemont suspended his Declaration of Independence, only pronouncing it in full, after a vote in the Catalan parliament on whether to implement the results. Prior to that, he wanted to engage in a dialogue process with Madrid, but since the government of Mariano Rajoy refused and the Spanish King publicly backed Rajoy, Puidgemont went ahead with seceding from Spain.

All of this now seems like water under the bridge, as new elections have produced a result that is not entirely different than the old one. Three pro-independence parties gained a total of 70 seats in the Parliament while three pro-Spanish parties won 62 seats.

By contrast, in the 2015 Catalan elections, pro-independence parties won a combined total of 83 seats with pro-Spanish parties won 52 seats.

Also of note, while in 2015 the largest single party was the pro-independence JxSí, in the 2017 elections, the largest single party was the pro-Spanish Citizens party.

The electoral arithmetic is currently being interpreted to suit the purposes of both sides as is natural in such elections. In reality though, while it is almost certain that once again, pro-independence parties will form a governing coalition, this doesn’t bring any clarity nor closure to the burning issue of independence.

Throughout the prelude, execution and aftermath of this year’s referendum, there has been a constant push -pull factor on a Catalan public who appear to be narrowly in favour of independence versus a Madrid government whose acts of police brutality, arrests of peaceful activists and political intimidation pushed many neutral or pro-Spanish Catalans towards the position of favouring independence.

Now that the dust has settled and specifically, now that Puidgemont has agreed to fight his corner from the position of leading the winning bloc in an election called by Madrid, it is clear that some of the wind has been knocked out of the sails of some former Independence enthusiasts.

At the same time, hard-line independence supporters will be disappointed that Puidgemont did not continue to lead an independent state (as declared) while those in favour of remaining part of Spain will be more emboldened by the fact that a new Catalan Republic essentially came and went without a great deal of struggle.

But while many will say that the old status quo of a rebellious region has been brought back into the fold, this simplistic explanation seeks to deny the very real emotions that remain palpable on both sides.

Ultimately, the Spanish Constitution, which has always been a major point of contention among Catalan independence activists will need to be amended. Existing regional powers must be strengthened and future regional and pan-Spanish referenda on a variety of issues must be allowed to be conducted in peace and with proper legal status.

The Spanish Estado de las Autonomías (State of Autonomies) model ought to be replaced with either a federal or confederate model, as the Catalonia crisis has proved that the current model is no longer adequate. For those who point to the fact that the current model offers higher levels of autonomy than seen elsewhere in Europe, such an attitude negates the danger of Madrid’s eagerness to consolidate further power in the face of any disagreement, as allowed by the current constitution, which itself has maintained far too many Franco era provisions for the liking of left-leaning citizens throughout Spain. What good is an autonomous model, if autonomy can be tampered with or suspended when ever a region decides to act in a way Madrid feels is unsuitable?

Spain remains haunted by the ghosts of the Civil War of the 1930s and the recent events in Catalonia have only opened up old wounds.

If Madrid’s leaders truly want to preserve the unity of the country, the only solution is to replace the model of regional autonomy with that of a country comprised of co-equal federal or confederate units. Furthermore, given the history of Spain as a country unified by a combination of force and consent (though not popular democratic consent given the political status quo of the 15th century), federal regions must have the opportunity to legally secede in a gradualist framework. If the recent events in Catalonia prove anything, secession becomes more likely if the central government forbids it. The more responsibility each federal unit has, the less likely they would be to seek to take the plunge into independence.

In practical terms, this could mean that if the initially proposed federal units remain unhappy with their status, a confederate model could be opted for, so long as such a proposal receives popular consent. In this way, the would-be “Spanish Confederation” could act as respectful partners with one another and within within the framework of a wider EU which at present acts as a federation, but which in my view ought to transform itself into a confederation.

This would require further rights and responsibilities being transferred to individual federal or confederate units, with the central government’s powers being reduced to a role which can facilitate global trade, diplomatic interactions with foreign powers and the EU, as well as a public face of the federation/confederation that must act in accordance with the wishes of the majority of internal units. Ultimately, the best way for Spain to remain Spain would be to follow this model. Confrontation may quill dissent in the short term, but it only creates animosity and resentment in the long term. Madrid’s historically hostile position towards Barcelona is one such example of this phenomena.

Such a model would allow local regions to develop independent economic and social models, implement individual language laws (so long as they are non-discriminatory) and develop their unique cultures via consultation with local rather than national representatives.

Judicial de-centralisation is also a must, as the courts in Madrid have traditionally been overly politicised when making decisions on regional matters. In this model, a national court with reduced powers should be comprised of judges drawn in equal number from every region.

Finally, in such a model, all major foreign policy decisions of the central government, should be decided upon through the consultation and consent of each individual federal/confederate unit.

This is the closest approximation of a win-win model given the delicate history of modern Spain and given the very real agitations that have been unleashed primarily by Madrid’s overly harsh reaction to Catalonia’s referendum.

While this does not preserve the status quo among Madrid’s leaders, nor does it immediately offer independence to Catalonia or other regions, it remains a far more viable alternative than simply nursing a frozen conflict that could reignite at any time.

Implicit in the essence of  any “win-win” model, must be an acknowledgement that there are no universal solutions. What works for Spain might fail miserably in a different country, with a different history and more importantly a different set of present day circumstances. “Win-win” is about solving a specific problem or set of problems with a solution that seeks to bring out the strengths of all factions while minimising points of contention.

For Spain and Catalonia, it is high time to reach such a compromise and turn a frozen conflict into a long term thawing process. The alternative–to do nothing, is no longer realistically viable from any perspective.

Adam Garrie is director of Eurasia Future, writing on Eurasian integration, Middle East, South East Asia, China and OBOR.

Featured image is from the author.

Long-time rumors about presidential candidate Nixon conspiring to delay the ending of the Vietnam War were recently confirmed.

A year ago, historian and journalist John A Farrell wrote in the New York Times:

A newfound cache of notes left by H. R. Haldeman, [Nixon’s] closest aide, shows that Nixon directed his campaign’s efforts to scuttle the peace talks [President Johnson’s 1968 peace initiative to bring the war in Vietnam to an early conclusion], which he feared could give his opponent, Vice President Hubert H. Humphrey, an edge in the 1968 election. On Oct. 22, 1968, he ordered Haldeman to “monkey wrench” the initiative.

***

We must now weigh apparently criminal behavior that, given the human lives at stake and the decade of carnage that followed in Southeast Asia, may be more reprehensible than anything Nixon did in Watergate.

Nixon had entered the fall campaign with a lead over Humphrey, but the gap was closing that October. Henry A. Kissinger, then an outside Republican adviser, had called, alerting Nixon that a deal was in the works: If Johnson would halt all bombing of North Vietnam, the Soviets pledged to have Hanoi engage in constructive talks to end a war that had already claimed 30,000 American lives.

But Nixon had a pipeline to Saigon, where the South Vietnamese president, Nguyen Van Thieu, feared that Johnson would sell him out. If Thieu would stall the talks, Nixon could portray Johnson’s actions as a cheap political trick. The conduit was Anna Chennault, a Republican doyenne and Nixon fund-raiser, and a member of the pro-nationalist China lobby, with connections across Asia.

“! Keep Anna Chennault working on” South Vietnam, Haldeman scrawled, recording Nixon’s orders. “Any other way to monkey wrench it? Anything RN can do.”

Nixon told Haldeman to have Rose Mary Woods, the candidate’s personal secretary, contact another nationalist Chinese figure — the businessman Louis Kung — and have him press Thieu as well. “Tell him hold firm,” Nixon said.

Here are some screenshots from Haldeman’s notes in Nixon’s presidential library:

Nixon also sought help from Chiang Kai-shek, the president of Taiwan.  [Who was considered somewhat of an enemy of the United States; the CIA considered assassinatinghim.]    And he ordered Haldeman to have his vice-presidential candidate, Spiro T. Agnew, threaten the C.I.A. director, Richard Helms. Helms’s hopes of keeping his job under Nixon depended on his pliancy, Agnew was to say. “Tell him we want the truth — or he hasn’t got the job,” Nixon said.

***

Nixon had cause to lie. His actions appear to violate federal law, which prohibits private citizens from trying to “defeat the measures of the United States.” His lawyers fought throughout Nixon’s life to keep the records of the 1968 campaign private. The broad outline of “the Chennault affair” would dribble out over the years. But the lack of evidence of Nixon’s direct involvement gave pause to historians and afforded his loyalists a defense.

Time has yielded Nixon’s secrets. Haldeman’s notes were opened quietly at the presidential library in 2007, where I came upon them in my research for a biography of the former president.

***

When Johnson got word of Nixon’s meddling, he ordered the F.B.I. to track Chennault’s movements. She “contacted Vietnam Ambassador Bui Diem,” one report from the surveillance noted, “and advised him that she had received a message from her boss … to give personally to the ambassador. She said the message was … ‘Hold on. We are gonna win. … Please tell your boss to hold on.’ ”

In a conversation with the Republican senator Everett Dirksen, the minority leader, Johnson lashed out at Nixon. “I’m reading their hand, Everett,” Johnson told his old friend. “This is treason.”

“I know,” Dirksen said mournfully.

Johnson’s closest aides urged him to unmask Nixon’s actions. But on a Nov. 4 conference call, they concluded that they could not go public because, among other factors, they lacked the “absolute proof,” as Defense Secretary Clark Clifford put it, of Nixon’s direct involvement.

Nixon was elected president the next day.

The BBC’s 2013 report adds details:

Declassified tapes of President Lyndon Johnson’s telephone calls provide a fresh insight ….

***

By the time of the election in November 1968, LBJ had evidence Nixon had sabotaged the Vietnam war peace talks – or, as he put it, that Nixon was guilty of treason and had “blood on his hands”.

***

In late October 1968 there were major concessions from Hanoi which promised to allow meaningful talks to get underway in Paris – concessions that would justify Johnson calling for a complete bombing halt of North Vietnam. This was exactly what Nixon feared.

Chennault was despatched to the South Vietnamese embassy with a clear message: the South Vietnamese government should withdraw from the talks, refuse to deal with Johnson, and if Nixon was elected, they would get a much better deal.

So on the eve of his planned announcement of a halt to the bombing, Johnson learned the South Vietnamese were pulling out.

He was also told why. The FBI had bugged the ambassador’s phone and a transcripts of Anna Chennault’s calls were sent to the White House. In one conversation she tells the ambassador to “just hang on through election”.

Johnson was told by Defence Secretary Clifford that the interference was illegal and threatened the chance for peace.

This is treason: contacting foreign leaders, including enemies of the United States, in order to thwart official U.S. policies and prolong war.

(There is also some rather intriguing circumstantial evidence that presidential candidate Ronald Reagan convinced the Iranians not to release American hostages until after the election … to make rival candidate Jimmy Carter look weak.)

That is in sharp distinction to the common practice of presidential candidates contacting foreign leaders for normal diplomatic purposes.

On the other hand, what type of foreign contacts did candidate Trump have with Russia?

The only thing which has proven so far is that Trump’s National Security Adviser Michael “Flynn asked Russia’s ambassador to refrain from escalating the situation regarding the U.S. sanctions on Russia” and “Flynn asked Russia’s ambassador to delay a vote on pending UN Security Council resolution on Israel”.

The first request would promote peace between two nuclear superpowers by delaying an escalating round of sanctions from spiraling out of control.

The second didn’t succeed … Russia ignored the Trump administration’s request, and voted to condemn Israeli settlements.

Such actions pale in comparison to what Nixon (and perhaps Reagan) did.

OVERCAST is a groundbreaking documentary directed by Matthias Hancke and produced by Tristan Albrecht about a phenomenon that most of us would consider normal: Jet contrails that spread into clouds, covering the sky and blocking the sun. For some people however, these trails are the biggest environmental crime in the history of mankind.

Recent studies show that man-made cirrus clouds through flight traffic have a far bigger impact on climate change than previously assumed and are already described as unintentional Geoengineering.

OVERCAST brings light into a phenomenon that should be part of the public and climate debate, but instead has been mostly ignored so far.

At 1.02-1.07 Prof. Michel Chossudovsky focusses on Weather Warfare and Environmental Modification Techniques (ENMOD).

Two reports published yesterday by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) reveal that the life expectancy of the American working class is declining due to an increase in drug overdoses and suicides.

The data reflects, in empirical terms, the social devastation wrought on the lives of millions of people by decades of bipartisan policies aimed at enriching the wealthy. The decline in life expectancy, a fundamental measure of social progress, is a historical milestone in the decline of American capitalism. This is the second year in a row that life expectancy has fallen in the US, marking the first time in nearly half a century that life expectancy has declined in consecutive years.

Life expectancy dropped from 78.7 years in 2015 to 78.6 years in 2016, driven by a 0.2-year decline from 76.3 to 76.1 years among men. Life expectancy for women remained at 81.1 years, as the gap between women and men reached an all-time high.

However, life expectancy for those who make it to old age continues to improve, and the mortality rates for heart disease, cancer, and other illnesses are declining as technological and medical advances improve the capacity to extend human life. The decline in life expectancy is caused by a dramatic increase in the mortality rate among those under age 44 who are overdosing, particularly on opioids, or taking their own lives.

The CDC report shows a 21 percent year-to-year increase in drug overdoses, which took the lives of 63,600 people in 2016. It is as if each year, a city the size of Palo Alto, California; Bismarck, North Dakota; or Fort Myers, Florida was killed off entirely. Since 2006, roughly 430,000 people have died of drug overdose, more than the number of US soldiers killed during World War II. An army of people who should be alive today is not.

A total of 42,249 people died from opioid overdoses in 2016, a 28 percent increase from the year before. While Barack Obama was traveling the country on behalf of Hillary Clinton, proclaiming, “America is already great,” 115 people were dying each day from opioids alone.

Corporations have been flooding poor areas with pills and are shielded from prosecution by the government. Between 2007 and 2012, for example, drug distributor Miami-Luken shipped 11 million doses of oxycodone and hydrocodone into Mingo County, West Virginia, which has a population of 25,000.

Former Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) official Joe Rannazzisi told 60 Minutes in October that it is “a fact” that companies inundate poor areas with the knowledge that many will die as a result. While lawsuits against the drug companies have forced paltry penalties of several million dollars, this is part of the cost of doing business. The Obama administration slashed the number of DEA cases against drug distributors by 69.5 percent between 2011 and 2014.

The decline in life expectancy and the increase in drug overdoses are the product of a massive growth in social inequality. Daniel Kim, a professor at Northeastern University, told Reuters yesterday that

“what we know from numerous health studies is that a wider gap between the rich and the poor means that more people will die unnecessarily.”

Over the past 40 years, the Democratic and Republican parties have been engaged in a conscious strategy to pare back the gains won by the working class through the social struggles of the early 20th century. A bipartisan cabal has slashed wages, eliminated pensions, cut social programs, reduced taxes on the rich, and done away with employer-provided healthcare.

In the process, the government has transferred trillions from the working class into the bank accounts of the financial elite. Today, the top 10 percent owns 77 percent of the wealth. The richest 3 billionaires own as much as the poorest 160 million—half the country’s population.

The social counterrevolution was intensified under the Democratic administration of Barack Obama, which oversaw the bailout of the banks following the 2008 financial crisis, conducted the bailouts of the auto industry that slashed the wages of autoworkers to historic lows, and enforced the Detroit bankruptcy. The enactment of Obamacare has coincided with a drastic increase in the number of drug overdose deaths. While the rate per 100,000 of overdoses was increasing by 3 percent from 2006 to 2014, it began increasing by 18 percent per year in 2014, the year Obamacare came into force.

The death rate will continue to rise as the Trump administration deepens tax cuts for the wealthy. Citing Kim’s research, Reuters wrote,

“the income inequality produced by the [tax bill] will mean 29,689 more deaths each year, perhaps more.”

Billions in cuts to Medicare, mandated by laws that require budget cuts to match drops in revenue, will lead to the deaths of thousands more.

The victims of the opioid crisis come from all regions and social backgrounds, but the overwhelming majority of those killed are poor and working class. According to last year’s CDC data, 90 percent were white, and most were men, with overdoses for whites roughly triple the rate for African-Americans and double the rate for Latinos. The Native American overdose rate equals the rate for whites.

This reality exposes the reactionary lies advanced by Black Lives Matter and its claims of “white supremacy,” and by the #MeToo movement, which asserts that society is organized on the principle of patriarchy and male domination.

New York Times contributor and racial politics proponent Michael Eric Dyson recently attempted to turn the opioid crisis into an example of white privilege when he said in March 2017, “White brothers and sisters have been medicalized in terms of their trauma and addiction. Black and brown people have been criminalized for their trauma and addiction.”

Seething with contempt for the working class, Dyson ignores the fact that if adequate medical services were available, tens of thousands would not die each year from drug overdose. Instead of helping the victims, state governments have responded by calling in the National Guard to police the streets (West Virginia) and by calling for the quadrupling of jail terms for opioid users (New Jersey). Meanwhile, both parties voted to increase military spending by $80 billion over last year’s levels.

The Socialist Equality Party calls for expropriating the billions of dollars the drug companies have made from the ongoing crisis. This money, and the personal wealth of the corporate and financial aristocracy, must be put into an emergency fund to pay for the immediate construction of a network of hospitals and health clinics, staffed with well-trained doctors, to provide permanent, free medical care to all those effected.

Rehabilitation centers must be expanded and new ones built so that the millions with addiction and dependency problems can seek help free of charge. A 90 percent tax must be imposed on all income above five million dollars to provide funds for massive jobs and public works programs in those areas hardest hit by the crisis to alleviate inequality and poverty.

These demands can be met only through the building of a mass movement of the working class, independent of the Democratic and Republican parties, aimed at linking workers of all races and nationalities in a common fight against the capitalist system.

All graphs in this article are from the author.

It is yuletide season once again. What better book to read or film to watch than Dickens’ A Christmas Carol? This writer watches that movie every December and always takes more out of it each year. It took me perhaps a multitude of viewings to finally realize the true gist of the tale. For years I thought the story was about the personal redemption of Ebenezer Scrooge. No! Now I realize that the crux of the story (and film) was centered around Jacob Marley’s ghost (image left) and Karma. 

Scrooge was the recipient of and future receiver of the karma that Marley’s ghost forecast. Sadly, and most often the case of those among us who are able to peer into the future through whatever supernatural means, Ebenezer Scrooge was thus driven by fear. It was such a fear of the future laid out for him… by his own actions, that opened his eyes to truth. The ghost of Jacob Marley, destined to trudge the earthly ethers dragging his chains of Karma, is the key to the whole story. His ghost finally understood the ‘errors of his earthly ways’ and chose to save his partner Ebenezer from the same fate.

But… there is another aspect of the Dickens story.

The interlude revealing the life of the Cratchit family addresses how much Dickens felt for the working poor… not just the poor, but those who labored for lousy pay working long hours. Similar to our 21st Century America, yes? The overwhelming preponderance of dead-end box store jobs and part-time positions offering little or no benefits is what we have become in this so-called modern era. The diminishing effect of fewer and less powerful labor unions has made us into a two-tier republic of haves and have-nots. Boy, would Dickens have a field day now! Getting back to the Scrooge story, how many of us can identify with the health crisis faced by Tiny Tim? Of course, today such a problem would warrant the needed surgery, but then the 21st Century Cratchits would be in debt forever. Sad, but true, because today’s insurance system could not let a working stiff like Cratchit, no matter how little he made, completely off the hook financially… but that’s for another column.

Marley’s ghost could sure come in handy this Christmas. He would need an army of fellow ghosts dragging their chains (with Richard Nixon and  Ronald Reagan leading the way) to visit all our fellow Americans who act like old Ebenezer. There would be lots of folks to visit: the whole Bush Sr. and Jr. gangs, the Pentagon War Machine, the super-rich who control them all while financially squeezing the rest of us dry. Lest we not forget the Clintons,  Mr. ‘Hope and Change’ Obama, the megalomaniac demagogue Mr. Trump, along with the prostitute mainstream media. They all most likely will blame those visits on ‘an undigested piece of meat’ and hide under the covers. Ah, how great this thing called Karma is!

Philip A Farruggio is son and grandson of Brooklyn, NYC longshoremen. A graduate of Brooklyn College ( class of ’74 with a BA in Speech & Theater), he is a free lance columnist. Philip works as an environmental products sales rep and has been a street corner protest activist leader and Green Party member since 2000. In 2010 he became a local spokesperson for the 25% Solution Movement to Save Our Cities by cutting military spending 25%. Philip can be reached at [email protected].

This article was originally published by NationOfChange.

When there is conflict between two parties, it is best if each party tries to understand and think from the other’s point of view, as opposed to thinking only from their own point of view and perpetuating misconceptions regarding the other’s view.

When a physician is confronted with a problem, the first step is to take a complete and accurate history; the second step is to test hypotheses generated by that history and the physician’s background knowledge and experience.

Let’s start by taking a history of what has occurred in Korea over the past century or more:¹

In 1871 Japan began plans to occupy Korea for its own economic and military purposes. By 1905 Korea had become a Japanese protectorate. By 1910 it had become a colony of Japan. For centuries the social structure on the Korean peninsula had consisted of a privileged aristocratic landowning class (a tiny minority of the population) who ruled over the rest of the people, almost all of whom were peasants. In the years following 1910 Japan ruled Korea by conspiring with and providing privileges for opportunistic Koreans who were members of this aristocratic landed class.

Over the next three decades the Korean people suffered many atrocities under the brutal, oppressive rule by Japan and its Korean aristocratic collaborators. During this ruthless Japanese occupation the Korean language and culture were suppressed. Koreans were forced to take Japanese surnames. Precious Korean cultural artifacts were destroyed. And, resistance to the Japanese occupation was met with brutal force. For example, during the non-violent March 1^st Movement of 1919 the Japanese police and military killed 7,000 peaceful demonstrators.

Japanese repression in Korea accelerated during the 1930s, after Japan invaded Manchuria (in 1931-32) and established Manchukuo. During the 1930s Japan and its aristocratic Korean collaborators subjected Korean men to forced labor. Other Korean men were forced to join the Japanese military. Up to 200,000 Chinese and Korean women (the vast majority being Korean) were forced into sexual slavery for the Japanese military, serving as “comfort women” while Japanese officers and soldiers occupied Korea and Manchuria

By the mid-30s Kim Il Sung had become the main leader of the resistance against Japan’s brutal occupation of Korea and Manchuria.

Then came WWII (1939-1945), during which the Japanese were driven out of Korea and Manchuria. Korea was finally liberated from Japan’s oppressive rule. By 1945 the people of Korea could finally start planning for their own governance, according to how they wanted to proceed as a society. Kim Il Sung, who was inspired by socialist concepts, had great support among the Korean people (except, of course, for those of the privileged aristocracy who had collaborated with the Japanese). Independent of Kim Il Sung’s movement were indigenous “People’s Committees” that developed throughout the southern parts of Korea. These “People’s Committees” were local groups of workers (factory workers, e.g.) who organized themselves to run factories and farms in a cooperative, democratic way that respected the rights, dignity, and health of the workers. The People’s Committee movement represented an alternative to the unjust social system that privileged the aristocracy/business class.

But, these early hopes of creating a new, free, independent, and just Korean society were smashed when the USA and its Allies, without any consultation with the Korean people (other than with members of the opportunistic aristocratic class that had shamelessly collaborated with Japan), divided Korea into North and South Korea at the 38^th parallel. The USA occupied the South, while the Soviet Unionwas awarded the North. In the South, Japanese occupation was replaced by USA occupation. The USA soon installed the corrupt, unscrupulous Syngman Rhee as the leader of South Korea. In 1948 the Republic of Korea (ROK) was officially established, with Rhee at the helm.  The Soviet Union had allowed Kim Il Sung to become the leader of North Korea—the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK).

From 1945-1950 the USA/Rhee regime conducted a reign of terror against the “People’s Committees” that had spontaneously and indigenously developed throughout the southern parts of South Korea. The social ideas and plans of these committees represented an enormous threat to the capitalistic thinking and plans of the USA and privileged business elite of South Korea. Although these People’s Committees had nothing to do with Kim Il Sung, Chinese communism, or Soviet communism, the USA considered these committees to be “communists” who must be rooted out. Factory workers who participated in the People’s Committee movement were terrorized, often killed.

The reign of terror conducted by the USA/Rhee regime is best exemplified by the Cheju Insurgency in 1948-49.  Cheju is an island off the southern coast of South Korea.  n 1945 there were about 300,000 people living on the island. About two thirds of these 300,000 had a progressive “moderate leftist” approach to their social thinking. After WWII ended in 1945 the vast majority of the Cheju people favored the development of the People’s Committee movement as a way to organize social and work life on the island. The USA/Rhee regime saw this as a threatening development. The police force on the island was populated and controlled by the Rhee regime, and it deliberately colluded with ultra-rightist terrorists to oppress and destroy the People’s Committee movement—all with the full knowledge of the USA. The USA helped Rhee to develop a Counter-Intelligence Corp (CIC) and a right wing Northwest Youth Corps (NWY), which was a fascist youth group. The CIC and the NWY were mobilized to terrorize and “reorient” supporters of the People’s Committee movement. Those who resisted “reorientation” were killed, usually brutally.

