Global Research

As I cull my writings, I find a few articles undeletable. Even as a historical portrait, some seem to be relevant today. In Nepal, land cultivation is declining as young people seek employment abroad to earn cash. Nepal, even for its poorer citizens, including farmers, has become a consumer economy. Meanwhile women continue to produce alcohol for sale and bead jewelry for a daughters’ marriage. This edited 1978 story will be posted in 3 parts.

PART 1: Chait Purnima, the full moon day (1977), reminds me a month has passed since my arrival here in Kobek village, a Himalayan hamlet in east Nepal. Light spring winds move over the trees and across clear swept courtyards, bringing with it the faint but reassuring voices of neighbors.

At the arrival of the full moon, fields empty of workers. People are freed from agricultural labor for the holiday, and today Danamaya’s neighbors will converge on our veranda. All women here are artisans. They weave the Limbu tartan cloth shawls and skirts worn by everyone, and they knot their own straw mats and baskets. Women are the brewers of beer and distilled spirits as well. Polishing rice and pressing oil are women’s skills too.

This full moon day, our neighborhood artisans will gather at my host’s doorway. They’ve been invited to help make a special ornament—for me.

During the better part of a year now, I’ve been moving around this eastern hill region, previously unknown to me, trying to understand rural economy. On a short stay a year earlier I met some Limbu people I’d only read about in anthropological literature. Limbu are an integral part of Nepal society yet very different from the Tibetan and Sherpa I was familiar with from previous research in Solu-Khumbu. Solu is three mountain ranges away, but hardly two hundred kilometers northwest (a ten day walk until the 1990s).

Exploitation of Limbu land rights by high-caste Brahmin villagers had been documented by my colleague Lionel Caplan. Limbu came to national attention as one of a handful of Nepal’s many ethnic groups to publicly criticize the government’s policy regarding minorities; that was during the monarchy when no dissent was tolerated. From medics and development officers impressed by Limbu culture, I also learned these women enjoy unusual economic independence. I decided to visit the area and learn more about them and their part of such a culturally and geographically diverse land.

Limbu would become one part of my limited comparative study of ethnic groups living near the primary north-south trade artery of east Nepal. I’d already surveyed a Sherpa community further north, and I stayed in a village inhabited by Newar and Tamang farmers. Limbu not only appear to be a physically quite different race; their rice cultivation and therefore their economy as well as their social values differ markedly. Living with Limbu, I often feel I might be in Burma or Thailand; whereas with Sherpa, one imbibes its underlying Tibetan flavor. I’ve already engaged with several Nepali cultures: the robust Sherpa herders and farmers, the richest of the highland peoples; progressive Newar traders and shopkeepers, many of whose daughters are in school; Rai hill people, a large ethnic group found in villages all across Nepal, also good farmers; Magar villagers who seem impoverished by the standard of other groups who dislodge them from their modest holdings; members of Brahman and Chetri higher castes, know for their frugality and industriousness, exert restrictions on women who often become ascetics and join riverside hermitages.

I announce my plan to take up residence in Kobek village and join a prosperous family of farmers, selecting a corner of an empty hayloft for myself behind the main house. It affords me the privacy I need while giving me easy access to the main house, where, as the weeks pass I spend almost all my time.

This residence is one of a cluster of two-story farmhouses on a steep hillside. Lemon bushes and groves of bamboo veil neighboring houses from one another. While familiar sounds, human and animal, bridge the boundaries between us.

The dark interiors of these dwellings are used for cooking, sleep and storage. Except to cook, no one works indoors. Routine domestic work proceeds on the veranda and in the cleanly swept courtyards in front. It’s here that villagers gather throughout pleasant, dry winter months and where work and social life are hardly distinguishable. With the arrival of spring, activity shifts from verandas to muddy fields on slopes above and below our village dwellings. Early wheat wants cutting and the earth in the patchwork of terraces must be broken so that tender millet and rice sprouts will take hold.

At Chait Purnima we have prepared for the arrival of seven women who’ll make a Limbu naugiri, a necklace of the nine (nau) golden jewels (giri) set among the mass of stringed beads. All Nepalis wear elaborate homemade jewelry, each culture with its own distinguishing design. Limbu women’s chunky naugiri necklace, worn day and night, in the fields, nursing their infants, to market, and at weddings, seems to express the general reputation of these women. They are known for their industry, their assertiveness, and pride. To me, the naugiri symbolizes that vigor and I want to take one with me when I leave them.

My interest in having my own naugiri delights my host Danamaya and other women. But where am I to obtain one? I wouldn’t want an old one bought from a bank, my friends assure me; those worn jewels have value only as security against land purchase loans. The women insist that I must have a new naugiri. But new necklaces cannot be purchased; they are not produced for a market. A Limbu woman’s naugiri is fabricated especially for her by others in her family at the time of her marriage. It’s decided that my surrogate family here in Kobek will make mine. (Never mind about a wedding.)

I commit myself to this scheme with the purchase of the key material—pure gold, costing about 500 Nepali rupees ($50.) on the Limbu market (at the time). This thola of gold (about half an ounce) I buy from a Kobek man recently returned from military service in Malaysia. Next, we visit the local goldsmith. His shabby hut is located on the edge of the village because he’s a member of a low ranked (out)caste. We find him seated on the second story veranda occupied with his trade. A regular stream of clients keeps him occupied, but he’s not too busy to accept my order; it will be ready in a few days. I visit him daily to observe him tap that worthless looking metal lump I’d entrusted to him into paper-thin lustrous yellow sheets. The precious metal emerges into its inert beauty in his outcasted hands. Finally he molds and engraves each of the nine leaves of gold into individual hollow spheres– my very own knuckly, assertive stones that will be the heart of my necklace.

Between each chunk, we women will set thousands of green glass beads. (I buy these at the weekly market, selected from the trays of dazzling bangles and beads imported from India and sold by rows of vendors seated on the roadside, each huddled around her wares.) I’m also directed to buy red felt cloth from which we will cut piece to be pressed like washers on either side of each golden ball. Finally, for the string we need to thread and arrange those beads, we unwind a length of yellow nylon rope cut from my backpack.

Originally published on Heresies, A Feminist Publication on Art and Politics, Jan/Feb, 1978.

All images in this article are from the author.

On Friday night, July 28th, U.S. President Donald Trump said that he would sign into law the increased economic sanctions (passed by 98-2 in the Senate and 419-3 in the House) against any business that is declared to have “knowingly provided goods or services … for construction, modernisation, or repair of Russia’s energy export pipelines.” 

Russia is the largest energy-supplier to the world’s largest energy-market, which is the European Union (EU). The biggest proportion of that trade is in Europe’s main source of energy, which is gas, which is pipelined into Europe from Russia. So: those pipelines are vitally important not only to Russia’s economy but to Europe’s.

President Trump had gotten Congress to agree to limit the application of this provision only to “The President, in coordination with allies of the United States, may impose five or more of the sanctions described in section 235 with respect to a person if the President determines that the person knowingly, on or after the date of the enactment of this Act, makes an investment described in subsection (b) or sells, leases, or provides to the Russian Federation, for the construction of Russian energy export pipelines, goods, services, technology, information, or support.” 

But the new law still does include “SEC. 232. SANCTIONS WITH RESPECT TO THE DEVELOPMENT OF PIPELINES IN THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION.” That Section punishes “Goods, services, technology, information, or support described in this subsection are goods, services, technology, information, or support that could directly and significantly facilitate the maintenance or expansion of the construction, modernization, or repair of energy export pipelines by the Russian Federation.” That includes the crucial Nord Stream pipeline, which is maintained by Russian and German companies to transport gas from Russia to the EU.

U.S. firms have thus now gotten their stooges in Congress to punish European and Russian companies that will be determined by “The President, in coordination with allies of the United States,” to be working together in these ways, to get Russia’s gas to Europe’s markets.

North Stream, or Nord Stream, “has an annual capacity of 55 billion cubic metres (1.9 trillion cubic feet), but its capacity is planned to be doubled to 110 billion cubic metres (3.9 trillion cubic feet) by 2019, by laying two additional lines.[5] Due to EU restrictions on Gazprom, only 22.5 billion cubic metres (790 billion cubic feet) of its capacity is actually used.[6] The name occasionally has a wider meaning, including the feeding onshore pipeline in the Russian Federation, and further connections in Western Europe.(Wikipedia)

So, already, the U.S. oligarchs have greatly reduced the effectiveness of this enormous European and Russian investment, and this is already war by the U.S. oligarchs (and their congressional agents) against both the European Union and Russia; but, the new sanctions aim to go even further to absolutely cripple Europe and Russia.

President Trump is to be credited for having weakened this provision to such an extent that it will be virtually meaningless; but, the intention of the oligarchs who control the U.S., to force Europe to buy from them, and from their allied Saudi, UAE, Kuwaiti, and the other royal fundamentalist Sunni Arabian families, is clear.

Other highlights from this new U.S. law are well summarized in the July 28th article from Zero Hedge, “Trump Confirms He Will Sign Russia Sanctions Bill”.

The biggest concession that Trump made was to allow that this new law, “H.R.3364 – Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act”, “Codifies existing US sanctions on Russia and requires Congressional review before they are lifted.” This is an Executive-Legislative agreement (an agreement between the President and Congress), but the U.S. Constitution doesn’t include any provision allowing an Executive-Legislative agreement to violate the Constitution; and there are a number of provisions in the U.S. Constitution that H.R.3364 might be determined by courts to be violating, as regards relinquishment to Congress of certain Executive powers over the negotiation of treaties, and over the President’s powers as Commander-in-Chief. This is presuming, of course, that key judges cannot be bought-off.

When a country is being ruled by its oligarchs, anything that the nation’s Constitution says, can be viewed as little more than an impediment, not any outright ban, because the actual Constitution, in any such country, is whatever they want it to be. Just how bad the U.S. government has become, can’t yet be determined, but might become clear fairly soon.

Meanwhile, some senior journalists in Europe (such as this) are already beginning to argue that American policy toward Russia is not only draining massive funds from EU countries, but is driving a split in the EU, and also within NATO, which might break Europe apart, into the Eastern European, former Soviet countries, allied with the U.S.; versus the Western European countries, allied with Russia — driving potentially toward the termination of NATO, and of the EU, into an entirely new system of alliances: “Eastern Europe is a powder keg with several, burning lances. Twenty-eight years after the fall of the Soviet Union and the establishment of democracies, the region is sinking into a political crisis,” which has the United States backing the most far-right Eastern European countries, against Russia, but in which the Western European countries become increasingly allied with Russia.

It could happen.

It would not produce an anti-U.S. Western Europe, except to the extent that U.S. policies aim against Russia.

It would thus mean the end of the secret anti-Russia operation that U.S. President George Herbert Walker Bush initiated on the night of 24 February 1990, and that has been carried out by the U.S., EU, and NATO, uninterrupted, ever since.  

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.

Bolivia’s President Evo Morales has been highlighting his government’s independence from international money lending organizations and their detrimental impact on the nation, the Telesur TV reported.

“A day like today in 1944 ended Bretton Woods Economic Conference (USA), in which the IMF and WB were established,” Morales tweeted. “These organizations dictated the economic fate of Bolivia and the world. Today we can say that we have total independence of them.”

Morales has said Bolivia’s past dependence on the agencies was so great that the International Monetary Fund had an office in government headquarters and even participated in their meetings.

Bolivia is now in the process of becoming a member of the Southern Common Market, Mercosur and Morales attended the group’s summit in Argentina last week.

The Cochabamba Water War

Bolivia’s popular uprising known as the The Cochabamba Water War in 2000 against United States-based Bechtel Corporation over water privatization and the associated World Bank policies shed light on some of the debt issues facing the region. India is following the same path under its Smart Cities program (to be discussed in later articles).

“The Bank and the IMF have been requiring these countries (in the Global South) to accept “structural adjustment,” which includes opening markets to foreign firms and privatizing state enterprises, including utilities,” the New Yorker reported.

Some of Bolivia’s largest resistance struggles in the last 60 years have targeted the economic policies carried out by the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.

Most of the protests focused on opposing privatization policies and austerity measures, including cuts to public services, privatization decrees, wage reductions, as well the weakening of labor rights.

Since 2006, a year after Morales came to power, social spending on health, education, and poverty programs has increased by over 45 percent.

Can India Too Declare Freedom From Central Bankers?

While Bolivia has kicked out the Central Bankers and took back their most precious national resource ‘Water’, Indian Government is inviting them into the country with open arms and even willing to sell our own rivers and drinking water! The situation of India in contrast to Bolivia is aptly described in the book India in Cognitive Dissonance.

To solve the dreadful water crisis that had started taking over several parts of India, Government setup a grant of 10 crores, which  was allocated to the then leading Dharwad University to find a solution for the drinking water crisis. The University came out with an excellent de-salination technology — Indian Scientists worked with Indian Money. But once this ingenious technology was discovered, the details were sold to Saudi Arabia for over 100-crores. Saudi Arabia has used this technology to implement its water de-salination, but India has not till date implemented this technology discovered by our own scientists, which is anyway much less expensive than towing chunks of an arctic iceberg to the equatorial regions and getting the drinking water from there; as has been recently proposed!

No PILs were filed for this wastage of public money, betrayal of trust in the critical area of providing Safe Drinking Water for all citizens of our country, nor was any investigation conducted to punish the guilty, now was there any suo-moto case in the matter. Instead, we have consolidated the position:

“India’s own Rivers and Drinking Water for sale in India: by companies spawned from Pepsi and Coke, the same who have been kicked out of many small countries including Bolivia over a decade ago, for claiming to own all of Bolivia’s water, including its rainwater!”

Source: GGI News

Did you know you can lease a river in Chhattisgarh for 22 years. At just Rs. 1 per annum. While thousands go thirsty. The Madurai bench of the high court has ruled against the local people and in favor on Coca Cola and Pepsi units in Tirunelveli district for supplying water from the Thamirabarani river. In August 2016, the Karnataka government gave Abu Dhabi-based businessman B.R. Shetty permission to privatise the iconic Jog Falls Rs 450 crore and turn it into a tourism hotspot.

Isn’t it ironic that from the last 70 years since Independence India is the largest recipient of loans from the World Bank, amounting to $102.1 billion, between 1945 and 2015 (as on July 21, 2015), according to the Bank’s lending report; with an external debt of $485.6 billion at the end of March 2016 as per Reserve Bank of India.

How are we going to repay these loans, if at all? What are the conditions attached to these loans in case of delay or default? The recent case of how the Troika (World Bank, IMF & ECB) Vultures (as they are known) ripped apart debt-ridden Greece, Cyprus, Ireland, Portugal and Spain should be a warning bell to sleeping Indians. Can the current self-proclaimed nationalist Government stand up to these Central Bankers like the Bolivians?

Shelley Kasli is the Co-founder and Editor at GreatGameIndia, a quarterly magazine on international affairs providing global intelligence through strategic analysis by placing events in a geopolitical and historical framework to better understand international developments and the world around us.

This article was originally published by GGI News. 

Featured image is from Zee Business.

“Man is tormented by no greater anxiety than to find someone quickly to whom he can hand over that great gift of freedom with which the ill-fated creature is born.” – Fyodor Dostoyevsky, “The Grand Inquisitor”

It is heartening to know that there are young children still reading books. While a growing majority of parents, who aren’t, have been seduced into destroying their children’s imaginations by placing them in front of screens, there are still holdouts who realize that if their children are ever to become free-thinking adults, they must grow up expanding their minds in the meditative space of beautiful literature on paper pages. Only there will they find the freedom to dream, to stop and close their eyes as they travel through unknown realms of wonder.

I know young children who are doing that; my grandchildren are. They are doing a most dangerous thing: they are thinking. They are purposely cut-off from the madding crowd that is lost in the disorienting madness of electronic cyberspace.

I have seen some children reading a book that has them thinking about the meaning of freedom, what it means to be an autonomous and courageous individual in a country in which brainwashing has been refined to a fine psychological art, and normality has been proffered as a great achievement by a corporate media serving as stenographers for the power elite.  They are learning a profound lesson: that the crowd is untruth and that to be a person one must of necessity stand out.

No, they are not reading Kierkegaard, Orwell, or Dostoevsky. They are reading a writer who sounds the same themes but speaks the language of 9-12 year olds, a supremely intelligent writer of beautiful prose who never condescends to write down to them. They are reading Madeleine L’Engle’s A Wrinkle in Time.

“You should read it, Papa,” my daughter said to me decades ago when she had read it. “You would really like it.”

Valuing her judgment and knowing she was asking me to share an experience she felt important to us both, I did just that. And I can gladly report that it is a book of profound importance, a beautiful and exciting “children’s” book for children of all ages. I found in reading and rereading it that I better understood the pressures to conform, to give up the struggle for an essential self, that my twelve-year- old daughter and other young people were subjected to. Those pressures, aided and abetted by today’s nefarious high-tech social media and their promoters, have increased a hundred-fold. It is supremely ironic that the pressures to conform that L’Engle wrote about in 1962, when the book was published, have become so much more intense because those who became adults in the following years became such conformists themselves by embracing all the high-tech gadgetry they have subsequently placed in their children’s vulnerable hands. Books may help one become a Self, but freedom’s just another word for most people of any era, who far prefer being part of the crowd and losing themselves in it.

From L’Engle’s book I came to see anew the meaning of love and respect for people – their sacred, inviolable dignity – that means nothing to tyrants of all sorts who manipulate and abuse people to satisfy their machinations. Rather than just being obvious and crude, today these tyrants are part and parcel of a triumphant therapeutic, celebrity culture that advises: “Just relax and don’t fight and it will be much easier for you. Don’t stress.” In other words, shrink to fit. But their guile and bad faith is so sophisticated that their conformism is advertised as freedom and self-affirmation. “Don’t shrink to fit.” “Be yourself.” “Be Free.” Every school child in the country is urged to become “a critical thinker,” as they are molded to the rule of group think that dominates the nation’s schools. When all have achieved the pedagogues’ goal of “critical thinking,” there will be no independent thinkers among them.

Since 1962, A Wrinkle in Time has sold over 14 million copies. In its essence it is the story of Meg Murray, a young teenager who feels dumb and ugly and very different from her schoolmates, and who, as fate decrees, must set out on a long journey in search of her true self. “I hate being an oddball,” she says, “I try to pretend, but it isn’t any help.”

Her “problem” is that she is too straightforward and can’t, unlike so many of those around her, pretend to be what she isn’t, a phony actor. She values honesty over pretense, but finds this is not the way of the so-called normal world, where pretense and living lies prevail. Luckily for her, however, she has a highly precocious and independent five-year-old brother, Charles Wallace, who loves and understands her better than she does herself, and whose support is instrumental in her finally coming to accept and celebrate her own uniqueness and how it is tied to the search for truth in all things.

As the story begins, Meg is confused and hurt because someone or something has caused her father, to whom she is extremely close, to disappear. She misses and yearns for him, but no one, including her mother, can or will tell her anything about his mysterious disappearance. Authority figures, such as the school principal, urge her to give him up for dead, something she adamantly refuses to do.

So with the help of Charles Wallace with his uncanny powers, they meet three wonderful and mysterious figures – Mrs. Whatsit, Mrs. Who, and Mrs. Which. This trinity helps them travel through space and time to the planet Camazotz where their father, a scientist, is held captive by the malign force IT, a pulsing brain that has brainwashed all the inhabitants into being identical automatons with no wills of their own. On Camazotz everyone is comatose; it is a place where everyone has given in, where everyone is alike and no differences are allowed. The brainwasher, IT, the ultimate tyrant, has convinced people to hand over their freedom and wills for a painless existence. It tells the children:

For you, as well as for all the rest of all the happy, useful people on this planet,

I, in my own strength, am willing to assume all the pain, all the responsibility,

      all the burdens of thought and decision.

Although Charles Wallace, together with the planet’s entire population, succumbs to IT, who “sometimes calls Itself the Happiest Sadist,” Meg never does. She learns to say NO, to refuse IT, who is, as her father tells her, “completely unused to being refused.” She sees through IT’s lies. Mrs.Who’s  advice to her jumps off the page:

Vitam impendere vero (to stake one’s life for the truth). That is what we must do.

That is what your father is doing.

She finds that what she considers her faults – her inability to pretend, her anger, her stubbornness – serve her in good stead; rather than being taken in by IT’s lies, she sees through IT and discovers the truth about herself and society.

In the end Meg discovers that she possesses great inner strength. Not only does she refuse to be manipulated, but she discovers that her anger and love and care for the truth are what she must rely on; that she must take responsibility for her own life; and that if she has courage, all things are possible.

Only a comatose adult could miss how apposite this book is to the group thinking that dominates our society today, the torrent of lies spewing forth from the pressitute media, and to the problems plaguing young people, who are engulphed by a sea of electronic garbage that is destroying their ability to think and concentrate.

“To stake one’s life for the truth” has never been a popular pursuit. Truth has always been given lip service as lies have flown out of mouths apace. Today the United States has become a society of endless propaganda, and unless many Meg Murrays come along, the future is dark indeed.

Parents need to wean themselves and their children off their addiction to the electronic drugs that have destroyed their ability to think or concentrate long enough to understand that IT (Information Technology?) controls them. If not, I’m afraid the game is up. If you wait to introduce your children to the Oprah Winfrey/Disney movie version of A Wrinkle in Time that is due out next spring, you will have allowed them to be swallowed by the mindless drivel of the entertainment complex that reduces everyone and everything to one-dimensionality and political correctness masquerading as freedom.

Introduce them to the book now before it is too late.

In his great essay “The Storyteller,” Walter Benjamin wrote:

Boredom is the dream bird that hatches the egg of experience. A rustling in the leaves drives him away. His nesting places – the activities that are intimately associated with boredom – are already extinct in the cities and are declining in the country as well. With this, the gift for listening is lost and the community of listeners disappears.

We need boredom today more than ever. Gift your children with this most creative of experiences by eliminating the electronic noise that is turning them into Camazotzians. It might lead them into a book, a place where freedom waits to be hatched, and they may take flight into a life devoted to seeking and telling truth in a country of lies.

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/

On July 25, CNN published an alarming report: Two videos obtained exclusively by the cable news network appear to suggest that the Russian government is covertly arming the Taliban fighters that have slowly returned to Afghanistan since the end of NATO combat operations there in 2014.

The report, authored by Nick Paton Walsh and Masoud Popalzai, states that two separate groups of Taliban fighters have received “improved weaponry … that appears to have been supplied by the Russian government,” including heavy machine guns, sniper rifles, and the ubiquitous Kalashnikov assault rifles that are a staple of black markets across the planet. If authenticated, these “exclusive videos” of unknown origin obtained by CNN would confirm growing accusations from U.S. and Afghan military officials that Moscow is arming the very enemy it spent a decade fighting during the Soviet-Afghan War.

The news ricocheted across the media ecosystem, shared indiscriminately and uncritically by many highly influential journalists and researchers; veterans organization VoteVets even shared the story with the sober assessment that “Trump’s good buddy Putin appears to be arming the Taliban in Afghanistan with upgraded weapons.”

There’s only one problem: CNN’s report falls apart after the headline. While many of the weapons flaunted by militants certainly appear Russian in origin, the videos provide little evidence of a direct evidence of a recent arms transfer from the Russian government to Taliban forces, according to weapons experts from U.S. Special Operations Command and several non-governmental conflict arms organizations interviewed by Task & Purpose.

CNN exclusive: Videos suggest Russia may be arming Taliban https://t.co/XHG2d37kzH

— New Day (@NewDay) July 25, 2017

“I’ve watched the video and frankly can’t see anything that is particularly unusual,” James Bevan, a weapons specialist and director of Conflict Armament Research Ltd, told Task & Purpose in an email.

“There are Russian weapons, and derivatives of those weapons manufactured in other states, circulating among state and non-state groups in every country in that region.”

The weapons experts consulted by Task & Purpose identified the weapons as Kalashnikov variants that have become pervasive among irregular forces; several U.S.-made M249 Squad Automatic Weapons that fire belt-fed 5.56×45mm NATO rounds, including a mid-90s variant with a long barrel and fixed rifle stock and the lightweight MK-49 paratrooper variant with a stub barrel; the TT-30 Tokarev pistol that’s been a staple of the Russian military since the 1930s, and the Soviet-made 7.62 mm general-purpose PK machine gun that’s been in service since 1961.

None of these weapons touted by the Taliban in the CNN video appear particularly modern, and all but the M249 are regular fixtures of the illicit small arms markets that accounted for 60 percent of the weapons flowing into and out of Afghanistan in the decades leading up to the U.S.-led invasion in the aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

“I suspect after years in Afghanistan, these are easy to get,” Capt. Jason Salata, a spokesman for U.S. Special Operations Command, told Task & Purpose.

What’s more, there is no clear chain of custody between Russia and the two Taliban groups featured in the CNN report; one group pillaged the equipment from a rival Taliban faction, while the other received a shipment of arms from across the Tajikistan border. CNN admits that the videos presented as “suggesting” a link between the Taliban and Moscow “don’t provide incontrovertible proof of the trade.”

“There is nothing immediately visible to suggest the weapons are new or any indication (from the footage) that they are all of the same type and origin,” Bevan told Task & Purpose. “Governments that supply rebel and insurgent forces rarely supply new weapons and frequently refrain from supplying their own weapons stocks. This makes any connection between the manufacturing country and the supplier country problematic.”

CNN also notes that the weaponry appears “stripped of any means of identifying their origin,” the Russian connection appears dependent on the little more than the less-than-reliable claims of various Taliban goons.

“Unfortunately, CNN did not fully profile erased markings and other efforts to sanitize the weapons,” Bevan added. “This would be a clear indication of organized, state involvement, but also would be unlikely to incriminate any party without further evidence.”

A screenshot from CNN’s report suggesting the Russian government is providing arms to the Taliban

Indeed, the only arms expert quoted in the CNN story who isn’t a Pentagon or Afghan government official was Benjamin King from the Small Arms Survey independent research group, who explicitly told CNN that videos and photos provided to him for analysis contain little evidence of a recent arms transfer, let alone from Russia.

“[CNN] made some jumps that you certainly can’t make from the weapons themselves,” King told Task & Purpose. “I certainly wouldn’t have made the claim that they were new imports. The generic Tokarev pistols and PK machine guns are old and could have been there for a long time. One of the rifles was an AK-74, so it could have been there for the last 40 years or so.”

If any of the gear appeared new, according to King, it’s the shiny new accessories haphazardly mounted on the Taliban’s new arsenal, like polymer buttstocks and modern telescopic sights such as the Chinese-made JGBG M7 rifle scope that’s the only equipment featured in the CNN video that’s also cited by name in the accompanying report. But even the presence of modern gear doesn’t necessarily signal recent arms transfers between the Russian government and Taliban forces.

“You can purchase one of those things for like $50 on the internet, so it doesn’t seem like a very high-quality military-grade add-on,” King said. “Most of these parts could have just come in the mail.”

If U.S. and Afghan military officials want to fret the flow of foreign arms into the country, they should look in the mirror. A declassified 2016 Pentagon audit revealed that nearly half of the 1.5 million firearms provided to Iraqi and Afghan security forces, including nearly 978,000 M4 and M16s, since 2002 have gone missing due to poor regulations and recordkeeping. In 2014, a report from the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction found that some 43% of weapons provided to the Afghan National Security Forces likely ended up in the hands of ISIS or the Taliban.

In recent weeks, American and Afghan military personnel have gone face-to-face with modern weaponry and equipment in enemy hands. According to a July 25 Military Times report, Afghan security forces are increasingly facing off against Taliban fighters armed with M4 carbines outfitted with night vision, infrared laser sights and Advanced Combat Optical Gunsight scopes. A recent Taliban propaganda video appeared to show a fighter rocking FN SCAR (Special Operations Forces Combat Assault Rifle) 7.62mm rifle decked out with a AN/PEQ 5 visible laser likely liberated during an ambush or raid on a weapons depot.

Like the M249, these are all weapons usually deployed by Western militaries — and, like everything else in Afghanistan, they end up in Taliban hands sooner rather than later.

“Afghanistan is swimming in guns,” King told Task & Purpose. “These things are expected to show up everywhere.”

Featured image: The old building of the embassy of the United States in Moscow. (Source: Wikimedia Commons)

Last autumn, as the Obama administration considered mass expulsions of Russian diplomats from the US in response to the burgeoning Russiagate scandal, John Tefft – the US ambassador to Russia – is reported to have warned against taking this step. Tefft’s reasons for opposing it were that the likely strong response from the Russians, which would lead to expulsions of US diplomats from Russia, would threaten the effective work of the US embassy in Moscow and of the US consulates in Russia.

The Russians order to the US to reduce the staff at their embassy and consulates in Russia by 755 persons is in fact unprecedented. As the BBC rightly says, though a large part of the reduction will no doubt be accounted for by non-diplomatic staff, the Russian announcement still constitutes what is by far the single biggest expulsion of diplomats in modern history

The decision to expel staff was made on Friday, but Mr Putin has now confirmed the number who must go by 1 September.

It brings staff levels to 455, the same as Russia’s complement in Washington.

This is thought to be the largest expulsion of diplomats from any country in modern history, says the BBC’s Laura Bicker in Washington.

The number includes Russian employees of the US diplomatic missions across Russia, the BBC’s Sarah Rainsford in Moscow adds.

Staff in the embassy in Moscow as well as the consulates in Ekaterinburg, Vladivostok and St Petersburg are affected, she says.

Moreover the Russian decision now establishes the principle that the number of personnel at US embassies and consulates in Russia will in future be held to the same level – currently 455 – as the number of personnel at Russian embassies and consulates in the US.

That means that any future expulsions of Russian diplomats in the US – or any US refusal of visas to Russian diplomats to fill vacant posts at the Russian embassies and consulates in the US, as has apparently been happening – will be matched exactly equal expulsions of US diplomats from Russia, and refusals of visas to US diplomats seeking to fill vacant posts in US embassies and consulates in Russia.

That this is a heavy blow to the US is highlighted by one interesting fact. It turns out that the number of personnel working at US embassies and consulates in Russia was almost three times greater than the number of personnel working at Russian embassies and consulates in the US.

That begs the question of what all these extra US personnel were doing there? Perhaps US embassies and consulates are less efficient than Russian ones. However I suspect that the Russians believe that many if not most of these extra people were actually engaged in intelligence gathering and “democracy promotion” activities. If so then these have now suffered a heavy blow as a result of the Russian action, which explains Tefft’s concern.

Regardless of the damage done to US diplomatic missions and intelligence and ‘democracy promotion’ operations in Russia, nothing better illustrates the introverted quality of foreign policy debate in the US than the response to the biggest expulsion of US diplomatic personnel from Russia since the two countries first established diplomatic relations in 1933. Though nothing comparable has happened since the Soviet government expelled US ambassador George Kennan from the USSR in September 1952 at the height of the Cold War, one would scarcely know the fact from the way the US media is reporting the story.

This fact illustrates a greater truth: for much of the US elite- including most of the US media – the new sanctions bill is not really aimed at damaging Russia but rather at damaging President Trump. To achieve that objective all other interests are being sacrificed.

Just as the fundamental economic interests of the US’s European allies are being sacrificed to what is ultimately an internecine factional quarrel within the US of which the Russiagate scandal is only the outward manifestation, so a crippling blow to the US diplomatic and intelligence operation in Russia is being barely noticed, as those sponsors of the new sanctions bill who are not driven by purely commercial interests (see here and here) focus almost exclusively on their feud with President Trump.

The result is that US foreign policy barely exists any more.

Alexander Mercouris is Editor-in-Chief at The Duran. 

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

In letters to the UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and current Security Council president, Syria’s Foreign Ministry called for ending the US-led coalition, operating illegally on its territory without Damascus or United Nations Security Council  permission.

Since September 2014, US-led coalition warplanes have been terror-bombing Syrian infrastructure, government sites, and government forces – on the phony pretext of combating ISIS.

Civilians are being massacred daily. America and its rogue allies flagrantly violate SC Res. 2253 – calling for an asset freeze, travel ban, and arms embargo, along with criteria for combating terrorism, not supporting it.

Syria’s Foreign Ministry accused the US-led coalition of: “commit(ting) massacres (of) civilians through conducting systematic airstrikes on the provinces of Raqqa, Hasaka, Aleppo and Deir Ezzor on a daily basis since the beginning of its illegitimate interference on September 23rd, 2014 with the aim of providing support to the armed terrorist groups,” the Syrian Arab News Agency reported.

“(T)errorism could not (flourish) without the unlimited support provided by the Coalition’s member states to the terrorist organizations, particularly the ISIS and Jabhat al-Nusra.”

“The Ministry renewed condemnation, in the strongest terms, of the international coalition’ crimes against civilians and its attacks on the infrastructure, the economic, services and oil facilities and the public and private properties in Syria which claimed the lives of innocents and caused huge material damage.”

US-led terror-bombing along with so-called Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) terrorists it supports are systematically raping and destroying Raqqa.

Civilians are being massacred daily by aerial and ground attacks.

Infrastructure, residential areas, mosques, schools, hospitals and virtually everything else in the city is being destroyed or heavily damaged.

Essentials to life are in short supply or unavailable, including food, water and medical care. Virtually every family has lost a loved one, friend or someone they know.

Atrocities committed by the SDF go unreported, including cold-blooded murder, forced displacements, and abductions, youths forced into armed service. Resistance means death.

According to the Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR), nearly 500 attacks on vital civilian targets occurred through June 30 alone – largely by US-led terror-bombing.

Washington flagrantly violates Security Council Resolution 2139 (April 2016), stating:

“(A)ll parties (must) immediately cease all attacks against civilians, as well as the indiscriminate employment of weapons in populated areas, including shelling and aerial bombardment…”

Mass slaughter and destruction is part of Washington’s plan to control northern Syria, using it as a platform to seize more territory – on the phony pretext of combating ISIS America created and supports.

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 Kremlin has responded to the US Congress’ newly passed bill sanctions against Russia.

What happened to the 2-hour talk between President Putin and President Trump at the G20 Summit? Read our selections below.

“Tensions between Russia and the US have reached a level not seen since the height of the Cold War”. 

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Washington Pushes Harder Against Russia

By Dr. Paul Craig Roberts, July 31, 2017

On July 30 Russian President Putin finally responded to the Obama regime’s orchestrated expulsion of Russian diplomats from Washington last Christmas and illegal seizure of Russian government properties in the Washington area by evicting 750 “American diplomats,” in reality agents working to undermine the Russian government. Putin could just as well have arrested them. It only took 7 months for Russia to respond to Washington’s hostile actions against Russian diplomats.

Sabotaging Russia-US Relations for Good

By Federico Pieraccini, July 31, 2017

The Senate has overwhelmingly voted to impose new sanctions, the primary purpose of which is to deny the US President the ability to end sanctions on Russia without Moscow first demonstrating good will to resolve points of friction between the two countries.

Sanctions against China, Russia, Iran and North Korea. Part of a Global Military Agenda. Pentagon’s World War III Scenario

By Prof Michel Chossudovsky, July 29, 2017

The Congressional bill invoked respectively Tehran’s support of terrorism, Russia’s meddling in the 2016 presidential elections, and North Korea’s ICBM missile tests.

Breaking: Russia Suspends Use of US Embassy Property in Moscow

By Adam Garrie, July 29, 2017

Russian retaliation against US sanctions and the prolonged diplomatic property crisis caused by Barack Obama and prolonged under the current administration, has commenced.

Breaking: Senate Passes Russia, Iran, North Korea Sanctions Bill, 98-2!

By Daniel McAdams, July 29, 2017

The House and Senate passed “Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act” now goes to President Trump’s desk, where he faces a damned if he does and damned if he doesn’t scenario. A veto would certainly be over-ridden, handing the president a bitter bi-partisan blow that would likely end whatever aspirations he may retain to keep his campaign promises to get along better with Russia.

Is the US Trying to Start a Hot War with Russia?

By Steven MacMillan, July 27, 2017

Tensions between Russia and the US have reached a level not seen since the height of the Cold War, with some even arguing that we have surpassed this point by now. The US is continually provoking Russia, as the hawks in Washington cannot stand the fact that Moscow has stood up to the neocons in Syria.

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President Trump seems to be impatiently racing toward at least one disastrous war. Maybe two. The big question is who will be first? North Korea or Iran?

Over the past several days President Trump has sent two nuclear-capable B-1 bombers over the Korean peninsula to send a clear message that he is ready to attack North Korea. On Saturday he blamed China for North Korea’s refusal to cease its missile tests. He Tweeted:

“I am very disappointed in China… they do nothing for us with North Korea, just talk. We will no longer allow this to continue.”

One press report from an unnamed Pentagon source claimed that President Trump “is to order a military strike against North Korea within a year,” after this weekend’s North Korean test of a longer-range missile.

Iran, which along with North Korea and Russia will face new sanctions imposed by Congress and expected to be signed into law by Trump, is also in President Trump’s crosshairs. He was reportedly furious over his Secretary of State Rex Tillerson’s certifying that Iran was in compliance with the nuclear deal – even though Iran was in compliance – and he seems determined to push a confrontation.

Twice in the past week the US military has fired at Iranian ships in the Persian Gulf. On Tuesday an Iranian military ship in the Persian Gulf was warned off by machine gun blasts from a US Naval vessel. Then on Friday the US Navy fired warning flares toward another Iranian ship operating in the Persian Gulf.

Imagine if the US Navy had encountered Iranian warships in the Gulf of Mexico firing machine guns at them when they approached the Iranians.

Facing new sanctions, the Iranian government announced that it will not end ballistic missile testing even under US pressure. The missile program is not a violation of the P5+1 Iran deal unless it is specifically designed to carry nuclear weapons.

So whom will Trump attack first? Let’s hope nobody, but with continuing pressure from both Democrats and Republicans over the unproven “Russiagate” allegations, it increasingly looks like he will seek relief by starting a “nice little war.” If he does so, however, his presidency will likely be over and he may end up blundering into a much bigger war in the process.

Although Trump’s bombastic rhetoric on Iran and North Korea has been pretty consistent, the American people voted Trump because he was seen as the less likely of the two candidates to get the US into a major war.

A recent study by the Boston University and the University of Minnesota concluded that Trump won the most votes in parts of the country with the highest military casualties. Those most directly suffering the costs of war were attracted to the candidate they saw as less likely to take the US into another major war. These are the Americans living in the swing states of Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Michigan that surprised the pundits by voting for Trump over Hillary.

Will Trump’s legacy be blustering us into one or two wars that will make Iraq and Afghanistan look like cakewalks by comparison? Millions dead? It’s time to make our voices known before it’s too late!

In the classroom of international security, Australia remains an infant wanting attention before the older hands. During the Paris Peace talks, Prime Minister William Morris (“Billy”) Hughes screamed and hollered Australia’s wishes to gain greater concessions after its losses during the Great War, urging, among other things, a more punitive settlement for Germany.

In the post-September 2001 age, recognition comes in different forms, notably in the field of terrorism. Australian authorities want recognition from their international partners; Australian security services demand attention from their peers. The premise of this call is simple if masochistic: Australia is worth torching, bombing and assailing, its values, however obscure, vulnerable before a massive, inchoate threat shrouded in obscurantism.

Over the weekend, the security services again displayed why adding fuel to the fire of recognition remains a burning lust for the Australian security complex. The inner-city suburb of Surry Hills in Sydney, and the south-western suburbs of Lakemba, Wiley and Punchbowl, witnessed raids and seizures of material that could be used to make an improvised explosive device.

What was notable here was the domesticity behind the alleged plot. Focus was specific to Surry Hills in what was supposedly an attempt to create an IED involving a domestic grinder and box containing a multi-mincer. At stages, those with a culinary inclination might have been confused: were Australia’s best and brightest in the frontline of security getting excited about the ill-use kitchen appliances might be put to?

The arrest provided yet another occasion Australian audiences are becoming familiar with: individuals arrested and detained, usually with no prior convictions let alone brush with the law, while the celebratory stuffing is sought to file charges under anti-terrorism laws.

But this was not a time for ironic reflection. Australians needed to be frightened and reassured, a necessary dialectic that governments in trouble tend to encourage. First, comes the fear of death, launched by a sinister fundamentalist force; then comes the paternal reassurance of the patria: those in blue, green and grey will protect you.

Without even questioning the likelihood of success in any of these ventures (would this supposed device have ever gotten onto a plane?), such networks as Channel Nine news would insist that this could be the “13th significant conspiracy to be foiled by Australian authorities since the country’s terror threat level was raised to ‘probable’ in 2014.”[1]

The Herald Sun was already dubbing this a Jihadi “meat mincer bomb plot”, happy to ignore the obvious point that details were horrendously sketchy. The Prime Minister, Malcolm Turnbull, deemed the conspiracy “elaborate”. (The foe must always be elevated to make the effort both worthwhile and free of folly.) The AFP Commissioner, Andrew Colvin, was convinced that this was “Islamic-inspired terrorism. Exactly what is behind this is something we will need to investigate fully.”[2]

Depending on what you scoured, reports suggested that this was a “non-traditional” device which was set to be used for an “Islamist inspired” cause. The usual cadre of experts were consulted to simply affirm trends they could neither prove nor verify, with the “lone wolf” theme galloping out in front.

John Coyne of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute’s Border Security Program, for instance, plotted a kindergarten evolution for his audience: planes were used in September 2001; then came regionally focused incidents such as the Bali bombings, and now, in classic fatuity, “a new chapter arising or a return chapter almost”. “This is much more panned and deliberate, if the allegations are correct.”[3]

Rita Panahi, whose writings prefer opinion to the inconvenience incurred by looking at evidence, cheered the weekend efforts and issued a reminder:

“Remember the weekend’s terror raids next time you have to surrender a tube of sunscreen as you pass through airport security a second time, this time barefooted and beltless, and fearful you might miss your flight.”[4]

For Panahi, this was a case that was done and dusted. These were “wannabe jihadis” (dead cert); they had plotted to inflict “mayhem and destruction on Australian soil” (naturally) and Australians needed to understand that an ungainly super structure of intrusive security measures were indispensable to security. Thank the counter-terrorism forces, luck and distance.

Such occasions also provide chicken feed for pecking journalists, many of whom have ceased the task of even procuring their beaks for the next expose. Indeed, some were crowing, including one on ABC 24, that the “disruption” of an “imminent” attack had taken place at speed; that this “cell” had little chance of ever bringing their device to an aircraft. Evidence and scrutiny are ill-considered, and the political classes are permitted to behave accordingly.

The Border Protection Minister, Peter Dutton, never happy to part with anything valuable on the subject of security, refused to confirm whether there had been an international dimension, a tip-off from intelligence agencies, or assistance.

“There will be lots of speculation around what the intent was,” claimed Dutton, “but obviously all of us have been working hard over recent days and we rely upon the expertise of the Federal Police and ASIO and other agencies.”[5]

He observed that there was “a lot of speculation around” which he did not wish to add to.

He need not have bothered, given that the opinion makers have formed a coalition of denial and embellishment so vast and enthusiastic so as to make Australia matter in the supposed global jihadi effort. It would come as a crushing disappointment to the infant in that room of international relations to realise otherwise.

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

Notes

[1] http://www.9news.com.au/national/2017/07/29/18/09/terror-related-police-operation-underway-across-sydney

[2] http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-07-30/plot-to-bring-down-plane-disrupted,-pm-says-after-sydney-raids/8757386

[3] http://www.9news.com.au/national/2017/07/29/18/09/terror-related-police-operation-underway-across-sydney

[4] http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/opinion/rita-panahi/australia-has-escaped-largescale-highcasualty-terror-attacks-because-of-necessary-evils/news-story/e563d1a2e17abad8d4a2fcb8132d3d10

[5] https://thewest.com.au/news/crime/mincer-bomb-plot-speculation-dutton-ng-s-1754203 

Some historians believe that the cause of WW2 was UK prime minister Chamberlain’s appeasement of Hitler’s recovery of German territory given to other countries via the Versailles Treaty in contravention of US President Woodrow Wilson’s promise to Germany that there would be no reparations and no loss of territory if Germany agreed to an armistice ending WW1.

I do not agree. The facts seem clear. The cause of WW2 was the gratuitous and unenforceable guarantee to the Polish military government given by Chamberlain that if Poland refused to hand German lands and populations back to Germany, Great Britain would be there to support Poland. When Germany and the Soviet Union made the deal to split Poland between them and attacked, Britain due to its stupid “guarantee” declared war on Germany, but not on the Soviet Union. As France was aligned by treaty with Britain, France, too, had to declare war. Because of the reign of propaganda in the West, hardly anyone knows this, but WW2 was started by the British and French declaration of war on Germany. Yet, it was the surviving members of the German regime who were put on trial by the US, UK, France, and the Soviet Union in Nuremberg for initiating aggressive war.

Adolf Hitler greets British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain on the steps of the Berghof, 15 September 1938 (Source: Wikimedia Commons)

Nevertheless, as the general opinion is that Chamberlain encouraged Hitler to ever more aggressive actions by the British failure to respond, why has no one pointed out that the Russian government’s lack of response to Washington’s aggressive actions toward Russia encourages Washington to become more aggressive. This also is leading to war.

The Russian government, like Chamberlain’s, has not responded to provocations far more dangerous than Chamberlain faced, because, like Chamberlain, the Russian government prefers peace to war.

The question is whether the Russian government is avoiding or encouraging war by its non-response to illegal sanctions and propagandistic accusations and demonizations. Russia has even allowed Washington to put ABM bases on its borders with Poland and Romania. This is like the US permitting Russia to put missile bases in Cuba.

Russia is disadvantaged because, unlike the United States, Russia is an open society, not a police state like the US where dissent is controlled and suppressed. The Russian government is handicapped by its decision to permit foreign ownership of some of its media. It is disadvantaged by its decision to accept hundreds of American and European financed NGOs that organize protests and constantly level false charges at the Russian government. The Russian government permits this because it mistakenly believes Washington and its vassals will see Russia as a tolerant democracy and welcome it into the Western Family of Nations.

Russia is also disadvantaged by its educated upper class, professors and businessmen who are Western oriented. The professors want to be invited to conferences at Harvard University. The businessmen want to be integrated into the Western business community. These people are known as “Atlanticist Integrationists.” They believe Russia’s future depends on acceptance by the West and are willing to sell out Russia in order to gain this acceptance. Even some of Russian youth think everything is great in America where the streets are paved with gold, and some of the Russian media take their cue from the Western presstitutes.

It is a difficult situation for the Russian government. The Russians mistakenly believed that the demise of the Soviet Union made us all friends. It seems only Gorbachev understands that the Soviet collapse removed all constraint on Washington’s hegemonic behavior. Few in Russia seem to understand that the enormous budget and power of the US military/security complex, about which President Eisenhower, warned in 1961, needs an enemy for its justification, and that the Soviet collapse had removed the enemy. The very minute that Russia stood up for its national interest, Washington filled the desperately needed category of “The Enemy” with Putin’s Russia.

The Russian government and upper class have been extremely slow in realizing this. Indeed, only a few are beginning to see the light.

Despite the writing on the wall, Russia’s new UN envoy, Vasily Nabenzya declared on July 29 that Russia has no alternative to “building bridges under any circumstances. We will cooperate. Americans cannot go without us, and us without them. This is an objective reality.”

This is a statement of Russian surrender.

Russia’s deputy foreign minister, Sergei Ryabkov also refuses to read the writing on the wall. He thinks Washington and Moscow must “break the vicious circle of retaliation and start anew.”

On July 30 Russian President Putin finally responded to the Obama regime’s orchestrated expulsion of Russian diplomats from Washington last Christmas and illegal seizure of Russian government properties in the Washington area by evicting 750 “American diplomats,” in reality agents working to undermine the Russian government. Putin could just as well have arrested them. It only took 7 months for Russia to respond to Washington’s hostile actions against Russian diplomats.

Sometimes the Russian government shows some awareness that it is permanently designated as Washington’s Number One Enemy. Putin explained the belated expulsion of US “diplomats” as follows:

“We’ve been waiting for quite a long time that maybe something would change for the better, we had hopes that the situation would change. But it looks like, it’s not going to change in the near future… I decided that it is time for us to show that we will not leave anything unanswered.”

After saying this, Putin took it all back:

“The main thing is, that we have a multi-faceted cooperation in many fields. Of course, Moscow has a lot to say and there is a number of spheres of cooperation that we could potentially cut and it would be sensitive for the US side. But I think we shouldn’t do it. It would harm development of international relations. I hope it won’t get to that point. As of today, I’m against it.”

https://www.rt.com/news/398019-putin-us-diplomats-sanctions/

A more realistic response than President Putin’s comes from Dmitry Suslov, deputy director of the Russian Council on Foreign and Defense Policy and program director of Putin’s Valdai Discussion Club. Suslov understands that the new illegal sanctions against Russia, in addition to their advantage for US energy corporations, are an act of aggression toward Russia, the purpose of which is to make impossible the improvement of bilateral relations between the US and Russia.

“Today,” Suslov said, “it is already clear that the US is our enemy, and will remain our enemy for a long time. Russia needs to adjust its state arms program, reflecting the inevitable military-political confrontation with the US. There must be investments in strategic deterrence, in maintaining the system of guaranteed mutual destruction.”

Suslov adds:

“Perhaps, it is worthwhile to turn off cooperation with the United States on those issues which are necessary first of all for the US itself. For example, the US depends on Russia in the field of space cooperation. Perhaps there is a need to make adjustments and give up part of the programs of cooperation. It is worthwhile to think about increasing military cooperation between Russia on the American continent — I mean primarily to build up cooperation with Venezuela,” Suslov said.

In Washington, anyone who departed as far as Suslov has from the delusions that hinder Russian decision-making would be fired. It will be interesting to see if Suslov has introduced more reality than is acceptable into Russian awareness of the threat that Russia faces from Washington.

Is Russia a country so desperate to be part of the West that it is ruled by delusions and illusions? If so, war is a certainty.

Featured image: Shin Bet agent, Ziv Moyal’s Jordanian foreign ministry ID card, published in Jordanian newspaper (Source: Tikun Olam)

Ben White tweeted that Reuters published a story a week ago naming Moyal. But apparently the IDF censor compelled Reuters to remove the name, which it did. There are a few online sources which continue to display the original version of the story with Moyal’s name.

Jordanian authorities have published for the first time the name of the Israeli Shin Bet agent who killed two Jordanian civilians and severely wounded a third. Further, there have been mass protests in Amman against the country’s government for going lightly on the killer and the Israeli government, not to mention anger over the lack of Jordanian response to the Al Aqsa crisis.

As a result King Abdullah realizes he must take a tougher approach in order to mollify activists in the kingdom. He does this against his own inclination since Jordan, like the PA, is a willing collaborator with Israel in security, intelligence and many other matters. So in a sense Abdullah is a hypocrite.

But he has identified the embassy deputy security chief as Ziv Moyal and also published his Jordanian security ID. As a result, Israeli media have also published his name. Now Bibi can embrace the killer full-frontal, as opposed to the chicken shit photo he took of him embracing Moyal from behind so his face could not be seen. Now also the Israeli uber-nationalists can lift Moyal on their shoulders and parade him in front of Al Aqsa to provoke even more violence between Jews and Muslims.

Jordan has told Israel that its ambassador and embassy staff will not return to that country until Israel tries Moyal for his killings. That puts Bibi is a bad spot as he’s endorsed the man for his brave deeds. The best Israel can do is mount a sham investigation that finds Moyal acted proportionally and appropriately. Perhaps they can cashier him from the spy agency. Then Moyal can get a job as a private security guard guarding settlements and stolen Palestinian homes on behalf of Elad. They’ll put his killer instincts to good use against uppity Ay-rabs for sure.

Ynet reported as well that exposure of this information by Jordan is liable to have international repercussions. It didn’t explain what this might mean. But it’s an intriguing thought that Jordan might pursue the matter before international bodies such as the United Nations or other judicial fora further ratcheting up pressure against Israel.

Featured image: CNE President said Venezuela voted “massively” for the National Constituent Assembly. (Photo: EFE via teleSUR)

The president of the National Electoral Council Tibisay Lucena has announced that turnout in Venezuela’s historic National Constituent Assembly was over 41 percent, indicating that over 8 million people voted in the elections.

“Peace has won. If peace has won, Venezuela has won,” she said at a televised press conference. “Despite the violence and threats, Venezuelans were able to express themselves.”

Lucena said the CNE had to relocate some voting centers to avoid violence, and that on Tuesday the Indigenous communities will choose its eight remaining representatives.

President Nicolas Maduro spoke to a large crowd in Caracas and thanked their support to reach peace in the country. Maduro said it was one of the highest voter turnouts of the Bolivarian Revolution with 8,089, 320 voting for their representatives

“Eight million in the middle of threats, there were states where they crossed rivers and mountains, and they voted,” Maduro said.

“The people of Venezuela have given a lesson on democracy,” President Maduro said.

Maduro thanked Latin America and the Caribbean countries for their support against what he called interventionist moves by the United States. Referring to President Donald Trump‘s promise that he would not accept the results of this election, Maduro said:

“We don’t care what Trump says, we care about what our people say”

“This election will mark the future years of the independence of Latin America,” Maduro said. “Latin America will begin a new wave of struggle.”

The Venezuelan president repeated that the first step before the legislative body begins the Constituent process will be to call, yet again, for a dialogue with the right-wing opposition in the country. Maduro also called on the opposition to abandon violence and return to doing politics.

Voting hours were extended by one hour due to the overwhelming response, as hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans from across the country lined up long before dawn to cast their ballots for the 545 candidates.

The voting process has been peaceful with the exception of a few isolated incidents of violence as opposition supporters protested and staged guarimbas in a bid to shut down the election.

A feeling of excitement filled the crowds in the center of Caracas, as citizens sang, danced and laughed after the end of the process to choose its delegates to the legislative body that will draft the new Constitution.

The issue of refugees and economic migrants leaving the Middle East and Africa due to conflict and the desire for a better life is one that will be debated for decades. No doubt you will have your own opinion on the matter. However, the unprovoked and illegal attack of Libya by Britain, France and NATO (USA) in 2011 led directly to conflict refugees and economic migrants making the hazardous journey across the Mediterranean Sea to Europe.

The Chancellor at the time, George Osborne, had his office officially announce:

“It’s right that the United Kingdom is playing a leading role to protect Libyan civilians from the appalling activities of the Libyan government and to take that country, we hope, to a better future.”

The Foreign & Commonwealth Office then announced, somewhat hastily in December 2011 that it wanted to promote and support business to get a foothold in the country. FCO press release: “Rebuilding Libya: opportunities for British business.”

The British government were warned not just by diplomatic efforts but even by the mainstream media that this campaign would lead to disaster. So was Barack Obama and NATO:

“Meanwhile, Barack Obama ignored the advice of top lawyers in the US defence and justice departments when he decided he had the legal authority to continue the US military participation in Libya without the authorisation of Congress, according to officials.”

The Telegraph ran a piece back in 2010 prior to the attack.

“Col. Muammar Gaddafi has warned that Europe runs the risk of turning “black” unless the EU pays Libya at least €5 billion (£4.1 billion) a year to block the arrival of illegal immigrants from Africa.”

The Week ran a piece some months later

“For more than a decade the booming Libyan economy has been a destination for legal and illegal migrants from Africa and even further afield in Bangladesh and China. The extended Libyan coast has also been a springboard for undocumented migration into Europe. Gaddafi entered into a series of agreements with the European Union and individual governments, in which Libya effectively became a co-partner in enforcing Europe’s ‘externalised’ border controls. ”

After the destruction of Libya MNSBC reported that:

“The largest flow of modern African migration funnels through a single country — Libya. Coming from the south, migrants flee the vestiges of wars that have left entire nations in ruin. From the east, they escape a life of indefinite military servitude and violent conflict. From the west, they evade destitution and governments that arbitrarily jail whomever they please. Some arrive by choice, others by force. But Libya is the purgatory where most migrants prepare to face the deadliest stretch of the Mediterranean Sea. See this excellent infographic of migrations through Libya.

Far from being a haven for new business for Britain to exploit, as at July 2017 the advice issued by the FCO is that it

“continues to advise against all travel to Libya as intense fighting continues in a number of areas and local security situations can quickly deteriorate.” It goes further: “There remains a high threat throughout the country of terrorist attacks and kidnap against foreigners, including from Daesh-affiliated extremists ISIL and Al Qaeda, as well as armed militias.”

Iraq and Afghanistan were clues that destroying the Libyan authorities was not going to end well. And contrary to the Exchequer’s deceit, official figures later showed that the eight-month military attack of Libya cost the British taxpayer £320 million whilst efforts to stabilise the country following Gaddafi’s brutal death and the collapse of his government had been woeful and amounted to just £25m. No business is being conducted in Libya.

Gaddafi’s demand for €5billion euros back in 2010 to keep control of migration was a drop in the bucket in comparison to what came after he was murdered by what many consider an order directly from the French government by the French Secret Service.

4,600 people plucked to safety from unseaworthy boats off the Libyan coast over just three days, the Italian coastguard said, as migrants took advantage of calmer waters to attempt the perilous journey across the Mediterranean. (Source: TruePublica)

The OECD reports that

“The financial burden, including the direct cost of supporting the newcomers on arrival would be as much as £20billion, or 0.2 per cent of the EU’s total economic output in 2016.”

This is a cost per year and increasing.

Reuters reports that the “German government plans to spend 93.6 billion euros on refugees by end 2020.” The change in Merkel’s immigration policy is motivated by a rising political challenge as it is reported that:

“tens of thousands of demonstrators, stirred by anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant sentiment, staged protests under the banner of the Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamisation of the West’ via a new right-wing political party which is rapidly gaining popularity.”

In the meantime, below are some excerpts from a report by wsws.org on the continuing attempts by a desperate European Union to stop mass migration into Europe which is now destabilising the entire EU project.

wsws.org: European Union and Italy step up pressure on organisations assisting refugees

 On July 25, Italian Interior Minister Marco Minniti (Democratic Party) ordered representatives of nine non-governmental organisations (NGOs) involved in the rescue of refugees to attend a meeting at his ministry. There they were called upon to sign a “Code of Conduct,” restricting their activities in the Mediterranean Sea.

As the WSWS noted two weeks ago, the new code violates “existing law”: “On the high seas international maritime law prevails, which obligatorily demands the rescue of people in distress … this is precisely what the ‘Code of Conduct’ is designed to prevent the NGOs and their rescue boats from undertaking.”

Should NGOs fail to sign the sinister, illegal code, Italy has threatened to close its ports to their ships. They want to restrict the NGOs and drive them out of the Mediterranean.

Currently more than 40 percent of refugees rescued at sea owe their lives to organisations such as Sea-Watch, Sea-Eye, MOAS (Migrant Offshore Aid Station), Jugend Rettet (Rescuing Youth), Save the Children, Doctors Without Borders, SOS Méditerranée, Proactiva Open Arms, etc.

“We are just in mid-July,” noted Timon Marszalek, the director of SOS Méditerranée Germany, “and we’ve saved as many people in the Mediterranean as we did last year.”

Ruben Neugebauer of Sea-Watch told Deutschlandfunk (German radio): “What they want to achieve is obvious: they are trying to keep ships out of the danger zone because we undermine the concept of dying on Europe’s borders.”

NGOs are also forbidden to enter Libyan territorial waters. They must look on as people drown, without being able to intervene. 

The “Code of Conduct” is not merely the work of the Italian authorities. It was agreed upon at a meeting of EU ministers in Tallinn, Estonia in early July. 

This campaign is bound up with unprecedented military deployment taking place in the Mediterranean off the North African coast. Taking part in the operation, which has been ongoing since June 2015 under the innocuous name of “Operation Sophia” (formerly known as Eunavfor [European Union Naval Force] Med), are the navies of Germany, Italy, Great Britain and other European countries.

