Global Research

Impunity is another US lethal weapon that kills silently. As of 2001, the US has given a free hand and a shocking degree of impunity and immunity to warlords and vicious strongmen who has slaughtered numerous in the late twentieth century. All these killers encircling Kabul regime today have contributed to Soviet ouster and have eventually set the stage for the US arrival. From the US interest perspective, they deserve survival not just for paid services, rather for a persistent military stronghold in Afghanistan.

The US-watched Hamid Karzai’s government forged a national reconciliation bill which was passed by Afghan Parliament in 2007 and got the shape of law. The Afghan Amnesty Law pardoned warlords for all the atrocities and war crimes committed from April 27, 1978 coup up until Hamid Karzai’s ascendance to power in 2001. Under this law, they enjoy vested exemption from being prosecuted or investigated for the war crimes. The law further elaborates that all those “thugs” who would function in or standing behind Karzai government [and international presence] would go free of investigation. This vividly means they are unleashed and open to carry out any act of crime “thereinafter”.

Amid the US bombardment of the Taliban safe havens in 2001, it rounded up a number of 700 second and third rank of Taliban members and transported them to Guantanamo Bay prison, though a majority of genuine Taliban leaders were immediately immunized and redirected to Pakistan by US and allies [Britain and Pakistan] who ditched of falling prey to the sick personnel of Guantanamo detention center.

In months after the Taliban regime, in the run-up to build a post-Taliban US-led administration, a ballot box was placed for the election of the head of the interim administration where ex-president Hamid Karzai and his only rival were contestants. The later contender won the vote over Karzai, but thanks to a premeditated conspiracy, Karzai had to accede to the office which was pushed through the position by Zalmai Khalilzad the special US envoy and Lakhdar Brahimi the UN representative to Afghanistan, both of whom opposed the voting result.

In the early 2000s, The Afghan Constitution was enacted with debatable topics such as market economy that opened the gate for the Western companies and investments. The other paramount point was the establishment of a “presidential system”, or in plain term, an authoritarian regime where a president is not accountable to any party. This model of leadership is corresponding to that of South Korea, earlier Philippines regime, Taiwan and probably others. In such a government, a president is not just presiding over the executive branch; it is in command of the legislative and judicial branches of a country as well. And in the context of such authoritative government Hamid Karzai turned out as an abundantly affectional and warm leader to a horde of sharks and predators that descended the nation into a near-total mess.

Principally led by the US, Hamid Karzai’s administration gave a blanket amnesty to the Afghan Mujahideens, except for Ahmed Shah Masoud, the only though dominant warlord who saw a fatal fate. He was assassinated on September 9, 2001 just two days prior to 9/11 tragedy. It is broadly believed he was murdered out of his supremacy over other fellow Mujahideen leaders that US feared would defy its military role anytime in the future.

Among hundreds of mass-killing cases documented to support the claim of US impunity, one happened in 2006 on Kabul-Jalalabad highway when American forces opened aimless fires on passersby and locals after they faced a suicide bomber. It killed 20 and injured 30 people, but just like scores of other blatant strikes at civilians, none underwent investigation and punishment.

Sometime in Karzai government, a wedding ceremony in a rural area in Uruzgan province was bombed by the US warplanes which slaughtered children, women and elderly men including the groom and bride. Time and again it faded out without a hitch for those involved.

Nonetheless, in May 4, 2009 a US air attack pounded a village in western Afghan province of Farah and killed 86 to 147 civilians including children and women who had fled the Taliban and Afghan Army crossfire and resettled for safety in the area. In August 2008, the same assailants’ aircraft hit a neighborhood in Aziz Abad village of western Herat province and slaughtered between 78 to 92 people, and the list goes on as they are just a few handpicked catastrophes.

The most disgraceful posthumous compensation during Hamid Karzai administration was a negligible-to-life “blood money” of US$ 1,000 to 1,800 for each martyred and US$ 500 to 1,000 for wounded, only if they were harmed by direct US or NATO strike.

Moving on, the US proclaims it would defend Afghanistan against external threats, which is explicitly stated in the US-Afghanistan Bilateral Security Agreement (BSA). According to the BSA, the United States has duty to protect the territorial integrity of Afghanistan against foreign aggression. This is while Pakistan has occasionally been firing mortar shells on Afghanistan’s border regions since many years which have killed several people and cattle.

But the US’s posture to the provocations was so mild. It has still continued to approve billions in military aid to Pakistan as well as it chose to donate many fighter jets and an ocean of military hardware it used in Afghanistan to Pakistan after the combat mission ended in 2014, not quite later than Osama Bin Laden’s assassination in a compound near Islamabad.

The Kabul-Washington Security Agreement was inked a day after Karzai’s successor Ashraf Ghani was sworn in as president. The accord bestows, on paper, several concessions to the both sides, where Afghanistan barely seems to extract any profit out of it, while the US got its nine large bases sanctioned and legalized in Afghanistan once and for all.

One more privilege extended to the US side by virtue of the agreement was immunity of its servicemen against legal action within jurisdiction of Afghanistan. The accord states that those found guilty of crimes may undergo trial in the US rather than Afghanistan, and if the Afghan government demands, Washington may keep it abreast of progress made in regard of proceedings.

While in early Karzai presidency, the minimal punishment of US servicemen for mass shooting of innocents was that they would get fired from doing service in Afghanistan and forced back to the United States. The absurd excuse often placed behind the massacres was that the alleged shooters were suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

The US as the architect of Kabul regime absolutely rules the critical policies of the Afghan government. Gulbudeen Hekmatyar – a war criminal of dark era in early 1990s and assassin of numberless who has reportedly been harbored in Pakistan since mid-nineties –joined the Afghan government last year which was, indeed, beyond and above Ashraf Ghani’s powers to bring him over. The US welcomed Gulbudeen’s deal with Ashraf Ghani and drew world attention into the move as a sole initiative of the Afghan government.

Gulbudeen was vehemently liable for punishment to death in the international tribunal for bearing a murderous background. In a statement released the other day by Gulbudeen’s party, it has voiced support of Islamic State terrorist group against the Taliban.

Moreover, Afghanistan was in no state to get his name removed from the UN blacklist had it not been for the US. This serves the striking example of the West’s impunity policy to its faithful elements.

In 2014, the US administration released five high-profile Taliban inmates from Guantanamo prison in a swap deal with one US soldier who was held captive with the Taliban. The Taliban prisoners were incarcerated for the crucial role in the Taliban regime and heinous war crimes against humanity. Discharging 5 for 1 is unjustifiable and repercussive for the Afghan nation. Throughout US occupation, quite a few times the Taliban prisoners have been cleared of Guantanamo prison and sometime later news has emerged of their resurgence and re-alignment with the Taliban.

The exemptions of the Taliban inmates in the form of swap reflect that they are held as reserve and mobilized for war as need arises. Some Taliban prisoners have even walked free from the prison under guise of efforts to “bring peace”.

In October 2014, two second-rank Haqqani network members were arrested by the intelligence agency of Afghanistan. Anas Haqqani along with another high-profile Haqqani leader, Hafiz Rashid, were detained in the south-eastern Afghan province of Khost. The former is the son of Haqqani terrorist network’s founder, Jalaludin Haqqani and the latter is half-blood brother of Sarajjudin Haqqani, the sitting leader of the terror group.

So far as they are held to no purpose as they confess to mass murder of innumerable Afghans. The US was expected to step forward and determine their fate as it has called for a stern war on Haqqani network and termed the group a “menace” to the American security. Despite being blacklisted by both the West and UN, the US is counteractively so “relent” to the terror group.

Let’s take the execution of Abdul Malik Rigi as an oppositely “relentless” example. He was the leader of Islamist Sunni terrorist group Jundullah who was captured in a wondering way by the Iranian intelligence agents. Rigi was a radical dissident of Iranian regime accused of so many terror crimes against members of Iranian revolutionary guard. While flying from Dubai to Kyrgyzstan in Feb. 2010, his carrier passenger plane – when entered into the Iranian airspace – was chased, intercepted and forced to land in Iranian soil by fighter jets. At the time, his arrest was long used as an exemplary instance by Afghans against Kabul regime’s crippled counterterrorism actions. He was later hung to death in June 2010.

Quietly, without most people noticing, the European Commission is moving ahead with a strategy that will arguably make the EU into the first fully operational model of a centralised ‘one state’ supranational authority: ‘A New World Order’; the long standing neoconservative ambition which lies at the heart of global secret society agendas and US geopolitical hegemony.

The key ingredient of this strategy is the establishment of an ‘EU Treasury’ which, according to Donald Tusk, President of the EU Council, will come into effect in June 2018, under the official title: European Monetary Fund. This will result in the single point control of all EU member state finances.

The plan will involve a further leveraging of the power of the major banks, to consolidate their controlling influence over EU affairs.

By combining an ‘EU Treasury’ and a consolidation of banking power, a major step will be taken in the ‘amalgamation of everything’ heist; to be brought under the single umbrella of a Totalitarian Super State. We are talking about individual country’s moneytary policies; the military; police forces and intelligence services all being run from a central control unit in Brussels. These will be followed by more of the same – covering almost all areas of administrative control, that were once the domain of individual countries.

The institution at the forefront of this power grab is the Bank of International Settlements, based in Basle, Switzerland (image right), which has global outreach and acts as a funnel for the acquisition and distribution of vast sums of globally fluid international money.

Next in line come the central banks: the European Central Bank, The US Federal Reserve Banks, the Bank of England etc. And below these come the first tiers of involvement of national governments and, by extension, the further banking institutions of each country. Thus government and national treasuries, are relegated to being fourth down from the top of the power pyramid which controls most of our lives from day to day. Government, in too many cases, is just a vector for the advancement of corporate ambition.

The establishment of a European Union Treasury will mean that a pan European tax gathering institution is given control over all member states – superseding the already diluted role played by national treasuries to administer the economies of sovereign nation states.

Based in Brussels, it will have the power to gather a whole extra strata of tax receipts from member state citizens, one of the objectives of which will be the funding of a programme of complete military unification – a ‘One EU Army’. A highly significant part of this process will involve the establishment of an ‘Eastern European Army’, to be known as ‘Eastern European Forces’.

This army will cooperate with NATO in shifting the block’s geopolitical centre of military power and strategy into the most Easterly geographical borders of the EU. This key role is to be taken by Poland, which has just raised its military defence budget to 2.5% of GDP and stepped up the number of its military personnel accordingly.

NATO has rubber stamped the Easterly move by setting-up a ‘Centre of Excellence’ in Krakow; the opening ceremony of which involved inviting Poland’s leading defence chiefs to sign-up to a ‘New Memoranda of Understanding’ which will involve Poland acting as the military counter intelligence agency for all matters relating to activities in Russia – and by extension – China. Romania has also been invited to play a role in this international spying exercise.

We need to pause here in order to fully grasp the implications of these manoeuvrings. What is being pushed through, with very few being aware, is a major redistribution of military and geopolitical power within Europe – and beyond.

In effect, The US, Britain, France and Germany (NATO) will pull-back from doing the ongoing dirty work of ‘poking the Russian bear’ – in an attempt to provoke it (Russia) into an act of serious aggression – passing this job on to Poland, whose citizens have been fully primed for this task by an endless stream of government anti Russian propaganda.

This is strategic. The long standing objective has been to implicate Russia in a serious act of aggression which would, in turn, provide the alibi for Western command forces to be put on what would be seen as a ‘legitimate’ permanent war-footing’ with the Russian Federation. The objective being to break-up and destroy the Russian Federation’s unity and coherence and to expand Western hegemonic power and control ever further East: a key step in the further imposition of A New World Order.

Polish citizens have, both wittingly and unwittingly, allowed themselves to become pawns in this new ‘cold war’, by singularly failing to critique the US/NATO inspired propaganda exercise obsessively pursued by a bought-out Polish government. An exercise which vilifies Russia as being ‘a major threat to world stability’, when in reality there is a singular lack of credible evidence to lend any weight to this argument.

Whereas US led invasions – and decimation – of more than 30 countries since the Second World War clearly establishes it – and its allies – as the number one threat to world stability.

We are witnessing a high stakes smoke screen. In plain words, Russia has acted as a major brake on Western ambitions to establish a despotic centralised regime, beyond the current borders of the EU. A regime supported by the vast neoliberal banking conglomerates and the military industrial project which carries-out their dirty work on the ground and in the air.

Poland now faces a further crises of post World War Two occupation. Once again by the West. The first Western incursion was set in motion by the selling-off of key industries to outside corporate interests – and what I call the Coca Colarisation’ of the country by US interests. However that slides into the background when compared to the current crisis facing the country.

Poles stand on the very brink of being forced to give up their sovereignty. In doing so they will become pawns to the forces of a global New World Order. A regime whose new HQ will be located in Europe, and make strategic use of Poland – and Romania – as its ‘war theatre’. While the US, UK, Germany and France pull-back to avoid being caught up in the front lines of this, their very own belligerent, geopolitically motivated incitement to war.

There is a critical need to raise our voices against this desperate act of international terrorism. One which, if it should go ahead, will greatly raise the stakes of provoking a major military confrontation.

It is vital to realise that all this is happening without any consultation or communication with citizens – who are being coldly manipulated to act as cannon fodder to the warmongering ambitions of a small minority of tyrannical power brokers.

Note: I am grateful to UK Column (www.uk column.org) for the background material which informs the main body of this article.

Julian Rose is an early pioneer of UK organic farming, a writer, international activist and social entrepreneur. He is President of The International Coalition to Protect the Polish Countryside. Julian is the author of two acclaimed titles: In Defence of Life and Changing Course for Life. You can find out more on his website www.julianrose.info

We will keep missing out if we insist on relying solely on our intellect, acquired knowledge, reason and intelligence; human potential encompasses much more.

I am fascinated with the insights the evolution of science provides, particularly astronomy, cosmology, quantum physics and medicine. Medical research and technology opened the doors to the insides of our brains, considered by ourselves superior and in many ways as complex, dynamic, fascinating as the universe itself. And scientists keep sending those ‘intelligent’ messages to outer space in hopes that other ‘intelligent’ beings will pick them up and beam back their replies to them-us to provide a human life-changing experience of a close encounter of some kind. They assume that beings ‘out there’ possess minds and intellects–lives like our own.

For the sake of argument: What if extraterrestrial beings—in the event that they do exist–are not interested in intelligence-knowledge-technology but in other qualities? Such as true civilization, true ethics, higher moral codes, evolution of consciousness-conscience, spiritual-moral as opposed to material advancement, absence of aggressiveness, compassion, wisdom, and other non-tangibles? Metaphysics being off-limits for science and technology?

A handful of philosophers have addressed such intangibles quite elegantly. But in our pragmatist, empiricist 21st century world it became a no-no. Serious people, who do serious thinking and serious undertakings don’t dwell on such metaphysical aspects of reality. An ‘advanced’ country is supposed to be with great military power, economic supremacy, and ability to dominate others by any means necessary. Non-different from beasts in the wild. The name of the game being competition, solidarity and cooperation become underdogs.  It is the survival of the fittest, according to Darwin’s theory (not fact) of material evolution, remember?

There is a character flaw that must be hidden, or better yet suppressed, if one wants to succeed in modern life: to be perceived as virtuous, meaning naïve, simple minded. Humbleness is for a certain class of people who can afford it (saints for instance); one should not even look humble not to be stepped over socially, ostracized. We are socialized, conditioned, educated, governed to believe in such cultural-structural biases. It is what reasonable people expect from reasonable people. Not evolved; reasonable.

Scientists theorize and hypothesize about multi dimensional spaces, string theory, brane theory and multiverses that are glimpsed at or imagined in equations and in models born within the boundaries of their collective knowledge and intelligence, which demand respect in our earthly context. But upon closer scrutiny, believing those mathematical hypotheses is not very different from believing hypotheses based on spirituality and consciousness. The common denominator being belief.

What if extraterrestrials are not interested in intelligent and knowledgeable savages who, organized in groups, are at the top of their capacity and willingness to exploit, kill, maim, torture, cause pain and suffering to each other and other animals on a planet where they are parasites-predators? Whose historians focus first and foremost on conquests, wars, battles, invasions, genocides, bloodshed, slavery, famine, crimes? Exalting military tacticians and strategists, whose business is exclusively to hurt, kill and destroy, as heroes? Where the concept of virtue has been hijacked and distorted by both the religious and the military establishments?

What if they are not impressed with the scientific-technological exploits-inventions from our ‘superior’ intelligence that are being used primarily for violence, armed conflicts, vendettas and cruelty, to social, cultural and economic control, and the threat of Armageddon if the powerful don’t get their way? With nations of peoples lacking any resemblance to the definition of an idealized civilized and sapiens ‘human being?’ What if they are interested in a spiritual rather than in a material evolution? Would that be the reason that political and military authorities have never been sought or summoned by alleged ET visitors to our planet? Steven Spielberg was perhaps closer to reality with the plot of his 1982 movie, ET.

There are tribes in the Amazon still uncontacted by Brazilians even though they are known to be there. We have photos of them. But they show such degree of aggressiveness-ignorance that Brazilian authorities see no point in trying a direct contact lest these native Brazilians get unnecessarily killed -or kill- in the process. They shoot arrows [their technology] at airplanes, which represent their very own UFOs. Ring any bells? We have nuclear weapons ready for the UFOs that keep flying over us without plausible explanations. How dare they? They must be evil.

I have reason to believe that this is where our intelligent, intellectual superiorities are missing the point. We are meant by nature, the universe, life itself (let’s leave the gods out of this) to be superior beings, elevated in virtue, goodness, righteousness, integrity, ethics, honesty, morality, uprightness, evolved consciousness, and not merely to get richer, smarter, sexier, more cunning, and more knowledgeable to dominate everything and everybody we contemplate–if possible by force. This is the real danger, the aspect that could prompt these smarter, more aggressive (meaning less civilized) people in power to explode the planet through a nuclear war, thus creating a second asteroid belt. Just look at Donald Trump vs Kim Jong-un drama.

Yet, I refuse to see that in our future; as much as I disagree with Nobelist author William Goldman in his acclaimed novel, Lord of the Flies, portraying English school boys stranded in a deserted island after a plane crash, who descend into savagery and even cannibalism, dividing themselves into ‘tribes’ in a few months span. Rather, life’s movement is forward, up–if certainly with setbacks. As every Yin encapsulates its Yang and vice versa—on an eternal, infinite cosmic recycling motion, and energy is never destroyed, only transformed, so is spiritual evolution. There is never a loss.

When I met Fritjof Capra, author of The Tao of Physics, at the University of Hawaii in the ‘80s he told me smiling, “When we, physicists, get to the top of the mountain we will be greeted by mystics and spiritualists asking, ‘What took you so long?’” Today’s physicists, astronomers, cosmologists, mathematicians are getting closer to the top with their pursuit of the elusive ‘God particle,’ aka Higgs boson — but with their biases against spirituality intact. Stephen Hawking, allegedly one of the most intelligent persons on the planet, goes to great lengths to proselytize his belief that the universe “does not need a god;” the subtext being that the material universe is a god in and of itself, and he, Hawking, who decrypted the enigma is the real god–right! Albert Einstein, however, was the exception that proves the rule; as was Carl Jung. And Gandhi, of course, the antithesis of a politician.

The process of living peacefully rests also on degrees of spiritual-emotional [not religious] evolution as corollaries to changes in sociological paradigms and societal externalities. Peace and Conflict Studies, Conflict Mediation, Noetic Sciences, among other civilizing disciplines represent the flip side, the how-to, the map to the top of the mountain.

Peace is an inside as well as an outside job; not an event but a process for individuals, social bodies and collectivities to trail permanently–the planet being the ultimate individual hosting social bodies.

I agree with Prof. Johan Galtung’s assertion that the intellectual and emotional flow together mentally, and with Mahatma Gandhi that peace/politics are not divorced from spirituality.

It all starts and grows within the individual and then manifests into society in myriad ways. Or not.

Antonio Carlos da Silva Rosa, born 1946, is founder-editor of the pioneering Peace Journalism website, TRANSCEND Media Service-TMS (from 2008), an assistant to Prof. Johan Galtung, Secretary of the International Board of the TRANSCEND Network for Peace Development Environment, and recipient of the Psychologists for Social Responsibility’s 2017 Anthony J. Marsella Prize for the Psychology of Peace and Social Justice.

This article was originally published by Transcend Media Service.

The massacre at the First Baptist Church of Sutherland Springs was, to put it simply, effective and spectacular. It also had the resonances of the primeval, ignoring the sanctity of the church in favour of murder within it. The alleged assailant managed to do less God’s work than his own, slaughtering 26 and injuring 20 others.

The regularity of these mass killings is become less jaw dropping than wearisome. With each incident, the forensic eye is deployed and duly adjusted. A form of profiling is triggered. Was the person of colour? Possess a beard? Use a rental truck? In this case, the implicating signifiers were not present: “Witnesses and authorities described the shooter as a white male in his 20s wearing all black clothing and a tactical vest.”[1]

The late suspect, Devin P. Kelley, proceeded to slaughter a good number of the population of Sutherland Springs, Texas. On Monday, special agent Christopher Combs of the San Antonio division of the FBI dismissed suggestions that a terrorism investigation was underway.

As with previous killings, law codes and statute books are consulted, leaving the categorisers empty and scratching. The US Code of Federal Regulation is certainly more specific than some on the topic of what might constitute terrorism, “the unlawful use of force and violence against persons or property to intimidate or coerce a government, the civilian population, or any segment thereof, in furtherance of political or social objectives.”[2]

Behind such meanings, however, come cultural and institutional qualifications. FBI director Christopher Wray, in a Senate hearing in September, was surprisingly illuminating on this point.

“There is not a domestic terrorism crime as such.”

The implication is clear: terrorism is generally presumed to be foreign, external, a profanity of the outer world. This leads to a surprising and questionable implication: terrorism cannot be personal, an incident of mental disruption.

Such an application is uneven. Earlier this year, James Jackson was accused of stabbing a black man to death in New York, a point that convinced the Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance that terrorism was involved. Jackson was a professed white supremacist accused of travelling to New York City for the express purpose of killing and stirring the full pot of racial hatred.

According to Vance, he “prowled the streets of New York for three days in search of a black person to assassinate in order to launch a campaign of terrorism against our Manhattan community and the values we celebrate.”[3]

In Kelley’s case, the procedural book of confusion and interpretation again came into play. He was white, a pasty picture of ugliness and self-defeat. For that very reason, he seemed to defy the category of terrorist from the start, which is, once admitted by the authorities, filled with earth moving gravitas and, importantly, patriotic consequence. A terrorist, once labelled, demands a different, and even convenient form of treatment.

The US President has duly taken his cue to avoid using the word altogether. Illness has been suggested, which naturally takes the person in question beyond the fringes of dull law and necessary evaluation.

Importantly, it has enabled Trump to disassociate the issue of the user of the gun from the gun itself, an inanimate object that merely found itself being used. “I think that mental health is a problem here. Based on preliminary reports, this was a very deranged individual with a lot of problems over a very long period of time.”

Trump’s description was a jotting on the mental health of the US, alluding to the Republic as one grand mental facility.

“We have a lot of mental health problems in our country, as do other countries, but this isn’t a guns situation… we could go into it but it’s a little bit soon to go into it.”

In a nod and wink to the necessity for guns, Trump claimed it fortunate that “somebody else had a gun that was shooting in the opposite direction, otherwise it wouldn’t have been as bad as it was, it would have been much worse.”

As more digging took place on Kelley, the Washington Post suggested that his “young life was riddled with warning signs, mounting during and after his time in the Air Force”.[4] What followed was a veritable smorgasbord of potential risk factors. He received a conviction for beating his then-wife and stepson. There were charges of animal cruelty. Mental stability was questioned.

He also managed to escape a “behavioural facility”, was “considered a danger to himself and others” and “was also facing military criminal charges”. What also followed was a slip on the part of the US Air Force. His domestic violence conviction was never entered into the National Criminal Information Center database, a bureaucratic error that effectively freed him up to purchase firearms.

To top the grim accounting of Kelley’s alleged exploits, speculative articles also began filtering through about who this man might really be. An atheist who took to guns? Perhaps a radical left winger with a penchant for spraying bullets? In such an information environment, anything goes. What mattered most was the means and the execution, the terrifying rendered banal.

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

Notes

The recent revelations by Edward Snowden the former national security agency whistle-blower about the role of Saudi Arabia in the ongoing war in Syria has raised fresh questions about role of Saudi Arabia and others in arming the various terrorist factions in Syria.

According to the documents released by Snowden the Saudis were arming their terrorist proxies in Syria is early as March 2013. The documents also disclose that the National Security Agency of United States was fully aware of the actions of the Saudis and the terrorist proxies, and raised no objections because the United States and Saudi Arabia had a common goal of regime change in Syria. Saudi Arabia and other supporters of the terrorist proxies have continued to provide vast financial and military aid to the terrorist groups. This information needs to be put alongside other recent revelations about the supply of armaments to the terrorist groups.

A series of investigative reports by the Bulgarian Investigating Reporting Network (BIRN) has disclosed a whole network of illicit arms shipments to the Syrian terrorists by United States and its allies. This has continued notwithstanding that President Trump ordered the cessation of the arms supplies in July 2017. For example the Croatian island of Krk has been used as recently as September 2017 for United States arms shipments to the Middle East.

The upsurge in the supply of arms by alternative routes such as from Croatia and Azerbaijan follows the concern of the German government that the Americans had been using their German military bases for the purposes of supplying arms to the terrorists.

The German concern appears to have been founded on two fundamental bases. The first of these is that Germany is bound by the 2008 Common Position on arms exports that form part of European Union law. Member States of European Union are required to take into account eight separate criteria before approving shipments of arms from their territory to 3rd parties. Those criteria include whether or not the recipient country respect human rights and also the preservation of regional peace, security and stability.

It could not be said that the shipment of arms to Syria and in particular the supply of those arms to sundry terrorist groups that are supportive of US geopolitical goals meets the requirement of respecting human rights, much less contributing to regional peace, security and stability.

The hypocrisy, which is inherent in the European Union’s stance, may be seen from the fact that the European Union’s arms embargo on Syria was lifted in May 2013. The embargo was lifted because of pressure from France and the United Kingdom to allow arms supplies from their countries to reach the Syrian opposition groups.

The second factor, which is of relevance in this context, is the United Nations Arms Trade Treaty of 2014, which came into force on 24 December 2014. Article 6 of the Arms Trade Treaty prohibits the supply of arms by a country where they were aware or should normally have been aware that those arms would be used in attacks against civilians or in the commission of war crimes.

Article 11 of the treaty covers the situation where arms are sent to one location and diverted to a third party. Member countries to the treaty are required to take steps to prevent this from happening. This is clearly not being done.

Among the countries that have ratified the Arms Trade Treaty are Australia, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, France, and the United Kingdom. All these countries have been complicit in the supply of arms and ammunition to, among others, Saudi Arabia and Israel. This is especially problematic because the United States, Saudi Arabia and Israel are not parties to the treaty. All three countries have been significant suppliers of arguments to terrorist groups operating in Syria and elsewhere. The latest revelations from Mr Snowden confirm what had been widely known or suspected for a considerable period of time.

The Saudi backed terrorist group Jaysh Al-Islam has carried out summary executions of civilians, deployed chemical weapons for attacks upon civilians and has also used civilians as human shields. Again this is well documented but has not stopped the United States and Saudi Arabia from supplying arms to this and similar groups.

The fact is that these arms shipments are continuing notwithstanding President Trump‘s order of July 2017 The supply of such armaments under the code name of Operation Sycamore raises serious questions about the extent to which Trump is actually in control of his military and the CIA.

The principal organisers of this arm trade appear to be both the CIA and the Special Operations Command. Both groups are known to operate independently of effective control. Prior to the latest revelations by the BIRN there had been earlier reports by the same organisations of the use of Silk Airways, a company based in Azerbaijan, for distributing arms to terrorist groups using this civilian airline. This is also contrary to international aviation agreements, which prohibit the use of civilian airlines for the shipment of military equipment.

Australia, which is a signatory to the Arms Trade Treaty, appears to be untroubled by the destination of its arms exports, or the uses to which those arms might be put. In July of this year the defence industry Minister Christopher Pyne expressed his desire that Australia should become a much greater exporter of armaments. He was quoted as saying that the exports would be used to cement relationships with countries in volatile regions such as the Middle East. He also said that such exports could be used to bolster military ties with key States such as the United Arab Emirates with whom Australia shared an interest in both the fight against Islamic State and “balancing Iran’s growing power in the region.“

Mr Pyne’s statement would seem to fall foul of both article 6 and article 11 of the Arms Trade Treaty in that he knows or ought to know that the end user of those arms exports are terrorist groups. Far from fighting Islamic State the United Arab Emirates has long been named as one of its principal supporters.

It is also difficult to understand why Mr Pyne should wish to “balance Iran’s growing power in the region” when it is obvious that Iran’s intervention in both Iraq and Syria, at the invitation of the legitimate sovereign governments of both of those countries, has been a major factor in the increasingly successful battle against IS and similar terrorist groups. The groups whose Mr Pyne’s allies are arming not only sought to undermine the governments of those two countries, but have also been the source of untold death, destruction, and human misery.

The revelations of the documents released by Mr Snowden and the various reports relating to the illegal shipment of arms to terrorist groups have been given little or no coverage in the Australian mainstream media. This reflects a general reluctance by the mainstream media to accurately describe what is happening in Iraq and Syria, and in particular the role played by the various terrorist groups and the support they receive by countries allied to Australia, in particular Saudi Arabia and the United States.

The unequal media treatment accorded to the various parties in Syria can be illustrated by the differential analysis applied to the liberation of Aleppo and Raqqa. In the former case the terrorists were removed from Aleppo by the combined operations of the Syrian Army and their Russian, Iranian, and Hezbollah allies. Civilian casualties were invariably described in terms of a wanton disregard as to human life by the Syrian and Russian forces.

The battle against Isis forces in Raqqa was largely conducted by the US and it’s so-called “coalition“ allies including Australia, as was the earlier and very similar destructive operation in Mosul. Raqqa has been almost totally destroyed. Accurate comparisons have been drawn with the fate of both Dresden and Berlin at the conclusion of World War II. The death toll for civilians has been in the thousands. Accurate numbers cannot be ascertained until the rubble has been cleared. The scale of the destruction and the death toll has barely been reported in the mainstream media.

The most likely explanation for this is that to tell the truth about the pattern of arms supplies to terrorists, and the illegal intervention by the US and it’s “coalition“ allies in Syria, such as Australia, falls outside the preferred narrative which is to constantly demonise Syria, Russia and Iran irrespective of the actual evidence.

In Australia’s case, because unlike the United States, Israel and Saudi Arabia, it is a signatory to the United Nations Arms Treaty it therefore has an additional responsibility in respect of the uses to which arms supplied to the terrorists are put. That would require inter alia, criticism of United States. The history of the last 70 years shows that adopting an independent and principled stand on such matters is more than can reasonably be expected of successive Australian government.

James O’Neill is an Australian-based Barrister at Law, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

Featured image is from the author.

In 2013, Peter Oborne, the Daily Telegraph’s chief political commentator called the Conservative Friends of Israel (CFI), “by far Britain’s most powerful pro-Israel lobbying group”. It was estimated then that more than 80% of Conservative MPs were CFI members. The same applies today.

CFI’s sister lobby in the US is AIPAC, aka the American Israel Zionist Committee, an organization for the promotion of the U.S.-Israel alliance. It has been called ‘one of the most powerful lobbying groups in the United States’.  Its critics have stated that it acts as an agent of the Israeli government with a “stranglehold” on the United States Congress with its power and influence. The group is strongly allied with the Likud party of Israel, and the Republican Party in the US.

This week, the influence of the CFI lobby in Westminster has been highlighted by the uncovering of the illegitimate activity of the UK Secretary of State for International Development who allegedly attended twelve unauthorised meetings with high-profile, Israeli politicians – apparently arranged and accompanied by a former chief fundraiser for the CFI lobby in London (who was previously ennobled by David Cameron).

All these meetings were apparently undisclosed to the Prime Minister and the Foreign Office even though one of the alleged conferences was with Israeli Premier Binyamin Netanyahu who himself concealed such information from Theresa May during his visit to Downing Street last week.

It would appear that the CFI is now the most powerful lobbying group in Parliament with both overt and covert links to the various Ministries of the UK Government including not only International Development but also that of International Trade, Defence, Home and Foreign Offices, i.e. virtually the whole of the Administration.

There is an ever growing suspicion that the affairs of Parliament, including legislation, are being subverted by unelected lobbyists acting for a foreign state that are not in Britain’s national interest or security. (The Minister for International Development is, herself, a former vice-chairman of the CFI lobby group).

The solution to this very real threat to democratic government must be to enact legislation to declare all lobbyists acting for a foreign state as ‘foreign agents’ whose activities and access to elected politicians should be restricted, and documented, in the national interest.

The status of an undeclared nuclear weapon state that is not a party to the Non Proliferation Treaty (NPT) nor the internationally agreed Chemical or Biological Weapons Conventions (CWC/BWC), and is not a NATO or EU member, could very easily change at any time in the future, from ‘friendly’ to adversarial.

Note: Binyamin Netanyahu is not expected to survive the current corruption investigations against both himself and his wife, and the next Israeli government is widely expected to try to forcibly annex the Occupied Territories of the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights. In which scenario, the Israeli state would be in serious conflict with not only the UK but also the UN, the EU and the rest of the international community – with the possible exception only of the Trump administration).

307 mass shootings in the US this year, so far.

This is MASS shootings, not toddlers who get the gun out of a feckless Mom’s purse whilst sitting in the supermarket trolley.

This is in the country bringing “freedom, liberty and democracy” to the planet. This is the country about which Donald Trump said of the First Baptist Church, Sutherland, Texas massacre – which killed twenty seven and injured twenty seven, according to authorities –

“This isn’t a guns situation … I think that there is a mental health problem here … this was a very deranged individual …”

“Multiple weapons” were found in the gunman’s vehicle, according to ABC7 and the Washington Post.

It has now come to light, according to the New York Times and other news outlets, that Devin Kelley:

“escaped from a psychiatric hospital while he was in the Air Force, and was caught a few miles away by the local police, who were told that he had made death threats against his superiors and tried to smuggle weapons onto his base, a 2012 police report showed.”

In February President Trump: “Quietly signed a bill in to law rolling back an Obama-era regulation that made it harder for people with mental illness to purchase a gun.” (NBC News, 28th February, 2017.)

Felicity Arbuthnot, November 8, 2017

A church shooting killing at least 26 in Sutherland Springs, Texas marks the 307 mass shooting in the United States so far this year.…

According to data from the Gun Violence Archive, a total of 307 mass shooting incidents have occurred as of November 5, up 27 from one month ago.

Comparatively, 2016 saw a total of 483 mass shootings. See statistics for other years here.

There doesn’t seem to be an official definition for a “mass shooting” in the United States, but according to the Gun Violence Archive, a mass shooting is described as four or more individuals being shot or killed in the same general time and location.

The F.B.I. has defined “mass killing” and “mass murderer”.

The F.B.I. defines a “mass killing” as the killing of three or more people in a public place, but the federal agency also defines a “mass murderer” as someone who has killed four or more people in the same location.

The Gun Violence Archive lists itself as a not-for-profit organization that documents gun violence and gun crime nationally.

Courtland Jeffrey, KIVITV.com, November 6, 2017

VISIT MY NEW WEB SITE: 

stephenlendman.org 

(Home – Stephen Lendman). 

Contact at [email protected].

The Virginia and New Jersey elections attracted national interest, why they got mine, along with how anti-Trump sentiment might affect them.

State and local races are largely off my radar, except in my own state and city, especially Chicago politics, among the nation’s worst, hugely debauched like in Washington.

Undemocratic Dems, governing like Republican neocons, win every time. GOP candidates might as well not show up.

The party’s last mayor was “Big Bill” Thompson, serving three terms, the last one ending in 1931. Dems ran the city from then to now – Richard J. Daley from 1955 through 1976, dying in office on December 20 that year.

Son Richard M. served from 1989 through May 2011, the Daley dynasty ending at that time – unless a future Daley political aspirant resumes it one day.

Current Mayor Rahm Emanuel, former investment banker, congressman and Obama chief of staff, is an unindicted war criminal.

He’s notoriously pro-war, anti-labor, anti-public education, anti-progressive, neoliberal and pro-Israel, his abrasive style earning him the nickname “Rhambo.”

Virginia’s gubernatorial race pitted Dem. Lt. Gov. Ralph Northam against Republican Party of VA chair/former RNC head, GW Bush counselor, current lobbyist Ed Gillespie.

Northam won by a landslide, defeating Gillespie by a 53.6 – 45.2% margin. Trump’s public backing of Gillespie, along with most Americans opposing his agenda, gave the race extra importance.

Following his defeat, the president distanced himself from Gillespie, tweeting:

“Ed Gillespie worked hard but did not embrace me or what I stand for.”

Putting on a brave face, he claimed Republicans “will continue to win, even bigger than before!”

Despite a negative campaign, Northam, a physician, said

“I’m a neurologist, so I’m used to dealing with a lot of different minds.”

The race was seen as a referendum on Trumpism, Dems hoping to maintain control of the only southern state Hillary won last year, along with gaining momentum ahead of 2018 mid-term congressional elections.

Northam’s decisive triumph was the first for Dems this year – along with former Wall Street banker Philip Murphy winning New Jersey’s gubernatorial race on Tuesday.

He defeated Lt. Gov. Kim Guadagno by a 56 – 43% margin, ending neocon Chris Christie’s eight-year tenure.

He’s notorious among other reasons for calling Henry Kissinger his influential tutor, supporting torture, demeaning Muslim orphans of war, and claiming Iran is more dangerous than ISIS.

Dems winning two gubernatorial races decisively on Tuesday suggests a voter backlash against Trump’s agenda – pro-war, pro-Wall Street, pro-other corporate favorites, hugely anti-progressive.

Exit polls showed voter majorities in both states opposing his policies, saying he’s why they voted for Dem. candidates.

It’s common for out-of-power parties to gain congressional seats in mid-term elections.

Anti-Trump sentiment, along with GOP support for ending Obamacare and wanting tax cuts for the rich, could give Dems control of both houses in January 2019, maybe by large margins.

It’s a long time from now until next November. Lots of unknowns could affect the political landscape in the interim.

Whichever party triumphs in federal, state or local elections, continuity follows, dirty business as usual, privileged interests served exclusively, the rights and needs of ordinary people increasingly spurned.

VISIT MY NEW WEB SITE: stephenlendman.org (Home – Stephen Lendman). Contact at [email protected].