The NWY reportedly “disemboweled pregnant women, ran bayonets through little kids, burned down people’s homes, and smashed open the brains of opponents.” Women were “serially raped, often in front of villagers, and then blown up with a grenade in the vagina.” These atrocities occurred with the full knowledge of the USA/Rhee regime.  They were part of a deliberate terror campaign against the People’s Committee movement.

Understandably, in 1948 the people of Cheju Island rose up to resist this pathological violence. They rebelled, primarily against the police. The USA/Rhee regime responded with a massive counter-insurgency campaign, even bringing back Japanese officers and soldiers to help root out the insurgents. Villages were indiscriminately burned and destroyed; civilians were massacred. By August 1949 the insurgency (the People’s Committee movement) had been eradicated, much to the delight of the USA/Rhee regime. More than 70% of the island’s villages had been burned. It is estimated that 30,000-60,000 islanders were killed, many of them butchered. Another 40,000 islanders fled the country, for safety. After the defeat of the People’s Committee movement, Cheju Island was run by the CIC and the NWY, who continued to treat the remaining islanders with contempt and cruelty.

This USA-directed reign of terror (throughout South Korea, not just on Cheju Island) took place from 1945-49, before the Korean War even started (in 1950). During that reign of terror approximately 100,000 South Korean people (mostly progressive leftist-thinking people) were killed by USA/Rhee forces.

That brings us to 1950, when the Korean War began. By 1950 South Korea was controlled by the USA/Rhee regime.  Most of the leaders of South Korea were former collaborators with Japan. In fact, by 1950 the USA had enlisted Japan as an ally in its war against North Korea. By 1950 the USA/Rhee regime had ruthlessly eliminated the People’s Committee movement throughout South Korea. Now it was time to eliminate the “communists” in North Korea, who were led by Kim Il Sung. Who actually “fired the first shot” is a matter of controversy. Early in 1950 North Korea appeared to be prevailing over the South Korean Army. This alarmed the USA and prompted the sending of American troops to Korea—to heroically save the Korean people (and the rest of Asia) from communism.

Once the USA entered the Korean War in 1950 it set out to totally destroy North Korea. The USA carpet-bombed North Korea with virtually no concern for civilian casualties. 32,000 tons of napalm were dropped on the North Korean people. Whole cities were demolished. 75% of Pyongyang was leveled. The USA threatened several times to drop nuclear bombs on North Korea, and terrorized North Korea by deliberately sending lone B-29 bombers on simulated atomic bomb runs, during which they dropped “dummy” atomic bombs (heavy TNT bombs). Each time, the North Koreans would be unsure whether these planes were going to drop a real atomic bomb (as the USA had needlessly dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki) or just a dummy.

The USA would have prevailed over North Korea were it not for China’s intervention (under Mao Tse Tung). A stalemate eventually occurred, and an Armistice Agreement was signed in 1953 to cease hostilities and create the demilitarized zone (DMZ). This Armistice represented only a cease-fire agreement, not a peace treaty or an official end to the war. The Korean War was never officially ended. It has continued in a suspended state ever since. The USA has preferred it that way, because it justifies American bases in South Korea and allows the USA to continually pose as an existential threat to North Korea.

It is extremely relevant, today, that the USA/South Korea has continued (since 1953) to intermittently send lone B29 bombers on simulated bomb runs near North Korea (without dropping “dummy” bombs), just to remind North Korea that the USA could annihilate North Korea with a nuclear bomb whenever it chooses. North Korea has never been able to relax in this regard. It has needed to stay vigilant. It has felt an appropriate need to develop protection from an American first strike.

So, that is a brief history of Korea, before, during, and after the Korean War. If accurate, it raises the question of who the “good guys” were/are. According to the USA, the people who were attracted to the Peoples Committee movement were the bad guys—-so bad that they needed to be terrorized and killed, by the thousands. According to the USA, the “communists” in North Korea were the bad guys, including Kim Il Sung, who had led the resistance against the ruthless Japanese reign of terror (1910-1939). According to the USA, Rhee was a good guy, as were the other financially and politically powerful South Korean elite, most of whom had collaborated with the Japanese during Japan’s brutal occupation of Korea and Manchuria. According to the USA, the ruthless CIC and the fascist NWY were the good guys on Cheju Island.

Understandably, the North Korean people who support Kim Il Sung do not see the USA as the good guys.  Understandably, they fear and distrust the USA.

Today, the American peoplestill assume (as they did in 1950) that the USA was on the right side of history in 1950 and has been on the right side ever since. And, they assume that North Korea was (in 1950) an evil empire and has been ever since. According to the American understanding, North Korea is one of the most evil, if not the most evil, countries on earth. It is viewed as a ruthless dictatorship, in which there are no freedoms, no human rights—only suffering, starvation, fear, torture, and death (for those who dissent). The perception is that the Korean people’s adoration of Kim Jong Un (and his father and grandfather) is due to either brainwashing, fear, delusion, or combinations of these. It is thought that Kim Jong Un is dangerously deranged and deluded and represents an existential threat to the USA.

If the above history of Korea is accurate, and if we try to think from North Korea’s point of view, we are likely to conclude that instead of waging a nuclear war to annihilate the North Korean people, the USA should, at the very least, critically examine its behavior in Korea over the past 72 years. At the very least, the American people should consider hypotheses about North Korea that differ from the US narrative that Americans have unquestioningly accepted.

Instead of ignorantly dropping nuclear bombs on North Korea, without taking a complete history or testing any hypotheses, maybe it would be better to not only critically review the above history, but also consider the following hypothesis about North Korea:

Hypothesis: Maybe, somehow, the North Korean people, as a group, have deeply grasped and are appreciatively practicing a highly evolved concept of Natural Duty that Jose Marti, Che Guevara, and Victor Hugo advocated—a concept that most Americans know little about and many have never experienced.

At the very heart of the social philosophy of Jose Marti, Che Guevara, and Victor Hugo is the concept that the “real aim in life” is to follow the path of Natural Duty, and that the greatest satisfactions in life stem from following that path—from “being on Duty,” being available and being able to help our fellow human beings. By “Duty,” Marti, Guevara and Hugo meant physician-like Duty; not an onerous contrived guilt-driven duty, but an exhilarating Natural Duty. They suggested that we celebrate and enjoy the fact that a huge part of Human Nature is a natural, free flowing, brimming capacity and desire to follow the path of Natural Duty—the path of looking after others. Good physicians regularly experience the uplifting meaningfulness of being on duty. They appreciate the privilege of being trained and given the opportunity to provide health care. Good physicians are not motivated by an onerous sense of obligation, imposed from within and/or without, that “forces” them to help patients; Good physicians are naturally inclined to compassionately help patients; it is part of the natural flow of their hearts, minds, and lives. The experience of being on duty brings meaning and satisfaction to their lives, and they are appreciative that Medicine has afforded them an opportunity to practice the very best of their human nature.

Maybe the North Korean people have been helped to understand and practice this concept of Natural Duty. Maybe they are willingly devoted to the Marti-Guevara-Hugo concept of Natural Duty because they have recognized that participation in such Duty is the most satisfying experience in life. Maybe the North Korean people have grasped the concept of Natural Duty to a greater, fuller extent than has any society on earth, perhaps even in History.

Maybe the North Korean people have somehow figured out that participation in vast Public Activity (including a free public health care system, free public education, and a completely Public Economy that is designed to meet Human needs, rather than to make profit) leads to far greater satisfaction and far greater collective human spirit than does participation in capitalism.

Maybe the North Korean people, including their leaders, have focused on creating vast opportunities for people to discover and practice the real aim of life, which is devotion to Natural Duty, devotion to caring for others—and have found this to be a far more satisfying approach to life, individually and collectively, than becoming entrepreneurs or being exploited by entrepreneurs.

Maybe the North Koreans, each in their own way, have learned to appreciate “being on duty” in the same way that devoted physicians and nurses have learned how uplifting and satisfying and freeing it is to be “on duty” to help their fellow human beings.

Maybe the North Koreans have figured out what the Cheju People’s Committees intuitively understood—that it is more satisfying to look after each other than to look after one’s self—that following the path of Natural Duty is more uplifting than following the path of self-interest.

What a beautiful thought—to have an entire society made up of people who fully grasp and enthusiastically practice the concept of Natural Duty (of “being on duty”) that was suggested by Marti-Guevara-Hugo and has been exemplified by so many devoted physicians, nurses, and teachers world-wide, for many decades.

Maybe when the North Korean people are seen in mass demonstrations of homage to their leaders, they are really paying homage and giving thanks to the concept of Natural Duty that they have learned and have been given ample opportunity to practice. Maybe they primarily view their leader as a symbol and protectorate of the concept of Natural Duty. Maybe they particularly appreciate the fact that Kim Il Sung, caring enough to risk his life to resist the brutal Japanese and American occupations, proceeded to develop a society that is based on Natural Duty and creates vast Public Activity for its practice. Maybe they appreciate Kim Jong Un’s commitment to protecting and perpetuating that society.

Maybe the North Korean people feel wonderfully free, precisely because of their understanding and practice of Natural Duty. Maybe that understanding has resulted in their being as self-motivated and altruistic as our best physicians, nurses, and teachers—who do not need to be told or forced to do what their natural inclinations and natural compassion guide them to do.

Maybe North Korea is, thereby, the most free, loving, compassionate, enthusiastic, and emotionally healthy society on earth.

North Korean kids

And, maybe, too, the North Korean people are appropriately fearful that the USA intends to ruthlessly annihilate them, as they tried to do during the Korean War years of 1950-53. Maybe the North Koreans fear that American-directed fascists, like those on Cheju Island, will serially rape their women, then blow them up with grenades in their vaginas. After all, the USA has committed such heinous crimes many times before. And now an ignorant racist American Commander-in-Chief, like the ignorant, racist American Commander-in-Chief during the Korean War era, is threatening to attack North Korea “with fire and fury like the world has never seen before.” Maybe North Korea believes that possession, or at least the threat of possible possession, of a nuclear deterrent is the only way to protect themselves from a ruthlessness that the USA has exhibited many times over, not only before and during the Korean War, but in dozens of countries since.

The American hypothesis is that North Korea is the most evil and oppressive society on earth, run by a ruthless dictator—a society in which the people have no freedom, are brainwashed, live in fear, and worship their leaders with either deluded loyalty or fear for their lives.

Which hypothesis is closer to the truth? Which country is the greater threat to humankind and the environment? Which people understand the real aim of life? Which people have the best understanding of Natural Duty and the importance of it? Which country is on the right track?

Maybe the American hypothesis is closer to the truth. Maybe the above-recounted history of Korea is inaccurate. Maybe the truth is somewhere in-between these two hypotheses and between the above history and the accepted American narrative. But, the point is, we do not really know, because we have not critically examined the history of Korea or either hypothesis. A good physician does not prescribe dangerous chemotherapy “for cancer” without first taking a history and proving the hypothesis that the patient truly has cancer. That would be malpractice. And, yet, the USA is threatening to “nuke” a North Korean “cancer” without taking an accurate history and without testing its own or any other hypotheses about North Korea.

Rather than drop nuclear bombs on North Korea, should we not, first,study history and test the above hypotheses? That is what physicians do. That is how physicians learn; that is how physicians correct mistakes and avoid making further mistakes.

The American people owe it to the North Koreans, to Humanity, and to the Earth itself, to take a complete history of the Korean War and think from North Korea’s point of view, as opposed to thinking only from the American point of view and perpetuating narratives about Korea that may not be true.

Note

¹The history summarized in this essay is based predominantly on Bruce Cumings’ excellently written and thoroughly annotated book, The Korean War: A History, published by Modern Library in 2011.

It was something of a clanger for the ride hailing service that has made authorities across the globe sceptical and stroppy.  Uber has lobbied, cajoled, and bullied its way into the transport markets of the globe, while still claiming to be a humble, facilitating technology company. 

The legal team at Uber has, at times, been ingenious. At other times, it has been disingenuous. Conventional rules on tax, regulation and governance are there to be flouted, if not danced around.  Sprouting from the technology climes of California, it has run on the myth that it merely oils the wheels between paying customers and enterprising drivers, acting as connector and facilitator that bypasses traditional formats of transport.  Using a digital app as the basis of connecting the driver with the customer, the argument has been much like that of the torturer and the priest: the priest remains clean as the torturer gets his hands dirty.

Spotting this problem in 2014, Asociación Profesional Élite Taxi, a professional taxi drivers’ association in Barcelona claimed that Uber, through Uber Systems Spain, had been engaging in misleading practices, in addition to the usual accusation of unfair competition.  Neither Uber Systems Spain, nor those non-professional drivers associated with the venture, had the requisite authorisations and licences required in the metropolitan area of Barcelona.

As Article 4 of the relevant law stated,

“The provision of urban taxi services is subject to the prior grant of a license entitling the license holder for each vehicle intended to carry out that activity.”

Only town halls and “competent local authorities” in the relevant territory could issue such licenses.

The Juzgado de lo Mercantil No 3 de Barcelona, otherwise known as Commercial Court No 3, Barcelona, Spain, wisely found that the issue should have broader international significance, notwithstanding the localised activities of Uber Systems Spain.  Not having local authorisations and licenses in Spain was a question that deserved the scrutiny of the Court of Justice of the European Union.

As the Advocate General Szpunar explained in May, the question for Uber was whether its activities constituted “a transport service or service in the field of transport for the purposes of Article 58(1) TFEU (Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union) and Article 2(2)(d) of Directive 2006/123.”  It was an opinion that would set the ground against Uber, claiming that the company “exerts control over all the relevant aspects of an urban transport service”.

As with all matters legal, classification is king. The issue of not having prior administrative authorisation hinged on the issue what form of classification could apply to the service, be it that on the provision of services within the internal market, or that of the directive on electronic commerce. Uber was naturally pitching for the line that was merely engaged in electronic commerce, a technology middleman.

That found little weight with the judges.  Uber’s services “must be excluded from the scope of the freedom to provide services in general as well as the directive on services in the internal market and directive on electronic commerce”.

“It follows that, as the EU law currently stands,” went the judgment of the court, “it is for Member States to regulate the conditions under which intermediation services such as that at issue in the main proceedings are to be provided in conformity with the general rules of the FEU Treaty.”

The regulations and directives of the EU, taken as a whole, “must be interpreted as meaning that an intermediation service” such as Uber’s, “the purpose of which is to connect, by means of a smartphone application and for remuneration, non-professional drivers using their own vehicle with persons who wish to make urban journeys, must be regarded as being inherently linked to a transport service”.  It followed that they “must be classified as ‘a service in the field of transport’”.

Uber’s reaction to such rulings is always a mix of indignation and reluctant acceptance, framed as a wounded pioneer in a world of ignoramuses.  In the words of a spokesman,

“millions of Europeans are still prevented from using apps like ours.”

Then comes the conciliatoriness.

“As our new CEO has said, it is appropriate to regulate services such as Uber and so we will continue the dialogue with cities across Europe.”

The impacts of the CJEU decision are also being shrugged off.  The decision, after all, specifically focuses on peer-to-peer ride services, still frowned upon in such jurisdictions as Belgium, France and Spain.  Uber is also taking the professional route in some cities – Madrid and Berlin stand out as examples.  

The move to normalise Uber within the transport architecture of urban environments, despite continued resistance, is proving inexorable.  As Natasha Lomas of Techcrunch notes,

“any faint hope the company might still have entertained of being given a legal green light to speed down a digital EU fast-lane and overtake local transport interests is gone.”

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

The American-Saudi aggression targeted the culture and heritage sector in Yemen, causing huge and varied damages, including historic cities, monuments, property and cultural facilities within 1000 days of systematic targeting of identity, memory and Yemeni cultural heritage.

On the level of historic cities, recent data revealed the targeting of aggression to a number of historical cities, foremost of which are the three historical Yemeni cities listed in the World Heritage List, namely, historic Sana’a, Shibam Hadramout, Zabid, and other cities such as Shibam Kokban, Al Mahweet, Hajjah, Ibad, Monuments and historical value including the effects of the city of Barraksh, which was targeted by the aggression more than five successive raids and other cities and landmarks targeted by the aggression.

Historical Cities The deputy head of the General Commission for the Preservation of Historic Cities Nabil Munasar told Saba that the American-Saudi aggression has caused great and varied damage in historical cities throughout Yemen.

He pointed out that the last survey of damage to the historic city of Sana’a as a result of the aggression included (2542) houses, including (577) houses with no damage, and (1965) houses damaged by different (1460) houses suffered minor damage and 376 houses (86) houses were severely damaged and (43) houses were completely destroyed.

He pointed out that these houses need urgent intervention, of which 238 houses need urgent reinforcement, 166 houses need housing, 12 houses need to be reconstructed, 456 houses need renovation, and 1032 houses need maintenance, all of which require a budget of at least (2.5) billion riyals.

He added that

“the aggression severely damaged the city of Saada by targeting 150 houses and in the city of Shibam Kokban (180) homes and in the city of Shibam Hadramout (160) including the damage caused by al-Qaeda operations in Taiz, Three houses and four historic buildings were targeted. In Shabwa, two houses were targeted. In Yarm, Jabla and Ibb, 400 houses were targeted with varying damages. In Zabid, indirect damage was caused to 40 houses. In Sana’a governorate, Atan and in the province of Aden targeted aggression (32) a historic building and a museum and in the province of Dhamar was targeted museum Regional R including the relics. ”

He pointed out that this statistic is still incomplete, because the possibilities were not available and facilitate the implementation of descent and comprehensive monitoring of all historical cities, but it is discretionary according to available resources.

Archaeology

The head of the General Authority for Antiquities and Museums Muhannad al-Sayani explained to the Yemeni News Agency (Saba) what was exposed to the Yemeni archaeological sites during the 1000 days of the Saudi-American systematic aggression since the first Yemeni teacher in the mosque of Imam Abdul Razzaq al-Sannani in red boxes on April 16 .

Al-Siyani pointed to the targeting of the aggression of 62 archaeological teachers, while targeting Al-Qaeda groups and 22 archaeological teachers in an initial outcome.

And archaeological sites that were subjected to acts of destruction by aggression and terrorism within 1000 days … The following sites:

Al-Hassan Mosque, Dar al-Hasan, Dalea, Madinat al-Hassan, Madinat al-Hassan, Madinat al-Hasan Sana’a, the National Museum – Sana’a, the Heritage Museum – Sana’a, Jarf As’ad al-Kamil – Ibb, al-Qafla – Saada, Qalqat Nqm – Sana’a, Dhamar Museum.

Al-Hodeida Castle, North Bank – Marib Dam, Al-Hajar Palace – Sana’a, Old Marib City, Al-Azari Complex – Sana’a, Dome of the Mahdi – Sana’a, Atq-Shabwa Museum The ruins of Djebal Harad, the dome of Sheikh Yaqoub – Mukalla, Jamea Habor Al-Soudi – Taiz, Dome of Sheikh Imam Al-Saqqaf – Lahj, Al-Falhi Mosque – Sana’a, Dome of the Habib Hamad bin Saleh Al-Shahr, Sheikh Hamdan, Al-Imam Al-Badr Mosque, Imran, Qabab and Ohelhah Ghayl Bawazeer – Al-Muhaweet Mosque, Hadramout, the fortress of Najd al-Mizar-Shabwa, al-Turb-al-Shabwa … and other sites in the preliminary statistics.

Al-Siyani pointed to the dangers of the Yemeni non-Yemeni heritage as a result of the aggression by stopping a number of traditional celebrations which are an important part of Yemen’s non-religious heritage.

Museums and cultural property

At the level of museums, Al-Siyani pointed out that the inventory of the Taiz Museum is still unknown, while 7300 artifacts were collected from the ruins of the Dhamar Museum, which was destroyed by the aggression. It included 12,500 archaeological artifacts, which meant the loss of more than 5,000 artifacts.

On the level of cultural property and facilities, the aggression targeted about 25 cultural properties, including a number of cultural centers in a number of governorates. It also looted two audio libraries in the Aden and Mukalla radios. In addition, the Yemeni factory was destroyed on the first day of the brutal Saudi aggression in 2015.

Featured image is from Yemen Press.

On December 18, a Free Syrian Army (FSA) commander revealed to the Syrian opposition news outlet Enab Baladi that the US had fully suspended its support for all FSA groups in northern and southern Syria. FSA groups were allegedly informed of the US decision during a joint meeting.

According to the Enab Baladi report, the US even closed its infamous Military Operation Center (MOC) in Jordan. The MOC is known for its major role in providing financial, military and intelligence support for the FSA and radical Islamist groups in southern Syria. The MOC even planned and commanded some of the biggest attacks on the SAA in the southern province of Daraa, according to Syrian pro-government activist. The June offensive in the city of Daraa was dsecribed as one of such advances.

The US also shut down another Military Operation Center in Turkey, named by Turks “MOM”, according to the FSA commander. The MOM played a similar role in the MOC. However, it supported FSA groups and al-Qaeda-affiliated Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (former al-Nusra Front) in northern Syria for years.

The FSA commander also revealed that the US continued to support the FSA groups financially even after an announcement by US President Donald Trump that US suspended its support for the FSA on July 19. However, now all forms of the support including financial support are suspended, according to Enab Baladi.

Another US program to support FSA groups may begin in 2018, according to the FSA commander. However, experts believe that the US will focus in the next year on supporting the Kurdish-dominated Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in eastern Syria.

Featured image is from South Front.

The White House’s commitment to spreading chaos across the world, bringing people of various religions and beliefs misery and suffering is hardly a secret to anyone at this point. After Afghanistan and Iraq, the latest instances of this American obsession manifested themselves in Libya and Syria.

This tactic was readily adopted by the administration of US President Donald Trump even though it hasn’t yet spent a full year in office. Yet, we see more calamities looming over horizon, with dangerous games being played by Washington simultaneously against Iran and North Korea.

The recent statement regarding the status of Jerusalem made by Trump regarding the status of Jerusalem falls in this familiar pattern, as the US thus demanded other states follow its lead. In such a fashion Trump has not just formally announced his imperial aspirations, or claimed the right to function as global arbiter, but has also buried any hope of negotiations between Arabs and Israelis, even though Washington assumed the role of guarantor of a peace accord between these two parties. By making a statement that looks irresponsible for any sensible observer, Trump has not just violated all of the UN documents signed so far by the United States, he also chose to ignore the plan of Palestine’s partition adopted in 1947, after the termination of the British Mandate. This plan stipulated the creation of a Jewish and an Arab state within the former border of Palestine, while granting Jerusalem an international status as the holy city of the three great monotheistic religions – Judaism, Christianity and Islam.

By unilaterally altering the status of Jerusalem Trump has not just showed the true face of “American diplomacy” to the whole world, but has deprived America of an ability to play any constructive role toward resolving the Arab-Israeli conflict or any other Middle East ern conflict for that matter. After all, until now, as a guarantor of Israel’s existence since 1948, the United States has always sought to maintain a balanced position, which allowed America to remain an “honest broker”. As the French Figaro recalls, in November 1956 it was Washington that urged London and Paris, the allies of Israel, to put an end to the Suez war against Gamal Abdel Nasser. In October 1973, Kissinger persuaded the Israelis to loosen up pressure on the surrounded Egyptian Third Army. In October 1991, President George W. Bush initiated the Madrid Peace Conference by inviting the Palestinian delegation to talks, in spite of fierce opposition by Tel-Aviv.

Today in the world, according to various sources, there are about 1.77 billion adherents of Islam, constituting 23% of the world’s population. The reaction of the inhabitants of 28 Muslim countries (including the fourth most populous country, Indonesia, and nuclear-armed Pakistan) to the Trump solution in Jerusalem has caused a predictable effect – with aggressive statements coming from all across the globe. Even America’s European allies announced their disagreement. The High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Federica Mogerini, stated that Trump’s move has brought the Middle Eastern peace process back to the dark ages. The refusal to support Trump’s position was announced by German Chancellor Angela Merkel, French President Emmanuel Macron, and the head of Washington’s most trusted satellite state – British Prime Minister Teresa May.

This universal condemnation was supported by the president of Turkey, a now-formal-ally of the United States and a NATO member, as its leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan described Trump as a person reckless enough to stir up the whole Middle East.

The former head of Israeli secret services Yakov Kedmi has recently told the media that Washington has dropped yet another bomb on the Middle East without even giving a second thought to the possible consequences of its actions. Kedmi believes that it’s an example of typical American behavior, associated with ruining even the simplest matters.

The Middle East undergoes radical change these days, as tactical alliances are being made and then collapse rapidly, with yesterday’s enemies becoming today’s allies. The development of events and the changes that the whole world and the Arab world in particular are observing seems extremely dangerous for the Arab World. The reason for this is the growing colonial aspirations of the United States. Washington is not just amassing troops and invading states, it’s heavily engaged in hybrid warfare as well. It has consistently relied on the divide and conquer strategy in its dealings with the Arab World, its peoples and the peoples of other Muslim-majority nations.

