Global Research

The following text was published in The Hill of which we provide an excerpt. Click link below to read complete article.

CNN counterterrorism analyst Phil Mudd warned that President Trump is agitating the government, saying during a Thursday afternoon interview with CNN anchor Jake Tapper that the U.S. government “is going to kill this guy.”

Mudd, who served as deputy director to former FBI Director Robert Mueller, said Trump’s defense of Russian President Vladimir Putin has compelled federal employees “at Langley, Foggy Bottom, CIA and State” to try to take Trump down.

“Let me give you one bottom line as a former government official. Government is going to kill this guy,” Mudd, a staunch critic of Trump, said on “The Lead.”

“He defends Vladimir Putin. There are State Department and CIA officers coming home, and at Langley and Foggy Bottom, CIA and State, they’re saying, ‘This is how you defend us?’ ” he continued.

Read complete article.

An international war crimes prosecutor has resigned from her position on the U.N.’s Investigative Panel into human rights abuses in Syria over her frustration regarding the perceived impotence of the commission and the lack of ability to prosecute war criminals. Essentially, Carla Del Ponte is resigning because she and her panel have not been able to overcome Russian objections to framing Bashar al-Assad for crimes committed by America’s terrorists.

While admitting that Western-backed terrorists are made up “mostly” of extremists and that they have been guilty of war crimes, Del Ponte also peddled the disproven narrative that the Syrian government has used chemical weapons and that it is engaged in “terrible crimes against humanity.”

In her remarks announcing her resignation, Del Ponte, who is 70 years old, also admitted her own bias against the Syrian government since the beginning of the crisis. She stated that, when she was first appointed to the Independent Commission of Inquiry On Syria in 2012, “the opposition (members) were the good ones; the government were the bad ones.” Apparently, the woman so concerned with “crimes against humanity” was fine with “opposition members” randomly shooting civilians, raping women, slaughtering whole families and villages, and committing unspeakable acts against Syrian military soldiers and Syrian civilians. After all, she considered them the “good ones.” Only when the Syrian military began fighting back in earnest did “war crimes” become a concern.

“The Assad government is committing terrible crimes against humanity and using chemical weapons. And the opposition, that is made up only of extremists and terrorists anymore,” she said.

Del Ponte claims that the Security Council should have appointed a court similar to the ones for Rwanda and Yugoslavia but the decision to do so was vetoed by Russia.

Del Ponte is clearly frustrated at the fact that the Russians have prevented the U.N. from condemning and prosecuting Assad for crimes he did not commit. Thus, she will be leaving her post in September, leaving only two members left on the commission.

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 and volume 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 at UCYTV. His website is BrandonTurbeville.com He is available for radio and TV interviews. Please contact activistpost (at) gmail.com.

Featured image is from Ya Libnan.

In view of the very dangerous situation the American leadership and media are provoking with North Korea I think it important that people read this letter from the DPRK to the Security Council in 2016 when other sanctions were imposed on them so that the public can determine for themselves who has reason and right on their side and who is acting rationally and who are the lunatics.

This is an excerpt but do not leave it at that-read it in its entirety and share it:

“If access to nuclear weapons is to be called into question, the US, the first country in the world which had access to nuclear weapons and the only user of them, should be done so, and if any fault is to be found with the DPRK access to nuclear weapons, it is imperative to pull up the U.S. over the hostile policy and nuclear threat towards the DPRK for which it is responsible. The DPRK access to nuclear weapons is an unavoidable option for self-defence made by it, as the US, the world’s biggest nuclear-weapon State and the only user of nuclear weapons, designated the dignified DPRK as an “axis of evil” and target of a pre-emptive nuclear strike and has persistently escalated the hostile moves and nuclear threats to the DPRK by introducing various kinds of lethal hardware for a nuclear war. ”

Letter dated 4 March 2016 from the Permanent Representative of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea to the United Nations addressed to the Secretary-General

I have the honour to enclose herewith the text of a statement issued on 4 March 2016 by a spokesperson for the Government of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea and the text of a statement issued on 4 March 2016 by a spokesperson for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea with regard to resolution 2270 (2016) adopted by the Security Council (see annexes).

I should be grateful if you would have the present letter and its annexes circulated as soon as possible as a document of the General Assembly, under agenda items 34 and 53, and of the Security Council.

(Signed) Ja Song Nam
Ambassador
Permanent Representative

Annex I to the letter dated 4 March 2016 from the Permanent Representative of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea to the United Nations addressed to the Secretary-General

Statement issued by a spokesperson for the Government of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea

Pyongyang, 4 March (Korean Central News Agency) — A spokesman for the Government of the DPRK issued the following statement on Friday, 4 March 2016.

Being taken aback by the H-bomb test of the DPRK and its successful launch of earth satellite Kwangmyongsong-4, the US and other big powers and their followers finally fabricated “resolution 2270 (2016) calling for harsh sanctions” against the DPRK by abusing the name of the United Nations Security Council at dawn on Thursday.

No sooner had the “resolution” been adopted than Obama published “a welcoming message” and let Secretary of State Kerry make public “a statement supporting” it. Riff-raff blindly echoed their statements one after another.

Trumpeting about the efficacy of the “resolution”, the US published “its own sanctions” in which leading officials of the army and Government of the DPRK are put on the list of “special sanctions”.

Following suit, Japan made public Abe’s “commentary” and Foreign Minister Kishida’s “statement” in support of the “resolution”.

Even the Park Geun-Hye group of south Korea issued a “statement” at midnight, describing the “sanctions” as the “harshest and comprehensive sanctio ns” and a “strong message”.

Terror-stricken by the H-bomb blast and the successful launch of Kwangmyongsong-4 that shook the world at the outset of this year, the US and other big powers and their followers held a confab for 57 days, cooking up the “resol ution on sanctions”. It was, therefore, nothing surprising and new, as it was predicted.

What matters is that the “resolution” is the most undisguised and the most hideous international crime aimed to isolate and stifle an independent and righteous sovereign State under unjustified pretexts.

As already clarified, the H-bomb test of the DPRK was a step for bolstering the nuclear deterrence to safeguard the sovereignty and the right to existence of the nation from the US hostile policy to invade the country and its increasing nuclear threats. The DPRK satellite launch was the exercise of the universally recognized legitimate right of a sovereign State.

The Government of the DPRK clarifies its stand before the world as follows, as regards the fact that the US and other big powers and their followers fabricated in conspiracy the United Nations Security Council “resolution on sanctions”, gravely threatening the sovereignty of the DPRK and blatantly challenging its just cause:

Firstly, the DPRK brands the United Nations Security Council’s vicious “resolution on sanctions” as the most outrageous provocation against the DPRK, a dignified independent and sovereign State, and categorically rejects it.

The “resolution” is a criminal document fabricated by the United Nations Security Council, which is tasked to preserve global peace and security, in wanton violation of international justice and impartiality, dancing to the tune of the US and other big powers and their followers after reneging on its mission and duty.

The DPRK has never recognized any United Nations “resolution on sanctions” against it.

Secondly, the DPRK will take resolute countermeasures, as the US and other big powers and their followers have become undisguised in their moves to trample down the sovereignty of the DPRK and its right to existence.

The DPRK countermeasures will involve all various means and methods, including strong and merciless physical counteractions.

The DPRK will not remain a passive onlooker to the infringement upon its sovereignty and right to existence.

If an incident not desired by anyone happens in the Korean Peninsula and its vicinity, the US and other big powers and their followers and those who sponsored the United Nations “resolution on sanctions” will be held wholly a ccountable for the ensuing consequences.

Thirdly, the DPRK will launch a more dynamic worldwide struggle to put a definite end to the unfair and unequal international political order, with the recent hideous international crime committed by the United Nations Security Council as momentum.

The DPRK can no longer take a fence-sitting attitude towards the trend in the world whereby justice and impartiality are violated and double standards and injustice are rampant.

It is the stand of the DPRK not to allow the reality in which legality and illegality are deliberately confused and justice and truth ruthlessly trampled down by the yardstick of the US and other big powers.

The DPRK will, as ever, firmly hold the banner of the line of developing the two fronts, further bolster its self-defensive nuclear deterrence and dynamically advance along the road already chosen towards the eminence of satellite power no matter what others may say.

The world will clearly see how the DPRK, reacting against the United Nations “resolution on sanctions” with a thousandfold countermeasures, puts an end to the crime-woven history of the United Nations dominated by the US and other big powers and the dolts toeing their lines and establishes international justice and impartiality.

Annex II to the letter dated 4 March 2016 from the Permanent Representative of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea to the United Nations addressed to the Secretary-General

Statement issued by a spokesperson for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea

Pyongyang, 4 March (KCNA) — A spokesman for the DPRK Foreign Ministry issued the following statement on Friday, 4 March 2016.

The US fabricated another “resolution on sanctions” by abusing the United Nations Security Council while finding fault with the DPRK H-bomb test and satellite launch.

The “resolution”, unprecedented in its viciousness and illegality, is a brigandish product which can never be justified.

If access to nuclear weapons is to be called into question, the US, the first country in the world which had access to nuclear weapons and the only user of them, should be done so, and if any fault is to be found with the DPRK access to nuclear weapons, it is imperative to pull up the U.S. over the hostile policy and nuclear threat towards the DPRK for which it is responsible.

The DPRK access to nuclear weapons is an unavoidable option for self-defence made by it, as the US, the world’s biggest nuclear-weapon State and the only user of nuclear weapons, designated the dignified DPRK as an “axis of evil” and target of a pre-emptive nuclear strike and has persistently escalated the hostile moves and nuclear threats to the DPRK by introducing various kinds of lethal hardware for a nuclear war.

The DPRK H-bomb test and satellite launch are being termed a breach of the previous “resolutions” of the United Nations Security Council but, in essence, those “resolutions” are a product of high-handedness practised beyond the mandate of the United Nations Security Council.

If the United Nations Security Council has the mandate to ban an individual country from conducting a nuclear test, what does the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons exist for and what is the nuclear-test-ban treaty necessary for?

As for the satellite launch, it is the legitimate right of a sovereign State.

The DPRK shaped the five-year programme for national aerospace development through the legitimate exercise of the independent right recognized by international law and, according to it, successfully launched earth observation satellite Kwangmyongsong-4, which is now under normal operation.

Where in the Charter of the United Nations is the mandate investing the United Nations Security Council with the right to deprive an individual United Nations member nation of the right to use space for peaceful purposes, a right specified in international law, stipulated?

If the DPRK satellite launch is to be found fault with, it is necessary to call into question all countries that have launched satellites, including the US.

The US, preoccupied with the hostility towards the DPRK, was so crude as not to hesitate to devise “luxury goods” as embargo items in a bid to prohibit the DPRK from importing even sports apparatuses such as for ski resort facilities, which have nothing to do with the development of weaponry.

Underlying it is a vicious hostile purpose and nature against human rights aimed to arrest happy laughs of people from being heard from such cultural recreation grounds as the Masikryong Ski Resort in the DPRK, and to prevent its people from enjoying highly civilized socialist life, the promise the Workers’ Party of Korea made to them, and, furthermore, to bring down the social system of the DPRK.

The DPRK bitterly denounces and totally rejects all “resolutions” against it, including the recent “resolution”, which are being misused for the sinister political purpose of a big power in wanton violation of the independent right, right to development and right to existence of a sovereign State, as criminal documents devoid of impartiality, legitimacy and morality.

Many member nations of the United Nations, small countries, in particular, are getting increasingly vocal in their call for the democratic reform of the United Nations Security Council, the most undemocratic and unfair old structure and nature of which are still left intact within the United Nations machinery. And they are expressing their protest by ignoring unreasonable resolutions of the United Nations Security Council.

The DPRK, a country that covered the path of self-reliance and self-development in the face of the US sanctions and blockade, recently took the path it should have taken, while being fully aware that the US would slap sanctions on it again.

The DPRK self-development-first principle is the strength of the courageous people who emerged as a H-bomb State and satellite-launching State by dint of its indigenous wisdom and technology, with firm belief in their own efforts despite the US ceaseless hostile policy and sanctions that have lasted for more than seven decades.

It is a serious miscalculation to think that sanctions would work on the DPRK.

The DPRK bolstering of its nuclear deterrence is an exercise of the just right to self-defence, which should be done constantly as long as the US persists in its hostile policy, and the DPRK satellite launch is the work for space development pursuant to the legitimate right of a sovereign State, which should be done ceaselessly forever irrelevant to the US hostile policy whose termination is still up in the air.

The world will soon witness more steps and actions to be taken by the DPRK on its path of successfully implementing the line of simultaneously developing the two fronts.

The US will be wholly responsible for the total failure of the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, as it refused to the last the abandonment of its hostile policy towards the DPRK.

Featured image is from the author.

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

Israel wants walls, not peace. Stopthewall.org calls its walls “an integral part of the Zionist project to remove Palestinians from Palestine” – continuing decades of ethnic cleansing.

The organization calls for dismantling what’s been built, halting future construction, returning confiscated lands to their rightful owners, and fully compensating them for damages and lost income.

Israel is the only nation without declared borders, the only one surrounding itself with walls – built to steal land and enforce repression, not for security as claimed.

Palestinian communities are encircled, isolated from each other. Landowners and residents in areas between the wall and so-called Green Line (the Seam Zone) need permits to access their homes and farmland.

Israel wants Palestinians confined to bantustans on worthless scrubland, valued areas for exclusive Jewish use and development.

Gaza already is surrounded by walls and razor wire, including a 300 – 600 meter buffer zone on valued agricultural land, off-limits to its owners, violators at risk of being lethally shot, young children as vulnerable as adults.

A new underground wall along its border with Israel is planned. Hamas called constructing it “a declaration of war…another step to escalate (illegal) siege”- solely for political reasons, not security.

“Hamas will not allow Israel to conduct its plans and crimes against the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip and will prevent the construction of the barrier with all possible means,” a statement added.

IDF General Eyal Zamir said Israel won’t “shy away from another confrontation should Gaza’s rulers choose to launch one.”

“If Hamas chooses to go to war over the barrier, it will be a worthy reason to go to war. But the barrier will be built.”

Israel bore full responsibility for three wars on the Strip since December 2008 – each launched preemptively, flagrant acts of aggression.

Another, if forthcoming, will be more of the same – Hamas wrongfully blamed for Israel’s highest of high crimes. Given its deplorable history, another war seems inevitable sooner or later – a fabricated pretext used as justification like earlier.

Reportedly the new wall will extend dozens of meters below ground, topped by a six meter-high security fence above ground.

High-tech equipment will be able to detect underground tunnels, locating them for demolition, anyone inside at the time buried alive under rubble.

Gaza’s tunnels are a vital lifeline, not intended to infiltrate and harm Israel. They supply essential goods otherwise not available or in scant supply because of Israel’s illegal blockade.

They sustain life. Months of high-risk labor go into building them. Israel wants them destroyed to increase Palestinian suffering.

A Gaza engineer earlier said

“(w)e did not choose to” build them. “But it was too hard for us to stand still during the siege and expect war and poverty.”

Gazans yearn to be free. They represent core Palestinian resistance. Risking death below ground building tunnels shows their spirit to survive, refusing to let Israeli ruthlessness defeat them.

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.

US Defense Secretary James Mattis said in a statement Wednesday that North Korea would face the “destruction of its people” if it did not comply with the demands of the United States.

The retired Marine Corps general, given the name “Mad Dog” for his bloody conquest of the Iraqi city of Fallujah in 2004, issued this genocidal proclamation as he was departing for a trip not to a forward operating base, but to the headquarters of Amazon in Seattle and a Defense Department agency in Silicon Valley that works closely with tech firms such as Google.

With the United States closer to nuclear conflict than at any point since the end of the Cold War, Mattis’ visit was an indication of the increasingly vital role played by the US tech giants not just in the conduct of wars abroad, but in the censorship and suppression of political opposition at home.

In the preparation for war against North Korea, and very possibly its ally China, Mattis and the US military are well aware that they face their greatest potential adversary at home, in the form of mass working class opposition to war. The growth of militarism and war are always accompanied by expanding attacks on democratic rights and the development of authoritarian forms of rule.

In the US today, the military, the intelligence agencies and major media outlets are working with technology companies, in the first instance, Google, to institute systematic censorship aimed at silencing left-wing, antiwar web sites. The chief target of this operation is the World Socialist Web Site.

Over the past three months, in the name of combating “fake news” and promoting “authoritative” content on the Internet, Google has implemented a change to its search algorithm that has slashed the search traffic of leading left-wing web sites by 45 percent. This political censorship operation has reduced traffic to the World Socialist Web Site from Google searches by more than two thirds.

The censorship algorithms rolled out by Google no doubt figured prominently in Mattis’ discussions with tech executives. The nominal purpose of his visit, however, was to integrate Silicon Valley firms even more closely into the booming and lucrative business of waging war.

On Thursday, Mattis met with Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos at the tech giant’s headquarters in Seattle.

On Friday, he spoke at the headquarters of Defense Innovation Unit Experimental (DUIX), a Defense Department unit located two miles from the Google campus in Mountain View, California. Among the unit’s advisors is Eric Schmidt, the chairman of Google’s parent company, Alphabet.

Mattis said the Pentagon’s partnership with Silicon Valley via DUIX would make the US military “more lethal and more effective” than ever before. DUIX awards military technology contracts to US hi-tech firms.

The operation has already awarded more than $100 million in contracts for 45 pilot projects in areas such as artificial intelligence, autonomous machines and outer space. Its web page encourages technology firms to “tap into a $100+ billion market.”

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos meets with Mattis Thursday [Photo Credit: @JeffBezos]

During his visit, Mattis proclaimed, “We’ll get better at integrating AI advances out here into the US military” as a result of the unit, which he said would “grow in influence and impact” on the military. Among the projects rolled out by DUIX, according to Bloomberg News, is a system to coordinate air strikes against targets “such as fleeing vehicles.”

Following his prepared remarks, Mattis added that the US military was “ready” with “military options” against North Korea.

Even more important to the Pentagon than the utility of the tech giants in waging war abroad is the use of their communication infrastructure to shape public opinion and block the expression of antiwar and oppositional sentiment. A major player in this sphere is a think tank called Jigsaw, a subsidiary of Google’s parent company, Alphabet. Jigsaw is headed by Jared Cohen, a former State Department advisor to both Condoleezza Rice and Hillary Clinton.

Jigsaw’s most prominent project is a web commenting censorship system called “Perspective API,” which it calls “a new tool for web publishers to identify toxic comments that can undermine a civil exchange of ideas.”

Developed in cooperation with major US newspapers, Jigsaw has already been implemented to flag comments for deletion in the New York Times comments section. This week, WikiLeaks noted that a comment containing the language “The CIA armed Islamists in Syria, killing thousands” would be flagged as 66 percent “toxic” by Perspective API. A comment declaring that “the US government is wonderful” is labeled zero percent “toxic,” while “the US government is corrupt” is flagged as 71 percent “toxic.”

In the second quarter of this year, Google spent more than it had ever previously spent, nearly $6 million, to lobby the US government. This was more than was spent by any other US company.

Google had the closest of relations with the previous White House. The Intercept reports that “Google representatives attended White House meetings more than once a week, on average, from the beginning of Obama’s presidency through October 2015.”

The Intercept report added,

“Nearly 250 people have shuttled from government service to Google employment or vice versa over the course of [the Obama] administration,” and concluded, “No other public company approaches this degree of intimacy with government.”

The growing partnership between the tech giants and the military is in line with the findings of the US Army War College, which, in a series of recent reports, declared that controlling the growth of political opposition was a major element of contemporary military strategy, and that control over Internet communications was “vital” to military operations.

In a study titled “Social media, the vital ground: Can we hold it?” published in April, the Army War College noted,

“The impact of social media on the media environment has been widely recognized, as has the ability of extremist and adversarial organizations to exploit the media to publicize their cause, spread their propaganda, and recruit vulnerable individuals.”

It went on to conclude that

“Social media will increasingly have a direct impact on virtually all aspects of military operations in the 21st century,” and that the military had to expand its control over social media, “in particular, its use in deception and Psychological Operations (PSYOPS).”

Control over online communication will become increasingly significant amid what one Defense Department report published last month warned was an “increasing chasm between governments and their governed over the basic right to rule.”

That report concluded,

“Today, all states are experiencing a precipitous decline in their authority, influence, reach and common attraction,” as populations are presented with “myriad alternative sources of political alignment or allegiance.”

Yet another report, published last year, warned that growing international antagonisms were leading to an intensifying crisis of “social order.”

It concluded that states “now all wrestle with one another over competing interests while standing on quicksand—threatened” not only by national rivals, but by “the fragile and restive social order they themselves rest on.”

As the danger of a major new war mounts, free and unfettered access to information becomes increasingly vital to the mobilization of the working class in opposition to the war plans of the capitalist ruling elite. We call on all our readers to share WSWS articles on social media and sign up to join the fight against Google’s censorship of the Internet.

Featured image is from World Professional News.

The Israeli occupation’s forces have recently seized electricity-producing solar panels at the Bedouin community camp of Abu Al-Nawar, according to local sources.

Abu Al-Nawar’s representative and local community leader, Abu Emad al-Jahalin, told Quds Press yesterday that the occupation authorities violated a decision issued by the Israeli Supreme Court to stop confiscating solar panels.

He said that the solar panels were used for a school, kindergarten and a community organisation in Abu Al-Nawar and were confiscated by the Israeli military’s Civil Administration unit.

He explained that the occupation dismantled 10 solar panels and storage batteries worth 50,000 shekels ($12,000). The equipment was provided by the European Union to serve institutions in the Palestinian Bedouin community.

Some 105 Palestinian families live in an area of approximately 389 dunams (0.9 square kilometres) and have done so since the 1950s. They rely on agriculture and herding sheep for their livelihood. The Israeli occupation authorities plan to displace Abu Al-Nawar’s inhabitants for the controversial settlement project E1 which would separate the southern occupied West Bank from the north and tighten Israel’s control of Jerusalem.

China will prevent the US and South Korea from carrying out strikes on North Korea and trying to overthrow the leadership there, but will remain neutral if Pyongyang launches missiles at American targets first, the state-run Global Times said.

In a joint effort, peace activists in the U.S. and South Korea are calling on people of both countries to demand their presidents call off Ulchi-Freedom Guardian, the upcoming US-South Korean war exercise, and work towards a peaceful solution to the current crisis with North Korea. Authored by former U.S. presidential candidate Jill Stein of the Green Party and South Korean anti-war activists, their online petition urges a “freeze for a freeze” — a freeze on North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs in exchange for a freeze on U.S. military exercises in Korea.

The petition can be signed here: “Urgent Petition to Presidents Trump & Moon: Negotiate Don’t Escalate”

On Tuesday of this week, U.S. President Donald Trump threatened North Korea with “fire and fury like the world has never seen.” Shortly following Trump’s war threat, North Korea revealed plans to launch missiles into the sea surrounding the island of Guam, which hosts the U.S. Andersen Air Force Base and B-1 bombers that are frequently used to threaten North Korea.

Tensions could rise even more when the U.S. conducts its annual joint military exercises with South Korea — Ulchi Freedom Guardian — starting on August 21. For many years, these military exercises have simulated the invasion of North Korea and the destruction of its leadership. What is different this year is that North Korea now has nuclear weapons capable of reaching the United States.

Peace activists, civil society groups, and members of the U.S. congress have issued multiple statements and online petitions this week to call for restraint and de-escalation:

• “Send Tillerson to Pyongyang” — CODEPINK released this petition to hold Secretary of State Rex Tillerson to his word about visiting North Korea to engage in diplomacy. Tillerson had stated, “We would like to sit down and have a dialogue with them.” The petition also states, “U.S. military and economic pressure on North Korea — sanctions, provocative war games, and deployment of the THAAD missile system in South Korea — have not and will not work.”
• “Stop the insanity. Don’t provoke war with North Korea” — MoveOn’s petition, when it reaches 100,000 signatures, will be delivered to the Trump administration and the U.S. congress. It calls for diplomacy as threats of war only exacerbate “a dangerous situation, putting the people of Guam — and everyone around the world — in grave danger.”
• “Diplomacy, Not Threats, Toward North Korea” — RootsAction is calling on 10,000 people to send a message to their respective Representatives and Senators to speak out against Trump’s threats of war.
• Congressman John Conyers also sent a letter signed by over 60 members of the House of Representatives to State Secretary Tillerson to urge him to engage in talks with North Korea.

On August 9, a peace rally in front of the White House was called by Global Zero, MoveOn.org, Win Without War, Ultraviolet, and CODEPINK: Women For Peace.

Members of CODEPINK calling for U.S. to engage in diplomacy with North Korea.

Korean American peace activist calling on the U.S. to work for peace.

Various peace organizations in the U.S. have also put out calls for rapid response mobilizations across the country in the coming week. (See ZoominKorea’s Facebook page for updates and announcements.)

Calls for Peace in the Media

Here’s a partial roundup of media interviews this week. For more, check out ZoominKorea’s Facebook page.

• Korea expert Juyeon Rhee recently spoke with Brian Becker on Loud & Clear about the U.S. war threat and the State Department’s travel ban, which would prevent U.S. citizens from traveling to North Korea. Click here to listen.
• Gregory Elich also joined Loud & Clear and noted the U.S. erroneously refers to the sanctions against North Korea as a form of diplomacy rather than a form of economic warfare. Click here to listen.
• Christine Ahn of Women Cross DMZ talked about the people of Guam becoming frontline targets in a U.S.-provoked war in Korea.

Source: The Real News

All images in this article are from the author.

While the Western media in chorus focus on the North Korean nuclear threat, what prevails when reviewing Korean history is the asymmetry of nuclear capabilities.

The fact that the US has been threatening North Korea with nuclear war for over half a century is barely acknowledged by the Western media.

Where is the threat?

The asymmetry of nuclear weapons capabilities between the US and the DPRK must be emphasised,

According to ArmsControl.org (April 2013) the United States

“possesses 5,113 nuclear warheads, including tactical, strategic, and non-deployed weapons.”

According to the latest official New START declaration, out of more than 5113 nuclear weapons,

“the US deploys 1,654 strategic nuclear warheads on 792 deployed ICBMs, SLBMs, and strategic bombers… 

Moreover, according to The Federation of American Scientists the U.S. possesses 500 tactical nuclear warheads.

Speaking at the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Japan Professor Michel Chossudovsky of the Centre for Research on Globalization describes how the United States presents the real threat of nuclear war on the Korean Peninsula.

This GRTV video was first published in 2013 in the context of the 60th commemoration of the 1953 Armistice Agreement.

The scare-/warmongers in Washington lambasted North Korea for posing yet another ‘grave danger’ to global security after it has successfully launched a tiny nuclear warhead into its arsenal. Trump threatened Kim Jong-un with ‘fire and fury’  (which relates to an attack with nuclear weapons) should the DPRK continue with its missile tests. Is the Pentagon itching to start a more sophisticated WW3? Read our selected articles below.

The United States in the region has a central objective that does not concern Kim Jong-un or his nuclear weapons. Rather, it is driven by the perennial necessity to increase forces in the region for the purposes of maintaining a balance of military force (Asian Pivot) and ultimately trying to contain the rise of the People’s Republic of China (PRC). (Federico Pieraccini)

*     *     *

Avoiding Nuclear War: Why Kim Jong-Un’s Strategy Makes Sense

By Federico Pieraccini, August 11, 2017

Kim Jong-un has come to realize that the continuing threats, practices, and arms sales of the United States to Japan and South Korea needed to be thwarted in some way in the interests of defending the sovereignty of the DPRK.

Talk to North Korea to Avert a Nuclear Disaster

By Siegfried Hecker and Elisabeth Eaves, August 11, 2017

To put North Korea’s plutonium inventory in perspective, the Soviet Union and United States at one time had inventories in excess of 100,000 kilograms each, and China is believed to have an inventory of roughly 2,000 kilograms. Estimates of North Korea’s highly enriched uranium inventory are highly uncertain, but are likely in the 200 to 450 kilogram range, which, combined with its plutonium inventory, may be sufficient for 20 to 25 nuclear weapons.

North Korea versus the United States: Who are the Demons? North Korea Lost 30% of Its Population as a Result of US Bombings in the 1950s

By Prof Michel Chossudovsky, August 11, 2017 

What most people in America do not know –and which is particularly relevant when assessing the “threats” of the DPRK to World peace– is that North Korea lost thirty percent of its population as a result of  US led bombings in the 1950s. US military sources confirm that 20 percent of North Korea’s population was killed off over a three period of intensive bombings

North Korea: Fire, Fury and Fear

By Pepe Escobar, August 10, 2017

Pyongyang’s nuclear arsenal represents the deterrent against regime change that Saddam Hussein and Gaddafi could not count on. There’s only one way to deal with North Korea, as I’ve argued before; diplomacy. Tell that to Washington and Tokyo.

North Korea Responds to Trump’s Fire and Fury Threat

By Stephen Lendman, August 10, 2017

The only Korean peninsula threat comes from Washington, not Pyongyang. Combatively Mattis blustered that “the combined allied militaries now possess the most precise, rehearsed and robust defensive and offensive capabilities on earth” – America perhaps willing to destroy the planet to own it.

Defense Secretary “Mad Dog” Mattis Threatens End of North Korea, ‘Destruction of Its People’

By Jason Ditz, August 10, 2017

Mattis, for his part, accused North Korea of being to blame for everything, demanding that the state “stop isolating itself,” as US officials continue to impose new sanctions and threaten a massive war against them.

North Korea: The Grand Deception Revealed. The People of the DPRK want Peace More than Anything Else

By Christopher Black, August 10, 2017

The question is not whether the DPRK has nuclear weapons which it is legally entitled to have, but whether the United States, which has nuclear arms capability on the Korean peninsula, and which is now installing its THADD missile defence system there, a system that threatens the security of Russia and China, is willing to work with the North toward a peace treaty.

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Global Research is a small team that believes in the power of information and analysis to bring about far-reaching societal change including a world without war.

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Global Research has been affected by Google’s “recategorization”. 

The Threat of War in North Korea, US sponsored terrorists in Syria and Iraq, Genocide in Yemen, US intervention in Venezuela.

The World is at a dangerous crossroads.  It’s a Global Military Agenda.

More than ever, critical and independent analysis is required to inform the broader public which has been has been brainwashed by the mainstream media. 

The mainstream media titles which are ranked and displayed by Google are spreading lies and fabrications. 

How to reverse the tide of war?

Our objective from the outset has been “counter-propaganda”: reveal the forbidden truth: the US and its allies are behind the terrorists, they are financing them, Washington is responsible for extensive crimes against humanity, The White House and the Pentagon are beating the drums of nuclear war. 

And the mainstream media has become an instrument of war propaganda, which is upheld by the online search engines. 

What are the implications. While the MSM’s “fake news” is upheld, critical articles on North Korea, Syria, Yemen, etc. by the independent and alternative online media are simply not being picked by Google.

In other words, we must ensure that truth in media reaches the broader public. 

Forward Global Research articles to your friends, post on social media, crosspost on alternative media sites, post on your blogsite. (M. Ch. GR Editor)

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Late last year, search engine giant Google announced its plans to protect users from the horrors of ‘fake news’ by changing the way it presents search results. According to corporate officials, they hope to shelter  readers by limiting access to what the company deems as “low-quality” information – while promoting what it calls ‘established’ mainstream sources. Critics believe that the company, which now has a virtual monopoly on internet traffic, is now playing god over the info-sphere. 

While its known that Eric Schmidt, the head of Google’s parent company, Alphabet Inc, is regular attendee at the annual secretive Bilderberg meeting which charters the globalist agenda, not much is known about new Google CEO Sundar Pichai and what his personal ideology is, or whether he personally believes that Google’s role is to control what the public think about any given issue by fixing the search results on the world’s number one search engine. Judging by the culture of conformity at Google, it’s not likely that Pichai would be allowed to express any dissenting views if he had them.

As 21WIRE pointed out last week regarding the controversy over the recent Google Memo and the firm dismissing employees who are seen to divert from the company’s prescribed group think, this same repressive political culture at Google is reflected in its broad new automated censorship program administered by algorithms on its Google search engine – a bold move which effectively disappears political views and articles it does not like, and wishes to bury.

Watch this segment from RT America, with guest Andre Damon, editor of the World Socialist Web Site, to explain why he believes his site and other alternative sources are being unfairly targeted in Google’s new reordering of visible information through its portal. Watch:

Featured image is from the author.

Throughout human history, when a military force and its economic center has been defeated, it contracts, then collapses. For the first time in human history, the self-proclaimed “Islamic State” (ISIS), has managed to reverse this fundamental aspect of reality – but not without help.

Facing defeat in Syria as government forces backed by its Russian and Iranian allies close in on the terrorist organization, stripping it of territory it seized, it has managed to spread far beyond Syria’s borders, establishing itself in Libya, Afghanistan, and even as far as Southeast Asia where it has seized an entire city in the Philippines’ south, and carried out attacks and conducting activities everywhere from Indonesia and Malaysia to allegedly Thailand’s deep south.

It should be remembered, according to Western governments and their media, the territory ISIS holds in Syria is allegedly providing it with the summation of its financial resources and thus the source of its fighting capacity. According to official statements, the US and its European allies allege that ISIS fuels its fighting capacity with “taxes” and extortion as well as black market oil sales – all of which are derived from territory it holds in Syria.

The Washington Post in a 2015 article titled, “How the Islamic State makes its money,” would note:

Weapons, vehicles, employee salaries, propaganda videos, international travel — all of these things cost money. The recent terrorism attacks in Paris, which the Islamic State has claimed as its own work, suggest the terrorist organization hasn’t been hurting for funding. David Cohen, the Treasury Department’s Undersecretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, described the Islamic State last October as “probably the best-funded terrorist organization we have confronted” — deep pockets that have allowed the group to carry out deadly campaigns in Iraq, Syria and other countries. 

To explain where ISIS actually makes its money, the Washington Post claims:

Unlike many terrorist groups, which finance themselves mainly through wealthy donors, the Islamic State has used its control over a territory that is roughly the size of the U.K. and home to millions of people to develop diversified revenue channels that make it more resilient to U.S. offensives.

The Washington Post would also claim:

 Its main methods of generating money appear to be the sale of oil and antiquities, as well as taxation and extortion. And the group’s financial resources have grown quickly as it has captured more territory and resources: According to estimates by the Rand Corporation, the Islamic State’s total revenue rose from a little less than $1 million per month in late 2008 and early 2009 to perhaps $1 million to $3 million per day in 2014.

With this territory quickly shrinking and the intensity of fighting against what remains of ISIS in Syria and Iraq expanding, it is seemingly inexplicable as to how ISIS is expanding globally, instead of contracting and collapsing.

The Washington Post’s already implausible thesis regarding ISIS finances – based on official statements from the US Treasury Department and US corporate-funded policy think tanks like Rand – appears to be the only thing contracting and collapsing.

ISIS Enjoys Global Reach Many Nation-States Lack 

Regarding just how expansive ISIS’ global activities are, US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson himself would claim in an August 1, 2017 statement that:

I think our next steps on the global war to defeat ISIS are to recognize ISIS is a global issue. We already see elements of ISIS in the Philippines, as you’re aware, gaining a foothold. Some of these fighters have gone to the Philippines from Syria and Iraq. We are in conversations with the Philippine Government, with Indonesia, with Malaysia, with Singapore, with Australia, as partners to recognize this threat, try to get ahead of this threat, and help them with training – training their own law enforcement capabilities, sharing of intelligence, and provide them wherewithal to anticipate what may be coming their direction.

Tillerson made these remarks after noting ISIS’ shrinking holdings in both Syria and Iraq. He claimed in regards to Iraq:

More than 70 percent of Iraqi territory that was once held by ISIS has been liberated and recovered. ISIS has been unable to retake any territory that it has been – that has been liberated, and almost 2 million Iraqis have returned home. And this is really the measure of success, I think, is when conditions are such that people feel like they can return to their homes. 

Regarding Syria, Tillerson would claim:

Similarly, over in Syria, we’re assisting with the liberation of Raqqa, which is moving at a faster pace than we originally anticipated.

The steps outlined by Tillerson to combat ISIS sidestep strategic fundamentals like identifying, isolating, and eliminating the economic and financial source of the organization’s fighting capacity, and instead focus on an indefinite justification for global US military operations – particularly across Southeast Asia at a time when the region is incrementally uprooting American influence and replacing it with Eurasian alliances, networks, as well as military and economic blocs.

For ISIS – fueled by resources found only within the boundaries of its meager and shrinking territorial holdings in Syria and Iraq – to be simultaneously fighting the national armies of Syria and Iraq, backed by Iran, Russia, Lebanon’s Hezbollah, and allegedly a US-led coalition including dozens of countries, all while expanding its reach worldwide, including full-scale military operations in Southeast Asia, begs belief.

ISIS doing all of this with multi-billion dollar multinational state sponsorship, not only makes much more sense, it is the only explanation.

ISIS is State Sponsored 

Until recently, ISIS territory butted directly against the borders of NATO-member Turkey. In fact, looking at any map of the Syrian-Iraqi conflict with ISIS revealed what appeared to be logistical trails leading directly out of Turkey and to a lesser extent, Jordan.