My newest book as editor and contributor is titled “Flashpoint in Ukraine: How the US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III.”

http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanIII.html

Rosneft chief executive Igor Sechin announced that his company signed a roadmap to invest the mind-numbingly large sum of $30 billion in the Iranian energy sector following his and President Putin’s visit to the Islamic Republic to hold three-way talks with Azerbaijan. This masterstroke of energy diplomacy wouldn’t have been possible had it not been for Trump scaring Western investors away from Iran and pushing the country closer towards Russia as a result, which totally reversed the intended dynamic of the Obama Administration that sought to reorient Iran in the opposite direction through the multiple concessions that it offered up through the summer 2015 nuclear deal. Russia’s foreign policy “progressives” are indeed making rapid progress in advancing their 21^st-century grand strategic goal of positioning Moscow as the supreme balancing force in the Eurasian supercontinent, and this is in turn accelerating the global transition to a Multipolar World Order.

In order to appreciate just how profoundly significant of a geostrategic move Moscow made this week, one needs to look no further than the four objectives that were immediately advanced through the Russian-Iranian energy roadmap:

Unveiling A Trans-Azeri Pipeline

Russia intends to build a trans-Azeri pipeline to Iran, which will not only strengthen bilateral Russian-Iranian relations and their trilateral expansion with Azerbaijan, but also importantly demonstrates the success of the recent Russian-Azeri rapprochement over the past year. Moscow views Baku as an integrationist in the sense that it’s facilitating Russia and China’s supercontinental goal of linking the landmass closer together, while traditional Russian “ally” Armenia is seen as a Western-leaning obstructionist that’s suddenly become a wayward partner.

It shouldn’t be interpreted as coincidental that this new energy-driven milestone in Russian-Azeri relations occurred just weeks before the planned signing of Armenia’s “Comprehensive And Enhanced New Agreement” with the EU. The dichotomy of Azerbaijan moving closer to Russia at precisely the same moment that Armenia drifts towards the West is expected to have serious implications for the Nagorno-Karabakh peace process because it suggests that Moscow might more solidly support Baku’s preferred solution to this conflict in line with international law while the West (influenced to a strong degree by the powerful US-based Armenian lobby) might back Yerevan’s continued occupation of the region.

Starting The South Asian Stream

The other important outcome of this trilateral summit is that Russia also announced that it intends to build a tristate pipeline between Iran, Pakistan, and India, which the author recently remarked might signify that Russia has been successful in getting India to downscale its support for Baloch terrorism against Pakistan due to New Delhi’s newfound self-interest in this transnational region’s stability because of “South Asian Stream”. If successful with this strategy, then Moscow could prove that it’s indeed the only balancing force capable of sustaining stability in the Mideast-South Asian pivot region because of the influence that Russia is still capable of wielding in “moderating” the pro-Western pivot that India’s embarked on in recent years.

Trilateral meeting of Vladimir Putin, President of Iran Hassan Rouhani and President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev in Tehran, Nov 1, 2017 (PHOTO: KREMLIN.RU)

Neutralizing Iran As A European Competitor

In line with the abovementioned strategy that the Obama Administration had for gently co-opting Iran and its “moderate”-led government into the Western fold, a large part of the vision had to do with using Western investments to eventually transform the country into a formidable competitor to Russia in the European marketplace. That entire blueprint has now been neutralized because of Trump’s aggression against the Islamic Republic and the “rescue mission” that Russian energy investments are now engaged in to “save” the Iranian economy from the US’ anti-Iranian bullying of its Western partners (despite the President’s public denial thereof) and what appear to be impending sectoral sanctions against its resource sector. Under these circumstances, which are setting into motion reformatted years-long strategies by all sides, it’s all but impossible for the US to ever “guide” Iran in the direction of becoming a serious competitor to Russia’s marketplace position in Europe, thereby averting this scenario.

Reassuring Tehran About The Russian-Saudi Rapprochement

Finally, Iran had every reason to be concerned about the Russian-Saudi rapprochement if its decision makers viewed it from a “zero-sum” Neo-Realist angle, even though Moscow’s intent behind it had always been about forging a win-win solution for retaining state-to-state peace in the Mideast, but all of those fears were put to rest after the announcement about Rosneft’s $30 billion energy investment plans in the Islamic Republic. Tehran can now rest assured that Moscow isn’t “selling out” to the Saudis, but is indeed truly trying to balance the complex interstate relations of the Mideast, hence the very successful outcome of President Putin’s visit to Iran in proving just how successful Russia’s “Ummah Pivot” is shaping out to be.

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.

VISIT MY NEW WEB SITE: 

stephenlendman.org 

(Home – Stephen Lendman). 

Contact at [email protected].

He reinterpreted the 1950s war on the Korean peninsula – Truman’s naked aggression, falsely blamed on the DPRK.

Honoring US combat troops involved, he ignored millions of North Koreans massacred, along with turning most parts of the north to rubble – a high US crime against a nation threatening no one.

He lied about US economic conditions. Corporate giants and super-rich Americans never had things better. Ordinary people are enduring years of Main Street Depression – nearly a fourth of working-age Americans unemployed, most others way underemployed.

“We are defeating ISIS,” Trump roared. Washington created the scourge it supports. Claiming he “want(s) peace through strength,” he escalated aggressive wars his predecessors began in multiple theaters.

He demeaned North Korea, reciting a litany of lies, part of manipulating public sentiment at home and abroad for possible war on the country, a lunatic agenda if launched, likely more catastrophic than the devastating 1950s war.

He vowed to eliminate Pyongyang’s nuclear and ballistic missile programs, saying “(t)his is a very different administration than the United States has had in the past” – exceeding the belligerence of its predecessors.

He lied claiming Washington “offered North Korea the open hand of engagement” in 2009. US promises were broken, the way America operates most often, why it can never be trusted.

“Do not underestimate us, and do not try us,” Trump roared. He lied claiming “America does not seek conflict or confrontation.”

He ignored the nation’s rage for endless wars, especially post-9/11, the state-sponsored false flag launching a war on humanity. Are North Korea and Iran next on Trump’s target list?.

He called for isolating the DPRK, severing all economic, trade and political ties, citing a nonexistent threat it poses.

America’s imperial agenda, together with its rogue allies, is the only menace that matters, smashing sovereign independent countries, responsible for millions of casualties, largely civilians indiscriminately massacred – blaming US aggression on nations attacked.

Trump’s address was an exercise in chest-thumping imperial bluster, disturbingly Hitleresque in tone.

What follows is most important. Is North Korea next on his target list for war, Iran to follow? It’s terrifying to imagine what’s possibly coming.

VISIT MY NEW WEB SITE: stephenlendman.org (Home – Stephen Lendman). Contact at [email protected].

My newest book as editor and contributor is titled “Flashpoint in Ukraine: How the US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III.”

http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanIII.html

An NBC news article on Venezuela stated

.

Thanks to the “free press” how many people would know any better? Even Bernie Sanders’ campaign was ignorant (or dishonest) enough to call the late Hugo Chavez a dictator. Hugo Chavez and current president Nicolas Maduro were both democratically elected, but when Washington (and its accomplices in Ottawa and London) want a foreign government overthrown the corporate media is always eager to help. Facts will not stand in the way.

When the media isn’t calling Maduro and Chavez dictators outright, it does all it can to insinuate that they are. It is unsurprising that they simply label them dictators from time to time. Almost two decades of propaganda pays off.

But surely a more liberal outlet, like say the Guardian in the UK, would be better – less subservient in its reporting to the foreign policy objectives of the US and its allies.

Well no. Not at all.

In recent days the Guardian has been passing off unabashed PR pieces for Saudi Arabia – perhaps the most brutal and backward dictatorship on Earth – as news articles. Saudi Arabia is also being heavily armed by the US, UK and Canada as it perpetrates a slaughter in Yemen, so it literally gets the royal treatment from the western press.

Below are two stomach churning examples from recent days.

As FAIR pointed out, hyping “reform” in Saudi Arabia has a been regular feature of corporate news for at least the past 15 years, especially for one high profile pundit. Any reader who casually imbibes corporate media “news” over the past two decades will be dismayed by “repression” in Venezuela but feel hopeful about “reform” in Saudi Arabia. The propaganda system works and big NGOs like Human Rights Watch are part of it, not just the corporate media.

Consider how Human Rights Watch wrote about the death of King Abdullah in Saudi Arabia.

Mild criticism combined with upbeat spin about “reform” for the late US–armed beheader-in-chief.

Now consider what Human Rights Watch put out a few hours after the death of Chavez.

Harsh criticism and not a positive word about a democratically elected president who greatly reduced poverty in his country despite the US-backed opposition’s efforts to overthrow him by force.

Recently, Ken Roth, head of Human Rights Watch, called Nicolas Maduro a “buffoon” on Twitter. I reminded Roth that he called his own mass murdering government “the world’s most powerful proponent of human rights”.

Do you want rich western states to have civilized foreign policy? Prepare to do battle with liberals like Ken Roth and the editors of the Guardian.

“A non-re-authorisation of the substance would be a disaster for the industry”, reads a note from a a March 2016 meeting between pesticide industry lobbyists from the European Crop Protection Association (ECPA) and members of Agriculture Commissioner Phil Hogan’s cabinet.

The “substance” in question? Glyphosate, the active ingredient in Roundup, the world’s most widely-used pesticide and Monsanto’s flagship product. True enough, a European Union ban on this key ingredient in many weedkillers would be a major blow to the biotech and pesticide industry, its shareholders and its future owner Bayer.

Since the World Health Organisation’s International Agency For Research On Cancer (IARC) declared glyphosate a probable human carcinogen in 2015, the decision as to whether this weedkiller deserves another license for the EU market has been closely scrutinised. In addition, lawsuits against Monsanto in the US regarding Roundup’s health effects have enabled the release of internal company documents, which show how the company ghostwrote studies signed by ‘independent’ experts and tried to underplay data indicating health damage.

The heightened scrutiny has also finally brought wider attention to some of the fundamental flaws in the EU’s  pesticide approval system – precisely what the pesticide industry and government agencies have been fearing, as highlighted by lobby documents obtained by Corporate Europe Observatory. They seem to regard an evolution of the EU regulatory system for assessing pesticides towards more independence and transparency (and better aligned with the normal scientific methodology itself) as an outright threat.

For sustainable farming, public health and nature, a ban on glyphosate would be a leap forwards. On 23 October 2017 a coalition of civil society organisations handed over more than one million signatures to Vice-President of the European Commission Frans Timmermans and Health Commissioner Vytenis Andriukaitis, which had been collected from across the EU as part of a European Citizens’ Initiative. The demands: a ban on glyphosate-based weedkillers, crucial improvements to EU pesticide approval system, and support for farmers to transition to a non-toxic food production system.

On 25 October however, EU member states were voting on a proposal by the European Commission to give the weedkiller a license for another ten years with few restrictions. The temporary 18-month license extension, granted in June 2016, will expire by the end of this year, forcing a decision. But member states are divided and the Commission is not expected to gather enough support for its proposal. EU officials are expected to discuss glyphosate reauthorisation again at the next committee meeting in November.

• Read more about how the pesticide industry and European Commission instrumentalised farmers’ lobbies to support their interests and proposals.
• Check the facts on Monsanto and the smear campaign of the wider pesticide industry against leading environmental health and carcinogenity expert, Dr Christopher Portier, and the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC).

‘The system must be saved’

When the Glyphosate Task Force, led by Monsanto, learned that the Commission in June 2016 only wanted an 18-month extension of the license for glyphosate in order to await another opinion from the European Chemicals Agency ECHA, it labeled this a “dangerous precedent” and “a marked departure from science-based decision making”, ramping up the attack by calling the move “highly irresponsible and fundamentally irrational”.

The Glyphosate Task Force wrote: “The long term consequences of the current situation for the EU regulatory system should not be underestimated. In our view, a clear signal is now being sent that established rules and ways of reaching decisions can easily be side-tracked if special interest campaigns against modern technology and, in this case, modern farming, are allowed to unduly influence and politicise the application of EU rules. We would ask that reason and evidence should be the hallmarks of EU decision-making, rather than populism”. (Emphasis added.)

A “special interest campaign” targeting “modern technology”? In reality, what triggered the glyphosate issue is the fact that a highly respected scientific institution (IARC) concluded that an old pesticide from the seventies is a probable human carcinogen.

Big farm lobby COPA-COGECA sent a similar message to DG SANTE in March 2017: “Pressure from certain parts of the society through social media is putting this system more and more in question and undermines the confidence.”

On 19 October 2017 the European Parliament’s Environment Committee voted on a resolution that calls for fundamental changes in the way pesticides are approved. Ahead of the vote, the pesticide lobby group ECPA put an advertisement Politico which echoed:

“Calling into question the approval process only serves to undermine consumer confidence in the EU food safety system, to the benefit of no-one.”

Pro-glyphosate advertisement in Politico, 19 Oct 2017.

Interestingly, this ad was co-signed not only by the usual suspects, including EuropaBio, COPA-COGECA and grain traders’ lobby COCERAL, but also by a group called Consumer Choice Center (CCC). As Corporate Europe Observatory revealed recently, this grouping claims to represent consumers while it counts neoliberal US plutocrats and oil industry influencers the Koch Brothers among its main funders.

EFSA, BfR and DG SANTE getting nervous too

Four of the scientists who were involved in the IARC assessment had a meeting with Commissioner Andriukaitis on 22 January 2016. Several flaws in the EU system were discussed, such as conflicts of interest, and the way that the EU pesticide approvals process focuses on one active ingredient, whereas the final mixtures (formulations) sold in the shops remain under-researched.

But three days later, in an internal meeting of Directorate General for Health and Food Safety(DG SANTE) it was decided that a meeting would be set up between the German scientific agency Bfr and the Commissioner, “in view of dispelling the doubts as regards the regularity and robustness of the process”. Xavier Prats Monné (from DG SANTE) said shortly afterwards, in a meeting between DG SANTE and European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) staff that

“SANTE and EFSA have to ‘stick together’ in general terms and in particular when the EU regulatory framework is questioned…. The joint aim now is to defend the EU system and to provide to the Commissioner the arguments to defend himself.”

And so it happened. In March 2016, Commissioner Vytenis Andriukaitis held a meeting with head of the German BfR, Andreas Hensel, who informs him that

“glyphosate is in focus of extreme lobbying not only due to its link to biotech but also as a non-approval of this substance for safety reasons would not allow any other pesticides to be approved in future.”

The minutes do not further illuminate on the rationale for his argument. The EU pesticide legislation demands that pesticides that are for instance carcinogenic, toxic for the reproductive system, or hormone disrupting, to be banned; but other substances, even though toxic and harmful for many life forms, are not affected.

In this meeting Andreas Hensel also emphasised to the Commissioner alleged “disagreements inside WHO (IARC vs JMPR), which should be more highlighted in communication”. This alleged internal “disagreement” inside the WHO – widely picked up in media last year and which continues to create confusion – is entirely false. Though true that another panel (Joint FAO/WHO Meeting on Pesticide Residues, JMPR) connected to the WHO made an opinion related to glyphosate, it was of a very different kind than IARC (studying risks of exposure through diet, rather than its intrinsic hazardous properties). In addition, the person leading the JMPR work is also the Vice-President of ILSI Europe, an agribusiness and food lobby group.

German BfR head Hensel is a strong defender of the current EU system that he told the Commissioner is “most robust”. In the past he has breezily dismissed concerns over conflicts of interests, defending the fact that the pesticide committee of his agency Bfr includes Bayer and BASF employees (something that, in contrast, EFSA’s rules on conflicts of interest would not allow), explaining to German newspaper TAZ that facts about products “can only be judged by those that work with them”.

Monsanto Papers

Following the release of the Monsanto Papers in March 2017, Monsanto was quick to call the European Commission’s department for health and food safety, DG SANTE. The person in the Pesticides and Biocides unit who picked up the phone noted down:

“He [Monsanto representative, red.] said that some of the scientists who have been named in the released papers have already defended themselves against the accusations. He also mentioned that some of the named experts were under police protection following death threats.”

Some of the named experts, such as David Kirkland, have stated that Monsanto employees were being “naïve” when suggesting in internal emails they would be able to have him sign off on documents in fact produced internally by Monsanto – a defence Mr Kirkland brought up at the European Parliament hearing on the Monsanto Papers. Even if this were to hold true, Monsanto doesn’t come off looking much better. Who says their ghostwriting attempts were limited to the cases we now have information about? Another key figure named in the Monsanto Papers, the US Environment Protection Agency’s (EPA) Jess Rowland, has in the meantime become subject of an investigation by the EPA’s Inspector General.

What next?

If this week’s vote indeed fails to produce a majority for the EU Commission’s 10-year proposal, the EU institutions will need a plan B. If they opt for a phase-out of Roundup, it is vital to clarify that any re-authorisation only represents a transition period that will end in a ban of the substance. The glyphosate saga has also underlined the dire need to fundamentally strengthen the EU approval system and has shown just how important it is to provide all necessary support to farmers to help them make the transition to a pesticide-free agriculture.

All of these demands are at the core of the European Citizens’ Initiative  StopGlyphosate, which has been supported by over 1,3 million EU citizens from across Europe and was handed over to the European Commission on 23 October. On 24 October the European Parliament voted a resolution making similar demands. And on 12 October, the French tribunal of Foix sent four prejudicial questions to the European Court of Justice, that also question the reliability of the current EU pesticide risk assessment.

The need to change the way pesticides are approved can no longer be ignored.

All images in this article are from TruePublica.

The CIA has given the Long War Journal exclusive access to the supposed Osama bin Laden files taken from his “compound” in Pakistan.

The Long War Journal is a project of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD) where its editors are senior fellows. The foundation is a refuge for neocons and a staunch supporters of Israel and its policies. It is also a vocal advocate of confronting Iran.

So it shouldn’t come as a surprise the CIA “shared” a carefully selected portion of the documents — some 500,000 files — with the Long War Journal.

The released documents focus on Iran and its supposed relationship with al-Qaeda.

On November 1, NBC News reported:

The trove also provides new insight into the often adversarial relationship between al Qaeda and Iran — the Sunni Muslim terror group and the Shiite republic — in the form of a 19-page report described by the Long War Journal as “a senior jihadist’s assessment of the group’s relationship with Iran.”

Intelligence officials describe the report as “evidence of Iran’s support of al Qaeda’s war with the United States.”

It cites the escape of al-Qaeda members from Afghanistan to Iran after the US invaded Afghanistan. I have written about this previously. There is no evidence al-Qaeda worked with Iran. Iranian officials said they have held al-Qaeda members in detainment, although they will not release further information, including names.

Once again, the neocons are attempting to spread lies and fabrication as a pretext to step up hostilities against Iran, same as they did with Iraq.

The CIA and the neocons at FDD are counting on the ignorance of the American people to sell these lies. It’s safe to say most Americans are unaware of the fact Shiite (Iran) and Sunni Muslims (primarily the Saudi Wahhabi variety) are sworn enemies and it is extremely unlikely they would cooperate on anything.

Naturally, the establishment media grabbed this fairy tale and ran with it.

“Iran and al-Qaeda: Best of Frenemies,” headlines Bloomberg.

The alt-right aka New Right website Breitbart, once again home to former Trump strategist Stephen Bannon, writes that

“[a]mong the most interesting revelations are details of Iran’s collusion with al-Qaeda and bin Laden’s citation of the Muslim Brotherhood as a formative influence on his political thought.”

Is this the same Muslim Brotherhood that collaborated with the CIA?

“According to CIA agent Miles Copeland, the Americans began looking for a Muslim Billy Graham around 1955… When finding or creating a Muslim Billy Graham proved elusive, the CIA began to cooperate with the Muslim Brotherhood, the Muslim mass organization founded in Egypt but with followers throughout the Arab Middle East,” writes Arab historian Said Aburish.

For more, see this interview with F. William Engdahl.

After Trump said he wants to designate both the Muslim Brotherhood and Iran’s Revolutionary Guard as terrorist organizations, the CIA stepped in and said that wouldn’t be a good idea. The agency is currently headed up by Mike Pompeo, a rabid anti-Iran zealot.

“MB groups enjoy widespread support across the Near East-North Africa region and many Arabs and Muslims worldwide would view an MB designation as an affront to their core religious and societal values,” according to the CIA.

I’m curious what Arabs and Muslims think about the CIA’s killer drone program and Trump’s merciless bombing of Syria. Is this considered an affront to their core religious and societal values?

It seems the non-stop deluge of negative news — including this latest batch of fairy tales — has resulted in an unfavorable view of Iran by Americans. If Pew Research can be believed, only 14% of Americans hold a favorable view of Iran and nearly 70% disapprove of the Iran nuclear deal.

Meanwhile, thanks to endless propaganda, many Americans look favorably on Saudi Arabia, a country where 92% of citizens approve of the Islamic State.

“One might reasonably wonder, then: why do Americans hate and fear Iran, over and above even the nation — the royal family and their clerics — that were actually behind 9/11? Might it be, perhaps, because the Shia clerics of Iran are as fundamentalist as the Sunni ones in Saudi Arabia? Not at all; but, yet, Americans seem to assume that that’s the case,” writes Eric Zuesse.

I disagree with Zuesse on his belief that Saudi Arabia was the prime motivator behind the 9/11 attacks. It certainly participated, but the blame falls squarely on the United States and its intelligence agencies. If not for the CIA and Saudi partnership, there would be no al-Qaeda, no al-Nusra, no Islamic State, and other Wahhabi terrorist organizations.

Featured image is from the author.

The Pope of Jerusalem (one of the five original popes, His Beatitude the Patriarch of the Holy Greek Orthodox Church of Jerusalem and Holy Land, by his usual title) Theophilos III hardly dares to visit churches nowadays. Whenever he is coming, his flock stands outside and prevents his entry. Last week, Jewish police helped him to enter a village church, while hundreds of believers stood by and cursed him loudly. There is a plan to stop him on Christmas from entering the Nativity Church.

Bear in mind that his predecessor Irineos I had been deposed by the bishops twelve years ago, and since then he lives in a lonely cell in the monastery, refusing to leave its walls. He knows that if he leaves he will not be allowed to return. Looking at his travail, the present Patriarch is far from complacent.

The laity and lower clergy, the Christian Palestinians in the Holy Land are very unhappy with the Patriarch and the whole setup of the Church management. The Patriarch sells church lands at fire-sale prices; the church-owned lands of Caesarea worth billions were sold by him for less than the price of one house on this immense tract of land. Soon the church will be destitute, and the Palestinian Christianity established by Christ Himself will wither, the clerics say.

But money is not the only issue. The Patriarch does not allow Palestinians to rise in the church: just one Palestinian, His Beatitude Theodosius Atallah Hanna the Archbishop of Sebaste had been ordained years ago, but even he has not been allowed to participate in church decisions, he is kept out of the Synod, the ruling church body, out of the Holy Sepulchre Brotherhood, he has no church of his own and no salary, the only Archbishop kept out in the cold. That is because he is not a Greek by blood.

In the Orthodox Church only monks can rise to the episcopate, while ordinary parish priests may (and usually do) marry. The Patriarch does not allow Palestinian monks who studied theology in Greece to come home to Holy Land, so they could not claim the bishop mantle in his church. There are 24 Palestinian monks now in monasteries of Greece; all of them applied to move back to their native land, all of them have been refused.

“If you want to move to Palestine, give up your monastic rites and marry. Otherwise, stay away!” – the Patriarch replied to them. All bishops in the Jerusalem Church are ethnic Greeks; and they are determined to keep this occupation forever.

While the Jews keep Palestinians out of political decisions (even left-wing Israelis would never allow Palestinian parties to join the government), the Greeks keep Palestinians, descendants of the Apostles, out of church control. Everybody knows of the Jewish occupation of Palestine, it is frequently discussed in the UN, presidents deal with it and activists fight it, but the Greek occupation of the Church of Jerusalem is not being mentioned in polite company.

Many good Greeks support the struggle against the Jewish occupation, and sail to break the Gaza blockade. While this is surely good, it would be better if they were to deal with the Greek occupation.

The Greek Church, that is the Orthodox Church of Greece, knows of this shameful story. Their bishops visit the Holy Land and meet with the Palestinian Christians. But they do not dare confront the hierarchy of the Jerusalem Church, and they – led by the present Patriarch – consider Palestine their own milch cow to be milked at will.

The results are dreadful. Palestine and Israel have no services for all their citizens, but each community takes care of its own. The Muslims take care of Muslims, Jews care of Jews, Catholics and Protestants care for their own flocks, build and staff schools, organize activities from olive oil sales to beer production. Only the Orthodox Christians of Palestine, the oldest and the greatest community, have nothing. Their numbers dwindle with every year. Oh yes, we can justifiably blame Jews for not doing enough, but it would be fair to attach a portion of guilt to the leaders of the Orthodox Church. They just do not care about the local flock at all. They are not shepherds of the flock.

They do not build churches. There are many new new Israeli cities, Beer Sheba, Afula, Eilat, even Tel Aviv with thousands of Orthodox Christians (baptized Jews or immigrants of Orthodox faith), but not a single church has ever been established in them. The Russians proposed to build the churches for the Jerusalem Church, but the Patriarch is just not interested. He cares only about the profitable old pilgrim churches visited by Greek and Russian tourists.

The leaders of the Church of Jerusalem, the Greek bishops who refuse to accept the Palestinians as their equals, practice ecclesiastical racism, or “ethno-phyletism”, as it is called. The Orthodox Church condemned this practice as heresy in its Synod of 1872 in Constantinople. However, the condemnation didn’t change the reality in Palestine.

The Holy Land is the only place on earth where the hierarchs of the church are invariably of Greek, and never of local stock. Everywhere else, the Orthodox churches are grounded in local tradition, use the vernacular tongue, and are ruled by local bishops. The Russian Orthodox Church has Russian laity and Russian bishops, the Church of Greece has Greek laity and Greek bishops, the Church of Antioch has Syrian Arab laity and bishops, and only the Church of Jerusalem has Palestinian laity and parish priests and Greek bishops.

The roots of this problem go back for hundreds of years, to 1534, when after the Ottoman conquest a Greek monk Germanos had been installed as the Patriarch of Jerusalem by the decision of the Sublime Porte, that is the Ottoman Empire. He appointed only Greek bishops, and since then the Greeks have kept the monopoly of power in the Church. They collaborated with the Turks, with the British and now with the Jews, as they had no independent power base of their own, but they could exist only by obliging the supreme foreign power in the land.

The Greeks, the Jews and the Armenians formed three elite groups in the Empire; they provided the bulk of educated classes, kept the trade (Jews), administration (Greeks) and crafts (Armenians) in their hands, while Turks were satisfied with being soldiers and peasants. The three nations have a similar modus operandi: tightly knit, tribal in their outlook, mutually competitive and exclusionary. If you want to understand the roots of Jewish domination in the US and elsewhere, you may look into the way these three groups managed things in Imperial Turkey. And there was not much to choose between the Jew and the Greek.

Ethnic Greeks had seized full control over the churches within the Empire, that is the churches of Constantinople, Antioch, Jerusalem and Alexandria. No ethnic Arab, Turk or Copt could become a bishop. The result was good for the Greeks but tragic for the Church: laity voted with their feet and left the church to convert to Islam or (to lesser extent) to non-Greek-controlled churches, among them, the Roman Catholic Church, Syriac Church and more exotic denominations. This Greek ecclesiastical racism killed, or at least undermined the native Middle East Christianity of Christ and His Apostles.

Eventually the Copts of Egypt broke with the Greek-dominated church of Alexandria and established their own Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria, leaving communion with other Orthodox churches, while the Greek Orthodox church of Alexandria withered and remained a shadow of itself.

An opposite development took place in Syria, where (at the end of the 19th century) the local Arabs frogmarched their Greek bishops to the harbour and had shipped them away to Greece. They elected Arab bishops and an Arab Patriarch, while remaining in communion with other Orthodox Churches. Their Church of Antioch flourished until the rise of ISIS, but hopefully it will regain its lost ground as their Orthodox brothers from Russia helped them defeat the jihadists.

The Constantinople and Jerusalem Sees remained in ethnic Greek hands, in both cases with very unhappy consequences. In Constantinople, the Greeks spurned Ataturk’s proposal to become the Turkish Orthodox Church, though it would have returned to them many churches including the great Hagia Sophia, and probably would have prevented the tragic Greek dispossession and expulsion in 1920s. The Church of Constantinople became a withered ghost dominated by the CIA, and so it remains until nowadays.

Jerusalem and the Holy Land were too important to the Christendom to let it go native. The Russians supported nativisation of the Church, but quite cautiously, as they cherished their unity in communion with other Orthodox churches. There was much Jewish meddling, too. Thus the Church of Jerusalem remained in ethnic Greek hands, and more and more Orthodox Palestinians converted away, to the Catholic or Protestant denominations. From being majority in 19^th century and from being a full third of the entire Palestinian population in the days of the British Mandate, the Orthodox have nowadays shrunk to some 30,000 members of the church.

And now, the Greeks at the helm of the church have decided to turn their milch cow into a meat-producing one and slaughter it, by selling its assets to Jews.

The recent and much-in-news development is the story of two hotels at Jaffa Gate in Jerusalem, once the best New Imperial Hotel and Petra. Both are run-down and sorry shadows of themselves, but still occupy the best positions in Jerusalem. They were sold by the previous Patriarch Irineos for peanuts; Haaretz revealed the buyers had paid twenty times less than the assessed sum. And who are the buyers? An extremist Jewish settler organisation Ateret Cohanim, whose purpose is to rebuild the Third Jewish Temple on the ruins of Al Aqsa Mosque and meanwhile try to cleanse Jerusalem of non-Jews and settle Jews in their homes.

The current Patriarch Theophilos III solemnly promised to revert the sale. Indeed he went to Jerusalem District (Jewish) court demanding to void the deal for it was done fraudulently for too low a price and by bribing officials. The Court ruled: the deal stays. I, for one, was outraged by this obvious Jewish injustice, but it turned out the villains weren’t Jews.

I have met with a Palestinian Christian, a leading member of the Central Orthodox Council in Israel, Mr Alif Sabbagh of Al Buqaia (or Pekiin) village in Galilee, the man who dedicated his life to documentation about the church lands and about the Patriarchate dealings. He owns a veritable full archive of all the deals of recent years. He told me the court had no choice: the Patriarch Theophilos refused to provide proof for his claims, and he secretly entered into an agreement with the Jewish settlers.

In Israeli law, there are two stages of appeal. In the first stage, the claimant makes a claim, in the second stage, he brings proof of his claim. The Patriarch made a claim, but refused to furnish the proof. The Jewish judge said she can’t accept the claim without the proof.

And it is not that the Patriarch could not do it. The man in the heart of the problem, Nikolas Papadimas, the former church treasurer, who allegedly signed the sale contracts without Irineos’ knowledge, had fled the country and been wanted by Interpol on an international warrant amid allegations that he stole millions of dollars from the Patriarchate, came back to Athens and demanded to give his evidence at the court. His evidence would trash the Jewish claim, and it is clear why the Jewish settlers objected to his evidence being introduced at court. But the Greek Patriarch Theophilos also objected to placing Papadimas on the witness stand, and the Jewish judge really could not do anything, even if she were willing.

At the same time, the Patriarch sold the church lands in Western Jerusalem, huge and valuable tracts of land including the plot on which the Knesset is built to mysterious offshore companies for pennies. (The real money came into his account in his own real name in an offshore bank, says Alif Sabbagh.) In response, the Jewish parliament, the Knesset, began to discuss the Rachel Azaria bill of expropriation of church lands sold to third parties since 2010.

The Patriarch Theophilos called upon Christian solidarity, and the churches of the West responded by speaking against the bill. However their stand was based on mis-representation by the Patriarch, who claimed the bill expropriates church lands. I have read the bill, and it just is not true: the bill makes sales of church lands to third parties practically impossible. After the bill becomes law, the Patriarch will have a choice: to sell the lands to the Jewish state, or not sell at all. This obviously undermines his bargaining position and his ability to pocket more bribes, but does not really damage the position of the Church.

The Palestinian Christians are a well developed and prosperous community. They are better educated than the Jews, they are well-to-do, rooted in the soil of Palestine. They were and are active in the struggle for Palestine, often leading it despite their small numbers. (The name of George Habash, the Christian leader of Popular Front, comes to mind, as well as the name of Emile Habibi, the great Palestinian writer). They have good relations with the Palestinian Muslims, and they would like to get along with Jews, too. You can read a short and rather good entry in Wikipedia about them, balancing its usual bias by reading the discussion. Though you will notice the ubiquitous presence of known Zionist operators (Jayjig etc), still it conveys the message and allows one to understand the subject, which is a rare thing in Palestine-related Wikipedia articles.

Their spiritual leader is the hard-working and relatively young Archbishop Theodosius Atallah Hanna, who by uncanny coincidence bears the name (Atallah) of the last Palestinian Patriarch before the Greek takeover. He is very active, meeting delegations daily and usually posting the report on his Facebook page or on his other page, where his message is “Palestinian Christians are not a minority in Palestine; in Palestine, there are no minorities , but there are people struggling for freedom”.

He is popular with Muslims, too. During the recent confrontation over the Al Aqsa Mosque he went there in solidarity with the Jerusalem Mufti, his personal friend. He is a good friend of the Orthodox Jews of Naturei Karta, who I witnessed personally accompanying him on a visit of condolence. He is willing to be a good friend to Jews, too, for he recognises they are here to stay in his beloved Palestine. And he naturally bears no animosity to Greeks, as he studied in Greece, speaks Greek fluently, visits Greece frequently and recognises the importance of Greek culture for Palestinian Christians.

He would be a perfect new Patriarch, ending the discord and bringing unity and peace to the oldest Christian Church created by Christ himself. The quarrels over lands would go away, Greeks would peacefully mesh with the Palestinians, losing their monopoly but preserving their important position. In short, he would be the ideal de-colonising figure, allowing not only native Palestinians, but other Orthodox Christians of the Holy Land, notably baptised Russian ex-Jews and ethnic Russians to fully integrate in the church, a prospect that horrifies the present Patriarch Theophilos.

He is also well known in the Middle East. Recently he visited Syria, went to its Orthodox Monasteries and churches, and met with President Bashar al Assad whom he admires for his defence of the Christians in face of the Jihadi onslaught. (Israeli police and Israeli media attacked him for this visit to “the enemy”, though he merely fulfilled his ecclesiastical duty). He is liked by the Russians and by baptised Russian Jews in Israel, and he often baptises them and their children. He baptised me and my wife and son, for which I am eternally grateful to His Beatitude.

However, the Palestinian Christian activists who now lead their Intifada against the present Patriarch, think that the best solution for the much-suffered church is to have a few years without a Patriarch at all. They told me they would prefer the church to be run by a committee of three bishops (including Archbishop Theodosius Atallah Hanna) for a while, and at that time the church should establish new rules of Patriarch succession, forever forfeiting the Ottoman-inherited rule of asking consent of the sovereign (presently of the Israeli government, of the PNA and of the King of Jordan). This consent-seeking opened the church to blackmail – the Israeli government refuses to give its consent until the candidate promises to give some Church lands to the Jews. The rebels have an even farther-reaching idea of taking economic decisions (be it lands or salaries) out of the Patriarch’s hands for good. Let the Patriarch deal with spiritual questions, while the laity manage the material problems, they say.

The Patriarch is not waiting quietly for these developments. He is using all the resources of the church to bribe those who bear influence: the PNA, the Jordanian princes and Israeli officials. The Palestinians speak of a big land lease the Patriarch granted to Prince Ghazi bin Muhammad of Jordan, thus turning Jordanian royalty to his side. The Israelis had received even more generous gifts, and the PNA officials weren’t forgotten either.

The Russians could influence the outcome, but they are quite unwilling to interfere in the affairs of the sister church. In private conversations, they express their sympathy for the Palestinian cause, but they do not want to endanger their relations with the Patriarchates of Jerusalem and Constantinople. These can painfully retaliate by accepting the demands of the Ukrainian bishops for recognition, and in general cause more trouble than it is worth, for the Russians.

For this reason it is hard to predict how the struggle will end, whether the wily Patriarch will keep his position and the Greek dominance in the church by granting more and more lands to the people in power, or whether this Palestinian Intifada succeed after all and the church will become independent of the Greek colonisers. Probably the best force able to interfere and solve the dispute peacefully is Greece, namely the Greek people, who are able to understand the problem and do what they preach to other colonial powers, namely to end the colonisation and occupation. Otherwise the fate of the oldest Christian Church is in doubt.

Israel Shamir can be reached at [email protected]

This article was first published at The Unz Review where the featured image was sourced.

Denouncing U.S. President Donald Trump for intensifying “fears of war on the Korean Peninsula,” thousands of South Koreans gathered in front of the U.S. embassy in Seoul on Tuesday to protest Trump’s arrival, hoisting signs that sent an unambiguous message: “shut up and get out.”

The peaceful demonstrations against the U.S. president—who has threatened to unleash “fire and fury” upon South Korea’s northern neighbor, a move that would endanger millions of lives—are expected to carry on through Wednesday, when Trump is scheduled to deliver a speech on North Korea.

“The war-threatening, weapons salesman Trump is not welcome here, especially as he demands that South Korea pay more to host U.S. troops and set aside land for useless weapons like the THAAD missile defense system,” Choi Eun-a of the Korean Alliance for Progressive Movements—one of the more than 200 groups participating in protests during Trump’s two-day visit—said in a statement.

Trump motorcade on way to state dinner just passed protestors. Chants of "No Trump no war" and a few fireworks. pic.twitter.com/2R2Gwe0PcO

— Paula Hancocks (@PHancocksCNN) November 7, 2017

Even as Trump appeared to tone down his militaristic rhetoric with a call on Tuesday for North Korea to “come to the table” and “make a deal,” the U.S. and South Korea engaged in a joint military exercise that could only be viewed as a “major show of force“—one that could further ratchet up tensions and global concerns of nuclear conflict.

Over the next several days, “three US aircraft carriers, accompanied by guided-missile destroyers and submarines, will be conducting a mock battle in the waters in the region,” CNN reported on Tuesday. “It’s likely the show of power by the U.S. forces will be seen by North Korea as a direct provocation.”

During a press conference with South Korean President Moon Jae-in, Trump was explicit about the intent behind the military exercise—one of many that have taken place in the Pacific region over the last several months.

“I think we’re showing great strength,” Trump said. “We sent three of the largest aircraft carriers in the world [to the Korean Peninsula] and a nuclear submarine is also positioned.”

It is this kind of flaunting of military might that hundreds of South Koreans gathered on Tuesday to reject, echoing calls by other world powers for the U.S. to negotiate peace with North Korea.

“We do not welcome Trump,” one protester declared on Tuesday. “We will shout for the warmongering Trump to leave our land in peace until he is out of here.”

South Korea: 'No Trump, No War' – Thousands attend rally against US Pres. in Seoul.?⛔️ pic.twitter.com/OGr9R5sRaR

— asuka (@asuka_250) November 7, 2017

Among US anti-war activists, an unusual consensus has emerged. Al Qaeda now rebranded as “moderate terrorists” is heralded as being firmly opposed to US military intervention  in the Middle East.

This interpretation is based on a fallacy. Al Qaeda was created by the CIA in the heyday of the Soviet-Afghan war. Al Qaeda is an instrument of US intelligence, a so-called “intelligence asset”.