It’s been noted that America has proven itself capable of provoking malice and disgust, of sowing the seeds of hatred and dispute in every Arab state, affecting society at every level: family, tribe, religious group, and political party. In particular, best exemplified by the so-called “Arab Spring.” As all plans and conspiracies against the governments of Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Yemen, Syria, and Iraq led back to Washington and Israel.

Against this backdrop, one cannot help but feel disgust over the recent actions of Trump and his representatives, in particular the sitting US ambassador to the UN, Nikki Haley who would send letters of intimidation to representatives of more than 180 countries in a bid to prevent them from voting in the UN Security Council on a resolution condemning the recent decision of Washington to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. That’s a vivid example of the so-called American-style of democracy at its best along with Washington’s willingness to put all sorts of pressure on those courageous enough to disobey America’s dictates.

The world is becoming increasingly impatient with Washington, a development long overdue decades ago. Nikki Haley’s attempts to use her position in a reckless attempt to bully UN member states in clear violation of the UN Charter, pushes this patience toward its breaking point.

Vladimir Odintsov is an expert politologist, exclusively for the online magazine ‘New Eastern Outlook’.

Featured image is from the author.

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A History of UN General Assembly Resolutions on Israel-Palestine

By Alex McDonald, December 22, 2017

With yet another vote in the assembly scheduled today – this time over whether to condemn the US decision to move their embassy to Jerusalem – here are a few of the most important votes taken in the assembly over the longstanding crisis.

UN General Assembly Rejects Trump’s Jerusalem Declaration

By Stephen Lendman, December 22, 2017

The vote should have been near-unanimous – every nation except rogue states America and Israel, complicit in Trump’s Jerusalem declaration.

UN member states overwhelmingly rejected it – symbolically rendering it null and void only.

“Russiagate” Is Actually “Israelgate”: Trump as “Agent of Israel”, Not of Russia?

By Eric Zuesse, December 21, 2017

What Flynn had pled to was his trying to obtain Russia’s support for Israel’s Government, against the Palestinians. Russia said no; Putin said no to Flynn’s request, which had been made on behalf of Israel.

Palestine: Apartheid, Stolen Lives and Land, History Erased, United Nations Deaf Mute

By Felicity Arbuthnot, December 20, 2017

The list of breaches of international law is near endless as are the attacks on a people with no army, air force or navy, plus the decimations of 1967, 2008-9 and 2014. 

Team Trump Add Insult to Injury for the Palestinians

By Jonathan Cook, December 19, 2017

After decades of flagrant US bias towards Israel, Trump has confirmed to Palestinians only what they already knew. Some even grudgingly welcomed his candour. They hope he has finally silenced US claims to being an “honest broker” in an interminable “peace process” that has simply bought time for Israel to entrench the occupation.

Nations of the World at UN Humiliate Trump with Massive Vote for Palestinians

By Juan Cole, December 22, 2017

28 countries voted a straight “no!” in Trump’s face, including France, Britain, Germany, Spain, Italy, Greece, China, Russia, Brazil, South Africa, Indonesia, India, Turkey etc. etc. In other words both the richest and the most populous countries in the world condemned Trump’s announcement.

In fact, of course, 14 members of the UN Security Council had already voted against Trump, but he stopped their resolution by exercising the US veto.

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stephenlendman.org 

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Spanish fascists revoked Catalan autonomy in October, imposing Madrid rule – wanting regime-controlled puppet governance replacing regional democracy.

Catalonia’s parliament was dissolved, snap elections announced for December 21.

The action breached international law, affirming the right of self-determination for all people.

Spain is a fascist police state, repressing and exploiting its people, Rajoy a modern-day Francisco Franco, ruthlessly targeting anyone challenging his tyrannical rule.

His scheme to replace a pro-independence Catalan parliamentary majority with MPs subservient to Madrid failed.

Parties supporting separation from Spain won 70 of the 135 parliamentary seats at stake, two less than in 2015. Turnout exceeded 80%, a record regional number.

US presidential and congressional elections haven’t exceeded 60% in half a century, Richard Nixon winning a 60.8% majority popular vote in 1968.

In 2016, turnout for the presidential and congressional elections was 55.7%. In off-year congressional elections, turnout is around 40% of eligible voters – testimony to America’s debauched system.

Monied interests control the process. Ordinary people have no say. Dirty business as usual wins every time. Each right-wing of US duopoly governance takes turns controlling Congress and/or the executive branch of government.

Democracy is pure fantasy, the same true in Spain and most other European countries. Russian elections under Vladimir Putin’s leadership are the most open, free and fair in Eurasia.

Here are the results of Catalonia’s parliamentary election with nearly all votes counted:

Source: The Guardian

• Pro-independence parties included Junts Per Catalunya headed by self-exiled President Carles Puigdemont in Brussels, ERC (Esquerra) led by political prisoner Oriol Junqueras, and CUP headed by Carles Riera.
• Junts Per Catalunya won 34 seats, ERC (Esquerra) took 32, and CUP another 4 (6 less than in 2015) for a 70-seat pro-independence parliamentary majority.
• Unionist Ciudadanos won the most seats – 36, a 25.4% minority, not enough to form a government with coalition partners.

Seven parties competed for seats. The so-called People’s Party of Catalonia (PP or PPC) won four seats (with only 4.2% of the popular vote.

It was the only Catalan party supporting revocation of Catalan self-rule, the action forcing the snap election in the first place.

Results weren’t what Madrid wanted. What follows remains to be seen. If independence from Spain is sought again, another harsh crackdown is likely, including arrests and imprisonments of separatist leaders.

Will they risk repeating what happened last fall? Things will likely remain quiet through the holiday season – perhaps erupting again in the new year.

Most Catalans support independence, wanting to be free from fascist Madrid rule. Will they take to the streets again en masse?

Will majority MPs declare independence? From Brussels, deposed/self-exiled Catalan President Puigdemont issued the following statement, saying:

“I want to congratulate the Catalan people, because they have sent a message to the world. The Catalan republic has beaten the monarchy and article 155.”

“The Spanish state has been beaten. Mr Rajoy and his allies have lost. They were seeking to legitimize article 155, but they have been beaten.”

“Now we need to restore democracy, restore our legitimate government, our freedoms. We need to free all those people who are still in prison, but should not be. The prescription that Mr Rajoy thought would work has failed.”

“Things are even more positive for the pro-independence parties today, because today we have one more seat (actually 2 less).”

“We will have more freedom in parliament than we had before. As the legitimate president of Catalonia, I say: Mr Rajoy’s prescription is not working.”

“If he keeps applying the same formula, he will keep failing. He needs to change. We have to find solutions. It is time not just for Mr Rajoy but for many other people to realize this.”

For independence supporters, winning a parliamentary majority is one thing, gaining self-rule, free from Madrid another entirely.

Rajoy’s heavy hand prevailed before, a repeat likely if Catalonia’s government again seeks independence from Spain.

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

The Arab and Muslim worlds exulted Thursday over their massive victory at the United Nations General Assembly, which passed a resolution condemning the Trump administration’s recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.

Despite his crude threats to cut off US aid to countries who bucked him only 9 countries actively backed Trump up here. And if you look hard, they are more Pacific postage stamp islands for the most part than what most people would think of as, like, you know, countries. Trump’s sycophants included Palau, Nauru, Micronesia (FS), and Togo.

128 countries voted a straight “no!” in Trump’s face, including France, Britain, Germany, Spain, Italy, Greece, China, Russia, Brazil, South Africa, Indonesia, India, Turkey etc. etc. In other words both the richest and the most populous countries in the world condemned Trump’s announcement.

In fact, of course, 14 members of the UN Security Council had already voted against Trump, but he stopped their resolution by exercising the US veto.

Was anybody afraid of the threats from the Bonnie and Clyde of international diplomacy, Trump and Nikki Haley? No. Afghanistan and Pakistan are both big US aid recipients and both voted “no!” Turkey voted no despite being NATO (like Britain, France, etc.)

Most of the 35 countries that abstained did so because of their own internal politics. Australia may have abstained to please Trump, but the fact is that its government is extremely pro-Israel, so actually an abstention is a kind of slap in the face to Trump and Netanyahu. The same could be said for the Czech Republic and Hungary.

To tell you the truth I have no idea why Mexico abstained, but I am confident that it was not because of fear of Trump or wanting to make nice with him.

Anyway, the bulk of the world, and as I said, both the wealthiest and the most populous nations, rebuked the US president.

Turkey’s president Tayyip Erdogan spoke for a lot of the world when he told Trump, “you cannot buy our will with dollars. Erdogan lamented that the US, the cradle of democracy, had stooped to buying international votes with its aid.

The foreign minister of Iran, Mohammad Javad Zarif, said that the world had rejected Trump’s hostile attempts at scaring people.

As I noted yesterday, the US only gives out $42 bn. in aid a year, about 1 percent of the Federal budget, and most of it goes to a handful of countries– Israel, Egypt, Afghanistan, etc. In fact if it weren’t for the Israel lobbies getting Congress to throw so much money at Israel and Egypt (a bribe to keep it in Camp David), the US would be giving out almost no civilian aid. Israel is a prosperous country that does not need US aid, and truly needy countries get peanuts from Washington.

So the threat of an aid cut-off just did not matter to most countries.

In fact, most of them voted on principle and in accordance with international law.

Trump’s move violated UN Security Council resolution 470 of 1980, which was passed without a US veto after the then Israeli government tried to grab all of Jerusalem. The divided city, with Jewish and Palestinian neighborhoods, was never awarded to Israel by any international body or law, and simply stealing your neighbor’s territory through aggressive warfare is forbidden by the UN Charter as of 1945, what with the world wanting to stop any further Axis-like behavior and all. Most Palestinians insist that East Jerusalem become the capital of the forthcoming Palestinian state. The point is that the status of Jerusalem is a matter for final status negotiations among the parties, not unilateral fiats of Trump’s rash sort.

The countries of the world would not like to be treated the way Israel is treating the Palestinians, and they don’t want a free-for-all over neighbors’ territory and they don’t want the US going around bullying people into acquiescing in severe human rights violations.

“Gain-of-function research” sounds so innocuous. Who wouldn’t want to gain some function? Opinions differ, though, when the “function” in question is lethality. Some researchers believe it is important to experiment with disease-causing pathogens, creating deadlier versions than those found in nature, because the lab-bred strains can teach us how a contagion might evolve. Others think the risks are too great. Even the highest-security labs have had breaches and accidents, so why create a mutant virus that could turn into a man-made pandemic?

Three years ago, recognizing the potential risks, the US government declared a moratorium on funding for all new gain-of-function studies involving influenza, SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome), and MERS (Middle East respiratory syndrome). This week that moratorium was lifted, as the New York Times, the Washington Post, and others reported.

Gain-of-function research on these diseases can now go forward, but subject to a new set of strictures.

“The pathogen to be modified must pose a serious health threat, and the work must produce knowledge — such as a vaccine — that would benefit humans,” writes Times reporter Donald G. McNeil Jr.

A government panel will decide if studies can proceed. The new rules will also apply to research on diseases that were not covered by the moratorium. Meaning that if you want to, say, create a more transmissible strain of the Ebola virus, you’ll have to get government approval.

Writing for the Bulletin shortly after the moratorium began, Filippa Lentzos said that

“any experiments deemed to carry risks disproportionately larger than any potential benefits or alternative safer approaches should be banned.”

That makes sense, and it seems to be what the US government is trying to do with its new set of rules. But it may still be difficult to reach consensus on what risks are too great.

This is the newest update of the ‘U.S. Carrier Strike Groups Locations Map’ exclusive series showing the approximate locations of U.S. Carrier Strike Groups on a weekly basis. SouthFront: Analysis & Intelligence tracks locations of U.S. aircraft carriers using the available open-source information. No classified information was used in production of the map.

Carrier strike group (CSG) is an operational formation of the United States Navy. It is centered on an aircraft carrier and a carrier air wing (CVW) of 65 to 70 aircrafts. It’s composed of roughly 7,500 personnel, an aircraft carrier, at least one cruiser, a destroyer squadron of at least two destroyers and/or frigates. A carrier strike group also, on occasion, includes submarines, attached logistics ships and a supply ship. Carrier strike groups comprise a principal element of U.S. power projection over the world’s oceans.

Source: South Front

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.

Iqbal spoke to journalists after the formal launch of Long Term Plan (LTP) for the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) signed by the two sides on November 21, Dawn online reported on Tuesday.  The CPEC is a flagship project of China’s Belt and Road initiative. The 3,000 km, over $50 billion corridor stretches from Kashgar in western China to Gwadar port in Pakistan on the Arabian sea.

Asked if the Chinese currency could be allowed for use in Pakistan, the minister said the Pakistani currency would be used within the country but China desired that bilateral trade should take place in yuan instead of dollars, in yet another push to de-dollarize what China considers its sphere of influence.

“We are examining the use of yuan instead of the US dollar for trade between the two countries,” Iqbal said, adding that the use of yuan was not against the interest of Pakistan. Rather, it would “benefit” Pakistan.

It would also show that world that when it comes to Asia, the “superpower” of significance is no longer the US. And so, as China’s influence grows, the long-term plan highlighted key cooperation areas between the neighboring states including road and rail connections, information network infrastructure, energy, trade and industrial parks, agriculture, poverty alleviation and tourism.

The CPEC plan marks the first time the two countries have said how long they plan to work together on the project, taking the economic partnership to at least 2030. China has already committed to investing $57 billion in Pakistan to finance CPEC as part of Beijing’s “Belt and Road” initiative to build a new Silk Road of land and maritime trade routes across more than 60 countries in Asia, Europe and Africa.

Addressing the launching ceremony Chinese Ambassdor to Pakistan Yao Jing said the long term plan would expand the scope of cooperation in various new areas, including cooperation in social sectors along with economic fields. “CPEC was a national plan approved by the both the Chinese and Pakistan government.” It will effectively match relevant national plans of China as well as Pakistan Vision 2025.”

The two nations also agreed to establish and improve cross-border credit system and financial services, strengthen currency swap arrangements as well as establish a bilateral payment and settlement system…. in yuan that is, not dollars.

Featured image is from Zero Hedge.

Since the creation of the UN on 24 October 1945, the General Assembly has passed scores of resolutions pertaining to Israel-Palestine – arguably to little effect.

With yet another vote in the assembly scheduled today – this time over whether to condemn the US decision to move their embassy to Jerusalem – here are a few of the most important votes taken in the assembly over the longstanding crisis:

Resolution 181: The partition of the British Mandate of Palestine (29 November 1947)

By far the vote with the most lasting impact, at the same time the failure to implement Resolution 181 in its totality has underscored all the problems in the region ever since.

The resolution recommended that the British-controlled territory of Palestine be divided into two states, one for Arabs and one for Jews with a special international status for Jerusalem.

The Jewish Agency, representing Jewish Zionists in Palestine, reluctantly accepted the plan established by the resolution, but the Arab League rejected it and the fallout was a military confrontation that led to the expulsion and flight of more than 750,000 Palestinians from their ancestral homeland and the establishment of the State of Israel.

The General Assembly vote was also contentious – 33 countries voted in favour, while 13 (primarily Arab and Muslim) voted against. Ten countries, including the UK, abstained.

Speaking in the assembly, Iraq’s foreign minister Fadel Jamall warned that the partition would harm Jewish-Arab relations in the Middle East.

“There are more Jews in the Arab world outside of Palestine than there are in Palestine. In Iraq alone, we have about one hundred and fifty thousand Jews who share with Muslims and Christians all the advantages of political and economic rights,” he said.

“Harmony prevails among Muslims, Christians and Jews. But any injustice imposed upon the Arabs of Palestine will disturb the harmony among Jews and non-Jews in Iraq; it will breed inter-religious prejudice and hatred.”

Following the establishment of Israel, hundreds of thousands of Jews were expelled or left Arab lands and travelled to the newborn state.

Resolution 2253: Condemnations of Israel’s measures to change the status of Jerusalem (4 July 1967)

Following the Six-Day war, Israeli forces captured East Jerusalem, the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, the Golan Heights and the Sinai Peninsula.

Though Sinai was eventually returned to Egypt, the occupation of these territories has remained the dominant issue in the Israel-Palestine conflict.

Resolution 2253 saw the first UN condemnation of attempts by Israel to claim sovereignty over the holy city. Although the motion was unanimous (99 in favour, with 20 abstentions) in calling for Israel to “rescind all measures already taken and to desist forthwith from taking action which would alter the status of Jerusalem”, it did nothing to prevent Israel formally annexing the city in 1980.

The capture of East Jerusalem and the structure known as the Temple Mount to Jews and the Haram al-Sharif to Muslims has led to repeated conflicts over the status of the holy site.

Shortly after the site’s capture, the Israeli army chaplain Rabbi Shlomo Goren urged then Central Command head General Uzi Narkiss to dynamite the Dome of the Rock under the cover of war telling him “do this and you will go down in history”.

The construction of the third temple on the Temple Mount has long been a dream of religious Zionists and while Narkiss at the time threatened to imprison Goren for suggesting it, the threats against the Muslim holy buildings have repeatedly provoked outrage and clashes.

Resolution 3379: Recognising Zionism as a form of racism (10 November 1975)

One of the most controversial resolutions adopted by the body, Resolution 3379, accepted the principle that Zionism as an ideology was inherently racist and comparable with both the apartheid government in South Africa and the white-minority government in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe).

Israel responded with fury to the resolution and cited the distribution of the anti-Semitic forgery The Protocols of the Elders of Zion by Arab states as proof of the hypocrisy of the movers of the resolution.

“For us, the Jewish people, this resolution based on hatred, falsehood and arrogance, is devoid of any moral or legal value,” said Israeli ambassador Chaim Herzog, who tore the written resolution in half at the end of his speech.

“For us, the Jewish people, this is no more than a piece of paper and we shall treat it as such.”

The resolution passed with 72 states supporting and 35 against, while 32 abstained. The resolution opened up a debate on the nature of Zionism – opponents argued that the ideology of European Jews establishing a Jewish state in the middle of the Arab world was by nature racist and colonialist, while others argued that it represented the national liberation movement of the Jewish people.

Regardless, the resolution was revoked in 1991 after Israel made revocation a pre-condition of its taking part in the Madrid conference that year.

Resolution 4321: The First Intifada (3 November 1988)

On 8 December 1987, an Israeli army truck ran into a group of Palestinians near the Jabalya refugee camp in Gaza, leaving four dead. The incident proved to be a catalyst for a mass uprising against Israeli rule that put the status of Palestinians living in the occupied territories in the global spotlight.

Resolution 4321 reiterated earlier demands for Israel to withdraw from the occupied territories and called on international powers to provide aid and solidarity to Palestinians living under occupation.

The resolution condemned Israel’s “persistent policies and practices violating the human rights of the Palestinian people in the occupied Palestinian territories, including Jerusalem, and, in particular, such acts as the opening of fire by the Israeli army and settlers that result in the killing and wounding of defenceless civilians”, as well as a litany of other abuses.

The intifada eventually led to the opening up of dialogue between the Israelis and the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) and the establishment of the Palestinian Authority through the Oslo accords – a move which has been both celebrated and condemned in equal measure.

Resolution 6719: Recognition of Palestine as an observer state (29 November 2012)

November 2012 saw the General Assembly recognising Palestine as a non-member observer state. Although the vote was largely symbolic – Palestine was now on the same level as the Holy See – it allowed the Palestinian Authority access to the International Criminal Court, which raised the possibility that Israeli officials could end up facing charges of war crimes.

Speaking during the vote – which passed 138 to 9, with 41 abstentions – PA President Mahmoud Abbas called on delegates to “to issue a birth certificate of the reality of the State of Palestine.”

Israeli and American officials condemned the motion as unilateral and argued it violated the spirit of the Oslo accords. However, the acceptance by large parts of the world of the existence of a State of Palestine signified the changing global attitude to the question of Palestine in the like of repeated wars and continuing intransigence on the part of Israel.

“Life will not be the same [because] Palestine will become a country under occupation,” said Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat after the vote.

“The terms of reference for any negotiations become withdrawal.”

The two greatest Imperial foes of the Ottoman Empire were Russia and Iran (Persia). While the Russian Empire collapsed in 1917, the Ottoman Empire in 1922 and the Iranian in 1979, the modern successor states of the Russian Federation, Republic of Turkey and Islamic Republic of Iran continue to constitute towering Eurasian powers whose influence only continues to grow.

This is not surprising in and of itself, but what is surprising is that these three great Eurasian powers continue to expand in terms of regional influence, but not at each others expense.

Turkey’s rapprochement with Russia continues to dominate headlines, not least because the dramatic shooting down of a Russian fighter jet by Turkey in late 2015 had the term “Russo-Turkish War” back on the tips of many tongues for the first time since the early 20th century.

However, the subsequent restoration of relations between Moscow and Ankara has not only put to rest any ideas of a new Russo-Turkish war, but the efforts to reconcile difference have transformed into something far more meaningful than a detente. Russia and Turkey are currently experiencing a burgeoning economic, diplomatic and peace making partnership–one which both sides seek to expand further and as soon as possible.

This is not to say that Turkey and Russia are allies. There are still clear areas of disagreement, but that notwithstanding, Turkey’s economic future lies in the east and for Ankara, Russia is both an indispensable economic partner as well as a literal and metaphoric bridge to China. In this sense, Turkey’s enthusiastic embrace of China’s One Belt–One Road should also be highlighted as an important factor in bringing Moscow and Ankara closer together. The result is that in spite of the events of 2015, Russia and Turkey enjoy their best relations since the period when Ataturk’s Republic became one of the first three nations to develop formal relations with a young Soviet Union (the other two were Iran and Afghanistan).

At the same time, Turkey’s relations with Iran, in the fields of economic, security, diplomatic and now ideological cooperation have grown throughout this same period, although they are less widely discussed.

Since the Islamic Revolution of 1979, Turkey and Iran’s relations have experienced a period of rapid fluctuation ranging from pragmatic tolerance and limited cooperation,  to open hostility–albeit hostility which never could have realistically led to a military conflict.

Today, it is fair to say that Iran and Turkey are experience their best bilateral relations since 1979.

While the Astana Peace Process and Turkey’s gradual acceptance of the legitimate right of the Syrian government to remain in power, are often pointed to as key elements which have aided bilateral relations between Iran and Turkey, the fact of the matter is that both countries see a more wide reaching potential for partnership that transcends the Syrian conflict and associated peace process.

Turkish President Erdogan’s trips to Iran are becoming ever more frequent as trade between the two countries rapidly increases. Furthermore, both countries have pledged to begin trading in national currencies, thus allowing Iran to circumvent Dollar based institutions which Washington has forced to sanction the country, while also allowing Turkey to assert financial independence from its former western partners, as part of a broader move to an almost certainly Yuan based One Belt–One Road trading network.

Pragmatically, both countries look set to collaborate on mutual energy initiatives included the proposed ‘Persian Gas Pipeline’. Among the prospective parties to such a project, Turkey and Iran are the only states not in the EU. This means that Iran and Turkey represent the eastern flank of a project linking Eurasian gas to the European mainland.

However, the most important event of the year in respect of solidifying a long lasting Ankara-Tehran partnership, happened in August.

Turkish Chief of Staff General Hulusi Akar and his Iranian counterpart Major General Mohammad Baqeri review the guards of honor during a welcoming ceremony in Ankara, Turkey, Aug. 15, 2017.

On the 16th of August, Iran’s Chief of Staff Major General Mohammad Baqeri, became the highest ranking Iranian military officer to visit Turkey since prior to the Islamic Revolution. During the meeting, both countries pledged to cooperate further on wider regional security matters beyond affirming existing commitments to cooperate against the threats of regional and international terrorist groups.

The timing was significant as in September of 2017, when Iraqi Kurds unilateral declared independence, both Iran and Turkey worked to isolate the would-be illegal statelet in northern Iraq. Although leading Kurdish parties in Syria and Iraq are not traditionally allied, the duel threat of Kurdish ethno-nationalism in both Arab states have led to Turkey and Iran cooperating against a Kurdish threat which is increasingly pan-regional.

The Turkish construction of a border fence with Iran has been welcomed by Tehran as a mechanism which will disallow Kurdish extremists from supplying their ethnic brethren in the two states.

As Iraqi’s Kurdish region descends into political chaos in the aftermath of a would-be insurgency that was divisively crushed by Iraqi troops, with Turkish and Iranian tactical and political support, Iran and Turkey will if anything, double-down on their support for Iraq, if Baghdad’s troops need to put an ordered end to the riots among Iraqi Kurds who have turned on their own “leaders” and political factions.

Even before the proper outbreak of Kurdish troubles on the borders of Iran and Turkey, both countries also found themselves on the same side of the Qatar-GCC dispute, thus proving another area in which each state sees eye to eye on a burning issue of Middle Eastern diplomatic relations.

In terms of ideology and the wider war for hearts and minds, Iran and Turkey have taken a clear lead on the cause of Palestine. While Syria remains a stalwart supporter of Palestine, because of Syria’s internal war against foreign terrorists, the most widely resonating support for Palestine now comes from outside the Arab world.

Turkey as a Sunni majority country, has taken the clear lead in offering increasingly bold criticisms of the Zionist regime which have turned Erdogan into something of the religious hero among Sunnis that he always clearly wanted to be. Simultaneous to this, Iran has secured its place among the wider predominately Shi’a Islamic Resistant movement, albeit one supported by many non-Shi’a and even non-Muslims in countries like Syria, Lebanon and to a smaller extent, Iraq.

