Global Research

I travel frequently to the countries which once made up the now defunct Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, satisfying a passion of mine that stems back to my childhood days. For me, the Balkans’ history, its people and its cultures are both enigmatic and magnetic, as they have been, too, for countless others, of many nationalities, over centuries gone by. 

Accounting for the enchantment of the Balkans, its captivating allure, is a challenge to put into writing. Because no words can truly embellish what is one of the most absorbing parts of the world. To understand and feel what it is to be spellbound by the Balkans requires one to travel extensively across the region, taking in its astounding geographical landscapes and talking, intimately, with its unfathomable inhabitants, whilst indulging in reading about the history of the region – Rebecca West’s classic Black Lamb and Grey Falcon constitutes, in my mind, the Bible of the Balkans, and is unlikely to be surpassed any time soon.

But the pull of the Balkans for individuals like me has also been a pull for empires, both past and present. The problems which have, over centuries, beset the people of the Balkans are overwhelmingly attributable to outsiders who have vied for domination of the region in order to satisfy their lustful self-interests.

This article is not about the empires of the past which sowed the seeds for the pain and suffering of the Balkans and, with this, the deaths of vast numbers of the region’s inhabitants. Nonetheless, it is necessary to cite those malignant empires which inflicted catastrophic damage to the Balkans, the effects, of which, continue to haunt the people of the region to this very day. So the offending empires are the Ottoman, the Austro-Hungarian, the German and the Nazi ones. To explain what happened between Serbs, Croats and Muslims in the twentieth-century requires a thorough understanding of what those pernicious empires did to the lands of the Balkans after they conquered and subdued them.

But for the purposes of this article, I want to focus on the destructive effects that the West’s colonisation of the Balkans has had on the economies and societies in the region.

During the period of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, Serbs, Croats, Muslims, Slovenes, Montenegrins and Macedonians enjoyed a level of security and stability that they had never enjoyed previously. Under the leadership of Josip Broz Tito, Yugoslavia had an education system and a health system that were the envy of many countries in the world, while its economy surpassed, in productivity and prosperity, many capitalist countries in the West. In Yugoslavia, everyone had a job, a decent salary, a home, a guaranteed and healthy state pension and welfare benefits. Homelessness was non-existent in the country, and crime was as alien to Yugoslavs as the Renaissance is to Donald Trump; the simple truth was that most houses and apartments across Yugoslavia did not have locks on their front doors, while serious crimes such as murder and rape and organised crime were unheard of by Yugoslavs – they only encountered these crimes when they visited cities in the West, such as New York, Detroit or Los Angeles.

 The Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia provided a period of respite for the long suffering South Slavs.  In the words of one Macedonian in conversation with this author: “Yugoslavia was a world within a world.  It was paradise.”

yugoslavia 1966 | foundin_a_attic

However, that paradise was turned into hell when Yugoslavia imploded in 1991-1992 as a result of Germany and America having encouraged and supported armed secessionists movements in Slovenia, Croatia and Bosnia and then having recognised the independence of these Yugoslav republics. The actions of Berlin and Washington utterly contravened international law, severely undermining the United Nations Charter and the sanctity of internationally recognised borders. And why did the Germans and the Americans do what they did to Yugoslavia? Because with the end of communism in Eastern Europe, and with the Soviet Union at death’s door, the US and the European Community, as the European Union was back then, and which Germany is the engine of, firstly, no longer required Yugoslavia (during the Cold War, Yugoslavia had played a balancing act between East and West); secondly, they did not want a socialist country in the new Europe; and thirdly, they wanted to ensure that there would be no future Russian influence in the Balkans (from 1990-1991, there was a view in the West that Yugoslavia could turn to the USSR for support in order to guarantee its survival).

The destruction of Yugoslavia by the West shattered most of what had been achieved during Tito’s time. But that was just the beginning for the people in the former Yugoslavia. What followed has taken the Balkans back to being a colony.

Josip Broz Tito in cesar Haile Selassie v Kopru 1959

The colonisation by the US and the EU of Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia, Slovenia, Montenegro and Macedonia has totally eradicated the security and stability that these countries enjoyed when they comprised Yugoslavia. The once envied health and education systems are now just memories, while the once prosperous economy lies in ruins. Homelessness is now widespread and unemployment is at shockingly high levels. The welfare state has been dismantled and state pensions are totally insufficient for people to live on. And organised crime is now a part of everyday life.

Most of the national industries of the former Yugoslav republics have been privatised and sold off to companies in the West or have simply been closed down. Many of the region’s natural resources are in the hands of foreigners, and the workforce of the former Yugoslavia is used as cheap labour by American, British, German and Italian companies. Furthermore, the markets in the former Yugoslavia have been flooded with foreign goods, resulting in domestic suppliers closing down because they simply cannot compete in prices. Coupled with pro-Western puppet governments in power from Ljubljana to Zagreb to Sarajevo to Belgrade to Podgorica and to Skopje, the Balkans is a brutal case in point of twenty-first century colonialism in practice – colonialism of the two empires which now rule the region: the US and the EU.

Recently, I was in Serbia and Bosnia, where I travelled extensively and spoke candidly with locals about the effects of the Balkans being a colony of Washington and Brussels. Each and every time I am in the former Yugoslavia, my heart bleeds for its people who have suffered terribly throughout their history because of outside interference, which has involved them being played off against each other, a tactic that the West has employed in a masterful way in the Balkans since 1991. Dīvide et īmpera is the foundation upon which the West’s subjugation of the former Yugoslavia is built.

In Serbia, today, most people do not have a contract of employment so they do not even have the most rudimentary of workers’ rights. They can be dismissed by their employer for no reason whatsoever and they are not entitled to statutory sick pay or holiday pay. Bullying at the workplace is rife, while salaries are depressingly low – the average salary is approximately 400 EUR per month. A Serb friend of mine, who has a PhD, told me that:

“All of the Tito-era employment legislation, which safeguarded workers’ rights, and which was subsequently protected by Slobodan Milosevic, is today being repealed by the West’s puppet Government in Serbia. Tito and Milosevic both believed that it was the responsibility of Government to ensure employment, with full rights, for its people. And Milosevic said time and again that to be in employment is a fundamental human right and that the rights of workers must be protected by the state.”

With unemployment standing at approximately 30 per cent, together with extremely low salaries and the cost of living rising, people in Serbia are having their electricity and gas supplies cut off, even in the winter months, when they cannot afford to pay the bills. People, including babies, children, the disabled and the elderly, are, literally speaking, freezing to death in their homes. An elderly Serb commented to this author that:

“Leaving people without electricity and gas was unthinkable in Tito’s time. Even if a household was unable to pay the electricity or gas bill in Yugoslavia, which were both very cheap, supplies to it were never cut off.”

The destruction of the Serbian economy, by the Serbian Government, on the orders of Washington and Brussels, is not only causing Serbs to leave the country, in the hope of finding a better future for themselves and their families elsewhere, but is also causing homelessness to explode to shocking levels. People living rough on the streets, once unheard of in Serbia, is now a common sight and especially in Belgrade. Both the Serbian Government and the Serbian Orthodox Church, both of whom are collaborating with western governments and, in turn, with each other, show little concern for the homeless in Serbia. Indeed, when I was in Belgrade last year, I saw a disabled, homeless woman crawling on her feet close to a bus stop, drinking water from a puddle, and a priest waiting for his bus there did not even bat an eyelid at this destitute woman.

Hospitals in Serbia, which during Yugoslavian times were renowned across the world like how today Cuba’s hospitals are, have become symbolic of Serbian society: decaying. There is little investment by the Serbian Government in the health system, and whilst medical care is still free in Serbia (for now), many Serbs choose to travel to adjacent countries, such as Italy or Hungary, to receive treatment which they know will be to a higher standard compared to that back home. A government which does not provide an excellent level of healthcare to its people should not be in power. But then again, the government of Alexander Vucic, like the governments before it, serves only the interests of its masters in Washington and Brussels – the Serbian people are of no importance.

During my stay in Serbia, I travelled to Bosnia and specifically a city called Zvornik, on the Drina river. Upon entering Zvornik, one is confronted with a symbolic sight of what has befallen the former Yugoslavia. On the Serbian side of the Drina, there is a rusting hulk of a factory plant. Whereas in Yugoslav times, that factory provided local employment and contributed significantly to the local economy and, with it, the national economy, too, today it is as quiet as a cemetery – another victim of the breakup of Yugoslavia and the colonisation of the region by the West.

Zvornik is a majority Serb city but with a significant Muslim minority. Both communities there live side by side with one another in peace, as they did in Yugoslav times. But in Zvornik, the people know about the consequences of the West’s rule of Bosnia. In the centre of the city, I observed just how many people – men and women – of working age were sitting in cafes for hours on end in the middle of the day. But then that is neither surprising nor an aberration in Bosnia and Herzegovina because some estimates place the national unemployment figure at more than 50 per cent in this country. Zvornik is a typical example of a Bosnian city which has not moved on for over 25 years; it is stranded in time. Neglected and left to die by its imperial masters.

Whilst I was in Zvornik, I spoke with two delightful elderly ladies, one who was a Serb and the other who was a Muslim, who both recounted to me their memories of Yugoslavia, saying how it was a country that provided to its people everything which they needed to live happy, secure and stable lives. They then contrasted Yugoslavia with Bosnia and Herzegovina, saying that the latter country is dying and its people with it. The Serbian old lady said that:

“My friend and I are not religious but if through prayer Tito would return, we would be in the church and the mosque all the time!”

Shortly before I returned to the UK from Serbia, I made a visit to Novi Sad, the capital of Vojvodina. On the outskirts of this city, I saw factories and construction plants closed down, left to rust at the hands of Mother Nature, on the instructions of Washington and Brussels. Accompanying me to and from Novi Sad was, amongst others, a Kosovan Serb, in her early sixties, who was born and brought up in Kosovo and Metohija. Nothing more demonstrates the antagonism and hatred exhibited by the West towards Serbs than the tearing away from Serbia of the cradle of Serbian civilisation – Kosovo and Metohija – by the US, EU and NATO and then declaring it as “independent”. Never, ever, will Serbs forgive or forget what the West did – and rightly so.

Today in Kosovo and Metohija, Serbs have been reduced to a very small presence and who are overwhelmingly located in the northern city of Mitrovica. Since NATO took control of the Serbian province, Serbs have fled in terror as a result of Albanian pogroms, while the Albanian authorities are complicit in the cultural destruction of Serbian sites, with between 120 and 150 churches and monasteries destroyed, vandalised or turned into toilets by rampaging Albanian mobs.

Whilst the plight of Serbs in Kosovo and Metohija is miserable, the plight of Albanians there is equally as bad. The province is a NATO colony run by organised crime groups with extensive links to its so-called President, Hashim Thaci, a well-known boss of the drug, gun and sex trafficking trades and a notoriously brutal killer. Indeed, he once headed the infamous Drenica organised crime syndicate, the most powerful mafia in the Balkans. Since NATO’s arrival in the province, in 1999, organised crime has become the de facto economy there, so much so that British narcotics police refer to Kosovo as the “Republic of Heroin”.

Kosovo 

With no job prospects, Kosovan Albanians have left the province in huge numbers, taking up jobs in countries such as Britain, France, Germany and Italy. The overall economic situation in the Serbian province is even worse than in the rest of Serbia, with unemployment standing at approximately 40 per cent and with salaries at a dire level – it is believed that 10 per cent of the population are living on less than one dollar per day. On top of that is a, literally speaking, deadly reality facing Kosovo and Metohija’s population: the consequences of NATO aircraft, in 1999, having dropped vast amounts of depleted uranium shells across the entire province, causing a massive increase in cancer rates there (the rest of Serbia is also suffering from this most vile of actions by NATO). So all in all, it is believed that Kosovo and Metohija has incurred a population exodus of approximately 400,000 since the province became a NATO colony.

During my visit to Novi Sad, I asked the Kosovan Serb, whom I was travelling with, about what life was like growing up in Kosovo and Metohija when it was a part of Yugoslavia. She commented that:

“Life was great in Kosovo under Tito, as it was throughout the rest of Yugoslavia. We had super times.  The problems for Serbs in Kosovo began after Tito’s death, when the collective presidency in Yugoslavia proved to be ineffective and the Albanian authorities in Kosovo took advantage of this and started to target us. That was when life became difficult for Serbs in Kosovo.”

When I took my seat on the flight back to London, I had expected to spend the two hour journey reflecting, on my own, about my visit to the Balkans. But what I had not expected was to spend the flight actually talking to my neighbour, in what turned out to be one of the most enjoyable and informative discussions I have had in a long time.

The gentleman seated to my right was a Serb in his early sixties who originally was from Novi Sad but who had emigrated, with his wife and children, to Canada in the late 1990s to build a better life there. We spoke about the appalling and sickening state that not just Serbia is in but that the whole of the former Yugoslavia is in today. And we lamented on how Serbs and everyone else in the Balkans are, once again, under colonial control. My friend, as he now is, spoke fondly and nostalgically of life in Yugoslavia under Tito. He recalled what a wonderfully exciting time it was to be a young Serb in the 1960s and 1970s, with so many opportunities available. Towards the end of our discussion, we pondered whether Serbia and the rest of the Balkans can be saved. We both concurred that the world goes through phases and that history demonstrates anything is possible. Whilst the situation that Serbia, for instance, is in today is absolutely abysmal and getting worse, it will not necessarily always be like this, we said. My new-found friend and I rejoiced in how the Serbian people have, throughout their history, resisted and overcome foreign oppression, from the Ottomans to the Austrians to the Germans and to the Nazis. We agreed that the occupation of Serbia today by the American and EU empires differs from previous empires in the tactics being employed but that the objectives are the same. By the time we touched down in London, I suspect that both of us felt refreshed not just in having spent two hours engaged in a memorable conversation but also in our conviction that the Serbs will, one day, prevail in the face of foreign oppression and, as a result, regain their freedom and independence. Thank you, Milan, for helping to raise my spirits.

So I end this article on an optimistic note: Serbia and the rest of the former Yugoslavia can free themselves from the shackles of Western oppression. The people of this most intriguing and cultured of regions have so much in common and have endured so much together. Today, their lives are extremely painful but by them resisting the policy of divide and rule by the Americans and the Europeans, a better future can lie ahead for them.

I am under no illusions as to how formidable the task is of the Balkans freeing itself from the yoke of Western tyranny. But history has shown that the unthinkable is possible. We must remember that and we must have hope because the alternative for the former Yugoslavia is too horrific to think about.

Dr Marcus Papadopoulos is the publisher and editor of Politics First, a non-partisan publication for the UK Parliament. He holds a PhD in Russian history and specialises in Russia and the rest of the former Soviet Union and the former Yugoslavia.

This article was originally published by BalkansPost.

All images in this article are from the author unless otherwise stated.

As the presstitute media has no allegiance to truth, one has to wonder if we can even believe obituaries.

For what it is worth, perhaps nothing, the presstitutes report that three US aircraft carrier battle groups are off North Korea or on the way there.

What for? Why are the morons in Washington following the 19th century British practice of sending warships? This is juvenile. China has already said that China will allow no attack on North Korea unless Korea strikes first. The Russians have indicated their opposition as well. Both China and Russia have missiles that can wipe out the three aircraft battle groups at will. So what is the point of sending obsolete ships, like the battleships anchored in Pearl Harbor for the Japanese, other than to have them obliterated and to use their demise as an excuse to start World War III?

The two-bit punk Washington puppet, NATO Secretary General Stoltenberg, has declared that

“We recognize that Europe has also entered the North Korean missile range, and NATO member states are already in danger.”

Remember, this was the same lie told about Europe being in range of non-existent Iranian missiles, an excuse for putting US missiles on Russia’s border just as North Korea is being used to put US missiles on China’s border.

We also have the report that Vice President Pence visited the Minot Nuclear missile base and recklessly and irresponsibly told the launch crews:

“We are entering a very dangerous time, and I have come here personally to tell you that you may receive a Launch Order in the near future. I want you to know that we have planned for all contingencies, but it is possible that things may escalate beyond what we believe will take place. If you receive a properly formatted launch order, you launch. Don’t waste time trying to confirm the order, because it is not standard operating procedure for you to delay like that. If you get a launch order, carry it out.”

This irresponsible and reckless statement by a US vice president comes as the Russians celebrate the Soviet military official who refused to believe the Soviet warning system of incoming US nuclear missiles and did not start the process that would have resulted, for a warning system failure, in nuclear Armageddon.

We should be scared to death that US political leaders are so insensitive to the ever present chance of false warnings. The moron Pence is a danger to all of humanity. Pence is not a patriot protectiong us, he is an idiot who should be impeached for his utter and total irresponsibility before he destroys us all.

Go online and read. False nuclear attack alarms were commonplace during the Cold War, but both Washington and Moscow were too responsible to act on them. Now we have an idiot vice president who wants to act on them!

The idiots in Washington have ordered outmoded B-52 bombers to be on 24-hour alert. Why? Not a single one of them could penetrate Russian air defense. What is the purpose of this nonsensical order except to worsen distrust between nuclear powers. What crime is worse than worsening distrust between nuclear powers? Why is Washington completely hooked on criminal behavior? Who is responsible? Why are they not arrested for the endangerment of humanity and life on planet Earth?

Washington’s disregard of urgent warnings from Russia and China is the most extraordinary thing I have experienced in my life.

Why is it that Washington and Washington’s vassals can’t hear when powers capable of destroying all of them clearly state that they have had enough of Washington’s arrogance and hubris? (Source)

This article was originally published by Paul Craig Roberts Institute for Political Economy.

1. Jeff Sessions lied under oath, saying he never met with any Russian official during the Trump presidential campaign. He met the Russian ambassador twice. The GOP impeached Bill Clinton for perjury in what was a minor personal matter, but stand by Sessions despite his perjury regarding a matter of national security. Mueller should indict.

2. Scott Pruitt met with the CEO of Dow Chemical last spring. Twenty days later, he decided not to ban Dow’s chlorpyrifos pesticide from being sprayed on food. The problem with chlorpyrifos is that it can have a negative impact on brain development in fetuses and small children. We should look into whether young Trump was exposed to it or something similar in the late 1940s. Evangelicals, the main support base for Trump, are always going on endlessly about abortion being a genocide and are continually interfering with women’s constitutional right to have one. So you would think they’d be up in arms about a pesticide that could harm an embryo, right? Not so as anyone could tell. Pruitt’s own Environmental Protection Agency scientists have confirmed the dangers of chlorpyrifos but he ignored them. This is child endangerment and child abuse on a massive scale. I’d say, even a high crime and beyond a misdemeanor. Jail time would be appropriate.

3. Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke swung a $300 mn. contract to rebuild Puerto Rico’s electrical grid to a tiny company on the verge of bankruptcy with two employees, Whitefish, which happens to be based in Zinke’s home town. That is corruption pure and simple. Puerto Rico has annulled the contract, quite rightly. Imagine if Trump had tried to treat Houston that way! Somebody should indict.

4. Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin also allegedly perjured himself when he denied that the company he headed, OneWest, engaged in robo-signing (backdating mortgage documents and forging them) even though there are substantial indications that the company did so. Mnuchin is the reincarnation of Ebenezer Scrooge. He actually made people homeless for being 27 cents behind on their mortgage. Now he is seeking one of the largest transfers of wealth to the US rich since the days of Andrew Carnegie.

5. When he was Secretary of Health and Human Services and flying around on million dollar flights at taxpayer expense, Tom Price also spent money earmarked by federal law for encouraging people to sign up for Obamacare on negative ads attempting to discourage them from doing so. Just because Price is out of office doesn’t mean he can’t be indicted. What could be lower than trying to take away people’s health care insurance?

6. Despite promises that he would avoid investments that raised red flags about foreign influence while he was president, Trump is looking at deals in India. If the Indian government of PM Narendra Modi grants these licenses, worth a substantial amount of money, won’t that be an emolument of the sort banned by the constitution?

Except for Sessions, this list has nothing to do with Russian influence on the 2016 presidential race, and probably is actually beyond Mueller’s purview. But somebody should lock these creeps up.

Iraqi commanders in the battle for Hawija have claimed Kurdish Peshmerga forces helped hundreds of Islamic State (IS) group militants to escape the group’s final stronghold in northern Iraq. 

“IS fighters have escaped Hawija via Peshmerga positions and [before the Hawija battle began] the Peshmerga received 160 IS leaders,” said Mahdi Taki, commander of the Hashd al-Shaabi’s 52 Brigade.

“We are getting this information directly from our Peshmerga contacts. There are some bad Peshmerga who love money more than patriotism, and they are taking bribes from IS.”

Hawija was deserted on 5 October after a two-day battle to liberate the town.

Beyond extensively mined roads and premises rigged with IEDs, ground forces had found resistance stripped to a bare minimum of snipers and militants left to man mortar positions or carry out suicide attacks against advancing soldiers.

Before the military reached the town, many hundreds of IS militants and commanders had reportedly fled Hawija, and effectively vanished.

With the area surrounded by Iraq’s combined military forces, the final escape route for IS members was across scrubland towards static Peshmerga positions lining disputed borders then controlled by the Kurdish Regional Government (KRG).

The Peshmerga was the only Iraqi force not to participate in the Hawija offensive, despite having made claims the land is historically Kurdish.

Some 1,000 IS militants reportedly surrendered to Peshmerga forces, Kurdish security officials have reported, while Iraqi forces continued to liberate Hawija and the surrounding areas.

Hawija’s IS wali (governor) had told militants to surrender to the Peshmerga rather than risk being killed by the advancing Iraqi forces, one IS militant held by the Peshmerga at a screening centre in the border town of Dibis told the New York Times. 

But Iraqi commanders leading the Hawija front lines told MEE that many more IS leaders, fighters and families had bribed the Peshmerga to be allowed to pass freely into Iraqi Kurdistan.

“According to our intelligence sources, we estimate that in total 3,000 IS – including leaders, fighters and families have gone to the Peshmerga from Tal Afar, Hawija and the surrounding areas,” said another Hashd al-Shaabi commander, speaking on condition of anonymity.

“IS leaders and fighters are mainly going to Erbil, and IS families have mainly relocated to Kirkuk, all pretending to be normal civilians.”

Some local Hashd al-Shaabi units stationed in and around Kirkuk, who have longstanding relationships with the Peshmerga, said prices for fleeing militants started at $1,000 for an ordinary fighter and $2,000 for a family, with senior IS leaders paying considerably more, apparently up to $10,000.

According to intelligence received by senior sources in the Hashd al-Shaabi, a company based in Kirkuk known as Khalid’s Office ran a sideline in helping militants plan their escape.

For any IS member with $1,000, a car, a weapon, or even a herd of sheep, a few phone calls to Khalid’s Office was apparently all it took for an IS member to organise his escape into Iraqi Kurdistan.

Once he had arrived at a checkpoint near Dibis, just 20 kilometres from the oil-rich city of Kirkuk, he either handed over a wad of cash or items of value, and was then allowed to freely pass, and from there go to Erbil or elsewhere in the KRG, the sources say. This checkpoint is now controlled by Iraqi forces, after they took control of the disputed Kirkuk province earlier this month.

“This was a good chance for the Peshmerga because they have no money, and only limited weapons,” said an Iraqi army major.

The KRG has received no budget from Baghdad for more than three years, and Peshmerga fighters currently receive only 75 percent of their wages, payments which are routinely delayed, according to Kurdish officials.

As the KRG is only semi-autonomous, official arms imports for the Peshmerga still have to go through Baghdad, which has been accused of co-opting military supplies intended for the KRG.

IS militants were still fleeing towards Kurdistan even as Hawija fell, pursued by the Iraqi forces. The bodies of three IS militants, horribly contorted, rotted in their crumpled vehicle on a northbound road heading towards Kirkuk, after the Toyota was destroyed by the Iraqi army.

A few miles further north, in a remote rural spot, were the bodies of two IS members killed when trying to flee on foot. Federal Police had killed three and arrested a further two in the remote spot, a local said.

Repeated attempts to seek comment from Peshmerga officials were unsuccessful.

Relationship of convenience 

Several Iraqi commanders claimed that the relationship between IS fleeing from Hawija and Tal Afar and the Peshmerga was not a new one.

“When operations started, IS started running to the Peshmerga and this continues even up to now,” said commander of Hashd al-Shaabi’s Brigade Number Four, Ali al-Heideri.

“And this is not the first time the Peshmerga have been together with IS. It was exactly the same with [the battle for] Tal Afar.”

He claimed recent incidents were merely an extension of a long-standing relationship which had been ongoing during the three and a half years that IS controlled an area of Iraq.

“In the past, most IS fighters coming from Syria and going to Tal Afar were paying the Peshmerga to enter Iraq through Kurdistan but, in the last days of the battle, they were free to come and go without paying,” he said.

Heideri also claimed that the KRG not only welcomed IS but any militants in the region who were looking for refuge, saying they were allowed to live freely in the semi-autonomous state. Thousands of exiled Iranian Kurds, many of whom are wanted by the Iranian government for subversive activities, currently live in Iraqi Kurdistan.

“The Peshmerga has opened their front-lines to accept IS running from here,” said commander of the Hashd al-Shaabi’s Imam Ali Brigade, Sheikh Kareem Harkani, after the liberation of Hawija.

“It was the Peshmerga who gave IS to Iraq in the beginning, with most of them coming here from Turkey via Dohuk, so they’re leaving the same way they entered.”

In Iraq, the KRG is widely believed to have struck deals with IS, to secure its territory from attacks from the militant group. For three years, IS controlled extensive oil infrastructure in Iraq and funded their activities on the profits of illegal oil sales.

Gesturing towards the horizon of burning oil wells, Hawija local councillor Nurhan Mizhir al-Assi said:

“It was Kurdish oil trucks that came here under IS and drove the oil to Turkey. Civilians who stayed here told us exactly what was happening.”

A future allegiance?  

Iraq’s Federal Police deputy commander Abu Theraham al-Moutour said intelligence reports confirmed that some 500 IS militants had fled from Hawija to the Peshmerga just days before the Iraqi forces reached the town.

“We know they are not being taken prisoner, so maybe they will fight against us with the Peshmerga in the future,” he said.

Harkani said any future alliance between IS and the Peshmerga was a potential problem that would be dealt with easily and swiftly by the Iraqi forces.

“Iraq has become so strong and united now, with all our military forces working together. Therefore, if the Peshmerga use Daesh to fight against us, the Kurds will be the bigger loser, even more than Daesh,” he said.

Harkani was also nonchalant about the long-term future of any alliance between IS and the KRG which, he predicted, would inevitably backfire on the Kurds.

“Those Daesh who have gone inside Kirkuk, in the future, will surely turn against the Kurds,” he said, reiterating that the Kurds stood only to lose from any partnership with IS.

All images, except the featured, are from Middle East Eye.

Featured image: From left to right: Maryam Rajavi- Rudy Giuliani and Senator Joe Lieberman at the free Iran Gathering – 1 July 2017. Image credit: Maryam Rajavi/ flick

One-time Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has been rightly blamed for the ill-conceived and badly bungled “regime change” in Libya in 2011 that eventually led to her mishandling of the resulting blowback in Benghazi, but one of her greatest failings just might have involved the piece of paper she signed when she removed the Mujaheddin e Khalq (MEK) group from the State Department list of “designated terrorist organizations” in September 2012.

How is it possible that the bad judgment demonstrated in the Libyan fiasco that created a failed state, a humanitarian disaster, a migrant crisis, armed terrorists and ultimately produced the murder of the U.S. ambassador and three other Americans compare with a signature on a piece of paper?  It is because that signature put in place one of the elements that will most likely in the near future lead to a far more disastrous war for the United States than was Libya. MEK, now labeled the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), has become a principal voice of the war party that is now seeking to attack Iran, a role similar to that played by Ahmad Chalabi and his Iraqi National Congress in his disseminating of lies in the lead up to the catastrophic invasion of Iraq in 2003.

The tale of the rehabilitation and rise of MEK/NCRI is a subset of the ongoing corruption of America’s political culture, best illustrated by the fact that even national security is now up for sale, enabling a terrorist group to transform itself into a “resistance movement” and eventually be labeled “freedom fighters.”

How did this happen as MEK was on the State Department roster of foreign terrorist organizations since the list was established in 1997?  Its inclusion derived from its having killed six Americans in the 1970s, its participation in the U.S. Embassy hostage-taking and from its record of extreme violence both inside and outside Iran since that time. When I was a CIA trainee our course included a simulation of the horrific attack on U.S. Air Force Officers in Tehran in 1973 that killed two colonels.

MEK is widely regarded as a terrorist cult headed by a bizarre husband and wife team Massoud and Maryam Rajavi. Its members are required to be celibate and are subjected to extensive brainwashing, physical torture, severe beatings even unto death, and prolonged solitary confinement if they question the leadership.  One scholar who has studied them describes their beliefs as a “weird combination of Marxism and Islamic fundamentalism.”

With the sharp turn of the Trump Administration against Iran, NCRI is now finding an audience , telling the American public that Iran is “cheating” on the nuclear deal.  It also tells us that “Iran’s nuclear weapons program has far from halted” and has claimed to identify four major sites that “with a high degree of certainty” have been involved in various aspects of the allegedly ongoing nuclear weapons project. This has led Jillian Mele of Fox News to declare, falsely, that “It appears [Iran’s nuclear] weapons program is fully operational.”

The CIA has in the past recruited MEK/NCRI agents to enter into Iran and report on nuclear facilities, but Israel’s Mossad is the group’s principal employer. Agents, recruited and trained by Israel, have killed a number of Iranian nuclear scientists and officials.  The group appears to have ample financial resources, places full page ads in major US newspapers, and is also known to pay hefty fees to major political figures who are willing to speak publicly on its behalf.  The group claims to want regime change in Iran to restore democracy to the country, an odd assertion as it itself has no internal democracy and is loathed by nearly all Iranians.

Because MEK/NCRI is a resource being used by Tel Aviv in its clandestine war against Iran, it is perhaps inevitable that many friends of Israel in the United States actively campaigned to have the group removed from the terrorism list so that it could, ironically, have a free hand to continue to terrorize Iran.  Indeed, neocons at their various think tanks and publications as well as the American Israel Public Affairs Committee all recommended delisting the group and continue to support it. Prominent American Jews to include Elie Wiesel and Alan Dershowitz have been advocates for the group in spite of its record of terrorism.

Multi-million dollar contracts with Washington lobbying firms experienced at “working” congress backed up by handsome speaking fees have induced many prominent Americans to join the chorus supporting NCRI. Prior to 2012, speaking fees for the group started at $15,000 and went up from there. Former Pennsylvania governor Ed Rendell reported more than $150,000 in honoraria. Rudy Giuliani has been paid generously for years at $20,000 per appearance for brief, twenty-minute speeches. Bear in mind that MEK was a listed terrorist group at the time and accepting money from it to promote its interests should have constituted material support of terrorism.

The group’s well-connected friends have included prominent neocons like John Bolton and ex-CIA Directors James Woolsey, Michael Hayden and Porter Goss as well as former Generals Anthony Zinni, Peter Pace, Wesley Clark, and Hugh Shelton. Traditional conservatives close to the Trump Administration like Newt Gingrich, Fran Townsend and Elaine Chao are also fans of NCRI. Townsend in particular, as a national security specialist, has appeared on television to denounce Iran, calling its actions “acts of war” without indicating that she has received money from an opposition group.

The emergence of NCRI at this time is just another fool’s game with the usual Washington crowd queuing up for a bad cause because they are both lining their pockets and thinking they are helping Israel by punishing Iran.  In any event it is a poor bargain for the rest of us, but that hardly seems to matter anymore.

Philip M. Giraldi is a former CIA counter-terrorism specialist and military intelligence officer who served nineteen years overseas in Turkey, Italy, Germany, and Spain. He was the CIA Chief of Base for the Barcelona Olympics in 1992 and was one of the first Americans to enter Afghanistan in December 2001. Phil is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a Washington-based advocacy group that seeks to encourage and promote a U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East that is consistent with American values and interests.

Does anyone in the Trump Administration have a clue about our Syria policy? In March, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson appeared to be finally pulling back from President Obama’s disastrous “Assad must go” position that has done nothing but prolong the misery in Syria. At the time, Tillerson said, the “longer-term status of President Assad will be decided by the Syrian people.”

Those of us who believe in national sovereignty would say that is pointing out the obvious. Nevertheless it was a good sign that US involvement in Syria – illegal as it is – would no longer seek regime change but would stick to fighting ISIS.

Then out of the blue this past week, Tillerson did another 180 degree policy turn, telling a UN audience in Geneva that,

“[t]he reign of the Assad family is coming to an end. The only issue is how that should that be brought about.”

The obvious question is why is it any of our business who runs Syria, but perhaps that’s too obvious. Washington’s interventionists have long believed that they have the unilateral right to determine who is allowed to head up foreign countries. Their track record in placing “our guy” in power overseas is abysmal, but that doesn’t seem to stop them. We were promised that getting rid of people like Saddam Hussein and Gaddafi would light the fire of freedom and democracy in the Middle East. Instead it has produced nothing but death and misery – and spectacular profits for the weapons manufacturers who fund neocon think tanks.

In Syria, Assad has been seen as a protector of Christians and other minorities against the onslaught of in many cases US-backed jihadists seeking his overthrow. While the Syrian system is obviously not a Switzerland-like democracy, unlike our great “ally” Saudi Arabia they do at least have elections contested by different political parties, and religious and other minorities are fully integrated into society.

Why has the Trump Administration shifted back to “Assad must go”? One reason may be that, one-by-one, the neocons who opposed Trump most vociferously during the campaign have found themselves and their friends in positions of power in his Administration. The neocons are great at winning while losing.

The real story behind Washington’s ongoing determination to overthrow the Syrian government is even more disturbing. In a bombshell interview last week, a former Qatari Prime Minister confessed that his country, along with Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and the United States, began shipping weapons to jihadists from the very moment Syrian unrest began in 2011. The well-connected Qatari former minister was trying to point out that his country was not alone in backing al-Qaeda and even ISIS in Syria. In the course of defending his country against terrorism charges leveled by Saudi Arabia he has spilled the beans about US involvement with the very groups claimed to be our arch-enemies. As they did in Afghanistan in the 1980s, the CIA supported radical Islamic terrorism in Syria.

Haven’t we done enough damage in Syria? Do we really need to go back to 2011 and destroy the country all over again? The neocons never admit a mistake and never change course, but I do not believe that the majority of Americans support their hijacking of President Trump’s Syria policy. It is long past time for the US to leave Syria alone. No bases, no special forces, no CIA assassination teams, no manipulating their electoral system. We need to just come home.

Featured image: George Papadopoulos (Source: Gateway Pundit)

As The Gateway Pundit’s Jim Hoft reported Monday morning, former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort and business partner Rick Gates were ordered to surrender to federal authorities. Manafort has officially surrendered to the FBI, having entered the Bureau’s Washington, D.C. headquarters shortly after 8:00am EST.

In addition to Manafort and Gate, former Trump campaign advisor George Papadopoulos has been arrested for making false statements to FBI agents.

Papadopoulos was a volunteer whose repeated attempts to set up meetings between Trump’s camp and Russians were outright rejected.

The Washington Post reported back in August that Papadopoulos attempted to set up several meetings with Russia and all were rejected by Trump’s camp.

The adviser, George Papadopoulos, offered to set up “a meeting between us and the Russian leadership to discuss US-Russia ties under President Trump,” telling them his Russian contacts welcomed the opportunity, according to internal campaign emails read to The Washington Post.

The proposal sent a ripple of concern through campaign headquarters in Trump Tower. Campaign co-chairman Sam Clovis wrote that he thought NATO allies should be consulted before any plans were made. Another Trump adviser, retired Navy Rear Adm. Charles Kubic, cited legal concerns, including a possible violation of U.S. sanctions against Russia and of the Logan Act, which prohibits U.S. citizens from unauthorized negotiation with foreign governments.

The NY Daily News even reported that Manafort put the kibosh on the Russia meetings as well.

“We need someone to communicate that DT is not doing these trips,” Manafort told his business partner Rick Gates, an account his spokesman Jason Maloni confirmed to the Daily News Monday evening.

The Gateway Pundit also reported that Papadopoulos was looking for a book deal just a few weeks ago.

According to a screen shot of Papadopoulos’s Facebook page tweeted by Guardian UK reporter Jon Swaine, the former aide sought book publisher recommendations three weeks ago.

“Interested in meeting with a prominent publisher. Recommendations welcome, ” wrote Papadopoulos.

Meanwhile Hillary’s camp paid MILLIONS of dollars for a Russian dossier, a fraudulent document that most likely prompted a FISA warrant and ultimately led to the unmasking of Trump and his associates.

Hillary’s campaign is actually bragging about their collusion with the Russians during the 2016 presidential election.

As previously reported, White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders slammed Hillary Clinton Saturday morning after her former spokesman said he’s “damn glad” Clinton’s campaign colluded with the Russians to spread disinformation about Trump.

Hillary Clinton also approved of the sale of 20% of America’s Uranium to a Russian nuclear firm that was under FBI investigation while she was Secretary of State as $145 million flowed to her Clinton Foundation.

Where is the justice? Lock her up already!

US politicians, policymakers and commentators insist that the United States military’s involvement in Syria and Iraq is solely aimed at defeating militants from the self-titled Islamic State (IS). However, it is abundantly clear that before the Russian intervention in Syria in 2015, the United States was engaged in a proxy war against Damascus, not IS and that as the Russian intervention began rolling IS back and the organization clung to existence, Washington found itself revising its narrative around a new pretext to remain in the region, the “Iranian threat.”

Geopolitical analysts have long-warned that regime change in Tehran was always America’s ultimate goal and that the conflicts ignited across the Middle East and North Africa region (MENA) was a means of reorganizing the Arab World into a united front against Tehran and its allies and in turn, against Moscow and Beijing.
More recent news articles like the Associated Press’, “US pushes Saudi Arabia, Iraq on united front to counter Iran,” would report that:

U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson on Sunday promoted a Trump administration goal of uniting Saudi Arabia and Iraq in common cause to counter Iran’s growing assertiveness in the Middle East.

Tillerson participated in the inaugural meeting of the Saudi Arabia-Iraq Coordination Committee, along with Saudi King Salman and Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, telling the leaders that the event highlighted the improving ties between the longtime rivals and showed “the great potential” for further cooperation. He noted the August reopening of a major border crossing and the resumption of direct flights between Riyadh and Baghdad.

Attempts by the US to virtually seize control of Iraq’s western Anbar governorate to provide a safe haven for militants now on the losing half of an emerging regional balance of power is an indicator that steps are already being taken toward what is in all intents and purposes an escalation, not a withdrawal from the Middle East by the US.

Riyadh’s attempts to depict itself as undertaking socioeconomic reforms and its claimed intentions of abandoning its longstanding abuse of Islam through its politically-motivated Wahhabi interpretations appears to be little more than a means of assuaging fears of regional and global partners that Washington and Riyadh’s dangerous game of using state-sponsored terrorism as a geopolitical tool has spiraled out of control costing all involved credibility and even stability.

War with Iran, Via Lebanon?

Additionally, the US seeks to pursue conflict along yet another familiar axis, through war between Israel and Lebanon and more specifically Hezbollah.

An editorial written by retired German General Klaus Dieter Naumann, former Chief of Staff of the Bundeswehr and former Chairman of the NATO Military Committee and General Richard Dannatt, former Chief of the General Staff of the British Army, titled, “A third Lebanon war looms: To stop it, US must curtail Iran, sanction Hezbollah,” lays out the details of this looming conflict.

While the article portrays a “third Lebanon war” as inevitable, precipitated by Hezbollah and its sponsors in Tehran’s aggression against Israel, careful reading and consideration of recent history exposes the editorial as an attempt to create the pretext upon which the US and its allies will provoke this war, not Hezbollah, and not Iran.

The article claims:

Neither Iran nor Hezbollah have any remotely credible reason for their enmity of Israel today — yet they are engaged in an implacable campaign of deadly hatred animated by their version of radical Islam. Hezbollah additionally has to explain to the Lebanese population it claims to represent why it has been killing Muslims in Syria at a furious pace. The best way to close this credibility gap is to attack Israel. Both Hezbollah Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah’s rhetoric, and his terrorist operatives’ actions on the border with Israel confirm this.

Nowhere in the article is it noted Israel’s participation in the Syrian conflict, its own state sponsorship of terrorism in neighboring Syria including militants from Jabhat Al Nusra, a US State Department and UK Home Office proscribed terrorist organization, Israel’s contributions to US-Kurdish proxies in northern Syria and Iraq and multiple Israel provocations aimed at Iran itself, including the sabotaging of its infrastructure with the Stuxnet computer virus. All of these are more than credible reasons for Iran and Hezbollah’s enmity of Israel.

And while the article attempts to portray Hezbollah and Iran as poised to strike Israel, it admits that it will be merely “capabilities” either possess that will prompt Israel to “take drastic action to protect its civilian population.”

In other words, it will be a replay of the 2006 Israeli-Lebanon War in which a minor provocation was used by Tel Aviv to wage full scale war on Lebanon including aerial bombardment and a disastrous land invasion that ended in retreat before reaching the Litani River, its stated objective.

Beyond setting the stage for a potential repeat of the 2006 war, the article also suggests this artificial increase in tensions be accompanied by increased pressure on Hezbollah and Iran, pressure the US and its allies are already applying.

It should be noted that elsewhere, US policymakers have stated multiple times that before war with Iran can be pursued directly, both Syria and Hezbollah must be weakened first. A war with Lebanon thus could be a means to either directly lead into direct conflict with Tehran, or as a means of preparing for one in the near or intermediate future.

Immediate Peace and Stability vs. Constant and Perpetual War 

What is clear is that the 2015 Russian intervention in Syria along with Iran’s growing influence in the region has rolled back attempts by the US and its partners to reassert control over the Middle East they have sought since the Cold War. With a new multipolar coalition of emerging regional and global powers, US dreams of hegemony will be increasingly more difficult to achieve with no single “superpower” to topple in order to gain an upper hand.

For governments everywhere from Beruit to Amman and even Riyadh and its Persian Gulf neighbors, the choice of whether to go down this increasingly violent path in pursuit of increasingly distant hegemony Washington has promised them the spoils of, or to constructively embrace multipolarism by pursuing regional stability is fast approaching.

For the US, the threats it has used to coerce some of its more unwilling partners are quickly being dwarfed by the consequences of their complicity. Additionally, with nothing but perpetual war on the horizon as the “plan” to achieve US hegemony in the region, even if Washington succeeded, it will be only after its regional proxies endure years more of dangerous conflict. Nations like Saudi Arabia, mired in conflict in Yemen to the south while its proxies in Syria and Iraq are wiped off the battlefield, walks a dangerous tightrope other nations would be wise to avoid.

Lebanon has been a battlefield in the past the US has used as a vector toward greater regional conflict. Its ability or inability to create conflict there again, directly or through Israel, and that conflict’s ability or inability to drag Iran, Syria and other players in directly, will determine the outlook for America’s wider agenda in the region.

Ulson Gunnar is a New York-based geopolitical analyst and writer especially for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

Featured image is from the author.

The US Strategic Command has commenced its ‘Global Thunder’ war games. This major military exercise involves all of STRATCOM’s major missions and come just days after the Russian military tested its nuclear triad in large-scale drills across the country.

Syrian government forces are clashing with Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (formerly Jabhat al-Nusra, the Syrian branch of al-Qaeda) and ISIS in the northeastern countryside of Hama.

Recently, the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) and the National Defense Forces (NDF) liberated the villages of Jub Tabqaliyah, Abu Laffah, Wadi Zurub, Kherbet Juwayid, Msheirfeh and Rasm al-Tinah. According to pro-government sources, 30 HTS members, including 3 military commanders, were killed.

Separately, the SAA and the NDF advanced on the village of Abu Dali in northern Hama. It was captured by HTS on October 8.

According to pro-government sources, government forces recaptured Farkeh, Zahra Hill and Rajm Alahmar area, but didn’t enter Abu Dali itself.

The SAA and the NDF used clashes between Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) and ISIS in order to prepare and launch a limited military operation aimed at building a wider buffer zone west of the Ithriyah-Aleppo highway, which has been repeatedly attacked by militants over the last year.