On the same day the NGOs were summoned to the Italian Interior Ministry, the EU decided to extend the “Sophia” mission to the end of 2018. Officially, the remit of the operation is to combat “smuggler criminality on the Mediterranean” and thus prevent deaths at sea. In fact, the combined navies are responsible for just 8 percent of sea rescue operations.

The EU has committed itself to continue financing the Libyan coast guard and equipping it with weapons. The European Union is supporting an organisation notorious for trafficking in human beings, torture and murder. At the request of the EU, the Libyan coast guard forces refugees into Libyan prisons, where around 300,000 people are currently being held under appalling conditions.

In the meantime, it is estimated that 1.3 million migrants entered the EU in 2015, by the end of 2017 another 3 million are expected and according to a report by an Austrian military intelligence agency as many as 15 million are due to arrive by 2020. Many of these migration reports are distorted for one reason or another, but there is no doubting the scale of migration and the problem is present, not least the hundreds of €billions required in future years to control it.

Featured image is from the author.

The strategy that the American deep state intends to employ to sabotage once and for all the possibilities of a rapprochement between the United States and Russia has been revealed.

After months of debate over the bad state of relations between the United States and Russia, the G20 offered the stage for the two leaders to meet and start discussing the various problems facing the two countries. In the days following the summit in Hamburg, the Kremlin and the White House revealed that Putin and Trump met three times in bilateral talks to discuss how to improve relations between the two nations. The ceasefire reached in southern Syria is therefore intended as the first step in a new direction set for Washington and Moscow.

As was easy to foresee, the deep state did not like this prospect of cooperation, immediately unleashing the mainstream media on Trump, because repeated meetings with Putin at the G20 were apparently suggestive of some sort of collusion, as if the leaders of two nuclear powers cannot even speak with each other. Obviously uncomfortable with these meetings, the sabotaging of relations between Russia and the US has taken a new turn. The previous ceasefire in Syria, reached by Kerry and Lavrov during the previous administration a year ago, was sabotaged by the US Air Force’s bombing of Syrian troops at Deir ez-Zor, which killed and injured more than a hundred Syrian soldiers. This served to favor Daesh’s assault on government positions, hinting at some sort of cooperation between Washington and the terrorists. Moscow immediately interrupted any military-to-military communication with Washington, which included the ceasefire reached between Lavrov and Kerry.

This time the strategy seems more refined and certainly does not lend itself to military action. Following the incident in Deir ez-Zor, the bombing of the Syrian base, and the downing of the Syrian Su-22, any further US military provocation would be met with a harsh response from the Russian side, risking an escalation that even the US military does not seem willing to to risk. For this reason, it seems that an approach that relies more on legislative means than military power has been chosen.

The Senate has overwhelmingly voted to impose new sanctions, the primary purpose of which is to deny the US President the ability to end sanctions on Russia without Moscow first demonstrating good will to resolve points of friction between the two countries. The areas of disagreement include the situation in Ukraine and Syria, nuclear weapons, an end to the alleged hacking of US elections, and the supposed intention of Moscow to invade the Baltic states. Obfuscation, lies and misinformation seem to be the driving force behind the Senate vote. The bill will end up on Trump’s desk, and at that point he will have to decide whether to sign it or not. If he signs it, it will obvioulsy limit his autonomy.

With Trump’s latest move, it is difficult to know whether he directly ordered the CIA to stop funding jihadists fighting Assad in Syria, or whether it was an independent choice of the CIA connected with other plans of which we are not aware. In any case, it seems to have particularly agitated the deep state, which now sees its destabilization plans for Syria hampered, with Moscow left in full control of the Syrian state and its fate.

The role of the deep state, in addition to enriching its components through the military-industrial complex, is based on the continued need for the United States to have enemies (read my complete series in parts 1, 2, 3 and 4), which requires major investments in armaments and intelligence agencies, two of the fundamental components of the deep state.

The 4+1 theory, in military terms, refers to the four major challenges facing the United States, plus a fifth, namely: Russia, China, Iran, North Korea, plus terrorism. Having four powerful enemies – regional if not global powers – such as China and Russia, creates the necessary conditions for the United States to continue to justify its presence in volatile regions like the Middle East, Southeast Asia and Eastern Europe. In all these areas, US attention is directed at one of these four challenges. The fifth danger, terrorism, acts as a corrosive that slowly erodes individual freedoms within the United States and its allies, justifying their continued presence in historically hostile territories like the Middle East under the guise of fighting terrorism, when in actual fact advancing their own geopolitical objectives. The bottom line remains the need for Washington to expand its own war machine over the whole planet, hoping to be able to influence every single issue with political, economic and military power or pressure. The end game is to prolong as long as possible the agony of a unipolar, American-dominated world order that is rapidly fading in the place of a fairer and more just multipolar world order.

American allies push for sabotage

With this latest Senate proposal, the deep state wants to eliminate the danger that Trump can exercise his own initiative to remove sanctions against Moscow and pursue the path of peace with Russia. A reconciliation with Moscow is viewed with particular suspicion by two main allies of the US in the region, that is to say, Israel and Saudi Arabia. There are no two other capitals that have more influential lobbies in Washington then Riyad and Tel Aviv. It is not surprising, then, that the American deep state, made up of many who are sympathetic to the Saudis and Israelis, views positively the sabotage of relations between Washington and Moscow. It is very likely that the Israeli and Saudi lobbies have spent considerable sums of money to push senators and congressmen to support this proposal.

Saudi Arabia and Israel have invested enormous amounts of money and political weight to the overthrow Assad, and the direction that the war in Syria is taking is likely to turn violently against them. Israel finds a Syrian state strengthened by alliances with Hezbollah, Russia, Iran, Lebanon and Iraq likely to render the Israeli hopes of controlled chaos in the region vain. Saudi Arabia, like Israel, is afraid of seeing the rebuilding the Shiite axis extending from Iran to the Mediterranean through Iraq and Syria. It is a nightmare for those who hoped to oust Assad, control Iraq and ultimately subdue under their own power all of the Middle East region. With Moscow’s intervention almost two years ago, Syria’s Assad resumed a triumphant march against Daesh and jihadist terrorism, cleaning up much of the nation and reversing the negative trend that threatened to break down the Baathist republic.

A rapprochement between Moscow and Washington is seen as a danger by Tel Aviv and Riyadh, which is why hostile relations between Russia and the US has become a rallying point for an alliance between liberals and neoconservatives in the United States, along with takfiris in Saudi Arabia and Zionists in Israel.

Conclusions

This axis opposed to any kind of rapprochement between Moscow and Washington has found many sponsors in the European political system; that is until the consequences of these new sanctions were made clear. Trump reiterated that the US objective is to sell LNG to European partners by becoming an energy-exporting nation. One of the direct effects of sanctions on Russia is the prevention of Europeans from collaborating with Russian energy companies, thereby sabotaging the plan for the Nord Stream 2 link between Turkish Stream and the European network. Political reactions in Europe have not been missed, and understandably irritation has reached boiling point (including Moscow’s). It would also seem that schizophrenia seems to be a distinctive feature of the politicians of the old continent. The Baltic states fear a non-existent threat of a Russian invasion, while Germany and Austria complain of American interference in their strategic energy plans, considering it unacceptable.

A divided and inconsistent West drowns in its own discordant decisions. Trump, stupidly, initially tried to placate the deep state by offering Flynn’s head to the highest bidder. This only served to worsen the situation, bringing Trump to admit an unwavering attempt to hack US elections on the Russian side. To complete this disaster, missiles were launched against the Shayrat Airbase in Syria on the basis of fictitious evidence of a chemical attack on Syrian civilians by the Syrian Arab Air Force.

All of these choices have worsened the initial situation of the presidency, which now finds no more cartridges to fire in order to withstand the pressure of its senators to approve new sanctions. Trump decided to bend the knee and obey in hope of obtaining some kind of concessions from the deep state. This did not work, and now Trump is struggling for political survival.

It seems clear now that the Republican senators are in some way blackmailing Trump: so long as he does not fully give up on Russian rapprochement, the huge electoral promise of eliminating and replacing Obamacare will remain just a dream, causing him major damage. In this context, Trump seemed less prepared for the Washington hawks, and seems to have lost this important political battle.

It remains to be seen how effective the deep state will be in sabotaging these attempts of rapprochement between Washington and Moscow. The effects may be exactly the opposite, as already seen in the many failures of Washington’s strategic plans. The neocons/liberals and their regional allies in the Middle East continue to weaken American security by renouncing a partnership against terrorism, which would certainly benefit American citizens in the first place as well as calm the situation in the region. But then again, chaos is always the first choice of the American deep state for the purpose influencing events by fomenting violence and thereby advancing strategic goals and objectives. We can only hope that this time they have overplayed their hand and that European allies, or the Trump administration, will try to survive this new sabotage attempt.

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

Featured image is from the author.

North Korea is said to be willing to hold ministerial talks with South Korea if the South allows and supports a peace treaty between Pyongyang and Washington. Besides, the North seems to have a plan to freeze its nuclear program and ultimately discuss the issue of Korean reunification. In other words, North Korea has clearly set its policy not to respond to South Korea’s proposal to hold inter-Korean military and Red Cross talks as long as the South keeps its stance as in the past.

According to influential Korean and Chinese sources familiar with North Korea’s information on Monday, North Korea is ready to respond to inter-Korean talks at any time. But the biggest obstacle seems to be the fact that there aren’t much benefits in return to attract North Korea. Y, who served as a senior official in Liaoning provincial government situated on the China-North Korea border, said,

“North Korea is not opposed to inter-Korean dialogue itself. It wouldn’t want to talk for nothing.”

He said it’s obvious that North Korea rejected the South’s recent proposal for military talks. He claimed that the North Korea might accept the South’s offer if the South shows a positive attitude toward signing of Pyongyang-Washington peace agreement, saying,

“I recently met a senior official of the North Korean Embassy. He talked about a precondition to the talks. It was South Korea’s acceptance and support for conclusion of Pyongyang-Washington peace treaty.”

K, a Korean source who recently contacted a number of North Korean senior officials staying in Beijing and Dandong, had a similar opinion.

“On the surface, North Korea claims that it is not open to dialogue because the South refused to repatriate 13 North Koreans restaurant workers who it claimed were abducted by South Korea. However, if South Korea does not oppose the North Korea-U.S. peace treaty, it is expected to pass the problem. I was also asked to deliver this position to the authorities,” he said. “North Korean high-ranking officials in China insist that there is no reason to seek a nuclear program if a North Korea-U.S. peace treaty is signed. The ultimate goal of North Korea is normalization of the US-North Korea diplomacy through a peace treaty and guarantee of its system.”

According to the source, since some of North Korean officials revealed that the North would be able to hold ministerial talks if the atmosphere heightens, it’s clear that North Korea has adopted a bold strategy to link the North Korea-U.S. peace agreement with the inter-Korean talks. This means that South Korea should be free from its existing framework in order to resume inter-Korean conversation.

Featured image is from Yonhap News Agency.

It all happened without much fuss, since fuss was bound to be the enemy. Dignitaries, guests and various partners lined up for a gathering at Alice Springs in Australia’s Northern Territory on Saturday, commemorating the secret base’s half-century.

The Alice Spring News Online described it, not inaccurately, as a “stealth party”. The Convention Centre hosting the dinner was tight lipped throughout the week about the guest list. “Unfortunately the details of this weekend’s event are not available for public release.”[1] Not for residents in Alice Springs; not for the electors, or even the politicians. This would be an imperial, vetted affair.

A sense about how the base functions in a defiant limbo, one resistant to Australian sovereignty, can be gathered in various ways. The local federal member, Chansey Paech, whose constituency hosts the base, was not invited. Senator Nigel Scullion’s query about the exclusion of media from the event was rebuffed by the Defence department, with the Defence Minister keen to hold the line against her own colleague.[2]

The Institute for Aboriginal Development (IAD), charged with supplying the indigenous “welcome to country” gathering at such bashes, seemed less than pleased to supply details. When the intrepid Alice Springs News Online dared ask, the CEO Kerry Le Rossignol responded with a dismissive “No comment”.

On July 25, a Defence spokesperson insisted that,

“The Joint Defence Facility Pine Gap is proud to commemorate its 50th anniversary. However, celebrations are restricted to site personnel and invited guests only.”

Power without perusal; might, without scrutiny.

The Australian press corps haven been subjected to a drip feed process over the years about what, exactly takes place at the US base, hungrily consuming morsels like indigent urchins. This is a “joint” facility in name only, but it does have Australian personnel running the low-grade coffee errands. Vassals have their uses, and should be reminded of them.

The Nautilus Institute for Security and Instability has been keeping a keener eye than most on this, notably through the eagle-eyed Richard Tanter. In an introductory overview on Pine Gap, its ongoing, updated report on the base notes the following:

“Pine Gap is perhaps the most important United States intelligence facility outside that country, playing a vital role in the collection of a very wide range of signals intelligence, providing early warning ballistic missile launches, targeting of nuclear weapons, providing battlefield intelligence data for United States armed forces operating in Afghanistan and elsewhere (including previously in Iraq), critically supporting United States and Japanese missile defence, supporting arms control verification, and contributing targeting data to United States drone attacks.”[3]

The report pegs Pine Gap’s role to three operational functions, with the original one still being primary: a station for geosynchronous signals intelligence (SIGINT) satellites developed under the auspices of the Central Intelligence Agency. Originally, these were intended to focus on the testing of Soviet missiles. One estimate puts the number of radomes and satellite dishes at Pine Gap at 38.

The second features a function acquired in late 1999, when the base became a Relay Ground Station for detecting missile launches, including Overhead Persistent Infrared (OPIR) which now includes a Space-Based Infrared System (SBIRS).

The third is its interception function (foreign satellite/communications satellite), acquired in the first decade of 2000. The Nautilus report notes that two 23-metre dishes appropriate for COMSAT SIGINT Development (Sigdev) were installed within the 30-metre radomes at the end of 1999 and early 2000.

All this cut, dried and smoked material conveys the relevance of Australia’s continued geographical role as a dry goods merchant for Washington. It supplies the isolation and the means for the US imperium as officials in Canberra keep mum about the sheer extent Pine Gap operates. It also supplies the bloodied hand that assists US-directed drone strikes in theatres where neither Washington nor Canberra are officially at war. Australia remains America’s glorified manservant.

These are just a few points that have galvanised a small but vocal movement insisting on the closure of the base. Protests have also centred on disrupting, to use the words of James Brennan from Disarm, “the activities of the US war machine in Australia and on Aboriginal land.”[4]

At various stages, prosecutions on charges of trespass under the Defence (Special Undertakings) Act 1952 have also been mounted, though the effort in 2007 was laughed out of court by the presiding judge, Daynor Trigg, who deemed the statute “a bit of nonsense”. The defendants were duly acquitted by the Northern Territory Criminal Appeals Court, who quashed attempts by prosecutors to seek a retrial.

As late as last year, six self-proclaimed “peace pilgrims” received the attention of authorities for sporting musical instruments and pictures depicting war casualties onto the base.[5] Their fate may be similar to those in 2007: to make the charges stick, evidence on the function of Pine Gap would have to be adduced. The veil would be lifted; secrecy would abate.

What is more pressing for the Canberra apparatchiks is what a base like Pine Gap does in the context of spats with other powers which Australia shares ties with. The China rise is particularly problematic, given the teeth-gnashing belligerence being shown over maritime disputes.

Even as Chinese nationals purchase Australian real estate, tremors between Washington and Beijing can be felt as the base celebrates its half-century. A happy birthday it would have been, but only for some.

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

Notes

[1] http://www.alicespringsnews.com.au/2017/07/24/stealth-party-to-mark-50-years-of-pine-gap/

[2] http://www.alicespringsnews.com.au/2017/07/28/red-alert-pine-gap-stealth-dinner-is-on-tonight/

[3] http://nautilus.org/publications/books/australian-forces-abroad/defence-facilities/pine-gap/pine-gap-intro/

[4] https://www.facebook.com/ClosePineGap/posts/1224484947608934

[5] https://closepinegap.org/media/

Featured image is Pine Gap from news.com.au

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

Sunday’s National Constituent Assembly election “is the most important (one) in the (nation’s) political system because we are electing the sovereign constituent body…that is above all others, the maximum political authority,” President Nicolas Maduro explained in a nationally televised address.

He blasted US-supported fascist opposition elements, aiming to obstruct the constitutional process, adding:

“They believed that in this way they were going to intimidate the people of Venezuela, but they were wrong, because there has not been a more joyous electoral campaign.”

Attempted outreach for national dialogue with opposition forces accomplished nothing. They want confrontation, not conciliation.

The Trump administration promised “strong and swift economic actions” if Sunday’s democratic process proceeds as scheduled.

During US and internally orchestrated street violence since April, 115 deaths occurred, seven in the last two days. Nearly 150,000 security forces are deployed nationwide to maintain order during Sunday voting.

Anyone obstructing the process faces arrest, prosecution and up to 10 years imprisonment. Venezuela’s National Electoral Council (CNE) head Tibisay Lucena stressed the nation’s process is “one of the safest, most reliable and transparent in the world.”

Jimmy Carter calls it the world’s “best.” It shames America’s sham process, duopoly governance with two right wings, mocking legitimate democracy, banned in the USA.

Venezuelan Foreign Minister Samuel Moncada blasted Washington’s destabilizing campaign, regime change its aim, saying the nation “has been systematically attacked by the US empire in its attempt to show a state of ungovernability and crisis in the country.”

“The United States openly violates international law and attacks the countries of the region. We are in the middle of a systematic operation that uses violence as a mechanism.”

“For the US empire, any democratic process is a threat, which is why it attacks our institutions and officials.”

The NYT is a longstanding imperial tool, supporting all US wars of aggression and color revolutions to topple sovereign independent governments like Venezuela’s.

It disgracefully claimed Maduro “is pushing a radical plan to consolidate his leftist movement’s grip over the nation…”

Fact: He’s in full compliance with Venezuelan constitutional law. Sunday voting will empower elected National Constituent members to revise Venezuela’s constitution or draft a new one, aiming to serve everyone equitably – democracy in action dark forces in Washington reject. So does the NYT.

Fact: People power is what Bolivarian governance is all about. America wants fascist rule it controls instead.

Fact: The NYT considers real democracy anywhere a threat to US interests.

The Times: “…Maduro (is) steering his country toward one-party rule…”

Fact: Venezuela is the hemisphere’s model democracy, the threat of a good example Washington fears will spread.

The Times: Maduro “refuse(s) to negotiate with street protesters.”

Fact: Opposition fascists directed by Washington rejected months of presidential outreach.

Much rides on Sunday elections and aftermath. Empowered Constituent Assembly members will be tasked with restoring constitutional order – no simple aim given Washington’s rage for violence, destabilization and regime change.

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.

It was midday on Sunday, May 7th, when the U.S.-led coalition warplanes again began bombing the neighborhood of Wassim Abdo’s family.

They lived in Tabqa, a small city on the banks of the Euphrates River in northern Syria. Then occupied by the Islamic State (ISIS, also known as Daesh), Tabqa was also under siege by U.S.-backed troops and being hit by daily artillery fire from U.S. Marines, as well as U.S.-led coalition airstrikes. The city, the second largest in Raqqa Province, was home to an airfield and the coveted Tabqa Dam. It was also the last place in the region the U.S.-backed forces needed to take before launching their much-anticipated offensive against the Islamic State’s self-proclaimed capital, Raqqa.

His parents, Muhammed and Salam, had already fled their home once when the building adjacent to their house was bombed, Wassim Abdo told me in a recent interview. ISIS had been arresting civilians from their neighborhood for trying to flee the city. So on that Sunday, the couple was taking shelter on the second floor of a four-story flat along with other family members when a U.S.-led airstrike reportedly struck the front half of the building. Abdo’s sister-in-law Lama fled the structure with her two children and survived. But his parents and 12-year-old cousin were killed, along with dozens of their neighbors, as the concrete collapsed on them.

As an exiled human rights activist, Wassim Abdo only learned of his parents’ death three days later, after Lama called him from the Syrian border town of Kobane, where she and her two children had been transported for medical treatment. Her daughter had been wounded in the bombing and although the U.S.-backed, Kurdish-led troops had by then seized control of Tabqa, it was impossible for her daughter to be treated in their hometown, because weeks of U.S.-led coalition bombing had destroyed all the hospitals in the city. 

A War Against Civilians

Islamic State fighters have now essentially been defeated in Mosul after a nine-month, U.S.-backed campaign that destroyed significant parts of Iraq’s second largest city, killing up to 40,000 civilians and forcing as many as one million more people from their homes. Now, the United States is focusing its energies — and warplanes — on ISIS-occupied areas of eastern Syria in an offensive dubbed “Wrath of the Euphrates.”

The Islamic State’s brutal treatment of civilians in Syria has been well reported and publicized. And according to Lieutenant General Stephen Townsend, the commander of the U.S.-led war against ISIS in Iraq and Syria, the battle to “liberate” these regions from ISIS is the “most precise campaign in the history of warfare.”

But reports and photographs from Syrian journalists and activists, as well as first-person accounts from those with family members living in areas under U.S. bombardment, detail a strikingly different tale of the American offensive — one that looks a lot less like a battle against the Islamic State and a lot more like a war on civilians.

These human rights groups and local reporters say that, across Syria in recent months, the U.S.-led coalition and U.S. Marines have bombed or shelled at least 12 schools, including primary schools and a girls’ high school; a health clinic and an obstetrics hospital; Raqqa’s Science College; residential neighborhoods; bakeries; post offices; a car wash; at least 15 mosques; a cultural center; a gas station; cars carrying civilians to the hospital; a funeral; water tanks; at least 15 bridges; a makeshift refugee camp; the ancient Rafiqah Wall that dates back to the eighth century; and an Internet café in Raqqa, where a Syrian media activist was killed as he was trying to smuggle news out of the besieged city.

The United States is now one of the deadliest warring parties in Syria. In May and June combined, the U.S.-led coalition killed more civilians than the Assad regime, the Russians, or ISIS, according to the Syrian Network for Human Rights, a nongovernmental organization that has been monitoring the death toll and human rights violations in Syria since 2011.

“This administration wants to achieve a quick victory,” Dr. Fadel Abdul Ghany, chairman of the Syrian Network for Human Rights recently told me, referring to the Trump White House. “What we are noticing is that the U.S. is targeting and killing without taking into consideration the benefits for the military and the collateral damage for the civilians. This, of course, amounts to war crimes.”

And nowhere is this war against civilians more acute than in ISIS-occupied Raqqa, where trapped families are living under dozens of airstrikes every day.

Hotel of the Revolution 

Located at the confluence of the Euphrates and Balikh rivers in northern Syria, Raqqa was first settled more than 5,000 years ago. By the late eighth century, it had grown into an imperial city, filled with orchards, palaces, canals, reception halls, and a hippodrome for horse racing. Its industrial quarters were then known as “the burning Raqqa,” thanks to the flames and thick smoke produced by its glass and ceramic furnaces. The city even served briefly as the capital of the vast Abbasid Empire stretching from North Africa to Central Asia.

Toward the end of the thirteenth century, wars between the Mongol and Mamluk empires annihilated Raqqa and its surrounding countryside. Every single resident of the city was either killed or expelled. According to Hamburg University professor Stefan Heidemann, who has worked on a number of excavations in and around Raqqa, the scorched-earth warfare was so extreme that not a single tree was left standing in the region.

Only in the middle of the twentieth century when irrigation from the Euphrates River allowed Raqqa’s countryside to flourish amid a global cotton boom did the city fully reemerge. In the 1970s, the region’s population again began to swell after then-President Hafez al-Assad — the father of the present Syrian leader, Bashar al-Assad — ordered the construction of a massive hydroelectric dam on the Euphrates about 30 miles upstream of Raqqa. Wassim Abdo’s father, Muhammed, was an employee at this dam. Like many of these workers and their families, he and Salam lived in Tabqa’s third neighborhood, which was filled with four-story apartment flats built in the 1970s not far from the dam and its power station.

Despite these agricultural and industrial developments, Raqqa remained a small provincial capital. Abdalaziz Alhamza, a cofounder of the watchdog group Raqqa Is Being Slaughtered Silently, which is made up of media activists from Raqqa living in the city as well as in exile, writes that the local news normally didn’t even mention the city in its weather forecasts.

In the mid-2000s, a drought began to wither the local cash crops: cotton, potatoes, rice, and tomatoes. As in other regions of Syria, farmers migrated from the countryside into the city, where overstretched and ill-functioning public services only exacerbated long-simmering dissatisfactions with the Assad regime.

As the 2011 rebellion broke out across Syria, Wassim Abdo and thousands of others in Raqqa, Tabqa, and nearby villages began agitating against the Syrian government, flooding the streets in protest and forming local coordinating councils. The regime slowly lost control of territory across the province. In March 2013, after only a few days of battle, anti-government rebels ousted government troops from the city and declared Raqqa the liberated provincial capital in all of Syria. The city, then the sixth largest in Syria, became “the hotel of the revolution.”

Within less than a year, however, despite fierce protests and opposition from its residents, ISIS fighters had fully occupied the city and the surrounding countryside. They declared Raqqa the capital of the Islamic State.

Despite the occupation, Wassim’s parents never tried to flee Tabqa because they hoped to reunite with one of their sons, Azad, who had been kidnapped by ISIS fighters in September 2013. In retirement, Muhammed Abdo opened a small electronics store. Salam was a housewife. Like tens of thousands of other civilians, they were living under ISIS occupation in Tabqa when, in the spring of 2017, U.S. Apache helicopters and warplanes first began appearing in the skies above the city. U.S. Marines armed with howitzers were deployed to the region. In late March, American helicopters airlifted hundreds of U.S.-backed troops from the Kurdish-led militias known as the Syrian Democratic Forces to the banks of the dammed river near the city. Additional forces approached from the east, transported on American speedboats. 

By the beginning of May, the Abdos’ neighborhood was under almost daily bombardment by the U.S.-led coalition forces. On May 3rd, coalition warplanes reportedly launched up to 30 airstrikes across Tabqa’s first, second, and third neighborhoods, striking homes and a fruit market and reportedly killing at least six civilians. The following night, another round of coalition airstrikes battered the first and third neighborhoods, reportedly killing at least seven civilians, including women and children. Separate airstrikes that same night near the city’s center reportedly killed another six to 12 civilians. 

On May 7th, multiple bombs reportedly dropped by the U.S.-led coalition struck the building where Muhammed and Salam had taken shelter, killing them and their 12-year-old grandson. Three days later, the Syrian Democratic Forces announced that they had fully seized control of Tabqa and the dam. The militia and its U.S. advisers quickly set their sights east to the upcoming offensive in Raqqa.

But for the Abdo family, the tragedy continued. Muhammed and Salam’s bodies were buried beneath the collapsed apartment building. It took 15 days before Wassim’s brother Rashid could secure the heavy machinery required to extract them.

“Nobody could approach the corpses because of the disfigurement that had occurred and the smell emanating from them as a result of being left under the rubble for such a long period of time in the hot weather,” Wassim told me in a recent interview. 

That same day their bodies were finally recovered.  On May 23rd, his parents and nephew were buried in the Tabqa cemetery.

“In Raqqa There Are Many Causes of Death” 

A few days after the Abdos’ funeral, the U.S.-led coalition began dropping leaflets over Raqqa instructing civilians to flee the city ahead of the upcoming offensive. According to photos of leaflets published by Raqqa Is Being Slaughtered Silently, the warnings read, in part,

“This is your last chance… Failing to leave might lead to death.”

ISIS fighters, in turn, prohibited civilians from escaping the city and planted landmines in Raqqa’s outskirts. Nevertheless, on June 5th, dozens of civilians heeded the coalition’s warnings and gathered at a boat stand on the northern banks of the Euphrates, where they waited to be ferried out of the city. Before the war, families had picnicked along this riverbank. Teenagers jumped into the water from Raqqa’s Old Bridge, built in 1942 by British troops. A handful of river front cafés opened for the season.

“The river is the main monument of the city, and for many people there’s a romantic meaning to it,” Syrian journalist Marwan Hisham, currently co-writing Brothers of the Gun, a book about life in ISIS-occupied Raqqa, told me.

But on June 5th, as the families were waiting to cross the river to escape the impending U.S.-backed offensive, coalition warplanes launched a barrage of airstrikes targeting the boats, reportedly massacring as many as 21 civilians. The coalition acknowledges launching 35 airstrikes that destroyed 68 boats between June 4th and June 6th, according to the journalistic outlet Airwars. Lieutenant General Stephen Townsend later boasted about the tactic, telling the New York Times: “We shoot every boat we find.”

The day after the attack on fleeing civilians at the boat stand, the long-awaited U.S.-backed ground offensive officially began.

After three years of ISIS rule, Raqqa had become one of the most isolated cities in the world. The militants banned residents from having home internet, satellite dishes, or Wi-Fi hotspots. They arrested and killed local reporters and banned outside journalists. On the day U.S.-backed troops launched their ground offensive against the city, ISIS further sought to restrict reporting on conditions there by ordering the imminent shutdown of all Internet cafés.

Despite these restrictions, dozens of Syrian journalists and activists have risked and still risk their lives to smuggle information out of besieged Raqqa — and their efforts are the only reason most Western reporters (including myself) have any information about the war our countries are currently waging there.

Every day, these media activists funnel news out of the city to exiled Syrians running media outlets and human rights organizations. The most famous among these groups has become Raqqa Is Being Slaughtered Silently, which won the 2015 International Press Freedom Award for its reporting on the ISIS occupation and now publishes hourly updates on the U.S.-backed offensive. All this news is then compiled and cross-checked by international monitoring groups like Airwars, whose researchers have now found themselves tracking as many as a half-dozen coalition attacks resulting in civilian casualties every day.

It’s because of this work that we know the Raqqa offensive officially began on June 6th with a barrage of airstrikes and artillery shelling that reportedly hit a school, a train station, the immigration and passport building, a mosque, and multiple residential neighborhoods, killing between six and 13 civilians. Two days later, bombs, artillery shells, and white phosphorus were reportedly unleashed across Raqqa, hitting — among other places — the Al-Hason Net Internet café, killing a media activist and at least a dozen others. (That journalist was one of at least 26 media activists to be killed in Syria this year alone.) Other bombs reportedly hit at least eight shops and a mosque. Photos also showed white phosphorus exploding over two residential neighborhoods.

White phosphorus is capable of burning human flesh to the bone. When exposed to oxygen, the chemical ignites reaching a temperature of 1,500 degrees Fahrenheit. It’s so flammable that its burns can reignite days later if the bandages are removed too soon.

U.S. military officials have not denied using white phosphorus in the city. The Pentagon has, in fact, published photos of U.S. Marines deployed to the Raqqa region transporting U.S.-manufactured white phosphorus munitions. Its spokesmen claim that the U.S. military only uses this incendiary agent to mark targets for air strikes or to create smoke screens and therefore remains in accordance with international law. But in the days after the reported attack, Amnesty International warned:

“The US-led coalition’s use of white phosphorus munitions on the outskirts of al-Raqqa, Syria, is unlawful and may amount to a war crime.” (Amnesty similarly accused the U.S. of potentially committing war crimes during its campaign against ISIS in Mosul.)

Following the reported white phosphorus attacks on June 8th and 9th, Raqqa’s main commercial and social avenue — February 23rd Street — reportedly came under three straight days of bombing. Syrian journalist Marwan Hisham, who grew up in that city, recalls how that street had once been lined with cafés, entertainment venues, and shops. Its western edge runs into Rashid Park, one of the city’s main public spaces. Its eastern edge stretches to the ancient Abbasid Wall.

Between June 9th and June 11th, as many as 10 civilians were killed in repeated bombings of February 23rd Street and its major intersections, according to reports compiled by Airwars. (These sorts of air strikes, ostensibly aimed at limiting the mobility of ISIS fighters, were also employed in Mosul, parts of which are now in ruins.) On those same days, four adults and four children were reportedly killed in airstrikes on Raqqa’s industrial district, another 21 civilians were killed in the west of the city, and at least 11 more civilians, again including children, when airstrikes reportedly destroyed homes on al-Nour street, which is just around the corner from the al-Rayan Bakery, bombed less than two weeks later.

On that day, June 21st, a Raqqa resident named Abu Ahmad was returning from getting water at a nearby well when, he later told Reuters, he began hearing people screaming as houses crumbled. He said that as many as 30 people had died when the apartment flats around the bakery were leveled.

“We couldn’t even do anything,” he added. “The rocket launchers, the warplanes. We left them to die under the rubble.”

Only a few days earlier, coalition warplanes had destroyed another source of bread, the al-Nadeer bakery on al-Mansour Street, one of Raqqa’s oldest thoroughfares.

In July, the U.S.-led coalition bombed the ancient Abbasid Wall, and U.S.-backed troops breached Raqqa’s Old City. U.S. advisers began to operate inside Raqqa, calling in more airstrikes from there.

More and more names, photographs, and stories of the coalition’s victims were smuggled out by local journalists. According to these reports, on July 2nd, Jamila Ali al-Abdullah, her three children, and up to 10 of her neighbors were killed in her neighborhood. On July 3rd, at least three families were killed, including Yasser al-Abdullah and his four children, A’ssaf, Zain, Jude, and Rimas. On July 5th, an elderly man named Yasin died in an airstrike on al-Mansour Street. On July 6th, Anwar Hassan al-Hariri was killed along with her son Mohammed, her daughter Shatha, and her toddler Jana. Five members of the al-Sayyed family perished on July 7th. Sisters Hazar and Elhan Abdul Aader Shashan died in their home on July 12th, while seven members of the Ba’anat family were killed on July 13th, as was Marwan al-Salama and at least ten of his family members on July 17th.

Hundreds more were reportedly wounded, including Isma’il Ali al-Thlaji, a child who lost his eyesight and his right hand. And these are, of course, only some of the reported names of those killed by the U.S.-led coalition.   

“In Raqqa, there are many causes of death,” the journalists at Raqqa Is Being Slaughtered Silently wrote. These include “indiscriminate airstrikes by international coalition warplanes, daily artillery shelling by Syrian Democratic Forces, and ISIS mines scattered throughout the surrounding landscape.”

For those who survive, conditions inside the city only continue to worsen. Coalition bombing reportedly destroyed the two main pipes carrying water into the city in the 100-degree July heat, forcing people to venture to the banks of the Euphrates, where at least 27 have been reportedly killed by U.S.-led bombing while filling up jugs of water.

A Coalition in Name Only

The United States has launched nearly 95% of all coalition airstrikes in Syria in recent months, meaning the campaign is, in fact, almost exclusively an American affair.

“The French and British are launching about half a dozen strikes a week now,” Chris Woods, director of Airwars, explained to me. “The Belgians maybe one or two a week.”

In comparison, in Raqqa province last month the U.S. launched about twenty air or artillery strikes every single day.

In June alone, the U.S.-led coalition and U.S. Marines fired or dropped approximately 4,400 munitions on Raqqa and its surrounding villages. According to Mark Hiznay, the associate director of Human Rights Watch’s arms division, these munitions included 250-pound precision-guided small diameter bombs, as well as MK-80 bombs, which weigh between 500 and 2,000 pounds and are equipped with precision-guided kits. The bombs are dropped by B-52 bombers and other warplanes, most taking off from the al-Udeid Air Base in Qatar, Incirlik Air Base in Turkey, or the USS George H.W. Bush, an aircraft carrier stationed off Syria’s coast in the eastern Mediterranean.

Hundreds of U.S. Marines, most likely from the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit, are also positioned outside Raqqa and are firing high explosive artillery rounds into the city from M777 Howitzers. In late June, the Marines’ official Twitter feed boasted that they were conducting artillery fire in support of U.S.-backed troops 24 hours a day.

The result of this type of warfare, says Airwars’ Chris Woods, is a staggering increase in civilian casualties. According to an analysis by the group, since President Trump took office six months ago, the U.S.-led campaign has reportedly killed nearly as many civilians in Syria and Iraq as were killed in the previous two and a half years of the Obama administration.

And for surviving civilians, the conditions of war don’t end once the bombing stops, as life today in the city of Tabqa indicates.

As of mid-July, according to Wassim Abdo, Tabqa still has neither running water nor electricity, even though displaced families have begun returning to their homes. There’s a shortage of bread, and still no functioning schools or hospitals. The Tabqa Dam, which once generated up to 20% of Syria’s electricity, remains inoperable. (U.S.-led coalition airstrikes reportedly damaged the structure repeatedly in February and March, when they burnedthe main control room, causing the United Nations to warn of a threat of catastrophic flooding downstream.) The U.S.-backed troops in Tabqa have, according to Abdo, banned the Internet and U.S. officials admit that children in the area are being infected by diseases carried by flies feeding off corpses still buried in the rubble.

Meanwhile, less than 30 miles to the east, the battle for control of Raqqa continues with tens of thousands of civilians still trapped inside the besieged city. Lieutenant General Stephen Townsend has indicated that the U.S.-led coalition may soon increase the rate of airstrikes there yet again.

From Wassim Abdo’s perspective, that coalition campaign in Syria has so far killed his parents and nephew and ruined his hometown. None of this, understandably, looks anything like a war against ISIS.

“My opinion of the international coalition,” he told me recently, “is that it’s a performance by the international community to target civilians and infrastructure and to destroy the country.” And this type of warfare, he added, “is not part of eliminating Daesh.”

Laura Gottesdiener is a freelance journalist and a news producer with Democracy Now! Her writing has appeared in Mother Jones, Al Jazeera, The Nation, Playboy, Rolling Stone, and frequently at TomDispatch. Special thanks on this piece go to Alhasan Ghazzawi.

Much has been said about the civil unrest in Venezuela which is spearheaded by the US-engineered opposition groups plotted to impose a ‘regime change’ and oust the incumbent president. Who compose these opposition groups and how strong are they to unseat a democratically elected leader? Read our selected articles below.

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Venezuela: Reactionary Coup in the Making, Media Disinformation, The Attitude of the Left

By Claudio Katz, July 30, 2017

The Right lacks the military force used in the past to return to government. But it is trying to recreate such intervention by staging skirmishes at military barracks, setting fire to police stations or marching on military headquarters.

US Plotting to Topple Venezuela’s Government

By Stephen Lendman, July 29, 2017

Treasury Secretary Mnuchin represents US imperial lawlessness. Claiming the Trump administration “will not ignore the Maduro regime’s ongoing efforts to undermine democracy, freedom, and the rule of law” turned truth on its head.

Countdown to War on Venezuela

By Moon of Alabama, July 29, 2017

The new assembly will formulate changes to the current constitution. Those changes will be decided on in another general vote. It is likely that the outcome will reinforce the favorite policies of a great majority of the people and of the social-democratic government under President Manduro.

Solidarity with the Bolivarian Revolution! Defeat the Imperialist Conspiracy Against Venezuela!

By Canadian Peace Congress, July 29, 2017

For the past several months, US imperialism and its allies domestically and internationally have been exacerbating Venezuela’s economic difficulties by attacking its international credit rating (making foreign loans increasingly expensive), by weakening the foreign exchange value of the national currency through purposeful speculation, and by withholding basic commodities needed by the people (but whose distribution is still controlled by private monopolies), such as milk, coffee, rice, oil, and basic necessities like toilet paper, toothpaste and medicines.

Electoral Process in Venezuela: “The Best in the World”

By Dr. Maria Páez Victor and Edu Montesanti, July 27, 2017

The parties and leaders of the violent protests that for three months have disturbed the peace of Venezuelans, are the very same who in 2002 supported the coup d’etat against President Chávez. During those tense 48 hours, one of the very first things they did was to abolish the Constitution of 1999 – the one they now purport to defend.

Battle Lines Are Being Drawn in Venezuela as the Socialist Nation Inches Toward Civil War

By Mac Slavo, July 26, 2017

You can’t have a war unless there are two sides with a lot of firepower, and that’s what we see in Venezuela right now. That nation is a powder keg, and it could blow at any time.

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Water is gold to survival, the indispensable, the vast feeder for human civilization. Its absence entails certain death; its decline brings out the prospect that a civilisation might well collapse. When a water crisis is announced, panic sets in. Officials ready for war; armies ready for the march. “When water goes bad, so do political relations.”[1]

Historically, poisoned or affected water supplies have caused the outbreak of disease and panic. In 1892, a year which saw the staging of the Chicago World Fair and the outbreak of typhoid, the threat of water scarcity to the 27 million guests attending the city’s events propelled the construction of plumbing stretching four miles into Lake Michigan. Additional supplies were also obtained from Waukesha and Wisconsin.[2]

The same, it can be said, for water that flows off, water that is pinched, or water that is denied. The entire basis of Jean de Florette, Marcel Pagnol’s novel set in La Bastide in a provincial France teeming with avarice, is that of a water tragedy.

A hunchbacked tax collector goes to the country to make good his inheritance, but faces the cruelties of a drought. He needs water, and the only way to obtain it from a neighbouring well is with a mule owned by his rivals who entertain his demise.

A contemporary tale of water tragedy is that of the Murray-Darling Basin, which has suffered from illegal pumping in the Barwon and Darling Rivers that could, if proven, “represent,” according to Ross M. Thompson, “one of the largest thefts in Australian history.”[3] Such instances of theft were uncovered by the Australian investigatory news program, Four Corners, in its Monday airing.

Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce, who also doubles up as the federal minister for water issues, pushed a different narrative to his pub audience in Shepparton, Victoria, suggesting that the Four Corners program had done the farmers wrong.

“A calamity for you which the solution is trying to take more water off you, shut more of your towns down.”[4]

Water was taken, he explained, and “put back into agriculture, so we can look after you and make sure we don’t have the greenies running the show.” Few voices were on hand to speak for the environment that day.

South Australia’s Water Minister, Ian Hunter, was that incensed to call for an independent review of the handling by the New South Wales government. As with so many matters of national significance, the solution will entail more squabbling skirmishes.

The NSW government was never too thrilled with the agreement. Known as the Murray-Darling Basin Plan, it had begun as a Commonwealth and State arrangement to balance water consumption and the environmental health of a dying basin. A water market was also created under the plan to enable water to be purchased with an environmental perspective in mind, and allow irrigators to trade water permits focused on need. Rather optimistically, all of this was meant to take place transparently and with a degree of prudence.

But irrigators were bound to buck moves to control water usage, and colluders abounded within the emerging water bureaucracy. In 2016, discussions between a particular NSW water bureaucrat, a certain Gavin Hanlon, were held with irrigators on the possibility of abandoning the Basin Plan with minimal legal consequence.

When evidence came to light to the Deputy Director General of the NSW Department of Primary Industries on misuse by irrigators in the northern part of the state, heads turned the other way. The appetite for compliance, according to Jamie Morgan of the strategic investigations unit, had run its course.[5]

Ambushed by the Four Corners expose, officials in the NSW Government have promised an investigation, with the state’s primary industries minister, Niall Blair, clear that some form of punishment will issue.

“Referral of any potentially illegal or corrupt activities will be made to relevant authorities.”

South Australian premier, Jay Weatherill is not so sure, insisting that this is a matter concerning all states including the Commonwealth.

“We’ve long held suspicions about the level of commitment by New South Wales to comply with the plan.”[6]

He is pitching for a judicial inquiry that is beyond the tampering of political interests.

The irrigation pinch has resulted in the appropriation of billions of litres. The Murray Darling Basin plan has been shown up, a costly sham further exacerbated by increasingly voracious irrigation capture by farmers spurred by government subsidies.

The Murray Darling Basin Authority board has also been compromised, a state of affairs that risks being hastened by the appointment of another irrigation lobbyist, Perin Davey. Much to the consternation of the Australian Conservation Foundation, the MDBA board is now packed with the Daveys and the Hanlons, Trojan horses tearing down the entity from within.

One Australian politician, South Australian senator Nick Xenophon, suggests splitting the environment portfolio from agriculture. Whatever cosmetic stitching takes place, going balmy over water and its use will persist, leaving the environment to wither before the needs of humankind.

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

Notes

[1] https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/12/the-politics-of-drinking-water/384081/

[2] https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/12/the-politics-of-drinking-water/384081/

[3] https://theconversation.com/is-the-murray-darling-basin-plan-broken-81613

[4] http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-07-27/murray-darling-basin-plan-investigation-a-calamity,-joyce-says/8749620

[5] http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-07-24/top-water-bureaucrat-offered-confidential-documents-to-lobbyists/8738568

[6] http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-07-26/nsw-murray-darling-basin-alleged-corruption-punished-minister/8746098

Featured image is from Nic Walker via afr.com

The Fukushima disaster keeps unfolding. 

Tens of thousands of lives lost. Hundreds of thousands evacuated from their homes. An environment devastated by radiation — and now, TEPCO wants to dump hundreds of thousands of tonnes of radioactive water into the Pacific Ocean. 

TEPCO is the energy giant who failed to meet the basic safety requirements that might have prevented the Fukushima Daichii emergency generators from failing when the tsunami hit in 2011.

It goes without saying: the consequences of dumping more nuclear waste into the marine ecosystem would be catastrophic.

But it’s not too late to stop this impending ecocide: the Japanese government still needs to give TEPCO the green light.

After the Fukushima disaster, the Japanese government has been under constant pressure from local residents. Now, with support from around the world, we can help shine a spotlight and plead with them to stop TEPCO’s dangerous plans. 

Source: PRIS

Fragile marine ecosystems are at stake. Since the Fukushima disaster, contamination in the local marine food chain has not generally improved. 40% of species remain unfit for consumption, according to Japanese standards, which have been relaxed since the disaster.

Each day, 300 tonnes of water wash through the Fukushima reactors, cooling them down and collecting a slew of radioactive material along the way. 

While some of the contaminants can be filtered out, the water cannot be cleaned from tritium — a radioactive form of hydrogen — resulting in nearly a million tonnes of highly radioactive waste water.  

Fishermen who operate in waters off the plant say any release of radioactive material will devastate an industry that is still struggling to recover from the initial nuclear disaster.

And now TEPCO is planning to release this massive toxic dump into the ocean.  

We cannot allow the energy giant partly responsible for the biggest nuclear catastrophe since Chernobyl to continue wrecking the Pacific ecosystem — and the lives that depend on it.

The Fukushima disaster keeps unfolding. 

Tens of thousands of lives lost. Hundreds of thousands evacuated from their homes. An environment devastated by radiation — and now, TEPCO wants to dump hundreds of thousands of tonnes of radioactive water into the Pacific Ocean. 

TEPCO is the energy giant who failed to meet the basic safety requirements that might have prevented the Fukushima Daichii emergency generators from failing when the tsunami hit in 2011.

It goes without saying: the consequences of dumping more nuclear waste into the marine ecosystem would be catastrophic.

But it’s not too late to stop this impending ecocide: the Japanese government still needs to give TEPCO the green light.

After the Fukushima disaster, the Japanese government has been under constant pressure from local residents. Now, with support from around the world, we can help shine a spotlight and plead with them to stop TEPCO’s dangerous plans. 

Source: PRIS

Fragile marine ecosystems are at stake. Since the Fukushima disaster, contamination in the local marine food chain has not generally improved. 40% of species remain unfit for consumption, according to Japanese standards, which have been relaxed since the disaster.

Each day, 300 tonnes of water wash through the Fukushima reactors, cooling them down and collecting a slew of radioactive material along the way. 

While some of the contaminants can be filtered out, the water cannot be cleaned from tritium — a radioactive form of hydrogen — resulting in nearly a million tonnes of highly radioactive waste water.  

Fishermen who operate in waters off the plant say any release of radioactive material will devastate an industry that is still struggling to recover from the initial nuclear disaster.

And now TEPCO is planning to release this massive toxic dump into the ocean.  

We cannot allow the energy giant partly responsible for the biggest nuclear catastrophe since Chernobyl to continue wrecking the Pacific ecosystem — and the lives that depend on it.

The test launch of North Korea’s Hwasong-14 ICBM on 4 July produced a predictable outpouring of official statements and media articles claiming that the United States is under an existential threat of an unprovoked attack from North Korea. ‘North Korea brings missile threat to the US: What does Trump do now?’ asked CNN. And it’s not only the US that is in danger, according to Secretary of State Rex Tillerson. North Korea poses ‘a global threat,’ he said, so from Patagonia to Peoria, the world is at risk.

Actually, if there is one thing that is certain in life in addition to death and taxes it is that North Korea will not attack the US except in retaliation. The reason for this is obvious. America’s military superiority is so overwhelming that retribution would be devastating and would mean the end of North Korea.

The balance of military power between the US and its ‘allies’ (the imperial alliance structure is a major part of American power) scarcely needs elaboration or documentation. South Korea on its own has a military budget perhaps 30 times that of the North, has, generally speaking, much more advanced and modern equipment (it buys more weapons from the US than even Saudi Arabia) and, according to the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), can field two and a half times more troops (standing army plus reservists) than the North. Bring in the US and its allies, including especially Japan, and the imbalance is astounding: a combined military budget of roughly $1 trillion against North Korea’s $1.2 to $10 billion. The portrayal of North Korea as a threat to the US is not merely wrong, it is preposterously and diametrically at variance with reality. Yet it is widely believed. That is mainly due to omnipresent and repetitive propaganda, and as Harold Pinter pointed out in his Nobel lecture, the ‘United States is without doubt the greatest show on the road’ in that respect. And as we know, things that are repeated without contradiction, however silly and devoid of evidence or plausibility, tend to be believed.

Not merely would retribution be inevitable, but nothing could possibly be achieved by a preemptive North Korean attack on the United States. What would be the point, for instance, of North Korea launching a missile against Hawaii, as feared by authorities there according to a Yonhap report? Would Washington in terror ship the contents of Fort Knox off to Pyongyang? Would Kim Jong Un send in a fishing boat to harvest the irradiated pineapples?

The only way to overlook the absurdity of the notion of an unprovoked attack is to construct a pastiche of North Korea and its leaders as irrational, as, for instance, Nikki Haley did recently. The problem is that you have to be deeply ignorant (that’s probably her excuse) to believe such nonsense, because no one with a modicum of knowledge does. Or perhaps to believe North Koreans are mad, you have to be mad yourself–an irony which Joseph Heller of Catch 22 fame would have enjoyed. Ambassador Haley might conceivably put her hand up for that one as well.

What we are talking about in the case of North Korea is deterrence, and that means the United States only faces danger if it attacks first. The United States can, of course, deter North Korea, and it can attack North Korea either with advanced conventional weapons or nuclear ones. But this does not hold for North Korea, which can only deter, and if it does retaliate against American attack, it would be, in the phrase used by Seymour Hersh in respect of Israel, the Samson option, because it would be an act of last resort resulting in its own destruction. (The concepts and calculations, which are quite complex, are discussed in an article scheduled to be published in the Journal of Political Criticism of Seoul in December 2017.)

Hysteria and Hyperbole

Why the hysteria and hyperbole about North Korea? Why is its deterrent against American attack recast as an existential threat to the US as if North Korea were some sort of national suicide bomber? If there is no attack, there is no retaliation. If the US adopted a peaceful, non-threatening policy towards North Korea, the danger of war would wither away. North Korea’s nuclear disarmament is irrelevant. A number of countries could, in theory, attack the US with nuclear missiles: Russia and China certainly, India perhaps, and Britain, which is, after all, the only country to have mounted an attack on the United States with the burning of Washington in 1812. But no one for a moment thinks that Britain would do such a thing. Partly this is because of their shared history, but also because of two reasons that are common to Britain and North Korea (and every other country for that matter): no advantage would be gained, and the retribution would be terrible. If Britain destroyed New York or Washington (again), or if in a few years’ time North Korea laid waste to San Francisco, what then? What would be achieved? The idea is preposterous. Why, then, is the myth of a North Korean threat so constantly and assiduously cultivated? An explanation can be located at three levels – the bilateral, the regional, and the global.

The Bilateral Dimension

The Korean War was the first war that the United States did not win. Objectively it was not a defeat such as in Vietnam where the Vietnamese, principally on their own, evicted the US from the whole of the country. In Korea, the US basically held on to the status quo – the southern part of the country inherited from the Japanese – despite massive Chinese intervention. But it was the first such setback, and North Korea’s resilient defiance ever since, despite generations of US sanctions and threats, surely rankles. To destroy North Korea would be sweet revenge, both for the US and large swathes of the South Korean military and civilian elite.

The Regional Dimension

On a broader scale, the so-called ‘North Korean threat’ provides the capstone for the US military and political architecture in East Asia, the primary function of which is now the containment of China. The original division of the Korean peninsula in 1945 was driven by the strategy of containing the Soviet Union, but since then Russia has become the minor, though still important, player in this theatre. The continued political subservience of Japan plays an important role, though there is a latent contradiction between that and the US encouragement of Japanese remilitarisation. ‘Containment,’ although a much-used word, is inadequate, because the ultimate strategic objective is enfeeblement, probably through fragmentation or a first (nuclear) strike. The deployment of the THAAD in South Korea and the X-band radar in Japan is a component of first-strike capability.

In the meantime, its need for the ‘North Korean threat’ poses a dilemma for the US. Removal of that ‘threat,’ either through military action or a genuine peace process, would make it difficult to justify the US military presence and its concomitant political dominance in South Korea, and to a lesser extent, in Japan. South Korea has no particular animus against China, which is why the THAAD deployment had to be disguised as a protection against North Korea. Japan is different, because China is seen as the only rival in Asia, and the Japanese conservative elite needs no persuasion to join an anti-China coalition even if, at the moment, in a subordinate position.

The Global Dimension

Finally, there is the purely global dimension. North Korea poses no direct military threat to the US, no matter how many nuclear ICBMs it is able to build. The military preponderance of the US and its geographical protection will always put any North Korean attack out of the question. Even the growing deterrent capability of North Korea is not really much of a problem, because apart from the emotional driver of the bilateral history, the regional strategic considerations militate against an attack. Apart from the costs of conventional and possible nuclear retaliation, as well as the burden of pacification (the war in Afghanistan has been going on for 16 years now), the military advantages of taking US power up to the borders of China (and Russia) would be nugatory, and the erosion of political leverage in the absence of the ‘North Korean threat’ would be considerable.

The real danger to the US is the example that North Korea might give to other countries around the world. If North Korea, by developing a nuclear deterrent, can force the US into peaceful coexistence, then others might follow that path. As Gregory Elich has pointed out:

The reason why stopping North Korea’s nuclear and long-range missile program is a priority for the Trump administration is not because it truly believes North Korea will launch an ICBM at the United States. Rather, it’s that if North Korea succeeds in establishing an effective nuclear deterrent, then this could have serious geopolitical implications for U.S. policy, as other targeted nations may follow North Korea’s example to ensure their survival.

This is what the concern over ‘proliferation’ is really about. Although the US has been very successful in portraying non-proliferation as a disinterested strategy to preserve global peace, it is essentially designed to preserve nuclear monopoly and deny deterrence to independent states and those that might wish to join them. As Waltz, amongst others, has pointed out, the acquisition of nuclear weapons by small states in confrontation with powerful (nuclear) states is peace-enhancing. Whether the North Korean example would really spread and erode America’s global military dominance is unclear, but it is indubitably a concern. There is a deep irony at play here given the number of UN Security Council resolutions condemning North Korea and imposing sanctions the US has been able to orchestrate, clearly in violation of the UN Charter. North Korea is no revolutionary state, such as the early Soviet Union or Maoist China. On the contrary, it is actually the embodiment of the UN Charter with its commitment to the equal sovereignty of independent states, however weak or strong. Despite the verbiage about the UN and international law, this is not an idea with which the United States has much sympathy.

These three levels of American angst about North Korea, and the strategic concerns and imperatives that are generated, are both inter-related and somewhat at variance with each other. At this stage, with the successful test of North Korea’s threshold ICBM Hwasong-14, it could be argued that the US faces three strategic alternatives.

America’s Three Strategic Options

The first is war, or rather war with China. The dangers of an invasion of North Korea, and the political problems that would ensue are such that it only makes sense in the context of deciding that now is the time to take out China. American military and civilian think tanks have been mulling over conflict with China for some time, so the groundwork is laid. The consequences of a US war against China would be dreadful and need no elaboration here. Fortunately, it is unlikely that the Trump administration has the strategic fortitude to embark on that.

The second alternative is peace. That would involve accepting North Korea’s nuclear deterrent, though negotiations might put constraints on that. But that leaves the problem of the damage to America’s non-proliferation strategy. The smart solution would be, ‘If you can’t beat ‘em, get them to join you.’ In this strategy, the US would accept North Korea’s deterrent but also reverse its hostile policy–moving quickly to lift sanctions and the military threat and to open up trade, investment and social links, for instance by providing scholarships for North Korean students to study in the US or in allied countries. There are a large number of measures that could be employed so that North Korea, in Lyndon Baines Johnson’s phrase, would be inside the tent pissing out rather than outside pissing in. After all, North Korea has, as noted above, made ‘commitments to nuclear non-proliferation …. before the international community.’

The whole business could be fairly easily presented to the world as a great triumph of American diplomacy, generosity, and wisdom. However it is difficult to envisage any American government, especially the Trump administration, contemplating such an imaginative strategy let alone being able to drive it through the dysfunctional US governance system where the immediate monetary and political profits of war tend to overshadow the strategic benefits of peace. Unfortunately, hopes that President Moon Jae-in might nudge the United States into peaceful coexistence, removing the threat of war from the Korean peninsula are fading fast.

So the United States will probably opt for the third alternative–just muddling along, for some time at least, not accepting the legitimacy of North Korea and its nuclear deterrent, as well as the failure of its strategy.

Featured image is from the author.

Featured image: Screengrab: Trump speaks before the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (Source: The American Conservative)

Last week the Senate Judiciary Committee postponed a meeting ostensibly convened to discuss the failure to enforce the Foreign Agents Registration Act of 1938 (FARA). Originally rescheduled for this week, the postponed meeting would have featured Donald Trump Jr. and former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort testifying about their controversial Trump Tower meeting, but their subpoenas were canceled at the last minute after they arranged to turn over documents. The June 2016 meeting under investigation included Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya, lobbyist Rinat Akhmetshin, publicist Rob Goldstone, businessman Ike Kaveladze, and translator Anatoli Samochornov. Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner was also in attendance, apparently only briefly.

The Judiciary Committee hearing was originally set up to look at the possible Russian links of former journalist and head of the research firm Fusion GPS Glenn Simpson, who was behind the infamous Trump dossier that appeared in January. Yet in reality it is part of the broader effort to determine whether Moscow interfered in the 2016 election on behalf of the Donald Trump campaign.

FARA was created in the lead up to World War II to help monitor the activity of Italian, German and Japanese agent-lobbyists who were believed to be working hard in the U.S. to influence opinion as well as congressional votes in favor of their respective sponsoring nations. The intention was to force the “foreign agents” to register with the Department of the Treasury so they would have to identify their government sponsors and be required to reveal their sources of income.

FARA is not very rigorously enforced, which was one of the points that the Judiciary Committee was prepared to address in regards to Russia, but there can be consequences for those who ignore it. Former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn was recently compelled to register as an agent of Turkey after he received $530,000 in payments to support Ankara’s view regarding those it believed to be behind last year’s coup.

Ironically, the most powerful and effective foreign-government lobby in Washington is so dominant that it has been able to avoid registering for the past 55 years. The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) was last confronted by FARA when its predecessor organization the American Zionist Council was pressured by John F. Kennedy’s Justice Department in 1962 and 1963. Kennedy’s death stopped that effort—and ended White House attempts to hold Israel accountable for the development of its secret nuclear weapons program (which depended on nuclear material removed illegally from the United States with the connivance of a company located in Pennsylvania called NUMEC).

AIPAC’s website declares that it is “America’s Pro-Israel Lobby,” so by its own admission it functions pretty clearly as Israel’s proxy. It spent $102 million in 2015, had 396 employees in 2013, and claims to have 100,000 members, many of whom are organized into state and city chapters. It also benefits from being a tax exempt 501(c)4 organization classified as promoting “international understanding.” Its annual Summit in Washington attracts more than 15,000 participants, including scores of congressmen and other senior government officials. It blankets Capitol Hill with its lobbyists and is a prolific source of position papers explaining Israel’s perception of what is taking place in the Middle East. Its easy access to the media and also to politicians in Washington is so widely accepted on Capitol Hill that it reportedly frequently drafts bills that Congress then goes on to propose.