In Syria, all the Al Qaeda affiliated entities  involved in terrorists endeavors including the ISIS are supported covertly by the US and its allies including Israel. 

According to Mark Taliano, the CIA’s annual CIA budget in support of Al Qaeda and ISIS in Syria is of the order of one billion dollars a year. The Al Qaeda rebels are the foot-soldiers of  US-NATO-Israel. 

Media explanations often border on ridicule. There is no such thing as “moderate terrorists” fighting against US imperialism. This twisted interpretation is intended to create confusion.

Moreover, lets be clear: Washington has never engaged in a meaningful “counter-terrorism” operation. Quite the opposite, the U.S. is a bona fide “State sponsor of terrorism”, providing money and weapons to the various Al Qaeda affiliated entities in the Middle East, Africa and South East Asia. 

Below is a selection of articles. The fundamental question: Who Drives Terrorism.

P.S. Consider making a donation to Global Research. More than ever we need your support. 

Global Research’s work is critical in the face of mainstream media disinformation and we have managed to remain independent thanks to the support of our readers, Our financial situation today is nonetheless precarious.

Michel Chossudovsky, November 8, 2017

We need the support of our readers. 

Consider Making a Donation to Global Research

For those who are willing and able, we ask you to support our projects by forwarding, crossposting, etc our articles, starting with this selection to get critical, unreported stories and information out as a means to challenge the tide of misinformation being used as a smokescreen for imperialism and war. 

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Perpetual War: UK’s Armed Drones to Stay Deployed Beyond Campaign Against ISIS

By Chris Cole, November 08, 2017

A Ministry of Defence press conference has revealed that as the war against ISIS ends, British Reaper drones are to stay deployed in the Middle East after other UK aircraft return home.

The Truth About Radical Islam

By Tony Cartalucci, November 08, 2017

It was in a leaked 2012 US Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) memo that revealed the US and its allies’ intent to create what it called a “Salafist principality” in eastern Syria.

Is Saudi Arabia Engaging Iran in a New Regional Conflict?

By Salman Rafi Sheikh, November 07, 2017

The House of Saud’s bid to engage with Iraq after almost a quarter century is illustrative of the former’s renewed push to create a regional wedge against the fast increasing Iranian influence in Iraq, as also in the Middle East, where Iran has played a no small role in defeating the self-styled Islamic State.

Criminal War Propaganda 

By Mark Taliano, November 07, 2017

The Pentagon budget alone for illegal war propaganda is about $626,000,0001 per year. Generous taxpayers relinquish these funds so that the Pentagon can contaminate the public mindset to the detriment of humanity, foreign and domestic.

More Fake News? WMD in Syria Just Like Iraq in 2003?

By Rick Sterling, November 06, 2017

Most western “experts” were dead wrong in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq. Are these same “experts”, institutes, intelligence agencies and biased organizations going to take us down the road to new aggression, this time against Syria?

The coming months mark the centennial of Palestine’s forcible incorporation into the British Empire. In November 1917, British foreign secretary Lord Arthur Balfour declared his government’s support for “the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people”; in December, Jerusalem fell to British troops. One hundred years later, the effects of these events continue to reverberate. This should be a time of sombre reflection about international responsibility for the unfolding tragedy in Palestine.

This responsibility should weigh heavily on the West. Walid Khalidi put it well:

“The Zionists were the initiators. But they were also, as they still are, the protégés of their Anglo–American sponsors and the emanations of their power, resources, and will.”

The fact is that the Israeli state can’t be credited for much originality – either in its brutality or in the hypocrisy deployed to cover it. And it is all too fitting that it was British imperialism that propelled the Zionist movement onto the world stage.

Palestine was occupied, after all, amid one of the British Empire’s last great scrambles for territory in the Afro–Asian world. The scramble was pursued amid an outpouring of imperial self-adoration. Balfour was not alone in proclaiming, wherever and whenever he could, “the extraordinary novelty, the extraordinary greatness, and the extraordinary success” of the British Empire, a system drawn together, he insisted, not by “the bonds merely of crude self-interest, but the bonds of a common belief in a great ideal.” Freedom and justice marched with British troops. These may seem the banal platitudes of an imperial state. But during its “Great War,” the British state deployed them as never before. Its propaganda set a new world standard in its scale, its organization, and its impact.

Propaganda and Democracy

This is an appropriate time to look back to that propaganda and all that it revealed. The aspect of Britain’s wartime propaganda that has been most widely criticized is the manipulation of atrocity stories coming out of Belgium. That’s a reasonable place to start. The centerpiece of British atrocity propaganda was the “Bryce Report” of 1915, named after Viscount James Bryce. Bryce was chair of the Committee on Alleged German Outrages. As it happens, he was also a leading white supremacist and a pioneer of the kind of democracy that Britain helped Israel bring to the Middle East.

Those who know Israeli politics will find Bryce’s theories familiar. Democracy and self-government were, he insisted, the rightful preserve of civilized and conquering peoples. The key to democracy was therefore the establishment of a demographic basis for it. Africans, Asians, Indigenous peoples the world over – all were in Bryce’s judgement “subject races,” unfit for self-government. Only through colonial settlement and a restricted franchise could democracy flourish. Bryce lectured and wrote incessantly about “the risks a democracy runs when the suffrage is granted to a large mass of half-civilized men.” This great liberal’s theories were influential from Australia to the United States, and they attained near-biblical authority amongst settlers in South Africa.

Their application in Palestine, in turn, was made possible thanks to British power. This history was from the beginning steeped in propaganda. As the British war effort turned east, the Holy Land was a potent symbol. In the first instance it conjured images of the Crusades. However, if the goal of Allied conquests was the defence of Christendom in the Levant, France had the stronger claim. British propaganda found a convenient alternative in support for Zionism. As Herbert Sidebotham, the Manchester Guardian’s military correspondent, explained, the Bryce Report didn’t have to do its work alone: “great as the ideal of relieving Belgium from the invader may be, the ideal of restoring the Jewish State to Palestine is comparably greater.” This could tap into deep public emotions, Sidebotham argued, and was another opportunity for Britain to deploy “ideal considerations as the allies of our military and political interests.”

No one did so with greater gusto than the Scottish writer John Buchan. Buchan is best remembered as the author of adventure novels, one of which, The Thirty-Nine Steps, was readapted for the screen in a feature film directed by Alfred Hitchcock. But he was also an accomplished propagandist. More even than Bryce, Buchan had built his public service around the imposition of white rule in South Africa. In early 1917 Britain’s Imperial War Cabinet selected him to direct the wartime propaganda service, with instructions to whip up public support for British war aims in the Middle East.

Buchan spun Britain’s eastern war as “the Last Crusade.” Tolerance and secular justice, oddly, were its supposed hallmarks. He assured his readers that the capture of Jerusalem by Allied troops was nothing less than “a parable of the cause for which they fought. They would recover and make free the sacred places of the human spirit which their enemies sought to profane and enslave, and in this task they walked reverently, as on hallowed ground.” Today we see what this freedom has brought to Jerusalem. Buchan’s propaganda itself suggested a politics that was far from ecumenical.

Where Buchan excelled, after all, was in channeling racism in service of state. This is what he had done for the Empire’s cause in South Africa, using a combination of nonfiction studies and novels. And it is what he did for the Great War. Some of his bigotry will ring familiar. So it is with his description of the menace of Islam, “a fighting creed,” Buchan warned, its fanatics taking to “the pulpit with the Koran in one hand and a drawn sword in the other.” Buchan’s racist depiction of Jews, on the other hand, have fallen out of favor in polite Western society. Here, for example, is his fictionalized image of who was pulling the strings in Germany: “a little white-faced Jew in a bath-chair with an eye like a rattlesnake. Yes, Sir, he is the man who is ruling the world just now, and he has his knife in the Empire of the Tzar, because his aunt was outraged and his father flogged in some one-horse location on the Volga.”

The antisemitism expressed by Buchan, and by the imperial establishment for which he acted as mouthpiece, squared more easily with support for Zionism than one might think. Jews were cast in various roles: as a subversive threat in Europe (Buchan did not forget the “Jew-anarchists”!); as a justification for Britain to hold Palestine; and as potential settlers, allies of the Empire in the east. These were not contradictions so much as a faithful expression of British settler colonialism. For Britain, colonial settlement was indeed a means of territorial expansion; but it was also a means of offloading the contradictions of industrial capitalism onto distant frontiers. Empire, as the Marxist literary critic Raymond Williams remarked, was represented in British culture as an “escape-route,” to which the ruined, the misunderstood, “the weak of every kind could be transferred.” This theme dovetailed with straight imperial calculations to structure British support for Zionism. A Jew settled in Palestine was a Jew not knocking on Britain’s doors. We would do well to remember that the first modern British statesman to clamp down on Jewish immigration, imposing the Aliens Act of 1905, was none other than Lord Balfour himself.

The worsening crisis in Palestine reflects more than a local record of colonial crimes, severe as these have been. Responsibility for it is global. Arundhati Roy was right to describe the Palestine tragedy as one of “imperial Britain’s festering, blood-drenched gifts to the modern world.” It is also a product of a history of racism and empire that extended across most of the West. On this centennial of the Balfour Declaration, reflection on this shared culpability should serve as a reminder of the responsibility for the political action that comes with it.

Dan Freeman-Maloy is an activist and writer based in Montreal.

Image is from the author.

A Ministry of Defence press conference has revealed that as the war against ISIS ends, British Reaper drones are to stay deployed in the Middle East after other UK aircraft return home.  As The Times reported

‘Air Commodore Johnny Stringer, who led the British air campaign against the terrorist group until last month, said that drones and other surveillance aircraft would continue to fly over Iraq and Syria to help local forces guard against the militants returning.,

RAF Typhoon and Tornado’s, currently based at RAF Akrotiri in Cyprus, will begin returning home “in the next six and probably even in the next four months or so,” he stated.

Over the past three years, ISIS has been defending the territory it gained in a rapid armed advance in 2014. With the assistance of international coalition air strikes, the overwhelming majority of Iraqi territory as now been recovered by Iraqi forces.  At some point, likely to be in the very near future, Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi will declare that the war is over. While ISIS will likely morph into an insurgency campaign  – and there are likely to be terror attacks in Iraqi cities – there will no longer be the ‘protracted armed violence’ of a level to mark an non-international armed conflict.

Given this, UK Reaper drones should be returning home alongside the UK’s other armed aircraft, the Tornados and Typhoons. However, as we have argued for a long time, the danger of drones is that it makes it much easier for nations to engage in – and continue to engage in – armed conflict.

There will no doubt be many arguing that it is sensible and pragmatic for the UK’s Reaper drones to continue to be deployed. They will argue that it is wasteful to not have Reaper’s capabilities available, given the on-going threats. It will be sensible, they will argue, for Reapers to continue to be based overseas, as the pilots can at least fly the minimum hours they need to be certified. And, they will no doubt argue, that’s the beauty of remote, unmanned systems. The deployment is not too onerous in terms of personnel as it’s just a small joint US-UK launch and recover element, while the mission planning, mission flying, and intelligence processing, exploitation and dissemination are all done remotely from the UK and the US.

But despite all these ‘pragmatic’ reasons, the impact of continuing to deploy armed Reapers will be damaging.  Wars must come to an end. We should resist the idea that armed conflict is a perpetual state of being.

And the ongoing drone deployment by the UK will no doubt not be viewed as pragmatic or sensible by the majority in the Middle East, but as provocative and threatening.  It will be seen that the UK is continuing to partner with the US in an endless drone war in the Middle East and beyond.

Britain’s armed Reaper drones have been deployed continuously now for more than a decade.  Rather than join the US in its perpetual ‘war against terror’, its time to bring the drones home.

Featured image is from the author.

There are approximately 1.8 billion Muslims on Earth. That is approximately 24% of the world population. They live in regions spanning North Africa, the Middle East, Central Asia, and reaching as far as Southeast Asia. There are Muslim communities in virtually every nation – and in many – they have played a pivotal, constructive, and welcomed role in national development.

If even 1% of the world’s Muslims were violent terrorists bent on conquering the world, that would constitute an army 18 million strong – or in other words – larger than the next 20 largest armies on Earth combined. Most critics of Islam infer that the number is actually much higher than 1% – many suggesting that the majority of Muslims either are engaged in or support terrorism. It is logical to conclude that if even 1% were dedicated to terrorism and the “conquest of infidels,” the war would have ended in their favor long ago.

It is clear that there is not even 1% across Islam engaged in or supporting terrorism. Across the Arab World, the vast majority of Muslims, Christians, other sects, and the secular, stand united against terrorism. It is clear that a mountain of lies stands between many and the truth – a mountain built so tall that it leaves entire segments of targeted populations in the perpetual darkness of ignorance.

From Whence Terror Flows

The source of terrorism is not the Qu’ran – a book that few critics of Islam have even picked up let alone genuinely read – but rather a very easily traced money trail that leads to Washington and London.

It is indeed the Western World that has created, branded, and marketed “radical Islam,” which is for all intents and purposes a strictly political tool designed to provoke direct Western military interventions where possible, and fight conflicts by proxy whenever direct military intervention is not possible.

In Syria and Iraq, the US has used its terrorist proxies to do both – first to fight the government of Damascus and its allies by proxy, and when that failed, to set a pretext for direct US military intervention.

It has also been used domestically, as one former analyst once put it, “to enlist our obedience for the construction of the prison planet.” Indeed, under the pretext of “fighting terrorism,” the United States and much of Europe has been transformed into an invasive police state and despite stripping away the freedom and liberty of the Western World for the promise of security – the peoples of the West find themselves with neither.

For those that have been sucked up into “radical Islam,” it seems very real. Just as the US uses patriotism to convince young men and women to devote their lives to foreign invasions, wars, and occupations against scores of sovereign nations around the world – predicated on “freedom, democracy, and self-determination” even as US militarism strips all of the above away from the planet – that fraction of a fraction of 1% engaged in “radical Islam” truly believe in their cause – no matter how nonexistent and contradictory it is in reality.

And “radical Islam” does not exist in a vacuum. It requires a medium to interact with. That includes a equally extreme, but opposite “radical ignorance” and fear sown across the Western population. Together, the two feed each other creating a perpetual pretext for foreign war, a perpetual sense of injustice against Muslims to which US-armed and funded terrorists can rally around, and perpetual fear and hatred spread across the Western World.

It is the age-old political tool of empires – divide and conquer – honed to perfection and supercharged through information technology – particularly social media.

Wahhabism – The Key to Arab Conquest 

Part of “radical ignorance” includes a deep and profound ignorance of history. Understanding the actual inception of “radical Islam,” more accurately known as Wahhabism, dispels many of the most virulent lies spread about Islam – that is has always been a barbaric, warlike ideology. Militant Islam is a relatively new phenomenon, invented by the House of Saud, then cultivated and exploited to its full potential by the British Empire and its American heirs.

The Ottoman Empire and mastery over the Arab World was coveted and contested by the British Empire. The promise of Arab independence was dangled over the heads of the founders of many of the dynasties now ruling Arabia – dynasties that were carved out through cults of personality and a violent misinterpretation of Islam known as Wahhabism. The British, after betraying the Arabs, would harness this political tool to do what all empires do best – divide and conquer – and specifically so regarding the Middle East and North Africa (MENA).

As the British Empire unraveled, the Americans picked up where London left off. The Saudis and their neighboring Persian Gulf kingdoms have been propped up by the West since the end of World War 1. Since World War 2, many of the same dynasties have sat in power, armed, funded, protected, and invited into some of the most lucrative business deals and economic activity in human history.

It was with members of the Muslim Brotherhood that the US attempted to overthrow current Syrian President Bashar Al Assad’s father, Hafez al-Assad with. It was the US with the Saudis and factions within Pakistan’s military and government who oversaw the very creation of militant groups like Al Qaeda to fight the Soviets in Afghanistan.

And it is to this very day still very much a US-European enterprise perpetuating the Saudi regime in Riyadh, arming it to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars in weapons and military support, and using Riyadh admittedly as an intermediary through which Washington, London, and Brussels arm and fund the worst, most virulent terrorist organizations on Earth.

Even current US President Donald Trump – who regularly cites “radical Islam” as an enduring threat to America’s national security, has signed off on immense weapon deals to the very nations the US uses to cultivate and perpetuate global terrorism.

The US and Europe Drive Terrorism, Not Islam 

Each and every terrorist attack that unfolds across North America or Europe is followed by a tidal wave of propaganda aimed at further bolstering a “clash of civilizations.” The fearful public either cowers or lashes out against Muslims – led by establishment voices including the newly christened “alt-right.”

Muslims and Islam are blamed and the same collection of elementary talking points are rolled out to fan the flames of hatred and hysteria. Points of logic including the number of Muslims on Earth versus the actual number of terrorists are never discussed.

Also never discussed is the fact that terrorists – particularly those either members of the self-titled “Islamic State” (ISIS) and Al Qaeda, or those inspired by such groups – are indoctrinated, radicalized, armed, funded, and supported by Washington, London, Brussels, and a collection of the West’s closest allies in the Middle East – namely Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Turkey, Jordan, and Israel.

It was in a leaked 2012 US Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) memo that revealed the US and its allies’ intent to create what it called a “Salafist principality” in eastern Syria. The memo would explicitly state that (emphasis added):

If the situation unravels there is the possibility of establishing a declared or undeclared Salafist principality in eastern Syria (Hasaka and Der Zor), and this is exactly what the supporting powers to the opposition want, in order to isolate the Syrian regime, which is considered the strategic depth of the Shia expansion (Iraq and Iran). 

On clarifying who these supporting powers were, the DIA memo would state:

The West, Gulf countries, and Turkey support the opposition; while Russia, China, and Iran support the regime.

The “Salafist” (Islamic) “principality” (State) would indeed be created precisely in eastern Syria as US policymakers and their allies had set out to do. It would be branded as the “Islamic State” and be used first to wage a more muscular proxy war against Damascus, and when that failed, to invite US military forces to intervene in the conflict directly.

In 2014, in an e-mail between US Counselor to the President John Podesta and former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, it would be admitted that two of America’s closest regional allies – Saudi Arabia and Qatar – were providing financial and logistical support to ISIS.

The e-mail, leaked to the public through Wikileaks, stated:

…we need to use our diplomatic and more traditional intelligence assets to bring pressure on the governments of Qatar and Saudi Arabia, which are providing clandestine financial and logistic support to [ISIS] and other radical Sunni groups in the region.

Despite admissions from the United States military and high-level politicians that ISIS was literally a creation of its own intentional foreign policy and perpetuated through state-sponsorship by America’s closest regional allies, both the administrations of President Barack Obama and President Trump would continue signing weapon deals, maintaining diplomatic ties, and strengthening military and economic cooperation with these state-sponsors of terror.

Simultaneously, the US and Europe also continue encouraging and protecting Saudi Arabia’s global network of faux-madrases – centers of indoctrination often under the watch and even co-management of Western intelligence agencies ensuring a constant, fresh supply of potential patsies for local terrorist attacks and recruits for the West’s proxy armies fighting abroad.

In other words, the problem of “radical Islam” is manufactured and perpetuated by the West. Without the money, weapons, and support provided by the US and Europe to nations like Saudi Arabia, their toxic political tools would quickly dull and be swept into the dustbin of human history. As seen in Syria itself, where hundreds of trucks per day from NATO territory are no longer able to supply ISIS positions within the country, ISIS is unable to sustain itself. It lacks genuine popular support in a region where the vast majority of Muslims, Christians, and the secular remain united against it and has no means of sustaining itself without immense and constant state sponsorship.

“Radical Islam,” or Wahhabism is no different. Both continue to exist through the intentional and malicious foreign and domestic policy of Western governments and the special interests that influence them.

Know Yourself and Know Your (Real) Enemy 

For those that believe that “radical Islam” is real and an enduring threat to “Western civilization,” they would be wise to heed the words of ancient warlord Sun Tzu who said,

“know yourself, and know your enemy and you will never be defeated.”

This means identifying the true source of “radical Islam’s” power by tracing weapons, money, and leadership to their sources. For those that believe “Islam” is the fundamental problem, indulging in cherry picked Qu’ran verses is monumentally irresponsible. A true enemy must be honestly studied which means cherry-picked versus must be put into context, the Qu’ran as a whole, must be read, and deep and objective study must be undertaken to truly “know one’s enemy.”

Meeting and talking with Muslims, observing their communities, and learning their ways – if one truly believes Islam is a threat – is also fundamental in order to “know one’s enemy.”

Yet it is likely that many who blindly hate Islam do so as a spectator sport. They are disinterested in the truth because picking a side and rooting is the extent of their intellectual, physical, and moral depth. For others, it is a means of profiting. Finding a niche in the West’s massive propaganda machine and picking up crumbs for one’s bank account and ego has become a viable business model for many.

But for those with the moral integrity to do so, a genuine look into “radical Islam” will reveal a much more troubling and real enemy. One that does not menace us with a foreign culture, religion, or ideology from abroad, but one that lies right in our midst, cloaked in patriotism, humanitarianism, and all that passes for “Western civilization” today.

Tony Cartalucci is a Bangkok-based geopolitical researcher and writer, especially for the online magazine“New Eastern Outlook”.  

This article was originally published by New Eastern Outlook.

Featured image is from the author.

The governing party of Venezuela, the PSUV (United Socialist Party of Venezuela), has recently obtained a resounding electoral victory for State governorship. The election was called by the CNE (National Electoral Council) at the instance of the ANC (National Constituent Assembly). Soon after, the opposition group MUD (Democratic Unity Coalition) seemed to be in disarray. Enrique Capriles of Primero Justicia (Justice First) party, for example, resigned from the MUD coalition questioning Henry Ramos Allup of the AD (Democratic Action) party who in turn expelled the four AD governors who dared to be sworn-in in front of the ANC in acceptance of the election results.

I asked Canadian author Arnold August to give his assessment of the political significance for the Bolivarian process.

Question: In the last elections of October 15 for the 23 state governorships in Venezuela, the governing party won 18 states. What is your analysis of this result in the context of the political process in Venezuela?

Arnold August: Not only did it win the 18 states, but the PSUV substantially increased its popular vote compared with the National Assembly elections held in December 2015, when the opposition won by a wide margin. Thus, in a short period of time, the Bolivarian Revolution reversed the situation. These latest October 2017 state elections, therefore, are of great historical significance not only for Venezuela but for the whole region. The U.S. is hoping to subvert the Bolivarian Revolution and use it as a springboard to weaken, and even destroy, other left-wing movements and governments in the area. The latter represent an alternative to capitalism and they, along with other powers such as Russia, China and Iran, flourish as a major multi-polar challenge to the U.S. goal of world hegemony.

Thus, because of the domestic and international importance of this resurgence in the last elections, the analysis is still ongoing. Any serious observer is obliged to continue to reflect upon and investigate the upset victory, as you are striving to do now with this interview.

Nevertheless, there is one ongoing conclusion that I have been exploring since the elections. The election results marked a watershed in Venezuelan democracy. The majority of the people and the Maduro government crossed the Rubicon from participatory democracy toward protagonist democracy. They may not have yet reached terra firma on the other shore of the Rubicon, but Venezuelan democracy is firmly on the path toward protagonist democracy as the main feature of its political system.

Some Bolivarian Revolution sympathizers and activists in Venezuela and outside may raise their eyebrows in surprise, and even suspicion, with regard to my view. The analysis may seem, if looked at superficially and dogmatically, as an underestimation of the outstanding Bolivarian experience in participatory democracy.

However, this is far from being the case. For example, in my 2013 publication Cuba and Its Neighbours: Democracy in Motion, there is a section dealing with Cuba’s neighbour titled “Venezuela: New Experiments in Participatory Democracy” that provides a very positive analysis.

And, more importantly, consider this. Hugo Chávez very clearly stated that “socialism means participatory democracy but above all protagonist democracy” (Comandante Chávez, “El Socialismo es la Democracia Participativa y sobre todo la Protagónica,” posted March 19, 2013).

Protagonist democracy means that the people are reaching the stage of consciousness and action – individually and collectively – to exercise on a daily basis their rightful protagonist role in their own revolution.

We saw this in the massive uprising by the Venezuelan people. A civic–military alliance overturned the U.S.-supported April 11, 2002 coup d’état against the Chávez government only two days later on April 13. This is how the now legendary Chavista slogan came into being: “Every 11th has its 13th!” The people themselves are able to overcome even the most adverse situation and seemingly hopeless obstacle by taking affairs into their own hands.

This growing protagonist feature of the Bolivarian Revolution’s democracy goes hand in hand with its development of socialist measures. It has been evolving over the years at a steady pace despite the economic war waged by the U.S. against Venezuela. Alongside this evolution, protagonist democracy has deepened and broadened to increasingly become a daily feature in the lives of the people. The Chávez thinking on this progression, as expressed above, is crucial to viewing today’s Venezuela from his perspective: socialism cannot be defended nor, even less, be developed without a political and electoral system based on protagonist democracy. Nonetheless, this developing level of consciousness is not tied to elections. On the contrary, the electoral process is just part of the battle of ideas that is being waged nationally and internationally in favour of socialism.

Out of necessity, this political movement in Venezuela increasingly becomes “daily” – perhaps not literally but very close to it since the death of Hugo Chávez. Ironically, Obama and Trump, by striving to subvert the participatory and protagonist people’s political defence of its Bolivarian Revolution and the biggest oil reserves in the world, have contributed to pushing the revolution to convert democracy toward, as Chávez said, “above all protagonist.” Thus, the paradox: Venezuela is now anchored in an even more favourable position to defend and expand its revolution, as the state election results glaringly exposed.

The 2002 American policy of blatant interference, as exemplified in the coup d’état, has become a daily staple in other more “smart power” forms feeding the unrest and crisis in Venezuela. This approach began to take shape after President Obama refused to recognize Nicolás Maduro as the constitutionally elected successor to Chávez on April 14, 2013. There has been virtually no let up since, with Obama handing the U.S. Venezuela game plan over to Trump on a silver platter. Only the form of the 2002 attempted coup has changed. It has become a slow-motion coup but with the same intent: to smash the socialist program. The response is that, metaphorically, every day in Venezuela is lived with the slogan “every 11th has its 13th” at the forefront.

However, unlike the military coup d’état attempt in 2002, now the “11th” is represented by the slow-motion coup that the U.S. has been fomenting since April 2013 to date, while the “13th” is the day-to-day people’s revolutionary struggle during this time to maintain political power. It was – and is – either that the Venezuelans will be the authors of their own revolution or that the revolution will be subverted.

Question: And what was the role that the National Constituent Assembly plays in the country?

AA: On May 1, 2017, the Maduro government announced the daring convening of elections to the National Constituent Assembly (NCA) to be held on July 30, 2017. The country was in the throes of the U.S.-provoked crisis. This was the only way out for the well-being and peace of the entire nation. The time had come to “re-found” the Bolivarian Revolution, just as in 1999 with the new Constitution after the election of Chávez, who founded it as a first step.

Please allow me to pursue the “crossing of the Rubicon” metaphor. The successful NCA elections, its dramatic convening and the results work together to represent the first plunge into the Rubicon: the protagonist feature of the Bolivarian Revolution overtook its complementary participatory characteristic to become what Chávez said was “above all” the need for being protagonist and not only participatory.

The NCA itself constitutes the highest expression of a protagonist system whereby the people themselves govern. It thus provided the orientation and confidence for the state elections only two-and-a-half months later in order to propel the Bolivarian Revolution further toward crossing the river to the shore. This new form of people’s power is the basis for safeguarding and further developing Venezuela’s socialism.

VISIT MY NEW WEB SITE: 

stephenlendman.org 

(Home – Stephen Lendman). 

Contact at [email protected].

Three US carrier strike groups are involved, the Nimitz, Theodore Roosevelt and Ronald Reagan, a rare show of combined force in one part of the world at the same time outside of a war theater.

North Korea calls provocative US Asia-Pacific military exercises rehearsals for war, “criminal moves for igniting a war of aggression,” according to its state-run KCNA news agency.

On Monday, it accused the Trump administration of a possible “preemptive nuclear attack” on its territory, claiming a right to launch catastrophic war over nothing because no DPRK threat exists.

In late October, dozens of House members co-sponsored a “No Unconstitutional Strike Against North Korea Act” – meant to prevent Trump preemption without congressional approval.

His extreme hostility toward the DPRK appears megalomaniacal. It risks “reckless implementation,” said the KCNA.

Washington will bear full responsibility if war on the peninsula erupts. The risk is dangerously high.

The Japanese destroyer Inazuma will join the three US carrier strike groups in exercises, following separate drills in the Sea of Japan with Indian warships.

It’s unclear exactly when and where upcoming exercises will be held. Reuters said they’ll go on for three days. US officials didn’t disclose exact dates or location, adding:

“The Pentagon and the Navy’s Pacific Fleet declined comment on future operations.”

In Tokyo before heading to South Korea, Trump again said the “era of strategic patience” with Pyongyang is over.

Three US carrier strike groups engaged in saber-rattling exercises together send a clear message of possible preemptive war if the DPRK won’t abandon its nuclear and ballistic missile programs.

Belligerent threats from Washington, along with provocative saber rattling, make Pyongyang more determined to press on with its weapons development, its best chance to deter US aggression.

China is justifiably concerned, Xi certain to stress it during Trump’s visit. Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying commented on heightened tensions, saying:

“All relevant sides should exercise restraint, avoid irritating each other, dedicate themselves to lowering the tense situation on the peninsula, and at the same time make positive efforts to get the North Korean nuclear issue back on a track to a resolution via talks as soon as possible.”

Trump rejects diplomacy, the only viable solution, suggesting he may choose a military option instead. He lied claiming a North Korean threat when none exists.

With America at war in multiple theaters, will the Korean peninsula be the next one? If so, it could erupt any time without warning.

VISIT MY NEW WEB SITE: stephenlendman.org (Home – Stephen Lendman). Contact at [email protected].

My newest book as editor and contributor is titled “Flashpoint in Ukraine: How the US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III.”

http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanIII.html

VISIT MY NEW WEB SITE: 

stephenlendman.org 

(Home – Stephen Lendman). 

Contact at [email protected].

America controls NATO policymaking. The alliance serves as its global imperial arm – warmaking its mission, not fostering world peace and stability.

Nor does it have anything to do with defense at a time the only threats alliance members face are invented ones. Real ones don’t exist.

World peace and stability notions are contrary to US objectives, wanting unchallenged dominance over world nations, their resources and populations.

America’s diabolical agenda involves endless wars of aggression, wanting all sovereign independent nations replaced by US vassal states, creating ruler/serf societies globally, an open-air prison for ordinary people disposed of if resist – a world unsafe and unfit to live in.

On November 8 and 9, NATO ministers are meeting in Brussels. Like his predecessors, Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg was appointed to serve US interests, taking orders from Washington.

Issues to be discussed Wednesday and Thursday include revising NATO’s command structure, including “a new command to help protect sea lines of communication between North America and Europe, and another command to improve the movement of troops and equipment within Europe,” said Stoltenberg – stressing “our ability to move forces,” he added.

Against what, he didn’t explain – preparing for war on Russia the unstated objective, whether or not waged. It’s more likely than not ahead – a modern-day Operation Barbarossa with nukes if launched.

Russia and China represent the final frontier of resistance against US sought global dominance. Eventual conflict against both nations is ominously possible, maybe likely or certain, a grim prospect if happens.

High on the ministerial agenda is improving infrastructure for warmaking, including upgraded roads and bridges, facilitating movement of troops, weapons and equipment.

So-called “deterrence for collective defense” is code language for possible offensive operations. The private sector in NATO countries have an “important role to play,” said Stoltenberg.

In late October, Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu explained his nation must deal with serious threats on its western borders.

During a Defense Ministry Board meeting, he said

“(t)he military and political situation at our western borders remains tense and shows a tendency to escalation.”

US-led NATO forces are deployed menacingly close to Russia’s borders, their hostile presence a cause for great concern.

If Russian troops were positioned along America’s north and/or southern borders, or offshore near its east, west, or Gulf coasts, Washington would consider their presence an act of war. Conflict could follow.

America’s provocative Eastern European presence has Moscow justifiably concerned, Shoigu explaining:

“The intensity and scale of the operational and combat training of the bloc member-countries’ military forces near our borders are growing.”

“Only in the past three months there have been over 30 drills in East European and Baltic states” – heightening tensions, Shoigu adding:

“We’re implementing a set of measures to neutralize the emerging challenges and threats,” including modernized hardware positioned by year-end and upgraded infrastructure.

Former head of Russian airborne troops/current lower house State Duma Defense Committee chairman Vladimir Shamanov warned about hostile NATO saber-rattling, “bring(ing) nothing positive,” he said.

Given America’s rage for endless wars and global dominance, the threat of catastrophic nuclear war is ominously real.

VISIT MY NEW WEB SITE: stephenlendman.org (Home – Stephen Lendman). Contact at [email protected].

My newest book as editor and contributor is titled “Flashpoint in Ukraine: How the US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III.”

http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanIII.html

“Fleets of white Toyota trucks arrived in the desert to carry refugees and drugs to Europe and to bring weapons into central and western Africa.”

On October 4th, U.S. military personnel were on their way back to their forward operating base in Niger. They had been on a reconnaissance mission to the village of Tongo Tongo, near Niger’s border with Mali. US Joint Chiefs Chairman General Joseph Dunford says that fifty ISIS fighters ambushed them. The soldiers did not call for air support for the first hour, said General Dunford, thinking perhaps that they could handle the attack. By the time the drones came along with French fighter aircraft, ISIS had disappeared.

Tongo Tongo is in the middle of a belt that is ground zero for the illicit trade that defines the Sahara. West of Tongo Tongo is Gao (Mali) and to its east is Agadez (Niger). These are the main ports for South American cocaine, flown in on various kinds of aircraft (Air Cocaine, as they are called) and then driven across the Sahara Desert in trucks to be taken by small boats across the Mediterranean Sea into Europe. Evidence of the cocaine trade is everywhere – whether in Gao’s neighborhood known as Cocaine Bougou or in the nickname of one of the leading chiefs in Agadez – Cherif Ould Abidine – known as Cherif or Mr. Cocaine.

“Evidence of the cocaine trade is everywhere.”

Cocaine is one dramatic commodity. There are others: refugees and guns. This belt of towns just below the Sahara played a historic role as caravanserais for the old trades in gold, salt and weaponry. The creation of nation-states closed off some of these routes. In particular, Libya — under the previous regime of Muammar Gaddafi — largely shut down the illicit commerce from Mali and Niger. NATO’s war against Libya, which created chaos in that country, opened these routes up. Fleets of white Toyota trucks arrived in the desert to carry refugees and drugs to Europe and to bring weapons into central and western Africa. The trucks run from Agadez to Sabha (Libya) before they find their way to the port cities. There are several kinds of refugees — the adventurers (les aventuriers), many single young men who are leaving behind deserts of opportunity for Europe, and war refugees. Both are desperate, fodder in the hands of the smugglers who must get them — and the drugs — across the forbidding sands.

Firmly opposed to the refugee traffic across the Mediterranean, the European Union (EU) has joined hands with governments in Niger and elsewhere to make this southern border of the Sahara their frontier. Niger passed a draconian law in 2015 against smuggling. The EU provided funds to Niger’s military and police, which have started an all-out war against the smugglers. In 2016, Niger arrested over a hundred smugglers and confiscated their vehicles. People in towns like Agadez, a World Heritage site for its beautiful red buildings, say openly that they are vulnerable to extremist groups. There are many to chose from — al-Qaeda in southern Mali and southern Algeria, ISIS in southern Libya and Boko Haram in northern Nigeria and into areas near Lake Chad. No wonder that the United States calls the belt from Mali through Niger the “ring of insecurity.”

“The smugglers are abandoning the refugees at the first sign of trouble in the dangerous desert.”

It is notable that the pressure on the traffickers has not decreased the terrible situation for the refugees and the “adventurers.” They continue to come for reasons that have nothing to do with an open border or a closed border. But the new military presence has meant — as the International Organization of Migration says — that the smugglers are abandoning the refugees at the first sign of trouble in the dangerous desert. The United Nations has rescued over a thousand abandoned refugees and many hundreds are said to have died along this route. The Nigerien Red Cross says that one group of forty refugees died in May when their truck broke down. It is legible to believe that the death count will never really be known as the European border moves south, from the northern edge of the Mediterranean to the southern edge of the Sahara.

Five hours drive north of Agadez is the town of Arlit, one of the key sources of uranium. Readers might remember that the United States had accused Saddam Hussein’s government of procuring yellowcake uranium from Niger. This turned out to be a hoax, uncovered by Ambassador Joe Wilson when he went to Niger and met its former Prime Minister Ibrahim Assane Mayaki. The accusation against Iraq was false, but the Arlit mines are real. The town is a fortress of European mining companies, from Niger’s own government company to a series of French firms, most prominently Areva. The road out of Arlit is known as Uranium Highway. It is this road that was used by al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb when it came and kidnapped five French employees of an Areva mine in 2010. The Areva mines were also attacked by a car bomb in 2013. French Special Forces operate to protect these mines and the close to two thousand Europeans who live in this uranium town. “One of every three light bulbs is lit thanks to Nigerien uranium,” noted Oxfam in 2013. It is too precious for the French to be ignored. That is why France’s Operation Barkhane runs from across the Sahel, from Mauritania at one end to Chad at the other. It has its headquarters in Chad’s capital of N’Djamena.

“Arlit is a fortress of European mining companies.”

The French are not alone. The Americans not only have thousands of troops across Africa, but also have many bases. The most public base is in Djibouti (Camp Lemonier), but there are also bases in Ethiopia and Kenya as well as forward operating positions across the Sahel. The United States is also building a massive base at the cost of $100 million in Agadez. Air Base 201 will be mainly a drone base, with the MQ9 Reapers flown out of Agadez to collect intelligence in this resource-rich and poverty-stricken area. This base is being constructed in plain sight. It is, therefore, surprising to hear Senator Lindsey Graham — who is on the Committee on Armed Services — say, “I didn’t know there were 1000 troops in Niger.” He meant US troops.

There has been no evidence presented to the public that those who killed the US forces near Tongo Tongo were from ISIS. Privately US intelligence officials say that this is a guess. They are not sure about the combatants. In fact, US Africa Command (AFRICOM) officials concur, saying that it is “inappropriate” to speculate about the incident and those who attacked the US forces.

There is a particularly dangerous soup at work here. Certainly extremist groups operate in the region, such as the militants who freed over a hundred prisoners from a prison in Mopti (in central Niger). The dreadful desiccation of the Sahel has produced various feuds amongst herder communities in eastern Niger, where these have morphed into ethnic conflicts (and where certain groups — such as the Mohamid and Peuls — have used the opportunity to accuse the Boudouma of being, therefore, part of Boko Haram). Such opportunism was frequently used in Afghanistan, where tribes used American airpower to settle scores with their old adversaries (to blame someone for being Taliban was sufficient to call in an air strike).

