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Despite the now historical lies exposed in the wake of the devastating US invasion and occupation of Iraq beginning in 2003, the United States has attempted to use similar lies regarding weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) repeatedly as a pretext for similar wars including in neighboring Syria.

The Syrian government – perhaps in an effort to head off another round of accusations, threats, and direct military aggression carried out by the US – is leveling accusations against the United States itself and terrorist organizations it has funded, armed, and backed for the past 6 years of using chemical weapons – primarily to create a pretext for wider war.

Syria’s Deputy Foreign Minister Faisal Mekdad stated at a press conference that the April 2017 Khan Shaykhun, Idlib chemical attack was staged by US-backed militants, including members of the so-called “White Helmets,” a US and European funded front posing as humanitarian workers but who serve as auxiliaries for listed terrorist organizations including Al Qaeda and its various Syrian affiliates.

As the Syrian military retakes territory from foreign-backed militants, munition warehouses and stockpiles, including those used for the production and deployment of chemical weapons for staged attacks, are being systematically uncovered. In them, chemical weapons – both lethal and nonlethal – provided by the United States and its allies are being discovered.

Mekdad would also point out that the use of chemical weapons by foreign-backed militants did not serve any sort of tactical purpose, but was instead being used as a form of blackmail.

While Western-dominated “international” institutions will likely not accept any evidence provided by the Syrian government – the Syrian government’s narrative emerges as a far more logical explanation for the last 6 years of conflict and accusations made regarding chemical weapon use.

Chemical Weapons are Political, Not Tactical 

Despite claims by the Western media made in an attempt to enhance US lies regarding WMDs, chemical weapons are particularly ineffective on the battlefield – with conventional weapons being many times more effective.

This was revealed in detail by a study produced by the United States itself, conducted by the US Marine Corps regarding the devastating Iran-Iraq War fought between 1980-1988 which saw the extensive use of chemical weapons.

It goes without saying that gas masks were a must during the Iran-Iraq war of the mid 80s

The document titled, “Lessons Learned: The Iran-Iraq War” under “Appendix B: Chemical Weapons,” provided a comprehensive look at the all-out chemical warfare that took place during the 8 year conflict. Several engagements are studied in detail, revealing large amounts of chemical agents deployed mainly to create areas of denial.

The effectiveness and lethality of chemical weapons is summarized in the document as follows (emphasis added):

Chemical weapons require quite particular weather and geographic conditions for optimum effectiveness. Given the relative nonpersistence of all agents employed during this war, including mustard, there was only a brief window of employment opportunity both daily and seasonally, when the agents could be used. Even though the Iraqis employed mustard agent in the rainy season and also in the marshes, its effectiveness was significantly reduced under those conditions. As the Iraqis learned to their chagrin, mustard is not a good agent to employ in the mountains, unless you own the high ground and your enemy is in the valleys.

We are uncertain as to the relative effectiveness of nerve agents since those which were employed are by nature much less persistent than mustard. In order to gain killing concentrations of these agents, predawn attacks are best, conducted in areas where the morning breezes are likely to blow away from friendly positions.

Chemical weapons have a low kill ratio. Just as in WWl, during which the ratio of deaths to injured from chemicals was 2-3 percent, that figure appears to be borne out again in this war although reliable data on casualties are very difficult to obtain. We deem it remarkable that the death rate should hold at such a low level even with the introduction of nerve agents. If those rates are correct, as they well may be, this further reinforces the position that we must not think of chemical weapons as “a poor man’s nuclear weapon.” While such weapons have great psychological potential, they are not killers or destroyers on a scale with nuclear or biological weapons.

According the US military’s own conclusions, the use of chemical weapons only enhance conventional warfare, but are not suitable for wiping out large swaths of enemy troops. Conventional weapons are deemed far more suitable for waging modern war.

The effectiveness of chemical weapons is such that the Syrian government could never justify their use, balancing their limited benefits against the knowledge the US was specifically seeking to use their use as a pretext for direct military intervention.

Thus, neither the Syrian government nor the foreign-backed militants it is fighting would benefit from their use in turning the tide of any specific battle, but should the US use chemical weapon deployments as a pretext, could intervene directly against the Syrian government, delivering victory to foreign-backed militants.

In essence, the only beneficiary of chemical weapon use by any side in Syria would be special interests in the US seeking regime change in Damascus.

Not only are outright lies regarding WMDs a known tactic repeatedly abused by the United States government worldwide, it has been caught repeatedly using this tactic in Syria. The number of ambiguous, unsubstantiated, or proven-false accusations made by the United States as it seeks a pretext for wider and more direct military intervention have multiplied over time as US-backed militants are pushed off the battlefield.

US Provocations, Lies, and Chemical Weapons 

Suspicious circumstances and familiar propaganda and diplomatic tactics were used by the US to rush the world to war – first in 2013 when an alleged chemical attack was carried out at the edge of Damascus. The attack followed multiple claims in 2012 by the US that the Syrian government was preparing such an attack, followed by threats of direct military intervention if the Syrian government did so.

This came at a time when it became apparent that quick regime change in Syria similar to that carried out by the US in Libya in 2011 was not possible and that only through direct military intervention would the US be able to topple the Syrian government.

In response, Syria relinquished its chemical weapons under a Russian-brokered deal, confirmed by UN inspectors. Despite this, chemical weapons continued turning up on the battlefield – followed by repeated attempts by the US to expand direct military intervention within Syrian borders each and every time.

No logical explanation has ever been provided by the United States – either by its politicians or its policymakers – as to why the Syrian government would repeatedly use ineffective chemical weapons in battles it was already winning with far more effective conventional weapons – and risk US military intervention.

Conversely, many of these attacks are carried out in areas held by terrorist organizations with direct access to the borders of their foreign sponsors. The more recent April 2017 alleged attack in Khan Shaykhun took place within the Idlib Governorate, directly on the border with NATO-member Turkey who has armed, supplied, and provided direct military support for Al Qaeda and its affiliates since the conflict began in 2011.

Consider the Source

The city of Idlib occupied by radical Islamists

Idlib has been controlled by Al Qaeda for years with even the New York Times and LA Times finally admitting as much.

The New York Times in a piece titled, “In a Syria Refuge, Extremists Exert Greater Control,” would admit:

“Idlib Province is the largest Al Qaeda safe haven since 9/11,” Brett H. McGurk, the United States envoy to the coalition fighting the Islamic State, said last month. “Idlib now is a huge problem.”

The LA Times in a piece titled, “Humanitarian groups fear aid is being diverted to terrorist group after militant takeover of Syrian province,” would reveal that torrents of supplies provided by the US, Europe, and their regional allies are still being poured into a city quite literally occupied by Al Qaeda, stating (emphasis added):

The recent takeover of the Syrian province of Idlib by an extremist organization has created a dilemma for the United States and other countries that send humanitarian aid to civilians and military aid to various rebel factions fighting the Syrian government. 

It has become impossible to provide assistance without inadvertently supporting Al Nusra Front, a former affiliate of Al Qaeda that has been deemed a terrorist group by the U.S. government.

In reality, Al Qaeda’s domination of a region allegedly held by “rebels” provided billions in supplies, weapons, vehicles, training, and even direct military support by the West could only happen if Al Qaeda itself was receiving even more in state sponsorship – or were the recipients of this aid all along.

Both the New York Times and the LA Times in their articles, lace it with language meant to disarm readers from truly understanding the full scope of what the US has done in Syria. Claiming that the Al Nusra Front is a “former affiliate of Al Qaeda,” for instance, is supposed to create in the minds of readers the notion that they are no longer Al Qaeda, or terrorists when they are in fact very much still both.

The LA Times would even go as far as suggesting Al Qaeda’s Al Nusra Front would provide Western-backed organizations with “independence and neutrality.”

The LA Times also claims:

But cutting off the aid could spur a humanitarian disaster among the estimated 2 million civilians who live in Idlib and derail efforts to topple Syrian President Bashar Assad.

Efforts to “topple Syrian President Bashar Assad,” however, can only be done with an armed opposition – and as both the New York Times and LA Times admit, the only armed militants left in Syria are Al Qaeda.

What both newspapers are actually saying is that Al Qaeda has been cornered in Idlib where the US and its allies are still flooding with support, and that support quite literally for Al Qaeda will continue in an effort to topple the Syrian government.

This means that the process of fabricating chemical weapon attacks and using it as a pretext to directly intervene – on behalf of Al Qaeda – will continue as well, either to topple the government outright, or create a safe-haven protected by the US military for Al Qaeda in Idlib.

It is in this context then, that “humanitarian organizations” in Al Qaeda-held Idlib are claiming they are being targeted by chemical weapons allegedly deployed by the Syrian government.

The Syrian government and its allies have all but won the conflict and they have done so using conventional military weapons. They are also attempting in every way to expose these lingering and repetitive lies regarding WMDs wielded by the US, by inviting UN inspection teams to further explore newly liberated Syrian territory and further confirm that the Syrian government did indeed give up its chemical weapons as it agreed to in 2013.

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

All images in this article are from the author.

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

Numerous accusations by Washington and its rogue allies about Syria using chemical weapons were fabricated.

Earlier, Saudi Arabia was caught red-handed supplying terrorists in Syria with Chemical Weapons (CWs). So was Turkey, discovered shipping toxic sarin gas cross-border. Perhaps Jordan and Israel supplied CWs. Both countries support ISIS and other terrorist groups.

Syrian forces never used them at any time throughout years of war. No credible evidence suggests it. Claims made were phony.

On August 6, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said US and UK-made CWs were found in liberated Syrian areas, noting:

“The consequences of the war that has been raging in Syria for many years are now being analyzed and material evidence has started to emerge. It has been mentioned many times at various levels.”

“The fact is that the western states and regional countries have directly or indirectly supplied banned poisonous substances to militants, terrorists and extremists active in Syria” – along with Western weapons and other material support.

Clear evidence shows ISIS, al-Nusra and other terrorist groups were aided by nations:

“claim(ing) their commitment to democratic principles and international law, but in fact, they supply militants with things necessary to continue military activities on the territory of an independent state.”

Information was “handed over to the United Nations and even made public during bilateral talks, particularly between Russia and the United States,” Zakharova explained.

Separately on Facebook, she said

“(h)ere you can see all their commitment to international law and the triumph of democracy. Supplying chemical agents to terrorists and using photos of killed children as a pretext is beyond one’s comprehension.”

On Wednesday, Syrian Deputy Foreign Minister Faisal Mekdad accused Washington and Britain of supplying terrorists in Syria with CWs, explaining evidence was found in liberated areas by government forces.

Munitions filled with toxic agents were discovered – produced by the US Federal Laboratories and NonLethal Technologies, as well as Britain’s Cherming Defence.

Russian lower house State Duma International Affairs Committee Chairman Leonid Slutsky responded to the evidence, saying:

“Syria now has all the reasons and the right to address the United Nations over western-produced chemical weapons found on the territories liberated from terrorists.”

“The information released by the Syrian Foreign Ministry once more demonstrates in full the hypocrisy of the members of the western US-led coalition, and proves that the entire goal of the entire operation is to remove the regime of President Bashar Assad.”

They support the terrorist scourge they claim to oppose, what’s been well known all along, something I stress repeatedly in my articles on Syria.

Washington, NATO, Israel and their rogue allies want endless war and regime change, not peace and stability, notions anathema to their diabolical agenda.

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

Listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network.

Providing the most specific details yet on Israel’s ongoing series of military strikes inside war-torn Syria, Air Force Chief Maj. Gen. Amir Eshel revealed today that Israel has carried out nearly 100 distinct military actions over the last five years specifically related to what they believed were Hezbollah-bound arms convoys.

This comes less than a month after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was caught on an open microphone admitting to “dozens” of strikes in Syria, though obviously this is far greater, because many Israel strikes on Syria clearly were not Hezbollah related.

Indeed, recently reported Israeli strikes in Syria have almost always been the result of stray artillery shells landing in empty territory inside the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, and Israel responding by attacking Syrian military bases in the area.

Maj. Gen. Eshel appeared to offer a hint at this discrepancy, bragging that many of Israel’s strikes had managed to “go under the radar,” and while he insisted Israel acts “irrespective of the risks,” he also appeared quite keen on Israel carrying out such attacks without getting into an overt war over them.

Jason Ditz is news editor of Antiwar.com.

Featured image is from the author.

In between reports about Charlottesville, race war, and Donald Trump, the Western media is also mourning the loss of several members of its terrorist PR brigade known as the White Helmets. Falsely labeled the Syria Civil Defense (the real Syria Civil Defense is a completely different organization), the White Helmets are a documented wing of al-Nusra Front.

Resting assured that its regular readers are unaware of the White Helmets’ Nusra connections, Western corporate press outlets are parading the dead White Helmets as if they are an example of the “war on humanitarian personnel” in Syria which it disingenuously portrays as being the agenda of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

Seven White Helmets members were shot and killed on Saturday by “unknown assailants” in Sarmin, Idlib near the Turkish border. All through rebel-held territory, propaganda vigils were held for the dead White Helmets, with participants carrying signs saying “Save White Helmets” and “The men of civil defense are used to saving civilian lives, but found none to save theirs.”

Raed al-Saleh, head of the White Helmets and notorious terrorist sympathizer, stated that

 “Every one of you has a story with the wounded and you have given your blood to save others. I hold all those who claim leadership responsible. You must uncover the criminals who carried out this heinous crime.”

The White Helmets claimed that the attackers were masked and that they stole two vans from the group.

Interestingly enough, most of the articles in the corporate press insinuate (though never actually claim) through clever sentence structuring that the Assad government is responsible. Of course, if it was true, the Syrian government would not have been killing aid workers but al-Nusra terrorists. This fact has been documented repeatedly in my articles and those of Vanessa Beeley of 21st Century Wire.

Source: 21st Century Wire

What is most notable, however, is that Idlib is terrorist territory and it is also where all the terrorists who have agreed to “population swaps” with the Syrian government have flocked. As a result, it is an area that has a high density of religious fanatics; and we all know religious fanatics cannot play nice with others, particularly other religious fanatics. After all, terrorist groups have been fighting one another in Idlib for quite some time, with battles picking up intensity in recent weeks.

With this in mind, the deaths of the White Helmets terrorists are clearly the work of inter-terrorist squabbling and, since the group is essentially the public relations wing of al-Nusra, one need only look to the groups battling Nusra in Idlib to look for the culprits.

Or, we could simply move on and take comfort in the fact that terrorists killing terrorists reduces the net amount of terrorists as well as the workload on the Syrian military when the battle for Idlib inevitably begins. Personally, I’ll take the latter strategy.

If there was any doubt about the true nature of the White Helmets, I suggest reading my previous articles on the group as well as Vanessa Beeley’s excellent work on the same topic.

Brandon Turbeville – article archive here – is the author of seven books, Codex Alimentarius — The End of Health Freedom, 7 Real Conspiracies, Five Sense Solutions and Dispatches From a Dissident, volume 1 andvolume 2, The Road to Damascus: The Anglo-American Assault on Syria, The Difference it Makes: 36 Reasons Why Hillary Clinton Should Never Be President, and Resisting The Empire: The Plan To Destroy Syria And How The Future Of The World Depends On The Outcome. Turbeville has published over 1000 articles on a wide variety of subjects including health, economics, government corruption, and civil liberties. Brandon Turbeville’s radio show Truth on The Tracks can be found every Monday night 9 pm EST atUCYTV. His website is BrandonTurbeville.com He is available for radio and TV interviews. Please contact activistpost (at) gmail.com.

It has been amusing to watch the New York Times and other mainstream media outlets express their dismay over the rise and spread of “fake news.” These publications take it as an obvious truth that what they provide is straightforward, unbiased, fact-based reporting. They do offer such news, but they also provide a steady flow of their own varied forms of fake news, often by disseminating false or misleading information supplied to them by the national security state, other branches of government, and sites of corporate power.

An important form of mainstream media fake news is that which is presented while suppressing information that calls the preferred news into question. This was the case with “The Lie That Wasn’t Shot Down,” the title of a January 18, 1988, Times editorial referring to a propaganda claim of five years earlier that the editors had swallowed and never looked into any further. The lie—that the Soviets knew that Korean airliner 007, which they shot down on August 31, 1983, was a civilian plane—was eventually uncovered by congressman Lee Hamilton, not by the Times.

Mainstream media fake news is especially likely where a party line is quickly formed on a topic, with any deviations therefore immediately dismissed as naïve, unpatriotic, or simply wrong. In a dramatic illustration, for a book chapter entitled “Worthy and Unworthy Victims,” Noam Chomsky and I showed that coverage by Time, Newsweek, CBS News, and the New York Times of the 1984 murder of the priest Jerzy Popieluzko in Communist Poland, a dramatic and politically useful event for the politicized Western mainstream media, exceeded all their coverage of the murders of a hundred religious figures killed in Latin America by U.S. client states in the post-Second World War years taken together.¹ It was cheap and safe to focus heavily on the “worthy” victim, whereas looking closely at the deaths of those hundred would have required an expensive and sometimes dangerous research effort that would have upset the State Department. But it was in effect a form of fake news to so selectively devote coverage (and indignation) to a politically useful victim, while ignoring large numbers whose murder the political establishment sought to downplay or completely suppress.

Fake news on Russia is a Times tradition that can be traced back at least as far as the 1917 revolution. In a classic study of the paper’s coverage of Russia from February 1917 to March 1920, Walter Lippmann and Charles Merz found that

“From the point of view of professional journalism the reporting of the Russian Revolution is nothing short of a disaster. On the essential questions the net effect was almost always misleading, and misleading news is worse than none at all…. They can fairly be charged with boundless credulity, and an untiring readiness to be gulled, and on many occasions with a downright lack of common sense.”²

Lippmann and Merz found that strong editorial bias clearly fed into news reporting. The editors’ zealous opposition to the communists led the paper to report atrocities that never happened, and to predict the imminent collapse of the Bolshevik regime no fewer than ninety-one times in three years. Journalists uncritically accepted official statements and relied on reports from unidentified “high authority.” This was standard Times practice.

The Soviet delegation arrives at Brest-Litovsk. Lev Trotsky is in the center surrounded by German officers. David King Collection. (The Bolsheviks in Power, p. 152)

This fake news performance of 1917–20 was repeated often in the years that followed. The Soviet Union was an enemy target up to the Second World War, and through it all, Times coverage was consistently hostile. With the end of the war and the emergence of the Soviet Union as a military rival, and soon a competing nuclear power, the Cold War was on. In the United States, anti-communism became a national religion, and the Soviet Union was portrayed in official discourse and the news media as a global menace in urgent need of containment. With this ideology in place and with U.S. plans for its own global expansion of power established, the Communist threat would help sustain the steady growth of the military-industrial complex and repeated interventions to counter purported Soviet aggressions.³

An Early Great Crime: Guatemala

One of the most flagrant cases in which the Soviet threat was exploited to justify U.S.-sponsored violence was the overthrow of the social democratic government of Guatemala in 1954 by a small proxy army invading from U.S. ally Somoza’s Nicaragua. This action was provoked by government reforms that upset U.S. officials, including a 1947 law permitting the formation of labor unions, and plans to buy back (at tax-rate valuations) and distribute to landless peasants some of the unused property owned by United Fruit Company and other large landowners. The United States, which had been perfectly content with the earlier fourteen-year-long dictatorship of Jose Ubico, could not tolerate this democratic challenge, and the elected government, led by Jacobo Arbenz, was soon charged with assorted villainies, based on an alleged Red capture of the Guatemalan government.⁴

In the pre-invasion propaganda campaign, the mainstream media fell into line behind false charges of extreme government repression, threats to its neighbors, and the Communist takeover. The Times repeatedly reported these alleged abuses and threats from 1950 onward (my favorite: Sidney Gruson’s “How Communists Won Control of Guatemala,” March 1, 1953). Arbenz and his predecessor, Juan Jose Arevalo, had carefully avoided establishing any embassies with Soviet bloc countries, fearing U.S. reprisals—to no avail. Following the removal of Arbenz and the installation of a right-wing dictatorship, court historian Ronald Schneider, after studying 50,000 documents seized from Communist sources in Guatemala, found that not only did Communists never control the country, but that the Soviet Union “made no significant or even material investment in the Arbenz regime,” and was at the time too preoccupied with internal problems to concern itself with Central America.⁵

Árbenz, Jorge Toriello (center), and Francisco Arana (right) in 1944. The three men formed the junta that ruled Guatemala from the October Revolution until the election of Arévalo. (Source: Wikimedia Commons)

The coup government quickly attacked and decimated the new social groups that had formed in the democratic era, mainly peasant, worker, and teacher organizations. Arbenz had won 65 percent of the votes in a free election, but the “liberator” Castillo Armas quickly won a “plebiscite” with 99.6 percent of the vote. Although this is a result familiar in totalitarian regimes, the mainstream media had by then lost interest in Guatemala, barely mentioning this electoral outcome. The Times had claimed in 1950 that U.S. Guatemala policy “is not trying to block social and economic progress but is interested in seeing that Guatemala becomes a liberal democracy.”⁶ But in the aftermath, the editors failed to note that the result of U.S. policy was precisely to “block social and economic progress,” through the installation of a regime of reactionary terror.

In 2011, more than half a century after 1954, the Times reported that Guatemalan president Alvaro Colom had apologized for that “Great Crime,” the violent overthrow of the Arbenz government, “an act of aggression to a government starting its democratic spring.”⁷ The article mentions that, according to president Colom, the Arbenz family is “seeking an apology from the United States for its role” in the Great Crime. The Times has never made any apology or even acknowledgement of its own role in the Great Crime.

Another Great Crime: Vietnam

Fake news abounded in the Times and other mainstream publications during the Vietnam War. The common perception that the paper’s editors opposed the war is misleading and essentially false. In Without Fear or Favor, former Times reporter Harrison Salisbury acknowledged that in 1962, when U.S. intervention escalated, the Times was “deeply and consistently” supportive of the war policy.⁸ He contends that the paper grew steadily more oppositional from 1965, culminating in the publication of the Pentagon Papers in 1971. But Salisbury fails to recognize that from 1954 to the present, the Times never abandoned the Cold War framework and vocabulary, according to which the United States was resisting another nation’s “aggression” and protecting “South Vietnam.” The paper never applied the word aggression to this country, but used it freely in referring to North Vietnamese actions and those of the National Liberation Front in the southern half of Vietnam.

The various pauses in the U.S. bombing war in 1965 and after, in the alleged interest of “giving peace a chance,” were also the basis of fake news as the Johnson administration used these temporary halts to quiet antiwar protests, while making it clear to the Vietnamese that U.S. officials demanded full surrender. The Times and its colleagues swallowed this bait without a murmur of dissent.⁹

A US tank convoy during the Vietnam War (Source: Wikimedia Commons)

Furthermore, although from 1965 onward the Times was willing to publish more reports that put the war in a less favorable light, it never broke from its heavy dependence on official sources, or from its reluctance to confront the damage wrought on Vietnam and its civilian population by the U.S. war machine. In contrast with its eager pursuit of Cambodian refugees from the Khmer Rouge after April 1975, the paper rarely sought testimony from the millions of Vietnamese refugees fleeing U.S. bombing and chemical warfare. In its opinion columns as well, the new openness was limited to commentators who accepted the premises of the war and would confine their criticisms to its tactical problems and domestic costs. From beginning to end, those who criticized the war as an immoral campaign of sheer aggression were excluded from the debate.¹⁰

The 1981 Papal Assassination Attempt

The mainstream media gave a further boost to Cold War propaganda in reporting on the attempted assassination of Pope John Paul II in Rome in May 1981. At a time when the Reagan administration was seeking to demonize the Soviet Union as an “evil empire,” the shooting of the pope by Turkish fascist Ali Agca was quickly tied to Moscow, helped by Agca’s confession—after seventeen months of imprisonment, interrogations, threats, inducements, and access to the media—that the Bulgarians and Soviet KGB were behind it all. No credible evidence supported this connection, the claims were implausible, and the corruption in the process was remarkable. (Agca also periodically claimed to be Jesus Christ.) The case against the Bulgarians (and implicitly the KGB) was lost even in Italy’s extremely biased and politicized judicial framework. But the Times bought it, and gave it prolonged, intense, and completely unquestioning attention, as did most of the U.S. media.

Source: Fatima Crusader

During the 1991 Senate hearings on the nomination of Robert Gates to head the CIA, former agency officer Melvin Goodman testified that the CIA knew from the start that Agca’s confessions were false, because they had “very good penetration” of the Bulgarian secret services. The Times omitted this statement in its reporting on Goodman’s testimony. During the same year, with Bulgaria now a member of the “free world,” conservative analyst Allen Weinstein obtained permission to examine Bulgarian secret service files on the assassination attempt. His mission was widely reported, including in the Times, but when he returned without having found anything implicating Bulgaria or the KGB, several papers, including the Times, found his investigations no longer newsworthy.

Missile Gap

From roughly 1975 to 1986, much of the reporting on the purported “missile gap” between the United States and the Soviet Union was little more than fake news, with Times reporters passing along a steady stream of inflammatory official statements and baseless claims. An important case occurred in the mid-1970s, as right-wing hawks in the Ford administration were trying to escalate the Cold War and arms race. A 1975 CIA report had found that the Soviets were aiming only for nuclear parity. This was unsatisfactory, so CIA head George H. W. Bush appointed a new team of hardliners, who soon found that the Soviets were achieving nuclear superiority and preparing to fight a nuclear war. This so-called Team B report was taken at face value in a Times front page article of December 26, 1976, by David Binder, who failed to mention its political bias or purpose, and made no attempt to consult experts with differing views. The CIA finally admitted in 1983 that the Team B estimates were fabrications. But throughout this period, the Times supported the case for militarization by disseminating false information, much of it convincingly refuted by Tom Gervasi in his classic The Myth of Soviet Military Supremacy, a book never reviewed in the Times.

Yugoslavia and “Humanitarian Intervention”

The 1990s wars of dismantlement in Yugoslavia succeeded in removing an independent government from power and replacing it with a broken Serbian remnant and poor and unstable failed states in Bosnia and Kosovo. It also provided unwarranted support for the concept of “humanitarian intervention,” which rested on a mass of misrepresentations and selective reporting. The demonized Serbian leader Slobodan Milošević was not an ultra-nationalist seeking a “Greater Serbia,” but rather a non-aligned leader on the Western hit list who tried to help Serb minorities in Bosnia, Croatia, and Kosovo remain in Yugoslavia as the United States and the European Union supported a legally questionable exodus by several constituent Yugoslav Republics. He supported each of the proposed settlements of these conflicts, which were sabotaged by Bosnian and U.S. officials who wanted better terms or the outright military defeat of Serbia, ultimately achieving the latter. Milošević had nothing to do with the July 1995 Srebrenica massacre, in which Bosnian Serbs took revenge on Bosnian Muslim soldiers who had been ravaging nearby Bosnian Serb villages from their base in Srebrenica under NATO protection. The several thousand Serb civilian deaths were essentially unreported in the mainstream media, while the numbers of Srebrenica’s executed victims were correspondingly inflated.¹¹

The Putin Era

The U.S. political establishment was shocked and delighted by the 1989–91 fall of the Soviet Union, and its members were similarly pleased with the policies of President Boris Yeltsin, a virtual U.S. client, under whose rule ordinary Russians suffered a calamitous fall in living standards, while a small set of oligarchs were able to loot the broken state. Yeltsin’s election victory in 1996, greatly assisted by U.S. consultants, advice, and money, was, for the editors of the Times, “A Victory for Russian Democracy.”¹² They were not bothered by either the electoral corruption, the creation of a grand-larceny-based economic oligarchy, or, shortly thereafter, the new rules centralizing power in the office of president.¹³

Russian President Vladimir Putin (Source: Strategic Culture Foundation)

Yeltsin’s successor, Vladimir Putin, gradually abandoned the former’s subservience to Western interests, and was thereby perceived as a menace. His reelection in 2012, although surely less corrupt than Yeltsin’s in 1996, was castigated in the U.S. media. The lead Times article on May 5, 2012, featured “a slap in the face” from Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe observers, claims of no real competition, and “thousands of anti-government protesters gathered in Moscow square to chant ‘Russia without Putin.’”¹⁴ There had been no “challenges to legitimacy” reported in the Times after Yeltsin’s tainted victory in 1996.

The demonization of Putin escalated with the Ukraine crisis of 2014 and subsequent Kiev warfare in Eastern Ukraine, Russian support of the East Ukraine resistance, and the Crimean referendum and absorption of Crimea by Russia. This was all declared “aggression” by the United States and its allies and clients, and sanctions were imposed on Russia, and a major U.S.-NATO military buildup was initiated on Russia’s borders. Tensions mounted further with the shooting-down of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 over southeastern Ukraine—promptly, but almost surely falsely, blamed on the “pro-Russian” rebels and Russia itself.¹⁵

Anti-Russian hostilities were further inflamed by the country’s escalated intervention in Syria from 2015 on, in support of Bashar al-Assad and against rebel forces that had come to be dominated by ISIS and al-Nusra, an offshoot of al-Qaeda. The United States and its NATO and Middle East allies had been committing aggression against Syria, in de facto alliance with al-Nusra and other extremist Islamic factions, for several years. Russian intervention turned the tide, frustrating the U.S. and Saudi goal of regime change against Assad, and weakening tacit U.S. allies.

The Times has covered these developments with unstinting apologetics—for the February 2014 coup in Kiev—which it has never labeled as such, for the U.S. role in the overthrow of the elected government of Victor Yanukovych, and with anger and horror at the Crimea referendum and Russian absorption, which it never allows might be a defensive response to the Kiev coup. Its calls for punishment for the casualty-free Russian “aggression” in Crimea is in marked contrast to its apologetics for the million-plus casualties caused by U.S. aggression “of choice” (not defensive) in Iraq from March 2003 on. The paper’s editors and columnists condemn Putin’s disregard for international law, while exempting their own country from criticism for its repeated violations of that same law.¹⁶

In the Times‘s reporting and opinion columns Russia is regularly assailed as expansionist and threatening its neighbors, but virtually no mention is made of NATO’s expansion up to the Russian borders and first-strike-threat placement of anti-missile weapons in Eastern Europe—the latter earlier claimed to be in response to a missile threat from Iran! Analyses by political scientist John Mearsheimer and Russia scholar Stephen F. Cohen that noted this NATO advance were excluded from the opinion pages of the Times.¹⁷ In contrast, a member of the Russian band Pussy Riot, Maria Alyokhina, was given op-ed space to denounce Putin and Russia, and the punk rock group was granted a meeting with the Times editorial board.¹⁸Between January 1 and March 31, 2014, the paper ran twenty-three articles featuring Pussy Riot and its alleged significance as a symbol of Russian limits on free speech. Pussy Riot had disrupted a church service in Moscow and only stopped after police intervened, at the request of church authorities. A two-year prison sentence followed. Meanwhile, in February 2014, eighty-four-year-old nun Sister Megan Rice was sentenced to four years in prison for having entered a U.S. nuclear weapons site in July 2012 and carried out a symbolic protest. The Timesgave this news a tiny mention in its National Briefing section, under the title “Tennessee Nun is Sentenced for Peace Protest.” No op-ed columns or meeting with the Times board for Rice. There are worthy and unworthy protesters, just as there are victims.

In Syria, with Russian help, Assad’s army and allied militias were able to dislodge the rebels from Aleppo, to the dismay of Washington and the mainstream media. It has been enlightening to see the alarm expressed over civilian casualties in Aleppo, with accompanying photographs of forsaken children and stories of civilian suffering and deprivation. The Times‘s focus on those civilians and children and its indignation at Putin-Assad inhumanity stands in sharp contrast with their virtual silence on massive civilian casualties in Fallujah in 2004 and beyond, and more recently in rebel-held areas of Syria, and in the Iraqi city of Mosul, under U.S. and allied attack.¹⁹ The differential treatment of worthy and unworthy victims has been in full force in coverage of Syria.

A further phase of intensifying Russophobia may be dated from the October 2016 presidential debates, in which Hillary Clinton declared that Donald Trump would be a Putin “puppet” as president, a theme her campaign began to stress. This emphasis only increased after the election, with the help of the media and intelligence services, as the Clinton camp sought to explain their electoral loss, maintain party control, and possibly even have the election results overturned in the courts or electoral college by attributing Trump’s victory to Russian interference.

A major impetus for the Putin connection came with the January 2017 release of a report by the Office of Director of National Intelligence (DNI), Background of Assessing Russian Activities and Intention in Recent US Elections. More than half of this short document is devoted to the Russian-sponsored RT news network, which the report treats as an illegitimate propaganda source. The organization is allegedly part of Russia’s “influence campaign…[that] aspired to help President-elect Trump’s chances of victory when possible by discrediting Secretary Clinton and publicly contrasting her unfavorably to the President-elect.” No semblance of proof is offered that there was any planned “campaign,” rather than an ongoing expression of opinion and news judgments. The same standards used to identify a Russian “influence campaign” could be applied with equal force to U.S. media and Radio Free Europe’s treatment of any Russian election—and of course, the U.S. intervention in the 1996 Russian election was overt, direct, and went far beyond any covert “influence campaign.”

Regarding more direct Russian intervention in the U.S. election, the DNI authors concede the absence of “full supporting evidence,” but in fact provide no supporting evidence at all—only speculative assertions, assumptions, and guesses. “We assess that…Putin ordered an influence campaign in 2015,” they write, designed to defeat Mrs. Clinton, and “to undermine public faith in the U.S. democratic process,” but provide no proof of any such order. The report also contains no evidence that Russia hacked the communications of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) or the emails of Clinton and former Clinton campaign manager John Podesta, or that it gave hacked information to WikiLeaks. Julian Assange and former British diplomat Craig Murray have repeatedly claimed that these sources were leaked by local insiders, not hacked from outside. Veteran intelligence experts William Binney and Ray McGovern likewise contend that the WikiLeaks evidence was leaked, not hacked.²⁰ It is also notable that of the three intelligence agencies who signed the DNI document, the National Security Agency—the agency most likely to have proof of Russian hacking and its transmission to WikiLeaks, as well as of any “orders” from Putin—only expressed “moderate confidence” in its findings.

But as with the Reds ruling Guatemala, the Soviets outpacing U.S. missile capabilities, or the KGB plotting to assassinate the pope, the Times has taken the Russian hacking story as established fact, despite the absence of hard evidence. Times reporter David Sanger refers to the report’s “damning and surprisingly detailed account of Russia’s efforts to undermine the American electoral system,” only to then acknowledge that the published report “contains no information about how the agencies had …come to their conclusions.”²¹ The report itself includes the astonishing statement that “Judgments are not intended to imply that we have proof that shows something to be a fact.” Furthermore, if the report was based on “intercepts of conversations” as well as on hacked computer data, as Sanger and the DNI claim, why has the DNI failed to quote a single conversation showing Putin’s alleged orders and plans?

The Times has never cited or given op-ed space to William Binney, Ray McGovern, or Craig Murray, leading dissident authorities on hacking technology, methodology, and the specifics of the DNC hacks. But room was found for Louise Mensch’s op-ed “What to Ask about Russian Hacking.” Mensch is a notorious conspiracy theorist with no relevant technical background, described by writers Nathan Robinson and Alex Nichols as best-known for “spending most of her time on Twitter issuing frenzied denunciations of imagined armies of online ‘Putinbots,’” making her “one of the least credible people on the internet.”²² But she is published in the Times because, in contrast with the informed and credible Binney and Murray, she follows the party line, taking Russian hacking of the DNC as a premise.

The CIA’s brazen intervention in the electoral process in 2016 and 2017 broke new ground in the agency’s politicization. Former CIA head Michael Morell announced in an August 2016 op-ed in the Times: “I Ran the C.I.A. Now I’m Endorsing Hillary Clinton,” and former CIA boss Michael Hayden published an op-ed in the Washington Post just days before the election, entitled “Former CIA Chief: Trump is Russia’s Useful Fool.” Morell had yet another op-ed in the Times on January 6, now openly assailing the new president. These attacks were unrelievedly insulting to Trump and laudatory to Clinton, even portraying Trump as a traitor; they also made clear that Clinton’s more pugnacious stance toward Syria and Russia was preferable by far to Trump’s leanings toward negotiation and cooperation with Russia.

This was also true of the scandal surrounding former Trump Defense Intelligence nominee Michael Flynn’s telephone call with the Russian ambassador, which may have included a discussion of the incoming administration’s policy actions. The political possibilities of this interaction were quickly grasped by outgoing Obama officials, security personnel, and the mainstream media, with the FBI interrogating Flynn and with widespread expressions of horror at Flynn’s action, which could have allegedly exposed him to Russian blackmail. But such pre-inauguration meetings with Russian diplomats have been a “common practice” according to Jack Matlock, the U.S. ambassador to Russia under Reagan and Bush, and Matlock had personally arranged such a meeting for Jimmy Carter.²³ Obama’s own ambassador to the country, Michael McFaul, admitted visiting Moscow for talks with officials in 2008, even before the election. Daniel Lazare has made a good case not only that the illegality and blackmail threat are implausible, but that the FBI’s interrogation of Flynn reeks of entrapment. “Yet anti-Trump liberals are trying to convince the public that it’s all ‘worse than Watergate.’”²⁴

The political point of the DNI report thus seems to have been, at minimum, to tie the Trump administration’s hands in its dealings with Russia. Some analysts outside the mainstream have argued that we may have been witnessing an incipient spy or palace coup that fell short, but still had the desired effect of weakening the new administration.²⁵ The Times has not offered a word of criticism of this politicization and intervention in the election process by intelligence agencies, and in fact the editors have been working with them and the Democratic Party as a loose-knit team in a distinctly un- and anti-democratic program designed to undermine or reverse the results of the 2016 election, on the pretext of alleged foreign electoral interference.

The Times and the mainstream media in general have also barely mentioned the awkward fact that the allegedly hacked disclosures of the DNC and Clinton and Podesta emails disclosed uncontested facts about real electoral manipulations on behalf of the Clinton campaign, facts that the public had a right to know and that might well have affected the election results. The focus on the evidence-free claims of a Russian hacking intrusion have helped divert attention from the real electoral abuses disclosed by the WikiLeaks material. Here again, official and mainstream media fake news helped bury real news.

Another arrow in the Russophobia quiver was a private intelligence “dossier” compiled by Christopher Steele, a former British intelligence agent working for Orbis Business Intelligence, a private firm hired by the DNC to dig up dirt on Trump. Steele’s first report, delivered in June 2016, made numerous serious accusations against Trump, most notably that Trump had been caught in a sexual escapade in Moscow, that his political advance had been supported by the Kremlin for at least five years, under Putin’s direction, in order to sow discord within the U.S. political establishment and disrupt the Western alliance. This document was based on alleged conversations by Steele with distant (Russian) officials: that is, strictly on hearsay evidence, whose assertions, where verifiable, are sometimes erroneous.²⁶ But it said just what the Democrats, the mainstream media, and the CIA wanted to hear, and intelligence officials accordingly declared the author “credible,” and the media lapped it up. The Times hedged somewhat on its own cooperation in this tawdry campaign by calling the report “unverified,” but nevertheless reported its claims.²⁷

The Steele dossier also became a central part of the investigation and hearings on “Russia-gate” held by the House Intelligence Committee starting in March 2017, led by Democratic Representative Adam Schiff. While basing his opening statement on the hearsay-laden dossier, Schiff expressed no interest in establishing who funded the Steele effort, the identity and exact status of the Russian officials quoted, or how much they were paid. Apparently talking to Russians with a design of influencing an American presidential election is perfectly acceptable if the candidate supported by this intrusion is anti-Russian!

The Times has played a major role in this latest wave of Russophobia, reminiscent of its 1917–20 performance in which, as Lippmann and Merz noted in 1920, “boundless credulity, and an untiring readiness to be gulled” characterized the news-making process. While quoting the CIA’s admission that it had no hard evidence, relying instead on “circumstantial evidence” and “capabilities,” the Times was happy to describe these capabilities at great length and to imply that they proved something.²⁸ Editorials and news articles have worked uniformly on the false supposition that Russian hacking was proved, and that the Russians had given these data to WikiLeaks, also unproven and strenuously denied by Assange and Murray.

The Times has run neck-and-neck with the Washington Post in stirring up fears of the Russian information war and illicit involvement with Trump. The Times now easily conflates fake news with any criticism of established institutions, as in Mark Scott and Melissa Eddy’s “Europe Combats a New Foe of Political Stability: Fake News,” February 20, 2017.²⁹ But what is more extraordinary is the uniformity with which the paper’s regular columnists accept as a given the CIA’s assessment of the Russian hacking and transmission to WikiLeaks, the possibility or likelihood that Trump is a Putin puppet, and the urgent need of a congressional and “non-partisan” investigation of these claims. This swallowing of a new war-party line has extended widely in the liberal media. Both the Times and Washington Post have lent tacit support to the idea that this “fake news” threat needs to be curbed, possibly by some form of voluntary media-organized censorship or government intervention that would at least expose the fakery.

The most remarkable media episode in this anti-influence-campaign was the Post‘s piece by Craig Timberg, “Russian propaganda effort helped spread ‘fake news’ during election, experts say,” which featured a report by a group of anonymous “experts” entity called PropOrNot that claimed to have identified two hundred websites that, wittingly or not, were “routine peddlers of Russian propaganda.” While smearing these websites, many of them independent news outlets whose only shared trait was their critical stance toward U.S. foreign policy, the “experts” refused to identify themselves, allegedly out of fear of being “targeted by legions of skilled hackers.” As journalist Matt Taibbi wrote, “You want to blacklist hundreds of people, but you won’t put your name to your claims? Take a hike.”³⁰ But the Post welcomed and promoted this McCarthyite effort, which might well be a product of Pentagon or CIA information warfare. (And these entities are themselves well-funded and heavily into the propaganda business.)

On December 23, 2016, President Obama signed the Portman-Murphy Countering Disinformation and Propaganda Act, which will supposedly allow the United States to more effectively combat foreign (namely Russian and Chinese) propaganda and disinformation. It will encourage more government counter-propaganda efforts, and provide funding to non-government entities to help in this enterprise. It is clearly a follow-on to the claims of Russian hacking and propaganda, and shares the spirit of the listing of two hundred tools of Moscow featured in the Washington Post. (Perhaps PropOrNot will qualify for a subsidy and be able to enlarge its list.) Liberals have been quiet on this new threat to freedom of speech, undoubtedly influenced by their fears of Russian-based fake news and propaganda. But they may yet take notice, even if belatedly, when Trump or one of his successors puts it to work on their own notions of fake news and propaganda.

The success of the war party’s campaign to contain or reverse any tendency to ease tensions with Russia was made dramatically clear in the Trump administration’s speedy bombing response to the April 4, 2017, Syrian chemical weapons deaths. The Times and other mainstream media editors and journalists greeted this aggressive move with almost uniform enthusiasm, and once again did not require evidence of Assad’s guilt beyond their government’s claims.³¹ The action was damaging to Assad and Russia, but served the rebels well.

But the mainstream media never ask cui bono? in cases like this. In 2013, a similar charge against Assad, which brought the United States to the brink of a full-scale bombing war in Syria, turned out to be a false flag operation, and some authorities believe the current case is equally problematic.³² Nevertheless, Trump moved quickly (and illegally), dealing a blow to any further rapprochement between the United States and Russia. The CIA, the Pentagon, leading Democrats, and the rest of the war party had won an important skirmish in the struggle over permanent war.

Notes

1. Noam Chomsky and Edward S. Herman,Manufacturing Consent (New York: Pantheon, 2008), chapter 2.

2.Walter Lippmann and Charles Merz,A Test of the News (New York: New Republic, 1920).

3. On the Grand Area framework, see Noam Chomsky, “The New Framework of Order,” inOn Power and Ideology (Boston: South End, 1987).

4. Edward S. Herman, “Returning Guatemala to the Fold,” in Gary Rawnsley, ed.,Cold War Propaganda in the 1950s (London: Macmillan, 1999).

5. Ronald Schneider, Communism in Guatemala, 1944–1954 (New York: Praeger, 1959), 41, 196–97, 294.

6. Editorial Board, “The Guatemala Incident,”New York Times, April 8, 1950.

7. Elisabeth Malkin, “An Apology for a Guatemalan Coup, 57 Years Later,”New York Times, October 11, 2011.

8. Harrison Salisbury, Without Fear or Favor (New York: Times Books, 1980), 486.

9. Richard Du Boff and Edward Herman,America’s Vietnam Policy: The Strategy of Deception (Washington, D.C.: Public Affairs, 1966).