In the city of Deir Ezzor, the SAA Tiger Forces, the Republican Guard and the NDF liberated worker district 1, worker district 2, Afri district and the stadium from ISIS terrorists. Government troops also advanced in the districts of al-Hamidiyah and Jbela.

The advance came amid an intense fighting with ISIS. The terrorist group’s media outlet Amaq claimed that pro-government forces lost 35 fighters, two battle tanks and a BMP-1 vehicle.

At the same time, the SAA and Hezbollah attempted to push towards al-Bukamal from the direction of T2 Pumping Station. However, no significant success was achieved.

On October 28, the US-led coalition officially announced that it and the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) are working to consolidate their gains in the Omar oil fields and to advance on the ISIS-held border town of al-Bukamal at the border with Iraq.

The real goal of the advance is to attempt to prevent Syria and Iraq from restoring control over the Deir Ezzor-Baghdad highway.

In Iraq, the army, the Federal Police, the Counter-Terrorism Service and the Popular Mobilization Units are working to build a buffer between an area controlled by the US-backed forces in Syria and an area controlled by the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) in Iraq.

As soon as, government forces establish full control over Faysh Khabur area, this goal will be achieved. Furthermore, Iraq and Turkey have already agreed to establish a Turkish-Iraqi border crossing using this area.

The successful operation of government forces to re-take contested areas from the KRG’s Peshmerga force came amid a rapid push towards the ISIS-held city of al-Qaim. This clearly demonstrated that the army and its allies have much more military power than the KRG’s leadership expected while it was starting their attempt to secede from Iraq.

On Sunday, the KRG’s President Masoud Barzani announced that he resigns from the presidency on November 1. This decision is a logical result of the recent failures of the KRG policy and a loss of large oil—rich areas to the federal government that started with the September 25 independence referendum held by Barzani’s government.

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For a complex and critical examination of the  relationship between Canada, Israel, Judaism, and Zionism, Eric Walberg’s new work, The Canada-Israel Nexus provides a challenging perspective.  

It is challenging in several ways. Primarily, the most important ideas are the critical lines of thought towards the impact of Zionism within Canada. This includes the influences on the media (majorly owned by Jewish Israeli supporters), academics and academia, and the political. The latter mostly affects Canada’s foreign affairs position as a sycophant of the U.S. empire, but in many ways as a leading vocal supporter of Israeli Zionism and its colonial-settler policies.

Throughout the book, comparisons are made between Israel’s recent colonial-settler actions through its settlements, military law, and other civic aspects (education in particular), and the actions previously of the Canadian government towards its indigenous populations. While being different in particular details, the overall actions are very similar, especially considering Canada’s recent very public acknowledgement – both domestically and at the UN – of its own attempts at cultural genocide and ethnic cleansing.

The first chapters cover historical developments. First, that of Canada and its history of dispossession, Christianization, residential schools, (the last two were still ongoing through the Twentieth Century), assimilation, and broken treaty promises towards the indigenous populations. Next, a brief outline of Jewish Zionist history covers the creation of Israel and its rise to a militarized nuclear power extending empire into a Middle East riven by war created by those supporting that extension.

Two longer chapters cover the history of Jewish people in Canada. The essential story is that of a self isolating community being the ‘ragpickers’ of the communities, rising quickly to be behind the scenes power players in politics and the media. Today, the pro-Israeli stance has been successfully entrenched in Canada’s political from all political parties (except for the Greens, who in spite of their leaders rhetoric, have supported a position supporting BDS).

In what will probably prove to be the most controversial sector, Walberg discusses the Canadian right wing activists who have denied the Israeli narrative and how they have been silenced by the courts and media. He extends the idea of holocaust to cover other mass killings, in particular that suffered by Russia during WW II, and the “ongoing slow-motion holocaust against the Palestinians.” Both Russia and the Palestinians as terrorists are both highly maligned in Canada’s press and political realm with the U.S. and Israeli imperial viewpoints being strongly supported.

A final look is taken concerning the parallels between the two ‘native nations’ of Canada and Israel. Humanitarian law, the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, oil, pipelines, water resources, laws and the courts, education, and religious theology all carry similarities. The more recent actions defining or redefining anti-Semitism and Israel’s ongoing hasbara efforts (the act of explaining – now more broadly defined in its context at manipulating public attitudes towards Israel) reflect the impact of global dissidents against imperial hegemony supported by Canada and Israel.

The Canada-Israel Nexus is a thought provoking and challenging work, an important addition to the discussion of Canada’s relationship domestically with its own indigenous population and its foreign policy relationship with Israel and the greater imperial games of the west.

This article was originally published by Palestine Chronicle.

Crushing regulations are driving small banks to sell out to the megabanks, a consolidation process that appears to be intentional. Publicly-owned banks can help avoid that trend and keep credit flowing in local economies.

At his confirmation hearing in January 2017, Treasury Secretary Stephen Mnuchin said,

“regulation is killing community banks.”

If the process is not reversed, he warned, we could “end up in a world where we have four big banks in this country.” That would be bad for both jobs and the economy.

“I think that we all appreciate the engine of growth is with small and medium-sized businesses,” said Mnuchin. “We’re losing the ability for small and medium-sized banks to make good loans to small and medium-sized businesses in the community, where they understand those credit risks better than anybody else.”

The number of US banks with assets under $100 million dropped from 13,000 in 1995 to under 1,900 in 2014. The regulatory burden imposed by the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act exacerbated this trend, with community banks losing market share at double the rate during the four years after 2010 as in the four years before. But the number had already dropped to only 2,625 in 2010.  What happened between 1995 and 2010?

Six weeks after September 11, 2001, the 1,100 page Patriot Act was dropped on congressional legislators, who were required to vote on it the next day. The Patriot Act added provisions to the 1970 Bank Secrecy Act that not only expanded the federal government’s wiretapping and surveillance powers but outlawed the funding of terrorism, imposing greater scrutiny on banks and stiff criminal penalties for non-compliance. Banks must now collect and verify customer-provided information, check names of customers against lists of known or suspected terrorists, determine risk levels posed by customers, and report suspicious persons, organizations and transactions. One small banker complained that banks have been turned into spies secretly reporting to the federal government. If they fail to comply, they can face stiff enforcement actions, whether or not actual money-laundering crimes are alleged.

In 2010, one small New Jersey bank pleaded guilty to conspiracy to violate the Bank Secrecy Act and was fined $5 million for failure to file suspicious-activity and cash-transaction reports. The bank was acquired a few months later by another bank. Another small New Jersey bank was ordered to shut down a large international wire transfer business because of deficiencies in monitoring for suspicious transactions. It closed its doors after it was hit with $8 million in fines over its inadequate monitoring policies.

Complying with the new rules demands a level of technical expertise not available to ordinary mortals, requiring the hiring of yet more specialized staff and buying more anti-laundering software. Small banks cannot afford the risk of massive fines or the added staff needed to avoid them, and that burden is getting worse. In February 2017, the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network proposed a new rule that would add a new category requiring the flagging of suspicious “cyberevents.” According to an April 2017 article in American Banker:

[T]he “cyberevent” category requires institutions to detect and report all varieties of digital mischief, whether directed at a customer’s account or at the bank itself. . . .Under a worst-case scenario, a bank’s failure to detect a suspicious attachment or a phishing attack could theoretically result in criminal prosecution, massive fines and additional oversight.

One large bank estimated that the proposed change with the new cyberevent reporting requirement would cost it an additional $9.6 million every year.

Besides the cost of hiring an army of compliance officers to deal with a thousand pages of regulations, banks have been hit with increased capital requirements imposed by the Financial Stability Board under Basel III, eliminating the smaller banks’ profit margins. They have little recourse but to sell to the larger banks, which have large compliance departments and can skirt the capital requirements by parking assets in off-balance-sheet vehicles.

In a September 2014 article titled “The FDIC’s New Capital Rules and Their Expected Impact on Community Banks,” Richard Morris and Monica Reyes Grajales noted that “a full discussion of the rules would resemble an advanced course in calculus,” and that the regulators have ignored protests that the rules would have a devastating impact on community banks. Why? The authors suggested that the rules reflect “the new vision of bank regulation – that there should be bigger and fewer banks in the industry.” That means bank consolidation is an intended result of the punishing rules.

House Financial Services Committee Chairman Jeb Hensarling, sponsor of the Financial CHOICE Act downsizing Dodd-Frank, concurs. In a speech in July 2015, he said:

Since the passage of Dodd-Frank, the big banks are bigger and the small banks are fewer. But because Washington can control a handful of big established firms much easier than many small and zealous competitors, this is likely an intended consequence of the Act. Dodd-Frank concentrates greater assets in fewer institutions. It codifies into law ‘Too Big to Fail’ . . . . [Emphasis added.]

Dodd-Frank institutionalizes “too big to fail” by authorizing the biggest banks to “bail in” or confiscate their creditors’ money in the event of insolvency. The legislation ostensibly reining in the too-big-to-fail banks has just made them bigger. Wall Street lobbyists were well known to have their fingerprints all over Dodd-Frank.

Restoring Community Banking: The Model of North Dakota  

Killing off the community banks with regulation means killing off the small and medium-size businesses that rely on them for funding, along with the local economies that rely on those businesses. Community banks service local markets in a way that the megabanks with their standardized lending models are not interested in or capable of.

How can the community banks be preserved and nurtured? For some ideas, we can look to a state where they are still thriving – North Dakota. In an article titled “How One State Escaped Wall Street’s Rule and Created a Banking System That’s 83% Locally Owned,” Stacy Mitchell writes that North Dakota’s banking sector bears little resemblance to that of the rest of the country:

With 89 small and mid-sized community banks and 38 credit unions, North Dakota has six times as many locally owned financial institutions per person as the rest of the nation. And these local banks and credit unions control a resounding 83 percent of deposits in the state — more than twice the 30 percent market share that small and mid-sized financial institutions have nationally.

Their secret is the century-old Bank of North Dakota (BND), the nation’s only state-owned depository bank, which partners with and supports the state’s local banks. In an April 2015 article titled “Is Dodd-Frank Killing Community Banks? The More Important Question is How to Save Them”, Matt Stannard writes:

Public banks offer unique benefits to community banks, including collateralization of deposits, protection from poaching of customers by big banks, the creation of more successful deals, and . . . regulatory compliance. The Bank of North Dakota, the nation’s only public bank, directly supports community banks and enables them to meet regulatory requirements such as asset to loan ratios and deposit to loan ratios. . . . [I]t keeps community banks solvent in other ways, lessening the impact of regulatory compliance on banks’ bottom lines.We know from FDIC data in 2009 that North Dakota had almost 16 banks per 100,000 people, the most in the country. A more important figure, however, is community banks’ loan averages per capita, which was $12,000 in North Dakota, compared to only $3,000 nationally. . . . During the last decade, banks in North Dakota with less than $1 billion in assets have averaged a stunning 434 percent more small business lending than the national average.

The BND has been very profitable for the state and its citizens – more profitable, according to the Wall Street Journal, than JPMorgan Chase and Goldman Sachs. The BND does not compete with local banks but partners with them, helping with capitalization and liquidity and allowing them to take on larger loans that would otherwise go to larger out-of-state banks.

In order to help rural lenders with regulatory compliance, in 2011 the BND was directed by the state legislature to get into the rural home mortgage origination business. Rural banks that saw only three to five mortgages a year could not shoulder the regulatory burden, leading to business lost to out-of-state banks. After a successful pilot program, SB 2064, establishing the Mortgage Origination Program, was signed by North Dakota’s governor on April 3, 2013. It states that the BND may establish a residential mortgage loan program under which the Bank may originate residential mortgages if private sector mortgage loan services are not reasonably available. Under this program a local financial institution or credit union may assist the Bank in taking a loan application, gathering required documents, ordering required legal documents, and maintaining contact with the borrower. At a hearing on the bill, Rick Clayburgh, President of the North Dakota Bankers Association, testified in its support:

Over the past years because of the regulatory burdens our banks face by the passage of Dodd Frank, and now the creation of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, it has become very prohibitive for a number of our banks to provide residential mortgage services anymore. We two years ago worked both with the Independent Community Bankers Association, and our Association and the Bank of North Dakota to come up with the idea in this program to help the bank provide services into the parts of the state that really residential mortgaging has seized up. We have a number of our banks that have terminated doing mortgage loans in their communities. They have stopped the process because they cannot afford to be written up by their regulator.

Under the Mortgage Origination Program, local banks get paid what is essentially a finder’s fee for sending rural mortgage loans to the BND. If the BND touches the money first, the onus is on it to deal with the regulators, something it can afford to do by capitalizing on economies of scale. The local bank thus avoids having to deal with regulatory compliance while keeping its customer.

The BND is the only model of a publicly-owned depository bank in the US; but in Germany, the publicly-owned Sparkassen banks operate a network of over 15,600 branches and are the financial backbone supporting Germany’s strong local business sector. In the matter of regulatory compliance, they too capitalize on economies of scale, by providing a compliance department that pools resources to deal with the onerous regulations imposed on banks by the EU.

The BND and the Sparkassen are proven models for maintaining the viability of local credit and banking services. It is time other states followed North Dakota’s lead, not only to protect their local communities and local banks, but to bolster their revenues, escape the noose of Washington and Wall Street, and provide a bail-in-proof depository for their public funds.

Ellen Brown is an attorney, founder of the Public Banking Institute, a Senior Fellow of the Democracy Collaborative, and author of twelve books including Web of Debt and The Public Bank Solution. A thirteenth book titled The Coming Revolution in Banking is due out this winter. She also co-hosts a radio program on PRN.FM called “It’s Our Money.” Her 300+ blog articles are posted at EllenBrown.com.

This article was originally published by Web of Debt Blog.

Three months ago, the World Socialist Web Site published its first exposé documenting Google’s blacklisting of the WSWS and other left-wing websites. It warned that Google’s actions were part of a sweeping campaign, coordinated with the US government, media and intelligence agencies, to censor the Internet.

The period since this initial exposure has seen this campaign develop with extraordinary speed, as the Democratic Party, working with major media outlets, uses unsubstantiated allegations of Russian “hacking” of the 2016 election to mount a drive to criminalize political opposition within the United States. What is involved is nothing less than the greatest attack on the First Amendment since the Second World War.

This campaign will reach a new milestone with the testimony by officials from Facebook, Twitter and Google before the Senate Judiciary Committee today and the House and Senate intelligence committees tomorrow on their plans to counter “extremist content and Russian disinformation online.”

Over the past three months, the top Democrats on the Senate and House intelligence committees, Mark Warner and Adam Schiff, in conjunction with the US intelligence agencies and the media, have concocted an absurd narrative that some $100,000 in Russian social media advertisements, mostly placed after November, helped swing the election in favor of Donald Trump.

Having forced the technology companies to compile lists of “Russia-linked” accounts, the lawmakers will now turn their focus on their real target: What they call “organic content,” or, to put it more plainly, political speech on the Internet.

According to the Hill, Warner and Schiff will press the social media companies to admit “that Russia created ‘organic content’…to divide and influence Americans.”

“Probably more important is, what was the content they were pushing out that was nonadvertising,” Schiff told the Hill this week. “I think that will probably dwarf what we’ve seen in the paid advertising,”

In prepared testimony obtained by news outlets Monday evening, Facebook expanded its list of “Russia-linked” online activity to include such “organic content,” declaring that tens of thousands of “inflammatory” posts by “fake” accounts connected to Russia reached 126 million US Facebook users.

This “divisive content” no doubt included reposts of articles by left-wing and oppositional news outlets, putting them firmly in the crosshairs of congressional investigators. As a New York Times report put it earlier this month, content “recorded, posted or written by Americans…ended up becoming grist for a network of Facebook pages linked to a shadowy Russian company that has carried out propaganda campaigns for the Kremlin.”

In another extraordinary development, on Friday, Dianne Feinstein, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, sent a letter to Twitter’s CEO demanding that the company hand over personally identifying information related to “organic content” posted by Twitter users. The letter specifically requests all “organic content posted by Russia-connected users and targeted to any part of the United States, regardless of whether the individual or entity violated any Twitter policy.” Its definition of “Russia-connected users” is extremely broad, including any “person or entity that may be connected in some way to Russia.”

The letter demands that for all “organic content described above, Twitter provide all subscriber information,” and “IP address information.” This means that the company is being asked to hand over full names, phone numbers, email addresses and IP addresses, which can be used to determine physical location.

Given congressional investigators’ newfound focus on “content recorded, posted or written by Americans” and reposted by “Russia-linked” accounts, it is reasonable to infer that the “organic content” Feinstein is referring to includes content posted by left-wing websites and their associated social media accounts. In that case, what Feinstein is demanding is a list of the names, phone numbers, and physical locations of prominent opponents of US government policy.

Equally troubling is the fact that the letter requests “All content of each [private] Direct Message” between an undisclosed list of attached Twitter accounts and accounts belonging to WikiLeaks, Julian Assange and the civil rights attorney Margaret Ratner Kunstler.

Kunstler, according to her official biography, has represented “WikiLeaks and Bradley [Chelsea] Manning supporters in connection with grand jury subpoenas, encounters with the FBI…and governmental suppression.”

The extraordinary request by the Senate Judiciary Committee for a company to turn over a lawyer’s private correspondence constitutes a gross violation of attorney-client privilege, to say nothing of its chilling effect on First Amendment rights.

Feinstein’s targeting of Assange and Wikileaks alongside her focus on “organic content” makes clear that the real target of the witch hunt is not foreign agents, but domestic political opposition.

As further confirmation, on Monday the Wall Street Journal carried a report, again without any factual substantiation, that “Russia-linked” accounts helped organize meetings and demonstrations, including protests against police violence. The Journal wrote,

“At least 60 rallies, protests and marches were publicized or financed by” Russian accounts.”

These allegations expand the target of the anti-Russian witch hunt from freedom of speech to freedom of assembly, which is also guaranteed in the First Amendment.

This is in line with a report published earlier this week by McClatchy (under the headline, “Protesters are increasingly being labeled domestic terrorist threats, experts worry”) that the FBI has created a category of “domestic terrorist” groups called “black identity extremists,” which could include people who participate in demonstrations against police violence.

The relationship of Google, the largest and most powerful technology company, to the congressional witch hunt has been smoother and quieter than that of Facebook and Twitter. As the Financial Times wrote, the company has “kept a lower profile, quietly meeting the intelligence committee in private” and silently “rolling out” changes to its algorithms.

In the background, however, the company has taken the most sweeping action of any of its peers. In April, Google announced measures to promote “authoritative content” over “alternative viewpoints.” This has caused search traffic to left-wing web sites to fall by more than 55 percent. The World Socialist Web Site is particularly targeted, with search traffic from Google plunging by 74 percent.

While the Trump administration seeks to cultivate an extreme right-wing, authoritarian political movement, the nominal opposition within the state, led by the Democratic Party, is focused on a hysterical, warmongering campaign based on unsubstantiated charges of Russian interference in the 2016 US election. The aim, recalling the McCarthyite witch hunts, is to associate all political opposition within the United States to the nefarious efforts of “outside agitators,” in this case, “foreign agents.”

This sweeping attack on free speech, the bedrock of democracy, reflects the fear of the ruling elite of the emergence of an independent movement of the working class against capitalism. Whatever their differences with Trump, the greatest concern of the Democrats is that social anger over inequality and war be prevented from erupting and taking the form of a socialist movement against capitalism.

Far more than Russia, they, and the entire ruling class, fear the international working class. That is why the central target of Google has been the WSWS.

The alarm must be sounded! The WSWS has begun an aggressive counteroffensive. Our petition against Google censorship has been signed by thousands of workers from over 100 countries around the world. The struggle has only begun, however.

Workers and young people throughout the world must be alerted to what is taking place. The fight against censorship and blacklisting and in defense of free speech and political expression must be taken into every section of the working class and linked to the fight against social inequality and the drive to world war.

The recent international meeting “Todos Somos Venezuela” that took place in Caracas last September 16-19, 2017 still reverberates in the minds of many of us who had the privilege to attend.

There is no doubt that the timing of the meeting was well planned to impress on the participants the importance of solidarity actions particularly before the important elections for governors of the 23 Venezuelan States that just occurred last October 15. The Bolivarian Revolution and Chavismo have a reason to celebrate a great victory with 18 governorships in the hands of the government party in those elections and my article in Global Research addresses that. [1]

However, the greatest winner of the elections of October 15 was socialism and the anti-imperialist spirit dominant in Venezuela. It is precisely that spirit that we witnessed in Caracas. In fact, by far this was the main underlying thread of the 4-day meeting. Together with self-determination and sovereignty, Venezuelans, as well as international delegates, expressed openly socialist, anti-capitalist and anti-imperialist sentiments.

Former foreign minister and current president of the National Constituent Assembly, Delcy Rodriguez said that the US Empire was a serious threat to international security.

“We have a right to have the political and economic model we want.” She also stated, “Capitalism is without a doubt a system that creates wars, inequality & poverty. Capitalism cannot give benefits or happiness.“

The renowned academic Sonia Gupta praised Venezuela for the “creation of a new value system and a new model of democracy” to replace the “worn out model” of the capitalist system.

The Palestinian delegate for the Popular Front for Liberation of Palestine received a standing ovation when, referring to the imperialist United States government, he said,

“You can assassinate our families, destroy our homes, schools or perhaps all our towns, but you will never undermine our willingness to fight!”

In fact, I heard repeatedly the reference to “Bolivarian socialism”. There was never a formal definition of the term and I will not attempt to define it here. In context, I took that to be a proud affirmation of the revolutionary struggle that Chavismo has embarked on and is committed to continue doing.

Hugo Chavez referred to it as “socialism of the 21^st century”, a renewed vision of classic socialism prevalent in the 20^th century, and a projection into a new conception of a society where the people are the recipient of the social gains but at the same time they are the protagonists of the social organization.

Chávez himself said,

“El socialismo es la democracia participativa y sobre todo la protagónica” (Socialism is participatory democracy and above all, protagonist [democracy]). [2]

This concept that views all Venezuelans as authors and builders of democracy is embedded in the preamble of the 1999 Constitution of Venezuela.

But perhaps Maduro’s statement, addressing a crowd of Venezuelans in front of the Presidential Office of Miraflores following a large anti-imperialist march we were invited to join, contains the essence of what may still be a process under construction in the Venezuelan context.

“Socialism is a patrimony that comes from the original people, from the history of Venezuelan fighters that struggled for freedom and continues rebelling to domination,” Maduro said.

All of us in the crowd cheered at those words and his acknowledgement of the upcoming centenary celebration of the October Revolution. He also recognized Vladimir Lenin, leader of the first socialist revolution.

Venezuela appears to be intent on building its own brand of socialism – Bolivarian socialism – with its own characteristics based on its past revolutions of independence and heroes, people’s aspirations and needs, defiance to the current colonial empire, and with a good doses of 20^th century Marxism.

With that spirit in the air at the Caracas meeting, without doubt we proudly felt “We are all Venezuela”. I felt doubly proud as a Venezuelan and as a socialist.

This article was originally published by People’s Voice.

Notes

[1] https://www.globalresearch.ca/time-for-a-vigilant-celebration-in-venezuela/5613745

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WoBc0ZtROv8&sns=fb

This article first appeared on GR in December 2016.

Is there a way the United States or one of the Islamic States admitted state sponsors could be airdropping supplies without triggering suspicion? How has modern airdrop technology and techniques evolved that might make this possible?

When asking these questions, they must first be understood in the context that:

(A.) According to Wikileaks, within the e-mails of former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton it was acknowledged that the governments of two of America’s closest allies in the Middle East, Saudi Arabia and Qatar, were providing material support to the Islamic State (IS);

(B.) That according to the US Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) (PDF), the US and its allies sought to use a “Salafist principality” in eastern Syria as a strategic asset against the Syrian government, precisely where the Islamic (Salafist) State (principality) eventually manifested itself and;

(C.) That the fighting capacity of the Islamic State is on such a large and sustained level, it can only be the result of immense and continuous state sponsorship, including a constant torrent of supplies by either ground or air (or both).

Within this context, we can already partially answer these questions with confirmed statements made by another of America’s closest allies in the region, and a long-time NATO member, Turkey.

It was a May 2016 Washington Times article titled, “Turkey offers joint ops with U.S. forces in Syria, wants Kurds cut out,” that quoted none other than the Turkish Foreign Minister himself admitting (emphasis added):

Joint operations between Washington and Ankara in Manbji, a well-known waypoint for Islamic State fighters, weapons and equipment coming from Turkey bound for Raqqa,would effectively open “a second front” in the ongoing fight to drive the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL, from Syria’s borders, [Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu] said.

And clearly, by simply looking at maps of the Syrian conflict over the past 5 years, the supply corridors used by the Islamic State, via Turkey, to resupply its region-wide warfare were significant until Kurdish fighters reduced them to one, now the epicenter of a questionable Turkish military incursion into northern Syria.

With the Islamic State’s ground routes hindered, is there another way the US or at the very least, admittedly its Islamic State-sponsoring allies Saudi Arabia and Qatar could deliver food, ammunition, weapons and even small vehicles to the militant group, still held up in Syria’s eastern city of Al Raqqa?

The answer is yes.

Modern American Airdrop Capabilities 

A system developed years ago for the United States military called Joint Precision Airdrop System (JPADS) allows cargo aircraft to release airdrops of supplies from as high as 25,000 feet and as far from a drop zone as 25-30 kilometers. A Global Positioning System (GPS) and an airborne guidance unit automate the drop’s trajectory to land within 100 meters of a predetermined drop zone. The system also makes it possible to release several drops at once and have them directed toward different drop zones.

The US military has already received this system and it has been in use for years. At least one Persian Gulf state has taken delivery of the system as well, the United Arab Emirates.

Defense Industry Daily would report that in 2013, the UAE would order the system for use with its C-130H and C-17 aircraft. The same report would note that the system is used by several other NATO allies.

The US has admittedly used this system to drop supplies to both Kurdish fighters and anti-government militants in Syria, including at least one instance where supply pallets ended up “accidentally” with the Islamic State.

In addition to airdrops made by large, manned cargo aircraft, the US has admittedly used drones to drop supplies across the region, the Guardian would admit.

The US Already Makes Airdrops to the Islamic State

The Washington Post in a 2014 article titled, “U.S. accidentally delivered weapons to the Islamic State by airdrop, militants say,” claims:

The Islamic State has released a new video in which it brags that it recovered weapons and supplies that the U.S. military intended to deliver to Kurdish fighters, who are locked in a fight with the militants over control of the Syrian border town of Kobane. 

The Washington Post also admits (emphasis added):

The incident highlights the difficulty in making sure all airdrops are accurate, even with GPS-guided parachutes that the Air Force commonly uses. Airdrops of food and water to religious minorities trapped on mountain cliffs in northern Iraq in August hit the mark about 80 percent of the time, Pentagon officials said at the time.

This (and similar incidents) may represent an accident in which JPADS performed poorly. Or it could represent an intentional airdrop meant to resupply Islamic State terrorists with the Washington Post article attempting to explain away how GPS-guided airdrops could “accidentally” end up in enemy territory.

Reports from Qatari-based Al Jazeera claim the US has also dropped weapons to militants other than Kurdish fighters. In an article titled, “US drops weapons to rebels battling ISIL in Syria,” Al Jazeera claims:

The US has reportedly dropped weapons to rebel fighters in Syria as the UN Security Council considers dropping food and medicine by air to civilians.

It also claims that:

The weapons supplies were airdropped to rebels in Marea, a town in the northern province of Aleppo, on Friday, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) said. 

“Coalition airplanes dropped … ammunitions, light weapons and anti-tank weapons to rebels in Marea,” Rami Abdel Rahman, the SOHR head, said.

The Guardian would also admit to the US carrying out similar airdrops in Syria.

Knowingly Dropping Supplies into Terrorist-Held Territory 

And more recently, there has been a push to drop supplies into eastern Aleppo in an attempt to prolong the fighting and prevent the complete collapse of a militant presence there, specifically using JPADS, according to the Guardian.

Another Guardian article reveals that US drones have previously been used to make airdrops in the region and might be used again to create an “air bridge” to militant-held areas of Syria.

However, even most US and European sources have admitted to a heavy presence of Al Qaeda’s Syrian franchise in the city, Jabhat Al Nusra, a designated foreign terrorist organization even according to the US State Department.

If the US would seriously consider airdropping supplies to Al Qaeda to prolong fighting and to continue confounding Syrian forces, why wouldn’t they also airdrop supplies to the Islamic State to do the same?

With the ability to drop supplies from as high as 25,000 feet and from as far away as 25-30 kilometers (and possibly even further as was envisioned by future designs), the US or its allies could appear to be resupplying what it calls “moderate rebels” on one part of the battlefield, while diverting a percentage of its drops into Al Qaeda or Islamic State territory. Drones could also be utilized to create “air bridges” harder to detect than those created using larger cargo aircraft.

With the Islamic State’s fighting capacity still potent both in Iraq and Syria, and with Kurdish fighters sealing off ground routes along the Syrian border, unless Turkey within its “buffer zone” is passing weapons onward to the Islamic State, what other means could this terrorist organization be using to resupply its regional war effort, if not by air?

For those seriously committed to defeating the Islamic State and other armed groups operating within Syrian territory, answering this question will bring peace and security one step closer.

Ulson Gunnar is a New York-based geopolitical analyst and writer especially for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

Iraqi forces, including army, police and counter-terrorism personnel and Popular Mobilisation Forces (PMF), entered the Altun Kupri region 40 km north of Kirkuk and 50 km south of the Kurdish capital Irbil last week.

“Iraqi federal police and counter-terrorism forces, along with Hashd Al-Shaabi fighters, have deployed in and imposed security on the sub-district of Altun Kupri,” the Iraqi Defense Ministry said in a statement, adding that “Altun Kupri is now under the control of federal forces.”

By last Friday afternoon, Al-Ahram Weekly was also in Altun Kupri. Civilians were leaving the city, while the booming sound of mortar fire could be heard.

“Kurdish Peshmergas [fighters] are bombing the town with mortars,” an Iraqi army officer said, speaking on condition of anonymity. “There were limited clashes between the Iraqi forces and Peshmergas, with the latter withdrawing and bombing the bridge on the way to Irbil,” he added, saying that civilians should leave the town for their own safety.

Altun Kupri, once a Turkmen town with a name meaning “Golden Bridge,” is located between Kirkuk and Irbil on the Zab River.

“The town was linked to Irbil for years by the former Baath regime [in Iraq], and now we are re-linked to Kirkuk,” Yusuf Kopulu, a local resident, commented to the Weekly.

After the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, the Kurdification of the town began, “as before that date there were Kurdish villages around the town. During the 1991 uprising following the Gulf War, around 100 civilian Turkmens were arrested by the Saddam Republican Guards [loyal to former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein] in the town, and their executed bodies were later found in a mass grave.”

“The Turkmen lands were confiscated on the pretext of constructing a security cordon around the town,” Kopulu said, adding that after 2003 the Kurds controlled the town. “But we used to have good relations with the original Kurds who came to settle in the town from the surrounding villages,” he said.

By retaking Altun Kupri, the Iraqi government in Baghdad did what it had previously said it would: re-establish federal authority and impose the rule of law over the oil-rich Kirkuk province of Iraq, which had been controlled by the Kurdish Peshmergas since the June 2014 Islamic State (IS) group offensive in the region.

The situation is now stable in Kirkuk, and schools and government establishments have reopened, including the Northern Oil Company and the Northern Gas Company. The markets are back at work, though many Kurdish families fled Kirkuk on 16 October when the Iraqi forces retook control of the city.

Last Monday, thousands of young men and women celebrated in the centre of Kirkuk, organising parades featuring the Iraqi flag. These were raised everywhere, and a giant Iraqi flag 500 metre long was held up by young men and women.

Reports have said that Maan Al-Sadi had become the military governor of Kirkuk, but Al-Sadi, commander of the counter-terrorism forces, has denied the reports. He was quoted as saying that Kirkuk was administrated by its governor and the Kirkuk Provincial Council (KPC).

“Imposing authority and law on Kirkuk have now been completed,” Al-Sadi told the Weekly, adding that “the only forces in Kirkuk are the counter-terrorism forces and the local police. The province is stable and ordinary life has come back.”

He said that necessary measures had been taken to ensure the stability of the province.

Khoshnaw Hama, a Kurd and the owner of a shop in Kirkuk, told the Weekly that he had taken his family to Irbil on 17 October but had returned on 19 October after hearing statements from the Kirkuk administration and army commanders confirming the stability of the city.

Hama said that neither his house nor his shop had been looted.

“Everything in our neighbourhood and market was safe,” he said.

The Turkmen and Arab blocs in the KPC have asked the Kurds to return to their jobs, confirming their intention to make sure that Kirkuk remains a city for all living under the authority of Baghdad.

Tech 4 Peace, a Facebook page, has denied reports published by the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) and the Kurdish political party the KDP to the effect that Hoshyar Zibari, a former Iraqi minister of foreign affairs and head of the Kurdish Referendum Council, had said that Iraqi commanders had met with Iranian Revolutionary Guard commander Qasim Sulaimani in Kirkuk.

It said that photographs published by Hemin Hawrami, a senior adviser to Masoud Barzani, outgoing leader of Iraqi Kurdistan, claimed to show Peshmergas near damaged US Abrams tanks belonging to the Iraqi forces in Altun Kupri. But the truth was that the photographs were of US tanks destroyed near Baghdad in 2003.

It also said that a Kurdish Facebook page that had published a photograph of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg raising a banner saying “demonstrate for Kurdistan” was in fact a photoshop version of another Zuckerberg photograph with a banner saying “going live with the International Space Station.”

Featured image is from the author.

Featured image: Michael Lynk, Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied Michael Lynk [Alhadath24/Facebook]

Special Rapporteur on the Palestinian territories Michael Lynk has been slammed by Israeli ambassador to the UN after he urged for economic and travel sanctions to be enforced on the occupying state to force it to withdraw from the West Bank, according to the Times of Israel.

During a press briefing at the UN Human Rights Council yesterday, Lynk cited a report he released on the situation of the Palestinians earlier this week, calling for the international community to increase pressure on Israel

“Israel is very dependent upon trade with the outside world,” he said in response to a question on whether sanctions could affect Israel.

If there was an understanding that all of a sudden Israelis wanting to travel abroad needed to have visas, if all of a sudden there was an understanding that Israel wasn’t going to get preferential trading agreements with the EU. If all of a sudden, the many and multitude forms of military or economic cooperation or academic cooperation with Israel were now going to come to an end … I think you’d begin to see a sea-change in the attitude of ordinary Israelis and in the attitude of the Israeli government.

His statements were subsequently denounced by Israeli envoy Danny Danon who claimed that Lynk was advocating for the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign.

“Mr Lynk is exploiting his position to spread hateful incitement against the State of Israel and is acting as a BDS activist under the auspices of the UN,” Danon insisted.

Lynk also spoke of the Israeli blockade on Gaza, insisting that the Strip “remains occupied”; another statement that was condemned by the Israeli delegation

“The UN Human Rights Council has lost its legitimacy as it focuses obsessively on attacking Israel instead of working on resolving the real human rights problems plaguing the world,” Danon claimed.

Israel and the UN have been at loggerheads in recent months, as the global institution has criticised the actions of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government for international law violations in the occupied territories and the humanitarian situation in Gaza.

Yesterday it was also revealed that up to 190 companies could find themselves on the UN blacklist after the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Zeid Bin Ra’ad Al-Hussein, sent warning letters to the corporations for operating in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Jordan Valley; areas occupied under international law. Israel and the US have previously threatened to cut funding to the UN Human Rights Council if it goes ahead with its plan to publish the list.

Earlier this month, the US and Israel announced their planned departure from the UN’s cultural branch UNESCO over perceived anti-Israel resolutions. UNESCO head Irina Bokova responded to the news saying that the withdrawal was a matter of “profound regret”.

Featured image: Iraqi militias driving on Kirkuk

The US project to create rift between Iraq and Iran backfired just a couple of days of its launch from Riyadh on October 22 by the US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson.

Washington effectively sought out Saudi Arabia to project itself as counterweight to Iran in the Iraqi theatre, predicated on the presumption that Riyadh’s offer to extend funding to ‘rebuild’ post-ISIS Iraq will be found irresistible by Baghdad.

Washington fancied that Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi is looking for ways to push back at Tehran, as his dependency on Iran’s military support is diminishing with the defeat of ISIS.

Tillerson travelled to Riyadh in the weekend to be present as a special guest at the first inaugural meeting of the so-called Saudi Arabia-Iraq Coordination Council. Things seemed to go well and Tillerson’s remarks to the media exuded optimism.

At a press conference in Riyadh, he said that the Saudi largesse will “strengthen Iraq as an independent and whole country… (and) this will be in some ways counter some of the unproductive influences of Iran inside of Iraq.” Tillerson then came to the point:

“Certainly, Iranian militias that are in Iraq, now that the fight against Daesh and ISIS is coming to a close, those militias need to go home.

Any foreign fighters in Iraq need to go home and allow the Iraqi people to regain control of areas that had been overtaken by ISIS and Daesh that have now been liberated, allow the Iraqi people to rebuild their lives with the help of their neighbors.

And I think this agreement that has been put in place between the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and Iraq is a crucial element to assisting the Iraqi people to do that. (Transcript)

The reference was to the Shi’ite militia groups funded, trained and deployed by Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps, which literally bore the brunt of the fight against the ISIS in the recent years. Washington is particularly incensed over the lead role by the Shi’ite paramilitary groups in seizing Kirkuk recently from the Kurdish Peshmerga who are US’ allies. (See my blog Kirkuk bells also toll for US strategy in Syria.)

Evidently, Tillerson crossed the red line. The point is, these Shi’ite groups, collectively known as Popular Mobilisation Forces and several tens of thousands strong, are probably going to be designated as part of the Iraqi armed forces. Abadi’s office in Baghdad came out in no time with a stinging rebuke – “No party has the right to interfere in Iraqi matters” – and called the Shi’ite paramilitary groups as “patriots.”

The next day, when Tillerson showed up in Baghdad for a meeting with Abadi, the latter was fairly explicit. Abadi said the Popular Mobilisation Forces form “part of the Iraqi institutions” and they will be the “hope of country and the region.”

Later, in an interview with the American press, Abadi retorted:

“We would like to work with you (US)… But please don’t bring your trouble inside Iraq. You can sort it anywhere else.”

Abadi then began suggesting a US troop withdrawal from Iraq. He said that US air power won’t be needed anymore and Iraqi requirement will be henceforth on intelligence sharing and help to train Iraqi forces. The way things are shaping up between Washington and Tehran, continued US military presence in Iraq may become problematic in a near future.

Iraqi militias of Kata’ib Hezbollah

Meanwhile, having gambled on the independence referendum only to lose oil-rich Kirkuk, Iraqi Kurdish leader Massoud Barzani is suing for ceasefire and talks with Baghdad. The US is urging Abadi to respond to Barzani’s overture and engage with him in discussions.

The Trump administration has secured strong Congressional support for its demands on Abadi. Signaling the seriousness of the demands, On Wednesday, House Speaker Paul Ryan, House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes, House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Ed Royce, and House Armed Services Committee Chairman Mac Thornberry issued the following statement to pressure Baghdad:

Ongoing clashes between forces aligned with the Iraqi government and Kurdistan Regional Government are undermining hard-fought gains in the fight against ISIS, and threatening to plunge Iraq into a new wave of sectarian violence. The bloodshed must stop immediately. We support a united Iraq under the federal government in Baghdad, and we support the Kurdistan Regional Government.

To that end, we welcome today’s reports that the Kurds are offering to suspend results of their recent referendum in return for a ceasefire and negotiations with the central government. Baghdad should accept this offer and enter into meaningful discussions that address long-term Kurdish concerns about autonomy, share of the national budget, and oil revenues.

Meanwhile, it is critical that the Iraqi government heed Secretary Tillerson’s concern about the role and activities of Iranian-backed Shia militias. We are very concerned about Iranian involvement in recent operations. These forces have been responsible for horrible abuses, including the deaths of Americans. They have no place in a peaceful, united, and stable Iraq.

But Abadi is parrying. He visited Ankara on Wednesday to consult President Recep Erdogan. (Rudaw) The latest reports suggest that the Iraqi forces with the support of the Shi’ite forces might go for the jugular veins of the Iraqi Kurds.

Baghdad will want to drive home the advantage that the Kurds are not cohesive and are split 3-way with the PUK (which was led by late Talabani) inclined to cooperate with Baghdad and Tehran, thereby isolating Barzani who is reduced now increasingly as a US-Israeli proxy. (Turkey has also become hostile toward Barzani following his push for the Kurdish independence referndum.)

The Russian news agency Sputnik reported today as ‘breaking news’ that  Iraqi troops and Shi’ite militias had been pulling heavy artillery and tanks close to Peshmerga positions near Zummar and shelling their positions. (Sputnik) If a flare-up ensues in coming days, US will be in a tight spot, apart from the breakdown of ties between Washington and Baghdad.

Iranian-backed Kata’ib Hezbollah militia with the US-supplied Abrams tank

The US’ problem, quintessentially, is that its intentions are suspect in all three key regional capitals confronting the Kurdish question – Ankara, Baghdad, Tehran. At a recent meeting with US ambassador Douglas Sliman, Iraqi Vice-President Nouri al-Maliki said with brutal frankness,

“We will not allow the creation of a second Israel in northern Iraq.”

Last week’s events underscore three things. One, the US does not intend to end its military presence in Iraq (and Syria), although the pretext of the war against the ISIS is no longer there. Two, US is planning to turn Iraq into a major theatre of confrontation with Iran.

A US control of Iraq puts it in a position to pile pressure on Iran from different directions — interfering with Iranian supply routes to Syria and Lebanon; playing itself back to regain a role in the Syrian settlement; having a say in Iraq’s rising oil production and staging covert cross-border operations to destabilize the Iranian regime. Indeed, with the open-ended US military presence already in place in Afghanistan, the intention is to squash with a similar western neighbor under American tutelage.

Three, fundamentally, it becomes all too obvious that the US-Saudi alliance in regional politics is very much alive and kicking, and any reports to the contrary are greatly exaggerated. The US’ return to the centre stage in Iraq to challenge Iran’s regional influence will give much verve to the US’ alliance with Saudi Arabia.

Interestingly, the Saudi establishment daily Asharq Al-Awsat reported last week that the Pentagon is planning to boost deployments to the Middle East specifically to counter Iran. The report cited General Joseph Votel, commander of the US Central Command, as saying,

“The United States wants to help the Arab countries deal with Iranian threats. The Pentagon is working to achieve that desire and ensure its effective implementation. That includes the establishment of US military battalions sent as missions to the region and be designed specifically to provide advice and assistance.”

All images in this article are from the author.

A television interview of a top Qatari official confessing the truth behind the origins of the war in Syria is going viral across Arabic social media during the same week a leaked top secret NSA document was published which confirms that the armed opposition in Syria was under the direct command of foreign governments from the early years of the conflict.

And according to a well-known Syria analyst and economic adviser with close contacts in the Syrian government, the explosive interview constitutes a high level “public admission to collusion and coordination between four countries to destabilize an independent state, [including] possible support for Nusra/al-Qaeda.” Importantly, “this admission will help build case for what Damascus sees as an attack on its security & sovereignty. It will form basis for compensation claims.”

A 2013 London press conference: Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim bin Jabr Al Thani with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry. A 2014 Hillary Clinton email confirmed Qatar as a state-sponsor of ISIS during that same time period. 

As the war in Syria continues slowly winding down, it seems new source material comes out on an almost a weekly basis in the form of testimonials of top officials involved in destabilizing Syria, and even occasional leaked emails and documentswhich further detail covert regime change operations against the Assad government. Though much of this content serves to confirm what has already long been known by those who have never accepted the simplistic propaganda which has dominated mainstream media, details continue to fall in place, providing future historians with a clearer picture of the true nature of the war.

This process of clarity has been aided – as predicted – by the continued infighting among Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) former allies Saudi Arabia and Qatar, with each side accusing the other of funding Islamic State and al-Qaeda terrorists (ironically, both true). Increasingly, the world watches as more dirty laundry is aired and the GCC implodes after years of nearly all the gulf monarchies funding jihadist movements in places like Syria, Iraq, and Libya.