Rather than acting as rivals, competing for which country is a stronger supporter of Palestine (in objective terms, it would be no contest as Iran doesn’t recognise “Israel’s” legitimacy as a state while Turkey still technically does), instead each country seems both content and outwardly encouraged by a strongly united front on Palestine which has clearly developed in the wake of Donald Trump’s declaration that Jerusalem/Al-Quds will be recognised by Washington as an Israeli capital.

OIC Emergency Summit, Istanbul, Dec 13, 2017

Iran’s President enthusiastically participated in the OIC emergency summit on Palestine hosted by Erdogan, while both countries have vowed to spearhead a UN General Assembly resolution seeking to nullify Donald Trump’s decision in the eyes of a genuine international quorum. The passage of such a resolution is all but guaranteed and Turkey and Iran objectively will be able to take a great deal of credit for mobilising the effort behind the resolution.

Beyond these points of unity though, there are still areas of disagreement. Turkey continues to host US nuclear weapons and NATO missiles which Iran correctly views as an objective threat to its sovereignty. Turkey is after all a NATO member and NATO is the most anti-Iranian military alliance in the world today.

That being said, with Turkey continuing to expand security cooperation matters with Iran, NATO is equally worried that Turkey may be growing too close to a stated “enemy”. One should not underestimate the fact that these parallel fears may offset each other. In other words, NATO may be more troubled by Turkey’s security partnership with Iran than Iran is by US weapons on Turkish soil which among the ruling elite in Anakara, are seen increasingly as a headache.

More broadly, Iran and Turkey form the core non-Arab members of the emerging Northern Bloc of Middle Eastern states. Both countries are cooperating with each other and with Iraq, and through the Astana Format, Turkey is also cooperating with Iran’s Syrian ally (albeit in a one-step-removed fashion). It is clear that Ankara and Tehran have allies in the northern part of the Middle East while countries in the Southern Bloc, including Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, the UAE, Jordan and “Israel”m have increasingly poor relations with both of the major non-Arab states of the region.

Iran and Turkey’s partnership is therefore forged on a combination of economic and security necessity as well as similar goals of wider pan-Eurasian trading, energy and commerce initiatives which are increasingly tied together in public by the cause of Palestine and wider pan-Islamic leadership which both states seem to agree upon sharing a compliment role within.

Unless and/or until Turkey leaves NATO, Iran and Turkey may not be formal allies, but in an age where few zero-sum allies exist, Turkey and Iran represent something more realistic and therefore more meaningful: they are new partners in a new Middle East AND a new Eurasia.

Adam Garrie is director of Eurasia Future, writing on Eurasian integration, Middle East, South East Asia, China and OBOR.

All images in this article are from the author.

Due to a historic data-dump on December 10th, the biggest swindle that occurred in the 20th Century (or perhaps ever) is now proven as a historical fact; and this swindle was done by the U.S. Government, against the Government and people of Russia, and it continues today and keeps getting worse under every U.S. President. It was secretly started by U.S. President George Herbert Walker Bush on the night of 24 February 1990; and, unless it becomes publicly recognized and repudiated so that it can stop, a nuclear war between the U.S. and all of NATO on one side, versus Russia on the other, is inevitable unless Russia capitulates before then, which would be vastly less likely than such a world-ending nuclear war now is.

This swindle has finally been displayed beyond question, by this, the first-ever complete release of the evidence. It demonstrates beyond any reasonable doubt (as you’ll verify yourself from the evidence here), that U.S. President G.H.W. Bush (and his team) lied through their teeth to Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev (and his team) to end the Cold War on Russia’s side, when the U.S. team were secretly determined never to end it on the U.S.-and-NATO side until Russia itself is conquered. And this swindle continues today, and keeps getting worse and worse for Russians.

Until now, apologists for the U.S.-Government side have been able to get away with various lies about these lies, such as that there weren’t any, and that Gorbachev didn’t really think that the NATO issue was terribly important for Russia’s future national security anyway, and that the only limitation upon NATO’s future expansion that was discussed during the negotiations to end the Cold War concerned NATO not expanding itself eastward (i.e., closer to Russia) within Germany, not going beyond the then-existing dividing-line between West and East Germany — that no restriction against other east-bloc (Soviet-allied) nations ever being admitted into NATO was discussed, at all. The now-standard U.S. excuse that the deal concerned only Germany and not all of Europe is now conclusively disproven by the biggest single data-dump ever released about those negotiations. 

This release on December 10th, by the National Security Archives, of a treasure-trove of all the existing documentation — 33 key documents — that’s been made available to them from numerous archives around the world, and brought together finally for the very first time complete and in chronological order, makes crystal clear that the American apologists’ lies about the lies WERE lies, not accurate accounts of the history, at all.

Chief Justice William Rehnquist administers the Presidential Oath of Office to George H.W. Bush during Inaugural ceremonies at the United States Capitol, January 20, 1989 (Source: Wikimedia Commons)

The assemblers at the National Security Archives assume that the numerous and repeated false promises that were made by Bush’s team were mistakes, instead of as what they so clearly were (but you’ll judge it here for yourself): strategic lies that were essential to Bush’s goal of America ultimately conquering a future isolated Russia that would then have little-to-no foreign allies, and all of whose then-existing-as-Soviet allied nations within the Soviet Union itself, and beyond, including all of its former Warsaw Pact allies, would have become ultimately swallowed up by the U.S.-NATO bloc, which then would be able to dictate, to a finally alone nation of Russia, terms of Russia’s ultimate surrender to the U.S. That view (which the National Security Archives documents to be clearly true, even as it denies it and says that only Bill Clinton and subsequent Presidents were to blame) is now exposed irrefutably to have been the U.S. plan ever since GHW Bush’s Presidency.

In other words: This release of documents about the turning-point, provides capstone evidence that the U.S. never really had been in the Cold War against communism; the U.S. was instead aiming ultimately to be the imperial nation, controlling the entire planet. For America’s Deep State, or what President Eisenhower famously warned about as the “military-industrial complex,” the Cold War was actually about empire, and about conquest, not really about ideology at all. This also had been shown, for example, by America’s having assisted so many ‘former’ Nazis to escape and come to America and to be paid now by the U.S. Government. After World War II, the top level of the U.S. power-structure became increasingly taken over by the military-industrial complex, America’s Deep State, so that increasingly the U.S. Government is in a condition of “perpetual war for perpetual peace” — a warfare state and economy: fascism.

Here, then, are highlights from this historic data-dump, presented in chronological order, just as in the release itself, and with a minimum of added commentary from myself [placed in brackets], but all stripping away here the dross of accompanying inconsequentials, and leaving only the golden steady core of stunningly successful American deceit of Russia. These are those highlights, from the December 10th data-dump, which the National Security Archives headlined “NATO Expansion: What Gorbachev Heard” and sub-headed “Declassified documents show security assurances against NATO expansion to Soviet leaders from Baker, Bush, Genscher, Kohl, Gates, Mitterrand, Thatcher, Hurd, Major, and Woerner,” so that the swindlers (or as the National Security Archive view them as having instead been blunderers) can become immediately recognized and known.

All of these documents pertain to negotiations that occurred throughout the month of February 1990, and a few relate also to the immediate aftermath. That’s the crucial period, when the geostrategic reality of today (which all the world now know to be a continuation of the Cold War, but this time against only Russia, and not against the Soviet Union and its Warsaw Pact) was actually created.

At the negotiations’ start, West Germany’s Chancellor Helmut Kohl’s agent, Germany’s Foreign Minister, Hans-Dietrich Genscher, stated publicly to the whole world, West Germany’s initial offer to the Soviet Union’s President Mikhail Gorbachev, and this offer did not include a simultaneous termination of both military alliances — the Soviets’ Warsaw Pact and America’s NATO — but instead only a promise that NATO would never absorb any additional territory, especially to the east of West Germany (and this publicly made promise was never kept). So: right from the get-go, there was no actual termination of the Cold War that was being proposed by the U.S. group, but only an arrangement that wouldn’t threaten Russia more than the then-existing split Germany did (and yet even that promise turned out to have been a lie):

“This U.S. Embassy Bonn cable reporting back to Washington details both of Hans-Dietrich Genscher’s proposals – that NATO would not expand to the east, and that the former territory of the GDR in a unified Germany would be treated differently from other NATO territory.”

“The U.S. State Department’s subsequent view of the German unification negotiations, expressed in a 1996 cable sent to all posts, mistakenly asserts that the entire negotiation over the future of Germany limited its discussion of the future of NATO to the specific arrangements over the territory of the former GDR.” [The National Security Archives’ calling that Bill-Clinton-era State Department cable ‘mistaken’ is unsupported by, and even contradicted by, the evidence they actually present from the February 1990 negotiations.]

“This concise note to President Bush from one of the Cold War’s architects, Paul Nitze (based at his namesake Johns Hopkins University School of International Studies), captures the debate over the future of NATO in early 1990. Nitze relates that Central and Eastern European leaders attending the ‘Forum for Germany’ conference in Berlin were advocating the dissolution of both the superpower blocs, NATO and the Warsaw Pact, until he (and a few western Europeans) turned around that view and instead emphasized the importance of NATO as the basis of stability and U.S. presence in Europe.”

“Baker tells the Soviet foreign minister, ‘A neutral Germany would undoubtedly acquire its own independent nuclear capability. However, a Germany that is firmly anchored in a changed NATO, by that I mean a NATO that is far less of [a] military organization, much more of a political one, would have no need for independent capability. There would, of course, have to be iron-clad guarantees that NATO’s jurisdiction or forces would not move eastward.’”

“Even with (unjustified) redactions by U.S. classification officers, this American transcript of perhaps the most famous U.S. assurance to the Soviets on NATO expansion confirms the Soviet transcript of the same conversation. Repeating what Bush said at the Malta summit in December 1989, Baker tells Gorbachev: ‘The President and I have made clear that we seek no unilateral advantage in this process’ of inevitable German unification. Baker goes on to say, ‘We understand the need for assurances to the countries in the East. If we maintain a presence in a Germany that is a part of NATO, there would be no extension of NATO’s jurisdiction for forces of NATO one inch to the east.’”

“The key exchange takes place when Baker asks whether Gorbachev would prefer ‘a united Germany outside of NATO, absolutely independent and without American troops; or a united Germany keeping its connections with NATO, but with the guarantee that NATO’s jurisdiction or troops will not spread east of the present boundary.’ … Turning to German unification, Baker assures Gorbachev that ‘neither the president nor I intend to extract any unilateral advantages from the processes that are taking place,’ and that the Americans understand the importance for the USSR and Europe of guarantees that ‘not an inch of NATO’s present military jurisdiction will spread in an eastern direction.’”

“This conversation is especially important because subsequent researchers have speculated that Secretary Baker may have been speaking beyond his brief in his ‘not one inch eastward’ conversation with Gorbachev. Robert Gates, the former top CIA intelligence analyst and a specialist on the USSR, here tells his kind-of-counterpart, the head of the KGB, in his office at the Lubyanka KGB headquarters, exactly what Baker told Gorbachev that day at the Kremlin: not one inch eastward. At that point, Gates was the top deputy to the president’s national security adviser, Gen. Brent Scowcroft, so this document speaks to a coordinated approach by the U.S. government to Gorbachev.”

“Baker especially remarks on Gorbachev’s noncommittal response to the question about a neutral Germany versus a NATO Germany with pledges against eastward expansion.”

“Prepared by Baker’s letter and his own foreign minister’s Tutzing formula, Kohl early in the conversation assures Gorbachev, ‘We believe that NATO should not expand the sphere of its activity. We have to find a reasonable resolution. I correctly understand the security interests of the Soviet Union, and I realize that you, Mr. General Secretary, and the Soviet leadership will have to clearly explain what is happening to the Soviet people.’ Later the two leaders tussle about NATO and the Warsaw Pact, with Gorbachev commenting, ‘They say what is NATO without the FRG. But we could also ask: What is the WTO without the GDR?’ When Kohl disagrees, Gorbachev calls merely for ‘reasonable solutions that do not poison the atmosphere in our relations’ and says this part of the conversation should not be made public.”

“Notes from the first days of the conference are very brief, but they contain one important line that shows that Baker offered the same assurance formula in Ottawa as he did in Moscow: ‘And if U[nited] G[ermany] stays in NATO, we should take care about nonexpansion of its jurisdiction to the East.’”

“This diary entry is evidence, from a critical perspective, that the United States and West Germany did give Moscow concrete assurances about keeping NATO to its current size and scope. In fact, the diary further indicates that at least in Shevardnadze’s view those assurances amounted to a deal – which Gorbachev accepted.”

“Stepanov-Mamaladze describes difficult negotiations about the exact wording on the joint statement. … ‘During the day, active games were taking place between all of them. E.A. [Shevardnadze] met with Baker five times, twice with Genscher, talked with Fischer [GDR foreign minister], Dumas [French foreign minister], and the ministers of the ATS countries,’ and finally, the text of the settlement was settled.”

“The American fear was that the West Germans would make their own deal with Moscow for rapid unification, giving up some of the bottom lines for the U.S., mainly membership in NATO.”

“Bush took the opportunity to lecture the Czech leader about the value of NATO and its essential role as the basis for the U.S. presence in Europe.”

“Bush’s request to Havel to pass the message to Gorbachev that the Americans support him personally, and that ‘We will not conduct ourselves in the wrong way by saying “we win, you lose.” Emphasizing the point, Bush says, ‘tell Gorbachev that … I asked you to tell Gorbachev that we will not conduct ourselves regarding Czechoslovakia or any other country in a way that would complicate the problems he has so frankly discussed with me.’ The Czechoslovak leader adds his own caution to the Americans about how to proceed with the unification of Germany and address Soviet insecurities. Havel remarks to Bush, ‘It is a question of prestige.’”

[I think that Havel was deceived to believe that “prestige” was the issue here. This is what the U.S. team wanted the Soviet team to think was the U.S. team’s chief motivation for wanting NATO to continue. But subsequent historical events, especially the U.S. team’s proceeding under President Bill Clinton and up through Donald Trump to expand NATO to include, by now, virtually all of the Warsaw Pact and of the Soviet Union itself except for Russia, in NATO, proves that U.S. aggression against Russia has been the U.S. aim from the start, and the U.S. Government has been working assiduously at this plan for ultimate conquest. I think that Havel’s use there of the word “prestige” was very revealing of the total snookering of Gorbachev that Bush achieved. Gorbachev and his team trusted the U.S. side. Russia has paid dearly for that. If the U.S. side continues and NATO isn’t voluntarily terminated by the U.S. Government, then WW III will be the inevitable result. NATO will end either after the ‘conquest’ of Russia or before that WW-III ‘conquest’ (likelier to be actually destruction of the entire world) even happens. The world, today, will decide which. NATO should have ended in 1991, when the Soviet Union and its Warsaw Pact did.]

“The Bush administration’s main worry about German unification as the process accelerated in February 1990 was that the West Germans might make their own deal bilaterally with the Soviets (see Document 11) and might be willing to bargain away NATO membership. … The German chancellor arrives at Camp David without [West German Foreign Minister] Genscher because the latter does not entirely share the Bush-Kohl position on full German membership in NATO, and he recently angered both leaders by speaking publicly about the CSCE as the future European security mechanism.[11] … Bush’s priority is to keep the U.S. presence, especially the nuclear umbrella, in Europe: ‘if U.S. nuclear forces are withdrawn from Germany, I don’t see how we can persuade any other ally on the continent to retain these weapons.’ … [Bush wanted Lockheed and other U.S. weapons-makers to continue booming after the Cold War ‘ended’ — not for the nuclear-weapons market to end. Bush continued:] ‘We have weird thinking in our Congress today, ideas like this peace dividend. We can’t do that in these uncertain times.’ [For the U.S. team, ‘perpetual war for perpetual peace’ would be the way forward; a ‘peace dividend’ was the last thing they wanted — ever.] … At one point in the conversation, Bush seems to view his Soviet counterpart not as a partner but as a defeated enemy. Referring to talk in some Soviet quarters against Germany staying in NATO, he says: ‘To hell with that. We prevailed and they didn’t. We cannot let the Soviets clutch victory from the jaws of defeat.’” [I earlier had placed that crucial secret statement from Bush into historical perspective, under the headline, “How America Double-Crossed Russia and Shamed the West”.] 

“Shevardnadze mentions the upcoming CSCE summit and the Soviet expectation that it will discuss the new European security structures. Bush does not contradict this but ties it to the issues of the U.S. presence in Europe and German unification in NATO. He declares that he wants to ‘contribute to stability and to the creation of a Europe whole and free, or as you call it, a common European home. A[n] idea that is very close to our own.’ The Soviets — wrongly — interpret this as a declaration that the U.S. administration shares Gorbachev’s idea.”

“Ambassador Braithwaite’s telegram summarizes the meeting between Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs Douglas Hurd and President Gorbachev, noting Gorbachev’s ‘expansive mood.’ Gorbachev asks the secretary to pass his appreciation for Margaret Thatcher’s letter to him after her summit with Kohl, at which, according to Gorbachev, she followed the lines of policy Gorbachev and Thatcher discussed in their recent phone call, on the basis of which the Soviet leader concluded that ‘the British and Soviet positions were very close indeed.’”

“This memorandum from the Central Committee’s most senior expert on Germany sounds like a wake-up call for Gorbachev. Falin puts it in blunt terms: while Soviet European policy has fallen into inactivity and even ‘depression after the March 18 elections in East Germany, and Gorbachev himself has let Kohl speed up the process of unification, his compromises on Germany in NATO can only lead to the slipping away of his main goal for Europe – the common European home. ‘Summing up the past six months, one has to conclude that the “common European home,” which used to be a concrete task the countries of the continent were starting to implement, is now turning into a mirage.’ While the West is sweet-talking Gorbachev into accepting German unification in NATO, Falin notes (correctly) that ‘the Western states are already violating the consensus principle by making preliminary agreements among themselves’ regarding German unification and the future of Europe that do not include a ‘long phase of constructive development.’ He notes the West’s ‘intensive cultivation of not only NATO but also our Warsaw Pact allies’ with the goal to isolate the USSR. … He also suggests using arms control negotiations in Vienna and Geneva as leverage if the West keeps taking advantage of Soviet flexibility. … The main idea of the memo is to warn Gorbachev not to be naive about the intentions of his American partners: ‘The West is outplaying us, promising to respect the interests of the USSR, but in practice, step by step, separating us from “traditional Europe”.’”

“Baker reports, ‘I also used your speech and our recognition of the need to adapt NATO, politically and militarily, and to develop CSCE to reassure Shevardnadze that the process would not yield winners and losers. Instead, it would produce a new legitimate European structure – one that would be inclusive, not exclusive.’”

“When Gorbachev mentions the need to build new security structures to replace the blocs, Baker lets slip a personal reaction that reveals much about the real U.S. position on the subject: ‘It’s nice to talk about pan-European security structures, the role of the CSCE. It is a wonderful dream, but just a dream. In the meantime, NATO exists. …’ Gorbachev suggests that if the U.S. side insists on Germany in NATO, then he would ‘announce publicly that we want to join NATO too.’ Shevardnadze goes further, offering a prophetic observation: ‘if united Germany becomes a member of NATO, it will blow up perestroika. Our people will not forgive us. People will say that we ended up the losers, not the winners.’”

“[Miterrand] implies that NATO is not the key issue now and could be drowned out in further negotiations; rather, the important thing is to ensure Soviet participation in new European security system. He repeats that he is ‘personally in favor of gradually dismantling the military blocs.’ Gorbachev expresses his wariness and suspicion about U.S. effort to ‘perpetuate NATO’.” [This was extraordinary documentation that the U.S. team had deceived Gorbachev to think that they were trying to suggest to him that both military alliances — NATO and Warsaw Pact — would be ended, but that Gorbachev was “wary” and “suspicious” that maybe they didn’t really mean it. Stunning.]

True to his word, Mitterrand writes a letter to George Bush describing Gorbachev’s predicament on the issue of German unification in NATO, calling it genuine, not ‘fake or tactical.’ He warns the American president against doing it as a fait accompli without Gorbachev’s consent implying that Gorbachev might retaliate on arms control (exactly what Mitterrand himself – and Falin earlier – suggested in his conversation). Mitterrand argues in favor of a formal ‘peace settlement in International law,’and informs Bush that in his conversation with Gorbachev he “‘indicated that, on the Western side, we would certainly not refuse to detail the guarantees that he would have a right to expect for his country’s security.’”

“Baker repeats the nine assurances made previously by the administration, including that the United States now agrees to support the pan-European process and transformation of NATO in order to remove the Soviet perception of threat. Gorbachev’s preferred position is Germany with one foot in both NATO and the Warsaw Pact — the ‘two anchors’ — creating a kind of associated membership. Baker intervenes, saying that ‘the simultaneous obligations of one and the same country toward the WTO and NATO smack of schizophrenia.’ After the U.S. president frames the issue in the context of the Helsinki agreement, Gorbachev proposes that the German people have the right to choose their alliance — which he in essence already affirmed to Kohl during their meeting in February 1990. Here, Gorbachev significantly exceeds his brief, and incurs the ire of other members of his delegation, especially the official with the German portfolio, Valentin Falin, and Marshal Sergey Akhromeyev. Gorbachev issues a key warning about the future: ‘If the Soviet people get an impression that we are disregarded in the German question, then all the positive processes in Europe, including the negotiations in Vienna [over conventional forces], would be in serious danger. This is not just bluffing. It is simply that the people will force us to stop and to look around.’ It is a remarkable admission about domestic political pressures from the last Soviet leader.”

“Gorbachev says he wants to ‘be completely frank with the Prime Minister’ that if the processes were to become one-sided, ‘there could be a very difficult situation [and the] Soviet Union would feel its security in jeopardy.’ Thatcher responds firmly that it was in nobody’s interest to put Soviet security in jeopardy: ‘we must find ways to give the Soviet Union confidence that its security would be assured.’”

“This key conversation between Chancellor Kohl and President Gorbachev sets the final parameters for German unification. Kohl talks repeatedly about the new era of relations between a united Germany and the Soviet Union, and how this relationship would contribute to European stability and security. Gorbachev demands assurances on non-expansion of NATO: ‘We must talk about the nonproliferation of NATO military structures to the territory of the GDR, and maintaining Soviet troops there for a certain transition period.’ The Soviet leader notes earlier in the conversation that NATO has already begun transforming itself. For him, the pledge of NATO non-expansion to the territory of the GDR in spirit means that NATO would not take advantage of the Soviet willingness to compromise on Germany.”

[Of course, Gorbachev never knew that Bush had instructed his agents, on the night of 24 February 1990, “To hell with that. We prevailed and they didn’t. We cannot let the Soviets clutch victory from the jaws of defeat,” indicating that for the U.S. aristocracy, conquest of an isolated Russia was the actual ultimate aim — there would be no actual end of the Cold War until the U.S. would conquer Russia itself — grab the whole thing. Gorbachev was, it is now absolutely undeniable, conned.]

“In this phone call, Bush expands on Kohl’s security assurances and reinforces the message from the London Declaration: ‘So what we tried to do was to take account of your concerns expressed to me and others, and we did it in the following ways: by our joint declaration on non-aggression; in our invitation to you to come to NATO; in our agreement to open NATO to regular diplomatic contact with your government and those of the Eastern European countries; and our offer on assurances on the future size of the armed forces of a united Germany – an issue I know you discussed with Helmut Kohl. We also fundamentally changed our military approach on conventional and nuclear forces. We conveyed the idea of an expanded, stronger CSCE with new institutions in which the USSR can share and be part of the new Europe.’”

“the agreed text of the final treaty on German unification. The treaty codified what Bush had earlier offered to Gorbachev – ‘special military status’ for the former GDR territory. At the last minute, British and American concerns that the language would restrict emergency NATO troop movements there forced the inclusion of a ‘minute’ that left it up to the newly unified and sovereign Germany what the meaning of the word ‘deployed’ should be. Kohl had committed to Gorbachev that only German NATO troops would be allowed on that territory after the Soviets left, and Germany stuck to that commitment, even though the ‘minute’ was meant to allow other NATO troops to traverse or exercise there at least temporarily. Subsequently, Gorbachev aides such as Pavel Palazhshenko would point to the treaty language to argue that NATO expansion violated the ‘spirit’ of this Final Settlement treaty.”

[Obviously, now, it was no “Final Settlement” at all.]

“Joint Chiefs and other agencies, posits that ‘[a] potential Soviet threat remains and constitutes one basic justification for the continuance of NATO.’ At the same time, in the discussion of potential East European membership in NATO, the review suggests that ‘In the current environment, it is not in the best interest of NATO or of the U.S. that these states be granted full NATO membership and its security guarantees.’ The United States does not ‘wish to organize an anti-Soviet coalition whose frontier is the Soviet border’ – not least because of the negative impact this might have on reforms in the USSR. NATO liaison offices would do for the present time, the group concluded, but the relationship will develop in the future. In the absence of the Cold War confrontation, NATO ‘out of area’ functions will have to be redefined.” [Clearly, they wanted the revolving door to land them in high-paid positions supported by U.S. weapons-making corporations, not just in retirements with only military pensions. Or else, they just loved war and, like Bush, didn’t want there to be any “peace dividend.”] 