10. See Chomsky and Herman,Manufacturing Consent, chapter 6.

11. Editorial Board, “A Victory for Russian Democracy,”New York Times, July 4, 1996.

12. Edward S. Herman and David Peterson, “The Dismantling of Yugoslavia,”Monthly Review 59, no. 5 (October 2007); Herman and Peterson, “Poor Marlise: Her Old Allies Are Now Attacking the Tribunal and Even Portraying the Serbs as Victims,” ZNet, October 30, 2008, http://zcomm.org.

13. Stephen F. Cohen, Failed Crusade: America and the Tragedy of Post-Communist Russia (New York: Norton, 2000).

14. Ellen Barry and Michael Schwartz, “After Election, Putin Faces Challenges to Legitimacy,”New York Times, March 5, 2012.

15. Robert Parry, “Troubling Gaps in the New MH-17 Report,” Consortium News, September 28, 2016, http://consortiumnews.com.

16. Paul Krugman says, “Mr. Putin is someone who doesn’t worry about little things like international law” (“The Siberian Candidate,”New York Times, July 22, 2016)—implying, falsely, that U.S. leaders do “worry about” such things.

17. A version of Mearsheimer’s article appeared as “Why the Ukraine Crisis Is the West’s Fault,”Foreign Affairs, September 10, 2014. The paper likewise rejected Stephen Cohen’s 2012 article “The Demonization of Putin.”

18. “Sochi Under Siege,”New York Times, February 21, 2014.

19. Michael Kimmelman, “Aleppo’s Faces Beckon to Us, To Little Avail,”New York Times, December 15, 2016. Above this front-page article were four photographs of dead or injured children, the most prominent one in Syria. The accompanying editorial, “Aleppo’s Destroyers: Assad, Putin, Iran,” omits some key actors and killers. See also Rick Sterling, “How US Propaganda Plays in Syrian War,” Consortium News, September 23, 2016.

20. William Binney and Ray McGovern, “The Dubious Case on Russian ‘Hacking,’” Consortium News, January 6, 2017.

21. David Sanger, “Putin Ordered ‘Influence Campaign’ Aimed at U.S. Election, Report Says,”New York Times, January 6, 2017.

22. Nathan J. Robinson and Alex Nichols, “What Constitutes Reasonable Mainstream Opinion,”Current Affairs, March 22, 2017.

23. Jack Matlock, “Contacts with Russian Embassy,” Jack Matlock blog, March 4, 2017, http://jackmatlock.com.

24. Daniel Lazare, “Democrats, Liberals, Catch McCarthyistic Fever,” Consortium News, February 17, 2017.

25. Robert Parry, “A Spy Coup in America?” Consortium News, December 18, 2016; Andre Damon, “Democratic Party Floats Proposal for a Palace Coup,” Information Clearing House,” March 23, 2017, http://informationclearinghouse.info.

26. Robert Parry, “The Sleazy Origins of Russia-gate,” Consortium News, March 29, 2017.

27. Scott Shane et al., “How a Sensational, Unverified Dossier Became a Crisis for Donald Trump,”New York Times, January 11, 2017.

28. Matt Fegenheimer and Scott Shane, “Bipartisan Voices Back U.S. Agencies On Russia Hacking,”New York Times, January 6, 2017; Michael Shear and David Sanger, “Putin Led a Complex Cyberattack Scheme to Aid Trump, Report Finds,”New York Times,January 7, 2017; Andrew Kramer, “How Russia Recruited Elite Hackers for Its Cyberwar,”New York Times, December 30, 2016.

29. Robert Parry, “NYT’s Fake News about Fake News,” Consortium News, February 22, 2017.

30. Matt Taibbi, “The ‘Washington Post’ ‘Blacklist’ Story Is Shameful and Disgusting,”Rolling Stone, November 28, 2016.

31. Adam Johnson, “Out of 47 Media Editorials on Trump’s Syria Strikes, Only One Opposed,” Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, April 11, 2017, http://fair.org.

32. Scott Ritter, “Wag the Dog—How Al Qaeda Played Donald Trump and The American Media,” Huffington Post, April 9, 2017; James Carden, “The Chemical Weapons Attack in Syria: Is There a Place for Skepticism?”Nation, April 11, 2017.

General Paul Selva, the vice-chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, accused Russia of deploying a land-based cruise missile that violated the “spirit and intent” of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF Treaty) and posed a threat to the US European allies. “The system itself presents a risk to most of our facilities in Europe and we believe that the Russians have deliberately deployed it in order to pose a threat to NATO and to facilities within the NATO area of responsibility,” he said during a House armed services committee hearing March 8, 2017.

Gen. Selva did not say if the missile carried a nuclear weapon.

General Paul Selva

It was the first public accusation of the prohibited weapons deployment after The New York Times said earlier this year that Russia had secretly deployed the ground-launched SSC-8 cruise missile. SSC-8 is believed to be a land version of the SS-N-30 3M14 missile complex “Caliber-NK” for the first time used by Russian navy against targets in Syria in 2015.

In 2014, the United States made a similar accusation. The State Department concluded in the control report that Russia was in violation of its obligations under the INF Treaty. Russia accused Washington of conducting “megaphone diplomacy” after the accusation was repeated by the State Department in 2015.

That time Moscow denied it had violated the treaty, which helped end the Cold War. So the Russians did this time. Russia is committed to its obligations under the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, the Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said March 9, 2017.

Hera missile

The accusations from Washington high-ranking officials take place while the Pentagon used Hera missiles with operational range of 684 miles (1,100 kilometers) as targets during missile defense tests since 2002. This fact constitutes blatant violation of the INF Treaty because all these vehicles were to be destructed by 1991 and manufacturing of new ones was prohibited under the terms of the Treaty.

War hawks add fuel to the fire. The Congress is moving to make the Pentagon begin developing medium-range missiles banned by the 1987 nuclear arms agreement, Politico.com announces August 2.

These steps of American legislators along with ongoing North Korean nuclear standoff do not make the world safer. Confrontation between nuclear powers which the INF Treaty abolition will potentially lead to is even the worst scenario.

Goran Lompar is a free journalist and postgraduate at University of Donja Gorica, Montenegro.

All images in this article are from the author.

In an unusually pointed statement on the ongoing fear of a US attack on North Korea, South Korean President Moon Jae-in today gave a speech insisting that he has absolute right to veto any US military action against North Korea, and intends to do so.

Moon declared the decision needed to be made “by ourselves and not by anyone else,” adding that he intends to prevent a war with North Korea “at any cost.” That’s a huge departure from previous reports suggesting South Korea was essentially along for the ride, and was backing whatever Trump would decide, hoping it would eventually end in peace.

Analysts see this as reflective of growing frustration by President Moon, who campaigned on a return to diplomacy with North Korea, but has seen his brief time in office dominated by repeated US threats to destroy North Korea.

Moon’s comments, to those analysts, are an attempt to reassert the traditional balance on the Korean Peninsula, where the US presence is about supporting their South Korean allies, as opposed to South Korea simply being stuck on the North Korean border while the US steams toward a nuclear war.

It’s unclear, however, how well that will be received in the US, as the Trump Administration was already believed not to be thrilled with Moon’s pro-diplomacy bias, and in the past couple of months has re-branded North Korea as a threat to the US mainland, as opposed to a threat to South Korea and Japan.

The timing may be in Moon’s favor, however, as Trump Administration officials appear eager to talk back the notion that a nuclear war is imminent, though both they and North Korea are making it clear they each regard the other side as wholly to blame for the soaring tensions.

Jason Ditz is news editor of Antiwar.com.

Featured image is from the author.

This article reviews the “mysterious” phenomenon of IDs and Passports of terror suspects routinely discovered (often in the rubble) in the wake of a terrorist attack.

In most cases the alleged suspect was known to the authorities.

Is there a pattern?  The ID papers of the suspect are often left behind, discovered by police in the wake of a terrorist attack.

UPDATE: BARCELONA

Reports concerning the Barcelona attack, reveal exactly the same feature of passports and IDs left behind which occurred in Manchester, Paris, Nice, London, New York, and now Barcelona (August 17, 2017) (see below).

A Spanish passport of “a person of Moroccan origin was found at the scene of the attack” according to Britain’s Daily Express.  The Spanish media reports confirm that the suspect is Spanish from the autonomous city of Melilla which has borders with Morocco. Police sources state that his identity is being used in the investigation.

The reports are notoriously contradictory: the latest Telegraph report (18/08/17) suggests that the suspect who was driving the van is 18 years old by the Name of Moussa Oukabir, and that his brother is Driss Oukabir, 28 years old and that it was his brother who rented the vehicle.

Earlier reports by El País  (August 17) stated that the alleged suspect 28-year-old Driss Oukabir, had been arrested by the Police, while El Nacional reported that the suspect:

“presented himself at a Catalan police station in Ripoll to deny having any involvement in this afternoon’s attack. He claims his ID was stolen and used by the terrorists to rent one of the vans used for the attack.

Local sources, confirmed by the town’s mayor, Jordi Munell, have said that the young man, who lives in Ripoll, attended the police station to deny any involvement in the events” (Daily Express, August 17, 2017)

The report below suggests that the passport discovered in the van provided a lead to “the Alcanar house where bombs were being prepared”. Allegedly the passport was found in the van used for the attack in “an accidental explosion that took place on Thursday morning in the town of Tarraconense.  This finding allowed linking the terrorist attack in Barcelona with a wounded in the Alcanar accident”.

Source El Diario 

Michel Chossudosky, August 18, 2017

Text of earlier article published by Global Research on May 17, 2017 in the wake of the Manchester attack

This article reviews the “mysterious” phenomenon of IDs and Passports of terror suspects routinely discovered (often in the rubble) in the wake of a terrorist attack.

In most cases the alleged suspect was known to the authorities.

Is there a pattern?  The ID papers of the suspect are often left behind, discovered by police in the wake of a terrorist attack.

According to government and media reports, the suspects are without exception linked to an Al Qaeda affiliated entity.   

None of these terror suspects survived. Dead men do not talk. 

In the case of the tragic events in Manchester, the bankcard of the alleged suicide bomber Salman Abedi was found in his pocket in the wake of the explosion. 

Legitimacy of the official stories? The UK is both a “victim of terrorism” as well as a “State sponsor of terrorism”. Without exception, the governments of  Western countries which are victims of terror attacks, have supported, directly or indirectly, the Al Qaeda group of terrorist organizations including the Islamic State (ISIS), which are allegedly responsible for waging these terror attacks. Amply documented Al Qaeda is a creation of the CIA. 

Below is a review of the circumstances and evidence pertaining to passports and IDs discovered in the wake of selected terror attacks, with links to Global Research articles and media reports (2001-2017). (This list is by no means exhaustive)

From NYC on 9/11 to Manchester, May 2017

In reverse chronological order

emphasis added

The Manchester Terror Attack,  May 2017.

Manchester Bomb Suspect Said to Have Had Ties to al Qaeda …

NBCNews.com–May 23, 2017 MANCHESTER, England — Salman Abedi, the 22-year-old British man … in a suicide-bomb attack, had ties to al Qaeda and had received terrorist training … was identified by a bank card found in his pocket at the scene of the ...

Manchester Attack as MI6 Blowback?

By Evan Jones, May 26, 2017

No image of the alleged bankcard is available.

Ironically, the suspect Abedi was first identified by Washington rather than UK police and security. How did they know who was the culprit 3 hours after the explosion? According to Graham Vanbergen:

In the early hours of the morning of the 23rd May – approximately 02.35BST   NDTV via the Washington Post stated quite categorically that:

Berlin Truck Terror Attack, December 2016.

The Berlin Truck Terror Suspect and the Curious Matter of ID Papers Left Behind

By WhoWhatWhy, December 22, 2016

The Berlin Truck Terror Suspect and the Curious Matter of ID Papers Left Behind. By WhoWhatWhy. Global Research, December 22, 2016. Who What Why 21 ….:

The Nice Terror Attack: Towards a Permanent State of Martial Law in … the alleged perpetrator is dead and conveniently left behind his ID.

Nice, 14th of July Massacre: Towards Martial Law? The Islamic State (ISIS-Daesh) Claims Responsibility?

By Peter Koenig, July 15, 2016

According to Peter Koenig in relation to the Nice terror attack:

Police found the ID of Said Kouachi at the Scene of the Charlie Hebdo Shooting. Does this Sound Familiar?

By Dr. Paul Craig Roberts, January 10, 2015  

“According to news reports, police found the ID of Said Kouachi at the scene of the Charlie Hebdo shooting. Does this sound familiar? Remember, authorities claimed to have found the undamaged passport of one of the alleged 9/11 hijackers among the massive pulverized ruins of the twin towers.”

Paris Bataclan Terror Attack, November 2015

The Paris Terror Attacks and 911: Similar “Evidence” Makes it Suspicious

By Timothy Alexander Guzman, November 20, 2015 

The Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL) declared that it was responsible for the latest attacks in Paris as did Al-Qaeda who also claimed responsibility for 911. … However, there are similarities between the terror attacks in Paris and New York City on September 11th.

First, Syrian and Egyptian passports from two of the suicide bombers were found at the scene of the stadium attack in the northern part of the city. After both suspected terrorists detonated their explosive devices, their passports were still found.

This brings us back to the September 11th terror attacks where U.S. officials recovered a passport intact a few blocks from t
he World Trade Center which did belong to one of the hijackers,

The 7/7 London Bombings and MI5’s “Stepford Four” Operation: How the 2005 London Bombings Turned every Muslim into a “Terror Suspect”

By Karin Brothers, May 26, 2017

9/11 Terror Attacks: September 11, 2001

Was America Attacked by Muslims on 9/11?

By David Ray Griffin, September 11, 2016

9/11 Truth and the Joint Congressional Inquiry: 28 Pages of Misdirection on the Role of Saudi Arabia

By Dick Atlee and Ken Freeland, September 11, 2015

For years the 9/11 Truth movement (9TM) has been vainly pleading with ….. FBI agent Dan Coleman explains how the passport of 9/11 hijacker …

9/11 Contradictions: Mohamed Atta’s Mitsubishi and His Luggage

By David Ray Griffin, May 09, 2008

9/11 Contradictions: Mohamed Atta’s Mitsubishi and His Luggage … It also contained a Saudi passport, an international driver’s license, …

Confirmed by Dan Rather CBS News, “a passerby found the passport of one of the hijackers” on the street just hours after the 9/11 attacks. (Video at 1′.23″)

According to Who What Why:

The Visa of Satam al-Suqami: This identify document of one of the alleged 9/11 hijackers somehow survived unscathed a few blocks from the twin towers, though the plane itself was virtually obliterated.

Visa belonging to Satam al-Suqami

The Passports belonging to Ziad Jarrah and Saeed al-Ghamdi: The passports of two alleged hijackers of United Airlines Flight 93 supposedly survived the fiery crash in Pennsylvania that left the aircraft itself charred and widely scattered—with one passport entirely intact.

Remains of Ziad Jarrah’s visa.

Passport of Saeed al-Ghamdi

Food for thought?

Can we believe the official narrative of HM government?

No questions asked. Can we believe the Western media?

Venezuela responds to Trump’s threats in a form of a rally that was attended by a huge crowd last Monday, August 14, 2017.

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

The aftermath of 9/11 transformed America into a police state. Obama continued what Bush/Cheney began – cracking down hard on fundamental freedoms, subverting constitutionally protected rights.

Will Charlottesville be used as a pretext for more of the same? Violence last weekend was reprehensible. Responsible parties should be held fully accountable – federal, state and local laws adequate to handle things.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions opened an investigation into possible hate crime charges. Bipartisan leadership in Congress urged hate crime and terrorist charges against James Fields, accused of mowing down counter-demonstrators, causing one death and numerous injuries.

Federal hate crimes legislation was first enacted in 1968 – defined as threatening to use force “to willfully interfere with any person because of race, color, religion, or national origin and because the person is participating in a federally protected activity, such as public education, employment, jury service, travel, or the enjoyment of public accommodations, or helping another person to do so,” according to the Justice Department.

Additional hate crimes legislation followed in 1988, 1996 and 2009 – expanding the federal definition of this crime.

As of mid-July 2016, the Justice Department charged 258 individuals with hate crimes – since 2009 alone.

The so-called Shepard Byrd Act (October 2009) made it a federal crime “to willfully cause bodily injury, or attempt to do so using a dangerous weapon, because of the victim’s actual or perceived race, color, religion, or national origin,” according to the DOJ.

It expanded previous hate crimes legislation. Is further expansion likely post-Charlottesville? Did Fields commit a hate crime and/or terrorism, or was he solely ideologically motivated against anyone opposed to his point of view?

He already faces murder and other charges. No evidence suggests he targeted individuals for their race, religion, national origin or other factors hate crimes legislation specifies.

The 1968 Civil Rights Act criminalizes use of force to injure or intimidate anyone “participating lawfully in speech or peaceful assembly.”

It usually targets voting rights violations, not incidents like Charlottesville, though it’s appropriate using it to press charges against individuals responsible for violence last weekend.

AG Jeff Sessions called the deadly car ramming attack “domestic terrorism,” saying

“we will charge and advance the investigation toward the most serious charges that can be brought…”

So far, Fields is charged with second-degree murder, malicious wounding, and failure to stop at the scene of an accident resulting in a death – under Virginia law.

Will federal hate crime and terrorism charges follow? Will current federal laws be expanded to be harsher?

Will civil liberties suffer another body blow? Will tyranny advance further toward becoming full-blown?

US history is littered with repressive laws – Constitutional protections targeted since the 1798 Alien and Sedition Acts restricted First Amendment freedoms.

Police state harshness defines US policy, civil liberties grievously harmed. Anything goes in the name of national security is OK.

For the first time in US history, Patriot Act provisions created the crime of domestic terrorism. Section 802 applies to anyone allegedly engaged in “dangerous to human life” actions.

US citizens and permanent residents are vulnerable to accusations of violating federal, state, or local laws if they:

intimidate or coerce a civilian population;

influence government policy by intimidation or coercion; and/or

affect government conduct by mass destruction, assassination or kidnapping.

The devil is in the definition. Peaceful demonstrators can be targeted like violent ones. The First Amendment doesn’t discriminate against points of view hostile to government practices.

Academic, media and speech freedoms are fundamental in all free and open societies.

Using Charlottesville or similar violent incidents elsewhere as pretexts to compromise constitutional rights is what tyranny is all about.

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

Listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network.

AFP recently published an article regarding Thailand’s ongoing political conflict, portraying a so-called “student activist” the recent victim of what it calls, “increased ferocity under Thailand’s military rulers.”

The article titled, “Thai student leader pleads guilty to lese majeste,” claims:

A prominent student leader on Tuesday pleaded guilty to defaming Thailand’s royal family by sharing a news story about the kingdom’s new monarch on Facebook, his lawyer said. 

Jatupat “Pai Dao Din” Boonpatararaksa, 25, is the latest anti-junta activist to be hit with the country’s draconian lese majeste law which bans any criticism of the monarchy.

However, the article categorically fails to mention that Jatupat Boonpatararaksa is member of a foreign-backed opposition front aimed at carrying out destructive regime change just as US-European interests have done everywhere from South America and Eastern Europe, to North Africa and the Middle East.

AFP also fails to report that Boonpatararaksa is part of an opposition that has regularly resorted to intimidation, violence, murder and terrorism, with members of the movement most recently carrying out a string of bombings in Bangkok, including one that targeted a hospital.

Boonpatararaksa in particular receives direct aid and assistance from the US, Canadian and various European embassies in Thailand. His family members, since his imprisonment, have received visits from embassy staff, including Second Secretary at the Canadian Embassy in Bangkok, Shawn Friele.

Friele has also lent direct support to other members of this foreign-backed opposition including the US State Department-funded Thai Lawyers for Human Rights. His support included a thank you published on social media implicating foreign support provided by at least five other Western governments.

Thai Lawyers for Human Rights is just one of many foreign-funded fronts posing as “nongovernmental organisations” created and funded by the US State Department to execute US foreign policy objectives within the borders of a sovereign foreign nation.

Upon closer examination of Thailand’s “draconian lese majeste law,” it is clear that only members of this foreign-backed opposition movement are being targeted. Their convictions under the law are by far more lenient than more appropriate convictions for sedition, treason and providing material support for terrorism, convictions or even accusations of which in the West have resulted in extrajudicial executions, indefinite detention without trial and institutionalised torture.

AFP and other US and European media outlets intentionally omit these facts from their reports, creating the same sort of resentment among public perception toward Thailand and its institutions as it has fostered around the globe ahead of other regime change attempts.

While AFP and others attempt to create the perception that people like Boonpatararaksa are independent activists fighting for humanitarian causes, they are in fact foreign agents facilitating destabilisation on behalf of special interests on Wall Street and in Washington and within the capitals of their European allies.

While AFP attempts to defend Boonpatararaksa as a mere activist, it should be noted that simply allegations of similar behaviour levelled against Russia regarding America’s internal political processes have prompted sanctions, diplomatic expulsions, arrests and even threats of war.

Thailand’s jailing of one foreign-backed agitator falls far short of America’s reaction to alleged Russian interference despite the fact that US interference in Thailand is not only obvious, it is documented, even flaunted on the US National Endowment for Democracy’s (NED) own website.

America’s reaction to alleged Russian interference indicates that Washington views foreign interference as intolerable, yet it has mobilised its media resources to denounce nations like Thailand who are confronting and convicting agents of foreign interests engaged in precisely what is clear cut foreign interference. The only real question now is how sustainable American and European hypocrisy is and if their double standards will enable or hinder attempts at destabilising and overthrowing Thailand’s current political order.

As to why the US seeks regime change in Thailand and elsewhere in Southeast Asia, long-stated US foreign policy identifies a rising China as a direct threat to what American policymakers call US “primacy” over Asia. Overthrowing independent political orders all across Southeast Asia and replacing them with complicit client states allows Washington to create a united front with which to encircle and contain Chinese influence, both in the region and globally.

Joseph Thomas is chief editor of Thailand-based geopolitical journal, The New Atlas and contributor to the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

All images in this article are from the author.

Featured image: Eric Toussaint 

Eric Toussaint is co-founder and spokesperson for the Committee for the Abolition of Illegitimate Debt (CADTM), an international network which includes local committees in more than 30 countries and fights to elaborate radical alternatives to illegitimate debt, whether public or private.

Looking back over your career as a militant, we see that you have been active in numerous political and social movements. When did you decide to make the struggle against repayment of debt your main cause?

Quite early on. In 1983, in Liege, my home-town of over 200,000 inhabitants, we had to fight a drastic austerity programme served on the pretext that there was an enormous public debt to be paid off. We carried out a militant audit of the debt, and it was the first time we realized that we could challenge its legitimacy. In 1986, a campaign was launched in Liege to demand that illegitimate debt should not be paid. Moreover in 1982, many Third World countries, as they are dubbed, had already suffered debt crises and our struggle was inspired by the examples of two major international political figures: that of Fidel Castro who in 1985 had called for the creation of a common front of Southern countries against paying off debt, and that of an African leader who followed the same path as Cuba the same year: Thomas Sankara of Burkina Faso. In 1989, my analysis of the situation convinced me of the need to struggle to abolish debt in the North too, even if the South remained the priority. For all these reasons I took part in founding the Committee for the Abolition of Third World Debt in 1990, the CADTM, which changed its name in 2016 to Committee for the Abolition of Illegitimate Debt.

What do you mean by illegitimate debt?

It means any debt which was contracted to serve the particular interests of a privileged minority against the general interest of the population. Minorities, for example, such as the ruling elite or bankers who are responsible for the financial crisis yet have been bailed out. Those bail-outs have triggered an explosion of public debt as was the case in Spain, Portugal, Belgium and other countries a few years ago. Illegitimate debt may also be illegal, in the context of colossal contracts where creditors make abusively huge profits, or when the interest rates or certain conditions of the contract render it null and void in law.

As well as public debt, the CADTM has recently been focusing on another problem. You talk about the effects of private debt: microcredit, mortgages, student loans… How do these types of debt work?

Over the last ten years we have noticed that there has been a general increase in illegitimate private household debt. This is what happened in the USA with the subprimes bubble – mortgages which were granted to people carrying a high risk of non-payment. More than 500,000 abusive mortgage contracts were identified. For some, there was not even the signature of the contracting parties, as they were “agreed” over the telephone and thus without the contract having been read. Because of bankers’ misconduct, nearly 14 million families have been evicted from their homes between 2007 and today in the United States. In Spain, nearly 300,000 families have been evicted. Student debt is another form of the explosion of private illegitimate debt, especially in the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada and Japan. It is surely no coincidence that these are the countries that have undergone extreme neoliberal reforms in the domain of education with budget cuts and the removal of grants, obliging many students to get into debt to pay for their studies. In the United States, two students out of three have an average debt of 27,000 US dollars and in Japan, one in two is indebted to the tune of 30,000 US dollars. Yet another example of expanding illegitimate private debt is microcredit. Since 2005 an international campaign has been under way to sell microcredit. The United Nations declared 2005 “International Year of Microcredit”. The Bengali economist Muhammad Yunus, promoter of microcredit and founder of Grameen Bank, won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006. Presidents like Zapatero of Spain, Lula of Brazil or Chirac of France have given public support to the initiative. It is now clear that it was a trap, another mechanism for reproducing poverty (see this and this).

How does microcredit work?

It generally takes the form of loans of 100 to 300 US dollars. At first, in the case of Grameen Bank (the first one to grant microcredit in Bangladesh), you needed the backing of 5 to 25 people to obtain microcredit. In other words, if the borrower was unable to repay the loan, the guarantors would pay in his or her place. And now, someone asking for a loan of 100 US dollars must make a down-payment of 30 dollars as a guarantee to the bank, and will only be lent 70 dollars net. At the same time, they must pay interest at a rate of between 30 and 50% on the full amount of 100 dollars. If the borrower defaults, the bank keeps the 30 dollars guarantee. This is fraud on a grand scale. At present, in Bangladesh, of the country’s 160 million inhabitants, 20 million use microcredit. When you think about it, it is a sly strategic move on the part of finance capital to extract profit from the 2 billion adults in the world who live without any bank account. At the time of writing, nearly 100 million people use microcredit. For capital, loans of 200 or 300 euros contracted to poor people are chickenfeed, but in the end what counts is making a profit. In the case of microcredit, this is somewhere between 20 and 25% of the investment. Excellent figures for a capitalist.

Before someone asks for microcredit, they must have been having problems…

Of course. There is a world-wide degradation of public services. In many regions, peasants have access to public agricultural credit banks. In the context of World Bank and IMF recommendations, along with the shift to the right of many developing countries, these banks have been replaced by microcredit agencies. With the Green Revolution, peasants get into debt to be able to buy seeds and pesticides from TNC such as Bayer-Monsanto. When the harvest is poor and they cannot repay, they get even deeper into debt. Let us not forget that it is mainly women who take out microcredit loans (81% according to statistics). And finally, they are the ones who suffer the most from poverty.

In some of your articles, you emphasize the strategy of staggered structural adjustment— the application of austerity measures in one sector but not in others, to avoid unification of struggles. The OECD has even endorsed the strategy by publishing a guide telling governments how to apply it. Can it be that capitalism is no longer afraid to show its hand?

So it seems. For years, the World Bank has been regularly publishing a report, Doing Business, which includes a classification of countries where those whose conditions are most favorable for mass lay-offs or who have the worst working-conditions get the most points. It is very important that workers should understand that the employers’ offensive relies on governments’ arguments concerning public debt reduction. The spokespersons for big capital show arrogance of a kind never displayed before Margaret Thatcher came to power. Today they are ever more shameless in expressing their desires and expectations.

The Trans-Atlantic Free Trade Agreement (TAFTA) between the United States and the European Union (also known as the TTIP, Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership) is on hold but the CETA (Comprehensive Economic Trade Agreement between Canada and the European Union) is going ahead and has reached the stage of ratification. Is this an example of the desires and expectations of capitalism?

Yes indeed, and it is a very significant challenge. We have to fight these agreements because once they have been ratified and are added to the other internal agreements and conventions of the EU already in existence, we will lose all our rights. These agreements run counter to the interests of people and common goods.

You sat on the Committee for the Truth on Greek Public Debt in 2015. What did you conclude from the audit?

We advised the Tsipras government to suspend debt payments and to confront the creditors with a unilateral act of debt suspension. However, under pressure from the creditors, Tsipras chose to capitulate, which was quite traumatic for the population. I was staying in a working-class neighbourhood in Athens where the expectations of the people were palpable. They were ready to support a break-away government, as they clearly indicated in the referendum. Despite those results, the Tsipras government wanted to capitulate; they were not ready to make use of the victory of the no-vote in the referendum held on 5 July 2015. The effects of that capitulation on the Greek population can still be felt.

What is wrong with the European Left? Why can’t it manage to connect with the population?

I think they lack the courage to commit to the application of radical policies and to disobey unjust laws and agreements. SYRIZA won the elections by promising to break away from austerity. And in many countries, there is a fairly significant section of the population who are favourable to the political solutions of the radical left. That is how I interpret the good results obtained by Bernie Sanders in the United States, Jeremy Corbyn in the United Kingdom, SYRIZA, Podemos and Jean-Luc Mélenchon. In the latter case, he had only two points less than Marine Le Pen and was thus a hair’s breadth away from being in the second round in the presidential of May 2017. He did that using a radical leftwing discourse which had certain media up in arms. The radical Left has a window of opportunity that was not there ten years ago. If the Left was more offensive, more combative and more radical, we would have every chance of winning elections and above all applying policies that would break away from capitalism and its neoliberal policies.

Are left-wing parties self-limiting?

Definitely. Many leaders and parties of the radical Left, when they see that they have a chance of getting into government, think that they themselves have to limit their programme and they try to adapt their discourse to Realpolitik. There is still an opportunity to get out of the crisis situation and bring about social justice and structural changes that would favour the majority of the population. However if the radical majorities do not seize that opportunity, be sure that the far right will.

You have advised the governments of Correa in Ecuador and Chávez in Venezuela, among others. Do you think that these Latin-American governments have had more political will to confront power?

At the start of their mandates, yes. In the case of Venezuela, during the first ten years under Chávez, very positive measures were taken. It was the same with Evo Morales in Bolivia and Rafael Correa in Ecuador. Then later on, the measures they took were Realpolitik, more moderate and disappointing. The lesson I learn from all this is that, while it is possible to resist and apply breakaway policies in the first years of a mandate, as the three examples show, it is fundamental for the population to self-organize and to put pressure on governments to keep them to the line of profound change. I would like to say that when I advised these governments, |1| I always maintained my independence. I was not paid a cent by any of the States and I never signed any contracts with their ministers or presidents. This is a rule that I never break or bend, in order to preserve my right to total criticism at all times.

In recent years you have advised certain municipalities in the“Open Cities”network in Spain on debt themes. If you were to analyse their dynamics two years after the general election, how would you evaluate the potential of the initiatives?

It all depends how willing the administrations really are to constitute a municipal front against illegitimate debt and austerity. If such a front is constituted, it could take serious actions to disobey the Montoro Law and Article 135 of the Spanish Constitution, and so on (see this and this (in French, Spanish or Portuguese only)). If no action is taken, even if the country has enormous potential, with high hopes and many well-meaning people from all the citizens’ movements, nothing concrete will change. It is not enough for municipalist councils that want change merely to make pleasing declarations and improve transparency of public budgets; unless they unite to fight austerity, they will only bring disappointment and discouragement.

For example, I have not seen many cases of remunicipalization of public services, one of the most important commitments of these bodies. I know it is not easy, but without direct confrontation of the government using the Constitution and the action of a broad front, there will be no progress.

Let us talk now about instruments of struggle against debt and alternatives. One of the mechanisms you put to great use is auditing. How far can it actually bring about change, beyond the desire for transparency?

It has enormous potential because it involves citizens, people who until now had never questioned the legitimacy of debt. The audit leads people to question the legitimacy of actions and policies of their government when they are unjust. Once you have begun to question the logic of indebtedness, you have attained a higher level of awareness. As long as citizens do not control and pressurize their governments, thinking of them as friendly and safe, there will not be any real change. There need to be political forces with the courage and the strength to apply radical policies, but even more importantly, the population needs to be mobilized, critical, ready to revolt when the government does not fulfil its promises. Without those two conditions, there will be no profound structural change.

In your writings, you point out different radical leftwing measures which have to go through State control, such as the nationalization of banks. But do you think a social and solidarity-based economy is an alternative?

It is fundamental for local, solidarity-based initiatives to develop, from creating a local currency to organizing consumer or work cooperatives. But even if you develop a social and solidarity-based economy, it would not be contagious enough to trigger a real change in society. What is also needed is a government ready to take measures, change laws, change the constitution, oppose international agreements and so on. That is why, if we want to move on towards ecological transition, production and distribution of energy must be under our control. By dismantling nuclear or electric power stations, the State would be controlling the energy sector and could transform it into a public service. In the case of banking, there could be a similar process: to confront major banks like HSBC, Barclays, DB or Santander, you would have to confront the dominant banking sector, while at the same time developing ethical banking. These are jobs for a government supported by its people. A social and solidarity-based economy is very important and we must get to grips with it urgently, but not at the expense of the institutional fight for structural change.

Translated from French by Vicki Briault with Christine Pagnoulle

Eric Toussaint (Namur, Belgium, 1954) is co-founder and spokesperson for the Committee for the Abolition of Illegitimate Debt (CADTM), an international network which includes local committees in more than 30 countries and fights to elaborate radical alternatives to illegitimate debt, whether public or private. Eric Toussaint holds a doctorate in Political Science from the Universities of Liège and Paris VIII, and is a member of the Scientific Council of ATTAC France. He has authored about fifteen reference books on debt and the financial crisis, and hundreds of articles on these topics. He has also served as a consultant to the governments of Ecuador, Paraguay, Venezuela and certain Spanish town councils. He was the Scientific Coordinator of the Committee for Truth on Greek Public Debt.

Note

|1| Eric Toussaint was a member of the Integral Auditing Commission for Public Credit of Ecuador (CAIC) set up in 2007 by President Rafael Correa (see http://www.cadtm.org/Video-The-Ecuador-debt-audit-a and http://www.cadtm.org/From-Dashed-Hopes-to-Success-in). The same year, he advised the minister of Finance and the president of Ecuador about founding a Bank of the South (http://www.cadtm.org/The-Bank-of-the-South-a-review-of). In 2008, the Paraguayan president Fernando Lugo called upon his experience to launch a debt audit in his country ( See: http://www.cadtm.org/Paraguay-The-Belgian-who-met-with). In 2008, he also advised the Venezuelan minister of economic Development and Planification (http://www.cadtm.org/Respuestas-del-Sur-a-la-Crisis-de In Spanish only)

In 1951, the US placed nuclear weapons in Guam, and Truman gave the order to use them on North Korea. That order was not sent – literally, by accident.

The reason: Truman was in the process of removing General MacArthur “because he wanted a reliable commander on the scene” in case he “decide[d] to use nuclear weapons”. … “In the confusion attendant upon General MacArthur’s removal”, “the order [to nuke North Korea] was never sent.” (Prof. Bruce Cumings; The Korean War; pp 149)

Yet Washington still managed to kill millions of Koreans, many, if not most, with “oceans” of napalm produced largely by the Dow Chemical Company, which the US air-force “loved”, referring to it as the “wonder weapon” for its ability to wipe out whole cities of people.

One day Pfc. James Ransome, Jr.’s unit suffered a “friendly” hit of this wonder weapon: his men rolled in the snow in agony and begged him to shoot them, as their skin burned to a crisp and peeled back “like fried potato chips.” Reporters saw case after case of civilians drenched in napalm-the whole body “covered with a hard, black crust sprinkled with yellow pus.”

US “intent was to destroy Korean society down to the individual constituent”.

Cities were destroyed, civilians burned to death and blown to bits with zero “tactical or strategic value”. Killing was an “end in itself”.

The US soon began bombing the North’s major dams (which were “akin to many large dams in the United States”) to release hundreds of millions of tons of water and “destroy 250,000 tons of rice that would soon be harvested.”

A stunned anti-Communist reporter noted

‘”Everything which moved in North Korea was a military target, peasants in the fields often were machine gunned by pilots who, this was my impression, amused themselves to shoot the targets which moved.” There were simply “no more cities in North Korea.”’

The US ultimately refrained from using nuclear weapons, Cumings notes, ‘”for purely technical reaons: “timely identification of large masses of enemy troops was extremely rare.”

(ibid. pp 146-150)

Robert J. Barsocchini is a graduate student in American Studies and journalist. Years working as a cross-cultural intermediary for corporations in the film and Television industry sparked his interest in the discrepancy between Western self-image and reality.  ‘No other nation’ has made its past a ‘construct of the imagination’ to the extent done by the US. – Professor David H. Murdoch

Featured image is from the author.

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

The aftermath of 9/11 transformed America into a police state. Obama continued what Bush/Cheney began – cracking down hard on fundamental freedoms, subverting constitutionally protected rights.

Will Charlottesville be used as a pretext for more of the same? Violence last weekend was reprehensible. Responsible parties should be held fully accountable – federal, state and local laws adequate to handle things.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions opened an investigation into possible hate crime charges. Bipartisan leadership in Congress urged hate crime and terrorist charges against James Fields, accused of mowing down counter-demonstrators, causing one death and numerous injuries.

Federal hate crimes legislation was first enacted in 1968 – defined as threatening to use force “to willfully interfere with any person because of race, color, religion, or national origin and because the person is participating in a federally protected activity, such as public education, employment, jury service, travel, or the enjoyment of public accommodations, or helping another person to do so,” according to the Justice Department.

Additional hate crimes legislation followed in 1988, 1996 and 2009 – expanding the federal definition of this crime.

As of mid-July 2016, the Justice Department charged 258 individuals with hate crimes – since 2009 alone.

The so-called Shepard Byrd Act (October 2009) made it a federal crime “to willfully cause bodily injury, or attempt to do so using a dangerous weapon, because of the victim’s actual or perceived race, color, religion, or national origin,” according to the DOJ.

It expanded previous hate crimes legislation. Is further expansion likely post-Charlottesville? Did Fields commit a hate crime and/or terrorism, or was he solely ideologically motivated against anyone opposed to his point of view?

He already faces murder and other charges. No evidence suggests he targeted individuals for their race, religion, national origin or other factors hate crimes legislation specifies.

The 1968 Civil Rights Act criminalizes use of force to injure or intimidate anyone “participating lawfully in speech or peaceful assembly.”

It usually targets voting rights violations, not incidents like Charlottesville, though it’s appropriate using it to press charges against individuals responsible for violence last weekend.

AG Jeff Sessions called the deadly car ramming attack “domestic terrorism,” saying

“we will charge and advance the investigation toward the most serious charges that can be brought…”

So far, Fields is charged with second-degree murder, malicious wounding, and failure to stop at the scene of an accident resulting in a death – under Virginia law.

Will federal hate crime and terrorism charges follow? Will current federal laws be expanded to be harsher?

Will civil liberties suffer another body blow? Will tyranny advance further toward becoming full-blown?

US history is littered with repressive laws – Constitutional protections targeted since the 1798 Alien and Sedition Acts restricted First Amendment freedoms.

Police state harshness defines US policy, civil liberties grievously harmed. Anything goes in the name of national security is OK.

For the first time in US history, Patriot Act provisions created the crime of domestic terrorism. Section 802 applies to anyone allegedly engaged in “dangerous to human life” actions.

US citizens and permanent residents are vulnerable to accusations of violating federal, state, or local laws if they:

• intimidate or coerce a civilian population;
• influence government policy by intimidation or coercion; and/or
• affect government conduct by mass destruction, assassination or kidnapping.

The devil is in the definition. Peaceful demonstrators can be targeted like violent ones. The First Amendment doesn’t discriminate against points of view hostile to government practices.

Academic, media and speech freedoms are fundamental in all free and open societies.

Using Charlottesville or similar violent incidents elsewhere as pretexts to compromise constitutional rights is what tyranny is all about.

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

Listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network.

The Democrats and the media love the Pentagon generals in the White House. They are the “grown ups”:

Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., had words of praise for Donald Trump‘s new pick for national security adviser, Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster — calling the respected military officer a “certified, card-carrying grown-up,”

According to the main-stream narrative the “grown ups” are opposed by “ideologues” around Trump’s senior advisor Steve Bannon. Bannon is even infectious, according to Jeet Heer, as he is Turning Trump Into an Ethno-Nationalist Ideologue. A recent short interview with Bannon dispels that narrative.

Who is really the sane person on, say, North Korea?

The “grown-up” General McMaster, Trump’s National Security Advisor, is not one of them. He claims North Korea is not deterrable from doing something insane.

STEPHANOPOULOS: But your predecessor Susan Rice wrote this week that the U.S. could tolerate nuclear weapons in North Korea the same way we tolerated nuclear weapons in the Soviet Union far more during the Cold War. Is she right?MCMASTER: No, she’s not right. And I think the reason she’s not right is that the classical deterrence theory, how does that apply to a regime like the regime in North Korea? A regime that engages in unspeakable brutality against its own people? A regime that poses a continuous threat to the its neighbors in the region and now may pose a threat, direct threat, to the United States with weapons of mass destruction?

McMaster’s was spewing nonsense. The same was said about the Soviet Union and China when they became nuclear weapons states. North Korea just became one. Conventional deterrence of both sides has worked with North Korea for decades. Nuclear deterrence with North Korea will work just as well as it did with the Soviet and Chinese communists. If North Korea were really not deterrable the U.S. should have nuked it yesterday to minimize the overall risk and damage. It is the McMaster position that is ideological and not rational or “grown up” at all.

Compare that to Steve Bannon’s take on the issue:

“There’s no military solution [to North Korea’s nuclear threats], forget it. Until somebody solves the part of the equation that shows me that ten million people in Seoul don’t die in the first 30 minutes from conventional weapons, I don’t know what you’re talking about, there’s no military solution here, they got us.”

It was indeed the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea which “got” the United States and stopped the U.S. escalation game. It is wrong to think that North Korea “backed off” in the recent upheaval about a missile test targeted next to Guam. It was the U.S. that pulled back from threatening behavior.

Since the end of May the U.S. military trained extensively for decapitation and “preemptive” strikes on North Korea:

Two senior military officials — and two senior retired officers — told NBC News that key to the plan would be a B-1B heavy bomber attack originating from Andersen Air Force Base in Guam.
…
Of the 11 B-1 practice runs since the end of May, four have also involved practice bombing at military ranges in South Korea and Australia.

In response to the B-1B flights North Korea published plans to launch a missile salvo next to the U.S. island of Guam from where those planes started. The announcement included a hidden offer to stop the test if the U.S. would refrain from further B-1B flights. A deal was made during secret negotiations. Since then no more B-1B flights took place and North Korea suspended its Guam test plans. McMaster lost and the sane people, including Steve Bannon, won.

But what about Bannon’s “ethno-nationalist” ideology? Isn’t he responsible for the right-wing nutters of Charlottesville conflict? Isn’t he one of them?

He dismissed the far right as irrelevant and sidestepped his own role in cultivating it: “Ethno-nationalism—it’s losers. It’s a fringe element. I think the media plays it up too much, and we gotta help crush it, you know, uh, help crush it more.”“These guys are a collection of clowns,” he added.

Bannon sees China as an economic enemy and wants to escalate an economic conflict with it. He is said to be against the nuclear deal with Iran. The generals in Trump’s cabinet are all anti-Iran hawks. As Bannon now turns out to be a realist on North Korea, I am not sure what real position on Iran is.

Domestically Bannon is pulling the Democrats into the very trap I had several times warned against:

“The Democrats,” he said, “the longer they talk about identity politics, I got ’em. I want them to talk about racism every day. If the left is focused on race and identity, and we go with economic nationalism, we can crush the Democrats.”

This worked well during the presidential election and might continue to work for Trump. As long as the Democrats do not come up with, and fight for, sane economic polices they will continue to lose elections. The people are not interested in LGBT access to this or that bathroom. They are interested in universal healthcare, in personal and economic security. They are unlikely to get such under Bannon and Trump. But, unlike the Democrats, the current White House crew at least claim to have plans to achieve it.

We must constitute ourselves trustees of this new force–to prevent its misuse, and to turn it into the channels of service to mankind. It is an awful responsibility which has come to us.

We thank God that it [nuclear weapons] has come to us, instead of to our enemies; and we pray that He may guide us to use it [nuclear weapons] in His ways and for His purposes. Harry Truman, August 9, 1945

*   *   *

Like obscene profits from great fraud or theft, “wonder weapons” of mass destruction, to which the atomic bomb certainly belongs, have their origins in the inability and unwillingness to accept the equality and dignity of one’s opponents/ competitors (never mind whether one’s cause/product is legitimate).