Since 2013 The Intercept (+WaPo?) hid NSA docs showing Saudi ordering 'rebel' attacks on Damascus. Now released. https://t.co/0PZrBKpJCw

— Julian Assange ? (@JulianAssange) October 24, 2017

The top Qatari official is no less than former Prime Minister Hamad bin Jassim bin Jaber al-Thani, who oversaw Syria operations on behalf of Qatar until 2013 (also as foreign minister), and is seen below with then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in this Jan. 2010 photo (as a reminder, Qatar’s 2022 World Cup Committee donated $500,000 to the Clinton Foundation in 2014).

In an interview with Qatari TV Wednesday, bin Jaber al-Thani revealed that his country, alongside Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and the United States, began shipping weapons to jihadists from the very moment events “first started” (in 2011). 

Al-Thani even likened the covert operation to “hunting prey” – the prey being President Assad and his supporters – “prey” which he admits got away (as Assad is still in power; he used a Gulf Arabic dialect word, “al-sayda”, which implies hunting animals or prey for sport). Though Thani denied credible allegations of support for ISIS, the former prime minister’s words implied direct Gulf and US support for al-Qaeda in Syria (al-Nusra Front) from the earliest years of the war, and even said Qatar has “full documents” and records proving that the war was planned to effect regime change.

"We argued over the prey and that prey run away".Ladies and Gentleman: To these people #Syria #Assad was nothing but a f….ing hunting game https://t.co/w4oKO5TTK6

— EHSANI2 (@EHSANI22) October 27, 2017

According to Zero Hedge’s translation, al-Thani said while acknowledging Gulf nations were arming jihadists in Syria with the approval and support of US and Turkey:

“I don’t want to go into details but we have full documents about us taking charge [in Syria].”

He claimed that both Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah (who reigned until his death in 2015) and the United States placed Qatar in a lead role concerning covert operations to execute the proxy war.

The former prime minister’s comments, while very revealing, were intended as a defense and excuse of Qatar’s support for terrorism, and as a critique of the US and Saudi Arabia for essentially leaving Qatar “holding the bag” in terms of the war against Assad. Al-Thani explained that Qatar continued its financing of armed insurgents in Syria while other countries eventually wound down large-scale support, which is why he lashed out at the US and the Saudis, who initially “were with us in the same trench.”

In a previous US television interview which was vastly underreported, al-Thani told Charlie Rose when asked about allegations of Qatar’s support for terrorism that, “in Syria, everybody did mistakes, including your country.” And said that when the war began in Syria, “all of use worked through two operation rooms: one in Jordan and one in Turkey.”

Below is the key section of Wednesday’s interview, translated and subtitled by @Walid970721. Zero Hedge has reviewed and confirmed the translation, however, as the original rush translator has acknowledged, al-Thani doesn’t say “lady” but “prey” [“al-sayda”]- as in both Assad and Syrians were being hunted by the outside countries.

#Qatar's ex PM says that Qatari support for jihadists including Nusra in #Syria was in coordination w/ KSA, Turkey & the US via @BBassem7 pic.twitter.com/tu8IMRI7IP

— Walid (@walid970721) October 27, 2017

The partial English transcript is as follows:

“When the events first started in Syria I went to Saudi Arabia and met with King Abdullah. I did that on the instructions of his highness the prince, my father. He [Abdullah] said we are behind you. You go ahead with this plan and we will coordinate but you should be in charge. I won’t get into details but we have full documents and anything that was sent [to Syria] would go to Turkey and was in coordination with the US forces and everything was distributed via the Turks and the US forces. And us and everyone else was involved, the military people. There may have been mistakes and support was given to the wrong faction… Maybe there was a relationship with Nusra, its possible but I myself don’t know about this… we were fighting over the prey [“al-sayda”] and now the prey is gone and we are still fighting… and now Bashar is still there. You [US and Saudi Arabia] were with us in the same trench… I have no objection to one changing if he finds that he was wrong, but at least inform your partner… for example leave Bashar [al-Assad] or do this or that, but the situation that has been created now will never allow any progress in the GCC [Gulf Cooperation Council], or any progress on anything if we continue to openly fight.”

As is now well-known, the CIA was directly involved in leading regime change efforts in Syria with allied gulf partners, as leaked and declassified US intelligence memos confirm. The US government understood in real time that Gulf and West-supplied advanced weaponry was going to al-Qaeda and ISIS, despite official claims of arming so-called “moderate” rebels. For example, a leaked 2014 intelligence memo sent to Hillary Clinton acknowledged Qatari and Saudi support for ISIS.

The email stated in direct and unambiguous language that:

“the governments of Qatar and Saudi Arabia, which are providing clandestine financial and logistic support to ISIL and other radical Sunni groups in the region.”

Furthermore, one day before Prime Minister Thani’s interview, The Intercept released a new top-secret NSA document unearthed from leaked intelligence files provided by Edward Snowden which show in stunning clarity that the armed opposition in Syria was under the direct command of foreign governments from the early years of the war which has now claimed half a million lives.

The newly released NSA document confirms that a 2013 insurgent attack with advanced surface-to-surface rockets upon civilian areas of Damascus, including Damascus International Airport, was directly supplied and commanded by Saudi Arabia with full prior awareness of US intelligence. As the former Qatari prime minister now also confirms, both the Saudis and US government staffed “operations rooms” overseeing such heinous attacks during the time period of the 2013 Damascus airport attack.

No doubt there remains a massive trove of damning documentary evidence which will continue to trickle out in the coming months and years. At the very least, the continuing Qatari-Saudi diplomatic war will bear more fruit as each side builds a case against the other with charges of supporting terrorism. And as we can see from this latest Qatari TV interview, the United States itself will not be spared in this new open season of airing dirty laundry as old allies turn on each other.

All images in this article are from the author.

Featured image: A US Navy P-2H Neptune of VP-18 flying over a Soviet cargo ship with crated Il-28s on deck during the Cuban Crisis. © Wikipedia

On the Sept 22, 2017, during a march of All India Kisan Sangharsh Co-ordination Committee, one of its leaders Mr Yogendra Yadav (henceforth YY) told us:

“So, what we are witnessing is the beginning of something that can only be described as a peasant rebellion”[1] Because, there were outbursts of peasants’ movement in several states of India in the last 12-14 months, and also, “Second, they are being run by different organisations, but the demands are actually common. Every single protest boils down to two demands: fair and remunerative price and complete loan waiver…. This de-facto common agenda has emerged in the formation of the All India Kisan Sangharsh Co-ordination Committee, bringing together more than 150 farmer organisations. So, there is a possibility.”[2]

Interestingly, we are hearing this on the 100th year after a revolution the fulfilled the demands of peace, land and bread; when state confiscated all land without compensation and peasants got control over almost all land of the country. Also we are crossing 50th year after the Naxalbari rebellion that started when nine peasant women and a child died in police firing in Naxalbari, a village in West Bengal, in May 1967 during left rule, where peasants had forcibly sequestered land of the landlords; and subsequently a great peasants’ struggle developed against landlords, usurers and village vested interests that spread over India challenging the rule[3].

It may be noted that some peasants’ organisations of “Naxalite” parties (different CPIMLs) along with those of the CPI and CPIM etc left parties are there inside the abovementioned ‘All India Kisan Sangharsh Co-ordination Committee’.

Demand of “fair and remunerative price” or MSP (Minimum Support Price) was being heard since almost 40 years. It became much heard during the Nasik Movement in 1980. Demand of “loan waiver” is also an old one; it was even demanded by a Chief Minister of a state, 30 years earlier in Haryana[4]. These movements cropped up from Maharashtra, Karnataka, Western UP, Haryana etc ‘advanced’ states.

But during 1977-87 there were also echoes of some ‘old’ type, voices against landlords, usurers and village vested interests from Andhra, Telangana, Bihar, Jharkhand, etc states. It was then only 10-20 years from the Naxalbari Peasants struggle. From Punjab where an intense semi-religious Khalistan movement was going on we heard electricity workers and peasants raising a slogan – “Na Hindu Raaj na Khalistan, Raaj Kare Mazdoor, Kisan. (Neither Hindu rule or Khalistani rule, we want the rule of workers and peasants.)”[5]. In Bihar and Jharkhand there were peasants’ movements even after the Arwal killing where 30 peasants died in police firing in 1986.

So there were two kinds of fights. One was putting such demands and acting in such a way as to challenge the agrarian system and also the law and order of the system. There was a revolutionary seed inside such fights. The other type of fight takes as granted the present socio-economic system and seeks some remedy so that peasants (mostly in simple commodity production) can carry on and mainly the farmers (to whom agriculture is a ‘business’) can get a ‘profit’ and thrive.

Subsequently, one came in forefront and the other retreated. Words like agrarian revolution, democratic revolution, means of production etc. de facto retreated. Demands more and more were centred on prices of produces than production relations. Land to the tillers was seen to me ‘no more viable’ or even ‘impractical’. Agriculture was seen as less of a necessity, livelihood, way of life and more of an investment where profitable return was the chief parameter. The ‘lefts’ were proud and happy with their ‘land reform’ in West Bengal which surpassed figures of other states even though touching only 6% of total land under agriculture which passed hands (from the landlords to the peasants); a figure which blushes in shame in front of post WWII land reform in Japan or South Korea.

In the mid-1990s several factors of agriculture again became important to the economy as a whole. Let us see some pertinent points. Firstly, the evils of chemically pushed hybrid (HYV) agriculture started getting manifested – more and more chemical needed to get same level of yield, depletion of groundwater, depletion of micro-nutrients and exhaustion of soil are some significant ones. Secondly, liberalisation led to reduction in subsidies (starting from 1993-94), which in turn moved up prices of fertilisers in an uneven way (increase in prices of P and K was more than that of N, leading to worsening of N:P:K input ratio). Thirdly, diminishing return in agriculture was amply apparent. And fourthly, shift towards commercial agriculture, away from basic foods, increased vulnerability.

As all answers were to be sought in market (and everybody knew revolution is not at all a practical word and equality is just a utopia, haven’t you seen what happened in Russia, East Europe, China!), the question of influencing the biggest player, the state, came to forefront: Lowering of input price (= subsidy, loan waiver) and increasing the output price (= MSP). History, geography, economics etc all worked hand in hand so well to shape this inside the popular consciousness that we could understand this ‘situation’ even without the help of our learned friend YY. Only some small detail are missing here in this generalisation, for example, demand for irrigation water[6], outbursts against insufficient electricity supply[7] etc which are all related to basic needs of green revolution.

Still, the land question did not die. In the last 10 years it is also present sometimes in the news served by big media. Let us see some examples.

1. In July 2007 in Nellore district of Andhra Pradesh we saw “If the police brutally throw them out of occupied lands, they are returning back with greater determination the next day. In Nellore, where there has been a most atrocious attack on women, children and old by the police, the people refused to vacate the lands despite our people trying to persuade them to retreat temporarily…[8]. CPIM and other ‘opposition’ parties quickly called a state wide general strike for a day and withdrew the movement for land.

2. In 2008-09 in Malwa region of Punjab we found Dalit peasants capturing govt. owned lands. We hear story of a woman peasant who was undaunted in her fight even after being in jail twice for the fight.[9]

3. “Holding banners and flags and raising slogans, nearly a thousand landless farmers who arrived from different parts of the district marched from Ambedkar Circle to the office of Deputy Commissioner here on Wednesday demanding cultivable lands for landless and residential plots for homeless.”[10] And this was from Raichur, Karnataka, in July 2016.

4. Shortly after that we hear slogans in Gujarat— તમે તમારું ગાયનું પૂંછડું રાખો અને અમને અમારી જમીન આપો (you keep your cow’s tail, and give us our land)[11]. That was when thousands of Dalits marched from Ahmedabad to Una, Gujarat, in August 2016.

But there is a warning sign. If leaders of these movements gets in a parliamentary grouping with target of winning next parliament and assembly elections and ‘reforming’ the system from within, well, we have seen in the past how efficiently bourgeois parliament (and even state governments) can accommodate and reform these parties or groups or platforms and make all of them system-slaves.

Some last words:

1. We have seen above few peasants movements with demand of land. Interestingly, most of them took place in so called advanced or developed states of India. This only shows the presence of the demand in the mind of the peasants. We find in history how difficult it is to conclude that certain sections have become agro-labourers and they do not have this land demand anymore. We may recall a story from Russia during early soviet years; interested readers may read that given in the footnote section.[12]

2. If an averaging happens in India a peasant household will get a maximum of, say 0.75 Ha in WB, about 1 Ha in Andhra Pradesh, about 1.75 Ha in Madhya Pradesh and so on[13]; which is meagre and will not bring a lifelong solution to Indian peasants. But a democratic revolution is only a start of a solution. Most likely, to overcome the size and ability constraints they will move towards making cooperatives and eventually to social ownership of social means of production.

3. Our learned friends YY only mentioned the ‘ecological’ crisis of agriculture when he stared the talk but did not put any ‘demand’ or emphasis corresponding to that. But shifting from this green revolution to natural agriculture is now imperative. Is there any peasants’ organisation which is taking it up seriously?

Sandeep Banerjee is an activist who writes on political and socioeconomic issues and also on environmental issues. Some of his articles are published in Frontier Weekly, a 50 year old magazine from Kolkata.
He lives in West Bengal, India.

Notes

[1]. Oct 04, 2017 · 08:00 am, Manas Roshan in Scroll.in https://scroll.in/article/851846/interview-we-are-witnessing-the-beginning-of-a-peasant-rebellion-in-india-says-yogendra-yadav

[2] ibid

[3] https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mazumdar/1968/06/x02.html

[4] http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/haryana-chief-minister-devi-lals-grand-loan-waiver-plans-go-awry/1/337755.html “After sitting in the chief minister’s chair, I will call my finance minister and the chief secretary. I will ask them to draft an order waiving all loans taken by my brothers in the villages. You will all be free from the burden of loans the moment your man Devi Lal signs the order and puts the Haryana Government’s seal on it.” And he did it.

[5] http://www.massline.info/India/ht_MassRevLineDuringKhalistani.htm See also https://www.straight.com/news/389916/gurpreet-singh-khalistani-separatists-killings-leave-legacy-sorrow-canada-and-us

[6] Farmers hold SDM as hostage, 30 hurt in police lathi charge http://www.thehindu.com/2004/10/27/stories/2004102711260500.htm Then, “The tehsil town of Gharsana and the neighbouring Raola in Sriganganagar district of Rajasthan were brought under curfew on Tuesday morning after the previous night’s clashes between the police and the farmers agitating for irrigation water. The troops deployed late on Monday evening took over Gharsana town, which was till the other day virtually under the control of farmers who had laid siege to the Dan Mandi area for the past seven days. The troops carried out flag marches in the town.” http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-national/curfew-in-two-rajasthan-towns/article3062885.ece

[7] Farmers stage dharna in protest against power supply disconnection http://www.thehindu.com/2004/06/02/stories/2004060210030300.htm

[8] Peoples Democracy 2007, July1, Interview with B V Raghavulu, “We Will Continue & Intensify The Land Struggle” http://archives.peoplesdemocracy.in/2007/0701/07012007_raghavulu%20intrv.htm

[9] Interested readers may read the full story here http://www.hardnewsmedia.com/2009/08/3134

[10] Landless farmers demand agricultural lands, residential plots, Raichur, July 20, 2016
http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/karnataka/Landless-farmers-demand-agricultural-lands-residential-plots/article14499308.ece

[11] Dalit Asmita Rally August 6, 2016 http://sandesh.com/dalit-asmita-raily-ahmedabad-to-una/

[12] It was in March 1919. Lenin was addressing “Session of the First Congress of Farm Labourers of Petrograd Gubernia” and he ended his speech declaring the hope of formation of ‘All-Russia Farm Labourers’ Union’ soon. But some queer comments cropped up from those ‘farm labourers’ or whom they thought to be agricultural proletariat. They demanded, in front of Lenin, private vegetable plots and permission to keep and raise animals! Lenin was amazed. He said, “If private vegetable plots, animals, poultry, and so forth, were permitted again, we should revert to the small farming that had existed hitherto. If that were the case, would it be worthwhile to have all this bother. Would it be worthwhile establishing state farms?” https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1919/mar/13.htm

[13] Agriculture Census 2011 http://agcensus.dacnet.nic.in/statesummarytype.aspx

Featured image is from ScoopWhoop.

On the Sept 22, 2017, during a march of All India Kisan Sangharsh Co-ordination Committee, one of its leaders Mr Yogendra Yadav (henceforth YY) told us:

“So, what we are witnessing is the beginning of something that can only be described as a peasant rebellion”[1] Because, there were outbursts of peasants’ movement in several states of India in the last 12-14 months, and also, “Second, they are being run by different organisations, but the demands are actually common. Every single protest boils down to two demands: fair and remunerative price and complete loan waiver…. This de-facto common agenda has emerged in the formation of the All India Kisan Sangharsh Co-ordination Committee, bringing together more than 150 farmer organisations. So, there is a possibility.”[2]

Interestingly, we are hearing this on the 100th year after a revolution the fulfilled the demands of peace, land and bread; when state confiscated all land without compensation and peasants got control over almost all land of the country. Also we are crossing 50th year after the Naxalbari rebellion that started when nine peasant women and a child died in police firing in Naxalbari, a village in West Bengal, in May 1967 during left rule, where peasants had forcibly sequestered land of the landlords; and subsequently a great peasants’ struggle developed against landlords, usurers and village vested interests that spread over India challenging the rule[3].

It may be noted that some peasants’ organisations of “Naxalite” parties (different CPIMLs) along with those of the CPI and CPIM etc left parties are there inside the abovementioned ‘All India Kisan Sangharsh Co-ordination Committee’.

Demand of “fair and remunerative price” or MSP (Minimum Support Price) was being heard since almost 40 years. It became much heard during the Nasik Movement in 1980. Demand of “loan waiver” is also an old one; it was even demanded by a Chief Minister of a state, 30 years earlier in Haryana[4]. These movements cropped up from Maharashtra, Karnataka, Western UP, Haryana etc ‘advanced’ states.

But during 1977-87 there were also echoes of some ‘old’ type, voices against landlords, usurers and village vested interests from Andhra, Telangana, Bihar, Jharkhand, etc states. It was then only 10-20 years from the Naxalbari Peasants struggle. From Punjab where an intense semi-religious Khalistan movement was going on we heard electricity workers and peasants raising a slogan – “Na Hindu Raaj na Khalistan, Raaj Kare Mazdoor, Kisan. (Neither Hindu rule or Khalistani rule, we want the rule of workers and peasants.)”[5]. In Bihar and Jharkhand there were peasants’ movements even after the Arwal killing where 30 peasants died in police firing in 1986.

So there were two kinds of fights. One was putting such demands and acting in such a way as to challenge the agrarian system and also the law and order of the system. There was a revolutionary seed inside such fights. The other type of fight takes as granted the present socio-economic system and seeks some remedy so that peasants (mostly in simple commodity production) can carry on and mainly the farmers (to whom agriculture is a ‘business’) can get a ‘profit’ and thrive.

Subsequently, one came in forefront and the other retreated. Words like agrarian revolution, democratic revolution, means of production etc. de facto retreated. Demands more and more were centred on prices of produces than production relations. Land to the tillers was seen to me ‘no more viable’ or even ‘impractical’. Agriculture was seen as less of a necessity, livelihood, way of life and more of an investment where profitable return was the chief parameter. The ‘lefts’ were proud and happy with their ‘land reform’ in West Bengal which surpassed figures of other states even though touching only 6% of total land under agriculture which passed hands (from the landlords to the peasants); a figure which blushes in shame in front of post WWII land reform in Japan or South Korea.

In the mid-1990s several factors of agriculture again became important to the economy as a whole. Let us see some pertinent points. Firstly, the evils of chemically pushed hybrid (HYV) agriculture started getting manifested – more and more chemical needed to get same level of yield, depletion of groundwater, depletion of micro-nutrients and exhaustion of soil are some significant ones. Secondly, liberalisation led to reduction in subsidies (starting from 1993-94), which in turn moved up prices of fertilisers in an uneven way (increase in prices of P and K was more than that of N, leading to worsening of N:P:K input ratio). Thirdly, diminishing return in agriculture was amply apparent. And fourthly, shift towards commercial agriculture, away from basic foods, increased vulnerability.

As all answers were to be sought in market (and everybody knew revolution is not at all a practical word and equality is just a utopia, haven’t you seen what happened in Russia, East Europe, China!), the question of influencing the biggest player, the state, came to forefront: Lowering of input price (= subsidy, loan waiver) and increasing the output price (= MSP). History, geography, economics etc all worked hand in hand so well to shape this inside the popular consciousness that we could understand this ‘situation’ even without the help of our learned friend YY. Only some small detail are missing here in this generalisation, for example, demand for irrigation water[6], outbursts against insufficient electricity supply[7] etc which are all related to basic needs of green revolution.

Still, the land question did not die. In the last 10 years it is also present sometimes in the news served by big media. Let us see some examples.

1. In July 2007 in Nellore district of Andhra Pradesh we saw “If the police brutally throw them out of occupied lands, they are returning back with greater determination the next day. In Nellore, where there has been a most atrocious attack on women, children and old by the police, the people refused to vacate the lands despite our people trying to persuade them to retreat temporarily…[8]. CPIM and other ‘opposition’ parties quickly called a state wide general strike for a day and withdrew the movement for land.

2. In 2008-09 in Malwa region of Punjab we found Dalit peasants capturing govt. owned lands. We hear story of a woman peasant who was undaunted in her fight even after being in jail twice for the fight.[9]

3. “Holding banners and flags and raising slogans, nearly a thousand landless farmers who arrived from different parts of the district marched from Ambedkar Circle to the office of Deputy Commissioner here on Wednesday demanding cultivable lands for landless and residential plots for homeless.”[10] And this was from Raichur, Karnataka, in July 2016.

4. Shortly after that we hear slogans in Gujarat— તમે તમારું ગાયનું પૂંછડું રાખો અને અમને અમારી જમીન આપો (you keep your cow’s tail, and give us our land)[11]. That was when thousands of Dalits marched from Ahmedabad to Una, Gujarat, in August 2016.

But there is a warning sign. If leaders of these movements gets in a parliamentary grouping with target of winning next parliament and assembly elections and ‘reforming’ the system from within, well, we have seen in the past how efficiently bourgeois parliament (and even state governments) can accommodate and reform these parties or groups or platforms and make all of them system-slaves.

Some last words:

1. We have seen above few peasants movements with demand of land. Interestingly, most of them took place in so called advanced or developed states of India. This only shows the presence of the demand in the mind of the peasants. We find in history how difficult it is to conclude that certain sections have become agro-labourers and they do not have this land demand anymore. We may recall a story from Russia during early soviet years; interested readers may read that given in the footnote section.[12]

2. If an averaging happens in India a peasant household will get a maximum of, say 0.75 Ha in WB, about 1 Ha in Andhra Pradesh, about 1.75 Ha in Madhya Pradesh and so on[13]; which is meagre and will not bring a lifelong solution to Indian peasants. But a democratic revolution is only a start of a solution. Most likely, to overcome the size and ability constraints they will move towards making cooperatives and eventually to social ownership of social means of production.

3. Our learned friends YY only mentioned the ‘ecological’ crisis of agriculture when he stared the talk but did not put any ‘demand’ or emphasis corresponding to that. But shifting from this green revolution to natural agriculture is now imperative. Is there any peasants’ organisation which is taking it up seriously?

Sandeep Banerjee is an activist who writes on political and socioeconomic issues and also on environmental issues. Some of his articles are published in Frontier Weekly, a 50 year old magazine from Kolkata.
He lives in West Bengal, India.

Notes

[1]. Oct 04, 2017 · 08:00 am, Manas Roshan in Scroll.in https://scroll.in/article/851846/interview-we-are-witnessing-the-beginning-of-a-peasant-rebellion-in-india-says-yogendra-yadav

[2] ibid

[3] https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mazumdar/1968/06/x02.html

[4] http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/haryana-chief-minister-devi-lals-grand-loan-waiver-plans-go-awry/1/337755.html “After sitting in the chief minister’s chair, I will call my finance minister and the chief secretary. I will ask them to draft an order waiving all loans taken by my brothers in the villages. You will all be free from the burden of loans the moment your man Devi Lal signs the order and puts the Haryana Government’s seal on it.” And he did it.

[5] http://www.massline.info/India/ht_MassRevLineDuringKhalistani.htm See also https://www.straight.com/news/389916/gurpreet-singh-khalistani-separatists-killings-leave-legacy-sorrow-canada-and-us

[6] Farmers hold SDM as hostage, 30 hurt in police lathi charge http://www.thehindu.com/2004/10/27/stories/2004102711260500.htm Then, “The tehsil town of Gharsana and the neighbouring Raola in Sriganganagar district of Rajasthan were brought under curfew on Tuesday morning after the previous night’s clashes between the police and the farmers agitating for irrigation water. The troops deployed late on Monday evening took over Gharsana town, which was till the other day virtually under the control of farmers who had laid siege to the Dan Mandi area for the past seven days. The troops carried out flag marches in the town.” http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-national/curfew-in-two-rajasthan-towns/article3062885.ece

[7] Farmers stage dharna in protest against power supply disconnection http://www.thehindu.com/2004/06/02/stories/2004060210030300.htm

[8] Peoples Democracy 2007, July1, Interview with B V Raghavulu, “We Will Continue & Intensify The Land Struggle” http://archives.peoplesdemocracy.in/2007/0701/07012007_raghavulu%20intrv.htm

[9] Interested readers may read the full story here http://www.hardnewsmedia.com/2009/08/3134

[10] Landless farmers demand agricultural lands, residential plots, Raichur, July 20, 2016
http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/karnataka/Landless-farmers-demand-agricultural-lands-residential-plots/article14499308.ece

[11] Dalit Asmita Rally August 6, 2016 http://sandesh.com/dalit-asmita-raily-ahmedabad-to-una/

[12] It was in March 1919. Lenin was addressing “Session of the First Congress of Farm Labourers of Petrograd Gubernia” and he ended his speech declaring the hope of formation of ‘All-Russia Farm Labourers’ Union’ soon. But some queer comments cropped up from those ‘farm labourers’ or whom they thought to be agricultural proletariat. They demanded, in front of Lenin, private vegetable plots and permission to keep and raise animals! Lenin was amazed. He said, “If private vegetable plots, animals, poultry, and so forth, were permitted again, we should revert to the small farming that had existed hitherto. If that were the case, would it be worthwhile to have all this bother. Would it be worthwhile establishing state farms?” https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1919/mar/13.htm

[13] Agriculture Census 2011 http://agcensus.dacnet.nic.in/statesummarytype.aspx

Featured image is from ScoopWhoop.

A new portion of documents about the assassination of John F. Kennedy, which was published on the website of the National Archives of the United States, sheds light on the USSR’s reaction to the high-profile crime. Originally, the Soviet leadership assumed that the killing was a “conspiracy of ultra-right” forces to seize power in the USA.

The USA received the information about the reaction of the Soviet Authorities from a source in the USSR. According to the source, the USSR was shocked and awed about Kennedy’s assassination. Declassified documents say that the Church honoured the memory of the victim with a toll of bells.

The administration of the Communist Party assumed that there was not one person, but a group of people behind the crime. The Soviet leadership believed that the murder could be part of conspiracy plan of ultra-right forces to commit a coup, cease negotiations with the USSR, attack Cuba and even launch a war. The USSR, the documents said, set its armed forces on high alert immediately.

The published materials also say that the Soviet authorities feared an outbreak of a nuclear war and wanted to learn more about the persona of Lyndon Johnson, who became the 36th US president. The source told the US authorities that the Soviet Union believed that an irresponsible general in the United States could launch a missile at the Soviet Union.

The published materials contain a document about reactions of Soviet special services to the assassination of John Kennedy. Soviet Colonel Boris Ivanov, who was in charge of the legal KGB residency in New York, was convinced about the existence of a large-scale conspiracy plan to destabilise the United States. Ivanov also believed that there was a whole group of people, who had plotted Kennedy’s assassination. He ordered special services to find out what really happened and who exactly was standing behind the shocking crime.

In 1965, a source at the FBI said that the KGB had information about President Johnson’s responsibility for the murder. Thus, even after the killing of Oswald and the report from the Warren Commission, which considered Kennedy’s assassination as an act committed by only one sniper, the Soviet Union still believed in the conspiracy in the USA.

The Soviet Union denied any connection between Lee Harvey Oswald and the USSR, calling him “a neurotic maniac,” who was not loyal either to his own country or to anything else. Soviet officials also noted that Oswald had never been a part of any organisation in the Soviet Union, nor had he ever obtained Soviet citizenship.

However, Lee Harvey Oswald had spent two and a half years in Minsk and returned home with his Russian wife Marina and their first daughter a year before the Kennedy assassination – in June 1962. Some believe that Nikita Khrushchev wanted to take revenge on the US for the failed Caribbean crisis. However, no one has ever presented any evidence to this version.

Featured image is from the author.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO):

As societies industrialize and the technological revolution continues, there has been an unprecedented increase in the number and diversity of electromagnetic field (EMF) sources. These sources include video display units (VDUs) associated with computers, mobile phones and their base stations. While these devices have made our life richer, safer and easier, they have been accompanied by concerns about possible health risks due to their EMF emissions.

For some time a number of individuals have reported a variety of health problems that they relate to exposure to EMF. While some individuals report mild symptoms and react by avoiding the fields as best they can, others are so severely affected that they cease work and change their entire lifestyle. This reputed sensitivity to EMF has been generally termed “electromagnetic hypersensitivity” or EHS.

Other sources of this type of radiation include power lines and WiFi technology.

The WHO fact sheet quoted above also describes Electromagnetic Hypersensitivity in detail, and is based on the combined research of a WHO Workshop on the subject (Prague, Czech Republic, 2004), an international conference on EMF and non-specific health symptoms (COST244bis, 1998), a European Commission report (Bergqvist and Vogel, 1997), and recent reviews of the literature.

However, many of the facts cited seem to be countered by a growing number of publications and scientists. For example, they argue that EMFs are simply a “perceived” problem, and the sensitivities are psychological rather than physical. They state that “well controlled and conducted double-blind studies have shown that symptoms were not correlated with EMF exposure.” They also state it’s possible “these symptoms may be due to pre-existing psychiatric conditions as well as stress reactions as a result of worrying about EMF health effects, rather than the EMF exposure itself.” In conclusion, they suggest that “treatment of affected individuals should focus on the health symptoms and the clinical picture, and not on the person’s perceived need for reducing or eliminating EMF in the workplace or home.”

These arguments are reminiscent of those surrounding Glyphosate, the main ingredient in Monsanto’s Round Up herbicide, because for decades a plethora of publications and scientists were showing what it can do to the human body, yet it wasn’t until recently that the World Health Organization admitted that it is carcinogenic. Why does it take so long for new evidence to be considered? Why do they state that substances are safe in the face of such staunch opposition from so many professionals, and why do we assume things are safe until proven otherwise? Shouldn’t it be the other way around? Are we seeing the same thing with electromagnetic radiation?

If It’s Not A Concern, Then Why…

If it’s not as much of a concern as many feel it to be, then why are more than 200 scientists from more than 40 countries petitioning the United Nations about this issue? The information above provided from the WHO is more than a decade old, and in 2015 this group of scientists urged the United Nations and its organization to encourage precautionary measures and conduct an environmental assessment. They also asked for the WHO to educate the public about health risks, particularly to children and pregnant women, and for the United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP) to assess the potential impact of EMF exposure on all living organisms.

Why are there more than 2,000 peer-reviewed publications raising cause for concern on this topic? According to the appeal sent to Antonio Guterres (among others), Secretary-General of the United Nations:

Numerous scientific publications have found that EMF affects living organisms at levels far below international exposure guidelines adopted by most industrialized nations. There is discrepancy in how this matter is considered at the WHO, however. While WHO accepted its International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC)’s recommendation that classifies both ELF/EMF and RF/EMF as Group 2B “Possible Carcinogens,” it also, in direct contrast to these warnings, recommends the adoption of the International Commission on Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection’s (ICNIRP) guidelines for exposure standards. These guidelines, developed by a self-selected 2 independent industry group, have long been criticized as not protective given the science now established.

“Independent Industry Group”

The importance of highlighting industry’s role in this matter shouldn’t be ignored, since modern day science is, unfortunately, plagued by industry corruption and scientific fraud. Not long ago, however, the Berkeley City Council unanimously adopted an ordinance to require cellphone retailers in Berkeley, California, to provide consumers with information regarding the dangers associated with the wireless industry and, more specifically, on cell phone radiation.

The ordinance was created with the help of Lawrence Lessig, a law professor at Harvard University, the California Brain Tumor Association, and Robert Post, the Dean of Yale Law School, who believes, along with hundreds of other scientists, that the research is sound.

The concerns raised by all of these scientists also had at least 12 elementary and middle schools in Ontario and B.C. impose bans on wireless internet by not installing it or removing it completely from their classrooms. You can read more about that here.

Hearing From the Creator of the Initiative

The initiative was started by Dr. Martin Blank, Ph.D., from the Department of Physiology and Cellular Biophysics at Colombia University, who has joined a group of scientists from around the world making an international appeal to the United Nations regarding the dangers associated with the use of various electromagnetic emitting devices, like cells phones and WiFi.

“Putting it bluntly they are damaging the living cells in our bodies and killing many of us prematurely,”said Dr. Martin Blank, from the Department of Physiology and Cellular Biophysics at Columbia University, in a video message.

“We have created something that is harming us, and it is getting out of control. Before Edison’s light bulb there was very little electromagnetic radiation in our environment. The levels today are very many times higher than natural background levels, and are growing rapidly because of all the new devices that emit this radiation.”

Below is a video of him speaking about this issue.

Do You Have Electromagnetic Sensitivity? What Can You Do About It?

For starters, the best think you can do is not to worry, because this is how powerful the mind-body connection really is. 

It’s also important to mention that children’s brains absorb much more radiation than those of adults. According to Mary Redmayne, Ph.D,. a professor in the Department of Epidemiology & Preventative Medicine at Australia’s Monash University:

There is much high-quality research showing bio-physiological effects from permitted electromagnetic exposures; these findings are not nullified by research which fails to find effects. To claim that the ‘weight of evidence’ does not support these effects (even if it were true) is misleading. To infer that this means no precautions are needed is illogical and non-scientific.

It would help parents and policy makers if consensus among advisory organisations and scientists could be reached acknowledging that assurance of safety of chronic low-dose radiofrequency exposure cannot be guaranteed and is related to ill-health in some people. Therefore, minimising exposure, especially children’s, is sensible. This should be treated like other daily health precautions and warnings such as those about diet.

A publication from the International Commission on Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection, titled “Guidelines For Limiting Exposure To Time Varying Electric, Magnetic, and Electromagnetic Fields Up To 300 GHZ,” cites an abundance of scientific research regarding these non-natural fields and their affect on human biology.

Here are the IARC’s Monographs on the Evaluation of Carcinogenic Risks to Humans.

The symptoms can differ a lot between sufferers, but will normally include some of the following: sleep disturbance, tiredness, depression, headaches, restlessness, irritability, concentration problems, forgetfulness, learning difficulties, frequent infections, blood pressure changes, limb and joint pains, numbness or tingling sensations, tinnitus, hearing loss, impaired balance, giddiness and eye problems. There have been reports of cardiovascular problems such as tachycardia, though these are relatively rare.

Many of the symptoms reported resemble those of  multiple chemical sensitivity (MCS).

Some steps you can take are:

• Don’t let your child use a cell phone.
• Keep your cell phone use to a minimum.
• Reduce or eliminate your use of other wireless devices.
• Limit cell phone use to areas with excellent reception.
• Avoid carrying your cell phone on your body, and do not sleep with it under your pillow or near your head.
• Don’t assume one cell phone is safer than another. There’s no such thing as a “safe” cell phone.
• Respect others; many are highly sensitive to EMF. Some people who have become sensitive can feel the effects of others’ cell phones in the same room, even when it is on but not being used.
• Walk barefoot on the earth
• Worry less. The power of consciousness with regards to our health is huge. This has been demonstrated by recent findings within quantum physics, the placebo effect, and many other interesting phenomena, like neuro-plasticity. This could explain why some people who have such unhealthy lifestyles, but don’t worry and enjoy themselves still live longer. The human body is great at adapting — all we have to do is help it out a little bit.

You can also check out Dr. Scott Eberle, who trained as a family physician, worked for nearly two decades as an AIDS specialist, and continues as a hospice medical director. After an episode of carbon monoxide poisoning in 2010, he began having symptoms that, in retrospect, signalled the initial onset of this type of sensitivity. In 2013, his health plummeted until he finally figured out the cause.

“What’s the Diagnosis, Doctor?” was published in Sonoma Medicine in 2104. “An Underworld Journey: Learning to Cope With Electromagnetic Sensitivity” was published by Ecopsychology in 2017. See also: “So You Think You Might Be Electrosensitive “and “Guidelines for Making a Home Radiowave Safe.” Read more from Dr. Eberle here.

Devices You Can Get to Help Protect You, Backed by Science

As a result of this growing issue that’s gaining more attention, scientists and researchers are now teaming up to find ways to mitigate the effects of electromagnetic radiation. One example would be the devices manufactured by Earth-Calm. They have been tested in the lab by multiple scientists, with full reports and results available on the website.

I just wanted to provide an example, and let people know that there are several companies developing these products. I recommend doing the research, reading the studies and results, as well as contacting the scientists who are conducting these studies.

2,000+ Peer-Reviewed Studies

The truth is, there are more, but these 2,000 come from the 200+ scientists who are petitioning the UN about this issue, as mentioned above. Below is the list. Feel free to look them up and contact them for more information.