No Washington lobby is benign. Lobbies exist to subvert the public interest. They promote particular agendas and are not intended to enhance the general well-being of the American public. Lobbyists would argue that they are in the information business, that they make lawmakers aware of facts that impact on pending legislation, but the reality is that every lobby is nevertheless driven by self-interest.

The power of the Israel Lobby and of AIPAC is not cost free for the American public. The current $3 billion plus that Israel, with a thriving first world economy, receives in military assistance is on top of the $130 billion that it has received since 1949. Protecting Israel in international organizations like the United Nations has sometimes marginalized the U.S. in such bodies and the lobby’s influence over American foreign policy has often been noted. In 2010 General David Petraeus stated that Israeli policies were putting American military personnel in the Middle East in danger. He quickly recanted, however.

Once upon a time AIPAC’s Steven Rosen boasted to an interviewer,

“You see this napkin? In twenty-four hours, we could have the signatures of seventy senators on this napkin.”

He meant that congressmen would sign on to anything if they thought it would please Israel. Recently the U.S. Congress has been working on bills that would criminalize individuals or groups that support a boycott of Israel. It would not be the first such legislation. The 2015 omnibus trade agreement with Europe included an amendment mandating that nations engaging in anti-Israel boycotts, to include “Israeli controlled territories,” should be subject to retaliatory action by the U.S.

There are currently two bills constituting the Israel Anti-Boycott Act of 2017 (S.720 and H.R. 1697) being considered by the Senate and House that outdo any previous deference to Israeli interests. The Senate bill was introduced by Senator Ben Cardin, who also had a hand in the trade-legislation amendments protecting Israel. According to the Jewish Telegraph Agency, the bill was drafted with the assistance of AIPAC. The legislation, which would almost certainly be overturned as unconstitutional if it ever does in fact become law, is particularly dangerous, and goes well beyond any previous pro-Israeli legislation, essentially denying free speech when the subject is Israel.

The two versions of the bill that are moving through Congress have 238 sponsors and cosponsors in the House and 46 in the Senate. If you do your math, you will realize that those numbers already constitute a majority in the House and are only five short of one in the Senate, so passage of the bills is virtually assured. The bill’s sponsors include many congressmen who have in the past frequently spoken out in defense of free speech, with Senator Ted Cruz having said in 2014, for example, that

“The First Amendment was enacted to protect unreasonable speech. I, for one, certainly don’t want our speech limited to speech that elected politicians in Washington think is reasonable.”

The movement that is particularly targeted by the bills is referred to as BDS, or Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions. It is a non-violen  t reaction to the Israeli military occupation of Palestinian land on the West Bank and the continued building of Jewish-only settlements. BDS has been targeted both by the Israeli government and by AIPAC. The AIPAC website, which describes the group’s lobbying agenda, includes the promotion of the Israel Anti-Boycott Act as a top priority.

The Israeli government and its American supporters particularly fear BDS because it has become quite popular, particularly on university campuses, where administrative steps have frequently been taken to suppress it. The denial of free speech on campus when it relates to Israel has sometimes been referred to as the “Palestinian exception.” Nevertheless, the message continues to resonate, due both to its non-violence its and human rights appeal. It challenges Israel’s arbitrary military rule over 3 million Palestinians on the West Bank who have onerous restrictions placed on nearly every aspect of their daily lives. And its underlying message is that Israel is a rogue state engaging in actions that are widely considered to be both illegal and immoral, which the Israeli government rightly sees as potentially delegitimizing.

Twenty-one state legislatures have already passed various laws confronting BDS, in many cases initiating economic penalties on organizations that boycott Israel or denying state funds to colleges and universities that allow BDS advocates to operate freely on campus. The pending federal legislation would go one step further by criminalizing any U.S. citizen “engaged in interstate or foreign commerce” who supports a boycott of Israel or who even goes about “requesting the furnishing of information” regarding it, with penalties enforced through amendments of two existing laws, the Export Administration Act of 1979 and the Export-Import Act of 1945, that include potential fines of between $250,000 and $1 million and up to 20 years in prison.

Interestingly, a number of churches, to include the Presbyterians, Mennonites, and United Church of Christ, have divested from companies participating in the occupation of the West Bank and could be subject to the punitive steps authorized by the legislation. And it also is interesting to note that the bills would not punish anyone who does not have a business relationship with Israel for reasons other than politics. The punishment comes solely when one states that he or she is not engaging in business with Israel due to objections regarding what Israel is doing to the Palestinians.

Daniel Larison has observed that even if one assumes that the legislation will face judicial hurdles and will never be enacted, it is nevertheless discouraging to consider that a clear majority of congressmen thinks it is perfectly acceptable to deny all Americans the right to free political expression in order to defend an internationally-acknowledged illegal occupation being carried out by a foreign country. That the occupation is illegal has even been acknowledged repeatedly by Washington, which contradicts its own policy with this legislation.

Those co-sponsoring the bills include Democrats, Republicans, progressives, and conservatives. Deference to Israeli interests is bipartisan and crosses ideological lines. Glenn Greenwald and Ryan Grim, writing at The Intercept, observe that

“…the very mention of the word ‘Israel’ causes most members of both parties to quickly snap into line in a show of unanimity that would make the regime of North Korea blush with envy.”

Finally, the seemingly unrelenting pressure to make criticism of Israel illegal is particularly dangerous as it is international. Indeed, it is a global phenomenon. Wherever one goes—Western Europe, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the United States—there is a well-organized and funded lobby ready, willing, and able to go to war to protect Israel. In France it is illegal to wear a t-shirt supporting BDS or to demonstrate in favor of it. Britain has introduced laws that include defining criticism of Israel as anti-Semitism. In Canada, support of BDS has been regardedas a hate crime.

Will FARA registration of AIPAC as a foreign lobby fix all that? Of course not, but it would be a good first step. AIPAC would have to publicly acknowledge that it is acting on behalf of a foreign government and its sources of income would be subject to review. While the Congress is busy searching for Russian agents under FARA it just might spend some time also examining the pernicious influence of the unregistered and unrestrained Israel Lobby.

Philip Giraldi, a former CIA officer, is executive director of the Council for the National Interest.

During the last two months Venezuela has been faced with a terrible wave of violence. It has already resulted in more than 60 deaths along with looted schools, burned public buildings, destroyed public transportation and emptied hospitals. The major media, however, simply engage in a running stream of gruesome denunciations of the government. They have installed the image of a “dictator in conflict” with the “opposition democrats”.

But the statistics do not corroborate that narrative, especially when it comes to those who have fallen. When the number had risen to 39, an initial report pointed to only four who were victims of the security forces. The remainder had died in looting or shoot-outs within the opposition mobilizations.[1] Another assessment noted that 60 per cent of those killed had absolutely nothing to do with the clashes.[2]

These characterizations are consistent with the estimates that attribute most of the murders to snipers linked with the opposition. More recent inquiries report that most of the victims lost their lives through vandalism or settlements of accounts.[3]

There are numerous denunciations as well of incursions by paramilitary groups linked to the Right. And there are indications that much of the violence enjoys local protection from municipalities governed by the opposition.[4]

Those death tolls are consistent with the fascist brutality that led to setting afire persons associated with Chavismo.[5] Burning alive a partisan of the government is a practice more closely linked to the Colombian paramilitaries or the criminal underworld than it is to the traditional political organizations. Some analysts even estimate that out of a total of 60 deaths, 27 were of sympathizers of Chavismo.[6]

Others say that within the opposition marches there are some 15,000 persons trained as shock groups. They are using balaclavas, shields and home-made weapons to create a chaotic climate and establish “liberated territories.”[7]

Assessing the Violence

The assessments presented by the opposition are diametrically opposite, but have been refuted by detailed reports on the victims.[8] Since no one acknowledges the existence of “independent” assessments, it is appropriate to judge what is happening, bearing in mind the antecedents. In the guarimba of February 2014, 43 persons died, the great majority of them unrelated to the political clashes or police repression.

Similarly, we need to assess how the opposition reacted when faced with an equivalent challenge. Its governments finished off the “Caracazo” of 1989 with hundreds of deaths and thousands of wounded.

The situation in Venezuela is dramatic but this does not explain the centrality of the country in all the news reports. Situations of greater seriousness in other countries are totally ignored by the same media.

In Colombia, since the beginning of the year, 46 social movement leaders have been assassinated and in the last 14 months 120 have perished. Between 2002 and 2016 the paramilitary forces massacred 558 mass leaders, and in the last two decades up to 2,500 trade unionists have been murdered.[9]Why no mention by any broadcaster of repute of this ongoing bloodshed in Venezuela’s nearest neighbour?

Supporters of President Nicolás Maduro participate in a rally in Caracas in support of the national Constituent Assembly. (Source: PopularResistance.Org)

More terrifying is the scene in Mexico. Every day some journalist is added to the long list of students, teachers and social fighters who are assassinated. In the climate of social warfare imposed by the “anti-drug trafficking actions,” 29,917 people have disappeared.[10] Should not this level of killings attract more journalistic attention than Venezuela?

Honduras is another hair-raising case. Along with Berta Cáceres 15 other militants have been murdered. Between 2002 and 2014 the number of assassinated environmental defenders has risen to 111.[11] The list of victims of the horror who are ignored by the hegemonic press could be extended to Peru’s political prisoners. Moreover, very few know of the suffering confronted by the Puerto Rican independence leader Oscar López Rivera during his 35 years of imprisonment.

The majority of the Latin American population simply does not know of the tragedies prevailing in the countries governed by the Right. The media’s double standard confirms that Venezuela’s prominence on the television screens is not due to humanitarian concerns.

Forms of a Coup

The media coverage shores up the opposition’s promotion of a coup. Since they cannot carry out classic disturbances like those that led to Pinochet’s coup, they try to remove President Maduro through the dislocation of society. They repeat what was attempted in February 2014 in order to commit an institutional coup similar to the ones carried out in Honduras (2009), Paraguay (2014) or Brazil (2016). They hope to impose through force what they will later validate in the ballot boxes.

The Right lacks the military force used in the past to return to government. But it is trying to recreate such intervention by staging skirmishes at military barracks, setting fire to police stations or marching on military headquarters.

Its plan combines sabotage of the economy with riots by armed groups which, in contrast to Colombia, act anonymously. These actions are mingled with the criminal underworld and they terrorize merchants.[12]

The actions include fascist methods sponsored by the most violent currents of anti-Chavismo. They appropriate the insurgent symbolism forged by the popular movements and present their pillage as a heroic gesture. Their leader Leopoldo López is not some innocent politician. Any court operating under the rule of law would have sentenced him to life imprisonment for his criminal liability.

The Right promotes a climate of civil war in order to demoralize the Chavista bases, affected by the lack of food and medicine. It is explicit in its call for foreign intervention and negotiates with the creditor banks an interruption in the country’s access to credit.

The opposition hopes to lynch Maduro in order to bury Chavismo. It takes its battle to the streets, in the conquest of public opinion and the collapse of the economy. It considers elections as nothing more than a simple coronation of this offensive.

But it is confronting growing obstacles. The predominance of the violence in its marches alienates the majority of those who are discontented and wears down its own demonstrators. As it did in 2014 the rebuff of the fascists undermines the entire opposition. Maduro’s steadfastness, moreover, deters attendance in the marches. They have not managed to penetrate the popular neighborhoods where they still confront the risk of an adverse armed conflict.[13]

The big bourgeoisie in Venezuela incites the coup with the regional support of Macri, Temer, Santos and Peña Nieto. For months it has been promoting a destabilizing plan in the OAS. But it has failed to get results in that area. Proposed sanctions against Venezuela have been unsuccessful because of the opposition of various foreign ministries; they have failed to achieve the unanimity with which Cuba was expelled from the OAS in the 1960s.

Notorious, as well, is the United States’ promotion of coups with the aim of regaining control over the major crude oil reserve on the continent. The State Department wants to repeat the operations it used in Iraq or Libya, in the knowledge that after overthrowing Maduro no one will remember where Venezuela is. It suffices to see how the media omit any mention in the news of the countries where the Pentagon has already intervened. Once the adversary is liquidated, the news turns to other issues.

The strategic goals of imperialism are not registered by those who highlight the flirtation of some U.S. newspaper with the Venezuelan president or the verbal ambiguities of Trump.[14] They imagine that those irrelevant facts illustrate the absence of any conflict between the United States and Chavismo. But it does not register with them that the immense majority of the press is maliciously attacking Maduro and that the multimillionaire in the White House denies each day what he said the previous day.

Trump is not indifferent or neutral. He simply delegates to the CIA and the Pentagon the implementation of a conspiracy that is designed through the Sharp and Venezuela Freedom 2plans. Those operations include espionage, troop deployment and cover for terrorism.[15] They develop in a stealthy way while the major media outlets discredit any condemnation of those preparations. They question especially the “exaggerations of the left” so that no one will disturb the conspirators.

Some analysts think the presence of Chevron in Venezuela – or PDVSA’s continued business in the United States – illustrate a tight association between the two governments.[16] They conclude from this relationship that there is no coup scenario. But those connections do not alter in the least the Empire’s decision to overthrow the Bolivarian government.

The activities of U.S. corporations in Venezuela (and of their counterparts in the United States) have persisted from the outset of the Chavista process. But Bush, Obama and Trump have sought to recover direct imperial control over the oil. They cannot get this through a strained relationship between partners or clients. They want to install the model of privatization that prevails in Mexico and to expel Russia and China from their backyard.

Attitude of the Left

If the diagnosis of a reactionary coup is correct, the position of the left should not give rise to disagreements. Our main enemies are the Right and imperialism, and to crush them is always a priority. This elementary principle must be reaffirmed at critical times when what is obvious can become confused.

Whatever our criticisms were of Salvador Allende, our central battle was against Pinochet. Similarly, we adopted a corresponding line of conduct toward the Argentine gorillas of 1955 or the saboteurs of Arbenz, Torrijos and the various anti-imperialist governments of the region. This position in Venezuela today points to the need for common action against the rightist escalation.

When a coup is on the horizon, it is indispensable to single out those who are responsible for the crisis. Those who cause a disaster are not the same as those who are powerless to resolve it.

This distinction applies in the economic field. The errors committed by Maduro are both numerous and unjustifiable, but those guilty of the present damage are the capitalists. The government is tolerant or incapable, but it does not belong on the same plane. Those who commit the monumental error of drawing a line of identity between both sectors[17] confuse responsibilities of a different nature.

The government’s mistakes have been demonstrated in the inoperative system of currency exchange rates, the unacceptable external debt, or in the lack of control over prices and smuggling. But the collapse of the economy has been caused by the affluent who manipulate the currencies, trigger inflation, handle imported goods and limit supplies of basic goods.

The Executive is unresponsive or acts mistakenly for many reasons: inefficiency, tolerance of corruption, protection of the bolibourgeoisie, connivance with millionaires disguised as Chavistas. That’s why it does not cut support to the private groups that receive cheap dollars in order to import dear. But the collapse of production has been carried out by the ruling class in order to overthrow Maduro. Not to recognize that conflict is to display an unwonted level of myopia.

This blindness prevents recognition of another key fact at this time: the resistance of Chavismo to the rightist onslaught. Albeit with methods and attitudes that are highly questionable, Maduro is not surrendering. He maintains the vertical structure of the PSUV, he favours the banning of the critical currents, and he preserves a bureaucracy that strangles responses from below. But unlike Dilma or Lugo he does not give in. His conduct is the exact opposite of the capitulation carried out by Syriza in Greece.

This stance explains the hatred of the powerful. The government has made the excellent decision to withdraw from the OAS. It has abandoned the Ministry of Colonies and carried out the rupture that the left has always demanded. This decision should arouse the overwhelming support that very few have expressed.

Like any administration under attack from the Right, the government has resorted to force in its self-defence. The establishment media denounce that reaction with unusual hysteria. Forgotten are the justifications habitually made by governments of another character when they face similar situations. But Maduro has also been challenged conversely for his relative indulgence toward the fascists. He has simply adopted guarded measures in response to the opposition savagery.

In its response the government has of course committed injustices. That’s the regrettable cost of any significant confrontation with the counter-revolution. These mishaps have been present in all battles with the reaction, from Bolívar to Fidel. There is a need to avoid self-indulgence in this delicate terrain, but without repeating the slanders propagated by the opposition.

Maduro is directing his fire against the Rightist brutality and not against the people. So it makes no sense to compare him with Gaddafi or Saddam Hussein. He has not carried out any massacre of left-wing activists or participated in war-mongering adventures instigated by the United States. The analogy with Stalin is more ridiculous, but it reminds us that the spectre of Hitler hovers over many of the opposition leaders associated with Uribe or nostalgic for a Pinochet.

Social-Democratic Positions

In recent months, as well, among the adversaries of the Right there has been an increase in views that blame Maduro for Venezuela’s agony. These opinions repeat the old social- democratic posture of joining with the reaction at critical moments.

They question the legitimacy of the government, using the same arguments as the opposition. Instead of accusing the CIA, the escuálidos [the squalid ones, a Venezuelan phrase for the filthy rich], or the OAS, they concentrate their objections against Chavismo. They do this in the name of a democratic ideal that is as abstract as it is divorced from the battle to determine who will prevail in the running of the state.

This position has affected various “critical left” thinkers [pensadores del post-progresismo] linked to autonomism. Not only do they accuse Maduro for the present situation, they say he has reinforced an authoritarian leadership in order to maintain the model based on hydrocarbon rents.[18]

This characterization is very similar to the liberal thesis that attributes all of Venezuela’s problems to populist politics, implemented by tyrants who are squandering the resources of the state. Only they use language that is more diplomatic in its diagnosis.

Other views of the same order point more categorically to the responsibility of the Chavista leader. They call on us as well to avoid “the conspiratorial over-simplification of blaming the Right or imperialism” for the country’s troubles.[19] But are the conspirators of the reaction imaginary? Are the murdered, the paramilitaries and the plans of the Pentagon paranoiac Bolivarian inventions?

Without answering this elementary question, that position also dismisses any comparison with what happened in Chile in 1973. However, it does not explain why that analogy is inapplicable. It takes for granted that the two situations differ without noting the huge similarities in respect to the shortages, the conservative irritation of the middle class or the intervention of the CIA.

The disputed parallels with Allende are, however, accepted in the case of the first Peronist government, which is viewed as a direct antecedent of Chavismo. But is the resemblance located in the years of stability or in the moments prior to the coup of 1955? The preoccupation with the escalation of violence suggests that the similarity is in relation to that latter period. And in a situation of that type what was the priority? Confront Perón’s authoritarianism or resist the gorillas?

The social-democrats and “critical left” point to the authoritarian Maduro as the main cause of the current situation.[20] That’s why they downplay the danger of a coup and reject the need to prepare some defense against the Right’s provocations.

But the consequences of this attitude are demonstrated whenever the oligarchs and their bandits return to government. The recent events in Honduras, Paraguay or Brazil do not even arouse alarm among those who demonize Chavismo.

They object as well to the extractivism, indebtedness and contracts with oil companies. But they do not explain if they are demanding anticapitalist and socialist alternatives to these obvious failings of Maduro. The same applies to the shortages and the speculation. Are they urging him to act with greater firmness against the bankers and the big commercial cartels? Do they propose confiscations, nationalizations, or direct popular control?

By adopting these initiatives one could imagine building bridges with the government, but never with the opposition. The detractors of Chavismo sidestep this difference.

‘Critical Left’ Appeals

The social-democratic viewpoint characterizes the urgent call for peace signed by numerous intellectuals. This statement promotes a peace process, rejecting both the authoritarian turn of Chavismo and the violent attitude of right-wing sectors.[21]

The call favours equilibrium to overcome the polarization and resorts to a language closer to that of the foreign ministries than to the popular activists. The tone is in conformity with the implicit attachment to a theory of two evils. Against both extremes it proposes to take the middle road.

But this equidistance was immediately belied by the fundamental responsibility it assigned to the government. And not only does it overlook the harassment of the Right, but imperialism is barely mentioned in passing.

The text was met with a powerful reply sponsored by the REDH [Network of Intellectuals, Artists and Social Movements in Defense of Humanity] and signed by many intellectuals. This criticism rightly objected to the fascination with conventional republicanism and noted the pre-eminent gravitation of extra-constitutional forces in critical situations.[22]

The liberal relapse of the post-progressive or “critical left” thinkers recreates what happened with the social-democratic Gramcians in the 1980s. The animosity of that group toward Leninism and the Cuban revolution is comparable to the present hostility to Chavismo. A number of those who signed the call have passed through both periods.

But the present social-democratic variant is late and lacks the political reference once contributed by the Spanish PSOE. The social-liberal turn of that party has completely demolished its initial progressive imaginary. That it is now orphaned explains, perhaps, the present re-encounter with the old liberalism.

In some cases this evolution is the culmination of the division that has affected distinct variants of autonomism. The positions taken toward the Bolivarian process have triggered this fracture. Those who chose to line up with the opposition are suspicious of those who “cling to Chavismo.”[23]

But this latter sector has thought through the previous insufficiencies and has come to understand the need to fight for the state power with socialist perspectives related to Latin American Marxism.

In contrast, the other segment continues navigating in the ambiguity of generalities about anti-patriarchism and anti-extractivism without offering any concrete example of what is proposed. Absorbed by the liberal universe, their enigmatic vagaries no longer enrich left-wing thinking. Between their forgetfulness of the class struggle and their fascination with bourgeois institutionality, their denunciations of extractivism are becoming a picturesque curiosity.

Absent-Minded Dogmatism

A discourse that is convergent with social democracy is also disseminated using sectarian arguments. In this case Maduro’s is portrayed as a corrupt government, submissive and adaptable, that is consolidating a dictatorial regime.[24] On other occasions that same illegitimacy is described with more indirect or sophisticated categories (de facto president, Bonapartist chief).

But all the variants coincide in underscoring the fundamental responsibility of an authoritarian government that is tearing apart the country. The harmony of this focus with the media narrative is striking. The main problem, however, is not in the rhetoric but in the practice.

Every day there are marches of the Right and of the government. The champions of socialist rigour have to ask themselves: Which of the two mobilizations will we join? With whom will we identify? If they think the government is the main enemy they will have to make common cause with the escuálidos of the guarimbas.

In Buenos Aires, for example, they called last May for a mobilization demanding the ouster of Maduro.[25] All the passers-by who observed this march understood clearly who would immediately occupy Venezuela’s presidency if the present head of state were overthrown. And they noted the total coincidence between this demand and the messages issued daily by the news media.

This is not the first time that sectors of the left have so clearly converged with the Right. An antecedent in Argentina under the Kirchner governments was the presence of red flags in the soy farmers’ marches and the demonstrations of the caceroleros [middle- and upper-class opponents of the government banging pots and pans]. But what was pathetic in Buenos Aires can turn to tragedy in Caracas.

Other visions compare Maduro with the opposition, arguing that under the masquerade of an apparent contraposition hide huge coincidences. So they speculate about the moment when this convergence will become explicit.[26]

This curious interpretation contrasts with the pitched battles between both sectors that everyone else sees. So it is a bit difficult to interpret the guarimbas, assassinations and Pentagon threats as a fictitious quarrel between two relatives.

The sole logic of this presentation is to downplay the seriousness of the current conflict, to interpret it as a mere inter-bourgeois fight over the appropriation of the rent. That is why Maduro’s totalitarianism is seen as a danger equivalent to (or worse than) the opposition.

The major problem in this focus is not its absent-mindedness but the implicit neutrality that it promotes. Since everyone is equal, the self-coup attributed to the government is compared with the coup promoted by the Right.

That equivalence is obviously false, however. In Venezuela there are not two reactionary variants in contention like, for example, jihadism and the dictatorships in the Middle East. Nor is it the type of competition between troglodytes that in Argentina opposed Videla to Isabel Perón.

The clash between Capriles-López and Maduro resembles the confrontation of Pinochet with Allende, of Lonardi with Perón or more recently of Temer with Dilma. Similarly the triumph of the Right over Maduro, far from an engagement between equals, would entail a terrible political regression.

Confronted with this alternative, neutrality is a synonym for passivity and represents a huge degree of impotence in the face of great events. It means renouncing participation and commitment to genuine causes.

Since this attitude takes for granted that Chavismo is finished, it limits its entire horizon to writing a balance sheet of that experience. But the biggest failure in political action never affects unfinished or frustrated processes. The worst thing is narrow-mindedness in the face of major epic events.

Whatever one’s questions about Maduro, the outcome in Venezuela will define the immediate destiny of the entire region. If the reactionaries triumph, the result will be a scenario of defeat and a feeling of impotence in the face of the Empire. The end of the progressive cycle will be a fact and not a subject for evaluation among social science thinkers.

The Right knows this and for that reason is stepping up the campaigns against the intellectuals who defend Chavismo. The recent broadside attack in Clarín is a foretaste of the assault that is being prepared for a post-Maduro regional setting.[27] The sectarians do not register that danger.

Spurious Elections

In the immediate future there are two political options at play: the Right demands that the general elections be moved forward, and the government has called a Constituent Assembly. The opposition is only willing to participate in elections that will ensure it first place.

Of the 19 elections carried out under Chavismo, the Bolivarians won 17 and immediately recognized the two that they lost. In contrast, the Right never accepted their adverse results. They always claimed there was some fraud or resorted to a boycott. When they won in by-elections they demanded the immediate fall of the government.

In December 2015 they obtained a majority in the National Assembly and proclaimed the overthrow of Maduro. Then they attempted in various ways to disregard the constitution, even by swearing in deputies illegally elected and falsifying signatures on petitions to recall Maduro.

Capriles, Borges and López are now calling for spurious elections amidst the economic war and provocation in the streets. They want elections like those in Colombia where, in one election after another, hundreds of popular activists are murdered. They hope to gain at the ballot boxes as in Honduras under the pressure of the murder of Berta. They want the kind of elections that are held in Mexico over the dead bodies of journalists, students and teachers.

It would be a terrible error to join in elections designed to prepare a Chavista cemetery. Maduro is being asked to carry out elections in a climate of civil war that would be unacceptable to any government.

Venezuela is going through a situation that bears some resemblance to the scene in Nicaragua at the end of the first Sandinista electoral term in office. The military siege and shortages wore out an exhausted population who voted for the Right out of simple fatigue. In those conditions elections have a pre-established winner.

On the other hand, comparison with the scenario that led to the fall of the Soviet Union makes no sense. Venezuela is not a big power imploding internally at the end of a lengthy divorce between the regime and the population. It is a vulnerable Latin American country under attack from the United States.

Some thinkers take for granted the oppressive role of imperialism and suggest that this is not a decisive factor in the present crisis.[28] They assume that the persistent denunciations of that domination constitute “a fact already known” or a mere ritual of the Left. But they forget that it is never pointless to emphasize the devastating impact of aggression from the North on governments that have become enemies of Washington.

The entire spectrum of ex-Chavistas who are joining in the call for general elections confuse democracy with liberal republicanism. They have lost sight of the way in which the right to self-government is systematically blocked by bourgeois institutionality.

This impediment is why the great majority of constitutional regimes have lost legitimacy. It becomes more and more evident that the ruling class uses voting systems to consolidate its power. It uses this control to run the economy, the justice system, the news media and the repressive apparatus. Real democracy can only emerge in a socialist process of transformation of society.

It is true that Maduro cancelled the recall referendum, suspended regional elections and proscribed some opposition politicians. These measures are part of a blind reaction to the harassment. But the Chavista leader is confronting the hypocrisy of greater import exhibited by the defenders of the present electoral regimes.

It suffices to see how in Brazil the impeachment was carried out by a group of outlaws with the cover of the judges and parliamentarians who manipulate the system of indirect presidential selection. It never occurred to the OAS to intervene against that vulgar violation of democratic principles.

Nor did the establishment get indignant when the Electoral College anointed Trump after he had received a few million votes less than Hilary Clinton. A ruling monarchy in Spain or England seems natural to them, as do the clumsy schemes that are used to manipulate each election in Mexico. The sacrosanct democracy they ask of Venezuela is completely absent in all capitalist countries.

Possibilities of the Constituent Assembly

Obviously, the best opportunity for a transformative Constituent Assembly was lost several years ago. The present call is purely defensive and is an attempt to contend with an exasperating situation.

But it is useless to discuss only what has not been done. There is still time left for those balance-sheets. The important thing now is to determine how this call can reopen a road for popular initiative.

Before the call for the Constituent Assembly the government was limiting itself to developing a purely bureaucratic confrontation between one state power and another. It relied on a struggle from above by the Executive or the Supreme Court against the National Assembly. Now it is finally calling on the communal power and we will have to see whether this idea translates into a real mobilization.

There are numerous signs of weariness and skepticism within Chavismo. But no one chooses the conditions in which to fight and the main dilemma turns on whether to continue or abandon the struggle. Those who have resolved to dig in their heels are calling for a revival of the popular project.

Some left currents that are very critical of Maduro’s management think this convening of a Constituent Assembly could unleash a dynamic of communes against the bureaucratic operations.[29] They see the Constituent Assembly as an imperfect instrument to disentangle the dispute with corrupt bourgeoisified and bolibourgeois Chavismo.

The Constituent Assembly could also help to break the stalemate in recent months between guarimbas and pro-government mobilizations. If it is adequately tasked it could break down the opposition front, separating the discontented from the fascists.

But it is obvious that without drastic measures on the economic and social front the Constituent Assembly will be an empty shell. If the disaster in production is not attacked through nationalization of the banks, foreign trade and the expropriation of the saboteurs, there will be no recovery in popular support.

The palliative measures attempted in order to increase participation of the base organisms in the distribution of food are insufficient. Radical measures cannot be postponed.

Whatever the alternative, it will not be easy to redirect the economy after so many mistakes in regard to the debt, the creation of special investment zones or the tolerance of capital flight.

Chávez achieved a big redistribution of the rent through new methods of popular politicization, but he never managed to lay the foundations for a process of industrialization. He clashed with the opposition capitalists but not with the internal bolibourgeoisie and he was unable to deactivate the rentist culture that undermined all attempts to build up a productive economy. The hesitation to break with the capitalist structure explains the adverse results.

The present context is more difficult because of the sharp drop in oil prices and the blockage of regional integration projects under the conservative restoration. But it should also be noted that all revolutionary processes take off in adversity and the Constituent Assembly can provide a framework for regaining the initiative.

Some critics of this call object to the sectoral and communal form of election. They say that with this format the “assembly will be tricky, corporatist or illegitimate.”[30] And here they repeat the endorsement the Right makes (when it suits them) of conventional constitutionalism. That demand is not surprising when it comes from establishment commentators but it is disturbing when it comes from enthusiasts of the Russian revolution.

After three decades of post-dictatorial regimes, many have forgotten the duplicities of bourgeois democracy. It might be remembered how Lenin and Trotsky defended in 1917 the legitimacy of the soviets and withdrew recognition of a Constituent Assembly that rivalled the revolutionary power.

The context in Venezuela today is very different. However, the Bolshevik revolution not only taught us to note the social background, the class conflicts and the interests at stake, it also indicated a path by which to go beyond the hypocrisy of bourgeois liberalism and it confirmed that acts of force against the reaction form part of the confrontation with rightist barbarism.

The Left will have to determine whether it converges with the opposition in the boycott or participates in the Constituent Assembly. There is also a third option, with a very small audience: “yes, no and the very opposite.”

In the rest of the region the need is for solidarity. As in Cuba’s special period, we have to put our shoulders to the wheel in difficult situations. Let us hope that many compañeros adopt this approach before it is too late.

Intellectual Regroupment

Venezuela is not only giving rise to intense debates. It has also brought about significant regroupments of intellectuals that endorse counterposed appeals. This positioning has been more relevant than the controversial details of the distinct declarations. It has resulted in a great division between camps.

The REDH text refuting the social-democratic call was complemented by other compelling responses.[31] The political demarcation has been very rapid.

Despite the tension created by the manifestos, a number of signatories ask that the fraternal dialogue be maintained. That respect is indispensable but the indignant reactions are explained by what is at stake. If the Right prevails, there will be plenty of time for the lamentations and the seminars investigating what happened.

Since the social-democratic statement contains an appeal for peace, many thinkers rallied to it in the spontaneous hope of slowing down the violence. Taking a closer look at the contents of the document, some withdrew their support and others maintained it with defensive arguments. They highlight their continuing solidarity with the Bolivarian process or point out their differences with other signatories.

But most significant has been the rapid and generalized reaction that the anti-Chavista document aroused and the great rejection the social-democratic statement generated. That instinctive reaction led to a sudden convergence between left-wing intellectuals and radical nationalism. If this interface were to be consolidated, Venezuela will have awakened a re-encounter of critical thinking with the revolutionary traditions of Latin America.

Claudio Katz is an economist, researcher with Argentina’s National Council of Scientific and Technical Research (CONICET), professor at the University of Buenos Aires and a member of the Economists of the Left (EDI). His web page, where this article first appeared, is at katz.lahaine.org.

Translated from the original article by Richard Fidler (with assistance from Federico Fuentes) and first published in Life on the Left.

Notes

1. Marco Teruggi, “Radiografía de la violencia en Venezuela,” El Telégrafo 14-5-2017.

2. Pablo Siris Seade, “Las nuevas víctimas de las guarimbas en Venezuela,” Rebelion, 20-5-2017.

3. Guillermo Cieza, “La derrota política de la derecha venezolana,” Resumen, 7-6-2017.

4. Atilio Boron, “Venezuela sumida en la guerra civil,” Jornada, 26-5-2017; “La ‘oposición democrática’ en Venezuela: peor que el fascismo,” Cuba Debate, 25-4-2017.

5. Carlos Aznárez, “La cuestión es impedir que el fascismo se adueñe de Venezuela,” Resumen, 22-5-2017.

6. Manu Pineda, “La mentira como herramienta de guerra en Venezuela,” El Diario, 29-5-2017.

7. Marco Teruggi, “Análisis del esquema de la ofensiva paramilitar,” Hastaelnocau, 24-5-2017.

8. Luigino Bracci Roa, Lista de fallecidos por las protestas violentas de la oposición venezolana, abril a junio de 2017,” Alba Ciudad, 9-6-2017.

9. Manuel Humberto Restrepo Domínguez, “46 líderes asesinados evidencian una política del horror,” America Latina en Movimiento, 22-5-2017.

10. TRIAL International, “Informe de seguimiento presentado al Comité contra la Desaparición Forzada,” 2-2-2017.

11. TelsurTV “Asesinan a Berta Cáceres, líder indígena de Honduras,” 3-3-2016.

12. Marco Teruggi, “Llegó la hora Venezuela,” Resumen, 28-5-2017.

13. Guillermo Cieza, La derrota política de la derecha venezolana,” Resumen 7-6-2017.

14. Simón Rodríguez Porras, “Nueve errores de Claudio Katz sobre Venezuela,” La Clase, 11-5-2017.

15. Ángel Guerra Cabrera, “Venezuela, situación de peligro,” La Pupila Insomne, 25-5-2017. Also Telma Luzzani, “El plan destituyente del Pentágono y el secretario de la OEA,” Tiempoar, 30-3-2017.

16. Simón Rodríguez Porras, “Nueve errores de Claudio Katz sobre Venezuela,” La Clase, 11-5-2017.

17. Simón Rodríguez Porras, “Nueve errores de Claudio Katz sobre Venezuela,” La Clase, 11-5-2017.

18. Edgardo Lander, “Sociólogo venezolano cuestiona la ‘solidaridad incondicional’de la izquierda latinoamericana con el chavismo,” La Diaria, 23-3-2017.

19. Maristella Svampa, “Carta Abierta al Campo Militante Prochavista de la Argentina,” La Tecla Ene, 5-6-2017.

20. Maristella Svampa and Roberto Gargarella, “El desafío de la izquierda, no callar,” Pagina 12, 8-5-2017.

21. VVAA, “Llamado Internacional Urgente a detener la escalada de violencia en Venezuela,” CETRI, 30-5-2017.

22. VVAA, “¿Quién acusará a los acusadores?,” REDH, 5-6-2017.

23. Maristella Svampa, “Carta Abierta al Campo Militante Prochavista de la Argentina,” La Tecla Ene, 5-6-2017.

24. Simón Rodríguez Porras, “Nueve errores de Claudio Katz sobre Venezuela,” La Clase, 11-5-2017.

25. Nuevo MAS, “Bajo la consigna “Fuera Maduro” escandaloso acto en Buenos Aires de un sector del FIT en apoyola derecha golpista venezolana.”

26. Jorge Altamira, “Constituyente ‘a la Maduro’,” 18-5-2017.

27. Gustavo Bazzan, “El reclamo de Atilio Borón a Nicolás Maduro para “aplastar” a la oposición en Venezuela,” Clarin Mundo, 30-5-2017.

28. Carlos Carcione, “Las “lecciones” de algunos intelectuales de la izquierda: ¿Quiénes son los sepultureros del proceso bolivariano?,” Question Digital, 16-5-2017.

29. Stalin Pérez Borges, “Movimiento EN LUCHAS: la convocatoria a la Asamblea Nacional Constituyente es un reto que debemos asumir,” Aporrea, 9-5-2017.

30. Gustavo Giménez, “Venezuela: una Constituyente trucha,” MST, 11-5-2017.

31. VVAA, “Declaración sobre Venezuela: Intelectuales en solidaridad con el pueblo bolivariano,” 5-6-2017. Also, “LUCHAS y otras organizaciones se pronuncian por una salida democrática, revolucionaria y socialista a la crisis venezolana.”

It seems the oil producing countries are beginning to sweat. It finally dawned upon them that their oil revenues are in trouble, and turbulent, if not perilous, financial times are ahead. 

Venezuela is in shambles, Nigeria is thrashing to keep its head above water, Mexico is desperately trying to hedge its oil on the forward markets and the others are scratching their heads for bright ideas. It could still get a lot worse, and a few years ago, we warned that wars could be triggered. 

As for the Middle East oil producing countries, their vast and growing welfare spending which has sustained their economies and polities has suddenly had the rug pulled from underneath it, and oil revenues have collapsed. And, after a period of denial, these countries are now scrambling to try change the direction of the oncoming hurricane.

One must admit, that their approach is innovative, but also risky. Most of the Middle East oil producers have drawn up ambitious restructuring plans to diversify their economies and wean their citizens off the welfare teat. And, as an extra measure, they coupled those plans with economic reform plans, which in essence, are austerity measures. Nevertheless, they remain plans and need to be continuously reassessed and amended. Rigid plans do not guarantee success.

To fund their diversification strategy away from oil, most of these countries have opted to sell assets. Not any assets, but their oil assets!

Abu Dhabi recently announced that it will be selling minority stakes in its downstream oil businesses, such as oil services, refineries, oil trading subsidiaries, tank farms, pipelines…etc. It will not, however sell any of its upstream, oil production operation. They justify this sale as a method to generate capital to fund its economic diversification plan, as well as boost its oil sales by incentivizing its customers, with a direct ownership interest, and hence buy more products and services.

Earlier, Oman had announced a, more or less, similar plan to sell off parts of its oil assets to attract foreign capital. One approach that it has taken is to sell part of its ownerships in companies listed on the Muscat stock exchange, starting with Salalah Methanol Co. This approach carries the added benefit of stimulating the local stock exchange which has been tepid for a while.

Much earlier, Saudi announced last year its ambitious diversification plan which will be funded by selling 5% of Aramco, its main oil producing company, and is expected to be initiated by the end of 2017 – subject to its valuation at a price acceptable to both, the sellers and the potential buyers.

Kuwait, chose a different approach to the funding of its diversification plan. It figured that, as its present credit worthiness was high and interest rates low, it may as well borrow from the international markets – and worry later about servicing and repaying the loans.

This all may be fine and dandy, but – and a big ‘But’ for sure – what happens if the plans don’t work? It is not like these countries have a comforting successful track record of prudent economic management. Oil has been in play in these countries for 50 to 80 years. Never dreamed of, oil revenues have flowed into their coffers, but very little real development or diversification has taken place. Why would they imagine that they can pull off a great transformation in a mere 5 to 15 years?

No doubt the publicly announced plans, at least for Kuwait and Saudi, are ambitious and impressive. But, how realistic are they? Their details (feasibility studies, numbers, cost benefit analysis, etc.) need to be transparently clarified.

Secondly, realism begets the question of how successful is the selling of the oil assets going to be. It certainly is not an easy task. It is far from a sellers’ market (especially for a semi-distressed seller), the world economy is teetering, the oil business is in the doldrums and, above all, why would any foreigner in his right mind, use scarce capital to buy a tiny minority stake in a government majority-owned business, whose operation could be subject to fiat and government diktat?

Thirdly, the tendency of these countries to trigger, overnight, harsh austerity programs is akin to shooting yourself in the foot before taking the first step of economic development and diversification. Development and diversification presume the presence of a wide and equally robust economic players in the market. Classical austerity programs are more likely to stifle economic growth and increase income and wealth inequality – even by the IMF’s reluctant admission.

Lastly, a nagging thought keeps popping its head, why would a far-sighted farmer sell part of his cow and forever lose part of the milk revenue. The Middle East oil producers can make do with their present income by reducing waste, extravagance, military spending and, as in the case of the farmer who upgrades his milk to such higher value products as cheese, butter and cream, and gets rid of the Ferrari in his garage. Similarly, these countries may be able to fund their economic diversification plans, albeit in form that is less ambitious than what they are imagining at present. Also, it may take little longer to realize, but the risks would be dramatically smaller, and more easily mitigated.

This discussion reminds us of the folklore tales about the self-made millionaire who, during his rise to success, stumbled and had to auction off his wife’s gold and jewelry to fund his way back to the top. However, these tales make no mention of the thousands of businessmen who failed to rise, despite selling their wife’s gold, and went on, to bankruptcy and poverty.

Marwan Salamah, is a Kuwaiti economic consultant and publishes articles on his blog: marsalpost.com

Featured image: Free Syrian Army (Source: Dona_Bozzi / Shutterstock.com)

Last week a Trump administration official decided to inform the news media that the CIA program to arm and train anti-Assad Syrian forces had been terminated. It was welcome news amid a deepening U.S. military commitment reflecting the intention to remain in the country for years to come. As my recent article in TAC documented, the net result of the program since late 2011 has been to provide arms to al Qaeda terrorists and their jihadist and other extremist allies, which had rapidly come to dominate the military effort against the Assad regime.

The Trump administration’s decision to acknowledge explicitly its decision to end the program invites a more systematic analysis of why and how such a program, which was so clearly undermining a fundamental U.S. national-security interest, could have gotten started and continue for so long. The preliminary version of the program that began in late 2011 is easier to explain than its more direct form two years later, which had continued (at least formally) until now.

One of the keys to understanding its origins is that the program was launched not because of a threat to U.S. security, but because of a perceived opportunity. That is always a danger sign, prompting powerful national-security bureaucrats to begin thinking about a “win” for the United States. (Think Vietnam and Iraq.)

The opportunity in this case was the rise of opposition protests against the Assad regime in spring 2011 and the belief among national security officials that Assad could not survive. The national-security team saw a shortcut to the goal. Former Obama administration official Derek Chollet recalled in his book The Long Game that Obama’s advisers were all talking about a “managed transition” and urging Obama to publicly demand that Assad step down, according to Chollet. What that meant to Obama’s advisers was bringing pressure from outside, including providing arms to the opposition.

That was wishful thinking not only in regard to the willingness of an Alawite-dominated regime to hand over power to its sectarian foes, but in regard to the assumed Iranian willingness to go along with toppling the regime. Not one of Obama’s advisers had sufficient understanding of regional dynamics to warn the President that Iran would not allow their Syrian ally to be overthrown by an opposition supported by Sunni states and the United States.

But the decisive factor in pushing the administration toward action was the pressure from U.S. Sunni allies in the region—Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar—which began in autumn 2011 to press Obama to help build and equip an opposition army. Turkey was the leader in this regard, calling for Washington to agree to provide heavy weaponry—including anti-aircraft and anti-tank missiles—to the rebel troops that didn’t even exist yet, and even offering to invade Syria to overthrow the regime if the U.S. would guarantee air cover.

In the ideology of the national security elite—especially its Democratic wing—regional alliances are essential building blocks of what is styled as the U.S.-sponsored global “rules-based order.” In practice, however, they have served as instruments for the advancement of the power and prestige of the national security bureaucracies themselves. The payoffs of U.S. alliances in the Middle East have centered on the military bases in Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar that allow the Pentagon and the military brass to plan and execute military operations that guarantee extraordinary levels of military spending. But enormous Saudi arms purchases and the financing of any covert operations the CIA doesn’t wish to acknowledge to Congress have long been prime benefits for those powerful organizations and their senior officials.

Then CIA Director David Petraeus was particularly interested in ginning up a covert operation to arm and train the Syrian opposition. With the security bureaucracies supporting the allies’ desire to unseat Assad, Hillary Clinton, whose sympathies and political strategy always lay with the war, eagerly took the lead to take the lead in the administration on arming the rebels and calling for a “no fly zone,” which the Turks badly wanted.

Despite this set of interrelated factors pulling the administration toward a policy of regime change, Obama said no to heavy weapons, a no-fly zone, and an official U.S. role in arms supply. What he did agree to, however, was a covert CIA operation designed by Petraeus to load weapons from Libyan government stocks in Benghazi on ships and arrange for them to be shipped to the war zone. It was Obama’s way of placating all of the actors pushing for an aggressive policy of regime change in Syria without being publicly committed to regime change.

That program, which began in October 2011, was halted abruptly by the attack on the embassy annex in September 2012. But by that time the Obama administration already knew that the weapons were falling into the hands of al Qaeda’s Syrian franchise al Nusra Front, as administration official revealed to the New York Times. Meanwhile the Saudis, Turks and Qataris were pushing arms to groups with military arrangements with al Qaeda’s al Nusra Front at a feverish pace, and the Saudis had begun making deals in Eastern Europe for the heavy weapons, clearly intending to equip a large conventional army.

The danger signals of a policy gone horribly wrong could hardly have been clearer. But at that moment in the summer and fall of 2012, Clinton and Petraeus began a new push for the CIA taking on the role of arming its own hand-picked “moderate” groups. Clinton argued in a White House meeting that the United States needed to have “skin in the game” in order to persuade its Sunni allies to steer weapons away from the terrorists.

But Obama fended off that proposal, citing the blowback from the U.S. Afghanistan adventure. While the debate continued in late 2012 and early 2013, the CIA did a series of studies—evidently ordered by the White House—of past efforts to build up insurgent armies from scratch. The conclusions were not encouraging, as someone defending Obama’s position in the debate leaked to the Times.

But then in early December 2012, Obama made a fatal political error: He introduced a “red line”—the use of a chemical weapon in Syria. Sure enough, within weeks the first rebel allegation of a regime sarin attack was made in Homs. And although the Obama administration quickly investigated and found that it involved tear gas, it was soon followed by a series of new claims of regime chemical attacks in March and April 2013, in which the evidence was very murky at best.

Of course Obama’s national security team, in concert with the Sunni allies, pounced on the opportunity to push even harder for a new U.S. program of direct military aid to the “moderates.” Obama sought to avoid being sucked deeper into the Syria conflict; the administration even got the intelligence community to issue an unusually inconclusive intelligence finding on the alleged chemical weapons attacks in late April.

But for a second time, Obama also agreed to a CIA program of helping to arm the anti-Assad forces; it was a way of placating his own national security apparatus and U.S. allies while avoiding an open commitment to the war. And when nothing happened in the secret program for weeks, Obama’s national security team used an alleged crisis in the war to tighten the pressure on him to move more decisively. Secretary of State John Kerry and unhappy CIA officials arranged for a rebel commander to call into a White House meeting with the claim that Syrian and Hezbollah forces were threatening to bring about the collapse of the entire anti-Assad war.

Kerry warned that Obama would be blamed by U.S. allies for the outcome and proposed missile strikes on Assad’s forces. Within days, the White House ordered a new intelligence assessment that expressed “high confidence” that the Syrian regime had used sarin repeatedly and immediately made its conclusion public. And simultaneously the White House announced publicly for the first time that the U.S. would provide direct assistance to the opposition and leaked it to the Times that it would involve military assistance.

So at the very moment when Washington should have been exerting pressure on its allies to stop pouring arms into an anti-Assad war that was systematically building up al Qaeda’s power and influence in the country, the Obama administration was caving in to those allies. The reason was simple: Powerful national security bureaucracies were threatening to blame Obama for the failure of their heroic effort to save the anti-Assad war.

The lesson of the entire affair is clear: A malignant alliance between powerful national security bureaucracies and the Middle Eastern allies with whom they enjoy mutually profitable relations are pressuring the White House to approve actions that threaten the real interests of the American people—including strengthening terrorists. The only way to reverse that situation is to direct public attention to that malignant alliance of interests, which has thus far gotten a free ride.

The Coalition Against Foreign Military Bases is a new campaign focused on closing all US military bases abroad. This campaign strikes at the foundation of US empire, confronting its militarism, corporatism and imperialism. We urge you to endorse this campaign.

On the occasion of its announcement, the coalition issued a unity statement, which describes its intent as “raising public awareness and organizing non-violent mass resistance against U.S. foreign military bases.” It further explains that US foreign military bases are

“the principal instruments of imperial global domination and environmental damage through wars of aggression and occupation, and that the closure of U.S. foreign military bases is one of the first necessary steps toward a just, peaceful and sustainable world.”

While the US sought to be an imperial force beginning just after the US Civil War and then escalated those efforts at the turn of the 20^th Century, it became the dominant empire globally after World War II. This was during the time of de-colonization, when many traditional empires were forced to let their colonies become independent nations. So, while the US is the largest empire in world history, it is not a traditional empire in which nations are described as colonies of the US empire. Nations remain independent, at least in name, while allowing US bases on their soil and serving as a client state of the United States. They are controlled through the economic power of the US, World Bank and International Monetary Fund. The US has used regime change tactics, including assassination and military force, to keep its empire intact.

Commentators have described the United States as an “empire of bases.” Chalmers Johnson wrote in 2004:

As distinct from other peoples, most Americans do not recognize — or do not want to recognize — that the United States dominates the world through its military power. Due to government secrecy, our citizens are often ignorant of the fact that our garrisons encircle the planet. This vast network of American bases on every continent except Antarctica actually constitutes a new form of empire — an empire of bases with its own geography not likely to be taught in any high school geography class. Without grasping the dimensions of this globe-girdling Baseworld, one can’t begin to understand the size and nature of our imperial aspirations or the degree to which a new kind of militarism is undermining our constitutional order.

Our military deploys well over half a million soldiers, spies, technicians, teachers, dependents, and civilian contractors in other nations. To dominate the oceans and seas of the world, we are creating some thirteen naval task forces built around aircraft carriers whose names sum up our martial heritage — Kitty Hawk, Constellation, Enterprise, John F. Kennedy, Nimitz, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Carl Vinson, Theodore Roosevelt, Abraham Lincoln, George Washington, John C. Stennis, Harry S. Truman, and Ronald Reagan. We operate numerous secret bases outside our territory to monitor what the people of the world, including our own citizens, are saying, faxing, or e-mailing to one another.

We do not know the exact number of US military bases and outposts throughout the world. The Unity Statement says

“the United States maintains the highest number of military bases outside its territory, estimated at almost 1000 (95% of all foreign military bases in the world). . . . In addition, the United States has 19 Naval air carriers (and 15 more planned), each as part of a Carrier Strike Group, composed of roughly 7,500 personnel, and a carrier air wing of 65 to 70 aircraft — each of which can be considered a floating military base.”

The annual Department of Defense (DoD) Base Structure Report says the DoD manages a massive

“global real property portfolio that consists of nearly 562,000 facilities (buildings, structures, and linear structures), located on over 4,800 sites worldwide and covering over 24.9 million acres.”

They value DoD property located in 42 nations at over $585 billion. It is difficult to tell from this report the number of bases and military outposts, which has led analysts like Tom Engelhardt to describe US empire as an “invisible” empire of bases. He points out the US military bases are rarely discussed in the media. It usually takes an incident, like US soldiers being attacked or a US aircraft being shot down, for them to get any mention in the media.

Many of the bases remain from previous wars, especially World War II and the Korean War:

According to official information provided by the Department of Defense (DoD) and its Defense Manpower Data Center (DMDC) there are still about 40,000 US troops, and 179 US bases in Germany, over 50,000 troops in Japan (and 109 bases), and tens of thousands of troops, with hundreds of bases, all over Europe. Over 28,000 US troops are present in 85 bases in South Korea, and have been since 1957.

The number of bases is always changing as the US seeks to continuously expand its empire of bases. Just this week the US is opening a military base in South Korea, which is described as a city of 25,000 people. The Washington Post reports:

“We built an entire city from scratch,” said Col. Scott W. Mueller, garrison commander of Camp Humphreys, one of the U.S. military’s largest overseas construction projects. If it were laid across Washington, the 3,454-acre base would stretch from Key Bridge to Nationals Park, from Arlington National Cemetery to the Capitol.

* * *

Now, the $11 billion base is beginning to look like the garrison that military planners envisaged decades ago.

The Eighth Army moved its headquarters here this month and there are about 25,000 people based here, including family members and contractors.

There are apartment buildings, sports fields, playgrounds and a water park, and an 18- hole golf course with the generals’ houses overlooking the greens. There is a “warrior zone” with Xboxes and Playstations, pool tables and dart boards, and a tavern for those old enough to drink.

Starting this August, there will be two elementary schools, a middle school and a high school. A new, 68-bed military hospital to replace the one at Yongsan is close to completion.

Also this week, it was reported that the United States has created ten new military bases in Syria. This was done without permission of the Syrian government and was exposed by Turkey in protest against the United States.

There is a cost to these bases, not only the $156 billion in annual funds spent on them, but also the conflicts they create between the United States and people around the world. There have been protests against the presence or development of US bases in Okinawa, Italy, Jeju Island Korea, Diego Garcia, Cyprus, Greece, and Germany. Some of the bases are illegal, as the unity statement points out, “The base that the U.S. has illegally occupied the longest, for over a century, is Guantánamo Bay, whose existence constitutes an imposition of the empire and a violation of International Law.”  Cuba has called for the return of Guantánamo since 1959. David Vine, the author of Base Nation, describes how these bases, which seek to project US power around the globe, create political tensions, are a source for military attacks and create alliances with dictators. They breed sexual violence, displace indigenous peoples, and destroy the environment.

The unity statement of the Coalition Against Foreign Military Bases concludes by urging all of us to unite to close US bases around the world because:

U.S. foreign military bases are NOT in defense of U.S. national, or global security. They are the military expression of U.S. intrusion in the lives of sovereign countries on behalf of the dominant financial, political, and military interests of the ruling elite. Whether invited in or not by domestic interests that have agreed to be junior partners, no country, no peoples, no government, can claim to be able to make decisions totally in the interest of their people, with foreign troops on their soil representing interests antagonistic to the national purpose.

Please endorse the statement and join the campaign to remove US military bases from foreign soil.

Featured image is from the authors.

Everybody with a clear mind is up in arms about the US Congress’ latest sanctions against Russia –  and as usual – sanctions for naught- zilch, zero – since Russia hasn’t done any of the things Washington and the servile west accuses her of, like interference in US elections (US secret services have repeatedly said there is no evidence whatsoever), interference in Ukraine (Washington / NATO / EU have instigated and paid for the bloody Maidan coup in February 2014); annexing Crimea (an overwhelming (97%) vote by the people of Crimea for reincorporation into the Russian Federation – their given right, according to the UN Charter). Even if Russia wanted to, she couldn’t correct any of her ‘mistakes’. They are all invented.

None of the accusations have any substance. But the western presstitute keeps hammering them into the dimwitted brains of the populace. We can only repeat with Joseph Goebbels, Hitler’s Propaganda Minister: “Let me control the media, and I will turn any Nation into a herd of Pigs”. Well, the western Anglo-Zionist propaganda machine has successfully turned western civilizations (sic) into a herd of pigs.

Is every member of the US Congress really that stupid to believe, for example, in Russian interference in US presidential elections? – Or do they simply believe “We, the US of A and Masters of the Universe, do it all the time, so Russia must be doing it too”?

Although President Trump appears to utterly dislike that the Senate – his Senate – has followed the direction of the House and overwhelmingly approved the new ‘sanctions’ – El Donald has eventually signed them after all. Was his dislike just another scam?

Madame Merkel too appears to be ‘up-in-arms’ about the new set of sanctions – which by the way won’t do anything to Russia. Russia is way beyond being affected by economic sanctions, as her economy is largely detached from that of the west. Russia as well as China, and the entire Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) have learned fast.

President Putin, while making a straight face in view of more stupid sanctions, must be chuckling about western ignorance still believing in the Master of the Universe’s right in handing out punishments to his ‘underlings’ when they don’t behave – even when chastising is based on total lies. In fact, these anti-Russia sanctions would penalize Europe for being stupid vassals. Hilariously, they would, for example, fine European companies participating in joint Russian-European pipeline projects.

So, why do the ‘sanctions’ continue? – Propaganda, stupid! – The rest of the world must believe America is the greatest, most powerful and can police the world at their whim. That’s Washington’s ultimate tool for survival – a web of lies clad in massive propaganda – exactly following the edict of Goebbels.

Which brings our western system to the point – total lawlessness, no morals no ethics – an everything-goes neoliberalism, turned neo-fascism. Make no mistake – open your eyes – in case you haven’t noticed, that is what we are living today. Destruction of ancient civilizations; Greece, as well as the cradle of today’s western culture mercilessly devastated; Syria, Iraq and almost the entire Middle East and North Africa up in flames – and nobody says peep. It’s become the new normal. The sick western society just gulps beer and watches football. A full-blown, careless, selfish ‘redneckization’ of the West.

But Madame Merkel doesn’t belong into the category of ‘stupid’ – she just wants by all means to be elected. Or better said, she is ordered to be re-elected for the 4^th time on 24 September 2017 by the Deep Dark State. Therefore, she has to do what makes her popular at home, even to the seeming detriment of her relationship with Washington. Trump, by the way, too, is just a minion of the Deep Dark State and has to do their bidding. He knows it, she knows it. A little make-believe spat between the two doesn’t matter. It’s just a game to further dupe the populace into confusion and into believing that finally Europe may become a sovereign continent again, thanks to the apparent leadership of Madame Merkel, turning away from the Atlantists, taking back responsibility and sovereignty. Of course, not to forget her to siblings in crime, the other two “Ms” – Macron and May – will follow her lead. Therefore, every lil’ thing is gonna be alright.

Source: CTV News

Madame Merkel has joined the chorus of those condemning the ‘sanctions’ – saying enough is enough. Same tone she used at the recent G20 Summit in Hamburg – ‘we have to take responsibilities in our own hands’ – basically admitting that she and the other EU vassals had left the responsibility in the bloody claws of Washington.

The entire Hamburg G20 Conference was an orchestrated farce, a trial run for worse, much worse to come. It was a training ground for police and bought violent protesters. It’s part of urban warfare drill – as is more quietly being prepared in Saxony-Althaus, where the Bundeswehr and NATO are building an entire ghost town in one of Europe’s most modern army camps to train military and police for repressing people’s resistance against coming neofascist tyranny and austerity.

These are the signs for what’s to come in the near future, as the Deep Dark State thinks it’s close to the NWO – Full Spectrum Dominance. Wake up, people. It’s never too late – before they militarize every street of your town and strip you of what’s left of the meager remnants of your civil rights. Martial Law will soon be inscribed in EU members Constitutions, beginning with France. That’s certainly in the plan and in the cards. The three “Ms” (Merkel, Macron, May) are cooperating hard to make it happen. And if the three Big Ones do it, the NWO clan believes the other EU vassals will follow in lockstep. And they may – as the criminal propaganda machine is sending deadly salvoes of lies into the western public.