The ambivalence of the US position during WWII — the discrepancy which became apparent after 1945 between the stated and unstated policies — allowed and even promoted the mythic justification for US atomic bombing.

When I first moved to Germany more than thirty years ago, I was appalled at the insensitivity — to put it mildly — in US policy with the deployment of the Pershings. Placing new medium-ranged missiles in Germany at that time caused vocal opposition even among those whose anti-communist credentials (no virtue in my book, but for the “alliance” at least acceptable opposition) were undisputed. However, there was no evidence that anyone (in the US) was willing to grasp that the reply to Pershings would not be ICBMs but more probably Soviet medium-ranged delivery vehicles to Germany! The general US response was that Germany should appreciate the “protection” it was getting from the US. The fact that these missiles were a threat to Germany and the Soviet Union but not to the US was simply disregarded (as is the stationing of missiles on Russia’s borders today.)

The US has the largest gratuitous war machine on the planet. Whatever its claims, as the only belligerent in the past century’s two world wars not to suffer any destruction to its national territory (colonies aside), it can safely be said that it is the only country for whom war is exclusively business. As Smedley Butler said, war is a racket!

“Fire and Fury”: Who should be feared more? Macduff or Macbeth?

The recent threats to Korea — addressed to the People’s Democratic Republic of Korea — are ultimately “business” policies. That is why they are so difficult to challenge effectively. Mr Trump is not making statements which originate in any actual threat or the imperative of a response to such. He is driven by policy objectives that simply are not subject to open discussion let alone democratic process (like most business policy).

Bruce Cumings’ detailed study, The Origins of the Korean War, upon which I have repeatedly drawn in previous attempts to explain US regime policy not only in Asia, shows just how difficult it is to ascertain the underlying policies and interests driving US regime behavior when the war against Korea began. One is forced to infer, interpolate, extract conclusions from information the coherence and relevance of which to public policy is never openly admitted. This leaves what little potential for public — democratic — intervention seriously inhibited.

It is of little help to arrive at the legitimate system level analysis and say that it is American capitalism — a particularly virulent strain of that ideology — which drives US belligerence. This does not tell anyone how to stop particular instances of egregious violence.

One point in all this is that the US policy of non-proliferation is so obviously one directed solely at those countries not utterly allied or subservient to it. (Here it is important that the US allies perceived as “white” are allowed to have atomic bombs and delivery vehicles.) But beyond that, the NPT was also an agreement to reduce and eliminate all atomic weapons — an objective with which the US regime has never materially complied — in fact, quite the opposite. Such threats against Korea — conventional bombing capacity notwithstanding — are clearly only possible because the policy of first strike and super atomic superiority (including the enormous profits this earns for those who run the industry) have never been seriously challenged, revised or abandoned.

There is no doubt, in fact, if not in rhetoric, that the US is led by some of the most spiteful people on the planet for whom gratuitous violence is not only foreign policy, but domestic and cultural obsession. “White rage” and its attendant “lynch justice” are firmly entrenched elements of American culture, not just among the elite. Here in Portugal almost every public venue has a television screen. A friend of mine has several cable channels running in his restaurant– mostly fueled with American product. Since I do not have a television and have not had one for almost thirty years I “miss a lot”.

The TV/cable/cinema programming comprises entirely allusions to libertinism (music videos) or high tech mass violence (so-called crime drama and the endless supply of films and series with highly organised state violence, usually against people in the target countries of US policy). The worst we had when I was growing up was re-runs of WWII propaganda films, Aaron Spelling/Jack Webb Los Angeles police soaps and Hoover’s FBI propaganda. Looking back that seems all incredibly harmless.

Who produces this stuff — with the enormous support from DOD et al?

As I just argued albeit tongue in cheek, the atomic power of the President is not as easy to measure as it seems. In fact, the President — whether Truman or Trump — executes policy but does not really make it. Today no serious scholar can deny that Truman’s decision was prepared for his approval. In fact, everything was done to minimize the possibility that he would deny it. I believe we have to see Trump in the same capacity. Truman is formally responsible for the mass murder in Hiroshima and Nagasaki because the law and Constitution assign that responsibility to him and because he lacked the moral fortitude to refuse mass murder, like many before him. But he did not create the weapon or order its creation nor did he start the war in which it was used.

Donald Trump has always had an inflammatory style — even when he was only a NY real estate mogul. That is nothing new. So now he is President his style is not going to change. There is something actually comical about Trump’s appearances. Who remembers Reagan’s off the cuff “joke” about bombing the Soviet Union?¹ These are not accidents. They express the contempt which all Presidents ex officio have for the targets of their atomic bombs. Who now remembers anything George Bush said during their respective terms in office? Every US president has had his style of presenting the wantonly murderous capacity of the US war machine. This is also nothing new.

One has to ask two questions, one historical and the other contemporary.

Historically: It must be asked how and why under the Obama reign the largest increase in the US atomic arsenal since 1989 was performed? Mr Trump came into office with vastly more lethality because of actions taken over the previous eight years approved by his predecessor and the heiress apparent-pretender.

Contemporary: second question is really two. What and above all who is driving this policy? Who or what is their target?²

I believe that there are no countries besides the US and Israel (which are for all intents and purposes one country) that seriously contemplate first strikes with atomic weapons. I also believe that the few sane people in the policy-making venues of the US regime know this — just as George Kennan knew it when he wrote his mendacious “X” article and Dean Acheson knew it too. This leaves us with two simple non-exclusive explanations for the present situation.

Enhancing deniability and lethality

One — the atomic bomb system is a perpetual motion machine for those who own it like DuPont inter alia. There is simply too much money to be made to ever willingly stop producing these weapons that no sane person would ever employ at the strategic level. However, there has been, it would seem, enormous progress in miniaturisation of atomic weapons — including depleted uranium or enhanced radiation — opening the possibility to genuinely “micro-nuke” US competitors.

I am convinced this was already tested against China. The point is that deniable atomic attacks have been on the drawing board for at least twenty years. Hollywood not only propagates fantasy but illustrates the nascent agenda of the national security state. The US generally accuses others of doing what it is, in fact, doing (e.g. brainwashing and germ warfare). So we have been saturated with films and other stories about micronukes in various forms in the hands of criminals (the illegal half of the Business community). Everyone outside the US generally knows more about US policy than the American public and as Cumings indicated in his Korea research the PDRK knew and paid more careful attention to US policy before the US war against Korea started than any reputable people in the US itself. They were not surprised like the average American — who is hermetically isolated from unpleasant reality.

In short, Trump may simply be echoing what has been apparent in the boardrooms of the US regime for the past fifteen years:

We have approached the level of atomic weapons development where we can deliver atomic devastation in ways that only experts will be able to verify. We will be able to graduate the use of our most powerful weapons in such a way that no one will be able to justify retaliation and so this option will disappear.

This is, in fact, the continuation of the policy of limited war — which was so far successful because only those who actually fought, were wounded or died, have any testimony to the fact that the US has been at war without interruption since 1945. So there is first the huge business in atomic weapons which needs targets to justify its existence. Trump is just keeping the public aware of targets so that the business continues unabated.

On one hand there is the imperative to have atomic threats to justify atomic weapons. If the only threats to US “security” came from Serbia or Samoa, this would not be very convincing and it is part of the US system that virtual unanimity for policy must be manufactured. That is about the only way to maintain the appearance of a democracy — aside from annual introduction of a “new” formula of Coca Cola or more massive versions of the terminally mediocre Microsoft products.

On the other hand, the US business elite cannot afford all out war with anyone who has the capacity to defend themselves. (Aside from the fact that the US military is only capable of “winning” aggressive war against the defenseless, like Grenada or Panama.) Yet economic domination of the world has been the number one mission of US policy since 1945. Now China (where there are many US factories) and the alliance with Russia (which under Putin seems to have resisted the continuation of the Kissinger policy of playing China and Russia against each other) can actually challenge US dominion. So the strategic issue is again (!) how to control China but not lose the economic advantages of producing there at high profit to feed US consumers.

Two: Asymetric war — as the new jargon likes to call the GWOT — is not really about the US against little “rogue states” or “state aspirants”. It is the US doctrine of “limited war” revised to include the new generation of micro-atomic weapons. The aim of asymetric war is to wage a tactically brutal assault against a US adversary/competitor which is apparently too small to allow a response that would a) threaten the US, in fact, or b) expose the US as the aggressor. Thus any response by the target would have to be (appear to the international public as) vastly disproportionate. Thus deterrence takes the old meaning from school days. The bully hits when no one is looking and knows that the counterblow comes just when the teacher is watching.

This is the kind of blackmail that all the films from Hollywood show — not because there are some “rogue criminal elements” waiting to act — but because this is the US policy for which the public has to be prepared. Just like they were prepared for the WTC destruction. Most people I know reacted the same as I did to the first images on TV — we thought this was a scene from one of those perennial Hollywood-NY disaster films.

(In fact, it was filmed by crews in place before the event so that all the work was done like Hollywood would have done it in the studio.) We have been watching US policy in preparation for the past twenty years. But for most people — including many from whom one would expect more sense — it was only decided in January of 2017.

Does this offer any options for ending the crisis? Not immediately. It does tell us, however, that Trump is not the crisis. Moreover his removal from office will not alter a policy he did not make. Even the obvious questions like “what about Mr Pence?” are not asked. If the crazies (i.e. those who believe that Trump must go at all costs) were actually to force the dismissal or resignation of Donald Trump, they would then have Mr Pence as President. The administration would not change at all. (Ronald Reagan actually covered the first Bush presidency. Although Alexander Haig may have thought he was president for a few hours– which says more about what actually happens in the White House than anything we read in the organs of the Business Party. The Bush dynasty began in 1980 and has more or less continued to this day.)

It’s the Open Door that lets all the (F)lies in…

It should tell the sane, educated and those with some access to public opinion shaping institutions that the driving force of the atomic industry and those who finance it has grown enormously, not declined and that this industry, not the POTUS, is driving the war machine. So if there are any systemic interventions possible, they must be aimed at closing down the atomic bomb industry entirely. To do this it is necessary to honestly identify the people in that industry, its producing, financing, and beneficiary members natural and corporate. After 1945, certain corporations were dissolved in Germany on the premise that they were criminal conspiracies. Notwithstanding the deception and circumvention — this was public policy. That means there are precedents for dealing not only with natural criminals but with their corporate shells. In fact, the so-called RICO Act is US law. Imagine General Butler defined war as a “racket”. Taking this literally all enterprises engaged in the war “industry” are “racketeers” in the meaning of the act…

Harry Truman

It should also tell those same people that there is something fundamentally wrong with the way Asian policy is made and the policies themselves. Cumings’ book Dominion from Sea to Sea comes very close to stating the problem in its historical essence and showing why it is almost impossible to counter US policy: namely, it enjoys a centuries old consensus among the elite and one manufactured for just about a century now for everyone else. There has been no change in the fundamentals driving it — of which most people are only subliminally aware. Nothing — even on the so-called Left — has been or is being done on a meaningful scale to revise the view of the United States of America as “god’s gift to humanity”. As long as the vast bulk of the US population (and certainly almost all “whites” who also think Jesus God is just like them — even if they do not believe in either) is convinced that they live in God’s country, they can be forgiven for thinking like Harry Truman, that the atomic bomb was god’s gift to them.

In all this lies one very serious core problem — the US is an empire and there are no empires which have voluntarily surrendered their claims to power and expansion.

If my assertion about the state of ordnance and doctrine is correct — and I have every reason to believe it is — then Korea is reacting to knowledge and awareness of this policy by extroverted means. China, on the other hand, is responding introvertedly. They see the difficulty of confronting this enhanced deniability. They also do not want to provide more fuel to inflame the US lynching party. And behind the scenes the instruments of covert power are supporting whatever business objectives may best be served by this enhanced bellicosity.

Of course, I write “it should tell the sane…” If by that one means those who publish the leading organs of official opinion and that which is “fit to print” if in support of same, then there is not much reason to expect a sane response. In these venues it is not the policy which is in dispute but the sociability among the factions. One cannot expect any efforts to reorganize and reorient leading opinion (the rest of opinion does not matter anyway).

So currently the only limitations on US policy and action will come from abroad in the form of challenges that the regime is unable to suppress or where they are unable to prevail. There are indications that China and Russia are, in fact, capable of sustaining such challenges. The US regime may be losing its international diplomacy campaign with Trump — which will probably be the only factor in a potential dismissal. He is obviously trying to counter that with obsequity toward the centres of bureaucratic power — the CIA and the Pentagon (and those who own these two bureaucracies).

It is apparent to anyone outside the US that the regime has no alternative to imperialism — it has cannibalised its entire economy to maintain its “open door” (if necessary by means of a solid kick with a “standard issue”) empire. Even the US cannot live by marketing alone. It has been reduced more or less to its origins, a country ruled by traffickers in drugs, arms, contraband, bonded labour, and stolen goods — whose claim to trade is based on the imposition of the USD. Unfortunately this empire has simply more destructive power (and the nihilism to exercise it) than any previous empire of such longevity. So unless the US regime is disarmed by its population (now it seems pretty much the other way around), we will just have to watch the carnage continue. The Open Door will continue to let the flies in and there will be plenty of dead flesh upon which their larvae will feed.

Dr T.P. Wilkinson writes, teaches History and English, directs theatre and coaches cricket between the cradles of Heine and Saramago. He is also the author of Church Clothes, Land, Mission and the End of Apartheid in South Africa (Maisonneuve Press, 2003). Read other articles by T.P.

This article was originally published by Dissident Voice.

Notes

1. On 11 August 1984, America’s favorite President, Ronald Wilson Reagan, meanwhile the patron saint of the regime (Reagan had been a member of both major electoral machines), celebrated the atomic bombing of Japan 39 years later by suggesting it was time to bomb the Soviet Union.

2. Since it has been argued here on numerous occasions that the CIA — as the global enforcer of the US economic elite, especially in all its trafficking activities — makes much of the regime’s foreign policy, the heightened attention given to the PDRK could be explained by what this author writes.

The Australian journalist affirmed that the United States have found a new Iraq in Venezuela, referring to the illegal, unfounded and multilateral onslaught against the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela.

The renown activist, journalist and founder of Wikileaks, Julian Assange, has expressed himself again on the Venezuelan question through Twitter.

The message was accompanied by a video made by Russia Today network where CIA director Mike Pompeo, admits to being working with the governments of Mexico and Colombia to overthrow the legitimate socialist government in Venezuela, led by Nicolás Maduro.

The video:

In another tweet, Assange denounced that the economic shock created in Venezuela is worse than the Great Depression remembered by Americans or than the crisis in Russia after the fall of the USSR.

Venezuela's economic shock is worse than that felt by the US during the Great Depression and Russia after USSR fall https://t.co/yiwKscaMdc pic.twitter.com/Byhw1w0vL2

— Julian Assange ? (@JulianAssange) August 6, 2017

This information puts into context the massive amount of support received by Chavism during the elections for the National Constituent Assembly.

‘If I had been a survivor from the Nazi Holocaust in Europe after 1945, I would probably have supported the proposition of Israel becoming a limited nuclear power so that the world would know that the ethnic cleansing of millions of Jews could never happen again’.

However, the vast majority of today’s five million American Jews are not Holocaust survivors and have no direct connection to them. Many Americans have never been to Europe and do not even know precisely where London is, never mind Berlin. However, a very substantial minority have succumbed to political pressure to indiscriminately support the Zionist lobby in the U.S. that acts as an agent for a foreign, nuclear power within the United States Congress.

AIPAC (formerly the American Zionist Committee) is a high-powered, multi-financed, multi-faceted, political pressure group working exclusively in the interests of six million Israelis and NOT for the welfare or benefit of 320 million Americans. It not only influences US legislation but raises massive sums of money in order to ensure that the House of Representatives and the Senate are both populated by members who support AIPAC’s political and economic agenda as a priority over that of the United States of America. 

Israel works for Israel and ensures that America does likewise. Furthermore, it also lobbies for American troops to be deployed to fight for the Israeli state against any threat. However, there is an increasing contention, nationally, that believes that AIPAC’s influence and power over the U.S. Congress are wholly disproportionate; are contrary to democratic governance and need to be either prohibited or heavily regulated by law. The first step would appear to be for the current President to have AIPAC designated as an ‘agent for a foreign power’ and, as such, be prohibited from having any influence on the selection, or election, of members of the United States legislature.

In this context, it must be kept in mind that the State of Israel is the only undeclared nuclear weapons entity in the world, with an estimated secret arsenal of up to 400 nuclear warheads – all of which are outside the inspection of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) of the United Nations, which makes it, arguably, the greatest potential threat to global peace in the history of mankind. To which must be added the fact that Israel is one of the only UN member states to refuse to be a party to the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) or the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC).

That means that there could well be another holocaust, but one that could wipe out not just six million of an ethnic minority, but six billion of all of us – from London to Los Angeles; from Beirut to Beijing and everyone in between. That is the horrific, factual position today, in 2017.

The most valuable legacy that any American President could leave would be to make foreign influence over the U.S. Congress both unconstitutional and illegal. An undeclared nuclear Israel, outside the inspection of the IAEA is a grave enough global problem without it being armed and funded by a lobby-controlled Congress that has no mandate, from the people it was elected to represent, to surrender power and law to an unelected minority acting for a foreign state. That is proving to be a direct driver of antisemitism.

Featured image is from The American Conservative

Oliver Stone has said in response to the Charlottesville riots that the problem is not President Donald Trump, but “the system” in America.

The director, whose latest work is a four-hour series of televised interviews with Russian President Vladimir Putin that aired on Showtime in June, did not specifically criticize Trump when asked for his reaction to the weekend’s events in Charlottesville, Va., during which one woman died and several people were injured after a car plowed into non-violent demonstrators.

Speaking Tuesday during a master class at the Sarajevo Film Festival following a screening of his movie Snowden, Stone said he had not been in the U.S. for some time but was following events.

“You are all trying to get to Trump every day, but there is a bigger problem,” the filmmaker said when asked what he thought of President Trump’s initial failure to call out white supremacists in his response to the Charlottesville events.

“There is a system [in America], and that system existed before Trump,” Stone said. “Putin said this is the fourth [U.S.] president where nothing has changed. There is a deep state, a military industrial security state. … It is the system that has to be challenged. [Trump] is part of that system.”

He reiterated:

“It is the system that has to be challenged. That takes work and is never as exciting as talking about some lunatic president.”

Visibly more comfortable taking questions on Snowden, a dramatization of the story of NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, than talking about current events, Stone added that the situation in the U.S. today was scarily close to the kind of world George Orwell wrote about in his futuristic novel 1984.

“1984 is here. We are there. The only thing they have not yet done is to erase history … there are still people who remember things,” he said. “One week it is terrorism [that dominates the headlines], the next week Putin and the next Korea.”

It was, Stone said,

“just like Hate Week in 1984, where the name of the country and the face of the leader changes halfway through a rally. They are doing it now and getting away with it.”

The director said he had been “offered a good amount of money to make a feature” about Putin shortly after his documentary came out, but declined because he is not Russian and does “not understand how they talk to each other; the way they are intimate with each other.”

But Stone added that he had learned a lot from the Russian leader about how the “geopolitical balance” works in the world.

Stone is currently working on a 10-part dramatized TV series about the U.S. military prison in Guantanamo Bay. He said he plans to direct two episodes and supervise a team of writers for the rest of the hour-long installments.

Whether he holds good on it is beside the point. President Donald J. Trump’s great value to US foreign policy is its lack of artifice and sophistication, a bullying force of nature that alters with the next burst of adolescent acne and the breaking of the voice. Even less than the traditional stereotype of the American behaving badly, he is ugliness without a veil, the brute promise without gloss. Truly ghastly, yet in a way, oddly refreshing.

His threats against President Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela were impudent enough to garner resistance from Latin American leaders averse to Washington’s heavily intrusive hand. The result of Trump’s stance has been one of unifying, not dividing, the bloc.

Colombia’s Juan Manuel Santos warned Vice President Mike Pence that,

“The possibility of military intervention shouldn’t even be considered.”

Santos went even further, making the almost daring, if delusionary point that “America is a continent of peace. It is the land of peace.”

The vantage point from analysts in the US is that Maduro has got to go (the default position of Washington tends be interference – the only issue amongst the scalpel holders is how the program might be implemented). This has been the position since he assumed power, enshrining a long held position that Venezuela is perfectly entitled to have any government as long as it sings the lullaby of American empire.

The reality since the 1990s is that the functionaries in Washington have been concerned about the unruly, independent trajectory of Venezuelan politics. The Bolivarian revolution spearheaded by Hugo Chávez between 1999 and 2013, a socialist experiment fuelled by rising oil receipts, sent a lingering titter amongst those in the US political establishment.

The Bush administration was sufficiently stirred by Chávez’s achievements as to seek his ouster in 2002. While denying a direct hand, there was no shying away from the obvious point that “democracy promotion” was the administration’s velvet gloved fist that would be repeatedly used, a pretext to advance business agendas and suitable alternatives to Chavismo.

As Christopher I. Clement, a long time student of US influences (read interference) in Latin American elections explained in 2005, the effort against Chávez was purely self-defeating.

“This targeting of a democratically elected government,” claimed Clement in Latin American Perspectives, “raises serious questions about the objectives and content of US policies toward Latin America.”[1]

Subsequently, WikiLeaks revealed some gold on US intentions in Venezuela with a 2006 State Department cable from then US Ambassador William Brownfield. For the eager Brownfield keen to make use of his position, US strategy towards altering the Venezuelan political landscape would entail five approaches: “strengthen democratic institutions” which had been “systematically dismantled” over the 8 years of Chávez’s rule; “penetrate” the base and “divide Chavismo”; “isolate Chavez” and, predictably enough, protect “vital US business” interests.[2]

The document is awash with calculations and not-so-hidden agendas, the dirty asides suggesting that democracy is only good if it is managed from the outside. The funding of 54 social projects through the USAID Office of Transition Initiatives (OTI) gave the ambassador a cynical chance “to visit poor areas of Venezuela and demonstrate US concern for the Venezuelan people.” This tactic would supposedly divide the Bolivarian efforts, and sow “confusion”.

What the critics have against Trump is his near subnormal forthrightness. He is not interested in the subterfuge of US aid that chips away at a foreign government, the softly softy approach to discrediting an opponent. Rather than undermining the state using the more conventional techniques in the CIA armoury, the dissimulative practices of US Aid, or mere economic punishments through levelled sanctions, he has suggested calling in the marines.

“Threatening military action,” suggests Mark L. Schneider of the America’s program of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, “undermines the strongest Latin American consensus in support of democracy that I have seen since the end of the Pinochet regime.”[3]

But a view such as Schneider’s is merely more of the same recipe, the same formula with different utensils.

US intervention in Venezuela, whatever form it takes, resembles the abusive family member who regularly violates the sanctity and solemnity of others in the inner sanctum. Things were already looking less than peachy in 1841, with the commencement of the Venezuelan Boundary Dispute gave a foretaste of the US stance in the Americas.

While the Venezuelans were perfectly clear where their post-Spanish independence boundaries lay, the British were less than observant, preferring to see Britannia’s own acquisition of British Guiana from the Netherlands as borderless to the west. This contrived amorphousness brought the imperial interests of a global empire into play, a point that piqued Washington’s interest. To that end, the Monroe Doctrine was born, fashioned to prevent, if not repel, European efforts to influence the Americas.

Ironically enough, the resolution of the dispute was taken as the necessary validation of the Monroe Doctrine, which was duly used to sanctify periodic, often murderous acts of intervention by the United States in the affairs of Central and South America. Keeping the meddlesome Europeans out of the Western Hemisphere was simply a prelude to entrenching the US within it: imperialism was bad, but only if practiced by foreigners. Trump has merely joined a large and not so distinguished club.

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

Notes

What is the character of racist right-wing politics today? Is it the crazed white supremacist who plows into an anti-fascist demonstration in Charlottesville, Virginia, or can it also be the assurance by Lindsay Graham that an attack against North Korea would result in thousands of lives lost…. but those lives will be “over there”?

What about the recent unanimous resolution by both Houses of Congress in support of Israel and criticism of the United Nations for its alleged anti-Israeli bias? Would that qualify as racist and right-wing, since it appears that the ongoing suffering of the Palestinians is of no concern? And what about the vote by the U.S. House of Representatives to go even beyond the obscene proposal of the Trump administration to increase the military budget by $54 billion dollars and instead add a whopping $74 billion to the Pentagon budget?

What I find interesting about the current discussion around what many are referring to as the emboldening of the radical white supremacist right is how easy it is to mobilize opposition against the crude and overt white supremacists we saw in Charlottesville. So easy, in fact, that it’s really a distraction from the more difficult and dangerous work that needs to be done to confront the real right-wing power brokers.

The white supremacy that some of us see as more insidious is not reflected in the simple, stereotypical images of the angry, Nazi-saluting alt-righter or even Donald Trump. Instead, it is the normalized and thus invisible white supremacist ideology inculcated into cultural and educational institutions and the policies that stem from those ideas. That process doesn’t just produce the storm troopers of the armed and crazed radical right but also such covert true believers as Robert Ruben from Goldman Sachs, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, Tony Blair and Nancy Pelosi — “decent” individuals who have never questioned for a moment the superiority of Western civilization, who believe completely in the White West’s right and responsibility to determine which nations should have sovereignty and who should be the leaders of “lesser” nations. And who believe that there is no alternative to the wonders of global capitalism even if it means that billions of human beings are consigned permanently to what Fanon called the “zone of non-being.”

“The political impact of the right gaining power in Ukraine could not be isolated from the growing power of the right elsewhere.”

This is the white supremacy that I am concerned with. And while I recognize the danger of the violent right-wing movement, I am more concerned with the right-wing policies that are being enacted into law and policy by both Democrats and Republicans at every level of government.

More than two years ago I wrote that:

“The brutal repression and dehumanization witnessed across Europe in the 1930s has not found generalized expression in the U.S. and Europe, at least not yet. Nevertheless, large sectors of the U.S. and European left appear to be unable to recognize that the U.S./NATO/EU axis that is committed to maintaining the hegemony of Western capital is resulting in dangerous collaborations with rightist forces both inside and outside of governments.”

The impetus of that article was to critique the inherent danger of the Obama Administration’s cynical manipulation of right-wing elements in Ukraine to overthrow the democratically elected government of Viktor Yanukovych. Not only was it dangerous and predictably disastrous for the Ukrainian people, but because U.S. support for a neo-fascist movement in Ukraine took place within a context in which the political right was gaining legitimacy and strength across Europe. The political impact of the right gaining power in Ukraine could not be isolated from the growing power of the right elsewhere. Which meant that the Obama Admiration’s selfish, short-term objective to undermine Russia in Ukraine had the effect of empowering the right and shifting the balance of forces toward the right throughout Europe.

But because Obama was incorrectly seen as a liberal, he was able to avoid most criticism of his policies in Ukraine, in Europe and domestically. In fact, liberals and the left both in the U.S. and in Europe generally supported his Ukraine policies.

“The U.S. has become a dangerous right-wing society as a result of a steady shift to the right over the past four decades.”

However, playing footsie with right-wing elements in the Ukraine and underestimating the growing power of the right has resulted in powerful and dangerous right-wing movements on both sides of the Atlantic who have effectively exploited endemic white racism and the contradictions of neoliberal capitalist globalization. The ascendancy of Donald Trump cannot be decontextualized from the racial, class and gender politics of this moment here and abroad.

The alt-right that showed up in Charlottesville this past weekend was mimicking the tactics of the frontline neo-fascist soldiers who orchestrated the coup in the Ukraine, yet everyone is saying this is a result of Trump. The objective fact is that the U.S. has become a dangerous right-wing society as a result of a steady shift to the right over the past four decades. The idea that Trump’s election somehow “created” the right cannot be taken seriously and cannot be reduced to the crude expressions of the alt-right.

Source: Black Agenda Report

The structures of white power, that is the structures and institutions that provide the material base for Euro-American white supremacy and its ideological reproduction, should be the focus of radical opposition. But the capitalist order and its institutions — the World Trade Organization, IMF, World Bank, and global Westernized higher education that serves as the material basis for hegemonic white supremacist power – escape critical scrutiny because popular attention is directed against a David Duke and a Donald Trump.

Trump and the alt-right have become useful diversions for white supremacist liberals and leftists who would rather fight against those superficial caricatures of racism than engage in more difficult ideological work involving real self-sacrifice — purging themselves of all racial sentimentality associated with the mythology of the place of white people, white civilization and whiteness in the world in order to pursue a course for justice that will result in the loss of white material privilege.

“The many manifestations of an entrenched right-wing ideology that cannot be conveniently and opportunistically reduced to Trump and the Republicans.”

Looking at white supremacy from this wider-angle lens, it is clear that support for the Israeli state, war on North Korea, mass black and brown incarceration, a grotesque military budget, urban gentrification, the subversion of Venezuela, the state war on black and brown people of all genders, and the war on reproductive rights are among the many manifestations of an entrenched right-wing ideology that cannot be conveniently and opportunistically reduced to Trump and the Republicans.

And when we understand that white supremacy is not just what is in someone’s head but is also a global structure with ongoing, devastating impacts on the people of the world, we will understand better why some of us have said that in order for the world to live, the 525-year-old white supremacist Pan-European, colonial/capitalist patriarchy must die.

Your choice will be clear: Either you join us as gravediggers or you surrender to class and racial privilege and join the cross-class white united front. The alt-right is waiting, and they are taking recruits from the left who are tired of “identity politics.”

Ajamu Baraka was the 2016 candidate for vice president on the Green Party ticket. He is an editor and columnist for the Black Agenda Report and contributing columnist for Counterpunch magazine.  His latest publications include contributions to Killing Trayvons: An Anthology of American Violence (Counterpunch Books, 2014), Imagine: Living in a Socialist USA (HarperCollins, 2014) and Claim No Easy Victories: The Legacy of Amilcar Cabral ( CODESRIA, 2013). He can be reached at www.AjamuBaraka.com

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

It’s unclear if the Trump administration intends war on North Korea or not – madness if initiated.

It’s very clear Washington wants the DPRK stripped of its best way to prevent hostilities – by having a formidable defense. That’s what its nuclear and ballistic missile programs are all about, not as weapons for attacking any nation.

North Korea wants regional peace, not war. It wants its sovereign independence respected. It opposes other countries interfering in its internal affairs. It has international law on its side on this issue.

Pyongyang genuinely fears possible US aggression. It was mercilessly attacked earlier, raping the country, killing millions.

It can happen again – especially given America’s rage for endless wars and wanting all sovereign independent governments replaced by pro-Western subservient ones.

All US post-WW II wars were waged against nations perceived to be weak and easily defeated. North Korea was devastated in the early 1950s, but not conquered or subjugated.

North Vietnam prevailed in its 30-year war against Washington. The Taliban in Afghanistan proved a formidable foe, turning America’s war into a lost cause – even though it continues endlessly. The country is known as a graveyard of empires for good reason.

Pyongyang’s nuclear and ballistic programs give Washington pause about waging war against a nation able to hit back hard, endangering US regional forces and South Korea, possibly Japan.

Its leadership won’t relinquish its formidable weapons – nor should it as long as a belligerent America poses a major threat to the nation’s security and survival.

According to Peking International Studies Professor Jie Dalei,

“(a) nuclear-armed North Korea is not the end of the world…China and the US have been facing a North Korea with nuclear capabilities for some time.”

“China has long stated that denuclearization and peace and stability are its two major policy goals for North Korea. But when the two goals cannot coexist, it’s time to reconsider the strategy.”

Other nations have nuclear weapons, including America, Britain, China, France, India, Israel, Pakistan and Russia.

A nuclear-free world is essential to achieve. Survival depends on it. The existence of these weapons poses a serious risk of their eventual use, perhaps a certainty.

America is the greatest threat to use them preemptively, not North Korea, China or Russia – the least likely nations to use them.

During the Cold War, the notion of mutually assured destruction (MAD) restrained America and Soviet Russia from using these weapons against each other.

Today, bipartisan extremists in Washington risk the unthinkable, believing they can wage nuclear war and win. It’s unclear where Trump stands. If he accepts this notion, we’re all doomed.

War on North Korea would likely involve using them. It would be regionally disastrous. Professor of International Relations Arthur Waldron believes “(t)here’s no such thing as a surgical strike” to eliminate Pyongyang’s nuclear and ballistic missile deterrents.

Everything is bunkered underground. It would be “impossible” to verify a successful campaign. War is not an option. America must diplomatically recognize North Korea, the only acceptable solution, he said.

According to retired Chinese military official Yue Gang,

“(t)here has been a subtle shift in (his country’s) policy towards North Korea.”

“Diplomatically, it has maintained the stated goal of denuclearization, but on the operational level it is slowly accepting and adjusting to this new reality. It is no longer so forceful in pushing for a nuclear-free North Korea.”

He urged a responsible change in US policy – agreeing to a peace treaty, formally ending the 1950s war, replacing the uneasy armistice.

With hawkish neocons infesting Washington, heightened tensions continue. During his Latin America tour, Vice President Pence threatened Pyongyang, saying

“all options (against the country) are on the table.”

“Our hope is that Chile, Brazil, Mexico and Peru will join us in breaking all ties with North Korea.”

He wants all Latin American nations to sever ties, part of America’s isolation strategy.

China and Russia oppose this policy, urging diplomacy over America’s confrontational agenda.

“We can’t support the ideas some (other nations) keep putting forward, which are intended to literally suffocate North Korea,” Sergey Lavrov stressed.

Pence saying America “will simply not permit…North Korea to possess usable nuclear weapons” risks heated rhetoric becoming something much more serious.

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

Listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network.

On Friday, Trump said his administration was considering many measures, “including a possible military option if necessary,” to repair what he referred to as a “dangerous mess” in Venezuela in the wake of the formation of the country’s Constituent Assembly.

Apart from being rejected by the government in Caracas and Venezuela’s opposition coalition, the statement was also rejected by all Latin American countries — not only allies to President Nicolas Maduro such as Cuba, Bolivia, Ecuador and Nicaragua, but even those strongly opposed to Maduro, including Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, Peru and Chile.

During a Wednesday press conference, Guterres said

“it is very clear that Latin America has successfully struggled over the last decades to free itself from both foreign intervention and authoritarianism.”

“This is a lesson that is very important, to make sure that this legacy is safeguarded — and namely in Venezuela, both aspects of it,” he added.

He further called for talks to restart between the government and the opposition as he believed that “only… a political solution based on those negotiations” can resolve the standoff between the two sides.

Guterres also hailed efforts made by international mediators and regional leaders towards restarting talks in the country.

“I’ve been in close contact with all of them,” he added.

The UN chief further criticized Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro over the formation of the all-powerful constitutional assembly.

Pro-government activists perform during a demonstration to support President Nicolas Maduro, in Caracas, on August 14, 2017. (Source: PressTV)

Guterres’ remarks come as the oil-rich but impoverished country has been convulsed by months of deadly protests against the government in Caracas.

Political tensions in Venezuela rose recently after Caracas announced plans to establish a Constituent Assembly to take over the opposition-controlled parliament and rewrite the constitution. The opposition saw the move as an overt attempt by President Maduro to accumulate power.

Protests erupted on the streets, and clashes led to the death of at least 120 people from the two sides.

Originally, you didn’t want to become an economist. How did it come that you changed your plans and digged so deep into economics?

I found economics aesthetic, as beautiful as astronomy. I came to New York expecting to become an orchestra conductor, but I met one of the leading Wall Street economists, who convinced me that economics and finance was beautiful.

I was intrigued by the concept of compound interest. and by the autumnal drain of money from the banking system to move the crops at harvest time. That is when most crashes occurred. The flow of funds was the key.

I saw that there economic cycles were mainly financial: the build-up of debt and its cancellation or wipe-out and bankruptcy occurring again and again throughout history. I wanted to study the rise and fall of financial economies.

But when you studied at the New York University you were not taught the things that really interested you, were you?

I got a PhD as a union card. In order to work on Wall Street, I needed a PhD. But what I found in the textbooks was the opposite of everything that I experienced on Wall Street in the real world. Academic textbooks describe a parallel universe. When I tried to be helpful and pointed out to my professors that the textbooks had little to do with how the economy and Wall Street actually work, that did not help me get good grades. I think I got a C+ in money and banking.

So I scraped by, got a PhD and lived happily ever after in the real world.

So you had to find out on your own… Your first job was at the Savings Banks Trust Company, a trust established by the 127 savings banks that still existed in New York in the 1960s. And you somehow hit the bull’s eye and were set on the right track, right from the start: you’ve been exploring the relationship between money and land. You had an interesting job there. What was it?

Savings banks were much like Germany’s Landesbanks. They take local deposits and lend them out to home buyers. Savings and Loan Associations (S&Ls) did the same thing. They were restricted to lending to real estate, not personal loans or for corporate business loans. (Today, they have all been turned into commercial banks.)

I noticed two dynamics. One is that savings grew exponentially, almost entirely by depositors getting dividends every 3 months. So every three months I found a sudden jump in savings. This savings growth consisted mainly of the interest that accrued. So there was an exponential growth of savings simply by inertia.

The second dynamic was that all this exponential growth in savings was recycled into the real estate market. What has pushed up housing prices in the US is the availability of mortgage credit. In charting the growth of mortgage lending and savings in New York State, I found a recycling of savings into mortgages. That meant an exponential growth in savings to lend to buyers of real estate. So the cause of rising real estate prices wasn’t population or infrastructure. It was simply that properties are worth whatever banks are able and willing to lend against them.

As the banks have more and more money, they have lowered their lending standards.

It’s kind of automatic, it’s just a mathematical law…

Yes, a mathematical law that is independend of the economy. In other words, savings grow whether or not the economy is growing. The interest paid to bondholders, savers and other creditors continues to accrue. That turns out to be the key to understanding why today’s economy is polarizing between creditors and debtors.

You wrote in “Killing the Host” that your graphs looked like Hokusai’s “Great Wave off Konagawa” or even more like a cardiogram. Why?

Any rate of interest has a doubling time. One way or another any interest-bearing debt grows and grows. It usually grows whenever interest is paid. That’s why it looks like a cardiogram: Every three months there’s a jump. So it’s like the Hokusai wave with a zigzag to reflect the timing of interest payments every three months.

The exponential growth of finance capital and interest-bearing debt grows much faster then the rest oft he economy, which tends to taper off in an S-curve. That’s what causes  the business cycle to turn down. It’s not really a cycle, it’s more like a slow buildup like a wave and then a sudden vertical crash downward.

This has been going on for a century. Repeated financial waves build up until the economy becomes so top-heavy with debt that it crashes.  A crash used to occur every 11 years in the 19th century. But in the United States from 1945 to 2008, the exponential upswing was kept artificially long by creating more and more debt financing. So the crash was postponed until 2008.

Most crashes since the 19th century had a silver lining: They wiped out the bad debts. But this time the debts were left in place, leading to a masive wave of foreclosures. We are now suffering from debt deflation. Instead of a recovery, there’s just a flat line for 99% of the economy.

The only layer of the economy that is growing is the wealthiest 5% layer – mainly the Finance, Insurance and Real Estate (FIRE) sector. That is, creditors living of interest and economic rent: monopoly rent, land rent and financial interest. The rest of the economy is slowly but steadily shrinking.

And the compound interest that was accumulated was issued by the banks as new mortgages. Isn’t this only logical for the banks to do?

Savings banks and S&Ls were only allowed to lend for mortgages. Commercial banks now look for the largest parts of the economy as their customers. Despite the fact that most economic textbooks describe industry and manufacturing as being the main part of economy, real estate actually is the largest sector. So most bank lending is against real estate and, after that, oil, gas and mining.

That explains why the banking and financial interests have become the main lobbyists urging that real estate, mining and oil and gas be untaxed – so that there’ll be more economic rent left to pay the banks. Most land rent and natural resource rent is paid out as interest to the banks instead of as taxes to the government.

So instead of housing becoming cheaper and cheaper it turns out to be much less affordable in our days than in the 1960s?

Credit creation has inflated asset prices. The resulting asset-price inflation is the distinguishing financial feature of our time. In a race tot he bottom, banks have steadily lowered the terms on which they make loans. This has made the eocnomy more risky.

In the 1960s, banks required a 25-30% down payment by the buyer, and limited the burden of mortgage debt service to only 25% of the borrower’s income. But interest is now federally guaranteed up to 43% of the home buyer’s income. And by 2008, banks were making loans no down payment at all. Finally, loans in the 1960s were self-amortizing over 30 years. Today we have interest-only loans that are never paid off.

So banks loan much more of the property’s market price. That is why most of the rental value of land isn’t paid to the homeowner or commercial landlord any more. It’s paid to the banks as interest.

Was this the reason for the savings and loan crisis that hit the US in 1986 and that was responsible for the failure of 1,043 out of the 3,234 savings and loan associations in the United States from 1986 to 1995?

The problem with the savings and loan crisis was mainly fraud! The large California S&L’s were run by crooks, topped by Charles Keating. Many were prosecuted for fraud and sent to jail. By the 1980s the financial sector as a whole had become basically a criminalized sector. My colleague Bill Black has documented most of that. He was a prosecutor of the S&L frauds in the 1980s, and wrote a book “The best way to rob a bank is to own one”.

That’s a famous quotation, I also heard that.

Fraud was the main financial problem, and remains so.

Since 2007 Americans were strangled by their mortgages in the sub-prime crisis…

These were essentially junk mortgages, and once again it was fraud. Already in 2004 the FBI said that the American economy was suffering the worst wave of bank fraud in history. Yet there was no prosecution. Essentially in the United States today, financial fraud is de-criminalized. No banker has been sent to jail, despite banks paying hundreds of billions of dollars of fines for financial fraud. These fines are a small portion of what they took illegally. Such payments are merely a cost of doing business. The English language was expanded to recognize junk loans. Before the financial crash the popular press was using the word “junk mortgages” and “Ninjas”: “No Income, No Jobs, no Assets”. So everybody knew that there was fraud, and the bankers knew they would not go to jail, because Wall Street had become the main campaign contributor to the leading politicians, especially in the Democratic party. The Obama Administration came in basically as representatives of the bank fraudsters. And the fraud continues today. The crooks have taken over the banking system. It is hard for Europeans to realize that that this really has happened in America. The banks have turned into gangsters, which is why already in the 1930s President Roosevelt coined the word “banksters”.

I also heard the nice English sayings “Too big to fail” or “Too big to jail”…
But what has become of those 10 million households that ended up losing their homes to foreclosure? How are their economic and living conditions today? What has become of their houses? The economy has recovered…

Most of the houses that were foreclosed on have been bought out by hedge funds for all cash. In the wake of 2008, by 2009 and 2010 hedge funds were saying “If you have $5,000,000 to invest, we’re going to buy these houses that are being sold at distress prices. We’re going to buy foreclosed properties for all cash, because we can make a larger rate of return simply by renting them out.” So there has been a transfer of property from homeowners to the financial sector. The rate of home-ownership in America is dropping.

The economy itself has not recovered. All economic growth since 2008 has accrued only to the top 5% of the economy. 95% of the economy has been shrinking by about 3% per year… and continues to shrink, because the debts were kept in place. President Obama saved the banks and Wall Street instead of saving the economy.

That’s why we live in an “age of deception” as the sub-title of your latest book suggests, I guess?

“People have the idea that when house prices go up, somehow everybody’s getting richer. And it’s true that the entry to the middle class for the last hundred years has been to be able to own your own home…”

What is deceptive is the fact that attention is distracted away from how the real world works, and how unfair it is. Economics textbooks teach that the economy is in equilibrium and is balanced. But every economy in the world is polarizing between creditors and debtors. Wealth is being sucked up to the top of the economic pyramid mainly by bondholders and bankers. The textbooks act as if the economy operates on barter. Nobel prices for Paul Samuelson and his followers treat the economy as what they call the “real economy,” which is a fictitious economy that in theory would work without money or debt. But that isn’t the real economy at all. It is a parallel universe. So the textbooks talk about a parallel universe that might exist logically, but has very little to do with how the real economy works in today’s world.

If you had a picture you’d see me nodding all the time, because that’s what I also found out: if you look at the mathematics, it is polarizing all the time, it is de-stabilizing. Without government interference we’d have crash after crash… It is not under control anymore.

But you also suggest that there’s another factor that makes housing prices go up – and that’s property tax cuts. Why?

“Taxes were shifted off the Donald Trumps of the world and onto homeowners….”