“This concise memorandum comes from the State Department’s European Bureau as a cover note for briefing papers for a scheduled October 29, 1990 meeting on the issues of NATO expansion and European defense cooperation with NATO. Most important is the document’s summary of the internal debate within the Bush administration, primarily between the Defense Department (specifically the Office of the Secretary of Defense, Dick Cheney) and the State Department. On the issue of NATO expansion, OSD ‘wishes to leave the door ajar’ while State ‘prefers simply to note that discussion of expanding membership is not on the agenda….’ The Bush administration effectively adopts State’s view in its public statements, yet the Defense view would prevail in the next administration.”

[This allegation, by the National Security Archives, fundamentally misrepresents, by its underlying assumption that the Bush Administration’s statements such as that NATO would move “not one inch to the east” weren’t lies but instead reflected Bush’s actual intention. They ignore altogether Bush’s having secretly told his vassals on the crucial night of 24 February 1990, “To hell with that. We prevailed and they didn’t. We cannot let the Soviets clutch victory from the jaws of defeat.” Gorbachev believed that this was to be a win-win game; but, the U.S. side were now under secret instructions that it’s to be purely more of the win-lose game, and that now a lone Russia would end up being its ultimate loser. The despicable statement by the National Security Archives, “yet the Defense view would prevail in the next administration,” presumes that it didn’t actually already ‘prevail’ in the Bush Administration itself. It prevailed actually in George Herbert Walker Bush himself, and not only in his Defense Department. Bush brilliantly took advantage of Gorbachev’s decency and expectation that Bush, like himself, was decent. Bush lied — and his team and their successors ever since have been carrying out his vicious plan. The National Security Archives downplays to insignificance Bush’s crucial instruction to his people, “To hell with that. We prevailed and they didn’t. We cannot let the Soviets clutch victory from the jaws of defeat.” That statement, at that crucial moment, is what enables us to understand what was actually going on throughout these negotiations. The Archives’ blaming only Bill Clinton and the other Presidents after Bush is a despicable lie. And it wasn’t just “the Defense view” — Cheney — who prevailed within the Bush Administration there. Cheney, like Baker, were doing what GHW Bush had hired them to do. Baker’s job was to lie. If it weren’t, then he’d have told Gorbachev the next day not to trust what the Bush team were saying, but instead to demand everything to be put in writing in the final document, and to assume the worst regarding anything that the Bush team were refusing to put in writing in the final document. Baker was a lawyer, and a very skilled liar, who was just doing his job for Bush. For some inexplicable reason, the National Security Archives simply assumes otherwise.]

“British Ambassador Rodric Braithwaite was present for a number of the assurances given to Soviet leaders in 1990 and 1991 about NATO expansion. Here, Braithwaite in his diary describes a meeting between British Prime Minister John Major and Soviet military officials, led by Minister of Defense Marshal Dmitry Yazov. The meeting took place during Major’s visit to Moscow and right after his one-on-one with President Gorbachev. During the meeting with Major, Gorbachev had raised his concerns about the new NATO dynamics: ‘Against the background of favorable processes in Europe, I suddenly start receiving information that certain circles intend to go on further strengthening NATO as the main security instrument in Europe. Previously they talked about changing the nature of NATO, about transformation of the existing military-political blocs into pan-European structures and security mechanisms. And now suddenly again [they are talking about] a special peace-keeping role of NATO. They are talking again about NATO as the cornerstone. This does not sound complementary to the common European home that we have started to build.’ Major responded: ‘I believe that your thoughts about the role of NATO in the current situation are the result of misunderstanding. We are not talking about strengthening of NATO.’”

“These memcons from April 1991 provide the bookends for the ‘education of Vaclav Havel’ on NATO (see Documents 12-1 and 12-2 above). U.S. Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Paul Wolfowitz included these memcons in his report to the NSC and the State Department about his attendance at a conference in Prague on ‘The Future of European Security,’ on April 24-27, 1991. During the conference Wolfowitz had separate meetings with Havel and Minister of Defense Dobrovsky. In the conversation with Havel, Wolfowitz thanks him for his statements about the importance of NATO and US troops in Europe. … In conversation with Dobrovsky, Wolfowitz remarks that ‘the very existence of NATO was in doubt a year ago.’“

“This document is important for describing the clear message in 1991 from the highest levels of NATO – Secretary General Manfred Woerner – that NATO expansion was not happening. The audience was a Russian Supreme Soviet delegation, which in this memo was reporting back to Boris Yeltsin (who in June had been elected president of the Russian republic, largest in the Soviet Union), but no doubt Gorbachev and his aides were hearing the same assurance at that time. The emerging Russian security establishment was already worried about the possibility of NATO expansion, so in June 1991 this delegation visited Brussels to meet NATO’s leadership, hear their views about the future of NATO, and share Russian concerns. Woerner had given a well-regarded speech in Brussels in May 1990 in which he argued: ‘The principal task of the next decade will be to build a new European security structure, to include the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact nations. The Soviet Union will have an important role to play in the construction of such a system. If you consider the current predicament of the Soviet Union, which has practically no allies left, then you can understand its justified wish not to be forced out of Europe.’ Now in mid-1991, Woerner responds to the Russians by stating that he personally and the NATO Council are both against expansion — ’13 out of 16 NATO members share this point of view’ — and that he will speak against Poland’s and Romania’s membership in NATO to those countries’ leaders as he has already done with leaders of Hungary and Czechoslovakia.”

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.

This article was originally published by Strategic Culture Foundation.

Featured image is from SCF.

Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East (CJPME) condemns the Trudeau government’s decision to abstain in today’s UN General Assembly (UNGA) Resolution A/ES-10/L.22. The resolution demanded that “all States comply with Security Council resolutions regarding the Holy City of Jerusalem, and not recognize any actions or measures contrary to those resolutions.” Like most Canadians, CJPME considers this UNGA demand to be reasonable and in line with Canada’s supposed wish to support international law and a negotiated two-state solution between Israel and the Palestinians.

“Today’s vote seems to demonstrate that there is little ‘principle’ in the Trudeau government’s decision-making on Israel-Palestine,” announced Thomas Woodley, President of CJPME. “The abstention in this vote makes clear that Canada’s policies vis-à-vis Israel are driven entire by political expediency,” continued Woodley.

A Foreign Affairs spokesperson suggested that the resolution was “one-sided and [did] not advance prospects for peace to which we aspire, which is why [Canada has] abstained on today’s vote.” Yet CJPME points out that the resolution was actually an initiative to instill respect for the peace process and past diplomatic precedent.

Today’s UNGA resolution affirmed that “any decisions and actions which purport to have altered the character, status or demographic composition of the Holy City of Jerusalem have no legal effect, are null and void and must be rescinded in compliance with relevant resolutions of the Security Council.” CJPME again points out that long-standing Canadian policy has been to defer final status decisions on Jerusalem to a negotiations process. That Canada would be mum on this most recent turn of events is upsetting, and contradicts many of the Trudeau and Harper government platitudes in support of negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians.

In a disturbing development for international independence, US President Trump also threatened aid repercussions against countries which supported the resolution: a de facto condemnation of the US recognition of Jerusalem. And indeed, it is clear that many countries abstained or didn’t vote out of fear of repercussions from the US. Yet CJPME applauds the many Canadian allies in Europe who voted in support of the resolution, including the UK, France, Italy and Germany. Russia and China also supported the resolution.

VISIT MY NEW WEB SITE: 

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Though symbolic only, rejection of Trump’s Jerusalem declaration by an overwhelming majority of UN member states gave his administration and Israel a black eye – two rogue states, partnering in high crimes, spurning fundamental Palestinian rights.

US strategy to get its way includes heavy-handed pressure, bullying, threats, other forms of intimidation and bribery – more sinister tactics used when these fail.

Notably 8 of the 10 largest recipients of US aid rejected Trump’s Jerusalem declaration in Thursday’s UN vote – Afghanistan, Egypt, Ethiopia, Jordan, Nigeria, Pakistan, South Africa and Tanzania.

Neocon US UN envoy Nikki Haley threatened UN member states, warning Washington won’t stand for being “disrespected.”

“The United States will remember this day,” she said. It’ll “remember” when asked to fulfill its funding obligation for the world body.

Washington provides around 22% of its budget, about 28% for peacekeeping operations – paramilitarism to exert control, usually doing more harm than good, harming ordinary people where deployed, not helping them.

Haley’s threat and Trump’s to cut off aid for countries opposing his Jerusalem declaration didn’t deter an overwhelming majority of UN member states from rejecting it – handing his administration a resounding defeat.

Sergey Lavrov said

“(i)t goes without saying that at this stage we are rather alarmed over the situation around Jerusalem,” adding:

Russia’s position is clear. “We will be doing all we can with the aim to return the situation to the constructive track, which would promote the beginning of negotiations (between both sides of the conflict), and to ensure no party take unilateral steps predetermining a final settlement” – including about the status of Jerusalem.

China’s Global Times said

“(t)he world pa(id) witness to historic display of US arrogance” at the UN on Thursday, adding:

“The most influential countries in the world other than the US including Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, major members of the EU, Japan and South Korea all voted in favor of the resolution. All Islamic countries voted in favor including Egypt, a major recipient of US aid.”

In a message to Christians during the Christmas holiday period, Mahmoud Abbas said

“(i)t is because of (Trump’s decision) to support illegality and the blatant violations of our rights, that we will not accept the US as the mediator in the peace process, nor are we going to accept any plan from the US side.”

Separately, an unnamed senior PA official said there’s been an almost total disconnect between the Trump administration and the Palestinian people.

By email, former PLO legal advisor Francis Boyle said

“vot(ing) under a special ‘United for Peace’ procedure g(ave)” the result “greater legal force,” explaining the following:

In its 1962 Certain Expenses Advisory Opinion, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) “upheld the legality of the Uniting for Peace Resolution,” Boyle adding:

“Recognition of Israel’s annexation of Jerusalem violates the US government’s own longstanding Stimson Doctrine (1932), which forbids recognition of any legal consequences as a result of the use of force.”

Separately, Boyle called Trump’s National Security Strategy a doctrine of “unlimited imperialism,” continuing what his predecessors began in the 19th century, adding:

“Trump is just another White Racist Iron Fist for Judeo-Christian US Imperialism and Capitalism, smashing…the world” – his Jerusalem declaration one of many outrageous actions.

Boyle quoted “his teacher, mentor and friend” Hans Morgenthau from his seminal book, titled “Politics Among Nations,” saying:

“The outstanding historic examples of unlimited imperialism are the expansionist policies of Alexander the Great, Rome, the Arabs in the seventh and eighth centuries, Napoleon I, and Hitler.”

“They all have in common an urge toward expansion which knows no rational limits, feeds on its own successes and, if not stopped by a superior force, will go on to the confines of the political world.”

“This urge will not be satisfied so long as there remains anywhere a possible object of domination – a politically organized group of men which by its very independence challenges the conqueror’s lust for power.”

“It is…exactly the lack of moderation, the aspiration to conquer all that lends itself to conquest, characteristic of unlimited imperialism, which in the past has been the undoing of the imperialistic policies of this kind…”

America is history’s latest imperial state, aiming for global conquest and control, wanting all nations subservient to its will, Sino/Russian unity its main challenge.

Its strategy will fail like all previous imperial powers, their hubris and arrogance undoing them.

The major difference between earlier and now is today’s super-weapons, able to end life on earth if used to achieve US goals.

Is global nuclear war inevitable? Boyle commented ominously, saying

“(t)he factual circumstances surrounding the outbreaks of both the First World War and the Second World War currently hover like twin Swords of Damocles over the heads of all humanity.”

The unthinkable is ominously possible.

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

‘Drain the swamp’ was a popular Donald Trump campaign slogan that referred to reducing the influence of Washington lobbyists. While the three words reflect an extreme lack of ecological consciousness — wetlands need to be protected and recreated, not destroyed — the image of politicians slogging their way through lobbyist infected, tangled, dense vegetation and deep oozing mud is a useful one.

Like the US capital, much of Ottawa was also built on mosquitoes’ favourite habitat and both cities today have an ongoing pest problem: blood sucking influence peddlers swarming the countries’ decision makers. That image helps explain why there is little deviation from Canada’s official foreign policy positions even amongst social democratic members of Parliament.

The recently re-established Canada-Palestine Parliamentary Friendship Group (CPPFG) offers a window into the dearth of opposition, notably from the NDP, to the foreign policy establishment. Chaired by Liberal MP Marwan Tabbara, CPPFG has nine MPs representing all the parties in the House of Commons except the Conservatives. But, CPPFG isn’t one of 17 official parliamentary associations or groups so it doesn’t receive public financial or administrative support, unlike the Canada-Israel Interparliamentary group.

In an equitable world the Palestinian parliamentary group — not the Israeli one — would be subsidized to offer MPs a counterpoint to Canada’s pro-Israel ideological climate. Supporters of Israel have established a slew of programs at high schools and universities, as well as media ‘flak’ organizations and advocacy groups, to promote that country’s viewpoint. Additionally, the dominant media favours the Israeli perspective and the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs is among the most aggressive lobbyists on Parliament Hill so MPs are not lacking for access to this outlook.

The Israel vs. Palestine parliamentarian bodies offer a unique window into how international power relations are reflected in House of Commons associations. But, the parliamentary association system more broadly reflects inequities in global power and wealth.

Nearly half the 17 associations that share a $4.5 million public envelope are focused on Europe. There is a Canada-Europe Parliamentary Association and an associated Canadian Delegation to the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe Parliamentary Assembly as well as country-specific groups for France, Germany, Italy, Ireland and the United Kingdom. Alongside Canada’s European G7 allies, there are Japan and US parliamentary associations.

Though it is a competitor to the US-led geopolitical order, China’s economic might warrants a parliamentary group. There are also associations promoting the Francophone and Commonwealth, which are rooted in European colonialism (previously it was called the Empire Parliamentary Association).

The only two associations focused on the Global South are the Canadian Section of ParlAmericas Bilateral Associations, representing 35 countries in the Western hemisphere, and the Canada-Africa Parliamentary Association, representing 53 countries on the continent. (As is usual with Africa-related bodies, that association’s mission statement includes ‘benevolent Canada’ paternalism. It says “Canadian parliamentarians also have the opportunity to witness the local impact of programs funded by the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) and to learn about Canada’s efforts in Africa from Canadian officials in the field.”)

There is no Cuba or Venezuela parliamentary association. Nor are there any focused on 1.3 billion Indians or 180 million Nigerians or a parliamentary association devoted to the counterhegemonic Non-Aligned Movement or ALBA (Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America).

Another way the Ottawa swamp forms MPs’ international views is through events and parties put on by diplomats. In The Blaikie Report long time NDP defence and foreign critic Bill Blaikie describes “enjoying many fine evenings” at the home of the British High Commissioner. Wealthier countries are more likely to have representation in Ottawa and have greater capacity to organize events promoting their country’s international positions.

Sometimes connected to diplomatic postings in the capital, MPs regularly travel on international trips organized and paid for by third parties. While the Globe and Mail has recently devoted significant attention to China sponsored trips, Israel and Taiwan have long been the principal destinations. A 2014 calculation found that a quarter of all federal MPs had been to Israel with an Israeli nationalist organization.

Opposition MPs are absorbed into the foreign policy establishment in other ways. At the start of year B.C. NDP MP Wayne Stetski participated in a House of Commons Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development mission to Ukraine, Latvia, Poland and Kazakhstan while last month Tom Mulcair went on a Committee mission to Beijing, Hong Kong, Hanoi and Jakarta. Last year NDP foreign critic Hélène Laverdière traveled to Israel with representatives of the other parties and in 2014 then NDP foreign critic Paul Dewar joined foreign minister John Baird and Liberal MP Marc Garneau on a visit to Iraq. Global Affairs Canada and diplomats in the field usually organize these visits.

The Canadian Group of the Inter-Parliamentary Union and the Canadian NATO Parliamentary Association are the final officially recognized parliamentary associations. A presentation at a NATO meeting convinced Bill Blaikie to support the organization’s bombing of the former Yugoslavia in 1999.

“I myself”, Blaikie writes, “had been affected by the presentation at a 1998 NATO parliamentary meeting in Barcelona of an Albanian woman from Kosovo, who tearfully pleaded for an intervention to stop the anticipated wholesale slaughter of Kosovar Albanians.”

No official parliamentary association is devoted to de-militarization.

Beyond the NATO Parliamentary Association, MPs are drawn into the military’s orbit in a variety of other ways. Military officials regularly brief MPs. Additionally, the slew of ‘arms length’ military organizations/think tanks I detail in A Propaganda System: How Government, Corporations, Media and Academia Sell War and Exploitation speak at defence and international affairs committee meetings.

The Canadian Forces Parliamentary Program is, according to the Globe and Mail, a “valuable public-relations tool.” Set up by the Department of National Defence’s Director of External Communications and Public Relations in 2000, the Parliamentary Program embeds MPs in military training (Army in Action or Experience the Navy). According to the Canadian Parliamentary Review, the MPs “learn how the equipment works, they train with the troops, and they deploy with their units on operations. Parliamentarians are integrated into the unit by wearing the same uniform, living on bases, eating in messes, using CF facilities and equipment.” As part of the program, the military even flew MPsto the Persian Gulf to join a naval vessel on patrol.

Alongside the military, the arms industry lobbies MPs. Lockheed Martin’s name appeared 39 times in a “12-Month Lobbying Activity Search” of the Office of the Commissioner of Lobbying of Canada. CAE, General Dynamics, Raytheon, BAE and Airbus Defence were also listed dozens of times in the lobbyist registry. The Canadian Association of Defence and Security Industries has four registered lobbyists in Ottawa. Many of CADSI’s 800 members are also part of the Canadian Manufacturers & Exporters, Council of Chief Executives, Canadian Chamber of Commerce or Aerospace Industries Association of Canada. These groups also promote militarism and a pro-US foreign policy to government officials, though rarely do they speak in favour of withdrawing from military alliances or bucking Washington on an international issue.

Other corporations with international interests also have a significant presence on Parliament Hill. In a high-profile example, registered lobbyists representing Barrick Gold, Vale Canada, IAMGOLD, Goldcorp, Mining Association of Canada and Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada launched a ferocious campaign in 2010 to derail An Act Respecting Corporate Accountability for the Activities of Mining, Oil or Gas Corporations in Developing Countries (Bill C300), which would have restricted some public support for firms found responsible for significant abuses abroad.

Canada’s international banking, engineering, oil, etc. firms also shape attitudes in Ottawa. SNC Lavalin, CIBC, Bombardier and other Canadian-based multinationals’ names appear repeatedly in a “12-Month Lobbying Activity Search”.

The corporate/military/Global Affairs nexus predominates on foreign policy because there is little in terms of a countervailing force in Ottawa. Non-Governmental Organizations are sometimes considered critics of Canadian foreign policy, but NGOs are not well placed to challenge the federal government. Reliance on government aid and charitable status hampers their political independence.

On many domestic issues organized labour represents a countervailing force to the corporate agenda or state policies. But, unions rarely lobby MPs on international affairs.

The influence peddlers in the Ottawa foreign policy swamp represent a narrow range of interests.

So how do Canadians who want this country to be a force for good in the world effect change? Step one is to understand the system, then challenge the foreign policy establishment’s grip in Ottawa.

Yves Engler is the author of A Propaganda System: How Canada’s Government, Corporations, Media and Academia Sell War and Canada in Africa: 300 years of aid and exploitation.

The last section of the new US National Security Strategy (NSS) describes the envisaged application of the Trump Doctrine in a regional context all across the world, and it’s worthwhile to examine what storylines will most likely be advanced by the policy document’s intrinsic infowar component. This analysis is divided according to the geographic categories contained in the NSS and proceeds along that order, after which a brief summary will be presented in highlighting the most discernable global trends.

Indo-Pacific

The US says that “a geopolitical competition between free and repressive visions of world order is taking place in the Indo-Pacific region” as China employs multifaceted influence strategies in a concerted effort to get regional states to follow its economic and political models. Although presented by China as being mutually beneficial, the NSS describes Beijing’s Silk Road relationships as being detrimental to its partners’ sovereignty. In response, Washington claims that “states throughout the region are calling for sustained U.S. leadership in a collective response that upholds a regional order respectful of sovereignty and independence”, which implies the creation of what the author has previously described as a ‘China Containment Coalition’ (CCC) to preserve the existing US-led unipolar system them. The suggested outcome of this initiative is the US’ “quadrilateral cooperation with Japan, Australia, and India”, with the latter once again being referred to as a “Major Defense Partner” whose “growing relationships throughout the region” will be supported by the US.

Elsewhere in the area, North Korea is identified as “a global threat that requires a global response”, later revealed in this section as being missile defense cooperation between the US, Japan, and South Korea towards the eventual aim of “an area defense capability”, one which was previously described in the document as “not intended to undermine strategic stability or disrupt longstanding strategic relationships with Russia or China.” Looking southwards, the US wants to “reenergize [its] alliances with the Philippines and ­Thailand and strengthen [its] partnerships with Singapore, Vietnam, Indonesia, Malaysia, and others to help them become cooperative maritime partners”, with it being inferred that “reenergizing” is a euphemism for “winning back” Manila and Bangkok. Altogether, the US plans to use ASEAN and APEC as regional institutions for advancing its geopolitical and economic interests, with the former probably seeing some of the ASEAN states become the US’ “Lead From Behind” partners in “containing China” while the latter will result in more bilateral trade deals.

EU

Russia is fear mongered as engaging in “subversive measures to weaken the credibility of America’s commitment to Europe, undermine transatlantic unity, and weaken European institutions and governments”, suggesting that any objective developments that even remotely hint at either of these three conclusions will be dismissed as ‘Russian propaganda’ and their messengers discredited as ‘Russian agents/trolls’. China is also mentioned in this section as having “gain[ed] a strategic foothold in Europe by expanding its unfair trade practices and investing in key industries, sensitive technologies, and infrastructure”, showing that the US is now paying attention to the progress that its 16+1 framework has made in the “Three Seas” region of Central and Eastern Europe and will likely go on the information offensive against it in the coming future.

Daesh and the Migrant Crisis are also listed as posing serious threats to the EU as well.

In reassuring the continent, the US says that its “European allies and partners increase [its] strategic reach and provide access to forward basing and overflight rights for global operations”, which explains the self-interested reason why Washington will evidently abide by its Article 5 commitment to NATO. It believes that deepening transatlantic collaboration is necessary to protect Europe from the aforementioned threats that were described, with military spending increases geared towards modernizing capacities and building a ‘missile defense shield’ to ‘protect’ against Russia, Iran, and even supposedly North Korea too, while US efforts to “contest China’s unfair trade and economic practices and restrict its acquisition of sensitive technologies” in the EU will probably mean that Junker’s September 2017 proposal for a “European Enabling Framework” ‘screening process’ will become a roadblock to Beijing’s plans.

Furthermore, the US wants to expand its energy exports to Europe, which might see it getting more involved in the activities of LNG terminal-hosting “Three Seas” states such as Croatia and thus setting the stage for a “Balkan Pivot” to more directly counter China there.

Middle East

Right off the bat, the US blames Iran for all of the region’s woes by stating that “the interconnected problems of Iranian expansion, state collapse, jihadist ideology, socio-economic stagnation, and regional rivalries have convulsed the Middle East”, accusing what it labels as “the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism” of “tak[ing] advantage of instability to expand its influence through partners and proxies, weapon proliferation, and funding” that oftentimes takes the form of Iran “develop[ing] more capable ballistic missiles and intelligence capabilities, and [undertaking in] malicious cyber activities.” Iran is painted as the ultimate evil in order to whitewash Israel, which the US attempts to unabashedly do in the passage where the authors write that “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.”

In fact, the NSS notes, “states have increasingly found common interests with Israel in confronting common threats”, in a nod to the de-facto alliance between the GCC and Israel against Iran. The US lists its chief objectives as strengthening cooperation with the GCC and what it describes as the “independent state” of Iraq, with the latter phrase hinting that Washington will work behind the scenes to counter Tehran’s influence in Baghdad. This presumption is apparently confirmed by the next passage where the US commits to “work[ing] with partners to…neutralize Iranian malign influence”, which again implies a similar “Lead From Behind” strategy just like it wants to employ in the Indo-Pacific.

Moreover, the US says that it will “seek a settlement to the Syrian civil war that sets the conditions for refugees to return home and rebuild their lives in safety”, signaling a step back from its previous regime change obsession and possibly opening the doors for a pragmatic ‘New Détente’ deal with Russia over this issue. In addition, the expected US commitment “to helping facilitate a comprehensive peace agreement that is acceptable to both Israelis and Palestinians” is reiterated in the text, though this is nothing more than rhetoric for distracting from the US’ determinedly pro-Israeli policies. Most interestingly, however, is the penultimate policy prescription that the US will “help (its) partners procure interoperable missile defense and other capabilities to better defend against active missile threats”, which demonstrates that its missile defense plans are indeed Eurasian-wide and stretch all across the EU-Mideast-Northeast Asian Rimland.