“The United States is also building a massive base at the cost of $100 million in Agadez.”

The root causes of the conflicts are the same as elsewhere: environmental destruction, joblessness, war and the commodities (such as Cocaine and Uranium) that are essential to the West. None of this will be addressed. More troops will arrive in Niger. More destruction will follow. More sorrow. More anger. More war.

There will be no interest in the newly formed North African Network for Food Sovereignty (formed in Tunis on July 5th) and in its sensible charter of demands. Nor will there be any reflection on the assassination of hope for the Sahel, when Thomas Sankara — president of Burkina Faso — was killed thirty years ago on October 15th. “We must dare to invent the future,” said Sankara. What is before us from the American and French Special Forces and the militaries of Niger and Chad is not the future. It is wretched.

Vijay Prashad is the Chief Editor of LeftWord Books (leftword.com [3]) and the Director of Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research. He is the author of 20 books, the most recent being The Death of a Nation and the Future of the Arab Revolution (University of California Press, 2016). His columns appear at AlterNe t every Wednesday.

This GRTV production was first released in the week prior to the November 8 Elections, following the release of FBI Comey’s Second Letter on October 28, 2017.

What motivated the May 2017 firing of FBI Director James Comey? Was it related to Comey’s October Surprise, which was detrimental to Clinton’s candidacy? 

The recommendation to fire Comey did not emanate from the White House. It was an initiative of US Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who prepared a three page memorandum, which  criticized James Comey for his handling of the Clinton email investigation and the release of his October 28, 2016 Second Letter to Congress 11 days before Election Day.

What was the purpose of firing Comey: Cui Bono?  Who was behind it?  That decision served the interests of the Neocons.

It was taken by the Attorney General’s office overriding the Presidency, precisely with a view to removing potential obstacles to the conduct of the Fake “Trump-Moscow collusion” investigation. 

In this regard, Comey was slated to be removed. He was viewed as unpredictable and uncooperative. Moreover, the decision was also intended to weaken the presidency of Donald Trump.

In the immediate wake of Comey’s dismissal, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein appointed former FBI Robert Mueller to serve as special counsel for the United States Department of Justice to investigate the alleged interference of the Kremlin in the November 2016 presidential elections. 

The Mueller investigation under the auspices of the Department of Justice had a mandate to “exploring any coordination between Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign and the Russian government as part of the Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections”.

The Mueller investigation serves two related purposes. It is intended to sustain the Russia-gate legend as an objective of US foreign policy, it is also intended to undermining the Trump presidency. 

About turn?

The recent statements by interim chair of the DNC of the Democratic Party Donna Brazile reveal that the DNC, its former chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz and Hillary Clinton conspired with a view to undermining Bernie Sanders candidacy in the primaries in favor of Clinton:

I had promised Bernie when I took the helm of the Democratic National Committee after the convention that I would get to the bottom of whether Hillary Clinton’s team had rigged the nomination process, as a cache of emails stolen by Russian hackers and posted online had suggested. I’d had my suspicions from the moment I walked in the door of the DNC a month or so earlier, based on the leaked emails. (Donna Brazile, November 2017

…

I had tried to search out any other evidence of internal corruption that would show that the DNC was rigging the system to throw the primary to Hillary, but I could not find any in party affairs or among the staff. I had gone department by department, investigating individual conduct for evidence of skewed decisions, and I was happy to see that I had found none. Then I found this agreement.

The funding arrangement with HFA and the victory fund agreement was not illegal, but it sure looked unethical. If the fight had been fair, one campaign would not have control of the party before the voters had decided which one they wanted to lead. This was not a criminal act, but as I saw it, it compromised the party’s integrity. (Donna Brazile, Politico, November 2, 2017)

What is important to understand is that these alleged fraudulent actions including the rigging of the primaries conducted by the DNC of the Democratic Party could have been instrumental in triggering the loss of Bernie Sanders in the primaries.

Bernie Sanders was leading. If he had won the Democratic Party nomination, he would have won the November 8, 2016 presidential elections against Donald Trump by a landslide.

Without the DNC riggings of the nomination  process, Bernie Sanders would have become President of the United States.

Michel Chossudovsky, November 7, 2017

This GRTV report initially aired four days before the November 2016 presidential elections provides evidence of fraud and criminality involving Hillary Clinton and the DNC. It not only dispels the hacking accusations directed against Moscow, it also reveals the bribery of a senior FBI official who was subsequently promoted and put in charge of the investigation pertaining to Hillary Clinton’s State Department Emails.  

The FBI’s October surprise has thrown the 2016 election into November chaos.

But an examination of the trigger mechanism behind this event reveals a deeper layer of manipulation by the media and financial interests behind the election.

This is the GRTV Backgrounder with your host James Corbett.  This Global Research TV report includes an interview with Prof. Michel Chossudovsky.

It’s too corrupted to fix, rigged to serve powerful interests exclusively, elections farcical when held. 

America is a plutocracy, not a democracy, a cesspool of criminality, inequity and injustice, run by sinister dark forces, powerful monied interests, headquartered on Wall Street, choosing who holds top government positions.

Brazile accused Hillary of a conducting a hugely unethical power play to usurp control of the (undemocratic) Democrat party during the primary season – to assure her selection as presidential nominee, rigging things against Sanders.

DNC fund-raising was a “money laundering” scheme for her campaign, shutting out her sole challenger, the race for Dem party presidential nominee over before primaries began.

Though acting DNC chair, Hillary aides treated Brazile like a “patsy” and “slave,” she said, telling all in a forthcoming book, already saying plenty publicly.

Her predecessor, defrocked DNC chair Debbie Wasserman Shultz, ceded party control to Hillary. Outraged by her deplorable shenanigans, Brazile considered having Joe Biden replace her.

She feared for her life after the murder of DNC staffer Seth Rich – leaking party emails. WikiLeaks published them.

No Russian hacking occurred. Russiagate is a colossal hoax – invented and spread by the CIA under John Brennan, another example of the deplorable way America operates.

US political shenanigans aren’t unique to undemocratic Dems. Republicans share guilt.

Rule in America is all about serving privileged interests exclusively. Democracy is pure fantasy.

None whatever exists. America’s founders rejected it, pretended otherwise rhetorically. Self-serving figures drafting the constitution resembled a Wall Street crowd – bankers, lawyers, politicians and slave owners among them.

Trump was co-opted by America’s deep state straightaway after entering office, serving as a front man for its interests.

His one redeeming attribute is he’s not Hillary, the most ruthlessly dangerous presidential aspirant in US history.

If she won last November and he lost, we might all be dead now. Her viciousness is too extreme to hide – no matter how hard media try, operating as her press agent throughout last year’s campaign.

In response to Brazile’s accusations, an insider knowing firsthand what went on, Hillary’s campaign team issued the following statement:

“We were shocked to learn the news that Donna Brazile actively considered overturning the will of the Democratic voters by attempting to replace Hillary Clinton and Tim Kaine as the Democratic Presidential and Vice Presidential nominees.”

“It is particularly troubling and puzzling that she would seemingly buy into false Russian-fueled propaganda, spread by both the Russians and our opponent…”

Hillary “more than any of us, persevered through an incredibly difficult campaign and her commitment and stamina inspired us every day. We are very proud of the effort she and the campaign made in both the primary and the general election.”

“(W)e are pretty tired of people who were not part of our campaign telling the world what it was like to be on the inside of our campaign and how we felt about it.”

“We loved our candidate and each other and it remains our honor to have been part of the effort to make Hillary Clinton the 45th President of the United States.”

It’s hard even quoting this rubbish. It speaks for itself. Anyone doing minimal due diligence on Hillary knows the dark side of her character – an unindicted war criminal, racketeer, perjurer, belonging in prison.

Hillary and Trump were the most widely reviled presidential aspirants in US history. The majority “will” of the people rejected them both.

Corrupt media “propaganda” proliferates daily. Private citizen Hillary keeps spreading Big Lies.

VISIT MY NEW WEB SITE: stephenlendman.org (Home – Stephen Lendman). Contact at [email protected].

My newest book as editor and contributor is titled “Flashpoint in Ukraine: How the US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III.”

http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanIII.html

America’s only enemies are invented ones – justifying unjustifiable global militarism, belligerence, and out-of-control defense spending, intended for offense against sovereign independent countries threatening no one.

On Trump’s Asia-Pacific trip to five countries, North Korea is his prime focus, earlier during his Saudi Arabia visit, it was Iran.

Neither country threatens anyone. Throughout its post-WW II history, North Korea never attacked another country. Iran hasn’t done it for centuries.

Both countries are wrongfully vilified – for their sovereign independence, free from US imperial control, their militaries able to hit back hard if attacked.

The threat of US aggression against both nations remains unacceptably high, unthinkable nuclear war possible.

Trump’s Asia-Pacific trip is largely about selling war and weapons, peace and stability off his agenda, ranting about nonexistent threats his main tactic, along with pressuring allies to support US imperial policies.

It’s also about containing China, the region’s economic powerhouse, heading toward becoming the world’s leading economy, overtaking US dominance regardless of how Washington tries curbing its rise, treating Beijing as a rival, not an ally, Cold War strategy, the same hostility confronting Russia.

America seeks global dominance, not mutual cooperation. Trump wants increased congressional funding to challenge North Korea.

In a November 6 letter to Speaker Paul Ryan, he requested

“an additional $4.0 billion to support urgent missile defeat and defense enhancements to counter the threat from North Korea, $0.7 billion to repair damage to U.S. Navy ships, and $1.2 billion in support of my Administration’s South Asia strategy,”

adding:

“This request supports additional efforts to detect, defeat, and defend against any North Korean use of ballistic missiles against the United States, its deployed forces, allies, or partners.”

Claims of possible DPRK use of ballistic missiles or any other weapons against America, its regional forces or US allies are fabricated.

North Korea wants regional peace, not war. It wants respect for its sovereignty, normal relations with all countries, hostile sanctions lifted, and a peace treaty, formally ending the 1950s war – objectives Washington rejects, maintaining the myth of a DPRK threat.

En route to Tokyo on Air Force One, Trump told reporters America’s military budget is “going up” – despite no threats facing the nation or its allies.

He falsely blamed Iran for involvement in a Houthi missile fired from Yemen on Saudi Arabia, claiming the Islamic Republic supplies its fighters with these and other weapons.

An air, sea and land blockade prevents most everything from getting in, including essentials to life.

Trump’s accusation against Iran was a bald-faced lie, his extreme hostility toward the country worrisome, disturbing rhetoric perhaps prelude to something more sinister.

His Asia-Pacific trip is more about selling war than preventing it. Unthinkable US aggression against North Korea is ominously possible, including use of nuclear weapons, a nightmarish scenario if happens.

VISIT MY NEW WEB SITE: stephenlendman.org (Home – Stephen Lendman). Contact at [email protected].

My newest book as editor and contributor is titled “Flashpoint in Ukraine: How the US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III.”

http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanIII.html

The House of Saud’s King Salman devises a high-powered “anti-corruption” commission and appoints his son, Crown Prince Mohammad Bin Salman, a.k.a. MBS, as chairman.

Right on cue, the commission detains 11 House of Saud princes, four current ministers and dozens of former princes/cabinet secretaries – all charged with corruption. Hefty bank accounts are frozen, private jets are grounded. The high-profile accused lot is “jailed” at the Riyadh Ritz-Carlton.

War breaks out within the House of Saud, as Asia Times had anticipated back in July. Rumors have been swirling for months about a coup against MBS in the making. Instead, what just happened is yet another MBS pre-emptive coup.

A top Middle East business/investment source who has been doing deals for decades with the opaque House of Saud offers much-needed perspective:

“This is more serious than it appears. The arrest of the two sons of previous King Abdullah, Princes Miteb and Turki, was a fatal mistake. This now endangers the King himself. It was only the regard for the King that protected MBS. There are many left in the army against MBS and they are enraged at the arrest of their commanders.”

To say the Saudi Arabian Army is in uproar is an understatement. “He’d have to arrest the whole army before he could feel secure.”

Prince Miteb until recently was a serious contender to the Saudi throne. But the highest profile among the detainees belongs to billionaire Prince al-Waleed Bin Talal, owner of Kingdom Holdings, major shareholder in Twitter, CitiBank, Four Seasons, Lyft and, until recently, Rupert Murdoch’s Newscorp.

Al-Waleed’s arrest ties up with a key angle; total information control. There’s no freedom of information in Saudi Arabia. MBS already controls all the internal media (as well as the appointment of governorships). But then there’s Saudi media at large. MBS aims to “hold the keys to all the large media empires and relocate them to Saudi Arabia.”

So how did we get here?

The secrets behind the purge

The story starts with secret deliberations in 2014 about a possible “removal” of then King Abdullah. But

“the dissolution of the royal family would lead to the breaking apart of tribal loyalties and the country splitting into three parts. It would be more difficult to secure the oil, and the broken institutions whatever they were should be maintained to avoid chaos.”

Instead, a decision was reached to get rid of Prince Bandar bin Sultan – then actively coddling Salafi-jihadis in Syria – and replace the control of the security apparatus with Mohammed bin Nayef.

The succession of Abdullah proceeded smoothly. “Power was shared between three main clans: King Salman (and his beloved son Prince Mohammed); the son of Prince Nayef (the other Prince Mohammed), and finally the son of the dead king (Prince Miteb, commander of the National Guard). In practice, Salman let MBS run the show.

And, in practice, blunders also followed. The House of Saud lost its lethal regime-change drive in Syria and is bogged down in an unwinnable war on Yemen, which on top of it prevents MBS from exploiting the Empty Quarter – the desert straddling both nations.

The Saudi Treasury was forced to borrow on the international markets. Austerity ruled – with news of MBS buying a yacht for almost half a billion dollars while lazing about the Cote d’Azur not going down particularly well. Hardcore political repression is epitomized by the decapitation of Shi’ite leader Sheikh Al-Nimr. Not only the Shi’ites in the Eastern province are rebelling but also Sunni provinces in the west.

As the regime’s popularity radically tumbled down, MBS came up with Vision 2030. Theoretically, it was shift away from oil; selling off part of Aramco; and an attempt to bring in new industries. Cooling off dissatisfaction was covered by royal payoffs to key princes to stay loyal and retroactive payments on back wages to the unruly masses.

Yet Vision 2030 cannot possibly work when the majority of productive jobs in Saudi Arabia are held by expats. Bringing in new jobs raises the question of where are the new (skilled) workers to come from.

Throughout these developments, aversion to MBS never ceased to grow; “There are three major royal family groups aligning against the present rulers: the family of former King Abdullah, the family of former King Fahd, and the family of former Crown Prince Nayef.”

Nayef – who replaced Bandar – is close to Washington and extremely popular in Langley due to his counter-terrorism activities. His arrest earlier this year angered the CIA and quite a few factions of the House of Saud – as it was interpreted as MBS forcing his hand in the power struggle.

According to the source, “he might have gotten away with the arrest of CIA favorite Mohammed bin Nayef if he smoothed it over but MBS has now crossed the Rubicon though he is no Caesar. The CIA regards him as totally worthless.”

Some sort of stability could eventually be found in a return to the previous power sharing between the Sudairis (without MBS) and the Chamars (the tribe of deceased King Abdullah). After the death of King Salman, the source would see it as “MBS isolated from power, which would be entrusted to the other Prince Mohammed (the son of Nayef). And Prince Miteb would conserve his position.”

MBS acted exactly to prevent this outcome. The source, though, is adamant;

“There will be regime change in the near future, and the only reason that it has not happened already is because the old King is liked among his family. It is possible that there may be a struggle emanating from the military as during the days of King Farouk, and we may have a ruler arise that is not friendly to the United States.”

‘Moderate’ Salafi-jihadis, anyone?

Before the purge, the House of Saud’s incessant spin centered on a $500 billion zone straddling Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Egypt, on the Red Sea coast, a sort of Dubai replica to be theoretically completed by 2025, powered by wind and solar energy, and financed by its sovereign wealth fund and proceeds from the Aramco IPO.

In parallel, MBS pulled another rabbit from his hat swearing the future of Saudi Arabia is a matter of “simply reverting to what we followed – a moderate Islam open to the world and all religions.”

In a nutshell: a state that happens to be the private property of a royal family inimical to all principles of freedom of expression and religion, as well as the ideological matrix of all forms of Salafi-jihadism simply cannot metastasize into a “moderate” state just because MBS says so.

Meanwhile, a pile-up of purges, coups and countercoups shall be the norm.

“Canada’s decision to extend its anti-Russia sanctions under the false pretext of hypocritically championing human rights is absolutely pointless and reprehensible,” read a November 3 statement from the Russian embassy in Ottawa.

Pointless and reprehensible. Reprehensible this action is but there is a point, the point being to create as much anti-Russian feeling among Canadians as possible and to support the American governments tightening economic blockade of Russia in retaliation for insisting on its own sovereignty, the right to run its own affairs and for insisting on protecting its own international interests as in Syria and along its borders.

On Friday November 3, Canada invoked the so-called Magnitsky Law to slap sanctions on 52 people, 30 linked to Russia, and aside from a couple from South Sudanese, the rest linked Venezuela, including President Maduro.

The new Canadian law, the official name of which is the Justice for Victims of Corrupt Foreign Officials Act, won final approval in the Canadian Parliament two weeks ago. It allows the Canadian government to freeze Canadian assets of corrupt foreign officials and prevent them from entering Canada and mirrors a similar put into effect in the USA.

Russian President Putin responded to the law strongly accusing Canada of playing “unconstructive political games,” which it certainly is. In fact the Russian embassy in Ottawa stated correctly that Canada is “isolating itself from one of the key global powers.” The statement added, according to Tass that dozens of Canadians have now been banned from entering Russia.

Maria Zakharova, speaking for the Russian Foreign Ministry said,

“We have repeatedly warned the Canadian authorities against attempts to exert pressure by imposing sanctions on Russia. We told them that such actions would not remain unanswered. To our great regret, Ottawa again introduced restrictions on our citizens under the pretext of the recently adopted Magnitsky Act.

“We have to act in kind. Proceeding from the principle of reciprocity, the Russian Federation prohibits entry to many Canadian citizens. The list is long and contains dozens of names the Russophobic Canadian citizens that have been systematically destroying bilateral relations.

“This raises the question: Is this what Ottawa wanted to achieve? Do its politicians really think that it is possible to put pressure on Russia? Or are they simply pampering their political ambitions?

If our Canadian partners like to play sanctions games, we will have to respond, although we certainly prefer to develop constructive cooperation on the issues important for the peoples of both countries. We hope the political circles of Canada will have a stroke of insight and they will give up the destructive policy that further exacerbates bilateral relations.”

Good questions but the answer can only be found in Washington that calls the shots, not in Ottawa, where the Canadian governments sits waiting to take American orders.

This is clear from the Canadian foreign minister’s statement. Chrystia Freeland stated,

“Today’s announcement sends a clear message that Canada will take action against individuals who have profited from acts of significant corruption or who have been involved in gross violations of human rights,”

Instead of naming President Trump, Bill or Hilary Clinton, Tony Blair or a thousand others she could have named as paragons of corruption and whose violations of human rights around the world are legendary, she targeted President Maduro of Venezuela who has risked his life fighting the corruption and criminality of the finance and business oligarchs that want to retain their powers to fleece the Venezuelan people. President Putin’s government, which is targeted, has done more to eliminate corruption in Russia country that anyone since the fall of the USSR.

We can look at the other names too but the point is made. Why they threw in a couple of names from South Sudan is anyone’s guess as it is difficult to learn the details. Perhaps to make it look like they were spreading things around a bit. But no one is fooled. The aim of this action is not to go after the corrupt but to make propaganda.

And who is it that is presuming to make these people targets of an anti-corruption campaign, a campaign for human rights? Why, the very Canadian foreign minister who meets with and supports Nazis in the government of the Poroshenko regime in Ukraine; a foreign minister who has lied about her grandfathers Nazi past. No, this is not about human rights but a display of the Canadian government’s smug hypocrisy veiling its own crimes.

Just a few weeks ago the Canadian Prime Minister Trudeau devoted his entire UN speech to the General Assembly apologising for the gross human rights violations carried out by successive Canadian governments against the original peoples of Canada who, despite the apology continue to live lives of terrible desperation, desperation so terrible that native youth have resorted to incidents of mass suicide.

I wrote once and will repeat that Canada has once again revealed itself as a country without any existential existence. It is a regional backwater of the United States of America, the remaining vestiges of sovereignty and independence submerged in the swamp of American imperialism and culture.

Long gone are the glory days when a Canadian actually felt distinct in North America, when Canada tried to maintain an independent foreign policy and a national culture born out of the richness of the three founding peoples, the First Nations, the French and the English.

Canada remained a formal colony of British capital until 1867 when it was finally organised as a self governing state within the British empire after a series of internal struggles for more self rule by the growing mercantile and industrial elites but it only achieved any real independence as a country in the 1930’s as Britain’s power rapidly declined after its huge losses of the First World War. But the establishment of a country more independent of Britain did not result in an independent nation. Canada relied on foreign capital to build its infrastructure, its continental railway systems, its hydro-electric projects, its factories, its cities and where British capital could not supply the need it was quickly replaced by American capital.

The domination of the country by the Americans accelerated after the Second World War but it was countered by a rising nationalist feeling generated in part by Canada’s disproportionately large contribution to fighting the fascists in Europe.

A nation of eleven million people fielded military forces of almost a million and in 1945 Canada had the third largest navy in the world. After the war the working classes, many of whom viewed the Soviet Union as the most progressive nation in the world, despite the elites’ anti-Russian and anti-socialist propaganda, supported socialist ideals that resulted in the establishment of free national health care and low cost education, affordable housing and were enthusiastic about Canadian artists and writers.

They saw how a nation like Russia had rapidly developed its industrial and societal resources in a landmass that was very similar to Canada and realised that they could do the same. But it was not to be. Soon the American dominance began to be felt, with the forced dumping of Hollywood films in Canadian theatres, the take over of oil and gas exploration and pipeline construction, the stifling of any really independent steps to national development and of course the fateful decision under US pressure to join the NATO alliance.

The years of the late 50’s and 60’s saw Canadian leaders trying to act independently of the American power. In one famous episode, Prime Minister Lester Pearson declined U.S. requests to send Canadian combat troops into the Vietnam War. Pearson spoke at Temple University in Philadelphia on 2 April 1965 and called for a pause in the American bombing of North Vietnam, so that a diplomatic solution to the war could be found. President Johnson, who rose to power through the coup d’état against President Kennedy in 1963, saw this criticism of American foreign policy on American soil as an intolerable sin. Before Pearson had finished his speech, he was summoned to Camp David, Maryland, to meet with Johnson the next day. Johnson, a very large man, who was a notorious thug, reportedly picked up Pearson, a very small man, by the lapels and shouted, “Don’t you come into my living room and piss on my rug.”

The last gasp of Canadian attempts at real independence took place under Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau who, though not withdrawing from NATO, tried to create a foreign policy in Canadian interests and was one of the first western leaders to open the door to China, long before Nixon, and remained friends with Fidel Castro all his life. It was Trudeau that finally negotiated with the British for the repatriation of the Canadian Constitution in 1982, finally severing the last legal ties to British rule. He called for the creation of a “Just Society” with real participatory democracy and concern for the collective good and for Canada to become more engaged with the rest of the world instead of just being fixated on the United States. But the fall of Trudeau and the rise of the right wing in Canada in the late 80’s led to the rise of the continentalists, that is those Canadians financiers and industrialists who saw their interests lying in New York instead of Toronto. The counter-revolution in the USSR accelerated this process as neo-liberalism and free trade became the dominant doctrine and, in a series of free trade and security agreements, starting in 1993, Canada quickly surrendered its hard won sovereignty almost overnight to the interests of American capital.

The lesson to be drawn from all this is that any nation that surrenders its sovereignty to a dominant power becomes the tool of that power. The interests of its own people count for nothing. International law and peace count for nothing. Human life counts for nothing.

Nations like Canada can choose their own path, their own destiny in peaceful cooperation with the nations and peoples of the world, with Russia and Venezuela. The problem is how the people of Canada, and, indeed, all nations, can escape this domination and survive it. Unfortunately, with the continentalists still in control in Washington and Ottawa, New York and Toronto, and with American control of the economic resources at an intolerable level, the situation looks bleak for the immediate future. Canadians are nothing more than servants in their own house, when, to use the phrase of the Quebec nationalists in their struggle for self determination, we should be “maître chez nous,” masters of our own house. Instead our government is a servant of Washington and will suffer any humiliation and disadvantage that these sanctions will undoubtedly bring upon us in order to lick the hand that pats its head.

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

The House of Saud’s bid to engage with Iraq after almost a quarter century is illustrative of the former’s renewed push to create a regional wedge against the fast increasing Iranian influence in Iraq, as also in the Middle East, where Iran has played a no small role in defeating the self-styled Islamic State.

This renewed engagement has also received blessings from Washington, which is actively seeking to use its leverage and military presence in Iraq to change its pro-Iranian foreign policy orientation, and thereby use it to contain Iranian influence. Whereas this anti-Iran thrust is a part of the Trump administration’s policy of ‘isolating’ Iran, it also reflects that even the drastic failure that the US-Saudia sponsored ‘terrorism project’ has received has not led them to making a sane policy, one that may introduce stability than inject new flashpoints of conflict.

But this is not happening. Containment of Iran was, in fact, the central agenda in the last meeting Rex Tillerson had with Saudi Arabia’s king Salman and Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi in Riyadh on October 22. That the meeting and the diplomatic momentum that preceded it had been blessed by the US is evident from the role that Brett McGurk, the US special presidential envoy for the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS, has been playing in the region. As such, while McGurk is supposed to coordinate with anti-ISIS activity in the region, he often tweets about Saudi Arabia and Iraq. “Breakthrough diplomacy over last 9 months by secretary Tillerson, Iraqi, Saudi leaders…. vital to post-ISIS stabilization in region,” he tweeted on the day of the October 22 meeting, referring obviously to drive Iran out of Iraq in accordance with the image the US has built of Iran that shows the latter as a ‘destabilizing element’ in the region. A lot more is to come yet!

Saudi Arabia has already opened its border crossing with Iraq, indicating its willingness to open itself in other areas if Iraq works in tandem with them to roll back Iran. While a lot of diplomatic activity is taking place in Iraq because of the fact that the US has considerable presence there, for Saudi Arabia it is not just Iraq that it wants Iranian influence to roll back from. Saudia’s hegemonic ambitions cover the whole Middle East, stretching from Iraq to Syria and Lebanon, and most importantly to Yemen.

While a lot of fighting is taking place in Yemen and Saudi Arabia continues to blame Iran for its inability to overcome the Houthis, a recent country where Saudi Arabia and Iran have clashed in a rather non-militant manner is Lebanon. The resignation of Lebanon’s prime minister only indicates Saudi’s new manipulations to force the Iran backed Hezbollah and Israel in a new conflict. There is as such a reason why Hezbollah has blamed Saudi Arabia for the resignation of Hariri. Hezbollah has shown that it clearly is mindful of the game the Saudis are playing in the region.

While Hariri stepped down in a televised address from Saudi Arabia and blamed Hezbollah and Iran for meddling in the country’s internal affairs, this might only be a prelude to a new Hezbollah-Israel war—something that might enable the Saudis to force Iran to shift its focus away from Iraq and Syria.

This is how things might be forced to turn ugly in Lebanon. The Saudis, by pulling Hariri out of his office, seem to be hoping to ensure that Hezbollah gets stuck with the blame and responsibility for Lebanon’s challenges, from caring for Syrian refugees to wiping out Al Qaida and ISIS affiliates.  This will probably require Hezbollah to assume more control in Lebanon—something that Israel is most likely to sees as a red-line. A stronger Hezbollah in Lebanon means a stronger Iranian presence close to Israel, forcing Israel in a conflict with them.

The possibility of this extended confrontation was clearly pointed recently in a report of Hareetz, which said that “Israeli leaders have been preparing for the next war with Hezbollah since 2006. Iran’s increasing assertiveness across the region makes clear that, even more than the last war, it will be a fight to diminish the Iranian threat on Israel’s borders (Lebanon). Israel and Saudi Arabia are fully aligned in this regional struggle, and the Saudis cannot help but be impressed by Israel’s increasing assertiveness to strike at Iranian threats in Syria”; hence their manipulations in Lebanon to force a new conflict and use this opportunity to off-set Iran’s gains in Iraq, Syria and Yemen.

That Israel is engaging in a new conflict with Hezbollah is already evident in Syria. Recent Israeli raids against Hezbollah (targets) in Syria certainly mark an escalation in their attacks. Besides it, Israeli warplanes have also been making intensive overflights in the south of Lebanon during the past few days. Besides it, Hariri’s resignation has been seen, much to the satisfaction of Riyadh, as a wake-up call in Israel, leading Netanyahu to warn the “international community to take action against the Iranian aggression that is trying to turn Syria into Lebanon.”

This is evident here that conflict in the Middle East is far from over. On the contrary, it appears to be expanding now even after ISIS has been defeated. What this resumption of crisis, which might lead to armed conflict in an otherwise “post-ISIS” era, also shows is that ISIS itself was never the actual source of conflict; it was regional powers, powers which have re-started their manipulation by introducing an artificial crisis in Lebanon and by squarely blaming Iran and Hezbollah for this. The US-Saudi nexus is, therefore, only pursuing the same agenda it had started to materialize by first starting a war in Syria and then in Iraq through their proxy groups.

Salman Rafi Sheikh, research-analyst of International Relations and Pakistan’s foreign and domestic affairs, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

Against the backdrop of US aggression against North Korea, NATO is intensifying its preparations for war with Russia, the world’s second largest nuclear power. A report in the German news magazine Der Spiegel (Issue 43/2017) based on a secret NATO document indicates how far plans for war have progressed. The news magazine concludes: “In plain language: NATO is preparing for a possible war with Russia.”

In the document entitled “Progress report on the Alliance’s Enhanced Deterrence and Defence Disposition,” leading military figures call for a major boost to military capabilities in order to conduct a so-called “Major Joint Operation Plus.” The abstruse terminology in fact stands for a war involving the main military organisations of all NATO countries, i.e. hundreds of thousands of soldiers. Der Spiegel notes: “The period of the peace dividend is past, the command structures of the Cold War are returning.”

The secret report states that NATO must be able to “quickly strengthen one or more threatened allies, underpin peace and wartime deterrence, and support allies in the event of an attack.” The mobilisation of the necessary troops requires “robust military logistics and capabilities”. The lines of communication would have to extend from North America to the eastern and southern borders of the NATO Alliance.

The report notes that in particular, when relocating large-scale military units to Eastern Europe, NATO is insufficiently prepared, due to the reduction and increased demands of flexibility of the armed forces for foreign missions. In the field of logistics, “the risks involved in rapid reinforcement is considerable”. The alliance lacks low loaders for tanks and rail cars to move heavy equipment to the front. The infrastructure is not designed for the heavy battle tank of the German Army the 2Leopard 2.”

The core of the NATO paper is the demand for two new battlegroups comprising 2,000 troops.

The first of these units is based on the example of the Cold War Supreme Allied Command, which was to ensure the transfer of troops and supplies across the Atlantic for war in Europe. “According to high-ranking NATO military officers the sea route could prove to be an Achilles heel for replenishment in cases of emergency,” Spiegel writes. “In the secret meetings of the central command, analysts warned that Russia is able to manoeuvre its submarines in the Atlantic Ocean largely unobserved.” Based on the current command structure, NATO convoys in the Atlantic are defenceless.

The establishment of such a command unit would involve a massive militarisation of the North Atlantic. This is illustrated by a look at its historical precedent.

Up to its dissolution in 2003, the “Striking Fleet Atlantic” constituted the core of the Supreme Allied Command Atlantic. This included up to four aircraft carrier battle groups, two anti-submarine commandos, an amphibious unit for landing operations and 22,000 sailors. The purpose of this major federation was to maintain the supremacy of the seas between North America and Europe.

A second command unit known as “Rear Area Operation Command” is planned to organise the distribution of war supplies across Europe. According to Der Spiege l, its main task would be “to plan and secure logistics between Central Europe and the eastern member states….In reality the unit represents “the renaissance of the mobilisation concept of the Cold War”.

In plain language: the remit of the new battlegroup is to organise the deployment of large-scale contingents of troops at the Russian border and prepare an attack on Russia. Preparations are already in full swing and Berlin—the location of the command in Germany—is playing a key role. According to Der Spiegel talks between high-ranking US military officers and German officers had already taken place at the beginning of October, shortly after the federal election.

The first telephone conversation between German Defence Minister Ursula von der Leyen (CDU) and her American counterpart James “Mad Dog” Mattis also centred on setting up the new command unit. This means that Germany, which has been engaged in a massive military build up for the past three years now and is seeking to increase its military presence in NATO, will become even more centrally involved in NATO’s preparations for war with Russia.

Der Spiegel comments “Domestically, the project would probably be unproblematic even in a possible Jamaica coalition with the Greens, because Germany would not provide combat troops, but only staff soldiers” This is confirmed by the aggressive rhetoric used by the Greens against Russia and the conduct of the exploratory talks for a Jamaica coalition, which has made clear there are only tactical differences between the various parties.

A decision on the establishment of new command structures is expected at the meeting of NATO defence ministers on 8 and 9 November in Brussels—despite increasing tensions within the NATO alliance.

The NATO secret report and the report in Der Spiegel both justify the preparations for a war, which would threaten millions of lives, as a response to the “Russian annexation” of Crimea. This turns reality on its head. There is nothing progressive about the Putin regime, and its own military policy increases the danger of war. But the real aggressors in Eastern Europe are the US and western powers. The United States has been systematically encircling and attempting to subjugate Russia since the dissolution of the Soviet Union 25 years ago, and in February 2014, both Washington and the German government supported a right-wing coup against the pro-Russian Yanukovych government in Ukraine.

The depiction of Russia as an aggressive superpower waiting for the chance to take over all of Eastern Europe, has been used by the imperialist powers to justify the deployment of NATO troops at the Russian border. In 2014/15, NATO increased its “Rapid Reaction Force” to 40,000 soldiers. Its so-called “spearhead” comprises four “multinational battlegroups” with 1,000 soldiers stationed in each of the three Baltic States and Poland, led by Great Britain, Canada, Germany and the US.

The secret report now calls for a further increase in size of these battlegroups. There is “insufficient assurance that the NATO Response Force will be able to react quickly and sustainably when necessary.” Der Spiegel makes clear that what is contemplated is not merely a reaction to Russian aggression but rather active preparations for war with Moscow. The magazine concludes “hardly anyone expects that Russia could actually attack a NATO country.”

Former FBI special agent Ali H. Soufan has confirmed that Prince Abdul Aziz bin Fahd has been killed during an attempt by the authorities to arrest him as part of Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman’s great purge of the Saudi elites. He died when his security contingent got into a firefight with regime gunmen attempting to make an arrest.

Prince Abdul Aziz was deeply involved in Saudi Oger Ltd, a company which until it ceased operations in the summer of this year, was owned by the Hariri family. Former Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri was punitively in charge of the company until it ceased operations.

Abdul Aziz is confirmed dead. He was 44 years old. Earlier, Mansour son of the former crown prince Muqrin was also declared dead. https://t.co/IsUyU896o4

— Ali H. Soufan (@Ali_H_Soufan) November 5, 2017

Prince Abdul Aziz’s strange and sudden death which is said to have occurred during an attempted arrest, sheds light on the theory that the clearly forced resignation of former Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri had more to do with internal Saudi affairs than the Saudi attempt to bring instability to Lebanon.

As I wrote yesterday,

“This therefore, forces one to consider why the Saudi regime would involve itself in the Hariri affair on the same day as the ‘great purge’?

The answer lies in exploring whether the Hariri ‘purge’ was more for domestic consumption than for international consumption. As a powerful Saudi citizen, one could think of Hariri’s apparently forced resignation as the first Saudi purge of the day, on a day that saw many powerful Saudi citizens dethroned from powerful places in society.

The message to all powerful Saudis, including to Hariri, is that no one is too big to fall at the hands of MBS, even a Saudi citizen who is the Prime Minister in a foreign democracy. The fact that both Hariri and MBS are young men in a leadership role, would indicate that for the famously politically trigger happy MBS, it was also an ego boost”.

Furthermore, during his speech yesterday afternoon, Hezbollah leader Sayyid Hassan Nasrallah remarked that perhaps Hariri was involved with the business dealings or personal relations of some of the Saudi officials who had been victims of great purge.

The sudden death of Prince Abdul Aziz bin Fahd now appears to confirm this line of thinking. This also sheds light on yesterday’s helicopter crash which killed another Saudi prince, Mansour bin Muqrin. When taken in totality, the ‘crash’ does not appear to be an accident.

With reports of no-fly lists being drawn up by the Saudi regime to keep various princes and other official inside the country, the purge looks to be only growing in terms of its scope and its brutality.

President Donald Trump candidly reveals his ignorance of geography and international politics.”I never knew we had so many countries”.

We recall the  circumstances of the Cuban Missile Crisis and the dangers of nuclear war, fifty-five years ago in October 1962. 

What distinguishes October 1962 to the 2017 realities of the Donald Trump presidency is that the leaders on both sides, namely John F. Kennedy and Nikita S. Khrushchev were accutely aware of the dangers of nuclear annihilation.

In contrast, Donald Trump is totally ignorant and misinformed regarding the dangers of nuclear war: “We will have no choice but to totally destroy North Korea”

Michel Chossudovsky, November 7, 2017

***

Trump Tells Japanese Dignitaries He Never Knew There Were ‘So Many Countries’ Until He Was Elected

by Tom Boggioni

November 6, 2017

Raw Story

While giving a speech to Japanese dignitaries on the first leg his Asian tour, President Donald Trump admitted that he was unaware of how many countries there are in the world until he became president.

Addressing how he first became acquainted with Japanese Prime Minister Abe — who Trump referred to by his first name, Shinzo — Trump made the off-hand comment, appearing to go off-script from his prepared remarks.

“So my relationship with Shinzo got off to quite a rocky start because I never ran for office, and here I am,” Trump remarked. “But I never ran, so I wasn’t very experienced. And after I had won, everybody was calling me from all over the world. I never knew we had so many countries.”

You can watch the president’s remarks in the video below. The countries comment comes at the 14 minute mark:

Transcript of President Trump’s Statement in Response to Japan’s Prime Minister Abe

Source: White House

emphasis added

PRESIDENT TRUMP: Prime Minister and Mrs. Abe, this has been a really wonderful two days. We have to spend more time together because I have enjoyed every minute of it, even though he’s a very, very tough negotiator. And, Melania, a real friend of yours now is Mrs. Abe. And I know you enjoyed it with me. You enjoyed it in Florida and you enjoyed it here, and maybe even more so. But I want to thank you for the royal welcome.

And it was really a — very much a working holiday, even on the golf course. So we can call it a couple of days off, but it wasn’t. It was full work. Even as we played golf, all we did was talk about different things. (Laughter.) We better not go into it. But I have to tell you, we did, and we made a lot of progress on a lot of fronts.