Madame Merkel’s ‘taking back responsibilities’ and her outcry against new US sanctions for Russia should make her popular again – should make her electable – again, in less than two months-time. This is what the German people want, the vast majority of them anyway, an independent and sovereign Germany and Europe, one without the Brussels-NATO-Washington dictatorship.

People and even more so businesses, are sick and tired of the anti-Russia discourse. They want peace and normal relations with Russia; natural relations of neighbors, as they have been existing for centuries before the new Anglo-empire across the Atlantic came to the fore. Mind you, the new Anglo-empire is made up from European defectors – and ruthless warriors, who felt much safer between two shiny seas, than tethering close to the conflict-ridden old despotic continent. In the meantime, the new empire has been infested by the Deep Dark invisible state.

Back to Madame Merkel. What if her grievance with the latest sanctions is just a ruse, a manipulation of public opinion to be reelected? And when she is reelected, will she turn her back again on Putin and shake hands with Trump? All is possible. It’s a blueprint of typical neoliberal chaos and confusion. Put people in delirium and you can do whatever you want with them. One thing is for sure – the big nasty bulldog won’t let go until he has achieved its objective, in this case, the PNAC objective – Full Spectrum Dominance. This means subjugating Russia and China, an alliance made of steel.

However, against this alliance of steel, the bulldog may succumb for lack of oxygen and faltering energy. This new alliance, also called SCO, for Shanghai Cooperation Organization, is offering a new and real economic perspective, the New Silk Road, also called the One Road One Belt (OBOT), or One Belt Initiative. President Xi’s OBI is rapidly gaining new momentum and allies, more strength and more attraction for all those western nations which always wanted to defect from the nefarious western dictate, but were afraid to dare.

And yes, it can’t be said often enough – the Future is in the East. The West is slowly but surely drowning itself in its blood-drenched violence and propaganda of lies. Madame Merkel, better take note of it.

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.

The BBC ran a story earlier this week about how Japan’s Prime Minister Abe has become embroiled in yet another corruption scandal for supposedly helping a friend secure government permission to build a veterinary clinic, which isn’t the first time that he’s accused of apparently abusing his office. As cited by the UK outlet, the Prime Minister is now polling at less than a 30% approval rating, which they predict might make it harder for him to win a third term in next year’s parliamentary elections.

There’s still quite a lot of time to go before then, however, and anything can happen to either improve or further diminish his standing in the eyes of the Japanese populace, but what’s important to focus on in this contemporary context is Abe’s legacy of leadership and the two major decisions that await him in the coming future. This will allow people to more comprehensively assess his overall political significance and reach their own conclusions on whether it’s a good or bad development that his popularity has recently tanked and his upcoming reelection prospects might be in jeopardy.

We can divide Abe’s political achievements thus far into two distinct categories – those which are likely attributable to his own personal leadership, and the ones that are probably geopolitical constants which would have happened regardless of whoever was in office. About the first group, we interestingly have both multipolar and unipolar legacies. On the one hand, Abe has personally involved himself in the Russian-Japanese rapprochement and is particularly passionate about the Kuril Islands issue, and he also spoke favorably about China’s One  Belt One Road global vision of New Silk Road connectivity and his country’s potential to invest in it, but on the other, he’s pioneered a revival of Japanese nationalism which frighteningly reminds the region of the island nation’s imperial fascist past and even went as far as reinterpreting the constitution to allow for the deployment of military forces abroad in order to ostensibly support Japan’s allies.

The mismatch between Abe’s multipolar and unipolar legacies thus far is confusing for many observers to make sense out of, and it doesn’t help any that his country has also actively gotten involved in the South China Sea dispute, is streamlining the so-called “Freedom Corridor” with India as a counter to the New Silk Road, and is supporting India as a continental counterweight to China, all of which could be attributable to geopolitical constants that aren’t as closely dependent on Abe’s personal leadership as the other four examples that were just mentioned.

[GR Editor’s Note: Complex and contradictory geopolitics: India has recently become a full member of the SCO, which could lead to establishing closer relations with China and Russia]

Looking forward, however, there are two pressing decisions that Abe will be forced to personally make if he’s successful in recovering from his recent unpopularity and winning reelection next year, and that’s whether to go forward with China’s multilateral free trade proposal of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, or RCEP, and to fulfill his promise to revise the constitution by 2020 in order to formalize his administration’s nationalist reinterpretation of its pacifist clauses.

The post presented is the partial transcript of the CONTEXT COUNTDOWN radio program on Sputnik News, aired on Friday Jul 28, 2017:

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

Do they know what they are doing? When the U.S. Congress adopts draconian sanctions aimed mainly at disempowering President Trump and ruling out any move to improve relations with Russia, do they realize that the measures amount to a declaration of economic war against their dear European “friends”?

Whether they know or not, they obviously don’t care. U.S. politicians view the rest of the world as America’s hinterland, to be exploited, abused and ignored with impunity.

The Bill H.R. 3364 “Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act” was adopted on July 25 by all but three members of the House of Representatives. An earlier version was adopted by all but two Senators. Final passage at veto-overturning proportions is a certainty.

This congressional temper tantrum flails in all directions. The main casualties are likely to be America’s dear beloved European allies, notably Germany and France. Who also sometimes happen to be competitors, but such crass considerations don’t matter in the sacred halls of the U.S. Congress, totally devoted to upholding universal morality.

Economic “Soft Power” Hits Hard

Under U.S. sanctions, any EU nation doing business with Russia may find itself in deep trouble. In particular, the latest bill targets companies involved in financing Nord Stream 2, a pipeline designed to provide Germany with much needed natural gas from Russia.

By the way, just to help out, American companies will gladly sell their own fracked natural gas to their German friends, at much higher prices.

That is only one way in which the bill would subject European banks and enterprises to crippling restrictions, lawsuits and gigantic fines.

While the U.S. preaches “free competition”, it constantly takes measures to prevent free competition at the international level.

Following the July 2015 deal ensuring that Iran could not develop nuclear weapons, international sanctions were lifted, but the United States retained its own previous ones. Since then, any foreign bank or enterprise contemplating trade with Iran is apt to receive a letter from a New York group calling itself “United Against Nuclear Iran” which warns that “there remain serious legal, political, financial and reputational risks associated with doing business in Iran, particularly in sectors of the Iranian economy such as oil and gas”. The risks cited include billions of dollars of (U.S.) fines, surveillance by “a myriad of regulatory agencies”, personal danger, deficiency of insurance coverage, cyber insecurity, loss of more lucrative business, harm to corporate reputation and a drop in shareholder value.

The United States gets away with this gangster behavior because over the years it has developed a vast, obscure legalistic maze, able to impose its will on the “free world” economy thanks to the omnipresence of the dollar, unrivaled intelligence gathering and just plain intimidation.

European leaders reacted indignantly to the latest sanctions. The German foreign ministry said it was “unacceptable for the United States to use possible sanctions as an instrument to serve the interest of U.S. industry”. The French foreign ministry denounced the “extraterritoriality” of the U.S. legislation as unlawful, and announced that “To protect ourselves against the extraterritorial effects of US legislation, we will have to work on adjusting our French and European laws”.

In fact, bitter resentment of arrogant U.S. imposition of its own laws on others has been growing in France, and was the object of a serious parliamentary report delivered to the French National Assembly foreign affairs and finance committees last October 5, on the subject of “the extraterritoriality of American legislation”.

Extraterritoriality

The chairman of the commission of enquiry, long-time Paris representative Pierre Lellouche, summed up the situation as follows:

“The facts are very simple. We are confronted with an extremely dense wall of American legislation whose precise intention is to use the law to serve the purposes of the economic and political imperium with the idea of gaining economic and strategic advantages. As always in the United States, that imperium, that normative bulldozer operates in the name of the best intentions in the world since the United States considers itself a ‘benevolent power’, that is a country that can only do good.”

Always in the name of “the fight against corruption” or “the fight against terrorism”, the United States righteously pursues anything legally called a “U.S. person”, which under strange American law can refer to any entity doing business in the land of the free, whether by having an American subsidiary, or being listed on the New York stock exchange, or using a U.S.-based server, or even by simply trading in dollars, which is something that no large international enterprise can avoid.

In 2014, France’s leading bank, BNP-Paribas, agreed to pay a whopping fine of nearly nine billion dollars, basically for having used dollar transfers in deals with countries under U.S. sanctions. The transactions were perfectly legal under French law. But because they dealt in dollars, payments transited by way of the United States, where diligent computer experts could find the needle in the haystack. European banks are faced with the choice between prosecution, which entails all sorts of restrictions and punishments before a verdict is reached, or else, counseled by expensive U.S. corporate lawyers, and entering into the obscure “plea bargain” culture of the U.S. judicial system, unfamiliar to Europeans. Just like the poor wretch accused of robbing a convenience store, the lawyers urge the huge European enterprises to plea guilty in order to escape much worse consequences.

Alstom, a major multinational corporation whose railroad section produces France’s high speed trains, is a jewel of French industry. In 2014, under pressure from U.S. accusations of corruption (probably bribes to officials in a few developing countries), Alstom sold off its electricity branch to General Electric.

The underlying accusation is that such alleged “corruption” by foreign firms causes U.S. firms to lose markets. That is possible, but there is no practical reciprocity here. A whole range of U.S. intelligence agencies, able to spy on everyone’s private communications, are engaged in commercial espionage around the world. As an example, the Office of Foreign Assets Control, devoted to this task, operates with 200 employees on an annual budget of over $30 million. The comparable office in Paris employs five people.

This was the situation as of last October. The latest round of sanctions can only expose European banks and enterprises to even more severe consequences, especially concerning investments in the vital Nord Stream natural gas pipeline.

This bill is just the latest in a series of U.S. legislative measures tending to break down national legal sovereignty and create a globalized jurisdiction in which anyone can sue anyone else for anything, with ultimate investigative capacity and enforcement power held by the United States.

Wrecking the European Economy

Over a dozen European Banks (British, German, French, Dutch, Swiss) have run afoul of U.S. judicial moralizing, compared to only one U.S. bank: JP Morgan Chase.

The U.S. targets the European core countries, while its overwhelming influence in the northern rim – Poland, the Baltic States and Sweden – prevents the European Union from taking any measures (necessarily unanimous) contrary to U.S. interests.

By far the biggest catch in Uncle Sam’s financial fishing expedition is Deutsche Bank. As Pierre Lellouche warned during the final hearing of the extraterritorial hearings last October, U.S. pursuits against Deutsche Bank risk bringing down the whole European banking system. Although it had already paid hundreds of millions of dollars to the State of New York, Deutsche Bank was faced with a “fine of 14 billion dollars whereas it is worth only five and a half. … In other words, if this is carried out, we risk a domino effect, a major financial crisis in Europe.”

In short, U.S. sanctions amount to a sword of Damocles threatening the economies of the country’s main trading partners. This could be a Pyrrhic victory, or more simply, the blow that kills the goose that lays the golden eggs. But hurrah, America would be the winner in a field of ruins.

Former justice minister Elisabeth Guigou called the situation shocking, and noted that France had told the U.S. Embassy that the situation is “insupportable” and insisted that “we must be firm”.

Jacques Myard said that

“American law is being used to gain markets and eliminate competitors. We should not be naïve and wake up to what is happening.”

This enquiry marked a step ahead in French awareness and resistance to a new form of “taxation without representation” exercised by the United States against its European satellites. They committee members all agreed that something must be done.

That was last October. In June, France held parliamentary elections. The commission chairman, Pierre Lellouche (Republican), the rapporteur Karine Berger (Socialist), Elisabeth Guigou (a leading Socialist) and Jacques Myard (Republican) all lost their seats to inexperienced newcomers recruited into President Emmanuel Macron’s République en marche party. The newcomers are having a hard time finding their way in parliamentary life and have no political memory, for instance of the Rapport on Extraterritoriality.

As for Macron, as minister of economics, in 2014 he went against earlier government rulings by approving the GE purchase of Alstom. He does not appear eager to do anything to anger the United States.

However, there are some things that are so blatantly unfair that they cannot go on forever.

Diana Johnstone is the author of Fools’ Crusade: Yugoslavia, NATO, and Western Delusions. Her new book is Queen of Chaos: the Misadventures of Hillary Clinton. She can be reached at [email protected]

Bolivian actress and filmmaker Carla Ortiz’s recent interview with Dr. Bashar al-Jaafari, Syria’s permanent representative to the United Nations brings to the forefront several key issues regarding the dirty war on Syria and the West’s criminality.

Canada, for example, has always played a key role in the so-called Friends of Syria[1] group, which is composed of countries that support terrorism in Syria. Literally, the group consists of Friends of Terrorism. Jaafari points out that whereas there were 137 members in the group, now there are only 11.

This is a political victory for Syria. Whereas the original membership, including Canada, still supports terrorism in Syria, the declining membership is at least symbolic.

Jaafari explains that Syria refuses to be destroyed, as Iraq[2], and Libya[3] have been, and continue to be destroyed. Much to the chagrin of the West and its allies, Syria and its allies are defeating terrorism in Syria. Whereas (for the most part) terrorists are losing, Syrians are celebrating.

“Plan B” for the terrorist- supporting Western governments involves illegally supporting PKK/YPG/SDF terrorists who are trying to partition Syria[4] by carving out a “Kurdish” polity on stolen Syrian territory. Just as Canada is violating Iraq’s territorial integrity by supporting Kurdish warmongering ambitions there, so too is Canada supporting these divisive elements on Syria.

Jaafari also details difficulties in dealing with the increasingly corrupt United Nations. It is this institution, after all, which recently elected Saudi Arabia – which forbids women to drive motor vehicles — to its Human Rights Council. He outlines evidence-based instances where the U.N. failed to appropriately condemn the West’s use of false flag chemical weapons fabrications (i.e. Iraq’s non-existent WMD).

The issue of chemical weapons, used extensively by the West and its terror proxies, is of particular importance now, since peace is on the verge of breaking out in Syria. The West and its allies have consistently demonstrated their preference for on-going, chaotic and destructive warfare, and they have consistently used false flag chemical weapons attacks[5] to further their genocidal goals.  Consequently, there are reasonable expectations that another such attack might take place as a pretext for escalated warfare.

In the interests of peace and humanity, we need to denounce these strategies of deception, and our (Western) governments’ support for terrorism.

We also need to spread the truth far and wide, to counter MSM lies about the dirty war on Syria.

Notes

[1] Ken Stone, “Canada’s Harper Government Supports Covert Mercenary War on Syria, Funds Al Qaeda Affiliated Rebels.” Global Research, November 12, 2013, (http://www.globalresearch.ca/canadas-harper-government-supports-covert-mercenary-war-on-syria-funds-al-qaeda-afiliated-rebels/5357781) Accessed July 29, 2017. 

[2] Mark Taliano, “US-NATO Holocaust in Iraq: The Depopulation and Destruction of Mosul.” Global Research, July 12, 2017, (http://www.globalresearch.ca/us-nato-holocaust-in-iraq-the-depopulation-and-destruction-of-mosul/5598793) Accessed July 29, 2017. 

[3]Urban Times, “Libya: Ten Things About Gaddafi They Don’t Want You to Know.” Global Research, July 15, 2017, (http://www.globalresearch.ca/libya-ten-things-about-gaddafi-they-dont-want-you-to-know/5414289) Accessed July 29, 2017

[4] Sarah Abed, “The Kurds: Washington’s Weapon of Mass Destabilization in the Middle East” Global Research, July 14, 2017 (http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-kurds-washingtons-weapon-of-mass-destabilization-in-the-middle-east/5599207) Accessed July 29, 2017.

[5] Mark Taliano,“Syria Chemical Weapons Red Flags and False Flags.” Global Research, April 6, 2017,(http://www.globalresearch.ca/syria-chemical-weapons-red-flags-and-false-flags/5583616) Accessed July 29, 2017.

India commemorates the end of British rule 70 years ago on 15 August. Now might be an apt moment to consider where India might be heading, especially given recent developments. If one policy stands out over the past 12 months, it would have to be demonetisation.

Removing all 500- and 1000-rupee notes from circulation overnight was in part a bail out for the banks. It injected much needed liquidity into the banking system that had been bled dry by the outflow of cheap money (and loan waivers) to large corporations which had been milking the well dry. You can read about this here and here. However, the other aspect of demonetisation which will be focused on in this article, is that it also formed part of a push for a cashless society and the wider global ‘war on cash’.

Demonetisation was a massive, ill-thought-out experiment that was destined in a place like India to cause immense hardship for most of the population who rely on cash transactions. Economist Norbert Haring provides insight into the wider policy machinations of a Washington-based elite that fuelled demonetisation and which went over the heads of the hundreds of millions who would be affected.

Based on what took place, it is not too far off the mark to suggest that, courtesy of a handful of strategically placed figures within India, the Indian state is being co-opted into a CIA-Pentagon-Wall Street nexus of global domination by surrendering financial sovereignty and curtailing the individual freedoms of Indian citizens.

Demonetisation and international capital

The shift from cash towards digital transactions is being spearheaded by Bill Gates and US financial corporations who will profit from the mark up on digital payments. Modi is seemingly a willing partner in this. His brand of nationalism is a cheap diversionary con-trick to make India a fully paid up client state of the US. Control food you control people. Control digital payments (and remove cash), you can control and monitor everything a country and its citizens do and pay for.

The Gates Foundation is a prominent proponent of the global ‘war on cash’, and Bill Gates has the backing of some heavy hitters: the big banks and likes of PayPal, Citi, Visa and Mastercard all smell huge profits in this.

Haring notes that the cooperation of the Gates foundation and the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) is a very tight one. For example, Nachiket Mor, a ‘Yale World Fellow’, is head of the Gates Foundation India. He is also a board member of the RBI with responsibility for financial supervision.

Apart from More and Modi, there are also other key individuals with their hands on the relevant levers of power in India to do Washington’s bidding. For instance, there is Avrind Subramanian, the chief economic advisor to the government, and Raghuram Rajan, who was until recently Governor of the Reserve Bank of India. He was chief economist at the International Monetary Fund from 2003 to 2007 and was a Distinguished Service Professor of Finance at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business from 1991 to 2013. He is now back at the University of Chicago.

Aside from Rajan acting as a mouthpiece for Washington’s strategy to recast agriculture in a corporate image and get people out of farming in India, Haring implicates Rajan in the demonestisation policy. He indicates that the policy was carried out on behalf of USAID, MasterCard, Visa and the people behind eBay and Citi, among others, with support from the Gates Foundation and the Ford Foundation.

Haring calls Rajan the Reserve Bank of India’s “IMF-Chicago boy” and based on his employment record, memberships (not least of the elite Group of Thirty which includes heads of central, investment and commercial banks) and links, place him squarely at the centre of Washington’s financial cabal.

Securing payments that accrue from each digital transaction would of course be very financially lucrative for the financial institutions pushing for a cashless world. However, for a low income country such as India, which runs on cash, the outcomes so far have been catastrophic for hundreds of millions of people, especially those who don’t have a bank account (almost half the population) or do not even have easy access to a bank.

Regardless of the effects on ordinary people, demonetisation used the Indian population as a collective guinea pig to see how far the interests of international finance capital could be secured. The ultimate aim seems to be to displace the informal (i.e. cash-bashed and self-organised) economy with Western corporations and with supply chains controlled by them.

Co-opting the development paradigm

Development used to be about breaking with colonial exploitation and radically redefining power structures. Now we have dogma masquerading as economic theory that compels developing countries to adopt neo-liberal policies. The notion of ‘development’ has become hijacked by rich corporations and the concept of poverty depoliticised and separated from structurally embedded power relations.

Whereas some want to bring about a fairer, more equitable system of production and distribution to improve people’s quality of lives (particularly pertinent in India with its unimaginable inequalities  which have spiralled since India adopted neoliberal policies), Washington and its unelected oligarchs like Bill Gates regard ‘development’ as a way to further US interests globally. Whether it involves aid, investment, trade deals (not least the Knowledge Initiative on Agriculture) or other partnerships, development and economic and strategic US self-interests are one and the same.

Haring notes that it is US policy to:

“… promote and elevate development as a core pillar of American power and chart a course for development, diplomacy, and defense to reinforce and complement one another. As stated in the 2010 National Security Strategy and the Presidential Policy Directive on Global Development, the successful pursuit of development is essential to advancing our national security objectives.”

He adds that the start of the direct cooperation of the Gates Foundation with the Reserve Bank of India on digital payments coincides with the work of the Gates foundation in the President’s Global Development Council, which was to promote cooperation with foreign governments and the private sector with a view to US defence and commercial interests.

Haring says:

“Bill Gates gave an example of the link between worldwide digitalization of payments (via the large US payment companies) and US security interests in his speech in 2015. Talking about the problem that overly strict rules for payment providers might do the opposite of the intended: “If financial flows go into a digital system that the US is not connected to, it becomes much harder to find those transactions that you want to be aware of or you want to block”.”

In a recent report on the digitalization of the Indian payment system, Haring notes that Boston Consulting Group and Google urged payment providers to “Mine customer data to build additional revenue streams.” They promise that mining customer data will help them to manipulate consumers into buying more. “Payments will drive consumption – and not the other way around.”

On the steering board of the study were Visa and Vodafone (M-Pesa). These days, the government of Kenya, Bill Gates’ poster-child for financial inclusion, is trying to force mobile phone providers to give them the opportunity to monitor all phone calls and mobile payments. They are telling the phone companies to let a contracted (private) company hook up to all routers.

So, apart from increasing the (unconstitutional) surveillance capabilities of the Indian state (and Washington), what we are seeing is a push for a consumer-based model of development driven by some of the world’s largest corporate players: a model of capitalist development that is corrupt and unsustainable and by its very nature leads to environment catastrophe:

“… our economic system demands ever-increasing levels of extraction, production and consumption. Our politicians tell us that we need to keep the global economy growing at more than 3% each year – the minimum necessary for large firms to make aggregate profits. That means every 20 years we need to double the size of the global economy – double the cars, double the fishing, double the mining, double the McFlurries and double the iPads. And then double them again over the next 20 years from their already doubled state.” – Jason Hickel, writing in The Guardian.

Capitalism and environmental catastrophe joined at the hip

Whether it is the war on cash, massive loan waivers and hand-outs for corporates, demonetisation, mining data, creating revenue streams or the fixation on consumption and endless growth, the prevailing paradigm is blind faith in a failed neoliberal globalisation and a ‘free’ market that exists only in the warped delusions of its supporters.

And for what is still an agrarian society, the plan for India’s countryside follows the same path. There is a plan to displace the majority of India’s rural population in the coming years. Hundreds of millions which will be shifted to the cities. A 2016 UN report said that by 2030, Delhi’s population will be 37 million. Quoted in The Guardian, the report’s principal authors, Felix Creutzig, says:

“The emerging mega-cities will rely increasingly on industrial-scale agricultural and supermarket chains, crowding out local food chains.”

In India, the push to drive at least 400 million from the land and into cities is already underway at the behest of the World Bank which India is heavily indebted to: a World Bank that is, under the guise of ‘enabling the business of agriculture’, committed to opening up economies to corporate seeds and agrochemicals and securing global supply chains for transnational agribusiness from field to plate. The drive is to entrench industrial farming, commercialise the countryside and to replace small-scale farming, the backbone of food production in India (and globally).

If current policies continue, it could mean hundreds of millions of former rural dwellers without any work. Moreover, given the trajectory the country seems to be on, it does not take much to imagine vast swathes of chemically-drenched monocrop fields containing genetically modified plants or soils rapidly turning into a chemical cocktail of proprietary biocides, dirt and dust.

Thanks to the model of agriculture being supported and advocated by neoliberal ideologues (again, with Bill Gates and his ‘corporate America’ entourage to the fore) under the banner of ‘growth’, it also does not take much to imagine a state of near-permanent drought, spiralling rates of illness throughout the population due to bad diets, denutrified food and agrochemical poisoning. Industrial agriculture will be the norm (with all the social, environmental and health devastation and externalised costs that the model brings with it).

Look no further than the current situation in South India and the drying up of the Cauvery river in places to see the impact that chemical-intensive farming has already had. What is happening there is a farming and ecological crisis partly fuelled by environmental devastation due to mining, deforestation and unsustainable agriculture based on big dams, water-intensive crops and Green Revolution ideology imported from the West. Wrong-headed policies have resulted in drought, population displacement and degraded soils. The rivers are dying, farmers are dying (and killing themselves due to them being “at the mercy of global economics“) and the cities cannot be sustained. The solutions (also see this about Bhaskar Save) are there for all to see, but still they are not being taken seriously. It’s a catastrophe that’s rapidly unfolding.

Since the 1990s, India seems to have decided to hitch a ride to the future by tying itself to a US-led system of neoliberal globalisation, an unsustainable, crisis- and conflict-ridden system that fuels national debt and relies on hand-outs for banks and corporations.

It’s a system based on a credit/debt-based consumer economy, financial speculation, derivatives and bubbles, with nations no longer able to carry out their own policies, tied down by undemocratic trade deals, beholden to rigged World Trade Organization rules and following a path prescribed by the World Bank.

India is under siege from international capital. It is not only on course to become an even weaker and more hobbled state permanently beholden to US state-corporate interests, but it is heading towards environmental catastrophe much faster than many may think. You do not have to imagine the eventual outcome; visit the Cauvery, the reality has already taken hold.

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

Since Hugo Chavez’s February 1999 ascension to power, Washington wanted Bolivarian democracy replaced by a US sponsored regime.  

Earlier coup attempts failed, another likely planned, months of US-orchestrated violence a convenient pretext to act, along with imposing illegal sanctions on Venezuelan officials.

On Wednesday, the Treasury Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) sanctioned 13 current and former Venezuelan officials, along with others, wrongfully accusing them of “undermining democracy” – a US specialty at home and abroad.

Treasury Secretary Mnuchin represents US imperial lawlessness. Claiming the Trump administration “will not ignore the Maduro regime’s ongoing efforts to undermine democracy, freedom, and the rule of law” turned truth on its head.

Saying America “stand(s) by the Venezuelan people” is polar opposite US aims, wanting regime change, the country transformed into a vassal state, its resources plundered, its people exploited.

Mnuchin promised tougher actions if legitimate end of July constituent assembly voting takes place as planned. Article 347 of Venezuela’s constitution states:

“The original constituent power rests with the people of Venezuela. This power may be exercised by calling a National Constituent Assembly for the purpose of transforming the State, creating a new juridical order and drawing up a new Constitution.”

In 1999, Chavez let voters decide whether to convene a National Constituent Assembly – to draft a new Bolivarian Constitution.

They overwhelmingly approved. Three months later, National Assembly elections were held. Chavistas won 95% of the seats.

They drafted a Bolivarian constitution. A second referendum followed. Venezuelans again overwhelmingly approved it. Historic provisions became law.

Article 348 states

“(t)he initiative for calling a National Constituent Assembly may emanate from the President of the Republic sitting with the Cabinet of Ministers; from the National Assembly by a two-thirds vote of its members; from the Municipal Councils in open session, by a two-thirds vote of their members; and from 15% of the voters registered with the Civil and Electoral Registry.”

Article 349 states

“(t)he President of the Republic shall not have the power to object to the new Constitution. The existing constituted authorities shall not be permitted to obstruct the Constituent Assembly in any way.”

“For purposes of the promulgation of the new Constitution, the same shall be published in the Official Gazette of the Republic of Venezuela or in the Gazette of the Constituent Assembly.”

Maduro called for a Constituent Assembly because of anti-democratic foreign and internally orchestrated violence against the nation and its people.

Dark forces allied with Washington want his government toppled. Constituent Assembly elections are scheduled for July 30. Anyone could be nominated as a candidate to participate:

• by their own initiative;
• by other registered voters or groups; or
• by sectoral groups comprising 173 seats of the 545-seat Constituent Assembly.

Over 6,000 candidates are competing for Constituent Assembly seats. Right-wing extremists comprising the disloyal opposition oppose the constitutionally-permitted process, fearing voters may choose a majority of Bolivarian advocates, diluting their power.

Trump administration officials oppose the Constituent Assembly for this reason. Mnuchin threatened “(a)nyone elected to the National Constituent Assembly (with possible) US sanctions” or harsher measures.

Bolivarian democratic forces in Venezuela support Maduro’s initiative. Dark forces internally and in Washington oppose what conflicts with their diabolical interests.

A Final Comment

On Thursday, the Trump administration ordered family members of its embassy personnel to return to America. It authorized the voluntary departure of embassy staff.

Colombia’s Avianca airlines halted operations. Fascist opposition elements vowed to keep fighting on the streets, blocking roads in what they call “The Takeover of Venezuela” on Friday.

Is another US coup attempt imminent? Things are especially tense ahead of July 30 Constituent Assembly elections.

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 Congress of the United States by almost unanimous votes in both House and Senate has made it clear that Congress had rather destroy the President of the United States and to increase the risk of nuclear war than to avoid conflict with Russia by normalizing relations.

The vote on the new sanctions makes it pointless for President Trump to veto the bill, because it passed both houses by far more than the two-thirds vote required to over-ride the president’s veto. The only thing Trump can achieve with a veto is to prove the false charge that he is in league with Vladimir Putin.

The new sanctions bill forecloses the possibility of reducing the rising tensions between the two major nuclear powers. It also shows that whatever interest Congress has, if any, in reducing the threat of war and in avoiding a break with Europe over the sanctions, Congress has a much greater interest in continuing to collect campaign contributions from the powerful and rich military/security complex and in playing to the growing hatred of Russia that is encouraged by the US media.

This reckless and irresponsible action by the US Congress makes completely clear that Washington has intentionally chosen conflict with Russia as the main element of US foreign policy. Perhaps now the Russian government will abandon its cherished illusion that an accommodition with Washington can be reached. As I have written on many occasions, the only way Russia can achieve accommodation with Washington is to surrender and accept American hegemony. Any further resistance of the Russian government to this obvious fact would indicate dangerous delusion on the part of the Russian leadership.

The fig leaf Congress chose for its violation of diplomatic protocols and international law is the disproven allegation of Russian interference in behalf of Trump in the US presidential election. An organization of former US intelligence officers recently announced that forensic investigation has been made of the alleged Russian computer hacking, and the conclusion is that there was no hack; there was an internal leak, and the leak was copied onto a device and Russian “fingerprints” were added. There is no forensic evidence whatsoever that shows any indication of Russian hacking.

http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2017/07/24/conspiracy-remove-trump-presidency-paul-craig-roberts/

It is all made up, and everyone alleging Russian hacking knows it. There is no difference between the allegation of Russian hacking and Hitler’s allegation in 1939 that “last night Polish forces crossed our frontier,” Hitler’s fig leaf for his invasion of Poland.

That Congress uses a blatantly transparent lie to justify its violation of international law and intentionally worsens US relations with both Russia and the EU proves how determined Washington is to intensify conflict with Russia. Expect more false allegations, more demonization, more threats.

War is in the cards.

The foreign policy of the United States in the post-Cold War era, driven by a doctrine of Exceptionalism and managed by a neoconservative strategy, has been responsible for the invasion of Iraq in 2003, Nato’s war on Libya in 2011 and the covert war waged in Syria using Islamist proxies. It was also at the root of its involvement in the overthrow of the democratically elected government of Ukraine in 2014. But the geopolitical advantage intended in each enterprise has brought the proverbial blowback.

The results are plain to see. Libya is now certifiably a failed state. Accompanying the destruction of the country’s infrastructure during the war to overthrow Colonel Muammar Gaddafi was the loss of life which included the targeting by rebel factions of black African migrants and black Libyan citizens. The aftermath of Gaddafi’s fall, which is dominated by enduring battles between rival militias in different regions of the country has seen the rise of Islamist power including offshoots associated with the so-called Islamic State who have been responsible for the beheadings of Christian Ethiopian migrant workers. Migrants intending to reach European shores have lost their lives while embarking on perilous journeys across the Mediterranean Sea and there are even reports of West African migrants being bought and sold openly in modern-day slave markets.

Iraq is now a fractured state where many lives have been lost in a continuing cycle of violence. Added to the casualties of the battles during the invasion were those lost through a campaign to put down a Sunni insurgency which had been taking a toll on American soldiers. The war crimes associated with brutal battles in the city of Fallujah were repeated through a counterinsurgency strategy of U.S.-organised Shia death squads. Iraqi lives have continued to be lost in the ongoing war to liberate those parts of the country which were overrun by the Islamic State.

The Syrian War has cost approaching half a million lives and has led to the internal and external displacement of millions of its citizens. In both Syria and Iraq, Christians have faced violent persecution with those who fled from Iraq to Syria hoping for safety only to find their existence along with that of their Syrian coreligionists imperiled by the rise of jihadist groups.

Now in Ukraine where a war has raged between the Ukrainian army and the separatist armies of the eastern Donbass region, the country’s Jewish community is facing a rise in anti-Semitism due to a resurgent nationalism; a phenomenon which can arguably be directly attributed to the forces unleashed by the U.S.-sponsored coup d’etat of February 2014.

The narrative of the Western mainstream media in regard to the fall of the democratically elected government of Viktor Yanukovych still holds that it was as a result of a popular uprising of the masses symbolised by gatherings at Maidan Square in the city of Kiev. The truth is much different.

Serious questions need to be asked in several quarters about how the phenomenon of rising levels of anti-Semitism has been stimulated.

Firstly, what level of forethought was given by the responsible planning officials in the U.S. State Department, the Central Intelligence Agency and Nato intelligence as to the range of potential side-effects when making the decision to utilise the services of ultra-nationalist and neo-Nazi elements in the endeavour of so-called ‘regime change’?

Secondly, which agency within the government of Israel made the decision to send five Ukrainian Jewish emigres who were former Israeli Defence Force soldiers to lead a group of 40 street thugs in battles against the security forces of the Yanukovych-led government at Maidan? Did it have anything to do with a pledge made in the later part of 2013 by the head of the extremist Svoboda party to the Israeli ambassador that his party was no longer anti-Semitic? Similar assurances were given in February 2014 by the neo-Nazi Pravy Sektor group to the ambassador when its leader claimed that it had rejected xenophobia and anti-Semitism.

Thirdly, why were important figures in Ukraine’s Jewish community quick to dismiss Russian president Vladimir Putin’s condemnation of the role of anti-Semitic groups in the Maidan coup as a cynical ploy aimed at dividing Ukraine’s Jewish community? In March of 2014, 21 leaders of Ukraine’s Jewish community signed an open letter addressed to Putin criticising him while confidently insisting that even the most marginal of Ukrainian nationalist groups did not demonstrate anti-Semitism or other forms of xenophobia.

Part of the letter read:

“And we know that our very few nationalists are well-controlled by civil society and the new Ukrainian government -which is more than can be said for the Russian neo-Nazis, who are encouraged by your security services.”

Putin’s purported objectives were at the time claimed to have been unsuccessful and according to Timothy Snyder, an American academic, the Jews in Ukraine had become “Ukrainian Jews”.

It is of course possible that the authors of the letter felt compelled to write what they did because they calculated that refusal to do so might have prompted unwanted scrutiny of the loyalties of Ukrainian Jews and even reprisals. Nonetheless, it is clear that several of its contents were manifestly untrue given, for instance, the decision of the post-Yanukovych parliament to issue an edict abolishing a law which allowed the country’s regions to make Russian a second official language.

The Maidan coup was overseen by Victoria Nuland, then the U.S. Under-Secretary of state for European and Eurasian Affairs, who was captured handpicking the future government of Ukraine in a tape of an intercepted conversation she had with the American ambassador to Ukraine.

Source: The Unz Review

Nuland, herself Jewish, had been photographed with Oleh Tyahnybok the leader of Svoboda who in 2004 had spoken about the need to fight the “Muscovite-Jewish mafia” controlling Ukraine. The following year, Tyahnybok signed an open letter to then-President Viktor Yushchenko which called for the government to halt the “criminal activities” of “organised Jewry”.

In the coming years, the dismantling of the Yanukovych government will come to be seen less as a popular uprising than as a foreign-sponsored intelligence operation along the lines of Operation Ajax, the CIA’s overthrow of the democratically elected government of Mohamed Mossadegh in Iran in 1953.

The CIA had bribed key officials and public figures into denouncing the policies of Mossadegh. It also rented the services of mobs composed of Right-wing activists and members of the underworld to manoeuvre the protests into the direction of violence. In a similar vein, Pravy Sektor and other extremist paramilitary organisations played a key role in the violence in Maidan Square. These bodies are composed of the worshippers and political descendants of Stepan Bandera, a Ukrainian nationalist leader.

Bandera’s image was on prominent display at Maidan and in a sense he served as a kind of spiritus rector for the enterprise. Bandera was a Nazi collaborator who was instrumental in forming the Roland and Nachtigall Battalions, both of which supported the Wehrmacht during the Nazi invasion of the U.S.S.R. in 1941. The 14th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS (Ist Galician), also composed of Ukrainian volunteers, would later materialise as a fighting force on the German eastern front.

Anti-Semitism is embedded in the history of Ukraine. Ukraine composed a large geographical segment of the Pale of Settlement where Jews were largely restricted at the time of the Russian empire. Babi Yar, the ravine site of an infamous massacre of almost 34,000 Jews in 1941 is situated in Kiev.

Prior to the emergence of modern Ukraine after the breakup of the Soviet Union in the 1990s, each of the two previous independent Ukrainian states to have emerged during the course of the 20th century which were headed by the nationalist figures Symon Petliura and Stepan Bandera were linked to the commission of anti-Jewish pogroms.

Tyahnybok’s “Muscovite-Jewish” reference reflects the prevailing view propagated by nationalists who blame the historic misfortunes of the Ukrainian people on Russia and the Jews. This interpretation of history holds that the great famine of the 1930s, known in Ukraine as the Holodomor, was instigated by the ethnic Russian and Jewish Bolshevik leadership in the Kremlin, with the Jewish Lazar Kaganovich playing a key role in the tragedy in which millions of Ukrainians starved to death.

So poisonous is the legacy of anti-semitism in Ukraine that Arseniy Yatsenyuk, the lawyer and economist who became the first prime minister of Ukraine after overthrow of the Yanukovych government, denied being Jewish in the face of contrary evidence. It is a stance which prompted the followers of the Lubavitcher Rebbe to publish a lengthy open letter condemning Yatsenyuk for denying his Jewishness. In the same vein, nationalists frequently cast aspersions on the Ukrainian heritage of President Petro Poroshenko and opposition politician Yulia Tymoshenko by referring to the supposedly Jewish surnames that feature among the antecedents of both.

The ascendance of several Jewish figures such as Yatsenyuk to political power including the installation soon after the Maidan coup of the Jewish oligarch Ihor Kolomoysky as governor of Dnipropetrovsk, a part of the eastern region, is taken by ultra-nationalists as confirmation of a disproportionate level of Jewish power and influence in Ukraine.

The country is mired in an endemic culture of corruption and a patriarchal system which is proving difficult to reform. Poroshenko’s initiative to enable foreigners to be appointed to top positions in government through a special law which fast-tracked those earmarked via a presidential decree was seen as evidence of Ukraine’s dire economic circumstances. It also did not meet with the approval of Ukrainian nationalists many of whom voiced concerns about the implication that Ukrainians lacked the talent and expertise to transform their own fortunes as a nation.

Economic stagnation, if not regression, along with an intermittent but vicious civil war with Russian-speaking separatists in the eastern Donbass region render Ukraine as species of a failed state. And it is in circumstances of economic difficulties that anti-Semitism has often reared its head.

There have been recent publicised instances of Ukrainian public figures making blatantly anti-Jewish remarks. For instance, in March Nadiya Savchenko, the Ukrainian army pilot turned politician, claimed that while she did not consider herself anti-semitic, she did not like Jews because although constituting “two per cent” of the population, they “occupy 80 per cent of power.”

In May, Vasily Vovk, a retired general with connections to the country’s security service, called for the destruction of the Jewish community. Vovk asserted that he was “completely against Jews” and that they were not Ukrainians.

“I will destroy you along with Rabinovich. I’m telling you one more time – go to hell, zhidi (kikes), the Ukrainian people have it here with you”.

“Rabinovich” is believed to refer to Jewish Ukrainian oligarch and politician, Vadim Rabinovich.

The Simon Wiesenthal Center, a global organisation which monitors anti-Semitism, has highlighted concerns expressed by the Jewish community of a rise in bigotry and violence. If Ukraine is drifting slowly but inexorably into a new dark era of naked anti-Semitism, it is clear that the United States which backed the xenophobic Banderovsti at Maidan must reflect on the costs of its actions one of which has been the increase in Jewish insecurity and even flight from the country.

this article was first published on  adeyinkamakinde.blogspot.co.uk

Adeyinka Makinde is a London-based writer. He can be followed on Twitter @AdeyinkaMakinde

Featured image: Cardinal George Pell (Source: Wikimedia Commons)

“The world is watching.” – Cathy Kezelman, Blue Knot Foundation president, The Washington Post, Jul 25, 2017

The show on Wednesday was grim, busy, crowded. Cardinal George Pell, the highest Vatican official thus far to be brought within the legal fold of accusation and accountability for historical crimes of sex abuse, fronted for the briefest of shows at a lowly Magistrates Court in Melbourne.

There was much chatter prior to his arrival on Wednesday morning as to what would happen. For one, a taster was provided that the number of police was simply not enough to contain matters. Ringed by the boys and girls in blue, he seemed in a floating daze, though officially committed to the task at hand.

The other point was that the media outlets seemed indifferent to the linguistic differences of “historic” and “historical” in terms of designating the alleged crimes. Would historical sex abuse charges become historic in due course?

A bigger court room, one that would have enabled more spectators to sit, was not in the offing. An ordinary magistrates setting seating up to 80 was going to supply distinct shock treatment, a cold shower of immensity far from the plushness of the Vatican setting. Some journalists grumbled that a more expansive setting should have been provided.

The press were also keen to run snippets and biographies prior to the Wednesday stomp, with the defence team revealed for being proficient in having defended the less savoury elements of society. Robert Richter QC, Pell’s main barrister, was written up in The Age as, “One of Australia’s top criminal barristers who has represented his share of controversial figures.”

Ruth Shann, assisting, was also noted as having previously “represented killer Sean Price, and former St. Kilda footballer Stephen Milne, who was charged with sex offences.”[1] Paul Galbally, completing the charming triumvirate, was quoted as happy to represent those accused of the most serious crimes. “You either have a disposition or a personality that can deal with this work or you don’t.” All too true.

The wily and seasoned Richter, chocked with grand wizard experience, realises that the game is afoot. Keep matters as staggered as possible, possibly over the course of three separate trials. Frustrate the burrowing journalists, those squirreling for information about specific matters.

This, after all, is the steal of the decade, a high figure of the Vatican, effectively the Pope’s accountant. The question is whether his client has the stamina to last such legal wrangling, given the fact that a fate worse than the privations of prison is one permanently engulfed by the sallies of lawyers.

“For the avoidance of doubt,” submitted Richter in court, “and because of the interest, might I indicate that Cardinal Pell will plead not guilty to all the charges and will maintain his presumed innocence that he has.”

Strict control would be maintained over reporting on Pell’s situation. Prosecutor and senior counsel Andrew Tinney was rebuking and stern. There was to be no slack behaviour in observing protocol in terms of protecting the accused and his innocence.

“Any publication of material speculating about the strength or otherwise of the case, the prospect of a fair trial or trials being had, whether the accused should or should not have been charged, the likelihood of conviction or acquittal, or any such matters would be in contempt of court.”[2]

But there was little giving: Leaving aside the fizzling pyrotechnics is the sheer secrecy at play. “My apologies,” wrote a disappointed David Marr, short changed on what was being provided. “I can’t tell you what’s going on.”

It had been several months, and the charges were still not clear.

“Even if they fell into my lap,” scribbled Marr, “I would not say a word. Why not? Sorry, that’s a secret too.”[3]

Outlets such as The Washington Post noted that Pell had made “his first court appearance in Australia on Wednesday on charges of sexual abuse” but were none the wiser as to what they were.[4]

When the Cardinal appeared, he did so in impassive fashion. It was undeniably the Pell show. He had only one ultimate incentive to attend the hearing, something he did not need to: defeat the case against him, and tidy up a sullied name.

Victoria Police Chief Commissioner Graham Ashton claimed that Pell might be taken through an underground entrance in October, given the sheer magnitude of the crush.

“There’s a couple of different options that we’ll look at, certainly won’t rule that out.” There was just one snag: “One of the issues going underneath through the roller doors is you’ve got a lot of prisoners down there. We’ve got to get those prisoners up to court.”[5]

The international and local contingents of the press were essentially paying homage to a display with one significant meaning: the imposition of the law over the Church, the temporal order casting its net over a representative of the supposedly divine. But they were also being kept in a darkness that may only partially abate, and if so, over a lengthy period of time.

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

Notes

[1] http://www.theage.com.au/national/all-roads-lead-to-william-st-world-awaits-cardinal-george-pells-day-in-court-20170724-gxhdde.html

[2] https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2017/jul/26/secrecy-and-security-envelop-george-pells-magistrates-court-show-david-marr

[3] https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2017/jul/26/secrecy-and-security-envelop-george-pells-magistrates-court-show-david-marr

[4] https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/top-vatican-official-faces-australian-court-on-sex-charges/2017/07/25/4c06d334-719b-11e7-8c17-533c52b2f014_story.html?utm_term=.5f1d1cecc97a

[5] http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4734158/Pell-taken-underground-tunnel-avoid-media.html

Featured image: Painting by Anthony Freda (Source: Washington’s Blog)

Presidents, Prime Ministers, Congressmen, Generals, Spooks, Soldiers and Police ADMIT to False Flag Terror

In the following instances, officials in the government which carried out the attack (or seriously proposed an attack) admit to it, either orally, in writing, or through photographs or videos:

(1) Japanese troops set off a small explosion on a train track in 1931, and falsely blamed it on China in order to justify an invasion of Manchuria. This is known as the “Mukden Incident” or the “Manchurian Incident”. The Tokyo International Military Tribunal found:

“Several of the participators in the plan, including Hashimoto [a high-ranking Japanese army officer], have on various occasions admitted their part in the plot and have stated that the object of the ‘Incident’ was to afford an excuse for the occupation of Manchuria by the Kwantung Army ….”

And see this, this and this.

(2) A major with the Nazi SS admitted at the Nuremberg trials that – under orders from the chief of the Gestapo – he and some other Nazi operatives faked several attacks on their own people and resources which they blamed on the Poles, to justify the invasion of Poland. The staged attacks included:

• The German radio station Sender Gleiwitz [details below]

• The strategic railway at POSunka Pass (Jabłonków Incident), located on the border between Poland and Czechoslovakia

• The German customs station at Hochlinden (today part of Rybnik-Stodoły)

• The forest service station in Pitschen (Byczyna)

• The communications station at Neubersteich (“Nieborowitzer Hammer” before 12 February 1936, now Kuznia Nieborowska)

• The railroad station in Alt-Eiche (Smolniki), Rosenberg in Westpreußen district

• A woman and her companion in Katowice

The details of the Gleiwitz radio station incident include:

On the night of 31 August 1939, a small group of German operatives dressed in Polish uniforms and led by Naujocks seized the Gleiwitz station and broadcast a short anti-German message in Polish (sources vary on the content of the message). The Germans’ goal was to make the attack and the broadcast look like the work of anti-German Polish saboteurs.

To make the attack seem more convincing, the Germans used human corpses to pass them off as Polish attackers. They murdered Franciszek Honiok, a 43-year-old unmarried German Silesian Catholic farmer known for sympathizing with the Poles. He had been arrested the previous day by the Gestapo. He was dressed to look like a saboteur, then killed by lethal injection, given gunshot wounds, and left dead at the scene so that he appeared to have been killed while attacking the station. His corpse was subsequently presented to the police and press as proof of the attack.

(3) The minutes of the high command of the Italian government – subsequently approved by Mussolini himself – admitted that violence on the Greek-Albanian border was carried out by Italians and falsely blamed on the Greeks, as an excuse for Italy’s 1940 invasion of Greece.

(4) Nazi general Franz Halder also testified at the Nuremberg trials that Nazi leader Hermann Goering admitted to setting fire to the German parliament building in 1933, and then falsely blaming the communists for the arson.

(5) Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev admitted in writing that the Soviet Union’s Red Army shelled the Russian village of Mainila in 1939 – while blaming the attack on Finland – as a basis for launching the “Winter War” against Finland. Russian president Boris Yeltsin agreed that Russia had been the aggressor in the Winter War.

(6) The Russian Parliament, current Russian president Putin and former Soviet leader Gorbachev all admit that Soviet leader Joseph Stalin ordered his secret police to execute 22,000 Polish army officers and civilians in 1940, and then falsely blamed it on the Nazis.

(7) The British government admits that – between 1946 and 1948 – it bombed 5 ships carrying Jews who were Holocaust survivors attempting to flee to safety in Palestine right after World War II, set up a fake group called “Defenders of Arab Palestine”, and then had the psuedo-group falsely claim responsibility for the bombings (and see this, this and this).

(8) Israel admits that in 1954, an Israeli terrorist cell operating in Egypt planted bombs in several buildings, including U.S. diplomatic facilities, then left behind “evidence” implicating the Arabs as the culprits (one of the bombs detonated prematurely, allowing the Egyptians to identify the bombers, and several of the Israelis later confessed) (and see this and this).

The U.S. Army does not believe this is an isolated incident. For example, the U.S. Army’s School of Advanced Military Studies said of Mossad (Israel’s intelligence service):

“Ruthless and cunning. Has capability to target U.S. forces and make it look like a Palestinian/Arab act.”

(9) The CIA admits that it hired Iranians in the 1950′s to pose as Communists and stage bombings in Iran in order to turn the country against its democratically-elected prime minister.

(10) The Turkish Prime Minister admitted that the Turkish government carried out the 1955 bombing on a Turkish consulate in Greece – also damaging the nearby birthplace of the founder of modern Turkey – and blamed it on Greece, for the purpose of inciting and justifying anti-Greek violence.

The Economist notes:

Starting in the 1950s Turkey’s deep state sponsored killings, engineered riots, colluded with drug traffickers, staged “false flag” attacks and organised massacres of trade unionists. Thousands died in the chaos it fomented.

(11) The British Prime Minister admitted to his defense secretary that he and American president Dwight Eisenhower approved a plan in 1957 to carry out attacks in Syria and blame it on the Syrian government as a way to effect regime change.

(12) The former Italian Prime Minister, an Italian judge, and the former head of Italian counterintelligence admit that NATO, with the help of the Pentagon and CIA, carried out terror bombings in Italy and other European countries in the 1950s through the 1980s and blamed the communists, in order to rally people’s support for their governments in Europe in their fight against communism.

As one participant in this formerly-secret program stated:

“You had to attack civilians, people, women, children, innocent people, unknown people far removed from any political game. The reason was quite simple. They were supposed to force these people, the Italian public, to turn to the state to ask for greater security” … so that “a state of emergency could be declared, so people would willingly trade part of their freedom for the security” (and see this) (Italy and other European countries subject to the terror campaign had joined NATO before the bombings occurred).

And watch this BBC special. They also allegedly carried out terror attacks in France, Belgium, Denmark, Germany, Greece, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, the UK, and other countries.

The CIA also stressed to the head of the Italian program that Italy needed to use the program to control internal uprisings.

False flag attacks carried out pursuant to this program include – by way of example only:

• The murder of the Turkish Prime Minister (1960)

• Bombings in Portugal (1966)

• The Piazza Fontana massacre in Italy (1969)

• Terror attacks in Turkey (1971)

• The Peteano bombing in Italy (1972)

• Shootings in Brescia, Italy and a bombing on an Italian train (1974)

• Shootings in Istanbul, Turkey (1977)

• The Atocha massacre in Madrid, Spain (1977)

• The abduction and murder of the Italian Prime Minister (1978) (and see this)

• The bombing of the Bologna railway station in Italy (1980)

• Shooting and killing 28 shoppers in Brabant county, Belgium (1985)

(13) In 1960, American Senator George Smathers suggested that the U.S. launch “a false attack made on Guantanamo Bay which would give us the excuse of actually fomenting a fight which would then give us the excuse to go in and [overthrow Castro]”.

A U.S. Navy HSS-1 Seabat helicopter hovers over Soviet submarine B-59, forced to the surface by U.S. Naval forces in the Caribbean near Cuba (October 28–29, 1962) (Source: Wikimedia Commons)

(14) Official State Department documents show that, in 1961, the head of the Joint Chiefs and other high-level officials discussed blowing up a consulate in the Dominican Republic in order to justify an invasion of that country. The plans were not carried out, but they were all discussed as serious proposals.

(15) As admitted by the U.S. government, recently declassified documents show that in 1962, the American Joint Chiefs of Staff signed off on a plan to blow up AMERICAN airplanes (using an elaborate plan involving the switching of airplanes), and also to commit terrorist acts on American soil, and then to blame it on the Cubans in order to justify an invasion of Cuba. See the following ABC news report; the official documents; and watch this interview with the former Washington Investigative Producer for ABC’s World News Tonight with Peter Jennings.

(16) In 1963, the U.S. Department of Defense wrote a paper promoting attacks on nations within the Organization of American States – such as Trinidad-Tobago or Jamaica – and then falsely blaming them on Cuba.

(17) The U.S. Department of Defense also suggested covertly paying a person in the Castro government to attack the United States:

“The only area remaining for consideration then would be to bribe one of Castro’s subordinate commanders to initiate an attack on Guantanamo.”

(18) A U.S. Congressional committee admitted that – as part of its “Cointelpro” campaign – the FBI had used many provocateurs in the 1950s through 1970s to carry out violent acts and falsely blame them on political activists.

(19) A top Turkish general admitted that Turkish forces burned down a mosque on Cyprus in the 1970s and blamed it on their enemy. He explained:

“In Special War, certain acts of sabotage are staged and blamed on the enemy to increase public resistance. We did this on Cyprus; we even burnt down a mosque.”

In response to the surprised correspondent’s incredulous look the general said, “I am giving an example”.

(20) A declassified 1973 CIA document reveals a program to train foreign police and troops on how to make booby traps, pretending that they were training them on how to investigate terrorist acts:

The Agency maintains liaison in varying degrees with foreign police/security organizations through its field stations ….

[CIA provides training sessions as follows:]

a. Providing trainees with basic knowledge in the uses of commercial and military demolitions and incendiaries as they may be applied in terrorism and industrial sabotage operations.

b. Introducing the trainees to commercially available materials and home laboratory techniques, likely to he used in the manufacture of explosives and incendiaries by terrorists or saboteurs.

c. Familiarizing the trainees with the concept of target analysis and operational planning that a saboteur or terrorist must employ.

d. Introducing the trainees to booby trapping devices and techniques giving practical experience with both manufactured and improvised devices through actual fabrication.

***

The program provides the trainees with ample opportunity to develop basic familiarity and use proficiently through handling, preparing and applying the various explosive charges, incendiary agents, terrorist devices and sabotage techniques.

(21) The German government admitted (and see this) that, in 1978, the German secret service detonated a bomb in the outer wall of a prison and planted “escape tools” on a prisoner – a member of the Red Army Faction – which the secret service wished to frame the bombing on.

(22) A Mossad agent admits that, in 1984, Mossad planted a radio transmitter in Gaddaffi’s compound in Tripoli, Libya which broadcast fake terrorist transmissions recorded by Mossad, in order to frame Gaddaffi as a terrorist supporter. Ronald Reagan bombed Libya immediately thereafter.

(23) The South African Truth and Reconciliation Council found that, in 1989, the Civil Cooperation Bureau (a covert branch of the South African Defense Force) approached an explosives expert and asked him “to participate in an operation aimed at discrediting the ANC [the African National Congress] by bombing the police vehicle of the investigating officer into the murder incident”, thus framing the ANC for the bombing.

(24) An Algerian diplomat and several officers in the Algerian army admit that, in the 1990s, the Algerian army frequently massacred Algerian civilians and then blamed Islamic militants for the killings (and see this video; and Agence France-Presse, 9/27/2002, French Court Dismisses Algerian Defamation Suit Against Author).

(25) In 1993, a bomb in Northern Ireland killed 9 civilians. Official documents from the Royal Ulster Constabulary (i.e. the British government) show that the mastermind of the bombing was a British agent, and that the bombing was designed to inflame sectarian tensions. And see this and this.

(26) The United States Army’s 1994 publication Special Forces Foreign Internal Defense Tactics Techniques and Procedures for Special Forces – updated in 2004 – recommends employing terrorists and using false flag operations to destabilize leftist regimes in Latin America. False flag terrorist attacks were carried out in Latin America and other regions as part of the CIA’s “Dirty Wars“. And see this.

(27) Similarly, a CIA “psychological operations” manual prepared by a CIA contractor for the Nicaraguan Contra rebels noted the value of assassinating someone on your own side to create a “martyr” for the cause. The manual was authenticated by the U.S. government. The manual received so much publicity from Associated Press, Washington Post and other news coverage that – during the 1984 presidential debate – President Reagan was confronted with the following question on national television:

At this moment, we are confronted with the extraordinary story of a CIA guerrilla manual for the anti-Sandinista contras whom we are backing, which advocates not only assassinations of Sandinistas but the hiring of criminals to assassinate the guerrillas we are supporting in order to create martyrs.

(28) A Rwandan government inquiry admitted that the 1994 shootdown and murder of the Rwandan president, who was from the Hutu tribe – a murder blamed by the Hutus on the rival Tutsi tribe, and which led to the massacre of more than 800,000 Tutsis by Hutus – was committed by Hutu soldiers and falsely blamed on the Tutsi. [GR Editor: This government report is contested. The alleged role of foreign powers in the shoot down is not acknowledged]

(29) An Indonesian government fact-finding team investigated violent riots which occurred in 1998, and determined that “elements of the military had been involved in the riots, some of which were deliberately provoked”.

(30) Senior Russian Senior military and intelligence officers admit that the KGB blew up Russian apartment buildings in 1999 and falsely blamed it on Chechens, in order to justify an invasion of Chechnya (and see this report and this discussion).

(31) As reported by the New York Times, BBC and Associated Press, Macedonian officials admit that in 2001, the government murdered 7 innocent immigrants in cold blood and pretended that they were Al Qaeda soldiers attempting to assassinate Macedonian police, in order to join the “war on terror”. They lured foreign migrants into the country, executed them in a staged gun battle, and then claimed they were a unit backed by Al Qaeda intent on attacking Western embassies”. Specifically, Macedonian authorities had lured the immigrants into the country, and then – after killing them – posed the victims with planted evidence – “bags of uniforms and semiautomatic weapons at their side” – to show Western diplomats.

(32) At the July 2001 G8 Summit in Genoa, Italy, black-clad thugs were videotaped getting out of police cars, and were seen by an Italian MP carrying “iron bars inside the police station”. Subsequently, senior police officials in Genoa subsequently admitted that police planted two Molotov cocktails and faked the stabbing of a police officer at the G8 Summit, in order to justify a violent crackdown against protesters.

(33) The U.S. falsely blamed Iraq for playing a role in the 9/11 attacks – as shown by a memo from the defense secretary – as one of the main justifications for launching the Iraq war.

Even after the 9/11 Commission admitted that there was no connection, Dick Cheney said that the evidence is “overwhelming” that al Qaeda had a relationship with Saddam Hussein’s regime, that Cheney “probably” had information unavailable to the Commission, and that the media was not ‘doing their homework’ in reporting such ties. Top U.S. government officials now admit that the Iraq war was really launched for oil … not 9/11 or weapons of mass destruction.

Despite previous “lone wolf” claims, many U.S. government officials now say that 9/11 was state-sponsored terror; but Iraq was not the state which backed the hijackers. (Many U.S. officials have allegedthat 9/11 was a false flag operation by rogue elements of the U.S. government; but such a claim is beyond the scope of this discussion. The key point is that the U.S. falsely blamed it on Iraq, when it knew Iraq had nothing to do with it.). 