South And Central Asia

The US draws significant attention what it describes as Pakistan-based threats on multiple occasions, slyly speaking tongue-in-cheek when talking about the Pakistan that it’s supposedly seeking in order to indirectly accuse the Pakistan of today of embodying these said threats. For example, when the authors write that their country “seeks a Pakistan that is not engaged in destabilizing behavior…will press Pakistan to intensify its counterterrorism efforts, since no partnership can survive a country’s support for militants and terrorists who target a partner’s own service members and officials…(and) will also encourage Pakistan to continue demonstrating that it is a responsible steward of its nuclear assets”, it’s essentially saying that Pakistan is destabilizing the region, supporting anti-American militants and terrorists who target US forces in Afghanistan, and irresponsibly wielding nuclear weapons which might one day fall into the hands of the same terrorists that it’s accused of backing.

India, US, Japan annual Malabar naval drills

All of these hostile narratives against Pakistan explain why the US wants the world to think that “the prospect for an Indo-Pakistani military conflict [which] could lead to a nuclear exchange remains a key concern requiring consistent diplomatic attention”, as the thinly veiled inference is that Islamabad is solely responsible for this dangerous state of affairs. It’s predictable that Washington would weave such a one-sided storyline because it envisions New Delhi as its 21^st century partner for ‘containing China’, with its strategists writing that the US “will deepen [its] strategic partnership with India and support its leadership role in Indian Ocean security and throughout the broader region”.

Concerning Central Asia, the NSS says that the US “will encourage the economic integration of Central and South Asia to promote prosperity and economic linkages that will bolster connectivity and trade”, and since it’s improbable that this is an oblique statement of support for CPEC, the only realistic conclusion is that it’s an American endorsement for the Central Asian component of India’s Chabahar project. As even the most inexperienced observer would know, this port is based in Iran, so the US will have to work overtime in crafting a semi-cohesive explanation for why it doesn’t mind India working with Washington’s hated nemesis in Tehran, though the answer could probably be simplistically summed up as ‘realpolitik’ for ‘containing China’.

Another point to mention is that the US says that it “seeks Central Asian states that are resilient against domination by rival powers, are resistant to becoming jihadist safe havens, and prioritize reforms”, and that it “will work with the Central Asian states to guarantee access to the region to support [its] counterterrorism efforts.” Evidently, the US is aiming to exploit the new Daesh threat to the region that it helped transfer from “Syraq” to Afghanistan as an excuse for reestablishing the military partnerships that it used to have with Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan, possibly up to the point of once again basing its troops on their territory. While pretending that this is only in the interests of “counterterrorism efforts”, the real motivation would be to boost their “resilien[cy] against domination by rival powers”, or in other words, try to dislodge them from the joint Russian-Chinese multipolar orbit of the SCO.

Western Hemisphere

The US claims that “democratic states connected by shared values and economic interests will reduce the violence, drug trafficking, and illegal immigration that threaten [their] common security”, but in reality it’s only concerned about leveraging its economic connectivity with Latin American states to counter the three mentioned threats and doesn’t actually care too much about “democratic states” or “shared values”. After all, the US supports the Honduran government of Juan Orlando Hernandez despite the OAS requesting an electoral redo after the incumbent was suspected of stealing the election and then openly resorting to deadly force to suppress opposition protests against him. The Trump Administration’s visceral hatred of anything socialist is also on full display in condemning Cuba and Venezuela, which it believes have served as magnets for inviting Chinese and Russian influence into the region via economic and military means, respectively.

The NSS emphasizes the US’ “regional efforts to build security and prosperity through strong diplomatic engagement” and its desire to “isolate governments that refuse to act as responsible partners in advancing hemispheric peace and prosperity”, suggesting that the incipient anti-Venezuelan coalition model that’s forming could be replicated against the similarly multipolar-aligned ALBA states of Bolivia and Nicaragua due to their socialist ideals and in the event that they forcibly react against any forthcoming Hybrid War provocations against them. The declaration that the US “will encourage further market-based economic reforms and encourage transparency to create conditions for sustained prosperity” adds credence to the claims that it will probably expand its “Operation Condor 2.0” unconventional campaign of restoring its hegemonic hemispheric influence against those states and possibly other ones as well.

US President Donald Trump attends a working dinner with Latin American leaders in New York

On the economic front, the document says that the US “will modernize [its] trade agreements and deepen [its] economic ties with the region and ensure that trade is fair and reciprocal”, which is just a reaffirmation of Trump’s well-known intent to renegotiate NAFTA, but which could also extend to the US’ other hemispheric multilateral trade deal of CAFTA-DR and the bilateral ones that it has with Chile, Colombia, and Peru (the latter three of which plus NAFTA-member Mexico constitute the four states of the Pacific Alliance trading bloc). The phrasing about “deepening economic ties with the region” might indicate the US’ plans to reach bilateral trade deals with the Mercosur members, probably beginning with Brazil and then having the rest of the bloc fall in line afterwards. Altogether, the interweaving of bilateral trade deals all throughout the hemisphere would represent the de-facto fulfillment of the long-sought “Free Trade Area of the Americas” (FTAA).

Africa

The final section of the NSS’ regional context review is the most direct about the US’ intentions to “contain China” and obstruct its Silk Road strategy. The authors confidently write that Africa “represent[s] potential new markets for U.S. goods and services”, the demand of which “is high and will likely grow” because of what it hints as being the desire of many countries to replicate its political and economic models. This is obviously the infowar narrative that will be spun in serving as the ‘carrot’ for attracting African partners (subordinates), while the ‘stick’ is the equally weaponized storyline that “some Chinese practices undermine Africa’s long-term development by corrupting elites, dominating extractive industries, and locking countries into unsustainable and opaque debts and commitments.”

US President Donald Trump congratulates African leaders

In case there was any doubt that the US wants to challenge China’s dominance in Africa, the document unambiguously announces that the US “will offer American goods and services, both because it is profitable for [it] and because it serves as an alternative to China’s often extractive economic footprint on the continent.”

To this end, the US “seeks sovereign African states that are integrated into the world economy”, which is a just another way of saying that it wants its partners to abandon the Chinese model of state-driven development and open up their economies to Western businessmen and their Indo-Japanese partners instead. “Support[ing] economic integration among African states” could be seen as developing an anti-Chinese trading bloc in the future, though this is unlikely since all existing economic organizations on the continent are closely aligned with the People’s Republic, as are most of the countries that are party to the massive 2015 Tripartite Free Trade Area in China’s most active “sphere of Silk Road influence”.

However, where the US is most capable of making African inroads is through military-security relations in “partner[ing] with governments, civil society, and regional organizations to end long-running, violent conflicts”, which carries with it a whiff of “Lead From Behind” “nation-building” that America is much more experienced with (for better or for worse) than China. By using the existing anti-terrorist pretext present throughout most of Africa to degree or another and especially in the transregional Sahel, the US will probably seek to leverage its military advantages to “stabilize” these states in exchange for them disengaging from China and/or clinching profitable trade deals with the US afterwards, since it will otherwise be exceptionally difficult for the US to economically counterbalance China any other way.

Global Trends

 After examining the Trump Doctrine in all of its regional contexts, it’s possible to detect several interconnected global trends that are present in the US’ National Security Strategy:

Demonization Of Strategic Rivals:

The US is hell-bent on framing its strategic multipolar rivals of Russia, China, and Iran as responsible for global destabilization in order to deflect attention from it and its partners’ responsibility for this state of affairs, with the distinct possibility that Pakistan will soon be added to this list of adversaries as America moves towards making India its top international ally in the future.

Assembling “Lead From Behind” Coalitions:

The demonization of the US’ strategic rivals provides it with the ‘plausible pretext’ for assembling regional coalitions against them all throughout the Eurasian supercontinent and potentially even in Latin America too if it gets its way against Venezuela, thus formalizing a new model of unipolar proxy control that has flexibly adapted to multipolar challenges.

Building “Missile Defense Shields”:

One of the most prominent state-to-state manifestations of “Lead From Behind” cooperation between the US and its subordinates is the construction of “missile defense shields” on trumped-up pretexts in order to undermine Russia and China’s nuclear second-strike capabilities, with the possibility existing that the same model can one day be implemented in South Asia to support India against Pakistan.

Exploiting Non-State Threats:

Another way in which the US plans to utilize its “Lead From Behind” coalitions is to exploit the prevalence of threatening non-state actors such as jihadists and transnational criminal organizations by using them as a ‘plausible pretense’ for setting up a range of differently sized regional bases in its partnered countries to support special forces raids against these shared menaces.

Stopping The Silk Road:

The combination of demonizing infowars, “Lead From Behind” coalitions, and multidimensional partnerships with its allies naturally leads one to the conclusion that the US plans to employ all instruments of its power (Hybrid War) in stopping China’s One Belt One Road global vision of New Silk Road connectivity so as to counter multipolarity and indefinitely preserve the declining unipolar system.

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.

North Korea, notes Prof. Michel Chossudovsky,[1] “was the only declared nuclear weapons state which voted YES at the UN General Assembly, in favor of the prohibition of nuclear weapons under Resolution L.41[2]”

Whereas North Korea is a non-belligerent country, it is surrounded by Western forces which have threatened its very existence since the Korean War Armistice was signed in 1953.

Koreans understand that the threats to its very existence are credible.  They do not underestimate President Trump’s “Fire and Fury” threats, nor should they.  The Korean War exacted a tremendous toll.  Roughly 30% of North Korea’s population perished beneath the bombs and bullets.  Compare this, notes Chossudovsky, to World War Two, where .32% of the U.S population lost their lives.

Excerpts from Prof. Chossudovsky’s presentation at New Vision Church in Hamilton, ON.

Past U.S deeds also lend credibility to the threats.  According to the best available reports, the atomic bomb that the U.S dropped on Hiroshima alone exacted a terrible toll: about 150,000 casualties[3], mostly civilians.  And this is a conservative figure.

See this and this.

North Korea has every right to defend itself from the West’s global war on humanity, yet the West, including Canada, has no right to impose its credible threats on North Korea and its peoples, or any other country.

North Korea is by no means an “outlier” by virtue of the fact that it possesses nuclear weapons. In addition to the 9 “declared” countries which possess nuclear weapons (U.S, France, Britain, Russia, India, Pakistan, China, Israel, North Korea), there are also “undeclared” nuclear states.Included in this list are Belgium, the Netherlands, Italy, Germany, and Turkey, all of which, notes Chossudovsky, have nuclear weapons (Made in America) under national command. Turkey has five times as many nuclear weapons as North Korea, while Belgium and the Netherlands together have about four times as many nuclear weapons as North Korea.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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

presentation to Dutch and Belgian parliamentary committees , 2014

The threat of widespread nuclear war is more significant than we might imagine, and widespread nuclear war means the death of humanity.

Whereas the explosive power of the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki was unprecedented, so-called “mini-nukes” today are as much as six times more powerful.  Additionally, the likelihood that they might be deployed is underestimated. Not only are these“tactical nuclear weapons” deemed to be “conventional”, but, according to the “Nuclear Posture Review”[4] they can be used in a “First Strike, Pre-emptive” capacity, and war theater commanders – three or four star generals – can make the decisionto deploy them.

A fake pretext could easily be engineered to precipitate cataclysmic nuclear war.  Bear in mind that all of the post 911 wars were sold to gullible publics on foundations of lies.

The blunt reality is that nobody wins a nuclear war. The criminal cabal pushing us towards the unthinkable apparently believes otherwise, but their anti-Life agendas could not possibly align with the informed will of the vast majority of humanity.

Notes

[1] Michel Chossudovsky, “Selected Articles: Nuclear Weapons: Tool for Perpetual Peace or Threat of Global Annihilation?” Global Research. 11 December, 2017. (https://www.globalresearch.ca/selected-articles-nuclear-weapons-tool-for-perpetual-peace-or-threat-of-global-annihilation/5622385) Accessed 21 December, 2017.

[2] “Full voting result on UN resolution L.41” ICAN, 27 October, 2016. (http://www.icanw.org/campaign-news/results/) Accessed 21 December, 2017.

[3] Children of the Atomic Bomb / A UCLA Physician’s Eyewitness Report and Call to Save the World’s Children.” Updated, 10 October, 2007.(http://www.aasc.ucla.edu/cab/200708230009.html ) Accessed 21 December, 2017.

[4] Michel Chossudovsky, “The US Nuclear Option and the ‘War on Terrorism.’ “ Global Research. 14 May, 2004.  (http://globalresearch.ca/articles/CHO405A.html ) Accessed 21 December, 2017.

On December 20, Syrian government forces liberated the villages of Musheirifat Abu Dali and Tall al-Maqta in southern Idlib from Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (formerly Jabhat al-Nusra, the Syrian branch of al-Qaeda).

Thus, troops of the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) and the National Defense Forces (NDF) deployed within only 2km of the strategic village of Abu Dali. This village is one of the key strong points of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) in the area.

In southern Aleppo, HTS repelled an attack by the SAA and the NDF on the villages of Ramla and Sayyalah. According to the HTS-linked news agency Iba’a, the militants captured 7 SAA soldiers and an officer during the clashes.

On December 21, clashes between government troops and HTS continued in many points in southern Idlib and southern Aleppo. According to pro-government sources, the elite Tiger Forces, led by Gen. Suheil al-Hassan, should soon join the SAA battle against the militants.

A withdrawal deal between HTS and the government failed in Damascus’ Eastern Ghouta. According to pro-opposition sources, HTS members failed to execute their side of the agreement and to prepare for withdrawal to the province of Idlib because of the tensions between HTS and another militant group – Jaish al-Islam.

In the Beit Jinn pocket, the SAA and the NDF reached the eastern entrance to the HTS-held village of Maghar al-Mir and engaged militants in the nearby heights. Clashes are ongoing in the area. If Maghar al-Mir is liberated, it will be a major blow to the HTS defense in the pocket.

The US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) announced that its fighters repelled an attack by ISIS on their positions in the villages of Hamam and Jaras Sharqi in the province of Deir Ezzor. According to reports, 3 SDF members and 7 ISIS members were killed in the clashes.

ISIS also attacked a SDF checkpoint in al-Shheell where the militants allegedly killed 7 civilians, a SDF member and destroyed a Humvee.

The SDF also announced that 242 new fighters finished their training and joined its ranks. The fighters will be a part of the new border force responsible for securing the SDF-held part of the border with Iraq.

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As we approach the end of Trump’s first year in office, it seems appropriate to survey his performance and his outlook for the future. But right at the onset, one cannot escape the conclusion that, unlike any other of his predecessors, he is a weird and wild president who is devoid of any civility and moral responsibility. In less than a year, the absurd became the norm, ignorance became a virtue, and lying has sadly become the order of the day. He brought shame and dishonor to the most prestigious office in the world—the US Presidency. His moral lapses, notoriety, vulgarity, and self-deceit are beyond the pale of the human disorder.

If Trump’s behavior, public statements, and warped tweets do not seal his political demise, the blame must not rest on his shoulders alone. It must also rest on his party—the corrupt Republican establishment—for having mortgaged the fate of the country to a mentally unstable moron. The Republican party will be held responsible for what may well be irreparable damage to America’s global leadership and moral standing.

It is no wonder that each letter of the alphabet – from A to Z – provides at least one maligning word that describes the man that has brought nothing but disgrace to his office.

To say that Trump is Arrogant understates his propensity to show off his presumed skills as a negotiator, alleged business acumen, and supposed grasp of complex issues. He constantly claims that he is smarter than everyone around him, even insulting the US military by stating “There’s nobody bigger or better at the military than I am”, and “I know more about ISIS than the generals do. Believe me.” No wonder Trump can’t sleep at night; he feels obliged to ‘enlighten the world’ with his early morning stream of twisted tweets.

Many people refer to Trump as a Bigot, a characterization which he owns and takes pleasure in displaying.  No one has forgotten his outrageous attack on Mexican immigrants, stating:

“When Mexico sends its people… They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists.”

His bigotry was even more pronounced when he belittled two Gold Star parents of a Muslim-American soldier who died in 2014 while serving in Iraq. By now, Trump has earned the distinction of making bigotry synonymous with his name.

One does not need to know Trump well to quickly discern that he is a Crude man with no scruples. He refers to Senator Elizabeth Warren as Pocahontas, going so far as to do so at an event honoring Navajo veterans. He regularly calls people “losers”, “fools”, and “lame”, especially on Twitter. In speaking about the hosts of Morning Joe, he said “…low I.Q. Crazy Mika, along with Psycho Joe, came to Mar-a-Lago… around New Year’s Eve, and insisted on joining me. She was bleeding badly from a face-lift. I said no!” This is the real Trump—behaving like a wild caveman who has long since lost his civility.

Being a Demagogue is second-nature to Trump; he will say anything, however contradictory and absurd, only to fuel his base. He made a campaign and inauguration pledge to eradicate Islamic terrorism from the face of the earth, knowing that this will never happen. In his inauguration speech, he stated:

“Every decision… will be made to benefit American workers and American families”—a phony claim, as the tax bill shows.

He craves pomp and circumstance, claiming

“That military may be flying over New York City and Washington, D.C., for parades. I mean, we’re going to be showing our military.”

Demagoguery, to be sure, became Trump’s staple diet on which he feeds.

For Trump, being an Egomaniac fits not only his persona but his perpetually disturbing self-praise. Perhaps he still doesn’t believe that he is the president and needs that reinforcement. His tweets like

“Time Magazine called to say that I was PROBABLY going to be named “Man (Person) of the Year,” like last year, but I would have to agree to an interview and a major photo shoot. I said probably is no good and took a pass…” show the enormity of his ego.

Trump continues to boast about the size of his inaugural crowd, insisting that he had a much larger turnout than Obama in 2009. He still can’t digest that a smaller crowd attended his inauguration than that of a black president.

Trump is the only president who has committed Fraud on such an unparalleled scale. Starting with Trump University, he violated NY laws by calling it a university but operating without an educational license. He charged students $35k a year, promising they would “learn from Donald Trump’s handpicked instructors, and that participants would have access to Trump’s real estate ‘secrets.’” No jobs were offered, and no secret information was revealed. He filed for bankruptcy four times (1991, 1992, 2004, and 2009), was repeatedly fined for breaking rules related to his casinos, and so on. The dictionary might as well define the word ‘fraud’ by citing some of Trump’s fraudulent business dealings.

If nothing else, Trump is a master of Garbled words. Despite his praise of his own language skills, his unscripted utterances are incoherent, such as his description of visiting Napoleon’s tomb, saying: “He did so many things even beyond. And his one problem is he didn’t go to Russia that night because he had extracurricular activities, and they froze to death.” He rambled on about foreign policy, stating

“You know, he [Obama] can talk tough all he wants, in the meantime he talked tough to North Korea. And he didn’t actually. You look at the red line in the sand in Syria. He didn’t do the shot. I did the shot…”

Yes, Trump did attack a Syrian airbase, but only after ‘receiving permission’ from Putin.

Putting his travel ban into immediate effect, stranding hundreds at airports, and blocking off access to the US arbitrarily is as Heartless and cruel as can be imagined.  He endorsed a proposed repeal of Obamacare without plans to provide aid to disadvantaged communities. He has made no effort to renew the Children’s Health Insurance Program, ending care for 9 million low-income children, while giving billions in tax cuts to the richest of the rich. He callously ended DACA, which will affect almost 800,000 young adults who came to the US when they were children and don’t have a home to return to if deported. Terminating DACA would also lead to splitting up families –those who illegally immigrated but have children that were born in the US. If Trump needed a heart transplant, his body would reject any heart which has not already been imbued with cruelty.

Trump has repeatedly demonstrated that being Ignorant is a virtue, especially when he pretends to know everything. He suggested that Frederick Douglass is still alive, offering “Frederick Douglass is an example of somebody who’s done an amazing job and is getting recognized more and more, I notice.” He took pride in the fact that he was tutored by Chinese President Xi Jinping about Korean-Chinese relations at a dinner. That’s how quick a learner he is. When discussing healthcare, he stated in February “Nobody knew healthcare could be so complicated.” Of course not. Trump thought that repeating “repeal and replace” is all it takes to resolve America’s healthcare problem.

Trump talks, walks, and brags like a Juvenile. He childishly tweeted:

“We should have a contest as to which of the Networks, plus CNN and not including Fox, is the most dishonest, corrupt and/or distorted in its political coverage of your favorite President (me).”

Exactly like an infant, he also engaged in a Twitter war with basketball personality LaVar Ball, after Ball did not thank him for negotiating his son’s release from a Chinese prison: “…LaVar, you could have spent the next 5 to 10 years during Thanksgiving with your son in China, but no NBA contract to support you…. Ungrateful fool!” So, if you walk, talk, and brag like a juvenile, you are qualified to replace Trump.

Being Knavish is just another characteristic that defines Trump as he has become known—with no scruples and no principles. He insists that the tax bill will benefit all Americans, when every study shows that the tax bill will benefit the rich the most, and will in fact harm middle class and low income families. He falsely claims that the tax bill “is going to cost me a fortune, this thing—believe me. Believe me, this is not good for me” (this has been disproven by economists). He commonly mistreats his workers (many of whom were immigrants). There are still many lawsuits against him for not paying his laborers. Unfortunately for them, they will have to wait to be paid until he is impeached.

If nothing else, Trump is known as a compulsive Liar, and his political ascendance was built on lies. He really believes that if one repeats a lie time and again, it becomes the accepted truth, and that is good enough for his base. Trump has lied about voter fraud, protesters paid to oppose him, Obama wiretapping his phones, how many times he was on the cover of Time—the list goes on and on. His file in Politifact says he has outright lied over 48% of the time. At a rally in Pensacola, FL, he said

“Black homeownership just hit the highest level it has ever been in the history of our country”,

but it has actually fallen almost yearly since 2004. Trump is in his element when he is living in a world of colorful lies.

As a master Manipulator, Trump uses language to galvanize voters; for instance, by using the marketable slogan “Make America Great Again,” he made his politics an easy sale. He has licensed and sold his name to give the appearance of success and stability. He used terrorist attacks in London and Egypt to push his travel ban. He condemns actions that others have done, to cover his own despicable delinquency (like his tweet in response to Al Franken’s sexual misconduct, when in fact he is the sexual predator-in-chief). His manipulation tactics are commonly known as ‘Trumpism.’ For Trump, manipulation is a sort of twisted art form, and he should probably have his picture on the cover of Time magazine with caption, ‘The Manipulator of the Year.’

When it comes to being a Narcissist, Trump trumps them all—Putin, Erdogan, Netanyahu, and even Kim Jong Un. Everything Trump does is designed to make it solely about him. When campaigning for failed Republican Senate candidate Luther Strange, he said

“I’m taking a big risk because if Luther does not make it, they are going to go after me.”

Even in tragedy he pulls attention back around to himself:

“Appreciate the congrats for being right on radical Islamic terrorism…”

On his desk, instead of having a Truman-esque plaque that reads “The Buck Stops Here,” Trump’s should read “It is me, me, me, all about me.”

Like many others, I wonder how a person, let alone the president, can be as Obnoxious as Trump is. Will he ever quit his disdain of Hilary Clinton? His tweets about her pour out like waste from a corroded pipeline. During the second presidential debate, Trump loomed behind Clinton, following her and making faces at her throughout the duration of the debate. He is still obsessed with Obama’s birthplace, and when Obama won reelection, he had a meltdown on Twitter and even went as far as calling for a revolution. In a competition for the title of the most obnoxious person in the world, Trump would win it handily.

When it comes to Polarizing, you’ve got to give Trump an A+. His policies and behaviors polarize the public: such as the wall, the travel ban, his reactions towards the press, his treatment of immigrants… Trump’s name itself is polarizing. He sees everything in black and white, no middle ground, which has become increasingly painful for him in dealing with seriously complex issues. Since he came to office, the political and social divisiveness in the country grew ever wider, and ‘Us vs. Them’ became the refrain of the day. To keep his base, Trump plays one group against another while enjoying the tension he creates.

One other trait that distinguishes Trump is his Querulous nature. He constantly picks fights on Twitter, makes wild statements like threatening to attack North Korea, and engages in derogatory statements to pick fights with senators, judges, football players, and many others, only to score a point. After Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand called for Trump to resign due to increasing sexual harassment, he showered her with insults and went as far as clearly implying that she traded sexual favors for campaign contributions. He craves mean fights, which seem to energize him and give him that psychopathic satisfaction.

Trump is a Racist man to the bone. Only a person who is disposed to white supremacy could draw a moral equivalence between white nationalists in the Charlottesville rallies and law- abiding counter-protestors, some of whom turned violent. He claimed that one of the federal judges acting in the class action case against Trump University couldn’t do his job because “he’s a Mexican”. And no one can deny the fact that there was a notable difference in his response to Hurricane Maria (which devastated Puerto Rico) vs. his prompt and immediate generous aid to victims of Hurricanes Irma and Harvey, which affected Florida and Texas. From Trump’s perspective, white supremacy is only natural, as is the ‘inferiority’ of minorities.