Armenia

Prof. Sinerik Ayrapetyan, Ph.D., UNESCO Chair – Life Sciences International Postgraduate Educational Center, Armenia

Australia

Dr. Priyanka Bandara, Ph.D., Independent Env.Health Educator/Researcher, Advisor, Environmental Health Trust; Doctors for Safer Schools, Australia
Dr. Peter French BSc, MSc, MBA, PhD, FRSM, Conjoint Senior Lecturer, University of New South Wales, Australia
Dr. Bruce Hocking, MD, MBBS, FAFOEM (RACP), FRACGP, FARPS, specialist in occupational medicine; Victoria, Australia
Dr. Gautam (Vini) Khurana, Ph.D., F.R.A.C.S., Director, C.N.S. Neurosurgery, Australia
Dr. Don Maisch, Ph.D., Australia
Dr. Elena Pirogova, Ph.D., Biomed Eng., B. Eng (Hon) Chem. Eng., Engineering & Health College; RMIT University, Australia
Dr. Mary Redmayne, Ph.D., Department of Epidemiology & Preventive Medicine, Monash University, Australia
Dr. Charles Teo, BM, BS, MBBS, Member of the Order of Australia, Director, Centre for Minimally Invasive Neurosurgery at Prince of Wales Hospital, NSW, Australia

Austria

Dr. Michael Kundi, MD, University of Vienna, Austria
Dr. Gerd Oberfeld, MD, Public Health Department, Salzburg Government, Austria
Dr. Bernhard Pollner, MD, Pollner Research, Austria
Prof. Dr. Hugo W. Rüdiger, MD, Austria

Bahrain

Dr. Amer Kamal, MD, Physiology Department, College of Medicine, Arabian Gulf University, Bahrain

Belgium

Prof. Marie-Claire Cammaerts, Ph.D., Free University of Brussels, Faculty of Science, Brussels, Belgium

Brazil

Vânia Araújo Condessa, MSc., Electrical Engineer, Belo Horizonte, Brazil
Prof. Dr. João Eduardo de Araujo, MD, University of Sao Paulo, Brazil
Dr. Francisco de Assis Ferreira Tejo, D. Sc., Universidade Federal de Campina Grande, Campina Grande, State of Paraíba, Brazil
Prof. Alvaro deSalles, Ph.D., Federal University of Rio Grande Del Sol, Brazil
Prof. Adilza Dode, Ph.D., MSc. Engineering Sciences, Minas Methodist University, Brazil
Dr. Daiana Condessa Dode, MD, Federal University of Medicine, Brazil
Michael Condessa Dode, Systems Analyst, MRE Engenharia Ltda, Belo Horizonte, Brazil
Prof. Orlando Furtado Vieira Filho, PhD, Cellular&Molecular Biology, Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil

Canada

Dr. Magda Havas, Ph.D., Environmental and Resource Studies, Centre for Health Studies, Trent University, Canada
Dr. Paul Héroux, Ph.D., Director, Occupational Health Program, McGill University; InvitroPlus Labs, Royal Victoria Hospital, McGill University, Canada
Dr. Tom Hutchinson, Ph.D., Professor Emeritus, Environmental and Resource Studies, Trent University, Canada
Prof. Ying Li, Ph.D., InVitroPlus Labs, Dept. of Surgery, Royal Victoria Hospital, McGill University, Canada
James McKay M.Sc, Ecologist, City of London; Planning Services, Environmental and Parks Planning, London, Canada
Prof. Anthony B. Miller, MD, FRCP, University of Toronto, Canada
Prof. Klaus-Peter Ossenkopp, Ph.D., Department of Psychology (Neuroscience), University of Western Ontario, Canada
Dr. Malcolm Paterson, PhD. Molecular Oncologist (ret.), British Columbia, Canada
Prof. Michael A. Persinger, Ph.D., Behavioural Neuroscience and Biomolecular Sciences, Laurentian University, Canada

China

Prof. Huai Chiang, Bioelectromagnetics Key Laboratory, Zhejiang University School of Medicine, China
Prof. Yuqing Duan, Ph.D., Food & Bioengineering, Jiangsu University, China
Dr. Kaijun Liu, Ph.D., Third Military Medical University, Chongqing, China
Prof. Xiaodong Liu, Director, Key Lab of Radiation Biology, Ministry of Health of China; Associate Dean, School of Public Health, Jilin University, China
Prof. Wenjun Sun, Ph.D., Bioelectromagnetics Key Lab, Zhejiang University School of Medicine, China
Prof. Minglian Wang, Ph.D., College of Life Science & Bioengineering, Beijing University of Technology, China
Prof. Qun Wang, Ph.D., College of Materials Science & Engineering,  Beijing University of Technology, China
Prof. Haihiu Zhang, Ph.D., School of Food & BioEngineering, Jiangsu University, China
Prof. Jianbao Zhang, Associate Dean, Life Science and Technology School, Xi’an Jiaotong University, China
Prof. Hui-yan Zhao, Director of STSCRW, College of Plant Protection, Northwest A & F University, Yangling Shaanxi, China
Prof. J. Zhao, Department of Chest Surgery, Cancer Center of Guangzhou Medical University, Guangzhou, China

Croatia

Ivancica Trosic, Ph.D., Institute for Medical Research and Occupational Health, Croatia

Egypt

Prof. Dr. Abu Bakr Abdel Fatth El-Bediwi, Ph.D., Physics Dept., Faculty of Science, Mansoura University, Egypt
Prof. Dr. Emad Fawzy Eskander, Ph.D., Medical Division, Hormones Department, National Research Center, Egypt
Prof. Dr. Heba Salah El Din Aboul Ezz, Ph.D., Physiology, Zoology Department, Faculty of Science, Cairo University, Egypt
Prof. Dr. Nasr Radwan, Ph.D., Neurophysiology, Faculty of Science, Cairo University, Egypt

Estonia

Dr. Hiie Hinrikus, Ph.D., D.Sc, Tallinn University of Technology, Estonia
Mr. Tarmo Koppel, Tallinn University of Technology, Estonia

Finland

Dr. Mikko Ahonen, Ph.D, University of Tampere, Finland
Dr. Marjukka Hagström, LL.M., M.Soc.Sc, Principal Researcher, Radio and EMC Laboratory, Finland
Prof. Dr. Osmo Hänninen, Ph.D., Dept. of Physiology, Faculty of Medicine, University of Eastern Finland, Finland; Editor-In-Chief, Pathophysiology, Finland
Dr. Dariusz Leszczynski, Ph.D., Adjunct Professor of Biochemistry, University of Helsinki, Finland; Member of the IARC Working Group that classified cell phone radiation as possible carcinogen.
Dr. Georgiy Ostroumov, Ph.D. (in the field of RF EMF), independent researcher, Finland

France

Prof. Dr. Dominique Belpomme, MD, MPH, Professor in Oncology, Paris V Descartes University, ECERI Executive Director
Dr. Pierre Le Ruz, Ph.D., Criirem, Le Mans, France Georgia
Prof. Besarion Partsvania, Ph.D., Head of Bio-cybernetics Department of Georgian Technical University, Georgia

Germany

Prof. Dr. Franz Adlkofer, MD, Chairman, Pandora Foundation, Germany
Prof. Dr. Hynek  Burda, Ph.D., University of Duisburg-Essen, Germany
Dr. Horst Eger, MD, Electromagnetic Fields in Medicine, Association of Statutory Health Insurance Physicians, Bavaria, Germany
Prof. Dr. Karl Hecht, MD, former Director, Institute of Pathophysiology, Charité, Humboldt University, Berlin, Germany
Dr.Sc. Florian M. König, Ph.D., Florian König Enterprises (FKE) GmbH, Munich, Germany
Dr. rer. nat. Lebrecht von Klitzing, Ph.D., Dr. rer. nat. Lebrecht von Klitzing, Ph.D., Head, Institute of Environ.Physics; Ex-Head, Dept. Clinical Research, Medical University, Lubeck, Germany
Dr. Cornelia Waldmann-Selsam, MD, Member, Competence Initiative for the Protection of Humanity, Environment and Democracy e.V, Bamberg, Germany
Dr. Ulrich Warnke, Ph.D., Bionik-Institut, University of Saarlandes, Germany

Greece

Dr. Adamantia F. Fragopoulou,  M.Sc., Ph.D., Department of Cell Biology & Biophysics, Biology Faculty, University of Athens, Greece
Dr. Christos Georgiou, Ph.D.,  Biology Department, University of Patras, Greece
Prof. Emeritus Lukas H. Margaritis, Ph.D., Depts. Cell Biology, Radiobiology & Biophysics, Biology Faculty, Univ. of Athens, Greece
Dr. Aikaterini Skouroliakou, M.Sc., Ph.D., Department of Energy Technology Engineering, Technological Educational Institute of Athens, Greece
Dr. Stelios A Zinelis, MD, Hellenic Cancer Society-Kefalonia, Greece

Iceland

Dr. Ceon Ramon, Ph.D., Affiliate Professor, University of Washington, USA; Professor, Reykjavik University, Iceland

India

Prof. Dr. B. D. Banerjee, Ph.D., Fmr. Head, Environmental Biochemistry & Molecular Biology Laboratory, Department of Biochemistry, University College of Medical Sciences, University of Delhi, India
Prof. Jitendra Behari, Ph.D., Ex-Dean, Jawaharlal Nehru University; presently, Emeritus Professor, Amity University, India
Prof. Dr. Madhukar Shivajirao Dama, Institute of Wildlife Veterinary Research, India
Associate Prof. Dr Amarjot Dhami, PhD., Lovely Professional University, Phagwara, Punjab, India
Dr. Kavindra K. Kesari, MBA, Ph.D., Resident Environmental Scientist, University of Eastern Finland, Finland; Assistant Professor, Jaipur National University, India
Prof. Girish Kumar, Ph.D., Electrical Engineering Department, Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay, India
Dr. Pabrita Mandal PhD.,Department of Physics, Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur, India
Prof. Rashmi Mathur, Ph.D., Head, Department of Physiology, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi, India
Prof. Dr. Kameshwar Prasad MD, Head, Dept of Neurology, Director, Clinical Epidemiology, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, India
Dr. Sivani Saravanamuttu, PhD., Dept. Advanced Zoology and Biotechnology, Loyola College, Chennai, India
Dr. N.N. Shareesh, PhD., Melaka Manipal Medical College, India
Dr.  R.S. Sharma, MD, Sr. Deputy Director General, Scientist – G & Chief Coordinator – EMF Project, Indian Council of Medical Research, Dept. of Health Research, Ministry/Health and Family Welfare, Government of India, New Delhi, India
Prof. Dr. Dorairaj Sudarsanam, M.Sc., M.Ed., Ph.D., Fellow – National Academy of Biological Sciences, Prof. of Zoology, Biotechnology and Bioinformatics, Dept. Advanced   Zoology & Biotechnology, Loyola College, Chennai, South India

Iran (Islamic Republic of)

Prof. Dr. Soheila Abdi, Ph.D., Physics, Islamic Azad University of Safadasht, Tehran, Iran
Prof. G.A. Jelodar, D.V.M., Ph.D., Physiology, School of Veterinary Medicine, Shiraz University, Iran
Prof. Hamid Mobasheri, Ph.D., Head BRC; Head, Membrane Biophysics&Macromolecules Lab; Instit. Biochemistry&Biophysics, University, Tehran, Iran
Prof.  Seyed Mohammad Mahdavi, PhD., Dept of Biology, Science and Research, Islamic Azad University, Tehran, Iran
Prof. S.M.J. Mortazavi, Ph.D., Head, Medical Physics & Engineering; Chair, NIER Protection Research Center, Shiraz University of Medical Sciences, Iran
Prof. Amirnader Emami Razavi, Ph.D., Clinical Biochem., National Tumor Bank, Cancer Institute, Tehran Univ. Medical Sciences, Iran
Dr. Masood Sepehrimanesh, Ph.D., Gastroenterohepatology Research Center, Shiraz University of Medical Sciences, Iran
Prof. Dr. Mohammad Shabani, Ph.D., Neurophysiology, Kerman Neuroscience Research Center, Iran

Israel

Michael Peleg, M.Sc., radio communications engineer and researcher, Technion – Israel Institute of Technology, Israel
Prof. Elihu D. Richter, MD,MPH, Occupational&Environmental Medicine, Hebrew University-Hadassah School of Public Health&Community Medicine, Israel
Dr. Yael Stein, MD, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Hadassah Medical Center, Israel
Dr. Danny Wolf, MD, Pediatrician and General Practitioner, Sherutey Briut Clalit, Shron Shomron district, Israel
Dr. Ronni Wolf, MD, Assoc. Clinical Professor, Head of Dermatology Unit, Kaplan Medical Center, Rehovot, Israel

Italy

Prof. Sergio Adamo, Ph.D., La Sapienza University, Rome, Italy
Prof. Fernanda Amicarelli, Ph.D., Applied Biology, Dept. of Health, Life and Environmental Sciences, University of L’Aquila, Italy
Dr. Pasquale Avino, Ph.D., INAIL Research Section, Rome, Italy
Dr. Fiorella Belpoggi, Ph.D., FIATP, Director, Cesare Maltoni Cancer Research Center, Ramazzini Institute, Italy
Prof. Giovanni Di Bonaventura, PhD, School of Medicine, “G. d’Annunzio” University of Chieti-Pescara, Italia
Prof. Emanuele Calabro, Department of Physics and Earth Sciences, University of Messina, Italy
Prof. Franco Cervellati, Ph.D., Department of Life Science and Biotechnology, Section of General Physiology, University of Ferrara, Italy
Vale Crocetta, Ph.D. Candidate, Biomolecular and Pharmaceutical Sciences, “G. d’Annunzio” University of Chieti, ItalyProf. Stefano Falone, Ph.D., Researcher in Applied Biology, Dept. of Health, Life&Environmental Sciences, University of L’Aquila, Italy
Prof. Dr. Speridione Garbisa, ret. Senior Scholar, Dept. Biomedical Sciences, University of Padova, Italy
Dr. Settimio Grimaldi, Ph.D., Associate Scientist, National Research Council, Italy
Prof. Livio Giuliani, Ph.D., Director of Research, Italian Health National Service, Rome-Florence-Bozen; Spokesman, ICEMS-International Commission for Electromagnetic Safety, Italy
Prof. Dr. Angelo Levis, MD, Dept. Medical Sciences, Padua University, Italy
Prof. Salvatore Magazù, Ph.D., Department of Physics and Science, Messina University, Italy
Dr. Fiorenzo Marinelli, Ph.D., Researcher, Molecular Genetics Institute of the National Research Council, Italy
Dr. Arianna Pompilio, PhD, Dept. Medical, Oral & Biotechnological Sciences. G. d’Annunzio University of Chieti-Pescara, Italy
Prof. Dr. Raoul Saggini, MD, School of Medicine, University G. D’Annunzio, Chieti, Italy
Dr. Morando Soffritti, MD, Honorary President, National Institute for the Study and Control of Cancer and Environmental Diseases, B.Ramazzini, Bologna. ItalyProf. Massimo Sperini, Ph.D., Center for Inter-University Research on Sustainable Development, Rome, Italy

Japan

Prof. Tsuyoshi Hondou, Ph.D., Graduate School of Science, Tohoku University, Japan
Prof. Hidetake Miyata, Ph.D., Department of Physics, Tohoku University, Japan

Jordan

Prof. Mohammed S.H. Al Salameh, Jordan University of Science & Technology , Jordan

Kazakhstan

Prof. Dr, Timur Saliev, MD, Ph.D., Life Sciences, Nazarbayev University, Kazakhstan; Institute Medical Science/Technology, University of Dundee, UK

New Zealand

Dr. Bruce Rapley, BSc, MPhil, Ph.D., Principal Consulting Scientist, Atkinson & Rapley Consulting Ltd., New Zealand

Nigeria

Dr. Idowu Ayisat Obe, Department of Zoology, Faculty of Science, University of Lagos, Akoka, Lagos, Nigeria
Prof. Olatunde Michael Oni, Ph.D, Radiation & Health Physics, Ladoke Akintola University of Technology, Ogbomoso, Nigeria

Oman

Prof. Najam Siddiqi, MBBS, Ph.D., Human Structure, Oman Medical College, Oman

Poland

Dr. Pawel Bodera, Pharm. D., Department of Microwave Safety, Military Institute of Hygiene and Epidemiology, Poland
Prof. Dr. Stanislaw Szmigielski, MD, Ph.D., Military Institute of Hygiene and Epidemiology, Poland

Romania

Alina Cobzaru, Engineer, National Institutes Research & Development and Institute of Construction & Sustainability, Romania

Russian Federation

Prof. Vladimir N. Binhi, Ph.D., A.M.Prokhorov General Physics Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences; M.V.Lomonosov Moscow State University
Dr. Oleg Grigoyev, DSc., Ph.D., Deputy Chairman, Russian National Committee on Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection, Russian Federation
Prof. Yury Grigoryev, MD, Chairman, Russian National Committee on Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection, Russian Federation
Dr. Anton Merkulov, Ph.D., Russian National Committee on Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection, Moscow, Russian Federation
Dr. Maxim Trushin, PhD., Kazan Federal University, Russia

Serbia

Dr. Snezana Raus Balind, Ph.D., Research Associate, Institute for Biological Research “Sinisa Stankovic”, Belgrade, Serbia
Prof. Danica Dimitrijevic, Ph.D., Vinca Institute of Nuclear Sciences, University of Belgrade, Serbia
Dr. Sladjana Spasic, Ph.D., Institute for Multidisciplinary Research, University of Belgrade, Serbia

Slovak Republic

Dr. Igor Belyaev, Ph.D., Dr.Sc., Cancer Research Institute, Slovak Academy of Science, Bratislava, Slovak Republic

South Korea (Republic of Korea)

Prof. Young Hwan Ahn, MD, Ph.D, Ajou University Medical School, South Korea
Prof. Kwon-Seok Chae, Ph.D., Molecular-ElectroMagnetic Biology Lab, Kyungpook National University, South Korea
Prof. Dr. Yoon-Myoung Gimm, Ph.D., School of Electronics and Electrical Engineering, Dankook University, South Korea
Prof. Dr. Myung Chan Gye, Ph.D., Hanyang University, South Korea
Prof. Dr. Mina Ha, MD, Dankook University, South Korea
Prof. Seung-Cheol Hong, MD, Inje University, South Korea
Prof. Dong Hyun Kim, Ph.D., Dept. of Otorhinolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery, Incheon St. Mary’s Hospital, Catholic University of  Korea, South Korea
Prof. Hak-Rim Kim, Dept.of Pharmacology, College of Medicine, Dankook University, South Korea
Prof. Myeung Ju Kim, MD, Ph.D., Department of Anatomy, Dankook University College of Medicine, South Korea
Prof. Jae Seon Lee, MD,  Department of Molecular Medicine, NHA University College of Medicine, Incheon 22212, South Korea
Prof. Yun-Sil Lee, Ph.D., Ewha Woman’s University, South Korea
Prof. Dr. Yoon-Won Kim, MD, Ph.D., Hallym University School of Medicine, South Korea
Prof. Jung Keog Park, Ph.D., Life Science & Biotech; Dir., Research Instit.of Biotechnology, Dongguk University, South Korea
Prof. Sungman Park, Ph.D., Institute of Medical Sciences, School of Medicine, Hallym University, South Korea
Prof. Kiwon Song, Ph.D., Dept. of Chemistry, Yonsei University, South Korea

Spain

Prof. Dr. Miguel Alcaraz, MD, Ph.D., Radiology and Physical Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, University of Murcia, Spain
Dr. Alfonso Balmori, Ph.D., Biologist, Consejería de Medio Ambiente, Junta de Castilla y León, Spain
Prof. J.L. Bardasano, D.Sc, University of Alcalá, Department of Medical Specialties, Madrid, Spain
Dr. Claudio Gómez-Perretta, MD, Ph.D., La Fe University Hospital, Valencia, Spain
Prof. Dr. Miguel López-Lázaro, PhD.,  Associate Professor, Department of Pharmacology, University of Seville, Spain
Prof. Dr. Elena Lopez Martin, Ph.D., Human Anatomy, Facultad de Medicina, Universidad de Santiago de Compostela, Spain
Prof. Enrique A. Navarro, Ph.D., Department of Applied Physics and Electromagnetics, University of Valencia, Spain

Sweden

Dr. Michael Carlberg, MSc, Örebro University Hospital, Sweden
Dr. Lennart Hardell, MD, Ph.D., University Hospital, Örebro, Sweden
Prof. Olle Johansson, Ph.D., Experimental Dermatology Unit, Dept. of Neuroscience, Karolinska Institute, Sweden
Dr. Bertil R. Persson, Ph.D., MD, Lund University, Sweden
Senior Prof. Dr. Leif Salford, MD. Department of Neurosurgery, Director, Rausing Laboratory, Lund University, Sweden
Dr. Fredrik Söderqvist, Ph.D., Ctr. for Clinical Research, Uppsala University, Västerås, Sweden

Switzerland

Dr. phil. nat. Daniel Favre, A.R.A. (Association Romande Alerte, Switzerland

Taiwan (Republic of China)

Prof. Dr. Tsun-Jen Cheng, MD, Sc.D., National Taiwan University, Republic of China

Turkey

Prof. Dr. Mehmet Zülküf Akdağ, Ph.D., Department of Biophysics, Medical School of Dicle University, Diyarbakir, Turkey
Associate Prof.Dr. Halil Abraham Atasoy, MD, Pediatrics, Abant Izzet Baysal University, Faculty of Medicine, Turkey
Prof. Ayse G. Canseven (Kursun), Ph.D., Gazi University, Faculty of Medicine, Dept. of Biophysics, Turkey
Prof. Dr. Mustafa Salih Celik, Ph.D., Fmr. Head, Turkish Biophysical Society; Head, Biophysics Dept; Medical Faculty, Dicle Univ., Turkey
Prof. Dr. Osman Cerezci, Electrical-Electronics Engineering Department, Sakarya University, Turkey
Prof. Dr. Suleyman Dasdag, Ph.D., Dept. of Biophysics, Medical School of Dicle University, Turkey
Prof. Omar Elmas, MD, Ph.D., Mugla Sitki Kocman University, Faculty of Medicine, Department of Physiology, Turkey
Prof. Dr. Ali H. Eriş, MD, faculty, Radiation Oncology Department,  BAV University Medical School, Turkey
Prof. Dr. Arzu Firlarer, M.Sc. Ph.D., Occupational Health & Safety Department, Baskent University, Turkey
Prof. Associate Prof. Ayse Inhan Garip, PdH., Marmara Univ. School of Medicine, Biophysics Department, Turkey
Prof. Suleyman Kaplan, Ph.D., Head, Department of Histology and Embryology, Medical School, Ondokuz Mayıs University, Samsun, Turkey.
Prof. Dr. Mustafa Nazıroğlu, Ph.D., Biophysics Dept, Medical Faculty, Süleyman Demirel University, Isparta, Turkey
Prof. Dr. Ersan Odacı, MD, Ph.D., Karadeniz Technical University, Medical Faculty, Trabzon, Turkey
Prof. Dr. Elcin Ozgur, Ph.D., Biophysics Department, Faculty of Medicine, Gazi University, Turkey
Prof. Dr. Selim Seker, Electrical Engineering Department, Bogazici University, Istanbul, Turkey
Prof. Dr. Cemil Sert, Ph.D., Department of Biophysics of Medicine Faculty, Harran University, Turkey
Prof. Dr. Nesrin Seyhan, B.Sc., Ph.D., Medical Faculty of Gazi University; Chair, Biophysics Dept; Director GNRK Ctr.; Panel Mbr, NATO STO HFM; Scientific Secretariat Member, ICEMS; Advisory Committee Member, WHO EMF, Turkey
Prof. Dr. Bahriye Sirav (Aral), PhD.,Gazi University Faculty of Medicine, Dept of Biophysics, Turkey

Ukraine

Dr. Oleg Banyra, MD, 2nd Municipal Polyclinic, St. Paraskeva Medical Centre, Ukraine
Prof. Victor Martynyuk, PhD., ECS “Institute of Biology”, Head of Biophysics Dept, Taras Shevchenko National University of Kiev, Ukraine
Prof. Igor Yakymenko, Ph.D., D.Sc., Instit. Experimental Pathology, Oncology & Radiobiology, National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine

United Kingdom

Michael Bevington, M.A., M.Ed., Chair of Trustees, ElectroSensitivity UK (ES-UK), UK
Mr. Roger Coghill, MA,C Biol, MI Biol, MA Environ Mgt; Member Instit.of Biology; Member, UK SAGE Committee on EMF Precautions, UK
Mr. David Gee, Associate Fellow, Institute of Environment, Health and Societies, Brunel University, UK
Dr. Andrew Goldsworthy BSc PhD,  Lecturer in Biology (retired), Imperial College, London,  UK
Emeritus Professor Denis L. Henshaw, PhD., Human Radiation Effects, School of Chemistry, University of Bristol, UK
Dr. Mae-Wan Ho, Ph.D., Institute of Science in Society, UK
Dr. Gerard Hyland, Ph.D., Institute of Biophysics, Neuss, Germany, UK
Dr. Isaac Jamieson, Ph.D., Biosustainable Design, UK
Emeritus Professor, Michael J. O’Carroll, PhD., former Pro Vice-Chancellor, University of Sunderland, UK
Mr. Alasdair Phillips, Electrical Engineer, UK
Dr. Syed Ghulam Sarwar Shah, M.Sc., Ph.D., Public Health Consultant, Honorary Research Fellow, BrunelUniversity London, UK
Dr. Sarah Starkey, Ph.D., independent neuroscience and environmental health research, UK

USA

Dr. Martin Blank, Ph.D., Columbia University, USA
Prof. Jim Burch, MS, Ph.D., Dept. of Epidemiology & Biostatistics, Arnold School of Public Health, University of  South Carolina, USA
Prof. David O. Carpenter, MD, Director, Institute for Health and the Environment, University of New York at Albany, USA
Prof. Prof. Simona Carrubba, Ph.D., Biophysics, Daemen College, Women & Children’s Hospital of Buffalo Neurology Dept., USA
Dr. Zoreh Davanipour, D.V.M., Ph.D., Friends Research Institute, USA
Dr. Devra Davis, Ph.D., MPH, President, Environmental Health Trust; Fellow, American College of Epidemiology, USA
Paul Raymond Doyon, EMRS, MAT, MA , Doyon Independent Research Associates, USA
Prof. Om P. Gandhi, Ph.D., Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Utah, USA
Prof. Beatrice Golomb, MD, Ph.D., University of California at San Diego School of Medicine, USA
Dr. Martha R. Herbert, MD, Ph.D., Harvard Medical School, Harvard University, USA
Dr. Donald Hillman, Ph.D., Professor Emeritus, Michigan State University, USA
Elizabeth Kelley, MA, Fmr. Managing Secretariat, ICEMS, Italy; Director, EMFscientist.org, USA
Neha Kumar, Founder, Nonionizing Electromagnetic Radiation Shielding Alternatives, Pvt. Ltd; B.Tech – Industrial Biotech., USA
Dr. Henry Lai, Ph.D., University of Washington, USA
B. Blake Levitt, medical/science journalist, former New York Times contributor, EMF researcher and author, USA
Prof. Trevor G. Marshall, PhD, Autoimmunity Research Foundation, USA
Dr. Albert M. Manville, II, Ph.D. and C.W.B., Adj. Professor, Johns Hopkins University Krieger Graduate School of Arts & Sciences; Migratory Bird Management, U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, USA
Dr. Andrew Marino, J.D., Ph.D., Retired Professor, LSU Health Sciences Center, USA
Dr. Marko Markov, Ph.D., President, Research International, Buffalo, New York, USA
Dr. Jeffrey L. Marrongelle, DC, CCN, President/Managing Partner of BioEnergiMed LLC, USA
Dr. Samuel Milham, MD, MPH, USA
L. Lloyd Morgan, Environmental Health Trust, USA
Dr. Joel M. Moskowitz, Ph.D., School of Public Health, University of California, Berkeley, USA
Dr. Martin L. Pall, Ph.D., Professor Emeritus, Biochemistry & Basic Medical Sciences, Washington State University, USA
Dr.  Jerry L. Phillips, Ph.D. University of Colorado, USA
Dr. William J. Rea, M.D., Environmental Health Center, Dallas, Texas, USA
Camilla Rees, MBA, Electromagnetichealth.org; CEO, Wide Angle Health, LLC, USA
Prof. Narenda P. Singh, MD, University of Washington, USA
Prof. Eugene Sobel, Ph.D., Retired, School of Medicine, University of Southern California, USA
David Stetzer, Stetzer Electric, Inc., Blair, Wisconsin, USA
Dr. Lisa Tully, Ph.D., Energy Medicine Research Institute, Boulder, CO, USA

Supporting Scientists who have published peer reviewed papers in related fields

Michele Casciani, MA, Environmental Science, President/Chief Executive Officer, Salvator Mundi International Hospital, Rome, Italy
Enrico Corsetti, Engineer, Research Director, Salvator Mundi International Hospital, Rome, Italy
Jacques Testart, Biologist, Honorary Research Director at I.N.S.E.R.M. (French National Medical Research Institute), France
Xin Li, PhD candidate MSc, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Stevens Institute of Technology, New Jersey, USA
Dr. Carlos A. Loredo Ritter, MD, Pediatrician, Pediatric Neurologist, President, Restoration Physics, North American Sleep Medicine Society, USADr. Robin Maytum, PhD, Senior Lecturer in Biological Science, University of Bedfordshire, Luton, UK
Prof. Dr. Raúl A. Montenegro, Ph.D, Evolutionary Biology, National University of Cordoba; President, FUNAM; Recognitions: Scientific  Investigation Award from University of Buenos Aires, UNEP ‘Global 500’ Award (Brussels, Belgium), the Nuclear Free Future Award (Salzburg, Austria), and Alternative Nobel Prize (Right Livelihood Award, Sweden), Argentina.
Dr. Georgiy Ostroumov, Ph.D. (in the field of RF EMF), independent researcher, Finland
Dr. Hugo Schooneveld, PhD, Biologist, Neuroscientist, Adviser to the Dutch EHS Foundation, Netherlands
Dr. Carmen Adella Sirbu, MD, Neurology, Lecturer, Titu Matorescu University, Romania

Last weekend saw Ukraine’s biggest Nazi march of modern times. Yet, the Western media and its numerous correspondents in Kiev completely ignored the story, even on social networks. This is as clear an example of press bias as you will ever encounter.

On Saturday night, up to 20,000 far-right radicals honored the 75th anniversary of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) – a paramilitary group led by Stepan Bandera, which actively collaborated with Hitler’s Germany. They brandished lit torches, smoke pellets, and flares as they chanted fascist slogans. And some participants openly gave Nazi salutes during the rally.

The leaders of the procession included Oleg Tyahnybok, an associate of US Senators John McCain and Chris Murphy, who has called for Ukraine to do more to halt the “criminal activities” of “organized Jewry.” He’s also demanded Ukrainian citizens should have their ethnic origins stamped in their passports.

Earlier in the day, Ukraine’s President Petro Poroshenko said the actions of the UPA fighters would always remain an “inspiration” and an example for future generations. This conduct included the slaughter of tens of thousands of Jews and Poles in Volhynia and Eastern Galicia from 1943 to 1944.

So, we had a major Nazi gathering in a European capital and the only English language sources that show up in a Google News search are from RT, Sputnik, The Nation and a half-hearted seven-sentence ‘report’ by US state broadcaster RFE/RL, which meekly describes them as mere “nationalists.” That means there is nothing from CNN, the Guardian, the New York Times, Washington Post or the BBC, among the usual suspects who make every little protest in Russia headline news.

#Ukrainian nationalists hold march in #Kiev demanding Nazi collaborators to be proclaimed 'national heroes' https://t.co/2GeA31vWp4 pic.twitter.com/v5EUnLqCB1

— RT (@RT_com) October 15, 2017

Clutching at straws

We all know the mainstream narrative by now. Ukraine can do little wrong, and Russia can hardly do anything right. However, in reality, both countries are remarkably similar, culturally, politically, linguistically and socially. And this is hardly a surprise, given both formed the two most populous parts of a union state for over seventy years and have historical associations going back to the ninth century.

However, there are a few fundamental differences these days. Ukraine has, in fits and starts, pursued a pro-Western course since the turn of the century, while Russia has preferred to position itself as an independent Eurasian power. Meanwhile, there is also a huge economic disparity, with Russian per capita GDP around three and a half times higher than the Ukrainian equivalent.

There’s another significant issue which divides the two countries. And that’s the official attitude to World War Two. Moscow sees itself as the successor of the victorious Soviet Union and Kiev, searching for a historical narrative of statehood, wants to project Ukraine as a victim of the USSR. This is despite the fact that many Ukrainians – such as Leonid Brezhnev, Konstantin Chernenko, Leon Trotsky and Grigory Zinoviev – played prominent political roles in the former superpower.

Today, Kiev airbrushes these figures from its history and instead prefers to celebrate people associated with the anti-Soviet resistance of the World War Two period. The problem is that most of these characters were Nazi collaborators, complicit in various atrocities of the period.

And that’s why we had Saturday night’s torchlight march in Kiev. An attempt to secure the Bandera gang’s place as the founding fathers of the modern Ukrainian nation. Something further encouraged by the post- Maidan regime’s 2014 decision to make October 14 – the UPA’s birthday – an official public holiday called “Defender of Ukraine Day.”

Willful ignorance

There are numerous Western correspondents in Kiev. Perhaps the most prominent is Christopher Miller, of RFE/RL, whose presence at Maidan gained him a substantial number of social media followers. On Saturday, Miller made no reference to the Nazi march on his Twitter account, preferring to post pictures from the Carpathian mountains. However, in the past, he has extensively tweeted about much smaller rallies organized by Alexei Navalny in far-away Moscow and St Petersburg.

This weekend in Kiev, a torchlit Nazi march through the centre. Which the dozens of western hacks there haven't noticed. Just fancy that! https://t.co/v98MPWusHh

— Bryan MacDonald (@27khv) October 15, 2017

Additionally, Matthew Kupfer, head of Hromadske in Kiev, a TV network funded by the US embassy and the European Commission, also failed to note the rally. But, again, he extensively covered Navalny’s travails in Russia. Meanwhile, in fairness to Ian Bateson, who writes from Ukraine for the New York Times and Guardian, he did at least mention the event, if not its intent, but, again, this contrasts with his enthusiastic tweeting about Russia’s opposition get-togethers.

As mentioned early, big media corporations, with a staff and stringer presence all over the former USSR, apparently didn’t feel a Nazi parade, of up to 20,000 people, with fascist symbols and Hitler salutes on view, was newsworthy. Furthermore, when statues are erected to Ukrainians who murdered Jews these outlets don’t seem to bat an eyelid.

Ukraine's Infrastructure Minister wants official heroes' reburials for Nazi collaborators, mass-murderers of Jews https://t.co/lwW8xdG7i9 pic.twitter.com/jOL7DEshQR

— Mark Ames (@MarkAmesExiled) January 4, 2017

Take the BBC, for instance. The British state broadcaster has a dedicated Ukrainian service and employs dozens of journalists in Kiev, many of whom are also active on social media in the English language. Despite this, the BBC didn’t cover the Kiev Nazi rally. And the call came on the same weekend we learned the British government has hired PR firm M&C Saatchi to run a project with the Foreign Office to “rehabilitate” Ukraine. Now if anyone thinks the two are not linked, I have a bridge to sell them.

However, if Navalny so much as breaks wind in Moscow, the BBC is there to report. Indeed, its former Moscow correspondent once ludicrously compared the Russian nationalist to Nelson Mandela.

Small number of Navalny supporters on Palace Square chant "Happy Birthday!" (to Putin). Placard: "Putin – leave! We want a different way." pic.twitter.com/2daNzRETL9

— Steve Rosenberg (@BBCSteveR) October 7, 2017

These are the dual standards displayed by Western reporters on the Russia/Ukraine beat, and they make a mockery of supposed adherence to journalistic balance and fair play. Just this month, Moscow protests attended by around 700 people (a great many of them journalists working at the event) were given huge attention by the mainstream media, while Saturday’s Kiev Nazi march was entirely ignored by the same outlets.

Ukraine has a far-right problem, and it also has a Western media predicament. Because if hacks from NATO countries think they are helping Ukraine, by turning a blind eye to this cancer, they are badly mistaken.

Bryan MacDonald is an Irish journalist, who is based in Russia

Featured image is from the author.

United States President Donald Trump is attempting to set the scene for attacking Iran by continuing with his pre-election mantra of the “bad deal”. Since his assumption of office, he has continually referred to the Iranian state as a “sponsor of terrorism” and has also made his designs clear by referring to Hezbollah, Iran’s ally in Lebanon, as a terrorist organisation responsible for the massacre of American troops in Lebanon in 1983. His decision not to re-certify the ‘Five Plus One’ Agreement is pivoting America towards an armed confrontation with Iran.

1. Ratcheting tensions with Iran is an unmistakable attempt aimed at setting up the United States to fight a war on behalf of Israel, and, it would be remiss not to note, Saudi Arabia, a country with which Israel has developed a symbiotic relationship. Iran has not invaded another country for around 200 years, is a signatory nation to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty with attendant inspections and in addition to this has consented to the multinational ‘Five Plus One’ Agreement. It is also useful to remind that the intelligence community of the United States and even Israel’s Mossad have concluded that Iran has no military objectives related to the acquisition of nuclear power. The Iranian leadership debated this and decided as long ago as the early or mid-2000s not to pursue the nuclear option.

It is a manufactured crisis.

By inflicting the first defeat in recent memory on the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), former President Barack Obama resisted the Israel-Jewish lobby’s insistence on using the United States to mount a military attack on Iran by reaching the ‘Five Plus One’ agreement. This came after a concerted effort by Binyamin Netanyahu to undermine Obama’s position by accepting an invitation from Republican members of congress to speak before America’s legislative body without the express approval of the serving president, an abrogation of established US constitutional convention.

2. Donald Trump recently tweeted a reminder of Hezbollah’s alleged responsibility for murdering US Marines in Lebanon back in 1983. Vice President Mike Pence joined in, but neither man mentioned any other atrocity allegedly instigated by Hezbollah since the period of time when Lebanese militias were resisting what they perceived as the occupation of their country by foreign military powers. The problem with this focus on Hezbollah as an instigator of terrorism is that most of the atrocities committed against the United States and other Western nations by Muslim organisations have been by those of the Sunni-Wahhabist stripe whose ideology emanates from America’s ally Saudi Arabia. These organisations have in fact been covertly used by the United States to harass, destabilise and overthrow America’s enemies in Chechnya (an anti-Russian endeavour), Syria and Libya.

While Trump and Pence invoke the name of Hezbollah in the killing of United States military personnel, neither man has ever publicly memorialised the American sailors who were deliberately murdered and maimed during an attack on the USS Liberty by the armed forces of the state of Israel in June 1967.

Both men will not acknowledge that Hezbollah was created out of the carnage that followed the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in the early 1980s, and that it was nurtured by the experience of combating Israel’s 18-year occupation of southern Lebanon.

By threatening to abrogate the multilateral treaty with Iran, it appears that Trump is doing the bidding of the Israel lobby which has had its intentions so far as achieving the destruction of Iran manifested in a number of position papers including many produced by the neoconservative-orientated and now defunct Project for the New American Century (PNAC).

Iran and Hezbollah were also targets proposed in a paper submitted in 1996 to Binyamin Netanyahu during his first tenure as Prime Minister of Israel. Led by the American neoconservative Richard Perle, A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm proposed “rolling back” the Syrian state, a crucial ally of Hezbollah, by proxy warfare.

Further, the “policy coup” referred to by retired US General Wesley Clark which Clark had learned of on two visits to the Pentagon in the immediate aftermath of the September 11 attacks, outlined a neoconservative strategy of taking out “seven countries in five years” including Syria, Lebanon (meaning Hezbollah) and Iran.

Apart from Sudan and Somalia, none of the targeted entities, including Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, shared the objectives of the Sunni extremist ideology that characterised the alleged instigators of the 9/11 attacks. Iraq and Syria were led by secular, nationalist governments with roots in the Baathist movement, Libya’s ruling Jamahiriya Party was also a secular government, while Lebanon’s Hezbollah and Iran represented bastions of the Shia Muslim world.

All had in common an implacable opposition to Israel.

Iran, Syria and Hezbollah in Lebanon together form the so-called ‘Shia Crescent’, an ‘arc of resistance’ which threatens Israel’s military domination of the Middle East. This alliance also elicits fear and concern from Saudi Arabia, the leader of the Sunni Muslim world, and a nation with which Israel has developed closer, albeit informal relations.

The grand design of neutralising Iran and its allies is one which has continued unabated over the course of three successive United States administrations spanning those of George W. Bush, Barack Obama and now Donald Trump. The foreign policy of Obama did not vary much from that of Bush except in regard to Obama favouring covert action rather than overt foreign invasions by the American armed forces. Thus, the Syrian insurrection of 2011 through which foreign Islamist mercenaries were allowed to infiltrate Syria’s borders with the aid of America’s allies in the region was a policy consistent with the overarching policy of weakening the Shia powers by attempting to isolate Hezbollah by destroying Syria, the conduit between Israel’s Lebanese enemy and Iran.

Hezbollah, which like Iran has participated in defending the Assad government,  is the only military force in the Arab world that is willing and capable of confronting Israel’s military machinery. It was responsible for Israel’s withdrawal from Lebanon in 2000 after an almost two-decade-long occupation and they effectively defeated Israel in duels in the intelligence sphere and on the battlefield in the Lebanon War of 2006.

Israel has for long wanted to extend its frontier to the River Litani because it covets the resource the river provides. But the reclaiming of swathes of Syrian territory from Sunni Islamist groups such as Islamic State and Jabhat al-Nusra by the Syrian Arab Army with the help of Russian air power, Iranian advisors and soldiers provided by Hezbollah has frustrated the plan to cut Hezbollah off from Iran. It frustrates Israel’s desired ability to act with impunity in Lebanon as well as achieving its goal of securing its illegal annexation of the Golan Heights on the basis that none of the successor statelets of a balkanised Syria would have a claim to that region.

Whereas President Obama refused to yield to Israeli pressure to sacrifice American lives in a military adventure against Iran, it appears that President Trump is willing to pursue a path of aggression. In a speech defending the nuclear deal he had reached prior to a congressional vote in 2015, Obama claimed that “many of the same people who argued for the war in Iraq are now making the case against the Iran nuclear deal.” This was a not very veiled attack on the pro-Israel groups led by AIPAC, which sent hundreds of activists to lobby lawmakers to reject the deal.

Obama’s claim, which he repeated on several occasions, led to expressions of concern by several American Jewish organisations that his rhetoric could lead to a backlash against American Jews who are sensitive to suggestions of warmongering or placing ties to Israel over the interests of the United States.

Yet it remains the case, as Obama put it, that the “choice we face is ultimately between diplomacy and some form of war”. The joint statement issued earlier this month by the leaders of Britain, France and Germany affirming their support for the deal together with the words of the European Union’s foreign policy chief asserting that the agreement was working well clearly demonstrate that Trump is working towards achieving a preconceived agenda.

That agenda is a war agenda and it would be a catastrophe for the US to wage war against Iran on Israel’s behalf.

The malign results of the invasion of Iraq and the proxy war in Syria are apparent to all.

Adeyinka Makinde is a writer based in London, England.

This article was originally published by Adeyinka Makinde.

Featured image is from the author.

A rare blackout exercise and mass evacuation drill took place in North Korea last week according to NK News, citing “multiple sources.” The wartime preparations were not visible in Pyongyang, but were seen in “secondary, tertiary cities and towns” on the eastern coast of the country.

NK News and “multiple sources” stressed these drills are “extremely rare.”  Such “blackout and evacuation” drills are extremely rare in North Korea, multiple other sources with long experience working inside or on the country told NK News, making it difficult to gauge their purpose amid the current atmosphere.

Chun In-bum, a retired three star lieutenant general from the South Korean army, said

“I have never heard of this type of training exercises before in North Korea, but am not surprised. They must realize how serious the situation is.”

An NK News confidential “source” with-in North Korea added to the gravity of the situation: ”

I have never heard of evacuation exercises happening before.”

“There used to be air raid drills in 2003, but not since then,” the source said, who didn’t want to be identified due to the sensitivities of talking about military issues to the media. “A mass evacuation would be impossible not to notice.”

The North Korean war preparation exercise drill takes place as the U.S. Navy plans to stage an extremely rare, three-carrier exercise in the next few weeks off the Korean Peninsula, which could coincide with President Trump’s visit to South Korea, Japan, and China next month. The joint drills, the first in 10 years, are possible because of a rare confluence of carrier deployment schedules, according to the Pentagon.

The USS Ronald Reagan is based in Japan. On Tuesday, the Navy announced that the USS Theodore Roosevelt Carrier Strike Group had entered 7th Fleet, followed by the USS Nimitz Carrier Strike Group on Wednesday. Nimitz is on its way back to Washington state from a deployment to the Middle East, during which time it’ll operate in 7th Fleet, which covers the eastern half of the Indian Ocean and the Western Pacific.

The Pentagon has said the massing of three carriers in the waters off the peninsula is not a response to the rising tension with the North over its nuclear and missile programs. But the Navy said the ships would be available to take part in any real-world contingencies.

On Friday, Kim Jong-Un restarted the war of words when he said the U.S. is making “criminal moves for igniting a war of aggression,” according to the North’s state-run media.

In the meantime, many analyst believe Pyongyang has ambitions to launch at least one more intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) test in the near term, while a senior diplomat from Pyongyang warned Thursday that a possible atmospheric nuclear test over the Pacific Ocean should be taken “literally”; such a move would be viewed by parts of the U.S. government as an “attack on the homeland.”

NK News author and ‘multiple sources’ had no further details on the drills or exercises, except for the understand of geographical locations.

But while such evacuation drills – precise details of which were not provided by sources – may be prudent as far as helping save lives in the event of bombing campaigns in affected areas, blackout exercises have much more limited utility in the contemporary military environment.

The North Korean activities suggests the country is preparing for a kinetic US-response if a nuclear test and or an ICBM missile is launched.

Separately, as as reported previously next week, the Pentagon will conduct a nationwide blackout drill in the United States on November 04-06. Explained by Army MARS Program Manager Paul English,

“This exercise will begin with a national massive coronal mass ejection event which will impact the national power grid as well as all forms of traditional communication, including landline telephone, cellphone, satellite, and Internet connectivity.”

Curiously, a drill for a coronal mass ejection (CME) is, according to experts, very similar to an electromagnetic pulse (EMP). Just yesterday, Business Insider titled an article: Here’s what would happen if North Korea hit the US with an EMP. Excerpts form article:

• Experts recently told Congress that a North Korean electromagnetic-pulse attack on the US could wipe out 90% of the population.
• EMP attacks are unproven, and the academic community finds this claim ridiculous.
• Even if North Korea did pull off the attack, it wouldn’t hurt the US’s nuclear systems that are hardened against EMPs.

Earthsky.org provides an easy understanding of what is a cornoal mass ejection (CME):

“A CME can launch a billion tons of plasma from the sun’s surface into space, at speeds of over a million miles per hour. Every so often, the sun burps.  But, unlike myself, when the sun burps, it does so with the power of 20 million nuclear bombs.  These hiccups are known as coronal mass ejections (CMEs)—powerful eruptions near the surface of the sun driven by kinks in the solar magnetic field.  The resulting shocks ripple through the solar system and can interrupt satellites and power grids on Earth.”

The similarities between the CME and EMP are strikingly similar and could provide clarity of how the US is actively preparing for an EMP via a North Korean delivery with the “cover” of CME.

All images in this article are from the author.

Global Research brings to the attention of our readers a selection of articles on the release of classified files pertaining to  President John F. Kennedy. 

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What Happened to the JFK Records?

By Rex Bradford, October 30, 2017

What happened on Thursday, Oct. 26, with the JFK records scheduled for release under the JFK Records Act? A travesty. Most news reports correctly noted the release of about 2,800 documents, but added that only a few were held back, in some cases saying “300 documents” remain withheld (see CNN, and Washington Post for example). They are off by a factor of 100. In fact, tens of thousands of documents, possibly as many as 30,000, remain sealed at the National Archives.

Will Donald Trump Confront the CIA? Will He Take the Risk of Becoming “Another John Kennedy”?

By Aidyn Mehtiyev, October 30, 2017

On Saturday, October 21, US President Donald Trump wrote on Twitter that he was ready to declassify 3,000 CIA and FBI files related to the assassination of US President John F. Kennedy. The same morning, Politico wrote that the head of the White House refused to declassify the documents for reasons of national security.

JFK Files: US Officials Plotted Destruction of Cuban Crops with Biological Agents

By Kevin Gosztola, October 30, 2017

Several of the more intriguing files released in the President John F. Kennedy assassination files have little to do with specific aspects of the assassination. Instead, they involve covert operations that were contextually related to possible theories that were initially entertained by investigators.

JFK Files Expose CIA Plot to Stage Miami Bombings and Blame Fidel Castro

By Telesur, October 30, 2017

The report said the Central Intelligence Agency, CIA, considered staging several terror events involving Cuban citizens to seek blame for Castro’s government.

The JFK Assassination: Why CIA’s Richard Helms Lied About Oswald

By Prof Peter Dale Scott, October 27, 2017

We should not conclude from the change in the FBI’s story about the tapes that either it, or still less the HSCA, was involved in the Kennedy assassination. It does however seem extremely likely that further investigation of the Oswald imposter in Mexico City would have, one way or another, have led to exposure of the CIA’s Oswald operation exposed in this essay.

Trump to Release Classified JFK Files

By Stephen Lendman, October 23, 2017

It includes all US government records relating to his November 1963 assassination. The legislation required all documents collected to be publicly disclosed no later than 25 years after the law’s October 26, 1992 enactment – less than a week from now.

The One Paragraph You Need to Read from the JFK Assassination Files that May Change Everything

By Tyler Durden and Douglas P. Horne, October 30, 2017

In 2009, I believed I had discovered new evidence in the JFK assassination never reported by anyone else: convincing photography of the through-and-through bullet hole in the windshield of the JFK limousine that had been reported by six credible witnesses.

an armed coup. The Maidan do not appoint these people; rather, it’s the US that does it. It’s enough to look at the newly appointed officials: Parubiy, Gvozd, Nalyvaichenko are all people who followed somebody else’s orders, the orders of the US, not even Europe. They are directly linked to the American intelligence. 

For nearly three years now, there has been this ‘debate’; but, there has actually been no debate at all, because the media on the two sides, have different alleged ‘historical’ accounts of what the cause of the ‘New Cold War’ is. The people on the two sides disagree about history (was it a coup that had occurred in Ukraine in February 2014, or was it instead a revolution?), and not only about the news. Fake ‘news’ isn’t the only issue here; fake ‘history’ also is.