(Additionally, the same judge who has shielded the Saudis for any liability for funding 9/11 has awarded a default judgment against Iran for $10.5 billion for carrying out 9/11 … even though no one seriously believes that Iran had any part in 9/11.)

(34) Although the FBI now admits that the 2001 anthrax attacks were carried out by one or more U.S. government scientists, a senior FBI official says that the FBI was actually told to blame the Anthrax attacks on Al Qaeda by White House officials (remember what the anthrax letters looked like). Government officials also confirm that the white House tried to link the anthrax to Iraq as a justification for regime change in that country. And see this.

(35) According to the Washington Post, Indonesian police admit that the Indonesian military killed American teachers in Papua in 2002 and blamed the murders on a Papuan separatist group in order to get that group listed as a terrorist organization.

(36) The well-respected former Indonesian president also admits that the government probably had a role in the Bali bombings.

(37) Police outside of a 2003 European Union summit in Greece were filmed planting Molotov cocktails on a peaceful protester.

(38) In 2003, the U.S. Secretary of Defense admitted that interrogators were authorized to use the following method: “False Flag: Convincing the detainee that individuals from a country other than the United States are interrogating him.” While not a traditional false flag attack, this deception could lead to former detainees – many of whom were tortured – attacking the country falsely blamed for the interrogation and torture.

(39) Former Department of Justice lawyer John Yoo suggested in 2005 that the US should go on the offensive against al-Qaeda, having “our intelligence agencies create a false terrorist organization. It could have its own websites, recruitment centers, training camps, and fundraising operations. It could launch fake terrorist operations and claim credit for real terrorist strikes, helping to sow confusion within al-Qaeda’s ranks, causing operatives to doubt others’ identities and to question the validity of communications.”

(40) Similarly, in 2005, Professor John Arquilla of the Naval Postgraduate School – a renowned US defense analyst credited with developing the concept of ‘netwar’ – called for western intelligence services to create new “pseudo gang” terrorist groups, as a way of undermining “real” terror networks. According to Pulitzer-Prize winning journalist Seymour Hersh, Arquilla’s ‘pseudo-gang’ strategy was, Hersh reported, already being implemented by the Pentagon:

“Under Rumsfeld’s new approach, I was told, US military operatives would be permitted to pose abroad as corrupt foreign businessmen seeking to buy contraband items that could be used in nuclear-weapons systems. In some cases, according to the Pentagon advisers, local citizens could be recruited and asked to join up with guerrillas or terrorists…

The new rules will enable the Special Forces community to set up what it calls ‘action teams’ in the target countries overseas which can be used to find and eliminate terrorist organizations. ‘Do you remember the right-wing execution squads in El Salvador?’ the former high-level intelligence official asked me, referring to the military-led gangs that committed atrocities in the early nineteen-eighties. ‘We founded them and we financed them,’ he said. ‘The objective now is to recruit locals in any area we want. And we aren’t going to tell Congress about it.’ A former military officer, who has knowledge of the Pentagon’s commando capabilities, said, ‘We’re going to be riding with the bad boys.’”

(41) United Press International reported in June 2005:

U.S. intelligence officers are reporting that some of the insurgents in Iraq are using recent-model Beretta 92 pistols, but the pistols seem to have had their serial numbers erased. The numbers do not appear to have been physically removed; the pistols seem to have come off a production line without any serial numbers. Analysts suggest the lack of serial numbers indicates that the weapons were intended for intelligence operations or terrorist cells with substantial government backing. Analysts speculate that these guns are probably from either Mossad or the CIA. Analysts speculate that agent provocateurs may be using the untraceable weapons even as U.S. authorities use insurgent attacks against civilians as evidence of the illegitimacy of the resistance.

(42) In 2005, British soldiers dressed as Arabs were caught by Iraqi police after a shootout against the police. The soldiers apparently possessed explosives, and were accused of attempting to set off bombs. While none of the soldiers admitted that they were carrying out attacks, British soldiers and a column of British tanks stormed the jail they were held in, broke down a wall of the jail, and busted them out. The extreme measures used to free the soldiers – rather than have them face questions and potentially stand trial – could be considered an admission.

(43) Undercover Israeli soldiers admitted in 2005 to throwing stones at other Israeli soldiers so they could blame it on Palestinians, as an excuse to crack down on peaceful protests by the Palestinians.

(44) Quebec police admitted that, in 2007, thugs carrying rocks to a peaceful protest were actually undercover Quebec police officers (and see this).

(45) A 2008 US Army special operations field manual recommends that the U.S. military use surrogate non-state groups such as “paramilitary forces, individuals, businesses, foreign political organizations, resistant or insurgent organizations, expatriates, transnational terrorism adversaries, disillusioned transnational terrorism members, black marketers, and other social or political ‘undesirables.’” The manual specifically acknowledged that U.S. special operations can involve both counterterrorism and “Terrorism” (as well as “transnational criminal activities, including narco-trafficking, illicit arms-dealing, and illegal financial transactions.”)

(46) The former Italian Prime Minister, President, and head of Secret Services (Francesco Cossiga) advised the 2008 minister in charge of the police, on how to deal with protests from teachers and students:

He should do what I did when I was Minister of the Interior … infiltrate the movement with agents provocateurs inclined to do anything …. And after that, with the strength of the gained population consent, … beat them for blood and beat for blood also those teachers that incite them. Especially the teachers. Not the elderly, of course, but the girl teachers yes.

(47) An undercover officer admitted that he infiltrated environmental, leftwing and anti-fascist groups in 22 countries. Germany’s federal police chief admitted that – while the undercover officer worked for the German police – he acted illegally during a G8 protest in Germany in 2007 and committed arson by setting fire during a subsequent demonstration in Berlin. The undercover officer spent many years living with violent “Black Bloc” anarchists.

(48) Denver police admitted that uniformed officers deployed in 2008 to an area where alleged “anarchists” had planned to wreak havoc outside the Democratic National Convention ended up getting into a melee with two undercover policemen. The uniformed officers didn’t know the undercover officers were cops.

(49) At the G20 protests in London in 2009, a British member of parliament saw plain clothes police officers attempting to incite the crowd to violence.

(50) The oversight agency for the Royal Canadian Mounted Police admitted that – at the G20 protests in Toronto in 2010 – undercover police officers were arrested with a group of protesters. Videos and photos (see this and this, for example) show that violent protesters wore very similar boots and other gear as the police, and carried police batons. The Globe and Mail reports that the undercover officers planned the targets for violent attack, and the police failed to stop the attacks.

(51) Egyptian politicians admitted (and see this) that government employees looted priceless museum artifacts 2011 to try to discredit the protesters.

(52) Austin police admit that 3 officers infiltrated the Occupy protests in that city. Prosecutors admit that one of the undercover officers purchased and constructed illegal “lock boxes” which ended up getting many protesters arrested.

(53) In 2011, a Colombian colonel admitted that he and his soldiers had lured 57 innocent civilians and killed them – after dressing many of them in uniforms – as part of a scheme to claim that Columbia was eradicating left-wing terrorists. And see this.

(54) Rioters who discredited the peaceful protests against the swearing in of the Mexican president in 2012 admitted that they were paid 300 pesos each to destroy everything in their path. According to Wikipedia, photos also show the vandals waiting in groups behind police lines prior to the violence.

(55) On November 20, 2014, Mexican agent provocateurs were transported by army vehicles to participate in the 2014 Iguala mass kidnapping protests, as was shown by videos and pictures distributed via social networks.

(56) The highly-respected writer for the Telegraph Ambrose Evans-Pritchard says that the head of Saudi intelligence – Prince Bandar – recently admitted that the Saudi government controls “Chechen” terrorists.

(57) Two members of the Turkish parliament, high-level American sources and others admitted that the Turkish government – a NATO country – carried out the chemical weapons attacks in Syria and falsely blamed them on the Syrian government; and high-ranking Turkish government admitted on tape plans to carry out attacks and blame it on the Syrian government.

(58) The former Director of the NSA and other American government officials admit said that the U.S. is a huge supporter of terrorism. Jimmy Carter’s National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski admitted on CNN that the U.S. organized and supported Bin Laden and the other originators of “Al Qaeda” in the 1970s to fight the Soviets. The U.S. and its allies have been supporting Al Qaeda and other Islamic terrorist groups for many decades, and providing them arms, money and logistical support in Libya, Syria, Mali, Bosnia, Chechnya, Iran, and many other countries. U.S. allies are also directly responsible for creating and supplying ISIS.

It’s gotten so ridiculous that a U.S. Senator has introduced a “Stop Arming Terrorists Act”, and U.S. Congresswoman – who introduced a similar bill in the House – says:

“For years, the U.S. government has been supporting armed militant groups working directly with and often under the command of terrorist groups like ISIS and al-Qaeda in their fight to overthrow the Syrian government.”

(59) The Ukrainian security chief admits that the sniper attacks which started the Ukrainian coup were carried out in order to frame others. Ukrainian officials admit that the Ukrainian snipers fired on both sides, to create maximum chaos.

(60) Speaking of snipers, in a secret recording, Venezuelan generals admit that they will deploy snipers to shoot protesters, but keep the marksmen well-hidden from demonstrator and the reporters covering the events so others would be blamed for the deaths.

(61) Burmese government officials admitted that Burma (renamed Myanmar) used false flag attacks against Muslim and Buddhist groups within the country to stir up hatred between the two groups, to prevent democracy from spreading.

(62) Israeli police were again filmed in 2015 dressing up as Arabs and throwing stones, then turning over Palestinian protesters to Israeli soldiers.

(63) Britain’s spy agency has admitted (and see this) that it carries out “digital false flag” attacks on targets, framing people by writing offensive or unlawful material … and blaming it on the target.

(64) The CIA has admitted that it uses viruses and malware from Russia and other countries to carry out cyberattacks and blame other countries.

(65) U.S. soldiers have admitted that if they kill innocent Iraqis and Afghanis, they then “drop” automatic weapons near their body so they can pretend they were militants.

(66) German prosecutors admit that a German soldier disguised himself as a Syrian refugee and planned to shoot people so that the attack would be blamed on asylum seekers.

(67) Police frame innocent people for crimes they didn’t commit. The practice is so well-known that the New York Times noted in 1981:

In police jargon, a throwdown is a weapon planted on a victim.

Newsweek reported in 1999:

Perez, himself a former [Los Angeles Police Department] cop, was caught stealing eight pounds of cocaine from police evidence lockers. After pleading guilty in September, he bargained for a lighter sentence by telling an appalling story of attempted murder and a “throwdown”–police slang for a weapon planted by cops to make a shooting legally justifiable. Perez said he and his partner, Officer Nino Durden, shot an unarmed 18th Street Gang member named Javier Ovando, then planted a semiautomatic rifle on the unconscious suspect and claimed that Ovando had tried to shoot themduring a stakeout.

Wikipedia notes:

As part of his plea bargain, Pérez implicated scores of officers from the Rampart Division’s anti-gang unit, describing routinely beating gang members, planting evidence on suspects, falsifying reports and covering up unprovoked shootings.

(As a side note – and while not technically false flag attacks – police have been busted framing innocent people in many other ways, as well.)

(68) A former U.S. intelligence officer recently alleged:

Most terrorists are false flag terrorists or are created by our own security services.

(69) The head and special agent in charge of the FBI’s Los Angeles office said that most terror attacks are committed by the CIA and FBI as false flags.

(70) The Director of Analytics at the interagency Global Engagement Center housed at the U.S. Department of State, also an adjunct professor at George Mason University, where he teaches the graduate course National Security Challenges in the Department of Information Sciences and Technology, a former branch chief in the CIA’s Counterterrorism Center, and an intelligence advisor to the Secretary of Homeland Security (J.D. Maddox) notes:

Provocation is one of the most basic, but confounding, aspects of warfare. Despite its sometimes obvious use, it has succeeded consistently against audiences around the world, for millennia, to compel war. A well-constructed provocation narrative mutes even the most vocal opposition.

***

The culmination of a strategic provocation operation invariably reflects a narrative of victimhood: we are the victims of the enemy’s unforgivable atrocities.

***

In the case of strategic provocation the deaths of an aggressor’s own personnel are a core tactic of the provocation.

***

The persistent use of strategic provocation over centuries – and its apparent importance to war planners – begs the question of its likely use by the US and other states in the near term.

(71) Leaders throughout history have acknowledged the “benefits” of of false flags to justify their political agenda:

“Terrorism is the best political weapon for nothing drives people harder than a fear of sudden death”.
– Adolph Hitler

“Why of course the people don’t want war … But after all it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship … Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country.”
– Hermann Goering, Nazi leader.

“The easiest way to gain control of a population is to carry out acts of terror. [The public] will clamor for such laws if their personal security is threatened”.
– Josef Stalin

Postscript 1:  It is not just “modern” nations which have launched false flag attacks. For example, a Native American from one tribe (Pomunkey) murdered a white Englishwoman living in Virginia in 1697 and then falsely blamed it on second tribe (Piscataway). But he later admitted in court that he was not really Piscataway, and that he had been paid by a provocateur from a third tribe (Iroquois) to kill the woman as a way to start a war between the English and the Piscataway, thus protecting the profitable Iroquois monopoly in trade with the English.

Postscript 2:  On multiple occasions, atrocities or warmongering are falsely blamed on the enemy as a justification for war … when no such event ever occurred. This is more like a “fake flag” than a “false flag”, as no actual terrorism occurred.

For example:

• The NSA admits that it lied about what really happened in the Gulf of Tonkin incident in 1964 … manipulating data to make it look like North Vietnamese boats fired on a U.S. ship so as to create a false justification for the Vietnam war

• One of the central lies used to justify the 1991 Gulf War against Iraq after Iraq invaded Kuwait was the false statement by a young Kuwaiti girl that Iraqis murdered Kuwaiti babies in hospitals. Her statement was arranged by a Congressman who knew that she was actually the daughter of the Kuwaiti Ambassador to the U.S. – who was desperately trying to lobby the U.S. to enter the war – but the Congressman hid that fact from the public and from Congress

• Another central lie used to justify the Gulf War was the statement that a quarter of a million Iraqi troops were massed on the border with Saudi Arabia (see also this article)

• Pulitzer prize-winning journalist Ron Suskind reported that the White House ordered the CIA to forge and backdate a document falsely linking Iraq with Muslim terrorists and 9/11 … and that the CIA complied with those instructions and in fact created the forgery, which was then used to justify war against Iraq. And see this and this

• Time magazine points out that the claim by President Bush that Iraq was attempting to buy “yellow cake” Uranium from Niger:

had been checked out — and debunked — by U.S. intelligence a year before the President repeated it.

• Everyone knew that Iraq didn’t have weapons of mass destruction. More

• The entire torture program was geared towards obtaining false confessions linking Iraq and 9/11

• CIA agents and documents admit that the agency gave Iran plans for building nuclear weapons … so it could frame Iran for trying to build the bomb

• The “humanitarian” wars in Syria, Libya and Yugoslavia were all justified by highly exaggerated reports that the leaders of those countries were committing atrocities against their people. And see this

Afterword: The corporate media will likely never report on false flags … as it is ALWAYS pro-war.

Featured image: CIA contractor James Mitchell on CSPAN2’s “Book TV” (Screen shot from CSPAN2)

Two CIA psychologists, who were architects of the CIA’s torture program, have resorted to defense arguments once used by accused Nazi war criminals in order to claim they should not be held liable for torture.

James Mitchell and Bruce Jessen were contracted by the CIA to develop, implement, and personally administer the agency’s experimental torture program against detainees in the War on Terrorism.

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) sued Mitchell and Jessen on behalf of three men, who were tortured. The case alleges Mitchell and Jessen engaged in crimes that include water torture, forcing prisoners into boxes, and chaining prisoners in painful stress positions to walls.

Ahead of oral argument in Spokane, Washington, on July 28, defense lawyers for Mitchell and Jessen invoked [PDF] the cases of Karl Rasche, a banker who “facilitated large loans to a fund at the personal disposal of Heinrich Himmler,” the head of the S.S., and Joachim Drosihn, who was a gassing technician for the firm that manufactured the poison gas, Zyklon B, used to exterminate Jewish people in concentration camps.

John Kiriakou, the former CIA officer who blew the whistle on the agency’s use of waterboarding in the torture program, reacted,

“This just cements their place in history—and not just in history but in infamy.”

“When they have to rely on the defenses of accused Nazi war criminals to defend themselves, [they] can’t go any lower,” Kiriakou added. (In fact, at first, Kiriakou did not take this seriously and thought it was some kind of a joke.)

Mitchell and Jessen’s defense argued, in a case involving Zyklon B, the “‘owner and second-in-command of the firm were found guilty; Drosihn, the firm’s first gassing technician, was acquitted.’ Explaining this result, the court noted: The functions performed by Drosihn in his employment as a gassing technician were an integral part of the supply and use of the poison gas, but this alone could not render him liable for its criminal use, even if he was aware that his functions played such an important role in the transfer of gas.”

“Here, it is undisputed that, as independent contractors serving on a larger interrogation team, Defendants lacked authority to “control, prevent, or modify” the CIA’s decision to use [enhanced interrogation techniques] on detainees,” their defense added.

Their defense insisted when they wanted to stop the waterboarding of Abu Zubaydah they had to obtain approval from CIA Headquarters, “which was denied.” They are not liable for the CIA’s alleged “criminal use” of torture because they had “no ‘influence’ over the application of EITs” on CIA detainees, even if they played a part in the supply and use of torture techniques.

Psychologist Bruce Jessen (right) (Source: Wikimedia Commons)

But as Kiriakou countered, Mitchell and Jessen should have known torture was illegal and their training would be used to “carry out an illegal program.”

There also is no similarity because Mitchell Jessen “actually carried out the torture. So they’re not just the suppliers of the Zyklon B. They’re the deliverers of the Zyklon B.”

“They were instrumental in the creation and the implementation of that program. They were the ones arguing [for it with the CIA’s leadership]. They were not innocent bystanders,” Kiriakou added.

Dror Ladin, a staff attorney for the ACLU’s National Security Project, wrote,

“A key part of Mitchell and Jessen’s argument hinges on the claim that poison gas manufacturers weren’t held responsible by a British military tribunal for providing the Nazis with the gas because the Nazi government, not contractors, had final say on whether to use it.”

“In fact, the Nuremberg tribunals that judged the Nazis and their enablers after World War II established the opposite rule: Private contractors are accountable when they choose to provide unlawful means for and profit from war crimes. In the same case that Mitchell and Jessen cite, the military tribunal found the owner of a chemical company that sold Zyklon B to the Nazis guilty — even though only the Nazis had final say on which prisoners would be gassed.”

Mitchell and Jessen were not powerless individuals lacking influence at the CIA.

From the Senate intelligence report on the CIA’s rendition, detention, interrogation program, Katherine Eban highlighted for Vanity Fair how the contractors played “so many different roles simultaneously that some CIA and military staff became concerned about the apparent conflict of interest.”

One such warning, sent in a draft cable to CIA headquarters, noted, ‘Another area of concern is the use of the psychologist as an interrogator. The role of the ops psychologist is to be a detached observer and serve as a check on the interrogator to prevent the interrogator from any unintentional excess of pressure which might cause permanent psychological harm to the subject.” But as the cable continued, “We note that [the proposed plan] contains a psychological interrogation assessment by psychologist [DUNBAR] which is to be carried out by interrogator [DUNBAR]. We have a problem with him conducting both roles simultaneously.”

Kiriakou called the argument that Mitchell and Jessen were in no position to challenge orders to torture detainees “absolute nonsense.”

“It is illegal to follow an order that is illegal. That was determined during Nuremberg. You have to refuse to follow an illegal order. You’re compelled to refuse,” Kiriakou declared.

Mitchell and Jessen had a motive not to challenge requests to carry out techniques—they were awarded $180 million in CIA contracts. (The agreement was ended in 2009, and by then, they had paid $81 million.)

In a previously published interview, Kiriakou and former U.S. Marine Joseph Hickman discussed their book, “The Convenient Terrorist: Two Whistleblowers’ Stories Of Torture, Terror, Secret Wars, and CIA Lies.” It definitively explores the case of Zubaydah, which Mitchell and Jessen were involved in torturing.

“We have a federal torture act in this country passed into law in 1946 and signed by President Truman that specifically outlawed exactly the techniques that Mitchell and Jessen had used against Abu Zubaydah,” Kiriakou said.

Jessen claimed in a deposition that he went through “great, soulful torment” about whether to carry out torture techniques. Hickman found this ridiculous because he knew what torture does to a person, especially if they have post-traumatic stress disorder or any other medical issue. “He knew he was harming people when he [was] doing things like anal feeding or some of the worst [techniques].”

As the Senate intelligence report documented, Zubaydah suffered some of the worst brutality. He was waterboarded 83 times. At any point, Mitchell or Jessen could have stepped in to say, “Enough!”

The “aggressive phase of interrogation,” as the CIA called it, lasted for twenty days. Zubaydah spent a “total of 266 hours (11 days, 2 hours) in a large (coffin size) confinement box and 29 hours in a small confinement box, which had a width of 21 inches, a depth of 2.5 feet and a height of 2.5 feet.”

When he was first waterboarded, Zubaydah “coughed, vomited and had ‘involuntary spasms of the torso and extremities.’” Zubaydah maintained he had no information to provide on threats to the United States.

A medical officer wrote in an email,

“So it begins. The session accelerated rapidly progressing quickly to the water board after large box, walling and small box periods. [Abu Zubaydah] seems very resistant to the water board. Longest time with the cloth over his face so far has been 17 seconds. This is sure to increase shortly. No useful information so far…He did vomit a couple of times during the water board with some beans and rice. It’s been 10 hours since he ate so this is surprising and disturbing. We plan to only feed Ensure for a while now. I’m head[ing] back for another water board session.”

“The CIA interrogators told Abu Zubaydah that the only way he would leave the facility was in the coffin-shaped confinement box.”

Kevin Gosztola is managing editor of Shadowproof Press. He also produces and co-hosts the weekly podcast, “Unauthorized Disclosure.”

Washington announced sweeping sanctions to be imposed on three countries: Russia, Iran and North Korea, following the US House of Representatives vote to impose a three countries’ sanctions “package”.  

While the justifications are diverse and unrelated, all three countries are from a military and geopolitical standpoint on the US nuclear “hit list”. They are considered as de facto rogue states, enemies of America.

The Congressional bill invoked respectively Tehran’s support of terrorism, Russia’s meddling in the 2016 presidential elections, and North Korea’s ICBM missile tests.

The pretexts with regard to Russia and Iran are largely fabricated. The main sponsor of  Islamic terrorism is US intelligence.

 

The “package sanctions regime” is intimately related to the Deep State military agenda. Moreover it is worth noting that the legislation included a (rather dangerous) clause to “disapprove of any moves the president makes to end the sanctions… and build a better relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin.”

This clause is visibly intended by the neocon hawks in Washington to constrain the powers of the White House. In the words of Paul Craig Roberts, they intend to “Put Trump in a box.”

The Congressional bill still requires the endorsement of President Trump, who might exercise his veto.

The China Sanctions Regime

While China was excluded from the Congressional three countries’ “package”, Washington formally intimated in early July that sanctions would also be imposed on China in response to China’s increased bilateral commodity trade with North Korea.

China is described as an ally of North Korea. While the US sanctions regime is not officially directed against the Chinese government, selected Chinese banks and trading companies involved in the financing of China-DPRK commodity trade are potential targets of US reprisals.

Having lost patience with China, the Trump administration is studying new steps to starve North Korea of cash for its nuclear program, including an option that would infuriate Beijing: sanctions on Chinese companies that help keep the North’s economy afloat.

The insinuation is crystal clear: curtail your trade with North Korea, or else…

Washington has visibly opted for a coordinated package of sanctions which is intimately related to its global military agenda. Is this sanctions regime a preamble to military action?

From a US foreign policy perspective, China, Russia and Iran constitute a geopolitical “block”. China and Russia are members of the Shanghai Cooperation Agreement (SCO), allies in the fields of trade, energy as well as military cooperation, Iran is slated to become a full member of the SCO.

Economic sanctions are indelibly tied into military and intelligence planning. In many regards the sanctions “package” (in derogation of international law) constitutes an act of war.

Russia and China have a longstanding comprehensive military cooperation agreement. Ironically, barely acknowledged by the Western media, a month prior to the House of Representatives vote, Beijing and Moscow signed (June 29, 2017) a  so-called roadmap on military cooperation for 2017-2020, which in essence constitutes a rebuttal to US-NATO threats including the US sanctions regime.

Moreover, both China and Russia have economic as well as defense cooperation agreements with North Korea.

Russia signed in November 2015 an “agreement on the prevention of dangerous military activities” with the DPRK, largely directed against the militarization of the Korean peninsula. In turn, China has a bilateral military cooperation agreement with North Korea which is part of the 1979 Sino-North Korean Mutual Aid and Cooperation Friendship Treaty,

The US sanctions regime is not only directed against those “three plus one” countries, it is also directed against countries which have bilateral trade, investment or military cooperation agreements with China, Russia, Iran and North Korea.

Weakening the European Union

Moreover, the sanctions regime is quite deliberately intended to weaken the European Union, specifically in relation to the sale of Russian natural gas to the EU.

Punitive measures are also envisaged directed against European companies involved in the Nord Stream 2 pipeline project, which is used to transport natural gas from North Western Russia to Germany.

What this suggests is that EU member states which enter into trade with Russia would be subjected to sanctions.

France has raised doubts about “the legitimacy of new US sanctions against Iran and Russia, saying they do not conform to international law due to their extraterritorial reach” (Press TV)

The Pentagon’s Military Agenda

This sanctions package directed against four enemies of America is related to and “supportive” of US and allied military deployments in major regions of the World:

• Eastern Europe, Scandinavia, Balkans (against Russia),
• Caucasus (against Russia and Iran)
• Syria and Iraq (against Iran and Russia),
• Militarization of the Persian Gulf (against Iran)
• South China Sea, Taiwan Straits (against China as part of the Pivot to Asia)
• East Asia and the Korean peninsula including the THAAD deployment (against North Korea, China and Russia).

Vigilant Shield 07:

Irmingham [Iran], Nemazee [North Korea], Ruebek [Russia], Churya [China]

From a strategic point of view, the Pentagon’s World War III war “scenarios” which have been conducted on regular basis for more than ten years include these four countries, which are now the object of the US Ruebek, Churya, Irmingham, Nemazee sanctions regime.

There is nothing coincidental. The Congressional “package” sanctions bill coincides with the Pentagon’s list of “fictitious countries”.

The details of these WWIII war games scenarios –which involve the use of nuclear weapons– invariably remain classified. In 2006, the Vigilant Shield 2007 war games involving four fictitious countries were leaked to the Washington  Post in an article by William Arkin

Vigilant Shield exercise (Vigilant Shield 07), which simulated the outbreak of a major war, contemplated four hypothetical enemies: Ruebek (Russia), Churya (China), Irmingham (Iran) and Nemazee (North Korea).

Examine the details below of the World War Scenario (Road to Conflict). Is there a relationship?

Is the US sanctions regime directed against four countries in any way related to the war games and routine World War III scenarios conducted by the Pentagon against these four countries.

Examine the sequence below of nuclear attacks and counterattacks.

Further analysis is contained in Michel Chossudovsky, Towards a World War III Scenario, The Dangers of Nuclear War, Global Research, (2011) (click cover to order from Global Research)

Irmingham [Iran], Nemazee [North Korea], Ruebek [Russia], Churya [China]

Details and Sequencing: [emphasis added]

“• Road to Conflict (RTC): 11 Sep – 15 Oct 06

 – Initial Irmingham Enrichment I&W [indications and warning]
– Initial Ruebeki & Irmingham Involvement
 – Ruebek I&W, PACFLT [U.S. Pacific Fleet] Sub Deployments
– Initial Nemazee ICBM [intercontinental ballistic missile] I&W
– Initial MHLD [homeland defense?] I&W
 – Strategic IO [information operations (cyber warfare)] operations (Ruebek & Churya)
– Ruebek & Irmingham Conduct Joint AD [air defense] Exercise

• Phase 1 / Deployment: 4 – 8 Dec 06

 – Rogue LRA [Russian long-range aviation] w/CALCM [conventional air launched cruise missile] Launch
– Continue Monitoring Strategic Situation
– Continue Monitoring Nemazee Situation

  • Possible Nuclear Testing
  • Probable ICBM Preparation

– Continue Monitoring MHLD Situation

• Five VOIs [vessels of interest]
  • Churya Flagged VOI into Dutch Harbor Supports BMDS [ballistic missile defense system] Threat to Ft Greely

 – Continue Monitoring IO Activities
 – Nemazee Conducts SLV [space launch vehicle] Launch – 8 Dec 06

• Phase 2 Minus 42 Days:

 • Additional Nemazee ICBM Shipments to Launch Facilities
• RMOB [Russian main operating bases] Acft Conduct LR Navigation Flights
• AS-15 [nuclear armed cruise missile] Handling at RMOBs

 – Minus 41 Days:
 • Additional Nemazee ICBM Preps at Launch Pad # 2
– Minus 40 Days:
  • Activity at Nemazee Nuclear Test Facilities
– Minus 35 Days:
  • DOS [Department of State] Travel Warning
 – Minus 30 Days:
• Ruebek LRA Deploys Acft to Anadyr & Vorkuta

• Phase 2 Minus 30 Days:

 • Growing International Condemnation of Ruebek
• Ruebek Deploys Submarines

 – Minus 20 Days:
  • Nemazee Recalls Reservists
 – Minus 14 Days:
• DOS Draw-down Sequencing
– Minus 13 Days:
  • Ruebek Closes US Embassy in Washington DC
 – Minus 11 Days:
• Nemazee Conducts Fueling of Additional ICBMs
  • Ruebeki Presidential Statement on Possible US Attack

• Phase 2 Minus 10 Days:

 • POTUS Addresses Congress on War Powers Act

– Minus 6 Days:
  • Ruebek President Calls “Situation Grave”
 – Minus 5 Days:
• CALCM Activity at Anadyr, Vorkuta, and Tiksi
• Ruebeki SS-25 [nuclear armed mobile ICBMs] Conduct out of Garrison Deployments
• Nemazee Assembling ICBM for Probable Launch
– Minus 4 Days:
  • Ruebek Closes US Embassy in Washington DC
  • Ruebek Acft Conduct Outer ADIZ [air defense identification zone] Pentrations
• Mid-Air Collison w/NORAD Acft During ADIZ Penetration

• Phase 2 Minus 4 Days:

 • Nemazee ICBM Launch Azimuth Threatens US

 – Minus 3 Days:
 • NATO Diplomatic Efforts Fail to Diffuse Crisis
 • USAMB to Ruebek Recalled for Consultation
 • POTUS Addresses Nation
 – Minus 2 Days:
 • Nemazee Leadership Movement
 – Minus 1 Day:
 • Ruebek Expels US Mission

• Phase 2 / Execution: 10 – 14 Dec 06

 – Pre-Attack I & W
 – Imminent Terrorist Attack on Pentagon Suggests Pentagon COOP [continuity of operations plan]
– Nemazee Conducts 2 x ICBM Combat Launches Against United States
– Ruebek Conducts Limited Strategic Attack on United States
• Wave 1 – 8 x Bear H Defense Suppression w/CALCM
• Wave 2 – Limited ICBM & SLBM Attack
– 2 x ICBM Launched (1 impacts CMOC [Cheyenne Mountain], 1 malfunctions)
– 2 x SLBM Launched Pierside (1 impacts SITE-R [“Raven Rock” bunker on the Maryland-Pennsylvania border], 1 malfunctions)
– 3 x Bear H from Dispersal Bases w/ALCM (Eielson AFB, CANR, Cold Lake)
– US Conducts Limited Retaliatory Attack on Ruebek
• 1 x ICBM C2 Facility
• 1 x ICBM Against ICBM Launch Location
• Phase 2 / Execution:
 – Ruebek Prepares Additional Attack on United States
• Wave 3 – Prepares for Additional Strategic Attacks
  – 1 x ICBM Movement, NO Launch
– 3 x SLBM PACFLT Pierside Missile Handling Activity (NO Launch)
– 6 x BEAR H (launch & RTB [return to base]) w/6 x ALCM (NO launch)”

[source Northern Command and William Arkin] emphasis added

 

Ominous statements over the past 48 hours by top American military commanders underscore how close the world is to a devastating war on the Korean Peninsula, which, for the first time since 1945, could involve the use of nuclear weapons.

The propaganda pretext for war is the claim of US imperialism and its allies that the isolated North Korean regime is on the verge of developing a nuclear-armed inter-continental ballistic missile (ICBM) capable of destroying major cities on the American mainland.

General Mark Milley, the Chief of Staff of the Army, told a conference at the National Press Club in Washington yesterday:

“War in the Korean Peninsula would be terrible, however, a nuclear weapon detonating in Los Angeles would be terrible.”

Pointing to the preparations for a pre-emptive US attack, Milley declared that “time is running out” for a “non-military solution” to US demands that North Korea end its nuclear and missile weapons programs. The Trump administration, he stated, was “at a point in time where [the] choice will have to be made one way or the other.”

The general gloated that the US “would utterly destroy the North Korean military.” There would be “a high cost in terms of human life, in terms of infrastructure.”

Milley’s statements follow those made last weekend by General Joseph Dunford, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He told a security forum that a war with North Korea was “not unimaginable.” Proceeding to imagine the consequences, he declared a war would cause “a loss of life unlike any we have experienced in our lifetimes.” Dunford insisted that “negotiations” would only take place for “a few more months.”

Passed over by the establishment media, which breathlessly reported such assertions, is the obvious question as to why North Korea—an economically backward state with a gross domestic product of barely $25 billion—would risk annihilation in a war with the planet’s greatest military power.

The North Korean regime in Pyongyang headed by Kim Jong-un is without question a brutal and reactionary dictatorship, but it is not irrational. Its senior officials have repeatedly said their refusal to end the weapons programs is a response to what happened to Iraq and Libya after the governments of those countries submitted to US dictates.

Iraq was invaded in 2003 and its top leadership and hundreds of thousands of its citizens slaughtered. Libya was plunged into an imperialist-instigated civil war in 2011, which was used to justify a massive US-led bombardment that killed thousands of civilians. Its leader, Muammar Gaddafi, was murdered by an Islamist lynch mob.

The Korean people know all too well the carnage that US imperialism can and will inflict in pursuit of its geo-strategic objectives. The day Milley made his statements, July 27, was the 64th anniversary of the end of the 1950–53 Korean War. The most conservative estimate is that three million people were killed or wounded—two million in what is now North Korea.

The US air bombardment of the North was murderous. The US Air Force noted in an assessment:

“Eighteen of twenty-two major cities in North Korea had been at least half obliterated.”

US general Curtis LeMay later recalled:

“We burned down just about every city in North Korea and South Korea both. We killed off over a million civilian Koreans and drove several million more from their homes.”

By the end of the conflict, pilots were reportedly dropping their payloads in the sea because there were no buildings left for them to level.

American imperialism has never accepted the outcome of the Korean War, which left North Korea intact to function as a buffer between the US military forces in South Korea and both China and Russia, which border the peninsula. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991—which was North Korea’s main economic partner—successive US administrations have pursued the barely concealed policy of regime-change in Pyongyang. The objective is to incorporate the North into South Korea and fundamentally alter the strategic balance of forces in North East Asia.

The rhetoric and threats of war over North Korea’s nuclear program are unfolding in the context of ever-mounting antagonisms between the US and China. China is viewed in Washington as an unacceptable challenge to American dominance due to its development into the world’s second largest economy and its increasing strategic influence. The greatest fear in American ruling circles is that the logic of global economic integration will result in a geopolitical partnership consolidating across the vast Eurasian landmass, involving the German-dominated European bloc, Russia and China, and ultimately drawing in Japan and other key US allies in Asia.

US imperialist strategy, in every part of the world, is driven by a determination to disrupt this process and prevent it becoming a reality. The threat of war with North Korea is a disruption of immense proportions. China and Russia have rejected US-led attempts to subject North Korea to complete economic isolation and opposed any military action on the peninsula. There are reports of major Chinese military deployments on its Korean border. Encounters between Chinese or Russian aircraft with American or Japanese aircraft occur daily. US allies in both Europe and Asia, even as they seek closer trade relations with China, are under pressure to fall in behind Washington.

The situation is rendered even more volatile and dangerous by the besieged character of the Trump presidency. The administration is descending into in-fighting and turmoil over the investigations underway into claims by the intelligence agencies that Trump won office due to Russian “interference.” The possibility cannot be excluded that Trump’s administration will respond to its crisis by attempting to divert tensions outward by launching a major war.

The US military thinks this is entirely possible. Hence its reported response to a Trump tweet yesterday morning which read:

“After consultation with my Generals and military experts, please be advised that the United States Government will not accept or allow…”

For nine minutes, before Trump sent the second part of the message declaring he was banning transgender people from military service, the Pentagon allegedly believed the president was about to announce the start of hostilities via Twitter. If true, it is not difficult to imagine the phone calls that went out to American military commanders in South Korea, Japan and around the world. It can be assumed that the North Korean, Chinese and Russian militaries were also on a knife edge.

For the best part of a decade, the American military has been actively planning and preparing for a war with China, which could be sparked by an attack on North Korea and rapidly escalate. Asked yesterday in Australia if he would launch nuclear weapons at China if ordered to do so by Trump, Admiral Scott Swift, the commander of the US Seventh Fleet, bluntly replied: “The answer would be yes.”

The US government supported Public Broadcasting System (PBS) recently ran a five part series dubbed “Inside Putin’s Russia”. With a different theme each night, it purports to give a realistic look at Russia today. The image conveyed is of a Russia that is undemocratic with widespread state repression, violence and propaganda. Following are significant distortions and falsehoods in the five part documentary. 

Episode 1: “How Putin Redefined what it means to be Russian”

In this episode, the documentary:

• Claims that Russian identity is based on “projection of power”. In reality, “projection of power” characterizes the US much more than Russia. For the past two centuries the United States has expanded across the continent and globe. The last century is documented in the book “Overthrow: American’s Century of Regime Change from Hawaii to Iraq”. The US currently has nearly 800 foreign military bases in over 70 countries. In contrast, Russia has military bases in only two countries beyond the former Soviet Union: Syria and Vietnam.
• Ignores crucial information about events in Ukraine. Russian involvement in eastern Ukraine and Crimea are presented as examples of “projection of power”. However, basic facts are omitted from the documentary. There is no mention of the violent February 2014 coup in Kiev nor the involvement of neoconservatives such as Sen McCain and US Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland. In a December 2013 speech, Nuland outlined her intense involvement in Ukraine including US “requirements” that Ukraine choose a “European future” since  the US had “invested $5 billion to assist”. Days before the coup in February 2014 Nuland was captured on audio planning the composition of the coup leadership.

• Ignores Crimea’s historic connections with Russia and Ukrainian violence. The documentary says “In 2014 in Crimea, Russia helped install separatist leaders who rushed through a referendum that led to Crimea’s annexation.” This gives the misleading impression the decision was Russian not Crimean.  Even the NY Times report on March 16, 2014 acknowledged that, “The outcome, in a region that shares a language and centuries of history with Russia, was a foregone conclusion even before exit polls showed more than 93 percent of voters favoring secession.” The documentary fails to mention the fear of violence after Crimean travelers to Kiev were beaten and killed by Ukrainian hyper-nationalists. One of the first decisions of the Kiev coup government was to declare that Russian would no longer be an official language. A good overview including video interviews with Crimeans is in this video, contrasting sharply with the implications of the PBS documentary.
• Trivializes Russian opposition to NATO expansion. The documentary suggests Russians feel “humiliated” by NATO expanding to their borders. This distorts a serious military concern into a subjective, emotional issue. In 2002, the US unilaterally withdrew from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty and started construction of missile defense systems which could be used in tandem with a nuclear first strike. In recent years, NATO troops and missiles have been installed at Russia’s borders. Imagine the response if Russian troops and missiles were placed at the US border in Canada and Mexico.
• Falsely claims that coup violence in Odessa was “exaggerated”. The documentary says that Russians who went to help defend civilians in eastern Ukraine were convinced by Russian “propaganda” where “dozens of pro-Russian separatists died in Odessa, Ukraine” but “Russian media exaggerated the attack”. In reality, the  Odessa attack killed at least 42 people and injured 100.  This video shows the sequence of events with the initial attack on peaceful protesters followed by fire-bomb attacks in the building. Fire trucks were prevented from reaching the building to put out the fire and rescue citizens inside. 

Episode 2: “Inside Russia’s Propaganda Machine”.

In this episode, the documentary:

• Suggests Russians are aggressive and threatening. The documentary highlights a Russian TV broadcaster who is translated to say, “Russia is the only country in the world that is realistically capable of turning the United States into radioactive ash.” and later “If you can persuade a person, you don’t need to kill him … if you aren’t able to persuade, then you will have to kill.” We do not know the context or accuracy of these translated statements. However on the basis of my own travels in Russia and the experience of many other Americans,  these statements are strange and uncharacteristic. At the popular and government level, Russians are typically at pains to call the US a “partner” and to wish for peace and better relations. With 27 million killed in World War 2, most Russians are very conscious of the consequences of war and deeply want peace. Russians vividly recall the Russia – US alliance during WW2 and seek a return to friendly collaboration. The film producers must have heard this message and desire for peace expressed by many Russians many times. But the documentary only presents this uncharacteristic aggressive message.
• Inaccurately suggests that producers of a private TV network received angry public messages because they were exposing corruption. In reality, the angry public response was because the TV station ran a poll asking viewers if the Soviet Union should have surrendered to Nazi Germany to save lives during the siege of Leningrad. 

• Falsely suggests that RT (Russia Today TV) typically features Holocaust deniers and neo-Nazis. This is a grotesque distortion Anyone who watches RT will know that American personalities such as Chris Hedges, Larry King and Ed Schultz are regulars on RT. Interviewees on international affairs generally come from the left side of the political spectrum – the opposite of what is suggested.
• Uncritically repeats the conspiracy theory that Russia hacked the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and Hillary Clinton emails. The findings have been disputed by the publisher of the emails, Julian Assange of Wikileaks , as well as Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity. A recent forensic examination confirms that this was a leak not a hack (inside job done by local data transfer NOT a hack over the internet) and points to “Guccifer 2.0”, the presumptive ‘hacker’, being a hoax intentionally created to implicate Russia.
• Falsely suggests that anti-Clinton social media messaging during 2016 was significantly caused by Russian government trolls . Hillary Clinton was strongly opposed by significant portions of both the left and right . There were probably hundreds of thousands of Americans who shared anti-Clinton social media messages.
• Claims that research showing a Google search engine bias in favor of Hillary Clinton was “quickly debunked”. The documentary ignores the original article describing the potential effect of search engine bias which was published in the prestigious Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The author is Dr. Robert Epstein, former editor-in-chief of Psychology Today magazine. Contradicting the claim that this research was “debunked”, this academic article estimates the effect of the Google bias and how the bias went away AFTER the election. The response from Google and very shallow Snopes “fact check” are effectively rebutted by the lead author here. In neo-McCarthyist style, the documentary smears the findings and claims they were “laundered” after being published by the Russian “Sputnik” media.
• Suggests the “idea that President Kennedy was killed by the CIA” was “planted” by the Soviet intelligence agency KGB. Many impressive American books have been written supporting this contention, from New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison’s book to David Talbot’s 2015 book “Devil’s Chessboard:  Allen Dulles, the CIA and Deep State”. Claiming that this accusation is based on KGB “disinformation” is another grotesque distortion. It is not revealing disinformation; this is an example of disinformation.

Episode 3: “Why are so many from this Russian republic fighting for Isis?”

In this episode, the documentary:

• Rationalizes and almost justifies Russian Muslims traveling to join ISIS. The documentary suggests that religious repression and discrimination is a cause of ISIS recruitment and that “Dagestanis who fought for ISIS continue a decades-old legacy here of radicalism and militancy.” 
• Ignores the role of the U.S., Saudi Arabia and Pakistan in promoting Islamist fundamentalism in Dagestan.  As described by Robert Dreyfus in the book “Devil’s Game: How the United States Helped Unleash Fundamentalist Islam”:

“the Casey-ISI (CIA and Pakistan Secret Service) actions aided the growth of a significant network of right-wing, Islamist extremists who, to this day, plague the governments of the former Soviet republics … In particular, the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, the Islamic Liberation Party, the powerful Islamist groups in Chechnya and Dagestan”

• Ignores the role of the US and allies in facilitating ISIS. As journalist Patrick Cockburn has written, “In the 20 years between 1996 and 2016, the CIA and British security and foreign policy agencies have consistently given priority to maintaining their partnership with powerful Sunni states over the elimination of terrorist organizations such as al-Qaeda and Isis.” 

Journalist Nafeez Ahmed exposed the role of Turkey here, “A former senior counter-terrorism official in Turkey has blown the whistle on President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s deliberate sponsorship of the Islamic State (ISIS) as a geopolitical tool to expand Turkey’s regional influence and sideline his political opponents at home.”

Elements of the US military/intelligence suggested the establishment of ISIS to “isolate the Syrian regime”. This was revealed in the classified 2012 report of the Defense Intelligence Agency that “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”  

In short, ISIS recruitment from Muslim communities in Russia and world wide has been spurred by the policies and actions of the US and allies such as Saudi Arabia and Turkey. This is what Dreyfus calls “The Devil’s Game” but is ignored in the documentary.

Episode 4: “The Deadly Risk of Standing up to Putin”

In this episode, the documentary:

• Suggests that critics of Putin and the Russian government face “consequences” including death.  These accusations are widespread in the West but largely based on the claims of different US supported “activists”.  One of the most famous cases, and the one on which US Congressional sanctions against Russia are based, is that of Sergei Magnitsky. Magnitsky’s death was the subject of a documentary which has been effectively banned in the US. In the course of researching what happened, the film-maker learned that the truth was very different than has been told. Gilbert Doctorow outlines what happens in his review of the movie here:

“Magnitsky Act: Behind the Scenes’ is an amazing film which takes us through the thought processes, the evidence sorting of the well-known independent film maker Andrei Nekrasov as he approached an assignment that was at the outset meant to be one more public confirmation of the narrative Browder has sold to the US Congress and to the American and European political elites. That story was all about a 36 year old whistle-blower “attorney” (actually a bookkeeper) named Sergei Magnitsky who denounced on Browder’s behalf the theft of  Russian taxes to his boss’s companies amounting to $230 million and who was rewarded for his efforts by arrest, torture and murder in detainment by the officials who perpetrated the theft. This shocking tale drove legislation that was a major landmark in the descent of US-Russian relations under President Barack Obama to a level rivaling the worst days of the Cold War.   

At the end of the film we understand that this story was concocted by William Browder to cover up his own criminal theft of the money in question, that Magnitsky was not a whistleblower, but on the contrary was likely an assistant and abettor to the fraud and theft that Browder organized, that he was not murdered by corrupt Russian police but died in prison from banal neglect of his medical condition. ”

The documentary quotes an opposition leader, Vladimir Kara-Murza, saying “We have no free and fair elections. We have censorship in the media. We have political prisoners, more than 100 political prisoners now in Russia, today.” Kara-Murza now lives in Washington “for his safety” but returns to Russia periodically. He claims to have been poisoned several times. Opponents of the Russian government are quick to accuse but the evidence is largely hearsay and speculation. Public polls of citizens in Russia repeatedly indicate that Putin and the government have widespread popularity, in contrast with the accusations in this documentary that they rule by intimidation and violence.

Episode 5: “What Russians think about Trump and the U.S.”                                                 

Based on the content, the final episode should be titled “What the US establishment and media thinks of Putin and Russia”. In this episode, the documentary:

• Features accusations by CIA Director Mike Pompeo that Russian President Putin, “is a man for whom veracity doesn’t translate into English.” An objective documentary would take CIA claims about “veracity” with a healthy dose of skepticism. Just a few years ago, former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper was confirmed to have lied under oath to Congress. Former CIA Director James Angleton said in his dying days, “Fundamentally, the founding fathers of U.S. intelligence were liars. The better you lied and the more you betrayed, the more likely you got promoted.” So it is curious to see the PBS documentary uncritically presenting the new CIA director as a judge of veracity.
• Implies that President Trump is out of line to question “the US intelligence community’s unanimous assessment that Russia hacked the 2016 election.” It has been recently exposed that the “unanimous assessment” was by four agencies not seventeen and one of the four did NOT have “high confidence” in a key finding. The ‘assessment’ was by a hand picked set of analysts and based on the findings of the Crowdstrike company and dubious Christopher Steele dossier. In March 2017 Crowdstrike was found to have made false claims. Neither the CIA nor FBI examined the DNC computers. If the issue was important, as it obviously has become, the FBI should have issued a subpoena to do its own examination. Why the DNC rejected the FBI request, and why the FBI did not insist, raises serious questions given the enormous publicity and accusations that have followed.
• Uncritically features two US politicians making loose accusations and effectively criminalizing “contacts” with Russians. Senator James Lankford says President Trump is “pushing out some messages that are consistent with the Kremlin policies … there’s no question that the Russians were trying to hack into our elections”. On the contrary, some very sharp and experienced people have recently presented evidence contradicting the accusations. Senator Mark Warner indicates the senate investigation has reached its conclusion before it begins. He says, “The goal of this investigation is not only to reconfirm Russian intervention and explain that to the American public, but to also see if there were any contacts between Trump and the Russians”. In the current environment, to have “contacts” with Russians has been criminalized. Instead of questioning the validity or wisdom of this position, the documentary presents it with seeming approval.

• Uncritically promotes false statements and reckless threats. Senator Lankford says “We believe strongly that what Russia continues to do to be able to threaten Ukraine, threaten its neighbors, threaten NATO, to continue to pry into not only our elections, but other elections, is destabilizing, and it demands a response. They have yet to have a consequence to what they did in the election time. And they should.” Lankford’s assertions are presented as facts but are debatable or false.  For example, security services in Germany, France and the UK all found that – despite the international accusations – there was NO evidence of Russian interference in their recent elections.
• Justifies and promotes “punishment” of Russia. The belligerent approach of Lankford and Warren is continued by PBS host Judy Woodruff and narrator Nick Schifrin. The U.S. is portrayed as a vulnerable victim with a future that is “foreboding”. Russia is portrayed as threatening and needing some punishment soon: “The Russian government doesn’t feel like the United States government really penalized them for what happened last year…. a lot of officials here in Washington agree with that… Russia should have paid for what they did last year.” 

This threatening talk is then followed by the following assessment from the narrator:…. “There are analysts in Moscow who think the only thing we can hope is that we avoid war.”

Conclusion

In 2002-3 American media failed to question or challenge the assertions of the CIA and politicians pushing for the invasion of Iraq. At that time, the false pretense was that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and posed a threat to the US.

Much of the media and many of the same politicians are now claiming Russia is an adversary that has “attacked us”. This claim is being widely made without serious question or challenge. “Liberal” media seems to be in alliance with hawkish neoconservatives on this issue. Virtually any accusation against Russia and its leader can be made with impunity and without serious evidence.

The documentary “Inside Putin’s Russia” aims to expose Russian repression, aggression and disinformation. As shown in the many examples above, the five part documentary is highly biased and inaccurate. While it shows some features of Russia, it also demonstrates American propaganda in the current tumultuous times.

Rick Sterling is an investigative journalist based in northern California. He can be contacted at [email protected]

Featured image is from PBS NewsHour.

On Sunday Venezuela will hold a general election of participants of a constitutional assembly. Half of the representatives will be elected from regular electoral districts. The other half will be elected from and by eight special constituencies like “workers”, “farmers”, “employers”, etc. The second part may be unusual but is no less democratic than the U.S. system which gives voters in rural states more weight than city dwellers.

The new assembly will formulate changes to the current constitution. Those changes will be decided on in another general vote. It is likely that the outcome will reinforce the favorite policies of a great majority of the people and of the social-democratic government under President Manduro.

The more wealthy part of the population as well as the foreign lobbies and governments have tried to prevent or sabotage the upcoming election. The U.S. has used various economic pressure points against the Venezuelan government including economic warfare with ever increasing sanctions. The opposition has held violent street rallies, attacked government institutions and supporters and called for general strikes.

But the NYT propaganda pictures of opposition rallies in the capitol Caracas show only small crowds of dozens to a few hundred of often violent youth. The opposition calls for general strikes have had little resonance as even the feverish anti-Maduro Washington Post has to concede:

In the wealthier eastern half of the city, most businesses closed to support the strike called by the opposition, which is boycotting the vote and calling for its cancellation.The main highways of the capital city were largely closed down in the early morning, and reports surfaced of national police lobbing tear gas at strikers in the center. In the poorer neighborhoods in the west, the strike appeared less pronounced, with more businesses open and more people on the streets.

(Translation of the WaPo propagandese: “Not even the rich opposition neighborhoods of the city closed down completely. Attempts by the opposition to block central roads were prevented by the police. In the poorer parts of the city the opposition call for a strike was simply ignored.”) The opposition is only active within the richer strata of the population and only in a few big cities. The poor rural areas have gained under the social-democratic governments and continue to favor it.

In an op-ed in yesterday’s New York Times the “regime change” lobby of the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA) laid out the steps towards an upcoming war in Venezuela:

Since the plebiscite, Venezuela’s opposition has taken steps toward establishing a parallel government. This might remain a symbolic initiative. But if the opposition continues down this road, it will soon be looking for international recognition and funding, and will at least implicitly be asserting the parallel government’s claim to the legitimate monopoly on the use of force. After that it will seek what every government wants: weapons to defend itself. If it succeeds, Venezuela could plunge into a civil war that will make the current conflict seem like high school fisticuffs.

(The WOLA was also involved in Hillary Clinton‘s coup in Honduras.)

The CIA is quite open about the plans:

In one of the clearest clues yet about Washington’s latest meddling in the politics of Latin America, CIA director Mike Pompeo said he was “hopeful that there can be a transition in Venezuela and we the CIA is doing its best to understand the dynamic there”.He added: “I was just down in Mexico City and in Bogota a week before last talking about this very issue, trying to help them understand the things they might do so that they can get a better outcome for their part of the world and our part of the world.”

The piece notes:

In Venezuela, [the U.S. government] has sought to weaken the elected governments of both Mr Maduro and his predecessor Hugo Chavez, who was briefly ousted in a 2002 coup. Some of the effort has been in distributing funds to opposition groups through organisations such as the National Endowment for Democracy, while some has been in the form of simple propaganda.In May 2016 unidentified US officials told reporters in a background briefing that Venezuela was descending into a deepening “crisis” that could end in violence.

We can conclude that the upcoming violence in Venezuela is not a spontaneous action of the opposition but the implementation of a plan that has been around since at least May 2016. It is likely to follow the color revolution by force script the U.S. developed and implemented in several countries over the last decade. Weapon supply and mercenary support for the opposition will come in from and through the neighboring countries the CIA head visited.

The vote to the constitutional assembly will proceed as planned. The opposition will attempt to sabotage it or, if that fails, proceed with violence. Weapons and tactical advice and support have likely already been provided through CIA channels.

The Venezuelan government is supported by a far larger constituency than the U.S. aligned right-wing opposition. The military has shown no sign of disloyalty to the government. Unless there is some unforeseeable event any attempt to overthrow the government will fail.

The U.S. can further hurt Venezuela by closing down oil imports from the country. But this will likely increase U.S. gas prices. It would create a some short term inconvenience for Venezuela, but oil is fungible and other customers will be available.

To overthrow the Venezuelan government has been tried since the first election of a somewhat socialist government in 1999. The U.S. instigated coup in 2002 failed when the people and the military stood up against the blatant interference. The “regime change” methods have since changed with the added support of a militant “democratic opposition” fed from the outside. The use of that tool had negative outcomes in Libya and Ukraine and it failed in Syria. I am confident that the government of Venezuela has analyzed those cases and prepared its own plans to counter a similar attempt.

The U.S. just ordered the relatives of its embassy employees out of the country. Such is only done when imminent action is expected.

The Syrian Arab Army (SAA) and its allies entered the Sukhna gas field located in less than 2km from the strategic ISIS-held town at the Palmyra-Deir Ezzor road. Heavy clashes are reportedly now ongoing in the gas field area. If government troops secure it, their next step will be to enter the town of Sukhna itself.

In the province of Raqqah, the SAA Tiger Forces and tribal forces liberated the Wadi ‘Ubayd oil-field and further advanced in the direction of the so-called Bishri Triangle in order to get control over this important logistical site. Clashes near Subkah and Ghanim Ali are ongoing.

In Raqqah city, the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) have made a significant progress against ISIS in Nazlat Shehadeh district and captured Al-Mustafa Mosque that had been used as a defense point by ISIS. ISIS claimed that up to 10 SDF members died in clashes and a VBIED attack. However, the terrorist group has lost about 50% of the city to the SDF.

On Thursday, spokesman for the US-led coalition Col. Ryan Dillon revealed the current numbers of ISIS fighters in Syria and Iraq.

According to Pentagon, about 20,000 ISIS fighters still control several areas in the two countries.

Col. Dillon said that between 5,000 and 10,000 fighters are now in the middle Euphrates Valley area running from Deir Ezzor to the Iraq-Syria border region. He also revealed that the number of remaining ISIS fighters in Raqqa is less than 2000.

ISIS reportedly has 1,000 fighters in Tal Afar, 1,000 fighters in Hawija, and 1,000 fighters in Qaim area on the Syrian-Iraqi border.

Col. Dillon added that several ISIS commanders were killed over the past months, including Abu Sulayman al-Iraqi, senior propaganda official, Bassam al-Jayfus, ISIS terror attack funds, Ibrahim al-Ansari, ISIS propaganda official, Abu Ali al-Janubi, senior media director, Abu-Sayf al-‘Isawi, ISIS media emir, Abu-Khattab al-Rawi, another ISIS media emir, and Rayaan Meshaal, head and founder of the ISIS-linked Amaq News Agency.

Col. Dillon added that the collation stopped supporting Shuhada al-Qaryatayn Brigade. Col. Dillon said the group patrolled areas outside of the de-escalation zone and engaged in activities not related to fighting ISIS without the permission of the US-led coalition leadership. He added that the coalition only supports forces committed to fighting ISIS.

On July 23, Shuhada al-Qaryatayn Brigade announced that it had cut off its relationship with the coalition because it had demanded to stop attacks against the SAA. Shuhada al-Qaryatayn Brigade was one of the largest US-backed groups deployed the At Tanf base at the Syrian-Iraqi border.

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Featured image is from Inside Syria Media Center.

The good meeting that Donald Trump recently had with Vladimir Putin appears to have been totally undone.

The prolonged American refusal to restore the properties of the Russian Embassy in the US that were seized under Barack Obama combined with both the House of Representatives and Senate passing globally unpopular sanctions on Russia (as well as Iran and North Korea), has been met with a Russian response, as promised by Russian President Putin.

Russia has retaliated by suspending the access to warehouses in Moscow that are used by the US Embassy. Additionally, Sputnik reports that Russia is preparing to offer the US a proposal to cut American diplomatic presence in Russia to 455 people in a clear downgrade in bilateral relations.

Russia says U.S. has to cut numbers to 455, down from a reported 1,100 Russian and U.S. staff https://t.co/7JL4LAKUU6

— Jack Stubbs (@jc_stubbs) July 28, 2017

It is of note that this is still less than fully proportional retaliation as US Embassy property that includes living and working space has not been cut off while Barack Obama seized such places belonging to Russia in the US.

According to Russian Presidential Spokesman Dmitry Peskov,

“Of course such measures are impossible with

out authorization by the president”.

This is a further confirmation that US relations with Russia that seemed to have improved after the Trump-Putin meeting at the G20, have now become worse due to the actions of the US Congress.