A 2014 report from Germany’s public broadcaster Deutsche Welle, revealed a torrent of supplies, men, and weapons flowing daily over the Turkish-Syrian border, headed directly toward ISIS territory, directly under the nose and with the complicity of Turkish officials.

The report titled, “‘IS’ supply channels through Turkey,” would note:

Every day, trucks laden with food, clothing, and other supplies cross the border from Turkey to Syria. It is unclear who is picking up the goods. The haulers believe most of the cargo is going to the “Islamic State” militia. Oil, weapons, and soldiers are also being smuggled over the border, and Kurdish volunteers are now patrolling the area in a bid to stem the supplies.

So obvious was the logistical support for ISIS flowing from Turkey, that ISIS flags were clearly visible from the Turkish border throughout DW’s footage.

It was only until Russia’s military intervention in Syria upon Damascus’ request, that these logistical routes were targeted and significant pressure could be placed on ISIS inside Syria, rolling back its fighting capacity.

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

Tillerson’s comments regarding ISIS are in essence, a veiled threat – a threat of long-term chaos sown by ISIS that will continue without expansive capitulation to US interests, including an expanding US military footprint in the region, conveniently in a region the US has long designated as essential toward the geopolitical, military, and economic encirclement and isolation of a rising China.

However, such a ploy cannot unfold if the nations of Southeast Asia both expose this reality, and align themselves with nations truly invested in the defeat of ISIS, including Russia and China – the ultimate targets of America’s geopolitical ambitions and the final destination for America’s global terrorist proxies.

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].

Washington tried eliminating the Bolivarian Republic from inception, earlier coup attempts foiled, another slow motion one ongoing now.

Rex Tillerson and CIA director Mike Pompeo openly called for regime change. Political and economic war, along with months of US-orchestrated street violence aim for this outcome.

In 2015, Obama’s executive order disgracefully declared Bolivarian social democracy a threat to US national security, an outrageous accusation.

He shamefully declared a “national emergency” when none exists, saying he ordered it “with respect to the (nonexistent) unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States posed by the situation in Venezuela,” ludicrously adding:

“We are committed to advancing respect for human rights, safeguarding democratic institutions, and protecting the US financial system from the illicit financial flows from public corruption in Venezuela.”

His press secretary turned truth on its head, accusing its government of “intimidating its political opponents…criminalizing dissent, (and) violating human rights and fundamental freedoms.”

Bolivarian social democracy is polar opposite US fascist rule. It considers rule of law principles inviolable. It respects the sovereign rights of other nations.

It champions fundamental civil and human rights. It provides Venezuelans with vital social benefits Americans can’t imagine.

It doesn’t wage wars on other nations like Washington, or run the world’s largest gulag prison system, operating at home and abroad, torturing detainees, brutalizing them in other ways.

America systematically violates fundamental international laws unaccountably. Venezuela respects them.

Addressing the newly elected National Constituent Assembly on Thursday, President Nicolas Maduro extended his government’s outreach to the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC), saying:

“To all the presidents, I call on them to approve a meeting and through mutual dialogue, we can find a solution.”

“Respect is the only path to peace, not threats or violence or the economic and commercial blockade.”

Explaining he’ll be in New York next month for UN General Assembly sessions, he invited Trump to engage in “mutually respectful” dialogue – outreach ignored by a rogue state seeking his ouster, by force if other methods fail.

In remarks to Constituent Assembly members, he said “(w)e will never cede to foreign powers,” denouncing US “imperialist aggression” toward his country.

Separately he explained that “nobody is above the original power,” subordinating himself to Constituent Assembly authority – “to govern the destinies of the Republic.”

Article 349 of Venezuela’s constitution states

“(t)he President of the Republic can not object to the new Constitution. The constituted powers may in no way impede the decisions of the National Constituent Assembly.”

Once Constituent Assembly members finish their work, revising or rewriting Venezuela’s constitution with a mandate to restore order and preserve Bolivarian democracy, voters in a national referendum will have final say – the way democracy is supposed to work.

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.

Government forces have repelled a large-scale ISIS advance in the area of Humaymah and the T2 pumping station at the Syrian-Iraqi border.

The advance started on Wednesday with an attack by ISIS suicide bombers and 5 vehicle-borne improvised explosive devices. The terrorists reportedly took 3 Syrian Arab Army (SAA) checkpoints, but failed to develop the advance. Pro-government troops, backed up by the Russian Aerospace Forces, counter-attacked and forced the terrorists to retreat.

According to ISIS, over 70 government fighters were killed in the clashes. Maj General Ghasan Yunis was reportedly among the killed servicemen. In turn, pro-government sources claimed that the SAA killed up to 80 ISIS members, destroyed several vehicles, and seized 11 other vehicles. The numbers provided by both sides look overestimated.

In July, the Russian Defense Ministry released a map showing the T2 pumping station and the village of Humaymah as being under the control of the SAA. However, in reality, both sites remain in the hands of ISIS despite SAA attempts to liberate the area.

The situation remains complicated in the area of Sukhna. ISIS continues counter-attacks on government troops in the town and prevents them from removing IEDs planted by terrorists and establishing fortifications. Thus, the area is now unsecured and ISIS stands a chance of taking back Sukhna.

In the city of Raqqah, the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) have isolated the old part of the city from the southern direction after retaking the whole Hisam Abdulmalik district. Now, the SDF will likely focus on breaking the ISIS defense inside Old Raqqah. If this area falls, ISIS will likely not be able to keep control over the rest of the city for much longer.

The Israeli Haaretz newspaper reported that Israeli officials held a series of secret meetings with representatives from the US and Russia regarding the cease-fire in southern Syria. Israel pushed the agenda of reducing the Iranian influence in Syria and of withdrawing Iranian and Iranian-backed forces from the war torn country as a key issue of the ceasefire. However, Tel Aviv failed to achieve its goal. This leak most likely shows that Israel is now preparing for further actions in order to defend that which it sees as its own interests in the region.

Voiceover by Harold Hoover

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Three years ago this summer, on July 8, Israel launched the deadliest attack on the Hamas-run Gaza Strip; the third in less than six years. The war lasted 51 days on end and left in its wake an unprecedented human carnage and caused massive destruction to Gaza’s already frail economy and failing infrastructure. Three years later, Gaza has not recovered. If anything, things have gotten worse; much worse. So grave Gaza conditions are at present that the U.N.—which in 2012 warned that unless urgent actions are taken to reverse course, the whole place could be “unlivable” by the year 2020—has lamented in a new report that the situation has deteriorated faster than previously projected, and Gaza has already passed the threshold of “unlivability.”

Below are ten critical observations on the ever-deepening crisis that has engulfed the Gaza Strip for over a decade now.

1. Three years after the war, the main underlying factors that brought all aspects of life in Gaza to a near breaking point on the eve of the last war—namely, the suffocating Israeli blockade, now entering its 11th year; the intra-Palestinian political rift; and the prolonged closure of Egypt-controlled Rafah crossing—continue to wreak havoc and cause mounting hardships. Worse, post-war attempts to give Gaza a breathing space all failed to provide the much-needed respite: donor-funded reconstruction, despite reported progress in the rebuilding of destroyed houses and infrastructure, is still running behind schedule; reconciliation talks to bridge the Palestinian chasm are going nowhere; and the Palestinian Government of National Consensus (formed just few weeks before the war) is still unable to govern in Gaza. Hamas, on the other hand, despite its current political and financial misfortune caused mainly by changes in regional political dynamics, is still in de facto control in Gaza.

2. Donors are still not fully delivering on the pledges made at the October 2014 Cairo Conference on Reconstructing Gaza three years after the war. Israel continues to restrict/delay the entry of the much-needed construction (and other) materials through its application of the vaguely-defined “dual-use list” system, where a large number of goods are viewed as having both civilian and military use. The largely inefficient and much criticized Gaza Reconstruction Mechanism—brokered by the U.N. to facilitate post-war rebuilding—had made rebuilding efforts more complicated. By the end of 2016, the latest data available suggests that only half of the $3.5 billion donor pledges have been disbursed, with close to two-thirds of the disbursed funds allocated outside recovery and reconstruction plans as defined by the $3.875 billion Palestinian government’s Detailed Need Assessment program. As a result, the program remains grossly underfunded. Today, 33,000 people who had their homes totally destroyed by the war continue to be internally displaced, and over 6,700 of severely destroyed houses still lie in ruins.

3. The statistics on socioeconomic conditions in Gaza are very bleak and alarmingly troubling. More families are languishing in poverty which currently consumes 39 percent of the population, increasingly becoming food insecure, and relying more and more for their basic survival on foreign handouts which at present sustain 80 percent (or 1.6 million) of Gaza population. More adults, especially the educated youth, are joining the already long unemployment lines, desperately looking for jobs that do not exist. At 41 percent overall jobless rate, with youth unemployment estimated near 60 percent, the situation is extremely precarious. More worryingly still, international efforts to sustain the unsustainable in Gaza are proven difficult to succeed, with conditions deteriorating at a much faster rate than the ability of donor funds to halt their downward spiral.

File photo of Palestinian homes and buildings destroyed by Israeli airstrikes.

4. Basic infrastructure in Gaza is currently on the verge of a total collapse. Power blackouts are hovering around 20 hours a day due to largely-politicized electricity shortages that severely disrupt the provision of all vital public services, and further frustrate the recovery of an economy buffeted by three wars and a devastating blockade. Over 95 percent of groundwater in Gaza is unfit for human drinking, and is only available for six to eight hours every three to five days. Approximately 110 million liters (110,000 cubic meters) of raw and partially treated sewage are poured daily into the Mediterranean Sea, contaminating 73 percent of Gaza’s 42 km (26 miles) coast. Donor-funded projects to rehabilitate Gaza’s crumpling infrastructure are routinely delayed, either due to insufficient funds or to problems emanating from continued Israeli restrictions on the entry of technical experts, essential equipment and parts; or both.

5. Gaza’s two million people, meanwhile, are growing annually by 3.3 percent. Over 65 percent of the population is under the age of 25. Its labor force is increasing by 4.5 percent a year, with an estimated 35,000 young adults entering annually the job market; a number that is expected to go even higher each year due to the young nature of Gaza population. The economy, however, is not creating jobs, and has been virtually stagnant since 2006; with average annual real G.D.P. growth over the 2006-2016 period not exceeding 1.44 percent. Real per capita income in Gaza, as a result, has been on a declining path since 2006. Output growth of at least five percent a year is thus needed just to absorb the new entrants to the job market. More G.D.P. growth will be required to reduce chronic unemployment, recoup lost income, and improve standards of living.

6. Gaza’s private sector where jobs and income should be created, however, is currently incapacitated due to a crippling decade-long blockade, and the losses sustained during the war that caused extensive and widespread damage to its productive assets. Furthermore, one-third of Gaza’s farm land, and more than half of its Oslo-agreed fishing waters—both are unilaterally declared by Israel as no-go/risk zones—are still off-limits to Gaza economic use. Severe restrictions on imports and exports have driven some Gaza firms out of business, forced others to relocate to neighboring Arab countries, while those that remained open are operating well below capacity. Isolated and cut off from supply chain, their fight to stay in business is compounded by chronic deficits in electricity, fuel, and water supplies, and by an odd regulatory environment caused by the decade-long internal Palestinian political split that looks increasingly permanent with each failed round of reconciliation talks.

7. Three years after the war, only 3 percent of the estimated $602 million recovery needs of Gaza’s private sector have been met; a sum that is too meager to launch the desperately needed economic upturn which remains an unattainable goal. Under Gaza’s excessively harsh conditions, long term development is not even on the map. Worse still, incremental stopgap international interventions to save what remained of Gaza businesses after years of continued decline are hardly making a tangible dent in Gaza’s private sector’s grim conditions, except perhaps to maintain their basic survival, and to prevent or delay a total collapse of the battered economy.

8. Three years after the war, thus, Gaza remains a war-torn territory; a man-made disaster; an open-air prison, isolated and besieged from all sides. Its economy is crushed; its two million people are traumatized and abandoned; and its civilian infrastructure and basic services, both social (mainly healthcare and education) and physical (energy, water, and sanitation) are largely dysfunctional. For years, the international community has been providing Gaza with vital humanitarian assistance in an attempt to mitigate the continued worsening of socioeconomic conditions and to help Gaza’s trapped and impoverished population survive their predicament. And yet, crucial as foreign aid has been, Gaza living conditions continue to deteriorate much faster than expected, as the latest U.N. report made clear.

9. To pull Gaza back from the abyss, a fundamental change in policy is now urgently needed to address Gaza’s deepening calamity; a new approach within which the short-term intervention measures, humanitarian or otherwise, represent only one component, not the whole gamut. In this alternative holistic approach, Gaza needs to be looked at as a strategic development project, not as a humanitarian burden. Given the scale of Gaza’s ongoing predicament, continuing with the current failed approach is no longer possible, and will only lead to more hardships (read: higher unemployment, poverty, and food insecurity rates; more failing infrastructure; dwindling quality of basic social services, including education and healthcare; continued environmental degradation; and deepening institutional decay) with wider serious consequences on all fronts.

10. For any new approach to succeed, however, the overall political setting related to the Gaza question must be resolved, and the right conditions for recovery and long term development need to be put in place. Without this, nothing of a lasting positive impact can ever be achieved. Yet, very little has been done so far to address the underlying political/structural root causes of Gaza’s continued misfortune (namely, the crippling Israeli blockade and the decade-long intra-Palestinian divide); and the prospects for that to happen any time soon do not look promising, either. Fast forward a few years down the road, trying to predict the future of the Gaza Strip under unchanging political conditions is certain to be an extremely unpleasant exercise. And when the U.N. is already warning of an impending implosion, then time is quickly running out—in fact, it has already run out. That should give all those with high stakes in the future of the embattled Palestinian coastal enclave, including the Palestinians themselves, a moment for a serious and moral pause. Unfortunately, we are not there yet.

Mohammed Samhouri is a Palestinian economist and academic, and a former senior economic advisor in the Palestinian Authority.

Featured image is from the author.

Looking at the recent North Korean testing of two intercontinental missiles, it may seem that Pyongyang wishes to increase tensions in the region. A more careful analysis, however, shows how the DPRK is implementing a strategy that will likely succeed in averting a disastrous war on the peninsula.

In the last four weeks, North Korea seems to have implemented the second phase of its strategy against South Korea, China and the United States. The North Korean nuclear program seems to have reached an important juncture, with two tests carried out at the beginning and end of July. Both missiles seem capable of hitting the American mainland, although doubts still remain over Pyongyang’s ability to miniaturize a nuclear warhead to mount it on an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM). However, the direction in which North Korea’s nuclear program is headed ensures an important regional deterrent against Japan and South Korea, and in some respects against the United States, which is the main reason for North Korea’s development of ICBMs. Recent history has repeatedly demonstrated the folly of trusting the West (the fate of Gaddafi remains fresh in our minds) and suggests instead the building up of an arsenal that poses a serious deterrence to US bellicosity.

It is not a mystery that from 2009 to date, North Korea’s nuclear capacity has increased in direct proportion to the level of distrust visited on Pyongyang by the West. Since 2009, the six-party talks concluded, Kim Jong-un has come to realize that the continuing threats, practices, and arms sales of the United States to Japan and South Korea needed to be thwarted in some way in the interests of defending the sovereignty of the DPRK. Faced with infinitely lower spending capacity than the three nations mentioned, Pyongyang chose a twofold strategy: to pursue nuclear weapons as an explicit deterrence measure; and to strengthen its conventional forces, keeping in mind that Seoul is only a stone’s throw away from North Korean artillery.

This twofold strategy has, in little more than eight years, greatly strengthened the ability of the DPRK to resist infringement of its sovereignty. In contrast to the idea commonly promoted in the Western media, Pyongyang has promised not to use nuclear weapons first, reserving their use only in response to aggression against itself. In the same way, a pre-emptive attack on Seoul using traditional artillery would be seen as intolerable aggression, dragging Pyongyang into a devastating war. Kim Jong-un’s determination in developing conventional and nuclear deterrence has succeeded in establishing a balance of power that helps avoid a regional war and, in so doing, contributes to the strengthening of overall security in the region, contrary to what many believe.

The reason the United States continues to raise tensions with Pyongyang and threaten a conflict is not out of a concern for the protection of her Japanese or South Korean allies, as one may initially be led to think. The United States in the region has a central objective that does not concern Kim Jong-un or his nuclear weapons. Rather, it is driven by the perennial necessity to increase forces in the region for the purposes of maintaining a balance of military force (Asian Pivot) and ultimately trying to contain the rise of the People’s Republic of China (PRC). One might even argue that this strategy poses dangers not only to the entire region but, in the case of a confrontation between Washington and Beijing, the entire planet, given the nuclear arsenal possessed by the United States and the People’s Republic of China.

In this respect, the triangular relationship between China, North Korea and South Korea takes on another aspect. As always, every action is accompanied with a reaction. The statement that Beijing would prefer to get rid of the DPRK leadership is without foundation. Central in the minds of Chinese policy makers is the threat of a US containment that could undermine the country’s economic growth. This strategic planning is well known in Pyongyang, and explains in part why the DPRK leadership still proceeds with actions that are not viewed well by Beijing. From the North Korean point of view, Beijing derives an advantage from sharing a border with the DPRK, which offers a friendly leadership not hostile to Beijing. Pyongyang is aware of the economic, political, and military burden of this situation, but tolerates it, receiving the necessary resources from Beijing to survive and develop the country.

This complex relationship leads the DPRK to carry out missile tests in the hope of gaining many benefits. First of all, it hopes to gain a regional, and possibly a global, deterrence against any surprise attacks. Secondly, it forces South Korea to have a symmetrical response to DPRK missile tests, and this strategy, coming from North Korea diplomacy, is far from improvised or incongruous. In recent years, South Korea’s response has come in the form of the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system, designed to intercept missiles. As repeatedly explained, it is useless against North Korean rockets, but poses a serious threat to the Chinese nuclear arsenal, as its powerful radars are able to scout much of China’s territory, also being ideally positioned to intercept (at least in theory) a responsive nuclear strike from China. In a nutshell, THAAD is a deadly threat to China’s strategic nuclear parity.

From the point of view of the four nations involved in the region, each has different aims. For the United States, there are many advantages in deploying the THAAD: in increases pressure on China, as well as concludes an arms sale that is always welcomed by the military-industrial complex; it also gives the impression of addressing the DPRK nuclear problem adequately. South Korea, however, finds itself in a special situation, with the former president now under arrest for corruption. The new president, Moon Jae-in, would prefer dialogue rather than the deployment of new THAAD batteries. In any case, after the latest ICBM test, Moon required an additional THAAD system in the Republic of Korea, in addition to the launchers already there. With no particular options available to conduct a diplomatic negotiation, Seoul is following Washington in a spiral of escalation that certainly does not benefit the peninsula’s economic growth. Ultimately, the PRC sees an increase in the number of THAAD carriers close to the country, and the DPRK is growing in its determination to pursue a nuclear deterrent. Indeed, the strategy of the Pyongyang is working: on the one hand, they are developing a nuclear weapon to deter external enemies; on the other, they are obligating the PRC to adopt a particularly hostile attitude towards South Korea’s deployment of THAAD. In this sense, the numerous economic actions of Beijing towards Seoul can be explained as a response to the deployment of the THAAD batteries. China is the main economic partner of South Korea, and this trade and tourism limitation is quite damaging to South Korea’s economy.

This tactic has been used by North Korea for the last several years, and the results, in addition to the recent economic crunch between the PRC and South Korea have indirectly led to the end of the reign of the corrupt leader Park Geun-hye, an ever-present puppet in American hands. The pressure that the DPRK applies to bilateral relations between China and South Korea increases with each launch of an ICBM carrier, which is the logic behind these missile tests. Pyongyang feels justified in urging its main ally, China, to step up actions against Seoul to force it to compromise in a diplomatic negotiation with Pyongyang without the overbearing presence of its American ally pushing for war.

The main problem in the relations between South Korea, China and North Korea is represented by American influence and the need to prevent a rapprochement between these parties. As already stated, the United States needs the DPRK to justify its presence in the region, aiming in reality at Chinese containment. Pyongyang has been isolated and sanctioned for almost 50 years, yet serves to secure China’s southern border in the form of a protected friend rather than an enemy. This situation, more than any United Nations sanction to which the PRC adheres, guarantees a lasting relationship between the countries. Beijing is well aware of the weight of isolationism and economic burden on North Korea, which is why Beijing is symmetrically increasing pressure on South Korea to negotiate.

In this situation, the United States tries to remain relevant in the regional dispute, while not having the capacity to influence the Chinese decisions that clearly rely on other tactics, specifically putting pressure on South Korea. In military terms, as explained above, Washington can not start any military confrontation against the DPRK. The consequences, in addition to millions of deaths, would lead Seoul to break relations with Washington and seek an immediate armistice, cutting off the United States from negotiations and likely expelling US troops from its territory. Ultimately, there is no South Korean ability to influence the political process in the North while they continue to be flanked by the United States in terms of warfare (very aggressive joint exercises). The influence Washington can exert on Pyongyang is zero, having fired all cartridges with over half a century of sanctions.

Conclusion

The bottom line is that the United States cannot afford to attack the DPRK. Pyongyang will continue to develop its own nuclear arsenal, with Beijing’s covert blessing in spite of its officially continuing to condemn these developments. At the same time, South Korea is likely to persevere with a hostile attitude, especially in regard to the deployment of new THAAD batteries. Sooner or later, Seoul will come to a breaking point as a result of further restrictions on trade between China and South Korea. As long as Seoul is able to absorb Chinese sanctions, little will change.

What will lead to a major change in the region will be the economic effect of these restrictions that will eventually oblige Seoul to consider its role in the region and its future. Seoul’s leadership is aware of three situations that will hardly change, namely: Pyongyang will never attack first; Beijing will continue to support North Korea rather than accept the United States on its border; and Washington is not able to bring solutions but only greater chaos and a worsening global economic situation to the region. In the light of this scenario, time is all on the side of Beijing and Pyongyang. Eventually the economic situation for Seoul will become unbearable, bringing it to the negotiating table with a weakened and certainly precarious position. Beijing and Pyongyang have a long-term common goal, which is to break the bond of submission between South Korea and the United States, freeing Seoul from Washington’s neo-conservative programs to contain China (on a Russia containment model).

Indirectly coordinated work between Beijing and Pyongyang is hardly understandable to Western analysts, but examining every aspect, especially with regard to cause-and-effect relationships, these decisions are not so incomprehensible and even more rational in a broader viewing of the region and its balance of power. On the one hand, Seoul sees the DPRK offering peace, stability and prosperity based on a framework agreement between Seoul, Pyongyang and Beijing. This would also particularly benefit South Korean trade with China, eventually returning to normal relationships between countries, with important economic benefits.

The alternative is an alliance with Washington that would completely eliminate the economic benefits of a healthy relationship with Beijing. This could even potentially lead to a war involving millions of deaths, fought on South Korean soil and not in the United States. The United States does not offer any solutions to South Korea, either in the short or long term. The only thing Washington is offering is a fixed presence in the country, together with a stubborn anti-Chinese policy that would have serious economic consequences for Seoul. As paradoxical as it may seem, Kim Jong-un’s rockets are much less of a threat than is Seoul’s partnership with Washington in the region, and in fact seem to offer Seoul the ultimate solution to the crisis in the peninsula.

Federico Pieraccini is an independent freelance writer specialized in international affairs, conflicts, politics and strategies.

This article was originally published by Strategic Culture Foundation.

Featured image is from the author.

The US/Saudi war on Yemen is now in its third year, and the indiscriminate Saudi bombing campaign has destroyed much of the country’s infrastructure, left thousands dead and millions starving in a man-made famine, and triggered a cholera epidemic that has infected almost half a million people.

On July 23, the International Committee of the Red Cross warned that more than 600,000 people were expected to contract cholera in Yemen this year.

Most Americans are not aware of their country’s role in this war on the Middle East’s poorest country, but the Yemenis know very well that Washington supplies the weapons and sponsors the Saudi bombing campaign responsible for their suffering. In the capital Sanaa, anti-American graffiti are plastered on walls throughout the city screaming “USA kills Yemeni people,” and they see the war as not just as a Saudi war, but as a US war on their country.

On July 19, the US Public Broadcasting Service program Frontline aired a brief documentary titled “Inside Yemen” to look at the impact of the war on the country. In May, a few days after the PBS crew arrived, there was a large demonstration in Sanaa called “Say No to American Terrorism”. The crew captured powerful images of people condemning US aggression against their country.

Amazing footage of the enormous "No to American Terrorism on Yemen" rally in the capital Sanaa in May.
via Frontline https://t.co/DP0k9TM0Hr pic.twitter.com/ZXvQeE0NBW

— Ben Norton (@BenjaminNorton) July 21, 2017

According to the documentary, the rally was in response to the arrival of US President Donald Trump in Riyadh, where he announced his intention to approve a US$110 billion arms package for the Saudis to continue their bombing campaign.

Saudi forces have targeted farms, food facilities, water infrastructure, marketplaces, and even the port of Hudaydah, where most of the humanitarian aid had been entering the country, and the Yemenis just want an end to the slaughter and destruction of their country. Nearly 19 million people require assistance, with 7 million facing famine.

The PBS crew noted that although the Yemenis could clearly see they were Americans, there was no hostility, as the population placed the blame not on them but on the US government. One protester explained that he respected America, but the purpose of the rally was “to express our outrage against the United States policy”. Ordinary Yemenis just wanted the world to be aware of what is actually going on in their country.

Their cries have not gone unheeded. Some members of the US Congress have been actively shedding light on their country’s complicity in this humanitarian disaster, spearheaded by Republican Senator Rand Paul, Democratic Senator Chris Murphy, and Ted Lieu, a Democratic congressman from California.

On June 13, the Senate voted on a bipartisan bill to halt a new $510 million arms package to Saudi Arabia, but it was defeated by a narrow margin of 53-47. Despite the loss, the vote reflected an increasing level of Senate opposition to Saudi arms sales, compared with a similar measure in September last year that failed 71-27.

Back in September, while some members of Congress were convinced about their reasons for dissent, it seemed that the senators who approved the arms package were ignorant about what they were rubber-stamping or even knew much about Yemen.

For example, when asked why they voted against blocking the deal, some senators cited concern that the Strait of Hormuz would be threatened if Houthi rebels took over Yemen, apparently confusing Oman with Yemen.  The Strait of Hormuz actually separates Iran and the Omani Peninsula, whereas Yemen is hundreds of kilometers to the southwest and borders the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden.

Nonetheless, Senator Murphy was encouraged by the increasing dissent this June and noted:

“Today’s vote total would have been unthinkable not long ago, but Congress is finally taking notice that Saudi Arabia is using US munitions to deliberately hit civilian targets inside Yemen.”

Meanwhile, Rand Paul railed against senators “talking about making a buck while 17 million people are threatened with famine”.

Lieu, who since August 2016 has been protesting against US complicity in Saudi war crimes, also recently issued a statement on the House of Representatives’ passage of his amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal year 2018. The Lieu amendment requires the Pentagon to report to Congress on whether Riyadh and coalition partners are abiding by their commitments in Yemen, and on July 14 the House finally voted to defund US military support for the Saudi war on Yemen.

However, Yemen continues to collapse under the non-stop Saudi aerial bombardment, with Riyadh blocking access by journalists and humanitarian organizations.

Jamie McGoldrick, the United Nations humanitarian coordinator in Yemen, has warned that because of the lack of media coverage the UN had been unable to raise even 30% of the funding it needs to deal with the crisis.

While the devastation and famine in Yemen have been largely ignored in the US press, the British Broadcasting Corporation on September 22, 2016, published an article and video that provided a small peek into the human misery and suffering, especially of Yemeni children.

Despite this, McGoldrich laments that

“Yemen is very much a silent, forgotten, I would even say a purposefully forgotten emergency.”

Dr. Christina Lin is a Nonresident Fellow at the Center for Transatlantic Relations at SAIS-Johns Hopkins University specializing in China-Middle East/Mediterranean relations, and a research consultant for Jane’s Chemical, Biological, Radiological, and Nuclear Intelligence Centre at IHS Markit.

NORTH Korea’s standoff with the United States has been condemned by Jeremy Corbyn who has urged both nations to “ratchet down the rhetoric” as he fears a nuclear war could “kill millions”.

As the war of words between the US and North Korea becomes increasingly aggressive, the Labour leader condemned threats of a nuclear war.

During a visit to Cornwall, Jeremy Corbyn said:

“The idea that anyone can kind of contemplate using nuclear weapons at any stage against anybody is unthinkable.

“There is no such thing as an isolated nuclear attack.

“It would kill millions on both sides of the Korean border and of course in neighbouring countries.”

Read full article.

In July, North Korea tested its longest-range ballistic missiles yet, putting it closer than ever to having a nuclear weapon that could strike the US mainland. But that is not actually our most urgent problem, says Siegfried S. Hecker, a former director of the Los Alamos National Laboratory, who has visited North Korea seven times and toured its nuclear facilities. While North Korea is bent on extending its nuclear strike range, it can already hit Japan and South Korea. With US politicians calling for military action against the North, and a general escalation of belligerent rhetoric on both sides, it is entirely possible that we will stumble into a nuclear war on the Korean peninsula. In this in-depth interview, Hecker calls on Washington to talk to Pyongyang—not to negotiate or make concessions, but to avert disaster.

BAS: North Korea tested 24 missiles in 2016 and has tested nearly 20 so far this year. What is distinctive about the two it tested in July?

SH: The missile tests on July 4^th and 28^th were the first that had intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) capabilities. They were intentionally launched at lofted angles, most likely so they wouldn’t overfly Japan. According to the Korean Central News Agency, North Korea’s state news outlet, the most recent Hwasong-14 missile reached an altitude of 3,725 kilometers (2,315 miles) and flew a distance of 998 kilometers (620 miles) for 47 minutes before landing in the water off the Korean peninsula’s east coast, close to Japan. If launched on a maximum-range trajectory the missile could travel more than 10,000 kilometers (6,200 miles), giving it the ability to reach much of the US mainland.

BAS: Do these test launches indicate that North Korea has mastered ICBMs?

SH: I think not yet, but these two tests demonstrate substantial progress and most likely mean they will be able to master the technology in the next year or two. The North Koreans have very cleverly combined various missile stages and rocket engines to get this far, but a reliable, accurate ICBM will require more testing. In addition, it is not clear whether they have sufficiently mastered reentry vehicles, which are needed to house the nuclear warhead on an ICBM. Advanced reentry vehicles and mechanisms to defeat missile defense systems may still be five or so years away. However, make no mistake, North Korea is working in all of these directions.

BAS: Why are intercontinental ballistic missiles—ICBMs—so important, from North Korea’s point of view?

SH: Pyongyang’s fears of US military intervention have surely grown with the dire warnings coming from US political leaders during the past several months. Pyongyang is determined to develop an effective deterrent to keep the United States out. It apparently views being able to threaten the US mainland with a nuclear counterstrike as the ultimate deterrent. It also likely has a political goal, to get Washington to the table on what Pyongyang would see as a more equal basis.

BAS: We last spoke in May about North Korea’s nuclear capabilities and the technical challenges it faces—among them, making a nuclear warhead small enough to fit on a missile, and a weapon that can survive the extreme conditions involved during launch, flight, and re-entry into the atmosphere. Have North Korea’s technical capabilities changed since then?

SH: I think the warhead is still the least developed part of North Korea’s plans for nuclear ICBMs. It must survive such extreme conditions, and it must detonate above the target by design. It can’t accidentally detonate on launch or burn up during reentry. North Korea likely made some of the key measurements required to define those extreme conditions during the two July tests, but I can’t imagine it has learned enough to confidently make a warhead that is small and light enough and sufficiently robust to survive.

Achieving these goals is very demanding and takes time, particularly because warheads contain materials such as plutonium, highly enriched uranium, high explosives, and the like. These are not your ordinary industrial materials.

BAS: Does North Korea have sufficient plutonium or highly enriched uranium to serve as fuel for nuclear weapons?

SH: This is one of its greatest limitations. It has very little plutonium and likely not yet a large amount of highly enriched uranium. For plutonium particularly, its small 20-to-40 kilogram inventory must be shared among several purposes: experiments required to understand the world’s most complex element, nuclear tests to certify the weapon’s design, and stock for the arsenal. To put North Korea’s plutonium inventory in perspective, the Soviet Union and United States at one time had inventories in excess of 100,000 kilograms each, and China is believed to have an inventory of roughly 2,000 kilograms. Estimates of North Korea’s highly enriched uranium inventory are highly uncertain, but are likely in the 200 to 450 kilogram range, which, combined with its plutonium inventory, may be sufficient for 20 to 25 nuclear weapons.

Moreover, North Korea has conducted only five nuclear tests and we do not know if these used plutonium or highly enriched uranium for bomb fuel. During one of my seven visits to North Korea, the scientific director of their nuclear center told me that the first two devices used plutonium. During my last visit in November 2010, I was shown a modern centrifuge facility that had just begun operation. Based on that visit, I believe that North Korea most likely also used plutonium for the February 2013 test, but may have used highly enriched uranium for the two tests in 2016.

Plutonium is a better bomb fuel, although its temperamental properties make it difficult to use reliably. Nevertheless, it would be preferred for making a weapon small enough to mount on an ICBM. Highly enriched uranium is more forgiving from an engineering point of view, but it is more difficult to miniaturize the warhead. North Korea has much more experience in uranium metallurgy than plutonium metallurgy because natural uranium metal is used to fuel its nuclear reactor. However, their overall experience with both materials in nuclear warheads is very limited.

BAS: In May you said you thought five nuclear tests spaced over ten years has likely allowed North Korea to miniaturize a nuclear warhead. Is that at odds with what you now believe?

SH: No. I was then referring to miniaturizing warheads for shorter-range missiles that could reach all of South Korea and Japan. The shorter range allows for much bigger warhead payloads and poses fewer challenges. Uranium could more easily be used for bomb fuel in such warheads. North Korea had no ICBM rocket experience until the two tests in July. Now we are talking about ICBMs, which have much more stringent warhead requirements. Miniaturizing a warhead sufficiently to fit on an ICBM will take more time and tests.

US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson

BAS: Last week, US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson called for discussions with North Korea, although the State Department then appeared to walk back the call for unconditional dialogue. You’ve expressed that dialogue is essential. Why now, and what do you think it could accomplish?

SH: There is an urgent reason to talk to Pyongyang now: to avoid a nuclear conflict on the Korean Peninsula. The greatest North Korean threat we face is not from a nuclear-tipped missile hitting the US mainland, but from Washington stumbling into an inadvertent nuclear war on the Korean peninsula. US Senator Lindsey Graham said last week, “There is a military option: to destroy North Korea’s nuclear program and North Korea itself. He’s not going to allow—President Trump—the ability of this madman [Kim Jong-un] to have a missile that could hit America.”

I do not think that North Korean leader Kim Jong-un is a madman. We can’t even call him unpredictable any more—he says he will launch missiles, then he does. The madman rhetoric only flames the panic we see in this country because it makes Kim Jong-un appear undeterrable, and I don’t believe that to be the case. He is not suicidal. Nevertheless, it is possible that in his drive to reach the US mainland to achieve a greater balance with the United States, Kim could miscalculate where the line actually is and trigger a response from Washington that could lead to war. The problem is that we know nothing about Kim Jong-un and the military leaders that control his arsenal. It’s time to talk and find out.

BAS: Both Senator Graham and former State Department official John Bolton spoke of pursuing a military option against North Korea last week. In May you said war would be a disaster. Why is it still being considered an option?

SH: Talk of war is dangerous and irresponsible. It would have catastrophic consequences for Northeast Asia and the world. Military action could slow the North’s program, but not eliminate it. Threats of war, moreover, only make the North redouble efforts to hold the United States at risk. And they greatly exacerbate the greatest risk of all: an inadvertent war on the Korean peninsula with the potential for hundreds of thousands of deaths, including thousands of American citizens. Unfortunately, some American leaders believe that if there is a war, keeping it on the Korean peninsula will keep us safe. I maintain that a nuclear war anywhere will have catastrophic consequences for America.

BAS: Can you tell us more about what you think dialogue should look like? How do you convince skeptics who think there should be no negotiating with such a belligerent power?

SH: The crisis on the Korean peninsula is so urgent that President Trump should send a small team of senior military and diplomatic leaders to talk to Pyongyang. They must try to come to a common understanding that a nuclear war will inflict unacceptable damage to both sides, so must not be fought, and that a conventional conflict would pose a high risk of escalating to a nuclear war, so must likewise not be fought.

Gorbachev and Reagan sign the INF Treaty (Source: Wikimedia Commons)

This sort of dialogue might resemble the one between US President Dwight Eisenhower and Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev in Geneva in 1955, which US President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev re-affirmed at a Geneva summit in 1985. They agreed that a nuclear war cannot be won, so a nuclear war must not be fought.