This is an exceedingly dangerous situation to exist between the two nuclear superpowers, because it goes deeper than mere semantics (‘coup’ or else ‘revolution’) to the real evidence, to reality. One side or the other is — or else both sides are — simply ignoring crucial evidence, in this case. This could produce nuclear Armageddon. There are two mutually contradictory accounts of the history, which have been continuing unchanged for nearly three years already, and the only way that the problem is being dealt with is by there continuing to be no public adjudication of the issue on the basis of the wealth of incontrovertible evidence that exists (including crucial leaked phone-conversations such as this and this) regarding this incredibly important matter.

Was the precipitating event Obama’s ‘coup’ in February 2014, or was it instead Putin’s ‘invasion’ in March 2014? Western media don’t, at all, use the term “coup” to refer to the overthrow of Viktor Yanukovych in February 2014, but Russian media do.

Three acts unfolded on the Maidan. First came the citizen protests. Then, the brutal government crackdown. And finally, after the first guy was killed on Hrushevsky Street, what I call “the Maidan of dignity.” At that point, it had become obvious that the people would never accept Yanukovych again. It was the beginning of his end, and the start of this journey toward Russia that is still playing out.

Once, Ukraine looked at its leaders like Olympic Gods; they know what to do, and how to do it, and we’ll just follow them. But over these last three months, the people have seen that’s not true. Politicians are no better than the rest of us. People want to participate in politics now. They demand equality, the right to assembly, and a fair court system. And they see their leaders for what they are—really old. If you asked Yanukovych or some others about Facebook, they wouldn’t understand what it can do.

I understand that the moment I posted on Facebook, I was no longer acting as a journalist; I was an activist. As a journalist, one must remain independent. On the other hand, as a citizen, I had to act. It is difficult to do nothing as your future is being destroyed right before your eyes. As the crackdown began, I realized I could no longer stand by as an unbiased observer while the government was killing people.. It has been a long time coming.

The press gained freedoms under Yanukovych. But it wasn’t until 2013 that a group of us left our jobs at companies owned by oligarchs or political partisans and began to create a truly independent media. In the first months of the presidency of Viktor Yanukovych we formed Stop Censorship! to protest persecution of the press.

Three years later, we founded the first Internet TV channel in the country that operates through donations from our viewers — Hromadske.tv, where I work now as editor in chief. The media showed everything that was happening—helping people to believe that if we all act together, we can accomplish great things.

But the Russian media are different. They are trying to create a parallel reality. They are under Putin’s control, and he is trying to convince Russians that evil has overtaken Kyiv. The Russian people don’t have access to a free Internet, like we do. …

Using Facebook, Nayem was one of the first activists to urge Ukrainians to gather on Independence Square in Kiev to protest Viktor Yanukovych’s decision to “pause” preparations for signing an association agreement with the European Union.[9] His summons to rally on Facebook on November 21, 2013 were the start of the Euromaidan protests which led to the overthrow of the Yanukovych government.[10]

Where Nayem had used in his article the phrases “the brutal government crackdown” and “the Maidan of dignity,” I thought of the event that occurred on 25 January 2014, and that was captured so well in a video uploaded that day to the Web by Russian Television, “Ukrainian rioters brutally assaulting police”, in which the terrified police, who are being beaten and worse by America’s hired masked paramilitaries, try to ward off the clubs and brickbats by means of their shields. The assault’s PR agents labelled such realites as “the Maidan of dignity,” and Soros’s Nayem parroted the phrase, for whatever trusting fools (people who don’t ‘need’ evidence) might happen to be reading Soros’s site — which is just about everyone who reads there. Those PR agents had actually been inside the Vatican (institutionally hostile toward Russia); and, in fact, on that very day (January 25th), Vatican Radio had headlined “Ukraine movement a ‘Maidan of dignity’, says bishop”, and Orthodox Churches, including the Russian one, were infuriated. But, anyway: this was the reality behind “the Maidan of dignity.”

Protestors began to mobilize on Nov. 21, 2013, after the Ukrainian government suspend preparations for the EU-Ukraine Association agreement. They gathered in Independence Square (Maidan) in Kiev and used the hashtags #euromaidan and #евромайдан on Twitter and Facebook. The Facebook posts of Hromadske TV journalist Mustafa Nayem, encouraging Ukranians to gather at Maidan, received more than 1,000 shares in a few hours. At the same time, a number of independent video streams were set up, on platforms like UStream, live broadcasting what was happening on the streets.

The demonstrations swelled on November 24 when ultimately 250,000 people took to Kiev’s streets, demanding reforms as well as Ukraine’s European integration. The first social media pages also started to gain traction: the Euromaidan Facebook page gained 70,000 followers in less than a week. As noted by two NYU researchers in the Washington Post, Facebook was being used much more actively than Twitter, acting as a news hub, as well as coordinating protests by noting the location of demonstrations, providing logistical and support information, distributing flyers for printing and dissemination, giving tips on how to behave and react to police, and uploading videos of police brutality.

A recent independent research study conducted by Kyrylo Galushko and Natalia Zorba from the National Pedagogical University ‘M.P. Drahomanov’ in Kiev confirmed the predominance of Facebook in organizing the protests. According to a poll of 50 Ukrainian social media experts and Internet opinion leaders, conducted between December 2013 and January 2014, Facebook played the largest role in mobilization. Twitter came in second place, followed by the Russian social networking site, Vkontakte, which is the second most popular social networking site in Europe. “Social networking services were the leading communication feature of protesters, instrument of mobilization for taking part in different actions and establishing other forms of social support,” explains Galushko. …

In my role as a representative of the Ukrainian people, activists from the Volya Public Organization turned to me, providing clear evidence that within our country, with support and direct participation of the US Embassy in Kiev, a “TechCamp” project is under way in which preparations are being made for a civil war in Ukraine. The “TechCamp” project prepares specialists for information warfare and for the discrediting of state institutions [the Government] using modern media — potential revolutionaries for organizing protests and the toppling of the Government. This project is overseen by and currently under the responsibility of the US Ambassador to Ukraine, Geoffrey R. Pyatt. After the conversation with the Volya Organization, I learned that they actually succeeded to access facilities in the “TechCamp” project [they had hacked into it] disguised as a team of IT specialists. To their surprise, were found briefings that were held on peculiarities of modern media. American instructors explained there how social networks and Internet technologies can be used for targeted manipulation of public opinion as well as to activate potential protest to provoke violent unrest on the territory of Ukraine — radicalization of the population, and triggering of infighting. American instructors show examples of successful use of social networks to organize protests in Egypt, Tunisia and Libya. “Tech Camp” representatives currently hold conferences throughout Ukraine. A total of five events have been held so far. About 300 people have been trained as operatives, who are now active throughout Ukraine. The last conference took place on 14 and 14 November 2013, in the heart of Kiev, inside the US Embassy!

The U.S. Embassy in Kiev had even posted in Spring of 2013 an announcement of its “Tech Camps.” Here is an announcement from the Embassy in Ukraine, on 1 March 2013, titled, “U.S. Embassy Hosted TechCamp Kyiv 2.0 to Build Technological Capacity of Civil Society.” (That Ambassador is now our Ambassador to Russia.)

This new evidence from Tsarev, piled on top of all the other evidence that already proved the assertion by the founder of the “private CIA” firm Stratfor, that the overthrow of Yanukovych was “the most blatant coup in history,” simply cements the reality, that all of the sanctions against Russia, and all of the “me too” statements supporting Obama’s coup and ethnic cleansing in Ukraine, by David Cameron, Stephen Harper, and Obama’s other co-nazis, are abominations, which should be loudly condemned by all decent persons in all countries. The aggressor here is Obama, not Putin; and NATO must end, now: all decent nations should quit it ASAP. (War crimes trials against Obama and his agents should follow. After all: these people are bringing the world closer to a nuclear war than has been the case since 1962, and there is no decent reason for it.)

Subsequently, on 17 September 2016, I traced the origin of the February 2014 coup back farther, to a meeting that had occurred on 23 June 2011 between Wikileaks’ Julian Assange, Google’s Eric Schmidt, and the Hillary Clinton U.S. State Department’s Jared Cohen (now hired by Google), in which Schmidt and Cohen drilled Assange for tips on how to use social media to foment a revolution, and Assange didn’t figure out till later, that they were planning both the Arab Spring operations and the takeover of Ukraine. On 23 October 2014 Assange headlined “Google Is Not What It Seems”, and called Cohen “Google’s ‘director of regime change’.” Assange also explained his disillusionment: “I began [prior to meeting Schmidt] to think of Schmidt as a brilliant but politically hapless Californian tech billionaire who had been exploited by the very U.S. foreign-policy types he had collected to act as translators between himself and official Washington — a West Coast–East Coast illustration of the principal-agent dilemma. I was wrong.”

The great investigative historian Nafeez Ahmed took that insight even farther, in his stunning 22 January 2015 “How the CIA made Google”, which tells, in remarkable detail, the origin of the military-industrial complex’s takeover of the then-emerging digital economy — the internet, Google, the ‘news’media, and, more broadly, of Americans’ emerging fascism-accepting political attitudes and beliefs — the manipulation of the public mind (mass mind-control), starting with the mathematician William Perry’s service as U.S. Secretary of Defense under President Bill Clinton. Whereas the anodyne CIA-edited Wikipedia article on Perrypresents him by deceptive phrases such as “Perry did everything he could to improve relations with Moscow,” and ignores the deeper reality to the exact contrary (which followed through on President G.H.W. Bush’s lie issued on 24 February 1990), Ahmed recognizes this deeper reality (which I documented at the present link). Perry was doing everything he could — and not just in the former Yugoslavia — to expand America’s empire right up to Russia’s borders.

Czech President Says ‘Only Poorly Informed People’ Don’t Know About Ukraine Coup
Eric Zuesse

The Czech Republic’s President Milos Zeman said, in an interview, in the January 3rd edition of Prague’s daily newspaper Pravo, that Czechs who think of the overthrow of Ukraine’s President Viktor Yanukovych, on 22 February 2014, as having been like Czechoslovakia’s authentically democratic “Velvet Revolution” are seeing it in a profoundly false light, because, (as Russian Television translated his statement into English) “Maidan was not a democratic revolution.” He said that this is the reason why Ukraine now is in a condition of “civil war,” in which the residents of the Donbass region in Ukraine’s southeast have broken away from the Ukrainian Government.

He furthermore said that, “Judging by some of the statements of Prime Minister Yatsenyuk, I think that he is rather a prime minister of war because he does not want a peaceful solution, as recommended by the European Union (EU), but instead prefers to use force.”

He added, by way of contrast to Yatsenyuk, the possibility that Ukraine’s President, Petro Poroshenko “might be a man of peace.” So: though Zeman held out no such hope regarding Yatsenyuk (who was Obama’s choice to lead Ukraine), he did for Poroshenko (who wasn’t Obama’s choice, but who became Ukraine’s President despite Obama’s having wanted Yatsenyuk’s sponsor, the hyper-aggressive Yulia Tymoshenko, to win the May 25th Presidential election, which was held only in Ukraine’s pro-coup northwest, but claimed to possess authority over the entire country). …

If such news-reports were published in U.S. newsmedia, especially in mainstream ones, then one could reasonably trust U.S. newsmedia, but such news-reports are not published in the U.S. (nor in its allied countries)

That article by The Saker included the 31 July 2014 video of a Ukrainian ‘journalist’ being interviewed on George Soros’s and Mustafa Nayem’s and the U.S. Government’s and the Dutch Government’s Ukrainian TV station, explaining why “You need to kill 1.5 million people in Donbass” — arguing for ethnic cleansing there, of the genocidal type. The U.S.-imposed Ukrainian regime did attempt that, and such ethnic-cleansing started being Ukrainian Government policy as soon as the new Government was installed. On 19 November 2014, I headlined “Meet Ukraine’s Master Mass-Murderer: Dmitriy Yarosh” and noted that Yarosh had been the person who not only was very active in the ethnic-cleansing program, but he had trained the paramilitaries who had executed the overthrow, and I linked to a video of Yarosh being interviewed as a hero on the new regime’s television. I also wrote:

As Yarosh said this past March in an interview with Newsweek, he has “been training paramilitary troops for almost 25 years,” and his “divisions are constantly growing all over Ukraine, but over 10,000 people for sure.” More recently, in October, a pro-Government Ukrainian site interviewed Yarosh and he mentioned specifically a “DUC,” or Volunteer Ukrainian Corps of fighters. He was then asked “How many soldiers in DUC?” and he answered, “About seven thousand men.” These would be his real military force, by far the biggest private army in Ukraine. So, in his private files are everyone’s individual background and skill-level as a “paramilitary,” or far-right mercenary, and they all respect and obey him as the top man. He is the indispensable person in this new Ukraine. Yarosh’s teams carry out the most violent operations for the CIA in Ukraine (including the coup). 

1. Pressuring of our employees.

2. Hordes of Western media outlets attempting to discredit our work.

3. Flogging the ‘cash cow’

4. Explicit threats to revoke our broadcasting license.

5. Pressuring independent experts who appear on RT.

On 28 October 2017, RT bannered “Budapest vetoes Ukraine-NATO summit, says Kiev’s new law a ‘stab in the back’”, and reported that some of the formerly Russia-allied European nations were turning away from the U.S. (NATO & EU) alliance. The core of that news-report was the statement from Hungary’s Foreign Minister saying “Hungary cannot support Ukraine’s integration aspirations, so it vetoed the NATO-Ukraine summit in December.” RT’s article linked to the Hungarian Government video of that person saying this. However, my Web-search of that statement “Hungary cannot support Ukraine’s integration aspirations, so it vetoed the NATO-Ukraine summit in December” brings up only the RT news-report, none other. A Web-search for that Minister’s name, Peter Szijjarto, also fails to bring it up. Perhaps his statement isn’t suitable for inclusion in “All the News That’s Fit to Print”. Apparently, it just doesn’t fit; so, it won’t be printed. Like none of this has been published in America.

The “Russian Aggression Prevention Act”, introduced to Congress by U.S. Senator Bob Corker (R-Tenn.), will set the US on a path towards direct military conflict with Russia in Ukraine.

Any US-Russian war is likely to quickly escalate into a nuclear war, since neither the US nor Russia would be willing to admit defeat, both have many thousands of nuclear weapons ready for instant use, and both rely upon Counterforce military doctrine that tasks their military, in the event of war, to preemptively destroy the nuclear forces of the enemy.

RAPA provides de facto NATO membership for Ukraine, Georgia, and Moldova via RAPA

The Russian Aggression Prevention Act, or RAPA, “Provides major non-NATO ally status for Ukraine, Georgia, and Moldova for purposes of the transfer or possible transfer of defense articles or defense services.” Major non-NATO ally status would for practical purposes give NATO membership to these nations, as it would allow the US to move large amounts of military equipment and forces to them without the need for approval of other NATO member states. Thus RAPA would effectively bypass long-standing German opposition to the US request to make Ukraine and Georgia part of NATO.

Fortunately, Corker’s bill turned out to have ended on 1 May 2014 when it was sent to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and failed to be voted on even there. Corker is that extreme a neoconservative. No one in the U.S. Government can be more fascist than that. He was even more of a fascist than U.S. President Barack Obama was.

This article, like every article that I do, is being sent free-of-charge for publication, to all U.S. newsmedia that cover international issues; but, all of the major newsmedia, and almost all of the “alternative news” sites, have refused to publish any among the many hundreds like this that I have submitted to them in the past. Perhaps the reason for this is the same reason why the U.S. ‘news’media never admitted that they had entirely uncritically reported to the American people, in stenographic fashion, really as propaganda instead of as a democratic newsmedia, the lies that George W. Bush and his Administration asserted in 2002 and 2003 regarding ‘Saddam’s weapons of mass destruction’ etc., as if it those lies weren’t clear, even at that time the lies were made.

How does a ‘news’media which has a record of deceiving its public into invasions, ever admit that this is what they long have been doing, and continue even now to do? Any of them that would publish the present article would be making a fundamental change-of-course, to becoming finally part of the press in a democracy, no longer part of the propaganda-operation in a dictatorship. Can a leopard change its spots? We’ll see, by web-searching the title here, “Does Russia Produce ‘Fake News’? Or Does America? Or Both?” and seeing where this article has been published — and where it hasn’t.

Investigative historian Eric Zuesse is the author, most recently, of  They’re Not Even Close: The Democratic vs. Republican Economic Records, 1910-2010, and of  CHRIST’S VENTRILOQUISTS: The Event that Created Christianity.

Featured image: Black Panther Party founders Bobby Seale and Huey P. Newton standing in the street, armed with a Colt .45 and a shotgun. (Source: Wikimedia Commons)

The black revolution is much more than a struggle for the rights of Negroes. It is forcing America to face all its interrelated flaws—racism, poverty, militarism, and materialism. It is exposing evils that are rooted deeply in the whole structure of our society. It reveals systemic rather than superficial flaws and suggests that radical reconstruction of society itself is the real issue to be faced.—Martin Luther King Jr., 1968

You don’t have to be one of those conspiratorial curmudgeons who reduces every sign of popular protest to “George Soros money” to acknowledge that much of what passes for popular and progressive, grass-roots activism has been co-opted, taken over and/or created by corporate America, the corporate-funded “nonprofit industrial complex,” and Wall Street’s good friend, the Democratic Party, long known to leftists as “the graveyard of social movements.” This “corporatization of activism” (University of British Columbia professor Peter Dauvergne’s term) is ubiquitous across much of what passes for the left in the U.S. today.

What about the racialist group Black Lives Matter, recipient of a mammoth $100 million grant from the Ford Foundation last year? Sparked by the racist security guard and police killings of Trayvon Martin, Mike Brown and Eric Garner, BLM has achieved uncritical support across the progressive spectrum, where it is almost reflexively cited as an example of noble and radical grass-roots activism in the streets. That is a mistake.

I first started wondering where BLM stood on the AstroTurf versus grass roots scale when I read an essay published three years ago in The Feminist Wire by Alicia Garza, one of BLM’s three black, lesbian and veteran public-interest careerist founders. In her “Herstory of the #BlackLivesMatter Movement,” Garza wrote: “Black lives. Not just all lives. Black lives. Please do not change the conversation by talking about how your life matters, too. It does, but we need less watered down unity and a more active solidarities with us, Black people, unwaveringly, in defense of our humanity. Our collective futures depend on it.”

Denouncing “hetero-patriarchy,” Garza described the adaptation of her clever online catchphrase (“black lives matter”) by others—“brown lives matter, migrant lives matter, women’s lives matter, and on and on” (Garza’s dismissive words)—as “the Theft of Black Queer Women’s Work.”

“Perhaps,” she added, “if we were the charismatic Black men many are rallying around these days, it would have been a different story.”

From a leftist perspective, this struck me as alarming. Why the prickly, hyperidentity-politicized and proprietary attachment to the “lives matter” phrase? Garza seemed more interested in brand value and narrow identity than social justice. Did she want a licensing fee? Wouldn’t any serious, leftist, people’s activist eagerly give the catchy “lives matter” phrase away to all oppressed people and hope for their wide and inclusive use in a viciously capitalist society that has subjected everything and everyone to the soulless logic of commodity rule, profit and exchange value? Who were these “charismatic Black men many are rallying around” in the fall of 2014?

And how representative were Garza’s slaps at “hetero-patriarchy” and “charismatic Black men” of the black community in whose name she spoke? Would it be too hetero-patriarchal of me, I wondered, to suggest that maybe a black male or two with experience of oppression in the nation’s racist criminal justice system ought to share some space front and center in a movement focused especially on a police and prison state that targets black boys and men above all?

I defended the phrase “black lives matter” against the absurd charge that it is racist, but I couldn’t help but wonder about the left-progressive credentials of anyone who gets upset that others would want to have a “conversation” (as Garza put it) about how their lives matter too. Is there really something wrong with a marginalized Native American laborer or a white and not-so “skin-privileged” former factory worker struggling with sickness and poverty wanting to hear that his or her life matters? For any remotely serious progressive, was there anything mysterious about the fact that many white folks facing foreclosure, job loss, poverty wages and the like might not be doing cartwheels over the phrase “black lives matter” when they experience the harsh daily reality that their lives don’t matter under the profits system?

My concerns about BLM’s potential service to the capitalist elite were reactivated when I heard a talk by Garza’s fellow BLM founder, Patrisse Cullors (another veteran nonprofit careerist). Cullors spoke before hundreds of cheering white liberals and progressives in downtown Iowa City in February. “We are witnessing the erosion of U.S. democracy,” she said, adding that Donald Trump “is building a police state.” Relating that she had gone into a “two-week depression” after Hillary Clinton was defeated by Trump, Cullors said she wondered if BLM had “done enough to educate people about the differences between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton.” She described Trump as a fascist.

Surely, I thought, Cullors knew that the United States had been in the grip of a finance-led corporate oligarchy and had been building a militarized police state for many years now, under Barack Obama as well as George W. Bush and others. Certainly, I hoped, she understood that the “erosion of democracy” and the construction of a racist police state have been underway since long before Trump took up residence in the White House. Surely, I felt, Cullors knew that the Clintons were vicious corporate racists who kicked millions of black women and children off federal public assistance while advancing racially disparate mass incarceration with their horrific three-strikes crime bill (which Bill Clinton later admitted he regretted).

Cullors said nothing in her talk about the problem of class rule and the plight of the multiracial working class, which includes white workers. Surely, I reflected, she knew that a “lying neoliberal warmonger” (the apt description of Hillary Clinton by the black, leftist, political scientist Adolph Reed Jr.) lost to a “fascist” because of her captivity to the nation’s corporate and financial elite, which has abandoned the white and multiracial working class in the neoliberal era (1975 to the present). Thanks to her captivity—political, economic, ideological and even cultural in nature—the “Inauthentic Opposition Party” (the late political theorist Sheldon Wolin’s dead-on description of the dismal dollar Democrats) has suppressed the lower- and working-class vote and handed the majority of the active, white, working-class electorate to the white-nationalist Republican Party. It’s an old story.

This would not have been all that tough a point to make in Iowa City, where voters, young ones above all, went mad for Bernie Sanders, the self-described democratic socialist who ran against the corporate and financial plutocracy and likely would have defeated Trump in the general election had the corporate Democrats not rigged the nomination on behalf of Clinton.

If Cullors was reconsidering her stance on (and within) major-party politics during the last election cycle, I wondered, did she think that BLM “did enough to educate people” about the difference between a racist, imperial and militantly neoliberal candidate like Hillary and a semi-social-democratic, anti-neoliberal candidate like Sanders? And what about third parties? Did BLM try to tell people about the Jill Stein-Ajamu Baraka Green Party ticket and platform, which advocated such common-sense revolutionary reforms as a giant peace dividend to fund planet-saving green jobs programs, single-payer health insurance and massive social reconstruction programs in the nation’s ghettoes, barrios and reservations?

Then I remembered that the only presidential candidate to have a campaign event shut down by BLM activists was Sanders, the left-most candidate with the most to offer poor and working-class black Americans. When it came to Clinton, all BLM activists could muster was a “self-humiliating” backstage meeting, where they listened to her lecture them on how to formulate demands.

Listening just to BLM’s many white-nationalist and right-wing, paranoid critics (see this for one among many examples), you might be led to think of the group as a radical and even terrorist agent of civil unrest meant to resurrect the spirit of the Black Panther Party in a steely-eyed people’s struggle against each of what Martin Luther King Jr. called “the triple evils that are interrelated”: racism, economic disparity (capitalism) and imperial militarism.

The Black Panthers would find this judgment amusing.

“We believe,” the Panthers’ Minister of Information Eldridge Cleaver wrote in 1969, “in the need for a unified revolutionary movement … informed by the revolutionary principles of scientific socialism.”

Formed by young black intellectuals who read Marx, Lenin, Mao, W.E.B. Du Bois, Malcom X and Frantz Fanon, the Panthers fused black nationalism with Marxism in militant opposition to all of King’s evils and in accord with King’s conclusion that the “real issue to be faced” beyond “superficial” matters was “radical reconstruction of society itself.”

The solution, the Panthers said, was revolution, a transformation of the whole society, to be achieved by combining the forces of the black, brown, yellow, red and white “proletariats” in opposition to America’s capitalist and racist empire. This idea was “Black Power” but also and, more broadly, “Power to the People.” As the legendary young Chicago Black Panther Fred Hampton explained in a 1969 speech:

We got to face some facts. That the masses are poor, that the masses belong to what you call the lower class, and when I talk about the masses, I’m talking about the white masses, I’m talking about the black masses, and the brown masses, and the yellow masses, too. We’ve got to face the fact that some people say you fight fire best with fire, but we say you put fire out best with water. We say you don’t fight racism with racism. We’re gonna fight racism with solidarity. We say you don’t fight capitalism with no black capitalism; you fight capitalism with socialism.

Hampton and his cohorts encouraged and assisted poor and working-class white radicals in the organization of such leftist “hillbilly nationalist” organizations as the Young Patriots Organization (Chicago), Rising Up Angry (Chicago), the October 4th Organization (Philadelphia) and White Lightning (the Bronx). As Amy Sonnie and James Tracy noted in “Hillbilly Nationalists, Urban Race Rebels, and Black Power,” “The [original] Rainbow Coalition initiated by the Panthers united poor whites, Blacks, and Latinos in a ‘vanguard of the dispossessed.’ ”

Along with their well-known practice of “policing the police” with armed self-defense of “occupied” black ghettoes, the Panthers’ model included a direct serve-the-people approach that “reached thousands of [poor black neighborhood] families each day.” As part of a strategy called “Survival Pending Revolution,” the Panthers, Sonnie and Tracy wrote, “provided the basic services people desperately needed, including a popular free breakfast program, sickle-cell anemia testing, legal defense clinics, literary classes, and schools that taught children cultural pride and Black history for the first time.”

It’s not for nothing that the Panthers faced fierce repression from the American state (including the chilling police-state execution of Fred Hampton in a raid organized by Cook County State’s Attorney Ed Hanrahan in December of 1969).

Mention of the Black Panthers can elicit raised eyebrows from feminists because of the party’s reputation for hypermasculinism. However, the Combahee River Collective, a black female-led feminist coalition that became the left wing of the 1970s women’s movement, shared the organization’s commitment to radical social and political transformation beyond racial equality alone. The CRC’s April 1977 manifesto called for a “feminist and antiracist revolution” that was also “a socialist revolution.” It said that “the liberation of all oppressed peoples necessitates the destruction of the political-economic systems of capitalism and imperialism as well as patriarchy.”

Black Lives Matter—founded by three veteran, professional-class, nonprofit activists and fundraisers (Garza, Cullors and Opal Tometi) with long prior “close ties to corporations, foundations, academia and government-sponsored agencies”—poses no comparable threat to the established order. Its expertly marketed slogans, “Black Lives Matter” and “Hands Up, Don’t Shoot,” are defensive and pale reflections of “Black Power” and “Power to the People.” BLM has little, if any, direct service relationships with the poor black communities in whose name it speaks. It does not call for broad-based popular rebellion against the combined and interrelated oppression structures of racism, capitalism, imperialism and patriarchy. In December, it openly took up the cause of black capitalism, partnering with the Fortune 500 advertising agency J. Walter Thompson to produce a national black business database. In February, BLM marked Black History Month by marketing a “black debit card” (the “Amir Visa debit card”) with OneUnited Bank, the largest black-owned bank in the U.S. All this and more might surprise many of the progressives who eagerly embraced the #BLM brand in the name of fighting racist police violence.

The U.S. ruling class, whose capitalist system is the historical midwife of modern racism, is not threatened by the racialist and black-capitalist BLM. But just to make sure that black anger is kept within safe political boundaries, a critical, cash-rich arm of concentrated wealth agreed last year to lavishly fund the group and a significant number of black middle class-led policy and advocacy groups coming in under its rubric.

In August 2016, when I first heard that BLM had scored $100 million from the Ford Foundation and other elite philanthro-capitalists (including the Hill-Snowden Foundation, the NoVo Foundation, Solidaire, JPMorgan Chase and the Kellogg Foundation), I wrote it off as “fake news” from the right-wing noise machine. The story struck me as too perfect a match for the Republican and white-nationalist narrative that black protesters were in pay to the evil “liberal and left elite.” It seemed too perfectly timed for the election season and too close a fit for Trump and Steve Bannon’s racist and fake-populist liberal- and left-bashing, Archie Bunker-like talking points.

But the story checked out. The remarkable grant—a vast sum of money off the charts of normal foundation giving—was a matter of public record. Fortune magazine wrote that the gift “would make anyone sit up straighter if they read it in a pitch deck.” It was a curious statement: A “pitch deck” is a presentation venue for start-up businesses seeking investor backing.

On the day of the presidential election last year, Huffington Post posted a report titled “Black Lives Matter—A Catalyst for Philanthropic Change,” penned by a “nonprofit industrial complex” veteran. The article’s author, Liora Norwich, celebrated the historic grant as an example of “social justice philanthropy (SJP, to insiders)” and hailed it for “mark[ing] a notable and laudable shift from small episodic grantmaking to longer-term investments supporting a movement-building process via a flexible giving model.” Norwich repeated the Ford Foundation’s claim that it and other SJP foundations were “actively seeking not to [in the Ford Foundation’s words] ‘dictate or distort the work underway.’ ” Norwich wrote that “these same funders also appear self-consciously aware of the historical pitfalls of large foundation support to movements. As such, they may be trying to avoid what happened in the 1960s during the Civil Rights movement and the ongoing dilemma of the environmental movement, where philanthropic support forced a moderation of the movements’ agendas, causing them to become less receptive to their constituencies.”

Rife with telling caveats and qualifications (“appear aware” and “may be trying”), Norwich’s claim that the foundation had no interest in keeping BLM safe for the rich and the white was naïve. As the World Socialist Web Site noted in October:

The Ford Foundation, one of the most powerful private foundations in the world, with close ties to Wall Street and the US government, … receives the bulk of its endowment from corporate contributors and very wealthy donors through trusts and bequeathments. … The Ford Foundation has for years maintained close ties to US military and intelligence agencies. … Its board of directors is a ‘who’s who’ of powerful corporate players, including CEOs and Wall Street lawyers. … The contribution of such an immense sum of money [$100 million] is a gift from the ruling class that will allow Black Lives Matter to construct a bureaucracy of salaried staff and lobbyist positions. The influx of money will bring the movement greater influence through campaign contributions and integrate it even more closely with the Democratic Party and the corporate media.

By the World Socialist Web Site’s reckoning, the grant was a capitalist investment in the timeworn, ruling-class game of racial divide-and-rule tactics:

The $100 million gift is an acknowledgment by a powerful section of the ruling class that the aims of the Black Lives Matter movement are aligned with those of Wall Street and the US government. In an interview with Bloomberg News in 2015, the Ford Foundation’s current president, Darren Walker, an ex-banker at UBS, spelled out the pro-capitalist perspective underlying the foundation’s decision to bankroll Black Lives Matter: ‘Inequality … kills aspirations and dreams and makes us more cynical as a people. … What kind of Capitalism do we want to have in America?’… The foundation’s support for Black Lives Matter is an investment in the defense of the profit system. Black Lives Matter portrays the world as divided along racial lines, proclaiming on its web site that it “sees itself as part of a global black family.”

The venerable ruling-class Ford Foundation, it is relevant to note, responded to Detroit’s epic 1967 race riot (provoked by racist white police brutality) by trying to promote black capitalism in Detroit a half-century ago.

Was the World Socialist Web Site’s judgment too harsh? Perhaps. One does not have to be a bourgeois racialist to see that the nation is divided along racial as well as class lines, after all. A close look at the BLM/Movement for Black Lives (M4BL) online policy agenda suggests that its constituent organizations reside on the broadly defined left side of the U.S. political spectrum. Beneath a strong overlay of black-specific identity politics is a sprawling monument to progressive-policy wonkery, replete with the latest and best liberal and social-democrat-ish ideas for creating a more socially, economically and racially just, inclusive, democratic and environmentally sustainable U.S. capitalism. The United States and the world would be better places if the M4BL’s “Vision 4 Black Lives”—including universal health care, restoration of workers’ right to organize, the public financing of elections, a shift of resources from militarism to meeting social needs and reparations for slavery—was implemented.

Still, M4BL’s progressive web formulations are wrapped in the exclusive professional- and political-class discourse of foundation-backed policy wonkery, filled with references to “intersectionality” and other elite phrases that betray a lack of organic and grass-roots presence in the poor black communities in whose name BLM speaks. Few among the ghettoized and incarcerated black poor sit on the internet puzzling their way through the intricate policy ideas of black coordinator-class professionals who get grants from top bourgeois foundations, few of whose funders and program officers are remotely interested in seeing King’s “radical reconstruction of society itself.”

As a former veteran, nonprofit, racial justice foundation grant recipient (I’ve spent years in the nonprofit industrial complex), I can assure readers that the Ford money comes with at least four strings attached. First, there must be no calls for seriously radical revolution and lower- and working-class solidarity across racial and ethnic lines. Second, the progressive policy ideas are to be wrapped in middle-class language meant for foundation program officers and Democratic Party policy wonks, not the people in the streets, housing projects, low-paid jobs, jails and prisons. Third, the organizations receiving the elite foundation largesse are to take their cue from those already in power, not those on the margins. Fourth, the groups getting money under the BLM rubric or brand are to be (in the words of Black Agenda Report) “led exclusively by college-educated professionals answerable to self-perpetuating boards and philanthropic funders.” They are not to become mass-based organizations financially accountable to a rank-and-file membership.

Money talks loudest, but the Ford Foundation is not content to let its cash speak for itself without top-down supervision and control. The BLM grant permits the funder to provide “auxiliary consulting and advice to a confederation of 14 groups linked to BLM.” The money and the “auxiliary services” have been coordinated through the so-called Black-Led Movement Fund, overseen by a for-profit company called Borealis Philanthropy. Ford and Borealis say they want to “support the infrastructure, innovation and dynamism of intersectional Black-led organizing.”

Along with the money comes status and celebrity. As World Socialist Web Site writers Lawrence Porter and Nancy Hanover note, “the leadership of BLM has been showered with honorariums, awards, and junkets, both in the U.S. and internationally. Cullors was made Woman of the Year for Justice Speakers by Glamour magazine, made World’s Greatest Leader by Fortune magazine and awarded an honorary doctorate from Clarkson University.”

One irony is that this dependence on money and administration by (neo)liberal elites tied to the Democratic Party is self-negating for BLM/M4BL’s more sincerely and genuinely progressive grant recipients. With no revolutionary thunder on the actual left, progressive liberals/neoliberals are not going to enact many, if any, of the reforms they advocate.

The revolution will not be paid for by the Ford Foundation. And it will not be led by “public interest careerists who want to be players” and cut deals with the ruling class.

Paul Street holds a doctorate in U.S. history from Binghamton University. He is former vice president for research and planning of the Chicago Urban League. 

“They use ludicrous terms like ‘gold star family’ and make the case for continued American aggression around the world.”

The desire to be affirmed by American society has dangerous consequences for black people. This pernicious dynamic creates the inclination to worship any black face in a high place or to defend questionable activity. The death of special forces Sergeant La David Johnson in Niger is a case in point. Donald Trump’s racism and stupidity prevented him from performing the simple task of conveying appropriate condolences to Johnson’s widow. The ensuing brouhaha focuses on what Trump said in the phone call overheard by Congressional Black Caucus member Frederica Wilson.

Almost no one is asking about the fact that American troops are stationed in Africa at all. Few people realize that such a thing as the United States Africa Command (AFRICOM ) exists and that the military forces of most African nations have been under the de facto control of this country since the George W. Bush administration.

There is similar silence about the role that the United States played in bringing groups designated as terrorists into nations such as Niger and Mali. The decision to overthrow Muammar Gaddafi in Libya is directly responsible for Boko Haram and Al-Qaeda affiliate groups gaining a foothold throughout the region. Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and their NATO partners in crime were not just responsible for the deaths of thousands of Libyans, slavery in that country, and an ongoing humanitarian crisis. They are responsible for bringing state sponsored terror to the entire region.

“The military forces of most African nations have been under the de facto control of this country since the George W. Bush administration.”

Focusing on Donald Trump’s bad behavior is a sure path to confusion and accommodation. Instead of denouncing imperialism, otherwise sensible people are waving the flag and attacking Trump using right wing terminology. They use ludicrous terms like “gold star family” and make the case for continued American aggression around the world.

It is pointless to ask about the specific circumstances of Johnson’s death. He died along with three other soldiers in the murky circumstances that are to be expected in warfare. Any questions posed should be about America’s ever expanding empire and the determination to make war on as many places in the world as possible.

Black people should feel no need to validate themselves through military service or any other undertaking. As the people who have suffered through centuries of unpaid labor, Jim Crow apartheid and constant oppression, we should feel no need to uphold this system. Yet we have already proven a willingness to die for the interests of a corrupt and dangerous state. There is frankly no reason to show pride in Johnson’s death or to allow a member of the CBC to turn an important issue into nonsensical grandstanding versus Trump.

“The decision to overthrow Muammar Gaddafi in Libya is directly responsible for Boko Haram and Al-Qaeda affiliate groups gaining a foothold throughout the region.”

At this juncture in history all talk of patriotism is at best foolish and at worst a call for continued crimes and mass murder. It is also high time to end the deification of the American war dead, even when they look like us. They die because they are trying to kill other people.

Condolences to Johnson’s family are appropriate but they are also appropriate for the millions of people who lost loved ones to American empire building in Niger, Somalia, Libya, Yemen, Afghanistan, Syria, and Iraq. That is a short list which only includes the victims of American war crimes committed in the past 20 years.

No one should be fooled by crocodile tears from white Americans with grudges against Trump. If Sergeant Johnson had been killed by a police officer in an American city many of the same white people who now rush to call him a hero would either shrug their shoulders in indifference or applaud his death. They should not be allowed to jump on the bandwagon of fake concern because Trump is their target.

“Any questions posed should be about America’s ever expanding empire and the determination to make war on as many places in the world as possible.”

As for congresswoman Wilson, she has a golden opportunity to discuss the impact of American interventions abroad and question their rationale. But like the rest of her CBC colleagues, her interests are confined to reliance on the largesse of the Democratic Party and their corporate benefactors. Trump’s bad behavior makes him an easy target for scorn and a convenient punching bag for the useless black political class. If Wilson wants to take on the president it ought to be for more substantive reasons. Likening his boorishness to “Benghazi” uses a right wing trope for ridiculous effect.

Any discussion about Sergeant Johnson ought to point out that he was a victim of the poverty draft. Before enlisting he worked at Walmart, a sure path to continued poverty or to the dubious odds offered by the army. Trump said that Johnson “knew what he signed up for” but that is probably not true. He took a chance and hoped for the best. Unfortunately the machinations of Bush, Obama, Clinton and Trump made his choice a bad one. If the Congresswoman wants to have a debate she could start with the realities of Johnson’s life and how it ran afoul of United States foreign policy. Only then would her fight with a president be worthwhile.

Margaret Kimberley‘s Freedom Rider column appears weekly in BAR, and is widely reprinted elsewhere. She maintains a frequently updated blog as well as at http://freedomrider.blogspot.com. Ms. Kimberley lives in New York City, and can be reached via e-Mail at Margaret.Kimberley(at)BlackAgendaReport.com.

Featured image is from the author.

There are standoffs, threats and continuing tensions over the imminent closure of the Manus Island Detention Centre. (The politically palatable term here is “processing centre”.) This closure, instigated by legal ruling by the Papua New Guinea Supreme Court in April 2016, has led to a degree of window dressing, prevarication and stalling by all parties connected with the institutionalised barbarism that has been inflicted on refugees and asylum seekers.

A vital stumbling block in this involves the removal of 718 men from the Lombrum Naval Base to alternative, purpose-built accommodation in the town of Lorengau. Even CNN decided the crisis was newsworthy: “Powder keg on Manus Island as refugees refuse to leave immigration centre.”[1]

Central to the PNG tactics of removal will be the deployment of the PNG mobile squad, famed for their brutality and expert mishandling. Extra personnel are being deployed ahead of the closure on the pretext that they are the ones to protect the populace. The actual ones in danger are the refugees and asylum seekers in the camp itself who fear marauding locals indifferent to the dark deals done between PNG and Australia.

As Kurdish refugee Behrouz Boochani, who has made a name for covering the camp’s accretions of wearing brutality and tedium over the years explained,

“The refugees don’t feel safe in the community, because the local community is not ready to accept them.”

The social nightmare that has arisen was a case of pure engineering on the part of the Australian government, keen to sustain a gulag-styled system of camp processing and control supposedly designed to deter arrivals. Absurdist claims that refugees could settle in PNG as a land of smooth milk and enticing honey have become the fare of successive administrations in Canberra.

The PNG politicians tend to have mixed feelings about their large, insistent neighbour. The refugees, spanning a range of countries as diverse as Iran and Myanmar, are sore intrusions into a locality of 6,000 residents. White man’s burden is a testy one, and shouldering it in a modern pseudo-colonial context has not been a thrill.

“It boils down to if everyone behaves themselves it’s all good,” suggests the local Manus Island MP, Ron Knight. “You have young men who have been locked up for four or five years. They get a taste of freedom. You have young women in town who are attracted to these guys. They keep these relationships hidden. The fathers find out, or the families find out, and it becomes a big issue.”

PNG immigration minister Petrus Thomas has also shown that he is far from impressed by the moves of the Turnbull government to eschew responsibility. In an act of truly determined hand washing, Thomas insisted that,

“PNG has no obligation under the current arrangement to deal with these two cohorts and they remain the responsibility of Australia to pursue third-country options and liaise with respective governments of the non-refugees for their voluntary or involuntary return.”[2]

Human Rights Watch has been on the case of the Manus Island Centre for some time, and the picture has merely become more hideous with time. In 2015, the organisation noted instances of severe abuse, inhumane treatment and neglect.[3] Another report released on October 25 makes for grim reading. Knife attacks have taken place. Beatings are not infrequent. As is robbery. Gangs of intoxicated youths roam and prey upon those daring to mix in the community.

“While many Papuans have welcomed the new arrivals to Manus Island,” state the findings, “nearly every refugee and asylum seeker Human Rights Watch interviewed described how they had experienced or witnessed violence, threats of violence, or robberies by groups of often intoxicated young local men.”[4]

PNG Police Commissioner Gari Baki attempted to paint a picture of even-handedness and fair play, that all would be in good hands come the day of the facility’s closure.

“The safety of both the refugees and government workers plus staff of leading agencies is not to be taken for granted given the tension that is now being expressed by the locals on Manus Island.”

But a PNG police force statement was far more frank about what will happen this week:

“Extra manpower is on standby to be deployed to Manus Island to assist the local police in addition to the two Mobile Squad now on the island.”[5]

The response from the Australian government, fringed by the complicity of PNG authorities, is crude in its simplicity: cut the water, the electricity, and the supplies. Starve the residents, more appropriately inmates, into submission. Drag them out; relocate them; deport them. What is startling is how conscious a strategy this has been, commencing, in fact, earlier this year.

This is a mission of viciousness. Having been given a frightful ticking off by judicial officers for their role in facilitating breaches of the PNG constitution, the political figures are doing their best to scuttle and vacillate. The aim, it seems, is less the resolution of a problem than the continued infliction of harm upon individuals with legitimate rights to flee persecution and distress.

That officials in Canberra persist in subverting international refugee law, not to mention colluding in behaviour that would, in many instances, be criminalised domestically, has corroded the integrity of Australian institutions.

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

Notes

Since the inauguration of US President D. J. Trump in January 2017, along with his contingent of generals, Washington has rattled its nuclear and other military sabers in most every direction, threatening to totally destroy North Korea, ramping up weapons deliveries to Syrian opposition groups, scaling up AFRICOM military actions, sending its naval fleets in every imaginable direction from the South China Sea to the Baltic, building up troops along the borders to Russia, threatening Iran…

Behind all the bluster is a US military with morale at an all-time low, with preparedness in many cases abysmally inadequate, and using technologies that are costly to taxpayers and far behind the state of the art of other potential adversaries. All are symptoms of a failing former sole superpower whose military is being gravely abused and misused, far from the intent for defense of the nation.