Donald Trump still has the ability to veto the sanctions and then try and persuade a Congress not to use a super-majority to override his veto. At this point it would also seem that Trump would have to address the lingering diplomatic property crisis with great haste in order to avoid a further plunge in relations with Moscow.

If Donald Trump’s hands were somewhat tied by Obama in this respect, they are now being actively stomped on by Trump’s own Congress. Trump can attempt to right these errors, but it will not be easy at this stage.

Adam Garrie is a managing editor at The Duran.

Featured image is from NEWS.am.

Kiss the Jasmine

Take me to kiss the jasmine
Let me stand on the threshold of your garden
Let me smell what I long for
Amongst the grains of sand on your beach.

Don’t kill the lovestruck stars
Don’t tell the sun and the moon to be silent
Let them speak.

Oh you, who can pass to  future
Take from my hand the key to my house,
Take my name, take a jasmine.
Because I’m now homeless between my past and your future
Between the sea, the tent and the harbour.

Why do you use my name but abuse my being?
I curse you in the name of god.
Why do you injure my soul and my mind?
I curse you in the name of god.

Why do you think your blood is different from my blood?
What disgusts you with my name – ‘refugee’
you who gave me this name?

I have never been an enthusiastic supporter of President Assad but life before the war life was not so bad in Syria. We had free education from primary school to doctorate. The teachers were very nice and good in the university. Our hospitals and doctors were good and all this was free. Now I hate armies. They have destroyed my country. My university was bombed 2 times whilst I was in class there. One time they hit the food hall and another time one of the dormitory blocks. Over 100 students died. This is what armies do to us.

I like to study but the war made this more and more difficult. It was so dangerous that I studied at home with my mother’s help during my final year of high school. At the same time I was working in a pharmacy near to where I lived. I very much wanted to study pharmacy at University but my final grades were not good enough so I chose my second love which was archaeology and started my degree in Aleppo University.

My home was in a Free Army area but the university was in the Government area although it was very near to where I lived. It became very difficult. If I was stopped by the Free Army I could never continue with my studies. By being very careful I managed to complete the first year of my course. With my boyfriend (H) we made a home in the small house my father had had built for me. While I studied H worked as a hairdresser until he moved to Turkey. Then one summer’s day I had a phone call from my mother who was now in Turkey, that she had left some important papers in the family home which I would need. She was worried that the house would be robbed because it was now in a Free Army area. So I went. I thought just for a few hours to get the papers and then back home. I never returned. Instead I was stopped by a Free Army Patrol. They wanted my Army Book which we all have to carry and this showed them that I was a university student and allowed to stay out of the army. I told them how much I wanted to continue with my studies at the university but that if they had a university I would go there. They told me that they were against universities and studying. It was not necessary. They took my paper and told me to return in a few days. I was lucky to have a friend who still had his business in this area and he made contact with some people he knew in the Free Army and it allowed me to get my papers back the next day. But they had put a Free Army stamp in my book which meant that I could never go back to the university which was in a Government army area. If I was caught it would be straight to hell. So I left for Turkey immediately.

I had to think and act quickly as I was now in danger. Being gay made it all the harder as we have no rights at all in Syria. The Free Army is very clear that it will kill gay people. The government side might not kill us but they treat you very badly if they think you are gay, or not manly. Like one of my friends. The police stopped him because they said he was not walking like a man. They wanted to fuck him but he refused. He went to prison for three weeks. It was terrible. They said to my friend that this was a lesson! You can live as a gay person in Syria, like I did with H. It is possible. But you have to hide your feelings and sexuality. You are never safe.

Into Turkey

I paid $200 to be taken in the night by car with four others to the border with Turkey. We then waited until around 2 am to go on. We walked for about an hour through a pipe in waist deep water and then onto a road. On this road we were caught by the Turkish army. They took us in a car to the prison where we waited until 4pm. We were outside and it rained all day which is normal for this mountain area in September. We were very wet and we asked for some cover but they said they had nothing. We had no food. This is how we were from 8 in the morning until 4 in the afternoon. Sitting in the rain with only some guard dogs walking around us.

I knew no one in this group. I was very very hungry. In this situation I knew I could do nothing. I just sat and looked. Wondering what will happen next. Sometimes I cried. But mostly I just sat and looked.

At 4pm they came and took our photographs and then said go. This prison has two doors. One into Turkey and one back to Syria. We went out the door for Syria. Outside was the man who had bought us from Syria and he told us to shelter under the trees whilst he found another way. We waited until around midnight but I cannot be sure as the charge on my phone was finished and I couldn’t know the time exactly. We still had not eaten.

We then walked with this man along a road for maybe three hours and then we were caught again.

When we were caught the first time there was a young policeman there who came over to me and searched my bag. He saw the medicines I had and asked if I was a doctor and I said yes. That’s all that we said then. When we were caught again he was there and came over and said “aren’t you the doctor we caught this morning?” Yes, I replied. He said come with me and he took me to a chair and told me to sit and wait. I felt empty. I had nothing; no home, no country. I have never felt so tired. I was very very hungry. The policeman asked me if I wanted him to help me. I said of course if you can. OK he said. He asked me again if I was a doctor and I said yes. He did not know much English and he would use English, Arabic and Turkish words. It was difficult speaking. He said he wanted my number and that he wanted to meet and speak with me once I was in Turkey. He did not ask but demanded my number saying he was in control and I had to agree.

We then went outside where there were some taxis. He went over and told one of the taxis that he was to drive me into Turkey. My heart lifted at these words and I turned to the young policeman and said if you really want to help me then you will let this old couple travel with me – they were married, from Syria and very old and afraid. He said OK and told me to bring the couple and sit and wait in the taxi whilst he went to speak to his officer. He was not happy and told the young policeman that he had no authority to do this and I was sure then we would be sent back. But the young policeman was saying that we must help as the old couple were like his parents and that I was their son. The officer then said OK and off we went to Antakya.

We arrived in Antakya at 5 am. The first thing I did was to find a toilet where I could wash and change my clothes which were very dirty and then get my phone charged. With the help of another Syrian I met on the street who had been in Turkey for some time and who had a Turkish sim card, I called my father who was in Izmir. He quickly arranged my bus ticket and I traveled in comfort across Turkey. I was lucky because for the first part of this journey I was with the old couple who came with me in the taxi and they gave me some bread and cheese that they had carried from Syria. I can’t tell you how good this was with a cup of tea!

For 2 or 3 days I did nothing but eat and sleep when I got to my parent’s small home in Izmir. But once I felt better I started to think about what to do next in terms of my future. One of the first things I did was to call a close friend in Aleppo who had a key to my home to ask him to go and take everything and to tell the landlord I no longer needed this place. I wanted my friend to have all my things – my books, my papers, my clothes. He has no money so I couldn’t ask him to send anything. Anyway I was very happy that he had my things although it would have been even better if he was with me in Turkey.

I went to Istanbul to see the university as I wanted so much to continue my studies. I thought it would be good if I could go the university and also find some work and H could join me and we could take a small home and live together. But this was not to be. The university in Istanbul was very welcoming and told me I could come and study there. But it turned out that I could attend the classes but I would not be allowed to sit any exams so I would never get a degree. So I returned to Izmir.

H had come earlier to Turkey and had found work as a hairdresser. He is very skilled and has been doing both men and women’s hair with his uncle in Syria from the age of 12. In Turkey the work was hard with long hours and little pay. Some days he took money and other days not. He worked until the boss said he could go. It was a bad situation but we had no choice.

We had not been many days in Izmir when H said I want to take you to the beach and swim. We went with my two brothers. H and I wanted some time together so we told my brothers that we would go and get some cold water and come back. We walked and found a quiet place where there was no one around. We sat and then hugged and kissed one another. But we did not see 2 guys on a motorbike who were parked nearby. They saw us and walked over. I knew that this was not going to be good and told this to H who said be calm and let me talk with them. I had little Turkish but H could speak fluently. I can’t remember their clothes but I will never forget their faces with their big beards. ‘Hello’ they said, ‘what are you doing here?’ ‘Are you brothers or friends?’ H told them that we were just sitting and that we were brothers. ‘Do you think it is right to be kissing and hugging your brother like this ?’ H said we weren’t doing anything. But they told us that they saw us. They explained that they wanted to help us and that we should learn that God does not like what you were doing. H replied that he had not thought about that and maybe they were right. He thanked them. ‘Thanks are not enough. You can’t just walk away. You must come with us now to our office’. It was clear from their voices that they would not let us go easily. H turned to me and whispered in Arabic that we will have to run and was I ready to do this. There was no choice as these men were frightening. Also I did not want my brothers to see these men.

So we ran and ran. Very fast with them chasing behind on the motorbike. Eventually I could run no more. We were now on a street which was closed at one end. The motorbike was getting close. At this point H shouted out ‘father father!’ to an older man who was coming down the street and we ran towards him. It worked as the motorbike turned around and left.

I was very shaken and upset. As soon as we got back to my brothers at the beach I said we must leave and go home. I couldn’t tell them what had happened but they knew something had upset me as they kept saying why has your face changed colour? I felt very unsafe.

I talked with H’s mother who understands our situation and is very helpful. She told me that we couldn’t stay in Turkey and that we should go to Europe. She said that we will always have to live in fear if we stayed. She said that I because of the way I behave and speak, I will always be open to attack in Turkey. And to H she said if he wanted a life with me he would have to leave for Europe as well.

We started immediately to look for the way to Europe.

Leaving Turkey

When we decided to leave Turkey for Europe it was not difficult to find the way. First I looked on the internet and saw that we had to go through Greece and that there were many chances to find someone to take us. I got some phone numbers from the Syrian market in Izmir and we eventually chose someone who seemed to be a good man who we could trust. He wanted 400 euros each for me and H but I told him we had 500 euros for the two of us. We spoke many times for a few days and then he said OK I will take you both.

The first time we were caught by the Turkish coastguard on our way to Chios. We had been in the sea for about 20 minutes when the engine stopped. Some of the refugees tried to fix it but then dropped the engine and it sank to the bottom. Then others suggested that we should use our hands and paddle the boat. But it was hopeless. After a short time the Turkish coastguard arrived and took us back. I was very afraid then because some of the coastguards were beating us with one of them jumping down to beat us. I told H that I was frightened and he said keep down and don’t speak. We were not hurt as we were sitting near the women but many of the men were beaten.

When we landed we were taken by the police to a prison where we were kept through the night without any food, without anything. We were very very cold. Our clothes were wet and I felt like ice. In the morning they took our photographs and finger prints and then took us by bus to Izmir where we were let free.

One week later we left for Samos and got through.

When I stepped into the small boat with 55 other people I thought there was a 99% chance that I would die. But we could not stay in Turkey. It is not possible for us to make a life there. My family are poor now and they don’t have money to support me and H. My father would always try to find money if I asked but I can’t as it would be wrong. So I took my 1% chance.

Pushing at the Door into Europe

Every house has a door. For me Samos is the door to Europe. But it is not open. For nearly ten months I have had to push and only now is it beginning to open.

We had no idea what to expect when we arrived. But we did think that we would only be staying a few days. I very much wanted to visit the archaeological sites on Samos and I persuaded my boyfriend that we should spend a week here before moving on to Athens. We were in for a big surprise.

First we were taken by the police from the beach to Samos town. Here they recorded some basic personal details and we had to sing the Syrian national anthem and draw a picture of the flag. Then they wrote in black pen a number on our hands. Were we no longer to have a name and just become a number? I was nervous.

Then we were taken by a bus up to the camp. We were amazed by how many people were there (October 2016). How could it be? If people stayed as we still thought just for a couple of days then where had all these people come from. Surely they had not just arrived.

We were given a tent and told to find somewhere inside the camp to put it. There was no room and we ended up putting the tent on a very steep concrete slope and spent all our time sliding to the bottom. We still had not spoken to any of the other refugees and spent this first day and night sleeping.

We had to move the tent. It was impossible where it was and the next morning we found a good flat space at the top of the camp. We soon discovered that this was an area for Afghani refugees but they were prepared to let us put our tent there as long we moved when they needed the space. As we were sorting out the tent, a young child of about 7 years came over and offered to help us. He told us that he could show us where the toilets and showers were and where to get food. Then the child’s father arrived. He was from Syria. We were very shocked when he said he and his family had been in the camp for 8 months. I said surely you mean 8 days! No 8 months he replied. I thought he must have some special difficulties maybe concerning his lack of papers. But no. He told us that had a passport and his Syrian ID. Here you wait he said. Everything takes a long time. We could hardly speak. We were so shocked and surprised and I was very concerned for my boyfriend and how to keep him strong.

Our first meal in the camp was a boiled potato with some olive oil poured over. When H saw this he was disgusted but I told him it was very healthy food and that Greece was world famous for this dish and we should be happy to have this chance to eat it!

In the first days we had much to do. I walked around the camp and was amazed by what I saw. I gathered blankets that had been thrown away and washed them so we could make the tent more comfortable. Later we went into the town and bought a long cable which we then connected to the electricity supply. In this way we were able to have light in the tent and most importantly a place to charge our phones. We had no guide to help us and had to work out life in the camp for ourselves. Just smell the camp it tells you everything. It is a place for rubbish. There are no flowers in the camp.

But it is not easy for the camp authorities because there are so many people there and nearly every day new people are arriving. It is a big problem. And what if they let us go direct into Europe that would be a problem too because they don’t know who is coming over from Turkey. Maybe there are big criminals coming.

We shared our tent with many mice. There were no cats and dogs just mice and the mosquitoes.

There are not enough toilets and showers for all the people in the camp. You always have to queue and you have cold water in the showers and there is simply not enough hot water. The showers are being used all the time.

The food was not good. Breakfast was ok but some of the lunches and dinners we threw away as the food was not cooked and we had no way of making it better. I was often hungry.

We spent most of the time in the tent, sleeping.

My English is ok and this was important. H has very little English so I did most of the talking and finding out what we had to do. The chaos of the camp came as a shock. For example, on our second day we went to the Asylum Service office to start the registration process. When we went at 9 am which was when the office opened we found hundreds of people waiting at the door. It was incredible and we had no chance. So next morning we woke at 4am and went to wait at the office. There were already 4 other people there waiting. When the doors eventually opened we were very lucky to be seen as they told us they could only see 14 people that day and although we were at the front there were pregnant women who took priority. One of the workers there could see we were upset and she took pity on us and we were seen.

A young male psychologist asked if he could help us and I thought this might be good. He visited our tent everyday for three days and would speak to me and he was very kind. On the fourth day he saw me with my boyfriend and he never returned. He never said why he suddenly stopped coming. I think he was upset about my boyfriend.

We were interviewed separately. I was very open and spoke about the problems I had faced in Syria and Turkey because of my sexuality. I told them about my love for H and how we wanted to make our life together in Europe. H is very shy and he didn’t feel comfortable about talking about these issues with the Asylum Service. I think this caused us some problems as they agreed to H’s asylum application where I was refused.

This made me very very sad. I felt lost and confused. It was made much worse when in the same days I lost all contact with my family. I have heard nothing from them for 6 months now and I am very upset. Then I was sent a video clip of our house in Aleppo. It was totally destroyed. This was the place where I was born. Where I grew up and lived with my parents and three brothers. All this was gone and I was alone. My past seemed to be destroyed.

I took to my sleeping bag and for three days I did nothing but sleep. H was very worried but he could do nothing for me. On the fourth day I got up and walked around the camp. I was crying. I then came to the children’s play area and sat and watched them. I saw these children laughing and playing and realised that I now needed to be like them. I needed to find happiness again and start to build my life once more. The laughter of the children made a big difference to me. I slowly began to re build my strength and was determined to get this door to Europe opened for me and H.

Ten Months

..very bitter coffee I drank waiting for life 

..ten months have passed and I am still waiting 

“The United States found a solution to the problem of “collateral damage, by assuming that any male of military age in a war zone is a militant and worthy of execution” says in the following incisive interview the renowned researcher, Professor Doctor Peter Kuznick, Director of the Nuclear Studies Institute at American University, in Washington D.C. Drones “kill women, children, they kill everybody,” Professor Kuznick says. 

He observes that odious Obama’s drone warfare was, appears today as the voice of moderation compared to Trump.
As for him, instead of using drones for humans and environment, US drone program is “mostly negative” as Washington is turning them into “killing machines.” Professor Peter Kuznick points out that the matter is not “a choice between drones, manned bombers, and boots on the ground. I see it as a choice between war and diplomacy.”

Edu Montesanti: US government assures that operations with drones are a more precise alternative to boots on the ground, authorized only when an “imminent” threat is present and there is “near certainty” that the intended target will be eliminated. The justification for the use of drones is that they are surgical and precise, and don’t kill civilians. However, the official number of civilians killed by drones is so large, for so long much larger than combatants killed. US drone program have been used as bombs out of regions at war such as Yemen and Somalia, and as surveillance all this mostly in secret by the Washington regime. How do you see US drone program. Professor Doctor Peter Kuznick, how do you see such a “policy” itself, that of substituting boots on the grounds by drones? And how precise are drones?

Prof. Dr. Peter Kuznick: I’m very much opposed to widespread U.S. use of drones, especially outside of declared war zones. I don’t see it as a choice between drones, manned bombers, and boots on the ground. I see it as a choice between war and diplomacy.

There are certainly situations in which diplomacy doesn’t work, but the U.S. has been much too quick to resort to military means to resolve all disputes and problems. Take the case of the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan for example. Yes, the Taliban government in Afghanistan had sheltered Al Qaeda when it planned the attack on 9/11 and the Taliban government was extremely repressive, especially toward women. But has 16 years of U.S.-led war been an improvement? Some Afghans and American defense contractors have gotten rich, but most Afghans have been pretty miserable.

After 9/11, the U.S. insisted that the Afghans turn over the Al Qaeda leaders. On October 15, one week after Operation Enduring Freedom had begun, the Taliban foreign minister offered to turn Osama bin Laden over to the Organization of the Islamic Conference for trial, but the U.S. accused them of stalling. But Milton Bearden, the former CIA station chief who had overseen the 1980s covert war from Pakistan, the Taliban was sincere. “We never heard what they were trying to say,” he insisted. “We had no common language. Ours was ‘give up bin Laden.’ They were saying ‘do something to help us give him up.’” U.S. representatives had met with Taliban leaders more than 20 times the previous three years. Bearden said he had “no doubts they wanted to get rid of him,” but the U.S. was intent on going to war and never offered the face-saving measures the Taliban needed. Since then, Afghanistan has been a playground for U.S. drone warfare, especially after Obama withdrew most of the hundred thousand troops he and Bush had deployed.

But the justification for the use of drones is that they are surgical and precise and don’t kill civilians. President Obama made this case repeatedly when he was in office. Speaking at the University of Chicago Law School in April 2016, he declared, “What I can say with great certainty is that the rate of civilian casualties in any drone operation are far lower than the rate of civilian casualties that occur in conventional war.”

That sounds good, but it’s not true. A 2013 study by Larry Lewis of the Center for Naval Analyses and Sarah Holewinski of the Center for Civilians in Conflict concluded that drone use in Afghanistan caused ten times as many civilian deaths as manned fighter aircraft. In 2016, Micah Zenko and Amelia Mae Wolf of the Council on Foreign Relations reported that “The Obama administration’s assumption that drones cause less collateral damage than piloted aircraft is simply untrue. According to the best publicly available evidence, drone strikes in non-battlefield settings — Pakistan, Yemen, and Somalia — result in 35 times more civilian fatalities than airstrikes by manned weapons systems in conventional battlefields, such as Iraq, Syria, and Afghanistan.”

The real advantage of drones is that they result in far fewer U.S. combat deaths than would manned flights and boots on the ground.

Edu Montesanti: Contrary to Barack Obama, President Donald Trump has given the Central Intelligence Agency new authority to conduct drone attacks against suspected militants. The situations is going to get even worse, isn’t it, Professor Kuznick?

Prof. Dr. Peter Kuznick: As odious as Obama’s use of drone warfare was, he appears as the voice of moderation compared to Trump. Obama had his weekly meetings at which he personally signed off on his “kill lists.” After much criticism, he crafted new rules to limit the harm to civilians. Toward the end of his administration, he didn’t allow drone strikes outside war zones unless there was “near certainty” that civilians wouldn’t be injured, capture of the offenders was “not feasible,” and the target posed an “imminent threat” to the U.S.

Trump, on the other hand, has given carte blanche to his generals. He says he “trusts” his generals to make military decisions and leaves it up to them. As a result, the number of drone strikes has actually risen dramatically since Trump took office.

The Long War Journal reported that in Obama’s last year in office, there were only three drone strikes in Pakistan, down sharply from previous years, and 38 in Yemen. Trump has relaxed the rules Obama instituted and gives the CIA and military much more latitude in targeting Al Qaeda and ISIS in Yemen, Libya, Syria, Somalia, Iraq, and Afghanistan.

As a result, the number of civilian deaths has skyrocketed. Whereas Obama had sharply limited CIA involvement in drone warfare, Trump has expanded the CIA’s role.

Edu Montesanti: How do you see the official version in the US government involving drone “efficient” attacks as they actually kill much more civilians?

Prof. Dr. Peter Kuznick: As I mentioned before, the cavalier attitude sometimes expressed about “collateral damage” is unconscionable. It is obscene. As Archbishop Desmund Tutu said in his letter to the editor of the New York Times, “Do the United States and its people really want to tell those of us who live in the rest of the world that our lives are not of the same value as yours?”

But the United States found a solution to the problem of “collateral damage.” The Obama administration defined the problem out of existence by assuming that any male of military age in a war zone is a militant and worthy of execution in a “signature” strike. In most of these strikes, the U.S. has no way of knowing whether those targeted were terrorists.

These attacks are not only morally objectionable and often illegal, they are also counterproductive. They produce more terrorists than they kill. As Faisal Shahzad, “the Times Square Bomber,” responded to the judge who asked him how he could risk killing innocent children and women, the drone strikes, he said, “don’t see children. They don’t see anybody. They kill women, children, they kill everybody.” Drone operators often dehumanize the victims by referring to them as “bug splats.”

Edu Montesanti: The renowned lawyer Professor Doctor Azadeh Shahshahani, Director for Project South, recently observed to me that:

a) In the domestic (US) context, they be used for artistic or investigative purposes. For example, they can be used to investigate agribusinesses to see if they are engaging in animal abuse or not. In that sense, they can play an important and legitimate role. However, their use needs to be regulated to ensure that they are used for surveillance by law enforcement agencies.

b) Per international humanitarian law, drones can only be used with bombs in an active armed conflict and even then with certain restrictions including military necessity, humanity, distinction, and proportionality. Only combatants or civilians who are directly participating in hostilities may be targeted. Targeting of other civilians is prohibited and may constitute a war crime. How much the US government is respecting these principles, Lisa, using drones both as surveillance and bombs?

Prof. Dr. Peter Kuznick: Like with most scientific and technological innovations, drones can be used for war or peace. They can be used to enrich human life or to destroy it. They represent not only an engine of death in warfare but an engine of surveillance that threatens privacy.

Their potential uses go far beyond making deliveries like Amazon has in mind. They can be used for monitoring the environment, protecting wildlife, and firefighting among other things. The sky, so to speak, is the limit for them. But right now the uses are mostly negative.

They have been turned into killing machines. And, as we’ve learned with nuclear arms and other dangerous weapon systems, once one country has them, others will too. So right now the U.S., Israel, and Britain have been weaponizing them for use in “war zones,” but what’s to stop the Russians from using them to kill Chechins or the Chinese from killing Uighurs? The U.S. approach is very shortsighted if U.S. leaders think they’ll retain a monopoly on this type of warfare.

China, Russia, and Iran also have very advanced systems of predator drones. The face of modern warfare is ugly and about to get uglier. Watch out.

Dear friends,

Like so many friends of the Bolivarian Revolution across Canada and around the world, the Canadian Peace Congress is alarmed at the intensifying campaign being orchestrated by the privileged monopoly circles within Venezuela and by their imperialist sponsors internationally – including Canada – to foment economic chaos and political violence to make the country ungovernable and bring about a reactionary coup d’état. If the attempt at internal counter-revolution fails, plans are being put in place for direct military intervention by the United States, possibly under the cover of the Organization of American States (OAS).

This of course is not the first time internal reaction and its foreign backers have attempted ‘regime change’, but this is the most concerted, all-sided assault ever. The right-wing forces are taking advantage of the increasingly difficult economic position facing Venezuela, arising from the sharp decline in world prices for oil resources, the export of which generates most of Venezuela’s hard-currency earnings.

For the past several months, US imperialism and its allies domestically and internationally have been exacerbating Venezuela’s economic difficulties by attacking its international credit rating (making foreign loans increasingly expensive), by weakening the foreign exchange value of the national currency through purposeful speculation, and by withholding basic commodities needed by the people (but whose distribution is still controlled by private monopolies), such as milk, coffee, rice, oil, and basic necessities like toilet paper, toothpaste and medicines. The intention of this economic warfare is clear: to create shortages and imbalances in the domestic economy and to increase the misery of working people in the hope of eroding popular support for the Maduro government and for the Bolivarian Revolution as a whole.

This economic ‘softening-up’ of Venezuela – very similar to the imperialist tactics used against the Allende government in Chile before the Pinochet coup of September 1973 – has been combined with a campaign of increasingly violent protests in Caracas and some other urban centres. Armed thugs mingle with other civilian protesters and launch violent attacks on security forces, especially after sunset. Schools, childcare facilities, hospitals and food banks have also been ransacked.

Finally, the enemies of Venezuela are using various diplomatic venues such as the OAS to undermine internal support and international solidarity with the Bolivarian Revolution, spreading lies about ‘brutal repression’ against ‘unarmed pro-democracy protests’ by the Maduro government. Canada has played a particularly shameful role in whipping up this propaganda offensive against Venezuela in the OAS.

For its part, the Venezuelan government has been very restrained in its response to the increasingly violent provocations from the right-wing forces. Instead, it has come forward with a proposal to form a new Constituency Assembly – composed of elected representatives from throughout the country, and from all sectors of society, including workers, peasants & farmers, indigenous communities, women, youth & students, religious circles, business, and the political opposition – to develop a vision and constitutional framework in line with the wishes of the vast majority of the Venezuelan people.

The domestic right-wing forces, and the imperialist circles backing them, have viciously denounced this proposal for a new Constituency Assembly, precisely because it would demonstrate incontrovertibly that the majority of the people back the Bolivarian process first elaborated by former President Hugo Chavez Frias. That is why they are desperate to overturn this proposal before it can take flight. This Sunday, July 30, the elections for the Constituency Assembly will take place, and the right-wing opposition are gearing up to make these elections impossible to conduct. Failing that, they will denounce them as “undemocratic”, as a prelude to a violent overthrow of the government and the seizure of power.

In such circumstances, it is absolutely vital that progressive and peace-loving people and organizations across the country speak out now against this impending coup d’état. We urge everyone to be on the alert, and move quickly to organize emergency actions and protests in such a catastrophic event. The Canadian Peace Congress and its members and supporters will reach out and work in unity with all those in defence of the Bolivarian Revolution, and against imperialist interference or aggression under any guise.

Hands Off Venezuela!!

Below is a file outlining in detail recent US actions against Venezuela. Also, for those in Greater Toronto, we urge you to come out and support the “Beats for Peace” solidarity event this Sunday evening. Similar events, including solidarity rallies are also being organized in centres across the country.

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RECENT US ACTIONS AGAINST VENEZUELA

I. On July 26th, the Office of Foreign Assets Control of the US Department of the Treasury added 13 Venezuelan high-level officials to the OFAC´s SDN List, as part of a new set of unilateral sanctions against the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela.

II. Last July 20, 2017, CIA Director Mike Pompeo answered a question posed by Venezuelan Vanessa Neumann as follows:

“At any time you have a country as large and with the economic capacity of a country like Venezuela, America has a deep interest in making sure that it is stable, as democratic as possible. And so, we’re working hard to do that, I am always careful when we talk about South and Central America and the CIA, there’s a lot of stories. (Laughter)

MR. POMPEO: So I want to be careful with what I say but suffice to say, we are very hopeful that there can be a transition in Venezuela and we the CIA is doing its best to understand the dynamic there, so that we can communicate to our State Department and to others. The Colombians, I was just down in Mexico City and in Bogota a week before last talking about this very issue trying to help them understand the things they might do so that they can get a better outcome for their part of the world and our part of the world.”

http://aspensecurityforum.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/The-View-from-Langley.pdf

III. Last July 23, 2017, the U.S. Embassy to Caracas published in its internet website a security alert that in a scaremonger manner advises “taking appropriate preparatory measures, including gathering enough food and water for 72 hours” (our italics). Further, such communiqué recognizes that they deem violent the protests that in other spaces and opportunities they consider peaceful: “Even demonstrations intended to be peaceful can turn confrontational and escalate into violence.”

IV. In a White House Statement, President Donald Trump threatened Venezuela as he said: “If the Maduro regime imposes its Constituent Assembly on July 30, the United States will take strong and swift economic actions.”

https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2017/07/17/statement-president-donald-j-trump

V. In an official communiqué, the Spokesperson of the Department of State attempted to legitimise the results of the opposition consultation exercise of July 16th, which lack any legitimacy as they cannot be audited whilst she urged the Venezuelan Government to “abandon” the National Constituent Assembly, and requested the intervention of other countries to press Venezuela for such purposes. The statement reads: “The vote by millions of Venezuelans was an unequivocal affirmation in support of free and fair elections as well as respect for the existing constitution.” (…) “We encourage governments in the hemisphere and around the world to call on President Maduro to suspend this process which only seeks to undermine democracy in Venezuela.” (…) “As the President stated earlier today, the United States is prepared to take strong and swift economic actions if the Government of Venezuela proceeds with the National Constituent Assembly action.”

https://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2017/07/272645.htm

VI. This year alone, over and above one hundred hostile statements have been issued or uttered by U.S. government spokespersons and by U.S. Congress members. Among those causing most concern to Venezuela for they entail U.S. aggression against our country are listed below:

• On April 6, 2017, Admiral Jefe Kurt Tidd, Head of Southern Command in his Southern Command annual report mentioned Venezuela in his written testimony before the U.S. Senate Armed Service Committee as follows:

“Overall the region is stable, although the gap between public expectations and government performance manifests itself in social protests, most often against corruption and mismanagement of public resources Bolivian citizens have engaged in mass protests to demand resolution to a severe water shortage, while Venezuela faces significant instability in the coming year due to widespread food, and medicine shortages; continued political uncertainty; and a worsening economic situation. The growing humanitarian crisis in Venezuela could eventually compel a regional response.” (Our underlining and italics).

Even though he did not talk of concrete actions and rejected that any action was being planned against Venezuela, it is noteworthy that Tidd takes for granted what John Kelly, Secretary of Homeland Security Department, a few years earlier, saw as a possibility of a “humanitarian crisis” to intervene Venezuela.

https://www.armed-services.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/Tidd_04-06-17.pdf

• On June 6, 2017, U.S. Ambassador to the UNO, Nikki Haley carried out a fringe meeting in Geneva under the title “Human Rights and Democracy in Venezuela” aimed at attacking our country in the realm of multilateral organizations. Among other accusations this US. Government spokesperson described the Venezuelan government in the following terms:

“The Venezuelan government is in the midst of destroying human rights and democracy in Venezuela. It is conducting a campaign of violence and intimidation against unarmed demonstrators, businesses, civil society, and freely elected political opposition.”

and

“Since April, when demonstrations became a daily occurrence, more than 60 people have been killed. More than 1000 have been injured and nearly 3,000 have been detained, including over 300 civilians who are being charged criminally in military courts.” (our italics).

https://geneva.usmission.gov/2017/06/06/ambassador-nikki-haley-remarks-on-venezuela-at-human-rights-council-sideevent/

• On June 14, 2017, the Secretary of State Tillerson during the Department of State Budget Hearing at the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Appropriations on State, Foreign Operations and Related Programs, answered a question posed by Congressman Mario Díaz-Balart as follows:

“With respect to Venezuela specifically, as you well know, it is extremely challenging there right now. I think we have made some important and significant progress within the OAS. We’re going to continue to use the OAS as a vehicle to advance pressure on the regime to return to its constitution, return to its called-for elections.”

“But we also have to work with the opposition to help the opposition become unified. That has been one of the great challenges of the past, is the opposition can’t seem to be of one voice.” (our italics and underlining).

https://appropriations.house.gov/calendar/eventsingle.aspx?EventID=394899

• On June 22, 2017, U.S. Vice President Mike Pence was Guest Speaker at a Conversation at the Washington-based Wilson Center on U.S. Contribution to prosperity and security in Central America. After stating that “(…) Latin America 4 is a priority for the Trump Administration. (…) Our partnerships and alliances throughout the region are critical to our national interests (…).” Further, in addressing the recently announced new policy towards Cuba, he said about Venezuela: “And rest assured, the United States of America will continue to support international efforts to restore freedom, democracy and the rule of law to Venezuela until freedom occurs.” (Our italics and underlining) (Min 19:00)

http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/105056065

• On July 12, 2017, at The House of Representatives Western Hemisphere subcommittee hearing on “Advancing U.S. Interest in the Western Hemisphere: The FY 2018 Budget Request” USAID (a) Assistant Administrator, Sarah-Ann Lynch talked about the interventionist work performed by her agency in Venezuela:

“Yes, we have existing activities in Venezuela working with civil society organizations with — for U.S.-based NGOs here and then 30 to 35 NGOs in Venezuela.

We’ll continue to be working with those civil society organizations to increase awareness of what’s happening on the ground, to increase the ability to report on human right abuses, corruption, things of that nature.

We’re also working with the National Assembly to increase their ability to be legislators, doing training and capacity building there.

In addition, we’re doing assessments to the extent we can on the situation on the ground in the food area, in the economic area in the financial area, and putting together those assessments so that should there be an opportunity to do more we’ll be prepared to have a good response.”

https://foreignaffairs.house.gov/hearing/subcommittee-hearing-advancing-u-s-interests-western-hemisphere-fy-2018- budget-request/

VII. On January 13, 2017, President Barack Obama established “that it is necessary to continue the national emergency declared in Executive Order 13692 with respect to the situation in Venezuela.” Effectively, that is the Executive Order allowing for the application of sanctions on the country, based on its description of Venezuela as an “unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States” pursuant to the National Emergency Law

https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office/2017/01/13/letter-continuation-national-emergency-respect-venezuela

VIII. On April 12, The U.S. Embassy to Caracas published a “Security Message for U.S. Citizens: Easter Week Protests / Demonstrations (12-17 April, 2017)”, containing a schedule with each of the demonstrations called by the opposition coalition (MUD), which per se is questionable because to convey an alert to U.S. citizens in Venezuela it is unnecessary to publish a calendar with the actions of the opposition scheduled. Further, the message reminded the U.S. citizens in Venezuela that “protests can occur without notice; that they can quickly develop and may result in violence”. Ironically, the public discourse was to condemn public order actions and to name it repression, as though they were disproportionate actions for peaceful demonstrations. This alert notice was eliminated from Internet.

XIX. In 2017 alone, the United States has sanctioned Venezuela in two opportunities. Both of them in a unilateral manner, thus violating international law:

• On February 13, 2017. The U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) sanctioned Vice President Tareck El Aissami by listing him as a “Specially Designated National”.

https://www.treasury.gov/press-center/pressreleases/Pages/as0005.aspx

• On May 18, 2017, The OFAC further published the listing of 8 Magistrates of the Constitutional Division of the Supreme Court of Justice as “Specially Designated Nationals”, which includes blocking assets and interactions with the USA (corporations and individuals). The Magistrates sanctioned are: Luis Fernando Damiani Trujillo, Arcadio de Jesús Delgado Rosales, Gladys María Gutiérrez Alvarado, Juan José Mendoza Jover, Maikel José Moreno Pérez, Calixto Antonio Ortega Ríos, Lourdes Benicia Suárez Anderson, Carmen Auxiliadora Zuleta de Merchán.

https://www.treasury.gov/resourcecenter/sanctions/OFAC-Enforcement/Pages/20170518.aspx

Featured image is from Land Destroyer Report.

The Syrian Arab army (SAA) backed by the allies began a large-scale offensive and the assault of the city of As-Sukhnah, a gateway to the province of Deir ez-Zor located in the eastern part of Homs province.

According to Inside Syria Media Center’ military correspondents the SAA and the allied formations captured on Thursday night the last hills to the west of the ISIS stronghold, the city of As-Sukhnah, and established complete fire control over the city.

After that, the army units advanced towards the outskirts of As-Sukhnah and began an assault of the city both from the West and from the South. Aviation provides air support inflicting massive strikes at the defense and communication of terrorists.

The biggest threat now to the Government forces is suicide bombers and improvised explosive devices. Land-mines contaminated fields and roads prevent soldiers from advancing deeper into the city.

In order to capture As-Sukhnah large number of SAA’s surge reinforcement were redeployed in Homs. A day ago it has been informed that new units are being sent to the east of Homs province from the south-western regions of Syria.

The SAA surge reinforcement was spotted in the eastern part of Palmyra and in Khamimah area

These fresh units began to unfold for a new large-scale offensive in the direction of the T-2 airbase held by ISIS terrorists.

The forces arrived in East Homs include the elite 800th regiment of the SAA Republican Guard, the Al-Quwah Al-Jafariyah and Saraya al-Rin groups, as well as the units of 1st and 3rd Armored Divisions and elite Tiger Forces.

Almost all of these reinforcements were previously deployed in the provinces of Rif-Dimashq and As-Suwayda where they had been fighting pro-American Free Syrian Army (FSA).

The possible scenario

Most likely, the terrorist group is in the process of withdrawing its main forces from As-Sukhnah realizing the fact that they won’t be able to confront advancing the SAA forces.

Thus, the Government forces are making every effort to advance in the direction of Deir ez-Zor – Al-Mayadin – Al-Qa’im as ISIS main forces are concentrated in these areas, not in Raqqa. It is also likely that using newly redeployed reinforcements the Syrian Government forces will attempt to block bounding As-Sukhnah with Al-Kadir in order to encircle them and prevent the militants from fleeing the strongholds of Deir ez-Zor and Al-Mayadin.

Follow the latest developments by reading Inside Syria Media Center.

All images in this article are from the author.

As some of you may remember I am compiling a criminal dossier on the western powers concerning, among other things, their preparations for Operation Barbarossa II, the term that I use for NATO’s build-up of forces in Eastern Europe threatening the security of Russia.

In June, the BALTOPS 2017 NATO naval and air exercises were conducted in the Baltic Sea near Kaliningrad and the approaches to St. Petersburg simultaneously with the Saber Strike military ground exercises in Latvia and Lithuania.On July 11^th NATO’s Sea Breeze naval exercises began in the Black Sea, threatening Russia’s southern flank. The NATO exercises are conducted every year and every year they become more menacing.

An indication of the level of the threat to Russia was the use in the BALTOPS exercises, for the first time, of the E-3 Sentry Airborne Warning and Control System aircraft, (AWACS), an aircraft that can “look down” on and “shoot down” targeted low and high flying aircraft. It is used to gain and maintain control of a battle and to detect enemy planes and ships at great distances, direct planes to attack them, and coordinate air support for ground battles. E-3 Sentry aircraft were used in the NATO attack on Yugoslavia in 1999, were in the air near New York City when the unexplained attack on New York was carried on in September, 2001, were used in the US attack and invasion of Iraq in 2003, theNATO attack on Libya in 2011, and have been used for US bombing attacks on Syria. When this plane appears war happens. Its sinister presence in the on-going military exercises means that the NATO forces are rehearsing for coordinated operations against Russia.

At the same time as the entry of E-3 AWACS aircraft into the battlefield scene the USA also sent strategic B-1 bombers to the BALTOPS exercises. These aircraft have been used to drop bombs on Yugoslavia, Iraq and Afghanistan and recently threatened North Korea. They can fly fast and drop a lot of bombs.

During the Saber Strike exercises NATO forces practiced amphibious assaults on beaches resembling those around Kaliningrad. The threat is clear. So are NATO intentions in the Black Sea. A US military analyst, commenting on the presence of two additional ships over last year’s exercises, wrote that this “sends a powerful message-one that is firmly directed at the Russians.”

The evidence for criminal charges is there. We have the vow of Mr. Tillerson, the American foreign minister, to help the Kiev regime in Ukraine crush the Donbass republics, producing the reaction of the Donetsk Republic; the announcement of the creation of a new state, to be renamed Malorossiya, little Russia, thereby directly challenging the legitimacy and existence of the Kiev regime. We have the attempts to bring Cyprus, a strategic island, necessary to dominate the Middle East, under NATO control. We have the intense propaganda campaign against Russia in the west focused on allegations of undermining western democracy and the phony witch-hunt in the USA against anyone who has anything to do with Russia. A reasonable person has to conclude that conditions are being prepared for war, an aggressive war against Russia, therefore charges of aggression and conspiracy to commit aggression are more than justified.

China is also threatened. In reaction China has now sent its ships to the Mediterranean and the Baltic,joining Russia military exercises there and in the Black Sea, a remarkable historical event. It continues to build up its defences in the China Sea, and has just opened a base in Somalia for its ships that will be manned by 10,000 men. These tensions, plus the threats against North Korea,the continued wars in Syria, Yemen and Afghanistan, where US planes, in one of their routine “mistakes” killed 16 Afghan policemen, raise the fear of a general world war conducted by the United States against those nations and peoples. As if the people of the world don’t have enough to deal with in the threat of abrupt climate change, the ravages of capitalism, the hardship of daily life, we also have to endure daily anxiety about The Bomb, a quick annihilation instead of a slow one. Where is the diplomacy that people expect from their leaders to find peaceful ways of getting on in the world?

The Russians and Chinese still attempt it but diplomacy has been completely rejected by the United States. Its interactions with the Russian government in particular are openly aggressive, insulting, and dangerous. The American presidency, now stripped of any dignity, has been revealed as another Oz, the creation of those hiding behind the curtain, about which we know little in reality though we are inundated with names, scandals, and power plays all serving to misdirect and misinform us as to what is really going on, who is doing it and what their real objectives are.

An example of this is the intention by the US Congress to adopt legislation termed the “Russian Sanctions Review Act of 2017”, that requires the American president to obtain permission to rescind any “sanctions” imposed by Presidential Executive Orders. Reports state Trump may have reluctantly agreed to this. I leave it to American constitutional lawyers to explain how that is legally possible because it appears on the face of it that this is an attempt to limit the executive authority of the presidency and transfer executive authority to the Congress, a violation of the Constitution. But I stand to be corrected. If the American President can make an executive order imposing “sanctions” then it follows he has the power to rescind them. But with this proposed legislation the power to impose is left intact while the power to remove sanctions, once imposed, is taken away unless Congress permits it.

The legislation, another arrow from their quiver of war propaganda, assumes that Russia is undermining peace and security in Ukraine and assumes as a given that Russia engaged in cyber attacks on the USA and its citizens. It requires that the President certify that Russia has stopped these alleged activities before “sanctions” can be lifted. Since none of the assumptions are correct, there can be no lifting of American “sanctions” on Russia. They are meant to be permanent and as we see with the cases of Iran and North Korea, continually tightened to create maximum pain for the victim.

“Sanctions” are a euphemism for illegal economic warfare and are a part of the hybrid war being carried out by the NATO powers against Russia and the other victims of this form of warfare. The military exercises that are carried out by the NATO powers are also clearly illegal under international law; they are violations of the UN Charter and the Nuremberg Principles that make planning and preparation for aggressive war the fundamental war crime and are another form of the hybrid warfare taking place.

Hybrid warfare is warfare that uses all techniques across all spheres of society to undermine and destroy an enemy. In their famous 1999 paper, “Unrestricted Warfare”, Chinese Army colonels, Qiao Liang and Wang Xiansui, discussed the multitude of means that can be used to strike at a country, both military and non-military, including hacking into websites, targeting financial institutions, terrorism, use of the media and information, and urban warfare.

Qiao stated

“the first rule of unrestricted warfare is that there are no rules. With nothing forbidden. This is warfare which transcends all boundaries and limits, in short: unrestricted warfare. This kind of war means that all means will be in readiness, that information will be omnipresent, and the battlefield will be everywhere. It means that all weapons and technology can be superimposed at will, it means that all the boundaries lying between the two worlds of war and non-war, of military and non-military, will be totally destroyed, and it also means that many of the current principles of combat will be modified, and even that the rules of war may need to be rewritten.”

It seems American strategists have studied the Chinese paper thoroughly. They are engaging in most of those forms of warfare against Russia and are planning to use other forms as well, including legal, social, psychological, and cultural as well as military and economic means. The various “sanctions” laws against Russia are examples of the use of quasi-legal methods as a form of warfare. The scandal concocted out of whole cloth about Russia undermining western ‘democracy” and President Trump’s dealings with Russians are another aspect of this warfare.

In one sense the adoption of these methods means that some in the US military leadership recognise that whenever something reaches an ultimate point, it will turn in the opposite direction, that there is always a reaction. The invention of nuclear weapons, the “ultra-lethal weapon” which can wipe out all mankind, has plunged mankind into an existential trap of its own making. To escape that trap and the moral arguments against the use of mass destruction weapons as a crime against mankind, the reality of interlocking of economic systems, and concern for the destruction of the earth’s environment leads logically to the conclusion that the way to victory is not through killing but through control.

However, the US leadership also contains factions that are clearly prepared to use the ultimate lethal weapons of mass destruction. The use of hybrid warfare methods against Russia are doomed to failure. Therefore, control cannot be achieved. This will inevitably drive that faction to push for the use of the ultimate weapon despite its dangers to humanity.

We see an example of the failure of the attempts to secure control with the reaction by the European Union to the news of new “sanctions” proposed by the US against Russia that will negatively affect European businesses. The European Union leadership is talking openly of retaliation, both legal and economic if these further trade embargoes are imposed.  A clash is developing between the members of the Atlantic alliance, with the USA diminishing in both prestige and power while Chinese trains and naval ships now arrive in European cities and ports along with their “win-win” ideas.

So, in this context, the escalation of the propaganda inside the United States against Russia, a propaganda that even risks the coherence of the American state itself, indicates that the worst of the criminals are in charge and are capable of anything. The Operation Barbarossa II criminal file is open. The evidence mounts. But who will prosecute?

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.

Minutes ago the US Senate passed HR 3364, the Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act by a massive 98 yeas to two nays. Opposing the bill were Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Rand Paul (R-KY). The bill passed in the House by 419-3 on Tuesday, with Reps Massie (R-KY), Amash (R-MI), and Duncan (R-TN) opposing. 

The new sanctions bill ties President Trump‘s hands on foreign policy, as he will be forced to ask Congress for permission to ease the measures.

Speaking in favor of the legislation, Sen. Bob Menendez (R-NJ) cited the need to send Russia a message that it cannot meddle in US elections, that it cannot annex Crimea, that it cannot invade Ukraine, and that it cannot indiscriminately kill women and children in Syria.

Those of us living in the actual real world recognize that the first count remains unproven and the remaining counts are simply fatuous, fact-free bluster by Washington’s uninformed, group-thinking, foreign policy elites. Fueled by the millions coming in to the military-industrial complex.

The House and Senate passed “Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act” now goes to President Trump’s desk, where he faces a damned if he does and damned if he doesn’t scenario. A veto would certainly be over-ridden, handing the president a bitter bi-partisan blow that would likely end whatever aspirations he may retain to keep his campaign promises to get along better with Russia. Similarly, signing the bill signs a death warrant for any foreign policy different than the one served up by the neocons for decades: create enemies; push war propaganda; collect massive checks from military industrial complex; demonize any American refusing to go along; repeat, adding bombs as necessary.

Checkmate, President Trump.

Featured image is from the author.

Eight years ago, renowned economist and geopolitical analyst Frederic Clairmont, begs the question in lecture delivered in 2009 under the title Is A Major War A Possibility In 2009? The Historical Antecedents

* * *

In these lectures I shall venture to answer some of the queries made regarding the prospects of a major war . The notes to these lectures were scribbled over time in the corner of the living room. 

There are two large standing lamps that illuminate the copy book that I am using to scribble these lines. The thin light black pen is gliding effortlessly over the paper. It is one of my inseparable companions. It is Made in China as well as the copy book with squared paper. 

One of my Associates raised the question the other night: is there any manufactured products that American capitalism can produce that China cannot produce better and in greater quantities and considerably cheaper?
This is not fanciful speculation. It therefore follows whether American capitalism in its current state of indebtedness, mass impoverishment and financial disintegration will be able to compete internationally. Or put it another way: how and by what means will it pay for its imports, for what it consumes? Will it be able – on present evidence it is not – to shave and ultimately to eliminate its trade deficit by exporting more than it imports? Further, can the dollar be an acceptable medium of payment and exchange given the battering to which it has been unrelentingly subjected for many years? The observation by Iran’s Mahmoud Ahmadinejad that the Greenback is worth less than used toilet paper is ungracious, but it is shared by many leading spirits in the world of finance capitalism.

In subsequent lectures we shall explore the ramifications of these issues. Suffice it to say that it is a matter of life and death that takes us into the deepest reaches of the conflictual contradictions within world capitalism and the imperialist lethal that I have will give you more than an idea of what is meant when we say that China has become the industrial hub of our planet; as well as an idea of what we mean when we speak of financial imbalances. Of that more later.

The Ramifications 

Some of you have evoked the possibility of a world conflict in the course of 2009.. I shan’t say that this prediction is far-fetched; or remote. Doubtless, many of you do not mean a regional conflict as in Ossetia and Gaza . Nor do I exclude the possibility of the US / Israel on Iran . In the making of war, madness can never be excluded. Let us keep in mind that the US caste oligarchy (USCO) and its trillion dollar militarist appendage is at war on several front in areas engulfing tens of thousands of kilometers: It is pursuing a war in Gaza via its surrogate; it is pursuing a war in Iraq; and of course it is escalating its military drive in Afghanistan; it has extended its killing fields to Pakistan. Recall that Pakistan has a frontier of 2,500 kms with Afghanistan .

Such a possibility cannot be ignored. How does one approach the subject? What is the most appropriate method? I am aware that itemizing the potential flashpoints gives us individual dots but the dots are not connected. They remain separate and cannot provide an insight of the detonator. I am sympathetic to your speculation. The historian must select his facts This is a matter of personal choice. But how and to what purpose he selects his facts stems from his principle of selectivity that is a part of a process of abstraction.

His selection and his interpretation of events are thereby conditioned by his ideological and philosophical predilections. His class affiliations. His personal experience. One may itemize a list but itemizing single events does not give us a handle to comprehend these complex phenomena.. The assassination of Kronprinz Franz Josef by a young Serb nationalist was certainly the detonator but it tells us very little without disentangling the complex of nationalist convulsions and economic and dynastic rivalries that shredded the vitals of the world economy. Nor can we ignore the military naval buildup of the German empire that challenged the centuries old supremacy of the Royal Navy. As David Lloyd George – the shrewdest of imperial artisans and a paramount Hatchet man the Great War noted : “if 1914 had not come when it did it would have inevitably come later”. The key words are ‘come later’. What Lloyd George had in mind was that the power politics of finance capitalism and imperialism, and the carnage it irrepressibly incubated, was inherent in the evolution of world capitalism given its ceaseless lunge for territorial and financial spheres of aggrandizement. And its wars were confirmatory.

The Arms Race.

Many of you have emphasized the fact that the USCO is likely to boost expenditures to offset the fall in demand in the private sector thereby raising the level of employment. It is not a new recipe but the thesis has a defect in the present context of international relations. The U S CO is already spending more than twice or three times what the rest of the world is spending on arms. SIPRI in Stockholm that you’ll find on the Internet provides the exact numbers. But I am not momentarily concerned with such numbers.

The USCO and its military lackeys has been at war since 1945 non- stop. And that includes its role in the Chinese Civil War that ended in 1949, in Indochina since 1945, in Korea , in Iraq twice over.etc. Its colonial wars fought exclusively against peoples of colour have driven the US economy into a state of bankruptcy.

At the latest count, it has 250 military bases outside the United States . It is spending more than it earns. It is the world’s biggest mendicant. It is spending other people’s borrowed money. In Iraq alone, according to the figures of Stiglitz, the number is $3.5 trillion and the wars are not yet over. In these wars it has slaughtered millions. It is fighting wars in Iraq , Afghanistan , Pakistan and Israel ’s attack against Gaza , as in Lebanon , was inconceivable without US support. This is a banality. Let me say that the phosphor bombs used in Gaza were made in Virginia . The uranium enriched artillery shells were manufactured in Tennessee . The bombers were F-18’s of American fabrication. Gaza was one more testing ground for its weapons of mass slaughter. That makes four wars. Some are right to stress that wars, preparations of wars, boosts output and employment. What matters here is the nature of the output and its related employment impact. It is unproductive and does not add to productive capacity.

This was certainly the case of Hitler’s Third Reich in which arms outlays provided a booster that eliminated the ranks of the jobless. And of course the jobless could always find jobs in the Wehrmacht subsequently transformed into cannon fodder. This was true of the U K from 1937 onwards. As you recognize the changes wrought by FDR’s New Deal , admirable but illusory in several ways, did not curtail the Great Depression. What did the job was massive public sector war expenditures bankrolled by debt.

Let me repeat that what ended that satanic slump triggered in 29 was the advent of World War 2. Can it therefore be suggested that war and preparations for war offers a ‘final solution’ for achieving full employment? In the case of the US capitalism the answer is unequivocally no. War expenditures – bankrolled by foreign borrowing and ever swelling debt holes – sets the stage for endemic corruption, national indebtedness and bankruptcy and all its innumerable toxic corollaries. The debts of American capitalism – Federal, corporate and household – will never be repaid. They cannot be repaid. With the economy imploding daily USCO does not have the wherewithal to repay its debts. Frankenstein defaults are on the horizon.

One may contend that it raises the revenues of the arms producers. In what sectors is this true? In what individual enterprises does this hold? If you take pains to examine the share prices of all of the big arms producers i.e. Lockheed at the Standard & Poor’s and the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) you’ll find that their revenues and profits have tumbled as have their share prices .

Given the capital intensity of modern arms output the labour inputs required i.e. employment is sharply reduced. Productivity, (ratio of inputs to outputs) has risen sharply resulting in a cutback in labour requirements with collateral falls in wages. I believe you’ll find that for the most part their balance sheets have been battered although perhaps not as bad as the financial sector .The conclusion appears obvious: stimulus plans, or pumping the prime as it was earlier called, will obviously not do the trick. I return again to the estimates of Stiglitz.

In Iraq alone, it is spending $3.5 trillion. Where is the money coming from? By borrowing. As I said repeatedly in these lectures the world capitalist economy has entered into a deflationary stagnationary phase , or defstag as I’ve called it. The USCO is living off borrowed time and other people’s borrowed money, a parasitical binge that is sustained by 70% of the world’s savings, palpably unsustainable even over the short haul.

Israel and the Middle East .

I suspect that some are correct to surmise that Gaza is too small an area to be considered the likely detonator of a major world conflict. Size, however, is not the only benchmark. Serbia in 1914 was also a very exiguous geo-demographic area. But it provided the detonator and is therefore not the only factor in play; it is the larger forces that are set in motion. Gaza and Israel are segments of a .larger empire writhing in its final apoplexy. The goal of the US/Israeli onslaught is to obliterate Hamas as its onslaught in Lebanon was to eliminate the Hezbollah. They failed miserably. The citizens of the Zio-fascist state applauded the rape of the Gazans. And here we come not to abstract forces but the role of individuals in history. Netanyahu an outright exponent of unrelenting Arab exterminism has succeeded in climbing the greasy pole of a state that itself is riven by ethnic and class divisions. .

His speech in Davos, like that of Olmert , is more than the howlings of a politico bent on the destruction of Arabs, and what his fascist cronies call Hamastan. His utterances, like that of Lieberman, could be translated into reality. Netanyahu/ Lieberman could demolish the entire Middle East and that includes the Hebrew sate. . And by that I mean it could lead to the unmaking of Mr. Obama and , I daresay , to his political destruction given the unquestioned reach of the Zionist lobbies. Mr. Obama is a fragile politician and the untamed capitalist convulsions, nationally and internationally, will shove him into raging cross currents.

We know who the Netanyahu/Lieberman duo is . There is nothing nebulous in their blueprint. “My highest priority” Netanyahu thunders “is Iran ”. Need we say more? Has Obama plumbed the meaning of that statement? There is nothing cryptic about it. The duo’s unrivaled standing in the Zionist lobbies and in the dominant spheres of the USCO the US is high. Hence we cannot ignore the possibility that in their desperation they could trigger a wider war. Such a course could not be confined to the region.

The goal of US imperialism, conflated with that of Israel , is the destruction of Iran , the ally of both Hamas and Hezbollah. This is not speculation. It is stated policy. The Iranian prime minister has pushed his pawns. The game has started. The launching of their satellite into space injects into our calculations new and terrible variables.

Can Israel reconcile itself to coexist with Hamas and an increasingly militant anti-American and anti-Zionist world? The change in tone of the Arab world seen in the unambiguous article of a member of the Saudi Royal family – and a powerful intellect – in The Financial Times – suggest a turning of the tide. The Arab street is a reality. It is angry and getting angrier with each passing day. It is unemployed. It is poverty stricken but Al Jazzera with a 140 million viewers reaches them. A stooge like Mahmoud Abbas is a ghost and his power is eviscerated. He too was in Davos and his speech like that of Karzai was written by his American touts. The Israeli leadership sounded out Bush (whose administration turned them down) for overflying Iraq to bomb Iran ’s nuclear facilities.

It appeared in The New York Times. They were turned down by the Bush cabal not because of humanitarian reasons but because they understood for once the far-reaching consequences. You will also recall H. Clinton current mistress of State Department had the gall to proclaim that she would obliterate Iran during her electoral jousts. It is not the moment to discuss the implications of that projected genocidal act. The position of Bush and Obama on the attack against Iran are identical.

Iran has made it clear that it intends to pursue nuclear enrichment for civilian purposes and Russia will complete this year the building of the nuclear facility at Bukwear. In chess, it is not sufficient to decide what your is but to foresee that of your opponent . Let me proceed to a no less significant flashpoint. The relationship between China and the USA which have scaled new heights of trade tensions despite the mellifluous babbling to the contrary.. Protectionism or call it economic nationalism if you prefer in a multiplicity of guises is omnipresent. And that I shall deal with presently.

China and the US

Before I proceed, however, to examine whether mounting trade and payment tensions could lead to a deadly military confrontation we should remind ourselves of the nature of the trade rivalries and weapons deployed in those economic wars in the thirties. The speech of the Chinese president lambasting the United in Davos , as did Putin, is indicative of the drift of economic war. Davos is the pivot of globalization. It is the cockpit of corporate power, of world leaders and aspiring leaders. Davos underlined the penurious fragility of financial institutions once regarded as the bedrock of the system.

Words as stability and confidence have been wiped out from their slate. The debacle of U B S and of The City and the ongoing tremours in Wall Street , matched by such spectacular swindlers as Madoff and Stanford The anger can no longer be dissimulated nor more than it can be concealed in the mass labour demonstrations in Paris and all French cities and in the neo-colony of Guadeloupe. The tensions are mounting. They go beyond beggar-my-neighbour policies first created by Joan Robinson of Cambridge University in the thirties’.

No where was the nature of these conflicts more clearly delineated than by Sir Percy Bates, chairman of the Cunard Steamship Company (April 1935) at a moment when the Great Depression raged. Its relevance to our times is all too obvious:

“We are going through a war…The arms that are being employed are not battleships, armies, aircraft, but tariffs, quotas and currencies. No international monetary standard is recognized, and every time that a tariff, quota or a currency varies, one is confronted with a manoeuvre, a hostile manoeuvre, a war manoeuvre. The worst of all is the reluctance to admit officially the existence of a state of war.”