Whatever the tax collector relinquishes leaves more rental income available to be paid to the banks. Commercial real estate investors have a motto: “Rent is for paying interest.” When buyers bid for an office building or a house, the buyer who wins is the one who is able to get the largest bank loan. And that person is the one who pays all the rent to the bank. The reason why commercial investors were willing to do this for so many decades is that they wanted to get the capital gain – which really was the inflation of real estate prices as a result of easier credit. But now that the economy is “loaned up,” prospects for further capital gains are gone. So the prices are not rising much anymore. There is no reason to be borrowing. So the system is imploding.

So, how could we change the situation and make land a public utility?

There are two ways to do this. One way is to fully tax the land’s rental value. Public investment in infrastructure – roads, schools, parks, water and sewer systems – make a location more desirable. A subway line, like the Jubilee tube line in London, increases real estate prices all along the line. The resulting rise in rents increases prices for housing. This rental value could be taxed back by the community to pay for this infrastructure. Roads and subways, water and sewer systems could be financed by re-capturing the rental value of the land that this public investment creates. But that is not done. A free lunch is left in private hands.

The alternative is direct public ownership of the land, which would be leased out to whatever is deemed to be most socially desirable, keeping down the rental cost. In New York City, for instance, restaurants and small businesses are being forced out. They’re closing down because of the rising rents. The character of the economy is changing. It is getting rid of the bookstores, restaurants and low-profit enterprises. Either there should be a land tax, or public ownership of the land. Those are the alternatives. If you tax away the land’s rent, it would not be available to be paid to the banks. You could afford to cut taxes on labor. You could cut the income tax, and you could cut taxes on consumption. That would reduce the cost of living.

To me that’s pretty close to the position of Georgists on how to handle land, isn’t it?

Henry George, American economist (Source: Wikimedia Commons)

I don’t like to mention Henry George, because he didn’t have a theory of land rent or of the role of the financial sector and debt creation. The idea of land tax came originally from the Physiocrats in France, François Quesnay, and then from Adam Smith, John Stuart Mill, and in America from Thorstein Veblen and Simon Patten. All of these economists clarified the analysis of land rent, who ended up with it, and how it should be taxed. In order to have a theory of how much land rent there is to tax, you need a value and price theory. Henry George’s value theory was quite confused. Worst of all, he spent the last two decades of his life fighting against socialists and labor reformers. He was an irascible journalist, not an economist.

The classical economists wrote everything you need to know about land rent and tax policy. That was the emphasis of Adam Smith, John Stuart Mill… all the classical economists. The purpose of their value and price theory was to isolate that part of the economy’s income that was unearned: economic rent, land rent, monopoly rent, and financial interest. I think it is necessary to put the discussion of tax policy and rent policy back in this classical economic context. Henry George was not part of that. He was simply a right-wing journalist whom libertarians use to promote neoliberal Thatcherite deregulation and anti-government ideology. In Germany, his followers were among the first to support the Nazi Party already in the early 1920s, for instance, Adolf Damaschke. Anti-Semitism also marked George’s leading American followers in the 1930s and ’40s.

So I guess I have to go back a bit further in history, to read the original Physiocrats as well…

John Stuart Mill is good, Simon Patten is good, Thorstein Veblen is wonderful. Veblen was writing about the financialization of real estate in the 1920s in his Absentee Ownership. I recently edited a volume on him: Absentee Ownership and its Discontents (ISLET, Dresden, 2016).

Germany’s land tax reform seems to go in the wrong direction. Germany has to establish new rules for it’s “Grundsteuer” that in fact is a mingled tax on land and the buildings standing on it, based on outdated rateable values of 1964 (in the West) and 1935 (in the East). The current reform proposals of the federal states will maintain this improper mingling and intend a revenue neutral reform of this already very low tax. It brings about 11 billion Euro to the municipal authorities, but this is only 2% of the total German tax revenue, whereas wage tax and sales tax make up for 25% each. We need a complete tax shift, don’t we?

Germany is indeed suffering from rising housing prices. I think there are a number of reasons for this. One is that Germans have not had a real estate bubble like what occurred in the US or England. They did lose money in the stock market, and many decided simply to put their money in their own property. There is also a lot of foreign money coming into Germany to buy property, especially in Berlin.

The only way to keep housing prices down is to tax awat the rise in the land value. If this is done, speculators are not going to buy. Only homeowners or commercial users will buy for themselves. You don’t want speculators or bank credit to push up prices. If Germany lets its housing prices rise, it is going to price its labor out of the market. It would lose its competitive advantage, because the largest expense in every wage-earner’s budget is the cost of housing. In Ricardo’s era it was food; today it is housing. So Germany should focus on how to keep its housing  prices low.

I’d like to come back to the issue of interest once more. The English title of “Der Sektor” is “Killing the host – How Financial Parasites and Debt Bondage Destroy the Global Economy”. It’s much more coming to the point. It struck me that you mention John Brown. He wrote a book called “Parasitic wealth or Money Reform” in 1898. I came across his book some years ago and thought that he was somehow America’s Helmut Creutz of the 19th century. He was a supporter of Henry George, but in addition John Brown analyzed and criticized the interest money system and its redistribution of wealth. He said that labour is robbed of 33% of its earnings by the parasitic wealth with subtle and insideous methods, so that it’s not even suspected. Why does almost nobody know this John Brown?

John Brown’s book is interesting. It is somewhat like that of his contemporary Michael Flürscheim. Brown’s book was published by Charles Kerr, a Chicago cooperative that also published Marx’s Capital. So Brown was a part of the group of American reformers who became increasingly became Marxist in the 19^th and early 20^th century. Most of the books published by Kerr discussed finance and the exponential growth of debt.

The economist who wrote most clearly about how debt grew by its own mathematics was Marx in Vol. III of Capital and his Theories of Surplus Value . Most of these monetary writers were associated with Marxists and focused on the tendency of debt and finance to grow exponentially by purely mathematical laws, independently of the economy, not simply as a by-product of the economy as mainstream economics pretends.

So you recommend reading his book?

Sure, it is a good book, although only on one topic. Also good is Michael Flürscheim’s Clue to the Economic Labyrinth (1902). So is Vol. III of Capital.

Brown’s plan of reforms included the nationalization of banks and the establishment of a bank service charge in lieu of interest. The latter sounds remarkably up-to-date. In Germany the banks are raising charges because of the decrease in their interest margins. How is your view on the matter of declining interest rates?

Well, today declining interest rates are the aim of central bank Quantitative Easing. It hasn’t helped. The most important questio nto ask is: what are you going to make your loans for? Most lending at these declining interest rates has been parasitic and predatory. There’s a lot of corporate take-over lending to companies that borrow to buy other companies. There is an enormous amount of stock market credit that has helped bid up stock prices with low-interest credit and arbitrage. This has inflated asset prices for stocks, bonds and real estate. If the result of low interest rates is simply  to inflate asset prices, the only way this can work is to have a heavy tax on capital gains, that is asset price gains. But in the US, England, and other countries there are very low taxes on capital gains, and so low interest rates simply make housing more expensive, and make stocks and buying a flow retirement income (in the form of stocks or bonds that yield dividends and interest) much more expensive.

I guess Brown is getting to the positive aspects of low interest also.

What Brown was talking about were the problems of finance. In the final analysis there is only one ultimate solution: to write down the debts. Nobody really wants to talk about debt cancellation, because they try to find a way to save the system. But it can’t be fixed so that debts can keep growing at compound rates ad infinitum. Any financial system tends to end in a crash. So the key question is how a society is NOT going not to pay debts that go bad. Will it let creditors foreclose, as has occurred in the US? Or are you going to write down the debts and wipe out this overgrowth of creditor claims? That’s the ultimate policy that every society has to face.

Very topical, the German Bundesbank sees the combination of low interest rates and a booming housing market as a dangerous cocktail for the banking sector. “The traffic lights have jumped to yellow or even to dark yellow”, Andreas Dombret said, after the Bundesbank had denied the problem in the last years by dismissing it as Germany’s legitimate catch-up effects. The residential property prices have gone up by 30% since 2010, in the major cities even by more than 60%. The share of real estate loans in the total credit portfolio is significantly rising. The mortgage loans of the households have increased in absolute terms as well as relative to their income. It’s only due to the low interest rates that the debt service has not increased yet. But the banks and savings companies are taking on the risk: the mortgages with terms of more than ten years have risen to more than 40% of the residential real estate loans. The interest-change risks lie with the banks. Don’t we have to face up to the truth that interest rates shouldn’t go up again?

What should be raised are taxes on the land, natural resource rent and monopoly rent. The aim should be to keep housing prices low instead of speculation. Land rent should serve as the tax base, as the classical economists said it should. Adam Smith, John Stuart Mill… all urged that the basis of the tax system should be real-estate and natural resource rent, not income taxes (which add to the cost of labor), the cost of labor and not value-added taxes (which increase consumer prices). So tax policy and debt write-downs today are basically the key to economic survival.

Banking should be a public utility. If you leave banking in the present hands, you’re leaving it in the hands of the kind of crooks that brought about the financial crisis of 2008.

Couldn’t the subprime-crisis have been prevented if the Fed had introduced negative interest rates in the 1990s?   

No. The reason there was the crash was fraud and speculation. It was junk mortgages and the financialization of the economy. Pension funds and people’s savings were turned over to the financial sector, whose policy is short-term. It seeks gains mainly by speculation and asset price inflation. So the problem is the financial system. I think the Boeckler foundation has annual meetings in Berlin that focus on financialization and explain what the problem is.

Yes, that’s a big topic. The financial sector is interested, as you said, in short-term gains, but people who want to save for their retirement are interested in long-term stability – that is contradictory. Do you know the “Natural Economic Order by Free Land and Free Money” by Silvio Gesell?

It is not practical for today’s world, it is very abstract. The solution to the financial problem really has to be ultimately a debt write-down, and a shift to the tax system, as the classical economists talked about.

Gesell was also advocating the taxing of land. I think he had something in mind with bidding for the land, letting the market fix the prices.

He did not go beneath the surface to ask what kind of market do you want. Today, the market for real estate is a financialized market. As I said, the basic principle is that most rent is paid out as interest. The value of real estate is whatever a bank will lend against it. Unless you have a theory of finance and the overall economy, you really don’t have a theory of the market.

You are advocating a revival of classical economics. What did the classical economists understand by a free economy?

They all defined a free economy as one that is free from land rent, free from unearned income. Many also said that a free economy had to be free from private banking. They advocated full taxation of economic rent. Today’s idea of free market economics is the diametric opposite. In an Orwellian doublethink language, a free market now means an economy free for rent extractors, free for predators to make money, and essentially free for financial and corporate crime. The Obama Administration de-criminalized fraud. This has attracted the biggest criminals – and the wealthiest families – to the banking sector, because that’s where the money is. Crooks want to rob banks, and the best way to rob a bank is to own one. So criminals become bankers. You can look at Iceland, at HSBC, or at Citibank and Wells-Fargo in the news today. Their repeated lawbreaking and criminal activities have been shown tob e endemic in the US. But nobody goes to jail. You can steal as much money as you want, and you’ll never go to jail if you’re a banker and pay off the political parties with campaign contribution. It’s much like drug dealers paying off crooked police forces. So crime is pouring into the financial system.

I think this is what’s going to cause a return to classical economics – the realization  that you need government banks. Of course, government banks also can be corrupted, so you need some kind of checks and balances. What you need is an honest legal system. If you don’t have a legal system that throws crooks in jail, your economy is going to be transformed into something unpleasant. That’s what is happening today. I think that most Europeans don’t want to acknowledge that that’s what happened in America (USA). There is such an admiration of America that there is a hesitancy to see that it has been taken over by financial predators (a.k.a. “the market”).

We always hear that oligarchies are in the east, in Russia, but hardly anyone is calling America an oligarchy… although alternative media says that it’s just a few families that rule the country.

Yes.

Michael Hudson is the author of Killing the Host (published in e-format by CounterPunch Books and in print by Islet). His new book is J is For Junk Economics.  He can be reached at [email protected]

Featured image is from Charleston’s TheDigitel | CC BY 2.0.

Picture of General Curtis Scaparrotti : parstoday.com

$10 miliardi per le forze Usa in EuropaL’arte della guerra

Translation : Anoosha Boralessa for Voltaire.org

Amid the decision to bring down the statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee in Charlottesville, Virginia, white supremacists/neo-Nazis held a rally in the city that resulted to bloody violence, killing a female counter-protester and wounding many others.

The neo-Nazis ranting social intolerance and prejudice were faced with a backlash of people chanting for peace. There was, however, violence on both sides, with many opponents of the Alt-Right rally associated with Hillary, the Neocon Democrats and the “Fake Left”. 

How and why is the president eerily silent throughout this internal political violence? Is he downplaying this seemingly urgent conflict while focusing on his business with Venezuela and North Korea? Read our selected articles below.

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Why Were the Police Held Back in Charlottesville?

By Scott Greer, August 16, 2017

When police were ordered to disperse the alt-right rally, that act directed the white nationalists into the antifa demonstrators, leading to further street brawls. Police didn’t seem to try to get in between the two groups or suppress the fights.

Discounting North Korea’s ICBM Capability

By Stephen Lendman, August 16, 2017

Regardless of current or likely more advanced DPRK capability later on, the nation’s history shows it threatens no other nations. Its nuclear and ballistic missile weapons are solely for defense – deterrents against feared US aggression.

Understanding the Charlottesville Chaos

By Alexi McCammond, August 14, 2017

Things took a turn on Saturday, when counter protesters showed up to demonstrate against the white nationalists filling Charlottesville’s streets. Here’s all that went down during the “Unite the Right” rally and what comes next.

Charlottesville Postmortem: This Was Not an Isolated Event, It Was an Extremist Reaction.

By Kevin Jones, August 14, 2017

For the last two years, the media and the anti-Trump masses have mostly remained silent on the political violence coming from the [Neocon] “left”. In fact, it seems as if the institutionalized media has condoned and celebrated the violence and repeatedly have dubbed them “peaceful demonstrations”.

Increasing Tensions on the Korean Peninsula

By Peter Kuznick and Edu Montesanti, August 15, 2017

A negotiated deal is what almost everyone in the world hopes for, but it is unlikely under present circumstances. We all know what such a deal would entail. China has been pushing such a negotiated settlement for years. So has Russia. North Korea has repeatedly indicated it may be ready to accept such a deal. The United States has refused.

What’s Really Happening in #Venezuela – From Someone Who Knows

By Mike Prysner and Skwawkbox, August 14, 2017

The battles with police are actually quite small, but they’re planned, co-ordinated to disrupt different area each day to maximise their impact – but in most places life is pretty normal. It’s all about the portrayal. The US media mobilise everything for guarimbas – there will be maybe 150 people but it’s made to look bigger and tactics are 100% violent– trying to provoke a response.

*     *     *

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Saboteurs are being trained in Ukraine by CIA instructors to be sent to the Crimea and the Donbass Republics. There’s a real ‘pipeline’ of talent at work – one group is sent after the next group. The process can stop only after the change of the Ukrainian Nazi ruling regime – ex-Verkhovna Rada deputy Oleg Tsarev told “PolitNavigator”.

“As long as this power exists in Ukraine, it will pose a threat to Russia, to Russian citizens and will in every possible way provoke a war. If they are afraid to go to open military actions, they will do terrorist acts.

And, proceeding from the fact that the entire branch of work with Russia, the Crimea, the People’s Republic of Lugansk and the People’s Republic of Donetsk is supervised by the guys who work directly for the CIA, it will be so. The mechanism is running, and they will send in group after group.

The groups are of  6-8 people. Many of them were trained in the United States. Such a group is sent to a territory and, if the saboteur is arrested, he can only surrender members of his group, because the groups never meet each other or train together.

Therefore, the threat is really serious, states Tsarev, and must be prepared for.

They have two bases – one under Khmelnitsky, the second one in Kiev, called “Ostrov”, because it is on an island.

It is extremely difficult to detain such saboteurs. The fact that the FSB manages to disrupt acts of sabotage over and over again, this indicates their good work,” Tsarev said.

Translated from Russian by Inessa Sinchougova

A massive rally in support of the Venezuelan president has taken place in Caracas, condemning Donald Trump’s proposal of a “military option” to resolve the country’s issues. Nicolas Maduro announced a nationwide military drill next week to fend off a possible “imperialist” invasion.

The events which led to the 2014 coup in Ukraine are generally blamed on anti-Russia actors, including the United States and EU.

Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov was recently in the EU where he said the following,

“The largely-provoked-from-the-outside Ukrainian crisis has become the direct consequence of such short-sighted policy of Washington and Brussels”.

He continued,

“We hope that Germany and France, as partners within the Normandy format, as well as the US who have a special influence on the Kiev establishment, will use their means to change the situation”.

Lavrov went on to define his hopes for Ukraine stating,

“We want to see Ukraine a stable country, where all minorities, including linguistic, religious and ethnic, live freely and exercise rights provided by international convention”.

It is widely known that the US, EU, and fascist radicals mainly from the former Polish regions of Galicia were in favour of the EU Association Agreement proposed for Ukraine. Ukraine’s President at the time and the last legitimate leader of the country, Viktor Yanukovych decided against the association agreement with Europe, preferring to leave options open which would allow Kiev to continue to do commerce with its traditional partner, Russia.

But beyond Russia, Yanukovych’s Ukraine was also cultivating other partners even further away from the EU. Could this be part of the reason he was illegally overthrown?

The following timeline of events is crucial in understanding how anti-Chinese sentiments among the EU, US and Ukraine’s fascists could have played as much of a role in fomenting the 2014 Ukrainian coup as did those of anti-Russian actors.

October 2013:

The plans for China’s One Belt–One Road initiative, also called Belt & Road or The New Silk Road initiative were officially announced by Chinese officials in September and October of 2013. The announcements were made in part by Chinese Premier Li Keqiang, including during his international visits.

December 2013:

Ukraine’s President Viktor Yanukovych visits China where he met with Chinese President Xi Jinping. During the meetings which were uniquely successful for Ukraine, China agreed to invest $8 billion into the Ukrainian economy.

RT reported the following on 5 December 2013,

‘Ukrainian President Yanukovych left Kiev in search of foreign cash for his country’s near bankrupt economy, and now he says he’s secured $8 billion in investment from China.

The money has made a timely arrival in cash-strapped Ukraine’s hands, as the economy teeters on default and faces debts over $15 billion. Yanukovych is on a three-day planned working trip to China.

“The documents signed today expand our economic cooperation. We have not yet calculated how much this will make up in terms of money, but we made some calculations earlier and saw that the matter is about some $8 billion in investments coming to the Ukrainian economy,” Yanukovych said after signing a number of bilateral documents in Beijing on Thursday, quoted by Interfax.

More investment documents are in their final stages of preparation, and are expected to be signed soon’, he said.

China has already given Ukraine $10 billion in loans, Reuters reported, citing VolodymyrFesenko of Ukraine’s Penta think-tank.

While Yanukovych signed papers in Beijing, a Ukrainian delegation met with Russian government officials in Moscow, including Prime Minister Medvedev to discuss trade issues such as customs clearance, Ukrainian chocolate, meat and dairy products, and railways.

Protests broke out in Kiev over Yanukovych’s last minute rejection of an EU trade deal in favor of restoring economic talks with Russia, Ukraine’s top trading partner and energy supplier.

Ukraine hasn’t made a decisive step East or West, and for now seems to be shopping around for the best economic deal to bring calm to markets, bond prices, and opposition movements, before committing to either the EU or Russia”.

During the meeting in Beijing, it was reported that Yanukovych and Chinese officials were in talks to construct a deep water port in Crimea, which at the time was under the sovereignty of Yanukovych’s government. The port project said to be worth $10 million, was reported shortly after the Ukrainian coup of February 2014 by the notoriously liberal Moscow Times as well as in a deeply Sinophobic article in the Eurasian Daily Monitor.

The way these publications – which clearly adopt a European narrative of events – reported Yanukovych’s dealing with China, clearly indicate that pro-EU propagandists were highly troubled by the fact that Ukraine under Yanukovych and China were about to solidify what might have been long lasting and meaningful economic relations, relations which could have helped ease Ukraine’s monumental debt crisis. If the debt crisis was resolved through Chinese investment, western creditors and the IMF would not have been able to wield power over Kiev.

The fact that Yanukovych travelled to Russia shortly after his trip to China is a further confirmation of the fact that doing business with both Russia and China is mutually complimentary. Russia’s subsequent enthusiasm for China’s New Silk Road is a further indication of the open possibilities of countries and businessmen conducting commerce with both Beijing and Moscow simultaneously.

The same could not be said of the proposed Ukraine-EU association agreement which would have effectively shut Ukraine out of the wider world market and forced the poor country to trade virtually exclusively with the EU. Any extra-EU trade would have had to be conducted according to the EU’s very strict rules which have constrained Greece’s economic ties to countries outside of Europe and which in part provoked Britain’s recent vote to leave the EU.

Under the post-coup regime, Ukraine has signed up to the deal with the EU in spite of fading enthusiasm from Europe. The western powers nevertheless successfully cut Ukraine off from its historic Russian homeland and its eastern partners.

February 2014:

Viktor Yanukovych and his country never got to see the fruits of his deals with China from December of 2014 because on 20 February of that year, Yanukovych was overthrown in a coup.

As The Duran recently explained,

“The EU was supposed to be the last minute saviour of Ukraine as fascist street-fighters and foreign mercenaries with fresh injections of American money readied a violent coup.

It was on the 20th of February 2014 that the Foreign Ministers of EU member states France, Germany and Poland convened in Kiev to broker a deal that was supposed to bring stability. Instead, it brought about a genocidal war on the people of Donbass who shortly after the coup declared their independence from the young fascist regime in Kiev. The deal also brought wide scale corruption in an already deeply corrupt place as well as total economic collapse that continues to get worse by the day.

Most ominously, the then Polish Foreign Minister who helped broker the deal which the insurgents had no intention of keeping, told representatives of the radicals that if they did not sign the agreement “you’ll all be dead”.

The truth is that the death came and continues to come not from those who opposed the coup but from those who came to power as a result of the coup.

The deal was supposed to insure orderly early elections and constitutional reforms which ironically reversed those made by Viktor Yanukovych. Instead, the agreement merely caused the total collapse of the state as the mob eventually forced Yanukovych to flee to Russia after a temporary and in hindsight, eerie pause in the violence.

The hours in the evening of the 20th of February 2014 in which violence temporarily abated have been made up for by three and a half years of violence, turmoil and a humanitarian disaster which has seen the lawless regime in Kiev drop chemical weapons on the people of Donbass, all while the west remains silent”.

Subsequent to the coup, the new regime broke off economic relations with Russia and scarpered the deals with China.

Today:

The routes of China’s New Silk Road still plan on partly travelling through Ukraine, but the current regime in Ukraine will doubtlessly make such matters more difficult for China vis-a-vis the last legitimate government of Ukraine, that of Viktor Yanukovych.

Although more recent maps show a slightly different route of the New Silk Road, which still goes through Ukraine, as early as 2013 (just prior to the coup in Kiev), maps showing proposed routes of the Road clearly indicated that Ukraine was on China’s map.

Below are two maps from 2013 followed by a more recent map:

Eurasia including Russia and much of modern Ukraine are included in what British thinker Halford John Mackinder called the Pivot Area in his theory which posited that Eurasia including and especially Russian Imperial lands needed to be conquered and subdued by the west in order to attain geo-political dominance over Asia and what one might now call the Global East or New Global South.

Far from being discarded, Mackinder’s theories continue to prove to be a guiding force behind the west’s policies of war, occupation and provocation against the countries which occupy his ‘pivot area’. Indeed, Britain and France’s continued opposition to Russia in its wars with Turkey throughout the 19th century go a long ways in explaining that far from being original, Mackinder simply wrote a theory which largely conformed to late modern western military and geo-political practice.

Drawing Ukraine away from its historical fraternal Eurasian partners in Moscow and into a western bloc of nations, the EU, was clearly an attempt to draw a portion of Mackinder’s pivot area into the western sphere of political sovereignty.

When understood from this perspective, the proximate timing of Viktor Yanukovych’s visit to China in late 2013, China’s unveiling of the New Silk Road in autumn of 2013 and the pro-EU coup in Kiev in February of 2014, seems more than coincidental.

China is attempting to build a New Silk Road from east to west based on cooperation and a respect for the sovereignty of the nations along the road. Meanwhile, the west is using modern slogans to justify its old policies that never went away.

All images in this article, except the featured image, are from the author.

New data compiled by the World Socialist Web Site, with the assistance of other Internet-based news outlets and search technology experts, proves that a massive loss of readership observed by socialist, anti-war and progressive web sites over the past three months has been caused by a cumulative 45 percent decrease in traffic from Google searches.

The drop followed the implementation of changes in Google’s search evaluation protocols. In a statement issued on April 25, Ben Gomes, the company’s vice president for engineering, stated that Google’s update of its search engine would block access to “offensive” sites, while working to surface more “authoritative content.”

The World Socialist Web Site has obtained statistical data from SEMrush estimating the decline of traffic generated by Google searches for 13 sites with substantial readerships. The results are as follows:

* wsws.org fell by 67 percent
* alternet.org fell by 63 percent
* globalresearch.ca fell by 62 percent
* consortiumnews.com fell by 47 percent
* socialistworker.org fell by 47 percent
* mediamatters.org fell by 42 percent
* commondreams.org fell by 37 percent
* internationalviewpoint.org fell by 36 percent
* democracynow.org fell by 36 percent
* wikileaks.org fell by 30 percent
* truth-out.org fell by 25 percent
* counterpunch.org fell by 21 percent
* theintercept.com fell by 19 percent

Of the 13 web sites on the list, the World Socialist Web Site has been the most heavily affected. Its traffic from Google searches has fallen by two thirds.

The new statistics demonstrate that the WSWS is a central target of Google’s censorship campaign. In the twelve months preceding the implementation of the new Google protocols, the WSWS had experienced a substantial increase in readership. A significant component of this increase was the product of Google search results. The rapid rise in search traffic reflected the well-documented growth in popular interest in socialist politics during 2016. The rate of growth accelerated following the November election, which led to large protests against the election of Trump.

Search traffic to the WSWS peaked in April 2017, precisely at the point when Google began the implementation of its censorship protocols.

Another site affected by Google’s action has provided information that confirms the findings of the WSWS.

“In late May, changes to Google’s algorithm negatively impacted the volume of traffic to the Common Dreams website from organic Google searches,” said Aaron Kaufman, director of development at progressive news outlet Common Dreams. “Since May, traffic from Google Search as a percentage of total traffic to the Common Dreams website has decreased nearly 50 percent.”

The extent and impact of Google’s actions prove that a combination of techniques is being employed to block access to targeted sites. These involve the direct flagging and blackballing of the WSWS and the other 12 sites listed above by Google evaluators. These sites are assigned a highly negative rating that assures that their articles will be either demoted or entirely bypassed. In addition, new programming technology teaches the computers to think like the evaluators, that is, to emulate their preferences and prejudices.

Finally, the precision of this operation strongly suggests that there is an additional range of exclusion techniques involving the selection of terms, words, phrases and topics that are associated with socialist and left-wing websites.

This would explain why the World Socialist Web Site, which focuses on issues such as war, geopolitics, social inequality and working class struggles has experienced such a dramatic fall in Google-generated searches on these very topics. We have seen that the very terms and phrases that would under normal circumstances be most likely to generate the highest level of hits—such as “socialism,” “Marxism” and “Trotskyism”—produce the lowest results.

This is an ongoing process in which one can expect that Google evaluators are continuously adding suspect terms to make their algorithm ever more precise, with the eventual goal of eliminating traffic to the WSWS and other targeted sites.

The information that has been gathered and published by the WSWS during the past week exposes that Google is at the center of a corporate-state conspiracy to drastically curtail democratic rights. The attack on free speech and uncensored access to information is aimed at crippling popular opposition to social inequality, war and authoritarianism.

The central and sinister role of Google in this process demonstrates that freedom of speech and thought is incompatible with corporate control of the Internet.

As we continue our exposure of Google’s assault on democratic rights, we demand that it immediately and unequivocally halt and revoke its censorship program.

It is critical that a coordinated campaign be organized within the United States and internationally against Google’s censorship of the Internet. We intend to do everything in our power to develop and contribute to a counter-offensive against its efforts to suppress freedom of speech and thought.

The fight against corporate-state censorship of the Internet is central to the defense of democratic rights, and there must be a broad-based collaboration among socialist, left and progressive websites to alert the public and the widest sections of the working class.

As each day passes, a major conflict between the United States and North Korea looks increasingly likely. The ratcheting-up of tensions between Washington and Pyongyang is being perpetuated by a corporate media that is reinforcing the myth that North Korea is provoking the conflict and is a barrier to peace. The solution is one that is deemed to require a military response from the Trump administration. The Council on Foreign Relations, appear to reaffirm this is the consensus position in Washington.

According to Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, we’re moving toward a collision on the Korean Peninsula, that’s like two trains rushing toward each other. Furthermore, William Perry, the former defense secretary and Bill Clinton’s ambassador for North Korea in the late 1990s, also said that he thought a train wreck was coming.

The backdrop to these shenanigans was the test last month by North Korea of a intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM). The country is being characterized as an existential threat to the US – a characterization that has been massively exaggerated for propaganda purposes.

Tim Beal adds some flesh to the bones:

“The balance of military power between the US and its ‘allies’ (the imperial alliance structure is a major part of American power) scarcely needs elaboration or documentation. South Korea on its own has a military budget perhaps 30 times that of the North, has, generally speaking, much more advanced and modern equipment (it buys more weapons from the US than even Saudi Arabia) and, according to the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), can field two and a half times more troops (standing army plus reservists) than the North. Bring in the US and its allies, including especially Japan, and the imbalance is astounding: a combined military budget of roughly $1 trillion against North Korea’s $1.2 to $10 billion. The portrayal of North Korea as a threat to the US is not merely wrong, it is preposterously and diametrically at variance with reality.”

That the government in Pyongyang undertook the ICBM test against a situation in which China and North Korea offered a plan to de-escalate tensions, subsequently rejected by the US, was a scenario that had been quietly overlooked by the media. North Korean foreign minister, Bang Kwang Hyok said that unless the US fundamentally abandons its hostile policy towards his country, its weapons programme “will never be up for negotiation.”

The war of words continued a month later (August 8, 2017), after Trump promised North Korea “will be met with fire and fury like the world has never seen” in response to reports that the country had developed the ability to miniaturize a nuclear warhead so that it can be placed on a missile.

Tensions were further escalated two days later when Trump said that his ‘fire and fury’ comments were perhaps not “tough enough” and refused to rule out what he called a “preventive” strike against the country.

Historical context

The context underlying the continuing US hostility towards North Korea, stems from June, 1950 when the US imposed sanctions on the country and engaged in military exercises that involved the flying of nuclear warheads over Korean air space after the American administration had actually dropped nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

These ‘war games’ are also the context in which the US dropped napalm and white phosphorus on North Korea completely destroying it from 1950-53. Up to 4 million Koreans would have lived had not the US instigated their war of aggression.

US General Douglas MacArthur testified to Congress in 1951 that:

‘The war in Korea has already destroyed that nation of 20,000,000 people. I have never seen such devastation. I have seen, I guess, as much blood and disaster as any living man, and it just curdled my stomach, the last time I was there. After I looked at that wreckage and those thousands of women and children and everything, I vomited.” (‘Napalm – An American Biography’ by Robert Neer, Belknap Press, 2013, p. 100, quoted by Media Lens).

US Air Force General Curtis LeMay wrote:

“We burned down just about every city in North Korea and South Korea both…we killed off over a million civilians and drove several million more from their homes, with the inevitable additional tragedies bound to ensue.” (Ibid., p. 100, quoted by Media Lens).

This, and the imposition by the US of a military dictatorship on South Korea that imprisoned, tortured and killed political opponents, is also the reason why many people in Korea view Pyongyang’s relationship with the Americans from a position of defense rather than offense.

The ‘war games’ continue to be played decades later as a result of the expansion by the US of its military bases throughout the pacific region. From North Korea’s perspective, Washington’s provocation is akin to Russia or China deploying strategic nuclear weapons and thousands of their troops on the US-Mexico border and rehearsing military exercises that simulate the potential collapse of Washington.

Source: Road to Somewhere Else

Numerous other countries test their nuclear weapons – the United States included – but none elicit the kind of punishment that’s being meted out to North Korea. Pyongyang has done nothing to threaten Washington, rather the threats are the other way around. The aggressive US stance is, of course, in no way related to the probability, as Business Insider pointed out, that North Korea’s “mountainous regions are thought to sit on around 200 different minerals, including, crucially, a large number of rare earth metals… thought to be worth more than $6 trillion.”

China

Trump has attempted to divert US culpability by insisting that China has not played a sufficient enough role in trying to de-escalate the situation. But China does not have the leverage to prevent North Korea from developing its nuclear weapons programme.

Writer Hyun Lee raised the legitimate point that China does not want a pro-US Korea led by the south because that would result in US troops “pushing up to the Chinese border.” North Korea has always acted as a convenient buffer state for China in much the same way that the former Soviet Union provided a counter-balance to US imperial ambitions. In other words, it makes no sense to expect China to resolve the impasse because both the US and China have very different strategic interests in the region.

From China’s perspective, a nuclear weapons-free Korea clearly presents a potential threat to its interests. It is worth reminding readers that twenty years ago North Korea didn’t possess any ICBM weapons. It was only from the Bush administration onward that tensions were once again ratcheted up between the two nations as part of Washington’s geopolitical agenda of full-spectrum dominance and the “war on terrorism” narrative that accompanied it.

Bush Doctrine

Critical in widening the focus of this narrative has, of course, been the policy of associating terrorism with states that are then presented as legitimate targets of military action. In his State of the Union address on January 29, 2002, G W Bush reaffirmed that “our war on terror is just the beginning.” In addition to attacking terrorist networks, he said, “our second goal is to prevent regimes that sponsor terror from threatening America or our friends and allies with weapons of mass destruction”, and named Iran, Iraq and North Korea as “an axis of evil”.

John Bolton subsequently extended the net, identifying Libya, Syria and Cuba as “state sponsors of terrorism that are pursuing or have the potential to pursue weapons of mass destruction.” The full scale of Bush’s “axis of evil” speech was revealed four months later in an address he made at West Point in what the Financial Times announced as “an entirely fresh doctrine of pre-emptive action.” This Bush Doctrine of (as one administration official put it) “pre-emptive retaliation” is enshrined in the National Security Strategy:

“While the United States will constantly strive to enlist the support of the international community, we will not hesitate to act alone, if necessary, to exercise our right of self-defense by acting pre-emptively.”

Central to the strategy of the US throughout the Cold War was a policy of containment – that is, the resistance by America of any attempts to extend the bloc carved out by the Soviets in Central and Eastern Europe during the latter phases of the Second World War. Containment survived the collapse of the Soviet Union.

The same logic applies to Trumps strategy in relation to North Korea. Any future Pre-emptive “retaliatory” strike by the US against the country is premised on the notion that any state foolish enough to mount a nuclear, chemical or biological strike against America would be committing national suicide. Assuming that Kim Jong Un is not insane (there is no evidence to suggest he is), therefore, makes the argument that a pre-emptive strike against Korea is imperative, somewhat redundant.

Might is right

The country learned from the experiences of Iraq and Libya and from its negotiations with Washington, that the only thing the US appears to respond to is military might and so logically determined that only the threat of nuclear weapons would deter the world’s biggest nuclear superpower from a hostile attack.

There was some hope for a lasting peaceful resolution to the conflict between the two countries following a deal brokered by former president Jimmy Carter in 1994 under the Clinton administration only for this to subsequently be scuppered by G W Bush.

Noam Chomsky provides some detail:

“George W. Bush came in and immediately launched an assault on North Korea—you know, “axis of evil,” sanctions and so on. North Korea turned to producing nuclear weapons. In 2005, there was an agreement between North Korea and the United States, a pretty sensible agreement. North Korea agreed to terminate its development of nuclear weapons. In return, it called for a nonaggression pact. So, stop making hostile threats, relief from harsh sanctions, and provision of a system to provide North Korea with low-enriched uranium for medical and other purposes—that was the proposal. George Bush instantly tore it to shreds. Within days, the U.S. was imposing—trying to disrupt North Korean financial transactions with other countries through Macau and elsewhere. North Korea backed off, started building nuclear weapons again. I mean, maybe you can say it’s the worst regime in history, whatever you like, but they have been following a pretty rational tit-for-tat policy.”

Against a situation in which North Korea continues to adopt a rational policy to defend its sovereignty from the hostile acts and sanctions of an overarching aggressor, and with a US president remaining bellicose by refusing to engage in diplomacy, it’s clear that the world is currently at the edge of a precipice.

As each day passes, a major conflict between the United States and North Korea looks increasingly likely. The ratcheting-up of tensions between Washington and Pyongyang is being perpetuated by a corporate media that is reinforcing the myth that North Korea is provoking the conflict and is a barrier to peace. The solution is one that is deemed to require a military response from the Trump administration. The Council on Foreign Relations, appear to reaffirm this is the consensus position in Washington.

According to Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, we’re moving toward a collision on the Korean Peninsula, that’s like two trains rushing toward each other. Furthermore, William Perry, the former defense secretary and Bill Clinton’s ambassador for North Korea in the late 1990s, also said that he thought a train wreck was coming.

The backdrop to these shenanigans was the test last month by North Korea of a intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM). The country is being characterized as an existential threat to the US – a characterization that has been massively exaggerated for propaganda purposes.

Tim Beal adds some flesh to the bones:

“The balance of military power between the US and its ‘allies’ (the imperial alliance structure is a major part of American power) scarcely needs elaboration or documentation. South Korea on its own has a military budget perhaps 30 times that of the North, has, generally speaking, much more advanced and modern equipment (it buys more weapons from the US than even Saudi Arabia) and, according to the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), can field two and a half times more troops (standing army plus reservists) than the North. Bring in the US and its allies, including especially Japan, and the imbalance is astounding: a combined military budget of roughly $1 trillion against North Korea’s $1.2 to $10 billion. The portrayal of North Korea as a threat to the US is not merely wrong, it is preposterously and diametrically at variance with reality.”

That the government in Pyongyang undertook the ICBM test against a situation in which China and North Korea offered a plan to de-escalate tensions, subsequently rejected by the US, was a scenario that had been quietly overlooked by the media. North Korean foreign minister, Bang Kwang Hyok said that unless the US fundamentally abandons its hostile policy towards his country, its weapons programme “will never be up for negotiation.”

The war of words continued a month later (August 8, 2017), after Trump promised North Korea “will be met with fire and fury like the world has never seen” in response to reports that the country had developed the ability to miniaturize a nuclear warhead so that it can be placed on a missile.

Tensions were further escalated two days later when Trump said that his ‘fire and fury’ comments were perhaps not “tough enough” and refused to rule out what he called a “preventive” strike against the country.

Historical context

The context underlying the continuing US hostility towards North Korea, stems from June, 1950 when the US imposed sanctions on the country and engaged in military exercises that involved the flying of nuclear warheads over Korean air space after the American administration had actually dropped nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

These ‘war games’ are also the context in which the US dropped napalm and white phosphorus on North Korea completely destroying it from 1950-53. Up to 4 million Koreans would have lived had not the US instigated their war of aggression.

US General Douglas MacArthur testified to Congress in 1951 that:

‘The war in Korea has already destroyed that nation of 20,000,000 people. I have never seen such devastation. I have seen, I guess, as much blood and disaster as any living man, and it just curdled my stomach, the last time I was there. After I looked at that wreckage and those thousands of women and children and everything, I vomited.” (‘Napalm – An American Biography’ by Robert Neer, Belknap Press, 2013, p. 100, quoted by Media Lens).

US Air Force General Curtis LeMay wrote:

“We burned down just about every city in North Korea and South Korea both…we killed off over a million civilians and drove several million more from their homes, with the inevitable additional tragedies bound to ensue.” (Ibid., p. 100, quoted by Media Lens).

This, and the imposition by the US of a military dictatorship on South Korea that imprisoned, tortured and killed political opponents, is also the reason why many people in Korea view Pyongyang’s relationship with the Americans from a position of defense rather than offense.

The ‘war games’ continue to be played decades later as a result of the expansion by the US of its military bases throughout the pacific region. From North Korea’s perspective, Washington’s provocation is akin to Russia or China deploying strategic nuclear weapons and thousands of their troops on the US-Mexico border and rehearsing military exercises that simulate the potential collapse of Washington.

Source: Road to Somewhere Else

Numerous other countries test their nuclear weapons – the United States included – but none elicit the kind of punishment that’s being meted out to North Korea. Pyongyang has done nothing to threaten Washington, rather the threats are the other way around. The aggressive US stance is, of course, in no way related to the probability, as Business Insider pointed out, that North Korea’s “mountainous regions are thought to sit on around 200 different minerals, including, crucially, a large number of rare earth metals… thought to be worth more than $6 trillion.”

China

Trump has attempted to divert US culpability by insisting that China has not played a sufficient enough role in trying to de-escalate the situation. But China does not have the leverage to prevent North Korea from developing its nuclear weapons programme.

Writer Hyun Lee raised the legitimate point that China does not want a pro-US Korea led by the south because that would result in US troops “pushing up to the Chinese border.” North Korea has always acted as a convenient buffer state for China in much the same way that the former Soviet Union provided a counter-balance to US imperial ambitions. In other words, it makes no sense to expect China to resolve the impasse because both the US and China have very different strategic interests in the region.

From China’s perspective, a nuclear weapons-free Korea clearly presents a potential threat to its interests. It is worth reminding readers that twenty years ago North Korea didn’t possess any ICBM weapons. It was only from the Bush administration onward that tensions were once again ratcheted up between the two nations as part of Washington’s geopolitical agenda of full-spectrum dominance and the “war on terrorism” narrative that accompanied it.

Bush Doctrine

Critical in widening the focus of this narrative has, of course, been the policy of associating terrorism with states that are then presented as legitimate targets of military action. In his State of the Union address on January 29, 2002, G W Bush reaffirmed that “our war on terror is just the beginning.” In addition to attacking terrorist networks, he said, “our second goal is to prevent regimes that sponsor terror from threatening America or our friends and allies with weapons of mass destruction”, and named Iran, Iraq and North Korea as “an axis of evil”.

John Bolton subsequently extended the net, identifying Libya, Syria and Cuba as “state sponsors of terrorism that are pursuing or have the potential to pursue weapons of mass destruction.” The full scale of Bush’s “axis of evil” speech was revealed four months later in an address he made at West Point in what the Financial Times announced as “an entirely fresh doctrine of pre-emptive action.” This Bush Doctrine of (as one administration official put it) “pre-emptive retaliation” is enshrined in the National Security Strategy:

“While the United States will constantly strive to enlist the support of the international community, we will not hesitate to act alone, if necessary, to exercise our right of self-defense by acting pre-emptively.”

Central to the strategy of the US throughout the Cold War was a policy of containment – that is, the resistance by America of any attempts to extend the bloc carved out by the Soviets in Central and Eastern Europe during the latter phases of the Second World War. Containment survived the collapse of the Soviet Union.

The same logic applies to Trumps strategy in relation to North Korea. Any future Pre-emptive “retaliatory” strike by the US against the country is premised on the notion that any state foolish enough to mount a nuclear, chemical or biological strike against America would be committing national suicide. Assuming that Kim Jong Un is not insane (there is no evidence to suggest he is), therefore, makes the argument that a pre-emptive strike against Korea is imperative, somewhat redundant.

Might is right

The country learned from the experiences of Iraq and Libya and from its negotiations with Washington, that the only thing the US appears to respond to is military might and so logically determined that only the threat of nuclear weapons would deter the world’s biggest nuclear superpower from a hostile attack.

There was some hope for a lasting peaceful resolution to the conflict between the two countries following a deal brokered by former president Jimmy Carter in 1994 under the Clinton administration only for this to subsequently be scuppered by G W Bush.

Noam Chomsky provides some detail:

“George W. Bush came in and immediately launched an assault on North Korea—you know, “axis of evil,” sanctions and so on. North Korea turned to producing nuclear weapons. In 2005, there was an agreement between North Korea and the United States, a pretty sensible agreement. North Korea agreed to terminate its development of nuclear weapons. In return, it called for a nonaggression pact. So, stop making hostile threats, relief from harsh sanctions, and provision of a system to provide North Korea with low-enriched uranium for medical and other purposes—that was the proposal. George Bush instantly tore it to shreds. Within days, the U.S. was imposing—trying to disrupt North Korean financial transactions with other countries through Macau and elsewhere. North Korea backed off, started building nuclear weapons again. I mean, maybe you can say it’s the worst regime in history, whatever you like, but they have been following a pretty rational tit-for-tat policy.”