The United States and Soviet Union deterred each other through mutually assured destruction. A similar state is achievable with regard to North Korea. Joint US-South Korean conventional forces combined with overwhelming US nuclear forces can assure the North’s destruction. Pyongyang’s nuclear arsenal combined with its conventional artillery and chemical weapons can inflict unacceptable damage to South Korea, Japan, and regional US assets. Although the tradeoff is asymmetric—that is, assured annihilation versus unacceptable damage—I believe it will deter both sides from military aggression.

BAS: So are you recommending negotiations?

SH: No, the time is not yet ripe for renewed negotiations. Talking is not a reward or a concession to Pyongyang and should not be construed as signaling acceptance of a nuclear-armed North Korea. Talking is a necessary step to re-establishing critical links of communication to avoid a nuclear catastrophe. We must first come to the basic understanding that a nuclear conflict must be avoided. The need to communicate is sufficiently urgent that talks must start without preconditions.

BAS: What else could talks accomplish?

SH: They would provide an opportunity to impress upon Pyongyang that ensuring the safety and security of nuclear weapons is an awesome responsibility. These two issues are becoming more challenging as Pyongyang strives to make its nuclear arsenal more combat-ready. A nuclear-weapon accident in the North would be disastrous, as would a struggle to control the North’s nuclear weapons in the case of attempted regime change from within or without.

The talks should also cover the need for mechanisms to avoid misunderstanding, miscalculation, or misinterpretation of actions that could lead to conflict and potential escalation to the nuclear level. In simplest terms, Washington should convey that it is deterred from attacking the North, but not from defending the United States or its allies. It should reiterate that any attack on South Korea or Japan, be it with conventional, chemical, or nuclear weapons, will bring a devastating retaliatory response upon North Korea.

The US delegation could also reinforce Secretary of State Tillerson’s message, that the United States is not aiming to threaten or replace the North Korea regime and is prepared to assure the security it seeks.

Also, the talks should underline to Pyongyang that any export of nuclear technologies or weapons know-how is unacceptable, and that Pyongyang should not imagine such exports or transfers can be hidden.

Finally, talks should emphasize that these are talks, not negotiations. The exchange may lay the foundation for a return to diplomatic dialogue on denuclearization and normalization, particularly if Washington listens as well as talks. But that is not what this initial contact should be.

BAS: But won’t any talks be construed as Washington having blinked first and recognized North Korea as a nuclear-armed state?

SH: Washington can acknowledge that Pyongyang possesses nuclear weapons—which is the reality—while also reiterating that it will not accept Pyongyang as a nuclear weapon state. Washington can make clear that it intends to pursue the eventual denuclearization and normalization of the Korean peninsula—goals that North Korea publicly signed on to in 1992, 2000, and 2005. Letting today’s state of affairs persist because we are overly concerned about “blinking” will only make a bad situation more dangerous.

BAS: The US president has been very critical of China for not doing more to prevent North Korea’s missile and nuclear testing. Is it realistic to think China can control the North’s actions in this way? What do you think the proper role of China is here?

SH: The Obama administration pressured China and it didn’t work. The Trump administration similarly had its hopes pinned on China to pressure Pyongyang, and it won’t work either. We need to understand China’s national interest: It does not want to see Pyongyang armed with nuclear weapons, but it is not willing to bring the regime to its knees to stop it. Quite frankly, Beijing views Washington’s belligerence toward North Korea as the main driver of Pyongyang’s accelerating nuclear weapon program.

Nevertheless, on Saturday, the two July ICBM launches prompted China to back the most stringent UN Security Council sanctions to date. Chinese state media followed with a statement that said North Korea had to be punished for its missile tests—although on Monday it said the United States must reign in its “moral arrogance over North Korea.”

BAS: What do you fear could happen in the near future if we stay on the current track? Basically, what about this whole situation most keeps you up at night?

SH: That North Korea continues to make its nuclear arsenal more combat-ready and threatening to the US mainland, and that Washington declares this behavior a red line. And that the provocative rhetoric on both sides fuels more misunderstandings and miscalculations, which trigger a nuclear war on the Korean peninsula.

Beware the dogs of war. The same intel “folks” who brought to you babies pulled from incubators by “evil” Iraqis as well as non-existent WMDs are now peddling the notion that North Korea has produced a miniaturized nuclear warhead able to fit its recently tested ICBM.

That’s the core of an analysis completed in July by the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA). Additionally, US intel believes that Pyongyang now has access to up to 60 nuclear weapons. On the ground US intel on North Korea is virtually non-existent – so these assessments amount to guesswork at best.

But when we couple the guesswork with an annual 500-page white paper released earlier this week by the Japanese Defense Ministry, alarm bells do start ringing.

The white paper stresses Pyongyang’s “significant headway” in the nuclear race and its “possible” (italics mine) ability to develop miniaturized nuclear warheads able to fit on the tips of its missiles.

This “possible” ability is drowned in outright speculation. As the report states,

“It is conceivable that North Korea’s nuclear weapons program has already considerably advanced and it is possible that North Korea has already achieved the miniaturization of nuclear bombs into warheads and has acquired nuclear warheads.”

Western corporate media would hardly refrain from metastasizing pure speculation into a “North Korea has miniaturized nuclear weapons” frenzy consuming the cable news cycle/ newspaper headlines. Talk about hearts and minds comfortably numbed by the fear factor.

The Japanese white paper, conveniently, also escalated condemnation of China over Beijing’s actions in both the East and South China seas.

So let’s look at the agendas in play. The War Party in the US, with its myriad connections in the industrial-military-media complex, obviously wants/needs war to keep the machinery oiled. Tokyo, for its part, would much appreciate a pre-emptive US military attack – and damn the inevitable, massive South Korean casualties that would result from Pyongyang’s counterpunch.

Japanese Defense Minister Itsunori Onodera (Source: Wikimedia Commons)

It’s quite enlightening that Tokyo, for all practical purposes, considers China as a “threat” as serious as North Korea; Defense Minister Itsunori Onodera went straight to the point when he said,

“North Korea’s missiles represent a deepening threat. That, along with China’s continued threatening behavior in the East China Sea and South China Sea, is a major concern for Japan.” Beijing’s response was swift.

Kim Jong-Un, demonized ad infinitum, is not a fool, and is not going to indulge in a ritual seppuku unilaterally attacking South Korea, Japan or US territory. Pyongyang’s nuclear arsenal represents the deterrent against regime change that Saddam Hussein and Gaddafi could not count on. There’s only one way to deal with North Korea, as I’ve argued before; diplomacy. Tell that to Washington and Tokyo.

Meanwhile, there’s United Nations Security Council Resolution 2371. It does target North Korea’s major exports – coal, iron, seafood. Coal accounts for 40% of Pyongyang’s exports, and arguably 10% of GDP.

Yet this new sanctions package does not touch imports of oil and refined-oil products from China. That’s one of the reasons why Beijing voted in favor.

Beijing’s strategy is a very Asian attempt to find a face-saving solution – and that takes time. UNSC resolution 2371 buys time – and may dissuade the Trump administration, for now, from going heavy metal, with horrible consequences.

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi cautiously stated the sanctions are a sign of international opposition to North Korea’s missile and nuclear weapons programs. The last thing Beijing needs is a war right on its borders, also bound to negatively interfere with the expansion of the New Silk Roads, a.k.a. Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).

Beijing could always work on re-building trust between Pyongyang and Washington. That’s an order taller than the Himalayas. One just needs to look back at the 1994 Agreed Framework, signed during Bill Clinton’s first term.

The framework was supposed to freeze – and even dismantle – Pyongyang’s nuclear program and was bound to normalize US-North Korea relations. A US-led consortium would build two light-water nuclear reactors to compensate for Pyongyang’s loss of nuclear power; sanctions would be lifted; both parties would issue “formal assurances” against the use of nuclear weapons.

Nothing happened. The framework collapsed in 2002 – when North Korea was enshrined in the “axis of evil” by the Cheney regime. Not to mention that the Korean War is still, technically, on; the 1953 armistice was never replaced by a real peace treaty.

So what next? Three reminders.

1) Beware of an engineered false flag, to be blamed on Pyongyang; that would be the perfect pretext for war.

2) The current narrative is eerily similar to the usual suspects blaring since forever that Iran is a heartbeat away from “building a nuclear weapon”.

3) North Korea holds trillions of US dollars in unexplored mineral wealth. Watch the shadowplay by candidates bound to profit from such juicy loot.

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

Heated rhetoric risks something much more serious. The problem lies in Washington, not Pyongyang.

Throughout its post-WW II history, the DPRK never attacked another country. In June 1950, it responded to repeated South Korean cross-border provocations.

Harry Truman’s devastating war followed – why Pyongyang genuinely fears US aggression now, doing what it thinks best to avoid it, the reason for its nuclear and ballistic missile programs. Without them, it would be defenseless. With them, it’s a regional power to be reckoned with.

Pulling back from reckless brinksmanship on the Korean peninsula is as simple as America extending an olive branch, halting provocative area military exercises Pyongyang believes are preparations for war, choosing diplomacy over saber rattling – an alternative approach it rejects.

Trump’s bombast via Twitter and other rhetoric shows profound recklessness, likely along with ignorance about the horrors of aggressive wars, especially if nuclear weapons are used.

Via Twitter he boasted

“(m)y first order as President was to renovate and modernize our nuclear arsenal.”

“It is now far stronger and more powerful than ever before…(T)here will never be a time that we are not the most powerful nation in the world.”

“(B)eing unpredictable is a big asset,” he said. “North Korea knew exactly what President Obama was going to do.”

He backs up his bombast with naked aggression in multiple theaters, threatening North Korea and Iran with more, maybe Russia and China to follow.

Pyongyang didn’t ease things by threatening to attack Guam this month – even though 2,131 miles between them likely likely puts the island beyond the reach of the DPRK’s ability to strike it, let alone accurately.

Of greater consequence would be devastating war on its territory in response, turning large parts of the country to rubble, causing millions of casualties, South Korea as well caught in the firestorm, hammered by the DPRK’s military capability until it was destroyed.

Defense Secretary “mad dog” Mattis warned Kim Jong-un of “the end of (his) regime and the destruction of its people” if DPRK threats continue, adding:

He “should take heed of the United Nations Security Council’s unified voice, and statements from governments the world over, who agree the DPRK poses a threat to global security and stability.”

The only Korean peninsula threat comes from Washington, not Pyongyang. Combatively Mattis blustered that “the combined allied militaries now possess the most precise, rehearsed and robust defensive and offensive capabilities on earth” – America perhaps willing to destroy the planet to own it.

DPRK heated rhetoric included the official KCNA news agency quoting General Kim Rak-gyom blasting Trump, saying:

“Sound dialogue is not possible with such a guy bereft of reason and only absolute force can work on him,”

adding:

Hwasong-12 ballistic missiles can “be launched (by mid-August to) hit the waters 30 to 40 km away from Guam” – sounding more like a shot across the bow threat than an attempted attack on its territory, which may not be possible anyway.

A separate Pyongyang statement said

“(i)f the US fails to act with discretion, persisting in its reckless attempts to stifle the DPRK, we will not waver or hesitate to use any form of ultimate means.”

Heated rhetoric on both sides risks “miscalculation and inadvertent war, particularly if North Korea feels that it must act before an imminent US attack,” according to Professor of Government Jessica Chen Weiss.

“From the standpoint of avoiding war, one hopes that Trump’s improvised threat is correctly interpreted as bluster,” she added.

Given its nonbelligerent history, the DPRK is unlikely to attack America or any other country except in self-defense.

China and Russia continue doing all they can to prevent unthinkable war on the Korean peninsula from erupting.

On Wednesday, Moscow’s UN envoy Vasily Nebenzya stressed the importance of Washington remaining “calm and refrain(ing) from any moves that would provoke another party into actions that might be dangerous” – responding to heated rhetoric on both sides, adding:

“As we said, we want the tensions to ease, and we have to start seriously about devising and inventing ways for a political dialogue on this issue.”

At best, it’ll take a concerted effort by both sides to step back from the brink. The alternative is potentially catastrophic nuclear war, affecting far more than the Korean peninsula if launched.

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 morning following his “fire and fury” remarks on Tuesday—which promised retaliation if the North Korean regime continues to threaten the United States—President Donald Trump took to Twitter to praise America’s “powerful” nuclear arsenal, comments that intensified the groundswell of calls to end the pro-war rhetoric and strip Trump of his nuclear-strike authority.

Trump’s threat against North Korea came on the heels of a report by the Washington Post indicating that Pyongyang had “successfully produced a miniaturized nuclear warhead that can fit inside its missiles.”

The Kim Jong-un regime responded just hours after Trump’s remarks, promising to hasten “the tragic end of the American empire” and announcing it would review plans to “strike areas around the U.S. territory of Guam,” where the U.S. maintains large military bases, “with medium-to-long-range strategic ballistic missiles.”

Reacting to Trump’s “crazy” comments and to the growing fear that the U.S. is inching closer to nuclear war, activists and lawmakers urged Congress to revive legislation that would strip the executive branch of the power to launch a pre-emptive nuclear strike.

“No U.S. President, certainly not Trump, should have sole authority to initiate an unprovoked nuclear war,” wrote Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.).

In an interview with MSNBC‘s Chris Hayes Tuesday night, Markey said Trump’s comments “bring us back to August of 1945, when nuclear weapons were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.”

Watch the interview:

.@SenMarkey responds to Trump's "fire & fury" remarks on North Korea: "The president needs to tone it down" #inners https://t.co/J0ErqrB3Eg

— All In w/Chris Hayes (@allinwithchris) August 9, 2017

Others echoed Markey’s call for legislation that would remove the power to launch a nuclear first strike from the president. Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), pointing to previous reporting by Common Dreams, highlighted the urgent necessity of removing the power to launch a nuclear first strike from the hands of the president—a move that has proven to be immensely popular.

I believe Congress must authorize any nuclear first strike and have co-sponsored @TedLieu's important bill. https://t.co/1hHwQQFKsj

— Pramila Jayapal (@PramilaJayapal) August 8, 2017

In May, as Common Dreams reported, more than 500,000 people signed a petition expressing support for the Restricting First Use of Nuclear Weapons Act of 2017, a bill introduced by Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Calif.) that, if passed, would bar the president from launching a nuclear strike without congressional authorization.

Do reckless comments of @realDonaldTrump scare you? Support HR 669 by @SenMarkey & me. Requires approval of Congress for nuclear 1st strike. https://t.co/VZyJodhp5q

— Ted Lieu (@tedlieu) August 9, 2017

“This saber-rattling from the president is dangerous,” concluded Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.). “We need to de-escalate tensions so that diplomacy can work.”

Adding to the calls for de-escalation is a newly drafted petition by MoveOn.org, which is set to be delivered to the White House.

The petition, which already has over 57,000 signatures, reads:

“Stop the insanity. Don’t provoke a war with North Korea.”

“Donald Trump is making us all more unsafe with every war-mongering comment, tweet, and threat. His rhetoric threatening North Korea with ‘fire and fury’ is exacerbating a dangerous situation, putting the people of Guam—and everyone around the world—in grave danger,” the petition adds. “While a nuclear North Korea is a real concern, the answer must be diplomacy-first, not a rush to a potentially devastating nuclear war.”

The growing threat of nuclear war comes as Wednesday marks the 72nd anniversary of the atomic bombing of Nagasaki, Japan by the U.S.

Carol Turner, vice chair of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, said in a statement:

“It beggars belief that the US president has chosen the 72nd anniversary to threaten North Korea with ‘fire and fury like the world has never seen.’ These words mark the real possibility of a nuclear confrontation.”

Speaking at a memorial event on Wednesday, Tomihisa Taue, the mayor of Nagasaki, highlighted the “increasingly tense” international situation and argued that all nations should do away with nuclear weapons.

“A strong sense of anxiety is spreading across the globe that in the not too distant future these weapons could actually be used again,” Taue said. “The nuclear threat will not end as long as nations continue to claim that nuclear weapons are essential for their national security.”

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License

Featured image is from MoveOn.org.

This month sees some significant anniversaries in the struggle against old-style colonialism. The trouble is that colonialism didn’t go away after countries in the developing world formally achieved their independence from Europe’s ‘Great Powers.’

The U.S. press don’t report this fact, but that doesn’t mean it’s not true. The following will document its truth, by recent prominent examples, and will explain how and why this rampant lying by the government and press is done.

The lies are usually about the most important policies and actions of the United States government regarding international relations — foreign policy matters, such as wars, treaties, and economic sanctions. In the past, they were lies about matters such as that North Vietnam had attacked the USS Maddox in the Gulf of Tonkin Incident, and that Chile’s President Salvador Allende opposed democracy, and that Iraq’s President Saddam Hussein was “six months away from developing a [nuclear] weapon,” and that Russian President Vladimir Putin’s “conquest of land” regarding Crimea had happened and is the basic reason for the economic sanctions the U.S. has placed against Russia. 

On August 2nd, U.S. President Donald Trump signed into law increased sanctions against Russia, which had been passed 98-2 in the Senate and 419-3 in the House. This new law stated in Section 211, “Congress makes the following findings” as the basis for greatly hiking the economic sanctions against Russia:

(6) On January 6, 2017, an assessment of the United States intelligence community entitled, “Assessing Russian Activities and Intentions in Recent U.S. Elections” stated, “Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered an influence campaign in 2016 aimed at the United States presidential election.” The assessment warns that “Moscow will apply lessons learned from its Putin-ordered campaign aimed at the U.S. Presidential election to future influence efforts worldwide, including against U.S. allies and their election processes”.

In other words: because of this alleged hacking of the 2016 U.S. Presidential election, the sanctions that were originally (and entirely falsely) based upon “conquest of land” regarding Crimea, are now being greatly increased.

The 6 January 2017 document that the 98 Senators and 419 Representatives were relying upon there, “Assessing Russian Activities and Intentions in Recent U.S. Elections”, was signed by just one of the 17 U.S. intelligence agencies: President Obama‘s Director of National Intelligence (James R. Clapper), who served at the pleasure of the then-President (Obama). The portion of it titled “Russia’s Influence Campaign Targeting the 2016 US Presidential Election” was additionally signed by the NSA, FBI and CIA. The entire document was built upon an earlier document, dated 7 October 2016 and issued in anticipation of Hillary Clinton’s becoming the next President; and that earlier document had been signed by two of the 17: the office of the Director of National Intelligence, and the office of the intelligence service for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. The public part of this earlier document was titled “Joint Statement from the Department Of Homeland Security and Office of the Director of National Intelligence on Election Security”. It opened:

The U.S. Intelligence Community (USIC) is confident that the Russian Government directed the recent compromises of e-mails from US persons and institutions, including from US political organizations. The recent disclosures of alleged hacked e-mails on sites like DCLeaks.com and WikiLeaks and by the Guccifer 2.0 online persona are consistent with the methods and motivations of Russian-directed efforts. These thefts and disclosures are intended to interfere with the US election process.

It was signed with the seal of the Department of Homeland Security, and the seal of the Director of National Intelligence — those two seals or official signatures, being co-equals in authority. They were two of the 17 offices of the U.S. federal government’s Intelligence Community

According to Wikipedia’s article “United States Intelligence Community”,

“The IC [Intelligence Community] is headed by the Director of National Intelligence (DNI), whose statutory leadership is exercised through the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI).”

The 17 members of the IC are shown there in that Wikipedia article, along with the official seal for each one (because a “finding” is officially “signed” with that seal, not with the person’s signature); and the 17 are: 

Eight are under the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD). These offices are the respective intelligence-offices for: Air Force, Army, Marine Corps, Navy, Geospatial Intelligence Agency, and then 3 stand-alone ones that also are under U.S. DOD: National Reconnaissance Office, Defense Intelligence Agency, and National Security Agency.

Two intelligence-offices are at Department of Homeland Security: Office of Intelligence and Analysis, and Coast Guard Intelligence.

Two are at Department of Justice: Office of National Security Intelligence, and FBI Intelligence Branch.

One is at Department of Energy: Office of Intelligence and Counterintelligence.

One is at Department of State: Bureau of Intelligence and Research. 

One is at Treasury Department: Office of Terrorism and Financial Intelligence.

There are two entirely independent stand-alone intelligence offices: CIA, and Director of National Intelligence. Each of those two officials reports directly to the U.S. President, not via a Cabinet Department.

That’s all 17 of them.

The Director of National Intelligence (DNI) is authorized to represent each of the other 16, and not only himself. He is authorized to do that even if some (or all) of the other intelligence offices disagree with him in opinions that he expresses — if they disagree, they just don’t sign it (their official seal then doesn’t appear on the “finding”). The DNI may express an opinion that’s contradicted by any or all of the other 16.

However, his opinion is not superior to the opinion of any of the other 16 top intelligence officials: he is instead considered to be one among the 17 — not superior to the other 16 — but nonetheless to express, in some purely official sense, “the Intelligence Community.” However, if he expresses an opinion that contradicts the opinion of the sitting President, he may be fired by the President. None of his 16 Intelligence Community colleagues can do that — officially represent “the Intelligence Community” regardless of what its other 16 persons might privately support. The basic law that defines the DNI’s authority is Sec. 102. [50 U.S.C. § 3023], and states (on page 37) that he is at all times “Subject to the authority, direction, and control of the President.” In other words: When the DNI speaks, the President of the United States is actually being expressed.

Whether any other of the 17 top U.S. intelligence officials is also being expressed, is therefore irrelevant. The system was set up this way so that the President would officially have “the Intelligence Community” supporting whatever publicly endorsed “facts” or findings the President backs. Any dissenting members of that 17 simply don’t sign, that’s all. The purpose of this arrangement is to keep the findings — the public ‘facts’ — in line with the President’s policy on the given matter, no matter what.

Each of the 17 top intelligence officials has an official seal of office. No document that lacks the official seal of a particular one of these 17 offices is officially approved by that office. The lack of that person’s seal means one of two things: his agency was not consulted on the given matter, or else he had been consulted and declined to sign the given document or “findings.”

Thus: only two of the 17 U.S. intelligence agencies signed the “Joint Statement from the Department Of Homeland Security and Office of the Director of National Intelligence on Election Security”.

On 19 October 2016 occurred the last one of the three U.S. Presidential debates between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump; and Clinton said:

“We have 17 intelligence agencies, civilian and military, who have all concluded that these espionage attacks, these cyberattacks, come from the highest levels of the Kremlin, and they are designed to influence our election.”

She was referring to that “Joint Statement from the Department Of Homeland Security and Office of the Director of National Intelligence on Election Security.” That night, Politifact headlined “Hillary Clinton blames high-up Russians for WikiLeaks releases”, and rated Clinton’s assertion there “True” because:

The October statement … said “The U.S. Intelligence Community (USIC) is confident” in its assessment. As we noted in the article, the 17 separate agencies did not independently come to this conclusion, but as the head of the intelligence community, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence speaks on behalf of the group.

That’s not really true, but it is officially true: if the DNI signs to a “finding,” then any dissenting member of the 17 must simply keep quiet, say nothing publicly about the matter. To Politifact, the refusal of the other top 15 U.S. intelligence officials to sign the October 7th document meant nothing, and was irrelevant; the only signature that mattered to Politifact was the DNI’s (the signature of the person who, at all times, is, in fact, by law, “Subject to the … control of the President” — which then was Obama) — even the DHS signature (which was on the document) meant nothing to Politi‘fact’. Politi‘fact’ didn’t say two signed it; but instead said that all 17 did — which was false. Politi‘fact’ too lies, in order to make the ‘facts’ fit the government’s policy. 

Then, on 21 October 2016, USA Today headlined “Yes, 17 intelligence agencies really did say Russia was behind hacking”, and wrote — in this ‘news’report; this wasn’t published as an opinion-piece but ‘news’:

The fact-checking website Politifact says Hillary Clinton is correct when she says 17 federal intelligence agencies have concluded that Russia is behind the hacking.

“We have 17, 17 intelligence agencies, civilian and military who have all concluded that these espionage attacks, these cyber attacks, come from the highest levels of the Kremlin. And they are designed to influence our election. I find that deeply disturbing,” Clinton said during Wednesday’s presidential debate in Las Vegas.

Trump pushed back, saying that Clinton and the United States had “no idea whether it is Russia, China or anybody else.”

But Clinton is correct. On Oct. 7, the Department of Homeland Security and Office of the Director of National Intelligence issued a joint statement on behalf of the U.S. Intelligence Community. The USIC is made up of 16 agencies, in addition to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. … The agencies all issued the statement together.

That ‘news’-report was influential: it had 45 thousand shares online. Its statement that the Department of Homeland Security was authorized to speak for any other intelligence agency than itself, was entirely false. And the fundamental Russiagate narrative itself is almost certainly also a lie, which might help explain why Obama couldn’t get the other 15 U.S. intelligence services (or at least the ones such as the CIA and NSA and FBI, which clearly possessed relevant intelligence about the matter) to attach their seals to it at the time.

An alternative narrative explaining the Wikileaks information-releases exists, and is supported by all of the available relevant evidence, and it doesn’t entail any hacks at all, but instead leaks: both of the information-releases resulted from leaks by insiders, instead of from hacks by outsiders. This doesn’t necessarily mean that nobody hacked anything, but just that neither of the information-releases came from a hack.

Strong evidence exists that Craig Murray, a British friend of Julian Assange, picked up from a Democratic National Committee insider on 24 September 2016 in Washington DC a thumb drive or other physical embodiment of the data that soon thereafter became leaked, and that he delivered it to the Wikileaks founder inside the Ecuadorean Embassy in London.

Furthermore, according to investigative journalist Seymour Hersh speaking on 1 August 2017, an earlier leak from a different DNC insider, had produced the June 2016 DNC computer-data release by Wikileaks. 

Furthermore, the technical evidence regarding the ‘hacking’ indicates there was no hack; that it was only (at least one) inside leak(s). 

The charge that Russia had ‘hacked’ ‘the election’ is the core ‘justification’ given for the 98-2 Senate and 419-3 House passage of the great hike in anti-Russia economic sanctions. Clearly, this Congress — both Parties in it — are determined to squeeze Russia harder and harder, until it’s conquered. Maybe the reason why Trump signed this bill into law (which would have easily passed over his veto if he had vetoed it) is so as not to give Congress an additional ‘reason’ to impeach and replace him by Mike Pence, whom both Parties in Congress seem to prefer.

Don North of ABC News crossing stream in Mekong Delta with US Army 9th Division.

America invaded Vietnam on the basis of lies. We invaded Iraq on the basis of lies. We’ve done much else — in Libya, Syria, and Ukraine etc. — on the basis of lies. Are our leaders preparing to invade Russia on the basis of lies? (If so, those lies started on 24 February 1990.) How much longer will the American public continue rewarding (instead of demanding prosecution of) the liars who are promoting Lockheed Martin and the rest of the U.S. military-industrial complex and destroying countries one after another? America isn’t being ruled by the military; it’s being ruled by the Military-Industrial Complex. To understand the MIC, the “revolving door” is essential. Without that revolving door, America could be a democracy. But that revolving door is controlled by billionaires; and, by means of it, the billionaires control the U.S. government. The divisions within the U.S. government are only superficial, as is clearly shown by that virtually unanimous vote (98-2 and 419-3) in Congress, for lies. It’s now become almost lock-step, in Washington. The U.S. aristocracy controls the U.S. MIC, by controlling both the government, and the press. The only way to become a serious contender, to win a seat in Congress, or especially to win the Presidency, is to be acceptable to billionaires — Republican, Democratic, or otherwise. And America’s billionaires are virtually unanimous in their determination to conquer Russia.

This is not likely to end well. Robert Mueller has now impanelled two grand juries in order to find some crime by the President that’s part of his Russiagate investigation, so that Trump can be criminally charged, then impeached, and then replaced by the hard-right, neoconservative, Mike Pence. At the present stage, it’s an “investigation in search of a crime”, and probably one or more crimes will be found, on which Trump can be prosecuted; but, why weren’t Barack Obama’s crimes even searched for (I could name several he could almost certainly have been indicted for, including his aiding and abetting the American public’s actual enemies, in his policies on Honduras, Libya, Syria, Yemen, Ukraine, and elsewhere — and his protecting mega-banksters whose frauds had produced the 2008 economic collapse, and he even told them privately “I’m protecting you”), much less investigated at all? Obviously, America’s aristocracy detest Trump, though he’s one of them. Trump is trying to give them almost everything they want, but that’s clearly not sufficient. He’s not bad enough to satisfy them, and they’re in control. Most recently, the lies they are pumping out have focused against Venezuela. Only ignoramuses and fools still trust the honesty of the U.S. government, and of its sycophantic press, which is controlled by the same aristocracy — both Parties of it. Some ‘democracy’!

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

This article was originally published by Strategic Culture Foundation.

Featured image is from Strategic Culture Foundation.

Last week, mainstream media outlets gave minimal attention to the news that the U.S. Naval station in Virginia Beach had spilled an estimated 94,000 gallons of jet fuel into a nearby waterway, less than a mile from the Atlantic Ocean. While the incident was by no means as catastrophic as some other pipeline spills, it underscores an important yet little-known fact – that the U.S. Department of Defense is both the nation’s and the world’s, largest polluter.

Producing more hazardous waste than the five largest U.S. chemical companies combined, the U.S. Department of Defense has left its toxic legacy throughout the world in the form of depleted uranium, oil, jet fuel, pesticides, defoliants like Agent Orange and lead, among others.

In 2014, the former head of the Pentagon’s environmental program told Newsweek that her office has to contend with 39,000 contaminated areas spread across 19 million acres just in the U.S. alone.

U.S. military bases, both domestic and foreign, consistently rank among some of the most polluted places in the world, as perchlorate and other components of jet and rocket fuel contaminate sources of drinking water, aquifers, and soil. Hundreds of military bases can be found on the Environmental Protection Agency’s list of Superfund sites, which qualify for clean-up grants from the government.

Almost 900 of the nearly 1,200 Superfund sites in the U.S. are abandoned military facilities or sites that otherwise support military needs, not counting the military bases themselves.

“Almost every military site in this country is seriously contaminated,” John D. Dingell, a retired Michigan congressman and war veteran, told Newsweek in 2014.

Camp Lejeune in Jacksonville, North Carolina is one such base. Lejeune’s contamination became widespread and even deadly after its groundwater was polluted with a sizable amount of carcinogens from 1953 to 1987.

However, it was not until this February that the government allowed those exposed to chemicals at Lejeune to make official compensation claims. Numerous bases abroad have also contaminated local drinking water supplies, most famously the Kadena Air Force Base in Okinawa.

Between 1946 and 1958, the US tested 66 nuclear weapons near Bikini atoll. Populations living nearby in the Marshall Islands were exposed to measurable levels of radioactive fallout from these tests. (Map: National Cancer Institute)

In addition, the U.S., which has conducted more nuclear weapons tests than all other nations combined, is also responsible for the massive amount of radiation that continues to contaminate many islands in the Pacific Ocean. The Marshall Islands, where the U.S. dropped more than sixty nuclear weapons between 1946 and 1958, are a particularly notable example. Inhabitants of the Marshall Islands and nearby Guam continue to experience an exceedingly high rate of cancer.

The American Southwest was also the site of numerous nuclear weapons tests that contaminated large swaths of land. Navajo Indian reservations have been polluted by long-abandoned uranium mines where nuclear material was obtained by U.S. military contractors.

One of the most recent testaments to the U.S. military’s horrendous environmental record is Iraq. U.S. military action there has resulted in the desertification of 90 percent of Iraqi territory, crippling the country’s agricultural industry and forcing it to import more than 80 percent of its food. The U.S.’ use of depleted uranium in Iraq during the Gulf War also caused a massive environmental burden for Iraqis. In addition, the U.S. military’s policy of using open-air burn pits to dispose of waste from the 2003 invasion has caused a surge in cancer among U.S. servicemen and Iraqi civilians alike.

While the U.S. military’s past environmental record suggests that its current policies are not sustainable, this has by no means dissuaded the U.S. military from openly planning future contamination of the environment through misguided waste disposal efforts. Last November, the U.S. Navy announced its plan to release 20,000 tons of environmental “stressors,” including heavy metals and explosives, into the coastal waters of the U.S. Pacific Northwest over the course of this year.

The plan, laid out in the Navy’s Northwest Training and Testing Environmental Impact Statement (EIS), fails to mention that these “stressors” are described by the EPA as known hazards, many of which are highly toxic at both acute and chronic levels.

The 20,000 tons of “stressors” mentioned in the EIS do not account for the additional 4.7 to 14 tons of “metals with potential toxicity” that the Navy plans to release annually, from now on, into inland waters along the Puget Sound in Washington state.

In response to concerns about these plans, a Navy spokeswoman said that heavy metals and even depleted uranium are no more dangerous than any other metal, a statement that represents a clear rejection of scientific fact. It seems that the very U.S. military operations meant to “keep Americans safe” come at a higher cost than most people realize – a cost that will be felt for generations to come both within the United States and abroad.

Whitney Webb is a MintPress contributor who has written for several news organizations in both English and Spanish; her stories have been featured on ZeroHedge, the Anti-Media, 21st Century Wire, and True Activist among others – she currently resides in Southern Chile.

Continuing months of war rhetoric, Defense Secretary James Mattis today warned North Korea risks a course of action that “would lead to the end of its regime and the destruction of its people.” He insisted North Korea needs to immediately “stand down.”

This comes in the context of President Trump yesterday threatening “fire and fury unlike the world has ever seen” against North Korea for its behavior. Trump followed that up today insisting America’s nuclear weapons are better than ever, and that they are the “most powerful nation in the world” and always will be no matter what.

Mattis, for his part, accused North Korea of being to blame for everything, demanding that the state “stop isolating itself,” as US officials continue to impose new sanctions and threaten a massive war against them.

North Korean officials have downplayed the situation, though their state media has suggested they are developing a plan that would involving attacking the US island of Guam, and raising the possibility of a “preemptive strike” on the US if they believe an attack is imminent.

The US, of course, has constantly threatened their own preemptive strikes against North Korea for years now, and those threats have only grown. This inevitably raises concerns that one side or the other is going to blink first and jump headlong into a calamitous war.

Featured image is from the author.

“In the early 1800s, doctors who worked with mental patients began to notice that some of their patients who appeared outwardly normal had what they termed a moral depravity or moral insanity, in that they seemed to possess no sense of ethics or of the rights of other people. The term psychopath was first applied to these people around 1900. The brains of psychopaths have been found to have weak connections among the components of the brain’s emotional systems.” Psychology Today

“Psychopathsshow a lack of emotion, especially the social emotions, such as shame, guilt, and embarrassment. Hervey Cleckley [one of the first to diagnose the sickness in 1941] said that the psychopaths he came into contact with showed a general poverty in major affective reactions and a lack of remorse or shame. The Psychopathy Checklist Revised (PCL-R) describes psychopaths as emotionally shallow and showing a lack of guilt. Psychopaths are notorious for their lack of fear. They show blame externalization, i.e., they blame others for events that are actually their fault. Glibness, superficial charm, untruthfulness, insincerity, impulsiveness, outright pathological lying and devaluing speech by inflating and distorting it toward selfish ends [are character traits]. The psychopath [is adept at] conning others for personal profit or pleasure. Cleckley spoke of his psychopaths showing a pathologic egocentricity [an incapacity for love] and a parasitic lifestyle. Psychology Today

President Donald Trump’s pathological behavior at home is evidenced in his Tweets and speeches. His communication with the “outside world” is typically acerbic and vengeful. His recent “fire and fury” threat to North Korea was belligerent, foolhardy and dangerous. The president simply does not understand, or care, that his words matter. In this instance, financial markets around the world were rattled for a time. Moreover, Trump’s biblical sounding threat came a day before the US dropped the second atomic bomb on Nagasaki.

Whether it’s slamming media reports as fake news or calling a sitting US senator a hustler, Trump always aims to debase. His closeted racist agenda towards Muslims, and, arguably, Blacks and Latino’s will nullify some of the gains America has made to achieve a measure of racial and gender equality. His ring kissing political appointees, with the exception of a couple of Marines, are buffoons whose only mission is the decimation of the US federal government which they hope leads to nationwide anarchy.

Fear and White Rage

Jeffrey St. Clair of Counterpunch digs deeper into the Trump psyche. He has written two must-read pieces. One spends a bit of time deconstructing Trump as a father and husband.

Another looks at some of Trump’s ignominious past. A gem from the latter piece is this:

“He sells fear and white rage, as if he has scented the rot eating away inexorably at the core of the System he helped construct. Of course, he still markets himself as the nation’s top stud, the only figure man enough to eradicate the gravest threat to the Republic: Mexican immigrants. [This] is certainly a grandiose hypocrisy. The family fortune was built on immigrant labor. His father Fred boasted that his empire of suburban shacks was constructed by laborers ‘right off the boat,’ untainted by union membership. Donald followed the same reasoning at his own construction sites and in the low-wage jobs at his casinos and hotels.”

Donald’s Political and Governing Psychopathy Infects Executive Branch

Trump’s political and ideological psychopathy is similar to the creature in the movie Alien.