Capitalism as the present crisis lumbers on is no longer able clamber out of its defstag pit. A predicament that worsens by the hour. The war for world markets and market shares continues at an undiminished tempo. This is mirrored in the relative economic performance of the United States and China that has become the hub of world manufacturing. The USCO in contrast is caught in the throes of the dis-accumulation of capital and a rapidly wilting industrial base. As in the U K, its once mighty industrial base has been hollowed out. Let us cast a glance at these numbers to grasp their divergences and which highlights the tensions that could lead to war.

8. What the numbers say: These comparative figures are indicative. Recall that China has now shoved aside Germany in world GDP rating tables to become the third world largest country. Preceded by Japan and the USA . With the crumbling of indebted Japanese capitalism hovering at zero growth rates it is set to shovel Japan into the backwaters of history. Let us deal first with some of the major indicators (2008) of the USA and compare them with China :

USA : G D P (0.9%); Trade Balance ( -$833bn); Current Account Balance ( -$697bn); Industrial production ( -7.8%)

CHINA : GDP (9.1%) ; T B ( + $295BN); C A B ($371bn.);)+ I P (5.7%)

These numbers highlight their mounting economic disparities. I must confess at this point that I am not sure that in the near future the abyss will ever be bridged Let us focus simply on the foreign trade sector. U S. imports are growing faster than its exports. The US capitalism is in a downward deflationary spiral that bears similarities with Japan ’s so-called ‘lost decade’ in the 1980s.. True, China ’s growth is adversely affected by the world slump, but it is growing several times faster than the US . Compound growth rates are at once constructive and destructive forces . This is a point you’ll recall that I noted in my discussion of the US balance of payments in my book on Cuba and I would suggest that you consult that section again. The ratio of its imports to its exports is about 1:5

That gap is unbridgeable.. Hence the USCO must borrow to finance its imports. Borrowing is debt. And debt must be repaid at compound interest rates or defaulted.. China recycles its trade surplus by buying US securities and Treasury bonds. This is a familiar story. Whether the Chinese political elite will continue to recycle their foreign exchange earnings to prop up US deficits remains problematical.

American capitalism has been the world’;/s biggest debtor for more than two decades. Its biggest lender is China . The size of the figures are important. China ’s almost $2,000 bn in foreign exchange reserves are the world’s largest. Much of these reserves are being directed to the purchase of U S Treasuries. ` According to the estimates of Brad Selser the real figure is nearer $2,300bn.. or equivalent to $1,600 for every Chinese citizen.

Of this sum about $1,700bn is invested in dollar assets, making China the biggest creditor of American capitalism and the single largest purchaser of US Treasury bonds. It is entirely addicted and dependent on Chinese money. Never in its history has the USCO been so dependent on any foreign creditor. The opposition within the leading echelons of China’s power elite are aware that such massive capital flows going to a stricken economy, that is in the throes of an ever deepening crisis and with low-yielding dollar assets, is perilous. China has already lost billions And this is so given the depreciating dollar stemming from its rising level of indebtedness, low savings, zero interest rates and a GDP that hovers around zero . Without this avalanche of Chinese money the USCO would not be able to pursue its militarist expansion abroad.

But what we can say is that the dollar’s status as the world’s reserve currency which has conferred extravagant power ( that was the designation of de Gaulle on US imperialism can obviously not endure. Chinese misgivings are present but they have made a pact with the devil and can do little to alter this state of affairs. “Except for US Treasuries what can you hold” asks Luo Ping, a director-general at the China Banking Regulatory Commission. “You don’t hold Japanese government bonds or UK bonds. US Treasuries are the safe haven. For everyone, including China , it is the only option”. This in my view is the tragedy of China ’s power elite presiding over a capitalist economy that has shed all pretences of being socialist.

It is deliberate policy choice that reveals its class and ideological alignments. They have already paid a terrible price for such a policy choice of being the savior and supreme benefactor of American capitalism. . With capitalism’s crisis now howling in its agony and the dollar’s continued slide the costs to the Chinese workers and peasants that the Chinese elite have long ceased to represent the losses to China rise to even greater heights. To put it in non-technical jargon the masters of China ’s money box has so much money that it does not know where to invest that money save in wretchedly low yielding US Treasuries.

The battle over exchange rates is fought on the killing fields of foreign exchange markets.

The Big Mac Index

To understand, in my view why there can be no amicable resolution of the Sino-American trade war and rivalry it is well that we should say a few words on the nature of foreign exchange markets. That is where money is bought and sold and is the object of ferocious speculation on international markets. Money we must not forget is the commodity of commodities . It is the King of commodities. The market on which these money transactions are carried out is the Forex market.

In a very illuminating but non-technical language we perceive that the index of The Economist is based on the idea of purchasing power parity (PPP). This says that currencies should trade at a the rate that makes the price of goods the same in all countries. The Big Mac that costs $3.54 cents in the USA becomes the benchmark for evaluating whether another currency is under-valued or over-valued.

In China , the price of the Big Mac is $1.83. Thus it is 40% cheaper. In Switzerland ( we use foreign exchange rates prevailing on a specific date) $5.75 i.e. it is 60% higher. This is the crude test of undervaluation or overvaluation. Hence the conclusion we draw – (and I repeat that this is not only the basis of comparison for measuring foreign exchange disparities but it is certainly the simplest and the most ingenious) is that China’s Renminbi or Yuan is 40% higher than the Greenback which gives supposedly gives it an export trade advantage by the calculus of the US Treasury .The U S government has already imposed tariffs on China, and accuses it of currency manipulation. A charge that we hear with a grain of salt given the fact that US government and all its works has never been a custodian of morality. .

The problem of China ’s competitive advantage goes of course beyond foreign exchange rates . Comparative wage labour rates are no less important. China ’s wage rate in manufacturing is 10% that of the US rate. But we are not only dealing with a disparity in labour costs. Let us add that China ’s industrial productivity has been remarkable .

China as you are aware is present in all world markets and its foreign trade and direct investment has rocketed in the last decade strikingly so in Latin America and Africa, Australia all Asian markets ,not to speak of Russia . A single example clinches what I am saying. The Chinese/Venezuelan economic development fund will now double from $6bn to $12bn in just over a year. The role of the USCO, the European Union and Japan are of peripheral importance in Venezuela . The conquest of world markets and market share is continuing at unstoppable speeds. The leading ten capitalist countries are already in recession. Let there be no ambiguity on this score. The goal of China ’s policy makers and their capitalists is market aggrandizement .

Dynamics of Overproduction .

One of the traits of the current defstag, and I don’t exaggerate when I use that word, means that there are too many goods chasing too few buyers, too much money chasing too few profitable investment outlays, too many workers chasing too few jobs; too many banks chasing too few impoverished savers and depositors. etc. This is true not only of capitalism’s current cyclical slump but applies to all facets of the crisis. The essence of the crisis of capitalism is overproduction. Or over-accumulation.

What is overproduction? What are its properties? At what stage in the cycle of capital-accumulation does it emerge? What is its cyclical duration? What is its role in capitalism’s business cycle? Milton Friedman , one of the major propagandists of free market fundamentalism and a vulgar apologist of capitalism , put this succinctly when he shoved aside the nostrum of social responsibility on the part of the capitalist: “ a company’s only responsibility is to increase profits for shareholders”. Capitalism defines the relationship between a possessing / exploiting class whose incomes are profits, dividends and rents, and an exploited propertyless class whose income is wages.

It defines the relationship between the oppressor and the oppressed. Hence capitalism’s overriding objective, its alpha and omega, and the masters of capital is not the provision of goods and services to the workers it exploits. That is a surface phenomenon. That is a fetishism. The goal of capital accumulation is to expand and ensure an ever rising mass of profits for a class of propertied owners. The overriding goal is profit and profit maximization. Overproduction is thus not an aberration of the system but inherent in its operation. And this goes back to the beginnings of capitalism’s first Great Depression of 1873, as noted by the Royal Commissioners in their final report. in words that are superbly relevant to the crash of 1929 and our present slump.:

“We think that…over-production has been one of the most prominent features of the course of trade during recent years; and that the depression under which we are now suffering may be partially explained by this fact….The remarkable feature of the present situation, and that which in our opinion distinguishes it from all previous periods of depression, is the length of time during which this over-production has continued …We are satisfied that in recent years, and more particularly in the years during which the depression of trade has prevailed , the production of commodities generally, and the accumulation of capital in this country, have been proceeding at a rate more rapid than the increase of population.”

The insight of these findings underscore not merely the nature , genesis and rationale of the business cycle that we shall explore in subsequent lectures , but its relevance and kinship to other great depressions that have devastated world capitalism such as the Great Depression of 1929 and the current economic depression we are now traversing. What it is important to recall are the consequences of that great depression that lasted , with its rises and falls, until the start of the 1890s.

The Emergence of Monopoly and Its Implications

Capitalism and its class rule is a system driven by competition. This is true at all phases of its growth. The period from 1873 to 1914 that ushered in the great carnage saw the structural changes in capitalism from its competitive to monopolistic phase. Competition kills competition. Or , as Marx would have said, one capitalist kills another capitalist. The Great Depression gave a spur to the concentration and centralization of capital that Marx had analyzed with such trenchancy. It saw the rise of the Trust and the Cartels. The names of Rockefeller, Buchanan – the tobacco king, Krupp, Vanderbilt , Morgan, Carnegie epitomized the face of capital.

These were not simply what President Theodore Roosevelt called ‘the malefactors of Great Wealth’. This was the new phase of monopolistic capitalism stemming from accelerated competition within and between nation states , and the falling rate of profit. More and more competition led to excess capacity and its corollary cut-throat prices, a drop in wholesale and retail prices descriptive of the deflationary stage. This opened the belligerent quest for privileged spheres of investment and foreign trade. Monopolistic capitalism fuelled the drive to imperialism.

The period opened the floodgates to what George Bernard Shaw called ,at the time of the Boer War, the age of The Merchants of Death. You will recall what President Eisenhower in his Farewell address called the Military/Industrial Complex. and what generated an enormous body of literature. The formulas was novel but its substance was not.. The reality of this phenomenon was vigorously present in its concentrated form in the decades leading up to the Great War. Arms manufacturers as Krupp and Siemens and Mercedes Benz in Germany , Vickers-Armstrong and Rolls Royce in the U K , Creusot-Schneider in France and Mitsubishi in Japan symbolized the linkages of the Merchants of Death and State Power. Almost 70% of all the artillery pieces and shells used by the Kaiser’s army, not to speak of the steel that went to the massive build up of the German Navy since 1890, were produced by Krupp. The House of Krupp became enmeshed with the Hohenzollerns through ties of marriage. Such was the muscle of imperialist matrimonial interconnectivity.

Drive to Colonial Expansion

I have explored this process in much greater detail in my work on The Rise and Fall of Economic Liberalism. During the 1870s and 1880s and after five million square miles of African territory, with populations exceeding 60 millions were grabbed and subjected to European imperial rule. In Asia ,during the same decade, the U K annexed Burma and brought under its control the Malay peninsula and Baluchistan . France began the breakup of China by annexing Annam and Tonkin . The industrial tycoon and parliamentarian, Joseph Chamberlain called for protectionism at home as well as “to create new markets “ abroad. He raised his glass to the simultaneous toast of: “Commerce and Empire, because, gentlemen, the Empire, to parody a celebrated expression is Commerce.” This is the meshing of Big Capital and Big bourgeois politics. The battles of imperialism were leading to conflict and war. Chamberlain again in a speech before the Birmingham Chamber of Commerce in 1896 he noted:

“If we had remained passive …the largest part of the African continent would have remained occupied by our commercial rivals…Through our colonial policy as soon as we acquire and develop a territory, we develop it as the agents of civilization, for the growth of world trade”.

Note the terminology. The rape and pillage of Africa and colonial conquests were rationalized in the name of civilization or ‘la mission civilisatrice ’ and the French called it. For the colonizers and the colonized words have different meanings or as Ho Chi Minh (1890-1969) declared: “you can always spit in the face of the colonialists and they’ll call it rain.” Imperialism has pursued its policies using the same labels in the ensuing decades. In our time the US conquest of Afghanistan is labeled ‘Enduring Freedom’.

What we witnessed at the end of the 19th century was the expansion and clash of national capitalisms. This is how it was propounded by Cecil Rhodes, one of the leading architects of British imperialism in Africa :

“I was in the East End of London yesterday and attended a meeting of the unemployed. I listened to the wild speeches, which were just a cry for ‘bread’, ‘bread’, and on my way home I pondered over the scene and became more than ever convinced of the importance of imperialism…My cherished idea is a solution for the social problem ,i.e., in order to save the 40 million inhabitants of the United Kingdom from a bloody civil war, we colonial statesmen must acquire new lands for settling the surplus population, to provide new market for the goods produced in the factories and the mines. The Empire, as I have always said, is a bread and butter question. If you want to avoid civil war, you must become imperialists.”

By ‘ solution’ of the civil war he meant the class war between capitalists and workers, the exploiters and the exploited spawning socialist revolutions. Cecil Rhodes (1853-1902) incarnated the racist and expansionist thrusts of imperil conquest as well as the inter-dependence of the State and British capitalism. By its very essence imperialism was the quintessence of racialism.

“ We must find new lands from which we can easily obtain raw materials and at the same time exploit the slave(sic) labour that is available from the natives of the colonies. I contend that we are the first race in the world , and that the more of the world we inhabit the better it is for the human race… If there be a God, I think that what he would like me to do is paint as much of the map of Africa British Red as possible.”

Let me add as a footnote that the statement was made in 1896 , the same year that the Durand Line was drawn by the British Raj that demarcated the 2,300 kms frontier of British India [ now Pakistan ] and Afghanistan . Political power and colonial conquest moved in easy concert. Rhodes was Prime Minister of the Cape colony, and Managing Director of the British South Africa Company. A reportage of The Times noted that there was hardly a single member of Parliament that were not stockholders in his company. Nor is this surprising given the congenial rapport between the political elite and the business elite and the luscious pickings that were available. It was the interconnectivity of one hand scratching another. He had become one of the biggest tycoons of all times, with Chamberlain one of his most powerful political backers. . He was the founder of De Beers ( backed with the funds of Lord Rothschild) which, at its zenith, marketed around 90% of the world’s rough diamonds.

Success depended on ‘law and order’ and on ‘slave labour, ’ as he called it, that marched hand in hand with the mass expropriation of African land A process that had the legal backing of the Glen Grey Act of which understandably he was one of the drafters. Indeed, in the imperial order of things the borderline between slave labour and free labour was always fuzzy, point that Rhodes readily grasped. The expansionist drives of Rhodes and his cronies in the Colonial Office was the major catalyst of the Boer War (1899-1902).

Historical processes cannot be abstracted from the role of the individual in history and its major actors. It’s for this reason that I have singled merely the British Empire and three of its major statesmen: Cecil Rhodes, Joseph Chamberlain (1836-1914) and Lloyd George (1862-1945) in the shaping of British imperialism, one of the most obnoxious and criminal constructs of all times, that incubated, with its other imperial accomplices, the Holocaust that was the Great War.

Suffice it to say that imperialism and all of its projects, designs and expansionists blueprints were inseparable from racial oppression. And indeed many of you will recall the Nazi-like branding of the Chinese people by Lord Curzon (1912) as “a moribund and decadent race”. That coming from a country that imposed the Opium trade on the quasi-colonial Chinese empire. Imperialism was the Godfather of imperialism and you have not forgotten Hitler’s great admiration for British rule in India articulated once again the eve of his war against the Sov iet Union .. “The Soviet Union ”, he declared,. “will become our India ”.

The trio exhibited par excellence the meshing of business, politics and the imperial drive for conquests. Chamberlain’s family was the founder of one of the largest machine tool factories in the U K producing around 75% of the country’s metallic screws. As the master of the Colonial Office, which opened up for him the mightiest of personal El Dorado’s, he used his portfolio to push British business interests into every corner of the planet and that of course embraced his firm’s products. This was the perfect example of the case of State power being dovetailed to interests of individual capitalists.

Chamberlain was an intimate friend and business associate of Rhodes and hence their uninhibited racialism ran on parallel lines conferring an ideological coherence to the British ruling class. This reminds me of a portrait I saw a long time ago in the National Gallery that showed Queen Victoria presenting a bible to a kneeling half-naked African chief. The lashes of imperial rule were supposedly mitigated by the balms of Christianity. As George Bernard Shaw once said, colonialists picked the pockets of the Blacks, gave them a few rags to cover their nakedness, and then sent missionaries to reduce them to Christianity.

“I believe that the British race” Chamberlain boasted, “is the greatest of the governing races that the world has ever seen…It is not enough to occupy great spaces unless you can make the best of them. It is the duty of the landlord to develop his estate.” The inference was all too apparent: since the British Empire was the world’s biggest landlord it required the cheap undifferentiated labour of its colonial subjects to work for the prosperity and profits of the superior race of white masters.

His fanatic pursuit to intensify the exploitation of Africa (and Asia as well) , earned him the sobriquet of Joseph Africanus. The promise of the superior imperial race that the untrammeled rape of the colonial peoples would, – the mechanism of how this was to be achieved was never spelt out – trickle down to British working peoples proved to be one of the supreme hoaxes in the history of British capitalism.

To be sure, the mega-profits gouged from subsistence labour power was ‘mouth-watering’ as many apparatchiks of the Colonial Office boasted, but few were the crumbs that drifted into the bellies of the British workers. Writing in his War Memoirs (Vol.1 1933), at the apex of another great economic collapse, Lloyd George found no need for persiflage glimpsed in his depiction of the phony ‘social peace’ of the Edwardian epoch.

“It was becoming evident to discerning eyes that the Party and the Parliamentary system were unequal to the task of coping with grave issues rapidly becoming graver…The shadow of unemployment was rising ominously above the horizon. Our international rivals were forging ahead at a great rate and jeopardizing our hold on the markets of the world. There was an arrest of that expansion of our trade of an earlier epoch…our working population, crushed into dingy and mean streets with no assurance that they would not be deprived of their daily bread by ill-health or trade fluctuations, were becoming sullen with discontent.”

What is this last sentence other than the unacknowledged lingo of the class war.? Lloyd George was never a radical. Despite his anodyne welfare state reforms( based on the Bismarck Ian model) that even earned him the plaudits of the Kaiser he was wedded, like the vicious anti-labour repressionists of the German ruling class, to the perpetuation of the existing social property order, the arms race and imperialist expansion abroad. He became one of the most virulent proponents of empire matched by his no less vociferous support for the Great War.

Lloyd George, a tireless war monger, not only fanned the flames of war, but was one of the most unbendable advocates (like his close crony Winston Churchill) of military intervention (1918-21) of the Russian revolution. Which true to form he caricatured as ‘the greatest scourge that has ever afflicted humanity’. We are not concerned to examine the sheer stupidity of that utterance but merely to remark that it came from a paramount politico that was one of the leading criminal instigators that engineered the grimmest mass slaughter that humanity had ever witnessed. A remark emanating from a criminal who according to the diary of his wife “who insisted on reserving the right, as David puts it, to bomb niggers.”[1]

In large measure a war against an emergent state that unique among members of the Second International (1889-1916) that opposed the war and whose rallying cry was : Bread and Peace. A ruthless war of intervention (a term coined by the British Foreign Office) that cost millions of lives (in addition to that of Great War) with famines and its horrendous political sequels. The British government, and recall that he was Prime Minister, bankrolled 70% of the cost of this intervention.

His blood gurgling cry: “kill them, ill them now” was symptomatic not merely of the man and his class but of the direction of imperialism.” “I shall always remain an implacable enemy of the Bolsheviks up to the end of my life” A promise kept but which , not surprisingly, finds no mention in his War Memoirs.

The wars for conquest of world markets and their repercussions were stated with terrible clarity by The Saturday Review (1897) premonitory of things to come,. tantamount to a declaration of war. It took economic and political analysis one giant step forward in contrast to the hollowed out constructs of Marshalian economics and the waffling of Fabian thinking:

“Is there a mine to exploit, a railway to build, a native to be converted from breadfruit to tinned meat the German and the Englishman are struggling to be first. A million petty disputes build-up the greater cause of war the world has ever seen. If Germany were extinguished tomorrow, the day after tomorrow there is not an Englishman in the world who would not be richer. Nations have fought for years over a city or a right of succession; must they not fight for two hundred and fifty million pounds sterling of yearly commerce”?

Prophetic it was and indeed just 17 years, and 40 million butchered, were needed to test the validity of this blood-drenched belligerent utterance. Within the land of The Saturday Review , whose cataclysmic outcome was utterly inconceivable, 6 million out of 10 million were conscripted; around 750,000 killed; 1.7 million wounded; 160,000 wives lost their husbands; 300,000 children lost their fathers. On the ideological front The Great War had wiped out the vestiges of laisser-faire and economic liberalism.

The Encroaching Net

The headlong drive that pushed the European powers to imperialist conquests was no less true for the United States and Japan . Imperialism is therefore the ultimate globalization of capital accumulation on a world scale in its moment of crisis and upheaval. Since the Meiji Restoration (1868), indeed in just three decades, Japanese capitalism had surged at a dazzling tempo into a vigorous industrial and world trading nation unrelentingly pursuing overseas expansion and colonial conquests. In Japan , the big trading corporations such as Mitsubishi, Mitsui, Itoh, Marubeni, Sumitomo and others, collectively known as the Zaibatsus, with their trading arms the Soga Shoshas, were metamorphosed into the leading echelons of Japanese imperialism.

Together with the military (the gumbatsu) they became the spearhead of colonial expansion with the occupation of Formosa that plunged Japan into the orbit of imperialism. In 1895, this was followed by the conquest of Korea and the invasion of southern Manchuria . The stage was set for yet another imperialist war between Czarist Russia and Japan , culminating in Russia ’s crushing defeat in 1905 in the Battle of Tsushima Bay and the grabbing of Sakhalin . We might add in parenthesis that this defeat spawned the Russian Revolution (1905), that shaped subsequent events. Historically significant, as you observe, was the bunching of events. The re-division of colonies, quasi-colonies and spheres of influence were now being settled by wars of ballooning intensity.

A mightier but still embryonic imperial force had now staked its claims to the cornucopia of empire. “This is our Manifest Destiny”, boasted Theodore Roosevelt. “We are now a world power and the glory of our race and nation have not reached the end of our road, and we must push on”. The effete and inglorious Spanish Empire , that had endured for 500 years ,was busted in 1898 – a venture completed in a couple of weeks – with the grabbing of its colonies, notably its crown jewels Cuba and the Philippines. This marked a further phase in the re-division of the world market that brought the approaching Armageddon one step closer.

The Versailles Treaty

The end of the Great War was not the “war to end all wars” as Woodrow Wilson fatuously declared. The yearnings of a return to an imagined normality by laisser faire nostalgics were dashed. It signaled not the end of imperialism but its escalation to yet higher and more destructive phases with Fascism its most racialist and politico-economic format. After Versailles (1919) the world map was given the chop.. The Habsburgs, the Romanovs, the Hohenzollerns and the Ottomans were bulldozed into the ditch of history. Germany was now a vanquished nation stripped of Alsace Lorraine and its colonies. Of crucial militaro/industrial strategic importance , however, was that the unreconstructed bureaucracy, its financial and militarist establishment and the powerful national bourgeoisie – the central components of class rule – were still intact.

A revolutionary Russia , whose leadership had resolutely opposed the war turned the war into a battering ram for an assault on the Tsarist autocracy. In so doing, it severed its links with imperialism and the national chauvinism of social democracy and oriented its thrust to the building of a socialist order , and the obliteration of the colonial/capitalist/ imperialist survivals. Clemenceau encapsulated the tragic moment of truth when he lugubriously confessed: “We have won the war but we are broke.” The older surviving colonial empires , France and the U K, were bled white thrashing on the brink of financial bankruptcy. Their foreign exchange and gold reserves were deployed to pay for the war. In addition they were now confronted with rising labour agitation on the domestic front , and sustained mass rebellions in India and Indochina , their two greatest colonial crown jewels.

Thorstein Veblen and John Maynard Keynes .

Lloyd George may not have said that “we shall squeeze the German lemon until the pips squeak” but what he did say was similar to what ‘Tiger’ Clemenceau was thinking: “We must have the uttermost farthing, and we shall search their pockets for it.” The question of reparations to be gouged from Weimar Germany was one of the burning issues of international relations and imperialist bickering. It was here that John Maynard Keynes (1883-1946) acquired international celebrity by his opposition to the provisions of the Treaty in The Economic Consequences of the Peace (1919) that focused on the implications of reparations.

I shall deal at this point with one of the most effective counterblasts to J M Ks pamphlet that came from an American academic whose very short book review appeared in an obscure American publication in 1920. In but three pages Thorstein Veblen ( (1857-1929) hammered home the point that J M K (who participated at the Paris Conference as a member of the British delegation) had sedulously avoided the central issue of the Treaty.

Before I proceed, however, let me add that Veblen was an acute theorist and observer of American capitalism during the Gilded Age of the Robber Barons ( (1890-1914). At no point however was he an active adversary of the. system. He never believed that an alternative project in class and property relations was feasible. In that sense, he was never a radical. Nor did he condemn the rapacities of the American empire notably those committed by such colonial-predator politicos as Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson in the Americas . Nor did he support the struggle for the emancipation of the American negro as the militant young scholar Du Bois was doing.

Nor for that matter did he publicly manifest any sympathies for the American socialist movement under the leadership of Eugene Debs. He was a rebel to be sure. What I have said is not to demean his stature as a thinker and his contribution to American letters and economics. The Great War, as with many others,pushed him into a sharper and more questioning mode of thought, and the same was true of Keynes. It was a catalyst that occurred in the autumn of his life. In that review published in The Political Science Quarterly (1920), a year after the publication of J M Ks pamphlet, he luminously saw what was the reality that the Treaty had concealed that Keynes had ignored. It was an inspired piece of criticism drafted at a moment when the corrupt and war enriched USCO had plunged into the apoplexy of anti-progressive and anti-Bolshevik hysteria.

In his impressionistic overview The Treaty (which he always capitalized) was the antithesis of democracy and nothing more than a screen of ‘diplomatic verbiage’ It brings to mind Jacques Attali’s description of the Davos World Economic Forum as ‘le bavardage’. Behind the ‘verbiage’ however was the unseen butcher’s knife of the imperialist victors. It was the screen alright in what Veblen called sarcastically ‘the Elder Statesmen of the Great Powers’ who, in his view, continued “their pursuit of political chicanery and imperialist aggrandizement”. In so doing, Veblen brought imperialism’s reality into the epicenter of international relations.

The onus of Keynes’s criticism was The Treaty’s adverse contractionary impact on Germany ’s output, employment and consumers’ effective demand. This in Veblen view was the shadow and not the substance. It ignored the far wider geo-strategic and political and ideological consequences that were in play. By the spring of 1919, when The Treaty negotiations had struck their grand climacteric, the War of Intervention to destroy the Russian revolution was also at its highest pitch. The Bolsheviks were battling the armies of 21 nations in addition to the white forces led by Generals Kolchak (1874-1920), Wrangel (1878-1928). Kornilov (1870-1918), Denikin (1872-1947).

Veblen made the incisive point that revealed the cutting-edge of his reasoning. “But for all their vulpine secrecy, the temper and purpose of that hidden conclave of political hucksters were already becoming evident to outsiders a year ago…The Treaty is therefore designed to indicate that the most binding provision of The Treaty ( and of The League) is an unrecorded clause by the governments of the great powers that are banded together for the suppression of Soviet Russia…” Note his stylistic mutation. No longer are they referred to deferentially as The Elder Statesmen but as a bunch of hucksters.

Such a forthright analysis required a great deal of moral fortitude at a time when more than nine-tenths of American academics were quivering in their cloisters , hunkered down under the whip lash of a brutal police state in everything but name. Veblen was one of the very rare voices, another was Lincoln Steffens, who saw the onslaughts against the emergent socialist country as one of the greatest mistakes and injustices of all times. Central to his critique was that Keynes was blinkered in failing to perceive that the Conclave’s goal was the destruction of Bolshevism that shaped the design of The Treaty. Anti-Bolshevism and the preservation of the status quo ante was the cementing force that united Wilson, Clemenceau and Lloyd George. Orlando, the Italian, had been shunted off to the sidelines with Lloyd George derisively depicting him as “as a morsel of mouldy spaghetti.”.

In demolishing the constructs of Keynes , a life long anti-Soviet and anti-communist, Veblen did not fail to draw the inference that the Bolshevik/ imperialist confrontation had now become a war to the death. It therefore followed, then, “that Bolshevism is a menace to absentee ownership. At the same time, the present economic and social order rests on absentee ownership.” Absentee ownership was nothing more than a euphemism to describe the capitalist mode of production, distribution and exchange. He also saw that Keynes had deliberately omitted the central role assigned to a resurgent Germany as the battering ram of the counter-revolution.

Veblen was of course wrong in stating that ‘the hucksters’ were waging a surreptitious war against a resurgent Russia . By the end of 1917, it was a covert war deploying vast armies. The Whites were even contemptuously labeled by Lloyd George, Churchill, the Foreign office as ‘our mercenaries’. Bolshevism and the revolutionary labour movements that surfaced during the Second International (1889-1916) were not historic aberrations. They were the outgrowths of capitalism’s convulsions and crises.

Veblen was surely not oblivious that Rosa Luxembourg (1871-1919) and Karl Liebknecht (1871-1919), the two legendary German social democrats were hostile to the war for which they paid the ultimate price. They were arrested and murdered by right wing militarists of the Reichswehr. As was the German social democratic leader Leo Jogiches (1867-1919). The year 1919 is a pivotal year in the history of social democracy, The Treaty and imperialism.

It was the end of an ignoble chapter in the history of social democracy battered in a sea of social chauvinism and opportunism. And the opening chapter of Fascism as the savior of Big Capital and the established order. Soviet Russia, soon to be re-baptized the Soviet Union, and Germany had now become the pivotal actors in the historic drama now unfolding : the former casting its revolutionary reach across the planet; the latter the chosen bulwark of counter-revolution.

In Adolf Hitler and the Nazi party, what Veblen’s ‘hucksters’ of Versailles were seeking had made its appearance as a benediction. In 1932, the Fuhrer addressing his S S Praetorian Guard roared that “the streets of our country are in turmoil. The universities are filled with students and rioting. Communists are seeking to destroy our country. The Soviet Union is threatening us with her might and the republic is in danger. Yes, danger from within and without. We need law and order.”[2] This was Veblen’s vision but he did not live to see its purgatorial crystallization.

Frederic F. Clairmont is a prominent Canadian academic and researcher who for many years was a permanent senior economics affairs officer at the United Nations Economics Commission for Africa and the United Nations Conference for Trade and Development (UNCTAD).

He taught at the University of Kings College and Dalhousie University in Nova Scotia. His classic work is The Rise and Fall of Economic Liberalism and his latest book is: Cuba and Venezuela: The Nemeses of Imperialism published by Citizens International in Penang, Malaysia. He is a a frequent contributor  to Le Monde Diplomatique and The Economic and Political Weekly.

Are you ready to die? You and I are going to die and not from old age, because our fellow Americans are brainwashed that the dumbshits believe all of the lies that are leading us to our certain destruction.  This is what the Atomic Scientists tell us. And they are right. 

Can you comprehend the absurdity? President Trump is under full-scale attack from the military/security complex, the US presstitute media, the Democratic Party, and from many Republicans, such as Republican Senator from South Carolina Lindsey Graham and Republican Senator from Arizona John McCain simply because President Trump wants to reduce the dangerous tensions between the two major nuclear powers.  

What explains the total lack of concern for their own lives on the part of the populations in South Carolina and Arizona who send to the Senate and keep sending to the Senate two morons determined to provoke war between the US and Russia?  

It should send shivers up your spine that you can ask this same question about all 50 states, and almost all congressional districts.

You can ask the same question about the bordello known as “the American media.” There will be no one alive to post or to read the headlines of the war that they are helping to promote.

The United States and the rest of the world with it along with all life on earth are being sent to their graves by the total failure of American leadership.

What is wrong with Americans that they cannot understand that any “leader” who provokes war with a major nuclear power should be instantly institutionalized as totally insane?

Why do the dumbshit Americans sit night after night in front of the TV absorbing lies that commit them beyond all doubt to their deaths?

America has failed itself and the world.

Featured image: A photo of a massive Antofagasta open pit copper mine in Chile. The tiny black dots are the massive ore trucks (approximating the size of a  two story house) that are used to bring the sulfide ore to the surface where it is first ground up into fine powder in a processing plant, thus eventually exposing all of the previously unexposed toxic metallic sulfides to oxygen and water and thus, inevitably, leading to the production of sulfuric acid which then poisons everything downstream.  (Also note the typical residue of toxic aerosolized chemtrails that have been recently sprayed in the sky above the Chilean desert.) (Source: D. Gary G Kohls)

“ALL tailings “ponds” are problems. If they don’t breach and spill massive amounts of toxic sludge into the environment like at Mount Polley, they leach that contamination slowly, poisoning the waters and lands around them.”

http://canadians.org/blog/update-mount-polley-mine-disaster-imperial-metals-and-government-focus-covering-instead

“It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it!” – Upton Sinclair, anti-fascist, anti-imperialist American author (1935)

“I am quite sure that PolyMet supporter, Minnesota Congressman Rick Nolan, would be as reluctant to push for a copper/nickel/sulfide mine near his home in Crosby, MN (whch is far away from the PolyMet project) as Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker would be if there were plans to build a stinking and ground water polluting mega-CAFO (Concentrated Animal Feeding Operation) hog farm near his home in Wauwatosa, WI – instead of in northern Wisconsin’s Bayfield County, where the Walker administration has been enabling such an operation.”

“There are a lot of under-employed iron range working class folks who naturally know that they will periodically experience the inevitable bust part of the boom-and-bust cycles that invariably happen in mining country, whether that economy depends on iron, taconite, copper, gold, coal, oil, uranium, or whatever. These workers are at the mercy of the mythical ‘invisible hand of the markets’ that are orchestrated by heartless, exploitive corporations that are by nature, selfish predatory businesses whose public relations propaganda firms and cunning lawyers lie when they claim to be ‘job creators’ that are interested in the common good. It is understandable that desperate people – especially the under-employed – do desperate things to survive; and economic instability naturally makes folks desperate. That needs to be understood.

“So it is natural for our iron range friends and neighbors further up north to want to believe that some entity will rescue them from the bust cycles. What also must be understood are the motivations of politicians from either major political party who will do whatever is necessary to obtain iron range votes in upcoming elections – or, in the case of coal country and Donald Trump, to falsely promise to bring back coal mining jobs. But resorting to unwise choices that desperate people can make, such decisions usually don’t work – like high-stakes casino gambling, investing in Ponzi scheme scams or voting for sociopathic, lying candidates who are controlled by Big Business. It is hard for anybody to be totally rational when confronted by hard economic choices.

“PolyMet and Twin Metals are the junior Canadian penny stock companies that are actually front groups for the major Swiss and Chilean parent mining corporations Glencore and Antofagasta. They have been propagandizing folks that are married to the iron range industries, to do what is not in the long-term best interest of their precious habitat, without wanting to understand the major downsides for the consequences of downstream communities. Those realities, which are taboo subjects for every corporate-controlled media outlet that depends on industry advertising, need to be exposed.

“And the biggest lie that must be exposed is the claim that modern copper/nickel sulfide (sulfuric acid-producing) mining technology – with its eternally toxic and highly polluting tailings lagoons can be done safely and cheaply, when the historical record tells us that safe copper/nickel/sulfide mining has never been done safely in the history of the world.”

For more information on those realities, see my column: “Rio Tinto: Still Polluting After All These Years”

“Every open-pit and underground sulfide mine in modern history – anywhere and everywhere in the world – has been toxic for the environment and deadly for its creatures, both animal and vegetable.” (Google ‘Copper Mining disasters across the world images’ to view hundreds of dramatic photos of such environmental catastrophes. And then google ‘Copper mining disasters across the world’ and read some of the 1,550,000 entries.)”

“We need to demand that we humans have the inalienable right to have access to affordable, healthy, uncontaminated water, food, soil, air, education, housing and health care and to be safe-guarded from greedy corporate predators whose job seems to be to extract our personal and communal wealth and resources wherever and whenever they can. The fate of our children, grandchildren and the sustainability of planet Earth depends on safe-guarding those rights and resources.”

“Slavery is the legal fiction that a person is property. Corporate personhood is the legal fiction that property is a person.” – Anonymous

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In 2010 the pro-corporate 5/4 United States Supreme Court decided, in the Citizens United vs. Federal Election Commission ruling that favored multimillionaire businessmen and their multinational corporations by making it easier for them to steal US elections by allowing unlimited, anonymous monetary contributions to political campaigns, political action groups and the many politicians who were then beholden to their “generous” corporate paymasters.

This ruling, called by many fair-minded observers as the “worst Supreme Court decision of the past century”, has emboldened the already powerful and corruptible corporations – that already have dominion over the economy and the media – to now also be able to thoroughly bribe any number of politicians to do their will and thus more effectively influence voters and obtain favorable legislation through multi-million dollar ad campaigns, campaigns that can’t be effectively countered by small contributions from average voters – who do not have unlimited financial resources.

The US Supreme Court has thus made legal the absurd notion that inanimate paper corporations like the penny stock and major mining companies mentioned in the sub-title above, should have the same privileges – but not the same responsibilities – as living humans, including exploitable miners whose lives and health have historically been adversely affected by the hazardous conditions in the mines – with suboptimal health benefits from the mining corporations if and when their health is ruined. Those foreign mining companies are potential despoilers of northern Minnesota’s irreplaceable wetlands, rivers, aquifers, lakes and aboriginal land and water rights. These threatened-with-extinction treasures include Lake Superior, the BWCA and Canada’s Quetico Provincial Park.

After the pro-corporate Citizen’s United ruling came down, there was only a brief, insincere bit of outrage from the so-called liberal wing (Democrats) of our essentially “one-party system” (one-party, that is, when it comes to the Republican and Democratic Party’s pro-corporate and pro-militarist agendas).

What Should be the Punishment for Corporate Entities That Plunder, Rape and Pillage?

But if corporate America has acquired new privileges with the Citizen’s United decision, shouldn’t it also be subject to the responsibilities of personhood as well?

Any thinking person would agree that if any entity enjoys the rights and privileges of a human being, it should also bear the same responsibilities. Therefore, shouldn’t it also bear the same punishments as a real person when it hurts other people, commits crimes, poisons the water, fouls the air or rapes the land? And when the threat to do harm is monumental, shouldn’t the whole speculative enterprise be tabled indefinitely?

One of the rare victories against corporate giants occurred at Shapleigh, Maine, when that town managed to protect their water rights from the insatiable water-extracting corporate giant Nestle, whose many bottled water brands includes Arrowhead, Calistoga, Deer Park, Ice Mountain, Ozarka, Poland Spring, Pure Life, and Zephyrhills. (Note: Be sure to consider boycotting them in protest. See video and more information on this episode here.

Multinational corporate exploiters have no allegiance to any state, municipality or location when they try to extract water or minerals that never were ethically theirs to begin with. But when the mines have played out and the aquifers, lakes, rivers, wild rice beds and downstream water have been fully polluted, PolyMet/Glencore, Twin Metals/Antofagasta will be long gone, which is standard operating procedure for giant resource-extractors and polluters like Exxon/Mobil, Shell, Chevron, British Petroleum, Halliburton, Deep Water Horizon, Rio Tinto, Kennecott, BHP Billiton, Nestle, Coca-Cola, Perrier or any of the thousands of other multinational corporate intruders, exploiters and their lobbyists who dupe media consumers (voters) and attempt to bribe legislators and subtly threaten the major media (with advertising revenue losses) and various opinion-leaders (with job insecurity) into allowing the extraction of the nation’s resources without giving back anything other than the thin promise of temporary jobs and the high likelihood of a permanently toxic wasteland that will be irremediable at any price.

Cui bono? (Who Benefits?)

Q: Who do you think benefits from the pollution and the permanent toxic scars on Mother Earth when the de-watering process at the bottom of the copper/nickel mines is stopped (ie when the open pit or underground mine plays out)? And who do you think will suffer the consequences connected to the ubiquitous tailings “ponds”, when they turn into toxic lakes containing water with a pH approximating stomach acid (2.0) that also contain metallic pollutants incompatible with life?

A: Why, of course, the major benefactors will be faceless investors, corporate shareholders and CEOs living and doing business at corporate headquarters far from the polluting mine and toxic water. And those that are left behind will be the ones to suffer the consequences of the corporations refusing to clean up the messes they leave behind.

It should be emphasized that any big corporation only has allegiance to its fellow co-investors, its executives and management teams. Corporations have no legal responsibility to the people whose lives and health depend on the usability and sustainability of the land, soil, water, air and food that will be extracted, depleted or poisoned when the inevitable economic bust comes around.

Corporate shareholders and executives from the trans-national corporations that make up Big Mining, Big Coal, Big Oil, Big Pharma, Big Food, Big Agribusiness, Big Finance, etc are primarily motivated by profits and not the common good – which is the major difference between corrupted capitalism and altruistic socialism. Therefore they are not really concerned about the struggling, soon-to-be degraded communities that are left behind to fend for themselves when the mines and the water play out.

“Trust us, We’re the Experts”; “Toxic Sludge is Good for You”; “We’ll Clean up After Ourselves” — and Other Corporate Lies

Conscienceless mega-corporations that swoop down on naïve and unsuspecting people and local governmental bodies, usually can convince the target group to “trust us, because we’re the experts”. They somehow get their future victims to believe that at some time in the uncertain future they will un-poison (remediate) the usually poisoned environment that they secretly intend to leave behind. Under-employed or laid-off workers, understandably desperate for jobs, are easily fooled into believing the well-crafted disinformational corporate talking points – until it is too late and the mess is no longer the corporation’s problem, but the taxpayers. It’s an old con.

Promises made by copper/nickel mining companies during the courtship phase of obtaining permits for their mines have historically been broken with impunity when those corporations pull out, merge with other protected entities or file for bankruptcy. Silver-tongued CEOs and their shyster lawyers are very good at getting their “marks” up north all starry-eyed over a relatively small number of temporary jobs while discounting the huge risks of permanent dead zones that will likely be created from the poisonous chemicals left behind in the eternally toxic tailings ponds that will most likely be forgotten about – until the neglected earthen dams dissolve in the inevitable torrential rains that are happening with breath-taking regularity in our current climate change crisis.

Sociopathy and the DSM: The Common Denominator Linking Both Human and Corporate Criminals, Neither One of Which Should be Trusted

There are a number of common denominators that link human criminals and the multinational corporations that are fixtures in the list of wealthiest – and often most predatory – multinational corporations (like WalMart, McDonald’s, Coca-Cola, Boeing, Dow Chemical, Chevron, Exxon/Mobil, du Pont, British Petroleum, Halliburton, Monsanto, Glencore, Rio Tinto, BHP Billiton, Merck, Pfizer, Proctor and Gamble, Nestle, Perrier, Nike, Goldman Sachs, J P Morgan Chase, BankAmerica, etc, etc).

For one, the corporations are just as afraid of facing the music as were the Ponzi scheme criminals like Bernie Madoff, Enron’s Ken Lay, Worldcom’s Bernard Ebbers, HealthSouth’s Richard Scrushy, Bayou Hedge Fund’s Samuel Israel, and the many other sociopathic multimillionaire scam artists. Be assured that such entities will use any means necessary to evade or delay justice. Tragically, corporate sociopaths often have the US White House, the US Congress, the US Supreme Court, the FBI and the major media on their side. Neither human or corporate sociopaths show any genuine remorse for the human suffering that their actions cause.

There are checklist diagnoses for various personality disorders in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manuel (DSM) – the billing bible and diagnostic manual for psychiatrists and other physicians who make psychiatric diagnoses. (Note: the DSM interestingly enough, contains no statistics.) One of the 374 disorders that is listed in the 4th edition is antisocial/sociopathic personality disorder (code number 301.7), which identifies pathological liars, chronic cheaters, criminal types, thieves and killers whose cunning and lack of morals, ethics or consciences enable them to scam their “marks” and generally avoid getting caught or punished for their crimes and misdeeds.

These sociopaths (aka “psychopaths”) typically refuse to accept blame or acknowledge any responsibility for their actions. They typically lie – even under oath – to generate interest in their schemes, to avoid prosecution and then they typically try to run away if their schemes fail and they attract the law.

Many corporate entities meet the definition of antisocial personality disorder. When cornered with the truth about their criminality in a court of law, it is common practice for them to accept the court’s typical slap on the wrist and then refuse to admit their guilt. (Learn more about corporate sociopathy here, especially by watching the 2003 Canadian documentary titled The Corporation here.)

Below are seven diagnostic criteria that are used to diagnose antisocial (aka, sociopathic or psychopathic) personality disorder in human entities (it only takes three of the seven to make the diagnosis for a human person):

1) callous disregard for the feelings of other people
2) incapacity to maintain human relationships
3) reckless disregard for the safety of others
4) aggressiveness
5) deceitfulness (repeated lying and conning others for profit)
6) incapacity to experience guilt and
7) failure to conform to social norms and respect for the law.

Other common traits manifested by sociopaths include:

Lack of conscience
Lack of remorse for evils done to others
Indifference to the suffering of its victims
Rationalizes (makes excuses for) having hurt, mistreated or stolen from others
Willingness to exploit, seduce or manipulate others
No sign of delusional or irrational thinking
Cunning, clever
Usually above average intelligence
Always looking for ways to make money or achieve fame or notoriety
Willing to cause or contribute to the financial ruin of others
Untrustworthy
Cannot be trusted to adhere to conventional standards of morality.

Sociopaths do not have delusional thinking and are not considered mentally ill. They know exactly what they are doing. Sociopaths are, for all intents and purposes, totally sane but are also essentially incurable of their disorder. These individuals make up at least 4% of the US population, although certain professions tend to attract larger percentages of them (read The Sociopath Next Door: The Ruthless Versus the Rest of Us, by Martha Stout, PhD and buy it here.)

Actually the exact number of sociopaths – humans or their corporate counterparts – is not precisely known, but, any entity that lacks a moral compass, lacks empathy, lacks a conscience or lacks the ability to truly feel guilty should be suspect. Because most sociopaths believe that there is nothing wrong with them, they rarely ask for help, especially when the laws (or the markets, in the case of corporate sociopaths) are on their side. Sociopaths never truly try to change. Both types are inveterate re-offenders.

If and when human sociopaths are court-ordered to submit to evaluation and “treatment”, they may feel forced to acquiesce to the order but typically will only pretend to change when the pressure is off and their unethical or criminal activities look doable again.

Academic psychologists tell us that attempts to rehabilitate full-fledged sociopaths are useless, but nonetheless, the typically seductive, charming, charismatic, silver-tongued “human” sociopath is often able to fool even the professional treatment team into thinking progress is being made in their “recovery”.

Similarly, sociopathic “inhuman” corporations don’t have much trouble seducing regulatory agencies, the media, the public and desperately underemployed workers by falsely promising jobs and a secret un-tested plan that supposedly prevent environmental catastrophes. Only when it is too late and the corporation has skipped town with the loot will all the painful realities be revealed.

How About Symbolically Tarring and Feathering Corporations When They Rape and Pillage?

Experienced psychologists tell us that sociopathic individuals that have committed crimes have to be locked up to protect society from being serially victimized.

So a number of questions need to be asked now that the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) has granted the privileges of personhood to corporations. Given the fact that human sociopaths need to be avoided, marginalized or even locked up because they are “cunning wolves in sheep’s clothing”, we need to ask what needs to be done with the corporations that also meet the criteria.

What needs to be done with the many conscienceless corporations that have a history of predatory lending, false advertising, over-charging, trying to achieve monopoly status, deceiving the public, lying, cheating, poisoning the water, fouling the air, raping the land or otherwise acting unethically?

Given the anti-constitutional Citizen’s United ruling granting personhood to inanimate corporations, shouldn’t they be dealt with just like their human counterparts when they deceive and hurt a lot of people or their habitat?

Shouldn’t long prison sentences be given to the CEOs, Boards of Director, corporate lawyers, PR firms and management teams? Shouldn’t there be confiscation of property or even corporate capital punishment in the case of egregious cases that involve mass deaths such as in the case of Merck’s Vioxx and Gardisil deaths and disabilities?

I hasten to add that I am against capital punishment for humans, but any person with more than a double digit IQ knows that corporations are not really human, despite what the Supreme Court said in 2010. Corporations don’t bleed and don’t cry out in fear or pain during the execution process, although their executives may plead for mercy while shedding insincere tears as their power, wealth and privilege is stripped from them. Capital punishment for corporations, contrary to the data on capital punishment for humans, would likely prevent a lot of future criminal corporate behaviors.

I have wondered about the effectiveness of the old non-lethal punishment of hot tarring certain criminals, feathering them and then driving them out of town on a rail if he was caught, tried and convicted of a criminal deed.

I’ll bet that that humiliating punishments worked pretty well back in the early days of our nation’s history, and I would bet symbolically tarring and feathering a guilty corporation would work again as a deterrent to certain anti-democratic, tyrannical policies in these modern times. The threat of being humiliated in public is a powerful motivating factor, even for sociopaths.

What Should be Done With Corporate Rapists?

What about the crime of rape as applied to corporations? Rape has several dictionary definitions:

1) Any violent seizure or hostile action against a weaker opponent;
2) to rob or plunder;
3) the act of seizing and carrying off by force;
4) the crime of having forcible sexual intercourse without consent.

Corporations that rape, plunder, pollute or poison Mother Earth’s non-renewable resources or ruthlessly plan hostile takeovers, mergers or acquisitions against weaker competitors meet some of the above definitions for rape. Most of us would agree that any just society should punish corporate rapists at least as severely as it punishes the human kind.

What about the lethal poisons that thousands of unregulated chemical and mining corporations knowingly discharge into the water, air and soil of Mother Earth? Shouldn’t their acts of desecration be regarded as rape, assault and battery, reckless endangerment or premeditated ecocide? Shouldn’t we try to do everything we can to prevent inanimate entities from doing their dirt work?

Shouldn’t we do everything to prevent corporations from poisoning those portions of the planet that are haven’t already been victimized by the hundreds of enlarging toxic dead zones in aquifers, wetlands, rivers, lakes, rivers and oceans that are all over the planet.

Similarly, there are enlarging dead zones in infant, childhood and adult human brains from the increasingly large numbers of cocktails that contain neurotoxic ingredients that are in most vaccines (like the mercury and aluminum in America’s infant, childhood and US military over-vaccination schedules) and from the many combinations of neurotoxic psychiatric drugs, none of which were ever adequately tested for either short-term or long-term safety?

What about the extractive mining companies that, with their poisonous explosives, blow the tops off mountains in Appalachia and all around the world (as was proposed for the Penokee Mountain range of northern Wisconsin a few years ago) in order to extract and export the non-renewable mineral resources beneath? Does it make sense to believe the officials and cunning lobbyists of the mining companies who will claim innocence when living things downwind or downstream are sickened or die off? Tarring and feathering might be too lenient for some environmental crimes.

Anybody with a trace of morality knows what groups are responsible for the toxic mine waste all over the planet that contaminates the previously pristine streams and aquifers that once provided safe and abundant drinking water, edible fish and a healthy natural environment for wildlife, wild rice and humans (especially for our suffering First Nation’s brothers and sisters that had their lands and livelihoods stolen from them by cruel white supremacists and their killing machines starting back in 1492).

Zero Tolerance for Corporate Predators and Polluters!

How many atrocities should any extractive mining industry be allowed before they are called out for the predators that they are? Shouldn’t corporate intruders be stopped before they despoil even one more aquifer, one more river, one more lake, one more mountain, one more ocean or one more planet? Shouldn’t politically-connected corporate rapists-of-the-earth be banned, arrested, tried and punished just like the human predators that relentlessly stalk their sexual prey? And shouldn’t there be generous monetary restitution to the victims of past corporate criminality? And shouldn’t that money come from the corporate coffers and investors rather than from the EPA and its dwindling SuperFund account.

What should be done with all those over-privileged executives and law-makers that are addicted to their wealth, prestige, gated communities, body guards, chauffeurs, trophy wives, corporate jets, vacation homes and quarterly bonuses, especially in a nation of under-privileged, discriminated against, drug-addicted, over-entertained, harshly-parented, harshly-punished, impoverished, poorly-housed, under-educated, over-diagnosed, over-drugged, over-vaccinated, over-fed and under-nourished humans that the privileged classes are exploiting?

Shouldn’t industrial-strength corporate thieves, liars and killers at least be treated the same as human thieves, liars and killers? Shouldn’t we be wary of untrustworthy corporations that have lied to us before, even as they spend millions of dollars on TV advertising, trying to pretend to be good corporate citizens?

We regularly intervene for society’s human addicts who need help overcoming their gambling or drug addictions when they are judged to be a danger to themselves or others. Shouldn’t there be interventions planned for these power and wealth addicts before they do any more damage to our sick planet or our progeny?

The answer, in a fair society, should be yes to all these questions, no matter how often the well-dressed corporate spokespersons try to convince us that their companies are “responsible citizens”. We star-struck celebrity-worshippers of Hollywood stars, multimillionaire professional sports figures, high profile corporations and their silver-tongued CEOs seem to sucker for that line again and again. But the stakes are higher this time. The survival of the planet and its living things is at stake.

Shouldn’t Cold-Blooded Corporations Suspected of Wrong-Doing be Judged Guilty Until Proven Innocent?

One wonders what should be the best approach for dealing with cold-blooded corporations. Rather than applying the standard American constitutional guarantee for human citizens (ie, to be judged innocent until proven guilty), shouldn’t we be judging homicidal non-human entities as guilty until proven innocent?

I like that notion. During the last decade of my medical career (during which I practiced as a holistic mental health caregiver), I often helped my patients gradually taper off of their addictive and brain-altering drugs. The patients that had been referred to me were psychologically traumatized patients that had – tragically – usually been falsely diagnosed with a variety of “mental illnesses of unknown etiology” but who were actually all victims of physical, sexual, emotional or spiritual abuse –usually in childhood. My advice to many of my traumatized patients was to not make the mistake of unconditionally forgiving their abusers (or respecting them if they were parents) until their victimizers had sincerely and contritely asked to be forgiven and therefore were deserving of respect, forgiveness, trust or loyalty.

Psychologically speaking, not obeying – and therefore also not respecting – one’s victimizers should be the norm in interpersonal relationships. Psychologically speaking, the existence of significant parental neglect or abuse in a family should be one of the exceptions to the 4th commandment (that commands children to honor their fathers and their mothers, even, presumable if they were cruel). Likewise, we should only do business with companies that have earned and truly deserve our trust and respect.

Being suspicious of sociopathic entities is an important strategy to follow if one is to protect oneself from being cheated, used or abused. Staying out of a sociopath’s grasp is the proper approach in interpersonal or business relationships, even if the person or corporation appears on the surface to be charming or honorable, for both traits can be easily faked. If the sociopath is in a high position of governmental authority, impeachment should be pursued if un-election is not feasible.

Staying clear of vipers, alligators, grizzly bears or anybody or anything that one suspects has no conscience makes good sense, since conscienceless entities are also likely to be liars, thieves and rapists and are thus fully capable of criminality if they think that they can get away with it.

Staying away from (and perhaps even boycotting) corporations that have behaved unethically in the past is a simple thing that any person can do to resist corporate criminality, but in our largely brainwashed, advertised-into-submission culture, not too many people recognize that they are being duped until it is too late.

Say Hello to Corporation-Friendly American Fascism

The Italian dictator Benito Mussolini is said to have proclaimed that “fascism should rightly be called corporatism as it is a merger of state and corporate power:” He should know; he invented the term and the concept. Italy’s right-wing, anti-worker, union-busting corporations loved and supported him as much as most 1930s German corporations loved and supported Hitler and his anti-communist, anti-socialist, anti-union agendas.

Fascism is a right-wing, nationalistic, authoritarian, anti-democracy political ideology that rules with military discipline and enforces its laws with police state power and spy agencies. Fascism achieves and maintains its power by the use of a secretive national security apparatus (spying), aggressive propaganda, control of the media and suppression of trade unions. Therefore Big Businesses, notably the weapons industries and other war-related or police state industries thrive in fascist nations that also suppress unions and keep the wages of workers low.

Fascist nations commonly violate the human and civil rights of their own citizens as well as the rights of the nations that they invade and occupy. Fascist leaders try to unify the people by creating enemies, scapegoating them and then, usually via false flag operations, going to war against the targets.

Dissent is not tolerated in fascist nations. Elections are often rigged and the fascist nation’s dissidents are persecuted or imprisoned (sort of like Chelsea Manning, Edward Snowden, Julian Assange, et al have been treated in the US).

In fascist states there is oftentimes some sort of alliance, complicity or actual merger of church and state as well as the fostering of anti-intellectual/anti-scientific attitudes, thus appealing to the ignorant, uneducated or easily indoctrinated. And there is always an obsession with law and order.

Who can deny that there has been a rolling corporate, quasi-fascist coup d’etat that has gradually been overturning America’s one person/one vote democracy? America has all the marks of a plutocracy (anti-democratic rule by the wealthy privileged class) that prefers fascist politics and pro-corporate economics.

Who can deny that wealthy corporations and their plutocratic billionaires have inordinate control over the economy, foreign and domestic policy and both major political parties? And now these entities have their privatizing eyes on our water, our land, our breathable air, our educational system, our penal system, our postal service, our Social Security, our Medicare and even our food (as Bob Dylan sang in Union Sundown, “I can see the day comin’ when even your home garden is gonna be against the law”.).

Elections will continue, although the choice of candidates, the so-called “debates” (that only includes – in the US – the two major party candidates) and the value of small monetary donations will be increasingly meaningless. There will be fewer viable anti-establishment candidates for whom to cast votes, like Progressive Party candidate Fighting Bob LaFollette, Socialist Party candidate Eugene Debs, Democratic Party dissidents Eugene McCarthy and Paul Wellstone, or Green Party candidate Jill Stein or Democratic Socialist Party candidate like Bernie Sanders. The American dream (one that “you have to be asleep to believe in”, as George Carlin put it) appears to have vanished for everybody but the 1%. And we in the lower 99% have been asleep at the wheel as it was disappearing before our eyes.

Corporate Rights vs. Corporate Responsibilities

It is the greedy, under-regulated multinational corporations (and NOT “man”) that are poisoning the planet’s ecosystems as well as the bodies and brains of the inhabitants. It is nonhuman corporate entities (and NOT “man”) that have been causing the bulk of the economic, environmental and healthcare crises – including global climate changes and the over-vaccinating and over-medicating policies that benefit corporations while they poison the people and the land. And, because they rarely get accused, indicted or punished for their crimes, corporations are increasingly willing to keep on with their planetary rape, pillage and murder. And they show no signs of remorse.

The modus operandi of the new corporate “normal” these days seems to be: “grab everything you can steal or buy by any means necessary; enrich your single-minded CEOs, your boards of directors, your shareholders, spokespersons, lawyers, lobbyists, lapdog legislators, judges and law enforcement officials so that they are on your side; don’t get caught; hunker down in your gated communities with your chauffeurs and your bodyguards while the revolutionary riots are raging outside (preferably with poor white victims fighting against poor black victims rather than the guilty rich); buy up all the post-revolutionary distressed properties you can for pennies on the dollar, waiting for the economic rebound and the New World Order; and then let the devil take the hindmost.”

Wrist slaps seem to be the norm for the superrich and the corporations that are deemed too big to fail. In America, if there are any consequences for reckless or destructive business practices at all, these over-privileged ones usually get assessed affordable fines and no jail time, if they are punished at all.

Sometimes though, a corporation that is about to be brought to justice will move its headquarters or its operations to another state or nation, leaving their smelly and toxic messes to be cleaned up by somebody else, just as one would expect of a conscienceless sociopath.