I do want to congratulate Mr. Aoki. He was one of the great putters — probably still is. They say you never lose your putting. When you’re a great putter, you never lose your putting.

But I remember a specific tournament, believe it or not, because it was one of the best I ever saw. It was the greatest putting display that I ever saw. It was you and Jack Nicklaus. Was that the U.S. Open? The U.S. Open. And you would get up and sink a 30-footer. He’d get up and sink a 25-footer. And this went on for the whole back nine. And then, ultimately, Jack won by one stroke. I thought it was one of the greatest putting displays anybody has ever seen and there ever was. And I even know your putting stroke — very flat.

And I spoke yesterday with the great Matsuyama, who is doing great, right? He’s going to be a big star, and he’s going to be great. I don’t even know if he’s with us tonight. I don’t think he’s with us tonight. But he does want to get together in New York, and we’re going to get together. And even though I want to have a great interpreter, but he’s rapidly learning the language.

But I will tell you that it’s an honor to be with you because everyone in the world of golf talks about that one great afternoon. Just putt after putt, and it was really great. So congratulations. Great gentleman, great gentleman. (Applause.)

So my relationship with Shinzo got off to quite a rocky start because I never ran for office, and here I am. But I never ran, so I wasn’t very experienced. And after I had won, everybody was calling me from all over the world. I never knew we had so many countries. (Laughter.)

So I was now President-elect. But I didn’t know you were supposed to not see world leaders until after you were in office, which was January 20th. So you were just not supposed to because it was considered bad form. It was not a nice thing to do, and I understand that from the standpoint of the President whose place you were taking.

So you can only take so many calls from world leaders — because, you know, everybody was calling. But Japan, you take. And some others — we took Germany, we took Russia, we took China, we took — we took your Prime Minister.

So it’s November, and he said to me, “Congratulations on your victory, it was a great victory, I would like to see you. I would like to see you as soon as possible.” And I said, “Anytime you want, just come on in, don’t worry about it.” But I was referring to after January 20th. (Laughter.) So I said, don’t worry about it. Anytime you want, I look forward to seeing you. Just give us a call, no problem, anytime you want. And all of the sudden, I get a call from, actually, Japan press. And they said that our Prime Minister is going to New York to meet with the President-elect.

So the press is going crazy because the Prime Minister of Japan is coming to see me. I think it’s absolutely fine, but I didn’t really mean now. I meant some time in February, March, or April. Meaning, you have a very aggressive — very, very aggressive, strong, tough Prime Minister. That’s a good thing, by the way — not a bad thing. (Laughter.)

So then the New York media started calling me, and I was getting all sorts of signals from Hope and Sarah, in a different position, and everybody. And they’re going crazy. They’re saying, “You cannot see him. It’s so inappropriate. It looks bad.” I say, “What’s wrong?” They said, “It’s a bad thing to see him. You have to wait until after, in all fairness, Barack Obama leaves office.” And I said, “What do I do?” And they said, “Let’s call.”

So I called him, and he wasn’t there. He was on the airplane flying to New York. (Laughter.) And I said, “You know what? There’s no way he’s going to land and I’m not seeing him.”

So I saw him, and it worked out just fine. Do you agree with that? (Laughter.) And he actually brought me the most beautiful golf club I’ve ever seen. It was a driver that’s totally gold. Right? It’s gold. (Laughter.) And I looked at it — I said, “If I ever use this driver — me — to use that driver at a golf club, I will be laughed off every course I ever go onto.” But it is the most beautiful weapon I’ve ever seen, so I thank you for that.

But we had a great meeting. It lasted forever. It was a very long meeting in Trump Tower. And for some reason, from that moment on, we had a really — and developed a really great relationship. And here we are today and better than ever, and we’re going to work together. And it’s going to get more and more special, and we’re going to work out problems of Japan and problems of the United States. And it’s going to be something very, very special for both countries.

I just want to finish by saying that Melania and I today visited the palace. This is a beautiful, beautiful place. And we met two very beautiful people, the Imperial Majesties, the Emperor and the Empress, and spent a long time talking to them today. And there was a lot of love in that room for all of you people — I can tell you — from everyone from Japan. They love the people of Japan, they love this country dearly, and they have great, great respect for your Prime Minister. And they truly think that your Prime Minister did very, very well when he decided to marry — or she decided to marry him, Mrs. Abe. But they have great, great respect — I can tell you that.

And I just want to conclude by saying that our two great countries will have incredible friendship and incredible success for many centuries to come — not years, not decades, but for many centuries to come.

And again, it’s an honor to have you as my good friend, and I just want to thank you and Mrs. Abe. This is a very, very special two days. We will not forget, and we will be back soon. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you very much, everybody. Thank you.

(A toast is offered.) (Applause.)

A small town in Texas was the scene of a horrific mass shooting Sunday morning. A lone gunman, wearing black tactical gear and a ballistics vest, and toting what authorities described as an “assault-type rifle,” opened fire at the First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs, population about 700, southeast of San Antonio, killing 26 people.

At least a dozen of the dead were children, one as young as 18 months. Eight members of one family were killed. The grandmother of the shooter’s wife was also killed. Fifteen of the 20 wounded remain in area hospitals, several in critical condition.

The shooter, Devin Patrick Kelley, 26, was pursued by a local resident, who saw the attack and drew a weapon and fired on the gunman. Kelley dropped his weapon and attempted to escape by driving away. Two people followed him by car and he was eventually found dead in his vehicle, crashed by the roadside in a neighboring county. Authorities believe he died of a self-inflicted wound, with several weapons at his side.

When Americans turned on their televisions or checked their phones or laptops midday Sunday, many shook their heads in disgust at the news of yet another gruesome mass shooting in America. More innocent lives gunned down in what authorities would have us believe are “senseless killings,” with no real explanation provided aside from describing the gunman as someone gripped by “pure evil.”

But do such banal explanations hold up under conditions where these mass shootings continue to occur with regularity and increasing brutality? The Sutherland Springs shooting took place just five weeks after the Las Vegas shooting at a country music festival, the deadliest mass shooting in modern US history, which left 59 dead and 546 injured.

Eight of the 20 deadliest mass shootings in the US have taken place over the past five years (all figures include the perpetrators):

•  November 5, 2017: Sutherland Springs, Texas church shooting—27 dead
•  October 1, 2017: The Harvest music festival in Las Vegas, Nevada—59 dead
•  June 12, 2016: Pulse Nightclub, Orlando, Florida—49 dead
•  December 2, 2015: San Bernardino, California shooting—14 dead
•  October 1, 2015: Umpqua Community College shooting, Oregon—10 dead
•  September 16, 2013: Washington Navy Yard shooting, Washington DC—13 dead
•  December 14, 2012: Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, Newtown, Connecticut—28 dead
•  July 20, 2012: Century 16 movie theater shooting, Aurora, Colorado—12 dead

Following Sunday’s shootings, the authorities were quick to chime in with their religious platitudes, as well as cynically seizing on the tragedy as an opportunity to advance their pro-gun-lobby or gun-control agendas.

Speaking at a joint press conference with Japanese President Abe Shinzo in Japan, President Trump stated: “I think that mental health is a problem here. Based on preliminary reports, this was a very deranged individual with a lot of problems over a very long period of time … but this isn’t about guns.”

Former president Barack Obama tweeted:

“We grieve with all the families in Sutherland Springs harmed by this act of hatred, and we’ll stand with the survivors as they recover. May God also grant all of us the wisdom to ask what concrete steps we can take to reduce the violence and weaponry in our midst.”

But such statements are cold comfort to the Sutherland Springs families who are grieving and offer little by way of explanation to the public at large as to why such atrocities continue to happen. Of course, the perpetrators of these mass shootings are invariably deranged individuals. How could it be otherwise? What “sane” person would gun down innocent people at a church, a university, an elementary school, or a music festival? But there are always deeper societal issues at work in the lives and actions of these individuals that drive them to lash out with violence.

In his 26 years, Devin Patrick Kelley had already participated in his share of violence before Sunday’s incident. A spokeswoman for the Air Force confirmed that Kelley, who joined the military after graduating from high school in 2009, was court-martialed in 2012 on two charges of assaulting his first wife and her child. The child reportedly suffered a fractured skull.

He was confined for a year, given a bad conduct discharge, and reduced in rank to an airman basic. Although this discharge should have barred him from purchasing weapons, the Air Force never informed the FBI of the charges against him.

Kelley’s first wife divorced him in 2012 and he remarried in Texas in 2014. Authorities say there was a “domestic situation” between him and his in-laws that led to the assault. His mother-in-law was a parishioner at the Sutherland Springs church, and she had reportedly received threatening text messages from him, although she was not present at the church on Sunday.

NBC also reported that two of Kelley’s ex-girlfriends said he stalked them after breakups. A search of criminal records in Comal County, Texas, where he lived, found a record of only minor violations, including driving with an expired registration, speeding, and driving without insurance.

While Kelley lived in Colorado Springs, Colorado for a short time in 2014, he was arrested on an animal cruelty charge, according to police records, involving beating a dog with both fists and punching it in the head and chest, a witness said. He paid a fine in that case.

But the question remains, what kind of society molds such an individual, willing to settle a seemingly petty score by carrying out mass murder? One must first look to the US military. For Kelley and other young men and women, the US has been in a perpetual state of war—in the Middle East, Afghanistan, Africa and elsewhere—for their entire lives. The current occupant of the White House is threatening the obliteration of an entire nation and people in North Korea.

Kelley—faced with the prospect of unemployment, a low-paying job in the service industry or the precarious “gig” economy—chose to enlist in the military upon graduation from high school. He likely absorbed the military’s jingoism and “America First” mentality, but the Air Force eventually spit him out with a bad conduct discharge after he abused his family.

Thousands of young people have also been drawn into the abuse of opioids, spurred on by the lack of job opportunities and the predatory drug companies. Opioid overdoses claimed the lives of about 64,000 Americans last year, a jump of 21 percent over the previous year, according to new figures release by the Centers for Disease Control.

And while the Trump administration claims that not one cent in additional funding can be provided for the opioid “public health emergency,” the White House and the Republicans are pushing through a massive tax cut for corporations that will lower the corporate tax rate from the current 35 percent to 20 percent.

Increasing numbers of older workers are unable to retire, and are working into their 70s to maintain their health insurance and enough money to pay their rent or mortgages. For the first time since 1993, at the height of the AIDS epidemic, life expectancy actually declined between 2014 and 2015.

It is no wonder that a new report from the American Psychological Association, “Stress in America: The State of Our Nation,” reveals that nearly two thirds of Americans (63 percent) are “really, really, really stressed” about the future of the United States. This stress about the future of America supersedes even the usual suspects: money (62 percent) and work (61 percent).

Other common sources of stress reported by those surveyed include social divisiveness (59 percent), health care (43 percent), the economy (35 percent), potential wars/conflicts with other countries (30 percent), unemployment and low wages (22 percent), and climate change and environmental issues (21 percent).

Despite these very real concerns among ordinary Americans, the two big-business parties have no interest in addressing issues of social inequality and the struggles of workers and young people on a daily basis to survive and provide for their families.

The mainstream media and cable news networks took some time away from talk of “Russian meddling” in the 2016 elections to provide some sensationalist and uninformative coverage of the Sutherland Springs church massacre. But this coverage was peppered with new “revelations” about Russia and Vladimir Putin’s intervention into every aspect of American political life. It would not be shocking to hear one of the media’s talking heads suggest that Putin may have somehow been responsible for Sunday’s shooting tragedy.

US and South Korean Defense Chiefs Agree to Increase Scale of Military Exercises and US Strategic Assets in Korea

The U.S. and South Korean defense chiefs agreed last week to bolster their joint military capabilities against North Korea. At the 49th annual US-ROK Security Consultative Meeting (SCM) held on October 28 at the Defense Ministry in Seoul, Secretary James Mattis and South Korean Defense Minister Song Young-moo released a joint statement committing both countries to increase the scale of future joint military exercises. The statement also included plans to expand the presence of U.S. strategic assets in and near the Korean Peninsula in response to North Korea’s recent nuclear and ballistic missile tests.

The defense chiefs praised past joint naval exercises, including the most recent exercise in October, which featured U.S. nuclear submarines and aircraft carriers. The two countries plan to enhance naval exercises near the Northern Limit Line — the contested maritime demarcation boundary separating North and South Korea.

Donald Trump’s summit with South Korean President Moon Jae-in in Seoul on November 7-8 will likely include discussions on further intensifying pressure to isolate North Korea and increasing South Korea’s share of the alliance’s defense cost.

South Korean peace groups plan to protest Trump before and during his stop in Seoul on November 7. The protests are organized by a broad-based coalition, which includes the Korean Alliance For Progressive Movements (KAPM), Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU), Korean Peasants League (KPL), Korean Women Peasants Association (KWPA), and Korean Youth Solidarity. Koreans in the U.S. and Japan will also organize solidarity actions starting Friday November 3.

The following is a schedule of solidarity actions in the United States:

New York | When: Friday, November 3rd @ 6 p.m. | Where: Koreatown, Broadway & 32nd St., Manhattan

Washington DC | When: Saturday, November 4th @ 2 p.m. | Where: Pennsylvania Ave NW in front of the White House

Los Angeles | When: Saturday, November 4th @ 4 p.m. | Where: Wilshire + Western Ave

U.S. Lawmakers Introduce Bill to Prevent First Strike on North Korea

U.S. House representatives John Conyers (D-Mich.) and Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) seek to prevent the Trump administration from taking rash military action against North Korea. The two lawmakers introduced H.R.4140, the No Unconstitutional Strike against North Korea Act, on October 26. The bill had the support of 60 co-sponsors at the time of its introduction.

A similar bill was introduced in the senate by Senator Chris Murphy (D-Conn) with the support of five other senators. These bills aim to ensure that Trump will not pull the preemptive trigger on North Korea without approval from congress.

Technically, the Constitution and the War Powers Act prevent the administration from ordering a military action without the approval of Congress. Trump, however, bypassed Congress when he ordered missile strikes in Syria in April of this year, just four months after his inauguration. The Conyers-Massie bill is meant to remind the Trump administration that a unilateral preemptive strike against North Korea would be unconstitutional and undemocratic. H.R.4140 also calls on the Trump administration to seek talks with North Korea with the goal of freezing its nuclear weapons program.

Ahead of Trump’s arrival in South Korea as part of his 13-day tour through Asia, hundreds of civil society organizations from Japan, South Korea and the United States issued a joint statement denouncing his policy of sanctions and war threats against North Korea and demanding a halt to military exercises that impede dialogue. The joint statement also calls on South Korea’s Moon Jae-in administration to assertively pursue inter-Korean dialogue and cooperation and Japan’s Abe government to cease moves to change Article 9, the peace clause of its constitution.

“Washington is forcing a trilateral military alliance and provocative war drills on Tokyo and Seoul that threatens North Korea and the region,” said Christine Ahn, international coordinator of Women Cross DMZ. “The people of Japan, South Korea and United States oppose war. Our demands are an urgent pivot towards peace.”

“In Japan, Prime Minister Abe utilizes the U.S.-North Korea crisis to promote public hysteria and fear and encourage right-wing groups that call for Japan’s militarization, including the acquisition of nuclear weapons for itself,”

explains Yoshioka Tatsuya, Co-Founder and Director of Peace Boat, Japan’s largest peace organization.

“But we really have to understand that the joint military exercises by the U.S., Japan, and South Korea increase the risk of war in this region. Japan has the experience of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. We have to work to abolish nuclear weapons, but it’s unreasonable to demand that North Korea be the only one to give up theirs. All of us, including the U.S. and Japan, must say no to them.”

“The South Korean public is highly critical of Trump for making threats of war and dismissing the gravity of its consequences as something ‘over there,’” says Choi Eun-a of the Korean Alliance for Progressive Movements, which is among the 222 South Korean civil society organizations from the Candlelight Revolution that have called for nationwide protest timed with Trump’s visit to South Korea. “The war-threatening, weapons salesman Trump is not welcome here, especially as he demands that South Korea pay more to host U.S. troops and set aside land for useless weapons like the THAAD missile defense system.”

“Peace-loving people in the United States, Japan, and South Korea reject the war-mongering policies of our governments and express our friendship and solidarity with the people of North Korea,” said Jackie Cabasso, Executive Director of the Western States Legal Foundation in California, and the National Co-Convener of United for Peace and Justice.

“The U.S. government must end its policy of sanctions and military threats against North Korea, cease the deployment of more weapons of mass destruction to the Korean peninsula and the region, and halt large-scale military exercises that impede dialogue with North Korea.”

“It’s time for peace-makers, for diplomats, and particularly for the people of South Korea, Japan and the U.S. to demand a peaceful resolution from our governments,” noted Kevin Martin, President of Peace Action, the United States’ largest grassroots peace and disarmament organization. “While not excusing its behavior, North Korea has legitimate security concerns that need to be addressed in order to move toward an enduring peace on the Korean Peninsula.”

Joint Statement:

U.S., South Korean, and Japanese Civil Society Organizations Call for a Bold Shift in Policy for Peace in Korea and Northeast Asia

As U.S. President Trump travels to Asia, we civil society groups from the United States, South Korea, and Japan call for a diplomatic solution to the dangerous conflict between the United States and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (North Korea). As those who would be directly impacted by the outbreak of such a conflict, we call on our leaders to take bold steps to ensure lasting peace.

Recent events have set the stage for a possible catastrophe on the Korean Peninsula and even throughout the greater Northeast Asian region. Any further escalation of tensions could rapidly degenerate into violence. In its 27 October 2017 report, the U.S. Congressional Research Service estimates that over 300,000 people would die in the opening days of a military conflict on the Korean Peninsula, even without nuclear weapons, and would ultimately claim 25 million lives.

Even as President Trump calls his predecessor’s policy of “strategic patience” on North Korea a failure, he continues the same policy, i.e., intensifying U.N. and unilateral sanctions and military threats. Meanwhile, North Korea continues to escalate the pace and scale of its nuclear and missile tests. The Abe government, seizing on the crisis in Korea, has quickened the pace of remilitarization and revision of Article 9 of its constitution. South Korean President Moon Jae-in meanwhile, despite an unambiguous mandate from the South Korean people, who ousted his hawkish predecessor in hopes of a radical transition to harmonious North-South relations, instead continues to do the bidding of the United States as he assumes a hostile posture vis-à-vis North Korea. We therefore demand that:

1. The Trump administration boldly shift to a policy of peace by:

• Ending its policy of sanctions and military threats against North Korea;
• Ceasing the deployment of more weapons of mass destruction on the Korean peninsula and in the region, and withdrawing the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) missile defense system from South Korea as it only exacerbates tensions in the region; and
• Halting large-scale military exercises that impede dialogue with North Korea

2. The administration of President Moon Jae-in of South Koreahonor the spirit of past North-South joint declarations for peace and reconciliation by:

• Assertively pursuing inter-Korean dialogue and cooperation;
• Halting future large-scale U.S.-South Korea combined military exercises to minimize the risk of confrontation ahead of the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyongchang, South Korea; and
• No longer cooperating with investments in costly weapon systems with the United States and Japan, including spending on missile defense, which only exacerbates tensions in the region and diverts precious resources away from human needs.

3. The government of Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abeimmediately cease all further moves toward military buildup and instead contribute to regional peace by:

• Abolishing the controversial “Conspiracy Law” and “State Secrecy Law,” as well as the 2015 “Peace and Security Legislation” or war bills which permit the use of the so-called right to collective self-defense;
• Pursuing the normalization of relations between Japan and North Korea based upon the principles of the Pyongyang Declaration and the Stockholm Agreement; and
• Ceasing moves to change Article 9, the peace clause in its constitution.

These are among the hundreds of civil society organizations who have signed on:

Japan[1]

• Citizens Association against Constitutional Revision (許すな！憲法改悪・市民連絡会)
• Femin Women’s Democratic Club (ふぇみん婦人民主クラブ)
• Japan-Korea People’s Solidarity Network (日韓民衆連帯全国ネットワーク)
• Kyoto/Kinki Association against the U.S. X-band Radar Base (米軍Xバンドレーダー基地反対・京都/近畿連絡)
• Network of Religious Persons Making Peace
• Nonviolent Peaceforce Japan (非暴力平和隊・日本)
• Peace Boat (ピースボート)
• Veterans for Peace Japan (ベテランズ・フォー・ピース・ジャパン)

South Korea

• Federation of Korean Trade Unions (한국노동조합총연맹)
• Korean Alliance of Progressive Movements (한국진보연대)
• Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (전국민주노동조합총연맹)
• Korean Peasants League (전국농민회총연맹)
• Korean Street Vendors Confederation (전국노점상연합)
• Korean Women’s Alliance (전국여성연대)
• Korean Women Peasants Alliance (전국여성농민회총연합)
• Korean Youth Solidarity (한국청년연대)
• National Alliance of Squatters and Evictees (전국철거민연합)

United States

• Campaign for Peace, Disarmament and Common Security
• International Forum on Globalization
• Peace Action
• Task Force to Stop THAAD in Korea and Militarism in Asia and the Pacific
• United for Peace and Justice
• Veterans for Peace National
• Western States Legal Foundation
• Women Cross DMZ

This was another case of the big and the powerful undercutting the tax systems of the world. But could anyone be genuinely surprised at the revelations to come out of the Paradise Papers on the workings of the tax haven industry?

Of the 13.4 million files revealed by the Süddeutsche Zeitung, the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists and some 90 global media partners, 6.8 million stem from the offshore law firm Appleby. A further half million derive from the Asiaciti Trust based in Singapore, with six million obtained from corporate registries spanning 19 tax havens.[1]

This is a field where denial is followed by qualification, and then, ultimately, a dismissive shrug. Nothing exemplifies this more than the dispute over what a “tax haven” constitutes. The Bermuda minister for finance, Bob Richards, for instance, rejects the suggestion that his country is a joyful tax haven for the stinking rich and robustly powerful.

Language and perception is everything here. A tax haven, according to the Bermuda side of things, suggests terrorism and money laundering. A no-tax or low-tax threshold is an entirely decent incentive. “We didn’t pass a law to say,” disclaimed Richards, “that the Googles of this world don’t get taxed.”[2]

Besides, claimed the evidently irritated finance minister, the UK was itself a tax haven. “You have more billionaires resident in London than any place on earth. They are not here for the weather, they are here for the tax climate. We have a double standard going on here.”[3]

Richards does have a point. In the world of tax havens, countries with a supposedly more keen disposition to netting tax are found wanting. The Netherlands, for instance, is a the place of choice for General Electric, Heinz, Caterpillar, Time Warner, Foot Locker and Nike. In the sharp observation of Jesse Frederik, “The land of tulips and windmills, the home of the International Criminal Court, and the number one tax have for American multinationals.”[4]

Combing through the papers has already revealed the activities of a few big fish, though again, there are few surprises. US President Donald Trump, for instance, is the least surprising of all. Despite railing against the unelected global elites who do boardroom deals, his circle is filled with that very same ilk. The corporate boardroom, in fact, stalks the land and haunts the cabinet.

Take US Secretary of Commerce, Wilbur Ross. His private equity firm W.L. Ross & Co., LLC was a company that became, in time, one of Appleby’s biggest clients. Despite divesting most of his empire, he retained a stake in the shipping company Navigator Holdings, with W.L. Ross being its largest shareholder.[5] Navigating Holdings, in turn, does extensive business with the Russian gas processing and petrochemicals company SIBUR. A resounding tut-tut has duly followed.

Do these revelations actually matter? The very fact that the Paradise Papers duly followed in the tracks of the enormous documentation in the Panama Papers is evidence that the enterprising accountant is always ahead of the plodding taxman.

Nonetheless, Will Fitzgibbon and Emilia Díaz-Struck would suggest in November 2016 for the ICIJ that the Panama Papers investigation had “produced an almost daily drumbeat of regulatory moves, follow-up stories and calls by politicians and activists for more action to combat offshore financial secrecy.”[6]

The problem with such companies is that they, in a sense, have every right, or, to be more precise, liberty, to exist in an environment teaming with advisors on how best to trick the tax departments. Companies are not in the habit of feeding social consciences or the public good, and have an incentive to obtain the biggest dividends for their shareholders.

The problem is so endemic that even the ICIJ supplies a disclaimer noting how offshore companies and trusts have “legitimate uses”. “We do not intend to suggest or imply that people, companies or other entities included in the ICIJ Offshore Database have broken the law or otherwise acted improperly.” Precisely.

What is easy to ignore is the degree of collusion states afford companies. Some are in the habit of encouraging companies to operate on their territory, the incentive here being a zero tax rate. Capital duly migrates; outsourcing takes place. Tax that would otherwise find its way into coffers is simply not collected. Infrastructure and services duly suffers.

Matt Gardner, senior fellow at the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy based in Washington sees an inexorable trend, one that threatens to reduce democratic practice to a shell. The tax bases of the globe are shrinking, as is trust in state institutions.

“When its documented as well as it has that companies like Apple and Google and Microsoft – these incredibly profitable companies – are just able to use the tax system like a piñata, that just reinforces the belief that no-one cares about the plight of middle-income families.”[7]

Till a good reason exists to abolish such entities as Mossack Fonseca or Appleby, the world of the tax haven will continue to thrive, however vigorous a prune it might receive from periodic bursts of moral outrage.

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

Notes:

[1] http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-11-06/what-are-the-paradise-papers-and-what-is-the-firm-appleby/9075640
[2] https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/03/bermuda-tax-haven-finance-minister_n_3378773.html
[3] https://www.theguardian.com/business/2017/feb/06/uk-tax-haven-bermuda-financial-secrecy-offshore-companies
[4] https://thecorrespondent.com/6942/bermuda-guess-again-turns-out-holland-is-the-tax-haven-of-choice-for-us-companies/417639737658-b85252de
[5] https://www.icij.org/investigations/paradise-papers/us-president-donald-trumps-influencers/
[6] https://panamapapers.icij.org/20161201-global-impact.html
[7] http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-11-07/paradise-papers-why-tax-avoidance-matters/9123850

The world is in ruins. It is literally burning, covered by slums, by refugee camps, and its great majority is ‘controlled by markets’, as was the dream and design of individuals such as Milton Friedman, Friedrich von Hayek, Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan.

Führers like Kissinger and Brzezinski, sacrificed tens of millions of human lives all over our planet, just to prevent nations from trying to fulfill their spontaneous socialist, and even, God forbid, Communist dreams and aspirations. Some of the tyrants were actually very ‘honest’: Henry Kissinger once observed, publicly, that he saw no reason why a certain country should be allowed to “go Marxist” merely because “its people are irresponsible”. He was thinking about Chile. He “saw no reason” and as a result, several thousands of people were murdered…

Ruining, wiping out entire countries, just to prevent them from ‘going their own way’, has been fully acceptable in the circles of politicians, military strategists, intelligence officers and economists who are based in London, New York, Washington, Paris and in other centers of the so-called “free world”, from where almost all dispensable lives of “un-people” inhabiting Asia, the Middle East, Latin America, Africa and Oceania are being controlled unceremoniously.

The system of Western oppression often appears to be almost ‘perfect’. To a great extent it is certainly bulletproof.

But there is always one serious obstacle blocking the way of Western imperialism – the barrier that prevents it from fully controlling and ruining the Planet. That obstacle, the barrier, is called the Great October Revolution and its legacy.

Since 1917, for exactly one hundred years, there has been this ‘ghost’ haunting the European and North American empires: it is a ghost which whispers relentlessly about internationalism, about egalitarianism, about great humanistic dreams in which all people are equal, have exactly the same rights and opportunities, and cannot be exploited by one particular race, and by one economic dogma.

To make things even worse, this red and somehow very optimistic ghost does much more than just whispering: it is also singing, dancing, reciting revolutionary poetry and periodically taking up arms and fighting for the oppressed, even totally desperate human beings, regardless of the color of their skin.

One often wonders whether the ghost is really a ghost, or a living creature. Which makes it all even more frightening, at least for the tyrants and the imperialists.

*

The West is totally petrified! It tries to appear cool, in full control. It deploys its elaborate propaganda system, it regurgitates its dogmas everywhere; it injects them into arts, entertainment, news bulletins, school curricula, psychology, and even advertisements. It lies, twists facts, perverts history and constructs pseudo-reality. All available means are used; the ideological warfare is complete.

No matter what the Western Empire does, the red ghost is still here, all around; it is inspiring millions of educated and dedicated men and women all over the world. It is tremendously resilient. It never surrenders, never gives up fighting, even in those countries where all hopes and dreams appear to be totally destroyed. And where there are only ashes left, it at least never gives up haunting – frightening both the local elites and the implanted imperialist regimes.

While to many people living in the Western capitals, this red ghost is synonymous with the worst enemy, in most of the oppressed, occupied and humiliated nations, it represents the perpetual struggle against colonialism and oppression, and it symbolizes resistance, resilience, pride and the belief in a totally different world.

*

Imperialists know that unless this creature, the ghost and the hope it represents, are thoroughly destroyed, wiped out and buried somewhere deep underground, there can be no final victory, and therefore no celebration.

They are doing all in their power to discredit the ghost and the ideals it professes. They are presenting it in the bleakest colors, confusing people by connecting it with fascism and Nazism (while it is them – the Western imperialists – and their own system, that have been fascist and ‘Nazi’, for decades and even centuries).

They brutalize, terrorize and murder innocent people in countries that dare to decide to go Communist, socialist or simply ‘independent’. Such heinous acts are forcing the governments of embattled nations to become defensive, to protect their citizens, to take ‘extraordinary measures’. And these defensive measures are, in turn, described by the Western propaganda as oppressive, dogmatic and ‘undemocratic’.

The strategy and tactics of the Empire are clear and highly effective: you keep punching, molesting and harassing an innocent person who is simply trying to live her life. When she has had enough, when she decides to punch back, even arm herself, change the lock, you describe her as aggressive, paranoid, and dangerous to the society. You claim that her behavior is giving you the right to break into her house, to beat her up, to rape her, and then to force her into thoroughly changing her beliefs and lifestyle.bb

Right after the Revolution, 100 years ago, the Soviets gave the right to secede to all the former parts of the Russian empire. Sweeping democratic reforms were introduced. All the feudal and oppressive structures of Tsarist rule collapsed, overnight. But the young country was almost immediately attacked from abroad, by a group of nations that included the UK, the US, France, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Romania and Japan. Ruthless aggressions and foreign campaigns of sabotage radicalized the Soviet state, as they later radicalized Cuba, North Korea, Nicaragua, Vietnam, China, Venezuela and many other revolutionary countries.

It is an appalling, disgusting way of running the world, but it is highly effective; ‘it works’. And it has been done for so long, that no one is surprised, anymore. This is how the West has been controlling, manipulating and ruining the world for many centuries, enjoying absolute impunity, even congratulating itself for being ‘free’ and ‘democratic’, shamelessly using clichés such as ‘human rights’.

But at least now, there is a struggle.

The world used to be totally at the mercy of Europe and North America.

Until the Great October Socialist Revolution!

*

Recently, I wrote a book about The Great October Socialist Revolution, its impact on the world, and on the birth of internationalism. I had to write it. I had enough of reading and watching that entire anti-Soviet, anti-Communist propaganda bordello, that fundamentalist gospel; I had enough of being bombarded with brainwashing rubbish day after day, year after year, decade after decade!

After working in more than 160 countries, in all corners of the world, witnessing the Western murderous drive against democracy and the free will of the people, I felt it was my obligation to at least explain my position on the event that took place 100 years ago in the city and in the country where I was born.

And in my book I did exactly that.

It is not what some would call ‘an objective’ book. It is definitely not some tiresome academic essay, full of footnotes and useless citations. I don’t believe in ‘objectivity’. Or more precisely, I don’t think that human beings are capable of being objective, or that they should even aim at that. However, I strongly believe that they should clearly and honestly say and define where they stand, without deceiving their readers.

And that’s precisely what I did in my latest book: I took sides. I clarified what the Revolution means to me. I recalled what it means to hundreds of millions of oppressed and tormented human beings worldwide. I quoted some of them.

The Great October Socialist Revolution was not perfect. Nothing in this world is, nothing ever should be ‘perfect’. Perfection is appalling, cold, and even imagining it is tremendously boring.

Instead, the Great October Socialist Revolution made a heroic attempt to liberate people from archaic beliefs, from feudalism and blind submission, from physical, intellectual and emotional slavery. It also defined all human beings as equal, regardless of their race and sex. It did not do it through hypocritical ‘political correctness’, which only spreads some second-rate sticky honey over the surface of shit, leaving the excrement itself intact; it cut to the core; it built a brand new lexicon, understanding of the world, and it created a totally new reality.

It returned hope to hundreds of millions of human beings who had already lost all faith in better life. It gave pride and courage to slaves. It returned all colors and shades to the world, which was brutally divided between white and black, between those who had and had not, between those who were racially and ‘culturally’ destined to rule and those who were only destined to serve.

The West hated the red revolutionary ghost from the start. It hates it to this very day. It is because if Communist Soviet Union had won, that would have meant the end of colonialism and imperialism, as we know it. There would be no more plunder and destruction, no monstrous annihilation of Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan, no ruin of Syria; no mortal threat hanging over North Korea, Iran and Venezuela, no millions of men, women and children sacrificed on the altar of global capitalism as is happening in the Democratic Republic of Congo and in so many other corners of the globe.

There would be nothing left of a racist, post-Christian global dictatorship; no system of twisted ‘values’ and no hypocritical ‘culture’ pushed down the throat of all conquered countries of the world, by a handful of historically gangster states, mostly located in Europe and North America.

The West fought the Great October Socialist Revolution from its first day. It fought the Soviet Union on all fronts, bathing it in blood, brainwashing its people and murdering its allies. It finally managed to injure it mortally in Afghanistan, breaking all the bones of the USSR first, and then of Afghanistan right afterwards.

Immediately after that, a rejuvenated campaign of indoctrination began. Its goal has been to fully obliterate the great legacy of the “Great October”. The West spared no means and billions of dollars were spent.

Naturally, what kind of ‘objectivity’ could one expect from a ‘culture’, from the part of the world which has been brutally tyrannizing and plundering the entire Planet for more than 500 years? How could it be lenient towards the event, towards the movement and country, which made the purpose of its existence the battle for the liberation of the world from imperialism and colonialism?

*

Now the struggle against neo-colonialist barbarity goes on, but under various banners. Red, Communist banners are still flying over China and Cuba, as well as Venezuela, Angola and other nations. There are many other colors of the resistance, as well. The coalition is broad.

But what is clear and essential is that The Revolution of 1917 inspired billions, consciously and sub-consciously.

What is also clear is that the West never really won. Had it won, it would not be shaking in fear, as it is now. It would not be oppressing free thought, overthrowing democratically elected governments, murdering the leaders who are struggling against its monstrous global regime.

*

To be frank, the ‘red revolutionary ghost’ is not really a ghost. It is still an extremely mighty creature. It is just hiding for now, regrouping, getting ready to raise its banners and drag to the battlefield all imperialist tyrants.   

The West loves to talk about peace. It loves to lecture the world about ‘peace’. But its ‘peace’ is in fact nothing else other than a horrid status quo, in which there are only a few rich and mighty nations that are reigning over the world, and then there is the rest of humankind, one that consists of weak, miserable, submissive and servile ‘un-people’.

To hell with such ‘peace’! Such peace cannot last long; should not last long, as it is totally grotesque and immoral. It is not much better than the ‘peace’ on a slave plantation!

It is only the legacy of the Great October that can finish such a status quo. And it will.

The red ghost is haunting the tyrants. They are trying, but they just cannot expunge it from the hopes and dreams of the people who inhabit our Planet. The more scared the tyrants get, the more brutal are their deeds. And the more determined the people in the subjugated countries get.

100 years since the battleship Aurora fired its first salvo at the Winter Palace in Petrograd.

100 years since the world opened its eyes, realizing that a new world is possible.

100 years, and the Red October is still on the lips of people in Latin America, in Africa, Asia, everywhere.

Imperialists are brutal but naive. You can murder a man or a woman, you can murder thousands of them, even millions. But you cannot murder dreams. You cannot murder the courage of the human race, unless you murder the entire human race. You can kill, but you cannot permanently turn people into slaves.

During the Great October Socialist Revolution, people stood up. They rose. They smashed their chains.

They will rise again. They are rising again; just look carefully.

In the last 100 years, so much changed, and nothing changed. The hopes and dreams are still the same. And just as then, now, there is no peace without justice. And there is hardly any justice in the way our world is arranged.

Long Live the Great October Socialist Revolution!

Forward! As Hugo Chavez used to shout from his balcony: “Here no one surrenders!”

The red ghost is here, the ghost of the Great Red October. It is tremendously mighty. It is the ally of all oppressed beings. One day it will lead people to victory. There can be absolutely no doubt about it.

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

In spite of its irresistible urge to address the challenges it created by a handful of armed interventions in various states of the world, we’re witnessing Washington’s ever decreasing commitment to direct warfare, as it prefers to lead regional forces from behind. The experience accumulated in this sort of leadership in Iraq, Afghanistan, the Middle East and Africa is now going to be applied on a global scale by the US.

Under these circumstances, we’re noticing an ever growing demand for “military instructors” that are sent to all sorts of states as an instrumental part of the new US military doctrine. In fact, a new industry is being created as entire drill brigades started to get formed by 2016 as the US 10th Mountain Division prepared Iraqi Army units for an assault on Mosul.

For this reason, last summer the Pentagon would announce its plan to create six Security Force Assistance Brigades (SFAB) which will be employed as “military advisers and instructors” across the world to support the power of pro-US regimes across the world. This process is being carefully supervised by the 39th Chief of Staff for the US Army, General Mark Milley.

The first brigade of such instructors that is known as 1SFAB or the “Legion” started its formation in the spring of 2017 on the basis of Fort Benning (Georgia) under the supervision of Col. Scott Jackson. Of its 529 troopers, 360 are officers. Servicemen of the brigade receive a bonus of five thousand dollars a year in addition to their respective salaries. The subdivision is formed on a voluntary basis. As early as November 30, the 1SFAB “Legion” brigade should be operational and prepared to carry out its missions abroad, while the funds have already been allocated on the creation of the second similar brigade.

All six such SFAB, according to the Pentagon, are expected to be fully operational by 2022. It is planned that each regional command of the USA (for example, AFRICOM, EUCOM, etc.) will receive a SFAB brigade under its command. Should the situation in any of US satellite states become aggravated, the Pentagon expects that local forces trained by SFABs will be dispatched to “resolve the situation” on their own. Should there be any more assistance needed from Washington, a full-fledged brigade of four thousand servicemen will be formed on the basis of one of such SFABs, consisting of 500 servicemen in the shortest possible time.

The Pentagon’s SFAB brigade program provides training for US military personnel in foreign languages, it’s expected that more that 200 servicemen will undergo intensive foreign languages courses for four months, while they will be allowed to get acquainted with foreign weapons samples. Also, SFAB soldiers will be informed of the importance of understanding local customs, culture, traditions, political nuances. The officers will also be instructed to establish personal contacts with local political and military figures.