Alien (1979): John Hurt in the middle of the movie’s iconic chest-busting scene. (Source: digitalspy.com)

That monstrous “thing ”is implanted into the actor John Hurt by a horseshoe crab-like critter that attaches itself to Hurt’s face. It uses Hurt as a host, siphoning off his life for its own. Ultimately, the Alien explodes out of Hurt’s chest/stomach area and scoots off somewhere into the spacecraft leaving Hurt dead. In the end, most of the crew of the spacecraft is killed.

Trump and most of his cronies exhibit the psychopathology of the Alien. They are slowly being implanted throughout the executive branch of the US government. They seek to eat away the guts of America’s federal institutions, agencies and departments by spreading their acidic ideology into the Departments of Agriculture and Education. It acts on the morale and effectiveness of civil servants like the acid fluid that flows from the Alien, melting through metal and burning human flesh. Trump’s 2018 budget is similar in purpose to the Alien’s inner jaw that destroys it human prey. Trump’s draconian budget and his use of the Congressional Review Act to reduce the federal government’s regulatory powers, along with his appointees who, for the most part, are callous money changers, serve as the Alien’s inner jaw.

Take, for example, the Trump administration and the Department of Energy (DOE). The DOE is one of the most important units of the federal government. It is on the frontlines of protecting America from weapons of mass destruction and in securing the fragmented electrical grid that the country depends on. DOE funded Tesla with seed money early on through a program called E-ARPA when Wall Street would not.

Michael Lewis of Vanity Fair writes a chilling story describing Trump’s political and ideological psychopathy at work in the $30 billion a year organization.

“The Trump people didn’t seem to grasp, according to a former DOE employee, how much more than just energy the Department of Energy was about. They weren’t totally oblivious to the nuclear arsenal, but even the nuclear arsenal didn’t provoke in them much curiosity. ‘They were just looking for dirt, basically,’ said one of the people who briefed the Beachhead Team on national-security issues. ‘What is the Obama administration not letting you do to keep the country safe?’  The briefers were at pains to explain an especially sensitive aspect of national security: the United States no longer tests its nuclear weapons. Instead, it relies on physicists at three of the national labs—Los Alamos, Livermore, and Sandia—to simulate explosions, using old and decaying nuclear materials.”

“[There were a] handful of young ideologues [sent to the Department of Energy] who called themselves the Beachhead Team. ‘They mainly ran around the building insulting people,’ says a former Obama official. ‘There was a mentality that everything that government does is stupid and bad and the people are stupid and bad,’ says another. They allegedly demanded to know the names and salaries of the 20 highest-paid people in the national-science labs overseen by the DOE. They’d eventually, according to former DOE staffers, delete the contact list with the e-mail addresses of all DOE funded scientists—apparently to make it more difficult for them to communicate with one another. ‘These people were insane,’ says the former DOE staffer. ‘They weren’t prepared. They didn’t know what they were doing.’”

Lewis also noted in the Vanity Fair piece that the DOE was an agency that Rick Perry wanted to eliminate. Perry’s role as head of the department has been ceremonial and bizarre, Lewis added.

Over Here, Over There

National security extends far beyond the US Department of Defense and the nation’s intelligence agencies as a close study of the US Instruments of National Power show. The INP’s are typically broken down into sensible categories: Diplomacy, Intelligence, Military, Economic, Financial, Law Enforcement, Information and human capital. Any one of them is powerful in its own right but they all overlap. No nation can match the INP’s when they are used in totality. That said, severely weakening or abusing any one of them can break the links that bind them together.

Take the INP Diplomacy, for example. Trump’s sleepy Secretary of State Rex Tillerson seeks to eliminate many functions within the Department through a 30 percent budget cut. One example of those reductions would be direct funding for quasi- and non-governmental organizations that serve niche missions, the Los Angeles Times reported. One group that will be hit is The American Jewish World Service who said much of its work would be jeopardized, according to the report. The group fights poverty all over the world through 450 local organizations. Tillerson’s State Dept. budget is a paltry $37.6 (for contrast purposes, note that Trump signed a $110 billion dollar arms deal with Saudi Arabia in May 2017).

President Donald Trump and King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud of Saudi Arabia sign a Joint Strategic Vision Statement for the United States and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, during ceremonies, Saturday, May 20, 2017, at the Royal Court Palace in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. (Official White House Photo Shealah Craighead)

Not listed specifically in the INP’s is Education. Here too, Trump wants to cut out approximately 14 percent of the Department of Education’s budget. That’s just one salvo in the Administration’s quest to privatize public education. There is, perhaps, no more insidious program than the one to let public education systems die out across the land. If the Trump people get their way, the education system in the United States will become financially and racially segregated, again. All the INP’s depend on a solid system of liberal and scientific education if the nation is to prosper. If the US does not take care of its people, and its infrastructure, the INP’s weaken across the board as those left behind come to believe that there is no future for them (job, health insurance, roof over the head) in the American way of life, what’s the point of their participation in a system that has left them as road kill?

False Prophet: Trump

Trump is a false prophet. Those motivated to support him will come to understand that his psychopathy and his presence in the Oval Office will, if not checked, lead not to civil war, but a wicked malaise throughout the land. The nation will devolve into tribes: A military-industrial tribe, an evangelical tribe, a progressive tribe, tribes based on race and ethnicity, corporate tribes, or displaced tribes, wealthy tribes. In this scenario, tribes are stove-piped and rarely interact other than perhaps through trade. The tribes that make up the country become drug addled, not unlike the Opioid epidemic underway, due in large part to unemployment and existential despair, according to Governing.

“It’s not simply about the rise of a new class of addictive drugs that now take the lives of some 91 Americans every day. The opioid crisis is a jobs crisis; it’s an affordable housing crisis. The same forces that have reshaped the economy over the past decade have left a void that’s been filled, in many places, by opioids. A University of Pennsylvania study after last November’s election found that President Trump had over performed in counties with the highest rates of “deaths of despair,” which include suicide, drug overdose and alcohol poisoning. It supports the fact that there are many Americans who feel left behind by the changing economy, and who fundamentally don’t believe the current political and policy framework is helping them.”

Trump’s two pronged national security strategy for the world seems to be this: Fire and fury and trade wars abroad, and incite domestic unrest at home. It is not all President Trump’s fault, of course. He is what he is, a psychopath. In the end, Americans will come to realize they need to demand more of each other and those they elect to represent them. In times of crisis, the United States tends to produce great leaders. There is no one out there yet.

Jefferson always said he thought a little revolution now and then is necessary. That revolution is coming. Americans need to get their s**t together.

John Stanton can be reached at [email protected]

US President Donald Trump yesterday issued a bloodcurdling threat against North Korea, dramatically heightening the danger of a war on the Korean Peninsula that could rapidly engulf the region and the world. “North Korea best not make any more threats to the United States,” he warned. “They will be met with fire, fury and, frankly, power, the likes of which this world has never seen before.”

Trump’s comments can only inflame a situation of acute tensions following the test launching of two long-range North Korean missiles last month and the imposition of punitive UN Security Council sanctions that threaten to cripple North Korea’s economy. For Trump to threaten to reduce the small impoverished country to ashes is the height of recklessness.

Trump has deliberately undermined the efforts of US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson over the past week to lay the basis for negotiations by reassuring North Korea that the US is not seeking regime-change or a pretext for launching a military assault. The unstable, crisis-ridden regime in Pyongyang can only assume that it faces an imminent and massive attack by the United States. It is responding with its own bellicose rhetoric.

In a statement yesterday, North Korea declared it was “examining the operational plan” to strike US bases on Guam with medium- to long-range ballistic missiles. Such threats play directly into the hands of the Trump administration by providing the excuse for the US to carry out pre-emptive strikes against North Korea.

Not since the Cuban missile crisis of 1962 has the world stood so close to the brink of nuclear war. An incident or accident, whether minor or major, could trigger a conflict that rapidly draws in other nuclear-armed powers, such as China and Russia, with incalculable consequences.

Unlike 1962, when US President John Kennedy sought to defuse the crisis and overruled the demands of his fascistic Air Force chief of staff, General Curtis LeMay, to bomb Russian missile sites in Cuba, Trump is intentionally escalating the North Korean crisis. His threats are unprecedented for a US president. One is compelled to go back to the fascistic rants of Hitler to find any parallel.

No one should dismiss Trump’s statements as empty rhetoric. By threatening North Korea with annihilation if it carries out further tests, Trump has created a situation where it is impossible for him to back down. Moreover, such is the intense crisis and infighting in American ruling circles that Trump may be driven to launch a reckless attack on North Korea as a means of diverting attention from the political turmoil at home.

The Trump administration, assisted by a servile media, is already ramping up a propaganda campaign aimed at stampeding American public opinion into believing that US cities are in imminent danger of a nuclear attack from North Korea.

The Washington Post yesterday featured an article entitled, “North Korea is fast approaching Trump’s red line.” The article uncritically reported claims made in “a previously secret Defence Intelligence Agency analysis” that Pyongyang had produced “a miniaturised warhead that can fit inside one of the intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM) that it has been testing.”

These claims come from the same American intelligence establishment that forged the lies about weapons of mass destruction used to justify the illegal invasion of Iraq. They cannot be taken at face value. Everything about North Korea’s so-called ICBMs remains in question, including their range, accuracy, warhead load and ability to survive re-entry into the earth’s atmosphere.

Trump is utterly indifferent to the immense loss of life that would result from a war with North Korea. Even if the conflict were limited to the Korean Peninsula, the number of deaths would run into the millions. According to one estimate, the population of the South Korean capital Seoul alone would suffer a million casualties in the first hours of the fighting.

Speaking on the NBC “Today” program last week, right-wing Republican Senator Lindsey Graham gave a chilling insight into Trump’s thinking.

“If there’s going to be a war to stop [Kim Jong-un], it will be over there,” Graham said. “If thousands die, they’re going to die over there. They are not going to die over here—and he’s told me that to my face.”

Graham declared that war was “inevitable” unless North Korea halted its missile tests—in other words, completely capitulated to US demands.

“There will be a war with North Korea over their missile program if they continue to try to hit America with an ICBM. [Trump] has told me that and I believe him.”

The acute danger of war in Asia is not simply the product of the fascistic individual Trump, but expresses the profound and insoluble crisis of global and American capitalism. US administrations—Republican and Democratic alike—have resorted to military aggression in a desperate bid to reverse the protracted decline of American capitalism and establish its global dominance.

A succession of wars in the Middle East, North Africa and Central Asia is now coalescing into a direct confrontation between the world’s major economic powers. The Obama administration’s “pivot to Asia” involved an enormous military buildup throughout the Indo-Pacific in preparation for war against China—the central target of US threats against North Korea.

In Europe, the US is involved in one military exercise after another as it prepares for a military confrontation with Russia, which is engaged in its own extensive war games. In the Middle East, the US and Russia are militarily involved on opposing sides of the Syrian conflict. Any one of these flashpoints could become the trigger for war between nuclear-armed powers that would kill millions, if not billions, of people and destroy civilisation as we know it.

This extraordinarily tense situation is extremely serious. Workers around the world cannot afford to wake up in the morning to find that the US has launched massive attacks on North Korean military installations and industry, that Pyongyang has retaliated by hitting Seoul and Tokyo, and that China, Russia and the other major powers are issuing their own threats and putting their nuclear arsenals on high alert.

The urgent task facing the working class is the building of an international anti-war movement based on a socialist program to put an end to capitalism, the root cause of war. That is the political perspective for which the International Committee of the Fourth International and the World Socialist Web Site are fighting.

Featured image is from Stubhill News.

Political corruption often leads to a constitutional crisis. The Watergate scandal that took down Richard Nixon shook up American politics. Over four decades later, we are now seeing another scandal associated with campaign officials. Dubbed “Russiagate”, a liberal media frenzy began over the claim of possible Trump campaign collusion with Russia before and during the 2016 election. Now, new intelligence intercepts reveal that Attorney General Jeff Sessions discussed aspects of the Trump campaign with a Russian ambassador. With the initiative to impeach Trump put out there, are we approaching another Watergate moment?

Impeachment process against Nixon was triggered after a break-in at the Democratic National Committee (DNC) headquarters at the Watergate office complex in D.C. and the administration’s attempted cover-up. The story of Russiagate that is now quickly unfolding also involves the DNC, but this time the scandal centers on a foreign actor with the allegation that “Russia meddled in the US election”.

To be clear, many can agree that Donald Trump is unfit to be president and could possibly be one of the worst presidents in US history. He has already betrayed many of his campaign promises and his six-month approval rating is now the lowest of any president in 70 years. His financial ties with Russia for some are deeply worrying. From his son-in-law Jared Kushner’s suspected improper conduct in meetings with Russians to Trump’s recent private meeting with Putin after the G-20 dinner all may need thorough investigation.

At the same time, the media’s obsession is creating anti-Russia sentiment that resembles a McCarthy-era hysteria. This is all happening while lawmakers reached a deal to put tougher sanctions on Russia, along with Iran and North Korea, while Trump terminated the CIA covert program that aids Syrian rebels. Before we blindly wrap ourselves with this charged narrative that surrounds leaders of two nuclear nations, we need to examine the discourse in its larger context.

WikiLeaks as a Spoiler

The other figure that has been thrown into an eye of this storm is WikiLeaks. Back in April, the new CIA director Mike Pompeo claimed that the intelligence community determined that Russia interfered with the 2016 US election. He denounced WikiLeaks, calling the organization a “non-state hostile intelligence service” that works with Russian intelligence.

The idea that Vladimir Putin intervened in the US election by working with Julian Assange was perhaps a strategically convenient plot for the Democrats to deflect the real issues and distract others from their own failures. This might have been a soothing and convincing narrative for many Democrats, who are suffering the hang-up of their blatant loss and trying to cope with what is perceived as a horrifying post-election reality.

It is interesting to see the shift of attitude toward WikiLeaks in the American political landscape leading up to election 2016. News media outlets like Fox News, who were previously extremely negative and condemning the whistleblowing site, praised the organization for their publishing of the DNC database and emails that belong to Clinton’s campaign manager John Podesta. Trump joined this cheer during his campaign, declaring “I love WikiLeaks!”, which he now flipped on, with his administration vowing to crack down on whistleblowers and make Assange’s arrest a priority.

In contrast with this right wing appraisal, leaked documents were met with scrutiny from liberals. The image of WikiLeaks as a champion of free speech, who used to represent to them a positive force began to erode. In the eyes of the left, WikiLeaks has become “a spoiler”, ruining the Democrats lovefest by publishing damaging information from Clinton campaign chairman Podesta, during the final weeks leading up to the election.

This all sounds very familiar. Recall Ralph Nader’s Green Party candidacy in 2010. Back then, the corporate media adamantly attacked Nader, as if recognizing that the man who took on the auto industry in the 1960s for lax safety regulation might then be taking on the unregulated defective engine of a concocted political system that is itself unsafe at any speed with either party. They saw Nader’s presidential run as a threat to the very system that allows them to maintain power.

Ironically, Nader’s effort as a presidential candidate was met with vociferous opposition from Democrats. Here, the party who is said to represent democratic values engaged in dirty tricks, obstructing ballot access in various states. Nader, who has become a national icon as a crusader for justice was quickly painted as unreasonable, with character flaws of egomania and being irrational. Then came the infamous label ‘spoiler’, with the ever perpetuated myth of “Nader cost Gore the election”. He was blamed for Al Gore’s own incompetence and overall election fraud that led to the Bush presidency.

Significance of the DNC Leaks

Now, let’s closely look at the Democrats’ favorite tactic of this “spoiler effect”. There is a parallel between WikiLeaks and Nader. First of all, what did Nader’s efforts in the electoral arena reveal? It exposed the illusion of choice and real machination behind corporate politics of duopoly. Nader, in his recent interview on The Intercept detailed a history of decline and decadence of the Democratic Party. Here, consumer advocate and former presidential candidate deconstructed this closed system of control. He explained how the tactics of false opposition and “divide and conquer” schemes work, where Democrats run their campaign by focusing on how bad Republicans look, with fear and hatred pulling the strings of voters.

The WikiLeaks publication of the DNC leaks and Podesta emails gave evidence of the deep corruption of the Democratic Party. It confirmed the death of the liberal class that progressives like Nader, Chris Hedges and Jill Stein have been informing the public about for a long time. Here, this transnational organization disrupted the legacy system of national politics and gave an opportunity for American people to truly see what the Democratic Party had become.

From these documents, those who are willing to look beyond the rhetoric can learn how the Democratic Party that was supposed to represent the working class has long been operating as corporate shills, keeping its hollowness and deception hidden, through a myriad of perception management. Concrete acts of corruption were exposed, including the DNC’s rigging of the candidate selection process, along with their media collusion. The internal workings of the Clinton campaign revealed a “pied piper” strategy to actively elevate far right bigoted presidential candidates, in order to increase Clinton’s chance of winning. But perhaps what was the most disturbing for many of Clinton supporters was her own words given in her speech to Goldman Sachs, clearly showing where her loyalty really lies.

Shooting the Messenger

Information revealed in these documents was clearly vital for the public. Yet, instead of the corporate media fiercely going after this scandal, they fed the story of a Russia-Trump connection, with a twist of WikiLeaks as the culprit. By shooting the messenger, attention was diverted from the vital message itself. So what is the unreported side of the Russia hack story?

In regards to the source of their published documents, Assange made it clear that although he cannot talk about the identity of the source, due to the organization’s source protection policy, he made it clear that it was not a state actor. Aside from this unconfirmed Russia hack story, there was another perhaps more convincing source that has not been explored thoroughly.

In a piece titled, “Seth Rich, Craig Murray and the Sinister Stewards of the National Security State” Mike Whitney asked;

“Why is it a ‘conspiracy theory’ to think that a disgruntled Democratic National Committee staffer gave WikiLeaks the DNC emails, but not a conspiracy theory to think the emails were provided by Russia?”

There was a mysterious murder of a 27-year-old DNC staff member named Seth Rich, which has not been fully investigated. Craig Murray, a former British ambassador to Uzbekistan came out to debunk the White House’s continuous accusation of Moscow’s effort to undermine the election on the behalf of Trump. Murray claimed that he received the package in a wooded area near an American University and denied the allegation leaks were from the Russians, noting how “the source had legal access to the information” and that documents came not by hack but by leak.

Intel Vets’ report that just came out with their study of forensic evidence backs Murray’s statement and further sheds light on a gap between Murray and the government’s claims. In a memo to President Trump, a group of former US intelligence officers claimed that “the same inside-DNC, copy/leak process was used at two different times, by two different entities, for two distinctly different purposes”. The conclusion of independent cyber investigations indicated that “data was leaked (not hacked) by a person with physical access to DNC computers, and then doctored to incriminate Russia.”

Doctrine of the Lesser of Two Evils

From secret manipulation to spoiler smearing, leaked documents along with the left’s reaction has revealed hidden forces that drive the American political system. It is the doctrine of the lesser of two evils that grips the liberal class, making not only the electoral arena dysfunctional, but an efficient machine to seize the will of the populace.

This logic continues to have power over the people, even after the presidential race between two of the most hated candidates in US history ended. It is deeply internalized to the point that it has become the identity that shapes the American left and the lenses through which many interpret events. No matter how many times American voters are fooled with this so-called strategic voting, they cannot seem to challenge this defeated mentality and break this repeated cycle of abuse. The designers of this managed American democracy know this and always count on people to act against their interests as long as they can keep them in hatred and fear.

These emotional reactions harnessed through this mentality will shut down critical thinking and distort perceptions of people. This distortion is manifested in their lack of introspection and the failure to truly account for events. In the case of Nader’s presidential run in 2000, Al Gore could have won the election in a landslide, if his campaign incorporated many of Nader’s demands and really stood up for the people. Also, why were the recounts in Florida stopped and Gore so easily conceded?

In the recent aftermath of the DNC revelations, there seemed to be no accountability for the Clinton campaign. During the Democratic primary in 2016, after this DNC scandal came to light, why didn’t Bernie Sanders with his claimed revolution challenge the DNC about its corruption? Why did he ask his supporters to side with the most hawkish and corporate candidate, Hillary Clinton? And now, a new question confronts us; are we willing to go with this Russia hacking story, even when the government lacks any conclusive evidence?

Hacking Our Humanity

Russiagate might be one of the great scandals of our decade. Yet, before we jump onto the bandwagon with this political hype, we might need to question the unexamined assumptions in the whole story that concerns Russia and this quick reversion to the old cold war era. These include examining the reasons why Americans should be afraid of Russia and a real assessment of whether that country actually ever posed any threat in the last few decades.

Russia has its own corruption and is notorious for oppressing political dissidents and journalists, but so does our own government. In fact, the US government has been acting as one of the greatest violators of human rights by supporting and creating terrorism out in the world. While it is pointing fingers at Russia, it has its own track record of meddling in other country’s elections, even overthrowing democratically elected leaders that are not favorable to US interests.

Is our mind hacked to forget our common humanity, making us always see other countries as potential enemies, and blinding ourselves to our own government’s crimes? Our understanding of the world is being filtered by elite interests and corporate media. In his book “Blood and Belonging: Journeys into the New Nationalism”, Michael Ignatieff (1995) described how this political doctrine of nationalism is a belief that “the world’s people are divided into nations, and that each of these nations has the right to self-determination, either as self-governing units within existing nation-states or as nation-states of their own” (p. 5).

Nationalism, as the underwriting of our social and political narratives, condition us to see one another as separate and make us pit interests against others that don’t fall within our borders. When identification with this separated identity and a sense of belonging is tightened, it turns patriotism into hyper-vigilance about the security of territory. It is not real diplomacy with sincere efforts to cooperate and solve conflicts, but an adversarial mentality inherent in chauvinistic nationalism that is shaping US foreign policy. From environmental destruction, climate change, economic exploitation to resource wars, many of the problems in the world are rooted in this illusion of separation and denial of our kinship as species on the Earth.

Opening the Gate of Democracy

WikiLeaks’ publishing of authentic documents began to open governments. Transparency exercised through the First Amendment sparked a light in the dungeon of this corporate duopoly, calling for our courage to cut the shackles that have for so long tied us to this two-horned beast. WikiLeaks did it for Kenyans in 2007 and for the people of Iceland in 2009. In 2016, it could have been America’s turn.

In the perceived act of crashing the party, they exposed the real ruling power of a society that runs deep inside the interlocking control of the CIA, NSA, FBI and the military industrial complex. The presence of the world’s first global Fourth Estate that acts on behalf of interests of all people, threatens the intelligence community for the sole reason that their existence and unaccounted power depends on this adversary paradigm of the nation-state and its premise to “keep America safe”.

At a recent Aspen Security Forum, in an annual gathering of intelligence and national security officials and experts, Pompeo clarified his declaration of the whistleblowing site as an enemy, saying that WikiLeaks will take down America any way they can and that they won’t do anything good for Americans.

This hostility directed toward anyone that challenges US hegemony should alert us, when considering CIA’s funding of anti-Assad forces in Syria, newly declassified docs confirming their backing of a coup in Iran, coupled with its insidious hacking operations revealed by WikiLeaks’ publication of Vault 7.

With Russiagate, we might be entering our new Watergate moment. But this is much bigger than Trump. The scandal is not about a particular president or administration. It is an indictment of the entire American political system. Both Republicans and Democrats betrayed the American people and the press have failed to perform their duty with our First Amendment rights guaranteed under the Constitution. Thomas Paine reminds us that,

“We have it in our power to begin the world over again.” In this time of turmoil and chaos of unprecedented corruption, we need to stay awake and vigilant, for the gate of democracy can only be opened with our own power.

Nozomi Hayase, Ph.D., a native of Japan, is a columnist, researcher, and the First Amendment advocate. She is member of The Indicter‘s Editorial Board and a former contributing writer to WL Central and has been covering issues of free speech, transparency and the vital role of whistleblowers in global society.

Featured image is from the author.

In 2003 I had, along with some American lawyers, members of the National Lawyers Guild, the good fortune to be able to travel to North Korea, that is the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea, in order to experience first hand that nation, its socialist system and its people. The joint report issued on our return was titled “The Grand Deception Revealed.” That title was chosen because we discovered that the negative western propaganda myth about North Korea is a grand deception designed to blind the peoples of the world to the accomplishments of the Korean people in the north who have successfully created their own circumstances, their own independent socio-economic system, based on socialist principles, free of the domination of the western powers.

At one of our first dinners in Pyongyang our host, Ri Myong Kuk, a lawyer, stated, on behalf of the government, and in passionate terms, that the DPRK’s Nuclear Deterrent Force was necessary in light of US world actions and threats against the DPRK. He stated, and this was repeated to me in a high level meeting with DPRK government officials later on in the trip, that if the Americans would sign a peace treaty and non-aggression agreement with the DPRK, it would de-legitimize the American occupation and lead to reunification. Consequently there would be no need for nuclear weapons. He stated sincerely that,

“It’s important that lawyers are gathering to talk about this as lawyers regulate the social interactions within society and within the world,” and added just as sincerely that, “the path to peace requires an open heart.”

It appeared to us then and it is apparent now, in absolute contradiction to the claims of the western media, that the people of the DPRK want peace more than anything else so they can get on with their lives and endeavours without the constant threat of nuclear annihilation by the United States. But annihilation is what they in fact face and whose fault is that? Not theirs.

We were shown American documents captured in the Korean War that are compelling evidence that the US planned an attack on North Korea in 1950. The attack was carried out using American and south Korean forces with the assistance of Japanese Army officers who had invaded and occupied Korea decades before. The North Korean defence and counter-attack was then claimed by the US to be “aggression” which the United States manipulated in the media to get the UN to support a “police operation,” the euphemism they chose to use to carry on what was in fact their war of aggression against North Korea. Three years of war and 3.5 million Korean deaths followed and the US has threatened them with imminent war and annihilation ever since.

The UN vote in favour of a “police action” in 1950 was itself illegal since Russia was absent for the vote in the Security Council. The quorum required for the Security Council under its Rules of Procedure, is all member delegations so that all members must be present or a session cannot proceed. The Americans used a Russian boycott of the Security Council as their opportunity. The Russian boycott took place in defence of the position of the Peoples Republic of China that it should have the China seat at the Security Council table, not the defeated Kuomintang government. The Americans refused to do the right thing, so the Russians refused to sit at the table until the legitimate Chinese government could.

The Americans used this opportunity to carry out a type of coup in the UN, to take over its machinery for its own interests by arranging with the British, French and Kuomintang Chinese to back their actions in Korea by a vote in the absence of the Russians. The allies did as the Americans asked and voted for war with Korea, but the vote was invalid, and the “police action” was not a peace-keeping operation nor justified under Chapter VII of the UN Charter, since article 51states that all nations have the right of self defence against an armed attack, which is what the North Koreans faced and had reacted to. But the Americans have never cared much about legalities and they did not then for the American plan in its entirety was to conquer and occupy North Korea as a step towards the invasions of Manchuria and Siberia and the law was not going to get in their way.

Many in the west have little idea of the destruction carried out in Korea by the Americans and their allies; that Pyongyang was carpet bombed into oblivion, that civilians fleeing the carnage were strafed by American planes. The New York Times stated at the time that 17,000,000 pounds of napalm were used in Korea just in the first 20 months of the war. More bomb tonnage was dropped on Korea by the US than the US dropped on Japan in World War Two. American forces hunted down and murdered not only communist party members but also their families. At Sinchon we saw the evidence that American soldiers forced 500 civilians into a ditch, doused them with gasoline and set them on fire. We stood in an air raid shelter with walls still blackened with the burnt flesh of 900 civilians, including women and children who had sought safety during an American attack. American soldiers were seen pouring gasoline down the air vents of the shelter and burning them all to death. This is the reality of the American occupation for Koreans. This is the reality they fear still and never want to repeat. Can we blame them?

But even with this history, Koreans are willing to open their hearts to former enemies. Major Kim Myong Hwan, who was then the main negotiator at Panmunjom on the DMZ line, told us that his dream was to be a writer, a poet, a journalist, but said in sombre tones, that he and his five brothers “walk the line” at the DMZ as soldiers because of what happened to his family. He said their struggle was not against the American people but their government. He was lonely for his family lost at Sinchon; his grandfather strung up a pole and tortured, his grandmother bayoneted in the stomach and left to die. He said,

“You see, we have to do it. We have to defend ourselves. We do not oppose the American people. We oppose the American policy of hostility and its efforts to exercise control over the whole world and inflict calamity on people.”

It was the opinion of the delegation that by maintaining instability in Asia, the U.S. can maintain a massive military presence and keep China at bay in its relations with South and North Korea and Japan and use it as a lever against China and Russia. With the continuing pressure within Japan to remove the U.S. bases in Okinawa, the Korean military operations and war exercises remain a central point of American efforts to dominate the region

The question is not whether the DPRK has nuclear weapons which it is legally entitled to have, but whether the United States, which has nuclear arms capability on the Korean peninsula, and which is now installing its THADD missile defence system there, a system that threatens the security of Russia and China, is willing to work with the North toward a peace treaty. We found North Koreans avid for peace and not attached to having nuclear weapons if peace can be established. But the American position remains as arrogant, aggressive threatening and dangerous as ever. In this age of American “regime change,” “pre-emptive war” doctrines, and American efforts to develop low yield nuclear weapons as well as their abandonment and manipulation of international law it was not surprising that the DPRK plays the nuclear card. What choice do the Koreans have since United States threatens nuclear war on a daily basis and the two countries that logic dictates would support them against American aggression, Russia and China, join with the Americans in condemning the Koreans for arming themselves with the only weapon that can act as a deterrent against attack.

The reason for this is unclear since the Russians and Chinese have nuclear weapons and built them to act as a deterrent to an attack by the United States just as North Korea is doing. Some of their government statements indicate that they fear not being in control of the situation and that if North Korea’s acts of defence draw a US attack, they will be attacked as well. One can understand that anxiety. But it begs the question why they cannot support North Korea’s right to self-defence and put more pressure on the Americans to conclude a peace treaty, a non-aggression agreement, and to withdraw their nuclear and armed forces from the Korean peninsula. But the great tragedy is the clear inability of the American people to think for themselves, in the face of continual deceptions, and to demand that their leaders exhaust all avenues of dialogue and peacemaking before even contemplating aggression on the Korean Peninsula.

The fundamental foundation of North Korean policy is to achieve a non-aggression pact and peace treaty with the United States. The North Koreans repeatedly stated that they did not want to attack anyone, hurt anyone or be at war with anyone. But they have seen what has happened to Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria and countless other countries and they have no intention of having that happen to them. It is clear that any U.S. invasion would be defended vigorously and that the nation can endure a long, arduous struggle.

At another location on the DMZ we met a Colonel who set up field glasses through which we could see across the divide between north and south. We could see a concrete wall built on the South side, a violation of truce agreements. The major described such a permanent structure as a “disgrace for the Korean people who are a homogeneous people.” A loud speaker continuously blared propaganda and music from speakers on the south side. The irritating noise goes on for 22 hours a day, he said. Suddenly, in another surreal moment, the bunker’s loudspeakers began belting out the William Tell overture, better known in America as the theme from the Lone Ranger. The Colonel urged us to help people see what is really going on in the DPRK, instead of basing their opinions on misinformation. He told us

“We know that like us the peace loving people in America have children, parents and families.”

We told him of our mission to return with a message for peace and that we hope to return someday and “walk with him together freely in these beautiful hills.” He paused and said, “I too believe it is possible.”

So while the people of the DPRK hope for peace and security the United States and its puppet regime in the south of the Korean peninsular wage war, carrying out for the next three months the largest war games ever conducted there, involving air craft carriers, nuclear armed submarines and stealth bombers, aircraft and large numbers of troops, artillery and armour.

The propaganda campaign has been taken to dangerous levels in the media with accusations that the North murdered a relative of the leader of the DPRK in Malaysia, though there is no proof of this, and no motive for the north to do it. The only ones to benefit from the murder are the Americans and their controlled media using it to whip up hysteria about the North and now allegations of the North having chemical weapons of mass destruction. Yes, friends, they think we were all born yesterday and that we haven’t learned a thing or two about the character of the American leadership and the nature of their propaganda. Is it any wonder that the North Koreans fear that any day these on going war “games” can be switched to the real thing, that these “games” are just a cover for an attack, and in the meantime to create an atmosphere of terror for the Korean people?

There is a lot than can be said about the real nature of the DPRK, its people and socio-economic system, its culture. But there is no space for that here. I hope people can visit as our group did and experience for them selves what we experienced. Instead I will close with the concluding paragraph of the joint report made on our return from the DPRK and hope that people take it in, think about it, and act to bring on its call for peace.

“The people of the world have to be told the complete story about Korea and our government’s role in fostering imbalance and conflict. Action must be taken by lawyers, community groups, peace activists, and all citizens of the planet, to prevent the U.S. government from successfully generating a propaganda campaign to support aggression in North Korea. The American people have been subjected to a grand deception. There is too much at stake to get fooled again. This peace delegation learned in the DPRK a significant piece of truth essential in international relations. It’s how broader communication, negotiation followed by maintained promises, and a deep commitment to peace can save the world – literally – from a dark nuclear future. Experience and truth free us from the threat of war. Our foray into North Korea, this report and our on-going project are small efforts to make and set us free.”

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.

July 5 marked the 206^th anniversary of Venezuela’s independence. For any country the commemoration of such an event is of great historical importance and pride. The term “independence” has occupied centre stage in the last 18 years, during the Bolivarian Revolution. Former President Hugo Chávez and current President Nicolás Maduro have made independence and sovereignty the pillars on which Socialism of the 21^st Century of the Bolivarian Revolution rests.

But can we draw parallels between Venezuelan independence of 1811 that gave birth to the First Republic, and the Venezuelan independence of today’s Fifth Republic? Are there lessons to be learned? More than we think.

The attempts of independence in Venezuela go back to the first armed rebellion in 1795 – exactly one hundred years before the death in combat of José Martí in another independence movement in Cuba.

Francisco de Miranda, considered a precursor of Venezuelan independence, tried twice to reach the Venezuelan territory with an armed expedition from Haiti in 1806. Those incursions ended in failures, due to the negative influence of the clergy that was in favour of the Spanish colonial power, and the indifference of the population that was not ready for freedom.

Miranda proposed total independence from Spain. However by 1808, the Venezuelan oligarchy was divided. Some wanted a certain degree of autonomy that allowed them more political control, but within the Spanish empire, while others were supporters of full independence. Neither group prevailed.

The origins of the movement that culminated in the 1811 declaration of independence and started the First Republic rest on the events of April 19, 1810.

On that date a local governing board (Junta Suprema) was established formally in Caracas. This was a transitional government, not independent but still in favour of the Spanish Crown. However, this board carried out internal reforms; abolished the slave trade, tried to unify the provinces and strengthen its autonomy, and made efforts abroad to obtain the solidarity of other colonies and the recognition and help of foreign nations.

The character of this government did not allow it to go beyond the autonomy that had been proclaimed on April 19. For this reason, the governing board resolved to convene elections and set up a General Congress, before which it would decline its powers and decide the future fate of the Venezuelan provinces. The call for elections ensured the transformation of the de facto government into an independent constitutional government. This early example of entrusting power to a constituent assembly is what gives this date, April 19, 1810, a prominent place in the Venezuelan coat of arms.

Following the elections, the first session of the newly created Venezuelan Congress took place on March 2, 1811. On July 3, lively debates started among the deputies around the issue of full independence. Among those in favour was Simón Bolívar who pronounced the famous question: “Three hundred years of calm, is it not enough?” in reference to the Spanish domination. On July 5, with independence being approved with forty votes in favour, representing seven of the ten provinces, the President of the Congress announced that it was “Solemnly Declared Venezuela’s Absolute Independence”. The Declaration is the first case of a Spanish colony of America declaring its absolute independence.

1876 study by Martín Tovar y Tovar depicting the signing of the declaration. (Source: Wikimedia Commons)

This leadership role of Venezuela and its independence movement in 1811 is evocative of today’s movement for the creation of the Patria Grande (Great Homeland) of Latin America initiated by Simón Bolívar and resumed by Hugo Chávez.

The Act of Independence established a new nation, the United States of Venezuela, based on republican and federal principles, forever abolishing the Monarchy under the values of the equality of individuals, the prohibition of censorship, and freedom of expression. It enshrined the constitutional principle and was radically opposed to the political, cultural and social practices that had existed for 300 years in Spanish America. These values coincide with those that the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela espouses today.

A paragraph from the Venezuelan Act of Independence reveals the reasons given by the deputies for the need to cut ties with Spain:

“Notwithstanding our protests, our moderation, generosity, and the inviolability of our principles, contrary to the wishes of our brethren in Europe, we were declared in a state of rebellion; we were blockaded; war was declared against us; agents were sent amongst us, to excite us one against the other, endeavoring to take away our credit with the other Nations of Europe, by imploring their assistance to oppress us.” [1]

Simply by adding the U.S. and some OAS countries to Europe, this statement might well have been written by the Maduro government in response to current threats to the Bolivarian Revolution. The similarity of aggression tactics over 200 years apart is striking, including the reference to foreign intervention.