We must identify and courageously name America’s domestic enemies (not just its foreign ones) even if they are corporations or members of the executive, legislative or judicial branches of government. Naming the evil that they do must be done in order to effectively confront evil.

Simultaneously, we need to demand that we humans have the inalienable right to have access to affordable, healthy, uncontaminated water, food, soil, air, education, housing, health care and to be safe-guarded from greedy corporate predators whose job seems to be to extract our personal wealth and our planet’s environmental resources wherever and whenever they can. The fate of our children, grandchildren and the sustainability of planet Earth depends on safe-guarding those rights and resources.

Essential steps for concerned citizens who value the pristine environment of the northern half of our state and its relatively uncontaminated water, food, soil and air is to:

1) educate ourselves thoroughly about the realities of corporate sociopathy;

2) be warned of the hidden agendas of the untrustworthy copper/nickel/sulfide mining companies that are targeting Minnesota’s non-ferrous mineral resources and its pristine habitat;

3) educate ourselves and others about the huge differences between the seriously and eternally polluting copper/nickel/sulfide mine tailings slurry (99+% is waste material and has to be stored somewhere nearby) and the relatively non-polluting iron and taconite mining that has been safely done for over a century;

4) vigorously and nonviolently protest the long-term, potentially lethal threats that sulfide mining presents to every living thing downstream from the permanently toxic lagoons and the soon-to-be-eternally-toxic water-filled open mine pits, all of which threaten the aquifers, lakes, streams, the St Louis River estuary and even Lake Superior if and when either or both of them fail;

5) try to also keep other sociopathic corporations out of Minnesota, especially if they are the polluting kind; and then

6) understand and sympathize with the plight of our Iron Range neighbors.

Sympathizing With the Plight of our Iron Range Neighbors who are Trapped in a Boom and Bust Economy

“There are a lot of under-employed iron range working class folks who naturally know that they will periodically experience the inevitable bust part of the boom-and-bust cycles that invariably happen in mining country, whether that economy depends on iron, taconite, copper, gold, coal, oil, uranium, or whatever. These workers are at the mercy of the mythical ‘invisible hand of the markets’ that are orchestrated by heartless, exploitive corporations that are by nature, selfish predatory businesses whose public relations propaganda firms and cunning lawyers lie when they claim to be ‘job creators’ that are interested in the common good. It is understandable that desperate people – especially the under-employed – do desperate things to survive; and economic instability naturally makes folks desperate. That needs to be understood.

“So it is natural for our iron range friends and neighbors further up north to want to believe that some entity will rescue them from the bust cycles. What also must be understood are the motivations of politicians from either major political party who will do whatever is necessary to obtain iron range votes in upcoming elections – or, in the case of coal country and Donald Trump, to falsely promise to bring back coal mining jobs. But resorting to unwise choices that desperate people can make, such decisions usually don’t work – like high-stakes casino gambling, investing in Ponzi scheme scams or voting for sociopathic, lying candidates who are controlled by Big Business. It is hard for anybody to be totally rational when confronted by hard economic choices.

“PolyMet and Twin Metals are the junior Canadian penny stock companies that are actually front groups for the major Swiss and Chilean parent mining corporations Glencore and Antofagasta. They have been propagandizing folks to support what is not in the long-term best interest of their precious habitat, without wanting to understand the major downsides for the consequences of downstream communities. Those realities are taboo subjects for every corporate-controlled media outlet that depends on industry advertising. It needs to be exposed.

“And the biggest lie that must be exposed is the claim that modern copper/nickel sulfide (sulfuric acid-producing) mining technology – with its eternally toxic and highly polluting slurry tailings lagoons can be done safely and cheaply, when the historical record tells us that copper/nickel/sulfide mining has never been done safely anywhere in the history of the world.”

For more information on those realities, see my column: “Rio Tinto: Still Polluting After All These Years”

“Every open-pit and underground sulfide mine in modern history – anywhere and everywhere in the world – has been toxic for the environment and deadly for its creatures, both animal and vegetable.” (Google ‘Copper Mining disasters across the world images’ to view hundreds of dramatic photos of such environmental catastrophes. And then google ‘Copper mining disasters across the world’ and read some of the 1,550,000 entries.)” — GGK

“We need to demand that we humans have the inalienable right to have access to affordable, healthy, uncontaminated water, food, soil, air, education, housing and health care and to be safe-guarded from greedy corporate predators whose job seems to be to extract our personal and communal wealth and resources wherever and whenever they can. The fate of our children, grandchildren and the sustainability of planet Earth depends on safe-guarding those rights and resources.”

Among the many steps that must be taken if we are to reverse the corporate polluter’s attempt to take over, privatize and eternally poison important portions of the planet is to demand that our local, state and federal legislators and regulators protect us from being victimized by any corporate predator – with the additional aim of reversing the Citizens United ruling that has so seriously corrupted the political process by sociopathic entities that threaten the planet and future generations. (See this and this for more information.)

Dr Kohls is a retired physician from Duluth, MN, USA. In the decade prior to his retirement, he practiced what could best be described as “holistic (non-drug) and preventive mental health care”. Since his retirement, he has written a weekly column for the Duluth Reader, an alternative newsweekly magazine. His columns mostly deal with the dangers of American imperialism, friendly fascism, corporatism, militarism, racism, and the dangers of Big Pharma, psychiatric drugging, the over-vaccinating of children and other movements that threaten American democracy, civility, health and longevity and the future of the planet. Many of his columns are archived at 

http://duluthreader.com/search?search_term=Duty+to+Warn&p=2;

http://www.globalresearch.ca/author/gary-g-kohls; or at 

https://www.transcend.org/tms/search/?q=gary+kohls+articles

Featured image: Sen. Matthew Canavan (Source: @mattjcan / Twitter)

“A real Italian never blames his mum.” – Australian Greens Senator Richard Di Natale, SBS, Jul 27, 2017

It has raged, and continues to do so, like a pestilence emptying the benches of the Australian parliament. Who will be the next to be carried off into political oblivion for violating section 44 of the Australian constitution, a dull but supremely destructive provision that disqualifies dual-citizenship holders from holding office? 

The Greens were the first to be ravaged by the constitutionally driven illness, with Senators Scott Ludlam and Larissa Waters making their own discoveries that they had citizenships they were ignorant off. Both duly fell on their positioned swords, the latter with more feeling than the former.

Then came questions about One Nation Senator Malcolm Roberts, who still insists that he has neither British nor Indian connections. He reiterated to The Australian that he renounced his British citizenship on June 6 last year, though remains indifferent to producing the proof.

The same paper uncovered, last Friday, British High Commission records showing that the senator was born a British citizen, and that he had travelled on a British passport as a baby.[1]  But Roberts, keeping matters tantalizing, has tweeted that he has the “necessary” documentation and “will soon release details of dual citizenship review I have called for.” (The desperation that calls for deflection.)

Novel excuses are being proffered in the latest round of outings. “As far as I am aware” is a common formulation, and it is not a vessel that holds much water: ignorance is far from convincing at the best of times. But it is exactly that ignorance that will form Nationals Senator Matt Canavan’s application to the High Court.

In the case of Senator Canavan, it is ignorance of one’s mother’s actions at the Italian consulate in Brisbane in 2006 to seek Italian citizenship. No papers, Canavan claimed, were signed. He took no active steps to become an Italian national. But there was devious mother Maria, beavering away behind his back to launch him into the soup. (Canavan was not entirely unaware – a family discussion had taken place a year prior.)

This blissful ignorance of a parent’s actions in supposedly signing you up for the citizenship of another country is fodder for satirists, not to mention those questioning a politician’s sense of awareness. The imagination on this point is piqued, though, as with other matters of the imagination, not necessarily plausible.

Sara Bucalossi, a visa procurement associate at one of Italy’s largest immigration law firms, Mazzeschi, certainly thought as much.

“It doesn’t matter if someone else wants to apply for you, not  your parents, not even your wife, because you’re an adult at that point, you make the decision for yourself.”[2]

Italian consulates in Australia, Bucalossi also noted, tended to follow this to the letter. Sarcastically, she did observe that, given the numerous consulates spread across the globe, she could not confirm the possibility that Canavan’s shoddy reasoning might be credible. Perhaps “in Mongolia or something like this?”

Each day brings forth another horde of gold. It is now clear that Canavan has been listed on the Registry of Italians Residing Abroad in addition to receiving Italian voting forms addressed to him, though sent to his mother’s address for the last 10 years.

Other colleagues have been sceptical of the senator’s defence. The Greens leader, Senator Richard Di Natale, is understandably short on kindness, given the savaging loss of two senators from his team.

“Now Senator Canavan should do the right thing by the Australian people and resign immediately.”

To date, Canavan has merely left the Cabinet.

Senator Cory Bernardi of the Australian Conservatives suggested that Canavan was promoting a variant of the “dog ate my homework” excuse.

“My father was Italian. We inquired into these citizenship matters many, many years ago and we found it was simply impossible to do as an adult, unless you were part of it yourself.”[3]

The always colourful Bob Katter, federal MP from Queensland, found Canavan’s reasoning near ludicrous.

“If you’re telling me someone was made a citizen of another country without your knowledge, you’d be seriously testing my intelligence, I mean, give me a break!”

The forum Canavan will have to convince is the High Court of Australia, which will need in the order of six months, at the bare minimum, to consider the case. Given their rigid, formal interpretations of section 44, the chances for exemption are questionable.

Nothing in the provision suggests that a mental state, or volition, are necessary ingredients to be taken into account on discovering you are the national of another country. As one legal opinion voiced to AAP went,

“I can’t see there’s suddenly any flexibility or discretion to create a consent because no one consents to citizenship.”[4]

Gabrielle Appleby of UNSW prefers to see it in more problematic terms, focusing on the taking of “all reasonable steps to renounce citizenship”.

The active element here is that of being entitled to a foreign nationality, and the active renunciation of it, a point made by the majority in Sykes v Cleary [No 2] (1992).[5]  Having to “acquiesce” to it would perhaps be a reasonable extension (the dissenting view of Justice William Deane suggests this), but would require judicial adventurism Australian judges are not renowned for. That is a mountain Canavan and this government will have to climb.

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

Notes

[1] http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/no-papers-but-malcolm-roberts-in-clear-over-citizenship/news-story/d43b740016c9d0b54c2381acc0b9b731

[2] https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2017/jul/26/matthew-canavans-dual-citizen-account-questioned-by-italian-immigration-experts

[3] http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-07-26/senator-canavan-urged-to-resign-amid-citizenship-row/8746588

[4] http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/2017/07/26/liberal-senator-matt-canavans-future-rests-high-court-flexibility

[5] http://eresources.hcourt.gov.au/showbyHandle/1/231112#XN.37

On August 6, 1945 the US dropped an atomic bomb (“Little Boy”) on Hiroshima in Japan. Three days later a second atomic bomb (“Fat Man”) was dropped on the city of Nagasaki. These were the only times nuclear weapons have been used in war.

Reasons for the bombing

Many reasons are given as to why the US administration decided to drop the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Reasons include the following:

• The United States wanted to force Japan’s surrender as quickly as possible to minimize American casualties.
• The United States needed to use the atomic bomb before the Soviet Union entered the war against Japan to establish US dominance afterwards
• The United States wanted to use the world’s first atomic bomb for an actual attack and observe its effect.

Given all of these reasons, the US was in quite a hurry to drop the bomb. Shortly after successfully testing history’s first atomic explosion at Trinity, New Mexico, on July 16, 1945, the order to drop the atomic bomb on Japan was issued on July 25.

The impact of the bombing on Hiroshima

Hiroshima stands on a flat river delta, with few hills to protect sections of the city. The bomb was dropped on the city centre, an area crowded with wooden residential structures and places of business. These factors meant that the death toll and destruction in Hiroshima was particularly high.

The firestorm in Hiroshima ultimately destroyed 13 square kilometres (5 square miles) of the city. Almost 63% of the buildings in Hiroshima were completely destroyed after the bombing and nearly 92% of the structures in the city had been either destroyed or damaged by blast and fire.

Estimates of total deaths in Hiroshima have generally ranged between 100,000 and 180,000, out of a population of 350,000.

The impact of the bombing on Nagasaki

Due to the hilly geography of Nagasaki and the bombing focus being away from the city centre, the excessive damage from the bombing was limited to the Urakami Valley and part of downtown Nagasaki. The centre of Nagasaki, the harbour, and the historic district were shielded from the blast by the hills around the Urakami River.

The nuclear bombing did nevertheless prove devastating, with approximately 22.7% of Nagasaki’s buildings being consumed by flames, but the death toll and destruction was less than in Hiroshima. Estimates of casualties from Nagasaki have generally ranged between 50,000 and 100,000.

The fact that the Nagasaki bomb was more powerful and also the narrowing effect of the surrounding hills did mean that physical destruction in the Urakami Valley was even greater than in Hiroshima. Virtually nothing was left standing.

The city of Hiroshima invites people from around the world to participate in making paper cranes to remember those who died in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. This action started in memory of Sadako who was two years old when the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima and later died of leukaemia caused by the exposure to nuclear radiation. Believing that folding paper cranes would help her recover, she kept folding them until she passed away on October 25th, 1955, after an eight-month struggle with the disease.

Sadako’s death inspired a campaign to build a monument to pray for world peace. The Children’s Peace Monument was built with funds donated from all over Japan. Now, approximately 10 million cranes are offered each year in front of the Children’s Peace Monument.

Anyone may place paper cranes before the Children’s Peace Monument in Peace Memorial Park. If you can’t go to the park yourself you can send cranes to the following address:

Peace Promotion Division
The City of Hiroshima
1-5 Nakajima-cho Naka-ku
Hiroshima 730-0811 JAPAN

You are asked to include your name, the name of your organisation (if you are participating as a school or any other group), your address (or the address of the organisation), your e-mail address, the number of cranes, and any message you wish to submit. This way your information can be submitted to the Paper Crane database and your desire for peace will be recorded. For instructions on how to fold paper cranes visit one of the following sites see our resources here.

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

French President Emmanuel Macron has positioned himself as a possible go-between in facilitating a reduction of tensions between the U.S. and Russia, a move that makes sense for France but may anger Official Washington’s hawks who want to escalate the New Cold War.

I interviewed Paris-based journalist and historian Diana Johnstone about Trump’s recent visit to Paris. Johnstone is the author of From Mad to Madness: Inside the Pentagon’s Nuclear War Planning Machine, recounting the experiences of her father, Paul Johnstone, as a senior analyst in the Pentagon’s Strategic Weapons Evaluation Group and a co-author of the Pentagon Papers. I spoke to her by telephone in France on July 19.

Dennis Bernstein: Diana, please give us your response to the recent Trump visit to Paris to meet with Emmanuel Macron.

Diana Johnstone: Well, first of all, it is clear that Emmanuel Macron has seen an advantage in being the only friend of the friendless Trump. It is clear that this can strengthen Macron’s hand in dealing with Germany, the main part of his mandate being to influence Germany in changing EU policy.

Also, Macron is in a position to be an intermediary in this rapprochement between Trump and Putin, which of course the War Party in Washington is doing everything to obstruct. So Macron has situated himself in an interesting position.

I think that any of the contenders in the recent French election would have followed the same path. It was absolutely in the cards for France to change its foreign policy. The intellectuals in the government — the diplomats and so on — realize that this Syria policy isn’t working and, at the same time, that sanctions against Russia are very harmful to the French and European economies, while they benefit the US. So what Macron is doing is just what the intellectual community was going to do, regardless of which candidate won the election.

DB: Give us your analysis of this Russia-gate madness.

DJ: Well, I am not a psychiatrist, but seen from over here in Europe, it’s unbelievable. I just saw Tucker Carlson’s interview with Max Boot on Fox News. This raving maniac on foreign affairs is on the Council of Foreign Relations, when he ought to be undergoing psychiatric treatment.

Of course, the Clinton machine has taken over the Democratic Party and made it into the War Party. What in the world is wrong with people talking to members of another country? The whole idea that it is something traitorous to talk to Russians is completely insane. At every time in history, even when governments were actually at war with each other, they had some sort of contact, just for simple intelligence reasons.

To try to criminalize and ban any contact at a more or less official level with the Russians goes beyond what is diplomatic practice even in war time. I think that the real problem in Washington is that there is a real War Party who welcome a nuclear war with Russia if that is what it takes to prevent them from becoming as strong as we are.

DB: The big story at the G-20 was that Trump spoke to Putin and therefore should be tried for treason, along with his whole family.

DJ: I am sure that the Russians draw the conclusion that we are preparing for war. How else can they take this? We are doing everything to convince the Russians that we want war with them no matter what. Of course, this means they are going to start a military build-up in order to be able to strike back. Putin has consistently made friendly moves to the United States and they are simply dismissed. The only possible explanation is that we are bent on war.

Unfortunately, in 2013, Obama painted himself into a corner with his “red line” rhetoric, requiring that the US strike if it detects any use of chemical weapons in Syria. Of course, since then, it has been well established by very serious investigators, including Seymour Hersh, that this use of chemical weapons was a false flag.

The Russians, instead of insisting that this was a false flag, very tactfully suggested that the answer was to take away all of Syria’s chemical weapons, which actually worked. Now everyone in the NATO machine points to this as a sign of Obama’s weakness in not punishing the perpetrators and forget about this chemical weapons deal that was successful. Instead, the official line is that Obama was too weak and we have to be strong.

DB: Give us your thoughts on the recent G-20 meeting in Hamburg and the people’s response.

DJ: Well, I don’t think that the people’s response was very well thought out. Many don’t realize that the G-20 is, in fact, a step away from Western domination because it includes third-world countries with large populations–Russia, China, Indonesia, and so on. The reaction was just, “This is power and we are against it.” No discrimination about issues. So the demonstration turned out to be much greater than it was for the G-8 or other meetings. All this violence was directed against a meeting which was actually working toward an improved form of international communication.

DB: What do you make of the controversy around the European Union and the role of France?

DJ: The European Union has become completely unbalanced because Germany is now a low-labor-cost export nation, maintaining a large trade imbalance with its partners. The other three candidates for the French presidency were all very critical of the EU and floated the possibility of getting out of the Euro.

Macron was put in by the establishment to save the European Union. It is clear that Macron’s mission is to persuade the Germans to shift the policy to one that will allow other countries to grow economically instead of being strangled, which is what is happening now. I don’t know whether he will succeed at that, but this is one reason why he wants Trump and Putin on his side, to replace Merkel as the dominant figure in the EU.

DB: You have just come out with an incredibly important book titled From Mad to Madness: Inside the Pentagon’s Nuclear War Planning Machine. Your father, Paul Johnstone, was a senior analyst in the Strategic Weapons Evaluation Group at the Pentagon. You have taken your father’s memoirs and written commentaries on them. You know, when Daniel Ellsberg released the Pentagon Papers, he did an incredibly important thing. But he didn’t write the Pentagon Papers, they came from the war planners. Your father was one of the co-authors. Could you describe what your father’s job was while working for the Pentagon?

DJ: One of his projects was something called “critical incident studies,” which was intended to inform the leaders on how to analyze crisis situations. Two of these crisis studies are in the book, one on Laos and one on the Berlin crisis. Interestingly, afterwards there was so much security that he couldn’t get access back to it himself, and so he did this from memory. Basically, his idea was to try to educate these leaders in the uncertainty involved in what they were doing.

You see, everyone is doing contingency planning and the only thing that gets to the leaders is an executive summary, which usually tries to put a positive face on things and make the case that “we’ll win for sure.” In fact, top leaders tend not to be very well informed about what they are likely to get the country into. The Pentagon Papers was a study commissioned by Robert McNamara to try to determine how the hell we got into the mess of Vietnam. So while the Pentagon Papers were a major revelation to the public, the establishment already knew that they couldn’t win that war. Of course, it dragged on nevertheless for several more years.

DB: You write in the book, “Theorizing about nuclear war was a sort of virtuoso exercise in creating an imaginary world wherein all statements must be consistent with each other but nothing need be consistent with reality, because there was no reality to be checked against.”

DJ: That is my father’s description of what they were doing. He was obviously more aware of that than most of his colleagues. He knew Paul Nitze [US government official who helped shape Cold War policies] pretty well and liked him personally. But he couldn’t understand how someone as educated as Nitze could be so blind about the Soviet Union, thinking that they are planning to attack us all the time.

We see the same mentality now, people who seem to be intelligent who are absolutely paranoid about Russia. You know, the left thought it learned something from Vietnam, but now we have the War Party which has only learned how to better control such movements. No very serious opposition exists.

DB: One of the important points you make in the book is that, whatever any analyst has to say about who is likely to prevail, nuclear war means mutual destruction.

DJ: Sometimes analysts would recognize this but then they would come out and say, “But the US will prevail.” It was and is insanity. The unreality of what goes on in the Pentagon seems small when compared with the unreality you have in the Washington establishment now. There’s the madness of the war planning at the Pentagon–“We have these weapons, now let’s decide how to use them”–and so on. And at the same time a growing madness has taken possession of the political class which says, “Yeah, great, just do it!”

It is an incredibly dangerous situation and people just seem to be asleep. We have these women on the streets because of some remark that Trump made at one time or another but they don’t do a thing to prevent the world from being blown up at any minute. It seems to me there is a lack of priorities in the United States among those people who remain sane and moral.

DB: The first part of your book is titled “The World of Target Planning.”

DJ: That’s how my father got into this. He was in the Department of Agriculture with Henry Wallace when the country started gearing up for another war and later found itself never getting out of this business of war.

The religion of the United States has become the total destruction of the enemy. With us, it is always unconditional surrender. It’s not enough to defeat an enemy, you have to destroy them. This is closely linked to the possession of nuclear weapons, the idea of total destruction rather than simply defeat. It is a part of the extreme arrogance built into the American culture: We must never lose, we must always win. […]

Very important studies on strategic bombing in World War II concluded that it wasn’t the strategic bombing that won the war. However, this myth has been perpetuated ever since, that strategic bombing wins wars. It continues because the Air Force needs a lot of money to stay in business.

During the Vietnam war, the question was put to experts as to what would be the effect of bombing the north. They concluded that it would “only unite the enemy against us.” But the Air Force wanted to bomb and they got what they wanted. They wanted a piece of the action. Washington politics plays a huge role in getting us into these wars. So even in cases where the intelligence community manages to produce something that makes sense, it typically gets ignored.

All this seemed to subside somewhat with the recognition of the concept of “mutual assured destruction.” The trouble is, since the Soviet Union collapsed, the arrogance of the United States–which made Truman, for example, decide to drop the atomic bomb on Japan after Japan was already defeated–has come back, as you said, on steroids.

When Putin, in 2007, said that he wanted a multipolar rather than a unipolar world, from then on Russia and Putin have been the enemy. Besides, we have got God and the Dollar on our side and we can do anything. During the Cold War you had some measure of caution at the top. Now all caution has gone to the winds. Someone like Steven Cohen, for example, a top expert [on Russia], is effectively marginalized because he is not on the administration line.

DB: There’s a section in your book called “Imagining Doomsday”, which describes efforts by the Weapons Systems Evaluation Group to study the implications of radioactive fallout. I imagine they are now going back over this stuff, this is the information they need to know.

DJ: Well, supposedly they are at work revising the weapons to make them more powerful and less radioactive. All this business about putting up a “shield” in Eastern Europe is obviously meant to give the United States a first-strike capacity. It won’t work, but that is the latest illusion. It isn’t meant to shield us from Russian aggression, it is meant to shield us from Russian retaliation.

Dennis J Bernstein is a host of “Flashpoints” on the Pacifica radio network and the author of Special Ed: Voices from a Hidden Classroom. You can access the audio archives at www.flashpoints.net.

 

Editor’s Note

This incisive article written seven years ago by renowned author Frederic Clairmonte, is phrased as  “a letter written to a colleague from the Sorbonne.  F.”

The film on  Lord Dowling, the Supremo  of Fighter  Command during what prosaically has been  labeled the Battle of Britain,  stimulated you to  make some perceptive comments. You asked for some clarifications and  amplifications and I shall take  some time off to do so. To achieve this I consulted my Archives.  I also happened to be a member of the Royal Air Force which I joined in the year of the Battle of Stalingrad.  It was an essential part of my experience and the greatest of educations.

It was more than the transition from an adolescent to an adult. It was far more than a world of flying.  A span of time that included not merely flying and doing what I was trained to do but also  a world  of books and study and thinking and reflecting and in talking to others and learning from them. If you wish to call that a University you may be free to do.  In that world diplomas and degrees  were of utter irrelevance. They would come later.

Let me say at once that there is considerable misunderstanding and swirling myths  of what is meant by the Battle of Britain which began after the collapse of France in June 1940. The mass bombings of South England began  in August. They were called off in November and we shall see why.  There was in the first place no such thing as the Battle of France. France was defeated and capitulated in June 1940. The nostrum of The Battle  of Britain was  concocted  by Winston Churchill. who used it  as a promotional battering ram to give colour and charisma to his leadership.  In sum, he used  it effectively as a public relations stunt.
The Nazis did not ‘lose’  the so called  BoB because while they launched an attack it was called off by Hitler in November for reasons we shall nowelucidate.  From this was drawn the conclusion that  the BoB was won by Britain under Churchill’s leadership.  That is a fallacy.Having said that we do not wish to diminish  the fighting spirit  of the British military and steadfastness and tenacity  of its peoples during those critical weeks. Nor do I intend to disparage the Royal Air Force  Fighter Command  that operated under  an embattled leadership tarnished by personal  squabbles and personal ambition. What we are saying is let us try to see things in perspective.

You’ve no doubt seen the earlier film starring  Sir Lawrence  Olivier.It gave a romanticized version of events portraying Air Marshal Dowling as a hero and the RAF Fighter Command as a band  of young all-white  indomitable brothers  that rescued  the UK from  the clutches  of  the Nazi invasion thus ensuring the victory of the BoB. This is mythology of a supine  order. There was an onslaught on Britain from the middle of August to be sure  that  lasted until the middle November.

I shall sketch  briefly some of the factors leading up to the BoB.  Certainly, the  discovery of Radar in 1936 and its  deployment played a  role in  confrontingthe Luftwaffe. But it  was never busted. It was not the only factor in play and in the  strides of history no single event or personality is of primordial  importance. It is mandatory  study the ensemble of inter-locking events and their causative relationships.

In the course of my military service I  became  acquainted  with many of these  fighter pilots many of whom had  later  shifted to Bomber Command.  True, the Luftwaffe  pilots,  not least of all,  such aces as Oberst Adolf Galland  had brought with them enormous experience  culled from earlier air campaigns.

These were the indispensable  testing  grounds of the Luftwaffe which the RCAF and the RAF did not have but were soon to acquire. I refer to the Condor  Air Squadrons and the use  of the Stukas as a devastating  destructive force in Spain and you will recall Guernica.  The embryonic  Luftwaffe was baptized  as  our ‘flying  artillery’ by Goering.  Incidentally, he  was  never referred to in the R A F/ RCAAFby his  name but  by the sobriquet  ‘the Fat Boy’, a name  that he took with him to the Nuremberg  Tribunal.

Many of the  RAF  fighter  crews members  were sub-standard but of course there were exceptions. Many  were greenhorns and their training in many cases wholly inadequate.  But that too was not immutable.The importance of Radar was that it directed from the ground via radio signals to the air crews the direction and altitude of the attacking aircraft. That was no mean feat and Galland as he said after the war  was struck by the fact that  they zoomed in  unerringly on their targets.  But the Luftwaffe interceptor aircraft had already surmised  that  somethingradically new in aerial warfare had  emerged.  The so-called  BoB began  inDunkirk and the collapse of the French armies.

“The  final Wehrmacht  victory over England is now only a question of time”, noted General Jodl, chief of operations  at OKW on June 30, 1940.  This is illustrativeofWehrmacht arrogance, understandable enough in the light of the  conquests of the Nazi Blitzkrieg;  and such  imbecile triumphalism  was to be repeated again and again. in the early stages of  the invasion of the Soviet Union. And he went on: “Enemy offensive operations  on a large scale are no longer possible.”What he had in mind was that for the first time Hitler’s Germany  had control of  the North Sea with the defeat of  Norway and Denmark. Nazi  military might was therefore  unstoppable or appreared to be so.  Itwas the herald of the  great victories of the Uebermensch.

The German fleet was no longer bottled up as it was  in 1914-18 by British  mines and sea power that  blocked  the Kaiser’sU-boats from breaking out  into the North Atlantic on a large scale, and shoved  the German Merchant Marine  from the high  seas. In  so doing,the Royal Navy’s blockade  strangledImperial Germany. Or rather was one of the central factors. The massive German High Sea  Kriegs Marine  built  up byAdmiral von Tirpitz since 1897  at an astronomic financial  cost was  a formidable  naval fighting  force.  Its power remained, however, purely ‘potential’.

By May-June 1940 the configuration had changed with the conquest of Denmark and Norway. To this was added the entire French Atlantic coast which bestowed more than 3,000 kms of additional coast to the Third Reich’s ballooning empire. All the  pre-conditions for  the successful  launching  of  the Atlantic war were now present. But other considerations  would  blunt its full materialization. That  major condition – the looming presence of  the Soviet Union – which was permanently in the cross-hairs of the yet-to-be conquerors of the USSR would  ultimately weaken and deflectthe full impact of its offensive  naval capability. The Fuehrer’s psycho-neurotic  obsession was his Eastern frontier – Germany ’s India. The clubbing of England, a land that was never his ideological or ethnic enemy, would now  be pushed “into the cupboard” as Goering jokingly noted.

On May 20, the Panzers of Heinz Guderian  smashed through the British and French lines at Abbevile. The final day of reckoning had  struck.  Nine British  divisions and ten French divisions  were trapped.And so was the more than 300,000 British expeditionary  force (BEF). What  followed  was to be one of the major turning points of the war. And in the view of many one of Hitler’s major mis-calculations.The trap was never sprung. On 24 May, the order coming from the High Command, acting on Hitler’s personal order, was that the enveloping movementand the encirclement of the trapped forces  was  halted.
What now happened revealed not merely his lack of strategic thinking but his wider avaricious ambitions that puzzled many of his cronies.  Heinz Guderian, the Panzer  commander,  was indignant and so was Oberst Adolf Galland – the Luftwaffe’s  incomparable ace –  but what they failed to realize was that the decision proclaimed unilaterally as was his style  to halt  the attack was politically  and ideologically motivated. England to be sure was an enemy but it was not  to be  the primordial enemy.

Hitler as Halder  sedulously  believed  that the defeat of France would have brought peace and the British ruling class in the manner of Chamberlainwould have capitulated.. Personalities in history  as I have always stressed in these lectures  invariably  play a crucial role  never ultimately the decisive role; they cannot however  be abstracted from the historical process.  Churchill was  certainly a Tory reactionary but he was not a Lloyd George or a Chamberlain who cherished the delusion that the Empire’s  white man’s rule  would best be perpetuatedby a deal;  with  the Nazi warlords.

In this Churchill  was acting like shrewd  real estate agent  whounderstoodthat Hitler and Mussolini’s had expropriatory designs on the vastness of Empire.Of course it could be speculated  that there were those in England (such as Lloyd George who Churchill branded  a Petainist) who would have cut a  capitulationist  deal with Hitler if those 360,000  Anglo-French  troops had been captured in the Dunkirk salient. In comparison, Paulus’sSixth Army that surrendered at Stalingrad numbered 250,000.

The 360,000 escapees became the  core of a reborn military phalanx to be entirely modernized in very short order and deployed shortly in North Africa, and the conquest of Italian Somaliland. The evacuation  that was an extraordinary feat owed nothing to “miracles”; it changed the play of things; it reinforced  Churchill’s prowess for deal and wheeling. And thus  British resistance.  Hitler had  had placed his  bet on  the erroneous  belief  thatChurchill and the British ruling class would grovel for peace rendering an invasion superfluous. As the unfolding years of the twenties and thirties dramatized so cruelly  (Spain and Ethiopia were  sordid case histories) the British ruling class was never opposed to the ideals  of Nazidom with its with its cold-blooded  quest  to knife the October Revolution in its cradle.

I know the weather in the Channel very well.  And its savagery and capriciousness, And of course the course of events after August owed much not only to the Spitfires and the Hurricanes but to meteorological conditions which made a channel crossing  a physical impossibility. That was the reason why June was the last date for our invasion in 1944. And that was why the capture of the portof Cherbourg was so vital following D-Day.In  September,  the weather had already turned nasty with storms and heavy waves. But apart from the vicissitudes of nature’s caprices Hitler and his gang had no grasp of the technical complexities of amphibious warfare.

The Amphibious landing craft were built in Glasgow and the engines in Detroit and elsewhere.What Hitler had were wooden barges which were not artifacts of war. That was what Napoleon’s  had. Obviously, that too was a non-starter Amphibious operations  was perfected between 1942 and 1943. McArthur’s island hopping expeditions in the Pacific were more  than test benches. The Wehrmacht had nothing of the sort but then their vision was directed  to what they regarded as greener and more exploitable pastures.

I witnessed and participated in the intense preparation for the  invasion of June 1944. From Scotland, I did aerial  reconnaissance work on the entire Norwegian coast whichas in the case of Denmark I came to  be familiar with.  But that was not all. I saw the amphibious  training  exercise that  was taking place  from Margate in the West to Lands End  at the  western extremity of the British Isles.  I also had the possibility of talking to the  highly skilled crewsthat were operating those landing craft.  By the end of November 1943, the RAF and the RCAAF  was  transferred from Bomber Command  of  Air Marshal  Sir Arthur Harris to  the supremo of  the Allied forces:  General  Ike  Eisenhower.The air  assaults on German cities were called off.

The missions of the Avro Lancasters was to photograph every centimeter of the French coast from Calais to the southern most tip of the  Bay of Biscay . We straddled  not merely the coasts  but  plunged deep into the  great  river estuaries in which many of the  big cities were located.  Throughout the winter air reconnaissance  was exhaustive  and the intelligence gleaned of incomparable value. The Wehrmacht’s  Intelligence  in 1940 was  poor or better still poverty-stricken. But then  they did not have the materiel and  their  hearts and minds were not on the job. From Cap Gris Nez to Dover is a  very small stretch of water. The inhabitants of  both places could gaze , as the expression went,  intoeach others backyard  on a sunny day.  And from the air that visibility was  magnified a thousand times.

The Air Operations

On 15 August the first massive  air attacks  (baptized Adlersangriffe) were launched.  This was Directive No. 21.  Within the ranks of the  German High  Command there were  doubts.  Grand Admirals Raeder and Doenitz  summed it up by saying  that the German Navy could not  undertake  the enterprise of an invasion before  May 1941. They were juggling with time. That was to be Hitler’s crucial date in another part of the world. And  they would soon know why the invasion had been shoved into the cupboard.. The Fuhrer cradled  other plans. It could not give protection to the ports that were being  attacked such as Ostend, Cherbourg, le Havre and many others.  They had become systematic targets of the R A F and the Royal Navy.

On 7 September, hundreds of bombers came over. Here again there was  a major miscalculation perhaps one of the greatest  in  World War 2. The  Luftwaffe had resorted to  mass ‘terror bombings’ – the words are those of  Goebbels -in London ’s East End. The Luftwaffe  shifted from  bombing  the airfields of  South Eastern England where Fighter Command Airfields were located  and directed their  attacks  against London ’s East End . That was the working class area as you know that contained  many people of East European and Russian descent. It was also one of the great bastions of Progressivism and the Communist Party. It was that part  of London where Eleanor Marx, barely 20 years old,  began  her tireless and successful  militancy  amongst the East End workers.

From the  spires of St Paul ’s Cathedral the future  supremo  of Bomber Command  Air Marshal Arthur Harris (born in India ) and  his adjutant  Air Marshall Tedder (born in Burma that was then part  of India)  scrutinized and analyzed the bombing patterns. Harris remarked in his cold analytical way: “This is the height of folly. I shall burn them and make them pay for it.”They were terrible words by a determined strategist  but they were impotent because  he was powerless to strike back at German cities. His aspiration would become a cataclysmic reality.In  less thantwo years with the advent of the  four-engined Avro Lancaster  powered by  Merlin Rolls Royce  engines another mighty Nemesis  would  begin – night and day, summer and winter –  their relentless onslaughts.

The  masters of the Third Reich  – and tragically the urban dwellers  of the Third Reich  – would grasp  in their flesh the torrid  promises of Harris or Bomber Harris  as he was baptized..The Fat Boy  had earlier boasted: “If a single bomb drops on German cities  my name is Meyer”. Indeed the ‘Meyers’ would  attain exponential growth levels. Ironically, it was one of the  most ironic , and foolish morsels  of  babbling  in the  annals  of warfare.The  call-off in November  had given theRA F a reprieve. Goering, backed by Hitler, went on the assumption that mass terror bombings of  civilian areas would demoralize the population and hence contribute tothe nation’s capitulation.  The mistakes and miscalculations were now being compounded at  staggering rates.

The extensive bombings of London extended from  September 7 to  November3..Arms  production did not decrease  in that span of time.It made  rapid strides not least because of the  organizing brilliance of  Lord Beaverbrook  and others.  At that point, Hitlerhalted  the  offensive. The  Hitlerian leadership continued to believe the world of fantasies.  One month after the high-point of the bombings, the chief of the operational staff General  Hans Jeschonnek stated that  England ’s  destruction would require an air fleet  four times as large  as  the Third Reich  possesses.  A statement of that  kind reveals  once again  the sheer foolishness of  these estimations. Why 4 and not 6 or  10 or 12? This was babbling  and nothing more.  Jeschonnek and Richtofen Stukas  blasted Stalingrad day after day in August 1942 but we know  where that led to. It  transformed a rubble-ruined  industrial city into an impregnable  fortress.

The  Nazi military machine  was the greatest  and mightiest  military force that the world  had  seen by theend May 1940. And here I would  concur  with William Schirer  when he stated that,  in truth, neither Hitler , the High Command  nor the general staffs of the  Wehrmacht, Kriegsmarine and the Luftwaffe had even seriously considered how a war with  Britain could  be fought and won . They were clueless.  Now with the dazzling success  in the midsummer of 1940  they stood stark naked in their  victories; they had no projects and elan  for exploiting  the greatest  military  victories  that the Third  Reich would ever know.

But Hitler did have a master plan. Hitler’s horizon was never  confined  to the Cliffs of Dover.  Hitler and Churchill to be sure were enemies. But their  shared a common enemy  that came to loom larger and more menacing  as the thirties  moved on.  Their obsession was  the Soviet Union.

The Spectre of the Soviet Union

Hitler was not only  a reactionary but the embodiment of the  greatest counter-revolution our world has ever known  one  thatGerman Big Capital  readily recognized and lavishly bankrolled. He was revered by the masters of property who tried to conceal the rationale of his entire being by his quasi-mystical  totemism and  perverted  folklore. His  vision was not of recent  vintage evidenced  in  the Nazi bible Mein Kampf.  It was the proclamation of the war against  Bolshevism.  Let us look at  the crux of his thinking to understand why Britain was not  the major enemy. And why at this moment it was to be shoved into the cupboard.

“And so we national socialists  turn our gaze towards the lands of the East…When we speak of new territory in Europe today we must  think principally of Russia and her border vassalstates. Destiny itself illuminates our way.the colossal empire in the East is ripe for dissolution, and the end of the Jewish domination in Russia will also be the end of Russiaas a state.”

In one of his musings to Rundstedt, Hitler  noted  that “once England is finished we would not be able to rouse  the German people to a fight against Russia. Thus, “ Russia would have to be disposed of first”The fact is that the blueprint  for the annihilation of  the  Soviet Union  was  iniated in  May 1940  and Halder was one of its prime architects. Directive  21 was signed by Hitler on 18 December given the pompous name of  Operation Barbarossa. The  Directive is clear. Its reading is chilling. Its ruling ideawas  that the USSR was not  only to be militarily squashed  but also obliterated as a political force.  “A war against  the USSR would be child’s play”, Hitler ranted. That was  his  credo and it was the credo also of the political universe of Big Capital and its political hirelings.  As to the child’s play  history  would soon give another verdict.

With  Directive 21  Operation Sea Lion was scrapped.  The grand panorama  now envisioned was more than a war of imperial conquest;  it was to be metamorphosed  intoa war of  genocide, a Rassenkampf or Race War the scale of which the world had never seen. An event whose consummation would begin on the 22 June, the same date that the Grande Armee traversed the Niemen.  I was an adolescent and I was finishing my apprenticeship  as a welder and a machinist.

The Vision of India

Churchill and Hitler share a common  ideal. Churchill loved  Indiaso much that he did not want to leave it. “ I did not become the King’s  first  Minister to preside over the liquidation of the British Empire.”  This  was his inimitable  rejoinder, his greatest truth,  to someone who questioned his obduracy on India ’s  freedom. For Hitler , India was a model  of a predatory colonial empire.“The Soviet Union will be our India .”  he  jubilantly declaimed.  A thought that has long weighed on  me and which encapsulates  the energizing drive wheelsof Hitlerian  genocide.  A proclamation which has not ceased to  numb  our brains  even after  more than six decades. Such utterances  put  both British imperialism and the rapacity of Hitlerian imperialism into much clearer focus.

As Churchill  confessed:  the ‘loss’ of India was one of  “my greatest personal losses” And no doubt his lugubrious  whine must be grasped in this context when  he saidthat it  was not only an irreparable‘loss’  for the British Empire but for humanity as a whole and  “ a personal loss that will  never cease to gnaw at my  soul.”Abstracted from  the bogus rhetorical outburst it simply meant  that  the lush pickings of empire flowed in his blood stream.And as you know he was a subaltern in the  Indian imperial army.  He was also a major  shareholder in British tea plantations in Assam and the  the South African gold mines of his friend Cecil Rhodes.

On his father’s side (his Mother was  American industrial  heiress) his  family’s  extensive pickings harked back to the East India Company to  be  vastly compounded in his own lifetime. These investments embraced large land holdings in the Punjab, commodity trading,  mines, shipping and insuranceand a wide variety of  other assets. Here was the assemblage of  the  personification  of capital wedded to Big Politics.  The two moved in easy consonance. Plunder  is seldom faceless and in the case of India  and the Empire  Churchill,  like members ofhis social caste, personified  the scale of  its parasitism.

What  Hitler and Churchill’s mutual  “love” of India  boils down to  was that India was a  a source of pillage  and exploitation. In the latter it enshrined a reality;  in the former an aspiration.  This was  their  common  denominator. They were kindred spirits each in his own  way. As I said  in my  other lectures on Colonialism  it was not  fortuitous that Churchillwas the guiding  butcher of the  incipient October Revolution. In so doing he rose  to  the defense of his class and its profits.

Churchill and his Wars of Intervention  (1918-1921) which the British government  bankrolled  escalated him and  Woodrow Wilson and Clemenceau to the  highest summits of State Terrorism. What  was more shocking as  the historical record  now discloseswas  that  a sizeable chunk of  the money  for the ‘wars of intervention’ in Russia (resulting in the death and massacre of millions by death and starvation) was  borne by  the ‘Indian’ government. Or if  you prefer, the  oppressed  peoples of colonial India  with the taxes imposed by their oppressors  bankrolled  the counter-revolution in Russia .

His love of empire  and his anti-communist  credo were the guiding lights – he had no others – of his  diseased social class from  which he never departed.  In the  United States he saw  as the major historical  agency for the perpetuation of  the values of his  visibly defunct empire. It  was not surprising that he resurfaced again  with his Fulton Speech ( March 1946) with his familiar baggage. Note the volte face and hypocrisy. Barely one year  earlier he was referring glibly to  the leader of the Soviet  Union “as my good friend Marshal Stalin”. It exposed  the nakedness of his bankruptcy and  his sanctification of the  Cold War. A war for which the coloured  peoples of the world starting from China would exact a human toll of tens of millions of  dead. A blood letting thatshows  no signs of ending.

The Fulton declaration of war  was the product of a blood-drenched  colonial regime in its  death throes. And it was not surprising that he made that declaration in a land  whose leaders,  more akin to political Gauleiters,  exalted  their crimes of bestiality in glaring  contrast to that  of Hitler and his acolytes, in  the mantle  of  human freedom. The Fulton fulminations  was a Manifesto  of genocide  as the subsequent decades revealed.

Let me say if  I had not said so before,  that my loathing for his persona and his policies during  the war  years  and after  were incommensurable . That was one measure of my polarization or my growing up if you prefer a more nuanced  tone. I regarded him like many of my own class as a class enemy. A corollary of this  is thatI would never have  shed a tear if  his ancestral  residence in Marlborough had been obliterated. I refused to visit it  even  when the occasion presented itself.

Rather, I spared  my tears for the proletarians of the East End whose degutted homes and  smashed streets  and broken lives I personally visited with certain Comrades. I refer here specifically to the  vestiges  of the 1940 Blitz and the V2 bombings. For me, and  I was not alone, this was not merely the artifact of war, but the deadly iniquitous face of  the counter-revolution.  This was my education or a very  important part of it.

Hence to  speak of Churchill as a Democrat and Hitler as a tyrant is to obscure as I have stressed their commonalities.Churchill the aristocrat  was the gang  leader of the coalition bent on the annihilation  of the emerging October Revolution. His celebrated words  were the rallying cry  of the dispossessed exploiters:  “Either we nip  it in the bud now  or they  shall devour us.”  That as we saw  was also Hitler’s  template. You will recall what I said in my lectures on Versailles and the counter revolution.  Nor  should  we  forget what Thorsten Veblen said in his polemic with the young Keynes. On that score  he  was unique  among American intellectuals in his prescience and wisdom.

Hitler never dissimulated  his colonial ambitions. It is not surprising  that he was one of the greatest admirers of the British Empire.  Being a rabid racialist – Gypsies, Negroes, Jews – was  only one of his facets;.  Hitler wasirrevocably wedded to the  old order  and its propertied class relations. They rocketed  him into power. He was their anointed creation.He  correctly saw the British Empire for  what it was:  a Plunderbund in that  exquisitely succinct German expression for imperial parasitism. He wanted to be a part of it.

This was precisely the  British empire that  the legendary Paul Robeson, who in the presence of  Harry Truman,  excoriated it as ‘the  world’s  biggest  prison of the peoples.’ An outburst  that was anathema  to  Truman that had now embarked on the path ofglobal military, political and  economic hegemony, unwaveringly  followed by  his successors.

Understandably so for he himself was the butcher of  Hiroshima and Nagasaki. One of the vilest war crimes of all  times perpetrated as a warning  signal to the Soviet Union  (as was Dresden  too which was  Churchill’s greatest of war crimes in February 45). It was not by chancethat the Fulton  speech  was  hurled at the worldin the State  of  Missouri – the fiefdom  of  that pedestrian war criminal that  was Harry Truman : the first ofall Presidents  – and the rest followed suite  – to incarnate  genocide, torture and State Terrorism as instruments of  war and diplomacy. Truman had set the  clock.. There would be no Presidents of the United States that would not be guilty of  the most heinous of war crimes.

As one of Hitler’s  recent biographers have  noted his ‘model’ for  domination, pillaging and exploitation was the British Empire with its inexhaustible  raw materials,  and its gargantuan  mass  of undifferentiated subsistence work-force. The British Empirewas thus a model to which  The Third Reich must aspire. The Master race (Das Herrenvolk)  was the British  Raj. Let us stress  once again  that The Third Reich and the British Empire were anchored  in the nostrum of  racial  supremacy. Racial supremacy was not an aberration but  an organic  part of the system.

No doubt this was what David Lloyd George meant when he said:“scratch a Tory and you will always find a Fascist”. And in Hitler’s case slave labour.  Hitler had voiced on many occasions his amazement that  a tiny islandthat lay off the coast of the  Euro-Asian land mass  had been able  to achieve such a prodigious scale of self-enrichment  thanks to the pillage  of its Empire.

This was a pointer of what the  Third Reich could achieve.  The British showed that it was possible  to occupy  the colossus of India Hitler admiringly arguedwith merely 250,000 men of which  white men were  less  than 50,000.  In his morbid psyche this was  his grand vision: “The Soviet Union will be turned into our India .”  Before I  proceed I should like  to interject a personal note. My thinking  of the nature of British imperialism in Indiawas moulded  by that very great work:  India Today by Rajani Palme Dutt and  of course  Labour Monthly.

And as you know from my own writings  onthe exploitation of India  it was to become  the focal point of my own teachings and writing. It was at that moment that  I read and studied  RPD’s  Fascism and the Social Revolution. I had become not only an anti-fascist combatant  but an ideologically armed one. I had ceased to be unarmed. As my Maltese comrade would have said.

A Personal Note

I should  like  to  interject a personal note. Before I came to the UK in the  autumn  of 1943 I had never heard of the  racist nostrum  of Untermensch. Getting to understand the meaning of that  word and its  terrible implications  was one of the scintillating  educational  and creative leaps in my life.  I asked  a Maltese  comrade  who was a bombardier.  He was  much older than I was. And  immensely educated. A man of very words. His taciturn nature concealed the  white hot anger that  bubbled  within him.  And which he shared with few.I being one of them. His entire family of  more than 10 people  were wiped in a Luftwaffe raid on Valetta.  He escaped their fate because he was staying  that night  with his grandmother who lived in the countryside.

He  fleshed out the intricacies  of its  vile multi-faceted  meanings. He told me that  it meant a sub-human species. Reaching into the entrails of the word I  asked: does that mean  that Joe  Louis( who was one of my childhood  heroes) who smashed  Max Schmeling in the first round was  a sub-human being? He  laughed but not contemptuously  at my assimilation. I retortedthat this was a load of  rubbish.

I agree with you,  he  said but  that is not the point. Those who used that word are beasts with human faces. And he was one of the first to remind  that colonialism is incompatible  with human dignity. The colonial subject  is an untermensch.  It is not limited to Germans. Look at America . Look at the Rhodesians  and the South Africans. They brandish the word wogs, niggers and  yids  unflinchingly.

We  are not  dealing with a system based  on science and logic he argued. Its Fascism he went on and that spells the devaluation of  human beings  starting from the ‘lower breeds’ and moving up and up.He was a great teacher . Its like the word ‘Aryan’ he went on. Don’t look for definitions. They  don’t  and cannot exist. They have their  own meaning and their logic. Their logic is punitive deployed to kill and maim.. He elaborated hisexplanation on that day  and in days to come. He was more than a beloved and irreplaceable  brother. He was an inspired  teacher that guided my reading..  He was also, or rather  had become,by the force of things  a cold blooded killer.  He killed with no remorse. In the spring of  45, his Avro Lancaster  was hit  by enemy fire but they limped  on  to the English coast where  it crashed.

Operation Barbarossa

The aborted Operation  Sea  Lion  was  important no doubt  but it was a side  show to Hitler’s  greatest counter-revolutionary ambition: the annihilation  of  the Soviet Union.  It was the grand climacteric of his life; the raison  d’être of  his capitalist  paymasters.  At least he was honest. There was no beating around the bush.  “We are fighting to save the world from  Bolshevik  Asiatic barbarism.”How could that scum speak of civilization? In that sense he was a true internationalist.

The butchered victims  of Guernica, Coventry, Warsaw, East London, Antwerp and Rotterdam  indubitably  would  have had  a divergent understanding  of that word. That would  of course not be the end of the Luftwaffe’s ‘civilizing mission.’There was muchmore to come, the thousands of Soviet villages and towns that would be razed. For the onslaught against the Soviet Union was conceived as early as May l940; a blueprint given its final imprimatur in December 1940 by Halder.  In  its sheer breadth of evilit revealedthe Fuhrer as an irrepressible  optimist as well as a self-deluding  fantasist. For Hitler and his likes it was an act of  deliverance.

Just as the French bourgeoisie had proclaimed  at the moment  of the ‘ Front Populaire:  “Mieux Hitler  que le Front Populaire”  their unwavering  class loyalty  to their  surging  Messiah  was never in doubt.What I am saying to you  is  that Hitler  unleashed his genocidal machine  with  the  supreme benediction  of the European and world bourgeoisie ,and that engulfs  the Japanese who nourished  ambitions of their own. They  had entered a state of ecstasy; the  agony would come later. And the American bourgeoisie which had already repudiated democracy  save in its formal frills was no exception.

In this  Hitler  was  joined to such  excrementas Atonescu, Horthy, Mussolini and others. They were the feeder base to hisgenocidal  machine.  The  neutrals: Switzerland and Sweden were big-timeindirect backers of his war machine. In the case  of Switzerland  that meant credits, arms, machine tools, you name it.  And there were no exceptions. Many Swiss fought in the ranks of the Wehrmacht.

In the case of  Antonescu’s Romania,  Nazi Germany did not  pay a single  pfennig for the food  and indispensable  oil itconsumed with such profligacy and without which his  military and industrial powerhouse would have ground to a halt. The  entire iron and steel, agricultural, mining and manufacturing  and engineering industries of Western capitalism  was shoveled  into  his grandest of Holocausts. The  race and class  enemy – the Ubermensch and the Untermensch, the exploiter and the exploited,  had been identified and was to be destroyed.

The goal was the military defeat  of the USSR and its annihilation as a political entity. The cost to the Soviet Union, in dead alone,  was of the order  of 20-25 millions  and tens of millions wounded.And that is only the human cost as even a perfunctory visit to Stalingrad  and its smashed productive  engine would tragically remind you.

In the earlypre-dawn  hours of the 22 June  the biggest military offensive that the world had ever seen would be unleashed. The long delay was now over. The war machine was  thirsting  for blood.At no point in history  had an attacker benefited  with  such overwhelming  advantages.  The clangof  the sledgehammer reverberated from the Arctic (Finland was now  corralledinto the Nazi  death machine)  to the Black  Sea. The attacking force  of ethnic Germans – Das Herrenvolk –  amounted to slightly over  3 million.Superimposed on this  was a million European mercenariesfrom all countries of occupied Europe that topped one million. A sum of  over  4 million.  This had no precedent in the annals of military history; one fourth  of the invading  killerswere non German.

In short,  joined to the Wehrmacht’scolossal  economic and military firepower  (supplemented  as you will recall by millions of slave  workers) was Western capitalism’s  industrial powerhouse  and its massive demographic base.The  Nazi  juggernaut  that  surged  forth  on  that  early morning of22 Juneincluded  3,600 tanks, 600,000 motorized vehicles, 7,000 artillery pieces, 2,500 aircraft supplemented by 650,000 horses.  Obviously not all was Blitzkrieg.

Well could Hitler gloat from  his  Wolfschanze in East Prussia.  “The world will hold its breath”.  They did.  But for different reasons. The unfolding of Barbarossa  aroused the passion of  the global bourgeoisie.He served  the interests of his class  that  believed  in his Crusade and rapturously applauded him. For years they had  known that he was their man. The proof  was now at hand.

It is not merely what the  printed historical record says, but from  what I learnt  from  my own  personal  contacts with the bourgeoisie  of occupied Europe many of whom I had got to know  at very close range.My mother who was a forewoman in the apparel industry did not however  hold her breath in anger but after the  appalling initial surprise and terrible setbacks  she said: “He has attacked the October Revolution and raped the  working class of the world and out of this  he will never win.” These were not solitary utterances. They were the emanations of the world of labour.It articulated the pain  and the thoughts and aspirations of  countless millions the world over.  That was a force that Hitler and his likes could not match.

This seething anger was not confirmed to  individuals but like a typhoon it swept over  tens of millions.. It was the particular in the general.  My  mother’s sentiments of defiance  were echoed by Nehru, Krishna Menon. General Chu Teh of the Chinese  Eight Route Army, by Ho Chi Minh  and by the young Giap himself. I presume you have read my brochure on Stalingrad. You will recall that I started my comment with OperationSea Lion. But behind its shadow was something of far greater substance.

The  liquidation of the  Untermensch

But we are not dealing  with a war of military conquest and the plunder of its peoples. That was classical imperialism It went  beyond that  and in what follows I shall use some of my archival materials  to illustrate  the horrorsand reverberations ofthe doctrine ofthe Untermensch.In the writings of  Ilya Ehrenbourg  which I  and  others read (I was introduced to his  writings by  my Maltese  comrade-in-arms) I became aware of  some of its dreadful implications but it was only afterthe end of the war  that the diabolical power of its meaning hit me with such  force. Ehrenbourg was by no means- far from it –  the  unique source of my enlightenment.  Let us begin with  Heinrich Himmler, the number 2 in  Der Fuhrer’s cabal.

“What happens to a Russian  does not interest me in the slightest. Whether nations live in prosperity  or starve to death  like cattle  interests me  only in so far  as we need them as slaves for our  Kultur; otherwise it is of no interest to me. Whether 10,000  Russian females fall down from exhaustion  while digging an antitank ditch  interests me  only in so far as the antitank ditch  forthe Third Reich  is finished.”

Erich Koch, Reich Commissar  for the Ukraine ,masterly articulated  the goals of the Nazi Ubermensch.

“We  are the Master Race and we must govern hard. I will draw every drop of blood out of this country.  I did not come  here to spread bliss… The population must work and work and work again. We  definitely  did not come  here to give out manna… We are a Master Race, which must remember that the lowliest German worker is racially and biologically  a thousand times more valuable  than the population here”.

And there is Martin Bormann, Hitler’s ventriloquist dummy and party secretary.

“The Slavs are to work for us.  In  so far as we  don’t  need them, they may die.  Therefore compulsory vaccination and health services are superfluous. The fertility of the Slavs  is undesirable.  Education is dangerous.  It is enough if they can count up to 100… Every educated person is a  future enemy. Religion we leave to them as a source of diversion.  As for food  they won’t get  any more  than is absolutely necessary. We are the Masters. We come first.”

Herman Goering, as you will remember, was not merely  the boss of the Luftwaffe.  He was to be boss of the Soviet  Plunderbund, one of the most ruthless killers of all times.  And his  personal wealth was one of the highest in  Germany.

“It used  to be  called plunder  in other times.But today things have become  more  humane. In spite  of that,  I intend  to plunder and to do it  thoroughly.”  He was true to his word. In  that year (1942) he told Ciano the Italian foreign minister: “this year  between ten  and thirty million  will die of hunger  in Russia and it is well that it should be so.”  And the fat man without a glint of contrition boasted that Russian prisoners of war “had begun to eat each other”  In the scale of infamy we can sink no lower.

The thunders of Retribution

I started my letter to you that was far longer than  I  expected. But of course, the  span between aspirations and reality  can be  very wide as Hitler  noted in his  bunker.  As so it for the masters of the Third Reich and their mass serial killers. It was merely a period of  exactly ten years that  separated  Hitler’s power  grab  (January 1933)  and  The Third Reich’s  apocalypse  at  Stalingrad.- the 30 January 1943.  Which  brings meto  the  wisdom of Hegel’s teachings  elaborated in his History of Philosophy. “Out of the actions of men comes something quite different  from what they intend and directly know and will”.

And this applies not  merely  to the mass serial killers of  The Third Reich’s counterrevolution,  but pressingly so in our times  to its successor  the Gringo’s crumbling  imperio as  it  hobbles like a drunk from one lamp post to another exhibiting its  horrendous crimes. But the play is not yet ended. For where there is oppression there will always be resistance.

Frederick Clairmonte is a renowned author, analyst of the global political economy and author of the 1960s classic, The Rise and Fall of Economic Liberalism: The Making of the Economic Gulag.

He was for many years a Permanent Senior Economics Affairs Officer in the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) and the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD).  He has also taught at several academic institutions including the University of King’s College and Dalhousie University, the University of Lovanium,  the Ecole  Nationale de Droit et d’Administration in the Congo, the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore. During World War II he served in the Canadian Royal Air Force.

See also: The World in Their Web: Dynamics of Textile Multinationals (Imperialism series) by Frederick Clairmonte and J. Cavanagh (Hardcover 1 Dec 1984).

Global Research article by Clairmont, Frederic