US Navy Collisions

This August the USS John Sidney McCain, a guided-missile destroyer of the US Navy’s Seventh Fleet collided with an oil tanker off Singapore, killing ten sailors. Two months earlier the Japan-based USS Fitzgerald collided with a merchant ship killing seven sailors and causing an estimated half-a billion dollars in damage. A Naval intelligence investigation found zero evidence of cyber-attack. For once Washington did not try to blame Russia or China. The fault lies at home.

Incredible as it may seem, for the world’s largest and most formidable Navy, a decision was made during the Bush-Cheney Administration when Don Rumsfeld was Secretary of Defense to “save money” by scrapping the traditional training of Navy officers. As naval electronics such as advanced radar, sonar, gun, missile, and data linkage systems became more complex during the 1960s, the Navy created what was called the Surface Warfare Division Officer School which gave future officers a rigorous 12-14 months of training before they boarded their first ship. In 2003, it was shut down “to create efficiencies,” and replaced by computer-based training (CBT). Instead of attending the earlier training, new naval officers were given a packet of computer training discs and the ship commander was told to be responsible for the competence of officers under their command.

Vice Admiral Timothy LaFleur, the one responsible for the decision, sharply criticized by many officers, insisted the elimination of serious training would, “result in higher professional satisfaction, increase the return on investment during the first division officer tour, and free up more career time downstream.” The training cuts saved a ludicrous $15 million a year. Moreover, over-reliance on “fail-proof” electronics such as automated radar systems and the automatic identification system (AIS) led to abandonment of human watch-standers actually looking out the bridge window of the ship for dangers. No one was watching on the USS Fitzgerald or the USS McCain.

The commanders of the USS Fitzgerald and the USS McCain were relieved of their commands, hardly a serious response to the deeper problem. The rot goes much deeper.

Lower standards

As any honest experienced military veteran of the 1960s Vietnam War can attest, there is a crucial difference if you come as a foreign soldier to a land and its people who are fighting for their independence from foreign military occupation or defending from foreign attack. Ho Chi Minh, Chairman of the Central Committee of the Workers’ Party of Vietnam, who spent years in the United States and France, led a vastly under-equipped army of peasants against the best-equipped armed force in the world and ultimately won.

The fact that the armed forces of the United States, since the end of the Cold War with the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 has not had a convincing “evil” adversary, has had a huge effect on morale. Going to Afghanistan in 2001 to destroy Osama bin Laden, then to Iraq to destroy Saddam Hussein, then to Libya to destroy Muammar Qaddafi, now to Syria to destroy Bashar al Assad—none of these “adversaries” are morally convincing to most Americans.

Not surprisingly, in this context the US Armed Forces are having difficulty recruiting sufficient qualified, intelligent service personnel for the wars that Washington and its patrons in Wall Street seem to want to wage around the world.

This year to meet its quota of new recruits to fill its global missions, the US Army has had to accept recruits with lower qualifications, to take recruits who scored in the lower third of the tests, so called Category Four recruits, including those with records for drug use.

And it is not only the lack of sufficient preparation of its Army personnel or of its naval officers.

Alarming pilot shortage

On October 23, the US Air Force revealed that it is preparing its fleet of B-52 nuclear-capable bombers for 24-hour alert status, something not done since the end of the Cold War, according to Defense One. Airmen at the Barksdale Air Force base are readying the planes “in case the alert order is issued.” The B-52s would be armed with nuclear bombs available to take off at a moment’s notice something that was discontinued with the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991.

The mad new plan of Trump’s generals however, has an added problem. The Air Force has a dramatic shortage of qualified pilots.

On October 21, President Trump signed an executive order allowing the Air Force to call back to service up to 1,000 retired pilots, by expanding a state of national emergency declared by George W. Bush after Sept. 11, 2001. The order is part of an attempt “to mitigate the Air Force’s acute shortage of pilots,” according to a Pentagon spokesman.

For decades the US military–whose annual budget exceeds that of China, UK, France, Germany, and Russia combined–has waged wars against military opponents such as Iraq or Afghanistan or Libya where there was no contest.

This past June the US Army War College issued a study titled, At Our Own Peril: DoD Risk Assessment in a Post-Primacy World. In the study the authors conclude that the world order created after World War II, dominated by the US “is under enormous stress.” They add,

“The order and its constituent parts… were transformed to a unipolar system with the collapse of the Soviet Union, and have by-and-large been dominated by the United States and its major Western and Asian allies since. Status quo forces collectively are comfortable with their dominant role in dictating the terms of international security outcomes and resist the emergence of rival centers of power and authority.”

The study adds that the US “can no longer count on the unassailable position of dominance, supremacy, or pre-eminence it enjoyed for the 20-plus years after the fall of the Soviet Union.”

Now, with the emergence of China as a genuine great power, with the rapid emergence of Russia as a great power in cohesion with China’s vision of an emerging Eurasia, the Trump Administration is warring around with everybody everywhere in what is clearly not either a healthy conduct of US foreign policy nor a serious manner for a mature nation to behave. Building up and restoring America’s rotting domestic infrastructure, not building up the US military against concocted threats or nations who ask the right to own sovereignty, building the real American economy to rejoin the ranks as a leading industrial nation makes far more sense in my view.

F. William Engdahl is strategic risk consultant and lecturer, he holds a degree in politics from Princeton University and is a best-selling author on oil and geopolitics, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook.”

This article was originally published by New Eastern Outlook.

Featured image is from the author.

Featured image: Puhung station in Pyongyang

Any person who is half clued-in knows well that corporate and state media (particularly in the West) must be regarded with deserved skepticism. This holds particularly for geo-political events since the domineering elitist corporate-governmental line will be adhered to.

Given this deplorable media state-of-affairs, it goes to reason that coverage of North Korea must be regarded with an Olympus Mons of salt. So the question is: how best to obtain a more credible insight into what the reality is in North Korea?

How about actually being there and seeing with your own eyes? This would provide a first-hand perspective as opposed to a second-hand perspective (or quite likely a zero-hand perspective since the monopoly media scribe might never have been to North Korea).

Hence, I took my opportunity to travel to and experience a moment in North Korea.

Earlier this month, I arrived in Dandong. It is a Chinese city of two-million people – many ethnic Korean – situated on the Yalu River. Across the grayish, brown river lies North Korea. Two bridges side-by side reach out from central Dandong toward the city of Sinuiju on the North Korean shore. One bridge, the Sino-Korean Friendship Bridge, reaches the opposite shore. The other bridge extends halfway out, having been destroyed by the US bombing during the war in Korea. It remains half intact as a reminder.

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Granted, one travels to North Korea as part of a tour group, but this is an understandable precaution when a country is confronted by an unfriendly (the United States eschews peace treaties and non-aggression pacts) rogue superpower with its web of spy networks and NGO-fronted coup enablers.

As with other US-designated enemies (e.g., Cuba, Iraq, Libya, Venezuela, and Syria), North Korea shares a favorable disposition to socialism.

My impression: North Korea is indeed very different from the US. Crass materialism was absent. Where are all the shops? It was hard to discern as there was no advertising for products or services. No billboards, no buy-this signs. Granted that, yes, there were the occasional socialist slogans.

Concerning socialism in North Korea, the petite North Korean tour guide, Ms Kim proudly informed,

“We all get free housing, free medical care, and do not pay to go to university.”

Ms Kim even opined that North Korea is more socialist than their communist neighbor China. Obviously, this is so. Communist China cannot claim to have achieved any of these socialist goals… yet. [1] That being said, it seems that governing the third largest country in the world with the world’s largest population — usually cited now as about 1.4 billion people – poses a somewhat more daunting task than governing North Korea and its 25 million people.

However, North Korea has achieved these socialist goals despite economic sanctions pushed by the United States through the United Nations. This despite North Korea having broken no laws. As a North Korean weekly newspaper argued:

The DPRK’s buildup of a nuclear deterrent is an absolutely legal and just act that does not violate any international law in all processes from the beginning of their programme to the recent test of hydrogen bomb to be mounted on an ICBM as well as future measures for the completion of the state nuclear programme. [2]

The article further noted that having withdrawn from the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons in 2003, it is untethered to any of its stipulations. Therefore, North Korea has demanded many times, without success, an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council to explain, among other matters, the legality of its resolution 2375.

Despite resolution 2375 garnering the unanimous vote of the 15 member UN Security Council, the member nations of the G77 unanimously rejected the sanctions against North Korea. [3]

Neither Wealthy nor Poor

North Korea is not poor, and neither is it materially wealthy. While vehicles are few, Pyongyang boasts a two-line metro 110 meters below ground where some station walls are adorned by beautiful mosaic scenery. Above ground getting around by bicycles and walking was the norm. My observations for the most part were of a slim people nattily attired, seemingly happy.

On 20 July, the UN’s FAO published a special alert warning of impending food insecurity stemming from an arid stretch from April to June.

Food shortages have plagued North Korea in recent decades, as lack of fertilizer and weather calamities wreaked havoc on agriculture. Given that only 20% of the land is suitable for cultivation, previous crop failures had disastrous effect. While I could not glean information on the current crop yield by observation or by asking the tour guides, I noted that the entire length of the approximately 225 km of rail track from Sinuiju to Pyongyang featured an unbroken expanse of agriculture, primarily rice, but also wheat, corn, and other foodstuffs crammed into every nook and cranny. Farm machinery was seldom seen, and neither were beasts of burden. I witnessed farmer workers manually tending the farms, physically harvesting, and carrying out bundled crops on their backs.

There are other struggles. Air pollution is apparent. And at night, I was surprised by how very dark Pyongyang was. Lighting was at a minimum, obviously to conserve fuel.

In smaller cities, such as Kaesong, many women were seen down by the river washing clothes.

Kaesong is the entry point to the DMZ where the armistice ending the war on the Korean peninsula was signed. This war is emblazoned in the history and memory of North Koreans.

The Start of the War on the Korean Peninsula

The North Korean people are very aware of the US role in the war – a war they accuse the Americans of starting. [4] Essentially and logically, this North Korean claim is unassailable. Because if the US had not insisted on splitting the country there would have been no war to reunite the two Koreas.

Protecting Socialism

The one indelible impression of having been in North Korea was that the country is populated by people so much like you and I, and much like the people I have come across in so many countries on all the continents. They have dreams and desire freedom as do people anywhere. The tour guide (and I did not consider the tour guides in any way to be minders, as they are depicted pejoratively in western media), Ms Kim, related that Koreans are very interested in international matters. I would feel less confident to assert such about people in western lands.

Despite alarmist headlines in western monopoly media, it was also clear that North Koreans have no desire or inclination to launch a first strike with any nuclear weapons.

It is also palpable that North Koreans will never back down to threats from the US as attested to by resolute revolutionary posters depicting North Korea battling the US (and Japan). Neither will North Korea succumb to sanctions imposed by the UN. In fact, the sanctions work to magnify and reinforce the North Korean ideology of juche (self-reliance). After all, what could be a better method to mitigate sanctions than to be self-reliant? As with juche, songun originated with former leader Kim Il Sung. Songun derives from juche. “[T]he songun idea puts up the revolutionary soldier spirit as the main factor in defending the destiny of the nation and propelling overall socialist construction.” [5]

Socialism is posited at the core of songun:

Revolutionaries can win the struggle against counter-revolutionary forces and establish a socialist government only when they have a strong armed force. And this continuance buildup of the army is imperative for thwarting all manner of underhand moves of the imperialists and maintaining and consolidating the socialist government. [6]

As a declared socialist state, North Korea is anathema to the mindset of billionaire presidents like Donald Trump. That North Korea has been able to survive as a socialist state and render services to all citizens (socialist achievements unmentioned or marginalized by US corporate media) that is unattainable under US capitalism invites demonization by the 1%-ers. In an age where neoliberalism is eviscerating the middle socio-economic stratum and grotesquely further enriching the already rich, North Korea presents a socialism that survives against overwhelming capitalist forces.

The Koreans point to and extol these socialist accomplishments.

North Koreans are People

My contact with North Koreans was largely limited by language barrier. What I can state is that Koreans came across as likeable, friendly, caring, proud, and non-threatening.

Consequently, to wish to destroy or threaten to destroy these people is an unconscionable and morally depraved attitude deserving of utmost censure and condemnation. It is a denial of the essence of humanity: that we are all humans. Our own humanity hinges upon this essence.

Humanity is elevated by acts of charity, kindness, protection, and rejection of violence against other humans (except in self-defense against rogue humans).

Embracing our humanity demands embracing Koreans, in the north and south, and embracing all humans everywhere.

Therefore, all nations, and the United Nations, must demand a cessation of the vitriolic rhetoric among all parties. In particular, the people of the United States must demand the rejection of violence. Americans should extend a peace branch to Koreans and to the peoples of all lands.

War is, after all, antithetical to humanity.

Kim Petersen is a former co-editor of the Dissident Voice newsletter. He can be reached at: [email protected]. Twitter: @kimpetersen.

Notes

1. China’s chairman Xi Jinping has stated that China is in the earliest stages of socialism. Xi Jinping, The Governance of China(2014): location 352. 

2. Kang Choi, “A council for global security, or one for US hegemony?” Pyongyang Times, 30 September 2017, p. 7. 

3. “G77 rejects anti-DPRK sanctions,” Pyongyang Times, 30 September 2017, p. 4. 

4. See Won Myong Uk and Kim Hak Chol, Distortion of US Provocation of Korean War (Pyongyang : Foreign Languages Publishing House, 2003). 

5. Questions and Answers on the Songun Idea, (Pyongyang: Foreign Languages Publishing House, 2012), p 4. 

6. Questions and Answers on the Songun Idea, p 12. 

All images in this article are from the author.

Dr G.N.Saibaba Professor at Delhi University and now in solitary confinement in Nagpur Central Jail has spoken out for help. Saibaba 90 per cent disabled and suffering from multiple ailments, wrote this letter to his wife Vasantha that he might not be able to survive the winter months in jail. He has been convicted under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act in what those convinced of his innocence describe as a travesty of justice. Saibaba has been branded a Maoist and sentenced to life imprisonment.

A sessions court in Gadchiroli district of Maharashtra had convicted Saibaba in March for Maoist links and sentenced him to life imprisonment. Professor Saibaba, Mr. Mishra, Mr. Rahi and two residents of Gadchiroli —Mahesh Tirki, Pandu Narote — were convicted under Sections 13, 18, 20, 38 and 39 of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA) and Section 120 B of the Indian Penal Code for connections with the banned Revolutionary Democratic Front (RDF), an organisation linked with the banned Communist Party of India (Maoist).

The letter was written on October 17 and received by his wife on October 25.

Dear Vasantha

I am frightened to think of coming winter. Already I am shivering with continuous fever. I do not have a blanket. I do not have a sweater/jacket. As temperature goes down excruciating pain continuously in my legs and left hand increases. It is impossible for me to survive here during the winter that starts from November.

I am living here like an animal taking its last breaths. Somehow 8 months I managed to survive. But I am not going to survive in the coming winter. I am sure. It is of no use to write about my health any longer.

In any case, please finalize the senior counsel by or before the end of this month. Then inform Mr. Gadling to file my bail application in the first week of November or last week of October itself. You remember if this is not done in this way, my situation will be out of hands. I am not responsible. I am making clear to you. Hereafter I am not going to write about it any longer.

You should talk to Mrs Rebeccaji and Nandita Narain. You also talk to Prof. Haragopal and others. Explain the entire situation. You need to hurry up.

I am feeling so depressed for requesting you all so many times like a beggar, a destitute. But none of you are moving an inch, no one understand my present condition. No one understands 90% disabled person is behind bars struggling with one hand in condition and suffering with multiple ailments. And no one cares for my life. This is simply criminal negligence, a callous attitude.

Please take care of your health. Your health is my health and entire family’s health. There is no one else to take care of your health for now. Till I am in your presence, you have to take care of your health without any negligence.

Lots of love

Yours

Sai

Featured image: Adapted by WhoWhatWhy from National Archives (PDF) and FBI / Wikimedia.

What happened on Thursday, Oct. 26, with the JFK records scheduled for release under the JFK Records Act? A travesty. Most news reports correctly noted the release of about 2,800 documents, but added that only a few were held back, in some cases saying “300 documents” remain withheld (see CNN, and Washington Post for example). They are off by a factor of 100. In fact, tens of thousands of documents, possibly as many as 30,000, remain sealed at the National Archives.

If President Donald Trump had gone golfing at Mar-A-Lago and done absolutely nothing on Thursday, the National Archives (NARA) would have released all documents, as it was set to do. See the relevant language in the Assassination Records Review Board’s Final Report, quoting from the 1992 JFK Records Act.

This includes 3,147 “withheld in full” records never seen, and an unknown number of redacted documents estimated at about 30,000. Intensely lobbied by federal agencies including the CIA, Trump instead authorized the withholding of well over 90% of these documents. 52 of the 3,147 withheld-in-full records were released and put online by NARA, less than 2%, and 2,839 of the redacted documents were released, which is probably less than 10% of that set.

From the public metadata available for all these records, it’s clear that the most-desired records were held back. Still withheld-in-full records among the 98% of those still withheld include, for example:

* Still-withheld Church Committee interview transcripts not included in the 1990s releases, including one with none other than CIA CounterIntelligence chief James Angleton.

* Lengthy CIA files on officers who played a role in Castro assassination plotting and/or the JFK story, including William Harvey, David Phillips, E. Howard Hunt, James O’Connell, Richard Synder, and several others.

* A 167-page CIA document on Valeriy Kostikov, the Soviet agent stationed in Mexico whose name was used as part of the “World War III” scenario that theWarren Commission we now know was created to push back against.

* An interview the House Select Committee on Assassinations conducted with Orest Pena, the New Orleans bar owner who told the Committee that Oswald was an FBI informant and he often saw Oswald in the company of a particular FBI agent.

and many many more.

Additionally, many of the documents released online Thursday featured redactions — blacked out areas. In at least one case, the very same document has been available in fully unredacted form at the National Archives for more than 10 years. See the newly released version and compare to the MFF online version. These are two different copies of the same document held by different agencies, so perhaps one being redacted and the other not is just an accident. But why are there any redactions at all in the new copy? It is as yet unclear why so many redactions appear in what are supposed to be fully released records.

In a White House press release, President Trump announced “I am ordering today that the veil be finally lifted.” In fact, no such order was given or was necessary. The JFK Records Act mandated full disclosure by Thursday as a matter of law, with the only mechanism for holding anything back being a presidential certification that “continued postponement is made necessary by an identifiable harm to the military defense, intelligence operations, law enforcement, or conduct of foreign relations” AND “the identifiable harm is of such gravity that it outweighs the public interest in disclosure.” (see ARRB Final Report).

What happens next? According to the White House, there will be a review process over the next six months. By April 26, 2018, a further determination will be made as to whether full disclosure will occur, or more secrecy. Watch this space. Call your congressperson.

For more on these records, how to find online those which have been released, and links to essays discussing them, see the 2017 Document Releases project here at MFF.

Rex Bradford is the President of the Mary Ferrell Foundation, whose website hosts the largest searchable online collection of JFK assassination records.

Featured image: Abayomi Azikiwe at Detroit MLK 2014

During the week of October 23-27, the World Conference of Mayors held a conference in the city of Detroit at the luxurious MGM Casino Hotel.

This organization is not to be confused with the United States Conference of Mayors which has existed for decades. The World Conference mainly consists of elected officials and other affiliates from small and medium-sized African American majority cities in the southern U.S. along with some representation from Africa, Canada and the Middle East.

The event was held in Detroit under the theme of “The City that Never Surrendered.” Although the notion of non-surrender is applicable to the people who have struggled to remain in the Motor City, the actual meaning of such a sentiment should not be distorted and utilized as a mechanism to obfuscate the ongoing problems of poverty, unemployment, state repression and gross economic exploitation of working people and public resources.

Detroit has become a focal point for a false narrative of “urban revitalization.” Having been subjected to the social effects of capitalist de-industrialization and restructuring for decades, the city has seen a drastic decline in population from 1.8 million in 1950 to approximately 670,000 today.

The drastic reduction in residents is linked with the systematic disinvestment by the manufacturing industry and the financial institutions. Even dating back to the 1950s and 1960s, there was a major shift in investment strategies where through federal governmental assistance whites were funneled into the suburbs along with the construction of newer factories and commercial centers such as shopping malls.

There was almost no attention directed towards the increasing African American, Latina/o and working poor communities pouring into the Northern, Southern, Midwestern and Western cities fleeing from the collapse of small and large-scale agricultural production both inside and outside the U.S. Decaying housing and municipal infrastructure, along with overcrowding, fueled resentment. Pressures from the African American led Southern Civil Rights Movement and the consequent “white backlash” angered the burgeoning ghetto communities where overcrowded schools and neighborhoods contained through de facto segregationist policies sparked urban rebellions in over 200 cities from 1963 through 1970.

Real Detroiters Speak Out Town Hall Meeting, October 26, 2017

White flight from the central cities to the suburbs was by no means spontaneous. The enactment of The Federal-Aid Highway Act, also known as the National Interstate and Defense Highways Act (Public Law 84-627), was adopted by Congress and the White House on June 29, 1956, when President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed the bill into law.

Years prior to this during the Great Depression, the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) grew out of the National Housing Act of 1934. Although both measures ostensibly were designed to improve conditions in the major cities, inevitably due to the institutional racism undergirding public policy in the U.S., projects designed by banks and city administrations in fact provided billions in public funding to facilitate the large-scale population transferals intensifying the national oppression of the African American people in particular.

Tax Captures and Downtown Development

Over the last two decades there has been another major effort to reverse the population shifts of the immediate post World War II period. Due to a myriad of factors, development planners have focused on central cities for substantial investments in office complexes, retail outlets, high-income housing units and entertainment venues such as concert halls and sports stadia.

These projects have been promoted as a means of turning the tide of urban decay and population loss. Nonetheless, the major beneficiaries of this style of investment have been the same ruling interests which profited from the suburbanization and restructuring extending from the 1950s to the first decade of the 21st century.

The unprecedented bailout of the banks, insurance firms and auto companies beginning in 2008, was carried out over and above the political will of the people of the U.S. Overproduction in housing loans through the corrupt and usurious practices of the securitized trusts that backed fraudulent loan schemes due to the enormous profitability, left urban and suburban communities devastated through home foreclosures, further job losses and subsequent abandonment.

This is the plight of the city of Detroit which after decades of population decline from the 1950s to the 1980s had witness a degree of stabilization at the conclusion of the 1990s. Nonetheless, the speculative financial predatory loan schemes that were channeled to residents, in a municipality which had the highest homeownership rates in the U.S., eviscerated any capacity for a community-based revitalization.

A drastic decline in homeownership and employment resulted in a precipitous reduction in tax revenues. Therefore, Detroit was forced again into predatory municipal financing instruments engineered by the same banks which had robbed the people of their homes and jobs.

An illegally-imposed system of “emergency management” in 2013, in the wake of a statewide vote against such legislation, restructured the city in the interests of the financial institutions and corporate magnates. The bankruptcy was carried out through the appropriation of $5.5 billion in state constitutionally-guaranteed pension funds, the theft of public assets such Belle Isle, the Detroit Institute of Arts (DIA), Public Works and Public Lighting, among others, was apparently not enough to satisfy the capitalist ruling class.

All of the major “development projects” centered in the downtown area are subsidized through the capturing of tax dollars to fund the building of such prestige monuments such as the recently opened District Detroit, which includes a new hockey and basketball arena and entertainment complex. Taxes to the tune of at least $343 million were redirected from the municipal services, schools and libraries. Although District Detroit is supposedly the property of the quasi-public Downtown Development Authority (DDA) it is managed by the tentacles of Illitch Holdings, which owns the Detroit Tigers and others corporations in the vicinity. Altogether the taxpayers of Detroit, who are per capita the poorest city residents in the U.S., could be on the hook for more than $800 million.

In yet another plot to further impoverish the masses, billionaire Dan Gilbert, the owner of Quicken Loans and the Cleveland Cavaliers basketball team, maybe the recipient of additional largesse to construct a retail and apartment building on the old long-demolished J.L. Hudson Department store site on Woodward Avenue. Gilbert and the owner of the Detroit Pistons Tom Gores of the Beverly Hills, California-based Platinum Equity have their eyes as well set on building a soccer stadium at the location near the Wayne County Jail downtown to the tune of $1 billion. The correctional facility would be re-located to the location of the now-defunct headquarters of the American Motors Corporation (AMC) on the northwest side of the city.

An article published by the Detroit Metro Times weekly newspaper said in regard to recent legislation passed in Lansing to finance the Gilbertville program that:

“The new laws make available up to $1 billion in taxpayer money for Gilbert’s $775 million mixed-use tower planned for the site of the former J.L. Hudson’s department store. Those funds could also be used for Gilbert’s proposed nearby Monroe Street project. And whatever he doesn’t cut out of that pie goes to other wealthy developers around the state. To be clear, the laws — more formally called ‘Transformational Brownfield’ bills — only put in place a mechanism to give Gilbert and other developers the money and the exact figure will be determined as they apply for the funds. It’s possible — though unlikely — that Gilbert takes the whole pot. Perhaps he only gets $200 million for the Hudson site and another $400 million the following year for the Monroe Street project. There’s no exact figure up front, and that’s why his strategy is so savvy — the waters are muddy and opponents of corporate welfare won’t know his haul until it’s too late to put up any kind of fight.” (Oct. 4 article by Tom Perkins)

An Alternative Vision for Detroit

This set of circumstances guided the people’s response to the distortions surrounding the World Conference of Mayors. It is an election year in Detroit and the corporate-oriented white mayor Mike Duggan, the first in forty years to rule over a city which is now 82 percent African American, seeks re-selection on the basis of the disingenuous claims of a revival. Duggan’s campaign is funded by the corporations and banks who he faithfully serves at the expense of the majority African American population.

When the Moratorium NOW! Coalition issued the call for an alternative summit to counter the Dugganite psychological warfare campaign against the people, it noted:

“Detroit’s ‘rebirth’ has meant that the public revenues generated through the process of taxation are being funneled to the capitalist corporations. The People’s Summit will discuss a real agenda for the rebirth and rebuilding of our neighborhoods and communities. Real development in Detroit would focus on the rehabilitation of neighborhoods, the guaranteeing of jobs, housing, water services, heating and quality education for all. The banks which are responsible contributed for the destruction of our neighborhoods and must be held accountable through criminal prosecution and the payment of reparations.”

The week of activities organized by Moratorium NOW! Coalition and its allies featured a public meeting addressed by Rev. Edward Pinkney of Berrien County, Michigan in the southwest region of the state on October 23. Pinkney is a former political prisoner who served two-and-a-half years in detention for organizing a recall campaign against a corporate-backed mayor of Benton Harbor, a city which is over 90 percent African American.

Rev. Edward Pinkney addresses the Moratorium NOW! Coalition alternative people’s summit to the World Conference of Mayors, October 23, 2017

Pinkney, the leader of the Black Autonomy Network Community Organization (BANCO), was framed for allegedly altering the dates on five recall petitions. He was tried by an all-white jury and sent off to perish in the correctional facilities in Michigan. A defense committee worked tirelessly to bring about his release in June. Benton Harbor is a social microcosm of Detroit.

Another highlight of the week of action was the “Real Detroiters Speak Out” town hall meeting held at the Historic St. Matthews-St. Joseph’s Church on Woodward Avenue on October 26. Over twenty people from various community organizations addressed a capacity audience on the profound problems facing the city.

It is outcomes of such coalition and movement-building activities that solutions to the crises will emerge. At the root of the social problems of Detroit and other major cities is the decline of the capitalist system.

The present administrations holding power in the municipalities, state governments, Congress and the White House are a reflection of the inability of the prevailing economic system to resolve the fundamental needs of the people. The only solution is socialist reconstruction which would transfer the wealth generated by the working and oppressed communities from the capitalist ruling class to the masses.

All images in this article are from the author.

Featured image: Norman Finkelstein (Source: Wikimedia Commons)

VISIT MY NEW WEB SITE: 

stephenlendman.org 

(Home – Stephen Lendman). 

Contact at [email protected].

Finkelstein is a high-profile target of state-sponsored persecution for staunchly supporting Palestinian rights, along with stinging criticism of Zionism and Israel – touching the right nerves with scholarly accuracy.

A personal note. I owe him a debt of gratitude. Posting my review of his book, titled “Beyond Chutzpah” on his web site launched my writing and media work, a pro bono career after retiring from small family business.

In 2007, I wrote about his dismissal by Chicago’s Depaul University for daring to criticize Israel – the most sensitive third rail in politics, media and academia.

Finkelstein was called “truly outstanding and among the most impressive” of all university political science professors by his students.

His Department of Political Science endorsed his tenure, stating his academic record “exceeds our department’s stated standards for scholarly production” – then denied him tenure even though “outside experts we consulted recognize the intellectual merits of his work.”

His long struggle with the university ended on September 5, 2007, the first day of classes. Finkelstein was dismissed, put on administrative leave with full pay and benefits for the 2007-08 academic year.

His teaching career in America ended, he’s one of numerous examples of the best, brightest and most honorable scholars banished from academia for truth-telling on vital issues – a disturbing indictment of rogue state control over major media and academic practices.

He once said it’s “possible to unite exacting scholarly rigor with scathing moral outrage.” He knew the risks of confronting power with disturbing truths, yet took them courageously and still does, his soul not for sale.

His book “The Holocaust Industry: Reflections on the Exploitation of Jewish Suffering” denounced what he called exploiting its memory as a “ideological weapon,” enabling Israel, “one of the world’s most formidable military powers, with a horrendous human rights record, (to) cast itself as a victim state immun(e) to criticism.”

His current troubles followed his staunch support for Dr. Rudolph Baldeo, saying the following on September 12:

“Attorneys Michael Chetkof and Allyson Burger (the puppeteers) and Azimoon Baldeo (the puppet) colluded to frame Dr Rudolph Baldeo.”

“They churned out hundreds of pages of official Court papers depicting Dr Baldeo as a sado-psychopath.”

“They calculated that they could steamroll and slander him by exploiting pernicious stereotypes of violent dark-hued immigrant Muslim males.”

“They also figured he was a pushover because he’s slight of stature and a geek. In the eyes of these greedy vultures, Dr Baldeo was an easy prey: A Little Indian Boy.”

“But they got so carried away in their lies, and they’re so innately stupid and inept, that nearly every statement in their Court papers was contradicted by another statement in these same papers.”

“Unfortunately, there was never a cross-examination: unbearable pressure was exerted on Dr Baldeo to settle the case before he had his day in court.”

“In this excerpt from my forthcoming article, I enact the cross-examination that never was.”

“The excerpt is meticulously and scrupulously based on the Court record, which I perused in full..”

“This excerpt was presented to Chetkof, Burger and Azimoon Baldeo for comment. They did not contest any of the facts or interpretations presented herein.”

“If you are as outraged as I am by this frame-up, you should make your voice heard.”

Separately, Finkelstein explained his cruel and unreasonable ordeal, viciousness by any standard, saying the following:

“1. I was arrested on 6 September 2017.

2. Two police detectives barged into my apartment at 11:30 p.m.

3. (omitted)

4. (omitted)

5. The detectives demanded that I sit on a rickety coffee table in my foyer that comes up to my kneecap. They wouldn’t let me sit on a chair.

6. I was handcuffed as I left my apartment building in order to humiliate me in front of my neighbors.

7. I was transported to a police precinct located fully one hour from where I live. I was handcuffed the entire trip and was in agonizing pain. (I am 64 years old.)

8. I was handcuffed to a pole for five hours in the police precinct while the detective filled out a single-paged form.

9. I was then thrown into an overcrowded jail cell and had to sleep on a stone floor. I asked for a blanket as I was freezing but the request was denied.

10. I was brought before a judge at 11:00 a.m.

11. I was served with an Order of Protection forbidding me to have any contact for one year with the two opposing lawyers, Michael Chetkof and Allyson Burger.

12. The police alleged that I was harassing Chetkof and Burger by constantly emailing them.

13. The allegation is a flat-out lie. Every email I sent to Chetkof and Burger and their colleagues had appended at the head:

14. If Chetkof and Burger didn’t want to receive my emails, they merely had to inform me, and I most certainly would have ceased writing them.

15. They had me arrested in order to intimidate me into silence.

16. This is not the first time Chetkof and Burger tried to intimidate me. When I informed them that I was writing an article to expose their racist shakedown of Dr Rudolph Baldeo, Chetkof threatened to ‘open Pandora’s Box and destroy Dr Baldeo ‘Personally and Professionally’ unless I desisted.

17. Because of the Order of Protection, I can no longer accompany Dr Baldeo to Court. They want to isolate him in Court so they can terrorize him into submission.

18. (omitted)

19. I must appear in Court again on 10 October 2017.. It is possible that I will again be thrown into jail.

20. I am not afraid. My late parents survived five years in Hitler’s death camps. I will survive a Long Island jail cell.

21. I will not be browbeaten into abandoning Dr Baldeo in his Moment of Truth.

Finkelstein was released on bail, his next court appearance on November 3.

He remains in grave danger, already victimized by police brutality, facing up to two years imprisonment for supporting truth and justice, for showing extraordinary courage, integrity and honor, for exposing “tactics used to terrorize, demean, slander, bankrupt, and rob his friend,” according to a petition on his behalf – an attempt to judicially lynch them both.

“He (Finklestein) had the audacity to expose to the whole wide world how two corrupt lawyers operate,” the petition stressed.

Add your name to others, supporting Finkelstein’s struggle for justice, along with Dr. Baldeo.

The ordeal they endured provides clear and compelling evidence of how a fascist police state operates – with cruel and merciless indifference to justice!

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

Did BBC personnel collude in the fabrication of an atrocity using British military casualty simulation techniques with the aim of influencing public opinion in favour of war against Syria?

Presentation by Robert Stuart at Media on Trial,

19 October 2017, Bloomsbury Central Baptist Church, London.

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On Saturday, October 21, US President Donald Trump wrote on Twitter that he was ready to declassify 3,000 CIA and FBI files related to the assassination of US President John F. Kennedy. The same morning, Politico wrote that the head of the White House refused to declassify the documents for reasons of national security.

Donald Trump has an excellent opportunity to take revenge for all the humiliations and insults that the CIA and the FBI have made him go through since his inauguration in January 2017. US special services declared a real war on the head of the White House as they were destroying his reputation by leaking confidential reports about secret connections of the Trump team with Russia.

Now Trump said he would not interfere with the US-stipulated procedure to declassify 3,000 files of the CIA and the FBI about the secret of the assassination of the 35th US President John F. Kennedy, which took place on November 22, 1963 in Dallas, Texas, at 12: 30 local time.

It is expected that The National Archives will disclose secret files of the CIA and the FBI about the 1963 tragedy on October 26. In addition, more than 30,000 documents that could be published only in parts will be declassified as well.

Should the publication of those materials reveal that US special services were involved in the Kennedy assassination, their reputation will be irreparably damaged.

However, many analysts believe that both the CIA and the FBI have long eliminated most dangerous evidence that could indicate their involvement in the assassination of John F. Kennedy. Therefore, declassifying another portion of previously classified documents is not going to add much to the already known facts about the tragedy in Dallas.

An independent commission was convened in 1992 to study the “assassination of the century.” The move froze the publication of secret documents for a quarter of a century, that is, until October 26, 2017. Now is the time when the publication of those files has come.

On November 22, 1963 US President John F. Kennedy was killed while his car was traveling through the streets of Dallas. The governmental Warren Commission came to conclusion that the crime was committed by Lee Harvey Oswald, who was acting as a lone killer.

US intelligence services unwilling to investigate

However, US intelligence services were acting suspiciously from the very start of the investigation. They refused to analyse the trajectory of the bullet that killed Kennedy. The amateur film of the Kennedy assassination shows Kennedy’s body being thrown backwards at the moment of the shot.

In addition, the commission claimed that the killer used a manually operated rifle, i.e. he had to pull back the bolt and release it. Oswald managed to make three shots in five seconds. Later, finest snipers of the United States could not repeat the trick, although Oswald himself was not a first-class shooter.

The bullet that got into Kennedy’s head, for some reason, is missing in the materials of the case. The victim’s brain that had been taken for examination, mysteriously disappeared as well. More than 50 people, who eye-witnessed the mysterious assassination, died mysteriously afterwards.

The surgeon, who performed the autopsy of Kennedy’s body, was found dead in his apartment. The taxi driver, who gave Oswald a lift, died in a car accident. One of the eyewitnesses of the assassination who testified about two men shooting from behind the fence lost his life as well.

The most suspicious aspect in the whole story is: why did the police let Jack Ruby shoot to kill Oswald at point-blank range two days afterwards when he was being transported from a police department to a Dallas prison?

Many assumed that Oswald could uncover the names of his curators from the CIA and the FBI, that is why special services decided to do away with Kennedy’s assassin through Ruby’s hands. Three years after Oswald’s death, Jack Ruby died under mysterious circumstances too.

Another suspicious fact: all amateur photos and video materials depicting the moment of Kennedy’s assassination had been confiscated and immediately classified. The main amateur video, which was made as the motorcade was traveling on the street, was edited in a way to exclude the version about the existence of another shooter, who was aiming at the president from behind the fence.

Oswald visited the FBI office only two weeks before Kennedy was assassinated. According to independent experts, Oswald was supposed to distract attention, whereas the bullet that shot Kennedy in the head was fired by a professional sniper from behind the fence.

There is circumstantial evidence saying that then FBI Director Edgar Hoover knew about the forthcoming killing of Kennedy and wanted Kennedy dead, as president’s brother Robert, the US Attorney General, declared a crusade against mafia and special services.

Thus, 54 years after Kennedy’s assassination, US intelligence agencies are still in no hurry to publicise facts and documents related to the investigation of the assassination of the 35th US president.

Will Donald Trump be able to change the situation and tell the whole truth about the conspiracy? After all, if Trump openly goes against the CIA and the FBI, he may jeopardise his own life too. Most likely, one of the greatest mysteries of the 20th century will remain a dark mystery.

Featured image is from the author.

It’s been a huge day in Catalonia, but it’s also a day of immense uncertainty. Rather than pontificate about a situation which is changing rapidly, and which is likely to have seen further developments by the time I got to the end of whatever it was I was writing, a more useful and informative contribution to events in Catalonia for people in Scotland would be to provide an English translation of today’s declaration of independence. This is the full text of the declaration of independence approved today (Friday 27 October) by the Catalan Parliament. The declaration is fairly lengthy and couched in legalese, but I’ve done my best to provide as literal a translation as possible. The original Catalan language text was taken from an article in the Catalan digital newspaper Vilaweb. If you speak Catalan, you can read it HERE.  All translation errors are of course my own.

To the Bureau of Parliament

Lluís M. Corominas i Díaz, president of the Parliamentary Group of Together for Yes, Marta Rovira i Vergés, spokesperson of the Parliamentary Group of Together for Yes, Mireia Boya e Busquet, president of the Parliamentary Group of the Popular Unity Candidacy – Constituent Call, Anna Gabriel i Sabaté, spokesperson of the Parliamentary Group of the Popular Unity Candidacy – Constituent Call, in agreement with that which is established in articles 151 and 152 of the rules of the parliament, present the following motions for resolution subsequent to the general debate on the application of Article 155 of the Spanish Constitution to Catalonia, and its possible effects.

Motions for Resolution

Motion for resolution 1
Declaration of the representatives of Catalonia

The deputies of the Parliamentary groups of Together for Yes and the Popular Unity Candidacy – Constituent Call signed the previous 10 of October the following:

Declaration of the representatives of Catalonia

To the people of Catalonia and to all the peoples of the world.
Justice and individual, collective and intrinsic human rights, fundamental and unrenouncable, which give sense to the historical legitimacy and the juridical and institutional tradition of Catalonia, are the basis of the constitution of the Catalan Republic.

The Catalan nation, its language and its culture have one thousand years of history. For centuries, Catalonia has endowed and enjoyed its own institutions which have exercised self-government in full, with the Generalitat as the maximum expression of the historic rights of Catalonia. Parliamentarianism has been, during periods of liberty, the pillar upon which these institutions have sustained themselves, have been channelled through the Cortes Catalanes, and which have been crystalised in the Constitutions of Catalonia.

Catalonia restores today its full sovereignty, lost and long yearned for, after decades of trying, honestly and loyally, institutional coexistence with the peoples of the Iberian peninsula.

Since the approval of the Spanish Constitution of 1978, Catalan politics has had a key role with an exemplary attitude, loyal and democratic towards Spain, and with a profound sense of statehood.

The Spanish state has responded to that loyalty with the denial of the recognition of Catalonia as a nation, and has conceded a limited autonomy, more administrative than political, and which is in the process of recentralisation, a profoundly unjust economic treatment, and linguistic and cultural discrimination.

The Statute of Autonomy, approved by the Parliament and Congress, and by the Catalan people in a referendum, would have been the new stable and lasting marker of a bilateral relationship between Catalonia and Spain. But it was a political agreement halted by the ruling of the [Spanish] Constitutional Court, and caused the emergence of new demands by the citizens.

Gathering the demands of a large majority of the citizens of Catalonia, the Parliament, the Government, and civil society have repeatedly demanded to agree [with Spain] the holding of a referendum on self-determination.

In the face of the affirmation the institutions of the [Spanish] State have rebuffed all negotiations, have violated the principle of democracy and autonomy, and have ignored the legal mechanisms available to the Constitution, the Generalitat of Catalonia has convoked a referendum in order to exercise the right to self-determination recognised in international law.

The organisation and the celebration of the referendum has brought about the suspension of Catalan self-government and the de facto application of a state of emergency.

The brutal police operation of a military nature and style orchestrated by the Spanish state against Catalan citizens has infringed, on many and repeated occasions, their civil and political rights and the principles of Human Rights, and has contravened the international agreements signed and ratified by the Spanish State.

Thousands of people, amongst whom there have been hundreds of those in elected, institutional, and professional positions linked to the communication sector, administration, and civil society, have been investigated, detained, had complaints filed against, interrogated and threatened with harsh punishment of prison.

Spanish institutions, which should have remained neutral, protected fundamental rights and arbitrated in the face of political conflict, have turned into a part and an instrument of those attacks and have left the Catalan citizenry defenceless.

Despite the violence and the repression with the intent to impede the celebration of a peaceful and democratic process, the citizens of Catalonia have voted by a majority in favour of the constitution of the Catalan Republic.

The constitution of the Catalan Republic is founded in the necessity of protecting liberty, the security and coexistence of all the citizens of Catalonia, and of advancing towards a State of law and a democracy of greater quality, and in response to the obstacle on the part of the Spanish state of making the right to self-determination of peoples effective.

The people of Catalonia are lovers of law, and the respect for the law is and shall be one of the keystones of the Republic. The Catalan state will comply with and will fulfil legally all the dispositions which make up this declaration and guarantees legal security and the maintenance of subscribed agreements will form part of the foundational spirit of the Catalan Republic.

The constitution of the Republic is a hand held out to dialogue. Doing honour to the Catalan tradition of the pact, we maintain our commitment with agreement as a form of resolving political conflicts. At the same time, we reaffirm our fraternity and solidarity with the rest of the peoples of the world, and in particular, with those with whom we share a language and culture and with the euromediterranean region, in defence of individual and collective liberties.

The Catalan Republic is an opportunity to correct the current democratic and social deficits, and to build a more prosperous, more just, more secure, more sustainable society with greater solidarity.

In virtue of all that has just been set out, we, the democratic representatives of the Catalan people, in the free exercise of the right to self-determination, and in agreement with the mandate received from the citizenry of Catalonia:

WE CONSTITUTE the Catalan Republic, as an independent and sovereign state, a state of law, democratic, and social.

WE PREPARE the entrance into law of the Law of Juridical and Foundational Transition of the Republic.

WE INICIATE the constituent, democratic process, based in the citizenry, transversal, participative, and binding.

WE AFFIRM the will to open negotiations with the Spanish State, without preconditions, addressed to establish a regime of collaboration in the benefit of both parties. The negotiations must be, necessarilty, on an equal footing.

WE MAKE AWARE the international community and the authorities of the European Union, of the establishment of the Catalan Republic, and the proposal for negotiations with the Spanish State.