The First Republic of Venezuela only lasted one year, giving lessons for the Fifth Republic. Bolívar himself analyzed the causes of the fall in his Manifiesto de Cartagena document in 1812.[2]

Popular hostility. This was a hostile resistance to the independence movement by people who preferred to remain a Spanish colony. This lack of internal solidarity gave strength to the colonialist powers to bring down the First Republic. Today we see a similar hostile resistance by rightwing groups in Venezuela and the effort that Chavismo is exerting to strengthen internal solidarity.

Economic crisis. The crisis was triggered by the loss of international trade, the flight of capital and the rising cost of staples, which resulted in a negative popular reaction against the authorities. This was not because independence was a “failed” system, just as today Chavismo is not a failed system. The crisis is manufactured in order to create unrest among the population.

Mistrust between military power and oligarchy. When Generalisimo Francisco de Miranda was given powers to support independence in 1811, the oligarchy was afraid of a military dictatorship, so Congress did not support executive measures. This has been a recurrent situation in Latin America. Today Chavismo has brought trust and a strong civilian-military alliance that the Venezuelan opposition is intent in breaking in order to achieve a regime change.

Tolerance system. The idea that reactionary movements could be carried out without bloodshed was widespread among many supporters of independence. However, the lack of a firm hand was also seen as a weakness leading to the loss of the first republic. Bolivar, for one, said:

“Under cover of this pious doctrine, to each conspiracy happened a pardon, and to each pardon happened another conspiracy that was forgiven again”.

This final cause of the fall of the First Republic raises an interesting question with respect to the restraint shown by the Maduro administration vis-à-vis the high level of violence from the rightwing opposition.

It would take 187 more years until 1999 before Hugo Chávez resumed the building of true Venezuelan independence, on the foundations of that First Republic, learning from those historical lessons. Not only did Chávez restore the true meaning of independence, but he broadened it to encompass sovereignty and popular government or democracy.

Chávez achieved the true self-determination of Venezuela, and extended it to all of Latin America. To do this, he clearly understood that it was necessary to consolidate the internal unity of the country and the continent. Internally, he created a united party, the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV), gathering the scattered political forces; in foreign policy, he created ALBA as the core alliance for the Patria Grande.

The 1810-1811 independence movement remains alive with the government of Nicolás Maduro. Today we see the possibility of further consolidation of the Bolivarian dream with the process to elect the individuals and sectoral members of the National Constituent Assembly that will reexamine the Venezuelan constitution. [3] This is necessary as the only peaceful, legitimate, constitutional and democratic process for all Venezuelans to participate in without exclusion, to achieve the Venezuela they want.

Nino Pagliccia has two Master’s Degrees from Stanford University and is a retired researcher on Canada-Cuba collaborative projects at the University of British Columbia. He has published many peer-reviewed journal articles and has contributed chapters to books on topics about Cuba, the Cuban healthcare system and solidarity. He has been a long-time activist and has organized groups to do voluntary work in Cuba for almost 15 years.

This article was originally published by People’s Voice.

Notes

[1] http://www.declarationproject.org/?p=370

[2] http://www.psuv.org.ve/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/ManifiestodeCartagena.pdf

[3] http://www.cubadebate.cu/especiales/2017/05/29/por-que-se-convoca-una-asamblea-constituyente-en-venezuela/#.WWm2KTOZMdV

Featured image is from the author.

Syrian Arab Army (SAA) Tiger Forces and tribal forces fighters have liberated Jabir, Numaysah, Khamisiyah and Wadi Susah near the important ISIS-held town of Maadan in the province of Raqqah.

The government forces advanced amid the ongoing fighting in the area of Sukhna in the province of Homs. ISIS is desperately trying to stop the SAA advance along the Sukhna-Resafa and the Sukhna-Deir Ezzor roads and deploys reinforcements to the area. This allows government forces to advance on other frontlines.

Pro-government forces, led by the Republican Guard, are advancing against Hayat Tahrir al-Sham and its allies in Jobar and Ayn Tarma in the Eastern Ghouta region near Damascus. The group is excluded from the ceasefire because it has links with al-Qaeda.

The general idea of the government advance in the area is to put pressure on militants in Jobar and then to Isliate the district from Ayn Tarma. The control over the area of Zamalka and the nearby roads plays a key role in the strategy.

The SAA and its allies liberated from US-backed militants a large area in the Damascus desert, including Tal Assadi, Tal Jarin, Tal Riyahayn and Bi’r Saboun. Thus, government forces have shortened frontline and further isolated the US garrison at At Tanf.

Tensions are growing between the US-led coalition and the Popular Mobilization Units (PMU) in Iraq.

On August 7, from 40 to 70 PMU service members were reportedly killed and at least 6 units of the military equipment were destroyed as a result of the ISIS attack in the Akashat area at the Iraqi side of the At Tanf border crossing and the US military strikes that allegedly took place during the fighting.

According to initial reports, the US-led coalition conducted at least 1 air strike on the positions of the PMU. Then, Kata’ib Sayyid al-Shuhada (the Martyrs of Sayyid Battalions, a PMU group deployed in the area) clarified that the US-led coalition had used the M142 High Mobility Artillery Rocket System from the At Tanf garrison.

Kata’ib Sayyid al-Shuhada said that the coalition was aware that the military strikes hit the PMU and called on leaders of the PMU factions to hold a meeting in order to discuss the incident and to prepare an appropriate response to the aggression.

The US-led coalition obviously denied any strikes on the PMU while pro-US sources speculated that the PMU just tried to blame the coalition for own losses in the battle against ISIS.

The two sides already have complicated relations because they support different sides in the ongoing Syrian conflict and have different visions of the Iraqi future after the collapse of ISIS. PMU factions oppose the US willingness to determine the Iraqi foreign and internal policy and seek to re-establish Iraq as an independent regional player.

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Featured image is from Al Masdar News.

In the headlines recently: Trump threatening North Korea of ‘fire and fury’ vis-a-vis the latter’s most recent successful addition to its nuclear artillery, and Trump signing of the economic sanctions bill against Russia, Iran and North Korea. US aggression goes on in, inter alia, Syria, Venezuela, Afghanistan, Libya, Iraq, Yemen… Who is indeed the greatest threat to peace? Read our selected articles below.

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“War of Words” Between US and North Korea Could Lead to Nuclear War

By Stephen Lendman, August 09, 2017

Tough sanctions and hostile rhetoric bring things closer to confrontation, threatening possible nuclear war on the Korean peninsula.

Is America Trying to Start a World War? This Is How It Would Happen

By Darius Shahtahmasebi, August 09, 2017

Sanctions are always a prelude to war. Though few are aware, the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941 was arguably in response to America’s attempt to cripple Japan’s booming economy through embargos and asset freezes, ending Japan’s commercial relationship with the United States and provoking the desperation that led to their attack.

Grotesque Logic for Venezuela, The Cuban Revolution and the Second Road of Ana Belén Montes

By Prof Susan Babbitt, August 09, 2017

Knowledge is not power. If we don’t know what knowledge explains, or might, it’s useless. In the last 30 years, the world has produced more information than in the preceding 5,000.[i] Daily murders of journalists in Mexico are reported. There is no lack of information.

Polls: U.S. Is ‘The Greatest Threat to Peace in the World Today’

By Eric Zuesse, August 09, 2017

It has happened again: yet another international poll finds that the U.S. is viewed by peoples around the world to be the biggest threat to world peace.

Global Deception: “The War on Terror” is a Campaign for Permanent War and Terror

By Mark Taliano, August 08, 2017

Syria, like its predecessors Libya and Iraq, was largely free of terrorist infestations before U.S.-led NATO and its allies waged their phony so-called “humanitarian” wars of mass destruction – largely for the benefit of corporate monopolies and imperial hegemony.

Pentagon Escalates Military Presence in Yemen: Genocidal Cholera Epidemic, U.S. Seeks to Seize Control of Yemen’s Strategic Resources

By Abayomi Azikiwe, August 08, 2017

Although the Trump administration claims that its main concern in Yemen is the proliferation of al-Qaeda armed units, an article in the New York Times on August 6 suggests otherwise. After acknowledging the continuation of foreign policy objectives toward Yemen extending over from the Obama to the Trump White House, the newspaper maintains that the propping up of the Hadi forces is essential to the broader objectives inside the country.

Neocons Have Been Destroying Sovereign Nations for 20 Years, Yugoslavia, Libya, Syria

By Neil Clark, August 08, 2017

The ‘New Hitlers’ – Milosevic, Hussein and Gaddafi – who we were told were the ‘biggest threats’ to world peace, are dead and buried. But guess what? The killing goes on.

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It all began as a series of daring accretions starting last December. Now, Tent City in Sydney’s Martin Place has become something of an institution, albeit of the fleeting sort. But this gathering of the homeless, rather than being considered a social consequence of galloping house prices and general cost of living, has been uneven in pulling heartstrings.

Benedict Brook, writing for the site News.com.au, commences by describing a site where “dining is alfresco, the security 24/7 and the view, of some of Sydney’s most historic buildings, is sublime.” This lends itself to an inadvertent act of nose-turning disgust, with those in tent city supposedly making inappropriate use of a prime slice of real estate which “won’t cost anything at all.”[1]

To Brook’s credit, the rest of the piece rises from its initially unpromising dredges, sketching a few humane portraits. He takes note of Nigel Blackmore’s tent, located in the middle of this accumulating wonder.

“I was the kind of person who would walk past, be annoyed, and ring the council and say ‘when will you move these bloody people on?’”

Then came divorce, the loss of a job, and the need to find accommodation. How mighty the high do fall.

A community has gathered, generating its own rituals around economies of respect. The camp is clean, and various fire safety rules observed. Signs dot the camp about observing appropriate behavioural standards; alcohol is (supposedly) prohibited. Bringing cups for the gratis food and drink is also encouraged. Within this speck of an ecosystem, located with thumbing defiance in front of Australia’s Reserve Bank, comes a concerned, desperate counter that is not entirely based on choice.

Some who have left their spot on Martin Place find an option with walls, a cold residence as that of Sammy Migenta, who had been a Tent City resident for six weeks.

“There’s nothing there. There’s no community. You don’t know anyone there. I don’t have anything to cook with.”[2]

A roof over a head is no guarantee of community, and Tent City, lacking fabricated structures and that solidity of permanence, has become homely, generating its own mores of comfort.

The slew of responses to its continued presence vary, depending on whether it is a matter for New South Wales, or the City of Sydney. The ultimate aim is to dismantle it. The City of Sydney council has been none too impressed by affordability problem of the city. The New South Wales government is even less sympathetic.

Pru Goward, the NSW Minister for Family and Community Services, feels that the government has been pulling its weight, with her department making dozens of visits to offer accommodation and services.

“No-one needs to sleep in a tent, support is available.”

The central premise is one that parcels out the commons in a specific way. The residents of Tent City are deemed offensive, their very presence a violation of an aesthetic sensibility. In what must count as part of the socially absurd, the NSW government has also expressed “safety concerns” over the presence of such items as bookshelves and a piano. What might a comfort for a Tent City resident is a barbaric discomfort for the housed, moneyed passerby.

This logic was extended by Premier Gladys Berejiklian who introduced legislation that gives the authorities power to remove people or goods that constitute “unacceptable impacts on the public.” The grammatically tortured wording of the provision doesn’t detract from its ultimate meaning: the unbecoming, the ugly, unacceptable, will be removed, cast aside, buried. At this writing, the bill has passed, without amendments.

As the Premier explained on August 2, it all had to do with comfort – and distinctly not the comfort of those who had found a safe space in a very conspicuous part of Sydney, away from wretched doorways and shelters. She was full of “concern” that “there were some people there who are not there for the right reasons”.[3] Such stiff propriety!

The blame, according to the Berejiklian government, is easy: Sydney Lord Mayor, Clover Moore. For her part, Moore announced on Monday that an agreement had, in fact, been organised with the self-styled mayor of tent city, Lanz Priestly, based on relocating residents to a 24-hour safe space. The Premier also registered her approval.

When faced with the details, Priestly remained unclear, though Moore, through a City of Sydney Council meeting, has approved $100,000 towards the establishment of the safe space. The Australian, in the best traditions of the Murdoch press, was delighted to tell its readers that Priestly could not be trusted. He had a “criminal past”, as if that explained anything.

This scrap focuses on an age old argument on how the commons are used. The fact that the unsightly is being punished, that a legislative response penalising conduct rather than socially redressing poverty, continues a long tendency in the approach of power towards the inappropriate, and those deemed threats to the order.

In Melbourne, Sydney’s old sparring rival of a city, a war of sorts has been declared by Lord Mayor Robert Doyle against the ugly, the unseemly, the unclean. The rather naff notion came into being earlier this year: outlawing the very condition of homelessness itself.

This does something of a reversal on that old notion advanced by George Bernard Shaw in his preface to Major Barbara:

“The greatest of evils and the worst of crimes is poverty.”

But for Doyle and his ilk, such a condition can itself be criminalised.

Of 2,550 submissions on the proposed by-law, 84 percent were keenly opposed. An alternative, advanced by an alliance of 54 groups, suggested the establishment of safe spaces for the homeless to gather, secure lockers for storage, and pre-emptive intervention programs.[4]

The latest focus, however, is on Sydney, and how Tent City will disappear into the ether of an invisible consciousness. The promise of closure, with the euphemistic language of cleaning, is a daily occurrence. Residents are already packing, ready for the quick departure. A community born; a community removed.

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

Notes

[1] http://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/real-life/inside-the-homeless-tent-city-taking-over-sydneys-iconic-martin-place/news-story/aaeb8b7a91a7c71cdd54eb8eee636408

[2] http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-08-09/tent-city-residents-share-stories-of-survival-inside-sydney-camp/8785144

[3] http://www.smh.com.au/video/video-news/video-nsw-news/tent-city-inappropriate-berejiklian-20170802-4wq01.html

[4] https://www.justiceconnect.org.au/CBDhomelessnessframework

Featured image is from The Australian.

Featured image: People wave banners and shout slogans as they attend a rally in support of North Korea’s stance against the U.S., on Kim Il-sung Square in Pyongyang on August 9, 2017. (Source: The Intercept)

For once, Donald Trump has a point. “We can’t let a madman with nuclear weapons let on the loose like that,” he told Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, according to the transcript from their bizarre phone conversation that was leaked to The Intercept in May.

The madman the U.S. president was referring to, of course, was North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un. The madman the rest of us should be worried about, however, is Trump himself, who — lest we forget — has the sole, exclusive and unrestricted power to launch almost 1,000 nuclear warheads in a matter of minutes, should he so wish.

Most nonproliferation experts — as well as former President Jimmy Carter and a number of former Pentagon and State Department officials, both Republican and Democrat — agree that the brutal and murderous Kim, for all his bluster, is not irrational or suicidal, but bent on preserving his regime and preventing a U.S. attack. Nuclear weapons are a defensive, not an offensive, tool for the North Korean leadership — which, as Bill Clinton’s defense secretary William Perry observed on Fox News in April, may be “ruthless and … reckless” but “they are not crazy.”

Got that? Kim is bad, not mad.

The same cannot be said of The Donald. Think I’m being unfair? In February, a group of psychiatrists, psychologists and social workers wrote to the New York Times “that the grave emotional instability indicated by Mr. Trump’s speech and actions makes him incapable of serving safely as president.” In April, another group of mental health experts told a conference at Yale University’s School of Medicine that Trump was “paranoid” and “delusional” and referred to the president’s “dangerous mental illness.”

Is it any wonder then that so many recent reports suggest that South Koreans are more worried about Trump than they are about the threat posed by their hostile and paranoid neighbor?

Consider Trump’s reaction this week to a confidential U.S. intelligence assessment — leaked to the Washington Post — that the DPRK is now able to construct a nuclear warhead small enough to fit inside its missiles.

“North Korea best not make any more threats to the United States,” the president declaimed, in response to a reporter’s question at his Bedminster Golf Club on Tuesday. “They will be met with fire and fury like the world has never seen. He has been very threatening beyond a normal state. And as I said, they will be met with fire, fury and frankly power the likes of which this world has never seen before.”

How is this not an unhinged response from the so-called Leader of the Free World? In May, he said he would be “honored” to meet with Kim and praised him as a “pretty smart cookie.” In August, he took a break from his golfing vacation to casually threaten nuclear annihilation of Kim’s country (not even on the basis of any aggression by the DPRK, incidentally, but only their “threats”).

Does Trump understand the difference between escalating and de-escalating a nuclear crisis? Listen to Republican Senator John McCain, who has never met a “rogue nation” he did not want to bomb, invade or occupy.

“I take exception to the president’s words,” McCain said on Tuesday, adding: “That kind of rhetoric, I’m not sure how it helps.”

I mean, just how crazy do you have to be to advocate a preemptive nuclear strike that even McCain cannot get behind?

Trump has form, though, when it comes to loose talk about nukes. During the presidential campaign, in August 2016, MSNBC host and ex-Republican congressman Joe Scarborough revealed that Trump, over the course of an hour-long briefing with a senior foreign policy adviser, had asked three times about the use of nuclear weapons. At one point during the meeting, according to Scarborough, the then-GOP presidential candidate asked his adviser,

“If we had them, why can’t we use them?”

To be so blasé, enthusiastic even, about the deployment of the ultimate weapon of mass destruction is a stark indicator of Trump’s childishness, ignorance, belligerence, and, yes, derangement. Here is a president who is impulsive, erratic, unstable; whose entire life and career have been defined by a complete lack of empathy. Remember his strategy for defeating ISIS? “Bomb the shit out of ’em” and “take out their families.”

So do you think civilian casualties were on his mind when he issued his “fire and fury” warning? Come. Off. It.

Listen to McCain’s fellow Republican super-hawk Senator Lindsay Graham.

“If there’s going to be a war to stop [Kim], it will be over there,” Graham told NBC’s Matt Lauer last week, recounting a recent conversation he had with the president. “If thousands die, they’re going to die over there. They’re not going to die over here — and he’s told me that to my face.”

“This is madness,” Kingston Reif, a nuclear disarmament specialist the Arms Control Association, tweeted in response to Graham’s re-telling of Trump’s remarks. “Unhinged madness.”

Remember that 72 years ago today, the United States dropped the second atomic bomb on Japan, killing around 39,000 people in Nagasaki. Three days earlier, the first A-bomb killed around 66,000 people in Hiroshima. But a nuclear war on the Korean peninsula would make those strikes on Hiroshima and Nagasaki look like pinpricks. Experts say even a conventional war between the U.S. and the DPRK could kill more than 1 million people; a nuclear exchange, therefore, might result in tens of millions of casualties. Trump’s national security adviser, H.R. McMaster, has admitted that such a preemptive strike by the U.S. would be a “humanitarian catastrophe.”

Does the president care? Graham doesn’t seem to think so. Trump’s former ghostwriter Tony Schwartz, who spent 18 months in his company while working on The Art of the Deal, has called the president a “sociopath.” In fact, one quote more than any other stood out from Schwartz’s much-discussed interview with the New Yorker in July 2016 and, perhaps, should keep us all awake at night.

“I genuinely believe that if Trump wins and gets the nuclear codes,” said Schwartz, “there is an excellent possibility it will lead to the end of civilization.”

We can’t say we weren’t warned.

As reported by CNN, “The United Nations Security Council on Saturday [5 August 2017] passed a resolution imposing new sanctions on North Korea for its continued intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) testing and violations of UN resolutions.

With 15 votes in favor, Resolution 2371 was passed unanimously.

The resolution targets North Korea’s primary exports, including coal, iron, iron ore, lead, lead ore and seafood. The sanctions also target other revenue streams, such as banks and joint ventures with foreign companies.”

Resolution 2371 was imposed – by whom else? – the United States of America, the chief aggressor of the universe; the exceptional rogue nation that is never punished, never sanctioned by the very Peace Body, the UN Security Council (UNSC), for the millions of war deaths and drone murders caused by illicit and hegemonic wars, by proxies or by its own killing machine around the globe within the last 70 years – or more.

This anti-DPRK Resolution was unanimously approved by all 15 members of the UNSC, including North Korea’s only allies, China and Russia. They may have had their own strategic and selfish reasons for their lack of solidarity, for not vetoing the Resolution and instead proposing diplomatic measures – or else. Diplomatic measures which might have called to reason Washington and the Pentagon hawks, as well as stopped Trump’s monstrous warmongering, shouting nuclear threats from his golf club in Bedminster, N.J., “They will be met with fire and fury like the world has never seen.” Russia and China could have proposed a counter Resolution seeking dialogue and forcing Washington to stop its belligerence. – They didn’t. And that’s sad.

It is an outright shame to what extent literally the entire world is bending over backwards to please Washington – and, as always, its dark and deep state handlers that pull the strings on the White House puppets. Have we become a world of vassals to a dying empire?

The same military aggressors led by Washington, more than 60 years ago have destroyed North Korea to rubble, decimating its then population of 10 million by a third. The US has never allowed the signing of a Peace Agreement. Instead the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) under a shaky armistice pact was and is permanently threatened by Washington’s huge military bases in South Korea and Japan with fleets of war planes and vessels. The DPRK’s airspace is frequently invaded by US bombers; military maneuvers by the US armed forces with Japan and South Korea are repeated intimidations on the peaceful lives of the North Korean people. A 250 km long strictly enforced Military Demarcation Line at the 38^thparallel north is keeping Korean families separated for more than three generation.

What the Kim-Jong-un regime is showing the world is nothing more than its readiness to defend the DPRK’s achievements of a marvelously rebuilt country with full social benefits of free education and health services for more than 25 million people. The nuclear deterrent is no danger to anyone, not Japan, not its Southern brother, and least the United States. And Trump knows damn well. His ‘fire and fury’ boasting is nothing more than sabre rattling, showmanship, as it pertains to a golfing multi-billionaire psychopath, who is dreaming of running a thanks-goodness faltering empire. He wouldn’t dare touching North Korea, because then, he would face the fire and fury of DPRK’s allies, Russia and China, despite their unfortunate UNSC vote.

The UN sanctions, if observed, would reduce North Korea’s annual export earnings by a third, i.e. by an estimated US$ 1 billion. It might plunge the country, already isolated by the west’s previous sanctions into extreme hardship and famine. Although it is unlikely that China, with whom North Korea deals for 90% of its external trade, would adhere to such sanctions, it is nevertheless an unfair threat.

Let’s look for a moment at the legality of the UN Sanctions Resolution in a broader context – in a context that the world’s populace has either never known or easily forgets.

Chapter VII of the United Nations Charter addresses Actions with Respect to Threats to the Peace, Breaches of the Peace, and Acts of Aggression.

These actions are governed by specifically Articles 39, 40, 41 and 42 of Chapter VII:

Article 39

The Security Council shall determine the existence of any threat to the peace, breach of the peace, or act of aggression and shall make recommendations, or decide what measures shall be taken in accordance with Articles 41 and 42, to maintain or restore international peace and security.

Article 40

In order to prevent an aggravation of the situation, the Security Council may, before making the recommendations or deciding upon the measures provided for in Article 39, call upon the parties concerned to comply with such provisional measures as it deems necessary or desirable. Such provisional measures shall be without prejudice to the rights, claims, or position of the parties concerned. The Security Council shall duly take account of failure to comply with such provisional measures.

Article 41

The Security Council may decide what measures not involving the use of armed force are to be employed to give effect to its decisions, and it may call upon the Members of the United Nations to apply such measures. These may include complete or partial interruption of economic relations and of rail, sea, air, postal, telegraphic, radio, and other means of communication, and the severance of diplomatic relations.

Article 42

Should the Security Council consider that measures provided for in Article 41 would be inadequate or have proved to be inadequate, it may take such action by air, sea, or land forces as may be necessary to maintain or restore international peace and security. Such action may include demonstrations, blockade, and other operations by air, sea, or land forces of Members of the United Nations.

Bilaterally imposed economic sanctions, the main staple of the United States slapped around the globe at will and at any nation that doesn’t lick her boots, are totally illegal and in breach of any international law.

The legality of UN imposed economic sanctions is highly questionable in most cases, and particularly in the case of North Korea, as they may affect Human Rights, or more specifically the civilian’s economic, social and cultural rights (ESCR), as adverse collateral effects may lead to a humanitarian emergency, i.e. the shortage of certain goods and services essential for the guarantee of basic standards of living (Gebs, Robin. “Humanitarian Safeguards in Economic Sanctions Regimes: A Call for Automatic Suspension Clauses, Periodic Monitoring, and Follow-Up Assessment of Long-Term Effects”. The Harvard Human Rights Journal 18 (2005), p. 173).

In the case of North Korea, such sanctions are outright farcical, if not illegal, since the main aggressor is not and has never been the DPRK, but the United States.

It would, however, never occur to any nation on this lovely planet to introduce a sanctions regime on the US of A through the foremost Peace and Security body of the United Nations. – And why not? – Because they are all afraid of US retaliations. Though, Russia and China and the block of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) that already comprises half of the world’s population and controls one third of the globes economic output – and is clearly in the process of fully detaching themselves from the US-dollar hegemony – they should no longer fear retaliations – should they?

It is mind-boggling, how the world, the league of nation as it were, has been brainwashed to the core accepting almost without exceptions and questions Washington’s atrocities, crimes on humanity, indiscriminate killings of tens of millions of people around the world, the most vicious human rights abuse recent history has ever known, without blinking an eye. At the same time, this ‘solidary’ league of nations is ready to strangle a small brave nation, North Korea, that is merely testing its capacity of self-defense facing constant illegal threats from the world’s aggressor in-chief, the United States of America.

Peter Koenig is an economist and geopolitical analyst. He is also a former World Bank staff and worked extensively around the world in the fields of environment and water resources. He lectures at universities in the US, Europe and South America. He writes regularly for Global Research, ICH, RT, Sputnik, PressTV, The 4th Media (China), TeleSUR, The Vineyard of The Saker Blog, and other internet sites. He is the author of Implosion – An Economic Thriller about War, Environmental Destruction and Corporate Greed – fiction based on facts and on 30 years of World Bank experience around the globe. He is also a co-author of The World Order and Revolution! – Essays from the Resistance.

Featured image is from gov.uk.

As reported by CNN, “The United Nations Security Council on Saturday [5 August 2017] passed a resolution imposing new sanctions on North Korea for its continued intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) testing and violations of UN resolutions.

With 15 votes in favor, Resolution 2371 was passed unanimously.

The resolution targets North Korea’s primary exports, including coal, iron, iron ore, lead, lead ore and seafood. The sanctions also target other revenue streams, such as banks and joint ventures with foreign companies.”

Resolution 2371 was imposed – by whom else? – the United States of America, the chief aggressor of the universe; the exceptional rogue nation that is never punished, never sanctioned by the very Peace Body, the UN Security Council (UNSC), for the millions of war deaths and drone murders caused by illicit and hegemonic wars, by proxies or by its own killing machine around the globe within the last 70 years – or more.

This anti-DPRK Resolution was unanimously approved by all 15 members of the UNSC, including North Korea’s only allies, China and Russia. They may have had their own strategic and selfish reasons for their lack of solidarity, for not vetoing the Resolution and instead proposing diplomatic measures – or else. Diplomatic measures which might have called to reason Washington and the Pentagon hawks, as well as stopped Trump’s monstrous warmongering, shouting nuclear threats from his golf club in Bedminster, N.J., “They will be met with fire and fury like the world has never seen.” Russia and China could have proposed a counter Resolution seeking dialogue and forcing Washington to stop its belligerence. – They didn’t. And that’s sad.

It is an outright shame to what extent literally the entire world is bending over backwards to please Washington – and, as always, its dark and deep state handlers that pull the strings on the White House puppets. Have we become a world of vassals to a dying empire?

The same military aggressors led by Washington, more than 60 years ago have destroyed North Korea to rubble, decimating its then population of 10 million by a third. The US has never allowed the signing of a Peace Agreement. Instead the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) under a shaky armistice pact was and is permanently threatened by Washington’s huge military bases in South Korea and Japan with fleets of war planes and vessels. The DPRK’s airspace is frequently invaded by US bombers; military maneuvers by the US armed forces with Japan and South Korea are repeated intimidations on the peaceful lives of the North Korean people. A 250 km long strictly enforced Military Demarcation Line at the 38^thparallel north is keeping Korean families separated for more than three generation.

What the Kim-Jong-un regime is showing the world is nothing more than its readiness to defend the DPRK’s achievements of a marvelously rebuilt country with full social benefits of free education and health services for more than 25 million people. The nuclear deterrent is no danger to anyone, not Japan, not its Southern brother, and least the United States. And Trump knows damn well. His ‘fire and fury’ boasting is nothing more than sabre rattling, showmanship, as it pertains to a golfing multi-billionaire psychopath, who is dreaming of running a thanks-goodness faltering empire. He wouldn’t dare touching North Korea, because then, he would face the fire and fury of DPRK’s allies, Russia and China, despite their unfortunate UNSC vote.

The UN sanctions, if observed, would reduce North Korea’s annual export earnings by a third, i.e. by an estimated US$ 1 billion. It might plunge the country, already isolated by the west’s previous sanctions into extreme hardship and famine. Although it is unlikely that China, with whom North Korea deals for 90% of its external trade, would adhere to such sanctions, it is nevertheless an unfair threat.

Let’s look for a moment at the legality of the UN Sanctions Resolution in a broader context – in a context that the world’s populace has either never known or easily forgets.

Chapter VII of the United Nations Charter addresses Actions with Respect to Threats to the Peace, Breaches of the Peace, and Acts of Aggression.

These actions are governed by specifically Articles 39, 40, 41 and 42 of Chapter VII:

Article 39

The Security Council shall determine the existence of any threat to the peace, breach of the peace, or act of aggression and shall make recommendations, or decide what measures shall be taken in accordance with Articles 41 and 42, to maintain or restore international peace and security.

Article 40

In order to prevent an aggravation of the situation, the Security Council may, before making the recommendations or deciding upon the measures provided for in Article 39, call upon the parties concerned to comply with such provisional measures as it deems necessary or desirable. Such provisional measures shall be without prejudice to the rights, claims, or position of the parties concerned. The Security Council shall duly take account of failure to comply with such provisional measures.

Article 41

The Security Council may decide what measures not involving the use of armed force are to be employed to give effect to its decisions, and it may call upon the Members of the United Nations to apply such measures. These may include complete or partial interruption of economic relations and of rail, sea, air, postal, telegraphic, radio, and other means of communication, and the severance of diplomatic relations.

Article 42

Should the Security Council consider that measures provided for in Article 41 would be inadequate or have proved to be inadequate, it may take such action by air, sea, or land forces as may be necessary to maintain or restore international peace and security. Such action may include demonstrations, blockade, and other operations by air, sea, or land forces of Members of the United Nations.

Bilaterally imposed economic sanctions, the main staple of the United States slapped around the globe at will and at any nation that doesn’t lick her boots, are totally illegal and in breach of any international law.

The legality of UN imposed economic sanctions is highly questionable in most cases, and particularly in the case of North Korea, as they may affect Human Rights, or more specifically the civilian’s economic, social and cultural rights (ESCR), as adverse collateral effects may lead to a humanitarian emergency, i.e. the shortage of certain goods and services essential for the guarantee of basic standards of living (Gebs, Robin. “Humanitarian Safeguards in Economic Sanctions Regimes: A Call for Automatic Suspension Clauses, Periodic Monitoring, and Follow-Up Assessment of Long-Term Effects”. The Harvard Human Rights Journal 18 (2005), p. 173).

In the case of North Korea, such sanctions are outright farcical, if not illegal, since the main aggressor is not and has never been the DPRK, but the United States.

It would, however, never occur to any nation on this lovely planet to introduce a sanctions regime on the US of A through the foremost Peace and Security body of the United Nations. – And why not? – Because they are all afraid of US retaliations. Though, Russia and China and the block of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) that already comprises half of the world’s population and controls one third of the globes economic output – and is clearly in the process of fully detaching themselves from the US-dollar hegemony – they should no longer fear retaliations – should they?

It is mind-boggling, how the world, the league of nation as it were, has been brainwashed to the core accepting almost without exceptions and questions Washington’s atrocities, crimes on humanity, indiscriminate killings of tens of millions of people around the world, the most vicious human rights abuse recent history has ever known, without blinking an eye. At the same time, this ‘solidary’ league of nations is ready to strangle a small brave nation, North Korea, that is merely testing its capacity of self-defense facing constant illegal threats from the world’s aggressor in-chief, the United States of America.

Peter Koenig is an economist and geopolitical analyst. He is also a former World Bank staff and worked extensively around the world in the fields of environment and water resources. He lectures at universities in the US, Europe and South America. He writes regularly for Global Research, ICH, RT, Sputnik, PressTV, The 4th Media (China), TeleSUR, The Vineyard of The Saker Blog, and other internet sites. He is the author of Implosion – An Economic Thriller about War, Environmental Destruction and Corporate Greed – fiction based on facts and on 30 years of World Bank experience around the globe. He is also a co-author of The World Order and Revolution! – Essays from the Resistance.

Featured image is from gov.uk.

As central bankers, finance ministers, and government policy makers head off to their annual gathering at Jackson Hole, Wyoming, this August, 24-26, 2017, the key topic is whether the leading central banks in North America and Europe will continue to raise interest rates this year; another topic high on the agenda is when the three major central banks – the Federal Reserve, European Central Bank and Bank of England – might begin to sell off their combined $9.8 trillion dollar balance sheets that they accumulated since the 2008-09 banking crisis.

But the more fundamental question – little discussed by central bankers and academics alike – is what are the likely effects of further immediate rate hikes and/or commencement of central banks’ balance sheet reductions? The assumption is further rate hikes and sell-offs will have little negative impact on the real economy or financial markets. But will they? The effects of hikes and sell off will prove the opposite of what they predict.

Central banks in the US and Europe were grossly in error predicting in 2008 that massive liquidity injections and zero interest rates would re-stimulate their economies and return them to pre-crisis real GDP growth rates. They are now about to repeat a similar error, as they presume that raising those rates, and retracting excess liquidity by selling off balance sheets, will not have a significant negative impact on the real economy or financial markets.

Central banks’ balance sheets have been growing for almost nine years, driven by programs of zero-bound (ZIRP) interest rates and the introduction of firehose liquidity injections enabled by quantitative easing, QE, bond and other securities purchases.

After eight years, the official consensus among central bankers and government policy makers is that the 2008 shift to unlimited central bank liquidity and zero (or below) interest rates is now over. The front page business press and media lead story is that central banks are now about to embark collectively in a new direction – raising their benchmark rates and selling off their massive, bloated balance sheets. But don’t bet on it. They may find sooner, rather than later, that rates cannot be raised much higher and that balance sheets—now totaling $9.8 trillion for the US, UK and Europe alone—may not be reduced much, if at all, without provoking a further slowdown of their still chronically weak real economic recoveries, or without precipitating a serious contraction in equity, bond and other financial asset markets.

European Central Bank

Globally, balance sheet totals are actually far greater than the $9.8 trillion accumulated to date by the big 3 central banks—the Fed, Bank of England, and European Central Bank. When other major central banks, like Switzerland’s, Sweden’s, Canada’s and others are added, it’s well more than $10 trillion. And then there’s the nearly $5 trillion balance sheet of the Bank of Japan and the more than $5 trillion of the People’s Bank of China. Worldwide, central banks’ balance sheets therefore exceed well over $20 trillion…with the total still growing.

It’s equally important to understand that the $20 trillion in central bank balance sheet debt essentially represents bad debt from banks, corporations, and private investors that was in effect transferred from their private balance sheets to the balance sheets of the central banks as a result of nine years of bailout via QE (quantitative easing), zero interest rate free money, and other policies of the central banks.  The central banks bailed out the capitalist system in 2008-09 by shifting the bad debts to themselves. In the course of the last 9 years, the private system loaded itself up on still more debt than it had in 2007.  Can the central banks, already bloated with $20 trillion bail out bankers and friends once again? That’s the question. Attempting to unload the $20 trillion to make room for the next bailout—as the central banks now propose to do—may result, however, in precipitating the next crisis. That’s the contradiction.

Attempting to sell off such massive balance sheet holdings will prove far more daunting than those central banks now anticipate. And their coordinated raising of interest rates risks precipitating another recession – given their fundamentally weak economies with chronic low bank lending, slowing investment, stagnating productivity, contracting public investment, and lack of real wage income gains. For the global economy has undergone a major structural change in recent decades that has been rendering central bank interest rate policies increasingly ineffective with regard to stimulating real investment and growth, while simultaneously contributing to further financial fragility as well.1

The US Economy is Fragile and Weakening—Not Robust and Stable

All eyes are on the US central bank, the Fed, and what signals it gives at the Jackson Hole August 24-26 gathering, and the Fed’s subsequent policy committee in September. Will it continue to raise rates? Will it announce formally a schedule for balance sheet reduction in September? If the latter, will the announcement of sell-off be so minimal and token that it will generate a mere 0.25% hike in rates by year end 2018, as some pundits predict? Or will the psychological effects on investors – who have enjoyed eight years of record equity, bond, property, and derivatives asset price and thus extraordinary capital gains – consider the announcement as the signal to “cash in” and take their money and run, given the bubble levels already attained in equities, some bond markets, and real estate? And should the Fed continue to raise interest rates at a pace of 3 to 4 a year, what will be the impact on the US real economy?