The training of new military advisers will take place with the involvement of the same US special forces that are already operating in various regions. This will be an additional burden for them. Therefore, the decision of the Pentagon on the new brigades SFAB caused a lot of controversy in the military environment, especially among representatives of the special forces, as many did not understand what functions will be assigned to this new type of units. Indeed, until recently, it was the US special forces that would spend a lot of their time instructing and training local security agencies, learning the situation on the ground, while establishing informal contacts with local populations. It would be understatement to say that those units were simply engaged in routine military operations. Many fear that the new SFAB will either duplicate certain functions of special forces, or will simply replace them.

For this reason, in the military environment of the United States in recent months, additional explanatory work has been conducted on the true aims of the SFAB program. In particular, the high-ranking of the US military department was forced to emphasize that the SFAB is designed not to create individual combat-ready units, but also indirectly work on the emergence of the entire military structure of a state, which would ultimately advance US interests. As a result, the US military units will work more closely with those forces within a country.

The US special forces are not designed to create foreign armies. At best, as we’re witnessing in Iraq and Afghanistan, it can effectively train elite units in other countries.

In any case, according to the estimates of the US military establishment, the creation of SFAB will become an important element of the US war machine, but also a tool to advance American values abroad. And by 2022, the six SFAB brigades will be ready to be assigned to a wide variety of tasks, thus strengthening the US military expansion around the world.

Valeriy Kulikov, expert politologist, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook.” 

After all of the trumpeting against Donald Trump by the ‘news’ media and by all Democratic politicians and many Republican politicians, about his utter untrustworthiness; and after the loads of exposés that have been published, over decades, documenting Trump’s psychopathic behaviors and business scams; what do we now have, adding to this unsavory if not criminal record by Mr. Trump, in the first criminal indictment, published on October 27th, by the Special Prosecutor, Robert Mueller, who is tasked to nail Trump to some prison cell for crimes committed during his Presidential campaign, after Trump’s having previously racked up already such a lifetime record of alleged (and even some documented) outrages perpetrated by him?

The indictments, of Paul Manafort II and of Richard W. Gates III, make serious charges against these two men, for their allegedly laundering $75 million of income to mainly Manafort during the period from 2006 to 2015. The charges are basically tax-evasion and “a series of false and misleading statements” by them to the U.S. Department of Justice during and after the men’s subsequent work for Trump’s Presidential campaign. 

This income had been derived during 2006 to 2015 from what was then the leading political Party in Ukraine, and Paragraph 10 of the Indictment states that this Party, “The Party of Regions was a pro-Russia political party in Ukraine.”

Is that legally relevant? Is it criminal in America for a politician in a nation that borders Russia to be “pro-Russia”? (Should it be criminal in Russia for a politician in a nation that borders America to be pro-American?)

It wasn’t criminal in that neighboring country, Ukraine, to be pro-Russian, but is it criminal in America?

Did a legal basis exist, during 2005 through 2014, and up till the U.S. coup that overthrew this Party in 2014, for the U.S. to outlaw this Ukrainian Party, retrospectively, after the U.S. Government had replaced their rule by the rule of one far-right Party, led by Yulia Tymoshenko, and two racist-fascist or ideologically nazi Parties — the Right Sector, and the former Social Nationalist Party of Ukraine — all three of which Parties rabidly hate Russians?

The Party of Regions had been elected to power in Ukraine’s final democratic election (2010) in which the residents in all parts of Ukraine were permitted to vote for or against candidates for Ukrainian national office. That’s what its having been called “The Party of Regions” meant: acceptance, as being part of Ukraine, of the residents in all regions of Ukraine, not discriminating against any, and not blocking any from being able to vote for President and for other national elective offices. What was illegal, anywhere (even in the United States), about that? If nothing, then why does Mueller even mention it, except in order to prejudice jurors?

The Indictment states that this Party “retained MANAFORT, through DMP and then DMI, to advance its interests in Ukraine, including the election of its slate of candidates. In 2010, its candidate for President, Yanukovych, was elected President of Ukraine.” Is that criminal, or is it instead merely prejudicial against the defendants (Manafort and Gates)? Is this Indictment designed to appeal to Americans’ prejudices, or to America’s laws?

Paragraph 11 states:

“The European Centre for a Modem Ukraine (the Centre) was created in or about 2012 in Belgium as a mouthpiece for Yanukovych and the Party of Regions. The Centre was used by MANAFORT, GATES, and others in order to lobby and conduct a public relations campaign in the United States and Europe on behalf of the existing Ukraine regime. The Centre effectively ceased to operate upon the downfall of Yanukovych in 2014.”

The last Ukrainian election in which the people in the parts of the country where the main language that was spoken was Russian were allowed to live in peace and to vote in Ukrainian national elections, had produced, according to Mueller, what was, until the coup “the existing regime” — not “the existing Government.” Is the presumption here that the coup-government is “the Ukrainian Government,” but that the democratically elected Government which had preceded the coup-government was instead “the existing Ukraine regime”? It contradicts the history — it contradicts the solidly documented record of what had happened there.

Then follow, until Paragraph 25, specific alleged documents that will be produced at trial in order to prove the money-laundering and the lying aimed to hide it. Paragraph 25 states that, “In November 2016 and February 2017, MANAFORT, GATES, and DMI caused false and misleading letters to be submitted to the Department of Justice, which mirrored the false cover story set out above.”

Starting with Paragraph 37 are the “Statutory Allegations” and the numbered criminal “Counts.” All pertain to the alleged money-laundering and the alleged lies in order to cover it up. Then Paragraph 52 states that upon conviction, the men “shall forfeit to the United States any property, real or personal, involved in such offense, and any property traceable to such property,” etc. 

Among the cited U.S. criminal laws, and their punishments, which were referenced, were: 

18 U.S.C. § 1956(h) (“shall be sentenced to a fine of not more than $500,000 or twice the value of the property involved in the transaction, whichever is greater, or imprisonment for not more than twenty years, or both”)

31 U.S.C. § 5322(b) (“shall be fined not more than $500,000, imprisoned for not more than 10 years, or both”)

22 U.S.C. § 618(a)(2) (“a fine of not more than $10,000 or by imprisonment for not more than five years, or both”)

So, the expectation is that, if neither Manafort nor Gates will testify that Trump colluded with Russia in order to win the U.S. Presidency, then both Manafort and Gates will face perhaps 35 years in prison, or else be pardoned by Trump — which latter pardoning might assist his becoming replaced by either a different Republican in primaries, or else by the Democratic nominee, in 2020 — if Trump’s Presidency even lasts that long.

An editorial at the Strategic Culture Foundation on November 1st was headlined “First Indictment in Russiagate: Special Counsel Not Up to the Task”, and noted that,

“Surprising or not, the indictment does not mention neither Trump nor Russia! The story is about Ukraine. Paul Manafort had ties with Ukraine’s Party of Regions, which was considered as a ‘pro-Moscow’ political force. That’s the only ‘Russia connection.’ Everything related to Manafort pertains to the period before he started to work for Donald Trump. And Rick Gates has never had any relation to the incumbent president or his team.”

It goes on to note that:

“Manafort’s indictment (Item 22, page 15) states very seriously that Yulia Tymoshenko had served as Ukraine’s President prior to Yanukovych! It takes a few seconds to have a look at the list of Ukraine’s presidents to find out that Yulia Timoshenko has never been the holder of the highest office.”

That was actually referencing Paragraph 22 on page 16, but the point being made is accurate: The former FBI chief and now the prestigious Special Counsel chosen in order to replace Trump by Pence, is so incompetent that he permits a historical falsehood that’s documentable even merely by reference to a Wikipdeia article, to appear in Mueller’s piece of propaganda for the appointment of the rabid Russia-hater and current Vice President, Mike Pence, to complete Trump’s term-of-office.

Is this the ‘Justice’ system in a democracy, or is it now just a two-bit dictatorship that’s the fading ghost of anything that the United States of America formerly was?

It’s certainly a scandal, at the very top, and, obviously, only fools would believe that a government such as this is a democracy, at all. 

So: Was Trump really this honest? Was he so honest, so that the only way he can even be framed enough for him to be forced out of office, is to unleash against him an ‘expert lawyer’ such as Mueller, who obviously isn’t even a competent piranha? In the U.S., as Alan Dershowitz has said, “A grand jury will indict a ham sandwich if the prosecutor wants them to”. But almost all Americans believe that an indictment is itself evidence of a person’s ‘guilt’. That’s the remarkable trust the people in a dictatorship have when the dictatorship is so total that the public trust even an indictment to be the result of some kind of authentic democratic process proving something, instead of the result of an extremely effective system of public mind-control, which it is.

Mueller wasn’t hired because he’s some kind of legal whiz, but because he looks and sounds like a person who isn’t a lawyer but “who plays one on TV” — he’s the caricature of the part. And, in a dictatorship, that’s the type of person who fills the bill, especially for an assignment like this one.

The minority-leader in the U.S. Senate, Democrat Charles Schumer, said when Mueller was appointed, “Former Director Mueller is exactly the right kind of individual for this job. I now have significantly greater confidence that the investigation will follow the facts wherever they lead.” If they ‘lead’ to Trump, and to Russia, it will apparently be by way of Manafort, Gates, and the last democratically elected government that Ukraine had, which the U.S. Government overthrew by means of a bloody coup, which produced an ongoing ethnic-cleansing campaign (‘civil war’) to get rid of the voters who had enabled the ousted democratically elected President of Ukraine to have been elected.

In addition to the October 27th indictments of Manafort and Gates, there was on October 5th a signed guilty plea by an unpaid but self-inflated volunteer for the Trump campaign, who had solicited from, allegedly, the Russian Government, via a third party, “dirt” that the third party alleged to have somehow acquired against candidate Hillary Clinton, and the “Statement of the Offense” to which he signed included no “dirt” against Donald Trump, and no cooperation with the defendant on the part of Trump’s campaign, other than that the campaign, on one occasion in candidate Trump’s presence, heard this “advisor to the campaign” state in general terms what the third-party informer was seeking to deliver to the campaign. The defendant, George Papadopoulos, confessed there to having lied to the FBI. What, if anything, the ‘Justice’ Department had agreed to (the other side of this plea-deal) in order to extract these admissions from Papadopoulos, is not known. The confession didn’t allege that the Trump campaign authorized, nor ever accepted, the alleged offer, which Papadopoulos had allegedly midwifed, but which, apparently, aborted, never delivered.

On October 30th, Vanity Fair magazine headlined “MUELLER’S RUSSIAN COLLUSION CASE COMES INTO FOCUS”, and Abigail Tracy reported and linked to the “Statement of the Offense.”

Then, on November 1st, that magazine’s Gabriel Sherman bannered “‘YOU CAN’T GO ANY LOWER’: INSIDE THE WEST WING, TRUMP IS APOPLECTIC AS ALLIES FEAR IMPEACHMENT”, and reported that Sherman’s sources inside the White House were panicking (which hardly makes sense) and that “Trump blamed Jared Kushner for his role in decisions, specifically the firings of Mike Flynn and James Comey, that led to Mueller’s appointment, according to a source briefed on the call.” Sherman reported that, “For the first time since the investigation began, the prospect of impeachment is being considered as a realistic outcome and not just a liberal fever dream.” No explanation was provided for that allegedly “realistic outcome” to result from either the Manafort-Gates indictments or the Papadopoulos plea-deal.

Mueller has indicted his two ham-sandwiches, regarding their allegedly hiding and lying about their income from the pre-coup leading political Party in Ukraine, and has gotten an unpaid Trump-campaign volunteer to admit only to his own lying to the FBI about what he himself had done. There is still no testimony against Trump, nor against anyone in his Administration.

Is Trump really so honest, that this piranha, Mueller, can’t yet bite even close to this President? Not a big bite — not any bite at all? Really? And the Trump White House now considers impeachment “a realistic outcome” — from this? Maybe some reasonable explanation exists, other than: Trump’s team want to keep their ‘lows’ as low as possible until, late in his term, the shoddiness of the campaign against him becomes undeniable, and so sets him up for a stunning re-election, as the least-disgusting of the Presidential options, from amongst which, the American electorate will be allowed to choose, in 2020.

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.

That’s what I hold quite likely in case the present US administration under Donald Trump’s formal leadership continues down the path its in-fighting militarist factions seem to have chosen.

We’re in the worst, most dangerous situation since the Cuban Missile Crisis. Sitting down and hoping for the best is neither responsible nor viable or wise.

I can only hope that I will be proved wrong. That the present extremely dangerous tension-building will die down by some kind of unforeseen events or attention being directed elsewhere.

The world could quite well be drifting toward what Albert Einstein called ’unparalleled catastrophe’. It’s something we may – or may not – know more about when President Trump returns from his trip to Japan, South Korea, China, Vietnam (APEC where he also likely to meet Russian President Putin) and the Philippines.

Except for 93-year old Jimmy Carter offering to go to North Korea, we witness nobody taking any mediation initiative – not the UN’ S-G Guterres, not the EU, not European NATO countries, not BRICS, not single countries like Sweden, not… well, you name them.

It’s about denial, about heads deep down in the sand, people hoping for the best at the moment when humanity’s future is in the hands of a couple of leaders from whom they would probably not buy a used bicycle.

That this silence all around is a roaring fact, is about as tragic and dangerous as the situation itself.

What most people don’t recognise – mainly thanks to the Western mainstream media – is that this is an a-symmetric conflict, an extremely a-symmetric conflict at that. For instance, North Korea’s military expenditures compared with those it must see as its adversaries in case of war is about 1:100, China excluded.

Why is the present situation so dangerous?

Why are we facing, seriously and for the first time since the Cuban Missile Crisis, an increasing risk of nuclear war?

Here some, but not all, the reasons:

– the vastly superior US is run by what must in a historical perspective be close to a kakistocracy – government by the worst, least qualified and most unscrupulous citizens. There was no reason for Trump’s spontaneous golf club statement about doing something the world has never seen before, i.e. worse than Hiroshima and Nagasaki; neither for his post-dinner party statement about calm before the storm; North Korea issues statements and make tests that indeed offer reason for concern but they come out of dwarf who sees himself cornered and cheated repeatedly;

– asymmetric conflicts are particularly dangerous because the superior side may successively be seduced by love of his own strength and belief in his infallibility – while the weak side may react in panic and draw the conclusion that it is better to strike first than be hit by an overwhelming, all-destructive blow by the superior adversary;

– the rush into ’group think’ – we can make no mistakes, we are morally superior. Attacks and warfare, by definition, rest on what Norwegian philosopher Harald Ofstad so precisely called ’contempt for weakness’ – an integral part also of the Nazi ideology. All US leaders and the far majority of news reports in our media build on little but clear contempt for North Korea;

– since the US of today is inept at diplomacy and second to none in only one field, namely the military, hubris is a factor that can’t be excluded; additionally, the US has not yet bothered to appoint an ambassador to Seoul. One indeed wonders what kind of contacts there actually are beyond the North Korean ambassador to the UN; the risk of the parties getting their lives crossed is immanent and large;

– as reported by the New York Times, one can already sense the rationale behind the increasingly serious talk in South Korea and Japan about acquiring some national nuclear capacity; they too do not feel confident or secure with the so-called nuclear umbrella ’protection’ of a US under Trump that is even more unpredictable than Pyongyang and they know that North Korea could make them victims in a game that would not hit or hurt the US mainland. If within a few months or a year, 2-3 countries in the region feel compelled to acquire nuclear weapons, I for one fail to see how a nuclear exchange at some point later can be avoided;

– President Trump’s speech to and about Iran and the nuclear deal was not only totally unacceptable in terms of US-Iran relation and his – fake – image of Iran; in all its primitive anti-diplomacy thrust, it also sent a signal to everybody in Pyongyang that there is no point in trying to achieve a written agreement with the U.S. because, simply, you cannot trust it;

– today’s US does not have a unified, consolidated foreign policy and much less a cohesive strategy or doctrine. We see helter-skelter procedures and ongoing fight among the White House, Congress, Pentagon, State Department, CIA and other so-called intelligence services – something that can only add to the increasing danger;

– there is no clear taboo in the US against the US using nuclear weapons. A recent scientific study reveals that a clear majority of men and women in the US would find it OK to kill 2 million civilian Iranians if that could save the lives of 20.000 US soldiers in trouble in that country;

– Western mainstream media that still shape most people’s opinions about the world and adversaries of US and NATO has stopped, long ago, asking critical questions and using alternative expertise. We’re fed with only Western perspectives while the North Koreans, their interests, history, fears, worldview, leadership and policies are written off as not worthy of analysis and reporting;

– experts used by these media have been educated in understanding only Western academic theories and perspectives and they themselves and their research is paid by NATO governments, think tanks and corporate funds – no risk there that such unfree, for all practical purposes commissioned, research would lead to massive critique of US policies in this case either. One may easily imagine, however, how the same media and experts would express themselves and fulfill their expert roles had any other country in the world repeatedly, recklessly and unpredictably issued one nuclear-use threat after the other;

– politics have gradually become devoid of intellectualism and, to quite an extent, knowledge and awareness of dilemmas, compared with a couple of decades ago. The type of people and background that populated the White House at the time of Kennedy don’t exist anymore. More money is spent on marketing decision than on intellectual inputs into them.

– and if there is no nuclear exchange in the near future, there may well be later because the U.S. leads in absurd investments nuclear weapons development, planning to spend US$ 1200 billion – 1,2 trillion – on nuclear weapons development. Without fearology, making citizens – taxpayers – fear whoever is around, there would be a mass mobilisation against such perverse squandering of money.

The hashtag #metoo against sexual harassment is urgently important, pointing to a huge problem and the necessity of ending patriarchy – which happens to also be a basic driving force underlying militarism and war.

Sexual harassment is totally unacceptable. But threatening the annihilation of large parts of, or all of, humanity is an issue of quite a different order.

It is indeed time, too, that hashtags such as, say,

 #metoo_fornuclearfreedom or #metoo_notonuclearwar or #metoo_forBANtreaty –

taking the larger perspective of humanity as one – would be used by millions or billions of people in months to come.

However, in these dark times, we need of course much much more than clicking Like buttons and using hashtags on social media.

We need a sweeping global mobilisation and manifestation of civil society demanding that weapons in the hands of a few hundred people that can kill us all are incompatible with civilisation.

We need emphasis on the fact that there has never been held a referendum that gave these few people a mandate to hold humanity’s being or not being in their hands.

We need pointing out that the real international law violators and terrorists – nuclear balance of terror advocates – be stopped.

That is, a sweeping BAN and nuclear abolition movement, particularly in the nuclear weapons countries.

Part 2 to follow shortly will outline some of the steps that must be taken.

The Current State of Affairs

At present time, Israel’s top political leadership is in the state of outright hysteria regarding the Lebanese movement Hezbollah. Recent statements by senior Foreign Affairs and Defence ministries’ officials certainly lead to that conclusion.

“We will not allow Iran and Hezbollah to concentrate their forces in the border areas in the Golan Heights”, the Minister of Defence of Israel Avigdor Lieberman wrote on his Facebook page on 26 April 2017.

“… we are determined not to give our enemy opportunities and even a hint of an opportunity to harm the security of Israel and its inhabitants. We will do everything to prevent the creation of a Shi’ite corridor between Tehran and Damascus”,

wrote Avigdor Lieberman on his Facebook page on 7 September 2017.

Image: Israeli Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman (Photo: Gil Yohanan)

On September 11, 2017, he also wrote “I very much advise our northern neighbours not to test us and not to threaten, because we take threats seriously. I do not recommend that they start a conflict with Israel, because for them this will end badly. Very badly”. This is the answer to Syria’s statement about the strike on the Masyaf plant, in the province of Hama in Syria, where according to unconfirmed reports from the Israeli intelligence, a missile production plant operated. “Aggressive actions against the security and stability in the region will have dangerous consequences”, said the communiqué of the Syrian command.

Israel’s Minister of Defence statement of 19 September 2017 was

“We do not intend to tolerate any threats or attempts to harm the security of Israel. Whoever tries to undermine our sovereignty, our security, must know that he will pay a very high price. We are ready for any eventuality, from any direction. The IDF will cope with any surprises, problems and threats”.

This statement was as a result of the shooting down of the Iranian UAV by the Israeli air defence, launched from southern Lebanon and which has not crossed the Israeli border.

In response Hassan Nasrallah said at the August 13, 2017 rally commemorating the Second Lebanon War that “Israel continuously violates Lebanese airspace, and it complains to the UN about each member of Hezbollah, or any ordinary Lebanese, standing with binoculars on the border”.

Image: Lebanon’s Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah addresses his supporters during a public appearance at a religious procession to mark Ashura in Beirut’s southern suburbs, Lebanon October 12, 2016. REUTERS/Aziz Taher

In addition to the financial and military assistance, United States provides international support in this matter. During the August 23, 2017 UN Security Counci session, Special Envoy of the President of the United States Nikki Haley, responding to a question concerning the extension of the peacekeeping mission in southern Lebanon, insisted that the UNIFIL mandate be changed so that the UN peacekeepers could use force against Hezbollah which the US considers “terrorists”. Haley’s comments mirrored those of Israel’s ambassador to the UN Danin Danon who said that “Hezbollah continues activities directed at increasing and strengthening its presence on the southern borders, which threaten the security of the entire region. The international community cannot ignore the danger”.

Image: Nikki Haley

The US and Israel introduced alternative resolutions introduced before the UN Security Council, which call for :

• provisions to allow UN troops to enter villages occupied by Hezbollah,
• increasing patrols and conducting more active and intensive inspections on the controlled territory,
• monitoring events and reporting violations,
• more thorough examination of Israeli complaints of Hezbollah violations.

The already difficult situation in southern Lebanon and Syria is further complicated by “The Light of Dagan”, a major military exercise named in honour of the former Director of Foreign Intelligence Service of Israel, Mossad, Meir Dagan, which strongly resembles preparations and a rehearsal for armed aggression.

Image: Meir Dagan

The exercise lasted eleven days, from 4 to 14 September 2017, and involved tens of thousands of troops from all branches of service. The exercise legend posited that terrorists attacked the village of Shavey Zion, fifteen kilometres from the Lebanese border and, together with hundreds of Hezbollah fighters from the Radwan units, carried out the invasion in the north, captured civilians. and occupied the local synagogue. Their ultimate goal was to plant Hezbollah flag of the movement on Israeli soil and send a photo to Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah. In response, Israel carried out the evacuation of civilians, then units of the IDF conducted a large-scale operation in southern Lebanon, which was carried out in three stages. The first stage was defensive, including a counter-attack and the deployment of additional units to counter the Hezbollah movements. The second stage consisted of launching an assault on southern Lebanon. The third phase pushed Hezbollah forces back into Lebanon. The exercises were held in southern Galilee to the south from Highway 85 Akko-Carmiel. The goal of the exercises was the full capitulation of the Hezbollah movement, “depriving them of their ability and willingness to resist”. According to the IDF command, the IDF excelled at these tasks.

Image: IDF reservists sitting atop tanks as they maneuver during a drill at a military zone near Kibbutz Revivim. Credit: Reuters

The Causes of the Aggressive Rhetoric

The first cause is the parliamentary majority in the Knesset consisting of right-wing and ultra-Orthodox Zionists who badly want revenge for the de-facto Israeli defeat in the Second Lebanon war of 2006. These factions exhibit extreme hostility towards Iran and the Shi’a Muslims because of their political and religious unity. This attitude was expressed in the words of the Deputy Chief of the General Staff of the IDF, Yair Golan, September 7, 2017 at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

According to Golan,

“Iran is far more dangerous to Israel than ISIS because the Iranians are complex, they represent a higher stage of civilization. They have a great academic infrastructure, strong industry, a lot of good scientists, many talented young people. They are very similar to us. Due to the fact that they look like us, they are much more dangerous”.

The second cause is the Israeli flirtation with the Sunni world and with Saudi Arabia in particular, which is taking place with Donald Trump’s blessing expressed in the May 21, 2017 statement at the Arab-Islamic-American Summit labeling Iran the “main sponsor of international terrorism”,  and calling for its isolation. Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has repeatedly voiced desire to improve relations between Israel and Sunni countries, hinting at Saudi Arabia in particular. According to the Israeli Broadcasting Corporation (ICB) radio, one of the Saudi royal princes made a secret visit to Israel September of 2017 to discuss the “consolidation of peace in the region”.

The third reason is the damage to Syria’s military capabilities which will need years or decades to restore and in the meantime will not be able to provide military assistance to Hezbollah. Many Hezbollah experienced fighters were killed in battle in Syria. Therefore, the leadership of Israel believes that now is the time to inflict a decisive blow to the movement.

Image: A funeral procession in Lebanon of a Hezbollah fighter killed in Syria. Credit: Reuters

The IDF Today

Currently the IDF in the regional scale is a formidable force. Below are the data from the yearbook Military Balance 2017.

IDF numbers 176 thousand servicemembers, of which 133 thousand are in the Army, 34 thousand in the Air Force, 9.5 thousand in the Navy. In addition, there are 465 thousand troops in reserve. The border police (MAGAV) may provide 8000 troops to assist the military.

Image: Israeli Border Police arrest a Palestinian youth during clashes in the Shoafat refugee camp in East Jerusalem, September 18, 2015. Credit: AFP

Land forces are organised into three regional commands (North, Central, South), two armoured divisions, five territorial infantry divisions, three battalions of Special Forces, and a team of special operations forces. Overall they command a number of separate reconnaissance battalions, three tank brigades, three mechanised brigades (consisting of three mechanised battalions, a combat support battalion and a signal company), a mechanised brigade (consisting of five mechanised battalions), a separate mechanised brigade, two separate infantry battalions, an airborne brigade (composed of three airborne battalions, a combat support battalion and a signal company), and a training tank brigade. Three artillery brigades, three engineering battalions, two military policy battalions, a company of sappers, a chemical protection battalion and a brigade of military intelligence provide battlefield support.

The Navy consists of a surface ship group, a submarine group, as well as a battalion of commandos.

The Israeli Air Force consist of two fighter squadrons, five attack squadrons, six mixed fighter-attack squadrons (plus two squadrons in reserve), an ASW squadron, a maritime patrol and support squadron (patrol and transport aircraft, tanker aircraft), two EW squadrons, an AWACS squadron, two squadrons of transport and tanker aircraft, two training squadrons, two squadrons of attack helicopters, four squadrons of transport helicopters, an air ambulance division and three squadrons of UAVs.

It is believed that Israel has nuclear weapons. The number of nuclear warheads is debatable, but its delivery vehicles include F-15 and F-16 fighter jets, the Jericho-2 ballistic medium-range missiles, and Dolphin/Tanin class diesel-electric submarines capable of carrying cruise missiles.

There are nine orbital military and dual-purpose satellites:

• Three Amos-type satellites.
• One reconnaissance satellite with remote sensing of the Earth of the EROS type, located on the sun-synchronous orbit.
• Four optical reconnaissance satellites of the Ofeq type (No. 7, 9, 10 and 11), located in the low earth orbit.
• One radar-reconnaissance satellite of the TecSAR-1 type, located in low earth orbit.

Image: Merkava IV MBT

Land Forces Armaments

Tanks. 500 main battle tanks (Merkava II, III, IV), plus 1060 in storage.

APCs: There are 1200 APCs, including 400 Nagmachon on Centurion MBT chassis, 200 Achzarit heavy APCs on T-55 tank chassis, 100 Namer APCs on Merkava tank chassis, and about 5000 American M113 APCs in storage.

Self-propelled Artillery:

• 250 155mm M109A5
• 300 in storage:
  • 155mm Soltam L-33, 30 M109
  • 175mm M107, 203mm M110.

Towed artillery:

• 276 guns of different types and calibers (all in storage):
  • 5 122mm D-30 howitzers
  • 100 130mm M-46 cannon
  • 40 155mm M-46 cannon
  • 50 155mm M-68 howitzers
  • 81 155m M-839P/845P howitzers).

Multiple Rocket Launchers:

• 30 227mm M270 MLRS
• 182 other MRLs in storage, including:
  • 58 122mm BM-21 Grad
  • 50 160mm LAR-160
  • 18 227mm M270 MLRS
  • 36 240mm BM-24
  • 20 290mm LAR-290 in storage

Mortars. All in storage

• 1100 81mm
• 650 120mm
• 18 160mm

Medium range ballistic missiles

• Approximately 24 rockets of the Jericho-2 type.

Surface-to-Air Missile Systems

• 20 Machbet.
• A number of Stinger MANPADS.

Navy Combat Forces

Submarines

• 5 ships:
  • 3 submarines of the Dolphin class. Armed with 6 533mm torpedo tubes and 4 650mm torpedo tubes. May carry Harpoon SSMs.
  • 2 Tanin type submarines (Dolphin class equipped with air-independent propulsion engines). Armed with 6 533mm torpedo tubes and 4 650mm torpedo tubes. May carry Harpoon SSMs.

Frigates

• Three Eilat type. Armed with 2 x 4 Harpoon launchers, 2 x Barak SAM launchers, 2 x 3 324mm torpedo tubes, 1 76mm gun, 1 Sea Vulcan.

Missile boats of the Hetz type

• 8 ships. Armed with 6 Gabriel SSMs, 2 x 2 Harpoon SSMs, 1 Barak SAM launcher, 76mm, 25mm and 20mm cannon.

Patrol boats

• 18 ships:
  • 5 Shaldag class. Armed with 1 25mm gun.
  • 3 Stingray class. Unarmed, intended for reconnaissance and sabotage operations.
  • 10 Super Dvora MkIII class. May carry SSM and torpedo tubes.

Torpedo boats

• 13 ships
  • 9 Dvora Mk I class. Armed with 2 324mm torpedo tubes (may carry SSMs)
  • 4 Super Dvora Mk II class. Armed with 2 324mm torpedo tubes.

Torpedo patrol boats

• 11 Dabur class. Armed with 2 x 1 324mm torpedo tubes.

Air Force

Aircrafts

• 151 fighters
  • 15 F-15A
  • 6 F-15B
  • 17 F-15C
  • 19 F-15D
  • 77 F16A
  • 16 F16B
• 248 attack aircraft
  • 25 F-15I
  • 76 F-16C
  • 49 F-16D
  • 98 F-16I
• Unknown number of A-4N/F-4, F-15-A, F-16A/B, C-7 in storage.

Naval Patrol Aircraft

• 3 IAI-1124

Electronic Reconnaissance Airplanes

• 6 RC-12D

EW and AWACS

• 1 EC-707
• 3 Gulfstream G550

Tanker Aircraft

• 4 KC-130H
• 7 KC-707.

Transport aircraft

• 62 aircraft of various types

Training aircraft

• 67 aircraft of various types

Helicopters

Attack helicopters

• 44 Apache AH-64 A/D

Anti-submarine helicopters

• 7 Panther AS565SA

Scout helicopters

• 12 Kiowa OH-58B

Transport helicopters

• 81 helicopters of various types

UAV

Tactical and electronic intelligence UAV

• Over 24 UAVs total

Air Defence

Self-propelled guns

• 165 weapons
  • 105 20mm Vulcan M163
  • 60 23mm ZSU-23-4

Towed air defence guns

• 755 weapons
  • 150 23mm ZU-23-2
  • 455 20/37mm M167 Vulcan/M-1939/TCM-20
  • 150 40mm L/70 Bofors

IDF Problems

As can be seen from the above list of arms, the IDF at the moment is a unique and astounding combination of nuclear weapons with delivery vehicles, an arsenal of equipment produced in the 1960s and of modern weapons on par with the leading world powers. This combination has its drawbacks and they do not make themselves wait for long.

Image: An Israeli AH-64 Apache helicopter lands at the Ramon air force base in the Negev Desert, southern Israel, on October 21, 2013. Credit: AFP / Jack Guez

In September 2016, during the removal of the machine gun from a tank at the training base in Shizafon in the south of Israel several soldiers were severely injured.

On 5 October 2016 on the approach to the Ramon airbase in southern Israel the pilot was killed as a result of the ejection from the F-16.

In July 2017 during the course of an exercise, due to his own negligence Lieutenant David Golovenchick was shot dead by a soldier.

On 8 August 2017 an AH-64 helicopter crashed at the Ramon airbase, as a result the pilot was killed, and others sustained injuries.

On 9 August 2017 during IDF operations in the suburbs of Bethlehem, an Israeli soldier suffered wounds of moderate severity as a result of friendly fire.

At the end of August 2017 ten soldiers were lightly injured at the Shizafon base in southern Israel after a smoke grenade exploded.

At the beginning of September 2017 an Israeli soldier was severely injured by a grenade that exploded during military training on the base in the south of the country.

These incidents indicate that the Israeli military has serious shortcomings in the realm of personnel proficiency and equipment maintenance.

The Gideon Plan

In order to give the IDF the ability to confront modern threats from various armed groups, while implementing budget cuts and minimizing the number of accidents, Israel adopted the five-year Gideon Plan in 2015.

Image: Israeli soldiers patrol near Ramallah on Friday, June 20, 2014. Credit: Issam Rimawi/Flash 90

Main Provisions of the Plan

• Reduction of 2500 professional soldiers and officers.
• Reduction of military service of male draftees from 36 to 32 months. (Reduction of military service of female soldiers from the draft is not considered so far).
• Reduction of the age of commanders. If the average age of the regiment staff officers, including the commander of the regiment, was 35 to 37 years, now for these positions officers from the age of 32 will be appointed. The staff officers of the brigade, including the brigade commander, 40 to 42 years instead of 45 to 46 years respectively.
• The reduction in the number of reservists to 100 thousand. The reservists who will remain in service will be trained and armed as support troops.
• Reducing the number of artillery and light infantry brigades.
• Structures such as the Education Corps, Military Rabbinate, Chief Reserve Officer, the Chief of Staff’s Advisor on Women’s Affairs, Army Radio and the Military Censor must undergo reduction and optimization. The command of the Northern District will be merged with the command of the land forces.
• Creation of the cyber-troops. Jerusalem Post, citing a senior officer of the IDF, reported at the beginning of 2017 that it was decided to postpone establishing the cyber-troops center.
• Bolstering of the Navy group through the procurement and construction of surface ships and a submarine.
• Rearming the Air Force by purchasing the American F-35 and UAVs of American and local production.
• Ending deferment to students in yeshivas (religious high schools) is not mentioned in this plan.

These provisions indicate IDF’s leaders had decided to focus on transforming it from conscript army to a professional one, staffed with a large number of trained soldiers as well as young and promising officers, capable to implement and employ in practice new ideas.  The fact that the command of the Northern District will be united with the command of the land forces indicates that this area (south of Lebanon and Hezbollah) is given special attention. The new army will be armed with more modern equipment and thus will be able to withstand modern threats.

The Israeli Missile Defence Systems vs. the Hezbollah Missile Arsenal

Knowing that Hezbollah will not invade Israel itself, its most capable units are involved in the fighting in Syria, and Hezbollah’s armored forces of the movement are in the development stages, for the Israeli military the biggest threat is Hezbollah’s missile arsenal.

Israel Defence Systems

There are 17 batteries of MIM-23 I-HAWK available for air defence but presumably due to their obsolescence they are not in active service.

For comparison purposes, the cost of Qassam type rockets of Palestinian production according to Israeli experts is in the neighbourhood of a few hundred dollars. Rockets for the BM-21 Grad cost few thousand. The cost of production of ballistic, anti-ship and medium-range Iranian-made missiles is unknown, but may be assumed that they do not exceed several hundred thousand dollars.

Of course, human life is priceless and the potential loss in this case from Grad rockets, not to mention Scud and Iranian missiles, exceeds the cost of the interceptor missile. While the Iron Dome control system will only launch missiles if incoming missiles are calculated to fall in residential areas, the cost balance is still not in Israel’s favor.

Scenarios for the Third Lebanon War

Over time, IDF’s military effectiveness had declined. Israel has won the 1967 fully and unconditionally. The Egyptian and Syrian armies were dealt a powerful blow, and the Golan Heights, the Sinai Peninsula and the western shore of the river Jordan were occupied. The war of 1973 was won by Israel with heavy human and material losses; however, neither the Egyptian nor the Syrian army was completely defeated. In the 1982 war, where the IDF had numerical superiority, it had won a tactical victory but the task of reaching Beirut to link up with the right-wing Christian Phalangists was not completed. In the Second Lebanon War of 2006 due to the overwhelming numerical superiority in men and equipment the IDF managed to occupy key strong points but failed to inflict a decisive defeat on Hezbollah. The frequency of attacks in Israeli territory was not reduced; the units of the IDF became bogged down in the fighting in the settlements and suffered significant losses. There now exists considerable political pressure to reassert IDF’s lost military dominance and, despite the complexity and unpredictability of the situation we may assume the future conflict will feature only two sides, IDF and Hezbollah. Based on the bellicose statements of the leadership of the Jewish state, the fighting will be initiated by Israel.

The operation will begin with a massive evacuation of residents from the settlements in the north and centre of Israel. Since Hezbollah has agents within the IDF, it will not be possible to keep secret the concentration of troops on the border and a mass evacuation of civilians. Hezbollah units will will be ordered to occupy a prepared defensive position and simultaneously open fire on places were IDF units are concentrated. The civilian population of southern Lebanon will most likely be evacuated. IDF will launch massive bombing causing great damage to the social infrastructure and some damage to Hezbollah’s military infrastructure, but without destroying the carefully protected and camouflaged rocket launchers and launch sites.

Image: Israeli soldiers walk together after crossing back into Israel from Lebanon Monday, July 31, 2006. Credit: David Guttenfelder, AP

Hezbollah control and communications systems have elements of redundancy. Consequently, regardless of the use of specialized precision-guided munitions, the command posts and electronic warfare systems will not paralysed, maintaining communications including through the use of fibre-optic communications means. IDF discovered that the movement has such equipment during the 2006 war. Smaller units will operate independently, working with open communication channels, using the pre-defined call signs and codes.

Israeli troops will then cross the border of Lebanon, despite the presence of the UN peacekeeping mission in southern Lebanon, beginning a ground operation with the involvement of a greater number of units than in the 2006 war. The IDF troops will occupy commanding heights and begin to prepare for assaults on settlements and actions in the tunnels. The Israelis do not score a quick victory as they suffer heavy losses in built-up areas. The need to secure occupied territory with patrols and checkpoints will cause further losses.

The fact that Israel itself started the war and caused damage to the civilian infrastructure, allows the leadership of the movement to use its missile arsenal on Israeli cities. While Israel’s missile defence systems can successfully intercept the launched missiles, there are not enough of them to blunt the bombardment. The civilian evacuation paralyzes life in the country. As soon IDF’s Iron Dome and other medium-range systems are spent on short-range Hezbollah rockets, the bombardment of Israel with long-range missiles may commence. Hezbollah’s Iranian solid-fuel rockets do not require much time to prepare for launch and may target the entire territory of Israel, causing further losses.