Against a situation in which North Korea continues to adopt a rational policy to defend its sovereignty from the hostile acts and sanctions of an overarching aggressor, and with a US president remaining bellicose by refusing to engage in diplomacy, it’s clear that the world is currently at the edge of a precipice.

Over the last year, in Latin America, Amnesty International has taken their collusion in support of NATO government foreign policy down to new depths of falsehood and bad faith, attacking Venezuela and, most recently, Nicaragua. The multi-million dollar Western NGO claims, “We are independent of any government, political ideology, economic interest or religion.” 

That claim is extremely dishonest. Many of Amnesty International’s board and most of the senior staff in its secretariat, which produces the organization’s reports, are individuals with a deeply ideologically committed background in corporate dominated NGOs like Purpose, Open Society Institute, Human Rights Watch, and many others.

Mexico has over 36,000 people disappeared and abuses by the security forces are constant. Colombia has over four million internally displaced people with over 53 community activists murdered just in 2017. Amnesty International generally puts that horrific reality in context by including criticism of forces challenging those countries’ authorities. By contrast, its reporting on Venezuela and Nicaragua, like those of other similar Western NGOs, reproduces the false claims of those countries’ minority political opposition forces, all supported one way or another by NATO country governments.

In Venezuela and Nicaragua, Western human rights organizations exaggerate alleged government violations while minimizing abuses and provocations by the opposition. This screenshot of Amnesty International’s three main news items on Venezuela from Aug. 9 gives a fair idea of the organization’s heavily politicized, bad faith coverage of recent events.

This is identical false coverage to that of Western mainstream corporate media and most Western alternative media outlets too. Amnesty International’s coverage minimizes opposition murders of ordinary Venezuelans, setting many people on fire, violent attacks on hospitals, universities and even preschools and innumerable acts of intimidation of the general population. That headline “Venezuela: Lethal violence, a state policy to strangle dissent” is a pernicious lie. President Nicolas Maduro explicitly banned the use of lethal force against opposition demonstrations from the start of the latest phase of the opposition’s long drawn out attempted coup back in early April this year.

Likewise, against Nicaragua, Amnesty’s latest report, kicking off their global campaign to stop Nicaragua’s proposed Interoceanic Canal, also begins with a demonstrable lie: “Nicaragua has pushed ahead with the approval and design of a mega-project that puts the human rights of hundreds of thousands of people at risk, without consultation and in a process shrouded in silence”. That claim is completely false. Even prior to September 2015, the international consultants’ impact study found that the government and the HKND company in charge of building the canal had organized consultations with, among others, over 4,000 people from rural communities in addition to 475 people from Indigenous communities along the route of the canal and its subsidiary projects. There has been very extensive media discussion and coverage of the project ever since it was announced.

That extremely prestigious ERM consultants’ Environmental and Social Impact study, which together with associated studies cost well over US$100 million, is publicly available in Spanish and in English. Two years ago, it anticipated all the criticisms made by Amnesty International and was accepted by the Nicaraguan government, leading to a long period of analysis and revision that is still under way. Amnesty International excludes that information. Recently, government spokesperson Telemaco Talavera said the continuing process involves a total of 26 further studies. Until the studies are complete, the government is clearly right to avoid commenting on the proposed canal, because the new studies may radically change the overall project.

Amnesty International states,

“According to independent studies of civil society organizations, along the announced route of the canal, approximately 24,100 households (some 119,200 people) in the area will be directly impacted.”

But, the ERM study notes,

“HKND conducted a census of the population living in the Project Affected Areas. The census determined that approximately 30,000 people (or 7,210 families) would need to be physically or economically displaced.”

But Amnesty International’s report omits that contradictory detail, demonstrating how irrationally committed they are to the false propaganda of Nicaragua’s political opposition.

Amnesty International claim their research team interviewed “at least 190 people” concerned about the effects of the canal. By contrast, the Nicaraguan government and the HKND company have discussed the project with around 6,000 people in the areas along the route of the canal. In that regard, even the local church hierarchy has criticized the way the Nicaraguan opposition have manipulated rural families on the issue of the Canal. But that fact too, Amnesty International omits. Their whole report is tailor made to supplement the political opposition’s campaign for U.S. intervention via the notorious NICA Act.

The Nicaraguan government has made an express commitment to a fair and just resolution of the issue of expropriations. Its 2015 report on the canal in the context of its National Development Plan, states: “The Nicaraguan government and HKND will guarantee that persons and families on the route of the canal’s construction will have living conditions superior to those they currently have (without the canal). To that end, the Government of Reconciliation and National Unity, via the Project’s Commission, will guarantee not just a fair and transparent indemnification of their properties, via negotiations and direct agreements with each family affected, but furthermore will promote actions to improve their economic conditions, health care, education, housing and employment.”

But the Amnesty International report systematically excludes that and any other sources giving the government’s point of view, claiming it was unable to access primary sources either from the government itself or from among the canal’s numerous advocates. However, secondary sources abound that categorically contradict Amnesty’s advocacy against the canal. The report specifically and extensively attacks the Law 840, facilitating the construction of the canal and its sub-projects, but cynically omits a fundamental, crucial detail, while also failing completely to give relevant social and economic context.

The crucial detail is that Law 840’s Article 18 specifically states the canal project “cannot require any Government Entity to take any action that violates the political Constitution of the Republic of Nicaragua or the terms of any international treaty of which the State of the Republic of Nicaragua is a party.” Amnesty International completely omits that absolutely crucial part of Law 840 from their report because it makes redundant their advocacy of opposition claims attacking the equity and legality of the Canal’s legal framework. The same is true of the relevant political, social and economic context.

Nicaragua’s political culture is based on dialogue, consensus and respect for international law. All the main business organizations in Nicaragua and all the main international financial and humanitarian institutions acknowledge that. President Daniel Ortega and Vice President Rosario Murillo enjoy levels of approval of over 70 percent. There is good reason for that massive majority approval. Among many other factors, the precedents of how the Nicaraguan authorities have resolved the relocation of populations affected by large projects, for example, the Tumarin hydroelectric project, completely contradict the scaremongering of the Nicaraguan opposition propaganda, so glibly recycled by Amnesty International.

Nicaragua’s current Sandinista government has been the most successful ever in reducing poverty and defending the right of all Nicaraguans to a dignified life. To do so, among many other initiatives, it has mobilized record levels of direct foreign investment. In that context, Law 840 explicitly protects the huge potential investments in the proposed canal, while at the same time implicitly guaranteeing constitutional protections. Similarly, ever since the announcement of the canal, Ortega has repeatedly, publicly reassured people in Nicaragua that any families who may eventually be relocated should the canal go ahead will get every necessary help and assistance from the government.

Just as it has done in the case of Venezuela, on Nicaragua, Amnesty International misrepresents the facts, cynically promoting the positions of the country’s right wing political opposition. In Latin America, under cover of phony concern for peoples’ basic rights, in practice Amnesty International, like almost all the big multi-millionaire Western NGOs, gives spurious humanitarian cover to the political agenda of the US and allied country corporate elites and their governments. The destructive, catastrophic effects of Amnesty International’s recent role in the crises affecting Syria, Ukraine and now Venezuela, are living proof of that.

Parliament voted in favour of renewing Britain’s nuclear deterrent, Trident, by a majority of 355 after it was backed by almost the entire Conservative party and more than half of Labour MPs on July 18th last year. The vote was passed despite opposition from all the Scottish National party MPs.

The Guardian reported two months earlier that the total cost of replacing the Trident nuclear missile system will be at least £205bn, far more than previously estimated, according to figures drawn up by the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament. It calculated the total on the basis of official figures, answers to parliamentary questions and previous costs of items including nuclear warheads and decommissioning nuclear reactors. It says it has not taken into account that past Ministry of Defence projects have frequently gone well over budget.

Since then, nuclear war threats between the United States and North Korea have escalated. Those who believe nuclear weapons “deter war” need to reconsider, Trident whistleblower William McNeilly told RT.

US President Donald Trump has warned any nuclear threats by North Korea will be met with “fire and fury” as Pyongyang announced it was “carefully examining” a plan to attack an American military base on the Pacific island of Guam.

Speaking to RT, McNeilly said people who promote nuclear weapons claim that “nuclear weapons deter war.” However, that claim is based on the assumption that humans are rational thinkers, he says.

“The United States clearly has the power to destroy Kim Jong-un’s regime, but that didn’t deter Kim Jong-un from threatening to bomb Guam. Clearly weapons aren’t that great of a deterrent.

“The Islamic terrorists aren’t deterred by nuclear weapons. The Chinese weren’t deterred by India’s nuclear weapons when they recently threatened to start a war with India, over Indian troops entering Chinese territory. India and Pakistan aren’t deterred by nuclear weapons when their troops kill each other in Kashmir. The terrorists launching rockets into Israel aren’t deterred by Israel’s nuclear weapons.

“Will nuclear weapons deter war or just ensure that war continues to have catastrophic potential? Examine the facts in the real world and you’ll find the answer.”

Then just as a little more proof was not really needed the New York Times reports an American own goal in the geopolitical comedy it currently finds itself in.

“North Korea’s success in testing an intercontinental ballistic missile that appears able to reach the United States was made possible by black-market purchases of powerful rocket engines from a Ukrainian factory with historical ties to Russia’s missile program, according to an expert analysis being published Monday and classified assessments by American intelligence agencies”.

The own goal is quite clear. When the US State Department supported Ukraine’s domestic forces to stage a successful coup in 2014 against then pro-Russian president Viktor Yanukovych, the outcome was more or less designed around the idea that it was to be an undisputed US ally, whilst stripping Russia of a buffer zone against encroaching western forces – namely NATO.

The NYT goes on to say that

“The studies may solve the mystery of how North Korea began succeeding so suddenly after a string of fiery missile failures, some of which may have been caused by American sabotage of its supply chains and cyberattacks on its launches. After those failures, the North changed designs and suppliers in the past two years, according to a new study by Michael Elleman, a missile expert at the International Institute for Strategic Studies“.

Investigators now believe that, amid the chaos of post-revolutionary Ukraine, Pyongyang has succeeded in acquiring, either legally or otherwise the sudden capability of delivering a nuclear warhead.

So Donald Trump has definitely proved something for all to see. Over time, nuclear weapons are placed into the hands of leaders who have different ideologies – Obama to Trump is a good case in point. Another lesson here is that usurping a once stable, democratically elected government for geopolitical purposes can backfire. And ironically, backfire is a good word to use!

Last month, Officials from the factory Yuzhmash, denied reports that the factory complex was struggling for survival and selling its technologies abroad, in particular to China. Its website says the company does not, has not and will not participate in “the transfer of potentially dangerous technologies outside Ukraine.”

American investigators do not believe that denial despite a raft of United Nations sanctions, suggests a broad intelligence failure involving the many nations that monitor Pyongyang according to the NYT.

In the meantime, Guam island is being used as the potential playground for the battle between North Korea/China and the USA. The Chamorros, Guam’s indigenous people, settled the island approximately 3,500 years before America was even discovered.

One of the long-time indigenous residents of Guam has written a letter that best describes the situation there, which starts; Dear America ….

Featured image is from the author.

The only surprise was that it did not come sooner. Australia’s Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse has gotten on with the gruesome task of making 85 recommended changes to the law that will provide some measure of future protection for victims of child abuse.

The notable words that should be highlighted and even shouted from every pulpit are those that insist that “no excuse, protection nor privilege” will cover priests who fail to inform the authorities on instances of such violations, even if obtained in the sacred confines of the confession.

“We are satisfied that confession is a forum where Catholic children have disclosed their sexual abuse and where clergy have disclosed their abusive behaviour in order to deal with their own guilt.”

The report acknowledges an orthodox dilemma arising in other professions where confidentiality exists alongside the assessment of breach.

“We acknowledge that if this recommendation is implemented then clergy hearing confession may have to decide between complying with the civil law obligation to report and complying with a duty in their role as a confessor.”

The historical precedent marshalled in favour of the law of the seal of confession is hefty. As Gratian noted in his 1151 compilation of principles of Church law, including various council edicts, Deponatur sacerdos qui peccata penitentis publicare presumit (roughly, “Let the priest who dares to make known the sins of his penitent be deposed”). Those breaching this would be duly subjected to opprobrium and a lengthy period of disgrace. Among other additional notes come the stern words of Canon 21 of the Fourth Lateran Council (1215), which insist on secrecy and punishment of perpetual penitence should that injunction be violated.

These musty injunctions explain, in part, the militant reaction by Australia’s clergy to the Royal Commission’s note on the subject of the seal. Melbourne Archbishop Denis Hart, as president of the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference, felt that the confessional was sacred and irreducible, an immutable institution.

How Hart went about his case was bound to jar the defenders of secular, temporal justice.

“Confession in the Catholic Church is a spiritual encounter with God through the priest.”[1]

To override that particular “spiritual encounter” would be a grave breach of freedom of religion, notwithstanding its harm to children. The confession was a fundamental canon in that regard, “recognised in the law of Australia and many other countries.”

Nor did progressive priests, known for their flag waving for various social causes in Australia, disagree with Hart. Frank Brennan SJ was certainly in agreement, showing a lack of comprehension about how disturbing the seal was merely analogous to the necessary reporting obligations other professions might have when being informed of an abuse. The seal of confession remained sacrosanct and exceptional.

A questioning Brennan wondered whether the confession had necessarily aided a culture of abuse and its corollary, the all-smothering cover-up.

“I don’t think it has, and that’s why I will continue to honour the seal of the confessional.”[2]

Other reasons had less than sufficient ballast. One considered the fact that pursuing such laws would drive the offender away. Penitents would be reluctant to come forth.

“Common sense tells me that a sex abuser would be even less likely to present for confession if he knew that the confessional seal did not apply.”

Another was frequency – the sacrament of confession was rarely used by Catholics these days, which meant that it could go on undisturbed. Over the course of 32 years, reflected Brennan, not a single person had “confessed the sin of child sexual abuse to me.” Personal experience, it seemed, took the precedence over institutional realities.

Hart furthered his own interpretation of institutional reality: the Catholic Church had been given a dusting reform, and such laws were needlessly intrusive. Nothing of the order of child abuse on that scale, he claimed “would ever happen” today. It was adequate, claimed Hart, to persuade a penitent to tell another individual or body outside the profession. To that voice could also be added Brennan’s.

An old, stubborn defiance against the state, that all-secular nasty beast that jousted with Papal power for centuries, seemed to resurface. A mandatory reporting rule to report abuse was far less important than the seal of confession, the breaking of which would be tantamount to spitting in the face of the divine.

While the mandatory reporting requirements would merely bring the clergy in line with other relationships of a fiduciary nature, traditional reservations about such rules remain. Would it, for instance, do less for the victims than intended?

People With Disability Australia, for instance, suggest a consensual element to the disclosure, though this, in a seedy sort of way, sounds much like the rape victim’s lament on not reporting a crime out of fear. Consent, it would seem to follow, would be indispensable for exposing the offence, an unfortunate weakening of any reporting requirement.

Care Leavers Australasia Network offers a necessary demurral.

“Unfortunately, sometimes the only way to ensure the right thing is done is through the threat of a penalty of punishment.”[3]

The state and the Catholic Church (for some, the only Church), have renewed an ancient battle, with the divine enlisted as alibi and sacred protector. The priests, as they have done before, will be its militant vanguard. As with any political struggle, the victims risk being forgotten – again.

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

Notes

Q: If Donald Trump, the Commander in Chief of the US Military, is Historically, Theologically and Morally Blind and Also Scientifically Illiterate, Should He be Making Life and Death Decisions for the Planet?

“We have grasped the mystery of the atom and rejected the Sermon on the Mount. Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants. We know more about war than we do about peace – more about killing than we do about living.” — WWII General Omar Bradley

“If (Japan does) not now accept our terms they may expect a rain of ruin from the air, the likes of which has never been seen on this earth.” – US President Harry S. Truman (August 6, 1945)

“North Korea best not make any more threats to the United States…(If they do) they will be met with fire and fury…the likes of which this world has never seen before.” – US President Donald J. Trump (August 8, 2017)

***

On the eve of the anniversary of the United State’s nuclear annihilation of the Christian community of Nagasaki on August 9, 1945, Donald Trump threatened the nuclear destruction of North Korea (including the deaths of thousands or millions of innocents) in ways more devastating than even the nuclear annihilation of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

The multibillionaire Donald J. Trump, being an over-privileged “Golden Boy” son of a multimillionaire, a narcissist, a sexual predator, a serial liar and an exploitative casino mogul with mob connections, was probably destined to become historically, theologically, morally and scientifically illiterate. It would have been very unusual for someone growing up in that trajectory to turn out otherwise.

Donald Trump is widely acknowledged to have the temperament of an arrogant schoolyard bully with the attitude of a “know-it-all” teen-ager who has no self-awareness that he is factually ignorant of many of the things one would expect of a business or political leader. Wealthy megalomaniacs surround themselves with obedient sycophants who are afraid to tell them the truth about their ignorance, and Trump is no exception.

Trump’s upbringing and adult life experiences allowed him to suffer very few appropriate punishments for his unethical behaviors, sexual conquests and bankruptcy proceedings. His worshipful celebrity status and financial successes have left him with dangerous character traits that include megalomania, sociopathy, narcissism and paranoia, as he has proven over and over again during his campaign rallies and his desecration of the Oval Office.

Trump’s Cozy Relationship with Racists, Militarists and Christian Dominionists

But what is perhaps most dangerous for the planet and for America is his obvious tolerance of – and even advocacy for – white supremacism, American exceptionalism, militarism, sexism and fascism/racism, filling his White House and cabinet with a strange combination of white supremacists and ethically infantile multimillionaires, corporate elites, pro-war militarists, American imperialists and assorted other power-mongers like those of a Christian Dominionist persuasion that could meet the definition of “christofascist” (look it up).

Christian Dominionists have internalized into dogma the many writings of one of the so-called “Christian Reconstructionist” gurus, R. J. Rushdoony (and his Chalcedon Foundation) and they are working tirelessly (and secretly) to recruit and train future political leaders for the time when an American Christian Fundamentalist plurality will reject democracy and create a theocratic nation that will be ruled by a tribunal of punitive male Christian elders – who will institute “sharia-like” Old Testament Law that includes 18 new capital crimes (as prescribed in the “inerrant” Old Testament).

Many Dominionist “christians” joined white supremacists, Neo-Nazis and the KKK (a far right-wing “Christian-based” cult) in voting for Trump. Many of them have been indoctrinated since childhood into believing in the mythical and non-biblical “Rapture theory” that will occur at the end of time. They believe that the Rapture will save them from the “fire and fury” that is described in the “inerrant” book of Revelation – where non-believing heretics will be “left behind” to suffer horribly as the earth is destroyed by a wrathful god. (Rushdoony’s philosophy was that their wrathful god has given white male Christians dominion over the earth [which includes the animals, the land, the water, women, and all the heathen nations] and that a theocratic government, operating according to Old Testament Law is God’s will. Hard-core dominionists believe that democracy is apostasy and that only Christians should be able to vote.

(Read more at www.theocracywatch.org

or read the comprehensive article at:

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/unreasonablefaith/2009/05/r-j-rushdoony-reconstructionist-and-racist-bigot/#z0luYlZdblfpUHKv.99)

Many of those who have been gradually and often secretly grabbing political power at national, state and local levels have supported policies that are proto-fascist.

Some of them are in Trump’s circle (perhaps unbeknownst to him) and are also in favor of the first use of nuclear weapons.

Some of them have access to the nuclear codes (including Christian Dominionist Mike Pence if and when Trump is physically or mentally incapacitated or permanently impeached).

To Trump’s Christian Dominionist Supporters, Nuclear Holocaust and Armageddon Might be Equivalent

What should really worry every thinking person is that none of the imposters in the White House seem to have any awareness of the concept of “nuclear winter”, although “nuclear holocaust” might just be close enough for Christian Dominionists to represent a substitution for their long-anticipated and sometimes desired Armageddon.

White supremacists rallying in Charlottesville, Virginia (Source: Pinterest)

Looking beyond the implications of the significant portion of right-wing (both ‘christian” and non-christian) voters that constitute Trump’s voting base the NeoNazi and KKK Trump voters raised their ugly heads at Charlottesville, Virginia a few days ago. Three weeks earlier (on July 27, 2017) the commander of the US Pacific fleet, US Navy Admiral Scott H. Swift, stated that he would obediently order the launch of a nuclear strike against China if President Trump ordered it.

All this is happening partly because of the artificial, media-enhanced, fake “crisis” that has been orchestrated between two saber-rattling, third-rate megalomaniacal wannabe dictators that have the legal (but not the ethical) right and ability to order the use of nuclear weapons to target and kill innocent bystanders and their homes and places of employment and permanently poison the earth and the oceans.

Blow-Back

Neither megalomaniac has expressed any awareness of the concept of “blow-back” that the World War I poison gas artillerymen first experienced when they shot their chlorine gas and mustard gas shells at the enemy and saw the wind change direction 180 degrees.

Of course, what the major media that are fanning the so-called “North Korean” crisis (that has no realistic military solution, according to the Pentagon) is that North Korea may not have the guided missile technology that is precise enough to hit targets smaller than the Sea of Japan. (Note: Authorities say that North Korea’s most recent and most powerful ”intercontinental” ballistic missile only traveled 580 miles and was in the air for only 39 minutes, but in order to strike the US, an ICBM would need a range of at least 4,800 miles.)

Wars and Rumors of War can be Good Investment Opportunities

Of course profiteers that have special interests and investments in war industries would like to see a bump up of another highly profitable arms race. Think of the money to be made by investing in weapons industries just before a president declares war! Think of the job security and pension enhancement of the career officer classes when somebody in the White House is a Hawk! (Think corporate Wall Street/DOW-Jones Industrial entities like Lockheed Martin, Boeing, General Dynamics, Northrup Grumman, etc and governmental War Street entities like the DOD, STRATCOM, AFRICOM, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the DOE, Seal Team Six, Blackwater [and the many other privatized mercenary corporations that profit from war]).

There are thousands of for-profit corporations whose paymasters fund well-positioned lobbyists that know all the legal and illegal tricks of bribing US politicians, influencing various governmental bodies and paying off major media outlets with their lucrative, the current one in the form of warning everybody that US coastal cities are in danger of being hit by a North Korean missile. But, of course, the chance of a precise missile strike from the Korean peninsula to a US city none or zero for North Korea’s third-rate military machine, and such a possibility is far less likely to happen than would be an accidental firing of a US nuclear missile in a provocative war game scenario. Sadly, the news-consuming public can be easily manipulated into believing any and all of the propaganda that comes out of the mouths of alleged authority figures that have a podium, pulpit or microphone and have the capability of convening a press conference.

False Flag Ops Can Bolster Failing Presidencies

Manufactured crises can be expected to temporarily save failing presidencies, and so false flag operations are trusted components of any president’s political strategy, as is also true when a nation’s power elite sees its hidden agendas threatened. (Ex: the assassination of JFK averted the possibility of America’s withdrawal from Vietnam; the Kuwait “invasion” by Saddam Hussein that was allowed to happen by the US State Department and the US invasion of Iraq temporarily boosted George H. W. Bush’s popularity; the missile attacks in Sudan and Afghanistan boosted Bill Clinton’s popularity; the dramatic controlled demolitions of the three World Trade Center Towers on 9/11/01 and the subsequent illegal invasion and war in Afghanistan (that predictably spread to Iraq, to Syria, Libya and beyond, boosted George W. Bush’s popularity; the alleged killing of Osama bin Laden (who had been documented to have already died in 2002) temporarily boosted Barack Obama’s (and Hillary Clinton’s) popularity; the Cruise missile barrage against Syria temporarily boosted Trump’s poll numbers; and an orchestrated war crisis against North Korea will surely obscure – and possibly save – Trump’s failing presidency).

Harry Truman May Have Been Scientifically Illiterate, but he Wasn’t Historically Illiterate

In 1945 US President Harry Truman was far from historically illiterate, but he was surely scientifically ignorant about anything related to nuclear power or what was the impact of radioactive nuclear weapons materials like uranium and plutonium, or the fall-out waste products like radioactive strontium, cesium, iodine, etc on the bodies of actual humans that are downwind from Ground Zero.

In the case of nuclear weapons, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt and his military planning commissions had kept Vice President Truman entirely in the dark about the Manhattan Project. Truman’s first information about nuclear weapons happened right after he took the oath of office after FDR’s death, April 12, 1945. At the time VE Day was still a month away

The original target for the military planners that funded the Manhattan Project was the fascist Third Reich and Adolf Hitler’s Deutschland Uber Alles imperialist agenda that coveted the resources outside its borders that, if stolen, could make Germany Great Again. The original intention to drop the bombs on Germany energized the many brilliant Jewish scientists that had signed up to develop them, although some of them had second thoughts when they were dropped on civilian targets in Japan,

But the war in the European theater ended before the bombs were ready to be deployed, and so, rather than abandoning the project (too much momentum and money spent to stop it) and to justify the tens of billions of dollars spent (in 2017 dollar equivalence) in developing and delivering the bombs, Japanese cities became the targets, even though both sides knew that Japan had already lost the war.

So in view of the above, it seems appropriate to point out some of the hidden history of Nagasaki and the war crimes that the US military planners committed against non-combatants in Japan on the 72nd anniversary of the day that will forever live in infamy. Please see my 2016 Duty to Warn column on the history of the Nagasaki bombing by googling “Christianity and the Nagasaki Bombing” or read here.

The following quotes are appropriate words of wisdom that speak to the following three Trump administration moral crises:

1) The NeoNazi, KKK and White Supremacist power and influence in Donald Trump’s White House;

2) The ill-conceived saber-rattling of the historically illiterate, ignorant, amoral and too-powerful Donald Trump; and

3) the threat of a gradual Christian Dominionist take-over of the US government by the likes of smiley-faced, christofascist wolves in sheep’s clothing like Mike Pence, Ted Cruz, Mike Huckabee (and presumably also Sarah Huckaby Sanders), Sarah Palin, Michelle Bachmann, Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, Tim LaHaye, James Dobson, D. James Kennedy, Michael Huckaby, Gary North, Francis Schaeffer, Paul Hill (the infamous Planned Parenthood murderer), etc, etc. (For more, google “Theocracy Watch”.)

The quotes below are from courageous thinkers that have seen through the propaganda that has spawned and then perpetuated the nefarious agendas of yesteryear’s corporate-controlled media, corporate-controlled politics, corporate-controlled advertising and our corporate-controlled government.

These quotes are intended as teaching tools for peace and justice and anti-fascist activists and as learning opportunities for citizens who may be in lukewarm support of the agendas of the war-mongers in the US Congress, the White House, the Pentagon and the Mainstream Corporate-controlled Media. Hopefully they will also be read by the various cheerleaders for war everywhere and by the multitude of war profiteers on Wall Street, War Street and in the Oval Office.

NOTE: the list of antifascist quotes below does not contain quotes from Christian Dominionists or White Supremacists. Those quotes can be obtained elsewhere. This list contains 4,400 words. For Duluth Reader readers, the entire list of quotes will be archived at:

http://duluthreader.com/articles/categories/200_Duty_to_Warn

Quotes by Courageous Anti-Fascists

“A country that has dangled the sword of nuclear holocaust over the world for half a century and claims that someone else invented terrorism is a country out of touch with reality.” — John K. Stoner, co-founder of Every Church A Peace Church (2001)

“As a physician, I contend that nuclear technology threatens life on our planet with extinction. If present trends continue, the air we breathe, the food we eat, and the water we drink will soon be contaminated with enough radioactive pollutants to pose a potential health hazard far greater than any plague humanity has ever experienced.” — Dr. Helen Caldicott

“Aggressive militarization under the rubric of defense against terrorism threatens to provoke a chain reaction among nuclear nations, big and small, that, once set in motion, may prove impossible to control. No military confrontation anywhere in the world is free from this ominous and ever-present danger.” — Helen Caldicott, from “The New Nuclear Danger” (2002)

“Conceit, arrogance and egotism are the essentials of patriotism. Patriotism assumes that our globe is divided into little spots, each one surrounded by an iron gate. Those who had the fortune of being born on some particular spot, consider themselves better, nobler, grander and more intelligent than the living beings inhabiting any other spot. It is, therefore, the duty of everyone living on that chosen spot to fight, kill and die in the attempt to impose his superiority upon all others.” — Emma Goldman

“Behind the ostensible government sits enthroned an invisible government owing no allegiance and acknowledging no responsibility to the people. To destroy this invisible government, to befoul the unholy alliance between corrupt business and corrupt politics is the first task of the statesmanship of the day.” — Theodore Roosevelt (1906)

“The President is merely the most important among a large number of public servants. He should be supported or opposed exactly to the degree which is warranted by his good conduct or bad conduct, his efficiency or inefficiency in rendering loyal, able, and disinterested service to the Nation as a whole. Therefore it is absolutely necessary that there should be full liberty to tell the truth about his acts, and this means that it is exactly necessary to blame him when he does wrong as to praise him when he does right. Any other attitude in an American citizen is both base and servile. To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public.” — President Theodore Roosevelt (who sometimes talked like an anti-fascist, but who often acted otherwise) from an editorial for the Kansas City Star (May 7, 1918)

“We were constantly told by our friends, ‘Who were we to differ with able statesmen, with men of sensitive conscience who also absolutely abhorred war, but were convinced that this war for the preservation of democracy would make all future wars impossible, that the priceless values of civilization which were at stake could at this moment be saved only by war?’ But these very dogmatic statements spurred one to alarm. Was not war in the interest of democracy for the salvation of civilization a contradiction of terms, whoever said it or however often it was repeated?” — Jane Addams, Nobel Peace Prize Winner and Founder of Hull House; from “Personal Reactions During War” (1922)

“A nation can survive its fools – even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and he carries his banners openly. But the traitor moves among those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the galleys, heard in the very hall of government itself. For the traitor appears not a traitor — he speaks in the accents familiar to his victims, and wears their face and their garment, and he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men. He rots the soul of a nation — he works secretly and unknown to undermine the pillars of a city — he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murderer is less to be feared.” — Cicero (42 BC)

On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart’s desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.” — H. L. Mencken – Baltimore Sun (1920)

“…the whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by an endless series of hobgoblins, most of them imaginary.” — H. L. Mencken (1922)

“No one ever became poor underestimating the intelligence of the American consumer.” — H. L. Mencken

“The men the American people admire most extravagantly are the most daring liars; the men they detest most violently are those who try to tell them the truth.” — H. L. Mencken

”Certified lunatics are shut up because of their proneness to violence when their pretensions are questioned; the uncertified variety are given the control of powerful armies, and can inflict death and disaster upon all sane men within their reach.” — Bertrand Russell

“From whence shall we expect the approach of danger? Shall some trans-Atlantic military giant step the earth and crush us at a blow? Never. All the armies of Europe and Asia…could not by force take a drink from the Ohio River or make a track on the Blue Ridge in a thousand years. No, if destruction be our lot we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of free men we will live forever or die by suicide.” — Abraham Lincoln

“Thank God for Democracy Now! Journalism is almost dead as we move into this Neofascist age. And thank god you all are still willing to tell the truth. I think Trump is already betraying working people in terms of making sure that Wall Street is in the driver’s seat. And what I mean by that is that in an emerging Neofascist moment, you have the rule of big business, which is big banks and big corporations (who control what the mainstream media is allowed to report).” — Cornel West

“Neofascists scapegoat the most vulnerable. It could be Muslims, Mexicans, gay brothers, lesbian sisters, indigenous peoples, black peoples, Jews, and so on. And then they also have militaristic orientations around the world. …Under a Trump administration….it’s clear that the One Percent are still running things.” — Cornel West

“The politicians are put there to give you the idea that you have freedom of choice. You don’t. You have no choice. You have owners. They own you. They own everything. They own all the important land. They own and control the corporations. They’ve long since bought and paid for the Senate, the Congress, the state houses, the city halls. They got the judges in their back pockets and they own all the big media companies, so they control just about all of the news and information you get to hear. They got you by the balls. They spend billions of dollars every year lobbying. Lobbying to get what they want.

“Well, we know what they want. They want more for themselves and less for everybody else, but I’ll tell you what they don’t want. They don’t want a population of citizens capable of critical thinking. They don’t want well-informed, well-educated people capable of critical thinking. They’re not interested in that. That doesn’t help them. That’s against their interests.

“They want obedient workers. Obedient workers, people who are just smart enough to run the machines and do the paperwork….

“It’s a big club and you ain’t in it. You and I are not in the big club. …The table is tilted, folks. The game is rigged and nobody seems to notice…. Nobody seems to care. That’s what the owners count on…. It’s called the American Dream, ’cause you have to be asleep to believe it.” — George Carlin

“In politics, nothing happens by accident. If it happens, you can bet it was planned that way.” – Franklin Delano Roosevelt

“The first truth is that the liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private (and corporate) power to a point where it becomes stronger than the democratic state itself. That, in its essence, is fascism — ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private (or corporate) power…. Among us today a concentration of private (and corporate) power without equal in history is growing.” — Franklin D. Roosevelt

“If you don’t read the newspaper you are uninformed; if you do read the newspaper you are misinformed.” — Mark Twain

“It’s ridiculous to talk about freedom in a society dominated by huge corporations. What kind of freedom is there inside a corporation? They’re totalitarian institutions – you take orders from above and maybe give them to people below you. There’s about as much freedom as under Stalinism.” — Noam Chomsky

“When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross.”
— Sinclair Lewis

“The split in America, rather than simply economic, is between those who embrace reason, who function in the real world of cause and effect, and those who, numbed by isolation and despair, now seek meaning in a mythical world of intuition, a world that is no longer reality-based, a world of magic.” – Chris Hedges, from “American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America”

“Still another danger is represented by those who, paying lip service to democracy and the common welfare, in their insatiable greed for money and the power which money gives, do not hesitate surreptitiously to evade the laws designed to safeguard the public from monopolistic extortion.

“Their final objective toward which all their deceit is directed is to capture political power so that, using the power of the state and the power of the market simultaneously, they may keep the common man in eternal subjection.

“They claim to be super-patriots, but they would destroy every liberty guaranteed by the Constitution.

“They are patriotic in time of war because it is to their interest to be so, but in time of peace they follow power and the dollar wherever they may lead.” – Henry A. Wallace (Vice President under FDR)

“A fascist is one whose lust for money or power is combined with such an intensity of intolerance toward those of other races, parties, classes, religions, cultures, regions or nations as to make him ruthless in his use of deceit or violence to attain his ends.” — Henry A. Wallace

“Individual citizens have the duty to violate domestic laws (and disobey orders in wartime) to prevent crimes against peace and humanity.” — The judges at the Nuremberg trials that condemned Nazi war criminals

“The great enemy of the truth is very often not the lie— deliberate, contrived and dishonest -but the myth, persistent, persuasive, and unrealistic. Belief in myths allows the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought.” – President John Fitzgerald Kennedy

“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.” — John F. Kennedy

“War will exist until that distant day when the conscientious objector enjoys the same reputation and prestige that the warrior does today.” — John F. Kennedy

“The most important topic on earth: peace. What kind of peace do we seek? Not a Pax Americana enforced on the world by American weapons of war. Not the peace of the grave or the security of the slave. I am talking about genuine peace, the kind of peace that makes life on earth worth living, the kind that enables men and nations to grow and to hope and to build a better life for their children — not merely peace for Americans but peace for all men and women — not merely peace in our time but peace for all time.” — John F. Kennedy, American University commencement address, Washington, 10 June 1963. (Five months prior to his assassination)

“The further a society drifts from the truth, the more it will hate those that speak it.” — George Orwell

“It is forbidden to kill; therefore all murderers are punished – unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets.” — Voltaire

”A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government.”
— Edward Abbey (1927-1989)

“Those who take oaths to politically powerful secret societies cannot be depended on for loyalty to a democratic republic.” — President John Quincy Adams

“The project of the conservative throughout the ages is the search for a higher moral justification for selfishness. This is still worth every word of political philosophy written since the war, as well as being a damn good explanation of why self-styled “Libertarians” and traditional conservatives stick together.” — John Kenneth Galbraith, economist and ambassador

“Wars throughout history have been waged for conquest and plunder. It is the ruling class that declares the wars, and it is the working class who fights all the battles and furnishes the corpses. The ruling class continually talks about “patriotic duty”, but it is not their duty but your patriotic duty that they are concerned about. There is a decided difference. Their patriotic duty never takes them to the firing line or chucks them into the trenches.” — Eugene V. Debs

“We annually spend on military security more than the net income of all United States corporations. This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence — economic, political, even spiritual — is felt in every city, every State house, every office of the Federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society. In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes.” — President Dwight D. Eisenhower in a televised speech 1961

“I am sick and tired of war. Its glory is all moonshine. It is only those who have neither fired a shot nor heard the shrieks and groans of the wounded who cry aloud for blood, for vengeance, for desolation. War is hell.” — William Tecumseh Sherman (Civil War General)

“The greatest threat to our world and its peace comes from those who want war, who prepare for it, and who, by holding out vague promises of future peace or by instilling fear of foreign aggression, try to make us accomplices to their plans.” —­ Hermann Hesse

“The world is a dangerous place, not because of those who do evil, but because of those who look on and do nothing.” — Albert Einstein

“He who joyfully marches to music in rank and file has already earned my contempt. He has been given a large brain by mistake, since for him the spinal cord would fully suffice…Heroism at command, senseless brutality, deplorable love-of­ country stance – how violently I hate all this; how despicable and ignoble war is…I would rather be torn to shreds than be part of so base an action. It is my conviction that killing under the cloak of war is nothing but an act of murder.” — Albert Einstein

“It is from numberless diverse acts of courage and belief that human history is shaped. Each time a person stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring, those ripples build a current which can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance.” — Robert F. Kennedy (from a UN speech on June 6, 1966, exactly 2 years before his assassination)

“Our Gross National Product now is over 800 billion dollars a year; but that Gross National Product counts air pollution and cigarette advertising, and ambulances to clear our highways of carnage…special locks for our doors and the jails for the people who break them…the destruction of the redwood and the loss of our natural wonder in chaotic sprawl, napalm, nuclear warheads and armored cars for the police to fight the riots in our cities, the television programs which glorify violence in order to sell toys to our children…Yet the Gross National Product does not allow for the health of our children, the quality of their education or the joy of their play. It does not include the beauty of our poetry or the strength of our marriages, the intelligence of our public debate or the integrity of our public officials. It measures neither our wit nor our courage, neither our wisdom nor our learnings, neither our compassion nor our devotion to our country…It measures everything, in short, except that which makes life worthwhile. And it can tell us everything about America except why we are proud to be Americans.” — Robert F. Kennedy (March 18, 1968, 10 weeks before his assassination)

“Spending hundreds of billions of dollars on Star Wars will take money away from education, programs for women and children, and health care. There is a direct link between promoting weapons for space and the destabilization of our communities. People must connect these struggles.” — Bruce Gagnon

“In this time of war against Osama bin Laden and the oppressive Taliban regime, we are thankful that OUR leader isn’t the spoiled son of a powerful politician from a wealthy oil family who is supported by religious fundamentalists, operates through clandestine organizations, has no respect for the democratic electoral process, bombs innocents, and uses war to deny people their civil liberties. Amen.” — The prayer of Huey Freedman, from “The Boondocks” cartoon (during George W Bush’s presidency)

“Security policy” has led us into the most dire insecurity the world has ever faced. The politics of nuclear confrontation imposes a brand of insanity upon us that says, ‘In order to defend freedom, we must be prepared to destroy life itself.’ The system is bankrupt when humanity shrinks from recognizing that it is in the process of destroying itself. The enormous expenditure of energy, scientific sophistication and wealth on the military is the main cause of poverty, inflation and despair in the world.” — Petra Kelly from “Fighting For Hope” (1984)

“If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen.” — Samuel Adams from a speech at the Philadelphia State House, August 1, 1776

“All that was required of them (i.e. the brain-washed masses) was a primitive patriotism which could be appealed to whenever it was necessary to make them accept longer working hours or shorter rations. And even when they became discontented, as they sometimes did, their discontent led nowhere, because, being without general ideas, they could only focus it on petty specific grievances. The larger evils invariably escaped their notice.” — George Orwell from “1984”

“And it seems to me perfectly in the cards that there will be within the next generation or so a pharmacological method of making people love their servitude, and producing a kind of painless concentration camp for entire societies, so that people will in fact have their liberties taken away from them but will rather enjoy it, because they will be distracted from any desire to rebel by propaganda, brainwashing, or brainwashing enhanced by pharmacological methods.” — Aldous Huxley from “Brave New World” (1959)

“A society whose citizens refuse to see and investigate the facts and who refuse to believe that their government and their media will routinely lie to them and fabricate a reality contrary to verifiable facts, is a society that chooses and deserves the Police State Dictatorship it’s going to get.” — Ian Williams Goddard

“With numbing regularity good people were seen to knuckle under the demands of authority and perform actions that were callous and severe. Men who are in everyday life responsible and decent were seduced by the trappings of authority, by the control of their perceptions, and by the uncritical acceptance of the experimenter’s definition of the situation, into performing harsh acts. A substantial proportion of people do what they are told to do, irrespective of the content of the act and without limitations of conscience, so long as they perceive that the command comes from a legitimate authority” — Stanley Milgram from “Obedience to Authority” 1965

“Individuals have international duties which transcend the national obligations of obedience. Therefore (individual citizens) have the duty to (refuse to obey) domestic laws to prevent crimes against peace and humanity from occurring.”– Nuremberg War Crime Tribunal, 1950

“You assist an evil system most effectively by obeying its orders and decrees. An evil system never deserves such allegiance. Allegiance to it means partaking of the evil. A good person will resist an evil system with his or her whole soul.” — Gandhi

“Civil disobedience is not our problem. Our problem is civil obedience. Our problem is that numbers of people all over the world have obeyed the dictates of the leaders of their government and have gone to war, and millions have been killed because of this obedience. Our problem is that people are obedient all over the world in the face of poverty and starvation and stupidity and war and cruelty. Our problem is that people are obedient while the jails are full of petty thieves, and all the while the grand thieves are running the country. That’s our problem.” — Howard Zinn from “Failure to Quit”

“It may well be that the greatest tragedy of this period of social change is not the glaring noisiness of the so-called bad people, but the silence of the so-called good people.” — Martin Luther King. Jr.

“If you see injustice and say nothing, you have taken the side of the oppressor.” ­– Desmund Tutu South African Anglican Archbishop

“To plunder, to slaughter, to steal, these things they misname empire; and where they make a desert, they call it peace.” — Tacitus

“Oh Lord our God, help us to tear their soldiers to bloody shreds with our shells; help us to cover their smiling fields with the pale forms of their patriot dead; help us to drown out the thunder of guns with the shrieks of their wounded, writhing in pain; help us to lay waste their humble homes with a hurricane of fire; help us to turn them out roofless with their little children to wander un-befriended the wastes of their desolated land. We ask it, in the spirit of love, of Him Who is the Source of Love. Amen.” — Mark Twain (the unspoken satirical Christian Patriot’s pulpit prayer to “Support Our Troops”)

“A tyrant must put on the appearance of uncommon devotion to religion. Subjects are less apprehensive of illegal treatment from a ruler whom they consider god-fearing and pious. On the other hand, they do less easily move against him, believing that he has the gods on his side.” – Aristotle

“It will be a great day when our schools get all the money they need and the air force has to hold a bake sale to buy a bomber” — Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF)

“Globalization is but another name for colonization — nothing has changed but the name. And, just as the East India Company was the instrument for colonization, today’s corporation is the instrument for globalization. And, corporatization is but another name for Fascism.” — Urban Kohler

“We must bear in mind that imperialism is a world system, the last stage of capitalism and it must be defeated in a world confrontation. The strategic end of this struggle should be the destruction of imperialism. Our share, the responsibility of the exploited and underdeveloped of the world, is to eliminate the foundations of imperialism: oppressed nations, from where they extract capital, raw materials, technicians, and cheap labor, and to which they export new capital-instruments of domination-arms and all kinds of articles, thus submerging us in an absolute dependence.” — Ernesto Che Guevara

“The lowest standards of ethics of which a right-thinking man can possibly conceive is taught to the common soldier whose trade is to shoot his fellow men. In youth he may have learned the command, ‘Thou shalt not kill,’ but the ruler takes the boy just as he enters manhood and teaches him that his highest duty is to shoot a bullet through his neighbor’s heart – and this, unmoved by passion or feeling or hatred, and without the least regard to right or wrong, but simply because his ruler gives the word.” — Clarence Darrow from “Resist Not Evil”

“Whenever a people… entrusts the defense of their country to a regular, standing army, composed of mercenaries, the power of that country will remain under the direction of the most wealthy citizens.” — An anonymous ‘framer’ of the US Constitution – Independent Gazetteer (1791)

“We are apt to shut our eyes against a painful truth…Are we disposed to be of the number of those, who having eyes, see not, and having ears, hear not, the things which so nearly concern their temporal salvation? For my part, whatever anguish of spirit it might cost, I am willing to know the whole truth; to know the worst, and to provide for it.” — Patrick Henry – Virginia Convention (1775)

“A common and natural result of an undue respect for law is that you may see a file of soldiers, colonels, captains, corporals, privates, powder-monkeys, and all marching in admirable order over hill and dale to the wars, against their wills, ay, against their common sense and consciences, which makes it very steep marching indeed, and produces a palpitation of the heart. They have no doubt that it is a damnable business in which they are concerned; they are all peaceably inclined. Now, what are they? Men or small movable forts and magazines, at the service of some unscrupulous man in power?” — Henry David Thoreau

“The unwilling, led by the unqualified, doing the unnecessary for the indifferent and ungrateful.” — Anonymous Grafitti describing the reality of the Vietnam War

Dr Kohls is a retired physician from Duluth, MN, USA. He writes a weekly column for the Duluth Reader, the area’s alternative newsweekly magazine. His columns deal with the dangers of American fascism, corporatism, militarism, racism, malnutrition, Big Pharma’s psychiatric drugging and over-vaccination regimens, and other movements that threaten the environment, prosperity, democracy, civility and the health and longevity of the planet and the populace. Many of his columns are archived at 

http://www.globalresearch.ca/author/gary-g-kohls;

http://duluthreader.com/search?search_term=Duty+to+Warn&p=2; or at 

https://www.transcend.org/tms/search/?q=gary+kohls+articles

There is something unsettling about how President Trump has surrounded himself with generals. From his defense secretary to his national security advisor to his White House chief of staff, Trump looks to senior military officers to fill key positions that have been customarily filled by civilians. He’s surrounded by generals and threatens war at the drop of a hat.