US Federal Reserve

Economic potholes are beginning to appear in a number of places. Bank lending to US business has declined sharply, now growing at only 2%; consumer loans for auto, mortgages and credit cards have halved over the past year; real investment and productivity have nearly collapsed; the so-called “Trump Bump” has dissipated; government investment has contracted below 2007 levels and infrastructure spending is still but a discussion envisioned for 2019 at the earliest, if at all; and job growth has been consistently low quality, resulting in wage stagnation or worse for the vast majority of the labor force.

In this unstable environment the Fed has nonetheless has announced plans to continue to raise interest rates and to begin selling off its balance sheet. The question is just how much and when? Consensus thinking at the Fed is that rates can continue rising 3 to 4 times a year at .25 basis points a crack through 2019 without serious negative effects. And that the Fed’s balance sheet can start selling off immediately in 2017, initially at a modest rate of $10 billion a month, accelerating further at a later date.

But these were the same central bankers who believed their QE and zero bound rate programs would return the US real economy to robust growth by 2010 but didn’t; who maintained the Fed’s massive liquidity injections would attain a 2% goods and services inflation rate, which it still hasn’t; who argued that once unemployment fell to 4.5% (in the US), wage growth and consumption would return to past trends and stimulate the economy, which has yet to occur; and who argued in 2008, also incorrectly, that Fed QE programs providing bankers virtually free money would stimulate bank lending and in turn real investment and growth. The Fed’s latest predictions could prove no more correct about the consequences of further rate hikes and balance sheet reductions than they were about QE, ZIRP, and all the rest for the past eight years.

It’s Not Your Grandpa’s Global Economy

To assume that selling off that magnitude of securities – even if slowly and over extended time – will not have an appreciable impact on nominal interest rates is the kind of assumption that resulted in previous predictive errors circa 2008 since the possible effects on investors’ psychological expectations of more rate hikes and balance sheet selling are completely unknown.

Bank of England

After eight years of treating symptoms and not the disease, the global financial system has become addicted to super-low rates and to continued central bank excess liquidity provisioning. What started in 2008 as a massive, somewhat coordinated central bank lender of last resort experiment – i.e. global bank bailout – has over the past eight years evolved into a more or less permanent subsidisation of the private banking and financial systems by central banks. The system has become addicted to free money. And like all addictions, the habit won’t be broken easily. That means central bankers’ plans to raise interest rates in the immediate months ahead will likely “hit a wall” well before the announced rate levels they are projecting. Plans to sell off balance sheets will almost certainly be limited to the US Fed for some time. The ECB and BOE – as well as Bank of Japan and others – will wait and see what the Fed does. The Fed will proceed at a snails pace that will represent little more than mere tokenism, and in the event of further slowing of real GDP growth, or US financial markets correcting in a major way, it will halt selling altogether. In short, there will be little Fed balance sheet reduction before the next recession, and a continued escalation of balance sheets by central banks globally. Central banks will enter the next recession with further bloated balance sheets.

After eight years of treating symptoms and not the disease, the global financial system has become addicted to super-low rates and to continued central bank excess liquidity provisioning.

The Fed is thus on the verge of another major disastrous monetary policy shift and experiment. It will be unable to raise interest rates as it has announced, by 3 to 4 times a year for the next two years. Nor will it be able to sell off much of its current balance sheet, since anything but token adjustments will accelerate rates even higher. In this writer’s opinion, the federal funds rate cannot be raised above 2%, or the 10 year Treasury yield much above 3%, without precipitating either a serious financial market correction or an abrupt slowing of real economic growth, or both.

What the eight years since the 2008-09 financial crash and great recession reveals is that the major central banks, led by the Fed, have painted themselves in a corner. The massive liquidity provided to their banking systems – engineered by zero rates and QEs – failed even to adequately bail out their banks. Today more than $10 trillion in non-performing bank loans still overhang the major economies, despite the more than $20 trillion added to their central bank balance sheets in just the past eight years.

The fundamental changes in the global economy and radical restructuring of financial, capital and labor markets have severely blunted central banks’ main monetary tool of interest rate management. Just as reduction of rates have little positive effect on stimulating real investment and economic growth, rising rates will have a greater negative impact than anticipated on investment and growth. The Fed and other central banks may soon discover this should they raise rates much faster and further or engage in more than token balance sheet reduction.
Central bankers at the Fed, the BOE and ECB will of course argue the contrary.

They will promise the economy can sustain further significant rate hikes and can commence selling its balance sheet without severe negative consequences. But these are the same people who in 2008 promised rapid and robust recovery from QE and ZIRP programs that didn’t happen. What happened was an unprecedented acceleration in financial asset markets as equity and bond prices surged for eight years, high end real estate prices rose to prior levels, derivatives boomed, gold and crypto-currencies escalated in value, and income inequality soared to record levels – all fueled by the massive $10 trillion central bank liquidity injections that drove interest rates to zero or below. And now they tell us they plan to raise those rates without serious negative effects. Anyone want to buy the Brooklyn bridge? I think they’re also trying to sell that as well.

Dr. Jack Rasmus is author of the just published book, “Central Bankers at the End of Their Ropes? Monetary Policy and the Next Depression”, Clarity Press, July 2017, and the previously published “Systemic Fragility in the Global Economy”, also by Clarity Press, January 2016. For more information: http://ClarityPress.com/RasmusIII.html.

He hosts the radio show, Alternative Visions, on the Progressive Radio Network. He blogs at jackrasmus.com.

Source

1. For the author’s 2016 analysis of global financial restructuring, Systemic Fragility in the Global Economy, Clarity Press, January 2016. How central banks’ policies are failing is addressed in more detail in the just published book, Central Bankers at the End of Their Ropes: Monetary Policy and the Next Depression, by Jack Rasmus, Clarity Press, July 2017.

Featured image is from The Economist.

George W, Bush was known for his total ignorance of geography. “Dubya the Geographer: Someone Buy This Man an Atlas” appears in dubyaspeak.com, Dubya Speaks, We Record the Damage.  

Fast forward to 2017: What about Donald Trump who has his thumb on the nuclear button. What is his knowledge of geography.

What is the “damage” of ignorance among Trump’s foreign policy makers? In the words of Donald Trump:

“best not make any more threats to the United States. … [Kim Jong-un] has been very threatening – beyond a normal statement – and as I said, they will be met with fire, fury and, frankly, power the likes of which the world has never seen before.” (emphasis added)

“Trump Speaks, We Record the Damage.”  What is the “Damage” underlying Trump’s “fire, fury and power …” threats implying the preemptive use of nuclear weapons against North Korea?

And who will be around to “Record the Damage” in the wake of a world war?

Ask Trump, Where is North Korea? 

Where is the target country? 

A preventive first strike nuclear attack is now being contemplated against North Korea. And this is where Geography 101 comes in.

The distance between the centre of South Korea’s capital Seoul and the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) marking the border with North Korea is 57 km or 35 miles, half the distance between Manhattan and New Jersey (71 miles via Interstate Highway 95S).

The  distance between Seoul and Pyongyang is about 121 miles, less than the distance between the Trump Tower in Manhattan and The Trump Taj Mahal Casino in Atlantic City (131 miles)

Trump World Tower Manhattan

Pyongyang;  Compare the towers: Pyongyang vs. NYC

South Korea’s Gimpo international airport is barely 2 miles from the border with North Korea.

The distance between Seoul and the historical city of Kaesong in North Korea is 40 miles.

A nuclear attack against the DPRK would inevitably engulf  both North and South Korea, ie. the entire Korean peninsula, depending on the size and explosive yield of the nuclear bombs.

The Geopolitical Context: China, Russia, North Korea, South Korea, Japan

Pyongyang is close to the Chinese border. The DPRK has a border with the Russian Federation. The City of Vladivostok is approximately 100km from the DPRK border.

The entire Northeast Asian region –which largely consists of five countries– would also be affected  by the nuclear blast. In a bitter irony, two of these countries, namely Japan and South Korea are staunch allies and military partners of the US.

Source: screenshot of Google maps 

What would be the nature of the unspoken “damage” resulting from a US led nuclear attack against the DPRK?

According to “scientific opinion” on contract to the Pentagon, the mini-nukes (tactical nuclear weapons) (e.g. B61-11) with an explosive yield of up to 6 times a Hiroshima bomb are, “harmless to the surrounding civilian population because the explosion is underground”.

It’s a big lie which is now embedded in the military manuals. And those lies are part of the daily intelligence briefings which are fed to president Donald Trump who as Commander in Chief has the real powers of unleashing a nuclear war.

The Hiroshima bomb on August 6, 1945 was conducive to 100,000 killed or doomed in 9 seconds. Todays bombs (including the mini-nukes) are much more powerful.

Trump’s war against the DPRK is not only a war against the entire Korean nation. Inevitably the decision to use nuclear weapons against the DPRK would be a prelude to World War III.

George W, Bush was known for his total ignorance of geography. “Dubya the Geographer: Someone Buy This Man an Atlas” appears in dubyaspeak.com, Dubya Speaks, We Record the Damage.  

Fast forward to 2017: What about Donald Trump who has his thumb on the nuclear button. What is his knowledge of geography.

What is the “damage” of ignorance among Trump’s foreign policy makers? In the words of Donald Trump:

“best not make any more threats to the United States. … [Kim Jong-un] has been very threatening – beyond a normal statement – and as I said, they will be met with fire, fury and, frankly, power the likes of which the world has never seen before.” (emphasis added)

“Trump Speaks, We Record the Damage.”  What is the “Damage” underlying Trump’s “fire, fury and power …” threats implying the preemptive use of nuclear weapons against North Korea?

And who will be around to “Record the Damage” in the wake of a world war?

Ask Trump, Where is North Korea? 

Where is the target country? 

A preventive first strike nuclear attack is now being contemplated against North Korea. And this is where Geography 101 comes in.

The distance between the centre of South Korea’s capital Seoul and the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) marking the border with North Korea is 57 km or 35 miles, half the distance between Manhattan and New Jersey (71 miles via Interstate Highway 95S).

The  distance between Seoul and Pyongyang is about 121 miles, less than the distance between the Trump Tower in Manhattan and The Trump Taj Mahal Casino in Atlantic City (131 miles)

Trump World Tower Manhattan

Pyongyang;  Compare the towers: Pyongyang vs. NYC

South Korea’s Gimpo international airport is barely 2 miles from the border with North Korea.

The distance between Seoul and the historical city of Kaesong in North Korea is 40 miles.

A nuclear attack against the DPRK would inevitably engulf  both North and South Korea, ie. the entire Korean peninsula, depending on the size and explosive yield of the nuclear bombs.

The Geopolitical Context: China, Russia, North Korea, South Korea, Japan

Pyongyang is close to the Chinese border. The DPRK has a border with the Russian Federation. The City of Vladivostok is approximately 100km from the DPRK border.

The entire Northeast Asian region –which largely consists of five countries– would also be affected  by the nuclear blast. In a bitter irony, two of these countries, namely Japan and South Korea are staunch allies and military partners of the US.

Source: screenshot of Google maps 

What would be the nature of the unspoken “damage” resulting from a US led nuclear attack against the DPRK?

According to “scientific opinion” on contract to the Pentagon, the mini-nukes (tactical nuclear weapons) (e.g. B61-11) with an explosive yield of up to 6 times a Hiroshima bomb are, “harmless to the surrounding civilian population because the explosion is underground”.

It’s a big lie which is now embedded in the military manuals. And those lies are part of the daily intelligence briefings which are fed to president Donald Trump who as Commander in Chief has the real powers of unleashing a nuclear war.

The Hiroshima bomb on August 6, 1945 was conducive to 100,000 killed or doomed in 9 seconds. Todays bombs (including the mini-nukes) are much more powerful.

Trump’s war against the DPRK is not only a war against the entire Korean nation. Inevitably the decision to use nuclear weapons against the DPRK would be a prelude to World War III.

“I can’t tell you what art does and how it does it, but I know that often art has judged the judges, pleaded revenge to the innocent, and shown to the future what the past suffered, so that it has never been forgotten. Art, when it functions like this, becomes a meeting place of the invisible, the irreducible, the enduring, guts, and honor.”  –John Berger

So look: Sissy’s drawing

And read: “Rara avis in terris nigroque similima cyno” –Juvenal

.

.

A Rare Bird Upon the Earth, Similar to a Black Swan

Rare bird of flamboyant plumage,
I picture you still in my mind’s eye,
Mutely sedated in that frozen nest
You never could leave, Ward 3194
Decatur Ave. Bronx Rome via Hollywood,
Twelve stories high over the city
of your  birth,
Teetering atop Martha Washington on 29^th St,
Wife of the father of the country
of lies.
But this, rare bird, is the truth.

Sister, your face I imagine twisted
With the question that always tormented
you:
Why could you never fly your way
Away to the land of the living?
Woman without your own name,
Forever weighing your flesh for the secret
judge
Who always told you to disappear,
The verdict rigged by you in advance,
You with your tinsel town ideals
Of passive slim starlets waiting to be
discovered
By some fat mogul drooling dollar
signs
As the birds prim and prance for him,
Woman without a way to work your way
through the world,
You who feared to appear that self
You always were you feared you learned
Fear that the big bad world would eat
you
If you dared enter its mouth,
Cruel world, no place for a little girl,
Would devour you whole piecemeal
Eat you as you would not eat
The food you truly hungered for,
You called Sissy from a young age,
A sissy a timid a cowardly person,
Also an effeminate man or boy,
Sister, I see your face marked
With the pain of that twisted question:
Were you a sissy or not?

After the fact your act no one
Wanted to admit you were not
The name you were named so long
Which you hated till the bitter end.
The end the end to leap the question
The tension of being stretched taut
Between the first and last unknown
Was too much for you. In this, Sis,
You were very much the child
You thought you had outgrown,
The heir of those infallible answers
from your Papa in Rome.
To live with the wrong questions
Means to die for answers
That only kill you anyway.
Better to assume there is no salvation
outside the world
Than to leap into a promise made by those
Resigned to life as a lousy dead-end job,
A position to be endured until the final
promotion.

You shouldn’t have done it.
There is no way back now.
No one was calling you home.
How could he? You never left
Home, you never flew your way away
And found yourself in the going.
Damn it, my anger burns with the urge
To pull you back from the edge
Of that ledge you left your mark upon.
Not the world, which was yours to eat,
A succulent fruit hanging on the tree
of life,
This world you saw as just a way
To a home somewhere behind your eyes.

Sis, you shouldn’t have looked to the skies
And the man who would take you home with him.
No, he was not your kind of guy
That cop you placed by the scale
To say too much, she weighs too much,
She wants too much, let her reduce
The flesh that fans the flames of female
lust,
Let her cut herself down to size,
No bigger than a happy housewife,
Eating her guts out before the empty
screen,
Strangling the scream desperate to emerge
From behind the smile so well preserved,
A model actress in the wrong play,
Frozen in a frame from Silver Screen,
dead
Before the tube flickering in her living
room.
Let her above all never transgress the law
That says the timing’s never right
For living just for waiting always
For the day of death when living starts.

The judge the cop the father fix who art
in heaven,
All the women waiting to be taken
home
To rest in the mess of the family
nest:
Sis, these are the images you took
to heart,
The mad holy pictures you couldn’t destroy
but which
Turned back on you in holy rage
And eased you over the only hurdle
You ever really wanted to jump.

If someone said that life was too much
for you,
He’d be right, wouldn’t he?  Too god-damned
right,
Too much of everything that death denies
That dirty bastard death the creep
The shithead you made father lover savior.
Shit, Sis, you shouldn’t have done it.
There is absolutely no way back now.
You didn’t go home that Sunday morn
You dressed for church and left us
in the lurch,
Jumped out of the life you never led
Twelve stories high over the city
of your death.

Rare bird upon the earth and very like
a black swan,
Rare bird of flamboyant plumage,
To die is not to fly.  Still,
Out of my heart bubbling with rage
I picture you in my mind’s eye, here
On the pulsing earth our only home
Flying soaring smiling through the daring
painting
That could have been your life.
Sis, you shouldn’t have done it.
I wish I could draw you back to life.

Edward Curtin is a writer whose work has appeared widely.  He teaches sociology at Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts. His website is http://edwardcurtin.com/

This summary is up-to-date as of August 6th, but it will start with a leak from a phone-conversation on August 1st, in which Seymour Hersh reveals “what I know” about the Russiagate matter, the matter that dominates today’s U.S. international news. Hersh, of course, is the investigative journalist who broke the My Lai massacre, was among the first reporters to disclose Obama’s support of Al Qaeda in Syria, and broke many other controversial news-reports exposing government-lies — none of which Hersh-articles has been disproven, despite the controversiality of his disclosures. And his record for sheer honesty is vastly better than that of any of his many detractors, and it’s a record that stands out especially because such sincerity is the rarest commodity in journalism regarding international relations (which has been Hersh’s specialty throughout his long career).

During the later portion of this phone-call, by the world’s greatest investigative journalist, Hersh presented “a narrative [from his investigation] of how that whole fucking thing began,” including the identities of the people he believes to be actually behind the ‘RussiaGate’ claims, and why those anti-Russia allegations are dominating the U.S. ‘news’ as they now are.

Seymour Hersh

In a youtube video upload-dated August 1st, in which, clearly, Hersh’s distinctive voice is speaking (and speaks as he does in private, whenever he’s talking about lying by the government and by the press), he revealed, from his inside FBI and Washington DC Police Department sources — now, long before the Justice Department’s Special Counsel Robert Mueller will be presenting his official ‘findings’ to the nation — that the charges alleging Russia had anything to do with the leaks from the DNC and Hillary Clinton’s campaign to Wikileaks, extend the Obama Administration’s CIA-concocted lies. He says that those charges spread by the press, were, in his opinion, planted by the CIA. He says that Wikileaks had gotten only leaks, including at least one from the murdered DNC-staffer Seth Rich, not information hacked by or from any outsider (including ‘the Russians’), but that Rich didn’t get killed for that, but was instead shot in the back during a brutal robbery, which occurred in the high-crime neighborhood where Rich lived. Here is the video, and here is the complete transcript of his statement there (along with my added clarifications [in brackets], plus my boldfacing of key passages in it):

… about the kid, and I’ll tell you what I know:

(Mumble) comes off an FBI report, don’t ask me how, I can figure out, I’ve been around long enough:

The kid gets — I don’t think he was murdered [because of this leak] I don’t think he was murdered because of what he knew, the kid was a nice boy, 27, he was not an ITS person, he learned stuff, he was a data-programmer, but he learned stuff, and so he was living on one street, somewhere, he was living in a very rough neighborhood, and in the exact area where he lived, there had been about, I am sure you know, there had been about 8 or 9 or 10, violent robberies, most of them with somebody brandishing a gun [here are that neighborhood’s crime-statistics], and I am sure you know, his [the kid’s] hands were marked up, the cops concluded [HERSH HAD HAD ACCESS TO THE POLICE REPORT] he fought off the people, he tried to run, and they shot him twice in the back with a 22, small-caliber, and then the kid that did it ran, he got scared. So, the cops do this, here’s what nobody knows, what I am telling you, now maybe you do know something about it: When you have a death like that, DC cops, as you’re [dealing now with a person who is] dead, you generally don’t zip and go, yep I know, what’s the motive, what’s going on, you have to get to the kid’s apartment and see what you can find. If he’s dead, you don’t need a warrant, but most cops get a warrant because they don’t know if the guy has a roommate, so they get a warrant, I’m just telling you, there is such a thing. They go in and can’t do much with his computer, [to find the] password, the cops don’t know much about it, so the cops have a cyber unit in DC, and they’re more sophisticated, they come in and look at it. The idea is maybe he has had a series of exchanges with somebody who said ‘I am going to kill you motherfucker’ over a girl, and they can’t get in, the cyber guys are a little better, but they can’t make sense of it, so they call the FBI cyber unit. The DC unit, the Russian[-monitoring] and field office is a hot-shit unit. The guy running the Washington field office, he’s like a three-star at an army-base, he’s ready [mumble], you know what I mean, he’s going to do a top job. There’s a cyber unit there that’s excellent. What you get in a warrant, the public information you get in a warrant doesn’t include the affidavits underlying why you are going in, what the reason was. That’s almost never available, I can tell you that — the thesis of a warrant as a public document 99% of the time. So they call in the feds, the feds get through, and here’s what they find [HERSH HAD HAD ACCESS TO THE FBI REPORT]. This is according to the FBI report. What they find is, first of all you have to know some basic facts, one of the basic facts is there is no DNC or protected email that exists beyond May 22nd, the last email from either one of those groups. So, what the report says, is:

(2:50-) At some time in late spring, which we’re talking about in June 21st, I don’t know, just late spring early summer, he makes contact with Wikileaks, that’s in his computer, and he makes contact. Now, I have to be careful because I met Julian [Assange] in Europe ten twelve years [ago], I stay the fuck away from people like that. He has invited me and when I am in London, I always get a message, ‘come see me at the Ecuadorean’ [Embassy], and I am fucking not going there. I have enough trouble without getting photographed. He’s under total surveillance by everybody.

They found, what he had done, he [Seth Rich] had submitted a series of documents, emails from DNC — and, by the way, all this shit about the DNC, you know, was it a ‘hack’ or wasn’t it a ‘hack’ — whatever happened, it was the Democrats themselves wrote this shit, you know what I mean? All I know is that, he offered a sample, he sends a sample, you know, I am sure dozens of emails, and said ‘I want money’. Later Wikileaks did get the password [SETH RICH DID SELL WIKILEAKS ACCESS INTO HIS COMPUTER.] He had a drop-box, a [password-]protected drop-box, which isn’t hard to do. I mean you don’t have to be a whiz at IT [information technology], he was not a dumb kid. They got access to the drop-box. This is all from the FBI report. He also let people know with whom he was dealing, I don’t know how he dealt, I’ll tell you all about Wikileaks in a second, with Wikileaks the mechanism, but according to the FBI report, he shared his box with a couple of friends, so ‘If anything happens to me, it’s not going to solve your problem’, okay? I don’t know what that means. But, anyway, Wikileaks got access. And, before he was killed, I can tell you right now, [Obama’s CIA Director John] Brennan’s an asshole. I’ve known all these people for years, Clapper is sort of a better guy but no rocket-scientist, the NSA guys are fuckin’ morons, and the trouble with all those guys is, the only way they’ll get hired by SAIC, is if they’ll deliver some [government] contracts, it’s the only reason they stayed in. With Trump, they’re gone, they’re going to live on their pension, they’re not going to make it [to great wealth]. I’ve gotta to tell you, guys in that job, they don’t want to live on their pension. They want to be on [corporate] boards like their [mumble] thousand bucks [cut]. 

I have somebody on the inside, you know I’ve been around a long time, somebody who will go and read a file for me, who, this person is unbelievably accurate and careful, he’s a very high-level guy, he’ll do a favor, you’re just going to have to trust me, I have what they call in my business, long-form journalism, I have a narrative, of how that whole fucking thing began.

(5:50-) It’s a Brennan operation. It was an American disinformation, and the fucking President, at one point when they even started telling the press — they were back[ground]-briefing the press, the head of the NSA was going and telling the press, the fucking cocksucker Rogers, telling the press that we [they] even know who in the Russian military intelligence service leaked it. All bullshit. They were telling. I worked at the New York Times those fucking years, they’re smart guys, but they’re totally beholden on [to] sources. If the President or the head of the CIA tells them something, they actually believe it. I retired at the Times at the end of the Vietnam War 1972, because they were just locked-in. So that’s what the Times is, these guys run the fuckin’ Times, and Trump’s not wrong, I wish he would calm down, get a better press secretary, you know, not be so — Trump’s not wrong to think they all fucking lied about him.

The slight media-coverage that this statement by Hersh receives is focusing on widespread allegations that Seth Rich was murdered in order to silence him. All such media-coverage ignores much of what Hersh actually said on the phone (where Hersh makes clear that, according to the police record, Rich was, indeed, murdered in a regular robbery), and therefore should be viewed as an example of what the Washington Post and others in the mainstream press call ‘fake news’, but which actually applies to the mainstream media, on both the left and right, above all (since they’re all actually protecting and serving the same aristocracy). Hersh said both that Seth Rich did leak to Wikileaks (which many Republicans allege), and that the allegations that he was murdered for that are false (which many Democrats allege). Hersh was contradicting both the Democratic Party’s ‘news’ media and the Republican Party’s ‘news’ media. This is not something that a journalist would do in order to advance his own career, but it’s typical of Hersh, a fiercely independent journalist, who really does care about truth above all else.

The purpose of those distorting ‘news’ stories might be a desire, on the part of both the Democratic Party aristocrats and the Republican Party aristocrats, to distract the public’s attention away from the far deeper understanding that drives the “narrative” that Hersh, in that clip, is describing: rot by the U.S. aristocracy, which controls both of America’s political Parties, to deceive the American public. The objective of the press is to protect the nation’s aristocracy. That fact is not publishable; it is American samizdat. Corruption rules America. The public do not. This situation is what Hersh describes in his “narrative.”

But there is more in the ‘hacking’ story than what Hersh talked about: There wasn’t only the leak from the DNC computer (which Hersh was discussing); there was also the leak from John Podesta’s computer, and this information was published by Wikileaks later on. We’ll first summarize the former (the part that Hersh did discuss): 

According to Josh Marshall’s very helpful 11 July 2017 “Look at the Timeline” (which unfortunately accepts, uncritically and without challenge, the U.S. government’s and U.S. ‘news’media’s allegations that ‘Russian hacks’ instead of Clinton-campaign leaks were behind this):

June 12th, 2016: Julian Assange first announces that Wikileaks has Clinton emails which are soon to be released. “Wikileaks has a very big year ahead … We have emails related to Hillary Clinton which are pending publication.”

June 14, 2016: Washington Post publishes first account of hacking of the DNC computer networks, allegedly by hackers working on behalf of the Russian government.

June 15th, 2016: “Guccifer 2.0”, later identified by US government officials and other private sector analysts as a fictive persona created by Russian intelligence operatives, contacts The Smoking Gun to take credit for hacking the DNC.

June 27th, 2016: First hacked DNC emails posted to “DCLeaks” website. …

July 22, 2016: Wikileaks releases first tranche of DNC emails dating from January 2015 to May 2016.

Hersh says “late spring early summer, he makes contact with Wikileaks, that’s in his computer, and he makes contact.” Presumably, this release of information constituted the DNC emails that Seth Rich had sold to Wikileaks.

On 5 July 2017, the Washington Times reported that:

It is perhaps the key piece of forensic evidence in Russia’s suspected efforts to sway the November presidential election, but federal investigators have yet to get their hands on the hacked computer server that handled email from the Democratic National Committee.

Indeed, the only cybersecurity specialists who have taken a look at the server are from CrowdStrike, the Irvine, California-based private cybersecurity company that the DNC hired to investigate the hack — but which has come under fire itself for its work.

Presumably, Robert Mueller’s investigation will subpoena that evidence — the DNC’s computer from which the 22 July 2016 information-release by Wikileaks was introduced — if it hasn’t yet subpoenaed that. Clearly, the DNC has something to hide there, and the FBI didn’t press the matter. The only question on the matter is whether Mueller as Special Counsel is honest and truly impartial, or not (as the FBI under Obama was not).

On 6 August 2017, an anonymous technical specialist posted online “(2) Guccifer2.0 Timeline — What Happened & When Did It Happen?” and presented a timeline of the first of the two leaks (the one Hersh was discussing), and documented, in a detailed technical analysis, the extreme unlikelihood that any hack at all was entailed in the first information-release. Perhaps Seth Rich’s leak was the only one that was involved in the first release — the release that Assange announced on 12 June 2016. 

Later than the DNC leak(s), the release from John Podesta’s computer occurred:

October 7, 2016: Wikileaks releases first batch of Podesta emails.

That release is either from a second, independent, inside-leaker, or else like the U.S. ‘news’media allege, again by an outside hacker (together now called “Russiagate”). If it was the former (a leak), it was from someone who had access to Podesta’s computer. A well-informed narrative does exist along that line, but it has been suppressed in the ‘news’-reports. It alleges that someone had handed a thumb-drive or other physical copy of information from Podesta’s computer, to Craig Murray, a friend of Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, when Mr. Murray visited Washington DC on 24 September 2016 and returned with it to London and handed that data to Assange inside the Ecuadorean Embassy.

John Podesta

As regards the information-release from Podesta’s computer, however, far less challenge to the official U.S. line that Russia was behind this release has been issued. But Sam Biddle of The Intercept did headline on 14 December 2016, “Here’s the Public Evidence Russia Hacked the DNC — It’s Not Enough”. He there challenges the “Russiagate” narrative, as regards the information-release from Podesta’s computer. As to whether Mueller’s investigation can be trusted to provide truthful answers to that matter (and to disprove Craig Murray’s narrative, or else to discredit the Russiagate narrative, regarding the second information-release), any such conclusion, at the present time, would be pure speculation.

In the court of public opinion, however, the U.S. government should be on trial here, regardless of whether or not the Russian government is. The idea that ‘the enemy’ of the American people is Russia, instead of America’s aristocracy, is the successor to the idea that ‘the enemy’ of the American people was Salvadore Allende, and was Saddam Hussein, and was Muammar Gaddafi, and was Viktor Yanukovych, and was/is Bashar al-Assad. It’s a lie.

We’ve been ruled by lies.

Only if the government of the United States is placed on trial by the American public, can democracy become established or re-established here. A government that actually represents only the very rich, with mere tokenism for everybody else, is no democracy.

The “us” versus “them” is internal, and the “them” control (and benefit from) both Parties; it is not external. That truth is not publishable in the United States; it is American samizdat. The present article is being submitted to all major and most minor U.S. ‘news’media in case any of them are bold enough to break from America’s recent past and allow the American people (or their audience) to consider the reality. All of America’s major ‘news’media have a stake in the status-quo, but maybe someday one of them will have conscience and break ranks. All that’s required is one of the majors, to have conscience. That would do it. If none of them do, would Robert Mueller? What would the tooth-fairy say?

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

US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson suggested yesterday that talks with North Korea over its nuclear and ballistic missile program might be possible if Pyongyang halted its missile testing. His comments came after the UN Security Council on Saturday imposed harsh new economic sanctions on North Korea over two missile tests last month.

Speaking during the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) foreign ministers’ summit in Manila, Tillerson told reporters:

“When the conditions are right, then we can sit and have a dialogue around the future of North Korea so they feel secure and prosper economically.”

He suggested that “the best signal that North Korea can give us that they are prepared to talk would be to stop these missile launches,” adding that “other means of communication” were also open to Pyongyang.

While Tillerson has previously suggested that negotiations could take place, his remarks yesterday, outlining a specific precondition, were the strongest hint yesterday that the US would engage in talks. Tillerson, however, has also said any negotiations must involve a commitment by North Korea to abandon its nuclear and missile programs, which the Pyongyang regime has declared previously it will not do.

Yesterday’s comments followed a statement last week, in which Tillerson appeared to offer security guarantees to North Korea. He told the media in Washington the US was not seeking “regime change,” the collapse of the Pyongyang regime or “an excuse to send our military north of the 38th parallel” into North Korea.

The US and South Korea are still technically at war with North Korea. The Korean War, which cost the lives of millions, ended in 1953 with an armistice, not a peace agreement. At the top of the list of Pyongyang’s demands has long been a peace treaty with the US and the normalisation of relations that would allow it integrate into global capitalism.

North Korea has every reason to be suspicious of Tillerson’s offer, not least because of the ongoing political infighting and turmoil in Washington. While the secretary of state is suggesting talks, H.M. McMaster, Trump’s national security adviser, emphasised over the weekend it was “impossible to overstate the danger” posed by North Korea and all options, including military strikes, were on the table.

Moreover, Pyongyang has had bitter experience in past negotiations over the nuclear issue. On two occasions, in 1994 and 2007, North Korea agreed to give up nuclear programs in return for various US promises, including diplomatic relations, that were not honoured. The 1994 Agreed Framework guaranteed two nuclear power reactors to North Korea that were never delivered before President George W. Bush finally scuttled the pact. The 2007 agreement, following North Korea’s first nuclear test, collapsed after Bush arbitrarily demanded additional safeguards and inspections.

The Pyongyang regime has reacted to the latest UN sanctions on two levels. In a belligerent statement published by the state-run KNCA news agency, the government warned it would respond to any US “crime against our country and our people with something thousands of times worse.” It added:

“If the US does not retract its attempts to crush us to death and behave prudently, we will be ready and not hesitate to take ultimate measures.”

Such bluster only hands Washington a pretext for its continued military build-up in the Asia Pacific not only against Pyongyang but also Beijing. North Korea’s limited nuclear arsenal provides no protection against the US, which has said any attempt by Pyongyang to use its weapons would result in annihilation.

North Korean Foreign Minister Ri Yong-ho delivered a more measured response at the ASEAN summit. After outlining the repeated threats by the US and its allies going back to the end of the Korean War, Ri said North Korea’s nuclear weapon were a “legitimate self-defensive option” and “can neither be reversed nor bartered away.”

Ri hinted, however, that North Korea might be open to talks if Washington would guarantee its security. While saying Pyongyang would “under no circumstances” put its nuclear arsenal on the negotiating table, the foreign minister added, “unless the hostile policy and nuclear threat of the US against the DPRK [North Korea] are fundamentally eliminated.”

The Pyongyang regime, which is among the most isolated in the world, is under enormous pressure to bow to US demands to abandon its nuclear and missile programs. China, which is by far North Korea’s largest trading partner, voted for the UN sanctions and has implemented previous ones that have already impacted on the economy. The latest bans on North Korean exports of coal, iron ore, lead and seafood are expected to slash the country’s export trade by $1 billion, or about one third.

After meeting with Ri in Manila, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi warned North Korea:

“Do not violate the UN’s decision or provoke the international community’s goodwill by conducting missile launching or nuclear tests.”

At the same time, Wang called on the US and South Korea “to stop increasing tensions” and appealed for all parties to return to the negotiating table.

China opposes North Korea’s nuclear program because the US has used it as an excuse to expand its military presence in North East Asia. Beijing also fears that Japan and South Korea could cite it as a pretext to develop their own nuclear weapons. Yet, China does not want to create an economic and political crisis in Pyongyang that could lead to an intervention by the US and its allies into North Korea.

Moon Jae-in, South Korea’s new president, while backing the country’s military alliance with the US, including the continued presence of American bases, has opposed US military action against North Korea. In a statement following a phone call with Trump yesterday

“President Moon emphasised that South Korea can never accept a war erupting on the Korean Peninsula” and stressed the need for the nuclear issue to be resolved “in a peaceful, diplomatic manner.”

All the hints, suggestions and appeals for negotiations rather than war are very tentative and may come to nothing, given the internal tensions, unpredictability and recklessness of the Trump administration. While Tillerson is hinting at talks, the drum beat for military strikes against North Korea continues in the US media and political establishment.

Former US ambassador to the UN John Bolton, who is well-known for his right-wing, militarist views, wrote a comment in the Wall Street Journal last week entitled “The military options for North Korea.” In the absence of a diplomatic solution, he urged American politicians and generals to prepare for pre-emptive military strikes, ranging from hitting North Korea’s military and nuclear facilities to assassinating its leaders. Bolton, however, is simply urging what is already under close discussion in the Pentagon and CIA.

At the Aspen Security Forum last month, as Bolton noted, Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman, General Joseph Dunford ruled out allowing North Korea to have a nuclear arsenal capable of hitting the US. Dunford affirmed it was his job “to develop military options to make sure that doesn’t happen.” At the same forum, CIA director Mike Pompeo suggested the intelligence community was developing “a wide range of options for the president” to “separate” North Korea’s nuclear weapons from its leadership—that is, to eliminate key North Korean leaders.

Washington is implementing its step-by-step plan to create a Kurdish independent state in northern Syria, Turkish journalist and political observer Mehmet Ali Guller believes.

The US-led coalition has recently reported that 850 local volunteers are being trained to ensure the safety of the Syrian city of Raqqa. The announcement immediately prompted speculation that the designated security forces include the Kurdish-dominated Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) militants.

This information added to Ankara’s growing concerns about the US’ supposed intentions to establish an autonomous Kurdish entity in the north of Syria. According to Guller, the recent developments fit into Washington’s general strategy of creating the “Syrian Kurdistan.” He drew historic parallels between the war in Syria and the US occupation of Iraq, emphasizing the fact that the Pentagon has always relied on the Kurds.

“The basis of the fight against Daesh [ISIS/ISIL], which was dubbed as the ‘Obama strategy’ in the US, was to place the Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD) and the People’s Protection Units (YPG) in the territories liberated from terrorists,” Guller explained in his interview with Sputnik Turkey.

“Thus, the United States planned to unify the three cantons claimed by the PYD and expand the territory further downwards, and also to ensure the legitimacy of the Kurdish state in the course of the fight against Daesh,” he assumed.

Guller believes that Washington is determined to stay the course.