It is difficult to assess the duration of actions of this war. One thing that seems certain is that Israel shouldn’t count on its rapid conclusion, similar to last September’s exercises. Hezbollah units are stronger and more capable than during the 2006 war, despite the fact that they are fighting in Syria and suffered losses there.

Conclusions

The combination of large-scale exercises and bellicose rhetoric is intended to muster Israeli public support for the aggression against Hezbollah by convincing the public the victory would be swift and bloodless. Instead of restraint based on a sober assessment of relative capabilities, Israeli leaders appear to be in a state of blood lust. In contrast, the Hezbollah has thus far demonstrated restraint and diplomacy.

Image Credit: Israeli Air Force

Underestimating the adversary is always the first step towards a defeat. Such mistakes are paid for with soldiers’ blood and commanders’ careers.  The latest IDF exercises suggest Israeli leaders underestimate the opponent and, more importantly, consider them to be quite dumb. In reality, Hezbollah units will not cross the border. There is no need to provoke the already too nervous neighbor and to suffer losses solely to plant a flag and photograph it for their leader. For Hezbollah, it is easier and safer when the Israeli soldiers come to them. According to the IDF soldiers who served in Gaza and southern Lebanon, it is easier to operate on the plains of Gaza than the mountainous terrain of southern Lebanon. This is a problem for armoured vehicles fighting for control of heights, tunnels, and settlements, where they are exposed to anti-armor weapons.

While the Israeli establishment is in a state of patriotic frenzy, it would be a good time for them to turn to the wisdom of their ancestors. After all, as the old Jewish proverb says: “War is a big swamp, easy to go into but hard to get out”.

The Pentagon budget alone for illegal war propaganda is about $626,000,0001 per year. Generous taxpayers relinquish these funds so that the Pentagon can contaminate the public mindset to the detriment of humanity, foreign and domestic. 

The contamination of the public mindset is a necessary precondition to aggressive, criminal warfare in furtherance of a self-devouring political economy.  Once the public is convinced that there is a War On Terror (which is a Big Lie), further astronomical transfers of money from the people to the oligarchs and narrow vested interests – all to the detriment of the vast majority of the population – are easy to justify. 

Over the course of the dirty war on Syria, for example, the annual CIA budget in support of the terrorists invading Syria — all of the terrorists – has been about $1,000,000,000 per year2, and that is only a small fraction of monies spent to support terrorism in Syria. Bill Van Auken notes in “General lets slip US escalation in Syria” that Washington’s “key regional allies, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey, poured in billions more to ignite a war that has killed hundreds of thousands and turned millions into refugees.”3 

An important component of the Pentagon’s “public deception apparatus” (a.k.a illegal war propaganda) consists of “think tanks”. The RAND corporation is one such example. 

The strategy of “branding” has been particularly effective throughout the fake War on Terror. For example, governing agencies of deception would have us believe that there are “moderate terrorists.” The name itself is an oxymoron, but the strategy has been highly effective.  Credulous people still believe that lie.4 

The “Public Relations” liars, however, are paid to be aware of perception shifts, and the “Moderates” lie     as well as the strategy of constantly re-naming terror groups5 is wearing thin, so the branding is also shifting.  A new trend now is to re-brand al Qaeda – and all of the terrorists invading Syria are al Qaeda or al Qaeda affiliates, including ISIS – as the “good guys”. 

Syrian Ambassador to the UN, Bashar Ja’afari is well aware of the importance of word choices and how words are used to contaminate public perceptions.  He stresses the importance, for example, of  recognizing that the Syrian government is a government, and not a “regime”.

Similarly, the terrorists are not “Islamic” not only because of their deviant ideology, but especially because their actions defy any sane notions of Islam. Nor are the terrorists “jihadis”, especially since some of their most ardent supporters are Zionists. And of course the war isn’t a civil war.  The terrorists are there because of the West and its allies, not despite the West and its allies. When incorrect nomenclature is used and repeated, however, public perceptions invariable shift.   

All of this leads to an often over-looked observation by Christopher C. Black, a former lawyer at the UN: 

Journalists who prostitute themselves by telling their fellow citizens lies are not only betraying the trust put in them by the people, and treating them with contempt, they are also war criminals and should be judged as such. Their responsibility in preparing the way for war is as great as those who plan the war and carry out the military operations of the war.6

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All of the post-9/11 wars were sold to Western audiences through a sophisticated network of interlocking governing agencies that disseminate propaganda to both domestic and foreign audiences. But the dirty war on Syria is different. The degree of war propaganda levelled at Syria and contaminating humanity at this moment is likely unprecedented. I had studied and written about Syria for years, so I was not entirely surprised by what I saw.

(Excerpt from Preface, Mark Taliano’s book “Voices from Syria“, Global Research Montreal, 2017)

Order directly from Global Research (also available in PDF)

Voices from Syria

Mark Taliano

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Notes:

1 RT, “Scandal management: Pentagon spends most of US gov’t PR budget” 10, October, 2016. (https://www.rt.com/usa/362303-pentagon-biggest-propaganda-budget/) Accessed 6, November, 2017

2 Adam Johnson, “Down the Memory Hole: NYT Erases CIA’s Efforts to Overthrow Syria’s Government.” FAIR, 20 September, 2015.( http://fair.org/home/down-the-memory-hole-nyt-erases-cias-efforts-to-overthrow-syrias-government/) Accessed 6 November, 2017.

3 Bill Van Auken, “General lets slip US escalation in Syria.” World Socialist Website, 2 November, 2017. (http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2017/11/02/pers-n02.html) Accessed 2 November, 2017.

4 Tim Hayward, “Syria’s Moderate Opposition: beyond the doublethink.” 30 October, 2017. (https://timhayward.wordpress.com/2017/10/30/syrias-moderate-opposition-beyond-the-doublethink/) Accessed 6 November, 2017.

5 Mark Taliano, “U.S–Led NATO’s Tree Of Lies.” Global Research. 17 May, 2017. (https://www.globalresearch.ca/u-s-led-natos-tree-of-lies/5590456) Accessed 6 November, 2017.

6 Christopher C. Black, “NATO War Propaganda: A Danger to Russia and World Peace.” “ICH” – “NEO”. 14 March, 2015. (http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article41226.htm#.Wf81B3bogtk.facebook) Accessed 6 November, 2017.

November 7th, 2017 marks the 100th anniversary of the October Revolution.

We bring to the attention of our readers a selection of article, including Eisenstein’s 1928 film entitled “10 Days that Shook the World” as well as an hour long discussion on the Global Research News Hour radio program. 

100 Years Ago, The October Revolution, November 7, 1917: History of the Russian Revolutions and Civil War

By Julien Paolantoni, November 07, 2017

How did factors as diverse as the country’s participation to WWI, constitutional reforms and economic conditions combine to enable the Bolsheviks to take down the tsarist regime?

The Revolution Party and the Russian Revolution

By Leo Panitch, November 06, 2017

A fresh and compelling new account of the Russian revolution to mark its centenary concludes by paying tribute to the Bolsheviks for acting as history’s switchmen, a term derived from the small booths that dotted the railway tracks across the Russian empire, where local revolutionaries had long gathered for clandestine meetings.

The October Revolution: “Ten Days that Shook the World”

By Sergei M. Eisenstein, November 05, 2017

Sergei Eisenstein’s masterpiece: “Ten Days that Shook the World” (1928). In documentary style, events in Petrograd are re-enacted from the end of the monarchy in February of 1917 to the end of the provisional government and the decrees of peace and of land in November of that year. While the Mensheviks vacillate, an advance guard infiltrates the palace. Antonov-Ovseyenko leads the attack and declares the proclamation dissolving the provisional government.

History of the Russian Revolution, Peoples’ Right to Self-determination, and Debt Repudiation

By Eric Toussaint, November 05, 2017

The Versailles Treaty was eventually signed on 28 June 1919 without Soviet Russia being involved. Even so, this treaty cancelled the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk.

The Russian Revolution at 100: The Legend and the Legacy

By Michael Welch, Prof Michel Chossudovsky, and Dr. Jacques R. Pauwels, November 05, 2017

The October Revolution was launched when the Red Guard took over key locations within the capital Petrograd. Twenty thousand Red Guards in the streets, backed by a squadron of seven rebel warships from Kronstadt, and trainloads of armed sailors from Helsingfors in Finland, managed to execute a nearly bloodless coup. Having taken over the Winter Palace, the seat of the Provisional Government, Vladmir Lenin declared that the government had been overthrown and that the Bolsheviks were in control.

“Wipe the Soviet Union Off the Map”, 204 Atomic Bombs against 66 Major Cities, US Nuclear Attack against USSR Planned During World War II

By Prof Michel Chossudovsky, November 04, 2017

The object of the US and its allies from the very outset in 1917 was to destabilize and destroy the Soviet Union.According to a secret document dated September 15, 1945, “the Pentagon had envisaged blowing up the Soviet Union  with a coordinated nuclear attack directed against major urban areas.All major cities of the Soviet Union were included in the list of 66 “strategic” targets. The tables below categorize each city in terms of area in square miles and the corresponding number of atomic bombs required to annihilate and kill the inhabitants of selected urban areas.

Saturday night was a busy one for Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. The kingdom’s 32-year old heir to the throne excelled himself. He surpassed the high levels of chaos and human misery he had already achieved as the defence minister who launched the air campaign on Yemen.

First up was the sudden resignation of the Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri after just one year in office. Hariri made his announcement from Riyadh, which is a curious place to resign the premiership of Lebanon. His speech was hardline anti-Hezbollah and anti-Iran, setting a tone not heard from him in years.

A few days before he gave no indication that he was under the threat of assassination, as he claimed in his speech. He allowed airport workers to take selfies with him, and left Lebanon in a sunny and optimistic mood.

It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that when he left Lebanon, Hariri had no intention of resigning, that he himself did not know that he would resign and that this resignation had been forced on him by the Saudis

Hariri thought he had survived the pressure which had been applied last year on his construction company Saudi Oger, which was facing bankruptcy, and a meeting with Saudi Minister of State for Gulf Affairs Thamer al-Sabhan went well.

Al-Sabhan tweeted that the two agreed on “many things that are of interest”. But the minister’s tone changed rapidly after Hariri’s resignation. He then tweeted: “The hands of treachery and aggression must be amputated,” referring to Hezbollah and Iran.

The well informed but anonymous Saudi commentator, who uses the Twitter handle Mujtahidd, discounted the theory that Hariri felt under threat of assassination from Iran. He said the Lebanese premier was under greater physical threat from the Islamic State group.

Mujtahidd said Hariri emerged from his latest talks with Ali Akbar Velayati, the Iranian supreme leader’s senior international affairs adviser, in good spirits.

“The main reason for summoning him back to Riyadh is to hold him captive with the rest of the detained princes and businessmen to blackmail him and force him to bring back the funds he has abroad, particularly those not linked to Lebanon.”

“The statement he read was written for him. He was not convinced about it, neither in terms of content nor in terms of submitting his resignation from Riyadh. For how is it possible for a political leader to announce his resignation from another country’s capital?”

Mujtahidd wrote on Twitter.

Image: Mujtahidd’s tweets

Hossein Sheikholeslam, senior advisor to the Iranian foreign minister, appeared to agree with Mujtahidd. He accused US President Donald Trump and the Saudi crown prince of pressurising Hariri into resigning: “Al-Hariri’s resignation was done in coordination with Trump and Mohammed bin Salman to foment tension in Lebanon and the region,” Sheikholeslam said.

Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah, reacted calmly to the news on Sunday. He placed the blame for Hariri’s removal on the Saudis, calling the resignation a violation of Lebanese sovereignty and an attack on “Hariri’s dignity”.  He referred to Hariri as “our prime minister,” not, note, our former prime minister.

Put all these statements together, and it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that when he left Lebanon, Hariri had no intention of resigning, that he himself did not know that he would resign and that this resignation had been forced on him by the Saudis. My information, however, is that he has not been arrested.

The second event was a bump in the night quite literally. It came just hours after Hariri’s bellicose speech.  A long range missile launched by Houthi rebels thousands of kilometres away in Yemen came down somewhere near Riyadh airport in the north of the capital. The missile was allegedly intercepted by Saudi air defence missiles, but there were reports of scenes of panic on the ground.

Until now, the Houthis have usually targeted Jeddah. A long-range missile aimed at the capital was read by the Saudis as a clear message from an Iranian proxy: “You ramp up the pressure on Hezbollah and we will ramp up the pressure on you in Riyadh,” the launchers of the missile seemed to say.

McCarthy reborn

The third event to disturb the peace had been well planned. Prince Mutaib bin Abdullah’s demise had been widely predicted. He was in charge of the kingdom’s third military force, the national guard, and as Mohammed bin Salman had taken control of the ministry of defence and the ministry of interior (after ousting his cousin Mohammed bin Nayef). It was only a matter of time before he would take the scalp of Mutaib and put all three of the kingdom’s armies under his personal control.

The National Guard recruits historically from the kindgom’s tribes. On Sunday the bank accounts of the tribal sheikhs involved in the army were frozen and prominent sheikhs have been banned from travel. They were mainly from the Motair and Otaiba tribes who had been loyal to the late King Abdullah. This was done to crack down on dissent.

We did not predict how brutally bin Salman would move against Mutaib. He and his brother Turki were arrested and charged with corruption. His arrest was signalled by websites close to the Royal Court, which printed initials and said the corruption was linked to military sales in his ministry. They created a special hashtag for the occasion which read: “Salman is confronting corruption”.

This committee is McCarthyite in its powers and scope. The first thing to note in the decree which set it up, is that it puts itself above and beyond the law

Al-Arabiya broke the news that first 10 and then 11 princes had been arrested, along with 38 top businessmen and former ministers.

In a style of government which is unique to the kingdom, the decision to carry out this purge appears to have preceded the announcement of the committee formed to make these arrests. This is how the young prince acts, a man who some Middle East experts persist in referring to as a Western-style reformer. He acts with total disregard to habeas corpus, due process and the rule of law. In his eyes, those arrested are guilty before they are proven guilty.

This committee is McCarthyite in its powers and scope. The first thing to note in the decree which set it up, is that it puts itself above and beyond the law. The decree states that the committee (which bin Salman chairs) is

“exempt from laws, regulations, instructions, orders and decisions while the committee shall perform the following tasks … the investigation issuance of arrest warrants, travel ban, disclosure and freezing of accounts and portfolios, tracking of funds, assets, and preventing their remittance or transfer by persons and entities whoever they might be. The committee has the right to take any precautionary measures it sees, until they are referred to the investigating authorities or judicial bodies.”

In other words, the prince can do anything he likes to anyone, seizing their assets in and outside the kingdom. Let’s just remind ourselves of what he now controls. The prince heads all three of Saudi Arabia’s armies; he heads Aramco, the world’s biggest oil company; he heads the committee in charge of all economic affairs which is just about to launch the biggest privatisation the kingdom has seen; and he now controls all of Saudi’s media chains.

If previous moves bin Salman took constituted a power grab, Saturday’s moves were a wealth grab

This was apparent from the list of businessmen arrested. ART, MBC and Rotana Media group dominate the Arab media. These Saudi media corporations account for most of what is put out on air in the Middle East, apart from the news output of Qatari-owned Al Jazeera.

Their respective owners, Saleh Kamel, Walid al-Ibrahim and Prince Waleed bin Talal are behind bars. Presumably too their wealth has been confiscated. Forbes prices bin Talal, chairman of the Kingdom Holding Corporation, at $18bn. He owns sizeable shares in numerous companies, including Newscorp, Citigroup, 21st Century Fox and Twitter. These shares too are under new management. The head of STC, the biggest mobile operator in Saudi, was also arrested.

If previous moves bin Salman took constituted a power grab, Saturday’s moves were a wealth grab.

Quite apart from the political dangers of stripping so many very rich Saudis of their wealth, this is a bizarre way to encourage foreigners to invest in the kingdom. BIn Salman’s actions on Saturday seemed to be designed to scare them all off.

The economy is in recession and foreign reserves are being depleted. Bin Salman has just seized the assets of the kingdom’s biggest businessmen and set up a committee that can seize assets at will at home or abroad. What would stop him doing the same to the assets of foreign investors who fell out with him?

The purge of other top oligarchs like Bakr bin Laden, who headed the top construction company in the country, will also have a knock-on effect in the rest of the economy. The bin Laden group employs thousands of sub-contractors. Purges and business do not mix, as bin Salman will soon find out.

Cracks in royal family

I am told by a reliable source that Prince Waleed bin Talal refused to invest in Neom, the mega city bin Salman announced would be built, and that was the reason why the crown prince removed his cousin. But bin Talal had also clashed with his cousin by calling openly for bin Nayef’s release from house arrest.

All branches of the royal family have been affected by this purge, and others that preceded it

The other point to note is that all branches of the royal family have been affected by this purge, and others that preceded it. Just look at the names of the princes who have been taken out  – bin Talal, bin Fahd, bin Nayef, bin Muqrin. The latter died in a plane crash, apparently trying to flee the country. These names tell you one thing – the cracks in the royal family go far and deep and extend to its very core.

Would all this have happened without another green light from Trump? He tweeted yesterday that he “would very much appreciate Saudi Arabia doing their IPO of Aramco with the New York Stock Exchange, important to the United States!” Trump also called King Salman, congratulating him for everything he did since coming to power. The moves follow Jared Kushner’s third visit to the kingdom this year.

If it was not apparent to one and all, it surely must be now. The capital of insecurity in the Middle East is Riyadh, and moves by a 32-year old prince to acquire absolute power are capable of destabilising neighbouring countries and removing their prime ministers. Worse, this prince appears to be encouraged by a US president who does not know what he is doing.

Wiser heads in Washington DC, like the Secretary of State Rex Tillerson or the Defence Secretary James Mattis must be tearing their hair out – or what is left of it. It would not surprise me to learn that Tillerson has had enough of trying to put out the fires that his president and his immediate entourage keep on igniting.

David Hearst is editor-in-chief of Middle East Eye. He was chief foreign leader writer of The Guardian, former Associate Foreign Editor, European Editor, Moscow Bureau Chief, European Correspondent, and Ireland Correspondent. He joined The Guardian from The Scotsman, where he was education correspondent.

Yesterday the ruling Salman clan in Saudi Arabia executed a Night of the Long Knives cleansing the state of all potential competition. The Saudi King Salman and his son Clown Prince Mohammad bin Salman initiated a large arrest wave and purge of high ranking princes and officials. Part of this internal coup was the confiscation of huge financial estates to the advantage of the Salman clan.

The earlier forced resignation of the Lebanese Prime Minister Saad al-Hariri is probably related to the last night’s events. The Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahou endorsed the resignation. This guarantees that Hariri will never again be accepted in a leading role in Lebanon.

In Saudi Arabia eleven princes, including sons of the deceased King Abdullah, more than thirty former and acting ministers as well as the heads of three major TV stations were taken into custody or put under house arrest. The National Guard Commander Prince Mitieb Bin Abdullah was relieved from his post and replaced with Prince Khalid Bin Abdulaziz al Muqrin. The National Guard was the last intelligence and security power center held by the Abdullah branch of the al-Saud family.

An earlier purge in July had dethroned the former Crown Prince Nayaf and replaced him with the young Mohammad Bin-Salman. Then the Nayef branch of the al-Saud family was removed from all power centers. The Abdullah branch followed yesterday. The purged officials were replaced with stooges of the ruling Salman clan.

The Salman branch of the current king and clown prince has now eliminated all of potential internal competition. This goes against the consensus model that had been the foundation of the Saudi family rule over the last century. Tens of thousands of clans and people depended on the patronage of the removed princes and officials. They will not just sit back as their fortunes evaporate.

One effect of the purges will be the concentration of Saudi wealth in the hands of the Salmans.

One of the arrested persons is the allegedly sixth richest man of the world, Prince Al-Waleed Bin Talal (video). He has (had?) an estimated net-worth between $18 and $32 billion. Al-Waleed had publicly clashed with U.S. President Donald Trump. (Al-Waleed is (was?) the largest shareholder of Citygroup which selected Barack Obama’s cabinet before receiving a huge government bailout.) Another casualty is Bakr bin Laden, brother of Osama Bin Laden, chairman of the Saudi Binladin Group and fifth richest man of the country.

Official pretext for the purge are corruption allegations going back to 2009. This financial subterfuge will allow the ruling Salmans to confiscate the wealth of the accused. The total haul of this raid will amount to dozens of billions of dollars. A new anti-corruption committee was installed under Clown Prince Mohammad bin Salman. It has dictatorial powers and can freeze and confiscate whatever financial assets it deems worth its attention:

It may take whatever measures it deems necessary to deal with those involved in public corruption cases and take what it considers to be the right of persons, entities, funds, fixed and movable assets, at home and abroad, return funds to the state treasury and register property and assets in the name of state property.

The events in Lebanon and Riyadh would have been impossible without U.S. approval and support. In late October Trump’s son in law and senior adviser Jared Kushner made an unannounced visit to Saudi Arabia. In a tweet yesterday Donald Trump, sworn to the Wahhabi orb, named the price for his consent and cooperation:

Would very much appreciate Saudi Arabia doing their IPO of Aramco with the New York Stock Exchange. Important to the United States!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 4, 2017

A primary listing of Aramco oil conglomerate at the NYSE will give the U.S. government regulatory and legal authority over the most valuable company of the world.

Also last night Yemeni forces fired a medium range missile from north Yemen towards Riyadh airport. The well targeted 1,000 kilometer (660 miles) shot is impressive and unprecedented. The Saudi air-defense near the airport, U.S. Patriot systems manned by contractors, launched four interceptor missiles (video) towards the incoming Yemeni projectile. The Saudis claim that one of the interceptors hit the target. A uprising smoke column was seen from the airport (video). It is not possible to say if it was the result of the original missile or of an interception.

That the Saudi capital can be hit will come as another shock to many Saudis. It discourages investment in Saudi Arabia.

The Yemeni missiles, fired by the original Yemen army under former president Saleh, may have their origin in Iran. But they could also be older ones Yemen had purchased elsewhere decades ago. The Saudis will surely blame Iran without explaining how such missiles could be smuggled through their tight blockade cordon around the resistance held country.

The missile launch is unlikely to be related to the Hariri resignation or to the purge in Riyadh. It takes days for the Yemenis to prepare such a missile and its launch. It is presumably in retaliation for Wednesday’s devastating Saudi air attack on an open market in the northern Saada province of Yemen. According to Yemeni sources more than 60 people were killed. After the missile launch on Riyadh Saudi jets again bombed the Yemeni capital Sanaa.

Since the incapacitated King Salman took the throne in Riyadh his ruthless 32 year old son Mohammad bin Salman has taken control of all branches of Saudi Arabia. The Saudi launched a war on a defenseless Yemen and supported al-Qaeda, ISIS and other “rebels” against the Iraqi and Syrian governments. He split the Gulf Cooperation Council by attacking Qatar. After a stalemate in Yemen and Qatar and losing in Iraq and Syria he has now initiated a war against Hizbullah in Lebanon. None of these bloody initiatives has achieved its aim of weakening the influence of the perceived enemy Iran. All of them helped Iran to consolidate its position.

The financial position of the Saudi state is in disarray. To the applause of the western claque Bin Salman announced the economic, social and religious liberation of Saudi Arabia. But little, if any, of the grand promises have been delivered.

Yesterday’s purge can be perceived as a panic-fueled move. All of Bin Salman’s endeavors have failed. The successful targeting of Riyadh’s airport only underscores this. He is under pressure but unable to deliver. The internal resistance to him is growing.

When Hitler initiated the Night of Long Knives against the socialist part of his party he was on an upward trend of his political power. The country was at peace, its international standing was growing, the economy surged and the majority of the people endorsed him. Bin Salman’s remake of that night comes while his initiatives fail. It is doubtful that the consolidation he seeks will be equally successful.

Despite the attempt to marginalize the concept, “false flags” are so common that U.S. officials frequently use that phrase.

The Washington Post notes that Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld approved as an acceptable interrogation method

A technique known as “false flag,” or deceiving a detainee into believing he is being interrogated by someone from another country.

NBC News points out:

In another document taken from the NSA by Snowden and obtained by NBC News, a JTRIG official said the unit’s mission included computer network attacks, disruption, “Active Covert Internet Operations,” and “Covert Technical Operations.” Among the methods listed in the document were jamming phones, computers and email accounts and masquerading as an enemy in a “false flag” operation. The same document said GCHQ was increasing its emphasis on using cyber tools to attack adversaries.

Washington’s Blog asked high-level NSA official Bill Binney* if he had heard of the term “false flags” when he was with the NSA.

Binney responded:

Sure, they were under deception and manipulation programs.  I was not involved in doing them; but, I did have to figure out some that the other side was doing.  The other side called them “dezsinformatsiya” and Manipulatsiya.”

The Brits have been doing this for several hundred years and are quite good at it.

Washington’s Blog asked Philip Giraldi – a former counter-terrorism specialist and military intelligence officer with the CIA – the same question with regards to his experience with the CIA.

Giraldi responded:

Yes, of course. We did false flags, and called them that, frequently in the operations directorate using false documentation to indicated that we were nationals of a country that was not the United States. Almost every CIA officer had false third country identification when operating overseas….

We followed up by asking:

Is it fair to say some of the false flags were for the purpose (i.e. premeditated) of blaming another country or group … not only just in case caught?

Giraldi replied:

Sometimes if it were a covert action attempting to do just that but more often just for cover reasons to make one appear to not be American…

Robert David Steele – a 20-year Marine Corps infantry and intelligence officer, the second-ranking civilian in U.S. Marine Corps Intelligence, and former CIA clandestine services case officer – said:

Most terrorists are false flag terrorists or are created by our own security services.

***

In the United States, every single terrorist incident we have had has been a false flag, or has been an informant pushed on by the FBI.

Steele has repeatedly and publicly said (and also confirmed to Washington’s Blog) that he personally carried out a “false flag” attack while working as a U.S. intelligence officer.

Indeed, false flags are so common that there are official rules of engagement prohibiting false flags in naval, air and land warfare.

* William Binney is the highest-level NSA whistleblower in history. Binney is the NSA executive who created the agency’s mass surveillance program for digital information, who served as the senior technical director within the agency, who managed six thousand NSA employees, the 36-year NSA veteran widely regarded as a “legend” within the agency and the NSA’s best-ever analyst and code-breaker, who mapped out the Soviet command-and-control structure before anyone else knew how, and so predicted Soviet invasions before they happened (“in the 1970s, he decrypted the Soviet Union’s command system, which provided the US and its allies with real-time surveillance of all Soviet troop movements and Russian atomic weapons”).

Videos

Examples of False Flags mentioned by senior US officials

Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, former chief of staff to Colin Powell:

Former Director for Transnational Threats on the U.S. National Security Council, Roger Cressey:

Former CIA counterterrorism official Philip Mudd:

Lieutenant General Thomas McInerney, a high ranking Air Force official:

Former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations (and Neocon warmonger) John Bolton:

Image: A still image taken from a video distributed by Yemen’s pro-Houthi Al Masirah television station on November 5, 2017, shows what it says was the launch by Houthi forces of a ballistic missile aimed at Riyadh’s King Khaled Airport on Saturday © Houthi Military Media Unit / Reuters

Saudi Arabia has accused Iran of being responsible for the ballistic missile launched from Yemen that targeted Riyadh airport on Saturday, warning that it could be “considered an act of war.”

The shocking latest twist in what has been a chaotic weekend in Saudi Arabia is news that a helicopter transporting 8 high-ranking Saudi officials (including prince Mansour bin-Muqrin) has crashed in the south of the Kingdom, near the border with Yemen.

As PTI reports, a Saudi prince was killed today when a helicopter with several officials on board crashed near the kingdom’s southern border with war-torn Yemen, state television said.

The news channel Al-Ekhbariya announced the death of Prince Mansour bin Muqrin, the deputy governor of Asir province and son of a former crown prince.

It did not reveal the cause of the crash or the fate of the other officials aboard the aircraft.

The crash also comes after Saudi Arabia yesterday intercepted and destroyed a ballistic missile near Riyadh’s international airport after it was fired from Yemen in an escalation of the kingdom’s war against Iran-backed Huthi rebels.

Sky News Arabia confirms an earlier report from Al-Watan news…“Newsletter: loss of a helicopter carrying a number of officials in the southern Asir, Saudi Arabia”

الإخبارية السعودية: فقدان طائرة مروحية تقل عددا من المسؤولين في عسير جنوبي السعودية

— سكاي نيوز عربية-الآن (@SkyNewsArabia_B) November 5, 2017

Details are few for now but some headlines report that the high-ranking officials aboard included Crown Prince Mansour bin-Muqrin, deputy Emir of Asir province. He was a son of Muqrin bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, the ex-intelligence chief who briefly was Saudi Arabia’s crown prince from January to April 2015.

#Saudi state tv just announced the death of Prince Mansour bin Muqrin bin Abdulaziz, Deputy Governor of Asir Region, in a helicopter crash https://t.co/JoT1twshBB

— SaadAbedine (@SaadAbedine) November 5, 2017

The incident occurred as the officials were on their way back from an inspection trip to al-Saida al-Sawalha Center in the municipality of Mahail Asir…

سمو #الأمير_منصور_بن_مقرن
نائب أمير #عسير خلال جولته
بمحافظة #البرك متفقداً عدداً
من المشاريع التنموية للمحافظة .. pic.twitter.com/vXa6kSuBsO

— الأمير منصور بن مقرن (@hrhpmmugrin) November 5, 2017

A video, believed to be the last one of Prince Mansour alive, was released by the channel, showing him and accompanying officials boarding the helicopter ….

pic.twitter.com/OQZ4vFypc5

— abo0o0dy.. (@AbduAseeri) November 5, 2017

The crash site is reported near Abha, in the south of The Kingdom in the Asir Region, bordering Yemen. The area has seen a number of cross-border retaliatory attacks from Yemen in recent months, reportedly leading to casualties among Saudi troops.

There are sources saying all aboard have died…

KSA :A helicopter with Saudi officials on board(among them : vice-governor of Asir Mansour bin Muqrin) crashed today:all passengers died https://t.co/8vrf5bTybP

— MESP (@mestrate) November 5, 2017

The bodies of the deceased officials have been recovered, SaudiNews50 reported late Sunday, after posting a video of the recovery efforts…

وفاة نائب أمير #عسير #منصور_بن_مقرن ومرافقيه في تحطم طائرة. تعازينا للأسرة المالكة وللشعب السعودي ولمنطقة عسير. #تحطم_طايره_مروحيه_عسير pic.twitter.com/QvVkfItXTl

— شبكة نازلة بللحمر (@nazlah_com) November 5, 2017

So – Trump pushes Aramco IPO (out of the blue), Prime Minister of Lebanon forced to resign, Saudis intercept missiles, 11 Saudi princes arrested, numerous officials charged, and now a dead crown prince near the border with Yemen…

Just what is going on in Saudi Arabia?

President Putin arrived in Tehran on 1 November for talks with the Ayatollah Khamenei. First, to cement the Nuclear Agreement of 2015 (Vienna), as far as Russia is concerned, thereby sidelining Trump’s attempt at reneging on the agreement. Second, to sign billions worth of tripartite hydrocarbon deals between Russia, Iran and Azerbeijan.The deal is slated to be be transacted in Russian rubles, rather than US dollars, thus, effectively detaching Iran from the dollar hegemony.

In other words – helping Iran in de-dollarizing her economy – and effectively and drastically contributing to diminishing the dollar’s stance as a world reserve currency.

That’s “Resistance Economy” at its best. De-dollarization is a key principal of the concept of Resistance Economy which also implies economic auto-reliance and trading only with friendly partners. 

Iran has full technological, agricultural and intellectual capacity to become self-sufficient. This is a great step towards a new economy – a sea change in economic parameters of freedom and equality. It is in particular a detachment from the uncountable illegal ‘sanctions’ the US is keen on imposing on countries that refuse to follow her dictate. Belonging to another monetary system, trading and investing outside the dollar-dominated western banking system, is like a breath of fresh air.

Other countries may take an example. Venezuela has already done so, by signing hydrocarbon deals with China in Yuan – gold-convertible yuans. Chapeau! – Away from the dollar. For Venezuela, only a few thousand kilometers apart from the border of the great abusive emperor, this is a daring move and a demonstration for Washington of Venezuela’s independence. Venezuela has the support of Russia and China, as both have huge investment and trade agreements in Venezuela, i.e. China in excess of 12 billion dollars of trade agreements alone, one of the largest, if not the largest with any Latin American country.

Washington is aware of it. Threatening Venezuela is therefore more of Trump-type bluff and propaganda than anything else. Besides, US mercenaries and CIA agents were vital in initiating and inciting violent disruptions in Venezuela’s elections, causing more than hundred deaths. Venezuela’s democracy has survived and is a shining example of a peaceful, democratic and  sovereign country, despite these vicious outside interferences.

Iran is also at the point of joining the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) which comprises China, Russia and most of Eurasia, plus India and Pakistan – embracing about half of the globe’s population and one third of the world’s GDP. The SCO is a strategic economic but also defense association – and foremost, the SCO has an economy free from the dollar dominion. There is a ‘waiting list’ of more countries wanting to join the SCO.

What Mr. Putin said in terms of self-reliance and ‘sanctions’ has worldwide significance. It not only applies to Iran, but to any country across the globe that is tired of corporate globalization, of the subservience to Washington and of being enslaved by debt. Here are Mr. Putin’s words to the Ayatollah repeated:

“Some Russian producers and traders pray that the US sanctions wouldn’t end, because as a result of them, their capacities have started to attract attention. From 2014, i.e. the start of US sanctions, we devoted our funds to scientific and technological progress, and we had significant growth in the fields of biotechnology, IT, agriculture and space industries. Now, in spite of the initial concerns, we have realized that we can do whatever we decide to.”

These words translate into a new economic paradigm, ‘local production for local consumption with local money and public banking for a sovereign local economy and sovereign and friendly trading partners.’

The Russian leader also referred to Iran as a vital pillar for stability and peace in the Middle East; he lauded Iran’s role in helping defeat the ISIS / Daesh terror and bringing Syria back into control of Damascus.

In addition, Iran will be part of President Xi (China) initiated New Silk Road, or OBI – ‘One Belt Initiative’ – which is already designed in four routes connecting China and Russia throughout Eurasia, the Middle East – and even Africa – with the western most links of Eurasia, i.e. western Europe – that is, if Europe will finally see the light and accept that the future is in the EAST – also Europe’s future – and that the west, led by Washington into an abyss, is slowly committing suicide by its war atrocities, greed-sponsored terrorism continuous lies. There is no lie that will not be discovered sooner or later – and when that happens a quantum shift in public opinion may take place and the west’s credibility and the fake abusive debt-and-interest based dollar economy will become a collapsing Ponzi scheme.

The One Belt Initiative has the potential for massive economic, scientific and cultural development over the next few centuries, involving trillions of (today’s) dollar in investment and millions of jobs and livelihoods for the populations along the OBI route – with wide-ranging positive socioeconomic repercussions way beyond the geographic OBI sphere. The OBI inspires new dynamics in future socioeconomic thinking and relations between nations. Countries are welcome to join the One Belt Road or Initiative, but are never forced, into this new economic direction, one of peace and equality, of a multi-polar world economy and political system.

Iran has chosen – and is well on her way to fully recover from the wrongly and criminally imposed punishments from a nation that has no right whatsoever to police and oppress sovereign nations according to her will. Those times are on a fast track to oblivion.

Peter Koenig is an economist and geopolitical analyst. He is also a former World Bank staff and worked extensively around the world in the fields of environment and water resources. He lectures at universities in the US, Europe and South America. He writes regularly for Global Research, ICH, RT, Sputnik, PressTV, The 4th Media (China), TeleSUR, The Vineyard of The Saker Blog, and other internet sites. He is the author of Implosion – An Economic Thriller about War, Environmental Destruction and Corporate Greed – fiction based on facts and on 30 years of World Bank experience around the globe. He is also a co-author of The World Order and Revolution! – Essays from the Resistance.

First published by “Opinion- English-on Khamenei.ir”

Politics, especially local politics, is hard work. Easier to share headlines flashed at us through the national press. There’s always another juicy or outrageous anecdote to absorb, dismiss, or share. So our political conversations keep advancing. Maybe.

Following local political trends at my county level (in upstate New York’s Catskills[1]) is another matter. I suspect my problem would apply to downstate too.

I just want to carry out my democratic duty at election time. Voting could help build a local political barrier to thwart threats charging towards us from Washington. Yet I find myself facing one obstacle after another. Perusing local political issues in advance of Tuesday’s nationwide election, I feel stymied and isolated.

If I weren’t so dogged, I’d forget about democracy altogether; this business of voting responsibly needs sustained attention and real commitment. Take the question of who’s running for office in our towns (in this “off-election” year): now is when we select our supervisors, judges, and town councils, among others. It’s not only a humdrum affair; it’s often obscure. Most voters don’t know who presently holds these offices, and, for example, if the sheriff is an elected official. And new candidates? Not easy to learn their identities and what party they represent.

Since the last local election (two years ago?), admittedly I’ve not been as active as I might have. So I ask others: “What happens at town council meetings between elections? Few can tell me. (It’s a drag getting to a town meeting after work and tending to family needs at suppertime.)

I know town councils assign our tax money. But do citizens approve the budget? I don’t know. Would that be on the November 7^th ballot?  What about our dwindling fire department—is its future a town issue? Can we take problems in the district school to our council? What about the decrepit bridge on South Street? Our local opioid crisis?

I’ve been a fulltime resident here for 20 years. As a registered Democrat, I usually check any democratic candidate box on the ballot. Afterwards I forget about council business. I rarely follow these election results anyway. (You may think I’m a shirker but I’m sure I’m typical of folks here.)

I confess, I may have been inattentive, initially. Six years ago, I decided to better prepare myself before casting my ballot. I would do my homework. My good intentions notwithstanding, I could learn little about local candidates: campaign literature was scarce; some lawn signs planted here and there, but no calls and no personal canvassing. Worse, perusing a ballot on Election Day, I found I had few choices –incumbents were running unopposed. Often the names meant nothing to me.

One year, seeing an invitation to meet candidates for town offices before a local election, I stopped in at our fire hall. I found more candidates than potential voters present. Moreover, this was a Republican Party event, and all four candidates greeting us were Republicans. I was welcome however; the pastries were tasty and I could ask about the offices being sought—town judgeship for example.

Optimistically, I phoned the Democratic Party office. Maybe it would sponsor a candidates’ gathering here. I called several times. No reply, not even to steer me to a webpage. Speaking with neighbors, I learned many are on the same page as me politically. About candidates and the local party committee, they shrug. “No use voting.” As for local governance: no one I ask is clear when town meetings take place, who are the supervisor (mayor), highway chief, council members. “Phone the town clerk,” I’m advised. “Try the board of elections.”

A party committee member helped explain the local structure to me. “You’re represented by so-and-so, a good fellow but can’t attend meetings. Do you want to be a committee member? You wouldn’t have to do anything.” They just needed a name.