President Trump began last week by threatening “fire and fury” on North Korea. He continued through the week claiming, falsely, that Iran is violating the terms of the nuclear deal. He finally ended the week by threatening a US military attack on Venezuela.

He told reporters on Friday that,

“We have many options for Venezuela including a possible military option if necessary. …We have troops all over the world in places that are very, very far away. Venezuela is not very far away and the people are suffering, and they are dying.”

Venezuela’s defense minister called Trump’s threat “an act of craziness.”

Even more worrisome, when Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro tried to call President Trump for clarification he was refused. The White House stated that discussions with the Venezuelan president could only take place once democracy was restored in the country. Does that mean President Trump is moving toward declaring Maduro no longer the legitimate president of Venezuela? Is Trump taking a page from Obama’s failed regime change policy for Syria and declaring that “Maduro must go”?

The current unrest in Venezuela is related to the economic shortcomings of that country’s centrally-planned economy. The 20th century has shown us very clearly that state control over an economy leads to mismanagement, mal-investment, massive shortages, and finally economic collapse. That is why those of us who advocate free market economics constantly warn that US government intervention in our own economy is leading us toward a similar financial crisis.

But there is another factor in the unrest in Venezuela. For many years the United States government, through the CIA, the National Endowment for Democracy, and US government funded NGOs, have been trying to overthrow the Venezuelan government. They almost succeeded in 2002, when then-president Hugo Chavez was briefly driven from office. Washington has spent millions trying to manipulate Venezuela’s elections and overturn the results. US policy is to create unrest and then use that unrest as a pretext for US intervention.

Military officers play an important role in defending the United States. Their job is to fight and win wars. But the White House is becoming the war house and the president seems to see war as a first solution rather than a last resort. His threats of military action against a Venezuela that neither threatens nor could threaten the United States suggests a shocking lack of judgment.

Congress should take President Trump’s threats seriously. In the 1980s, when President Reagan was determined to overthrow the Nicaraguan government using a proxy army, Congress passed a series of amendments, named after their author, Rep. Edward Boland (D-MA), to prohibit the president from using funds it appropriated to do so. Congress should make it clear in a similar manner that absent a Venezuelan attack on the United States, President Trump would be committing a serious crime in ignoring the Constitution were he to follow through with his threats. Maybe they should call it the “We’re Not The World’s Policeman” act.

Featured image: People in Venezuela march against threats by U.S. President Donald Trump to militarily intervene in the country. | Photo: @PartidoPSUV

Residents of Venezuela’s capital of Caracas, as well as representatives from social movements, worker’s unions and other organizations have mobilized to participate in the Anti-Imperialist March.

The mass demonstration is a rejection over U.S. President Donald Trump‘s recent statement that he was considering “many options for Venezuela, including a possible military option if necessary” to solve the nation’s internal political affairs, according to AVN.

“With the objective of protecting its economic interests” the United States has historically spilled blood in the name of liberty and freedom,” said Elisabeth Bellorin, a public worker.

She encouraged viewers to question,

“Up until now, which countries where they’ve stuck their noses is currently doing well? None. Palestine, Syria, Iraq, Libya are examples of death that the empire causes.”

Also participating in the march was Claudia Echeverria of La Pastora parish. She said that Venezuelans “will not permit imperialism to put its claws on our country.”

Meanwhile, Pedro Pereira, a freelance worker, exhorted all Venezuelans who oppose the revolutionary process to become more conscious of the threat faced by the country, for bombs do not distinguish between political positions, beliefs or color.

“To oppose” the revolutionary process “is one thing, however, it’s completely different to endorse the assassination of the people. Let hate go. Think about the future of your children.”

The protest began at 9 a.m. on Libertador Avenue and will proceed to Miraflores Palace, the seat of the Bolivarian Revolutionary government, where they will greet former public city bus driver and current Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro.

Trump, a multi-billionaire and real estate magnate, has not backed down from his statements made Friday which threatened Venezuela with military intervention after the country went ahead with its National Constituent Assembly elections on July 30.

The constitutional measure aims to foster a national dialogue to help quell four months of political unrest and modify the constitution with input from broad sectors of society.

China, Germany and Uruguay among others have criticized the U.S. warmongering stance toward Venezuela.

The governments stated that the only way to resolve the nation’s internal political affairs, guaranteeing its sovereignty and peace, is if the government and opponents hold discussions.

The Korean Labour and Social Network on Energy (KLSNE) and the Korean Public Service and Transport Workers’ Union (KPTU) Support the Government’s Policy of a Transition toward a Coal-free, Nuclear-free Energy System.

The Moon Jae-in government, which was elected on a pledge to phase out coal and nuclear generation and scale up clean renewables, is now moving quickly to enact these promises. Following a temporary shutdown of old coal-fired power plants, the Kori 1 nuclear reactor was permanently closed down on June 19. The government is now reconsidering plans to build new nuclear reactors Kori 5 and 6. The KLSNE and KPTU declare our support for these policies and our intentions to play a leading role in bringing about a just energy transition.

The government’s establishment of a commission to assess public opinion on the plans to build Kori reactors 5 and 6 on July 24 sparked immediate outcry from nuclear power business interests and pro-nuclear power scholars. The press has exacerbated this conflict with sensational reporting. It is deeply regrettable that those who oppose the government’s policies are speaking only from their individual self-interest without putting forth viable alternatives.

It is even more regrettable that the voices of workers at the Korean Hydro & Nuclear Power Corporation and other nuclear-power related companies who support a just transition are being stifled in the process. We stress the importance of recognising the difference between nuclear power business interests and the nuclear power workers. These workers are the people most easily exposed to radiation and at the most risk in the case of accidents. Electricity and gas workers, who have been discussing paths for a just transition for many years now, are sure that nuclear power workers will soon join us in this effort.

During the last nine years of conservative rule, South Korea’s energy policy has been focused on restructuring aimed only at meeting the interest of corporations (i.e. privatization). The result has been the expansion of nuclear power and private coal and liquefied natural gas (LNG) generation and massive profits for corporations. Energy policy has been consistently undemocratic and anti-climate.

With South Korea now facing the threat of earthquakes and air contaminated with fine dust it is only natural that we energy workers, who have fought for almost two decades to stop privatization and protect our public energy system, would take a leading role in the fight for a just energy transition.

Given the scale on which a transition must take place, it is predictable that many conflicts will occur among the various stakeholders involved. Nonetheless, we must seek the best path for transition by applying a standard of justice based on public safety, happiness and public accountability. This requires moving away from an energy policy based on the interest of big business toward one that seeks to minimise the harm to ordinary people and workers, while strengthening public accountability and democratic control. As can be seen in the statement entitled “The Korean Power Plant Industry Union Welcomes President Moon Jae-in’s Enactment of Measures to Reduce Fine Dust,” released on May 16, the majority of energy workers support the policy of phasing out coal and nuclear and scaling up clean renewable energy and are ready to put our collective future ahead of immediate personal interests and participate actively in the process of energy transition.

Public Assets Under Public Control

Energy transition must not mean that all the burden is put on the public through increased electricity or gas prices or onto workers through job cuts. Large corporations, which for years have enjoyed subsidies and guaranteed profits while they contribute to climate change, must pay their fair share of the costs. In addition, the new government’s policies can only be enacted if the differing positions of various stakeholders are mediated in the process of mapping out the transition. The most immediate goal of the transition must be the provision of a safe and reliable supply of electricity and gas, and a fair repositioning of energy workers as producers. These tasks will be achievable if the energy industry is reformed to function as a public asset under public control, which would correct for the distortions caused by the drive toward privatization led by conservative governments and business interests over the last several years.

Around the world large energy corporations are the main obstacles to energy transition policies. For this reason it is important that the government, the National Assembly, the public, environmental and other civil society organizations and energy industry trade unions work together to come up with a plan for democratic control over energy capital. The problem of employment for energy workers that will necessarily occur can also be solved through a publically controlled transition and democratic reform of the energy industry. Within the overall framework of a ‘just public energy transition’ we seek not only to tackle the issue of employment, but also to increase public accountability and strengthen democratic control. In this process we hope to work hand-in-hand with the energy-using public. We now invite the government to come forward with concrete proposals for public democratic reform of the energy industry.

With the goal of ensuring that this historic transition can move forward unwaveringly in the right direction, KLSNE and KPTU clarify the following position.

1. We actively support the policy of phasing out coal and nuclear and expanding clean renewable energy.
2. A roadmap for energy transition that ensures public accountability and strengthens democratic control of the energy industry must be developed.
3. We will work together with the public and civil society to achieve a just transition.

Featured image is from the author.

Charlottesville is now a by-word for political violence.

As you’ve probably heard, the Virginia college town played host to an alt-right rally that descended into violence on Saturday. Both the white nationalists and left-wing counter-protesters fought and beat each other with blunt objects for most of the morning.

The violence eventually led to deadly proportions when one of the alt-right rallygoers plowed into a crowd of counter-protesters, killing one woman and injuring several others. (Two officers monitoring the rally in a helicopter also died when their chopper crashed later that day. That tragedy appears to be the result of an accident.)

The sheer violence and extremism on display in Charlottesville shocked the nation, and politicians all over the spectrum issued strong condemnations of the rally.

Foremost among them were Democratic Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe and Democratic Charlottesville Mayor Mike Signer.

McAuliffe issued a strong denunciation of the alt-right and the rally violence on Saturday, telling white nationalists there was “no place for you in America.”

Signer sought to place the blame for the alt-right rally on President Trump, declaring that the supposed empowerment of racism “goes right to the doorstep of the president and the people around him who chose to dance with the devil in their presidential campaign.”

Both of these Democratic leaders were praised by the media for their response to the violence that unfolded. But, interestingly enough, few reporters are asking them about their responsibility in letting Charlottesville turn into a battlefield between political extremists.

Law enforcement was on hand at the dueling demonstrations on Saturday, decked out in riot gear and looking prepared for the worst. Except they weren’t allowed to do their job. Police on the scene were reported to have been ordered to “not intervene until given command to do so,” according to the ACLU. That kept them from suppressing the numerous scuffles that broke out.

When police were ordered to disperse the alt-right rally, that act directed the white nationalists into the antifa demonstrators, leading to further street brawls. Police didn’t seem to try to get in between the two groups or suppress the fights.

As ProPublica reported, state police and National Guardsmen mostly stood aside and watched as the violence grew worse.

This appears to be a direct result of what appears to be a stand down order from higher-ups.

When the alt-right rally was mostly dispersed, police still seemed a missing presence in the city as the leftists kept demonstrating, some armed with aluminum bats and other weapons. This is the scene where the white nationalist drove his car through pedestrians, with police seemingly far away from the action.

That absence allowed for a female reporter who was an eyewitness to the intentional crash to be allegedly punched in the face by antifa. The reason: because she was press.

Curiously, this attack on a journalist hasn’t netted much attention.

The chaos seems like it could have been contained and fewer people hurt if police were a more active presence in Charlottesville.

Both sides of the rally have been critical of police inaction in the rally, putting blame on them for the out-of-control violence that occurred on Sunday.

“There was no police presence,” Brittany Caine-Conley, a minister-in-training who protested the alt-right rally, told The New York Times. “We were watching people punch each other; people were bleeding all the while police were inside of barricades at the park, watching. It was essentially just brawling on the street and community members trying to protect each other.”

McAuliffe was asked about the criticism of law enforcement’s inaction Sunday, to which he offered an odd response — he blamed the presence of armed militia for why police didn’t do more.

“They had better equipment than our State Police had,” the governor said of why police stayed put and watched the violence unfold.

But, according to ProPublica, the militia members seemed to be the only ones breaking up fights and trying to keep the peace in the tumult.

It would have probably been more effective in suppressing the violence if the men and women paid to keep the peace for a living were out in the mix.

These street battles have become more common in our country following Trump’s inauguration, and they have gotten out of hand when police are ordered to stand down. Prior to Charlottesville, Berkeley was the locale synonymous with political violence.

In the two events most associated with the California college town, police were nowhere to be found. During the riot that shut down Milo Yiannopoulos’ planned speech at UC-Berkeley, antifa were able to attack anyone they thought may be an attendee and wreak havoc on town stores. All thanks to a muted police presence.

At the “Battle of Berkeley” in April, Trump supporters and antifa were able to brawl for a whole Saturday with nary a cop in sight.

It doesn’t look like the violence will dissipate following Saturday’s chaos, as the clashes between Trump supporters and antifa the following day in Seattle prove.

But there is a surefire way to prevent further deaths and serious injury: let the police do their job to enforce law and order.

Both McAuliffe and Signer should be taken to task for police inaction in Charlottesville — and blaming militiamen isn’t going to cut it as an excuse.

Follow Scott on Twitter and buy his new book, “No Campus for White Men.”

Featured image is from thetab.com / Pinterest.

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

A warrior US president, along with hawkish generals in charge of administration geopolitics and neocons infesting Washington risk unthinkable nuclear war on North Korea by design or accident.

South Korean President Moon Jae-in wants peace, not conflict with the DPRK. There’s much he can do toward achieving it by acting responsibly.

In July, he said

“(t)he current situation where there is no contact between the relevant authorities of the South and the North is highly dangerous.”

“I am ready to meet with Chairman Kim Jong-Un of North Korea at any time at any place, if the conditions are met and if it will provide an opportunity to transform the tension and confrontation on the Korean Peninsula.”

Washington is dangerous, not the DPRK, wanting peace, stability and respect for its sovereignty, not war, despite its hostile rhetoric, remarks responding to Trump’s unacceptable threats.

Pyongyang failed to respond to Moon because his actions belie his rhetoric. After suspending installation of additional THAAD missile systems on South Korean territory, pending an environmental assessment, threatening China, Russia and the DPRK, he now plans to approve them, following US Joint Chiefs chairman Gen. Joseph Dunford’s visit to Seoul.

Defense Secretary Mattis and Secretary of State Tillerson jointly said Moon agreed to “mov(e) forward with the deployment of US Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense.”

According to Pentagon spokesman Col. Rob Manning, Dunford “conveyed the US’ readiness to use the full range of its military capabilities to defend our allies and US homeland.”

America’s “military capabilities” are solely for offense, not defense – at a time the only threats to its security are invented ones as unjustifiable justification for endless wars of aggression.

Following his May election, Moon expressed outrage over the THAAD missile system deployment plan his predecessor approved to please Washington.

So far, he’s acting the same way – not responsibly to try preventing US-initiated hostilities on the peninsula, risking unthinkable nuclear war.

Diplomacy, not confrontation, is the only way to try resolving contentious issues. In July, Beijing and Russia jointly proposed Pyongyang halt further nuclear tests together with Washington and South Korea suspending provocative military exercises the DPRK believes are preparations for war.

Washington rejected the proposal. If Moon genuinely wants confrontation avoided, his responsible option is calling off so-called Ulchi-Freedom Guardian military exercises with Washington, scheduled from August 21 to 31 – along with halting the installation of additional of THAAD missile systems on South Korean territory, as well as ordering existing installations removed.

The Trump administration can do little more than complain. It won’t attack its South Korean ally even though Moon’s safety could be jeopardized.

He’ll need support from his government and military to pull this off successfully. He’ll likely have strong public approval.

Avoiding possible nuclear war on the peninsula should be his top priority. Risks and other considerations are secondary.

Is he bold enough to do the right thing? Humanity holds its breath to find out.

A Final Comment

During a Tuesday evening address, Moon said

“(i)t’s only South Korea that can decide on a military action on the Korean Peninsula.”

“No one should be allowed to decide on a military action on the Korean Peninsula without South Korean agreement” – a hopeful sign he needs to follow with responsible actions to avoid what no regional nation wants.

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

Listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network.

Featured image is from Yonhap News Agency.

Featured image: Hwasong-14 launch, July 4, 2017. (Source: Missile Threat)Hwasong-14 launch, July 4, 2017. (Source: Missile Threat)

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

Based on its ballistic missile tests so far, including its most recent ones last month, Russia believes the DPRK hasn’t yet achieved ICBM capability.

Noted ballistic missile/rocket expert Theodore Postol partly agrees, along with German rocket experts Markus Schiller and Robert Schmucker.

In an analysis for the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, they called Pyongyang’s Hwasong-14 ballistic missile, tested twice in July “a ‘sub-level’ ICBM that will not be able to deliver nuclear warheads to the continental United States.”

“Our analysis shows that the current variant of the Hwasong-14 may not even be capable of delivering a first-generation nuclear warhead to Anchorage, Alaska, although such a possibility cannot be categorically ruled out.”

“But even if North Korea is now capable of fabricating a relatively light-weight, ‘miniaturized’ atomic bomb that can survive the extreme reentry environments of long-range rocket delivery, it will, with certainty, not be able to deliver such an atomic bomb to the lower 48 states of the United States with the rocket tested on July 3 and July 28.”

Postal, Schiller and Schmucker called the DPRK’s July tests “a carefully choreographed deception…to create a false impression that the Hwasong-14 is a near-ICBM that poses a nuclear threat to the continental US.”

While it’s unable to manufacture sophisticated rocket components so far, the skill and ingenuity of its scientists in using Soviet Russia-era rocket motor components “has grown very substantially,” they said.

The July tests carried reduced payloads – able to reach a much higher altitude than possible if carrying a nuclear warhead and protective heat shield.

Pyongyang achieved its objective, creating the false impression of being able to strike US territory – what it’s unable to do based on the authors’ analysis.

Yet technological progress it’s made indicates it’s heading toward eventually achieving what it can’t now accomplish.

The authors cautioned that no one outside North Korea has reliable information on the characteristics of its nuclear weapons designs – including whether miniaturization was achieved to permit their mounting on a ballistic missile, despite suggestions otherwise.

According to the authors, we’re “left to speculate (on Pyongyang’s nuclear expertise) based on intelligence information that we have from other sources and on an understanding of the very significant technical problems of design and implementation that must be solved to be able to build and deliver atomic bombs by ICBM.”

Based on available information, they estimate Pyongyang could only deliver a nuclear warhead as far as Anchorage, Alaska weighing 500 – 550 kg.

Hwasong-14 launch, July 4, 2017. (Source: Missile Threat)

To reach Seattle, it could weigh no more than 300 kg. They believe “an advanced North Korean weaponized atomic bomb would be unlikely to weigh less than 500 to 600 kilograms.”

“So it is entirely possible that this variant of the Hwasong-14 (tested in July) will not be able to deliver an atomic bomb to Anchorage, Alaska,” they said.

If the Hwasong-14 upper stage was “fitted with the more capable vernier motors from the SS-N-6 submarine launched ballistic missile (known in Russia as the R-27), it could potentially deliver an atomic bomb to Anchorage, if the bomb weighed less than between 650 and 750 kg,” according to the authors.

“The same upgraded variant of the Hwasong-14 could only deliver an atomic bomb to Seattle if the bomb weighed less than between 400 and 450 kg,” they added.

Regardless of current or likely more advanced DPRK capability later on, the nation’s history shows it threatens no other nations.

Its nuclear and ballistic missile weapons are solely for defense – deterrents against feared US aggression.

The real menace lies in Washington, not Pyongyang.

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

Listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network.

On July 3, 2017, while Americans were preparing for the 241st celebration of the Declaration of Independence, a lone rocket rose from North Korea on a near-vertical trajectory. After five to six minutes of powered flight, the second stage of the missile shut down and coasted to an altitude of about 2,720 kilometers. It then fell back to Earth, reentering the atmosphere above the Sea of Japan some 900 kilometers to the east of where it had launched. The rocket’s upper stage coasted in freefall for about 32 minutes, and the overall time-of-flight, from launch to atmospheric reentry, was about 37 minutes. The launch occurred at 8:39 p.m., United States’ Eastern time. Within hours, the news of the launch was trumpeted by the US mainstream press: North Korea had flown an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), a missile that could carry nuclear warheads to Anchorage, Alaska, and to the continental United States as well!

But the Western press apparently did not know one crucial fact: The rocket carried a reduced payload and, therefore, was able to reach a much higher altitude than would have been possible if it had instead carried the weight associated with the type of first-generation atomic bomb North Korea might possess. Experts quoted by the press apparently assumed that the rocket had carried a payload large enough to simulate the weight of such an atomic bomb, in the process incorrectly assigning a near-ICBM status to a rocket that was in reality far less capable.

Only three and a half weeks later, on July 28, there was a second launch of the same type of missile, this time at night, Korean time. The rocket flew approximately the same powered flight trajectory that it had on July 3 (or July 4 in North Korea), this time, however, reaching a higher altitude—a reported 3,725 kilometers. This longer flight path led to yet more unwarranted conclusions that the continental United States was now directly under threat of nuclear attack by North Korea. Actually, however, in this second case, by our calculations, the second stage of the so-called ICBM carried an even smaller payload and tumbled into the atmosphere at night over the Sea of Japan. The spectacular night-reentry of the rocket—what was almost certainly the heavy front-end of the nearly empty upper stage—created an impressive meteoric display that some experts mistook for the breakup of a failed warhead reentry vehicle.

From the point of view of North Korean political leadership, the general reaction to the July 4 and July 28 launches could not have been better. The world suddenly believed that the North Koreans had an ICBM that could reach the West Coast of the United States and beyond. But calculations we have made—based on detailed study of the type and size of the rocket motors used, the flight times of the stages of the rockets, the propellant likely used, and other technical factors—indicate that these rockets actually carried very small payloads that were nowhere near the weight of a nuclear warhead of the type North Korea could have, or could eventually have. These small payloads allowed the rockets to be lofted to far higher altitudes than they would have if loaded with a much-heavier warhead, creating the impression that North Korea was on the cusp of achieving ICBM capability.

In reality, the North Korean rocket fired twice last month—the Hwasong-14—is a “sub-level” ICBM that will not be able to deliver nuclear warheads to the continental United States. Our analysis shows that the current variant of the Hwasong-14 may not even be capable of delivering a first-generation nuclear warhead to Anchorage, Alaska, although such a possibility cannot be categorically ruled out. But even if North Korea is now capable of fabricating a relatively light-weight, “miniaturized” atomic bomb that can survive the extreme reentry environments of long-range rocket delivery, it will, with certainty, not be able to deliver such an atomic bomb to the lower 48 states of the United States with the rocket tested on July 3 and July 28.

First, the bottom line. In each of the two North Korean tests in July, the rockets were fired on a trajectory that sent them to high altitudes; on these trajectories, the rockets travelled relatively short horizontal distances. But after the tests, analysts projected the maximum range the rockets could have traveled by assuming that they could have been placed on trajectories that would result in a maximum achievable range, rather than a maximum achievable altitude. For example, the 2,720-kilometer altitude achieved by the July 3 rocket was determined by its burnout speed. If it is assumed that the rocket could achieve roughly the same burnout speed on a trajectory that is shaped for maximum range, it would be sufficient to carry the payload to Anchorage, Alaska.

In the case of the July 28 test, the same rocket achieved a higher burnout speed and a higher altitude—about 3,725 kilometers. If it were again assumed that the rocket’s trajectory is shaped for maximum range instead of maximum altitude, the new higher burnout speed would be able to carry the payload to Seattle, Washington.

Figure 1 below shows the trajectories flown on July 4 and July 28 that were misinterpreted as tests of a North Korean rocket capable of delivering atomic bombs to the continental United States.

Figure 1. The highly lofted rocket trajectories for the burnout speeds achieved in the July 4 and the July 28 tests are shown on the left side of the figure. The center and right side of the figure show alternative rocket trajectories that could instead have been flown with loft angles optimized for maximum range instead of for maximum altitude.

One question is not answered by this basic kinematic study of the July 4 and July 28 tests: How did the rocket achieve its burnout speed? That’s to say, what kind of rocket motors did it need to achieve the resulting burnout speed, what was the rocket’s launch weight, and most, important, what was the payload-weight carried by the rocket?

Figure 2 shows a summary of our estimates of the range versus the weight of atomic bomb that might be carried by a Hwasong-14 missile, derived from our technical analysis of the Hwasong-14’s weight and propulsive capabilities and the likely weight of a North Korean nuclear warhead.

Figure 2. The analysis results summarized in the graph are for two different “designs” of the Hwasong-14.

The first design uses published information about the powered flight time of the second stages of the rockets and is reflected by the red curves in Figure 2. Those two curves correspond to reported second-stage flight times of 224 and 233 seconds for the two rocket tests. We have received two independent confirmations of these published flight times from sources that we believe to be reliable. As those curves show, if the North Koreans have achieved the capability of creating a missile warhead as light-weight as those used by the Chinese and Pakistani militaries—no small feat for a country with means as limited as North Korea’s—the two missiles fired in July could carry that missile roughly 6,000 kilometers, approximately the distance to Anchorage, Alaska. The missiles simply could not carry such a warhead to the lower 48 states.

The second design—reflected by the blue curves in Figure 2—assumes that the North Koreans actually use more efficient rocket motors than are indicated by the information published in major media about the powered flight trajectory of the second upper stage. In this second design, we assumed that the rocket’s upper stage would be powered by rocket motors similar to those with characteristics demonstrated in the top stages of the North Korean Unha-3 and the Iranian Safir Satellite Launch Vehicle (SLV). We believe North Korea is capable of building such a variant of the Hwasong-14, and that variant could have the capability to deliver a first-generation weaponized North Korean atomic bomb to Anchorage, Alaska, and slightly beyond.

But neither variant of the Hwasong-14 we have studied could carry a first-generation weaponized North Korean atomic bomb to any part of the continental United States beyond Alaska.

Atomic bomb weights—without the hype. At this time, no one outside of North Korea has solid information about the characteristics of North Korea’s nuclear weapons designs—especially about whether or not the weapons that have been tested are cumbersome laboratory devices or readily militarized designs that could be put into bombs or carried on ballistic missiles. This information is simply not available at this time.

We are therefore left to speculate based on intelligence information that we have from other sources and on an understanding of the very significant technical problems of design and implementation that must be solved to be able to build and deliver atomic bombs by ICBM.

There is general information about an atomic bomb design that was obtained by Pakistan from China, and by Libya from Pakistan. A.Q. Khan, a Pakistani known to have trafficked equipment and information that would facilitate the building of atomic bombs, is reported to have sold that design to Libya. Khan is known to have sold uranium enrichment gas-centrifuge technology to North Korea; it is very likely he also shared atomic bomb design information similar to what he sold Libya.

It is reported that the bomb design Khan sold to Libya and possibly to North Korea would produce a warhead that weighed about 500 kilograms and yielded about 10 kilotons, if properly implemented. All of the original design information from China was for devices that were aimed at assembling uranium 235 cores. This information could have been modified and used by North Korea to implement similar implosion devices to instead assemble plutonium 239 cores. However, these devices would have had to be developed and modified from the original designs.

This information is consistent with the seismic data from Pakistan’s nuclear tests in 1998, which suggest that the yield of atomic bombs tested by Pakistan is between 10 and 15 kilotons. It is also consistent with the seismic data from North Korea’s nuclear tests, which indicate maximum explosive yields of perhaps 10 to 20 kilotons.

North Korea has publicly displayed what it claims to be a standardized atomic bomb that dimensional analysis indicates could weigh as little as 400 kilograms. The device displayed by North Korea is clearly a spherical implosion design—seemingly based on the same design concept that Khan sold to Libya and used by Pakistan. (If North Korea had instead sought to impress the outside world by displaying an atomic bomb that was shaped somewhat like an egg, it could have indicated an entirely different and far more advanced design.) But the payload of a missile consists of more than a warhead. Because of the extreme environments created by long-range missile reentry to the atmosphere—including temperatures in the thousands of degrees and high deceleration forces—we have assumed that 25 percent of the payload-weight of these North Korean rockets would have to be given over to a heat shield and the structure needed to hold an atomic bomb in place during deceleration. This is an intentional underestimate of the weight of the warhead assembly, to make our assessment of the Hwasong-14’s capabilities as favorable to North Korean capabilities as possible.

In this extremely conservative estimate, and as a result of a review of the very sketchy information about nuclear weapons design information that has leaked from China to Pakistan and beyond, we think that a reasonable guess for the minimum weight of an advanced first-generation weaponized North Korean atomic bomb that is able to survive the extreme environments associated with ICBM delivery could be as low as 500 to 600 kilograms.

In our view, the engineering challenges of implementing a nuclear weapon are substantial and highly dependent on material resources, national experience, and the skill and depth of knowledge of scientists, engineers, and technicians involved at every level of the enterprise. As such, it cannot be ruled out that a North Korean weaponized device could weigh considerably more than 600 kilograms or less than 500 kilograms, but we believe it is overwhelmingly likely that it would not weigh less than 500.

Our estimates show that the Hwasong-14, using the publicly reported burn times for the upper rocket stage, could deliver a nuclear warhead only as far as Anchorage, Alaska if the warhead weighed 500 kilograms to 550 kilograms. To reach Seattle, the warhead would have to be substantially smaller, weighing no more than 300 kilos. We believe that an advanced North Korean weaponized atomic bomb would be unlikely to weigh less than 500 to 600 kilograms. So it is entirely possible that this variant of the Hwasong-14 will not be able to deliver an atomic bomb to Anchorage, Alaska.

If the upper stage of the Hwasong-14 were instead fitted with the more capable vernier motors from the SS-N-6 submarine launched ballistic missile (known in Russia as the R-27), it could potentially deliver an atomic bomb to Anchorage, if the bomb weighed less than between 650 and 750 kg. The same upgraded variant of the Hwasong-14 could only deliver an atomic bomb to Seattle if the bomb weighed less than between 400 and 450 kg.

Since it is extremely unlikely that a first-generation weaponized North Korean atomic bomb would weigh substantially less than 500 kilograms, we conclude that neither variant of the Hwasong-14 missile could deliver a first-generation North Korean atomic bomb to the continental United States.

We emphasize at this point that advances in rocketry demonstrated by North Korea in the Hwasong-14 are significant, and although the Hwasong-14 is not an immediate threat to the continental United States, variants that are almost certainly now under development, but probably years away from completion, will eventually become missiles with sufficient payloads to deliver atomic bombs to the continental United States.

Performance assessment of the Hwasong-14. Like any missile system, the actual lifting and range capability of the Hwasong-14 depends on many technical details. Among these are the type of fuel burned by the missile, the efficiency of its rocket motors, the total amount of propellant carried in each stage, the weight of the missile’s airframe, and the weight of different components, including rocket motors, plumbing, guidance and control systems, and the like.

In the case of the Hwasong-14, almost all of the critical parameters that ultimately determine the rocket’s ability to carry a payload-weight to a given range can be deduced from photographs, videos of its initial powered flight, engineering knowledge of rocket systems, and specific other engineering information that can be determined by other observations of the missile and its motor components.

For example, the performance characteristics of the main rocket motor that powers the first stage are well known. This is in part because the rocket motor has been unambiguously identified as derived from components of a well-known family of Russian rocket motors. The type of propellant used by this family of motors is also known—unsymmetrical dimethylhydrazine (UDMH) and nitrogen tetroxide (NTO), a highly energetic propellant combination used extensively in Russian rocket systems.

The dimensions of the Hwasong-14 are readily determined from photographs of the missile and its length, as measured relative to the known length of the Chinese-made vehicle that carries it. Since the density of the propellant is known, and the dimensions of the rocket stages and the functions of the different sections of the rocket stages are easily identified, very good estimates of the weights of the stages, airframes and rocket motors can be deduced from simple volumetric analysis and knowledge of design features. Although many of the refined details of the rocket may not be known, the general information of the type described above provides quite good estimates of how well the rocket will perform.

These data lead to an overall weight estimate of roughly 37 metric tons for the Hwasong-14. The known characteristics of the main first-stage rocket motor, and the observed rate of acceleration of the rocket at launch, result in a highly constrained check on the missile model we created to estimate its overall range and payload performance.

One critical parameter of the Hwasong-14 is not yet known with certainty: the exact powered flight time of the second stage. This parameter is an important factor in determining the overall performance of the Hwasong-14, due to a phenomenon known among rocket engineers as “gravitational losses” during powered flight. To perhaps oversimplify the physics involved, the longer the rocket motor burns against the gravitational pull of the Earth, the less efficiently it accelerates its payload to a final speed. But two articles in The Diplomat magazine have included flight times for the second stages of the rockets that North Korea launched in July. Two independent sources have confirmed those times to us as accurate.

Figure 3 shows photographs extracted from North Korean videos of the launches of the Hwasong-14 missile during the morning of July 4 (in North Korea; the evening of July 3 in the United States) and during the night-launch on July 28. Careful examination shows that the first stage of the Hwasong-14 is powered by a large single rocket motor supported by 4 small “vernier” motors that are used to change the direction of the rocket during powered flight and to maintain its vertical stability during its initial lift-off and vertical acceleration. North Korea has also released videos of tests of the Hwasong-14 rocket motor (shown firing on a test stand in Figure 4).

Figure 3

We have identified this rocket motor as a being derived from a family of Russian rocket motors known as the RD-250 or RD-251. The original motors used six thrust chambers fed by three turbo pumps to together generate roughly about 240 tons (about 530,000 pounds) of lift.

The North Koreans probably obtained this motor and many others as part of a vast shipment of rocket components to North Korea that occurred in the late 1980s and early 1990s during the simultaneous disintegration of the national economy and political system of the Soviet Union. Until recently, almost all of the liquid-propellant motors seen in North Korea’s rockets could be traced back to the Makayev Institute, a vast and highly capable organization that was responsible for the design of all types of Soviet ballistic missiles. Because of the prominent role of Makayev in Soviet ballistic missile production, this institute would have had large numbers of rocket motors in storage that were used to build various models of SCUDs and the SS-N-6 submarine-launched ballistic missile (aka R-27) used on Russian Yankee class submarines.

The newest Russian rocket motor we have identified in the North Korean arsenal, derived from the RD-250/251 and used in the Hwasong-14, is not from the Makayev Institute, but from an entirely different major rocket motor manufacturer, NPO Energomash, which supported the OKB-456 Design Bureau in the Soviet Union. This rocket motor was associated with rocket and space launch vehicles produced in Ukraine. The presence of RD-250/251 rocket components in a new North Korean rocket raises new and potentially ominous questions about the variety and extent to which Soviet rocket motors might have been obtained by North Korea during the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Figure 4

The adaptation that North Korean engineers have worked, using components from the powerful RD 250/251 rocket motor, can be appreciated by examining Figure 5. The original RD 250/251 was a rocket motor that consisted of six thrust chambers, driven by three powerful turbo pumps. This rocket engine can be seen in the image on the left in figure 5.

Each of the three turbo pumps in the original rocket engine was nested between two thrust chambers, at a height below the combustion chamber and above the gas exhaust nozzle of each thrust chamber. This clever design made it possible to shorten the length of the rocket motor compartment and to reduce the overall length of the first stage of a rocket.

The image on the right in figure 5 is an enlargement taken from Figure 4, a photo of the Hwasong-14 rocket motor firing on a test stand. The outline of the motor’s thrust chamber is shown in a silhouette overlay and the location of the turbopump next to the single thrust chamber is shown to be exactly at the height of the turbopump in the RD 250/251 motor complex. It is clear that the final rocket motor mounted in the Hwasong-14 has this single powerful turbopump feeding propellant to both the main rocket motor and the four smaller vernier motors used to control the direction of the missile.

The design indicates a well-thought-out approach to a completely new missile that was not seen in public until the launch of the Hwasong-12, which was essentially a test aimed at proving the functionality of the first stage of the two-stage Hwasong-14. It is a remarkable achievement in itself that North Korea has been able to master the use of these components well enough to be able to adapt them to their special purposes.

We have determined that the approximate properties of the Hwasong-14 missile, with a second stage upgraded with more capable vernier motors from the Russian R-27 missile, will be as follows:

Figure 5

General conclusions—for now. Our general conclusions from intensive study of a wide variety of data relating to the two rockets that North Korea launched in July:

• The Hwasong-14 does not currently constitute a nuclear threat to the lower 48 states of the United States.
• The flight tests on July 4 and 28 were a carefully choreographed deception by North Korea to create a false impression that the Hwasong-14 is a near-ICBM that poses a nuclear threat to the continental US.
• The Hwasong-14 tested on July 4 and 28 may not even be able to deliver a North Korean atomic bomb to Anchorage, Alaska.
• Although it is clear that North Korea is not capable of manufacturing sophisticated rocket components, their skill and ingenuity in using Soviet rocket motor components has grown very substantially. This is not good news for the long run.

It is time for the United States to get serious about diplomacy and appropriate defensive preparations (see sidebar, “Comments on the developing situation with North Korea”) to constructively support those diplomatic efforts.

All images in this article are from the authors.

The Syrian Arab Army (SAA) Tiger Forces have been further capitalizing from the airdrop operation conducted behind ISIS defense lines in the Homs-Palmyra countryside.

On Monday, the Tiger Forces liberated the villages of Bukhayran, Ariqah and Othmaniyah and then the entire Kawm oasis located on the road between Resafa and Sukhna. On Tuesday, government troops continued developing momentum in the directions of Bir Hisayyah and Taybah.

Russian Ka-52 attack helicopters provide a close air support to the advancing government troops. According to local sources, Russian military advisers are involved in the operation.

If the Tiger Forces capture any of the aforementioned villages, they will be able to threaten all ISIS supply lines in the area. This will decrease the ISIS defense capabilities in Uqayribat in the eastern Hama countryside.

The Syrian military is very close to putting ISIS units north of the Homs-Palmyra highway in a no-win situation. In coming days, ISIS will counter-attack in order to slow down the Tiger Forces advance and to prevent encirclement of its forces. If terrorists are not able to achieve their goal, it may lead to a full collapse of the ISIS defense in the area.

In eastern Damascus, government forces continued pressuring Faylaq al-Rahman and Hayat Tahrir al-Sham in Jobar and Any Tarma. Since the resumption of the operation in these areas, the SAA has made some tactical gains, but the situation remains complicated. Many will depend on the ability of militant groups operating in Eastern Ghouta to cooperate against government forces.

The US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) have faced troubles inside the city of Raqqah where the SDF is clashing with ISIS. Since Saturday, ISIS has conducted multiple counter-attacks in the eastern, western and southern parts of the city using VBIEDs, snipers and grenade launchers. According to AMAQ, about 50 SDF members have been killed in the recent attacks. However, this number sounds overestimated.

The delay in the battle of Raqqah plays in to the hands of the Syrian military that seeks to liberate central Syria and to reach Deir Ezzor before the US-backed force.

Voiceover by Harold Hoover

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Featured image is from Al Masdar News.

Children playing next door to Bana Alabed’s deserted house in the midst of 20 Ex-Nusra Front military centres. (Photo: Vanessa Beeley). August 2017

Featured image: Young internally displaced boy in Jaramanah, Damascus suburbs. He dreams of going home when the SAA has routed Nusra Front from his home town in the Damascus countryside. (Photo: Vanessa Beeley). August 2017

My latest trip to Syria was spent in Aleppo and Damascus. During my time in East Aleppo I was struck by the hive of activity, pockets of industry, rebuilding the stricken neighborhoods, stone by stone. Despite lack of electricity and water, in each street and alleyway, the sound of welders and the beat of hammers, rang out.

The sparks from a trio of welders spilled onto the pavement where we sat and drank coffee with residents, returning to their communities that had been so fractured by the almost 5 year occupation of these districts of East Aleppo, by Nusra Front-led extremist brigades.

Residents rebuilding in the Alsh’ar district of East Aleppo. (Photo: Vanessa Beeley). August 2017

In Jaramanah, Damascus we met with many internally displaced people. The estimated 6.4 million IDPs in Syria have almost invariably, fled to Syrian government controlled areas for refuge from the US Coalition extremist factions who have driven them from their hometowns and villages across Syria.

This area had historically been Druze and Christian populated. Now it has been crowded with Syrians from all walks of life, backgrounds and regions. All spoke to me of their hardship under the US Coalition armed & funded extremist & terrorist factions. Many had been driven from their homes by the armed mercenary forces, suffering hideous wounds in the process.

One old man from Talbiseh in Homs had lost one leg, been shot in the spine and had his remaining foot crushed by the Nusra Front brigades who had invaded his village and driven inhabitants from their homes by force. He was selling bread on the street, provided by his wife, to pay for an apartment with no roof. He “spat” on the “freedom and democracy” that his attackers have brought to his life, according to the western corporate media.

I asked him what he wishes to happen now. He fixed me with a direct gaze and simply said, ” I want to go home”

Old man from Talbiseh taking refuge in Jaramanah, Damascus after being driven out of his home by Nusra Front. (Photo: Vanessa Beeley) August 2017

Everyone we spoke to from Raqqa, Homs, East Ghouta, Daraa – all said the same thing. They dreamed of going home, back to the lives they had before the “conflict”, back to their pre-war, peaceful lives. Many of the women did not want to be photographed, their husbands were fighting in the Syrian Arab Army and their lives would be in danger if their image were to be made public. One such woman, from East Ghouta, Hadia, told me:

“We had “freedom” before the crisis. These so called “freedom fighters” brought nothing but suffering, they drove us from our homes. They brought nothing but weariness, loneliness, death and poverty”. 

Another woman told us that her two brothers had been kidnapped when the US Coalition extremist factions had invaded her home town in Northern Syria. For the last six years, she has had no information regarding their whereabouts. She clings to the hope that they are still alive. She has a son fighting in the Syrian Arab Army and she prays they are victorious so she can return to her home, after 6 years selling fresh mint & vegetables on the streets of Damascus to eke out a living and to provide for her family. When we asked her about the “freedom fighters”, she laughed,

“they are losers – thanks to them I am here and paying for my accommodation while they live in my house” 

The daughter of one of these women also spoke to us. Shyly she explained that she missed her home, she missed her school and she wanted, more than anything, to go back, “when it was safe“.

“Nothing is the same here, nothing is like my home”

Young girl among the IDPs in Jaramanah, Damascus, dreaming of “going home” (Photo: Vanessa Beeley). August 2017 

Aleppo

During my time in Aleppo, we visited the Sid Al’Ose street and square in the Alsh’ar district. In this area, Nusra Front and associated extremist brigades such as the Turkish funded, Abu Amara, had executed civilians accused of being “shabiha” – loyal to the Syrian government or simply refusing to adhere to the extremist ideology of the occupying forces. Forces backed, promoted and armed by the western and Gulf state nations working to destabilize Syria and enforce “regime change”.

Life had returned to quasi-normalcy in this vibrant street. We spoke to shopkeepers and residents, all of whom shied away from talking about the horrors they had witnessed, preferring to erase such memories from their psyche.