Being a Showman is to a great extent the means by which Trump covers his shortcomings and lack of self-confidence. Everything, starting from his candidacy announcement riding on a golden escalator, has been a performance. He has a predilection for props, from comparisons of Obamacare vs. its replacement, scores of folders purportedly containing plans to disentangle himself from his businesses, to his most recent giant stacks of paper adorned with red tape (to be symbolically cut with gold scissors) to symbolize his efforts to cut regulations. Trump lives on showmanship, and without a stage he feels empty—because he is.

Toxic: There has been a rise of hate crimes and anti-Semitism since Trump took office. The spread of toxicity is known as the “Trump Effect”. Trump’s selfishness poisons the civilian and political atmosphere, infecting Congress and splitting the GOP. Senators Bob Corker and Jeff Flake have spared no words to describe Trump’s toxicity. The list of current and past government officials, conservative media editors and columnists, and intelligence officials in opposition to Trump is incomparable to any of his predecessors. Trump wanted to “drain the swamp” in Washington, but all he has done is leave toxic waste in his wake.

Many people are concerned about Trump’s Unstable behavior, and even more are deeply troubled about its implications on his mental instability. Time and again Trump has demonstrated how unhinged he is. He is compulsive and reacts to matters unrelated to governance, getting into Twitter fights with people like Michael Moore, ESPN commentator Jameel Hill, and London Mayor Sadiq Khan, with no logical reason. Trump is dangerously losing touch with reality. By freely taunting North Korea, for instance, he raised tensions while disregarding the potential dire consequences. Psychiatrists and psychologists strongly suggest that given his erratic behavior, he has a mental illness.

The record on Trump’s Vulgarity is astounding. He seems to relish his vulgarity and his meanness that goes with it. He called women like Rosie O’Donnell dogs, fat, slobs, pigs, and disgusting. He said about Senator Rand Paul:

“Truly weird… reminds me of a spoiled brat without a properly functioning brain. He was terrible at debate!”

Trump enjoyed mocking a disabled reporter at a campaign rally. And in a feud with Megyn Kelly, he blamed her criticism of him during a presidential debate on her menstruation (“blood coming out of her wherever”). For Trump, vulgarity is his drug of choice, on which he regularly overdoses.

Trump himself openly and repeatedly admitted that he is Whiny. In a statement to CNN’s Chris Cuomo, he admitted:

“I do whine because I want to win and I’m not happy about not winning and I am a whiner and I keep whining and whining until I win.”

He has complained that “No politician in history – and I say this with great surety – has been treated worse or more unfairly” (this he did immaturely at a graduation ceremony at the U.S. Coast Guard Academy). Trump will soon realize that no matter how much he whines, in the future he will end up the loser because he has nothing to offer, except for whining.

Trump was born Xenophobic, a chauvinistic fool with no sense of what is right or wrong. He led an assault on immigrants—whether they be Muslim, Arab, or Mexican—which he reinforced through his refugee and travel ban and “America First” campaign. He has attempted to cut off funding for sanctuary cities, which house thousands of immigrants, through Executive Order 13768. And through AG Jeff Sessions and the Justice Department, he has been sending letters that attempt to harass jurisdictions that he feels have weak immigration policies into working with ICE. Trump’s xenophobia is a consuming obsession based on illusions far removed from reality.

Trump is simply a Yellow-bellied coward, which has been plain to see for decades. He dodged the draft in Vietnam, and reacted to being gifted a veteran’s Purple Heart by saying

“I always wanted to get the Purple Heart. This was much easier.”

In his efforts to end the Russia probe, he fired FBI Director Comey. He is terrified of what Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation may eventually reveal. At the very least, Trump is facing obstruction of justice, let alone Russia’s interference in the election and the potential collusion to help him win the presidency. Deep inside Trump knows he did not earn the Presidency, and he is horrified that it will be snatched away from him. Perhaps he should not hold his breath, because the writing is on the wall.

Trump is an unbending Zealot – not as much about his religious or ideological convictions, but far more so about his possessions and the image he wants to project. To show his conservative credentials (albeit he would trade them for any self-serving interest), he nominated two extreme right-wing federal court judges to lifetime positions. One helped craft voter suppression laws in North Carolina, and the other professed that the promotion of transgender rights is “Satan’s plan”. Trump delivered a speech in Warsaw this July that was highly reminiscent of alt-right rhetoric, leaving the unmistakable impression how zealotry will guard his conservative white base.

There is a touch of humor here and there to lighten up this alphabetic review of Trump’s first year in office, but the subject matter is fateful to America’s future. Trump is dangerous; his shortsightedness, mental instability, and ominous off-the-cuff statements could spark unintended horrifying violent conflagrations.

The Republican party, which is deeply engrossed in partisan politics, has become the enabler of Trump, ignoring that they were elected not to protect the president but America’s global and national security interests, and the well-being of the American people. Every member of the party establishment will be held responsible for not rising and stopping Trump from causing irreparable damage to the country’s leadership role, moral standing, and the social and political injury that he will inflict on the nation.

Any individual, let alone the president, who praises Putin’s Russia—America’s foremost enemy—and in the same breath severely criticizes and disparages our most esteemed institutions, especially the intelligence agencies and the judiciary, is tantamount to treason. How could any Republican official who claims to put the country’s security and safety first remain silent in the face of this unfolding perilous development? And worse yet, how could they continue to support a president who is unstable, unpredictable, and unfit to occupy the chair of the president?

Republicans and Democrats must join hands and present Trump with a choice to resign or be impeached. Nothing else will save the country but Trump’s political demise. Republicans in a position of power must now demonstrate where their loyalty lies—to the country, or to a corrupt party and to a so-called President who has never been able to rise above the fray, to the detriment of the nation.

Dr. Alon Ben-Meir is a professor of international relations at the Center for Global Affairs at NYU. He teaches courses on international negotiation and Middle Eastern studies. [email protected] Web: www.alonben-meir.com

“No money shall be drawn from the treasury, but in consequence of appropriations made by law; and a regular statement and account of receipts and expenditures of all public money shall be published from time to time.” ~ Article I, Section 9, Clause 7, U.S. Constitution

What’s going on? Where is the money? How could this happen? How much has really gone missing? What would happen if a corporation failed to pass an audit like this? Or a taxpayer?

This means the Fed and their member banks are transacting government money outside the law. So are the corporate contractors that run the payment systems. So are the Wall Street firms who are selling government securities without full disclosure. Would your banks continue to handle your bank account if you behaved like this? Would your investors continue to buy your securities if you behaved like this? Would your accountant be silent?

This is the reason that there is such a strong push to change or tear up the US Constitution. This is why members of the establishment say it is “old,” “outdated!” This is why there is such a push for gun control. Don’t buy it! We can use the Constitution to get our money and our government back. It is time to enforce the US Constitution.

The Solari Report has been covering the missing money since 2000 when Catherine Austin Fitts began to warn Americans and global investors about mortgage fraud at the US Department of Housing and Development (HUD) and the engineering of the housing bubble that lead to trillions more dollars in bailouts.

“Are whites so committed to the modern day slave patrol that they will allow no one justice, even those who look like them?”

On rare occasions there is some justice in this country. The white South Carolina police officer who shot Walter Scott in the back was convicted of murder and sentenced to a 20-year prison term by a federal judge. The outcome is altogether satisfactory but it is akin to a blue moon. In this country an average of three people are killed by the police every single day. Even when police are charged they are unlikely to be indicted and even then are almost always acquitted.

Just two days after the sentencing in the Scott case was announced the country was reminded of the random terrorism inflicted by law enforcement. In 2016 a white man named Daniel Shaver was killed by a police officer in Arizona and just as with Walter Scott, his murder was caught on video. Shaver had his hands raised, was clearly unarmed, but was still shot and killed by the officer who was acquitted by an Arizona jury.

“An average of three people are killed by the police every single day.”

Thanks to the work of the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement we learned that a black person is killed by police, security and vigilantes once every 28 hours. On average there is a yearly tally of more than 1,000 deaths at the hands of American police. It turns out that at least one white person is also killed by the police on an average day, with a grim total of 574 in 2016 alone.

Shaver and other white people are collateral damage but the determination to keep black people under physical control has always had that effect. Black people are disproportionately the victims of police violence because the system demands it. Mass incarceration and brutality are not just flukes of history. They are the rawest forms of white supremacy and thrive because most white Americans want them to.

But an armed and deadly police force is by necessity a loose cannon. It can strike anyone, anywhere, and at any time. It cannot be kept under control. There is no way to ensure that the police will never stray outside of their mandate to brutalize black people. Shaver was not alone in his fate.

“Mass incarceration and brutality are the rawest forms of white supremacy.”

The Movement for Black Lives emerged in the wake of the killings of Michael Brown, Eric Garner and Tamir Rice. Black Lives Matter chapters were founded all over the world. The group succeeded in gaining attention and inspiring action. But the mass protest that brought it into being has largely disappeared.

That outcome is hardly surprising. For all of the attention it received, Black Lives Matter was a very apolitical organization. Its leaderless structure and the questionable politics of its founders meant that a precious moment was lost. They had to be pushed by Black Agenda Report and others to reject Democratic Party and other dubious endorsements. Hustlers like Deray McKesson used the popular struggle to make names for themselves and in so doing helped to kill off a righteous movement. The police killing spree and the impunity that goes with it continues unabated.

The jurors in the Shaver case were surely able to see that his shooting was not just unjustified. It was a cold blooded murder. They sided squarely with the police even though the evidence defied any sort of logic.

“Black Lives Matter had to be pushed by Black Agenda Report and others to reject Democratic Party and other dubious endorsements.”

Convicting the killer cop would have created cognitive dissonance too great for them to bear. If police killing became a punishable offense, even for a white victim, they would have to examine the basis of allowing all police to carry guns. The United States is unique among the nations that considers it civilized to have cops armed to the teeth.

The imperative to control black bodies began during the period of enslavement, continued through the days of Jim Crow and even intensified when American legal apartheid ended. The vortex can catch white people too, but by and large their group is committed to maintaining their racist system. If their own people are occasional victims then so be it.

Black Agenda Report supports the demand for black community control of the police. It is obvious that black lives would be saved if the occupying force weren’t given carte blanche to murder, but other lives would be saved as well. That is the question that white America has to answer for. Are they so committed to the modern day slave patrol that they will allow no one justice, even those who look like them? For now the answer is yes. If white Americans truly believe that all lives matter they have a strange way of proving it.

Margaret Kimberley’s Freedom Rider column appears weekly in BAR, and is widely reprinted elsewhere. She maintains a frequently updated blog as well at http://freedomrider.blogspot.com . Ms. Kimberley lives in New York City, and can be reached via e-Mail at Margaret.Kimberley(at)BlackAgendaReport.com

Green Party presidential Candidate Jill Stein is being investigated by the Senate Intelligence (sic) Committee for “Russian connections.”  

What has brought Russiagate to Jill Stein?  The answer is that she attended the 10th Anniversary RT dinner in Moscow as did the notorious “Russian collaborator” US General Michael Flynn.  RT is a news organization, a far better one than exists in the West, but if you were one of the many accomplished people who attended the anniversary dinner, you are regarded by Republican Senator Richard Burr from North Carolina as a possible Kremlin agent. 

What is going on here?  Stein sums it up:

“we must guard against the potential for these investigations to be used to intimidate and silence principled opposition to the political establishment.”

Here I sit considering two interesting invitations.  One is to speak at the main Plenary Session of the Moscow Economic Forum in April. The other is to speak at the Summit for Global Challenges in the former Sovier Republic of Kazakhstan in May.  The very minute I accept, the NSA will notify its mouthpieces, the New York Times, PropOrNot’s promoter the Washington Post, Senator Burr, and Special Russiagate Prosecutor Robert Mueller.  Would I be renditioned to Israel or Eqypt or Saudi Arabia and tortured until I confessed that I was a member of the Trump-Flynn-Jill Stein Kremlin spy network?  

As the United States is no longer a free country governed by a Constitution that protects civil liberty, that possibility cannot be discounted.  What is for sure is that if I accept these invitations, the US Establishment will discredit my voice when I write about US/Russia relations.  Indeed, that was the intention of the PropOrNot Washington Post story that attacked 200 truth-tellers as “Russian agents/dupes.” Many of those so attacked have experienced slower growth in their readership.  After all, Americans and Europeans are insouciant. They are actually sufficiently stupid to believe what governments and print and TV media tell them.  

Source: Above Top Secret

I, too, was invited to RT’s 10th Anniversary celebration in Moscow.  Imagining the celebration would be grand balls in palaces and myself, decked out in white tie with my French Legion of Honor dancing with those beautiful RT women, I almost accepted.  But I learned in time that the event was conferences and speeches and decided to forego a Moscow winter.

Otherwise I would be in the dock with Trump, Flynn, and Jill Stein and whomever the Washington Gestapo settles on next.

Russiagate is an orchestrated hoax.  That has now become so apparent that even insouciant Americans are catching on, even those low IQ ones who sit in front of TV news.  I often disparage Congress, but here is a member who is admirable, Republican Representative Jim Jordan from Ohio. 

Watch the short video and delight in the power and force with which  Rep. Jordan goes after the piece of crap US deputy attorney general the Twitter President has in office.  When the President of the United States has to rely on a congressman to call out the Justice Department and the FBI for its criminal actions and for its treason to overthrow both democracy and the elected government of the United States, you know we have elected a president who is too scared to defend himself.  Roger Stone is correct, if Trump were a real man, Mueller, Comey, Hillary, Obama, and the rest of the criminal scum would be arrested, prosecuted and sentenced for their vast crimes, crimes that exceed those of anyone in prison today.

But Trump is nothing but talk.  No action.

How much longer can I give interviews to Russian and Iranian media before the Washington Gestapo gives me a midnight knock on my door.

Whatever America is, it is not a free country.

If Trump wants to make America great again, he must shatter the CIA, FBI, NSA, and media into a thousand pieces.  The concentrated power that President Eisenhower warned Americans about in 1961 is far too great for liberty to survive.

Instead, the weakest president in American history actually read the speech handed to him by the ruling neocon military/security complex and declared Russia and China inimical to Washington’s interests.

Americans are too insouciant to understand it, but this was a declaration of war against two countries, which when combined, are more than a match for Washington. 

Neither Russia nor China, much less an alliance between them, will accept Washington’s hegemony.

If the hubris-crazed fools in Washington persist, we are all going to die.

This article was originally published by Paul Craig Roberts Institute for Political Economy.

Most reports have presented North Korea’s nuclear retaliatory capabilities as a rapidly advancing part of their military, and one which may preclude a unilateral US attack against them. Secretary of Defense James Mattis has rejected that idea.

On Friday, Mattis said analysis of the most recent North Korean test launch, the one that led many to conclude they could reach anywhere in the mainland United States, was not “shown to be a capable threat against us right now.”

Mattis did not elaborate on what about the North Korean tests was lacking as far as presenting them as a capable threat. Past reports, however, questioned North Korea’s capacity to steer such weapons accurately at long range.

Some officials also questioned whether North Korea had the ability to shield a nuclear warhead during re-entry, with South Korea saying the North needed to “prove” that. How they’d prove that short of legitimately firing an above-ground nuclear ICBM, is not clear.

Mattis’ disavowal of North Korea’s capabilities may be informing the White House opposition to the State Department’s diplomatic overtures to North Korea, convincing Trump that direct talks aren’t an immediate priority.

Jason Ditz is news editor of Antiwar.com.

VISIT MY NEW WEB SITE: 

stephenlendman.org 

(Home – Stephen Lendman). 

Contact at [email protected].

The vote should have been near-unanimous – every nation except rogue states America and Israel, complicit in Trump’s Jerusalem declaration.

UN member states overwhelmingly rejected it – symbolically rendering it null and void only.

The non-binding vote was adopted by a 128 member state majority, nine weak-kneed nations voting “no,” another 35 intimidated or bribed ones abstaining – 21 nations not voting, 65 countries in total failing to do the right thing.

Key “yes” votes came from Britain, China, France, Germany and Russia – the P5+1 countries excluding America voting “no.”

Other nations against the resolution included Guatemala, Honduras, Israel, Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Nauru, Pauau and Togo.

Countries abstaining included Argentina, Australia, Canada, Czech Republic, Dominican Republic, Colombia, and Mexico, among others.

In November 2012, 138 nations voted in favor of giving UN nonmember state status to the “State of Palestine.”

Nine countries opposed the motion, 41 abstaining. On November 30, 151 nations supported a General Assembly resolution, condemning Israeli actions in Syria’s Golan and East Jerusalem, calling them “null and void.”

Six nations voted “no,” including America, Canada, Israel, and three Pacific island states. Nine nations abstained.

UN member states supporting the resolution called actions by Israel to impose its laws, jurisdiction and administration on Jerusalem illegal and therefore null and void.

The same goes for “the Syrian Golan.”

On Thursday, there was no doubt about UN member states voting overwhelmingly to reject Trump’s Jerusalem declaration.

It was just a matter of how overwhelming. It should have been near-unanimous, but every blow to US and Israeli interests is a step in the right direction – even symbolic ones like Thursday’s.

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

Global Research brings to the attention of its readers this review article pertaining to the West Palm Beach court decision regarding Prof. James Tracy’s dismissal from Florida Atlantic University (FAU). Whilst opinions may diverge regarding the events at Sandy Hook, we nonetheless believe that First Amendment Rights should prevail with a view to preserving academic freedom.

***

On December 11, 2017, in a serious miscarriage of justice, a jury in West Palm Beach, Florida, ruled unanimously in favor of Florida Atlantic University and against former Media Studies Professor James Tracy, who was suing for reinstatement after his firing in 2016. The jury found that Tracy’s “controversial” articles on Memory Hole Blog were not a “motivating factor” in his firing, the only question they were required to consider. Of course, Tracy’s posts at “his conspiracy theory blog” were indeed the reason he was fired, but the jury was convinced otherwise by FAU’s legal team with assistance from the judge. The case centered around Tracy’s writings on the anomalies found in the reporting on the Sandy Hook “massacre” of December 14, 2012. His skepticism about the event was not to the liking of the university.

James Tracy with his attorney Louis Leo IV arriving at federal court. (Source:Palm Beach Post)

FAU maintained that Tracy was not fired from his tenured position because of his blog posts, but because he did not follow the “rules” set out by “his bosses” at the government-run institution. FAU attorney G. Joseph Curley insisted that Tracy was not denied his First Amendment rights, but that he simply did not follow university procedure.

“Professor Tracy doesn’t follow the rules,” Curley told the jury. “They’re rules that everyone else follows. He doesn’t play by the rules.”

FAU cast the case as one of a “belligerent,” rebellious,” and “nonconformist” employee being let go for “insubordination,” instead of that of a tenured professor exercising his right to free speech.[1]

FAU’s current “rules” require that faculty submit forms listing “outside activities” to be vetted for administrative approval, whether the activities are compensated or not. Tracy and other professors at FAU had argued that the policy is vague and confusing, constituting a form of prior restraint forbidden by the First Amendment, and leading to a climate of “fear and uncertainty” among the faculty. Aside from the fact that “outside activities” can reach into all aspects of a professor’s life and therefore be difficult if not impossible to list, such activities must not be subject to bureaucratic approval. And certainly, no tenured professor can be fired for not filling out a form, even at Florida Atlantic University.[2]

Tenure and academic freedom

The reason for tenure at academic institutions is precisely to allow professors to research, write, and speak out without fear of reprisal. The road to tenure is long and difficult, embarked upon with the goal of attaining the “academic freedom” that tenured professors enjoy.[3] According to the American Association of University Professors (AAUP), as outlined in their 1940 Statement of Principles on Academic Freedom and Tenure, “Teachers are entitled to full freedom in research and in the publication of the results, subject to the adequate performance of their other academic duties.” Regarding “outside activities,” the statement includes the following:

College and university teachers are citizens, members of a learned profession, and officers of an educational institution. When they speak or write as citizens, they should be free from institutional censorship or discipline…they should at all times be accurate, should exercise appropriate restraint, should show respect for the opinions of others, and should make every effort to indicate that they are not speaking for their institution.

The statement was amended in 1970 to stipulate:

The controlling principle is that a faculty member’s expression of opinion as a citizen cannot constitute grounds for dismissal unless it clearly demonstrates the faculty member’s unfitness for his or her position. Extramural utterances rarely bear upon the faculty member’s fitness for the position.

This is further reinforced by the AAUP in its executive summary of 2011, “Ensuring Academic Freedom in Politically Controversial Academic Personnel Decisions.” The AAUP sees a current “political threat” to academic freedom from outside forces, including interest groups, politicians, and members of the media, which can put pressure on the university. All personnel decisions should rest on “academic fitness” and no institution should discipline academic speech “unless that speech implicates professional fitness.”

James Tracy was clearly not unfit for his position, having received evaluations indicating that his teaching, scholarship, service to the institution, and job performance were considered to be “excellent.” Curley fought to keep these evaluations from the jury; only when he had left the courtroom one afternoon were Tracy’s attorneys able to get them included in the record.

FAU conspiracy with the judicial system?

Tracy filed suit in April 2016, alleging a conspiracy between FAU and the faculty union, which had advised him not to fill out the outside activities forms, discouraged him from initiating a grievance or lawsuit, and even attempted to coerce him into resigning from his position. FAU delayed proceedings by the filing of repeated motions alleging that the suit was “frivolous,” that there was no conspiracy, and that Tracy’s termination was merely due to his failure to disclose his outside activities in a timely fashion.

In February 2017, federal judge Robin Rosenberg ruled that Tracy’s lawsuit could proceed to discovery, with defendants including FAU, the Board of Trustees, President, Dean, Associate Provost, the Florida Education Association, the faculty union (United Faculty of Florida) and the union’s Chapter President and Service Unit Director.[4]

This allowed Tracy’s legal team to obtain thousands of internal emails from FAU, which supported his contention that members of the administration had conspired to discipline and finally fire him. The case proceeded on the basis of the Second Amended Complaint, which included six individual counts as follows:

• Count I – Retaliation in Violation of Right to Free Speech, against Defendant FAU and Defendants President John Kelly, Associate Provost Diane Alperin, and College of Arts and Letters Dean Heather Coltman.
• Count II – Conspiracy to Interfere with Plaintiff’s Civil Rights, against Defendants Alperin, Coltman, Kelly, UFF President Robert Zoeller, Jr., UFF Service Unit Director Michael Moats, UFF, Florida Education Association, and FAU.
• Count III – Facial Challenge to FAU’s Conflict of Interest Policy, against Defendant FAU.
• Count IV – As-Applied Challenge to Plaintiff’s Right to Free Speech, against Defendant FAU.
• Count V – Declaratory Judgment and Injunction, against Defendant FAU.
• Count VI – State Law Breach of Contract, against Defendant FAU.

Although the Second Amended Complaint shows clear evidence supporting every count, Judge Rosenberg eliminated all but the first count in her order on pending motions for summary judgment of October 31, 2017.[5] This reduced the case to a matter of why Tracy was fired— whether because of his blog posts or for not submitting his outside activities forms—and the decision was left up to a jury. This arguably suggests that the judge was aiding Defendant FAU in reducing the complaint to one of simple intent without reference to the complexities of the case and the large amount of evidence against the university. All this evidence was disregarded by the jury and ignored by the press.

Incriminating memo by defendant Dean Heather Coltman of January 2013, part of the evidence discounted by the federal jury.

This had the effect of putting Tracy on trial (although he was the plaintiff and not the defendant), judged not by his actual peers but by a jury composed of members of the public who did not understand the full implications of the case—because much of the evidence was suppressed. Neither did they understand the implications of tenure, as they were not academics themselves. This upended the complaint and trashed many months of hard work by Tracy and his lawyers— work detailed in the 90 legal documents posted at the James Tracy Legal Defense Fund website.

FAU conspiracy with the press?

Much has been written about the massive bad press that James Tracy has received, beginning in the aftermath of the Sandy Hook event. This was instigated by the Florida Sun Sentinel and then taken up by the national mainstream and alternative media.

The Sun Sentinel published a letter of December 10, 2015, written by Lenny and Veronique Pozner, publicized as the only Jewish family to have lost a child in the alleged Sandy Hook shooting. The letter, “Sandy Hook Massacre 3rd Anniversary: Two Parents Target FAU Conspiracy Theorist,” was reprinted in the Forward on December 14. The letter accused Tracy of “torturing” the victims’ families, and called for his firing:

A plethora of conspiracies arose after Sandy Hook, but none received as much mainstream publicity as Tracy, who suggested that the shooting never occurred and the Obama administration had staged the “event” to prepare the country for strict gun control measures.

More than 800 news agencies covered the story of his denial. As a result, this professor achieved fame among the morbid and deranged precisely because his theories were attached to his academic credentials and his affiliation with FAU. Tracy has enjoyed tremendous success from this exposure and has since leveraged it into a popular Internet blog and radio program. Worse yet, it has elevated his status and fame among the degenerates that revel in the pleasure of sadistically torturing victims’ families.