Any resident can sit in on a local party meetings; same for the town council. “Very boring; they do what they want”, I am told by my neighbor, Elena.

Sometimes people get stirred up—if a child dies from substance abuse, or if crime is on the rise. Disputes about sharing resources get attention too: water management, which district should pay police, enforcing zoning laws. These issues can bring out citizens and often involve lengthy legal disputes. Otherwise it’s humdrum bureaucratic stuff, and difficult for an outsider–a citizen–to follow.

The widespread victory of Republicans in January saw a flurry of activity from the opposing side, generated mainly by shock (and embarrassment). Attendance at party meetings spiked. People networked, sharing their fears and outrage, vowing to become ‘politically engaged’—some for the first time in their (middle-aged) lives. Activist groups blossomed.

Here in New York State an important referendum is on Tuesday’s ballot—do we want a new state constitution? It’s complicated. So we’ve seen many public forums and debates over the past weeks. Newspapers and legal organizations, the League of Women Voters and some unions have endorsed, or opposed. At one presentation in a sizable town nearby, about 15 people sat scattered through a large hall to hear details and ask questions. When the discussion ended, half the audience left hurriedly. Among those remaining, five were candidates running for seats in the town’s administration, there to address voters.

All our regional papers have noted how few seats are being contested. “Sullivan County has 55 uncontested races” moans The River Reporter . The Walton paper notes that most candidates are incumbents running unopposed. October 3^rd front page of another concurs–“General election marked by lack of candidates.” Perusing the past three issues of Times Herald Record, our main regional paper, I see a flurry of 30 ‘letters to the editor’—each one espousing the merits of a candidate. Maybe that’s the most a reader will learn about the names they’ll find on Tuesday’s ballot.

Oh well, there’s always another election.

In 1919, following the first World War, the victorious Allied Powers met in Paris to remake the world (see image below). The prime ministers of Italy, France, and Great Britain as well as U.S. President Woodrow Wilson, collectively known as “The Big Four,” were the decisive diplomatic players at the meeting. Under their leadership, the lands of the defeated Central Powers were picked apart. The Austro-Hungarian Empire was dissolved into smaller central European nations. Germany lost territory and was served with an extremely punitive and expensive peace treaty. In several cases, the triumphant Big Four parceled out bits of land to themselves.

If you think nuclear weapons went the way of the Berlin Wall and shoulder pads at the end of the 1980s, think again.

The U.S. still has a very large nuclear arsenal, and we’re considering spending quite a lot of money to update it. Based on our recent video conversation, we compiled a list of six things you should know about the nuclear arsenal.

If you’re not a millionaire (or billionaire, or trillionaire – just kidding, those doesn’t exist, at least not yet), numbers with a bunch of zeros after them can start to look the same.

But rest assured, $1 trillion is a lot of money, even—or especially—for our debt-laden federal government. Is it really a good idea to spend $1 trillion to update our arsenal? (That’s $1,000,000,000,000, in case you were wondering).

“We’re at a pivot point,” said Jim Walsh, a research associate in the Security Studies Program at MIT.

“These systems are showing their age. Decisions are going to have to be made over the next several years about what to do about that. Those decisions will have consequences for the future, and we should not just do it out of habit or autopilot—we really need to engage this, and engage it now in a strong way…This modernization is not simply life-extension. In some cases, we would be adding new capabilities we haven’t had before, and new weapons systems we haven’t had before.”

If we do decide to proceed with costs of up to $1 trillion over the next 30 years, many of these bills will be due around the same time. It’s important to take into consideration the opportunity cost of spending this amount of money on modernizing the nuclear arsenal.

“It’s been considered a budgetary train wreck, because we’re trying to modernize all of the legs of the nuclear triad (sea, air, and land) at the same time,” said Greg Terryn, a policy analyst at The Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation.

“The real concern there is either that you can’t finish a program you started and your nuclear arsenal changes based on budgetary constrictions, or that every dollar you spend on nuclear arsenal is money you’re not spending on your conventional forces or domestic needs. That means that troops in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, where we still have deployed forces and military operations, might not get the funding they need to complete their objectives.”

Nuclear-armed cruise missiles are considered by many nuclear policy experts to be particularly destabilizing. These weapons are launched without warning, and it’s impossible for the target to determine whether the weapon has a nuclear or conventional tip. Essentially, a recipe for disaster.

Yet despite these risks, the U.S. military is planning to build up to 1,100 new nuclear-capable cruise missiles. Former U.S. Secretary of Defense William Perry and former Assistant Secretary of Defense Andrew Weber wrote an Op-Ed in The Washington Post in October calling for President Obama to scrap this part of the plan.

“I believe in a safe, secure, and effective nuclear deterrent for the U.S.,” said Weber in Reinvent’s recent video conversation.

“I’m proud of some of the efforts that the Obama administration made to reverse decades of neglect in our nuclear arsenal. That said, I think we have some real opportunities moving forward to think more about types of nuclear weapons…Bill Perry and I would like President Obama, in his last year, to challenge the world, all of the nuclear weapons-possessors, to either forego or eliminate this particularly dangerous class of nuclear weapons.”

In 2013, advocacy organization Global Zero polled 70 members of Congress about the size of the U.S. nuclear weapons arsenal. Ninety-nine percent didn’t even get close to the correct number (which is more than 7,000). And in a 2004 poll, fewer than 20 percent of Americans guessed that we had more than 1,000 weapons.

“You need a groundswell of support from the constituencies in the United States in order to enact political change,” said Terryn.

“The challenge is that Millennials don’t think of nuclear weapons as a realistic concern right now. When I left policy school to come into the nuclear field and told my friends I would be working on nuclear weapons policy, they said, ‘We still have those?’…When people realize this is an existential threat, and maybe the biggest threat to human life we have, that can motivate political change.”

The perception that nuclear weapons are a 20th-century problem is a dangerous one, because it becomes much more difficult to gain enough momentum for substantive policy change.

“There is no real consciousness—particularly among young people, but really young and old alike, that we have as many nuclear weapons as we have, and that the dangers we face are not only from our enemies who have them, but from the weapons themselves,”

said Walsh.

Of the roughly 16,000 nuclear weapons in the world, around 93% are owned by the U.S. and Russia.

In 2012, then Senator and future Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel, Ambassador Thomas Pickering, and Vice Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General James Cartwright, among others, signed a report advocating for a reduction of the nuclear arsenal to around 900 weapons.

“The world has changed, but the current arsenal carries the baggage of the cold war,” General Cartwright told The New York Times. “What is it we’re really trying to deter? Our current arsenal does not address the threats of the 21st century.” An approach to nuclear weapons policy that isn’t primarily focused on “keeping up” with other countries could help prevent potentially destabilizing arms racing and brinksmanship.

“I’d like to get away from the thinking that numerical values are the most important thing,” said Terryn.

“I’d like to focus more on strategic stability in a broader sense. That’s looking at the nuclear arsenal, but not just how many weapons we have—looking at variety, flexibility of the delivery systems, command and control, intelligence, conventional weapons, economic deterrents—taking that entire approach to strategic stability, instead of what we often see in the halls of Congress, which is, ‘Does Russia have one more nuclear weapon than we do, and does that mean we’re all going to die?’”

Members of the U.S. military called “missileers” sit underground and guard our intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) silos. Low morale among missileers, including cheating on nuclear training tests, has been a problem for decades, and can have potentially disastrous consequences. “Being a missileer means that your worst enemy is boredom,” one such missileer wrote in a 2011 article in Wired. “No battlefield heroism, no medals to be won. The duty is seen today as a dull anachronism.” (Another tidbit from the article: the missileers sitting underground right now, who hold the fate of the world in their hands, very well may be wearing Snuggies).

“Is this really a fixable problem?” asked Walsh. “We’ve had this for decades now, and it seems structural.” Mistakes among missileers often lead to more regulation and testing, Walsh said, which adds more pressure, thus leading to more failed tests and even lower morale.

“I think some of that is inevitable,” said Christine Parthemore, an international affairs fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. Parthemore pointed out that while it’s difficult to trump the appeal of fields like cyber and space among newly enlisted servicemen and women, the Department of Defense continues to work towards boosting missileer morale and improving performance.

“A lot of the focus in the last two years in particular has been on how to take the pressure off these young men and women. Going back on the notion that testing them more and applying more and more pressure is the way to go…Taking some of the stress off while maintaining very high standards is a really hard thing to balance, but I think the department is trying.”

When it comes to nuclear weapons, the U.S. has gotten lucky more than once. While the military has made adjustments to procedures after accidents and mistakes, “accident” and “mistake” aren’t words you want associated with nuclear weapons in the first place.

“There was an instance [in 1980] in which a wrench was dropped in a silo. It detonated a missile and it actually flew off,” said Terryn. One airman died and 23 people were injured.

“After that, we stopped using liquid fuel. We had another instance [in 1961] in which a live nuclear weapon was dropped on North Carolina. Luckily it didn’t detonate. Three out of four of the failsafes failed but one worked, and that’s why we still have 50 states. After that, we stopped flying live alerts.”

Author of Command and Control (and past Reinvent roundtable participant) Eric Schlosser, who revealed North Carolina’s near-miss in 2013, estimates there were at least 700 accidents related to nuclear weapons between 1950 and 1968 alone.

Walsh reiterated the dual potential of these weapons: to protect and destroy. It’s like buying a handgun and keeping it in the bedroom for protection, Walsh said. The gun might enable you to protect yourself, but there are also risks to having a handgun in your home. In order to jumpstart a broader conversation about the pros and cons of modernization, it’s imperative that we elevate public consciousness about the inherent dangers of nuclear weapons.

“In this election season,” Walsh said, “we should be asking presidential candidates, Democratic and Republican alike, what their views are, and challenging them to explain why they think the choices they’re making will make us safer.”

It seems that matters are coming to a head in the Middle East. For many states, the coming period will likely prove to be the moment in which they determine their futures — as well as that for the region as a whole.

The immediate peg for “crunch time” is Russia’s fast-track proposal of a conference to be held in Sochi, with the near-full kaleidoscope of Syrian opposition invited, which, if all goes as planned, might mean 1,000 delegates arriving in Sochi as soon as Nov. 18.

The Syrian government has agreed to attend. Of course, when one hears of attendance in these numbers, it suggests that this is not intended as a “sleeves rolled-up” working session, but rather as a meeting in which Russian thoughts will be mooted on the constitution, the system of government, and the place of “minorities” – with a chaser that Russia wants fresh elections pretty darned quick: which is to say, in six months’ time. In short, this is to be the “last chance saloon” for opposition figures: come aboard now, or be shut out, in the cold.

Image: President Trump meets with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Israel on May 22, 2017. (Screenshot from Whitehouse.gov)

This initiative has plenty of push behind it, including President Putin’s personal endorsement, but no guarantee of success. Both Iran and Turkey (the co-guarantors of Astana) privately may have reservations, not knowing precisely what Moscow might unveil. Iran is insistent on Syria retaining a strong centralized government, and Turkey is likely to worry about whether the Kurds might receive too much from Moscow; it will also have reservations about sitting down with the YPD (Syrian Kurds), which it views to be little more than a re-branded PKK, which Turkey regards as a terrorist organization. If Turkey does pull out, it will take an important slice of the opposition with it.

Critical moments in history, however, do have a habit of proving to be less critical than first imagined, but this one effectively marks the beginning of the winding up process of the Syrian war and of the 20-year “New Middle East” project (as devised by the U.S. and Israeli governments). How each state responds, will determine the Middle East landscape for the next years.

Military Mop-up 

Late last week, the Syrian army took the rest of Deir Ezzor city, and with it its rear now secure, the Syrian army is free to continue the 30 or so kilometers to reach Abu Kamal (al-Bukumal) – the last ISIS urban outpost – and the vital border crossing on the Euphrates with Iraq.  It is estimated that there may be 3,500 Da’esh (another name for the Islamic State or ISIS) in Abu Kamal. But Abu Kamal’s “twin” (on the Iraqi side of the border), al-Qaim, was taken by the Iraqi government’s PMU militia forces on Friday. The Iraqi forces are now clearing the city of its estimated 1,500 Da’esh fighters.

The Syrian army, backed up by several thousand recently injected Hezbollah forces, is poised to enter Abu Kamal in the coming days from two directions – and from the south, a co-ordinated thrust north up and into Abu Kamal by the Iraqi Hash’d a- Sha’abi (PMU) militia, will form a pincer.

American-supported SDF (Syrian Democratic Forces), however, are also trying to reach Abu Kamal from the east (the U.S., pressured by Israel, would like to seal and close the border crossing). U.S. allied forces can move more quickly, as U.S. officers are seeking to bribe local tribal leaders who formerly had sworn allegiance to ISIS (with Saudi money), to switch sides, or at least to allow the SDF forces to advance unhindered by ISIS (as happened in the environs of Deir Ezzor).

In short, the military outcome in Syria is done (after six years of war), and now comes the political bargaining. How this plays out will determine the relative strengths of the forces that will shape the Middle East in the coming years. The outcome will likely see whether Turkey can be bullied back towards NATO (by threats such as that by General Petr Pavel, head of NATO’s military committee, warning of “consequences” for Turkey’s attempts to buy Russian air defenses), or whether Turkey’s determination to limit Kurdish aspirations will see Turkey position itself alongside Iran and Iraq (who share a common interest).

Turkey’s role in Idlib, in overseeing the de-escalation zone there, remains opaque. Effectively, its forces are positioned more to control the Afrin Kurdish “canton” (rather than monitor the Idlib de-escalation zone). It is possible that President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is hoping to use Turkish troops to carve out a buffer zone along the Turkish-Syrian border – in contravention to the Astana understandings. If so, this will place him at odds with both Moscow and Damascus (but will not necessarily imply a return to the NATO camp, either).

Syria’s Future

The bargaining at Sochi will also make clearer whether Syria will be a strong centralized state (as Iran prefers), or a looser federal state as America (and perhaps Russia) would prefer. Sochi will be something of a litmus for the extent to which American influence can shape outcomes in today’s Middle East. At present, it looks as if there is co-ordination between Moscow and Washington for a speedy political settlement in Syria, a U.S. declaration of victory over ISIS, Syrian elections, and an American exit from the Syrian theatre.

The outcome of the conference will also perhaps clarify whether the Syrian Kurds finally will remain with the U.S. CentCom project for retaining a permanent U.S. presence in northeast Syria (as Israel wants), or whether the Syrian Kurds will cut a deal with Damascus (after witnessing the crushing of the Barzani Kurdish independence project by neighboring powers).

Image: Russian President Vladimir Putin addresses UN General Assembly on Sept. 28, 2015. (UN Photo)

If the latter occurs, the argument for retaining a longer-term U.S. presence in northeast Syria would lose force. The Saudis will have either to accept defeat in Syria, or act the party-pooper (by trying to re-ignite the remaining proxy forces in Idlib) – but, for that, the kingdom would need Turkey’s compliance, and that may not be forthcoming.

Iraq too, irked by U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson’s comments suggesting that the PMU are Iranian – and must “go home” – has already shown signs of re-orientating towards Russia. (It has recently signed an expansive energy and economic protocol with Russia – after having reclaimed control of its borders and of Iraq’s energy resources – and is procuring Russian arms). Evidence of Iraq’s close connections with Syria, Turkey and Iran was very manifest in the quick execution of the put-down to the Kurdish independence gambit.

But the state facing the biggest dilemma in respect to the Syrian outcome is Israel. Alex Fishman, the doyen of Israeli defense columnists, has written that Israel simply has failed to adjust to strategic change, and is locked in a narrow “cold war” mentality:

“The Syrians fire rockets at open areas: Israel destroys Syrian cannons in response; the Iranians threaten to deploy Shiite forces in Syria: Israel announces ‘red lines’ and threatens a military conflict; Fatah and Hamas hold futile talks on a unity government: the prime minister declares Israel is suspending talks with the Palestinans – and everyone here applauds the security and political echelons: – ‘there, we showed them the meaning of deterrence’, [the Israeli leadership repeats].

“But what we are seeing here is a provincial defense policy, a false representation of a leadership that barely sees beyond the tip of its nose, and is busy putting out fires day and night.

“It’s a leadership that sees national security through a narrow regional viewpoint. It’s as if everything beyond Hezbollah, Hamas and Iran doesn’t exist. It’s as if the world around us hasn’t changed in the past decades, and we are stuck in the era of aggressive solutions in the form of reward and punishment as the main political-security activity. The current political-security echelon isn’t solving problems, isn’t dealing with problems, but simply postponing them, passing them on to the next generation”

Missing the Strategic Picture 

What Fishman is pointing to is profound: Israel has gained some tactical victories in the neighborhood (i.e. over the Palestinians generally, and in weakening Hamas), but it has lost sight of the wider strategic picture. In effect, Israel has lost its ability to dominate the region. It had wanted a weakened and fragmented Syria; it had wanted a Hezbollah mired in the Syrian mud, and an Iran circumscribed by Sunni sectarian antipathy towards the Shi’a generally. It is unlikely to get any of these.

Rather, Israel finds itself being deterred (rather than doing the deterring) by the knowledge that it cannot now overturn its strategic weakness (i.e. risk a three-front war) – unless, and only if, America will fully enter into any conflict, in support of Israel. And this is what worries the security and intelligence echelon: Would America now contemplate a decisive intervention on behalf of Israel – unless the latter’s very survival was at risk?

In 2006, Israeli officials recall, the U.S. did not enter Israel’s war against Hizbullah in Lebanon, and after 33 days, it was Israel that sought a ceasefire.

Fishman is right too that attacking Syrian factories and radar positions “out of old habit” solves nothing. It may be sold to the Israeli public as “deterrence,” but rather it is playing with fire. Syria has started to fire back with aged surface-to-air missiles (S200s) at Israeli aircraft. These missiles may not have hit an Israeli jet yet, and maybe were not even intended so to do. The Syrian message however, is clear: these missiles may be old, but they have a longer range than the newer S300: Potentially, their range is sufficient to reach Ben Gurion Airport outside Tel Aviv.

Are the Israelis sure that Syria and Hezbollah don’t have more modern missiles? Are they certain that Iran or Russia will not provide them such? The Russian defense minister was very angry on his visit to Tel Aviv to have been faced with an Israeli retaliatory air attack on a Syrian radar and missile position – as a welcome gift on landing in Israel. To his protests, his Israeli counterpart, Defense Minister Lieberman condescendingly said that Israel needed nobody’s advice in respect to Israel’s security. General Sergey Shoygu reportedly was not amused.

Can Israel come to terms with its new strategic situation? It seems not. Ibrahim Karagul, a Turkish political commentator and an authoritative voice of President Erdogan, writing in Yeni Safak, notes that “the foundations of a new disintegration [and] division are being laid in our region. Saudi Arabia’s ‘We are switching to moderate Islam’ announcement contains a dangerous game. The U.S.-Israel axis is forming a new regional front line.”

Karagul continues:

“We have been watching the strange developments in Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Egypt, Israel and the U.S. for some time now. There is a new situation in the region, which we know is [principally aimed] against Iran; but has recently taken an open anti-Turkey state, aimed at limiting Turkey’s influence in the region … You will see, the ‘moderate Islam’ announcement will be immediately followed by a sudden and unexpected strengthening of Arab nationalism. This wave will not differentiate between Shiite or Sunni Arabs, but it will isolate the Muslim Arab world from the entire Muslim world.

“This separation will be felt most by the Shiite Arabs in Iraq. With this new block, Iraq and Iran are going to stage a new power showdown [i.e. will react forcefully to counter it]. Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi’s future in power is also most likely going to [become contingent on the outcome to] this showdown.”

An American ‘Buy-in’

To give this project American “buy-in,” Israel and Saudi Arabia are focusing it on Lebanese Hezbollah, which the U.S. has declared to be a terrorist entity though the movement was part of Lebanon’s government, which was headed by Prime Minister Saad Hariri until he ominously resigned today in an announcement made in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. (Hariri is a dual Saudi-Lebanese national.)

Saudi State Minister for Gulf Affairs Thamer al-Sabhan (in Beirut last week) called for“toppling Hezbollah” and promised “astonishing” developments in “the coming days. Those who believe that my tweets are a personal stance, are delusional … the coming developments will definitely be astonishing.”

Al-Sabhan added that the kingdom’s escalation against Hezbollah could take several forms that would

“definitely affect Lebanon. Politically, it might target the government’s relations with the world. At the economic and financial levels, it could target commercial exchange and funds, and militarily it might involve the possibility of a strike on Hizbullah by the U.S.-led coalition, which labels Hizbullah a terrorist organization.”

(Comment: this latter point probably was made more in hope, than in expectation. Europe and the U.S. set considerable store on maintaining Lebanon as stable).

Karagul reflects further on this U.S.-Gulf-Israeli initiative:

“The moderate Islam project was tried the most in Turkey. We always said this is ‘American Islam’ and opposed it. The February 28 military intervention is the product of such a project. It was implemented by the U.S./Israel extreme right-wing and their partners on the inside. The Fetullah Terrorist Organization (FETO) is the product of such a project, and the Dec. 17/25 and July 15 attacks were made for this very reason. They were all aimed at trapping Turkey within the U.S./Israel axis.

“But Turkey’s local and national resistance has overcome them all. Now they are burdening Saudi Arabia with the same mission. That is how they are making it appear. I do not think that it is possible for Saudi Arabia to undertake such a mission. This is impossible both in terms of the regime’s character and its social structure. This is impossible because of the ‘Israel/U.S. sauce’.

“The discourse of making the switch to moderate Islam will cause serious confusion in the Saudi administration and grave social reactions. The actual conflict is going to take place within Saudi Arabia. Also, the Riyadh administration has no chance of exporting something to the region or setting an example.

“Especially once it is further revealed that the project is security-based, that a new front line has been formed, that it is all planned by the U.S.-Israel, it will result in a fiasco. This project is suicide for Saudi Arabia, it is a destruction plan; it is a plan that will destroy it unless it comes to its senses.”

Karagul makes the point well: the attempt to make Islam in the Christian “Westphalian” image has a disastrous history. The metaphysics of Islam are not those of Christianity. And Saudi Arabia cannot be made “moderate” by Mohammad bin Salman just ordering it. It would entail a veritable cultural revolution to shift the basis of the kingdom, away from the rigors of Wahhabism to some secularized Islam.

More War?

Where is this taking the Middle East: to conflict? Maybe. But Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is not noted for his audacity: he his noted more for rhetoric which often has proved empty; and Israeli security officials are being cautious, but both sides are preparing against the possibility of what Karagul calls a “great power showdown.” It looks, though – from this and other Turkish statements – as if Turkey will be with Iran and Iraq, and standing against America and Saudi Arabia.

And President Trump? He is wholly (and understandably) preoccupied with the low-intensity war being waged against him at home. He probably tells Netanyahu whatever it is that might advance his domestic battles (in Congress, where Netanyahu has influence). If Bibi wants a fiery speech at the U.N. berating Iran, then, why not? Trump can then call on the trifecta of White House generals to “fix it” (just as he did with JCPOA, passing it to Congress “to fix”), knowing that the generals do not want a war with Iran.

The danger is a “black swan.” What happens if Israel goes on attacking the Syrian army and industrial premises in Syria (which is happening almost daily) – and Syria does shoot down an Israeli jet?

Alastair Crooke is a former British diplomat who was a senior figure in British intelligence and in European Union diplomacy. He is the founder and director of the Conflicts Forum.

Image: Art by W. B. Park

Trump touched down in Hawaii on his way to Asia.  He was met with protests there and huge marches are happening across South Korea in anticipation of his meeting with the newly elected President Moon in Seoul.

Moon is turning out to be a disappointment to peaceniks across Korea as he carries water for the US imperial project.  It’s a clear sign that those supposedly in charge in South Korea are not.  They are at the mercy of Washington and the military industrial complex.

China during the last couple of days sent nuclear bombers bumping up with the coast of Guam in a certain statement before Trump visits Beijing.  Just weeks ago, while speaking at the UN, Trump blasted socialism as a failed system – many taking it as a shot across China’s bow before his trip there.  China has fired back showing the Donald that two can play the nuclear ‘fire and fury’ ball game.

Beijing has repeatedly warned the US that if Washington decides to ‘decapitate’ North Korea then China will be forced to come into the war to stop the US invasion of the north.

North Korea borders both China and Russia and neither of those nations can afford to allow an aggressive US military outpost in the northern region of the Korean peninsula.  It’s a deal breaker to use Trumpian lingo.

Trump’s Asia-Pacific sales trip will take him to Japan (to meet with the fascist Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, grandson of an imperial Japanese war criminal), South Korea, China, Vietnam (where the US is trying to cut a deal get to permission to use the Cam Ranh Bay Navy base), and the Philippines (where the US is once again porting its warships at Subic Bay after being kicked out in 1992).

Trump’s primary job is to hold the line as anti-American fervor sweeps the Asia-Pacific.  US base expansions in Okinawa and South Korea has fueled popular resistance to the Obama-Clinton era ‘pivot’ of 60% of American military forces into the region which requires more ports-of-call, more airfields and more barracks for US troops.  With these base expansions comes environmental degradation, dramatically increased noise pollution, GI disrespect and mistreatment of local citizens, stealing of lands from farm and fishing communities, Pentagon arrogance about its control over host governments and many other local grievances.  Washington is not interested in hearing about, or seriously negotiating, these deep concerns thus the official Pentagon response is more bluster and domination which only fuels the fires of domestic rage.

The US military is the loaded gun placed at the head of all Asia-Pacific nations – you either comply with Washington’s economic demands or this instrument of destruction will be used.  The cancerous US military occupation of the region has nothing to do with defending the American people. The Pentagon defends corporate ‘interests’ which require a submissive region.

The US is in a bind as its imperil project collapses overseas and at home.  Trump’s ‘Make American Great Again’ mantra are code words to restore the empire’s prestige and domination.  But there is no going back – like white supremacy at home, those days are long gone.

The US’s only option is to close its more than 800 military bases around the world and bring its occupation troops home.  Learn to get along with others and bury the idea that America is the master race – the ‘exceptional’ nation.

The other option is World War III which would go nuclear in a cold hard flash. No one wins that one.

The American people ought to wise up and see the writing on the wall.  But they’d need a real media to share with them the true feelings of the occupied people around the world and we don’t have that – ours is a subservient media that promotes only corporate interests to US citizens.

Plus the American people would need to care about other people around the world – human solidarity has largely been beaten out of the hearts of our citizenry. Even most liberals currently babble the anti-Russian recycled red-baiting being fomented by elected Democrats in the hardened halls of Washington.

There is no escaping the sad fact that it will be a brutal collapse for America and it is surely coming.

On October 4, four US Special Forces soldiers died in clashes in the West African country of Niger during a routine reconnaissance mission near the border with Mali. While hobby pastor Donald Trump turned via telephone to the mourning widow of one of the four killed soldiers with the empathetic words “He knew what he signed up for”, most Americans probably wondered where Niger was located in the first place (and in case they are no geography nerds like the author, they are forgiven).

The second and even more glaring question, I assume, was the following: “What the hell are we doing in Niger?” Most Americans were probably also more than surprised to find out that the US has deployed a total of 800 soldiers in the Nigerian desert.

The rank and file of the US Empire

The uproar about the dead from Niger sparked a debate on the global US military presence, which quickly showed that the hundreds of troops in Niger are just the tip of the iceberg and pale against the global contingent. On the Pentagon website, there is a quarterly updated Excel chart that meticulously lists all troop deployments. In the process, it brings to light astonishing facts.

The US has deployed a total of 240,000 troops in at least 172 countries around the world. As a reminder, there are only 194 countries on the globe (193 UN members plus Palestine), so in 89 percent of these countries, the US military has a presence.

If we want to remember one important number in 2017, it certainly is this: 172 countries.

The list is led by Japan with 39,980 troops spread across a hefty number of 84 US military bases. As part of the more than 130,000 troops of the US Pacific Fleet, “the Japanese” are thus the spearhead of the world war against China – the global Sword of Damocles in the coming years and decades.

The US Pacific Fleet, with its more than 130,000 troops, is the spearhead of a potential confrontation with China. Here you see 42 ships and submarines during the RIMPAC exercise in 2014. (IMAGE: US Pacific Fleet, Flickr, licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0).

The Second country on the list is Germany with 36,034 troops stationed in 38 US military bases. And that is 72 years after the end of World War II and 27 years after German reunification.

In total there are 19 countries on this globe with at least 1,000 US troops stationed. In addition to Afghanistan and Iraq, harboring together 19,567 troops, the repressive and partly fascist oil dictatorships of the Gulf region are mainly among these. With Italy, the UK, Spain and even Austria, as well as dozens of smaller country contingents, tens of thousands of US soldiers are stationed all over Europe as well, with their headquarters in Stuttgart, Germany.

After Japan, the actual second place, when adding deployed civilian Pentagon staff, goes to a rather unexpected “country”: UNKNOWN.

What exactly lies behind these 51,490 ghosts, we can all fantasize about ourselves. I suspect that they are Special Forces operating outside of the regular mechanisms and protocols, perhaps infiltrated into high cadres in Iran or hiding somewhere in the forests around Moscow. Or to use the loving words of the German Interior Secretary Thomas de Maizière: Part of these answers would unsettle the population.

The endless war

The US Empire is the most powerful empire in human history. But it is inevitably going to crumble in the decades to come.

In the medium term, China will overtake the US in all areas – economy, trade, finance, technology, spaceflight, top-level research, politics, diplomacy, development aid, infrastructure – or has already done so, as in the field of global trade.

Only in the area of culture, there is no end in sight for global US dominance. China is simply “uncool” – as Foreign Policy put it.

A Chinese defence base in the South China Sea, pictured under construction last year.

Basically, the current US supremacy is sustained by a single pillar: its military. And thus, by the daunting, unwavering willingness demonstrated over the last 100 years to not only threaten with military retaliation, but to use it against every country which dares to substantially resist Washington. Whether big or small, poor or rich, ally or enemy, it plays no role here.

With the attacks of September 11, the subsequent proclamation of the Axis of Evil, and the beginning of the Global War on Terror, we entered a new age. Just as there is a time before and after Christ, there seems to be an era before and after 9/11.

It is the age of the endless war. Endless, not only because it is unlimited in time, but also because its effect permanently recreates its cause and thus it keeps itself alive.

A self-fulfilling prophecy: In 2000, worldwide a total of 405 people were killed by terror attacks. In 2014 that number escalated to 32,727 killed, an 81-fold increase in 14 years of supposed war on terror. Endless, moreover, because it is by definition impossible to end it victoriously. There has always been and will always be terrorism, at least as long as there is no change in the basic mechanisms of how living together in this world is organized. But terror cannot be overcome with military force.

Enemies can be extinguished. But terrorism is not a physical enemy, it is a military strategy, a tactic. Just as boxer XYZ can be defeated, but not the left uppercut as such, bin Laden can be defeated, but not terrorism as such.

After Donald Trump fired 59 Tomahawk missiles on the Shayrat Airbase in Syria on April 7th, he still remembered every detail of the chocolate cake he ate together with China’s President Xi while commanding the strikes, but he thought he had just bombed the Iraq, not Syria. (IMAGE: U.S. Navy, Robert S. Price, Wikimedia Commons, published under public domain.)

But the US as a patron saint of this ideology is doing everything in their power to ensure we keep chasing this phantom. They are blundering into one deceptively so-called anti-terror war after the other. From classic invasions, such as in Iraq and Afghanistan, via air warfare such as in Libya and the IS territories, through to shadow warfare under the radar of the public, as in the Philippines or West Africa, with Yemen, Syria, Somalia, Pakistan somewhere in between these limit values. Or with (still) merely cyber warfare as in Iran or North Korea.

The appropriate war model is imposed on each country – and 240,000 soldiers in 172 countries will ensure that every country in the world can easily be next in line. A sprawling global network without democratic control or debate serves as a permanent threatening gesture towards potential adversaries.

With a mentally ill, hate-filled, ultranationalistic, all-militaristic and megalomaniac narcissist for four or even eight years in the White House, it is certainly hard to imagine a non-bloody scenario for the 21st Century, which is the scenario of a shrunken giant that landed with only a few bruises and a few broken ribs on an equal footing in the multipolar world.

With Donald Trump, dropping the Mother of All Bombs, not even knowing which country he has just bombed, sadly, it is easier to imagine a global fireball. But the hope of an end to war as a political tool is palpable everywhere.

It is in the reason of the US population, and in that of all other countries in the world. It is in the peaceable minds of the billions of people on this globe.

It is in the protest of these people against their political leaders.

Defense Secretary James Mattis and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on October 30 that the Trump administration has all the legal authority it needs to kill people anywhere in the world. But just in case Congress wishes to update its old Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF), Mattis and Tillerson told them how to do it: Write a blank check to the president.

The October 4 killings of four US soldiers on a “routine training mission” in Niger brought the committee’s hearing into sharper focus. It turns out the presence of these troops in Niger was unlawful.

Mattis claimed the four dead US soldiers were just there on a train-and-advise mission. “I think it was reasonable to think they could go out there and train these [Niger] troops without the idea they’re going into direct combat; but” he admitted, “that’s not a complete answer. I need to wait until I get the investigation to fully appraise it.”

Derek Gannon, a former Green Beret, said, “[US military involvement in Africa] is called Low Intensity Irregular Warfare, yet technically, it’s not considered war by the Pentagon. But,” he added, “warfare is warfare to me.”

Mattis insisted that Title 10 of the US Code grants authority for train-and-advise missions anywhere in the world. But the War Powers Resolution (WPR), passed by Congress in the wake of the Vietnam War, specifies that the president’s authority to order US troops into hostilities cannot be inferred from any provision of law that does not specifically authorize the use of US forces in hostilities. And Title 10 does not.

The WPR allows the president to introduce US Armed Forces into hostilities or imminent hostilities in only three situations:

First, after Congress has declared war, which has not happened since World War II. Second, in “a national emergency created by attack upon the United States, its territories or possessions, or its armed forces,” which had not occurred prior to the killings of the US troops in Niger. And third, when there is “specific statutory authorization,” such as an Authorization for the Use of Military Force.

In the 2001 AUMF, Congress authorized the president to use military force against individuals, groups and countries that had supported the 9/11 attacks.  Congress rejected the George W. Bush administration’s request for open-ended military authority “to deter and preempt any future acts of terrorism or aggression against the United States.” That AUMF does not authorize US military action in Niger against ISIS, which didn’t even exist in 2001 when Congress issued it.

The WPR requires the president to report to Congress within 48 hours of introducing US forces into hostilities. That report must explain the circumstances necessitating the introduction of US Armed Forces, the constitutional and statutory authority for the deployment, and the estimated scope and duration of the hostilities or involvement.

Many in Congress, including Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina) and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-New York), were not aware there are currently 800 US troops stationed in Niger. Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Virginia) told the New York Times, “I don’t think Congress has been completely kept up to date.”

The president must withdraw the troops within 60 days of initiating the use of military force unless Congress declares war or provides a “specific authorization.” Congress has not specifically authorized US troops to fight ISIS in Niger.

Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tennessee), chairperson of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, stated at the hearing that Congress has been notified of troop deployments around the world, including the buildup in Niger, and has responded by funding the Department of Defense.

According to the Congressional Research Service, “Congress has shaped US engagement with Niger and the US military footprint in the country through its authorization and appropriation of funding for US security cooperation and assistance programs, and through its authorization of funding for US military construction.”

Corker cited Trump’s June 27 notice to Congress identifying 19 countries in which US military personnel are deployed and equipped for combat. They include Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Somalia, Libya, Kenya, Cameroon, Uganda, South Sudan, Democratic Republic of Congo, Central African Republic, Djibouti, Jordan, Turkey, Egypt, Cuba, Kosovo and Niger.

“As Niger proved,” Corker noted, “those forces can find themselves in combat at any moment.”

However, appropriating funds to support a particular operation does not constitute “specific authorization” under the WPR.

The practice of using questionable legal logic to justify military operations is not unique to the Trump administration. In fact, our last president engaged in similar maneuvers.

Barack Obama rationalized his use of military force in several countries with reference to the 2001 AUMF, as well as to a second AUMF issued in 2002.

The 2002 AUMF was granted to Bush by Congress specifically to remove Saddam Hussein from Iraq. That license ended once that purpose was accomplished. So, the 2002 AUMF does not provide a legal basis for US combat troops in Niger either.

Ranking committee member Ben Cardin (D-Maryland) stated at the committee hearing that the 2001 and 2002 AUMFs have now become “mere authorities of convenience for presidents to conduct military activities anywhere in the world,” adding, “They should not be used as the legal justification for military activities around the world.”

Cardin said he voted for the 2001 AUMF, and he “and all of us never intended it would still be used to justify the use of military force against ISIS.”

Now Mattis and Tillerson are attempting to rely on the same two AUMFs to justify US military intervention throughout the world. At the hearing, they also cited the president’s powers under Article II of the Constitution.

Article II states, “The President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States, when called into the actual Service of the United States.” However, Article I specifies that only Congress has the power to declare war. Taken together, the articles convey that the president commands the armed forces once Congress authorizes war.

Under the United Nations Charter, the president can order military interventions, but only in self-defense against an armed attack. That does not apply to the situation in Niger, which was not prosecuted in self-defense in the face of an armed attack against the United States or another UN member nation. Indeed, we have seen no evidence that the people who killed the US troops were with ISIS.

While Mattis and Tillerson maintain that the president already has unfettered power to introduce US troops into hostilities, they testified they would welcome a new AUMF tailored to the use of military force against ISIS. Both secretaries stated that a new AUMF should have no geographical or temporal limitations and the 2001 and 2002 AUMFs should not be repealed until a new one is in place.

In other words, Mattis and Tillerson want Congress to give the president a blank check to make war anytime, anywhere on Earth, as he sees fit. They seek the imprimatur of Congress for perpetual war with the whole world as the president’s battlefield.

However, they are conveniently forgetting that in addition to the WPR, the president must comply with the UN Charter, a treaty the US has ratified. The charter requires that states settle their international disputes peacefully and prohibits the use of military force except in self-defense.

Countries may engage in individual or collective self-defense only in the face of an armed attack. To the extent the United States claims the right to kill suspected terrorists or their allies before they act, there must exist “a necessity of self-defence, instant, overwhelming, leaving no choice of means, and no moment for deliberation,” under the well-established Caroline Case.

The hostilities in Niger that resulted in the deaths of four US troops were not conducted in self-defense. In addition, the deployment of these forces to engage in hostilities was not authorized by any other provision of law, as explained above.

Congress must retain the power to authorize war, which is what the framers intended. They should refrain from relinquishing it to an unpredictable and volatile president.

Copyright, Truthout. Reprinted with permission.

Marjorie Cohn is professor emerita at Thomas Jefferson School of Law, former president of the National Lawyers Guild, deputy secretary general of the International Association of Democratic Lawyers, and a member of the national advisory board of Veterans for Peace. The second, updated edition of her book, Drones and Targeted Killing: Legal, Moral, and Geopolitical Issues, will be published in November. Visit her website: http://marjoriecohn.c om/.