Bayan hospital (on right) in the Alsh’ar district of East Aleppo. (Photo: Vanessa Beeley). August 2017

One shopkeeper, however, did tell us that the area next to his shop was where the terrorists had brought the bodies of 7 civilians who had been murdered at the Bayan hospital (see above photo), close by. They had been shot multiple times and one had been flung from the multi-storey roof of the Bayan hospital. Their bodies had then been dumped outside the lock-up, in the street, as a warning to residents to stay where they were and not to attempt to escape East Aleppo for the safety of West Aleppo.

Sid Al’Ose returns to “normal” after the liberation of East Aleppo from Nusra Front dominated occupation, by the SAA and allies. (Photo: Vanessa Beeley). August 2017

Everywhere in Aleppo, people are returning to normal…

Young boy carrying baby in Alsh’ar neigborhood. (Photo: Vanessa Beeley). August 2017

Drinking coffee in the Jibb Al Qubbeh district of East Aleppo. (Photo: Vanessa Beeley). August 2017

Kids in the Alsh’ar district. This street was occupied by over 1500 foreign and Syrian mercenaries, operating as Abu Amara brigade and Nusra Front, according to residents. (Photo: Vanessa Beeley). August 2017

The following report from Russia Today further demonstrates the reality (admitted by the UN) that over 600,000 external refugees have returned to Syria, since the SAA and allies have advanced militarily and cleansed entire swathes of Syrian territory of the US Coalition-armed and funded, terrorist-led insurgents.

“Aleppo, a city retaken by Damascus from rebels in December last year, has become a major destination for displaced Syrian returning home in 2017 as numbers of returnees to Syria spills over 600,000, according to the UN.

Over the first seven months of 2017, over 600,000 displaced Syrians returned home, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) said Friday, citing its own figures as well as those of the UN Migration Agency and partners on the ground. The returnees are overwhelmingly internally-displaced people, but 16 percent returned to Syria from other nations, primarily Turkey. The number almost matched that recorded in the whole of 2016.

An estimated 67 percent of returnees went to government-controlled Aleppo Governorate, with the provincial capital itself being the primary destination.

The city of Aleppo – the largest in Syria prior to the conflict – was retaken by the government army last year, aided by Russia, with hostilities ending in mid-December. For years before that, it was divided between two parts, held respectively by government forces and by a disjointed collection of militant groups, including hardcore jihadists. The battle for the city ended with a ceasefire deal, which allowed remaining rebel forces and their families leave Aleppo and go to Idlib governorate, which currently remains a rebel stronghold.

Earlier an increasing number of refugees returning to their homes in Syria was reported by the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR), which said more than 440,000 internally-displaced persons and 31,000 refugees in other countries had done so over the first six months of 2016. Aleppo and other government-controlled governorates like Hama, Homs and Damascus were mentioned as destinations for the returnees.

“Given the returns witnessed so far this year and in light of a progressively-increased number of returns of internally displaced people and, in time, refugees, UNHCR has started scaling up its operational capacity inside Syria,” the agency said.”

Despite its deep wounds and scars, Syria will rebuild and it will emerge, renewed, stronger, and more resilient than ever before. From out of the fire of neocolonialism, will be born a new more powerful Syria, wiser and reinforced by new alliances, the much strengthened historical alliances and expanded geopolitical savvy.

Children playing next door to Bana Alabed’s deserted house in the midst of 20 Ex-Nusra Front military centres. (Photo: Vanessa Beeley). August 2017

Featured image: Cecilia Olivet hands over the report to Rafael Correa, president of Ecuador (Source: Transnational Institute)

On 16 May, Ecuador became the fifth country to terminate all its Bilateral investment treaties (BIT). Why did it make this decision? TNI researcher Cecilia Olivet, and president of the Ecuadorian Citizens Commission that audited the country’s investment protection treaties, shares her insider perspective.

How did the Ecuador investment treaties audit commission (CAITISA) come about?

On 5 October 2012, an investment arbitration tribunal ordered the government of Ecuador to pay 2.3 billion USD to US oil company Occidental. It was the largest amount a State had been ordered to pay by an investor-State tribunal up to that point. For Ecuador, that sum represented 59% of the country’s 2012 annual budget for education and 135% of the country’s annual healthcare budget.

The decision taken by three private lawyers under the auspices of the World’s Bank arbitration centre shocked the world and the Ecuadorian government. The government’s move that prompted Occidental’s litigation had hardly been extreme. Ecuador terminated the oil concession with Occidental when it found out that the company sold 40 percent of its production rights to another investor without government approval. The contract signed by Occidental with the government in 1999 explicitly stated that sale of Occidental’s production rights without government pre-approval would terminate the contract. The arbitrators in the case justified their decision, calling Ecuador’s cancellation of the contract a disproportionate response.

On 6 May 2013, 7 months later, President Correa created the investment treaties audit commission (CAITISA). Its purpose was to audit the whole Ecuadorian investment regime in a comprehensive way. The Commission was to determine the legality and legitimacy of Ecuador’s Bilateral Investment Protection Treaties (BITs) and the investment cases filed against the country. The Commission was also expected to assess whether the BITs have helped to attract foreign direct investment (FDI) to Ecuador and/or contributed to the quality of investment in terms of national development. Finally, the Commission would propose legal and policy alternatives to BITs and the international arbitration system.

US Occidental Petroleum Corporation’s (OXY) industrial plant in the Ecuadorean Amazonia

Creating this Commission was not just a reaction to the Tribunal decision in the Occidental case. By that time investors had sued the government based on international investment treaties 24 times. So, the government saw the need to assess the costs vis-a-vis the benefits of the 26 international treaties in force which they inherited when President Correa took office.

How did you get involved?

A few months before the Commission was created, I co-authored a report focusing on the role of arbitrators and law firms as drivers of an investment arbitration boom. This report had exposed some key flaws of the investment arbitration system. Government officials in Ecuador who read the report asked me to join the Commission.

What was unique about the Commission?

This Commission sets an incredible precedent. It contributed towards the ongoing international assessment of the necessity for and impact of the international investment regime on the development of countries in the Global South. It also contributed to a public debate about the legitimacy and “benefits” of the current investment protection framework.

The Commission is unique in two ways. First, it is the first time a government decided to organise a review of its investment protection system in the form of an auditing process carried out by a Citizens Auditing Commission. It was inspired by the experience of the Debt Auditing Commission. CAITISA was formed by a mix of investment lawyers, civil society representatives and government officials. It included a majority (8 out of 12) of people from outside the government, most of whom are not from Ecuador. The inclusion of non-governmental experts and civil society representatives among those carrying out the review has ensured a higher level of transparency and has allowed for broader public participation. Besides the Commissioners, the auditing task was supported by a large group of other experts (including several members of a group of social activists in Latin America focusing on investment protection), who helped to develop the terms of reference and also assisted with the audit itself.

Secondly, the scope of the audit was comprehensive. Other review efforts have been more constrained in their content. CAITISA, on the other hand, was given a mandate to audit not only the the Bilateral Investment Treaties of Ecuador (including the conditions under which these treaties were signed, its clauses and the compatibility of BITs with national and international law), but also the Investment Arbitration System and cases against Ecuador (including how have BITs been used by foreign investors, the role of the arbitrators that decided on Ecuador’s cases; and the costs of cases); and the relationship between Bilateral Investment Treaties, Foreign Investment and Ecuador’s development plan (including the correlation between signing BITs and attracting FDI).

What were its main findings?

The findings of the Commission that audited Ecuador’s investment regime were conclusive. The BITs have not brought benefits to the country, they only brought risks and costs.

In particular, the Commission found that the Bilateral Investment Treaties (BITS) signed by Ecuador failed to deliver promised foreign direct investment. Also, Ecuador’s BITs contradict and undermine the development objectives laid out in the country’s constitution and its National Plan for Living Well (Buen Vivir). It was also established that the companies that sued the government at international investment tribunals left behind enormous social and environmental liabilities/debt.

Investors have disproportionately benefited when suing Ecuador using bilateral investment treaties. In particular the financial costs for Ecuador have been immense. The total amount disbursed so far by the state has been $1.498 billion dollars, equivalent to 62% of health spending. The government has also spent 156 million USD in payments to international law firms for its defence.

The Commission also established that officials who signed Ecuadorian BITs did not try to negotiate terms that would preserve the state’s regulatory capacity. None of the BITs signed by Ecuador underwent a negotiation process. Also, legislators who ratified these treaties did not consider the risk for the country. Congress ratified most treaties without a legislative debate.

Finally, the Commission found that majority of the arbitrators nominated to decide cases against Ecuador cannot be considered fully impartial.

[For more details of the findings, see factsheet at the end]

What was the most shocking or surprising thing for you in terms of Ecuador’s experience with ISDS/BITs?

Once the audit was complete, and all the findings were put together, it was shocking to see how government officials have signed on to these powerful instruments without any consideration of risks. It was shocking how investors could launch lawsuit after lawsuit attacking legitimate government measures. It was shocking to see how arbitration tribunals sided with investors making investor-friendly interpretation of the clauses in this biased treaties. It was shocking to see a rigged system in action.

Why do you think so many countries like Ecuador signed BITs?

Most countries signed BITs during the 1990s when there was little awareness of the risks. At the time, all governments would hear from the “international community” was the importance of protecting investment for development. International organisations, governments from capital exporting countries and academics were pushing the idea that signing BITs was the only way countries would be able to attract foreign investment and that it was a condition for development. In an orchestrated effort, organisations like the WTO, UNCTAD, OECD, the World Bank and others, encouraged governments from the Global South to sign as many investment treaties as possible.

Lauge Poulsen, in his thesis “Sacrificing sovereignty by chance”, probably explained it better than anyone: “By overestimating the benefits of BITs and ignoring the risks, developing country governments often saw the treaties as merely ‘tokens of goodwill’. Many thereby sacrificed their sovereignty more by chance than by design, and it was typically not until they were hit by their first claim, that officials realised that the treaties were enforceable in both principle and fact.”

What were the main recommendations of CAITISA?

The Commission gave detailed recommendations that covered 11 pages. But, the key one was the termination of all bilateral investment treaties.

We also recommended to exclude the investor-state dispute settlement mechanism from any future treaty, and provide legal security to investors in national courts.

The Commission also advised the government to only sign new investment treaties based on an alternative investment model. This new model would highly restrict the rights of investors, it would protects the rights of the government to regulate and to direct investment by applying performance requirements and, it would impose binding obligations for the investor to secure they respect national and international human, social and environmental rights.

[For more details of the recommendations, see factsheet at the end]

How did the Ecuadorian government respond to your recommendations?

The recommendations of the Commission were non-binding. However, on 17 May (9 days after CAITISA publicly presented the final report), the government announced that it had proceed to terminate the remaining 16 BITs that were still in force.

The government also announced that is planning to renegotiate investment treaties with several countries under a different model. CAITISA made some very specific recommendations as to how that new model treaty should look. Ecuador’s new model BIT has not yet been made public so we don’t know if the recommendations have been followed in that regard. Hopefully, Ecuador will consider an investment treaty model that restricts investment protection while it enlarges the capacity of government to regulate and direct investment, in particular including investor obligations to safeguard the public interest.

How have investors and the governments that signed BITs with Ecuador responded to the government’s announcement?

Similarly to the situation when South Africa or Indonesia or India terminated investment treaties, the European Commission was quick to “warn” Ecuador (and in the past the others) about the risk of losing European investment. The scaremongering game is aimed at deterring governments from completing the termination process. It did not work in the past, and it has not worked with Ecuador either.

What do you say to those who will argue that this will discourage foreign investment?

In the same way that the need to sign investment treaties to attract foreign investment was discredited as a myth, the idea that investors will leave when countries terminate their treaties is unsubstantiated.

Foreign investors will remain in the country as long as they can make profit, even after governments terminate Investment protection agreements. So far, governments like South Africa, Indonesia, Bolivia, Ecuador, and Venezuela, which terminated many of their BITs, did not experience a mass exodus of foreign investors, as predicted by politicians and investment lawyers.

For example, only one year after the termination of the Germany-South Africa BIT in 2013, research led by Germany’s KfW Development Bank found that South Africa is still ‘a favoured destination for German direct investment’ with more than €600 million flowing into the country in the fourth quarter of 2014. Similar to the case of South Africa, in March 2014, the government of Indonesia discontinued 17 out of 64 IIAs, including agreements with the Netherlands, Italy, France, Spain, and China. 2014 was the year in which foreign direct investment (FDI) to Indonesia hit a record high of US$78.7 trillion, according to the latest data by the Indonesian Investment Coordinating Board (BKPM)’. Also, in 2015, Dutch FDI to Indonesia increased by 19.2 per cent in relation to 2014 and the Netherlands remained the fourth leading investor.

What alternatives are there to the ISDS approach?

Investors have numerous options to protect their investment. However, only investment arbitration gives them the opportunity to challenge government public interest measures.

There is a wide array of options, beyond investment arbitration, available to foreign investors who feel that they have been mistreated by the state’s arbitrary and discriminatory actions.

First and foremost, foreign companies are entitled to seek compensation for wrongdoings at national courts, as with national companies and citizens in the countries in which they operate. Using domestic legal remedies should be the norm. The lack of judicial independence in a few countries cannot be the excuse to promote investment arbitration worldwide. It is important to note that most ISDS lawsuits are brought against democratic countries with a strong rule of law.

If investors want to have further ‘insurance’, they can resort to: Private political risk insurance, insurance from the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA) of the World Bank, or insurance offered by the investor’s home country.

Finally, if none of these reassurances are enough for investors, they can always negotiate access to investor-state arbitration in specific contracts. But then the government can assess if offering that possibility is justified for the specific investment instead of giving a blank check to all investors from a certain country.

What are your recommendations to other governments?

Twenty years after most of these treaties were signed, it would be advisable that governments around the world carry out a review or audit process of the treaties that already exists. It is also imperative that governments undertake a cost-benefit analysis before signing new treaties.

For the review to be meaningful, it should include: an analysis of the economic benefits to assess whether signing of investment treatie has helped to increase the volume of FDI flows into the country; an analysis of the exposure of the government to costly investor-state arbitration disputes, and finally an analysis of political costs to assess the constraints on the government from regulating in the public interest without the risk of being sued.

The main benefit of carrying out a review process is that the governments can take an evidence-based and informed decision on what to do with its current International investment agreements (IIAs) and with future IIAs negotiations.

Factsheet

ECUADOR INVESTMENT TREATIES AUDIT COMMISSION (CAITISA): Findings and recommendations

SUMMARY OF FINDINGS

1.The Bilateral Investment Treaties (BITS) signed by Ecuador failed to deliver promised foreign direct investment:

• Ecuador, which has more BITS than many countries in the region, only received 0.79% of global FDI that flowed to Latin America and the Caribbean
• The principal sources of FDI flows into Ecuador are from Brazil, Mexico and Panama, none of which have a BIT with Ecuador

2. Ecuador’s BITs contradict and undermine the development objectives laid out in the country’s constitution and its National Plan for Living Well (Buen Vivir). The Ecuadorian constitution of 2008 requires the state to regulate foreign investment to ensure it plays a positive role in achieving the country’s Plan for Living well. However, BITS include clauses that erode these state competences.

3. The companies that sued the government at international investment tribunals left behind enormous social and environmental liabilities/debt. Furthermore, It was noted that the companies did not contribute productive growth, job creation, or technology transfer as was expected from foreign investment.

4. Investors have disproportionately benefited when suing Ecuador using bilateral investment treaties:

• Ecuador has faced 26 cases in international tribunals based on the Bilateral Investment Treaties. 73% of these cases were filed between 2006-2016.
• In 2014, Ecuador was fifth in the world in terms of investment protection arbitration cases; today it is in tenth place.
• In the 15 cases where the tribunal has made judgements on jurisdiction, the investor has been favoured in 13 cases (87%) and the state only twice.
• Only in 6 of the 18 cases where there is a known final outcome (award or settlement), the State did not had to compensate the investor.

5. While promises of investment and development have failed to materialise, the costs for Ecuador have been immense:

• A total of 21.2 billion US dollars has been demanded as compensation from Ecuador by corporations for supposed violations of investment protection agreements.
• The total amount disbursed so far by the state has been $1.498 billion dollars, equivalent to 62% of health spending.
• Additionally, there are 3 cases (Burlington, Copper Mesa and Murphy III) where the tribunal has ordered the government to pay a total of 377 million USD, but the decisions are being contested in annulment procedures.
• Of the cases that are currently open, the State runs the risk of having to disburse 13.4 billion USD. This is equivalent to 52% of the General State Budget for 2017.
• Finally, Ecuador has so far paid 156 million USD to international law firms to defend itself in different cases.

6. The signature and ratification of the investment protection treaties of Ecuador was vitiated by anomalies. After detailed historical analysis, the Commission also established that:

• None of the BITs signed by Ecuador underwent a negotiation process. This means that the officials who subscribed to the BITs did not try to negotiate terms that would preserve the state’s regulatory capacity.
• Most investment treaties were ratified by Congress without a legislative debate prior to approval. That is, they were ratified without a risk assessment for the country. In some cases, they did not even pass by Congress for ratification despite this being required by the Constitution.

Given that the BITs signed by Ecuador were signed without a careful analysis of their costs vis a vis their benefits, it is not surprising that they follow a model of clauses largely in favor of the investor.

7. The majority of the arbitrators nominated to decide cases against Ecuador cannot be considered fully impartial:

• 64% come from developed countries and 58% are part of what is considered an elite club – arbitrators with high influence and with repeated nominations
• The majority (69%) comes from commercial arbitration and private legal practice, and have little or no experience in international public law
• The analysis of the investment treaty cases against Ecuador shows that, in most of them, the arbitrators have interpreted the clauses in an expensive way, which has resulted in decisions favorable to investors, both at the stages of jurisdiction and the merits.

SUMMARY OF RECOMMENDATIONS

1- Termination of all bilateral investment treaties

2- Negotiation of new instruments between the State and Investors such as:

• a) international investment contracts with restricted rights and investors’ obligations
• b) Investment treaties based on an alternative investment model. The Commission has made the recommendation to:
  • highly restrict the definition of investment
  • exclude certain rights for investors commonly found in investment treaties such as: FET, indirect expropiation, national treatment, most favoured nation, umbrela clause, survival clause.
  • a list of rights for the State that would be included, such as: rights of the State to impose obligations on foreign investors, apply performance requirements, impose taxes, secure technology transfer, force investors to respect human rights, among others.
  • key obligations for the investor, such as: respect for national and international human and social rights, contribute towards national development according to pre-determined criteria, among others.

3- Regarding the international investment arbitration system

• Exclude investor-state dispute settlement mechanisms from any future treaty
• Provide legal security to investors in national courts

4- Develop a comprehensive national policy and specific rules for foreign investment.

5- Consolidate the powers and the institutional governance of foreign investment in one agency

The NATO military alliance is a world encompassing threat. It is now conducting various forms of hybrid warfare against Russia, China, Iran, North Korea, Venezuela, Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, and most of Africa. They have destroyed directly or are largely responsible for the destruction of the socialist nations of the USSR, Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria and too many to name in Latin America, Africa and Asia. Destruction is the fate that each nation on earth can expect unless it pays homage and obeisance to these neo-feudal overlords who promise protection in return for national servitude, in return for the complete surrender of their people and natural resources to increase the rate of profit for the capital that controls the NATO military machine. For NATO is first and foremost the armed fist not only of the United States and its allies as nations, but is the armed fist of the capitalists of those nations who are prepared to strike against any nation, capitalist or socialist, that stands in their way of obtaining profit.

The primary concern they have, in order to preserve their control, is for the preservation of the new feudal mythology that they have created; that the world is a dangerous place, that they are the protectors, that the danger is omnipresent, eternal, and omnidirectional, comes from without, and comes from within. The mythology is constructed and presented through all media; journals, films, television, radio, music, advertising, books, the internet in all its variety; all the information systems available are used to create and maintain scenarios and dramas to convince the people that they, the protectors, are the good and all others are the bad. We are bombarded with this message incessantly. They have succeeded into luring us to all their communication platforms, so that no one is able to ignore the constant flow of information into their consciousness and their subconscious. They have us locked to our screens. The have our attention. They have us hypnotised and under this state of hypnosis we are fed so many images we cannot take any of them in and so we drown in the river of information washing over us, barely able to breathe, unable to think, blind from looking.

The use of propaganda, and by propaganda I mean here the use of lies, inventions, fabrications, distortions and misrepresentations of reality in order to evoke an emotional response in the receiver of the desired type and desired action to follow, is a primary pillar of the mythology they create. The immediate means of delivery is through the news media. To turn on the television these days to watch the political, national and world “news” is a surreal experience. You have a dissociative experience as the presenters present not “news” but carefully crafted scripts inventing scenarios out of whole cloth that have nothing to do with what is really happening in any given situation. Even the weather “news” is moulded to keep mention of abrupt climate change to a minimum and sports “news” seems like a rehearsal for war news to come as our team smashes their team with our catastrophic weapons, erases them from the earth, never to play again.

But whatever form the propaganda takes it is a crime against the people, a crime against the republic, a crime against democracy, and since it is a part of the hybrid warfare campaign being conducted and because it is used to provoke a large aggressive general war, it is a war crime.

It is a crime against the people because the people are in essence the state, the nation. The leaders of our nations are merely our representatives placed in positions of power through various, more or less “democratic” mechanisms to act for our benefit, on our behalf. But when these leaders instead represent secret cabals of financiers and industrialists who want to use the government machinery for their private benefit against the interests of their people then they have betrayed the people, have sold them out to the highest bidder. Their lies flow from this betrayal for if their wars were just they would not need to use propaganda. But their wars are not just, they are the actions of gangsters writ large and so to get the people to go along, to fool them, they, by necessity, have to lie to the people.

It is a crime against democracy for the same reason, for democracy means that representatives of the people put in positions of power have a duty to inform the people honestly on all issues, to present all the facts and arguments, and most importantly, fulfil their duty to preserve the peace and to seek peaceful resolutions of differences between nations. But again, their wars for the profit of a few are always against the interests of the people and so the lies become part of the system of control, and with each lie the grave of democracy is dug deeper and deeper.

It is a crime against the republic because the republic is the people ruling themselves, in the name of the people, not the people ruled by a monarch or emperor, who rule in their own name. So when the leaders of a republic lie to the people of the republic they repudiate the republic and act against its interests and for the private interests of those who control them. They subvert the republic and destroy it.

It is a war crime because propaganda is used to provoke war, to sustain war, to turn other people, declared to be the enemy, into beings that need to be killed. It robs them of their humanity, of their kinship with us, their desires and dreams, and makes them into vermin to be destroyed with ease and even joy in the killing. It turns us into salivating monsters calling for death of the other and cheering when the bombs explode; turns us all into the Hilary Clinton lunatic who cackled like some satanic demon as she watched a great man cut to pieces before her eyes.

I could give dozens, hundreds, thousands of examples of how the propaganda is being used. The New York Times, BBC, CNN, CBC and the rest of the western media are full of it every day and every day worse than the day before, against Russia, China, North Korea, Iran, Syria Venezuela, all the known targets. We all sense that the intensity if it is increasing, the vitriol becoming more hysterical and absurd with every headline.

The journalists who write these propaganda pieces and the presenters who read them on television are among the worst of criminals as they sit there looking attractive, with their fake smiles and fake concern, while taking lots of money to lie to our faces every day. It takes a very low person to sit there and lie to their fellow citizens so easily. It takes someone who has no sense of morality whatsoever. One could say they are sociopaths. But criminals they are and they deserve to be in the dock with the leaders that hand them the scripts they read so willingly.

For propaganda is a threat to peace itself. It is not only necessary to eliminate nuclear weapons and armies, it is also necessary to eliminate the psychological weapons that are used to justify, provoke and prolong war. Lenin once said that “disarmament is an ideal of socialism” and it was, we must not forget, the USSR that developed ideals of international peace and responsibility for wars of aggression. The successor state of Russia still relies on these principles.

On the second day of the creation of Soviet power the Decree on Peace was issued that made it a matter of state policy that aggressive war is a crime. Up until then it was assumed that nation states had an inherent right to go to war for their own interests. War propaganda is a way of preparing for aggressive war and consequently is a war crime. This was confirmed at the Nuremberg Tribunal in 1946.

This was echoed in the Resolution of the General Assembly of the United Nations of November 3, 1947 that denounced war propaganda;

“The General Assembly condemns all forms of propaganda, in whatsoever country conducted, which is either designed or likely to provoke or encourage any threat to the peace, breach of the peace, or act of aggression.”

A Soviet draft definition of aggression presented to the General Assembly in 1957 defined war propaganda as ideological aggression. Their draft stated that a state has committed ideological aggression when it “encourages war propaganda, encourages propaganda for the use of atomic or other weapons of mass extermination and stimulates nazi-fascist views, racial or national superiority, or hatred and disdain for other peoples.”

But before that the Supreme Soviet on March 12, 1950 passed a law on the defence of peace that stated:

“The Supreme Soviet of the USSR is guided by the high principles of the Soviet peace policy, which seeks to strengthen peace and friendly relations between the peoples, recognises that human conscience and the concept of right of the peoples, who, during one generation suffered the calamities of two wars, cannot accept that the conduct of war propaganda remain unpunished, and approves the proclamation of the Second World Congress of the Partisans of Peace, who expressed the will of the entire progressive mankind concerning the prohibition and condemnation of criminal war propaganda.

“The Supreme Soviet decrees,

1. To recognise that war propaganda under whatever form it is made, undermines the cause of peace, creates the threat of new war and is the graves crime against humanity.

2. To bring to court person guilty of war propaganda and to try them as having committed a most grave criminal offense.”

The western powers blocked a Russian UN resolution at that time to denounce war propaganda even though it was in accord with the principles of the United Nations Charter which makes it a duty of all member states to preserve the peace. The west relied on arguments of “free speech” arguments that do not hold water since war propaganda is not designed to enlighten people but to twist their minds into thoughts of hatred and war.

The Rome Statute today contains a clause that arguably encompasses these principles in Article 5, dealing with aggression, though this clause is not yet in effect. It is one of the grave problems with the International Criminal Court, that aside from being controlled effectively by the US and European Union for their purposes, its statute does not include a specific section on war propaganda. But then the United States and its allies prevented the inclusion of such a clause just as they prevented the adoption of the resolution at the UN in the 1950’s so that they could continue using war propaganda as part of their arsenal of world control.

So, the criminal dossier against NATO grows with the crimes committed. One day we can hope that those responsible for the war propaganda used against us will face the peoples’ justice but in the meantime we have to be aware that when we are confronted with it, when we open a newspaper, turn on the television, or radio, click that link on the internet, we are the victims of a war crime, the use of war propaganda as part of the crime of aggression, each and every one of us. And if that does not make you angry then what hope is there for peace in this world?

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

Featured image is from the author.

The North Korean government, according to the Western media is said to be oppressing and impoverishing its population.

According to US News and World Report, “North Korea is one of the most miserable places on earth. The standard of living has deteriorated to extreme levels of deprivation in which the right to food security, health and other minimum needs for human survival are denied,” 

“Here in the USA we have medicare, all our kids are educated, we are all literate, and “we want to live in America”.

And in the DPRK, the health system sucks, they don’t have schools and hospital beds, they are all a bunch of illiterates,  

You would not want to live there! “(Author’s paraphrase)

Beneath the mountain of media disinformation, there is more than meets the eye. Despite sanctions and military threats, not to mention the failed intent of “respectable” human rights organizations (including Amnesty International) to distort the facts, North Korea’s “health system is the envy of the developing world” according to the Director General of the World Health Organization:

“WHO director-general Margaret Chan said the country had “no lack of doctors and nurses””.

Screen shot of April 2010 BBC report

Health. DPRK vs. USA

While praising North Korea, the WHO admonishes the USA for “not having a universal health coverage”:

Screenshot CNBC Report, February 2017 quoting a study by the WHO and Imperial College London

Lets look at the figures. The Library of Congress Federal Research Division quoting official sources concurs:

North Korea has a national medical service and health insurance system. As of 2000, some 99 percent of the population had access to sanitation, and 100 percent had access to water, but water was not always potable. Medical treatment is free. In the past, there reportedly has been one doctor for every 700 inhabitants and one hospital bed for every 350 inhabitants

“In 2006 life expectancy was estimated at 74.5 years for women and 68.9 for men, or nearly 71.6 years total.”

Higher than in most developing countries. Lower than in the United States.

Can we trust official US-UN sources?

In America we have medicare.

Education: DPRK vs. USA

What about their run down schools, serving an illiterate North Korean population?

According to UNESCO, Public Education in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) is universal and fully funded by the State. According to US official government sources (Library of Congress Federal Research Division):

“Education in North Korea is free, compulsory, and universal for 11 years, from ages four to 15, in state-run schools. The national literacy rate for citizens 15 years of age and older is 99 percent. (Library of Congress, Federal Research Division, p. 7)

In contrast in the USA, according to the US Department of Education Surveys, the Adult Illiteracy rate (16 and older) is of the order of 13.6% and 14.5%  depending on the criterion (2003 data).

There is a 99% percent adult literacy rate in North Korea compared to about 86% in the USA.

That sounds crazy! Who is fiddling with the data? These are all official UN-US statistics.

“The national direct estimates of the percentages of adults lacking BPLS (Basic Prose Literacy Skills) are 14.5 percent for the 2003 NAAL and 14.7 percent for the 1992 NALS. In comparison, the national direct estimates of the percentages Below Basic in prose literacy are 13.6 percent for the NAAL and 13.8 percent for the NALS. (National Center for Education Statistics)

Educational achievement measured in terms of adult literacy in the DPRK is higher than in the United States of America?

And how did they reach this performance with an economic sanctions regime extending over a period of more than 20 years?

History: Up to thirty percent of the population of North Korea was killed during the Korean War (1950-53)

Just a couple of additional statistics concerning “life expectancy” in the DPRK resulting from US led wars (1950-53), not to mention Trump’s “fire and fury”.

“After destroying North Korea’s 78 cities and thousands of her villages, and killing countless numbers of her civilians, [General] LeMay remarked,“Over a period of three years or so we killed off – what – twenty percent of the population.” (See War Veteran Brian Willson. Korea and the Axis of Evil, Global Research, April, 2002)

According to Dean Rusk, who later became secretary of state, the US bombed “everything that moved in North Korea, every brick standing on top of another.”  

It is now believed that the population north of the imposed 38th Parallel lost nearly a third its population of 8 – 9 million people during the 37-month long “hot” war, 1950 – 1953, perhaps an unprecedented percentage of mortality suffered by one nation due to the belligerence of another.” (See Brian Willson. Korea and the Axis of Evil, Global Research, April, 2002)

Even Newsweek tacitly acknowledges that the US committed extensive war crimes against the Korean people:

Screenshot Newsweek 4 May 2017

While Newsweek in this article is telling the truth, more generally the US media has failed to inform Americans regarding the extensive war crimes committed against the Korean people by successive US administrations.

Collective Memory of the People of North Korea

It is not in America’s collective memory as pointed out by Newsweek, but it is certainly in the collective memory of the people of the DPRK.

There is not a single family in North Korea which has not lost a loved one during 37 months of extensive US carpet bombing (1950-53). Put yourself in their shoes.

Pyongyang capital of North Korea, in 1953, almost entirely destroyed by U.S. bombing during the Korean War.

Pyongyang today, rebuilt.

Pyongyang today rebuilt: Dispels the myth of a backward urban society. Trump wants to reduce Pyongyang to rubble.

Do the Pyongyang towers (see image above) compete with Manhattan’s Trump Tower? Ask Donald Trump.

WE NEED AN ORGANIZED AND UNIFIED PROTEST MOVEMENT ACROSS THE LAND, NATIONALLY AND INTERNATIONALLY

SAY NO TO TRUMP’S “PR-EMPTIVE” NUCLEAR WAR AGAINST NORTH KOREA.

Congress and Special Counsel Robert Mueller are looking into whether there was Donald Trump campaign collusion with the Russian government to “influence” the results of the 2016 presidential election. Stupidity and naivete will probably be revealed in abundance, but collusion to alter the outcome of an election—and thereby damage American democracy—is unlikely to be demonstrated.

The mantra in Washington, both within the media and the inside-the-beltway establishment, is that Russia actively “interfered” in the election and may have changed the outcome, but that is largely speculative. Since the line between possibly influencing or favoring a certain outcome and interfering has been rather difficult to discern, Russiagate has evolved into a seemingly never-ending inquiry that will likely produce nothing in terms of indictable criminality among the Trumpsters. The Russians for their part will likely be seen to have engaged important individuals in a foreign country to advance their own interests—something governments worldwide do.

Indeed, the process itself seems to be backwards. Unlikely to be revealed is how the whole affair became a national-security issue in the first place. Who exactly stole the files from the DNC server and the emails from John Podesta? It would seem to me that appreciating how the theft of the documents took place is crucial to understanding what has come to be called Russiagate. Demonstrate exactly what occurred and many of the other pieces will inevitably fall into place.

At this point, all that is clearly known after more than a year of huffing and puffing is that last summer files and emails pertaining to the election were copied and then made their way to WikiLeaks, which published some of them at a time that was damaging to the Clinton campaign. Those who are blaming Russia believe that there was a hack of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) server and also of John Podesta’s emails that was carried out by a Russian surrogate or directly by Moscow’s military intelligence arm. They base their conclusion on a statement issued by the Department of Homeland Security on October 7, 2016, and on a longer assessment prepared by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence on January 6.

Both government appraisals implied that there was a U.S. government intelligence agency consensus that there was a Russian hack, though they provided little in the way of actual evidence that that was the case and, in particular, failed to demonstrate how the information was obtained and what the chain of custody was as it moved from that point to the office of WikiLeaks. The January report was particularly criticized as unconvincing, rightly so, because the most important one of its three key contributors, the National Security Agency, had only moderate confidence in its conclusions, suggesting that whatever evidence existed was far from solid.

Leaked reporting in the mainstream media subsequently provided some cluesregarding what was behind the alleged intelligence community judgement. A hacker identified as Guccifer 2 might have broken into the system on behalf of Russia and there were reportedly traces of electronic fingerprints in the alleged intrusion that were characteristic of Russian intelligence hacks. Both of those assertions have been separately challenged and it has been observed that they are somewhat speculative. There are also reports that intercepted Kremlin phone conversations involving high level officials expressed considerable joy at the Trump victory, suggesting that Moscow was closely monitoring and possibly playing some role in the electoral process.

An alternative view that has been circulating for months suggests that it was not a hack at all, that it was a deliberate whistleblower-style leak of information carried out by as yet unknown parties that may have been provided to WikiLeaks for possible political reasons, perhaps to express disgust with the DNC manipulation of the nominating process to favor Hillary Clinton.

There are, of course, still other equally non-mainstream explanations for how the bundle of information got from point A to point B, including that the intrusion into the DNC server was carried out by the CIA, which then made it look like it had been the Russians as perpetrators. That explanation has some plausibility due to the fact that the agency does indeed have cyber-capability to do just that when it goes around the globe and invades foreign information systems. It could also have easily come up with a credible role player who might have pretended that the information came from a dissident Democrat for passage to Assange.

And then there is the hybrid point of view, which is essentially that the Russians or a surrogate did indeed intrude into the DNC computers but it was all part of normal intelligence agency probing and did not lead to anything. Meanwhile and independently, someone else who had access to the server was downloading the information, which in some fashion made its way from there to WikiLeaks.

Both the hack vs. leak viewpoints have marshalled considerable technical analysis in the media to bolster their arguments. The hack school of thought has stressed that Russia had both the ability and motive to interfere in the election by exposing the stolen material while the leakers have recently asserted that the sheer volume of material downloaded indicates that something like a higher speed thumb drive was used, meaning that it had to be done by someone with actual physical direct access to the DNC system.

What the many commentators on the DNC server issue choose to conclude is frequently shaped by their own broader political views, producing a result that favors one approach over another depending on how one feels about Trump or Clinton. Perhaps it would be clarifying to regard the information obtained and transferred as a theft rather than either a hack or a leak, since the two expressions have taken on a political meaning of their own in the context of Russiagate. I am not qualified to judge the technical analyses that have been done on the theft, but I would like to suggest that the bottom line is that we (the American people and government) have no idea who actually stole the material in question.

If Congress were seriously interested in determining who did what to whom, it would have started with the theft of the information. The inquiry should have begun with the DNC server or servers where the information that was stolen was stored, but, oddly, the FBI was not allowed access. So whatever forensic insights that might have been obtained from the actual computers has never been collected or developed by federal law enforcement, which perforce relied instead on an assessment made by a DNC contractor, CrowdStrike, whose co-founder Dmitri Alperovitch is a prominent critic of the Russian government. CrowdStrike ran its own investigation and inevitably blamed the Russians.

If the FBI had moved quickly to do a forensic examination on the computers, information retained in the system presumably could have told investigators exactly who logged in and at what times. With that in hand, questioning of the individuals identified could have begun. Also, a thorough investigation would include obtaining a list of all those individuals who theoretically had access to the information that was stolen under the assumption that someone might have been using an associate’s password. Yet there is no indication that any questioning of those with access to the DNC system has occurred or is even being contemplated.

A good investigation would also examine possible motive. Back in July there was little doubt that Hillary Clinton would win the election and it is far-fetched to think that the Russians would in even their wildest imaginings think that they could change the result. But that is not to say that they would not have been interested in weakening the Clinton presidency by surfacing evidence of a scandal. Nor is there any motive for then CIA Director John Brennan to do a hack and blame it on Moscow since he would have known that the information being released would damage his candidate, Hillary Clinton—but he might have thought that promoting the Russian connection would do even worse damage to Trump. It seems to me that likely motive also includes two other plausible possibilities: that someone took the information to sell it to a party who has not yet been identified, or that someone stole the information to get even either with the Democratic establishment or with individuals running the primaries and the convention.

As there would have been only a limited market for the Clinton papers and their sale would be tricky and require developing contacts desirous of obtaining such information, revenge would seem to be the more likely explanation. But even there we know nothing as no names have surfaced as part of whatever has been passing for an investigation. DNC staffer Seth Rich, who was killed in a still unexplained “robbery attempt” in Washington on July 10, 2016, has been identified as a potential suspect by conservative media, but that possibility has been strenuously rejected by his family and others, and it does not appear that there has been any FBI follow-up on his case.

I honestly believe that we the public will never know who stole the Clinton and Podesta emails unless Julian Assange of WikiLeaks chooses to come clean on the issue, which is unlikely. In fact, Assange, who has denied that it was the Russians, might not know whom he was dealing with. If a sophisticated intelligence agency was somehow involved it could have used its own recruited assets as interlocutors, pretending to be who they were not. A well-constructed cover story could have easily fooled Assange. A capable spy agency would also have run its operation replete with red herrings while using cut-outs to break the transmission belt of the information so the theft could not plausibly be traced back to it, or to its sponsoring government.

The fact that more than a year of inquiry has gone by without anyone inside the DNC IT system being investigated suggests that whatever happened has been buried so deep that it will never surface. Even now, it might pay some dividends for the FBI to examine the DNC server, but there is virtually no pressure from anyone to make that happen. Certainly the FBI has given no indication that it has a clue about what took place and is content with attributing it to the Russians, particularly since that seems to be the conventional wisdom. Blaming the theft and what happened subsequently on Moscow is both convenient and comforting because no American constituency gets offended and it means you don’t really have to annoy anyone but Vladimir Putin.

Philip Giraldi, a former CIA officer, is executive director of the Council for the National Interest.

Featured image is from Shutterstock/cunaplus.

Featured image: Corpse of a man seen through the wheel cart after the bloody riot (Source: Documenting Reality)

Introduction

The Calcutta Massacres of 1946, also known as the “Great Calcutta Killings,” were four days of massive one sided massacres in Calcutta the capital of Bengal province of pre-1947 India, resulting in 5,000 to 10,000 dead, and some 15,000 wounded, between August 16 and 19, 1946.

These massacres are probably the most notorious massacres of the 1946-47 periods, during which large-scale violence occurred in many parts of India. However, the Great Calcutta Killings stands out somewhat in the history of Calcutta, given that it was by far the most deadly episode in the recent history of the city. Although it received its name very soon after the events, it remains a very controversial episode, and different views or interpretations of it were put forward from Britain, India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. While there is a certain degree of consensus on the magnitude of the killings, including their short-term consequences, controversy remains regarding the exact legacies of events, various actors’ responsibility, and the long-term political consequences.

This paper is intended to throw light on the dreadful consequences the migrant Bangladeshi Urdu Speaking and Bengali Speaking communities have been suffering even now.

Historical context

The event must be situated in two different, yet interrelated contexts: firstly the all-India context, and secondly the Bengal one. 

The former was marked by growing tension between the Congress Party, the Indian organization with a base mostly (but not exclusively) among the Hindu population of the country, and the Muslim League, the main organization representative of the Muslim minority, which comprised almost 25% of India’s population.

Tensions were largely due to the fact that both groups were gearing up for a transfer of power from the British, which Prime Minister Clement Attlee had announced in March 1946, without fixing a date, however.

Each group had very different ideas regarding the future shape of the subcontinent.

In 1940, the Muslim League passed a resolution in favor of the creation of Pakistan. It was not clear, however, whether it was meant to be a separate Muslim state or a part of a confederation with the rest of India (Ayesha Jalal, 1985).

The British colonial authority is believed to have hoped that a partition of India could be avoided and were trying to come to an agreement with both the Congress and the League.

In a statement on May 16, 1946, a British Cabinet Mission proposed a plan for the formation of an interim government composed of representatives from the Congress, the League, and other forces.

This plan gave the Congress one more seat than the League.

Vultures and corpses in the street of Calcutta, August 1946 (Source: Wikimedia Commons)

But After weeks of behind-the-scene negotiations, on July 29, 1946, in protest of Jawahar Lal Nehru’s ‘statement’ the Muslim League adopted a resolution rejecting the May 16th plan and called on Muslims throughout India to observe a “Direct Action Day” in protest on August 16.

Shyam Ratna Gupta points out that three reasons have been given for the failure of the Cripps mission:

1) Gandhi’s opposition led the Indian National Congress to reject the British offer.

2) Cripps’ modification of the original British offer, which provided for no real transfer of power.

3) The behind-the-scenes efforts of the Viceroy and Secretary of State for India to sabotage the mission.

Gupta concludes that documents released in 1970 support the third interpretation. Messages between Viceroy Lord Linlithgow and Secretary of State L. S. S. Amery reveal that both opposed the Cripps Mission and they deliberately undercut Cripps. While the British government utilized the Cripps Mission as evidence of its liberal colonial policy, personal and private correspondence reveals contempt for the mission and elation over its failure.

The situation in Bengal was particularly complex. In the province, Muslims represented the majority of the population (54%, as against 44% of Hindus) and were mostly concentrated in the Eastern part (present-day Bangladesh).

As a result of this demographic structure and specific developments, this province was the only one in which a Muslim League government was in power (under a regime of provincial autonomy introduced in 1935), in coalition with Europeans, and in the face of strong opposition from the Congress Party and from a Hindu nationalist party.

The latter, the Hindu Mahasabha was supported by many members of the rich Marwari trading community, composed of immigrants from Rajstan, who largely dominated the economy of Calcutta and of Bengal (although European capital was still important).

The leader of the Muslim League in Bengal and Chief Minister of the province was Hussain Shaheed Suhrawardy.

Suhrawardy was idolized by many Muslims in Bengal, particularly by the Urdu-speaking Muslims from Northern India, who formed the majority of Calcutta’s Muslim population (Bengali Muslims, who accounted for the bulk of the Muslim population in the province, were mostly concentrated in the countryside). Calcutta itself had a clear Hindu majority (73% of the population according to the 1941 Census) and a significant Muslim minority (23% of the population).

Given the tendency of the population in urban areas to congregate in neighborhoods dominated by one community, most Muslims lived in areas of Northern Calcutta, while Central and Southern Calcutta were almost exclusively Hindu (with a sprinkling of Europeans).

Another characteristic of Calcutta’s Muslim population was that it was largely composed of poor people, mostly artisans, factory workers, rickshaw pullers and domestic servants. The Muslim middle class in Calcutta was small, in contrast to the much larger Hindu middle class. Big Muslim merchants and capitalists were few, and could not compete with the rich Marwari Hindus.

Although Muslims were clearly a minority in Calcutta and occupied a peripheral position in the economic, social and cultural life of the city, the capital was the only large city in the province, and therefore occupied a privileged position in all provincial politics, whether Muslim or Hindu.

Suhrawardy had a particularly large following amongst the poor Muslims of the city.