The Turkish political observer remains skeptical over the Trump administration’s decision to stop funding the CIA covert program aimed at arming and training the so-called “moderate” Syrian rebels.

“The statement made by the CIA last week about the completion of the program to train and equip the Syrian opposition inspired some hopes for positive changes in the Syrian conflict. However, one should not be mistaken, the US hasn’t actually halted this program, it has just stopped supporting some jihadist groups,” Guller pointed out.

“In fact, this major process of training [of US proxies] is being conducted right now. How? By training and providing military assistance to Kurdish self-defense units whom the United States continues to deliver wagons of weapons, most notably, heavy weapons,” the Turkish journalist highlighted.

According to Guller, the Pentagon is trying to transform the YPG into a regular army.

“If this happens, the YPG will be able to boost their positions in northern Syria and assert their dominance there,” he believes.

A YPG T-55 in Tell Tamer (Source: Wikimedia Commons)

However, the Turkish analyst suggested that the only way to impede Washington’s plan is to facilitate cooperation between Ankara and Damascus.

The Turkish leadership needs to realize that Ankara and Damascus’ interests in the region overlap, Guller insists.

“The situation could be stabilized only through a gradual, step-by-step process which will take place if Ankara and Damascus reach an agreement on it. Otherwise, the US will create Kurdistan in Syria as they have done in Iraq over 25 years,” Guller warned.

On the other hand, it’s not in the interest of the Kurds to be turned into US ground forces in the region, he added.

“The only way to exist in peace and stability for neighboring nations is to bring an end to the American imperialism in the region,” the Turkish political observer told Sputnik.

The Saker, a US-based military analyst who runs his own blog of the same name, shares Guller’s concerns about the alleged US plans to create an independent entity in northern Syria.

“The Kurds are the only possible candidates for the role of ‘boots on the ground’ for the US,” The Saker pointed out in his interview with Sputnik, “It is, therefore, no wonder that the Americans would try to use them in some way. That, in turn, implies that the Americans must give the Kurds something, such as a promise of some kind of more or less independent Kurdistan, to entice them to play this role.”

“It has always been US policy to support minorities against majorities,” the military analyst added.

However, according to the blogger, the US plan is likely to fail.

“I am convinced that the USA will eventually try to break up Syria. That is typical US strategy: what they cannot control they will try to break… The good news is that Russia is opposed to that plan and that Iran and Turkey are also opposed to it as a direct consequence of their opposition to the creation of any type of Kurdistan,” the military analyst elaborated.

“This reality on the ground means that any US plan to create some type of Kurdistan to weaken Syria and put pressure on Turkey and Iran will end up being a pipe dream,” he said.

Featured image is from Ekurd.net Daily News.

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

Illegal sanctions, provocative US military exercises, installation of THAAD missile systems in South Korea, and a war of words between Washington and Pyongyang could be prelude to something much more serious – possible war on the Korean peninsula.

Trump tweeted:

“We must be tough & decisive.”

Separately, he threatened the DPRK, saying its government:

“best not make any more threats to the United States. … [Kim Jong-un] has been very threatening – beyond a normal statement – and as I said, they will be met with fire, fury and, frankly, power the likes of which the world has never seen before.” (emphasis added)

Pyongyang slammed newly imposed sanctions, calling them a “violent infringement of its sovereignty, (part of a) heinous US plot to isolate and stifle” the country.

“It’s a wild idea to think the (DPRK) will be shaken and change its position due to this kind of new sanctions formulated by hostile forces.”

On Tuesday, a US Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) assessment claimed North Korea successfully miniaturized a nuclear warhead to mount on a ballistic missile.

At this point, it’s more conjecture than verifiable fact, the claim heightening tensions instead of actions by Washington to cool things down.

US technical experts believe the DPRK hasn’t achieved atmospheric reentry capability nor accurate enough guidance and control systems to reliably strike targets long distance.

Its military poses no threat to American territory despite hyperbole otherwise. Moscow disputed claims about it having ICBM capability.

A DPRK statement warned about carrying out a “preemptive operation once the US shows signs of provocation,” saying it’s “seriously considering a strategy to strike Guam with mid-to-long range missiles.”

Home to Andersen Air Force base and other US military installations, the island is 2,131 miles from North Korea. It’s unclear if its ballistic missiles can travel that far.

Earlier, South Korean President Moon Jae-in and parliament Speaker Chung Sye-kyun called for dialogue with Pyongyang. So did Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte on Tuesday.

China and Russia jointly called for easing Korean peninsula tensions, urging diplomacy over confrontation to resolve contentious issues.

Both countries reject force and bellicose rhetoric. Washington turned down their proposal to suspend provocative joint military exercises with South Korea in return for the DPRK suspending its nuclear and ballistic missile programs.

China and Russia stressed the importance of respecting Pyongyang’s justifiable concerns. They categorically rule out belligerence.

Beijing rejects being held hostage to US interests as a way to try resolving contentious issues with the DPRK.

Tough sanctions and hostile rhetoric bring things closer to confrontation, threatening possible nuclear war on the Korean peninsula.

Will Trump rashly endanger the lives of millions of East Asians by attacking North Korea – madness if ordered!

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: Iran Foreign Ministry Spokesman Bahram Qassemi 

“The issue of the Iranian missile [program] is an entirely defensive and deterrent matter and in no way contravenes Resolution 2231,” Foreign Ministry Spokesman Bahram Qassemi stressed in his weekly press briefing on Monday.

Resolution 2231 was adopted by the UNSC in July 2015 to endorse a nuclear agreement between Iran and six other countries, the so-called P5+1.

The UNSC document terminated the provisions of seven previous UNSC resolutions against Iran, some of which had imposed restrictions on Iranian missile activities.

Such activities are not prohibited under the newer document, which merely calls on Iran “to refrain from any activity related to ballistic missiles designed to be capable of delivering nuclear weapons.”

Iran says it has no such warheads and no such missiles. It has put its nuclear program under enhanced international monitoring as part of the nuclear deal. And Iranian compliance with the deal has been consistently verified by the International Atomic Energy Agency [IAEA]. Yet, the United States, a party to the agreement, has attempted to portray Iranian missile tests as a violation of the resolution.

While it has failed to get other countries on board, in main part because the text of the resolution is unambiguous, Washington has not stopped claiming that the Iranian missile program breaches Resolution 2231.

Such claims, Qassemi said in his Monday presser, were “unwarranted” and were “often made because of… [the accusers’] ill will toward Iran’s might, particularly its defensive power.”

Responding to a question about the potential violations of the nuclear deal by the US, Qassemi said Iranian decisions on whether violations had occurred rested with the high-level Supervisory Board that has been formed to monitor the implementation of the deal, officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action [JCPOA].

He said decisions in that regard were technical and the Supervisory Board would be making relevant comments in the due time.

Iran and the P5+1 countries [Russia, the US, the UK, China, Britain, and France] reached the JCPOA on July 14, 2015 and began implementing it in January 2016.

Iran has been complaining that the US, under the administration of its new president, has been seeking to sabotage international trade with Iran. This is while according to the deal, the US must “refrain from any policy specifically intended to directly and adversely affect the normalization of trade and economic relations with Iran.”

In the wake of what many perceived as an explicit threat to ignite a nuclear war on Tuesday, critics of President Donald Trump reacted with horror—calling it “frightening” and “crazy”—after the president threatened North Korea “with fire, fury, and frankly power the likes of which the world has never seen before.”

The statement came hours after several news outlets, citing internal U.S. intelligence assessments, reported that Kim Jong-un‘s regime has successfully made a nuclear warhead small enough to fit inside its missiles, an advancement that was reached sooner than military experts had predicted—and one that added to concerns that North Korea could be capable of building a nuclear-armed intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) that could potentially reach the United States.

Watch:

President Trump: If North Korea makes any more threats to the U.S., "they will be met with fire and fury like the world has never seen" pic.twitter.com/8dQed79L1W

— NBC News (@NBCNews) August 8, 2017

Trump’s threat added to the concerns of many who have strongly urged diplomacy to de-escalate tensions between the U.S., North and South Korea, and others in the region.

“The president’s latest threat of ‘fire, fury and frankly power, the likes of which this world has never seen before,’ is clearly a reference to the use of nuclear weapons,” said Jon Rainwater, executive director of Peace Action. “That this threat comes between the anniversaries of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki underlines the president’s dangerous lack of appreciation of the horror and evil of nuclear war.”

He added,

“‘Fire and fury’ isn’t a strategy. Painstaking and sustained diplomacy of the type that led to the Iran deal is the only viable option with North Korea. It won’t be easy but that’s why the U.S. needs to drop its current preconditions for talks and get down to the hard work of hammering out a settlement to this political crisis.”

Siegfried Hecker, the last known American official to inspect North Korea’s nuclear facilities, said prior to Trump’s statement that treating Kim Jong-un as though he is on the verge of attacking the U.S. is both inaccurate and dangerous.

“Some like to depict Kim as being crazy—a madman—and that makes the public believe that the guy is undeterrable,” said Hecker. “He’s not crazy and he’s not suicidal. And he’s not even unpredictable. The real threat is we’re going to stumble into a nuclear war on the Korean Peninsula.”

Journalists and advocates for responsible national security policy quickly took to social media to condemn Trump’s threat and demand caution and diplomacy. Initiating the #PleaseDontKillUs hashtag and calling for dialogue, the peace advocacy group Win Without War declared, “We can’t let reckless behavior lead to war.”

This does not help @realDonaldTrump. War on the peninsula would be a humanitarian disaster. We need to use all of our diplomatic tools NOW. https://t.co/aUhjkTR2B9

— Win Without War (@WinWithoutWar) August 8, 2017

The world's most powerful country is being run by lunatics who want to kill us all. https://t.co/dai9SAfIXY

— Luke Savage (@LukewSavage) August 8, 2017

OK, this is getting frightening. Are Trump and his people preparing for a war that could kill millions in an instant? This must be stopped. https://t.co/uA83BUXNBa

— Tim Shorrock (@TimothyS) August 8, 2017

Don't gloss over the fact that Trump threatened what can only be intrepreted as a nuclear attack on North Korea if Kim Jong-un taunts him https://t.co/EcPE1lzlr5

— Dan Pfeiffer (@danpfeiffer) August 8, 2017

Former White House communications director Dan Pfeiffer also wondered if Trump was speaking spontaneously about the threat of nuclear war, rather than relaying a new policy that had been reached after deliberations with his military advisors—an action that wouldn’t be unprecedented by the president.

I want to know if Kelly, Mattis, Tillerson, or McMaster knew what was going to come out of Trump's mouth about North Korea

— Dan Pfeiffer (@danpfeiffer) August 8, 2017

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License

Featured image: Marawi City ground zero (Source: Andre Vltchek)

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

ISIS terrorists operate wherever America deploys them, most recently in the Philippines.

In response, President Duterte declared martial law in Mindanao, imposed military rule, and threatened to extend it nationwide.

Earlier he called Obama an SOB, “announced (his) separation from the United States,” said he ended joint military exercises with America, indicating he’s open to holding them with China and Russia.

Meeting with Rex Tillerson during the Asean Regional Forum, his tone markedly changed, calling himself Washington’s “humble friend in Southeast Asia,” saying:

“I am happy to see you…and you have come at a time when the world is not so good, especially in the Korean peninsula, and of course, the ever-nagging problem of the South China Sea.”

He praised Trump in contrast to bashing Obama. Perhaps he was instructed about the hazards of antagonizing Washington.

ISIS terrorists deployed to the Philippines is a matter of great concern, more serious if he authorizes US military action on the pretext of combating them.

According to NBC News,

“(t)he Pentagon is considering a plan that allows the US military to conduct airstrikes on ISIS in the Philippines,” citing two unnamed Defense Department officials.

Supposedly they’ll be conducted by drones, maybe US warplanes to follow. According to NBC:

“If approved, the US military would be able to conduct strikes against ISIS targets in the Philippines that could be a threat to allies in the region, which would include the Philippine forces battling ISIS on the ground in the country’s southern islands.”

Currently, a so-called Pentagon Joint Special Operations Task Force Trident operates in the Philippines, small numbers of US forces involved, certain to grow larger if aerial operations begin.

Wherever US forces show up, mass slaughter and destruction follow. That’s what Duterte potentially faces if he allows Pentagon aerial attacks.

US terror-bombing in Afghanistan, Libya, Iraq and Syria killed thousands of defenseless civilians, maybe tens of thousands, injuring many more, displacing hundreds of thousands, causing the most severe refugee crisis since WW II.

If Duterte authorizes terror-bombing on the phony pretext of America combating ISIS, parts of the Philippines could be devastated like what happened in other US war theaters.

Instead of allying with Washington – supporting, not combating ISIS – he’d be wise to seek help from Russia and China, reliable allies, unlike America, exploiting other countries, not helping them.

It’s a lesson the Philippines learned long ago in the 19th century. Has Duterte forgotten his country’s history?

During America’s 1899 – 1902 war, Mark Twain wrote:

“…I have seen that we do not intend to free, but to subjugate the people of the Philippines. We have gone there to conquer, not to redeem…And so I am an anti-imperialist.”

“I am opposed to having the eagle put its talons on any other land…We have pacified some thousands of the islanders and buried them; destroyed their fields, burned their villages, turned their widows and orphans out-of-doors, (and) subjugated the remaining ten million by Benevolent Assimilation…”

If he gets in bed with America militarily, Duterte will have far greater problem to handle than ISIS – Philippine sovereignty at stake.

A Final Comment

According to the Philippines National Democratic Front, the CIA and nation’s military intend ousting Duterte, fearing he may favor alliances with China and Russia over America.

Toppling foreign leaders is a CIA specialty, a rogue agency well-known for virtually every dirty trick imaginable.

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.

Last Wednesday, U.S. President Donald Trump signed new sanctions into law against Russia, Iran, and North Korea. The legislation was supported so overwhelmingly in Congress that President Trump’s ability to veto the legislation was rendered completely ineffective.

Even anti-interventionist Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard voted in favor of the bill, once again proving that Republicans and Democrats always find common ground when it comes to beating the drums of war against sovereign nations who have taken very little unwarranted hostile action — if any — towards the United States.

But these are just sanctions, not acts of war, right? There’s nothing wrong with economically bullying other countries into submission over non-compliance with the current global order, right?

Not quite.

Sanctions are always a prelude to war. Though few are aware, the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941 was arguably in response to America’s attempt to cripple Japan’s booming economy through embargos and asset freezes, ending Japan’s commercial relationship with the United States and provoking the desperation that led to their attack.

In August 1990, the U.S. began a sanctions regime against Saddam Hussein in Iraq. In 1991, the United States invaded Iraq and completely decimated its armed forces, also directly targeting its civilian infrastructure. Following this devastation, the U.S. extended and expanded these economic sanctions on Iraq as further punishment. The U.N. estimated these sanctions led to the deaths of 1.7 million Iraqi civilians, including between 500,000 and 600,000 children.

Former US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright (Source: Wikimedia Commons)

When Bill Clinton’s Secretary of State Madeleine Albright was questioned on these statistics, she intimated that the price was “worth it.”

These sanctions only came to an end after the U.S. invaded again in 2003 (and the complete international sanctions regime was only lifted in December 2010).

Libya also faced American imposed sanctions beginning in the 1990s, as well, and we all know how that story ended.

In May of 2004, the U.S. imposed economic sanctions on Syria, supposedly over Syria’s support for terrorism and its “failure to stop militants entering Iraq” – a country the U.S. destabilized in the first place. In reality, these sanctions were a response to Syria and Iran’s growing relationship as the two countries had reportedly agreed to a mutual defense treaty that same year.

Syria has been the target of a regime change operation since as far back as 2006, and the U.S. has been openly bombing its territory under both Barack Obama and Donald Trump; the U.S. has already bombed the Syrian government multiple times over the past year. If it had not been for the Russian intervention, the U.S. most likely would have ousted the Syrian government by force before Trump even took office.

Iran has been battling with sanctions for some time now, with the anti-Iranian sanctions regime serving as a smokescreen for regime change in the same manner that Libya, Syria, and Iraq were targeted previously.

In the case of Iran, the underlying motives are quite clear: the renewed set of sanctions is designed to undermine the 2015 nuclear agreement, also known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). Even though the Trump administration is aware that Iran is in full compliance with the JCPOA, Trump has made it an official policy of his own to deliberately erode the deal.

Why would he do that?

As explained in the book Which Path to Persia? Options for a New American Strategy toward Iran, authored by an ex CIA analyst who promoted the 2003 invasion of Iraq:

“For those who favor regime change or a military attack on Iran (either by the United States or Israel), there is a strong argument to be made for trying this option first. Inciting regime change in Iran would be greatly assisted by convincing the Iranian people that their government is so ideologically blinkered that it refuses to do what is best for the people and instead clings to a policy that could only bring ruin on the country. The ideal scenario in this case would be that the United States and the international community present a package of positive inducements so enticing that the Iranian citizenry would support the deal, only to have the regime reject it. In a similar vein, any military operation against Iran will likely be very unpopular around the world and require the proper international context – both to ensure the logistical support the operation would require and to minimize the blowback from it. The best way to minimize international opprobrium and maximize support (however grudging or covert) is to strike only when there is a widespread conviction that the Iranians were given but then rejected a superb offer – one so good that only a regime determined to acquire nuclear weapons and acquire them for the wrong reasons would turn it down.” [emphasis added]

This paradigm brilliantly explains why hawkish members of Trump’s team are completely opposed to Trump unilaterally derailing the JCPOA: These officials don’t want the blame to rest on the U.S., as it will ignite new tensions within the international community and directly affect the U.S. dollar.

IRGC’s Naval special forces, S.N.S.F. (Source: Wikimedia Commons)

That being said, if the U.S. government continues to undermine Iran with sanctions that target the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) – a very powerful entity within Iran – the U.S. may end up forcing Iran to walk away from the deal, anyway. In that scenario, the U.S. will have the outcome that they long have desired.

North Korea has been on the receiving end of a U.S.-led sanctions regime for years, as well, and the American military is now flying bombers over its airspace, provoking the country to respond in kind.

The only question now becomes: who will Trump set America on a warpath with first: Iran or North Korea?

Trump is reportedly setting the stage for a confrontation with Iran as early as October, having found a new strategy to demonize Iran should the sanctions regime fail to bring about the war he desires before he is due to certify Iran’s compliance for the following 90-day period. This strategy involves Trump tasking his team with setting up spot-inspections at Iranian facilities in the hopes of finding ways that Iran is not complying with the JCPOA.

In the meantime, America continues its unilateral policy of bullying non-compliant states, further isolating itself from its traditional post-WWII allies. For example, Germany does view sanctions that target Russia favorably, as these sanctions hurt Germany’s own economic interests.

Not to mention that American-led sanctions push these defiant countries into the open arms of one another. Iran and Russia just signed a $2.5 billion deal last Monday, going about business as usual and giving Donald Trump the political middle finger in the process.

If the U.S. continues to use its global stranglehold over the financial markets as a tool to weaken other countries, these countries will also have no choice but to ditch the dollar and to seek alternative currencies through which to complete transactions. Not surprisingly, Russia has just responded on Monday by announcing it will seek to end its reliance on the U.S. dollar.

Make no mistake: the U.S. is at the crossroads of its dying status as a global superpower. In order to stay afloat, it has only one real option – to continue down the warpath it has set itself on and confront those countries that seek to rise up in the post-American led international order.

The newly signed sanctions regime is just the beginning, and there will be a difficult road ahead. Cooler heads may ultimately prevail, given the way these sanctions are already being seen to backfire.

It will be almost impossible to sell these wars to the American public and the international community at this stage considering the evidence shows the U.S. is acting rashly and out of order with the rest of the world. However, if the U.S. can provoke Iran or North Korea into doing something regrettable first, the U.S. may finally reward itself with the justification to go to war which it so desperately needs.

And when that happens, all bets will be off the table.

Featured image is from the author.

Featured image: Dr. Marcus Papadopoulos (Source: BalkansPost)

In an interview with BalkansPost, Marcus Papadopoulos, a journalist and a regular face and name in broadcast and print media, said “Saudi arms dealers are regularly in Belgrade signing arms deals with Serbian officials. So, it is not just America, Britain, France, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar who have the blood of Syrians on their hands but also countries like Serbia, Croatia and Azerbaijan.”

BP: According to the Washington Post, U.S. President Donald Trump has decided to end the CIA’s covert program to arm and train moderate Syrian rebels battling the government of Bashar al-Assad. What’s your assessment of this move?

Marcus Papadopoulos: Since when was the Washington Post a reliable or serious source of information concerning international affairs? Indeed, since when was Western mainstream media in general a reliable or serious source of information concerning international affairs? The truth is that the Trump administration has given no such order to the CIA to end its support to Islamist/Wahhabist terrorists in Syria. If President Trump had given that order, we would have heard by now about it from the Syrian Government, verifying it. In reality, what we have seen is a continuation of American support to Islamist/Wahhabist groups fighting against Damascus – Syrian officials have confirmed this on more than one occasion. Further to that, the terrorists in Syria now have an air force and a navy at their disposal – the United States Air Force and the United States Navy – courtesy of Mr Trump having used these to directly attack the Syrian military on two occasions now. Mr Trump went further than this predecessor, Barack Obama, when, this April, he directly attacked Syria with American military might. And Mr Trump’s contempt for Syria was exemplified when he told President Xi of China about having ordered a cruise missile attack on Syria while simultaneously enjoying, in his words, “the most beautiful piece of chocolate cake”.

The Trump administration poses a potent threat to the Syrian Government – it attacked a Syrian air base, killing numerous Syrian soldiers there – and has extraordinarily close ties to Saudi Arabia, a deadly foe to Damascus; so, for instance, just days before Mr Trump ordered the cruise missile attack on the Syrian military, he signed a $200 billion investment agreement with the Saudis on joint American-Saudi enterprises, and later on he signed an arms contract with Riyadh to the tune of $110 billion. On top of that, Mr Trump has longstanding personal and business ties with another deadly foe of Syria – Israel. Then we have Mr Trump’s bellicose attitude towards Iran, a key ally to Syria. In summary, Mr Trump and his administration, especially the likes of James Mattis, Mike Pence, H. R. McMaster and Nikki Haley, constitute a menacing threat to Syria and its future survival.

BP: Some U.S. officials believe the phasing out of the secret program reflects Trump’s interest in finding ways to work with Russia. If true, how would this affect U.S.-Russia relations?

Marcus Papadopoulos: We must always think in terms of realpolitik. The issue of Syria is a sideshow when compared to the Kremlin’s core (and legitimate) demands which it has of Washington – and these demands will, under no circumstances, be met by the Americans. Essentially, there are three principal demands which the Russians have and they are non-negotiable as far as Moscow is concerned. Firstly, that NATO pulls its forces back from the Russian border. Secondly, that Washington dismantles its missile shield in Poland and Romania. And thirdly, that the Americans put into writing that Ukraine, Moldova and Georgia will never be invited to join NATO. Now, Mr Trump will never acquiesce to any of those Russian demands. Indeed, no American president would. Relations between the US and Russia are abysmal – and getting worse – because of NATO’s presence on Russia’s border, the American missile shield in Eastern Europe and Washington’s lusting after Ukraine, Moldova and Georgia to join NATO. Alas, when we think of American-Russian relations, we must always think in terms of NATO and the US missile shield. Furthermore, Mr Trump is not the first American leader who has claimed that he wants to improve relations with Russia; Messrs Bush (junior) and Obama also claimed the same. Regardless of who is sitting in the White House, America remains the same old imperialistic America.

BP: Bulgarian reporter Dilyana Gaytandzhieva recently revealed that Azerbaijan’s state-run Silk Way Airlines has shipped under diplomatic cover 350 planeloads of heavy weapons and ammunition to terrorist groups around the world in the last three years. Would the end of CIA’s covert program affect such arms transfers?

Marcus Papadopoulos: The CIA and the Pentagon have not ended their support to Islamist/Wahhabist terrorist groups in Syria. However, Washington is, indeed, using its client states and countries it has cordial relations with to supply arms to the terrorists in Syria. Azerbaijan is one such country supplying weapons to al-Nusra and the so-called Free Syrian Army, for example, but so, too, is Serbia and Croatia, for instance. In regard to Serbia, the Serbian Government, under the leadership of Alexander Vucic, is supplying weapons to Saudi Arabia who then passes them onto the terrorists in Syria. Saudi arms dealers are regularly in Belgrade signing arms deals with Serbian officials. So, it is not just America, Britain, France, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar who have the blood of Syrians on their hands but also countries like Serbia, Croatia and Azerbaijan. It is suffice to say that that is the power that Washington exerts in this world. It is remarkable, albeit appalling.

BP: What role does Iran and Russia play in the conflict?

Marcus Papadopoulos: Iran and Russia are playing a crucially important role in Syria. They have augmented the Syrian Government’s resistance to Islamist/Wahhabist terrorism which is not just a terrible threat to the Syrian people but to humanity in general. Tehran and Moscow are also, through their legal presence in Syria, countering the plans of Washington to achieve total American mastery of the Middle East. The US’ global dominance has caused (and is continuing to cause) instability across the world and, in doing so, has cost the lives of hundreds of thousands of people, as well as having given rise to the Islamist/Wahhabist terrorist threat that is facing everyone globally. I salute the actions of Iran and Russia to help defeat the Western-backed terrorists in Syria and to counter American global hegemony. Those actions are, hopefully, laying a foundation for a better world in which the US no longer has the stranglehold over the planet that it currently has.

For a moment, we will cast aside the important topics as to how terrorists are financed or the doctrine and ideology orienting gullible individuals towards terrorism and study further the root causes that form the primary grounds for promotion of terrorism.

Crises such as social destitution, ignorance, mass unemployment and a prevailing state of ignorance flash through the mind.

These are prerequisites for a nation under the evil sights of scaremongers.

Once steeped well into these crises, a nation run out of logic can become receptive and open to almost anything, no matter how absurd it is. A severely bankrupt community living off a penny would not spare embracing a violent job, be it terrorism or crimes.

World poverty is not by accident or natural, it is rather by design to push vulnerable community members into the extremist rows or for some other economic reasons.

Terrorism’s agenda include denial of minors and adults an education. It also entails dissuasion of investments and economic development by serial assassinations and abductions.

Because terrorism is a complicated phenomenon and not an organization to be led by morons, it is governed by oversee hierarchy of intellectuals. Afghanistan’s drug is a weighty factor adding fuel to terrorism. As a third most lucrative illicit substance following arms sale and oil in the world, the international drug lords influencing Afghanistan’s narcotics industry may never give it up under any circumstance.

In the context of almost no or modest government employment opportunities in lawless areas, an internally-supported batch of multinational terrorists arrive in broad daylight and bully villagers to grow poppy or team up with them as paid job. In many instances, ideology or a Jihadist belief is not driving them into armed ranks, but it is rather out of the endemic poverty and grassroots level life they live.

Moreover, a tight border patrol is an impactful precautionary measure to cease terrorists’ inflow. Afghanistan’s long unchecked border with Pakistan – where brainwashed fighters are trained to breed and spread terrorism – has been serving as an unrestrained doorstep for terrorists to Afghanistan. If the so-called “counterterrorist parties” honestly want to put an end to this drama, they should set off the crusade from the border.

Afghanistan’s population is not surprisingly high to make it inconceivable to fight rampant destitution and poor livelihood. They are the primary vacuums exposing the non-violent population to extremist and ultra-orthodox beliefs leading to terrorism. Only a fraction of Afghanistan’s natural resources could lift the nation out of rubble, if it is handled in bona-fide and scrupulously.

To invest on future rebellious generations, the terrorists nowadays set fire to hardly-earned private businesses and markets in a bid to force a businessman to quit and lay off personnel and lure those unemployed as a consequence.

The Afghan governments seemed not intended to fill the gap immediately to avoid terrorists’ reinforcement, but it does run a ridiculous scheme to welcome those surrendering Taliban members, regardless of how many they have killed.

Now a Taliban fighter’s life is placed ahead of a soldier’s life. Very often, Afghan soldiers stranded in a siege by rebels have been left to die by crooked commanders or higher authorities.

Terrorism can’t be fought when the rebels are vaguely provided with super arms and military hardware. They are often spotted with Humvees and Ford Rangers lined tidily as though they are donated externally. Terrorism also can’t be countered when, as evidences reveal, mysterious helicopters drop cases of arms to militants, yet only the Afghan government and international forces here can fly over Afghanistan’s airspace.

This is not an anti-terrorism mission when a US unmanned aircraft or fighter jet repeatedly mistakes Afghan Security Forces for militants. This is also not a war on terror when Islamic schools and seminaries operating in their thousands in Afghanistan are blatantly raising minors and teens as terrorists, which is none of the Afghan government’s business now.

This week, militants raided a village in central Afghanistan and shot dead around 40 villagers including children and women. They have not been hit back and still roam at large. These evidences leave nothing to doubt about the double-game of all internal and external parties involved in anti-terrorism war.

These relentless humans known as terrorists have no room in a hostile environment and can’t co-exist with a peace-seeking community, unless they are not pawns of very upper-hands. The global and domestic media may have succeeded in painting the picture of Taliban as a solid and unbeatable force, indeed, it is not so and all is meant to play up the menace of terrorism.

US troops in opium field in Afghanistan

The terrorist factions use concepts such as massacre of innocents in international coalition’s airstrikes on villages in absorbing new recruits which causes a stir and awakens a sense of antagonism against international forces. The foreign forces’ intrusion into public houses and dishonor to women are among haunting stories that turn villagers hostile to outsiders.

The ignorance and lack of understanding about what is good and what is evil, is destining children to an uncertain future. As a widespread example, parents send their children to sometimes distanced seminaries and religious schools for Islamic teachings, unconscious of their fate. Almost all of these students are intended for war fronts. Many parents have come to their senses too late: their children were nurtured all the way to becoming waged fighters of little worth. This contributory part of terrorism could simply be tamed by governments by freezing these religious schools and launching awareness campaign among vulnerable communities, unless there is willfulness.

On the finance and arms side, we have a handful of reports that militants enjoy compulsory benefits from locals in the form of cash or food. They get arms and weapons as a divine gift, dropped aerially, particularly to militants operating in northern Afghanistan provinces, because they are not in close contact with their heartland, Pakistan, where they get well armed.

Afghanistan’s story bears it out that terrorism is not a fight for an objective against a certain group, but shooting people to death for no reason only to send shockwaves of terror and horror across the country.

With impunity and and hamstrung judiciary branch in place, Afghanistan remains to be the most favorable jurisdiction for smooth insurgency with no grave consequences for evil-doers. Then, we should stop expecting the national and foreign governments to win the war under such circumstances.

Terrorism is a nexus of poverty, illiteracy, unemployment, religious misguidance and, at last, offer of wage and arms to volunteers. If the same cash and weapons are withheld to terrorists and poverty and ignorance is diminished under effective plans and borders are strictly watched, Afghanistan’s most crucial crisis will be resolved. These measures will not take place so far as the interests of warmongers are concerned.

For a moment, we will cast aside the important topics as to how terrorists are financed or the doctrine and ideology orienting gullible individuals towards terrorism and study further the root causes that form the primary grounds for promotion of terrorism.

Crises such as social destitution, ignorance, mass unemployment and a prevailing state of ignorance flash through the mind.

These are prerequisites for a nation under the evil sights of scaremongers.

Once steeped well into these crises, a nation run out of logic can become receptive and open to almost anything, no matter how absurd it is. A severely bankrupt community living off a penny would not spare embracing a violent job, be it terrorism or crimes.

World poverty is not by accident or natural, it is rather by design to push vulnerable community members into the extremist rows or for some other economic reasons.

Terrorism’s agenda include denial of minors and adults an education. It also entails dissuasion of investments and economic development by serial assassinations and abductions.

Because terrorism is a complicated phenomenon and not an organization to be led by morons, it is governed by oversee hierarchy of intellectuals. Afghanistan’s drug is a weighty factor adding fuel to terrorism. As a third most lucrative illicit substance following arms sale and oil in the world, the international drug lords influencing Afghanistan’s narcotics industry may never give it up under any circumstance.

In the context of almost no or modest government employment opportunities in lawless areas, an internally-supported batch of multinational terrorists arrive in broad daylight and bully villagers to grow poppy or team up with them as paid job. In many instances, ideology or a Jihadist belief is not driving them into armed ranks, but it is rather out of the endemic poverty and grassroots level life they live.

Moreover, a tight border patrol is an impactful precautionary measure to cease terrorists’ inflow. Afghanistan’s long unchecked border with Pakistan – where brainwashed fighters are trained to breed and spread terrorism – has been serving as an unrestrained doorstep for terrorists to Afghanistan. If the so-called “counterterrorist parties” honestly want to put an end to this drama, they should set off the crusade from the border.

Afghanistan’s population is not surprisingly high to make it inconceivable to fight rampant destitution and poor livelihood. They are the primary vacuums exposing the non-violent population to extremist and ultra-orthodox beliefs leading to terrorism. Only a fraction of Afghanistan’s natural resources could lift the nation out of rubble, if it is handled in bona-fide and scrupulously.

To invest on future rebellious generations, the terrorists nowadays set fire to hardly-earned private businesses and markets in a bid to force a businessman to quit and lay off personnel and lure those unemployed as a consequence.

The Afghan governments seemed not intended to fill the gap immediately to avoid terrorists’ reinforcement, but it does run a ridiculous scheme to welcome those surrendering Taliban members, regardless of how many they have killed.

Now a Taliban fighter’s life is placed ahead of a soldier’s life. Very often, Afghan soldiers stranded in a siege by rebels have been left to die by crooked commanders or higher authorities.

Terrorism can’t be fought when the rebels are vaguely provided with super arms and military hardware. They are often spotted with Humvees and Ford Rangers lined tidily as though they are donated externally. Terrorism also can’t be countered when, as evidences reveal, mysterious helicopters drop cases of arms to militants, yet only the Afghan government and international forces here can fly over Afghanistan’s airspace.

This is not an anti-terrorism mission when a US unmanned aircraft or fighter jet repeatedly mistakes Afghan Security Forces for militants. This is also not a war on terror when Islamic schools and seminaries operating in their thousands in Afghanistan are blatantly raising minors and teens as terrorists, which is none of the Afghan government’s business now.

This week, militants raided a village in central Afghanistan and shot dead around 40 villagers including children and women. They have not been hit back and still roam at large. These evidences leave nothing to doubt about the double-game of all internal and external parties involved in anti-terrorism war.

These relentless humans known as terrorists have no room in a hostile environment and can’t co-exist with a peace-seeking community, unless they are not pawns of very upper-hands. The global and domestic media may have succeeded in painting the picture of Taliban as a solid and unbeatable force, indeed, it is not so and all is meant to play up the menace of terrorism.

US troops in opium field in Afghanistan

The terrorist factions use concepts such as massacre of innocents in international coalition’s airstrikes on villages in absorbing new recruits which causes a stir and awakens a sense of antagonism against international forces. The foreign forces’ intrusion into public houses and dishonor to women are among haunting stories that turn villagers hostile to outsiders.

The ignorance and lack of understanding about what is good and what is evil, is destining children to an uncertain future. As a widespread example, parents send their children to sometimes distanced seminaries and religious schools for Islamic teachings, unconscious of their fate. Almost all of these students are intended for war fronts. Many parents have come to their senses too late: their children were nurtured all the way to becoming waged fighters of little worth. This contributory part of terrorism could simply be tamed by governments by freezing these religious schools and launching awareness campaign among vulnerable communities, unless there is willfulness.

On the finance and arms side, we have a handful of reports that militants enjoy compulsory benefits from locals in the form of cash or food. They get arms and weapons as a divine gift, dropped aerially, particularly to militants operating in northern Afghanistan provinces, because they are not in close contact with their heartland, Pakistan, where they get well armed.

Afghanistan’s story bears it out that terrorism is not a fight for an objective against a certain group, but shooting people to death for no reason only to send shockwaves of terror and horror across the country.

With impunity and and hamstrung judiciary branch in place, Afghanistan remains to be the most favorable jurisdiction for smooth insurgency with no grave consequences for evil-doers. Then, we should stop expecting the national and foreign governments to win the war under such circumstances.

Terrorism is a nexus of poverty, illiteracy, unemployment, religious misguidance and, at last, offer of wage and arms to volunteers. If the same cash and weapons are withheld to terrorists and poverty and ignorance is diminished under effective plans and borders are strictly watched, Afghanistan’s most crucial crisis will be resolved. These measures will not take place so far as the interests of warmongers are concerned.

Featured image: Villagers protest about the closing of floodgates. Photograph, courtesy of the NBA movement.

International support is today pouring in for the Narmada Bachao Andolan (NBA) movement defending the interests of the people affected by several big dams in India’s Narmada valley. 

A letter signed by civil society organisations from 29 countries has been sent to Narendra Modi, India’s Prime Minister, asking him to order the reopening of floodgates closed last month. If he doesn’t act, another 192 villages inhabited by some 40,000 families will be deluged between now and the end of this month.

The NBA movement’s earlier actions resulted in the first ever withdrawal from a dam project by the World Bank – and a sense of some justice served for around 14,000 families. But things have taken a sour turn this summer.