The Pozners’ accusations were false, as has been shown, but nonetheless they were picked up by other media outlets and used to bash Tracy in the US press. Strangely, the letter contains information that only an insider would likely have known. And it was this letter that brought on Tracy’s dismissal on January 5, 2016, although FAU insists that there was no connection. “The timing of it is completely coincidental,” said FAU attorney Curley. “The optics of course look like the school is retaliating, when they’re not.”

The trial was covered by the local Florida press and kept out of the national media, with the exception of brief, disparaging reports in the Washington Post and New York Daily News. The titles of the articles indicate their biased nature:

• “Trial To Begin for Fired FAU Professor, Conspiracy Theorist James Tracy,” Sun Sentinel, November 27, 2017
• “Ex FAU Professor, Conspiracy Theorist James Tracy, Testifies about Firing in Free Speech Case,” Sun Sentinel, November 30, 2017
• “FAU Professor James Tracy Claims School Fired Him for Sandy Hook Rants,” Palm Beach Post, November 30, 2017
• “Ex-FAU Prof on Trial Tries To Downplay Attack on Sandy Hook Parents,” Palm Beach Post, December 1, 2017
• “FAU Prof Wasn’t Fired Because of Sandy Hook Blog, FAU Official Testifies,” Sun Sentinel, December 4, 2017
• “Christie: Tracy-vs-FAU More about Arrogance Than Free Speech, Insubordination,” PalmBeachPost.com, December 5, 2017
• “FAU Prof James Tracy’s Firing ‘Wasn’t a Surprise’ to Him, University Officials Say,” Sun Sentinel, December 5, 2017
• “What It Was Like in the Class of FAU’s Conspiracy-Spinning Professor,” Palm Beach Post, December 8, 2017
• “Claims against FAU by Sandy Hook Denier Headed To Federal Jury Monday,” Palm Beach Post, December 8, 2017 and
• “Jury Rules against Fired FAU Prof James Tracy in Free Speech Case,” Sun Sentinel, December 11, 2017

This last article pushes the idea that Tracy was an ordinary employee who “repeatedly refused to obey reasonable requests from his bosses.” It quotes Curley as saying that FAU officials were glad they got to “set the record straight. According to the article:

FAU said it was about an employee who didn’t want to listen to his bosses, his peers or his union officials…Tracy used his position as an FAU professor for “self-promotion” and to bolster his blog’s reputation, Curley said. FAU officials testified Tracy lied to them about using university resources to write his blog…Curley listed several examples of Tracy’s failure to follow the rules and comply with reasonable requests from his employers. The school wasn’t his priority.

“The school was a platform for him—that’s not what it’s supposed to be about,” Curley said. A video in the article features an interview with Curley; watch it and judge for yourself whether this is an honest man.

Louis Leo warns off local reporters as the team departs the court house. (Source: NBC)

G. J. “Joe” Curley is a Florida “super lawyer” and shareholder with Gunster, “Florida’s law firm for business.” According to Gunster’s website, “Joe most often represents business clients with complicated employment and commercial matters in court”; his experience includes “the achievement of zero verdicts for institutional defendants, injunctions involving hundreds of millions in issue, as well as multi-million dollar verdicts in a variety of business related disputes.”

On December 11, immediately following the verdict in the trial, attorney G. Joseph Curley became Judge Curley—appointed to the Fifteenth Judicial Circuit Court by Florida Governor Rick Scott. “Curley’s appointment came just hours after he won a high-profile case involving a professor from Florida Atlantic University.” The “timing” of this was surely “completely coincidental” as Curley might say. [6] Governor Rick Scott will be familiar as the official who dominated the media after the Pulse nightclub event in Orlando.

The fifth anniversary of the Sandy Hook incident

Yet one more “coincidence” had the trial scheduled to run right up to the fifth anniversary of the Sandy Hook “shooting” on December 14, 2017. As expected, the mainstream press featured the “massacre” once again in major venues including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and the New York Daily News.

Yet it has long been known that the official story is far from the truth. Much of the evidence can be found online in articles, lectures, and films (although Memory Hole Blog and many important youtube channels have been taken down).

If you don’t believe me, you are not alone—although at least one-fourth of the US public reportedly now thinks they’ve been played. A poll conducted by Fairleigh Dickinson University in October 2016 found that 24% of Americans interviewed believed that it was at least possible that the Sandy Hook “shooting” was “faked in order to increase support for gun control.” It is likely that even more people now hold this opinion. Those who orchestrated the event are desperate to keep the facts from emerging, by banning books, pulling videos off the internet— and firing Professor James Tracy for daring to investigate.

Tracy’s legal team is considering an appeal based on Rosenberg’s order on motions for summary judgment, which limited the proceedings to one count only. Tracy has been without a job and an income since he was fired, his scholarly reputation has been ruined, and he remains a subject of ridicule in the press. Not only has he suffered cruelly and unjustly, but academic freedom is now in real danger. In a statement by Tracy to the Washington Post:

In my view the Tracy v. FAU decision will embolden university administrators across the US to scrutinize the personal affairs of faculty members with whom they disagree, and they’ll be more inclined to discipline or terminate vulnerable faculty knowing a set of legal precedents are being established in this vein.

One positive outcome of the trial is the classification by Rosenberg of Tracy’s blog posts as private speech on matters of public concern, such as mass shootings, government conspiracies, and the like. With this, she threw out FAU’s repeated assertions that Tracy was conducting academic research on Memory Hole Blog pertinent to his employment. This may help with an appeal. But an appeal will require more resources. If you can support this cause, visit the James Tracy Legal Defense Fund website and click on “Give.”

Vivian Lee is the nom de plume of a tenured professor at an east coast university.

Notes

[1] FAU Defendants’ Answer and Affirmative Defenses to Plaintiff’s Second Amended Complaint, page 74, section 5. https://tracylegaldefense.files.wordpress.com/2017/03/fauanswer.pdf

[2] Collective Bargaining Agreement, 2012-2015, Florida Atlantic University Board of Trustees and the United Faculty of Florida, Articles 15.1 and 16.1. http://www.fau.edu/provost/faculty/files/CBA-2012-2015-Oct2015.pdf

[3] Vivian Lee, “American Academic Freedom in Jeopardy: Professor James Tracy vs. Florida Atlantic University (FAU), Global Research, May 7, 2016. https://www.globalresearch.ca/american-academic-freedom-in-jeopardy/5523940

[4] Vivian Lee, “Academic Freedom Lawsuit to Proceed: Judge Affirms First Amendment Rights.” Global Research, March 8, 2017. https://www.globalresearch.ca/academic-freedomlawsuit-to-proceed-judge-affirms-first-amendment-rights/5578399

[5] Omnibus Order on All Pending Motions for Summary Judgment. https://tracylegaldefense.files.wordpress.com/2017/11/summary-judgment-order-11-1-17-1.pdf

[6] The governor of Florida also appoints 14 of the 17 members of the Board of Governors of the state university system of Florida. The governor appoints six of the 13 members of each state university’s Board of Trustees, and members of the Board of Governors appoint five of the 13. The governor thus controls appointments to the Board of Trustees of FAU.

The Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s main evidence thus far in his “Russiagate” probe is not actually about possible Russian collusion with Trump to win the Presidency, but instead about definite Israeli collusion with Trump after Trump had already won the Presidency but before he became inaugurated. As a lawyer explained on the day when Trump’s former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn was indicted in a plea-deal: “Mr. Flynn has just become the prosecution’s star witness.” What Flynn had pled to was his trying to obtain Russia’s support for Israel’s Government, against the Palestinians. Russia said no; Putin said no to Flynn’s request, which had been made on behalf of Israel.

The way that Mueller’s investigation, to find reasons for Trump’s impeachment, achieved on December 1st the indictment and plea-deal with Flynn, was to get Flynn to admit (after his first having lied to deny) that he had been asked by Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, who had been asked by Israel’s prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, to communicate to Russia’s head-of-state Vladimir Putin through Russia’s U.S. Ambassador, a request on behalf of the incoming U.S. Administration of Donald Trump, for Russia to get Israel out of a jam at the U.N. Security Council. Netanyahu didn’t want to be alone in trying to pressure Putin to turn against the Palestinians; he wanted the incoming Trump Administration also to be pressuring Putin to do that — for Russia to veto, this time, a resolution (#2334 in 2016), which, every year in the past, had been supported by Russia; or, failing to achieve that, to get Russia’s support for Israel’s effort to delay the Security Council’s vote, until after Trump would become installed as the U.S. President on January 20th. That’s what Putin was saying no to. 

The initiative in this matter — the matter that has oddly become the centerpiece of Mueller’s case for impeaching Trump — came from Israel’s prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, not at all from Russia’s head-of-state, Vladimir Putin, such as is almost universally reported to have been the Trump Administration’s foreign master (if any). Trump’s agent, Kushner, was the supplicant, on behalf of Israel, for Putin’s assistance to Israel. Kushner had been asked by Netanyahu to do this, and Kushner assigned Flynn to do it, on behalf of Trump. According to ABC News,

“Trump phoned Flynn shortly after the election to explicitly ask him to ‘serve as point person on Russia,’ and to reach out personally to Russian officials to develop strategies to jointly combat ISIS.”

But, apparently, Flynn accepted Kushner’s instructions also (not only Trump’s), and he assumed that what Kushner wanted here (which was not against ISIS, but instead against the Palestinians) was also what Trump wanted on this matter. In fact, Eli Lake reported about Flynn, on the day of Flynn’s indictment, December 1st,

“that during the last days of the Obama administration, the retired general was instructed to contact foreign ambassadors and foreign ministers of countries on the U.N. Security Council, ahead of a vote condemning Israeli settlements. Flynn was told to try to get them to delay that vote until after Barack Obama had left office, or oppose the resolution altogether.”

This was being done for Netanyahu, not for Putin. As the New York Times reported this,

“Mr. Flynn asked Russia to intervene at the United Nations on behalf of Israel.”

Furthermore, Putin’s answer to Kushner’s request for Russia to veto or at least delay the “United Nations Security Council resolution condemning Israel for its settlement policy” was the exact opposite of what Netanyahu-Kushner were requesting: Russia voted in favor of the resolution, not weakened it — much less vetoed it, as Netanyahu-Kushner were urging. 

In other words: Russia refused to comply with the incoming U.S. President’s son-in-law’s request that had been passed to Putin through Russia’s U.S. Ambassador Sergey Kislyak, through Flynn, through Kushner, who had received the request directly from Netanyahu (and the indictment makes no allegation that President-Elect Trump even so much as knew about any of this; there is no impeachable allegation made there against Trump). Possibly, but not yet certainly, Kushner had received, from his father-in-law, instructions to comply with Israel’s ‘requests’, so that Kushner didn’t need to communicate with Mr. Trump specifically for permission to pass along to Putin through Russia’s U.S. Ambassador, Netanyahu’s desire, as being also America’s desire. Not only was Trump not Putin’s agent in this matter, but his son-in-law was instead serving there as Netanyahu’s agent, under some as-yet-undetermined authorization from Trump, but the indictment doesn’t even allege there to have been any such authorization, by Trump, at all. 

We can be certain that Kushner did have Trump’s authorization, however, in some form, because even now, Trump hasn’t yet fired Kushner. Kushner’s incompetence might bring down Trump, but Trump still stands with Kushner, against Mueller, even though that seems politically suicidal for Trump to be doing. No doubt, if Trump were to break from Kushner, then Kushner might testify against Trump — and so that path (Trump’s turning against Kushner) would also be politically suicidal for Trump. Perhaps Kushner will go to prison if he becomes prosecuted and doesn’t reach any plea-deal. Maybe that’s the reason why Trump doesn’t fire Kushner.

The plea-deal with Flynn has him admitting that his contacts with Kislyak were authorized only by Kushner (referred to in Flynn’s indictment not by name but only by the vague phrase “a very senior member of the Presidential Transition Team”). However, Flynn had earlier lied to the FBI and said that he “never asked Russia’s ambassador to Washington, Sergey Kislyak, to delay the vote for the U.N. Security Council resolution.” So: if, subsequently, it somehow does turn out to be Flynn’s word against Trump’s word, then the ultimate decision will be made by Senate Republicans when they either do or don’t vote for Mike Pence to take over the remainder of Trump’s term. In order for that switch to be made, two-thirds of the entire U.S. Senate — that’s 67 of the 100 — would need to vote for Pence to take over. Whereas Democrats seem eager for Pence to complete Trump’s term, that’s only 46 Senators, or 48 if both Independents vote with the Democrats, and at least 9 or 11 of the Senate’s 52 Republicans would then also need to vote for Pence. The Vice President would not be the presiding officer; instead, the Constitution makes the Chief Justice of the U.S. that, and only the Senators are allowed to be counted in a Senate trial that would follow after the House’s majority-vote for a Senate trial to be held. The V.P. couldn’t serve as any ‘tie-breaker’ in this trial. And removal-from-office would be the only direct harm to Trump; the U.S. provides no way to try the President on any charge via the courts — the only way a U.S. President can be punished for any crime is by being tried, and then convicted and removed from office, by a two-thirds vote in the Senate. Other than that, a U.S. President is above the law.

The Flynn indictment does make one other allegation which specifically concerns Russia:

“FLYNN falsely stated that he did not ask Russia’s Ambassador to the United States … to refrain from escalating the situation in response to sanctions that the United States had imposed against Russia.”

Flynn admitted now that that was a lie — that he had made this request of Kislyak.

On December 5th, Max Blumenthal aptly headlined, “Michael Flynn’s Indictment Exposes Trump Team’s Collusion With Israel, Not Russia — But you wouldn’t know it from reading most mainstream coverage of the revealing affair,” and he commented:

“While the Israel lobby ran interference for Kushner, the favorite pundits of the liberal anti-Trump ‘Resistance’ minimized the role of Israel in the Flynn saga. MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow, who has devoted more content this year to Russia than to any other topic, appeared to entirely avoid the issue of Kushner’s collusion with Israel.” 

Apparently, exposing Israeli control over the U.S. Government is, in effect, prohibited; only Russian ‘control’ over us may be ‘exposed’. The very possibility, that when America’s taxpayers pay (via U.S. taxes) annual donations of $3.8 billion per year to the Government of Israel, which is a ‘friend’, instead of a master — an enemy — of the American people, seems to be prohibited to disprove, or even to question publicly. But there it is, and Russia gets the blame, which Israel (and the Sauds) do not. 

Such misdirection of the blame could cause WW III, especially if U.S. media continue calling this ‘evidence’ ‘against Trump’, by such terms as ‘Russiagate.’ It’s not that, at all; and portraying it as if it were, could do the whole world a whole lot of harm. (I don’t say this in support of Trump, a President I loathe as much as I do his far slicker predecessor, but instead to expose the current lynch-mob as being what they actually are: psychopathic inciters of the most horrific — and unwarranted — war ever.)

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.

VISIT MY NEW WEB SITE: 

stephenlendman.org 

(Home – Stephen Lendman). 

Contact at [email protected].

Jerusalem is an international city – the capital of none. Neither Trump, Netanyahu or anyone else can change what UN Resolution 181 established in November 1947, before Israel became a member state.

UN Resolution 194 mandated free access to the city, other holy places, and right of return for diaspora Palestinians.

Resolution 273 gave Israel UN membership conditional on it accepting Resolutions 181 and 194, as well as “unreservedly (agreeing to honor) the obligations of the United Nations Charter.”

From inception to now, Israel defied international laws at its discretion, showing contempt for the rule of law, brutalizing Palestinians throughout its existence.

In response to Trump’s lawless Jerusalem declaration, Security Council members voted 14 – 1 in favor of respecting the “character, status (and) demographic composition of the Holy City” – America the sole outlier by its veto.

Today, General Assembly members will meet in a rare emergency special session (ESS) – a draft resolution similar to the Security Council one on Jerusalem expected to be adopted overwhelmingly.

Neocon US UN envoy Nikki Haley vowed “to take names” of nations voting against Trump’s declaration.

On Wednesday, Trump threatened to cut off foreign aid to nations supporting today’s General Assembly resolution on Jerusalem.

It’ll hardly matters. America spends less than one percent of its annual budget on foreign aid. Most is military related, Israel by far the largest recipient.

About 85% of US aid goes to NGOs and government contractors serving US imperial interests, relatively small amounts directly to foreign governments.

Except for Israel, virtually all US aid comes with strings, Washington the main beneficiary. Trump’s bluster won’t change things.

Like most other federal officials, he has a disturbing habit of saying one thing and doing another.

Co-opted by dark forces, he betrayed the public interest straightaway in office.

He broke virtually every promise made about helping ordinary people, exclusively serving privileged ones, mainly Wall Street, the Pentagon, beneficiaries of militarism and belligerence, along with other corporate predators and large investors.

His recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital contemptuously defied international law and Palestinian rights.

His threatened cutoff of aid to nations failing to support his lawlessness likely fell on deaf ears worldwide, further isolating America, Trump roaring:

“All these nations that take our money and then vote against us at the Security Council or the assembly, they take hundreds of millions of dollars and billions of dollars and they vote against.”

“Well, we’re watching those votes. Let them vote against us. We’ll save a lot. We don’t care,” adding:

We’re “tired of this country being taken advantage of and we’re not going to be taken advantage of any longer.”

Abusive US practices take advantage of nations and ordinary people worldwide, not the other way around.

America is a pariah state, making more enemies than friends. Trump’s agenda and demagogic bombast made the deplorable state of America worse since he took office.

On Thursday, UN member states will respond to Trump, overwhelmingly rejecting his Jerusalem declaration, repudiating his deplorable action.

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

Featured image is from Newsweek.

A mid-December announcement by the European Union was made stating that the EU had agreed to restore ties with the Southeast Asian Kingdom of Thailand “at all levels” after suspending them in 2014 in the wake of a military coup which ousted the government of Yingluck Shinawatra.

AFP reported in its article, “EU resumes official contacts with Thai junta,” that:

The bloc said developments in Thailand this year, including the adoption of a new constitution and a pledge by junta chief Prayut Chan-O-Cha to hold elections in November 2018, meant it was “appropriate” to resume ties.

The announcement however, was conditional. AFP  also reports:

But the European Union repeated its call for the restoration of full democracy and said it was still concerned about harassment of human rights activists and the curtailing of free speech in Thailand.

What the AFP article and the EU statement both fail to mention was the context of the 2014 coup, the nature of the government it ousted from power and precisely which groups have been subjected to the so-called “curtailing of free speech.”

The EU’s move, which was immediately supported by the US embassy in Bangkok, is likely an attempt to pressure the current interim government from further delaying elections and holding them prematurely, thus likely returning political proxies associated with Yingluck Shinawatra to power.

Returning a US-European Proxy to Power 

Yingluck Shinawatra was sister to ousted former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra. Thaksin Shinawatra held office from 2001-2006, committed serial human rights abuses including the extrajudicial killing of nearly 3,000 in a “war on drugs” in just under 90 days in 2003. He also eagerly censored his political opponents and critics in the media either through courts or through physical intimidation and violence. Several of his critics were either assassinated or disappeared over the course of this time in office.

In 2006, the Royal Thai Army swiftly and without bloodshed, ousted Thaksin Shinawatra from power. Since Shinawatra’s removal from power in 2006, he and his supporters have conducted an on-and-off campaign of terrorism, violence, arson, political assassinations together with a concerted propaganda campaign attacking Thailand’s independent institutions including the nation’s courts, its military and its constitutional monarchy. Together, these institutions represent insurmountable roadblocks to Shinawatra’s return to power. They also, by no coincidence, impede foreign interests from entering and fully exploiting Thailand, its population and its natural resources.

It has been groups associated with Shinawatra’s efforts to attack and undermine Thailand’s institutions that have been targeted by the “curtailing of free speech.”  These groups also so happen to enjoy extensive funding, political and material support from the embassies of the United States, United Kingdom, Canada and the EU.

The aforementioned AFP article also characterised the ousted government of Yingluck Shinawatra as representing a certain level of “democracy.” However, Yingluck Shinawatra openly campaigned in 2011 as her brother’s admitted proxy. Thaksin Shinawatra currently resides abroad evading jail after a criminal conviction for abuse of power was handed down by Thai courts in 2008. In other words, the “democracy” AFP claims Yingluck Shinawatra’s government represented in reality amounted to a convicted criminal running the government remotely through a nepotist-appointed proxy. In truth, it represented neither “democracy” nor adhered to even the most elementary underpinnings of rule of law.

As to why the EU seeks elections in Thailand prematurely before reforms can be fully implemented and Shinawatra’s return to power blocked indefinitely, it is necessary to examine Shinawatra’s utility to US and European interests both in Thailand and in a wider context, in Asia Pacific vis-à-vis China.

During Shinawatra’s time in office, he eagerly supported US-European foreign policy both in Asia and globally. He committed Thai troops to the invasion and occupation of Iraq in 2003 and hosted the US Central Intelligence Agency’s extraordinary rendition and secret detention programme on Thai territory. He also attempted to pass a US-Thai free trade agreement by sidestepping both public opposition to it and any form of Thai parliamentary review and approval.

The most recent EU statement also included mention of “free trade.”

With years of US-European support for Shinawatra’s efforts to return to power accumulating a substantial political debt, any possibility of his actual return would be accompanied by an even more zealous commitment to US-European interests at Thailand’s and the region’s expense.

Containing China, Maintaining US-Euro Primacy in the Pacific 

In a wider context, the time period Shinawatra held power saw the US and Europe cultivating other client regimes in the region including Aung San Suu Kyi and her National League for Democracy party in Myanmar, Anwar Ibrahim in Malaysia and before a very recent falling out, Hun Sen in Cambodia. Together, this collection of client regimes was to constitute a united front against the growing influence of Beijing.

From the turn of the century to present day, it is clear that US and European plans have suffered immeasurable setbacks. In Thailand, Shinawatra’s ouster in 2006 followed by his sister’s ouster in 2014 represent a downward trend in both Shinawatra’s political staying power and the influence of US-European-funded organisations, media platforms, institutions and opposition fronts.

And as US-European influence via clients like Shinawatra wanes, ties between China and Thailand have grown substantially. While Washington offers “free trade” and ambiguous “military ties” to Thailand, Beijing offers nationwide infrastructure projects including high speed rail, new rolling stock for Thailand’s existing mass transportation networks, military hardware to replace Thailand’s ageing US-made inventory and above all, a partnership absent of preconditions regarding Thailand’s internal political affairs.

These deals have been sealed by the political order opposed to Shinawatra and currently holding power in Thailand.

Despite hopes fading of ever reestablishing primacy in the Pacific, it is clear that the US and its European partners have not abandoned efforts to try. And while their primary objectives may never be achieved, slowing Beijing’s ascent enough to integrate it into the existing Washington-London-Brussels dominated international order rather than having Beijing find itself at the head of an alternative model of international relations, in their minds, may still be possible.

If US-EU Cannot Have Thailand, No One Will… 

While any sort of substantial and enduring return to power for Shinawatra or a US-European proxy like him is highly unlikely, as the United States and the European Union have done elsewhere, particularly in the Middle East in regards to Iran’s rising influence and its enemies’ inability to contain it, where client states cannot be created, chaos is created instead to deny opponents economic and military partners, or any semblance of peace and stability along their peripheries.

A variety of gambits have been put into play simultaneously alongside efforts to return Shinawatra to power aimed at sowing discord within Thailand and producing synergies with similar destabilisation efforts in neighbouring Myanmar and Cambodia. These include efforts pursued by the US and EU member embassies in Thailand itself to prop up and perpetuate protests against the current Thai government. They also include efforts to expand conflict in Thailand’s troubled southern provinces and foster inter-religious conflict between Thai Buddhists and Muslims who have coexisted for centuries.

In other words, if the US and Europe cannot have Thailand, they have cultivated multiple options to ensure the nation can provide no one else, particularly Beijing, constructive ties or contribute to wider regional peace and prosperity.

This explanation goes far in illustrating why media organisations like AFP and the European Union in its recent statement so disingenuously portray Thailand’s current political crisis as a battle between “democracy” and a “junta.” The truth is far more illuminating as to who, what and more precisely why Thailand is unable to enjoy political stability and move forward together with the rest of the region into economic prosperity Europe and its partners across the Atlantic see disappearing into the distance as the global balance of power shifts.

The EU “restoring ties” with Thailand is mostly symbolic. Bangkok is unlikely to receive any benefit from these “ties,” and regardless of the current government’s timetable for elections or any signal from Bangkok in appeasement to Brussels, EU member embassies have every intention to continue creating and sustaining opposition fronts aimed both at fostering short-term instability and the long-term undermining of Thailand’s sovereign institutions.

For Thailand, continuing to foster real partnerships and ties beyond the US and EU while building up its own independent capacity to ensure economic prosperity and national defence is essential to overcoming the challenges EU “ties” really represent. Anglo-American and European foreign policy for centuries has been predicated on dictating terms from a position of uncontested strength. As the global balance of power shifts, this position of strength has eroded. Whatever Thailand agrees to, it must be done in the wider context of further eroding US-European primacy in regions thousands of miles from their respective capitals and striking a more equitable and mutually beneficial balance in international relations.

The EU’s offer to “restore ties” with Thailand is empty and will only serve as a thin veil over continued efforts to coerce Bangkok into rushing ahead with elections the EU and its partners in Washington hope to influence.

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

Featured image is from the author.