WE URGE the international community and the authorities of the European Union to intervene in order to prevent the violation of civil and political rights currently in course, and to follow and to make themselves witnesses to the negotiating process with the Spanish State.

WE DEMONSTRATE the will to construct a European project which reinforces the social and democratic rights of the citizenry, as well as the commitment to continue applying, without solution of continuity and in a unilateral manner, the norms of the legal system of the European Union and those of the Spanish State and the Catalan autonomy into which this normative is transposed.

WE AFFIRM that Catalonia has the inequivocal will to integrate itself as quickly as it may be possible into the international community. The new state is committed to respecting the international obligations which are currently applied in its territory and to continuing to be part of the international treaties to which the Kingdom of Spain belongs.

WE CALL ON states and international organisations to recognise the Catalan Republic as an independent and sovereign state.

WE URGE the Government of Catalonia to adopt the necessary measures in order to make possible the full effectiveness of this Declaration of Independence and of the provisions of the Law of Juridical and Foundational Transition of the Republic.

WE MAKE a call to each and every citizen of the Catalan Republic to make ourselves worthy of the liberty which we have given ourselves and to construct a state which translates into action and conduct the collective inspiration.

WE ASSUME the mandate of the people of Catalonia expressed in the Referendum of Self-Determination of 1 October and we declare that Catalonia becomes an independent state in the form of a Republic.

Motion for resolution

The Parliament of Catalonia expresses its rejection of the agreement of the Council of Ministers of the Spanish State proposing to the Senate of the Spanish State measures in order to put into effect that which is set out in Article 155 of the Spanish Constitution. The proposed measures, on the margin of the current juridical establishment, suppose the elimination of Catalan self-government. At the same time they situate the Government of the Spanish State as a substitute for the Government of the Generalitat of Catalonia and censor the Parliament of Catalonia, a meansire which not only is not acceptable but which is an attack on democracy without precedent in the past 40 years.

We have offered negotiation and dialogue and they have answered us with Article 155 of the Constitution and the elimination of self-government; the response has been of a political firmness similar to the use of force on the 1 October.

The Parliament agrees, to urge the Government to dictate all the necessary resolutions for the development of the Law of Juridical and Foundational Transition of the Republic and in particular:

– To promulgate the necessary Decrees, giving staff and materially to the seized administrative services for the provision to citizens of the accredited documents of Catalan nationality.

– To establish the regulation for procedures for the aquisition of Catalan nationality, by reason of what is set out in article 8 and in the final latter disposition.

– To promote the subscription of a treaty of dual nationality with the government of the Kingdom of Spain, in conformity with article 9.

– To dictate, in conformity with article 12.1, the necessary dispositions for the adaptation, modification, and inapplication of local, autonomous, and state law current before the entrance into effect of the Law of Juridical and Foundational Transition of the Republic.

– To dictate, with the basis in that which is set out in article 12.3 the precise Decrees for the recovery and efficiency of the previous norms and the succession of legal systems, annulled or suspended by the [Spanish] Constitutional Court and by the remainder of the courts, laying special attention to all those regulations of taxation and other imposition, as well as those which develop tools for the struggle against poverty and social inequality.

– To promote to all states and institutions the recognition of the Catalan Republic.

– To establish the corresponding procedure and in conformity with that which is set out in article 15, the relation of international treaties which have to be kept in force, as well as those which to be found inapplicable.

– To establish, in accordance with Article 17, the regime of integration to the administration of the Generalitat of Catalonia, excepting the express renunciation of the same, of all those officials and staff of the Spanish State, who up until now have given their services to the general administration of Catalonia, to the local administration of Catalonia, Catalan universities, the administration of justice, the institutional administration of the Catalan state, or of the official and staff of the Spanish State, of Catalan nationality, who render their services outwith Catalonia.

– To make Parliament aware, of the relation of contracts, agreements and accords object of subrogation on the part of the Catalan Republic, in accordance with what is set out in article 19.

– To promote an agreement with the Spanish State for the integration of staff and the subrogation of contracts foreseen in sections IV and V, in conformity with that which is set out in Article 20.

– To agree all that which may be preceding, as well as adopting the necessary measures for the exercise of fiscal authority, the social security, customs, and land registry in accordance with what is set out in Articles 80, 81, 82, and 83, establishing if it is the case, the periods of tranfer between administrations necessary for an adequate public service.

– To promote the necessary legislative actions and measures for the creation of a public development bank in the service of a productive economy.

– To promote the necessary legislative actions and measures for the creation of the Bank of Catalonia, with the functions of a central bank, which must oversee the establishment of the financial system.

– To promote the necessary legislative actions and measures for the creation of the remaining regulatory authorities, with the functions which are inherent to them.

– To open a period of negotiations with the Spanish State, according to that which is set out in Article 82, in order to determine, if such is the case, and to which degree, the succession of the Catalan state through an agreement, to the rights and obligations of an economic and financial character assumed by the Kingdom of Spain.

– To elaborate an inventory of the goods in title of the Spanish State, pertaining to the national territory of Catalonia, to the end of making effective the succession of title on the part of the Catalan state, in conformity with that which is set out in Article 20.

– To elaborate a proposal of division of assets and liabilities between the Kingdom of Spain and the Catalan Republic, on the basis of standardised international criteria, opening a period of negotiation between the representatives of both state, subjecting the achieved agreement, if such is the case, for the approval of the Parliament of Catalonia.

The Parliament opens an investigation in order to determine the responsibilities of the Government of the Spanish State, its institutions and dependent organs in the commission of crimes relating to the violation of fundamental, individual and collective rights in order to avoid the exercise of the right to vote of the people of Catalonia the past 1 October.

This investigatory commission will be comprised of deputies from parliamentary groups and of expert persons in the national and international arenas, of the Anti-Fraud office, the Office of the Ombudsman, and the Catalan legal profession and in representation entities defending human rights, ensuring that there may be representative of international organisations.

Motion for resolution 2

Constituent process
The Parliament of Catalonia agrees:

To declare the inciation and the opening of the constituent process

To urge the government of the Generalitat to:

a) Activate in an immediate manner all the human, public and social resources as well material media at its disposal, in order to make effective the democratic constituent process, based in the citizenry, participative and binding, which must culminate with the redaction and approval of the constitution of the Republic on the part of the Parliament constituted in the Consituent Assembly which results from the constituent elections.

b) To constitute within the term of fifteen days the assessory council of the constituent process in order to advise in the deliberative constituent phase led by organised civil society.

c) To convene, diffuse, and execute the decision phase of the constituent process, gathering together the sistematised proposals to the Constituent Social Forum, submitting them to the consultation of the citizenry, which will constitute a binding mandate for the constituted Parliament in the Constituent Assembly which results from the constituent elections.

d) To convene constituent elections once all the phases of the constituent process have culminated.

To encourage all civic and social agents, within the term of one month, to constitute a promotional platform for the constitutional process or national agreement for the constitutional process.

To constitute, within the term of fifteen days, the Parliamentary Commission to follow the constituent process, with the aim of protecting but not interfering in, the task of the promotional platform, guaranteeing the deployment of its work as well as the fulfilment of the six month term legally defined for its development and conclusions.

To encourage the municipal authorities to promote constituent debates in the local sphere promoting the participation of civil society, facilitating the resources and public spaces necessary for the correct development of citizens’ debate.

Palace of Parliament 27 October 2017

signed

Lluís M. Corominas i Díaz
President del GP JS

Marta Rovira i Vergés
Portaveu del GP JS

Mireia Boya e Busquet
Presidenta del GP CUP-CC

Anna Gabriel i Sabaté
Portaveu del GP CUP-CC

The details about US military presence in Africa happened to be a surprise even for members of the Congress. On October 4, four American soldiers were killed by militants linked to the Islamic State in Niger. The incident thrust the issue of US military presence in Africa into the spotlight and drew the attention of senators tasked with military oversight. It has been revealed that even the Congress has been kept in the dark about the US involvement in that country. It puts into question the accountability of the military. Since it was established as an independent command in 2006, the United States Africa Command (AFRICOM) has never been transparent with its activities largely shrouded in secrecy.

In the aftermath of the incident, the US Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Joseph Dunford, revealed at a press-conference that about 800 US troops are now based in Niger – more than in any other African country. The press conference came after several US senators expressed surprise that the US had such a large military presence on the continent, and Niger in particular.

“I didn’t know there was 1,000 troops in Niger,” Senator Lindsey Graham said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “This is an endless war without boundaries and no limitation on time and geography … You’ve got to tell us more.”

Indeed, the size of the presence was a big surprise for lawmakers as well as public in general. The vast majority of Americans probably had no idea that the US even had military troops participating in combat missions in Africa before the incident in Niger. The US has previously acknowledged it has troops there. But it’s never gone into much detail. Niger has also allowed the United States to build a large drone base at an estimated cost of $100 million near the central trading city of Agadez. Dunford acknowledged the lack of communication between military leaders and the Congress, and said he and Secretary of Defense James Mattis would “double” their efforts to communicate better with senators.

American forces entered the region en masse in the early 2000s, when the United States began training and equipping militaries in dozens of African countries. According to Dunford, a total of 6,000 US troops are deployed in 53 African countries today. They are conducting 3,500 exercises, programs, and engagements each year – almost 10 missions each day. The number of the Special Operations Forces (SOF) across the continent rose from 450 in 2012 to 1,300 in 2017 (of 8,000 SOF deployed globally this year). The United Nations recognizes 54 countries in Africa. It means that only one of them is free of US military presence!

Officially, the United States only has one military base in Africa — Camp Lemonnier in Djibouti. But SOF outfits, including the Green Berets, the Navy SEALs and Marine and Air Force commandos, also use an air base at Moron in southern Spain for Africa operations. Other operating sites are called “forward operating sites”, “cooperative security locations” (CSL) or “contingency locations” in host countries.

According to the AFRICOM 2017 Posture statement, the command runs a network of 46 sites, including two forward operating sites (Djibouti’s Camp Lemonnier and a base on the United Kingdom’s Ascension Island off the west coast of Africa), 13 cooperative security locations, and 31 “non-enduring” contingency locations. This is an increase by 10 locations—a 28 percent jump—in just over two years.

African bases have long been essential, for instance, to Washington’s ongoing shadow war in Yemen, which has seen a significant increase in drone strikes under the Trump administration. Djibouti is essential for operations in the Arabian Peninsula. CSL Entebbe in Uganda is a hub for surveillance aircraft, carrying out mission across the continent. The US sprawling, ever-expanding network of bases provides the crucial infrastructure for cross-continental combat by US and allied forces, especially France, which boasts a large military presence (5,000 troops) of its own.

Many activities the Pentagon has described as “advise and assist” in nature seem to be indistinguishable from combat  by any basic definition. Claiming troops are only “assisting” or “training” local forces is the way that the US military establishes a foothold in African countries.

Private military contractors have become another element of US presence on the continent.

The Trump administration is preparing to dismantle key Obama-era limits on drone strikes and commando raids outside conventional battlefields. This will lead to drastic escalation in the use of forces in Africa. Somalia has already been declared an “area of active hostilities,” temporarily bringing it under less restrictive war-zone rule.

The military operations in Africa have never been specifically authorized by Congress, let alone discussed and debated by the American public. The Authorization for Use of Force, adopted right after the Sept. 11, 2001, says the president is authorized to use force against the planners of the attacks and those who harbor them. It does not cover mere supporters of such groups and associated forces. Nevertheless, the legislation has been used for 16 years now to justify conflicts in many countries, including Afghanistan, Djibouti, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Georgia, Iraq, Kenya, the Philippines, Somalia and Yemen.

The 1973 War Powers Resolution is a federal law in force intended to check the president’s power to commit the United States to an armed conflict without the consent of the US Congress. It provides that under certain circumstances a President can deploy troops into combat situations, but there are periodic reporting requirements for a President as well as time limits on how long troops can remain engaged in conflicts without a formal declaration of war or specific congressional authorization. The law was breached when the US bombed Yugoslavia in 1999. It is also not observed in Africa because formally the US is not at war there, despite the fact that it is waging combat operations where servicemen lose their lives. The October 4 tragedy in Niger is just another example. In May, a Marine was killed in Somalia.

The military presence in Africa will probably grow in the future. Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, indicated that the United States may increase its military presence.

“The war is morphing. We’re going to see more actions in Africa, not less,” he said.

The policy marks a stark about-face from Trump’s campaign declarations that the US can no longer afford to be the world’s policeman. The military operations in Africa suggest otherwise. The fighting in Africa seldom hits media headlines but it does not change the fact that the US is waging a war. Niger is the perfect illustration of America’s permanent war posture around the world, where combat operations are conducted with little or no public scrutiny and no congressional authorization. The administration appears to view the international problems mostly through a military prism.

Featured image is from thenation.com.

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November 2 marks its 100th anniversary, a deplorable action, the beginning of the end of historic Palestine.

UK Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour’s declaration came in a 67-word letter to British Zionist Federation’s Lord Rothschild.

Accepted by the League of Nations on July 24, 1922, it stemmed from the mandate, giving Britain administrative control of Palestine.

Generations of political, military and cultural repression of its people followed, far worse after Israel’s so-called war of independence, stealing 78% of historic Palestine, the rest in June 1967.

Balfour’s call for establishing a nation for Jews (on stolen Palestinian land) was a high crime against humanity.

Endless conflict, occupation, dispossession, and repression, along with social and cultural fragmentation define conditions for beleaguered Palestinians – 100 years of suffering, no end of it in sight, the world community dismissive of their rights.

Balfour’s letter to Rothschild read as follows:

“I have much pleasure in conveying to you, on behalf of His Majesty’s Government, the following declaration of sympathy with Jewish Zionist aspirations which has been submitted to, and approved by, the Cabinet.

His Majesty’s Government view with favor the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavors to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.

I should be grateful if you would bring this declaration to the knowledge of the Zionist Federation.”

Balfour acted without consulting Palestinians, reason enough for them to deplore Britain to this day, beginning the process of stealing their homeland, consigning them to future subjugation.

Former UK prime minister David Cameron urged PM Theresa May to commemorate the anniversary together with the Jewish community “in the most appropriate way,” without further elaboration.

Current UK Foreign Minister Boris Johnson defended his predecessor’s action, saying

“I am proud of Britain’s part in creating Israel.” The declaration was “indispensable to the creation of a great nation.”

It’s been a curse for Palestinians – their land stolen, their rights denied. The myth of “a land without people for a people without land” was predominantly Arab with small numbers of Jews and Christians at the time.

Balfour duplicitously promised Palestinians respect for their rights, saying they’d be protected, free from foreign rule.

Palestinian leaders saw the ruse, wanting no part of it. They opposed further Jewish immigration to no avail, their wishes conflicting with imperial Britain’s plans.

In 1947-48, historian Ilan Pappe explained what he called the “urbicide of Palestine – attacking and ethnic cleansing the country’s major urban centers, slaughtering and displacing Palestinians, making way for Jewish occupation and development.

The Nakba killed or displaced about 800,000 Palestinians. Over 500 historic towns and villages were erased, along with urban neighborhoods in Tel-Aviv, Haifa, Jerusalem and other cities, private property destroyed or confiscated, woman raped, other atrocities committed.

David Ben-Gurion, Israel’s first prime minister, said during the Nakba “(e)very attack has to end with occupation, destruction and expulsion” – forcefully eliminating resistance.

Balfour and the British mandate made creating Israel and erasing Palestine possible – his declaration a document to live in infamy forever.

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Featured image: Victims of the sarin attack in Khan Sheikhoun (Source: One News Page)

A UN commission concluded that the Syrian government is responsible for a widely discussed incident in Khan Sheikhoun. An alleged gas attack by air happened in April in an al-Qaeda controlled area in Syria. It was used by the White House to justify its bombing of a Syrian airbase.

The now released report was made to fit the narrative. The details below show that it was not the result of a serious investigation. This explains why Russia blocked the extension of the mandate of the reporting commission.

On October 26 Reuters reported: Syrian government to blame for April sarin attack: U.N. report

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) – The Syrian government of Bashar al-Assad is to blame for a chemical attack on the opposition-held town of Khan Sheikhoun that killed dozens of people last April, according to a report sent to the United Nations Security Council on Thursday.“The Syrian Arab Republic is responsible for the release of sarin at Khan Sheikhoun on 4 April 2017,” the report from the U.N. and the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons’ Joint Investigative Mechanism (JIM) said.

The official report has not been published. But someone obtained a copy of the Seventh report of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons-United Nations Joint Investigative Mechanism (pdf) and we make it herewith available.

The reports notes “irregularities” that makes one wonder how its writers could ever have come to this conclusion:

Based on the foregoing, the Leadership Panel is confident that the Syrian Arab Republic is responsible for the release of sarin at Khan Shaykhun on 4 April 2017. The findings of the Leadership Panel regarding the evidence in this case are based on the information set forth in detail in annex II.

Note the verbal choices the commission made: “.. is confident ..” is not a wording that conveys surety and “..is responsible for the release” does not mean that the Syrian Arab Republic in fact did it.

The reports conclusions are NOT by the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons or even endorsed by it. They were made by the “Joint Investigative Mechanism” which consists of a Guatemalan diplomat, an UN bureaucrat from Malaysia educated in the U.S. and a chemical expert who works for the Swiss government. It is a political board with a political judgment.

The reasons for that rather vague wording, which is not reflected in the news reports, can be found in the details. The report says on page 10:

The Mechanism determined that sarin was released from the location of a crater in the northern part of Khan Shaykhun between 0630 and 0700 hours on 4 April 2017.

Many of the reports findings are based on open source videos and photographs published by the opposition. It acquired witnesses statements from the area which is under control of al-Qaeda. It also examined forensic evidence for which no chain of custody existed. Some findings are strange.

In annex II, on page 36 (of 39) of the pdf, it notes:

Certain irregularities were observed in elements of information analysed. For example, several hospitals appeared to start admitting casualties of the attack between 0640 and 0645 hours. The Mechanism received the medical records of 247 patients from Khan Shaykhun who were admitted to various health-care facilities, including those of survivors and a number of victims who died from exposure to chemical agent. The admission times of the records range between 0600 and 1600 hours. Analysis of the aforementioned medical records revealed that in 57 cases, patients were admitted in five hospitals before the incident in Khan Shaykhun (at 0600, 0620 and 0640 hours). In 10 such cases, patients appear to have been admitted to a hospital 125 km away from Khan Shaykhun at 0700 hours while another 42 patients appear to have been admitted to a hospital 30 km away at 0700 hours. The Mechanism did not investigate these discrepancies and cannot determine whether they are linked to any possible staging scenario, or to poor record-keeping in chaotic conditions.

At least 23% of the alleged casualties of the incident WERE ADMITTED TO HOSPITALS BEFORE THE INCIDENT HAPPENED.

The hospital 125 km away, a two hour drive, must have been a regular one in Turkey. It is highly unlikely that such a well organized hospital would mix up the arrival time. It is impossible that the casualties admitted at 0700 hours were those of an incident in Khan Sheikhoun that happened, according to the commission, at 0630. The commission did not investigate the discrepancies and it asserts that it does not determine if the incident was staged or not.

Another curiosity:

An inconsistency was identified in one of the Fact-Finding Mission biomedical results from samples without a chain of custody. In sample number 133, the blood tested negative for sarin or a sarin-like substance, while the urine sample tested positive for the sarin degradation product isopropyl methylphosphonate. There is currently no explanation regarding the inconsistency.

The commission also notes a point that we had detailed back in April:

The Mechanism observed from open sources that treatment of victims from Khan Shaykhun frequently involved oxygen and cortisone therapy. This treatment is not recommended for sarin intoxication, but is mainly for lung damage, as would be caused by either chlorine or vacuum bombs.

The report misses the early reporting we had documented shortly after the incident happened:

First reports on that day by the Turkish government news agency Anadolu mentioned only chlorine … The first OPCW statement on April 4 referred to chlorine, not sarin or similar … The first report of the Turkish government also said chlorine

Moreover, according to local press reports the first 30 casualties that arrived at the Turkish border were diagnosed as chlorine affected, not as Sarin casualties. Neither did the patients in any of the videos show strong Sarin symptoms nor did the emergency personal take the necessary precautions for handling a Sarin incident.

The incident was most likely not caused by an air attack at 0630 that distributed Sarin. It was probably caused by a local Chlorine release that must have happened at an earlier point in time. The Sarin and air attack story was only later attached to it. The incident was adopted as a show the White House used to justify its bombing attack on Syria and to thereby divert from its domestic problems. It released an amateurish “intelligence assessment” on the incident that was not prepared by any intelligence agency but by the White House itself.

All evidence the investigation says it obtained from Khan Sheikhun, biomedical, environmental, physical sample as well as media, were obtained without a chain of custody. It was taken by Al-Qaeda or by groups Al-Qaeda allows to work in areas it controls. The terrorist and the opposition to the Syrian government, and certainly their sponsors, had an obvious interest in manipulating evidence of the incident to then blame it on the Syrian government.

The former prime minister of Qatar just admitted on TV that Qatar, in tight cooperation with Saudi Arabia, Turkey and under direction of the United States delivered weapons and money to the “opposition” in Syria, including to al-Qaeda, since the very beginning of the conflict:

Al-Thani even likened the covert operation to “hunting prey” – the prey being President Assad and his supporters – “prey” which he admits got away (as Assad is still in power; he used a Gulf Arabic dialect word, “al-sayda”, which implies hunting animals or prey for sport). Though Thani denied credible allegations of support for ISIS, the former prime minister’s words implied direct Gulf and US support for al-Qaeda in Syria (al-Nusra Front) from the earliest years of the war, and even said Qatar has “full documents” and records proving that the war was planned to effect regime change.

These same forces, especially the U.S., are still determined to “regime change” Syria. To this purpose the U.S. military is preparing for a long-term occupation of the areas its Kurdish proxies in north-east Syria now control.

Note: Parts of the above are based on the work of Syricide

The CIA considered bombing Miami and other cities to create a terror threat while blaming the government of Cuban revolutionary leader Fidel Castro, according to the recently-published “JFK files.”

The files were published as part of the nearly 3,000 documents collected by the U.S. National Archive on the assassination of former President John F. Kennedy and several other issues.

The report said the Central Intelligence Agency, CIA, considered staging several terror events involving Cuban citizens to seek blame for Castro’s government.

“We could develop a Communist Cuban terror campaign in the Miami area, in other Florida cities and even in Washington,” the files read.

The plan also included a possible attack on migrants leaving Cuba to settle in the United States.

“We could sink a boatload of Cubans enroute to Florida (real or simulated). We could foster attempts on lives of Cuban refugees in the United States even to the extent of wounding in instances to be widely publicized.”

The release of 2,891 previously classified files also shed a light on more aggressive tactics by the CIA, which included the placement of bombs and the creation of a terror environment.

“Exploding a few plastic bombs in carefully chosen spots, the arrest of a Cuban agent and the release of prepared documents substantiating Cuban involvement also would be helpful in projecting the idea of an irresponsible government,” the files went on.

The report also mentions how the CIA tried to assassinate Castro through bodysuits filled with deadly bacteria and explosive seashells planted underwater, taking advantage of the Cuban leader’s taste for diving.

“It was known that Fidel Castro liked to skindive,” the reports said. “The CIA plan was to dust the inside of the suit with a fungus producing madera foot, a disabling and chronic skin disease, and also contaminating the suit with tuberculosis bacilli in the breathing apparatus.”

Finally, the files revealed that after several allegations, investigations showed that the Cuban government wouldn’t have been responsible for killing Kennedy “because such an act, if discovered, would have afforded the United States the excuse to destroy Cuba. The risk would not have been worth it.”

During the 1990s, the United States planned to break up Yugoslavia and build America’s largest military base in Kosovo (Camp Bondsteel) a strategic location giving the US access to the oil-rich Caspian Sea, which would also threaten Russia’s defence capabilities. In order to achieve their goals, the CIA imported fighters from Afghanistan who went on a rampage of killing and destruction. A mass media disinformation campaign blamed a proportion of the crimes of the CIA-backed fighters on their victims – mostly Serbs.

Between 1992 and 1995, CIA terrorists murdered 2383 Serbs in Srebrenica. When the Bosnian Serb army finally arrived in the town, they fought the terrorists. Between five hundred and one thousand Muslim locals were executed. No one knows how many of them were terrorists.

The Western media used images of detained Muslim men to say that a massacre of innocent young men had taken place. The heinous ethnic cleansing of 150 Serbian villages was ignored. The CIA’s ‘Kosovo Liberation Army’ is accused of having slaughtered all before them but the ‘international community’ cried ‘genocide’ when many of them were rounded up and shot. Serbian Christians were the Empire’s scapegoats. Srebrenica is still invoked today to justify ‘humanitarian intervention’ and Rohingya activists in the Empire’s capital cities are now calling for a humanitarian carpet bombing of Burmese citizens.

Muslims who refuse to face up to such historical realities ought to realise that they have no monopoly on suffering and victimisation. When the Empire needs scapegoats, it finds them no matter what their religion or ethnicity.

Burmese patriots would be well advised to study the destruction of Yugoslavia as multi-ethnic states with religious divisions are easily broken apart when imperialism decides impotent fiefdoms are more easily manipulated than patriotic nation states.

In November 2011, President Obama declared that the Asia-Pacific region was a ‘top priority’ of US security policy.

US policy in Asia consists of containing Chinese influence in the region through control of the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) and the encirclement of China. The US already has military bases along the South East Asian coast but needs to have extensive military projection capacity in inland Asia. The breaking up or balkanisation of strategic states whose stability is vital to Chinese security would serve US geopolitical interests in Asia.

Since Thailand’s former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra lobbied on behalf of the Myanmar government, resulting in their inclusion in ASEAN, US sanctions against the country proved futile. Forcing the Burmese junta to accept US intelligence asset Aung San Suu Kyi as de facto president has not ‘opened up’ the country to US interests at a pace and scale acceptable to Washington. In fact, Aung San Suu Kyi has thus far proved that she has a mind of her own and has taken an increasingly nationalist line, to the chagrin of her Western liberal sycophants. The human rights icon appears to have rediscovered her Asian roots and thus her portrait has fallen from the halls of Western imperial academia.

Terrorist groups financed by the Saudis and backed by the United States, seek to carve out a separate state encompassing parts of Bangladesh and North Rakhine – what they call Arakanistan or the Islamic Republic of Rahmanland, which would adhere to a strict State-Wahhabi ideology. A document appeared in 2012 signed by London-based Amir Ilham Kamil and Farid L. Shyaid proclaiming the creation of such a state.

Although the authenticity of the document cited above cannot be verified, the concept of a state called Arakanistan has been openly discussed for some time in the Bangladeshi media and some books.

Bangladesh’s Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has criticized the British government for not doing enough to prosecute known Islamist terrorists in its territory. Critics of the war on terrorism have pointed out the deep and constant collusion of the British security services with Al-Qaeda terrorists.

Hasina’s government is facing a potential nightmare. There are credible reports that Bangladesh’s Directorate General of Forces Intelligence (DGFI) is training and protecting ARSA terrorists.

The training is reportedly being conducted in conjunction with Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI).

A Wahhabi enclave in Myanmar would give the US another base of operations for geopolitical war games in Asia and upset China’s expanding One Belt-One Road and New Silk Road policy. Such a Kosovo-like state would be in US strategic interests as it would allow Washington to control the Bay of Bengal and prevent a land route for Chinese importation of Middle Eastern oil. The US would then be able to block Chinese oil supplies in the Straits of Malacca. China’s exploitation of the Shwe gas field discovered in 2004 is another major concern for Washington.

Myanmar has moved closer to China in recent years with the construction of pipelines set to pump oil from KyaukPhyu deep-sea port in the Bay of Bengal to Kunming in China’s Yunnan province. The deep sea port in KyaukPhyu is due to have an annual capacity of 7.8 million tonnes of bulk cargo.

The Teellong China-Oil and Gas line project, running from the Bay of Bengal to China’s Yunnan province, was built at the cost of 2.46 billion dollars. It jointly owned by the China National Petroleum Corporation and the Myanmar Oil and Gas Enterprise. It is estimated that the pipelines will eventually be able to pump up to 12 billion tonnes of oil per year.

The KyaukPhyu Special Economic Zone, spanning more than 1700 hectares, is another China-Burmese joint venture which aims to industrialise the country’s underdeveloped Western region, in particular Rakhine State. As noted in her State Councillor’s Aung San Suu Kyi’s recent speech in Naypyidaw, economic underdevelopment is a key factor driving ethnic and religious violence in Rakhine State.

Naypyidaw and Moscow signed an important defense agreement in June last last year. Myanmar’s Defence Minister Myint New said his country hoped to strengthen military ties with Russia in the near future.

The cooperation with Russia is a concern for US interests.

Russian diplomacy has corroborated the Burmese military’s version of events, following the August 25th terrorist attacks. At the recent UN Security Council meeting to discuss Myanmar Russia’s UN ambassador Vassily Nebenzia said:

“In recent days we’ve received an illustration of the fact that ARSA were responsible for the massacre of civilians. What was also found were cashes of improvised explosive devices. There is information that the extremists forced members of the Hindu community in border villages to leave their homes and to migrate to neighboring Bangladesh with the Muslims. Furthermore, there is information that terrorists burned entire villages and that evidence confiscated from the fighters.

Photographs were confiscated from the terrorists which were in all likelihood meant to be used as reports to the leadership of ARSA or its foreign sponsors. This information is confirmed by the earlier statement of Naypyidaw when they said that the initiators of the outbreak in Rakhine State had the objective of maximally increasing the scale of the humanitarian disaster and transferring the responsibility for it to the government.”

US President Donald Trump has called for “strong and swift action” from the UN Security Council. French president Emmanuel Macron has also accused the Burmese government of genocide. Russia has warned the West not to interfere in other countries’ internal affairs. Given the pro-Rohingya position of the United States, one can assume some level of CIA backing for the Rohingya terrorists. However, it is unclear how the Trump administration will respond if the Islamic State, who are now active in Rakhine, manage to occupy territory. The US may simply ‘assist’ Naypyidaw in managing the CIA’s terrorists, while continuing to covertly feed the insurgency.

Fake news and the ‘iceberg of misinformation’

Many examples of fake news published by the Rohingya organizations have been cited. The most notorious examples have been photos of the 2010 Chinese earthquake disaster where Buddhist monks helped bury the victims. The tragic scenes were photo-shopped by pro-Rohingya websites to claim that Buddhists had massacred Rohingya. All the cases of fake news are too numerous to mention here but the BBC have done a good job, for once, in highlighting the most notorious examples.

However, in spite of admitting that preposterous lies have been spread to support the theory that the Burmese government is committing genocide against the Bengali minority in Rakhine State, the BBC continues to claim that such a genocide is in fact taking place; but it has produced no evidence whatsoever to back up those claims.

Shortly after the August 25th terrorist attacks, the Deputy Turkish Prime Minister Mehmet Simsek published more fake news about Burmese massacres of Rohingya, calling for the international community to intervene. After the fake news was proven by Burmese authorities, Simsek was forced to admit he had published disinformation.

Shortly after the terrorist attacks in August, Agence France Press (AFP) published video footage of Burmese Buddhist villagers fleeing the violence claiming they were Rohingya. The news agency was later forced to admit it had lied.

It was not the only report of people fleeing the violence mislabeled as ‘Rohingya’.

Many Hindu villagers told reporters they had been called Rohingya too.

It should be mentioned here that ‘Rohingya’ is a term used by activists linked to agencies and NGOS outside the country. It is not a term used by Bengali Muslims to describe themselves. Bengali Muslims recently told reports that they never use that term.

Many eye witnesses accounts, including those whose family members were massacred by terrorist groups, have not been investigated by the Western mass media.

One Hindu woman told Burmese reporters:

 “In there, they [ARSA terrorists] came, dressed in black, only their eyes could be seen.

Then they caught us; they had bombs, axes, choppers, knives, bullets.

They held us on one side of the area.

They slaughtered my family members one by one.

Then some Muslims ordered – ‘slaughter them too’.

My husband, father-in-law, mother- in-law and one of my sister-in-laws were slaughtered in front of my eyes.

One of the sons of my sister-in-law was hijacked by Muslims [ARSA terrorists].”

Again the horrific report was ignored by the Western media in spite of their claims to be concerned for the victims of violence. Was it because the killers here did not match the editorial spin?

Another video posted online tells the story of a Rakhine Buddhist and his family who were attacked by a mob of Bengali terrorists. He says he used to have Muslim friends but now no longer trusts the Muslim community in Rakhine. It is easy to call such people pejorative terms but communal hatred is growing with every call by Muslim communities across the world to ‘stop the genocide of the Rohingya’. The video shows the horrible reality of ethnic conflict, where fear and hatred eat up the souls of men.

The Burmese government has accused Western NGOs of collaborating with terrorists. The UN’s World Food Programme has confirmed that their food is going to terrorists. And photos have emerged of NGOs meeting the terrorists. Western NGOs really do ‘care’ about innocent civilians. Burmese State Councilor Aung San Suu Kyi has called Western propaganda against her country an “iceberg of misinformation – perhaps, the truest words the Noble Peace Laureate has ever uttered.

Gearóid Ó Colmáin, AHT Paris correspondent, is a journalist and political analyst. His work focuses on globalization, geopolitics and class struggle. His articles have been translated into many languages. He is a regular contributor to Global Research, Russia Today International, Press TV, Sputnik Radio France, Sputnik English , Al Etijah TV , Sahar TV Englis, Sahar French and has also appeared on Al Jazeera. He writes in English, Irish Gaelic and French.

Rohingya girl in Sittwe, Myanmar. Image credit: Carsten S./ flickr

During the 1990s, the United States planned to break up Yugoslavia and build America’s largest military base in Kosovo (Camp Bondsteel) a strategic location giving the US access to the oil-rich Caspian Sea, which would also threaten Russia’s defence capabilities. In order to achieve their goals, the CIA imported fighters from Afghanistan who went on a rampage of killing and destruction. A mass media disinformation campaign blamed a proportion of the crimes of the CIA-backed fighters on their victims – mostly Serbs.

Between 1992 and 1995, CIA terrorists murdered 2383 Serbs in Srebrenica. When the Bosnian Serb army finally arrived in the town, they fought the terrorists. Between five hundred and one thousand Muslim locals were executed. No one knows how many of them were terrorists.

The Western media used images of detained Muslim men to say that a massacre of innocent young men had taken place. The heinous ethnic cleansing of 150 Serbian villages was ignored. The CIA’s ‘Kosovo Liberation Army’ is accused of having slaughtered all before them but the ‘international community’ cried ‘genocide’ when many of them were rounded up and shot. Serbian Christians were the Empire’s scapegoats. Srebrenica is still invoked today to justify ‘humanitarian intervention’ and Rohingya activists in the Empire’s capital cities are now calling for a humanitarian carpet bombing of Burmese citizens.

Muslims who refuse to face up to such historical realities ought to realise that they have no monopoly on suffering and victimisation. When the Empire needs scapegoats, it finds them no matter what their religion or ethnicity.

Burmese patriots would be well advised to study the destruction of Yugoslavia as multi-ethnic states with religious divisions are easily broken apart when imperialism decides impotent fiefdoms are more easily manipulated than patriotic nation states.

In November 2011, President Obama declared that the Asia-Pacific region was a ‘top priority’ of US security policy.

US policy in Asia consists of containing Chinese influence in the region through control of the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) and the encirclement of China. The US already has military bases along the South East Asian coast but needs to have extensive military projection capacity in inland Asia. The breaking up or balkanisation of strategic states whose stability is vital to Chinese security would serve US geopolitical interests in Asia.

Since Thailand’s former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra lobbied on behalf of the Myanmar government, resulting in their inclusion in ASEAN, US sanctions against the country proved futile. Forcing the Burmese junta to accept US intelligence asset Aung San Suu Kyi as de facto president has not ‘opened up’ the country to US interests at a pace and scale acceptable to Washington. In fact, Aung San Suu Kyi has thus far proved that she has a mind of her own and has taken an increasingly nationalist line, to the chagrin of her Western liberal sycophants. The human rights icon appears to have rediscovered her Asian roots and thus her portrait has fallen from the halls of Western imperial academia.

Terrorist groups financed by the Saudis and backed by the United States, seek to carve out a separate state encompassing parts of Bangladesh and North Rakhine – what they call Arakanistan or the Islamic Republic of Rahmanland, which would adhere to a strict State-Wahhabi ideology. A document appeared in 2012 signed by London-based Amir Ilham Kamil and Farid L. Shyaid proclaiming the creation of such a state.

Although the authenticity of the document cited above cannot be verified, the concept of a state called Arakanistan has been openly discussed for some time in the Bangladeshi media and some books.

Bangladesh’s Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has criticized the British government for not doing enough to prosecute known Islamist terrorists in its territory. Critics of the war on terrorism have pointed out the deep and constant collusion of the British security services with Al-Qaeda terrorists.

Hasina’s government is facing a potential nightmare. There are credible reports that Bangladesh’s Directorate General of Forces Intelligence (DGFI) is training and protecting ARSA terrorists.

The training is reportedly being conducted in conjunction with Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI).

A Wahhabi enclave in Myanmar would give the US another base of operations for geopolitical war games in Asia and upset China’s expanding One Belt-One Road and New Silk Road policy. Such a Kosovo-like state would be in US strategic interests as it would allow Washington to control the Bay of Bengal and prevent a land route for Chinese importation of Middle Eastern oil. The US would then be able to block Chinese oil supplies in the Straits of Malacca. China’s exploitation of the Shwe gas field discovered in 2004 is another major concern for Washington.

Myanmar has moved closer to China in recent years with the construction of pipelines set to pump oil from KyaukPhyu deep-sea port in the Bay of Bengal to Kunming in China’s Yunnan province. The deep sea port in KyaukPhyu is due to have an annual capacity of 7.8 million tonnes of bulk cargo.

The Teellong China-Oil and Gas line project, running from the Bay of Bengal to China’s Yunnan province, was built at the cost of 2.46 billion dollars. It jointly owned by the China National Petroleum Corporation and the Myanmar Oil and Gas Enterprise. It is estimated that the pipelines will eventually be able to pump up to 12 billion tonnes of oil per year.

The KyaukPhyu Special Economic Zone, spanning more than 1700 hectares, is another China-Burmese joint venture which aims to industrialise the country’s underdeveloped Western region, in particular Rakhine State. As noted in her State Councillor’s Aung San Suu Kyi’s recent speech in Naypyidaw, economic underdevelopment is a key factor driving ethnic and religious violence in Rakhine State.

Naypyidaw and Moscow signed an important defense agreement in June last last year. Myanmar’s Defence Minister Myint New said his country hoped to strengthen military ties with Russia in the near future.

The cooperation with Russia is a concern for US interests.

Russian diplomacy has corroborated the Burmese military’s version of events, following the August 25th terrorist attacks. At the recent UN Security Council meeting to discuss Myanmar Russia’s UN ambassador Vassily Nebenzia said:

“In recent days we’ve received an illustration of the fact that ARSA were responsible for the massacre of civilians. What was also found were cashes of improvised explosive devices. There is information that the extremists forced members of the Hindu community in border villages to leave their homes and to migrate to neighboring Bangladesh with the Muslims. Furthermore, there is information that terrorists burned entire villages and that evidence confiscated from the fighters.

Photographs were confiscated from the terrorists which were in all likelihood meant to be used as reports to the leadership of ARSA or its foreign sponsors. This information is confirmed by the earlier statement of Naypyidaw when they said that the initiators of the outbreak in Rakhine State had the objective of maximally increasing the scale of the humanitarian disaster and transferring the responsibility for it to the government.”

US President Donald Trump has called for “strong and swift action” from the UN Security Council. French president Emmanuel Macron has also accused the Burmese government of genocide. Russia has warned the West not to interfere in other countries’ internal affairs. Given the pro-Rohingya position of the United States, one can assume some level of CIA backing for the Rohingya terrorists. However, it is unclear how the Trump administration will respond if the Islamic State, who are now active in Rakhine, manage to occupy territory. The US may simply ‘assist’ Naypyidaw in managing the CIA’s terrorists, while continuing to covertly feed the insurgency.

Fake news and the ‘iceberg of misinformation’

Many examples of fake news published by the Rohingya organizations have been cited. The most notorious examples have been photos of the 2010 Chinese earthquake disaster where Buddhist monks helped bury the victims. The tragic scenes were photo-shopped by pro-Rohingya websites to claim that Buddhists had massacred Rohingya. All the cases of fake news are too numerous to mention here but the BBC have done a good job, for once, in highlighting the most notorious examples.

However, in spite of admitting that preposterous lies have been spread to support the theory that the Burmese government is committing genocide against the Bengali minority in Rakhine State, the BBC continues to claim that such a genocide is in fact taking place; but it has produced no evidence whatsoever to back up those claims.

Shortly after the August 25th terrorist attacks, the Deputy Turkish Prime Minister Mehmet Simsek published more fake news about Burmese massacres of Rohingya, calling for the international community to intervene. After the fake news was proven by Burmese authorities, Simsek was forced to admit he had published disinformation.

Shortly after the terrorist attacks in August, Agence France Press (AFP) published video footage of Burmese Buddhist villagers fleeing the violence claiming they were Rohingya. The news agency was later forced to admit it had lied.

It was not the only report of people fleeing the violence mislabeled as ‘Rohingya’.

Many Hindu villagers told reporters they had been called Rohingya too.

It should be mentioned here that ‘Rohingya’ is a term used by activists linked to agencies and NGOS outside the country. It is not a term used by Bengali Muslims to describe themselves. Bengali Muslims recently told reports that they never use that term.

Many eye witnesses accounts, including those whose family members were massacred by terrorist groups, have not been investigated by the Western mass media.

One Hindu woman told Burmese reporters:

 “In there, they [ARSA terrorists] came, dressed in black, only their eyes could be seen.

Then they caught us; they had bombs, axes, choppers, knives, bullets.

They held us on one side of the area.

They slaughtered my family members one by one.

Then some Muslims ordered – ‘slaughter them too’.

My husband, father-in-law, mother- in-law and one of my sister-in-laws were slaughtered in front of my eyes.

One of the sons of my sister-in-law was hijacked by Muslims [ARSA terrorists].”

Again the horrific report was ignored by the Western media in spite of their claims to be concerned for the victims of violence. Was it because the killers here did not match the editorial spin?

Another video posted online tells the story of a Rakhine Buddhist and his family who were attacked by a mob of Bengali terrorists. He says he used to have Muslim friends but now no longer trusts the Muslim community in Rakhine. It is easy to call such people pejorative terms but communal hatred is growing with every call by Muslim communities across the world to ‘stop the genocide of the Rohingya’. The video shows the horrible reality of ethnic conflict, where fear and hatred eat up the souls of men.

The Burmese government has accused Western NGOs of collaborating with terrorists. The UN’s World Food Programme has confirmed that their food is going to terrorists. And photos have emerged of NGOs meeting the terrorists. Western NGOs really do ‘care’ about innocent civilians. Burmese State Councilor Aung San Suu Kyi has called Western propaganda against her country an “iceberg of misinformation – perhaps, the truest words the Noble Peace Laureate has ever uttered.

Gearóid Ó Colmáin, AHT Paris correspondent, is a journalist and political analyst. His work focuses on globalization, geopolitics and class struggle. His articles have been translated into many languages. He is a regular contributor to Global Research, Russia Today International, Press TV, Sputnik Radio France, Sputnik English , Al Etijah TV , Sahar TV Englis, Sahar French and has also appeared on Al Jazeera. He writes in English, Irish Gaelic and French.

Rohingya girl in Sittwe, Myanmar. Image credit: Carsten S./ flickr

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Syria, Iraq, Libya: The Staged-Massacre Routine and False Flag Operations For Regime Change

By Prof. Marcello Ferrada de Noli, October 28, 2017

In the various endeavours for regime-change assayed to fit the geopolitical and economic interest of western powers, a foremost argument has consisted in allegations on infringements of human rights and accusations of insufferable oppression against the population. These claims have often culminated with the staging of ‘massacres’ against civilians.

US Department of Defense (DOD) Plans Solar-Storm-Based National Blackout Drill During Antifa Protests in November

By Tyler Durden, October 28, 2017

According to The National Association for Amateur Radio (ARRL), elements of the US Department of Defense (DOD) will simulate a  “communications interoperability” training exercise across the United States on November 04-06. The announcement released on October 24 has not been widely distributed to the media, because the drill is simulating a total grid collapse and could spark public fear.