Jinnah had called for peaceful demonstrations all over India on Direct Action Day, and most of India, including the Muslim-majority provinces of the Punjab and Sind (in the latter the Muslim League was part of a coalition government) remained calm. In Bengal, however, and specifically in Calcutta, the events took a violent turn, and quickly spun completely out of control.

What really happened on August 16, 1946: Difference in narratives

Controversy still rages about the respective responsibilities of the two main communities, the Hindus and the Muslims, in addition to individual leaders’ roles in the carnage.

The dominant British view tends to blame both communities equally and single out the calculations of the leaders and the savagery of the followers, amongst whom there were criminal elements (Tuker, 1950).

In the Congress’ version of the events (Bose, 1968), the blame tends to be squarely laid on the Muslim League and in particular on the Chief Minister of Bengal, Suhrawardy.

The view from the Muslim League side, nowadays partly upheld in Bangladesh, the successor state to East Pakistan, is that in fact Congress and the Hindus used the opportunity offered by Direct Action Day to teach the Muslims in Calcutta a lesson and kill them in great numbers (Rashid, 1987).

Thus, the riots opened the way to a partition of Bengal between a Hindu-dominated Western Bengal including Calcutta, and a Muslim-dominated Eastern Bengal (nowadays Bangladesh).

A predominantly Muslim crowd assembled at the foot of the Ochterlony Monument (now known as the Shahid Minar) in Kolkata, to attend a meeting of the Muslim League on the Direct Action Day (16 August 1946). (Source: Wikimedia Commons)

There is an explicit accusation in pro-Congress accounts (partly upheld in British sources) that Suhrawardy’s attitude overtly incited violence.

The accusations regarding Suhrawardy’s inflammatory language cannot be substantiated. The main accusations leveled at Governor Burrows in pro Congress accounts are: 1. that he allowed Suhrawardy to interfere with law and order operations while his reserve powers allowed him to prevent Suhrawardy from doing so; 2. that he took too long to realize the extent of the trouble, and called the troops in when things had already gotten out of hand; an earlier intervention by the military might have been able to save the day.

To these reproaches, Burrows’ answer was:

1. that he could not have prevented Suhrawardy from interfering without triggering a major political crisis with country-wide repercussions, at a particularly delicate moment;

2. that he called the troops in as soon as he had enough of them available to make a difference.

The victim

Their exact number is not and will never be known. Authorities have compiled various official estimates on the basis of a rough body count.

The most widely accepted figure of dead is situated between a minimum of 5,000 and a maximum of 10,000 (Joya Chatterjee, 1991), and the number of wounded is generally put at around 15,000.

The massacres in Calcutta links with a widely accepted, very important point: according to most accounts the majority of the victims were Muslims. Since most Muslims in Calcutta were poor, there seems to be a certain coincidence between the religious and the social content of the massacre. Few rich Hindus or Muslims appear to have been targeted, although Muslim crowds attacked the houses of some rich Hindus, from which their owners hadabsconded.

Thus, the massacre could be described as the combination of one large pogrom against poor Muslims by Hindu thugs. A number of people must also have been killed in the crossfire between the two communities, and quite a few killed by police and Army fire, adding to the complexity of the massacre.

Memories

Ironically, one could say that on the one hand, the Great Calcutta Killing is very much an object of living memory; narratives are handed down from one generation to another within practically all the families who lived through it. On the other hand, it is conspicuously absent from the official memory of Bengal, particularly on the West Bengal side, but also, in a more surprising way, on the Bangladeshi side.

Given the lack of study on this aspect, one can only point to some of the possible reasons for the absence of an official memory of the Great Killing. On the Indian side, political expediency is the most plausible.

In regard to the Hindus, who had had the better in the fight, they found it preferable to adopt a low profile and to play the apparent appeasement card.

On the Pakistani side, the question was complicated by the fact that, from the early 1950s onwards, a small section of Dhaka based middle class Bengalis in East Pakistan felt increasingly alienated from their West Pakistani compatriots and were nostalgic for the time when Bengal had been united.

Therefore, they were not interested in reviving old wounds. The same attitude persisted in 1971 after Bangladesh was born with the help of India. Although there was a change of regime in 1975 and a worsening of relations with India, there was no significant attempt at creating a memory of the 1946 killings.

Thus, there was a kind of conspiracy of silence which only began to be lifted in the 1990s, when the advent of a new historiography in India led to reconsideration of a whole part of the Indian past, that had previously been believed to be better off forgotten. Yet the Great Calcutta Killing, (the expression most often used) remains a marginal episode in the dominant narrative of the history of Bengal.

Victims deserve compensation

It was reported by the Associated Press published by Globe and Mail newspaper on Jul. 16, 2014:

A court on Wednesday ordered the Netherlands to compensate the families of more than 300 Bosnian Muslims killed after Dutch troops handed them over to Bosnian Serb forces in 1995, in a ruling that could make countries such as Canada more leery to contribute troops to peacekeeping missions.

The civil court in The Hague cleared the Netherlands of liability in the massacre of nearly 8,000 others, saying that although those people sought protection in the UN safe haven of Srebrenica, they were never directly in the custody of the Dutch troops.

The court ruled that the Dutch peacekeeping troops could have protected the 300-plus men and boys who were among thousands of Muslims – mainly women, children and elderly people – taking shelter in a Dutch compound inside the UN-declared safe haven of Srebrenica.

Moreover Britain also has compelled to pay the compensation to the Mau Mau Torture Victims of Kenya.

According to the Guardian report published on 6 June 2013 13:

Britain was to pay out £19.9m in costs and compensation to more than 5,000 elderly Kenyans who suffered torture and abuse during the Mau Mau uprising in the 1950s, the foreign secretary, William Hague, had said.

Hague told the House of Commons that the payment was being made in “full and final settlement” of a high court action brought by five of the victims who suffered under the British colonial administration.

Italy also paid $5 billion as compensation for colonizing Libya.

From Wikipedia:

Italy agreed to pay Libya $5 billion as compensation for its 30-year occupation of the country, which ended in 1943. On 30 August 2008, Gaddafi and Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi signed a historic cooperation treaty in Benghazi. Under its terms, Italy would pay $5 billion to Libya as compensation for its former military occupation.

At the signing ceremony of the document, Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi recognized historic atrocities and repression committed by the state of Italy against the Libyan people during colonial rule, stating:

“In this historic document, Italy apologizes for its killing, destruction and repression of the Libyan people during the period of colonial rule.” and went on to say that this was a “complete and moral acknowledgement of the damage inflicted on Libya by Italy during the colonial era”.

Citing all these references can’t we settle that the Victims of the Great Calcutta Killings deserve compensation upon the same grounds as well as International Laws that were used by all those nations mentioned above?

Breaking the Silence after Decades: What is to be done

Three issues are to taken into account for Breaking the Silence after Decades.

1.  The politicized narratives regarding the The Great Calcutta Killings has corrupted the popular mindset of both in West Bengal and to some extent Bangladesh. The state of Bangladesh and her intelligentsia have a suprising bias of putting special emphasis on all Indian narratives generated mostly just in the form of propaganda which resulted in the general public some form of a sense of ignorant guilt .Therefore, to get rid of communal maladies for good, we need to search for the correct history.

2.   Since the beginning of the genocide on August 16, 1947, refugees from West Bengal started coming towards what is now called Bangladesh. During those days two-thirds of the Muslim population of Calcutta was Urdu-speaking. Initially the Muslims from Calcutta and after them scores of thousands of other Urdu-speaking people, who fell victim to the massacres of then Bihar were forced to take shelter in this country.

The biological descendants of these Urdu speakers have been forced to live as a Stateless Population like Palestinians in Bangladesh!

Like the Palestinians of West Bank and Gaza, all Bangladeshi  regimes consider the Urdu Speaking Minority as the “enemy within” and keep them terrorized by using the security apparatus!

3. According to international law, the offenses committed after the Second World War are considered to be in the nature of Crimes Against Humanity that were deliberately committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack or individual attack directed against any civilian or an identifiable part of a civilian population.

For this reason, in response to the petition filed by only 5 members of the Kenya’s Mau Mau tribe, the British government had to accept the charges of committing genocide and pay compensation to the victims.

Through this process, the British government not only has been forced to confess their crimes but also end the hegemony over Kenya for good.

4. Following the example of Kenyans, Bangladeshi victims can file a lawsuit in the British court against the British state and India seeking compensation for the loss and damage caused by the Great Calcutta Killings and the Bengal Famine of 1943. If so is done, both Britain and India will be forced to undergo a process of domestic change and end their dirty policies over the world. Especially China, Russia and Turkey can initiate this process.

5. The International Trial of the Perpetrators of the Great Calcutta Killings may be the starting point for the re-establishment of democracy and the people’s rights both within the state of Bangladesh and at the international level.

6. Considering the case of democracy and people’s rights, the civil society of Bangladesh should be vocal about the trial of institutional killers of Great Calcutta Killings and Bengal Famine.

The Indian Origin Urdu Speaking Minority Council Bangladesh has been working on the goals mentioned above.

Sources

1.Shyam Ratna Gupta, “New Light on the Cripps Mission,” India Quarterly, (Jan 1972), 28#1 pp 69-74

2. Ayesha Jalal (1994). The Sole Spokesman: Jinnah, the Muslim League and the Demand for Pakistan. Cambridge U.P. p. 47. ISBN 9780521458504.

3. Netherlands liable for 300 Srebrenica massacre deaths

[http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/netherlands-liable-for-300-srebrenica-massacre-deaths-court-rules/article19629551/]

4. UK to compensate Kenya’s Mau Mau torture victims

[http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jun/06/uk-compensate-kenya-mau-mau-torture] 

5. Italy Agrees to $5 Billion in Compensation for Colonizing Libya 

[http://mereja.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=76631&mobile=on]

No ano fiscal de 2018 (que começa em 1° de outubro) a administração Trump aumentará em 40% a verba para a “Iniciativa de Segurança da Europa”, lançada pela administração Obama depois da “ilegal invasão russa da Ucrânia em 2014”. Quem anuncia é o general Curtis Scaparrotti,(foto) chefe do Comando Europeu dos Estados Unidos e, por direito, comandante supremo aliado na Europa.

Começado com 985 milhões de dólares em 2015, o financiamento da Iniciativa chegou a 3,4 bilhões em 2017 e atingirá (segundo demanda do orçamento) 4,8 bilhões em 2018. Em quatro anos, 10 bilhões de dólares gastos pelos Estados Unidos a fim de “aumentar a nossa capacidade de defender a Europa contra a agressão russa”.

Quase a metade da despesa de 2018 – 2,2 bilhões de dólares – serve para potencializar o “pré-posicionamento estratégico” dos EUA na Europa, ou seja, os depósitos de armamentos que, colocados em posição avançada, permitam “o rápido deslocamento de forças para o teatro bélico”. Outra grande cota – 1,7 bilhão de dólares – é destinada a “aumentar a presença, com base na rotatividade, de forças estadunidenses em toda a Europa”.

As cotas restantes, cada uma da ordem de centenas de milhões de dólares, servem ao desenvolvimento da infraestrutura das bases na Europa para “aumentar a prontidão das ações dos EUA”, para potencializar os exercícios militares e o treinamento a fim de “aumentar a prontidão e a interoperabilidade da força da Otan”.

Os fundos da Iniciativa – precisa o Comando Europeu dos Estados Unidos – são apenas uma parte dos destinados à “Operação Atlantic Resolve, que demonstra a capacidade dos EUA de responder às ameaças contra os aliados”.

No quadro de tais operações, foi transferida à Polônia desde o Fort Carson (Colorado), em janeiro passado, a 3a Brigada blindada, composta por 3.500 homens, 87 tanques, 18 morteiros, 144 veículos de combate Bradley, mais de 400 veículos de alta mobilidade (Humvees) e 2.000 veículos de transporte. A 3a Brigada blindada será substituída dentro de um ano por outra unidade, assim que as forças blindadas estadunidenses são permanentemente deslocadas para o território polonês. De lá, seus destacamentos são transferidos, para treinamento e exercícios, a outros países do Leste, sobretudo Estônia, Letônia, Lituânia, Bulgária, Romênia e provavelmente também Ucrânia, ou seja, são continuamente deslocados para o entorno da Rússia.

Sempre no quadro de tais operações, foi transferida para a base de llesheim (Alemanha) desde o Fort Drum (Nova York), em fevereiro passado, a 10ª Brigada aérea, com mais de 2.000 homens e centenas de helicópteros de guerra. Desde llesheim, sua força tarefa é enviada “a posições avançadas” à Polônia, Romênia e Letônia.

Para as bases de Ämari (Estônia) e Graf Ignatievo (Bulgária), foram deslocados caças-bombardeiros dos EUA e da Otan, incluídos aviões de caça Eurofighter italianos, para “o patrulhamento aéreo” do Báltico. A operação prevê também “uma persistente presença no Mar Negro”, com a base aérea de Kogalniceanu (Romênia) e a base para treinamentos de Novo Selo (Bulgária).

O plano é claro. Depois de ter provocado com o golpe da Praça Maidan um novo confronto com a Rússia, Washington (não obstante a mudança de administração) persegue a mesma estratégia: transformar a Europa na primeira linha de uma nova guerra fria, em benefício dos interesses dos Estados Unidos e das suas relações de força com as maiores potências europeias. Os 10 bilhões de dólares investidos pelos EUA para “garantir a segurança” da Europa, servem na realidade para tornar a Europa ainda mais insegura.

Manlio Dinucci

Artigo em italiano :

$10 miliardi per le forze Usa in Europa, L’arte della guerra

il manifesto

Tradução de José Reinaldo Carvalho, para Resistência

Foto do general Curtis Scaparrotti : parstoday.com

Manlio Dinucci é geógrafo e jornalista

Nell’anno fiscale 2018 (che inizia il 1° ottobre 2017) l’amministrazione Trump accrescerà di oltre il 40% lo stanziamento per la «Iniziativa di rassicurazione dell’Europa» (Eri), lanciata dall’amministrazione Obama dopo «la illegale invasione russa dell’Ucraina nel 2014»: lo annuncia il generale Curtis Scaparrotti,* capo del Comando europeo degli Stati uniti e quindi per diritto Comandante supremo alleato in Europa. Partito da 985 milioni di dollari nel 2015, il finanziamento della Eri è salito a 3,4 miliardi nel 2017 e arriverà (secondo la richiesta di bilancio) a 4,8 miliardi nel 2018. In quattro anni, 10 miliardi di dollari spesi dagli Stati uniti al fine di «accrescere la nostra capacità di difendere l’Europa contro l’aggressione russa». Quasi la metà della spesa del 2018 – 2,2 miliardi di dollari – serve a potenziare il «preposizionamento strategico» Usa in Europa, ossia i depositi di armamenti che, collocati in posizione avanzata, permettono «il rapido spiegamento di forze nel teatro bellico». Un’altra grossa quota – 1,7 miliardi di dollari – è destinata ad «accrescere la presenza su base rotatoria di forze statunitensi in tutta Europa». Le restanti quote, ciascuna nell’ordine di centinaia di milioni di dollari, servono allo sviluppo delle infrastrutture delle basi in Europa per «accrescere la prontezza delle azioni Usa», al potenziamento delle esercitazioni militari e dell’addestramento per «accrescere la prontezza e interoperabilità delle forze Nato».

I fondi della Eri – specifica il Comando europeo degli Stati uniti – sono solo una parte di quelli destinatati all’«Operazione Atlantic Resolve, che dimostra la capacità Usa di rispondere alle minacce contro gli alleati». Nel quadro di tale operazione, è stata trasferita in Polonia da Fort Carson (Colorado), lo scorso gennaio, la 3a Brigata corazzata, composta da 3500 uomini, 87 carrarmati, 18 obici semoventi, 144 veicoli da combattimento Bradley, oltre 400 Humvees e 2000 veicoli da trasporto. La 3a Brigata corazzata sarà rimpiazzata entro l’anno da un’altra unità, così che forze corazzate statunitensi siano permanentemente dislocate in territorio polacco. Da qui, loro reparti vengono trasferiti, per addestramento ed esercitazioni, in altri paesi dell’Est, soprattutto Estonia, Lettonia, Lituania, Bulgaria, Romania e probabilmente anche Ucraina, ossia vengono continuamente dislocati a ridosso della Russia.

Sempre nel quadro di tale operazione, è stata trasferita nella base di Illesheim (Germania) da Fort Drum (New York), lo scorso febbraio, la 10a Brigata aerea da combattimento, con oltre 2000 uomini e un centinaio di elicotteri da guerra. Da Illesheim, sue task force vengono inviate «in posizioni avanzate» in Polonia, Romania e Lettonia. Nelle basi di Ämari (Estonia) e Graf Ignatievo (Bulgaria), sono dislocati cacciabombardieri Usa e Nato, compresi Eurofighter italiani, per il «pattugliamento aereo» del Baltico. L’operazione prevede inoltre «una persistente presenza nel Mar Nero», con la base aerea di Kogalniceanu (Romania) e quella addestrativa di Novo Selo (Bulgaria).

Il piano è chiaro. Dopo aver provocato col putsch di Piazza Maidan un nuovo confronto con la Russia, Washington (nonostante il cambio di amministrazione) persegue la stessa strategia: trasformare l’Europa in prima linea di una nuova guerra fredda, a vantaggio degli interessi degli Stati uniti e dei loro rapporti di forza con le maggiori potenze europee. I 10 miliardi di dollari investiti dagli Usa per «rassicurare» l’Europa, servono in realtà a rendere l’Europa ancora più insicura.

Manlio Dinucci

*Foto (Maggio 03, 2017) parstoday.com

The area controlled by the Damascus government in Syria has grown by 250 percent over the past two months, Russian Minister of Defense Sergey Shoigu said on Sunday. Shoigu added that the liberation of the key town of Sukhna in the province of Homs opens an opportunity to lift the ISIS siege from the strategic city of Deir Ezzor. He added that Russia has “started persuading our American colleagues that terrorists should be separated from opposition to understand where to strike… Establishing the de-escalation zones today is exactly this separation.”
On Saturday, special operations units from the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) Tiger Forces carried out a successful air landing operation behind ISIS lines at the administrative border between Homs and Raqqah provinces.

Government troops led by Tiger Forces Commander Suheil al-Hassan were transported by 4 Mi-35 attack helicopters to the eastern Raqqah countryside 21km behind the frontline and liberated Khirbet Makman village, Al-Qadir town and Bir Rahum. Government troops are now deployed in only about 40 km from the recently liberated town of Sukhna.

Special operations forces killed and injured large numbers of ISIS fighters, and destroyed 3 battle tanks, 17 armed vehicles, 7 VBIEDs, and captured two VBIEDs, two tanks and several ISIS artillery pieces during the operation, according to the Syrian Ministry of Defense.

This was the first ever air landing operation conducted by the SAA during the ongoing war. It showed the growing military capabilities of the SAA supported and trained by Russia and Iran.

Meanwhile, the SAA and tribal forces continued pressuring ISIS in the town of Maadan near the Euphrates River. The SAA has still not liberated the town because of constant flanking attacks by ISIS in the area. Last weekend, ISIS attacked the SAA near Ghanim Ali and al-Kadir killing 7 SAA troops and capturing a battle tank.

In the province of Homs, ISIS conducted raids near Sukhna, in the area of Humaimah and at the Shaer fields. According to Amaq, 32 SAA soldiers were killed and 3 battle tanks, a BMP, a bulldozer and 5 vehicles were destroyed in the clashes.

Despite counter-attacks, ISIS is in very complicated situation. As soon as the SAA fully secures the Sukhna area, government forces will be able to pay more attention to other frontlines in the Homs province and counter a threat posed by ISIS units there.

Two US soldiers died and five others suffered injures while they were conducting operations in northern Iraq, the US military said in a statement on Sunday. According to the released statement, “the incident was not due to enemy contact”.

The ISIS-linked news agency Amaq released a statement claiming the US military suffered casualties because of the group’s shelling near al-Bwair village east of Tal-Afar town. According to the statement, ISIS used Grad rockets, killed 4 US soldiers and injured 6 others. Amaq claimed that ISIS members were tracking US forces movement via a small drone.

Troops of the US-led coalition actively operate in Iraq and Syria. The US Special Operations Forces even spearhead offensives in the crucial directions like Mosul or Raqqah, according to local sources. However, the US military prefers avoid providing official confirmations of such facts.

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Featured image: The Taj Mahal Hotel burning after the terrorist attacks in Mumbai (Source: Haunted India)

Perhaps the FBI needs guys like Elias Davidsson to solve the circumstances of the 9/11 attacks. Could he have been successful within such an organization? Usually, the FBI investigators can only go so far as their superiors want them to go. That’s why a highly qualified researcher such as Davidsson would have gone nowhere within the FBI.

In the 9/11 community, Davidsson is no blank sheet. He has published books on 9/11 and the follow-up terrorist attacks that set the world on fire. “Hijacking America’s Mind on 9/11″[1], followed by “Psychological Warfare and Social Denial: The Legend of 9/11 and the Fiction of Terrorism” (Psychologische Kriegsführung und Gesellschaftliche Leugnung: Die Legende des 9/11 und die Fiktion der Terrorbedrohung)[2] presented a different narrative. An English translation of a condensed version would be very informative and highly useful for the English speaking public.

The elucidation of a terrorist offense suffers from the fact that governments clean up only as much as it benefits them politically. Such an approach also holds true for the Mumbai attacks. The impression given by the Indian government that all facts were on the table, is, according to Davidsson, false. As with the “9/11 Commission Report”, which pretends to present the real events and the backgrounds, the same holds true for the processing of this heinous crime of 26/11, 2008. In both cases, statements of witnesses, which didn’t support the official narrative were glossed over or brushed aside.

That’s why Davidsson’s book is so important. In 25 chapters he unravels not only the motivations and the cover-up of the Indian government but also the multifaceted interests of international actors such as Pakistan, the U.S., and possibly Great Britain, Germany, Israel, Iran, Russia, China, and even Australia.

“The book is about the betrayal of the Indian nation by a corrupt, greedy and ruthless elite for whom the lives of ordinary Indians are expendable when power and profit are at stake,” writes the author.

From day one, a particular part of the official account was questioned, namely, the circumstances surrounding the deaths of three senior police officials and their assistants. Many Indians voiced their suspicion that the authorities were covering-up facts and called for an independent and impartial investigation of the events.

To understand 26/11, the reader must not work one’s way through the whole book sequentially because the author has attempted to render individual chapters independent of each other. All chapters close with a summary or conclusions. Davidsson’s book is always very well documented by many footnotes. Additionally, all sources used are accessible using the following URL:

http://aldeilis.net/mumbai/

The author presents three definite conclusions; firstly, India’s major institutions are suppressing the truth on 26/11; secondly, India’s judiciary has failed its duty to seek truth and render justice; thirdly, Business, political and military circles profited from 26/11. Furthermore, entities in the U. S. and Israel also gained from the attack. The author could not find any benefits for the Pakistani government, military or businesses. The main profiteer seems the Hindu nationalist constituencies by the “elimination” of Hemant Karkare, “who was on the verge of exposing Hindutva terrorist networks.

Davidsson calls on the Indian Civil society to ask for the establishment of a National Truth Commission on 26/11 mandated to establish the facts on the attacks of 26 November 2008. The Civil society itself should demand the creation of an International Commission of Inquiry on the previous terrorist attacks under the authority of Chapter VII of the U.N. Charter, including those committed in the U. S. on 11 September 2001.

With this study, the Indian Civil society has a document at its disposal to challenge the official narrative. The overall objective of the author, however, is the exposure of all the key terror attacks, especially 9/11, which lacks to this day any evidence that 19 Muslims were the perpetrators.

This very compact but exciting book should contribute to the solving of the 26/11 crime. A must read for everybody interested in the truth.

Title: The Betrayal of India: Revisiting the 26/11 Evidence

Author: Elias Davidsson

Publisher: Pharos Media & Publishing Pvt Ltd (2017)

ISBN-10: 8172210884

ISBN-13: 978-8172210885

Click here to order.

Notes

[1] http://between-the-lines-ludwig-watzal.blogspot.de/2013/08/hijacking-americas-mind-on-911.html

[2] http://betweenthelines-ludwigwatzal.com/2017/01/24/psychologische-kriegsfuehrung-und-gesellschaftliche-leugnung-die-legende-ueber-911/

International law is broken because Victor’s Justice prevails. 

All of the Western-prosecuted 9/11 wars of aggression have been waged on the basis of lies, the accumulated impact of these wars is an overseas holocaust[1], and yet the NATO war criminals continue their aggressions secure in the knowledge that they are immune to prosecution. And they are immune. 

In fact they have been immune for some time now. When NATO was bombing civilians in Yugoslavia in 1999, Carla Del Ponte, the chief prosecutor for the war crimes tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague, told the United Nations Security Council that her investigation had found no basis for charging NATO with war crimes.

NATO destroyed Yugoslavia, President Slobodan Milosevic[2] of Yugoslavia went to prison and died in prison, only to be recently found innocent of the charges against him. Victor’s Justice.

The same Carla Del Ponte, a member of the U.N. Commission of Inquiry on Syria, now has the audacity to publicly proclaim that,

“(t)he U.N. Commission of Inquiry on Syria has gathered enough evidence for President Bashar al-Assad to be convicted of war crimes.”[3]

The timing is significant. NATO terrorists are losing the war, and refugees are flooding back into liberated, government-secured areas of the country.[4]

Former French ambassador Michel Raimbaud, correctly accuses the (resigning) Carla Del Ponte of being judge and jury in a commission that is supposed to be impartial. To paraphrase, he explains that she has always been venomous against President Assad, who is defending his country from attack, and protecting its sovereignty, its territorial integrity, and its independence. He says that she is blind and deaf to voices coming from Syria and that she sees no urgency in bringing to trial those who orchestrated, financed, supported, and armed those who destroyed Syria and other countries.[5]

Raimbaud is describing the dynamics of Victor’s Justice – wherein powerful nations commit war crimes with impunity.

None of the public accusations against Syria and President Assad would prevail in an impartial criminal court of law, (especially since the sources of the evidence are from the terrorists themselves)[6], yet the crimes of the aggressors have been front and center since before the dirty war began.

The US-led coalition and allied forces perpetrating war crimes against Syria – including Canada’s refugee welcoming, terrorist-supporting government — should be brought before war crimes tribunals in The Hague.

Notes

[1] Mark Taliano,“US-NATO Holocaust in Iraq: The Depopulation and Destruction of Mosul.” Global Research, July 12, 2017. (http://www.globalresearch.ca/us-nato-holocaust-in-iraq-the-depopulation-and-destruction-of-mosul/5598793) Accessed August 14, 2017.

[2] Alexander Artamonov, “Slobodan Milosevic: The Killing of an Innocent Man.” Global Research, August 18, 2016

(http://www.globalresearch.ca/slobodan-milosevic-the-killing-of-an-innocent-man/5541534) Accessed August 14, 2017.

[3] Francois Murphy, “Syria investigator del Ponte says enough evidence to convict Assad of war crimes: SonntagsZeitung.” Reuters, August 13, 2017. (http://www.reuters.com/article/us-mideast-crisis-syria-investigator-idUSKCN1AT0AY?il=0) Accessed August 14, 2017

[4]“Over 600,000 Displaced Syrians Returned Home in First 7 Months of 2017.” International Organization For Migration, August 11, 2017. (https://www.iom.int/news/over-600000-displaced-syrians-returned-home-first-7-months-2017) Accessed August 14, 2017.

[5] Michel Raimbaud, « Démission de Carla Del Ponte : «Les propos du procureur prouvent qu’elle est juge et partie.»RT, August 9, 2017. (https://francais.rt.com/opinions/41852-demission-carla-del-ponte-propos-juge-et-partie) Accessedd August 14, 2017.

 [6] Prof. Tim Anderson, “Why Syrians Support Bashar al Assad” Global Research, September 30, 2014. (http://www.globalresearch.ca/why-syrians-support-bashar-al-assad/5405208” Accessed August 14, 2017.

This is a potentially incredible breakthrough in the painful 7 year-long Syrian conflict.

As 21WIRE has pointed out previous, aside from Turkey’s key part in facilitating the creation and supply of anti-Syrian terrorist enclaves over the last 7 years, it has also played the central role in the dismantling of Syria’s manufacturing sector centered around the now devastated industrial hub of Aleppo.

That’s what makes this latest news almost unbelievable.

Since 2011, the leadership in Ankara has committed much of its southern territory, a good portion of financial and military resources, as well as nearly all of its diplomatic credibility… for one goal: to destabilize its neighbor and achieve regime change in Damascus.

Perhaps its renewed dialogue and a lucrative Southstream energy partnership with Russia, along with the relative success so far in the Astana Peace Process – and Washington’s disruptive military and financial backing of a prime Turkish arch-enemy, the Kurdish militia in northern Syria, has made Turkish President Erdogan and his inner circle realize that it’s time to reverse course on a 7 year failure, and immeasurable social, civil and economic destruction of their southern neighbor.

Sputnik News reports:

The renowned historian Professor Doctor Peter Kuznick speaks, in the following interview, on the increasing tension on the Korean Peninsula and the risk of a nuclear war between the United States and North Korea.

Edu Montesanti: The Washington Post reported Thursday: “Cheong Seong-chang, a North Korean leadership expert at the left-leaning Sejong Institute in the South, agreed with Madden that Kim does not want actual conflict with the United States. ‘North Koreans are not taking this [Trump’s threats] seriously. They’re pointing out that Trump is saying these things because he hasn’t ‘consolidated his power’ yet,’ he said.”

Professor Chossudovsky says that Americans have to think “who is a real threat to the world? Washington is,” he says as you yourself, Professor Kuznick, pointed out to me last year that, “what Kennedy and Khrushchev learned during the Cuban Missile Crisis is that once a crisis develops, it quickly spins out of control. Despite the fact that both of them were trying desperately to avoid a nuclear war in 1962, they realized that they had lost control.” In January the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists set its annual Doomsday Clock at 2.5 minutes to midnight, when President Trump took power: “This year’s Clock deliberations felt more urgent than usual.”

Prof. Paul Tonnsson sees three scenarios for how the Korean crisis can develop: “War, permanent crisis or a negotiated deal. The first is least likely, the second very likely, and the third more likely than war.” What scenarios do you see for how the US-North Korea increasing tensions can develop in the near future, Professor Kuznick?

Prof. Dr. Peter Kuznick: Professor Tonnsson is correct. There is no military solution. On the other hand, both sides benefit from a protracted conflict.

The North Korean regime needs an external threat to justify its existence and to placate a population that is increasingly aware of how bad off it is. North Koreans’ standard of living is less than 5 percent of South Koreans’. That is astounding. In the 1970s, North Korea’s economy was actually outperforming that of its southern neighbor.

Kim Jong-un is able to assuage the anger and deprivation of the North Korean people by blaming his regime’s isolation and economic desperation on the United States, and the threat it poses to North Korea.

And there is enough truth in that explanation to justify the corrupt North Korean regime’s continued existence and the loyalty of much of the population.

Trump also needs an external threat to justify his regime’s massive increase in military spending and unconscionable cuts to domestic programs and social spending.

The regimes in that sense are quite similar. Both prioritize their own perpetuation and the bolstering of their militaries over the needs of their people. Both have insecure, tyrannical bullies at their helm. Both welcome the state of crisis and think they can bluff their enemies into submission.

The danger is what happens when one of them calls the other’s bluff. So prolonged crisis is the most likely scenario. It also serves Trump as a distraction from the scandals surrounding his administration.

A negotiated deal is what almost everyone in the world hopes for, but it is unlikely under present circumstances. We all know what such a deal would entail. China has been pushing such a negotiated settlement for years. So has Russia. North Korea has repeatedly indicated it may be ready to accept such a deal. The United States has refused.

Trump publicly maintains the pipedream that North Korea will abandon its nuclear program. The North did effectively freeze its nuclear and missile programs from 1994 until 2002, when George Bush, after suspending the deal that Clinton had negotiated, accused North Korea of being part of the “axis of evil” along with Iran and Iraq.

Since then, the Kims have understood that the only guarantee that the U.S. would not overthrow the North Korean government has been Pyongyang’s ability to strike Seoul, and hit U.S. bases with their 28,500 U.S. troops in addition to being able to decimate South Korea’s civilian populations, and the 200,000 Americans living in the South.

Now the North has added its growing nuclear capability, which it will not abandon under any circumstances. When the U.S. invaded Iraq, the North issued a statement saying that the mistake Saddam Hussein made was not having nuclear weapons, which would have stopped the U.S. from invading.

Then the overthrow of the Qaddafi regime in Libya, after it gave up its Weapons of Mass Destruction, further drove home the point of what would happen to the North Korean government if it let down its guard.

So even though I would love to see a denuclearized Korean Peninsula, it would take years of trustbuilding and friendship before that will become possible. That leaves a prolonged crisis as the most likely scenario but a very dangerous and unstable one, that could suddenly spiral out of control.

U.S. intelligence has recently estimated that the North may have as many as 60 nuclear weapons that it could deploy. I think that number is highly exaggerated. And we know that the U.S. has far more than that – close to 7,000.

The U.S. and South Korea can defeat North Korea without use of nuclear weapons. A desperate North Korea might resort to use of nuclear weapons if defeat was imminent, even knowing that such action might be suicidal.

How would the U.S. respond? How would China respond? If a large nuclear exchange occurs, we’re all cooked. We know that the latest scientific findings indicate that even a limited nuclear war between India and Pakistan, in which 100 relatively tiny Hiroshima size nuclear weapons were detonated, would cause a partial nuclear winter resulting in plummeting temperatures and the deaths of up to 2 billion people.

I shudder to think of what might happen in a nuclear war between the U.S. and North Korea.

Edu Montesanti: What The Post and specialists say is that, “Kim Jong-un wants to stay in power – and that is an argument against nuclear war” (report title), the US politicians have been calling for military action against the North, apparently supported by the mainstream media – as always. Do you agree to The Post? From the White House perspective, what should be the Trump administration – which seems to be in disaccord for contradictory messages, day by day – attitude towards Pyongyang, considering that the Obama administration sanctioned the North without any practical result – on the contrary, North Korea has intensively developed its nuclear arsenal?

Prof. Dr. Peter Kuznick: Trump should take immediate steps to defuse the crisis. It’s time for that hamburger summit. The North Korean regime may be odious, but the best way for us to help the people of North Korea is to establish diplomatic relations and start providing aid. That is also in the interest of the people in Japan, South Korea, Guam, and the United States.

The U.S. should also adopt a no-first-use policy and begin to follow through on its commitment under Article 6 of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons to do away with its nuclear arsenal. This has been given new impetus under the nuclear ban treaty adopted by UN General Assembly, on July 7.

If the U.S. concludes a treaty to officially end the Korean War, abandons a policy of regime change in North Korea, and stops holding its provocative military exercises in South Korea, it can dramatically ease tensions and begin to build the trust that will hopefully someday lead to peaceful relations and the abandonment of nuclear weapons.

The Kim regime’s main priority is self-preservation. It will not iniitiate a nuclear war, knowing that it would be wiped out. However, the prospect that it might blunder into an unwanted war remains intolerably high as the war of threats and counterthreats between the two fat insecure bullies escalates and even a conventional war could leave more than a million dead.

Perhaps it is time to again move the hands of the Doomsday Clock even closer to midnight. Let’s also hope that this serves as a wakeup call to alert the international community to the desperate need to put the new UN nuclear ban treaty into effect, before the ultimate unthinkable catastrophe does occur.

As Kennedy and Khrushchev did in 1962 and 1963, let’s bring something positive out of the terrifying threat that now confronts us. But those were different times. Imagine what would be left of the world today if that was Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un confronting each other in October 1962, instead of Kennedy and Khrushchev.

Kennedy and Khrushchev in Vienna, 1961. (Source: Unredacted)

Edu Montesanti: Early this month, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said that “the US government is not seeking a regime change in North Korea,” adding that the US wanted a dialogue at some point; last week, President Trump stated that the US would react with “fury and fire” against Pyongyang: is the change in positions a way of not showing US weakness? Could the “pacific” message be understood, in a now regretted White House perspective, as a win of a regime in developing nuclear weapons to protect itself?

Prof. Dr. Peter Kuznick: At this point, I don’t think there’s much to be gained by assessing whether the U.S. or North Korea is the bigger threat to the world. North Korea is a regional threat with growing global capabilities. The U.S. is and remains a global threat.

Donald Trump has veto power over the continued existence of our species. Fortunately, Kim Jong-un has not yet achieved that capability. But both the United States and North Korea need to be walked back from the precipice of a confrontation with deadly implications.

Lindsey Graham, the extremely militaristic senator from South Carolina, takes comfort in the fact that in the event of war, most of the killing would take place in Korea. He commented, “If there’s going to be a war to stop [Kim Jong-un], it will be over there. If thousands die, they’re going to die over there. They’re not going to die here. And [Trump] has told me that to my face.”

The Koreans have not forgotten the slaughter of their people – both North and South–during the Korean War. They understand the stakes.

When you have braying fools, however, like Trump and Graham, who don’t seem to value human life, acting like macho clowns, the threat of war becomes real. This is especially the case when North Korea’s leaders make a similar practice of unfurling grandiose and empty threats.

So even though the United States has long been a greater threat to world peace, the fact that we have two unstable, rash, and immature leaders involved in a nuclear-armed pissing match gives us little room for comfort.

***

Prof. Dr. Kuznick is Director of the Nuclear Studies Institute at American University in Washington D.C., and author of several books; the American researcher at the American University co-authored with Oliver Stone The Untold History of the United States.

“You know, when you nominate for Parliament, there is actually a question, you’ve got to address that section 44 question.”- Australian Deputy Prime Minister, Barnaby Joyce

It is proving to be a toxic gift that continues to give with increasing regularity. The latest potential victim of section 44 of the Australian Constitution, one barring a member of parliament from having an allegiance, obedience or adherence to a foreign country, is the Australian Deputy Prime Minister, Barnaby Joyce.

On Monday, the same politician who made world headlines threatening to place the undeclared dogs of Johnny Depp and Amber Heard on death row after entering Australia, had his own moment of unrelished revelation: he was a New Zealand citizen.

This inconvenient fact came to Joyce’s attention on Thursday via advice received from the NZ High Commissioner, Chris Seed. The punch in the advice was even greater, given the Deputy PM’s string of previous announcements that he could not possibly have a citizenship connection with the country where his father was born.

While previous politicians leapt over the ridge on discovering their ineligibility (the Greens Senators Scott Ludlam and Larissa Waters being the debutants in this bloodletting), others have been attempting to clog the High Court of Australia. Perhaps the two Senators had been too hasty.

One government Senator and now resigned cabinet member, Matt Canavan, smells a whiff of potential legal victory before the bench of the High Court, using the “blame my mother” defence in acquiring, unwittingly, Italian citizenship, or what is deemed Italian residency abroad.

But Joyce’s case provides far less room to manoeuvre, one that looks more like the cases of Ludlam and Waters. Both of those cases involved a misreading, or misperception, about the respective laws of New Zealand and Canada on nationals.

No matter, claims the government Solicitor-General, Stephen Donaghue, deciding that sun filled hope mattered over worn legal experience. Joyce could remain not only as Deputy PM but as the Member for New England while the High Court considers the case. There would be no glorious immolation, no sacrifice to the sacred text of constitutional law. Furthermore, there would be no risk, at least for the moment, that this minority government might be extinguished by a textual nicety, given the government’s one seat majority.

Desperate to repel this political doomsday scenario, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has been edging close to a dangerous declaration in parliament: that the High Court will find in favour of the government and hold that Joyce can remain.

This is very much high in the wishful stakes. What the government is banking upon, along with One Nation Senator Malcolm Roberts, is a modern interpretation of section 44, one that moves away from the fact that mere entitlement to a foreign power’s good graces would disqualify.

As for the Solicitor-General’s advice, Joyce satisfies all four contrived tests, though this banks on an updated reading of the section that clips its very broad wings.[1] The Deputy PM was not, for instance, born overseas. Nor was he on a list of citizens of another state. He never applied for the citizenship of another country nor swore, at any point, any oath or allegiance to the other country.

Sensible points, in of themselves, but the law is not alien to absurdity. If, suggests Sydney University Law School’s Anne Twomey, a distinction can be drawn between citizenship by descent and other forms, Joyce may well survive.

“Or [the High Court] could say the purpose of the provision is to prevent dual allegiance – and if you didn’t know [you were a foreign citizen] you were not breaching the purpose.”[2]

The opposition attorney-general, Mark Dreyfus, suggested that Turnbull might have been skirting against the separation of powers, coming “perilously close to directing the High Court.”[3] Not so, shot back Senator George Brandis. Turnbull, he explained on Radio National, knows a thing or two about the High Court, having presented cases before them.

Ambushed yet again, the government’s latest tactic smacks of a retro approach, those bad old days when major parties would purposely use the disqualifying provisions of section 44 to eliminate an independent politician or a member of a minor party. Show us, ventures the coalition, the paperwork of Justine Keay, Susan Lamb, Brendan O’Connor, Maria Vamvakinou and Tony Zappia.

All those Labor MPs are said to have renounced their foreign allegiances, though the party has, as yet, to move on producing any relevant paperwork. Labor’s own response is a line so standard as to be worrying. In refusing an offer from Turnbull that their own dubious cases be bundled up in the same government package for the High Court, Bill Shorten climbed the mountain of confidence.

“The Labor Party,” penned Shorten in his note of refusal to the PM, “has the strictest procedures in place to ensure all candidates are compliant with the Constitution prior to their nomination for election. Therefore, I politely decline your offer.”[4]

More fun, it seems, for the constitutional diggers.

Time and again since this constitutional crisis unfolded, the concept of strict procedures has itself been challenged. The application of due diligence, these episodes show, is an entirely relative matter, one often giving way to pure hope. But ignorance, in these cases, is proving far from blissful. Politically, it is even proving fatal.

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

Notes

A lot of people in the Alternative Media community were taken aback by Russia and China’s decision to go along with the US-led UNSC sanctions on North Korea, especially considering that it was undertaken in the context of the US recently passing more anti-Russian sanctions and even threatening to sanction China too, which has created the perception that both countries “sold out” to the US. It just doesn’t make sense to some that these two multipolar Great Powers, who are presumably against the so-called “New World Order”, would do this. The reality, as it usually turns out to be, is a lot more complex than the simplistic arguments going around social media, and therefore deserves further elaboration so that individuals can independently make their minds up about what happened and why.

Before going any further, an important clarification needs to be made – although Russia and China are both multipolar Great Powers, they seek to gradually and stably reform the existing world order, not radically and chaotically change it like some so-called “super patriotic” pundits want to pretend. It’s the US which regularly throws global affairs into uncertainty in the hopes of destabilizing its rivals and carving out strategic inroads amidst the chaos, not Russia and China which prefer to engage in their long-term planning under conditions of global predictability. Given these strategic determinants influencing their decision makers, they’re already predisposed to disliking North Korea’s missile and nuclear tests, especially when they continue to occur in defiance of the existing UNSC sanctions that Moscow and Beijing approved of themselves.

Moreover, Russia and China won’t ever blindly support any state like North Korea just because the US is against it, nor will they ever be comfortable with such a country doing whatever it wants under these circumstances if its actions contribute to more instability. No value judgement is being expressed here, just a statement of facts about Russia and China’s state interests as gleaned from empirical evidence over the years. In the Northeast Asian context, North Korea’s missile and nuclear tests are creating the pretext to “justify” the US’ THAAD deployment to the peninsula, which Russia and China both consider as a latent threat to their nuclear second-strike capabilities with time, so from their perspective, it makes sense why they’d want to put multilateral pressure on North Korea to end these destabilizing activities.

What’s essentially occurred is that the US has succeeded in shaping the situation in such a way that Russia and China’s interests have largely converged with Washington’s own in tightening sanctions against North Korea, and that this is independent of the recent anti-Russian sanctions or the grandstanding threats to impose economic restrictions against China. The US exploited Russia and China’s strategic positions in favoring predictability and stability in convincing them to follow its lead in imposing new UNSC sanctions against North Korea, which also advances their own interests as described earlier and additionally provides a proverbial opening for them to work on the improvement of bilateral relations after falling into their current slump.

Whether one thinks that it was morally right or morally wrong, the fact remains that Russia and China approved the latest UNSC sanctions against North Korea because it corresponds to their grand strategic interests, not because they were forced to contradict them under American pressure.

The post presented is the partial transcript of the CONTEXT COUNTDOWN radio program on Sputnik News, aired on Friday Aug 11, 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 global vision of New Silk Road connectivity, and Hybrid Warfare.

Featured image is from the author.