Local authorities not only decided to unlawfully close the dam’s floodgates in order to store more water, they also arrested hundreds of peacefully demonstrating people under what the protesters claim are false charges.

The authorities issued a 31 July deadline for locals to move – thus adding around 200,000 to India’s long list of internally displaced people.

Shoddy tin sheds

In response, twelve people began an indefinite hunger strike on July 27. On Thursday last week they were joined by hundreds of others.

The vast majority of the 40,000 families who are witnessing the drowning of their homes and communities simply have nowhere to go. The few rehabilitation projects that do exist consist of shoddy tin sheds with no drinking water.

Sneha Gutgutia, an activist from Kalpavriksh, and supporter of the NBA movement, wrote:

“The government claims to respect the traditional and customary practices of the people but it doesn’t even have a plan for resettling the 385 religious sites that will be submerged. ‘If they cannot provide a block for our gods, what resettlement will they do for us?’ is the question villagers are asking.”

Medha Patkar (62), who spearheaded the NBA movement and has won several international awards for her efforts, is on hunger strike. Yesterday was her eleventh day without food and her health was clearly deteriorating.

Displaced by force

Patkar is just one of many hunger strikers. Yogendra Yadav, Sandeep Pandey, Dr. Sunilam and Alok Agarwal are other participants who have a high profile across India. The hope of the movement is that the Indian government doesn’t want to risk a national – and maybe even international – embarrassment.

To understand the motivation and risk-taking of the Indian hunger strikers, it’s important to look beyond the hundreds of thousands who have been, or are about to be, displaced by force. It’s more about the lack of real rehabilitation, compensation and the massive corruption.

The Supreme Court of India clearly stated that resettlement and rehabilitation of the affected families has to be complete before any forcible displacement is directed.

Closing the floodgates is a de facto method of forcible eviction and therefore in contradiction with the court’s order.

To make things worse, a report from the Justice Shravan Shankar Jha Commission concluded in 2016 that at least 130 to 200 million euro meant for rehabilitation ended up in the pockets of fraudulent middle-men.

It’s about more than a dam

History has shown that this struggle is about a lot more than compensation. It was the NBA movement that eventually led to the formation of the World Commission on Dams.

The NBA has raised the issues of the rights of indigenous people, advocated for environmental conservation and for the protection of centuries’ old archaeological monuments from submergence.

The NBA has also significantly contributed to the debate around ‘development’: what kind of development do people in India want – and for whom?

Amartya Sen, the Nobel Prize winning Indian economist, famously said that

“development consists of the removal of various types of unfreedoms that leave people with little choice and little opportunity of exercising their reasoned agency.”

Forced evictions only add to the list of ‘unfreedoms’.

Ashish Kothari, the chairman of Greenpeace India and a long-time NBA ally, explained that the movement is not just against dams.

He told The Ecologist:

“What the NBA stands for is an economy that ensures dignified livelihoods, social justice, and ecological sustainability, and in particular an economy that benefits the hundreds of millions of people who have been left behind or displaced by the kind of ‘development’ that the Sardar Sarovar Dam represents.”

Ashish is also part of the European research project EnvJustice, which expressed its support to the hunger strikers and demands of the NBA movement.

The way forward

The NBA has led the immediate demand to re-open the floodgates. But it has also called for a comprehensive investigation so that villagers made homeless by the dam project are rehoused and compensated before the project begins. This merely implements the orders of the Supreme Court.

The NBA also demands benefits be paid to farmers, in line with the Supreme Court orders. The movement has also called for the formation of a committee to assess the impact on the environment, rivers and forests by submergence, and also the impacts further downriver.

Noam Chomsky, the philosopher and activist, has expressed support for the NBA petition to Modi, saying action was “essential to ensure the faith of people in non-violent, democratic and constitutional governance and struggle for their rights”.

Will Modi respond? With hundreds of his citizens in a nationally – and now also globally – publicised hunger strike, we will probably soon find out.

The Ecologist contacted the Indian High Commission in London yesterday but as yet there has been no response.

Nick Meynen is the Project Officer for Global Policies and Sustainability at the European Environmental Bureau. 

Featured image: Villagers protest about the closing of floodgates. Photograph, courtesy of the NBA movement.

International support is today pouring in for the Narmada Bachao Andolan (NBA) movement defending the interests of the people affected by several big dams in India’s Narmada valley. 

A letter signed by civil society organisations from 29 countries has been sent to Narendra Modi, India’s Prime Minister, asking him to order the reopening of floodgates closed last month. If he doesn’t act, another 192 villages inhabited by some 40,000 families will be deluged between now and the end of this month.

The NBA movement’s earlier actions resulted in the first ever withdrawal from a dam project by the World Bank – and a sense of some justice served for around 14,000 families. But things have taken a sour turn this summer.

Local authorities not only decided to unlawfully close the dam’s floodgates in order to store more water, they also arrested hundreds of peacefully demonstrating people under what the protesters claim are false charges.

The authorities issued a 31 July deadline for locals to move – thus adding around 200,000 to India’s long list of internally displaced people.

Shoddy tin sheds

In response, twelve people began an indefinite hunger strike on July 27. On Thursday last week they were joined by hundreds of others.

The vast majority of the 40,000 families who are witnessing the drowning of their homes and communities simply have nowhere to go. The few rehabilitation projects that do exist consist of shoddy tin sheds with no drinking water.

Sneha Gutgutia, an activist from Kalpavriksh, and supporter of the NBA movement, wrote:

“The government claims to respect the traditional and customary practices of the people but it doesn’t even have a plan for resettling the 385 religious sites that will be submerged. ‘If they cannot provide a block for our gods, what resettlement will they do for us?’ is the question villagers are asking.”

Medha Patkar (62), who spearheaded the NBA movement and has won several international awards for her efforts, is on hunger strike. Yesterday was her eleventh day without food and her health was clearly deteriorating.

Displaced by force

Patkar is just one of many hunger strikers. Yogendra Yadav, Sandeep Pandey, Dr. Sunilam and Alok Agarwal are other participants who have a high profile across India. The hope of the movement is that the Indian government doesn’t want to risk a national – and maybe even international – embarrassment.

To understand the motivation and risk-taking of the Indian hunger strikers, it’s important to look beyond the hundreds of thousands who have been, or are about to be, displaced by force. It’s more about the lack of real rehabilitation, compensation and the massive corruption.

The Supreme Court of India clearly stated that resettlement and rehabilitation of the affected families has to be complete before any forcible displacement is directed.

Closing the floodgates is a de facto method of forcible eviction and therefore in contradiction with the court’s order.

To make things worse, a report from the Justice Shravan Shankar Jha Commission concluded in 2016 that at least 130 to 200 million euro meant for rehabilitation ended up in the pockets of fraudulent middle-men.

It’s about more than a dam

History has shown that this struggle is about a lot more than compensation. It was the NBA movement that eventually led to the formation of the World Commission on Dams.

The NBA has raised the issues of the rights of indigenous people, advocated for environmental conservation and for the protection of centuries’ old archaeological monuments from submergence.

The NBA has also significantly contributed to the debate around ‘development’: what kind of development do people in India want – and for whom?

Amartya Sen, the Nobel Prize winning Indian economist, famously said that

“development consists of the removal of various types of unfreedoms that leave people with little choice and little opportunity of exercising their reasoned agency.”

Forced evictions only add to the list of ‘unfreedoms’.

Ashish Kothari, the chairman of Greenpeace India and a long-time NBA ally, explained that the movement is not just against dams.

He told The Ecologist:

“What the NBA stands for is an economy that ensures dignified livelihoods, social justice, and ecological sustainability, and in particular an economy that benefits the hundreds of millions of people who have been left behind or displaced by the kind of ‘development’ that the Sardar Sarovar Dam represents.”

Ashish is also part of the European research project EnvJustice, which expressed its support to the hunger strikers and demands of the NBA movement.

The way forward

The NBA has led the immediate demand to re-open the floodgates. But it has also called for a comprehensive investigation so that villagers made homeless by the dam project are rehoused and compensated before the project begins. This merely implements the orders of the Supreme Court.

The NBA also demands benefits be paid to farmers, in line with the Supreme Court orders. The movement has also called for the formation of a committee to assess the impact on the environment, rivers and forests by submergence, and also the impacts further downriver.

Noam Chomsky, the philosopher and activist, has expressed support for the NBA petition to Modi, saying action was “essential to ensure the faith of people in non-violent, democratic and constitutional governance and struggle for their rights”.

Will Modi respond? With hundreds of his citizens in a nationally – and now also globally – publicised hunger strike, we will probably soon find out.

The Ecologist contacted the Indian High Commission in London yesterday but as yet there has been no response.

Nick Meynen is the Project Officer for Global Policies and Sustainability at the European Environmental Bureau. 

Hunger is a growing problem for US children and increasingly affects their performance in school, making it more difficult for them to focus on their classes or do homework. It also contributes to behavior and discipline problems.

This was the finding of a report issued last week by the anti-hunger charity Share Our Strength, based on a survey of 500 low-income parents and their teenage children in public schools. Some 325 teachers were also interviewed. “Low-income” was defined as at or below 185 percent of the official poverty line, or $45,417 a year for a family of four.

Among children in low-income families, 59 percent said they had gone to school hungry. In the richest country in the world, with the largest concentration of billionaires, one in six children faces hunger, some 13 million in all.

The survey found that 59 percent of the parents reported that their food ran out before they could buy more; 48 percent couldn’t afford to buy enough food each month; and 23 percent had been forced to cut the size of their children’s meals because of a lack of money.

Children were under increasing stress from hunger. Some 55 percent of children knew their parents were worried about running out of money for food, while 35 percent shared their parents’ fear. Among those teenagers in low-income families, 42 percent experienced sadness caused by hunger and 41 percent experienced anger for the same reason. Many teenagers reported deliberately going hungry to make sure that younger siblings could have enough to eat.

One 15-year-old told the survey,

“I feel like real hungry is different. It’s like when your stomach growls. It’s like when your stomach is almost in pain for me. That’s what real hungry is.”

A 16-year-old said,

“My focus is different when I’m hungry. I’m gonna be thinking about which one of my classmates has food. I’m gonna be thinking about which one of them might share.”

Among low-income families, 92 percent had at least one adult in the household working full-time, part-time or in multiple jobs. Hunger is thus the byproduct not only of poverty, but of the precarious and contingent character of so many jobs and the lack of any meaningful social safety net. Among low-income parents, 64 percent said that a single unexpected large bill—a $1,500 car repair or medical expense—would make it difficult to feed their children.

Hunger is an increasingly serious obstacle to learning. Among teachers questioned in the survey, 92 percent said that hunger had an impact on their students’ learning, 80 percent saw loss of concentration, 62 percent saw behavior problems, and 47 percent saw students suffering additional health problems.

Nearly three out of four teachers regularly saw students come to school hungry, and nearly two-thirds of teachers reported regularly buying food for students who were not getting enough to eat at home, spending an average of $300 a year of their own money.

Children had an overwhelmingly positive response to their schools providing breakfasts and lunches. Three quarters said school meals helped them feel better, pay more attention, behave in the classroom and get better grades.

Brian Minter, a spokesman for Share Our Strength’s “No Kid Hungry” campaign, said,

“Hunger exists in nearly every community in America today. It’s an urban problem, it’s a rural problem, and it has come to our suburbs. It is also a solvable problem.”

He noted that programs like food stamps, school meals and WIC (Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children) had a major impact in alleviating hunger. But these programs are targeted for severe cuts, if not outright destruction, in the budget proposals of the Trump administration and congressional Republicans.

According to a report published Thursday by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP), the House Republican budget plan, scheduled for a vote in early September, would slash $2.9 trillion from programs for low-income and moderate-income families over the next ten years.

This includes a cut of $150 billion from food stamps alone, a reduction of 40 percent. According to the CBPP,

“A funding reduction of this magnitude would end food assistance for millions of low-income families, reduce benefits for tens of millions of such families, or some combination of the two.”

State governments would be enlisted to do the dirty work, by transferring to them the authority to reduce benefits and increase eligibility standards. The budget would also limit “community eligibility,” which allows schools in high-poverty areas to provide free school meals to all students without documenting the income of each individual student’s family. Cuts in low-income entitlement and discretionary programs account for half of all the cuts in nonmilitary programs proposed by the House Budget Committee, although these programs make up only one quarter of the federal budget.

The CBPP estimated that the Republican budget would cut the proportion of gross domestic product devoted to social spending for low-income and moderate-income families from 2.1 percent to only 1.0 percent in 2027, the lowest percentage figure since 1966, when the Johnson administration launched its so-called “War on Poverty.”

While the Trump administration and the congressional Republicans propose to deal with the deepening poverty and social misery by deliberately making the conditions worse, the Democratic Party offers no alternative. The Democrats are not demanding hearings over hunger or the impact of the proposed budget cuts.

During the month-long legislative recess, when senators and representatives sponsor political events in their states and districts to highlight issues of concern, the Democrats are focusing on allegations of Russian interference in the 2016 elections and alleged collusion by the Trump campaign as part of a broader effort to whip up a war fever directed against targets of the Pentagon and CIA, in the first instance Russia.

There are no events spotlighting the dire conditions of life for tens of millions of working people. As for the Democrats’ latest political offering, the so-called “Better Deal” program unveiled last week, it makes no mention of poverty, hunger, homelessness or even unemployment, proposing to use the power of the federal government to boost the interests of “small business and entrepreneurs” and defend “Main Street” against “Wall Street”—i.e., favor one section of business against another.

Featured image is from ActiveRain.

We hear about violence in Venezuela but not about politically motivated deaths in Mexico, Colombia and Honduras. Rigoberta Menchú, awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1992 for her 10-year campaign against military terror in Guatemala, asked “En nombre de qué lógica” does it make sense to single out Cuba and ignore what is happening elsewhere? So it goes with Venezuela.

It should be familiar logic. Einstein said that “mere thinking” doesn’t produce great science. He knew something Marx knew, namely, that facts always depend upon a particular perspective. It means that situations sometimes need to be changed, fundamentally, to see the facts, or some of them.

José Martí (Source: Wikimedia Commons)

It is why José Martí declared, in his famous ‘Our America”, that a bigger hurdle for Latin America, than the power of the North, was a false view of being educated. It doesn’t happen just by possessing information. Some information doesn’t figure, without work. This point matters.

Knowledge is not power. If we don’t know what knowledge explains, or might, it’s useless. In the last 30 years, the world has produced more information than in the preceding 5,000.[i] Daily murders of journalists in Mexico are reported. There is no lack of information.

In Victor Hugo’s Les Misérables, Inspector Javert relentlessly pursues ex-convict Jean Valjean. It’s not from malice. It’s how Javert understands justice, to which he is absolutely committed. When Valjean has a chance for revenge, he sets Javert free. Javert doesn’t know what to do with an act of mercy when revenge, by ordinary reasoning, is expected.

Hugo writes that

“Javert saw two roads ahead of him, both equally straight, but he saw two of them, and this terrified him, for he had never in his life known more than one straight line”.

Simón Bolívar (Source: Wikimedia Commons)

The Right in Venezuela calls for immediate elections, expecting social and economic chaos to influence results. Yet after the failure of the first republic, Simón Bolívar, liberal though he was, said elections would sell Venezuela back to slavery. In his Cartagena Manifesto (1812), he argued that popular elections in such conditions would favour the ignorant and ambitious. He was not a dictator.

He knew the independence struggle was shackled by social structures.[ii] It required authority needed for institutional change. Similarly, Peruvian José Carlos Mariátequi, known, like Bolívar, to admire European ideas, was skeptical about “deliberation and votes” as definitive of democracy. [iii] Elections don’t easily express the will of the people when some people don’t count.

Victor Hugo had a lot in common with Martí, leader of Cuba’s last independence war against Spain.[iv] Valjean, the convict, was “no longer the like of the living, so to speak”. And for Valjean, it is “better to suffer, to bleed  … [than to] never look openly, to squint”. It’s about seeing what is there. Valjean refuses to “never look openly”.

Bolívar, Mariátegui and Martí knew that to “look openly” is first and foremost a struggle against imperialism. To talk about justice and elections without acknowledging the “march of humanity” is to never look openly. We want truth not dreams, Martí wrote. It is an obvious claim for those “no longer the like of the living”. But truth is hard. It’s not “mere thinking”, or collecting facts.

Hugo was a liberal. But he was “more tolerant of human frailty than our own Anglo-American liberalism”.[v] Lamentably, the latter dominates, including much of the left, especially in Academia. They may want to be “irreproachable”, as did Javert.

Ana Belén Montes

He didn’t want to see that the “rules could be brought up short by a deed”. Ana Belén Montes is one who could see this.[vi] The deed, in her case, was the Cuban Revolution. She’s in jail in the US. She saved lives but they were of people Madeleine Albright says are “worth the price …  if it furthers U.S. foreign policy objectives.” (Please sign petition here.)

Hugo, like Martí, warned of false ideals. Against the grain of current obsessions with happiness, he writes

“it’s a terrible thing to be happy. How we content ourselves with it. How easily, having attained the false aim of life, we forget the real aim, duty”.

Happiness is uninteresting, compared with truth.

Ana Belén Montes didn’t forget the real aim. She did what she did, she says, because the Cuban Revolution must exist.

The Bolivarian Revolution must also exist. It should be criticized, true, but not from the “the blind iron horse of the straight and narrow” that finally debilitated Javert. It has to do with truth. The familiar logic denounced by Menchú (and Bolívar, Mariátegui, Martí and others) needs to be named, persistently.

Susan Babbitt is author of Humanism and Embodiment (Bloomsbury 2014).

Notes

[i] Pascual Serrano, “El compromiso de los intelectuales en el siglo XXI” Cubadebate 11 julio 2017

[ii] John Lynch, Simon Bolívar A Life (2006) 63-68.

[iii] .”Peru’s principal problem”, José Carlos Mariátegui: An anthology (Monthly Review Press) 142

[iv] Carmen Suárez León, José Martí y Victor Hugo, en el fiel de las modernindades (Havana: Centro de investigación y desarrollo de la cultura cubana, 1996)

[v] Allan Gopnik, “Introduction” Les Misérables (2008)

[vi] E.g. http://www.prolibertad.org/ana-belen-montes For more information, write to the [email protected] or [email protected]

Featured image is from  tux0racer | CC BY 2.0.

Featured image: German trench. In the foreground the limp bodies of dead German soldiers lie amidst the rubble. The entire scene is a maelstrom of mud, splintered wood and dead bodies. Photographs from the Haig “Official Photographs” series (Source: Wikimedia Commons)

“So fruitless in its results, so depressing in its direction was the 1917 offensive, that ‘Passchendaele’ has come to be synonym for military failure, a name black-bordered in the records of the British Army.” – Basil Liddell Hart, 1934

Rarely does one word trap an image with such nerve tingling fright and awe. But as an image of slaughter, of men needlessly butchered, lives surrendered over absentee stone-hearted generals with an understanding of war lost in the amnesia of small arms fire, spears and straw dress, one suffices. Passchendaele became the code for blood needlessly spilt; for decisions that should have, in any other context, demanded the trial and execution of its initiators.

A century ago, wave upon wave of men were shredded, pulverised and drowned according to misplaced notions, killed by obsolete ideas in what was the  . The Americans had yet to arrive to make a difference in the conflict, while a bleeding Russia had been vanquished, facing revolution. The French, preoccupied with mutinies, needed a fortifying distraction.

Britain and its imperial forces were intent on providing one, with Sir Field Marshal Sir Douglas Haig convinced that the German line would collapse with one last, but all-comprehensive strategic thrust.

The battle had been preceded by what came to be considered the largest man-made explosion in pre-atomic times, featuring 19 tunnelled mines beneath German lines on Messines Ridge. E.S. Turner goes so far as to claim that British prime minister Lloyd George, it had been rumoured, wanted to be woken up at 3 in the morning that June night.[1]

The initial enthusiasm, as with so much in the Great War (1914-1918), was misplaced. “I died in hell,” recalled war poet Siegfried Sassoon. “They call it Passchendaele.” As the blood drained in conditions so swampy as to render the trenches almost aquatic (many soldiers drowned in shell holes); as the ammunition and shells were expended, humanity’s great skill of killing for reasons of futility became apparent.

It was a futility that kept the awards machine busy. Lasting three months and a gain for the Allies of a mere five miles, the Victoria Cross, deemed the highest of Commonwealth military honours, was awarded 61 times. Haig had lost a sixth of the British army. As historians Robin Prior and Trevor Wilson note in Passchendaele: The Untold Story (1996) a psychological breakdown also took place during the battle, marked by desertion and drunkenness.

The accounts have been saturating the commemorations across several countries whose soldiers perished in the muddied industrial abattoir. In Christchurch, New Zealand, an opening exhibition titled “The Belgians have not forgotten” shined a grim light upon a conflict which cost the combating sides over half-a-million casualties.[2] For this sliver of a country, some 2800 troops were killed wounded, or went missing within a matter of two hours.

New Zealand’s fraternal neighbour, Australia, also busy on the commemoration circuit. It had committed its fair, grotesque bounty of blood to the battle. By the time the battle ended on November 10, Australia’s five committed divisions had suffered 38,000 casualties, including 12,000 killed.[3]

In London’s Trafalgar Square before the National Gallery, a mud soldier, the creation of Dutch artist Damian Van Der Velden, was erected, to be left in gradual dissolution before rain.[4] The statue itself was compacted from the historically churned Passchendaele mud.

These exhibitions and ceremonial points all serve a similar purpose. For Dave Adamson of the Waimakariri Passchendaele Trust, it was the promotion of “peace and understanding”. But the peace and understanding such efforts have are less to the members of the public than those who would bag and hoodwink it. For them, war remains a good, even necessary thing.

Harry Patch, the supercentearian “last Tommy” who died at venerable age of 111 in 2009, put the case flawlessly:

“I felt then, as I feel now, that the politicians who took us to war should have been given the guns and told to settle the differences themselves, instead of organising nothing better than legalized mass murder.”[5]

The end point of such futility is that humankind hugs the death god with all too much enthusiasm. Gone are the trench filled nightmares of industrial slaughter. Now, conflicts are undeclared, open-ended, described as forensic horrors marked by surgical strikes.

To live life, to be loved, and then, to be surrendered to an insidious Thanatic drive all too often willed on by others.

“We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,” goes John McCrae’s haunting words, “Loved and were loved and now we lie/in Flanders fields.”

Even more important are the words that follow: that the dead shall be, as it were, trapped in an interminable state of restless, mournful sleeplessness, a nocturnal nightmare should faith be broken with the sacrifice of the fallen:

“We shall not sleep, though poppies grow/In Flanders field.”

If faith is there to be broken, is it not in the ties between humankind so much as its sanguinary leaders who keep insisting that slaughter and an inventory of dead are necessary for matters of state.

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

Notes

[1] https://www.lrb.co.uk/v18/n14/es-turner/stormy-weather

[2] https://www.stuff.co.nz/the-press/news/95498237/bloody-battle-marked-in-chch-exhibition

[3] http://www.smh.com.au/world/passchendaele-100-years-on-the-wwi-battle-that-claimed-12000-australian-lives-20170730-gxlwyn.html

[4] http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/07/29/passchendaele-mud-soldier-slowly-dissolves-mark-centenary-battle/

[5] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2009/jul/25/harry-patch-obituary

Last weekend, Syrian government forces liberated the strategic town of Sukhna in the province of Homs. The town located 110km from the city of Deir Ezzor had been one of the key ISIS strongholds lying at the root of the ISIS defense in the provinces of Homs.

The Republican Guard, the 18th Armoured Division, Liwa Fatemiyoun and the National Defense Forces were main pro-government formations in involved in the operation. Government troops, supported by the Russian Aerospace Forces’ warplanes and attack helicopters, took control over the heights located west, south and southwest of Sukhna and established a full fire control over the town. ISIS repelled the first government forces attempt to enter the town but failed to repel a flanking maneuver from the western direction and were pushed to withdraw from the town after a series of firefights.

Following the success in Sukhna, government troops liberated Rjam al-Saboun, Tal Abu Qul, Rajm al-Qun and Tulul al-Meleh and deployed in a striking distance from the Doubayat gas field. A fighting is now ongoing in the area.
Now, the Syrian military command have two main options:

1. To develop the advance along the road between Sukhna and Resfafa in order to cut off the ISIS supply lines to the eastern Hama countryside;

2. To continue advancing in along the Palmyra-Deir Ezzor highway in an attempt to reach the city prior to the moment when ISIS is able to make successful flank attacks on the advancing grouping.

The first option looks more secure, but the second decision could be made because of political and diplomatic reasons. The Syrian military needs to reach the besieged city in order to pretend on the taking control of the strategic Deir Ezzor-Mayadin-Al-Bukamal road.

Meanwhile, reinforcements from the Qalamoun Shield Forces have arrived the eastern Homs countryside. This may indicate that the Syrian military is creating a striking force for another attempt to retake the ISIS-held town of Uqayrabat.

In the southern Raqqah countryside, the Tiger Forces and allied tribal forces have liberated Al-Hardan, Salim al-Hamad, al-Atashana, Muqla Saghira, Muqla Kabira, Al-Daa’ma, al Jaber and al-Kumaysah reaching the ISIS strong point of Maadan. The advance in the area is ongoing amid a chance that the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) could make attempt to cross the Euphrates River and to slow down the army advance on Deir Ezzor.

According to local and media sources, there is a unofficial military coordination between the Syrian military and the SDF. However, this does not suspend the competition for the oil and gas resources as well as the territory of eastern Syria.

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Commentators display amnesia when they describe former FBI Directors Robert Mueller and James Comey as stellar and credible law enforcement figures. Perhaps if they included J. Edgar Hoover, such fulsome praise could be put into proper perspective.

Although these Hoover successors, now occupying center stage in the investigation of President Trump, have been hailed for their impeccable character by much of official Washington, the truth is, as top law enforcement officials of the Bush administration (Mueller as FBI Director and James Comey as Deputy Attorney General), both presided over post-9/11 cover-ups and secret abuses of the Constitution, enabled Bush-Cheney fabrications to launch wrongful wars, and exhibited plain vanilla incompetence.

TIME Magazine would probably have not called my own disclosures a “bombshell memo” to the Joint Intelligence Committee Inquiry in May 2002 if it had not been for Mueller’s having so misled everyone after 9/11. Although he bore no personal responsibility for intelligence failures before the attack, since he only became FBI Director a week before, Mueller denied or downplayed the significance of warnings that had poured in yet were all ignored or mishandled during the spring and summer of 2001. Bush administration officials had circled the wagons and refused to publicly own up to what the 9/11 Commission eventually concluded, “that the system had been blinking red.” Failures to read, share or act upon important intelligence, which a FBI agent witness termed “criminal negligence” in later trial testimony, were therefore not fixed in a timely manner. (Actually some failures were never fixed.) Worse, Bush and Cheney used that post-9/11 period of obfuscation to “roll out” their misbegotten “war on terror,” which only served to exponentially increase worldwide terrorism.

I wanted to believe Director Mueller when he expressed some regret in our personal meeting the night before we both testified to the Senate Judiciary Committee. He told me he was seeking improvements and that I should not hesitate to contact him if I ever witnessed a situation as that behind the FBI’s pre-9/11 failures. A few months later, when it appeared he was acceding to Bush-Cheney’s ginning up intelligence to launch the unjustified, counterproductive and illegal war on Iraq, I took Mueller up on his offer, emailing him my concerns in late February 2003. Mueller knew, for instance, that Cheney’s claims connecting 9/11 to Iraq were bogus yet he remained quiet. He also never responded to my email.

In the aftermath of the attacks, Mueller directed the “post-9/11 round-up” of around 1,000 immigrants who mostly happened to be in the wrong place (NYC area) at the wrong time, as FBI Headquarters encouraged more and more detentions for what seemed to be essentially PR purposes. Field offices were required to report daily the number of detentions in order to supply grist for FBI press releases about FBI “progress” in fighting terrorism. Consequently, some of the detainees were brutalized and jailed for up to a year despite the fact that none turned out to be terrorists.

Long before he became FBI Director, serious questions existed about Mueller’s role as Acting U.S. Attorney in Boston in effectively enabling decades of corruption and covering up of the FBI’s illicit deals with mobster Whitey Bulger and other “top echelon” informants who committed numerous murders and crimes. When the truth was finally uncovered through intrepid investigative reporting and persistent, honest judges, U.S. taxpayers footed a $100 million court award to the four men framed for murders committed by (the FBI operated) Bulger gang.

Current media applause omits the fact that former FBI Director Mueller was the top official in charge of the Anthrax terror fiasco investigation into the 2001 murders, which targeted an innocent man (Steven Hatfill) whose lawsuit eventually forced the FBI to pay $5 million in compensation. Mueller’s FBI was also severely criticized by Department of Justice Inspector Generals finding the FBI overstepped the law improperly serving hundreds of thousands of “national security letters” to obtain private (and irrelevant) metadata on citizens, and for infiltrating nonviolent anti-war groups under the guise of investigating “terrorism.”

For his part, Deputy Attorney General James Comey, too, went along with Bush and Cheney after 9/11 and signed off on a number of highly illegal programs including warrantless surveillance of Americans and torture of captives. Comey also defended the Bush administration’s three year-long detention of an American citizen without charges or right to counsel.

Up to the March 2004 night in Attorney General John Ashcroft’s hospital room, both Comey and Mueller were complicit with implementing a form of martial law, perpetrated via secret Office of Legal Counsel memos mainly written by John Yoo and predicated upon Yoo’s singular theories of absolute “imperial” or “war presidency” powers, and requiring Ashcroft every 90 days to renew certification of a “state of emergency.” What’s not well understood is that Comey and Mueller’s joint intervention to stop Bush’s men from forcing the sick AG to sign that night was a short-lived moment. A few days later, they all simply went back to the drawing board to draft new legal loopholes to continue the same (unconstitutional) surveillance of Americans. The mythology of this episode, repeated endlessly throughout the press, is that Comey and Mueller did something significant and lasting in that hospital room. They didn’t. Only the legal rationale for their unconstitutional actions was tweaked.

Mueller was even OK with the CIA conducting torture programs after his own agents warned against participation. Agents were simply instructed not to document such torture, and any “war crimes files” were made to disappear. Not only did “collect it all” surveillance and torture programs continue, but Mueller’s (and then Comey’s) FBI later worked to prosecute NSA and CIA whistleblowers who revealed these illegalities.

Neither Comey nor Mueller — who are reported to be “joined at the hip” — deserve their current lionization among politicians and mainstream media. Instead of Jimmy Stewart-like ‘G-men’ with reputations for principled integrity, the two close confidants and collaborators merely proved themselves, along with former CIA Director George “Slam Dunk” Tenet, reliably politicized sycophants, enmeshing themselves in a series of wrongful abuses of power along with official incompetence.

It seems clear that based on his history and close “partnership” with Comey, “one of the closest working relationships the top ranks of the Justice Department have ever seen,” Mueller was chosen as Special Counsel not because he has integrity but because he will do what the powerful want him to do. He didn’t speak the truth about a war he knew to be unjustified. He didn’t speak out against torture. He didn’t speak out against unconstitutional surveillance. And he didn’t tell the truth about 9/11. He is just their man.

Coleen Rowley, a retired FBI special agent and division legal counsel whose May 2002 memo to then-FBI Director Robert Mueller exposed some of the FBI’s pre-9/11 failures, was named one of TIME magazine’s “Persons of the Year” in 2002. Her 2003 letter to Robert Mueller in opposition to launching the Iraq War is archived in full text on the NYTand her 2013 op-ed entitled “Questions for the FBI Nominee” was published on the day of James Comey’s confirmation hearing. This piece will also be cross-posted on Consortiumnews.com.

It has happened again: yet another international poll finds that the U.S. is viewed by peoples around the world to be the biggest threat to world peace.

But, to start, let’s summarize the first-ever poll that had been done on this, back in 2013, which was the only prior poll on this entire issue, and it was the best-performed such poll: “An end-of-the-year WIN/Gallup International survey found that people in 65 countries believe the United States is the greatest threat to world peace”, as the N.Y. Post reported on 5 January 2014. 

On 30 December 2013, the BBC had reported of that poll: “This year, first [meaning here, ‘for’] the first time, Win/Gallup agreed to include three questions submitted by listeners to [BBC’s] Radio 4’s Today programme.” And, one of those three listener-asked questions was phrased there by the BBC, as having been “Which country is the biggest threat to peace?” The way that WIN/Gallup International itself had actually asked this open-ended question, to 67,806 respondents from 65 countries, was: “Which country do you think is the greatest threat to peace in the world today?” #1, 24% of respondents, worldwide, volunteered that the U.S. was “the greatest threat.” #2 (the second-most-frequently volunteered ‘greatest threat’) was Pakistan, volunteered by 8%. #3 was China, with 6%. #4-7 were a four-way tie, at 5% each, for: Afghanistan, Iran, Israel, and North Korea. #8-10 were a three-way tie, at 4% each, for: India, Iraq, and Japan. #11 was Syria, with 3%. #12 was Russia, with 2%. #13-20 were a seven-way tie, at 1% each, for: Australia, Germany, Palestine, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, South Korea, and UK.

The way that W/G itself had phrased this matter, in their highly uninformative press release for their year-end survey (which included but barely mentioned this finding, in it — as though this particular finding in their annual year-end poll, hardly even deserved to be mentioned), was: “The US was the overwhelming choice (24% of respondents) for the country that represents the greatest threat to peace in the world today. This was followed by Pakistan (8%), China (6%), North Korea, Israel and Iran (5%). Respondents in Russia (54%), China (49%) and Bosnia (49%) were the most fearful of the US as a threat.” That’s all there was of it — W/G never devoted a press-release to the stunning subject of this particular finding, and they even buried this finding when mentioning it in their year-end press-release.

I had hoped that they would repeat this excellent global survey question every year (so that a trendline could be shown, in the global answers over time), but the question was unfortunately never repeated.

However, now, on August 1st of 2017, Pew Research Center has issued results of their polling of 30 nations in which they had surveyed, first in 2013, and then again in 2017, posing a less-clear but similar question (vague perhaps because they were fearing a similar type of finding — embarrassing to their own country, the U.S.), in which respondents had been asked “Do you think that the United States’ power and influence is a major threat, a minor threat, or not a threat to (survey country)?” and which also asked this same question but regarding “China,” and then again but regarding “Russia,” as a possible threat instead of “United States.” (This wasn’t an open-ended question; only those three nations were named as possible responses.)

On page 3 of their 32-page pdf is shown that the “major threat” category was selected by 35% of respondents worldwide for “U.S. power and influence,” 31% worldwide selected that for “Russia’s power and influence,” and also 31% worldwide said it for “China’s power and influence.” However, on pages 23 and 24 of the pdf is shown the 30 countries that had been surveyed in this poll, in both 2013 and 2017, and most of these 30 nations were U.S. allies; only Venezuela clearly was not. None of the 30 countries was an ally of either Russia or China (the other two countries offered as possibly being “a major threat”). And, yet, nonetheless, more respondents among the 30 sampled countries saw the U.S. as “a major threat,” than saw either Russia or China that way.

Furthermore, the trend, in those 30 countries, throughout that four-year period, was generally in the direction of an increase in fear of the U.S. — increase in fear of the country that had been overwhelmingly cited in 2013 by people in 65 countries in WIN/Gallup’s poll, as constituting, in 2013, “the greatest threat to peace in the world today.”

Consequently: though WIN/Gallup never repeated its question, the evidence in this newly released poll, from Pew, clearly suggests that the percentage of people in the 65 nations that WIN/Gallup had polled in 2013 who saw the U.S. as being “the greatest threat to peace in the world today” would be even higher today than it was in 2013, when 24% of respondents worldwide volunteered the U.S. as being the world’s most frightening country.

Perhaps people around the world are noticing that, at least since 2001, the U.S. is wrecking one country after another: Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, and Ukraine. Which is next? Maybe Iran? Maybe Russia? Maybe Venezuela? Who knows?

Regarding the 2013 WIN/Gallup End-of-Year international survey, you can see the nation-by-nation results here. For example, their sampling that year of 4,556 Americans found that residents of the U.S. answered to “Q8. Which country do you think is the greatest threat to peace in the world today?”: #1 Iran 20%, #2 Afghanistan 14%, #3 N. Korea 13%, #4 United States 13%, #5 Iraq 6%, #7 Syria 5%, #8 China 5%, #9 Russia 3%, #10 Pakistan 1%. A remarkably high 13% of Americans gave the correct answer. And, late in that year, U.S. President Obama pulled the trigger on his long-planned bloody overthrow and replacement of Ukraine’s government, which was portrayed throughout the Western press as being a ‘democratic revolution’, though it actually ended democracy in Ukraine. 

And the U.S. has just increased its ‘defense’ spending, which already is three times China’s, and nine times higher than Russia’s. Do the owners of America’s military-industrial complex own the U.S. government, and own the U.S. ‘news’media, to permit this rabid military to control the government’s budget, in a ‘democracy’? Is that how it happens?

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

This article was originally published by Strategic Culture Foundation.