Russia Rejects the False UN-OPCW Report on Syrian Chemical Weapons Attack

By Breakingnews.sy, October 28, 2017

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said on Friday that the report of the Joint UN Security Council and the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons Inquiry Mechanism into the events, relating to the alleged use of sarin gas in the northwestern Syrian town of Khan Sheikhoun on April 4th, was flawed as regards its investigative methods and based on false statements coming from the highly questionable sources.

America’s Oligarchy: No Money for Opioid Crisis, Endless Funds for Corporate Tax Cuts

By Andre Damon, October 28, 2017

Trump’s response to the opioid epidemic mirrors his administration’s response to every social crisis and disaster, such as the hurricanes that struck Texas, Florida and Puerto Rico. The government has provided no meaningful federal aid to Puerto Rico, still suffering from widespread blackouts, while demanding it step up its payments to its Wall Street creditors.

Spain Imposes Military Rule in Catalonia to Preempt Independence Bid

By Alex Lantier and Alejandro López, October 28, 2017

The Spanish Senate formally voted 214-47 on Friday to authorize the implementation of Article 155 of the Spanish Constitution, suspending parliamentary rule in Catalonia. It handed Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy full powers to suspend the Catalan regional government, proceed with punitive measures outlined in Rajoy’s October 21 speech, and impose an unelected Catalan government answerable only to Madrid.

The Kurds Want a “Federal” Regime Change in Syria

By Andrew Korybko, October 28, 2017

Kurdish Democratic Union Party co-chairman Shahoz Hasan said that his organization’s objective is to impose its system of so-called “democratic autonomy” all over Syria, and despite denying that this amounts to a de-facto internal partition, it’s hard to argue that it’s anything but. Moreover, the Syrian Kurds also just announced that they’ll be annexing Daesh’s former so-called “capital” to their self-proclaimed “Democratic Federation of Northern Syria”, though they plan to “legitimize” this land grab through what’s essentially controlled elections that will ultimately lead to the installation of a puppet government in the Arab-cleansed city.

Featured image: Picture of President Kennedy in the limousine in Dallas, Texas, on Main Street, minutes before the assassination. Also in the presidential limousine are Jackie Kennedy, Texas Governor John Connally, and his wife, Nellie. (Source: Wikimedia Commons)

Dear Readers, some of you are pushing me to continue with the Las Vegas shooting story while others are asking to know what to make of the release of files pertaining to President Kennedy’s assassination. I appreciate that you are interested and are unsatisfied with official explanations.

My answer is that we already know, thanks to exhaustively researched books such as James W. Douglass’ JFK and the Unspeakable (Simon & Schuster, 2008), far more than is in the released files.  

My answer is also that it doesn’t matter what we know or what the facts are, the official story will never be changed.  For example, we know as an absolute indisputable fact that Israel intentionally attacked the USS Liberty inflicting enormous casualties on US Navy personnel, and the US government continues the coverup that it was all a mistake despite unequivocal statements to the contrary by the Moorer Commission, led by Admiral Tom Moorer, former Chief of Naval Operations and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.  

My answer also is that time is better spent in trying to prevent conspiracies in the making, such as the endless stream of lies and accusations against Russia that are turning a friendly country into an enemy and renewing the risk of nuclear armageddon.  Indeed, the biggest conspiracy theory of the present time is the one issuing from the military/security complex, the Democratic National Committee, and the presstitute media that Russia in collusion with Donald Trump hacked the US presidential election.  

The Russian government knows that this is a lie, and when they see a lie repeated endlessly now for one year without a shred of evidence to support it, the Russian government naturally concludes that Washington is preparing the American people for war. I cannot imagine a more reckless and irresponsible policy than destroying Russia’s trust in Washington’s intentions. As Putin said, the main lesson life has taught him is that “if a fight is unavoidable, strike first.”

If you really want to know who killed President Kennedy and why, read JFK and the Unspeakable. Yes, there are other carefully researched books that you can read.

Douglass concludes that Kennedy was murdered because he turned to peace. He was going to work with Khrushchev to end the Cold War. He refused the CIA  US air cover for the Bay of Pigs invasion. He rejected the Joint Chiefs’ Operation Northwoods, a plan to conduct false flag attacks on Americans that would be blamed on Castro to justify regime change. He refused to reappoint General Lyman Lemnitzer as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs. He told US Marine commandant General David Shoup that he was taking the US out of Vietnam. He said after his reelection he was going to “break the CIA into 1,000 pieces.” All of this threatened the power and profit of the military/security complex and convinced military/security elements that he was soft on communism and a threat to US national security.

The film of the motorcade taken by Zapruder shows that the bullet that killed Kennedy hit him from the front, blowing out the back of his head. You can see Kennedy’s wife Jackie reaching from the back seat onto the trunk of the limo to recover the back of his head. Other tourist films show moments before the shot the Secret Service agents being ordered off of the presidential limo so that a clear shot at Kennedy is possible. The film shows one Secret Service agent protesting the order.

The medical “evidence” that Kennedy was hit from behind was falsified by medical doctors under orders. Navy medical corpsmen who helped the Navy doctors with the autopsy testified that they were dismayed by orders from Admiral Calvin Galloway to ignore entry wounds from the front. One of the corpsmen testified “all at once I understood that my country was not much better than a third world country. From that point on in time, I have had no trust, no respect for the government.”

Dr Charles Crenshaw, one of the doctors forced to lie, later broke his silence with a book and was rewarded with a fierce media campaign to discredit him. 

Lt. Commander William Pitzer, director of the Audio-Visual Department of the Bethesda Naval Hospital, filmed the autopsy. The film clearly showed the entry wound from the front. Pitzer was found shot to death on the floor of the production studio of the National Naval Medical Center. It was ruled a suicide, as always.

J. Edgar Hoover and the FBI knew that Oswald, who Douglass believes was on the payroll of both the CIA and FBI, was sent to Cuba by the CIA in order to establish the story for the patsy role Oswald was unaware was being prepared for him. However, Hoover, along with LBJ, Earl Warren and the members of the Warren Commission understood that it was impossible to tell the American people that their president has been assassinated by the US military and US security agencies.  At a dicey time of the Cold War, clearly it would have been reckless to destroy Americans’ trust in their own government.

Finian Cunningham presents a summary of much of the accumulated evidence. All experts long ago concluded that the Warren Commission report is a coverup.  

I am not an expert. I have not spent 30 years or longer, as has Douglass, investigating, interviewing witnesses, tracking down unexplained deaths of witnesses, and piecing together the available voluminous information. If you want to know what happened, put down your smart phones, close your video screens, and read Douglass’ or a similar book.

This article was originally published by Paul Craig Roberts Institute for Political Economy.

“The media lies about Syria …and I think media heads should face trial for war crimes and crimes against humanity for the one-sided false narrative they’ve been spreading since the Syrian War began.”

 -Janice Kortkamp (November 2016) as quoted in Voices from Syria. [1]

“A really important point that I’ve made before and I want to make again here on your show is that they (Kurds) have actually already worked with Daesh and other terrorist groups.”

-Sarah Abed (on this week’s show)

LISTEN TO THE SHOW

Click to download the audio (MP3 format)

The Western powers have been officially waging a Global War on Terrorism for about a generation now. This multi-lateral offensive is more than likely a cover for military enterprises geared toward enlarging America’s sphere of influence not only in Central Asia and the Middle East, but also into the Indian sub-continent and the Far East. [2]

From Afghanistan in 2001, to Iraq in 2003, to Libya in 2011. Now Syria is in the cross-hairs.

Where is the anti-war movement?

Less than two years after 9/11, millions upon millions around the world took to the streets determined to thwart US President Bush’s criminal assault on the people of Iraq. Today, civilian populations in the US, Canada and other NATO countries seem to no longer mobilize against war.

Distrubingly, supposedly “progressive” social justice groups seem to echo the rhetoric of the interventionist lobby.

Democratically elected President Bashar Al-Assad is denounced as a brutal dictator. Terrorist attacks by opposition forces are ignored. The conflict is presented as a civil war and a popular uprising by freedom-loving Syrians as opposed to a foreign-backed insurgency by Islamist extremists.

Groups such as Amnesty International, Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors without Borders) and AVAAZ have lent their credibility to these imperialist narratives.

This week, on the Global Research News Hour we devote the program to a defusing of the propaganda weapons being used to trigger another ‘humanitarian intervention’ this time on the people of the Syrian Arab Republic.

In the first half hour, guest Sarah Abed challenges the heroic narratives around Kurdish freedom fighters in Syria, and explains how Kurdish nationalism has been and continues to be an instrument of US and Israeli imperial ambitions. We then hear Mark Taliano correct the record on a ‘democratic revolution’ in Syria. Finally, a member of the Syrian-diaspora in Canada provides some insights into who the anti-Assad Syrians in Canada are, how they have helped derail social justice movements in Canadian cities, and how they continue to sabotage the unity of the Syrian people.

Sarah Abed is a Syrian American independent investigative political commentator who focuses on exposing the lies and propaganda in mainstream media news and social media. She is a truth advocate who uses her social media accounts and website The Rabbit Hole www.sarahabed.com to counter Western media disinformation about Syria. Several of her articles have appeared at global Research.

Mark Taliano is a former high school teacher, an author and an independent investigative reporter, as well as a research associate with the centre for research on Globalization. In September of 2016, Mark travelled to Syria to corroborate his own research into the Syrian conflict and the distortions of reality presented in mainstream and some alternative media discourse. Earlier this year he compiled his findings in the book Voices from Syria, which is on sale now from Global Research.

Majd Zooda is a Ph.D. Candidate in science education at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education at the University of Toronto. She was born in Kuwait but moved to Damascus in 2005 where she lived until 2012 before moving to Canada. She still has family in Damascus that she visits annually.

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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. Mark Taliano (2017), Voices from Syria, published by Global Research.
2. Michel Chossudovsky (2005), p. 5, America’s War on Terrorism, published by Global Research

In its regime-change, “Assad Must Go!”, anti-humanitarian war against Syria, the Canadian government is using public funds to support war, poverty, and unspeakable misery.

As Prof. Chossudovsky notes in the Forward to Voices from Syria:

“Everybody in Syria knows that Washington is behind the terrorists, that they are financed by the U.S (at tax payers’ expense) and its allies, trained and recruited by America’s Middle East partners. Saudi Arabia, Qatar have been financing and training the ISIS-Daesh, al Nusra terrorists on behalf of the United States. Israel is harboring the terrorists out of the occupied Golan Heights, NATO in liaison with the Turkish high command has since March 2011 been involved in coordinating the recruitment of the jihadist fighters dispatched to Syria …”1

By supporting a war of terror beneath the lies of “humanitarianism”, we are agents for an overseas holocaust, but we are also agents for misogyny, human exploitation, environmental and economic devastation, poverty, disease, totalitarian oligarch rule and a long list of war-imposed evils. In fact, the aggressive warfare to which Canada is committed is anti-Life by any measure.

Peace-activist Janice Kortkamp recently visited Al Mayadeen, — liberated by the Syrian Arab Army, and described as the “economic capital of ISIS” — where she witnessed Empire’s foot print at its finest.

Kortkamp and her friends, pictured below, are standing beneath a sign which dictates the dress-code for females living in the (previously) Daesh-controlled area.

Photo credit: Janice Kortkamp

In a journal entry, Kortkamp added:

… (t)he women had complied with the laws to cover up yet were severely beaten if they dared look at a man. Children were not allowed to go to school. People were starved while terrorist fighters feasted on hoarded food.2

This is what Canadian “progressives”, “feminists”, and “human rights defenders” are supporting when they support Canada’s war on Syria.3 In fact, all Canadians are supporting this when we pay our taxes.

Silence is complicity.

Notes

1 Mark Taliano, Voices from Syria, Global Research, 2017. Excerpt from Forward.

2 Janice Kortkamp, Deir Ezzor diary part 5b. 27 October, 2017.

3 Mark Taliano, “The Liberation of Deir Ezzor. Remorseless in Defeat. The West Evacuate ISIS Commanders.” Global Research, 6 September, 2017. (https://www.globalresearch.ca/the-liberation-of-deir-ezzor-remorseless-in-defeat-the-west-evacuate-isis-commanders/5607756) Accessed 28 October, 2017.

Featured image: U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Saudi King Salman speak before their meeting in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, Oct. 22, 2017. (Source: Oriental Review)

US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson was in Riyadh where he partook in a trilateral meeting with the Saudi and Iraqi leaders. The two Arab states have been moving closer to one another recently, with Saudi Arabia even hosting Shiite cleric and militia leader Muqtada al-Sadr earlier this year in a bid to strengthen its influence across sectarian lines so that the Kingdom can become an important post-Daesh partner in the country’s investment, military, and social spheres.

If this policy was being promoted with win-win interests in mind and not as part of a larger regional game aimed at “containing” Iran, then there wouldn’t be anything irresponsible about it, but Tillerson inadvertently exposed the grand geostrategic designs behind it when he spoke at the gathering. He ordered the Popular Mobilization Forces, a highly trained and effective anti-terrorist group of Iranian-backed militias which are officially a part of the Iraqi security apparatus, to “go home” after Daesh is defeated, implying that the majority-Shiite members of these fighting forces are just volunteers from Iran.

That’s not true at all, as most of them are born-and-raised Iraqis who banded together to defend their homeland from Daesh, but the US and Saudi Arabia have an interest in framing it otherwise. To its credit, the Iraqi government shortly thereafter came out real sharply against Tillerson’s demand, and Prime Minister Abadi later reemphasized during the Secretary of State’s visit to Baghdad right afterwards just how integral of a role the Popular Mobilization Forces played in his country’s liberation operations against Daesh. From this scandalous exchange, it’s clear that post-Daesh Iraq is becoming a heated zone of competition between the US and Saudi Arabia on one side, and Iran and Baghdad on the other, with the Kurds being the unpredictable chaos factor that could take down this fragile house of cards. The Iraqi authorities would ideally like to balance all players to their countrymen’s benefit, hence the recent rapprochement with Saudi Arabia, but while Riyadh has been coy about its true intentions in forcing Baghdad to take sides, Washington harbored no such reservations and seems to have clumsily overstepped its limits with Tillerson’s sectarian suggestion.

The pressure that the US is putting on Iraq to disband the Popular Mobilization Forces runs parallel to what it’s doing to Syria in trying to get Damascus to send Hezbollah and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) home after the defeat of Daesh there too, though it’s unclear in both cases what the US will do if these two states don’t obey its commands. All told, the renewed diplomatic offensive that’s being waged against Iran’s regional interests might have a majorly unintended effect in strengthening Tehran’s political will to support its allied militias abroad, which could play into the hands of the country’s Principalists – or “conservatives”, as they’re referred to in the West – to the perceived expense of its Reformists – or “moderates”. That could see Iran take a more assertive regional position contrary to the expectations of the American strategists who anticipate that it’ll back down, with the most predictable consequence being that the next Mideast conflict might be over the post-Daesh fate of Hezbollah in Syria and the Popular Mobilization Forces in Iraq.

The post presented is the partial transcript of the CONTEXT COUNTDOWN radio program on Sputnik News, aired on Friday Oct 27, 2017:

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

Featured image: President Uhuru Kenyatta

President Uhuru Kenyatta of the Republic of Kenya is tasked with reversing one of the most challenging political crises in the post-colonial history of the country.

After implementing a 4-2 Supreme Court decision delivered in two stages during September mandating a rerun of the internationally-monitored multi-party national elections held on August 8, the opposition National Super Alliance (NASA) coalition, which brought the petition to overturn the results before the bench, then embarked upon a campaign of disinformation and violence directed at millions of voters.

The two dissenting justices in the annulment decision noted that there were no specific irregularities cited as the basis for the declaration of reversal in the elections where 15 million Kenyans took part. Only procedural problems associated with the transmission of some votes to the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IBEC) were utilized as a rationale for the unprecedented ruling of nullification.

Raila Odinga, a former prime minister in the imposed coalition government installed after the post-election violence of 2007-2008, which resulted in the deaths of over 1,500 people, has been a perennial presidential candidate. Interestingly enough, Odinga visited Britain just two days after his announcement that he would not participate in the October 26 revote.

While in London on October 13, the NASA leader delivered a lecture at Chatham House, a division of The Royal Institute of International Affairs. During his remarks Odinga in essence called for British funding of his coalition and other so-called civil society groups which were in his estimation the genuine upholders of democracy in Kenya and throughout the African continent. He openly admitted to meeting with current and former British government officials along with the Anglican Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby, whose counsel he greatly cherished.

An apparent ally of NASA, Roselyn Akombe, left her position on the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) after the announcement of Odinga’s withdrawal, settling in New York City where she denounced the Kenyan government to the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) and the New York Times for its ostensible failure to guarantee democracy. NASA sought to restructure the IEBC in its own image and when this did not materialize, Odinga and Akombe appealed for direct intervention by both Britain and the United States.

Organized Disruption Seeks to Overthrow Kenyan Government

Although Odinga publically said that he was urging his supporters to stay at home and not vote on October 26, gangs of people armed with rocks, machetes and petrol bombs attacked polling locations, IEBC personnel and civilians attempting to cast their ballots. As a result of the precarious security situation, numerous polling locations in the western regional strongholds of the NASA coalition could not open.

Violence directed at the electoral process was so severe that the IEBC announced on October 26 that voting in Kisumu, Migori, Homa Bay and Siaya would be re-scheduled for two days later. Nonetheless, as the unrest continued on October 27, it was decided that the voting in these areas would be postponed indefinitely.

Official statistics reported by the Kenyan government indicate that at least 67 people have been killed in election-related violence since August, with the bulk of fatalities taking place in the run-up to October 26. Odinga and his members have not denounced the actions of their constituencies and are directing efforts toward further destabilization saying that yet another election should be held within 90 days.

Organized destruction was carried out in Kawangware 56, Nairobi as armed criminals attacked businesses and homes they claimed belonged to members of the ruling Jubilee Party of President Kenyatta. Hundreds of people were left unemployed and jobless in the wake of the targeted violence.

Kenya ruling Jubilee Party members and followers of President Uhuru Kenyatta

Kenya’s Daily Nation newspaper reported on October 28 that:

“As the situation got out of hand, criminal gangs took advantage and started looting. Houses and shops were broken into, property carted away as gunshots rent the air with the area also experiencing a power blackout. All the shops at the junction of routes 56 and 46 including butcheries, hotels and salons were burnt down.”

One resident of the area, Mathews Okwanda, Chairman of the Abaluhya Alternative Leadership Forum called upon the government to take immediate action to investigate, apprehend and prosecute those behind the theft, arson and killings. The same above-mentioned Daily Nation report said that 15 bodies were collected on the morning of October 28 after overnight violence.

“This is anarchy and the whole world is watching. The first duty of the State is to protect its people regardless of race or political affiliation. Therefore, a state that cannot guarantee safety of its citizens has no business calling itself sovereign,” Okwanda stressed.

Yet the aim of the destabilization efforts is to weaken the capacity of the Kenyan government to exercise its authority. Western media outlets in conjunction with the disruption activities are portraying Kenya as a lawless society further damaging its economy and diplomatic relations with foreign states.

Kenyatta Will Be Sworn in for Second Term

Despite the orchestrated disruption by the NASA coalition, President Kenyatta is to be inaugurated for another four years in office. Even though efforts were undertaken to prevent voting, some 6.5 million people were able to cast their ballots.

Initial results revealed that Kenyatta won the election with 91 percent of the vote. Deputy President William Ruto of Jubilee said that altogether 40 percent of the registered electorate participated in the poll.

Ruto acknowledged the deliberate attempts to prevent people from voting on October 26 and 28. The DP accused Odinga and his backers of funding militias to set upon communities to disrupt the democratic process.

“There are a percentage of the voters which were denied its right to vote. I challenge our opponents to remove the organized militia groups blocking the delivery of voting materials and we will know for sure if those affected want to vote or not,” Ruto said.

Jubilee leaders have exposed the ulterior motives of the NASA coalition saying that Odinga is bent on sabotaging East Africa’s largest economy. By appealing to the leading imperialist states such as the U.S. and Britain, coupled with the deliberate targeting of small businesses and working people in Kenya, the opposition forces want to undermine the ability of the country to move beyond the turmoil they have created surrounding the electoral process.

Kenyan opposition gangs loot stores in Nairobi township of Kawangware aimed at disrupting East Africa’s largest economy

The Jubilee Elgeyo Marakwet Senator Kipchumba Murkomen along with National Assembly Majority Leader Aden Duale emphasized the fact that Odinga has initiated what the NASA leader falsely says is civil disobedience as part of a plot to ruin the country. Frustrated with the ineffectiveness of these disruption tactics, the opposition coalition is demanding greater support from the western states.

“Now that he has realized he can’t succeed in his quest for the presidency he wants to attack the economic foundation of our country so that he can recruit poor young people into militant activities,” Murkomen noted.

A key element of the plan is to stifle and even destroy businesses and jobs held by Kenyans through robbery and arson, which the Jubilee government has pledged to “vehemently resist”.

A prolonging of the unrest which is aimed as well at stoking ethnic divisions between the Luo, whom Odinga considers his political base, and the Kikiyu, where Kenyatta emanates from, is designed to create the conditions for military intervention by the U..S. and other NATO countries. If such a scenario arises, it will inevitably be disastrous for the Kenyan people as has been proven in neighboring Somalia, where the war pitting the Federal Government in Mogadishu against the Islamist Al-Shabaab has resulted in the ten year occupation by western-backed troops, of which Kenya is a part of, while the mounting deaths, economic disintegration, food deficits and population displacement accelerate.

All images, except the featured, are from the author.

And they fell like ninepins. Weeks of predictions, optimistic readings, and hopeful signs were dashed as the members of the highest court of Australia laid waste to members of Parliament. Citing a section in the Australian constitution that has become something of a heavy footnote in popular consciousness, the judges ruled five out of seven applicants ineligible to sit in Parliament.[1]

The applicants have come to assume a title more commonly associated with criminal gangs or wrongly accused terrorists: the Citizenship Seven. But of the seven, only Senators Matt Canavan and Nick Xenophon survived. Barnaby Joyce, the Deputy Prime Minister, Fiona Nash, Larissa Waters, Scott Ludlam and Malcolm Roberts all became confirmed victims of section 44(i).

That section, read strictly, is onerous in application, making ineligible anyone “under any acknowledgment of allegiance, obedience, or adherence to a foreign power, or is a subject or a citizen or entitled to the rights or privileges of a subject or a citizen of a foreign power”.

It had been a true battle. Submissions varied. Joyce and Nash had suggested that s. 44(i) required that a foreign citizenship be actually chosen or maintained, its “essence,” noted the judges, being “knowledge of the foreign citizenship”. Ludlam and Waters insisted that a person be “put on notice” where the person is alerted to “primary facts” of possessing citizenship of another country.

A third, one advanced by Canavan, Roberts and Xenophon, was that foreign citizenship be voluntarily obtained or retained. This enabled a distinction to be drawn between naturalised Australians and “natural born” Australians.

The former placed the onus on the naturalised Australian to have taken all reasonable steps to renounce citizenship of another country. The latter would be disqualified if he or she took active steps to acquire a foreign citizenship or, after acquiring knowledge of that citizenship, did not take reasonable steps to renounce it.

The High Court, much against the spirit of any true widening of the section’s purpose, kept matters narrow. Constitutional history suggested no need to change that stance. As for the impact of a foreign law, that, in of itself, could never determine the operation of the disqualification provision. Fine words in theory, but in practice, a far from easy proposition.

A notable limb of reasoning in the judgment was its dismissal of the mental element of the potential parliamentarian. The section made no reference to the state of mind, and investigating “the state of mind of a candidate” was undesirable to the stability of the process.

What, then, of the survivors? Xenophon was spared the cull as he was not truly a “subject or citizen of a foreign power” or entitled the rights and privileges of one. His foreign citizenship was “residual” in nature, one rooted in British practice towards overseas territories – in his case, Cyprus. He was neither a subject nor a citizen of a foreign power for the purposes of the section.

Canavan was similarly graced by the good will of the court.. When he was born, the court noted, his parents and grandparents were Australian citizens and only Australian citizens. As for the senator, never one to be entirely honest in press conferences on his background, he had never visited Italy nor taken steps to acquire Italian citizenship. The court, fortunately for Canavan, took the view that registration of Italian citizenship was different to a declaration of it, effectively meaning that the right to it lay dormant.

The Prime Minister, Malcolm Turnbull, had had moments of hope over experience in claiming that the High Court would give a clean bill of constitutional health to his deputy. His statements prior to the court ruling came close enough to a directive, a point that would not have been missed by the judicial officers. What transpired was a predictably conservative ruling.

The sense that Australians, certainly those with dual citizenship, have received a good blow is palpable. The expert commentary on the section certainly point to its archaic formulation, one that takes aim at diversity in favour of one citizenship. Adrienne Stone, director of the Constitutional Centre for Comparative Studies, feels that such an eligibility requirement should be inapplicable in a multicultural society.

“We would be missing out on terrific representatives. But also it’s a matter of the most basic fairness that people ought to be able to contribute or participate on equal grounds.” Waters similarly backs the point that the reading of section 44(i) “would eliminate a good half of our population from running for Federal Parliament.”[2]

The other side of the coin is a less forgiving one. The paperwork on background, familial links, and efforts to renounce, were not done in five cases, and convincing Australians that a constitutional amendment to permit dual citizens to sit in the highest chambers in the land is not one that will fly easily, should it even grow wings. The electorate’s kindness only extends so far.

The only possible textual change will have to be by a mechanism of a double requirement: a majority of electors in a majority of states and a majority of the country, a truly high bar to satisfy.

Referenda have a habit of dying in brave efforts to cross the line – a mere 8 out of 44 seeking to amend the constitution have succeeded, the last being 1977. As constitutional law professor Anne Twomey rightly notes,

“It is not the sort of thing that people march on the streets for.”

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

Notes

[2] http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-10-28/what-does-the-high-court-decision-mean-for-dual-citizens/9094014

The following is a presentation given by South Korean peace activist Choi Eun-a on a webinar entitled “On the Brink of War: Peace Activists in South Korea and Japan Respond,” hosted by a consortium of US peace organizations on October 25, 2017.

(For a video recording of the full webinar, click here)

***

1. How do South Korean progressives view the current US-North Korea conflict?

I can’t speak for all progressive forces, but I will tell you the view of the Korean Alliance of Progressive Movements (KAPM). 

We view the current conflict between the United States and North Korea as the product of the un-ended Korean war and antagonism that have continued for sixty years since the signing of the Korean War armistice in 1953. For decades, the United States has considered North Korea an enemy state, deployed US troops and weapons of mass destruction in South Korea, and held massive war games as displays of its military might. The South Korean government, too, has spent ten times more than the North on defense to exert asymmetric pressure on North Korea. Since the late 1980s, South Korea has normalized relations with former socialist countries, but relations between North Korea and the United States, Japan and South Korea have not normalized and instead have been one of asymmetric intimidation. This is the fundamental reason for North Korea’s decision to strengthen its own deterrence and is at the root of the current crisis on the Korean peninsula.

We should note that the point at which North Korea stepped up its nuclear development was when agreements reached through the six party talks began to unravel. Multilateral agreements were tossed out unilaterally by the United States, which pursued a policy of regime collapse and war in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya. These events were key in driving North Korea to turn to strengthening its own deterrence, particularly in the form of nuclear weapons.

If anything, the decades of negotiations between the United States and North Korea  have confirmed two things: that as long as the United States does not stop its military threats and sanctions targeting North Korea, North Korea will not abandon its nuclear deterrent; and that lasting peace and denuclearization on the Korean peninsula is a distant possibility. Sanctions, military threats and shows of force will only push North Korea to increase its own deterrent capabilities and exacerbate, not resolve, war threats on the Korean peninsula.

In this light, we can no longer ignore what North Korea has demanded for decades: the normalization of its relations with the United States. The United States needs to change course by stopping its hostile policies, i.e. sanctions and shows of military force, and pursue a peace agreement that fundamentally resolves the nuclear issue and military tension.

2. What are your plans for Trump’s upcoming visit to South Korea and beyond?

Choi Eun-a

The South Korean public is highly critical of Trump—for denouncing Obama’s policy of strategic patience as a failure but still continuing the same policy of sanctions and military pressure; openly making threats of war and dismissing the gravity of its consequences as something “over there”; demanding that South Korea pay for the cost of hosting the THAAD missile system and US troops; and demanding the renegotiation of the Korea-US Free Trade Agreement. The general mood here about Trump’s upcoming visit is one of anger.

We are working with other progressive forces and peace organizations to organize coordinated and joint actions under the banner of “No Trump.” 

Beginning with a press conference today, we will carry out a series of actions until the last day of Trump’s visit on November 8. Leading up to his visit, our aim is to generate an anti-Trump consensus among the broader public. To this end, we will hang large banners that say, “War-threatening, weapons salesman Trump unwelcome,” “No war No Trump,” “No THAAD, no war threats, no sanctions” all across the country, post pamphlets at every bus station, hold simultaneous one-person relay protests across the country, and get organizations representing various sectors of the progressive movement to release statements denouncing Trump. On Saturday, November 4, we will hold a mass demonstration, then during his visit on November 7 and 8, we will organize joint actions outside the Blue House, at Gwanghwamun Plaza and outside the National Assembly.

Throughout this year, we have been organizing to demand an end to sanctions and the US-ROK war games that only intensify military tensions, and the realization of a Peace Treaty. If there are no talks between the United States and North Korea in the coming months, then we believe tensions will further escalate before Key Resolve Foal Eagle, the next massive US-ROK joint war games, scheduled for March 2018. In February 2018, South Korea hosts the Winter Olympics. It is the desire of the Moon Jae-in government to use the Olympics as an opportunity for symbolic North-South reconciliation. A flare-up of tensions before the mass war games will frustrate this plan. So we plan to intensify our call for an end to the military exercises and the pursuit of a Peace Treaty. To this end, we are planning a mass peace mobilization on Feb 3 before the Olympics and the Key Resolve exercises, then a series of actions across the country until late March to denounce the military exercises.

3. How can the peace movements of South Korea, Japan and the United States build/strengthen solidarity?

Choi Eun-a is the chair of the Reunification Committee of the Korean Alliance of Progressive Movements (KAPM), which brings together social movements — trade unions, farmers, urban poor, women, youth — for peace and democracy. It was instrumental in the fight to oppose the Korea-US Free Trade Agreement and the “candlelight revolution” that ousted former President Park Geun-hye.

All images in this article are from Zoom in Korea.

Fourteen members of the Fellowship of South Korean Youth — calling themselves the “Ban Trump’s Crazy Action” (BTC) delegation — were stopped at Incheon airport on October 25 and prevented from boarding their planes to the United States, where they had planned to protest Trump’s war threats in Korea. The group, which had planned to visit New York, Washington DC, and Los Angeles to demand an end to U.S. sanctions and war threats against North Korea, was turned away despite having acquired proper documentation to visit the United States.

The members of the delegation were told by the United Airline staff that there were problems with their visas. When the delegation asked for an explanation, they were told,

“You need to find out why from the U.S. Embassy in Seoul. Due to privacy concerns, we cannot release any information.”

Following their entry denial, the BTC delegation held a press briefing at Incheon Airport. One representative of the delegation stated,

“We received our visas through the proper channels, but suddenly our visas were rejected. We don’t understand what is so free about the so-called ‘land of the free.’ Every member of the BTC delegation is furious about this.”

Every member of the delegation had received an ESTA (Electronic System for Travel Authorization) approval. According to the delegation, there was no further explanation from the airline staff as to why the visas they had received were denied. Later, the delegation members found out that their ESTA approval’s were canceled prior to checking in to their flights.

One of the members of the delegation took a separate flight and managed to arrive at JFK International Airport in New York before being detained without telephone access and deported back to South Korea the next day.

Sign in photo reads, “”We condemn the U.S. for denying entry” | Photo: Ban Trump’s Crazy Action (BTC) delegation (Source: Zoom in Korea)

U.S. anti-war/peace activists, including the Task Force to Stop THAAD in Korea & Militarism in Asia and the Pacific and Nodutdol for Korean Community Development released a joint statement denouncing the U.S. government’s decision to ban the entry of the South Korean activists:

As organizations and individuals who advocate open borders, freedom of speech, and peaceful resolution of international conflicts, we strongly protest the U.S. entry ban of the members of BTC and demand a full explanation for this action and immediate reversal of this decision. We also forcefully oppose the Trump administration’s escalation of tension with North Korea, fully support South Korean peacemakers mobilizing to protest Trump’s visit to their country and preparing for mass demonstrations on November 4th, and stand in solidarity with all people – Koreans, citizens of the United States, and others throughout the world – unconditionally committed to preventing a second Korean War.

The list of organizations endorsing the statement include CODEPINK, Peace Action, US Labor Against the War, Veterans For Peace, the United National Antiwar Coalition (UNAC), among many others.

Trump will visit South Korea on November 7 and 8 as part of his upcoming Asia tour, and South Korean anti-war/peace activists plan to hold a series of actions to protest Trump’s hostile policies and war threats against North Korea. Peace groups are planning a mass demonstration in Seoul on November 4. Korean Americans plan to hold solidarity protests in Los Angeles, New York, and Washington DC.

On one hand, the United States is demanding that Iranian-backed militias “leave” Iraq, claiming the fight against the self-titled “Islamic State” (IS) is over. On the other hand, the US and its European partners are still funneling weapons, cash, direct military support and organizing training for Kurdish factions in Iraq’s northern region to “beat back” IS.

Additionally, US contractors are attempting to take control of Iraq’s western highways connecting the nation to neighboring Jordan and Saudi Arabia. The contractors are to provide both security and rebuild destroyed infrastructure, also citing IS’ continued presence as a pretext for America’s continued presence in the country.

In other words, the United States is attempting to claim IS is both defeated and also yet to be defeated, attempting to craft a narrative that excludes Iraqi cooperation with Iran, Syria and Russia who are also operating in the region against IS and other militants, and gives the US and its partners exclusive control over Iraq and its future.

Artificial Conflict 

CNN in its article, “Tillerson: Time for Iranian-backed militias to leave Iraq,” would claim:

US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, anticipating an end to the fight against ISIS, said Sunday it was time for Iranian-backed militias to exit the war-torn nation of Iraq.

“Those militias need to go home,” Tillerson said. “Any foreign fighters in Iraq need to go home and allow the Iraqi people to regain control of areas that had been overtaken by ISIS and Daesh that have now been liberated. Allow the Iraqi people to rebuild their lives with the help of their neighbors.”

And while Secretary Tillerson notes that the Iraqi people should be allowed to rebuild their lives “with the help of their neighbors,” he apparently means, all of the Iraqi people’s neighbors except Iran and Syria.

Secretary Tillerson’s remarks were made in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, giving a significant clue as to which neighbors he meant Iraq should get help from. However, it was Saudi Arabia who provided the very militants the Iraqi people have been fighting with arms, cash, equipment and training in the first place.

CNN would even note that:

At the same time, at least 1,500 Saudis had traveled to Iraq and Syria to join ISIS over the years, and Baghdad had long accused Saudi Arabia of turning a blind eye to Sunni militants crossing its territory to enter Iraq to take part in the country’s sectarian conflict. 

In 2007, the US military reported that around 40% of all foreign militants targeting US troops and Iraqi civilians and security forces had come from Saudi Arabia. Half of the Saudi fighters who arrived in Iraq during that time went there to be suicide bombers, the US military said.

What this apparent contradiction indicates is that the conflict in Iraq was never about defeating a spontaneous militant threat, but was instead a proxy conflict engineered by Washington with the help of partners like Riyadh, aimed against Tehran and its allies.

Kurdistan, the Other “IS” 

If IS and other militant organizations fighting in Iraq and neighboring Syria represent one proxy of US, European and Persian Gulf interests, the Kurdish factions in northern Iraq seeking to carve out an independent “Kurdistan” are another.

Similarly, US and European governments are insisting that Iraqi militias begin standing down, even as US-European support for certain Kurdish factions not only continues, but expands.

Germany’s Deutsche Welle (DW) in an article titled, “German army restarts training Iraqi Kurds, but future of mission in doubt,” would report that:

The German army on Sunday announced it has restarted training Iraqi Kurdish peshmerga fighters, despite a political and military conflict between the autonomous region and Baghdad.

The Bundeswehr has been training and supplying weapons to the peshmerga for three years to help the Iraqi Kurds beat back the “Islamic State” (IS).

It has provided some 32,000 assault rifles and machine guns, as well as the MILAN anti-tank missile, valued at some €90 million ($106 million) since September 2014. Some 150 Bundeswehr troops are in northern Iraq, and peshmerga units have also received training in Germany.

But the training mission was suspended for a week after the central government in Baghdad, backed by Iranian-trained paramilitary groups, moved to reassert control over disputed territories the Kurds have captured since June 2014.

However, if  “Iranian-trained paramilitary groups” are reasserting control over disputed territories the Kurds have captured since June 2014, this means unequivocally that the threat of IS has been removed from the region and thus German military support is either unwarranted, or was never fully intended to combat IS, simply appear as doing as much while bolstering yet another proxy force to confront and conflict with Iraq’s central government.

DW’s report also included an interesting map. On it depicts “Kurdistan” as a diminutive region clinging to the northern borders of Iraq, divided between the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) factions. It resembles not the foundation for a future, functional, independent nation-state, but rather a divided and weak proxy that will be forever dependent on its foreign sponsors.

Still Pursuing Balkanization 

In other words, “Kurdistan” is little more than a vector through which the US and its partners seek to divide, weaken and assume hegemony over both the nation, and throughout the region.

More honest politicians and commentators, quoted in the DW article, note that there is little logic in continuing Germany’s support for Kurdish militias if the true objective was indeed fighting IS. However, it appears that the US will attempt to use willing Kurdish factions as proxies against Baghdad and to a greater extent, against Tehran, for as long as certain Kurdish leaders allow them to.

Attempts to frame “Kurdistan” as an issue of “independence” and “self-determination” fall flat upon examining that actual sociopolitical, economic and military landscape of Iraq’s northern reaches. It is clear, that for now, the future of the Kurds is being determined by Washington and its partners, not the Kurds themselves. But it will be primarily the Kurds themselves who pay the highest price in this ongoing political game, along with militias and soldiers representing Baghdad they are arrayed against to fight.

It is little secret that the US seeks to divide both Syria and Iraq along sectarian lines. US policymakers at think tanks like the Brookings Institution have literally published papers with titles like, “Deconstructing Syria: A new strategy for America’s most hopeless war,” detailing just how such divisions can be cultivated.

Such divisions diminish both nations further in their ability to influence their own destiny, let alone influence the region. With the US attempting to take control of Iraq’s western highways to reinforce a “Sunni” sphere of influence, while it arms, trains and backs Kurds in the north, the three-way partitioning of Iraq is still clearly at the center of US policy. IS, it appears, was merely a catalyst, one intentionally introduced, but one that has almost run its course.

One wonders what “catalyst” the US will turn to next, and seems content for now pretending IS both exists and doesn’t exist. But what there is little doubt of is that Washington and its partners still eagerly seek to move forward their agenda, continuing to weaken the region in an attempt to reassert its control over it.

Ulson Gunnar is a New York-based geopolitical analyst and writer especially for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.  

Featured image is from the author.

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The “Chinese dragon” of the last two decades may be faltering but it is still hailed by many as an economic miracle.

Far from a great advance for Chinese workers, however, it is the direct result of a consolidation of power in the hands of a small clique of powerful families, families that have actively collaborated with Western financial oligarchs.

This is the GRTV Backgrounder on Global Research TV, with James Corbett and Michel Chossudovsky.  

–

In the same week that Secretary of State for Defence, Michael Fallon, told the House of Commons Defence Committee that criticism of the Saudi Arabian regime and its brutal bombardment of Yemen is a hindrance to arms sales, two activists were acquitted for trying to disarm fighter jets bound for Saudi Arabia.

Activist Sam Walton and Rev Daniel Woodhouse have been acquitted after breaking-in to BAE Systems factory to ‘disarm’ Typhoon fighter jets.

BAE’s Typhoon fighter jets are being used by Saudi-led forces in the ongoing bombardment of Yemen. The UK has licensed £3.8 billion worth of arms to Saudi Arabia since the bombing began in March 2015.

This afternoon, Reverend Daniel Woodhouse and Sam Walton, a Quaker activist from London, were found not guilty at Burnley Magistrates Court, following their arrest for trying to disarm Typhoon fighter jets at BAE Systems’ site in Warton, Lancashire on 29 January 2017.

Their aim had been to stop the jets, which had Saudi markings painted on them, from going to Saudi Arabia where, the pair claim, they would be used to support the ongoing bombing of Yemen. Sam and Daniel successfully argued that their intention was to save innocent lives and prevent war crimes, by physically disabling the warplanes.

The two campaigners broke in via a fence on the perimeter of the site, and got within five feet of the warplanes before being stopped by BAE security.

The court heard evidence about the scale of the brutal bombardment, and the many serious accusations of war crimes that have been made against the Royal Saudi Air Force.

In delivering comments on his judgement District Judge James Clarke said:

 “They were impressive and eloquent men who held strong views about what they were doing and what they wanted to achieve. They impressed me as being natural in their delivery and honest throughout their evidence…”

“I heard about their belief of BAE’s role in the supply of aircraft to Saudi Arabia. I heard about their beliefs regarding the events in Yemen, that they include the death of civilians and the destruction of civilian property, and the basis for their belief that this amounted to war crimes…”

“However, having considered in full the defence under sec 5 Criminal Damage Act 1971, I find the defendants not guilty.”

Since the bombing of Yemen began in March 2015, the UK has licensed £3.8 billion worth of arms to Saudi Arabia, including:

• £2.6 billion worth of ML10 licences (Aircraft, helicopters, drones)
• £1.1 billion worth of ML4 licences (Grenades, bombs, missiles, countermeasures)
• £572,000 worth of ML6 licences (Armoured vehicles, tanks)

In a joint statement, Sam and Daniel said:

“We did not want to take this action, but were compelled to do so in order to stop the UK government’s complicity in the destruction of Yemen. Thousands of people have been killed in the brutal bombardment, while companies like BAE Systems have profited every step of the way.

This vindication from the Courts is further evidence of the hypocrisy and moral bankruptcy that underpins so much of UK foreign policy. It is time for the government to stop putting arms company profits ahead of human rights. We do not regret taking action, and would do it again in a heartbeat. The only thing we regret is that we were not able to finish the job.”

Criticism of Saudi Arabia not helpful for arms sales

This week, Secretary of State for Defence Michael Fallon told the House of Commons Defence Committee

“We’ve been working extremely hard on the batch two deal. I’ve traveled to Saudi Arabia back in September and discussed progress on the deal with my opposite number, the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia – and we continued to press for a signature or at least a statement of intent as we’ve done with Qatar. I have to repeat sadly, to this committee, that obviously other criticism of Saudi Arabia, in this Parliament, is not helpful and …I’ll leave it there, but we need to do everything possible to encourage Saudi Arabia towards batch two. I believe they will commit to batch two and we need to work away on the timing.”

Andrew Smith of Campaign Against Arms Trade said:

“These comments from the Secretary of State for Defence are disgraceful. He is calling on other parliamentarians to join him in putting arms sales ahead of human rights, democracy and international humanitarian law.

The Saudi regime has one of the most appalling human rights records in the world, and has inflicted a terrible humanitarian catastrophe on Yemen. Fallon should be doing all he can to stop the bloodshed and end UK complicity in the suffering, not urging his colleagues to willingly ignore the abuses in order to sell even more weapons.

Arms sales to human rights abusing regimes like Saudi Arabia would not be possible without the support of Ministers like Fallon. If the government’s main concern is jobs then it should be shifting that support into more positive areas like renewable energy and low carbon technology, and other industries which are not dependent on war and conflict for profit.”

Ollie McAninch is an economist turned digital media pioneer; developing new systems to allow members of the public to supply their own stories, features, photos and videos to the national press. Ollie has become one of the UK’s leading digital content experts.

All images in this article are from the author.